Indie Book Buzz: Graywolf Press

It's a great day for some Indie Book Buzz here at TNBBC. Over the next few weeks, we will be inviting members of the indie publishing houses to share which of their upcoming 2012 releases they are most excited about!

This week's picks come from Marisa Atkinson,

Marketing and Publicity Associate at Graywolf Press

BOLETO by Alyson Hagy

(May 2012) 

Get ready to fall in love with your new favorite book: BOLETO by Alyson Hagy. This is one of the most sincere, authentic, and moving novels I’ve read in a very long time, and it tops my list of Graywolf favorites. Hagy (Ghosts of Wyoming and Snow, Ashes) is a remarkable writer; I continually marvel at how she’s able to pack so much punch into such economical phrasing. Sure, BOLETO is the story of a young man (the swoon-worthy, heartbreaking Will Testerman, played by Ryan Gosling in my mind from the start) and his filly, but this is no mere “horse novel.” It’s a coming-of-age novel, a family drama, a Western, a survival tale, and an exposé of the equine circuit. It is a breathtaking masterpiece somehow contained within a mere 250 pages. I really can’t recommend it highly enough.

INFERNO by Dante Alighieri 

a new translation by Mary Jo Bang, 

illustrated by Henrik Drescher

(June 2012)

If you’re rolling your eyes at yet another edition of Dante’s Inferno, I don’t blame you, but trust me: Bang’s interpretation is truly is unlike any Dante you’ve read before. Though she faithfully translated INFERNO from the medieval Italian of the original, Bang’s translation is an imaginative and lively modernization, complete with pop culture references and twenty-first century touchstones. This collection is sure to cause at least a little controversy, as not everyone likes their Dante with a side of Bob Dylan, South Park, and Michael Jackson. But personally, I’m on the side of readership that loves the idea of updating canonical tomes for the modern age, and I know I’m not alone (hello, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies!). The collection is also illustrated with the haunting work of Henrik Drescher, so once you’re done reading it will make a stunning objet d’art unfurled on your coffee table. Graywolf will be promoting INFERNO at BEA in June, so be sure to stop by and check it out.

Graywolf's line-ups always impress me. I wish I could devote time to reading everything they put out there, but alas, I cannot. However, dear collective readers, if you were to get your hands on one of these when they release, please be sure to come back and tell me how they were. I want to live vicariously through you!

About Marissa

Marisa Atkinson is the Marketing and Publicity Associate at Graywolf Press, where she has worked with Belle Boggs, Marie Mutsuki Mockett, Jim Moore, Melanie Rae Thon, and others. She will read any coming-of-age or campus novel you put in front of her. She has never read The Great Gatsby, but promises it’s on her summer reading list. You can follow her on Twitter at @totesmarisa and check outGraywolf on Facebook.

So what do you think guys? See anything that catches your eye? Which of these books are you most excited to see release? Help TNBBC and Graywolf Press spread the buzz about these books by sharing this post with others!

Review: The Avian Gospels

Read 1/31/12 - 2/11/12
4.5 Stars - Highly Recommended to fans of dystopian fiction who don't require a nice neat bow on the how's and why's.
Combined pg count: 442
Publisher: Short Flight/Long Drive

So, the lapsed Catholic in me is chuckling as I find myself, for the second time in as many months, reviewing a book that outwardly appears to be religious in nature. The first was Beatitude by Larry Closs which, as you can see from the title, would require some explanation. Rest assured, dear reader, the book had nothing to do with the eight blessings found within the bible. I promise you.

The second book, of course, would be this one. Look at these babies, wouldja?! The Avian Gospels is a full length novel marketed as a two volume set of mini bible lookalikes, complete with luscious red textured covers, gold lined pages, and red ribbon marker. The pages even have lines marked in multiple of 5's, like the actual bible marks the lines and verse for easy reference. They are really quite lovely, and may very possibly be the most perfectly packaged books I have ever read.

But enough about the book as an object. You probably just want to know what it's about, right?

Here's the quick and dirty. The Avian Gospels is a story about a nameless war ravaged city that is suddenly, unexpectedly, buried beneath a plague of birds. For no known reason, millions of them flock to the city at once, blotting out the sun and covering the ground in a blanket of feathers and beaks.

This city, which, besides being nameless, also appears to be locationless - sandwiched somewhere between Hungary and Oklahoma (now I admit to being geographically challenged, I am pretty sure that in this version of the world, Hungary and Oklahoma appear to be butted up against one another) - this city is run by a power hungry man who calls himself The Judge. His soldiers, the RedBlacks, enforce his rules with their fists and heels - motivating the city's inhabitants and maintaining the upper hand by any and all means necessary (brute force and torture being among their favorites).

