Tag: subscriptions

2022 Books and Reading Material Acquisitions List

John Winkelman

This is the list of books and other reading material which I acquired in calendar year 2022. This is the eighth iteration of this list. The seven previous lists are available from the Index of Indexes.

This year I am slightly changing the format of this page to include the date each publication on this list was acquired. Titles in bold text are books and journals which I have read.

January (17)

  1. Pulphouse Fiction Magazine #15 [2022.01.02]
  2. Tucker, Phil – Bastion (self published) [2022.01.05]
  3. Greylock, TL and O’Connor, Bryce – Shadows of Ivory (self published) [2022.01.05]
  4. Poetry #219.4 [2022.01.18]
  5. Fateforge 4, Encyclopedia (Studio Agate) [2022.01.19]
  6. Bell, E.D.E. – The Banished Craft (Atthis Arts LLC, inscribed) [2022.01.20]
  7. Cieslak, Michael (editor) – Hidden Menagerie, vol. 1 (Dragon’s Roost Press, inscribed) [2022.01.21]
  8. Tomlinson, Patrick S. – Starship Repo (inscribed) [2022.01.21]
  9. Tomlinson, Patrick S. – In the Black (inscribed) [2022.01.21]
  10. Haeger, Jen – Moonlight Medicine: Onset (Dragon’s Roost Press, inscribed) [2022.01.21]
  11. Haeger, Jen – Whispers of a Killer (Scarsdale Publishing, inscribed) [2022.01.21]
  12. Hans, Sarah – An Ideal Vessel (Dragon’s Roost Press) [2022.01.21]
  13. Hans, Sarah – Dead Girls Don’t Love (Dragon’s Roost Press) [2022.01.21]
  14. Cancre, Anton – Meaningless Cycles in a Vicious Glass Prison (Dragon’s Roost Press) [2022.01.21]
  15. Lee, Yoon Ha – The Fox’s Tower and Other Tales [2022.01.22]
  16. Duffy, Damien, Jennings, John, and Butler, Octavia E. – Parable of the Sower [2022.01.22]
  17. Harrison, Jim – Complete Poems, limited edition boxed set (Copper Canyon Press) [2022.01.27]

February (4)

  1. Poetry #219.5 [2022.02.01]
  2. Tales from the Magician’s Skull #7 [2022.02.16]
  3. Aquilone, James (editor) – Classic Monsters Unleashed (Black Spot Books, Crystal Lake Publishing) [2022.02.19]
  4. James, Marlon – Moon Witch, Spider King [2022.02.27]

March (8)

  1. Poetry #219.6 [2022.03.04]
  2. Pulphouse Fiction Magazine #16 [2022.03.08]
  3. Ashton, Dyrk – War of Gods (self published) [2022.03.11]
  4. Alexander, Connor – Coyote & Crow: Core Rulebook [2022.03.14]
  5. Coolidge, Sarah (editor) – This Is Us Losing Count (Two Lines Press) [2022.03.17]
  6. Barakat, Najwa (Leafgren, Luke, translator) – Mister N (And Other Stories) [2022.03.19]
  7. The Paris Review #239 [2022.03.23]
  8. Poetry #220.1 [2022.03.29]

April (12)

  1. Lawson, Len, Manick, Cynthia, and Jackson, Gary (editors) – The Future of Black (Blair) [2022.04.01]
  2. Ono, Masatsugu (Carpenter, Juliet Winters, translator) – At the Edge of the Woods (Two Lines Press) [2022.04.05]
  3. Hilbig, Wolfgang (Cole, Isabel Fargo, translator) – The Interim (Two Lines Press) [2002.04.05]
  4. Zerán, Alia Trabucco (Hughes, Sophie, translator) – When Women Kill (And Other Stories) [2022.04.06]
  5. Salvage #11 [2022.04.08]
  6. Alles, Colleen – After the 8-Ball (Cornerstone Press, inscribed) [2022.04.14]
  7. Peninsula Poets #79.1 (Spring 2022) [2022.04.22]
  8. Barrera, Jazmina (MacSweeney, Christina, translator) – On Lighthouses (Two Lines Press) [2022.04.23]
  9. Barrera, Jazmina (MacSweeney, Christina, translator) – Linea Nigra (Two Lines Press) [2022.04.23]
  10. Renee, Anna – Patina (self-published) [2022.04.26]
  11. Monae, Janelle – The Memory Librarian [2022.04.30]
  12. Gramsci, Antonio – The Antonio Gramsci Reader (New York University Press) [2022.04.30]

May (6)

  1. Poetry #220.2 (May 2022) [2022.05.03]
  2. Ahmed, Saladin and Acosta, Dave – Dragon (Copper Bottle) [2022.05.05]
  3. Girl Genius Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game (Steve Jackson Games) [2022.05.14]
  4. Hurley, Kameron – Future Artifacts: Stories (Apex Book Company) [2022.05.22]
  5. Boston Review #22 [2022.05.26]
  6. Greer, James – Bad Eminence (And Other Stories) [2022.05.28]

June (5)

  1. Voices 2022 [2022.06.04]
  2. Poetry #220.3, June 2022 [2022.06.06]
  3. Barrera, Jazmina (MacSweeney, Christina, translator) – Linea Nigra (special edition chapbook) (Two Lines Press, printed at Impronta Casa Editora) [2022.06.21]
  4. The Paris Review #240 [2022.06.22]
  5. Poetry #220.4, July/August 2022 [2022.06.27]

July (9)

