Big Books, Small Town from Liberty Bay

WHY A?

2012-02-06T17:56:00.000-08:00

WHY A? There comes a time in every adult reader's life when, whether it be because of his/her kids, popular movies, or that nostalgic desire to fall back into the fictional worlds of your youth, a person finds him or herself engrossed in children's literature. You see it all the time. Cynical lawyers tearing through Harry Potter books on the ferry, parents reading a The Hunger Games volume while waiting in the doctor's office, and so on. And you know what? It's pretty awesome. Children's literature, or YA, as it goes by these days, has easily got some of the most creative, fun and readable books on the shelf. More complex than many children realize, always exciting, and always oh so clear as far as characters and plotting are concerned, if you haven't picked one up recently -- you should!-- a YA book might be just the thing you've missing.

On that note, here are few of our favorite new Y.A. books:
Cinde r: Book One of the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer (Feiwel & Friends, $14.39, 400 pgs) -- In one of the coolest debuts in recent memory, Tacoma native Marissa Meyers takes that Cinderella tale we all know and love and throws it for a loop the size of a NASCAR track. For starters, Cinderella isn't even human. She's a cyborg. And a mechanic. And she lives in New Beijing in the midst of a terrible plague which threatens the future of the planet. Abhorred by her stepmothers who won't tell her about her mysterious past, Cinderella lives the life of a second-class citizen until one fateful day when her life becomes inextricably intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's. Caught between love and duty, family and the future, Cinderella suddenly finds herself cast into an adventure of unimaginable scope with not only her future, but the whole planet's hanging in the balance. Think Star Wars meets The Brothers Grimm, and you're halfway there. A really fun, really thoughtful read for you or your teen! And bonus!: The author is speaking at the Poulsbo Branch of the KRL Wednesday February 8 at 3 p.m.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (Dutton Juvenile, $14.39, 272 pgs) -- When you think of cancer you don't...think of love stories...especially not when the cancer-stricken are teenagers. But when two teens meet in a cancer support group held in a church basement, it happens: Gus who's lost part of his leg and is on a rollercoaster ride "that only goes up," and Hazel, whose thyroid cancer has put a satellite of metastases in her lungs and makes her feel like she's drowning, fall for one another. Finally having met someone who understands their doomed fates, the two young (and doomed) protagonists take us on a love story that's more poignant, funny and harrowing than anything I've read in years. A truly tender story wrought with a sharp pen and warm appreciation for the human condition, there's no reason to miss this #1 NY Times bestselling book. Great read for kids and adults alike.

Lastly, don't forget -- we offer free help setting up your e-readers (Ipads, Nooks, Sony E-Readers, etc.) to download e-books from us. Stop by any Friday morning before 12 for free coffee while you get help!

WORLD BOOK NIGHT! ETC.

2012-01-17T09:49:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to let you know about a couple of really cool events and things we've got going on at the store in the coming weeks -- foremostly, the second annual WORLD BOOK NIGHT which we are really excited to be participating in at the store. Curious?: "World Book Night is an annual celebration designed to spread a love of reading and books. To be held in the U.S. as well as the U.K. and Ireland on April 23, 2012. It will see tens of thousands of people go out into their communities to spread the joy and love of reading by giving out free World Book Night paperbacks. World Book Night, through social media and traditional publicity, will also promote the value of reading, of printed books, and of bookstores and libraries to everyone year-round. Successfully launched in the U.K. in 2011, World Book Night will also be celebrated in the U.S. in 2012, with news of more countries to come in future years." In other words, sign up to give away books (and encourage reading in your community), or come and get some books...FOR FREE! The list of the books they are giving away can be seen here, and includes a ton of great titles, including The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, Hunger Games, Ender's Game, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The Namesake, Peace Like a River, The Things They Carried...and on from there!

For all of you who were the luck recipients of E-Readers (including iPads and Nooks), we'd also like to extend an invitation to you to drop by any Friday morning for help setting up your reader to purchase eBooks from your local independent bookseller! Our eBook pricing is extremely competitive; just check out our website for awesome deals, including a ton a books that are under $5.00!

Lastly we've got a ton of great author events coming up this month, so don't miss out!

2011-12-29T13:07:00.000-08:00

Don't worry. Really! So the Holidays -- and, wow, even the year -- are coming to their final resting places, but we've still got loads going on at Liberty Bay Books!

First things first, we'd like to thank everyone who came to us to do their Holiday shopping rather than the other guy (whether he be online, or in some frighteningly drab box store), and can't tell you how much fun we had giving recommendations and filling those stocking with knickknacks. It was so busy even I had to fill in a little, while home for the Holidays! So again, we'd like to thank everyone who came in as well as those who took advantage of our Cyber Wednesday sales...wow, what a season it was. And as a side note: Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife, Stephen King's 11/22/63, "The Steve Jobs Book" (aka, Steve Jobs) by Walter Isaacson, The LEGO Ideas Book by Daniel Lipkowitz, This I Believe by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman, and all the books of the excellent Hunger Games series, were just a few of the titles we had a hard time keeping on the shelves this year.

In other news, we've got a ton of great author events coming up!

January 8th, at 3 pm: Seattle author Sarah Jio reads from her new novel, The Bungalow -- a romantic mystery which takes place on the island of Bora Bora.
January 14th, at 6:30 pm: Scandahoovian specialist, Eric Dregni, reads from and talks about his latest book Vikings in the Attic: In Search of Nordic America. (BYOL: Bring Your Own Lutefisk)
January 23rd, at 6:30 pm: Join us for a fun evening with local author, Claire Dederer, who will discuss her memoir Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses, which ruminates on parenting, growing up, and, of course, yoga. Great author, great book!
January 27th, at 6:30 pm: Local author and longtime crabber, Joe Upton, comes in to talk about his new book Bering Sea Blues: A Crabber's Tale of Fear in the Icy North. If you enjoy the Deadliest Catch or are at all curious about how all those crabs get into those tanks at Central Market, you've got to hear Joe's harrowing stories of life up North

And lastly, for those of you who were the lucky recipients of Sony E-readers, Nooks, or Ipads, (sorry, Amazon's monopolistic business practices only allow Kindles and Fires to read books bought from Amazon!) don't forget that we, too, sell EBooks online, and have got some great December deals on EBooks going!

Amazon Ugh... (and a SALE)

2011-12-13T12:44:00.000-08:00

It has come to our notice that a serious discussion about AMAZON.COM's retail practices has been occurring in the media -- most notably by a group of befuddled authors, who have teamed up with Richard Russo in a recent NY Times Op-Ed article. If you have not yet read it, I wholeheartedly recommend it. Written by the great author, Richard Russo, with some help from his friends Stephen King, Dennis Lehane, Andre Dubus III, Anita Shreve, Tom Perrotta and Ann Patchett, it outlines Amazon's jarringly devious retail practices and their nonplussed attitudes toward the Mega-Retailer -- despite the fact that a considerable amount of their incomes comes from book sales via Amazon. In a nutshell it says this: this Holiday season, Amazon is encouraging its customers to go into real-life, physical bookstores and use its price-check app, which allows shoppers to (rather invasively) scan items' bar codes to see if they can get a better price on these items online. If customers do this, they earn a 5 percent credit on Amazon purchases, up to $5 per item, on up to three items. And this is terrible.

As a small, local bookstore, we realize that we cannot outfox Amazon where pricing is concerned, but, like these authors, ask at what cost such brash market-monopolization does to us culturally and economically. As Andre Dubus III puts it in the article, we feel that at the very least, it works to “further devalue, as a cultural and human necessity, the book” itself by taking away your local contact to them, not to mention its hemorrhaging of local jobs from local retailers. I think we can all agree that saving a couple of bucks is great, but seeing "For Rent" signs on every downtown window is not. We encourage you to think about the long-term impact such shopping has on already-suffering stores, and what small towns will look like without them. Amazon, clearly, does not care about these stores, the jobs the bring, or the important roles they fill in the communities nationwide, and in fact, has shown again and again that would rather completely wipe them off of the map, using such devious practices as the one outlined above. This is a passionate topic for us and we'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter, for or against. Without a doubt, it's a conversation that needs to be had in every community, rural or metropolitan, nationwide.

One last thing: Don't forget about Cyber Wednesdays on the Liberty Bay Books website with 30% of all items (except e-books) on all online orders taken on the Wednesdays before Christmas (December 14 and December 21). Take that Amazon.

Hmm....

2011-12-06T09:28:00.000-08:00

With new hardcover books by the likes of Janet Evanovich, Steven King, James Patterson, John Grisham, Sue Grafton, Karen Kingsbury, David Baldacci, and (even!) Michael Crichton out on the shelves right now, you don't have to look too far for that perfect gift for the-impossible-to-buy-for person in your family. And to make it even easier, don't forget CYBER WEDNESDAYS, with 30% off everything bought online every Wednesday up until Christmas.

Unless. Well. Unless you've got one of those nosy, no-good, don't-like-anything, I've-already-got-everything, don't-waste-your-time-on-me, spouses, in-laws, or even kids. It's a troubling demographic, it really is, but here at Liberty Bay Books we think we've got a couple of great ideas for even the most impossible Scrooges.

Go for the Classics: Touch nostalgia by buying them a book from their childhood. Get a nice, updated copy of something they've mentioned in conversation a few times over the years. (And check this recent NY Times article about the pleasure and value of rereading old favorites)
Coffee-Table Book: Go for something nice to look at, with a corresponding story or article that seems as though it may be interesting enough to read. Even if they don't particularly like it, it'll still look great on that coffee table in front of the tv!
Cookbooks: Everyone's got them, but everyone could use another. Give the gift that keeps on giving. And if they don't use it, don't worry! They'll still enjoy the illusion of looking like a cook!
Knickknacks, Gizmos, or Gadgets: A talking moustache keychain? Tee shirts emblazoned with the motifs of classic novels? Bendy robot paperweights? Make it cute and make it count with a few of these toys. Fun for all ages, of course.

Check out the PNBA Holiday Catalog: You can't go wrong with anything recommended in this annual Holiday fixture.

AND, if these fail: just get them something that you like! Or the first book of the Game of Thrones series!

Gearing up...

2011-11-29T09:41:00.000-08:00

With women pepper spraying each other at Wall Marts, old men dying in Best Buy check-out lines only to be pulled into quiet aisles by other patrons, and fist-fights over flatscreens breaking out at retailers all over the country, Christmas must be just around the corner. Yep. Prepare yourself! The in-laws. The crying Kids ("I said XBox not X-Lax, grandma!"). Oh 'Tis the Season. But let's not get too crazy about it. Madness it may be, mayhem it may deliver, but we've got just the book to lighten whatever Christmas hysteria plagues you!

Awkward Family Pet Photos by Mike Bender, Doug Chernak (Three Rivers, 176 pages, $12.00) -- Maybe you've seen their earlier book, Awkward Family Photos, which is as hilarious as it is unsettling--much like this new, pet-minded farce. Flip through the pages once, you'll laugh until you cry. Flip through them two or three times and you can't help but seriously ask yourself: Why does it always seem like I'm the only normal one in this country? Really productive stuff, thinking-wise. Easy, a lot of fun, and somewhat Christmas-minded, this one (or its predecessor) will brighten your day right up.

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart (Random House, 352 pages,

$12.00) -- I think I've reviewed this excellent novel in some capacity or another before, but I've been rereading it lately and can't help but include in a conversation about humor. As far as futuristic satire goes -- this novel sets the standard. Bitingly accurate, plaintively sad, and always frightening, it looks into a near American future where iPhone-like devices and Facebook rule the social world, a Bipartisan party runs the White House, and not immigrants, but those with poor credit are being ejected from the country in droves. Laugh, hide under your bed in fright, or call it all an unreal, speculatory farce, Shteyngart's novel is a tour de force of satiric imagination written in that sparkling sort of prose that fizzes and crackles when read aloud. Named a Best Book of the Year by every publication you can think of! Great Holiday buy!

Snark! the Herald Angels Sing: Sarcasm, Bitterness, and the Holiday Season by Lawrence Dorfman (Skyhorse, 161 pages, $10.36) -- A hilarious bah-humbug look at all the excesses and missteps of the Holiday season, with jokes, commentary, and offbeat quotes (Think: "Santa Clause has the right idea. Visit people once a year," -- Victor Borge). If you're just looking for some laughs, trying to finally bring those in-laws to their knees with sarcastic jabs, or just want another perspective on the Holiday season, check out this addition to the always pertinent, always funny, Snark series.

Goodnight Ipad: A Parody for the Next Generation by Ann Droyd (Blue Rider, $11.96) -- Poking fun at both our over-connected, over-stimulated, modern world of gadgetry and the quiet, technology-free world of the classic, Goodnight Moon, this children's book is an excellent read, and hilarious for children and adults alike. As endearing and cute as the original -- I promise. Like the rest of the Western World, I was skeptical of anything that parodied my favorite book of childhood, but Goodnight Ipad does the job with panache and a welcoming brand of humor that can't help but make you see how we've changed as a society. Really, really fun and really, really funny.

In other notes, don't forget to browse the annual PNBA Holiday Catalog! As always, it's a great resource for gift-giving or even just personal reading.

PS. On my Bedside Table: Nemesis by Phillip Roth, The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt, and Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

YA and Upcoming Events

2011-11-17T09:42:00.000-08:00

As a reminder, don't forget the upcoming West Sound Reads Christopher Paolini event! It'll be an awesome chance to hear the gifted young author of the Inheritance Cycle, who started writing the series at the insane age of 15 in Paradise Valley, Montana! The details are: 7 p.m., November 28th, Bainbridge High School Commons. Pre-pay your order and receive a 25% discount and priority seating with easy access to the autograph line! How awesome is that?!

In other bookie (and fantasy) news, I've just finished the latest installment of George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, A Dance with Dragons (Bantam, 1040 pgs, $28.00), which has been out for a few months now. If you are a fan of the series, you will not be able to put this one down! As thrilling, shocking, and wonderfully crafted as those which came before, it takes us that much closer to that epic winter that will test the people of Westeros. It is truly awesome stuff. Dragons are about. Wildlings roam the North. Exiles return. Ironborn strike east. Hmmff. Wow. I really don't think I'll be able wait for the next one. For those of you who haven't seen the HBO version of the books (Game of Thrones) or read them for yourself, think of them as the work of a 21st century Tolkien who is not shy of sex, blood, or mercilessly killing off your favorite characters. Try them out!

Halloween!

2011-10-31T20:01:00.001-07:00

I guess I sort of missed out on the Halloween thing, but my excuses are by all accounts legitimate. So many great books have come out these past few weeks, I've had a whirlwind of a time chugging through them. Until I do, here's a quickie: Bainbridge Island's own (and beloved) David Guterson released his newest, Ed King (Knopf, 320 pgs, $21.56), Portland's Chuck Palahniuk's latest, Damned (Doubleday, 256 pgs, $19.96), continues rising in NY Times Bestseller success, and Michael Ondaatje's, The Cat's Table (Knopf, 280 pgs, $20.80) was put on the shelves -- just to name a few. Oh, and don't forget Jeffery Eugenides' The Marriage Plot (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 416 pgs, $22.40). And Neil Gaiman was also on NPR, talking about how awesome The Graveyard Book is! What a week! A reading list to scare the pants off of you!

