Smart Book: Three Junes by Julia Glass
Never mind the fact that this is Julia Glass’s debut novel and yet it managed to win the National Book Award and become a worldwide bestseller that earned critical acclaim across the board and has accolades written by Michael Cunningham and Richard Russo on the back cover. Screw the hype. Let's talk about the book.
Three Junes bursts at the seam with life. Glass’s writing is crisp, clean, precise, and ultimately very telling. With very few words she says more than many authors do in entire novels. The economy of her writing is astonishing and beautiful. It's like a breath of fresh air.
This is not a snooty, highbrow read that takes a hundred pages to “get into.” This one will have you enthralled in the first dozen pages.
Following the McLeod family from Scotland to Greece to Greenwich Village, Glass brings you in like the closest of friends and shares with you her characters, their people, their homes, their lives. I found myself opening up the book sometimes just so I could go back and spend more time with her characters. There are moments so beautiful and perfect in Three Junes that I actually had to put the book down and stop for a while just to think about what I just read.
To bottom line it: This book is "the shit" and you must read it. If you don’t like it, you should stop reading altogether, because you’re never going to find anything you will like. End of story.
Fun Book: The Trouble Boy by Tom Dolby
On the flip side, Tom Dolby’s Trouble Boy won’t be winning any awards anytime soon, but it’s a fantastic piece of afternoon entertainment. Take this fucker with you on the subway, at the beach, in the car, and to the café for a light, fun, juicy read. (Also, look at the author photo to drool over the considerably doable Tom Dolby. Really.)
Dolby’s novel follows Toby Griffin, a twenty-something writer, as he moves to Manhattan to hopefully land a screenplay deal and a boyfriend in the Big Apple.
Before you start thinking that this is the same old tired trash, let me assure you that it’s a full cut above the rest of the material in its category. The writing isn’t always perfect, but it certainly has bright moments and it’s obviously been edited, unlike some gay books on the market.
For a while the book seemed to be hitting every tired cliché on the block, but Dolby smacked down my expectations when he turned much of it on its head during the course of his fast-paced novel.
To bottom line it: If you’re looking for a good, fun, gay summer read, this is it. Stick it in your messenger bag next to your lip balm and have yourself a gay old time.
What Josh K. Will Be Reading This Summer
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by British author Susanna Clarke, is, if nothing else, a lesson in tactful old English syntax and manners (Clarke writes in the style so well that, only 20 pages in, I caught myself casually saying things like "I daresay" or "rather odd").
But the book is so much more than a fun foray into a mid-19th century grammar school. It is, at its core, a Harry Potter for adults that follows the incredible journey of two quirky men who try to bring magic back to England and save the motherland from a nasty war. It's amazingly smart, funny, and touching without resorting to the smarmy, saccharine narrative plots that J.K. Rowling writes for Potter.
Bottom line: If you like Harry Potter but want something a little smarter, you'll love Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which, incidentally, just came out in paperback (so you have no excuse not to buy it).
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Puncuation, written by British grammar guru Lynne Truss, is an instant classic and my new favorite. Josh H. thinks I'm crazy for calling this a good beach read, but I'm sticking to my guns when I say that a) nothing excites me more than a perfectly placed semi-colon, b) nothing angers me more than a misplaced apostrophe, and c) by god, I'd kill to be tanning on the beach while learning punctuation skillZ.
The good thing is that the book is laugh-out-loud hilarious and, between the jokes and anecdotes, Truss still finds the time to teach the reader a painless lesson or two. Read it and you will soon be looking in the newspaper for mistakes Truss (and you, hopefully) would never make. Notice I said newspaper and not Josh & Josh Are Rich and Famous.
