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Inside: Cultural Sausage. ~ Ludic Lists. ~ Skullbucket. Outside: New additions to the links page, and some more pieces I've had published elsewhere online are up in the lit section. "I fucked my neice" "Jon Morris harmonica" "ludic robots" "superheroes slash" "Chaldean publisher" "ass munch" "adrenaline tank guard savage" "scrappy rag-tag" |
07.22.2004
An altered version of this piece originally appeared in the July issue of UR Chicago. One of the longest-standing traditions of the leisure industry is the “summer reading list”, which suggests what books you should stuff into your cooler next to a cold six as you spend a lazy afternoon on the beach of your choice. It’s a great idea at its heart; vacations are a great time to catch up on literature, and it’s more enlightening than doing watermelon shooters. But the books featured are usually the last things you want to read during the long hot summer: they’re big, intimidating tomes that sit in your brain like a heavy meal sits in your stomach and are sometimes too heavy to carry. They tend towards action, adventure or escapism, and as such inevitably take place in some sweltering tropical clime. That’s all well and good in the frosty February of Chicago, but who wants to increase the heat when you’re already drowning in mercury? To rectify this problem, we present our 2004 Summer Reading List: a quintet of quality reads that will heat up your head while cooling down your body. Whiteout, Greg Rucka & Steve Lieber. Greg Rucka, one of the most interesting writers in comics today, teams up with artist Steve Lieber to tell the gritty, murderous tale of the only American law enforcement agent on the entire continent of Antarctica. Outstanding crime-noir from an outstanding team. (Available in softcover from Oni Press.) End of the Earth: Voyaging to Antarctica, Peter Matthiessen. An outstanding travel writer, Mathiessen combines a stoic philosophy with a liberal sprinkling of historical context to this fascinating recounting of his trips to the Antarctic and the inhospitable islands that surround the continent. His descriptions of the wildlife alone make this a worthy read. (Available in hardcover from National Geographic.) The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change, Charles Wohlforth. As the Chicago climate changes from chilly to fiery, take a look at this book on global climate change by Alaskan journalist Wohlforth. Effortlessly switching the narrative between high-tech climatologists and meteorologists and ancient tribes of Inupiaq Eskimos, Wohlforth does a tremendous job illustrating the real-world impact of man’s effect on the environment. (Available in hardcover from North Point Press.) The Circus in Winter, Cathy Day. First-time novelist Cathy Day takes an intriguing premise (circus performers’ lives in the winter off-season), fills it with fascinating and tragic characters (a former clown who now operates Clown Alley Cleaners), and places it in an instantly classic setting (Lima, a fully realized and incredibly rich, complex small town). Touching, funny and well-written. (Available in hardcover July 5th from Harcourt.) Snow, Orhan Pamuk. The celebrated Turkish novelist returns with a literate and disturbing thriller about a poet, formerly exiled in Germany, who comes home to Turkey only to become entangled in the enigmatic suicide of a number of girls in his village. Pamuk’s prose style gets better and better, and his clever approach to the subject matter surprises at every turn. (Available in hardcover August 17th from Knopf.) |
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| TODAY'S DRIFTWOOD: "We do not remember days; we remember moments." (Cesare Pavese) |