reading notes

by Sherman Alexie
ISBN: 9780802170378
This book shouldn’t work. If I were to describe to you what happens and how it happens, you might think it sounds over the top, or unpleasantly didactic. You might think Alexie is more preacher than writer, more of a screecher than a poet with an ear for the truth. You might [...]

by Miranda July
ISBN: 9780743299398
I’ll admit to not having heard of Miranda July until I came across her fabulously clever lo-fi book promo website. (She directed Me and You and Everyone We Know, which won prizes at Sundance and Cannes. What can I say? I read more books than I watch movies.) Based on [...]

by Thomas King
ISBN: 0006485138
King is gutsy: the man has talked at length about (and committed to print) a manifesto of sorts on the power of stories and he’s published fiction. Turns out, his stories are really good, and The Truth About Stories is one of the best books I’ve ever read. He knows what he’s [...]

by Vernor Vinge
ISBN: 0812536363
I thought A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky were fascinating books: Vinge is able to write quite convincingly about non-humanoid aliens, not just as ideas, but as characters. In the Realtime books, bobble technology had me hooked. I searched for his earlier books Tatja Grimm’s World and [...]

by Douglas Coupland
ISBN: 0060987049
I admit, I have a soft spot for Douglas Coupland’s books. I don’t always like them (Miss Wyoming did nothing for me) and even when I do, I know they are the retro-aware diner food of fiction (All Families Are Psychotic). Microserfs has been a favorite since I first read it — [...]

by Colson Whitehead
ISBN: 9781400031269
Whitehead’s two previous novels (The Intuitionist and
John Henry Days) were smart, unusual, and quite unlike each other — save the commanding yet playful use of language in each. In other words, Whitehead can write: he has many things to say, and knows how to say them. Of course I was going to [...]