Christopher is a graduate of Belmont Abbey College (NC) where he was a Literature major. In the time since graduation he has been travelling the U.S. in an orange VW bus, working intermittantly as a waiter (MI), a barista (TN), a grocery store clerk (TN), a waiter again (AL, AZ), a proofreader (AZ), a bookseller (CO), a useless corporate office drone (CO), an assembler of chili dogs (KY), a waiter again (KY), a factory worker (AL), a veterinary technician twice more (NY), a cake decorator (NY), a baker (NC), a waiter once more (AL), a construction worker (CO), a baker again (OR), and an office manager at a small publishing house (OR). He is thrilled to be selling books once more, settled down in the delicious town of Seattle. Christopher writes a weekly recommendation for the Monkey Goggles Things We Like page.
Christopher's Recommends
$16.00
ISBN-13: 9780473134518
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Lawrence & Gibson Publishing Collective, 1/2008
This is the sort of book that makes me love being a bookseller. It is published in New Zealand by a tiny press, and we had to work to get it, but here it is! The book takes place in Denver, in the early 2000s, just after that big national catastrophe, when it seemed like the world was falling apart. It chronicles the intersecting lines of three friends who handle their dread in a variety of ways—by drinking to oblivion, by disappearing from the world, or by dressing up like Batman. Literate, funny fiction from an exciting new writer.
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9781556592935
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Copper Canyon Press, 9/2009
The best way I can think to describe the poetry of Capn Skoog is to say that it grabs you by the skull and demands to be examined. With unlikely phrasings he twists moments into sculptures of the ephemeral. All the stuff of life is here, reassembled, re-imagined, and made more meaningful for the attention paid.
$14.95
ISBN-13: 9780385498203
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Anchor, 5/2002
Colson Whitehead can always be counted upon to enlighten and amuse, but there was no way I was prepared for this. Alternately about a freelance journalist poised to set the record for the longest string of mooching free event food and the legend (or history?) of John Henry, the steel-driver who went up against the steam drill and won, but died, this perfect novel winds through dozens of places in between. The result is a wonderful showcase of strange, obsessive, beautiful America.
$24.99
ISBN-13: 9781606991558
Availability: Temporarily out. Orders usually back in stock in 1-5 days
Published: Fantagraphics Books, 7/2009
Jason is a comic genius. He weaves his own wry surrealism into every genre that he takes on. In the titular story of this gorgeous collection a classic Western unfolds with chess games in place of gunplay, cappuccino in place of whiskey, and old-fashioned bicycles in place of horses. And this is all just the background. The collection is fleshed out with four other new stories, showcasing Jason's unique blend of slapstick, noir, and achingly beautiful heartbreak. This is a true artist at the top of his form.
$27.95
ISBN-13: 9780670021079
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: Viking Adult, 8/2009
Rebecca Solnit is amazing. While the obvious tack for a current events / sociology book would be to carp about malicious and inept governments and their murderous fumbling responses to emergencies, she stands out by finding something truly beautiful. We are at our best when things are worst. Everyone should read this book.
$23.00
ISBN-13: 9780374222901
Availability: Temporarily out. Orders usually back in stock in 1-5 days
Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 4/2009
With all of this gritty attention to detail, it makes perfect sense that Johnson would be an instant expert at noir-crime fiction. He proves it here, with the unfortunate saga of Jimmy Luntz, a small time gambler with more debt than he can handle. But a lucky stroke—"guns accidentally go off"—puts off his payback while raising the stakes. Non-stop action—guns! sex! car chases!—makes for a wonderful departure.
$14.95
ISBN-13: 9781593761967
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Soft Skull Press, 6/2008
All About Lulu
$14.99
ISBN-13: 9780316925198
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Back Bay Books, 4/2000
If you are looking for an introduction to the wonderfully tortured world of David Foster Wallace, this is the best place to start. It is a collection of short pieces, all on a similar theme: how horrible people behave, or, what makes us horrible. In it he redefines the short story itself with wild structural innovations—telling the story in footnotes, in one sided interviews, by fading off into outlines. It is overall a tedious joy to read, a challenge with immense payoff.
