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  Home arrow Literary arrow Tome Raider

 
Tome Raider
Love is a Dog from Hell: Poems 1974-1977
Written by Liberty Hardy   
Friday, 02 May 2008

by Charles Bukowski
307 pages, 1977, Black Sparrow Press

Charles Bukowski was an ugly man. Every-branch-of-the-ugly-tree ugly. His lifestyle didn’t help matters for his face. He was a boxer and was often involved in bar fights. He drank and womanized in equally excessive quantities. But writers aren’t actors or singers, and good looks aren’t necessary to advance your career. Bukowski’s talent lay in his ability to take all the grime, seediness, ugliness and realism of his day-to-day life and transform it into beautiful works.
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The Westing Game
Written by Liberty Hardy   
Friday, 04 April 2008

by Ellen Raskin
1978, 185 pages, E.P. Dutton

“I, Samuel W. Westing, declare this to be my last will and testament and do hereby swear that I did not die of natural causes. My life was taken from me—by one of you!”

These are the final words, reaching from beyond the grave, of multimillionaire Samuel Westing, paper company magnate and owner of the luxury apartment building, Sunset Towers. Gathered to hear the reading of Westing’s will are 16 of Sunset Towers’ residents and workers. The group members were puzzled upon being invited to take up residence at the apartment building when it first opened, and they are equally perplexed to discover that one of them is the possible benefactor of Westing’s $200 million fortune. (None of them had ever met the man.) But, here they now sit, being told that they could conceivably be rich. There’s just one catch: they have to solve Westing’s murder.
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‘Last Chance to See’
Written by Liberty Hardy   
Thursday, 20 March 2008

by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine
222 pages, William Heinemann Ltd., 1990

Few people like to be preached at—especially when they have already taken it upon themselves to read a book about a heavy subject, like endangered species, for example. We already know the facts: Since our appearance on this planet, humans have polluted and poached their way through all corners of the world, destroying and eliminating thousands of different species of animals, birds, insects and plants. In short, we suck. We know this. But our simple little brains don’t want to feel guilty, they want to be entertained. So why not take a man famous for writing funny books that include aliens, the existence of which has yet to be proven, and let him tell the story of creatures who may not exist much longer?

Enter Douglas Adams, most famous for his “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series. In 1985, Observer Colour Magazine commissioned Adams and zoologist Mark Carwardine to travel to Madagascar and try to glimpse a rare nocturnal lemur called an aye-aye, and then write an article about their trip. Over a three-year period, their adventure transformed into several journeys in search of endangered species, which was subsequently documented for BBC radio and was later chronicled in the book “Last Chance to See.”
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‘The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor’
Written by Matt Kanner   
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

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by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
1986, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 106 pages

On Feb. 28, 1955, a windy gale swept eight sailors over the side of a Columbian Navy destroyer and into the Caribbean Sea. Seven of those sailors drowned that day, but 20-year-old Luis Alejandro Velasco managed to fling himself aboard a small life raft, which became his temporary home on the surface of a vast and desolate sea. When he washed up on the northern Columbian shore 10 days later, he was weak, emaciated and blistered by the sun, having eaten nothing but a couple of bites of raw fish and a mysterious root, and having drunk only a few swallows of salty seawater. But he was alive. The account he later relayed to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, then a young newspaper reporter in Bogotá, offered thousands of eager and curious readers a taste of what it is like to be lost and alone at sea.   

But just as interesting as Velasco’s miraculous tale of survival is the story behind the story. Originally published as a series of 14 daily installments in the El Espectador newspaper, Marquez wrote the story from Velasco’s first person perspective and did not attach his own name to it until some 15 years later. He had spent upwards of 120 hours interviewing Velasco, who had walked into the newsroom with an offer to sell his story to reporters.
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‘The Passion’
Written by Liberty Hardy   
Thursday, 14 February 2008

by Jeanette Winterson
157 pages, 1987, Grove Press

It’s that time of year again. You know, the one Hallmark invented to sell cards? That’s right, Valentine’s Day, when people show their affection for one another with confections and flowers, while the holiday’s spokesperson, Cupid, supposedly flutters around with his bow poised, hoping to strike love between two lucky people. Right. Because nothing induces romance and makes someone feel all is right with the world like the idea of being skewered with an arrow by an androgynous flying midget in a diaper.

