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QUICKGASM >> 7.25.08

Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste! I don’t ever want to know what it feels like to be burned alive, but Andrew Davidson came damn close to making me feel it in...

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The Learners

With his second novel THE LEARNERS, Chip Kidd moves into the revered pantheon of postmodernist writers who have an affinity for the quirky (authors like David Foster Wallace, Michael Chabon, etc.)....

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The Good Thief

Perhaps the first thing to do when considering Hannah Tinti’s debut novel is either avoid all the blurbs covering the back and inside flaps of the dust jacket, or refuse to take them too seriously....

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QUICKGASM >> 9.05.08

Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste! Elizabeth Peters’ latest may not star her regular heroine Amelia Peabody, but THE LAUGHTER OF KINGS remains rife with...

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The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

Let’s just cut to the chase, because you’re not going to believe me anyway: The narrator of Victor Pelevin’s parodic THE SACRED BOOK OF THE WEREWOLF is A Hu-Li, a female fox — literally, not...

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The Unicorn Man

Maybe it’s because so many do it poorly, but poetry sits with me as well as ipecac syrup. Some people with no writing talent and a surplus of wide-lined notebook paper scribble a few lines in the ABAB...

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Blankety Blank: A Memoir of Vulgaria

BLANKETY BLANK: A MEMOIR OF VULGARIA is indeed the perfect title for D. Harland Wilson’s novel, because if the average person picked it up and read any given page, his reaction would be, “What the...

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QUICKGASM >> 11.13.08

Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste! WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? I asked the same thing myself as I read Kate Atkinson’s latest, the third in a series that...

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A Pretty Face

Four years after publication overseas, Rafael Reig’s second book comes to our shores translated by Paul Hammond. A PRETTY FACE is not an easy novel to categorize, since it’s borderline science fiction...

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QUICKGASM >> 11.28.08

Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste! Perhaps my love for THE GEOGRAPHER’S LIBRARY — my favorite novel of 2005 — tainted my expectations for Jon Fasman’s follow-up...

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A Most Wanted Man

Since his 1963 breakout work, the now-classic THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, John le Carré has set the standard for the modern, realistic spy novel. Eschewing the gadgetry and suave worldliness of...

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Jack London in Paradise

Hobart Bosworth — actor, producer, director — is seeing his career head toward oblivion. Having made his name on a handful of productions adapting the works of superstar novelist Jack London, Bosworth...

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Barfodder: Poetry Written in Dark Bars and Questionable Cafes

Completed in 2005, BARFODDER: POETRY WRITTEN IN DARK BARS AND QUESTIONABLE CAFES — the second volume of poetry by horror writer Rain Graves — is now available to a wider audience, courtesy of the good...

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Dangerous Laughter: 13 Stories

‘Twas the film THE ILLUSIONIST that introduced me to Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Millhauser, whose short story “Eisenheim the Illusionist” served as the source material. It’s not all that often that...

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Firmin

I really wanted to like Sam Savage’s FIRMIN, the admittedly sometimes charming story told by a bookish rat in the first person, about his life hiding in a used bookstore, the friends and enemies he...

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The Manual of Detection

Give THE MANUAL OF DETECTION points for originality. Jedediah Berry’s debut novel puts forth a premise different from any other mystery you’re apt to find. Even if it may not completely pay off for...

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Havana Lunar

Cuba really changed in 1992. With the downfall of Communism in Russia, Cuba went into what was called the “Special Period,” entering a severe economic crisis causing major problems for the Cuban...

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The Vampire of Ropraz

I’ve got news for all the 14-year-old girls out there: Those vampires in TWILIGHT? They’re not vampires. But Jacques Chessex’s THE VAMPIRE OF ROPRAZ. Now there’s a vampire! To wit, his damage: “The...

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Classics Illustrated: The Raven and Other Poems

Another in Papercutz’s revival of the classic comics series, CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED: THE RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS is a collection of nine pieces of verse written by Edgar Allan Poe, with illustrations by...

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Pygmy

I give Chuck Palahniuk credit for being original, for being daring, for writing whatever the hell he wants with no regard for potential controversy. But sometimes that freedom comes at a price:...

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The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet

Twelve-year-old T.S. Spivet is as unique as his name — and that’s Tecumseh Sparrow, for short. He lives on a remote ranch in Montana with his farmer father of few words, his doctor mother and his...

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The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime: Con Artists, Rogues, and Scoundrels from...

After bringing the exploits of Arsène Lupin and Fantômas back from obscurity, Penguin Classics resurrects a whole slew of gentlemen thieves in THE PENGUIN BOOK OF GASLIGHT CRIME: CON ARTISTS, ROGUES,...

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The City & the City

Wildly intense, literate, contemporary mystery/fantasy with a highly integrated theme of nationalism, segregation, isolationism and political terror, coupled with well-drawn characters living in a...

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Finale

Paul A. Toth’s third novel, FINALE, is full of appealing promises. But Toth seems to go out of his way to make them difficult to accept. The Raw Dog Screaming Press release presents itself as a road...

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The Fate of Fenella

From 1892, THE FATE OF FENELLA is an odd novel with something — but not much — for enthusiasts of Victorian sensation fiction; fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker; and readers interested in...

