|
RECEIVE 20% OFF WHEN YOU PURCHASE THE KITES
THROUGH JANUARY AND FEBRUARY
| | |
By Sabahattin Ali
Other Press
Paperback $17.99
Best Wellers Price $14.39
Reviewed by Gia Aguilar
If there is one thing generation z understands, it is yearning and rotting.
There has been a resurgence in the consumption of unrequited love stories. Before Sunrise, White Nights (which Madonna in a Fur Coat is a much better take of), and this wonderful book to name a few. Ali's writing is lyrical and packs it all in with a punch.
This book is bitter, but I found myself inspired by it. There is so much beauty to be had in the world, and to let anything diminish it is a shame. I found myself thinking while reading: "this is what not to do!" Though admittedly I have not found a love that would let my life be torn apart by it.
“But soon the house will fill with their shouting and laughter. What does any of it mean to me? When all human ties are severed, what is left? I have not uttered a single true word in ten years. But now, how desperately I need a confidant. What else is there left for me, but to spill out these words and then drown in them?” There are so many lines like that throughout the book. Instances when I connected with them, even though it's not a path I wish for myself. Fleeting thoughts of losing hope, and continuing life dully. Raif is a character full of love and warmth, but one who fails to get past his dreamy idealizations. Ultimately letting his love for Maria ruin him.
The true tragedy doesn’t lie with the unrequited love aspect, but with Raif losing any hope of happiness.
| | |
By Michael Pollan
Penguin Press
Hardcover $32.00
Reviewed by Tony Weller
It seems natural following his psychedelic investigations in his 2018 book, How to Change Your Mind that Michael Pollan’s curiosity would be drawn to the very nature of consciousness. In A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness, he attempts to get to the bottom of consciousness by meeting the world’s most accomplished and sometimes controversial investigators, ranging from psychologists to AI technicians, from biologists to theologians, from physicians to philosophers, hearing all and reckoning possibility from within the box. It is the unsurpassable dilemma of the inquiry, that no observer can assess consciousness without using consciousness. And objectivity is thwarted by the specificity of incidental and unique experiences that inform and stimulate each person’s consciousness. It’s like shining a light in a hall of mirrors.
I value Pollan’s expansive curiosity and his diligent and humble attempts to grasp gigantic ideas. He is skilled at interpreting complex ideas. Reading A World Appears, one learns about the tiniest forms of biological consciousness as well as AI theories about consciousness without biology at all. Pollan can’t quite reach accord with tech enthusiasts who suggest that consciousness may not be limited to living beings. Reading the theories from biology to AI, I find myself siding with Pollan if only for no other reasons than love and dread, which are hugely influential but impossible to measure. In this book, I learned about plant consciousness and perception occurring without neurology. So I started watching our houseplants more closely. The apical meristems of a plant in our kitchen relocate themselves daily and they do not always seek sunlight.
A theory of consciousness must account for alternate theories to prove itself. Pollan’s comparisons of competing theories are somewhat complicated by disagreements about the very definition of consciousness. Speculations include wondering how any investigator could validate the sound theory if one could be got. But it is generally agreed that the successful theory must encompass the whole of consciousness. In this spirit, thinkers must grapple with unordinary realities.
I am not more surprised than Pollan that irrefutable definitions of consciousness may likely remain out of our grasp always. Nonetheless, the many theories brought together in A World Appears might provide us with enough points to approximate what consciousness is, and more importantly, what it is not. After exhausting himself and his inquiries on sundry complicated paths with brilliant thinkers, in Pollan’s concluding chapter he visits a Zen monastery. Roshi Joan did not answer his questions but she may have palliated his inquiries by making him live in a cave for a few days. His journey ends without conclusion. Nonetheless, he and this reader find that the mere existence of human consciousness is miraculous. Feeling, perceiving, thinking, and questioning are delightful magic.
|   | |
By Lindy West
Grand Central Publishing
Hardcover $29.00
Reviewed by Claire Corwin
Ah Lindy West. What a writer. I've been following her since her splashy debut, Shrill, I subscribe to her unhinged newsletter, Butt News, and religiously listen to her podcast, Text Me Back. She is one of the most obsessive parasocial relationships in my life right now, so you know I was all over her new memoir, Adult Braces. Let me tell you, she delivers. This book is the perfect mixture of earnest soul-searching and goofy travel narrative.
