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This heartbreaking novel of an alcoholic's childhood does not aim to spare anyone anything. The characters in it stayed with me weeks and weeks later. Bonus: the scotish dialect is made brilliantly easy for an American audience. Read it for that alone!
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This is that one book that you've heard about from several different people, all telling you it changed their life. But you haven't read it yet. Let us be another telling you that it is nothing short of a stunning achievement by Richard Powers. We recommend you pick it up now if you want to immerse yourself in a deeply researched, yet lyrically gorgeous book about how we are all connected. If you need reminding that the world can be a hopeful place again.
This is a lovely little huge little picture book FOR EVERYBODY. Not just for people who have a friend like Jerome. LOVE.
This novel is a gorgeous work of art about ownership of a gorgeous work of art. Full of unforgettable characters. Every sentence is a symphony. A pleasure to read.
If you like PEACE LIKE A RIVER (by this author's brother!) this is also set in the west of our recent past, the west of our imaginations, the west of our best and worst self.
I love this book! The characters are lovely and perfect and flawed. The book has a meaningful thing to say about current culture. Or several meaningful things to say. It is a bit show-offy. . . but who doesn't love a master writer writing at the very top of his form showing off a bit?
If you loved the first season or two of GLEE, I guarantee you will gleek out big time for this new collaboration between the 2 best writers in Y.A. today. Ooh, tiny dancer!
I found this most unusual book to be quite lovely indeed, and not at all depressing, as I'd feared. I learned a new thing or two about loneliness and self-loathing. It was an exaltation!
This is one of those debuts that creates a long, anxious line of fans waiting for what this stunningly talented author comes up with next. Best. Baseball. Book. Ever.
Michael Cunningham is the master of the slow romantic sizzle, and he's at the top of his form here. The sizzlers in this one couldn't be more unlikely, a middle aged man and his sister's good-for-nothing brother. I was excited to enter the SoHo art scene (with artists in Bushwick, of course) and the book inhabits rarified space, indeed. Sleeper of the year, for sure!
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I’m late to this party… but what a glorious party it is! This is a five year book for me. Meaning the best. book. I’ve. read. in. five. years.
This one is so good, it inspired a whole summer of non-fiction reading for me. I love this one almost enough to read Stiff. And I hate death.
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Highest Tide fans will recognize this author's fervent talent. No one writes characters like he does. They're loved down to their bones, even if they're wierd as heck.
Along with a great story, I learned a whole lot about Canada and all its' Canadian-ness!
I was never so Faulknered by a book before!
I read this deeply layered, extraordinarily literary mystery as slowly as I could because I didn't want the smart language, thick allusions and crackling wit to ever end. Filled with finely wrought characters of students, teachers, and a distinctly professorial dad at a preparatory high school the year before our heroine goes off to Harvard, this tome is filled with real and fake footnotes (references?) designed chiefly for the reader to notice the sheer brilliance of the author.
Others may be bothered by this. I, however, am not. This is a work of staggering genius. And the drawings by the author add a good deal to the enjoyment.
Ms. Pessl is a future superstar.
This is a stunner of a set of short stories. If short stories aren't your thing, don't be afraid . . these hang together kind of novel-like. And in any case, the language and meaning are gorgeous! Adult book club would've done well to read the first story in this collection in advance of reading SWAMPLANDIA! Take what you will of my cryptic crypticness!
Oh lordy, this book is so good, here's my version of its' six word rec: cute concept brilliantly executed, hilariously profound.
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Heim revisits some of the same motifs from his novel Mysterious Skin, including a vivid, worn-down Kanasas landscape, an unusual mother-and-son relationship, and, most poignantly, people being stolen, abducted, or 'disappeared.' No matter what odd thing happens next, I want to go on the ride with these characters and their ill-advised lives.
Oooh, this is going to be a biggie. I think Chuck's breaking through, here, with his most accessible romp to date. Filled with his usual gross-outs, of course, but walloping some huge themes just for kicks, but seriously. Biblical shit you swear he's making up, but I'm too biased and lazy to check for sure, and I'd rather believe Chuck's take, anyway. So many things make sense when you do that.
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What a gorgeous, stunning rebuttal to any and all controversy. A beautiful book by a genius story teller. Did I just love it because I'm a native Los Angelino? No. Did I love it because A MILLION LITTLE PIECES was a watershed moment? No. I love it because it messes with the truth in a way other authors can only DREAM of messing with the truth. Meanwhile it tells thousands of great stories a little bit, hundreds of great stories a bit, and a few great stories deeply and brilliantly.
Colson Whitehead is my new favorite author ever. Anyone who softpedals someone's weak chin by saying they have "an excessively aggressive neck" is my kind of guy. I have read piquant sentances of this one to my best friends and they didn't want to shoot me. They didn't want to shoot me at all. I have a feeling as soon as I read all his backlist, I'll be adding them here.
OK, who wants to read a book with a 13 year old protagonist? Not me, that's who. But this one is so special because he's so normal (and by that I mean average and epic heroic all on the same afternoon walk down the lane) you can't help but recognize every 13 year old you've known in him. The book's peopled with some whacky characters who have the most amazing conversations. I went from being blown away to being amused to being blown away again and again. Gorgeous thing, this book.
Chabon's my hero. That being said, his mastering-of-every-brand-new-to-him genre is not always as successful as this one.
This book contains the best single sentance in the noir style ever written. Here it is:
The clock on the hospital wall hummed to itself, got antsy, kept snapping off pieces of the night with its minute hand.
The whole thing's this good. Really.
Just as good or better than my favorite Augusten Burroughs memoir, Magical Thinking. So funny! What child is deathly afraid of the toothfairy? Our boy Augusten, that's who!
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A rollercoaster treat of gigantic proportion. Buffoonery of the highest order. Immediately followed by the most poignant insight into our culture and where it currently finds itself. Then hilarity again.
If every tenth person in America read Helprin's description of what a soccer mom has versus what a soccer mom wants on page 467 society itself would shift in remarkable ways.
Charles and Diana are in there. As is our Seattle buddy Bill Gates. This book is a marvel. Just give me a great, brilliant, kook with integrity and generosity of spirit for a hero and I'm yours, I guess.
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It's literature, folks, just like A Million Little Pieces. This was the redemptive story after all the heartbreak of the first. And, no matter what some very powerful people in the media say, they're both brilliant reads told from a voice so fresh and powerful you never forget it. Just like good literature is supposed to do. How in the world can you mix that up with journalism?
This is a great read. Period. Forget that it's a great look-at too. Graphic novels are not my thing. Yet I love this.
