BIG NEWS and I mean BIG NEWS. Community Books has a WEB SITE. Yes, you heard me right. They’ve been working on it for quite while and I keep asking. Now it’s up and running. YAY to Catherine Bohne and staff.
It’s big news because Catherine is an admitted Luddite. A card-carrying Luddite. The store only recently replaced their computers—computers they’ve had since the early 1990’s (or earlier).
Luddite or not, she obviously recognizes the importance of having a web site because it’s such a great way to spread the word about a great bookstore, a store which is such an important place for many in this community.
I think the previous owner had a web site — they created it right before Barnes and Noble came to Seventh Avenue. At that time, the store took numerous measures to insure their existence on Seventh Avenue (web site, discounts, a cafe). They survived! Sadly, another Seventh Avenue bookstore, Book Link, fell victim to the economic pressures caused by the big mega-bookstore invasion.
In this day of mega-stores, I think the small, quirky, interesting stores have EVEN more value. A store like Community Books is a perfect antidote to all the sameness — the McDonald-ization of the world. What’s wrong with quirky, eccentric and unexpected?
So, a web site for Community Books is a great way to get the word out about all the interesting events at the store and elsewhere.
Today, she also sent out her yearly newsletter in PDF form with gift suggestions—it happens to be a great resource for all you book-buying gifters — BOOKS MAKE SENSATIONAL GIFTS I THINK.
cbjupitarbooks.com is the URL. Better bookmark that one because it’s hard to remember. The site has all sorts of cute illustrations of reptiles and rabbits. I’d say the site really conveys the vibe of the store, in all of its quirky splendor, quite well.
Here are some gift suggestions from the bookstore:
Theories of Everything : Selected, Collected, & Health-Inspected Cartoons by Roz Chast 1978-2006
by Roz Chast (Bloomsbury, $45.00): Everything from “Tuesday Night
Fever” to the “Prozac Mist Air Freshener” by our greatest chronicler of
the anxieties, superstitions, furies, insecurities, and surreal
imaginings of modern life. Yup. Even the “Flying Wall-to-wall carpet.”
Samuel Beckett : The Grove Centenary Edition
(Grove Press, $100.00): The definitive (and handsome) boxed set, edited
by Paul Auster. Two volumes of Novels, One of Dramatic Works, plus a
Fourth of Poems, Short Fiction and Criticism. Go Bananas.
In the Studio : Visits with Contemporary Cartoonists
by Todd Hignite (Yale, $29.95): Generously illustrated with full-color
reproductions, this unparalleled look at the cutting edge of the comic
medium provides interviews with the likes of Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes,
Art Spiegelman and Jaime Hernandez among others. Rare access to many
who usually decline to grant it.
Beautiful Evidence by Edward Tufte (Graphics Press,
$52.00): The long-awaited new book by the pre-eminent champion of
visual representation theory. “Science and art have in common intense
seeing, the wide-eyed observing that generates empirical information.
Beautiful Evidence is about how seeing turns into showing.” About how
representation can “delight both by the wonder of the spectacle and the
accuracy of expression.”
The Silver Spoon Cookbook (Phaidon Press, $39.95):
Considered the “bible” of authentic Italian cooking, this cookbook has
until recently never been available in English. 2,000 recipes cover the
basics, like the proper way to cook spinach (use just the amount of
water clinging to its leaves) to more difficult recipes, like braised
rabbit with rosemary. All three daily meals are accounted for–actually
four, because you must include dessert!
The Power of Art by Simon Schama (Ecco, $50.00):
“Great art has dreadful manners,” the author observes at the start of
this exploration of the power, and the purpose, of art. “The hushed
reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are
polite things … but actually the greatest paintings grab you in a
headlock, rough up your composure, and then proceed in short order to
re-arrange your sense of reality.” Schama focuses on eight
artists—Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh,
Picasso and Rothko—who, each in his own way, transformed the way we see
the world.
There are way more books in the continuation of this article:
Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers
by Edward Hemingway and Mark Bailey (Algonquin, $15.95): When asked if
he knew that drinking was a slow death, Robert Benchley sipped his
cocktail and replied “Who’s in a hurry?” Forty-three classic American
writers, forty-three cocktail recipes, and forty-three anecdotes and
quotations.
R. Crumb’s Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Country by R.
Crumb (Abrams, $19.95): A compilation of the trading card sets he
created in the early- to mid-1980s, with an exclusive 21-track CD of
music selected and compiled by Crumb. A brief biography of each
musician adds to the whole.
