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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
lukas has commented on (618) products
Castle Rackrent
by
Maria Edgeworth
lukas
, October 24, 2015
"'Castle Rackrent' has gathered a dazzling array of firsts--the first regional novel, the first socio-historical novel, the first Irish novel, the first Big House novel, the first saga novel."-from the introduction Maria Edgeworth adds a political and economic dimension to the English novel in this slim story of the unfortunate Rackrent family. It's of historical importance, but it can be a little dry and the introduction and notes are helpful for context. You might also like Gaskell's "North and South." No less than Yeats called it "one of the most inspired chronicles written in English."
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Gateway to Freedom The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
by
Eric Foner
lukas
, October 23, 2015
Everybody thinks they know about the underground railroad and it's rightly become one of the heroic narratives of American history with Harriet Tubman as the iconic figure. Historian Eric Foner, who has written extensively about the Civil War era, doesn't puncture the myth, but rather shows just how many brave people were involved, as well as discussing the Abolitionist movement, which was less unified than it seemed, the economic ties of the North to slavery, and the individual escape stories. Tubman actually doesn't appear until late in the narrative, but other major figures, such as Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Lewis Tappan, are shown as key players. An important book for all American
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American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity
by
Appy, Christian G.
lukas
, October 20, 2015
“Vietnam brought something wholly new and unexpected into the American war story: failure. And not just failure to achieve the war’s stated objectives, but failures to preserve the broad conviction that America was an exceptional force for good in the world.” Vietnam continues to trouble Americans and to be a subject for novelists ("Tree of Smoke," "Matterhorn"), filmmakers ("Last Days in Vietnam"), and historians. Along with the recent "Kill Anything That Movies," "American Reckoning" is an unflinching and critical look at our involvement in Vietnam. Christian G. Appy, a historian and author, is not telling a new story, but, rather, as the title indicates, what Vietnam says about us, how it was viewed at the time, and the way it exists in memory and media. It presumes some familiarity with the basic history of the war, but Appy is more interested with the existential and cultural nature of the war and its impact on the American psyche. For a while, it was the war we lost and then, in the 80s, it was reclaimed by the right wing as the war we could've won. What I like is that he also discusses the war in the context of popular culture, focusing on the slew of Vietnam-themed films in the 80s, such as "Rambo," "Missing in Action," and "Born on the Fourth of July." An important and provocative book about a war that, according to Appy, we have still to fully process or atone for.
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Woman in Black MTI
by
Susan Hill
lukas
, October 18, 2015
Don't be fooled by the cover, this isn't a Harry Potter book! English author Susan Hill continues the Victorian Gothic tradition with subtle and creepy results. The title is a play on the Wilkie Collins novel "The Woman is White" and astute readers will recognize one of the chapter titles, "Whistle and I'll Come to You," as a reference to a spooky M.R. James ghost story. Made into a film with Harry Potter.
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The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
by
David Mitchell
lukas
, October 13, 2015
Man, that's a lot of five-star reviews. "History is not, after all, what really happened, but only what we believe happened."-David Mitchell There is no disputing English author David Mitchell's technical ability. His best-know novel, "Cloud Atlas," was a virtuoso performance, yet it failed to cohere as a narrative and its ambition was more often exhausting than inspiring. "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet," from 2010, is more conventionally structured than "Cloud Atlas" and a more satisfying read, yet it suffers from some of the same issues. Set in a Japanese harbor town in the late 1700s, Mitchell's novel evokes, in detail, the clash between societies and cultures, while channeling a wide range of voices, from the Dutch clerk of the title to an Irish criminal to a Japanese midwife. Again, it's impressive, but not particularly insightful or engaging, and I find it hard to view as a masterpiece or as "fiction's future." "I didn't set out to write a historical novel just for the heck of it--you'd have to be mad."-D.M.
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The Small Backs of Children
by
Lidia Yuknavitch
lukas
, October 10, 2015
The rare book that I picked up because I liked the title. I'm gonna have to disagree with all the 5-star reviews here. Compared to Henry Miller and Bukowski, among others, Lidia Yukanivitch is certainly among the so-called transgressive writers and the graphic sex plays out like a more literary version of "50 Shades of Grey." I don't mind sex in novels, but it's always a little hard to take seriously for me and, frankly, it didn't really add much to the story. Yuknavitch's style is original, but draws too much attention to itself. Some chapters are only a sentence long, others have double instead of single columns. To what end exactly? The characters, rather than named, are simply girl, filmmaker, poet, etc. The best thing I can say about it is that it's an interesting failure.
