Andy Goldsworthy
The artwork of Goldsworthy is about nature and impermanence. Like artist Robert Smithson (Spiral Jetty), Goldsworthy’s works are meant to erode and disappear over time. The only records are photos. Working with whatever is at hand, Goldsworthy sculpts and creates with leaves, rocks, ice and twigs. Short commentary …
Dennis Kitchen, intro by Garrison Keillor
I’m a sucker for photo essays. This is one of my favorites. Kitchen traveled the US, photographing the smallest towns in each state. What a variety of responses he received! Some towns turned out in full force – all 2,4 or 6 of them. …
Frank Warren
This new book highlights the postcard collection of PostSecret (http://postsecret.blogspot.com/). Back in 2003, Warren passed out 3000 blank postcards addressed to him. He asked people to decorate them and write a secret on them, then send them to him. Thousands of cards were sent – many …
Scott Adams
I love this book. It was one of my saving graces while working for The Evil Company. Adams takes the view that most people are weasels. You can either be the victim of weasels, or become a weasel yourself. Illustrated with numerous Dilbert cartoon and real letters sent …
Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg, M.D.
This strange combo of a TV writer and a ER medical doctor came up with their “ticket to fame” – a book filled with questions “You’d only ask a doctor after your third martini.” Goldberg and Leyner answer a slew of questions – from …
Cash Peters
Peters’ travelogue is by far the oddest I have ever read. Peters is best known for doing short segments on wacky roadside attractions for public radio shows like The Savvy Traveler. Within a few pages, Peters makes clear how much he loathes this lifestyle. Fourteen years of being …
Museum of Bad Art
http://www.museumofbadart.org/
After wandering through the Museum of Bad Art’s online gallery, look of abject horror frozen on my face, I HAD to see the book. My god, what were these people thinking?! The museum “is the world’s only museum dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition and …
Nick Hornby
A Long Way Down reminds me of Douglas Coupland’s writing, the story is wry, funny and depressingly accurate. The plot follows four mismatched people who meet on a rooftop, New Years, to commit suicide. The middle-aged mother with a son in a vegetative state, the former morning -show …
Richard Porter
This fantastically snarky book full lives up to its title. Porter lists the (arguably) 50 top bombs and give succinct descriptions of the lemon, along with a nasty little “If this car was…” tagline. #15, the AMC Gremlin “If this car was… a movie, it would be ‘Dude, …
Lloyd Kahn
I love this book. I love it so much I actually bought it. With real money and everything. Kahn’s book is a massive collection of hand built shelters of every sort of building material possible. And they are truly inspiring. There are fantastic homes built of light concrete …
The Petras Siblings
I did so enjoy Here Speeching American that I grabbed another one of the Petras’ books. Through what must have been painfully arduous research, the duo managed to out together a collection of the worst poetry ever. No really, it is that bad. Godawful, in fact. Poems …
Kathryn Petras and Ross Petras
So enough with the serious literature already.
The Petras siblings came up with a hilarious little collection of horribly, painfully mangled attempts at English from around the world. Fans of engrish.com will recognize some of the old favorites (“No smorking!” )but there is a world …
Martha Beck
I’m not sure really what to classify this book as. After deciding to have a Downs Syndrome baby, Beck describes her decision to leave grad school and Harvard to return to her hometown of Provo Utah and her Mormon family. Through a winding path she describes the friendliness …
Sue Monk Kidd
The third of the “Books by Authors I Really Dig” is Sue Monk Kidd’s new book The Mermaid Chair. Kidd made quite the splash a few years ago with The Secret Life of Bees (so much so that one of my friends left the tech sector to …
Douglas Coupland
Though I’ve never heard him described as such, I also consider Coupland a magical-realist. Mostly he is known as the darling writer of Gen-X, whatever that may be. Coupland does have a knack for creating wholly believable modern characters. Parents and elders are not omnipotent. They are as …
Alice Hoffman
Hoffman is herself a queen – of magical realism. While spinning her story, she dabbles a toe her in there in pools of the fantastic. You barely notice the ripples here and there, until suddenly the most fantastic things seem totally believable. Sure, I can believe the woodman …
