Incoming Books: Week of 7/12

This will be a long one: I warn you up front. I took my sons into the city on Wednesday to see what matinee tickets we could get at the TKTS booth -- which turned out to be Pippin, a show I've been hoping to see since it opened -- and we ended up at the nearby comics shop to waste time before the show. Then, the very next day, I made it back to the Montclair Book Center, my "local" used bookstore, where I got even more stuff. And these are those new books:

House of Holes, the most recent novel by Nicholson Baker. I just read two Baker books this year -- his first two novels, The Mezzanine and Room Temperature -- so I was vaguely looking for more by him. This is newish, it's incredibly smutty, and it's short -- perfect!

A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke, which I thought was an autobiographical account of Clarke's first year in France as a young man. But I see now, looking more closely, that it's the story of Paul West's first year in Paris, and that it's possibly closer to a novel than a memoir, even though it was shelved with non-fiction. I expect to read it anyway, but I take a very dim view of authors and books trying to disguise themselves suchly.

Overheard in New York, the book of the popular website, edited by S. Morgan Friedman and Michael Malice (I could believe either one of those names effortlessly, but put both of them together  and suddenly my brows creep up) and originally published in 2006. That old? Yeeks. Anyway, it looks like a top-notch bathroom book, and it was available at a discount price.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre -- I finally got around to The Spy Who Came In From the Cold last year around this time -- a good twenty-five years after the end of the Cold War, yes -- and I think I'm going to dive deeper into the Smiley novels, though possibly at a really slow pace.

The Chill and Black Money by Ross MacDonald -- I had, I think, all of the Lew Archer novels in the nice Vintage mid-90s editions before the flood, and now I think I need to both re-build that collection and re-read the whole series.

Your Flying Car Awaits by Paul Milo -- one of those breezy nonfiction books about interesting subjects; this one looks at the scientific predictions of the middle 20th century, in particular the ones that didn't come anywhere near true.

The Jaguar Hunter and Life During Wartime by Lucius Shepard, both in the classic Bantam editions that I had (nicer, less shelf-worn) copies of before the flood. I suddenly realized I didn't have any Shepard in the house 

My American Revolution by Robert Sullivan -- one of the major reasons to periodically spend serious time in a real bookstore is to discover books that you missed, and this is a prime example. Sullivan is the author of such excellent non-fiction books as Rats, The Meadowlands, and Cross Country, and this was his new book for 2012, which I managed to completely miss then. It's about the parts of the Revolutionary War that took place in New York, New Jersey, and nearby regions.

The Imperial Way is another Paul Theroux travel book -- Peshawar to Chittagong, by train, in 1985 -- with the addition of photographs (by Steve McCurry) of the locations. It also includes at least one shot of a very mid-80s Theroux on the back cover.

The Library of America edition of Mississippi Writings by Mark Twain...which I already had, but had neglected to remove from my tracking list. Oops. It now goes on the pile of duplicates, until I figure out what to do with them.

Born to Kvetch, a book about Yiddish and Jewish-Americans and language by Michael Wex. And who doesn't love kvetching? (Or perhaps instead kvelling, in happier days?)

Going Clear by Lawrence Wright is that big fat book about Scientology from last year -- I've looked at it in the library a dozen times, and poked at it more than once, but I never felt like reading it now. But it's out in paperback, and now I have my own copy for when that moment arrives.

Special Forces, a really weird, possibly far-too-much-of-its-time collection by Kyle Baker from 2009.

Booth Again! a collection of the cartoons of George Booth, he of the lumpy dogs and people.

Amphigorey Too, the second of three omnibuses collecting most of the work of Edward Gorey -- yet another post-flood rebuilding project.

Jack Staff: Everything Used to Be Black and White by Paul Grist -- I read Grist's crime-drama series Kane a while back, and it either ended or I drifted away. But I've never tried his long-underwear series before.

Fear of Comics by Gilbert Hernandez -- after this, I only need one more book to start my big Love & Rockets re-read, and that last book is on its way. So the re-read should hit by the end of this year.

Accelerate by Richard Kadrey and the Pander Brothers -- I know absolutely nothing about this, but it was on a clearance shelf, Kadrey was an interesting cyberpunk writer back in the dawn of the world, and I haven't seen much of anything by the Panders since their great run on Grendel twenty years ago.

Chew, Vol. 1 by John Layman and Rob Guillory -- it's an acclaimed comics series, so I took a chance on it.

Epicurus the Sage by William Messner-Loebs and Sam Kieth -- another flood replacement

Abe Sapien, Vol. 3: Dark and Terrible and the New Race of Man by Mike Mignola and friends -- I've fallen behind on the Hellboy-a-verse, but I keep meaning to catch up

Miracleman Vol. 1: A Dream of Flying by "The Original Writer" and his buddies --never had this in book form, though I did lose all of my single issues in the flood. It will be interesting both to see how it reads now and what Marvel did to it with their "remastering."

Young Lovecraft, Vol. 2 by Jose Oliver and Bartolo Torres -- see my post on the first book; it's a fun series, if one of the most unlikely webcomics ever.

Wilderness, Vol. 2 by Tim Truman -- probably Truman's best work ever, and shamefully little-known. Now I just need to find the first half of the story again.

If any of that inspires you to go shopping, here's the book store and the comic store I went to myself, and a gigantic Internet retailer that can possibly provide all of your goods more cheaply right up until the point they put everyone else out of business.