Link This |
Email this |
Blog This |
Comments (1)
Atypical Alternatives to Ubiquitous Books
November 6, 2007
Bestsellers, shmestshmellers. That's what I say. I also say: people who read bestsellers often will appreciate a book that's obscure but complimentary. So for your curmudgeonly/gift-giving pleasure, I present these options for three of the titles all your friends and family are reading:
Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food
by Jessica Seinfeld
Deceiving kids so they’ll eat “good food?” What kind of a lame trick is that? If you really want to mess with your kids, try Knock Knock’s How to Traumatize Your Children. Once you put precepts like “Validation is for Parking: Killing Self Esteem” and “Your Child Is His Achievements” into action, those shattered kids'll eat anything you tell them to.
Water for Elephants
by Sara Gruen
Booooring. Try Alex Boese’s Elephants on Acid. It’s not a novel, and the elephant in question doesn’t last very long (they gave him a lot of acid), but this survey of crazy-ass science experiments is at least as screwed up as Gruen’s depression-era big-top freak show, but without all that tedious narrative continuity.
Clapton: The Autobiography
by Eric Clapton
If you love Eric Clapton, check this out: the Chicago Tribune says his autobio "debunks the legend, de-mythologizes one of the most mythologized electric guitarists ever, puts a lie to the glamor of what it means to be a rock star." Who needs their stars tarnished by that kind self-effacing crap? I say keep the rock legend alive with Mingering Mike: The Amazing Career of an Imaginary Soul Superstar. In it, Dori Hadar collects the work of Mike Stevens, who as a teenager dreamed himself a wildly successful music career and then documented it, painting something like 100 album and LP covers, going so far as to invent other artists, three dozen record labels and a handful of movies for Mingering Mike to star in. Stevens’s outsider artwork is as rich with feeling and conviction as any I’ve seen, a bright, beaming, occasionally disturbing testament to the overwhelming passion that pop music can inspire in the American adolescent. You know, like Clapton used to do.
Posted by Marc Schultz on November 6, 2007 | Comments (1)
