Clay by David Almond

By now you might have noticed that my most favourite reading interests lie with the crossover novel. By this I mean YA and Teen marketed books that any adult would read and LOVE. Teen books are hot right now as they have never been. When I was a teen reader I went straight to Stephen King and Anne Rice because Judy Blume only had one or two books for teens by then and there wasn't the idea of a "teen" genre. Just books written for an adult market which could crossover to the teen market. I'm talking 15-years-old-and-up teen, not YA specifically.

Now, with the rise of teen books, adults are turning their attentions to the fantastic fiction that is on a different shelf. And this is my favored niche. I love teen books that have no life outside a teen market as well, but I really enjoy finding the gems that could just as easily be marketed for adults. And there are more than you think!

Meg Rosoff, Sarah Dessen, Bernard Beckett, M.T. Anderson, Chris Lynch are all crossover gems. David Almond is a crossover gem. Most recently I finished his "Frankenstein" book, Clay. Set in what feels like Ireland in the 60's, Clay is the story of two boys on the opposite side of the ethics spectrum who jointly create a man of clay to dispatch their local bullies. Clay is dark and deeply resonant. The Frankenstein connection is unmistakable, but Clay offers a new take on a classic monster concept. And David Almond has a skill for dialogue. He can write a scene entirely through its speakers and you are left with everything you need setting- and character-wise.

His first novel, Skellig, now a movie starring Tim Roth, is one of my favourite books. Again, here is a serious story for a thoughtful reader.

My final say about crossover novels (fat chance) is that teen novels are more often written by adults and often show the integrity of a book written for an adult audience. Many are quite literary and are read for book clubs. If you haven't read a crossover novel (Twilight is one of them, albeit more genre, but still a good romance-adventure), I suggest you pick one up next and see what you've been missing.

Mandy

Genesis by Bernard Beckett

I ate it up. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

The story happens in only 5 hours, the alloted time The Academy gives potential recruits for their examination. Anax, obsessed with her society's founder and hero Adam Forde and intent on entering The Academy, begins her exam answering questions about the beginning of the Last War and the raising of the great sea wall.

I don't want to say anything more about the plot as it unhatches in a deeply satisfying way as you read. And it has a terrific ending. Genesis would be considered Science Fiction (it has connections to I, Robot), but I see it as literary dystopian in the tradition of We, Brave New World or 1984. Genesis is a very smart, cerebral, and philosophical story about the not so distant future. And it blows me away that it is considered Young Adult/Teen. I really encourage ANYONE who wants a smart read with an unforeseen ending to pick up this book.

Some people have compared it to The Road, which I haven't read. Maybe I should pick it up (Dave! will you read The Watchmen if I read The Road!?).

I would compare Genesis with How I Live Now in its integrity and supreme awesomeness of story.

Mandy

Ouch!!

Forgive the political interlude, but Democratic strategist Paul Begala makes a pretty good case for keeping up with your reading here.

I seldom feel sorry for Republicans, but when you're this overmatched....


David

Actually paperweights tend to be more colourful

Bookninja and others note that Amazon's policy on digital rights management as it relates to the Kindle is such that "remember, kids, at the flip of a switch you could no longer “own” any of your files from Amazon or iTunes. All it takes is legal loophole, a desire for more money, or a bankruptcy and you’re left with an expensive paperweight. And we all know those things never happen."

Conversely, a copy of something both timely and timeless will be yours forever if you wish.

David

Take your coat off

I'm late on this, but I'm just so glad Michael is back at Bookslut.

David

The Color of Water

Oh Ehwa, you are so snarky and pining at times, and still a great character!

The Color of Water just came in, sequel to The Color of Earth, and my to-be-reading pile was brushed to the side as I simply ate this book up.

In Color of Earth, Ehwa was left with a massive crush on two boys, the Buddhist monk in training and the golden farm boy. As this book opens she continues in her confusion, which seems more gentle and playful than moping or obsessive, when Duksam catches her bathing, ostensibly looking to fix his “broken belt”.

