Read this.

I’ve been slacking on my reading about as much as I’ve been slacking on keeping this site current. What can I say, sometimes work is busy and I prefer to spend my commute focused on honorable activities, such as trying to not fall asleep on strangers. And playing games on my phone. 

Anyhow, when last I was reading, I was reading this. It was good, though tough for me to stick with at times, and ultimately satisfying. So why, if I’m giving such a seemingly meh review should any of you run out and grab this book?

Excellent question.

You Shall Know Our Velocity accomplishes something. Reading that last page, closing the book and feeling the heft of it in my hand in the end, I felt like I saw it, the big picture of it. The drawn out parts that wound between gorgeous descriptions and moving narrative all made sense. I saw why they needed to be there, every last one of them.

This story follows 2 men on a mission to give away a small fortune after the sudden death of their friend. Eggers balances his present-time storytelling with flashbacks. Flashbacks can be gimmicky (like their cousin “the voice over” in tv & film) when used incorrectly or heavy-handedly, but thankfully he avoids that pitfall here by peppering them in sparingly and, most importantly, meaningfully. The flashbacks surface in blurred snippets that allow the reader to piece together everything that came before. Flashbacks fill in the blanks, showing us how Jack died, how Will’s face ended up in its present state, why Hand and Will are bonded to each other in the first place.

So what’s my point? Here’s a book about forward momentum, about living and dying, about cars and planes, about secluded beaches and foreign tongues. Forward, always forward. And all those draw out sections of the book? All those circuitous paths between the meat of the story? They are the story. The body of it sprawls out like a map when you stand back and really take it all in. Those routes, tangents, dead ends are as crucial to the book as a whole as the characters themselves. 

In true Dave Eggers form, he’s “doin’ a thing” here, and I loved him for it. Eventually.

Read This.

Full disclosure: I generally do not enjoy memoirs. I just don’t. I mean, here’s an entire genre dedicated to giving average people a platform for inflating or otherwise glorifying their more often than not average lives for personal gain. Remember the Oprah-driven outrage at that one dude? People were floored that he had *gasp* manipulated details in his memoir.

For. Shame.

Look, you want the whole truth? A real look at a person’s life, rife with the minutia of day-to-day living, studded sparingly with the rare sparkling moments of glorious triumph and pure anguish which we are all allotted? Read a diary or collection of letters. Sure, they’re dry and rambling and mostly uneventful—you know what? They’re still warped through the personal lens of the writer. This truth everyone’s so excited about? It’s a false promise. For example, there can be more truth in a totally fictional representation of something than in a first hand account of the same real-life events.

Person perception warps facts faster than a funhouse mirror.

With that caveat stated, and bearing it in mind, I love this book. Do I take it as gospel truth? Hell no. But I don’t need it to be. Augusten Burroughs is a fantastic storyteller and that is what I care about.

Dry is a heartbreakingly raw examination of one man’s struggle with addiction. It’s self-deprecating and darkly funny in a way that reveals more truth than any list of facts possibly could. I flat out do not care if anything in this book really happened. It stands alone as a beautifully written unlikely hero’s journey. From the bottom of a bottle, out of a Hoarders-esk apartment, through interventions and realizations and a gauntlet of failed, failing or otherwise tragic personal relationships, we watch our hero battle and falter and break though.  We love him, we hate him, we cringe for him and through it all, he still manages to make us laugh. It’s a dazzling example of a coping mechanism familiar to so many of us. The more terrible his reality is, the funnier he spins it; it’s tragic in a way no “realistic” account of his trials could possibly be and the truth I get out of that is incalculable.

I’ve made it sound bleak… and I guess it is, but trust me. Give Burroughs a try. Think of him as a darker, more damaged David Sedaris. And yes, that is a compliment. Despite the serious nature of Dry’s subject matter, this book is entertaining & quick, perfect for outside reading in this glorious warm weather. Add it to your summer reading list and thank me later.

Read This.

Why is the measure of love loss?

This, the first line from Written on the Body, is the only first line from a book that has stuck with me from the first moment I read it. This is the book that launched my obsession with Jeanette Winterson. A lot of people will tell you Oranges is where it’s at—don’t get me wrong, it’s a great book—but for my money, Written on the Body is where Winterson really hit her stride.

Written on the Body is more thematic and poetic than your average novel. Concepts and imagery drive the narrative; and the result is a sort of abstract work that is haunting, beautiful and surprisingly complete. What I mean is, the characters and story don’t suffer for the poetics, they don’t feel artificial or gimmicky, a feat not easily achieved.

The overarching story is essentially an autopsy of a relationship. The narrator is grieving the loss while examining every inch of what was. The details are visceral.  Winterson manages to engage all the senses, giving the reader a uniquely graphic perspective on love and relationships.