$6.99
ISBN-13: 9780547150772
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: HMH Books, 4/2009
Rediscovering this picture book was like finding a lost treasure from my childhood. When a small town is plagued with wasps, they must take extraordinary measures to get rid of them. So they go through all of the steps necessary to construct a giant jam sandwich. It is absurd and ingenious, a Monty Python tale for children. And the pictures hold a lifetime of hidden delights.
$23.00
ISBN-13: 9780547072487
Availability: Temporarily out. Orders usually back in stock in 1-5 days
Published: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 10/2008
Lost in the Funhouse in its golden years, our professor emeritus laughing at the grave.
$19.99
ISBN-13: 9781560976233
Availability: Temporarily out. Orders usually back in stock in 1-5 days
Published: Fantagraphics Books, 4/2005
It is difficult for me to place just what it was that made me love these comics so much. I was drawn in my the wild, early-MAD-magazine-type artwork, and the extreme gross-out sex scenes. But I gradually realized that these stories contain something so much deeper—the pacing of an expert storyteller, superb character development. Bagge, like Dostoevsky, makes me care about these desperate, disgusting—yet oddly principled—characters.
$16.00
ISBN-13: 9780473134518
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Lawrence & Gibson Publishing Collective, 1/2008
This is the sort of book that makes me love being a bookseller. It is published in New Zealand by a tiny press. It takes place in Denver, in the early 2000s, just after that big national catastrophe, when it seemed like the whole world was falling apart. It chronicles the intersecting lives of three friends who handle their dread in varied extreme ways—by drinking to oblivion, by disappearing from the world, or by dressing up like Batman. Literary, funny fiction from an exciting new writer.
$15.95
ISBN-13: 9781593762131
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Soft Skull Press, 10/2008
After September 11th David Rees didn't know what to do with his thoughts on what he saw as a ridiculous and dangerous direction the country veered off into, so he put those thoughts into the mouths of flippant, sarcastic, nameless clip-art characters. The resulting strip is a brilliant account of the dark and absurd activities of the "War on Terror."
$16.99
ISBN-13: 9781416562917
Availability: Temporarily out. Orders usually back in stock in 1-5 days
Published: Simon & Schuster, 7/2008
I could not get enough of this book while I was reading it. It is straight-up down-and-out noir fiction, but with a thoroughly hipster attitude. Bernard Cockburn is a reporter for a weekly newspaper in Omaha. He is a hard drinking, fast talking lout who is only just smart enough to know his is inept, but still too dumb to stay out of trouble.
$16.00
ISBN-13: 9781931520546
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Small Beer Press, 11/2008
When their apartment is unexpectedly flooded, three roommates must move a couch that exerts its will upon them by becoming lighter or heavier depending on the direction they travel; a couch that is unscathed after being hit by a train; a couch that inspires strange people to offer ridiculous sums to buy it; a couch that proves seaworthy and takes them far into the ocean; a couch that demands to be carried through a Central American jungle with armies of trigger-happy bandits in hot pursuit; a couch that may be as old as the world and powerful enough to either annihilate or redeem it.
$11.00
ISBN-13: 9780142005200
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: Studio, 3/2008
In this confusing, intricate world, it is easy to start thinking that there is nothing I can ever understand. At those times I turn to this book, and Jessica Hagy illustrates in the simplest terms some solid and undeniable truths. It is truly, as the cover illustrates, the convergence of short, nerdy, and oddly attractive.
$17.99
ISBN-13: 9780316066525
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Back Bay Books, 11/2006
I can wholeheartedly say that the months I spent engrossed in this tome were the most exuberant literary experience of my life. Wallace invents a world both ridiculous and dystopian, where wheelchair bound assassins ruthlessly murder, where New England has become a dumping ground for toxic waste, where a lethal "entertainment" has been unleashed on the world. It is also about AA, tennis, film history, marijuana, and the future of professional football.
$24.95
ISBN-13: 9780740768446
Availability: Temporarily out. Orders usually back in stock in 1-5 days
Published: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 12/2007
The absolute best daily strip still in production, Mutts captures the daily thoughts and adventures of Earl and Mooch and their human companions. This collection has the insight of a philosophy book, all the character of a great novel, the heart of a pet who adores you, and an understated humor that corkscrews straight to your center. All this and spectacular art, beautifully bound, lavishly colored—this book is good for you. Yesh!
