While the absence of apocalypse suggests that Zagajewski has moved beyond the avant-garde, the incredible variety and intricacy of his prose make clear that he is still in the midst of his own quiet revolution.

Another Beauty, a wise, iridescent book . . . dips in and out of many genres: coming-of-age-memoir, commonplace book, aphoristic musings, vignettes and portraits, and defense of poetry--that is, a defense of the idea of literary greatness.

A remarkable document, notable for both its literary acuity and its ability to evoke the experience of growing up in a police state, in a culture that is dreary and surreal by turns, where, as [Zagajewski] puts it, 'the Zeitgeist chisels our thoughts and mocks our dreams.'

Full of pithy and compelling observations on art and society, of luminous descriptions of Krakow and Paris . . . this is a book to be read once through and returned to often.