Book Punch

The Best of Youth by Michael Dahlie

Micah Ling — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 21:41:32 +0000

Maybe it's not fair to review this as I live in Brooklyn and I know (and like) Michael Dahlie; but, I don't really care about fair. In fact, that's kind of what this book is about. There's no such thing as fair: we don't deserve certain things because of other things. Maybe we don't even cause or prevent things. We pretty much just live and experience; but that's difficult to come to terms with. Henry Lang has inherited 15-million dollars. He's an aspiring writer, a graduate of Harvard University, and newly living in Brooklyn. Things go wrong and right for Henry. We cringe and root for him because he's pathetic and awesome at once--like us! And even if you can't really relate to Henry's situation, you will relate to his emotions; we all crave the same things: to be received, to be accepted and understood and commended. Sometimes revenge. Shit happens, that's for sure. "There was simply nothing a person could do to anticipate what came next in life..." True. This book is really easy to read because it's in third person, but it's also packed with parenthetical comments that make you feel like you're Henry. I read this book in a few days on the subway to and from work in NYC. It was perfect. –Micah Ling

The Rolling Stones 50 by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood

Micah Ling — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 23:27:32 +0000

It's difficult to categorize this as a book, which isn't to down-talk books. Books are the coolest. But, this more than a book: it's something to own. It may well weigh 50 pounds: packed with over 1,000 photos--each of which will make you pause and just think, "fuck they're cool." Sure, the Rolling Stones redefined pop music and music in general, but I'd also say they redefined pop culture. Like this book being bigger than a book, their music was bigger than music. This thing is divided into five decades. Five decades. (God, they were so cute in 1963). The guys recall details of shows from the 60's and shows from just a few years ago, which is how memory works, of course. Just when they seem bigger than all things big and hip, you realize that they're most remarkable because they're so easy to relate to. The same reason that Charlie Is My Darling is so much fun to watch. But it hasn’t all been easy. Or, mostly it hasn’t been easy. Even though fame and attention seem otherworldly, sometimes that world is scary and weird and sad. Get your hands on this thing—both of them—it’s huge. –Micah Ling

Tenth of December by George Saunders

Micah Ling — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:51:54 +0000

Alright already! Everyone is talking about this book. Everyone. Colbert, The New York Times Magazine, even me! Saunders is a nerd: he's skinny, even slightly mousy, and with those definitive glasses. But also sexy in his way--I mean, what writing professor isn't? The thing you won't be able to get over in these stories, though, is his absolute endless knowledge. It's no mistake that this man won the MacArthur Genius Grant; and one wouldn't necessarily think that such a wealth of knowledge would translate into telling stories, but Saunders has somehow been blessed with the ability to use both sides of his brain. He read the opening story of the collection, "Victory Lap," several months ago at Butler University. The way he pulled off the point of view (from two children) made me a little obsessed with the story: I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I even shot Saunders an e-mail asking where I could find it. But all of the stories in this book are that way. So, it’s true: when you think that we're all telling the same basic stories over and over, Saunders blows you away with an entirely new way of even thinking about stories. -Micah Ling

Saint X by Kirk Nesset

Eric Ellis — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 05:28:59 +0000

Saint X arrives in the night to fill the void—the liminal space between the sheets, between awake and asleep, dreams and nightmares, lightning and thunder. Nesset unravels lumpier corners of the universe and undresses them slowly, leaving the reader with a series of poems that are as cryptic as they are captivating. “We did and we did, blindly alive / in our dreaming, at war with the middle,” Nesset writes in the titular poem. Reading the words, you feel at war yourself—imbued by ripened, blind pineapples, imbibing each image as the scenes melt in your thoughts. At war with? Put your finger on it, I dare you. Saint X lurks behind each page, and, certain you will catch the genderless, faceless perpetrator, you finger over them as fast as your eyes will let you. But Saint X is always one step ahead; take your time. In strawberry light, in naked sanity, Saint X will appear not at once, but all together. From the song of Nesset’s poetry, you will feel a heavy presence long after the book returns—spine-out—to a shelf. Faint whispers at first, a low rumble growing: then it’s gone. -Eric Ellis

Nine and a Half Weeks by Elizabeth McNeill

Micah Ling — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 01:35:17 +0000

I don't know what the deal is with Fifty Shades of Grey, and I don't really care to find out, but let me suggest, instead, not just to women, but to everyone, this book. (And also James Salter's A Sport and a Pastime, and Silk by Alessandro Baricco). Read those three, and I'm pretty sure you won't need any grey at all. But read this especially. Read it because you saw the movie in 1986, (which was great) and the book is a hundred times better. Read it because of this article in the New Yorker. Read it because as much as it is explicitly and beautifully about sex, (and it is), it's also about letting go. When was the last time that you let go? When was the last time you trusted with your entire body and enjoyed the moment? We are remarkably attached to rules: we can't do this because this. Sure, we can't all be reckless all the time, but being an adult sometimes means choosing the moment over the possible consequence. Selfishness and selflessness. Have some fun. Own your body. Feel as much as humanly possible. Trust someone. Why not? –Micah Ling

