The Complete Poems
by Philip Larkin (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $40)
Leave this “overstuffed” volume to the university libraries, said Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times. It “seems to include every scrap of verse” that Philip Larkin ever wrote, even on Christmas cards, and the annotations fill more space than the poetry. But Larkin deserves to be more widely read. He focused on death, disappointment, and loss, but no one has ever handled those subjects better. He remains “one of the most bracing and unforgettable voices in postwar poetry.”
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Collected Poems
by Jack Gilbert (Knopf, $35)
Jack Gilbert may be the archetypal reclusive poet, said Abigail Deutsch in The Wall Street Journal. After winning the Yale Younger Poets Prize in 1962, at age 36, Gilbert shunned fame for an itinerant life in Europe and Japan. At times, “his imagery is hopelessly romantic,” and when you’re reading his collected poems, “all the loveliness may begin to bore.” But he’s brilliant at evoking loss, and his best poems both “know something of our lives” and bravely attempt to interpret “the Babel of our hearts.”
Across the Land and the Water
by W.G. Sebald (Random House, $25)
This poetry collection “is different from every other W.G. Sebald book in one important respect,” said Teju Cole in NewYorker.com. The acclaimed German novelist, poet, and essayist became known late in life, so the early verse here marks our first chance to watch him grow. He gets better; the mature works are “bracingly concise.” But “what makes this book a splendid addition to an already extraordinary oeuvre” is Sebald’s consistent ability to marry the world’s darkness with its “shimmering light.”
New Collected Poems
by Wendell Berry (Counterpoint, $30)
With more than 50 books published, Wendell Berry has earned his reputation as “the dean of Kentucky letters,” said Frederick Smock in the Louisville Courier-Journal. This latest collection from the prolific poet, novelist, and essayist updates a previous version, published in 1985. The newer poems are more experimental than the old favorites, yet marked by an age-earned wisdom, some of it gathered by maintaining a farm for 50 years. Berry remains “an important poet”—“a voice for agrarian values.”
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”