Slant

07/12/2023

A Polish classic, now in English, just arrived in the Polish snow. Publication date worldwide: 12/12. https://slantbooks.org/books/kinderszenen/

07/12/2023

George Dardess on the "paradoxical spirituality" of Nobel laureate Jon Fosse's "Septology." Today at Slant's Close Reading blog.

Jon Fosse’s novel Septology (published in Norwegian in 2019) is a monologue beginning and ending in the mind of Asle, an elderly widowed Norwegian painter living in the countryside on the proceeds from the sale of his paintings. He communes throughout the next 667 pages with a self who becomes bot...

05/12/2023

Emily Wilson's translation of the Iliad is "a perfect balance between common speech and the grandness appropriate for this story of great heroes." Peggy Rosenthal, today at Slant's Close Reading blog.

I’ve always preferred The Odyssey to The Iliad—preferring adventurous peace to adventurous war. But when I heard good things about Emily Wilson’s new translation of The Iliad, I decided to buy it. I wasn’t sorry. I’d say that Wilson’s translation is a perfect balance between common speec...

04/12/2023

These words were spoken on a great podcast about Richard Michelson's "Sleeping as Fast as I Can." https://open.spotify.com/episode/2iIeIDNebT7jYLAO7jFmuh?si=FqA59WHlQBidiEnR7vcrBQ&nd=1&dlsi=3b5dd0267eb7453d

02/12/2023

A group of friends who do a podcast talk about the first chapter of Lorenzo Albacete's "Cry of the Heart: On the Meaning of Suffering": (the first in a series).

‎Show In The Thicket, Ep S4E10: Advent Series 1, God on Trial - Nov 26, 2023

01/12/2023

Christmas shop at Slant's 10th Anniversary Sale -- a win-win situation (great gifts & great DEALS!). https://slantbooks.square.site/

30/11/2023

Well, well, would you lookee here? Publication date: January 9, 2024.

30/11/2023

Well, lookee here. Pub date: January 9, 2024.

29/11/2023

Beautiful review of Amit Majmudar's "Twin A" (Slant Books): the author "borrows language and themes from the epics of different civilizations, suggesting that if there is any epic greater to us than our own lives, it is found in the lives of our children."

In this story, medical extremity leads to an extremity of grace

28/11/2023

It's Giving Tuesday and Slant needs your help. Will you help? Follow the link to read our appeal letter. https://slantbooks.org/close-reading/essays/research-into-the-human-the-2023-slant-books-annual-appeal/

27/11/2023

Dear Friends: Slant only asks for donations once a year but that time has returned. We are launching the 2023 Annual Appeal for Slant under our new motto: "Research into the Human." Please support the cause of literature. Read the appeal letter. Then either give now or make a note to donate before the new year. Thank you:

As Slant Books wraps up its second year as an indie, nonprofit press, I’m full of gratitude for the authors and readers who have come together under our auspices to form a true “Republic of Letters.” And I’m writing now to ask you to help us grow and flourish in the years to come.

24/11/2023

Boycott the crassness of Black Friday with some timeless literary goodness (while also getting a badass deal @ the Slant 10th Anniversary Sale!) And pick up some Xmas gifts while you're at it! https://slantbooks.square.site/

23/11/2023

To all our authors, readers, reviewers, and especially to our donors, our deepest thanks for helping Slant Books do essential research into the human.
10th Anniversary sale: https://slantbooks.square.site/
Donate here: https://slantbooks.org/donate/

21/11/2023

As we draw close to Thanksgiving, we at Slant have a lot to be grateful for, including you, our readers. Don't forget that our way of thanking you is our 10th Anniversary Book Sale: https://slantbooks.square.site/

17/11/2023

Jonathan Geltner finds inspiration in a "bizarre, troubled, and ecstatic Englishman," an almost forgotten writer who has helped him explore a new American mythology. Today at Slant's Close Reading blog.

