`Lapham' Returns, Banker Douses Fires, Superheroes Soar: Books
March 13 (Bloomberg) -- Harry March is a cantankerous writer. He lives on his own island in the Hamptons, where his only companions are a West Highland terrier and a stone statue of his ex-wife reading the New York Times.
Splendid isolation suits the hero of Roger Rosenblatt's novel, ``Lapham Rising'' (HarperCollins, 243 pages, $23.95). So naturally the author shatters Harry's peace on page one.
``Bang bang bang bang bang,'' the book begins.
A social-climbing playboy named Lapham is building a McMansion just across the water. March goes mad and begins to think his dog, Hector, is talking to him. ``I'll pray for you,'' says Hector at one point.
Rosenblatt, a long-time essayist for Time magazine, has written 10 books of essays and nonfiction and penned four off- Broadway plays. ``Lapham Rising,'' his debut novel, borrows from William Dean Howells's 1885 novel, ``The Rise of Silas Lapham,'' about a Vermont paint tycoon who masquerades as a Boston Brahmin.
This updated version satirizes the Hamptons, the New York summer retreat for celebrities and executives. Its little towns have ``the seductive apathy of a debutante, but none of the appealing cruelty,'' Harry grumbles. Chitchat at dinner parties turns on ``the best Pilates class on the planet,'' he sneers.
``Lapham Rising'' doesn't amount to more than the sum of such deliciously caustic observations. Nor is it meant to. So sit back and enjoy the ride.
Siege Weapon
Lapham's house is a castle. It includes a moat, a movie theater and a ``Tilles Blowhard,'' a jet engine-powered air conditioner that sounds ``like a lion's roar amplified over a vast public-address system.''
March plans to lay siege to this edifice of ego with a huge homemade catapult dubbed the ``Da Vinci.'' He fails, though the book is all the funnier for it. This is a must-read for seasonal renters and year-round residents alike.
Like Lapham, Bill Schoenberg lives in a ``gilded shack in the boondocks.'' His is a $3.3 million turreted house in the unfashionable Hudson River village of Harristown, New York, the setting for Nicholas Weinstock's novel, ``The Golden Hour'' (Morrow, 275 pages, $24.95).
Schoenberg is 46 and overweight. After 19 years of marriage and a two-decade run as an investment banker on Wall Street, he has ditched his job, left his South African interior-decorator wife, vacated their 11-room Manhattan penthouse and moved upstate with his collection of vintage wine. Why? Weinstock holds back that secret and keeps you reading.
`Hokey Civilization'
In Harristown, Schoenberg discovers an endearingly ``hokey civilization.'' He also finds a new sense of purpose, as well as camaraderie, when he joins the ragtag volunteer fire department.
Weinstock, who once served as a fireman, ably describes the routine bravery of those who rush into burning houses. By the finale, Schoenberg has gained a self-esteem that means more to him than the adulation he won as a banker nicknamed ``The Bull.''
New York fiction these days is stocked with characters reassessing their lives. Consider Nathaniel, the 28-year-old creator of a comic book called ``Passivityman'' in Deborah Eisenberg's fifth collection of short stories, ``Twilight of the Superheroes'' (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 240 pages, $23).
Before Sept. 11, 2001, the view from Nathaniel's 31st-floor Manhattan loft included the World Trade Center and was ``like looking down over the rim into a gigantic glass of champagne.'' After the terrorist attacks, the city became an ``open wound.'' Nathaniel realizes that his hip ``Passivityman'' isn't quite the hero Americans need post-9/11 and abandons the comic.
Real People
Eisenberg introduces us to dozens of such thoughtful people. We meet stoic Jewish immigrants living in the Midwest, a lonely divorcee traveling through Italy and a widowed art-gallery owner, among others. All cope with real problems: aging, unstable family members and a loss of confidence.
Throughout these six masterful stories Eisenberg proves that you don't necessarily need a novel to describe an entire life. Sometimes, 35 pages will do.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Chemical Arms Explained, Red Army Bared, Wiesel Renewed: Books
Chemical Arms Explained, Red Army Bared, Wiesel Renewed: Books
(The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Bloomberg.)
By Edward Nawotka
March 7 (Bloomberg) -- As dusk settled over Ypres, Belgium, on April 22, 1915, German soldiers opened the valves on 5,730 cylinders of liquid chlorine buried in mud along the front lines. A cloud of poison drifted over French and Algerian troops in the opposing trenches, enveloping them ``in a greenish murk as if they had suddenly been plunged several feet underwater,'' writes Jonathan Tucker in ``War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to Al-Qaeda'' (Pantheon, 479 pages, $30).
The gas ``seared their eyes and burned the lining of their bronchial tubes, causing blindness, coughing, violent nausea,'' Tucker says. The deadly assault broke a taboo, prompting France and Britain to retaliate with their own gas attacks. By the end of World War I, soldiers had been subjected to more than 124,000 metric tons of 39 different toxins.
Tucker, who specializes in arms control at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, warned of the dangers of biological warfare in his previous book, ``Scourge.'' His latest book spotlights a chemical arms race in the 20th century.
During the Cold War, the U.S. and Soviet Union were at the forefront of this contest. They produced nerve agents so potent that less than 10 milligrams were lethal. Developing countries joined the race to create ``the poor man's nuclear weapon.'' Though leading industrial nations have been destroying their chemical weapons, terrorists are seeking to build stockpiles, Tucker warns: To keep the world safe, we must tighten trade restrictions and enforce arms-control treaties.
`Ivan's War'
The Geneva Convention helped halt the widespread use of chemical weapons in World War II. Yet German soldiers did deploy them during the siege of the Crimean city Kerch in May 1941, Catherine Merridale writes in her gripping portrait of life as a Soviet solider, ``Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939- 1945'' (Metropolitan, 463 pages, $30; Faber, 20 pounds).
The siege had left some 176,000 Soviet troops dead; the Germans used gas to dispatch the last defenders, holed up in a quarry. In Soviet myth, the quarry ``became another Leningrad,'' Merridale says -- ``a place where heroes held out to the last.'' A professor at the University of London, Merridale interviewed some 200 veterans to learn how the mostly untrained, ill-equipped peasant soldiers lived and died. Their memories are grim: Hectored by government spies and goaded by machine-gun-toting officers, troops attacked Panzer divisions in human waves. The Red Army's fabled patriotism was a product of Soviet propaganda, Merridale says. The underfed troops were really driven by ``shared awe, shared faith, shared dread.'' Altogether, eight million Soviet soldiers died in the ``Nazi meat grinder.''
Elie Wiesel
Merridale paints the pivotal Soviet victories at Stalingrad and Kursk in bold strokes. She also picks out details of everyday hardship, from the brackish tea soldiers drank to the cloth strips they wound around their feet as socks. Her reappraisal of their sacrifices breaks ground for future scholars.
Few first-hand accounts of Nazi barbarity have made the Holocaust as palpable as Elie Wiesel's terse memoir ``Night.'' Yet this classic has long suffered from a stiff 1960 translation into English.
The author's wife, Marion Wiesel, has breathed new life into this remembrance of life and death in concentration camps in a fresh, lucid translation (Hill and Wang, 120 pages, $9). The timing couldn't be better. In January, U.S. television talk-show host Oprah Winfrey selected ``Night'' for her popular book club, guaranteeing millions of new readers.
`Terribly Alone'
Wiesel, now 77, grew up in Transylvania. He recounts how Nazis rounded up his Jewish family in 1944, when he was a teenager, and herded him and his father to Auschwitz and Buchenwald, where his father was beaten and died. He nearly abandoned his faith.
``My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man,'' he writes.
Marion Wiesel's prose is more vernacular than the previous English translation, using more Yiddish words. Hundreds of accounts have been written about the Holocaust; ``Night'' remains a masterpiece of brief, brutal candor.
(The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Bloomberg.)
By Edward Nawotka
March 7 (Bloomberg) -- As dusk settled over Ypres, Belgium, on April 22, 1915, German soldiers opened the valves on 5,730 cylinders of liquid chlorine buried in mud along the front lines. A cloud of poison drifted over French and Algerian troops in the opposing trenches, enveloping them ``in a greenish murk as if they had suddenly been plunged several feet underwater,'' writes Jonathan Tucker in ``War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to Al-Qaeda'' (Pantheon, 479 pages, $30).
The gas ``seared their eyes and burned the lining of their bronchial tubes, causing blindness, coughing, violent nausea,'' Tucker says. The deadly assault broke a taboo, prompting France and Britain to retaliate with their own gas attacks. By the end of World War I, soldiers had been subjected to more than 124,000 metric tons of 39 different toxins.
Tucker, who specializes in arms control at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, warned of the dangers of biological warfare in his previous book, ``Scourge.'' His latest book spotlights a chemical arms race in the 20th century.
During the Cold War, the U.S. and Soviet Union were at the forefront of this contest. They produced nerve agents so potent that less than 10 milligrams were lethal. Developing countries joined the race to create ``the poor man's nuclear weapon.'' Though leading industrial nations have been destroying their chemical weapons, terrorists are seeking to build stockpiles, Tucker warns: To keep the world safe, we must tighten trade restrictions and enforce arms-control treaties.
`Ivan's War'
The Geneva Convention helped halt the widespread use of chemical weapons in World War II. Yet German soldiers did deploy them during the siege of the Crimean city Kerch in May 1941, Catherine Merridale writes in her gripping portrait of life as a Soviet solider, ``Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939- 1945'' (Metropolitan, 463 pages, $30; Faber, 20 pounds).
The siege had left some 176,000 Soviet troops dead; the Germans used gas to dispatch the last defenders, holed up in a quarry. In Soviet myth, the quarry ``became another Leningrad,'' Merridale says -- ``a place where heroes held out to the last.'' A professor at the University of London, Merridale interviewed some 200 veterans to learn how the mostly untrained, ill-equipped peasant soldiers lived and died. Their memories are grim: Hectored by government spies and goaded by machine-gun-toting officers, troops attacked Panzer divisions in human waves. The Red Army's fabled patriotism was a product of Soviet propaganda, Merridale says. The underfed troops were really driven by ``shared awe, shared faith, shared dread.'' Altogether, eight million Soviet soldiers died in the ``Nazi meat grinder.''
Elie Wiesel
Merridale paints the pivotal Soviet victories at Stalingrad and Kursk in bold strokes. She also picks out details of everyday hardship, from the brackish tea soldiers drank to the cloth strips they wound around their feet as socks. Her reappraisal of their sacrifices breaks ground for future scholars.
Few first-hand accounts of Nazi barbarity have made the Holocaust as palpable as Elie Wiesel's terse memoir ``Night.'' Yet this classic has long suffered from a stiff 1960 translation into English.
