Novel Songs

Playlists torn from the pages of paperbacks

[novelsongs]

Touch by Courtney Maum on Novel Songs

A Listening Companion

(cover art by Allison Tanenhaus)

Listen on 8tracks or YouTubeMusic

Friend Machine - Nation of Language </3 - Honeymoan Machinist - Japanese Breakfast Dial It In - Harkin Tenderness - Jay Som Digital Witness - St. Vincent Blue & Gray - The Shacks Safe 2 Connect 2 - Jessica Lea Mayfield

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The possibility that he really did harbor some attraction to her couldn't pierce her core. It wasn't in the realm of things that were feasible these days. Bombings, bankruptcy, coastal flooding, all of these things, yes, but that he could feel some tenderness for this broken person, no.

Courtney Maum, Touch

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The almost biological certainty that the more often you checked your cell phone, the more likely you were to find that one wondrous message or notification that would improve your entire life.

Courtney Maum, Touch

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Major Roman-in-Zentai-suit-not-gonna-kiss-you vibes.

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Alice and I were the same size. We displaced the same amount of air. But when we embraced she became elusive and darting, like a remora fish. When I held her I imagined that I could crane my neck and kiss the small of her back, or reach around to clasp my own shoulders in my hands.

As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem

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At the restaurant, the sound system was playing Dinah Washington singing “For All We Know.” The walls, like love, were trompe-l’oeil—walls painted like viewful windows, though only a fool wouldn’t know that they were walls. The menu, like love, was full of delicate, gruesome things—cheeks, tongues, thymus glands. The candle, like love, flickered, reflected in the brass tops of the sugar bowl and the salt and pepper shakers.

Debarking by Lorrie Moore

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The Kills 5.15.2016 

The Paradise

Boston, MA

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Lucius, The Royale, Boston, MA 3.29.2016

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She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

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Find It or Fling It: The Girl on the Train

Attention all passionate readers!

Is there such a thing as a call-in podcast? Well, there is now.

Did you read The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and tell all of your friends to find a copy (because nobody ever returns borrowed books)? Did you read or start reading The Girl on the Train and startle your cat/dog when the book landed beside them, sliding down the wall after you flung (flinged, flung, flunged?) it across the room in disgust? Give me a call, leave a message, and be on the first ever “Find It or Fling It” podcast.

Despite Susan Orlean “rueing the time I wasted on that silly book. #girlonthetrain,” I read The Girl on the Train. I didn’t hate it, but I would’ve flung it had I not been reading on my Kindle. My flinging instinct was most likely due to my personal distaste for unreliable narrators (you just can’t trust ‘em). Instead, I aggressively logged into my library e-reserve account and returned my electronic copy before it expired... after I had read the entire book (Susan Orlean declared it a disaster after only 75 pages). 

Unlike movies (FYI a film version is in production), if I make it to the end of a book, I have a hard time not finding some reason to recommend it. That’s where more opinionated readers like you come in.

I’ll continue to post a playlist for each book featured here on Novel Songs along with the new “Find It or Fling It” podcast. The likelihood of me continuing with these posts highly depends on passionate readers on the internet. I know you’re out there. Don’t let us me down. I already have plans for a “Flingback” segment if we make it to a second podcast.

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These things sneak up on him for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It’s probably a vitamin deficiency.

Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood

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Just My Type epigraph via Jeff Baker

Happy Valentine's Day

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Ain't No Houellebecq Girl: Commonly Mispronounced Author Names

from BookRiot on youtube

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Site was down for a bit, but I'm still here.

Illustration by Tom Gauld (print available)

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Hector and the Search for Happiness

My memory of the book may not be accurate, but Hector seemed to have a less happy-go-lucky search for happiness and his relationships were a lot more strained than this trailer would lead you to believe, but that's the movies.

I'll see it.

I uploaded my 2011 playlist for the novel it's based on to 8tracks. Check it out.

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The terminal seems busy for a weekday. A crowd mills around the conveyor belt: a sunburned family in flip-flops; several imparient men in suits; two baby-faced soldiers in desert camouflage; a woman shouting Spanish into a cell phone. Where, Dolly wonders, is everyone going? Years ago people stayed put: you found a job and kept it, bought a house and kept it. There were meals to cook and children to raise, and in this way, years passed. Those who did otherwise-the unsavory characters, the criminals and misfits-were easy to spot, back when men got regular haircuts and shaved daily. Now they seem to be everywhere.

From Sublimation by Jennifer Haigh (this year's selection for One City One Story)

[novelsongs]

Novel Songs turned 4 today!

I hope to have plans for podcasts in the works, so stay tuned for more shows. The unfortunately titled "Shades of Grey" is in the queue.