Read This Book(er)

Winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction, named one of the best books of 2015 by The New York Times Book Review and the Wall Street Journal, and now winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction (the first American to do so), Kalani say, "Read this book,"

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

This is what absurdist social commentary is all about! Beatty tackles the always hot-button issue of race beautifully in this satirical masterpiece of a black urban farmer who attempts to resegregate his hometown. This is as funny as it is deeply thought-provoking. One of the best, most entertaining novels I've read in awhile.  -Kalani

A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality the black Chinese restaurant.

Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.

Fuelled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.

Read This Book : Shirley You Jest Edition

Dean and Halley say, "Read this book:"

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Well, Jackson did it again! This beautiful strange novel leaves quite a distinct and lingering impression. In this tale of mystery and isolation we are met by two sisters cut off from the world. They live alone, happily and ferally in their dilapidated family home in an almost mundanely mystical lifestyle a la Grey Gardens. Delivering and effortless sense of unease, this captivating and understated story will leave you in a satisfying state of unknowingness.

-Dean

Merricat lives with her older sister and uncle after her family is killed due to the mysterious appearance of arsenic in the sugar bowl. After her sister is acquited of the murder, she and Merricat are ostracized by the village. For a time, they are content in their isolation...until a visitor comes to stay. Strange and haunting, this novel stayed with me long after I finished it. Shirley Jackson managed to tell a story without violence, gore, or horror and yet by the end you're left chilled to the bone.

-Halley

***

And speaking of Shirley Jackson, just now is a pretty good time to be an SJ fan (or to become one) as the queen of horror is experiencing a bit of a resurgence. And it's about time too. 

When Shirley Jackson was first introduced by The New Republic, it was as, "Shirley Jackson, the wife of Stanley Hyman... living in New Hampshire and writing a novel." Not as she should have been, "Shirley Jackson the bad*ss writer of truly haunting and creepy short stories is writing a novel and lives in New Hampshire where she has to drive Stanley Hyman (the husband of Ms. Jackson) around because she knows how to drive and he doesn't." Not that not being able to drive is a reason for ridicule.

All I'm trying to say is it's time to give this author and licensed driver the appreciation she deserves. And with a new biography, last year's novel based on her life, and a soon to be released graphic novel based on one of her most well-known short stories, we finally are! -Erin

Shirley Jackson's The Lottery by Miles Hyman

Shirley Jackson's The Lottery continues to thrill and unsettle readers nearly seven decades after it was first published. By turns puzzling and harrowing, it raises troubling questions about conformity, tradition, and the specter of ritualized violence that haunts even the most bucolic, peaceful village. 

This graphic adaptation, published in time for Jackson's centennial, allows readers to experience The Lottery as never before, or discover it anew. The visual artist--and Jackson's grandson--Miles Hyman has crafted an eerie vision of the hamlet where the tale unfolds, its inhabitants, and the unforgettable ritual they set into motion. His four-color, meticulously detailed panels create a noirish atmosphere that adds a new dimension of dread to the original tale. Perfectly timed to the current resurgence of interest in Jackson and her work, Shirley Jackson's The Lottery: The Authorized Graphic Adaptation masterfully reimagines her iconic story with a striking visual narrative.

Shirley Jackson : A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

Placing Jackson within an American Gothic tradition that stretches back to Hawthorne and Poe, Franklin demonstrates how her unique contribution to this genre came from her focus on "domestic horror." Almost two decades before The Feminine Mystique ignited the women's movement, Jackson stories and nonfiction chronicles were already exploring the exploitation and the desperate isolation of women, particularly married women, in American society.Franklin's portrait of Jackson gives us a way of reading Jackson and her work that threads her into the weave of the world of words, as a writer and as a woman, rather than excludes her as an anomaly (Neil Gaiman).

The increasingly prescient Jackson emerges as a ferociously talented, determined, and prodigiously creative writer in a time when it was unusual for a woman to have both a family and a profession.A mother of four and the wife of the prominentNew Yorkercritic and academic Stanley Edgar Hyman, Jackson lived a seemingly bucolic life in the New England town of North Bennington, Vermont. Yet, much like her stories, which channeled the occult while exploring the claustrophobia of marriage and motherhood, Jackson's creative ascent was haunted by a darker side. As her career progressed, her marriage became more tenuous, her anxiety mounted, and she became addicted to amphetamines and tranquilizers. In sobering detail, Franklin insightfully examines the effects of Jackson's California upbringing, in the shadow of a hypercritical mother, on her relationship with her husband, juxtaposing Hyman's infidelities, domineering behavior, and professional jealousy with his unerring admiration for Jackson's fiction, which he was convinced was among the most brilliant he had ever encountered.