The author's wife, Marion Wiesel, has breathed new life into this remembrance of life and death in concentration camps in a fresh, lucid translation (Hill and Wang, 120 pages, $9). The timing couldn't be better. In January, U.S. television talk-show host Oprah Winfrey selected ``Night'' for her popular book club, guaranteeing millions of new readers.
`Terribly Alone'
Wiesel, now 77, grew up in Transylvania. He recounts how Nazis rounded up his Jewish family in 1944, when he was a teenager, and herded him and his father to Auschwitz and Buchenwald, where his father was beaten and died. He nearly abandoned his faith.
``My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man,'' he writes.
Marion Wiesel's prose is more vernacular than the previous English translation, using more Yiddish words. Hundreds of accounts have been written about the Holocaust; ``Night'' remains a masterpiece of brief, brutal candor.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Seances, Special Ops and Bill James on Baseball: March Books
Seances, Special Ops and Bill James on Baseball: March Books
(The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Bloomberg.)
By Edward Nawotka
March 1 (Bloomberg) -- It's March, when the Emperor penguins in the Antarctic start their long march to mate. Many humans obsess over the Oscars. For those who'd rather be reading, we offer this preview of selected fiction and nonfiction coming in the month.
Nonfiction
``A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveler,'' by Frances Mayes (Broadway): Her bestselling ``Under the Tuscan Sun'' prompted an invasion of her Italian hometown of Cortona by camera-wielding tour groups. So Mayes takes off for some less- obnoxious locales, including Portugal, Turkey, Greece and North Africa.
``America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative Legacy,'' by Francis Fukuyama (Yale University): Fukuyama's hugely influential 1992 book, ``The End of History and the Last Man,'' asserted that liberal capitalist democracies were the ultimate manifestation of civilization, sort of. His new treatise says the neoconservative urge to spread democracy through ``preventative warfare'' has become a ``benevolent hegemony'' and may have gone too far.
``American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century,'' by Kevin Phillips (Viking): According to this former Republican strategist, every world-dominating power down through time has four things in common: militant religion, resource problems, ballooning debt and globe-spanning ambition. Does that sound like the U.S. in the beginning of the 21st century?
``Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq,'' by Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor (Pantheon): Gordon, a correspondent for the New York Times, and Trainor, a retired Marine Corps general, had first-hand access to General Tommy Franks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and others during the planning and execution of the war. They promise an insider's account full of revelations.
``Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney,'' by Paul Johnson (HarperCollins): This is the second volume in a trilogy that started with 1988's ``Intellectuals.'' The popular conservative historian now serves up brief bios of artists, including composers Bach and Wagner, scribes Austen and Dickens, fashionistas Balenciaga and Dior. Expect the third volume, ``Heroes,'' in another two decades.
``Man in the Shadows: Inside the Middle East Crisis With a Man Who Led the Mossad,'' by Efraim Halevy (St. Martin's): The ex-spook offers a unique perspective on Middle East politics from his perch atop Israel's secret service. His book provides a blow-by-blow of backdoor negotiations with the Palestinians, diplomatic clashes with the U.S. and more -- though don't expect him to reveal any state secrets.
``Miracles on the Water: The Attack on the S.S. City of Benares,'' by Tom Nagorski (Hyperion): An ABC news producer recounts the 1940 sinking of the British passenger ship by a German submarine. A total of 406 crew and passengers were aboard, 90 of whom were children. Just 13 of the children survived the gale-force winds and days adrift.
``The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky,'' by Ken Dornstein (Random House): The author's brother David, an aspiring writer, was just 25 when he died in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Using diaries and his own investigative wits, Dornstein reconstructs his brother's brief and ultimately tragic life. In addition to writing the book David never would, Ken has crafted a paean to brotherly love.
``The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences,'' by Louis Uchitelle (Knopf): Sad but true: Sometimes companies have to let workers go for the sake of profitability. This polemic by a New York Times reporter argues, in part, that corporations overuse the pink slip, and no U.S. government since the 1970s has tried to stop them. A jeremiad for Joe Six Pack and Jim Middle Manager.
``The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis,'' by John Wasik (Palgrave Macmillan): Sam Insull amassed a fortune of more than $1 billion in today's money and lost it all in the Great Depression. He died with less than a dollar in his pocket. Wasik, a Bloomberg News columnist, tells the life story of America's first power baron: the man who developed the power grid and was instrumental in the creation of General Electric.
``The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball,'' by Scott Gray (Doubleday): The unlikely story of how a Kansas factory worker changed the way experts thought about baseball. If you don't already know who Bill James is and why his ``Historical Baseball Abstract'' is so influential, then this subtle dissection of James's ideas will matter to you even less than a midseason doubleheader between the Detroit Tigers and the Milwaukee Brewers.
``The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth,'' by Tim Flannery (Atlantic Monthly): Prompted by the perceived threat of global warming, the Australian scientist delivers a terrifying and convincing account of man's abuse of the planet, as well as the consequences it may have for our grandchildren and beyond. If you think the weather is wild now, just wait.
``The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good,'' by William Easterly (Penguin): After trillions of dollars in aid sent from the mature economies to developing nations during the past 50 years, why is so much of the world still so poor? The New York University economist and World Bank veteran bluntly explains why he thinks we're going about it the wrong way. His advice: Think global, act local -- really local.
``To Dare and to Conquer: Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations, From Achilles to Al Qaeda,'' by Derek Leebaert (Little, Brown): An exhaustive alternative history of warfare as viewed from the perspective of clandestine warriors, who often enabled small armies to defeat much larger ones. Leebaert starts with the Trojan Horse and ends with Delta Force and the CIA. Break out your night-vision goggles: This one will hold your attention long after dark.
Fiction
``Brookland,'' by Emily Barton (Farrar, Straus & Giroux): The most prize-worthy novel of the month is the tale of three sisters in 18th-century Brooklyn, one of whom dreams of a fantastic bridge across the East River to Manhattan. An early feminist, she bides her time working at the family's gin distillery, until she can take it over and have access to the resources to make her dream come true.
``Intuition,'' by Allegra Goodman (Dial): An intriguing tale of infighting at a cash-poor Boston cancer lab, where a new treatment appears to have reduced the size of tumors in mice and could bring a funding windfall. As the various scientists struggle to handle the fallout of their apparent success, a battle erupts between science and PR. This may be the first literary soap opera for the pocket-protector brigade.
``The Ethical Assassin,'' by David Liss (Ballantine): The author's previous thrillers, ``A Conspiracy of Paper'' and ``A Spectacle of Corruption,'' expertly depicted the origins of the stock market and 18th-century financial matters. Now Liss looks at the economics of -- door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen in Florida circa 1985? Yes. It's quite entertaining, not least for the fey hit man with an animal-rights agenda.
``Apex Hides the Hurt,'' by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday): The third novel by Whitehead, a much-lauded black novelist, features a branding consultant caught up in a Midwestern town's debate over its name. The pedantic debate swirls around race, history and the import of language itself. The book's title refers to a multicultural bandage that will match your skin tone -- or your money back!
``A Death in Vienna,'' by Frank Tallis (Grove): Psychoanalyst Max Liebermann, a fictional disciple of Sigmund Freud's, assists his friend Detective Oskar Rheinhardt in investigating the murder of a medium mid-seance. Initially, the signs suggest a supernatural killer. Using the techniques of psychiatry to interrogate suspects, Liebermann slowly unravels the mystery against the picturesque background of Viennese cafe society in the early 20th century.
``A Dirty Job,'' by Christopher Moore (Morrow): In Moore's latest offbeat yarn, San Franciscan Charlie Asher watches as his child dies during birth and is scooped up by the Death Merchants, who then recruit Charlie to help save the world. Huh? It all leads up to a duel with Death beneath San Francisco's financial district. Moore is heir apparent to humorist Tom Robbins, meaning he's freaky and fun but also an acquired taste.
``The Righteous Men,'' by Sam Bourne (HarperCollins): When his wife is kidnapped, rookie crime reporter Will Monroe is forced to conclude that several killings around the world are connected. This pseudonymous fiction debut by Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland involves a race against time, strewn with bestselling ingredients like Bible codes and ancient prophecies.
``Keeping the World Away,'' by Margaret Forster (Chatto): A still life by the painter Gwen John is the central character in a novel charting its fictional adventures. Over the course of more than a hundred years, the canvas travels from Paris to the Tate Gallery via the lost-property office of a railway station, touching the lives of six women.
(The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Bloomberg.)
By Edward Nawotka
March 1 (Bloomberg) -- It's March, when the Emperor penguins in the Antarctic start their long march to mate. Many humans obsess over the Oscars. For those who'd rather be reading, we offer this preview of selected fiction and nonfiction coming in the month.
Nonfiction
``A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveler,'' by Frances Mayes (Broadway): Her bestselling ``Under the Tuscan Sun'' prompted an invasion of her Italian hometown of Cortona by camera-wielding tour groups. So Mayes takes off for some less- obnoxious locales, including Portugal, Turkey, Greece and North Africa.
``America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative Legacy,'' by Francis Fukuyama (Yale University): Fukuyama's hugely influential 1992 book, ``The End of History and the Last Man,'' asserted that liberal capitalist democracies were the ultimate manifestation of civilization, sort of. His new treatise says the neoconservative urge to spread democracy through ``preventative warfare'' has become a ``benevolent hegemony'' and may have gone too far.
``American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century,'' by Kevin Phillips (Viking): According to this former Republican strategist, every world-dominating power down through time has four things in common: militant religion, resource problems, ballooning debt and globe-spanning ambition. Does that sound like the U.S. in the beginning of the 21st century?
``Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq,'' by Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor (Pantheon): Gordon, a correspondent for the New York Times, and Trainor, a retired Marine Corps general, had first-hand access to General Tommy Franks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and others during the planning and execution of the war. They promise an insider's account full of revelations.
``Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney,'' by Paul Johnson (HarperCollins): This is the second volume in a trilogy that started with 1988's ``Intellectuals.'' The popular conservative historian now serves up brief bios of artists, including composers Bach and Wagner, scribes Austen and Dickens, fashionistas Balenciaga and Dior. Expect the third volume, ``Heroes,'' in another two decades.
``Man in the Shadows: Inside the Middle East Crisis With a Man Who Led the Mossad,'' by Efraim Halevy (St. Martin's): The ex-spook offers a unique perspective on Middle East politics from his perch atop Israel's secret service. His book provides a blow-by-blow of backdoor negotiations with the Palestinians, diplomatic clashes with the U.S. and more -- though don't expect him to reveal any state secrets.
