Eileen Myles’s Snowflake/Different Streets, Matvei Yankelevich’s Alpha Donut, Kevin Young’s Ardency: A Chronicle of the Armistead Rebels, and Joyelle McSweeney’s Percussion Grenade are among the poetry books singled out by John Yau and Bookforum editor Albert Mobilio as the best of 2012.
For the New York Times Magazine’s annual “Lives They Lived” edition, Wild author Cheryl Strayed remembers poet Adrienne Rich: “the ferocity of her vision was matched only by the tenderness at its root. She might write about the private intricacies of two women talking or arguing or making love, but her grander intentions thrummed beneath the consciousness of every word.”
New York Times Magazine book critic Sam Anderson shares his year-in-reading marginalia.
Not only is Grantland writer Rafe Bartholomew writing a book on the New York City bar McSorley’s, but, as the Observer discovers, he also comes from literary stock: Rafe’s father, McSorley’s bartender Geoff Bartholomew, has written two books of poetry about the legendary establishment. (Which was also canonized by New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell). The McSorley Poems, volumes I and II “sell for $10 a pop behind the bar, and around the corner from the bar at St. Mark’s Bookshop. “‘Otherwise, you have to order them online,” the elder Bartholomew told the paper. “I don’t think I’ll quit my day job.’”
A new Pew Research Center breaks down how Americans read today, based on where they live and whether they own e-readers. One interesting observation: people are more likely to read if they live in (or near) a city.
