Other Works

SOME BOOKS AREN’T FOR READING

“A rollicking tale, burrowing deep into the bookseller subculture of L.A. like a spelunker into a dark cave.”

-Lucian  K. Truscott IV,  Salon.com

Mitchell Fourchette is on a mission through the darkest recesses of Los Angeles to retrieve his priceless, Hemingway inscribed, first-edition copy of The Old Man and the Sea. He unearthed it at the bottom of a bin of castoffs at a thrift store warehouse in Anaheim, and then Helmet-Head, Martin’s moped-driving book-scout competitor and nemesis, filched it.  How, after an auspicious launch at Hotchkiss and Yale, then a great job in advertising and a loving young family did Martin lose everything?

 

“Deep yearning, perseverance and love of family underlie the muscular prose, the dark humor and compounding ironies of this startling first novel. It’s so appropriate that it all happens in Los Angeles, the fool’s paradise that brought you It will make you laugh. It will make you cry.

-Richard Tuggle
Writer of Escape From Alacatraz
“Story telling like T.C. Boyle, characters worthy of Robert Stone. Howard Marc Chesley draws you into a world of seemingly ordinary people who are seething and boiling on the inside as they struggle in a world of yard sales, internet trading and parenthood. Creating compelling drama from everyday events, he turns the life of an internet bookseller into a thriller. I couldn’t stop reading.”

-David Peoples
Writer of Blade Runner and Unforgiven

“Mitchell Fourchette lost his career, his dignity and his moral compass – He was humbled, but had yet to find true humility. Yes, Some Books Aren’t for Reading, but not this one – this wildly engaging and starkly revealing portrait of how a good husband goes bad is a must-read.”


-Sarah Pillsbury

Oscar winning producer of Deperately Seeking Susan

Howard Chesley

ABOUT HOWARD MARC CHESLEY

Howard Marc Chesley is an author and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins writing seminars.  He has worked as a writer of film and television and his first novel, “Some Books Aren’t for Reading,” was nominated for a 2019 Booker prize. 

Read More About Howard Chesley