MURAKAMI!

2011-10-25T16:43:00.001-07:00

It's here. It's coming. It's creeping through your skin! Right Right. Not Halloween, silly, Japanese sensation Haruki Murakami's latest mega-novel 1Q84! (Knopf, 944 pgs, $24.40). If you haven't had the pleasure of reading Murakami, consider yourself invited. Murakami deals only in the strangest of worlds -- or is it the realest? -- where strange creatures, formidable beings, and that metaphysical, existential cramp you've had since college seems to unfurl through your muscles like pharmaceutical drug still in the experimental stages of chimpanzee testing. This newest novel (which I haven't read yet -- it just came out today) is apparently about this, that, and everything else. A New York Times Magazine interviewer explained it as a wildly ambitious book, "full of anger and violence and disaster and weird sex and strange new realities...[that] makes you marvel, reading it, at all the strange folds a single human brain can hold;" he later adds "its plot may not even be fully summarizable -- at least not in the space of a magazine article, written in human language, on this astral plane." (Check out the rest of the article here). If this description makes you at all skeptical about involving yourself with a book by this Murakami guy, I repeat, consider yourself invited. His books are at times challenging, but so often give you that rare epiphanous sense of glee and understanding that only a truly wonderful (and sometimes challenging) book can give you! Check it out! I repeat: Check it out! And check this cool picture out, too. Murakami running (it's where his creative energy comes from, he says):

REAMDE

2011-10-16T14:44:00.000-07:00

Neil Stephenson's Reamde (William Morrow, $28.00, 1056 pgs) -- I can't even feign contention with the NY Times' review of REAMDE which described Seattle-based writer Neil Stephenson as that kind of author who shows up at your house unannounced and reeking of weed, stays longer than you expect him while doing things you don't understand, and all of a sudden leaves without a trace, making you wish he might've stayed a little longer and shared a little of what he was smoking. Or something along those lines. Anyhow, I've been ripping along through his latest, REAMDE, which is indeed a book that could've been written by a man like that. Strange, sidereal, it is an entropic sort of global-thriller that involves everything and everywhere from Russian Gangsters, trolls, mages, a hyper-detailed computer game called T'Rain, Northern Idaho, a former mine in B.C., a trailer park in Iowa, Seattle, China, and everything/one in between. A must read for die hard fans of Stephenson (whose Snow Crash is listed as one of Time magazines top 100 books in the English language), and a damn good (and strange) book for the rest of us, REAMDE is definitely that fall vacation you couldn't afford.

The Mourad Challenge

2011-10-09T11:11:00.001-07:00

(No, it isn't some long lost Robert Ludlum title...)

So recently, Workman publishers asked us if we'd cook a few things from the up-coming Mourad: New Moroccan (by Mourad Lahlou, Workman, 400pgs, $40.00) cookbook and do a bit of blogging and tweeting about it. Of course we jumped at the idea, as did a few other independent bookstores across the country, and got started preparing for a two-night feast of harissa bloody marys, lemon preserved-chicken, grilled kefta kabobs with grapes, a yogurt-herb spread that goes with truly anything you can find in a refrigerator, beets with avocado puree and pumpkin seed crumble, and, to top it all off, chocolate gingersnaps. Yes: Yummm.

Before we get too much further, I think that it's probably necessary to explain what sort of culinary family we're dealing with. What I'm really saying is that my mom, Suzanne (LBB owner), is truly one of the worst cooks to have ever found her way into a kitchen. To her, a nice dinner is a bottle of wine, crackers, and some skanky vegetables she found in the bottom of the fridge hastily roasted and then slathered with salt. Her 'signature' dish is a beef stew so bland even a Brit wouldn't touch it, which nobody -- and I mean nobody -- will get close to but her. It looks like a cross between Alpo dog food and elementary school chili on its way out. (Sorry mom.) So anyways, what I'm trying to say is that if we can cook these dishes, really anybody can. They're not hard. They are delicious. And you can make them. If she can, you definitely can. Back to the feast:

PREPARING. The lemon preserves were the only thing we had to make ahead of time, and it couldn't have been easier. Salt. Jars. Lemons. A few weeks time, and done. In all, the needed ingredients were pretty easy to gather. Beside from a few spices we had to go to Seattle to find, everything we needed was right at our local grocery store and pretty cheap, too -- a rarity when it comes to cookbooks these days.

THE COOKING: Really fun and really easy. We had a great time skewering grapes, rolling the kefta into balls, and, of course, slugging our harissa bloody marys while stirring the yogurt and vinegar sauces. All in all, the directions were simple, precise, and quick to accomplish. It probably took 4 people an hour and a half of actual 'cooking' time to get everything done.

THE EATING: The whole night was really fun from start to finish, and it goes without saying that the food was incredible. Particularly the chicken with lemon preserves and the kefta with grapes. Wowsa.

THE EXPERIENCE: I think we all agreed, using the cookbook was awesome for everybody who came over and taught us a lot about Moroccan food (more than just lamb and couscous, apparently), Moroccan culture, and Mourad, the chef -- who does a really cool thing by infusing his life story into all of the recipes. Highly recommended for anything from an awesome group-cook dinner party where everyone is involved to making a quick yogurt sauce when you've got just a little time. Really good food. Really cool story. Really great book.

Banned, Fall, Savage, ETC

2011-10-01T13:02:00.001-07:00

It's been some time since I've done one of these things now...busy, work, things, moving, what have you. And some big things have been happening in the book world, I'm happy to say. September, surprisingly short, I always think, contained "Banned Books Week" (http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/), saw Jonathan Safron Foer reveal his newest novel, Tree of Codes (Visual Editions, 285 pages, $32.00), to be a brilliant, play-giaristic take on Bruno Schulz's novel Street of Crocodiles (SEE COOL STORY AT: http://www.jewishliteraryreview.com/2010/11/jonathan-safran-foers-tree-of-codes/), and publications by Jim Harrison, Paolo Coelho, and -- shockingly -- a thriller by far-right radio host Michael Savage whose books are usually titled something like "Liberalism is for Retards," hitting the shelves. (For more on the Savage thing, check out this really strange interview where Savage calls his book The Great American Novel.)

As for "Banned Books Week," I think it was Salman Rushdie who said something like, "No one values the power of the written word than a police state." And it's true. Although the regular banning of books in our country shows a profound disregard for the 1st Amendment and personal freedom, we may forget that it's also a testament to the continuing power of the written word and authors today. Just think about it. Would parents in Alabama be tripping over themselves to get "Harry Potter" or "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" taken out of their libraries if those books didn't touch upon some absolutely vital part of the gut?--If they didn't depict something real enough to scare the bejeezus out of us? It's something to think about. The way I see it, as long as books are still being banned, authors are succeeding at their jobs. Just look at the list. How many of the banned books are bad? None of them. In fact, just about all of them are classics.

xoxo

Map to excellence...(David Mitchell Redux)

2011-08-29T10:58:00.000-07:00

I read David Mitchell's most recent novel -- The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet -- earlier this summer and loved it, so it was a no-brainer to filch his older, more renowned Cloud Atlas (Random House, 528 pgs, $12.00) off a roommate.

Without revealing too much, here's the rundown:

Think Nabokov. Think Jennifer Egan. Martin Amis. Mash in some history, the kind with veins that paint those ticklish realities that seem real, unreal, surreal, but always pellucid. You've got you're finger on it. In this shimmering, Russian Doll of a novel, Mitchell paints a number of worlds through a series of collapsing sub-novel novellas which peck at and toy with the others' unique realities both intriguingly and hilariously. And truly, these novellas span both time and space. From a Carter-era journalist to a Chatham Islands explorer to a genetically modified 'dinery server' living in the future, Mitchell proves his imagination is incapable of failing to limn out a world or era that does not thrill us. Lastly, the book is action-packed, which when you think about it, is a pretty remarkable thing. These days 'literary' novels skate through, 1,000 pages drizzling pontifications and ruminations left and right, while never actually doing anything. If that annoys you as much as it does me, here's your antidote. READ!

2011-08-13T20:06:00.000-07:00

Is there anything more summer-eal than the small town? Whether it's the parades or the community pools or the pleasant gossip or the baseball, small towns and summer are just it.

So I was thinking about some better books about small towns, or really, for those who live in them:

The first one that came to my mind!: Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner (Penguin Classics, $13.60, 656 pgs): Sure it's about the West, and America, and always striving to make it, but so much of what goes on in this novel is either set up or backdropped by a small town and its dynamic, it's just beautiful. But that's for later. The novel, in short, is the story of a family's ups and downs as it fluxes through American (and Canadian) life searching for money, happiness and stability. Throughout this journey, its leader, the hardly house-broken hard-head Bo Mason, plants and uproots his family in no less than 15 states and 50 houses, tasting a little of this life and a little of that along the way. Of course, small towns dominate this series of emigrations, and tell us over and over again how splendid they are.

The other great book that came to mind:

The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry (Simon and Schuster, $12.00, 288 pgs): So you've seen the movie (or if you haven't, check this clip). A young Jeff Bridges, a Cybill Shepard younger and prettier than any of us could've imagined, and all of it shot and directed with a realism that's as startling as it is, well, real. The novel, written by the master of Americana himself, Larry McMurtry,(who actually studied under Wallace Stegner for a while) is even better than the movie, if that's possible. Quaint, beautiful, and so damn real you'll spit on yourself, it's truly one of the best novels about the homespun small-town America of old you'll find anywhere. A must read!

Good, new, great

2011-07-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

Just finished a couple great new(-ish) books!

Martin Amis's The Pregnant Widow (Vintage, 384 pgs, $12.76) -- Like nearly anything written by the younger Amis, The Pregnant Widow is a splash of language, a badinage of ideas, and really good time. This one -- his latest and most accessible in recent memory -- is about sex: the sexual revolution, the biological act, pornography, fantasy, you name it. And of course, it's all imbued with Amis's telltale panache and penchant for good storytelling and better prose. An intimate book, but one which you'll breeze through! As insightful as it is ecstatic!

Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad (Anchor, 352 pgs, $11.96) -- A hopscotching, genre-twisting, time-bender of a novel that's been the talk of town for a while now (Pulitzer winner, etc.). Truly, it lives up to the hype. Designed as a collection of stories (in every shape and size: graphs, newspaper clippings, all of it) which dances around the decades long drama of a group of friends and colleagues, A Visit From the Goon Squad does that rare thing that very few novels ever even dream of. While stretching the narrative form into something which truly captures our generation (a generation of soundbytes, cultural ADD, artistic sterility, surveillance, and ever-present technological amplification) it also details, through the minutia and character's lives the hopes and fears of this same generation. An excellent, excellent novel.

Game of Thrones!

2011-06-19T08:15:00.001-07:00

If you haven't heard of HBO's excellent adaptation of George R.R. Martin's bestselling fantasy series, consider: your house is a cave somewhere near Kandahar; you are in a coma, dreaming, and the pop culture references occurring in your head are stuck somewhere between Boy George and the Tony Rich Project; when you fill out your US Census forms you mark the box 'Other' and scribe in 'Amish/Mennonite' next to it............. or, more likely, you don't have HBO and the taste for epic awesomeness.

For the rest of us, George R.R. Martin's four-part Song of Ice & Fire is the current gold standard when it comes to the American fantasy series. A complexly figured, politically thrilling, and intensely personal Epic (--and brilliantly so), it's a series that's not to be missed, no matter how much your friends and family will make fun of you for reading it. 'Nerd' books are the best! Don't forget it!

2011-06-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

So.

Thunderstorms are here. It rains, it snows, it suns. Here in Jackson, a liminal state has usurped the steady rains of spring and, now caught between seasons (or in Dwight Yoakam' s words: "I'm a thousand miles from nowhere...ooh haa.... "), it's not poncho-, parka-, or speedo-time, it's poncho-, parka-, and speedo time -- all in the same few minutes. And it's maddening. It's hobby-horsical to the nth degree. But you know, I guess that's a reading season. To me, that's good reading time; of course a book's never so fickle as the weather. So here are some of what's good lately:

David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (Hodder & Stoughton, $15.50) -- Occurring one of those settings which is as strange as it is real (and thus as extraterrestrial as historical), David Mitchell's latest is a sweet, sweet polyglot of a book which speaks historical novel, romance novel, and thriller with equal flourish. For a summary: it follows a young and intelligent Dutch clerk through both his personal and the Dutch East Indies' rise and fall; replete with historical insights from this less-studied era, and the winning plot of a NY Times best of the year, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is not to be missed!

The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud (Vintage, $12.00) -- Evelyn Waugh meets Charlie Rose at his gloomy knight's table? Is that an accurate description of Claire Messud's generous and masterful ironic novels? (I suppose it'll do.) The Emperor's Children, snug to that description, I'd say, is as lush and complete a novel as Messud as written yet. Acutely observed, it's the story of three 30-somethings whose intersecting lives impede, impel, and importune those around them in in late 1990's New York in such a way as to reveal the state of a generation and their beloved city. Almost laughing out loud has never been so enjoyable! -- I promise!

XOXO

Time Passed

2011-05-24T20:22:00.000-07:00

There are so many excuses to run to (for not blogging for so long). Who's to say some crazy aunt didn't talk me into believing End of Days malarkey NPR seemed to be reporting about bi-daily? Or put on a radiation suit and head to Japan? Or put on the green man suit and bang the glass at some Canucks play-off games? Where do any of us go when spring comes and it's time to change? But. But of course, none of those things happened. I read a little. Worked a lot. Saw old (and older) friends. But work, always work, is paramount.

And that's what brings me to one of my favorite new books! It's for the wonder that is work!:

It's Your Farm in the City: An Urban-Dweller's Guide to Growing Food and Raising Animals by Lisa Taylor and our very own (local) Gardeners of Seattle Tilth (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 336 pgs, $15.16) -- Precise and yet firmly encouraging, this excellent guidebook is as a good a teacher for the sometime-gardener as it is for the master. Complete as could be, with everything from fully mapped farming layouts for 1 acre parcels in suburban cul-de-sacs to tips on milking Nigerian pygmy goats, there's not only inspiration for all, there's information for all as well! Not to mention the book's layout is as cute as a nursery sapling. Enjoy!

New Voices! New Books!

2011-03-31T16:21:00.000-07:00

Spring's here for good now, reminding that its time for a change. How about a great new book by a first time author?

Touch by Alexi Zentner (W.W. Norton, $19.96, 264 pgs.) -- Set in a wonderfully sleepy logging village somewhere in the remote and remorseless mountains of northern British Columbia, Touch is, in a few words, the story of a town, a boy, a family, and the mysteries of the woods. Part coming of age and part fairy tale, it's a solid debut by a great new author (whose previous short fiction won an O. Henry as well as a Narrative Prize in 2008!). Snow falls, golden caribou abound, sea fairies call you into the river's icy chunder -- it's really a fun, interesting, and beautifully casted novel. Try it out!

