Green Bean Casserole Rum: A Recipe

For your thanksgiving viewing, here are some of my favorite book covers.  We're told not to judge a book by its cover, but I do anyway and these books got me.  Have a look-see for yourself and then continue eating turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes and green bean casserole and pie and filling your throat with wine wine and more wine.  I'll be back Sunday with some final thoughts on National Novel Writing Month.  Until then, feast your eyes on these:

Ted Chiang is one of science fiction's best short storytellers and when I saw this collection (published by Small Beer Press) in the bookstore, I had to have it.

My friend, Greg Bossert, brought this book to Clarion last summer.  I suppose you would call Hugo Cabret a MG novel (middle-grade) because the characters are young, but it's a fascinating experiment combining literature, film, and drawings.  The book is bound by hand, too.

This collection of short stories was written by another friend of mine and fellow Clarionite, Karin Tidbeck.  The book is in Swedish so I can't read it, but I can tell you her stories in English are at once eerie and gorgeous.

The original Rocky.  Fat City is a gritty chaotic novel about the redemption of a boxer.

As a promotion of a collection of short stories, Jeff Vandermeer wrote a "secret life" for many of his fans.  This is that book: it's brief and weird and pretty much exactly Vandermeer.  Some of these "secret lives" would become full-bodied stories.

I haven't read The Stories of Ibis yet.  It's on my reading list, obviously.  I bought this book in San Diego.  I remember looking down at a stand of books and there it was and I had to have it.  Apparently, it's about robots.

Grace Kilonavich's debut novel was on my Top 10 Favorite Books of 2010 for good reason, and this awesome cover is icing on the wacked-out psychedelic cake.

I've read the first three Culture books by Iain M. Banks.  I still can't get into it. I think Banks' stories are a fun, fast read, but I think he wants me to get more out of the reading than I do.

Dien Cai Dau might be the best poetry collection about the Vietnam War ever.  There's a secret story I have about this book, but I won't tell it.  It's my secret story.