Shit, Actually by Lindy West

3/5 stars

What's it about? Lindy West compiles her reviews of cinematic favorites both beloved and awesomely bad, scored in copies of DVDs of The Fugitive. Spot-on, irreverent, and hilariously petty.

How’d I find it? I loved Shrill and had to read West’s movie takedowns.

Who will enjoy this book? Fans of the podcast How Did This Get Made?

What stood out? I reread the reviews of Love Actually, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and Twilight several times to enjoy the laugh out loud moments. While West is talented and sharp as always, the quips about our current social/economic/political climate didn’t work for me in this book. Sometimes, I just want to read about movies.

Which line made me feel something? From “Never Boring, Always Horny:” "Of all the weird shit Stephanie Meyer wrote in this series, ‘all vampires love baseball’ is absolutely the weirdest. Did you know a vampire can smell a drop of baseball in a million gallons of old growth forest?"

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

2/5 stars

How’d I find it? Within my personal library, I am particularly proud of the nature collection and thought Fuzz would be a nice addition. This copy came from Politics & Prose.

Why not 3 or more stars? Mary Roach is a gifted writer with a keen eye for story, but she doesn’t manage to Rumpelstiltskin this into gold. Aside from the species of offender, Fuzz contains little variety. Nature, be it flora or fauna, causes harm to humans, and nature is dealt with, usually lethally. That’s about it. On the plus side: Roach’s signature dad jokes and a conversation with a Vatican priest about the ethics of man’s dominion (though the line of inquiry quickly peters out).

Everything You Ever Wanted by Luiza Sauma

3/5 stars

What's it about? Iris is losing her lifelong battle with depression. Her career as a digital brand strategist? Meaningless. The tense distance from her family? Overwhelming. Feeble attempts at love? Unfulfilling. There’s a way out: the reality show Life on Nyx is offering 100 Earthlings the chance to live on another planet for the rest of their lives. A wry and devastating book about how the trappings of civilization obscure what really matters.

How’d I find it? This bookstagrammer in the UK has the absolute best recommendations. She gets my taste exactly.

Who will enjoy this book? No book can overshadow my admiration for Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis, but Everything You Ever Wanted is certainly in the same family of novel with its reality TV in space backdrop.

What stood out? This narrative slipped in and out of realities in a way that left loose ends and kept me guessing. My interpretation of Iris’s fate may just be a reflection of my mood at the time, and I appreciate any book that immediately demands a reread. While hard to put down, Everything You Ever Wanted has its flaws. The mother trope pushed Iris’s story into clichéd territory, and we get too few breadcrumbs about the mystery of Nyx (what a setting though). The chapters titled “These Are the Things” and “Things,” which catalogue what Iris misses on Earth, offer sweet interludes.

Which line made me feel something? This cracked me up: “The other night, she dreamed she was in a corner shop, and as she unfolded a twenty-pound note it released a whiff of papery, cocaine bitterness. Did banknotes smell of cocaine, or did cocaine smell of banknotes?”

Out There by Kate Folk

4/5 stars

What's it about? Kate Folk’s debut story collection wanders the weird, the creepy, and the obsessive. Populated by characters who throw up their hands and give in, Out There holds a mirror up to the inanity of the 21st century.

How’d I find it? This Electric Lit article. “Dark playfulness:” book-buying catnip?

Who will enjoy this book? Those who loved Karen Russell’s Orange World and Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties will want to pick up Out There.

What stood out? The creativity in these stories makes for a dynamic read. There’s a house that “needs moisture.” A violent Thanksgiving tradition. A clinic for people with Total Nocturnal Bone Loss. Folk writes them all with humor and a touch of Cronenberg grossness. The first and last stories (“Out There” and “Big Sur”), about handsome AI that seduce women in order to steal their identities, are the book’s finest achievements.

Which line made me feel something? This description of dating at 30 really hit home: “Sam slept in a sleeping bag wadded at the center of a king-sized bed. There was a closet in the hallway where he kept his camping gear, and from which he retrieved a spare pillow for me to sleep on, still in its wrapping, as if he’d bought it for this purpose. At the foot of the bed was a Rubbermaid container full of folded T-shirts and socks. On its lid sat an electric kettle he used to boil water for coffee, so he wouldn’t have to go upstairs.” Oh, I have met Sam.

Wonderlands: Essays on the Life of Literature by Charles Baxter

2/5 stars

How’d I find it? I recently read The Feast of Love and Gryphon and was excited to explore more of Baxter’s work when I found this at Politics & Prose.

Why not 3 or more stars? Writing about writing is one of my favorite genres, as it offers insight into the author’s approach to craft and, often, their own reading taste. I love coming away with a list of new things to read or the urge to revisit a short story with a different perspective. Wonderlands felt entry-level, its arguments too obvious to be robust. Like reality in the dream worlds Baxter describes, my mind tended to drift with every page.

The Material by Camille Bordas

3/5 stars

What's it about? The Material follows an MFA stand-up program in Chicago as the students and faculty prepare for a set competing against Second City. A novel of rich inner monologues, the competitive nature of fame, and even a school shooter.

How’d I find it? An excerpt of this book in Harper’s assured me that I needed to read the whole darn thing.

Who will enjoy this book? A readalike if you appreciate an ensemble of characters and time in their psyches? The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty.

What stood out? I can’t help but applaud this novel’s ambition. Writing about the art of stand-up comedy requires crafting performances for the page, and Bordas does just this, delivering not only the sets of her famous and would-be comics, but also their riffing creative minds, the forge where jokes are made. She writes bits that work and others that flop, lending authenticity to the story. It seems Bordas composed her first novels in French, and if English is not her first language, I’m all the more impressed by her comedic ear. Dorothy, the professor who has a new special coming out, enticed me the most; her thoughts on aging as a single woman were memorable and well-written.