Moby Duck: The True story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalits, and Fools... by Donovan Hohn (Viking, $22.96, 416 pgs.) -- Hohn -- a former editor of Harper's -- clubs the duck right on the head in this wandering, sometimes elegiac debut. Coming across as something like an oceanographic journal that swam too close to New York Times Review of Books (without the pomp, of course), Moby Duck is both charming and intelligent as it carries the reader through Hohn's physical and metaphysical search for some 28,000 rubber duckies that fell off a cargo ship. Much more fun to read than that might sound, I promise!

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht (Random House, $20.00, 352 pgs.) -- It hurts me to admit that Obreht, one of the most acutely brilliant authors to write in the English language in recent memory, is a just dumb 25 years old. What wisdom can she have earned, we might ask? What galling force, what courage can she be writing from? Well, read The Tiger's Wife and you've got it. Such a beautiful, smart book comes around only every so often, so you'd better not miss it. (And by the way it's about a doctor in a Balkan country repairing itself from years of war; and about secrets; and about family; and about landscapes...) Best book I've read in a while!

Saint. Patrick's. Day.

2011-03-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

To get you in the spirit -- (though if you're not in the spirit imbimbing the spirits, then what's the point?) -- we've got some delicious, mind-dumbing BEEROK pairings to turn the greenest man into a Wildean-Joycean- Yeatsian lyricist before you can say Finnegan's Wake!

Roddy Doyle's The Dead Republic (Viking, $21.56, 336 pgs) and Rogue's St. Rogue Red Ale (Newport, OR) -- I'm pretty certain that I've reviewed this

book in one capacity or another, but when it comes to questions of Ireland and Irishness, nobody kicks the shamrock like Roddy Doyle does. This is especially true in The Dead Republic, which, while serving as the butt-end of the Henry Smart Trilogy, deals almost exclusively with the currency of 'Irishness' amidst the backdrops of Ford's "The Quiet Man," and the Irish Civil War. Doyle's hardy but stern prose makes this tale fly along all the faster, making you miss poor Henry Smart all the more at its finish. Rogue' s Red is the beer to drink while cruising through it for its bold and impressive self-awareness. Hoppy like a strong IPA but smooth like an Amber or American Pale, you'll be surprised and delighted as you rediscover just what you ordered.

Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor (Mariner, $11.96, 432 pgs.) and Sierra Nevada's Sierra Nevada Stout (Chico, CA)-- Written by a storyteller who's as much historian as he is wordsmith, Star of the Sea is a good novel and an even greater historical review. Beginning in 1847, at the height of the Great Potato Famine, it follows so many Irish men and women as they escape, dream, and occasionally philander their way into the America. And warning: it's not your typical Potato Famine Sob Story, which only reverberate upon the oft-told "Irish" woes of Catholic sorrow, drink, and sex. Warm up to it with a mug or two of Sierra Nevada's tasty, malty, aromatic Stout because, well... just because. It feels damn right.

Lastly, a bit of script from Finnegan's Wake, for your C.R.A.F.T. club to mull over:

"though a day be as dense as a decade, no mouth has the might to set a mearbound to the march of a landsmaul, in half a sylb, helf a solb, holf a salb onward the beast of boredom, common sense, lurking gyrographically down inside his loose Eating S.S. Collar is gogoing of whisth to you sternly how -- Plutonic loveliaks twinnt Platonic yearlings -- you must, how, in undivided reawlity draw the line somewhawre."

Best with more hard liquor than you'd dare to drink

xoxo

2011-03-08T17:41:00.000-08:00

(I'm so sorry for the colossal gaps between posts but it's been snowing pretty good here in Jackson which kinda means that everything else gets pushed to the side. Apologies, and here's the book the hour.)

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything By Joshua Foer (Penguin Press, 307 pp, $21.56)-- I read it in November or so, and ironically enough, forgot all about it. (Ironic because it's a book about memory!). Anyways, after hearing Joshua Foer on NPR and reading about him in the NY Times magazine, I not only remembered it but remembered how really great it was, too. Let me limn it out: Foer, a struggling journalist seeking Plimpton-esque immersion into a fast-paced professional competition stumbles upon the World Memory Championships which, after much training and study of The Human Memory's place in history, science, literature, and such, he enters and ... well you find out for yourself (and anyways I forget). It's a really fun read that does a great job of describing the memory exercises and strategies Foer and other Mind-letes employ (the coolest and most central one involves walking around a big house in your head and looking at things...), and also makes a lot of sense out of the former importance memorization had in schools and for poets like Homer back, you know, then. CHECK IT OUT!

That's because the book is so much more that a seductive piece of investigative journalism that has you rooting for memory geeks and

Old, Good, Pretty

2011-02-18T15:53:00.000-08:00

I've been suffering from some mid-winter-no-snow-coming doldrums (something like Carlo's "Denver Doldrums," I suppose) and started dabbling with some older titles recently -- old but good. Initially, I was a little reluctant to write anything about them. Anyways, here goes. On my bedside they are:

The Ghost Writer by Phillip Roth (Vintage, $11.20) -- Remember that TV show 'Ghostwriter,' that aired Saturday mornings on PBS? ? Roth's classic has got little to do with it. So don't ask. More like the precursor to one of Roberto Bolano's tomes, The Ghost Writer is vintage Roth at his best. Full of haunting, sexy women of foreign background, dubious authors, and the comedy of the bedridden, it's right up there with Operation Shylock or Portnoy's Complaint. Just a little more proof that you can't beat Roth for tragi-comedy.

The Country Ahead of Us, The Country Behind by David Guterson (Vintage, $10.40) -- Channeling that other Peninsular bigwig, Raymond Chandler, Guterson gets at the heart and its environments in just a few pages throughout this neat collection of short stories. Hunting stories, cheating stories, rafting stories -- they are of many kinds but nearly always carried through in such a way that the environments they involve are as pregnant as their characters. Really interesting reading given his later successes. Enjoy!

Waiting by Ha Jin (Vintage, $12.00) -- This National Book Award winner is about love -- and there's plenty of it. The problem is that Lin Kong loves two women: his wife, who's born of his village and chosen by his parents, and his lover, a nurse at his military hospital who understands the waters of the quick-moving world. Between these nodes of past and present, the rural and urban, the individual and society, and the witting and unwitting, Ha Jin works brilliantly (--so far, I'm not done yet!) to cull up as much subtlety as his characters and their allegorical attachments need. As eye-opening as it is well-written. Love it!

SCIENCES!

2011-01-27T16:03:00.000-08:00

Prepare yourself. Your IQ is about to get 10 points higher.

That's right! Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe (as seen on PBS) and The Fabric of the Cosmos, has done it again and come out with a book which threatens to rewrite our notions of the universe -- and reality -- again. Check it out! (It's called The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos (Knopf, $23.96, 984 pages)) Sure to stimulate your meta-meta ponderings about which multiverse your car keys drifted into and what Everett might look like in a holographic universe infinitely full of doppelgangers of our own. Woof.

Also peek at this link to a NY Times article about V. Nabokov's second life as a lepidopterist (butterfly enthusiast), which, looked at cutely in its time by literary critics, has recently been vindicated by sciencey types. Cool!

2011-01-14T20:01:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile. My computer had the cramps. He got sick and had to go to the hospital. Now he's back (reloaded and) and better than he's been in a while. Sorry, anyhow.

In the News!:

LIBRARIES

While getting involved with some NY times backstories I found this enlightening and sort of blithely hilarious clip about a NY city jail whose librarian is none other than Robert Halderman, the slimeball who blackmailed Letterman. Be sure to catch the end where he recommends some Jonathan Kellerman novels to an inmate who in turn extols the virtues of 'hood story' novels as means of getting younger prisoners to read. Likely not their first 'gateway' experiences, huh? Anyways, a cool story. ("I think we've replicated the library experience as well as...well, we can in a jail setting..." hee haw)

2. The more important bit in the news, however, is that of California's budget shortfall, that may or may not ultimately see many of the state's libraries shuttered. But I guess if old Moonbeam's going to get spartan on his state, his state's readers might have to do the same. I'm thinking "300" in a library with a bunch of NPR listeners armed with Oxford English Dictionaries. Ah. If only Schwarzenegger were still in office. Then the movie would be made.

All this only adds up to so little but here's the gist: Support Your Libraries! Read Books! Fight the system with OEDs not IEDs!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/opinion/l04library.html?ref=librariesandlibrarians

2010-12-08T20:29:00.000-08:00

Check out this great New York Times article about San Francisco's Litquake and "Lit Crawl." Truly a city that cares deeply for its books and bookstores!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/travel/05SanFran.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=san%20francisco%20bookstores&st=cse

And don't worry! Holiday recommendations coming As Soon As Possible!

xoxo

Holiday (Cook)Books!

2010-12-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

Ho Hooo Ho! Well it's that precious time of year again, when bookbuying comes crashing into your life like an Iranian mistle-toe. So what if you haven't bought any in awhile. All you have to do is remember that your friends like books, your mom likes books, your kids like books...everybody likes books! And anyways a book is the gift that makes you the thoughtful giftgiver!

That being so, we're going to do this thing hockey-style, in shifts of three. And TODAY'S is COOKBOOKS!
Ethan Stowell's New Italian Kitchen by Ethan Stowell and Leslie Miller(Ten Speed Press, $28.00, 240 pages) -- A Seattle favorite, Stowell is as much a chef as he is a living piece of Northwest culture. If you haven't been to How to Cook a Wolf, Anchovies and Olives, Staple & Fancy Mercantile or any of his other restaurants consider your tastebuds may still be ungraduated. An homage to Italian cooking and a celebration of Stowell's own creativity and excitement for food, New Italian Kitchen is a great gift for the advanced chefs in your family or friend group.

Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich (Artisan, $20.76, 384 pages) -- Packed full of deliciously quirky recipes like salted Thai cashew cookies or gluten free cheesecake bars, this delightful cookbook reimagines and updates all your favorite sweet treats! Great for that chef you know who always seems to need a nudge in the direction of organization.

Barefoot Contessa How Easy is That?: Fabulous Recipes and Easy Tips by Ina Garten (Clarkson Potter, $28.00, 256 pages) -- You've seen her magically simple dishes on TV, now learn to recreate them yourself! Frighteningly easy, always scrumptuous, and never not-fun to make or bake -- a great gift for anyone who's tired of Easy Mac and Top Ramen.

Or lastly, the absolute Classic:

The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century by Amanda Hesser (W.W. Norton and Co., $32.00, 932 pages) -- A encyclopedic tome that deserves to sit right next to The Joy of Cooking on your kitchen bookshelf, this fairly new cookbook is your all your mother's recipes but legible, and, frankly, just better. Grab a few and gift them to anyone you can't figure out what to get!

xoxo

NovBeerOk? (NUohvBEERawk?)

2010-11-08T18:30:00.000-08:00

So we missed the chance for celebrating the deliciousness that is beer in October, but don't wet your leiderhosen just yet. Here's a little of taste of winter, with New Books AND New Beers

First up: Sierra Nevada's Celebration Seasonal Ale (Chico, CA) and Compass Rose by John Casey (Alfred A. Knopf. $27.95, 368 pgs) -- Since forever, solitude in nature has been as integral a part of the American experience as fish and chips has been to the British one. And though it's obvious that both are worthy of the highest rumination, only one truly comes to the fore in Casey's latest.

20 years in the making, Compass Rose is his accomplished object. Big and wandering, it's as good a novel as Spartina, and as finely attuned to the rhythms of the waters, the leaves, and the people who drift in their midst. Here's my synopsis: Rurul Rhode Island Epic Fishing?. Drink the tasty Celebration with it to celebrate the details gotten right.

Room by Emma Donahue (Little, Brown, and Co., $19.99, 336 pgs) and Stone Brewing Co.'s Double Bastard (Escondido, CA) -- Already a darling of so many of those intimidating Books-of-The-Year lists, Room is the book you're either talking about or will shortly be talking about. Told from the perspective of a 5 year old boy imprisoned in 'Room' where he sleeps in 'Wardrobe' and is attended to by his mother, it's a novel that evokes a shocking mix of horror and pathos and tenderness mingled with dread. Slurp down a couple glasses of Double Bastard while you get cozy in 'Room' because it too, confuses its belligerent hoppy bitterness with a malty smoothness more germane to a conversation 007 had at the Ritz. Grog.

As usual, drop us line about your beeroks!

xoxo

Bored to Death

2010-10-19T20:59:00.000-07:00

A few things (and none of them Halloween related)

First off: Bored To Death, author Jonathan Ames's (far left) HBO baby (left) is in the middle of its second season now and as hilariously cute as ever. Be sure to check out the corresponding book, or a clip from the show. (A must if you like pot jokes, awkwardness, waywardness, Ted Danson acting like Cheech Marin, super heroes with phallic powers, or anything that reminds you of a cartoon version of somebody who reads too much Vanity Fair.) And by the way, a movie version of The Extra Man, Ames's transsexualized Fitzgerald novel, was released just last week! And it features Kevin Kline, Katie Holmes, and John C. Reilly!

Secondly: Pioneering author of the "techno-geek-rebellion" novels (like his recent, and excellent, Little Brother), Cory Doctorow has been up to some cool stuff lately. Talking with NPR today about self-publishing and, more likely than not, the "Future of The Novel," Doctorow clarified a lot about how books will work in the future. Learn about his new project, an 'experimentally' published 'DIY story collection' here.

West of Here

2010-10-06T19:43:00.001-07:00

REVIEW: West of Here (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $19.96 -- February 2011) by Jonathan Evison -- Let me paint this thing: Look into the woods behind your house. Add more. More moisture. More trees. Moss strangling downed stumps. A sasquatch. An old bottle of Kilt Lifter with its label faded and grey. You are West of Here, now. North-West to be exact, and in a little semi-fictional town called Port Bonita, WA. The mighty Elwha roars in your ears!

And welcome to Jonathan Evison's (a Bainbridge Islander!) new novel!

Let me say first: It's a Hybrid! (Congrats!). No seriously. Written in a swirling, stirring mixture of fictive and non-fictive, past and present, Evison's newest novel (note: Available in February!) is one of those books that cleverly tells you where you came from, why, and where you're going. Wielder of a sharp pen, Evison's language is sweet, too, and his plotting and characterization both apt and reeling. From sobriety stricken cannery managers, to dam-building dandies, to epileptic Native Americans, you'll love them all! Read it when it comes out!

<--- Evison, Islander

Franzen

2010-09-30T21:02:00.000-07:00

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, $22.40)

REVIEW!: The joy one feels while reading a book this good for the first time is is its own contagion, a transmitter of I-need-to-read-that, and you see on the face of every last person who's picked up. Having just finished it myself, I've already wished a thousand times over that I could wipe my memory clean so that I might start it again, fresh to its superior everything.

