Most Engaging Books of 2016

Once again, December brings an opportunity to reflect upon the year’s publications. Like previous years, my “most engaging books” list reflects what i found most fascinating / useful / generative. Seek out these volumes, every one will reward the search. Your local, independent, bookstore can help…. This is the cream of the crop for 2016, seriously:

 

Poetry

• Abel, Jordan. Injun. (Talonbooks)
• Hajnoczky, Helen. Magyarázni. (Coach House Books)
• Scott, Jordan. Night & Ox. (Coach House Books)
• Snelson, Danny. Radios. (Make Now)
• Surani, Moez. Operación Opération Operation 行 动 Oперация. (Bookthug)

Non-Fiction

 

• Bernstein, Charles. Pitch of Poetry. (University of Chicago)
• Cage, John. The Selected Letters of John Cage. Ed. Laura Kuhn. (Wesleyan UP)
• Goldsmith, Kenneth. Against Translation. (Jean Boîte Éditions)
• Goldsmith, Kenneth. Wasting Time on the Internet. (Harper Perennial)
• Williams, Gilda, ed. On&By Andy Warhol. (MIT / Whitechapel Gallery)

 

Work in Translation

• Aragon, Louis. Anicet, or the Panorama. Trans. Antony Melville. (Atlas Press)
• Audin, Michèle. One Hundred Twenty-One Days. Trans. Christiana Hills (Deep Vellum)
• Michaux, Henri. Life in the Folds. Trans. Darren Jackson. (Wakefield Press)
• Reverdy, Pierre. The Thief of Talant. Trans. Ian Seed. (Wakefield Press)
• Soupault, Phillipe. Lost Profiles: Memoirs of Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism. Trans. Alan Bernheimer. (City Lights Books)