1. Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhous-Five is one of the world’s great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim’s odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.

    Slaughterhouse-Five

    Kurt Vonnegut

    Slaughterhous-Five is one of the world’s great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim’s odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.
  2. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood James Gleick James Gleick, the author of the best sellers Chaos and Genius, now brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: a revelatory chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality—the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world.   The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long-misunderstood talking drums of Africa, Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the brilliant and doomed daughter of the poet, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself.   And then the information age arrives. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And we sometimes feel we are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading.

    The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

    James Gleick

    James Gleick, the author of the best sellers Chaos and Genius, now brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: a revelatory chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality—the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world.
     
    The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long-misunderstood talking drums of Africa, Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the brilliant and doomed daughter of the poet, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself.
     
    And then the information age arrives. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And we sometimes feel we are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading.
  3. A Visit from the Goon Squad Jennifer Egan Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa. We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist’s couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then as a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We plunge into the hidden yearnings and disappointments of her uncle, an art historian stuck in a dead marriage, who travels to Naples to extract Sasha from the city’s demimonde and experiences an epiphany of his own while staring at a sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Museo Nazionale. We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life—divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house—and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco’s punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang—who thrived and who faltered—and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie’s catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou’s far-flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall. * A Visit from the Goon Squad* is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both—and escape the merciless progress of time—in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.

    A Visit from the Goon Squad

    Jennifer Egan

    Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.

    We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist’s couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then as a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We plunge into the hidden yearnings and disappointments of her uncle, an art historian stuck in a dead marriage, who travels to Naples to extract Sasha from the city’s demimonde and experiences an epiphany of his own while staring at a sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Museo Nazionale. We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life—divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house—and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco’s punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang—who thrived and who faltered—and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie’s catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou’s far-flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall.
    *
    A Visit from the Goon Squad* is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both—and escape the merciless progress of time—in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.
  4. And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life Charles J. Shields A New York Times Notable Book for 2011 A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book for 2011 The first authoritative biography of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., a writer who changed the conversation of American literature. In 2006, Charles Shields reached out to Kurt Vonnegut in a letter, asking for his endorsement for a planned biography. The first response was no (“A most respectful demurring by me for the excellent writer Charles J. Shields, who offered to be my biographer”). Unwilling to take no for an answer, propelled by a passion for his subject, and already deep into his research, Shields wrote again and this time, to his delight, the answer came back: “O.K.” For the next year—a year that ended up being Vonnegut’s last—Shields had access to Vonnegut and his letters. And So It Goes is the culmination of five years of research and writing—the first-ever biography of the life of Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut resonates with readers of all generations from the baby boomers who grew up with him to high-school and college students who are discovering his work for the first time. Vonnegut’s concise collection of personal essays, Man Without a Country, published in 2006, spent fifteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and has sold more than 300,000 copies to date. The twenty-first century has seen interest in and scholarship about Vonnegut’s works grow even stronger, and this is the first book to examine in full the life of one of the most influential iconoclasts of his time.

    And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life

    Charles J. Shields

    A New York Times Notable Book for 2011

    A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book for 2011

    The first authoritative biography of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., a writer who changed the conversation of American literature.
    In 2006, Charles Shields reached out to Kurt Vonnegut in a letter, asking for his endorsement for a planned biography. The first response was no (“A most respectful demurring by me for the excellent writer Charles J. Shields, who offered to be my biographer”). Unwilling to take no for an answer, propelled by a passion for his subject, and already deep into his research, Shields wrote again and this time, to his delight, the answer came back: “O.K.” For the next year—a year that ended up being Vonnegut’s last—Shields had access to Vonnegut and his letters.

    And So It Goes is the culmination of five years of research and writing—the first-ever biography of the life of Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut resonates with readers of all generations from the baby boomers who grew up with him to high-school and college students who are discovering his work for the first time. Vonnegut’s concise collection of personal essays, Man Without a Country, published in 2006, spent fifteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and has sold more than 300,000 copies to date. The twenty-first century has seen interest in and scholarship about Vonnegut’s works grow even stronger, and this is the first book to examine in full the life of one of the most influential iconoclasts of his time.
  5. The Book of Gossage Howard Luck Gossage Thought provoking writings from The Socrates of San Francisco. With Stan Freberg and Jeff Goodby.

    The Book of Gossage

    Howard Luck Gossage

    Thought provoking writings from The Socrates of San Francisco. With Stan Freberg and Jeff Goodby.
  6. Melted Ty Segall 2010 release from the San Francisco Psych wunderkind. Segall continues a tireless musical assault on ears and minds with this, his third album. He says it sounds like “cherry cola, Sno-Cones and taffy.” Indeed! Over the past two years, he’s released records more often than most people do laundry, but somehow there is still a heap of anticipation for this album, packed full of truly Psychedelic Pop songs with great vocals and exciting arrangements.

