Tuesday, February 2, 2010

"To Be Read" Tuesdays

"To Be Read" Tuesdays is really just my way of sneaking a peek at your night-stand, coffee-table, book-shelf... where ever it is that you stack your piles of newly purchased unread books! And of course, returning the favor by allowing you a peek at mine...

I have been a good girl this past month, and havent bought many books at all, although I have been receiving ARC and Review copies in the mail. Here is a peek at my most recently acquired books:
(all book descriptions use some verbage taken from back cover blurbs, or goodreads)

ON DECK
Vampire Haiku - Ryan Mecum (How Books)
A poetic journal about Vampires - complete with photos, sketches, and stains. The owner of the journal was en route to a new land when he was turned into a Vampire, and we follow him on his journey through some of America's most defining moments.


2ND IN LINE
Please: Fiction inspired by The Smiths - Edited by Peter Wild (Harper)
A collection of stories that combine smart, emotion-filled literature with the melancholy, beauty, and wit of The Smith's music - Music that has made every outsider feel like a part of something.


3RD UP
Repetition Patterns - Ben Tanzer (CCLaP - eBook)
Experimental in the style of Radiohead, the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography released as it's first-ever original title. A fictional small town full of secrets and despair, with results that are partly Sherwood Anderson, Sam Shepard, with a fair dose of Chuck Klosterman thrown in for good measure.

4TH PLACE
Too young to Fall Asleep - Sally Weigel (CCLaP - eBook)
Originally written when she was still in high school, Asleep is one of the first-ever adult character dramas concerning the so-called "Millennials," a prescient and eerily mature look at the generation of youth just now entering college -- an entire nation of idealistic sincerity-seekers within a maelstrom of suicidal Gen-X parents, a nation of kids who have no problem getting wasted on weekends but feel horribly guilty when smoking cigarettes while doing so.

5TH
A Common Pornography - Kevin Sampsell (Harper)
Sharing family's unforgettable story — from his mother's first tumultuous marriages and his father's physical, pyschological, and sexual abuse of his half-sister to his own tales of first jobs, first bands, and first loves - Kevin intertwines the tragic with the everyday, the dysfunctional with the fun, lending the book its undeniable, unsensationalized reality.

6TH AND FINAL PLACE
Everything here is the best thing ever - Justin Taylor (Harper)
Crystalline, spare, and oddly moving prose that cuts to the quick. A collection of short stories that are both tragic and funny, fearless and astute.




Post what's new on YOUR to be read pile and link me back to it by leaving a comment here.

4 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for your interest in Repetition Patterns. I would add, that depending on how you actually define "the next best book" I think Repetition Patterns has a real shot at qualifying, or at least being "the other book I read around the same I read the next best book."

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  2. Hi Ben! I cannot tell you how exciting it was to see I had comment from you! "The next best book", to me, is very fluid. Every book has the potential to be "the next best"... and knowing me and my tastes, and how attached I get to my current reads, there's an EXCELLENT chance that yours will fit the bill :)

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  3. And I'm glad you're excited, its great seeing interest in anything I write, but maybe especially in Repetition Patterns which has received less attention than other things I've done. I'm also liking my odds more and more that Repetition Patterns will fit the bill, though I also wanted to note that in my previous comment I wrote "the other book I read around the same I read the next best book," and that line is missing the word "time" which just isn't sitting right with me. Okay, I've been compulsive enough here and now I just look forward to your thoughts. Thanks again for the interest.

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  4. Hey there Ben! I am very happy that your glad that Im excited... I cannot imagine how it must feel to write a book or collection of stories, put it out there for the public, and wait on pins and needles for the feedback. I promise to let you know once I have started Repetition Patterns, and will post an honest review :)

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