Feb 22, 2024
Hannah is back from Winter Institute and she has all sorts of
thoughts on the state of the bookselling industry (900 booksellers
in the same place is NOT illegal, it turns out). She's not sure
she's a hero, exactly, but not every bookseller is in tony Beverly
Farms. Also, it turns out she didn't learn all that much about
what's coming down the pipeline, but she did get a little jazzed
about "Our Hidden Conversations," by Michele Norris, and she's
really jazzed about "The
Other Valley," the debut novel from Scott Alexander Howard
(it's "speculative," which is apparently "all the genres that
depart from realism"), who studied philosophy at the University of
Toronto. Depending on your view of the current state of the world,
you might find Paul Lynch's "Prophet
Song" either speculative or all-too-realistic — Sam loves it. A
look at the domestic side of fascism's rise that forces you to
consider what happens when it comes to your front door.
Even more dystopian is "Earth
Abides," George R. Stewart's classic from 1949, which is back
in print and in development for an Amazon series. You may feel like
you've read it before, but that's because it spawned a ton of
imitators. Thanks to Cincinnati's Downbound Books for the find!
Finally, Sam can't figure out why Colson Whitehead's "Crook
Manifesto" didn't hit the way "Harlem Shuffle" did. It's great,
a continuation of Whitehead's exploration of the mid-century Harlem
underground with his trademark sentence-level excellence and expert
ability to show, not tell.