20.5 “Books” I Found Especially Beautiful in 2013
Johannes Göransson said on Facebook that one thing he doesn’t like about the “list”-based idea of criticism is: “that you can’t challenge it. You’re not allowed to say: No this list is mediocre or whatever. Then you’re not a nice person.”
Here’s a list of books I’ve only read four of but find especially aesthetically pleasing. Be a nice person.
***
Brandon Brown – Flowering Mall – Roof Books
Dana Ward – This Can’t Be Life – Edge Books
Graham Foust – To Anacreon in Heaven and Other Poems – Flood Editions
Roger Luckhurst – The Shining – BFI Publishing
Vladimir Nabokov – The Eye – Vintage
Jesse Ball – The Way Through Doors – Vintage
Darby Larson – IRRITANT – Blue Square Press
Brian Larosche – Un Coup de 3 Dés – Broken Dimanche Press
Lennard J. Davis – Obsession, A History – University of Chicago Press
Rob Fitterman – Holocaust Museum – Counterpath Books
Ana Božičević – Rise in the Fall – Birds, LLC
Ed Ruscha – Cotton Puffs, Q-Tips, Smoke and Mirrors – Steidl
Tom Comitta – ◯ – Ugly Duckling Presse
Rob Fitterman & Vanessa Place – Notes on Conceptualisms, the Blank Edition – Ugly Duckling Presse
Franz Kafka – Amerika – Schocken
Alissa Nutting – Tampa– Faber & Faber
John Updike – The Rabbit Tetralogy – Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Robert The – Book Works & Book Guns:
http://www.bookgun.com/
http://www.bookdust.com/
Morten Søndergaard – Soap Poetry/Sæbepoesi – Broken Dimanche Press – ISBN: 978-3-943196-08-5
Lorenzo Sandova & S.T.I.F.F – Mutant Matters – ISBN: 978-3-943196-16-0
Tags: Book covers, sophia le fraga
The thing is, these kind of lists would be more palatable, if you wrote a few sentences arguing for the merits of each book. That way we could challenge it, and we could start a discourse.
This way… it’s just a meaningless group of links and book covers.
she said “aesthetically pleasing’
so i’m assuming she’s addressing the aesthetic of the covers/packages
so, ms. Le Fraga, which Four did you read??
ps – that ‘Tampa’ cover – eishh – vulva much? (not since ‘richard yates’!)
pps – time for me to re-read the rabbits!!
ah you’re right
I was mostly referring to the Göransson-quote in the preface.
that tampa cover is def the best cover of the year