The first, "Nothing: A Portrait of Insomnia" is by Blake Butler. Butler has put out some fantastically bizarre fiction in the last few years and has quickly become a favorite of mine despite feeling lost in his stories at times. He's doing some really interesting stuff contextually and conceptually that I dig. This new book of his is his first foray into the non-fiction realm, so I'm really anxious to see how he approaches it.
The second, third, and fourth books are all from professors of mine from the University of San Francisco. Every one of them was a fantastic influence on not only my writing, but how I approach the novels that I read.
Stephen Beachy's "Boneyard" is out. I know very little about it, but I know there's some press out there that calls into question some of the text. I'm pretty excited to read this one to find out what all the hubbub is about.
Joshua Mohr's latest, "Damascus," is the final installment of a pseudo trilogy of what he calls "bar fiction" set in San Francisco. It's not so much that there are the same characters as his first two books ("Some Things That Meant the World to Me" and "Termite Parade"), it's more a trilogy based on place and time and setting. His first two were damn entertaining, so I'm ready to dig into this one for sure.
And finally, Lewis Buzbee's "The Haunting of Charles Dickens." It's been out for awhile (since last October, I believe), but I keep forgetting to pick it up since it's found in the Young Adult section. Buzbee writes for younger readers, but you wouldn't necessarily know it to hear him read from the text. The prose is intelligent and smooth and doesn't talk down to the readership, which I imagine is a pretty difficult precipice to walk.
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