what I’ve been reading lately:
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10:04 by Ben LernerFaber and Faber, 2014
Ben Lerner’s 10:04 is the story, basically, of 10:04 being written, except fiction, not fact: the book’s narrator is an author who’s gotten a big advance for his second novel; he thinks he’ll expand a story of his that was published in the New Yorker (which is itself a story of Ben Lerner’s that was…
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Happier at Home by Gretchen RubinCrown Archetype, 2012
I read and liked Rubin’s previous book, The Happiness Project, in 2010; in a lot of ways, this book is more of the same. Like that book, this one is organized by month, and each month has a theme. (This time around, Rubin sticks with the school year instead of the calendar year, so there…
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El Deafo by Cece BellAmulet Books (Abrams), 2014
I read El Deafo, Cece Bell’s incredibly charming graphic-memoir about her childhood, in one day, and totally loved it. I laughed a lot, and kept interrupting my boyfriend to show him great pages, and there were a few places where I got a little teary-eyed. Bell’s art, which is rendered in vivid color by David…
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More Baths Less Talking by Nick HornbyBeliever Books (McSweeney’s), 2012
More Baths Less Talking, which I decided I wanted to read after reading Stefanie’s post about it on So Many Books, contains fifteen short pieces that were originally published in the Believer magazine between May 2010 and December 2011. The pieces are from Nick Hornby’s running “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” column, and they’re really great.…
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The Accidental Highwayman by Ben TrippTor Teen, 2014
At the start of The Accidental Highwayman, which is set in England in the mid-1700s, sixteen-year-old Kit Bristol feels pretty pleased with where he’s ended up: he’s an orphan who used to be a trick-rider in a traveling circus, and now he’s an indentured servant to a gentleman who isn’t much trouble, though he’s fond…
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An Age of License by Lucy KnisleyFantagraphic Books, 2014
I like Lucy Knisley’s work a whole lot, and this was a quick and fun read. It’s a travelogue/graphic-memoir of a trip to Europe that Knisley took in 2011, when she was 27, and includes her travels to/in Norway (Bergen), Sweden (Stockholm), Germany (Berlin) and France (Beaune, Angoulême, Royan, and Paris). The trip is partly…
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Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne JonesGreenwillow (HarperCollins), 2010
Near the start of Enchanted Glass, Andrew Hope, a thirty-something-year-old academic, finds out his grandfather has died, which means he’s inherited the family home, Melstone, where he spent happy weeks on school holidays when he was a kid. Andrew Hope’s grandfather, Jocelyn Brandon, was a magician, so Andrew has also inherited his field-of-care—a magical area…
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The Laws of Murder by Charles FinchMinotaur (St. Martin’s Press), 2014
At the start of The Laws of Murder, Charles Lenox is optimistic: it’s the start of the year (1876) and he’s in the midst of helping Scotland Yard catch a murderer. The new detective agency he’s set up with his friend and protégé, Dallington, along with two other detectives, is about to open, and he’s…
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The Pedestrians by Rachel ZuckerWave Books, 2014
I picked this book up at the library several months after reading Dan Chiasson’s piece in the New Yorker about Zucker’s work. I think it was Chiasson’s characterization of Zucker as a city poet that made me want to read her: he compares her to Frank O’Hara, and says this: “A city poet is a…