Freedom's greatest attribute, however, is its lack of hubris, for which Franzen should be heavily applauded. His writing is pitch-perfect in a world before pitch, back when caveman stabbed each other with rocks to communicate. It is deft but void of pomp or show, and seamlessly builds a looping narrative about an average-ish midwestern family that flows along so smoothly it might be locked into the well oiled grooves of a Six Flags water coaster. Many sentences are so shining they seem worth, if not just a jotting down, then oral ingestion. (But you may get sick, in that case). Quickly: it's the story of the Berglunds, once-happy gentrifiers, bike-commuters, seed planters, and so on, whose lives have somehow fallen out of joint. Happy youth gone, they suddenly wake to world where their son is living next door with his girlfriend and a man who's truck reads "I'm white and I vote," and putting himself through college, while Patty, the wife, consorts with a bottle of wine a night and lusts after her husband's college roommate, Richard Katz, and her husband, Walter, encourages mountaintop removal in rural West Virginia for the cause of songbirds. A rich commentary on all manner of topics (a crumbling environment, Love, Story, urban environment, friendship, parenting, politics, etc.) throbs through the narrative and is both even-handed and morally acute; perspective is one of Franzen's favorite currencies to deal in. READ IT SOOON

Auster

2010-09-16T19:09:00.000-07:00

Paul Auster is a great author, and now a man of American letters, winner of numerous awards -- well, he's here to stay. And that's a good thing.

But who is Paul Auster? In recent years, those critics who work in that in that air-tight, adjective laden atmosphere that materializes somewhere between the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books once a week have taken to his stygian, noirish scripts with fork and knife, feverishly speculating about which sauce to cover them in. (Old Fashioned? Pepper Spice? Neo-post-modern-noir?) Others come bearing not gifts but theories. Many believe he does not exist, hasn't existed, and that "Paul Auster," born February 3, 1947, etc., etc., is little more than a character or a trope in some charade about authors, authorship, that. (Admittedly, if does seem odd that a character called Paul Auster has appeared in a few of his novels. A lack of imagination perhaps?) Others conclude that he is a kind of translator of Nabokov -- reimagining from N.'s native Zemblan, of course -- who is ever-unearthing new manuscripts from some sodden cellar only he and N. knew of (Nabokov taught "Auster" at Columbia). Though this could only be true if he injected Nabokov's writing with measured doses of austerity, for the two -- lyrically, at least -- have little in common.

No, I'm just kidding about all this. I am Paul Auster. Or rather I'm Paul Auster's best friend and he's just died and an outline in his journal indicated I should write this blog. Really.

Anyways: Auster's newest, just out in paperback, Invisible (Picador, $12.00) is incredible and asks just the same questions as I have, though of course, more assiduously, wonderfully, deliciously. Read it!

Hm.. . . . ..

2010-08-31T21:13:00.000-07:00

NOT a whole lot to talk about -- just that, this, the other thing, and Bristol Palin on Dancing With the Stars (Will Rick Fox woo her too?). You know. Fall coming (Fall into Reading!), sooner or later pumpkins (later) , school (sooner), yes all of it. Here's what's up today!:

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, $22.40) -- For good reasons, I haven't had the chance to read it. I haven't, in fact, even been able to see our galley for it. That's how coveted it's been around our neighborhood, and if the grapevine happens to speak a lick of truth about the book, its precociousness is well earned. In any case, here's what I've heard: a. it's as good Franzen's last novel, The Corrections, b., themes include marriage, love, sprawl, social entanglement decay, detritus, freedom, c., the scope is epic, d., St. Paul is the setting, e., 576 pages, f., if that's not enough to make you want to buy it, you belong somewhere else.

xoxo

Heartful Hector

2010-08-26T20:08:00.000-07:00

Short, insanely cute and a worldwide sensation to boot, Francois Lelord's Hector and the Search for Happiness (Penguin, $11.20) is a modern parable for the CNN-generation. And in fact, it's perfect. Not in a Doctor Philian, Sanjay Guptian kind of way, full of go-get-'ems and why-don't-feel-your-own-powers?, but as a quaint story that truly gets at the problem of happiness in the 21st century. Here's a quick synopsis: Hector, an inquisitive and moderately happy psychiatrist living somewhere in Europe takes a sabbatical in order to travel the world in search of a recipe for happiness. Visiting friends in China, America, and Africa, he plods and prods those around him with questions until at last he molds some sort of understanding. From getting kidnapped to falling in love with a Chinese prostitute (but cutely), Hector and his trip are as remarkable as they are fun and easy to swallow. (I know it sounds dumb but seriously, just try it.)

xoxo

Just Beerok It

2010-08-10T19:30:00.000-07:00

With summer winding down faster than your kid sister's spin-caster hooked on a 10 lb dogfish, it's time at last to do the things, the thing, which suits summer best: drink a beer, read a book, yes, uh huh, Beerok. (And if you're new to Beerok here's a little 'what's up': good beer + good book + a few iotas of selective taste to match their characteristics = better, more intoxicating reading)

Aliens in The Prime of Their Lives by Brad Watson (W.W. Norton, $19.16, hardcover) and Palo Santo Marron by Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales (Rehoboth, DE) -- Watson's newest (which came out in March, btw) is a compact, remarkably pitched account of modern American life, that just miraculously manages to be as funny as it is darkly tormented. Oh and it's good. Really good. Written in such a way as to reminisce of Wells Tower, the short fiction of Irving Welsh and maybe John Cheever as well, Aliens is a really fun book that is funniest when it's not funny, wryest when looking most deeply into its already-deep and murky depths. (To give a sense of them, one of the best stories involve the obese, a traumatic brain injury, an artist-biker gang, a bb gun, and a man who has truly given up.) This is where Dogfish Head's delicious Palo Santo Marron comes in. Measuring at %12 abv, the Palo Santo is a 'malt liquor' Dogfish Head style, strong, unfiltered, aged in tasty Paraguayan Palo Santo Wood, and pushing some sweet vanilla and rich caramel notes to boot. A good match to Watson's exploration of the dark and weird for its own tormented character (playful, yet exquisitely crafted), its numbing qualities (the alcohol-rich part), and its exoticism of the familiar. A tasty beverage and a great book! Matched! Let us know what you think and don't be shy to try out your own!

xoxo

Good, New

2010-07-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

Not the best 'summer' read, but a pretty good book nonetheless:

Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $20.80) -- Make a Paul Auster-Gabriel Garcia Marquez sandwich. Chew it slowly, acknowledging how pure, how perfect, how strange it tastes, and funny too. Such a sandwich could only be washed down with a little Miguel Syjuco, the newest literary face to come out of The Philippines. And his newest is great. Marked by its wildly expansive, ever-epic family narrative, giddy recasting of authorship (very reminiscent of 2666), romping unreliable narration and so on, it's a lot of fun if not occasionally a bit of work as well. Good work though. Great stuff.

In other news: The Long List for the Man Booker was released today (13 names was it?), and I jut found out that everybody's favorite science writer, Mary Roach, is speaking at the UW on August 18 (check this hilarious video of her explaining orgasms http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jx0dTYUO5E). She's pretty damn cute. Back soon,

xoxo

Footy

2010-07-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

What a sad day. The Dutch lost in the finals. Again. (That's the third time.) Officially, Spain has conquered the soccer world. Unofficially, Holland have made it a fact that they just don't have it when the lights turn on for the big fight. Anyway, if you're as sad as I am about the World Cup coming to an end, here are a few books to keep your soccer addiction sated and your mind off the misery, (especially if you're a fan of the Oranje).

Brilliant Orange the Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer (Overlook Press, $11.96) by David Winner -- A book that's as much an essay about the specialized bizarreness of Holland as it is about the nation's infamous (and totally nebulous) "Total Fooball" style of play that got it to the finals in '74 and '78. A stylish read that's as fun as it is informative. For fans and foes alike. (Another excellent book about Dutch soccer is Simon Kuper's Ajax, the Dutch, the War: Football in Europe During the Second World War.

The Miracle of Castel di Sangro: A Tale of Passion and Folly in the Heart of Italy by Joe McGinnis (Broadway, $12.76) -- McGinnis's gift for storytelling takes us on a ride through the fields and villages of Italy this time, where we encounter the hilarious and ultimately heartbreaking story of a poor, rag-tag Italian soccer team miraculously playing in a league well over its head. Replete with rich characters enlivened by McGinnis's prose (greasy mobsters, coaches named 'Bulldozer,' a goofy translator), it'll make you laugh, cry, and roll on the ground with all the theatrical flare of Italian soccer player when he's been 'injured.' Really fun.

Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey--and Even Iraq--Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski (Nation, $11.96) -- Answering every question you've had about the sport and more with solutions as shocking as they are convincing, Soccernomics is Freakonomics meets Footballer's Wives but even then you're only just starting to get ahold of it. With insights gleaned from economic data, psychology, and business, Soccernomics will confound and disrupt everything you think you know about the way soccer works all around the world. Quick, fun, revelatory.

xoxo

2010-06-25T20:39:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a trip abroad and saw the cramped, diminutive belly of books that is Shakespeare and Co. (which had Martin Amis, Will Self, etc. coming for a Festival of sorts, wowwee) as well as a publisher's street fair in Porto (50+ stalls)...really, a whole wild world of books. Fantastic stuff, but overwhelming too: There's Too Many Damned Books !

As always, I found traveling is one of the best times to read, or at any rate one of the most productive. The train rides. The flights. Monolingual television sets. The best of what I read was:

Roddy Doyle's The Dead Republic (Viking, $21.56, hc) -- Doyle's last novel novel of the Henry Star Trilogy, The Dead Republic works as a triptych of episodes, beginning with Henry Star (former IRA hitman) working with director Henry Ford to turn his life into a movie and ending with our protagonist's return to his homeland, politics, and his lost wife as he finds old age. Throughout the journey, the book works to give a historical survey of Ireland and the differing states of Irish politics. For the reader, this is a wonderful, if not revelatory aspect of the book. Knowledge of Cumman na mban, 1917, the IRA, Sinn Feinn, and so on, will strike most readers illuminatingly, and certainly fail to invoke thoughts of Red Sox games, Guiness, and Leprechauns. (No doubt this is a positive development concerning perceptions of the Eire.) On top of the historical blanket lays the attractive story of Henry Star, hitman, scriptwriter, janitor extraordinaire. Largely, it works to embolden the contours of the novel's historical aspect, and does so in good style. READ IT!
xoxo

BEA (BookExpo America) Takeaways

2010-05-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

The place to bump boards with Tony Hawk, hear Stephen King sing "Louie Louie" in front of a full band, or watch David Sedaris talk about kinky sex in front of countless octogenarians through your hands, BookExpo America is always a good time, and from what I hear, this year was no exception. (Streisand spoke on opening night!). Among the questions raised by the numerous author/bookseller/publisher panels, however, one concern loomed high above the rest for all the book-ies: Electronic Books.

We ask: What do you think about them? If you read them via an e-reader, ipad, or iphone, how does that kind of reading compare to the real thing? Will they change the way we read forever? What will they do to the publishing industry, do you think? How will they effect and authors and authorship? Is there a way for e-books and independent bookstores to coexist peacefully, or does the birth of one necessitate the death of the other, as with Jake's exchange of bodies at the end of Avatar?

Please, please, let us know what you think!

xoxo

Karl Marlantes at Third Place Books

2010-05-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

Karl Marlantes, Woodinville resident and author of the excellent, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, is reading tomorrow, Wednesday, May 19, at Third Place Books! The event starts at 7.00 pm.

Beeeeeerok

2010-05-16T21:39:00.000-07:00

A Father/Son Beerok!:

David Guterson's The Other (Vintage, $12.00) and 7 Seas Brewing's Ballz Deep Double IPA -- Yes, it's strange, and even auspiciously weird that one of the Northwest's best writers (David Guterson) now has a son (Travis Guterson) playing brewmaster at one of its most exciting new breweries, 7 Seas (Gig Harbor). And Ballz Deep is a good beer, by the way, really in spite of its poor name. Hoppy with a residual sweetness that bonds flavor to smoothness (spicy Yakima hops provide the 'berserk' flavor kick, while a pale ale malt mixed with a variety of Crystals make the base), it is that rare double IPA that doesn't have a pitbull's bite, or, conversely, taste like pond water. The Other is fantastic, too. A coming of age tale about dropping out, growing up, staying authentic, Seattle, and Seattle's wilderness(es), it that funny sort of book which sees an author sinking into the maturity of his talent by writing about youth and growing up. Which is why I think it's great pair with the younger Guterson's brand new brewery (which started selling its beers off the shelf in mid-April!)!

Swill it and kill it

xoxo

Bedsides

2010-05-04T19:27:00.000-07:00

With National Poetry Month done and gone, it's time to get back to the novel -- especially because so many great ones have come out in the last month or so.

Here are a few littering my bedside!:

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall (W.W. Norton, $21.65, hardcover) -- Like the ultra-watchable, insanely believable Big Love on HBO, The Lonely Polygamist is a dramatic, always surprising, and consistently hilarious saga about the logistical and spiritual mechanics of polygamist life. Among other things, it's written well and has a lot to say about underground bombs...........um, awesome....

The Book of Evidence by John Banville (Vintage, $12.00) -- Part Bellow, part Camus, part Michael Cunningham, Banville is one of the best and still, very much himself. And I like this older Banville novel, too. It's a dark, fixing book written for those enjoy wry smiles and harbor steely stomachs; 'gruesome' is its middle name and 'calculating' its last. Beautiful, still, as well.

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes (Atlantic Monthly Press, $19.96, hardcover) -- Matterhorn is a big book, figuratively, literally, pretty much any way you hold up to light. And surprisingly, it's also a debut. I'm not real far in it -- just 40 pages or so -- and can readily admit that it's taken a hold of me. (Two words: penile leeches. ). And oh yea, it's about Vietnam and written by a former Marine who's spent 30 years in his attic making it one of the most riveting, comprehensive and peerless books about a subject so many great authors have already explored. How Marlantes found the room, or the acumen, to take over that conversation is beyond me, but thank god for it.

WHAT'S ON YOUR BEDSIDE?

xoxo

April is Poetry Month!

2010-04-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

April truly is the cruelest poetry month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain...blah [english accent] blah... (keeping you from writing blogs) blah...blah

No. Seriously. It really is NATIONAL POETRY MONTH! cruel, startlingly rainy, lyrical, wonderful, and, we think, A TIME FOR SHARING! So yes, please! Send us your poems! Post your own works, your favorite works, your friends' works, your whatevers!

Here's Our Start:

On a bus, you look and see
all the men around you.
Why do they hang
like so? you wonder.
They are meat on hooks from a dirty ceiling.
Sometimes you must smile on their faces
knowing that if you do not
you are a lone party
in dealing with that fate
which wheels into the strange triggers of the world.
There is something left undone, you feel,
something undone.
Always.
A hand drops (as steak to a grill).
And is it so good? you wonder.
Almost.
Meat huddles newly.
Away.
Newly. Huh.

There are temples in Africa much older than global warming,
a symbol for peace more ancient than the languages of the Middle East,
and the corpses of murdered neanderthaloids beneath your skyscrapers.
But tell me, why do you think of this now?
No, tell me, do you find it possible that you could have been made elsewhere?
No, really, let me know what you think: is it slapstick that binds us to our destined ends?
Are we laughing today?

xoxo

HumBum

2010-03-25T19:34:00.000-07:00

Writers Writing: (You eat, you sleep. Coffee somewhere. Is this how stories are made?)

