- BIOGRAPHIES
AND MEMOIRS:
- "Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs.
Johnson" by
Jan Jarboe Russell
Lady Bird Johnson's life has been marked by dramatic transitions:
LBJ asked her to marry him on their first date; she was unexpectedly
thrust into the White House after Kennedy's assassination. "Lady
Bird" makes clear that she is an intelligent and determined
woman who was instrumental in her husband's success.
- "Mandela: The Authorized Biography"
by Anthony Sampson
Nelson Mandela's life
story is one of the most inspiring of our times: a tireless champion
for a peaceful South Africa,
he became an icon of freedom and justice, even during his 27-year-long
imprisonment. On the occasion of the publication of Anthony Sampson's
"epic biography" of the leader, South African journalist
Michael Morris writes about some of the man's conflicts and the
impact the first black president of South Africa has had on his
country and its people.
- "Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller
Sr." by Ron
Chernow
A century before Windows, John D. Rockefeller controlled
90 percent of America's oil industry--and if you thought the
Justice Department's Microsoft probe was tough, try going up
against a muckraking investigation led by Theodore Roosevelt.
Ron Chernow's "Titan," newly published in paperback,
offers rich new insights into how the world's first billionaire
amassed his fortune.
- "Bill and Hillary: The Marriage" by Christopher Andersen
Christopher Andersen draws on important sources--many speaking
here for the first time--to take readers on a fascinating journey
inside the world's most talked-about marriage.
- "Caravaggio: A Life" by Helen Langdon
Helen Langdon's marvelous biography suggests that rather than
destroying painting, the Milanese artist gave it a new
lease on life.
- HISTORY:
- "Einstein's German World" by Fritz Stern
Einstein's German world was one of contradictions--Jews made
notable contributions to Germany's prosperity and strength, but
were seen as second-class citizens. In this new collection of
essays, Fritz Stern examines the scientific and cultural milieu
of early-20th-century Germany.
- "The Millennium Year by Year"
"William conquers English at Hastings"; "Columbus
proves the world is round"; "American independence
is declared." "The Millennium Year by Year" tells
the history of the last thousand years in the form of lavishly
illustrated modern newspaper articles.
- INDEPENDENT
AND UNIVERSITY PRESSES
- "The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin" by Richard Lourie
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
In "The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin," the translator
and novelist Richard Lourie lets that chuckling despot tell his
own story, from his obscure origins in the Georgian sticks to
his bureaucratic apotheosis as ruler of all Russia. In part Stalin
simply wants to get his life down on paper. But as he informs
the reader, he's also trying to launch a preemptive strike against
his archnemesis, Leon Trotsky, who's currently compiling a scurrilous
(i.e., fundamentally accurate) biography of Stalin in Mexico
City. Given this scenario, many a novelist would have turned
Uncle Joe into an articulate monster, a kind of Bolshevik Iago.
Lourie takes a different route. Oh, his narrator does have a
gift for poetic doublespeak, which comes into play during his
ruminations on the 1938 Moscow show trials: "In a certain
highly literal sense of the word, most of these men are not guilty
of most of these crimes. They may, however, be guilty of many
other crimes, crimes for which the state has decided to spare
itself the expenses of a trial but which would have cost them
their head in any case." But Lourie's Stalin is very much
a meat-and-potatoes stylist--perhaps "blood-and-guts"
would be the more appropriate epithet, considering the number
of corpses he leaves in his wake. His raw efficiency as a narrator
does have its blackly comic charms, however, and his race to
the biographical finish with Trotsky gives the book a powerful
momentum. (Students of history will recall that the narrator's
rival was brutally cut off in Mid-sentence.) And what would be
the moral of Stalin's story, at least in Lourie's version? There
are two, which should surprise nobody: "Always watch your
back" and "It's lonely at the top." --James Marcus
- "The Artist's Widow: A Novel" by Shena Mackay
Publisher: Moyer Bell Ltd.
Many adjectives have been applied to the work of Shena Mackay,
but "sentimental" is not one of them. "The Artist's
Widow" is a fine example of Mackay's brand of acerbic storytelling--who
else, one wonders, would have the chutzpah to end a novel with
the death of Diana, neatly skewering popular sentiment about
"the People's Princess" with her title character's
dry remark that "we're in danger of genuine grief being
whipped up into something ugly." Indeed, the line between
genuine feeling and its ugly counterfeit is the underlying theme
of Mackay's fifth novel, and she sets the tone right from the
start as she plunges us into a retrospective of the work of recently
deceased artist John Crane, attended by his friends and family.
