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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
thegreenangel has commented on (6) products
The Odyssey
by
Gareth Hinds
thegreenangel
, February 01, 2011
After my son & I watched The Simpson's episode where Homer is Odysseus, Marge is Penelope and Bart, their son Telemachus, we came across this gem at Powell's and decided to further his classics education using similar unconventional materials: Gareth Hind's graphic novel, and adaptation of The Odyssey. We'd done this with much of Shakespeare, reading Hamlet and McBeth together in this way and thought this a solid method for The Odyssey as well. Thing is: Hinds is such an amazing artist that we spent much of our time gazing at the artwork! My son did enjoy and absorb the text, too, but it was the panels which captivated him fully, being in rich color, from awesome perspectives. The Cyclops! Neptune arising from the sea! Odysseus's Great Bow! We always assumed that the tale was from The Classics, but it makes a far better comic book than we ever thought! It IS the stuff of comics, truly. I'd recommend it not only for adults who either want to brush up on their Classics or want to encounter the Tale is a new way; but also for parents who want a great story to read to and with their kids...it's text is ample enough and written well enough to be an enriching bed-time reader, read in chapters or segments, over the course of a month or so...or, why relegate it to just bedtime? It's a good side-by-side read for the daytime,with just the book between adult and child. Having read many graphics, this is amoung The Best, and it as wide appeal. I can't imagine anyone not liking this in some way.
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Half Life
by
Jonathan Raymond
thegreenangel
, January 31, 2011
Fresh from reading Livability, Raymond's collection of short stories that fit so comfy as a pair of your best faded jeans, Half Life also displayed Raymond's preternatural talent for inhabiting diverse characters, settings, time periods and cultures. As he did in Livability, Raymond goes from characters ranging in age from childhood to chronologically challenged, gender to gender and back again, as if it were just another day in the park. How can he so completely understand the mind of two very different teenaged girls (something that he could market in a different way to thus afflicted parents!) and then jump back a century in time and do the same to a military camp cook in the mid-nineteenth century?!? It's amazing, truly. In doing so, he allows us to see the heart of humanity, and that, despite all the external, environmental changes, we human beings as a species, have changed very little, still all basically want the same things: to be loved, cherished and understood. This is a loving look at friendship placed in the guise of a mystery story of sorts, when two highschool girls in the late 2oth century live on communal land where one of the resident adults (and landlord) makes a discovery, unearthing two intertwined, not-too-recently deceased skeleton, holding hands. Amid escalating controversy about what racial group these skeletons come from and therefore who has the rite to claim them, the story of the lives of these two individuals, while still alive, is told, framed through the lens of the two girls' friendship, the wacky things that they plan, and eventually, it's demise as well. My favorite scene is when the girls finally find the right camera for their filmmaking project...the description of the store and its owner are absolutely fantastic! It's a very good and gratifying story, but it's heart is, well, all heart...the human one, and how friendship is a powerful and enduring force in our lives.
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Cement Garden
by
Ian McEwan
thegreenangel
, January 31, 2011
In tracing McEwan's literary style back to its roots, I chose to read this earlier work of his immediately after reading his latest novel, Solar. In the years in between, McEwan has only added depth and breadth and more eloquence to his stories and prose, but his ascerbic writing style was in full presence even 30 years ago. He's the master of holding his reader to the bitter end, not releasing him until McEwan's bloody well good and ready, making sure that before he does, every last breath, every vital drop of blood, has been licked up and then and only then, does he drop you limp and shivering and unworthy back to yourself. Cement Garden is the same. The subject matter is shocking and not for the faint of heart: don't gift this to your weakhearted grandma, for instance, nor give it to your putative in-law in a welcome basket. Upon the interesting deaths of their parents, four siblings attempt to maintain residence in their family home, trying to keep up all appearances to all who might be peering. This is the sexual tale not told in Lord of The Flies, if it had been set in the modern, Western world, inside a family home with no parents. Imagine what sorts of things could happen with 2 opposite sexed teenagers and 2 elementary school-ages younger ones! I'm just glad I didn't read this at the time when it was written as it would have seriously f**ked me up, and for those who did read it then, who knows if it wasn't the impetous for the whole Inner Child/ Healing From Incest psycho-movement that followed it into the next two decades? A GREAT READ. (the only reason it's not 5 starred is due to the subject matter)
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Minds Eye
by
Oliver Sacks
thegreenangel
, January 30, 2011
A born story-teller and physician, Dr. Sacks can write with the best of them, making complex neurology a completely understandable as well as thouroughly enjoyable subject matter. This isn't just about eyes and brains; it's about perception and the basis of consciousness itself, provoking far more thought long after the last page is turned than the average book, one that will stay in the working consciousness for decades to come, as in his past offerings. Sacks causes us to question how we see, how we interprete what we see, and how we take all of this complexity for granted. He gives us portraits of the brave, ones who've been dealt a harsh hand and through ingenuity,determination and sheer grit create marvelous ways to carry on with life...maybe not just as before, but in a new way, a way that often leaves us in amazement, wondering if we could have done the same. We come to appreciate and marvel at what we have, but are able to stretch our definition of what it is to be human, and see. Plus, Dr. Sack finally revels to us why he's been so fascinated with the mind, and bares to us the face of his own affliction, something most physicians are loathe to do, hence they become less than Gods. Ask yourself: what would you do if you couldn't recognize your mother's own face? Your spouse's? Child's? You OWN? If any spark of curiousity results, then read this book.
