A self-published memoir by a twenty-something detailing that horrible, floaty time between college graduation and embarking on some sort of path into adulthood? You can’t get much lower on the list of books I’d expect to like. Despite that, when Jess Martin released her book through the Harvard Bookstore (where we run the paperback versions of our own literary ventures), I supported a local artist* and read it all the same. I’m really glad that I did. It is, by any measure, a very good read.
The plot, much like the point in her life Martin relates, appears pretty directionless at first. She writes about finishing college and returning home to her parents, where she intended to collect herself before stepping out into the real world. But she finds herself stymied and winds up napping on the couch and emailing the occasional resume.
As the book goes on, Open-Eyed Sneeze reveals a lot of gears turning: it’s at once wacky family drama, a coming of age from a second childhood, and a microcosmic metaphor, all speaking to a generation of talented young adults for whom college degrees are inflated and the job market is deflated. … Continue reading »
I first read John Hart when his last novel, The Last Child, was nominated for an Edgar Award in 2010—Child later won that prize, giving Hart back-to-back wins for his second and third novels.
That streak is over. Iron House, Hart’s recently released fourth novel, shows that his writing relies on the strength and tightness of his plots. The Last Child‘s plotting was superb, and it outweighed Hart’s several flaws as a writer, such as his bombastically underwhelming prose and his over-emotive, two-dimensional characters.
Iron House, unfortunately, teeters on an unsteady premise that can’t support its own weight, and its plot delivers only mild thrills. As a result, those underlying problems become much more noticeable. Altogether, it makes for a disappointing mystery/thriller hybrid that can’t quite get off the ground. … Continue reading »
Internet safety tip: DO NOT image-google "hardcover book," even with the safe search on moderate.
By now, you’ve probably seen the NYT’s story on publishers phasing out the hardcover book in response to ebooks. Paperbacks are coming out earlier, and “many publishers” now “wonder if cost-conscious shoppers are reading e-books right away rather than waiting for the paperback.”
(You can stop wondering, publishers. They definitely, definitely are.)
So. Hardcovers are mortally injured and slowly dying. This is excellent news. I agree with Paul Constant over at the Stranger (and with myself) that the hardcover business model is unsustainable in a digital world. It continues to actively hurt publishing, but at least publishing seems to be growing aware of that hurt.
This environment is great for established, in-demand authors like George R.R. Martin, who sold 170,000 hardcover copies of Dance with Dragons in just one day. But climbing the hardcover hill makes it harder than ever for new authors and unknowns to get the recognition they deserve. The higher the price of books, the fewer risks readers will take.
By contrast, without hardcovers, there’s no disincentive to buy the newest books and try out lesser known, lesser publicized authors. The death of the hardcover will make for a happier, healthier reading culture, and that will create more book sales, no matter what that crazy Macmillan CEO says (he also bribes people for the right to sell expensive textbooks to poor African kids).
Releasing paperbacks a little bit earlier won’t help either, it’ll only increase people’s incentive to wait for that paperback before buying a new book. That’s not a sound way to cash in on all that first-edition marketing. (Quick, name a book you were thinking about buying six months ago but didn’t.)
Only the death of the hardcover will do now. I can’t wait to rejoice when they finally kick the bucket.
