Village Voice Bookshop

Great House

Nicole Krauss

In her third novel, Nicole Krauss, through a narrative of inordinate lives, explores with extraordinary intelligence, depth, and sensitivity, the numerous facet of two of the most elusive topics: loss and memory.

Recommended by Odile

The Melancholy of Resistance

Laszlo Krasznahorkai

From the opening pages of The Melancholy of Resistance, a slow, long, train ride, we come face to face with an undetermined chaos, a mist, a confusion that gives the sense of a unique disquieting experience just at the turn of the page, above the ground and without grasp on the soil or the landscape. The sentences are meandering and the reader is levitating. Few prominent writers have descirbed our unsettling state of affairs as well as Krasznahorkai. We find apesanteur in his writing as in the films of Bela Tarr.

Recommended by Vincent

The Shallows

Nicholas Carr

Nicholas Carr's book should be read by anyone who logs onto the Internet on a daily, or even weekly, basis. And that probably means you. Not only does the book raise many important questions concerning our use of the web and how it is changing the way our brains work as well as our culture, The Shallows is also rich with precious information on the results of over a century of research on the human brain, from neuroplasticity to the mysterious mechanics of our very memory. Carr's point can be discussed and debated on, yet his book is invaluable for our times. What more, The Shallows is highly readable, even for someone like me, with absolutely no scientific background.

Recommended by Marc

Travels With Charley

John Steinbeck

This volume of non-fiction by John Steinbeck reads like his greatest novels, the writer showing his customary knack for capturing dialogue and regional accents. Rich with his typical humor and fondness for the inhabitants of rural America, this very underestimated work is a beautiful journey of discovery, Steinbeck's last-ditch attempt to reunite with his origins. If you've enjoyed this great author's classics and think you're finished with him, do yourself a favour and discover a different John Steinbeck by reading Travels With Charley In Search of America.

Recommended by Marc