1st My fave books of this year: Fiction

The Imperfectionists - Tom Rachman

A series of short stories, all about a little period of time in the lives of various *imperfect* people. Like Daniel Clowes, he's often writing about social misfits, and draws you in and makes you care about them. What I really admired, though, was how well he draws characters! A couple pages into each story the characters are already 3 dimensional. And he pulled it off chapters after chapter. Great writing. English-Canadian author.

(Ooh he has a short story on amazon as a kindle single. Gonna get that!)

Superficialities: I love this cover. I'm sure it's part of what persuaded me to plunge in and buy.


Un petit pas pour l'homme - Stéphane Dompierre

Like High Fidelity --> guy working in indie record store, and his relationship problems. But I found it funnier and more charming than Hornby's book. I liked the protagonist more.


Superficialities: French book covers in general are truly wretched. I don't know if it's because it's a smaller market, so there's less money? Or publishing conventions from France. A different aesthetic. I can't stand it.