Posthumous Papers of a Living Author by Robert Musil & Yann Andréa Steiner
by Marguerite Duras (Archipelago, $15.00 each): From my favorite,
courageous not-for-profit press “committed to bringing works of classic
and contemporary literature from all corners of the world to our
shores,” an absolutely beautiful pair of rediscovered gems.
A Northern Christmas : Being the Story of a Peaceful Christmas in the Remote and Peaceful Wilderness of an Alaskan Island
by Rockwell Kent (Wesleyan/New England, $10.95): A beautiful
reproduction of the 1941 edition of Kent’s account of one magical
Christmas spent with his 8-year-old son and an aged trapper in the
wilds of Alaska. “If home is where what you desire is, then we’d come
home.” With Kent’s beautiful illustrations throughout.
Mr. Boston: Platinum Edition
edited by Steven McDonald and Anthony Giglio (Wiley, $19.95): America’s
most popular drink-mixing guide from 1935 (word is FDR learned to make
Whiskey Sours for Eleanor from this very book) has been updated and
revised to include new drink recipes. Its alphabetical listing of 1,500
drink recipes will ensure always finding new and inventive ways to get
completely and utterly inebriated (or just tipsy).
Literary Lives
by Edward Sorel (Bloomsbury, $14.95): Award-winning caricaturist Sorel
uses his distinctive style to illustrate the strange and outrageous
lives of ten iconic literary figures, from Tolstoy to Brecht. Amusing
and sometimes hard to believe – but always absolutely true.
The Penguin Books Great Ideas Boxed Set
(Penguin, $53.70): Includes beautifully slim letterpress volumes of
Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Machiavelli, Thomas Paine, Nietzsche and
George Orwell. And the whole thing weighs less than a large mango.
(It’s all I could think of.)
On Truth by
Harry G. Frankfurt (Knopf, $12.50): Philosopher Frankfurt follows up
his best-selling On Bullshit, with an investigation of the other side
of the tracks. He seeks to redress the omission in his earlier work of
“why truth actually is so important to us, or why we should especially
care about it.” Yeah, truth matters. But why? You know its supposed to
be good. But is it? Why? You may be relieved to know, it exists. Go
find it.
Giants of Jazz by Studs Terkel (New
Press, $14.95): First published in 1957, this book, the first by one of
the best storytellers around, has just been reissued in a handsome
edition, with thirteen accompanying original illustrations. Ever hear
the story about where Dizzy Gillespie bought his first horn, or
wondered about Joe Oliver’s favorite meal, or speculated on the origin
of Billie Holiday’s nickname, Lady Day? Terkel’s knack for capturing
the small (but significant) details goes a long way in bringing these
greats back to life.
A Good Read
The Ruby in Her Navel
by Barry Unsworth (Doubleday, $26.00): The latest novel from the
Booker-Prize-winning (and multiply-shortlisted) author is set in the
short-lived medieval kingdom of Sicily, where Normans rule over an
uneasy alliance of Arabs, Jews, Byzantines and Christians. Our hero,
Thurstan, is an unwilling pawn, but love (and sex!) triumph in the end.
The Echo Maker
by Richard Powers (FSG, $25.00): This year’s National Book Award
winner, from one of our favorite American writers (author of The Gold
Bug Variations, Gain, and Plowing the Dark, among others). It is “a
gripping mystery that explores the improvised human self and the even
more precarious brain that splits us from and joins us to the rest of
creation.” Your guess is as good as mine, but if it’s Powers, it’s
bound to be gorgeous.
The Mystery Guest : An Account
by Gregoire Bouillier (FSG, $18.00): “I woke up the other morning and
started to read this marvelous book. I stayed in bed until I read the
last page. I could not for the life of me think of anything in the
world I wanted to do but read this book. I am tempted to stay in bed
until he writes another one.” – Daniel Handler. Nevermind what it’s
about – doesn’t this make you want to read it?
Last Evenings on Earth
by Roberto Bolaño (New Directions, $23.95): “The most influential and
admired novelist of his generation in the Spanish-speaking world”
(Susan Sontag), Bolaño sets this latest collection of stories in the
Chilean exile diaspora of Latin America and Europe, peopled by his
beloved “failed generation,” and exploring “the melancholy folklore of
exile.”
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie (Knopf, $24.95): Set during the 1960s struggle for an
independent Nigeria, this novel weaves together the lives of three
characters – a 13-yr old houseboy, a beautiful mistress, and a shy
young Englishman – forced to run for their lives together. “Epic,
ambitious, and triumphantly realized . . . a remarkable novel about
moral responsibility, the end of colonialism, ethnic allegiances, about
class and race – and about how love complicates them all.”
