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Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
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Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
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Customer Comments
JFlaming has commented on (3) products
Lesser Bohemians A Novel
by
Eimear McBride
JFlaming
, April 01, 2017
I rated this book fairly highly because the language is beautiful and the ideas are compelling. Months after reading The Lesser Bohemians, I find myself still emotionally engaged with the two main characters. Many of the initial reviews had a negative reaction to Eimear McBride's use of stream-of-consciousness storytelling. Please, please, please do not be deterred. After a disorienting dive into the narrator's inner world, the language becomes musical and mirrors our heroine's development of a self-aware personhood. Try reading aloud or, better yet, just relax and allow yourself to take in the flow. Part of the deliciousness of the story is the puzzle of decoding who our narrator is by the patterns within her inner dialogue. That said, my big frustration with this complex, poetic novel is its apparent main premise - that a much-younger, somewhat mysteriously wounded woman's involvement with an older man, that her learning his story, somehow makes her "whole" - whatever that means. Perhaps there is something of growth in her growing ability to trust and tolerate him as an "other" despite some of the ugly incidents between them. Though much of the novel is a revelation of his story, we never really learn our narrator's back story, though we probably have some good guesses. As a feminist reader, I find this troubling. Maybe that is ok. Maybe we are supposed to be so far inside her head that we are supposed to only experience what she experiences. But I am not entirely convinced. Most people I know spend a fair amount of time trying to make sense of themselves and integrating past and present. Without any concrete knowledge of our narrator's past (heck, we don't even learn her name until late in the story), we cannot draw a picture of her struggles and triumphs that ever feels solid. I still recommend it as a good read because it leaves me wanting to have this conversation. I still wonder about Eily, of the somewhat ephemeral mystery of who she was and who she will become.
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Roshara Journal: Chronicling Four Seasons, Fifty Years, and 120 Acres
by
Jerry Apps
JFlaming
, July 30, 2016
If you have ever loved a piece of land over a lengthy period of time, then this book will be an absolute delight. Jerry Apps and his family bought Roshara in 1966 and he has been journaling his experiences there ever since. The book is presented in seasonal, not chronological, order and is enhanced by photographer son Steve Apps' images. That frame adds an interesting refocus from the usual story narrative. Please don't just put this on your coffee table. It is well worth a complete reading. Roshara is more a 120-acre family garden and nature preserve than a family's livelihood, mind you. If I have one quibble with the work, it is that the farm here is not a "working" farm. Both father and son make their living elsewhere. For those who have ever eyed the clouds to gauge the likelihood of paying for next year's seed and vet bills, this book can sometimes be just a little too idyllic. That said, immersion in Apps' 50 years on Roshara is to slow down and mindfully exist with the natural world, to notice the patterns of life and living creatures. The writer's economical but graceful prose and photographer's balance of the simple and sublimely beautiful make even a short visit to "Roshara" a deeply pleasurable opportunity to re-center in a stressful world.
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Dangerous Obsessions
by
Bob Van Laerhoven
JFlaming
, July 10, 2016
Please don't make the mistake of picking up Belgian/Flemish author Bob Van Laerhoven's "Dangerous Obsessions" for easy pleasure. If you can finish the short story collection without a sour, sick ache in your heart, you are of tougher stuff than this reader. Nevertheless, the slim volume (75 ages, Anaphora Literary Press), is worth the read in its exploration of how love - or at least the desire for physical or emotional connection corrupted sometimes almost beyond recognition - crops up in even the most inhuman of situations. Each story in this slim 75-page collection hurtles to a resolution in compact, digestable language. While the settings may feel familiar (a concentration camp, war-torn Africa, the French Foreign Legion, a beach town in South America), the author's endings always surprise. In some cases, a kind of reconciliation may occur, but never one without brutal scars or deep regrets. More often, revenge, satisfying and otherwise, is a dish served very, very cold. Though translated to English in all cases except two, only in a few places will the writer's sensibilities feel foreign to a US audience. A use of a particularly offensive word to American ears may grate at one point and cultural references to Black Pete, for example, may send some to the online search engine of choice.
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