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American Indian Trickster Tales
by Richard Erdoes, Alfonso Ortiz

ISBN 0140277714 (0-14-027771-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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More editions of American Indian Trickster Tales:
- American Indian Trickster Tales: ISBN 0670878294 (0-670-87829-4)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
- American Indian Trickster Tales: ISBN 0140277714 (0-14-027771-4)
  Softcover, Penguin Group USA
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
by David Foster Wallace

ISBN 0316925195 (0-316-92519-5)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co

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Book summary:
Amid the screams of adulation for bandanna-clad wunderkind David Foster Wallace, you might hear a small peep. It is the cry for some restraint. On occasion the reader is left in the dust wondering where the story went, as the author, literary turbochargers on full-blast, suddenly accelerates into the wild-blue-footnoted yonder in pursuit of some obscure metafictional fancy. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Wallace's latest collection, is at least in part a response to the distress signal put out by the many readers who want to ride along with him, if he'd only slow down for a second.
The intellectual gymnastics and ceaseless rumination endure (if you don't have a tolerance for that kind of thing, your nose doesn't belong in this book), but they are for the most part couched in simpler, less frenzied narratives. The book's four-piece namesake takes the form of interview transcripts, in which the conniving horror that is the male gender is revealed in all of its licentious glory. In the short, two-part "The Devil Is a Busy Man," Wallace strolls through the Hall of Mirrors that is human motivation. (Is it possible to completely rid an act of generosity of any self-serving benefits? And why is it easier to sell a couch for five dollars than it is to give it away for free?) The even shorter glimpse into modern-day social ritual, "A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life," stretches the seams of its total of seven lines with scathing economy: "She laughed extremely hard, hoping to be liked. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces." Wallace also imbues his extreme observational skills with a haunting poetic sensibility. Witness what he does to a diving board and the two darkened patches at the end of it in "Forever Overhead":
It's going to send you someplace which its own length keeps you from seeing, which seems wrong to submit to without even thinking.... They are skin abraded from feet by the violence of the disappearance of people with real weight.
Of course, not every piece is an absolute winner. "The Depressed Person" slips from purposefully clinical to unintentionally boring. "Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko" reimagines an Arthurian tale in MTV terms and holds your attention for about as long as you'd imagine from such a description. Ultimately, however, even these failed experiments are a testament to Mr. Wallace's endless if unbridled talent. Once he gets the reins completely around that sucker, it's going to be quite a ride. --Bob Michaels [via]
More editions of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men:
- Brief Interviews with Hideous Men: ISBN 0316925411 (0-316-92541-1)
  Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
- Brief Interviews with Hideous Men: ISBN 0316925195 (0-316-92519-5)
  Softcover, Little Brown & Co
via
The Broom of the System
by David Foster Wallace, Robert Boswell, Dale Peterson, Andrew Parker, Gerald Howard, Bonnie Nadell, William Kennick

ISBN 0142002429 (0-14-200242-9)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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Book summary:
Published when Wallace was just twenty-four years old, The Broom of the System stunned critics and marked the emergence of an extraordinary new talent. At the center of this outlandishly funny, fiercely intelligent novel is the bewitching heroine, Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman. The year is 1990 and the place is a slightly altered Cleveland, Ohio. Lenores great-grandmother has disappeared with twenty-five other inmates of the Shaker Heights Nursing Home. Her beau, and boss, Rick Vigorous, is insanely jealous, and her cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler, has suddenly started spouting a mixture of psycho-babble, Auden, and the King James Bible. Ingenious and entertaining, this debut from one of the most innovative writers of his generation brilliantly explores the paradoxes of language, storytelling, and reality.

