New York Magazine’s Best Novels You’ve Never Read

New York Magazine runs down a huge list of great novels that have been overlooked, including:

Oh Pure and Radiant Heart, by Lydia Millet
978-0006395546 | $33.95 hc | in stock
Soft Skull / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

(HarperCollins trade paper also available: 978-0006395546)

Largely unsung. Not only did I love reading it (until the very end), but I also found the title resoundingly beautiful.
—Helen Schulman

 

 

 

 

Dominion, by Calvin Baker
978-0802143099 | $16.50 pb | in stock
Grove Press / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Less jaded than Colson Whitehead, less kitschy than Toni Morrison, Calvin Baker is my favorite contemporary African-American novelist, and Dominion is his best book yet.
—Dale Peck

 

 

 

 

Tapping the Source, by Kem Nunn
978-1560258087 | $20.50 pb | in stock
Thunder’s Mouth Press / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Dark, mysterious, and tightly plotted, with a starkly written prose reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy.
—Michael Leone, Cleveland Plain Dealer

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Novel, by David Markson
978-1593761431 | $18.95 pb  in stock
Shoemaker & Hoard / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Vanishing Point, by David Markson
978-1593760106 | $22.50 pb | in stock
Shoemaker & Hoard / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

 

And the Winner Is….

David Markson,
for The Last Novel and Vanishing Point

David Markson, who has long been a writer other writers go gaga over, got more votes than any other novelist (that would be two—and not even for the same novel). As Sarah Weinman of Galley Cat notes, in singling out his just-released novel, The Last Novel, “Markson writes both in a postmodern fashion, all but the barest of phrases stripped away, and in a widely expansive method to reveal a greater sum of the world around him and all of us.” Wayne Koestenbaum highlighted an earlier book by Markson, Vanishing Point: “It’s a novel, yes, but it barely qualifies—it’s simply a list of outrageously pathetic facts about artists and writers. It’s funny, sad, bravura, minimalist. I adore his work.”

Brian Doyle gets starred Horn Book review

Pure Spring, by Brian Doyle
978-0888997753 | $14.95 pb | in stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)

Great news for Brian Doyle and his book Pure Spring…

A starred review in Horn Book!

“As always, Doyle rounds out the grimness with comedic scenes, balancing tragedy and pain with touching descriptions of the dizzying first love between Martin and Gerty McDowell, the granddaughter of one of the shopkeepers on his delivery route. Doyle’s gentle, affectionate touch makes for a story that ultimately goes down as sweet as a Pure Spring Honee Orange soft drink.”

Litvinenko’s Blowing Up Russia features in Brandon Sun & Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal

Blowing Up Russia, by Alexander Livinenko and Yuri Feltinsky
978-1903933961 | $21.95 hc | in stock
Gibson Square / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

From both the Brandon Sun and the Chronicle Journal on May 24, citing the book: “Russian tied to Litvinenko murder was in London earlier than thought: witness”

Bottle Rocket Hearts gets stellar Globe Review

Bottle Rocket Hearts, by Zoe Whittall
978-1897151068 | $19.95 pb | in stock
Cormorant Books (UTP Distribution)

From The Globe & Mail, May 26, by T. F. Rigelhof

“For readers less immediately drawn to a tale of a teenaged girl from Dorval trying to find a downtown woman who’ll love her in the demimonde of Referendum 1995 Montreal’s punk-rock ethos, tattoo-parlour aesthetics, Gay Village nightlife and Concordia University’s Women’s Centre Feminst politics, it should be noted that Zoe Whittall might just possibly be the cockiest, brashest, funniest, toughest, most life-affirming, elegant, scruffy, no-holds-barred writer to emerge from Montreal since Mordecai Richler staked out the moral terrain that would define and shape his work with A Choice of Enemies in 1957.

