Good and Cheap (Books)! Day One

Every day this month, we are going to dedicate ourselves to recommending a quality book that you can purchase for under $20. “What, do we have to pay for this service?” you ask. No, no you don’t. It all comes free with this low quality blog. Every single day when you click on our blog you will know that we’ve thought long and hard about which books we truly believe you can get the most bang from your buck(s) this spring. We promise that for each book we choose we will confer with each other, debate heartily, and weigh the pros and cons of each of our choices. We want what’s best for you. Now, on the off chance we don’t have enough time, energy, or knowledge to put that kind of effort in to our choices, we will probably just swivel around in our desk chair and the first paperback you see is what we’re going to recommend. But wouldn’t it be great if we at least put some effort in? We can all dream, I guess, but for now it’s just a crap shoot.

I am going to kick the month off with a one of our favorite titles from last year that is now available in paperback with a brand new cover. You were waiting for paperback weren’t you? Cheapskate, you must work in the book business!

Me? I would never
creep you out!

Stay Awake by Dan Chaon is a collection of uh-unsettling stories. When was the last time you read a really good story about a parasitic twin for example? A long time, right? Wait no more; the title story is fantastically haunting. One of my favorite stories is “I Wake Up,” about a boy who is sent to live with a foster family after his mother is sent to prison. The family has lost their own teenage son and as he grows up (having slept in the dead son’s bed, by the way) we see he is slowly losing his grip. "Bees" is about a father whose life begins to spiral out of control with the onset of his child’s night terrors; the father can no longer repress the memories of his secret first wife and child that he abandoned so long ago.

Do you like Gillian Flynn or Joyce Carol Oates? Do you like Victor LaValle or Daniel Woodrell? Do you like Liz or Gianna? Well then you must trust me, Dan Chaon is an artist, and for $15 it’s a steal. Oh, yeah, you can just steal it. Thief. 

What You're Not Reading, Day Nine

I never leave home without a book, especially when I travel. Wait, no, that’s not true. What I meant to say is, I am constantly forgetting to bring a book when I travel. I am not an e-reader fanatic and the only thing I read on my phone is news (and by news I mean celebrity news; it’s the only thing worth reading in miniature).  It's not that I hate e-readers (I have two) it's just that I am constantly losing things when I travel, so I would rather lose a fifteen dollar book and yet another pair of socks than my iPad.

I get major anxiety when I enter a bookstore--too many choices. I could probably make a life and death decision within seconds but picking out which book I want to read on my three hour flight sends me into panic. The solution used to be to take a Xanax and talk myself through the genres and then authors; in total, choosing a book took between 45 minutes to an hour. By the end of it I was completely exhausted and ended up sleeping the whole flight, making the entire exercise futile.

I found a new solution. When I find myself sans book on the road, I buy a volume of the Best American series. Most recently I purchased the 2012 edition of The Best American Mystery Stories edited by Robert Crais, which is filled with gems. Mary Gaitskill’s "The Other Place" about a man who is obsessed with violence, Thomas McGuane’s "The Good Samaritan" about a man who hires a mysterious ranch hand, and my favorite story in the collection, "Returning the River," by the great Daniel Woodrell, which might just be the most dark yet beautiful Woodrell story I’ve read.

Filling out the Best American Series this year are Best American Comics, Best American Essays, Best American Nonrequired Reading (next on my list), Best American Short Stories, Best American Science Nature Writing, Best American Travel Writing, and Best American Sports Writing. 

So that’s it, that’s my solution to travel. Now, I’m like everyone else, I take Xanax just for fun.