There are three castes, or groups, of people co-existing within the city walls: The RedBlacks and their kin - natives of the city who rule the businesses and the streets; the Gypsies - who fled their native home of Norway during the war and who now hide from the RedBlacks underground, calling the twisted system of tunnels and trapdoors their homes; and then there are the two Swedes who can control the birds - Zvominir and his son Morgan.

Once the Judge discovers that Zvominir and Morgan can control the birds, he quickly employs them to clear the city of the flying creatures. Zvominir, desperate to give his son an easy life, sucks up to the Judge and performs daily walks through the city sending the birds away. His influence over them can only last for so long however, and within a few days the birds migrate back...

Morgan, on the other hand, uses his power to woo the crowds, creating intricate and captivating masterpieces in the sky - using every color and species of bird there is. He is not as spineless as his father though, and rather than pool their powers together, they end up turning them onto each other... Zvominir believes in continuing to work for the Judge, purging out the birds day in and day out, while Morgan - sick of the way he and the Gypsies are being treated - takes up with Jane and the two begin to devise a plan to take the city back from the RedBlacks.

All of this is told to us by a strange and elusive collective that refer to themselves simply as "we" and "us". They appear to be telling the story after the fact, disclosing events that took place in the past and - if we are to believe them - that took place before they were even alive. This collective seems to have had no first hand experience with Zvominir, Morgan, or any of the situations they have been revealing. They also appeared to be independent of sides which led me to believe, by the books end, that in their time - however far into the future that might be - there are no longer any divisive lines between the natives and the Gypsies.

I struggled immensely throughout the novel with the reliability of our narrators. I mean, how well preserved can these stories have been? How many times had they been handed down before they were shared with us? How much time had passed between the actual events and committing the events to pen and paper?

And then this got me thinking again about the whole religious angle. I mean, besides me mentioning at the start of all this the fact that the darn things looked like mini bibles, you know? Cause, well, isn't this what kind of happened with the stories of the bible? Weren't those events supposed to be a part of our past? Weren't they all witnessed by different people, who then passed their versions back and forth verbally, until finally someone, somehow, committed these versions of the events to paper later on? Just how reliable are those events... the events we are supposed to believe in so unflinchingly, the events that are preached to us when we sit in church during the Sunday masses? Events that are told to us from a collective group of people who were not there to witness them for themselves. Should I even be making this kind of connection? Was any of this Adam Novy's intent?

Could Adam, the author behind The Avian Gospels, have set up this entirely bizarre, beautiful story with the hopes that we would make this connection on our own? Did he have advanced knowledge that his publisher would market the books as mini bibles, and that his collective narrators would spawn this type of thinking in his readers? Or is this me just throwing my own fucked up, twisted, agnostic views out there to see if something sticks?

Reading through most of the reviews posted to Goodreads, it would appear that I am as I feared. I'm the only one making this sort of connection between the two. And I wouldn't be surprised to find out that I am completely, embarrassingly, and entirely off-base. I mean, check out this incredibly well thought out review by Bullet Review - the guy sees such a lack of tie-in to the Catholic religion that he even asks at the end of the dang thing why it's called a gospel! Yet he sees so much more than I did at first glance.

But that's cool with me, cause no matter what the author's intent was, no matter what I ended up taking away or completely overlooking, I thoroughly loved this book. It stirred my brain, it made me think, and it captivated me. It's a war story without being a war story. It's a survival story without being a survival story. It's what you make of it while you're reading it. One of the things I really enjoyed about it, which usually annoys me to no end, is the fact that some things were just never explained. Like, why did the birds suddenly migrate to the city? And what chain of events placed the Judge in the seat of power over the city? And just who are our narrators?

Not to mention that it's a pretty freaking amazing concept, isn't it? I mean, hello... two guys who have the power to influence birds?!!

Rose Metal Press on "Being Indie"

On "Being Indie" is a monthly feature hosted here on TNBBC. We will meet a wide variety of independent authors, publishers, and booksellers as they discuss what being indie means to them. 

Meet Rose Metal Press. 

Abigail Beckel, co-founder and publisher of Rose Metal Press, has worked professionally in the publishing industry for more than 11 years. She is also a published poet. 

Kathleen Rooney, co-founder and editor of Rose Metal Press, is the author, most recently, of the essay collection For You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs (Counterpoint, 2010). Her second solo poetry collection, Robinson Alone, will be published in Fall 2012 by Gold Wake Press.  

I discovered these two ladies and their amazing small press a few months ago through The Lit Pub, a cool website that promotes specialty indies of all genres. By now, you know that I love to hear the story of how these rockin' presses came to be and how they define indie, since the term is applied in so many interesting and (sometimes) contradicting ways. I encourage you to get to know these guys... they've got a great catalog building up and take chances on some amazing literature.

