I wonder if there are people who go book wandering as well? I don't really do it much, but maybe its because new authors and books are so totally in my face because I well- put my face there. In the spirit of the new year, here is a tiny smattering of the books I read in 2008 that, if you missed, you should pick up. They're well worth the read.
The Boy Detective FailsJoe Meno
I picked this up on one of my trips out West. It's no Nabokov, but it's a wonderful little book and well worth the read.
From Publishers Weekly
Playing such mysteries as "The Case of the Brown Bunny" against the mysteries of mortality and mankind's capacity for evil, the latest from Meno (Bluebirds Used to Croon in the Choir) presents former child sleuth Billy Argo at 30, having just finished a 10-year stint in a mental hospital, where he was confined after his teenage sister Caroline's suicide. Unhappy, painfully shy and doped up on anti anxiety drugs, Billy arrives in New York City and is admitted to a psych halfway house. Haunted by the mystery of his sister's death and feeling that a lapse in his sleuthing may be to blame, Billy is determined to find out the reason for her suicide and to punish those responsible. He soon finds allies in two bright and unpopular children who live across the street, and clues to relevant past cases from lifelong arch-enemy Professor Von Golum (who happens to live across the hall). Not all the plot strands pan out, and the effect is more impressionistic than narrative (various codes strewn throughout have their own digressive pleasures). But the story of Billy's search for truth, love and redemption is surprising and absorbing. Swaddled in melancholy and gentle humor, it builds in power as the clues pile up.
Dangerous Laughter: 13 StoriesSteven Millhauser
Maybe its not right for me to write about this one, as I wrote an entire blog entry about it earlier in the year. I love Millhauser-and if you don't- you should. He's brilliant and engaging and always makes me smile. Just read it.
From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Jeff Turrentine
One reason why Steven Millhauser is consistently so much fun to read -- whether he's writing novels, such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Martin Dressler, or the short stories he clearly loves even more -- is that he has never forgotten what it was like to be an 11-year-old boy, fueled by curiosity and wonder, trying to make the banal world around him fit his comic-book image of how things should be. But for all of their boyish enthusiasms and fantastic, even gothic, trappings, Millhauser's novels and stories deal with decidedly complex themes. Among his favorites: the price of obsession, the folly of hubris and the inevitable collapse of best-laid plans under the weight of their designers' passion.
Now, with Dangerous Laughter, he has given us a collection of stories that explore these ideas with the mixture of dark suspense and good humor implied by the title. Everything one has come to want and expect in Millhauser's fiction is here -- spooky attics, fantastic inventions, artists driven mad, and ambitious enterprises that become overattenuated and impossible to sustain. The result is almost a Steven Millhauser primer, a much needed fix for fans who've been waiting since The King in the Tree (2003) and a perfect introduction for those unacquainted with his writing.
Nothing to Be Frightened OfJulian Barnes
I enjoy Julian Barnes - most of the time -yes, there are moments when I've not so much loved a book of his. This one, I liked. Arthur & George-not so much. Anywhoo. If you have any qualms about your mortality, aging or death, read this book. It will comfort you. It will unsettle you, and overall you will be glad that you were let into the musings of this man.
From Publishers Weekly
In this virtuosic memoir, Barnes (Arthur & George) makes little mention of his personal or professional life, allowing his audience very limited ingress into his philosophical musings on mortality. But like Alice tumbling through the rabbit hole, readers will find themselves granted access to an unexpectedly large world, populated with Barnes's daily companions and his chosen ancestors (most of them dead, and quite a few of them French, like Jules Renard, Flaubert, Zola). This is not 'my autobiography,' Barnes emphasizes in this hilariously unsentimental portrait of his family and childhood. Part of what I'm doing—which may seem unnecessary—is trying to work out how dead they are. And in this exploration of what remains, the author sifts through unreliable memory to summon up how his ancestors—real and assumed—contemplated death and grappled with the perils and pleasures of pit-gazing. If Barnes's self-professed amateur philosophical rambling feels occasionally self-indulgent, his vivid description delights.
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese FoodJennifer 8 Lee
Over the Thanksgiving holiday I was privileged to attend a "One Pot" Meal in the Capital Hill, Seattle loft of a local chef. The balance of the event was perfect for me, literature, entertainment, wine and food. Perfect. Jennifer 8 Lee, whom bless her heart, had to rush to the airport to return to NYC directly after dinner, taught me enough things in a half hour that I didn't know about Chinese food that I was simply (okay a little drunk) astonished. The entire evening would have been a success were it not for the ass across the table who tried to woo everyone with his coolness factor of being the dude to discover "Iron & Wine" for Subpop. Who gives a flip. Am I digressing? I am. Trust me. You'll never think of Chinese food the same way again- and in a good way. Read it- read it- read it.
From The Washington Post
Christine Y. Chen )"[Lee] embeds her subject's history in an entertaining personal narrative, eschewing cookie-cutter interviews and dry lists of facts and figures . . . she has a breezy, likable literary demeanor that makes the first-person material engaging. Thanks to Lee's journalistic chops, the text moves along energetically even in its more expository sections . . . Tasty morsels delivered quickly and reliably.
The Ladies of the CorridorDorothy Parker & Anton d'Usseau
If you've spent even five minutes perusing my blog you know that I love Dorothy Parker. So, when I had the opportunity to snap up a long lost play you can imagine how long it took me to click on the Paypal option. The introduction by Marion Meade, one of Parker's best biographers, it was my favorite treat to myself all year. I can understand why this play might not rock the stages of Broadway- now, or when it was let loose in the 60s. But it peels back a time that absolutely was, a type of women who absolutely existed, and still do even if we don't want to admit it in the depths of our feminist (and you may find you are one once you read this play) hearts.
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