At the close of every year, for over a decade, I have taken a moment to reflect upon the year’s publications. Like in previous years, my “most engaging books” list reflects what I found most fascinating / useful / generative in terms of form & content from the books I read in 2021.
Seek out these volumes; every one will reward the search (your local, independent, bookstore can help; an excellent choice as many continue to struggle under the pandemic). This is the cream of the crop for 2021, seriously:
- Gary Barwin. Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted: The Ballad of Motl the Cowboy (Penguin Random House)
- Charles Bernstein. Topsy-Topsy (University of Chicago Press)
- Eduardo Berti, translated by Daniel Levin Becker. An Ideal Presence (fern)
- Gregory Betts. Foundry (redfoxpress)
- Christian Bok. The Kazimir Effect (Penteract)
- Craig Dworkin. Helicography (Punctum)
- Lauren Elkin. No. 91/92: A Diary of a Year on the Bus (Semiotext(e) / Les Fugitives)
- Anne Garreta, translated by Emma Ramandan. In Concrete (Deep Vellum)
- Helen Hajnoczky. Frost & Pollen (Invisible)
- Susan Holbrook. Ink Earl (Coach House Books)
- Douglas Kearney. Sho (Wave Books)
- Matt Madden. Ex Libris (Uncivilized)
- N.H. Pritchard. The Matrix (Ugly Duckling Presse) and Eecchhooeess (DABA)
- Kate Siklosi. Leavings (Timglaset)
- Isabel Waidner. Sterling Karat Gold (Peninsula Press)
- … and three chapbooks by Kevin Stebner: Rostellum (nonplusultra), Monolithics (self-published), and Dioram (Plaugolt Satzwechsler / Timglaset Editions)
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