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26 more books from small presses
27 May 2024 at 12:12
Another book roundup (previously; previouslier).
Between this World and the Next by Praveen Herat (Restless Books, 25 June 2024): Praveen Herat's gripping literary thriller is a breathtaking exploration of power, identity, unconditional love, and the question of how far we'll go to uncover the truth. Winner of the 2022 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing. (Amazon; Bookshop) My Body Is Paper: Stories and Poems by Gil Cuadros (City Lights Books, 4 June 2024): Since City of God (1994) by Gil Cuadros was published 30 years ago, it has become an unlikely classic (an "essential book of Los Angeles" according to the LA Times), touching readers and writers who find in his work a singular evocation of Chicanx life in Los Angeles during and leading up to the AIDS epidemic, which took his life in 1996. Little did we know, Cuadros continued writing exuberant prose and poems in the period between his one published book and his untimely death at the age of 34. This recently discovered treasure is a stunning portrait of sex, family, religion, culture of origin, and the betrayals of the body. (Amazon; Bookshop) But The Girl by Jessica Zhan Mei Yu (Unnamed Press, 5 Mar 2024): Shortly after flight MAS370 goes missing, scholarship student Girl boards her own mysterious flight from Australia to London to work on a dissertation on Sylvia Plath. Though she is ambivalent toward academia and harbors ideas about writing a post-colonial novel, if only she could work out just what that means, Girl relishes the freedom that has come with distance from the expectations and judgements of her very tight-knit Malaysian-Australian family. At last Girl has an opportunity to live on her own terms. (Amazon; Bookshop) Cartoons by Kit Schluter (City Lights Books, 21 May 2024): Set in the uncanny valley between Bugs Bunny and Franz Kafka, Cartoons is an explosive series of outrageous, absurdist tales. (Amazon; Bookshop) Crocodile Tears Didn't Cause the Flood by Bradley Sides (Montag Press, 6 Feb 2024): Bradley Sides merges the South with the weird in his latest collection of magical realism short stories: a boy creates a guide to his beloved pond monster, a parent weighs the consequences of the coming apocalypse, a young woman rejects ownership of her vampire family's farm. (Amazon; Bookshop) The Default World by Naomi Kanakia (Feminist Press, 28 May 2024): A trans woman sets out to exploit a group of wealthy roommates, only to fall under the spell of their glamorous, hedonistic lifestyle in tech-bubble San Francisco. (Amazon; Bookshop) Dispatches from the District Committee by Vladimir Sorokin, trans. Max Lawton (Dalkey Archive Press, 14 May 2024): Grotesque, deconstructive, and absolutely genius, Vladimir Sorokin's short story collection Dispatches from the District Committee is a revelatory, offbeat portrait of Soviet life beyond the propaganda and state-sponsored realism. (Amazon; Bookshop) Giant On the Shore by Alfonso Ochoa, trans. Shook (Transit Children's Editions,14 May 2024): A tender fable about overcoming loneliness and welcoming new possibilities. (Amazon; Bookshop) How You Were Born by Kate Cayley (Book*hug Press, 12 Mar 2024): This tenth-anniversary edition of the Trillium Book Award-winning collection includes three new stories. (Amazon; Bookshop) Indian Winter by Kazim Ali (Coach House Books, 14 May 2024): A queer writer travelling through India can't escape the regrets of his past, nor the impending ruin of his present. (Amazon; Bookshop) Lines of Flight by Madhu H. Kaza (Ugly Duckling Presse, 1 May 2024): The book-length essay follows echoes and associative logics across cultures and eras, from Ancient Greece to thirteenth-century Japan to sixteenth-century Mexico to our own time, in an attempt to unfix translation and dwell in the ongoingness of language. (only from the publisher) The Long Swim by Terese Svoboda (University of Massachusetts Press, 1 Mar 2024): A runaway circus lion haunts a small town where two lovers risk more than their respective marriages. A junket to Cuba and an ambassador's dalliance