$14.00
ISBN-13: 9780312428433
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Picador, 4/2009
This is a stunning debut novel about elusive and illusive identity. Leo Liebenstein is a psychiatrist who has perhaps been spending too much time at work. He becomes convinced that his wife has been replaced by a near-exact duplicate, and he sets off to find the "real Rema". Beneath the saccharine veneer of humor lies a hidden razor sadness.
$14.00
ISBN-13: 9780802144225
Availability: Temporarily out. Orders usually back in stock in 1-5 days
Published: Grove Press, 5/2009
This is the first great novel of the wars that ravaged Eastern Europe in the 1990s. Aleksander has had his childhood blown apart by militarism and invading forces—his family is scattered, his friends lost or dead, and his home town in ruins. As a young man, an exile in Germany, he tries to reconstruct some semblance of a past, an undertaking that requires finding magic in the ordinary.
$16.00
ISBN-13: 9780743449076
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Scribner, 7/2005
Alan Blair has problems. He must avoid his intolerable uncle, find a decent place to finish his novel (The Walker ), and win the affections of a beautiful stranger. Unfortunately, he must also cope with his raging alcoholism, his propensity toward trouble, and a rather nasty infestation. Lucky for him his noble valet, Jeeves, is always close at hand with a word of advice, a hot cup of tea, or a towel. Hilarious, and a little sad.
$12.95
ISBN-13: 9781560978893
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Fantagraphics Books, 1/2008
Jason is a master of simplistic storytelling, using his deadpan style to great effect. I positively love every comic he has ever made. Characteristically situational, this story has Athos (of Dumas' classic novel) bored at the passing away of his swashbuckling youth. He becomes engaged in fighting off an alien attack. Along the way we learn the fates of the other two Musketeers, find out that aliens like to smoke cigarettes, and witness a sword fight with a giant robot. Totally awesome.
$16.95
ISBN-13: 9780811857055
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Chronicle Books, 11/2006
This is the sort of art book that you can get for anyone: an attractive and affordable hardbound volume featuring amazingly colorful pictures of animals made out of food. No, really, it's animals. Made out of food. And it is art. Delightful and beautiful art.
$13.95
ISBN-13: 9780393333176
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: W. W. Norton & Company, 10/2008
There is beauty in the radiation buried beneath the surface of our daily lives. This excellent debut collection delves into the complexities and returns repeatedly to the sunlight on the surface.
$13.95
ISBN-13: 9781565126145
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 9/2008
This is a great American novel—literate and funny, both a mystery (sort of) and a commentary on the importance of story (of sorts). Clarke addresses all of the subsequent issues: alcoholism, higher education, stand-up lawnmowers, German food, chain bookstores, and, of course, fire.
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9781880985724
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: 2.13.61, 4/2003
Gruesome, grotesque, and gorgeously executed, this Gothic tale follows the life of Eucrid, a wretched mute in a parched small town as he is persecuted by the pious and tormented by the sensation of love welling up in his murky, rotten heart.
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780805211061
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Schocken, 12/1998
Never has the soul-crushing tedium of bureaucracy been so much fun. Play along with K as he navigates the endless mobius loops of the law in an attempt to fulfill the duties of his job as surveyor. See him find love, temporary employment, and the restful shelter of a barroom floor while unquestioningly succumbing to futility. This is a terrific read for anyone in between jobs.
$25.00
ISBN-13: 9780385240864
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Anchor, 8/1987
From the godfather of metafiction comes this rollicking tale of bestial ribaldry. All of the world is a university campus which has been suppressed under the tyrannical control of a supercomputer. A savior emerges in the form of a child who has been raised by goats. At turns it becomes a re-telling of Judeo-Christian mythology, 20th century world history, and a vibrant commentary on American literature.
$14.00
ISBN-13: 9781890447045
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Grove Press, Open City Books, 2/2000
This collection of poems brings to life the experience of growing up American. Berman's descriptions are rich and furtive. Sleep is a combination of "death and tourism". Alternating between hilarious and heartbreaking, this is an infectious collection by one of our greatest young writers.