Within that larger concept, Winterson’s narrator revisits other past relationships. Similar to High Fidelity, the examination of these relationships informs the narrator, indirectly fleshing out our unnamed guide. Also similar to High Fidelity, these glimpses into the past serve as comic relief in an otherwise solemn story.

Perhaps my favorite detail of Written on the Body, the gender of the narrator is never revealed.

Now, I wasn’t sure if I should even tell you that, just so you could realize (or not realize) it for yourself. Most people don’t even notice. Another credit to how well done this book is. Conventions like this could so easily slip into the cheesy gimmick realm but Winterson, following in the subtle footsteps of Borges, pulls it off like a seamless slight of hand and leaves it there, just off-center, like a gift for the reader. Unlike the annoying, trite and/or totally ridiculous M. Night Shammalammadingdong twists in this world, THIS revelation is an awe inspiring one. It makes you comb through again in search of slip-ups or clues (having written my alma mater’s equivalent of a thesis on the body of Winterson’s work, I assure there’s none).

Another reason I wrestled with pointing this out is, it’s interesting to see the assumptions people make based on how they identify with the narrator. Straight men I’ve known assume, and will argue vehemently that the narrator is a man. And it’s a valid argument—based on the stories, the exes, the attitude, the narrator could be male. The major flaw with that argument, for me, is an issue of realistic dynamics: Our narrator begins an affair with a married woman whose husband suspects nothing when, if the narrator where male, he probably would. It also doesn’t help the “straight dude” case that our author is a gay woman with a penchant for writing about gay women. That’s not to say straight dudes are totally absent from her work, they’re there. It’s just, her protagonists are generally, well, based on her. Sorry dudes.

But on the upside, this debate over the narrator’s gender only goes to show exactly how much all humans have in common when it comes to love, loss and heartbreak. It’s a stunning example of how a person—any person—feels in the presence and absence of the woman they love.

Read This.

It’s Friday, and you know what that means. It’s time for some love for the old school. This week we pay homage to the founding father, and undisputed master of magical realism: Jorges Luis Borges.

Yes, I see you back there waving your arms frantically, shouting something about Marquez. Indeed, Marquez is fantastic (don’t worry, we’ll get to him) but guess what? That magical realism he’s so well-known for? Borges fucking invented it. Write that down. And he was so focused on just writing what he wanted to write, doing his own thing, he didn’t even know that he had created a literary movement until the next generation of writers co-opted his shit and started acting like he was copying them. That’s some balls right there… I’m looking at you, Marquez.

Borges’ Collected Fictions is one of my all-time favorites. South American knife-fighters, labyrinths, libraries, Billy the Kid and a park bench conversation between Borges and, well, Borges… These stories are delicately built monuments to and of one man’s imagination.

The curiosity and fascination with which he approaches subjects is palpable. He inhabits his characters so effortlessly that they are all equally believable, regardless of physical location or social stature. The absence of women is noteworthy, but I respect omission over forced female characters. It keeps his writing honest.

Borges was a true original. (Are you sensing a pattern in my preferences?) I have the utmost respect for writers who manage to carve out a place for themselves, do something no one else has done, in a way no one else could do. His unconventional imagery and unique turns of phrase set his work in a class all its own. His use of magical and otherwise unconventional elements as a means of expressing political & social opinion is reminiscent of Renaissance painters who used symbols, hidden & overt, and colors as code to do the same, free from reprisal.

Maybe it’s the painterly quality of Borges’ work that prompts me to draw comparisons between him and visual artists. His ability to express his personal theories and perceptions in appealing, complete compositions remains unparalleled. His constant sense of being “other” inspired him to create worlds, dimensions, magics—brilliant landscapes and compelling characters—so unique, they are synonymous with him today. Much like Monet, Borges’ struggles with his own failing eyesight literally made him see the world in a way unlike anyone else; and the singular beauty that resulted from his loss changed the literary landscape forever.

Read This.

No, I didn’t forget. It’s New Comic Book Day, people! This week’s dish: Jeff Smith’s Bone series.

I have a small but growing collection of signed first editions. They are all books I love, including titles from David Foster Wallace & Jeanette Winterson. Out From Boneville, the first book of Jeff Smith’s series, is the only graphic novel in that collection.

It’s that good.

This award-winning series gave the world such awesomeness as Stupid, Stupid Rat Creatures and wisdom like “Monsters don’t eat quiche”. It’s a humor-driven adventure story about these tiny Bone creatures as they trek out into the unknown world beyond their home territory. These books are sweet, funny and engaging. The art is simple, mostly black and white, but that’s not to say it’s not beautiful. Smith accomplishes more with black ink on white paper than most fancy-pants novelists ever manage. His characters have depths filled with quirks and downfalls, assets and beliefs. Smith creates a world for them to explore rich with life and cultures.

