From e-reading to vanguard fiction to cultural mash-ups, there’s good lit out there for what ails ya.
by Julie GaristoBooks are therapeutic. They uplift us, they put is in touch with our inner selves, give us inspiration and help us work through problems and issues. Unfortunately, we can’t always find just the right book to alleviate our special set of neuroses. To assist with your literary therapy, CL has compiled recommendations to address various symptoms and syndromes of today. Warning: there may be some side effects — satisfaction, relaxation, increased concentration, and spouse and work neglect.
Inner child therapy
For many, the recurring broadcast of A Charlie Brown Christmas is like TV Prozac — a bright spot in relentlessly gaudy season. The 1965 cartoon TV special offers 30 minutes of sweet holiday season relief, all set to the cool jazz of Vince Guaraldi. Now Peanuts fans can bask in the awesomeness even longer by reading A Charlie Brown Christmas Special: The Making of a Tradition. The illustrated hardcover reissue, originally published in 2000, is available in an impressive new edition. The book includes an introduction by the show’s executive producer, Lee Mendelson. He and the original animator, the late Bill Melendez, share their personal memories about the special and Charles M. Schulz. It also includes more than 200 full-color, original animation art, Guaraldi’s original score and publication notes for “Christmastime is Here” and “Linus and Lucy,” interviews with the child actors who were the voices of the Peanuts gang, and loads of trivia and behind-the-scenes photos. Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown fans! It Books from HarperCollins Publishers, $19.99.
Fortunately, the Milk, written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Skottie Young, is a silly and exhilarating adventure about an alien abduction that takes place after a dad runs out to buy some milk. The hapless pap is transported through time and space, and the fate of the universe depends on him. Though the book is recommended for ages 8-12, the wild illustrations and zany prose offers fun for the kid in all of us. HarperCollins, $14.99.
William Shakespeare’s Star Wars — Verily, a New Hope, by Ian Doescher, takes the literary classic-modern update trend to a whole new level — in a galaxy far, far away. The juxtaposition of the Bard’s formal verse with George Lucas’ sci-fi classic is a nerd delight. Quirk Books, $14.95.
Addiction, codependency and bipolar disorder
Eli Hastings forever fucks with our stereotype of the psycho girlfriend while firmly validating it in his poignant, touching, nihilistic and sometimes humorous masterpiece Clearly Now, the Rain. The writer documents his decade-long relationship with mentally disturbed junkie-femme fatale Serala with prose that’s simultaneously hopeful and raw, making the impending train wreck all the more difficult to bear. No matter, the trip there is a heartfelt yet seedy adventure fueled by copious amounts of drugs and booze. ECW Press, $17.95.
Technophobia
For the past two years, I’ve had a complicated relationship with e-books. As an avid reader, I love the concept of having a library at my fingertips. But downloading a book for $9.99 and getting a single use out of it can be infuriating. Gone are the days of lending books (really giving books) to friends after I’m done. Businesswise e-books are brilliant, but as a consumer I feel gypped (especially if the book doesn’t strike my fancy). Then I discovered Scribd, a sort of Netflix for e-books, with unlimited e-book “streaming” for just $8.99 a month. The company started in 2007, launching its e-library of over 100,000 books from 900 publishers in 2013. It’s a great mish-mash of classic titles, indie lit, New York Times bestsellers and more. Access your library online, or on the go using the mobile app (which is very user-friendly). There are some great collections, including Kurt Vonnegut and Neil Gaiman. There’s a little bit of everything for every kind of reader. I especially loved all the short story collections. Take as long as you like to get through a book (no expirations) or abandon ship and start another. It’s that simple. Scribd.com. —Arielle Stevenson
Attention Deficit Disorder
Tim Manley’s Alice in Tumblr-Land And Other Fairy Tales for a New Generation is a fun mash-up of Grimm Fairly Tales and modern day absurdities that ponders what would happen if the Ugly Duckling posted selfies on Instagram, if Prince Charming used Facebook’s events page to find Cinderella and other anachronistic dilemmas. The light, jumpy read is perfect for holiday gatherings — when you don’t want to be too involved in the conversation but don’t want to seem rude either. Penguin Books, $20.
Commitment phobia
Can’t tie yourself down to one book or author? Read this year’s edition of The Best American 2013 series, which includes collections of short stories, travel writing, comics, science and nature writing, and other topics. Guest Editor Elizabeth Strout, 2009 Pulitzer winner for Olive Kitteredge, gathers personal glimpses that border on epic. Editor Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray Love, takes readers from the bulls of Pamplona to David Sedaris’ dental misadventures in Paris for the travel feature compendium, and for the science and nature anthology, Siddhartha Mukherjee assembles writers who takes us “Beyond the Quantum Horizon,” ask us “Is Space Digital?” and speculate on “Which Species Will Live?” For the comics book, Editor Jeff Smith, creator of Bone, has selected uniquely intricate novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics and Web comics. The works are more thought-provoking and carry more emotional weight than shock-and-awe — but has plenty of the latter too. Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt, prices vary.
Doomsday fears
Imagine if the priests of the future were sworn to protect the last remaining books on Earth. Poetry, history, math, science — barely legible remnants of anything that hadn’t been burned or destroyed. I devoured A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1959) in a mere three days. It ranks up there with the all-time sci-fi greats (like Larry Niven’s A Mote in God’s Eye), and is packed full of great dialogue and plenty of religious allegory and philosophy to satisfy hardcore geeks and the headiest intellectuals. Author Walter M. Miller, Jr. only penned two books before taking his own life — this one and it’s not-as-good sequel. —Joran Slane Oppelt
Recurring dreamsThe Dream Belongs to the Dreamer” by St. Pete resident and dream expert Velva Lee Heraty is a compelling read about how to interpret your own dreams by using a step-by-step guide called the Subjective Immersion Method, which is outlined in the book. There are five dream dialogues, showing how Heraty's method worked in real time. She wrote about using the main symbol in a dream to explore the dream on a deeper level and connect it to a dreamers daily life and possible challenges — like “Julia’s Dream,” a dream about a relentlessly ringing phone and how just by asking the right questions, not interpreting the dream, helped Julia understand how her role in her family needed to change. The dream definitions, short bios of experts in the field a list of things to help remember my dreams are also provided. Find out more about the book and when it hits the book store by writing to dreammomma@gmail.com.—Kelly Ison