The Picador Book Room

Time for another round of Team Picador’s Friday Reads.

This week, Gabrielle is reading Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley, part of Melville House’s The Art of the Novella series.

It is a totally adorable story about a middle-aged woman who lives with her brother on a farm. Her brother, after writing a critically acclaimed novel, starts to neglect his duties. His sister has pretty much had it with him when one day a man comes by with a mobile bookstore—a horse-drawn covered wagon—wanting to sell the operation to her brother, a writer he admires. Instead, to save the farm (and her sanity), the sister buys the wagon and takes off to sell books on her own. I’ve absolutely fallen in love with this feisty woman and am having so much fun reading about her adventures as a traveling book peddler. Highly recommended.

In the interest of full disclosure, Alaina admits that she still isn’t quite done with Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. However, with a road trip on the agenda for this weekend, finishing the book in the car is inevitable, and she’s got Sabina Berman’s debut novel, Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World stowed away in her bag. 

The editor who talked about this title at Picador’s spring launch meeting earlier this week spoke so passionately about the unique and quirky voice of the book’s autistic protagonist, Karen Nieto, that I couldn’t help but snag a copy of the hardcover as soon as it came into the office. The book will be available from Henry Holt next month.

Darin has an interesting pair of books this week: Wallflower at the Orgy by Nora Ephron and Skios by Michael Frayn.

Daniel is 60 pages into How to Build an Android by David F. Dufty, another future Picador paperback launched at this week’s spring launch meeting.

It’s the true story of building a humanoid robot in the image of Phillip K. Dick. It’s interesting so far. While I was reading it I was curious to see how lifelike David Hanson, the roboticist, could make the humanoid faces. The answer: very lifelike. Hanson’s Ted Talk below.

James is reading another future Picador paperback (coming in February 2013), The Disciple of Las Vegas by Ian Hamilton, because, “Who couldn’t love a Chinese-Canadian lesbian forensic accountant?”

Intern Anya is busy reading multiple submissions, but still plans to make time this weekend for Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa.

Finally, Justin is reading Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Tinkers by Paul Harding.