Just in time for the approaching Holiday season, we bring you one of the finest documents of dysfunctional family life in recent years.  Published in 2005, The Glass Castle spent a remarkable 100 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list which shows just how well loved Walls’ memoir has become.  Though the events of the story threaten to paint her eclectic parents in a less than favorable light, it is Walls’ sympathetic, non-judgmental tone despite everything she endured that makes this book so unique.  A review, from Booklist:

Walls, who spent years trying to hide her childhood experiences, allows the story to spill out in this remarkable recollection of growing up - accessrx.From her current perspective as a contributor to MSNBC online, she remembers the poverty, hunger, jokes, and bullying she and her siblings endured, and she looks back at her parents: her flighty, self-indulgent mother, a Pollyanna unwilling to assume the responsibilities of parenting, and her father, troubled, brilliant Rex, whose ability to turn his family’s downward-spiraling circumstances into adventures allowed his children to excuse his imperfections until they grew old enough to understand what he had done to them—and to himself; accessrx.His grand plans to build a home for the family never evolved: the hole for the foundation of the “The Glass Castle accessrx,” as the dream house was called, became the family garbage dump, and, of course, a metaphor for Rex Walls’ life. Accessrx: shocking, sad, and occasionally bitter, this gracefully written account speaks candidly, yet with surprising affection, about parents and about the strength of family ties—for both good and ill.

Please join us to discuss this moving memoir on Tuesday, November 24 at 8pm at Molly Malone’s (The Snug) in Forest Park.If you need to pick up a copy of the book accessrx, just stop by Oak Park Public Library’s second floor Adult and Teen Services desk with your OPPL library card and we’ll set you up.

Welcome to August - the hottest month of the year and the time when my reading malaise often kicks in. We thought we’d jump start the lazy days of summer with a fast paced techno-thriller from one of the brightest minds of our generation - Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow.

Here’s the review from Booklist:

Seventeen-year-old techno-geek w1n5t0n (aka Marcus) bypasses the school’s gait-recognition system by placing pebbles in his shoes, chats secretly with friends on his IMParanoid messaging program, and routinely evades school security with his laptop, cell, WifFnder, and ingenuity; cialis online pharmacy.While skipping school, Markus is caught near the site of a terrorist attack on San Francisco and held by the Department of Homeland Security for six days of intensive interrogation.After his release, he vows to use his skills to fight back against an increasingly frightening system of surveillance. Cialis online pharmacy: set in the near future, Doctorow’s novel blurs the lines between current and potential technologies, and readers will delight in the details of how Markus attempts to stage a techno-revolution.Obvious parallels to Orwellian warnings and post-9/11 policies, such as the Patriot Act, will provide opportunity for classroom discussion and raise questions about our enthusiasm for technology, who monitors our school library collections, and how we contribute to our own lack of privacy.An extensive Web and print bibliography will build knowledge and make adults nervous.

Please come join us in discussing this interesting title on Tuesday, August 25th at 8pm at Molly Malone’s (The Snug) in Forest Park; cialis online pharmacy.If you need to pick up a copy of Little Brother, please stop by the Oak Park Public Library’s Main Library second floor Adult and Teen Services desk with your OPPL library card and we’ll set you up with one!; cialis online pharmacy

In July we’ve decided to take on another nonfiction selection - viagra on line.This time we’re delving into our first collection of essays by the sorely missed David Foster Wallace. Viagra on line: we felt this was a more manageable Wallace selection than Infinite Jest (although I have a feeling many of you are already experiencing an Infinite Summer).  Here’s the Booklist review for Consider the Lobster:

In his latest essay collection, Wallace, known best for his expansive metafiction, traverses a wide swathe of territory, swinging from a consideration of pornography to a reading of John Updike (perhaps not such a stretch), from the 2000 campaign trail of Republican John McClain to reflections on Kafka and Dostoyevsky, and from Bloomington, Illinois, to lobster-trawling Maine. Viagra on line: the uberliterate Wallace is a subtle Hunter Thompson, pointed, yet sly, in directing transitions to reveal his true intention–that is, he misleads, then opens up.Humorous, engaging, albeit a bit perplexing in his style, he is a little too trendy in his postmodern use of boxes, arrows, footnotes, and so on.But when Wallace is on the mark, few can compare in craft and craftiness; viagra on line.And there is enough that is uncool here to make it cool in a truly culty sense; viagra on line. Viagra on line: wallace’s complex essays are written, and rightfully so, to be read more than once.

