Staff Picks Shana's Picks
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The Principles of Uncertainty
By Maira Kalman

Reviewed by Shana
An illustrated, handwritten meditation on life, death, art, the overwhelming beauty of city life, tea parties, collecting, and cool hats, for starters. Sound silly and sentimental? It totally is! But it's so lovely and genuine I don't mind at all (e.g. (the entirety of) pg. 183: "I look at her sink. And I leave"). And the paintings! You get the sense that Maira's heart will up and explode at any moment. As could any of ours. That's what it's all about.

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Spar
Karen Volkman

A few things I love about this lush and inspired collection of poems:

• Her free-wheeling word usage, ex: "mouthweather," "snowlight," and "spring-a-ling"
• It's full of lovely riddles like (from May): "What do you think you're hunting, cat-mouthed creeling/in the mouseless dawn"
• In Shrewd star who crudes our naming...(!!!), she invents constellations with names like "Crown of Yes"

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Notes from No Man's Land
Eula Biss

Lovely and insightful essays on race and American life. Highly recommended, but don't take my word for it...check out all those blurbs on the back!

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The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories
Ben Marcus, ed.

Not only new, but fresh, exciting tales by some of the most original storytellers of our time and place. Marcus knows how to pick 'em! For starters, I'd recommend: Ann Cummins' "Where I work," Amiee Bender's "The Girl with the Curious Hair," Diane Williams' "All American," and Joe Wenderoth's "Letters to Wendy's." Also: Anthony Doen, Gary Lutz...so much here!

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Another Country
James Baldwin

A Great American Novel!  This is Baldwin's epic novel of life, love, race, class, the Arts, family, interracial relationships, New York City, France, and homosexuality with a large cast of fascinating, heartbreaking, beautiful and nuanced characters.  The scale of this book is evident in the number of commas I felt necessary to describe it.  One of my all time favorites!

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Excitability
Diane Williams

Diane Williams could never be accused of telling the reader too much (a condescending trap of less confident writers), but I wouldn't call her a minimalist.  Williams' stories are chock full of mystery, humanity, sex and comedy.  This isn't surrealism but maybe it's extra- or super-realism.  Williams builds these strange and beautiful landscapes and trusts the reader to wander and, through their own exploration, say where it is they are.

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Angela Davis: An Autobiography

It begins with Angela on the run across the country as one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, wanted for a murder she had no part in, and continues with her tense arrest and stay in prison (where women are controlled with racism and prescription drugs), and her never ending battle to make a better life for the oppressed in America.  Her story is a shocking and personal portrait of a turbulent era in our nation's history and the violence of its fear driven government and prison system, as well as an inspiring story of a women's bold refusal of fear and ignorance in favor of devoting her life to fighting for those who have been mistreated and ignored.  Plus:  very entertaining!