My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge
By Paul Guest
(Ecco, Hardcover, 9780061685163, 96pp.)
Publication Date: November 2008
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Paperback
Categories: American - General
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My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge is a fierce and original collection—its generosity of voice and emotional range announce the arrival of a major new poet.
At the age of twelve, Paul Guest suffered a bicycle accident that left him paralyzed for life. But out of sudden disaster evolved a fierce poetic sensibility—one that blossomed into a refuge for all the grief, fury, and wonder at life forever altered. Although its legacy lies in tragedy, the voice of these brilliant poems cuts a broad swath of emotions: whether he is lamenting the potentiality of physical experience or imagining the electric temptations of sexuality, Guest offers us a worldview that is unshakable in its humanity.
Susan Stamberg gathers recommendations from booksellers Rona Brinlee, Lucia Silva and Daniel Goldin. Their selections for summertime reading include books about small-town America, a polygamist father in over his head, and a postmistress in New England during World War II. More at NPR.org
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“A beautiful, breathless torrent of language that is dark or insightful or funny or any combination thereof, but always on the mark, always riveting. . . . My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge is a terrific book. ”
-Mark Strand
“Guest takes the reader on a path like few contemporary poets offer.”
-Chicago Sun-Times
“Astonishing.”
-Jorie Graham
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1Q84 Haruki Murakami Knopf |
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The Marriage Plot Jeffrey Eugenides Farrar, Straus, and Giroux |
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The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes Knopf |
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Death Comes to Pemberley PD James Knopf |
