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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
TrG has commented on (8) products
Damned If You Do
by
Gordon Houghton
TrG
, October 07, 2016
If you are a fan of Christopher Moore and have not read this amazing novel Damned If You Do, you sure should. I was given this book – it appears 16 years ago now – and I reread it last week. It still cracked me up, creeped me out and kept me thinking. Narrated by the loser of a very peculiar lottery system, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse need to find a new assistant for Death. The "winner" is brought back from his grave and ... employed, against his will. It is both funny and surreal. Damned If You Do shares some of the quirkiness of say Gravity’s Rainbow and The Assault on Tony’s, yet it really is a piece of story-art of its own and much more linear than Pynchon, that might have been a stretch for me to make, but Gravity’s Rainbow did have some odd moments that I still feel too. The chess chapter alone in Damned If You Do is worth the read. Death is challenged to a chess match. Enjoy humans,
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Timequake
by
Kurt Vonnegut
TrG
, July 03, 2014
Vonnegut’s hefty take on sci-fi in Timequake is perfect. The Timequake requires that humans relive, to the moment, all of their successes and failures of the previous 10 years of their lives. There is little to no free will, more like rerun and relive, repeat. Can you imagine? Applying that to our current lives, many long days and long nights repeating themselves, and we couldn’t do a thing about it, but accept it - do it again. Anyway, this review isn’t about us, it is about a novel. Vonnegut’s novels often creep into my daily life like messages from above, I hope he reads this review and smiles but yes I know - he’s up in heaven now. Kilgore Trout’s at the helm again and he is so entertaining and so busy in this book trying to help when he can as he is a bit aware of the adventure and the ripple. In typical Vonnegut style, this novel also contains reoccurring lines of brilliance throughout. Most famously and sure to be tattooed on some human out there reading this: “You were sick, now you're better, there's work to be done” This is a great Vonnegut novel, oh and ting-a-ling.
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Habeas Codfish: Reflections on Food and the Law
by
Barry M. Levenson
TrG
, November 11, 2013
This has got to be a holiday best seller! This book, crafted like such smooth mustard by Barry Levenson, the curator of the National Mustard Museum located in Middleton WI, is both witty and informative. Habeas Codfish is a wild read through food laws, delicious lawsuits and various food related debauchery. The chapter in which you learn how Mr. Peanut made such an impact on trademarks is a history lesson of its own, should be taught in schools! If you have a "foodie" in your family, do them a favor, get this book for them, then make them lend it to you. What a great collection of essays and laws and humanity, all in one collection.
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Geek Love
by
Katherine Dunn
TrG
, November 05, 2013
Geek Love is a stunning look at not only human beings and their place within society, but also the Pac NW, the area adds a nice drool to the whole story. This family of oddities, created through various chemicals and spirited ways, engages both the reader's brain as well as heart. Arty, one of my favorites, gathers his own following yet as a simple reader I wish I could join in on his Arturism. That this story was released almost 25 years ago does not make it feel dated or unrelatable. The moment that stands out for me as a parent is when the Binewski family is about to leave their newest addition, Fortunato aka the Chick, abandonded at a gas station. Lil, his mother, is writing a note to tape to his box and she makes sure she is using proper language so whomever finds Chick won't think the family that left him behind had no class. The scene unfolds in such a vivid almost sci-fi way that you cannot but help feel the magic of the grand storytelling and wonderful playfulness with words. If you are reading something else right now and have never read Geek Love, drop it. Go pick up Geek Love, it really is an astonishing novel, almost too hard to explain or review in text. Dunn's words are so well selected, so original and magical. Thank you Katherine Dunn.
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Geek Love
by
Katherine Dunn
TrG
, November 05, 2013
Geek Love is a stunning look at not only human beings and their place within society, but also the Pac NW, the area adds a nice drool to the whole story. This family of oddities, created through various chemicals and spirited ways, engages both the reader's brain as well as heart. Arty, one of my favorites, gathers his own following yet as a simple reader I wish I could join in on his Arturism. That this story was released almost 25 years ago does not make it feel dated or unrelatable. The moment that stands out for me as a parent is when the Binewski family is about to leave their newest addition, Fortunato aka the Chick, abandonded his mother is writing a note to tape to his box and she makes sure she is using proper language, so whomever finds Chick won't think the family that left him behind had no class. The scene unfolds in such a wild almost sci-fi way that you cannot but help feel the magic of the grand storytelling and wonderful playfulness with words. If you are reading something else right now, and have never read Geek Love, drop it. Order or go pick up Geek Love, it really is an astonishing novel, almost too hard to explain or review in text, Dunn's words are so well selected, so original and magical. Thank you Katherine Dunn.
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(2 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)
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Revenge of the Lawn / The Abortion / So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away
by
Richard Brautigan
TrG
, October 29, 2013
Brautigan... his stories read like directions to life, like nature upon human form, he has the ability to boil minutes down to a simple cup of coffee. That feeling you get when someone walks into the room and looks at you for no reason other than you are sitting there. That is how his stories find me, sitting there, as he walks in. Our eyes meet and for a minute several pages turn and the story ends. And you want to read it again. That is how I read Brautigan. Many reviews have been written about the Abortion, and Vancouver WA is now lucky to call the library home, but these other two collections in this volume are important too. Revenge of the Lawn features one of my favorite Brautigan shorts titled Pacific Radio Fire, about just that, lighting a radio on fire and sitting and listening while it slowly boils down into melted useless plastic wires while music warbles out. Many other short stories are collected in Revenge as well, giving it almost a novella feeling, well worth the time. So The Wind Won't Blow it All Away has been credited by the scholars to be a sum up of his life and self inflicted end to his life, but I choose to read it from a different point of view. I miss this guy, this Richard Brautigan.
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The Mustard Book
by
Rosamond Man and Robin Weir
TrG
, October 29, 2013
Along with Dominguez's the Mustard Book, this is a holiday favorite for me. Not only the recipes, but the history of mustard, all in little snips. The Mustard Book being out of print and pretty high priced makes Rosamond Man and Robin Weir's tale a welcome back-up. I imagine even Barry Levenson thumbing through this one, leaving his yellow thumb prints all over the delicious pages. Making mustard for the holidays is a great tradition, get this book, then give someone some mustard. Yellow mellow.
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Bluebeard
by
Kurt Vonnegut
TrG
, October 16, 2013
This has to be one of Vonnegut's greatest later novels, right up there with Galápagos and his earlier work with Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five. Rabo Karabekian, the one-eyed septuagenarian artist, and the two authors in this novel feel real and interesting. Vonnegut did a great job of inviting the reader into his potato barn with this story, Dan Gregory is a person we all know too well in real life and his place in this book should remind readers of that special friend or family member that is super talented, yet a little too spooky for general human consumption. If you haven't read Bluebeard yet you should add it to the top of his stack of work. This novel has some laughs, some moments of heartache and some general fun - each fold away like layers of Sateen Dura-Luxe to reveal a world only Vonnegut could create for us simple human reading machines. And in an odd twist of Vonnegutism, this story actually feels quite happy to me, it does not dive into his usual curmudgeon style voice but left me with a happy feeling, and very glad to have read it. Thank you Mr Vonnegut.
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