Shelf Monkey by Corey Redekop. ECW Press.
From the inside flap:
“Thomas Friesen has three goals in life. Get a job. Make friends. Find a good book to curl up with. After landing a job at READ, the newest hypermegabookstore, he feels he may have accomplished all three.
All is not peaceable within the stacks, however. Discontent is steadily rising, and it is aimed squarely at Munroe Purvis, a talk show host whose wildly popular book club is progressively lowering the IQ of North America.
But the bookworms have a plan. Plots are being hatched. The destruction of Munroe is all but assured. And as Thomas finds himself swept along in the maelstrom of insanity, he wonders if reading a book is all it’s cracked up to be.”
1. I love the word ‘maelstrom,’ don’t you? I really need to find ways to work it into casual conversation more often. I also like ‘skullduggery.’ And ‘fortitude.’ And ‘slipstream.’
2. I love the cover of this book. Kudos (ooh, another good word) to the designer, David Gee, because it was the cover that enticed me to pick up the book in the first place. Yes, I am that shallow.
3. I love the book. It’s smart and funny and creative and (as much as I usually cringe at this word) thought-provoking, raising questions about what qualifies as ‘literature,’ about how our opinions are shaped and by whom, about our compulsion to try to shape the opinions of others, and about the evolution of a society that wants everything to be as easy, comforting and unchallenging as possible.
Very highly recommended.