- Graywolf Press
2015 is nearly here, which means one thing: new books are on their way to bookshelves (and our hearts!). While every blogger weighs in with their favorite books of the year, here are some of the books with 2015 publication dates to look forward to:
The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson—Maggie Nelson is arguably one of the best contemporary writers around, with a crazy amount of range both in terms of genre (she’s written poetry, scholarly work, nonfiction, and work that’s all of those things at once) and subject matter (murder, the color blue, cruelty, Schopenhauer). But something she hasn’t written about is her family life—and anything happy. The Argonauts takes on her marriage to the artist Harry Dodge, queer family-building, and Winnicott’s idea of the “good-enough” mother.
Bitch Planet #2, Kelly Sue De Connick The first issue of De Connick’s new comic, Bitch Planet, is an amazing send-up of classic exploitation stories and lesbian pulp. It takes place in an all-female prison on a far-off planet, where “noncompliant” women are sent, and a rebellion is just beginning. I tore through the first issue, and I can’t wait to read the next one, which drops in early January.
Get it While You Can, Nick Jaina—I just picked up a review copy of Get it While You Can, the latest from Portland’s Perfect Day Publishing, and I already know I’m going to love it. If you’re convinced that memoirs are strictly about awful things, Jaina’s memoir will disabuse you of that notion. It’s a tremendously likeable, structurally innovative look into what it’s actually like to try to make a living while making art, plus silent meditation.
Life is Short, Art is Shorter, David Shields and Elizabeth Cooperman—David Shields has made a career out of giving traditional narrative as we know it the finger. In Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, Shields took the very distinction between fiction and nonfiction to task, and willfully plagiarized other writers. So it’s no surprise that his latest, in collaboration with Elizabeth Cooperman, is a collection of writings that make the case for brevity—for the short story, for flash fiction, for the prose poem—as a viable and perhaps more interesting alternative to the traditional 200-page novel.
Purity, Jonathan Franzen—Confession time: I don’t have much interest in Jonathan Franzen. I never have. But maybe you do?! If so, here’s Purity. If not, see above.