forty-two: book review

Scientific facts about the demise of forty-two have been largely exaggerated. Here are some reviews of books of note by people of interest. Each review is exactly forty-two words; the books and reviewers are rumored to go on at much greater length.

twenty-four: the reviewers
email us your forty-two word review



february/march 2006 // january 2006// november/december 2005 // september/october 2005 // august 2005 // july 2005 // june 2005 // may 2005 // april 2005 // march 2005 // february 2005 // january 2005 // december 2004 // november 2004 // october 2004 // september 2004 // august 2004


3.2.2006 thursday
 Black Bodies and Quantum Cats: Tales from The Annals of Physics by Jennifer Ouellette Clear, precise, and more entertaining than Physics for Dummies, Ouellette's brief histories of key scientific discoveries tingle with the potential energy of Schrödinger's cat chasing the butterfly effect. If only she could explain why The Black Hole sucked.
-Matthew Schmeer
 3.1.2006 wednesday
 Spring Tide by Suzanne Frischkorn Remember how light can bounce off a lake's surface into your eyes? Suzanne Frischkorn's poetry is eye watering in its precision, yet can also lap gently at the edge of one's thoughts. Hush now. 'Dusk rubs its thumb / along the horizon.'
-Ivy Alvarez
 2.6.2006 monday
 Deer Head Nation by K. Silem Mohammad Is flarf sufficient language to describe ways of thinking and writing emerging from search engines, etc? Though this book's whitespace is not significant, these poems are environmental and visual. I believe the fake deer is real and am interested in his travels.
-Jen
 2.5.2006 sunday
 Two-Haloed Mourners by Bernadette Mayer Attentive as always to language-rhythms, "slurpy old New Hampshire," "pottin serl," everytime the mourners recur from their silence it surprises equally but differently, drops grace flat. "Don't laugh at me in the city/ The glamour of the grammar of all of it."
-Jen
 2.4.2006 saturday
 Times Like These by Rachel Ingalls While they may carry the shape of the conventional, well-made short story, these 'uns move unpredictably, narrating themselves across several oases before landing in a mirage. Ancient children predict their own futures. A stranger's dusty artefact, in your hand, turns to glass.
-Jen
 2.3.2006 friday
 The Accidental by Ali Smith A plot which intends to study surprise and the ways several points-of-view go about it, sometimes the interior monologue is deafening. What if, instead of narrating each step of surprise, the book itself leapt? Well, that would be an entirely different book.
-Jen
 2.2.2006 thursday
 On Beauty by Zadie Smith Faculty husbands and wives and children go moderately wild and then try to understand why. Self-conscious, navel-gazing middle-classiness. Often difficult to decide who to take seriously, how to separate narrator from narration. Although Beauty is referenced and symbolized many times, nothing stuck.
-Jen
 2.1.2006 wednesday
 Looking for Jake: Stories by China Mieville These stories are one giant scare awaiting you around each corner; or each page if you prefer. Beautifully written (and drawn), the stories embed themselves into your sub-conscious leaving you with lingering symptoms of lost love, fantasy, dread, hope, doubt and awe.
-Jason Newcomb


twenty-four: the reviewers
email us your forty-two word review


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