Store favorite Simon Van Booy, author of the lovely story collections The Secret Lives of People in LoveandLove Begins in Winter, has tried his hand at a Lapham's-esque threesome of books on existential questions. These books (only ten bucks each!) draw excerpts from a broad wealth of sources. Furnished with Van Booy's own erudite introductions and discussions, they make a convincing argument for the continued validity of the examined life. Simon will be here to make the case in person, and to engage in a discussion on these titular issues and more with our audience.
News of Note
Staff Picks
Adbusters #83: A New Aesthetic
Written by Douglas
Okay, so, the U.S. economy is built on diversions and anesthetizations: TV, prescription drugs, malls. Our contemporary aesthetics: a stunning tyranny of 21st century porn, money, desire, depravity, unstuffy, sickening. Liberating? Chilling? An excellent short history of contemporary art that is bafflingly straightforward and curiously without irony. And with, If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever. Lovely, extremely troubling cultural aesthetics, indeed, with strides towards the hope of the incremental.
08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail
Written by Jessica
by Michael Crowley and Dan Goldman (Three Rivers Press, $17.95)
Still miss it a little, dontcha? Crowley and Goldman recapture the addictive suspense, absurdity, surprises, and soaring emotion of the 2008 presidential campaign using photo-based comic drawings and a great sense of layout and pacing. Worth buying for the fix of election season excitement and maybe a bit of bittersweet nostalgia for the moment when it was all still unknown.
What I Talk about When I Talk about Running
Written by Kat
by Haruki Murakami (Knopf, $21.00)
Writing and running are the two things that make me happiest in life. I'm not that great at either, but, fortunately, Haruki Murakami is. At the age of thirty-three Murakami sold his successful Tokyo bar to write novels. He began running at the same time. What I Talk about When I Talk about Running is simultaneously memoir and philosophical treatise delivered in Murakami's straightforward prose.
Okay, so, the U.S. economy is built on diversions and anesthetizations: TV, prescription drugs, malls. Our contemporary aesthetics: a stunning tyranny of 21st century porn, money, desire, depravity, unstuffy, sickening. Liberating? Chilling? An excellent short history of contemporary art that is bafflingly straightforward and curiously without irony. And with, If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever. Lovely, extremely troubling cultural aesthetics, indeed, with strides towards the hope of the incremental.
Still miss it a little, dontcha? Crowley and Goldman recapture the addictive suspense, absurdity, surprises, and soaring emotion of the 2008 presidential campaign using photo-based comic drawings and a great sense of layout and pacing. Worth buying for the fix of election season excitement and maybe a bit of bittersweet nostalgia for the moment when it was all still unknown.
Writing and running are the two things that make me happiest in life. I'm not that great at either, but, fortunately, Haruki Murakami is. At the age of thirty-three Murakami sold his successful Tokyo bar to write novels. He began running at the same time. What I Talk about When I Talk about Running is simultaneously memoir and philosophical treatise delivered in Murakami's straightforward prose.