To fill your foggy summer days (which hit us later than the rest of the country), the crew at Litquake has put together a list of books to read before our October festival. Our committee, board, and advisory board nominated a slew of deserving Bay Area books published since January, then voted on their faves. Please support your local authors! Here are the results, in no particular order:
The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
This surreal peek into North Korea, one of the world’s most locked-down nations, has garnered all sorts of kudos for its wit, sympathy and timeliness. Read an interview with Adam in The Paris Review. Buy the book from IndieBound.
Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante
Winner of the 2012 California Book Award for first fiction, this book tells the story of a surgeon in the throes of Alzheimer’s who may or may not be responsible for her best friend’s death. It’s been called “remarkably poignant,” “pitch-perfect,” and “technically daring.” Listen to Maureen Corrigan’s review of Turn of Mind on NPR’s Fresh Air. Buy the book from IndieBound.
Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love by David Talbot
An engrossing look back at 1970s San Francisco, as the Summer of Love morphed into savage murder sprees, mysterious terror campaigns, political assassinations, street riots, and finally a terrifying sexual epidemic. Images from Season of the Witch. Buy the book from IndieBound.
Monstress by Lysley Tenorio
Eight taut and beguilingly weird stories make up this debut collection. “Tenorio’s stories, set amid mingling nationalities and generations, prompt comparisons to the works of Junot Díaz and Jhumpa Lahiri, who mine similar questions of how a life set apart (via immigration, nerdiness or other myriad reasons) seeps into a person’s sense of self” – Los Angeles Times. Buy the book from IndieBound.
Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys by D. A. Powell
“With his typical wry eroticism, an eagle eye for the places where men converge, and a compass that points always to desire, poet D. A. Powell leads us on a tour through a Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys, from gay bars to bathhouses and into the backwoods” – “Hot Type,” Vanity Fair. Buy the book from IndieBound.
Monkey Ranch by Julie Bruck
Stellar poetry collection from a Montreal native now living in San Francisco. A middle-aged woman, a shattered Baghdad neighborhood, a long marriage, a spoon, and even a mandrill are featured in these pages. Buy the book from IndieBound.
Equal to the Sun by Anita Amirrezvani
Based loosely on the life of Princess Pari Khan Khanoom, Equal of the Sun is a riveting story of political intrigue and a moving portrait of the unlikely bond between a princess and a eunuch. Buy the book from IndieBound.