On Being Indie

In his memoir The Business of Books, Andre Schiffrin writes that, “We have seen the development of a new ideology, one that has replaced that of Western democracies against the Soviet bloc. Belief in the market, faith in its ability to conquer everything, a willingness to surrender all other values to it and even the belief that it represents a sort of consumer democracy—these things have become the hallmark of publishing.” Elsewhere in the book, he discusses how the corporate mindset of non-stop growth at all costs has done serious damage to the commercial publishing industry, and to the range of opportunities available to writers and readers.

Being indie, to us, then, means not surrendering all other values to the market and unsustainable growth for the sake of growth. It means that a book that may encourage the growth and expansion of literature and the boundaries of the writing community might not make a lot of money or publish more than a thousand copies. We are mission-driven, but the mission is not money, it’s getting more great and challenging writing out into the world and into readers’ hands.

Being independent, to Rose Metal Press, means, among other things understanding that even if an endeavor is guaranteed to be a relatively small one, that does not make it inferior to one that aims to be enormous. And though we have grown, and hope to continue to grow, over the years, Rose Metal Press chooses to stay small in terms of how many books we publish a year (3) and sees this size as a source of strength. It allows us time to work closely with each author and then really promote each book thoroughly via review outlets, reading tours, and events, and other ways to create buzz for our authors.

Compared to trade publishers, we have more creative freedom because we are independent and a nonprofit and can publish and encourage the kind of writing that we see as ground-breaking and innovative rather than focusing heavily on the marketability and projected sales numbers of any given project. We obviously want our books to sell, but the quality of the work takes precedence in our process of choosing what we’ll publish.

Being independent also means, to us, that we have the opportunity to help bring attention to not just the authors we publish, but to the inventive and unusual cover artists we choose, to our up-and-coming book designers, and to other small publishers also publishing our authors or similar works. Being independent means participating in an endeavor that often feels refreshingly like more of a community and less of an economy. It's more collaborative, with lots of opportunities to seek out and promote imaginative work of all kinds rather than just competing in that space with other innovators.

To Woo or Not Too Woo... Love in Literature

... So, I wanted to have some fun with you this Valentine's Day.

You should know that I hold no stock in the whole lovey-dovey, super-sappy, roses-are-red (and also $85 a dozen) Hallmark holiday. I don't sit around the house all day giddily anticipating my hubby to come home armed with a box of fine dark chocolates, or a bottle of wine and a sparkly, rose scented card professing his undying and ever evolving love for me. I've been with my baby-daddy long enough to know that you don't need  a holiday to tell you when you should shower your honey with love. In fact, if he's still waiting on Valentine's Day as a cue to spoil you with chocolate covered strawberries and a nice night out at a sexy restaurant, at this point I'd say the love is gone and he's simply going through the motions. Am I right, Ladies?

It's such a "newbie" holiday, isn't it? In the first flush of love boy chases girl, boy asks girl out, girl accepts, boy sweats over what to get girl for Valentine's Day - a bracelet with red rubies? A heart shaped necklace? What if I go overboard? What if I don't go far enough? Is a vase full of flowers going to demonstrate just how desperately I want to get in her pants? What if she gets me a stupid stuffed tiger that purrs when you squeeze it? Or worse yet, one of those monkeys with a motion sensor that plays Wild Thing whenever you walk in front of it....!

Blogger, please!

Today, I thought I would honor Valentine's Day by demonstrating just how fucked up an individual I am. I want to celebrate all the wacky, stalky, inappropriate ways we've come to know love in literature. Because if you are anything like me, you know that "Happily Ever After" only exists in fairy tales and the minds of people who are deluding themselves. Real love, the kind that sticks around forever, has been torn apart and sewed back together, its seams are showing and there are bald patches where the fur's rubbed through. It's black and blued, and perhaps even tattooed, yet it's never worse for the wear and looks abso-fucking-lutely lovely after all of these years...

True Love Is A Tough Pill To Swallow

This is the kind of love I've always longed for. The kind that tears you up inside, the kind that leaves you on your knees, breathlessly screaming because your guts have been torn out and turned around and stuffed back inside. It's the kind that kills you softly, stinging like a razor across a vein, so beautiful that you can't even look at it for fear that the sight of it alone will stop your heart.

You can find this kind of love in...

Just about any collection of poetry by Rod McKuen. I'm serious. This guy can take a lonely diner on a terrace, a million miles from his lover, and turn it into this gut wrenching poem about how he keeps tracing her face into the tablecloth so he doesn't forget what she looks like. Or how he describes his lover's body as a roadmap that he'd like to traverse, from freckle to freckle, memorizing every hill and every valley.

Nate Slawson's Panic Attack, USA is a different sort of poetry all together. Where Rod takes simple things and makes them heartbreakingly beautiful, Nate's poetry touches you in places your mommy and daddy warned you about. How incredible is this - ""I want a nuclear tongue so I can lick dirty words into the bottom of your feet"? and  "... every morning I rasp for you..."





