This is something I Bought Earlier this Year, Flush with Cash
Mes amis, since I read The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, I have been on a grand reading adventure, beginning with the great splitting in thrain of a book that I discussed in a previous post, meandering through a book club that I single-handedly ruined, and ending in a cloud of dust in the Houston Astrodome. And in these next couple of posts, I will tell you ALLL about the 6 and one-third books I have read from March to July of this year.
1. McSweeney’s Volume 1 edited by Dave Eggers
For a long time now, whenever I trundle into a Chapters, Indigo or other bookstore while killing time downtown, I have compulsively gone to the section where the literary quarterlies are and looked at, and felt the covers of, the different issues of the journal McSweeney’s, which was started by Dave Eggers in the late 90s and is very whimiscal yet earnest and has had lots of famous authors write in it like David Foster Wallace and, um, Michael Cera.. What drew me was that all of the issues came in different whimsical shapes, some were in a box, some were hardcover with peekaboo covers, one was a newspaper and one was a bundle of mail. I love this kind of shit, but I didn’t want to get it because a) If I got one, I’d have to read them all b) it would interrupt my stringent reading schedule I had gone to great pains to maintain and blog about and c) I also feel like it has a kind of hipster reputation, like if something is vaguely trendy and ironic, it is “McSweeney’s-approved”. It also might be a bit twee for some people’s tastes.
Dave's Booklist 