There’s a level of eccentricity to Amber Sparks’s work that might in someone else’s hands come off as self-indulgence. What Sparks does though is to exhaustively research her off-beat topics and consider her wacky characters to the point at which every part of a story, every tangent and subtopic, is weighed out and measured, in all its oddity.

John Domini, poet and novelist, critic and memoirist, beacon-bright with life and humor, always ready to help, and possessed of the finest mental compendium of Italian restaurants in the entire bloody world… I used to refer to him as “Maestro,” particularly when he was picking the restaurant.

Crow, the titular character in Lyle Rexer’s warm, witty, and intensely thought provoking The Book of Crow, is a slinger of slang and a raconteur, a gourmand specializing in the varied cuisines we might refer to as “slightly used food,” and a true citizen of the world.