Friday, June 06, 2003
A reader wanted to know more about some of the authors on the Events List at Readerville.com. I put together a quick description of the writers I could recommend from the list. Thought others might be interested (Reminder - books purchased from BookSense.com through links from AnthemBooks.com help support independent bookselling and our efforts to promote independent bookstores)...
Mark Dunn wrote a quirky book called "Ella Minnow Pea" (say it three times fast). It's about a town that worships letters and a sentence that uses all 26 letters of the alphabet. The town get a litte nuts when their famous sign loses a letter...the town council decides it's a sign that they aren't supposed to use that letter anymore either. All is fine until the sign loses a second letter. The fun part is the author also stops using each letter as it falls from the sign. Picture Orwell's 1984 with more laughs.
Ella Minnow Pea at BookSense.com
Anthony Bourdain wrote "Kitchen Confidential." He is a NYC chef who turned his career into a tight story of what it's like back in the kitchen of serious restaurants. This got a lot of press because, like a magician gone bad, he gives away a lot of trade secrets. You'll never eat in a restaurant again without thinking about this book. (he's also written a few edgy mysteries set in the food world.)
Kitchen Confidential
Tracy Chevalier wrote "Girl with a Pearl Earring", not to be confused with Susan Vreeland's "Girl in Hyacinth Blue."
Charles Baxter is an underrated fiction writer who hasn't broken out into the mainstream yet. I can't tell if he likes it that way, or just hasn't hit the home run yet. I deeply enjoyed his "Feast of Love", a remaking of Midsummer Night's Dream set in a contemporary Ann Arbor of criss-crossing relationships, young love, breaking up, and meandering through life trying to find the right path.
Feast of Love
Neil Gaiman is big in Science fiction and comic book circles, though his writing is dark and imaginative enough to draw comparisons to Poe. He wrote the acclaimed Sandman series of graphic novels and won a Nebula award for his novel, "American Gods." I'd start with either AG or his earlier "Neverwhere."
American Gods
Neverwhere
Jonathan Carroll is another underrated writer who has a big cult following. If you like books heavy on imagination and light on Carver-esque realism, then this is your guy. You never know where a Carroll sentence is going to take you. A paragraph will start in a quiet cafe sipping coffee and three sentences later you're flying through space and time wondering if the main character is alive, dead, or just listening to Jimi Hendrix. I love it.
The Wooden Sea
Philip Pullman is the CS Lewis, the JRR Tolkien, and the modern wizard of fiction on this list. His trilogy that begins with "The Golden Compass" is going to be a classic on the level with Narnia and the Lord of the Rings. Yes, it's that good. I couldn't sleep for a week when I read these. If the Christian right ever discovered these books, they'd stop trying to ban Harry Potter and mount a crusade against Pullman.
The Golden Compass
Myla Goldberg's "Bee Season" is a fun take on the daughter who wants to make her father happy story. The main character isn't real good at school until she discovers a proclivity for spelling bees. Her father's love escalates as the older brother, who used to be the smart one of the family, dives off the deep end into increasingly more bizarre behaviour. Goldberg could be a writer to watch. We'll see what she conjures in future books. (Speaking of up and coming, read Thisbe Nissen's "Out of the Girls' Room and Into the Night" - amazing stories for teen girls and up - this writer is gonna be great!!)
Bee Season
Out of the Girls' Room and Into the Night
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Mark Dunn wrote a quirky book called "Ella Minnow Pea" (say it three times fast). It's about a town that worships letters and a sentence that uses all 26 letters of the alphabet. The town get a litte nuts when their famous sign loses a letter...the town council decides it's a sign that they aren't supposed to use that letter anymore either. All is fine until the sign loses a second letter. The fun part is the author also stops using each letter as it falls from the sign. Picture Orwell's 1984 with more laughs.
Ella Minnow Pea at BookSense.com
Anthony Bourdain wrote "Kitchen Confidential." He is a NYC chef who turned his career into a tight story of what it's like back in the kitchen of serious restaurants. This got a lot of press because, like a magician gone bad, he gives away a lot of trade secrets. You'll never eat in a restaurant again without thinking about this book. (he's also written a few edgy mysteries set in the food world.)
Kitchen Confidential
Tracy Chevalier wrote "Girl with a Pearl Earring", not to be confused with Susan Vreeland's "Girl in Hyacinth Blue."
Charles Baxter is an underrated fiction writer who hasn't broken out into the mainstream yet. I can't tell if he likes it that way, or just hasn't hit the home run yet. I deeply enjoyed his "Feast of Love", a remaking of Midsummer Night's Dream set in a contemporary Ann Arbor of criss-crossing relationships, young love, breaking up, and meandering through life trying to find the right path.
Feast of Love
Neil Gaiman is big in Science fiction and comic book circles, though his writing is dark and imaginative enough to draw comparisons to Poe. He wrote the acclaimed Sandman series of graphic novels and won a Nebula award for his novel, "American Gods." I'd start with either AG or his earlier "Neverwhere."
American Gods
Neverwhere
Jonathan Carroll is another underrated writer who has a big cult following. If you like books heavy on imagination and light on Carver-esque realism, then this is your guy. You never know where a Carroll sentence is going to take you. A paragraph will start in a quiet cafe sipping coffee and three sentences later you're flying through space and time wondering if the main character is alive, dead, or just listening to Jimi Hendrix. I love it.
The Wooden Sea
Philip Pullman is the CS Lewis, the JRR Tolkien, and the modern wizard of fiction on this list. His trilogy that begins with "The Golden Compass" is going to be a classic on the level with Narnia and the Lord of the Rings. Yes, it's that good. I couldn't sleep for a week when I read these. If the Christian right ever discovered these books, they'd stop trying to ban Harry Potter and mount a crusade against Pullman.
The Golden Compass
Myla Goldberg's "Bee Season" is a fun take on the daughter who wants to make her father happy story. The main character isn't real good at school until she discovers a proclivity for spelling bees. Her father's love escalates as the older brother, who used to be the smart one of the family, dives off the deep end into increasingly more bizarre behaviour. Goldberg could be a writer to watch. We'll see what she conjures in future books. (Speaking of up and coming, read Thisbe Nissen's "Out of the Girls' Room and Into the Night" - amazing stories for teen girls and up - this writer is gonna be great!!)
Bee Season
Out of the Girls' Room and Into the Night
