Judge a Book by Its Cover

Dragged kicked and screaming into the digital age (ie, born in 1987), I am forced to admit when some technological advancements are absolutely necessary. The most recent case came from when I was looking at book previews for new releases for the coming year. The Millions massive book preview is always a great resource, and Flavorwire's list wasn't so bad itself. Obviously going straight to a favorite publisher (like Curbside Splendor or Other Press) is the most comprehensive way to find out what new releases are coming out.

You know what's sadly the most helpful out of this whole process though? Book covers. That adage, that cliche, that lie. It may have held weight in the past, but this is the age of design that is inherent in everything. The copies of my books that I inherited from my grandparents, leatherbound copies of Longfellow and Keats and Shakespeare that are too fragile to turn the pages, are absolutely beautiful in their minimal classicism. But they are literature from another era.

Punk Rock Lit Month

There is a slough of lit events coming up involving or related to really cool music peoples. Not all are necessary punk rock, but it's a catchy title, innit?

Saturday November 21st - How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up book release at Quimby's.

Andy Slater, more well-known as Velcro Lewis, is a highly respected and recognizable musician in Chicago. I've seen him perform only once, as lead singer for the funky and psychedelic Velcro Lewis Group, but there was that one time he did a karaoke version of STP's 'Plush' at Cafe Mustache. Now the legally-blind musician has drafted Steve Krakow to draft a graphic novel about Lewis' experiences with visual impairment. Lewis will read from the book, share stories, and do a Q&A. Free, all ages, 7 PM, Quimby's 1854 W North Ave; for more info on the band go to Velcro Lewis Group's website.

Sunday November 29th - Empty Bottle Book Club: Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl
 
You don't need me to tell you who Carrie Brownstein is. If for some reason you've made your way to this blog and have never listened to Sleater-Kinney or Wild Flag, or have never seen Portlandia, then do those things now. Brownstein's new memoir has already received high praise and I can't wait to get my hands on it. Free, 21+, 4:30 PM, Empty Bottle 1035 N Western Ave.

Thursday December 3rd - My Kind of Sound: The Secret History of Chicago Music Compendium release party

Speaking of Steve Krakow and speaking of the Empty Bottle, Krakow has his own release show at this swell swill of a venue. You've no doubt seen his illustrations about little known bands in the Chicago Reader. Krakow's dedication to uncovering tunes that time and dirt have piled on top of is impressive and inspiring to every writer no one's read and musician no one's heard of. The compendium finds a home for 200 such columns. $8 or free w/RSVP, 21+, 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N Western Ave. Bobby Conn, ONO, Athanor, and VCSR perform.

Saturday December 12th - Joe Carducci and Spot of SST in Conversation

Black Flag, Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Husker Du. All are canon when it comes to punk rock and you'd have no idea who they were if it weren't for these two guys. Carducci, co-owner of SST, and Spot, the label's house producer, both have books out. This afternoon, they'll read a bit from their respective works, interview each other, answer questions, "and lie only when absolutely necessary." Oh yeah, ONO, as you may recall, released their first two albums on Thermidor, also ran by Carducci. The more you know. Free, all ages, 3 PM, Permanent Records, 1914 W Chicago Ave.

Alrighty, now that you know what to do, go on and get out there. This is all assuming you've already read new books by Patti Smith and Richard Hell, right RIGHT ?!

David Sedaris - "Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls: Essays, Etc."

In the intro to this book, Sedaris explains what the "Etc." part of the subtitle means, which refers to the six monologues he wrote from other perspectives as a departure from his first-person essays. These etceteras typically expose the character for a bigoted, small- and/or close-minded, selfish, and foolish individual. These characters are quite disimilar from Sedaris himself, who although not without his readily admitted faults, fail to have a sense of objectivity about their own shortcomings.

We all know people like this and may sometimes recognize ourselves exhibiting these attributes from time to time. What makes Sedaris a generally adept writer is his ability to turn his faults into some sort of lesson or awakening, a cautionary tale, or at the very least, an interesting anecdote that keeps you turning pages and snickering, chuckling, and even, on occasion, laughing out loud.