``Miracles on the Water: The Attack on the S.S. City of Benares,'' by Tom Nagorski (Hyperion): An ABC news producer recounts the 1940 sinking of the British passenger ship by a German submarine. A total of 406 crew and passengers were aboard, 90 of whom were children. Just 13 of the children survived the gale-force winds and days adrift.
``The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky,'' by Ken Dornstein (Random House): The author's brother David, an aspiring writer, was just 25 when he died in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Using diaries and his own investigative wits, Dornstein reconstructs his brother's brief and ultimately tragic life. In addition to writing the book David never would, Ken has crafted a paean to brotherly love.
``The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences,'' by Louis Uchitelle (Knopf): Sad but true: Sometimes companies have to let workers go for the sake of profitability. This polemic by a New York Times reporter argues, in part, that corporations overuse the pink slip, and no U.S. government since the 1970s has tried to stop them. A jeremiad for Joe Six Pack and Jim Middle Manager.
``The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis,'' by John Wasik (Palgrave Macmillan): Sam Insull amassed a fortune of more than $1 billion in today's money and lost it all in the Great Depression. He died with less than a dollar in his pocket. Wasik, a Bloomberg News columnist, tells the life story of America's first power baron: the man who developed the power grid and was instrumental in the creation of General Electric.
``The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball,'' by Scott Gray (Doubleday): The unlikely story of how a Kansas factory worker changed the way experts thought about baseball. If you don't already know who Bill James is and why his ``Historical Baseball Abstract'' is so influential, then this subtle dissection of James's ideas will matter to you even less than a midseason doubleheader between the Detroit Tigers and the Milwaukee Brewers.
``The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth,'' by Tim Flannery (Atlantic Monthly): Prompted by the perceived threat of global warming, the Australian scientist delivers a terrifying and convincing account of man's abuse of the planet, as well as the consequences it may have for our grandchildren and beyond. If you think the weather is wild now, just wait.
``The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good,'' by William Easterly (Penguin): After trillions of dollars in aid sent from the mature economies to developing nations during the past 50 years, why is so much of the world still so poor? The New York University economist and World Bank veteran bluntly explains why he thinks we're going about it the wrong way. His advice: Think global, act local -- really local.
``To Dare and to Conquer: Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations, From Achilles to Al Qaeda,'' by Derek Leebaert (Little, Brown): An exhaustive alternative history of warfare as viewed from the perspective of clandestine warriors, who often enabled small armies to defeat much larger ones. Leebaert starts with the Trojan Horse and ends with Delta Force and the CIA. Break out your night-vision goggles: This one will hold your attention long after dark.
Fiction
``Brookland,'' by Emily Barton (Farrar, Straus & Giroux): The most prize-worthy novel of the month is the tale of three sisters in 18th-century Brooklyn, one of whom dreams of a fantastic bridge across the East River to Manhattan. An early feminist, she bides her time working at the family's gin distillery, until she can take it over and have access to the resources to make her dream come true.
``Intuition,'' by Allegra Goodman (Dial): An intriguing tale of infighting at a cash-poor Boston cancer lab, where a new treatment appears to have reduced the size of tumors in mice and could bring a funding windfall. As the various scientists struggle to handle the fallout of their apparent success, a battle erupts between science and PR. This may be the first literary soap opera for the pocket-protector brigade.
``The Ethical Assassin,'' by David Liss (Ballantine): The author's previous thrillers, ``A Conspiracy of Paper'' and ``A Spectacle of Corruption,'' expertly depicted the origins of the stock market and 18th-century financial matters. Now Liss looks at the economics of -- door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen in Florida circa 1985? Yes. It's quite entertaining, not least for the fey hit man with an animal-rights agenda.
``Apex Hides the Hurt,'' by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday): The third novel by Whitehead, a much-lauded black novelist, features a branding consultant caught up in a Midwestern town's debate over its name. The pedantic debate swirls around race, history and the import of language itself. The book's title refers to a multicultural bandage that will match your skin tone -- or your money back!
``A Death in Vienna,'' by Frank Tallis (Grove): Psychoanalyst Max Liebermann, a fictional disciple of Sigmund Freud's, assists his friend Detective Oskar Rheinhardt in investigating the murder of a medium mid-seance. Initially, the signs suggest a supernatural killer. Using the techniques of psychiatry to interrogate suspects, Liebermann slowly unravels the mystery against the picturesque background of Viennese cafe society in the early 20th century.
``A Dirty Job,'' by Christopher Moore (Morrow): In Moore's latest offbeat yarn, San Franciscan Charlie Asher watches as his child dies during birth and is scooped up by the Death Merchants, who then recruit Charlie to help save the world. Huh? It all leads up to a duel with Death beneath San Francisco's financial district. Moore is heir apparent to humorist Tom Robbins, meaning he's freaky and fun but also an acquired taste.
``The Righteous Men,'' by Sam Bourne (HarperCollins): When his wife is kidnapped, rookie crime reporter Will Monroe is forced to conclude that several killings around the world are connected. This pseudonymous fiction debut by Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland involves a race against time, strewn with bestselling ingredients like Bible codes and ancient prophecies.
``Keeping the World Away,'' by Margaret Forster (Chatto): A still life by the painter Gwen John is the central character in a novel charting its fictional adventures. Over the course of more than a hundred years, the canvas travels from Paris to the Tate Gallery via the lost-property office of a railway station, touching the lives of six women.
Monday, February 27, 2006
KPMG's O'Kelly Meets Death, Faux Tocqueville, Basketball: Books
KPMG's O'Kelly Meets Death, Faux Tocqueville, Basketball: Books
(The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Bloomberg.)
By Edward Nawotka
Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- On May 24, 2005, Eugene O'Kelly of KPMG LLP peered at a magnetic resonance image of his brain. The picture was ``milky, with dots of varying sizes scattered all over the place,'' he later recalled.
O'Kelly was looking at cancerous tumors. At 53, the chairman and chief executive officer of the U.S. arm of accounting firm KPMG International had three months to live.
True to form, O'Kelly made an executive decision. He vowed to ``continue to live by the rules I'd followed in my business life,'' he writes at the outset of ``Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life'' (McGraw-Hill, 179 pages, $19.95). What follows is one of the most unexpected and touching books you're likely to read this year.
``Chasing Daylight'' is both a handbook on how to ``succeed at death'' and a memoir of the months leading up to O'Kelly's passing on Sept. 10, 2005. ``As head guy,'' he writes, ``I had focused on building and planning for the future. Now, I would have to learn the true value of the present.''
Two weeks after his diagnosis, O'Kelly resigned as chairman and CEO, staying on at KPMG only as a partner. Initially, he set himself the goal of living long enough to attend a partners' meeting that November. As his energy flagged, though, he began to focus on ``unwinding relationships with close lifetime friends.''
`Perfect Moments'
O'Kelly sought to create ``perfect moments'' for each to remember him by, be it a final talk or a boat ride on Lake Tahoe. He spent significant time with his wife and 14-year-old daughter.
It was a remarkable reversal for a man who had previously booked his schedule a year or more in advance. Many people talk about living in the present. O'Kelly learned how to do it.
If anyone should savor the moment, it's a player on any of the ``Final Four'' teams vying for the U.S. National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I men's basketball championship.
``Most players dream of being in one Final Four,'' John Feinstein writes in ``Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four'' (Little, Brown, 370 pages, $25.95). ``Only a handful get to play in more than one.''
Feinstein's brisk book -- his 19th to date -- recounts classic Final Four moments, such as North Carolina State's upset win over Houston in the 1983 title game. Throughout, the author uses the 2005 Final Four in St. Louis as a backdrop.
Unfortunately, a reader can take only so many buzzer beaters and flagrant fouls. By the last chapter, when North Carolina defeats top-ranked Illinois to win the 2005 title, the book has become one long blur, like a highlight reel on fast forward. This book is mostly for die-hard fans of perennial Final Four teams.
Lap Dancers
American sports aren't high on the agenda of French author Bernard-Henri Levy, who crisscrossed the U.S. to write ``American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville'' (Random House, 309 pages, $24.95).
Even when Levy visits the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, he sniffs. ``This is not a museum; it's a church,'' he says.
Levy prefers to hobnob with a bewildering array of movie stars, authors and semi-celebrities, including Sharon Stone, Norman Mailer and Ron Reagan Jr. He would have done better to hang out with Joe Six Pack.
As the Frenchman careens across the country, he becomes as breathless as a blogger. He rails against America's ``heinous and grotesque fascination'' with guns. He enthuses about Seattle. Lap dancers in New Orleans, Levy says, are ``so much bolder and more cheerful than the cloned dolls in the Las Vegas clubs.''
By the end of this book, you're worn out -- as if you've sat through a slide show of out-of-focus vacation snapshots narrated by your pretentious foreign cousin.
(The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Bloomberg.)
By Edward Nawotka
Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- On May 24, 2005, Eugene O'Kelly of KPMG LLP peered at a magnetic resonance image of his brain. The picture was ``milky, with dots of varying sizes scattered all over the place,'' he later recalled.
O'Kelly was looking at cancerous tumors. At 53, the chairman and chief executive officer of the U.S. arm of accounting firm KPMG International had three months to live.
True to form, O'Kelly made an executive decision. He vowed to ``continue to live by the rules I'd followed in my business life,'' he writes at the outset of ``Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life'' (McGraw-Hill, 179 pages, $19.95). What follows is one of the most unexpected and touching books you're likely to read this year.
``Chasing Daylight'' is both a handbook on how to ``succeed at death'' and a memoir of the months leading up to O'Kelly's passing on Sept. 10, 2005. ``As head guy,'' he writes, ``I had focused on building and planning for the future. Now, I would have to learn the true value of the present.''
Two weeks after his diagnosis, O'Kelly resigned as chairman and CEO, staying on at KPMG only as a partner. Initially, he set himself the goal of living long enough to attend a partners' meeting that November. As his energy flagged, though, he began to focus on ``unwinding relationships with close lifetime friends.''
`Perfect Moments'
O'Kelly sought to create ``perfect moments'' for each to remember him by, be it a final talk or a boat ride on Lake Tahoe. He spent significant time with his wife and 14-year-old daughter.
It was a remarkable reversal for a man who had previously booked his schedule a year or more in advance. Many people talk about living in the present. O'Kelly learned how to do it.
If anyone should savor the moment, it's a player on any of the ``Final Four'' teams vying for the U.S. National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I men's basketball championship.
``Most players dream of being in one Final Four,'' John Feinstein writes in ``Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four'' (Little, Brown, 370 pages, $25.95). ``Only a handful get to play in more than one.''
