I gave myself Tin House’s current sex-themed issue for my recent birthday. Very apropos, yes? Inside is fiction, poetry, brief essays, reviews on sex-themed books & other stuff. I’ve already devoured most of it. Naomi Jackson’s mini-essay Minding the Gap alone made the purchase worthwhile:

“… The fact that when kissing someone who is still only a body to me I must look away to make it okay, assures me I’m not cut out for this kind of thing.”

Tin House has pretty high production values and attractive page layouts but the writing is totally mainstream, both style- and content-wise. No envelope-pushing. I don’t go for that generally, but I made an exception in this case.

Still, you’ll find some gems inside from time to time. I remember reading in a previous issue an enjoyable translated fiction piece called The Dress of Honey by French author Jean-Philippe Toussaint, for instance. It was an excerpt from his novel Naked.