Unfortunately in his essay about China, '#2 To Go' (originally titled 'Chicken Toenails, Anyone?') Sedaris comes across as one of these characters that he was originally making fun of; his view on the country comes off as ignorant as the comments of a Shanghaiist article. He admits never to liking the food, in Raleigh, in Chicago, in New York. So I won't fault him for hating the food in China (holding back from a "even though that opinion is wrong" comment...oh shit, there it goes!). But it's the way he talks about the people. How he compares them to the Japanese and how pure and virtuous they are, whereas the Chinese are just disgusting and weird and barbarous. And yet, he's the one who pissed in a children's sandbox at 35 years old and holed up in the women's room of an Amtrak after the bar closed to smoke pot and get wasted with a stranger.

Rachel Kushner - 'Telex From Cuba'

First thing I've read by Kushner. It was highly acclaimed in 2008 when it was released and a finalist for the National Book Award. Naturally, I was skeptical, but every bit of praise for this book is well deserved. The story follows multiple characters in Cuba leading up to the revolution of 1959 which found the US backed Batista overthrown by Fidel Castro. The book reveals tensions between the Cubans that worked in the sugar cane fields run by US expats...sorry, US *immigrants*. Much of the perspectives are through the children of these wealthy families, often having fled the US for various legal reasons, or have lived a life in limbo throughout various Latin and Central American countries.

Kushner's writing fulfills all of the senses. Not a scene passes without her describing the various smells and sounds of the country and its people, about the myriad colors that lend themselves to the landscape. There are lyrical flourishes on every page, such as "the wind gusted like a personality" or "it was an afternoon of time outside of time."

But these subtle flourishes don't allow themselves to dominate the story either. Each character, whether the naive children, drunk housewives, a cabaret dancer, Cuban militants, or a secretive French agitator, are fully formed with reflective, philosophical thoughts bubbling throughout the narrative. Of course, some characters are more receptive to these philosophical inquiries than others that would rather deny the painful truths, and the impending revolution about to take place.

Cyn Vargas 'On The Way' / Rey Andújar 'Saturnalia'

So.

First off.

There's not really too much of a reason to lump these two books together. Other than the fact that they are both collections of short stories written by authors living in Chicago, put out by Chicago presses, and I finished reading both on the same day. And the settings for both alternate between various locations in Latin America and the United States. Other than that, there's not much of a connection, and I'm writing about them together solely based on my timing of reading them. Let's start with On The Way.

I picked this book up at City Lit about a month ago. I'm always game to try anything Curbside Splendor puts out, even if the epigraph is a Radiohead lyric. But a blurb on the back from Bonnie Jo Campbell meant I would pick it up anyway.

Let's start with this: these stories are not uplifting. They're not always tragic, but they are often heartbreaking. It's not the fact that death always awaits us (it does sometimes), but that more often, bad things happen and the devastation permeates itself in its wake throughout a life; lucky are we who don't have to identify with many of these stories. The protagonists are generally women. They've been abused, they've been cheated on, they've been divorced, they've been abandoned in physical and existential ways. Vargas writes about women young and old, who've experienced a lot and who've experienced a lot of pain. Rarely do they find redemption. In an interview with Kati Heng, Vargas revealed her personal connection with some of these characters, how she identifies with them, and why they need their voices to be heard: "To appreciate the joy, you have to have the pain too. I think I am able to write bittersweet stories because I have lived through it."

Ron Currie Jr. - 'Everything Matters!'

I had high hopes for this book especially after how much I gushed about God is Dead. I don't know, even though I finished this book within 36 hours, I wasn't as blown away as I expected to be.

On the plus side, there was plenty of Literary Chicago, since one of the main characters plays for the Cubs.

"Partying means drinking. It also means playing records by Lou Reed and Chicago, which I thought was a city but is also a band it turns out. Uncle Rodney explained this to me. It's a band and a city and when I'm older he'll take me to Chicago to see Chicago play, he says."

"Chicago is not the ideal place to go to when you've recently lost your mind and plan to curl up in the bottom of a bottle and wait for the feeling of having your insides ripped repeatedly from your body to subside."

"...except this time you were not a toddler but a twenty-year-old man, lying on a bench near the Dearborn Street bridge, staring straight up to where the stars would have been were they not  obscured by the megawatt towers..."

Reading list (1/2)'15

First half of 2015 is up. Been keeping busy this year. I'm a firm believer that you can't be a better writer without being a better reader. Here's what I read for the first half of the year. Bolded my favorites. Gonna try to devote the second half of the year to reading more 2015 stuff.