with a niece hide dark secrets and political revolution. "I've always had a knife," says the unstable stepson to his parents. Inventive, dark, and absurd, the stories in The Long Swim capture Terese Svoboda's clear-eyed, wry angle on the world. (Amazon; Bookshop) A Map to the Spring by Lim Deok-Gi, trans. Kim Riwon and Karis J. Han (Codhill Press, 1 May 2024): With lyrical prose and profound insights, A Map to the Spring beckons readers to embrace the interconnectedness of all living things and find solace in the ever-renewing cycles of nature. (only from the publisher) Morning & Evening by Jon Fosse, trans. Damion Searls (Dalkey Archive Press, re-issued 21 May 2024): Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2023. A child who will be named Johannes is born. An old man named Johannes dies. Between these two points, Jon Fosse gives us the details of an entire life, starkly compressed. (Amazon; Bookshop) Transit Books has also published his Nobel lecture, A Silent Language (Amazon). One Tuesday, Early by Annalisa Crawford (Vine Leaves Press, 14 May 2024): It's 6:05am one Tuesday morning, and Lexi Peters is alone. Her partner, her friends, her neighbours have all vanished without a trace. The entire town is deserted. Gathering every ounce of courage, she sets out to explore the streets, seeking any sign of life. On the same morning, her partner Finn awakens to an empty house. Recalling the blazing argument they had the night before, he assumes Lexi has snuck off somewhere to cool down. But she doesn't return. Time passes. Or not. (Amazon; Bookshop) That Pinson Girl by Gerry Wilson (Regal House Publishing, 6 Feb 2024): In a bleak Mississippi farmhouse in 1918, Leona Pinson gives birth to an illegitimate son whose father she refuses to name, but who will, she is convinced, return from the war to rescue her from a hardscrabble life. (Amazon; Bookshop) Pocketknife Kitty by Shannon Riley (Ghoulish, 24 June 2024): Jamie is a thirty-year-old banker wedged between grief and newfound freedom. Through a domino cascade beyond her control, she winds up stuck in her suffocating hometown. The monotony is broken swiftly when, following a night of spite-fueled impulse, Jamie soon begins to undergo a rapid and gruesome transformation. (only from the publisher) A Professional Lola and Other Stories by E. P. Tuazon (Red Hen Press, 7 May 2024): A collection of short stories that embodies the joy, mystery, humor, sadness, hunger, and family that inhabit modern-day Filipino American virtues. (Amazon; Bookshop) The Silence of the Choir by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, trans. Alison Anderson (Europa Editions, 14 May 2024): A polyphonic tale of immigration and community by "the most promising Senegalese writer of his generation" (Le Monde). Mohamed Mbougar Sarr's previous novel The Most Secret Memory of Men was longlisted for the National Book Award. (Amazon; Bookshop) The Sisters K by Maureen Sun (Unnamed Press, 11 June 2024): After years of estrangement, Minah, Sarah, and Esther have been forced together again. Called to their father's deathbed, the sisters must confront a man little changed by the fact of his mortality. Vicious and pathetic in equal measure, Eugene Kim wants one thing: to see which of his children will abject themselves for his favor— and more importantly, his fortune. (Amazon; Bookshop) Some Things You Love With Your Insides, Your Guts by Joshua Rodriguez (Thirty West, 30 May 2024): Convinced the Earth is flat and that he's been duped by an untrustworthy world for too long, Carter's father is dragging him to an encampment that is both a cult and an uprising. (Bookshop) Tannery Bay by Steven Dunn and Katie Jean Shinkle (University of Alabama Press / Fiction Collective 2, 15 Feb 2024): In the enchanted town of Tannery Bay, it's July 37, and then July 2 again, but the year is a mystery. Trapped in an eternal loop, the residents embark on an extraordinary journey of self-discovery, unity, and defiance against the forces that seek to divide them. (Amazon; Bookshop) Tender Hoof: Stories by Nicole Rivas (Thirty West, 26 Jan 2024): In these pages, Rivas compactly merges the brutal with the