Not For Lack Of Trying  

This is the unrequited kind of love. The kind of love that no matter what you say, what you do, or how you do it, the object of your affection just ain't interested. So much so, in fact, that the more you attempt to do to get them to like you, the more you seem to push them away. It's the love you've always wanted, only it doesn't want you, at least not in that way.

You can find this kind of love in...

Larry Closs's Beatitude is a book that dissects love at all angles. Falling for your best friend only to realize that they are perfectly content to keep the relationship the way it's been is a tough situation to be in. How do you look them in the eye, how do you go on spending time together? This is an exceptionally well written debut novel that dissects love in all it's varied forms.





It's Better To Have Loved and Lost

This is the kind of love that leaves us, most reluctantly. The kind that you had and held, until the world thought it would be funny to rip it from your hands. The kind that breaks your heart once it's gone. The kind you may never, ever, recover from.

You can find this kind of love in...

Michael Kimball's US cuts straight into the emotional core of each moment. It tells the story of a man who's wife is slowly slipping away from him, forcing him to come to terms with the fact that one day he will awaken to her no longer being there. Its sparse sentences add to the breathless panic our narrator must be feeling over losing the one he loves the most.

Whiskey Heart demonstrates just how deep the drink can cut us. It's full of tormented characters, people who - though they want to - can't seem to figure out how to love one another properly. Sparing us the flowery detail, it allows itself to wallow in misery, it breathes out an air of inevitability and acceptance. It, too, deals with loss and the inability to recover from it, but in a much more frustrating way.





A Relationship Gone Good Gone Bad Gone Good Again

This is the kind of love that's all fucked up. You love them, you hate them, you turn into an asshole and hurt them, then you love them again. And they sit there and take it, all of it, or dish it back in their own fucked up way. It's the kind of love that you're surprised to have walked away from alive, if you end up walking away at all.

You can find this kind of love in...

Ahhh.. Termite Parade. Joshua Mohr stole my heart with this one. Have you ever gotten to the point where, knowing the relationship isn't working, knowing the effort you are putting in will never equal the effort coming back out, knowing that you will never leave them, you have finally had enough, decide to do something you ordinarily wouldn't ever do, something you know you shouldn't but you just can't help yourself, you tell yourself they deserve what they have coming, and then you just do it, without thinking about it? This is that book!

Ethan Hawke's debut novel blew me away when I first read it. Its one of those cute, heartbreaking, poor guy sort of quick reads.... I wanted to be the girl that broke this kids heart. I wanted to be the girl he pined for. I wanted to be the girl that picked up the pieces and put him all back together again.The girl that he treated like shit so i could treat him like shit back. Its everything a relationship-gone-bad-gone-good-gone-bad should be. 

Oh So Inappropriate Love

There are certain norms we follow when it comes to love, yes? And then there are deviations from those norms... strange, twisted, almost illegal deviations....

You can find this kind of love in...

The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore. Oh this book is wrong on so many levels. But it never once stopped me from wanting to turn the page. It's avery well written, thought-inspiring take on what it is to be human, what it was to be an ape, and what happens when one attempts to become the other. And yes, there are some sexy-times scenes that I still cannot bleach from my brain. 

Lethem had a lot of fun writing this one, I can tell. As She Climbed Across the Table is the story of Philip, Alice, and Lack. Its sort of a love triangle, of sorts. Philip and Alice were a couple. Alice meets Lack, a void with a personality, and falls in love with him. Philip wont let Alice go, Alice cant let Lack go, yet Lack doesnt want Alice. Get ready for science to blow you... away.


So now that I've shared mine, what books do you think of when you think about love?

Audioreview: The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

Listened 1/29/12 - 2/9/12
4.5 Stars - Highly Recommended to readers who don't let a little switcheroo at the end ruin the whole kit and kaboodle
10 cd's (approx 11 hrs)
Publisher: AudioGo

Who says a book about a severely depressed main character can't be funny? Jonathan Coe's The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim will make you laugh out loud at the most inappropriate moments! Of course, I cant speak for the print version, since I listened to this on cd in my car during my commutes to and from work, but AudioGo's narrator Colin Buchanan  had me in stitches more than a few times with his impeccable timing, cheeky sarcasm, and undisguised naivety.

The story, if you look at it strictly from a plot standpoint, is really quite sad: Maxwell Sim had an incredibly difficult time coping with the fact that his wife and daughter up and left him. Taking leave from his job at the department store, he fell into a horribly deep depression. 6 months later, he gets an email notification that his ex-wife bought him a plane ticket to visit his estranged father out in Australia. So he goes.

