The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (Paperback)

"You think you know these texts . . . until you read Alter, who reignites their beauty in bracing and unexpected ways." -- Malcolm Jones - Newsweek
"Alter is musically and poetically sensitive.... [He] takes us back to the essence of the meaning." -- James Wood - The New Yorker
"Extraordinary.... We never forget, with Alter's Psalms, that the text we are reading is the work of human hands-not Holy Writ, but something at once less and more than that, great poetry." -- Adam Kirsch - New Republic
"A considerable achievement.... Alter holds me to his darkly economical texts." -- Harold Bloom - New York Review of Books
"It is impossible to overstate the depth, the versatility, and the value of Alter's contribution." -- Barbara Berman - San Francisco Chronicle
"One of the best outcomes of Alter's translation is a sense of an abrupt, muscular intensity; he restores to the Psalms a kind of strangeness that emanates from an encounter with a culture we recognize yet is distinctly alien to us, far removed in time and frame of mind." -- Mark Doty - Los Angeles Times
"Every reader of this translation will be led towards fresh thoughts and will discover favorites that inspire the imagination in new, rich ways." -- Walter Brueggemann - Christian Century
"In his compelling and swiftly moving translations, Alter has thrust the reader back to the place where the monotheistic religions were born out of even more ancient beginnings." -- Jewish Book World
"The achievement of this new translation is to present the Book of Psalms as a wonder of ancient literature." -- The Tablet