A writer needs mythology. A writer cares about this world first, but he cares about representing it by means of signs and symbols which reveal this world to be both itself and more than itself: a fantasy or, better yet, a theophany. Some New World writers have not let the clear light of history stop...

16/11/2023

"Walker has done a great service to people like me, who have also left behind certainty and entrusted ourselves to faith." First review of "Leaping from the Burning Train"! https://farefwd.com/index.php/2023/11/15/leaping-from-the-burning-train/

15/11/2023

The book launch event video for Jeanne Murray Walker's "Leaping from the Burning Train" is now available. https://youtu.be/13I2Ricumr8?si=FeP7TKR5RW-RrAIl

14/11/2023

Read an excerpt from Jeanne Murray Walker's memoir (just out from Slant Books), "Leaping from the Burning Train: A Poet's Journey of Faith."

This is a book about a girl who left home without quite meaning to. One evening, doing her algebra homework, the sixteen-year-old abruptly realizes the tight-knit fundamentalist community she has been raised in may not have all the answers it claims to have.

13/11/2023

"Poetry Chose Me": Q&A with Jeanne Murray Walker on the occasion of the publication of her memoir, "Leaping from the Burning Train: A Poet's Journey of Faith" from Slant Books:

I miss the very close community that I believe we all felt when my family and other families in our conservative Baptist church saw one another as special and bonded. We counted on one another. Whenever the pastor turned the lights on, we were there: Sunday School, church, prayer meeting, young peop...

10/11/2023

"The only whole heart is a broken heart, said Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk." Rick Chess on going to Israel as a young man -- and never really leaving, today at Slant's Close Reading blog.

Two weeks after the dramatic July 4, 1976, rescue of hostages—Israeli as well as non-Israeli Jews—from Entebbe International Airport, I learned my first word of modern Hebrew: savlanut. Along with seventy other volunteers, I was in a chapel across from the JFK terminal where our El Al flight wou...

09/11/2023

SNEAK PEEK: Coming Soon from Slant Books (a terrific debut!).

08/11/2023

TONIGHT! Join us! Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIuc-GtqjkvGNJu3-oRuGuN4-D5vy4_Iw8L

07/11/2023

Congratulations to Jeanne Murray Walker: it's publication day for her absorbing memoir, "a poet's journey of faith." Ordering choices here: https://slantbooks.org/books/leaping-from-the-burning-train/ Register for the live book launch tomorrow evening here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIuc-GtqjkvGNJu3-oRuGuN4-D5vy4_Iw8L

06/11/2023

Curious to learn more about this year's Nobel Laureate in Literature? Check out the latest episode of SlantCast as host Gregory Wolfe is joined by novelist Jonathan Geltner to discuss the writing of Jon Fosse.

SlantCast host Gregory Wolfe, publisher & editor of Slant Books, is joined by novelist Jonathan Geltner to discuss the fiction of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Lit...

02/11/2023

As we close out the year, we're bringing back the Slant 10th Anniversary Book Sale: prices slashed on many titles but supplies are limited. Check it out! https://slantbooks.square.site/

01/11/2023

ONE WEEK FROM TODAY! REGISTER NOW for the live book launch reading event for "Leaping from the Burning Train" with Jeanne Murray Walker. https://slantbooks.org/news/register-for-the-live-book-launch-of-jeanne-walkers-leaping-from-the-burning-train/

30/10/2023

After a retreat in Ireland (where he learned about the possibility of peace after long-entrenched battle), Brian Volck considers the small but significant ways literature can contribute to changing the narrative of conflict. Today at Slant's Close Reading blog:

26/10/2023

The links between knitting and writing are plentiful. Peggy Rosenthal gathers evidence from Ann Hood, Andre Dubus III, Jane Smiley, & Barbara Kingsolver, today at Slant's Close Reading blog.

Among my favorite activities are writing, reading, and knitting. So when my sister told me about an essay collection with the aptly punned title, Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting, I of course bought it immediately. Here were three of my top pastimes all together: I could read what well-known writ...

