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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
greengills has commented on (18) products
Infinite Jest
by
David Foster Wallace
greengills
, January 01, 2013
It's probably a lot too late to rave about this swirling dystopian nightmare fantasy about entertainment, sobriety, tennis and the militant importance of grammar, but here I sit, clutching my well-loved copy, with dog eared pages bookmarks and web history full of Internet searches. The fractured fractalism of the stories, the narrative, the schizophrenic use of the language, the realism, the absurdity, the footnotes and errata, completely blew me away. I think this may have ruined reading forever, in the best possible way.
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Discipline & Punish The Birth of The Prison
by
Michel Foucault
greengills
, December 21, 2012
An exhaustively researched and brilliantly worded analysis on humanity's attempts to cull the undesirables of society ( or enemies of the state) through torture, murder and deprivation of life's basic necessities. Throughout the centuries the concept of immediate satisfaction in the execution of justice gave way to the erroneous conclusion that infinite confinement and banishment would cure what ails us. Foucault shines his laser like focus on all the aspects involved surrounding the birth of "punishment" as we recognize it today and plainly illuminates just how wrong we were. Highly Recommended.
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Onion Book of Known Knowledge a Definitive Encyclopaedia of Existing Information
by
Onion
greengills
, December 20, 2012
The Onion Book of Known Knowledge - More accurate than wikipedia. An infinitely insightful compendium of life as we know it. Entries on everything worth knowing about explained by the most trusted* and learned scholars on planet earth. Sure to enlighten and inform even the most illiterate savages (I'm looking at you Westboro Baptist Church). Never laughed harder.
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Coming Insurrection
by
Invisible Committee
greengills
, July 12, 2012
Incendiary ideas for ressutating a dying world. The comming insurrection isn't from the left, right or center, but collectives, free people a society that functions like a living organism rather than an atomic clock inching to closer midnight. The ideas, convictions, and the general feeling conveyed in this book from the invisible commitee offers not only an anyalsis of the past, but realistic solutions for the future. This book has made its way into the hands of Michael Moore and Glenn Beck. Highly recommended, although it may drastically reduce the productivity of reader and prolonged exposure may result in sabotage.
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Heart of a Dog
by
Mikhail Bulgakov
greengills
, September 13, 2011
What happens when you put the brain and liver of a human criminal in the body of a dog? Exactly what you'd think, and then some. Bulgakov is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. Heart of a Dog was so sharp, witty and completely hilarious. I couldn't help but breeze through it in a couple hours, which wasn't too hard because it isn't very long, sadly. It serves as a commentary on we perceive ourselves as humans in relation to animals and if any other animals acted as we do, we could see exactly how absurd our society really is. Plus, we're all drunkards and philanderers. And capitalists. Or so says the dog.
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Artaud Anthology
by
Antonin Artaud
greengills
, September 13, 2011
Artaud lives in his fantasies and flaunts his so called madness. This anthology serves as an doorway to his insight and perception. He seeks to prove that the real and the unreal are immaterial, there can be no true distinction. Even our most illusory dreams and recollections are as concrete as the ground beneath us. I couldn't recommend this more highly.
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Death On Credit
by
Louis Ferdinand Celine, Ralph Manheim
greengills
, August 30, 2011
This is one of my all time favorite books. His writing style is genius. You feel as if he's sitting next to you, telling you his preposterous story through his own gritted teeth. His observations and humour permeate every line. I couldn't put it down. I believed every word. I couldn't help it. It's too good.
