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HARDCOVER FICTION we love at WORD
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    The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers A powerful work of fiction set in the Iraq war and penned by an Iraq war veteran, The Yellow Birds renders the shattering experience of soldiering with great beauty and deep emotion. (Simone)
The Spokes by Miranda Mellis Our narrator gets on a ferry, disembarks in the afterlife, and encounters her dead mother and a younger version of herself in this otherworldly, dreamlike novella. If you've lost someone (to death, to time, to inevitable growth), and then dreamt of them and felt elated to see them in that dream -- so happy that it alerts you to the reality that it's a dream, and it awakens you, and you feel the loss all over again, but also the way you carry them with you -- then you should read this book. (Emily) I'm still a little incoherent about how much I love Maggie Steifvater's new novel, which pairs Blue Sargent, the daughter of a psychic, with a quartet of sharply drawn private-school boys, each
holding a secret or two. Each character is so exact, I could almost hear their voices as I read (and I definitely wanted to go exploring the Virginia countryside with them). Stiefvater combines familiar
elements -- mystery, ghost story, adventure, nervous teen attraction -- for a twisty, spooky read that never quite plays out as you expect. The Raven Boys is my new favorite YA in a year full of excellent YA novels. (Molly)
I will read everything King writes, ever. She tackles common themes of YA -- alienation, bullying, substance abuse -- but does beautiful, dangerous, and fascinating things with them. In her newest, Astrid Jones tries to figure out what it means that she's falling in love with a girl while being surrounded by people hiding their own secrets. (Jenn)
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PAPERBACK FICTION we love at WORD
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That's Not a Feeling by Dan Josefson:
Dan Josefson's debut (!!) novel is subtle, hilarious, heart-wrenching, cute, dark, and intelligent. Let me try again: That's Not a Feeling is like Ben Stiller and Co. in the film Heavyweights...if that film took place in a coed school for "troubled teens"...and had been directed by Wes Anderson...and was a novel, not a movie. (Chad)
Safe as Houses by Marie-Helen Bertino
I'm a sucker for a good short story, and Bertino's debut collection is absolutely full of them. There are words for the individual pieces of her style: whimsy, surrealism, wry humor, a knack for hitting a nerve. But it's hard to describe the way all the pieces fit together -- and how beautifully they do. Safe as Houses is everything I want out of a short story collection: variety, emotional resonance, even aliens. I laughed; I teared up a bit; and then I immediately lent it to a friend. (Jenn)
The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa
Llosa's epic masterpiece is a face-melting fictionalization of the real life Brazilian community known as Canudos. Characterized by wild violence, extreme faith, bad politics, and the people who love them, it's like Cormac McCarthy in Blood Meridian mode, but with fewer stars and more dirt. (Chad)
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NONFICTION we love at WORD
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Finding My Elegy: New and Selected Poems by Ursula K. Le Guin
This collection spanning Le Guin's writing life thus far roams far and wide. There are mystical poems conjuring gods and personal demons, meditations on the end of life, and lyrical dreams of the natural world. All well crafted and evocative. (Simone)
Spillover by David Quammen
I've been a fan of Quammen's writing for years (I have a very dogeared copy of The Boilerplate Rhino somewhere in my stacks), and Spillover might be my favorite of his books. It's a really fascinating examination of infectious diseases -- specifically the ones that pass from animals to humans, called zoonoses, like AIDS and SARS and H1N1. Epidemiologists suspect that this is where "The Next Big One" will come from (anyone else see Outbreak?) and Quammen takes us behind the scenes to look at the diseases already out there, how and why they happen, and what the future of zoonoses might look like. The best kind of informative-scary! (Jenn)
Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie
In 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeini announced that Salman Rushdie had been sentenced to death for writing The Satanic Verses. Bookstores were threatened and even bombed, and yet the indies displayed it proudly. This book lays out the events that led to that moment, the 8 years in hiding that followed, and it suggests that the fatwa (and its aftermath) was a precursor to the Islamic extremism that became more prevalent decades later. Rushdie tells his memoir in third person, such was the extent that it did it not feel like his life, then or in hindsight. He demonstrates the possible price of creative expression, and ultimately, its utmost importance. (Emily)
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KIDS BOOKS we love at WORD
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     A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle Mary O'Hara is a young Irish girl whose grandmother is slowly dying. Enter Tansey, a mysterious woman who comes with an important message for Mary's granny. Soon four generations of women are caught up in an unlikely, slightly supernatural adventure. A lovely family story, perfect for mothers and daughters, and a ghost story for people who don't like ghost stories. (Jenny) The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente September, after much longing and hoping, makes her way back to Valente's brilliantly imagined Fairyland -- but all is not well. Halloween, the queen of the underworld, has been stealing the shadows of Fairyland's residents, taking them down for an endless revel. And Halloween is no ordinary queen; she's September's own shadow. Perfectly autumnal and full of astonishing detail and imagery, this Girl story is as magical as the first (maybe even more so!). (Molly) Gidwitz, author of last year's A Tale Dark and Grimm, is back with more horrifyingly dark fairy tales. Jack and Jill meet sinister mermaids, homicidal goblins, and a disgusting, yet somehow lovable giant salamander in this collection of tales not for the faint of heart (or stomach). (Jenny) Stories 1 2 3 4 by Eugene Ionesco, illustrated by Etienne Delesert Originally published three decades ago and now reprinted by McSweeney's, these silly strange stories are unlike anything else you're likely to find. The strong 1970s aesthetic of the illustrations suits the imaginative quality of the tales to a T. (Simone) The Amazing Hamweenie by Patty Bowden If you've ever had a cat, you probably know how they can act like life is just SO difficult (being fed, getting ear scritches, sleeping all day...). The Amazing Hamweenie dreams of grandeur and stardom, but is endlessly -- and charmingly -- thwarted by his life in a New York apartment with a tea-party throwing, cat-washing little girl. By about the third page, I was reading this one aloud; the tone is just right, and the illustrations are gorgeous, detailed fun. (Molly) |
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This has been another production of the book-lovin' fools at: WORD (126 Franklin St Brooklyn NY 11222) Open for your reading needs from: 10am to 9pm, seven days a week Available during those hours at: 718.383.0096 And always open at: www.wordbrooklyn.com |
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