BookPage December 2011

discover your next great book www.bookpage.com

dec. 2011

america’s book review

Give Books!

Gifts they’ll open again and again

Great gifts for:

Sports junkies Foodies Art lovers Bibliophiles Style mavens History buffs Music fans Young readers

PLUS

Our picks for Best Books of 2011

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FICTION

The Christmas Wedding

From the author of the best-selling Christmas Hope series comes an inspirational novel about the unlikely friendship between two women that will change each of their lives forever.

The magic of the season is brought to life in James Patterson’s tale of a family coming together for a wedding with a surprise groom.

St. Martin’s $14.99

9780312658960

When She Woke

Little, Brown $25.99 9780316097390

The Three Gifts

The Forgotten Affairs of Youth

From the author whose award-winning international bestseller Mudbound so hauntingly re-created the past comes a stunning vision of America in the near future.

In this latest installment of Alexander McCall Smith’s beloved Isabel Dalhousie series, our inquisitive heroine helps a new friend discover the identity of her father.

Algonquin $24.95

In this beautifully illustrated book, Kathie Lee Gifford tells the story of the three special gifts the angels delivered to Baby Jesus in celebration of his birth.

9781250000941

St. Martin’s $16

Pantheon $24.95 9780307379184

9781565126299

AUDIO

The Christmas Note

9781423388326

$38.99

9781441836311

$38.99

9781455806843

$34.99

9781441887818

AUDIO

$39.99

Inheritance The Rider and his dragon have come further than anyone could hope. But can they topple the evil king and restore justice 9780739372487 to Alagaësia?

Find out in the much-anticipated, astonishing conclusion to the worldwide best-selling Inheritance cycle.

Listening Library $60

AUDIO

The Litigators

9781441886095

$36.99

9781455819980

$19.99

9781423365488

$36.99

9781455830381

$38.99

Audiobooks make great gifts!

Thriller, romance and fantasy adventure audiobooks make the perfect gifts or last-minute stocking stuffers! Intense passion and danger are brought to life through the power of storytelling, and with eight best-selling authors to choose from, there is something for everyone. Titles available on CD and MP3-CD from Brilliance Audio.

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A tremendously entertaining romp, The Litigators is filled with the kinds of courtroom strategies, theatrics and 9780307943194 suspense that have made John Grisham America’s favorite storyteller.

Random House Audio $40

Lethal

Kill Alex Cross

From Sandra Brown, the #1 New York Times best-selling author, a suspensefilled page-turner about a woman who finds herself running for her life—with a killer by her side.

The #1 American detective series returns when the president’s children are kidnapped and the nation is threatened with a deadly contagion.

James Patterson’s Alex Cross is the only man for the job.

Grand Central $26.99 9781455501472

Featured

AUTHOR Nicholas Sparks Author of

Little, Brown $28.99

The Best of Me

9780316198738

Zero Day

The Litigators

David Baldacci introduces a brandnew series and its hero, an Army Special Agent fighting a oneman war against America’s darkest criminals.

America’s favorite storyteller introduces you to three irrepressible Chicago attorneys whose outrageous legal escapades will keep you riveted until the last page.

Doubleday $28.95

Grand Central $27.99 9780446573016

9780385535137

Waking Hours Welcome to East Salem, where a tragic murder mystery has just occurred and Dani Harris wants answers.

But she soon realizes there’s more to this murder than just a mere human killer.

Thomas Nelson $26.99 9781595549402

AUDIO

Holidays can be murder . . .

9781609982645 9781609986582

Escape the stress of the season with this trio of spine-tingling listens! An Atlanta policewoman’s mother goes missing in #1 international best-selling author Karin Slaughter’s edgy thriller Fallen. From Eoin Colfer—the author of the blockbuster young adult saga Artemis Fowl—comes Plugged, a wicked, hilarious and decidedly adult crime caper. The #1 best-selling Scandinavian thriller The Boy in the Suitcase, by Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis, offers a shocking, haunting look at a child’s kidnapping.

$29.95 each 9781609984717

AudioGO

What are you most grateful for?

My health, my faith, my family. What else is there?

What brings you joy during the holidays?

My family. But that’s the same every day of the year.

What was the best book you read this year?

Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku. A readable, enjoyable book on what we can expect in the future in the areas of technology, nanotechnology and medicine.

Why do you think it’s important to take time to read?

For me, reading is a part of my life and I couldn’t imagine a day without it. Reading is synonymous with learning and enjoyment.

What is your number one resolution for 2012?

The same as always: Take time to enjoy every day. In the rush of life, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with “noise.” I try to make a conscious effort to lessen that noise and relax on a daily basis.

The Best of Me Nicholas Sparks, the best-selling author of 16 novels, tells the heartwrenching story of two former high school sweethearts who re-ignite their first love after years apart.

9780446547659

$25.99

Grand Central

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Habibi “A masterpiece that surely is one of a kind” (Elle) from Craig Thompson, the internationally acclaimed author of Blankets. Publishers Weekly calls it “a lushly epic love story.”

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ADVENTURE

Pantheon $35

9780375424144

includes

DVD

MetaMaus In MetaMaus, Art Spiegelman re-enters the Pulitzer Prize– winning Maus. Visually and emotionally rich, MetaMaus is as groundbreaking as the masterpiece whose creation it reveals.

Modelland

Inspired by Charles Dickens’ immortal classic A Christmas Carol, Batman: Noel features different interpretations of the Dark Knight, along with his enemies and allies, in different eras.

Welcome to Modelland— the exclusive, mysterious place on top of the mountain that every girl dreams of. Modelland is the first novel in Tyra Banks’ new fantasy series where dreams come true and life can change in the blink of a smoky eye.

DC Comics $22.99

Pantheon $35 9780375423949

Batman: Noel

9780385740593

9781401232139

The old sage and new stories

9780786957996

$7.99

9780786958153

$25.95

Read the action, relive the adventure Follow R.A. Salvatore’s signature character on new adventures in Guantlgrym and Neverwinter, then wield twin scimitars alongside your friends in a cooperative board game based on the tales of Drizzt and his companions.

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Creator of the Forgotten Realms, Ed Greenwood tells the latest, harrowing tales of Elminster, his most famous character, in Elminster Must Die and Bury Elminster Deep— and shares the newest stories from the Realms’ famed City of Splendors in Waterdeep.

9780786958184

$15.95

9780786958429

WWW.BOOKPAGE.COM

Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons

9780786957750

Draw upon the wizard-y wisdom of Shelly Mazzanoble as she shares her epic struggles with relationships, spirituality, family and other real-world issues, armed with insights gained from playing D&D.

Wizards of the Coast $12.95

9780786958733

9780786958023

Delacorte $17.99

$7.99

$64.99

$27.95

Wizards of the Coast

Inheritance The epic conclusion to Christopher Paolini’s #1 New York Times bestselling series is finally here!

Treats for

TEENS TEEN

9780547548104

Tiger’s Voyage

9780375856112

The Secret Series Complete Collection

978

031

620

A secret story with a secret title, told by the king of secrets— the elusive Pseudonymous Bosch! The collection includes five hardcover novels of Cass and Max-Ernest in their Secret Series adventures.

122

3

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers $80

Shatter Me

Juliette has the power to kill with a single touch— and the power to save her shattered world. Shatter Me introduces an electric new YA talent, debut author Tahereh Mafi.

$19.99

9780545312158

What drew you to India for the Tiger’s Curse series?

Using India as my setting was a happy accident.

I picked a white tiger for my Beauty and the Beast-themed book and research on white tigers led me to India. I found a story about Durga riding a tiger into battle and the rest is history.

You’re the ultimate self-publishing success story! How has your success changed your life?

I get to work from home now, which is a blessing and a curse. It’s wonderful to be in my comfort zone but I often get distracted by dishes or laundry. I get to go to fun places and meet interesting people who love my characters. It’s a dream come true.

Why do you think Kelsey is such an irresistible heroine for your readers?

I like to think Kelsey is an everygirl. Most of us can relate to her in some way. I know I wish I had the strength and conviction to do all that she ends up doing. Also, she has incredible adventures with handsome heroes and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Why are books the best gifts?

Books are awesome presents because they take you away on little mini-vacations for a very reasonable cost and anytime you feel like revisiting you can escape once again.

9780545175326 $9.99

HarperTeen $17.99

What gives you joy during the holidays?

Picking the perfect present to give someone, being with my family and Christmas brunch.

9780545326865

$52.97

Tiger’s Voyage

Give the gift of a wonderful story Your loved ones will cherish modern classics like the Shiver Trilogy Boxed Set and the Hunger Games gift edition.

New releases like Wonderstruck and Star Wars: Darth Vader: A 3-D Reconstruction Log will trigger the imagination, and Super Diaper Baby 2: The Invasion of the Potty Snatchers will generate uproarious laughter.

Colleen Houck Author of

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children $24.99

9780062085481

AUTHOR

Knopf Books for Young Readers $27.99

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick Extraordinary storytellers join forces to weave 14 amazing tales around the intriguing and mysterious illustrations from the legendary The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.

Featured

9780545027

$29.99

978054

540577

5

$30

892

The third book in the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed Tiger’s Curse series! Featuring more action, more danger and more passion as we get closer to the edge-of-your seat finale, this epic fantasyromance will leave you breathless and 9781402784057 yearning for more.

$17.95

Scholastic WWW.BOOKPAGE.COM WWW.BOOKPAGE.COM | | PAGE PAGE52

Alien Robots Kit Make science spring to life!

With six kinetic alien monsters to build, this kit not only feeds the imagination, but explains the science behind what makes the models work.

Give More

GIGGLES 9781593697105

$39.95

9781593698713

$14.95

9781593697747

9780756686901

DK $24.99

Fancy Nancy Splendiferous Christmas

$17.95

9781593698966

Make her holiday merry & bright

$24.95

Get in the gift-giving spirit with the books girls love! From our inspiring historical character series to engaging crafts and more, American Girl has books your girl will treasure forever.

9780061235900

For Nancy, there’s no fancier holiday than Christmas. In this merriest of stories from best-selling duo Jane O’Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser, Nancy proves once again that a little fancying up can go a long, festive way!

HarperCollins Children’s $17.99 includes

CDs

9780316181938

The Mysterious Benedict Society

Heart and Soul

Do you have what it takes to join the Mysterious Benedict Society? This companion book tests readers with puzzles and riddles to see if they are ready for Mr. Benedict’s mission to save the world.

From Caldecott Honor winner Kadir Nelson comes the compelling and inspiring story of our country through the lens of the AfricanAmerican experience.

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers $12.99

9780061730740

Balzer & Bray $19.99

The Secret of the Unicorn

Song of the Stars

9780310722915

Song of the Stars, written by bestselling author Sally Lloyd-Jones, is a Christmas book that celebrates the joy and excitement in all of creation at the coming of Jesus.

Zonderkidz $15.99 PAGE PAGE 61

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9780316133869 9780316133869

One of the first Tintin adventures is now in a new format just for young readers! Including brand-new content and behind-the-scenes features, this updated edition of Hergé’s classic will delight kids and adults alike.

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers $8.99

9780310725923

Children of God Storybook Bible This magnificent collection of Bible stories, written and narrated by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, features artwork from more than 20 illustrators around the world. A perfect holiday gift for all ages!

Zonderkidz $24.99

9780753467268

$19.99

Oohs and Oz!

9780753466810

$19.99

The magic of Scanimation meets the wonderful Wizard of Oz, bringing to life 10 memorable scenes from the movie that’s enchanted generations of viewers.

Complete with a glittering, ruby-red cover.

Workman 9780761163732

$14.95 9780312549657

A very special season 9780753467213

From the New York Times bestselling author of On the Night You Were Born and Wherever You Are, My Love Will Find You comes two perfect picture books to celebrate and share with the little ones you love.

Kingfisher

9780312645212

Not-For-Parents: The Travel Book

9780756686970 $18.99

$14.99

$8.99

9780756686062

$24.99

LEGO, the LEGO logo, the Brick configuration and the Minifigure are trademarks of the LEGO Group. © 2011 The LEGO Group.

Produced by DK Publishing under license from the LEGO Group.

9780794527884

$13.99

9781610670593

$14.99

Activities abound Cut, paste, stencil, sticker and doodle your way to a creative holiday season! As fabulous holiday gifts or great ways to keep children entertained during winter break, these funfilled activity books by Usborne and Kane Miller offer something for everyone.

EDC

$17.99

Uncover astonishing animal migrations on Earth, unfold the enthralling history of seagoing vessels as they travel the world, take a globe-trotting adventure with Google Earth™ and experience a visual narrative of the birth of our planet.

Feiwel and Friends

9780794531058

9780753466254

Boundless discovery of land, sea, air and space!

$16.99 each

9781610670623

$15.99

9781742208145 © 2011 Lucasfilm Ltd. ® & TM All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.

Lonely Planet $19.99

Mustache!

Unlock big imaginations

In this clever tale, when a king ignores his subjects in favor of his own vanity, a little creative revenge is in store.

Vive la mustache!

Featuring inspirational LEGO® builds, tips to supplement and enhance LEGO creations, and models built by LEGO fans, The LEGO Ideas Book will encourage creativity in kids of all ages!

With more than 400 captivating images and tons of fascinating facts, the LEGO® Star Wars® Character Encyclopedia is sure to keep both Star Wars and LEGO® fans reading for hours!

Includes exclusive LEGO Star Wars minifigure.

DK

Cool stuff for kids who are curious about exploring the world! Two hundred pages bursting with fascinating info—epic events, wild ’n’ wacky critters and curious histories from every country in the world.

Disney $16.99

9781423116714

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DELIGHTFUL BOOKS FROM PENGUIN GROUP (USA)

THE SOOKIE STACKHOUSE COMPANION

THE KITE RUNNER GRAPHIC NOVEL

Edited by Charlaine Harris Get an insider’s look into Sookie Stackhouse’s world as Sookie herself takes you on a tour of Bon Temps and its residents. Includes an all-new novella and an exclusive interview with True Blood creator Alan Ball!

Ace Hardcover 978-0-441-01971-7 $30.00

Khaled Hosseini Illustrated by Fabio Celoni and Mirka Andolfo The unforgettable, bestselling story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy Afghani boy and the son of his father’s servant is now a beautifully illustrated graphic novel.

Riverhead Trade Paperback 978-1-59448-547-3 $19.00

LAST BREATH

WASHINGTON

The Morganville Vampires Rachel Caine A brand-new book in the New York Times bestselling series for young adults!

Vampires have been disappearing without a trace—and a mysterious new Morganville resident may be behind it.

New American Library Hardcover 978-0-451-23487-2 $17.99

A Life Ron Chernow Biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of our nation’s father, shattering the stereotype of a stolid, unemotional figure and bringing to life a dashing, passionate man of many moods.

Penguin Books Paperback 978-0-14-311996-8 $20.00

*

FOOD RULES

Michael Pollan with illustrations by Maira Kalman Michael Pollan and Maira Kalman come together to create an enhanced Food Rules for hardcover, now beautifully illustrated and with even more food wisdom.

Penguin Press Hardcover 978-1-59420-308-4 $23.95

DEAD OR ALIVE

Tom Clancy with Grant Blackwood The #1 New York Times bestseller—now in paperback! Led by Jack Ryan, Jr., a covert force known as the Campus is the best line of defense against a terrorist mastermind.

Berkley Trade Paperback 978-0-425-24485-2 $18.00

RED MIST

ON SALE

DECEM BER 6TH

Patricia Cornwell With high-tension suspense and cuttingedge technology, Patricia Cornwell once again proves why she’s the world’s number-one bestselling crime writer.

Putnam Hardcover 978-0-399-15802-5 $27.95

*

SHATNER RULES

William Shatner with Chris Regan A look at the man, the myth, and the magic that is William Shatner.

Dutton Hardcover 978-0-525-95251-0 $21.95

*

BUILT FOR ADVENTURE

The Classic Automobiles of Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Clive Cussler A gorgeous tour through Clive Cussler’s outstanding collection of rare, classic, and antique automobiles.

Putnam Hardcover 978-0-399-15810-0 $50.00

DEVIL’S GATE

ON SALE

NOVEM BER 14TH

Clive Cussler and Graham Brown The newest adventure in Cussler’s numberone bestselling NUMA Files series finds the team battling against unimaginably powerful weapons and an audacious extortion plot—all to save the world’s largest cities.

Putnam Hardcover 978-0-399-15782-0 $27.95

*

V IS FOR VENGEANCE

Sue Grafton Adding to her number-one bestselling series, Sue Grafton doesn’t miss a beat in Kinsey Millhone’s twenty-second rendezvous with suspense, mystery and now, vengeance.

Putnam Hardcover 978-0-399-15786-8 $27.95

*

THE NEXT ALWAYS

THE HELP

FALL OF GIANTS

JUST MY TYPE

Book One of the Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy Nora Roberts First in a brand-new trilogy from “America’s favorite writer” (The New Yorker).

A historic hotel is getting a major facelift—but the architect is distracted by another project: finally building a relationship with the woman he’s wanted for years.

Berkley Trade Paperback 978-0-425-24321-3 $16.00

Book One of The Century Trilogy Ken Follett Ken Follett, international bestselling author of The Pillars of the Earth, traces the story of five families set against the backdrop of the extraordinary events of the early twentieth century.

New American Library Trade Paperback 978-0-451-23257-1 $25.00

*

ON SALE

NOVEM BER 14TH

Kathryn Stockett The #1 New York Times bestselling novel and basis for the major motion picture!

Three women from different walks of life come together to write a tell-all book about work as a black maid in the South—that could forever change their town and alter their destinies.

Berkley Trade Paperback 978-0-425-23220-0 $16.00

A Book About Fonts Simon Garfield, Foreword by Chip Kidd A hugely entertaining and revealing guide to the history of type that asks, What does your favorite font say about you?

Gotham Books Hardcover 978-1-59240-652-4 $27.50

THE NERDIST WAY

How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life) Chris Hardwick Comedian Chris Hardwick, host of the popular podcast “The Nerdist,” shares wisdom about turning apparent nerd weakness into world-dominating strengths in this hilarious self-help book.

Berkley Hardcover 978-0-425-24354-1 $24.95

THE QUEST

Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World Daniel Yergin This long-awaited successor to Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Prize provides an essential, overarching narrative of global energy, the principal engine of geopolitical and economic change.

Penguin Press Hardcover 978-1-59420-283-4 $37.95

IN THE COMPANY OF OTHERS

Jan Karon The latest from the New York Times bestselling author of the Mitford series, this stirring pageturner finds Father Tim in the middle of an Irish family torn apart by secrets.

Penguin Books Paperback 978-0-14-311991-3 $16.00

*

THE HEIGHTS

Anatomy of a Skyscraper Kate Ascher From the author of The Works: Anatomy of a City comes a gorgeous graphic tour through the inner workings of skyscrapers.

Penguin Press Hardcover 978-1-59420-303-9 $35.00

*

COMFORT & JOY

India Knight Riotously funny Comfort & Joy will win over anyone who has ever longed to shut out the holidays with “a giant martini . . . and some olives.”

Penguin Books Paperback 978-0-14-311981-4 $14.00

*

A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 100 OBJECTS

Neil MacGregor The renowned director of the British Museum offers a kaleidoscopic history of humanity told through man-made artifacts giving readers an intimate glimpse of unexpected turning points in human civilization.

Viking Hardcover 978-0-670-02270-0 $45.00

LOVE AT FIRST BARK

How Saving a Dog Can Sometimes Help You Save Yourself Julie Klam Through heartfelt stories, Julie Klam finds a common connection between man and dog—sometimes what both kinds need is simply a loving home.

Riverhead Hardcover 978-1-59448-828-3 $22.95

*

THE PENGUIN ANTHOLOGY OF 20THCENTURY AMERICAN POETRY Edited by Rita Dove The Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate introduces the most significant, compelling poems of the past hundred years including poems by T.S. Eliot, Langston Hughes, and Adrienne Rich.

Penguin Books Paperback 978-0-14-310643-2 $40.00

THE PUPPY THAT CAME FOR CHRISTMAS

Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself David McRaney An entertaining illumination of the stupid beliefs that make us feel wise, based on the popular blog of the same name.

