Autumn Leaves and Sunday Smatterings

Picks of the Week

Adam Thirlwell: Politics: A Novel (P.S.)
One would think this book is about sex, And while it is, since the characters have so much about it, some of it is kinky, and threesomes play a big role in the narrative. mostly POLITICS is about everything else: the mechanics, the logistics, the emotional minefields, the awkward questions, the moral dilemmas, and, well, the politics of what it is to be with someone you love or someone you don't, and how an act that should be simple is anything but. Thirlwell was disgustingly young when he wrote this but he absolutely understands that to make this book work, there must be an underlying sweetness and sincerity to the entire story. Now I want to see what he's up to more recently. Amazon | Indiebound | B & N | Borders | Powell’s
Jennifer Mascia: Never Tell Our Business to Strangers: A Memoir
Years ago I was blown away by Mascia's Modern Love piece describing her parents' secret past: her father was a mobbed-up convicted murderer, and her mother not only knew all about it, but aided and abetted her husband when life required being a fugitive, selling drugs, and living at great highs and crushing lows. Mascia's book tells a more whole story about her peripatetic life, and even with every new shocking revelation what remained consistent was how much she loved her parents, no matter how deep those lows went, and how much she misses them now that they are gone. Unconditional love never goes away, no matter if those who receive it deserve it. Indiebound | Amazon | Borders | B & N | Powell’s
Juli Zeh: In Free Fall
Give me a novel of ideas and if the story is good and the characters are believable and entertain me, I am there. Give me a crime novel of ideas, where two physics professors, friends and rivals, opposites but startlingly similar, do emotional battle on an intellectual canvas, raise the stakes through betrayal, the possible kidnapping of a child, and embroil a romantic-leaning police detective in the complicated machinations of quantum theory, and holy hell, I think I have myself one of my favorite books of the year. Powell’s | Indiebound | Amazon | Borders | B & N
Simon Lelic: A Thousand Cuts
It appears to be a crime with an easy solution: a disgruntled schoolteacher shoots up his place of employment and kills several students in the process. But really, Lelic's novel is about the catastrophic consequences of bullying, and how this act is hardly limited to kids turning on other kids, but burrows deeply into adult relationships as well. He evokes empathy for the killer and sympathy for Lucia, the investigating officer who has to fight for every scrap of dignity as she pieces together the far more complex truth of what really happened at the school. Powell’s | Amazon | Borders | Indiebound | B & N
William Lindsay Gresham: Nightmare Alley
I cannot stop raving about this book to people. The circular narrative structure, the demented feel of a traveling carny troupe, and the extraordinary rise and precipitous fall of Stan Carlisle give off the persistent, raging feeling that hell is always with us, and success is basically a sucker's game. No matter what the biographical evidence on Gresham's state of mind leading up to and after the book's bestseller (and movie basis) status in 1946, I don't think we can really know what demons plagued him to produce this marvelous noir gem. B & N | Indiebound | Amazon | Borders | Powell’s

November 08, 2009

Oline Cogdill chimes in with her thoughts on Louise Penny's newest neo-traditional mystery THE BRUTAL TELLING.

Adam Woog rounds up recent crime fiction by Michael Connelly,Patrick McManus, Martin Limon and Christopher Fowler for the Seattle Times.

Laura Wilson compiles reviews of new crime and thrillers by Alan Glynn, Cathi Unsworth, David Hewson and Arnaldur Indridason.

Lee Child puts on a different hat of interviewer for PARADE Magazine, talking to Robert De Niro about family life, giving credit to others, and his upcoming movie.

Ed Pettit writes of how much almost every writer for any medium owes a tip of the hat to Edgar Allan Poe.

More Stieg Larsson-related news, what with the latest battles between his longtime partner and his father & brother and Mark Lawson's essay on the books as they reflect Sweden and the globe.

James Parker's take on Stephen King's UNDER THE DOME may have one of my favorite ledes of 2009.

Nicholson Baker, Richard Powers, Junot Diaz, Laura Lippman and Dan Chaon are among the major writers telling the Wall Street Journal how they write their novels.

Could someone alert Juan Williams that a novel that went to auction for half a million dollars and was bought - then published - by Knopf in 1996 doesn't actually qualify as "ghetto lit"? Which also explains why his essay slamming this genre is fundamentally flawed.

And finally, this opening line is so going to be stolen by a novelist.

Posted at 09:30 AM in Literary minded | Permalink

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Comments

I saw Juan Williams debate Manning Marable last year at the NCORE conference on race in higher education and he's as pompous and out of touch in person as he is in print. It's completely obvious that he never read Push or saw the movie it's based on. Comparing Push to the most outrageous gangsta rap is like comparing Bastard Out of Carolina to the crappiest Hee Haw twang that ever came out of Nashville.

Posted by: Steve Allan | November 09, 2009 at 06:32 PM

Great list! Plenty of things for the coming season. Now if only the weather would finally turn.

Posted by: iamtheangel.com | November 10, 2009 at 12:48 AM

"James Parker's take on Stephen King's UNDER THE DOME may have one of my favorite ledes of 2009."

Yes, quite. Sneering at the peasants is so amusing.

Posted by: Jim Treacher | November 11, 2009 at 11:27 PM

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November 08, 2009