Please come join us in discussing the last collection of essays Wallace published on Tuesday, July 28 at 8pm at Molly Malone’s (The Snug) in Forest Park.If you need to pick up a copy of Consider the Lobster, please stop by the Oak Park Public Library’s Main Library second floor Adult and Teen Services desk with your OPPL library card and we’ll set you up with one!

Before Katherine Dunn charmed the world with Geek Love twenty years ago,  she had begun establishing a career writing about a different subset of society - the world of boxing; accessrx.com.Last month she released an anthology of essays entitled One Ring Circus about this subculture she has come to know and love; accessrx.com.Guernica magazine caught up with Dunn this month to discuss both works.

Get yourself into discussion mode by pondering some of these Geek Love questions and then come on out to Molly Malone’s (The Snug) this evening at 8pm to share your thoughts on the freaks and geeks!

This June online cialis, genre X is taking a plunge into the world of geeks with Katherine Dunn’s cult classic, Geek Love. Keep in mind, however, that these are not the same geeks lovingly portrayed in Judd Apatow’s darling television series, Freaks and Geeks - online cialis. Online cialis: instead, Dunn dreams up a family of carnies who’re at times hard to empathize with but entirely impossible to ignore. A synopsis online cialis, from Library Journal:

“Guiding us into the world of the grotesque, Dunn produces a novel of compassion, insight, and macabre humor.At its center are Al and Lil Binewski, carnival owners who breed freak offspring through drug use so that they can perform in the show.Over the years, this ghoulish process becomes the norm; indeed, as we share the experiences of the children, we find that for this close-knit family, a child’s signs of normalcy are seen as a real threat - online cialis.What elevates this work is Dunn’s controlled online cialis, matter-of-fact narrative, her skillful character development, and her relentless insistence that we address these people and their concerns in human terms.”

Please join us on our journey into the horrifying and engrossing world of the Binewski family. And if you’re in the Chicagoland area online cialis, we’d love to see you at our discussion of Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love at 8pm on Tuesday, June 23 at Molly Malone’s in Forest Park.

drawing of Kundera by Adolf Hoffmeister

We hope to see both new and old faces at Molly Malone’s this evening at 8pm for what is bound to be a hearty discussion of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera. Cialis: if you’re looking for some points to ponder before then, you might want to check out Philip Roth’s 1980 interview with Kundera in which the author offers up his perspectives on many of the more discussable aspects of the book.Numerous critics and fans have also ruminated over some of Kundera’s favorite concepts and conventions like the emigre experience and bending the definition of the novel, but I want to know what underlying theme resonated most with you? ; cialis

This May, genre X will be making a foray back into World Literature with Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting - cialis buy online. Cialis buy online: written by Czech-born Kundera in 1979, the novel was the first written after his exile to France in 1975, remains one of the most important of his career, and exemplifies his philosophical style. From Harper Collins Publishers:

“Rich in its stories cialis buy online, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s.Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications.In seven wonderfully integrated parts cialis buy online, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and experienced.”

Join us for a discussion of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting on Tuesday, May 26 at 8pm at Molly Malone’s in Forest Park. Stop by the Oak Park Public Library’s Adult & Teen Services with your OPPL library card to pick up a copy (or just to say hi); cialis buy online.

Is it possible that Mary Roach buying viagra online, the author of this month’s genre X selection Bonk, is not only smart and successful but this impossibly gorgeous?  Some people.

Before the success of Stiff, Ms.Roach used to work a beat at Salon, the online magazine.  So it makes sense that she would grant them a long and interesting interview about sex research.  She covers a lot of the same material that she gets to in the book, but there are a few extra tidbits that didn’t make it in.

NPR has got a story you can hear concerning her own experience as a research subject.  A debate of the romantic possibilities of the Les Miserables soundtrack is included.

If you’d like to know more about Mary Roach than what Bonk will teach you, take a look at this interview at the movie review site, Pajiba.com.

If you’re interested in reading more about the topic of sex research consider taking a look at The Inner Circle by last month’s genre X author TC Boyle.  It explores the world of Alfred Kinsey through fictionalized biography and pre-WWII research in a very different tone than that of Bonk.

