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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
Christopher Thomas has commented on (4) products
Up Nights
by
Daniel Kine
Christopher Thomas
, August 13, 2015
From my full review at thenerdmethod.com: Rating: I'll be honest, I didn't expect to like this book. With the comparisons to Kerouac's work and the fact that the characters are all into drugs and other things like that I just didn't think it'd be my cup of tea. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Kine was able to pull me in with his monumental character work. Bravo. 5 out of 5. You should definitely think about buying this book. Review: I want to start by saying that those who are comparing this book to Jack Kerouac's On the Road are both accurate and inaccurate. It's fair to say that this work is analogous to that book, but only insofar as the framework goes. The guts of this book are very different, for a different time where different issues need to be addressed. It's Kerouac for the "now". This book, unlike On the Road, does not require you to be able to adapt to the odd style of the author; Daniel Kine's prose is easy to understand and follow, even if it is a little bit basic. Where Kine shines as a writer is in his ability to highlight some interesting visual details and in his character building. I usually don't like druggy, scummy characters in my books even if the idea is to see them through the lens of poverty or whatever, but Kine does such a great job of adding dimension to the characters that you can't help but become invested in them. That's not to say that all of the characters are equally fleshed out or that you'll become attached to all of them, but in their own ways they are all distinctive (which is something not all writers can do, sadly). This book is a conundrum; it's arresting and beautiful on the one hand, but it's seedy and dark with little room for redemption on the other hand. It's worth your time and your consideration, though, that's for sure.
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Alive at the Center Contemporary Poems from the Pacific Northwest
by
Susan Denning, Daniela Elza, Cody Walker
Christopher Thomas
, August 13, 2015
Taken from my full review at thenerdmethod.com: Rating: I was really impressed with this poetry collection. I don't like to give perfect scores, but I would certainly not want this book to suffer on sites like Amazon because they won't allow you to give a 4.5 and this is closer to deserving a 5 than a 4, so just suffice it to say that Alive at the Center is a 5 out of 5. Review: I'll keep this review short and sweet because it's a lot more difficult to review a book of poems than a book of prose. Overall, in a poetry anthology, if there are a handful of poems that don't really strike me, I don't deduct quality points because it's hard to get a collection of varying styles and artists and have it all work for every reader. Having said that, there were very few of these poems that I didn't at least keep me engaged, which was a pleasant surprise. This was a vast improvement from the last Ooligan poetry book, We Belong in History, that I reviewed here. So for the sake of brevity I'll just say why I think the book is worth reading and then I'll talk about my favorite poem from each city. Why should you buy Alive at the Center: Contemporary Poems from the Pacific Northwest? Well, if you like poetry, then there's one reason. Also, if you happen to want a sampling of the arts culture of any of the cities (or the Pacific Northwest in general) included in the title, it's a great way to get that sampling in one place without having to get piles and piles of chapbooks. Also, the anthology nature of the book is a great way to get a list of poets for further reading if you happen to like their poems. Plus, and this is no small thing, I really like the cover design -- does that mean you should buy the book? Maybe not, but it's cool looking. From Vancouver, BC, I found Robin Susanto's "After the Tsunami" to be quite beautiful and touching -- the imagery is amazing. With lines like "But still you touch your lips to the sea//Run your hand over the water, as if it was the fur of a sleeping animal" what more could you want in the way of a poem giving you a visual? It reminds me a lot of a poem I once wrote about a capsized ship. When it came to Seattle's poems, I found myself fond of "From the Tower" by Heather McHugh because it reminds me so much of how I feel about today's insulated intelligentsia and morality police. There's noting earth-shattering about the techniques employed in the poem, but it's a rare thing to stumble upon a poem with perfect timing; to find "From the Tower" as I've been thinking a lot about related subject matter has forever embedded it in my mind. I wasn't saving the best for last on purpose; Portland is the last city in the book, but I wish it had been first because it's where I chose to live when I escaped the east coast. Sarah Bartlett's "Voice Over Guerillas" speaks to me and I can't quite place the reason why, but I found myself re-reading the lines "We all suspect everything//is an accident//on purpose//Existentially it's a toughie//But I finally did it//I met you//Isn't that enough" and finding them more lovely each time. There's something to that.
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Close Is Fine
by
Eliot Treichel
Christopher Thomas
, August 12, 2015
Note: Full review is at my website, thenerdmethod.com and I would give it a 4.5 if allowed. I’ll begin by stating that Eliot’s use of language in Close is Fine may not satisfy MFA graduates or literature snobs, but I personally found it to fit the stories in the book very well. The stories are all set in rural Wisconsin, but believe me when I say that Eliot’s magic is in the way he makes the stories accessible to anyone (well, anyone with a Western culture, anyway). The stories are at once heartfelt, real, and touching ��" from the bitter irony of “On By” to the theme of self-discovery in “Good Potato Soil”, the book will reach you on an emotional level, I guarantee. You’ve lived some of these stories, or know someone who has, and you’ve been in the places that some of these characters have been (or, again, you know some people who have). On that note, I’d like to touch on “Good Potato Soil”. The dialogue in this story, to me, rings perfectly true. More than that, though, the characters are true. I’ve been where these boys are; destroying anything I can destroy without getting caught as a way to make sense of the weird state of the world around me (my parents’ divorce, lackluster would-be father figures, friends who started doing drugs). Making trouble and not really sure why. There was a truth in this story that I wasn’t really expecting to encounter and that was a pleasant surprise. This was easily my favorite story in the work. I guess the best compliment I can give to Close is Fine is that it reads like nonfiction; the stories, situations, settings, and characters are made so real by Treichel’s writing that you would swear that they were true. Fiction that can be read as truth is a rare thing ��" Eliot even comes very close to being as good at it as my favorite short story writer, Andrew Dubus (whose “Killings” will probably always be my favorite short story). Anyway, if you like short stories and you don’t have the requirement that they feature some element of fantasy, science fiction, or horror, then Eliot Treichel’s Close is Fine is a great set of stories to sit down with and kill a few hours.
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Forgive Me If I've Told You This Before
by
Karelia Stetz-Waters
Christopher Thomas
, March 12, 2015
Excerpted from my full review at thenerdmethod.com: Karelia Stetz-Waters' novel, Forgive Me If I've Told You This Before, was surprising. I've not been a huge YA fan since I was in the age category that YA books are written for and, with the exception of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, I don't know if I've read any LGBT literature. Those things were easy to forget once I got into the book. The book is labeled as Young Adult right on the back, but reading it you'd almost never know -- there are design elements that are reminiscent of other YA books -- and Stetz-Waters' writing comes off more as literary fiction than YA. This is a good thing because it makes the novel accessible to older audiences while still being able to resonate with the younger readers. The novel takes place during Oregon's Ballot Measure 9 as the main character, Triinu Hoffman, discovers her sexuality in a rural town. This is where my slight apprehension at the LGBT angle of the novel was put to rest -- Triinu is intelligent and is surrounded by the kind of people who tend to live in painfully-small towns. I recently moved to Portland from a painfully-small town in North Carolina. What's more, the fact that the political turmoil of the past (as shown in the book) feels like the present day where I'm from made it ring home with me even more. The reader gets to watch Triinu develop, love, learn, and come out the other end as an independent person; if only the generation that's reading overly co-dependent romance schlock like Twilight would read more books like this, there might be hope for romance in the world, yet!
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