Happy Paranormal Day!

Oliver, our youngest fan,
 with his Pete the Cat doll.
Both are too cool for this blog.

According to the nifty internet holiday calendar that Gianna emailed to me, today is auspicious.  Sure, there's National Day of Prayer; that's fine.  Also, today is National Two Different Colored Shoes Day, but I don't think I could post an entire piece about Pete the Cat.  I like Pete, but let's be honest...he's a bit juvenile.  Therefore we're going with Paranormal Day, and I'll spare you the wisecracks about the irony of the paranormal  and the praying on the same day.

Gods Without Men.  The latest book from super-talented Hari Kunzru is a revelation, a declaration of great literary promise arriving on the scene full force.  Fans of David Mitchell or Adam Johnson's acclaimed The Orphan Master's Son (which I declared the best book of the year back in January because I'm ballsy like that) must read Gods Without Men as well.

Hari Kunzru

Kunzru, like David Mitchell with Cloud Atlas, manages to blend several stories into a single, powerful narrative of time and place.  Gods Without Men follows the story of a family in crisis, a mother and father at odds with each other, a relationship strained by the birth and years of raising a severely autistic son.  Desperate, they head West on vacation and hope that the change of scenery will provide respite.  While walking through Joshua Tree National Park, the couple suddenly realizes their son is no longer by their sides.  Call the National Guard.  Add to this the Native American coyote legends with a decidedly modern--coyote makes meth--twist.  Ooh, and then there's a 60's hippie cult preparing for the aliens.  (See? I am loosely connecting this stuff to Paranormal Day.)  Leaving San Francisco to live life more fully, a young woman joins the group heading for Joshua Tree to prepare for the UFOs.  All of the stories, and a sense of the freedom and wildness of the American West, mesh into a compelling narrative.  And Hari Kunzru has serious literary chops.  The guy can write.

I think Gianna might be an alien.  She freaks me out.

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 1

So we're stealing one of those list thingies from the FaceSpace and posting it here in tandem--the 30 Day Book Challenge.  I think the idea is to let people know you better through the books you read.  It might also be a way to find books that will become favorites (or topics of ridicule).  Both Gianna and I will participate, and since I (Liz) do all the of the posting, there's a strong possibility that I will make fun of Gianna's selections on occasion. 

Day 1:  Favorite Book

Not an easy question for either of us.  I know that I could fairly easily narrow down to a list of about five, but beyond that I struggle.  Eventually we just had to go with something.

Gianna

The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor (Fitzgerald)

I always say this is my desert island book, so I guess it must be my favorite book? I don't know that I really have one favorite book. I think if I had children I would certainly have a favorite (and I would tell that child often that he or she was/is my favorite - I just think that is good solid parenting)..but books, for goodness sakes now that is just too hard! But for now we will say Habit of Being because Flannery is my favorite writer. She pleases me on many levels (mostly she is easy on the eyes) and after thinking you know O'Connor because you've read everything she's written - and maybe you've read some critiques and interviews and blah blah blah..then you get your hands on these letters and its an entirely new world. She is really funny, she really had an interest in the business side of writing (as in where is my check?), and you get a real idea, maybe for the first time, how frustrated (and brave) she was in her battle with Lupus. Recently it's been revealed that Betty Hester is "A" in Habit of Being, a very interesting tidbit considering Hester was a lesbian and O'Connor did try to save her good friend's soul more than once. But those things are hard to do...

Liz:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Like Gianna's pick, Cloud Atlas is my desert island book.  I read it during a time when I was reticent about sharing my book tastes with others, but found myself exuberantly telling my coworkers, including some uber-book snobs, how much I loved it.  Six interwoven tales that defy genre boundaries, Cloud Atlas is a virtuosic composition that manages to be clever, funny, frightening, philosophical, and moving.  It's a book that I probably should dislike for some of the reasons I dislike some of the overly clever McSweeney's Press books.  Mitchell plays with style and format and narrative...but he doesn't become trapped by the trickery.  I loved Cloud Atlas so much when I first read it that I sent a fan letter to a generic feedback email address at Random House, and my message eventually made its way to Mitchell's editor David Ebershoff and then to Mitchell himself.  Two weeks later I received a package in the mail from Ireland, and inside was a personalized copy of the UK edition of the book.  David Mitchell is tops on my list of writers I haven't yet met and I've liked all of his novels, but this one's special.