Suite Francaise
by Irene Nemirovsky (Knopf, $25.00): This year’s amazing,
heart-breaking discovery. These are the first two parts of a planned
five-part novel, begun in the early 1940s by the Ukrainian-born author,
living at the time in Paris. A luminous portrayal of the events of
WWII, the novel begins with the massive exodus from Paris on the eve of
the Nazi invasion. Writing against time and history, the author died in
Auschwitz in 1942. “At once subtle and severe, deeply compassionate and
fiercely ironic.” Read it. And weep.
Wizard of the Crow
by Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Pantheon, $30.00): In this epic comic novel, wa
Thiong’o set out to “sum up Africa of the 20th C in the context of two
thousand years of world history.” The result is a hilarious account of
the battle to control the “Free Republic of Aburiria” between the
resident dictator (His High Mighty Excellency), a Wizard who is the
embodiment of folkloric wisdom, a corrupt Christian Ministry, and the
nefarious Global Bank.
Gallatin Canyon by
Thomas McGuane (Knopf, $24.00): The sometimes forgotten third of a
triumvirate including Cormac McCarthy and Richard Ford, McGuane speaks
for an idea of America. In these stories, he brings in landscape, Big
Sky Country, as often as he does the small people writhing in the
foothills. Dark and poignant.
The Seventh Heaven: Stories of the Supernatural
by Naguib Mahfouz (AU in Cairo, $19.95): For some time, Mahfouz offered
his works to this local university press, before allowing them to be
snapped up by larger, for-profit presses. A beautiful edition of the
Nobel Prize winner’s last writings: Follow a murdered man to his
confrontation with Akhenaten, Woodrow Wilson and Nasser, which if he
successfully negotiates will get him into, yes, seventh heaven; a
teenager, warned off the local woods goes anyhow, encounters Satan, and
discovers enchantment; a perfume seller, forced to look for an honest
man, and more.
Brainy Books for Literary Boffos
The End of the Poem
by Paul Muldoon (FSG, $30.00): A collection of fifteen lectures Muldoon
delivered while serving as Oxford’s Professor of Poetry, touching on
subjects from the degree to which poetry has to be (or does it?) read
in context (and what context?), the boundaries between writer and
reader, to the whole question of functionality – when is a poem over?
Completed?
The Things that Matter : What Seven Classic Novels Have to Say About the Stages of Life
by Edward Mendelson (Pantheon, $23.00): The literary executor of
Auden’s estate, and editor of editions of Trollope, Meredith, Hardy,
Wells, and Arnold Bennett, Mendelson has the chops to speak on how
classic English literature portrays the essential experiences of life.
In examining seven novels, he looks beyond theories to the individual
intentions of the authors, taking into account their lives and times,
and reminds us that literature keeps us company on our own journeys
through all the trying, exultant journeys of life.
Grief Lessons : Four Plays by Euripedes
a translation by Anne Carson (NYRB, $19.95): During the disastrous
Peloponesian War, Euripides wrote “shockers: he unmasked heroes,
revealing them as foolish and savage, and he wrote about the powerless
– women and children, slaves and barbarians, for whom tragedy was
unending.” Carson applies her meticulous passion for translating to:
Herakles, Hekabe, Hippolytos and Alkestis. Includes two framing essays
by Carson including “Tragedy: A Curious Art Form.”
We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live : Collected Nonfiction
by Joan Didion (Everyman, $30.00): All seven books of non-fiction
appearing between 1968 and 2003 in one volume. Believe it or not, you
can actually lift it, quite easily. And it’s got a ribbon.
The Book of Lost Books : An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You’ll Never Read
by Stuart Kelly (Random House, $24.95): Some of the world’s greatest
prose and poetry has gone missing. Love’s Labor Won was supposed to
have been a sequel to the play where it was lost (or did it become
Taming of the Shrew?). Gogol burned the second half of Dead Souls. Some
thousand pages of Naked Lunch were stolen and sold by Algerian street
boys. Read all about it, from cave paintings to the 20th C!
The Aeneid
by Virgil, trans. by Robert Fagles (Viking, $40.00): I’ve long
suspected it: Old is the new New! Arms and the man, he sings. You know,
Fagles, who ten years ago or so, reintroduced a generation to Homer.
Reading Like a Writer : A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
by Francine Prose (HarperCollins, $23.95): Long before creative writing
workshops, people learned how to write by reading. Here’s a guided tour
of how to read your way through the tricks and tools of the masters.
See John le Carré for plot advancement, Flannery O’Connor for the use
of detail, George Eliot for characterization, and more (and more).