Gotham Books Hardcover 978-1-59240-659-3 $22.50

GOODNIGHT iPAD

A Parody for the Next Generation Ann Droyd The bygone quiet of Goodnight Moon is hilariously parodied in this instant bedtime classic.

Help put yourself—and your gadgets—to sleep with this book, which is made of paper.

Blue Rider Press Hardcover 978-0-399-15856-8 $14.95

*

THE CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS

How a Dog Brought One Family the Gift of Joy Megan Rix The Puppy that Came for Christmas is a heartwarming and inspirational story that will captivate dog lovers everywhere.

Plume Trade Paperback 978-0-452-29748-7 $14.00

*

YOU ARE NOT SO SMART

Peter Sis Celebrated children’s book author and illustrator Peter Sis creates his first book for adults, a beautiful and uplifting adaptation of the classic twelfth-century Sufi epic poem, The Conference of the Birds.

Penguin Press Hardcover 978-1-59420-306-0 $27.95

Available from Penguin Audio •

*

LEONARD MALTIN’S 2012 MOVIE GUIDE

Leonard Maltin Comprehensive, trustworthy, and the most established guide on the market, Leonard Maltin’s movie guide helps generations of movie lovers decide what to watch.

Plume Trade Paperback 978-0-452-29735-7 $20.00

WHY READ MOBY-DICK?

Nathaniel Philbrick One of our great chroniclers of American history celebrates an American classic in Why Read MobyDick?, offering a cabin master’s tour of Melville’s spellbinding novel.

Viking Hardcover 978-0-670-02299-1 $25.00

*

THE LOST DOGS

Michael Vick’s Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption Jim Gorant The bestselling story of survival and our powerful bond with man’s best friend, in the aftermath of the nation’s most notorious animal cruelty case.

Gotham Books Trade Paperback 978-1-59240-667-8 $16.00

AMERICA’S GREAT RAILROAD STATIONS

Roger Straus III, Hugh Van Dusen, and Ed Breslin An evocative and stunning photographic tribute to the cathedrals of American travel and commerce.

Viking Studio Hardcover 978-0-670-02311-0 $40.00

Also available as an e-book

HAIKU FOR THE SINGLE GIRL

Beth Griffenhagen and Cynthia Vehslage Meyers This brilliantly incisive and uproarious celebration of the single girl’s life will make every woman—whether single or not—laugh until she cries, and then start laughing all over again.

Penguin Books Paperback 978-0-14-312001-8 $15.00

*

ON SALE

THE BOOK OF (HOLIDAY) AWESOME

NOVEM BER 17TH

Neil Pasricha New York Times bestselling author Neil Pasricha reminds us what’s so awesome about the holidays in a beautiful two-color gift book.

Amy Einhorn Books Hardcover 978-0-399-15859-9 $19.95

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Books For

HOME & HEARTH 9781605291765

Cook Without a Book

My Last Supper: The Next Course

Pam Anderson’s Cook Without a Book: Meatless Meals features more than 250 scrumptious, versatile meal ideas that show you how eating less meat (or none at all) can be simple, rewarding and totally delicious.

Featuring stunning photography, My Last Supper: The Next Course illuminates the personal meaning of food in the lives of top chefs.

Rodale $32.50

Rodale $39.99 9781605290768

Balzac’s Omelette

Illustrated Step-by-Step Baking

An enchanting look at the ways food and culinary arts feature in Balzac’s work. Perfect for gastronomes, Francophiles and booklovers.

Packed with photos of delicious desserts and advice on how to prepare them, Illustrated Step-byStep Baking provides essential tips and detailed directions for every occasion’s tastiest treats.

Other Press $19.95 9781590514733

9780756686796

9780848734879

$34.95

9780848734817

DK $35 $29.95

Southern Christmas cooking Southern Living 2011 Annual Recipes and Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2012 offer inspiration for the holiday season. Pair these staples with Southern Living Heirloom Recipe Cookbook, a celebration of Southern traditions, and Cooking Light Way to Bake, a healthy baking companion, for great holiday gifts.

Oxmoor House 9780848734749

9780470638866

9780470906026

$16.99

$34.95

9780848734756

$29.95

Feast on these great gifts

$29.99

The perfect books for your favorite cook! Enjoy kid-friendly fun with Sesame Street, delicious home cooking with Ellie Krieger and Betty Crocker, and culinary mastery with The Professional Chef.

9780470603093

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WWW.BOOKPAGE.COM

$29.99

9780470421352

$75

Wiley

The Neelys’ Celebration Cookbook

Want to concoct the perfect cocktail?

Here you’ll get 1,000 recipes and easy-tofollow instructions for making new and timeless drinks that will make you a hit behind any bar!

120 mouthwatering, downhome recipes for every occasion from Pat and Gina Neely, beloved hosts of the Food Network hit series “Down Home with the Neelys.”

9780307592941

Knopf $28.95

A richly illustrated list of more than 1,000 knitting adventures! Novices and masters alike will delight in these new experiences— from yarn-bombing to intarsia to spinning, weaving and dyeing.

9780062090607

Storey $24.95

$25 9780756683702

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

The Knitter’s Life List

9781603429962

$40

The best-selling authors of One-Yard Wonders are back with an amazing new collection of 101 sewing projects.

Organized by fabric type—from wool to flannels, corduroy to cottons.

Storey $29.95

9780470633120

In this cookbook and memoir, sisters and stars of the hit TLC series “DC Cupcakes” inspire readers with their recipes for success.

9780756686765

9781603425865

Wiley $16.99

The Cupcake Diaries

HarperOne $23.99

Fabric-byFabric OneYard Wonders

Bartending For Dummies

9780764164224

This book is a film-lover’s dream.

It chronicles the entire history of cinema, and this updated edition includes new movies such as The Social Network and The King’s Speech.

Barron’s $35

Gifts from the silver screen Cinema buffs will give these books two thumbs up! The Film Book is the ultimate guide to directors, genres and everything in between. Monsters in the Movies features the best and worst spooks, from B-movie horrors to the scariest special effects creations ever made.

DK

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AUTHOR William Shatner

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Shatner Rules

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I’m Kidding Stand-up comedian and host of her own syndicated talk show, Ellen has penned an irreverent memoir that will have readers laughing out loud.

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Get up every morning, take a deep breath, but don’t stretch, it might hurt.

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I’d choose Captain Kirk and beam myself out of there.

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How did turning 80 this year influence your approach to life?

I’m desperately grabbing onto anything that is the color red.

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My wife, she was a virgin.

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Enormous jewelry, large pieces like the Hope diamond.

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Loads of alcohol.

What is your top resolution for 2012?

To make it to 2013.

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Her Daughter’s Dream Her Daughter’s Dream is the emotional conclusion to Her Mother’s Hope —an unforgettable family saga about the sacrifices every mother makes for her daughter.

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World-renowned preacher Billy Graham shares his personal experience of growing older and imparts some important lessons on how to view our years spent on Earth. Nearing Home is a message of hope and reality for both younger and older generations.

For Stanley, life stopped in its tracks the day his young son was accidentally killed.

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Understanding childlike faith has been my greatest lesson. Adults are mixtures of faith and doubt. Small children, especially, have this inborn ability to trust. Colton’s simple trust in God is incredible to witness. As he describes his faith to others, “I just know who I’m praying to. I can see his face.”

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PAGE 17

paperback picks penguin.com

The Pope’s Assassin

The Bishop

The Border Vixen

The Judas Gate

Upon his coronation as Pope, Benedict XVI is given an ancient document. It is the first thing a pope reads when he is elected, and holds the Church’s most cherished secret—one that it will do anything to protect. And it’s up to the church’s agent, Rafael, to uncover the truth.

FBI Special Agent Patrick Bowers’ cutting-edge investigative techniques are about to be pushed to the limit. Killers are on a bloody murder spree throughout the Northeast, with each crime a model of deadly perfection. Agent Bowers faces his most difficult case yet—even as the killers hone their craft with every death.

Aware of the covetous interest in his land, the laird of Brae Aisir announces that any man who can outfight his spitfire of a granddaughter will have her as a wife, along with her inheritance. It’s a heated contest that inspires the passion of one man and the jealous wrath of another.

Shocked that one of their own could be responsible for a massacre, General Ferguson, Commander of the British Prime Minister’s private hit squad and adviser to the new president of the United States, tasks Sean Dillon with hunting the traitor.

But even as Dillon goes to war, the war is coming to him.

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It’s All Greek to Me

Acquainted with the Night

Lawe’s Justice

The Cross

Billionaire Greek playboy Iakovos Papaioannou knew his sister hired her favorite band to perform at her birthday party. He’s just not sure how their six-foot tall, wild-haired, tempestuous manager has already ended up in his bed—and in his heart.

London tour guide Caroline Clifford has never believe in vampires—until her uncle is brutally murdered at a Bulgarian archaeological site, and a vampire hunter who corresponded with him seeks her out.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Lora Leigh returns to the world of the Breeds where animal instincts can bring a feral pleasure to every man and his willing female mate.

The vampires call it the Cross of Ardaich: a relic thought to have been destroyed in the war between the Federation and the rebels. But it has been found, and its incredible powers could signal the end of civilization…

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10 million copies sold.

ALSO AVAILABLE

More than two years on the New York Times bestseller list.

Already a modern classic.

Have you read The Help?

Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who’s always taken orders quietly, but lately she’s unable to hold her bitterness back. Her friend Minny has never held her tongue but now must somehow keep secrets about her employer that leave her speechless.

White socialite Skeeter just graduated college. She’s full of ambition, but without a husband, she’s considered a failure. Together, these seemingly different women join together to write a tell-all book about work as a black maid in the South that could forever alter their destinies and the life of a small town...

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MOVIE TIE-IN EDITION 9780425245132 • $16

contents

december 2011 w w w. B o o k Pa g e . c o m

features

02

20 holiday romance Fall for a festive love story

holiday catalog

From adventure to inspiration to hearth & home, the books in our holiday catalog will help you give more joy this season!

28 christmas fiction Seasonal stories to warm your heart

28 best books of 2011

Holiday catalog art © iStockphoto.com/jammydesign

Our editors’ favorite books of the year

31 stephen sondheim Looking back on a life on Broadway

32 patricia schultz The world’s greatest destinations

33 alan bradley Meet the author of I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

33 gift books: art A museum between two covers

34 gift books: literary The best books for bibliophiles

36 gift books: guys From movie monsters to mountaineers

37 gift books: sports

departments

reviews

20 author enablers

43 Fiction

21 23 24 26 26 27

44 nonfiction

top pick:

romance book clubs whodunit audio cooking lifestyles

top pick:

Queen of America

by Luis Alberto Urrea also reviewed: Delicacy by David Foenkinos; Mrs. Nixon by Ann Beattie

Portraits of valor and perseverance

An Autobiography

by Agatha Christie also reviewed: Best Friends, Occasional Enemies by Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella; A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead

38 gift books: home design Making your home look its very best

39 gift books: food & drink ’Tis the season to eat, drink and be merry

40 gift books: history

27

41

36

45

38

46

33

42

Telling the stories that tell us who we are

41 gift books: music Four new bios hit the high notes

42 gift books: odds & ends Something for everyone on your list

45 children’s holiday books Seasonal stories for young readers

46 gift books: children New treasures for kids of all ages

47 valeri gorbachev Meet the illustrator of Little Bunny and the Magic Christmas Tree

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a m e r i c a’ s b o o k r e v i e w

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PRODUCTION MANAGER

Editorial Policy

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ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

PRODUCTION DESIGNER

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BookPage is a selection guide for new books. Our editors evaluate and select for review the best books published each month in a variety of categories.

Only books we highly recommend are featured.

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BookPage is editorially independent and never accepts payment for editorial coverage.

19

columns

by kathi kamen goldmark & Sam Barry

C

hristmas-themed romance novels are as plentiful as shopping mall Santas, so we’ve picked a few of this year’s best and brightest for your enjoyment.

Relax, put your feet up, pour a hot cup of Earl Grey and be swept away by these holiday tales.

INSPIRATION FOR WRITERS

20

by Lois Dyer

a romantic twist on the holidays

Practical advice on writing and publishing for aspiring authors The holiday season is here! For some, this is joyous news; for others, it is an excellent reason to leave the country. Whichever way you feel, the holidays are always a good time to buy a book—because anytime is a good time to buy a book.

Each year we like to provide our readers with gift book suggestions for writers. This year, we talked to four people who influence what others read. We asked them what books they would recommend to inspire the writer in your life, even if that writer is you.

Teresa Weaver, book editor at Atlanta magazine: “There are three books that I find myself going back to repeatedly for inspiration or comfort or just to remind myself what perfect sentences sound like: Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, of course; Joseph Mitchell’s My Ears Are Bent, a collection of his newspaper columns; and, above all, Eudora Welty’s slim memoir, One Writer’s Beginnings. There are so many lines in that book that I can quote by heart: ‘All serious daring starts from within,’ for instance. Or, ‘The strands are all there; to the memory nothing is ever really lost.’ But the one that will always take me back to my five-year-old self, when I first had an inkling that books would save me, is this: ‘It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass.’ That is the power and the magic of great writing.”

Michael Krasny, San Franciscobased host of KQED’s Forum, recommends Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks. This novel explores the world of convicted sex offenders, some guilty of heinous crimes, others guilty of much lesser crimes, living in the only place left to them: a makeshift encampment under a Florida causeway. For nonfiction Krasny recommends The Swerve

by Stephen Greenblatt, which tells the story of how the discovery of an ancient manuscript changed the course of human thought and set the stage for the modern world.

Sylvia Brownrigg, book reviewer for the New York Times, the L.A. Times and the San Francisco

’Tis the season

author enablers

Chronicle, and a novelist whose new children’s book, Kepler’s Dream, will be published by Putnam in May (under the pen name Juliet Bell), checks in with a vote for The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. “All right, so I’m not alone in thinking this was one of the year’s best and most compelling novels: Apparently the U.K.’s Man Booker judges felt so, too.

They were right. This short novel is itself a master class in how to write a work that is true and dark, funny and thought-provoking, with a story that has both a page-turning urgency and a sense of ordinariness—as if it could have happened to anyone. Stays in the mind and heart, and leaves the reader, at the end, wanting to return to the first page and start again.”

David Streitfeld, a New York Times reporter covering digital culture, has a surprising recommendation.

“My favorite source of inspiration is, I confess, distinctly odd. It’s a play, which is not a form I have spent much time with since I was 17 and infatuated with an actress in my high school. But something about Brecht’s great epic Galileo has stuck with me for decades now, and I return to it often when I need to supply myself with encouragement and enthusiasm (always in the translation published by Vintage; there have been several weaker versions).

Galileo is smarter than everyone around him, the way we all imagine ourselves to be, but he is a creature of the flesh, and that is his downfall. When the Inquisition wants him to recant his heretical views, it merely shows him the instruments.

No actual torture is necessary. Who among us would be any braver? Yet he consistently speaks out for the truth, questioning ‘the eternal immutability of the heavens.’ Galileo reminds me in eloquent language that, whatever my own failings, it is important to have the highest goals as a writer.”

From your Author Enablers, Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Or, if you loathe this time of year, happy reading! We’ll return to dispensing advice next month, so send your questions to authorenablers@gmail.com.

PASSIONATE REUNION Best-selling author Robyn Carr will delight her many fans with Bring Me Home for Christmas (MIRA, $7.99, 336 pages, ISBN 9780778312710), an endearing story set in a small mountain town in Northern California. This tale of a lovers’ reunion stars Rebecca Timm and Denny Cutler. Once deeply in love, the young college student

and Marine were torn apart when Denny’s mother died and he reenlisted in the Corps. Now, several years later, Becca is considering a marriage proposal from another man. Before she can give him an answer, though, she knows she has to see Denny again. Becca is seeking closure when she travels to Virgin River—and what she finds there is a love that has endured and still holds them both in thrall. Despite their painful past and the broken hearts they’ve both suffered, is it possible that Becca and Denny can find a way forward, together? This latest entry is a wonderful addition to Carr’s Virgin River series.

A NEW SHOT AT LOVE Prepare to be enchanted by Sheila Roberts’ The Nine Lives of Christmas (St. Martin’s, $14.99, 214 pages, ISBN 9780312594497). Even Ambrose the cat has an opinion about whether firefighter Zach Stone should get together with retail clerk Merilee White. Unfortunately, Zach is seriously commitment-shy, while Merilee is just . . . well . . . shy. But Ambrose is on his ninth and final cat life. He’s convinced that he’s required to atone for his past eight wicked-cat lives and is now on a

mission to bring his human companion a serious dose of Christmas happiness. Unfortunately, Zach is not only uninterested in holiday trappings, he’s determinedly avoiding Merilee because he’s wary of the powerful attraction he feels toward her. Nonetheless, Ambrose is determined to play matchmaker.

Zach has a wall of steel around his heart, and it isn’t until family secrets are laid bare that he’s able to see his world—and Merilee—with new perspective. The story has Roberts’ trademark humor woven into a wellcrafted plot, combined with engaging characters that are sure to charm and delight readers.

ROMANCE IN THE WEST New York Times best-selling author Linda Lael Miller transports readers back to the early 1900s and the American West in A Lawman’s Christmas (HQN, $16.95, 256 pages, ISBN 9780373776146). When Clay McKettrick arrives in Blue River, Texas, to begin work as the new town marshal, he’s accosted by a precocious six-year-old cherub. He takes her home and learns her mother is Dara Rose Nolan, the widow of the prior marshal. The small house the family lives in is part of the marshal’s compensation, and Clay now has the power to evict Dara and her two daughters from their home. But Clay is charmed by the pretty young widow, and Dara Rose finds the handsome young marshal irresistible. The two agree to join forces, but what begins as a practical decision to secure a future for her two daughters soon has Dara Rose struggling with whether she dares to risk falling in love. Miller has created a rock-solid Western setting, and she brings it to life with characters who are believable and admirable.

Readers will love this heartwarming Christmas story.

romance b y c h r i s t i e r i d g way

good versus evil Larissa Ione builds a complex world brimming with legends and supernatural beings in Immortal Rider (Grand Central, $7.99, 448 pages, ISBN 9780446574471). The only female among the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Limos has been engaged to Satan since infancy—yet a sexy human, Arik Wagner, snares her attention. He feels the attraction, too, but a single kiss sends him to a hellish torture chamber. Complicating matters, Limos is cursed with her brothers to lead the world into Armageddon.

They have dodged calamity until recently, when one of the Horsemen began working on the side of evil. Now Limos must rescue the

Earl, who goes through lovers at a worldrenowned rate. Yet it seems Alec’s legendary casualness is over once he comes under Zelda’s spell. Soon he finds himself imagining a happier life, with Zelda at his side and his small stepson as part of their family. But will his witch of a wife let him and the boy go? Can Zelda trust in Alec’s promises? Filled with scorching love scenes and a hero and heroine who have sacrificed much for family, Seductive as Flame is an erotic and entertaining read.

Top pick in romance

blameless Arik while also keeping clear of her now-demonic brother.

Once free, Arik realizes he wants the beautiful immortal more than ever.

Is there a way to release Limos from the ancient betrothal? Can they be together without unleashing more dark forces into a world braced for the end times? A sizzling story filled with adventure, violence and the tug-of-war between good and evil, Immortal Rider sets the stage for further battle in this series.

Burning love As hot as its title, Seductive as Flame (Berkley, $7.99, 336 pages, ISBN 9780425244906) by Susan Johnson is a smoldering love story set in the England of 1894. During a country party, independent Scottish beauty Zelda MacKenzie meets the seductive Alec Munro, Earl of Dagliesh. Theirs is an instant attraction of two sophisticated, headstrong people, and while Zelda briefly resists, entering into an affair with Alec is impossible to refuse— despite the fact that he’s married.

Everyone knows Alec’s marital arrangement is miserable—with his spouse to blame—but Zelda figures her heart is safe against the

Published posthumously, Beverly Barton’s Dead by Nightfall is a chilling romantic thriller that wraps up mysteries exposed in the first two books of her Dead By trilogy. The Powell Private Security and Investigation Agency goes on high alert when Nicole, wife of the agency’s founder, wealthy Griffin Powell, is kidnapped . . . by a man Griffin thought he had killed 20 years before. It appears the sadistic and vengeful Malcolm York has risen from the dead and is back with his sexual and violent games.