Feinstein's brisk book -- his 19th to date -- recounts classic Final Four moments, such as North Carolina State's upset win over Houston in the 1983 title game. Throughout, the author uses the 2005 Final Four in St. Louis as a backdrop.
Unfortunately, a reader can take only so many buzzer beaters and flagrant fouls. By the last chapter, when North Carolina defeats top-ranked Illinois to win the 2005 title, the book has become one long blur, like a highlight reel on fast forward. This book is mostly for die-hard fans of perennial Final Four teams.
Lap Dancers
American sports aren't high on the agenda of French author Bernard-Henri Levy, who crisscrossed the U.S. to write ``American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville'' (Random House, 309 pages, $24.95).
Even when Levy visits the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, he sniffs. ``This is not a museum; it's a church,'' he says.
Levy prefers to hobnob with a bewildering array of movie stars, authors and semi-celebrities, including Sharon Stone, Norman Mailer and Ron Reagan Jr. He would have done better to hang out with Joe Six Pack.
As the Frenchman careens across the country, he becomes as breathless as a blogger. He rails against America's ``heinous and grotesque fascination'' with guns. He enthuses about Seattle. Lap dancers in New Orleans, Levy says, are ``so much bolder and more cheerful than the cloned dolls in the Las Vegas clubs.''
By the end of this book, you're worn out -- as if you've sat through a slide show of out-of-focus vacation snapshots narrated by your pretentious foreign cousin.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Sex, Lies and Memoirs: Callahan on `Cheating Culture'
Sex, Lies and Memoirs: Callahan on `Cheating Culture'
By Edward Nawotka
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Only a hermit could have missed the
uproar over James Frey, who lied about his troubled past in his
bestselling memoir, ``A Million Little Pieces.''
First reported by Web site thesmokinggun.com last month, the
news prompted a rebuke from U.S. talk-show host Oprah Winfrey and
helped unmask other fakers.
Author JT Leroy, for example, seduced literary insiders by
telling them he was a bisexual West Virginian in his 20s who was
dying of AIDS. ``He,'' the New York Times reported, is actually
one Laura Albert, a 40-year-old mother from San Francisco.
Then there's memoirist ``Nasdijj,'' who said he was a Navajo
suffering from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. LA Weekly and the News &
Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, have confirmed that he's Tim
Barrus, a white writer of gay erotica.
To try to understand what's going on, I turned to David
Callahan, author of ``The Cheating Culture'' (Harcourt, 366
pages, $14), a book that explores the recent rise of plagiarism,
accounting fraud and other forms of dishonesty. Callahan will
publish a new book, ``The Moral Center,'' in September. I talked
to him yesterday by phone from his home in New York.
Culture of Narcissism
Nawotka: With so many fraudsters selling books these days,
what's happening to publishing? You shared an agent with
``Nasdijj.'' Is fraud becoming more prevalent?
Callahan: It's hard to know if there's more of it -- or if
there is just a spate of these coming to light. Cheating and
deception by their very nature want to go undetected. I'm
reluctant to say that literary fraud is on the increase.
Incentives are on the increase. In the world of writing, we live
in a winner-take-all economy. James Frey is making millions while
the typical writer is barely paying the rent.
Nawotka: Why don't they just publish novels?
Callahan: We live in a self-revelatory age, a culture of
narcissism, and want to share in other people's inner lives.
Novels don't cater to that in same way that memoirs do. Everybody
wants to break out and be one of the stars. One of the ways to do
that is to tell a larger-than-life story.
Nawotka: So is there a fraud genre in literature?
Callahan: There is a long tradition in the memoir business
of exaggerating the truth. There's also a hoax genre as well.
Remember ``Hitler's Diaries''? That was a hoax.
Crossing the Line
Nawotka: Does that mean we need to make some allowances for
the memoir genre? Surely Casanova made a few things up.
Callahan: Unless we do, there will not be interesting
memoirs. No one has total recall, especially when it comes to
writing about personal events. The only way to keep readers
involved is to take some licenses in terms of fleshing out
conversations and scenes. But is it OK to go on for five pages?
No. There's a consensus that James Frey crossed the line.
Nawotka: Do you think Frey believes that what he did was
wrong?
Callahan: Yes, but the question has to be, ``would he do it
again?'' The choices are write a dull memoir and sink without a
trace or make up stuff, sell 3 million copies and have to
apologize and be humiliated. I think he'd pick option B. A lot of
people would. The gains from cheating outweigh the downsides.
Nawotka: How so? Some critics have called for him to donate
his $3 million to $4 million in royalties to charity.
Callahan: Then he can turn around and sell another book
about his lying problem. You know James Frey will be back with
some redemption story, just as Martha Stewart came back with
hers. We live in the kind of society that loves to tear people
down and to build them back up again.
Legal Action
Nawotka: Is this why some readers forgive Frey?
Callahan: Readers want to be entertained. They read to be
moved. Some may feel betrayed because they were manipulated.
Nawotka: Some are even bringing legal action against him.
Callahan: That's silly.
Nawotka: What role do the media play in this? Has reality
television changed our perception of reality?
Callahan: The media are constantly raising the bar on how
sensational something has to be to get people's attention. It's
not surprising nonfiction authors try to feed that appetite. This
is about our addiction to the sensational.
Nawotka: Are you surprised by the amount of attention this
has gotten?
Callahan: Nobody died, was hurt or lost money -- except,
perhaps, for the cover price of the book. Nothing bad happened to
anybody, yet this has gotten more coverage than the genocide in
Sudan. It just shows you how much the media love a good scandal.
By Edward Nawotka
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Only a hermit could have missed the
uproar over James Frey, who lied about his troubled past in his
bestselling memoir, ``A Million Little Pieces.''
First reported by Web site thesmokinggun.com last month, the
news prompted a rebuke from U.S. talk-show host Oprah Winfrey and
helped unmask other fakers.
Author JT Leroy, for example, seduced literary insiders by
telling them he was a bisexual West Virginian in his 20s who was
dying of AIDS. ``He,'' the New York Times reported, is actually
one Laura Albert, a 40-year-old mother from San Francisco.
Then there's memoirist ``Nasdijj,'' who said he was a Navajo
suffering from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. LA Weekly and the News &
Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, have confirmed that he's Tim
Barrus, a white writer of gay erotica.
To try to understand what's going on, I turned to David
Callahan, author of ``The Cheating Culture'' (Harcourt, 366
pages, $14), a book that explores the recent rise of plagiarism,
accounting fraud and other forms of dishonesty. Callahan will
publish a new book, ``The Moral Center,'' in September. I talked
to him yesterday by phone from his home in New York.
Culture of Narcissism
Nawotka: With so many fraudsters selling books these days,
what's happening to publishing? You shared an agent with
``Nasdijj.'' Is fraud becoming more prevalent?
Callahan: It's hard to know if there's more of it -- or if
there is just a spate of these coming to light. Cheating and
deception by their very nature want to go undetected. I'm
reluctant to say that literary fraud is on the increase.
Incentives are on the increase. In the world of writing, we live
in a winner-take-all economy. James Frey is making millions while
the typical writer is barely paying the rent.
Nawotka: Why don't they just publish novels?
Callahan: We live in a self-revelatory age, a culture of
narcissism, and want to share in other people's inner lives.
Novels don't cater to that in same way that memoirs do. Everybody
wants to break out and be one of the stars. One of the ways to do
that is to tell a larger-than-life story.
Nawotka: So is there a fraud genre in literature?
Callahan: There is a long tradition in the memoir business
of exaggerating the truth. There's also a hoax genre as well.
Remember ``Hitler's Diaries''? That was a hoax.
Crossing the Line
Nawotka: Does that mean we need to make some allowances for
the memoir genre? Surely Casanova made a few things up.
Callahan: Unless we do, there will not be interesting
memoirs. No one has total recall, especially when it comes to
writing about personal events. The only way to keep readers
involved is to take some licenses in terms of fleshing out
conversations and scenes. But is it OK to go on for five pages?
No. There's a consensus that James Frey crossed the line.
Nawotka: Do you think Frey believes that what he did was
wrong?
Callahan: Yes, but the question has to be, ``would he do it
again?'' The choices are write a dull memoir and sink without a
trace or make up stuff, sell 3 million copies and have to
apologize and be humiliated. I think he'd pick option B. A lot of
people would. The gains from cheating outweigh the downsides.
Nawotka: How so? Some critics have called for him to donate
his $3 million to $4 million in royalties to charity.
Callahan: Then he can turn around and sell another book
about his lying problem. You know James Frey will be back with
some redemption story, just as Martha Stewart came back with
hers. We live in the kind of society that loves to tear people
down and to build them back up again.
Legal Action
Nawotka: Is this why some readers forgive Frey?
Callahan: Readers want to be entertained. They read to be
moved. Some may feel betrayed because they were manipulated.
Nawotka: Some are even bringing legal action against him.
Callahan: That's silly.
Nawotka: What role do the media play in this? Has reality
television changed our perception of reality?
Callahan: The media are constantly raising the bar on how
sensational something has to be to get people's attention. It's
not surprising nonfiction authors try to feed that appetite. This
is about our addiction to the sensational.
Nawotka: Are you surprised by the amount of attention this
has gotten?
Callahan: Nobody died, was hurt or lost money -- except,
perhaps, for the cover price of the book. Nothing bad happened to
anybody, yet this has gotten more coverage than the genocide in
Sudan. It just shows you how much the media love a good scandal.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Lincoln's Assassin Comes to Life, Hour by Hour, in `Manhunt'
Lincoln's Assassin Comes to Life, Hour by Hour, in `Manhunt'
Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The night Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theater in Washington, actress Laura Keene made a strange request: She asked to cradle the president's head in her lap.
She didn't volunteer for this macabre Pieta to offer succor. She wanted a souvenir. As Keene held Lincoln's blasted skull, ``tiny bits of gray matter oozed onto the cream silk fabric'' of her dress, writes James L. Swanson in his riveting ``Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer'' (Morrow, 448 pages, $26.95).
Keene wasn't alone in her blood lust. The next morning, an embalmer drained Lincoln's blood and poured it into glass jars, where it was ``sacredly preserved,'' the author notes in this hour-by-hour chronicle of the assassination and subsequent search for the killer, John Wilkes Booth.
Swanson's previous book, ``Lincoln's Assassins: Their Trial and Execution,'' presented a groundbreaking collection of more than 300 photos and documents from the case. ``Manhunt'' weaves that raw material into a narrative dramatic enough to be optioned for a film with Harrison Ford as Col. Everton Conger, the Civil War cavalryman who led the search for Booth.
