Leonard Cohen's first book of new poetry since "Book of Mercy" was published two decades ago. It collects Cohen's poetry written between the 1980s and the present, and also includes his wonderfully witty and sensuous illustrations, including numerous playful self-portraits. The illustrations interact with, and complement, the poetry in unexpected and fascinating ways. "Book of Longing" demonstrates the range and depth of Cohen's work, revealing an extraordinary gift of language and visual art that speak with rare clarity, passion and timelessness.

About the Author

Cohen's career began in 1956 with the publication of Let Us Compare Mythologies, and he has since published nine books of poems, and has made numerous internationally successful recordings. In a career spanning fifty years, Leonard Cohen has become one of the western world's most popular and innovative creative artists.

Reviews

Renowned singer-songwriter Cohen also boasts a reputation as a writer for the printed page, especially in his native Canada. This capacious collection (his first since 1993's Stranger Music) compiles musings, jottings, quatrains, brief lyrics, prose meditations and offhand epigrams, along with Cohen's ink drawings and work in his own handwriting. The melancholy Cohen displays both a surface humility and an underlying self-confidence as he reflects on women (as when recalling his seduction of "the most beautiful girl/ on the religious left"), Zen doctrine, his own advancing age (Cohen turned 70 two years ago) and the legacy of the '60s. Many poems feel like his song lyrics: "Sometimes just a list/ Of my events/ Is holier than the Bill of Rights/ And more intense." The volume will get a boost from Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, a documentary scheduled for theatrical release. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.