Archive for April 2006

Where is my mind? A short list of fantastic novels about and/or for the discombobulated

We’re happy to inaugurate our Book Lists category with this mind-tripping list from our customer service manager, Chris Nuckols: 

House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski: One man attempts to edit a dead blind man’s papers about a famous photojournalist’s film documenting a house with shifting dimensions. Where is the house? Where is the film? Why […]

Beyond Black, by Hilary Mantel

I first heard of Beyond Black while enjoying the Guardian’s list of author-picked best books of 2005. That’s where this year’s Man Booker Prize–winner John Banville gushed that Beyond Black author Hilary Mantel should have joined him on the shortlist for his award. It’s where A.S. Byatt lauded Mantel’s prose and proclaimed her novel to […]

Josh’s favorite fiction: Barry Lopez and more

I work in Seller Services at Alibris, and here are three of my favorite books:

Winter Count, by Barry Lopez: A rich and beautiful collection of short stories about human nature and the natural world. One of my favorite books of all time! If you like this, you will enjoy Arctic Dreams too.
Crime and Punishment, by […]

The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion

Joan Didion is at her best in The Year of Magical Thinking, an unusual memoir in which she applies her uniquely acute observation skills to her own grief in the wake of the deaths of her husband and daughter. What makes this book different than her others is the the raw emotion that courses through […]

13 Steps Down, by Ruth Rendell

Reading 13 Steps Down is kind of like getting a head transplant. Or, more likely, at least three new noggins. One moment you’re wandering around inside the gray matter of Gwendolen Chawcer, an octogenarian orphan who rattles and prattles about in her ramshackle London manse, fixating on a love she might have lost 50 years […]

Billy’s best baseball books

As the resident librarian of Alibris for Libraries, it is my pleasure to present you with my top five (in no particular order) “all-time fave” baseball books.

The Southpaw, by Mark Harris: A funny, first-person tale of a successful, young left-hander in a right-handed world.
The Long Ball, by Jim Daniels: Modern poems about love, […]

The Drawing of the Three, by Stephen King

I’ve read Foucault and Derrida and a pride of literary lions. But I’ve also dabbled in a little Stephen King. To book snobs, this is akin to hearing the altar boy confess a fondness for black magic. But I ain’t apologizing. In fact, I think King is a master at what he does: intriguing (if not scaring) the crap out of his readers.
I’ve […]

Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, by Peter Guralnick

Peter Guralnick has, once again, written a definitive biography about an icon of American music. Guralnick, who won the American Book Award for his two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, scores again with Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke.
Guralnick details Cooke’s life from birth to death, providing insight not only into his music but into […]