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Aguirre The Recreation Of A 16th C
by
Stephen Minta
lukas
, October 06, 2015
A mixture of travelogue and history that recalls Bruce Chatwin, Stephen Minta's "Aguirre" recreates the journey of the Basque explorer who was the inspiration for Werner Herzog's "Aguirre, the Wrath of the God." Herzog's film, which starred the bat crap insane Klaus Kinski, didn't try to be historically accurate, where Minta combs through documents to piece together a compelling, if frightening, portrait of an explorer gone mad. I often mind in books like this, the author's own journey can be intrusive, but Minta knows exactly how much of himself to put into the story. A fascinating story that is even bloodier and stranger than the film.
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War Trash
by
Ha Jin
lukas
, October 03, 2015
"In fact he too had been a mere pawn, not much different from any of us. He too was war trash." Chinese-born Ha Jin's novel was a final for the Pulitzer prize and, along with "Waiting," is his most acclaimed book. Set during the Korean War, it's the story of a Chinese solider held as a POW by the Americans. While Jin ably captures the experience of prisoners, the book never fully engaged me.
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Pulphead
by
John Jeremiah Sullivan
lukas
, October 01, 2015
A mostly strong, somewhat eclectic, purposefully idiosyncratic collection of essays from John Jeremiah Sullivan. Sullivan covers a lot of ground, moving from obscure 19th century naturalists to a Christian rock concert to Axl Rose. He seems to want to have it both ways, writing more cerebral, high-brow essays (he's been compared to David Foster Wallace) on scientific subjects, but also overthought, Chuck Klosterman-ish pieces on pop culture like "The Real World" or Michael Jackson. He mostly succeeds, but I don't know if anyone can make a cast member of "The Real World" interesting. "Rock of Ages," which is the Christian rock concert one, and his Axl Rose essay are the highlights, even if he lets Rose off too easily. You might also like Charles D'Ambrosio's "Loitering."
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Standard Operating Procedure
by
Philip Gourevitch
lukas
, September 28, 2015
"The stain is ours, because whatever else the Iraq war was about, it was always, above all, about America--about the projection of America's force and America's image into the world." Every war has its share of heroism, atrocities, and humiliations. But the photographs that emerged from the Abu Ghraib prison, which had previously housed Saddam's prisoners, put America's shameful treatment of Iraqi detainees on a global stage. Acclaimed documentarian Errol Morris interviewed many of those involved for his documentary "Standard Operating Procedure." Using his interview footage, The New Yorker's Philip Gourevitch wrote this companion book, which should be required reading for those who still believe in the justness of our mission in Iraq or that democracy can be imposed by an occupying army. Also see the books "Chain of Command" and "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" and the documentary "Taxi to the Dark Side."
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Vlad
by
Carlos Fuentes, Alejandro Branger, Ethan Shaskan Bumas
lukas
, September 27, 2015
The notorious Romanian nobleman Vlad, Prince of Wallachia was better known as Vlad the Impaler (aka the Voivode of Wallachia), member of the House of Dracula and the inspiration for one of the most iconic figures in horror. Bram Stoker brought the legend to life in the late 1800s and Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes updated the story in the early 00s, making the historical Vlad an undead monster who ends up in modern day Mexico City. It's a slim novel that will appeal to fans of the original. Also check out "The Historian."
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Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom The Golden Age of Rock
by
Nik Cohn
lukas
, September 24, 2015
"At any rate, I have a memory of two fat years, 1964 and 1965, when you did nothing but run loose and waste time, buy new clothes and over-eat and gab, when you thought you'd never have to work in your life again. It was futile, of course, pop has always been futile but it seemed elegant, it was easy living, and English pop was better than it's ever been, than it's ever likely to be again." Greil Marcus called this 1969 book "the first best book on rock 'n' roll." Intelligent rock criticism was about a decade behind rock music and it wasn't until the mid to late-60s with the emergence of writers like Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, and Cohn and the start of magazines like "Rolling Stone" and "Crawdaddy" that it caught up. Cohn, a Brit, wrote this in the late 60s when he was in his early 20s and it's a spirited, opinionated, and vivacious account of major acts like the Beatles, the Who, Dylan, and the Stones, but also, more importantly, of the cultural milieu they created. You may disagree with him, but you'll never be bored by him. Bob Stanley's excellent "Yeah Yeah Yeah" feels like a direct descendant of Cohn's book. One of Cohn's stories was also the basis for "Saturday Night Fever."