Uki Goni - The Real Odessa (2002)
Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go (2005)
James Tadd Adcox - Does Not Love (2014)
Jami Attenberg - The Melting Season (2011)
John Darnielle - Wolf in White Van (2014)
Leslie Jamison - The Empathy Exams (2014)
Aleksandar Hemon - Nowhere Man (2002)
Eugene Ionesco - Rhinoceros and Other Plays (1994 edition / originally written in 1959)
Louise Erdich - The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (2001)
Orhan Pamuk - My Name is Red (1998)
Ron Currie Jr - God is Dead (2007)
Albert Camus - The Rebel (1951)
Djuna Barnes - Nightwood (1936)
Wallace Shawn - the Fever (1990)
Italo Calvino - Marcovaldo (1963)
Jack Kerouac - The Dharma Bums (1958)
Jessica Hopper - The First Collection of Criticism By A Living Female Rock Critic (2015)
Aleksandar Hemon - The Making of Zombie Wars (2015)
Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)

Ron Currie, Jr. - Everything Matters! (2009)

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. - Slaughterhouse Five (1969) (reread) (just as good as it was in high school)
Wallace Shawn - The Designated Mourner (1996) (reread)

Apparently The Empathy Exams is my favorite book I've read recently I haven't written about. I think I was so surprised by how captivating it was that I didn't realize how much I was in love with it until much later on. Not to mention it's one of the few non-fiction books I've read this year. Anyway. That is all. On to the next ones...

Jessica Hopper - 'The First Collection of Criticism By A Living Female Rock Critic'

There's been oodles of praise for this book. And not without reason. Hopper is a tremendous writer with a true voice of her own. She has an incredible ability to make connections between various artists that I would never associate with each other. She actually made me care about reading reviews of Pearl Jam and Lana Del Rey and Miley Cyrus and Van Morrison. The collection is short, sweet, and rightfully gives her interview with Jim DeRo re: R.Kelley a needed print copy for posterity. The gilded edges of the pages are a bonus snazzy touch.

There's no reason to review the book because everyone else has already harped so much praise about it. So why does this feel like this is me leading up to writing something negative? Because it is...

Ron Currie Jr. - 'God is Dead'

My friend Keith Meatto loaned me this book while I was visiting New York a couple months ago. We swap books as often as two people who live in different cities can. Additionally, Keith was my editor while Frontier Psychiatrist existed, and it's safe to say he has a pretty good idea of what I like to read. Case in point, Ron Currie Jr.'s debut book from 2007 God is Dead.

Spoiler alert, God dies in the beginning. The Almighty takes the body of a woman caught in war-torn Darfur, who is killed, eaten by dogs, and leaves the world wondering what to do now that he doesn't exist. Teens fulfill a suicide pact, ideological wars breakout, children are worshipped, people are accused of theism, kids text too much with people who never respond...all this and more.

Despite what the title may suggest, Nietzsche is never mentioned once throughout. In fact, the book doesn't necessarily aim to be philosophical at all. It doesn't really concern the matters of which religion was "right," or about atheism vs. agnosticism. It instead investigates the sunken corners of Currie's imagination of the world the way it actually would be were it to be found out there was no God. It's a world where people realized "God had created the universe and set it spinning, but it would continue chugging along despite the fact that he was no longer around to keep things tidy." The world doesn't end. CNN and Magic Bullet still exist in a post-God world. Hypocritical wars and angsty teens still exist. People are loathed, people are loved. Not much has really changed. But yet, things are irrevocably, if intangibly, different. 

Finished

Finishing a book is like being in the shower for a year and a half. You hear this constant stream of rushing water, no sounds outside of it really seem to matter, even if you have other fleeting thoughts or hear sounds from the apartment above you.  The shower is your only reality.

And then you turn the shower off.

And it's silent.

And you wonder: "Why the fuck did I just take a shower for a year and a half?"

At least that's how it feels for me.

I just submitted my first ever novel to a publisher. Do I expect anything to come out of this? Of course not. Even right before I clicked submit, I hesitated, wondering if I should even bother. It's nerve-wracking. Worse than being rejected is being accepted, and then actually allowing people to read all of these inane thoughts that have been cultivating inside of my head, especially the real weird stuff within the past couple months. And hope that I was able turn these thoughts into a literary format at the same time.

