It's delightful, it's delicious, it's dlevy!
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Few books have been as formative in my life as this one, and now I finally own my own copy.
Today’s Amazon shipment.
(No, I did not own Not Since Carrie before today, although I certainly have read it.)
Do you push them all to the back, so they might be uneven but give you space for knick-knacks in front of them, or pull them all forward so they are even?
I couldn’t be more proud to be part of Keshet as we announce the publication of the world’s first English-language Jewish children’s book with LGBT characters, THE PURIM SUPERHERO. Order one for everyone you know, just in time for Purim! Thanks to Kar-Ben Publishing for being a partner in this endeavor.
I’m about 25% of the way into this book. Before I started, some of my friends warned me I should really read an abridged version, but that goes against every English-major bone in my body.
They were right.
I thought all the backstory of the bishop was too much at the beginning of the novel. That’s nothing compared to the play by play of the battle of Waterloo happening at the start of Volume II, with no sign of either Napoleon’s defeat or any hint of relevance to the larger story on the horizon. Get it together, Hugo!
Hey look, I’m on a book cover! (And an essay I wrote is in the book, along with essays by a bunch of friends, colleagues, and strangers who are nonetheless quite interesting.) It’s an academic publisher, hence the price, but maybe some of my Jewish studies (and/or American/Cultural Studies) professor friends (and librarian friends!) will add it to their syllabi and collections.
We’re happy to introduce the NWK Tumblr Book Club! (We asked, and you answered!)
After consulting with our brilliant books editor, we selected 5 titles from our “Best Summer Reads of 2012” list. Now it’s up to YOU to pick which of the 5 we read first. We’ll announce your pick later this week, and let’s plan to start reading next week (July 2nd)!
Here are summaries of the 5 books you can vote for:
Trollopian, Dickensian, Balzacian—all should spring to mind when you pick up John Lanchester’s hefty new novel about near present-day London. Set on a typical (and dear reader, atypical in having a writer as gifted as Lanchester tell its story) London street (Pepys Road), he weaves a rich story about the financial collapse and its impact on financier and graffiti artist alike. We’re all connected by capital.
Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead
“Literary thinking relies upon literary memory, and the drama of recognition,” Harold Bloom once wrote. Shipstead’s first novel can be read as an unremarkable Harvard-tinted, golf-club obsessed WASP comedy about a—what else—wedding on a—where else—Cape Cod island. But read past that and it’s clear Shipstead is coming to terms with T.S. Eliot (quoted in the epigraph), Shakespeare, Arthurian legends (chapters include “The Castle of the Maidens” and “The Maimed King”), and other mythologies (“A Centaur” and “The Ouroboros”), and connecting it to the American Camelot. (Even the title “Seating Arrangements” brings to mind the round table.) This is ambitious, but if you grew up in New England, how many times have you sat on your beach chair with “The Once and Future King” and a biography of JFK, purling these mythologies in your sunned head?
There’s a red house over yonder, and just as Jimi Hendrix splintered and exploded the blues while remaining exciting and accessible, Haddon, the author of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” has the same tendency on narrative. So it is that the story of Richard, a doctor who invites his sister’s family to stay at his vacation home, is told through the perspectives of eight different people, with almost each paragraph beginning with “Daisy wants happiness…” “Melissa tries to ring…” “Benjamin was crying…” At its best, it resembles a game of “Clue.”
The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
The rotation of the world begins to slow, and the end of days (at least, of 24-hour days) is written not only as the struggle for survival but also a terrible bummer when 11-year-old Julia tries to maintain her crush on hottie Seth Moreno. This debut novel might sound like a cross between The Lovely Bones and Lar von Trier’s film Melancholia, but the conceit is memorable and there are hilarious moments. “We were not required to squeeze our days into twenty-four little hours. No new law was passed or put into place. This was America.”
“Incendiary” and the mega-million bestseller “Little Bee” depended on the driving force of plot, and Gold is the same. But the story of three friends eyeing their last chance at a gold medal in track cycling at the 2012 Olympics (and a daughter battling leukemia) is told like one long episode of Law and Order, with each scene prefaced by a date and setting, even including the hilariously imagined “Death Star, 1:55 p.m.” and “Dagobah System, 12:55 p.m.” alternating with the heartbreakingly real “Pediatric intensive care unit, North Manchester General Hospital, 12:35 p.m.” Cleave is at last completely aware of his reliance of contrived events and emotions, just like in a television drama, and there need not be any shame in it.
To vote, fill out this quick form OR reblog this post with your pick! We’ll annouce your choice later this week and start reading next week (July 2nd)! Also, be sure to follow this Tumblr to be a part of our cool-kids-who-read club! So many exclamation points!
Friends: please check this out, and please vote for Gold by Chris Cleave, which I promise you will be the best thing you’ll read this summer. (I am close friends with the book’s editor. She is very honest with me about the books she puts out. She hasn’t been this excited about a book since Cara Hoffman’s So Much Pretty, which was my favorite book of 2011. I trust her judgment.)
