February Reads

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It is amazing what a month can be made up of, especially when measured in books. In February, I read 7 books for a total of 15 books so far this year. Not bad! Let's get to the good stuff right away this time.

Favorite Read of February:

Crush by Richard Siken. I know I am behind the times in appreciating the language and beauty of this collection. But, what is life if not discovering visceral poetry?

Honorable Mention:

Body Electric, a novella, by C.E. Smith won the Paris Literary Prize in 2013. This book was distributed by Shakespeare & Company and published in a limited print run with The White Review. I was drawn in by the fact that no description of this book exists. If you ever come across a copy, you can't snatch it up quick enough. 

To respect the mystique, I will skip a favorite quote from this book. The genre is literary fiction. 

Below find the genres I read in February, including favorite quotes from each text!

Contemporary Fiction:

Body Electric by C.E. Smith

Poetry:

Talking to Alice by Kelly R Samuels (Available through Whittle Micro Press)

Author Interview here.

"Sometimes I have no idea what it is the dog finds by lying on the boulevard" from Talking to Alice About Knowing What It Is upon Finding It.

Crush by Richard Siken

"A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river / but then he's still left with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away / but then he's still left with his hands" from Boot Theory. 

War of Foxes by Richard Siken

"We invented a fence in the middle of the snow so we could meet at the fence and whisper" from Landscape with Black Coats in Snow.

Wound is the Origin of Wonder by Maya C. Popa

"I walked my dog / counting no blessing but the one I chased" from They are Building a Hospital.

Thriller/Mystery:

Murder Road by Simone St. James

"I wondered if that was how marriage worked, if the memories you made with the person you married started taking over the ones that had come before, like a radio station that fades out on the dial as another one comes in."

Nonfiction:

Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less. Edited by Daniel Jones and Miya Lee.

This collection is made up of 175 Tiny Love Stories that first appeared in The New York Times column of the same name. 

"That's what we do in the end; the messy, tender, heartbreaking things." from What We Do in the End by Kelly O'Connor