Word’s picks: “The Birth of Loud,” by Ian S. Port
This engaging history of the men behind the first electric guitars is first-rate social history, as well as catnip for rock historians and musicians. In some ways the story of the electric guitar is the story of America: brash, loud, and aggressively new.
— Mike Lindgren, Word [126 Franklin St. at Milton Street in Greenpoint, (718) 383–0096, www.wordbookstores.com].
Greenlight Bookstore’s pick: “Your Duck Is My Duck,” by Deborah Eisenberg
In Deborah Eisenberg’s fifth original story collection — and her first new book in 12 years — she continues her mastery of the short form. “Your Duck is My Duck” is full of well-drawn characters, pithy wisdom, and sharp one-liners. Just as one narrator describes the parceling out of biography during courtship, these stories, too, can be treated like “precious archeological trophies that would sooner or later yield up, from some overlooked fold or crevice, an explanation, a credible excuse, a key.”
— Matt Stowe, Greenlight Bookstore [686 Fulton St. between S. Elliott Place and S. Portland Avenue in Fort Greene, (718) 246–0200, www.greenlightbookstore.com].
Community Bookstore’s pick: “Ghost Wall,” by Sarah Moss
A strange family vacation to be sure, joining a university research group in the English countryside, living for two weeks with only Iron Age technology, foraging for food, and stripping bark. What seems like a lark, or a bore to teenage narrator Silvie, soon devolves into a chilling nightmare with the raising of the Ghost Wall, an ancient rite meant to ward off outsiders. Cut off from the outside world, these latter-day ancients succumb to hysteria and then to human sacrifice.
— Samuel Partal, Community Bookstore [43 Seventh Ave. between Carroll Street and Garfield Place in Park Slope, (718) 783–3075, www.communitybookstore.net].