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The Enthusiast

I’m not sure what I expected in reading THE ENTHUSIAST by Charlie Haas, but I expected more than I got. Haas’ novel has had heaps of praise, including a total rave in REASON magazine and other trusted...

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Masterpiece Comics

I knew that reading those classic novels in high school and college would pay off someday. Because I was able to get most of the jokes in R. Sikoryak’s MASTERPIECE COMICS collection. Although it’s not...

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This Side of Jordan

Monte Schulz proves that his father was not the only talented storyteller in the family. For those who don’t know, Monte is the son of the late Charles M. Schulz, creator of Peanuts. Now, Monte has...

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Juliet, Naked

In JULIET, NAKED, Nick Hornby has created a story about three lost individuals, and how they come to find themselves and each other. Annie and Duncan, a stagnant couple, have been together for 15...

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Inherent Vice

Thomas Pynchon is one of America’s greatest living writers. His THE CRYING OF LOT 49 should be required teaching in high school, and his MASON & DIXON is one of the truly great underrated...

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Other Resort Cities

Don’t take Tod Goldberg’s OTHER RESORT CITIES as some fun-loving travelogue. These 10 stories are populated with people who live in resort towns, but they are not what the local chamber of commerce...

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Peckinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance

Huh? I think that sums up the reading of PECKINPAH: AN ULTRAVIOLENT ROMANCE. D. Harlan Wilson’s work is not a novel in the sense of a traditional story. It’s more of a collection of bizarre, brief...

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Chronic City

Jonathan Lethem is currently one of those young favorites of the East Coast literati crowd who, like Michael Chabon, was influenced early by genre fiction. And unlike Chabon, Lethem keeps a much...

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Animals in the Zoo

Editor’s note: We don’t review short stories on their own, but when Akashic Books asked us to participate in a crowdsourced review of Joe Meno’s DEMONS IN THE SPRING collection, we couldn’t say “no,”...

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The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

The ever-reliable Walter Mosley takes a break from his Leonid McGill mystery series (THE LONG FALL, KNOWN TO EVIL) and briefly revisits contemporary Los Angeles with his new novel, THE LAST DAYS OF...

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Give Me Your Heart: Tales of Mystery and Suspense

Seeing a review of any book by such a lofty literary figure as Joyce Carol Oates on this site is sure to raise an eyebrow or two, but her readers and followers of various anthologies know that the...

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The Last Rose of Summer

THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER, the second novel in Monte Schulz’s Jazz Age trilogy, shows another side to his writing. Instead of showing the dark underbelly of society through the eyes of 19-year-old Alvin...

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Untouchable

Okay, I have to admit: Sometimes I just don’t get it. Whenever I read a book or short story, listen to a song, or watch a movie, I ask myself: What’s the point of this? What is the artist trying to...

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The Day the World Ends

As longtime BOOKGASM visitors know, it’s only in very rare instances that this site even dares to flirt with reviewing poetry. We think verse written by a Coen brother totally counts. Besides, it...

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The Detour

Twenty-six year old Ernst Vogler is an employee of the Third Reich’s Sonderprojekte, Hitler’s attempt to collect the great art of Europe and bring it to Germany. Vogler is given what appears to be an...

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Zombie

I had a love affair with this book. Like most love affairs, it ended badly.           ZOMBIE, the title of J.R. Angelella’s novel is misleading. It’s not a horror novel, although the story...

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Generations

Any new work from long-renowned author and screenwriter Richard Matheson is cause for interest and excitement. The fact that Gauntlet Press promotes GENERATIONS as “an autobiographical novel” raises...

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theNewerYork Book III

‘Tis rare, but sometimes it feels like the only way one can a review a book is simply to share the fact that it exists. THENEWERYORK BOOK III is one of those times. The 82-page “literary anthology” is...

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Erotic Lives of the Superheroes

The author of EROTIC LIVES OF THE SUPERHEROES has an interesting premise: What happens to superheroes when they get older? It’s not an entirely original idea, but when you’re dealing with a genre...

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The Collector of Lost Things

The sea was a notable but occasional location in British author Jeremy Page’s first two novels. In THE COLLECTOR OF LOST THINGS, Page’s third and latest work, the sea is practically a secondary player...

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Sweet Nothing: Stories

Readers who first experienced Richard Lange through his 2013 novel, ANGEL BABY, may not know that his first published work was the short story collection, DEAD BOYS. SWEET NOTHING is Lange’s second...

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The Relic Master

Best fiction book I’ve read in the last 12 months? That’s easy. It’s Christopher Buckley’s THE RELIC MASTER, a bizarre mix of MONTY PYTHON’S LIFE OF BRIAN, THE PRINCESS BRIDE, swashbuckling fantasy à...

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The Transmigration of Bodies

Mexican-born author Yuri Herrera’s latest novel, THE TRANSMIGRATION OF BODIES, is just over 100 pages, yet amazingly accomplishes things expected of works twice its length. It creates an allegorical...

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Music for Love or War

Canadian-born novelist, journalist, screenwriter and director Martyn Burke combines his experiences covering the war in Afghanistan with his mordant observations of Hollywood and American pop culture –...

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The Boy in the Earth

Fuminori Nakamura is one of the most intriguing contemporary novelists out of Japan, but I’m glad his works are short. It would be much too difficult to wrap your head around the darkness his...

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