http://www.avclub.com/feed/BooksThe A.V. ClubFri, 20 Nov 2009 16:47:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/inventory-on-sale-for-less-than-7-over-at-amazon,35643/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books Amazon currently has our new(ish) book <em>Inventory</em> available for $6.83. We're not sure why, honestly, but we're just letting you know in case you want to buy it on the cheap. Or several copies for Christmas. Or Hannukah. Or just because you love somebody. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416594736/ref=s9_simz_gw_s0_p14_t1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_s=center-2&amp;pf_rd_r=009R94ZSA17651V42MBB&amp;pf_rd_t=101&amp;pf_rd_p=470938631&amp;pf_rd_i=507846">Here's the link.</a> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:47:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/inventory-on-sale-for-less-than-7-over-at-amazon,35643/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/king-spielberg-team-up-to-adapt-under-the-dome,35628/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books Stephen King's massive new novel Under The Dome is set to become a TV miniseries developed by Steven Spielberg, <em><a href="http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118011629.html?categoryid=10&amp;cs=1&amp;nid=2248">Variety</a></em> is reporting. Beyond that, there's not a lot of news. But now's a good a time as any to ponder why these two haven't teamed up before. These are two of the premier storytellers of our time, after all. Is it because King has, of late, resisted directors intent on putting their own stamp on his work? This is, after all, the guy who hated Stanley Kubrick's <em>The Shining</em>, and Spielberg is something of a ... Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:23:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/king-spielberg-team-up-to-adapt-under-the-dome,35628/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/richard-dawkins,35443/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books When Richard Dawkins published <i><a target="_blank" href="/articles/richard-dawkins-the-god-delusion,3677/">The God Delusion</a> </i>in 2006, he was at the forefront of a movement some have retroactively dubbed “the new atheism,” which also includes bestselling authors <a target="_blank" href="/articles/christmas-with-christopher-hitchens,14189/">Christopher Hitchens</a> (<i>God Is Not Great</i>) and <a target="_blank" href="/artists/sam-harris,56367/">Sam Harris</a> (<i>Letter To A Christian Nation</i>). Though <i>The God Delusion </i>became<i> </i>the British scientist’s most famous work, Dawkins had already written more than half a dozen books about evolution and genetics, beginning with <i>The Selfish Gene </i>in 1976. In his most recent book, <i>The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence For Evolution</i>, Dawkins makes his case for evolutionary theory. With the increasing ... Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:25:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/richard-dawkins,35443/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/gregory-maguire-matchless-a-christmas-story,35556/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books The shitty Christmas novel is a grand tradition most popular authors fall prey to eventually. Richard Evans has made a cottage industry out of sappy tales of holiday cheer, while no less than Glenn Beck has also contributed a big ball of goo to the genre, with a book apparently about a magical sweater or something. Gregory Maguire doesn’t wholly escape the pitfalls of the holiday novel with <i>Matchless</i>, a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl,” but he comes closer than most. Maguire originally wrote the short story to be performed on NPR on Christmas ... Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/gregory-maguire-matchless-a-christmas-story,35556/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/derek-nikitas-the-long-division,35555/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books Though ostensibly a crime novel—complete with shootouts, plot twists, and recriminations—Derek Nikitas’ <i>The Long Division</i> is more a work of literary fiction than a genre exercise. Nikitas shows an interest in language and form that outpaces most other authors who write about murder, and it manifests in passages that express the characters’ internal lives in terms of what they see around them. <i>The Long Division</i> is never hard to follow—and it’s peppered with memorable descriptions, as when Nikitas has one character look at a tray of pizza rolls and see “two dozen freezer-burned thumbs”—but Nikitas ... Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/derek-nikitas-the-long-division,35555/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/paul-auster-invisible,35557/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books Throughout his career, Paul Auster has invented puzzle-box novels where the puzzle is less in the plot, which often seems to bore him slightly, and more in the construction of the novel itself. It’s common to find an Auster novel where the answers don’t emerge from the storyline or the characters, but from what tense he tells the story in, or the point of view he adopts throughout. His latest, <i>Invisible</i>, is just such a novel, but it ultimately proves so enamored of its puzzle-like nature that all of the characters are unknowable. It certainly doesn’t help ... Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/paul-auster-invisible,35557/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/robert-jordan-and-brandon-sanderson-the-gathering,35558/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books Likely no one was surprised when it was announced that <i>A Memory Of Light</i>, the planned final entry in Robert Jordan’s mega-bestselling Wheel Of Time fantasy series, was so large that it had be split into three volumes. Jordan died in 2007, leaving the then-11-book saga incomplete, but even before his death, the WOT had bogged down in needlessly complex plotting and a dearth of forward momentum. Brandon Sanderson, the fantasy writer Jordan’s wife selected to finish the tale of the Dragon Reborn and his battle against the Dark One, has an unenviable task; working from Jordan’s ... Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/robert-jordan-and-brandon-sanderson-the-gathering,35558/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/stanislas-dehaene-reading-in-the-brain,35554/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books <i>Reading In The Brain: The Science And Evolution Of A Human Invention </i>is a lot like the organ the book discusses: While it’s filled with fascinating information, it can be discouragingly difficult to understand. Author Stanislas Dehaene, a French cognitive neuroscientist, intended his book to be accessible, a way to present the public with the research he and his colleagues have done on the unlikely invention of literacy. His goal is to understand how humans are capable of the complex processing required for reading and writing, since human brains should have needed millions of years to evolve to the ... Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/stanislas-dehaene-reading-in-the-brain,35554/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/steven-d-levitt,35441/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books University Of Chicago professor Steven D. Levitt is probably the only economist who can also lay claim to being a genuine worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. His book <i><a target="_blank" href="/articles/steven-d-levitt-and-stephen-j-dubner-freakonomics,4576/">Freakonomics</a></i> (written in collaboration with journalist Stephen J. Dubner) has sold more than 4 million copies since its publication four years ago, coining a whole new subgenre of study, while reshaping the very idea of what economics means to most people. Never wary of controversy, Levitt stands by his data even if the numbers point to unpleasant conclusions. While his notion that the legalization of abortion eventually led to reduced crime rates didn’t ... Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/steven-d-levitt,35441/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/jonathan-safran-foer,35409/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books With his novels <i><a target="_blank" href="/articles/everything-is-illuminated,4316/">Everything Is Illuminated</a> </i>(2002) and <i>Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close </i>(2005), Jonathan Safran Foer became a literary celebrity. Actor Liev Schreiber optioned the former novel, and shot it as his directorial debut, starring Elijah Wood; the film rights for the latter have been sold as well. He’s married to the novelist Nicole Krauss, he lives in Park Slope, and he’s probably the envy of every other writer also in their 30s living in Brooklyn and still desperately scratching out first books. Awaiting the birth of his first child, Foer, an off-and-on-again vegetarian, determined it was ... Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/jonathan-safran-foer,35409/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/okay-new-york-you-wanted-the-av-club-you-got-the-a,35326/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books When we announced <em>Inventory</em> reading dates around the Midwest, you big-city East Coast types shook your fists at us and said, "But we're the cultural capital of the world! Come see us!" (To be fair, people in Ann Arbor said the same thing.) Well, your half-hearted hopes and Internet pleas have been answered, people. We're coming to Union Hall in Brooklyn on December 7 to knock the socks off your asses with a presentation/reading/hang session--and to angrily insist that you purchase multiple copies of <em>Inventory</em>, a.k.a. the best Christmas present ever. It's looking ... Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:15:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/okay-new-york-you-wanted-the-av-club-you-got-the-a,35326/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/bill-simmons,35319/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books Known simply as “The Sports Guy,” Bill Simmons is a popular columnist for <a target="_blank" href="http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/simmons/index">ESPN.com’s Page 2 website</a> and host of the <i>B.S. Report </i>podcast, but the nickname only describes the most prominent of his obsessions. As conversant in the intricacies of <i>Mad Men</i> and <i>The Real World</i> as he is with the weekly NFL betting lines or the epic Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, Simmons is rare among sports writers for his playful integration of well-reasoned, provocative opinion and pop-culture references. Though he currently resides in Los Angeles, his passion for all things Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox-related would ... Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:56:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/bill-simmons,35319/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/philip-roth-the-humbling,35280/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books Death and decline have long been topics of concern for Philip Roth, and never more so than in recent years. Roth’s 2006 novel <i>Everyman</i> read like an moving, economical, aptly named treatment of final things, from creeping regret to the impossibility of predicting one’s final hour. The slim new novella <i>The Humbling</i> feels like the rude, less-considered B-side to that book, a stumbling trip toward the grave, with stops for dealing with personal and professional failure along the way. It’s an arresting, occasionally shocking book, but even with unmistakable moments of unblinking Rothian eloquence, it still feels ... Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/philip-roth-the-humbling,35280/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/jonathan-safran-foer-eating-animals,35281/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books As <i>Everything Is Illuminated </i>author Jonathan Safran Foer prepares to accompany an anonymous activist on a 3 a.m. raid of a factory farm in his new nonfiction book <i>Eating Animals</i>, he runs through a litany of his qualifications. He’s “not a journalist, activist, veterinarian, lawyer, or philosopher”; growing up in New Jersey, he claims never to have approached a farm animal before, except as dinner. He’s just an Everyguy who stumbled into an industrial chicken coop. But because Foer can never decide whether to play the Michael Moore-esque bumbler or the credible expert, his book-length report on ... Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/jonathan-safran-foer-eating-animals,35281/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/mitchell-zuckoff-robert-altman-the-oral-biography,35278/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books Like all great improvisers, the late Robert Altman kept a repertoire of stock routines handy. Anyone who’s read multiple interviews with Altman can’t help but note how often the director repeated himself, not with the same personal anecdotes—because Altman was stingy with those—but with the same metaphors and analogies. The biggest problem with Mitchell Zuckoff’s <i>Robert Altman: The Oral Biography </i>is that many Altman fans will have read just about everything in it before. Between Altman’s usual self-promoting spiel and the litany of familiar stories about his fights with studios, his personal betrayals, and ... Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/mitchell-zuckoff-robert-altman-the-oral-biography,35278/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/orhan-pamuk-the-museum-of-innocence,35279/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk manages a staggering feat of character craft in <i>The Museum Of Innocence</i>, so thoroughly realizing what it’s like inside his protagonist’s claustrophobic head that when the story abruptly steps out of this perspective near the end, it’s like emerging from a dank cellar into the fresh air. And while Pamuk’s command of voice is peerless, it becomes so overpowering here that it overwhelms all the book’s other charms. Imagine hanging out with a friend who simply cannot get over the girlfriend who left him. Now imagine that you can’t speak ... Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/orhan-pamuk-the-museum-of-innocence,35279/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/john-ortved-the-simpsons,35277/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books “Objectivity is horseshit,” John Ortved writes in the preface of his book <i>The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History</i>, by way of explaining his decision to use an oral-history format. He wanted the stories straight from his subjects’ mouths with “minimal editorial comments” from himself—he wanted “the good stuff.” That’s euphemism for dirt, as the “uncensored, unauthorized” in the subtitle indicates, and Ortved apparently took the horseshittiness of objectivity as license to insert himself into the narrative, and much more than minimally. Without a doubt, his book is personal—and in a way, how couldn’t it be? “We ... Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/john-ortved-the-simpsons,35277/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/checking-out-of-the-overlook-16-ways-to-survive-a,35116/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books <a href="http://store.theonion.com/new-inventory-by-the-writers-of-the-av-club-p-1013.html" target="_blank"></a> 1. Don’t be evil. In Stephen King’s vast library of work—more than 60 books and nearly 400 short stories written over 35 years, according to <i>The New York Times</i>—the death tolls are vast, and the antagonists are monstrous, powerful, and often arbitrary. The protagonists often make it out in one piece, but there are no guarantees for anyone else. There are a few helpful paths to survival, though, starting with the most boring, obvious one: Don’t be the bad guy. While King’s has drawn from early predecessors like Edgar Allan Poe and H.P ... Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/checking-out-of-the-overlook-16-ways-to-survive-a,35116/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/november-6-2009,35099/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books In 1975, cartoonist and children’s book illustrator Stuart Hample had the bright idea to take the luckless, lovelorn, philosophical persona of Woody Allen—then famous for what the aliens in Allen’s <i>Stardust Memories</i> would later call his “early, funny films”—and turn it into a daily newspaper strip. Amazingly, Allen agreed, and even offered to provide Hample with a thick stack of pages compiled from his old notebooks, full of jokes and fragments of ideas. In 1976, <i>Inside Woody Allen</i> debuted from King Features, and it ran until 1984, by which time Allen’s stature in popular culture ... Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:35:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/november-6-2009,35099/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_bookshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/two-more-chances-to-see-the-av-club-read-from-inve,35060/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books As you might have heard somewhere or the other, we have a delightful new book out called <i><a href="http://store.theonion.com/new-inventory-by-the-writers-of-the-av-club-p-1013.html">Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined By Saxophone, And 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop-Culture Lists</a></i>. Man, it’s a fantastic book, really. And it would make a great holiday gift. And <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Inventory-Featuring-Saxophone-Obsessively-Pop-Culture/dp/1416594736/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1257464724&amp;sr=8-1">affordably priced</a>? You bet! Wait. What was I talking about? Oh yeah! We’re going to be doing two more, probably final, appearances reading from the book next week, one in Milwaukee and one at our home base in Chicago. Details, you say? Tuesday, November ... Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:58:00 -0600http://www.avclub.com/articles/two-more-chances-to-see-the-av-club-read-from-inve,35060/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_books