Winter Solstice Small Press Holiday Recommendations.

As previously noted here, the Karen Lillis asked us for three holiday small press recommendations and asked that we limit these books to releases from the last two years.
We stuck to releases from the last two years, but we did not stick to just three, we should have, and could have, but we did not and are happy to report that we were not admonished for doing so, which is always nice.

For a more detailed commentary on our part please do hit the Karen the Small Press Librarian post containing our recommendations, but for those of you who just cannot wait, here's our list, with apologies to many, many others.

(1) Big World - Mary Miller

(2) Hush Up and Listen Stinky Pooh Butt - Ken Sparling

(3) Grease Stains, Wisdom, and Maternal Wisdom - Mel Bosworth

Also, and, somewhat collectively:

(1) Stories II - Scott McClanahan

(2) The National Virginity Pledge - Barry Graham

(3) Songs of Insurgency - Spencer Dew

And finally, because this book just has not gotten enough attention:

(1) The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli - Ginetta Correli

This Book Will Change Your Life - Sweet Charlotte's Seventh Mistake by Cori Crooks.

We recently had the chance to read Sweet Charlotte's Seventh Mistake by Cori Crooks and to say it makes for an intriguing companion piece to Dear Everybody by Michael Kimball or even The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli by Ginetta Correli would be most accurate we think. It is memoir as scrapbook, and its pages are filled with shreds of memory, swirling fragments of truths and untruths and the detritus, both physical and emotional, we accumulate across a lifetime. It is beautiful and dissonant. And it just might change your life.