Shirley by Susan Scarf Merrell 

In this darkly captivating novel, Susan Scarf Merrell uses the facts of Jackson's life as a springboard to explore the 1964 disappearance of Paula Weldon, a young Bennington College student. 

Told through the eyes of Rose Nemser the wife of a graduate student working with Jackson's husband, Bennington professor Stanley Edgar Hyman Shirley reimagines the connections between the Hymans volatile marriage and one of the era's great unsolved mysteries.

Read This Book: Epic, All-Staff, Event Edition

I have often heard bookselling referred to as a labor of love, which as you know implies we don't get paid very much. But while we may not be rich in cash money, we are basically swimming in free books.

How jealous must you ordinary people be of booksellers and our advance reader's copies? I'm guessing not as jealous as I want you to be.  I am constantly disappointed by the response I get when it pops up in conversation that I'm reading a yet-to-be published book. I find myself saying this a lot, "Excuse, me, I just want to make sure you understand, this book isn't available to you normals yet." 

I'm very popular at parties.

So. WAAAAAAAAAY back in January, I got to read the advance copy of Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West. That's right while you all were still talking about Channing Tatum lip syncing Let it Go, and Patti LaBelle's new line of cakes, I was immersed in the genius, hilarious, fury-inducing musings of Seattle's very own, Lindy West.

After I read it, I passed it along to many of my coworkers and we've become kind of (very) fanatical in our adoration. You can ask Lindy's mom who totally shops here and doesn't seem the least bit uncomfortable that we all know her name. 

And lately, the whole world is getting a little fanatical about our Lindy.

I feel like an unbearably hip person who loved that cool band first, before everyone else loved the cool band and then I no longer love the cool band because it's too mainstream. Except, I'm not that hip, and it's not a band, it's Lindy West, and I only want her to get more, and more popular. I want her book to be on every bestseller list, and every high school curriculum, and 30 copies of it in every library in the whole entire world. Everyone I know is getting a copy for their next birthday. Yes, even my nephews who are 3 and 5...especially my nephews. 

The essays in Shrill are funny, pointed, and razor-sharp and they'll make you feel strong and sad and angry and joyous all at once. Lindy will be reading, signing, and being generally awesome at our Lake Forest Park store tomorrow, Thursday, May 26th at 7PM! We can hardly contain ourselves.  -Erin

See below for some more of our fangirling:

I love this book, and I love Lindy West. She gave me feelings I didn't know I was capable of feeling. I felt validated and brave and often incedibly enraged on her behalf. She talks about issues like sexism, abortion and fat shaming, body issues and internet trolls with such a perfect blend  of humor empathy and wisdom. It's that combination of strength and wit that makes it such an unforgettable read. 

She is my hero, and I want her to be my best friend. I want to get matching BFF bracelets and take her to brunch so I can listen to her talk about whatever goes through her beautiful brain.  -Courtney

 ***

Shrill started a kind of internal revolution--in every one of us who read it here--that told me my humanity does not rest on my thinness, my gender, or any outside commentary on my physical existence. All I can say is since having read Shrill, I heave a sigh of relief anew each and every time I realize I don't have to hate my body because it is not "the perfect body", nor do I have to shrink into nothing every time I am too loud, too proud, too big, and too shrill. Thank you, Lindy.  -Lizzie

 ***

Lindy West makes feminism accessible without watering it down, which most of our media outlets flat out refuse to do. She makes the daily struggle to insist that others recognize our (women's) humanity HILARIOUS while not downplaying how effing atrocious the whole situation actually is.  -Anje

Read This Book : Author Event Edition

Brian Castner, author of The Long Walk, will discuss his new, highly anticipated follow-up All the Ways We Kill and Die at our Lake Forest Park Store on Monday, April 4th at 7PM

In an extended profile about recent war literature, famed book critic of the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani wrote:

“War cracks people’s lives apart, unmasks the most extreme emotions, fuels the deepest existential questions. Even as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan morph into shapeless struggles with no clear ends in sight, they have given birth to an extraordinary outpouring of writing that tries to make sense of it all: journalism that has unraveled the back story of how and why America went to war, and also a profusion of stories, novels, memoirs and poems that testify to the day-to-day realities and to the wars’ ever-unspooling human costs.”

Over the past few years many books by ex-military writers have been released to great acclaim. It has become difficult to pick which ones to read. As someone with no close personal ties to anyone in active service, I find the subject deeply fascinating for the very reasons Kakutani mentions.

Former Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) officer Brian Caster is one of the writers featured in the New York Times article. Castner is the best-selling author of The Long Walk, and with his new book, All the Ways We Kill and Die, he solidifies his place as one of the best military authors writing today. 

Castner’s first book, The Long Walk, chronicles on his deeply personal account serving three tours of duty in the Middle East as commander of the EOD unit in Iraq. Rather than detailing the specifics of the various campaigns he led, the book focuses primarily on his postwar experience and the psychological struggle he faced returning from war.

