There’s a wonderful bookstore in downtown L.A. called T he Last Bookstore . It’s in a huge space, and the whole second floor is cheapskate bookworm heaven because everything up there is $1 (and in absolutely NO sort of order, no genre or alphabetical organization at all, just thousands of books stacked willy nilly on at least 4 rooms full of floor to ceiling shelves). The first time I went there, I decided on just 3 books, a Billie Letts novel, the worst Anne Tyler novel I’ve ever read ( Noah’s Compass , the only story of hers I haven’t loved), and Coney , a novel by Amram Ducovny. This here paragraph is part autobiographical information (as per usual on this blog), part book review. Coney is about a Jewish family in a very seedy Coney Island in the late 1930’s. The book jacket calls this book “part noir thriller, part coming-of-age novel”, and I cannot fully agree with this, because the thriller genre uses tension and suspense , which the violent oc...