I don't know why, but it feels right to pick at this question now. Is it because spring is abounding? Maybe. The midges hatching? Okay. The puppies playing? Perhaps. Or is it the masses of writers escaping the figurative belly of the winter whale for inspired walks through landscapes which might dredge back some of that sensorial nature we lose during The Wet? I do not know. I think it's that sort of question that you can boil with for a long time -- how writers write, I mean -- but I also think that it's one of those things that if left untended to, will either boil over or steam out into nothing.

And enough of that. More Getting Into This:

I like reading about different writers methods. They always say very funny things when writing about themselves and their work, and almost always it is unintentional and more earnestly funny than they could ever purposely be. They are always talking about the morning, as well. Everyone seems to be waking up around 4, 5, 6 am at the latest and writing till 4 or 5 at night. Heptathletes do not work this hard. And what are they doing anyway? Is there music? Are husbands and wives allowed in, allowed to take a look, dab and smear at the lines -- ...no no honey, he must say "..." not "..."? To what alien's distance do they travel when looking at us or into themselves? Is everything from or of the past? How much can you steal from others? Is it all like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogPZ5CY9KoM?

HELP US: Opinions? Quotes? Recipes? Jokes? Invitations? Used Cars?

Saint Patrick

2010-03-11T20:16:00.000-08:00

It was at somewhere in the second half of the 5th century when Saint Patrick died. 470 AD, maybe later, maybe sooner -- it's just not known. To be sure, though, it was a blast. Guinness fountains, Flogging Molly singalongs crooned in DiCaprio's Departed accent, Boondock Saints viewings, Bono without his glasses on reading Yeats, Joyce making 'chamber music' with assorteds. Whole tons of great stuff. Really. It's all on wikipedia. This was just a copy-paste.

In the spirit of Ireland's patron saint's day, we've compiled a little IRISH THEMED BEEROK to bolster the spirit. So it's all loric Irish wisdom and multitudinous Irish flavors from here on out for us: accept them, we say; swill them, get stupid on them.

First up: Finnegan's Wake by Jim Joyce (Penguin Classics, 16.80) and Whatever Shitty Terrible God-Hating Whiskey You Can Find. (Suggestions: Mohgul Monarch, Edradour Tokaji, Canadian Hunter, etc.) -- Now not just the enemy of viagra, we've actually found some some positive purpose for world's most awesome beverage. For once it doesn't involve firearms, chewing tobacco, or dead animals. Actually, its feat is that it's the only thing around that'll get drunk enough to get seriously involved with Joyce's nonsensical 'novel.' Can't Remember A Fucking Thing (C.R.A.F.T. Club)? Switters? White linen suits? Anyone? Try the pair only while blackout, says this redfaced beeroker. And if for some reason that's not working, then devote 50 years of your life to it.

Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (Penguin, 12.00) and Harpoon Brewery's Celtic Ale (Boston, MA) -- A slimy, looping book -- and good for it too -- Doyle's most famous novel is written in a child's voice about his memories, his incidents, his changing world, and so on, beginning with a fire. In it, Paddy is funny, his thoughts are always poignant, and his tribulations, to our amusement and embarassment, are the same as ours once were. And yet his private world is also a brilliantly real and singular place, too as Doyle captures his homeland sweetly: accents, anxieties, all of it. Harpoon's Celtic works, I think, because despite its mild flavor (it is a drinking man's beer) it still does work on the palate. Tasty. Etc.

'The Sea' by John Banville (Vintage, 11.16) and Rogue's (Newport, OR) Dry Hopped St. Rogue Red -- Finally, John Banville's The Sea. It is a beautiful book. The story is predicable and yet the characters are not; how is it that that works? And prose. The prose is some of the best I've read. It rises and falls with consummate lyricism and explorative subleties. You will love it, guaranteed. As for what goes on: the novel introduces Max Morden, who is between two places, yet not totally lost in his life, as he copes with a number of painful traumas -- some recent, others ancient. To deal he goes to a seaside town where he spent a memorable holiday as a child. A novel ensues. THE BEER: Rogue hasn't always been my favorite purveyor of spirits, but recently I've had a few outstanding beers of theirs and changed my mind. St. Rogue Red was one of them. It's a feisty beer (just look at it!), but remains so so drinkable in comparison to other Red Ales of its caliber (and Red Ale is a traditional Irish beer); how is it that that works? Never shocking, always satisfying, St. Rogue Red evokes all the mysteries of its making without eschewing any quality or fundamental goodness.

OTHERS TO CONSIDER!: Edna O'Brien's Wild Decembers, JP Dunleavy's The Gingerman, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, anything by Beckett, Heaney or Yeats...etc. And as always SUGGEST YOUR OWN OR TRY THESE ONES OUT!

Um, yep, green shits, green piss, it's all coming.

xoxo

Awescars!

2010-03-06T20:29:00.000-08:00

It's here! The race is on! Today! In just hours, minutes, lists of seconds!

You know what I'm talking about. The blue people. Stewardesses. Tragic, mystic, violent nazi hunters, flying houses, the alien camp, and all the other great ones.

Yep. The Oscars. (Is it fitting to now ask who is this Oscar and whether or not he should have some sort of fingerling moostache with a name like that? Or how he is so fit? Or, for even as far as androgyny goes, why he wears no pants, no shirt, no smile or face? Meh. The questions that keep sane men up late.)

Anyways. As we all celebrate Hollywood's entertainment superbowl -- which really is the same as the bowl except for the makeup, the flat jokes, and that a large group of very old white men decide on its outcome -- it's good to remember that so many of our favorite films of the year were born firstly on the page. Check it out! Read them! And even though none can ever be as faithful or brilliant as McCarthy/The Coens No Country for Old Men, Read them, See them, and Decide which is better!

Push by Sapphire (Vintage, $13.00) -- A sorrow-filled but vitally inspiring novel, Sapphire's first is conveyed deftly through abused, obese, 16 year old Precious's stream of consciousness narration. Up for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress Best Director, and others.

An Education by Lynn Barber (Atlas, $13.00) -- Candid, funny, honest, heartfelt -- you name it and Lynn Barber's memoir has got it. Written for the screen by Nick Hornby and up for Best Picture, Best Actress, as well as Best Adapted Screenplay .

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis (Norton, $13.95)-- You've probably read it already, haven't you? Inspiration story of a homeless teen (African-American) taken in by a wealthy, well-to-do family (Caucasian). Football stardom/ Sandra-Bullock-Oscardom ensue. Best Picture and Best Actress.

The Last Station: A novel of Tolstoy's Final Year by Jay Parini (Anchor, $15.00) -- A New York Times' Notable of the year which pieces together the last years of Tolstoy's long life. Great book and a memorable movie. Best Actress.

Up in the Air by Walter Kirn (Anchor, $14.95) -- Poignant corporate satire about people, goals, society, and secret lounges for the very highest mileage flyers. Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress (x2), Best Director, etc.

Crazy Heart by Thomas Cobb (Harper Perennial, $13.99) -- Cob convinces us of both Bad Blake's character and (true) country music's fading, rambling, beaten yet brilliant old soul in good style. And the best commendation: he writes a character encompassing enough for The Dude, Jeff Bridges's, near-endless gift for acting in the way of Bad Blake. See the film, hear the songs, read the book! Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Song.

Invictus by John Carlin (Penguin, $16.00) -- A perspective-wielding book about Mandela's first years in office and the struggle he faced to keep a fracturing country together. Starring Matt Damon, Rugby, and Morgan Freeman in his long-inevitable starring as the great Nelson Mandela. Yup another beautiful film by Clint Eastwood and a pretty damn good book too, from what I hear. Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor. (And btw, invictus means 'unconquered' in latin. I wondered too)

Others: THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX by Roald Dahl (Best Animated Picture), CORALINE by Neil Gaiman (Best Animated Picture), JULIE & JULIA by Julie Powell (Best Actress) ... etc

xoxo

Poem for a day

2010-02-26T21:00:00.000-08:00

What Does It Mean

It does not know it glitters
It does not know it flies
It does not know it is this not that.

And, more and more often, agape,
With my Gauloise dying out,
Over a glass of red wine,
I muse on the meaning of being this not that.

Just as long ago, when I was twenty,
But then there was a hope I would be everything,
Perhaps even a butterfly or a thrush, by magic.
Now I see dusty district roads
And a town where the postmaster gets drunk every day
Melancholy with remaining identical to himself.

If only the stars contained me.
If only everything kept happening in such a way
That the so-called world opposed the so-called flesh.
Were I at least not contradictory. Alas.

-- Czeslaw Milosz

A poem if only because it's raining, it's February, and it's time to feel, feel, Feel what is to become of this and that.

xoxo

Beeeeeerrrokkkkkk!!!

2010-02-19T20:55:00.000-08:00

Breathe easy. Tme has elapsed. And it's time to relax.

More Beerok (yes: beer + books + an iota of selective taste ... = better, more intoxicating reading) ... coming right up.

Lagunitas Brewing Co.'s (Petaluma, CA) A Little Sumpin' Extra! Ale and Sam Shepard's Day Out of Days (Knopf, hardcover, 25.95) -- Get the boldly weird here, with the added plus of their elliptical coolness. Short stories, poems, dialogues, stringy, sinewy narratives done right by a master. And an imperial IPA to die for. Or get weird for. Or maybe just pay for a few dozen times.

Odell's (Fort Collins, CO) Woodcut No. 2 Oak Aged Golden Ale and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Puffin Classics, 4.99, etc.) -- We shouldn't, can't forget about the book that Hemingway lovingly announced 'all modern American literature comes from' and Fitzgerald rah-rahed as the first to look on us objectively with domestic eyes (Huck's). It's just as well that we can't, mustn't overlook one of the nation's best breweries most exciting new brews. Built of mud and blood it manufactures one of the clearest, honestest palates you can find in a beer, much less a golden. Good together just because. They're just right for each other. And that's all.

xoxo

Valentine's Day!

2010-02-10T17:30:00.000-08:00

Lovers, loathers, lopers, leeches, lederhosen-wearers, lolliopoppers, lollygaggers, loopers, bloopers, babes and boys! Yes it's Valentine's again -- that precious time of year when it's ok to kiss in public, buy your girlfriend funny underwear, and tawk vewy cute like dis to all the women you see! Or just about.

At this point, it's hard to mention Valentine's Day without at least giving a passing reference to Nicholas Sparks' newest bestseller turned mega-blockbuster, Dear John (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0fq5dd0C60). I haven't seen it and probably won't (because John Cena isn't in it), though just the other day in the lift line a girl was literally sobbing as she told told her friends the book's story. I was impressed. So... I guess, check it out, if that's the sort of thing you like...!

In other news, there hasn't been much other news. Don Delillo released his latest book, Point Omega, about an intellectual defense analyst, which breaks out as the highlight of the last few weeks. While I wasn't so fond of Falling Man, and thus didn't read Cosmopolis, the reviews of this one have been so polarized it'll be hard one not to pick up, if only just to see what all the commotion is about. Oh and Patti Smith came out with a new memoir, Just Kids, that's supposed to be as heartbreaking and elegiac as it is inspiring and nostalgic. Erdrich, Boyle, and Bolano (posthumous) have new ones to look for as well. All in all, enjoy! Kisses!

xoxo

Deaths: A Fugitive from Fame and A Heated Historian

2010-01-28T21:06:00.000-08:00

Such a sad couple of days for the reading world.

As pretty much everyone has heard, we have said adieu to two of our country's Most Valuable Minds: J.D. Salinger, that great chronicler of youth and juvenile angst -- author, of course, of A Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zoey, and Nine Stories--; and Howard Zinn, professional doubter, histrionic rebel and revisionary, and author of books like A People's History of the United States and La Guardia in Congress to name a few.

With little doubt these passages are sad -- even remarkable for our time. The men were great and their works immeasurably greater. And yet unlike the manifold fatalities in Haiti which loom across news bulletins, these deaths are by no means tragedies. Zinn, we know, was in his eighties, and Salinger in his nineties. Both died naturally of the causes which are supposed to take us and drifted painlessly away.

There a special solace to be taken in this type of death. And it is different than that which we find with other deaths. For one, we cannot -- should not -- grieve them. They died at the right time. There was no drama. Any dreams unfulfilled were probably meant to be left unfulfilled by whoever decides such things. Most importantly, both lived deliberately and plainly, doing the things they believed in, even (especially) when it bewildered and confused the public. And so on.

And so they pass, not as invisibles, or pitiables, or men who stared at pens and blank pieces of paper wishing this or that, but as people who did what they wanted, died when it was right, and couldn't give a damn what you said about it. (You phonies.) As Raymond Carver said shortly before he (himself) died: "art is not self-expression; it's communication." And that's what we've got to remember and celebrate about Salinger and Zinn. Their lives may have been their own, but their art is (and has always been) all ours for the taking.

Cool New One!

2010-01-22T20:04:00.000-08:00

I've had the hardest time picking out things to write about
lately -- I suppose it's just the time of year, what with the Haitian
catastrophe, the storms beating at California, genital-hating underwear bombers,(the Dems loss in Massachusetts), Leno vs. Conan, rumors about an unpcoming John Cena movie with none other than Danny Glover....it's all just...just so much for a person, right?

Ah gee.

So,
until something great strikes, here's the news: a great new book by the
handsomest Italian kid this side of the Jersey Shore (see above).

The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano (Viking, 25.95. US: March
13, 2010) -- The story of two vulnerable, perennially damaged souls who approach intimacy but cannot find a common denominator, The Solitude of Prime Numbers is a great new book which plays out that timeless question: what is it that makes us so lonely ? and furthermore, what can be done to bridge that loneliness? Sad as a raindrop, smart as a whip, and concise as "I Love You," Giordano's book is a wonderful and welcome rumination upon the subject. Already a bestseller around the world (millions sold!), it's sure to be a hit when it hops across the pond -- even in this crazy country where telling someone you're "not great" today is more taboo than browsing pornography in public. Perhaps it has some lessons to teach. Perhaps a lot. But I don't know. Read it, love it and find out!

xoxo

Gosh. School. Gosh.

2010-01-11T16:35:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure why exactly but I've been smelling a hint of college in the air. Is it because it's just about the beginning of our young president's sophmore year? Because of the ! exciting ! acceptance letters young seniors are just beginning to receive? Or maybe just the NYTimes' awesome pull-out about higher education (http://www.nytimes.com/pages/education/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=education&st=cse)? Whatever it is, I think it's a feeling worth chasing down...

And with that in mind here are some books to give, or suggest on that college-bound, college-searching, college-pining student. For help with the distance, the people, that elusive sense of direction (not that it's necessary...), and so on -- books that just feel right for this time.

Dubliners by James Joyce (Oxford UP, 9.95 etc.) -- A great book. Literally the best book of short stories ever written. Short. Elegant. Young Joyce, perfect thoughts, brief and aching glimpses into ordinary lives. Good for anybody, but best for a young somebody.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (Anchor, 14.99) -- You've probably read it, your friends have read it, your grandmother and her bridge partners have read it, and you listen to the movie's soundtrack when driving to the mall. Well whatever, we say. It's still one of the great books about young people, and yearning, and the glories and pitfalls of a romantic life well-led.