surreal, blurring the line between safety and danger, sinner and saint. Twin girls accept a strange man's invitation; a young author's purported reincarnation leads to fame and misfortune; a lone bicyclist cycles her way through a lifetime of peril; not even a fairytale can save children from the flaws of their parents. (Amazon; Bookshop) Tomorrowing by Terry Bisson (Duke University Press, 12 April 2024): For twenty years, Terry Bisson published a regular "This Month in History" column in the science fiction magazine Locus. Tomorrowing collects these two decades of memorable events---four per month---each set in a totally different imaginary yet possible, inevitable yet avoidable future. From the first AI president to the first dog on Mars to the funeral of Earth's last glacier, these stories are speculative SF at its most (and least) serious. (Amazon; Bookshop) The Under Hum by Simone Muench & Jackie K. White (Black Lawrence Press, 10 May 2024): Collaborative poetry called "a gorgeous panoply of golden shovels, centos, and tangy tercets" by Denise Duhamel & Maureen Seaton. (Amazon) The Wildcat Behind Glass by Alki Zei, trans. Karen Emmerich (Restless Books, 28 May 2024): For Melia and her sister Myrto, summer means a break from Grandfather's history lessons and weeks of running free at the seaside with their ragtag group of friends. Best of all, cousin Nikos will visit and tell his fabulous stories about the taxidermied wildcat, which opens its blue glass eye when it wants to do good deeds and its black one when it makes trouble. Set in Greece during the 1930s, when the nation was torn apart by fascism, this is an unforgettable tale of family, humanity, and what it means to be free. From its 1963 release to the dozens of international editions and honors that followed including a Mildred L. Batchelder Award, the novel has enchanted generations of young readers. Now, a fresh English translation—the first in over 50 years—breathes new life into the timeless story. (Amazon; Bookshop) I'm not aware of MeFi having an affiliate membership with Bookshop, so I've set the affiliate link to the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP).
Between this World and the Next by Praveen Herat (Restless Books, 25 June 2024): Praveen Herat's gripping literary thriller is a breathtaking exploration of power, identity, unconditional love, and the question of how far we'll go to uncover the truth. Winner of the 2022 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing. (Amazon; Bookshop) My Body Is Paper: Stories and Poems by Gil Cuadros (City Lights Books, 4 June 2024): Since City of God (1994) by Gil Cuadros was published 30 years ago, it has become an unlikely classic (an "essential book of Los Angeles" according to the LA Times), touching readers and writers who find in his work a singular evocation of Chicanx life in Los Angeles during and leading up to the AIDS epidemic, which took his life in 1996. Little did we know, Cuadros continued writing exuberant prose and poems in the period between his one published book and his untimely death at the age of 34. This recently discovered treasure is a stunning portrait of sex, family, religion, culture of origin, and the betrayals of the body. (Amazon; Bookshop) But The Girl by Jessica Zhan Mei Yu (Unnamed Press, 5 Mar 2024): Shortly after flight MAS370 goes missing, scholarship student Girl boards her own mysterious flight from Australia to London to work on a dissertation on Sylvia Plath. Though she is ambivalent toward academia and harbors ideas about writing a post-colonial novel, if only she could work out just what that means, Girl relishes the freedom that has come with distance from the expectations and judgements of her very tight-knit Malaysian-Australian family. At last Girl has an opportunity to live on her own terms. (Amazon; Bookshop) Cartoons by Kit Schluter (City Lights Books, 21 May 2024): Set in the uncanny valley between Bugs Bunny and Franz Kafka, Cartoons is an explosive series of outrageous, absurdist tales. (Amazon; Bookshop) Crocodile Tears Didn't Cause the Flood by Bradley Sides (Montag Press, 6 Feb 2024): Bradley Sides merges the South with the weird