"The poets grapple with what it means to create a purpose-built archive and the ways in which this impulse counters the traditional principle of the archive." Megan McKenzie on "Permanent Record" clereviewofbooks.com/read-backwar...

In @clereviewbooks.bsky.social, a deeply original dive into Don DeLillo’s JFK assassination epic Libra in the form of “twelve bullets, four appendices, and six exhibits.” “DeLillo’s Libra is a book about the entanglement of reading, writing, and living,” Nicole Kaack explains.

"These plots I conceive easily They describe action As original as the sun’s constant production The bells that ring across the estuary Draw the hours in and together" Three Poems by Hannah Piette clereviewofbooks.com/three-poems-2/

"Randolph Healy deserves to get noticed. The Ireland-raised poet and math teacher—who will turn 70 next year—has been assembling thoughtful, counterintuitive poems, short and long, into small press volumes since the 1980s." Stephanie Burt on Randolph Healy clereviewofbooks.com/stephanie-bu...

"Canetti obsessively writing the same phrase, in slightly different permutations, decades apart; me, attempting again and again to capture my grandmother—where does that impulse come from, the need to record?" Emma Heath on Elias Canetti and death clereviewofbooks.com/elias-canett...

Temptation fragrant energy Floribunda in memory Floribunda remind me / Madame madame in memory of all America shrub flag line bangs wind from "Deadheading" by Jon Conley clereviewofbooks.com/from-deadhea...

"Sometimes when I think of Midwestern in terms of being proud that you’re from the Midwest, I think of breweries, and coffee shops, and things that are very branded in this way that then became described as Williamsburg." Chris Molnar interviews Natasha Stagg clereviewofbooks.com/garage-rock-...

Give a sailor’s greeting to the contributors of CRB Vol. 3.2. This here list looks a little something like the mag's back cover. By subscribing, you'll get this issue in your mailbox, soon. Use the discount code THEBIRDS to get 30% off any level.

"Kojève’s reflections on the conditions of politically meaningful action and philosophy speak to our current zeitgeist where history seems neither dead nor alive." Alexander Aerts on Kojéve's "Kant" clereviewofbooks.com/less-chatter...

This is great 🙏🏽

“The Nobel Prize is fitting, if anything: Alfred Nobel established the prize out of guilt as a 'death merchant,' and now our greatest novelist of decay and destruction has been given the dynamite money.” Evan Grillon on Krasznahorkai clereviewofbooks.com/laszlo-krasz...

"My cat wasn’t lost but everyone in the neighborhood kept calling me. “I found your cat,” they said, and then they would describe my cat to me." from "Hurricane Envy" by Sarah Jaffe (published by Rescue Press) clereviewofbooks.com/from-hurrica...

"Contemporary manosphere literature certainly paints a landscape of patriarchy in crisis, at war with itself about how it should wield its own power." Leah Abrams, "Into the Manosphere—in Manuscripts" clereviewofbooks.com/into-the-man...

3.2 is coming soon, and if you subscribe by Nov 7 you'll be among the first to receive it in the mail + one of the last to receive the (few) remaining copies of 3.1. Use the discount code THEBIRDS to get 30% off any level. I don't know. If you like print. Collect them all.

"The book is an umbracle for gradations of in-between: secrecy, lies, faith, and fantasy." On the occasion of the release of the unredacted paper history of the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, Nicole Kaack revisits Don DeLillo’s Libra clereviewofbooks.com/bullets-appe...

"Why is there a theater in the basement of a clinic? What is happening? A novel is like that, about something happening, which feels off, or false, to focus on that considering." from "Sea, Poison," by our new fiction editor, Caren Beilin. clereviewofbooks.com/caren-beilin...

"Morrison could push through a book about Black life and history, formally more of a collage than a narrative, to great success because the economic, political, and commercial stars aligned." Adrianna Michell on "Toni at Random" clereviewofbooks.com/when-chloe-m...

"a university is not a television station. a university is not a circle you can walk around. a university is not a telephone or a table lamp or a table. a university is just a plot device." from "Groceries" by Nora Claire Miller @fonografeditions.bsky.social clereviewofbooks.com/nora-claire-...