For a debut novel by a 76 year-old man, this is a pretty ambitious book. It’s not long (a slim 120 or so pages), but it is fairly dense. The Voyage of the Short Serpent tells the tale of a medieval Scandinavian bishop sent to the Greenlandic colonies to restore order. The church believes the colonies have fallen into abject hedonism (accompanied by incest and cannibalism) and need salvation. That political mission becomes a lifelong adventure, however, as traversing the arctic in a tiny wooden boat is no simple task. A grueling adventure follows, and from it springs a story of surprising depth. … Continue reading »
I decided to read this book midway through the fourth paragraph of Maslin’s review, when she reveals that the title comes from a George W. Bush malapropism. In addition, Maslin claims Cotterill is “so mordantly clever that it’s a line-by-line pleasure to enjoy his phrasing.” Combine that with a healthy dose of Thai culture, a pair of mysteries to solve, and a fireball heroine at the heart of it all, and I might be in love. [Get this book]
Millenium People, by J.G. Ballard, reviewed by David L. Ulin (L.A. Times)
Ulin’s latest great review takes a wide view of Ballard’s entire body of work, bringing lifelong hobbyhorses like “the erotic possibilities of violence” to bear on the posthumously published People. Good stuff. [Get this book]
Here we have a 175-page book containing 72 essays on city life and classic movies, tending “more toward hipsterism” and written by an improv coach whose hobbies include getting the music turned down at bars and leaving parties six hours early (not joking). Bonus: the essays are also “rife with flabby, sloppy prose”! Sounds like the perfect obligatory Christmas present for your shithead cousin who laughs at his own jokes, does it not? Seriously, though, the review is worth a read, just to see Gilsdorf link this Urban Outfitters reject all the way back to Montaigne. [Get this book]
Conrad has a few interesting things to say about the translation of this book and its title, but for me the whole review comes down to one detail: Altunes’s original title literally translates to “The Multiple Assholes of Judas.” The story of how you get from there to “The Land at the End of the World” is but a small corner of a fascinating review. [Get this book]
In brief:Here’s a very weird review of Monica Ali’s weird new novel, Untold Story, in which an alternate-reality Princess Di fakes her own death to abscond to a peaceful life as a vet’s assistant. This means that her sons think she’s dead, but that doesn’t stop her. The reviewer says, without irony, “Why didn’t someone write this novel sooner?” … This piece at the B&N Review about the crime novels of Jakob Arjouni is well worth a read. … Geoff Dyer’s new column for the NYT sounds quite cool. … The B&N Review’s Drawn to Read illustrated review column would be better if it was “Books I Would Read If I Could Read.” …
[In this new series (idea copped from High Fidelity), our contributors put together a "top 5" list of books on a theme of their choosing. Read other entries in Top 5 Books here, and catch up on other fun series like this on our Special Features page.]
I was going to do a straight forward, all-time favorite top five books. Then I realized that list would have counted down to One Hundred Years of Solitude, a book that seems to come up in all of our special features. So instead of extolling Gabriel García Márquez on this site yet again, I decided to go another route. I noticed that three of the five books on my all-time list were unexpected encounters—books that I knew nothing about, books that I encountered on a shelf or was assigned for a class and absolutely loved. So I figured I’d write about five books that took me by surprise.
Top 5 Unexpected Encounters
5. Mankind: Have a Nice Day, by Mick Foley
I know you’re not taking me seriously. I don’t blame you. When a friend told me that Mankind was one of the best books he’d ever read and forced his copy on me, I was fairly certain he was either on drugs or fucking with me. So it was unexpected that I enjoyed the book as much as I did. Foley is actually a decent writer. He’s witty and intelligent, and overall, he’s a good storyteller. This book won’t ever be considered high literature, but if you’ve ever hulked up or watched a Royal Rumble, or even if you enjoyed the movie The Wrestler, Mankind is worth picking up.
4. Men and Cartoons, by Jonathan Letham
You know those carts in the library, the ones you are supposed to use instead of re-shelving a book? I found Men and Cartoons on one of those. The cover and the name made me think it was a graphic novel. I would have put it down after realizing my mistake, but the first sentence of the first story hooked me, and I checked it out. A few of the stories in the collection are duds, but the best (“The Vision,” “Super Goat Man”) I’ve revisited a few times.
3. Blood and Grits, by Harry Crews
At the 2006 AWP Conference in Atlanta, I attended a talk during which one of the panelists kept referring to Harry Crews’s “memoir.” But she kept pronouncing it with a French accent that she seemingly pulled from thin air: “mem-WAH.” A few of us laughed at her pretentiousness well into the morning. When I saw Blood and Grits on a used bookstore shelf a year later, I bought it for the laugh. But Crews knocked me off of my feet. He writes about booze, and drugs, and waking up with strange tattoos. And no matter how idiotic or hopeless those he writes about actually are, Crews manages to find their humanity, and portrays them gently and lovingly.
2. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
I was assigned the prologue of this book for a Philosophy class on morality. I’m not sure how it fit into the curriculum. I do know that I went to the store and bought the book immediately after reading the assigned, photocopied prologue. I love this book for the musical quality of the prose. I also love this book because I continue to circle back to it: in countless conversations about religion, about politics, about class divisions, I’ll find myself saying, “have you read Invisible Man?”
1. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
I found this book on a shelf in a prison library. This was in 2004, before the Philip Seymour Hoffman movie brought the book back to the bestseller list. The book I encountered looked old and forgotten, had yellowing pages, and I mistook it for a pulp crime novel. By the time I finished reading In Cold Blood, I realized how beautiful a nonfiction book could be, and had decided to write a book about my experience in the prison (I was teaching, not serving). I guess I have Capote to thank (blame?) for my MFA, my stack of rejections, and the last five years of my life.
I just noticed this documentary available for free on Hulu about one of Aaron‘s favorite comic book writers, Grant Morrison. Morrison’s new book, Supergods, just came out, and it’s one of our latest Great Reads. [full Supergods review here --- watch the doc at Hulu]
Slow Fade was published in the early 80s and I had never heard of it nor Rudolph Wurlitzer before coming across this audiobook re-release. Indie rock label Drag City has decided to foray into audiobooks, and decided upon Slow Fade as their first recording. It’s a somewhat curious choice, as the book is pretty unexceptional–it’s not bad, but it’s not great either. It’s worth giving it a shot though, as the book has enough unique style and charm to make it worth the read and the production values and quality of recording on their audiobook version make for a quick, pleasant, and unobtrusive experience.
The story itself is restless, and plays with a few genre types. It’s a portrait of a man at the end of his days; an almost-bohemian travelogue; a family drama; a rock-and-roll book. It’s the kind of book I imagine myself reading while traveling on a train, or waiting in a bus station. It’s one of those tattered-cover books with a lot of heart that you’ve never heard of. Odd that’s the impression I got from an audiobook.
The majority of the audio release is read by Will Oldham, who somewhat famously sings folk/rock under the alias Bonnie “Prince” Billy (read a nice New Yorker profile on him here). I am utterly incapable of music/voice criticism but suffice to say his voice is mellow and distinctive, perfectly suited for narrating. I really dislike audiobooks that over-dramatize and turn a book into something more akin to a radio play. Drag City’s approach works well: there are musical flirtations in the transitions, a few interpolations, and another voice actor–D.V. DeVincentis–takes over in a few key chapters, but this release is firmly a reading of a book. Both Oldham and DeVincentis are excellent readers with a clear understanding of the tone and vibe of their subject matter. … Continue reading »
There’s very little I can say about this book without spoiling something. So I’m going to try something a little different to start. Let’s do word association. Take a look at this list and see how many things you think could help make for a good story:
Victorian romance. Parasols. Hoodwinks. Murder. Historical figures in fictional situations. Meticulous plotting. Vengeance. Paradoxes. Bawdiness. Secret societies. Blackmail. The Terminator. Drunk British whores. Jack the Ripper slaughtering drunk British whores. Minority Report. Tribal magic. The time machine in H.G. Wells’s attic. Street brawls. Apocalyptic robot battles. Dimensional rifts. Time travel. Henry James and Bram Stoker having a sleepover. Time Cop. Lava guns. Immortal dogs. Naive girls easily coerced into sex. Parallel universes. Steam powered automatons. Fourth dimensional dragon-like beasts. Sword fights.
Pretty good odds for an entertaining book right? Right. In any case, if that piqued your interest sufficiently, go ahead and skip the rest of the review, pick up this book, and enjoy. Read on and I’ll try and explain a little more substantively, but be aware that while I’ll try to limit them, there will be spoilers after the break. If you already think you want to read the book, do so, then return to my review in the future (oooooh).
In Supergods, a nonfiction exploration of superheroes as a fictive phenomenon, comic book writer and artist Grant Morrison argues that Superman is humanity’s greatest accomplishment. From anyone else that might be considered a cynical statement; of all the scientific and artistic achievements, across centuries, nothing scores higher than a gaudily costumed, flying strongman born in a medium that’s not even 100 years old?
But Morrison is absolutely sincere—he contends that superhero comics are not just entertainment for children and fodder for blockbuster movie adaptations, but windows into a separate reality populated by gods that fight intensely pitched battles for good, of which Superman is the best and brightest.
Morrison’s is a delightfully optimistic premise, doubly refreshing when considered next to the daily articles and blog posts about the imminent death of the comic book industry. Those writers worry (rightfully so) about relevance, demographics, and market share, while Morrison knows that the stakes are actually much higher. How appropriate that a book about the history and potential of superheroes aims to save the world. … Continue reading »
