Over at 3 Guys 1 Book,* they have a nifty take on the spring books preview: They’ve asked editors at their favorite indie presses what spring releases they’re most excited about.

Here’s just a bit of one, in which Emergency Press‘s Bryan Tomasovich talks up a memoir with a local angle:

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In American Junkie, Tom Hansen takes us on a non-stop into a land of desperate addicts, failed punk bands, and brushes with sad fame selling drugs during the Seattle grunge years. It’s a story that takes us from the promise of a young life to the prison of a mattress, from budding musician to broken down junkie, drowning in syringes and cigarette butts, shooting heroin into wounds the size of softballs, and ultimately, a ride to a hospital for a six-month stay and a painful self-discovery that cuts down to the bone. Through it all he never really loses his step, never lets go of his smarts, and always projects quintessential American reason, humor, and hope to make a story not only about drugs, but a compelling study of vulnerability and toughness.

I usually skip the spring and fall book previews from the New York Times and so on because they’re generally just a dull collection of blurbs, but the guys at 3G1B know that book editors are first and foremost skilled at the art of the pitch. This format is really smart. I want to read all these books.

* I love the site, but I can’t stand the name. It makes me imagine bookkake, every time I go there.

8 replies on “Spring Books Have Sprung”

  3. It had me until “painful self-discovery.” Sorry former junkie friends of mine, I support ya, but your almost always still too self-absorbed to ever tell a good story. If this one’s any different, let me know.

  6. OK, I read an excerpt from the book on his site, and it actually looks like an interesting read. I blame Mackenzie Phillips, and life, for me previous presumptuousness.

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