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2666 is a composite of five different narratives spun into one by two unifying elements: the fictional post World War II German author Benno Von Archimboldi, and the real life, mostly unsolved muders that have occured in Ciudade Juarez (Santa Teresa in the book) in the past 10 years. The novel itself is difficult to describe in that there is not a strong central plot, but rather a fugue of smaller, interconnected plots each painting its own picture of the same theme. Throughout the more than nine hundred pages of this work you will travel the world (from Europe, to Mexico, to the United States, to South America, and then back to Europe), be introduced to hundreds of disparate characters, and experience the horrors of World War II and the more than 300 femecides of Santa Teresa (where at one point the author says, "the secret of the world lies"). 2666 is a fascinating, engrossing work, one that aims to adress the big questions and, for the most part, succeeds.
-Jeff
"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit." So begins On Bullshit, a breif treatise on modern and (more appropriately) postmodern's most promient trademark, bureaucracy, or as the author likes to call it: bullshit. Harry Frankfurt, a professor of philosophy at Princeton, spells out his grievances with the modern phenomena and even delves into the history and delineation of the term in a quick and delightful read that will have you both laughing and thinking.
-Jeff
Graphic novels are a fast emerging art medium, and Marjane Satrapi proves to be one of its greatest proponents. Most have read the phenomenally successful Persepolis (adapted into a film last year) and they would not be disappointed with her latest work Chicken with Plums. In Chicken with Plums, Satrapi focuses on the true story of her great-uncle Nasser Ali Khan, a venerated Iranian musician, who is seeking to replace his most prized possession, his tar. However, when he finds himself incapable of replacing the instrument he’s played for so long, as well as his love for playing it, he encounters a spiritual impasse, and concludes to end his life. At turns hilarious as well as incredibly heartwarming Chicken with Plums proves a wild success. Ones only complaint could be that the novel is short—too short. At only 84 pages, one is left longing for Satrapi to go on for another 100, or 200, pages. But, alas, she doesn’t. She ends it quite quickly and quite elegantly.
-Jeff
Jonathan Maberry's Patient Zero is easily one of the most compelling, readable novels I've come across recently. Is it a deep, intellectual treatise on... well, anything? No. It's about special forces types fighting zombies. Scratch that - it's about special forces types fighting zombies created by terrorists to, you know, terrorize America, coming within a hairsbreath of losing to the terrorists and their pet zombies, and then winning, because that's what special forces types do in that sort of situation, regardless of whether or not it involves zombies. I read this particular title in less that 24 hours; absolute fun really is the only way to describe it.
-Drew & Christel
Evidence is the newest collection of poems by Mary Oliver. Like all of her other work, these poems deal heavily with the mysteries and beauties of nature, life, loss and love. Poems like "The Swan" and the title poem "Evidence" will bring the reader into their own world, filling them with hope and a newfound appreciation for the infinitesimal and intricate things in our common existence.
-Jeff
If you didn't hear me rave about this one in hardcover, it's out now in paperback - one of my absolute favorite books last year. Benioff's career has been up-and-down - The 25th hour was interesting, but not great, and I'll admit to having absolutely no interest in When The Nines Roll Over - but he finally breaks out with City of Thieves. Loosely based on his grandfather's life during the siege of Leningrad during WWII, City of Thieves follows the travails of young Lev Beniov, caught stealing a knife from a dead German and sentenced, along with charismatic deserter Kolya, to find eggs in a city that hasn't seen live chickens since the siege began, years ago. Their journey takes them through unimaginable horrors and tiny pieces of happiness, and forever has a place on my best books ever list.
-Drew Amberville is an odd-seeming mashup of vast conspiracies, unreliable narrators, street savvy operators, and, er, stuffed animals. The city of the title is populated entirely by stuffed animals - stuffed parrots, stuffed bears, stuffed snakes, etc. Davys builds the novel around general crime tropes - the protagonist, Eric Bear, is drawn back into a life of crime he had managed to escape - but has more important questions on his/her mind (the jacket is specifically mysterious about the author's gender). The crime boss dragging Eric back into the underworld has heard that his name is on the mythical 'Death List' - a list no one has ever seen, or managed to remove their name from, and it's Eric's job to save him, or else the love of Eric's life will be torn limb from stuffed limb.
-Drew
Fight Club meets "ER" with a soupcon of The Godfather is probably the best way to describe this book. The hero is a reformed mob hit man in the witness protection program... as an un-classically trained intern at the crummiest New York hospital known to man, beast, or pharmaceutical sales rep. Through flashbacks the reader learns about the making of the “Bearclaw” one of the mob’s most feared hit men. The reader also learns that the last thing you want to do when you’re sick is end up at Manhattan Catholic.*
*Board certified doctors have laughed out loud while reading this book.