  1. Steffen, David (editor) – The Long List Anthology, Vol. 7 (Diabolical Plots, LLC) [2022.07.03]
  2. Vuong, Ocean – On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous [2022.07.05]
  3. Dawes, Kwame – Progeny of Air (Peepal Tree Press) [2022.07.05]
  4. Rosenthal, Linda (editor) – Listening at the Fire: The Poetry of Fountain Street Church (chapbook) [2022.07.05]
  5. Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix – Nomadology: The War Machine (Semiotext(e)) [2022.07.13]
  6. Creasy, Jonathan C. (editor) – Black Mountain Poems: An Anthology (New Directions) [2022.07.13]
  7. McLean, Robin – Get ’em Young, Treat ’em Rough, Tell ’em Nothing (And Other Stories) [2022.07.23]
  8. Xu Zechen (Abrahamsen, Eric, translator) – Running Through Beijing (Two Lines Press) [2022.07.27]
  9. Villoso, K.S. – The Wolf of Oren-Yaro [2022.07.27]

August (8)

  1. Michael Marder, Political Categories: Thinking Beyond Concepts (Columbia University Press) [2022.08.01]
  2. Sarah Chorn & Virginia McClain (editors) – The Alchemy of Sorrow (Crimson Fox Publishing) [2022.08.03]
  3. Crystal Sarakas and Rhondi Salsitz (editors) – Shattering the Glass Slipper (Zombies Need Brains) [2022.08.06]
  4. S.C. Butler and Joshua Palmatier (editors) – Brave New Worlds (Zombies Need Brains) [2022.08.06]
  5. David B. Coe and John Zakour (editors) – Noir (Zombies Need Brains) [2022.08.06]
  6. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #45
  7. Age of Antiquity: Adventure and Intrigue in the Ancient World (Azurian Publishing) [2022.08.18]
  8. Poetry #220.5, September 2022 [2022.08.27]

September (6)

  1. E.D.E. Bell – Night Ivy (Atthis Arts LLC, inscribed) [2022.09.03]
  2. The Paris Review #241 [2022.09.13]
  3. Hemly Boum (Nchanji Njamnsi, translator) – Days Come and Go (Two Lines Press) [2022.09.14]
  4. Visible (Two Lines Press, Calico Imprint) [2022.09.14]
  5. The Politics of Pleasure: Boston Review Fourm #43 [2022.09.19]
  6. Poetry #221.1, October 2022

October (21)

  1. Jim Harrison, The Search for the Genuine [2022.10.01]
  2. Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings [2022.10.01]
  3. João Gilberto Noll (Edgar Garbelotto, translator), Hugs and Cuddles (Two Lines Press) [2022.10.06]
  4. Marissa Lingen, Monstrous Bonds, #93/100 [2022.10.07]
  5. Duncan Hannah, 20th Century Boy [2022.10.07]
  6. Jim C. Hines, Terminal Peace [2022.10.07]
  7. Michael J. Sullivan, Fairlane (Riyria Enterprises) [2022.10.08]
  8. Elizabeth A. Trembley, Look Again: A Memoir (Street Noise Books) [2022.10.11]
  9. Ryan Lee, Planet On3 (self-published) [2022.10.11]
  10. Salvage #12 [2022.10.13]
  11. Jess Landry (editor), That Which Cannot Be Undone: An Ohio Horror Anthology (Cracked Skull Press) [2022.10.13]
  12. Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow, Chokepoint Capitalism (Beacon Press) [2022.10.21]
  13. Poetry #221.2 [2022.10.21]
  14. T.L. Greylock and Bryce O’Connor, Legacy of Bronze (self-published) [2022.10.22]
  15. Anna Urbanek, Herbalist’s Primer (Exalted Funeral Press) [2022.10.22]
  16. Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger [2022.10.26]
  17. Jason Gillikin (editor), Surface Reflections [2022.10.26]
  18. The Lakeshore Review #1 [2022.10.26]
  19. The Lakeshore Review #2 [2022.10.26]
  20. Peninsula Poets, Fall 2022 [2022.10.28]
  21. Xia Jia, A Summer Beyond Your Reach (Clarkesworld Books) [2022.10.28]

November (5)

  1. Sloane Leong and Cassie Hart (editors) – Death in the Mouth [2022.11.07]
  2. Shingai Njeri Kagunda, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, H.D. Hunter, and LP Kindred (editors), (Re)Living Mythology (Android Press) [2022.11.23]
  3. Nicole Sealey, Ordinary Beasts [2022.11.25]
  4. N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make [2022.11.25]
  5. Poetry #221.3 [2022.11.30]

December (5)

  1. David Steffen (editor) – The Long List Anthology, vol. 8 (Diabolical Plots, LLC) [2022.12.01]
  2. Boston Review: Imagining Global Futures [2022.12.08]
  3. The Paris Review #242 [2022.12.10]
  4. Kathe Koja, Velocities: Stories (Meerkat Press) [2022.12.21]
  5. Kathe Koja, Dark Factory (Meerkat Press) [2022.12.21]
  6. Poetry #221.4 [2022.12.27]

Halfway Through 2021

John Winkelman

Books which arrived in the week of June 27, 2021

For the first Independence Day weekend in the last decade, our block was not blown up by the obnoxious neighbor lighting off a thousand dollars of professional-grade fireworks in the middle of the street. I realize I may be jinxing the neighborhood by writing this in the early afternoon of July 4. After all, the day ain’t over yet.