in his latest collection of magical realism short stories: a boy creates a guide to his beloved pond monster, a parent weighs the consequences of the coming apocalypse, a young woman rejects ownership of her vampire family's farm. (Amazon; Bookshop) The Default World by Naomi Kanakia (Feminist Press, 28 May 2024): A trans woman sets out to exploit a group of wealthy roommates, only to fall under the spell of their glamorous, hedonistic lifestyle in tech-bubble San Francisco. (Amazon; Bookshop) Dispatches from the District Committee by Vladimir Sorokin, trans. Max Lawton (Dalkey Archive Press, 14 May 2024): Grotesque, deconstructive, and absolutely genius, Vladimir Sorokin's short story collection Dispatches from the District Committee is a revelatory, offbeat portrait of Soviet life beyond the propaganda and state-sponsored realism. (Amazon; Bookshop) Giant On the Shore by Alfonso Ochoa, trans. Shook (Transit Children's Editions,14 May 2024): A tender fable about overcoming loneliness and welcoming new possibilities. (Amazon; Bookshop) How You Were Born by Kate Cayley (Book*hug Press, 12 Mar 2024): This tenth-anniversary edition of the Trillium Book Award-winning collection includes three new stories. (Amazon; Bookshop) Indian Winter by Kazim Ali (Coach House Books, 14 May 2024): A queer writer travelling through India can't escape the regrets of his past, nor the impending ruin of his present. (Amazon; Bookshop) Lines of Flight by Madhu H. Kaza (Ugly Duckling Presse, 1 May 2024): The book-length essay follows echoes and associative logics across cultures and eras, from Ancient Greece to thirteenth-century Japan to sixteenth-century Mexico to our own time, in an attempt to unfix translation and dwell in the ongoingness of language. (only from the publisher) The Long Swim by Terese Svoboda (University of Massachusetts Press, 1 Mar 2024): A runaway circus lion haunts a small town where two lovers risk more than their respective marriages. A junket to Cuba and an ambassador's dalliance with a niece hide dark secrets and political revolution. "I've always had a knife," says the unstable stepson to his parents. Inventive, dark, and absurd, the stories in The Long Swim capture Terese Svoboda's clear-eyed, wry angle on the world. (Amazon; Bookshop) A Map to the Spring by Lim Deok-Gi, trans. Kim Riwon and Karis J. Han (Codhill Press, 1 May 2024): With lyrical prose and profound insights, A Map to the Spring beckons readers to embrace the interconnectedness of all living things and find solace in the ever-renewing cycles of nature. (only from the publisher) Morning & Evening by Jon Fosse, trans. Damion Searls (Dalkey Archive Press, re-issued 21 May 2024): Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2023. A child who will be named Johannes is born. An old man named Johannes dies. Between these two points, Jon Fosse gives us the details of an entire life, starkly compressed. (Amazon; Bookshop) Transit Books has also published his Nobel lecture, A Silent Language (Amazon). One Tuesday, Early by Annalisa Crawford (Vine Leaves Press, 14 May 2024): It's 6:05am one Tuesday morning, and Lexi Peters is alone. Her partner, her friends, her neighbours have all vanished without a trace. The entire town is deserted. Gathering every ounce of courage, she sets out to explore the streets, seeking any sign of life. On the same morning, her partner Finn awakens to an empty house. Recalling the blazing argument they had the night before, he assumes Lexi has snuck off somewhere to cool down. But she doesn't return. Time passes. Or not. (Amazon; Bookshop) That Pinson Girl by Gerry Wilson (Regal House Publishing, 6 Feb 2024): In a bleak Mississippi farmhouse in 1918, Leona Pinson gives birth to an illegitimate son whose father she refuses to name, but who will, she is convinced, return from the war to rescue her from a hardscrabble life. (Amazon; Bookshop) Pocketknife Kitty by Shannon Riley (Ghoulish, 24 June 2024): Jamie is a thirty-year-old banker wedged between grief and newfound freedom. Through a domino cascade beyond her control, she winds up stuck in her suffocating hometown. The monotony is broken swiftly when, following a night