His new book, All the Ways We Kill and Die, again draws the reader in by appealing to the pathos of war. In the opening pages we see Castner learn his close friend and EOD-brother has been killed in action in Afghanistan while Brian and his family sit by their Christmas tree at home in Buffalo, New York. The story launches into action from there as Castner, no stranger to such tragedies, becomes obsessed with the question, “Who is the man who killed my friend?”

In telling the story of his friend’s death, Castner profiles the struggling widow, two war amputees, female biometrics engineer, a bomb-maker, a contractor for hire, and, in one of the more fascinating and stunning sections of the book, a drone pilot. With these detailed accounts, the book pieces together the story of “The Engineer,” the man responsible for the bombs. Considerably more technical than his first book (a 7-page glossary in the book helps readers navigate Arabic, military jargon, and acronyms),  All the Ways We Kill and Die is a book that brings readers backstage, intimately unveiling modern warfare in a way that is completely fresh. Castner’s books are a must read for anyone wanting to know more about the real individual lives of the soldiers who fight the wars of today.

Join us at the Lake Forest Park store on Monday April 4 at 7pm to meet Brian Castner.

-Kalani

Read This Book: Current Events Edition

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

This book is everywhere, with good reason. Many of us here at Third Place Books have read it. Here are two of our booksellers on why you should read it too:

Robert:

You are unlikely to read a more important book about race this year. Coates' letter to his 15-year-old son is provocative, upsetting, inspiring, and, like any passionate argument, an emotional roller coaster ride. It is the beginning, not the end of a much needed conversation.

Mark:

We all bring a lifetime of experiences to whatever book we read. I read Between the World and Me, keeping in mind that I am the father of a black son. My wife is also black. Being a white father, I cannot pass on the experiences of being a black man in America. As a member of white society, I can walk blithely through life unaware of the biases and profiling that affects my own family.

Between the World and Me is a memoir, written in the form of a letter to the writer’s fifteen-year-old son. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a black father, and in this book he relates his own experiences of growing up black in America. Sometimes he is quite angry – rightfully so – and his narrative is always personal and emotionally powerful. He’s not just talking about slavery and the subjugation of the African-American people, but the fact that America’s success was built on the backs of these people.

He uses direct quotes to dispute dangerous ideas, such as the Civil War not being fought over slavery. Coates covers institutional racism, and how most of us are deluded by this idea of whiteness, also known as “the American Dream”. There is a lot to digest in just over one-hundred and fifty pages, especially for those of us only familiar with the winner’s interpretation of history.

Every once in a while, a book deserves the exalted status it’s being given, and Between the World and Me is one of those books.

Read This Book

You MUST read this book. Rude Cakes by Rowboat Watkins.

It's pretty much impossible to walk by this book and not pick it up. Just look at that cake! Adorable! In fact, so adorable, that we've made it Picture Book of the Week. The inaugural winner. Also, it's by someone named Rowboat Watkins. How is that not a selling point?

It's the story of an angry cake, and the lessons a case of mistaken identity can provide. All kidding aside, this is a delightful little book. Funny and sweet, but none of that cloying kind of sweetness that can plague other, more earnest picture books. Charming illustrations, and a great message. Plus, it's about cake.

Check out Rude Cakes, and then eat some cake. Both of our stores boast delicious bakeries. The Honey Bear in Lake Forest Park, and Vios Cafe at Ravenna.

Yum.

Read This Book

Wow, this space has been a little silent lately.  *crickets*  I will blame the fact that I've been spending all of my time reading. And not just ordinary reading. I'm talking serious, off the charts, far afield, way out of my comfort zone reading. And all that experimental reading gives me the confidence to recommend this truly fascinating book! So here we go...

Erin says, "Read this book."

Thrown by Kerry Howley

Never.

I never, ever thought I would care about Mixed Martial Arts, (cage fighting if you need a visual) let alone read an entire book about it. It's violent, and dangerous, and just so stupid. But then I found this book; a world-expanding and wonderfully weird read about philosophy and obsession, failure and hope, and yes--cage fighting.

While bored out of her mind at a writing conference Kerry Howley decides to follow a group of men who lead her to a makeshift fighting octagon at the very same conference hotel. It is here she witnesses her first MMA fight and undergoes a transcendent experience that she doesn't fully understand, but longs to replicate. That night she meets one to the two fighters she will follow over the course of the next three years. Inserting herself into their lives as a "space taker," Howley chases that unexplained, otherworldly feeling while her fighters chase dreams of glory, fame, and brotherhood.

This book is wild. I learned more about MMA and phenomenology than I ever thought I wanted to (not that I actually ever thought about those things or knew what they were until now). It's absurd, and smart, and sad. In a word--captivating. Read it.

