books for july
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Don't leave Earth without this hilarious international bestseller about the end of the world and the happy-go-lucky days that follow...about the worst Thursday that ever happened and why the Universe is a lot safer if you bring a towel.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is no ordinary bird. He believes it is every gull's right to fly, to reach the ultimate freedom of challenge and discovery, finding his greatest reward in teaching younger gulls the joy of flight and the power of dreams.
Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
Chuck Palahniuk, author of the dangerously brilliant Fight Club, pulls no punches in his latest novel, Choke. Once again, Palahniuk invites us to experience the underground, church-basement-dwelling world of the 12-step program. Only this time we're not in for testicular, bone, or skin cancer; this time we're dealing with sexual addiction. Not that former med student Victor Mancini has a problem, 'cause he doesn't. But when it comes to getting a little action, where better to go?
Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley
Nick Naylor likes his job. In the neo-puritanical nineties, it's a challenge to defend the rights of smokers and a privilege to promote their liberty. Sure, it hurts a little when you're compared to Nazi war criminals, but Nick says he's just doing what it takes to pay the mortgage and put his son through Washington's elite private school St. Euthanasius. He can handle the pressure from the antismoking zealots, but he is less certain about his new boss, BR, who questions whether Nick is worth $150,000 a year to fight a losing war. Under pressure to produce results, Nick goes on a PR offensive. But his heightened notoriety makes him a target for someone who wants to prove just how hazardous smoking can be. If Nick isn't careful, he's going to be stubbed out.
OOPS! I accidentally posted this on my journal instead of here so vote quick so we can have it up by tomorrow...or the next day! ^_^
Until I Find You by John Irving
The publication of a John Irving novel is always a major literary event, but its magnitude shouldn't obscure the more simple pleasures. In his 11th work of fiction, Irving stakes out the story of actor Jack Burns, the son of Alice, a Toronto tattoo artist, and William, a runaway Edinburgh organist. Alice does not take William's disappearance lightly; with young Jack in tow, she travels from European seaport to seaport, searching unsuccessfully for her former mate. In Jack's subsequent life in Hollywood and elsewhere, he too remains a searcher.
Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker
Baker's irresistibly readable short novel presents the quirkyand often hilarious inner life of a thoroughly modern office worker. With high wit and in precisely articulated prose, the unnamed narrator examines, in minute and comically digressive detail, the little things in life that illustrate how one addresses a problem or a new idea: the plastic straw (and its annoying tendency to float), the vacuous civilities of office chatter, doorknobs, neckties, escalators and the laughable evolution of milk delivery from those old-fashioned hefty bottles to the folding carton. Using the keenly observed odds and ends of day-to-day consciousness, Baker allows his narrator to recreate the budding perceptions of a child facing a larger mysterious world, as each event in his day conjures up memories of previous incidents. Through the elegant manipulation of time, and sharp, defining memories of childhood, the narrator dissects each item of apparent cultural flotsam with the thoroughness of a prosaic, though wacky, technical manual. The rambling ``footnotes'' alone are worth the price of this cheerfully original novel.