Updated: 2/18/10
ABOUT A MOUNTAIN by John D'Agata. Non-fiction, $23.95.
D’Agata crafts a stylish and circuitous investigation of the controversial government plan to store our nation’s nuclear waste inside of Yucca Mountain to illuminate the state of the modern metropolitan area. The prose whips by in a series of montages that affect a sublime, lucid quality that skilfully interweaves many desperate sources to tell the overarching story. There is a lot going on here, but D’Agata never lets the material consume the moment. Stefan loved, loved, loved! This book.
SHADOW TAG by Louise Erdrich.
Fiction, $25.99.
What initially attracted me to Erdrich’s novel was not the plot, but rather the format in which the book is written. Shadow Tag alternates between excerpts from two diaries (one fake and one real) and third-person narration. The idea of keeping a manipulative fake diary (that you know your spouse is secretly reading) fascinated and disturbed me. And Shadow Tag did fascinate and disturb me – from beginning to end. Ultimate, it is about the collapse of a marriage and family. but with powerful imagery and engaging prose, Shadow Tag is a highly original tale, leaving the reader with profound insights into sex, love, and power. Some readers may be put off by the unlikable characters and bleak subject matter, but it is worth the plunge. Intense, poetic, chilling, raw and fearless – I really cannot recommend this unforgettable novel enough! Shane loved!
THE LOST BOOKS OF ODYSSEY by Zachary Mason.
Farrar Straus and Giroux, fiction, $24.00.
What if Odysseus was a coward whose actions caused the defeat of both sides, and he spent the next ten years disguised as a bard telling the tale that became the ODYSSEY we know today? What if Penelope gave up hope and killed herself and Odysseus encountered her shade in the Underworld? What if it was Odysseus who secretly married Helen and not Menelaus? What if the real reason Odysseus suffered so many trials on his journey home was because he rejected the advances of Athena?
An extraordinary meditation on the ODYSSEY, these 44 pastiches of "lost" alternate histories explore the ambition, sadness, and futility at the core of Odysseus' travails. If you love Borges' conceptual games and Calvino's prose, you must read this!
Ianni recommends.
JUST KIDS by Patti Smith.
Ecco, non-fiction, $27.00.
Washington Square Park, NYC, late 1960s. Tourists spot then-unknown Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe taking a walk, early in their relationship. The wife asks the husband to take their picture, thinking their artists who "may one day be someone." The husband replies, "Oh go on, they're just kids." Patti Smith has written a fantastically evocative memoir of that time and her one-time romance with Mapplethorpe that blossomed into a lifelong friendship, forever each other's artistic soulmate. Along the way Smith weaves in anecdotes of the fellow artists who shaped her - Ginsberg, Dali, Joplin, Sam Shepard ...
Nancy loved being transported to NYC in the 1970s!
