Mr. West covers the main events in superstar Kanye West's life while also following the poet on her year spent researching, writing, and pregnant. The book explores how we are drawn to celebrities - to their portrayal in the media - and how we sometimes find great private meaning in another person's public story, even across lines of gender and race. Blake's aesthetics take her work from prose poems to lineated free verse to tightly wound lyrics to improbably successful sestinas. The poems fully engage pop culture as a strange, complicated presence that is revealing of America itself. This is a daring debut collection and a groundbreaking work. An online reader's companion will be available at http://sarahblake.site.wesleyan.edu.

This issue of Cirpit Review, inaugurating a new “time” for the journal, features a collection of essays and contributions variously inspired by the thought of Raion Panikkar. Certainly, he is one of the protagonists of the “intercultural transformation” or turn that has affected philosophy and theology. Symbol, dialogue, Christianness and ecosophy are some of the key concepts informing his inclusive and relational thought, gravitating around pluralism as its core notion. His theoretical efforts aimed at abandoning the paradigm that posits an intimate correspondence between thought and being, that is, the very premise grounding the enterprise of Western philosophy.

This issue contains the proceedings of the Symposium on Dialogical Dialogue and Raimon Panikkar, held in Baltimore in November 2013. It consisted of two separate events, held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). The first was the symposium, under the auspices of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, on the dialogical philosophy of Raimon Panikkar (22nd November). The other was the Roundtable Panel for the Comparative Studies in Religion Section of the AAR, presided by Gerald James Larson (UC Santa Barbara), on the legacy of Panikkar's comparative study of religion (24th November). This issue is dedicated to the enduring memory of Scott Thomas Eastham.

Dangerous Pity tells the story of Sebastian Clare, a well-known author living in the south of France, who is slowly coming to terms with the death of his mother. Onto the scene arrives the impish Ursula, a former student, who quickly insinuates herself into his life. Sebastian casts his mind back to the time when he and his wife, Claudia, had taken on a driver who became a menacing presence. Ursula continues her parasitic existence in Sebastian's life until events take a dramatic turn. Elizabeth Wassell superbly depicts a rich cast of characters, and captures the city of Nice in all its varied moods. Its central characters mix desire, regret, grief and obsession in a heady cocktail, and the descriptions of Nice and its cultural landscape are beautifully intriguing.

Mr Bawman Wants to Tango by Mogue Doyle is sure to reverberate given the current scandals in relation to the Catholic Church. It intertwines the pleasures of adolescence with the overly regulated and sometimes even menacing environment of a Catholic boarding school, which one can face either by showing Hank Chinaski-like indifference or keeping a stiff upper lip. Johnny and Martin are alcoholics living under a bridge in their home town. Their stories, and how they both ended up homeless, are intimately linked from the two years they spent together in a religious order's boarding school. Johnny tells the story of their initially innocent days in the school: their loneliness; their interactions with the other students and the canings they got from priests. He also describes their methods of dealing with the Mr Bawmans - the monks that prey on the naive young students for their own sexual gratification. However, the boys lives become more complicated once they meet two sisters working in the school kitchens. According to the societal rules of the students, liaisons with girls working in the school are not acceptable. When Martin impregnates his girlfriend, Billy - the school bully - in an episode with echoes of Lord of the Flies, holds a show trial to make an example of him to the rest of the students. With lyrical writing evoking comparisons to Pat McCabe and Flann O'Brien, Mogue Doyle delivers a darkly humorous coming-of-age tale with raw emotion dripping from the page.