[via]
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Consider the Lobster: and Other Essays
by David Foster Wallace

ISBN 0316013323 (0-316-01332-3)
Softcover, Back Bay Books

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Book summary:
Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of a vicious presidential race, plunging into the wars between dictionary writers, or confronting the World's Largest Lobster Cooker at the annual Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his and a voice as powerful and distinct as any in American letters. [via]
More editions of Consider the Lobster: and Other Essays:
- Consider the Lobster And Other Essays: ISBN 0316156116 (0-316-15611-6)
  Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
- Consider the Lobster: and Other Essays: ISBN 0316013323 (0-316-01332-3)
  Softcover, Back Bay Books
David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: A Reader's Guide
by Stephen Burn

ISBN 082641477X (0-8264-1477-X)
Softcover, Continuum Intl Pub Group

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- David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: A Reader's Guide: ISBN 082641477X (0-8264-1477-X)
  Softcover, Continuum Intl Pub Group
Deathbird Stories
by Harlan Ellison

ISBN 1587541017 (1-58754-101-7)
Softcover, Olmstead Pr

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Book summary:
Harlan Ellison's masterwork of myth and terror as he seduces all innocence on a mind-freezing odyssey into the darkest reaches of mortal terror and the most dazzling heights of Olympian hell in his finest collection.Deathbird Stories is a collection of 19 of Harlan Ellison's best stories, including Edgar and Hugo winners, originally published between 1960 and 1974. The collection contains some of Ellison-s best stories from earlier collections and is judged by some to be his most consistently high quality collection of short fiction. The theme of the collection can be loosely defined as God, or Gods. Sometimes they-re dead or dying, some of them are as brand-new as today-s technology. Unlike some of Ellison-s collections, the introductory notes to each story can be as short as a phrase and rarely run more than a sentence or two. One story took a Locus Poll Award, the two final ones both garnered Hugo Awards and Locus Poll awards, and the final one also received a Jupiter Award from the Instructors of Science Fiction in Higher Education (discontinued in 1979). When the collection was published in Britain, it won the 1979 British Science Fiction Award for Short Fiction. Table of ContentsForeword: Oblations At Alien AltarsThe Whimper Of Whipped DogsAlong The Scenic RouteOn The Downhill SideO Ye Of Little FaithNeonBasiliskPretty Maggie MoneyeyesCorpseShattered Like A Glass GoblinDelusion For A Dragon SlayerThe Face Of Helene BournouwBleeding StonesAt The Mouse CircusThe Place With No NamePaingodErnest And The Machine GodRock GodAdrift Just Off The Islets Of Langerhans: Latitude 38-54-n, Longitude 77-00-13-WThe Deathbird

His stories will rivet you to the floor and change your heartbeat-as unforgettable a chamber of horror, fantasy and reality as you-ll ever experience.
-Gallery -Brutally and flamboyantly shocking, frequently brilliant, and always irresistibly mesmerizing.-
-Richmond Times-Dispatch [via]
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A Dictionary of Modern American Usage
by Bryan A. Garner

ISBN 0195078535 (0-19-507853-5)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr

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More editions of A Dictionary of Modern American Usage:
- A Dictionary of Modern American Usage: ISBN 0195078535 (0-19-507853-5)
  Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity
by David Foster Wallace

ISBN 0393326292 (0-393-32629-2)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
Before discussing the merits of David Foster Wallace's Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity, it is essential to define what the book is not. This volume in the "Great Discoveries" series is not a history of the personalities and social conditions that led to the "discovery" of infinity. Nor is it a narrative fixated on the cultish fear of--and obsession with--the infinite that has seemingly driven mathematicians insane over the centuries. Rather, Everything and More is a surprisingly rigorous march through the 2000 plus years of mathematical research that began with Aristotle; continued through Galileo, Isaac Newton, G.W. Leibniz, Karl Weierstrass, and J.W.R. Dedekind; and culminated in Georg Cantor and his Set Theory. The task Wallace (author of the bestseller Infinite Jest and other fiction) has set himself is enormously challenging: without radically compromising the complexity of the philosophy, metaphysics, or mathematics that underlies the evolving concept of infinity, present the material to a lay audience in a manner that is entertaining. To propel his narrative, Wallace even develops a style that mirrors the mathematical language he probes. One difficulty in his focus on concepts and not a strict human chronology, though, is that his structure is dependent on frequent digressions (especially early on). Patience is required. Wallace demands that his reader walk through the equations, study the graphs and charts, and relearn college-level concepts to follow along on the exploration. Indeed, after one wrenching dip into Zenos paradoxes, Wallace spouts at his imagined complaining audience: "Deal." But the book should be deemed a success. If one grants him the attention he requires, Wallace has made the trip richly rewarding. --Patrick OKelley [via]
More editions of Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity:
- Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity: ISBN 0393003388 (0-393-00338-8)
  Hardcover, Norton & Company, Incorporated, W. W.
- Everything And More: A Compact History Of Infinity: ISBN 0393326292 (0-393-32629-2)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
Garner's Modern American Usage
by Bryan Garner

