Spring pickings: Metropolis Books, Los Angeles
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While much of the East Coast is snowed in, we in Los Angeles are looking forward to spring. We asked booksellers from all over what book they’re recommending to readers this year, and we begin with Metropolis Books, located in the heart of the arts district in downtown Los Angeles. Owner Julie Ann Swayze writes:
The book that I am recommending is Jedediah Berry’s ‘The Manual of Detection.’ It’s a story within a story that has a Kafkaesque feel to it. Berry’s narrative follows a humble but curious corporate clerk who works for a large detective agency. The clerk is mysteriously promoted to the position of detective in this large and strangely impersonal agency. All of the chapter titles reflect an aspect of the craft of detection. The story within the story will peak the reader’s interest and capture their imagination until the end. I highly recommend this book, and for fans of Colson Whitehead’s ‘The Intuitionist,’ an urban Gothic novel published some years ago, readers will see a similarity in Berry’s unusual and sometimes quirky narrative.
-- Carolyn Kellogg