When she was taken, Nic had been in the process of leaving Griffin due to long-buried secrets. Will he get a chance to win her back? Nic regrets her rash departure and begins to understand his lies of omission as she experiences depravities at the hands of the twisted York and his cronies—depravities similar to those Griffin once suffered. While Nic is determined to stay strong and return to her man, it’s a literal fight for survival. Amid tension and bloodshed, Barton depicts the unwavering beacon of abiding love.

Dead by Nightfall

By Beverly Barton Zebra $7.99, 416 pages ISBN 9781420110364 eBook available

Romantic suspense

by

Novel Reads

HARPERCOLLINS HarperCollins.com • AvonRomance.com Cut and Run

by Matt Hilton

Ex-CIA and Special Ops, Joe Hunter made a lot of enemies during his covert career—but none worse than the powerful man he left for dead in South America. Suddenly, people closely connected to the former military operative-turned-problem solver are dying—and when two cops who stop him for questioning are taken out by a sniper’s bullets, Hunter finds himself on the run from the legitimate authorities … and a killer’s vengeance. Look for Slash and Burn also by Matt Hilton, available now.

9780062079947, $9.99

Pale Demon

by Kim Harrison

Now, after centuries of torment, a fearsome creature walks free, craving innocent blood and souls. But his ultimate goal is Rachel Morgan, and in the fight for survival that follows, even embracing her own demonic nature may not be enough to save her.

9780061138072, $7.99

Raven Strike

by Dale Brown and Jim DeFelice As Danny Freah and his spec-ops team scramble to recover a top secret aircraft that has crashed in Africa, Whiplash Director Jonathon Reid finds himself mysteriously shut off from information about the robot drone and its mission. Maneuvering through the twisted back corridors of the CIA and Washington’s power elite, Reid discovers secrets both illegal and highly dangerous—a virtually unstoppable assassin and an out-of-control clique within the Agency.

9780061713026, $9.99

Red to Black

by Alex Dryden

At the dawn of a new millennium, these two adversaries, Finn and Anna, are bound together by an unexpected love that becomes the only truth they can trust. Now they must risk everything to expose a chilling and ingenious plan devised during the Cold War years to control the European continent—a deadly plot in which friend and foe wear the same face. Look for Moscow Sting also by Alex Dryden, available now.

9780062085870, $9.99

Within the Flames

by Marjorie M. Liu

Lyssa hides in the abandoned tunnels beneath Manhattan, seeking refuge from those who murdered her family a decade ago and would now destroy her as well. Fire is her weapon, her destiny…and her curse. Beneath Lyssa’s extraordinary beauty are dangerous secrets…and even darker, nearly irresistible urges. But she has won the heart of a fearless protector…and all the demons in the world will not make him back down.

9780062020178, $7.99

All available as eBooks Visit LibraryLoveFest.com for more great reading

21

What’s next on your book club’s list?

Bird THE

SISTERS

a novel by Rebecca Rasmussen

“Beautifully written, vivid, and heartbreaking, The Bird Sisters is a moving story that explores the fierce bonds, wounds, and tender complexities of the human heart.”

—BETH HOFFMAN, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF

SAVING CEECEE HONEYCUTT

“The Bird Sisters… has the sturdy literary bones of pastoral masterworks such as Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres and Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping.”

—ST LOUIS-POST DISPATCH

“In lovely evocative prose Rebecca Rasmussen conjures up her two sisters, Milly and Twiss, and their rural Wisconsin community during the summer that changed their lives. Full of surprises, this is a splendid debut that will stay with the reader long after the last page.”

—MARGOT LIVESEY

SCAN HERE TO

Start Reading

AT LAST IN PAPERBACK Also available as an eBook

columns This month’s best paperback releases for reading groups

BACK IN BROOKLYN Sunset Park (Picador, $15, 320 pages, ISBN 9780312610678) finds Paul Auster moving away from the studied complexity that has become his narrative trademark and into a more straightforward mode of storytelling. The shift pays off, as the new novel is one of his most sympathetic and appealing works of fiction.

Miles Heller, the book’s protagonist, takes care of foreclosed properties in Florida, but a sketchy romance with

book clubs by julie hale

injured in a car accident.

Their mother, daughter of a well-to-do jeweler, abandoned her prosperous prospects to marry him—a decision she regrets.

Their union was doomed from the start, and the tragedy plays itself out in the lives of their young daughters.

Milly falls for the son of the local doctor, while Twiss becomes something of a scandal. When Bett, their cousin, pays a visit, the girls learn more about love and its awful repercussions than they ever dreamed was possible. Poignant and powerful, this novel about family, memory and love will resonate with fans of literary fiction.

Great Stories

for a warm holiday New York Times bestselling author of P.S. I Love You

“ This modern-day Scrooge tale is a delightful read with plenty of fun twists and turns.”

—USA Today

TOP PICK FOR BOOK CLUBS

a Cuban-American girl forces him to head home suddenly to New York.

In Brooklyn, he moves in with four dirt-poor bohemian types, including Ellen, an artist plagued by erotic dreams; Bing, a drummer; and Alice, a grad student. Another unexpected presence in Miles’ life is his father, Morris, with whom he has long been at odds. Morris seems open to renewing his ties with Miles even as he tries to salvage his marriage and keep his business afloat. Auster handles the narrative’s multiple threads deftly, and his depiction of the father-son bond feels authentic. This multilayered portrayal of a group of lost souls explores the universal quest for identity and the precarious nature of relationships— themes Auster continues to explore, after 15 novels, with rich results.

SISTERLY LOVE The Bird Sisters (Broadway, $14, 320 pages, ISBN 9780307717979), Rebecca Rasmussen’s impressive debut, is set in Spring Green, Wisconsin. This sensitively realized novel focuses on elderly sisters Twiss and Milly, who live together in their childhood home. Most days, they nurse injured birds and wander the property, reliving the past. Through flashbacks to the 1940s, their unhappy childhood comes to life.

Their father, a professional golfer, is the hope of the family until he’s

A virtuoso actor, musician and writer, Steve Martin returns with his third work of fiction, a fascinating look at the contemporary art world.

Lacey Yeager is an up-and-coming art dealer in New York City who will do almost anything to reach the top, including sleeping with her clientele and making dubious deals.

Her ascent in the business starts at Sotheby’s, and she is soon able to open her own gallery in Chelsea.

As she glad-hands her patrons and grows her business, it’s clear Lacey has guts. Her determination to succeed would be admirable if she weren’t so hard to like. A journalist friend of Lacey’s named Daniel Frank narrates the novel, providing commentary on the art world that’s smart, ironic and often hilarious.

Martin, a longtime art collector, instills the narrative with convincing detail and dialogue. Fans of his previous work, which includes the best-selling novel Shopgirl, won’t be disappointed in his intriguing portrayal of the art scene.

A heartwarming Amish Christmas novel from a New York Times bestselling author An obedient daughter and an irresistible “bad boy” . . . could this Christmas season bring love and a new life for the unlikeliest pair in Sugarcreek?

From the New York Times bestselling author — with delicious cookie recipes inside!

“Romantic, funny, sexy, and poignant.

I loved this book.”

An Object of Beauty

—Kristin Hannah

By Steve Martin Grand Central $14.99, 304 pages ISBN 9780446573658

FICTION

Go to BookClubGirl.com @WilliamMorrowBk

AV O N I N S P I R E

Imprints of HarperCollinsPublishers

EXCELLENT FOR BOOK CLUBS

23

columns

Whodunit

by Bruce Tierney

A conundrum of a cold case It is always a good month for mystery readers if there is a new Michael Connelly book at hand— doubly so if it happens to feature world-weary L.A. cop Harry Bosch.

In Connelly’s latest, The Drop (Little, Brown, $27.99, 400 pages, ISBN 9780316069410), Bosch commands the LAPD cold case unit, serving out his final three years before forced retirement. Cases scarcely get any colder—or any stranger—than his current one: Newly tested DNA evidence pinpoints a suspect in a 1989 rape/murder. Problem is, the alleged perpetrator was only eight years old at the time of the crime! While Bosch investigates that conundrum, another case falls in his lap courtesy of his longtime nemesis, city councilman Irvin Irving. There is no love (nor civility, for that matter) lost between the old adversaries, but Irving’s son fell or was pushed from a Chateau Marmont balcony, and the bereaved politician has thrown his considerable weight around to compel Bosch

to conduct the investigation. The beleaguered cop will soon discover that his cold case has ramifications that reach into the present day, and the new case has its roots deep in the past. As always, Connelly delivers a pageturner of the first order, again cementing his reputation as one of the finest contemporary American mystery writers.

DEAD ON THE SCENE A major subset of the mystery genre is the British police procedural novel, a brilliant example of which is Peter James’ Dead Man’s Grip (Minotaur, $25.99, 416 pages, ISBN 9780312642839), number seven

“I have lived with many Zen masters, all of them cats.” — ECKHART TOLLE

in his series featuring tenacious Brighton cop Roy Grace. This time out, Grace heads up the investigation into a traffic accident that left a bicyclist dead at the scene. Then, one by one, the other participants in the accident meet mysterious (and, it must be said, macabre) ends. For example, one of them is found in a submerged minivan, his hands super-glued to the steering wheel! The plot thickens as Grace discovers that the bicyclist was the grandson of a noted American underworld figure, a shady character with the means and connections to exact his revenge. Longtime readers of the series will recall an ongoing subplot featuring Grace’s wife Sandy, who disappeared some years back without a trace. Grace is finally beginning to get on with his personal life—with a new girlfriend and a baby on the way—but the specter of Sandy still nags at the corners of his consciousness. Without giving anything away, I am happy to say that you will finally be apprised of Sandy’s fate. Readers will not want to miss this.

TROUBLE FROM WITHIN

“A book to make you wriggle with joy.”

—

| www.newworldlibrary.com

24

also available as an ebook

The Complaints, Ian Rankin’s first mystery featuring Edinburgh Internal Affairs cop Malcolm Fox, was a hit with readers and critics alike; it was a BookPage Top Pick in Mystery, in fact. Now Fox is back for his sophomore outing, The Impossible Dead (Little, Brown, $25.99, 400 pages, ISBN 9780316039772). Disgraced Fife policeman Paul Carter has been dismissed from duty, thanks to a tip from a whistle blower and corroborative evidence from a fearful and paranoid local woman; what remains to be determined is whether his fellow cops covered up for him in his final days on the force. Naturally, the folks under investigation close ranks and circle the wagons, taking every opportunity to undermine Fox’s inquiry and/or lead it in unprofitable directions. Things take a turn for the deadly when the whistle blower, an ex-cop who happened to be Paul Carter’s uncle, is found murdered in his cluttered living room.

The weapon: a gun reported de-

stroyed ages ago—a gun that figured in a prominent political assassination dating from the 1980s, a time of separatist upheaval among Scots patriots (or terrorists, depending on whom you talk to). Filled with fascinating backstory, compelling characters and some sly social commentary, The Impossible Dead will, like The Complaints before it, leave you eagerly awaiting the next installment.

TOP PICK IN MYSTERY It is with more than a bit of sadness and nostalgia that I offer you the December Top Pick in Mystery, Forever Rumpole, for author John Mortimer passed away in early 2009, leaving behind a legacy of more than 80 Rumpole tales and legions of bereaved fans. Fourteen of the best of Rumpole’s cases have been gathered for this compilation, tracing the aging barrister’s career from the late 1970s until 2004. All the usual suspects are on hand, most prominently the Timson clan of “minor villains” and Rumpole’s stern, no-nonsense wife Hilda, known to Rumpole and readers alike as “She Who Must Be Obeyed.” The world changed rather dramatically over the course of 30 years of Rumpole stories; the dishevelled lawyer (think of a composite of Perry Mason and Inspector Columbo, in a slightly tatty whitish wig) fielded cases ranging from petty larceny to Islamic terrorism, all with his characteristic tilting at windmills and his biting tongue-in-cheek wit. Mortimer was at work on a new Rumpole story at the time of his death. That fragment is enclosed as the coda to Forever Rumpole. It promised to be as good as the tales that came before it.

Forever Rumpole

By John Mortimer Viking $30, 528 pages ISBN 9780670023066 eBook available

mystery

for myster y l s t f i g g ove tin i c rs from Ex

A L EXANDE R Mc CALL SMITH ISABEL DALHOUSIE MYSTERIES set in “cold, foggy, history-drenched”* Scotland “McCall Smith continues to capture the best of traditional British mysteries.”

The new book in the series!

—Sacramento Book Review

“Charmingly told …

Intelligent and entertaining .”

—The Seattle Times

“Isabel Dalhousie is a force to be reckoned with.” —USA Today*

AlexanderMcCallSmith.com facebook.com/AlexanderMcCallSmith Anchor Books

Pantheon Books

ANDER McCALL SMITH The ALEX Holiday Sweepstakes ENTER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN:

Tara Murphy

1. One (1) Grand Prize Winner will receive an Eleanor Pritchard blanket and a signed edition of The Forgotten Affairs of Youth.

2. Ten (10) Runner Up Winners will each receive a copy of The Forgotten Affairs of Youth.

Visit Bookpage.com for complete details and official rules.

No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 18 years of age and older. To enter, follow the instructions at www.BookPage.com. All entries must be received by December 31, 2011 (11 pm EST). Winners selected by a random drawing. Approximate retail value of all prizes $700. Void where prohibited by law. Go to www.BookPage.com for the Official Rules.

columns

cooking

by sukey howard

BY s y b i l P RA T T

Four Fabulous Fiction Finds

Gourmet Gifts Galore: Part II

The narrator of We the Animals (Blackstone Audio, $19.95, 3 hours, ISBN 9781455119813) is never given a name, but this brilliant debut novel is so strikingly autobiographical that you know he’s author Justin Torres, and you know you’re hearing an extraordinary new voice. He’s the baby of three brothers, a tight little band careening through childhood, now battering each other, now huddling together, now trying to under-

If you want to put an English spin on your cooking, all you need to do is pick up Todd English’s elegant new cookbook, Cooking in Everyday English (Oxmoor House, $29.95, 240 pages, ISBN 9780848734848).

Flavorful vinaigrettes, quickly made compound butters, sensational spice blends and a few choice condiments are English’s basic building blocks. Then he takes you through the gourmet gamut from

stand their young, raw, quick-to-anger parents, Puerto Rican “Paps” and white “Ma.” As the boys grow older in darkly radiant short takes, Torres manages to be inside his characters and outside at the same time, looking at the world first with a child’s eye, then seeing with an alienated grace that only comes with time.

A MEETING IN MANHATTAN Raise your well-chilled martini glasses in a toast to Amor Towles for his debut novel set in perfectly evoked 1930s New York, Rules of Civility (Penguin Audio, $39.95, 11.5 hours, ISBN 9780142429273), and to Rebecca Lowman for her perfectly pitched audio performance. Our appealing heroine was born Katya to immigrant Russians in Brooklyn. But as Katey, with nothing more than her sharp savvy and preternatural poise, she moved to Manhattan to claim her place among the smart set, with its blithe, trust-funded spirits, and in the elite offices of Condé Nast. On New Year’s Eve, 1937, Katey meets Tinker Grey, a cashmere-clad, seemingly seamless Ivy League-polished banker, and we follow their rollercoaster ride through 1938, a year that will change them both forever.

ONE MAN’S LIFE

26

audio

It only takes two and a half hours to listen to Denis Johnson’s impeccably crafted novella Train Dreams (Macmillan Audio, $17.99, ISBN 9781427213778), but these 150 minutes capture Robert Grainier’s entire life, from his vague memories of arriving in the Idaho panhandle

in 1893, an orphan with his destination pinned to his shirt, to his death almost 70 years later in an isolated cabin which he rebuilt after a ferocious wildfire consumed the original one, along with his young wife and daughter. He worked as a logger on the railroad, ended up delivering goods with a horse-drawn wagon, had only one love, owned only one acre.

His solitary life, punctuated with slow, steady labor, is the opposite of a sweeping saga, yet it becomes heroic, an American epic in miniature.

top pick in audio Aravind Adiga’s second novel, Last Man in Tower—even better than his first—poses many of the same questions as The White Tiger about right and wrong, rampaging capitalism and the price of “progress.” The “last man” is retired science teacher Masterji, and the “tower” is the now-shabby apartment cooperative in Mumbai where he has lived for more than 30 years, home to middle-class Hindus, Catholics and Muslims. Into this micro-village comes Dharmen Shah, a megadeveloper who wants to buy them out so he can add another glitzy structure to his empire. Shah’s promise of big bucks and Masterji’s determination to stand in the way send shock waves through this little community, exposing its members’ frailties and lethal greed. Sam Dastor narrates and is one of the very best I’ve heard in all my many years of listening.

Last Man in Tower

By Aravind Adiga Random House Audio $45, 14 hours ISBN 9780307940964

internationaL fiction

cocktails and appetizers to desserts, with many intriguing variations on everyday standards—Semolina Polenta, Chicken Stroganoff, Corn Falafel, Bluefish Saltimbocca and Brownie Hash (no, not hash brownies)—all eminently doable in your own kitchen. Every recipe is lovingly illustrated with color photos of the necessary ingredients and the totally tempting finished dish. Brush up on your English and make great meals while you’re at it.

BAKER’S BEST FRIEND If you or anyone on your holiday hit list starts quaking at the thought of baking, Caroline Breatherton’s lusciously illustrated, exactingly explained recipes in Illustrated Step-by-Step Baking (DK, $35, 544 pages, ISBN 9780756686796) serve up support for virtual beginners and inspiration for virtuosos and make it all a piece of cake. From Baked Alaska to Brioche, Cheese Soufflé to Chocolate Chestnut Roulade, more than 300 easy-to-follow, failproof recipes guide you through a banquet of baked treasures, sweet and savory. Twelve chapters, with 80 master recipes and 240 variations, offer edible ideas for brunch, picnics, parties, appetizer bites, children’s delights, fast fixes and make-ahead masterpieces.

MOROCCAN MAGIC Every once in a while, a fabulous cookbook shows up that takes you into an entirely new world. For me, these are books to read, to ponder, to lose yourself in; a source of in-

tense culinary pleasure, but not necessarily everyday recipes. Mourad Lahlou’s beautiful debut cookbook, Mourad: New Moroccan (Artisan, $40, 400 pages, ISBN 9781579654290), belongs in this exalted category. What he serves up here, and at his San Francisco restaurant, is his personal interpretation of Moroccan food, the best of his inventive riffing and innovative use of Northern Californian ingredients. The recipes are complex and intriguing; whether you prepare them or peruse them, you’ll be swept into the magic of Mourad’s Moroccan cuisine, and his short opening chapters on his seven essentials may change the way you season everything.

top pick in COOKBOOKs Molly Stevens, author of the award-winning All About Braising, has done it again with All About Roasting, a new masterful master class on roasting that’s comprehensive, comprehensible and consummately usable. You’re in for a heated love affair with your oven as Stevens explains the roasting process, the principles behind the technique, the dialogue between the cook, the heat and the food, and then provides deliciously detailed recipes for everything from a classic SearRoasted Chateaubriand with Sauce Béarnaise, Cuban-Style Marinated Slow-Roasted Pork Picnic Shoulder and Panko-Crusted Roast Cod Fillets to Blasted Broccoli with Kalamata Vinaigrette and Brown-Sugar Roasted Pineapple.

All About Roasting

By Molly Stevens Norton $35, 592 pages ISBN 97803930652682

roasting

LIFESTYLES BY joanna brichetto

Building Creativity With Toys Artist Marilyn Scott-Waters believes so strongly the world needs more toys that she gives them away.

I found her website last year during a search for a mini paper trebuchet.

Her intricately illustrated, printable design turned out to be great at lobbing pennies off the kitchen table.