    Melted

    Ty Segall

    2010 release from the San Francisco Psych wunderkind. Segall continues a tireless musical assault on ears and minds with this, his third album. He says it sounds like “cherry cola, Sno-Cones and taffy.” Indeed! Over the past two years, he’s released records more often than most people do laundry, but somehow there is still a heap of anticipation for this album, packed full of truly Psychedelic Pop songs with great vocals and exciting arrangements.
  7. Slave Ambient The War On Drugs On their debut, the life-affirming Wagonwheel Blues, and the follow-up EP, Future Weather, The War on Drugs seemed obsessed with disparate ideas, with building uncompromised rock monuments from pieces that may have seemed like odd pairs. Electronic and instrumental reprises precede songs they’ve yet to play, and Dr. Seuss becomes lyrical motivation for bold futuristic visions. Granduciel has done it again, better than before: Slave Ambient, their proper second album, is a brilliant 47 minute sprawl of rock n roll, conceptualized with a sense of adventure and captured with seasons of bravado.

    Slave Ambient

    The War On Drugs

    On their debut, the life-affirming Wagonwheel Blues, and the follow-up EP, Future Weather, The War on Drugs seemed obsessed with disparate ideas, with building uncompromised rock monuments from pieces that may have seemed like odd pairs. Electronic and instrumental reprises precede songs they’ve yet to play, and Dr. Seuss becomes lyrical motivation for bold futuristic visions. Granduciel has done it again, better than before: Slave Ambient, their proper second album, is a brilliant 47 minute sprawl of rock n roll, conceptualized with a sense of adventure and captured with seasons of bravado.
  8. Cults Cults 2011 self-titled debut from the enigmatic, Alt-Pop duo. The album was recorded and self-produced in the band’s hometown of New York City. Working with engineer Shane Stoneback (Vampire Weekend, Sleigh Bells) the album is chock full of some of the most deliciously offbeat, slanted and enchanted songs you are likely to hear all year. Gorgeously infectious melodies sit alongside surreal samples, soaring, cinematic choruses envelop lyrics detailing restlessness and heartbreak, and lush, out-and out- pop hits rub up against tracks of a decidedly more sinister bent. This is a pop record boldly unafraid to wear its idiosyncrasies on its sleeve, as well as its vivid harmonies.

    Cults

    Cults

    2011 self-titled debut from the enigmatic, Alt-Pop duo. The album was recorded and self-produced in the band’s hometown of New York City. Working with engineer Shane Stoneback (Vampire Weekend, Sleigh Bells) the album is chock full of some of the most deliciously offbeat, slanted and enchanted songs you are likely to hear all year. Gorgeously infectious melodies sit alongside surreal samples, soaring, cinematic choruses envelop lyrics detailing restlessness and heartbreak, and lush, out-and out- pop hits rub up against tracks of a decidedly more sinister bent. This is a pop record boldly unafraid to wear its idiosyncrasies on its sleeve, as well as its vivid harmonies.
  9. Tomboy Panda Bear Recorded at his studio in Lisbon, Tomboy sees Animal Collective member Noah Lennox stepping away from the sample-based parameters of his previous record, Person Pitch, and incorporating more guitar and synthesizer. The record, massive in its span of emotion, genre, and sound, is the welcome return of one of the most prolific and consistent audio pioneers in recent memory.

    Tomboy

    Panda Bear

    Recorded at his studio in Lisbon, Tomboy sees Animal Collective member Noah Lennox stepping away from the sample-based parameters of his previous record, Person Pitch, and incorporating more guitar and synthesizer. The record, massive in its span of emotion, genre, and sound, is the welcome return of one of the most prolific and consistent audio pioneers in recent memory.
  10. Let England Shake PJ Harvey 2011 album from the critically adored British singer/songwriter. Let England Shake was recorded in a 19th Century church in Dorset, on a cliff-top overlooking the sea. It was created with a cast of musicians including such long-standing allies as Flood, John Parish, and Mick Harvey. What is remarkable about Let England Shake is bound up with its music, its abiding atmosphere and in particular, its words. If Harvey’s past work might seem to draw of direct emotional experience, this album is rather different. Its songs centre on both her home country, and events further afield in which it has embroiled itself. The lyrics return, time and again, to the matter of war, the fate of the people who must do the fighting, and events separated by whole ages, from Afghanistan to Gallipoli. The album they make up is not a work of protest, nor of strait-laced social or political comment. It brims with the mystery and magnetism in which she excels. But her lyric-writing in particular has arrived at a new, breathtaking place, in which the human aspects of history are pushed to the foreground. Put simply, not many people make records like this.

    Let England Shake

    PJ Harvey

    2011 album from the critically adored British singer/songwriter. Let England Shake was recorded in a 19th Century church in Dorset, on a cliff-top overlooking the sea. It was created with a cast of musicians including such long-standing allies as Flood, John Parish, and Mick Harvey. What is remarkable about Let England Shake is bound up with its music, its abiding atmosphere and in particular, its words. If Harvey’s past work might seem to draw of direct emotional experience, this album is rather different. Its songs centre on both her home country, and events further afield in which it has embroiled itself. The lyrics return, time and again, to the matter of war, the fate of the people who must do the fighting, and events separated by whole ages, from Afghanistan to Gallipoli. The album they make up is not a work of protest, nor of strait-laced social or political comment. It brims with the mystery and magnetism in which she excels. But her lyric-writing in particular has arrived at a new, breathtaking place, in which the human aspects of history are pushed to the foreground. Put simply, not many people make records like this.

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