The Ode Less Travelled : Unlocking the Poet Within
by Stephen Fry (Gotham, $25.00): Comedian, actor and novelist, Fry is
also apparently a cranky formalist. Believing that encouraging people
to just “write what you feel” is equivalent to plonking a child down at
a piano and telling them to “just have a go at banging away at it,” Fry
sets out to walk the reader through an informative and entertaining
course in how to write a poem. Go on – you can!
A Thought-Provoking Gift
The Omnivore’s Dilemma : A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press, $26.95): What should we have for
dinner? The author of The Botany of Desire brings us a definitive
account of the American way of eating by following four meals from
source to table, in his own inimitable prose totting up along the way
what each meal costs us, in terms of production, and health. If we
aren’t yet what we’ve eaten, we soon will be.
Stumbling on Happiness
by Daniel Gilbert (Knopf, $24.95): Gilbert, a Harvard College Professor
of Psychology, describes and catalogues the foibles of imagination and
illusions of foresight that make us both think we know what we want,
and which also make us so frequently wrong. Gilbert sets out to explain
“why we seem to know so little about the hearts and minds of the people
we’re about to become.” He cheerfully promises that even if the book
doesn’t teach you anything about how to be happy, at least you’ll understand better why you so often aren’t.
The Female Brain
by Louann Brizendine (Morgan Road, $24.95): A pioneering
neuro-psychiatrist catalogues the latest findings which detail the
typical physical differences between the female and (apparently
somewhat stunted?) male brain. Excess testosterone shrinks the
communication center, reduces the hearing cortex and makes the part
that processes sex twice as large. Oh dear.
The Architecture of Happiness
by Alain de Botton (Pantheon, $25.00): The author of How Proust Can
Change Your Life starts from the idea that “where we are heavily
influences who we can be” and therefore attempts to distill a
comprehensive understanding of what makes a building beautiful, given
that pursuing, creating and maintaining such environments might be
central to our well-being.
Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships
by Daniel Goleman (Bantam, $28.00): The author of Emotional
Intelligence is back with a new synthesis of biology and brain science,
revealing that we are “wired to connect” and details the surprisingly
deep impact of our relationships on every aspect of our lives. Good
relations with our fellow humans are healthy.
Prisoners : A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide
by Jeffrey Goldberg (Knopf, $25.00): In the 1990s, the author, an
American Jew, served as a guard in an Israeli prison camp where he
began what would turn into a lifelong friendship with a rising PLO
leader.
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
(Houghton, $27.00): The author of The Selfish Gene (and arguably no
stranger himself to propounding ideas as sweeping as they are unifying)
lays out in gloriously emphatic detail why a belief in God could be not
only irrational, but downright dangerous.
Dangerous Knowledge : Orientalism and Its Discontents
by Robert Irwin (Overlook, $35.00): How did Western scholars of Islamic
culture come to be vilified as insidious agents of European
colonialism? In a lively history of a motley crew of intellectuals and
eccentrics, from Ancient Greece to contemporary scholars, Irwin affirms
the Orientalists’ legacy for anyone committed to fostering
cross-cultural understanding and bridging the real or imagined gulf
between cultures.
The Female Thing : Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability
by Laura Kipnis (Pantheon, $23.95): With the “gleeful viperish wit of
Dorothy Parker,” the author of Against Love : A Polemic offers an
ambitious and original reassessment of the female condition in the
post-post-feminist world. “As audacious as it is historically and
socially grounded.”
Temptations of the West : How to be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond
by Pankaj Mishra (FSG, $25.00): In the context of recounting his own
journeys, the author of An End to Suffering turns his eye to the
changing cultures of South Asia, bearing witness to the effects of the
temptations of Western-style modernity and notions of prosperity, and
the paradoxes of globalization.
We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For : Inner Light in a Time of Darkness
by Alice Walker (New Press, $23.95): Drawing on her spiritual grounding
and passionate political beliefs, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author
muses on having the strength to affect and encompass much-needed change
with compassion and clarity.
The Lost : A Search for Six of Six Million
by Daniel Mendelsohn (HarperCollins, $27.95): Beginning from a
discovered cache of desperate letters, Mendelsohn set out discover the
truth of what happened to six relatives who disappeared during the
Holocaust. In doing so, he combines world wanderings with ruminations
on biblical texts and Jewish history, turning the story of one family
into an exploration of the discrepancies between the histories we live
and the stories we tell. “A literary tour de force illuminating all
that is lost, and found, in the passage of time.”