of spite-fueled impulse, Jamie soon begins to undergo a rapid and gruesome transformation. (only from the publisher) A Professional Lola and Other Stories by E. P. Tuazon (Red Hen Press, 7 May 2024): A collection of short stories that embodies the joy, mystery, humor, sadness, hunger, and family that inhabit modern-day Filipino American virtues. (Amazon; Bookshop) The Silence of the Choir by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, trans. Alison Anderson (Europa Editions, 14 May 2024): A polyphonic tale of immigration and community by "the most promising Senegalese writer of his generation" (Le Monde). Mohamed Mbougar Sarr's previous novel The Most Secret Memory of Men was longlisted for the National Book Award. (Amazon; Bookshop) The Sisters K by Maureen Sun (Unnamed Press, 11 June 2024): After years of estrangement, Minah, Sarah, and Esther have been forced together again. Called to their father's deathbed, the sisters must confront a man little changed by the fact of his mortality. Vicious and pathetic in equal measure, Eugene Kim wants one thing: to see which of his children will abject themselves for his favor— and more importantly, his fortune. (Amazon; Bookshop) Some Things You Love With Your Insides, Your Guts by Joshua Rodriguez (Thirty West, 30 May 2024): Convinced the Earth is flat and that he's been duped by an untrustworthy world for too long, Carter's father is dragging him to an encampment that is both a cult and an uprising. (Bookshop) Tannery Bay by Steven Dunn and Katie Jean Shinkle (University of Alabama Press / Fiction Collective 2, 15 Feb 2024): In the enchanted town of Tannery Bay, it's July 37, and then July 2 again, but the year is a mystery. Trapped in an eternal loop, the residents embark on an extraordinary journey of self-discovery, unity, and defiance against the forces that seek to divide them. (Amazon; Bookshop) Tender Hoof: Stories by Nicole Rivas (Thirty West, 26 Jan 2024): In these pages, Rivas compactly merges the brutal with the surreal, blurring the line between safety and danger, sinner and saint. Twin girls accept a strange man's invitation; a young author's purported reincarnation leads to fame and misfortune; a lone bicyclist cycles her way through a lifetime of peril; not even a fairytale can save children from the flaws of their parents. (Amazon; Bookshop) Tomorrowing by Terry Bisson (Duke University Press, 12 April 2024): For twenty years, Terry Bisson published a regular "This Month in History" column in the science fiction magazine Locus. Tomorrowing collects these two decades of memorable events---four per month---each set in a totally different imaginary yet possible, inevitable yet avoidable future. From the first AI president to the first dog on Mars to the funeral of Earth's last glacier, these stories are speculative SF at its most (and least) serious. (Amazon; Bookshop) The Under Hum by Simone Muench & Jackie K. White (Black Lawrence Press, 10 May 2024): Collaborative poetry called "a gorgeous panoply of golden shovels, centos, and tangy tercets" by Denise Duhamel & Maureen Seaton. (Amazon) The Wildcat Behind Glass by Alki Zei, trans. Karen Emmerich (Restless Books, 28 May 2024): For Melia and her sister Myrto, summer means a break from Grandfather's history lessons and weeks of running free at the seaside with their ragtag group of friends. Best of all, cousin Nikos will visit and tell his fabulous stories about the taxidermied wildcat, which opens its blue glass eye when it wants to do good deeds and its black one when it makes trouble. Set in Greece during the 1930s, when the nation was torn apart by fascism, this is an unforgettable tale of family, humanity, and what it means to be free. From its 1963 release to the dozens of international editions and honors that followed including a Mildred L. Batchelder Award, the novel has enchanted generations of young readers. Now, a fresh English translation—the first in over 50 years—breathes new life into the timeless story. (Amazon; Bookshop) I'm not aware of MeFi having an affiliate membership with Bookshop, so I've set the affiliate link to the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP).