Black Silk Lining
Thousands of books and articles have been written about the assassination of Lincoln and the hunt for Booth, including Michael Kauffman's exhaustive ``American Brutus.'' Yet none quite matches Swanson's wealth of detail, right down to the Brooks Brothers frock coat Lincoln wore the night he was shot. Embossed in the black silk lining was an American eagle, a shield of stars and strips and the motto ``One Country, One Destiny.''
Five days before the assassination, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered. Washington was in rapture. Booth was outraged. A renowned actor and Confederate sympathizer, Booth scorned what he saw as Lincoln's ideas of ``nigger suffrage.'' He called together three men who had earlier conspired with him on a foiled plot to kidnap Lincoln. They were Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt.
On the morning of April 14, 1865, Booth dropped by Ford's Theater, where he learned that Lincoln would be attending a performance that night of ``Our American Cousin.'' With only eight hours to go before the performance, the conspirators set in motion a plan for simultaneous assassinations of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward.
Confederate Sympathizers
Only Booth succeeded. Atzerodt couldn't get up the nerve to kill Johnson. When Powell attacked Seward at his home, he met strong resistance, his pistol misfired and he fled. Herold, who was holding Powell's getaway horse, also bolted.
Later that night, Herold met Booth outside Washington. They stuck together for the next dozen days, on the run through the woods of Maryland and Virginia, aided by Confederate sympathizers.
The most infamous of these was Samuel Mudd, the doctor who bound Booth's tibia, broken when the actor leapt from Lincoln's theater box to the stage during his escape. Others brought supplies, including newspapers so Booth could read reviews of his ``performance assassination,'' as Swanson calls it.
Powell and Atzerodt were rooted out within a week. Booth and Herold evaded capture until April 26, 1865, when a tip led Conger and a Union Calvary regiment to a tobacco shed on a farm near Port Royal, Virginia. Herold surrendered. Booth challenged all 26 soldiers to duel and was inadvertently shot to death by an excitable young soldier named Boston Corbett.
Determined to keep Booth from becoming a folk hero, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton had the corpse photographed and hidden. Stanton also made a spectacle of the hangings of Booth's co-conspirators. Even so, sightings of Booth were reported across the country, as they are today with Elvis Presley.
Monday, February 06, 2006
A Dwarf, Jackie O., Gordon Liddy: Preview of February Books
A Dwarf, Jackie O., Gordon Liddy: Preview of February Books
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- February, traditionally a slow month in publishing, still has big names in the lineup. Here is our selection of nonfiction and fiction.
Nonfiction
``Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst: A True Story of Inside Information and Corruption in the Stock Market,'' by Daniel Reingold (HarperCollins): The author's memoir of 14 years as the top telecommunications analyst at Salomon Smith Barney isn't terribly dishy, but it does offer a career blueprint for aspiring Wall Streeters on how to win influential friends and make even more influential enemies.
``Crunchy Cons,'' by Rob Dreher (Crown): The subtitle says it all ``How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of counterculture conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party).'' This guy isn't kidding, either.
``Fight Back: Tackling Terrorism, Liddy Style,'' by G. Gordon Liddy (St. Martins): In an odd amalgam of practical advice and conservative cant, Liddy explains everything from how explosives work to what the White House can do to protect itself from a violent mob. His last two books were bestsellers, and there's a strong suspicion that this one might be as well.
``Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy,'' by Bruce Bartlett (Doubleday): The former Reagan White House staffer attacks Bush II for his short- term political opportunism that has led to ``finger-in-the-wind'' economic leadership that has bankrupted the Republican party of its political capital.
``Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four,'' by John Feinstein (Little, Brown): If there were a race to write the fastest book, Feinstein would have the competition lapped. Here's a guy who can compose a pair of pretty-good fly-on-the-wall sports books a year. This one, his latest since October's ``Next Man Up,'' covers the climax of the 65-team Division I NCAA men's basketball tournament.
``Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness,'' by Erik Reece (Riverhead): This Kentucky professor's expose on ``radical strip mining'' in Appalachia proves that a man can move a mountain. The book offers a detailed account of how miners removed the top of a mountain, leaving its residents -- deer, fox and songbirds -- nowhere to live.
``Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer,'' by James L. Swanson (Harper Collins): This thrilling hour-by-hour chronicle of the hunt for John Wilkes Booth has more gore than an entire season of ``CSI'' and a surfeit of detail about Booth's co-conspirators. Harrison Ford has signed on to star in the film.
``Mouthpiece: A Life in -- and Sometimes Just Outside -- the Law,'' by Edward Hayes (Broadway): This autobiography by the colorful and opinionated New York City criminal attorney, who would have been comfortable in the cast of ``Guys and Dolls,'' has enough anecdotes for a dozen episodes of ``Law and Order.''
``Preemption: A Knife That Cuts Both Ways,'' by Alan M. Dershowitz (Norton): The leftist Harvard law professor weighs in on why a foreign policy based on ``shoot first, ask questions later'' may be doing more harm than good. This book is the second in the ``Issues of Our Times'' series edited by fellow Harvardian Henry Louis Gates Jr.
``The Big Oyster: New York on the Half Shell,'' by Mark Kurlansky (Ballantine): Kurlansky hit it big with his books ``Cod'' and ``Salt'' and hopes to work the same mojo with this history of the Big Apple from 1626, when Peter Minuit bought the oyster beds off Ellis Island, to the 1920s, when the beds were finally ruined by pollution.
``The Coming Economic Collapse: How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs $200 a Barrel,'' by Stephen Leeb and Glen Strathy (Warner): The authors argue that the U.S. economy is standing on the precipice of the biggest crisis in its history and being pushed from behind as China and India rapidly expand. A few savvy Americans will be able to take advantage.
``The Judgment of Paris,'' by Ross King (Walker): The third volume of narrative art history from the bestselling author of ``Brunelleschi's Dome,'' takes on an even more esoteric topic: the Paris art scene, 1863-74, when Manet, Renoir, Monet, Degas, Cezanne and others challenged the establishment with their radical visions.
``The Oracle: The Lost Secrets and Hidden Message of Ancient Delphi,'' by William J. Broad (Penguin): A historical investigation into the temple practices that led ancient Greeks to believe the Oracle of Delphi could communicate with the gods. Broad, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, reveals that the Oracle was probably high on hallucinogenic fumes emanating from the temple floor.
``War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to al- Qaeda,'' by Jonathan Tucker (Pantheon): Tucker, an arms-control expert, explains that armies haven't shied away from using nerve agents when they felt they were expedient -- and there's a lot more of the deadly stuff out there in nefarious hands than you might think.
Fiction
``Cleaver,'' by Tim Parks (Harvill Secker): Our eponymous protagonist is a larger-than-life newsman. Overweight and overwrought, he flees his successful career and a tangled domestic situation in search of solitude, traveling all the way to the Tyrolean Mountains before realizing that he can't escape himself.
``In the Company of the Courtesan,'' by Sarah Dunant (Random House): The British author's follow-up to the bestselling ``Birth of Venus'' features a courtesan named Fiammetta Bianchini who escapes the sack of Rome in 1527 with a stomach full of jewels and flees to Venice with her dwarf. Yes, her dwarf. Who knew the 16th century was so kinky?
``Kept,'' by D.J. Taylor (Chatto & Windus): A labyrinthine Victorian mystery by the award-winning biographer of Orwell and Thackeray. Sweeping from the Scottish highlands to the East Anglian fens and London's underworld, it promises madness, greed and obsession. There's even a train robbery.
``Lapham Rising,'' by Roger Rosenblatt (Ecco): The venerable magazine editorialist and TV commentator satirizes the development of Long Island's exclusive Hamptons area, as a reclusive writer and his talking dog try to take revenge on a multimillionaire whose new mega-home has ruined their idyll.
``Strivers Row,'' by Kevin Baker (HarperCollins): The conclusion of Baker's ``City of Fire'' trilogy about key moments in the history of New York City -- previous volumes were ``Dreamland'' and ``Paradise Alley'' -- takes place in World War II Harlem and stars Malcolm Little, the man who soon transforms himself into Malcolm X.
``The Amalgamation Polka,'' by Stephen Wright (Knopf): It has been 12 years since Wright's ``Going Native'' was hailed as a postmodern masterpiece. This new novel, about a Civil War-era abolitionist, treats the period as high farce and the war as grotesque picaresque. Love it or hate it, the novel is guaranteed to get the bookish chattering classes talking once again.
``The Brief History of the Dead,'' by Kevin Brockmeier (Pantheon): Brockmeier writes cutting-edge speculative fiction, sci-fi for the smart set. In his best book yet, a deadly virus has wiped out life on Earth and the dead gather in ``The City,'' where they subsist on the memories of the living, such as Laura, an Antarctic wildlife researcher. It's weird and quite wonderful.
``The Dublin Saga: The Rebels of Ireland,'' by Edward Rutherfurd (Doubleday): Rutherfurd concludes his two-volume fictional treatment of the history of Ireland with a novel that covers the period from 1534, as the English finally conquered the island, to 1922, when Ireland secured its independence. At 896 pages, the book averages a year every two pages.
``The Secret Memoirs of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis,'' by Ruth Francisco (St. Martin's): A fictional look into the secretive life of the former First Lady and her love affairs with the rich and powerful. Some men are soft and tender, others are simply brutes. It's pure fiction, but a potentially successful formula. We suggest Francisco take on Princess Diana as her next subject.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Perkins's `Zillionaire,' King's Zombies, a Loutish Debut: Books
Perkins's `Zillionaire,' King's Zombies, a Loutish Debut: Books
(The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Bloomberg.)
By Edward Nawotka
Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) -- How do billionaires have sex?
The answer, judging from Tom Perkins's debut novel, is that they do it like protagonists in pulp romances: on yachts anchored off St. Barts with partners as athletic as porn stars.
Perkins should know. As a founding partner of
At age 73, Perkins has lived a full life. Kleiner Perkins has financed the likes of Google Inc. Yet he's not afraid to launch a career as a novelist with ``Sex and the Single Zillionaire'' (HarperCollins, 290 pages, $24.95), a light confection about a 62-year-old investment banker, Steven Hudson, who goes for a spin on a reality TV show called ``Trophy Bride.''
The program shows Steven dating a chorus line of willing gold diggers, including a ditzy blonde ``country girl,'' a pair of whip-wielding lesbians and an insatiable nymphet who force- feeds him Viagra. Steven yawns. This ``Lion of Wall Street'' is not easily seduced. He has his eye on the show's 39-year-old producer, Jessie James.
Perkins's crisp prose -- honed on years of crafting stock prospectuses, no doubt -- propels the story through waves of superlatives. When Steven first meets Jessie, she's described as ``startling beautiful: tall, black hair, brilliant blue eyes, and a look in her sculpted face of refinement and intrigue. Her complexion was extraordinary, her figure marvelous.''
