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Lars's Staff Recommendations

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Hardcover)

By Charles Yu
$24.00
ISBN-13: 9780307379207
Availability: Not currently in the store – Usually ships in 1-5 days
Published: Pantheon, 9/2010
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This is not simply a science fiction novel. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe exists within the meme and metaphor of speculative fiction, but should not be confused with a parable of time travel. Charles Yu’s novel is meta-fiction, and in some ways closer in spirit to Barth, Calvino, Coover and Borges than to a genre-straddling novel from Junot Diaz. The narrator is author Charles Yu, time machine technician. He is a man living a universe where, given the limitless possibilities of time-places to visit, the first place people inevitably choose to go is their own very worst experience. Using humor, physics and literary word play, Yu embarks upon a sorrowing adventure about how people dwell on the past and fail to appreciate the present.

I, Fatty (Paperback)

By Jerry Stahl
$14.95
ISBN-13: 9781582345826
Availability: Not currently shipping from publisher – Subject to future availability
Published: Bloomsbury USA, 7/2005
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Love a good story about a celebrity meltdown? Then I, Fatty, the fictionalized memoir of one of Hollywood's first superstars, Fatty Arbuckle, is probably perfect for you. I, Fatty begins with Fatty's early days in Vaudeville, continues through his trial for the rape and murder of actress Virginia Rappe, and concludes with his death by heroin overdose on the day before his "come-back" movie’s premiere. This exhaustively researched book not only portrays the silent film era in all its gritty glory, but Stahl's darkly humorous portrayal of this incredibly tragic character explores the depths of a man who was persecuted by the press simply because he was funny, fat and famous.

Any Human Heart (Paperback)

By William Boyd
$15.95
ISBN-13: 9781400031009
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage, 1/2004
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I picked up Any Human Heart to read when I moved from Toronto to Chicago. I’d never heard of the author William Boyd before, but the back of the book sounded interesting. The narrator drifts through life and, in doing so, becomes a part of every important literary and artistic movement in the 20th century. That bus ride was an epiphany. Miles of farmland mile passed unobserved. There was a 400-pound man who drooled all me between Detroit to Chicago, I barely noticed. Nothing mattered to me except this wonderful book.

Seven Ages: An Anthology of Poetry with Music (Compact Disc)

By Naxos Audiobooks
$17.98
ISBN-13: 9789626341896
Availability: Not currently in the store – Usually ships in 1-5 days
Published: Naxos Audiobooks, 2/2000
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Every once in a while, I get this odd mood where I want to read a lot of poetry. Usually I start off by quietly reading to myself, but inevitably I start wanting to listen to the stuff. Poetry is, after all, partially about sound. Unfortunately, my own skill at reading aloud is a form of aural torture best avoided. Moreover, I look odd sitting on the Metro with a book in front of me, talking to myself. The upshot is that my iPod contains a nice little collection of recorded poetry, and the Naxos recording of The Seven Ages is pretty much the best. Sir Ian McKellen curated this collection around Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage" soliloquy (from As You Like It). Some of England's greatest living actors read poetry which fits naturally into each of the seven ages: Infancy, Childhood, Lover, Soldier, Justice, Old Age and Death. •• Lars Townsend

The Gone-Away World (Paperback)

By Nick Harkaway
$15.95
ISBN-13: 9780307389077
Availability: Not currently in the store – Usually ships in 1-5 days
Published: Vintage, 8/2009
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Nick Harkaway's first novel, The Gone-Away World, is hilarious, wonderful and surreal. It is a post-apocalyptic mercenary troop muckabout with ninjas, monsters, epic kung-fu battles and an utterly compelling theme: the utter banality of every step towards becoming truly evil.

Amberville (Hardcover)

By Tim Davys
$19.99
ISBN-13: 9780061625121
Availability: Not currently shipping from publisher – Subject to future availability
Published: Harper, 3/2009
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I first picked this book up thinking it would be something like Jasper Fford. I figured that a noire detective novel in a world populated by stuffed animals just had to be funny. But I figured wrong. This book is filled with darkness. And these stuffed animals are more of a metaphor for the sheer disposability of human life, than cutesy kids’ toys. And yet this book has a kind of beauty to it. Imagine an Ingmar Bergman film, if he had read a lot of Raymond Chandler and had an all stuffed animal cast.