19/10/2023

Read an excerpt from Bob Pack's posthumous poetry collection. We double-dare you not to smile or laugh out loud while reading these poems.

Searching for Home, Robert Pack’s splendid twenty-second collection of poems, written largely during his last year of life, centers on the search for meaning.

16/10/2023

"When we FaceTime I never think about how nouns become verbs, how mother mothered me." Rick Chess reads Denise Levertov and talks to his mom, today at Slant's Close Reading blog.

I accompany you as you hold onto your walker, taking one difficult step after another, inching your way, labored breath by breath, toward the dining room, a meal you refuse to eat. My life, as it always has been, is elsewhere. So, every day we FaceTime. We don’t have much to say to each other now....

13/10/2023

AUDIO VERSION: To celebrate the posthumous publication of Robert Pack's final poetry collection, SlantCast host Gregory Wolfe is joined by poets Paul Mariani, Richard Jackson, Jane Scharl, with special guest appearances by Gary Margolis and Julia Alvarez!

To celebrate the posthumous publication of Robert Pack's final poetry collection, SlantCast host Gregory Wolfe is joined by poets Paul Mariani, Richard Jackson, Jane Scharl, with special guest appearances by Gary Margolis and Julia Alvarez!

13/10/2023

FIRST SIGHTING: Olga Sedakova's "Old Songs" catches the eye of National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2023/11/the-bookshelf-new-and-upcoming-releases/

12/10/2023

SAVE THE DATE! Online Book Launch for Jeanne Murray Walker's "Leaping from the Burning Train," Wed., Nov. 8, 7 pm Central. B there or B square. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIuc-GtqjkvGNJu3-oRuGuN4-D5vy4_Iw8L

12/10/2023

"The lan­guage of Michelson’s poems is rich with the wry­ness, depth, and trag­ic echoes of Jew­ish humor." Nan Cohen on Richard Michelson's "Sleeping as Fast as I Can" (Slant): https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/sleeping-as-fast-as-i-can

11/10/2023

TONIGHT! Please join us for the bittersweet occasion of launching the late Bob Pack's final book of poems. Paul Mariani & others will offer tributes & read from the collection, "Searching for Home," now available from Slant Books. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMuf-upqDsvHNYE2XDiwhIf6D0Dv7aolFu5

10/10/2023

TOMORROW NIGHT! Celebrate the publication of the late Bob Pack's final poetry collection with Paul Mariani & other friends of the poet. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMuf-upqDsvHNYE2XDiwhIf6D0Dv7aolFu5

09/10/2023

Jonathan Geltner on Nobel laureate Jon Fosse's "contemplative fiction." Today at Slant's Close Reading blog.

Today, in honor of the new Nobel laureate, I’d like to look at the first of Jon Fosse’s works of fiction that I read, back in 2016, Aliss at the Fire. The most salient features of Fosse’s writing are present in this short novel from 2004. When I read Aliss at the Fire, Fosse’s monumental, my...

25/01/2023

TONIGHT. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZctf-ygqjwvE9w56_Tfb33yvTd_rphk9XD_

23/01/2023

WEDNESDAY EVENING: Join us for a live SlantCast with guest Jonathan Geltner: our topic will be Cormac McCarthy's two recent novels. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZctf-ygqjwvE9w56_Tfb33yvTd_rphk9XD_

23/01/2023

Lying on various gurneys in the Emergency Department in recent days, George Dardess has been comforted by the poetry he's memorized: "words arranged in just the way they must be to bring heaven and earth together...that transform the loneliness and darkness of the moment into what Keats called a “'greeting of the spirit.'” Today at Slant's Close Reading blog.

I’ve lain or languished on various gurneys in our local hospital’s ED in recent days—cardiac and GI disorders brought me there. But I’m not thinking now about the medical issues involved. I’m thinking rather about what enabled me to find joy and solace in what was otherwise a painful, tedi...