 Ellington Boulevard by Adam Langer (4-19-08) |
 The Pig Did It by Joseph Caldwell (4-12-08) |
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 How the Dead Dream by Lydia Millet (2-23-08) |
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Recently Published Books in Hardcover:
See what's new in paperbacks...
Timeskipper by Stefano Benni - (April 2008) Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz - Second book in this funny new series. (March 2008) What Looks Like Crazy by Charlotte Hughes - Psychologist Kate Holly's own life has become the stuff of intensive therapy. She's divorcing her gorgeous firefighter husband, she has an eccentric secretary, her mother and aunt have erected a vaguely sexual sculpture in her front yard, and her psychiatrist ex-boyfriend won't stop calling to find out what color panties she's wearing. Now, Kate's being bombarded with mysterious threats, and the only person who can help her is the one man who always makes her lose her mind-and heart. (March 2008) The Duppy by Anthony C. Winkler - With his characteristic outrageousness, Winkler defies taboos and subverts conventional thinking in this entertaining, thought-provoking, and ultimately uplifting novel. (March 2008) You Must be Happy to Enter by Elizabeth Crane - Whether breathlessly enthusiastic, serenely calm, or really concentrating right now on their personal zombie issues, Elizabeth Crane's happy cast explores the complexities behind personal satisfaction. (February 2008) What I Was by Meg Rosoff - As the book opens, the 16-year-old narrator—unnamed until the final pages—is entering his third prep school in as many years. (January 2008) Beginner's Greek by James Collins - When Peter Russell finally meets the woman of his dreams he falls as madly in love as you can on a flight from New York to LA.Her name is Holly. She's achingly pretty with strawberry-blonde hair, and reads Thomas Mann for pleasure. She gives Peter her phone number on a page of The Magic Mountain, but in his room that night Peter finds the page is inexplicably, impossibly, enragingly...gone. So begins the immensely entertaining story of Peter and his unrequited love for his best friend's girl. (January 2008) Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips - The Greek gods are alive, sharing a London house and wreaking inadvertent havoc on mortals in this hilarious debut. The 12 gods of Olympus are alive and well in the 21st century, but they are crammed together in a London townhouse -- and none too happy about it. And they've had to get day jobs. Even more disturbing, their powers are waning.(December 2007) The Late Hector Kipling by David Thewlis - "[A] laugh-out-loud, darkly intelligent debut...a thought-provoking skewering of modern art by a knowledgeable writer and an inescapably doomed but appealing hero." PW (November 2007) Zeroville by Steve Erickson - Set primarily in Los Angeles from the late 1960s through 1980s, this darkly funny and wise novel focuses on our collective fascination with movies. (November 2007) The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland - Roger is a divorced, middle-aged “aisles associate” at Staples, condemned to restocking reams of 20-lb. bond paper for the rest of his life. Roger’s co-worker Bethany, is in her early twenties and at the end of her Goth phase, who is looking at fifty more years of sorting the red pens from the blue in aisle 6.
One day, Bethany discovers Roger’s notebook in the staff room. When she opens it up, she discovers that this old guy she’s never considered as quite human is writing mock diary entries pretending to be her: and, spookily, he is getting her right. (October 2007) Grub by Elise Blackwell -
Pointedly funny and compassionate, Grub reveals what the publishing industry does to writers -- and what writers do to themselves for the sake of art and to each other in the pursuit of celebrity.
(September 2007) Edward Trencom's Nose by Giles Milton - Situated on London’s Foster Lane, there is a quintessentially Georgian, redbrick house with a green door bearing the sign trencoms, 1662. It’s the home of the Trencom family’s cheese store, a generational establishment begun by Humphrey Trencom that now, 303 years later, is run by Edward Trencom. Quaint though it may seem, it bears witness to a strange occurrence of “accidents” that seem to befall every generation of the curd-loving family.… (August 2007) Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff - Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder. She tells police that she is a member of a secret organization devoted to fighting evil; her division is called the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons—"Bad Monkeys" for short. This confession earns Jane a trip to the jail's psychiatric wing, where a doctor attempts to determine whether she is lying, crazy—or playing a different game altogether. (August 2007) Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales for Girls by Danielle Wood - Charming and thoroughly modern, Rosie shares with us her piquant and utterly engaging views on life and love, marriage and mating, desire and destiny as she tackles the sometimes thorny business of making her way through life. These are not, I should say at the outset, tales written for the benefit of good and well-behaved girls who always stick to the path when they go to Grandma's. (August 2007) Mr. Sebastian and The Negro Magician by Daniel Wallace - From the author of Big Fish comes this haunting, tender story that weaves a tragic secret, a mysterious meeting with the Devil, and a family of charming circus freaks recounting the extraordinary adventures of their friend Henry Walker, the Negro Magician. Trudy Hopedale by Jeffrey Frank - Third fast-paced, entertaining Beltway sendup from New Yorker editor Frank. As the Clintons make way for the Bushes in 2000–2001, the novel follows Trudy Hopedale, television host of a certain age and D.C. social mainstay, who is fast fading into political and social obsolescence. (July 2007) Mere Anarchy by Woody Allen - A collection of 18 sketches, 10 of which appeared in the New Yorker, and is Allen's first in 25 years. (June 2007) Second Chance by Jane Green - the story of a group of people who haven’t seen each other since they were best friends at school. (June 2007) Starting Out Sideways by Mary E. Mitchell - Roseann Plow, a career conselor who works with the mentally challenged, is suddenly knee deep in her own life struggles. (May 2007) Gun Shy by Ben Rehder - Ambitious and hilarious, Rheder skewers all sides of America's gun culture. (May 2007) |
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Related to this Bookshelf:
The Rabbit Factory by Marshall Karp |
| The Hacker and the Ants by Rudy Rucker |
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About this Bookshelf:
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility."
