The world of Daniel Nathan Terry's City of Starlings, which is our world, is "disastrously beautiful." That's how he describes a camellia blooming beside a condemned house just across the street. Indeed it is that nearness-the proximity of beauty and loss-that drives this book. A puppy (named Lucky) discovered nuzzled up beside his car-crushed brother, or the light limning a white egret at the very moment a friend's child is stillborn. In a book filled with birds, it is the dogs that remind us to look down, not up, to be now, not then, to take the world in our mouths and make it part of us. There is, after all, so much goddamn beauty in this world, and in this book. When Terry plans his fantasy of a birthday party, he invites the dead-"Let's see what gifts they bring." And he insists that before they leave, "let's pose for a group photo-/ all of us, for a moment, luminous/ against the shadows." This heartbreaking and gorgeous book is filled with those luminous moments. - Ed Madden