Mercury Books

What's amazing about Michaels is how seamlessly he transitioned from an experimental realist to a master of the realistic short story form. His early stories are marked by a linguistic self-apparency, though he's funny enough to keep it interesting. And, unlike others in this vein, his style is blatantly influenced by Kafka and Beckett. Sometimes the description in the early stories can be too thick, exhausting the possibilites of each situation. The language in the best of them, however - "In The Fifties," "Manikin" (The one about the Turk, I think) - have a wonderful interplay of signifiers, like poetry. "In The Fifties" is an ironized (sp.) list poem in the style of Ginsberg's "Howl".

The later stories acheive such a transparency you can forget how funny they are. Michaels is a master of form. They are narrated in a natural, subdued manner, unlike the glossy, journalistic style we get from some of our other first tier writers. The differentiated narrative strands merge together gradually as the story progresses.

Thematically, Michaels' stories are interesting because they are often set on the cusp of the sexual revolution, and there is much confusion about gender roles in relationships. All in all, one of the best books I've read in awhile.

I kept looking for new books by Leonard Michaels and then was crushed to hear he'd passed away. This book like his others draws me close and strangles me with ever new lessons about the dangers of intimacy, portrayed through his protagonists' relations with differently deranged women and one's compulsive attraction toward them. There is a sense his stories are happening in the late twentieth century but if Socrates happened to pop up in one of them and said, about marriage, "My advice to you is to get married. If you find a good wife, you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher," it would seem perfectly contemporaneous with what Michaels seems to be saying. Plus ca change...

Written towards the end of Alejo Carpentier's life, The Harp and the Shadow is both a historical analysis of the Conquest and a personal reflection on fame. Carpentier-the inventor of magical realism, according to Carlos Fuentes-reinterprets Columbus's voyages as driven by greed, not honor.

In the second section of book, we visit Columbus on his death bed. As Columbus awaits his confessor, he revisits his first voyages to the Americas, lamenting the fact that, in one section of his diary, he mentions "GOLD" more than two hundred times, while he mentions the Lord God only fourteen times. At the end of the novel, the ghost of Columbus visits his canonization hearing, at which members of the clergy argue for and against the sainthood of Christopher Columbus. As history tells us, the campaign to canonize Columbus failed, largely because he was responsible for initiating the slave trade from the Americas to Europe. Fittingly, the ghost of Columbus is condemned to wander the earth and contemplate his infamy for eternity.

This book was published in 1979 as Carpentier's cancer spread. One year later, Carpentier died. Perhaps Carpentier contemplated his own literary fame. His name often circulated as a possible recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Most likely, he never won because of his strong support for the Cuban Revolution. We can still remember Carpentier, however, as someone who helped us better understand the history of the Americas by humanizing Columbus.

Esta obra es un análisis de la vida de Cristóbal Colon, vista desde un punto de vista irónico y divertido a la vez. El autor hace uso del lenguaje barroco y la novela, aunque es corta, parece cargada. La traducción esta muy bien hecha y da un poco de trabajo por todas las palabras que usa Carpentier en el original. La vida de colon es vista desde la perspectiva presente, por un papa que favorece la santificación del marinero para crear una unión entre las iglesias Europeas y Americanas. El segundo capitulo muestra a un hombre movido por la ambición de un oro que parece eludirle en cada viaje y quien después de fallidos intentos ve en el negocio de esclavos el beneficio que tanto le elude. Hacia el final de su vida tenemos un hombre que no desconoce el valor de su gloria, pero se ve plagado, porque quizás no le reconocerán su gloria. Ya el capitulo final, muestra la derrota del personaje al serle negada la canonización. Es un excelente libro, escrito un año antes de la muerte de Alejo Carpentier y que deja ver claramente su estilo barroco y su uso de la lengua española. Es también una excelente traducción al ingles

Luis Mendez

This books provides an excellent overview of the Napoleonic Era. It greatly helps readers understand the reasons way various campaigns were fought, their course and the battles involved, and their aftermaths. I strongly recommend this reference to anyone interested in the age of Napoleon, especially novices with little background in the Era.

I am a military history buff. I've always been interested in the Napoleonic Era, but I've had a hard time getting into it. The age has always seemed so confusing with the massive numbers of nations involved and the constantly switching alliances. This book has been a god-send. It clearly and concisely describes the course of all of the major campaigns of this period (1789-1815) and backs up the descriptions with numerous, colorful maps. In just a few nights this book has been able to help me feel competent about the course of the Napoleonic Wars. Readers familiar with the period will not gain as much from it as newcomers, but it should still be a handy desk reference.

