On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.

Fernando Pessoa was many writers in one. He attributed his prolific writings to a wide range of alternate selves, each of which had a distinct biography, ideology. and horoscope. When he died in 1935, Pessoa left behind a trunk filled with unfinished and unpublished writings, among which were the remarkable pages that make up his posthumous masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet, an astonishing work that, in George Steiner's words, "gives to Lisbon the haunting spell of Joyce's Dublin or Kafka's Prague."Published for the first time some fifty years after his death, this unique collection of short, aphoristic paragraphs comprises the "autobiography" of Bernardo Soares, one of Pessoa's alternate selves. Part intimate diary, part prose poetry, part descriptive narrative, captivatingly translated by Richard Zenith, The Book of Disquiet is one of the greatest works of the twentieth century.

It's a book of grief and anxiety, of questions and confessions. One that explores the way pain and anxiety can be simultaneously public and private, constant but not always at the top of a person's mind. A book that asks: what if the words we angrily (or drunkenly) tap out on our phones, that we save as notes, or send to ex lovers, or post publicly on social media, the ones we send without bothering to correct for typos, are the words we mean the most?

"What Gabby Bess captures with her words is the beauty of a fragile time &amp; place. In this collection, she evokes what it means to be young, to be a woman, to have both feet firmly planted both in this world &amp; the virtual. She asks fascinating questions like, 'Is anyone moved by the plainness of raw skin anymore?' She makes you trust she's the necessary answers with intelligence &amp; confidence. In this book, she builds an identity for herself, tears it down &amp; builds herself anew. It's breathtaking to behold."--Roxane Gay, author of An Untamed State &amp; Bad Feminist“The poems &amp; prose pieces in this smart &amp; complex collection illuminate the shape of a new, 21st century webcam feminism—one that questions its own ambitions, knows the shape of pornstar mouths &amp; doubts the sanctity of individuality when pitted against the existential. Gabby writes with radical uncertainty about illusions of control, the limits of identity &amp; what it means to still want to kiss another human amidst the screenshots. This is a book that invents its own female gaze &amp; then, like a bad bitch, breaks the lens.”--Melissa Broder, author of Meat Heart“Gabby Bess’s Alone with Other People orchestrates an impressive catalog of young human want with a uncompromising style. In the span between its 1st phrase The sex can be rough &amp; its last sentence, Panic, the reader forward thru a virtual rolodex of self-inquisition shaped by boredom, horror, aspiration, fear for future, wonder, lust. There’s a lot of intense light coming off this book full of screens &amp; suns &amp; large black dots.”--Blake Butler, author of Sky Saw“Don’t take me for crazy when I say that the verse “Hahaha, am I alone here?” is the one that best sums up Gabby’s incredible debut book, because it’s true. Thru each &amp; every page that makes up Alone with Other People, the author manages to head out into the world with a sane, witty &amp; protesting laugh. A laugh about the strength of woman, of youth, of poetry. When Gabby says hahaha, it also starts to unravel before our very eyes a series of texts that first &amp; foremost find beauty in the mundane, followed by the universality of intimacy, &amp; lastly (&amp; most importantly): the sensation that with this book, we will never, ever feel lonely again.”--Luna Miguel, author of Bluebird &amp; Other Tattoos“Of-the-moment, brilliant &amp; triumphantly sad, Illuminati Girl Gang leader Gabby Bess’s debut Alone with Other People is a post-feminist, hyper selfconscious teen swansong of the Internet age. The line between girl body &amp; Macbook is collapsed in these vignettes that riff from blog posts, text messages &amp; tumblr memes, &amp; what emerges is a “modern tragic figure who would sacrifice herself for whatever.”--Kate Durbin, author of E! Entertainment“Alone with Other People deftly deals with relationships in a highly mediated age–one that twists our perceptions of self &amp; others. Gabby shows us how we can be simultaneously complicit in this culture but still have the desire to fight against it.”--Ann Hirsch, performance artist

This reading experience was like no other. Robison's main character invites/swallows(?) the reader far into her everyday life. One moment she is reading her to-do list, another she is speeding down the highway blasting music, out-racing the cops. One time she threw her sunglasses out her car window, then proceeded to run over them 37 times. The details of our world--fabrics, rugs, paint, pets, phones, litter, drugs, gifts, laundry, cigarettes, radios, chairs, clothes, drawers, newspapers--are in the forefront here, they vividly populate the disarray and livelihood of the narrator. At one point a chair in the laundromat is described as a "shrimp-colored scoop chair" or something close to that. The narrator is the irrational, misguided, well-meaning, clumsy, nostalgic, lazy, inspired, reckless loon inside us all. It is a joy to follow her fleeting moods and deft eye document these odd moments of life. I have never felt this way reading a book--but any time the plot was close to getting started, I wanted to get back to the thoughts and stray moments, back to life and away from the story.

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