On the final day of his visit, while eating alone at a local diner, Maxwell notices a Chinese lady and her daughter playing cards at a table across the terrace and is suddenly painfully envious of their relationship. As he boards the plane home, acutely aware of the feelings that this woman and her daughter ignited within him, he desperately needs to talk to someone. It's been so long since he's had an actual conversation ... and he's itching to unburden himself of the past 6 months of loneliness. And when a man takes the seat beside him, as the plane begins to taxi, that is exactly what Maxwell does. He talks non-stop for a good portion of the flight to Charlie, his seat-mate, unburdening himself of all of his fears and fantasies and of the horrible divorce and the depression he's suffered. It all comes pouring out of him, and he feels such a sense of relief... until the stewardess interrupts his soliloquy to inform him that Charlie, the man to which he has been spilling his guts to, appears to have taken a heart attack and died beside him.

And this, my friends, begins the incredibly amazing, sometimes hilarious, slightly unreal story of Maxwell Sim. A man who, suddenly manic with a panic to talk, falls head over heels in love with every woman he comes into contact with - the young junior adultery facilitator (whose name escapes me) he strikes up conversation with in the airport cafe during a layover on his trip home; Lindsay, the creative half behind the toothbrush company he decides he travel to the Shetland Islands for in order to help his buddy's business take off; and most pathetically, "Emma", his trusty, non judgmental GPS system. Oh yes, you heard me. He falls in love with his GPS system's voice. A tragic, hopeless romantic who hasn't quite discovered how to completely pull himself out of his depressive cycle of self-loathing, Maxwell proves to be one of the most sympathetic characters I can recall ever reading. Your heart will bleed for this poor ole sap who can't seem to get his relationships right.

The book contains some additional side-stories which are introduced to us in the form of letters and short stories written to or by some of the other characters that Maxwell happens across throughout his travels. They were initially distracting, pulling us away from Maxwell and thrusting us into the trials and tribulations of solo-sailor and suicidal Donald Crowhurst, or the fucked-up relationship between a young Harold Sim (Max's dad) and his friend Rodger, or the story of The Nettle Pit which was written by his ex-wife, outlining a painful moment buried in Maxwell's past. But over time, the author begins to weave elements of each throughout Maxwell's journey, and we suddenly begin to appreciate the fact that we didn't skim over (or completely skip) those portions of the book. They do come to hold incredible meaning for Max, and for us, too, as the reader.

The book delicately navigates the slippery slope of uncomfortable and unattractive human emotions - loneliness, suicidal depression, jealousy, self hatred - in a tender and ticklish way. Yes, the situations Maxwell find himself in are sometimes quite cartoonish, but the author has his reasons for that. Which brings me to the book's somewhat aggravating ending.

See, there was a point in the book where Max finds himself stranded in his car, in the middle of a snowstorm with very little gas left and only his GPS for company. He was sliding back into a deep depression, on the verge of a very humiliating breakdown.. and it was quite an impressive scene. It had this sense of finality to it... you know? Like we were all sitting on the cusp of something huge, like we were holding our collective breath for a long, long moment, terrified of breaking the beauty of the moment... and then I noticed that there was still a disc and a half to go. What the wha? How could there still be a disc and half to go when it felt like the ending should be right here, right now?

What followed after that was something quite different than I had anticipated. There were some awkward twists and turns, and things were unnecessarily tied a wee bit too tightly into neat and pretty bows. I had wanted my heart to break, and what I ended up with was an ending that came completely out of left field - it was unexpected and unwanted. I wanted to ask the author for my time back. I felt cheated. I felt like Coe had run out of ideas. Like he thought... Oh Shit, I've let this thing go on too far, I've gotta wrap it up now.

Now that I have put some time between me and the story, and discussed the ending - albeit briefly - with an author friend who had read the book, I feel a little better about it. I'm not saying I accept it. I still believe the author missed his opportunity back there with Maxwell freezing to death in the car, pleading with "Emma" the GPS navigator not to leave him as the car battery died... he was so close to making this a #nextbestbook. Oh well...

Do yourself a favor though. When you do pick this up, and you really should pick this up, make sure to listen to it on Audio. Trust me! You won't regret it.

Indie Book Buzz: Rose Metal Press

It's a great day for some Indie Book Buzz here at TNBBC. Over the next few weeks, we will be inviting members of the indie publishing houses to share which of their upcoming 2012 releases they are most excited about!

This week's pick come from Rose Metal Press co-founders

Abigail and Kathleen

I Take Back the Sponge Cake: A Lyrical Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

By Loren Erdrich and Sierra Nelson

(February 29, 2012)

I Take Back the Sponge Cake is a choose-your-own-adventure collaboration between poet Sierra Nelson and visual artist Loren Erdrich. Each turn of the page features an ink and watercolor drawing, a poem, and a choice between two sound-alike words that create a variety of paths through the book. The adventure always begins in the same place, but depending on your choices your reading experience moves by emotional meander—leaping, looping, and surprising until it finally reaches one of the possible endings. With its blend of words, artwork, and audience participation, I Take Back the Sponge Cake is a triple threat.

