Books Coming Out During the Week of April 29th

I think I’m going to go back into the past and reach into my little bag of tricks. Hmmm…what will I find down there? Hey look, it’s the Biblio Philes. I’ve been wondering where they’ve been. Apparently they’ve been in this here bag of tricks all along. Let’s see what they have to say.

This, the month of May, is one of the most exciting months for book releases which we’ve had in quite some time. I remember, a few years ago, I felt more excited than I had felt in years because, at the bookstore, we got in both the new Zadie Smith and the new Salman Rushdie on the same day. Never one to worry about not being able to read both of them at the same time, I bought them as quickly as I could. Even with the amount of excitement I had that day, this month of May is considerably more exciting.

Last week’s book releases started with off with a bang; many of my favorite authors have the tendency to release their books with amazing infrequency and after a grueling seven year wait – and a full year of which was merely a wait for the publishing company, Harpercollins, to find time to fit it into its busy publishing schedule – Michael Chabon has finally released his follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Kavalier and Clay was an astoundingly magical novel about the birth of comic books. This new one, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, takes a drastic turn to the more creative not only in its storyline but in the devices it uses to get there. The story revolves around the precept that the while the Jews were given their promised land of Israel in the 1940’s, it didn’t take and they were moved off to Alaska. This is an especially interesting thought when one realizes that Franklin D. Roosevelt had, at one time, proposed Alaska as an eventual homeland for the Jews in place of Israel. The story is in the hard-boiled mystery ilk (much like Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett) and it focuses on the struggles of a detective (Meyer Landsman), a troubled alcoholic who is dealing with his ex-wife being his new boss and the potential expatriation of Alaska by the Jews (they were given Alaska – or parts of it, at least – for a sixty year period and that period is quickly coming to an end), and all the while he has a murder of a possible Jewish Messiah to deal with. For, I’m sure, much better reviews of this one you could click on these links and read some of the reviews. Entertainment Weekly, Salon.com, there are other reviews out there so search 'em out if you want more.

Two other books which came out last week, which have garnished much press coverage (for books, that is), are the Chuck Palahniuk (Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey) and a book by Whitebread Award winning author Jim Crace (The Pesthouse). Rant, in true Palahniuk fashion, is an intriguing look at the culture of violence – and the fascination the American people, and possibly the world at this point, have with violence. If you want to buy a Rant tshirt for the book tour Mr. Palahniuk is currently on you can go here, to his official homepage. The Pesthouse is a novel which focuses on a thing which there has been a few – and certainly more books than usual – books written about as of late. Post-Apocalyptic Dystopias. Most popular of the books which have come out lately is The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, (and, might I say, the popularity is well-deserved). Another book to have come out recently (February) is Matthew Sharpe’s book, Jamestown. Both of these are worth checking out but we’re talking about The Pesthouse so I’ll not go into them too much. I’ve perused the beginnings of this book and it seems to be an incredibly well written take America, after a downfall in technology (for whatever reason the demise has come about).

This post has already become a little on the long side so I’m going to make every attempt to post this week’s releases later tonight (after work) or sometime tomorrow. If anyone has any questions on the books mentioned here, or any of the other books which have come out recently, go ahead and ask them in the comments. I’ll do my best to answer your questions (or, at least, point you to some really good sites where you may get a better answer than I could give).