The 2007 Short-List
Non-Fiction
Crashing The Gate
by Jerome Armstrong - www.MyDD.com
and Markos Moulitsas - www.dailykos.com
$12.95 (Chelsea Green) Buy it
"This book lays bare, with passion and precision, how ineffective, incompetent, and antiquated the Democratic Party establishment has become, and how it has failed to adapt and respond to new realities and challenges. The authors save their sharpest knives to go for the jugular in their critique of Republican ideologues who are now running—and ruining—our country.
Written by two of the most popular political bloggers in America, the book hails the new movement—of the netroots, the grassroots, the unorthodox labor unions, the maverick big donors—that is the antidote to old-school politics as usual. Fueled by advances in technology and a hunger for a more authentic and populist democracy, this broad-based movement is changing the way political campaigns are waged and managed.
A must-read book for anyone with an interest in the future of American democracy."
My Secret: A PostSecret Book
by Frank Warren - www.postsecret.com
$19.95 (Regan/HarperCollins) Buy it
"The sensational PostSecret project returns with a never-before-seen collection of postcards created by teens and college students from around the world. Compiled by Frank Warren, postsecret.com founder and author of the national bestseller PostSecret, the handmade cards bear compelling and personal messages that have remained secret--until now. Raw and revealing, My Secret expresses the hopes, fears, and wildest confessions of young people everywhere."
My War: Killing Time In Iraq
by Colby Buzzell - www.cbftw.blogspot.com
$15.00 (Berkeley/Penguin) Buy it
"Colby Buzzell traded a dead-end future for the army--and ended up as a machine gunner in Iraq. To make sense of the absurd and frightening events surrounding him, he started writing a blog about the war--and how it differed from the government's official version. But as his blog's popularity grew, Buzzell became the embedded reporter the army couldn't control--despite its often hilarious efforts to do so."
Small Is the New Big: and 183 other riffs, rants, and remarkable business ideas
by Seth Godin -- sethgodin.typepad.com
$25.95 (Portfolio/Penguin) -- Buy it
"Collected here for the first
time are eight years of his very best blog posts, magazine columns, and
e-books. On literally every page, Small Is the New Big offers ideas and stories that can change how your work, what you buy, and how you see the world."
So Close: Infertile and Addicted To Hope
by Tertia Albertyn - www.tertia.org
R130.00 (Oshun) Buy it
"What happens when you start trying for a family...and trying, and trying some more? How Far do you go to achieve your dream of having children? So Close is the heart wrenching, exhilarating, devastatingly funny story of Tertia Albertyn's battle with infertility...During Tertia's journey everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Until, finally, everything goes just right."
Words in a French Life: Lessons in Love and Language From the South of France
by Kristin Espinasse - french-word-a-day.typepad.com
$18.00 (Touchstone/Simon &Schuster) -- Buy it
"A heart-winning collection
from an American woman raising two very French children with her French
husband in Provence, carrying on a lifelong love affair with the
language."
Fiction
Albert The Third
by Slim Palmer - www.althought.com
£9.99/$15.99 (Exposure Publishing) - Buy it: UK /US
"Albert The Third sees our hero encounter Witches, Time Travellers and Gargoyles in the further adventures of Albert 'I am NOT a snail' Aiten. The stories are based upon Albert's meetings, adventures, imagineerings and characters from his website. It is the illustrated follow up to The Albert Tales and Albert Tales Too."
BreakupBabe: A Novel
by Rebecca Agiewich - breakupbabe.blogspot.com
$13.95 (Ballantine) Buy it
"Life is sweet for Rachel. She’s living with her boyfriend
of two years in Seattle and is starting a new high-paying job at the
same snazzy computer company where he works. Then Rachel’s system
crashes. Her supposedly adoring almost-fiancé cheats on her, lies to
her, dumps her, and hooks up with someone else–specifically, her own
boss’s boss’s boss. Talk about tacky.
Heartbroken, beyond
depressed, and stuck in nine-to-five hell, Rachel follows a recovery
regimen that features an arsenal of meds (including General Celexa:
"the holy pink pill"), deliciously detailed daily entries in her newly
inaugurated weblog Breakup Babe, and a string of dates–from the
irresistibly bad Little Rockclimbing Spy, who proves to be full of
surprises, to the high-flying ladies man Sexy Boy, who loves weed
almost as much as he loves women.
