"We are the comfort, we are the shameTHE DAILY DRIBBLER
We are forgiveness, we are blame
We are kind, we are kill
Are we the future?"
--Badfinger, Timeless
Hello, Hep Cats, this reporter is here with the latest and greatest in the wide, wide world of books. First off, I don't want you to go and flip your wig, but I am ready to crown David Foster Wallace's The Pale King (9780316074230) 27.99 as the Book of the Year. It is killer-diller. And like a fine scotch, I take a small sip at a time and find myself savoring every sentence, every word, and every single semi-colon. I know that this is his last novel and I just don't want it to end . . .
With the growing popularity of television, I see more and more people are leaving the gin mills and staying home. And not to sound like some kind of wise guy but if you want to stay home, you need a healthy home and David and Myron Wentz's Healthy Home (9781593156558) 21.99 should be the bee's knees . . .
For the first time ever, The B&N Recommends is a teen book called Okay For Now (9780547152608) 16.99 by Timothy B. Schmidt, er, Gary D. Schmidt, which is kind of a sequel to The Wednesday War (9780547237602) 6.99 and, as is the fashion these days, it transends all ages . . .
INTERMISSION
Next week, I am meeting with Ruta Sepetys, author of Between Shades of Gray (9780399254123) 17.99 at a ritzy restaurant. And it's not the Brown Derby. As you can tell by the name, this dame is a foreigner and apparently, a citizen of the European nation of Freedonia, which you may remember from the Marx Brothers' flick. A first novel, this book is the cat's meow according to several reviews, which includes today's Shelf Awareness . . .
Juke joint piano player Billy Joel has cancelled his memoir The Book of Joel (9780061797491) 27.99. His press release read in part, "It took working on a book to make me realize that I'm not all that interested in talking about the past, and that the best expression of my life and its ups and downs has been and remains my music." I think he's all wet . . .
I don't know boo about these fancy rock 'n roll bands, but this Freddie Mercury guy from Queen sounds like quite the opera singer. Unless you're a bluenose, Mark Blake's new book, Is This the Real Life?: The Untold Story of Queen (9780306819599) 25.00 is quite the page turner. Mr. Blake also had the lowdown on Pink Floyd with his book, Comfortably Numb (9780306817526) 15.00. He ain't whistlin' Dixie. Next week I'll have more news you can use when you're singin' the blues.
Odds & Sods
Columbia University professor Manning Marable spent the last twenty years of his life working on the definitive Malcolm X biography. Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (9780670022205) 30.00 was released yesterday. Unfortunately, he passed away this past Friday from pneumonia. Several assertions in this new biography were already stirring up some controversy. I expect this title to hit the bestseller lists. Hard!
By the way, April is National Poetry Month. It's time to get in that dusty crawlspace and pull out those boxes of poetry books that you stored away last April and put them back on display again . . .
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