Which line made me feel something? As Olivia, one of our aspiring comics, approaches the microphone: “It was almost a game at this point, testing how many unrelated-to-comedy thoughts she could hold in her head up to the last second—the more there were, the greater the relief would be at seeing them fly away with her first line, like a flock of scared-off birds after a gunshot.”

The Complete Stories of Truman Capote

4/5 stars

What's it about? Capote dazzles and delights in his short fiction, ordered here chronologically, that captures the angst of youth in the rural South, the loneliness of mid-century American cities, and the intricacies of nuanced sexuality.

How’d I find it? A dear friend of mine knew Truman Capote and dismissed him as a “fascinating drunk.” The comment inspired me to read him all the more, having adored In Cold Blood.

Who will enjoy this book? If you appreciate F. Scott Fitzgerald, you’ll love these smart tales. Let’s be real: this book appeals to all short story aficionados.

What stood out? I started reading this book at the end of a New York trip, and it suited the occasion perfectly. Take this collection with you in the bustle of a city. Read it in a crowded bar. These stories of daily failure, from a Haitian prostitute settling down, to a child examining his unusual relationship with an adult cousin, prove Capote’s gift in crafting vivid worlds. “Jug of Silver” and “The Headless Hawk” were standouts.

Which line made me feel something? This horrific little detail from “The Headless Hawk:” “Dusk, and nightfall, and the fibers of sounds called silence wove a shiny blue mask. Waking, he peered through eyeslits, heard the frenzied pulsebeat of his watch, the scratch of a key in a lock. Somewhere in this hour of dusk a murderer separates himself from shadow and with a rope follows the flash of silk legs up doomed stairs.“

Old New York by Edith Wharton

5/5 stars

What's it about? In these four outstanding novellas, Edith Wharton hones in on the constraints of class within New York society of the mid-1800s.

How’d I find it? It’s no secret that I love a pocket edition. I was browsing a neighborhood library book sale in Washington, DC, and this tiny Wharton collection in mint condition (no longer) had to come home with me.

Who will enjoy this book? This is Literature with a capital L. If you like the big names in short fiction, these novellas will charm you. This is also a great book for fellow Austenites looking for a cunning period read. Wharton delivers.

What stood out? I may not have enjoyed Ethan Frome, but this book is a real winner. Each story is unique — a young man is entrusted with his family’s legacy in “False Dawn,” while “New Year’s Day” plays with the trope of a woman scorned — which makes the collection extra engrossing. The ending of “Old Maid” came out of nowhere and instantly put me in tears.

Which line made me feel something? From “The Spark,” in which a certain Civil War poet makes an appearance: “Those four years had apparently filled to the brim every crevice of his being. For I could not hold that he had gone through them unawares, as some famous figures, puppets of fate, have been tossed from heights to depths of human experience without once knowing what was happening to them—forfeiting a crown by the insistence on some prescribed ceremonial, or by carrying on their flight a certain monumental dressing-case.”

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

4/5 stars

What's it about? Set in 1962, this sweet book follows a day in the life of George, a British expat and professor living in California. George mourns the recent loss of his partner Jim and grapples with the realities of aging.

How’d I find it? I’ve known about this book for many years, but finally picked up a copy when I saw this stunning pocket edition at Powell’s.

Who will enjoy this book? A Single Man recalls the Joycean minutiae of Ulysses and the themes about life found in Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, one of the greatest character studies I’ve ever read. For those who crave West Coast fiction, this is very much a California book.

What stood out? As we follow George to work, the hospital, the gym, and a night of boozing and flirtation, Isherwood slides along the spectrum of existence, from the intimacy of George’s thoughts to the corporeality of the body to the movements of the soul. The result is a powerful statement on the fragility of life and its miracle, a marvel on a small scale. George can be nasty and prone to rants that are infamous among his friends, but he’s a fascinating mind to inhabit for a short while. Look out for some devastating writing about love in these pages.

Which line made me feel something? George drinks in the reflection of his naked body: “The neck is loose and scraggy under all circumstances, in all lights, and would look gruesome even if he were half-blind. He has abandoned the neck altogether, like an untenable military position.”

I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution by Emily Nussbaum

4/5 stars

What's it about? Emily Nussbaum sets out her thesis about the unique importance of television via essays on The Leftovers, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Lost, and a myriad of other shows. A page-turning contemplation on television as art and how it converses with and represents culture.

How’d I find it? As a bookseller, I combed through every section to better know our stock, and you can bet Solid State Books has a solidly curated film and television section. I Like to Watch is a book I’ve eyed for years before finally tucking in.

Who will enjoy this book? TV watchers, this book is for you. You’ll be inspired to watch shows you’ve overlooked (Ryan Murphy’s œuvre) and second guess those you love (True Detective has “so much gravitas it could run for president”).

What stood out? Nussbaum folds in such a variety of perspectives on so many TV shows that there’s truly something for everybody. I respect how seriously she takes her chosen subject. Despite the richness of ideas, the essays flow together as if they were written for this book, a testament to their editing and arranging. While published in 2019, some aspects of I Like to Watch already feel dated for a reader in 2024. The mood around the 2016 elections, the overall ickiness of #MeToo revelations—dead horses that have been beat plenty.

Which line made me feel something? From a fabulous essay on Jane the Virgin: “…the soap, the rom-com, the romance novel, and, more recently, reality television. These are the genres that get dismissed as fluff, which is how our culture regards art that makes women’s lives look like fun.”