false 16967 30072 1400095956 9781400095957 602 <![CDATA[The Brief History of the Dead]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168051103m/30072.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168051103s/30072.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30072.The_Brief_History_of_the_Dead 3.61 2341
The City is inhabited by those who have departed Earth but are still remembered by the living. They will reside in this afterlife until they are completely forgotten. But the City is shrinking, and the residents clearing out. Some of the holdouts, like Luka Sims, who produces the City’s only newspaper, are wondering what exactly is going on. Others, like Coleman Kinzler, believe it is the beginning of the end. Meanwhile, Laura Byrd is trapped in an Antarctic research station, her supplies are running low, her radio finds only static, and the power is failing. With little choice, Laura sets out across the ice to look for help, but time is running out. Kevin Brockmeier alternates these two storylines to create a lyrical and haunting story about love, loss and the power of memory.]]> 16967 3.66 3153 785 2006 1443836 0375425306 9780375425301 54 <![CDATA[The View from the Seventh Layer]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1443836.The_View_from_the_Seventh_Layer 3.95 176 The Brief History of the Dead -- has been widely praised for the richness of his imagination, the lyrical grace and playfulness of his language, and the empathic emotional complexity of his storytelling. And this dazzling collection once again affirms his place as one of the most creative and compassionate writers of his generation.

In the haunting title story, a young, asocial woman remembers the oddly honest things she wrote in her high school classmates' yearbooks and contemplates her scarred life, imagining an escape with an apparition she calls the Entity. In "Father John Melby and the Ghost of Amy Elizabeth," a formerly dull and turgid pastor is touched by a spirit that turns his sermons into crowd-pleasers -- that is, until he discovers his inspiration is a little less than divine. "The Human Soul as a Rube Goldberg Device" is a gorgeous homage to the classic, young readers' choose-your-own-adventure novels. But this one is for grown-ups who can navigate through imagery and dead ends, and toward a resolution that only Kevin Brockmeier could have invented. From the fantastical to the concrete, the range of this collection is breathtaking. It moves fluidly, finding beauty in the quiet, often overlooked corners of the world.

By turns daring and moving, The View from the Seventh Layer is crafted with the remarkable voice and vision that have become hallmarks of Brockmeier's acclaimed fiction.]]> 16967 3.66 3153 785 2008 109339 0375727698 9780375727696 23 <![CDATA[Things that Fall from the Sky]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171602510m/109339.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171602510s/109339.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/109339.Things_that_Fall_from_the_Sky 3.96 155 Things That Fall from the Sky, Brockmeier writes in painstaking prose that's long on exposition and short on action. Many of these stories concern children. In "These Hands," a thirtysomething man, possibly with Nabokovian intentions, baby-sits an 18-month-old girl. In the title story, a depressive librarian finds relief, and even guidance, in the company of her small granddaughter. And in "The House at the End of the World," 4-year-old Holly describes her isolated life in a shack in the woods with her father: "This was during the collapse of civilization, and I believed we were the only people in the world." Here Brockmeier's expository style pays off, as he describes in detail father and daughter setting traps, lighting lanterns, and tracking streams. It's a kind of end-of-days Little House in the Big Woods, except, of course, the father is crazy, and civilization has not collapsed. In the end, Holly's mother comes to take her away, and Brockmeier doesn't shy for a moment from Holly's pain as she is carried "from the house and the bed and the world which were mine." At his best, Brockmeier writes with excruciatingly thorough imagination. --Claire Dederer]]> 16967 3.66 3153 785 2002 109340 0375727701 9780375727702 26 <![CDATA[The Truth About Celia]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171602511m/109340.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171602511s/109340.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/109340.The_Truth_About_Celia 3.76 156
Utterly shattered, Christopher, a writer of fantasy and science fiction, withdraws from everyone around him, especially his wife, losing himself in his writing by conjuring up worlds where Celia still exists—as a child, as a teenager, as a young single mother—and revealing in his stories not only his own point of view but also those of Janet, the policeman in charge of the case, and the townspeople affected by the tragedy, ultimately culminating in a portrait of a small town changed forever. The Truth About Celia is a profound meditation on grief and loss and how we carry on in its aftermath.]]> 16967 3.66 3153 785 2003 109341 0060736917 9780060736910 6 <![CDATA[Grooves: A Kind of Mystery]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171602511m/109341.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171602511s/109341.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/109341.Grooves_A_Kind_of_Mystery 3.30 40 A quirky middle–grade novel about an enterprising seventh–grader who discovers an astonishing plea for help in the grooves of his blue jeans.

Dwayne Ruggles is a regular kid living in a regular town until evil entrepreneur Howard Thigpen shows up. Thigpen seems to have the ability to make people do whatever he wants, and sparks of light swirl around him wherever he goes. But the mystery doesn't stop there. Dwayne discovers that the grooves in his Thigpen–brand blue jeans and the ripples in his Thigpen–brand potato chips contain a secret message, "Please. You must help us. He's stealing the light from our eyes." It's a race against time to solve the mystery, but first Dwayne better figure out what that strange message means.

Ages 8+

]]> 16967 3.66 3153 785 2006 43430 0970335563 1 <![CDATA[McSweeney's 7 (McSweeney's Quarterly, Volume 7)]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43430.McSweeney_s_7 4.03 29 3371 3.75 89455 11538 2715 3.86 71017 9833 5112 4.27 6361 629 7533 4.07 57 8 16967 3.66 3153 785 29073 3.40 1985 250 36120 3.07 1080 242 225689 3.62 86 13 598299 3.55 5918 1025 940746 3.83 2888 533 2001 850491 0670035653 9780670035656 3 <![CDATA[City of Names]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178897657m/850491.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178897657s/850491.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/850491.City_of_Names 3.50 16 16967 3.66 3153 785 2002 6535214 0980226082 9780980226089 0 <![CDATA[The Best American Fantasy 3]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6535214-the-best-american-fantasy-3 0.0 0 Best American Fantasy series continues with 20 stories chosen by best-selling writer Kevin Brockmeier. With stories by established writers, such as Peter S. Beagle, Laura Kasischke, Jeffrey Ford, and Lisa Goldstein, alongside tales by brilliant newcomers like Kellie Wells, Thomas Glave, Ryan Boudinot, and Rebecca Makkai, Real Unreal delivers a richly diverse experience of contemporary fiction. Guest editor Brockmeier knows fantasy inside and out: he is the recipient of three O. Henry Awards, the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award, and an Italo Calvino Short Fiction Award. His stories have been published widely, including The New Yorker, The Georgia Review, McSweeney's, and The Oxford American, and have been reprinted in Best American Short Stories, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and the first volume of The Best American Fantasy.</DIV>]]> 16967 3.66 3153 785 2321737 5.00 1 1 2010