To make up for the uninterrupted and quiet night, I had a bout of serious insomnia which had me sitting at the dining room table until 04:00, blearily browsing the internet in an attempt to get my head to quiet down. I was tired but not sleepy, which is a miserable state in which to find one’s self when there are no pressing issues the next morning and sleep should be abundantly available.

Two new bundles of words arrived in the past week. On the left is the latest issue of Poetry Magazine. On the right is the new delivery from And Other Stories, Keeping the House by Tice Cin, which according to the back cover blurb offers “…a fresh and funny take on the machinery of the North London Heroin Trade…” which I can only assume will create for me a sense of deja vu which will lead back to Trainspotting.

(Yes, I know, Keeping the House is set in London, England and Trainspotting is set in Edinburgh, Scotland.)

In reading news, I finished Jim Harrison‘s Dalva, and it was every bit as beautiful as the previous half-dozen times I have read it over the past 25 years. Harrison’s follow-up novel The Road Home is now sitting next to my bed, awaiting my attention. I picked up my copy of Dalva back around 1996 and it is falling apart. I think I will need to replace it before I read it again, and I don’t think it will be so easy to find another copy with a Russell Chatham cover which is in any sort of good condition.

I have just started Francesco Verso’s long novella or short novel Nexhuman, and so far it is really good! This was published by Apex Book Company and arrived a few months ago as part of my subscription to Apex’s catalog.

I also just started Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor by Virginia Eubanks, and only made it about five pages in before I was overcome with an incandescent rage at the state of the world. I have often said that sadism is the national pastime of the USA, and Eubanks is showing how sadism and racism, manifested as carceral capitalism and managed democracy, are actively embedded into the national psyche at a level not much removed from that of the weather or gravity. Currently I am about fifty pages in, and my mood has not improved.

Argh.

In writing news, now that we are in July, and I have some time off, I plan to get serious about my writing practice. Then again I have planned that every week since the beginning of the year and have only been partially successful.

A few walks in the woods and a few evenings on the Lake Michigan beaches may be what I need to clear space in my head.

A Week Off

John Winkelman

Books acquired in the week of May 23, 2021

I was on vacation for the past week which, thanks to COVID, meant I did largely what I do while working, except without the working part. I did take a good long walk on Monday, from my house near downtown Grand Rapids, all the way around Reed’s Lake and back home, with stops at Argos Book Shop and Common Ground Coffee House.

It was a good week for reading material here at the Library of Winkelman Abbey.

First on the list is the latest issue of Poetry Magazine, which is soothing balm on the brain after a hard day of writing code.

Next is Robert Kelly’s A Strange Market, published by Black Sparrow Press, which I picked up at Argos at the end of my long walk. I love the old Black Sparrow books, back when they were an independent publisher rather than an imprint. The rough covers are part of the appeal and the aesthetic.

Next is Obits. by Tess Liem, which I also picked up at Argos. I had never heard of Liem, but a quick and random read of a couple of the poems herein convinced me that this would be a good impulse purchase.

Next is Maze by J.M. McDermott, from my subscription to the catalog of Apex Book Company.

Next is Mohamed Kheir’s Slipping, translated by Robin Moger, from my subscription to Two Lines Press.

And finally volumes 1 and 2 of The Psychopathologies of Cognitive Capitalism. I picked up volume 3 when Zyra and I visited City Lights Books back in summer 2018 and, since I can’t abide incomplete sets, completing the collection seemed like a good birthday present for myself.

In reading news, I finished Arkady Martines’s A Memory Called Empire and it was wonderful! I don’t remember the last book I read which had such deep and subtle political intrigue. I appreciated Martine’s use of the narrow lens of the single viewpoint character (albeit with some branches due to a very specific technology central to the plot). This kept the sense that the machinations and machinery of empire are vast and a single person can only see a small fraction or a single facet of the whole. I will need to reconsider some of my own writing in light of the experience I gained in reading this books.

I also finished Darran Anderson’s absolutely magnificent creative nonfiction book Imaginary Cities. Anderson explores ideas and the mythology of cities, and how they live in our stories, dreams and imagination, rather than the hard numeric facts. This means that Neil Gaiman will be cited next to Le Corbusier, and the stories related by Marco Polo and Samuel Taylor Coleridge will be given equal weight to the news feeds of current and historical events. Every page of this book contains passages good for multiple writing prompts, and as with Martine’s book above, but for quite different reasons, I feel I need to revisit some of my own writing based on the influences herein.

With those two books complete, I am now reading The Cybernetic Hypothesis, written by the collective Tiqqun and published by Semiotext(e). And for fiction I just started The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow. I am not far enough into either to form an opinion, but I have read enough to be intrigued and to keep going.

In writing news, not much is happening. I am slowly transcribing the thirty poems I wrote in April, and much to my surprise some of them have promise. I will probably be working on this task for the next few week as I return to work and summer distracts me with the option of being outside and away from a computer. I also started editing a literary fiction short story I wrote a couple of years ago, as part of NaNoWriMo. I think I will have it in shape to send out before the end of summer, assuming my energy level and attention span return to what they were before I received my COVID vaccinations.

One day, having the time and mental capacity to write regularly will be such a regular part of my life that it will not be worth mentioning. But today is not that day.

A Break in the Flow

John Winkelman

This past week was one of those rare stretches of time where no new reading material arrived at the Library of Winkelman Abbey. That’s fine. I have more than enough unread books and magazines laying around to last me a decade.

Now that I have finally made it to the end of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and Giorno’s Great Demon Kings, I have turned my attention to shorter books, which is easy, because I can count on my fingers the books I own which are longer than The Brothers Karamazov.