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (New Directions, 8.95, etc.) -- Another well-loved book that's been around the block, and still very, very worth the countless readings and re-readings your philosophy teacher asked of you. A tall tale. An allegory. A religilo-spiritous-adventure of the highest, brightest cast. And, not to mention, a true classic.

xox

What's up?

2009-12-28T21:13:00.000-08:00

Hey! How've you been? Excited for the New Year?
Me too! Oh, and what're your resolutions? To read more?

Me Toooooooo!!!

Anyways... since we're being so close and personal, I guess I could tell you about a few of the books on my bedside...

On History by Eric Hobsbawm (New Press, 21.95, paperback) -- A collection of talks, notable essays, and some new essays covering the last 30 years of Hobsbawm's career. Wasn't sure I'd like it, as so much historical writing is straight jibberjaw these days, and written only for specialists, exegetes, or the linguistically liberated. Luckily, Hobsbawm's writing is different. Marked by clear, always interesting prose, and this great historian's ability to make principled generalizations out of lifetimes of facts, On History will definitely make you smarter if not a historian too!

Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow (Penguin Classics, 15.00, paperback) -- A 'big' book, full of enough bravado and sass and spirit to kill an E! News personality while giggling through a Richard Simmons fit of ab-crunches. And there's nothing to say that's more laudatory than that. But, because you may wonder, it's the story of an American millionaire who's got a voice in his head -- 'I want, I want' it says -- who 'finds himself' on a trip to Africa. Funny, glorious, and ultimately gratifying, this is Bellow at his funniest, (briefest), and best. Love it.

MORE HOLIDAZE!

2009-12-15T18:47:00.000-08:00

More of our favorite gift ideas!

For The Little Ones:

Walter the Farting Dog by William Kotzwinkle, Glenn Murray, and Audrey Colman (Frog Children's Books, 15.95, Hardcover) -- Hopefully you've caught the Walter-wave, because if you haven't you've been seriously missing some flatulent fun. The story of a dog who just can't help his gassy nature, Walter is inventive, beautiful to look at, and just plain old funny. You'll love it and your kids are sure to love it -- just watch out that your house doesn't smell too much like a paper mill because everyone wants to be like Walter!

Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner (Puffin, 6.99, Paperback) -- If you haven't read any of the Skippyjon books aloud to your kid yet, both he/she and you are seriously missing out! Feline fun, guaranteed!

Yummy: Eight Favorite Fairy Tales by Lucy Cousins (Candlewick, 18.95, Hardcover) -- Eight fairy tales rendered fantastically by the hand of master story-teller/illustrator Lucy Cousins (of Maisy fame!). Stunning to see, and packed full our favorite courageous heroes and most loathed, vilest villains, Yummy is great reading and a great way to reconnect with the stories we all know and love!

The Snow Day by Komako Sakai (Arthur Levine Books, 16.99, Hardcover) -- Truly one of the most beautiful books to come out this year, The Snow Day is the tale of a bunny-child who awakes to the news that school is canceled for the day, because, yup -- it's a Snow Day! A peaceful, moving tale, both excellently illustrated and emotionally resonant. We think that The Snow Day is sure to soon join the ranks of The Giving Tree and all the other splendid wintery tales!

UP NEXT: Non-fiction; Young Adult; and Coffee Table Books (I promise!)

xoxo

HOLIDAZE!

2009-12-11T13:21:00.000-08:00

With the holidays approaching ever faster -- (whichever holiday, of course) -- it's more than a good time to review some of the best books of the season, with a particular emphasis on the kinds of books we love to give and receive. Here are some of our favorites!

For the Bookworms (Male or Female):

Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City (Doubleday, 27.95 -- Hardcover): Lethem's newest and best since Motherless Brooklyn is a tale of Manhattan and replete with facades, charades, facsimiles and falsities. In close, it stars a former child star, an anarchist, and their budding, fraught relationships with each other, themselves, and the place they call home. Brilliantly stylized brilliant stuff.

Alice Munro's Too Much Happiness (Knopf, 25.95 -- Hardcover): Another book of short stories by one of the last 25 years most prolific, proven masters of the genre. Always hilarious and yet always sardonic, biting -- even broken-heartedly numb -- Munro's stories never fail to teach, while somehow alternately managing to show us the time of our life. Discover her for yourself or let someone else who hasn't yet had the pleasure!

Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (Holt, 27.95 -- Hardcover): This book can't be recommended highly enough. A story about the reign of Henry the VIII told from inside the great head of Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall is packed with machinations of deliciously political, sexual, and familial natures. Great for romance lovers, better for history buffs, and written sweetly enough for you or me, this one's a serous keeper and a great gift for that picky name on your list!

ALSO: Winner of the 2009 Booker Man

And For An Older Man:

Peter Mathiessen's Shadow Country (Modern Library, 10.95 -- Paperback): This year's National Book Award winner is the story of Watsons, and a wet, swampy, and Faulknerian tome which takes place across a pair of centuries. As a warning, Mathiessen's trilogy (yes, it it is a trilogy) is at times dark, and at others, approaches the downright lurid. It taps that vein or a cousin to that vein that McCarthy milks in The Road. A great book.

MORE COMING SOON! I PROMISE!

2009-11-30T22:05:00.000-08:00

Don't forget to shop local today (Cyber Monday) and the days to follow! Invest in your community, invest in your friends, and keep your money local this holiday season!

For gift ideas, check our website, www.libertybaybooks.com .

Winter Beerok!

2009-11-25T10:21:00.000-08:00

With Fall gone and Summer and Spring still imaginary seasons more readily identified as ideas than actual things, I guess it's now time to fess up and just admit that it's Winter. And what better way than a celebration -- a BEEROK feast of books and beer to warm your bones and soothe your heart!? I don't know!

(And to recap, Beerok is our -- Liberty Bay Books' -- alcoliterate experiment that matches good books to good beers in the hope that once imbibed by your being, book and beverage coalesce and become one superbly insightful organism that's doubly -- nay, triply better than each is alone. And if you need to be persuaded further, books are the best and beer is the best. This is your excuse to have them both, and tastefully so!)

To get into the season which requires so much warmth, breadth, and nourishment, here's a couple of hearty titles to get that blood properly warmed:

Bayern Dopplebock Lager (Missoula, MT) and Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber -- From the darkest dreamiest depths of all that's germanic! I really enjoyed this book and even moreso this beer, though I'm not ashamed to say that both scare me for one reason or another. Carter's book is an anthology of re-imagined fairy tales which roams from the Beauty and the Beast to Snow White to Little Red Riding Hood and on, and as far as I can tell, it's the perfect book for browsing fireside on those blustery nights. Inventive, intriguing and oh so shocking (don't we know all these stories already?), The Bloody Chamber is a great read and an even better gift for your hard-to-buy-for friends. Bayern's Doppelbock, on the other hand, is sheer bliss. A Bock done right on American soil, it's hearty yet smooth with delicious notes of grape, pumpernickel, caramel, and chocolate, spread across a complex batch of malts; it's also good cold, but even better as it warms. Call it the Beast to Carter's Beauty, Bayern's seasonal Doppelbock is the beer you want in your hand when the going gets weird. Oh and it'll knock you on your ass.

Allagash's Fluxus 2009 (Portland, Maine) and Graham Swift's Waterland -- The Observer (U.K.) says that "Waterland appropriates the Fens as Moby Dick did whaling or Wuthering Heights the moors" and calls it "a beautiful, serious, and intelligent novel, admirably ambitious and original." Well, funny thing, I said the same about Allagash's appropriation, domination, and originality in dealing with the Saison (a type of Belgian beer) -- this year's Fluxus -- too, they just must've missed the memo I guess. Anyways, Swift's novel is a twisting, turning, wholly reminiscent thing, and both really beautiful and really beautifully put together. Like the Fluxus in so many respects -- beautiful, curious, reminiscent of so much... oh ... -- it seems to reinvent itself anew at every turn, which I think is a treat and makes for exciting stuff. I should also mention that it's a book of polarities and paradoxes (water/land ... etc.), all of which are left in ... yep ... flux.

Enjoy them if you have the chance!

MORE TO COME SOON

xoxo

Coetzee, Coetzee, Coetzee

2009-11-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

You know his name and maybe you even picked up one of his novels once. His essays -- you've seen them here and there -- are smart, if also stolid, and always leave something wanting right at that thick part of the tongue. That's what you think. Ah, and he's won the Booker, you remember, he's a South African who's won the Booker. Twice was it? A Nobel too, can that really be right? ... You ask your friends: 'Coetzee?' you chime. 'Oh. Good. Yes,' they say, 'great books, good writer.' You inquire further: 'What have you read, I'm looking into reading something of his. Dusklands? Disgrace? The one with the lectures and a journey to the afterlife -- what is it -- Elvis, no, Ellen, no, Elizabeth Costello?' They are not so sure. 'Oh yes, it was that one, with the -- you know -- what you said...' they reply, miffed.

Coetzee would love such a conversation. I'm sure of it.

And that's what his new one, Summertime (Viking, Dec 24, 2009), is all about.

More Closely: The novel is about an author named John Coetzee. Or rather, it's about a young, British academic searching for the truth about the writing and life of this author, John Coetzee. Told through salvaged pages of Coetzee's diary as well as 5 interviews with people who knew Coetzee well during the time when 'he was finding his feet, literarily speaking,' Summertime offers readers an author's attempted interpretation of his own legacy, however puzzling and contradictory the idea of such a thing may be. Laced with fact and fiction, like his past novel, Diary of a Bad Year, it is a strange book which deserves to sit at many places on one's bookshelf.

In that light, Coetzee's book is a good one. It is inventive, startling, and in its best moments, piqued by improbable moments of gravitas and sentimentality which disclose this stoic writer's inner fragility; much moreso than Diary, I think, also. So I liked it. Not all the way through, but I liked it and find myself returning to it (and its evasive novel-shape) much more often than I'd like to admit.

In the end, I think I want to say that Coetzee weaves a tight basket. Threading fiction and memoir, and the novelistic with the dry and academic, he has done a good thing by once more giving us another suberbly crafted book, even when it's sure to tie us up in knots.

So tell your friends: 'I read his new one, Summertime. It was interesting and now I think I know why he's got so many medals. And you know, even though it didn't strike me so much when I read it, I can't stop thinking about it.'

xoxo

Reconsidering...

2009-11-07T16:41:00.001-08:00

I just, just finished up James Frey's Bright Shiny Morning, which I picked up awhile back after reading Irvine Welsh's near-ridiculously laudative review. 'The literary comeback of the decade,' he called it. (Well geez, I said to myself, if Welsh says so...)

Sure enough, he was right.

Looking at Morning apart from the ever-famous, ever-loathed Million Little Pieces, you learn a few things about this loved/hated guy, James Frey. 1. He can write. His zingy, McCarthyesque, lack of punctuation is, at best, a revelation and, at worst, a little annoying; either way, it adds to the character of his novels positively. 2. He knows people. Maybe he lied, maybe his publishers screwed him, maybe Oprah made him look like a bum -- no matter -- he's got a startlingly clear eye for reading (and drawing) people. 3. He's ambitious as all hell. Bright Shiny Morning is as big a book as an author has written in years -- (and if you haven't heard, it's about everybody's favorite city to hate, Los Angeles) . Brawny, sweeping, holistic -- you name it -- it's really got it all. The gangs. The homeless. Venice. The babes at Venice. Moviestar dreams. Moviestar duds. Hidden lives. Rich lives. Megastars. Meth. Megamegastars. Machinations big and small, everything, truly everything. And it's fun. And it's sad. And it's great.

To sum it all up, ll I can say is: buy it, read it, and love it, even if you still think of Frey as being another poor excuse for Oprah's toilet paper. Welsh was right. Bright Shiny Morning really is the biggest literary comeback of the decade, (you just have to read it and let it be!).

(And PS: Try Beeroking this one with Natural Ice. Both are cold and mean and metallic but true, true, oh so true....)

xoxo

GRAVEYARD PARTY!

2009-10-31T11:54:00.000-07:00

DON'T YOU DARE FORGET, the Graveyard Party is tonight, 5-7 p.m., downtown at the store! Come one, come all and remember to dress up as your favorite character! (And I get to be Bod!)

See you there!

PS

2009-10-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

AND PS, for a little bit more OKBEEROK inebriation, check out our recent video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJZXrvU-xNs. (And sorry, I wish I could just post it here but don't have the slightest idea how to do that)

UNTIL NEXT TIME: Maholo! Mazel Tov! Nostroevyna! Salud! XOXO

OKBEEROK!-FEST?

2009-10-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

OKBEEROK-(FEST)!

A bit late but here it is!:

Harlen Coben’s Tell No One and Fat Tire’s Hoptoberfest (Fort Collins, CO)

I like this match because it’s really a free for all, full of thrills and wit and suspense and mystery and of course, hops. Neither is new or any of that so to speak, but really, what’s the fun in having to figure everything out all the time? Isn’t a little of the commonplace perfected just as you like it just the thing sometimes? If that’s what you’re looking for, and I think we all are a lot of the time, this is a really good match for you. I can honestly say that Tell No One is a pretty perfect thriller that’s a ton of fun to read (and definitely packed with the twists and turns and the magic of a great pulp book), just as Hoptober is a pretty perfect beer (and equally crafted to excellence, with balanced malts, a rich nose, and the magic of hops!). I’d call this one safe, fun, and, well, pretty perfect, especially when dealing with the October doldrums!

(And ps, here's a clip from the excellent French film adaptation which among others stars Kristin Scott Thomas. Winner of 4 Cesar's (French Oscars))

Roberto Bolano’s Savage Detectives and Del Maguey Chichicapa Mezcal (Rancho de Taos, New Mexico)

I had such a hard time finding a beer for Bolano’s masterpiece that – yup, you guessed it – it came to the unthinkable. (And in October, no less!) And so Beerok is no longer just Beerok, it’s Beer-and-liquor-ok! And we say, what exceptional heresy! What delicious rule breaking! And what a good book and what a tasty mezcal! Anyways, The Savage Detectives is a lot of fun – pretty ludic, pretty gamey, which is cool – and seems like something Nabokov would’ve written if he’d been born a charming Spanish lover, sipping sangria under the sun all day long. Or tequila. At least that’s my take. Anyways, it’s good. Really really really good. So, try it, but beware, she’s a feisty one! And let me know how you find and it)

Dave Eggers’ You Shall Know Our Velocity! and Pabst Blue Ribbon (Milwaukee, WI)

Don’t laugh. I read this book a long time ago and sort of stumbled into it just the other day while drinking a Peeber… and you know what: I think it fit! it really did! Eggers’ mild and always entertaining brand of intellectual hijinks is ripe with questions of the sentimental -- perfect for that hipster-beer (don't deny it) which makes us so so emo when we want it most. At least for me anyways. Maybe this is a bit of a reach and maybe not. Try it!

xoxo

CHILDREN'S BOOKS!