Selected Stories gathers together some of the best examples of Benedict Kiely's work - a true and gifted man of letters. Edited by Ben Forkner, founder of The Journal of the Short Story. From 'Soldier, Red Soldier' and 'A Ball of Malt and Madame Butterfly' to 'A Letter to Peachtree', these stories sing in the unforgettable voice of an Irish master who inspired, and will continue to inspire, generations of readers and writers alike. These stories have a great deal taken from Ben's own experiences both abroad and at home in Ireland. Kiely captures various moments in Irish and American culture, many heavily influenced by his time as a lecturer in Georgia, writer-in-residence in Virginia, and as a reporter for the Irish Press. "Ben Kiely was - and therefore is - one of the great voices of 20th century literature, not just in Ireland but all over the world. That his stories survive, and indeed thrive, is a tribute to the power of literature. When it comes to storytelling there is really no such thing as an end, because the stories keep unfolding and influencing. Put him up there on the shelf alongside Joyce, Beckett, McGahern, O'Brien. With this version of Selected Stories, watch him develop a whole new readership." - Colum McCann.

Elizabeth Wassell's fifth novel Sustenance is an opulent tale of food and love. Who is Lily Murphy? She has platinum-blonde hair but dark eyes; she was born in New York to the daughter of a ballet dancer, but educated in England, and now she is a restaurant critic in Dublin. In Sustenance, we journey into Lily's world of sumptuous meals, but also into her troubled past, where the dinner table was heavy with menace. We also meet Nicholas Savage, the brilliant chef with whom she falls in love, but who, like Lily, harbors a dark secret. In scenes from Dublin to Belfast, Paris to Nice, and London to New York, Lily's world of restaurants, and her milieu of eccentric friends, lovers and the occasional enemy, is vividly portrayed. This mouth-watering novel - full of passion, pathos and startling descriptions of food - explores the mysterious realms of the heart and mind.

A year to the day after the death of their son, Moss Quinn's wife Eva Marie has been abducted. He is Dublin's star detective; investigating the disappearance of five women and the murder of another the year before. Moss's number-one suspect walks free from the subsequent trial amidst allegations of police brutality meted out by Quinn's partner, Joe Doyle - an old-school cop. Quinn's world is in turmoil, his marriage is a mess, his reputation after the trial is in tatters - and now his wife has been abducted. Somewhere out there, she is lying bound, gagged and left to die of thirst. Within 72 hours she will be in a coma or dead. A voice on the phone tells Quinn the clock is ticking and the clues to his wife's whereabouts are in his past. Building to a heart-stopping finale, with a cast of credible and colourful characters from the criminal underworld and police ranks alike, The Gathering of Souls is an authentic, dark tale of obsession, revenge and redemption. A touch Denis Lehane meets Joseph Wambaugh, this suspenseful, contemporary Irish thriller looks set to join John Connolly and Alex Barclay's book as an international bestseller.

Surrounded by the beauty of her native Mayo, eighteen-year-old Lily dreams of being a famous singer on the London stage – but her parents have planned a more normal life for her, pursuing a degree in UCD. However, leaving home also means leaving a passionate romance with a handsome, visiting American named Theo. Once in Dublin, secrets and betrayal abound when Lily's sister Moyra begins a relationship with Theo and Lily's Aunt Terry, a nun, appears to be harboring a hidden past. As Moyra's relationship with Theo turns grim, she desperately needs her sister's support to keep tragedy at bay. But, still longing to perform, Lily finds herself at a crossroads in life. Disturbing yet heart-warming, critical yet nostalgic, Carmen Cullen delivers a convincing portrayal of both the warmth and the wrath of 1940s Ireland. Never flinching from the savage social impact of the Church's power, Cullen's writing also conveys the charming and simplistic quality of the time, as reflected in the lines of classic Irish ballads, particularly those by the author's iconic aunt, Delia Murphy. This heartfelt and bittersweet story is a stirring evocation of a bygone era.

