Hello, all.  Although this blog has obviously just been launched, visit it in the coming weeks for clear, compact book reviews, recommendations, and assorted observations on lit’rary culture.  My ideal audience member for all this is the smart, broad-minded general reader.  I aim to avoid the awful jargon that keeps most people away from most academic criticism as well as the rah-rah-rah info-snack style of the few newspaper book pages still surviving.  If you are interested in serious books, especially poetry, but don’t quite know where to start digging, start here.