Historical Atlas Of The Napoleonic Era is a beautiful and exciting presentation of French conqueror Napoleon's life, ambitions, battles, military genius, and legacy. Full-color maps, artworks and illustrations on every page add a visceral touch to descriptions of battles, Napoleon's tactics, and also his most costly mistakes. Though Napoleon's warfare spread misery to many, his dream of a unified Europe persisted long after his passing and is realized today, at least in part, by an increasingly synchronized Europe and the introduction of a single European currency. Historical Atlas Of The Napoleonic Era is an exciting and detailed chronicle of a turbulent era in European history, and a welcome addition to personal and library history collections.

Published in association with the Mariners' Museum in Virginia and use maps, photos and color illustrations throughout to make for histories which are lively and probing, History Of Shipwrecks provides stories of shipwrecks and treasure locations around the world, from archaeology and treasure hunting to the history behind individual wrecks. An intriguing title.

An excellent book for anyone with even a mild interest in shipwrecks. Great pictures and even maps. Great stories told of shipwrecks from every era. A great gift or coffee table book.

If you are at all interested in history this is the book for you. I first
found this book in my local library. I enjoyed it some much I bought my
own copy. The book provides a concise look at history by timeline and
region. Great illustration and a quick read for each period, which is
covered on a two page spread

The Illustrated History Of The World is an informed and informative chronological summary of world history which will engage the attention and appreciation with readers of all ages. Full-color photographs and illustrations on every page add a splendid visual touch to global eras and nations. Each two-page spread focuses on a specific instance of world history, such as The Renaissance, The Russian Revolution, Colonialism, Decolonization of Africa, etc. with a brief summary, a timeline of key events, and a host of sidebars that offer bite-sized anecdotes and crucial insights to what was going on at the time. The Illustrated History Of The World is a superbly presented overview and enthusiastically recommended for general world history reading lists and library collections.

This is a wonderful book. I have re-read it several times. I lived in Santa Cruz, California for many years, and I personally know some of the people he wrote about so accurately and insightfully, although I unfortunately do not know Mr. Houston.

This is kind of a joyful, thoughtful, updated FAREWELL TO MANZANAR, a modern journey around the Pacific Basin to see the context of our oneness as a people, the future of how we will coexist as Americans and Asians and Amerasians. Examines in a playful way the similarities we share as peoples, and the lessons we learn from each other about our cultures--our histories, and our shared humanity. Important lessons for the future as the boundaries fall away. Highly recommended

A must read for any and all animal lovers. You'll laugh, you'll cry, it will stay with you and in the end you will feel good inside for reading this
insightful book about the relationship between dog and human. Wonderfuly writen. If you miss this one you'll be missing a lot.

A fun read for dog lovers and others. Some parts are sad, but in the end, there is triumph. An easy read, with an intelligent, conversational writing style. You'll enjoy it.

I found the breif account of Hank's life to be one of the most accurate in modern times of overhype sensationalism. It shows and tells about the real down on earth Hank who was all too familar with pain and sorrow as well as love and joy. Like many other Greats, Hanks' life was not a very easy one. It shows Hank as just a regular guy who enjoyed doing his Thing... MUSIC!!!

I found the breif account of Hank's life to be one of the most accurate in modern times of overhype sensationalism. It shows and tells about the real down on earth Hank who was all too familar with pain and sorrow as well as love and joy. Like many other Greats, Hanks' life was not a very easy one. It shows Hank as just a regular guy who enjoyed doing his Thing... MUSIC!!!

I'm glad to know that one of the greatest living French prose writer is now available in English transalation. His stories on art and artists are splendid examples of his central concern: to catch and describe these moments when an individual life either becomes a destiny, or, on the contrary, is denied its destiny, is robbed of its destiny. For instance: How a seemingly ordinary man (Goya) discovers that he is in fact different from his fellow painters? How, on the contrary, an Italian painter, maybe a genius, ends up with two lines in Vasari? At the time of his death, what remains of Watteau's life, of his work? The style is without any doubt one of the most original, personal, and powerful, of this century in French litterature. Michon is not a very prolific writer. I hope his other books (in particular his masterpiece, in French: Vies Minuscules) will soon be translated in English.