For the past five years or more I have had subscriptions to the catalogs of various publishers of books in translation, which means for the past five years or more I have accumulated these books much faster than I have read them, and at this point I have well over a hundred works from Open Letter Books, Deep Vellum, Restless Books, And Other Stories, Two Lines Press, and Ugly Duckling Presse awaiting my attention.

In the past couple of years, as my lifestyle and available spending money have fluctuated, I have allowed my subscriptions to all but And Other Stories and Two Lines Press (and possibly Restless Books – it’s difficult to tell sometimes here in the Covid Years) to lapse. So now I have these shelves full of books sitting around unread as I slowly accumulate books from other places, and now I find that I need to archive some of the books on the shelves. As I only archive books I have completed, now is a good time to work through the backlog of these translated books.

In the past week I have finished three books – The Imagined Land by Eduardo Berti (Deep Vellum), Party Headquarters by Georgi Tenev (Open Letter Books), and Lion Cross Point by Masatsugu Ono (Two Lines Press). I am currently reading Permafrost by Eva Baltasar (And Other Stories), and hope to get in one more book before the end of the month. This is easy when the books are only 100 to 130 pages long, and at most 50,000 words, making most of them novellas or very short novels. For contrast, The Brothers Karamazov is approximately 364,000 words.

In writing news, I haven’t written anything new in the past week beyond some journaling, but I am beginning a round of edits for a couple of short stories which I hope to have in shape for submission by the beginning of May.

On the whole, the world is not necessarily a better place than it was a month ago, but some of the worst parts of it are gone, and sometimes a lack of bad things can be as energizing as the presence of good things. Selah.

Last of Summer, First of Fall

John Winkelman

A nice pile of reading material arrived at the Library of Winkelman Abbey this week. Four books from subscriptions, and the latest issue of a lit magazine.

The first two books are from my subscription to And Other Stories. On the left is Slash and Burn, written by Claudia Hernandez, translated by Julia Sanchez. Next to it is What You Could Have Won by Rachel Genn.

In the middle of the photo is the latest issue of Rain Taxi Review.

The two books on the right are from a Patreon sponsorship of Apex Publications – The Convent of the Pure, followed by The Labyrinth of the Dead, both written by Sara M. Harvey.

In reading news, I finished Dyrk Ashton‘s Paternus: War of Gods, which was a superb conclusion to the superb Paternus trilogy. For anyone who has any reservations about the quality of self-published books, let this series put those worries to rest. This was a welcome distraction from The New Jim Crow, which was as angering a book as I have ever read. Sadism is indeed the defining characteristic of the American spirit. In the spare moments I am still working through San Francisco Beat: Talking with the Poets, published by City Lights Books. Right now I am at the end of the first interview with Michael McClure. Such good stuff!

It was an excellent week for reading, but not really for writing. I managed only a couple of hundred words which was discouraging after several weeks in the multiple thousands. I’m going to consider this a week of rest and try to dive in again Monday morning and get at least 7,500 words by the end of the work week.

Assuming the world still exists in any meaningful sense.

Ugly Ducklings, All in a Row

John Winkelman

Books acquired during the week of April 28. 2019

This past week was quite busy, so I didn’t get the chance to dive into the pile of deliveries until late Sunday night during an uneven episode of Game of Thrones.

From top left, we have Empty Words by Mario Levrero, the latest from And Other Stories, followed by Igiaba Scego’s Beyond Babylon, from Two Lines Press. The remaining six arrived in one glorious bundle from Ugly Duckling Presse, who continue to impress the hell out of me with the quality and breadth of their offerings.

All of these books are part of subscriptions I have to the various publishers. While I will at some point create a lengthy blog post on the topic, I want to say that my several-year experience/experiment with subscriptions to publisher catalogs has left me thoroughly loving the concept. Open Letter Books, Deep Vellum, Restless Books, And Other Stories, Horse Less Press, Two Lines Press, and Ugly Duckling Presse all produce consistently good-to-superb titles which I would likely never have encountered had I not made a leap of faith and shelled out the money for a subscription.

[Side note: All of the above institutions are (mostly) publishers of literature in translation and/or or poetry.]

I haven’t had much time for reading in the past week. I closed out National Poetry Month with Gestures by Artis Ostups (published by Ugly Duckling Presse, of course), and am about 60% of the way through Ours is the Storm by D. Thourson Palmer. The current book of poetry is everything we met changed form & followed the rest by Jessica Comola, published by Horse Less Press.

Incidentally, Gestures is the twentieth book I have finished so far this year. At this pace, if I cut into my sleep schedule just a bit, I should be able to complete fifty by the end of 2019.

A Quiet Week

John Winkelman

It was a quiet week here at Winkelman Abbey, what with the latest polar vortex turning Grand Rapids into a wasteland of ice and snow. Not a lot of time or energy for complex tasks (or thought), so it is just as well that the new stack was small.

From left we have the latest issue of The Paris Review and the new Two Lines journal. Next is 77, the most recent shipment from my subscription to Open Letter Books. The last two are If This Goes On and Hope in This Timeline, books from a couple of Kickstarter campaigns which I backed some time ago. They will go nicely with the other resistance-themed anthologies which I have picked up over the last few months.

Speaking of such anthologies, I am still reading through A People’s Future of the United States, which remains amazing. Such consistently powerful writing from an exceptionally diverse group of writers! I expect to have it finished by the end of this week.