James Thurber
I like to escape into a book that makes me laugh. Occasionally a book will catch me so off guard, that I want to read every word out loud. Edgerton's Raney was like this for me.
The thing about humor in fiction (or even nonfiction) is that it is really quite personal. What one person thinks is funny, another will not. For example, there are many who would not get the kick I get out of slapstick in word play (Silent Extras by Arnon Grunberg). For this reason, I think that many publishers don't like to take a chance on humorous fiction and thus, some of our favorite books on this bookshelf are self-published (C. Mike Reid, Brian Rouff, Randall Beth Platt, Sharleen Jonasson). Or if the author is picked up by a big house, they only have one, maybe two books ever published. It probably also explains all the "chic lit" books (Deanna Kizis, Jennifer Coburn, etc) since publishers must have some confidence that these books will sell, especially since they are really an off-shoot to the lucrative romance genre.
There are few writers, though, who are dependably funny. I never hesitate when it comes to Christopher Moore, David Sedaris (not fiction, but entertaining enough), or Donald Westlake. And humor can be written in most any genre. For example, Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's series is really considered Sci-Fi. The Kinky Friedman series are hard-boiled detective novels, and A Confederacy of Dunces is award winning literature. These books are so quotable that you can barely get by a page without heralding whomever is around you with yet another one-liner.
Some of these books probably should be shelved elsewhere on the site. But, I chose to put them here because they bring a smile to the face while reading them and the humor is used as a tool to convey a larger message. (Vernon God Little, Zadoorian's Second Hand, Chieh Chieng's A Long Stay in a Distant Land, Hari Kunzru's Transmission)
And some handle matters so serious (a terrorist delivering a bomb) but are wrapped in such a ridiculous way (make that "a food obsessed terrorist delivering a bomb by bicyle") that the novel is either going to work wonderfully or not at all. But when it does work (as does this one), it is so rewarding.
Which brings me to politics in fiction. There is no one better for this than someone who has spent time in Washington, like Christopher Buckley. While, others write about popular culture, like Michael Kun and others become pop culture icons because of what they write (Douglas Coupland, Cintra Wilson).
Many of these books center around odd characters in some fairly normal situations. Crazy in Alabama takes place in 1965, the height of the racial tension. Told from the point of view of a childhood memory, Aunt Lucille makes for some fairly hysterical antics. Or take Mack Green, in The Bookmakers, who owns some very unconscious decisions, but the plot turns hilarious as we watch some exceptionally ruthless people at work. Then there is J. Robert Lennon's, Mailman.
Oprah's books, not! When the books are this funny, you don't see people feeling sorry for themselves in that redeeming way Oprah likes. OK, they may feel sorry for themselves - Samuel Karnish, Ignatius Reilly, Pamela Trowell, certainly do, but their logic is so honestly deceptive, we can't help but laugh.
And then it's the way some writers retell history, such as Noah's son in Surviving the Flood or the history of Middle Eastern religions in Skinny Legs and All; or the way some writers invent a new mythology such as the tale told in Coyote Blue. And at last we have the not so very tall tales (or are they?) of Farley Mowatt.
Sometimes location brings forth the humor. Some of our best contemporary writers, set their plots in Florida, especially Southern Florida where the characters get crazier and the plots do a loop-de-loop, until it all makes sense. Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, Laurence Shames and Jimmy Buffett excel at taking us into the extreme sunshine with a large smile on our face.
And finally, there is that class of fiction in which it is so very, very clever that we almost can't take it seriously until we step back and really think about it. Ella Minnow Pea is like this. But for all its playfulness there is a real message here, one that shouldn't be overlooked.