Disclaimer: The use of this product is not recommended for anyone currently under a doctor’s care. This product is not recommended to women who are nursing, pregnant, or think they might be pregnant. Use of this product is not recommended for those with a weak stomach. Use of this product should be immediately stopped if any itching or burning sensations occur about the eyes, nose, or throat. Nausea may occur with continued use of this product. Little Professor is not responsible for any side effects felt as a result of use of this product, including but not limited to an overwhelming but rational fear of the medical profession. - Sara & Emmy What more can be said about zombies? These monsters have been showing up in movies and books all over the place lately. In Breathers, zombies take a giant, slow, creeping step out of the genre of mindless horror and into romance. This is not a tale of love emerging between two people surviving zombies; instead two zombies find love and acceptence in a society where they are strictly marginalized. This is a humerous tale where zombies learn to embrace their existence, even if it means killing and eating one's parents.
-Christel This is Alan SIllitoe's first, and most popular novel. It follows Arthur Seaton, a lathe operator at a bicycle factory, as he seeks to enjoy every Saturday night boozing and carousing with married women despite the prostate Sunday morning that always follows. Arthur subverts the authority of the factory, as well as the tax collector and the police, while asserting himself as one of the first of Britain's "Angry Young Men." As Arthur often repeats: "It's a great life . . . if you don't weaken."
-David David Peace's 1974 is an interesting, fast-paced, booze-and-caffeine-fueled descent into possible madness, possible homicide, possible inhumanity. it follows a British reporter as he struggles to uncover the truth of a little girl's murder, uncovering a plot that might tie higher and higher into the power structure of the land - or he may simply be coming unhinged. 1974 is the first book in a quartet; I'm greatly excited to see how the rest turn out.
-Drew
For followers of Mosley's Easy Rawlins series, it does appear that Mosley has retired his veteran PI. However, Leonid McGill fills those shoes quite nicely. Mosley continues his meditations on American race relations viewed through the prism of the criminal underworld; the change of setting from LA to New York offers more opportunity for Mosley to stretch in new directions. On an equally interesting note, this is Mosley's first title with Penguin Putnam - he jumped ship in order to have the same editor as Junot Diaz's Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao.
-Drew
The core idea behind Owen Sheers' Resistance is a plan that was never put into action: in the midst of WWII, the British government instructed all the men who remained behind exactly what to do if the Germans landed on the British Isles. They were to form a guerilla insurgency, disrupting German supply lines and causing as much chaos as they could. They were given, on average, an assumption of two weeks to live. Sheers takes that concept and forms a novel around England in WWII if D-Day failed, if the Germans did invade, and what would happen in an isolated Welsh farming community if, before the sun rose, all the men simply up and left, off to fight a war they could not win.
-Drew
The Manual of Detection is an odd little work, equal parts noir, magical realism and page-turning conspiracy. This debut novel is equal parts Dashiel Hammet and Terry Gilliam, a gray-toned fantasia and a portrait of the dangers of bureaucracy. Slight but thought provoking, I recommend it thoroughly.
-Drew
Curtis Sittenfeld's roman-a-clef of Laura Bush got a fair amount of press when it first came out, for good reason: avowed liberal Sittenfeld digs in behind the smile to create a fictional portrait of a deeply compelling woman, fleshing out her first lady not in a full-length biography-type portrait of her life, but instead focusing down on four imagined snapshots of her life: 'Alice Lindgren' at sixteen, when she accidentally kills a fellow student in an accident, at twenty-one, when she lets rich, lazy Republican Charlie Blackwell, in her thirties, after she has settled into their marriage and Charlie contemplates his 'legacy', and, finally, in the White House, as the social conscience Alice has always stamped down threatens to bubble to the surface.
-Drew
Mark of the Lion is the debut novel in what is promising to be a fascinating new series. Jade Cameron, our intrepid heroine, was an ambulance driver during World War I. When the young pilot she is seeing makes a deathbed request of her, Jade finds herself traveling to post-war Africa. A job as a travel correspondant provides Jade with the freedom to fulfill her friend's request and to fall in love with Africa. She becomes simba jike or "lion woman" and goes face to ghost with a witch doctor. Jade makes friends with the locals as well as the ex-patriot community and even coaxes some of her English friends to come out as well. Africa changes her in ways she discoveres over the rest of the series.
-Sara The fifth book in Winspear's Maisy Dobbs series brings a new level of danger to the life of our intrepid heroine. On Christmas Eve Maisy tries to assist a wounded war veteran on the street and is, instead, caught in the blast of a bomb he uses to commit suicide. This blast not only propells her through space, but also thrusts her into the midst of an investigation with tendrils in places like #10 Downing Street and Cambridge University. Meanwhile her assistant, Billy Beale is floundering in the dangerous waters of his wife's unrelenting grief. Maisy remains a character as vibrant as a plate from the Illustrated London News and as real as anyone you've ever met.
-Sara
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Next SigningClaire Datnow
will be signing
 Wednesday
February 15
1:00 - 3:00 pm Little Professor Bookclub |
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