Great Books

I didn’t read quite as many books this year as usual, but have still come up with a pretty great short list for your literary enjoyment. So here’s the best of the picks for the next time you want to curl up with a good read.

1. Woodstock Handmade Houses

2. Clockers

3. No One Belongs Here More Than You

4. Lunar Park

5. Christian Lacroix on Fashion

6. somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

See more: Books Best of

Be the first to leave a comment →
Posted on January 1, 2011

by William Hjortsberg (1994)

Nevermore is silly fun, though to my surprise based on some real events and relationships. The story focuses on the (true) friendship between magician Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. They shared an interest in mysticism but became enemies based on their opposing views. Doyle was a passionate believer, Houdini a staunch skeptic. It’s no wonder then, that it’s Doyle who sees the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe is Hjortsberg’s serial killer mystery (the serial killer part – not so true).

Despite the spiritual leanings and fun with ghosts, actual New York events and places (I am a sucker for anything set in the early days of the city) and wild sex scenes that jump out of nowhere, this is a stunningly common mystery novel. The reveal never as good as the lead up. It’s all fine and good, but just not what I expected from Hjortsberg, whose sci fi weirdo novel Gray Matters, about the enlightenment of man and floating brains, was far more trippy and unique.

Still, judged for what it is, rather than his previous work, it’s great fun for mystery novel lovers and interesting for anyone curious about the Jazz Age in New York and the tricks of Houdini.

See more: Books 1990s Mystery

Be the first to leave a comment →
Posted on November 23, 2010

by Joyce Carol Oates (1993)

Teenage girls are infinitely fascinating and mysterious to me (even though I was one once!). There’s such a deep emotional well and dynamic opposing elements, it’s little wonder that their world can make for excellent fiction when handled right (see Virgin Suicides and My Summer of Love).

Joyce Carol Oates makes the rebellion of teenage girls, and the intense friendships that can be formed, especially with little or no family influence, the topic of Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang. Told through the older, though perhaps no wiser eyes of one of the gang members years later, the story is mostly set in the early 1950’s in the run down town of Hammond, NY.

“Legs” Sadovsky is the gang leader, a bold, complex young hellion, beyond her years and an idol for admiration to lost girls. Under her watch and direction, a rag tag group of outsiders, all young girls and denouncing men, form Foxfire, a girl gang that goes beyond mere tattoos and matching outfits but delves into violence, recklessness, theft and eventually worse in an uncontrolled vent against a world with few options and many obstacles.

It’s a fast paced and quick read that I have on good authority is a million times better than the loose film adaptation which seems to take all the bite out of the plot and sets the story in the early 90’s with Angelina Jolie. It’s a shame, because in the right hands it could make a compelling movie. For now, read the book instead.

See more: Books 1950s 1990s Fiction

Be the first to leave a comment →
Posted on October 15, 2010

by Theodore Sturgeon (1953)

I thought I knew what to expect from Theodore Sturgeon‘s More Than Human based on the cheap (modern) cover and back jacket description: some sort of X Men meets Enders Game, but what I found was more mysterious and at times down right literary. Divided into three segments, the groundbreaking novel explores the coming together of several outsiders with extraordinary talents. They are a village idiot that can control minds, twin girls who can teleport, an overly protected girl with telekinetic skills, an ingenious baby and an angry multi skilled young man. Apart they are often beat down and freakish, together they may just be the future of human evolution. It sounds a movie-ready tale with a comic book vibe, but the first part, The Fabulous Idiot, in particular is darker, stranger and more complex than that.

Unfortunately, the two latter parts are told through a lot of exposition – a character talking to his psychiatrist in one, and a man trying to regain his memory in another – which is a far less exciting way to unfold a story of sometimes complex ideas. Still, it holds as a unique piece of science fiction with memorable characters that one can imagine in other adventures.

This is the most famous novel by the nearly unknown but undeniably influential author who inspired Delany, Bradbury and Ellison as well as the character Kilgore Trout of Vonnegut’s novels.

See more: Books 1950s Sci-Fi

Be the first to leave a comment →
Posted on September 18, 2010

by Jim Thompson (1957)

Even a lesser work by Jim Thompson is great fun to read. It is with reluctance that I admit Wild Town falls into that category, especially with such a strong set up. Bugs is a life time loser, in and out of jail with a temper and a lust for women. He wanders to an oil boom town and in the employ of local rich man, Hanlon as a hotel detective. Lou Ford is the deceptively hayseed sheriff capable of great violence.

Of course, there are dames too: Hanlon’s loose young wife whose got her eye on Bugs, the seemlingly innocent hotel maid that can’t resist a strong man, and the goodhearted school teacher that seems like the image of perfection to Bugs. The characters are colorful, they just are left in one of Thompson’s most straight forward and least bleak plots.

I can’t give too much away without spoilers, but there’s a murder, blackmail, some missing money and double crossing, it’s just missing the bleak almost surrealism that brightens the best works by Thompson (see Hell of a Woman, The Killer Inside Me). Still, fans of noir could do much worse for quick and mostly satisfying summer reading.

See more: Books 1950s Mysteries Noir

Be the first to leave a comment →
Posted on September 5, 2010