Contrary to popular belief (and my dreams), BOOKGASM is not my day job. (All that magic happens on nights and weekends, folks!) But at my day job as managing editor of Oklahoma’s largest and greatest alternative weekly, I review books, too. As it’s tough to write two reviews (much less one!), most of those titles never see ink here. But some deserve to, and here are seven — fiction and nonfiction — I covered there in 2008 that don’t deserve to go unnoticed here.
DREAM CITY by Brendan Short — Press materials for this debut novel use Michael Chabon’s Pultizer-winning THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY as a reference point, which immediately raised my skepticism. Yet, to my surprise, the comparison is not wholly unwarranted. Like that modern classic, Short’s story is a generations-spanning literary work infused with equal parts high drama and pop culture.
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS WRONG: THE RETAIL CHRONICLES by Jeff Martin — At least one good thing has come out of the economic recession: this anthology, which collects 21 essays of store-set suffering. Many of the book’s essays detail the authors’ dealings with the public that made their gigs gloomy. Soul-sucking, then; hilarious, now.
FABLES: COVERS BY JAMES JEAN by James Jean — James Jean is — bar-none, no question — the finest cover artist working in comcis today. The proof lies in his monthly gig creating the front of FABLES. Fantasy and mystery marry for mood in Jean’s elegaic, elegant art. These images are myths and legends for grown-ups, and each one is a wonder to behold. One can get lost on any page.
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA: A POP-UP BOOK by Sam Ita — Not since Walt Disney cast James Mason as Captain Nemo has Jules Verne’s classic 1870 adventure novel undergone such a radical adaptation. Ita has turned the work into not only into a comic book, but a pop-up one that takes full advantage of the difficult, fold-and-flap format.
PANIC IN LEVEL 4: CANNIBALS, KILLER VIRUSES, AND OTHER JOURNEYS TO THE EDGE OF SCIENCE by Richard Preston — Preston explains how paying attention to details others may find insignificant actually paints a “you are there” portrait that makes his facts read like fiction. And like great fiction, readers will be hard-pressed to put this book — culled from articles previously published in THE NEW YORKER, but slighty revised here — down.
MAPS AND LEGENDS: READING AND WRITING ALONG THE BORDERLANDS by Michael Chabon — It’s no secret that Chabon loves comic books and genre fiction — mystery, sci-fi, horror — upon which the smarter-than-thou literati frowns. Such works are not a bad thing, he argues, and asks readers over and over again in the 16 pieces collected here to get over the idea that, say, a detective story is not “real” literature.
THE TELEPHONE GAMBIT: CHASING ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL’S SECRET by Seth Shulman — GAMBIT reads like a first-person procedural. Like the recent THE GHOST MAP, this nonfiction book works equally well as a fascinating slice of American history as it does a piece of detective fiction, except that it’s all real, thereby upping the excitement. —Rod Lott
Related posts:
- 16 Books I Can’t Wait for in 2008
- 5 Best Sci-Fi Books of 2008
- 7 Books I Didn’t Get a Chance to Read in 2008 (But Wish I Had)
- 9 Recent Books I Just Couldn’t Bring Myself to Finish, No Matter How Hard I Tried
- 8 Highly Anticipated Books I Couldn’t Afford to Buy in 2005, but Will Discounted in 2006
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Whoa … what? You mean you’re not high atop some Manhattan penthouse suite, suspenders and spats, monogrammed shirts, pin-striped suits, cigar in one hand and Jäger bomb in the other, while prospective publishers and low-life writers plunk stacks of Benjamins down on your mahogony desk in hopes of a review?
In saunters your receptionist babe (I mean, wife) for a little private dictation …
That ain’t reality? Oklahoma? Might as well be North Carolina, but without the mighty Atlantic off the side.
You run a helluva site in your off hours, dude.