Book Geek Review 2008

Being the grateful recipient of a Christmas Barnes And Noble gift card (A bookstore, to those of you that are of a foreign disposition), I have decided that I should get help with my next book purchase.

I love books. The ones with words. And also the ones with pictures. I have also been prone to ones that sometimes require the thinking with the brain and/or thoughtful scratching of the hair on my chin (-e-chin-chin). I also like books that YOU get excited about - It makes me want to read them too.

So with the thoughtful gift in hand, and the generous sentiment filed away for future reference, I decided that, through it, you would have the opportunity to help start off my 2009 reading choices. I plan to read twenty books next year - With five of those being of an instructive nature and teaching me a new skill

If you would send me one choice, or a top five, or a favourite/new/rediscovered author, then I will not only compile myself a reading list for 2009, but will score the nominations (Much like a successful 2004 election) in some loose manner and pick out which author/publisher will be the beneficiary of my gift card redemption.

For your own benefit I have provided my top five (just in case you need a list for yourself)

1. - Katherine Dunn - Geeklove (Though, the rest of her novels are less well engineered)
2. - Charles Bukowski - Post Office (Some of his other work can be swear words and drunken buffoonery, but in Post Office you're on his side... It's an unbelievable "cry-laugher", so be warned!)
3. - Michael Azzerad - Our Band Could Be Your Life (It could!)
4. - Paul Auster - Book Of Illusions (I think I've just got to the point that I only read Paul Auster when my life is getting a little dull, because I know that during the reading odd and interesting coincedences will start to happen - It's true... Try it for yourself)
5. - Walt Whitman - Leaves Of Grass (I truly can't pass by this on my book shelf and not pick it up. It's torn and tattered and dog-eared and bent at the spine, but whenever I lose a little faith in humanity I read some of this and it restores my enthusiasm for life!)

Not on this list, but contenders are;
Charles De Lint (The Little Country, if anything, but anything will actually do), Anthony Kiedis - Scar Tissue, Walter Wangerin, Jr. - The Book Of The Dunn Cow (I've never been so frightened by a chicken!), Morgan Llywelyn - Bard (The total Celtic spirit, and almost a history, in 461 pages), Colin Bateman (Anything. Honestly, anything at all. From Bangor, Northern Ireland. You'll know him from Divorcing Jack and maybe Wild About Harry, but get stuck into Of Wee Sweetie Mice And Men or maybe Empire State and you'll shut those believing that you had just, in actual fact, read a text book on the Northern Irish male!)

I'd be most grateful if you'd help me with my list, but I also think that you'll find it interesting too.

Joyeux Noël
Leslie