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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
jraoul has commented on (15) products
Eminent Hipsters
by
Donald Fagen
jraoul
, March 25, 2024
Haven't read the book yet, but think it's either befuddling or amusing that the reviews and synopses are mixed in with those for Rosanne Cash's COMPOSED and David Byrne's BICYCLE DIARIES. Strange bedfellows!
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Countdown City Last Policeman 02
by
Ben Winters
jraoul
, February 17, 2022
"This age of uncertain terrors is metastasizing, growing backward, destroying not just the future but the present, poisoning everything: relationships, investigations, society, making it impossible for anyone to know anything or do anything at all." What a prophetic line, written nine years ago, seven years before The Current Unpleasantness, four before the dawn of Trump. The backdrop of this (quite satisfying) police procedural is by no means identical to our own, but the resonances are haunting. We are not living under quite as immediate a sword of Damocles as the characters in this novel (they only have a couple of months before a comet smashes into the earth and destroys Civilization As We Know It), but the slightly more distant apocalypse that truly does loom for us helps the reader get totally immersed. I'm nearly done with this second volume of the trilogy, and am looking forward to plunging right into the thrilling conclusion.
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Three Women
by
Lisa Taddeo
jraoul
, October 30, 2019
The three stories Taddeo tells (bookended by one of her own) are gripping, very different takes on the theme of women's desire. Parts are graphically sexual, others tender and heartbreaking, and some others are very disturbing -- if you're looking for any one of these things, the other two will probably spoil the mood, but if you can roll with all the twists and turns, it's an exciting ride. The book thoroughly held my interest even while I was annoyed by some of its writerly mannerisms, chief among them lengthy passages in the second person, and breaking up the three narratives into intercut but not particularly resonant chunks. It's gonzo journalism for a new generation.
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Robert Anton Wilson: Beyond Conspiracy Theory
by
jraoul
, July 02, 2019
Nice little addition to the RAW bibliography. Minor carp: More than a third of the book is given over to an "International Conspiracy Trivia Quiz" which, while entertaining, could have delivered the same information in a more prosaic format in about five pages. Also, where is the interview with Sean McBride? But these are nitpicks; the interview itself is lovely.
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Bedwetter
by
Sarah Silverman
jraoul
, April 14, 2013
I wasn't a huge fan going in -- I laughed once (but very loud) during her movie -- and the book didn't change anything. It's got a couple of good, crude laughs; a lot of "yeah, I can see how that's funny" narrative; a surprising amount of tender confessions; not a whole lot of celebrity gossip or insights into how comedy or show business work. I did NOT hurl it across the room with great force; it held my interest through to the end, but didn't rock my world.
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Beatles Complete Chord Songbook
by
Beatles
jraoul
, April 14, 2013
This is not for everyone, but if you're one of the people it's for, it's perfect: all the lyrics and all the chords (and almost all of them correct -- I think Martha My Dear is in the wrong key, and I've found one or two other little errors) for all of the songs the Beatles wrote and recorded. Nothing from the post-group solo careers, and none of the covers, but it does include some of the oddities from Anthology. The binding makes it a little difficult to use, but you can take it to a xerox place and have them spiral-bind it. It is NOT the same as a score or even a lead sheet -- there are no dots-and-lines notation, just words and chord symbols, and not even the rhythm is notated. So you kind of have to already know the songs for it to be really useful. That said, it's a great and compact reference and gig aid.
