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Brooklyn Was Mine edited by by Valerie Steiker and Chris Knutsen (Riverhead)
(bonus: giving some love to the local!)

If there's anything your Book Nerd loves more than books and indie bookstores, it's my adopted home town of Brooklyn. So of course I snatched up this nonfiction anthology (which, as I mentioned here, benefits the organization Develop Don't Destroy, which opposes what I think is the worst idea in Brooklyn development history.) It could have been hit or miss -- as Colson Whitehead hilariously observed, there's a certain amount of hype around Brooklyn these days, especially as a literary Mecca.

Luckily, the mix of authors here offers views and voices beyond literary hipsterdom. The introduction by Pete Hamill offers several decades' perspective on the "sudden emergence" of Brooklyn, and opines that it will probaby remain itself whatever the condo developers or anti-gentrifiers attempt. Lara Vapnyar has an illuminating piece on the kitsch and apppeal of the neighborhood of Brighton Beach, which is "more Russian than Russia". And Brooklyn's poster boy Jonathan Lethem has an experimental multi-voiced rant on the frustrating and terrible nightmare of Brooklyn (followed by an explanation/apologia that puts it in perspective). Other authors write about the unexpected sense of neighborhood and community here, the experience of growing up here or moving from other parts of the country or the world, the geography, the history,the baseball, the race relations.

It's a fantastic collection, and cemented my love for the place -- not only my own experience of a wonderfully human-scale neighborhood, but the diversity of the place, and the fact that it can't be pinned down in a marketing slogan. The title alludes to the feeling that several of the essays get at: that one gets nostalgic and possessive about Brooklyn almost as soon as one encounters it. It's a bit laughable, sure, all of us staunchly loyal new converts, but Brooklyn is a place that gets a strong hold on people. I'm grateful for these writers for reminding me some of the reasons why.

And as borough president extraordinaire Marty Markowitz loves to remind us, one out of every four Americans has a relative from Brooklyn. So even if you're not from around here, bet you know someone who is who would love to read this book.

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Goldengrove by Francine Prose (Harper)
(Bonus: Features an independent bookstore!)

This is yet another book that I was motivated to read after hearing the author speak. Francine Prose had the misfortune to be scheduled at McNally Jackson on the same evening as one of the three presidential debates, so the crowd was shockingly sparse for a nationally recognized novelist and essayist. But she was extremely gracious about the situation, and delivered an eloquent talk and reading about her book and surrounding issues.

Goldengrove is actually the name of an independent bookstore in the novel -- a sure-fire way to get me to at least pick it up! (It's also a reference to a wonderful poem by Gerard Manly Hopkins, which I actually memorized as a teenager and have returned to with deepening appreciation as an adult.) The store becomes the refuge of the 13-year-old protagonist during the summer after her adored older sister drowns -- it's owned by her parents, who are grieving in their own way, and the shop offers our heroine both social encounters and solitude. She ultimately finds herself in a dreamy Vertigo-style relationship with her sister's grieving boyfriend, and must navigate her own path out of the fog of memory.

Prose responded to a question from the audience about her 1998 Harper's article about sexism in book reviews by acknowledging that gender disparities still exist in the world of literature. For example, this novel about a 13-year-old girl is getting far less critical attention than Prose's previous one about a male holocaust denier. She attributes this in part to the contemporary sense that novels about teenagers are Young Adult literature (which would knock Huckleberry Finn and Catcher In The Rye and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn and Maggie, Girl of the Streets out of the Real Literature realm), and in part to the adage (which booksellers know) that "girls will read books about boys, but boys won't read books about girls."

Whether or how widely this is true, it would be a terrible shame if it kept readers, adult or teen, away from this novel, which is a highly allusive and sophisticated work of ventriloquism, examining the horrors of loss and misplaced identity through the eyes of a character utterly unlike Prose herself. (Though, as she opines, "we've all been a 13-year-old girl at some point in our lives.) My coworkers agree with the books irresistible merit, and I hope many readers will discover the universal appeal of Prose's most recent work.

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Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow (Harper)
(bonus: great literary genre writing!)

Today is the ALP' s birthday! In honor of the occasion, I'm posting the one book that he and I both read this year, which we also both loved. As I noted here:

"My enthusiasm for the book led to a paragraph-long staff pick [the link now busted since we switched names and websites].

The ALP was inspired to write an exploration of experimentation in genre fiction using metaphors from evolutionary theory. I kid you not."

I can't find my original staff pick at the moment, but I encourage you to read the ALP's review if you're interested in a meditation on the place of this book in the surging battle lines of literary and genre fiction.

