ZinkLibrary
Some of Our Favorite Books, Recently Read
The
Double by Jose Saramago
Tertuliano Maximo Afonso is a history teacher in a secondary school. He is divorced, involved in a rather one-sided relationship with a bank clerk, and he is depressed. To lift his depression, a colleague suggests he rent a certain video. Tertuliano watches the film and is unimpressed. During the night, noises in his apartment wake him. He goes into the living room to find that the VCR is replaying the video, and as he watches in astonishment he sees a man who looks exactly like him-or, more specifically, exactly like the man he was five years before, mustachioed and fuller in the face. He sleeps badly. Against his own better judgment, Tertuliano decides to pursue his double. As he establishes the man's identity, what begins as a whimsical story becomes a dark meditation on identity and, perhaps, on the crass assumption behind cloning-that we are merely our outward appearance rather than the sum of our experiences.<buy now>
The
Keep by Jennifer Egan
Two cousins, devastated by a childhood prank, reunite twenty years later to renovate a castle in Eastern Europe. The fortress has a bloody history that stretches back hundreds of years. Amid extreme paranoia and eerie silence, the men reenact the signal event of their youth, with even more catastrophic results. And as the full horror of their predicament unfolds, a third party - a prisoner, jailed for an unnamed crime - recounts an unforgettable story that brings the crimes of the past and present into stunning alignment. <buy now>
Lisey's
Story by Stephen King
Lisey Debusher Landon lost her husband Scott two years ago, after
a twenty five year marriage of the most profound and sometimes frightening
intimacy. Lisey knew there was a place Scott went -- a place that both terrified
and healed him, could eat him alive or give him the ideas he needed in order to
live. Now it's Lisey's turn to face Scott's demons, Lisey's turn to go to Boo'ya
Moon. What begins as a widow's effort to sort through the papers of her
celebrated husband becomes a nearly fatal journey into the darkness he
inhabited. Perhaps King's most personal and powerful novel ever, Lisey's Story
is about the wellspings of creativity, the temptations of madness, and the
secret language of love.
<buy now>
Only
Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski
Sam: They were with us before Romeo & Juliet. And long after too.
Because they're forever around. Or so both claim, carolling gleefully: We're
allways sixteen. Sam & Hailey, powered by an ever-rotating fleet of cars,
from Model T to Lincoln Continental, career from the Civil War to the Cold War,
barrelling down through the Appalachians, up the Mississippi River, across the
Badlands, finally cutting a nation in half as they try to outrace History
itself. By turns beguiling and gripping, finally worldwrecking, Only
Revolutions is unlike anything ever published before, a remarkable feat of heart
and intellect, moving us with the journey of two kids, perpetually of summer,
perpetually sixteen, who give up everything except each other.
Hailey: They were with us before Tristan & Isolde. And long after too. Because
they're forever around. Or so both claim, gleefully carolling: We're allways
sixteen. Hailey & Sam, powered by an ever-rotating fleet of cars, from
Shelby Mustang to Sumover Linx, careen from the Civil Rights Movement to the
Iraq War, tearing down to New Orleans, up the Mississippi River, across Montana,
finally cutting a nation in half as they try to outrace History itself. By
turns enticing and exhilarating, finally breathtaking, Only Revolutions is
unlike anything ever conceived before, a remarkable feat of heart and intellect,
moving us with the journey of two kids, perpetually of summer, perpetually
sixteen, who give up everything except each other.
<buy now>
Tanglewreck
by Jeanette Winterson
Something frightening is happening with time. One moment, a time
tornado rages through the streets of London, and those caught up in its path
vanish without a trace. The next moment a woolly mammoth is seen lumbering along
the banks of the River Thames. At the center of these bizarre time warps is a
house called Tanglewreck, which is home to eleven-year-old Silver, her bony and
bad-tempered aunt, Mrs Rokabye, and a mysterious clock known as the Timekeeper.
