Belzer, Richard: UFO's, JFK and Elvis : Conspiracies You Don't Have to Be Crazy to Believe (Ballantine Books). ""The scary part is that some of it sticks."; – Booklist

Slavin, Julia: The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club (Henry Holt & Company, Inc.). "Her characters do the unimaginable in an attempt to salvage their realities. Hilarious and inventive. "

Wallace, David Foster: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men: Stories (Little, Brown). Stories told in Q&A formats. A series of imagined interviews with men on their relationships with women – often tense, often hilarious.

Bowers, Cathy Smith: Traveling in Time of Danger (Iris Press). "A sensuous intelligence, a tongue both observant and precise, a brave and vulnerable heart… Reading her poems I find myself instructed, awakened, and moved." – Jane Hirshfield

Dillard, Annie. For the Time Being (Knopf). "It is this dilemma, the incomprehensibility of God and our profound need to understand, that underlie this graceful examination of the big questions: life and death, good and evil, the source of holiness." – Kirkus Reviews

Ellison, Ralph: Juneteenth (Random House). It's been 40 years since this author's last novel, The Invisible Man. His latest beautifully mythologizes June 19, 1865, the day the union troops landed at Galveston, Texas, bringing the news of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, two and a half years after the event.

Gowdy, Barbara: The White Bone (Henry Holt & Co.). Told from the point of view of Young Mud, an elephant. "Pretty amazing" – Amy Hempel

Herbert, Zbigniew. Elegy for the Departure: And Other Poems (The Ecco Press). This genius died last year – if you haven’t read him, you must. This translation is wonderfully accessible.

Herbert, Zbigniew. The King of the Ants: Mythological Essays (The Ecco Press). Second book published since he died.

Keegan, John: The First World War (Knopf). Another brilliant book from the award-winning author of The Second World War. Wonderfully readable scholarly description of the first Great War. Non-fiction.

Lesser, Wendy: The Amateur: An Independent Life of Letters (Pantheon). Extraordinary essays by the founder and editor of The Threepenny Review.

Lish, Gordon: Arcade or How to Write a Novel (Four Walls). Lish fans -it's his best work yet! Describes in true Lish fashion his quick journey from childhood to aging novelist.

Phillips, Dale Ray: My People’s Waltz (WW Norton). Debut collection. "Intense, fresh, ragged life." – Barry Hannah

Taylor, Mel: The Mitt Man (William Morrow). A pulsating first novel about how American racism shapes King Fish, a New Orleans grifter.

Warner, Alan: The Sopranos (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux). Possibly this Scottish icon’s best yet. See his interview in the Spring 1999 issue of Bomb Magazine or read the first chapter in April 4th’s NY Times: Books online.