Rachel's Random Recommendation #53: The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin

The Arcades Project (1927-40) by Walter Benjamin


"The Arcades Project is Benjamin’s effort to represent and to critique the bourgeois experience of nineteenth-century history, and, in so doing, to liberate the suppressed “true history” that underlay the ideological mask. In the bustling, cluttered arcades, street and interior merge and historical time is broken up into kaleidoscopic distractions and displays of ephemera. Here, at a distance from what is normally meant by “progress,” Benjamin finds the lost time(s) embedded in the spaces of things."- Harvard University Press

Rachel's Random Recommendation #52: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita (1955) by Vladimir Nabokov


When I first read this as a teenager, I was floored and exhilarated by the energy and beauty of Nabokov's prose. This story of a creepy middle-aged man's seduction of a young girl is really about much more than that, and the fact that the seducer is the narrator adds another layer to Nabokov's exploration of morality, desire, and obsession. If you haven't read this yet, read it now.

Random Recommendation Guest Post: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

This recommendation comes from Ann Marie Gamble. Check out her website here, and follow her on twitter @amgamble.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend

"Adrian Mole's first love, Pandora, has left him; a neighbor, Mr. Lucas, appears to be seducing his mother (and what does that mean for his father?); the BBC refuses to publish his poetry; and his dog swallowed the tree off the Christmas cake. "Why" indeed."

Random Recommendation Guest Post: The Satyricon by Petronius

This recommendation comes from the "Nerds of a Feather" blog. Check it out here, and follow along on twitter @nerds_feather.


The Satyricon (1st c. AD) by Petronius

"The Satyricon is a classic of comedy, a superbly funny picture of Nero's Rome as seen through the eyes of Petronius, its most amorous and elegant courtier. William Arrowsmith's translation—a lively, modern, unexpurgated text—recaptures all the ribald humor of Petronius's picaresque satire. It tells the hilarious story of the pleasure-seeking adventures of an educated rogue, Encolpius, his handsome serving boy, Giton, and Ascyltus, who lusts after Giton—three impure pilgrims who live by their wits and other men's purses. The Satyricon unfailingly turns every weakness of the flesh, every foible of the mind, to laughter."

Rachel's Random Recommendation #51: Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

Winesburg, Ohio (1919) by Sherwood Anderson

I first read this collection of linked short stories about a small, midwestern town back when I was in college, and it was revelatory. Anderson expertly draws out the frustrations, desires, and ambitions that are both fostered in and constricted by small town living, and he does it with the quiet elegance reminiscent of Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology. If you haven't read Winesburg yet, you'd better get to it.

Rachel's Random Recommendation #50: The Floating Opera by John Barth

The Floating Opera (1956) by John Barth

"The Floating Opera and The End Of The Road are John Barth's first two novels.  Their relationship to each other is evident not only in their ribald subject matter but in the eccentric characters and bitterly humorous tone of the narratives.  Both concern strange, consuming love triangles and the destructive effect of an overactive intellect on the emotions.  Separately they give two very different views of a universal human drama."

Random Recommendation Guest Post: The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes

This recommendation comes from Summer Brennan. Check out her website here, follow her on twitter @summerbrennan, and read her book, The Oyster War.


The Mystery of Mercy Close (2012) by Marian Keyes

"A compelling tale of mystery, romance, and the irrepressible Walsh family from the internationally bestselling author Marian Keyes. Helen Walsh doesn’t believe in fear—it’s just something men invented to get all the money—and yet she’s sinking. Her private investigator business has dried up, her flat has been repossessed, and now some old demons are resurfacing. Chief among them is her charming but dodgy ex-boyfriend Jay Parker, who offers Helen a lucrative missing-persons case. Wayne Diffney from boyband Laddz vanished from his house in Mercy Close—and the Laddz have a sellout comeback gig in five days. Helen has a new boyfriend, but Jay’s reappearance proves unsettling. Playing by her own rules, Helen is drawn into a dark and glamorous world, where her own worst enemy is her own head and where increasingly the only person she feels connected to is Wayne, a man she has never even met."

Random Recommendation Guest Post: Monograph by Simeon Berry

This recommendation comes from Joseph Spuckler. You can follow him on his Evil Cyclist's Blog, and on twitter @evil_cyclist.


Monograph (2015) by Simeon Berry

"Written in narrow sections that blur the distinction between flash fiction and prose poetry, between memoir and meditation, Monograph veers from the elliptical to the explosive as it dissects the Gordian knot of a marriage’s intellectual, sexual, and domestic lives. Invoking Raymond Chandler, Pythagoras, Joan Didion, and Virginia Woolf as presiding spirits, Simeon Berry curates the negative space of each wry tableau, destabilizing the high seriousness of every lyric aside and slipping quantum uncertainty into the stark lineaments of loss." 

Random Recommendation Guest Post: He, She and It by Marge Piercy

This recommendation comes from Shaina. Check out her blog and follow her on twitter @shainareads.

