In this, Liu’s fourth book of poems, the evidence is the minutiae and banalities that comprise everyday lives; each moment is made extraordinary in its realness, both brutal and beautiful. “Sometimes blood. / Or bruise or death you... Read More

“The violin is my life, but the viola my destiny,” says Paganini upon receiving the infamous Destiny viola, or the Voice of Manush. This second book of the “Destiny Suite,” a grand mythology of classical music, chronicles the... Read More

The art of prevarication is alive and well. In Here Lies, the title of which comes from first-class liar Dorothy Parker, that art is taken to a new level. In this collection of twenty-one short stories, “every story either features the... Read More

In Greek mythology, the Hesperides were the daughters of Atlas, who guarded a golden-apple-producing tree of life. Zeus and Hera received the tree as a wedding present and planted it in a beautiful garden protected by a dragon.... Read More

The night was dark, the village small. The young men jostled each other as they made their way into the Shinto shrine, pressing together so tightly that the entire mass of humanity hovered a few feet above the ground. The Festival of... Read More

The schooner America is surely the most famous vessel in the history of yacht racing. Even confirmed landlubbers probably know the story of how she trounced the cream of England’s racing fleet in 1851 and established a competitive... Read More

Most men, including gay men, when in the presence of effeminate gay men, look at them with nervous disdain, even disgust. Masculine gay men often find sissies as distasteful, if not more so, than do straight men. Bergling, an ex-marine,... Read More