Of Bookmarks, Brothers, and BAD (with an Office Girl and a Swamp thrown in for giggles)

I got my Albatros bookmarks the other day and I'm digging using them.  It really may be a better bookmark, simple, elegant, and clever.  I would prefer they were re-usable.  We live in the golden age of adhesives so I can only guess this is a simple adjustment to make.  

Karen Russell won the New York Public Library Young Lions award for Swamplandia!  The award is for American authors under the age of 35 who show promise.  She was a finalist for her previous collection St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.  As if I haven't pimped her enough on this blog, I strongly encourage you to read her work.  

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt is out in paperback and continues to rack up awards, especially in his native Canada.  The new cover isn't nearly as enthralling as the original and whoever decided there was need to change it should be taken out and horsewhipped.  However it's what's between the covers that counts. 

Joe Meno's upcoming Office Girl is a winner.  I'll post more about it closer to its July pub date but be on the lookout for this one from those cool cats at Akashic Books.

Paul Fussell passed away yesterday at the age of 88.  A cultural critic with a sharp eye and an acid tongue, his book BAD or the Dumbing of America had a strong grip on me when I read it 20 years ago. I'm re-reading it now and find he is still dead on the money.  I can only imagine what he must have thought about the ubiquity of the Internet and cell phones, reality TV and the demise of empathy, honor and shame in American culture today.  Was he ahead of his time or have we as a society just gotten worse? 

Another Best-Of List

This also gets my pick for best book cover of 2011

Here's another Best-Of (http://goo.gl/lXc97), this time from Publishers Weekly.  Unlike the Kirkus Reviews list, I'm much more in step with PW's fiction picks.  

Readers of this blog will see two books I raved about making the cut; the charming The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt and the unsettling The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock.  

Should you choose, you can read my respective posts here: http://goo.gl/dXclJ

and here: http://goo.gl/3Y5B3

DeWitt has won the Governor General's Prize in Canada and I just read John C. Reilly bought the right to make the film.  I can certainly see him as a Sister. 

The shortlist for this year's Man Booker Prize

Here's the shortlist for the Booker: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes   Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch    The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt    Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan    Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman    Snowdrops by A.D. Miller I've read two of them and loved both.  The Sisters Brothers was such a surprising read.  Here's what I thought of it: http://goo.gl/fozJQ Stephen Kelman's Pigeon English was as delightful as it was haunting.  I still need to post about this but don't let that stop you from reading it. I've no idea what kind of odds the British bookmakers are putting on these books but I'm guessing they are longshots.  The winner will be announced on October 18 in London.