The Written Nerd

Shop Indie Bookstores Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Allison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin) (Bonus: mad hipster queer indie cred!) Before she became a literary hero with her memoir Fun Home , Allison Bechdel spent a couple of decades writing a comic strip. But in the hands of someone so talented, a comic strip became a combination of an astute weekly political column and an endless Victorian novel. I spent weeks obsessed with the fates of the hilarious, smart-mouthed queer women and men of all stripes in the world of The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For -- it's a juicy soap opera, smart social commentary, and insight into the mind of a writer. Worth spending some time with, whatever you're watching out for.

Shop Indie Bookstores Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day In the Life of Your Body by Jennifer Ackerman (Mariner) (Bonus: killer at cocktail parties!) Did you know that you probably have a single neuron in your brain that corresponds to the face of your grandmother, and one for Jennifer Anniston? Did you know that you're slightly taller when you wake up, or that your alcohol tolerance is highest during happy hour? Ackerman's accessible, irresistible book is chock-full of such fun facts to know and tell, as she outlines human biology and psychology over the course of a single day, and the effect that daily circadian rhythms have on almost everything we do. I don't read a lot of informational nonfiction, so it takes something truly special to pull me in -- this one did it so effectively I was peppering my conversation with tidbits of science for weeks. Read it for sure-fire cocktail party chatter, or if you want to know how to get the biggest kick out of your morning coffee...

Shop Indie Bookstores I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley (Riverhead/Penguin) (Bonus: Cake! Er, I mean another author who's a really decent human being!) In observation of my birthday, I'm highlighting fellow befuddled but well-meaning white girl Sloane Crosley; I feel she would understand both the bittersweet moment of growing up (I'm 30 today), and my ravenous need for cake. Ms. Crosley, a publicist at Vintage (whom I've had the pleasure of working with as publicist and as author), has inspired a certain amount of backlash for the crime of having it all: a professional career, a writing career, A-listers like Jonathan Lethem in her Rolodex, and she's cute, too. Strangely enough, she seems to have these things because she actually deserves them: she's talented, professional, and a really nice person. And her essays even deserve the Lethem blurb they bear. From the story of locking herself out of two different apartments in the same day while movi...

Shop Indie Bookstores The Size of the World by Joan Silber (W. W. Norton) (Bonus: most under-rated writer in America!) I'll say it again: Joan Silber is one of our truly great writers, and deserves wider recognition. I fell in love with her work in Ideas of Heaven (which was shortlisted for the National Book Award), and her new work takes the novel-in-short-stories to yet another level. The Size of the World is a masterpiece both epic and intimate, quietly straightforward and ambitiously interconnected. Her characters are heartbreakingly human, and her sentences will floor you. This is a great book to read on a trip, or while contemplating the vastness of it all right at home. And check out my lengthier rave about the book from earlier this year. This is one of my must-reads: highly recommended for any reader. And as yet another bonus, Joan is a local author and shops at McNally Jackson; it's always a thrill to see one's heroes in the flesh (and shopping indie to boot).

Shop Indie Bookstores The 13 Clocks by James Thurber (New York Review of Books) (Bonus: great for kids, adults, and reading aloud!) "We all have flaws," the Duke said. "Mine is being wicked." As you'd expect from James Thurber, this odd and original fairy tale is only partly for kids, and adults will find themselves cracking up at the one-liners, rooting for the cheeky Prince, shuddering at the horrifying Todal, and utterly satisfied by the reading experience. This is one for the ages, and I'm so glad NYRB had the wisdom to reissue it so I can gloat over its pleasures again.

Shop Indie Bookstores Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon (McSweeney's) (Bonus: Top 5 favorite Book Nerd author AND Book design of your wildest dreams!) Some of these essays are mere autobiographical fillips; some are semi-sinister trickster tales that mix truth and lies; some are heady considerations of the successes and failings of contemporary literature. All are written with Chabon’s unparalleled wit and richness of language, and engage his favorite themes of genre fiction and Jewishness. Buy it now, if only to posesses the astonishingly complex and beautiful book design by cartoonist Jordan Crane; once this print run is gone it’ll be a plain old book again, like magic ending after the stroke of midnight. Also, if you're looking to gift (or for some winter vacation reading of your own), one of my favorite books of last year is a Chabon novel now out in paperback. Gentlemen of the Road is the quintessential boys' adventure tale: mysterious strangers, pitched odds, sword...

Shop Indie Bookstores Personal Days by Ed Park (Random House) (Bonus: Terrifyingly timely!) Joshua Ferris' highly acclaimed novel Then We Came To The End demonstrated that actual literature can happen in cubicle land. The funny and charming Ed Park (co-editor of The Believer ) takes it a step further with Personal Days : structural innovation, wordplay, paranoia and misdirection... applied to the realm of random firings, arbitrary protocols, dumb nicknames, and potential romance that define contemporary office life. Kafka, Nabokov, and yes, Dwight Schrute would feel right at home. While I'm not sure which group will be publishing Personal Days after the Black Wednesday shufle in publishing, the terrors of corporate life were never more apparent, nor more in need of a dose of irreverence. Courage and good cheer to our colleagues on the publishing side -- may you be able to laugh, albeit ruefully, at the vagaries of the Company, and not wait until your laptop battery is dy...