1:30
“When people say, ‘This book made me laugh out loud,’ I’m like alright, we did it. We made people laugh out loud,” Kasulke said. “If you read it again and sort of know where things are going, I think people pick up different things. It’s already short, read it twice. Who cares?”
“Several People Are Typing” is available now wherever books are sold. Get your copy here and read an excerpt here.
See more of our conversation below for some of Kasulke’s book recommendations:
Read along with us and join the conversation all month long on our Instagram account -- GMA Book Club and #GMABookClub
The last book I read was “Darryl” by Jackie Ess. It’s incredible -- it’s unlike anything I have ever read. It’s really great and Jackie is just incredible -- I have season tickets to Jackie Ess now. Everything she writes for as long as she’s is writing, I’m going to get the instant it is available. So she is great and Darryll is a blast and I don’t want to say anything about it because people should just read it and go on for the ride.
The “Goosebumps” choose your own adventure books [“Give Yourself Goosebumps”] that were available when I was a kid absolutely blew my little mind -- that it wasn’t what you expected a book to be. You’d open the book and it was a book but it was also a game and it was something that you could participate in and just the idea that there weren’t necessarily rules to what a book could contain that you choose your own adventures -- was I think really integral to me wanting to see what I can do.
“Dead Collections” by Isaac Fellman. It’s a trans vampire archivist book. I think it is genuinely groundbreaking. I’ve had the pleasure of reading an early draft. Isaac is incredibly talented and I think people are going to absolutely lose their business over this book. It’s just so fun and it does things formally and theme-wise and genre-wise I just think people are not used to seeing. It’s just fun and sexy and funny, and it has a thriller element. I don’t know how he pulled it off but it’s a real blast. And I am really looking forward to reading the final version.
If you’re going to pick up “Several People Are Typing” and your cart seems kind of lonely, “A Touch of Jen” that just came out by Beth Morgan is great and it is fitting for spooky season and it is fitting if you are interested in people who are good at incorporating our digital lives into books in unique ways. I think Beth is incredible.
And Hanif Abdurraqib just put out “A Little Devil in America,” which is a history of Black performance and is just masterful. That guy is just incredibly prolific and he doesn’t miss. His previous work, “They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us” is, I think, already sort of a modern classic. I don’t think you can go wrong picking up anything Hanif has written. But “A Little Devil in America” -- I remember trying to tweet about it and looking at my phone for like 40 minutes because I just couldn’t come up with a sufficiently praiseful description that did not seem overwrought or corny. I just respect the hell out of that guy and everything he writes. I just think there’s not a lot of people writing essays at the level he is these days.
Jordy Rosenberg is working on a new book and he wrote another sort of modern classic, “Confessions of the Fox.” I know Jordy has a new book coming out so you should keep your eyes open for him because he’s another great talent. And if you’re not already reading everything Alexander Chee puts out, what are you doing?
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