Four Books I Want You To Read

Real quick post — here’s four books I think you should go find. And buy. And read. And rub on your body in slow, concentric circles. And then film it and put it on YouTube.

(For the record, I have Amazon links here because I’m lazy, but please search these books out at the venue of your choice — indie bookstore, library, B&N, whatever and wherever.)

(Also for the record, these are authors I know and/or have met — while you’re free to take my opinions with a grain of salt, please believe me I wouldn’t pimp the work unless I was a super-fan.)

So You Created A Wormhole: The Time Traveler’s Guide To Time Travel

Phil Hornshaw and Nick Hurwitch. Buy at Amazon.

Met these two gents at the LA Book Fest. I hadn’t heard of their book at the time, but they were kind enough to ensure I got a copy — here’s the thing, I didn’t actually intend to chew through this book like a squirrel chewing through attic insulation, but fuck it, too bad, too late. This book — in the vein of the The Zombie Survival Guide — is fuuuu-huuu-cking funny. (“In a hand-to-hand skirmish, a Viking will overpower you. Know any off-color jokes? Now’s the time, as a Viking’s sense of humor is one of his major weaknesses. They are also vulnerable to dynamite, if you happen to have any.”) I got it yesterday and sat here at my desk just mowing through it. The do’s and do not’s of time travel laid bare in a hilarious (and often insane) dissection. Not just for time travel fans but a fun examination of sci-fi tropes across the board.

Lucky Bastard

S. G. Browne. Buy at Amazon.

I confess that I’m only halfway through this book but again it’s a story I did not expect to gulp down so fast — see, I’m a slow reader. It’s just the way I am, I don’t fly through books so much as creep my way page by page like a stalker in your shrubbery. But here, Browne’s not-so-hard-boiled (“over-easy”) luck poaching (yes, he poaches luck) detective makes for charming and hilarious reading. There’s a Christopher Moore-y vibe going here if Moore wrote crime fiction. (Speakawhich, I need to read Moore’s newest. I also need to mow the lawn and clean the kitchen but I think I’d rather read books. DON’T JUDGE ME.)

All The Young Warriors

Anthony Neil Smith. Buy at Amazon.

Okay, listen. I like Smith. I like his work. But his work isn’t for everybody — Octavia from Choke On Your Lies is not an easy character to like (though I found her easy to love). But this book? This book is for everybody. This book is fucking incredible. This is Smith’s breakout work, featuring a pair of Somali-Americans who kill a cop’s pregnant girlfriend and then head to Somalia to fight in “the war,” leaving the cop behind. The cop, Bleeker, pairs up with one of the boys’ fathers in an unlikely pact of alliance and revenge — a journey which takes them through the underbelly of the Twin Cities and, eventually, to Somalia. It’s a brutal book, but funny, too, and like with all my favorite books beneath the scabs and the the rings of calcified bone you’ll find a core of heart and sorrow at the center of it, gooey and sweet and sad all at the same time. Smith’s prose is direct and potent as a fist to the throat, but he knows too when to give the story the oxygen it needs. Go grabby. (Note: only available as an e-book, which is itself a crime. This should be a goddamn bestseller, this book.)

City of the Lost

Stephen Blackmoore. Buy at Amazon.

Like the work of Harry Connolly? Or Jim Butcher? Richard Kadrey? Dude. Dude. Get in on a little Stephen Blackmoore action. Uhh, hello, zombies? Los Angeles? Bad magic? Vampires? Witches? Nazis? I’m going to go out on a limb here and do myself a favor by comparing myself to Blackmoore — which is, to reiterate, a favor to me (and probably an insult to him, but shhh), but you’ve got a complicated protagonist, lots of bloody violence, some very potty-mouthed language. This is a book I was destined to love and, I think if you dig my work, you’ll dig this. It’s “urban fantasy,” except it’s equally noir or “noirror” (noir/horror), too.

Now?

YOUR TURN.

Recommend a book. Not your own. Someone else’s.

Go.