For People Who Like People
Reporting : Writings from The New Yorker
by David Remnick (Knopf, $27.95): A collection of biographical pieces
written over the past 15 years by Remnick, editor of The New Yorker
since 1998. Remnick brings his subjects, from political bruisers to
boxers, to life, with extraordinary clarity and depth.
Eat Pray Love
by Elizabeth Gilbert (Viking, $24.95): The story of the author’s
year-long trip around the world in pursuit of the art of contentment.
Pleasure in Italy, spiritual exploration in India, and the balance of
both in Bali. “It is also about the adventures that can transpire when
a woman stops trying to live in imitation of society’s ideals.”
Unbowed: A Memoir
by Wangari Maathai (Knopf, $24.95): The 2004 winner of the Nobel Peace
Prize recounts her life as a political activist, feminist, single
mother of three, and environmentalist in Kenya. This book stretches the
boundaries of autobiography, reading in parts like a do-it-yourself
guide, although in this case the goal is to transform society, and
instead of hardware the recommended tools are strength and courage. In
these times, when it can seem there is little hope for political
change, magically a book like this one appears to convince us otherwise.
My Life in France
by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme (Knopf, $25.95): If there was ever
an unlikely person to become an icon of having achieved, and thoroughly
savored, a Good Life of Various Sensualities, the tall gawky girl from
Pasadena deserves running. Le voici. Et bon appetite! The loving memoirs of a gorgeous woman as told to her adoring grandnephew.
The Prince of the Marshes : And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq
by Rory Stewart (Harcourt, $25.00): In 2003 at the age of 30, the
author of runaway bestseller The Places in Between arrived in Iraq as a
British diplomat to serve as the deputy governor of remote southern
provinces of the occupied country. This is possibly the only account
I’ve heard of from beyond the Green Zone of what the occupation amounts
to experientally, written by a dedicated, sympathetic, critical, and
above all humane and honorable young man.
Ava Gardner: Love is Nothing
by Lee Server (St. Martin’s Press, $29.95): Absolutely this year’s
celebrity bio. I’d read it for no other reason than for tips on how to
live successfully off a diet of chewing gum, popcorn, and scotch.
Wowing intellectuals along the way, and looking damn good, too. Steer
away from bad-boys, though. Sinatra’ll be the death of you, or at least
break your heart.
The Librettist of Venice : The Remarkable Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte
by Rodney Bolt (Bloomsbury, $29.95): “Mozart’s Poet, Casanova’s Friend,
and Italian Opera’s Impresario in America,” it’s sub-sub-titled. Forget
it. I can’t summarize this man’s life. From the dizzying heights of a
Europe tossed up and down by revolution, to life in the New World as a
grocer (and bookseller), then up again to found NYC’s first opera
house, this man lived.
Point to Point Navigation : A Memoir
by Gore Vidal (Doubleday, $26.00): In this sequel to his bestselling
memoir, Palimpsest, the celebrated novelist, essayist, critic and
sometime political candidate uses as metaphor the form of navigation he
learned in the Navy during WWII – basically how to steer with a compass
which has been rendered inoperable. “Elegiac yet vital and even ornery
. . . a summing-up of Vidal’s time on the planet.” Juicy gossip, too.
For an Enthusiast
Fine Place to Day Dream: Racehorses, Romance, and the Irish
by Bill Barich (Knopf, $23.00): While traveling across Ireland,
interviewing the greatest trainers and jockeys that the country had to
offer, Barich found himself caught up in the Irish obsession with
horseracing. The result is a moving homage to the sport, and to the
enthusiasm that it inspires in its followers.
The Science of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials
by Mary and John Gribbin (Knopf, $15.95): Okay. If you’ve read the
Pullman books, you probably love them. I read them four times in the
last three years. But, not only are they a charming reworking of
Paradise Lost, many of the ideas in them are good science too. “Dust”
may be a metaphor for original sin, but it also works as what
astronomers today are busy tracking as Dark Matter. The lodestone
resonators are an example of physics’ idea of entangled particles. Not
just another tiresome spin-off, this book is a good introduction to
modern physics: string, quantum and chaos.
Life is Meals: A Food Lover’s Book of Days
by James and Kay Salter (Knopf, $27.50). The award-winning author and
his wife, a contributor to Food & Wine, are also amateur chefs and
food enthusiasts, and they have written a “dinner book,” a quirky
cornucopia of recipes, historical notes (the last ten-course meal
served on the Titanic), household hints, random observations (what
makes a good waiter) and advice of all kinds. Beautifully illustrated
by Fabrice Moireau, this book makes a great gift for holiday hosts and
hostesses.
