Shelf Life: Second Edition

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Elvis Road can be unfolded into 24 feet of densely illustrated art-book joy; it's possible to read it in its more compact form, but I recommend letting it take over your hallway or living room for a few hours (or a few days). Swiss artists Xavier Robel and Helge Reumann have crammed line drawings of peculiar characters and scenes into every square inch of the book, which by the publisher's count includes 526 corporate billboards, 189 religious figures, and 25 parade floats (in addition to 8,433 characters and 3,546 vehicles). The longer you focus on any one character--say, the giant steak on the roof of a Steak House building who's beating up a carrot, a tomato, and what looks to be a bell pepper, while an onion scampers down the stairs--the more strange connections you can forge with nearby oddities (on the third floor, there seems to be a wrestling match between a carrot and a smaller steak; the carrot is winning). $24.95 from Buenaventura Press, Box 23661, Oakland, CA 94623; www.buenaventurapress.com.

The writer Daniel Alarc--n introduces a phenomenal section on Peruvian literature in the latest issue of the two-year-old literary journal A Public Space. The fiction and photography, and an interview with prominent novelist Miguel Gutierrez, address Peru's violent past as part of the 'artistic recovery' taking place in the country today. Julio Duran's 'To Burn the City' is particularly stirring. His character undergoes a slow process of politicization, which quickly speeds up when he discovers political slogans: 'A hundred loose phrases that arrived in my anxious brain like sharp reprimands. Rejecting them would have meant rejecting myself.' The issue also includes poetry, essays, a short graphic story, and quite a few impressive fiction pieces that run the gamut from established writers (Jonathan Lethem) to debuts (a lovely piece by Leslie Jamison). $36/yr. (4 issues) from 323 Dean St., Brooklyn, NY 11217; www.apublicspace.org.

Don't miss weekly editions of From the Stacks online at www.utne.com, posted every Friday.

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