ISBN 0195161912 (0-19-516191-2)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr

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More editions of Garner's Modern American Usage:
- Garner's Modern American Usage: ISBN 0195161912 (0-19-516191-2)
  Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Girl With Curious Hair
by David Foster Wallace

ISBN 0393313964 (0-393-31396-4)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
Remarkable, hilarious and unsettling re-imaginations of reality by "a dynamic writer of extraordinary talent " (Jennifer Levin, New York Times Book Review).
Girl with Curious Hair is replete with David Foster Wallace's Remarkable and unsettling reimaginations of reality. From the eerily "real," almost holographic evocations of historical figures like Lyndon Johnson and overtelevised game-show hosts and late-night comedians to the title story, where terminal punk nihilism meets Young Republicanism, Wallace renders the incredible comprehensible, the bizarre normal, the absurd hilarious, the familiar strange. [via]
More editions of Girl With Curious Hair:
- Girl With Curious Hair: ISBN 0393027570 (0-393-02757-0)
  Hardcover, Harpercollins
- Girl With Curious Hair: ISBN 0393313964 (0-393-31396-4)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace

ISBN 0316066524 (0-316-06652-4)
Softcover, Back Bay Books

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Book summary:
In a sprawling, wild, super-hyped magnum opus, David Foster Wallace fulfills the promise of his precocious novel The Broom of the System. Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction, features a huge cast and multilevel narrative, and questions essential elements of American culture - our entertainments, our addictions, our relationships, our pleasures, our abilities to define ourselves. [via]
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The Man Who Loved Children
by Christina Stead

ISBN 0312280440 (0-312-28044-0)
Softcover, Picador USA

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Book summary:
(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed) [via]
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Nightwood
by Djuna Barnes, Cheryl J. Plumb

ISBN 1564780805 (1-56478-080-5)
Hardcover, Dalkey Archive Pr

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Book summary:
Nightwood is not only a classic of lesbian literature, but was also acknowledged by no less than T. S. Eliot as one of the great novels of the 20th century. Eliot admired Djuna Barnes' rich, evocative language. Lesbian readers will admire the exquisite craftsmanship and Barnes' penetrating insights into obsessive passion. Barnes told a friend that Nightwood was written with her own blood "while it was still running." That flowing wound was the breakup of an eight-year relationship with the lesbian love of her life. [via]
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Oblivion: Stories
by David Foster Wallace

ISBN 0316010766 (0-316-01076-6)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co

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Book summary:
In the stories that make up Oblivion, David Foster Wallace joins the rawest, most naked humanity with the infinite involutions of self-consciousness--a combination that is dazzlingly, uniquely his. These are worlds undreamt-of by any other mind. Only David Foster Wallace could convey a father's desperate loneliness by way of his son's daydreaming through a teacher's homicidal breakdown ("The Soul Is Not a Smithy"). Or could explore the deepest and most hilarious aspects of creativity by delineating the office politics surrounding a magazine profile of an artist who produces miniature sculptures in an anatomically inconceivable way ("The Suffering Channel"). Or capture the ache of love's breakdown in the painfully polite apologies of a man who believes his wife is hallucinating the sound of his snoring ("Oblivion"). Each of these stories is a complete world, as fully imagined as most entire novels, at once preposterously surreal and painfully immediate. [via]
More editions of Oblivion: Stories:
- Oblivion: Stories: ISBN 0316919810 (0-316-91981-0)
  Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
- Oblivion: Stories: ISBN 0316010766 (0-316-01076-6)
  Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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Positively Fifth Street
by James McManus