The Tree : A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live, and Why They Matter
by Colin Tudge (Crown, $27.95): There are pines still alive that
germinated around the time humans invented writing. A Banyan in
Calcutta is as big as a football field. Tudge gives us their lives: How
they grow old, eat, reproduce, and talk to one another (which they
apparently do), and accompanies it all by entertaining accounts of his
travels round the world in search of the buggers. Beautifully
illustrated with line drawings, too.
The Immortal Game : A History of Chess
by David Shenk (Doubleday, $26.00): What is it about 32 figurative
pieces moving about 64 black and white squares according to relatively
simple rules that has captivated people for nearly 1,500 years? From
its invention somewhere in India around 500 CE, to its enthusiastic
adoption by the Persians, Islamic warriors, and European moralists of
the Middle Ages, to a role as Cold War determiner, to the aesthetics of
Modernism, Shenk tells all, touching on all aspects of cultural and
scientific history along the way.
Sex and the Seasoned Woman : Pursuing the Passionate Life
by Gail Sheehy (Random House, $25.95): A recent Kinsey report shows
that more than 50% of Americans failed a test on basic facts about sex
(and sexuality). One of eleven questions was “Can post-menopausal women
enjoy sex?” Duh. Sheehy steps in to champion the vitality of women’s
sex and love lives after 50. Welcome to a new generation of passionate,
liberated women. And hold on to your knickers.
Tales of the Rose Tree: Ravishing Rhododendrons and Their Travels Around the World
by Jane Brown (Godine, $35.00): There are 1,025 known species of
Rhododendron, none of them known to western horticulture for more than
300 years. A curious history of swashbuckling plant collectors and
visionary gardeners, set out with a scholar’s thoroughness and an
adventure-writer’s panache. Pretty, too.
Heat
by Bill Buford (Knopf, $25.95): Subtitled “An Amateur’s Adventures as
Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a
Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany,” this is Buford’s exuberant,
galloping memoir of his self-imposed stint as a professional culinary
peon.
For The Love of Music : Invitations to Listening
by Michael Steinberg and Larry Rothe (Oxford, $28.00): Music critics,
program annotators for multiple symphonies, professors and authors,
these two enthusiastic writers are most of all empassioned listeners,
as these charming essays reveal. My favorite is the kid crouched
outside the movie house he can’t afford to enter, listening and
re-listening to the soundtrack of Fantasia during WW II.
Natural Selection: Gary Giddins on Comedy, Film, Music, and Books
by Gary Giddins (Oxford, $35.00): The range of topics in this
collection of essays by the former jazz critic at the Voice is
remarkable: Fellini, Dylan, Charlie Chaplin, and Duke Ellington name
just a few of the subjects he covers. His essays reinterpret,
reevaluate, and resurrect the careers of our most important artists,
and his enthusiasm for their work is always infectious.
Anthology of Graphic Fiction
edited by Ivan Brunetti (Yale University Press, $28.00): A masterful,
generous, and even personal collection of the best of the best,
comprising both the luminaries (R. Crumb, Chester Brown, Daniel Clowes,
Chris Ware) and some lesser-knowns (Mark Beyer, Richard McGuire, Debbie
Drechsler, Gabrielle Bell). As the editor explains: “Ultimately these
are comics that I savor and often revisit.” You will, too, trust me.
And you may even wonder why these artists are not anthologized in
collections of literature, too.
A Mystery Gift
Bleeding Hearts
by Ian Rankin (Little, Brown, $24.99): With the brilliant eye for
character and taut pacing that have solidified his reputation, Rankin
delivers a gripping story that examines what happens when the assassin
becomes the target. Paid Assassin Michael Weston travels from London to
Glasgow to Seattle on the trail of . . . someone who seems to be on his
trail.
Chinatown Beat by Henry Chang (SOHO Crime,
$22.00): A tough, gritty New York City noir, set in Manhattan
Chinatown: just over the bridge and yet impossible for any outsider to
penetrate. Luckily we have Mr. Chang, taking us into the flaking-paint
tenement apartments, the posh high-rise condominium of a ganglord’s
mistress, and the seedy gambling dens and dubious massage parlors where
the bad guys run their lucrative fiefs. Jack Yu, a Chinese-American
NYPD cop with a poetic side, is our likable, melancholic hero.