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Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009
by
Eggers, Dave
greengills
, April 12, 2011
I just want to start off by saying that I used to pick this book up in the store. I'd consider buying it, weighing my mood, cynicism, and overall enjoyment of the cover art (very wholesome) against my other options, eventually deciding: "I want something more cohesive"(wrong!)or maybe the popular "I have too many books" (also wrong!) or "Dave Eggers is overrated" (...I just said that aloud didn't I). I would have to guess, I repeated that process about 78 times, or 1-2 times a week for about a year, before I bought this book. I can safely say, without a doubt, I wasted a lot of valuable time by not reading this book sooner. The next time you see "The Best American Non Required Reading 2009" and you have doubts like I did, take a peek in the best american craigslist barter ads of 2008, or best american bank robberies of 2008 or maybe best american children's letters to Obama( ah, the folly of youth). I'm confident your doubts will be alleviated. Then, after you buy it and get it home, or wherever you do your reading, you can dip into the some of the longer short stories or some of the comics or just open to random pages. Anyway you shake it, this book will surely not disapoint. Or...Buy it for the cover. Either way, you win.
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Ubik
by
Philip K Dick
greengills
, March 20, 2011
Imagine a world of telepaths, anti telepaths, precogs, con-apts and doors that cost a nickle to open. When a major prudence organization get sucked into a trap and their boss is killed, they race back from the surface of luna to get him into half-life in Zurich. That's when the milk turns sour. Better stock up on ubik.
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Death On The Installment Plan
by
Celine, Louis-Ferdinand
greengills
, November 21, 2010
Off all the books I've had to part with, I'm grad I lend this to someone so I at least know where it is, instead of having to sell it in a suitcase full of books that I only got 10 dollars for all 40 of them, thanks St Louis, MO. I read the majority of this in my parents basement, I didn't want to stop, or work or sleep till i finished it then I did and I felt lost because my world had just ended and I had to come to terms with my shit situation and count the days til I moved out west. Lunatics, every person in this book. Highly recommended.
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Season in Hell & the Drunken Boat Une Saison En Enfer & Le Bateau Ivre
by
Arthur Rimbaud
greengills
, November 21, 2010
This is a great read, Rimbaud write with such fury, and such talent, I had never read his work before I picked this up in a coffee shop in new mexico and I immedately got swept up in it.
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Hard Boiled
by
Frank Miller
greengills
, November 21, 2010
Read this ultraviolent nightmare, I'm sure you won't forget it. By the way, does anyone know the Darrow book that shows a T-rex destroying a city?
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V
by
Thomas Pynchon
greengills
, November 21, 2010
I was riding the max the other day and I had the strangest flashback, hunting alligators in the sewers. Then I remembered it was from a book, this book and I think it was then that V. finally made a bit of sense. Ask me what it's about...ask anyone, and I'm sure they'll tell you it's great, and I agree but that mad man, pynchon, he's out to get us all.
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Prophet
by
Kahlil Gibran
greengills
, November 21, 2010
There are few books written that so effortlessly describe the truths of life, and The Prophet is one of them. This book should be at the core of every families value system. You should read it to your children while they are still in the womb. You should read it to your grandfather as he takes his last breaths. You don't need to be a prophet to rejoice in the power you have as a human being, and this book proves that.
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The Carnivals of Life and Death: My Profane Youth, 1913-1935
by
Freeland, Elana
greengills
, November 19, 2010
I just finished this book yesterday. Frankly I'm at a loss. I believe the conclusion I came to is "James Shelby Downard is either a nut, a genius or a wizard" my wife suggested a combination of the three.
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From Hell
by
Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
greengills
, November 19, 2010
Bloody Good. This easily swept my graphic novel top 5. Never thought We3 would be replaced but a slasher about jack the ripper and masons trumps any story about animals taking revenge on their cruel master/government.
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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
by
Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum
greengills
, November 19, 2010
My wife turned me on to Murakami, with this book. I have no idea how, but I hope to repay my debt of gratitude before the actual end of the world, I just hope that it's enough time to find something comparable.
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Crying of Lot 49
by
Thomas Pynchon
greengills
, November 19, 2010
The first time I read this, I remember being: 1) Infuriated by the length. 2) Slowly driven insane by the idea of W.A.S.T.E. 3) in a jack in the box where scrawled a message on my receipt addressed to the president and mailed it through the waste bin. I still haven't heard a reply but that doesn't mean there wasn't one.
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