Archive for the ‘Book Reviews’ Category
A Review of Houellebecq’s The Map and the Territory
Posted by: L.V. Lopez on: February 16, 2012
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Admittedly, I knew very little about Michel Houellebecq (pronounced “well-beck”) before I read this novel. I knew he was the main inspiration for Iggy Pop’s underrated 2009 album Preliminaires. I knew he has been criticized for being an intense misogynist and racist. But then again, so was Henry Miller, so I let that slide. I [...]
Queen of Fats – A Review of Tom Mueller, Extra Virginity
Posted by: Keith Meatto on: January 30, 2012
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Every cook knows olive oil is essential. For Tom Mueller, it’s the lifeblood of Western Civilization. In Extra Virginity, his lively, earnest, exhaustive, and sometime exhausting debut, Mueller discovers oil not only as food, but as fuel, lubricant, medicine, skin care, perfume, aphrodisiac, religious symbol, and way of life. In the words of one aficionado, [...]
West of Eden – A Review of Ingo Schulze, Adam and Evelyn
Posted by: Keith Meatto on: January 18, 2012
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The latest Ingo Schulze novel is an odd hybrid of sex comedy, road trip, and existential thriller. In Adam and Evelyn, the original sin occurs when an East German tailor named Adam sleeps with a female client. His girlfriend Evelyn catches him with his pants down, then flees to Hungary with a friend and her [...]
Space Cowboy – A Review of Ben Mezrich, Sex on the Moon
Posted by: Keith Meatto on: January 16, 2012
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Ben Mezrich has chronicled the high-stakes shenanigans of shady students at elite educational institutions for nearly a decade. His best-sellers include: Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions; Ugly Americans: The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions; and [...]
Bolaño’s Blog of B-Sides: A Review of Between Parentheses
Posted by: Keith Meatto on: January 9, 2012
- In: Book Reviews | Books
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Roberto Bolaño is best known for his epic novels The Savage Detectives and 2666, which were translated from Spanish into English to wide acclaim after his death in 2003. In the final years of his life, in poor health and laboring to finish 2666, the indefatigable Bolaño wrote a series of columns for newspapers in [...]
Our Dreams are Corporate Owned
Posted by: L.V. Lopez on: January 4, 2012
In 2009, Marvel Comics was aquired by Disney. DC Comics has been owned by Time-Warner since 1967. In other words, Superman is a corporate trademark. As is Batman, Wonder Woman, Spiderman, Wolverine and practically any other superhero the average person can bring to mind. It is fitting, perhaps. Comic Books are a uniquely American invention, [...]
War Games – A Review of Roberto Bolaño, The Third Reich
Posted by: Keith Meatto on: January 3, 2012
- In: Book Reviews | Books
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To read Roberto Bolaño is to enter a world of poetry and violence, where fantasy meets the mundane and writing is a matter of life and death. Since he died in 2003, sixteen of his books, notably the epic novels The Savage Detectives and 2666, have been translated into English. The latest, The Third [...]
The 10 Best Poetry Books of 2011
Posted by: Keith Meatto on: December 21, 2011
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[Our resident poet Jeffery Berg shares his favorite poetry collections of 2011] 10. Lauren Berry, The Lifting Dress A very strong debut. Berry’s Southern Gothic poems are unsettling, beautiful, and mysterious. 9. Nikky Finney, Head Off & Split I’m in awe by the electricity and inventiveness of this collection which pays tribute to the American forgotten and [...]
The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2011
Posted by: Keith Meatto on: December 20, 2011
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In the latest Ali Smith novel, a precocious 10-year-old girl asks: “If a story isn’t a fact, but it is a made up version of what happened…what is the point of it?” Her conversational companion, an eccentric middle-aged man, replies: “Think how quiet a book is on a shelf, just sitting there unopened. Then think [...]
The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2011
Posted by: Keith Meatto on: December 19, 2011
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2011 was the first year in which I read more new nonfiction than new fiction: the 10 books below are the best of the bunch. As with albums and songs, declaring the year’s best books is a subjective enterprise, with the added complication that it takes longer to read a book than to listen to [...]
