"Women Consider Plastic Surgery as Early as Age 10"
Ten-year-olds are not women. They're girls.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Local Trivia: Random books I got from the library and intend to read fully
Spaceman Blues: A Love Song by Brian Francis Slattery -- From the science fiction section, and written by a guy living (or who was living at time of publication) in New Haven, CT, this book seems short (219 pgs) and (unrelatedly) Pynchonesque, as it was described on the back cover. For me, this means it reads like a lot of really tiny vignettes strung together as the protagonist looks all over the place for a guy who mysteriously disappeared.
But there's promise of the apocalypse to come, so I'm sticking with it despite that it skiffs along over an ocean of material rather than diving in like my fave-book-of-all-time, Middlemarch. And since it's more than 500 pgs shorter than Middlemarch, I think it will be worth my time.
Pick it up if: you think the apocalypse is interesting (or on its way), but want to read about it in a new voice; you like Thomas Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49; you like the work of sci fi don Damon Knight, particularly his wry sense of humor and timing and the way his writing appears to goad Asimov's somehow; you can find it in your local library or think it sounds worth $5.18 (or $10 for the e-reader version); you like criminal procedurals like Law & Order, but wish they would sometimes be more creative.
Everything Matters! by Ron Currie, Jr. -- From the fiction section, written by a guy who'd won critical acclaim for his short story collection God Is Dead. The hyperbolic title is what made me pick this one up. Really? Everything? But the quick writing drew me in more deeply and immediately than Spaceman Blues, and intriguingly, it starts out in second person voice, which only one other novel I've read has done (A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan). It shifts out of second person after the first chapter (much like Complicity by Iain Banks), but by then you're hooked.
Again about the apocalypse -- remember, I chose these at random and didn't choose any others, so perhaps it's a sign -- this book tells the story of a kid born knowing when the world would come to an end, who apparently then struggles to know what's worth doing, what's potentially history-changing, and what's significant, and what isn't any of those. I'm only a few chapters in, so I can't guarantee this, but my money is on the idea that what matters is "everything."
Pick it up if: you're intrigued by possible uses of second-person; you're intrigued by oracles, and their use in literature; you think the apocalypse is interesting (or on its way), but want to read about it in a new voice; you can find it at your library or think it might be worth $10.38 (hardcover); you're invested in stories of families, like The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, but are worried there aren't any other ways to tell a traditional story without being either Jonathan Franzen or extremely boring.
Absurdistan: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart -- On CD. I haven't listened to any of it yet, but who doesn't love a book on tape? They keep going through the boring parts, and you can listen to them in the car, if you've got a tape or CD player and you're not obsessed with Marc Maron's WTF podcast like one of us definitely is. (It's me. You should check him out.)
I picked up this book because it was on a featured display, and because I own (but like so many books, have not yet read) Shteyngart's The Russian Debutante's Handbook, which won awards, and interesting ones like the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. It's 12 hrs long, but if the reader's any good (like Jim Dale for the Harry Potter books on CD, or Stephen Fry for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) that time will fly by. We'll see.
Pick it up if: you want to beat me in reading a book I seem to be recommending, because who knows when I'll get to it, and then possibly lord it over me; you're interested in either Leningrad, where Gary Shteyngart was born, or the comedy show Laugh In, where the reader Arte Johnson won his Emmy; if you're taking a long car ride; if you can find it at your local library or think it might be worth $24.49 through Audible (or $10-15 in book form).
*Also note that these reviews of books I either haven't read or have read bits of, contain recommendations of actual books I have read and enjoyed. Do what you will with that information. Let me know how it goes.
But there's promise of the apocalypse to come, so I'm sticking with it despite that it skiffs along over an ocean of material rather than diving in like my fave-book-of-all-time, Middlemarch. And since it's more than 500 pgs shorter than Middlemarch, I think it will be worth my time.
Pick it up if: you think the apocalypse is interesting (or on its way), but want to read about it in a new voice; you like Thomas Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49; you like the work of sci fi don Damon Knight, particularly his wry sense of humor and timing and the way his writing appears to goad Asimov's somehow; you can find it in your local library or think it sounds worth $5.18 (or $10 for the e-reader version); you like criminal procedurals like Law & Order, but wish they would sometimes be more creative.
Everything Matters! by Ron Currie, Jr. -- From the fiction section, written by a guy who'd won critical acclaim for his short story collection God Is Dead. The hyperbolic title is what made me pick this one up. Really? Everything? But the quick writing drew me in more deeply and immediately than Spaceman Blues, and intriguingly, it starts out in second person voice, which only one other novel I've read has done (A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan). It shifts out of second person after the first chapter (much like Complicity by Iain Banks), but by then you're hooked.
Again about the apocalypse -- remember, I chose these at random and didn't choose any others, so perhaps it's a sign -- this book tells the story of a kid born knowing when the world would come to an end, who apparently then struggles to know what's worth doing, what's potentially history-changing, and what's significant, and what isn't any of those. I'm only a few chapters in, so I can't guarantee this, but my money is on the idea that what matters is "everything."
Pick it up if: you're intrigued by possible uses of second-person; you're intrigued by oracles, and their use in literature; you think the apocalypse is interesting (or on its way), but want to read about it in a new voice; you can find it at your library or think it might be worth $10.38 (hardcover); you're invested in stories of families, like The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, but are worried there aren't any other ways to tell a traditional story without being either Jonathan Franzen or extremely boring.
Absurdistan: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart -- On CD. I haven't listened to any of it yet, but who doesn't love a book on tape? They keep going through the boring parts, and you can listen to them in the car, if you've got a tape or CD player and you're not obsessed with Marc Maron's WTF podcast like one of us definitely is. (It's me. You should check him out.)
I picked up this book because it was on a featured display, and because I own (but like so many books, have not yet read) Shteyngart's The Russian Debutante's Handbook, which won awards, and interesting ones like the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. It's 12 hrs long, but if the reader's any good (like Jim Dale for the Harry Potter books on CD, or Stephen Fry for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) that time will fly by. We'll see.
Pick it up if: you want to beat me in reading a book I seem to be recommending, because who knows when I'll get to it, and then possibly lord it over me; you're interested in either Leningrad, where Gary Shteyngart was born, or the comedy show Laugh In, where the reader Arte Johnson won his Emmy; if you're taking a long car ride; if you can find it at your local library or think it might be worth $24.49 through Audible (or $10-15 in book form).
*Also note that these reviews of books I either haven't read or have read bits of, contain recommendations of actual books I have read and enjoyed. Do what you will with that information. Let me know how it goes.
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