2009-10-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

With everyone (or what seems like everyone) buzzing about the upcoming release of Spike Jonze's film adaptation of Where the
Wild Things Are (October 16: see the trailer once more here), it's fair to say that kids books are a little en vogue at the moment, and we say rightfully so. Because really (and it's forgotten all too often), who would we be without the characters, the plots, the people, the very pictures of our youths?

And of course, of course, we cannot say, and wouldn't want to even if we could. Those books are the best books, the bookiest of books, and live in that part of our souls where all the wild -- and best -- things are.

Oh, and if you needed any convincing about seeing the film adaptation, here's a really funny clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnLPlf9nVDg) from a skateboard film by the same director (called Yeah Right). And PS, Owen Wilson is in it. See, everything does make sense in the world. Right? Right?

Anyways, for old time's sake, here are a few the books that defined my childhood (AND PLEASE, PLEASE GET BACK TO US WITH BOOKS FROM YOUR OWN, OR FOR THAT MATTER, YOUR CHILD'S!:

(Any) Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson -- Not that anything needs to be said about the best series of books ever, still: Calvin and Hobbes remains to be one of the smartest, warmest, cutest, funniest, most realistic books ever written under the banner of children's comic-ry. The pinnacle of 20th century literature just after Finnegan's Wake.

The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer -- I do not know why but there's something really, truly, perfect about this book in which a boy transforms his world for the sake of a salamander...

Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel -- The sweetness at work in this story of two old and, at times, grumpy friends, is the stuff of true genius and still as good a story as it was when I first read it. Quiet, sober, and still funny as well, it makes me think about what it would be like if Mr. Rogers and Woody Allen were to be amphibians in future lives.

UPCOMING: OKTOBERFEST GETS LITERARY...!

xoxo

The Americans

2009-09-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

The Americans by Robert Frank -- A great and often arcane sadness runs deeply through Robert Frank's now 50 year old collection of just 83 photographs (and now on special exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York), hinting, so sweetly, at the long concealed Truths about The Way We Live Here. Of its many images, so many are already recognizable and those that aren't are of such strong emotional resolution they become so almost immediately.

Here are a few examples:

So if you are in the mood for a cheap (only $31.00) 'coffee table' book, pick Frank's very quiet and very moral reimagining of America which teaches us with such small, timid images who, why and what we are.

(If you're even more curious about Frank, check this recent NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/arts/design/25frank.html?scp=2&sq=robert%20frank&st=cse)

xoxo.

Inherent Vice

2009-09-22T07:59:00.000-07:00

So you're walking around and the sky is magenta blue and woah: your groovy druggy ex-girlfriend, Shasta, has gone missing. Yep, her and her real estate mogul, Jewish, neo-Nazi loving hubby Mickey Wolfmann have gone missing. Shit. And Big Foot and the Golden Fang are after you. And Doc, the sax player is dead or maybe-not-dead, who knows. Oh, and you smoke 20, 30, maybe 40 joints of the good stuff every day: Panamanian Red, Acapulco Gold, and so on, making you so, so jumpy and yet that's not always such a bad thing, is it?

Such is Pynchon's latest: a neo-noir masterwork which more or less exists in that zany geo-maginative place where Tim Leary's brain reaches out and grabs the tendrils of both Cheech Marin's brain and Philip Marlowe's brainstems. Fun, cerebral, and funny, Inherent Vice is without a doubt Pynchon at his most accessible and most hilarious.

Read it, or, even better, listen to the brilliant audiobook version (available for rent at the store).

AND CHECK THIS AWESOME YOUTUBE VID ON INHERENT VICE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjWKPdDk0_U

xoxo

MORE: Books and Beer and Beer and Books

2009-09-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

It's fall (ok, practically), and we all know what that means: Oktoberfest is nearly here! To celebrate and get one in the mood for its malty, hoppy excesses, the highly esteemed alco-literate hybridists Z.Blast and I have compiled another episode of BEEROK, cleverly titled: BEEROK PT. 3!

Yay!

(And for those in need of a refresher as to BEEROK's philosophic and gastronomic underpinnings: just as you would match your wine with your dinner, BEEROK is crafted to match your beer to the book you are reading, allowing you to be clever -- even brilliant -- as you sip and skim! SO, DO IT!: Slurp and Soak! Swallow and Wallow! Or, you know... spend your days drinking beers suited to enhance and expose your reading experiences!)

Silver City Brewing Co.'s Fat Scotch Style Ale (Silverdale, WA) & Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting -- A scabrous, brilliant beer for a truly scabrous, brilliant book and as far as I'm concerned, you simply can't go wrong with either of these Scottish delights: robust and full of life, they aren't easy on the palate but that's not the point. The point is immersion; domination...enjoyment?...(Of course enjoyment.) Highly localized in their idiosyncratic flavors (the book for its vernacular and the beer for its Scottich malts), both novel and beer assault the senses like something divine falling right off god's bedside table. A great pairing for those who enjoy being reminded how BIG and REAL life can get. Enjoy!

North Coast Brewing's Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout (Fort Bragg, CA) & Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master And Margarita -- Don't think I'm taking the way out by pairing one of Russia's great novels to a beer solely because it too is a Russian! No, no this is all much more calculated than that...(right?)...For one: North Coast's Old Rasputin is known across all lands to be the best Russian Imperial Stout and thus also one of its darkest, most disturbingly complex distillations. This makes it a perfect match for Bulgakov's masterpiece, which is a wild master-work featuring such exquisite characters as Woland, the Devil masquerading as a Professor of Black Magic; his vodka swilling and decidedly articulate black cat; an insane novelist who's written a book about Pontius Pilate called The Master; reams of naked witches; and coteries of Moscow's Stalinist-era (and stuffy) artists and bureaucrats. Bulgakov's novel is an often hilarious reality-meets-fantasy tale of right and wrong as you've never experienced it before, and damned near perfect to immerse yourself in as you imbibe North Coast Brewing's best frighteningly dark and inscrutable spirit, Old Rasputin.

Russian River Brewing Co.'s Pliny the Elder (Santa Rosa, CA) & Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian -- It's been a long journey searching for a beer that could even come close to pairing with Blood Meridian's relentless stoicism, violent urges, and borderline satanic humor, but, alas, the chosen one has arrived: Russian River's Pliny the Elder. Probably one of the world's hoppiest IPAs (it's a triple, so it has at least 3 times the hops of your favorita normal IPA) it is also without question one its best. It pairs with McCarthy's picaresque Western about near-soulless bounty hunters out for Indian scalps near the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s because it is so bitter, so hoppy, so uninvitingly real a beer, you cannot choose to love it; it chooses you. Both linger on the palate for days, even weeks, if you let them, so be prepared. This is definitely a match for the strong of heart; the brawny in spirit. (If you're interested but not sure, check this cool clip which has Mccarthy reading from book in a part where The Judge speaks on war)

AS ALWAYS, GET BACK TO US WITH YOUR OWN BEEROK SUGGESTIONS! Let us know how it went, how it didn't, or just, what's next!

And....that's it. Drink up! Read Fast! Eat beer!

xoxo

This is Where I Leave You

2009-09-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

Although at times it may feel like a Reese Witherspoon movie about 'coming home' implanted with the wry one-liners of a mid-1990s SNL skit, Jonathan Tropper's new novel This is Where I Leave You is its own irrevently funny and uniquely crafted work. Marked for its zingy dialogue, its arrestingly accurate domestic tone, and the strength of Tropper's sympathy for his characters, This is Where I Leave You is a great pick-up for those who have loved the books of Tom Perrota, Richard Russo, or Nick Hornby in the past, and a book that is sure to make you laugh, cry, cringe, mutter, think, walk, giggle, etc., et cetera. So get it! Tell your friends about it! Make Tropper as rich off its royalties as you will be emotionally rich off the brilliance of its humor and impassioned characters! (Or don't, I hear Pynchon's new one's pretty damn good too, but more on that later.)

Ok, that's it.

xoxo

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

2009-08-29T08:18:00.000-07:00

So, maybe this is coming out a little late and maybe Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned has already garnered just about all the praise a book of short stories can get these days ....... But for those who haven't read it (or heard of it), here goes!

Eminently readable and surprisingly compact, Wells Tower's recent collection of stories works as an x-ray examination of American life and the meaty substance of our relationships and realities here. Shuttling what's dark and visceral into bright moments of ruminative comedy, each story-gem in the collection runs a wide, arcing gamut, illuminating so much with so little. Capped of with a deliciously twisting, ties-everything-together story (involving Vikings of all things), Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is a truly brilliant work by what is assuredly one of America's great new voices.

xoxo

New and Local

2009-08-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

We all know that this great region we live in literally teems with successful and often brilliant writers. Behind every door, sipping every beer, washing every boat -- yes, they're everywhere, it seems, and doing everything. Here are some of their newest books!

Rebecca Wells' The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder. Southern Charm at its absolute peak. Enough Said.

Bainbridge Islander and recent Guggenheim genius grant winner Bruce Barscott's The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, a truly thrilling work -- and not just by comparison to other books belonging to the narrative nonfiction milieu -- Barscott's novel is, literally, the stuff of Guggen-genius.

Psychonautic wildman Tom Robbin's B is for Beer. Not apart of the Robbin's canon but still downright enjoyable, this 'kid's book for adults' is fun to read and breezy as a summer pilsner.

Kristin Hannah's True Colors. Cute, cuddly, emotionally resonant; all I can say is: buy it, read it, love it.

David Guterson's The Other (one The New York Times' Notable Books of the year). Absolutely his best. Tall, consistenly dreamy, and passionately recondite, The Other is a novel as only Guterson in his prime can deliver it.

Mary Guterson's trenchant wit does magical work in her latest, Gone to the Dogs, the story of the restlessly zany (and loveable) waitress Rena as she navigates through a few of life's more troubling lessons.

...And of course, Garth Stein's now beloved The Art of Racing in the Rain, a funny story only fit for a dog to tell.

xoxo

Salud to Summer

2009-08-05T09:25:00.000-07:00

After a brief glance at some of the recent (book) ordering catalogs, I've come to the conclusion that a wild, near-edenic end of summer awaits us, with promises of endless literary bounty and good books galore. So, with so much to choose from, I've decided to limit my celebration to a few particular upcoming books -- a couple of which I've had the luck to get my hands on.

Reheated Cabbage by Irvine Welsh (August 4, 2009) -- As its title suggests, this new collection from the author of Trainspotting stardom is really a refreshment (reheating) of stories now out of print and hard to find. I'm 3/4 of the way through it and finding it every bit the meal it once was: caustic, hilarious, concerned with matters local and galactic, and above all, brilliantly fun, Reheated Cabbage is, if not vintage Welsh, then at least a few good doses of well-matured Welsh. And PS, a few of the stories revisit Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and the boys from Trainspotting.

Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving (October 20, 2009) -- Irving's new novel revists the well-chartered New England territories of his most successful novels, courting history and elegy with the same panache and emotional vigor we expect from him. I haven't really gotten too far into the red-wood sized tome, but from what I've taken in, it's going to be a lot better than Irving's last (the hypertensive Until I Find You).

Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow (September 1, 2009) -- So maybe (aside from Book of Daniel) the great Doctorow's novels have fallen off a bit since Welcome to Hard Times and Ragtime, but no doubt about it the man can still write a damn good novel. This newest tells the epic story of two brothers -- one blind and yet scarily perceptive, the other damaged into a mania which may be greatness -- as they run up against the world and all the warp and weft of American history. As cohesive and sensitive a novel as has come out in a while.

That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo (August 4, 2009) -- Critically acclaimed Russo explodes once more with his newest novel, featuring -- Russo is this an autobiography? -- a man in the midst of a mid-life crisis. A book about geography, balance, nostalgia, and the shocking brevity of our time here on this meager little planet of ours, That Old Cape Magic manages to please and titillate throughout its depictions of middle-age monotony. (As a warning, I've heard that some hits a little too close to home for those actually in or approaching middle age.)

Upcoming: BEEROK PT. 3 and Some Reflections on Canada

xoxo

Netherland

2009-07-28T17:50:00.001-07:00

Bang, bang and another summer's nearly dead. So it is and always was and here we've found ourselves again, sunburned and sweaty, looking gloomily across the water as the fishes jump and the mountains purr in the last sunset swaths of pinks and purples. Well, that's all for summer folks. Or just about anyways; once Seafair's over it's down, down, down from there.

But, BUT, before it's all done and gone -- (yes, +1 sweltering month to go) -- (even if it was published in 2008) here's to my favorite book of the season : Josheph O'Neill's Netherland.

So much has been said about it by so many great critics -- Obama read it, Michiko Kakutani reveled in its 'stunning' brilliance, The New York Times Book Review called it one of the 10 Best Books of 2008, it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and it won this year's PEN/Faulkner for fiction -- but, of course, there's always room for a little more praise. Sweetly written with echoes of not just Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby but also Richard Ford's Sportswriter-trinity, O'Neill's beating rumination upon America, the American dream, and the Post-9/11, post-colonial mindscape is as penetrating a novel as the english-speaking world as seen. READ IT!

xoxo

BEEROK Pt. 2

2009-07-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

So, to continue the success of BEEROK PT. 1 -- our experiment in alco-literate hybridism -- we bring its aptly titled second installment: BEEROK Pt. 2.

Here goes (and sorry if the novels are a bit dated):

He'brew Beers R.I.P.A. (Coney Island, NY) and Phillip Roth's The Great American Novel -- An I.P.A wildly different than those you're used to, He'brew Beer reimagines the classic IPA with this malty and highly-alcoholic rye-infused interpretation. Like the book, it hides tremendous percentage of alcohol well (i.e. gravitas?) , under blankets of schmaltzy flavor. For its part, Roth's uproarious reexamination baseball's roots does the same, providing a great lesson in history and histrionics beneath its own schmaltzy blankets of slapstick fun. A great book for a great beer and a fun beer for a fun book.

21 Amendment Brewery's Hell or High Watermelon (San Francisco, CA) and Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler -- This delightfully experimental beer (with yes, natural watermelon flavors) is as challenging to categorize as Italian Calvino's novel is -- and trust us, that's really saying something. Part watermelon juice? Part thriller? First and second person narrations? Yeasty and wheaty? Both are sure to arouse questions of the writer's and the brewer's inspiration, asking: why do we do make these things (beers and narratives) by certain recipes? And what good is deviation, then? A bizarre if not beautiful pairing; good for the adventurous.

Snoqualmie Falls Brewing Co.'s Pre-Prohibition Pilsner (Snoqualmie, WA) and Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men -- As good a pilsner as one can have -- crisp yet smooth, complex yet drinkable, hoppy yet floral -- Snoqualmie's Pre-Prohibition is a long lost American classic. A pilsner as pilsner is supposed to be. A beer for all the great beers we've lost. And so, I'd say, is Penn Warren's 1947 Pulitzer Prize Winner, which is as classic an American novel about American Politics and the American Narrative as was ever written. This pair makes a great match for those hot and breezy nights which recall the great deserts of the world. (And fyi, the audiobook version of All the King's Men with Michael Emerson as narrator is wonderufl).

More soon, including The Best of Canada...etc... AND AS ALWAYS, please, get back to us with your own great Beer-to-book matches, inquire about unmentioned ones, or let us know how they go!

