Dandy Books

Dandy Books is a meme I began about books that are on my TBR list. They are mostly older books not necessarily from the current year. Hopefully I can make your list bigger!

"It began as a mistake." By middle age, Henry Chinaski has lost more than twelve years of his life to the U.S. Postal Service. In a world where his three true, bitter pleasures are women, booze, and racetrack betting, he somehow drags his hangover out of bed every dawn to lug waterlogged mailbags up mud-soaked mountains, outsmart vicious guard dogs, and pray to survive the day-to-day trials of sadistic bosses and certifiable coworkers. This classic 1971 novel—the one that catapulted its author to national fame—is the perfect introduction to the grimly hysterical world of legendary writer, poet, and Dirty Old Man Charles Bukowski and his fictional alter ego, Chinaski.

Katzenjammer is the story of a first-time novelist struggling in New York. The book's main character, Max Perkins, feels cursed by having the same name as that of the famous editor to Hemingway, Wolfe, and Fitzgerald. Max's attempts to get recognized finally land him in the readers' department of Bandomday Books where the plot to get his book published takes on mind-bending twists and turns, eventually becoming a Faustian comical journey. Encompassing everything from Russian pianists, male prostitution, and insane bosses, to the Mormon religion, the New York arts scene, hermaphrodites, dwarfs, and the inner workings of corporate America, Katzenjammer is a scathing, hilarious, and quixotic look at what it takes to get published today.

A scathing, quixotic, and Faustian look at the Publishing Industry, Jackson McCrae's new novel Katzenjammer takes us into the mind of Max Perkins-a first-time movie-obsessed novelist attempting to get his work published in New York. In this, his third book, McCrae strips away the media-created and hyped veneer of being a published author and shows us what it really takes to get your book on the bestseller list. The result is not always pretty but it is highly informative, hilarious, and above all, entertaining. Encompassing everything from Russian pianists, male prostitution, and insane bosses, to the Mormon religion, the New York arts scene, hermaphrodites, dwarfs, and the inner workings of corporate America, Katzenjammer is a ribald and adventurous romp through New York, publishing, and the world of books.

David Sedaris became a star autobiographer on public radio, onstage in New York, and on bestseller lists, mostly on the strength of "SantaLand Diaries," a scathing, hilarious account of his stint as a Christmas elf at Macy's. (It's in two separate collections, both worth owning, Barrel Fever and the Christmas-themed Holidays on Ice.) Sedaris's caustic gift has not deserted him in his fourth book, which mines poignant comedy from his peculiar childhood in North Carolina, his bizarre career path, and his move with his lover to France. Though his anarchic inclination to digress is his glory, Sedaris does have a theme in these reminiscences: the inability of humans to communicate. The title is his rendition in transliterated English of how he and his fellow students of French in Paris mangle the Gallic language. In the essay "Jesus Shaves," he and his classmates from many nations try to convey the concept of Easter to a Moroccan Muslim. "It is a party for the little boy of God," says one. "Then he be die one day on two... morsels of... lumber," says another. Sedaris muses on the disputes between his Protestant mother and his father, a Greek Orthodox guy whose Easter fell on a different day. Other essays explicate his deep kinship with his eccentric mom and absurd alienation from his IBM-exec dad: "To me, the greatest mystery of science continues to be that a man could father six children who shared absolutely none of his interests."

Every glimpse we get of Sedaris's family and acquaintances delivers laughs and insights. He thwarts his North Carolina speech therapist ("for whom the word pen had two syllables") by cleverly avoiding all words with s sounds, which reveal the lisp she sought to correct. His midget guitar teacher, Mister Mancini, is unaware that Sedaris doesn't share his obsession with breasts, and sings "Light My Fire" all wrong--"as if he were a Webelo scout demanding a match." As a remarkably unqualified teacher at the Art Institute of Chicago, Sedaris had his class watch soap operas and assign "guessays" on what would happen in the next day's episode.

It all adds up to the most distinctively skewed autobiography since Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia. The only possible reason not to read this book is if you'd rather hear the author's intrinsically funny speaking voice narrating his story. In that case, get Me Talk Pretty One Day on audio. --Tim Appelo --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed.

But he is dead now and has been for more than forty years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets.

The one who saved me...and the one who cursed me.

So begins the journal of Will Henry, orphaned assistant to Dr. Pellinore War throp, a man with a most unusual specialty: monstrumology, the study of monsters. In his time with the doctor, Will has met many a mysterious late-night visitor, and seen things he never imagined were real. But when a grave robber comes calling in the middle of the night with a grueso me find, he brings with him their most deadly case yet.

Critically acclaimed author Rick Yancey has written a gothic tour de force that explores the darkest heart of man and monster and asks the question: When does a man become the very thing he hunts?

What do you think of this week's picks? Read any of them?