David Rakoff was a mainstay on public radio’s “This American Life”, and the best-selling author of Fraud, Don’t Get Too Comfortable, and Half Empty. He died of cancer in 2012 at the age of 47, shortly after finishing “Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish, a short novel” in verse that jumps from decade to decade, tracking a panoply of American characters across the 20th century: 1920′s slaughterhouse workers, 1950′s office girls, AIDS victims and 1980′s yuppies.

Rakoff marries deft, humane observation with jauntily tripping verse structure - in places, you’ll find yourself thinking of Dr. Seuss - to create a series of jewel-toned interlocking miniatures. NPR reviewer Alan Cheuse said, “Rakoff makes such pairings as virago and Chicago, ceases and paresis, skittish and Yiddish, antelope and envelope, horas and Torahs, Alzheimer’s and climbers, for 100 cleverly rendered and entertaining pages.”

In this excerpt, set in the 1980s, never-satisfied Susan is about to marry shallow lawyer Josh, and cruelly, she has invited her ex-boyfriend Nathan to give a toast at the wedding. “Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish” was published by Doubleday (a division of Random House) on July 16th, 2013.

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Thank you NPR Books and R. I. P. David Rakoff.

WNYC Radio has a very interesting & informative podcast called ON THE MEDIA, where they cover issues related to Books, TV, Culture, Politics, Art, etc… One of the many areas they report about is “The Book Publishing Industry”. Here’s a recent podcast titled, “PUBLISHING: ADAPT OR DIE”, where they investigate fears of Amazon becoming a monopoly and the little publishing house standing up to it, a Pulitzer snub for fiction, the problem of knock-off books, Pottermore and much more.