Chief among these are Lyris, his widow, also a painter, and Nathan,
his great-nephew, an artist-poseur long on posturing and woefully
short on talent. Lyris, who nurses no illusions about her relation,
remembers him "as a little boy at a family party loading
his paper plate with cocktail sausages, chocolate fingers, gherkins,
cake and crisps until it collapsed, and with white powder on
his nose at her husband's funeral." Nevertheless, she harbors
a fondness for him. Nathan, on the other hand, regards her as
an "old bat," but is willing all the same to suck up
to her, his eye always cocked on the main chance. Eventually
he manages to convince Lyris that there's a real bond of affection
between them--an illusion that nearly costs her everything. But
Lyris is not the only character suffering from delusions--all
are suffering in various degrees from a disconnect between what
is real and what they'd desperately like to believe. Mackay masterfully
mixes and mismatches her creations, leaving them with at least
as many loose strings dangling as ones that have been tied up.
Readers looking for an uncomplicated happy ending, beware: the
world-view expressed in this gleefully black domestic comedy
has far more in common with evelyn Waugh's than Jan Karon's.
--Alix Wilber
- "Here Is New York" by E. B. White
Publisher: The Little Bookroom
"On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will
bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy."
So begins E.B. White's classic meditation on that noisiest, most
public of American cities. Written during the summer of 1948,
well after the author and editor had taken up permanent residence
in Maine, "Here Is New York" takes a fond glance back
at the city of his youth, when White was one of the "young
worshipful beginners" who give New York its passionate character.
It's also a tribute to the sheer implausibility of the place--the
tangled nfrastructure, the teeming humanity, the dearth of air
and light. Much has altered since White wrote this essay, yet
In a city "both changeless and changing" there are
things that will doubtless ring equally true 100 years from now.
(To wit, "New Yorkers temperamentally do not crave comfort
and convenience--if they did they would live elsewhere.")
Anyone who's ever cherished his essays--or even "Charlotte's
Web"--knows that White is the most elegant of all possible
stylists. There's not a sentence here that does not make itself
felt right down to the reader's very bones. What would the author
make of Giuliani's New York? Or of Times Square, Disney-style?
It's hard to say for sure. But not even Planet Hollywood could
ruin White's abiding sense of wonder: "The city is like
poetry: it compresses all life
... into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment
of internal engines." This lovely new edition marks the
100th anniversary of E.B. White's birth--cause for celebration,
indeed. --Mary Park
- MISTERY AND
THRILLERS
- "Darkness Peering" by Alice Blanchard
Alice Blanchard's debut mystery, "Darkness Peering,"
takes us deep into the heart of the small town of Flowering Dogwood,
Maine. In 1980, a young girl was murdered there, but the case
went unsolved. Eighteen years later, a similar murder reopens
old wounds and reignites fears.
- "Black Notice" by Patricia Cornwell
Lights, action, scalpel. Chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta
is back and ready to cut into her 10th case. "Black Notice"
sweeps the doctor away on an international journey, as she investigates
the death of a stowaway.
- "Cuba" by Stephen Coonts
Admiral Jake Grafton storms back for his seventh explosive adventure
in "Cuba." All hell breaks loose when Cuba
discovers that the U.S. has stockpiled chemical weapons in Guantanamo
Bay. Only Grafton can stop the impending warfare.
- "Orchid Beach" by Stuart Woods
When Holly Barker quit the Army under difficult circumstances,
she thought Florida's Orchid Beach would be the perfect place
to start fresh. But her new job as police chief causes deep resentments
within the clique-y community.
- "The Devil's Teardrop" by Jeffery Deaver
In "The Devil's Teardrop," a ruthless assassin massacres
dozens of people on a subway. A handwritten note is the only
clue to his identity. Parker Kincaid, an expert in document analysis,
has only hours to figure out who wrote it before the killer strikes
again.
- SCIENCE FICTION
- "The Martians" by Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Martians" adds new stories,
essays, and characters to his bestselling Mars series.
- "The Golden Globe"
In John Varley's "The Golden Globe," one of my favorite
novels of 1998, Varley tells the story of Shakespearian spaceman
Sparky Valentine, a memorable character indeed.
- "Dune: House Atreides" by Brian Herbert and Kevin
J. Anderson
On October 5, Brian Herbert will step into his father's footsteps
with the release of "Dune: House Atreides," a prequel
to Frank Herbert's classic science fiction series about a desert
planet and the factions fighting to control its hidden riches.
Veteran SF author Kevin J. Anderson cowrote the new Dune adventure.
Pre-order a copy now, and
we'll send it to you as soon as it's released.
- "The Great War: Walk in Hell" by Harry Turtledove
Alternate history ace Harry Turtledove continues his stunning
series examining the possible consequences of a
Confederate victory in the American Civil War.
- "The King of Elfland's Daughter" by Lord Dunsany
Rediscover an enduring fantasy, Lord Dunsany's "The King
of Elfland's Daughter." This love story between a man and
a beautiful elfin princess will sweep you away to a magical world.