Read This Book

One of the greatest perks of bookselling has to be the advance reader copies (ARC); bound galleys of books that come from the publishers, meant to be read by reviewers, booksellers, and so on. But one of the of the worst things about ARCs is that they haven't been reviewed yet, and there are just so many coming into the store everyday. Most of the time it's not even possible to keep track of every ARC that comes in, let alone read them all. 

And sadly, I am the absolute worst at just picking up an unknown book/author. I have so many other books that I know I want to read, I just can't justify picking up a book by an author I've never heard of. I can't handle that kind of risk. I need someone to tell me to read it. I need to know that it's good. Well, luckily for me, and new authors, and ultimately you (to whom I recommend all the great new books I read), I have a boss with excellent taste in books. And he shares that good taste with his less adventurous booksellers.

So the other day, when our boss told me that he thought I would really love Barefoot Dogs, a new book of short stories by Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, I put everything else down and read it. Keep in mind, this is the same boss who recommended Stoner to me, which is now on my Super-Awesome, Mega-Elite, Best Books Ever List. The funny thing is, I had the ARC of Barefoot Dogs just sitting at home-- like for months. But because I had never heard of the author, and no one had told me to read it, I never picked it up.

I really, really need to resist this urge in the future, because this book is AMAZING. And I could have been gushing about it months ago. I would have looked so cool for being the first one to like it. And I really love looking cool. Oh well. Read this book anyways, even if I'm not cool.

Barefoot Dogs : Stories by Antonio Ruiz-Camacho

This is my new favorite book. I very nearly read it entirely in one sitting-- I was just propelled forward by these amazing characters, and beautiful language. It's a collection of stories, but they are all linked so it reads much more like a novel. The head of a wealthy Mexican family is kidnapped; and in fear for their safety, his adult children and their families flee to places all over the world. It's funny, edgy, sexy, terrifying, and bold. Really, it's just all the good adjectives. READ IT!  -Erin B

An unforgettable debut of linked stories that follow the members and retinue of a wealthy Mexican family forced into exile after the patriarch is kidnapped.

On an unremarkable night, Jose Victoriano Arteaga--the head of a thriving Mexico City family--vanishes on his way home from work. The Arteagas find few answers; the full truth of what happened to Arteaga is lost to the shadows of Mexico's vast and desperate underworld, a place of rampant violence and kidnappings, and government corruption. But soon packages arrive to the family house, offering horrifying clues.

Fear, guilt, and the prospect of financial ruination fracture the once-proud family and scatter them across the globe, yet delicate threads still hold them together: in a swimming pool in Palo Alto, Arteaga's young grandson struggles to make sense of the grief that has hobbled his family; in Mexico City, Arteaga's mistress alternates between rage and heartbreak as she waits, in growing panic, for her lover's return; in Austin, the Arteagas' housekeeper tries to piece together a second life in an alienating and demeaning new land; in Madrid, Arteaga's son takes his ailing dog through the hot and unforgiving streets, in search of his father's ghost.

Multiple award-winning author Antonio Ruiz-Camacho offers an exquisite and intimate evocation of the loneliness, love, hope, and fear that can bind a family even as unspeakable violence tears it apart. Barefoot Dogs is a heartfelt elegy to the stolen innocence of every family struck by tragedy. This is urgent and vital fiction.

Read This Book

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

I know I have already gushed once about this book. But one gush is simply not enough. Open to any page and I guarantee you will find something beautiful, clever, biting, or heartbreaking. It's the kind of book that you can pick up and start in the middle, or you can read it straight through, or read it over and over, or put it down for a few months only to be swept right back into it with the first entry you read. Truly, it's wonderful. Whether you're interested in Sylvia herself; the writing life; or deeply felt, authentic musings, she never disappoints. For example:

I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited.

-From The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

 

After reading (and loving) The Bell Jar for the first time last year, I moved on to Ariel, but quickly discovered that a poetry aficionado, I am not. Desperate for more Sylvia, I found this. And it's perfect. 

The personal, and intimate moments of her journals are both inspiring and hopelessly demoralizing. There's nothing quite like reading the private musings of an 18 year-old Sylvia Plath, to really deflate one's own literary aspirations.

But there is also an unexpected joy in these journals. Here is Plath's humor, compassion, biting wit, and shrewd observations, all wrapped up in her sometimes playful, often melancholy outlook; an honest account of a troubled literary genius. It's impossible to read and remain unmoved by these pages. 

-Erin B.

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia by Sylvia Plath

First U.S. Publication A major literary event--the complete, uncensored journals of Sylvia Plath, published in their entirety for the first time. Sylvia Plath's journals were originally published in 1982 in a heavily abridged version authorized by Plath's husband, Ted Hughes.

