1. D. Watkins, "The Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir" (Grand Central Publishing)
2. Tariq Touré, "Black Seeds" (self-published)
3. Shannon Wallace, "What Does It Mean To Be Black?" (self-published)
4. Terence Hannum, "Beneath the Remains" (Anathemata Editions)
5. Justin Sanders, "for all the other ghosts" (self-published)
6. Suzie Doogan, "CLEAN 5UM" (self-published)
7. Wide Angle Youth Media, "#ThisIsBaltimore: Wide Angle Youth Media" (self-published)
8. Anna K. Crooks "Walking Thru Mist" (Bookish)
9. Grace Davis "J.A.D." (self-published)
10. Justin Sirois, "The Last Book of Baghdad" (Coping Mechanisms)
Latest Baltimore City Paper
Sirois' second collaboration with consulting editor Haneen Alshujairy, an Iraqi refugee who now lives in Baltimore, unwinds its fictional story out from the 2007 car bombing of Al-Mutanabbi Street, the center of Baghdad's literary life. As Sirois (disclosure: a CP contributor) pulled off in "Falcons on the Floor," which unfolded with the sieges of Fallujah in the background, "Last Book" imagines what it's like for Iraqis enduring war's horror. In "Last Book" that's chiefly Nisreen, the wife of a bookseller who is missing after the bombing; she turns to a book of poetry as both currency and source of strength. Thirteen years after we invaded Iraq, we've still got an estimated 5,000 troops there; we rarely read about them in newspapers. IraqBodyCount.com estimates between 168,000-188,000 Iraqi civilians have died from this war. We never hear those stories; the closest we're getting is Sirois' gorgeously written vital novel. Absolutely heart-rending. (BM)