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Staff Picks
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CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella by George Saunders Staff Pick Taking its title from its opening story, set dystopically enough in a Civil War historical reenactment park, George Saunders's first book still sweeps my legs out from under me. Twain and Vonnegut are heavyweights named as his predecessors, but Saunders... (read more) List Price $14.00 Your price: $8.00 Used - Trade Paper
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East of Eden by John Steinbeck Staff Pick I was once told a good novel will set its tenor by the end of its first page, so lately I've been skimming the first page of prospective reads to test this theory. When I did this with Steinbeck's East of Eden, I couldn't stop; the assault of great... (read more) List Price $18.00 Your price: $5.50 Used - Trade Paper
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Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays by David Foster Wallace Staff Pick David Foster Wallace is arguably the most accessible, intelligent, versatile writer working today. Never mind just now his novels and stories, or his "compact history" of infinity. In Consider the Lobster, he insinuates himself among actors, actresses... (read more) Your price: $14.99 New - Trade Paper
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Slouching towards Bethlehem: Essays by Joan Didion Staff Pick Joan Didion's lucid, canny prose style is painstakingly situated around the art of the sentence. Slouching towards Bethlehem, her first collection of nonfiction, serves as a prime example of exactly how well she can wield one. Each of these essays... (read more) List Price $14.00 Your price: $8.00 Used - Trade Paper
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The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway Staff Pick Despite a long and varied literate life, I somehow made it to 2010 without having ever read Hemingway, even compulsory high-school Hemingway. Intimidated by his bravado and bullfighting, I steered clear of ol' Papa. It only hit me a few months ago, after... (read more) List Price $12.00 Your price: $4.95 Used - Trade Paper
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The Collected Poems (P.S.) by Sylvia Plath Staff Pick The dark and tragic tones of American poet Sylvia Plath cannot be denied — her persona and infamous death ensure this — but her poems are also by turns playful and deeply haunting, and this too must be admitted. A stunning collection.... (read more) Your price: $17.99 New - Trade Paper
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East of Eden (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) by John Steinbeck Staff Pick I was once told a good novel will set its tenor by the end of its first page, so lately I've been skimming the first page of prospective reads to test this theory. When I did this with Steinbeck's East of Eden, I couldn't stop; the assault of great... (read more) List Price $17.00 Your price: $7.50 Used - Trade Paper
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Slouching towards Bethlehem: Essays by Joan Didion Staff Pick Joan Didion's lucid, canny prose style is painstakingly situated around the art of the sentence. Slouching towards Bethlehem, her first collection of nonfiction, serves as a prime example of exactly how well she can wield one. Each of these essays... (read more) List Price $15.00 Your price: $8.00 Used - Trade Paper
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The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard Staff Pick Philosopher Gaston Bachelard published The Poetics of Space in 1958, many years into a prolific and prestigious career in science and French academe. A rationalist who believed rational thought was an ill-fitting framework for exploring the imagination... (read more) List Price $16.00 Your price: $10.95 Used - Trade Paper
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Alphabet by Inger Christensen Staff Pick My engagement with Danish poet Inger Christensen's work was pretty limited prior to her death last year — I liked the few poems I'd read and had the recurrent recognition that I'd do well to read more. Then I encountered her 1981 work Alphabet... (read more) Your price: $12.95 New - Trade Paper
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The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination by Wallace Stevens Staff Pick Inscrutable poet-of-ideas Wallace Stevens is a deepening favorite of mine. This, despite the fact that I don't always understand his poems. This, despite the fact that even when I think I might understand, the precision of a world glimpsed in a "jar from... (read more) List Price $10.95 Your price: $4.95 Used - Mass Market
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Fight (75 Edition) by Norman Mailer Staff Pick The Fight is Norman Mailer's account of the October 30, 1974, fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in the former Zaire. Mailer numbered among several journalists (George Plimpton, Hunter S. Thompson) who followed Ali and Foreman during the... (read more) List Price $13.95 Your price: $8.00 Used - Trade Paper
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Carry On, Jeeves (Collector's Wodehouse) by P. G. Wodehouse Staff Pick Q: Do you ever go back and reread your own books? Wodehouse: Oh, yes. Q: Are you ever surprised by them? Wodehouse: I'm rather surprised that they're so good. And there is English humorist P. G. Wodehouse's particular brand of sly chagrin, the... (read more) Your price: $19.95 New - Hardcover
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Poems and Prose (Penguin Classics) by Gerard Manley Hopkins Staff Pick The poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, grand purveyor of sprung rhythm (a complex poetic rhythm based on the patterns of speech natural to Welsh and Old English), are poems that beg to be read aloud. Strange diction, fervent sound-play, and an inimitable... (read more) List Price $16.00 Your price: $10.95 Used - Trade Paper
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The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel by Amy Hempel Staff Pick I read The Collected Stories in order, over the course of a single week. My long overdue introduction to Amy Hempel — it was a very good week, indeed. By the time I finished I'd penciled five names onto the back of the last page: friends who'll soon be... (read more) List Price $16.00 Your price: $7.95 Used - Trade Paper
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Civilwarland in Bad Decline by George Saunders Staff Pick Taking its title from its opening story, set dystopically enough in a Civil War historical reenactment park, George Saunders's first book still sweeps my legs out from under me. Twain and Vonnegut are heavyweights named as his predecessors, but Saunders... (read more) Your price: $14.00 New - Mass Market
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Darkness Spoken: The Collected Poems by Ingeborg Bachmann Staff Pick Darkness Spoken brings together two previous collections and numerous uncollected poems, many in their first English translation, by Austrian poet Ingeborg Bachmann. Influence to prominent writers as Thomas Bernhard and Elfriede Jelinek, Bachmann... (read more) Your price: $24.95 New - Trade Paper
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East of Eden: John Steinbeck Centennial Edition (1902-2002) by John Steinbeck Staff Pick I was once told a good novel will set its tenor by the end of its first page, so lately I've been skimming the first page of prospective reads to test this theory. When I did this with Steinbeck's East of Eden, I couldn't stop; the assault of great... (read more) List Price $30.00 Your price: $13.50 Used - Hardcover
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Fight by Norman Mailer Staff Pick The Fight is Norman Mailer's account of the October 30, 1974, fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in the former Zaire. Mailer numbered among several journalists (George Plimpton, Hunter S. Thompson) who followed Ali and Foreman during the... (read more) Your price: $15.50 New - Mass Market
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The Book of Beginnings and Endings by Jenny Boully Staff Pick The Book of Beginnings and Endings begins with the perfect visual complement on its cover: an installation by Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers. An egg is a literal, biological, and metaphorical beginning. But an eggshell is an ending; emptied of its... (read more) List Price $14.95 Your price: $6.95 Used - Trade Paper
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