Two remarkable prose stylists — friends since high school — transform found material from the nineteenth century into mesmerizing poem-essays.

It was given to me, in the nineteenth century, to spend a lifetime on his
earth. Along with a few of the sorrows that are appointed unto men,
I have had innumerable enjoyments; and the world has been to me,
even from childhood, a great museum.
— Lydia Davis

Bad rapids. Bradley is knocked over the side; his foot catches under
the seat and he is dragged, head under water. Camped on a sand
beach, the wind blows a hurricane. Sand piles over us like a snowdrift.
— Eliot Weinberger