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Lunatics
by
Dave Barry, Alan Zweibel
jraoul
, March 06, 2013
I've never been a big fan of Dave Barry's columns, but I love his two earlier novels, Big Trouble and Tricky Business (which is not to mention the slew of Peter Pan prequels he's done with Ridley Pearson) -- both of them feature stupid people doing increasingly stupid things, and that's a genre for which I am a complete sucker. You may give up reading this review now, if you like. Still with me? Barry's come out with a new book with the bizarre title "Lunatics and Alan Zweibel" ... or at least that's what it says on the cover and side-binding of the hardcover version I have. (The hardcover version also boasts the funniest back cover blurb I've ever read, which isn't saying much, but still.) Like Barry's earlier books, it features stupid people doing increasingly -- and incredibly -- stupid things. It also does the impossible, taking the basic template of "The In-Laws", a perfect comedy B-movie (I speak of the Arkin/Falk original, not the Steve Martin remake) and improving on it. The laughs are plentiful, if mostly Rabelaisian, for at least half the book. Then they slow down a little as the story gets bogged down in plot, as I think Joe Bob Briggs used to say, but I found myself still happily turning the pages through to the end -- by that time, I felt the author(s) had already earned my affection and didn't need to work so hard. I also like the fact that my friend David gets a completely gratuitous namecheck in the book, putting him in the same league as me, who got namechecked in Dave Barry's Book Of Bad Songs.
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Lunatics
by
Dave Barry, Alan Zweibel
jraoul
, March 06, 2013
I've never been a big fan of Dave Barry's columns, but I love his two earlier novels, Big Trouble and Tricky Business (which is not to mention the slew of Peter Pan prequels he's done with Ridley Pearson) -- both of them feature stupid people doing increasingly stupid things, and that's a genre for which I am a complete sucker. You may give up reading this review now, if you like. Still with me? Barry's come out with a new book with the bizarre title "Lunatics and Alan Zweibel" ... or at least that's what it says on the cover and side-binding of the hardcover version I have. (The hardcover version also boasts the funniest back cover blurb I've ever read, which isn't saying much, but still.) Like Barry's earlier books, it features stupid people doing increasingly -- and incredibly -- stupid things. It also does the impossible, taking the basic template of "The In-Laws", a perfect comedy B-movie (I speak of the Arkin/Falk original, not the Steve Martin remake) and improving on it. The laughs are plentiful, if mostly Rabelaisian, for at least half the book. Then they slow down a little as the story gets bogged down in plot, as I think Joe Bob Briggs used to say, but I found myself still happily turning the pages through to the end -- by that time, I felt the author(s) had already earned my affection and didn't need to work so hard. I also like the fact that my friend David gets a completely gratuitous namecheck in the book, putting him in the same league as me, who got namechecked in Dave Barry's Book Of Bad Songs.
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House of Holes
by
Nicholson Baker
jraoul
, July 08, 2012
I'm not really sure who this book for -- it's way too whimsical and quirky and literary to be very effective as a stroke book, and it's way too dirty for just about anyone else. It is really, really dirty ... but it is also by turns funny, enchanting, romantic, playful, silly, and engaging. It's almost as if Baker is playing a game with the reader to see how many wrenching turns he can toss without losing our interest. He's a good enough writer to keep the game interesting. Whether that makes for a good book?... I'm still not sure. But it's a fun ride.
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Getting Off A Novel of Sex & Violence
by
Lawrence Block
jraoul
, March 04, 2012
As someone who is not, himself, a lesbian, I'm in no position to assess the veracity with which Block/Emerson captures the realities of lesbian life, or even the realities of life for one particular lesbian, but if I were to hazard a guess it would be: Not much. It reads more like a picture of the imaginary lifestyle straight men conjure up for the women who populate their girl-on-girl fantasies. And in more general terms, Getting Off is not so much a work of art that sets out to capture the realities of anyone's life, as it is an homage to a genre that captures -- effectively and often wittily, and sometimes excitingly -- the tropes of sensational and exploitative fiction. One of those tropes -- that non-mainstream sexual preference fits seamlessly hand in, uh, glove with psychopathology -- is pretty much worked to death here, and if you come to this with a politically correct sensibility, it probably won't take you long to rebound away in horror, much like the reaction the movie Cruising inspired a few years back. But if you give the author the benefit of the doubt, as I did, there's a pretty entertaining read in here. It starts off with fairly detached chapters; indeed, some of them were offered as stand-alone short stories in a few anthologies. But after a while a narrative of sorts asserts itself, and while it's not much of a surprise where it's ultimately headed, there are some diverting pit stops along the way that, while similar to each other, gain momentum as they approach the finish line. The book is subtitled "A Novel of Sex & Violence", and there's plenty of both throughout, the latter depicted graphically but with a deadpan befitting the protagonist's blasé indifference. Much of the former is only hinted at, with the narrator fading tastefully to black just as things are about to get going; the couple of scenes that do go further feel more like clumsy editing than effective pornography. So: not much story, not much sex, not much verisimilitude. If all you're looking for is a good, dry send-up of a 50s pulp genre with a 21st century sensibility, this is definitely the ticket. As the jacket blurb proclaims, you're in the hands of a master, and while he has not set his sights very high, his aim is true. You can relax and let him take you for a very smooth ride.