ISBN 0312422520 (0-312-42252-0)
Softcover, St Martins Pr

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Book summary:
In 2000, novelist and poet James McManus was sent to Las Vegas, innocently enough, by Harper's magazine to write a story about the World Series of Poker held annually at Binion's Horseshoe. But then, as so often happens on trips to Sin City, something kind of ... happened. Rather than becoming an objective report, McManus's article evolved into a memoir as he put his entire advance on the line, got lucky with his cards and won a spot in the competition, and came much closer than anyone expected to winning the darn thing. The result, Positively Fifth Street, is just as dazzling, exciting, and disturbing as Vegas itself.
McManus details his battles not only against his opponents but also against "Bad Jim," the portion of his own personality that needs to get in on a poker game in spite of both common and fiscal sense. Besides telling his own story, he relates the considerably more unpleasant tale of Ted Binion, whose grisly death was blamed on Binion's former stripper-girlfriend and her ex-linebacker beau. In the hands of a lesser author, the pursuit of these separate through lines of poker and the seedy personal lives of wealthy casino heirs may have lead readers to wish the author had picked just one subject. But under McManus's careful watch, they're really pretty similar: steeped in adrenaline, mystery, deception, and skating on thrillingly thin ice. Each story underscores the other, a neat little "narrative as metaphor" device, while also painting a vivid picture of Vegas casino life. Poker, as anyone who has lost at it will tell you, is an intricate game and it's nice to see a top-notch author and player relate its finer points in an entertaining style that will appeal even to non-players. The author's hilariously self-aware and at times self-loathing style make Positively Fifth Street a fun read. But beyond that, his account of nearly winning the biggest poker tournament in the world and subsequently watching as the verdicts are announced for Binion's accused murderers makes for a great story. Even if it wasn't the one he was sent there to write. --John Moe [via]
More editions of Positively Fifth Street:
- Positively Fifth Street: ISBN 0374236488 (0-374-23648-8)
  Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
- Positively Fifth Street: ISBN 0312422520 (0-312-42252-0)
  Softcover, St Martins Pr
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A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
by David Foster Wallace

ISBN 0316925284 (0-316-92528-4)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co

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Book summary:
David Foster Wallace made quite a splash in 1996 with his massive novel, Infinite Jest. Now he's back with a collection of essays entitled A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. In addition to a razor-sharp writing style, Wallace has a mercurial mind that lights on many subjects. His seven essays travel from a state fair in Illinois to a cruise ship in the Caribbean, explore how television affects literature and what makes film auteur David Lynch tick, and deconstruct deconstructionism and find the intersection between tornadoes and tennis.
These eclectic interests are enhanced by an eye (and nose) for detail: "I have seen sucrose beaches and water a very bright blue. I have seen an all-red leisure suit with flared lapels. I have smelled what suntan lotion smells like spread over 21,000 pounds of hot flesh . . ." It's evident that Wallace revels in both the life of the mind and the peculiarities of his fellows; in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again he celebrates both. [via]
More editions of A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again:
- A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: ISBN 0316919896 (0-316-91989-6)
  Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
- A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: ISBN 0316925284 (0-316-92528-4)
  Softcover, Little Brown & Co
The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology
by C. G. Jung, Paul Radin, Karl Kerenyi

ISBN 0805203516 (0-8052-0351-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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More editions of The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology:
- The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology: ISBN 0805203516 (0-8052-0351-6)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology
by Paul Radin

ISBN 0837121124 (0-8371-2112-4)
Hardcover, Greenwood Pub Group

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More editions of The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology:
- The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology: ISBN 0837121124 (0-8371-2112-4)
  Hardcover, Greenwood Pub Group
Understanding David Foster Wallace
by Marshall Boswell, Matthew Joseph Bruccoli

ISBN 1570035172 (1-57003-517-2)
Hardcover, Univ of South Carolina Pr

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More editions of Understanding David Foster Wallace:
- Understanding David Foster Wallace: ISBN 1570035172 (1-57003-517-2)
  Hardcover, Univ of South Carolina Pr