This issue of The Paris Review includes an interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who will turn 100 in a couple of weeks! The interview was conducted over several weeks in 2018, when he was 99. That he is still alive is remarkable, and that he is still active in the literary world is nothing short of astonishing! In the interview he offhandedly mentions regular occurrences from his early life in France, like occasionally seeing Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoer in a cafe in Paris. You know – trivial things.

Ferlinghetti’s book A Coney Island of the Mind was published in 1958, which means it has been out for over 60 years. I have the 50th anniversary edition, which I picked up at City Lights Bookstore this past June. Ferlinghetti has been doing great things in and for the literary world for a decade longer than I have been alive, and he is still going at it, with a new book, Little Boy, coming out on March 19. I was going to hold off on buying more books for a while, but I can see this is a lost cause.

For more on Sartre and de Beauvoir, I highly recommend At the Existentialist Cafe.

A Big Book in a Small Stack

John Winkelman

It was a quiet week for the acquisitions department here at Winkelman Abbey. But what it lacked in the X axis it more than made up for in the Y. From left, we have A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, followed by the most recent issues of Jacobin, Willow Springs, and Poetry Magazine. On the right is To Leave with the Reindeer by Olivia Rosenthal, the latest from my subscription to the catalog of And Other Stories.

All of which is to say, one deliberate purchase this week.

I feel like I have been orbiting Deleuze and Guattari for a very long time. Back in my Angry Young Man days in the late 1990s I amassed a collection of titles published by Autonomedia and Semiotext(e), publishers of very wild and far-out titles from a wide variety of unconventional, leftist and radical writers and thinkers. One of those books (unfortunately lost in a long-ago purge) was Nomadology: War Machine, from the chapter of the same title in the then-unknown-to-me A Thousand Plateaus. I understood very little of it at the time, but it haunted me. These were words from thinkers operating on a plane of existence so far above my own that they might as well have been performing magic.

Over the years I forgot their names but the sense of the conversations stuck with me. It felt like peeling back a layer of reality and seeing some of the inner workings of the universe.

This past summer my girlfriend and I traveled to San Francisco where we made a pilgrimage to City Lights Bookstore, which had been a goal of mine for some decades. Wow, what a store – probably the best-curated bookstore I have ever seen. The Philosophy section held scores of titles and thinkers which were new to me, or which I had only ever seen as references in other places. And of course. A Thousand Plateaus was one of them. That brought Deleuze and Guattari back into my awareness.

Shortly thereafter I borrowed Plateaus from the Grand Rapids Public Library, attempted to make sense of it, and made almost zero headway. Then I did so again, a month later. Then I resigned myself to the fact that I will be forever haunted by D and G if I did not add this book to my personal library, and so here it is.

In the reading side of things, I finished The Black God’s Drums by P. Djeli Clark this past Thursday, and absolutely loved it. Probably my favorite read of the year so far. Clark’s use of language and patois in world-building is wonderful and, though this is not precisely the New Orleans so near and dear to my heart, it is close enough to make me feel some serious longing and wanderlust.

Currently I am a little over halfway through Scarborough, by Catherine Hernandez. I picked this one up several months ago and attempted to read it while on a business trip to Las Vegas. Reading that book in that city made me want to burn everything to the ground. So I set it aside. Now that I am not in the worst city in the world I am able to read and enjoy this beautiful, heartbreaking book.

Hot Books for Cold Days

John Winkelman

Only a few additions this week, but what they lack in quantity they more than make up in quality. First is The Hole by Damian Duffy and John Jennings, a graphic novel delivered from Rosarium Publishing, which arrived as part of the Sunspot Jungle Kickstarter reward. Next to it is Lord by João Gilberto Noll, the latest from my subscription to the catalog of Two Lines Press (part of the Center for the Art of Translation). In the bottom row we have A People’s Future of the United States and Marlon James‘ Black Leopard, Red Wolf, followed by the Winter 2018 edition of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine.

In reading news, I am about a hundred pages from the end of The Blood-Tainted Winter. I would be done, but I keep getting distracted by, well, book like A People’s Future of the United States. There are just so many good books out there, and so little time for reading.

2019 Books and Reading List

John Winkelman

And here we are all of a sudden in calendar year 2019. This is the fifth iteration of my reading material acquisition list, and I plan to keep doing it much the same way as I have in previous years. For my complete catalog of books which I own, please visit LibraryThing. For the list of books I have read, with the occasional rating and review (I know, I know. I need to be better about reviewing things I read), please visit GoodReads.

One change from previous years – instead of linking to their pages on GoodReads, I will from now on be linking book titles directly to the appropriate pages on the websites of their publishers or, where publishers do not sell directly to customers, I will link to resources such as IndieBound and the like. Keep the money in the hands of the writers and publishers.

And now, The List.

January (49)

