#shitwonder

Throughout the year we have the pleasure of reading and enjoying CLMP member publisher work. It's absolutely impossible to narrow down the books we loved to just a handful of picks, but in the spirit of holiday recommendations, here are a few books that really rocked our worlds this year. 

-Julie 

Jeffrey Lependorf, Executive Director

Montague Kobbe's debut novel Night of the Rambler, published by Akashic Books, features an inspirational and ragtag band of revolutionaries in a fictionalized imagining of the actual and unbelievable Anguillan rebellion of 1967, told in stupendously original prose. I enjoyed spending some quality time with a favorite performance artist/critic through the essays in Soberscove's Scott Burton: Collected Writings on Art and Performance, 1965-1975, and similarly have been enjoying the treasure-trove of performance documented in volume two of the annual Emergency Index from Ugly Ducking Presse (not to mention getting a lot of possibly great ideas for far more interesting future literary events). A Dark Dreambox of Another Kind: The Poems of Alfred Starr Hamilton, from Song Cave, introduced me to the haunting, sparkling words of this not-well-enough-known poet who passed away in 2000. 

Trisha Low, Membership and Development Director

The thing about indie lit publishing fandom is that it is almost like there is this never ending bag of the most delicious potato chips in the world, right? But then having a crush on an indie lit book is like when you eat a potato chip and you want to eat it so quickly that you don't chew it enough and you feel it slide slowly down your throat and it slices up your insides very very slowly. 

So: one book that really made me swallow and told me how do you like 'em bones was Kim Rosenfield's USO: I'll Be Seeing You (Ugly Duckling Presse) because laughing only kind of means you're fighting the war, let alone winning. From Les Figues Press came Dodie Bellamy's Cunt Norton, which is still the tough delicious lubricating drip in the back nasal cavity that's no doubt better than the mediocre blow I only tried because everyone else was doing it back in the 90s. And finally, from Wonder, pair Ben Fama's Mall Witch with the new One Direction album Midnight Memories. Dysphoria/dystopia talk in the good way but only for the holidays! Anyway, happy it! Happy them! xoxo, t. 

Julie Buntin, Programs and Outreach Director