We're zooming in and out of T. Fleischmann's life in this dazzingly beautiful piece of literature, which is exactly what its title would suggest: a fragmentory reflection on what it means to have a trans body, and how it affects Fleischmann's way of existing in time, explored through a work that is part memoir, part travelogue and part essay about the artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Fleischmann choses to literally reject all kinds of metaphor, but they also don't feel the need to spell things out - that's why this book manages to invent an unusually poetic space where things remain just as they are, capable of carrying multiple meanings at once (queer experience being the main aspect this relates to, but not exclusively so). This is a text that is messy on purpose, that is hard to grasp and at the same perfectly precise; an ode to being complexely alive in the world.

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"Eiscafé Europa" ist ein wirres Gedankengestrüpp, das sich aus Teilsätzen, Einwürfen, Zitaten speist und dabei unglaublich einnehmend ist. Maci benutzt als Erzählmittel der Wahl oft die eigene, sich zwischen Albanien und Deutschland abspielende Jugend. Wenn sie über minderjährige Barabende schreibt, über ihre Mutter, die Sido gut findet, oder Berührungspunkte mit hippen Neuen Identitären Frauen via Social Media, geht es weniger um die Geschichte der Autorin, sondern vielmehr um das große Ganze, getragen von einer erfrischenden Neugierde - danach, wie alles (einschließlich der eigenen Biografie) miteinander zusammenhängt. Cool, politisch, manchmal polemisch, schlägt sie sich, dem Zeitgeist gemäß, durchs Internet, als wäre es ihr Spielplatz; immer auf der Suche nach Wissen, ohne aber Anspruch zu erheben auf Vollständig- oder besser: Ganzheitlichkeit.

Not many authors manage to be admired and thought of as somehow 'classic' with only three books under their belt but Jo Ann Beard is one of them. Her debut essay collection "Boys of My Youth" introduced her trademark style of autofictional, highly stylized and ruminative essays that centre around keen observations of beautiful quotidian lives. After having published a novel, this collection once again returns to the literary essay. Death, its reality and propensity for forcing clarity is the theme that runs through the book. The death of a beloved dog, of a friend, of oneself indeed. Beard collects beautiful details, seemingly small things and weaves an almost spiritual literary tapestry from her material. I found myself losing her sometimes but if you trust her, an astonishing hook, a breathtakingly turned sentence will always draw you back in.

It's admittedly slightly too late for this recommendation, but then again the Italian April is arguably more equal to the German May. An absolutely delightful holiday novel about four women escaping to a romantic Italian castle for some time to themselves - only to be literally spellbound by it. Read it for the lush Italian gardens and the irresistible spring airs - maby skim over some of the more dated romantic version of musical chairs.

I almost never read memoirs so the fact alone that I picked this up in the first place is a real compliment to the book. At the heart of "Memorial Drive" is the author's mother, an impressive and driven women who is tragically killed by her ex-partner in her 30s. In recounting her life story, Trethewey is circeling around her own raw pain but also draws a wider picture about the insidious nature of domestic violence. Not only does it take her mother a long time and real resourcefulness to leave the abusive relationship, in the aftermath the absolute helplessness of the authorities is revealed, despite clear murderous intent on the perpetrators side. What does it take, the book seems to ask, to finally take these kinds of threats seriously? The answer might not be clear, but this memoir is a moving and angry question.

Although "Never let me go" deals with a classic sci-fi theme, it narrowly misses that genre.
Kathy, Ruth and Tommy grow up in an alternative late 20th century England where medicine has advanced to the point where human clones are created to keep "real people" alive longer by donating organs. Our main characters are such clones, raised in a boarding school in the countryside, a parallel world where they grow up sheltered but also under the dark shadow of their destiny.
The underlying conflict they are all struggling with - how much personality, how much individual can you be when you know you were only created after someone else and will have to sacrifice yourself for them at some point? - carries the story with a heavy melancholy.
Ishiguru does not write about the dystopian world he has created here (much of the background remains unclear), but about his "second-class people". He answers the question of their humanity for us in the most beautiful, subtle way.

Jane Austen is a writer ruined by TV adaptation (before you all start writing letters, I know there are good ones). Despite two centuries of inclusion in the canon, there are still many (and I am afraid they are mostly men) who dismiss her as 'frivolous', 'saccharine' or 'unserious'. This means it is only worth continuing to discuss Austen with people if they either don't use any of the aforementioned adjectives or if, by the latter, they mean, she is one of the funniest writers in English (full stop). If you don't know this already, the first page of 'Persuasion' will convince you, and then her biting, satirical commentary on Georgian society will show you that far from reverently writing about it out of admiration, she irreverently lambasts it and its eccentric snobbish hierarchy (people who write her off will probably say John Oliver likes Trump because both wear suits). If you don't believe me (and even if you do), read her (and start with 'Persuasion') before you watch her.

The titular essay in this collection is one of the funniest bits of writing you will ever read (full stop). Foster Wallace may be beginning to descend into the realms of the unfashionable but that should not stop you reading his account of a grim holiday on a cruise ship. From the name he gives the ship to his feelings of pure hatred for a small boy who sits at the table with him each evening and his endless stream of snide footnotes, I don't think there are many funnier examples of the essay form in English. The rest of the collection (like all collections) has some major highs and a few lows but the cruise ship is worth the cover price alone.

Author

Fleischmann, T.

T Fleischmann is the author of Syzygy, Beauty (Sarabande) and the curator of Body Forms: Queerness and the Essay (Essay Press). A nonfiction editor at DIAGRAM and contributing editor at the blog Essay Daily, they have published critical and creative work in journals such as the Los Angeles Review of Books, Fourth Genre, Gulf Coast, and others, as well in the anthologies Bending Genre, How We Speak to One Another, Little Boxes, and Feminisms in Motion.

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Time Is the Thing a Body Moves Through

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