Titlebar

Houghton Mifflin




Title Author Publisher Price
Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006 David Eggers Houghton Mifflin $12.75
($14.00 list)
Bestnonreq2006
Read more and comment... 		edited by David Eggers While we're on the topic of best-of anthologies, we might as well hep you to this year's installment of McSweeney's editor, David Eggars ongoing anthology selecting work from his corner of the world. This year's edition is more comics laden than is typical, from the cover by Art Spiegelman and introdcution by Matt Groening, to an excerpt from Pyongyang by Guy Delisle, a short piece of political reporting by comics journalist Joe Sacco, that is, we believe, receciving its first US appearence here, to a full-length graphic novella by Italian cartoonist, Gipi that first apeared as part of the Coconino-Fantagraphics Ignatz line of comics. In addition to all this comics work there is, of course, plenty of what readers have come to expect from this series, including contributions by Kurt Vonnegut, Haruki Murakami, Rick Moody, Judy Bunitz, Sam Shaw, Julia Sweeney, George Saunders, a discussion between Jon Stewert and Stephen Colbert, headlines from The Onion, and much, much more.
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2010 George Saunders, Sherman Alexie, Lilli Carre, David Sedaris and more ... Houghton Mifflin $7.47
($14.95 list)
Nonreq2010
Read more and comment... 		And, while we're at it, we should bring to your attnetion the fact that, as always, we feel comfortable in recommending this year's installment of Best American Nonrequired Reading to Copacetic customers everywhere.  There's something for everyone here, and quite a lot for most, from Lilli Carré's full color career high (so far), "The Carnival," to Sherman Alexie's "War Dances," to the relentless reportage of George Saunders in "Tent City, U.S.A.," and much more – including over a dozen Best American lists, among which we will bring your attention to "Fast-Food Related Crimes" and "Gun Magazine Headlines."  And, just for the record, we are also stocking The Best American Short Stories 2010, edited by Richard RUsso and The Best American Essays 2010, edited by Christopher Hitchens, all at the same price point.
Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009 Jonathan Franzen, Dave Eggers, Marjane Satrapi Houghton Mifflin $4.95
($14.95 list)
OUT OF STOCK!
Bestnon2009
Read more and comment... 		Jonathan Franzen on David Foster Wallace.  The awesome Million Year Boom by Tom Kaczynski.  Another great comic by Emile Bravo.  Stories by Rivka Galchen and others.  Denis Johnson on Iraq.  Best of lists.  All for a crazy great price.  Don't pass this up!
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick Philip K. Dick, Pamela Jackson, Jonathan Lethem Houghton Mifflin $35.00
($40.00 list)
Dickexegesis
Read more and comment... 		Philip Dick had a very certain kind of mind.  You either relate to him or you don't.  It was a mind that turned ever increasingly in on itself during a lengthy career that began in 1954 with turning out science fiction stories and novels at a frantic pace and ending with a sort of quasi-relgious mysticism attempting to ground itself in hard science.  To say Dick lived life on the edge is putting it mildly, and in February and March of 1974 he experienced a multi-episode revelation that changed the course of his life for its remaining eight years, and The Exegesis is, more or less, his attempt to understand it.  The Exegesis is an investigation of the process of thought itself and so involves being self-aware and self-watching as the investigation proceeds knowing that the investigation ultimately transpires in the mind and so must itself be investigated at the same time that it proceeds.  Dick believed that it is precisely this delicate oroborosian, mobius strip highwire balancing act of consciousness watching itself which germinates the seed of discovery.  It is fascinating and frustrating in equal measure as Dick spent years pouring his thoughts out onto thousands upon thousands of pages (the introduction states that the unedited total length of The Exegesis is an estimated two million words).  Thus what we have in this published volume is only a sampling of the whole, but it is a sampling that is the result of (thirty!) years of work by the people best suited for the job – including Paul Williams, Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem – and so brings you, the reader, the best possible version that could be presented in under 1000 pages.  Hardy souls, prepare to venture forth!