NEWS: Suicide BookShelf: Three From 2006

CULTURE: Suicide BookShelf: Three From 2006

People are always saying "I don't read books." Too often, the problem is reading too many of the wrong books, thus turning a potentially great experience into something they'd rather avoid. This is where _DictionaryGirl_ and PointBlank come in and let you borrow something awesome. Let's go to town and make some recommendations, shall we?


Yes, I know: 2006 was how many years ago? Well, I thought I’d fill you all in on three of what, I think, are the best novels of last year.


1:The Night Gardener, By George Pelecanos

If you've missed out on HBO’s The Wire, I'm sorry. It’s easily the best written TV show on any network, and one of the best of all time. George Pelecanos, one of the show's writers, is, unsurprisingly, also a hell of a crime writer. The Night Gardener , his latest, is the story of a murder in Washington DC that may or may not be connected to a series of unsolved murders two decades earlier. Three detectives, one retired, one dishonored, and one still “good police”, are haunted by the earlier murders, and this new case gives them the hope that they may right old wrongs, both personally and professionally.

What makes the book stand out, however, isn’t its plot, but the way that Pelecanos captures the milieus of the underworld drug-dealers, the cops on the beat, as well as dozens of people who are just trying to live the best way they can. He is also one of the best writers since Elmore Leonard when it comes to picking up on different quirks of speech in his characters. Check out this exchange, where two petty criminals discuss one of the old legends of their neighborhood, “Red Fury.” Note the way that one character isn’t interested so much in what Fury did, but rather in the style in which he did it. It’s not hard to figure out what he desires: the respect that comes from being a badass.

The Night Gardener is available now. The soft cover comes out this August.


2:Against The Day, By Thomas Pynchon

First of all, at 1,100 pages, Against the Day is too long. Seriously, that’s just too much book to be carrying around. Fortunately, Pynchon’s latest is big enough to justify its length. Set during the period from 1890s to just after World War I, there is enough plot and more than enough characters to fill a library, let alone one novel. Adopting, at different times, the plot and tropes of children’s adventure stories, the western, and the spy novel (as well as half a dozen that I probably missed), Pynchon takes on the dreamers, the inventors, and the magicians of a time where almost anything seemed possible. In this book, in fact, everything is possible; every crackpot’s theory is in some way, true. Characters travel from the Wild West to Siberia to Mexico during the revolution, as well as travel through time and literally through the earth. And yes, someone almost drowns in a vat of mayonnaise.

What is often forgotten is that Pynchon is, in addition to being very funny and erudite, a political and humanistic author. He is always on the side of the free-thinkers, the dreamers and against those who try to dominate others. Somewhat hidden under a grand plot and humorous character names is the sad story of miners, anarchists, and freedom fighters crushed under the wheels of capitalism. Although it ends decades earlier, the specter of World War II, with its banalyzed and technological systems of murder, looms over much of the book. There is always hope, however, as long as there are dreamers. Near the end of the novel, one of the characters speaks of these dreams and fears

Yes, Against the Day is too long, but when it was over, I wanted to start it all over again. It should be available in paperback by the end of the year.


3:The Road, By Cormac McCarthy

What more is there to say about The Road? Beloved by everyone (even Oprah!) this story about a boy and his father traveling across a destroyed America has been so widely praised, that it’s almost impossible to say anything new about it. It is, by most accounts, one of the best books of the past ten years, and the masterwork of one of America’s great living writers. It’s hard to disagree.

What makes this book so impressive are the emotional notes that McCarthy is able to hit so effortlessly. Long noted for his ability to use the landscape to help tell the story, most famously in The Border Trilogy, this book tops even that with the sparsest setting possible. It is a landscape that is both fantastic and extremely realistic. The father and son journey through a world where they must avoid every other human, lest they literally be eaten. It is a world without a shred of hope, yet the father’s love and his need to save his child is his hope; it is the only way he can save his own humanity when everyone else has abandoned theirs.The Road is also an extremely thrilling book, as this passage shows.

Seriously, you might not put this book down. Even if you can, it will stay with you for a long time. The Road, Oprah Winfrey’s favorite book featuring post-apocalyptic cannibals, is now out in paperback.

(Next Week, _DictionaryGirl_ will hit you all up with something totally different! Let us know if there’s anything you’d like to see here, lit-wise)

How does it compare to Riddley Walker ?

I'm visualizing a SuicideGirls book club to compete with Oprah's. Great write-up. I'll check out the Night Gardener. Sounds like fun.

Nice article guys, I'll have to take a peek at one or two of those.

I might go check out The Road..it sounds really good.!

The Road was already on my "to read" list. And Pynchon is a genius.

+1 for Against the Day. I too wanted to start it all over again. So I did.

This awesome! I'm very glad for the addition of a bookshelf. With the summer months fast approaching, there'll be nothing better than picking a patch of grass, planting my ass down, and then reading a good book 'til the sun sets.

The Road sounds especially interesting.

Thanks again, this is great.

Pelecanos is always awesome.

he's a favorite of mine - i've read just about everything of his. his books are filled with lots of little bits about the DC area, lots of recurring characters amongst all of his stories which build a sort of mythos, and lots of near-geeky musical references, which i just love.

(also, fyi - his tag for the article is misspelled)

"The Road, By Cormac McCarthy"

I wanna read that one! I read a great review of it in a magazine.

*high five*

I haven't read any of those books. I am now deeply ashamed, and am adding all three to my imperative-reading list because they sound rad. Especially the Pynchon one.

I've got everything but the Night Gardener on my nightstand right now. I really need to make some progress on that front before I go back to the bookstore.

Also, I great new feature.

Good to hear people still read books.
And that publishers still have the balls to sign up decent writers for their work rather than their names.
Viva!

This is my favorite supposed news so far. Why can't we save news articles to favorites?

Love the new feature. I just finished "The Road" last week and am glad you recommended it. Also just finished McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men," which got under my skin more than "The Road." Read 'em both.

Against the Day is sitting on my dining room table as we speak...unfortunately so are like four or five other novels including the one I'm reading at the moment. I suppose I'll have to bump it up to number two. Great article, I'll be looking forward to this series.

The Night Gardener looks like the one for me. Thanks for the tip!

Well it looks like "The Road" is going to be my summer reading material...

Hopefully soon I'll finally get around to reading Against The Day.


Great job, PB. I love this idea.

Have there been any other installments of this series that I've missed?

_DG_'s from last sunday.

Another from last sunday

FYI, we're putting them up every sunday, usually around 7-8 EST.

Well, it does have the same style throughout, and it can be a bit off-putting at first, but you really do get used to it quickly (or I did, at least). The characters don't have names, so you get a lot of "him"s or "the child" or "he"s. To me, it sort of adds to the overall atmosphere of the book--these are two characters who are totally faceless and "personless". It's hard to get that from a brief quote, but I think you'd really dig it.