In reality, love isn’t a store-bought creation. Love is more like a fairytale. Not one of those Disney yarns, with singing bluebirds and mice doing the laundry, but a Grimm fairytale, with blood and torment and sometimes a happy ending, sometimes not. That’s a realistic love story. Hell, things even end badly in the book version of “The Princess Bride” (which is every bit as good as the film).

Jeanette Winterson’s “The Passion” is a phenomenal fairy tale. It reads like a bizarre fable told by magical realism master Gabriel Garcia Marquez through the eyes of surrealist painter Dali. Brazen, outlandish and lusty, “The Passion” sweeps through the idea of romance, upending everything in its way.
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‘As She Climbed Across the Table’
Written by Liberty Hardy   
Friday, 01 February 2008

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by Jonathan Lethem
Vintage, 1997, 212 pages

In nearly every romance ever portrayed on paper or screen, there is always something that threatens to separate the happy couple—another person, a war, an illness, an iceberg. But in Jonathan Lethem’s “As She Climbed Across the Table,” never before has the threat been so real ... and yet so nonexistent.

Sociologist Philip Engstand is madly in love with his girlfriend, Alice Coombs, a particle physicist. The book, narrated by Philip, opens with the unveiling of an experiment Alice and her coworkers at (fictional) Beauchamp University in California have been working on. They have created a void in the universe, an actual little black hole right in their lab, hovering over a table. Immediately, Alice is drawn to the space, which the scientists have taken to calling Lack. She starts spending late evenings at the lab with Lack, which worries Philip. What he thought was an extreme interest in her work turns into a rift in their relationship. Alice cancels all the classes she teaches and starts spending all her time in the lab. Lack has started showing hints of a personality, exhibiting an ability to make choices, and Alice spends her days testing Lack’s choice in items. She pushes things across the table, into Lack. Some pass right through to the other end, but occasionally, something disappears inside.
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Still Life with Woodpecker
Written by Liberty Hardy   
Thursday, 17 January 2008

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by Tom Robbins
Bantam Books, 1980, 277 pages

Of the 6 billion people on the planet, 1 percent of them have red hair. Until recently (or possibly still), redheads had been regarded in many cultures as evil or other-worldly, quick to temper, afraid of the sun. So, it makes perfect sense that Tom Robbins, himself a 1-percenter, would fuse redheaded lore with the angst of love and teenagedom.

Lusty, busty, redheaded Leigh-Cheri could almost pass for a normal teenager, were it not for the fact that she is a princess from deposed European royalty under CIA-protection in suburban Seattle. She lives with her mother, Queen Tilli, who is fond of opera and her Chihuahua, and her father, King Max, who loves to gamble and has a prosthetic heart. (“The noise that his heart valve produced sounded like two mechanical mice making love in a spoon drawer.”)

Recently, Leigh-Cheri has been expelled from school for having inappropriate relations with the school jock.
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‘The Fountainhead’
Written by Patrick Law   
Thursday, 03 January 2008

by Ayn Rand
1943, 752 pages, Bobbs Merrill

Every once in a while, you pull a novel from the stacks that unexpectedly delivers a philosophical kick to the head. I didn’t know much about “The Fountainhead,” by Ayn Rand, until my brother, an architecture student, handed it to me. Rand’s philosophy of selfishness as a virtue was familiar, and I knew the book had something to do with architecture, but I had no idea that, in the midst of reading it, I would be forced to question some of my deepest held convictions.

