Mac Montandon is the editor of
Innocent When You Dream: The Tom Waits Reader. He has written for the
New York Times,
New York,
Details, and
Salon, among others. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
His new book is
Jetpack Dreams: One Man's Up and Down (But Mostly Down) Search for the Greatest Invention That Never Was.
This week I asked him what he was reading. His reply:
I've been reading Apples and Oranges, a memoir about her often difficult relationship with her brother by the journalist Marie Brenner. I saw the book on a couple of end-of-year Best Of lists and it looked interesting so I picked it up. It is quite good and well done -- the writing is sharp and the dynamics of the relationships are nuanced and familiar to anyone who has had strained familial experiences, which is everyone, really. I am additionally interested in Brenner's book as I'm thinking about my next project and I am leaning toward trying something closer to this genre than to whatever quirky genre my first book belongs. It's partly for this reason tha
t I am next going to read Hurry Down Sunshine, a memoir by Michael Greenberg. While reading Apples and Oranges, I took a break halfway through to read a short but snappy treatise on the theme of snark by New Yorker critic David Denby. The book is called, naturally, Snark. It's a fun and lively exploration of that voice that has come to dominate not only much of the online discourse but plenty of media of all kinds.
Watch
the Jetpack Dreams trailer and
read an excerpt from the book at
the official website.
--Marshal Zeringue
Mac Montandon is the editor of Innocent When You Dream: The Tom Waits Reader. He has written for the New York Times, New York, Details, and Salon, among others. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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