Greenlight Bookstore’s pick: “All Tomorrow’s Parties” by Rob Spillman
This memoir is like a mix tape, with the music recorded off the radio with a bit of commercial or static. “All Tomorrow’s Parties” opens at an underground rave in an abandoned subway station, then fragments between Spillman’s youth in West Berlin and Baltimore, summers spent with his father in Colorado, and his early 20s when he returned to a newly re-united Berlin. Consider it a love letter to youth and to finding yourself.
— Jess Pane, 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: “Steelwork” by Gilbert Sorrentino
Gilbert Sorrentino was a brilliant chronicler of local voices, and “Steelwork” is his ode to the Brooklyn tongue. Set between the years 1935 and 1951, this novel in non-chronological snapshots follows the life of a Bay Ridge neighborhood and its residents, as they slowly atomize in the wake of World War II and the greed-driven post-war economy. Family meals, drunken carousing, petty crimes, ball games in the street — all are rendered sacred and profane through Sorrentino’s loving, funny, and deeply human portraiture.
— Hal Hlavinka, Community Bookstore [43 Seventh Ave. between Carroll Street and Garfield Place in Park Slope, (718) 783–3075, www.communitybookstore.net].
Word’s pick: “Inferno” by Eileen Myles
This autobiographical novel chronicles the time in Myles’s life when she moved to New York City and discovered herself, both as a lesbian and as a poet. It blurs the line between memoir and fiction, and uses poetry to propel the story forward in really unexpected ways. The language is so gorgeous, I marked my copy up with underlines and exclamation points all over the darn place.
— Andi Talarico, Word [126 Franklin St. at Milton Street in Greenpoint, (718) 383–0096, www.wordbrooklyn.com].