“Erdrich and Nelson's collaboration is a delight. There's a perfect amount of distance between the poems and the images in this book—enough to allow for the snap of connection and the fizz of dissonance. Their lyrical choose-your-own-adventure invention asks you to choose between homophones to complete a given sentence, creating a surprising portrait of your own disposition at the same time that it produces multiple pathways to the book’s splendid endings.”—Matthea Harvey, author of Of Lamb and Modern Life

Bios:

Abigail Beckel, co-founder and publisher of Rose Metal Press, has worked professionally in the publishing industry for more than 11 years. She is also a published poet.

Kathleen Rooney, co-founder and editor of Rose Metal Press, is the author, most recently, of the essay collection For You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs (Counterpoint, 2010). Her second solo poetry collection, Robinson Alone, will be published in Fall 2012 by Gold Wake Press. 

So what do you think guys? Doesn't that book sound all sorts of awesome? Help TNBBC and Rose Metal Press spread the buzz about this book by sharing this post with others!

INdie Book Buzz: Curbside Splendor

It's the return of the Indie Book Buzz here at TNBBC. Over the next few weeks, we will be inviting members of the indie publishing houses to share which of their upcoming 2012 releases they are most excited about!

This week's pick come from Ben Tanzer,

friend of Curbside Splendor

Chicago Stories: 40 Dramatic Fictions by Michael Czyzniejewski 
(April 2012)

I should be clear that I am uniquely biased in my great affection for Chicago Stories: 40 Dramatic Fictions by Michael Czyzniejewski the new release from Curbside Splendor. Czyzniejewski is a beautiful writer full of wit and charm, and with this collection he has not only written with great verve and flash, but he has written about any number of disparate Chicago characters whose stories you cannot help but lose yourself in because like all great writers Czyzniejewski has made it so. And then there are Rob Funderburk's illustrations, revved-up with joy and nuance, and somehow propelling these stories even farther off of the page and into your brain than they were already able to do all by themselves. No easy task that, and yet, here we are.

But while all of this is true, as true as the more recent Mayor Daley's ability to mangle syntax in a singular fashion unseen since at least his late father's reign, what I am most excited about when it comes to this book, is that as a former East Coaster and Left, and as someone who never spent any time in Chicago, much less the Midwest until moving here, I am now constantly amazed, and re-amazed, that people who don't live here can still show-up and be amazed themselves at just how wonderful Chicago is. How can't they know that already? Where have they been and what have they been doing with themselves that this wasn't already as self-evident as the fact that there was no way President Obama couldn't help but break our hearts? I can't answer this, but I don't need to, because the Chicago Stories will clear up any confusion post haste and hence forth. 

Bio:
Ben Tanzer is the author of the books 99 Problems, You Can Make Him Like You, My Father's House and So Different Now among others. Ben also oversees day to day operations of This Zine Will Change Your Life and can be found online at This Blog Will Change Your Life the center of his vast, albeit faux media empire.

So what do you think guys? See anything that catches your eye? Which of these books are you most excited to see release? Help TNBBC and Curbside Splendor spread the buzz about these books by sharing this post with others!

Book Giveaway: Banned For Life

I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that TNBBC is able to offer you this next novel

as part of our Author/Reader Discussion series!!

World, I give you 

D.R. Haney's 2009 debut novel Banned for Life

In order to stimulate discussion

We will be giving away 20 (yes, you read that right) copies of his novel. 

*This giveaway will be opened internationally for 3 copies*

Here's the Goodreads description:

"For almost two decades, rumors have swirled around Jim Cassady, the quasi-legendary punk-rock frontman who disappeared without a trace after his girlfriend’s apparent suicide. Though largely written off as dead, some claim to have had brushes with Cassady, now said to be homeless and bumming change on the streets of his native Los Angeles. Intrigued, Jason Maddox, a would-be filmmaker and Cassady fan, decides to investigate. But the man he eventually finds and befriends is damaged in ways he could never have imagined, and Jason’s own life begins to unravel as he tries to save the hapless Jim Cassady from himself. A mystery wrapped in a rollercoaster account of the American pop-culture underbelly, Banned for Life has been cited as a "cult-favorite" by the New York Journal of Books, with a reputation that continues to expand."

Here's my description (and why I am so excited to share it with you!):

"Every once in a while, I read a book that I think everyone else should read. A book that lovers of all genres can enjoy. A book that I wish I could buy for every single non-reader out there to prove to them what they are missing. [Banned for Life] is one of those books...once I started, I knew I was not going to want it to end. It called to me every time I put it down. It begged. It screamed. I savored every moment of it, and I dreaded reading that final sentence." 

This contest will run through February 8th.

Winners will be announced here and via email on February 9th.

Here's how to enter:

 1 - The narrator in this book has his life changed by a song. Comment here by telling us about a time when your life was changed by a song, or a concert, or an artist.

2 - State that you agree to participate in the group read book discussion that will run for the entire month of March over at TNBBC on Goodreads. D.R. Haney has agreed to participate in the discussion and will be available to answer any questions you may have for him. 

