Dan’l Taylor For Words Press ($17.75) by Don Messerschmidt Books on contemporary Tibet tend either to extol the virtues of Tibetan Buddhism, often with special attention to the Dalai Lama in exile; or they are traveler’s tales, sometimes salted with exotic, other-worldly happenings; or they have a political agenda questioning the nature of Chinese suzerainty […]
Martin Solares translated by Aura Estrada and John Pluecker Black Cat ($14) by Scott Bryan Wilson On the first page of Martin Solares’s debut novel, The Black Minutes, the question is posed: “Isn’t it true that in the life of every man there are five black minutes?” What follows, before that question is explored in detail […]
Joseph Mattson music by Six Organs of Admittance A Barnacle Book & Record ($15) by Andy Stewart Haunted by a dream of God—armed with a bottle of rye, a sawed off shotgun, and his neighbor’s dead body in the trunk—an unnamed protagonist hauls ass across America on a race to beat God to the end […]
Bryan Lee O’Malley Oni Press ($11.95 each) by Morgan Myers A love story, a soap opera, a slacker comedy, and an action-fantasy epic all at the same time, Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series of graphic novels has a lot going on. It mixes magic realism with nerdy pop-culture references and indie-rock street cred with aw-shucks sincerity. It […]
El Chale Gallego Y’l Xorty José Montoya Copilot Press ($35) by Ella Diaz This masterful reproduction of twenty-four original napkin sketches by artist and poet José Montoya tells the tale of El Chale Gallego and “el Xorty,” two dudes from the neighborhood. Printed on letterpress and hand-bound, the book stands five by six inches. The […]
by Susannah Schouweiler There’s a kind of sorcery involved when you’re swept away by a good book. If the printed words you encounter on the page sufficiently compel your attention and imagination, the book itself effectively disappears, leaving you and the author alone, mind to mind, embraced by the mutually created space of the unfolding […]
by John Madera Lance Olsen’s Head in Flames (Chiasmus Press, $14.95), a novel distinguished both by its inventive, playful form and its evocative content, vividly limns the minds of Vincent van Gogh, Theo van Gogh (Vincent’s brother’s great grandson), and Mohammed Bouyeri, Theo’s murderer: three people linked by passion and belief, by their persistence and hubris, and […]
Interview by Rob Couteau The former editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, Michael Korda is considered to be one of the most influential people in the recent history of publishing. He’s also the author of the memoirs Charmed Lives,Another Life, and Horse People; the biographies Ike and Ulysses S. Grant; as well as several bestselling novels. A powerful public speaker and […]
by Edward Picot Born in Brooklyn, Joel Weishaus was a Junior Executive on Madison Avenue while still a teenager. He resigned soon after his 21st birthday and flew to California, where he began the peripatetic lifestyle of a writer. In 1971, Weishaus edited the Bolinas anthology, On the Mesa, for City Lights Books. The same year, […]
by Jedediah Berry Brian Conn’s first novel, The Fixed Stars: Thirty-Seven Emblems for the Perilous Season, was published by FC2 in the spring of 2010. An intricate, innovative, and beautifully realized book about a far-future society contending with mysterious plagues and its own violent customs, The Fixed Stars is speculative fiction at once challenging and deeply rewarding, alive […]