The Purity of Blood
by Arturo Perez-Reverte (Putnam, $23.95): The latest translation in the
Captain Alatriste series, long-time wildly popular in Spain, which
features non-stop action and swashbuckling set during Spain’s “Golden
Age” – incidentally the age of the Inquisition and other nasty things
we seem to still be dealing with. Hired to rescue a young heiress in
thrall to a gross old priest, Alastriste runs afoul of anti-Jewish
sentiment but fights back. “You, Sir, are a whoreson, and a viper!”
The Dead Hour
by Denise Mina (Little, Brown, $24.99): One of the triumvirate of
Scotland’s hard-boiled writers (with Rankin and McDermid) Mina is back,
with the latest adventures of Paddy Meehan. Investigative journalist
Meehan is up to her neck in family troubles, but that doesn’t stop her
from going after the truth against crooked cops, demanding editors, and
(by the way) the threat of death.
One Good Turn
by Kate Atkinson (Little, Brown, $24.99): In a brilliant follow up to
last year’s best-selling Case Histories, Atkinson continues to “abide
by Henry James’s maxim: the first task of the novel is to be
interesting.” Since it’s got a plot, and a “rollicking, ingenious” one
at that, I can’t really summarize it. But lots of characters and
mysteries converge and get solved. And the writing’s gorgeous, too.
The Night Gardener
by George Pelecanos (Little, Brown, $24.99): The haunting story of
three cops – one good, one bad, and one broken. A “rich mosaic about a
tough, modern city filled with people who are groping and fumbling
their way toward some kind of grace” – Laura Lippman “I’d admit to nigh
weeping at the sheer moving canvas of damned and lost souls. Nothing,
nothing in mystery touches this novel.” – Ken Bruen
Vicious Circle
by Robert Littell (Overlook, $24.95): The inheritor of Eric Ambler and
John le Carré, an American who writes in French, Littell is “the finest
American writer of espionage fiction.” If you thought espionage fiction
was over with the Cold War . . . forget it. Now we have Israel! This
book “exposes the heart of an entire culture of violence by probing the
corrupted consciences of the men and women ensnared in it.”
For Children
Probuditi!
by Chris van Allsburg (Houghton Mifflin, $18.95): Calvin and Rodney
construct a homemade hypnotizing machine, and test it on Calvin’s pesky
kid sister Trudy. It works, but a little too well. The latest from Mr.
van Allsburg, who has twice won the Caldecott Medal.
Mommy?
by Maurice Sendak (Michael di Capua, $24.95): In Sendak’s playfully
ghoulish pop-up adventure, our hero is a plucky baby in baggy blue PJs
who sets off on a fearless quest to find his mother. He crawls through
one cobwebby dungeon after another, pacifying grisly brutes like
Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula along the way. Filled with loads of
weird and colorful details. This book will be opened and closed over
and over (and over).
Flotsam by David
Wiesner (Clarion, $17.00): A boxy, old-fashioned camera washes up on a
beach, and an inquisitive young boy uncovers the existence of watery
worlds, vast and beguiling, teeming beneath the ocean’s surface. Mr.
Wiesner’s skill at wordless storytelling will leave young readers
breathless with excitement.
Adèle & Simon
by Barbara McClintock (FSG, $16.00): Adèle and absentminded kid brother
Simon live in Paris. On the way home from school, Simon loses one
article of clothing after another. There follows a witty game of I Spy
set in an enchanting period-room Paris. Markets, squares, and pastry
shops are handsomely rendered in McClintock’s inimitable style of fine
lines, elegant color and exquisite detail (see the dinosaur exhibition
hall).
John, Paul, George & Ben by Lane
Smith (Hyperion, $16.99): Early American history, as interpreted by
Lane Smith. Riotously funny. We are shown the Founding Fathers as young
lads: Bold John, Noisy Paul, Honest George, and Clever Ben.
(Independent Tom, too.) Fans of Smith’s topsy-turvy collaborations with
John Scieszka will be familiar with the Perfectly Logical Nonsense at
work here. Smith’s art for this book could (and should) hang in the
bathroom of the American Folk Art Museum.
Kibitzers and Fools
by Simms Taback (Viking, $16.99): Wise kookiness from Taback.
Vigorously illustrated. Lots of Yiddish. Chicken soup. A meshugener or
two. Subtitled “Tales My Zayda (Grandfather) Told Me.”
DeZert Isle
by Claude Ponti (Godine, $16.95): Endearingly nutty. French. Jules, a
Zert, lives on a Technicolor island with friends (Ned the Nail, other
Zerts) and enemies (rampaging hammers, overly maternal hens), and
showers the most beautiful brick in the land with flowers and sausages.