Or, you could just read Sharp Teeth. You won't find a more engaging, suspenseful, character-driven novel in verse about werewolf tribes in Los Angeles published this year. Seriously, it's a form perfectly suited to its content, and surprisingly accessible both for those who think they don't like poetry (think teenage boys) and those who think they don't like werewolves (think adult women). Barlow read at McNally, slightly stunned by the book's success, but it's well-deserved. Along with Chabon, Lethem, Kelly Link, and others, I salute Toby Barlow as one of the great new writers of "interstitial" fiction, blurring the lines between fantastical entertainments and serious literature. Enjoy!

(And pop over to the ALP's blog and say happy birthday, while you're at it...)

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You Don't Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem (Random House)
(bonus: perfect for winter doldrums!)

I pitched this book when it came out in paperback this summer as "the perfect intellectual summer read", but it's also great for a dose of L.A. sunshine in the midst of winter. Sexy, topical, thought-provoking, plot-driven, and light enough to read in a weekend, Lethem's story of aspiring musicians in Los Angeles grapples with the ownership of ideas and the fine line between artistic and pretentious -- but you'll gobble it up for the great party scenes, sexual shenanigans, and sun-soaked hipness.

I wrote about the awesome event we did with Lethem and DJ Spooky (and my fan-girl geekout) here -- I bought the book at the event (which is rare), and had the even rarer experience of having the entire book live up to the brief passage the author read. It does engage with some serious issues of creative copyright and authorship, but through the vehicle of some truly self-absorbed and pretentious characters. It helps that Lethem has admitted that the book was based on his own "posturing" phase as a musician in the early '90s -- the characters have that loved but laughable intensity that can only be applied to oneself and one's friends when you were all young and stupid.

But I'm not gonna lie: it also has some pretty hot bedroom (and car and warehouse) scenes. And you can almost taste the tacos of a very late California city brunch. It's good for thinking a bit about creative commons and all that implies, and also good for little bit of sunshine you've been needing. I'll be listening to my Monster Eyes CD while you're reading... Read the rest of this post

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The Scott Pilgrim series by Bryan Lee O'Malley (Oni Press):
Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness
Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together

Thank goodness for the panelists at Book Expo who insisted I read him, and the Bakersfield bookstore that had a copy of Volume 1. I am now totally in love with Scott Pilgrim (as is every girl in Toronto, inexplicably). Bryan Lee O'Malley has metabolized manga, video games, and kung fu movies and created a completely unique comic series about the eponymous hapless, happy-go-lucky Canadian hero, who plays in a band, hangs out with his friends, and falls for the mysterious delivery girl Ramona Flowers -- but to date her he'll have to battle her seven evil ex-boyfriends. What ensues includes (but is not limited to) sword fights, navigating love and friendships, travels through subspace, vegan recipes, getting over your romantic past (and your sweetie's romantic past), possibly evil ninjas, and especially growing up, through slackerdom and into a kind of selfhood.

But the series is most lovable because it's full of the kind of twenty-something inside jokes and randomness that you love your own friends for, and the sweetness and surreality seem perfectly complementary. It's the kind of thing that those who have read it quote to each other endlessly -- it had been a long time since I came across that kind of obsessively great pop creation. I read Volumes 1 through 4 TWICE all the way through (the ALP started reading them months after I did so I had to go back and remember all the good parts). I'm giving them for Christmas to my favorite quirky lovable people. I don't know how I'm going to wait for Volume 5 in February...

* see, this is why the numbers didn't come out to 24 on my complete list: I'm counting this series as one. It's like Proust... kinda.

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Home by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
(Bonus: favorite serious reading)

This novel is big like an empty church, and intimate like the moment you and your sibling look at each other behind your parent's back. It tells the other side of the story of Robinson's luminous novel Gilead, and lays bare the limitations of good-hearted religious men and the inarguable illogic of despair, through a pair of oddball siblings trying so hard to be kind to each other that they break their own hearts. It's also about racism and alcoholism and America, from way inside. Robinson has a deep, compassionate understanding of those who will never be normal, and her beautiful, sad book is also infused with a kind of hope.

I loved Gilead fervently, and found Home a much sadder take on Robinson's themes -- redemption seems like more of a longshot here, when perceived from the perspective of the lonely, odd, and badly behaved, rather than the earnest but conflicted faithful. But it's another illuminating angle on the problems of humanity and faith, and well worth reading -- as I wrote about Robinson's first novel Housekeeping, the rightness of the words makes the tragedy bearable.

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The End of the Jews by Adam Mansbach (Spiegel & Grau)
(Bonus: great book design!)