I completely had a crush on Duksam! I liked him more than the monk and the glow-y farm boy. I enjoyed reading about their budding romance, even as Ehwa’s mom pines for her seemingly lost Painter Man. The snark on Ehwa’s account comes when she starts in on her mom about her taste in travelling men and she even compares the painter man’s looks to those of her own Duksam. She can be a real jerk in this volume, but she is feeling her way into her developing womanhood.

The hilarious and precocious Bongsoon plays a bigger part in this story, too, as closest gal pal after their other friend is married off to a 7 year old (it happened). Ehwa is reminded of how lucky she is that her mother cares for her so much and wishes her to choose marriage for love. This freedom is put to the test when Ehwa’s mom receives a visit and a tempting offer.

The way this book ends is frustrating, causing me to throw my hands to the skies and yell “Why, Duksam, why!?”, but I will quietly wait like Ehwa, softly confused, until The Color of Heaven reaches me (August).

Previously:
The Color of Earth

Mandy

Oh Roller Girls!

We now carry Blood and Thunder magazine!! We have the Spring 2009 issue on our shelves.

In it is an article on Derby quilts, advice on protecting your knees, many interviews and tons of bodacious pictures of roller girls in action.

I think it's a quarterly pub.

From the website:

Blood & Thunder Magazine is the first and largest roller derby magazine dedicated to the modern revival of the sport. We feature articles on roller derby leagues, teams and skaters, roller derby history and legends, major events, art, music, and the lifestyle surrounding the roller derby subculture. Blood & Thunder is skater-owned and operated. Owners Dale "Black Dahlia" Rio and Lindy "Robin Graves" Hartsfield met while playing roller derby for the LA Derby Dolls, on the Fight Crew team. Now, Dahlia currently skates in the Seattle area but has spent a lot of time in New Zealand, where she founded the Pirate City Rollers!


Words Worth Books supports the local Roller Derby league. Buy tickets for events at the store!

Mandy

Enough already

Ongoing nonsense around an opportunistic hack piggybacking on Catcher in the Rye looks about finished, and the NY Times has it right.

"Because copyright extends during the author’s lifetime, plus 70 years, the character of Holden Caulfield does not belong to the public domain. We have no doubt that no matter what the judge rules Caulfield, like Huck, will remain forever young, simply because that is how his author imagined him. In almost every battle between the original and the derivative, in copyright or public domain, it is the original that retains our affection."

Staying with the Times, Janet Maslin (quite rightly) freaks out about Ron Currie Jr, and his sublime new novel available any day now.
His first book is a beauty and I think my guy is ready to stand with the giants now.
Everything Matters is just brilliant.

Posted by David

Nice!

For a summer yarn, this looks close to perfect.

"This is an extremely violent novel, but it seems to accurately reflect the times. The book made me wonder if we do not often romanticize Elizabeth and her reign. I can imagine two reasons that we might. First, although there is much violence in Shakespeare's plays, the beauty of his writing tends to cast a gentle glow over much of the era. Second, Elizabeth has had the good fortune to be portrayed in recent years by Cate Blanchett and Helen Mirren, two actresses whose abundant charms might make us forget, as this novel does not, that Elizabeth was a hard woman and that, starting with her execution of Mary, she did little to discourage the bloodlust of the period she personified. As the book reminds us, the heads of Catholics decorated London Bridge, men were disemboweled, drawn and quartered; women and even children were put upon the rack. It takes the better part of a page to describe the four days of torture meted out to one Catholic assassin. Sample: "Pieces of his flesh were torn, to the bone, from six parts of his body with pincers; boiling fat was poured over his back; carpenters' nails were driven under the nails of his fingers." We see in grievous detail the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots, which required two strokes of the ax and some sawing -- deliberate incompetence, some thought."

Posted by David

House of Leaves :: The Big Read PART ONE

Reading House of Leaves makes you want to say everything you can about it all at once; forget one sentence coming before another. I’m just about halfway through the book and I feel that I have just skimmed the story. Actually the primary narrative, the story of the Navidson Record, with its billion asides, has kept me reading. I love a good horror story and this is that.