(And if you don't like beer, see Liberty Bay Books' Wine Night which matches wines to books....)

XOXO

Beach Reads

2009-07-19T22:22:00.001-07:00

Oprah's O Magazine has got one, USA Today has got one, The New York Post has got one, and now, Brave New Blog has got one: Best Beach Reads list. But to put a little spin on the tried and true formula, here's a list of books that, while easy to read, aren't just the same old fluff and flowers.

1. Fup by Jim Dodge -- Spanning just 59 pages, this hilarious romp features a 99 year old gambler and fierce opponent of physical movement, a giant boy named Tiny, and of course Fup, a 20 lb. mallard. Hilarious as it is magical, Fup is a great book for old and young alike. Reminiscent of Tom Robbins, Vonnegut, and Brautigan.

2. Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson -- Part noir, part western, and a whole lot of fun, Jim Thompson's cult classic is as exciting (The NY Times once called him the best suspense writer going 'bar none') as it is goofy. Or, if pressed for time, see the excellent film adaptation of the novel (set in Western Africa), Coupe de Torchon.

3. Lush Life by Richard Price -- Ace-crime writer Richard Price's holisitic take on New York, its gentrification, and the people who make it a city is a well-crafted crime novel, a bright rumination upon change, and a linguistic lesson in modern slang. Awesome, easy, and best of all, cool. From the guy who wrote a numer of episodes for HBO's The Wire.

4. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins -- Magical, psychonautic, and chalk full of Robbins' famous brand of philosophical musings, Fierce Invalids recalls the tale of Switters, a CIA operative, fellow C.R.A.F.T. (Can't Remember A Fucking Thing) Club member, and pharmaceutical enthusiast. Probably the best put together of Robbins novels, and easily the wildest. Humor, religious intrigue, political intrigue, sexual intrigue, etc., it's got it all. Great to read and even better as an audiobook.

5. Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje -- Sometimes sad but always beautiful, Ondaatje's (of English Patient fame) latest is a rangy, romantic tale which roams continents, generations, and narrators in a startlingly nomadic fashion. A beautiful work about families, love, and the trick of remembering the past.

AND PS, don't be shy! Get back to us with your own favorite beach reads!

Summer Poetry

2009-07-15T15:40:00.000-07:00

If April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of dead land, then it makes sense if July is the kindest (August being much too decadent). All it breeds is a thicker lawn, some new cousins, and the brain-frazzling flicks that are The Summer Blockbuster.

Whether or not it's for browsing in the psychedelic swelter of the afternoon heat or for an escape from those cinema-tastic bonanzas, July is a great time to explore and get back to poetry. Schoolyard nemesis or undergraduate crush, there's nothing like it to get the neurons whizzing and the synapses flashing when you feel the ease of summer pressing your brain into various malignant states.

So, briefly, here are some recommendations for books of poetry both old and new meant reconnect you with the poems (and poets) you've loved and forgotten, as well as with some you've never heard of.

The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin -- This year's Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry is Merwin's latest and greatest book of poems yet. Elegiac in tone, honest in phrasing, and provocatively personal in its assessments of times gone past, Merwin homers Homer in his (now truly) inimitable style.

The Great Fires by Jack Gilbert -- Not his newest but certainly his best, this book of poems cemented Gilbert's status as one of the American greats. Vivid like pain and memorable as a 30 year vacation (as Gilbert took in the Greek Isles), each of the poems in this book shines with capacious lament and a fleeting if not gloomy joy. Brilliant, sad, and emotively pure (if the word can make sense in this context), good for wallowing in the indistinct greys of morning cloud cover.

Selected Poems: 1934-1952 by Dylan Thomas -- Best known for not going gentle into the good night, this timeless book of poems is (in my opinion) a great one for the burgeoning teenage poet searching for foot- and hand-holds in the ever-widening world of acadmia and/or/especially, poetry. Seemingly serious, Thomas remains to be one of the greatly underappreciated comedians of his age, capable of such brilliant lines as, "oh, let me shipwreck between your thighs."

Other poets we (Blogger Boy with the extra-special insight of Z. Blast) love: Katie Ford, Denise Levertov, Michael Ondaatje, Stevie Smith, Galway Kinnell, W.H. Auden, etc. AND REMEMBER, if inclined, buy these books at Liberty Bay Books, Libertybaybooks.com, or your local independent bookseller.

Upcoming: BEEROK PT. 2, Beach Reads, The Best of Canada, and The New Classics.

To get you pumped on poetry, here 's a clip of Bukowski, drunk (as if there was any other state for a man to be reading poetry in), talking and reading about poetry and motion.

XOXO

Books and Beer and Beer and Books

2009-06-29T21:20:00.001-07:00

With the sun finally here to stay -- (knock on plywood) -- and the days still startlingly long and perfect, now, more than ever, is the time to be reading good books. In the sun. By the pool. In bed. As the barbeque warms. Whatever.

But upon second thought, summer isn't just a time for reading. Of course it's not. (What a dumb idea that would be.) Summer is a time for our lives to catch up with us and for us to catch up with our lives. A time for friends, for barbeques, for parties -- for, you know, having a cold one, or two cold ones. You know -- if we're honest -- a time for drinking.

So here's an idea, and let me tell you we've worked it all out -- we've really got it all here. The drinking and the reading. You know, the knowledge and the social merriment. Here it is. Here goes: just as you would match your wine with your dinner, match your beer to the book you are reading! Sip and Skim! Slurp and Soak! Swallow and Wallow! Or, you know... spend your summer drinking beers suited to enhance and expose your reading experiences!

Call it 21st century, or smart, or just plain savvy -- we (fellow literaraturist/alcoholist Z. Blast and I) call it: Liberty Bay Books' Summer Beer Program For People and their Beers and their Books.

Or for short:

BEEROK! Part One.

To kick off this trend, Z. Blau and I have assembled a list of a few of our favorite matches (and please get back to us with your own!):

Elysian Avatar Jasmine IPA (Seattle, WA) & Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth.
--Of classic British/Indian IPA extraction, this great summer beer puts a few surprising polishing notes on an already proven formula. Quietly smooth with the shock note of jasmine (pathos?), this beer proves to be an excellent match for Lahiri's latest contemplative book of stories. As a note: both beer and novel finish like something brilliant and fuse-lit.

Trumer Pils (San Francisco, CA/Austria) & Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America
-- A German-style Pilsner so light and handily delicious you'll be saying 'in watermelon sugar' before the trout have jumped at all! It matches Brautigan's classic tale of whatever it is, cast for cast (reel for reel...line for line...this could go on for a while...) for its thirst/peace-of-mind-quenching qualities and charming build. Perfect for that part of the afternoon that can't help but remind you of dogs sleeping on porches in the swamps of the American south.

Unibroue's Trois Pistoles (Chambly, Quebec) & Ian McEwan's Amsterdam
-- Like McEwan's Amsterdam, Unibroue's Belgian-style Dark Ale goes down easy but finishes like a kung-fu punch with the momentum of a verifiable swine-flu outbreak. (Lets just say its abv suggests that it is Olde-ier than even Olde English 800.) Blissfully tasty, but not taken in without consequence, both beer and book challenge the notion of what it means to be a summer beer or a summer read. Try them out!

Alaskan Amber (Juneau, AK) & David James Duncan's The Brothers K
--Once voted the beer of the nation way back in 1988, this NW favorite has long been a steady source of summer carbohydrates for those of us who spend the majority of our months besieged by drizzle (and also much, much better than Alakan Brewery's Summer Ale). It suits D.J. Duncan's sweeping NW family epic in that it tastes and really is so damned familiar. It's almost like you've been drinking it since the Mariners' first winning season, a feeling no doubt amplified in Duncan's Brothers K. A match that's sure to make you feel like everything this summer is making sense.

That's all for now but look for BEEROK Pt. 2 soon!

Father's Day Books

2009-06-20T09:56:00.001-07:00

It's that time again, so don't forget to buy Old Dad a book for Father's Day! Here are some creative recommendations: Hamlet, Shakespeare's great tale of a son's love for his Old Dad turned horribly awry (ha!), Richard Ford's Independence Day, a story of a single father out for an awkward weekend with his son, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, that famous post-apocalyptic tale of survival and manly love, or Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, because sometimes our 'children' don't come out quite as we expected and we have to make due.

Or, you know, you can always buy him that golf book like you planned. Hey and don't forget the flowers. Men like flowers too. Before you go, here's a clip celebrating fatherhood (and/or childhood): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BlHY69ZsZ0. (It's slightly explicit, so put on your earmuffs if you need to)

Evelyn Waugh (“All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I'd sooner go to my dentist any day.”)

2009-06-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

No writer has been left to the dust by the modern world quite as assuredly as Evelyn Waugh has. Which is sad; funny-sad like a dead clown on a roadside or a foot race in which one of the participants is shot in the foot by the starting gun (a scene from Waugh's Decline and Fall).

Why? Well though they be the forgotten stuff of yester-years, Waugh's novels are comic and satirical masterpieces--truly heart-rending, spleen-splitting, giggle-inducing masterpieces worthy of readings and rereadings and rerereadings.

At a time like now, when we feel ourselves at the edge of history (the world economy in a sinkhole, the oceans in a microwave, the Middle East in ... the Middle East?) reading Waugh is especially prudent. His novels, by and large, take place in the 1920s, -30s, and -40s -- an era so much like our own, replete with looming apocalypse, a fundamentally hopeless politic system, and an ever-reckless population of domestic socialites and celebrities. Though hilarious, they are far more than funny. They illuminate, titillate, and teach, reminding us just how silly and wrongheaded so much of what we tacitly accept of our world really is.

Summer is the best time to pick up Waugh. His books are delightfully short and can generally be finished in one sunny afternoon no matter how many gin-tonics are swilled (a fact which Waugh, no doubt, would be proud of). Again, This is not say they aren't smart. So if you're bored one hot afternoon, try any of these for a start: Decline and Fall, a satire of a young schoolteacher's loss of innocence, Scoop (my favorite), a satire of reportage during the Ethiopian war, A Handful of Dust, a satire of the upper-classes set largely in a tribal village, or Vile Bodies, an shockingly fun journey through the beautiful upper crust of 1930s Britain. Check this hilarious clip from the movie Bright Young Things (with James McAvoy) based on Waugh's Vile Bodies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_kfiiioZBM&feature=PlayList&p=B25299A74FDA53EC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=11.

Audiobooks? Neil Gaiman?

2009-06-13T13:57:00.000-07:00

Being a kid is so fun. Isn't being a kid so fun? Being a kid is really, really, altogether, too much fun. And in that vein there's Neil Gaiman.

His books, which come in so many sizes and fit for so many palates, always seem to remind me of my child. Me as a child. A little baby-thing, reckless, feckless and food covered. It's not that Neil Gaiman's books are pedantic or so superficially adventurous that they dull one's senses into something resembling a child (as, say, David Baldacci's novels). It's just that time and time again they prove to be so hiliarious, so smart, and so enduringly forged out of the language of myth, that I can't help but read (or as I'll get to: listen to) them as a child would: hanging on every word like it will save my life, smiling so much I think I may have taken my dog's antidepressants instead of my own allergy medication that day, and learning about who we are as a human people and how we got here with enough verve to make you think that the subject was the coolest, most radically hilarious episode of Spongebob Squarepants.

As it goes: I often get the feeling that Gaiman's books are made from the same stardust they ruminate about.

My favorite way to digest these gems is through the medium of the audiobook. If you've never tried listening to one, your life isn't quite complete yet (now is it?). Just yesterday I was ready to sue Liberty Bay Books for emotional damages after the climax of The Anansi Boys was disrupted by scratches on the disk. Alas, the problem was quickly fixed. Again: I cannot stress the joy that listening to a good book read by a good reader can induce. (Note: Gaiman reads a few of his own books for the their audiobook edition rather brilliantly. Those read be Lenny Henry are also extraordinarily good.)

My favorite Neil Gaiman books have been all those I've read: The Anansi Boys, Fragile Things, and this year's Newbery Medal winner, The Graveyard Book. I recommend all of them.

xoxo

Nobody Move

2009-06-05T18:45:00.000-07:00

Sleek, lean, and mean as a bullet, Denis Johnson's recent novel Nobody Move has got so much in it to love at times it's hard to bear. Alternately, too, it's a book that is disparagingly dark and wretchedly comic, and has got so much in it that's cringeworthy it's hard not to consult either a barf bag or your local opium den as you read it. (One scene involving a colostomy bag, a disfigured criminal called 'Tall Man', and a beatiful woman with a gun is particularly spectacular). So what I'm saying is this: If there's a book in recent memory quick enough and cool enough to sprite onto your tongue before you've had the time to hate it, this might be it. Call me a Johnson-ite, call me anything, this man can write.

This new novel marks a significant departure from Denis Johnson's previous works and most famously, his 2008 National Book Award Winner, Tree of Smoke. Originally serialized in Playboy, Nobody Move is Johnson's entry into the black and white world of noir champions like Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett and miles from the psychedelia of his war fiction (Tree of Smoke) or short stories (the cooly brilliant, Jesus' Son, which as far as I'm concerned should be required reading for all high school students -- no, I take that back, all human beings). Like other recent novels in the noir genre -- and in particular Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union or Graham Swift's The Light of Day -- Nobody Move manages to both pervert and reify the established mechanics of noir in really interesting ways. Most obviously, it infuses Johnson's great sardonic humor with the hardboiled sleekness we love in noir. Playfully toying with its archetypes, Johnson makes his hero not a gin-swilling hit man out to get the girl but a bumbling gambling addict who cannot drink due to a touchy case of indigestion, gleefully sings in an 18 man barbershop doowop group, and though he isn't wearing one, 'undoubtedly owns a number of Hawaiian shirts.' (Even if it's just for fun, contrast this character to someone like Robert Mitchum's in the noir classic, Out of the Past: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNuORUFx81g). Amidst a cast list that includes a boozy Native American princess, a corrupt and paralyzed judge, the mysteriously disfigured Tall Man, some gay bikers, and the early-1990s-Cadillac-driving Bad Guys, Gambol and Juarez (who's Arab and not Mexican, the book notes), the novel's hero Jimmy Luntz proves to show as great a time as one can have as he explores the consequences of his actions in our perverse world. And for those inclined to look beneath the surface and towards the pebbles below, on another level, Johnson's own exploration of the boundaries and expectations of the noir genre proves to be great fun as well. Clocking in at a slim 208 pages, this book really flies. If you find that it isn't worth your time, call me a doowop singing, Hawaiian shirt wearing, scratch-ticket-addicted fool. (Always remember though: in noir it's not the man that counts, it's the gun that's in his hand.)

Read it.

xoxo

Liberty Bay Books Enters the 21st Century!

2009-06-01T14:22:00.000-07:00

Here, after so much time wasted, Liberty Bay Books finally gets on the Blogosphere bandwagon! (Or is that too much alliteration?). Anyways. With any luck, this blog should provide a comprehensive space for book talk -- old and new, thick and thin, bad and worse. So get involved! Spark debate! Listen in! Read about what's new and revisit the books that used to be!

xoxo