Even easier and more spectacular are the projects in The Toymaker’s Workshop: Paper Toys You Can Make Yourself (Sterling, $7.95, 48 pages, ISBN 9781402768514).

star, spring flower, fluted vase, parrot paper clip and projects that spin, make noise, store things and just look nifty on display. Both process and product are not only enjoyable, they’re good for us: Folding flat paper into threedimensional sculpture enhances cognitive skills and has therapeutic benefits for all ages.

TOP PICK FOR LIFESTYLES

Eleven colorful toys are printed on thick paper already perforated and scored, easy to punch out, fold and glue. Best of all, they do stuff: They slide, glide, hop, rock or hold things.

Build a wee palace for the tooth fairy (and a box for the offered tooth), little theatres, a toy workshop, pirate ships, a Unicorn Forest peep show and, to house tiny seasonal treasures, a Nature Trunk, plus a delivery van, critter seesaw and antique flying machine. The instructions are brief and clear, and kids eight and older will be able to manage solo.

Still, since one of the Toymaker’s goals is to “help grownups and children spend time together making things,” intergenerational collaborations are ideal.

UNFOLD YOUR MIND Ever wish you could find the time to sit down and give origami a try?

Or perhaps you know someone overwhelmed by work who could use a quick, creative treat? Sure, it takes time to make anything, find materials, stay organized and keep up with instructions. But the brilliant idea behind Origami for Busy People (Tuttle, $16.95, 192 pages, ISBN 9784805311486) is that the time commitment is almost nil.

Take an average coffee or lunch break, school pick-up line or doctor appointment delay and make it refreshingly creative. Expert origamist Marcia Joy Miller includes everything necessary to create 27 fun little projects: the how-tos and all the papers. No glue, tape or scissors needed. Models include a reversible

The Cult of LEGO by John Baichtal and Joe Meno is a glorious, colorful brick of a coffee-table book. It is “an ode to the brilliance of adult fans of LEGO as well as to the toy they love.” Beginning with the history of the LEGO company, it moves right to the question many feel compelled to ask: Why are LEGOs irresistible to grownups?

The chapter on minifigs could be answer enough, with exquisite pages on the history, scale, design and creative customizations of the tiny, iconic LEGO humans. Those of us who are certifiable LEGO junkies are examined just as closely, from the ones who re-create real-life landmarks, buildings, vehicles and movie scenes, to the glorious geeks who explore fantasy and sci-fi themes like steampunk and the post-apocalyptic. Other chapters introduce recognized artists who use LEGOs as a medium; fans who create visual narratives with models, comics, stop-action film and dioramas; the digital and online LEGO worlds; robotics (Mindstorms is LEGO’s best-selling product); fan conventions; and, most surprising, the application of LEGOs in therapy, architecture, medicine and engineering. The diversity and loyalty of LEGO fans really are as marvelous as the toy itself.

Book your holidays now

The Cult of LEGO

By John Baichtal & Joe Meno No Starch Press $39.95, 304 pages ISBN 9781593273910

Discover more us.dk.com

hobbies © 2011 LucasfiLm Ltd. ® & tm aLL Rights ReseRved. used undeR authoRization.

Lego, the Lego Logo, the BRick configuRation and the minifiguRe aRe tRademaRks of the Lego gRoup. © 2011 the Lego gRoup. pRoduced By dk puBLishing undeR License fRom the Lego gRoup.

27

features

BEST Books of 2011

Christmas fiction

eventually writes the bestseller House of Sand and Fog—you’ll read with the same anticipation and rush of adrenaline you might feel while watching a hardscrabble sports movie, carried through by clean, beautiful prose.

T

ake a break from shopping, decorating and wrapping, and curl up with one of these new stories of the season.

#12: The Swerve

Lost December

By Richard Paul Evans, Simon & Schuster, $19.99 368 pages, ISBN 9781451628005 The #1 best-selling author of The Christmas Box captures the wonder of second chances with the tale of playboy Luke, who burns through his inheritance in a year. Rather than ask his wealthy father for help, Luke finds redemption and love as an entry-level clerk.

The Christmas Note

By Donna VanLiere, St. Martin’s, $14.99, 224 pages ISBN 9780312658960 Two very different women come together in a time of need when single mother Gretchen helps her mysterious young neighbor, Melissa, face the difficult task of cleaning out her deceased mother’s apartment. The mess left behind reveals family secrets Melissa never expected, a brother and sister she never knew and the truth about her identity.

Twelve Drummers Drumming

By C.C. Benison, Delacorte, $24, 384 pages ISBN 9780385344456 C.C. Benison introduces a new series starring Father Tom Christmas, who must balance being the new vicar in an idyllic English village with playing detective in a local murder case. This Christmas tale is dark and edgy—the perfect treat for suspense fans in a holiday mood.

The Christmas Wedding

28

By James Patterson and Richard DiLallo, Little, Brown $25.99, 288 pages, ISBN 9780316097390 Gaby Summerhill’s four children come together for a Christmas homecoming they’ll never forget. Gaby surprises them all with a wedding announcement—plus another gift that might give the family a chance for holiday cheer.

W

hat makes a good book? That topic has been discussed even more frequently than usual in 2011, amid controversies over England’s Man Booker Prize and our own National Book Award.

In a year filled with best-selling biographies, anticipated debuts and long-awaited releases from literary heavyweights, our editors have voted on their favorites and come up with a list that encompasses all of the above while leaving room for a few surprises. Though our choices run the genre gamut—and reader preferences are, after all, intensely personal—we guarantee that every title manages to do the one thing every good book should: carry you away. Read on for some highlights from our list.

#1: State of Wonder Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder whisks readers off to the Amazon, where her scientists are pummeled with bugs as big as ping-pong balls and threatened by the sinuous squeeze of an anaconda. Combining the page-turning plot of a thriller with memorable characters, fascinating moral dilemmas and the painstakingly precise prose that Patchett is known for, State of Wonder is a novel that people will be reading—and talking about—for years to come.

#3: The Art of Fielding Chad Harbach’s debut will stick

with readers long after they have turned the final page. There are characters who go through struggles and transformations. There are three love stories. There is a charming college campus, with a quirky history. And yes, there is baseball . . . but ultimately, this is a story about growing up and falling in love—with another person, with a place and with a part of your life.

#4: Catherine the Great When it comes to writing about the lives of the Romanovs, Robert K. Massie is the ne plus ultra of biographers. Combining top-notch writing with a deep understanding of Russian culture and a knack for sussing out the most interesting tidbits of a life, Massie has created a compassionate, compelling portrait of one of history’s most maligned rulers.

#8: Townie Andre Dubus III’s memoir is tough and poignant and occasionally hard to read. His is a world where kids get beaten up and stolen from; they attempt suicide, deal drugs and have casual sex. Though readers know the outcome of this story—Dubus

The author of Will in the World brings his considerable narrative talents to the story of a turning point in history, the key moment when a long-lost work by the Roman poet Lucretius was discovered, helping to inspire the Renaissance. A scholar who writes with clarity and style in describing the deepest philosophical issues of the human experience, Greenblatt takes readers on a fascinating journey back to the roots of the modern world.

#13: Caleb’s Crossing No one writes historical fiction like Geraldine Brooks, and in her fourth novel she mines American history to craft an intensely smart and vibrant story. Her hero, Caleb, was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard—in 1665.

Brooks portrays him through the eyes of Bethia, a Puritan minister’s daughter who strikes up an unlikely friendship with Caleb that shapes both their lives. Moving and memorable, this is a tale of crossing boundaries and quiet strength.

#2o: When She Woke National scandal, illicit romance and an alternate future where church and state are no longer separate are a few of the elements readers can look forward to in Hillary Jordan’s terrific second novel, a dystopian retelling of The Scarlet Letter. The book is more about character and plot than issues, but it will leave readers contemplating events in today’s world.

Bookpage Best books of 2011 1. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett 2.

The Marriage Plot

by Jeffrey Eugenides 3. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach 4. Catherine the Great

by Robert K. Massie 5. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell 6. The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta 7. The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer 8. Townie by Andre Dubus III 9.

What It Is Like to Go to War

by Karl Marlantes 10. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson 11. Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean

12. The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt 13. Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks 14. The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht 15. Bossypants by Tina Fey 16. This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park 17. The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson 18. Blue Nights by Joan Didion 19. Life Itself by Roger Ebert 20. When She Woke by Hillary Jordan 21. Zone One by Colson Whitehead 22. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern 23. Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller

24. The Submission by Amy Waldman 25. The Astral by Kate Christensen 26. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami 27. The Storm at the Door

by Stefan Merrill Block 28. Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff 29. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson 30. The Story of Charlotte’s Web

by Michael Sims Visit BookPage.com/bestof2011 to find the complete list of the Best 50 Books of 2011, along with links to the year’s best books for children and teens.

THE NEW SCARPETTA NOVEL FROM THE WORLD’S #1 BESTSELLING CRIME WRITER

The best suspense is written in blood.

Author photo by Gina Crozier © 2011, Cornwell Entertainment, Inc.

On Sale December 6

MEET PATRICIA ON TOUR—FOR DETAILS GO TO A Penguin Group (USA) Company

penguin.com

facebook.com/patricia.cornwell

Follow Patricia on Twitter @1pcornwell patriciacornwell.com

Also available from Penguin Audio

REFUGEE. QUEEN. SAINT.

Cast by fate into the treacherous courts of eleventh-century Scotland, a young queen must rely on the power of faith to find safety and fulfill her destiny.

“As complex and colorful as the threads of a tapestry.”

–Romantic Times

Scan here to start reading

Now in Paperback

Also available as an eBook Join the discussion at ReadItForward.com

interview

STEPHEN SONDHEIM © Michael Lionstar

B y J ay MacD o n a l d

I

A MUSICAL LEGEND LOOKS BACK t is well-nigh impossible to take composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim out of the theater or the theater out of Stephen Sondheim.

At 81, the august talent behind such indelible Broadway musicals as A Little Night Music, Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum has just completed Look, I Made a Hat (Collected Lyrics 19812011), his second and final compendium of reflections, digressions and harangues that began with last year’s bestseller, Finishing the Hat (Collected Lyrics 1954-1981).

Neither conforms to the conventions of memoir. Instead, ever the showman, Sondheim places his lyrics center-stage, preferring to confine his comments and observations to expansive play introductions, boxed marginalia and occasional carping from the cheap seats. It’s a wonderfully theatrical way of describing his artistic process without revealing overly much about the personal life of a very private artist.

“If I’d wanted to write a memoir, I would have, but I don’t, and I didn’t,” Sondheim teases in what he calls volume two’s “reintroduction.” Later in the same chapter, he warns us, “Writing is a form of mischief.”

Having just completed what he admits was an arduous and sometimes uncomfortable diversion into introspective prose, how does it feel to be free of it?

“Funny you should ask; curiously enough, very depressing!” he replies in a voice that sounds half its age.

“No, I’m suffering; I’m having postpartum. I didn’t expect it but there it is. I guess I enjoyed it more than I thought.”

Sondheim’s journey to Broadway began at age 10, when he became best friends with Jamie Hammerstein, son of Broadway musical legend Oscar Hammerstein II (South Pacific, The King & I, Carousel, The Sound of Music). In high school, Sondheim began writing musicals and would ask the elder Hammerstein to critique them. His big break came when he was hired to write the lyrics to Leonard Bernstein’s score that became West Side Story.

He was 27 when the Jets and the Sharks rumbled onto the Great White Way in 1957. What was it like to be a Broadway rage at such a tender age?

“I wasn’t ‘a rage’ after West Side Story; I was strictly treated like a minor player,” Sondheim recalls, speaking by phone from his home in New York City. “I wasn’t ‘a rage’ until Company [1970]. Prior to that, I got terrible reviews and was dismissed and condescended to.”

Ironically, West Side Story, perhaps his best-known musical, remains an embarrassment for its lyricist.

“I liked the show, but my own work is very self-conscious and florid,” he says. “It’s the kind of lyric writing I don’t cotton to; it’s so written with a capital W. It’s what Lenny [Bernstein] wanted; he wanted poetry with a capital P, and his idea of poetry and mine were just two different things.

But I was 25 years old and I wanted everybody to be happy.”

Sondheim became the toast of Broadway in the 1970s as a result of hit collaborations with producer/

director Harold “Hal” Prince, including Company, Follies, A Little Night Music (which produced 1975’s Grammy Song of the Year, “Send in the Clowns”) and Sweeney Todd, Tony winners all. In 1981—the dividing point between his two volumes—Sondheim broke from his own traditions to embark on more experimental fare, beginning with the breakthrough Sunday in the Park with George, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1985.

When asked to name his favorite musicals, Sondheim says, “If I had to choose one to take on a desert island, it would be Forum because I never failed to have a good time at it. I could see that every night if I were on a desert island.” As for those he’s proudest of, Sondheim expresses a preference for his more experimental works.

“Sunday in the Park with George is one. Assassins is another, which is Americana, which I never thought I could really get my arms around.

And Pacific Overtures, which is one I was sure I couldn’t do. The more exotic ones are the ones that I was surprised that I was able to do.”

With an embarrassment of industry honors that includes eight Grammys, eight Tonys, a Pulitzer and an Academy Award for Best Song, Sondheim would seem, in the words of his boyhood idol, to have climbed every mountain. Might retirement be tempting at 81?

“No. At the moment, I’m not working on anything, but now that the book is finished as of three weeks ago, I’m getting restless and I’ve got to get to work,” he admits.

“Work is part of life. The important thing is to get to the piano. That’s the important thing.”

Experience

DARK PRINCE

as it was always meant to be!

Look, I Made a Hat

#1 New York Ti m Bestselling Auth es or

With an additional 100 pages of new material, Christine Feehan’s magnificent tale of forbidden love mesmerizes as never before.

By Stephen Sondheim, Knopf $45, 480 pages, ISBN 9780307593412

www.christinefeehan.com www.avonromance.com

31

q&a

Patricia Schultz

NEW destinations for your LIFE list

P

atricia Schultz’s 1,000 Places to See Before You Die is the world’s best-selling travel book, providing advice on how to explore every corner of the globe.

Now, Schultz has given her iconic guide a complete makeover. With 500 new color photographs, 200 new entries and 28 new countries, the second edition is more informative, budget-conscious and user-friendly.

Multiple destinations from the first edition have been combined, transforming each section into a mini-itinerary.

A veteran travel journalist, Schultz was a writer for Frommer’s, Access and Berlitz before she got the idea for a unique life-list travel guide.

She spent eight years writing the first edition of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, published in 2003, and later produced a Travel Channel reality show based on the book.

Schultz was on the road (in Scotland) when we contacted her to find out more about the new edition.

When you first got the idea for 1,000 Places To See Before You Die, did you ever imagine that it would become the best-selling travel book in the world?

In a word, no! It was an idea that resonated with people of all stripes and ages. It amazed me that the book was so embraced around the world. There are translations from Lithuanian to Thai.

You must receive a lot of feedback from readers. Has any reaction moved or surprised you?

A set of 11-year-old twins came to a book signing and brought their tattered old copy of 1,000 Places with them. They had highlighted in yellow all the places they had been with their parents (Disneyworld, London, Alaska, Williamsburg), and in pink all the places they would go

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32

Available at you favorite bookstore, online at atlasbooks.com or by calling 1-800-BOOKLOG

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to as soon as they were old enough (Peru, Venice, Botswana, Hong Kong). To have a life list at that age is very impressive!

How has the success of this book influenced the way you travel?

I still hit the ground running, to see as much as possible in the limited time I have. I do more research now beforehand and try to line up a local guide if I am traveling to a large city, to get the lay of the land.

After that I set off on my own, and set aside an afternoon for serendipity—for wandering and getting lost.

Why was it a priority to make this edition more budget-friendly?

The great, one-of-a-kind historic hotels in the first book were those I suggested for special occasions— honeymoons, landmark birthdays, anniversaries. Yes, they’re expensive, but they’re destinations in their own right. The revision is also filled with less expensive hotel options for all other occasions when budgets are more down-to-earth. Travelers are more cautious about budgets these days—and not just in the U.S. Sometimes when traveling, nothing goes right. Have you ever been on a trip where everything went wrong? How did you deal with it?

It’s unlikely that everything about a trip can go wrong, but rather a particular incident (a delayed flight, missed connection, a hotel from hell). Still, that one thing has the potential of tainting the entire trip.

It’s how you respond that counts. If you isolate the problem, resolve it and move on, it won’t ruin the whole trip. We showed up for a 5 a.m. flight in Morocco once that didn’t exist. We found a wonderful taxi driver named Mohammed who drove us to Fez. Instead of a one-hour flight it took us a full day to get there because he kept stopping along the way to show us things—and bring us to his mother’s for lunch. That day was the highlight of my trip to Morocco.

Do you have a favorite addition or new travel experience in this latest version of the book?

A favorite that I included in the original edition but visited only recently was Papua New Guinea— think Stone Age meets the 21st century. And one of the many adventures new to the revision is gorgeous Lake Bled in Slovenia. Also in the former Yugoslavia, I visited and loved Croatia and Montenegro.

The new edition includes former war zones, former Soviet countries and countries just getting on their

© Gabrielle Revere

BY CAT ACREE

tourism feet. What advice do you give travelers who are nervous about venturing into new areas?

There’s really little to be nervous about. Tourists are warmly welcomed—they help support the local economies, but they are also appreciated as ambassadors of countries with whom the local people have been deprived of contact. Beirut, Hanoi, Bogotá, Zagreb—it is an exciting time to explore these cities before they are overrun with American fast food outlets and while Americans are still welcomed as something of an oddity.

What one trip in your experience has most affected how you view a life of traveling the world?

Each trip affects my view of a life of travel—a trip to the Caribbean may help me realize how little I know of each of the islands’ character and history, while a trip to Austria’s Wachau Valley widens my interest about the wine regions of the world.

The more I travel the more I realize I will never see it all, but I’ll go broke trying!

1,000 Places to See Before You Die

By Patricia Schultz, Workman, $32.95, 1,200 pages ISBN 9780761163374, paperback available

the title of your new Q: What’s

book?

© Shirley Bradley

meet ALAN BRADLEY

would you describe the Q: How

book?

gifts

could be frozen in time at any age (like Flavia is at 11) Q: Iwhat f youage would you choose?

Q: Ibe? f you were buying a Christmas gift for Flavia, what would it Q: W hat’s the sweetest part about finding success as a writer later in life?

up next for Flavia?

Q: What’s

Q: W ords to live by?

I AM HALF-SICK OF SHADOWS

Alan Bradley retired from his career as a radio/ TV engineer in Canada before launching his popular Flavia de Luce mystery series. The latest entry, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows (Delacorte, $23, 320 pages, ISBN 9780385344012), stars the precocious crime-fighter in a Christmastime tale. Bradley and his wife live in Malta.

By Mark Doyle

A museum in your own home

T

wo ambitious new books recreate the full museum experience between two covers, making the world’s artistic masterpieces accessible to all.

THE TREASURES OF EUROPE

young sleuth Flavia has real chemistry with readers (pun Q: Your

intended!). What would you say is her most admirable quality?

ART

Anyone who has ever battled the camera-wielding scrum in front of the Mona Lisa knows that a visit to the Louvre Museum in Paris can be exhausting. Now a handsome new book containing color images of every single Louvre painting on permanent display, The Louvre: All the Paintings (Black Dog & Leventhal, $75, 784 pages, ISBN 9781579128869), offers a chance to explore the world’s most-visited art museum at a gentler pace.

The Louvre’s permanent collection—3,022 pieces in all—covers European paintings from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. The book is divided into the Italian, Northern, French and Spanish Schools, and each of these is arranged by artist in a rough chronological fashion, allowing the reader to observe as, for example, the brilliant blues and reds of the Italian Renaissance slowly give way to the duskier hues of the Low Countries. Many pages only display numerous small images clustered together, showing the common characteristics of the work of a single artist or period, such as the smooth, O’Keeffe-like spareness of Pierre Henri de Valenciennes’ 18th-century townscapes. Four hundred select masterpieces are given larger images and descriptive paragraphs, and these are the real strengths of the book: The images are rich and sharp, the descriptions thoughtful and clear. An accompanying DVD allows readers to browse all the paintings by school or artist and to see the book’s tinier paintings at a slightly larger size. Altogether, this is a fascinating overview for anyone looking to learn more about the grand old European masters.