I don’t want to put too many spoilers here. I think anyone interested in this book should just pick it up for themselves and see what it is like to read it. Actually, nothing said about House of Leaves could come close to the experience of reading it. I can see why people would come back to it again and again.

I was really hooked by Johnny Truant's introduction. Especially the "jagged bits of wood clawed up by something" part. Chilling. But the rapid loss of lucidity as part of Johnny's narrative really lost me. I get that he was being driven insane, or the potential inherited insanity in him was being triggered, but I just wasn't convinced. We'll see how that goes.

I found the huge message board dedicated to extrapolating House of Leaves and although I don't think I will have that kind of passion for this book, there are some genuinely satisfying ideas dredged up by even a first read. The nature of the unreliable narrator has always kept my attention. I love the part when Johnny tells us he's added the word "water" to make water heater, even though Zampano had just written heater and then exclaims, "The word "water" back there—I added that". Or the ongoing academic debate which whispers through the story; maybe Navidson made it all up. Did it originate with the fictional foreshadowing? I'm thinking of great parts like when Chad, Navidson's son, is filmed saying that the house seems to be waiting, and this is just as they move in, even before the house begins to shift.

Connected with this is the question of how the Navidson family specifically were attracted to the house initially: "Some have suggested that the horrors Navidson encountered in that house were merely manifestations of his own troubled psyche. Dr. Iben Van Pollit in his book The Incident claims the entire house is a physical incarnation of Navidson's psychological pain: "I often wonder how things might have turned out if Will Navidson had, how shall we say, done a little bit of house cleaning". I like horror fiction that suggests this psychological connection between inner and outer life.

Later on, Zampano has erased information about the myth of the minotaur, which Johnny has restored. It suggests that the labyrinth is what has killed all of the sacrificed children, rather than the objective ferocity of the minotaur. Earlier academic notes about labyrinths and the concept of center were really interesting for me. I love that this could be included in a story which shows you how the terror of a labyrinth could happen. To be cliche—this story shows and tells and I think, for the most part, the telling is just as satisfying. I know that House of Leaves is considred a satire of academic deconstruction, but I actually like the varying viewpoints of psychology, mythology, the nature of perception, etc. that accompany a good genre narrative. There is the trap in being extremely cerebral about experience to get lost only in thoughts and ideas about it rather than being in direct contact with it. This also becomes a self-referencing labyrinth which the author obviously has some insight into.

I’m thinking about how HOL will end, even though it has already been alluded to. We know that the Navidson family splits up and that Johnny will be lost to his growing insanity like his mom was. But I hope that there are still a few tricks coming up. I really want to know who Delial is. In the story there is consensus that Will has not slept around the way Karen has, that he’s more of a hermit, dedicated to his work and passion for knowledge. So is Delial a lady? I do want to know this little trick.

Send me your thoughts!

Mandy

Along for the Ride, by Sarah Dessen...available mid-June

I have feverishly read the new Sarah Dessen book since our lovely Penguin Rep sent me a copy (one of my absolute favourite perks of working at a bookstore). Along for the Ride will be available mid-June or so.
I spent the best parts of my own summers as a kid in a very small town and so I have a soft spot for fish-out-of-water stories set in beachy small towns. I am happy to see that Sarah has decided to set Along for the Ride in the same area as Keeping the Moon. Both evoke summers spent just hanging out, new loves, and a final summery goodbye dance (never really happens in reality, but it fits in my head the way the last dance of Johnny and Baby really feels like the end of summer). And that is, to me, Sarah Dessen’s forte; setting and, as an extension, character. Sarah builds this little world that you feel creeping up around you. You feel hugged by the setting (or as Anais Nin would constantly say, encorseled).
Sarah also does the female group dynamic very well. The teasing and the loyalty; the highschool-as-it-should-have-been. And I always have a crush on her certain type of leading man. Just Listen (I forget his name) had the same dark male who hides a tragic or painful past that can only be healed by the connection he gets from his leading lady. Very Harlequin, but with an emphasis on all relationships. Auden, our heroine, must navigate her ambiguous relationship with almost everyone in her family, it seems, from her semi-estranged father to her new baby step-sister. The result is a character study; interacting with new people around her one woman takes on almost imperceptible, but satisfying changes. And she gets the unreachable guy as a result.
So pick up Along for the Ride if you’re looking for playful romance with a strong grounding in realistic family drama, and the theme of the Quest. But set aside some time because Dessen novels make you read them in one sitting.