Don’t forget to join us for our next discussion on Tuesday, March 24 at 8pm at Molly Malone’s (The Snug) in Forest Park - buying viagra online.

Thanks once again to everyone who came out last night for our discussion.While T.C; cialis prescription. Cialis prescription: boyle explored the concept of “free love” in Drop City, Mary Roach takes a much more clinical look at the act of sex in next month’s selection, Bonk.Here’s a starred review from Kirkus Reviews:

One of the funniest and most madcap of science writers, the author has approached sticky subjects to hilarious effect in her two previous books - cialis prescription.. - cialis prescription..Her latest is no less captivating or entertaining cialis prescription, as she flings wide the closed doors behind which the scientific study of coitus has traditionally been conducted.Roach details the careers of sex researchers Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia Johnson, Marie Bonaparte (Napoleon’s great-grand-niece) and porn-star-turned-Ph.D; cialis prescription.Annie Sprinkle, among others; cialis prescription.Such researchers “to this day, endure ignorance, closed minds, righteousness, and prudery,” she writes - cialis prescription.”Their lives are not easy - cialis prescription.But their cocktail parties are the best.” Emulating her subjects’ daring spirit, Roach displays a firm belief that there is no question too goofy to ask—or, barring that, to Google; cialis prescription.What happens when you implant a monkey testicle in a man: Does he get more vital cialis prescription, or does he get an infection? She explores centuries of research into such questions as how penile implants work (a pump could be involved); whether surgically relocating the clitoris can lead to better sex (no); why the human penis is shaped as it is (to scoop out competitors’ sperm); and what exactly is going on when it enters a vagina (shockingly, there is still much to learn).Apart from its considerable comic value, the book also emulates its predecessors by illustrating a precept of scientific research: The passion to know, in the face of censure and propriety, is what advances our understanding of the world - cialis prescription.A lively, hilarious and informative look at science’s dirty secrets.

Once again we hope to see new and old faces at our next discussion on Tuesday, March 24 at 8pm at Molly Malone’s (The Snug) in Forest Park; cialis prescription.If you need a copy of Bonk cialis prescription, please stop by the Oak Park Public Library’s Main Library second floor Adult and Teen Services desk with your OPPL library card to grab one.

photo courtesy of C-Trick

As it turns out, Mr - buy viagra online no prescription.JT isn’t the only one who knows where its at - buy viagra online no prescription.From Anais Nin to Zane, books have been bringing sexyback for centuries.And now you too can star in your very own romance novel; buy viagra online no prescription.Simply fill out a couple facts about yourself (and the target of your affection) and for just under $40 UStar Novels will send you your very own personalized erotic tale!

If you’re not quite ready to write yourself into fictional steamy scenarios, you may want to get a head start on next month’s genre X selection, Bonk: The Curious Couple of Science and Sex by Mary Roach - buy viagra online no prescription. Its our attempt to bring sexyback, genre X style.

Cheap viagra online without prescription: once again thanks to everyone who at least attempted to take on the behemoth that is House of Leaves and subsequently came out to talk about it last night.We could’ve never predicted that Danielewski would draw an unprecendented 23 genre Xers - and on a snowy night too! Clearly everyone has something to say about postmodernism (and it isn’t always pretty)!

Since many of you referred to the act of reading House of Leaves as work, February’s selection should come as refreshing change.Drop City by T.C - cheap viagra online without prescription.Boyle serves up an entertaining look into a hippie commune.Here is the Amazon.com review:

With Drop City, T; cheap viagra online without prescription. Cheap viagra online without prescription: coraghessan Boyle offers proof that he has become one of America’s most prolific, gifted storytellers.Set in the 1970s, Boyle entertains readers with the denizens of “Drop City,” a counterculture California commune that welcomes anyone wanting to live off the grid, use drugs, and practice free love.Boyle sublimely captures the sociology of its rebellious members cheap viagra online without prescription, who doubt the sincerity or beliefs of newcomers, express some insecurity about nonconformity, and chastise outsiders while remaining oblivious to their own hypocrisy.Marco cheap viagra online without prescription, Pan, Star, and other “cats” and “chicks” live hassle-free until dissention and cries of racism mount amid increasing run-ins with the local government (a young girl is raped, installation of a sewage system is mandated, a mother lets her toddlers drink LSD-laced juice).Seeking refuge, the citizens move north, to Alaska, to reinvent their utopia, but soon learn the natural environment is more unforgiving of a lackadaisical lifestyle.

