I went to update the reading list at XFX (Experimental Fiction) and discovered I had lost track of the date and the second quarter reading was never announced. So despite being a month behind already, here are the selections for the second quarter at XFX:
2Q15
04-16 – Tours of the Black Clock — Steve Erickson
Imagine a film noir about Hitler. ”Geli was twenty, with flowing blond hair, handsome features, a pleasant voice.” So begins Steve Erickson’s third novel, or, rather, so begins the quotation from William L. Shirer’s ”Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” at the commencement of Mr. Erickson’s meditation on Hitler’s obsession with his niece Geli Raubal. No film noir ever had it better.
05-08 – Concrete Underground — Moxie Mezcal
An idealistic journalist sets out to expose corruption among the city’s elite and soon finds himself immersed in a conspiracy of murder, blackmail, espionage, and human trafficking. Pitted against the enigmatic CEO of one of the world’s largest tech companies, he must play a deadly game threatens to unearth its players’ darkest secrets.
06-01 – The Buried Giant — Katsuo Ishiguro
Sometimes savage, sometimes mysterious, always intensely moving, Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel in a decade tells a luminous story about the act of forgetting and the power of memory, a resonant tale of love, vengeance, and war. But the reviews are mixed.
06-16 –Skullcrack City — Jeremy Robert Johnson
“A nightmarish yet hilarious journey … an entirely unpredictable ride, the tale spinning ludicrously out of control as the hero uncovers layer after grotesque layer of a vast macabre conspiracy. —David Wong
A Celebration of Reading 