(I want to mention that I hate the cover. I truly do. Neither of the leading romantic characters are described as looking the way the picture suggests, and the bike is all off. The biking theme in the book is more bike park and less slow saccharine boardwalk meanders. Do not let the cover throw off your game...your reading game, I guess--go with me)

Mandy

Not a pastel cover in the lot

Janet Maslin has an overview of the summer offerings from a few leading ladies.
I'd simply suggest that one of those novels is by Kate Christensen, who is a better storyteller than most of the ladies and the men.
The Epicures Lament and the Great Man are well... great.

Please don't feed the animals

Oh how cute!

Men meeting at a designated place to..talk about..books.
The Boston Globe seems mystified by the idea.



"Traditionally, it's difficult to get men together unless it has something to do with poker or NASCAR or Hooters clubs," says Douglas Lord, who writes the "Books for Dudes" column for a newsletter published by the Library Journal. "But these book groups grow by word of mouth, guys pulling other guys in that they know. And then it develops into a sort of fellowship, where you're talking about all kinds of stuff, but you're really talking about life. You're relating to another person, and you're trying to grow your skills of empathy. You're trying to become a man."
That sounds heavy, but it also should be noted that, as with women, membership in a men's book group does not necessarily involve, you know, reading. "We've been meeting for six months, and we haven't read a book yet," says Andrew Upton, 45, of Somerville, describing his own book group. "We have such a good time talking about life, kids, work, politics, everything. And everyone is so busy. We may read a book at some point, but right now it's just a social club."

Sir, unless you're reading a book at some point, your not in a book club.
What you've got yourself into is a bowling team.
My condolences.

Posted by David

its a long way from "is our children learning"

Jesus, if the guy gets any more game he'll levitate buildings or something.

Barack Obama covers for a lucky student.

Posted by David

some people are just fun at parties

Of course it helps a lot if you can build a flamethrower.

"But when it comes to the theory and practice of making your own noisy, mildly dangerous fun in the backyard, America has a new poet laureate. His name is William Gurstelle, and he staked his claim to do-it-yourself greatness in 2001 with his friendly paperback book “Backyard Ballistics.” Its subtitle tells you all you need to know: “Build Potato Cannons, Paper Match Rockets, Cincinnati Fire Kites, Tennis Ball Mortars, and More Dynamite Devices.” According to the author, it has sold more than 250,000 copies. I keep a well-thumbed copy in the upstairs bathroom."
The book is hurtling toward us in a couple days.

Dave

Mark June 20th off on your calendar

The Latitudes Storytelling Festival is up and at them again this year in Victoria Park. And among their selection will be Mariko Tamaki!

I read Tamaki's graphic novel Skim when it was distributed infrequently and on an issues basis through Kiss Machine Magazine, now since defunct. Actually I missed the very last issue so had to wait until the complete story was issued in hardcover about a year ago. And what a story.

Beautiful, haunting, with a methodic pace, Skim is tops.

Set in 1994, Skim (Kimberly Keiko) and her friend Lisa are outcasts at school, self-imposed. Disgusted by the drama they see around them after a schoolmate has died (I'm pretty sure this is the plot, it HAS been a year since I read it), Skim and Lisa hibernate socially until graduation.

Then Skim meets Ms. Archer, a supply teacher and a babe and her world goes drama-rama.

