Books On Deck / Up Next

Vladimir Sorokin - "The Ice Trilogy" 

"In 1908, deep in Siberia, it fell to earth. THEIR ICE. A young man on a scientific expedition found it. It spoke to his heart, and his heart named him Bro. Bro felt the Ice. Bro knew its purpose. To bring together the 23,000 blond, blue-eyed Brothers and Sisters of the Light who were scattered on earth. To wake their sleeping hearts. To return to the Light. To destroy this world. And secretly, throughout the twentieth century and up to our own day, the Children of the Light have pursued their beloved goal.

Pulp fiction, science fiction, New Ageism, pornography, video-game mayhem, old-time Communist propaganda, and rampant commercial hype all collide, splinter, and splatter in Vladimir Sorokin’s virtuosic Ice Trilogy, a crazed joyride through modern times with the promise of a truly spectacular crash at the end. And the reader, as eager for the redemptive fix of a good story as the Children are for the Primordial Light, has no choice except to go along, caught up in a brilliant illusion from which only illusion escapes intact."

 Italo Calvino - "Letters: 1941-1985"

"This is the first collection in English of the extraordinary letters of one of the great writers of the twentieth century. Italy's most important postwar novelist, Italo Calvino (1923-1985) achieved worldwide fame with such books as Cosmicomics, Invisible Cities, and If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. But he was also an influential literary critic, an important literary editor, and a masterful letter writer whose correspondents included Umberto Eco, Primo Levi, Gore Vidal, Leonardo Sciascia, Natalia Ginzburg, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Luciano Berio. This book includes a generous selection of about 650 letters, written between World War II and the end of Calvino's life. Selected and introduced by Michael Wood, the letters are expertly rendered into English and annotated by well-known Calvino translator Martin McLaughlin.

The letters are filled with insights about Calvino's writing and that of others; about Italian, American, English, and French literature; about literary criticism and literature in general; and about culture and politics. The book also provides a kind of autobiography, documenting Calvino's Communism and his resignation from the party in 1957, his eye-opening trip to the United States in 1959-60, his move to Paris (where he lived from 1967 to 1980), and his trip to his birthplace in Cuba (where he met Che Guevara). Some lengthy letters amount almost to critical essays, while one is an appropriately brief defense of brevity, and there is an even shorter, reassuring note to his parents written on a scrap of paper while he and his brother were in hiding during the antifascist Resistance. 

This is a book that will fascinate and delight Calvino fans and anyone else interested in a remarkable portrait of a great writer at work."

Ben Jonson - "Volpone and Other Plays" 

"In this collection of plays, now with a new title, Ben Jonson created in Volpone and The Alchemist hilarious portraits of cupidity and chicanery, while in Bartholomew Fair he portrays his fellow Londoners at their most festive—and most bawdy."

 

Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson - "Mo' Meta Blues"

"Mo' Meta Blues is a punch-drunk memoir in which everyone's favorite Questlove tells his own story while tackling some of the lates, the greats, the fakes, the philosophers, the heavyweights, and the true originals of the music world. He digs deep into the album cuts of his life and unearths some pivotal moments in black art, hip hop, and pop culture.

Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson is many things: virtuoso drummer, producer, arranger, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon bandleader, DJ, composer, and tireless Tweeter. He is one of our most ubiquitous cultural tastemakers, and in this, his first book, he reveals his own formative experiences--from growing up in 1970s West Philly as the son of a 1950s doo-wop singer, to finding his own way through the music world and ultimately co-founding and rising up with the Roots, a.k.a., the last hip hop band on Earth. Mo' Meta Blues also has some (many) random (or not) musings about the state of hip hop, the state of music criticism, the state of statements, as well as a plethora of run-ins with celebrities, idols, and fellow artists, from Stevie Wonder to KISS to D'Angelo to Jay-Z to Dave Chappelle to...you ever seen Prince roller-skate?!?

But Mo' Meta Blues isn't just a memoir. It's a dialogue about the nature of memory and the idea of a post-modern black man saddled with some post-modern blues. It's a book that questions what a book like Mo' Meta Blues really is. It's the side wind of a one-of-a-kind mind.

It's a rare gift that gives as well as takes.

It's a record that keeps going around and around."

Nick Bantock - "The Museum at Purgatory" 

"Nick Bantock's many fans have come to expect strange and wonderful experiences as they enjoy his beautifully illustrated books, and this newest work will not disappoint. An otherworldly mixture of surreal drawings, photographs of invented and actual objects, fake documents, altered engravings, and fictions, it follows the post-death journey of Non, the museum's curator, as he gathers together artists and collectors - narrating and analysing their lives - in a desperate attempt to escape Purgatory and enter either Heaven or Hell. Bold, brilliant, and profound, The Museum at Purgatory is yet another shining example of Bantock's unique gift for combining word and stunning image to craft an extraordinary tale. Chronicle Books will publish The Artful Dodger: The Art of Nick Bantock in Fall 2000."

 Nick Bantock - "The Forgetting Room" 

.".. to my grandson, Armon Hurt, I leave my house in Ronda, Spain and the uncertainty of its contents. May he discover his belonging." -- From the last will and testament of Rafael Hurtago.

So begins Nick Bantock's latest novel, in which readers are invited to delve into the journal of Armon Hurt, a sad, discontented man who discovers his inner fire. When his artist grandfather dies, leaving him the family home in Spain, Armon travels to Andalusia with the intention of selling the property. Once there, however, he finds a sealed cardboard case containing a small oil painting and a surreal booklet.

As he examines these mysterious artifacts, Armon realizes that he is holding both his grandfather's last communication to him and a puzzle. He begins to decipher the conundrum, and as each new answer leads to more questions, Armon finds himself painting furiously in his grandfather's old studio strangely compelled to create a picture that is somehow linked to his legacy. 

Featuring paintings, drawings, collages and paper foldouts, this in no ordinary novel. Captivatingly imagined and genuinely memorable in its deeply personal account of a man in search of himself, "The Forgetting Room" is a handmade treasure, a seamless blend of artistry and language and a tantalizing read."

Nick Bantock - "The Venetian's Wife"

"Nick Bantock's illustrated novel, The Venetian's Wife, is part love story, part mystery, and part ghostly tale—and an altogether bewitching brew of sensuality and lost treasures. Thoroughly bored with her job at the local museum, Sarah heads to the gallery to take another look at that new drawing, the one she can't stop thinking about, the one of the Hindu god Shiva, who dances...That's when it all begins. The next day, an e-mail message brings her a job offer: to find the few remaining pieces of a 15th-century adventurer's renowned collection of Indian sculptures. Her employer, curiously, wishes to communicate only by computer. She has no idea who he is or why he wants her. But other mysteries soon preoccupy her, such as the meaning of an enigmatic illuminated manuscript—and the sensual transformation that seems to be overtaking her. Through her quirkily decorated diary and the artful e-mail exchanges between Sara and her mentor, Nick Bantock has conjured up a richly illustrated tale of a relentless quest, an amorous legacy, and the resonating power of art—a lush, romantic adventure of the soul that tantalizes the reader to the last line."

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