edouard leve | derek beaulieu's blog

Once again, December brings an opportunity to reflect upon the year’s publications. Like previous years, my “most engaging books” list is idiosyncratic and reflects what i found most fascinating / useful / generative. Seek out these volumes, every one will reward the search. Your local, independent, bookstore can help…. This is the cream of the crop for 2015, seriously:

Allemann, Urs. (trans. Patrick Greaney). The Old Man and the Bench. (Dalkey Archive Press)
Bök, Christian. The Xenotext (Book 1). (Coach House Books)
Brossard, Nicole. (trans. Angela Carr). Ardour. (Coach House Books)
Cage, John. Diary: How to Improve the world (You will only make matters worse). (Siglio)
Carmody, Teresa and Vanessa Place. Maison Femme: a fiction. (Bon Aire Projects)
Cobbing, William and Rosie Cooper, eds. Boooook: The Life and Work of Bob Cobbing. (Occasional papers)
Dworkin, Craig. Alkali. (Counterpath)
Garréta, Anne. (trans. Emma Ramadan). Sphinx. (Deep Vellum)
Goldsmith, Kenneth. Capital: New York, Capital of the 20th Century. (Verso)
Goldsmith, Kenneth. Theory / Théorie. (Jean Boîte Éditions)
Reznikoff, Charles. Testimony: The United States (1885-1915): Recitative. (finally reprinted from the 1978 edition by Black Sparrow)
Sousanis, Nick. Unflattening. (Harvard UP)
Levé, Edouard. (trans. Jan Steyn & Caite Dolan-Leach). Newspaper. (Dalkey Archive Press)
Waeckerlé, Emmanuelle. Reading (Story of) O. (Uniformbooks)
Worth, Liz. No Work Finished Here: Rewriting Andy Warhol. (Bookthug)

For the last two years I have posted my “most engaging books” list (2011’s list, 2010’s list) with a selection of what i considered the most fascinating / useful / generative books of the year. Seek out these volumes, every one will reward the search (and your local, independent, bookstore can help…). This is the cream of the crop for 2012:

Jaap Blonk Traces of Speech / Sprachspuren. (Berlin: Hybriden-Verlag.)

Amaranth Borsuk. Handiwork. (New York: Slope.)

Amaranth Borsuk and Brad Bouse. Between Page and Screen. (Los Angeles: Siglio.)

Sophie Calle. The Address Book. (Los Angeles: Siglio.)

Natalie Czech. I have nothing to say. Only to show.(Leipzig: Spector Books)

Johanna Drucker. Druckworks: 40 years of Books and Projects. (Chicago: Columbia College)

Craig Dworkin, Simon Morris and Nick Thurston. Do or DIY. (York: information as material.)

Emma Healey. Begin with the End in Mind. (Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring.)

Dennis Lee. testament. (Toronto: House of Anansi.)

Edouard Leve. Autoportrait. trans. Lorin Stein (London: Dalkey Archive Press.)

Silvio Lorusso and Sebastian Schmieg. 56 Broken Kindle Screens. (print on demand.)

Jena Osman. Public Figures. (Middletown: Wesleyan UP)

Tom Phillips. A Humument. 5th edition (London: Thames and Hudson.)

Nicola Simpson, ed. Notes from the Cosmic Typewriter: The Life and Work of Dom Sylvester Houédard. (London: Occasional Papers)

Barrie Tullett. A Poem to Phillip Glass. 2nd edition. (York: The Caseroom Press.)

Most Engaging Books Of 2015

most engaging books of 2012