Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly, “The New York Four”

By the dude who did “DMZ” and from the DC imprint Minx. A shy girl starts college in Manhattan and balances having friends for the first time with a txt-based relationship.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 2008, 176 pp.
Obtained via: Library
Date started: 12.29.08
Date finished: 12.29.08
What I liked: I am all about Minx. Good comics for real girls.
What I didn’t like: Wasn’t sure if this is to be continued or not.

PS: This was No. 50 for 2008!

M.T. Anderson, “Feed”

In the not-so-distant future, everybody’s hooked up to the feed—like internet 4.0 incorporated directly into your brain and navigated with your thoughts. Everything’s possible: anything you dream of can be delivered to your house within minutes, trips to the moon are commonplace, mind-to-mind chatting replaces direct conversation. A teenage boy starts to question America’s instant culture after meeting a girl who doesn’t buy into the consumerism.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 2004, 300 pp.
Obtained via: Pat
Date started: 11.26.08
Date finished: 11.30.08
What I didn’t like: My main issue with this book was the protagonist, a douchebaggy teenage boy. I was dying to know more about the life of his romantic interest and her father, who teaches ancient languages (like Basic and proper English).
What I liked: I do appreciate that Anderson did a slightly different take on the dystopian novel. Most of them focus on an outsider or someone who becomes disenchanted with the system. They fight the system and get crushed, the end. The protagonist in “Feed” completely buys in.
And although I dislike the main character, the story imprinted itself in my brain—I’ve thought about it very frequently since reading it. Although it’s set in the future, it captures the Zeitgeist in a way I haven’t encountered in novels recently. It plays on our concerns about the environment, consumerism and the effects of the internet and instant communication on our intelligence and empathy.
What I learned: Apparently this book made a lot of best-of lists… and although I wasn’t initially impressed, “Feed”’s staying power is remarkable.

Steve Martin, “Shopgirl”

I love Steve Martin.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 2000, 144 pp.
Obtained via: Library
Date started: 9.29.08
Date finished: 10.3.08
What I liked: In this story of a shy glove saleswoman, her slacker friend with benefits and her older admirer, Martin acts as an omnipotent narrator, describing their lives in detail without ego or judgment.
What I didn’t like: This book was much more about description than dialogue, and although it worked, I felt like I wanted to hear the characters more. Maybe I’ll be satisfied with the movie.
What I learned: Steve Martin can really do fiction.

Jay McInerny, “Bright Lights, Big City”

Even more Bret Easton Ellis-y than Bret Easton Ellis.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 1984, 208 pp.
Obtained via: Library
Date started: 8.18.08
Date finished: 8.21.08
What I liked: It’s like “Catcher in the Rye,” if Holden Caulfield worked at The New Yorker and did lots of coke. Good use of the second person, too.
What I didn’t like: There’s really not much of a narrative arc, but. hey, the book makes up for it with lots of zeitgeist.
What I learned: What the inside of a magazine fact-checking department looked like in the 1980s.

David Sedaris, “Me Talk Pretty One Day”

Reread this—it appeared in my list from the first year I started keeping track.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 2000, 272 pp.
Obtained via: My bookshelf
Date started: 7.26.08
Date finished: 8.1.08
What I liked: Pretty much everything! It’s also a lot funnier if you imagine him reading it in his nasally voice.
What I didn’t like: Pretty much nothing!
What I learned: Never yell “Good luck beating that rape charge!” to a friend when you get off the bus or train.

Jeanette Winterson, “Oranges are not the Only Fruit”

I’ve had this book on my bookshelf for nearly two years, and couldn’t remember for the life of me who gave it to me. I never read it, because I didn’t know what it was about. Finally, after hanging out with Jessica M. recently, she brought it up and asked if I’d read it yet. Mystery solved!

“Oranges are not the Only Fruit” is, like “Tipping the Velvet,” a bildungsroman about a young woman discovering her sexuality and learning about the world.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 1987, 176 pp.
Obtained via: Jessica M.
Date started: 7.27.08
Date finished: 7.28.08
What I liked: The prose is absolutely beautiful, and Jeanette Winterson’s got a sense of humor that led me to refer to her as a lesbian Douglas Adams.
What I didn’t like: “Oranges” is a lot more ethereal and philosophical than “Tipping the Velvet” was. I don’t mind that, but I wish I’d learned more about the characters.
What I learned: People see what they want to see.