When her husband, Ahamefule (who had always been clear about his non-monogamous relationship style), finds someone new to love, Lindy's world fell apart. She always knew he may act on it-- they were both very open in talking about their marriage through and through. But West thought if she could be the "perfect wife," Aham would never want to be with someone else. She loses herself in trying to be better than anybody else and living this role she didn't quite fit into. But even the best laid toxic strategies don't go as planned, and Aham winds up finding someone. As his relationship with the new woman, Roya, becomes stronger, Lindy knows she has to either let go and leave or deal with this new reality. But what do you do when you love your husband more than anything and don't want to leave him? And what if he doesn't want to leave you?
In order to sort her feelings about this situation, Lindy decides to rent an RV and trek across America to the Florida Keys- a dream location that promises much needed serenity. West talks about her feelings and state of mind during the trip, and considers the ins and outs of relationships. It's a beautiful meditation on one woman's journey toward self acceptance, and ultimately opening her heart to more love than she could possibly imagine.
Adult Braces is an uplifting exploration of relationships and sexuality in an open and welcoming package. Lindy is far from perfect, and she is able to capture all the messy parts of learning and growing with heart and compassion.
| | |
By Christopher Hill
Penguin Books
Paperback $20.00
Reviewed by Dylan Parry
Christopher Hill is one of England’s best historians, living or dead, and his history of England’s 17th century civil wars makes that very apparent. It's precisely because Hill doesn’t fall into the same old simple trappings of Roundhead vs Cavaliers, or focus on big names like Oliver Cromwell, Charles I and the like, that makes his history of the period stand out.
Hill looks to write a history from the bottom up. In The World Turned Upside Down, we are introduced to names such as Gerard Winstanley, George Fox, and Jon Warr, among many others who dreamt of a different world and way of life, without Kings or royalty. But as history shows, just because you’re anti-Monarchy, doesn't mean you and the rest all agree on how to conduct yourselves in a new King-free society.
Throughout, we are introduced to the various protestant religious sects that began to flourish once Cromwell and his Roundheads had decided to take off Charles I’s head, and create their version of Heaven on Earth, while what remained of the English aristocracy fled to Catholic France to regroup.
Of these sects, some may be familiar to us now: Quakers, Baptists, Calvinists, and historically, Levellers all make an appearance. Others not so familiar, like the possibly mythical Ranters and Seekers make appearances as well, either as too radical to continue existing or used as a boogeyman against lasciviousness and other immoralities the new regime had decreed against.
But as I said, this is written to be a bottom-up history of the time, and so we are introduced to many recorded figures who’s names would be forgotten without the help of Hill, and his attempt to show that the civil wars were more than just a bloody battle between Parliamentarian and Royalist, but a truly revolutionary time (perhaps the most ever in English history,) when men and women alike challenged the divine right of kings, and attempted in some aspects to create a more communal and egalitarian society, though with plenty of emphasis and inspirational interpretations from the Bible.
For example, Gerard Winstanley and his group known colloquially as The Diggers (for which the later hippie group took its name,) but who called themselves the True Levellers, in contrast to Oliver Cromwell’s Levellers, were far more hierarchal and rigid in their thinking than the True Levellers. Winstanley is one of the few names who’s own writings still come down to us, and who’s dream of a more egalitarian society (regardless of gender, a true leveling of society you might say,) was squashed when Cromwell and his lackeys in London could no longer accept their radical ways of living. Early Quakerism also shows a more liberal, less conservative form of itself in the book, but Hill does a good job of showing how and where exactly the Christian branch began to make the shift.
The Ranters of the book were probably a mix of myth and eccentrics tired of rigid moralisms and hierarchies. Something like Anarchists of their day, the Ranters did just that, they ranted and raved, according to sources who were far from sympathetic to their reasoning. Ranters you could say, were those who enjoy a drink, music, a frolic in the sheets with whoever was around to enjoy in the fun, and wanted nothing more than to enjoy life.
Hill’s history is rich, detailed, and worth multiple reads, you will always come away with something new, interesting, and never boring to share.
| | |
By J.D. Salinger
Little, Brown, & Co.