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Orson Welless Last Movie The Making of The Other Side of the Wind
by
Josh Karp
lukas
, September 15, 2015
Orson Welles famously said "I started at the top and worked my way down." Before he was 30 he conquered radio ("The War of the Worlds" broadcast), theater (his all-black production of "Macbeth"), Hollywood ("Citizen Kane"), and Rita Hayworth. Yet he could no quite live up to his own talent, something that couldn't have been helped by a colossal ego and a tendency to leave things unfinished. For many cineastes, he's the ultimate Hollywood martyr; a towering genius undone by crass executives who knew nothing about art. The more you read about his troubled (or incomplete) films, the more you get the nagging suspicion that Welles has to shoulder some of the blame. "The Magnificent Ambersons," the follow-up to Kane, was butchered by the studio, but he was out the country at the time. And I never really understood why his "Othello," which was filmed over several years (and countries) took so long to finish. This book is about his legendary (or infamous) unfinished and unseen final film, "The Other Side of the Wind." It's both a portrait of an aging artist, whose reputation was at least intact among film fans, and a look at the production of what seems like an elaborate home movie starring, among others, John Huston and Welles's girlfriend, and, at one time, financially backed by an the shah of Iran's brother-in-law. Really, it's perfectly fitting that his career (although he kept acting) ended this way. After all, this is a man who wanted to make "Don Quixote." Clips of the movie surface from time to time, including in his oddball documentary, "F for Fake." The book's not particularly illuminating, but will appeal to the reader already familiar with Welles and there are lots of juicy anecdotes. Who knows if the film, in any form, will ever be released. It's "hard to imagine a movie career more littered with sensational catastrophes than mine."-Welles, 1979
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Bridge of Sighs
by
Richard Russo
lukas
, September 06, 2015
I've really liked Richard Russo's other novels and have been slowly working my way through his output. Earlier books like "The Risk Pool" and "Mohawk" seemed to emerge from the gritty, working class "dirty realism" school of writing, while his best known books "Empire Falls" and "Nobody's Fool" added a Dickensian quality to those settings. "Bridge of Sighs," like another recent Russo book, "The Old Cape Magic," will be familiar to readers of his work, but disappointing. "Cape" felt disjointed and hastily thrown together, while "Bridge of Sighs" feels long-winded and monotonous, something I've never thought of his books. The plot is the usual family saga set against the backdrop of a small, decaying New York town. But what was fresh and incisive in earlier books has become stale and formulaic. I'm also not sure if it's acceptable for a white writer to refer to a character as a "negro," even if it is set in a less racially enlightened era. At 642 pages, it's a drag to read. Sigh.
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Red Mars Mars 01
by
Kim Stanley Robinson
lukas
, September 05, 2015
Some sci-fi fans distinguish between "hard" and "soft" sci-fi and if someone is telling you this, odds are they are firmly in the former camp. Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars," the first of his Mars trilogy, is hard sci-fi. It's not for the casual fan and it's unlikely to be made into a movie anytime soon. Robinson has a background and degrees in English lit., so his books are very well written, but not necessarily that engaging. I don't really want my sci-fi ultra realistic and scientific, so I found this book, which imagines the colonization of Mars, a bit dry and long-winded. It will appeal to fans of Clarke and Asimov. It won the Nebula Award. Followed by "Green Mars."
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Silver Screen Fiend: Learning about Life from an Addiction to Film
by
Patton Oswalt
lukas
, August 30, 2015
Comedian/actor/writer Patton Oswalt is a smart dude who unabashedly embraces his geekery, while also mocking it. His first book, "Zombie Wasteland Spaceship" was one of the better of the recent wave of comedian books. His follow-up focuses on his "addiction" to film, as well as his stand up career, his initial movie ("Down Periscope"!) and film appearances, and his life in general. It's a fast, engaging read that will appeal to fans of his comedy, but also to anyone who has an insatiable thirst for film of all kinds and all levels of quality. Two thumbs up!
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Hammer of the Gods Led Zeppelin
by
Stephen Davis
lukas
, August 29, 2015
"We are your overlords." It may not be the first, but Stephen Davis's "Hammer of the Gods" was the most famous example of a book that focused as much (if not more) on the decadent behavior of a band as their music. He treats sex, drugs and rock and roll as if it were the holy trinity. If you're a fan (and I can't imagine anyone but a fan picking this up), you'll enjoy the story of their formation and the making of their albums, but sometimes the music seems like an afterthought in this endless and tedious "saga" of groupies (some underage), drugs, private jets, drinking, the occult, sex, and men behaving very badly. Did I mention the sex? The infamous "shark" incident has its origin in this book, although apparently it was a red snapper. Davis writes with the breathless hysteria of an asthmatic teenage fan and outside of Zeppelin offers up highly questionable assessments of other bands, calling Black Sabbath and Cheap Trick "clones" of Zep. Plant said that the book did a great deal for the band "in terms of aura," but some of the accuracy has been disputed, as many of the most outrageous events are told by a former roadie, whose veracity is suspect. I won't say this wasn't entertaining in a cheap, dirty way, but it does little to explain or contexualize their still powerful and influential music.