21 Club, Gulfstream V
And so on. Nearly everyone in this book has a flawless physique. Only Steven's personal chef is, well, ``chubby.''
Throughout, Perkins catalogs the earthly delights available to the rich, from a Gulfstream V with pilots on 24-hour standby to walk-in seating at New York's 21 Club, where ``tables were more guardedly allocated than positions in heaven.''
Need we say that the rich man gets the girl?
On the other end of the spectrum stands Stephen King, the writer who drops a fly in every bowl of turtle soup. A year after watching his beloved Boston Red Sox win the 2004 World Series, King destroys the city in his icky new book, ``Cell'' (Scribner, 350 pages, $26.95).
The novel opens with a stunt. One October afternoon at exactly 3:03 p.m., a mysterious electronic pulse transforms anyone talking on a cell phone into a flesh-eating zombie.
Fluff and Guts
Clay Riddle, our hero, is standing opposite the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston when the pulse goes out. He watches as a business woman and two schoolgirls at a Mister Softee ice-cream truck devour the vendor.
Behind Clay, in a tasteless echo of what happened at New York's World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, people try to escape the zombies by jumping from buildings. A poodle gets off relatively easy when it's run down by a limo crossing Boylston Street. ``Fluff at one moment; guts at the next,'' writes King.
Clay teams up with two other ``normies,'' and they set out to walk to Clay's home in
Though King is a self-proclaimed cell-phone Luddite, he isn't above allowing his publisher to promote the book by offering a downloadable ``Pulse'' ring tone.
Unfortunately, this book turns out to be as silly as its premise. ``Cell'' offers few ideas unexplored by dozens of zombie flicks, ranking the novel as one of the least imaginative in King's increasingly inconsistent opus.
`Utterly Monkey'
Nick Laird is best known to the public as the husband of novelist Zadie Smith. His first novel is as different from ``On Beauty'' as a Mini Cooper is from a Mercedes.
``Utterly Monkey'' (HarperCollins, 368 pages, $13.95; Fourth Estate, 9.99 pounds) is a loutish-lad thriller about London lawyer Danny Simmons and his feckless childhood mate, Geordie, who arrives on Danny's doorstep with 50,000 pounds stolen from Loyalist paramilitaries back home in Northern Ireland.
Soon Danny and Geordie discover they've stumbled into a plot to bomb the Bank of England on July 12, the day when Protestant ``Orangemen'' march in Northern Ireland to commemorate the victory of William of Orange over James II in the 1690 Battle of the Boyne. Together, they try to foil the fanatics.
Laird, a former attorney who hails from
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Skin-Flick Awards, Incendiary Events and Hawaiian Lepers: Books
Skin-Flick Awards, Incendiary Events and Hawaiian Lepers: Books
Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Pornographic filmmakers and starlets roll into Las Vegas each January for the Adult Video News Awards, a.k.a. the X-Rated Oscars. Staged in a ballroom jammed with surgically enhanced blondes, the event honors artists such as Stormy Daniels for her performance in ``Camp Cuddly Pines Powertool Massacre.''
David Foster Wallace attends the awards in his latest book, a collection of essays and criticism, ``Consider the Lobster'' (Little, Brown, 343 pages, $25.95; Abacus, 10.99 pounds). He comes away with a slideshow of arresting images, the most timid of which involves a G-string clad actress ``forked dorsally over the knee of a morbidly obese cell-phone retailer.''
Wallace is best known as the bandanna-capped author of ``Infinite Jest,'' a pedantic novel in which he laced characters from a tennis academy and a halfway house together with digressive footnotes and a Ph.D.-level vocabulary. Though the book showed flashes of brilliance, its 1,076 pages proved too long and too discursive for most.
A decade later, Wallace's head rag is gone. Yet his academic tricks are again on display in ``Lobster,'' which takes its name from a trip to the Maine Lobster Festival. The visit reminded Wallace of a ``Roman circus or medieval torture-fest'' as he watched lobsters by the thousands being boiled alive to sate the hunger of 100,000 tourists.
Updike and Satyriasis
Elsewhere, Wallace expertly dissects such things as why the campaign of a Republican senator, John McCain, appealed to young voters. He also picks apart authors including John Updike, whom he calls ``heterosexual to the point of satyriasis.''
Wallace is engaging and exasperating by turns; he himself says his writing can seem like ``fatuous navel-gazing.'' Only one piece here goes light on marginalia: a heartfelt recollection of sitting with church-going grandmothers in rural Illinois as they rocked in chairs and watched the World Trade Center towers collapse on a flat-panel TV on Sept. 11, 2001.
Amitav Ghosh, a peripatetic India-born novelist and journalist, witnessed those attacks from his home in nearby Brooklyn Heights. The onslaught created a ``generation gap that separates me from my children: their imagining of the world will be different from mine,'' he laments in his latest book, ``Incendiary Circumstances'' (Houghton Mifflin, 320 pages, $25).
The book offers 17 pieces of reporting spanning 30 years. Ghosh opens with the Asian tsunami of Dec. 26, 2004, showing how survivors on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands struggled to create a paper trail so they could identify themselves to banks.
`Fluttering Barrier'
``The sea took my uniform, my ration card, my service card, my tribal papers -- it took everything,'' a corporal in the Indian army says. ``I can't prove who I am.''
Ghosh also revisits India's controversial nuclear-weapon test in 1998; the start of the 1991 Gulf War; and anti-Sikh riots that killed 3,000 people in New Delhi following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on Oct. 31, 1984.
Not content to be a witness, Ghosh helped organize a march against that rioting. At one point, women among the marchers confronted rioters by stepping forward to form a protective circle around fellow protesters.
``Their saris and kameezes became a thin, fluttering barrier,'' Ghosh writes. The act embodied Gandhi's ideal of nonviolent resistance, shaming the rioters into retreat.
This collection offers a valuable reminder that our planet is convulsed with cultural and political volatility, whether we care to watch or not.
Hawaiian Lepers
In October, President George W. Bush made the chilling suggestion that he'd consider using the military to enforce a quarantine should avian flu break out in the U.S. Before taking that step, Bush ought to read John Tayman's ``The Colony'' (Scribner, 421 pages, $27.95), a history of lepers exiled to the Hawaiian island of Molokai.
Tayman transports readers to the 1860s, when Hawaii's monarchy was haunted by a smallpox epidemic that had killed half the population of Oahu. Fearing leprosy might pose the next big health threat, the government of King Kamehameha V shipped lepers to a rocky peninsula on Molokai.
On Jan. 6, 1866, the first 12 arrived. They were given only a few shovels and axes, gray wool blankets, some salt beef, bread and two cottages. By the 1890s, the colony had swelled to 1,174 people and 423 buildings.
Deliberate Infections
``The Colony'' often reads like an adventure story, recalling hardships the lepers suffered. One horrifying chapter describes how Arthur Mouritz, the settlement's physician, experimented with healthy patients, using scalpel and hypodermic needles to infect them with ``serum brimming with leprosy bacteria.'' Tayman also documents acts of kindness administered by clergy members such as Flemish Catholic missionary Father Damien, who caught the disease and died in 1889.
The book offers medical insights into leprosy, today known as Hansen's Disease. Roughly 5 percent of the world's population is susceptible, though the incidence is higher among Hawaiians and the French. Untreated, the disease causes disfigurement. It's seldom fatal. In the 1940s, scientists developed Dapsone, a drug that keeps leprosy from reproducing and prevents disability and communicability.
Hawaii's quarantine law remained in place until 1967. Today, 28 people still live on the grounds of the colony; four survivors gave Tayman vivid first-hand accounts.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Writer James Frey to Add Author's Note to Contested Bestseller
By Edward Nawotka
Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Author James Frey will add an author's note to future editions of his contested book, ``A Million Little Pieces,'' his publisher said today.
The news of the addendum was issued in an e-mailed statement by the Doubleday Books imprint of Random House, a unit of Bertelsmann AG. In an interview, Alison Rich, director of publicity for Doubleday, wouldn't comment on what the note will say.
The Web site thesmokinggun.com alleged that in the memoir the author exaggerated his run-ins with the police and the jail time he served. A story on the site said Frey fabricated his involvement in a 1986 train crash that killed two schoolmates in Michigan.
Doubleday has defended the book, which was initially submitted to publishers as a work of fiction, saying, ``The power of the overall reading experience is such that the book remains a deeply inspiring and redemptive story for millions of readers.''
Television talk show host Oprah Winfrey turned ``A Million Little Pieces'' into a publishing phenomenon when she made the memoir the selection for her book club late last year. The book subsequently sold some 1.7 million copies, according to Nielsen BookScan, and was the second-bestselling book last year in the U.S., bested only by J.K. Rowling's ``Harry Potter and the Half- Blood Prince.''
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Oprah Winfrey Defends Author Frey's `A Million Little Pieces'
Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Television talk show host Oprah
Winfrey rose to the defense of author James Frey, who is alleged
by the Web site thesmokinggun.com to have manufactured portions of
his bestselling memoir ``A Million Little Pieces.''
Winfrey phoned into CNN's ``Larry King Live'' television show
Wednesday night, as Frey was reaching the end of his first
interview since thesmokinggun.com alleged on Sunday that the
author had exaggerated his run-ins with the police and the jail
time he had served.
The piece also alleged that Frey fabricated his involvement
in a 1986 train crash that killed two schoolmates in Michigan.
``What is relevant is that he was a drug addict,'' Winfrey
said, and that he ``stepped out of that history to be the man he
is today and to take that message to save other people and allow
them to save themselves.''
Winfrey waited until less than a minute before the show ended
to phone in, saying she wanted to hear what Frey himself said
before commenting. When Larry King announced that he would extend
the program for a few moments because he had Winfrey on the line,
a gasp -- from whom was unclear -- could be heard off camera.
Speaking with her trademark exasperation, Winfrey said that
she and her television producers ``support the book because we
recognize that there have been thousands and hundreds of thousands
of people who've been changed by it.'' She sounded impatient with
the controversy, calling it ``much ado about nothing.''
Publishing Phenomenon
Had Winfrey challenged, condemned or even expressed
disappointment in Frey, it could have had dramatic consequences
for his career. Winfrey turned ``A Million Little Pieces'' into a
publishing phenomenon when she made the memoir the selection for
her book club late last year.
The book has subsequently sold some 1.7 million copies,
according to Nielsen BookScan, and was the second-bestselling book
last year in the U.S., bested only by J.K. Rowling's ``Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince''
During the ``Larry King Live'' show, Frey -- known to his
readers as a tattooed tough guy -- suppressed his customary
swagger. He said he had embellished some scenes in the book, yet
he defended this as a literary convention.
