Dave N.'s Picks
David moonlights here. His day job is as an amazingly cool teacher of English. He is the reigning spelling bee champ.
JULY 2019
Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett teamed up for Good Omens, published in 1990, and now a streaming, episodic "dramedy". Gaiman's first solo novel, however, was Neverwhere, published in 1996, and considered today to be an urban fantasy classic. It is a part of NPR's Great American Reads, their list of the 100 most loved books. Set in a world with a London Above and a London Below, where residents of one are unaware of the others, this dark urban fantasy plays on how identity is shaped by a place, especially the place we choose rather than the one we are habituated to occupy.
MAY 2019
Winner of the Pulitzer prize, 2001.Chabon's story begins in 1939 with tale of a Houdini-inspired young escape artist who has come from Nazi Germany to take up lodging in Brooklyn with his cousin, an aspiring artist with an interest in comic books, the new pop culture phenomenon for teenagers in America, The story spans several years in the careers and lives of these American dreamers.-Note: I'm currently reading this again for a book club selection! Let me know what you think!
MARCH 2019
The first book of the Marseilles Trilogy, Total Chaos is an outstanding entry into the genre of Mediterranean Noir. American Noir featured stone cold detectives, flatfooted police, a damsel in distress, a pistol in a pocket, and often, some mysterious object or secret motivation that spurned on the crime and the criminologist. In Total Chaos, and in the Mediterranean Noir in general, the novel is set against a backdrop of political and social upheaval. Personal relationships complicate... well, everything. You don't want me to say more. This book is followed by Chourmo.