My Friends -- Emmanuel Bove

Staff Pick

A frothy account of Paris’s underbelly as told by a heartwarming, but quite pathetic wayfarer. Victor Baton, an injured WWI veteran living on a meager pension, searches Paris high-and-low on a simple mission: to find a friend. “Just one friend” he tells himself again and again. We read through a catalog of bewildering encounters—just when Victor seems to have finally pressed against someone in friendship, he pulls back, souring the potential relationship. Melancholically told, though very funny, Emmanuel Bove’s My Friends is assuredly one of the quiet, smallish (like its narrator) masterpieces of 20th century fiction. 

 

My Friends By Emmanuel Bove, Janet Louth (Translated by) Cover Image
By Emmanuel Bove, Janet Louth (Translated by)
$14.95
ISBN: 9781681373133
Availability: Special Order—Subject to Availability
Published: NYRB Classics - May 7th, 2019

The Geography of the Imagination -- Guy Davenport

Staff Pick

Guy Davenport spent his life immersed in books while keeping correspondence with hundreds of notable artists and writers. The Geography of the Imagination distills Davenport’s fascination with the reappearance of symbols over time. The titular essay charts Edgar Allan Poe’s interest in interior design and tussles out details of the American Gothic—a painting we assume to know until Davenport reveals how its domestic familiarities extend back to archaic myth. These essays extend appreciation (and bookshelves) for the familiar—Joyce, Whitman, Marianne Moore—and those lost to time. The fun of reading Davenport comes from being with him through his unexpected discoveries. 

 

 

The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays By Guy Davenport Cover Image
$19.95
ISBN: 9781567920802
Availability: Special Order—Subject to Availability
Published: David R. Godine Publisher - June 15th, 1997

The Social Photo -- Nathan Jurgenson

Staff Pick

Nathan Jurgenson’s The Social Photo clears the air of the many easy assumptions we make about social media. Jurgenson’s “social photo” is just that—the photography that get posted on Facebook or Instagram, ready to be seen by a plethora of followers. These photos, Jurgenson argues, should be treated as part of a new social process rather than artistic objects. Our feeds are fluid. Photos come and go, getting thumbed through, in a state of transience rather than remembrance. Jurgenson defends the selfie, praising its presentation of intimate, if not embarrassing, moments. The Social Photo is not a book of art criticism. Its expansive reach will be interesting for anyone trying to get a sense of what social media is doing to us.

The Social Photo: On Photography and Social Media By Nathan Jurgenson Cover Image
$19.95
ISBN: 9781788730914
Availability: Special Order—Subject to Availability
Published: Verso - April 30th, 2019

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