`Emotional Truth'
``In the memoir genre, the writer usually takes liberties,''
he said. ``The emotional truth is there.''
Frey's publisher is the Doubleday Books imprint of Random
House, a unit of Bertelsmann AG. Random House said in a statement
Wednesday that it would refund the money of anyone who purchased
the book ``directly from us,'' either over the phone or through
the company's Web site.
This represents a fraction of the more than 3 million copies
of the book sold through stores and online retailers such as
Amazon.com Inc.
It's not uncommon for memoirists to be accused of being
economical with the facts, though it's usually the author's
immediate family that takes umbrage.
The daughter of author Tony Hendra, for example, was quoted
in a 2004 interview with the New York Times as saying that her
father abused her as a child and had omitted that from his book,
``Father Joe.'' She subsequently detailed the allegations in her
own memoir, ``How to Cook Your Daughter.''
Hendra has denied the allegations.
Frey's mother, for one, is standing by her son. Lynne Frey
appeared alongside the author on ``Larry King Live,'' saying she
and her husband were disappointed that their son's book had been
attacked.
``We believe in James,'' she said, ``and we believe in the
book. The book stands on its own.''
Winfrey rose to the defense of author James Frey, who is alleged
by the Web site thesmokinggun.com to have manufactured portions of
his bestselling memoir ``A Million Little Pieces.''
Winfrey phoned into CNN's ``Larry King Live'' television show
Wednesday night, as Frey was reaching the end of his first
interview since thesmokinggun.com alleged on Sunday that the
author had exaggerated his run-ins with the police and the jail
time he had served.
The piece also alleged that Frey fabricated his involvement
in a 1986 train crash that killed two schoolmates in Michigan.
``What is relevant is that he was a drug addict,'' Winfrey
said, and that he ``stepped out of that history to be the man he
is today and to take that message to save other people and allow
them to save themselves.''
Winfrey waited until less than a minute before the show ended
to phone in, saying she wanted to hear what Frey himself said
before commenting. When Larry King announced that he would extend
the program for a few moments because he had Winfrey on the line,
a gasp -- from whom was unclear -- could be heard off camera.
Speaking with her trademark exasperation, Winfrey said that
she and her television producers ``support the book because we
recognize that there have been thousands and hundreds of thousands
of people who've been changed by it.'' She sounded impatient with
the controversy, calling it ``much ado about nothing.''
Publishing Phenomenon
Had Winfrey challenged, condemned or even expressed
disappointment in Frey, it could have had dramatic consequences
for his career. Winfrey turned ``A Million Little Pieces'' into a
publishing phenomenon when she made the memoir the selection for
her book club late last year.
The book has subsequently sold some 1.7 million copies,
according to Nielsen BookScan, and was the second-bestselling book
last year in the U.S., bested only by J.K. Rowling's ``Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince''
During the ``Larry King Live'' show, Frey -- known to his
readers as a tattooed tough guy -- suppressed his customary
swagger. He said he had embellished some scenes in the book, yet
he defended this as a literary convention.
`Emotional Truth'
``In the memoir genre, the writer usually takes liberties,''
he said. ``The emotional truth is there.''
Frey's publisher is the Doubleday Books imprint of Random
House, a unit of Bertelsmann AG. Random House said in a statement
Wednesday that it would refund the money of anyone who purchased
the book ``directly from us,'' either over the phone or through
the company's Web site.
This represents a fraction of the more than 3 million copies
of the book sold through stores and online retailers such as
Amazon.com Inc.
It's not uncommon for memoirists to be accused of being
economical with the facts, though it's usually the author's
immediate family that takes umbrage.
The daughter of author Tony Hendra, for example, was quoted
in a 2004 interview with the New York Times as saying that her
father abused her as a child and had omitted that from his book,
``Father Joe.'' She subsequently detailed the allegations in her
own memoir, ``How to Cook Your Daughter.''
Hendra has denied the allegations.
Frey's mother, for one, is standing by her son. Lynne Frey
appeared alongside the author on ``Larry King Live,'' saying she
and her husband were disappointed that their son's book had been
attacked.
``We believe in James,'' she said, ``and we believe in the
book. The book stands on its own.''
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Poker Man's Gamble, Happiness as History, Parisian Luck: Books
Poker Man's Gamble, Happiness as History, Parisian Luck: Books
Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Novelist James McManus understands odds. A semiprofessional poker player, he described his fifth-place finish in the 2000 World Series of Poker in ``Positively Fifth Street.''
McManus also knows the deck is stacked against him when it comes to his health. His family has a history of heart attacks, he says: ``Each drag off a spliff or a cigarette, each mouthful of garlic mashed potatoes or Billecart-Salmon brut deducts x minutes, y seconds'' from his life, he writes in his memoir ``Physical'' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 253 pages, $24).
After turning 52, McManus checked into the Mayo Clinic in
Yet McManus persists in his mostly sedentary, indulgent lifestyle, knowing he's lessening his chances of seeing either of his two pre-teen daughters ``speak as valedictorian of her law-school class, get married, score her first goal.''
Such reflections aside, this book is no ode to middle-aged regret. McManus's overarching aesthetic is macho sarcasm: He even fantasizes that the Mayo nurses will turn him into an S&M sex slave. Nor does he shy from intimate topics, such as his 22-year-old son's suicide and whether he should get a vasectomy.
Stem-Cell Gaffe
Throughout, McManus sustains a healthy skepticism of the medical edifice, questioning, for example, whether anti-depressants helped drive his son over the edge. Yet he also offers praise where it's due, particularly to the Mayo, a not-for-profit institution.
McManus's only major gaffe comes when he discusses his 30-year- old daughter's diabetes, which he believes might be cured through advances in stem-cell research. Turning polemic, the author excoriates the
`Happiness: A History'
McManus is a shrewd hedonist: He wants to balance fun with virtue. Yet it would be unfair to dismiss him as a frat-boy philosopher. Similar concerns have occupied thinkers through the ages, says Darrin McMahon in his prosaic, yet edifying ``Happiness: A History'' (Atlantic Monthly, 542 pages, $27.50).
The author surveys competing strains of Western thought on ``what constitutes the good life,'' starting with Plato and Aristotle and ending with Samuel Beckett and psychopharmacology.
The word ``happiness'' derives from the Middle English and Old Norse word ``happ,'' meaning chance or luck, writes McMahon, a history professor at
Unfortunately this did as much bad as good, writes McMahon, as evidenced by the Nazis and other murderous political movements of the 20th century. This ``dark side'' of the human pursuit of happiness produces suffering, rather than alleviating it.
Surprised by Joy
Sometimes joy is unanticipated. Jeremy Mercer, a Canadian crime reporter, was on the run from a death threat when he landed in
In his memoir ``Time Was Soft There'' (
Shakespeare & Co. is known to anyone who's gone to
Mercer assisted the 92-year-old Whitman with customers. Otherwise, the rent was modest: Make your bed every morning, treat the other eccentric residents kindly and read a book a day -- preferably something by Bernard Malamud or Fyodor Dostoevsky.
In the denouement, Mercer repays George by reuniting him with his estranged daughter. This is a heartfelt paean to literary dreamers and the unique charm of that magical place.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Cody's Lies, McMurtry's Massacres, Melville Explained: New
Cody's Lies, McMurtry's Massacres, Melville Explained: New
Books
(Review. Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg
News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
By Edward Nawotka
Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Did Buffalo Bill Cody stab
Yellow Hair to death, shoot the Cheyenne warrior from a
nearby ravine or outdraw him face to face and then scalp
him?
The variations on a known event -- it was July 17,
1876, and Cody was helping the U.S. Army track the Indians
who killed General George Custer -- highlight the lingering
debate over which of Cody's many exploits were tall tales
or true.
According to Louis S. Warren's exhaustive biography
``Buffalo Bill's America'' (Knopf, 653 pages, $30), much of
Cody's life was pure theater.
Born in Iowa in 1846, Cody moved to Kansas in 1857
after his father died. He said he prospected for gold at
Pikes Peak, battled Mormons and rode for the Pony Express
as a teenager, all claims disputed by Warren.
Though he did work as an Army scout, winning the
Congressional Medal of Honor in 1872 (revoked in 1916 and
restored in 1989), his exaggerated reputation as a heroic
frontiersman was established by dime-store novels that
featured him as a fearless Indian fighter and buffalo
hunter reputed to have killed 3,000 of the animals.
He capitalized on this inflated image by creating
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, featuring a fake Indian
attack and a real buffalo stampede. Sharpshooter Annie
Oakley performed tricks and Lakota chief Sitting Bull was a
performer in 1885. The show, a huge success, toured the
U.S. and Europe continually from 1883 until shortly before
Cody's death in 1917.
Cutting Through Hokum
Warren, who equates Cody with the modern-day ``rock
star,'' does the best job yet of cutting through much of
the hokum. More important, he gives credit where due: Cody
was an innovative showman and an ``apotheosis'' on
horseback -- so poised that ``the word `centaur' sprang to
the lips of his admirers.''
In June, Larry McMurtry published his own take on Cody
in ``The Colonel and Little Missie,'' a much shorter and
more acerbic book. McMurtry writes that ``somehow Cody
succeeded in taking a very few elements of Western life --
Indians, buffalo, stagecoach, and his own superbly mounted
self -- and creating an illusion that successfully stood
for a reality that had been almost wholly different.''
Quashing the Romance
Lately, McMurtry is determined to disavow any
romanticized view we may still harbor of the Old West --
one that he inadvertently fostered with his 1986 Pulitzer
Prize-winning novel ``Lonesome Dove.'' His new book, ``Oh
What a Slaughter'' (Simon & Schuster, 178 pages, $25),
analyses the circumstances leading to six frontier
massacres, starting with the nearly forgotten Sacramento
River Massacre of 1846 and ending with the Battle of
Wounded Knee in 1890.
Surveying this historical landscape, he sees a ``meat
shop'' of discarded and decaying body parts --- human, not
buffalo. That hyperbolic metaphor runs the length of the
book.
What does McMurtry intend, beyond asserting that the
settlement of the West was foremost a bloody campaign by
whites to annihilate Indians and take their land? The
answer lies in his effort to tie this history to
contemporary events.
He emphasizes that nearly all the frontier massacres
were preceded by a ``grinding, long-sustained
apprehension'' about the Indians, which then led to
``preemptive strikes.'' McMurtry says this posture
corresponds to that of the U.S. prior to the 2003 invasion
of Iraq. His fear is that we may be inclined to repeat the
sins of our past in today's Middle East.