He, She and It (1991) by Marge Piercy

"In the middle of the twenty-first century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman's marriage has broken up, and her young son has been taken from her by the corporation that runs her zone, so she has returned to Tikva, the Jewish free town where she grew up. There, she is welcomed by Malkah, the brilliant grandmother who raised her, and meets an extraordinary man who is not a man at all, but a unique cyborg implanted with intelligence, emotions--and the ability to kill....From the imagination of Marge Piercy comes yet another stunning novel of morality and courage, a bold adventure of women, men, and the world of tomorrow. "

Rachel's Random Recommendation #49: Night & Horses & the Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature

Night & Horses & the Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature (1999) ed. Robert Irwin

"Spanning the fifth to sixteenth centuries and societies that range from Afghanistan to Spain, this anthology is a testament to the astonishing grandeur and variety of classical Arabic literature. ...In Night & Horses & the Desert we encounter the dashing Byronic poetry of Imru’ al-Qays and a treatise on bibliomania by Al-Jahiz, possibly the only writer to have been killed by books. There’s a sorcerer’s manual from 11th century Spain and an allegory by the mysterious “Brethren of Purity,” in which animals argue their case against humanity. Encompassing piety and profanity, fables and philosophy, this volume is a thrilling and invaluabe introduction to one of the world’s great bodies of literature."

Random Recommendation Guest Post: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

This recommendation comes from Michael S. Alter. You can follow him on twitter @Michael_S_Alter.


House of Leaves (2000) by Mark Z. Danielewski

"Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams."

Rachel's Random Recommendation #48: The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King

 

I've been an avid Stephen King reader ever since I was 14 or 15 and read The Shining. Since then, I've devoured many more of his novels, including Under the Dome, Bag of Bones, Insomnia, Running Man, and even the screenplay for Storm of the Century. You may wonder why I didn't list It, Carrie, or some of his other well-known books, and that's because I haven't gotten to them yet. But- I absolutely had to read his Dark Tower series. It's been bugging me for a while, and I decided to get them all as audiobooks and plow through them. It's gonna be great.

Rachel's Random Recommendation #47: The Necklace and Other Short Stories by Guy de Maupassant

The Necklace and Other Short Stories by Guy de Maupassant

"Nine memorable classics, characterized by ironic twists of plot, include "Ball of Fat," regarded by many as technically one of the finest short stories ever written, "The Necklace," "A Piece of String," "Mme. Tellier's Establishment," "Mademoiselle Fifi," "Miss Harriet," "A Way to Wealth," "My Uncle Jules" and "The Horla.""

Random Recommendation Guest Post: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This recommendation comes from Karena Fagan. You can follow her on Tumblr and on twitter @KarenaFagan.



Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

"Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene. Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war."

Rachel's Random Recommendation #46: Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s

Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s (Library of America, 2007)

"Known in his lifetime primarily to readers of science fiction, Philip K. Dick  is now seen as a uniquely visionary figure, a writer who, in editor Jonathan Lethem's words, "wielded a sardonic yet heartbroken acuity about the plight of being alive in the twentieth century, one that makes him a lonely hero to the readers who cherish him." Posing the questions "What is human?" and "What is real?" in a multitude of fascinating ways, Dick produced works-fantastic and weird yet developed with precise logic, marked by wild humor and soaring flights of religious speculation-that are startlingly prescient imaginative responses to 21st-century quandaries.

This Library of America volume brings together four of Dick's most original novels. The Man in the High Castle (1962), which won the Hugo Award, describes an alternate world in which Japan and Germany have won World War II and America is divided into separate occupation zones. The dizzying The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) posits a future in which competing hallucinogens proffer different brands of virtual reality. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), about a bounty hunter in search of escaped androids in a postapocalyptic future, was the basis for the movie Blade Runner. Ubik (1969), with its future world of psychic espionage agents and cryogenically frozen patients inhabiting an illusory "half-life," pursues Dick's theme of simulated realities and false perceptions to ever more disturbing conclusions."

Rachel's Random Recommendation #45: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993) by Sherman Alexie

"In this darkly comic short story collection, Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, weaves memory, fantasy, and stark realism to paint a complex, grimly ironic portrait of life in and around the Spoke Indian Reservation. These 22 interlinked tales are narrated by characters raised on humiliation and government-issue cheese, and yet are filled with passion and affection, myth and dream. There is Victor, who as a nine-year-old crawled between his unconscious parents hoping that the alcohol seeping through their skins might help him sleep. Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who tells his stories long after people stop listening, and Jimmy Many Horses, dying of cancer, who writes letters on stationary that reads "From the Death Bed of James Many Horses III," even though he actually writes them on his kitchen table. Against a backdrop of alcohol, car accidents, laughter, and basketball, Alexie depicts the distances between Indians and whites, reservation Indians and urban Indians, men and women, and most poetically, between modern Indians and the traditions of the past."

Random Recommendation Guest Post: The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin

This recommendation comes from Chelsea. You can follow her on her blog The Globally Curious and on twitter @chelsea_mcgill4.


The Telling (2000) by Ursula K. Le Guin

"Once a culturally rich world, the planet Aka has been utterly transformed by technology. Records of the past have been destroyed, and citizens are strictly monitored. But an official observer from Earth will discover a group of outcasts who still practice its lost religion-the Telling. Intrigued by their beliefs, she joins them on a sacred pilgrimage into the mountains...and into the dangerous terrain of her own heart, mind, and soul."