New York City | Raging Biblio-holism

City on Fire

August 3, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: On New Year’s Eve 1977, a young woman is shot in Central Park. How does she connect to a newspaper reporter, a fireworker, a Long Island kid who wants to be punk, some philosophical rebel-punks, and one of the wealthiest families in the city? More importantly, how do all of these people connect – and how do they survive in a city that seems on the edge of total collapse? The Review: I am baffled that Knopf isn’t […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Advance Review, BEA15, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, City on Fire, Fiction, Garth Risk Hallberg, New York City, Reviews

Selected Shorts: Make Something Up with Chuck Palahniuk

May 21, 2015 by Drew

my terribly messy scribblings all over the program… Have you ever been to a Chuck Palahniuk reading? The last one I went to, I got hit in the face with a bag of Almond Joy (hurled by Mr. P himself), inflated a beach ball, and caught a severed arm. So. Didn’t quite know what to expect at a slightly more refined event – but I knew Palahniuk would find a way to meld his delightfully weird sensibility with whatever he was […]

Categories: Events, Features • Tags: Alex Hurt, Becky Ann Baker, Charles Baxter, Chuck Palahniuk, Clive Barker, Events, Features, Make Something Up, Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread, Mark Richard, Matthew Love, New York City, Recaps, Sam Underwood, Sarah Steele, Selected Shorts, Stephen King, Symphony Space

Shovel Ready (Spademan #1)

March 4, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: After a dirty bomb decimates Times Square, New York City empties out in one way or another. Those who can afford it slip into the limn, a perfect virtual reality, while those who can’t either leave the city for good or become shells of their former selves. Spademan is one of the last: a former garbage man and husband, now hardened hit man. But when he stops short of killing a pregnant girl, he finds himself going up […]

Categories: Fiction, Noir, Sci-Fi • Tags: Action, Adam Sternbergh, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Dystopia, Fiction, New York, New York City, Noir, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Shovel Ready, Spademan

Mother Night

March 2, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: Howard Campbell Jr., one of the most notorious Nazi propagandists, was also an American double agent. But was he too good at his “fake” job? As Vonnegut says in his ‘introduction’ to Campbell’s ‘memoir’, “we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” The Review: So the thing I’m discovering about Vonnegut is that he is infinitely quotable. The phrasing is not such that you feel like he’s trying, either – […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: 5+, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Ethics, Fiction, Identity, Israel, Kurt Vonnegut, Literature, Mother Night, Nazis, New York City, Philosophy, Politics, Reviews, Vonnegut 201x, World War II

A Brief History of Seven Killings

February 2, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: In 1976, gunmen attempted to assassinate Bob Marley on the eve of the great Smile Jamaica Concert. The novel begins the day before the assassination attempt and then leaps forward over nearly 20 ensuing years between Jamaica, Miami, and New York City – painting a rich portrait of crime, drugs, violence, journalism, CIA spooks, and music. The Review: A Brief History is one of those stories that isn’t about anything so much as it is about the world we’ve […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: A Brief History of Seven Killings, Bob Marley, CIA, Cocaine, Crack, Drug Dealers, Drugs, Fiction, Gang Warfare, Gangs, History, Jamaica, Journalism, Kingston, Literature, Marlon James, Miami, Music, New York City, Politics, Rasta, Rastafarian, Reggae, The New Yorker, The Tournament of Books 2015

Adam

January 22, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: When straight awkward male teenager Adam goes to stay with his older sister in New York City for the summer, he’s ready for his life to change. She’s in the midst of the gay rights movement and drags Adam along – and suddenly he discovers that lots of hot ladies are interested in him… because they think he’s transgendered. So he plays along. The Review: I’m kind of astonished by this novel. I’m astonished that Alison Bechdel gave […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Adam, Ariel Schrag, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Gay, Gender, GLBTQ, Lesbian, Literature, New York City, Orientation, Reviews, Romance, Sexuality, The Tournament of Books 2015, Trans

Selected Shorts 30th Anniversary

October 16, 2014 by Drew

Oh, the short story. So easy to fuck up – and yet, when done well, so absolutely transcendent. I have struggled with the form as a writer and, recently, as a reader: I find collections difficult to read and often don’t engage as much as I should with the individual stories that I do like. How it has taken me so long to discover Selected Shorts, I’ll never understand. For those unfamiliar, it’s a live event hosted at Symphony Space […]

Categories: Events, Features • Tags: Amber Tamblyn, Anika Noni Rose, Christine Lahti, David Rakoff, Etgar Keret, Events, Features, Isaiah Sheffer, James Naughton, Michael Cerveris, New York City, Selected Shorts, Selected Shorts 30th Anniversary, Sherman Alexie, Symphony Space, Thomas Meehan

Rainey Royal

September 29, 2014 by Drew

The Short Version: It’s the Village in the ’70s and Rainey Royal is trying to figure out who she is. We meet her first at age 14 in her big house on West 10th St, her father an oblivious jazz musician and his best friend eyeing her with lecherous intent. She’s brash, newly sexy, and an old-school wild child – but even those have to grow up at some point. The Review: Sometimes you read the right book at the right […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: BEA14, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Dylan Landis, Fiction, Literature, New York City, Rainey Royal, Reviews

10:04

September 12, 2014 by Drew

The Short Version: After the critical success of his first novel, a thirtysomething author deals with having to write a second while also being diagnosed with a heart condition, trying to get his best friend pregnant, and increasingly frequent superstorms tracking towards New York City. This is life, just a little different from how we know it. The Review: Look at that cover. Seems familiar, right? It was the cover of New York Magazine the issue after Sandy hit – but suddenly […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: 10:04, BEA14, Ben Lerner, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Hurricane Sandy, Literature, Memoir, New York City, Philosophy, Poetry, Reviews, Semi-Fiction

Raging Biblio-holism

The overwhelming urge to collect, consume, and consider books

Tag: New York City