Virginia Staff Reviews

Virginia's Staff Recommendations

Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar (Paperback)

By Moazzam Begg, Victoria Brittain
$18.95
ISBN-13: 9781595582065
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: New Press, 9/2007
Other Editions of this Title
The U. S. prisoners at Guantanamo appear only as images of obliterated humanity—smothered in masks, shrouded in orange sacks, their bodies crippled and shackled. The spectacle is so terrifying; I suspect it encourages us to look away. In this narrative Moazzam Begg, an international relief worker and bookseller innocent of any crime, details his own capture, imprisonment, torture and eventually release. His voice testifies to human courage, hope, and endurance and provides a damning indictment of the so-called war on terror.

The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel (Paperback)

By Amy Hempel, Rick Moody
$16.00
ISBN-13: 9780743291637
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Scribner, 9/2007
Other Editions of this Title
Being called a “writer’s writer” can be a kind of curse: it means unique, precise, distinctive talent that is critically acclaimed but not commercially successful. Sometimes this is only due to publishers’ inability to estimate the appeal of a writer’s work. How wonderful that Amy Hempel’s Collected Stories have been recognized by the New York Times as one of the year’s 10 Best. These funny, heartbreaking stories are beloved by Hempel’s many admirers, but her work deserves a wider audience.

Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape (Paperback)

By Brian Hayes
$35.00
ISBN-13: 9780393329599
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: W. W. Norton & Company, 9/2006
Other Editions of this Title
Look out the window and enjoy the scenery. Take a second look at that pig-launcher. If you get your mind right, Jersey’s as beautiful as any other place. End of story.

Spanking the Donkey: Dispatches from the Dumb Season (Paperback)

By Matt Taibbi
$13.95
ISBN-13: 9780307345714
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Three Rivers Press, 8/2006
Other Editions of this Title
Just as it took a blistering monologue from comedian Stephen Colbert to voice our outrage at Bush, you need to send in a clown like Matt Taibbi to speak the truth about the mind-numbing emptiness of today’s political campaigns. Reporting for Rolling Stone, Taibbi covers the D side of what lamentably became the Bush-Kerry throwdown -- “the most prolonged insult to human dignity the world has ever seen.” Brutally funny, fearless, and insightful, Taibbi proves there is at least is a speck of sentient life left in journalism.

New, Improved! Dykes to Watch Out for: Cartoons (Paperback)

By Alison Bechdel
$14.95
ISBN-13: 9780932379795
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Firebrand Books, 3/1990
Other Editions of this Title
Admirers of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home should pick up any of these collections from her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For to see this outstandingly smart, literary, and very funny artist develop as a storyteller. The short cartoons the follow the lives of a series of characters are complex, insightful, and very satisfying. These collections also include ambitious pieces that show Bechdel developing her skills at extended narrative. Check out the clever allusive titles she gives to each story. Bechdel is absolutely brilliant.