This book made me antisocial, keeping me breathless at home in my pajamas for days. I don’t know if it was the energy of a Jewish kid from the Bronx in the 1930s; the master-class descriptions of hip hop, photography and Harlem jazz; the drama and suspense of 1990s Eastern Europe; the compassionate depiction of an overshadowed female artist as well as her Great Man husband; or the best party scene I’ve ever read (start on page 19). Adam Mansbach is a whirlwind, epic talent, not perfect, but full of a cross-pollinated American energy that is well-nigh irresistible. And the cover Spiegel & Grau decided on is even better than the one on the galley I originally read. Great for those with a taste for the epic, the energetic, the cross cultural, the ambitious, the pure story. Buy it, already!

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Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Allison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin)
(Bonus: mad hipster queer indie cred!)


Before she became a literary hero with her memoir Fun Home, Allison Bechdel spent a couple of decades writing a comic strip. But in the hands of someone so talented, a comic strip became a combination of an astute weekly political column and an endless Victorian novel. I spent weeks obsessed with the fates of the hilarious, smart-mouthed queer women and men of all stripes in the world of The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For -- it's a juicy soap opera, smart social commentary, and insight into the mind of a writer. Worth spending some time with, whatever you're watching out for.

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Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day In the Life of Your Body by Jennifer Ackerman (Mariner)
(Bonus: killer at cocktail parties!)

Did you know that you probably have a single neuron in your brain that corresponds to the face of your grandmother, and one for Jennifer Anniston? Did you know that you're slightly taller when you wake up, or that your alcohol tolerance is highest during happy hour? Ackerman's accessible, irresistible book is chock-full of such fun facts to know and tell, as she outlines human biology and psychology over the course of a single day, and the effect that daily circadian rhythms have on almost everything we do. I don't read a lot of informational nonfiction, so it takes something truly special to pull me in -- this one did it so effectively I was peppering my conversation with tidbits of science for weeks. Read it for sure-fire cocktail party chatter, or if you want to know how to get the biggest kick out of your morning coffee.

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I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley (Riverhead/Penguin)
(Bonus: Cake! Er, I mean another author who's a really decent human being!)

In observation of my birthday, I'm highlighting fellow befuddled but well-meaning white girl Sloane Crosley; I feel she would understand both the bittersweet moment of growing up (I'm 30 today), and my ravenous need for cake. Ms. Crosley, a publicist at Vintage (whom I've had the pleasure of working with as publicist and as author), has inspired a certain amount of backlash for the crime of having it all: a professional career, a writing career, A-listers like Jonathan Lethem in her Rolodex, and she's cute, too. Strangely enough, she seems to have these things because she actually deserves them: she's talented, professional, and a really nice person. And her essays even deserve the Lethem blurb they bear. From the story of locking herself out of two different apartments in the same day while moving, to the explanation for her collection of plastic ponies, to the cookie that ended her first (terrible) job, her stories are both bizarre and familiar to those of us who moved to the big city to grow up. Laugh-out-loud reading that doesn't fail to learn something serious, this is a legit (albeit light) literary effort.

And now I'll out my own little Sloane story: my one and only publication in the Village Voice was in response to an essay she wrote in 2004. Read it to see why I did not add it to my professional clips, nor show it to my mother. The ALP's parents sure got a kick out of it, though. Thanks for humiliation, Sloane. I feel we're both grown up enough to get a good laugh out of it now.

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Life Sucks by Jessica Abel (First Second Books)
(Bonus: not Twilight!)

Far be it from me to knock the biggest moneymaker since Harry Potter, but I guess I prefer my vampires a little less beautiful and a little more clever. Why should vampires, if they existed in the modern world, look like Gothic lotharios? Why couldn't they look like, for example, a hapless all-night convenience store clerk in California, hopelessly infatuated with a non-vampire Goth chick, who's swept away in turn by a surfer jerk (who is also a vampire)? "Buffy meets Clerks" is a pretty good description of this book, which is smart and funny enough to satisfy the smart-ass teen (with a heart of gold) in all of us. The clever Jessica Abel and the talented Warren Pleece make this one of my favorite comics of the year, and a go-to recommendation for YA readers and adults alike.

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The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway (Knopf)
(Bonus: favorite fun reading)

I am so glad Steve and Jenn insisted I would love this book -- as you may recall, I got a little obsessed. I think the pink-and-green fuzzy cover was a poor choice, and I wish this book had had better marketing. But I suspect these mistakes occurred because no one knows quite what to do with Harkaway's genre-bending opus -- it's hard to say whether it's the next Good Omens or the next For Whom The Bell Tolls. What you need to know is that it's about the end of the world, and the terrible danger of people who allow themselves to become cogs in the machines of governments or companies, and the difficulties of growing up into yourself. It also has pirates, ninjas, explosions, young love, longing, conspiracies, politics, monsters, heroes, and British humor at its finest since P.G. Wodehouse. Normal people (not just me) who read this book are getting obsessed with it. You want to be one of those people.