Sarah Waters, “Tipping the Velvet”

Nan Astley, an oyster girl from a seaside town in Victorian England, falls in love with a masher—a girl who performs in music halls as a boy. She picks up and moves to London, where she joins the act, but success isn’t without its downfalls, and she has all sorts of crazy adventures.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 1999, 472 pp.
Obtained via: Library
Date started: 7.6.08
Date finished: 7.15.08
What I liked: The research that went into this book shows. You’re transported straight into fin-de-siecle London and sucked into the life of Nan. The running themes of secrecy and persistence—as well as the skillful prose—kept me speeding through this book at lightning pace. Plenty of sex scattered throughout the book, as well as honest takes on love and betrayal.
What I didn’t like: Some parts were frustrating, but nothing that I outright disliked. I was put off by the first chapter, which seems to be all about oysters, but after you get through that it gets straight to the point.
What I learned: The definition of picaresque, and how many common phrases today originated in Victorian England.

ZZ Packer, “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere”

I loved ZZ Packer’s piece in the New York Times Magazine a few weeks ago, and it prompted me to pick up her book of short stories from the library straightaway.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 2003, 288 pp.
Obtained via: Library
Date started: 6.20.08
Date finished: 6.25.08
What I liked: Each one of these short stories is a universe unto itself. They draw you in from the very first line. For example:

By our second day at Camp Crescendo, the girls in my Brownie troop had decided to kick the asses of each and every girl in Brownie Troop 909.—”Brownies”

“Opportunities,” my father says after I bail him out of jail.—”The Ant of the Self”

Doris Yates stood in the empty sanctuary and wondered if the world would really end in a matter of hours.—”Doris is Coming”

The stories are often from the perspective of a black woman, which I haven’t encountered a lot of in my reading. You fall in love with each of the narrators a little—you empathize with their plights and understand their motives.
What I didn’t like: That each of these stories wasn’t a full book. Maybe I’d feel differently if this book was actually eight novels, but I’ll have to wait until ZZ Packer comes out with her novel.
What I learned: A lot.

Warren Ellis and Derick Robertson, “Transmetropolitan, Vols. 1 and 2″

“Transmetropolitan”’s been described as postcyberpunk, which is a new one on me but seems fitting. It’s a story about a journalist in search of truth in a grim future, in the same vein as “DMZ.”

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 1998, 72 pp., and 1999, 208 pp.
Obtained via: Pat
Date started: 6.12.08
Date finished: 6.15.08
What I liked: The out-of-control technology of the future and all of the advertisements for it. The gonzo-journalism-gone-amok ethos of Spider Jerusalem, the main character.
What I didn’t like: I don’t usually go for superhero aesthetics in comics, so my dislike of the lettering is nothing new. The comic’s pretty gruesome, so I don’t recommend it for the weak of stomach.
What I learned: I’ve got another eight volumes to go.

Allegra Goodman, “The Other Side of the Island”

You know I love a good dystopia story, and this one is a cross between “The Giver” and “Brave New World,” with a dash of “Lost” thrown in for good measure.

The story follows Honor, a young girl who is just trying to fit in the not-so-distant future in the society built by Earth Mother and her Corporation. The book hints at a worldwide flood and chaos and war that ensued, tampered only by a Corporation that built an enclosure—a ceiling replacing the lost ozone layer—to protect citizens of earth. The weather and society are highly regulated, but there are dissidents, led by the Forecaster, who are likely to become disappeared if discovered.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: September 2008, 88 pp.
Obtained via: Free table at work
Date started: 4.14.08
Date finished: 4.17.08
What I liked: Goodman created an intriguing world with conflicts that play to modern concerns such as the environment. I think kids might identify with this story more than they would, say, “Brave New World.”
What I didn’t like: For all the great scene-setting and world-building there is, this book lacks emotional triggers. The main character disses her best friend when he becomes an orphan, but later on, there’s absolutely no payback or even a mention of how snobby she was acting. Maybe this was intentional—along with the clinical phrasing; everything is in simple, declarative sentences—to reflect how sanitized the society is. Also, because of the scenario, the book at times comes off as anti-environmentalist.
What I learned: Don’t try to ceil the earth. And that the scariest thing for an American is the loss of self-determination.