This new edition is an exact and complete transcription of the diaries Plath kept during the last twelve years of her life. Sixty percent of the book is material that has never before been made public, more fully revealing the intensity of the poet's personal and literary struggles, and providing fresh insight into both her frequent desperation and the bravery with which she faced down her demons. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath is essential reading for all who have been moved and fascinated by Plath's life and work.

Read This Book

This book has been all over the place lately. NPR, the morning talk shows, magazines. Little did I know that this has already been a bestselling juggernaut all over the world, and we are just now catching on.

Ami was the first person on staff to point this book out. She had read an advance copy and could not stop talking about it. Knowing Ami, I was a little surprised that she would be so interested in this kind of thing. Not that Ami is particularly untidy, it just doesn't seem to be something she would be interested in reading about. But she did. And she passed it on. And pretty soon we were all getting excited about it. And trying to determine whether something actually "sparks joy" or not.

The other day I was reading aloud to my co-workers excerpts from the portion of the book that discusses how to handle your book collection. Her first advice: remove every single book you own, from its shelf, the nightstand, your desk...wherever, and stack them all up in big piles on your floor.

Seriously, it's fascinating.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo

This best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing.

Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles?

Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a whole new level, promising that if you properly simplify and organize your home once, you’ll never have to do it again. Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever. The KonMari Method, with its revolutionary category-by-category system, leads to lasting results. In fact, none of Kondo’s clients have lapsed (and she still has a three-month waiting list).

With detailed guidance for determining which items in your house “spark joy” (and which don’t), this international bestseller featuring Tokyo’s newest lifestyle phenomenon will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home—and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.

Read This Book

Mark just won't stop with this one. He's constantly talking about it, always suggesting it, casually bringing it up in completely unrelated conversations. He really wants you to read this book. In his own words:

Laird Hunt is the author of six novels and a writer I've been meaning to get to for a number of years. Neverhome, his latest work, is the story of Ash/Constance Thompson, who has decided to join the Union in it's fight against the South in place of her husband, because she "was strong, and he was not."

As the reader, we don't know quite why Ash has decided to risk her life as a soldier. She often talks to her deceased mother, and she states in one conversation that she wants to, "Plant my boot and steel my eye and not run." As she struggles on with her war weary comrades, she becomes the subject of a fable, passed among troops, wherein she is known as Gallant Ash.

At times Neverhome itself feels like a fable, and reality and myth seem to become one. This is one of those rare books that had me hunting for free moments in order to read a few pages. Ash's voice is engaging, and the story is a compelling adventure. (Hunt was inspired by actual letters from women, who had fought as men in the Civil War.)
Now I need to dig through the Laird Hunt backlist and see what I've been missing.

Neverhome by Laird Hunt
She calls herself Ash, but that's not her real name. She is a farmer's faithful wife, but she has left her husband to don the uniform of a Union soldier in the Civil War. Neverhome tells the harrowing story of Ash Thompson during the battle for the South. Through bloodshed and hysteria and heartbreak, she becomes a hero, a folk legend, a madwoman and a traitor to the American cause. 

Laird Hunt's dazzling new novel throws a light on the adventurous women who chose to fight instead of stay behind. It is also a mystery story: why did Ash leave and her husband stay? Why can she not return? What will she have to go through to make it back home? 

In gorgeous prose, Hunt's rebellious young heroine fights her way through history, and back home to her husband, and finally into our hearts.

Read This Book: Current Events Edition

This one might cause a bit of an uproar among the Twelfth Man. But it's a hot topic and given the controversies hounding the National Football League lately, many people have begun to rethink their support and interest. For those interested, Mark at the Ravenna store suggests Against Football by Steve Almond

Steve Almond covers all the reasons that fans should question their devotion to the game of football. First and foremost is the debilitating effects that the repeated crushing blows have on these athletes, especially head injuries. It's not just the frequent concussions that football players suffer, but the accumulated effects of hundreds of small hits every game and practice session. Fans are watching players seriously injure themselves for their entertainment. 

Almond wrote this book before the most recent football scandals, including the spousal abuse charge against Ray Rice. Football has a long history of sexism, and hyper-masculinity. Almond even covers the bullying scandal of a few years back (Miami Dolphins' Jonathan Martin,) and the expected media hoopla over the first openly gay NFL player (Michael Sam.) 

One of the issues covered that particularly interests me is the way public taxes are used to build these extravagant arenas, only to have the team owners benefit, often moving the team to another city when it suits their financial fancy. I guess they figure it works like the trickle down theory of economics. In other words, it's just another way for the rich to stay rich and get richer. 

This is a well-thought out diatribe, with humor, insight and empathy. I recommend this piece of social criticism for fans and non-fans alike.

Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto by Steve Almond

“Powerful...an important read." —Publishers Weekly

Steve Almond details why, after forty years as a fan, he can no longer watch the game he still loves. Using a synthesis of memoir, reportage, and cultural critique, Almond asks a series of provocative questions:

     • Does our addiction to football foster a tolerance for violence, greed, racism, and homophobia?
     • What does it mean that our society has transmuted the intuitive physical joys of childhood—run,
        leap, throw, tackle—into a billion-dollar industry?
     • How did a sport that causes brain damage become such an important emblem for our institutions
       of higher learning?

There has never been a book that exposes the dark underside of America’s favorite game with such searing candor.

Read This Book

Mark B. is crazy about this new children's book from Bardur Oskarsson. And I have to agree. I am pretty picky when it comes to children's books. It needs to be original, beautiful, and with just the right amount of words. That's right, too many words, and I don't even bother. Well, this one meets all three of my criteria, plus it has a pretty important message delivered without an ounce of sentimentality. One of a kind. Here's what Mark has to say:

The Flat Rabbit is a book about life and death. A dog and a rat come across a ex-rabbit in the road that they vaguely remember from the neighborhood. Their dilemma is deciding what to do with this now very flat rabbit. This children's book ponders the imponderables, without trying to provide trite and cheesy answers. I love a book that can proudly state "I don't know."

The Flat Rabbit  by Bardur Oskarsson

When a dog and a rat come upon a rabbit flattened on the road in their neighborhood, they contemplate her situation, wondering what they should do to help her. They decide it can’t be much fun to lie there; she should be moved. But how? And to where? Finally, the dog comes up with an inspired and unique idea and they work together through the night to make it happen. Once finished, they can’t be positive, but they think they have done their best to help the flat rabbit get somewhere better than the middle of the road where they found her. Sparely told with simple artwork, The Flat Rabbit treats the concept of death with a sense of compassion and gentle humor — and a note of practicality. In the end, the dog’s and the rat’s caring, thoughtful approach results in an unusual yet perfect way to respect their departed friend.

Read These Books: Super Deluxe Edition

Awhile back I told you about All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld. Well since then, it's caught on like wildfire around here. What can I say, I have excellent taste (full disclosure, I was told to read this by a friend who read it, so really she should get all the credit). Robert, Katherine, and Mark B. have all read it and LOVED it.

Here's what I had to say about it:
If you're looking for a tidy little book, a book that ties up all its loose ends, fits all the puzzle pieces together, resolves every mysterious plot line...this is not the book for you. But who wants that anyway? Life isn't tidy, so this just feels more real. 

All the Birds, Singing is crammed full of hidden pasts, unraveling lives, and mysterious strangers. A bleak and wind-whipped British island is home to Jake Whyte, a solitary woman who raises sheep and keeps the locals as far away as she can. She's hiding something, and now her sheep are being hunted and mutilated, and Jake might be next. 

What makes this book impossible to put down is the unique structure Evie Wyld employs. In alternating chapters, between the the eerie present day mystery, she tells the story of Jake's secret past in the burning isolation of rural Australia. But these flashbacks run backwards in time, bringing the reader ever closer to the tragic secret that sets Jake's life spiraling out of her control. 

This is a dark but beautiful book that I just could not put down. Even a week after reading it, it's lingering on my mind. Plus, I really like a book title with punctuation in it.

And Mark seconds:
One of my favorite books in recent years. This is a page-turner to the nth degree with scenes that will burn a permanent place in you memories.

Most of us here have really different reading tastes, so it's not often that so many of us will like the same books. Imagine our surprise when it happened again, just a few weeks later. Now, this next book isn't actually out yet, so I'll be sure to remind you about it as its release date approaches. But, you really must read Station Eleven.

I never actually clarified this, but I heard that Robert had read and enjoyed Station Eleven, and since I have liked several of Robert's suggestions, I grabbed the first advance copy that turned up in the store.

I loved it. Then Mark read it and he stayed up til 4:30 one morning to finish it. And then Alex read it, and he can't stop talking about it.

And it is so good. It's post apocalypse, but really different than other dystopian novels I've read. I have a hard time describing it so I'll let the jacket copy tell you all that. Just know that it's smart and  beautifully written and you'll be tearing through it when it comes out September 9th.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity. 

One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur’s chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them. 

Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten’s arm is a line from Star Trek: “Because survival is insufficient.” But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave. 

Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all. A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.

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Men Explain Things to Me is a must. You can actually read the the original essay here. But don't stop there. The hilarious and troubling titular essay is just the beginning of the genius and relevance crammed into this slim little volume. Really, you must read this.

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

In her comic, scathing essay "Men Explain Things to Me," Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don't, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters. 