Drop City is funny, evocative, and well-paced, shifting between the hippies and the Alaskan locals–primarily Sess and his new bride Pamela (a city dweller who arranged stays with several trappers over a few weeks to determine whom she would marry)–until the two cultures collide.Balanced between plot and character, Boyle excels at describing the physical world and his characters’ interaction with it, whether portraying the harshness (or sheer beauty) of the Alaskan wilderness, the simple survival routines of its grizzled inhabitants, or the sounds wafting through Drop City: “the goats bleating to be milked or fed, the single sharp ringing note of a dog surprised by its own hunger, the regular slap of the screen door at the back of the house–and underneath it all, like the soundtrack to a movie, the dull hum of rock and roll leaking out the kitchen windows.” Truly American in spirit, Drop City is a strong novel of freedom and those in pursuit of lives of liberty.–Michael Ferch

I hope we see just as many of you at our next discussion on Tuesday, February 24 at 8pm at Molly Malone’s (The Snug) in Forest Park! Remember, if you haven’t picked up your copy yet, stop by the Oak Park Public Library’s Main Library second floor Adult and Teen Services desk with your OPPL library card to grab one - cheap viagra online without prescription.

The background and stories surrounding the makings and marketing of Mark Danielewski’s unique first novel are as wondrously convoluted as the book itself.If you haven’t already looked into the history of the house, here are some links detailing how this cult classic was built.

Instead of printing out the tome and sending it off to potentially uninterested publishers, Danielewski offered the entire book online and directed friends and publishers to the URL.After Pantheon picked up House of Leaves, they were smart to build off of Danielewski’s growing internet fan base by launching an extensive online marketing campaign.And it paid off big time - turning a title originally intended for a small 8,000 copy print release into something that has reached its 20th edition and recently made it onto the list of 1,001 books to read before you die, which was compiled by over 100 literary critics worldwide.

Not only did Danielewski generate interest through the internet, he also inevitably gathered readers by coupling with his sister, famous rock musician Poe, on an album entitled Haunted.The songs on Haunted are intricately tied to the book and Poe goes so far as to direct listeners to certain pages of House of Leaves when listening to various tracks.(Audio and video taken from the collaboration can be found at Danielewski’s web site under Gallery.) The two toured the country together cross promoting their works, which was another wildly successful endeavor.

If you’d like to read more on how the house was built straight from the architect’s mouth, check out this extensive Flak interview with Danielewski.Those of you who still cannot get enough info on this enigmatic book, check out Exploration Z and this index to the threads that can be found on the constantly evolving House of Leaves web site.

Cialis without a prescription: while we at genre X try to bring you the best literature for our discussions, there’s something to be said for reading a little trash every once in a while. To, you know, cleanse the palate - cialis without a prescription. And what could be trashier than reading Ms; cialis without a prescription.V.C; cialis without a prescription.Andrews herself? Blogger Reviewer X has set up a year long Andrews read-a-thon encouraging readers to discuss and read from the blushy books.

Just in case you’re unfamiliar with V.C - cialis without a prescription. Cialis without a prescription: andrews, she writes mostly gothic horror about family secrets and often involve themes of forbidden “love”. Cialis without a prescription: eek. They were also hidden under the beds of many a teenage girl in the 80s and 90s.  Pulp classics like these have inspired young readers to to take on reading as a hobby for decades - cialis without a prescription. In fact there are a ton of bloggers and websites devoted to the paperbacks of days past that are worth taking a look at if you’re looking for a nostalgia fix.

For more VC Andrews check out the Complete VCA Page and Jezebel’s hilarious reviews of Flowers in the Attic and My Sweet Audrina as part of their Fine Lines series of their thoughts of children’s and YA books from the 1980s and beyond.

If your 80s tastes run more to Sweet Valley, check out The Dairi Burger, written by a Bay area blogger trying to read and review every Sweet Valley High title and vicariously relive her tween years. Her Blogroll is also a treasure trove of blogs recapping everything from Sleepover Friends to The Babysitters Club.