“The result is a multifaceted hybrid text that draws on and expands some of the most striking surreal imagery from her paintings.” In @clereviewbooks.bsky.social‬‬, Eliza Browning reviews Leonora Carrington’s newly reissued novel, “The Stone Door” - clereviewofbooks.com/surreal-visi...

"'The Stone Door' can initially seem puzzling...[but] the seemingly disjointed narrative strands coalesce to form the story of the opening of the stone door and a metaphorical journey between one world and the next." Eliza Browning on Leonora Carrington clereviewofbooks.com/surreal-visi...

For the @clereviewbooks.bsky.social I wrote about incorporating myself as ELVIA INC, believing that the only way to keep being a writer was to become a corporation—but instead I crashed my car, got dommed by Hobbes' Leviathan, and was ransomed by the IRS. clereviewofbooks.com/elvia-incorp...

"It [seems] that a culture, no less than a mid-century modern chair, can get the Ship of Theseus treatment: rebuilt with a new part here and another there until, finally, it is both itself and not." Philip Harris on Jenny Erpenbeck's "Things That Disappear" clereviewofbooks.com/jenny-erpenb...

"[One could take] its aesthetic limitations as formal affordances... "Shadow Ticket" perhaps traces the attitudes and semiotics of pre-emergent fascism, [like a] historiographical broadcast from State fascism’s inchoate moment." Cobi Chiodo Powell on Pynchon clereviewofbooks.com/thomas-pynch...

"I now realized that for thirty years I’d had an imaginary Pietsch perched on my shoulder, and as I reworked sentences I kept (unconsciously) turning to him and asking, 'How about now? Would you take it now?'" Vince Czyz on publishing & conglomeration clereviewofbooks.com/the-age-of-c...

"One wonders how Perec’s Jérôme and Sylvie might have responded to the upheavals of May 68. Latronico powerfully leaves us with little to imagine." Gregory Jones-Katz on Vincenzo Latronico's "Perfection" @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social clereviewofbooks.com/perfection-v...

“The narrative of ‘The Hairdresser’s Son’ is deceptively desultory, proceeding in short chapters that slowly ramp up into a plot.” In @clereviewbooks.bsky.social‬‬, Rebecca Starks reviews Gerbrand Bakker’s newly translated novel, “The Hairdresser’s Son” - clereviewofbooks.com/rebbeca-star...

Pasolini @ Bright Lights; Kurosawa, Aronofsky, and Spike Lee @newleftreview.bsky.social; Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Neo Sora @ Metrograph; OZ @defector.com; James Benning @clereviewbooks.bsky.social … and lots more! Did You See This? www.criterion.com/current/post...

"Without history, we risk becoming those ants of post-war Düren, struggling without their queen, scurrying around, aimless, suicidal, and without purpose, bound to repeat our worst mistakes." Gus O’Connor on Michael Lentz's "Schattenfroh" clereviewofbooks.com/michael-lent...

"The ability to read oil is central in how it might allow us to read anew larger social structures that make the United States and its hegemonic global influences." @vikamujumdar.bsky.social on Jung Yun's "O Beautiful" and petrofiction today. clereviewofbooks.com/o-beautiful-...

I wrote about Sebastian Castillo’s new book “Fresh, Green Life” for @clereviewbooks.bsky.social about one man’s quixotic journey to the end of the night. clereviewofbooks.com/vow-of-silen...

"God is dead like Gen-X self-sufficiency, Millennial irony, and Gen-Z cringe. God is dead unless you force her to live." From an experimental essay by @danilamorte.bsky.social about Michael Greene's 1990's book, "Bataille's Wound." clereviewofbooks.com/conflagratio...

"The cigarette, when it appears, is a bid for intimacy alongside tension and risk. With one man she dates after her divorce, he convinces her to smoke in the backyard naked... It is in the glow of this cigarette that I feel like I can see Haley at last." clereviewofbooks.com/stories-amid...