She ends on a serious note-- because the ultimate problem is the silencing of women who have something to say, including those saying things like, "He's trying to kill me " 

This book features that now-classic essay with six perfect complements, including an examination of the great feminist writer Virginia Woolf 's embrace of mystery, of not knowing, of doubt and ambiguity, a highly original inquiry into marriage equality, and a terrifying survey of the scope of contemporary violence against women.

Where opponents would argue that feminism is humorless and superfluous, Men Explain Things to Me is a compelling argument for the movement's necessary presence in contemporary society. It approaches the subject with candor and openness, furthering the conversation and opening a new Pandora's box that's apt to change the way we talk about women's rights.

-Shelf Awareness

And just for laughs...check out this website,  Academic Men Explain Things to Me.

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Erin B. says read this book:

All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld

If you're looking for a tidy little book, a book that ties up all its loose ends, fits all the puzzle pieces together, resolves every mysterious plot line...this is not the book for you. But who wants that anyway?  Life isn't tidy, so this just feels more real.

All the Birds, Singing is crammed full of hidden pasts, unraveling lives, and mysterious strangers.  A bleak and wind-whipped British island is home to Jake Whyte, a solitary woman who raises sheep and keeps the locals as far away as she can.  She's hiding something, and now her sheep are being hunted and mutilated, and Jake might be next.

What makes this book impossible to put down is the unique structure Evie Wyld employs.  In alternating chapters, between the the eerie present day mystery, she tells the story of Jake's secret past in the burning isolation of rural Australia.  But these flashbacks run backwards in time, bringing the reader ever closer to the tragic secret that sets Jake's life spiraling out of her control.

This is a dark but beautiful book that I just could not put down. Even a week after reading it, it's lingering on my mind.  Plus, I really like a book title with punctuation in it.

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Mark B. Says read this book!

Black Moon by Kenneth Calhoun


For fans of The Age of Miracles and The Dog Stars, Black Moon is a hallucinatory and stunning debut that Charles Yu calls, “Gripping and expertly constructed.”

Insomnia has claimed everyone Biggs knows. Even his beloved wife, Carolyn, has succumbed to the telltale red-rimmed eyes, slurred speech and cloudy mind before disappearing into the quickly collapsing world. Yet Biggs can still sleep, and dream, so he sets out to find her.

 He ventures out into a world ransacked by mass confusion and desperation, where he meets others struggling against the tide of sleeplessness. Chase and his buddy Jordan are devising a scheme to live off their drug-store lootings; Lila is a high school student wandering the streets in an owl mask, no longer safe with her insomniac parents; Felicia abandons the sanctuary of a sleep research center to try to protect her family and perhaps reunite with Chase, an ex-boyfriend. All around, sleep has become an infinitely precious commodity. Money can’t buy it, no drug can touch it, and there are those who would kill to have it. However, Biggs persists in his quest for Carolyn, finding a resolve and inner strength that he never knew he had.

Kenneth Calhoun has written a brilliantly realized and utterly riveting depiction of a world gripped by madness, one that is vivid, strange, and profoundly moving.

This is what Mark has to say:

This book left me unsettled and I like that in a book. Scenes from this tale still haunt my waking hours as well as my dreams. The vision of a society without sleep, hallucinating and confused, and having it in for those who can still sleep, is nightmarish and even apocalyptic. At times the story seems disjointed, but that only adds to the feel of jittery edginess that accompanies this tale of insomnia.

Sounds creepy.  And with a cover like that, this one is hard to resist.

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Every month at Ravenna we each pick a book and those Staff Picks are 20% off for the entire month (at the Ravenna location only...sorry LFP).  Well, In December, Ami chose the book I Love Dick by Chris Kraus.  But customers didn't really seem that interested in it.  Maybe it's because everyone was shopping for gifts and not themselves, or perhaps it's the title...

At any rate, Ami is bound and determined to get you to read it.  So, it's going to be her Staff Pick for January too.  And she threatens that it will remain her Staff Pick until someone buys it.  She has some amazing things to say about it.  I was talking with her about it and the words she uses to describe the book are pretty remarkable.  Here's the list:

• intense
• emotional
• academic
• provocative
• unique
• abrasive
• self aware
• uncensored
• prickly
• authentic

I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe a book as prickly, how can you NOT want to read it now?  Well, if you're still unsure here is Ami's full review:

Revolutionary, momentous, phenomenal. This true novel (or novelistic memoir?) chronicles Chris Kraus' infatuation with the eponymous Dick in a story of obsession, intellect and art that, despite its expansiveness, is tightly woven with confidence and purpose. Kraus is a bold, honest, vulnerable and highly intelligent voice, a radiant beacon through the haze of an aloof, indifferent world. A forceful accomplishment, equally detested and revered--if you can handle it, this book will change your life.

And here's a bit more on what I Love Dick is all about...