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Shadow Of The Wind
by
Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
jraoul
, January 01, 2012
OK, so I got a little late to the party. But this book is the perfect amalgam of page-turning soap opera, magical realism, Barcelona tour guide, and heart-breaking coming-of-age story. Held my interest until the final pages, and then did not issue a Bronx cheer in my face like so many, but actually rewarded the time I'd invested. Thank you, Shadow of the Wind!
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Human Smoke The Beginnings of World War II The End of Civilization
by
Nicholson Baker
jraoul
, September 01, 2011
Nicholson Baker's no stranger to controversy. Although his first couple of books were modestly well received, he made a much bigger splash with Vox and The Fermata, both mixing explicit sexuality with finely crafted prose and high concepts you'd never find in a paperback smut novel. Since then his career has continued to careen all over the map, from The Anthologist, a poetry primer disguised as a novel, to Double Fold, a non-fiction diatribe lamenting the decline of the modern library. In Human Smoke, Baker recombines his many varied skills in yet another configuration. It's non-fiction, yes, but it reads like a novel, almost like one of Vonnegut's later works: four or five interlocking narrative threads, each told in short chapters, often just paragraphs. And his penchant for stirring up trouble is in full force: I believe his premise could be loosely paraphrased as "Yeah, Hitler was a schmuck, but so were Churchill and Roosevelt." He contends that World War II was avoidable, that all the high-minded justifications offered for it were smoke and mirrors (and offers specific examples where opportunities for real humanitarianism were missed, deliberately ignored, or bafflingly and tragically sabotaged), and that all the principals involved were dead set on a major -- and profitable -- military operation. Of course, this view has not sat well with any number of parties, and a debate has raged in the pages of literary and political journals. But I feel that Baker makes a strong case, and his brave and unswerving commitment to pacifism in the face of such scorn deserves to be heard. Oh, and don't confuse this book with his more recent House of Holes, which I haven't read yet but looks like a return to the explorations he began with Vox and Fermata.
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Jake & Mimi
by
Frank Baldwin
jraoul
, April 12, 2010
Gee, I thought I was the only person in the world who liked this book. It's trash, but well-written and very effective trash. It has the same structure as a porn novel, with sex scenes pretty evenly distributed throughout, but in between is an actual plot, with actual suspense. I'm surprised it hasn't been picked up by the film industry.
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Alphabet Juice The Energies Gists & Spirits of Letters Words & Combinations Thereof Their Roots Bones Innards Piths Pips
by
Roy Blount
jraoul
, February 04, 2009
What a truly glorious thing it must be to have Roy Blount's mind, because it's pretty darned glorious just to be witness to its workings. Most of Blount's stuff that I've read in the past has achieved an uncanny balancing act between reckless digressions and insightful sticking-to-the-point, and here he finally gives his digressive side full sway. The results are still informative and hilarious as always, but the ride is even more exhilirating.
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(8 of 10 readers found this comment helpful)
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Pedant In The Kitchen
by
Julian Barnes
jraoul
, November 02, 2008
The insight and wit Barnes shows in his fiction is in full force here, a collection of essays about his not-so-amateurish forays into cooking. The closest analogy I can think of is if Nick Hornby wrote about food rather than books (in his Believer columns and their anthologies) -- that kind of eclectic and omnivorous interest, self-deprecation, and inspiration to follow his leads.
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(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
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