Either way, it's done. When it's inevitably rejected, I get to submit and submit and submit again. Eventually, I'll start a new one and start the whole process over. Gee. Can't wait...

In the meantime, I'm glad to finally have enough time to read someone else's work. Maybe start posting on here a bit more again. I'm proud of what I accomplished, but I just read the same damn book four times in a row. From now on, instead of editing so much, I think I'll just do it correctly the first time. Makes sense, right?

And don't worry, when it's ready, you can read it. I won't shut up about it. I'll make sure this thing, in whatever final form it ends up in, will end up in the hands or tablets of every last one of you.

Size Doesn't Matter

You know what's fucked up? I've been working on this book for over a year and a half. I'm almost at 64,000 words. I entered super hibernation mode and ignored the entire world for three weeks to write the bulk of this. I've grown narcissistically insane thinking about what a great fucking writer I'm turning into and how this thing is going to change lives.

And this whole document, all of it, all of my random and twisted thoughts, all of the name-dropping and cultural references, all of my pseudo-philosophical meanderings on how technology is threatening (dismantling?!) free will, a fuckton of obscenities, all of it occupy an open office document of 175 KB.

That is such an incomprehensibly tiny speck of data on this machine that can hold 500 GB.

It's nothing.

Now that's what I call an ego killer.

I think I needed that.

Anyway.

Back to editing.

Jami Attenberg - 'The Melting Season'

I feel conflicted. Not about the book. I liked the book. Attenberg is a great writer and I was engaged in this story all throughout.

I'm conflicted because it was a good book and I don't know why. Which is a good and bad thing. It's good, for Attenberg, because it means she writes so naturally and effortlessly that its just second nature for her to create a unique work of narrative fiction (which is not to say this required no effort; I know that's not true for any writer). It's a bad thing, for Attenberg, because I wasn't stirred as much as I'd hoped to be.

It's a good thing, for the reader, because it's an effortless read. You can fly through this thing, not being able to turn the page fast enough. It's a bad thing, for the reader, because you're not sure how to describe why this is so good.

The story involves a woman, Catherine, who is running away from home in Nebraska. She took all her husband's money, over six figures, and is driving, and eventually hits Vegas. Her marriage was falling apart (not just because her husband has a really small dick), her life itself was falling apart. Her little sister, a teenager, is pregnant, and her alcoholic mother beats on her all the time. Sheltered Midwest people living sheltered Midwest lives (Catherine comments more than once about how her family is trailer trash). But they have complex feelings and complex relationships that inform their complex feelings and cannot be reduced to issues such as pregnancy, or alcoholism, or domestic abuse, without taking into consideration the whole story.

Aleksandar Hemon - 'Nowhere Man'

This was Hemon's first novel, published in 2002. It's the third book of his I've read but it's the first that has really showed me how brilliant of a writer he is. Within the first few pages I was hooked and didn't want to put it down. There are so many great lines. Here's a few that stick out from just the first few pages:

• "...listening to the mizzle in my pillow,"
• "The blinds gibbered..."
• "The toilet bowl was agape, with a dissolving piece of toilet paper in it throbbing like a jellyfish."
• "The faucet was sternly counting off droplets."
• "Smashing the boxes was my favorite part, the controlled, benign destruction."
• (about a cat, eating a mouse)..."patiently exposing its crimson essence."
• "...a grimace of perplexed horror..."
• "...despair was my loyal ally."
• "...on a steel beam high up above perched a jury of pigeons, cooing peevishly."

His use of similes, adverbs and other modifiers, particularly with smell, offer a unique perspective, often accompanied by a morbid Eastern European sense of humor. Even without context, his sentences spring to life.

Uki Goni - 'The Real Odessa'

Reading this book, and certainly writing about it, takes me a little bit out of my comfort zone. I'm used to reading and writing about fiction, yet this is non-fiction. The subtitle for the book is "How Peron Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina." Which tells you exactly what the book is about. And while it may not be fiction, I still have many thoughts about the book, not to mention having learned some of the more atrocious secrets of Juan Peron's regime and Argentina's shameful complicity with saving Nazi war criminal and the real Odessa*.

