Bookworm

Lush Life (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
This high-voltage interview with Richard Price (he spiels, riffs, and shoots off sparks) gives a rare insight into the way he orchestrates the complex of simultaneous perception in his writing. He proceeds with a strong sense of dread—ready for an attack from any and every direction.

Isabel Allende's second memoir is written to her daughter Paula who died. We discuss storytelling as a form of memory, a way of preserving the present.

An Alchemist with One Eye on Fire (Black Widow Press)
When The Bookworm explains that reading Eshleman's intense and visceral work brings up initial feelings of disgust, Eschleman responds that his poetry is a matter of initiation and transformation.

Declension in the Village of Chung Luong (Ausable Press) and Brian Turner Here, Bullet (Alice James Books)
Bruce Weigl is a poet who served in Vietnam. Brian Turner wrote poetry while serving in Iraq. Theirs is the poetry of war as written by on-site observers.

The thing about life is that one day you’ll be dead (Knopf)
David Shields wrote this book to relieve his terrible fear of death. He compares this fear with his ninety-something-year-old father's vigor and confidence. Although the book is full of facts about aging and death, it has the odd effect of making you feel thrilled to be alive.

Girl Factory (Tin House)
In Jim Krusoe's strange and funny new novel, six women are being preserved in acidophilus in the basement of a frozen yogurt shop. The innocent hero's attempts to save these kidnapped beauties are disastrous.

His Illegal Self (Knopf)
The excitement of Peter Carey's new novel is rendered through a

Coeur de Lion (Mal-o-mar); The Cow (Fence Books)

This astonishing young poet—still in her twenties—is surely destined to be one of the crucial voices of her generation.

Colm Tóibín candidly describes the inspirations for the stories in his first collection. Sometimes a landscape is enough to trigger a story, sometimes an anecdote or a bit of family lore.

The Gathering (Grove)

In Anne Enright's Booker Prize-winning novel about a family wake, the narrator remembers, lies, invents and imagines with equal ardor.