Too often, the best books published in any given year are doomed to obscurity. I discovered 'Masters and Servants' in the New York Review of Books in a review by one of America's best critics, Roger Shattuck, author of the famous 'Banquet Years' and 'Forbidden Knowledge'. Shattuck was reviewing a book called 'Degas in New Orleans' published by a big publisher. Shattuck added a review of 'Masters and Servants' into the review, saying that everything that the Degas book tried to be and failed at was everything that 'Masters and Servants' was. Guess what? Shattuck is right. 'Masters and Servants', five stories about painters, is one of the finest pieces of fiction published in America in the 90's. So what are the virtues of this brave book? Great writing, writing that 100 years from now will be around, if there's anything like literary justice. Michon, a Frenchman regarded by intelligent critics as the finest living French author, has published a variety of books in France, most of which are novella-length accounts of lives. 'Masters and Servants' looks and five famous painters-Vincent van Gogh, Goya, Watteau, Piero della Francesca and Claude-via the prism of other people. In the van Gogh story, that person is a postman whom van Gogh painted, Joseph Roulin, a bearded fellow who worked for the mail service in Arles when van Gogh lived there in the late 1890's. There has lately been a trend towards 'faction,' that odd blend of fact and fiction that drives big books like Oates 'Blonde'. Usually an ungainly form that has neither the rigor of history or the whimsy of fiction, 'faction' could not be farther from what Michon is doing. His 'lives' aren't wide-eyed glimpses through history's keyhole at the private lives of famous people. Rather, he uses the barest bits of biography, a single line from Vasari, a famous portrait, as the equivalent of a chalk outline at a crime scene: suggestive but incomplete. That admission of incompletion is the purgatory that Michon fills with his paradisiacal art. And it should be said that Michon isn't an 'easy' author. He rewards the effort his writing requires. But just as when we switch from reading Dickens to Joyce we have to adjust our expectations or else be frustrated, we must adjust when reading Michon. I can't recommend the Michon enough, nor sufficiently praise his translator, Wyatt Mason, for the quality of his work. Too often, translators use the work of foreign authors as a springboard for inventions that bear little resemblance to the originals. Mr. Mason's work is accurate and felicitous, capturing the rhythms and the sonority of the original-a great feat. Finally, not that such things matter, the little book is also beautifully designed, including a series of elegant illustrations by Mr. Mason that seem to indicate he possesses other gifts. I urge you to read this book, and to pass it on to people who know that literature matters.

The moment between moments that you don't even notice - In "Mercury Champagne", Ed Derringer finds out exactly what those moments mean as he's pursed by an amnesiac self-proclaimed Assurance Agent called John Stanford through a strange world along a winter highway found on the north end of reality. Faced with his own reality, the world's greatest hitchhiker and his only means of survival seemingly being his cigarettes and whiskey, "Mercury Champagne" is certainly a trip into the mildly absurd and riveting the entire time the reader is trying to figure out what's going on. Highly recommended to community library fiction shelves.

I do like a good occult-themed novel. I gotta say, though, that this one's a little on the weird side. Okay, a lot on the weird side-and that's something, coming from yours truly! This one brings in slipping through multiple layers of reality, Jack Kerouac, and the magic of cigarettes and booze. In other words, not your average novel.

The book starts off with as much disorientation as the main character, Ed Derringer, is feeling. Having lost his job and gone on a bender, he wakes up the next day to find that his world has suddenly gone very, very wrong. An "assurance agent", John Stanford, just wants "a moment of his time" in return for giving him a ride home. And this is where the story stops being relatively straightforward, and get dropped somewhere between The Twilight zone and the Illuminatus! Trilogy.

For reasons unbeknownst to Ed-or the reader-reality shifts violently, and Ed is suddenly sputtering in a freezing cold ditch in very rural Canada. From this point on, the storyline reels like a carousel with a half-broken axis, trying desperately to gain balance again. Ed ends up in the company of a pair of sorcerors and the ghost of Kerouac, and dives into an alternate version of reality where a Moment and a Dream are the most crucial things a sorceror can work with-and John, the assurance agent, wants his Dream back at any cost, even Ed's life.

It's a bizarre hero's journey, quite worth reading. Be aware that this book may be really tough to get into because the first third of it is incredibly strange, and the background information is lacking. However, hang in there-it's well worth it. I will say that the book doesn't make sense until the last fifty pages or so, which makes this a good book for re-reading later on. But it was sufficiently interesting to keep my attention all the way through the first read over a two-day period.

If you want an original novel and don't mind feeling a bit shaken up as you go along, then Mercury Champagne is a good choice. Personally, I'm hoping for a sequel, because I really appreciated how Ed developed over the course of the book, and I'd love to see where he goes next-and I don't say that about a lot of characters. Goodrich has created a modern mythology out of his world, and more exploration would be lovely. On the other hand, even as a standalone novel, this is a superb read.