In this, his most recent collection of prose poems, Russell Edson offers more of the sad, thoughtful, surreal and often obscene musings of an old man for which he’s become known. From the man who starts turning into a dog partway through becoming a bird [The Man with a Sudden Desire to Bark at the Moon] to a mysteriously murderous dwarf wielding an ice pick [Space Journey] to the man whose hat starts to swallow his head [The Hunger], readers will find plenty to contemplate and savor.
(p.s. I've found that Edson pairs very nicely with Kurt Vonnegut, for those who like to enjoy multiple books at once.)
Dog Loves Books
by Louise Yates Alfred a Knopf Inc
Our Price: $16.99
"Dog loved books so much that he decided to open his own bookstore."
Oh, for the love of books!
Dog's optimistic and heartfelt experience in the book selling business reminds us all of the value of the printed word and its power to captivate our imaginations.
A must for the book lovers in your life.
Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1918
by Grigoris Balakian Vintage Books
Our Price: $20.00
In 1915, Grigoris Balakian was a forty year old priest of the Armenian Apostolic Church living in Constantinople. On April 24th of that year, he was among the approximately 250 leaders of Constantinople’s Armenian community that were arrested, imprisoned and deported in what is now regarded as the start of the Armenian Genocide. Less than a third of those arrested that night [writers, poets, teachers, clergymen, journalists, doctors, dentists, booksellers and various other prominent Armenian public figures] survived what followed, and of those, few had the tremendous emotional strength required to record their experiences on paper. It seems that Balakian survived in order to write this book, taking care during his ordeal to ask his fellow countrymen for their own stories, memorizing their names and [often] the circumstances of their deaths. This is quite possibly the most important, comprehensive and tragically beautiful documentation of the Armenian Genocide. Please read this book.
For the first half-dozen pages, this book seems to be headed in the direction of a "young, malcontent, privileged male trying to find himself by living in near poverty and doing manual labor" story. And then you begin to get ever-increasing hints that something else might be lurking under that veneer. Following two separate story lines, The Mayor's Tongue turns out to be a wonderfully bizarre story about the nature of communication, love, and dependence. Fans of Jonathan Safran Foer will enjoy Nathaniel Rich's debut novel.
Less about the supernatural than the tangible ghosts of everyday life — estranged family members, haunting memories of childhood, etc. — this memoir is an honest and sincere look at the confusion and secrecy that comes with the suspicion that your outer image may not match your inner self.
A striking mixture of humor and tenderness, this book carries a deeply human message that will get you thinking while making you laugh at the same time.
"What about you? What do you want to be when you grow up?" Paul thought about it and then said, "Myself." She looked at him skeptically. "Well...good luck with that. Pardon my saying, but I think that may be the hardest thing of all."
While Tigerheart is a sort of retelling of Peter Pan, it focuses less on Peter [or The Boy as he's called in this story], and more on the character of Paul, a young boy who simply wants to find a way to stitch his broken family back together. The book does an amazing job of capturing the essence of childhood, how children view adulthood, and the painful transition everyone faces in the process of growing up. I really enjoyed this one.
"Important events can be interpreted by artists to give a unique insight into significant aspects of our history-making advances into space. An artistic record of this nation’s program of space exploration will have great value for future generations and may make a significant contribution to the history of American art."
This book, as you can clearly see, is made of AWESOME.
In 1962, four years after NASA?s birth, administrator James Webb started a program by which artists were given free range of the facilities, with the purpose of recording the ?emotional impact, interpretation, and hidden significance of?events which lie within the scope of the artist?s vision.? This book is a compilation of works that came out of that program, from the likes of Rauschenberg, Warhol, Rockwell and Leibovitz.
The fact that a government agency realized the value of having artistic documentation of our other-worldly endeavors is enough to make me love this book. The rad hologram on the cover is simply the icing on the cake.
If you’ve ever come away from a farmer’s market with a pint of currants, a bunch of beets, or a bundle of swiss chard that you just had to get because it looked SO GOOD, only to arrive home and think, “What on earth am I going to do with these things?” this book is for you.
Also, if you’ve ever wondered, “What is celeriac?” or “What can I do with kumquats?” or “How do I make pickled ginger?” this book is for you.
With hundreds of pages of information and recipes for everything from almonds to zucchini blossoms, the produce bible is just that: an informative reference guide for fruit and veggie lovers.
Vermeer's Milkmaid And Other Stories
by Manuel Rivas
Our Price: $21.95
This is a collection of beautiful and poetic stories depicting rural life in northwest Spain by Galician author Manuel Rivas. Three of the tales contained within [Butterfly’s Tongue, Saxophone in the Mist and Carmiña] were the inspiration for the 1999 film, The Butterfly’s Tongue, which tells of the Spanish Civil War. The human element is powerfully and touchingly present throughout this book.
