notanotherbookreview

                                                                  IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE won the Noble Prize for Sinclair Lewis in 1930s for his postwar dystopia, where the fascist threat isn't external but home-grown.   The book is free at libraries or guttenberg.com.  Local bookstores probably have on "classics" shelves.  Amazon may be cheap and convenient, though never free. (Below is adapted from Wikipedia): Plot : In It Can't Happen Here   by American author Sinclair Lewis  an American politician, Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, quickly rises to power to become the country's first outright dictator.  Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor, early on sees Windrip's fascist  policies for what they are and becomes his most ardent critic.  Se...

Days at The Morisaki Bookshop,  Satoshi Yagisawa first introduced Tokyo's Jimbocho district, an improbable world of shops specializing in used books. Art books, playscripts, philosophy texts, maps, literature (classic and contemporary) and books bound in the traditional Japanese way are sold in  ancient wood buildings. Inside stores, books are tightly packed from floor-to-ceiling. Outside, carts  in front of the store contain bargains! Like The Strand in NYC, tourists, as well as young people who may not be readers, look at surprising titles and for a couple dollars, or a hundred yen, may give it a try. Browsing books may be a quicker transaction, bur post pandemic, the tactile appeal, mysterious dedication promise adventures for a pittance, no delivery needed.   In  More Days at The Morisaki Bookshop, .Takako, who first came to her Uncle's shop three years before, is now a reader. She glances at the carts of mostly modern novels, and greets her Uncle Sato...

INTERIOR CHINATOWN Charles Yu's amazing novel, enacts the life of bit part actor, Willis Wu ,and his (and his family's experiences) within the context of "Black and White," a TV crime show. In this show, as in  the world outside "The Golden Palace" (home and workplace of generations of Chinese immigrants) the "yellow" of Asian Americans is always a stereotypical character, exotic background color, a plot device; never just a regular American of Asian descent. Yet in Willis' world, people are constantly striving for their American dream. Children all get  4.0 and above. Yet no matter how they succeed in school and for how long (generations) they are still treated as outsiders. Many end up back where they grew up, at a "The Golden Palace" restaurant job.  With great humor, INTERIOR CHINATOWN creates Wu's layered reality.  His family also played the bit parts, his dad even hit the top role, Kung Fu Master. Behind that inscrutable Chi...

In Flannery O'Coonor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find , a criminal called The Misfit, a caricature of a good ol' boy gone bad, and his atavistic cohorts randomly capture a typical southern family. In this darkly satirical story, the criminals' shockingly casual killings are indelibly linked with the family's hypocritical values--illusions about class and virtue, racial prejudice, religious pretensions. This story, like Karin Slaughter's thriller, is about America's underbelly, where mainstream values have gone to seed, as the disaffected revel in demented revenge. Karin Slaughter's THE LAST WIDOW (August 2019, HarperLuxe) begins in our time, July 7th, 2019 with the odd "random" kidnapping of a scientist from the Centers for Disease Control.  It's but a prologue to a bombing in Atlanta near Emory University; two major hospitals, the FBI headquarters, and CDC. The two actions are no coincidence and only the beginning. Sara, a medical exami...

The Paragon Hotel by Lindsay Faye (Putnam) and A Hairpiece Named Denial   (Pelekinesis) by S. Sal Hanna are very good novels with strange affect, where humor and identity take turns you can't anticipate. Stranger yet, both have heroines named Alice. As  The Paragon Hotel  opens, Alice, also known as Nobody, is a young flapper on the run from Prohibition Harlem's mafia gang wars. Wounded and bleeding heavily, she boards a train where Max, a concerned porter, spirits her to Portland's Paragon Hotel, the only hotel for African Americans in a white city. A very skilled African-American doctor saves her life but then Alice, who uses invisibility to survive,finds herself a prominent, unwanted guest. She has to convalesce and the hotel is a perfect hide-out, yet her presence generates outsize fear, unmitigated by the cash in her bag. Suspicious residents shun her until a protector emerges. The charismatic Blossom, a wordly caberet performer, invites her to her room, curious...

Olivia, Joanna Cantor's narrator in Alternative Remedies for Loss (Bloomsbury Publishing, May) is  twenty-two, pretty and privileged. Her family isn't rich but comfortably middle class. Sharply aware and self-critical, Olivia knows she's cushioned by her family and yet is unable to stop herself from messing up. She tests her limits in a spiral less coming-of-age, than a struggle to manage the emotional turmoil after her mother's death. She wonders what would happen if no one helped her pick up the pieces--like her mother did. She is profoundly alone, trying to figure out not just her place but what, if anything, has value. Olivia's angst reminded me of The Sorrows of Young Werther, Goethe's autobiography.She is a heroine just as self absorbed and overly serious. But she possesses a wicked sense of social mores and a meter for hypocrisy equal to Austen's Emma . Olivia's ruthless perception spares not her brothers, complacent in their relationship...

Jex Blackwell Saves the World (Pelekinesis, May) by P. William Grimm was both refreshing and a complete surprise. Grimm an American writer and fillmaker, has written novels and short story collections-- The Seventh and Counselor, Valencia Street and Sick Sense of Hubris. He 's published in lit blogs, like Eclectica Magazine and HTML Giant . His influences are Kurt Vonnegut, Joan Didion, Charles Bukowski, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett. So he likes the truth, outrageous or otherwise, and a mystery with soul and style. Grimm's final inspiration is  Encyclopedia Brown, a series of kid's books about a boy genius. Grimm thinks of Jex Blackwell as a "Dadaesque homage" to that series. So this is kind of an adult YA mystery, written like an underground graphic novel with a heroine (not unlike orphaned Anne of Green Gables or headstrong Jo in Little Women ). Jex is aware of her potential and completely invents herself at aged 16. She wants to do good in the ...

Congrats, Micah Harris! 1/20/18 launch day and Book Party. If you can't make the party go to www.micahharris.com for more info and videos below. https://www.facebook.com/micahhharris/videos/2043386275905486/ ALL info about this event,  ttps://www.facebook.com/events/200649817153156/   Join us on Capitol Hill on January 20 for an open house to celebrate the official release of Only Small Things are Good. You’ll have a chance to hear from author Micah Harris, chat with early readers, and pick up your own signed copy. Feel free to invite a friend! The doors will be open from 4-6 p.m., with a brief author introduction and Q&A beginning at 4:30. Hope to see you there! If you can’t make it to the launch, visit  www.micahharris.com  to see what people are saying about the book, watch a brief intro video, and to order your own copy. A new interview.  http://humanepursuits.com/only-small-things-are-good/ "Every other country is a ...

An audiobook of PARADISE GARDENS is in the works. It will be read by Nicole Greevy, a wonderful actress. We will work through summer for early September. 2019 ACX releases on Audible and other outlets. I am very excited this is happening. Paradise Gardens is a saga that lends itself to this format. Further info to come. Thanks for interest. Code for 30.day trial on audible.com 3KLDMSUB4WXY6 THANKS to @DixonPlace lounge for hosting UNIMAGINABLE WORLDS last night! 10/5 60 minutes of pleasure and perhaps terror, as we encounter feasible lives you can't imagine. Excerpts from new editions published by Pelekinesis. Love between NYC professionals on Unimaginable real estate (Paradise Gardens). A mermaid meets imitators in Coney Island (Tales from the Mer Family Onyx) Unimaginable--Seas we know that are unimaginable. A pier that seems familiar, we know this place, except it's Unimaginable. ...