“The robust and beautiful idea that the pursuit of happiness is elastic, immense, that it cannot be reduced to any fixed system and fits everyone (no matter how unsympathetic they first appear), took Richler three novels (and some prodding from V.S. Naipaul) to get to. Whittall gets it from the get-go. One novel doesn’t make a major writer, but Bottle Rocket Hearts is a major statement about lessening unhappiness by overcoming the small dishonesties that creep into everyday life.     

“A “bottle rocket” is a dollar-store firecracker that gives maximum bang per buck and is aptly descriptive of both the verbal surface and emotional substance of Bottle Rocket Hearts.”

Alexie’s Flight in the NYTBR

Flight, by Sherman Alexie
9780802170378 | $16.50 pb | In stock
Blackcat / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

review in New York Times Book Review:

Native Son

By TOM BARBASH

Published: May 27, 2007

Fifteen is a terrible age for a boy, especially a boy with no parents, a trail of abusive foster homes, a predilection for arson and a face so full of acne even his friends call him Zits.

The half-Irish, half-American-Indian narrator of Sherman Alexie’s hallucinatory new novel (his first in more than 10 years), has begun to strike out against the court-appointed “Uncle Creepy types” and evil foster mothers he’s been asked to live with, shoving the latest mom and landing in a juvenile lockup. There he meets Justice, a white guru and anarchist who advises him to pray and then teaches him how to kill — and be killed. During a shooting spree in a bank, Zits is shot in the head by a guard, whereupon his adolescent soul vacates his corpse, resurfacing in the brawny frame of a racist F.B.I. agent headed for a 1975 meeting with a pair of celebrated Indian activists in Red River, Idaho. Within hours, he’ll be asked to shoot someone, and then he’ll go home to the agent’s beautiful wife. But before the sheets are tousled, Zits is out of this body and back at the battlefield of Little Big Horn, moments before Custer’s arrival.

“Flight” is the sort of high-concept extravaganza that’s ordinarily reserved for summer adventure films, but while there are more than a few “Back to the Future” lines (“He leans over, picks me up and hugs me tightly. And I realize this is my father”), the book is far more stark and morally intricate than any Hollywood blockbuster. Despite its conceits, “Flight” is the most unpretentious novel I’ve read in a long time. It’s a narrative stripped to its core, all rage and heart. There’s not much landscape in the background, and the descriptions are the sketchy kind you’d expect from a kid. The narrator’s voice is also stripped — of everything except a survivor’s intuition.

Mike Jones’ book gets a ton of press

I Had to Say Something, by Mike Jones
978-1583227688 | $29.95 hc | available June
Seven Stories Press / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

From The Advocate.com, posted May 15:
“His narrative is personal and reads like a friend confiding cherished memories and deep personal introspection over an afternoon cup of coffee. He covers career, family, and hopes for the future. Jones is polite and intuitive, and above all, observant. These skills proved just as important in his work as physique, technique, and sexual versatility did…..Some people credit Jones with swaying both local and national elections with his November surprise. He writes that escorting is a thankless job. Based on his retelling of the events of the past year, for Jones, toppling Haggard from his hypocrite perch may well be thanks enough.”

Plus, upcoming in June:
•NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE–Q&A with Deborah Solomon (and photo) will run in
June 3rd issue.
•CNN with Nancy Grace–Live for one hour on June 11th.
•OUT Magazine–mention in Pride issue, June.
•Publishers Weekly–news story by Calvin Reid, 4/20/07

Jelinek’s Greed reviewed in New Yorker

Greed, by Elfriede Jelinek
1-58322-757-1 | $30.95 hc | in stock
Seven Stories Press / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

•NEW YORKER review, May 7, 2007 issue
“When Jelinek won the Nobel Prize, in 2004, the honor provoked outrage from critics who claimed that her books contain more hateful fury than artistic virtuosity. Her latest novel might appear to bear out this view. Its tone is contemptuous, and its plot–centering on a murderous country policeman who seduces local women in order to acquire their property–is confusing and skeletal. But Jelinek has a way of provoking us to reexamine our instinct to recoil. The bitterness of her narrative voice conceals a perverse humor; rain doesn’t merely “fall to the surface of the earth as precipitation, it would rather precipitate downright dejection in someone who . . . had been hoping for better weather.” And in the final pages a glint of empathy emerges from her derision, in the recognition that “love doesn’t pull down barriers, as is often said, it builds them up.”

