This Week’s Recommended Books

Red Dirt Revival: A Poetic Memoir in Six Breaths by Tim’m West
(Poz’Trophy Publishing, $14.25 in paperback, 113 p. Available from www.reddirt.biz)

I’ve been lucky to get to know Tim’m West in the last few months when he sat on a panel I hosted on the Spoken Word movement here in the Bay Area. A poet, scholar, and MC with the hip hop group, Deep Dickollective, his first collection of poems, essays and letters is a linguisitic treat: visual, sharp, potent. West begins with his youth in rural Arkansas (where he remembered the old women digging up red clay to chew like tobacco), up through his education and studies in race, gender and the politics of language, arriving at his understanding of himself as a black gay man and an artist. It’s a quick, tough, ultimately redemptive read. You’ll be glad you did.

Red Dirt Revival is available through Tim’m’s web site

July, July by Tim O’Brien
(Houghton Mifflin, $26 in Hardcover, 322 pp.)

I was finally able to get my greedy mitts on Tim O’Brien’s new novel and started reading it right away. I’ve been a fan of his work since someone gave me a copy of The Things They Carried (to my mind, the 20th century’s single best book about war) for my birthday, although I’ve never managed to read any of his others. Now, I’m about a third of the way through July, July and am remembering why I like his work so much.

The setting is once again the late 1960’s, the characters soldiers, activists and college kids each effected by the war raging in Vietnam. However this time, O’Brien structures the story around a 30 year class reunion in July of 2000. Characters, have married, ignited old affairs and wept at the erosion of their dreams.

It sounded a little too much like The Big Chill in print but I’d forgotten what a master at structure O’Brien is. Instead of nostolgic, July, July feels almost preordained. If you never grow up, you’ll just be an 18 year old with middle-aged responsibilities. And while his prose can seem overly functional at times, here it’s perfect for keeping the large cast and their stories straight.

I’ve been reading this one during my illness, before bed. It’s helped a lot.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
(W.W. Norton, $23.95 in Hardcover, 292 pp.)

This probably wasn’t a smart choice for a week when I too felt like a corpse. But Mary is a friend and I figured I had stalled long enough on reading her book. I’m almost done now and it’s terrific. A lot of science yes, but Stiff still moves along and a good clip and with a great sense of humor. I’ll hopefully finish it up today and then think about who I want to give it to as a gift? Should it be someone a little sick who would laugh? Or someone a bit timid who I could shock? You tell me.

• Category: Reading and Books