Well, Labor Day is fast approaching, so I hope you're all finishing off your tans. Here's my latest shot at bringing some favorite books from the past to your attention. I'd like to mention Kazuo Ishiguro's terrific novel The Unconsoled. Ishiguro had won the Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day, and he could have had a very successful career simply writing variations on it. Instead, he wrote this incredibly daring and highly unusual departure.

The unsettling plot: an unnamed pianist, the narrator, arrives in an unspecified European town to give a concert, and gradually finds himself besieged by the locals, demanding that he fulfill a number of commitments he can't remember making. The pressure mounts until he finds himself on a series of impossible errands that both lead away from and intersect with each other.

The first time I read this novel, I really thought that Ishiguro had been monitoring my stress dreams.

At any rate, I vouch for it as a fascinating change from run-of-the-mill fiction. The writing is elegant, but not "pretty," it's about the unreal turns in the plot and its ability to convince you that everything will tie together - even though it may not. Ishiguro's latest book, Never Let Me Go, has gotten a lot of attention for its own daring plot. This is a chance to check out its equally intriguing antecedent. It's a perfect end-of-summer book.

And if you have any other favorite weirdly surreal novels, let me know at weirdness@olssons.com .

-Joe Murphy, Head Book Buyer

Well, summer is still plugging along, with temperatures varying, as you may have noticed, from the intolerable to the merely insufferable. What better time to get some reading done, whether at the pool, the beach, or in your carefully climate controlled room (I have my own air conditioner on the verge of wheezing).

I'm using this space this summer as a soapbox to recommend some older titles that deserve your attention in the current world of superhot media driven books. We love to see big books take off and sell (believe me!), but it's also fun to remind folks of books that have already stood the test of time.

So this week, I'd like to mention Roger Shattuck's "The Banquet Years" (Vintage, $14). It's a fascinating study of turn of the (twentieth) century France and the four major figures who created the concept of the avant-garde: Henri Rousseau, the humble customs official who took up painting in his retirement and convinced himself—and ultimately everyone else—that he was one of the greatest painters alive; Erik Satie, who had given up his career as a cutting-edge composer, only to be rediscovered and celebrated years later; the playwright Alfred Jarry, whose fictional creation, Pere Ubu, became an absurdist spokesman for the entire fin-de-siecle period; and Guillaume Apollonaire, brilliantly innovative poet and friend of Picasso who incorporated the cubists' ideas into his poems.

Shattuck's analysis of these artists' work is interesting enough, but the cultural and biographical anecdotes he relates are as fun as the best fiction. The book earns its title: Shattuck sees the period as a series of banquets, from the funeral of Victor Hugo which brought all Paris to a standstill to the amazing banquet Picasso threw for an elderly Rousseau. Suffice it to say that Rousseau, who fell asleep early in the evening, slept through a lot of drunken misbehavior by some of the greatest names in twentieth century art and literature.

And did you know that Apollinaire and Picasso were once arrested on suspicion of theft of the Mona Lisa?

In short (too late, perhaps?) the book is both brilliantly penetrating and fun; its ideas are exciting and challenging and its anecdotes priceless.

I initially gravitated toward "The Banquet Years" because I love reading about points where particular genuiuses happen to intersect or overlap; the fascinating thing is that it seems they always do. Do you have a favorite book about a nexus of genius? Let us know at avantgarde@olssons.com. We'd love to hear about it.

Keep enjoying your summer! Talk to you again soon.

-Joe Murphy (Head Buyer)