- WOMEN'S STUDIES
- "At the Breast: Ideologies of Breastfeeding
and Motherhood in the Contemporary United States" by Linda M. Blum
Nature and gender dynamics are often at cross-purposes, and it
seems to be the fate of feminists in the last years of
the 20th century to find themselves forever hostage in the uneasy
negotiations between the two. University of New Hampshire sociologist
Linda Blum's highly informative study of the cultural complexities
behind the simple act of breast-feeding is yet another example
of the many ways in which a contemporary woman's right to choose
often finds itself in conflict with physiology's dictates. The
health benefits of breast milk for infants are almost universally
acknowledged--but how realistic is it for all working women to
nurse? What about those mothers who have a hard time making the
transition between viewing their breasts as erogenous zones and
seeing them as baby's buffet? There is even controversy about
what exactly constitutes breast-feeding: Are sucklings weaned
at six weeks or infants fed breast-pumped milk through a bottle
truly "breast" babies? Blum's analysis of such issues
is respectful of the social and psychological imperatives that
inform a woman's decision.
- "The Good Listener: Helen Bamber,
a Life Against Cruelty"
by Neil Belton
When Helen Bamber was a little girl growing up in 1930s England,
her father read sections of "Mein Kampf" to her to
remind her that there was evil in the world. In 1945, at the
age of 19, she traveled to the former concentration camp at Belsen
to help with the physical and psychological recovery of Holocaust
survivors. "Above all else," she said, "there
was the need to tell you everything, over and over and over again.
And this was the most significant thing for me, realizing that
you had to take it all." Later in life, she became active
in Amnesty International, and in 1985, she founded the Medical
Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture--an organization
whose name, in the words of her
biographer Neil Belton, "says more than most of us wish
to hear." Blending history, biography, and moral indignation,
Belton presents a view of the late 20th century darkened by cruelty.
Bamber's lifetime of work--protecting children in hospitals,
exposing unscrupulous doctors, and international human rights
activism--is interwoven with capsule biographies of people who
have influenced her. Belton also delivers searing indictments
of governments still inflicting torture--indictments strengthened
by the wrenching stories of some of the people Bamber has helped,
including Adriana Borquez, tortured under Pinochet's regime in
Chile, and people who have disappeared, such as Bill Beausire,
with whom Borquez was imprisoned in 1975. Any book on the subject
of torture and human rights is bound to be difficult and disturbing;
"The Good Listener," however, remains powerfully inspirational.
Bamber maintains that the work she and her colleagues do is not
heroic. She is clearly wrong.
- "Daughters of Light: Quaker Women
Preaching and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad, 1700-1775" by Rebecca Larson
This startling reassessment of the place of women in colonial
America tells the story of 18th-century Quaker women, describing
their power in popular reform movements of that era, and exploring
their redefinitions of marriage and motherhood. Colonial Quakers,
like their contemporary descendants, believed that "the
Holy Spirit had been planted
in the hearts of all humans to inwardly teach them," and
despite strict rules regarding women's dress, language, and
behavior, Quaker women were never denied their claims of a direct
connection to God. So when Quaker women believed they were called
to preach--in meeting houses, courthouses, and private homes;
to other Quakers, to Native Americans, and to ecumenical audiences;
in the West Indies, England, Europe, and the American colonies--they
were given the freedom to do so. Rebecca Larson begins with a
deft summary of Quaker history, then moves on to consider the
theological justification for women's preaching, the ways in
which women discerned their callings and arranged their journeys,
and the effects of these journeys on private life, on Quaker
communities abroad, and on the larger culture of colonial America.
She's best, however, at describing the transformations wrought
by these journeys on the women's inner lives. "Thy mother
is become very courageous in riding thru deep waters and over
rocky mountains beyond what I could expect," one woman wrote
to another's child, in 1724. "She says fear is taken away
from her and that she is born up by a secret hand, which I am
very glad of and thankful to the Lord for."
- "The Male Body: A New Look at Men
in Public and in Private" by Susan Bordo
Susan Bordo (who snagged a Pulitzer nomination for 1993's "Unbearable
Weight") offers a frank, sprightly, and, yes,
educational look at the male nude as an index to atitbustudes about
sexuality in the broth of media and pop culture in
which, like it or not, we all stew. While the Greeks were unafraid
to celebrate masculine beauty, men have been strangely sexless
throughout most of Western history--until Hollywood rediscovered
the male body when Marlon Brando first shed his T-shirt in "A
Streetcar Named Desire." It's only been in the '90s, however,
that the male image has gone so far as to reclaim its penis.
From de facto censorship to near idolatry, has ever an organ
made such a journey in one brief decade? But it's not the penis
alone that makes a man a man; perhaps, Bordo concludes, it's
time for us to rethink our metaphors of manhood.
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