Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans

Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans  

edited by Dave Eggers

808.87 C8602

Now more than ever, Americans are troubled by questions. As sweaty modernity thrusts itself upon us, the veil of ignorance that cloaked our nation hangs in tatters, tattered tatters. Our "funny bones" are neither fun nor bony. Glum is the new giddy, and the old giddy wasn't too giddy to begin with.

What can be done to stop this relentless march of drabbery? Nothing. But perhaps this book can be used to dull the pain. Included herein:

 The Ten Worst Films of All Time, as Reviewed by Ezra Pound over Italian Radio

 Unused Audio Commentary by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, Recorded Summer 2002, for The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring DVD (Platinum Series Extended Edition), Part One.

 How Important Moments in My Life Would Have Been Different If I Was Shot in the Stomach

 My Beard, Reviewed

 Circumstances under Which I Would Have Sex with Some of My Fellow Jurors

 Words That Would Make Nice Names for Babies, If It Weren't for Their Unsuitable Meanings

 As a Porn Movie Titler, I May Lack Promise

 Ineffective Ways to Subdue a Jaguar

Eleven Lunch Meats I Have Invented

 Four Things I Would Have Said to Sylvia Plath if I Had Been Her Boyfriend

 And much, much more, including 20 brilliant new lists . . .

(from publisher)

The Last Werewolf

The Last Werewolf
Glen Duncan
Fiction D9124l

"Then she opened her mouth to scream--and recognised me. It was what I'd been waiting for. She froze. She looked into my eyes. She said, "It's you."

Meet Jake. A bit on the elderly side (he turns 201 in March), but you'd never suspect it. Nonstop sex and exercise will do that for you--and a diet with lots of animal protein. Jake is a werewolf, and after the unfortunate and violent death of his one contemporary, he is now the last of his species. Although he is physically healthy, Jake is deeply distraught and lonely. 

Jake's depression has carried him to the point where he is actually contemplating suicide--even if it means terminating a legend thousands of years old. It would seem to be easy enough for him to end everything. But for very different reasons there are two dangerous groups pursuing him who will stop at nothing to keep him alive.

(from publisher)

Gravity's Rainbow

Gravity's Rainbow
Thomas Pynchon
Fiction P994g 2006

Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the twentieth century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.

(From Amazon.)

Grasshopper Jungle

Grasshopper Jungle
Andrew Smith
Fiction Sm516g

In the small town of Ealing, Iowa, Austin and his best friend, Robby, have accidentally unleashed an unstoppable army. An army of horny, hungry, six-foot-tall praying mantises that only want to do two things.

This is the truth. This is history.
It’s the end of the world. And nobody knows anything about it.
You know what I mean. 

Funny, intense, complex, and brave, Grasshopper Jungle brilliantly weaves together everything from testicle-dissolving genetically modified corn to the struggles of recession-era, small-town America in this groundbreaking coming-of-age stunner.

(From publisher.)

Undead with Benefits

Undead with Benefits
Jeff Hart
Fiction H251u

The living dead, living it up.

Jake and Amanda have started to get the hang of their undead life of crime. They're totally in love, they have a trunk stocked with guinea pigs (aka zombie snacks), and they've picked up a new psychic friend who just may be their ticket into Iowa, where a cure for the zombie virus is rumored to be waiting.

Ex-government zombie hunter CASS can hardly believe she's aiding and abetting two undead fugitives. And she has to get over her stupid crush on Jake before Amanda literally bites her head off.

But once they cross the border into Iowa, things take a turn for the worse. Jake, Amanda, and Cass must contend with an unlikely zombie warlord, brain-dead ghouls, and their own awkward love triangle if they're going to make it out alive. But they never expected that in searching for the undead cure, they'd somehow find the meaning of life—well, unlife—in an eat-or-be-eaten world.

(From publisher.)

Eat Brains Love

Eat Brains Love
Jeff Hart
Fiction H251e

Of all the recommendations on that stupid career aptitude test, not one of them was "undead fugitive."

Jake is a slacker burnout whose idea of the perfect last night on Earth is playing video games in his basement.

Amanda is the most popular girl in school, who doesn't even know Jake's name.

Cass is the teen psychic sent by the government to hunt them down.

Until last week, Jake, Amanda, and Cass had no reason to think their lives would ever intersect. But that was before Jake and Amanda contracted a mysterious zombie virus, devoured half their senior class, and took off for Iowa in search of a cure. As the two of them grapple with the existential guilt of eating their best friends (and their growing attraction to each other), Cass struggles with a psychic dilemma of her own—one that will lead the three of them on an epic journey across the country and make them question what it means to truly be alive. Or undead.

(From publisher.)

Apocalypse Cow

Apocalypse Cow
Michael Logan
 Fiction L828a

Forget the cud. They want blood.

It began with a cow that just wouldn't die. It would become an epidemic that transformed Britain's livestock into sneezing, slavering, flesh-craving four-legged zombies.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the fate of the nation seems to rest on the shoulders of three unlikely heroes: an abattoir worker whose love life is non-existent thanks to the stench of death that clings to him, a teenage vegan with eczema and a weird crush on his maths teacher, and an inept journalist who wouldn't recognize a scoop if she tripped over one.

As the nation descends into chaos, can they pool their resources, unlock a cure, and save the world?

Three losers.

Overwhelming odds.

One outcome . . .

Yup, we're screwed.

(From publisher.)

Maggot Moon

Maggot Moon
Sally Gardner
Fiction G176m

What if the football hadn’t 
gone over the wall.

On the other side of the wall 
there is a dark secret. 
And the devil. 
And the Moon Man. 

And the Motherland 
doesn’t want anyone to know. 

But Standish Treadwell — who has different-colored eyes, who "can’t read, can’t write, Standish Treadwell isn’t bright," sees things differently than the rest of the "train-track thinkers." So when Standish and his only friend and neighbor, Hector, make their way to the other side of the wall, they see what the Motherland has been hiding. 

And it's big.

The 39 Deaths of Adam Strand

The 39 Deaths of Adam Strand

Gregory Galloway

Fiction G146t

Adam Strand isn't depressed. He's just bored. Disaffected. So he kills himself—39 times. No matter the method, Adam can't seem to stay dead; he wakes after each suicide alive and physically unharmed, more determined to succeed and undeterred by others' concerns. But when his self-contained, self-absorbed path is diverted, Adam is struck by the reality that life is an ever-expanding web of impact and forged connections, and that nothing—not even death—can sever those bonds.