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Recommended
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THE NOVEL:
City of Thieves by David Benioff
As simple a plot as you’ll ever come across: two very young men set out together to find a dozen eggs. That’s it; that’s all. Except they must find them in Leningrad, at the height of the Nazi siege, while dodging bombs, artillery, and cannibals. I listened to Ron Perlman’s superb reading of this one, and was completely wrapped up in it for a week. Some books are good for you, and some books are fun, but the blessed ones are both.
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THE SHORT STORY:
“Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned” by Wells Tower
From the collection of the same name. You haven’t read one like this, lately – a story of loneliness and longing among filthy Vikings out on a 5th century killing spree. The funniest story I’ve read all year, and the most original, and certainly the most gruesome (you’ll never forget the blood eagle), “Ravaged” defines what I think is best about short fiction: the impossible-to-underestimate power of the form to provoke and surprise.
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NON-FICTION:
James Tiptree, jr. by Julie Phillips
James Tiptree jr. was actually the pen name of Alice Sheldon, and in the early 70s (s)he rocked the world of science fiction with a parade of brilliant, mind-bending short stories, before her true identity was finally exposed. I was deeply moved by this wise, careful examination of Sheldon’s life-long battle with suicidal depression and gender confusion, her ballsy triumphs as a writer, and her appalling end. I recommend it in the strongest terms, but this is not one for people who like happy wrap-ups.
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THE ESSAY:
“The Wilderness of Childhood” by Michael Chabon
Chabon’s new collection of essays, Manhood for Amateurs, is so uniformly witty and emotionally generous, it’s hard to pick a favorite. But when he writes about the freedoms he knew as a child, freedoms his own children are denied, I found myself nodding my head and grabbing for a pen to start underlining stuff. I do think that in the name of keeping our children safe and occupied, my generation has come perilously close to denying them the chance to be children at all.
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THE SONG:
“Doomsday” – Elvis Perkins in Dearland
Could be the cheeriest song about the end of the world ever.
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THE ALBUM:
Dear Lover – Matthew Ryan
Here’s a disc that contains about all the frustration, desire, and hope that’s legally allowed on a modern rock album. Matthew Ryan has recorded a decade of emotionally authentic and meticulously crafted music, culminating in last year’s remarkable Matthew Ryan vs. the Silver State. That disc felt like the final chapter of the first part of his career, while this one - which rushes breathlessly from ragged-ass howlers to steely late night electronica – feels like the first chapter of something new and daring. Go try a couple cuts and see if you agree.
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THE COMIC:
Criminal: The Sinners – w. Ed Brubaker/a. Sean Phillips
I guess the team of Brubaker-and-Phillips is the best thing going in comics right now. I know I read everything they do, the day it comes out, sometimes sitting in the car parked in front of the comic store, because I don’t feel like waiting until I get home. And no, I’m not just saying that because I have a cameo in the first issue of Sinners as a hoor-loving dirty cop who gets shot to death, then kicked around the street by a pack of snot-nose little kids.
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THE GAME:
Dark Nebula (Episode One)
There’s going to come a time when people look back with the soft affection of nostalgia on a few of the first iPhone games, in the same way scifi nerds of my generation get cozy feelings remembering Tron and The Last Starfighter. And I’d contend that along with Pocket God and Doodlejump, Dark Nebula is going to be one of the remembered and loved guilty pleasures, for pulling off something I would’ve thought impossible: making an addictive ball-rolling game that, at the same time, tells a fascinating if somewhat enigmatic story. Throw in haunting music, great sound, and the promise of more episodes to come, and you’ve got a game that’s worth every dull penny of its insignificant .99 price tag.
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THE MOVIE:
Paranormal Activity
CGI isn’t scary. Human beings are, something which Paranormal Activity demonstrates with quiet, skillful force in the process of out-Witching The Blair Witch Project. For generating real terror, nothing matches the shock of waking up at 3AM and finding a loved one standing over you, blank-faced and silent, just… looking at you. And while there are plenty of satisfying supernatural chills in PA, in the end, it derives its best and most potent scares not by what it shows, but by what it doesn’t
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THE TWITTERFEED :
@shitmydadsays
Essential collection of grumpy, profane, old dude one-liners.
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ANTICIPATED PLEASURE:
The Men Who Stare At Goats
The only thing wrong with this is that the Coen brothers didn’t direct it. But they can’t direct everything.
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| RECENT AND RECOMMENDED ARCHIVE |
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ALL TIME FAVORITES
So here are the books that made me want to write, the books I care most about in the world, the ones that have cut the deepest grooves in my own personal interior landscape. My tastes are nothing if not embarrassingly mainstream – most of these stories are well-known and well-loved and for good reason. If there’s anything here you haven’t read, you’re missing out. |
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The Collector by John Fowles.
The Silence of the Lambs was an irresistible pop thriller, but what few people know is that Thomas Harris’ masterwork was a conscious reimagining of The Collector, a novel about a repressed psychotic and the girl he kidnaps and keeps in his basement. The Collector is impossible to put down and yet so harrowing it’s also almost impossible to finish. |
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The House With A Clock In Its Walls by John Bellairs.
What The Collector is to The Silence of the Lambs, The House With A Clock In Its Walls is to Harry Potter. I’m not taking anything away from J.K. Rowling – the Harry Potter novels are, as far as I’m concerned, the most pure fun I’ve had reading anything in the last couple years – but The House With A Clock In Its Walls is the masterpiece of fantasy she hasn’t written yet. |
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The Dead Zone by Stephen King.
The Green Mile covers a lot of the same territory, emotionally and thematically, and does it with a grace and technical aplomb that’s missing in The Dead Zone. Nevertheless, The Dead Zone is one of the finest stories of the supernatural ever written, and certainly one of the most moving. Johnny Smith is King’s most compulsively likable protagonist, and John’s Rip-Van-Winkle-crossed-with-Lee-Harvey-Oswald odyssey is the stuff of both great tragedy and great popular fiction. |
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The Fixer by Bernard Malamud.
The Fixer tells the story of a lonely and troubled Jewish carpenter, who finds himself imprisoned in a turn of the century Russian gulag, accused of everything from murder to drinking the blood of Christian children. I’m not Jewish, I’ve never been closer to Moscow than London, and I’ve never been in jail; there was no reason for this book to connect with me like it did. Except: it did. And it will with you, because above all it is an overpowering work of suspense, the kind of thing that will grab you and hold you, through the sheer power of the writing and the situation, from almost the first sentence to the last. |
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Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. “Well,†says Gus McCrae on page 4,365 of this approximately ten-thousand page western. “This looks like a good place to stop and watch the cows shit.†Actually Lonesome Dove is only a thousand pages long, and I loved every one of them. This novel contains gunfights, sandstorms, gang rape, a horrifying little anecdote about a boy being bitten to death by a nest of water moccasins, ghosts, magic and visions, whole families murdered and their bodies strung up and burned for fun, horse thieves, herds of electrified longhorns, a villain of breathtaking savagery, several heroes (also of breathtaking savagery), and finally, the friendship of two hard, imperfect, tragedy-haunted men. It’s also frequently hilarious. Anything you think you want from a story is in here somewhere. Not since Huckleberry Finn has anyone written so well about friendship; or, as far as that goes, about America. |
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| Rounding out my personal top-ten are these five other masterpieces: |
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The Lord of the Flies by William Golding |
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Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck |
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The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, vol. 1 by Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill |
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Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury |
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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. |
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