ART THROUGH THE AGES The Art Museum (Phaidon, $200, 992 pages, ISBN 9780714856520) offers a museum experience of an entirely different order. It is an astonishing book, not just because it displays the entire history of world art from the earliest cave paintings to the latest nominees for the Turner

Prize, but also because it takes so much space to do it. Weighing nearly 18 pounds and measuring 13 by 17 inches, this is not a book that will fit on most coffee tables, but despite its unwieldy size, it is an exciting, nearly perfect collection of the greatest visual art in human history.

The Art Museum is divided into 25 “galleries” (representing different regions and eras) and 450 smaller “rooms” (representing specific schools, artists or genres), along with special “exhibitions” devoted to specific works or themes. It displays more than 2,500 works of art:

paintings, sculptures, tapestries, the interiors and exteriors of buildings, pottery, furniture, photographs and much more. The most impressive “rooms” are the two-page spreads displaying actual rooms or other locations, such as the stunning wideangle photograph of the ruins of Persepolis. Most rooms contain a handful of representative examples on a theme; every image is perfectly legible and has a substantial, lucid description. While some of the topics are conventional—Netherlandish Portraits, Maya Sculpture, Surrealism—many are more innovative.

For example, Room 426, on “Systematic Documentation,” introduces us to artists who obsessively photographed the same objects— cinemas, water towers, Memphis streetscapes—over and over. The scope of the book encourages readers to make unexpected connections, as when rooms devoted to African masks and carvings usher us into a section on the Cubists, hinting at the affinities between the two. Indeed, given the scale of its ambition and achievement, perhaps we should be grateful that The Art Museum is as compact and user-friendly as it is.

33

cover story

B

literary delights

By Julie Hale

SMART PICKS FOR SOPHISTICATED READERS

ooks—especially great ones—beget other books. If you don’t believe it, check out the selections that follow. Providing new perspectives on past works, these critical studies, appreciations and fresh editions prove that classic pieces of literature are inexhaustible. Just right for the writer or devoted reader on your holiday gift list, the books below will make any bibliophile smile.

SHADOWING SHAKESPEARE Few figures inspire more speculation than William Shakespeare.

Richard Paul Roe, an accomplished scholar and lawyer, tackles one of the most intriguing Shakespearean what-ifs in his compelling new book The Shakespeare Guide to Italy: Retracing the Bard’s Unknown Travels (HarperPerennial, $19.99, 320 pages, ISBN 9780062074263). Addressing a controversial question—whether Shakespeare visited the country that provided the backdrop for many of his finest works—Roe tracked the dramatist’s 10 Italian plays back to their geographical roots. The author, who died in 2010, invested 20 years in the project.

Guided by the text of the Italian plays, which include Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest and Othello, Roe pinned down settings scene by scene only to discover that—after four centuries—the Bard’s descriptions of Verona, Venice and Padua are uncannily accurate. His conclusion: The playwright almost certainly visited Italy, a verdict that contradicts the accepted view that

Shakespeare never traveled outside of England. This controversial conclusion is bound to cause tremors in the academic world, but Roe’s book is more than an inspired piece of literary detection. Beautifully illustrated with paintings, photos and maps, the volume offers an engaging look at life in 16th-century Italy. Roe is a delightful travel guide, and his search for “the secret Italy that lies hidden in the plays of Shakespeare” is fascinating from start to finish.

NAVIGATING A CLASSIC Answering a question that has crossed the mind of many a reader, Nathaniel Philbrick offers an earnest argument on behalf of a classic in Why Read Moby-Dick? (Viking, $25, 131 pages, ISBN 9780670022991). In his compact critique, Philbrick casts himself as Herman Melville’s champion and sets out to prove that the novel is more than a quaint antique.

Philbrick, whose National Book Award-winning In the Heart of the Sea examined the historical events that inspired Moby-Dick, highlights themes, characters and symbols from the novel that take on new significance as the decades go by. In addition to an in-depth look at the crazed captain Ahab, this brisk volume has chapters on Nantucket, nautical matters and the

influence of Nathaniel Hawthorne on Melville’s work. Facet by facet, Philbrick reveals what this vibrant novel has to tell us about the contemporary world. In an era when brevity sells books, Melville’s epic style can easily intimidate, but wise readers will heed Philbrick’s advice regarding the tale of the whale: Dive right in.

A FINAL WORD FROM UPDIKE John Updike’s Higher Gossip: Essays and Criticism (Knopf, $40, 528 pages, ISBN 9780307957153) shows a player at the top of his game. The book was in the works when Updike died in 2009, at the age of 76, and serves as a superb retrospective of his genius.

Drawing on a remarkably broad assortment of sources—from Golf Digest to National Geographic— the pieces in Higher Gossip are a testament to Updike’s astonishing range. He writes with equal expertise about art and sports, analyzing Max Ernst and Vincent van Gogh with the same authority that he brings to discussions of Tiger Woods and Fuzzy Zoeller. In addition to his essays, the volume includes poems, forewords, introductions, letters and book reviews. Best of all, it features Updike’s insights into his own work, with pieces on the novels Gertrude and Claudius, Licks of Love and The Poorhouse Fair. “Gossip of a higher sort” is how Updike once defined a well-written review. As demonstrated in this final collection, he was a pro when it came to sharing inside information, writing in a way that was accessible yet always stylish.

A POSTMODERN MASTERPIECE

34

It’s a rare breed, indeed: Maus, Art Spiegelman’s graphic classic from 1986, simply can’t be cornered. A hybrid of historical narrative and

illustrated storytelling, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book is based on the experiences of Spiegelman’s father, a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust to settle in New York City. In an ingenious twist, Spiegelman animalized his characters, casting Nazis as cats and Jews as mice in the maze that was Europe during World War II. To celebrate the book’s 25th anniversary, Spiegelman has produced MetaMaus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic, Maus (Pantheon, $35, 320 pages, ISBN 9780375423949), a scrapbook of sorts that explains how the masterpiece came to be.

A family-album chapter contains pictures of the main characters (in human form), while an interview with Spiegelman’s father Vladek provides dramatic background. And the author himself answers all the pressing questions—why he took the Holocaust as his topic and the comic book as his medium. Meta­Maus comes with a terrific bonus DVD that features interviews, historical materials and the complete Maus.

TRANSLATING AN EPIC In the family tree of Western literature, it’s one of the roots: The Iliad, Homer’s epic poem, is the source of countless symbols, themes and narrative conventions that have stood the test of time. More than 20 years have passed since a new translation of the archetypal work was published in this country. Awardwinning author Stephen Mitchell fills the void with his elegant new edition of the epic. Based on M.L. West’s acclaimed 1902 translation of the Greek text, Mitchell’s The Iliad (Free Press, $35, 544 pages, ISBN 9781439163375) powerfully communicates the spirit and the spectacle of the classic story through a subtle poetic style that reflects the essence of the original.

Mitchell, who produced muchpraised translations of The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke and Gilgamesh, brings fresh life to the tale of Achilles, Agamemnon and the Greeks’ sack of Troy, the bloody siege that lasted a decade. Whether you’re reacquainting yourself with the work or coming to it for the first time, you’ll find Mitchell’s interpretation of The Iliad intensely rewarding.

Reader, enjoy the spoils.

A MAGICAL TALE TURNS 100 It’s hard to believe that the story of Peter Pan has been lightening the hearts of readers for a century. Cel-

ebrating the birthday of J.M. Barrie’s magical tale in high style, The Annotated Peter Pan: The Centennial Edition (Norton, $39.95, 416 pages, ISBN 9780393066005) contains the complete text of Peter and Wendy, along with informative notes and essays. Assembled by Maria Tatar, chair of Harvard’s folklore program, this volume is a must for those who believe in the power of pixie dust.

Barrie’s mischievous imp made his first appearance in print in The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island, written in 1901 for the Llewelyn Davies family, whose puckish children served as sources for Peter’s personality. Only two copies of the book were made. Barrie gave one to the Davies clan, while the other made its way to the Beinecke Library at Yale University, where Tatar discovered it.

The Annotated Peter Pan makes it available to readers for the first time, along with other rare Barrie treasures, including his screenplay for a silent movie. Critical commentary regarding the various treatments of Peter on stage and screen provide fresh perspectives on his character, while classic, full-color illustrations bring the text to life.

Get smarter about getting older.

GROUNDBREAKING NARRATIVES The Library of America’s gorgeous new boxed set, Harlem Renaissance Novels ($70, 1,752 pages, ISBN 9781598531060), pays tribute to a group of writers who left an imprint on the face of a nation through their fearless radicalism, taste for innovation and infectious energy. During the 1920s and ’30s, the writers of the Harlem Renaissance produced some of the country’s most significant literature. In two beautifully designed volumes—Five Novels of the 1920s and Four Novels of the 1930s—the collection brings together narratives from a range of writers whose works merit fresh examination.

Five Novels of the 1920s includes Jean Toomer’s classic Cane, a unique blend of poetry and prose that explores the author’s years as a teacher in Georgia, and Claude McKay’s spirited Jazz Age story, Home to Harlem. Four Novels of the 1930s examines different storytelling modes, from Langston Hughes’ beautifully crafted bildungsroman, Not Without Laughter, to George S. Schuyler’s scifi spoof, Black No More. Compiled

by African-American studies expert Rafia Zafar, the classics get the lavish treatment they deserve in this impressive collection.

Do joint pain, memory loss, slower metabolism, and a lower libido have you wondering, is this normal? You’re not alone.

In this practical and reassuring new guide, Dr. John Whyte, the chief medical expert at the Discovery Channel, boils down the latest medical information to offer the essential knowledge and preventative strategies you need to stay healthy and vital in middle age—and beyond.

Scan this QR code with your smartphone to learn more about the book.

ON SALE NOW

Also available as an e-book

John Whyte, MD, is the chief medical expert and vice president of health and medical education at the Discovery Channel.

35

gifts

Gifts for Guys

By Martin Brady

GOOD READS FOR WISE GUYS

W

hat defines a gift book for a guy can be an elusive proposition in this age of increasing gender equality.

Yet even factoring in the crossover effect, there are some topics that have historically drawn male interest. These wonderfully pictorial volumes should serve as awesome holiday gifts for favored men and boys.

HORRIBLY ENTERTAINING Veteran filmmaker John Landis is the driving force behind the fantastic Monsters in the Movies: 100 Years of Cinematic Nightmares (DK, $40, 320 pages, ISBN 9780756683702). The focus here is on films that fall into the general categories of horror, sci-fi and fantasy, yet the comprehensive coverage ranges more broadly into related subgenres, such as the occult, fairy tales, dinosaurs and dragons. Landis provides pithy overviews for each subsection, plus captions for the hundreds of captivating classic production photos drawn from the Kobal Collection, a photo archive whose images span the cinematic era, from the earliest days to the latest releases. There are also some cool examples of movie poster art scattered among the visuals. Landis provides worthy interviews with some of the great genre creators (directors, actors, technical wizards), including John Carpenter, Christopher Lee, Rick Baker and the amazing special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen, who is now 91 and still rightfully revered for his achievements as a stop-motion model animator. A delicious romp through the film world, this book provides a nostalgic pull for anyone who grew up a fan of the great horror flicks.

Needless to say, it’s a terrific gift item and endlessly browseable.

MAKING A LIST

36

From the team of ­“infomaniacs” responsible for Show Me How (2008) and More Show Me How (2010) comes Listomania: A World of Fascinating Facts in Graphic Detail (Harper Design, $25.99, 288 pages, ISBN 9780062082831). Colorfully designed and illustrated with whimsical cartoons, this majorleague browser collects list upon list of straight-ahead traditional subjects (e.g., the Seven Wonders of the World) with many more esoteric but engaging ones, from beautyqueen scandals to strange build-

ing materials to dangerous tourist spots. The book’s basic sections are arranged somewhat loosely around human history and behavior, trends, measurements, places, art and entertainment, food and animals, yet its organization invites an all-butrandom investigation of its wideranging contents. Fun and surprising reading, Listomania is sure to evoke exclamations of “Who knew?” among curious readers.

SALUTING THE DARK KNIGHT For that certain comic-book superhero buff comes The Batman Files (Andrews McMeel, $100, 308 pages, ISBN 9781449408220), an impressively priced and imposingly bound tome that celebrates the legend and lore of the Caped Crusader.

Author and comic book historian Matthew K. Manning is responsible for pulling together this “archive” that is designed to serve as a replica of Batman’s own personal diary, also including top secret blueprints of his Batcave, Batmobile, uniforms and weapons; newspaper clippings from Gotham City, dating back to the murder of alter ego Bruce Wayne’s parents; plus in-depth dossiers on the Dark Knight’s nefarious opponents, among them the Riddler, Penguin, Joker and Mr. Freeze.

The origins of Batman’s sidekick, Robin, are also detailed. Besides its “insider” textual approach, this collector’s-item-type package also reprints dozens and dozens of color panels extracted from the comics themselves, which showcase an interesting sense of the development of artistic style in the depiction of the Batman stories, first conceptualized by Bob Kane more than 70 years ago. This is the ultimate gift item for the inveterate Batman fan.

THE HIGHEST PEAKS Sports books almost always make winning gifts for guys, and Mountaineers: Great Tales of Bravery and Conquest (DK, $40, 360 pages, ISBN 9780756686826) offers a compelling panoramic view of a sport that

receives less coverage than it deserves. Produced in collaboration with the Smithsonian, and with an engrossing text written chiefly by Ed Douglas (with an assist from Richard Gilbert, Philip Parker and Alasdair Macleod), this volume uncovers a death-defying world rich with history and populated by determined, often idiosyncratic personalities, both male and female, who dedicate their lives to scaling the world’s highest mountain peaks.

The photos alone are worth the book’s price, but the story told of mountain climbing’s development, its cultural and scientific importance, and its growth as an international competitive endeavor is equally valuable. There are fascinating sidebars on sherpas, innovations in equipment, pertinent books and movies, plus the big mountain peaks (Kilimanjaro, Mount Blanc, Matterhorn, etc.). More compelling, however, are the profiles of the climbers themselves—a contentious breed apart, often loners—who risk death with every summit they take on. Edmund Hillary and Reinhold Messner are perhaps the most recognizable names here, but learning about their somewhat lesser-known equals is both educational and thrilling.

RIDING THE RAILS Trains formerly held the fascination of men and boys on a wide scale. While times have changed, and trains are lower-profile symbols of commerce and travel, they still attract interest, and Steam: An Enduring Legacy—The Railroad Photographs of Joel Jensen (Norton, $50, 160 pages, ISBN 9780393082487) serves as proof.

Jensen has been photographing trains and rail stations west of the Mississippi River for some 25 years, and this long-overdue collection of his work features black-and-white shots that capture the bygone majesty and sense of history inspired by these steam-powered machines,

preserved and operated in the latterday era by dedicated railfans. Besides the 150 photos, there are essays by John Gruber and Scott Lothes—both of the Center for Railroad Photography and Art—examining the economics and cultural importance of trains in America.

PICTURES FROM THE FRONT Finally, in a nod to the Greatest Generation, comes A Soldier’s Sketchbook: From the Front Lines of World War II (National Geographic, $30, 304 pages, ISBN 9781426208171), which gathers the letters and sketches from the World War II experiences of young G.I. Joseph Farris, who served with the U.S. Army’s 100th Division in Europe. Farris, now in his 80s, went on to become a cartoonist for the New Yorker, and throughout his transformation from naive enlisted man to battle-tested vet, he was honing his craft as an artist, as the samples from his youthful wartime work attest. Besides the many letters home to his folks—from his days in basic training through his return to the States—Farris also provides a contextual narrative on the war’s progress. Also included are battle maps, poster art and archival photos portraying Farris and his buddies, the soldier’s life in general and some of the war’s leaders and generals.

A Soldier’s Sketchbook offers a visually captivating perspective on WWII, as seen through the eyes of one young infantryman.

sports © AP Photo/NFL Photos

By John C. Williams

Portraits of the sporting life

S

ports fans with a nose for books will have plenty to keep them busy this winter, with major new titles on baseball, football, basketball and outdoor pursuits.

The styles are diverse, too: Releases include photo-heavy coffee-table tomes, brisk memoirs and literary nonfiction.

GUTS & GLORY The best bet of the season is The Big Show: Charles M. Conlon’s Golden Age Baseball Photographs (Abrams, $35, 224 pages, ISBN 9781419700699). This collection, compiled by Neal and Constance McCabe and introduced by Roger Kahn, focuses on the period from 1904-1942. Conlon was an amateur photographer who never quit his day job, but this book is an argument that his player portraits deserve the status of high art. The selections include plenty of super­ stars—Cobb, Gehrig, Ruth and DiMaggio all appear—but the real delight is in the photos of lesser players such as Buzz McWeeny and Sunset Jimmy Burke. Each photo is given a caption that tells the story of the man it portrays: Bugs Raymond, who was beaten to death with a bat after a semi-pro game; Jimmy Archer, who lost the ability to extend his throwing arm when he fell into a vat of boiling soap; and the countless players whose careers succumbed to alcoholism. For those interested in prewar baseball, this is a wonderful historical document, and it’s a delight to pore over the old-time uniforms, the bats and the gloves and the primitive catching equipment. But the appeal of the book runs deeper. The men portrayed just happen to be baseball players. At their best, Conlon’s photos capture a humanity that comes through regardless of sport.

For more flash (if not more style), try 100 Yards of Glory: The Greatest Moments in NFL History (HMH, $35, 336 pages, ISBN Photo at top of quarterback Joe Montana from 100 Yards of Glory reprinted with permission of HMH.

9780547547985). Co-written by Joe Garner and broadcaster Bob Costas, this is an NFL-approved catalog of league history, told in the form of superlatives: the greatest Super Bowls, the greatest catches, the greatest comebacks and so on. The photos can’t hope to match Conlon’s—with some exceptions, most are of sports-page quality—and there is plenty of room for argument about the anointed highlights.

Though some choices seem rather present-minded—is Sean Payton really a coaching great?—the book does a good job covering moments from the pre-Super Bowl era. There’s a lot of material here, and Mondaymorning quarterbacks will enjoy thumbing these ample pages. In case paper and ink are not enough, the book comes with a DVD containing archival NFL video.

HOOPS HEAVEN Since the NBA has recently been plagued by labor strife, many basketball fans will enjoy looking back to the league’s happier days. When the Garden Was Eden: Clyde, the Captain, Dollar Bill, and the Glory Days of the Old Knicks (Harper, $26.99, 368 pages, ISBN 9780061956232) should serve nicely.

Author Harvey Araton, a longtime

Knicks reporter currently writing for the New York Times, does excellent work bringing to life a team that many consider “the most intelligent ever”: Willis Reed, the quiet, inspiring center; Walt Frazier, whose flashy style belied a root conservatism; Phil Jackson, a lesser player who would become the most celebrated of basketball coaches; and Bill Bradley, who transitioned from forward to U.S. senator. This so-called “old” basketball club reached its apex only 40 years ago, but the book shows how the team’s style was far removed from the starfocused game of today. These Knicks truly played as a unit—remarkable, considering the strong individual personas that Araton ably profiles.

(As one of his interviewees puts it, the team was a group of “many personalities, but somehow no egos.”)

The book makes something of a stab at placing the Knicks against the backdrop of Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement, but the real action here is on the court.

The court fades to the background in Shaq Uncut (Grand Central, $27.99, 304 pages, ISBN 9781455504411), Shaquille O’Neal’s post-retirement memoir, coauthored with Jackie MacMullan.

The big center liked his teammates

to dish him the ball, and now he dishes back on Penny Hardaway, Kobe Bryant and Pat Riley, among others. Shaq doesn’t hit all that hard, but he still manages to emerge an unsympathetic character. We learn much less about what motivates the man than about how he likes to spend his money. (One suspects the two topics are not unrelated.) His well-known love of law enforcement is discussed but essentially goes unexplained; there is more, albeit only slightly, about his relationship with his tough stepfather and his disdain for the biological father who abandoned him and his mother. But even if Shaq hasn’t earned the right to dub himself the Big Proust, the memoir’s candid quality will satisfy those who care to glance inside the mind of a modern-day hoops star.

