Best Book of 2013 So Far: Michael's Pick

Michael Kindness is in New York right now at the Random House sales conference. He is stuck in conference rooms for up to ten hours a day, we can say whatever we want about the guy, he is never going to see this post. Let's dish on Michael...yeah all the dirty little secrets. Michael, Michael, Michael...nope the guy is as squeaky clean and nice as the name makes you think. He also happens to be one of the brightest, most well rounded readers that I know. He also happens to be one half of the mighty Books on the Nightstand Podcast duo (along with fellow RH rep Ann Kingman). We asked Michael for one book, and like any man or woman who makes a living selling books...he gave us two titles. 

Michael's favorite book of 2013 so far:

Liz and Gianna told me to pick one book, but I've never been very good at listening to them, so I picked two. To be fair, only one was published this year (or rather will be published in 3 weeks or so).

Let me start with the oldie-but-amazingly-goodie. Have you read 84, Charing Cross Road? If you’re a book lover and you haven’t, please stop reading my crap writing and go pick up Helene Hanff’s memoir of her correspondence with the staff of Marks & Co., an antiquarian bookstore in London. The humor, love of books, wonderful vitality, and ups and downs of life simply fill this book and you can’t help but smile while reading it. I’m sorry it took me this long to get to it.

Conversely, I was probably one of the first hundred people or so to read Night Film by Marisha Pessl. I love when my job gives me the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a stunning book. I finished the first chapter of Night Film with goosebumps rising on my arms. (You can read the first chapter here) This story of a reclusive film director, a disgraced journalist, and the mysterious suicide of a young woman is filled with letters, web pages, mental hospital intake forms - all things that bring Pessl’s fully realized world to even more vivid life. It comes out on August 20, so you’ve got a little time to wait.

In the meantime go read 84, Charing Cross Road!

Things I Love, Things I Hate, Things in Between, V3

Thing I Love: The Random House Telephone Sales Department. Sure, they are my colleagues, but that's no guarantee that I'll like you. Heck, Gianna was once one of my colleagues. This group, though, makes me happy. First, they are professionals who do a great job of selling books to hundreds (thousands?) of stores. Second, they are team players who regularly chip in to help out toward the bigger picture.  If you're in a bookstore and there's a signed copy of, say, My Beloved World by Justice Sonia Sotomayor or the soon to be released Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell, there's a good chance that the phones sales team set up that warehouse signing with the author. Most importantly, though, they are HUGE Baltimore Ravens fans, and they've had a great week. Also, they are 1,200 miles away, so I can take this picture:

The Random House telephone sales department, Ravens fans

And re-post it on Facebook as this picture:

I could used Photoshop, but cutting and pasting really points to my dedication
to a prank. They love me. (They threatened me. On a public forum.)

I'm pretty sure that the telephone sales department loves me too.

Marisha Pessl

Thing I Love: Fall books. Yeah, it's barely February, but we're beginning to hear about the upcoming fall books. There's a new novel coming from Marisha Pessl, the author who wrote Special Topics in Calamity Physics, which I loved. The new one is called Night Film, and holy hoo-hahs is it creepy. A disgraced reporter is fairly obsessed with the Oscar winning director Stanislas Cordova, a recluse who specializing in movies that combine Hitchcock-esque suspense and slasher films. They are freaky, and because of the content, they've become cult pictures only screened at secret gatherings. Then Cordova's daughter Ashley dies. Suicide? Foul play? What's going on at Cordova's mansion? What's up with the occult-like clues surrounding the case? And where is Cordova? Marisha Pessl's book has rep buzz already along the lines of what I heard for Justin Cronin's The Passage a few years ago. I flew through it, even at 700 pages. Seriously, 700 pages, three days. Mark it down on your list (and get comfy; it doesn't come out for quite awhile). This book is crazy fun and just creepy enough to keep you reading.

Thing in Between: The Super Bowl. Consider this: people watch the Super Bowl for the commercials, yet this is supposed to be the pinnacle of the NFL season. And those commercials? About 75% of them are less entertaining than an episode of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. Some--looking at you Go Daddy--are incredibly offensive. And the most memorable part of this year's Super Bowl was the power going out. So let's think about this: the game is so dull that a power failure was more entertaining than the "sport." Can we finally agree that baseball is a superior sport? Good. Spring training starts in a week and my team is set to lose 120 games! Go Astros!

More Tina! More Amy!
These two are invited to our
dinner party.