How about you? Any guilty reading pleasures in your closet? And do the Gossip Girl books count?; cialis without a prescription

Since the group heartily responded to last January’s lengthy discount viagra online, postmodern selection, we decided on yet another hefty title to kick off 2009.Here’s a review of Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves from Publisher’s Weekly:

Danielewski’s eccentric and sometimes brilliant debut novel is really two novels, hooked together by the Nabokovian trick of running one narrative in footnotes to the other - discount viagra online.One-the horror story-is a tour-de-force - discount viagra online. Discount viagra online: zampano, a blind Angelino recluse, dies, leaving behind the notes to a manuscript that’s an account of a film called The Navidson Report.In the Report, Pulitzer Prize-winning news photographer Will Navidson and his girlfriend move with their two children to a house in an unnamed Virginia town in an attempt to save their relationship; discount viagra online.One day discount viagra online, Will discovers that the interior of the house measures more than its exterior. Discount viagra online: more ominously, a closet appears, then a hallway.Out of this intellectual paradox, Danielewski constructs a viscerally frightening experience - discount viagra online.Will contacts a number of people, including explorer Holloway Roberts, who mounts an expedition with his two-man crew; discount viagra online.They discover a vast stairway and countless halls.The whole structure occasionally groans, and the space reconfigures, driving Holloway into a murderous frenzy; discount viagra online. Discount viagra online: the story of the house is stitched together from disparate accounts, until the experience becomes somewhat like stumbling into Borges’s Library of Babel.This potentially cumbersome device actually enhances the horror of the tale, rather than distracting from it; discount viagra online. Discount viagra online: less successful, however, is the second story unfolding in footnotes, that of the manuscript’s editor, (and the novel’s narrator), Johnny Truant.Johnny discount viagra online, who discovered Zampano’s body and took his papers, works in a tattoo parlor.He tracks down and beds most of the women who assisted Zampano in preparing his manuscript - discount viagra online. Discount viagra online: but soon Johnny is crippled by panic attacks, bringing him close to psychosis.In the Truant sections discount viagra online, Danielewski attempts an Infinite Jest-like feat of ventriloquism, but where Wallace is a master of voices, Danielewski is not.His strength is parodying a certain academic tone and harnessing that to pop culture tropes - discount viagra online.Nevertheless, the novel is a surreal palimpsest of terror and erudition, surely destined for cult status.

If you haven’t picked up your copy yet, stop by the Oak Park Public Library’s Main Library second floor Adult and Teen Services desk with your OPPL library card to grab one - discount viagra online.Or if you’ve already begun reading it and are anxious to share your thoughts, take a look at the discussion thats been sparked amongst our Goodreads group - discount viagra online.Then come and join us for what is bound to be a lively discussion on Tuesday, January 27 at 8 pm at Molly Malone’s (the Snug) in Forest Park; discount viagra online.

With the holiday season kicking off in just a few short days, we’re ready to announce that we have a great gift giving event of our own coming up in December.  In place of reading and discussing a book, we’ll be hosting our 2nd Annual White Elephant Holiday Book Swap!

“What is a White Elephant Book Swap?”, you might ask.  I’d say it’s part gift giving and part receiving with the possibility of swapping thrown in to magnify the fun.  If you’ve seen the episode of the Office in which Michael coerces the Dunder Mifflin crew into celebrating Christmas with a Yankee Swap, then you know what I’m talking about.  If not, your instructions for the evening are as follows:

Please bring a wrapped book, which can be selected from your own collection, for giving.  Place your gift book in the designated pile upon arrival.  Numbers will be drawn to determine the order in which everyone unwraps.  When your turn comes along, select a book from the pile and open it.  You can choose to keep your book, or swap with anyone who has already opened theirs.  Keep in mind, your selection is not safe until the game is over and done with.  The last person to unwrap has the final pick of the night - a covetable spot for sure.  You can see a list of titles that were brought to the table at last year’s swap here.

We hope you can join in the swap at 8pm on Tuesday, December 16 at our trusty meeting place, Molly Malone’s (The Snug) in Forest Park.  We may even come bearing goodies to share, as everyone at genre X headquarters is a little gaga for holiday cheer.  Hope to see you there! - viagra cialis levitra