 *If you are chosen as a winner, by accepting the copy you are agreeing to read the book and join the group discussion at TNBBC on Goodreads (the thread for the discussion will be emailed to you before March 1st). 

 3 - You must leave me a way to contact you (email is preferred). AND tell me if you are international or a resident of the US!!!!

Good luck!

Review: Spaceman Blues - A Love Song

Read 1/24/12 - 1/29/12
3 Stars - Recommended to readers who like their sci-fi a little more literary
Pgs: 219
Publisher: Tor

A man who managed to turn New York City against him suddenly disappears. His lover decides to find out where he went. Tracking him down will prove to be the biggest challenge of his life... if he manages to survive it.

Spaceman Blues is not your typical "aliens come to take over the world" story. Don't get me wrong, once you hit the end of the book, there is some of that. There are no little green men with anal probes who beam screaming humans up into their ships - although there are 4 Horsemen donning raincoats who fly around NYC on hovercraft-type machines, demolishing people and buildings with their guns of green light.

Forget the aliens for a moment, though. This is really a book about Manuel, who has gone missing, and his boyfriend Wendell, who is willing to go through just about anything to uncover what's happened to his "baby". And yet, it goes even deeper than that, doesn't it? It seems to be saying something profound about our ability to persevere and endure under the most trying of situations; our refusal to give up in the face of failure and defeat; our need to stand up against the unknown...

Ooooor, it could just simply be trying to tell us that bloody cockfights, underground cities, religious cults, unidentifiable dead bodies found floating in the river, and alien assassins are fucking awesome and I'm just reading too much into it.

Brian Francis Slattery winds his tricky and twisty prose around your head, filling it with momentary explosions and bright burning lights to confuse and disorient you. Because, truthfully, sometimes Spaceman Blues really does confuse and disorient you. But no worries, because once the smoke dissipates and the fires die down, you'll quickly find the trail back to our Spaceman hero Wendell. Just sit tight, breathe through it, and all will be well in the world. Well, unless, you know, you've awoken the wraith of an alien race and continue to test their patience...

Audioreview: Couch

Listened 1/9/12 - 1/27/12
3.5 Stars - Strongly Recommended to readers who like a little bizarro mixed into their fiction
Audio download (approx 11hrs)
Publisher: Iambik Audio / Small Beer Press

This was a book that had been sitting on my goodreads to-buy shelf for over a year, so I was thrilled to see it on Iambik Audio's website. I immediately downloaded a review copy on my Droid, and started listening on my commute to and from work.

First thing worth noting: Couch's Iambik narrator, Gregg Margarite, has an impossibly deep, grumbly voice. So deep, in fact, that I had to drop the bass on my car speakers to -10 to be able to decipher just what this guy was saying! He also has a very awkward "fake" laugh, but that is neither here nor there. These are things you will get used to.

Second thing worth noting: Once you start this book, no matter how silly and strange it gets, there is just no stopping until you reach the end. And boy oh boy, do things sometimes take a turn for the strange...

Couch begins with three unemployed roommates who are forced out of their flooded apartment. Rather than freak out about it, they decide to pool their limited funds together and go on a vacation. Only their landlord throws a bit of a wrench into their plans - they have to take their couch with them. Unhappy but unphased by this odd request, they carry the couch out onto the street with the intention of dropping it off at the nearest Goodwill. However, the couch has another destination in mind. As Thom, Eric, and Tree start trudging it down the sidewalk, the couch begins to grow incredibly heavy. Confused, and not quite believing what they just felt, the three turn around and carry it the other way. Sure as shit, after a few steps, the couch becomes lighter.

Now at the mercy of their seemingly magic (or perhaps possessed?) couch, our three friends reluctantly let it lead them on the journey of a lifetime... across states, across rivers and oceans, into uncharted foreign jungles... all the while being chased by people who want the couch for themselves, and will go to great lengths to get it.

An immensely fun book, Couch never takes itself too seriously. Prophetic dreams, wacky legends, and a secret council of anonymous couch protectors... It will ask you to suspend your disbelief, " If you fall asleep on the couch, it turns you near-comatose?" and ask you to suspend it some more, "The couch can float on the ocean and can't be damaged?"... again and again. No matter how much weird shit it throws at you, no matter how often you find yourself saying "oh, come oooon!",  I guarantee you won't be able to stop until you find out just what the heck is up with that damn couch!

Couch is the first novel that I've consciously experienced in Third Person Limited, or Close Third Person. The author lives mostly on the shoulder of Thom  - our oversized, recently dumped, computer geek - so, even though we are exposed to Eric and Tree's point of views, we are extremely privy to Thom's thoughts and feelings (though there is one part in the book where the close narration does switch, briefly yet clumsily, from Thom to Eric). For as much as this narration style initially distracted me, it's actually - strangely - a good fit for the story.