The End of the World As I Know It

I confess that I have a fondness for apocalyptic and dystopian fiction. The creepier the end-world scenario, the better--and what makes them creepy? The creepiest novels are the ones that seem eerily possible. Twenty years ago, Margaret Atwood predicted that a hyper-fundamentalist theocracy would begin to brainwash the country, subjugating women. And today, driving to Mississippi, I eavesdropped on a conversation at a convenience store that involved a woman telling a man that the reason a mutual acquaintance was still single was "'Cause she's lazy and she won't cook. How's she ever going to get a man if she can't cook?" I am pretty sure that religious cults insist that women know how to cook...writes the single woman who absolutely refuses to spend her free time in the kitchen. Pot? Kettle.

Anyway, there's a lot to fear in the near future, and here are a few of my favorite alternative, probably bleak, novels.

NEVER LET ME GO--Kazuo Ishiguro's terrific novel about exceptional teens raised in a "special" school will soon debut nationwide as the new film starrng Kiera Knightley. Ishiguro is a Booker Prize-winning writer, the story rivals all the great love sagas of literature, and then there's the creepy truth about these kids' lives and their special value to society. I can't wait for the movie.


CLOUD ATLAS--If you asked me what my favorite book of the decade was, it would be this experimental novel by the brilliant David Mitchell. CLOUD ATLAS ingeniously blends together six separate stories, from a Patrick O'Brien-esque naval tale to a "China Symdrome" nuclear threat to a dystopian future akin to Kevin Costner's "Waterworld," all centering on the theme of free will and independence. This book reaffirmed my desire to stay in the book business when I was considering graduate school. Books are just more fun.

THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD--No one manages to blend literary prestige with speculative fiction like Margaret Atwood, and THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD is her most recent stroll into the near future. The events of YEAR OF THE FLOOD are the same as those in ORYX & CRAKE, both book looking at what will happen if we continue to destroy the environment and tamper with potentially dangerous genetic engineering of the food supply. Killer viruses, a hippie gardening cult, and strippers make THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD highly entertaining as well as scary.

THE UNIT--Swedish authors are hot right now, with the Stieg Larsson trilogy dominating all of the top spots on the NYT Bestseller List, but don't think that Stieg is the only Swedish author out there. THE UNIT, by Ninni Holmqvist, is set in the near future and centers around Dorrit, a woman-of-a-certain-age who, upon turning 50, moves into a retirement community of sorts with other aging, childless singles. It's like a seniors mixer/party in a dorm facility, with classes and dances...and organ harvesting. THE UNIT questions a person's worth beyond one's ability to reproduce. Maybe if Dorrit had learned to cook and moved to Mississippi she'd have found a man....

THE ROAD--Cormac McCarthy's novel of a father and son trying to survive after global catastrophe, with cannibals roaming around and horrors around every corner, received a big push when Oprah picked it for her book group a few years ago. It's a bleak book to be sure, but also a moving portrait of love in the face of adversity.

THINGS WE DIDN'T SEE COMING--How could you not be curious about a book written by a guy who used to be a psychiatric nurse and then moved to Australia? These linked stories assume that the global shutdown foretold with Y2K does transpire and the world is thrown into chaos and famine. It could have happened.

THE RAPTURE--This creepy thriller centers around the daughter of religious fundamentalists who predicts the future...a future that involves 1,000 foot tidal waves destroying the earth. The cause of the waves? An offshore oil rig disturbs the dangerously volatile frozen methane at the bottom of the ocean, creating a massive explosion. You know, sort of like the recent gulf oil spill.

All of these books open lots of room for discussion, making them ideal for book groups.