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Staff Picks
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East of Eden (92 Edition) 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: $9.00 Used - Trade Paper
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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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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 $13.00 Your price: $6.95 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) List Price $15.00 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: $5.95 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: $6.50 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: $11.95 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 $17.00 Your price: $7.95 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) List Price $17.99 Your price: $6.50 Used - Trade Paper
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The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation by Fanny Howe Staff Pick Contemporary American poet Fanny Howe has written over 25 books of poetry and prose. Her spare style of poetry is lauded for its bold experimentalism and the incisive intellect behind it. The Winter Sun, her third book of essays, is a deeply personal... (read more) List Price $15.00 Your price: $8.00 Used - Hardcover
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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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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: $14.50 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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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: $8.00 Used - Trade Paper
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Sad Little Breathing Machine by Matthea Harvey Staff Pick Matthea Harvey's second of three books, Sad Little Breathing Machine, is aurally dazzling. These are smart poems for readers with ears for eyes. Unapologetically, playfully, Harvey saws down the rope bridge between poet and reader. Then from the other... (read more) Your price: $14.50 New - Trade Paper
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The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa Staff Pick Relatively unknown during his lifetime (having published only a single book of poems), Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) has since been recognized as a literary genius. A national hero in his native Portugal, he developed a style of writing based on the use of... (read more) List Price $19.00 Your price: $9.95 Used - Trade Paper
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The Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens Staff Pick Inscrutable poet-of-ideas Wallace Stevens is a deepening favorite of mine, and the reasons are here in his Collected Poems. Stevens's poems are timeless — his imagery is vivid and beautifully precise; his ideas are endlessly strange. A vital volume for... (read more) List Price $18.95 Your price: $10.00 Used - Trade Paper
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Don't Let Me Be Lonely by Claudia Rankine Staff Pick There are little televisions throughout Don't Let Me Be Lonely. Really. Little photographs of televisions, sometimes depicting widely broadcast images from the news, sometimes only static, are interspersed throughout this long prose poem. The images come... (read more) List Price $16.00 Your price: $9.95 Used - 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 $12.00 Your price: $7.00 Used - 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) Your price: $30.00 New - Hardcover
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