From the Stacks: November 10, 2006

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Utne Reader's library is abuzz with a steady flow of 1,500 magazines, newsletters, journals, weeklies, zines, and other lively dispatches from the cultural front that are rarely found at big-box bookstores, newsstands, or even online. So we share the highlights (and occasional lowlights) of what's landing in our library each week in 'From the Stacks.' Check in every Friday for the latest edition.

If you've lost hope in poetry, a visit with Don Wentworth's Lilliput Review may do you some good. The poems in issues 152 through 154, like those throughout the zine's 17 year history, are all short. Some impart only two or three well-considered words, so you won't lose much time if you don't dig one. The verses Wentworth selects tread (for the most part) far from the traps of pretension that snare many a poem. And his thoughtful compilation places uncannily similar ideas from entirely different authors side by side. Lillie, as Wentworth calls it, features poets from all over the country, entangling them with overlapping themes. Perhaps not surprisingly, the pocket-sized charmer has been nominated for an Utne Independent Press Award in the zine category. -- Suzanne Lindgren

A book chock full of pictures of females -- unclothed! -- from newborns to 94-year-olds may not sound like a book you'd let near your coffee table. But Bodies and Souls is anything but some shady photographer's attempt at art. The book is a culmination of The Century Project, a photo exhibit that has traveled across the United States and Canada. Women of all ages, sizes, shapes, colors, and histories have posed, as they chose, for photographer Frank Cordelle. Some cover their bodies in modesty or insecurity, others appear completely comfortable in their bare skin. Often, notes from the women appear next to their pictures, the words revealing struggles with body image, abuse, disease, and other wounds healed or still open. Along with the pictures, these autobiographical captions also reveal the strength, joy, and power of the women who have participated. -- Suzanne Lindgren

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