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson to Direct a Series of "Tintin" Films

Exciting news! For a complete Excel spreadsheet of all available Tintin Titles & ISBNs, click here.

Los Angeles, CA (May 15, 2007) - Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, two of the most famous and celebrated filmmakers working today, have joined forces to create a series of motion picture films based on the adventures of Tintin, the iconic character created by Georges Remi, better known to the world by his pen name “Hergé”.

It was announced today by Spielberg, Jackson, and Stacey Snider, Co-Chairman and CEO of DreamWorks Studios, that Spielberg and Jackson have selected three stories from the Tintin book series to develop into theatrical feature films, which they intend to direct back to back, employing state of the art performance capture technology.

Kathleen Kennedy will serve as producer with Spielberg and Jackson on each of the films.

Seventy five years ago Hergé introduced the world to a unique cast of characters who have been loved by readers of all ages, from all over the globe ever since. The Adventures of Tintin – a series of 23 books which became Hergé’s life’s work, were published between 1929 and 1976 and have sold over 200 million copies world wide. The popular series has been translated into seventy languages and still attracts over 2 million new fans each year.

Thrilling and wildly funny, the Tintin stories chronicle the escapades of a junior reporter who has a nose for a good story and a talent for attracting trouble, which more often than not imperils his life!

Tintin is not a super-hero; nor does he possess special powers. He is an ordinary person to whom extraordinary things happen. Curious to a fault, Tintin has been known to follow a story to the ends of the earth, even if this means entering the shadowy worlds of smugglers, jewel thieves, gun runners, tomb robbers and extraordinarily ruthless crime lords! The stakes are always high and the odds are stacked against him, but Tintin has one thing his enemies don’t count on – the support and assistance of a Sea Captain with a drinking problem and the undying loyalty of a little white dog, called Snowy.

Mrs. Zhivago wins Good Housekeeping Award

Mrs Zhivago of Queens Park, by Olivia Lichtenstein
978-0752886459 | $24.95 pb | in stock
Orion / McArthur & Company (HarperCollins)

Oliva Lichtenstein has been awarded Good Housekeeping’s Most Entertaining Read award.

Starred PW review for The Baby Thief

The Baby Thief, by Barbara Bisantz Raymond
0-78671-944-3 | $33.50 hc | in stock
Carroll & Graf / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Publishers Weekly, 5/28/2007

An episode in American adoption history little remembered by the public at large, the crimes of nationally-lauded Memphis orphanage director Georgia Tann are skillfully and passionately recounted by freelance writer Raymond, herself an adoptive mom. The portrait of Tann that emerges is a domineering, indefatigable figure with an insane commitment to ends-justify-the-means logic, who oversaw three decades of baby-stealing, baby-selling and unprecedented neglect. Meanwhile, she did more to popularize, commercialize and influence adoption in America than anyone before her. Tann operated carte blanche under corrupt Mayor Edward Hull Crump from the 1920s to the ’50s, employing a nefarious network of judges, attorneys, social workers and politicos, whom she sometimes bribed with “free” babies; her clients included the rich, the famous and the entirely unfit (who more than occasionally returned their disappointing children for a refund). “Spotters” located babies and young children ripe for abduction-from women too uneducated or exhausted to fight back-and Tann made standard practice of altering birth certificates and secreting away adoption records to attract buyers and cover her tracks-self-serving moves that have become standard practice in modern adoption. A riveting array of interviews with Tann’s former charges reveals adults still struggling with their adoption ordeal, childhood memories stacked with sexual abuse, torture and confusion. Raymond’s dogged investigation makes a strong case for “ridding adoptions of lies and secrets,” warning that “[u]ntil we do, [Tann] and her imitators will continue to corrupt adoption.” A rigorous, fascinating, page-turning tale, this important book is not for the timorous.”