In I Love Dick, published in 1997, Chris Kraus, author of Aliens and Anorexia, Torpor, and Video Green, boldly tore away the veil that separates fiction from reality and privacy from self-expression. It's no wonder that I Love Dick instantly elicited violent controversies and attracted a host of passionate admirers.

The story is gripping enough: in 1994 a married, failed independent filmmaker, turning forty, falls in love with a well-known theorist and endeavors to seduce him with the help of her husband. But when the theorist refuses to answer her letters, the husband and wife continue the correspondence for each other instead, imagining the fling the wife wishes to have with Dick.

What follows is a breathless pursuit that takes the woman across America and away from her husband; and far beyond her original infatuation into a discovery of the transformative power of first person narrative. I Love Dick is a manifesto for a new kind of feminist who isn't afraid to burn through her own narcissism in order to assume responsibility for herself and for all the injustice in world; and it's a book you won't put down until the author's final, heroic acts of self-revelation and transformation.

I don't know about you, but it sounds like the next book I'm gonna read.

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The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

I know, I know, you really don't need yet another person telling you to read this book.  It's had such good press, and so many glowing reviews, that my opinion is pretty insignificant at this point.  But I'm going to tell you to read it anyway, and here's why.  I've seen you walk in the store, and pick it up.  And then I've seen you put it back down again.  Because it is a BIG book.  There seems to be a rather large contingent of people who are interested, but freaked out by its size.  I'm here to tell you, don't be.

Before The Goldfinch, I was going through a phase where I couldn't finish anything.  I was only reading short stories, because that's all that could keep my attention.  This was going on for about three months.  And now you're wondering why on earth I would start an 800 page novel.  In short, I happened to be flying somewhere and I thought confinement on a plane, coupled with one ginormous book, would cure me of my reading slump.  Great plan, right?  Well, I'm pretty sure my "genius" plan would only have worked with this particular book.  After I opened it for the first time, I was hooked...no, I was enchanted.  I felt physical pain whenever I had to close it.  Getting off the plane, sleeping, going to work; I hated every minute of not reading that book.  After three months of struggling to finish 15 to 20 page stories in less than two weeks, I steamrolled through The Goldfinch, all 800 glorious pages of it, in about a week.

You've already read the amazing reviews.  It's all true.  If you were hesitating at all, hear me now and hesitate no longer.  This book is suspenseful and sad, beautiful and often hilarious.  I haven't loved characters this way in a long, long time.  In fact, I say with absolute certainty that The Goldfinch contains my favorite character.  Of all time.  From any book.  Ever.  Tartt's writing is so breathtaking it's sometimes unbelievable.  I could read 800 more pages of this.  Seriously, it's in my top five favorites.  Spectacular.

And in even better news, it did cure my reading slump....well, it cured it after I was finally able to bring myself to read something other than The Goldfinch.  That's another odyssey entirely.

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The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle

New Hyde Hospital’s psychiatric ward has a new resident. It also has a very, very old one.

Pepper is a rambunctious big man, minor-league troublemaker, working-class hero (in his own mind), and, suddenly, the surprised inmate of a budget-strapped mental institution in Queens, New York. He’s not mentally ill, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He is accused of a crime he can’t quite square with his memory. In the darkness of his room on his first night, he’s visited by a terrifying creature with the body of an old man and the head of a bison who nearly kills him before being hustled away by the hospital staff. It’s no delusion: The other patients confirm that a hungry devil roams the hallways when the sun goes down. Pepper rallies three other inmates in a plot to fight back: Dorry, an octogenarian schizophrenic who’s been on the ward for decades and knows all its secrets; Coffee, an African immigrant with severe OCD, who tries desperately to send alarms to the outside world; and Loochie, a bipolar teenage girl who acts as the group’s enforcer. Battling the pill-pushing staff, one another, and their own minds, they try to kill the monster that’s stalking them. But can the Devil die?

The Devil in Silver brilliantly brings together the compelling themes that spark all of Victor LaValle’s radiant fiction: faith, race, class, madness, and our relationship with the unseen and the uncanny. More than that, it’s a thrillingly suspenseful work of literary horror about friendship, love, and the courage to slay our own demons.

Here is what Mark B. had to say about it:

Pepper is brought to the New Hyde mental institution, because he got into a fight with the police. He believes that the police have dropped him there, rather than do all the paperwork it would take to arrest him. He's sure that he'll be out after the weekend, but many weeks later he finds himself just another drugged out patient in the ward. They are all frightened of the wards' oldest resident, who sometimes slips into their rooms in the middle of the night, but why? Pepper chooses to stay behind and help his fellow inmates, and by the end of the novel, he has grown and benefited from what originally seemed a mistake. This novel is filled with great lines that I wanted to highlight. It is also chock-full of humor and pathos and a cast of unforgettable characters.