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Monstress (Google eBook)

By Lysley Tenorio
$9.99
Model: jPZiaX4wQDgC
Published: HarperCollins, 1/2012
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Where in the hell did Adam Johnsoncome from and how come I haven't read his other books? This is the question that muscled its way out of my reptilian gray matter on those rare instances when I broke from reading to eat or pee, and only then, because in the act of taking in this amazing evocation of North Korean life, I for one, couldn't take myself out of the story for even a moment of cool, detached assessment of literary technique or merit - I simply plunged headlong into this bildungsroman, cum sea adventure, cum prison narrative, cum romance, with daring escapes, farcical, bombastic interludes in the voice of the DRNK, all set in a heavy researched, historically accurate, real life dystopia. Brilliantly told, and featuring Dickensian characters, Korean mythos, and of course, everyone's favorite lift-wearing, pompadoured, madman-in-chief. Outrageously good fun.

Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife (Google eBook)

By Francine Prose
$10.99
Model: JEBjlcFs4J0C
Published: HarperCollins, 9/2009
Other Editions of this Title
What could be more fun than reading an old holocaust document disguised as the whiny scribblings of a hormonally haywire thirteen year-old girl cooped up in a closet sized cloister, waiting, and waiting, for years actually, with only the same seven other people for company, waiting, to be rescued from the deranged and murderous Germans? Well, how about a book about that book? Prose is a wizard and when you go back to The Diary of A Young Girl (and you definitely will) you will be stunned.

The Orphan Master's Son: A Novel (Google eBook)

By Adam Johnson
$12.99
Model: ozHdgAFoZPYC
Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 1/2012
Where in the hell did Adam Johnsoncome from and how come I haven't read his other books? This is the question that muscled its way out of my reptilian gray matter on those rare instances when I broke from reading to eat or pee, and only then, because in the act of taking in this amazing evocation of North Korean life, I for one, couldn't take myself out of the story for even a moment of cool, detached assessment of literary technique or merit - I simply plunged headlong into this bildungsroman, cum sea adventure, cum prison narrative, cum romance, with daring escapes, farcical, bombastic interludes in the voice of the DRNK, all set in a heavy researched, historically accurate, real life dystopia. Brilliantly told, and featuring Dickensian characters, Korean mythos, and of course, everyone's favorite lift-wearing, pompadoured, madman-in-chief. Outrageously good fun.

Smut: Stories (Google eBook)

By Alan Bennett
$9.99
Model: EnQK3mbJ6MwC
Published: Macmillan, 1/2012
If Alan Bennett were an American, he would undoubtedly be considered a national treasure. Of course, then he wouldn't be writing the quintessentially British stories you see before you... so, never mind. Regardless, he is a treasure in his own right, and if you've never read him, here is an opportunity to enrich your reading life. These stories begin innocently enough, as a kind of comedy of manners, but then BANG carnal longing rears its monstrous visage. Just the expression you get when people ask what you're reading is worth the price of admission.

Arguably (Google eBook)

By Christopher Hitchens
$14.99
Model: LqGlZ1m7kiYC
Published: Twelve, 9/2011
Every time I crack the cover of this prodigious tome I inevitably at some point, either under my breath or barking it aloud (to the consternation of my fellow MUNI passengers) utter the phrase goddamn Hitchens and then close the book on my finger and shake my head, marveling once again at the stupendous breadth of knowledge and erudition contained herein. I read somewhere that Hitchens’ conversation at cocktail parties is a kind of volcanic piece of performance art, which is how I picture the great man in my head. Whether you agree with him or not (and I find I usually do) his ideas are always carefully considered, vigorously delivered and beautifully digressive. Throat cancer is taking down one of our finest national treasures but like everything else he’s faced in his fascinating life, he’s handling that too, head-on and with aplomb.

The Family Fang: A Novel (Google eBook)

By Kevin Wilson
$9.99
Model: rpB0PsaRRdoC
Published: HarperCollins, 8/2011
I’m not sure exactly why I like this quirky little hooha as much as I do. It’s just a really fun book filled with flawed but good- intentioned characters, like Buster, the sometime successful novelist, now returning to his childhood home to nurse a potato gun injury, and his sister, Annie, the Oscar nominated actress, who also happens to be returning home after a series of bad decisions leaves her under intense public scrutiny. Then there is avant-garde filmmakers Caleb and Camille Fang, parents to Annie and Buster (A and B) whose mysterious disappearance after their children return home triggers not only a search for their whereabouts, but some intense ruminations on their bizarre childhoods. If you like Joe Meno’s stories, or Wes Anderson’s movies or Daniel Clowes’ comics, pick this one up.