Thing I Hate: Seth McFarlane is hosting the Academy Awards. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are not. Televisions need selective mute controls. If you haven't heard, by the way, Amy Poehler signed a book deal. If it's even half as good as Tina's, it should be terrific. (Thing I Hate: Amy's book isn't from Random House.)

Thing in Between: I know that I have hoarding instincts when it comes to books, but seriously, how is it that I live in a cruel circle of buying books, buying bookshelves to hold new books, then seeing that I have shelf space and thinking I need more books? I think that I've been hexed or something.

Who doesn't love a list? (Gianna)

Thing I Love: Book lists. Make a list and I'll read it. What did you read last week? I want to know. Also, I love that Gianna hates making lists. Torturing Gianna is a pleasure unlike any other. She whines quite a bit. I haven't suggested we tackle the Modern Library List, yet. She has it so good.

30 More Days Book Challenge: Day 5

Apologies for the hiatus--my life got a bit crazy this week.  It's time to get back on track, though.  Without a public outlet Gianna might send me nudey pictures or something.  I don't want to have to jab an icepick in my eye.

Day 5: Favorite First Novel

The first novel holds a special place in the book world.  It stands as a declaration of talents and potential to come, and many a master writer began with an audacious debut. 

Gianna:

Two words. The Notebook. I think it stacks right up there with other first works: Gone With the Wind, Dr. Zhivago, and The Bell Jar.

Before I unveil my second choice I wanted to mention a few first novels that I have loved that have come out just this year. What these 3 books have in common are there relatively young authors. Little shits.

Bright’s Passage by Josh Ritter is such a wonderful book – its not perfect – but it’s a loaded first novel, he clearly has a gift for language and storytelling. I highly recommend this book and I just learned that Ritter is coming to BookPeople in Austin for a signing on October 5th.

Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner. If you read a more romantic or charming book this year let me know. This is an old fashion love story from beginning to end. Liz said this book made her believe in love again…well Russian love. [I'm not sure what "Russian love" is.  I do think Cossacks are hot, though.]

The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht. This author is the youngest recipient of the Orange Prize, which she won for this insanely good novel. This book will be on year-end best lists to be sure. Obreht writes well beyond her years; she is an amazing talent.

My favorite debut novel is a book that just blew me away in 2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I was absolutely engrossed in every page of this book and when I had to put it down I was miserable. If you love books you know that is a good feeling. This won the National Book Critics Circle Award and Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (just like The Notebook!).

Liz:

A couple of honorable mentions before naming a favorite--

Special Topics in Calamity Physics was one of those audacious debut novels which received front page New York Times Book Review coverage, and additional press because the author, Marisha Pessl, is attractive.  Yes, beautiful people can write engrossing fiction too.  I read this book and loved it before I ever saw a picture of the author, for the record.  It's a coming of age novel about a new girl with a mysterious past trying to fit in at a new school and finding a special teacher who helps her.  More importantly, though, Blue (the main character) is a whip-smart, precocious, pop culture encyclopedia who loves a parenthetical aside, and the book--written in her voice--snaps with witty banter and trivial minutiae.  Some people hate her voice; I love it.

Moondogs by Alexander Yates--one of the best debuts this year.  Set in the Philippines, an American plans to travel to the islands to reunite with his businessman father and do some scuba diving.  Before he arrives in the Philippines, though, his father is kidnapped by cab drivers (and part time cockfighters) who want to kidnap an American in order to sell him to Islamic fundamentalists.  They are inept kidnappers and having no luck in the cockfighting ring since their rooster, Kelog (named after the corn flakes box rooster), is blind.  The Manila police charge their squad of super-cops to find the businessman, and among their ranks are a shape-shifter and a man who can shoot anything from any distance.  If he focuses on a dog on a neighboring island which he can't even see, he can hit it with a bullet.  Moondogs is a fun, well-written, gangster novel about immorality in the Philippines and a declaration of great books to come from author Alexander Yates.

My favorite first novel should not come as much of a surprise.  I once suggested that the author should marry me, after all.  The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead is a brilliant novel.  Period.  The story explores the historical conflict between faith and science through rival methods in the field of elevator inspection.  How Whitehead came up with this story, I have no idea, but one shouldn't ignore an author who can make elevator inspectors so fascinating.  Around the same time that this book was published, film maker Darren Aronofsky released his incredible movie Pi, and in my mind these two works stand as companion pieces to one another.  Spending time with either will challenge you, intrigue you, make you smarter, and allow you to believe in, if not higher powers, the incredible talents of two geniuses.