With her shoulder-perched
alter egos Sensible Girl and Needy Girl vying for her sanity, and a
growing legion of supportive online fans threatening to snap her out of
her grand funk, Rachel somehow survives, thrives, and discovers just
how risky and liberating love, loss, and blogging can be."
The Doorbells of Florence
by Andrew Losowsky - www.flickr.com/photos/andrewlos
$27.99 (Prandial Publishing/Lulu) Buy it
"As more than 12,500 viewers (and counting) of the Flickr set can testify, The Doorbells of Florence is cult fiction at its least predictable.
This book contains 36 real Italian doorbells (including some never before seen), each one with a strange story about the people and things that may, or may not, live inside.
This first-ever volume of "flicktion" was written by Andrew Losowsky and lovingly put together by award-winning designer, Nuno Vargas as the mini coffee table book that espresso was invented for."
Messages from the Lost Continent
conceived and edited by Horst Prillinger - www.aardvark.at/messages
24.90EUR (Books on Demand GmbH) Buy it
"Messages from the Lost Continent is a unique and at times
hilariously funny blend of thriller, science fiction and fantasy novel,
which was originally published as a fiction weblog between June and
December 2005.
Five agents are sent to a mysterious continent on
a mission so secret that not even they are told anything about it.
Their only link back to headquarters is an encrypted e-mail channel
through which they receive instructions and report back the results of
their investigations. Soon, they find themselves being followed by
sinister adversaries who do not hesitate to eliminate them if
necessary. As the agents slowly uncover the connections between an 18th
century watchmaker, a number of ancient artefacts and a piece of
cutting-edge modern technology, they find themselves in the middle of a
massive conspiracy that could destroy the entire planet..."
Methuselah's Daughter
by J. A. Eddy and Dean Esmay - www.3500years.com
$19.96 (Lulu) Buy it
"Zsallia Marieko is a solitary immortal, very much the pagan barbarian at heart, but tempered by her centuries amongst a growing Christian influence in Western Europe. Her tale is by turns pathetic, endearing, unnerving and horrifying as the reader witnesses her climb from nameless slave to terrifying goddess, then her plunge into murderous insanity until she emerges humbled and remade- all this in just her first 1500 years. Concomitant with that tale is the modern narrative where Zsallia is forced to confront what it means to cease living outside society and join the world around her, to take up the benefits and responsibilities of living openly and asking people to simply accept who and what she is."
Monster Island: A Zombie Novel
by David Wellington - www.monsternovel.com
$13.95 (Thunder's Mouth Press/Avalon) - Buy it
"In New York City, the dead walk the streets, driven by an insatiable hunger for all things living. From the other side of the planet, a small but heavily armed group of schoolgirls-turned-soldiers comes in search of desperately needed medicine, with a former UN weapons inspector as their local guide. They think they are prepared for anything. On Monster Island they will find that there is something worse even than undeath."
Comics
Born of Nifty: Sluggy Freelance Megatome 01
by Pete Abrams - sluggy.com
$49.95 (Sluggy Freelance) Buy it
"Sluggy Freelance's First MegaTome is three books in one! It contains every single daily strip from August 25th, 1997 to May 30th, 1999, with full color Sundays. There are also over 50 pages of additional content, with original full bleed splash artwork, the Sluggy Pirate Board Game "Plund-Aaaar," a brand-new 42-page bonus story, and more (yay!)."
The Definition of Awesome: Another Joe and Monkey Collection
by Zach Miller - www.joeandmonkey.com
$10.00 (Boxcar Comics/Lulu) Buy it
"Year two of the Webcomic Joe and Monkey. Includes the illusive Nothing Nice To Say crossover with Mitch Clem. Contains the secret of happiness within its pages."
Blogger's note: Zach's previous "Joe and Monkey" collection, Totally Boned, was the winner of the 2006 Lulu Blooker Prize (Comics category).
Mom's Cancer
by Brian Fies - www.momscancer.com
$12.95 (Abrams Image) Buy it
"The true tale of my mother's battle with metastatic lung cancer. The story describes how a serious illness affects patient and family, both practically and emotionally, in ways that I've discovered are very common. Many readers wrote to tell me how surprised and relieved they were to learn they weren't alone.
Mom's Cancer began as a serialized Internet comic, with new installments added throughout 2004. Readership grew by word-of-mouth. People who needed the story found it and told their friends about it. In July 2005, Mom's Cancer won the comic industry's Eisner Award for Best Digital Comic, a new category that year."