Skippyjon Jones in Mummy Trouble
by Judy Schachner (Dutton, $16.99): Skippyjon does his best thinking
outside the (litter) box. No surprise this little Siamese cat (who
believes he’s a Chihuahua bandito) gets confused when it comes to
ancient Egypt. Following the clues in National Leographic, he sets off
on a mission to find some of those peas . . . you know, the ones the
dead rest in. The horrible puns pile up almost as fast as the charming
illustrations.
Waiting for Gregory by
Kimberly Willis Holt, illustrations by Gabi Swiatkowska (Henry Holt,
$16.95): Inquisitive Iris wants to know when unborn cousin Gregory will
come into the world. The elaborate answers her adult relatives provide
sound impressive and knowing enough, but leave Iris mystified.
Swiatkowska’s artwork is handsome and uncanny. She takes a perfectly
nice story and lifts it up to a higher picture-story book plane. The
final painting of young Gregory brought tears to this bookseller’s eyes.
Pirateology: The Pirate Hunter’s Companion
(Candlewick, $19.99): For the scholarly buccaneer. “Found in a sunken
sea chest off the coast of Newfoundland, a buried journal revealing
secret and complete knowledge of the piratical life.” Here is the
facsimile edition of Captain William Lubber’s 1723 ship’s journal. A
must-have for any child serious about ships, sailing, high seas and
buried treasure. And don’t forget the other ‘Ology tomes: Dragonology,
Egyptology, and Wizardology ($19.99 each).
D’Aulaires’ Book of Trolls
by Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire (New York Review Books, $19.95):
Oooh, buy this book. A smorgasbord of trolls: “Mountain trolls, forest
trolls, trolls who live underwater and trolls who live under bridges,
uncouth, unkempt, unbearable, unforgettable, and invariably
unbelievably ugly trolls.” “A title deserving a place on every child’s
bookshelf,” says Smithsonian Magazine, and we couldn’t agree more.
Create a a d’Aulaire Shelf, and put last year’s wondrous Book of Norse
Myths and the classic Book of Greek Myths next to all those trolls:
these rich volumes will likely captivate and entertain your child until
the next ice age.
Toys Go Out by Emily
Jenkins, illustrations by Paul O. Zelinsky (Schwartz & Wade,
$16.95): A delightful early chapter book from Jenkins, chronicling the
adventures and gentle misadventures of three toys—an opinionated
stingray, a brave little buffalo, and a philosophical bouncy
ball—living in the Little Girl’s room. The characters make for splendid
company, the humor is cozy and clever, and the suspense is palpable
when a peanut-buttery Lumphy the Buffalo must go to the washing
machine, or when Plastic becomes the victim of a (furry, four-legged)
“shark” attack at the beach. And Zelinsky’s sensitive pencil drawings
are just about perfect.
Poems from the Hobbit
(Houghton, $5.95): Miniature book. The perfect size for a hobbit’s
stocking. Poems collected by Bilbo when he went There and Back again.
Gollum’s murky riddles, too. Lushly illustrated by Tolkien himself. For
anyone fond of Tolkien, elvish verse, and “dungeons deep and caverns
old.”
The Complete Wreck: A Series of Unfortunate Events, Books 1-13 by Lemony Snicket (HarperCollins, $150, boxed set): Mr. Snicket’s entire melancholy oeuvre…for better and for worse. A veritable Pandora’s Box-ed set. Nothing good can come of this.
The King in the Window
by Adam Gopnik (Miramax, $9.99): Crystallomancy, sword fights in the
Louvre, an ancient order of Parisian bums, and the cosmic War of the
Windows (good) and Mirrors (soul-stealing). Oliver Parker, age 11, an
American growing up in Paris, finds himself smack in the middle. Now in
paperback, from New Yorker regular Gopnik (Paris to the Moon). Plenty
of action, set in a richly-drawn City of Light.
Nicholas, Nicholas Again, and Nicholas on Vacation
by René Goscinny, illustrations by Jean-Jacques Sempé (Phaidon, $19.95
each): Three lively books full of Nicholas! Nicholas and his charmingly
delinquent school chums run around Paris, get into lots of trouble, and
cause their parents and teachers to sigh, deeply. They have been
getting into trouble and causing adults to sigh (deeply) ever since
Goscinny (of Asterix fame) and New Yorker cover artist J.J. Sempé first
published these stories back in the 60s. Finally translated into
English, these Phaidon editions are gorgeous, and worth every centime.
Complete Dennis the Menace 1951-1952
by Hank Ketcham (Fantagraphics, $24.95): Thick (624 pages!), heavy,
compact, and downright scrumptious, this Book of Dennis will knock your
kid’s funny bone out of alignment.