The parrot of a young Jewish refugee constantly rattles off numbers in German. There’s much speculation about the numbers, and than a murder happeneds

Tells the tale of two wandering Jews, con-men and bandits who jestingly call themselves “Gentlemen of the Road”.

Nat Jaffe and Archy Stallings are the owners of Brokeland Records, one of the few bastions of vinyl record stores left in Oakland, CA circa 2004. In comes Gibson Goode, ex-NFL star, multi-millionaire and entrepreneur who wants to open his Dogpile megastore in the area. The megastore will force Brokeland Records, who are struggling as it is, to close

A fictional alternate history book published in 2007. This book has won several science fiction awards: the Nebula Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best SF Novel, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and the Sidewise Award for Alternate History for Best Novel. It was shortlisted for the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel and the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel.

The book touches on many themes, such as the role Jewish writers and artists played in American pop culture (like it or not comics are American mythology).

Audiobooks The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff – Very well could be the most important book written since the invention of social media. The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb by Sam Kean – Tells the story of how the Allies were attempting to stop the Germans from getting a nuclear bomb. Bending Toward the Sun: A Mother and Daughter Memoir by Leslie Gilbert-Lurie and Rita Lurie – Tells of how the mother’s holocaust experience affected later generations. The book is told through the eyes of Rita, the mother and a holocaust survivor, and her daughter, Leslie, who grew up in the United States. Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope -Tells of one of the biggest financial heists in history Black Ops: The Rise of Special Forces in the CIA, the SAS, and Mossad by Tony Geraghty – Goes through the history of those clandestine services, from a bird’s eye view Donovan’s Devils: OSS Commandos Behind Enemy Lines―Europe, World War II by…

“The merchandise was not the thing, and neither, for that matter, was the nostalgia. It was all about the neighborhood, that space where common sorrow could be drowned in common passion as the talk grew ever more scholarly and wild.” Represent for Brokeland in this limited-edition tee by Michael Chabon. Authentic vintage-label flavor meets a spiral groove sampled from the New York Times bestseller Telegraph Avenue (now out in paperback from HarperCollins). Check out my thoughts on Telegraph Avenue. Brokeland: it’s a record store, it’s a neighborhood, it’s an independent, if fictional, state of mind. All profits to be divided between 826 National and The MacDowell Colony. Get your LIMITED EDITION Tee Today!

While visiting the blog River City Reading, I noticed a post about 21st Century Novels which were destined to become classics published by The Inquisitr (original post). As with any list, it is a point of contention and debate. I don’t feel that reviewers decide what is or what is not a classic, but the people do as well as time. After all, many books which we consider classics these days were serialized adventure stories in newspapers (The Three Musketeers for example). But first – here is the list: 15. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen 14. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green 13. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver 12. A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin 11. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 10. The Help by Kathryn Stockett 9. Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron 8. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon 7. American Gods by Neil Gaiman 6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling 5. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson 4. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett 3. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold 2. The Road by Cormac…

Superman – the granddaddy of all superheroes, the one who started it all, the icon who is held to higher standard in fiction and has set the standards for many of us in the non-fiction world. It’s no wonder why the franchise is almost 80 years strong and growing stronger.

I was intensely interested in English and world literature throughout high school and college. I devoured every classic and newly published novel that I could get my hands on—from Chaucer to Chabon, Rumi to Rushdie. And during that entire time—what I now consider to be my peak reading period—I somehow managed to forgo reading Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s infamous novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. Sure, I knew that it existed, but there were always other books to conquer. I kept sidelining the tome for other works, until I forgot about it entirely. Buy this book in paper from Amazon.com Years passed before a close friend of mine called me up to tell me of a great book he just read, one that he insisted that I read immediately. Of course the book was One Hundred Years of Solitude; the classic had finally caught up with me. I finished the novel only a few days ago, and I have more than a few things to say about it. Brass tacks plot overview For those of you who haven’t read One Hundred Years of Solitude, here’s a (spoiler free) summary. The entirety of the novel takes place in a town called Macondo in Columbia, a city established by Jose ArcadioBuendia, his wife Ursula, and…