  1. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #38
  2. Châteaureynaud, Georges-Olivier – A Life on Paper (Small Beer Press)
  3. Steinmetz, Ferret – Fix (Angry Robot Books)
  4. Steinmetz, Ferret – The Uploaded (Angry Robot Books)
  5. Shalamov, Varlam – Kolyma Stories (New York Review Books)
  6. Apex Magazine, #115, December 2018
  7. Palmer, Ada – Seven Surrenders
  8. Hartmann, Ivor W. (ed.) – AfroSF: Science Fiction by African Writers (StoryTime)
  9. Smith, Tracy K. – Life on Mars (Graywolf Press)
  10. Long Soldier, Layli – Whereas (Graywolf Press)
  11. Groskop, Viv – The Anna Karenina Fix
  12. Eveland, Erin – Darkness (Selladore Press)
  13. Andrade, R.A. – The Field Trip (Selladore Press)
  14. Greylock, T L – The Blood-Tainted Winter (Grass Crown Press)
  15. Tucker, Phil – Death March
  16. Reckoning #1
  17. Tomlinson, Patrick S. – Gate Crashers
  18. Flohr, Mackenzie – The Rite of Wands (BHC Press – Indigo)
  19. Eichenlaub, Anthony W. – Justice in an Age of Metal and Men
  20. Eichenlaub, Anthony W. – Peace in an Age of Metal and Men
  21. Filak, Stacey – The Queen Underneath (Page Street Publishing Company)
  22. Hughes, Keith – Timehunt: Borrowed Time
  23. Kuppers, Petra – Ice Bar (Spuyten Duyvil)
  24. Künsken, Derek – The Quantum Magician
  25. Matulich, Josef – Camp Arcanum (Post Mortem Press)
  26. Matulich, Josef – Power Tools in the Sacred Grove (Post Mortem Press)
  27. Snyder, Lucy A. – Garden of Eldritch Delights (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
  28. Snyder, Lucy A. – While the Black Stars Burn (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
  29. Bán, Zsófia – Night School: A Reader for Grownups (Open Letter Books)
  30. Poetry #213.5 (February 2019)
  31. Palmer, D. Thourson – Ours is the Storm
  32. Broaddus, Maurice – Buffalo Soldier
  33. Durham, David Anthony – Acacia
  34. Lowell, Nathan – Quarter Share (Durandus)
  35. Tucker, Phil – Nightmare Keep
  36. Tucker, Phil – The Path of Flames
  37. Greylock, T L – The Hills of Home (Grass Crown Press)
  38. Greylock, T L – Already Comes the Darkness (Grass Crown Press)
  39. Sullivan, Michael J. – Age of Myth
  40. Sullivan, Michael J. – Theft of Swords
  41. Shel, Mike – Aching God
  42. Adjei-Brenyah, Nana Kwame – Friday Black
  43. Sartori, Giacomo – I Am God (Restless Books)
  44. Arden, Katherine – The Bear and the Nightingale
  45. Clark, P Djèlí – The Black God’s Drums
  46. Chakraborty, S.A. – The Kingdom of Copper
  47. Poniatowska, Elena – Mephisto’s Waltz (Deep Vellum)
  48. Campbell, Bill (ed.) – Sunspot Jungle, Kickstarter-exclusive 2-volume hardcover set (Rosarium Publishing)
  49. Rain Taxi 23.4 (Winter 2018)

February (27)

  1. Duffy, Damian and Jennings, John – The Hole: Consumer Culture (Front Forty Press)
  2. James, Marlon – Black Leopard, Red Wolf
  3. LaValle, Victor, and Adams, John Joseph (eds.) – A People’s Future of the United States
  4. Noll, João Gilberto – Lord (Two Lines Press)
  5. Hines, Jim C. – Terminal Uprising
  6. Sullivan, Susan Abel (ed.) – Cursed: Wickedly Fun Stories (World Weaver Press)
  7. Wolford, Kate (ed.) – Skull & Pestle: New Tales of Baba Yaga (World Weaver Press)
  8. DreamForge #1
  9. Rosenthal, Olivia – To Leave with the Reindeer (And Other Stories)
  10. Jacobin #32
  11. Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix – A Thousand Plateaus (University of Minnesota Press)
  12. Willow Springs #83 (Spring 2019)
  13. Poetry #213.6 (March 2019)
  14. Emergency Index #7 (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  15. Berenguer, Amanda – Materia Prima (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  16. González, Wingston – No Budu Please (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  17. Ponce, Liliana – Diary (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  18. Montalbetti, Mario – Language Is a Revolver for Two (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  19. Feinstein, Rochelle – Pls. Reply (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  20. Cope, David (ed.) – Song of the Owashtanong: Grand Rapids Poetry of the 21st Century (Ridgeway Press)
  21. Harris, Bill – Birth of a Notion, or The Half Ain’t Never Been Told (Wayne State University Press)
  22. Evans, CJ – A Penance (New Issues Press)
  23. Upton, Lee – Undid in the Land of Undone (New Issues Press)
  24. Kocher, Ruth Ellen – When the Moon Knows You’re Wandering (New Issues Press)
  25. Daniels, Jim – Night with Drive-By Shooting Stars (New Issues Press)
  26. Platt, Donald – Dirt Angels (New Issues Press)
  27. Huey, Amorak – Ha Ha Ha Thump (Sundress Publications)

March (13)

  1. Senkus, Mark – Screaming Like War (Single-Minded Cocktail Press)
  2. Rahmani, Zahia – “Muslim”: A Novel (Deep Vellum Publishing)
  3. Two Lines Journal #30
  4. Rambo, Cat (ed.) – If This Goes On (Parvus Press)
  5. Frank, Meg (ed.) – Hope in This Timeline (Fireside Fiction)
  6. Saccomanno, Guillermo – 77 (Open Letter Books)
  7. Paris Review #228
  8. James, D.R. – Surreal Expulsion (The Poetry Box)
  9. Ridl, Jack – Saint Peter and the Goldfinch (Wayne State University Press)
  10. Malte, Marcus – The Boy (Restless Books)
  11. Poetry #214.1 (April 2019)
  12. New Ohio Review #25
  13. Wolff, Lina – The Polyglot Lovers (And Other Stories)

April (16)

