'Eunoia', which means 'beautiful thinking', is the shortest English word to contain all five vowels. This book also contains them all, except that each one appears by itself in its own chapter. A unique personality for each vowel soon emerges: A is courtly, E is elegiac, I is lyrical, O is jocular, U is obscene. A triumphant feat, seven years in the making, Eunoia is as playful as it is awe-inspiring.

A wonderful gift book for word freaks, scrabble nuts, and crossword fans everywhere...

About the Author
Christian Boek is the author of Crystallography (Coach House Press, 1994), a pataphysical encyclopaedia nominated for the Gerald Lampert Award for Best Poetic Debut. Boek has created artificial languages for two television shows: Gene Roddenberry's Earth Final Conflict and Peter Benchley's Amazon. Boek has also earned many accolades for his virtuoso performances of sound poetry (particularly the Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters). His conceptual artworks (which include books built out of Rubik cubes and Lego bricks) have appeared at the Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York City as part of the exhibit Poetry Plastique. He lives in Toronto.

Reviews
Christian Bok's dazzling word games are the literary sensation of the year. * * The Times * *
Extraordinary, outrageous, irresistible - a must for verbivores. -- Gyles Brandreth
A book that is easy, and pleasurable, to read. Eunoia is characterized not by obvious sweat and strain, but by playfulness, fluidity and self-conscious wit . . . At other times, the rhythms bounce and tumble, creating an impression of haste despite the meticulousness and graft of the book's composition . . .The book's freshest insights pertain to the resilience and manipulability of language. * * Irish Times * *
No mere Christmas stocking filler for Countdown fans. Rather, it's an ingenious little novel . . . playful and irreverent . . . charming. * * Metro * *
Amazing . . . impressive . . . It's beautiful, it's funny and it's moving. * * Globe and Mail * *
Brilliant . . . beautiful and strange. * * Today Programme, BBC Radio 4 Interview * *
This writing is brill nihilism.. this little book is an extraordinary exercise in crooked spelling. -- Philip Howard * * Guardian * *
Rhyme and repetition create an intoxicating array of images and allusion . . . The close attention to sentence construction creates a refreshing poetry, where the manipulation of single letters is used to elicit startling beauty. Bok has produced an ode to the alphabet, where the power of vowels, verbs and alliteration is inspiring. -- Nathan Dunne * * Daily Telegraph * *


Awards
Winner of Griffin Poetry Prize - Canadian 2002.



Book Information
ISBN 9781847672445
Author Christian Bok
Format Paperback
Page Count 112
Imprint Canongate Books
Publisher Canongate Books
Weight(grams) 82g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 6mm