As is Gregg. Deep voice aside, he has this odd accent that's part Californian slacker, part hippy-burnout. And while he wouldn't be my first choice for an audiobook narrator, his voice has this slightly bored, resigned quality to it that slowly grows on you and seems to become its own character within the book.

Couch is most definitely for readers who like their fiction a little loose. It toys with you, it plays with the rules, twisting them little by little, and before you know it you are knee deep in it and desperate to know how it's all going to end.

Have you listened to Iambik before? It's a great source for indie literature on audio and it comes at a great price too. Check it out...

The Larry Closs Blog Tour: Wrap-Up

Have you enjoyed our week full of Larry-centric blog posts? Have you gained some new insight into the mind of this amazing author? Have you marked Beatitude as To Buy and To Read on your goodreads shelves, or better yet, gone out to purchase a copy for yourself? If you answered yes to each of those questions, our jobs here are done!


If you haven't been following the tour, and wish to see it in its entirety, this is your chance to catch up:


Day 1 hosted by yours truly - Larry defined what "Being Indie" means to him
Day 2 hosted by Emmet (..I Can Stay)- posted a review of Beatitude
Day 3 hosted by Mandy (MandytheBookworm's Blog) - guest post by Larry on how The Beats did and didn't inspire Beatitude
Day 4 hosted by Patrick (the Literate Man) - an interview w/ Larry on men and literature among The Beats and Today.
Day 5 hosted by Jenn (the Picky Girl) - an instagram photo tour of Beatitude by Larry
Day 6 hosted by Erica (BookedinChico) - an personal essay by Larry about New York City
Day 7 hosted by Tara (BookSexyReview) - an interview revolving around the book, the Beats, and the Ginsberg poems.


Throughout the tour, we are shown - post after post - that Beatitude is so much more than just a novel. It's a lifestyle, it's New York, it's a living breathing thing that you can connect with on multiple levels. 


I want to thank the awesome bloggers who participated in this week's tour. Without them, this tour would not have been possible. They are among the best out there, and I truly appreciate the time and effort they put in over the past month to prepare for this week! 


I also want to thank Larry - the author, the photographer, the New Yorker - who was willing to go along with us for the ride. He worked so hard behind the scenes to compose guest posts and respond to interviews, and sent us the amazing blog tour icon. 


And of course, thanks to everyone who followed us day after day during the tour, sharing the links and spreading the word!

Review: Taft 2012

Read 1/15/12 - 1/23/12
4 Stars - Strongly Recommended
Pgs: 249
Publisher: Quirk Books 


Think a fictional book featuring a political figure just isn't your bag? Think again! Jason Heller smacks the White House on its ass and makes it his little bitch in his recently released debut novel Taft 2012.

This sweet little satire starts with Taft's unexplained appearance on the muddy White House lawn in 2011, where he seems to have just awakened from a 100 year deep sleep. After multiple tests confirm that this is indeed our twenty-seventh president returned intact and unaged from god-only-knows-where, Taft is reluctantly ushered into the twenty-first century - wireless telephones, airplanes, social media, state of the economy, Twinkies, and electronic golfing. Once the public catches whiff of Taft's presence, he soon feels the familiar rush of celebrity.  Die hard supporters quickly create The Taft Party - nostalgic for the way things used to be, for the old, honest, American values - in the hopes of pushing "Big Bill"  into the presidential elections once again.

The book is made even sweeter by short chapters paired with creative news and media coverage in the form of TV transcripts, news articles, book excerpts, secret service entries, and even a fictional @taft2012 twitter stream. It helps that Jason wrote William Howard Taft as this immensely lovable, slightly bewildered man who simply cannot understand the sway he still holds over the public, 100 years later. I mean, how often do you read about a character you kinda wish you could have met in real life, right? Taft felt real and down to earth while still managing to exude this sense of worldliness about him. I would love to snag a cup of coffee with the guy and pick his brain on the pros and cons of America then and now.

A political premise with some sci-fi thrown in for fun... Taft 2012 is a cleverly enjoyable, never gimmicky, read for readers of the left wing, right wing, and no-wing persuasion alike. It's an equal opportunity novel and I recommend you pick it up and give it a whirl. If you manage to grab a copy soon, you might still catch the man behind Taft 2012 in the Author/Reader Discussion taking place right now over at TNBBC. If you're unsure, why not hop on over to the discussion now and see what our readers are saying about it?

Still not enough for you? How bout feasting your eyes on these book trailers?





Did I mention how extremely timely the novel is? With the new presidential hoopla going on in the "right here and now", how can you NOT want to read this book? And with all the #ows and #sopa news, why not consider the potential old school, back to basics mentality that only a 150 year old president could bring to the table?

For more info on the book, you can listen to Jason Heller speaking to the book on Twenty-Twelve and also on this NPR interview . And check out this Taft 2012 Campaign website to whet your appetite even more.