Silver doesn't understand exactly what the Timekeeper does, but when two
sinister figures come looking for it, she knows instinctively that she must
guard it with her life.
<buy now>
Black
Swan Green by David Mitchell
From highly acclaimed two-time Man Booker finalist David Mitchell
comes a glorious, sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood
and the old on the cusp of the new. In his previous novels, David Mitchell
dazzled us with his narrative scope and his virtuosic command of multiple voices
and stories. The New York Times Book Review said, "Mitchell is, clearly, a
genius. He writes as though at the helm of some perpetual dream machine, can
evidently do anything, and his ambition is written in magma across [Cloud
Atlas's] every page." Black Swan Green inverts the telescopic vision of
Cloud Atlas to track a single year in what is, for 13-year-old Jason Taylor, the
sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982.
But the 13 chapters create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but
sleepy. Pointed, funny, profound, left field, elegiac, and painted with the
stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell's subtlest yet most accessible
achievement to date.
<buy now>
The
Road by Cormac McCarthy
A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac
McCarthy's masterpiece. A father and his son walk alone through burned America.
Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold
enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. They sky is dark.
Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything,
awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against
the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of
scavenged food-and each other. The Road is the profoundly moving story of a
journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the
father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love.
Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the
worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate
tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total
devastation.
<buy now>
Talk
Talk by T.C. Boyle
The bestselling author of The Inner Circle and Drop City returns with a timely new novel about a woman in desperate pursuit of a man who has stolen her identity. The first time Bridger saw Dana she was dancing barefoot, her hair aflame in the red glow of the club, her body throbbing with rhythms and cross-rhythms that only she could hear. He was mesmerized. That night they were both deaf, mouthing to each other over the booming bass. And it was not until their first date, after he had agonized over what CD to play in the car, that Bridger learned that her deafness was profound and permanent. By then, he was falling in love. Now she is in a courtroom, her legs shackled, as a list of charges is read out. She is accused of assault with a deadly weapon, auto theft, and passing bad checks, among other things. Clearly there has been a terrible mistake. A man-his name is William "Peck" Wilson as Dana and Bridger eventually learn-has been living a blameless life of criminal excess at Dana's expense. And as Dana and Bridger set out to find him, they begin to test to its limits the life they have started to build together. Talk Talk is both a thrilling road trip across America and a moving story about language, love, and identity from one of America's finest novelists. <buy now>
The
Cottagers by Marshall N. Klimasewiski
A debut novel of literary suspense—when a man disappears, people
are not who they seem and everyone is a suspect. Cyrus Coddington, age
nineteen, suspects that he may be a genius without a calling. He is a year-round
resident of East Sooke, Vancouver Island, and has a natural resentment for the
summer cottagers who descend on its rocky beaches. When two vacationing American
couples arrive—old friends with a complicated history—they become his obsession.
Greg and Nicholas are engaged in an academic collaboration that looks more like
competition; Samina and Laurel are old friends who have grown apart and
developed a strange jealousy. Cyrus spies on the cottagers through their
windows, then begins to insinuate himself into their lives. When one of the
cottagers goes missing, no one will look at any of the others the same way
again. Combining the eerie suspense of Patricia Highsmith and the literary
fortitude of Ian McEwan, The Cottagers is about the discrepancy between the
lives we live and the versions of those lives that trail behind us.
