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The reading suggestions have been kindly provided by staff members of the downtown bookstore McNally Robinson.
Maps and Legends, by Michael Chabon
Some of these essays are mere autobiographical fillips; some are semi-sinister trickster tales that mix truth and lies; some are heady considerations of the successes and failings of contemporary literature. All are written with Chabon’s unparalleled wit and richness of language and engage his favorite themes of genre fiction and Jewishness. Buy it now, if only to possess the astonishingly complex and beautiful book design by cartoonist Jordan Crane; once this print run is gone, it’ll be a plain old book again, like magic ending after the stroke of midnight.
Ours, by Cole Swensen
Not because I have a feeble garden of my own, or because this throbbing spring has made me miss the smell of sun on ripe earth as no other before it. Rather, because Cole Swensen is a poet so assured that she can put the lie to romanticism: take a topic (gardens in this case), bend her craft to it with persistence and careful thought and, still, have the resulting book be inspired.
Incognegro, by Mat Johnson
My favorite kind of book is one that both moves and challenges me taking me on a thrill ride of story and character. Mat Johnson’s new graphic novel rides that dangerous edge between heavy issues and heavy-hitting action, with the black-and-white story of a black man passing for white in the lynching-plagued 1930s South. It pulls it off in the way only a comic can, and manages to work gender politics, family dynamics, and some darned funny dialogue into a suspenseful mystery. An important (and enjoyable) moment in the history of literary comics.
The Ages of Lulu, by Almundena Grandes
Warning: This is not your mother’s erotica. The Ages of Lulu is literature whipped with lawless lust and the type of human contact that had to be witnessed to be written about. Think Marquis de Sade and mean it. That said, Maria “Lulu” Luisa’s journey begins at fifteen. Lulu’s first lover, her brother’s twenty-seven year old friend, charms her out of her chastity into marriage and mindful acts of pleasure and possession. This lasts well into her thirties. Lulu loves it. She can’t get enough of it. And her wiles, eventually, turn her out in an unthinkable manner.
McNally Robinson independent bookstore is well worth a visit, they have a fantastic selection of books on their shelves. The store is located in NoLIta at 52 Prince Street between Lafayette and Mulberry. Visit them on the Web at http://www.mcnallyrobinsonnyc.com/
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