  1. Reckoning #2
  2. Browne, Mahogany L, Simmonds, Idrissa, Woods, Jamila (eds.) – The Breakbeat Poets Vol. II: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Books)
  3. DeMott, Robert (ed.) – Conversations with Jim Harrison (Revised and Updated) (University Press of Mississippi)
  4. Morey, Chris (ed.) – I Am the Abyss (Dark Regions Press, LLC)
  5. Oomen, Anne-Marie (ed.) – Elemental (Wayne State University Press)
  6. Davis, Jean – Trust (Caffeinated Press)
  7. Pimwana, Duanwad – Bright (Two Lines Press)
  8. Buckell, Tobias S. – It’s All Just a Draft (Xenowealth LLC, Kickstarter exclusive)
  9. Poetry #214.2 (May 2019)
  10. Wellman, Mac – Awe (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  11. Farrell, Nathaniel – Lost Horizon (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  12. Osman, Jena – Motion Studies (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  13. Rodríguez, Reina Maria – The Winter Garden Photograph (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  14. Steck, Ed – An Interface for a Fractal Landscape (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  15. Fitterman, Robert – Rob’s Word Shop (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  16. Peninsula Poets #76.1, Spring 2019

May (16)

  1. Levrero, Mario – Empty Words (And Other Stories)
  2. Scego, Igiaba – Beyond Babylon (Two Lines Press)
  3. Van Gelder, Gordon (ed.) – Welcome to the Greenhouse (OR Books)
  4. Duncombe, Stephen – Dream or Nightmare (OR Books)
  5. Boyd, Andrew – Beautiful Trouble (OR Books)
  6. Coleman, Elizabeth J. (ed.) – Here: Poems for the Planet (Copper Canyon Press)
  7. Pulphouse #5, Winter 2019
  8. Poetry #214.3, June 2019
  9. Rasmussen, Bjørn – The Skin Is the Elastic Covering That Encases the Entire Body (Two Lines Press)
  10. Rucker, Rudy – Million Mile Road Trip (Night Shade Books)
  11. Rucker, Rudy – The Big Aha (Night Shade Books)
  12. Scholes, Robert, Comley, Nancy R., Ulmer, Gregory L. – Text Book
  13. Kazin, Alfred – The Open Form
  14. Waugh, Patricia – Metafiction (Methuen & Co.)
  15. Fernández, Belén – Exile: Rejecting America and Finding the World (OR Books)
  16. Jacobin #33, Spring 2019

June (39)

  1. Talusan, Grace – The Body Papers (Restless Books)
  2. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #39
  3. Dreamforge #2
  4. Ellison, Harlan – Dimensions of Harlan Ellison (Edgeworks Abbey)
  5. Ellison, Harlan – The Book Needs No Introduction (Edgeworks Abbey)
  6. Ellison, Harlan – The Ephemeral Ellison (Edgeworks Abbey)
  7. Ellison, Harlan – The Ellison Treatment (Edgeworks Abbey)
  8. The 3288 Review 5.1 (Caffeinated Press)
  9. Riekki, Ron and Scarpino, Andrea (eds.) – Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press)
  10. Klatt, L.S. – The Wilderness After Which (Otis Books)
  11. Rain Taxi #24.2 (Summer 2019)
  12. Swanwick, Michael – Dragonskin (Dragon Stairs Press) (signed, #21/50)
  13. McGookey, Kathleen – Nineteen Letters (BatCat Press), (#11/100)
  14. Broaddus, Maurice – Pimp My Airship (Apex Book Company)
  15. Sizemore, Jason and Conner, Lesley (eds.) – Do Not Go Quietly (Apex Book Company)
  16. Townsend, Tracy – The Fall
  17. Roanhorse, Rebecca – Storm of Locusts
  18. Harrison, Jim – The Essential Poems (Copper Canyon Press)
  19. Asghar, Fatimah and Elhillo, Safia (eds.) – The Breakbeat Poets vol. 3: Halal If You Can Hear Me (Haymarket Books)
  20. Shiner, Lewis – Outside the Gates of Eden (Subterranean Press)
  21. The Paris Review #229
  22. Brace, Kristin – Each Darkness Inside (Finishing Line Press)
  23. Split Lip Magazine #2
  24. Burn Collector #14 (Microcosm Publishing)
  25. Gnade, Adam (ed.) – The CIA Makes Science Fiction Unexciting #6: The Life of Lee Harvey Oswald (Microcosm Publishing)
  26. Ensminger, David A. – Out of the Basement (Microcosm Publishing)
  27. Moore, Anne Elizabeth – Cambodian Grrrl: Self-Publishing in Phnom Penh (Microcosm Publishing)
  28. Suren, Bob – Crate Digger: An Obsession With Punk Records (Microcosm Publishing)
  29. Herbert, Alexander – What About Tomorrow? An Oral History of Russian Punk, From the Soviet Era to Pussy Riot (Microcosm Publishing)
  30. Campbell, John W., Jr. – Frozen Hell (Wildside Press)
  31. Doyle, Aidan – The Writer’s Book of Doubt (Ate Bit Bear)
  32. Poetry #214.4
  33. Reckoning #3
  34. Yong, Jin – A Hero Born (ARC)
  35. Silver, Steven H. and Palmatier, Joshua (eds.) – Alternate Peace (Zombies Need Brains LLC)
  36. Coe, David B. and Palmatier, Joshua (eds.) – Temporally Deactivated (Zombies Need Brains LLC)
  37. Bray, Patricia and Butler, S.C. (eds.) – Portals (Zombies Need Brains LLC)
  38. Yideum, Kim – Blood Sisters (Deep Vellum Publishing)
  39. von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang – The Golden Goblet (Deep Vellum Publishing)