<buy now>
A
Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon
George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood or of manly bonhomie. "The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely." Some things in life can't be ignored, however: his tempestuous daughter Katie's deeply inappropriate boyfriend Ray, for instance, or the sudden appearance of a red circular rash on his hip. At 57, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden and enjoying the freedom to be alone when he wants. But then he runs into a spot of bother. That red circular rash on his hip: George convinces himself it's skin cancer. And the deeply inappropriate Ray? Katie announces he will become her second husband. The planning for these frowned-upon nuptials proves a great inconvenience to George's wife, Jean, who is carrying on a late-life affair with her husband's ex-colleague. The Halls do not approve of Ray, for vague reasons summed up by their son Jamie's observation that Ray has "strangler's hands." Jamie himself has his own problems - his tidy and pleasant life comes apart when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to Katie's wedding. And Katie, a woman whose ferocious temper once led to the maiming of a carjacker, can't decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob. Unnoticed in the uproar, George quietly begins to go mad. The way these damaged people fall apart - and come together - as a family is the true subject of Haddon's hilarious and disturbing portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely. Once again, Haddon proves a master of a story at once hilarious, poignant, dark, and profoundly human. Here the madness - literally - of family life proves rich comic fodder for Haddon's crackling prose and bittersweet insights into misdirected love.<buy now>
Memorial
by Bruce Wagner
In his most profound and accomplished book to date, acclaimed
author Bruce Wagner breaks from Hollywood culture with a novel of exceptional
literary dimension and searing emotional depth. Joan Herlihy is a
semi-successful architect grasping at the illustrious commission that will
catapult her to international renown, glossy décor magazines, and the luxe condo
designs of Meier, Koolhaas, and Hadid: the incestuous cult of contemporary
Starchitects. Unexpectedly, she finds her Venice Beach firm on the short list
for a coveted private memorial -- a Napa billionaire's vanity tribute to
relatives killed in the Christmas tsunami -- with life-changing consequences.
Her brother Chester clings to a failing career as a location scout before
suffering an accidental injury resulting from an outrageous prank; the
tragicomic repercussions lead him through a maze of addiction, delusion,
paranoia -- and ultimately, transcendence. Virtually abandoned by her family,
the indomitable Marjorie Herlihy -- mother, widow, and dreamer -- falls prey to
a confidence scheme dizzying in its sadism and complexity. And unbeknownst to
Marj and her children, the father who disappeared decades ago is alive and well
nearby, recently in the local news for reasons that will prove to be both his
redemption and his undoing. Spiraling toward catastrophe, separate lives collide
as family members make a valiant attempt to reunite and create an enduring
legacy. To rewrite a ruined American dream. Deeply compassionate and violently
irreverent, Memorial is a testament to faith and forgiveness, and a luminous
tribute to spirituality in the twenty-first century. With an unflagging eye on a
society ruptured by natural and unnatural disaster, and an insatiable love for
humanity, Wagner delivers a masterpiece.
<buy now>
The
Driftless Area by Tom Drury
The new novel from the award-winning author of The End of Vandalism is a wry and sophisticated heist drama. Set in the rugged region of the Midwest that gives the novel its title, The Driftless Area is the story of Pierre Hunter, a young bartender with unfailing optimism, a fondness for coin tricks, and an uncanny capacity for finding trouble. When he falls in love, with the mysterious and isolated Stella Rosmarin, Pierre becomes the central player in a revenge drama he must unravel and bring to its shocking conclusion. Along the way he will liberate 77 thousand dollars from a murderous thief, summon the resources that have eluded him all his life, and come to question the very meaning of chance and mortality. For nothing is as it seems in The Driftless Area. Identities shift, violent secrets lie in wait, the future can cause the past, and love becomes a mission that can take you beyond this world. In its tender, cool irony, The Driftless Area recalls the best of neonoir, and its cast of bonafide small-town eccentrics adrift in the American Midwest make for a clever and deeply pleasurable read from one of our most beloved authors. <buy now>
2012:
The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck
Cross James Merrill, H. P. Lovecraft, and Carlos Castaneda -each imbued with a twenty-first-century aptitude for quantum theory and existential psychology-and you get the voice of Daniel Pinchbeck. And yet, nothing quite prepares us for the lucidity, rationale, and informed audacity of this seeker, skeptic, and cartographer of hidden realms. Throughout the 1990s, Pinchbeck had been a member of New York's literary select. He wrote for publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and Harper's Bazaar. His first book, Breaking Open the Head, was heralded as the most significant on psychedelic experimentation since the work of Terence McKenna. But slowly something happened: Rather than writing from a journalistic remove, Pinchbeck-his literary powers at their peak-began to participate in the shamanic and metaphysical belief systems he was encountering. As his psyche and body opened to new experience, disparate threads and occurrences made sense like never before: Humanity, every sign pointed, is precariously balanced between greater self-potential and environmental disaster. The Mayan calendar's "end date" of 2012 seems to define our present age: It heralds the end of one way of existence and the return of another, in which the serpent god Quetzalcoatl reigns anew, bringing with him an unimaginably ancient-yet, to us, wholly new-way of living. A result not just of study but also of participation, 2012 tells the tale of a single man in whose trials we ultimately recognize our own hopes and anxieties about modern life. <buy now>
Breaking
the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennett
Faith-based initiatives; evolution vs. intelligent design; the
right to life vs. the right to choose; gay marriage; international terrorism:
Even if you're not a believer, you can ignore religion only at your own risk. In
this provocative book, philosopher Daniel C. Dennett asserts that religion is a
cultural phenomenon shaped and governed by the processes of evolution and
natural selection; succinctly stated, we are hard-wired to believe. At a time of
ever-widening schism between rationalists and believers, Breaking the Spell
offers an analysis that acknowledges the power of faith without relinquishing
the claims of reason.
<buy now>
The
Black Book by Orhan Pamuk
Galip is an Istanbul lawyer, and his wife (as well as first cousin), Ruya, has vanished. Could she be hiding out with her half brother (who also happens to be Galip's first cousin), Jelal, a newspaper columnist whose fame Galip envies? And if so, why isn't anyone in Jelal's flat? As Galip plays the part of private investigator, he assumes the identity of Jelal himself, wearing his clothes, answering his phone calls, even faking his wry columns, which he passes off as the work of the missing journalist. But the amateur sleuth bungles his undercover operation, and with dire consequences. <buy now>
The
Night Listener by Armistead Maupin
After an absence of eight years, Armistead Maupin returns with
the tale of Gabriel Noone, a writer whose cult-hit radio serial "Noone at Night"
has brought him into the homes of millions. Noone is in the midst of a painful
separation from his lover of 10 years when a publisher sends him proofs of a
remarkable book: the memoir of an ailing 13-year-old boy who suffered horrific
sexual abuse at the hands of his parents. Now living with his adoptive mother,
Donna, Pete Lomax is not only a brave and gifted diarist but a devoted listener
of Noone's show. When Noone phones the boy to offer encouragement, it soon
becomes clear that Pete sees in this heartsick middle-aged storyteller the
loving father he's always wanted. Thus begins an extraordinary friendship that
only grows deeper as the boy's health deteriorates, freeing Noone to unlock his
innermost feelings. Then, out of the blue, troubling new questions arise,
exploding Noone's comfortable assumptions and causing his ordered existence to
spin wildly out to control. As he walks a line between truth and illusion, he is
finally forced to confront all of his relationships—familial, romantic, and
erotic. As complex and hypnotically engrossing as the best of mysteries, The
Night Listener is an astonishing tour de force that will move and challenge
Maupin's readers as never before.
<buy now>
Rules of Engagement by Catherine Bush
A gripping novel of love and war, risk and responsibility.Arcadia Hearne is a war researcher, specializing in military intervention. But her immersion in contemporary war is offset by her refusal to put herself at risk, and by her insistence on keeping her past at bay. Ten years earlier, in the mid-1980s, Arcadia had fled Toronto for London after two university students--rivals for her love--fought a pistol duel over her. Now, through the interventions of her sister, Lux, and her increasingly complicated relationship with a new lover, Amir, who has secrets of his own, Arcadia is forced to confront what really happened on the day of the duel. Moving from the verdant ravines of Toronto to the secret canals of a gritty, vibrant London, The Rules of Engagement has an extraordinary sense of time and place. A powerful exploration of the nature of love, the novel provocatively explores the crossing of emotional, ethical, and literal borders. <buy now>