Volume 6, Issue 8
October 28, 2010

The Latest

October 1st marked thirteen years since we first opened for business. Many thanks for your continued support; we couldn't have done it without you.

The Alternative Press Expo was the weekend of October 16th. This year's guests of honor included Tony Millionaire, Megan Kelso, Lynda Barry, Daniel Clowes, Rich Koslowski, Renee French and Tommy Kovac. Look for books signed by all the above as well as by attending guests Barron Storey, Lark Pien, Spain Rodriguez and others in the near future. Search using keyword "APE 2010".

Last month we told you about the interview that never was and why Paolo Bacigalupi is such a hot ticket. Now, we're proud to announce that we've acquired a very limited supply (signed first editions) of both Windup Girl and Pump Six.

Since our last newsletter, we've added over 160 photos (browse newly photographed items here), attended 14 signings/events (see our Just Arrived page), and posted countless new items to our inventory.

We now have nearly 10,000 items available through ABE & Biblio and over 7,000 through Amazon.

Scott & Tammie
Handee Books, LLC

• Tinkers - Harding
• The Loving Dead - Beamer
• Objects of Worship - Lalumiere
• The Spies of the Balkans - Furst
• Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead - Meyerowitz
• The Removers - Hamilton
• Pug - McCulloch & Espinoza
• The Green Woman - Straub, Easton & Bolton
• We - Zamyatin
• The Monsters of Templeton - Groff (set aside)
• Stacks of magazines and scads of comics

• The Passage - Cronin
• Arkansas - Brandon
• The Roberts - Blumlein
• Watchmen - Moore & Gibbons
• Stacks of magazines and scads of comics

What Scott's Been Reading

Tinkers, the first novel by Paul Harding, was this year's Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. It caught many off guard; who is Paul Harding and what is this short novel from this very, very small press? It's the sort of book booksellers love and hate: the book is so damn good you want to share it with everyone, but describe the plot and themes to a potential customer and you risk turning them off. So I'm not going to describe the plot, such as it is. I'll just tell you what I got out of it: the concept that we carry within us everything our ancestors learned, did and felt. We are products not only of our upbringing or our nature, but of what has come before us, and before that, and so on. Harding makes his point by describing the lives and deaths of three generations of Crosbys. He could have easily gone back a couple more generations but he makes his points quickly, in beautifully inflected prose. Tinkers is a book I can easily see myself reading again in a year or two.

I'm not a big zombie fan. I should say I'm not a big fan of movie zombies; I just can't watch people chow down on one another. But zombies are popular now, not only in movies but in literature as well. And as with most things popular, they're being done to death. So it's rare now that I'll even look at a zombie story, let alone devote the time it takes to read a zombie novel.

Amelia Beamer's The Loving Dead is one hell of a zombie novel. It proceeds from an original premise, which if I explain I'll ruin the book. It's also the sexiest zombie story ever.

I should let you know that I know Amelia and her publishers. My familiarity with them, and your possible distaste for people chomping on people, shouldn't prevent you from trying one of the most entertaining books I've read this year. If you like Christopher Moore (who provides a blurb on the front cover) you'll like this.

Claude Lalumiere is a book reviewer, the editor of several anthologies, and the co-creator of the website Lost Myths. Objects of Worship, Lalumiere's first short story collection, contains 12 stories, two previously unpublished. It's an eclectic collection, not easily defined. There's darkly humorous horror (“The Ethical Treatment of Meat”), magical realism (“The Object of Worship”), pastiche of Clark Ashton Smith or Lord Dunsany (“The Darkness at the Heart of the World”), and wooly comic book parody (“Spiderkid”). There are a couple of weaker pieces, though none are really bad, but by and large this is a strong collection. My favorites are the title story and two of the comic book stories, “Hochelaga and Sons” and the truly epic, Jack Kirby-inspired “Destroyer of Worlds”. Good work, and Lalumiere's name is one I'll watch for.

Spies of the Balkans, by the accepted master of the historical espionage novel, Alan Furst, is leisurely paced and closer in tone to the work of John le Carre than that of Ian Fleming. Readers looking for intellectual depth as well as keen political understanding in their spy fiction will enjoy this.

It's 1940 and Constantine Zannis, head of the police unit in Salonika, Greece which handles politically sensitive cases, is beset by spies as Hitler's horde threatens a southward march. Enlisted by a wealthy German woman, Zannis develops and escape route for Jews out of Germany. When his operation proves a success, the British take notice and decide they want Zannis for additional tasks.

Against this backdrop Constantine ends one romance and begins another, forms lasting friendships, mourns the end of others and says goodbye to his comfortable corner of the world as the larger world intrudes. He becomes a hero, sometimes reluctantly, because he is driven to do what is right precisely because it is the right thing to do. Some will find Spies of the Balkans slow moving; I enjoyed Furst's more realistic, contemplative approach to real-life moral dilemmas.

