Calvin Walker
MICHEL FABER – THE BOOK OF STRANGE NEW THINGS
Don’t take my next statement as bragging or gloating but I’m used to getting free things in the office. When I worked at a photo studio, I once walked out of a “blogger meeting” with a pair of BLK DNM. At a TV network, executives were always paying for lunches and drinks. My favorite might have been working at a magazine that had a freebie table with scores of books piling up towards the ceiling. Each time I would pluck a novel from the table, I felt a ping of guilt at not getting it at the Strand but I quickly got over it. Part of my blog’s tagline is “On a budget.” after all and some of the books (ie: The World in Vogue: People, Parties, Places which is now one of my featured coffee table books) would normally have a high sticker price used or not.
Most times, I’d read the description of the book or scan a couple of pages to see if I’d be interested but I picked up Michel Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things because of the gold edges each page of the book has. I’m still not 100% clear on the subject matter but from what I glean from the press release stuck between the pages, it is a “mesmerizing work of extraordinary imagination” that is an “exploration of fashion, love and humanity’s search for meaning in an unfathomable universe.”
This. Sounds. Dreadful. However, Faber is an award-winning author and I am interested to see if this book that has been labeled a masterpiece by some can bring me in and successfully suspend me in its universe.