The illustration is stark black and white and has the grace of Japanese prints. Skim also just won the 2009 Doug Wright Award for Best Book. And she's a cool lookin' lady.

Mandy

Watch for it

Jeff Lemire's tales from Essex County will offer a complete edition in August. Watch out for it.

There is a quiet brilliance about these stories. I've just finished the first two volumes and I take my hat off to Mr. Lemire for making me cry before I realized I was going to. Volume Two, Ghost Stories, follows two brothers who grow up and eventually move back to a fictionalized farm in Essex County, Southwestern Ontario. Different from each other, even physically, the brothers stay together out of a mutual love for hockey. Then a woman, as they inevitably do, changes everything.

Now old and alone, the brothers must care for each other and work through the divisive incident that tore their family apart in the 1950's.

I don't know anything about hockey or unspoken bonds between men or brothers but Jeff Lemire conveys every subtlety and nuance of these themes with surprisingly sparse text and evocative, at times perfect, illustration.

Volume One, Tales from the Farm, has received a lot of attention for having teen crossover appeal, winning the YALSA Alex Award. 10 year old Lester's mother has died of Cancer and her older brother, Lester's estranged Uncle, has taken him in. Lester's Uncle truly cares for him but has no way of expressing it and finds it hard to connect with Lester's infatution with superheroes and capes. Jimmy, the "slow" gas station attendant, connects with Lester immediately and they hide out in an imaginative world of alien invasions and flying heroes. Jeff Lemire illustrates impeccable magical realism, the world around Lester and Jimmy segues flawlessly into the superhuman.

Snap up the complete collection in August; Essex County will steal your heart.

Next up for me is the third tale, The Country Nurse.

Mandy

Paul Quarrington

has been diagnosed with lung cancer.
He's sanguine in the face of having "months possibly years, to live."
The news of Quarrington's diagnosis makes me remember how much I liked his novels years ago.
Whale Music is probably the book best remembered as it was filmed and filmed well.
I was always more partial to the Life of Hope, a comic gem very reminiscent of Terry Grigg's new novel, Thought You Were Dead.
Terry will be at Words Worth on June 8th along with Cynthia Flood.
In Quarrington's novel a small town of oddballs soon envelope the lead character Paul, who has gotten out of the big city in an effort to finish his second novel. Our hero gets caught up in the sweetness of his new surroundings, finds love on a baseball diamond and is soon fixated on catching a two hundred year old catfish of local legend.
Terry's book has a similarly agreeable flavour, perfect with a pint on a patio somewhere and while I was reading it I was back in the mid 80s during simpler days reading Paul Quarrington for the first time.
The Globe and Mail notes that Quarrington has already undertaken chemo and I wish him the very best.

David

Dessert & Beer

Guest Post by Stephen Beaumont, co-author of The beerbistro Cookbook

Quick, when was the last time you tried to pair a wine with dessert? (Cheese courses don’t count.) Bet it’s been a while, and if you recall its success or lack thereof, I’m willing to bet it was more the latter than the former.

Let’s face it, wine simply doesn’t play that well with sweet things.

Beer, on the other hand, has no problem with desserts, so long as the cardinal rule of keeping the beer sweeter than the dish is observed. Otherwise, you run the risk of the beer winding up tasting sour in comparison. But bear it in mind and the list of sweet-friendly styles is almost limitless, from barleywines to fruit beers and Belgian and Belgian-style dubbels to fruity and strong golden ales.

What’s more, when chocolate is on the menu, you can throw even that one rule out the window, since the natural bitterness of true chocolate can mesh with a wide variety of beers regardless of sugar content. Imperial stout and dark chocolate, British-style old ale and high cocoa-content chocolate, spiced ales and bitter or Mayan chocolate, brown ale and nutty chocolate...

I tell you, it’s enough to make a person want to skip the appetizers and main and go straight to dessert!

(Join me and beerbistro chef Brian Morin at Brick Brewing's Red Baron Lounge on June 14 for a night of food and beer pairing fun, presented by Words Worth Books. Details available here.)