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August 24, 2011
Largehearted WORD Books of the Week - August 24, 2011
In the Largehearted Word series, the staff of Brooklyn's WORD bookstore highlights several new books released this week.
WORD is an independent neighborhood bookstore in Greenpoint, the northernmost neighborhood of Brooklyn, that celebrated its fourth anniversary this March. Our primary goal is to be whatever our community needs us to be, which currently means carrying a lot of paperback fiction (especially classics), cookbooks, board books, and absurdly cute cards and stationery. In addition, we're fiends for a good event, from the classic author reading and Q&A to potlucks and a basketball league (and anything set in a bar). We're a small operation, just 1000 square feet and four people, but we read too much, so it all works out. If a weekly dose of WORD here isn't enough for you, follow us on Twitter: @wordbrooklyn.
WORD also hosts the monthly Largehearted Lit reading series, featuring authors who participated in this blog's Book Notes series and musical guests.
Emperor of Maladies
by Siddhartha Mukherjee
This is the kind of exhaustive, topical nonfiction we love to dig into. Mukherjee's got the cred -- physician, researcher, and professor -- and the writing chops to tell the tale of one of our most feared diseases with knowledge and compassion. Also? It won the Pulitzer. Just saying. Newly available in paperback!
We the Animals
by Justin Torres
Simone and Jenn both highly recommend this debut novel. Says Simone: "Three brothers coming of age under the troubled and terrifying gaze of parents too caught in their own lives to have enough room for their kids. This quick, powerful read is presented in succinct episodes where the threat of violence and loss of faith is palpable with each knotty turn in the boys' young lives. A challenging, emotionally engaging read that's stayed with me far longer then it took to turn the pages."
McSweeney's No. 38
edited by Dave Eggers
Issue 38 includes: Adam Levin, Steven Millhauser, Rachel Glaser and Roddy Doyle, among others; a piece called Of Women and Frogs by Bisi Adjapon that we cannot wait to read; a full color comic called The Jungle by Jack Teagle -- in short, the variety and substance we've come to expect from those folks with the chair.
Program Or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age
by Douglas Rushkoff
You'd think we'd be tired about reading books on the Digital Age -- but you'd be wrong. This contribution from Rushkoff is solid: a brief flip through reveals rules like You Are Never Completely Right and Live in Person. We feel like this quote from Kevin Kelly (What Technology Wants) sums it up pretty well: "The first field manual on how to remain human on the Internet."
WORD Brooklyn links:
WORD website
WORD blog
WORD on Twitter
WORD's Facebook page
WORD's Flickr photos
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Largehearted Word Books of the Week (weekly new book highlights)
List of online "best of 2010" book lists
52 Books, 52 Weeks (my yearly reading project)
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics & graphic novel highlights)
Book Notes (authors create music playlists for their book)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
