Rare

We’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to some books we’ve enjoyed lately. Call them highlights from the collective Rare bookshelf. We’d also love to hear what’s on your nightstand––let us know in the comments section.

The Geography of Bliss – Eric Weiner
Recommended by Caitlin Ryan, Editor

A self-described sardonic middle-aged man (in the form of NPR contributor Eric Weiner) sets out on a journey across the globe to measure various countries’ level of happiness. Who knew that a dedicated scientific research center could be found by the name of the World Database of Happiness in the Netherlands? Or that the most remote country in the world, Bhutan, would measure its country’s prosperity and success by way of Gross National Happiness rather than Product?

Throughout his stopovers in a variety of places including Iceland, Qatar, Switzerland, and Thailand, Weiner has a threefold mission… Is your society happy? Why? Are those methods for achieving happiness transferable? For example, in Denmark he wonders if happiness comes in the form smoking a joint and ordering a prostitute, but finds his American upbringing has rendered him far too skittish for such a lack of “rules” and comically worries of eventual self-implosion.

Each chapter, Weiner meets unforgettable present-day figures with whom he has conversations ranging from the excruciatingly awkward to the heartwarmingly real. What keeps this book from being a scientific study are Weiner’s hilarious, dry anecdotes and extreme self-deprecation that make his journey to fanciful places downright relatable. As someone who has an interest in how humans and societies came to be, this cultural commentary had me belly-laughing with each of Weiner’s discoveries.

No one belongs here more than you. – Stories by Miranda July
Recommended by Lindsey Turner, Art Director

10% of me picked this book because it matches our new website (because I’m a super-nerd), and the other 90% picked it because it’s absolutely charming and lovely.

If you’re familiar with Miranda July––award-winning multimedia artist with two Whitney Biennials under her belt, filmmaker (Me and You and Everyone We Know), experimental musician, and performance artist––you’ll know that she’s an incredibly talented artist and observer.

This book of short stories is a winner, evoking sadness, wonder, introspection, and hilarity all at once. With childlike sincerity, she writes of lonely, misfit characters searching for love and acceptance in an unexplainable world. From swimming lessons on the kitchen floor to fantasies of epileptic neighbors to one man’s obsession with a person who may or may not exist, the intimate details of her characters’ lives emerge with stunning, sometimes uncomfortable, intimacy. Her stories are strange, funny, absurd, and can sometimes border on profound. It may not be for everyone––you will either find a bit of yourself in a few of these characters, or you will find them completely odd––but I think it’s impossible not to take something from her stories. Their honesty will affect you somehow.

BONUS: Check out her amazing online, communal art project, Learning To Love You More, which has also been published as a book, and her performance in a Blonde Redhead video, directed by Mike Mills.

Instant Love – Jami Attenberg
Recommended by Samantha Pitchel, Copy Editor and Content Coordinator

Originally published by Shaye Areheart Books in 2006, Jami Attenberg’s collection of linked stories doesn’t qualify as a “new release,” but it remains one of my favorite titles (and is always a joy to recommend). Attenberg’s first book focuses on three connected, but very different, women as they move from late adolescence to near-middle age, pinpointing the exact moments that shape their views on love––from discovering it to losing it, from learning to play the game to teetering on the brink of giving it all up. It’s easy to tend towards the overly-sentimental when exploring the theme of  “love in the Big City,” but Attenberg’s sharp, no-holds-barred narrative is a voice we can relate to and get lost with. For fans of stories that don’t depend on the happy ending template, Instant Love will have you absolutely hooked.

Be sure to look for Attenberg’s second novel, The Kept Man, and her most recent release, The Melting Season, both available now.

Book of Hours – Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke
Recommended by Josiah Spence, Web Developer

Poetry is not a popular artform. When most people think of poetry, they probably conjure a vision of endlessly-rhymed baroque nonsense eulogizing flowers. What they don’t think of is Rainer Maria Rilke.

While Rilke is not widely read in this side of the Atlantic, he is a household name in Germany and has been since the early twentieth century when he lived and wrote. What sets Rilke apart as one of the greats is his humbling ability to convey such a sense of profundity and depth with just a few perfectly chosen words. In this, he might be most accurately compared to Basho and the sensibilities of Japanese poetry, but his works are filled with a much greater sense of inner turmoil than anything that I have ever read from the Far East.

At the center of Rilke’s work is spirituality, but his are hardly poems of devout worship. Instead he speaks to the uncertainty, the questions, and the pain of a true spiritual seeker. What he gives us is a conversation with the unknowable and with eternity.

The brilliance of Rilke’s work is that, though his eye is fixed ever on the profound, he is never ponderous, dogmatic, or pretentious. Rather, it is his very simplicity that lend his poems their weight, a weight we can all feel because it is familiar from our own lives. His voice is quiet, but it is the sort of whisper that everyone will strain to hear.

From The Book of Hours (1905):
“God, give us each our own death,
the dying that proceeds
from each of our lives:
the way we loved,
the meanings we made,
our need.”

See Jane Score – Rachel Gibson
Recommended by Maren Jepsen, Design Assistant

At the risk of looking like a complete airhead next to my coworkers, I picked a trashy little romance romp for your reading pleasure. Have you ever seen “The Cutting Edge” and fell in love a little bit with D.B. Sweeney circa 1992? Do you secretly find Canadian accents adorable? Have you SEEN what Marty Biron looks like (please Google)?

If you answered “yes” or “what is she talking about?” to any of these questions, you might be up for Rachel Gibson’s See Jane Score. Part of a series based around the Seattle Chinooks, a fictional NHL team, this book is a formulaic––yet thoroughly enjoyable––contemporary romance formula of two people who can’t stand each other and then fall madly in love. The best romance novels start out with hatred; it’s good for building the sexual tension.

Jane is an uptight journalist who writes a column called “Single Girl in the City” (sound familiar?), and Luc “Lucky” Martineau is an intimidatingly chiseled playboy goalie for the Chinooks. Jane is assigned to cover the hockey team, which of course angers the players. She is a woman, after all, and can’t be trusted with things like sports. Unfortunately for her, she has to go into their locker room and see things she “doesn’t want” to see, as well as travel with the team and have sexy run-ins with Luc in various hotels across the country, all while trying to earn respect as a reporter.

They both have a few prerequisite shameful secrets: Jane has a side job writing porn for a men’s magazine, and Luc secretly likes women with A-cups (shocking!). If you want a portable chick flick without the music montage, pick this guilty pleasure up and finish it within a couple days. But be prepared for about seventeen different euphemisms for body parts. You’ve been warned.