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False Friend
by
Myla Goldberg
thegreenangel
, January 28, 2011
Myla Goldberg's novels, particularly her last, are miraculous to me, as I never thought it was possible to achieve what she’s done. Like the black lacquered Russian Hubble doll I have on my bookshelf, False Friend is at every level marvelous. Each sentence should be taken slowly, allowing all its subtleties free range on the mind’s palette. It’s the equivalent difference between a drive thru at Carl’s and a meal at Chez Panisse. How silly of me to think that I could read False Friends as a quick lunch companion, having its company stuffed in between my rushed daily errands. And me, of the Slow Food movement! The characters are gratifyingly familiar, as known to me as my hands. The opening scene brilliantly brings the story into focus, allowing the reader to hear the word "ladybug" echo in their own ear from some long-ago broad backseat too. The way Goldberg has paced the story, having it unfold gracefully, seemingly on its own, like colored,folded tissue paper, at first floating on, and then blooming and merging into, a still stream; it's both pleasing, and it artfully keeps the necessary narrative tension. Each room we enter, each street in Celia’s old hometown, every landmark we see, we see with fresh eyes. It’s like we’re seeing the rooms of a well-known house,ones we’ve occupied so many times before, for the first time, but while somehow retaining the unalterable sense of total familiarity. And finally, the story itself is the same; like one we’ve known well, and like one we’ve just now heard. Like a forgotten best friend from grade school. It definitely isn't Bee Season; no. But for that, be grateful!
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Thirteen Moons
by
Charles Frazier
thegreenangel
, January 23, 2010
If one is expecting the caliber of Frazier's first novel, Cold Mountain, one will be disappointed. Although enjoyable, Thirteen Moons shouldn't be compared to the brilliance of the other novel. So, given that, I would still recommend this as a nice read. Frazier's prose here tends to be overworked and rather than illuminating his scenes, clouds it with too much detail, too much antiquated vocabulary, making what would otherwise be delightful passages feel like drudgery. I felt as if, without the aid of a dictionary, complete comprehension would allude me; thus making me, the reader, feel not only humble, but slighted by the author. I appreciate command and dexterity of language from writers, but when one goes beyond the realm of servicing his novel, his story, for...I don't know...showmanship or language grandiosity, then I have, rather than admiration for such usage, disdain. It makes for incomprehensibility, lack of clarity, and the worst sin of all, it detracts from the flow of the plots so much so that it is more comfortable to either pick up another novel or reach for the remote. Still and all, it's a good story, reminiscent to me of Dustin Hoffman's self admitted favorite, Little Big Man. If Frazier had visions of a screenplay in mind while conceiving this story, he was on the mark. Perhaps that's why he wrote it the way he did; not really caring if his novel readers would like it, but aiming for Hollywood instead. That's probably more cruel than I wish to be, but after his first success, why not; That's Show Biz. Take it on your next plane trip and it'll serve as a wonderful segueway into conversation with your attractive seatmate, if nothing else.
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