Comfortable Americans are often made to feel guilty because of their positions in life. At times, the guilt is justified—we are a greedy, consumptive lot. This guilt often motivates people to adopt a life of self-sacrifice. They serve others instead of serving themselves. But what is lost in this gesture of altruism? Everything, according to Rand. The practice of self-sacrifice eliminates any chance of individual, creative accomplishment, the kind of accomplishment that pushes human progress forward. It’s a philosophy that shakes human motivation—my own included—down to its foundation.
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‘Mole and Troll Trim the Tree’
Written by Liberty Hardy   
Thursday, 20 December 2007

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by Tony Johnston
illustrations by Wallace Tripp
1974, 30 pages, Dell Publishing

One snowy day, Mole and Troll decide that, with Christmas fast approaching, it would be a perfect time to pick out a Christmas tree. So, they get all bundled up in their coats, hats and scarves and set off into the forest to choose one. Mole could hardly contain his excitement.

“‘Let’s see,’ he said. ‘I will take that one and that one. No, wait! I want those three and that little one and that one, too!’”

Troll has to rein Mole in a little before he chops down all the trees in the woods. So, Troll decides he will spin Mole around and whichever tree Mole staggers into first, that will be the one they pick.

“So Mole covered his eyes. Troll spun him around many times. Mole planned on peeking through his fingers to make a good choice. But he got too dizzy. He wobbled smack into a little tree. It was a fat sugar pine with fluffy branches, a deep piny smell, and resin dripping down the trunk.
“‘Perfect!’ cried Troll. ‘Good choice, Mole!’
“‘Thanks,’ said Mole, wobbling around in a big circle.”
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‘The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles’
Written by Liberty Hardy   
Wednesday, 05 December 2007

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by Julie Andrews Edwards
Harper Collins Children’s Books, 1974, 277 pages

Long before Harry Potter was introduced, there were other Potters in literature—Ben, Tom and Lindy, to be exact. Mary Poppins, aka Julie Andrews Edwards, brought them into existence two decades before J.K. Rowling had written a word about the boy wonder of Hogwarts. The similarities between Harry and the other Potters are remarkable. They are all young, restless children leading dull lives who learn that there are, in fact, other places and creatures out there in the world, unbeknownst to most adults. Wait, that’s almost every kids’ story ...

The Potter children of Edwards’ book learn about a giant mythical creature when they knock on Professor Savant’s door while trick-or-treating one Halloween, and he invites them inside to teach them about Whangdoodleland. (Gosh, that sounds so much dirtier than it was meant to be. And, oh yeah. Remember, children: don’t talk to strangers.)
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‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’
Written by Liberty Hardy   
Thursday, 22 November 2007

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by Shirley Jackson
214 pages, Viking Penguin, 1962

When Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” about the evil underbelly of a normal, quaint, American town, first appeared in the New Yorker in 1948, it shook the literary world—and the country—to its core. Here was a seemingly normal woman, living a quiet family life, raising a slew of kids in Vermont, who turned out to be a housewife with fangs. People found it fascinating … and unsettling. How could a woman, a mother, think such evil things? Jackson’s refusal to answer the hundreds of queries that poured in fueled the mystery.
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'Dating Your Mom'
Written by Liberty Hardy   
Wednesday, 31 October 2007

by Ian Frazier
1986, 123 pages, Picador

Don’t be put off by the title. Well, certainly, we encourage you to be turned off by the title, but just because it sounds like a how-to book authored by Oedipus, don’t let it deter you from picking it up. “Dating Your Mom” is actually a hilarious collection of essays by author and frequent New Yorker contributor Ian Frazier.

Don’t be put off by the author photo, either. Plenty of cool guys have ponytails. Well, OK, we can only think of one other (Jeremy Heflin, we’re talking about you). But, there are always exceptions to the rule. Ian Frazier happens to be one of them.
In the opening essay, “The Bloomsbury Group Live at the Apollo (Liner Notes from the New Best-Selling Album),” Frazier imagines the personalities of the infamous English writers’ collective, which claimed such luminaries as Virginia Woolf and Lytton Strachey, performing a show at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, not so much as authors, but as rock stars. It’s a howlingly funny literary “Behind the Music.”
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‘The Art of Living Electrically’
Written by staff writer   
Wednesday, 17 October 2007

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The Electrical League of Cleveland, 1931

Ok, so this isn’t really a book, but it’s a whole lot of fun.