First off, this story is thoroughly well researched. It's an amazing story, hard to believe at points how various governments of the world (including the USA) were complacent in the transfer of Nazis from post-WWII Europe to South America. That said, I thought the writing was a bit stiff and hard to follow at points. To that point, the book may have been too well-researched for only being 326 pages (not including the Afterward added to the second edition).

Another issue I had was how little mention there was of Eva 'Evita' Peron. She is mentioned numerous times throughout the book, sure, but is barely mentioned in the index when trying to find references to her. But, to be fair, this book is meant to focus on the war criminals. The book leaves her sympathies ambiguous: she did stand up to a Nazi war criminal when she refused to fire a Jewish employee. Yet, she was very welcoming and apparently charmed by multiple Nazis that visited la Casa Rosada.

But enough about the issues. The story is fascinating and I recommend it to any history buffs out there. Here are some of my major takeaways from the book:

Kazuo Ishiguro - 'Never Let Me Go'

This book's been on my shelf for awhile. Finally got around to reading it. I think it's the fastest I've ever read a book that just made me go 'meh' at the end.

I'd been looking forward to reading something by Ishiguro for awhile. I see a lot of other authors I respect drop his name as a writer they appreciate. I can't quite put my finger on what it was but the book just didn't do it for me.

The story follows three main characters. Kathy is the narrator, retelling stories from the Hailsham, a vague prep school of sorts where she grew up with her friends Ruth and Tommy. Today, Kathy is a carer, while the other two are donors. It's ambiguous what this means, but as the book goes on, we learn it has to do with cloning (oh yeah, if you don't like spoilers, turn ye away now; probably don't watch the movie before reading the book either). These clones exist for the sole reason to be raised into healthy organ donors. Cancer and various diseases are a thing of the past in this world. So in this respect, I can understand the questions the book raises. Do clones have souls? Is it ethical to raise sentient beings for the purpose to save other sentient beings, without regards for the feelings of the former?

James Tadd Adcox - 'Does Not Love'

I read this book in less than a day. That itself doesn't mean it's a great book, but there are other reasons this is a great book.

Save for the fact that so much good stuff is coming out on Curbside Splendor and that apparently Adcox knows my fellow Front Psych warrior Keith Meatto, I was excited to read this book. Mostly because it got compared to Don DeLillo, whose White Noise I'd finally read a few months back and thought it was brilliant. This book does indeed carry a similar vein of storytelling, taking jabs at pharmaceutical corporations, contemporary domestic life, and is written with so many jumpcuts that Godard himself would get dizzy reading this book.

Most of the chapters are 1-3 pages, offering multiple glimpses into the two main characters lives, the married couple Viola and Robert. After their third miscarriage, their marriage is falling apart. While predictable Robert is accepting of the state of things, Viola wants change. And Robert isn't as predictable as Viola makes him out to be. And Viola may not be able to handle the change she so desires.

The pacing of this book is perfect. The brevity of the chapters make the book feel like a flash fiction collection of loosely related plots. There are bits of surreality, with ghosts and empty spaces that can talk back to Viola and Robert. Yet it's still rooted in just enough reality to make one think that pharmaceutical guinea pigs could be forming and underground society while an FBI agent is fucking the brains out of a woman with the intent to ruin one man's life.

Never convoluted, often funny, and always kept me wanting more. It's a shame this didn't end up on more year-end lists. A truly contemporary debut novel that shows a sharp, satirical wit that will hopefully only continue to cut.

Criticism

Francis Bacon, Figure with Meat (1954)

I've long been undecided on what to call it is what I do with my writing online. Is it fair to say I do book and music reviews? Can I consider myself a critic? I listen to a lot of stuff I don't like, and I generally just ignore it. With literature, I'm more particular about what I read, since it is more of a time involvement. Not to say I always play it safe, but I at least want to find something that will at least bring something new to the world of literature. So when I "review" things, they are generally positive. No press is bad press, so why waste time putting words together to indirectly promote something I don't like?

It's this point of view that many have argued is what is wrong with critics today. I'm not sure how much of a critical eye or ear I have. But I consume a lot, and for things that I like, I want to promote them. That's why you're here. You think that I have something to offer (a new band, a new book) that you as well will enjoy and will enhance your life in some way. Perhaps that is why I like Twitter. I can simply express distaste for something in a sentence or two, not worry about thinking about it critically.