FACING CHALLENGES Room for Improvement: Notes on a Dozen Lifelong Sports (Knopf, $25.95, 240 pages, ISBN 9780307700025) is a memoir of outdoor life far removed from the arenas of spectator sport. John Casey, a National Book Award– winning novelist (for Spartina), describes years of challenging his own capabilities, often by rowing, hiking, cross-country skiing or running, usually at long distances. This might sound intimidating to the sedentary reader, but Casey takes a thoughtful approach, aware of his physical inadequacies as he probes the purpose behind his sporting passions.

The essays here, several of which were published as magazine articles, are occasionally fragmentary, and they are held together by not much more than the progression of time from Casey’s young manhood to older age. But an erratic overall pace does not detract from the nuggets in each piece. The book will immediately appeal to those who share Casey’s need for physical challenge, but even the less athletically adventurous will discover something worthwhile in Casey’s reflections.

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gifts

HOME DESIGN © Eric Piasecki Photography LLC

By Eliza Borné

DELIGHT, WHIMSY AND FUNCTION in DECOR

Y

ou don’t have to go to art school or commission a designer to have a beautiful home—but a tasteful design book will provide you with plenty of inspiration.

In these four books, you’ll learn to mix high and low interiors and incorporate plenty of bright color. Filled with gorgeous photographs, design books make lovely gifts for a loved one or yourself, and will be at home on any coffee table for years to come.

NEUTRAL IS OUT

STYLE AS SWEET AS PIE

Katie Ridder founded her design firm in 1995 and has since become known for her bright color palette and international influence. Take one look at the mesmerizing pictures in Katie Ridder Rooms (Vendome Press, $50, 240 pages, ISBN 9780865652729), and you’ll soon see why: These interiors are truly works of art, at once sunny and bright, extravagant and balanced. In her introduction, author Heather Smith MacIsaac explains what makes Ridder’s rooms special: “No matter how lavish a project, no matter its style and degree of sophistication, it remains accessible, family friendly, absolutely inviting, and subtly practical.” Though not everyone can spring for custom wallpaper or a custom sofa to fit the shape of a space, we can all project relaxed hospitality in clutter-free rooms.

There are many tips here that will be of use to any DIY home decorator, like lining the backs of bookcases with beautiful paper, or painting a dining room in a dramatic color to transform it “from the runt of the litter into best in show.” (MacIsaac rightly notes that dining rooms are typically only used and “dressed up” for special occasions.) After reading this book, you’ll be itching to add drama and flair to your house with sari-like curtains or Chinese lanterns, an upholstered headboard in the bedroom and bold wallpaper in the bathroom—anything that ups the wow factor and, as Ridder says, the “delight factor.”

Even if you live above the MasonDixon Line, like your tea unsweet and would never say “y’all,” you can still find plenty of inspiration in Southern Living Style (Oxmoor House, $29.95, 286 pages, ISBN 9780848734701). The Southerners among us—bless their hearts— will joyfully take pride in their region’s many fabulous interiors.

This inviting guide is divided by room, with additional sections on “Defining Southern Style” and beforeandafters. So what is Southern style? It can be modern or traditional, but a proper Southern-inspired room should include some sort of ancestral influence—whether a portrait of Grandmother, a chest passed down for generations or cherished monogrammed family linens. A Southern home will also invite entertaining, comfortably mix functionality with

38 Photo at top from Katie Ridder Rooms, reprinted with permission of Vendome Press.

formality and not shy away from color. Alongside pretty pictures of rooms, in this book you’ll find tips from decorators on getting the looks for yourself, with advice for both major re-dos and budgetfriendly updates. One of the handiest features is the “pulling it all together” pages, which explain how to assemble the players in each room, from the most essential furniture pieces to fun accessories that make the space your own.

DECOR FROM THE BIG EASY Bryan Batt may be best known for his role as art director Sal Romano on AMC’s hit show “Mad Men,” but Big, Easy Style (Clarkson Potter, $35, 208 pages, ISBN 9780307591906) joyfully celebrates his passion for design and decor. Batt was born and raised in New Orleans, and his philosophy in both life and design is laissez les bons temps rouler—“let the good times roll.” Readers are encouraged to embrace color, follow their hearts when making design

choices and not be afraid of making mistakes. Based on the photographs of Batt’s Crescent City carriage house, it is clear that he has plenty of fun with his own design choices, like hanging huge papier-mâché flowers on the wall in homage to Mardi Gras floats. A helpful feature of Big, Easy Style is Batt’s list of favorite colors; with names like Petticoat White, Chocolate Mousse and Blue Hydrangea, you’ll be eager to start picking out paint chips.

Fans of “Mad Men” will appreciate the glimpses into Batt’s childhood and personal life—his family owned the beloved Pontchartrain Beach Amusement Park—and anyone with a space to decorate will be energized by his helpful, happy advice, like to work toward synergy between “a home’s great style and its owner’s personal flair.” They’ll also want to make a jaunt to New Orleans, where Batt and his partner, Tom Cianfichi, have owned a home accessories boutique, Hazelnut, since 2003.

A HOUSE FIT FOR A BIBLIOPHILE Since everyone at BookPage is a booklover, most of us have the same problem: where to stash all the evidence of our addiction.

Damian Thompson turns book accumulation into an art form in Books Make a Home (Ryland Peters & Small, $29.95, 160 pages, ISBN 9781849751872), a dream of a guide for any devoted reader. Learn how to store your books more effectively (so you’ll have room to buy more!); how to arrange your books in artful displays; how to organize your collection; and even how to care for your books. (Rule number one: Do not allow them to lean!) Are you cohabitating for the first time and need a solution for combining two libraries? Having guests come to stay and want advice on how to thoughtfully provide reading material? You’ll find plenty of ideas here. Not surprisingly, the stars of the stunning photographs in Books Make a Home are books—stored in sleek kitchens, cozy bedrooms, corridors, office nooks, living rooms and even “loos” (Thompson lives in East London). In a chapter about arranging books in children’s rooms, the author quotes education reformer Horace Mann, writing: “A house without books is like a room without windows.” Any bibliophile would surely agree, and Thompson’s book provides showstopping ideas for what to do with your beloved tomes.

food & Drink

By Eve Zibart

Delicious and drinkable delights

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ew wine books used to be a holiday staple, but these days, wine talk has been replaced by sophisticated (and occasionally cultish) culinary chat, haute beer debates and retro cocktail repartee—all easily indulged tastes when it comes to your gift list.

TOUR THE TABLE Though playful in tone, and packed with the wordplay that (among other critical tropes) he both tweaks and enjoys, Adam Gopnik’s The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food (Knopf, $25.95, 320 pages, ISBN 9780307593450) is no mere “The Man Who Ate Everything and Then Considered It Philosophically.” It is more a sort of literate confessional, a series of meditations on cooking and, inevitably, consuming.

Locavores, carnivores, gourmets and gourmands, historians, commentators, chefs and cooks all have their say, alongside Gopnik’s epigrammatic musings. What distinguishes dining from eating? What is morality (i.e.,

“who” or what should we eat) and is indulgence a sin? What is taste, the importance of the table or the value of tradition? And how did the restaurant, a relatively modern invention—created in Paris, just before the Revolution—become not simply a cultural icon but a kind of cult?

Much of The Table Comes First originated as pieces for The New Yorker, where Gopnik has glittered for a quarter-century, so this is a feast best consumed in discrete courses. Gopnick’s encounters with London snout-to-tail maven Fergus Henderson and the great Catalonian innovators behind elBulli, Ferran and Albert Adrià, are fascinating; his quixotic mission to prepare an en-

tirely locavore, only-in-New York dinner is unexpectedly funny. His comments on food and wine critics are at once acute and sympathetic. And, of course, the writing is a pleasure (“the chastened, improved look of the egg yolks mixed with sugar”).

FRENCH FEAST If Gopnik’s book is the menu de degustation, Balzac’s Omelette: A Delicious Tour of French Food and Culture with Honoré de Balzac (Other Press, $19.95, 248 pages, ISBN 9781590514733) is a lovely trifle. Written by the Parisborn, New York-based biographer Anka Muhlstein, and translated from French

by Adriana Hunter, it uses quotations from the writer deemed a French Trollope (a pun he would have enjoyed) to portray a city and culture evolving alongside the restaurant. (Muhlstein and Gopnik disagree on a few facts, but they have historical sentiment in common.) Balzac’s characters eat in real-life cafes or in private homes, and the provenance of the fare, as well as its quality, reflect the new egalité (or not). The book’s French title is “Garçon, un cent d’huitres” (Waiter, a hundred oysters”); though Balzac ate almost nothing while working, between novels he could have given Diamond Jim Brady a run for his bivalves. Lovers of France, food and literature will find this a welcome gift.

Reprinted with permission from Little, Brown & Company

IN SEARCH OF SUDS

A recipe for one of James Bond’s favorite cocktails, The Vesper, from See Mix Drink.

The Great American Ale Trail: The Craft Beer Lover’s Guide to the Best Watering Holes in the Nation (Running Press, $20, 368 pages, ISBN 9780762443758), by Christian DeBenedetti, is an exuberant, if arbitrary, “Route 66” of a jaunt through brewpubs and craft breweries. It is also a series of snapshots of brewers (including the famously unruly and charming Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head) and worthy but beer-less landmarks (New Orleans’ Central Grocery of muffaletta fame)—a sort of beerlover’s verbal Viewmaster.

There are detours into history, regulatory scuffles, brewpubs lost and found and more. The descriptions of various brews are almost amorously tasty, and will doubtless inspire

lovers of microbrews to add some names to their “must try” lists.

CHEERS TO COCKTAIL HOUR Brian D. Murphy’s See Mix Drink: A Refreshingly Simple Guide to Crafting the World’s Most Popular Cocktails (Little, Brown, $14.99, 232 pages, ISBN 9780316176712) is a Mr. Boston’s for beginners that looks like the prototype for a smartphone app.

Each recipe is loaded with “intuitive icons” (shapes of the bottles, implements, garnishes and glasses required) that act out the drinkmaking process, plus an illustration of the glass filled with proportional layers of ingredients (see illustration). The additional pie charts— a Black Velvet clearly illustrated as three ounces of stout and three ounces of Champagne in a flute is also displayed as a 50% brown, 50% tan circle—have the virtue of displaying a calorie count, 96 in this case. While most of the r­ ecipes are classic, some are perhaps more “app-propos.” His rendition of a Ramos Gin Fizz uses egg white powder and makes no mention of orange flower water, its characteristic flavoring. And while Murphy feels the need to explain what a blender does, he doesn’t define many of the additional ingredients, such as orgeat syrup or orange bitters, that may be less familiar to newbies. Still, the lively presentation is likely to help wean the junior “Mad Men” off chocolate martinis—a worthy cause.

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gifts

history

By Edward Morris

Humanity at its most inventive and savage

I

t is an open question whether history as it comes down to us, with all its political and psychological overlays, has something useful to teach us about our own affairs. What is not in dispute about history, though, is its power to entertain and inspire us with its myths and stories. In this regard, the four annals considered here are all enormously satisfying and thought-provoking—maybe even instructive.

MAKING HISTORY BY HAND As director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor had only to look around him to find the exemplary artifacts he discusses in A History of the World in 100 Objects (Viking, $45, 736 pages, ISBN 9780670022700). The oldest is a stone chopping tool discovered in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and estimated to be between 1.8 and 2 million years old, while the newest is a solar-powered light and charger made in China in 2010. Each object is illustrated in color and explained

by MacGregor in essays that manage to be both scholarly and conversational in tone. Embedded within certain of these essays are additional wise commentaries from the likes of David Attenborough, Martin Amis, Yo Yo Ma, Karen Armstrong and Seamus Heaney.

Not surprisingly, most of the objects cited are from the large civilization centers of Europe, Africa and Asia. But there are also ones from less bustling locations: a Clovis spear point from Arizona, a pestle from New Guinea, a textile fragment from Peru, a bark shield from Australia. The choices here will no doubt spur arguments about significance (was the Hawaiian feather helmet really symbolic of human development?), omissions (where is the can of Spam? the Swiss pocket knife?) and political correctness (is the Suffragette-defaced penny anything more than an oddity?).

But, then, isn’t raising issues the best part of reading histories?

WHEN IN ROME The congenitally combative art critic Robert Hughes began his

40

long love affair with Rome on his first visit there in 1959. In Rome: A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History (Knopf, $35, 512 pages, ISBN 9780307268440), he undertakes the gargantuan task of chronicling more than 3,000 years of myths, battles, political intrigues, religious upheavals and, most dear to him, art in its infinite manifestations. He begins his account in the mists of prehistory and carries it forward to what he sees as Rome’s present condition—a pestilential tourist beehive in which art is viewed and checked off one’s list rather than savored.

No figure is too transient, no artifact too trivial and no political movement too bizarre to merit Hughes’ attention as he strides those city streets through the ages.

His descriptions are sharp and vivid.

Of the battle at Cannae between the Carthaginian Hannibal’s troops and Roman soldiers, he writes, “Roman losses in a single day at Cannae were almost as great as American combat losses (58,000) in the Vietnam War. And it all happened within about nine hours on a late-spring or earlysummer day, blindingly hot, fogged with the clouds of dust kicked up by thousands of men in their relentless, terminal struggle.”

Although his prose often has a working man’s swagger to it, Hughes can become lyrical given the right stimulus. Recalling the Church of Santa Maria della Consolazione in nearby Umbria, he says, “There is no town around it; it simply emerges from the earth, flooded with light inside. No mosaics, no statuary, no gilt, no marble: only strong, ideal geometrical form. To have such an interior to oneself, in the light of a

spring morning, is to grasp a fleeting sense of what Dante meant—‘luce, intellettual, piena d’amore’: the light of the mind, suffused with love.”

SEEING THE CIVIL WAR ANEW Margaret E. Wagner’s The Library of Congress Illustrated Timeline of the Civil War (Little, Brown, $35, 264 pages, ISBN 9780316120685) is a real factual and pictorial treasure.

Illustrated by more than 350 photographs, drawings, editorial cartoons, maps, handbills and manuscript reproductions (many in color), the book begins on February 4, 1861, when representatives from six secessionist states meet in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a Confederate government, and ends on May 29, 1865, when newly elevated President Andrew Johnson grants amnesties or pardons to most of those who rebelled against the Union.

All the entries are brief, so the accounts of skirmishes and battles are necessarily summaries. But the length is perfect for anecdotes that reveal the human side of the war, such as this one from October 15, 1863: “Inventor H. L. Hunley is among eight men who die when the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley sinks (for the second time; see August 29, 1863) during a practice dive in Charleston Harbor.” Or take this missive for February 10, 1864: “When flames are spotted at the president’s stables near the White House, Abraham Lincoln dashes outside, leaping over an intervening boxwood hedge ‘like a deer’ . . . and ‘with his own hands burst open the stable door.’ ” Lincoln was restrained from entering the building, and the fire killed six horses, including one that had belonged to his deceased son.

The book’s illustrations are large, fully captioned and powerfully narrative in their own right. Among the curiosities depicted are a drawing from a surgery manual showing how to amputate a leg; a printed envelope bearing the likeness of Lincoln’s reluc-

tant general, George B. McClellan, and identifying him as “The Bag of Wind”; and a letter written by Jefferson Davis’ secretary with lines running both across and up and down the page to save precious paper. It is hard to imagine a more accessible survey of the Civil War than this one.

500 YEARS OF BLACK HISTORY Strange as it may seem now, as recently as 50 years ago, textbooks on American history barely touched on the contributions of African Americans. Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s stirring collection, Life Upon These Shores (Knopf, $50, 512 pages, ISBN 9780307593429), is a chronicle of important figures and events that were long overlooked, forgotten or ignored. He begins in 1513, when Vasco Núñez de Balboa first sighted the Pacific Ocean at the Isthmus of Panama, with 30 Africans among his party. Just over 100 years later, in 1619, the first shipment of slaves to America arrived in Jamestown, Virginia. The terminus of Gates’ survey, naturally enough, is the election of America’s first black president.

Illustrated with more than 750 drawings, paintings and photographs, the book offers little historical vignettes much like those in an encyclopedia, except that these entries are in chronological rather than alphabetical order. The recurring themes—as Gates presents them in his measured, conversational tone—are resistance, persistence, imagination, self-help and thwarted attempts at assimilation.

Perhaps because it has been so minutely anatomized elsewhere, Gates devotes only a few pages to the Civil War proper, concentrating instead on events leading up to the war and the devastating Reconstruction period that followed.

In the modern era, he pays much attention to the influence of African Americans on the arts and popular culture—from Duke Ellington and Richard Wright to Muhammad Ali, Spike Lee and Oprah Winfrey. He also illuminates political conflicts within the African-American community via snapshots of such volatile figures as Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr., Louis Farrakhan and Clarence Thomas, and summarizes the achievements of African Americans in municipal, state and national politics. One may quibble with his omissions, but Gates’ task here is truly Herculean, and he has handled it superbly.

music B y W . S . Ly o n

tuneful bios strike the right note

T

his year brings thoughtful looks back at the careers of legendary musicians, whose public lives and stirring songs have moved listeners from the 1940s to the instantaneous now.

ALTERNATIVE VIEW Pearl Jam Twenty (Simon & Schuster, $40, 384 pages, ISBN 9781439169216) is a book to get lost in, the kind to open slowly, a book that draws you in by its feel, its heft, its outward austerity. Like liner notes, it at once celebrates the band’s cool and invites you to find in them some piece of yourself—the conversations scrawled on concert tickets, the set lists smoothed out after having been balled up and cast aside, the image of 50,000 arms raised in the air. The message is clear: We can’t believe we created all this, and we couldn’t have done it without you.

Twenty is a fan book, both a companion piece for and a thing apart from the Cameron Crowe documentary of the same name. Crowe sets the tone with an adoring and personal introduction to the book: Defying the stereotypes of selfdestructive American rock bands, Pearl Jam has managed to stay true to their own creative process with a “clear-eyed spirit that comes from believing in people and music and its power to change.” Through snippets of interviews and conversations that span more than two decades, Twenty is a nearly week-by-week account of the band’s triumphs, failures and history-making success.

STILL MY GUITAR As a boy, George Harrison was bad in school and curious about guitars.

In Hamburg, Harrison transformed from a boy into a man and, with his mates, into the most beloved musical act of all time. As a Beatle, he marveled at the mania circling his life, often turning a skilled and curious lens back at those swirling hordes.

Eventually, his curiosity would again transform him, this time sending him Eastward and inward toward the mysticism of LSD and Hindu spirituality. Later, out of pure interest, he would go on to bankroll Monty Python’s Life of Brian and sponsor a young Formula One champion.

An ode to “the quiet Beatle,” George Harrison: Living in the Material World (Abrams, $40, 400 pages, ISBN 9781419702204) is linear and

chronological. Its author, Harrison’s widow Olivia Harrison, shies away from direct personal commentary.

Despite the near lack of point of view, the images themselves tell a story of two Georges: the public and the spiritual, the wry and the despondent.

It’s a striking companion piece to the recent Martin Scorsese documentary of the same name that aired on HBO. The two most powerful images in the book were taken by Harrison himself. One is of a cadre of faceless photographers shooting away at him from beneath the giant, menacing blade of an airplane propeller, an unbroken ring of onlookers gawking from the sidelines of the landing strip. The other is a self-portrait in the mirror, years later, of a hollow, bearded face holding a ball of pure light and ringed, Christ-like, by the reflected aura of the flash.

With 260 images and hundreds more diary clippings, quotes and reminiscences from his famous friends, Living in the Material World exposes Harrison in a manner true to his legacy: richly, with quiet steps, into an open-ended finish.

DAYLIGHT COME Harry Belafonte’s My Song: A Memoir (Knopf, $30.50, 464 pages, ISBN 9780307272263) is a surprising, captivating portrait of the plucky singer and actor. From an impoverished boyhood with his stern Jamaican mother, to the showbiz break given him by jazz legends Charlie Parker and Max Roach, to his integral role in the nonviolent civil rights movement, and on to his continued passions as an entertainer and activist in Africa and around the world, this is an American life sustained by humanity and well worth its weight in words.

