{"id":534,"date":"2009-12-16T08:57:45","date_gmt":"2009-12-16T13:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lanternreview.com\/blog\/?p=534"},"modified":"2009-12-16T08:59:39","modified_gmt":"2009-12-16T13:59:39","slug":"staff-picks-holiday-reading-recommendations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/16\/staff-picks-holiday-reading-recommendations\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks: Holiday Reading Recommendations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether you’ll be traveling or relaxing at home during the upcoming holidays, it’s a great time to\u00a0polish off an old\u00a0reading list or to start in on something new.\u00a0 As our gift to you this season, and to help you get started on your own holiday reading list, we’ve asked members of the LR Staff to\u00a0recommend some of their recent favorites.\u00a0 Here are our suggestions.<\/p>\n

\"QuanBarryAsylum\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Asylum | <\/em><\/strong>Quan Barry | University of Pittsburgh Press (2001)<\/a><\/p>\n

Recommended by Mia:<\/strong> “My holiday reading pick . . . it’s her first collection.\u00a0\u00a0Her engagement with the voices and subjects of the Vietnam War is beautifully executed, and though the scope of her work is much broader, I was most riveted by her ‘war’ poems.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\"BehindMyEyesLiYoungLee\"<\/a>
\nBehind My Eyes | <\/a><\/em><\/strong>Li-Young Lee | W.W. Norton & Company (2008)<\/a><\/p>\n

Recommended by Iris:<\/strong> “This is Lee’s most recent collection — and it is stunning, as always.\u00a0 Figurations of the Virgin Mary intertwine with moving landscapes, conversations between the poet and his wife, the transitory spaces of travel, a chance vision of the poet’s father; all\u00a0hang in a delicate, almost sacred, lumen,\u00a0suspended somewhere between heaven and\u00a0earth.\u00a0\u00a0Each poem\u00a0breathes with\u00a0an expansiveness and a grave\u00a0tenderness\u00a0that only\u00a0Lee knows how to render. Behind My Eyes<\/em> is sold with a CD of the poet reading some\u00a0the poems in the book, and I highly recommend listening to this, as well.\u00a0 I had the privilege of hearing Lee read from his drafts for this book a few years before it came out, and loved the way that the\u00a0intonation of his voice seamed through the lines of each poem, threading them together in a low, sonorous hum.\u00a0 It’s a beautiful listening experience, and adds a new and lovely textural dimension to\u00a0his already melodious poetics.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\"CallMeIshmaelTonightAghaShahidAli\"<\/a>
\nCall Me Ishmael Tonight | <\/a><\/em><\/strong>Agha Shahid Ali | W.W. Norton & Company (2003)<\/a><\/p>\n

Recommended by Supriya:<\/strong> “This collection of ghazals shows the versatile ways in which a poetic form can go beyond its history and language while staying true to its essence. Agha Shahid Ali demonstrates the intentionality with which he overcomes expectations and boundaries by using a traditional form that often evokes feelings of longing and melancholia but writing in a contemporary English that feels timeless. Although written entirely in form, the range and depth of this collection allows for a vast expanse of emotions and possibilities and is the perfect collection with which to curl up whatever your mood.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\"AGestureLifeChangRaeLee\"<\/a>
\nA Gesture Life | <\/a><\/em><\/strong>Chang-rae Lee | Penguin USA (2000)<\/a><\/p>\n

Recommended by Ada:<\/strong> “Told from the point of view of Dr. Hata, a Japanese WWII veteran, this fictional memoir weaves between his experiences in a crumbling outpost of a Japanese imperial outpost in the last days of the war and his later life in gated, suburban America. The protagonist in Lee’s second novel is so reasonable it’s eerie, and though I think that we are meant to feel sorry for Dr. Hata and the stiffly respectable, appropriately understated life he has bound himself into, the distance that separates him from all the other characters in this book translates into distance from the reader. Not that the whole book left me cold: the scenes describing Dr. Hata’s encounters with Korean comfort women during the war are eye-opening, gripping, and an interesting perspective on the terrors of war.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

We also highly recommend any of the titles that we’ve featured in our\u00a0posts to date.\u00a0 Some notables:<\/p>\n