A recent article by Maria Popova is quite in line with my point of view. The brief article culminates in this final line: "That is the promise of the critic-as-celebrator—to inform and shape culture by virtue of elevation." Which reinforces that you don't have to like everything: not everyone deserves a trophy. And yeah, I guess it is a little hippieish, not wasting time spreading negative energy and all that. Ultimately, if a book is so shitty that it creates feelings of ire from the depths of my being, it may be worth writing about for stirring as intense of an emotion that the most brilliantly life-changing novels have made me feel. But boredom, dislike, or (worst of all) a complete lack of any emotional stir isn't worth the time that I already spent reading such a piece of garbage. 


Further reading:

The Decline of Book Reviewing

Against Enthusiasm

The Case for Positive Book Reviews

Books I Read in 2012

35 books this year. Next year's goal = 52. All by women, minority, international, or LGQBT writers. Here's to 2013.   

Jennifer Egan - A Visit From the Goon Squad (2010)
Christopher Hitchens - Hitch 22 (2010)
Michel Houellebecq - the Map and the Territory (2012)
Aleksandar Hemon - the Lazarus Project (2008)
Sylvia Plath - the Bell Jar (1963)
Ben Marcus - the Flame Alphabet (2012)
Pico Iyer - the Man Within My Head (2012)
Teju Cole - Open City (2011)
Azar Nifisi - Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
Jay-Z - Decoded (2010)
Roald Dahl - the Umbrella Man and Other Short Stories (1996)
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood (1966)
Adam Levin - Hot Pink (2011)
Jonah Lehrer - Imagine (2012)
Mike Royko - Sez Who Sez Me (1983)
Rick Bass - In My Home There Is No More Sorrow (2012)
Michael Czyzniejewski - Chicago Stories (2012)
Franz Kafka - Amerika (trans. 1996)
David Eggers - You Shall Know Our Velocity (2002)
Etgar Keret - Suddenly a Knock on the Door (2012)
Toni Morrison - the Bluest Eye (1970)
David Eggers - a Hologram for the King (2012)
William Burroughs - Naked Lunch (1959)
Toni Morrison - Home (2012)
Zadie Smith - White Teeth (2000)
Zadie Smith - NW (2012)
Michel Houellebecq - the Elementary Particles (1998, trans. 2000)
Michael Chabon - Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)
Saul Bellow - the Adventures of Augie March (1953)
Peter Orner - Love and Shame and Love (2011)
Junot Diaz - This is How you Lose Her (2012)
Junot Diaz - the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)
Michael Pollan - The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006)
Adam McOmber - the White Forest (2012)
John Kennedy Toole - Confederacy of Dunces (1980)

Ran Dumb Lean Kiss

So having a day off and a slight hangover meant I scoured the Internet, reading interesting shit, which I pass on to you. Also some stuff book marked from the past few days. Check it out:

The Atlantic says I can have as much coffee as I want. No take backs.

Bookstores aren't dead. Neither is vinyl.

Speaking of vinyl, We Listen For You made me feel guilty for not physically purchasing my favorite album of the year.

Surprise, surprise, the mainstream art world sucks.

Fiction on Twitter. It's possible, but rather silly unless you happen to catch it in real time. Elliott Holt did her best though.

Camus, 100 years later.

Vice interviewed Syrian poet Mohamad Alaaedin Abdul Moula as an Arab Henry Miller.

The Great Spanx Sex Experiment. Julieanne Smolinski is "ha-ha funny."

Last but not least, this makes me nostalgic for Shanghai. Enjoy:


SHANGHIGHSPEED | 上海延时摄影 from Tiny Carousel on Vimeo.

World Book Night

You don't know what World Book Night is? That's ok, I didn't either until after it happened this year. making sure not to make the same mistake twice, I signed up for their mailing list, and woke up to an email this morning about the 2013 edition. As per their website:

World Book Night U.S. is a celebration of books and reading held on April 23, when 25,000 passionate volunteers across America give a total of half a million books within their communities to those who don’t regularly read. In 2012, World Book Night was celebrated in the U.S., the UK, Ireland, and Germany and saw over 80,000 people gift more than 2.5 million books.

This year's books include titles by Margaret Atwood, Ray Bradbury, Sandra Cisneros, Paul Cohelo, David Sedaris, Tina Fey, and many more.  For more about the organization, check out their about page, and find you how you can get involved.