patrick greaney | 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)

Once again, December brings an opportunity to reflect upon the year’s books. Like previous years, this “most engaging books” list is idiosyncratic and by no means reflects “the best”, only what i found most engaging and most rewarding … this is 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 2013:

Heimrad Bäcker. Seascape. Patrick Greaney, trans. (Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling Presse)

Jen Bervin and Marta Werner. The Gorgeous Nothings. (New York: New Directions).

Jaap Blonk klinkt. (Gent: het balanseer).

Craig Dworkin. No Medium. (Cambridge: MIT Press).

Kenneth Goldsmith. Seven American Deaths and Disasters. (Brooklyn: Powerhouse)

Jeet Heer. In Love with Art: Françoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman. (Toronto: Coach House).

bpNichol. A book of variations: love-zygal-art facts. Stephen Voyce, ed. (Toronto: Coach House).

Yoko Ono. Acorn. (New York: OR)

Rachel Simkover, ed. An Anthology of Concrete Poetry. (Berlin: Motto).

Nick Thurston. Of the Subcontract (York, UK / Toronto: information as material / Coach House)

Emmett Williams. Anthology of Concrete Poetry (New York: Primary Information)

Andrew Zawacki. Video Tape. (Denver: Counterpath)

Paul Zits. Massacre Street (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press)

Most Engaging Books Of 2015

most engaging books of 2013