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Indonesia Etc Exploring the Improbable Nation
by
Elizabeth Pisani
lukas
, August 22, 2015
"'We the people of Indonesia, hereby declare the independence of Indonesia. Matters relating to the transfer of power etc. will be executed carefully and as soon as possible.' Indonesia has been working on that 'etc.' ever since." Indonesia is a huge, populous, diverse country consisting of thousands of islands and the world's largest Muslim population, yet other than tourist favorite Bali, little is known about it in the West. Journalist and health worker Elizabeth Pisani's book is part travelogue and part history of the "improbable nation." Good travel writing is hard to do and she doesn't really excel at that, while it's too haphazard to function as a coherent history of the country. Not bad, but disappointing. Check out the documentaries "The Act of Killing" and "The Look of Silence."
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Penguin Book of Witches
by
Katherine Howe
lukas
, August 21, 2015
"What familiarity have you with the Devil, or what is it that you converse withal? Tell the truth." A useful and illuminating book of primary sources about witches, which includes trial records, warrants for arrests, essays on witchcraft, and excerpts from King James's "Daemonologie," which inspired Shakespeare to include witches in "Macbeth." Editor (and descendant of accused witches) Katherine Howe offers notes and annotations, which give historical context. The student or scholar of American history will particularly benefit from this book, while those who have read "The Crucible" can read firsthand accounts of Martha and Giles Cory, Tituba (who was Indian rather than black), and Rebecca Nurse. If you're looking for spells, this isn't the book for you.
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Arabs A History
by
Eugene Rogan
lukas
, August 19, 2015
Perhaps no region is more important for Americans to understand than the Middle East. Yet it and its inhabitants are more often treated (by politicians, the media, the average Joe) as a monolith, rather than the incredibly diverse, complex, and historically significant culture that they are. Oxford professor and scholar Eugene Rogan's history of the Arab people will no doubt stand for years to come as the definitive introduction for the general reader. Sweeping and dense, it's nonetheless engaging and lucid and will bring a great deal of historical understanding to contemporary conflicts, in particular the lasting damage done by colonial powers, the consequences of the creation of Israel in 1948, and our more recent involvement in the region. A necessary book. I would also recommend Karen Armstrong's short history of Islam and Michael Oren's history of America in the Middle East, "Power, Faith, and Fantasy."
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Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign
by
Michael K. Honey
lukas
, August 15, 2015
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor.” It's great to read these histories of the civil rights moment because we really liked that racism in America. Sorry, that was sarcastic. Unfortunately, these books are still relevant and a reminder that the struggle is never over. It's become all too common to cart out MLK as a feel good symbol of racial harmony, which does a disservice to his truly radical critique of American society, which included not just race, but also Vietnam, militarism, poverty, and capitalism itself. in 1968, he headed down to Memphis to support poorly paid and poorly treated black sanitation workers. He confronted not just lousy working conditions, but institutionalized racism, violent cops, hostile locals, and an instransigent mayor who kept a shotgun behind his desk. And, of course, he lost his life in Memphis. It's not an easy read, but it is an essential one. Also see "Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years" and "Hellhound on his Trail," which is about the manhunt for King's assassin."All labor has dignity."
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Haints Stay
by
Colin Winnette
lukas
, August 13, 2015
According to Urban Dictionary, a haint is a ghost, apparition, or lost soul. The western may be a quintessential American genre, but few serious writers have tackled it. In our own time, Cormac McCarthy stands as the undisputed master of the modern/revisionist western and "Blood Meridian" is his brutal masterpiece. He casts a long shadow and it feels inevitable that a younger writer tackling the genre will be compared to McCarthy. Colin Winnette's "Haints Stay" has more in common with another recent western, Patrick deWitt's "The Brothers Sisters" (there are even two gunslinging brothers in this) and with Jim Jarmusch's surreal "Dead Man." Winnette should be commended for attempting to work with the genre, but the book does little new and feels studied and overly self-aware. The great contemporary American western novel remains unwritten.
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Boardwalk Empire The Birth High Times & Corruption of Atlantic City
by
Nelson Johnson