Voices of Civil War soldiers rise from the pages of Heroes for All Time. This book presents the war straight from the minds and pens of its participants; rich passages from soldiers' letters and diaries complement hundreds of outstanding period photographs, most previously unpublished. The soldiers' moving experiences, thoughts, and images animate each chapter. Written accounts by nurses and doctors, soldiers' families, and volunteers on the home front add intriguing details to our picture of the struggle, which claimed roughly 6,000 Connecticut lives. Rare war artifacts - a bone ring carved on the battlefield or a wad of tobacco acquired from a rebel picket - connect the reader to the men and boys who once owned them. From camp life to battle, from Virginia to Louisiana, from the opening shot at Bull Run to the cheering at Appomattox, Heroes for All Time tells the story of the war through vivid, personal portrayals.

What do "self" and "it" have in common? In Rae Armantrout's new poems, there is no inert substance. Self and it (word and particle) are ritual and rigmarole, song-and-dance and long distance call into whatever dark matter might exist. How could a self not be selfish? Armantrout accesses the strangeness of everyday occurrence with wit, sensuality, and an eye alert to underlying trauma, as in the poem "Price Points" where a man conducts an imaginary orchestra but "gets no points for originality." In their investigations of the cosmically mundane, Armantrout's poems use an extraordinary microscopic lens - even when she's glancing backwards from the outer reaches of space. An online reader's companion is available at http://raearmantrout.site.wesleyan.edu.

How do we come to terms with loss? How do we find love after tragedy? How can art and language help us to cope with life, and honor the dead? How does one act responsibly in a world that is both beautiful, full of suffering, and balanced precariously on the edge of despair and ruin? With humor, anger and great tenderness, Richard Michelson's poems explore the boundaries between the personal and the political, and the connections between history and memory. Growing up under the shadow of the Holocaust, in a Brooklyn neighborhood consumed with racial strife, Michelson's experiences were far from ordinary, yet they remain too much a part of the greater circle of poverty and violence to be dismissed as merely private concerns, safely past. It is Michelson's sense of humor and acute awareness of Jewish history, with its ancient emphasis on the fundamental worth of human existence that makes this accessible book, finally, celebratory and life-affirming.

As long as people have lived along Rhode Island's meandering coast, the ocean has provided them with a ready supply of food. Whether Native American or European transplants, fishermen sought to move beyond capturing individual fish to ensnaring entire schools. Searching for increasingly efficient ways to capture their prey, the trapping technologies that they invented evolved over time, and primitive stake traps gave way to fykes and weirs, much as they had along the entire New England coast. Fishermen from Rhode Island experimented with new designs capable of withstanding the punishing wind and waves, eventually creating a unique floating trap system. Today only four companies still use this ancient but effective technique. Author Markham Starr spent time on the docks, went to sea with the fishermen, and photographed them at work. His striking black-and-white images are accompanied by oral histories, poignantly documenting the industry. This book documents a tradition now hundreds of years old, the spirit and work ethic that drives these fishermen, and the austere beauty of working life on the coast.

Winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award, poetry category. Winner of the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Finalist for the 2015 National Book Award, poetry category. Finalist for the 2015 NAACP Image Awards in Poetry.Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is a sustained meditation on that which goes away - loved ones, the seasons, the earth as we know it - that tries to find solace in the processes of the garden and the orchard. That is, this is a book that studies the wisdom of the garden and orchard, those places where all - death, sorrow, loss - is converted into what might, with patience, nourish us.

The poems in Immigrant Model explore issues of individual and communal identity in the face of conflict, conflicting "truths" or histories, and uprootedness. They explore the notion of homeland as it relates to one's roots, adopted space, psychological terrain, gendered body. If the book reads as a collage of voices or shards rather than as a book with an identifiable arc, it's because that's the only way the poet has managed to answer, so far, the question, "What is it like to be of this world and this world and this world, while also of the elsewhere skirting these worlds? "

In poems initially inspired by Aeschylus' fifth-century B.C. trilogy "The Oresteia," which chronicles the fall of the House of Atreides, Loose Strife investigates the classical sense of loose strife, namely "to loose battle" or "sow chaos," a concept which is still very much with us more than twenty-five hundred years later.