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May 1, 2014
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week - May 1, 2014
In the weekly Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week, the Montreal bookstore recommends several new works of fiction, art books, and comics.
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly is one of Montreal's premiere independent bookstores.
Every week, Montreal's Librairie Drawn & Quarterly bookstore recommends a selection of new books, including fiction, art books, magazines, and comics.
All My Puny Sorrows
by Miriam Toews
All My Puny Sorrows is the latest novel from Canadian favourite Miriam Toews (author of A Complicated Kindness). Known for a blend of the funny and the heartbreaking, her stories have always been based in the same kind of Mennonite communities the author was raised in herself. As her characters have aged, however (in her debut, they were teenagers -- in this book, they're women in their forties), Toews has delved deeper into difficult and personal topics. Specifically, All My Puny Sorrows is about the aftermath of multiple suicides, an experience that Toews herself has faced. Readers drawn to Toews' wry humour may find it overpowered by sadness here, but it's a brave and beautiful book nonetheless.
An Untamed State
by Roxane Gay
Roxane Gay is has already developed a rabid following as a blogger, essayist, and author of short stories whose work has appeared in such venues as The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Time, The Los Angeles Times, and The Nation. Her debut novel, An Untamed State (soon to be followed by a book of collected essays entitled Bad Feminist), is likely to win her even more acclaim. The story concerns the strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haiti’s richest sons, whose perfect life is shattered when she is kidnapped in broad daylight in Port-au-Prince. It's a novel of privilege in the face of crushing poverty, a story of the rage of the powerless against corruption, and it's a thriller you won't be able to put down.
The arrival of a new issue of n+1 is always cause for celebration in the store. The latest issue of this NYC-based culture journal opens, as always, with a report on "The Intellectual Situation," this time focused on the recent upheaval in the Ukraine, in which the editors offer an informed capsule history of Putin's relations with the West. Also in this edition is new fiction from Benjamin Kunkel and Nell Zink, essays on the war of chat platforms and on endangered languages, and reviews of recent trends in office furniture.
The Rules of Summer
by Shaun Tan
Acclaimed illustrator, designer, graphic novelist and children’s storyteller Shaun Tan returns with another surreal, creepy, imaginative children's book in his unique style (an atmospheric watercolour world that recalls Edward Gorey and Neil Gaiman, but with a particular flavour that's all his own). The "rules" of the title evoke more questions than answers, as each one threatens dire (if inexplicable) consequences for the two brothers who populate its parent-less landscapes. Tan's rich imagery offers much more content than the spare sentences that accompany it, and the observant reader will get the sense that these warnings are being offered (in a teasing, taunting, but also tender way) by the older brother to the younger. It's more likely to keep your little ones up late thinking than lull them to sleep.
I Like Animals
by Dahlov Ipcar
Flying Eye Books are up to their usual excellent business with this reissue ("painstakingly remastered" in the absence of the original lithographic plates, they say) of Dahlov Ipcar's timeless 1960 classic I Like Animals. I mean, who doesn't like animals? In this book, a curious child imagines all the jobs he could have (woodsman, zookeeper, pet shop owner) that could put him in constant contact with his beloved hippos and rhinos and peacocks and ocelots and starfish and jellyfish and catfish... (you get the idea). If you don't already have pets, expect to find some in your house soon after reading this.
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly links:
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly's blog
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Facebook page
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Tumblr
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly on Twitter
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week
52 Books, 52 Weeks
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly new comics and graphic novel highlights)
Largehearted Word (weekly new book highlights)
Book Notes (authors create music playlists for their book)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
WORD Bookstores Books of the Week (weekly new book highlights)