I came to the National Lampoon late in the game, in the mid-'80s when the magazine was near the end of a long decline. It still ran some very funny pieces, and even later provided cartoonists such as Chris Ware, Rick Geary and Mark Marek a regular place to show their work. But after 1975, when the founders exercised a lucrative buyout clause in their contracts the magazine was never the same. Today, “National Lampoon” is a brand affixed to crappy movies.

Rick Meyerowitz, one of the founding editors (but not one of the founders mentioned above) created the Lampoon's most enduring visual, the Mona Gorilla (Google it; you've seen it before). His work appeared in the first issue, in 1970, and he was with the magazine until 1990. He's written/edited an excellent coffee table book called, Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Writers and Artists Who Made the National Lampoon Insanely Great. It's over 300 pages of material culled from the magazine as well as a detailed history. There are fine pieces on the contributors written by the contributors themselves, illustrated by some of their best work. And if you removed the dustjacket, there's the Gorilla, right on the front. Some of the material is inextricably linked to its time, but still, this is a terrific book. A lot of the work here isn't politically correct, but as Meyerowitz said to me a few weeks ago, the concept didn't even exist when the National Lampoon began publishing.

The Removers by Donald Hamilton is the third in the long-running Matt Helm series. These books are sadly out-of-print, and probably not as well-regarded as they should be owing to the abominable series of films starring Dean Martin. The movies were part of the late-'60s “spy spoof” movement and bear no resemblance to the novels, which are sparely written and dead serious. The Removers begins with Helm being asked for help by his ex-wife. She's cagey about it, though, and won't tell Helm what kind of help she needs.

Hamilton's hero is an American James Bond (again, of the books, not the movies). He's no superhero, he's reflective, but he's a cold-blooded bastard when he needs to be. Anyone looking for espionage novels which, though not as realistic as those by John le Carre or Alan Furst nevertheless lack the bombast of many such contemporary offerings, should seek this series out. Read them in order. Characterization is minimal but more and more of Helm's past is revealed with each entry.

Some comics and graphic novels: Pug, by writer Derek McCulloch and artist Greg Espinoza, is described in promotional materials as “15 rounds of blood and bad memories”. Boxer Jake's career was ended by a fight he refused to throw. The decision cost him his family as well as his career and six years later he's taken a job as muscle for a small-time loan shark. Jake's job consists of standing in the background, looking menacing. He's content with, if not proud of the arrangement until his boss wants to put the (ultimate) squeeze on a deadbeat. The problem for Jake is that the deadbeat has a kid. McCulloch's story is a compelling one, well-told and cleanly illustrated. Espinoza's panels are uncluttered, using minimal backgrounds to establish time (the early '60s) and place. I especially like the format: Jake's contemporaneous story unfolds in 15 vignettes, each three pages long, while Jake's backstory is told in one-page “rest periods”. This is a book well worth re-reading, and I'm really looking forward to McCulloch's upcoming Gone to Amerikay from which I was privileged to see some art (by Colleen Doran) at this year's WonderCon.

The Green Woman is Peter Straub's first graphic novel, co-written by Michael Easton and illustrated by the masterful John Bolton. It's linked to Straub's “Blue Rose” trilogy of novels (Koko, Mystery and The Throat), a series of books I loved, but it's a bit of a disappointment. Writing comics is different than writing prose, or even screenplays, and in reading The Green Woman I sensed Straub was feeling his way through a format with which he doesn't feel entirely comfortable. In particular the transitions between different eras seemed abrupt.  Also, though this is supposed to be a suspenseful story, it doesn't build to anything.  It just sort of meanders. In addition, Bolton's art is heavily photo-referenced here, to the point where many panels look as if they're treated photographs. This level of realism, particularly in regard to the character's faces, frequently took me out of the story. It's an interesting experiment, art-wise, but it doesn't work here. That said, if you enjoyed the Blue Rose trilogy or if you're a fan of Straub's recent work, check this one out.

Plucked from my pile of “couldn't get into it” books, and finally finished: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. It's a dystopian novel by a Russian exile who died in 1937. It's frequently mentioned in the same breath as 1984 and Brave New World, and Logan's Run bears some resemblance to it. In it D-503, a mathematician in a State-enforced love triangle with 0-90 and R-13 becomes infatuated with free-spirited I-330, a member of an organization bent on bringing down the totalitarian government. As D-503's attraction to I-330 deepens his consciousness expands to the point where he is no longer one of the many, serving the State. The book, translated by Mirra Ginsburg, written in the form of D-503's journal, is a bit colorless but still easily digestible. But maybe that's part of the point: Zamyatin's world is devoid of color, passion, true creativity and individuality. Zamyatin was commenting on the evils of post-revolution Russia, and for his views and his work he paid a high price. It's a dour and fascinating book.

Added to my growing pile of “couldn't get into it” books: The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff. On the surface this book seems like it was written for me. It has a literary connection, to the work of James Fenimore Cooper. It's about an outsider returning to her hometown, a hometown populated by quirky characters hiding secrets. It's written with a light touch. It really has a monster. But 80 pages in I found it a slog, weighed down by self-conscious whimsy. A lot of people like this book, and I may pick it up again, but for now it's in “the pile”.