The imagination that went into this series is inspiring. Even now, over a decade after a friend of mine lent me his copy of Out of Boneville and got me hooked, this series still makes me smile like an idiot whenever I pick it up. Don’t get me wrong, there’s tension and intrigue too. Tough choices are made, battles are won and lost. Make no mistake, this is a legitimate adventure story.  It just so happens that the hero is tiny, bone-white and round in places, he doesn’t wear pants and he has a star on his shirt.

Who wouldn’t be into that?

Read This.

Books that become movies sometimes get a bad wrap, so let’s get this out of the way right now: The movie is good. The book is better.

I can hear both sides of the chorus condemning me already. Everybody, keep your pants on-or don’t, this is an entirely pants-optional kind of blog-and just hear me out.

Do I love John Cusack? Yes. Do I enjoy his movies, particularly when his sister is in them AND gets to call him an asshole? You’re goddamn right I do. So why then, in this case, I’m a choosing the book’s side? Excellent question. I’m sticking with the book simply because I read it before there was a movie and I fell in love with it. That’s it. This is a rare case in which I really can’t fault the movie much at all, the biggest change being a fairly seamless shift from London to Chicago. It’s no secret, Nick Hornby’s books translate well into movies.

So, back to business…

My desert-island, all-time, top five reasons why you should read this book, in no particular order:

1. A musical education. For all its merits as a book, this book also has great value as a source of playlists, albums and forgotten tracks.
2. Geek relatability*. The vinyl collector and the book collector have more in common than either would probably care to admit. Ever use crazy systems to rearrange your bookshelves? Especially when going through big changes? That’s what I thought.
3. A strong argument for the first-person. Our narrator is our main character and he’s not always honest with us. “I” statements can get repetitive or boring, but here depth is achieved through an unreliable narrator who is forced to make realizations and come clean. It’s smart, engaging and fun, even when he’s pretty unlikable.
4. Self-reflection. Can you reduce yourself into lists? As our narrator does it, so will you. I dare you to resist the urge to play along. For instance, I can make a top five split-ups list (in chronological order) and upon doing so realize that only three of the five really matter. Good times.
5. An even stronger argument for the present-tense. Present-tense can feel hokey when not executed well. This is one case where it is not a gimmick. Through the narrator’s inner-monologues and real-time interactions, we sort through the mess with him. We are his confidants and his jury and he knows it. This lends a certain sense of interactivity other books can’t seem to achieve.

Maybe it’s because I have always loved making lists, maybe it’s because I had just gone through an insane break-up when I found this book. Either way, High Fidelity came through for me and I’m willing to bet it’ll do the same for you. 

*Full disclosure: apparently “relatability” isn’t a word and thus, belongs with the others eating fish heads in the attic. How is it not a word when there is no one word that can express that exact thing?

Somebody get Merriam and/or Webster on the phone…

Read This.

A few times during the last two years of my undergrad, I got to work with the most amazing professor. He was a complete hard-ass. A tenacious, demanding and a little bit cruel relic of the Ivy League, he expected total engagement from us and would actually chuckle to himself whenever someone said something stupid or off-base during discussions. Did I mention he looked like the excitable gnome scientist of the Southern Oracle from The Neverending Story?

My first class with him was a cross-discipline program on the Renaissance era. Imagine my confusion when, as we sat pouring over the OED and Spencer’s Faerie Queene, he suggested this as supplementary reading.

Who was I to say no? A crazy and most definitely brilliant old man tells you to read a ten book series of graphic novels, you do it.

Preludes & Nocturnes is the first book of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, and I suggest you start there. This series, as a whole, is the absolute height of literature in the comics format and this volume is your gateway to that world. The minute I started devouring these books-and we’re talking “reading before bed, oh look the sun’s coming up” devour-I understood why my professor had suggested them. He was one of the uber-nerdy few who, upon reading The Sandman books, picked up on all the most obscure references. That is to say that he, my gentle nerds, is our most nerdiest leader.

Now, I’ve already rambled on about the virtues of Neil Gaiman, so I’ll try not to beat that horse any deader than it already is. I won’t get into the mythologies or the details or the layers. I won’t tell you about the Christopher Marlow/Ben Johnson/William Shakespeare references, let alone the whole Canterbury Tales thing. And I certainly won’t mention the relevance of this series, and many of its characters, in the context of comic book history.

What I will tell you is, that like a good date, these books are gorgeous and smart. Dave McKean’s covers are unmistakable; his distinctive style fits perfectly with the subject matter as he interprets each volume into a single haunting image. The art between the covers is beautiful and gruesome in places but, most importantly, it always serves the story. Styles shift to fit subject. That detail alone makes these books special.

So give this a chance. If not because I say so, perhaps that chuckling old gnome’s endorsement will sway you. Either way is fine by me. 

Oh, and if you’re a Tori Amos fan, there are some extra prizes in there for you. She and Neil have been best friends for as long as I’m sure some of you have been alive, and the two love to give nods to each other in their work.