After a couple weeks of dipping deeply into the nostalgia pool for BBCDW I figured it’d be a good idea to bring it back to now-times. But not too now-times.
David Carr’s mem-wuah The Night of the Gun chronicles the depths of his many, many years of substance abuse. Sounded like a pretty good book when it came out in hardcover about a year ago. But I didn’t buy it back then cause of a personal rule of mine that might get me into trouble with most book aficionados: I can’t stand hard cover books. They’re cumbersome, you can’t fold them back and hold them with one hand, they’re unecessarily heavy, and if you get upset or dissapointed with the contents therin and decide to whip the thing across the room in a little baby tantrum you’re more likely to break something valuable. Plus this one’s hardcover design left a lot to be desired. It kind of smacked of a little too much effort, “It looks like a gun but it also represents drugs. Get it? Get it?!” Yeah, yeah, we get it, we get it. You enjoying your first year at art school?
Something about contrast of the photos on the cover of paperback just struck me as a little more genuine and haunting. They kept the same hand-scrawled chalk font which was working well for them the first time around. And they even managed to tastefully work in a cover blurb by a insanely popular author, which, in my eyes, is often a no-no. Well done, nameless Simon & Schuster paperback designer.
Chris-
I need a few good book recommendations for my month of camping. Last time I camped for a month, I read (see: suffered through) Atlas Shrugged in its entirety due to a bet with my father. I don’t want to do that again. Suggestions?
Depends on what you like. I’ve never read Ayn Rand but from what I understand she’s kind of cheesy. So if you’re looking for the anti-cheese there’s a couple of things that have been rocking me lately:
-The Lost City of Z: A true story of the last Victorian explorer, his disappearance in the Amazon and the NY Times reporter who followed him there almost a hundred years later
-Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Funny, sad, weird short stories by a really talented new writer Wells Tower.
-Man in the Dark: An old man lives with his middle aged daughter and his twenty-something granddaughter. He can’t sleep at night so he tells himself stories. Sounds really boring but is actually very compelling.
Now, stuff that may be good for a camping trip…
If you’re looking to get scared:
The Road – Cormac McCarthy. A father and son go on a Post-apocalyptic road trip and are faced with danger at every turn. Will they survive to find the coast? What will meet them when they get there? Is anyone sane left on the planet?
If you’re looking for a chuckle:
Homeland – Sam Lipsyte. A middle aged slacker finally rises out of obscurity to fill his old high school classmates in on his whereabouts and goings-on. The entire book takes the form of a correspondence to his alumni newsletter. Very funny, wildly imaginative.
If you’re looking for some good ol’ dumb fun:
Preacher – Garth Ennis. This one’s a graphic novel from the mid 90’s, one that I’ve been getting into lately. Not sure if you’re into that sort of thing.
A preacher becomes possessed by the offspring of an angel and a demon. Because of this he soon learns that heaven is in shambles, God has quit his day job and is roaming the earth, and there’s a vast, worldwide conspiracy orchestrated by a shadow alliance that is hell-bent on bringing forth the apocalypse and installing the second coming of the messiah who is, in fact, the last of the bloodline of Jesus Christ. But, due to centuries of inbreeding, he is retarded. Also there is vampires.
Hope this helps!