Samuel Hazo is known to the world of letters for his poetry and his fiction, but he’s also an incisive and observant essayist. In this collection we meet Hazo the critic, Hazo the observer, Hazo the traveler, Hazo the moralist, and above all Hazo the human being.
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Doug Brown’s stories are weird. He sees the world through some sort of custom microscope that reveals the weirdness of normal people and situations, and conveys that revelation in bracing, inventive language. This is his first collection; I can’t wait for his second.
—Jane Greer, author, Love like a Conflagration
and The World as We Know It Is Falling Away
In Becoming Done, Samuel Hazo sees grief from a vantage granted to few—and speaks it clearly. Here he is at the height of his powers, which have always been formidable. This book displays all the art that has gathered an audience and earned him many honors over his lifetime, including a National Book Award nomination and his role as the first Poet Laureate of Pennsylvania.
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Here’s an unusual chance to see the inner workings of a poet’s mind. Passing images, unanswered questions, social ills, daily frustrations—nothing is too big or too small to be worth observing and considering.
“He had the window seat. After take-off he said, ‘My line is socks; what’s yours?’ I said I was a writer. He smiled his least impressive smile and asked, ‘What do you write?’ I paused and said, ‘I hope they are poems.’ ‘Where are you headed now?’ he added. I told him I’d been invited to recite my poems at a university. ‘They pay you for that?’ ”
The plan was simple: set fire to Rome, massacre the rich, loot their property, and take over the government. It was up to Cicero—a bookish orator—to save the republic. Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Cato: they all have their parts to play, and the masterful pen of Gaston Boissier makes these outsized characters live once more.
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A Catholic bishop running a gas station? Well, that was the story they told in Millbrook, New York. And it turned out to be true.
But the gas station is hardly the most interesting thing about this fascinating character. His is a story of catacombs in Rome, a failed bomb-building business in Connecticut and a sewer system in Cuba.
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One of the most valuable histories of late antiquity is finally available in an economical and useful English edition, with the standard chapter numbers, chronological headings, and helpful and entertaining supplements.
What was it like to be a pagan after the final Christianization of the Empire? For Zosimus, it was clear that Rome had declined and Roman glory was gone—and it was all the Christians’ fault. The Romans had risen to power because they had the favor of the gods; Roman power collapsed because the gods justly withdrew their favor. Zosimus tells us at the beginning that this will be the theme of his history, and he sticks to it.
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Samuel Hazo is a legend in the world of poetry, and now he brings us a novel put together with a poet’s care, each sentence honed and crafted until the craft is completely invisible.
I Want It to Happen is a romance—but much more than just a romance. The plot is simple. When Halleluiah Quinn met Tonio Vargas, they knew this was forever. But when her doctor gives her a fifty-fifty chance of survival, Halleluiah has to learn just how much forever she can pack into right now. Two completely different styles of narration weave the tale and introduce us to characters who seem to live right in front of us.
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You know Mike Aquilina from his TV shows on EWTN, from his bestselling books on the Church Fathers, from his podcasts, from his radio appearances. But do you know Mike Aquilina the poet? The Invention of Zero is a collection of splendidly humorous poems in a glittering variety of forms. If you thought about the structures of these poems, you would be dazzled by their technical brilliance. But you’ll probably be enjoying yourself too much to think about technique. This is poetry doing what poetry does best—making us laugh, making us think, making us feel and remember.