Almost Invisible by Mark Strand

Micah Ling — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 22:22:01 +0000

Mark Strand has aged like Robert Redford: he just keeps getting cooler, deeper, more exact. He seems comfortable with 78: like there's no other age he'd rather be. He's really good at explaining time: or making fun of it. He read a few poems for a smallish audience last Sunday night in Brooklyn at Book Court. One of those readings where you're thinking, "Well shit. He's talking right to me." The new book is prose poems, and, as he explained, they allowed him a relief from writing poems. They're all very short, precise moments. About love and failure and time. About nothing and everything. He lies on his bed and tries to think of nothing, but nothing happens or, more precisely, does not happen. Nothing is elsewhere doing what nothing does, which is to expand the dark. Strand is funny, in a way that you have to figure out for yourself. Almost like he's earned funny just from writing so much, and experiencing so much. He captures just what it means to be human. His poem “Bury Your Face in Your Hands” basically (beautifully) says that yeah, we’re all dealing with a lot all the time. We’re all quite a bit the same. -Micah Ling

"The Twelve" by Justin Cronin

Jay Cullis — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 10:55:01 +0000

Reviewing Justin Cronin’s post-apocalyptic thriller series is an exercise in embarrassment. I start talking to people about it, describing the setup. I hear the words I’m saying – words that accurately describe the books – but it all starts sounding silly.

Trite.

Formulaic.

The words spill out as I try to sound convincing, but all I end up feeling is ashamed.

See, there’s this vampire virus that the government is trying to weaponize, and of course everything goes haywire, and the vampires escape and the world essentially ends, except for a few survivors holed up in a compound…

But what started with The Passage and continues this week with the release of The Twelve is not a guilty pleasure. This is not some nerdo, sci-fi Fifty Shades of Grey. With talent to spare, Cronin has crafted a page-turning addiction in book form. The planned trilogy is a character-driven story of honor and heartbreak, revenge and power. It’s the most well-written soap opera you’ll ever read. Yes, there are bloodthirsty vampires afoot. Yes, it’s set in a desperate, dismal future. But when you care about the characters, the costumes they wear are of little importance. Don’t pass this by.

~ Jay Cullis

One More For the People by Martha Grover

Micah Ling — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 18:08:38 +0000

Martha Grover writes like an off-handed act of nature and has a story that is so off-beat and unique, it reads like fiction. It's not. One of seven children, raised in the timbers of Oregon in a trailer by a mother and Father who will quickly become the coolest literary characters you've ever met—the hitch is, they're real. At the center of the book, is a rumination on growing up "weird" in a large family. We spend time with the Grover's, all of them, as they spout wisdom and anti-wisdom at random. Defining life as a thing of awkward beauty. Cars get flipped on mountain roads. Sock puppets get made. This memoir also goes into depth on the trouble of working a menial job (cheese counter clerk) and the re-direction that happens to an adult when they are stricken with a rare disease, in this case Cushing's Disease, which forces Grover to move back in with her parents as an adult. Collected from Martha's Somnambulist zine, this resulting book is a tender, personal account, recollected by a human who knows what's up, and will lean in and whisper it in your ear like a secret you outta share. -Bud Smith

http://somnambulistzine.blogspot.com/
http://perfectdaypublishing.com/books/one-more-for-the-people/
http://www.etsy.com/shop/marthagrover

Blasphemy by Sherman Alexie

Micah Ling — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 22:35:12 +0000

Sherman Alexie is the master of saying things that most people are afraid to say. His books have been banned because of this. His stories are remarkably straightforward, and yet, they constantly prove that we, as a people, are in fact, ridiculously scared of simple things. We're scared of our bodies. We're scared of talking about the necessities: sex and anger and love. He says obvious things and complicated things at once. From the opening story, "Cry, Cry, Cry," about a man--the narrator's cousin spending 10 years in jail--he gives the line, "Some things happen. Some things don't." It's super vague, but somehow sits there and says it all. One minute things seem generally fine. The next, everything is as chaotic as possible. Sometimes we can't even trace the path. Things just are--or aren't. It's tough to pick a favorite story here: 15 classics and 16 new stories; but, "Indian Country" sort of says it all. All of his stories do; even "Breakfast": a mere page. We don't know anything: we pretend to, with age and education or experience, whatever. But no: we are children, taking cues from each other constantly. And if we ever, ever acknowledge that we're all human, then maybe, maybe we can know love. -Micah Ling

Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace, By D.T. Max

Ryan Kraemer — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 01:25:54 +0000

D.T. Max has done the brave work of telling the life of David Foster Wallace. In the years since his death most of what has been said of the writer has been praise for his work and noble character. This is normal. David deserves it, and those who grieve his loss deserve it also. He was the incredible writer of an unmeasured hyper-fiction that, counterintuitive to its form, made simple, unhip morals feel intensely real to a generation drowning in irony. But he was also mentally and emotionally unstable, a lifelong member of AA and a romantic hard case. (David, we learn, once attempted to push a girlfriend out from a moving vehicle.) Max gets it right by telling both the wondrous and the wanting sides of David with care and sobriety.

The portrait is beyond convincing, and is therefore quite haunting. Despite his fame, David’s life was anything but enviable. He fought a constant battle with depression, and the recursive bend of his brilliant mind never allowed him to enjoy his success. However, he was made of the stuff of artists. He had an infinite desire to communicate. And in an intensely sad way his story is amazingly beautiful. -Ryan Kraemer