Friday, February 10 2012
Golden Age Thinking in Eric Hazan’s Threnody for Old Paris: ‘The Invention of Paris’
This bespeaks a warm affection for the peripatetic poets, novelists, and philosophers who witnessed Paris’s transformation from medieval to modern metropolis under the aegis of Louis XIV, Baron Haussmann, and engineers who developed gas lighting in the mid-1800s.
On the Fierce Persistence of Mass Delusion: ‘It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway’
It's not that historical revisionism exists in Russia, but that the revisionism––and sometimes the downright denial of the historical record––swings to extremes.
Thursday, February 9 2012
‘The Odditorium’: by Someone Whose Short Fiction Should be Well Known
These stories are told with thick, evocative language that speaks of viscera and flowers and poetry and violence, from times distant and more recent, ringing individual and unique.
National Disasters: Michael Lewis’s ‘Boomerang’
Michael Lewis explores the global economic crisis through the eyes of a financial disaster tourist -- and brings back a collection of exotic stereotypes about the people and places that he visited.
Wednesday, February 8 2012
Detective Inspector Malcolm Fox Returns in ‘The Impossible Dead’
Ian Rankin's dialogue rings true; a sense of life as actually lived, and the lessons to be learned — or not — from history, all framed in an engrossing story never told hurriedly, but always well-paced.
On President Obama’s Mother: ‘A Singular Woman’ and Her Egalitarian Spirit
This book reveals Stanley Ann to be an intellectually curious, passionate, idealistic, and unconventional woman whose sense of wonder and love shaped the lives of two children -- including the one that would become the 44th president of the United States.
Tuesday, February 7 2012
Wither the Monarchy: ‘Elizabeth the Queen’
The thread Sally Bedell Smith follows is how the monarchy has had to embrace its own Darwinian version of flexibility; never ahead of the times but also trying not to be fatally far behind them.
The Magician Inside Us All: Sleights of Mind’
Two neuroscientists show how magicians exploit our brains' cognitive process to fool us.
Monday, February 6 2012
‘The Fat Years’ Is a Cunning Caricature of Modern China
In Koonchung Chan's landscape, government doesn’t need to suppress unpleasant history; we do it ourselves, every day, simply by not paying close enough attention to the facts at hand.
Hunter S. Thompson, the Method and the Man: ‘Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone’
When Hunter S. Thompson began writing for Rolling Stone magazine, he had already developed his distinct voice and highly recognizable style, but at Rolling Stone, he perfected it.
Friday, February 3 2012
If You Could Change History, Would You? Should You? Stephen King’s ‘11/22/63’
In imagining he has the right to kill another so that he can single-handedly change history, how different is Jake from the fanatical Oswald, who killed Kennedy to bolster his customized view of the world?
Meditations on the Actual and the Imagined: ‘Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life’
A series of poetic meditations on "the madness of puppets", this brief but dense book fascinates as much as its uncanny subject matter.
Thursday, February 2 2012
‘Power Concedes Nothing’ Tells of a Life Spent Balancing the Scales of Justice
Legal activist Connie Rice has a big, important story to tell: of her passion, her history, her legal record and her connection to both the powerful and the underprivileged in Los Angeles.
‘Love Goes to Buildings on Fire’ Like Its Title, Is Poetry
The most important five years in popular music -- including the birth and rise of CBGB, the birth of disco and hip-hop, Philip Glass’s emergence as a Serious Composer, and the many shades of salsa -- in one volume.
Wednesday, February 1 2012
Noticed and Emulated: ‘Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life’
Through two World Wars, Chanel survived it all. That’s because, as Lisa Chaney puts it so well, Chanel owned the zeitgeist.
‘The Sexual History of London’: Plus ça Change, Plus c’est la Même Chose
When you read about the medieval mania for buggery and the Victorian craze for flagellation, it’s difficult not to feel a blushing fascination for our forebears and their proclivities.
Tuesday, January 31 2012
‘Nanjing Reqium’ Is a Crushingly Beautiful, Achingly Sad Slice of a Chinese Nightmare
Ha Jin leaves us with the memory of good work, people saving lives and the worth of reaching out, even when death and despair prevail.
The Doll: The Lost Short Stories by Daphne du Maurier
While it's disappointing to see that Daphne du Maurier wasn't always so capable with the art of fiction as she later became, it's refreshing to be reminded that even great writers have to start somewhere.
Monday, January 30 2012
‘I Want My MTV’ Goes Behind-the-Scenes in Cable Channel’s Influence on Music
Every page of this fat, addictive, ridiculously entertaining book, which covers the rise and fall of MTV from 1981-1992, is overstuffed with anecdotes.
Looking for Wit in Sci-Fi Lit?: ‘Alien Contact’ Has It
Marty Halpern’s editorial brief was for writers to concoct their narratives around first encounters with aliens and, duly noted, numerous authors are represented here with perfectly tailored schemes.
