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Browse This Issue: June 11th, 2009

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There's a Book for That
This summer, read what you need when the time is right.
by Carolyn Huckabay
Summer's supposed to be about slowing down, finding some shade and getting lost in the plot of a really good book — or a deliciously bad one.

<i>My Goat Ate Its Own Legs</i> by Alex Burrett
The Moment: You fly your freak flag at half-mast
by Patrick Rapa
Alex Burrett is weird, just not as weird as he thinks he is.

<i>And Then There's This</i> by Bill Wasik
The Moment: You're bored by everything
by M.J. Fine
Wasik connects the dots between the overstimulation that we perceive as boredom and our Internet-driven culture's short attention span.

<i>Rave Culture</i> by Tammy L. Anderson
The Moment: You bite through your pacifier
by A.D. Amorosi
This review of a review of a city's rave scene is not my review of this city's rave scene; another place, another time, perhaps.

<i>The Girl Who Played with Fire</i> by Stieg Larsson
The Moment: You feel like kicking ass and taking names
by Char Vandermeer
Given the number of rapists, sadists and perverts in Stieg Larsson's Stockholm, one surely wouldn't want to leave home without a nice can of peppery goodness close at hand.

<i>The Big Rewind</i> by Nathan Rabin
The Moment: You give your home movies a thumbs-down
by Michael Pelusi
Nathan Rabin's memoir and first book reveals the turbulent upbringing that led to his pop culture livelihood.

<i>How The Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll</i> by Elijah Wald
The Moment: (You say) you want a revolution
by K. Ross Hoffman
By positioning The Beatles as, effectively, the end point of a historical narrative, Wald lets us reconsider both the 1960s and the half-century that preceded them.

<i>The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane</i> by Katherine Howe
The Moment: You'd rather sink than float
by Matt Jakubowski
The author is a scholar whose relatives are women accused in the real Salem trials, so the novel's flashback scenes are much stronger than Connie's story, which is campy and clichéd.

<i>I'm Down</i> by Mishna Wolff
The Moment: You're questioning your cred
by Gary M. Kramer
In the very first sentence of memoir, Mishna Wolff declares that she is white. She establishes this fact — repeatedly — because her father, a white man, truly believes he is black.

<i>This Is Your Country on Drugs</i> by Ryan Grim
The Moment: You can't find your stash
by Isaiah Thompson
In college, Ryan Grim tried to answer a question that had nagged at him for years: Where did all the acid go?

<i>A Short History of Women</i> by Kate Walbert
The Moment: You catch your daughter burning her bra
by Katherine Hill
Knowing a good formula when she's found it, Walbert is back with another slim novel-in-stories, focusing this time on a family rather than a group of friends.

<i>The Strain</i> by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
The Moment: Something goes bump in the night
by Dominic Mercier
Making his written-word debut this summer with The Strain, Guillermo del Toro of Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy series takes on the done-to-death vampire myth, but manages to stand it on its head.

<i>How to Sell</i> by Clancy Martin
The Moment: You root for the bad guys on <i>Law & Order</i>
by Matt Hotz
How to Sell reads like a crime novel: Liars, thieves, counterfeiters and con artists use copious quantities of liquor, cocaine, meth and ecstasy while shuttling between wives, girlfriends, mistresses and hookers.

<i>Life Inc.</i> by Douglas Rushkoff
The Moment: Your therapist tells you to own up
by Natalie Hope McDonald
The onetime Gen-X chronicler and longtime techie argues that Americans have traded in hard work and common sense for greed and instant gratification.

<i>Commencement</i> by J. Courtney Sullivan
The Moment: You're ready to put on your traveling pants
by Mark Cofta
Sullivan writes fiction you might expect from a journalist: Her clean, precise prose stays carefully neutral and balanced, even as she shifts points of view from chapter to chapter.

<i>The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work</i> by Alain de Botton
The Moment: Your life has officially become Office Space
by Holly Otterbein
At points, Alain de Botton seems as new to the modern economy as a spoiled 16-year-old.

<i>The Blindfold Test</i> by Barry Schechter
The Moment: Your plans go to shit. Again.
by Justin Bauer
Parker's life isn't a complete disaster. With a steady low-rent community-college job, a mildly depressing but comfortable apartment, and an affectionate out-of-his-league ex, he's more a slacker sad sack than a walking catastrophe. He's just a sad sack with enemies.