July (12)

  1. Amazing Stories 76.4
  2. Brace, Kristin – Toward the Wild Abundance (Michigan State University Press)
  3. Jallal, Karim and Zbiciak, Teresa – Mustapha Panda
  4. Willow Springs #84
  5. Daáood, Kamau – The Language of Saxophones (City Lights Books)
  6. Long, Michael G. (ed.) – We the Resistance (City Lights Books)
  7. Breedlove, Lynn – Forty-Five Thought Crimes (Manic D Press)
  8. Ivánova, Adelaide – The Hammer (Commune Editions)
  9. Schatz, Kate and Stahl, Miriam Klein – Rad American Women A-Z (City Lights Books)
  10. Neidich, Warren (ed.) – The Psychopathologies of Cognitive Capitalism: Part Three (Archive Books)
  11. Zisson, Steve (ed.) – A Punk Rock Future (Zsenon Publishing)
  12. Torres, Fernanda – Glory and Its Litany of Horrors (Restless Books)

August (3)

  1. Serna, Rudolfo A. – Snow Over Utopia (Apex Publications)
  2. Poetry #214.5, September 2019
  3. Fellous, Colette – This Tilting World (Two Lines Press)

September (11)

  1. Two Lines #31
  2. Paris Review #230
  3. Yang, Neon – The Ascent to Godhood
  4. Chiang, Ted – Exhalation
  5. Hossain, Saad Z – The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday
  6. Luff, Cody T. – Ration (Apex Publications)
  7. Harjo, Joy – She Had Some Horses
  8. Kendi, Ibram X. – How to Be an Antiracist
  9. Rain Taxi 14.3, Fall 2019
  10. Dreamforge #3, September 2019
  11. Poetry #215.1 (October 2019)

October (20)

  1. Perlman, Jim, Cooper, Deborah, Hart, Mara and Mittelfehldt, Pamela (eds.) – Amethyst and Agate: Poems of Lake Superior (Holy Cow! Press)
  2. Lauchlan, Michael – Trumbull Ave. (Wayne State University Press)
  3. Lynch, Thomas – Still Life in Milford
  4. Gerber, Dan – A Last Bridge Home (Clark City Press)
  5. Liebler, M.L. (ed.) – Brooding the Heartlands: Poets of the Midwest (Bottom Dog Press)
  6. Hilberry, Conrad – After-Music (Wayne State University Press)
  7. Hinrichsen, Dennis – Kurosawa’s Dog (Oberlin College Press)
  8. Clark, Patricia and Jenkins, Jinny (eds.) – Great Lakes: Image & Word (Grand Valley State University)
  9. Mréjen, Valérie – Black Forest (Deep Vellum Publishing)
  10. Masłowska, Dorota – Honey, I Killed the Cats (Deep Vellum Publishing)
  11. Pulphouse Fiction Magazine #6, Spring 2019
  12. Straczynski, J. Michael – Becoming Superman
  13. Defoe, Daniel – Robinson Crusoe (300th Anniversary Edition) – Restless Books
  14. Etchells, Tim – Endland (And Other Stories)
  15. Zafón, Carlos Ruiz – The Labyrinth of the Spirits (Subterranean Press)
  16. Poetry #215.2 (November 2019)
  17. Erin, Alexandra – First Dates, Last Calls
  18. Ono, Masatsugu – Lion Cross Point (Two Lines Press)
  19. Anyuru, Johannes – They Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears (Two Lines Press)
  20. Peninsula Poets, Fall 2019

November (13)

  1. Tidhar, Lavie – Hebrew Punk (Apex Publications)
  2. New Ohio Review #26
  3. Patel, Shenaz – Silence of the Chagos (Restless Books)
  4. Conner, Lesley – The Weight of Chains (Sinister Grin Press)
  5. Burmeister-Brown, Susan and Swanson-Davies, Linda B. (eds) The Glimmer Train Guide to Writing Fiction, Vol. I: Building Blocks
  6. Poetry #215.3 (December 2019)
  7. Pulphouse Fiction Magazine #7 (Summer 2019)
  8. Steffen, David (ed.) – The Long List Anthology, vol. 5 (Diabolical Plots LLC)
  9. Meadors, Melanie R. (ed.) – Scoundrels (Outland Entertainment)
  10. Meadors, Melanie and Abbott, Alana Joli (eds.) – Brigands (Outland Entertainment)
  11. Meadors, Melanie and Abbott, Alana Joli (eds.) – Knaves (Outland Entertainment)
  12. Wang, Jackie – Carceral Capitalism (Semiotext(e))
  13. Valencia, Sayak – Gore Capitalism (Semiotext(e))

December (12)

  1. The Paris Review #231, Winter 2019
  2. Fisher, Mark – Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (Zero Books)
  3. Choi, Franny – Soft Science (Alice James Books)
  4. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #40
  5. Rain Taxi #24.4 (Winter 2019)
  6. Dreamforge #4 (December 2019)
  7. A Creative Sojourn, vol. 2
  8. Burstein, Michael – I Remember the Future (Apex Book Company)
  9. Jung Young Moon – Seven Samurai Swept Away in a River (Deep Vellum Publishing)
  10. Sentsov, Oleg – Life Went On Anyway: Stories (Deep Vellum Publishing)
  11. Salvage #7 (Autumn/Winter 2019)
  12. Brown, Luke – Theft (And Other Stories)