Wildwood (Google eBook)

By Colin Meloy, Carson Ellis
$9.99
Model: khtMkkjaX2cC
Published: HarperCollins, 8/2011
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Prue McKeel’s brother has just been abducted, on her watch, and by, of all things, a murder of crows. This seems as strange and unbelievable to her as it does to you or I, but as she watches her brother carried through the sky towards the Impassable Wilderness, a magical realm just north of Portland Oregon, a place no one has ever been to and returned to tell the tale, she knows she is in serious trouble. Refusing to return home empty handed she sets off on her bicycle to find him and along the way reluctantly allows a schoolmate, Curtis, to tagalong. When the two are almost immediately separated, a dual narrative unfurls conjuring the work of C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. Paired with gorgeous art, this is the first in a series that has all the hallmarks of a modern classic.

The Imperfectionists: A Novel (Google eBook)

By Tom Rachman
$10.99
Model: _UNNPyZHBHoC
Published: Random House Digital, Inc., 4/2010
Other Editions of this Title
Rachman’s debut novel follows the lives of the employees at an international English speaking newspaper in Rome. Each chapter takes a different character as its focus but the secondary characters introduced along the periphery each get their own treatment in subsequent chapters. Spliced between these character treatments are excerpts from the paper itself, a somewhat complicated structure that might be too clever for its own good in the hands of a less talented writer. Rachman proves more than up to the task as each chapter could easily stand on its own as an accomplished short story yet the concluding sum reveals a writer of great skill and vision. It’s an audacious debut that feels like the work of a veteran writer.

The Professor and Other Writings (Google eBook)

By Terry Castle
$12.99
Model: pV_R_ZQzatAC
Published: HarperCollins, 1/2010
Other Editions of this Title
Stanford English professor Terry Castle has written a number of academic texts and edited several anthologies but this is her first foray into writing for a broad popular audience. This is a remarkable collection of essays that blend her undeniable erudition on a wide range of subjects with personal anecdotes from her own life and her family’s history. The long titular piece at the end is actually where I started and thought I might end, but I was hooked immediately; the harrowing tale of her seduction and subsequent obsession with one of her professors is gripping from the first page and Castle’s evocation of place is nonpareil. Whether she’s riffing on largely forgotten sax legend Art Pepper or hilariously conjuring her tumultuous friendship with Susan Sontag, she demonstrates effortless aplomb. Sort of Anne Fadimanesque but with an edgier, naughtier kind of joie de vivre.

Freedom (Google eBook)

By Jonathan Franzen
$9.99
Model: cWQJJIgJNtUC
Published: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 8/2010
Other Editions of this Title
Every bit as compelling as The Corrections, Freedom is vintage Franzen: the super-smart crackling dialogue, the epic exploration of how the world works by way of intense scrutiny of the familial microcosm—you remember, that way he has of evoking the most painfully awkward but startlingly familiar ways in which families are truly ugly, and horrible, and sad, and hilarious and just so, inescapably, tragically, necessary?—yeah, all that is still here, only. . . there’s more here, too. Remember when James Wood called Franzen a Hysterical Realist and implored him to “tell us how people feel”, and you remember that NYT’s piece about the disappearance of sex from the contemporary American male novelist’s oeuvre, well, I think our friend was listening and, well, take that, you critics & cynics!!

From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Google eBook)

By E. L. Konigsburg
$6.99
Model: geqKd50y6MQC
Published: Atheneum, 12/2010
Other Editions of this Title
First published in 1967, the now beloved classic follows intrepid runaways Claudia and Jamie to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where they’ve surreptitiously installed themselves unbeknownst to museum staff or their parents. Soon they realize their early ambitions to learn every single thing about the multitudinous and stunningly expansive exhibits just might be a little overly ambitious. Instead they focus on unraveling the origins of a breathtakingly beautiful statue of an angel from the Italian Renaissance. Along the way they learn much about art, friendship, loyalty and themselves. Fans of Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret will want to read this in anticipation of his new epic Wonderstruck, which tips a deliberate hat.
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