“He doesn’t let your gaze wander around the scene with curiosity: he insists you focus on one terrible act only.” In @clereviewbooks.bsky.social‬‬‬, Rebecca Hanssens-Reed reviews Felix Nesi’s newly translated novel, “People from Oetimu” - clereviewofbooks.com/felix-nesi-p...

"While a fantastic beat reporter and astute ball-knower, MacMahon both perpetuates and falls victim to Publishing's hastily-written-athlete-biography-industrial complex. @podracingchamp.bsky.social on @bannedmacmahon.bsky.social's "The Wonder Boy" clereviewofbooks.com/i-think-its-...

“Dylan knew that the only right thing to do would be to put down the spaghetti, remove the towel, drive the twenty minutes to the care facility, hug the woman, and tell her, no, his father wasn’t locked-in.” New short fiction from Matt Weir. clereviewofbooks.com/the-drivers-...

Vol. 3.1 is out! Childhood detective agencies, aggro drift, poetry's desires, translation politics, writing that blisters, aesthetic disruption, thermal surges, and digital tokens. Bounded in beautiful sky blue. Order a copy! clereviewofbooks.com/product/vol-...

I'm unreasonably happy to see this excerpt of Big Feelings in the one and only @clereviewbooks.bsky.social Thanks for everyone's infinite patience with the footnotes. 💜💜💜💜 clereviewofbooks.com/from-big-fee...

Ok #Cleveland, I need you! I was supposed to be on local NPR tomorrow to share a CLE HTS #pride event at Mac’s Backs Sat at 7 (I’m giving a talk about my book about hope and joy in dark times). Show had to be moved—so please help me spread the word! #transrights #history #ohio #books

A poem, “Food Science,” from Zach Savich for our “Appetite Studies” Cleveland Humanities Festival series. clereviewofbooks.com/appetite-stu...

"It is only under a new moon I learn to take you seriously. I leave my bed unmade, I show up late for work." from "Fuel" by Rosie Stockton clereviewofbooks.com/rosie-stockt...

"It is easier to imagine the end of opera, or art in general, than the end of capitalism." Thomas Hobohm & Nicholas Z. Liu on Yuval Sharon's "A New Philosophy of Opera" @wwnorton.com clereviewofbooks.com/yuval-sharon...

"What illness and pain cast into relief is that our minds will always be lost in translation—and will always remain in a liminal space—somewhere between our embodiment and the world." Mala Chatterjee on Xi Xi's "Mourning a Breast" @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social clereviewofbooks.com/xi-xi-mourni...

"Never give way on your desire? My dude, how do I even begin?" @podracingchamp.bsky.social kicked off "Appetite Studies," our fourth Cleveland Humanities Festival (2025 theme: Appetite) inspired series, with an essay on desire and "The White Lotus" season 3. clereviewofbooks.com/appetite-stu...

“Where on the island of Manhattan are forty-five bulls supposed to sleep?” Max Ornstein on Professional Bull Riding and the cultures it presents, resents, and represents. clereviewofbooks.com/fear-and-glo...

"I didn’t feel like a god. Thank God I don’t feel like a god." from "Unconscious Self-Regulation", one of three poems we've published by Rennie Ament clereviewofbooks.com/three-poems-...

"These stories exist in the same universe—dilapidated and hyper-developed, inhabited by emotionally fragile and lonely characters desperate for some type of connection." Merilyn Chang on Daisuke Shen's "Vague Predictions and Prophecies" @clashbooks.bsky.social clereviewofbooks.com/daisuke-shen...

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"Me, I am Goodness and Justice, and I want to kill the radish because he’s rich and the peasants are dying of hunger." from Sylvain Trudel's "The Harmattan Winds" (trans. Donald Winkler) @archipelagobooks.bsky.social www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/from...

"After recovery, the self remains altered – even if only in the self-knowledge it has acquired through its estrangement." Madeleine on Eliza Barry Callahan’s “The Hearing Test” www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/eliz...

Read "THE AFTERLIVES OF KETAMINE INFUSIONS," excerpted from Ahmad Almallah's "Wrong Winds" www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/from...