Almanac of the Dead
by Leslie Marmon Silko
Penguin/Penguin Putnam, pb
$16.00/$12.80

"This is an amazing book that chronicles an intense entwinement of stories about the clash between the old Native American spirit and their present-day fall from grace. The layered story runs at a hectic pace to match the violence of the characters' scrambling existences. When you're through, you'll feel like you've gone througha tornado." -- Vicki Yuen

Flotsam and Jetsam
by Aidan Higgins
Dalkey Archive, pb
$15.95/$12.76

"It's a wonder how this book's back cover can contain the inevitable references to Joyce and Beckett while omitting Dalkey Archive's own Flann O'Brien, with whom Higgins shares a siimilarly stout-breathed sense of humor. Irish genealogies aside, we have here an author whose prose is practically edible. Higgins can throuw shadows or spotlights wherever he pleases; and this he does, much to our content." -- Bhob Rainey

In a Dark Wood
by Amanda Craig
Doubleday/Random House
$24.95/$19.96

"This is a novel which is at once fascinating and spooky, just like your favorite bedtime stories were. Craig takes us on a strange and gracefully written journey with a man whose life has just fallen apart. Since his future looks so dark -- he turns towards his past and his mysterious mother's fairy tales. This is a hard book to put down, so get comfy and enjoy the dark journey ahead." -- Elizabeth Mullaney

Last Chance to See
by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine
Ballantine/Random House, pb
$13.00/$10.40

"The late great science fiction author Douglas Adams explored new territory in this book -- traveling the world to write on endangered species with sympathy but also with his trademark mordant wit. The chapter on the Komodo dragons, "Here Be Chickens" (with a very funny rumination on coconuts, page 47) is alone worth the price of the book." -- Alan Hurley

The Oxford Book of Sonnets
edited by John Fuller
Oxford University Press
$25.00/$20.00

"This is my favorite kind of reading. A small book, a knapsack necessity for times you find yourself idle, eating solitary soup, waiting for the T, or winding down to sleep. The beauty of the sonnet is in its fourteen lines, not too short to tackle complex themes: nature; love; mortality; but not so long that you cannot finish it in one speedy shot. Here you find models of the form by Keats, Wyatt, Sidney, the Rossettis, Yeats, and Hoplins, also works I like a lot by more recent author: Millay; Kees; Hill; Oswald...The sonnet is alive and well!" -- Jen Schoonover