Paperback $17.99
Reviewed by Liam Harrison-Stewart
In my heart and mind, I always return to The Catcher in the Rye whenever I find myself in an emotionally or mentally challenging period in my personal life. J.D. Salinger’s classic novel still resonates with me almost everyday. There is something so bleak about the realism behind the plotline, yet whenever I reread it, I can feel my struggling younger self getting the empathy I needed to the point that I get emotional. The perspectives and opinions of the main character, Holden Caulfield, often align with my own and if he were real, I think we’d be good friends.
Anyone who paid attention in high school English class knows the story and is bored of hearing it. Not me though. I could never grow bored of this story. The reason for judgment on this book is the mistaken assumption that Salinger wants the audience to feel sorry for Holden, a white teenage male who has obvious privilege being enrolled at a private school and having the world at his fingertips. In today’s society, I agree it is hard to feel sorry for someone who matches that profile. However, I don’t believe that is Salinger’s intent to pity Holden. Salinger is illustrating how difficult it is to grapple with the loss of innocence and childhood, when you have to face the horror of reality simply because you’ve grown up and have gained a realistic understanding of the world around you. Holden is chosen as the window into this illustration of loss because every teenager experiences it, no matter your social class or privilege, though those factors can affect how quickly it changes you.
Set in Great Depression era Manhattan, Holden Caulfield, a young teenager who has just been expelled from boarding school, goes on a three day journey through the city streets alone, searching for authenticity in society. He is met with people who are not interested in finding such authentic meaning in life. Among these people are old friends who see Holden’s disillusionment as immaturity, adults who seemingly don’t have the time or energy for philosophical thought because they are completely focused on work, family, or partying the nights away, and even a prostitute who Holden tries to befriend but finds she only wants to sleep with him.
As the book continues, Holden’s encounters with these “phony” characters, coupled with all nighters of drinking, walking the streets with no sleep, and painful memories of his childhood sweetheart and his deceased little brother gradually take Holden’s mental state down. He finds only a certain type of person to be truly real and authentic, and that is a child. Watching in the streets as children play in puddles, their parents trying to drag them away, Holden feels a sense of sadness, as well as longing to protect these children, to be a “Catcher in a rye field”, catching all the children before they fall off a cliff. Holden’s longing to protect the younger generation becomes even more amplified in his relationship with his younger sister, Phoebe, who he has a deep love for above anyone else in his life, because of the childhood innocence she symbolizes for him.
If you’ve only heard the stereotypical judgments of this book, I graciously ask you to give it a try. Losing your childhood and finding genuine people to love as an adult are struggles we all face. I think you’ll find yourself enthralled in this and if you are anything like me, you will start crying within the first few chapters.
| | |
The complete Works of Charles Dickens. 45 sturdy blue cloth volumes with gilt top edges. One of 500 of the Cruikshank Edition published by Samuel
E. Cassino circa 1900.
Handsome illustrated
volumes. $3000
| | |
A very nice, though jacketless, American 1st edition of Daphne DuMaurier’s beloved 1938 novel, Rebecca. $125
| | |
A Compendium of Alchemical Processes. Extracted from the writings of [Johann Rudolph] Glauber, Basil Valantine and other adepts. A 1981 cloth bound reprint from Samuel Weiser. $150
| | Eight slipcased volumes of The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman. Large volumes with creepy bold wordless dustjackets. Slipcases are also variously adorned. $400 | | | 30 thick Marvel Omnibuses of. X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force and many others. Heavy 600 – 1000-page volumes printed within the last decade. Some are two or three volume sets. Prices: $75 - $300 | | | |
As always, view our events calendar to see all of our upcoming events.
We host both virtual and in-person events, and we look forward to seeing you soon.
| | |
Come visit us!
SUNDAY 12-5
MONDAY-THURSDAY 10-8
FRIDAY & SATURDAY 10-9
| | |
Can’t make it to the store?
Support your local indie from home!
Order by phone or online, then pick up at the store or the curb! We also ship!
| | |
Give us a call at 801-328-2586.
Shop new books on our website.
Browse our entire inventory of new, used and rare books on Biblio.com.
Listen to audiobooks from Libro.fm.
| | This issue of Textblock is edited by Liam Harrison-Stewart | | | | |
