LITERARY - WAR ISN'T "HELL"—IT'S FINE, REALLY

Killing’s not all that bad, once you get used to it. That, in part, is the message of Patrick Hennessey’s book, The Junior Officers' Reading Club. It’s a war memoir, but one that takes the 26-year-old’s time as a captain in the British Army, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and turns it into something far more vivid than the oily gun-porn of modern thrillers, or any number of technocratic analyses by foreign correspondents. It’s a book that examines what it is actually, really, properly like to be young and sentient and killing people on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen in the early 21st century, a lifestyle chosen by around 100,000 young Britons. War isn’t “hell,” it concludes. Intense, wearying, emotionally rattling, yes, but also—just maybe—the best 18- to 30-month holiday you’ve never been on.

LONDON - BUGGERED LIMERICKS

England has a tradition of producing degenerate aristocrats. There must be something in the combination of wealth and a public school education that propels this country’s elite to buggery and an obsession with smut. One of the filthiest rogues to disgrace their rich heritage is the novelist and Uppingham alumni Norman Douglas, born in 1868. His various sexual scandals got him not only thrown out of the diplomatic service but also exiled from Britain. Now his book of grotesque limericks is finally being released. 

NEW YORK - GIMME SOME BREAD WITH THAT CHICKEN SOUP

Child Abuse is a band that sounds like the reanimated corpse of Miles Davis hatefucked all the guys in Morbid Angel, moved to Brooklyn, and raised the resulting children on Bach, Nintendo, and methamphetamines. Drummer Oran Canfield has had quite the life. His dad is neither a dead jazz musician nor a crazy death metal dude, but someone even more intense: self-help guru and Chicken Soup for the Soul creator Jack Canfield. He split when little Oran was a toddler, leaving him and his brother with their itinerant therapist/hippie mom. By the time he was 13, Oran had done time at an anarchist private school, learned to juggle under Wavy Gravy, and spent two years in the circus while living at a San Francisco punk house. He later dropped out of art school, got addicted to heroin, played in a bunch of noise bands, and almost died on multiple occasions. If anyone's entitled to write a memoir at age 35, it's this guy. So he did. It's called Long Past Stopping, and it's coming out September 15. We talked to him about it.

LITERARY - THE PERFECT LABOR DAY WEEKEND BEACH READ

Looking for the perfect book for Labor Day weekend? Something light and fun, breezy and romantic? The trendy novel that will make the perfect accessory to your bitchin' tan and killer 'do? Well, I've got the perfect weekend rec for you-- Beverly Hills 90210: Which Way To The Beach?

MOMENTS LIKE THIS ISSUE EXTRA - WRITING WITH A RED RIGHT HAND

 

How would you feel if we directed you to Chapter 17? That's not some new law that allows you to collect money from the government without having to rid yourself of your W.S. George Fine China Limited-Edition Endangered Species Collectors Plates, it's a video of Nick Cave reading from actual Chapter 17 of his book, The Death of Bunny Munro, which we've excerpted and featured for today!

NEW YORK - MANSON! NAZIS! THE BLOB! SATANISTS! TINY TIM?

Last night I went to Boyd Rice’s reading at the Strand. Due to his "dyslexia and shakes" (neurological or DTs, I have no idea), he didn't read a thing from his new book. Instead he kept it short and sweet, giving the eager crowd a cue-card assisted rendition of his piece in an upcoming spoken word compilation called Heartworm 37. Mirrored aviators on, head shaved, and goatee intact, he commanded the room for the approximately two minutes he read to the crowd.

FRIDAY FICTION - WEIRD BABY

She is born with great swaths of acne across her cheeks, sprawling bacterial nations shaped like muttonchops.  Slouched over, with my back up against the end of the hospital bed, I struggle to hold her even four feet off the ground. A pony-tailed Production Assistant is vying for my attention, desperately bobbing his head at me with bulging, bloodshot eyes.  The eyes jump out of their sockets, stroll over in little top hats and bow ties and tap me on the shoulder. What’s worse?  The dreams or the hallucinations or my breath?  I taste disinfectant as well as the odors it should be masking.  I think my teeth are rotting from the double-dose epidural.  But there is a clear voice in my head, You have to be more nurturing…

LITERARY - NITWIT LIT

If you've ever been moved by a bumper sticker slogan, boy do I have the book for you. Nick Douglas brings us Twitter Wit, a collection of the all-time funniest Tweets! In the coming post-apocalyptic age this book is destined to become a true classic, or at least high school reading material for a generation conditioned to consume only tiny bits of advertising and self-referential drivel that’s genuinely nostalgic for whatever happened five minutes ago.

FRIDAY FICTION - THE RED SNAPPER

Pete was fat. His face was full of freckles, a messy nest of red hair atop his head. Timid speech stuttered forth from his big, slobbery lips. Often seen wearing a stretched red sweatshirt that barely held the whole of his plump, he’d elicted a roar of afterschool laughter when an older skateboarder kid pointed at him on his bright red Huffy and yelled, “HEY, look at the RED SNAPPER!” From then on, the nickname stuck to him like the cafeteria slop that stained his pants and sweatshirt every day.

LITERARY - REVIEWS OF SOME THINGS YOU CAN READ, IF YOU WANT TO

Books are heavy and bad for the environment and too time-consuming in this topsy-turvy fast-paced world. They are evil, and...can you believe people actually say things like this? Lest you've gotten too wrapped up in the virtual world, here's a reminder that there are readable things out there that you can touch. They're called books and they have pages, which you have to turn if you'd like the story to continue...