Friday Finds

It’s Beginning to Hurt by James Lasdun

From Publishers Weekly

Lasdun peels back the facades of middle-aged, middle-class types through their run-ins with cancer, infidelity and loss that lead them to deal with unexpectedly large and often ugly recognitions. The title story is less than three full pages, but generates near-boundless futility and regret as a businessman, having just attended the funeral of a long forgotten former lover, can't help falling back into the old habit of lying to his wife about how he's spent the day. The Incalculable Life Gesture builds to a climax of relief as an elementary school principal, feuding with his sister, follows through a series of tests that indicate he has lymphoma—until a specialist reveals the truth of his ailment. In Peter Kahn's Third Wife, a sales assistant in a jewelry boutique models necklaces for a wealthy wine importer who brings in a series of successive wives-to-be over the years.

Bone Dream by Moira MacDougall

Product Description

The poems in Bone Dream are darkly sensuous, capturing the unspoken moments of life through images firmly grounded in the body and the material world. Relationships, family and death are explored at times through the medium of a dancers body, and at other times through the everyday artefacts we find around us. These poems move, disturb and bring us to realization.