Co-author Michael Shnayerson writes deftly and with great power in a highly readable style. The story never flies too high, grounding itself in the humble past each time it nears soaring. This plays well for Belafonte, who comes across as entirely genuine. He’s equally frank when sharing the stories of his counsel with civil rights leaders, his friendship with Sidney Poitier and his mischievous

pursuits of the women in his life. But the book focuses on Belafonte’s lifelong fight against injustice, a fight he continues today. After all, “Banana Boat Song” might sound like a romp, but day-o! is the cry of an abused working class.

BIRD ON THE WIRE Part memoir of a lifelong struggle with alcohol, part litany of names, places and events associated with the folk movement of the 1960s, Judy Collins’ Sweet Judy Blue Eyes (Crown, $26, 368 pages, ISBN 9780307717344) is on all counts a ballad in a familiar key. Collins is famous for her crystal-clear voice and weepy eyes, and for transfiguring the songs of others. Here, she sings in her own words, telling her own tale. But her deep connection to her father, who passed on to her the gift of music and the curse of booze, is sweetly recounted, and the struggles behind the music are told with a light

touch. Collins has a remarkable set of memories to share, a view from the inside of America’s most legendary musical moment—Baez, Dylan, Stills, Cohen—and she paints it vividly with a sharp if occasionally odd sense of detail.

Start the Winter Season with a good read from AtlasBooks

Terror Tagging

No Fail Hiring

of an Iranian Dissident Organization

Your Ultimate Guide to Attracting and Recruiting Top Players

Raymond Tanter

Terror Tagging resolves the puzzle why Washington labels Iran’s main opposition as “terrorist,” despite the law and the facts: “It’s the international politics, stupid!”

978-0-9797051-2-0 | $19.95

White Man Red Road Five Colors James Graywolf Petruzzi This book follows the spiritual journey of one man, which is really the journey of all people. As you experience the pleasure, pain and growth of Jim’s walk, you will find ways to apply what you read to your own Journey.

978-0-9846532-0-1 | $19.95

Available at you favorite bookstore, online at atlasbooks.com or by calling 1-800-BOOKLOG

Patrick V. Valtin

A practical guide to selecting only real performers while avoiding potentially fatal legal trouble related to personnel selection.

978-0-9798586-7-3 | $25.95

Confrontation An Axe of Iron Novel

J.A. Hunsinger

Two calamitous events occur that pave the way for the hostile beginnings of an assimilation process between the Greenland Norse settlers and the natives of Vinland.

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41

gifts

Odds & ends B y A l i c e Ca r y

Great gifts that run the gamut

A

re you trying to tackle a towering gift list? Never fear! No matter who you’re shopping for, the right book is waiting.

WHITE HOUSE HISTORY As an elementary school student, I had the good fortune to be part of a private White House Christmas tour led by my classmate’s aunt, who was First Lady Pat Nixon’s press secretary. Decades later, I continue to be fascinated by the White House, and The White House: The President’s Home in Photographs and History (Little, Brown, $35, 240 pages, ISBN 9780316091305) is indeed a mesmerizing tour, boasting 278 photographs along with a highly readable, informative text by photography critic Vicki Goldberg.

Here’s a sampling of the intriguing photos within these pages: a biplane about to land on the White House lawn in 1911, flown by a student of the Wright brothers; smoke billowing out of the White House during a 1929 Christmas Eve fire that erupted as President Hoover and his wife hosted a party for the children of their staff; a press secretary in 1957 using office equipment that was crammed inside a bathroom; Betty Ford dancing barefoot on top of the Cabinet Room table; Caroline Kennedy visiting President Obama in the Oval Office as they inspect the desk that her father once used.

There’s something interesting on every page of this comprehensive photographic journey.

PILGRIMAGE TO SAN DIEGO

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Perhaps, like me, you’ve heard about Comic-Con for years and wondered what it’s all about. Here’s an insider’s look at the “world’s largest pop-culture event,” in the form of both a new documentary and this companion book by Oscar-nominated director Morgan Spurlock, Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope (DK, $24.99, 192 pages, ISBN 9780756683429).

Think of this convention as Halloween on steroids, as adults, families, geeks, comic creators and fans dress up as their favorite super­heroes and comic characters and meet and mingle, all gloriously captured in living color by photographer Alba Tull. Also present are legends and pioneers of the business, such as Stan Lee (the comic

book creator of Spider-Man), Iron Man, Thor and other superheroes.

Leafing through this colorful portrait gallery is like wandering through the convention floor and having a quick chat with the fans.

Why do they come? What do they love? What do they talk about?

“Battlestar Galactica” actor Richard Hatch sums up Comic-Con like this: “People want to come and feel part of something—feel connected to the greater world and be part of this magical industry that has kind of been a savior, I think, for a lot of people’s lives.”

WORLD’S BEST AND WEIRDEST The RecordSetter Book of World Records (Workman, $12.95, 352 pages, ISBN 9780761165774) is the sort of book that my three teen and almost-teen children are bound to devour. Authors Corey Henderson and Dan Rollman founded their own website (RecordSetter.com) in 2008 after finding the submission process for the Guinness Book of World Records both limiting and overly daunting. Their website’s goal is to invent, beat and discuss world records, and the founders’ philosophy is that “everyone on earth can be the world’s best at something.”

The website itself is fun, creative and inclusive, as is this book, which features records, interviews and tips for setting and beating new records.

There’s no end to the inventive feats celebrated, such as: fastest time to open a bag of Skittles and sort them by color (21.5 seconds); most KISS songs named in one minute (45); largest group to sit on balloons and pop them at once (117 people); and most text messages sent and received in a single month (200,052)—a record set by a 19-yearold who, not surprisingly, developed blisters on his thumbs.

Let’s just say that this book is the perfect party gift!

MINDING YOUR P’S AND Q’S Move over, Ann Landers and Dear Abby. As Philip Galanes explains, his popular New York Times column is “Not Your Mummy’s Advice Column.” He’s collected many of the outrageous questions he’s received

ISBN 9781419700651) are 100 color and answered in Social Q’s: How and 50 black-and-white illustrations To Survive the Quirks, Quandaries painted by Rockwell, as well as eight and Quagmires of Today (Simon color plates that are separate, ready& Schuster, $23, 272 pages, ISBN to-frame prints. The inspiring paint9781451605785). ings are accompanied by excerpts The book is arranged into chapfrom songs, stories, speeches and ters addressing dilemmas related to more from our nation’s history. social situations, public transporThese glimpses tation, work, rointo our country’s mance, family and past are great fun money matters, to peruse, and an all with wonderexcellent educaful titles such as tion for younger “Step Away from readers, who can That Keyboard! take a look at an E-mails, Texts, and old-fashioned the Three Comvoting booth, a mandments for drugstore soda E-Living.” With counter, a stern the holidays soon schoolmaster to be here, you’ll and a croonlearn whether ing barbershop you have to keep quartet. The shelling out gifts to Image from Norman Rockwell’s Spirit of America, courtesy literary excerpts teenaged relatives of the Norman Rockwell Family Entities and Abrams. feature plenty of who never bother well-known names, such as Mark to thank you for them. “Move on,” Twain, Emily Dickinson, Martin Galanes advises. Is it okay to approach a fellow commuter on whom Luther King Jr., Laura Ingalls Wilder you have developed a crush? He tells and O. Henry. Cuddle up with this collection on a cold winter’s night, this questioner, “It’s a free country, and you’re bound to stumble upon Brooke. So long as you keep your some hidden gems, such as Ogden clothes on.” (He adds a few cautionNash’s ode to being a father, which ary notes, however). includes lines like these: “But all Galanes dishes out reasonable, children matures / Maybe even well thought-out answers to these yours. // You improve them mentalquestions and more. This book is ly / And straighten them dentally.” a fun romp through other people’s The rest of the poem is equally problems, regardless of whether you delightful, and just one of the many face them yourself. treasures found in this literary and PATRIOTIC PAINTINGS artistic collection.

On a more nostalgic note, here’s a lovely compendium for anyone who’s a fan of Norman Rockwell, American history, literature and music. Included in Norman Rockwell’s Spirit of America (Abrams, $24.95, 224 pages,

reviews The Queen of America

FICTION

A Pilgrim’s progress Review by Megan Fishmann

It took Luis Alberto Urrea 20 years to write his mystical bestseller, The Hummingbird’s Daughter, which was released in 2005. Lucky for readers, it did not take him nearly as long to return to his beloved heroine Teresita in this captivating sequel, Queen of America. With deft humor and a poetic lyricism that seamlessly folds one scene into another, Urrea unfolds the story of his real-life great-aunt Teresita, a teenage saint who was known for healing miracles.

This book picks up where The Hummingbird’s Daughter left off, at the turn of the 20th century. Following the catastrophic Tomochic rebellion, mystic Teresita (“The Saint of Cobora”) is banned from returning to Mexico. Together with her lush of a father, she traipses from one state to the next, hiding out from deadly assassins. But it’s not only the Mexican government that is after her. Many are desperate to find Teresita, whether

By Luis Alberto Urrea, Little, Brown, $25.99 they are attempting to kill her, exploit her as the spiritual leader of the 496 pages, ISBN 9780316154864, eBook available Mexican Revolution, or simply be physically cured by her.

While Teresita’s bawdy father attempts to drown his loneliness in liquor, Teresita encounters and befriends two dashing brothers, a surrogate mother, some medical charlatans and a sociopathic singer who holds both lust and murder in his heart. Torn by her familial bonds and her allegiance to her lover, Teresita must figure out how she can handle both saving the crowd and indulging her romantic whims.

Each scene in Queen of America unfurls gracefully like delicate wisps of smoke. Whether Teresita is being held captive in Northern California by a band of profiteering medical professionals, or being feted like a queen in New York’s social circles, this epic novel paints a portrait of America—and its inhabitants—with grace and style. It will spark fire in readers’ hearts.

Delicacy

By David Foenkinos HarperPerennial $14.99, 256 pages ISBN 9780062004369 eBook available

international fiction

It goes without saying that the French know a thing or two about love. In his heartfelt, heartbreaking novel, translated from the French, award-winning writer David Foenkinos proves that he knows a great deal about men, women, love lost and love found.

At the beginning of Delicacy, young, beautiful Natalie appears to have it all: a high-powered job at a growing corporation, an exciting life in Paris and a great love with her husband François. François and Natalie met by chance on the streets of Paris—a romantic meeting place if there ever was one—and quickly settled into a blissful, dynamic

courtship and marriage. Then the unthinkable happens: François is struck by a car and killed while out for a run, and Natalie’s whole world comes crashing down.

Of course her friends and family try to provide some comfort. Her smarmy boss, Charles, hopelessly in love with her, promises that her job will be waiting for her whenever she decides to return. And yet she simply cannot imagine a life without François. But life must go on, even for the brokenhearted, and Natalie eventually returns to work. There she discovers Markus, a co-worker she’s known peripherally for some time. He’s a Swede and a bit of an oddball, but for some reason, Natalie kisses him in her office one day, and the course of her life is forever changed.

Foenkinos writes beautifully, in simple language with many comic asides to the reader, and his portrayal of a woman in crisis is stirring. His characters—Natalie, Markus and even Charles—feel like people we know or would like to know. And the way in which his charming novel unfolds is pure

reading pleasure.

It’s easy to see why this book has been adapted for the French screen, with Amélie star Audrey Tautou perfectly cast as Natalie. Reading Delicacy is like taking a vacation from one’s own world and stepping into the complicated life of another—complete with the pain of loss, the difficulty of starting over and the pure joy of falling in love.

—Abby Plesser

Mrs. Nixon

By Ann Beattie Scribner $26, 320 pages ISBN 9781439168714 eBook available

historical biography, part imaginative fiction, part writing manual, this work is so original it’s impossible to define its exact genre.

Beattie’s unique book is meticulously researched, drawing from numerous historical accounts of the former First Lady, including books

by Woodward and Bernstein, old Life magazine articles and television interviews. Beattie creates introspective, revealing narratives of how Pat Nixon might have reacted to a specific incident, or what she might have thought during a specific event. She weaves in actual dialogue from the former president and his wife, so at times, the reader cannot tell what is real, or what is imagined by the author.

Beattie seamlessly manages not only to write about an interesting public figure, but also to create an ode to the art of writing. A Part professor at the University of biography, Beatpart fiction, Virginia, tie is quick to part writing share with her audience how manual, she wrote this Beattie’s book (in the latest book itself!) while drawbook is so ing from other original it’s writers’ work impossible to display examples of how to define its character is deexact genre. veloped (a riff on Raymond Carver’s Cathedral being a particularly intriguing vignette).

One shouldn’t have to classify this book as fiction, or memoir, or nonfiction, because it stands in a category by itself. Beattie is a master at writing lines that one underlines to read again and again. For history lovers, for writers, for fans of Beattie’s work, Mrs. Nixon is a remarkable story from a writer who continues to surprise and dazzle.

—Megan Fishmann

LIterary fiction

From the insanely talented and heavily lauded novelist and shortstory writer Ann Beattie comes another tour-de-force, Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life. Part

Read more reviews on BookPage.com 43

reviews An Autobiography

NONFICTION

REMEMBERING A LIFE OF CRIME Review by Catherine Hollis

Reading Agatha Christie’s autobiography is like sitting down to tea with an especially chatty, good-natured auntie; one would never suspect her of slipping arsenic in your drink. The Queen of Crime, it turns out, was also a gifted and engaging memoirist, and readers who missed out on the 1977 publication of An Autobiography will be delighted with its reissue, timed to celebrate the 120th anniversary of Dame Christie’s birth.

As Christie’s grandson Mathew Prichard notes in his foreword, much of this autobiography focuses on her childhood, a happy and imaginative time that laid the groundwork for her future writing career. Young Agatha was a natural storyteller, creating imaginary friends known as The Kittens, and later inventing The School, a series of stories she spun about a group of schoolgirls. Learning about poisons while working in a pharmaceutical dispensary during the First World War gave Christie the idea for a detecBy Agatha Christie, Harper, $29.99, 544 pages tive story, which eventually became The Mysterious Affair at Styles, her ISBN 9780062073594 first published book; witnessing the plight of Belgian refugees in England inspired Christie to make her detective Belgian—and thus Hercule Poirot was born. A marriage to handsome airman Archibald Christie was happy for a time, but Archie, it turns out, couldn’t much bear unhappiness. Agatha’s mother’s death in 1926 led to his affair and her infamous disappearance later that year. Christie doesn’t address the disappearance directly here, but says enough about her mental state to support theories that suggest she’d had a nervous breakdown of sorts.

Funny anecdotes about surfing with Archie in Hawaii and Cape Town (who knew Dame Christie could standup surf?), a happy second marriage to archaeologist Max Mallowan and periods spent with him on site in Iraq and Turkey are all fascinating. Christie’s enjoyment of the “indulgence” of memoir writing is apparent on every page of this lovely book, giving it a cheerful tone, as if she’s just turned to face you across the tea table to tell you a story. Packaged with a CD of newly discovered recordings of Christie dictating portions of the book, An Autobiography is essential for both mystery and memoir readers alike.

BEST FRIENDS, OCCASIONAL ENEMIES

By Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella St. Martin’s $24.99, 288 pages ISBN 9780312651633 Audio, eBook available

HUMOR

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The premise of this newest essay collection by mother-daughter writing team Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella may be shaky— that moms and daughters the world over are best friends who sometimes get on each other’s nerves— but why quibble? Scottoline and Serritella, who tag team a column in the Philadelphia Inquirer called “Chick Wit” and had a hit with their last combined effort, My Nest Isn’t Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space, are seriously funny and seriously honest.

As always, Scottoline is at her acerbic, slightly off-color best when

she ponders life as a middle-aged single mom with a houseful of unruly pets. Her take on how declining hormone levels equal lost sex drive: “Whether you’re married or not, this is excellent news. Why? Because you have better things to do and you know it. Your closet floor is dusty, and your underwear drawers are a mess. Your checkbook needs balancing, and it’s time to regrout your bathroom tile. Get on it. The bathroom, I mean.”

Serritella, 25, is still finding her own voice, an understandable situation given that her mother is an internationally best-selling novelist with 25 million copies of her books floating around. Many of Serritella’s essays mimic her mother’s trademark one-liner style, and even the topics she tackles (pets, her lack of a boyfriend) echo Scottoline’s choices. The Harvard grad obviously has chops—she just needs a little seasoning.

Despite the pair’s obvious mutual love and admiration, Best Friends, Occasional Enemies never lapses into schmaltz. Quite the opposite.

You’re not getting any giving-birthis-a-miracle musings from Scottoline. “Childbirth is not beautiful,” she writes. “Children are beautiful.

Childbirth is disgusting. Anyone who says otherwise has never met a placenta. I’m surprised ob-gyns don’t have post-traumatic stress from seeing a few of those a day.”

What you will get, though, are sweet, funny, clear-eyed observations on the pleasures and pitfalls of family.

—Amy Scribner

A TRAIN IN WINTER

By Caroline Moorehead Harper $27.99, 384 pages ISBN 9780061650703

HISTORY

With the Arab Spring grabbing much of the media’s attention ear-

lier this year, resistance and liberation are not far from anyone’s mind these days. Caroline Moorehead looks at the topic from a new angle in A Train in Winter, which tells the story of 231 women of the French Resistance imprisoned during the German invasion of World War II. Moorehead weaves a historically accurate narrative of women banding together for survival in the face of death and deprivation.

The women’s story begins at the start of the German invasion, with teachers, students, chemists and writers printing anti-Nazi newspapers, transporting weapons, helping Jews to safety and relaying messages of the resistance. They were young and old, from cities and villages, and all determined to save their France.

This defiance led to their eventual capture by the Gestapo, bringing them together first in a fort-turnedprison outside Paris and later, in the end, at Auschwitz in 1943.

With cooperation and resourcefulness, these women kept themselves educated, informed and safe, often hiding the sickest among them and putting on plays to maintain hope, as well as to remember who they once were and were determined to be again.

As many of the women died or heard of relatives and friends who had died, their bond strengthened.

“We didn’t stop to ask ourselves whom we liked and whom we didn’t,” one woman later explained.

“It wasn’t so much friendship as solidarity. We just made certain we didn’t leave anyone alone.” This solidarity is what kept some alive and made sure that this story of terror, starvation and death could be told.

By using original sources and giving each woman a name, the book can occasionally make the mind spin. However, the knowledge that these were real women makes the atrocities all the more real and their identities essential. The personal interviews and archival research are woven seamlessly into the narrative, creating an unforgettable chronicle of lives changed forever by war. An appendix gives the names and brief stories of life and death of all 231 women.

Memorable and riveting, A Train in Winter is not an easy read. It is, however, an essential read for those who believe—or long to believe—in the power of friendship.

— E l i sa M u ñ o z

children’s books

HOLIDAY picture books B y A l i c e Ca r y

Making the season merry & bright

I

n need of some merriment? Then look no further.

These picture books for little ones will fill your household with marvelous doses of holiday cheer.

TWO NOVEL NATIVITIES

Every holiday season brings a fresh crop of nativity books and one of my new favorites is Linda Sue Park’s The Third Gift (Clarion, $16.99, 32 pages, ISBN 9780547201955). This book was sparked by Park’s childhood curiosity about myrrh, one of the nativity gifts from the three wise men. Her beautifully written tale follows a father and son who collect this myrrh from trees in the Arabian desert.

Bagram Ibatoulline’s truly masterful illustrations are rendered in earthen tones, all suffused with a majestic golden glow that transports readers to another time and place.

Father and son are so perfectly painted that they almost seem to have been photographed, as the boy learns his father’s trade and extracts one special “tear” of myrrh. Next, they go to the magical world of the spice market, where three reverent wise men are looking for a special gift to take to “a baby.”

The tale ends with an illustration of the wise men on their camels as they approach the holy family and a detailed, historical author’s note.

Regardless of your religious beliefs, this is a rich, wondrous book.

A more lighthearted look at the nativity for younger readers can be found in Sally Lloyd-Jones’ Song of the Stars: A Christmas Story (Zonderkidz, $15.99, 32 pages, ISBN 9780310722915). Instead of focusing on the well-known journeys of Mary, Joseph and the three Wise Men, this book focuses on the excitement felt in the natural world, especially by creatures around the globe.

