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After This by Alice McDermott.
National Book Award winner Alice McDermott’s most recent novel, After This, again explores her territory: Irish-Catholics on Long Island in the 1950s. The Keane family endures a lifetime of events - birth, war, separation, death - which mirror the social changes of the 50s, 60s and 70s. In After This, McDermott experiments with form (each chapter covers a different point-of-view), which can seem episodic, but which paints a full portrait of the Keanes, with the precision, humor and insight that led “The New Yorker” to call her “one of American fiction’s preeminent realists.” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006) - Joanne Green |
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Girls Night In by Lauren Henderson, Chris Manby and Sarah Mynowski, editors.
Turn off your cell phone and uncork a bottle Pinot, Girls Night In is the perfect companion any night of the week. This collection features short stories from today's best selling authors including Sophie Kinsella (Confessions of a Shopaholic), Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries series) and Jennifer Weiner (Good in Bed). From a misievous party planner to a wanna-be cat lady, these characters and their stories of redemption, revenge, vindication and love will make you believe that anything's possible long after you close the book. Proceeds from the book support War Child, a foundation that provides aid for children. affected by war. (Red Dress Ink, 2005) - Sandy Farnan |
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Tender as Hellfire by Joe Meno.
What would you do if your dad was killed under some suspicious circumstances and your mom moves your brother and you into a trailer park with her new boyfriend? In Joe Meno’s first novel, Tender as Hellfire the narrator, Dough, takes the reader through his journey as he learns to deal with ridicule, dishonor and despair. In Meno’s next novel, Hairstyles of the Damned, the reader is introduced to Brian who is in love with his punk rock best friend Gretchen. This book, which is part of the Barnes and Noble Great New Writers Program, takes an unapologetic look at growing up as a young misunderstood boy in Chicago during the time when teens would make mixed tapes in order to profess their undying love for their latest crush. (Akashic Books) - Michelle Wittle |
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Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: a Memoir by Nick Flynn.
Growing up with a hard-working single mother in the suburbs of Boston, Flynn, understandably, had no desire to become acquainted with his chronically drunk and delusional father. Then one day, his father showed up at the homeless shelter where Flynn worked and that began an unlikely saga of redemption for both men. Written beautifully in riffs and starts, scenes, and lists-a hybrid form with perfect pitch-this work allows us to discover, with the author, an unfolding relationship that defies the odds. W W Norton, NY 2004. - Janice Wilson Stridick |
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Awkward: A Detour
by Mary Cappello.
This book-length essay explores both the public and private spaces of awkwardness in all of its many textured variations. At once a memoir and an academic exploration, the book unfolds in four separate sections under compelling sub-headings like “tethered,” “teeth” and “ecstatic.” Author Mary Cappello skillfully intertwines the life and works of Emily Dickinson (the most socially awkward poet one could imagine), the precocious characters in Henry James’ books, and the philosophy of Deleuze alongside insightful and raw personal anecdotes. Taken together, the book brilliantly elucidates this uncomfortable, universal feeling that lingers within all of us long past adolescence. Bellevue Literary Press, NY 2007 - Aimee LaBrie |
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bang-BANG
by Lynn Hoffman.
Told with poet sensibility and vivid description, bang-BANG by novelist and Philadelphia Weekly restaurant critic Lynn Hoffman is the engrossing story of 24 year-old Paula Sherman, a waitress in Philadelphia who witnesses the senseless shooting death of her best friend. At its heart, the book is a stunning and powerful hit at lobbyists supporting gun control even as the shooting-deaths climb to unparalleled numbers in Philadelphia and other cities across the country. Yet there is nothing preachy in this story of victim turned vigilante turned heroine. As Paula faces off against one of the most powerful senators in the country, she does so with wit, bravery and intelligence that makes her character and ultimately, the novel, an exhilarating example of how fortitude and courage can still change the world. Kunati, Inc., FL 2007 - Aimee LaBrie |
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No Starling, poems by Nance Van Winckel.
This new collection from Pushcart Award Winner Van Winckel treats the personal, political and ineffable in a bell-clear voice both earthy and erudite. Her often humorous and always humble refractions of the everyday, the macabre and the tragic left this reader with a sense of reverence for the writer's work: to ask many questions and uncover what lies beneath or beyond the obvious. University of Washington Press, 2007. - Janice Wilson Stridick |
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