March 7, 2010
Copenhagen
by Katrine Marie Guldager (Book Thug, 2009, Translated from the Danish by P.K. Brask)
Eleven short stories that twist geographically, socially, restlessly, and perspicaciously through the city. Often mundane, then suddenly tragic, related with a matter-of-factness that is also forgiving. You can read all 82 pages in one sitting, which for that reason (and the fragility of the characters and also the unassailable whiteness of Copenhagen) makes me want to compare the book to a stack of rice cakes. In a good way. I like rice cakes. Or else I wouldn’t be recommending the book.
$20
February 21, 2010
Boons & The Camp
by David Ohle (Calamari, 2009)
Double feature. Two Ohle novellas in one.
$12
February 7, 2010
Portable Altamont
by Brian Joseph Davis (Coach House Books, 2005)
“Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK to impress Jodie Foster. She was only two but she already held great power and influence over angry loners and aspiring poets. Sean Penn doesn’t cry anymore. The sun sets in Hilary Swank’s mouth. Careful, Hilary – you don’t know where it’s been.”
One Canadian writer’s liberties with celebrity profiling is a certain kind of reader’s tabloid news.
$11.95
Boris by the Sea
by Matvei Yankelevich (Octopus Books, 2009)
The book begins, “Boris was thirsty so he watered his plants. When the plants died from being over-watered Boris was still thirsty.”
The book ends, “Boris had an idea. Then he sat down and wept. It is hard to say what it was that Boris had been thinking about before he stopped thinking about it. He closed the window.”
$14
February 4, 2010
Babyfucker
by Urs Allemann (Les Figues, 2010)
“I fuck babies. That’s my sentence.” More than a running dead baby joke (they’re not dead, anyway, they’re drugged with morphine milk), Babyfucker is a rambling exploration of betrayal, jealousy, and isolation under the sticky-icky veneer of psychosis. I mean, who among us has never said, “I’m so bummed out right now I could fuck a baby”?
$15