From the introduction:

Living electrically is a modern art. It contributes at once to the convenience and comfort, the pride and pleasure, the health and happiness of the home and the family. It is an art in which every woman should be well versed.
The woman who understands the Art of Living Electrically can become truly a queen of the home, with the equal of an army of well-trained servants at her command.

The booklet then goes on to describe the uses and value of 59 essential electrical appliances in quaint, sexist terminology, with recipes.
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The Secret History
Written by Liberty Hardy   
Wednesday, 03 October 2007

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by Donna Tartt
1992, 503 pages, Ivy Books

Like any good book, “The Secret History” begins with a conflict. Richard Papen feels he doesn’t belong in California. Sure, it’s where he’s lived his whole life, but from a young age, he’s felt that the sunshiny-polyestery-TV dinnerness of his everyday existence belonged to someone else. He’s embarrassed by his parents, moody and longing for escape. In short, he’s like every other teenager. But Richard, having recently graduated high school, secretly enrolls in Hampden College in Vermont. He’s been hiding a brochure for the school in his closet, like porn, taking it out to stare at pictures of the campus and the fall foliage. When he’s accepted, his parents begrudgingly let him go.
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'Light House'
Written by Liberty Hardy   
Wednesday, 19 September 2007

by William Monahan
223 pages, Riverhead Books

We know, we know—Tome Raider is supposed to be about old books, and “Light House” was written in 2000. While seven years may not seem like a long time (unless you’re referring to milk or hamsters), if you’ve never encountered “Light House” before, you’ve gone seven years too long without reading the funniest book ever. William Monahan, who recently picked up an Oscar for Best Screenplay for “The Departed,” has written a perverse and hilariously disturbing novel.

Think “Fawlty Towers” meets “Scarface.”

Tim Picasso is an amazingly talented art student, but too uncompromising to make it in the commercial art world. So, to make a little money, he takes a job in Florida running drugs for Jesus Castro, a Shakespear-quoting Spanish gangster. Tim’s dally with crime is brief, and he soon decides instead to steal a huge amount of money from Jesus and take off for New England to hide out.

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‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’
Written by Liberty Hardy   
Thursday, 06 September 2007

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1774, 167 pages

Love sucks. If you’re breathing, at some point in your life, love has probably bashed you over the head ... and then continued to kick you while you were down until you thought you might die. While most people believe the torment they experience over unrequited love is exclusive to them, “The Sorrows of Young Werther” realistically attests to the fact that heartbreak began occurring way before you confessed your love for someone, only to have him or her remove you as a MySpace friend.

“Sorrows” is the dramatic tale of Werther, a passionate young artist in Germany, told mostly through a series of letters written to his friend Wilhelm. Werther travels through the country to better his name and reputation in society by befriending people in higher standing. But, not long after leaving on his journey, he visits the town of Wahlheim, where he is immediately smitten with a girl named Lotte. You can tell just by reading the title that things aren’t going to go well for poor Werther.
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The Gods of Mars
Written by Dave Karlotski   
Friday, 17 August 2007

by Edgar Rice Burroughs
1913

Make no mistake: this is your grandfather’s Mars.

Or, maybe, your great-grandfather’s. Originally published serially in All-Story Magazine in 1913, “The Gods of Mars” is the second of 11 books that Edgar Rice Burroughs set on Mars—a Mars with breathable air and peopled with warring civilizations using fantastic technologies, both barbaric and advanced - written before anyone could prove otherwise.

“The Gods of Mars” follows the adventures of Captain John Carter of Virgina, a man who was transported to Mars by uncertain means and for unknown reasons to find that the lesser gravity of the red planet makes human muscles super-powered. He can out-run, out-jump and out-fight any Martian he faces, even the 8-foot tall, four-armed green warrior Martians.
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