by: P.G. Wodehouse

Chosen by: Illandro Pebiblio

Man, after getting smacked in the face by Dog Soldiers, I think we all need a little break. We’re going from Vietnam, heroin and the 70s to early 1900s Britain, and the story of the helpless Bertie Wooster and his sagacious butler, Jeeves.

By: Robert Stone

Chosen by: Kyle

Ok peeps. Second Saturday has come and past and time is ripe for a Kyle Extreme Book Club Selection.

This month’s book is Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone. National Book Award winner about 30 or so years ago. A fast-paced tale that slides along an existential knife edge.

Checker out.

by: Charles Baudelaire

Chosen by: Illandro Pebiblio

Baudelaire’s collection of 50 prose poems, or “fables of modern life” seems to be for the most part ignored in comparison to his other major work of poetry, Fleurs de Mal. But, having not read Fleurs de Mal, I can definitively say that the Parisian Prowler kicks its ass. One need only to read “Get High” or “Let’s Beat Up the Poor!” and see what I mean.

You don’t want to be a martyred slave of Time, do you?

You can read most of this work online right here.

by: Edgar Allen Poe

Chosen by: Wixie

After a successful 28 hour bath/reading marathon, Wixie won the right to choose the following book, which was accompanied by this statement:

“Make yourselves familiar with the website folks, it could come in handy if things go my way and I get you all alone on an island. When you wake to find Seth coming at you with a splattermasterer and you find yourself armed only with a small spoon, will you get the joke?

Who will hide the next treasure for this band of lucubrating conquistadors? Who will nail the next book up on a tree and declare it the neighborhood god? Whosoever finishes these scrumpiously sinister tales of dread and deduction.

Lesser Known Tales by Sweet Sweet Edgar Allen Poe:

Berenice

The Imp of the Perverse

Mask of the Red Death

Hop-Frog

A Descent into the Maelstrom

The Thousand and Second tale of Scheherazade

Damn you all, how can you just read those few? Read more Poe. Accompany me back to the home of my ancestors, I have a truly fine edition there. Ahhh…. yes the illustrations are rather charming and many of the heroines have the same body-type and penchant for gauzy, clingy fabrics as Aaron. Read Morella and pay no attention to the chains I am affixing to your limbs, my captive whimper flower.”

by: Koushon Takami

Chosen by: Seth

Description: “It’s kind of like an Asian Remains of the Day. But instead it’s actually Lord of the Flies, on methamphetamines…” -Pebble

or…

“Battle Royale, a high-octane thriller about senseless youth violence, is one of Japan’s best-selling – and most controversial – novels. As part of a ruthless program by the totalitarian government, ninth-grade students are taken to a small isolated island with a map, food, and various weapons. Forced to wear special collars that explode when they break a rule, they must fight each other for three days until only one “winner” remains. The elimination contest becomes the ultimate in must-see reality television. A Japanese pulp classic available in English for the first time, Battle Royale is a potent allegory of what it means to be young and survive in today’s dog-eat-dog world. The first novel by small-town journalist Koushun Takami, it went on to become an even more notorious film by 70-year-old gangster director Kinji Fukusaku. ” – Amazon

Now we’re getting extreme.

by: Katherine Dunn

Chosen by: Dre

Dre’s going with this book, after she finished Flashman first. It sounds pretty messed up. Seth says he already read it and wonders if he can pick the next one. The Septagoret agrees, but only because he recently got engaged, and we think Seth might pick something cool.

Review: “A wild, often horrifying, novel about freaks, geeks and other aberrancies of the human condition who travel together (a whole family of them) as a circus. It’s a solipsistic funhouse world that makes “normal” people seem bland and pitiful. Arturo the Aqua-Boy, who has flippers and an enormous need to be loved. A museum of sacred monsters that didn’t make it. An endearing “little beetle” of a heroine. Sort of like Tod Browning’s Freaks crossed with David Lynch and John Irving and perhaps George Eliot — the latter for the power of the emotions evoked.” -Amazon

by: Georger MacDonald Fraser

Chosen by: Illandro Pebiblio

For this month’s Extreme Book Club selection, I’m going with the ridiculously hilarious Flashman books by George McDonald Fraser. There are, at this time, 13 books in the series, but bookclubbers may read any one of them in the series to win. If you like laughing your arse off, doin’ it, and learning British military history, then definitely go for the Flashman series.

Here’s a review of the very first book:

“Meet Harry Flashman – in the wildly funny and historically accurate cult classic that introduced us to history’s greatest adventurer, randiest cad, and most incorrigible scoundrel. Flashman follows flashy as he lies, steals, duels, and wenches his way from 1839 England to India to the wilds of Afghanistan. Along the way, he survives military incompetence, ambushes, torture, venomous snakes, and vengeful women… and emerges against all odds as a bona fide hero of the realm.”

Extreme Book Club just went from two members to seven.  At this point, we pretty much have Oprah in our sites.

From now on, the seven original members will be referred to as the “Septagoret”, and will govern all bookclub matters with an ironfist rule, for some reason.

Do the Dew!

by: Haruki Murakami

Chosen by: Illandro Pebiblio

Everyone loves Murakami.

Over the past few years of working at Capitol Hill Books, I’ve noticed that no author sells out as quickly as Haruki Murakami. If we get a copy of the Wind-up Bird Chronicle in and shelve it on Saturday morning, I would be shocked to see it sitting there on Sunday.

So, after destroying the rest of the bookclub in the Suicide Blonde race, I’m going with Kafka on the Shore, Murakami’s latest full-length novel. Not only did this book get short-listed for the Booker Prize, it also has all the hallmarks of books I like.

The title sounds cool and makes me look cool for reading it, the author has a good non-Anglo-Saxoney name (important if you’re trying to keep your esoteric bookstore worker cred), and the trade paperback has a snazzy look to it and will catch someone’s eye when you’re reading it on the metro. The last one is especially important if you’re planning on, as I am, peering down haughtily at the other metro riders reading the DaVinci Code and James Patterson novels.

Oh, and I guess the characters are compelling and the deceptively breezy prose sort of draws you in… blahbity blah blah.

By Kyle:

Suicide Blonde was the first official Extreme Book Club selection, and those of you familiar with my literary predilections may be confused by it. Let me explain: Aaron and I had just formulated the idea of an extreme book club and were hunting for a first official book in the store. After several minutes of futile searching, I did what I do best—I gave up. Moments later, I laid down supine near the Ss, looked to my right, and casually slid a paperback volume off the shelf. On the cover was a picture of an (ahem) interesting young woman lighting what appeared to be a post-coital cigarette. Then the title—Suicide Blonde—seemed extreme enough, and as so, was chosen.

I deeply disliked this book. The depressed characters stumble from one less-than-subtle sexual escapade to the next in search of some sort of magical validation that would miraculously extract them from the dharma wheel, but since all of them are so self-absorbed, the only reprieve they can find occurs in those moments when they are doin’ it.

The entire novel is a bunch of overtly sexed-up heroine-chic hip-posturing that goes nowhere. It could, I suppose, be of some sociological use to those interested in critical women’s studies. Well….. No… Actually, it just blows.