Forthcoming Books
Written by Edward ChampionPosted on June 3, 2009
Filed Under Reading
Over the weekend, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a summer reading preview in which it asked many of its contributors about books that they were looking for. Darby Dixon III has written recently about the dangers of anticipating new books. And the issue of having too many interesting books to read has caused grumblings even from the most robust readers. It’s not that we don’t want to read these books. We just don’t know when we’ll read them. Speaking for myself, William T. Vollmann’s Imperial sits in the pile, and it looks like it might devour some of the smaller books as snacks. (To give you some sense of the problem, Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist and Richard Powers’s Generosity are 50 cent bags of Doritos by comparison. Is this really fair?)
But you can’t just stick with the tried and true. There are books from emerging authors and small presses that must not be overlooked! There are good books that are being ignored. There are books that don’t stand a chance if everybody’s looking forward to the new Lethem.
This begs the question of whether we should be asking some of these these authors to stop writing for six months so that some of us may catch up on our reading and be fair to all the books. Or perhaps we should ask the federal government to bail out readers so that literary culture can thrive. Then again, it’s possible that we may approach a six month window in which there is nothing particularly worthwhile to read. And then America can be humiliated yet again with another public denouncement from Horace Engdahl that only people like Harold Augenbraum will actually care about. The rest of us will catch up with the backlog.
There’s a new David Mitchell novel and a new Scarlett Thomas novel set for publication in 2010. It just doesn’t stop, does it?
There has to be a solution to all this. And the Chicago Sun-Times is to be commended for its salubrious idea. But I’d like to take the experiment further. Instead of just listening to the experts, what about readers as a whole? If you’ve never left a comment on this website, your time to get conversational has come. What books are you looking forward to this year? Who are the authors that jazz you up? Please know that the answers aren’t limited to literary titles. This is not a snobbish query, but a curious one. Which books are you looking forward to in 2009?
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
Or send materials to:
315 Flatbush Avenue, #231
Brooklyn, NY 11217
- The Possibilities of Small
- Ben Macintyre: The Latest Sourpuss to Run Away From Possibilities
- Untapped Currency
- Reminder: Live Conversation with Sarah Hall on Tuesday!
- Five Three Oh
- The Bat Segundo Show: Marjorie Rosen
- When Parody Replaces Opportunity
- The Benefits of Notebooks
- Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Project #8
- Slowdown
Strangely, pretty much all the books I’m really looking forward to this fall I already have, because they were published in the UK last month: Hilary Mantel’s brilliant Wolf Hall, Kazuo Ishiguro’s frustrating but occasionally great Nocturnes, and A. S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book, which I haven’t yet read.
I know the number of people who, like me, will order such books from overseas rather than wait is still relatively small, but given how much publicity the UK papers can be counted on to give British authors–and how that publicity travels across the ocean seamlessly–I’m surprised that U.S. trade houses haven’t figured out a way to avoid such a time-lag when they buy U.S. rights.
It’s not just novels either. When it comes to comics, this year brings us new books by Crumb, Mazucelli, Mazzucchelli, Eddie Campbell, Ben Katchor, perhaps even something by Al Columbia, amongst others. Not to mention the recently released Yoshihiro Tatsumi tome.
How do I fit all of these around the reading alluded to above? I am but one man! We need some kind of time machine, Ed, and we need it now…
Richard Powers’ Generosity: An Enhancement. September is so far away!
oops. Just saw that you’d mentioned the Powers book already. I am blinded by booklust, clearly.
Scarlett Thomas in 2010?? Yea!
What is the new Eddie Campbell, Woody? I hadn’t heard that.
I’m looking forward to Paul Collins’ book on Shakespeare, Elizabeth Hand has a YA novel of all things coming out (Wonderwall – from an earlier short story) and Sierra Club books has a NF title on mountaintop removal mining I want to see, “Coal Country”.
I’m also looking forward to Cranioplekty – a book on Victorian era grave robbing from Unbridled Books and Fossil Hunter by Shelly Emling – the story Mary Hanning.
Colleen, the new Eddie Campbell book is called The Years Have Pants. Essentially it’s a collection of his Alec books from The King Canute Crowd to After The Snooter although it contains some unpublished material and an all-new book to round it all off. It’s published by Top Shelf Comix this September.
Ooooo. Imperial. Me want.
Colleen, I’m so glad you mentioned the book on Victorian grave-robbing. I’m definitely going to look for that one this fall.
The one I’m writing.
Laird Hunt’s RAY OF THE STAR
Robert Lopez’s KAMBY BOLONGO MEAN RIVER
Lydia Davis’ COLLECTED STORIES
It’s not that far in the future– next month– but Jonathan Howard’s JOHANNES CABAL, THE NECROMANCER is top-notch.
Humor and the fantastic are difficult things to balance & Howard’s tone is perfect; the book manages to be continually amusing, yet with moments of creepiness, suspense and thoughtfulness…
A new David Mitchell?! I’ve adored his stuff so far, so this is excellent news to me.