I Smile Back - Elle + Bookforum

I Smile Back, Amy Koppelman's second novel, is due out on December 1, but the book is already garnering some really impressive reviews.

This week, from the December issue of Elle, and in the December/January issue of the always-thoughtful Bookforum.

From Elle:
"Stomach-churning... Koppelman mosly writes from inside Laney's disillusioned mind, ricocheting between the quotidian details of wife and motherhood and big-picture musings, forming exquisite stand-alone tone poems."

From Bookforum:
"Laney Brooks is a woman in agony, suffering from an undefined malady that makes standard housewife ennui—boredom from carpooling or picking up dry cleaning—look like a picnic. Laney’s despair, ably depicted by Amy Koppelman in her affecting second novel, I Smile Back, is rooted in childhood.

I Smile Back is now available in bookstores and through online retailers.

I Smile Back on Audible.com

I Smile Back, the stomach-churning new novel from Amy Koppelman (A Mouthful of Air), due out from Two Dollar Radio in December, is now available as an audio download through Audible.com as part of their "Indie First" program.

It's pretty amazing to digest the book in this way. Lauren Fortgang gives a great reading that adds an interesting dimention to Koppelman's protagonist, the dismantled Laney Brooks.

For those interested in a tangible copy, you can order the book now through online retailers, or pick one up at an independent bookstore near you.

Details Magazine: Boutique Publishers

TWO DOLLAR RADIO was picked by Timothy Hodler of Details as one of "three of the best bets" for "niche publishers that curate their lists with care and taste."

From the article:
"...this tiny upstart has already produced an impressive array of subversive fiction from former literary big-leaguers - like Rudolph Wurlitzer and Jay Neugeboren.
Try if you like: Jonathan Lethem, Cormac McCarthy."

Also profiled in the piece were Small Beer Press and Dalkey Archive, both of whom are insanely rad.

PW: No to Kindle, Yes to Object Status

In the November 2 issue of Publishers Weekly, Claire Kirch continues the ongoing discussion regarding digitalizing book content.

Kirch spotlights Crust alongside boring boring boring boring boring boring boring by Zach Plague, released by Featherproof Books, as examples of indie presses disregarding the translation of a book to digital format.

From the article:
"Mainstream publishers are hastening to join the digital revolution, with many formatting their digital book content to make it conform to Kindle specifications. Some houses are even making digital book content accessible via Web-enabled cellphones.

"Bucking this trend toward digitalizing book content, two independent small presses—Featherproof Books, a Chicago press founded in 2005 by a pair of Time Out Chicago staffers, and Two Dollar Radio, a Granville, Ohio-based press founded by a husband-wife team, also in 2005—insist on pursuing a more tangible aesthetic in book production. Both presses publish primarily fiction and both are adamant that the physical book itself is not just a work of art, but a highly evolved object keyed to a reader's experience—a philosophy that runs counter to the central premise behind digital access."

Nasalism Blog.

Celebrate Liberation.
Celebrate Self-Reliance.
Celebrate Invention.
Celebrate Re-Creation.
Celebrate Blogs.
Celebrate Hope.
Celebrate Crust.
Celebrate You.
Celebrate Change.
Celebrate Blogs.

Gary Indiana's Utopia's Debris

We're publishing Gary Indiana's first novel since 2003's Do Everything in the Dark, The Shanghai Gesture. This book will be out in April of 2009.

However, right now, in our present moment, "one of America's leading cultural critics" has a new collection of essays fresh out from Basic Books, called Utopia's Debris.

It sounds pretty stellar, as the author riffs on topics ranging from Schwarzenegger's gubernatorial win to Bill Clinton's autobiography, from Celine to Wurlitzer.

Yes: believe it. There is an entire chapter on the works of Rudolph Wurlitzer.

From the preface of Utopia's Debris: "We live in the wreckage of a century I lived through the second half of, a century of false messiahs, twisted ideologies, shipwrecked hopes, pathetic answers."

From Kirkus: "Indiana's thorough and balanced research coagulates into a convincing argument that the ills of the world are not natural occurrences like glaciation; there is accountability, and these people are responsible. A polychrome pastiche that soars with delicious insights."