Lloyd-Jones’ spare text works perfectly with the luminous illustrations of Alison Jay, who works with quick-drying oil paint on paper and then adds crackle varnish for a cen-

turies-old look. In this celebration of nature, Jay shows squirrels and owls listening to the wind’s message, whales diving, sandpipers darting, wild stallions galloping and a host of triumphant angels filling the sky.

HOLIDAY FUN TIMES THREE Whether your household is naughty or nice, you’ll enjoy Nick Bruel’s latest romp, A Bad Kitty Christmas (Roaring Brook, $15.99, 40 pages, ISBN 9781596436688). In case you’re not familiar with Bruel’s popular feline, Bad Kitty is a curmudgeonly cat depicted in alphabetical rhymes like this one: Our Yuletide looked Yucky!

My Zeal had been Zapped When I had found Kitty In the shreds where she napped!

“Oh, Kitty! Bad Kitty! I’m filled with distress!

You’ve ruined our Christmas!

Just look at this mess!

Bad Kitty has mangled the Christ­ mas tree and gifts and ends up running away in anger. Alas, she finds herself lost in the city, but is rescued by a lonely old woman who teaches Kitty the real meaning of Christmas.

As always, Bruel fills both story and pictures with energetic doses of magical mayhem.

For many, Christmas isn’t complete without a holiday tale (or two or three) by master writer and illustrator Tomie dePaola, and fans will be delighted by Strega Nona’s Gift (Penguin, $17.99, 32 pages, ISBN 9780399256493). The book features two of his classic characters, who live in an Italian village and are perfect foils for each other: the magical cooking wizard Strega Nona and the dimwitted blunderer Big Anthony.

Strega Nona is cooking up a holiday feast for her animals, and she asks the starving Big Anthony to

deliver the treats—but Big Anthony can’t be trusted and things go awry.

DePaola takes readers on a wonderful village tour during a holiday season filled with celebrations, from the Feast of San Nicola on December 6 until the big feast of Epiphany on January 6 (dePaola explains them all briefly in a helpful note).

Like Strega Nona, dePaola has a magical way, creating a snappy story with illustrations painted in transparent acrylics that resemble watercolors with their soft tones.

He gets everything right, from Big Anthony’s stubby blond moptop to a Christmas Eve sunset that is stunning in its simple beauty.

Next is Eileen Spinelli’s The Perfect Christmas (Holt, $16.99, 32 pages, ISBN 9780805087024), which spins a warm tale of two very different families. At the Archers’ home, treats are served on three-tiered trays and relatives are dropped off by their chauffeurs. Next door to the Archers, however, holidays are a happy but haphazard affair, with macaroni reindeer decorations and home-baked cookies so hard that they can break a toe.

No matter which style of celebration you prefer, you’ll enjoy peeking in on these two families, courtesy of JoAnn Adinolfi’s fun-filled illus­ trations. Don’t miss details like the mouse wearing a hard hat as Grandma’s cookies fall off the tray, or the refrigerator covered with magnet snowflakes, a math test and, of all things, a postcard from Tijuana.

TRADITIONAL TALES David Rubel’s The Carpenter’s Gift (Random House, $17.99, 40 pages, ISBN 9780375869228) has everything you want in a children’s holiday story: historical drama, superb illustrations and a meaningful message. Young Henry is used to waking up shivering in his family’s shack, but the chill

wears off on Christmas Eve, 1931, when he and his out-of-work father borrow a truck, cut down some spruce trees and head to New York City to sell them. There they meet a kind man named Frank. At the end of the day, Henry and his dad leave an unsold tree for Frank and some other workers to enjoy.

On Christmas morning Henry is awakened by the toot-toot of several car horns: Frank and friends have come to build a brand-new home for Henry’s family. Henry grows up to become a carpenter himself and plants his own spruce tree, which many years later ends up being used as the Rockefeller Christmas tree.

Jim LaMarche’s illustrations are perfect, with faces full of emotion and outdoor scenes that capture the warm light of the many special moments in this story. The author’s notes at the end of this book explain the history of the Rockefeller tree and the intriguing search to find it each year.

Enjoy another historical adventure with Frances and Peter, who live on a small New England island where their father works as the lighthouse keeper in Tony Buzzeo’s Lighthouse Christmas (Dial, $16.99, 32 pages, ISBN 9780803730533), illustrated by Nancy Carpenter. Their mother has died and they’re waiting for a boat to Aunt Martha’s house on the mainland for a festive holiday celebration.

A raging snowstorm prevents Frances and Peter from traveling to Aunt Martha’s. Frances then has to keep the lighthouse lantern lit while her father rescues a shipwrecked mariner. With supplies running low, the celebration seems destined to be bleak.

Thankfully, the “Flying Santa” saves the day, dropping a sackful of presents onto the island. The Flying Santa Service began in 1929 to honor lighthouse keepers and their families in Maine. Buzzeo, who lives in Maine, explains in a historical note how the lovely tradition has spread and continues.

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children’s books Gifts to inspire young imaginations

T

he excellence of this year’s crop of gift books for children means there is no need to agonize over which book is best. You can find something just right for all ages and stages of young readers.

FOR LITTLE ONES

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My First Farm Friends (Storey, $18.95, 20 pages, ISBN 9781603429917) by Betsy Wallin is a sweet read-and-play combo for babies through preschoolers.

Four board books, one for each farmyard favorite—goat, cow, pig and chicken—show daily life on a happy family farm. We see where the animals live, what they eat, how they play and how the whole family works together to take good care of them. We also learn the real names for animals, like father rooster, mother hen and baby chicks; or, for the goats, father buck, mother doe and baby kid. The cute gift box in which the four books are contained is illustrated inside and out and instantly converts into a play barn with a working door. Children can act out the stories and make up new ones using the four sturdy, stand-up animals. A nice touch for tired parents is that each book ends with a sunset and cozy night scene just right for winding down with bedtime reading.

The Family Storybook Treasury: Tales of Laughter, Curiosity, and Fun (HMH, $18.99, 304 pages, ISBN 9780547612218) assembles eight complete picture books and eight poems from the wide world of children’s literature. All are ideal for bedtime or anytime read-aloud sessions. They include Curious George and the Firefighters; Lyle Walks the Dog (starring everyone’s favorite crocodile); Martha Speaks (of PBS fame); Sheep in a Jeep (the hilarious, rhyming easy-reader); Tacky the Penguin; The Great Doughnut Parade; Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed; and the classic Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. All the stories are read aloud on the bonus audio CD. Tucked between books are delightfully random poems: a haiku here, freeform verse or a visual poem

there. An enjoyable addition is the “meet the authors and illustrators” section, which gives a bit of background and refers to other works.

If you aren’t familiar with the wild and wonderful art of Caldecott winner Paul O. Zelinsky, now is the time. His “moving parts book” version of Knick-Knack ­Paddywhack (Dutton, $20.99, 8 pages, ISBN 9780525469087) turns the old counting song into an adventure with nonstop action. Every page has popups, flaps, slides, tabs, wheels, pulls and more, and every movement furthers the story or extends the wordplay. The song unfolds (literally) as a boy and his dog wake up to not just one “old man,” but 10. Each little man enacts the words in silly ways until everyone ends up “rolling home” in a joyful heap. Read this one to little kids or let older readers have a go solo. All ages will enjoy the sophisticated paper engineering and detailed illustrations.

HANDS-ON FUN Geraldine Cosneau’s All Around the World (Tate Publishing, $13.95, 50 pages, ISBN 9781854379764) gives kids (ages 4 to 8) 400 cute stickers to position on huge fold-out illustrations of different biomes: the countryside, African savannah, Sahara desert, North American forest, Amazon rainforest, tropical sea, Australian outback and the Arctic.

Each set of animal stickers is organized by habitat, so kids just have to decide where on that particular panorama each critter should go. The stickers are re-positionable, allowing for do-overs and repeat play. On the back of each fold-out are big, dotted outlines of animals, ready to be col-

gifts

By Joanna Brichetto

ored with crayon or marker. There is no text, but every animal and habitat is labeled, and the quirky artwork is enough to take kids on eight environmental adventures. Fold-outs can be removed for display or left in the book to re-do.

Hervé Tullet’s Doodle Cook (Phaidon, $14.95, 48 pages, ISBN 9780714862279) is an activity book designed to get creative juices flowing in the 5- to 8-year-old set. An award-winning artist whose work appears in the New Yorker, Tullet is also known as the “prince of preschool books,” and his exuberance is contagious. Young artists get 19 large-format “blank canvas plates” upon which to create masterpieces with crayon, pencil, pastel or marker, guided by a step-by-step recipe. Kids create Scribble Delight, Dot Stew, ZigZag Soup, Crayon Puff Pastries, Thousand Layer Cake and many more masterpieces, leading to the pièce de résistance, an original, from-scratch recipe. To be clear, no actual food is being prepared here, just actual art. Kids too young to read directions will still love to follow them if a grown-up helper reads them aloud. Both jacket flaps reveal examples of “ingredients” for kids to mimic: dots, triangles, blobs, fingerprints, spirals, squiggles and more.

Color scanimation comes to one of the most beloved movies ever in The Wizard of Oz: 10 Classic Scenes from Over the Rainbow (Workman, $14.95, 11 pages, ISBN 9780761163732), the latest of Rufus Butler Seder’s best-selling scanimation books, which incorporate “moving” images. Framed by a glittery, ruby-red cover (perfect!) is a picture of Dorothy’s ruby slippers tap, tap, tapping the way home.

Inside are more iconic moments from the movie brought to life by the author’s technical wizardry, such

as Dorothy’s house whirling into the air, the Scarecrow’s dance, the Tin Man’s reawakening, the foursome’s skipping journey down the Yellow Brick Road and the Wicked Witch with her infamous flying monkeys. Each page is faced by a quote from the character at hand, a drawing and a brief synopsis of the plot. Not to be missed: the Wicked Witch meeting her wet and memorable demise: “Oh, what a world!”

The book is designed for ages 9 to 12, but anyone old enough to love the movie will love this innovative tribute.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Pop-Up Book (Puffin, $29.99, 24 pages, ISBN 9780142419304), written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake, is the real deal. By this I mean it is the real story with the original illustrator, and even if you or your child hated (or loved, for that matter) the Willy Wonka films, the book came first and it is stellar. What’s new this time around is the pop-up feature. Pairing Dahl’s wacky story and Blake’s mad illustrations with paper engineering seems inevitable, somehow. Slide the tab and Mike Teevee disappears into the television set. Pull another and plunge Veruca down the reject hole in the Nut Room. And of course, there is a bar of chocolate needing only a few tugs to reveal a Golden Ticket.

Unlike the movies, this version is guaranteed not to elicit nightmares about Oompa-Loompas and other liberties. Fun for older readers to enjoy on their own and as a readaloud for younger ones.

Michael Hague, one of Amer-

gifts

By Joanna Brichetto

ica’s most acclaimed illustrators, lends his artistry to 14 favorite stories in Treasured Classics (Chronicle, $19.99, 133 pages, ISBN 9780811849043). The “classics” include such stories as “The Grasshopper and the Ant,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “The Gingerbread Man,” “The Tortoise and the Hare” and “The Three Little Pigs.” Artwork on every page makes each tale all the more compelling for young readers and listeners. Hague’s style is legendary, full of fantasy and magic, and it honors the drama without infantilizing it. The target audience is 9- to 12-year-olds, if they can be convinced they are not too old for fairy tales. Of course, no one is too old for fairy tales in general—or this collection in particular.

LOOKING & LEARNING Legendary Journeys: Ships (Kingfisher, $19.99, 32 pages, ISBN 9780753466810), illustrated by Sebastian Quigley, is written by Brian Lavery, who in his day job is Curator Emeritus of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England.

The book is like a personal, interactive museum display, full of exploded views, fascinating marginalia and 10 amazing slide-out extensions that double the width and bring the ships to life. Readers take a journey through time from the earliest ships, such as a Greek trireme warship, to modern cargo giants and nuclearpowered aircraft carriers. In between are famous vessels like the ships of Columbus, Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge, the ironclad Monitor from the Civil War, the clipper ship Cutty Sark, the ill-fated Titanic

and the USS Nimitz from the current naval fleet.

Cutaways and cross-sections detail inner and outer workings, and an index rounds out the volume. For ages 8 and up.

My Fabulous Look Book: Fashion Drawing Made Easy (Klutz, $19.99, 24 pages, ISBN 9780545346207) claims no drawing skills are required, but whoever uses Karen Phillips’ entertaining guide will build skills soon enough. Budding designers, personal stylists, makeup artists and hairstylists will find a complete kit: 10 pencil colors, teeny sparkly stickers, a die-cut portfolio to show off favorite looks and, most importantly, “art starters”: tons of pale sketch outlines ready to make over. These include various head shots, full body poses and details of hands, feet and bags to inspire hairstyles, clothes of all sorts, plus jewelry and accessories to die for. Tips show how to draw specific effects with cross-hatching, rubbing and layering. Plenty of examples in each category (hair, skin, cheeks, eyes, lips, apparel, shoes and so on) offer authentic technique and inspiration for ages 8 and up.

The Mysterious Benedict Society: Mr. Benedict’s Book of Perplexing Puzzles, Elusive Enigmas, and Curious Conundrums (Little, Brown, $12.99, 176 pages, ISBN 9780316181938) is the must-have companion for fans of the bestselling Mysterious Benedict Society series by Trenton Lee Stewart. Just as Reynie, Kate, Sticky and Constance had to pass certain tests of wit to be admitted into the Society, so all fans must pass the “ultimate challenge” within this collection. The variety of puzzles is staggering: Morse code, geography, logic, wordplay, memory, spatial relations, patterns, hidden codes, limericks, sequences and counting in Tamil, to name a few, and all require an extensive knowledge of the stories. Luckily, the book includes a section of “helpful resources” with a glossary, many hints and a sneak peek at the next entry in the series.

For ages 8 to 12.

meet VALERI GORBACHEV Q: Illustrator of:

would you describe Q: How

the book?

has been the biggest influence on your work?

Q: Who

was your favorite subject in school? Why? Q: What

was your childhood hero?

Q: Who

Q: W hat books did you enjoy as a child?

Q: What one thing would you like to learn to do?

Q: W hat message would you like to send to children?

LITTLE BUNNY AND THE MAGIC CHRISTMAS TREE Valeri Gorbachev, a native of Ukraine who immigrated to the United States 20 years ago, has written and illustrated many books for children, including What’s the Big Idea, Molly? and The Missing Chick.

In Little Bunny and the Magic Christmas Tree (Candlewick, $15.99, 40 pages, ISBN 9780763636937), written by David Martin, the littlest member of a bunny family has an unforgettable adventure on Christmas Eve.

47

WORDNOOK

By the editors of Merriam-Webster

SCRAWNY OR SCOUNDREL? Dear Editor, I recently heard the word scallywag in a movie. Where does this word come from?

B. J. Champaign, Illinois No one is entirely sure where scallywag and its early spelling variant scalawag come from. Our earliest piece of printed evidence for it is from a 19th-century dictionary of Americanisms, where scalawag is listed as an Eastern term for “a mean fellow.” A few years after the first sighting of scalawag, it was used in The New York Tribune to describe scrawny, ill-nourished cattle. It’s possible this is the original sense of the word, since this second piece of citational evidence wasn’t defined within the text, but without more evidence, we can’t be sure.

We also can’t be sure of the word’s pedigree. The best guess etymologists have come up with is that it may be related to the Scots Gaelic word sgalag, referring to a servant or farm worker. Unfortunately,

there’s no way to know how this Gaelic word was transformed into scalawag and deposited on American soil, so its etymology remains unknown.

DEEP DOWN Dear Editor, What is the history of the term deep-seated, as in a firmly established belief? It would appear that a similar term, deep-seeded, would make more sense. My dictionary lists only deep-seated, but has the alternative ever been an established use?

M. P. Belford, New Jersey The sense of deep-seated meaning “firmly established” is a figurative extension of the earlier literal meaning, “seated far below the surface.”

Seated as used here means “situated.” Deep-seated was first used mainly in medical contexts. Its first known occurrence was in a treatise by an 18th-century anatomist named Alexander Monro, who wrote in 1741 of “the deep-seated kind of Paronychia” (an infection of the tissues adjacent to the fingernail).

A fervently held belief or emotion is thought to exist deep within the person holding it, much like a deep infection. Perhaps because of this analogy, the figurative deep-seated most often applies to negative qualities, as in “deep-seated resentment.”

You’re right that deep-seeded holds up to a similar analysis. We have no evidence, however, that it has ever been established in use.

Dear Editor, Plum pudding is my family’s traditional Christmas dessert, though there are no plums in it. My grandmother told me her recipe said to boil the ingredients in a cloth bag, and that the pudding was done when the swollen ingredients filled the bag, making it plum, an old synonym for plump. Is that how it got its name?

S. B. Wylie, Texas

been around for some time, and it referred to expansion caused by a leavening agent. The plumping that occurs in plum pudding, however, is due to expansion of the dried fruit.

And it turns out that dried fruit is really what plum pudding’s name is all about.

Dried plums (that is, prunes) were originally the preferred fruit for plum pudding—and for other concoctions like plum frumenty and plum porridge, not to mention Little Jack Horner’s plum pie. If dried plums weren’t available, raisins and currants were often substituted. Because of this, plum came to be used as a more general term, referring to raisins and currants as well as prunes, especially when they were included in a pudding or pie. And plum pudding came to denote a rich pudding containing dried fruits, without any necessary connection to the fruit of the plum tree.

It’s true that plum was formerly a synonym of plump. It was even used especially in reference to fluffy risen dough. But this specific use of plum came along after plum pudding had

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1

ACROSS 1 Hollywood statuette 6 Ziti or penne 11 Guy’s partner 14 Zeus turned her to stone 15 Some saxes 16 Prefix with bar or therm 17 Comics “Cinderella” of 1925–61 19 Well put 20 Fixed part of a dynamo 21 Initial stake 22 Op. (footnote abbr.)

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2 3 Slaughter of Cooperstown 25 Apartment balcony 27 Plays the ponies, say 30 DC baseballer, in headlines 32 Movie rating unit 33 Exodus hero 34 Nest eggs, for short 36 Cabinet department 39 Neeson of Kinsey 41 Explorer John or Sebastian 43 Winter fall 44 Mr. T movie of 1983 46 Vincent Lopez’s theme song 47 Icky stuff 48 Oodles 50 Anthem contraction 51 Defraud 52 Places to buy ice cream 55 Lee cakes 57 Discount tag abbr.

58 New Jersey university 60 Get underhandedly 64 Before, to bards 65 “Give me your tired, your poor . . .” poet 67 and feathers (old punishment) 68 Oater “necktie”

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Excerpted from Mensa 10-Minute Crossword Puzzles by Fred Piscop, on sale now from Workman Publishing.

LETTERWOMEN

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DOWN 1 Till stack 2 River sediment 3 Soft drink choice 4 Slackens off 5 Scout’s mission, for short 6 Give two thumbs down to 7 Alan of M*A*S*H 8 Surgeon’s blockage reliever 9 Rich pastries 10 States positively 11 Supermodel played by Angelina Jolie 12 Jellied garnish 13 Singer Lenya 18 Like an O. Henry story 24 Clear kitchen wrap

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69 Make into law 70 Nautical assent 71 Mild oaths 72 Titled women

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26 Ghetto scurriers 27 Like Kojak’s pate 28 Director Rohmer 29 Cassandra Wong player in Wayne’s World 31 Forbidden 35 Cobbler’s supply 37 Hammer or sickle 38 Furry Star Wars creature 40 Shopaholic’s mecca 42 Pacific battle site of 1943 45 One of a library pair

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49 Earthquake preceder, perhaps 51 Fruit in a split 52 Michelangelo masterpiece 53 Orderly formation 54 Pago Pago’s island group 56 Tore to the ground 59 Tweed caricaturist Thomas 61 Unit of fat 62 Writer Clare Boothe 63 Repair shop figs.

66 Guitarist Paul