‘If you don’t read this book, you’ll have missed out on something important and wonderful and all the cool people will laugh at you.’-Neil Gaiman
Gene Wolfe is one of the best fantasy writers of all time. In all of his books, he weaves a complex yarn that is so visually compelling that the reader is left feeling as though they’ve just watched a spectacular film in their mind. The Wizard Knight, along with his series The Book of the New Sun, literally changed the scenery and scope of my dreams. There are images from these books that I could swear I’ve seen in real life; I can picture them with such clarity. Also, Wolfe is a master when it comes to the use of the Unreliable Narrator, and if you’ve never read any of his work, you really are missing out.
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
by Salman Rushdie Penguin (Non-Classics)
Our Price: $14.00
"My fault again,’ Haroun thought wretchedly. ‘ I started all this off. What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true. I asked that question and it broke my father’s heart. So it’s up to me to put things right. Something has to be done."
Published in 1990 and written for his son, Zafar, [read the dedication; it’s wonderful] this was Salman Rushdie’s first novel to come out after the uproar over The Satanic Verses. Young Haroun is the only child of the storyteller Rashid Khalifa, also known as the Ocean of Notions and the Shah of Blah. One day, something terrible happens and Rashid loses his ability to tell stories, to disastrous ends. Haroun takes it upon himself to help his father get back his storytelling abilities, and sets off on an amazing adventure to Earth’s secret, second moon, Kahani, where he finds that the Sea of Stories, the source of all the fables in the whole world, is being poisoned by Kattam-Shud, the ‘Arch-Enemy of all Stories, the Prince of Silence, the Foe of Speech.’
Magical, silly, and delightful, Rushdie captures his audience with this modern day fairytale (which is filled with fairytale references, as well). Fans of classics like The Phantom Tollbooth and Alice in Wonderland will not be able to resist Haroun and his comical companions.
Novels in Three Lines (New York Review Books Classics)
by Felix Feneon NYRB Classics
Our Price: $14.00
A staff rec. in three lines:
Composed in 1906, for the newspaper Le Matin, the vivid news briefs of M. Fénéon, anarchist, would have been lost, but for a sentimental lover.
The Book of Words (New Directions Paperbook)
by Jenny Erpenbeck New Directions
Our Price: $14.95
‘What are my eyes for if they can see but see nothing? What are my ears for if they can hear but hear nothing? Why all this strangeness in my head?’
In flowing prose, Jenny Erpenbeck writes of Argentina’s Dirty War through the filter of a girl’s childhood innocence. The resulting story is seemingly light and whimsical, layered over the dark and mysterious events that surround said girl as she grows up. It is a captivating and complex tale that I enjoyed the whole way through.
Micro Fiction: An Anthology of Really Short Stories
by W. W. Norton & Company
Our Price: $11.95
Hello, tiny book of short [short!] stories! This anthology brings together nearly a decade’s worth of winners and finalists from the ‘World’s Best Short Short Story Contest.’ There are 54 stories crammed into this book! Try ‘Hostess’ by Amy Hempel on page 100, or ‘Grief’ by Ron Carlson on page 82, or ‘Wallet’ by Allen Woodman on page 128. Go on, they’re short.
I read this book in three days, and then gave it to my mom, saying, “You have to read this book.” When I asked her later if she had finished, she said she’d gotten halfway through and then stopped. “What?! Why?” I asked. “Because I don’t want it to end,” was her answer. She read the second half in tiny bits, slowly, while reading other books to keep herself occupied. It’s really that good. I am definitely going to read this again.
‘Just as dream images can be transformed in dream, so emotional states and conceptual limitations can be transformed in waking life. Challenge the boundaries that constrict you. The purpose of these practices is to integrate lucidity and flexibility with every moment of life, and to let go of the heavily conditioned way we have of ordering reality, of making meaning, and of being trapped in delusion.’
This is a clear and gentle guide to the practice of dream and sleep yogas. If you’re even remotely interested in Buddhism or dreams in general, you really should read this book.
Reading this book was like treading water; I couldn't stop, or terrible things would happen. Will Lynne and Grayson be able to find Grayson's mother? How long will Lynne be out swimming in the cold, March ocean? How does she manage to say afloat for so long? As someone who sinks like a stone, and starts hyperventilating when in a body of water with no visible bottom, I found this book to be both terrifying and fascinating. I read it in a single sitting, and enjoyed every minute of it. Author Lynne Cox describes in beautiful detail the vast and colorful world of underwater life she encountered in the Pacific early one morning, and how she befriended one of it's larger inhabitants.