Sailors in Orgies
In his edifying and often captivating new biography
``Melville'' (Knopf, 415 pages, $30; Picador, 25 pounds),
Andrew Delbanco says the public of the 1800s also had a
``romantic sense of whale killing.'' There were even shows
depicting the hunt, complete with whale boats, sailors and
painted seascapes.
Melville had early success with his novels ``Typee''
and ``Omoo,'' books that offered salacious stories about
sailors in orgies with oiled-up island maidens. But ``Moby
Dick'' failed to sell during his lifetime and his
reputation waned. By his death in 1891, he had been
virtually forgotten, and little of his personal effects
were preserved. The paucity of primary materials has
stymied previous biographers.
Surrogate Sources
Delbanco relies on the books themselves as surrogate
source material. It's a risky strategy that leaves in doubt
the biographical reliability of the tome. Nevertheless,
Delbanco's does a superb job of interpreting Melville's
books and filling them with wonder.
If you're like me, you probably haven't read Melville
since high school and may not have ever finished ``Moby
Dick.'' This volume is one of the few things that might
inspire you to crack the spine of your old edition and try
again.
Books
(Review. Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg
News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
By Edward Nawotka
Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Did Buffalo Bill Cody stab
Yellow Hair to death, shoot the Cheyenne warrior from a
nearby ravine or outdraw him face to face and then scalp
him?
The variations on a known event -- it was July 17,
1876, and Cody was helping the U.S. Army track the Indians
who killed General George Custer -- highlight the lingering
debate over which of Cody's many exploits were tall tales
or true.
According to Louis S. Warren's exhaustive biography
``Buffalo Bill's America'' (Knopf, 653 pages, $30), much of
Cody's life was pure theater.
Born in Iowa in 1846, Cody moved to Kansas in 1857
after his father died. He said he prospected for gold at
Pikes Peak, battled Mormons and rode for the Pony Express
as a teenager, all claims disputed by Warren.
Though he did work as an Army scout, winning the
Congressional Medal of Honor in 1872 (revoked in 1916 and
restored in 1989), his exaggerated reputation as a heroic
frontiersman was established by dime-store novels that
featured him as a fearless Indian fighter and buffalo
hunter reputed to have killed 3,000 of the animals.
He capitalized on this inflated image by creating
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, featuring a fake Indian
attack and a real buffalo stampede. Sharpshooter Annie
Oakley performed tricks and Lakota chief Sitting Bull was a
performer in 1885. The show, a huge success, toured the
U.S. and Europe continually from 1883 until shortly before
Cody's death in 1917.
Cutting Through Hokum
Warren, who equates Cody with the modern-day ``rock
star,'' does the best job yet of cutting through much of
the hokum. More important, he gives credit where due: Cody
was an innovative showman and an ``apotheosis'' on
horseback -- so poised that ``the word `centaur' sprang to
the lips of his admirers.''
In June, Larry McMurtry published his own take on Cody
in ``The Colonel and Little Missie,'' a much shorter and
more acerbic book. McMurtry writes that ``somehow Cody
succeeded in taking a very few elements of Western life --
Indians, buffalo, stagecoach, and his own superbly mounted
self -- and creating an illusion that successfully stood
for a reality that had been almost wholly different.''
Quashing the Romance
Lately, McMurtry is determined to disavow any
romanticized view we may still harbor of the Old West --
one that he inadvertently fostered with his 1986 Pulitzer
Prize-winning novel ``Lonesome Dove.'' His new book, ``Oh
What a Slaughter'' (Simon & Schuster, 178 pages, $25),
analyses the circumstances leading to six frontier
massacres, starting with the nearly forgotten Sacramento
River Massacre of 1846 and ending with the Battle of
Wounded Knee in 1890.
Surveying this historical landscape, he sees a ``meat
shop'' of discarded and decaying body parts --- human, not
buffalo. That hyperbolic metaphor runs the length of the
book.
What does McMurtry intend, beyond asserting that the
settlement of the West was foremost a bloody campaign by
whites to annihilate Indians and take their land? The
answer lies in his effort to tie this history to
contemporary events.
He emphasizes that nearly all the frontier massacres
were preceded by a ``grinding, long-sustained
apprehension'' about the Indians, which then led to
``preemptive strikes.'' McMurtry says this posture
corresponds to that of the U.S. prior to the 2003 invasion
of Iraq. His fear is that we may be inclined to repeat the
sins of our past in today's Middle East.
Sailors in Orgies
In his edifying and often captivating new biography
``Melville'' (Knopf, 415 pages, $30; Picador, 25 pounds),
Andrew Delbanco says the public of the 1800s also had a
``romantic sense of whale killing.'' There were even shows
depicting the hunt, complete with whale boats, sailors and
painted seascapes.
Melville had early success with his novels ``Typee''
and ``Omoo,'' books that offered salacious stories about
sailors in orgies with oiled-up island maidens. But ``Moby
Dick'' failed to sell during his lifetime and his
reputation waned. By his death in 1891, he had been
virtually forgotten, and little of his personal effects
were preserved. The paucity of primary materials has
stymied previous biographers.
Surrogate Sources
Delbanco relies on the books themselves as surrogate
source material. It's a risky strategy that leaves in doubt
the biographical reliability of the tome. Nevertheless,
Delbanco's does a superb job of interpreting Melville's
books and filling them with wonder.
If you're like me, you probably haven't read Melville
since high school and may not have ever finished ``Moby
Dick.'' This volume is one of the few things that might
inspire you to crack the spine of your old edition and try
again.
Friday, December 16, 2005
John Updike Discusses Warhol's Striptease, Leonardo's Materials
John Updike Discusses Warhol's Striptease, Leonardo's Materials
(Interview. Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News.
The opinions expressed are his own.)
By Edward Nawotka
Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- In another life, John Updike might
have been a cartoonist instead of the author of 52 books,
including 23 novels.
A Pennsylvania farm boy who went to Harvard, Updike
contributed drawings to the Harvard Lampoon and spent a year
studying art at the Ruskin School of Art and Design in Oxford,
England. It wasn't until he joined the staff of the New Yorker
magazine in 1955 that he committed to just writing.
His latest work is ``Still Looking'' (Knopf, 222 pages,
$40), a collection of 18 essays on American art, from Winslow
Homer to Jackson Pollock. It is a companion volume to 1989's
``Just Looking.''
Now 73, Updike doesn't do extensive book tours. He spoke
with Edward Nawotka by phone from Boston, near to his home in
Beverly Farms, Massachusetts.
Nawotka: It's been 16 years since your previous collection
of art criticism. All this time you've continued going to
exhibits and reviewing various shows for the New York Review of
Books. Is that correct?
Updike: I usually write about two exhibits a year, usually
for the New York Review. Mr. Silvers, the editor, continues to
flatter me with the implication that I'm some kind of an art
critic.
Innocent Amateur
Nawotka: All along, you've maintained that you're an
amateur?
Updike: I don't have any connection with the art world as
such. I don't live in New York. I don't go to the galleries. So
I do come to the shows with a certain innocence, about as much
as an average showgoer.
Nawotka: This book ranges from John Singleton Copley to
Edward Hopper. Do you have a favorite?
Updike: Hopper. Some of the earlier ones, the New York
ones, when you're looking in a window. I like the way he sees
America.
Nawotka: You seem to have a strong relationship to the
Abstract Expressionists. In (1963's) ``The Centaur,'' the main
character is an expressionist painter, and in (2002's) ``Seek My
Face,'' there is a characterization of Lee Krasner, Jackson
Pollock's wife.
Updike: Yes, there was an attempt to imagine what it was
like to be a woman in the Abstract Expressionist scene. I'm
attracted to it because it was the most spectacular and dramatic
group movement in my lifetime. And for the first time, the
American colonies were bringing artistic news to Europe.
Macho Art
Nawotka: It was also quite masculine, macho.
Updike: It was macho, perhaps the last unembarrassed macho
art movement we have.
Nawotka: I understand you had an encounter with Andy
Warhol, of whom you write a short appreciation in this book.
Updike: I met him at some party. He was wearing a tuxedo
and I remarked that I didn't expect to see him in a tuxedo. So,
he unbuttoned his pants to show he was wearing blue jeans
underneath the tuxedo pants. I thought it was quite a Warholean
moment, a 3-D, surreal event.
Nawotka: If there was a particular artist from history that
you could spend some time with, who would that be?
Updike: It would have been nice to been able to advise
Leonardo that his ``Last Supper'' wouldn't last the way he was
painting it.
Reckless Chemistry
Nawotka: You mean you'd advise him to use better materials?
Updike: I don't know what he did wrong, but many painters
I've discovered in my limited self-education have used ruinous
methods. Including some of the Abstract Expressionists. Certain
things by Rothko are deteriorating with great speed. It wasn't
the Abstract Expressionist style to worry about posterity. They
used what materials they could and were quite reckless in their
chemistry, though the Pollocks hold up quite well. He did use
hardware store paints to great effect.
Nawotka: Have you collected art?
Updike: My present collection includes some things I've
been given, a Steinberg, and Andrew Wyeth had given me things
which I framed. By and large, I'm not a collector. I think the
amounts of money people expect to get is alarming.
Nawotka: Too disproportionate to what a writer might get
for a short story?
Updike: Oh, yes, or a poem. You can write quite a wonderful
poem and get just $60 for it, so you tend to harbor your pennies
if you're a writer.
Nawotka: Would it be far out to guess your next project is
a novel?
Updike: It is a novel. It even has a title: ``Terrorist.''
As a writer, you find that the older you get, the more removed
you get from the action. But I'm still trying to take the pulse
of the country.
(Interview. Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News.
The opinions expressed are his own.)
By Edward Nawotka
Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- In another life, John Updike might
have been a cartoonist instead of the author of 52 books,
including 23 novels.
A Pennsylvania farm boy who went to Harvard, Updike
contributed drawings to the Harvard Lampoon and spent a year
studying art at the Ruskin School of Art and Design in Oxford,
England. It wasn't until he joined the staff of the New Yorker
magazine in 1955 that he committed to just writing.
His latest work is ``Still Looking'' (Knopf, 222 pages,
$40), a collection of 18 essays on American art, from Winslow
Homer to Jackson Pollock. It is a companion volume to 1989's
``Just Looking.''
Now 73, Updike doesn't do extensive book tours. He spoke
with Edward Nawotka by phone from Boston, near to his home in
Beverly Farms, Massachusetts.
Nawotka: It's been 16 years since your previous collection
of art criticism. All this time you've continued going to
exhibits and reviewing various shows for the New York Review of
Books. Is that correct?
Updike: I usually write about two exhibits a year, usually
for the New York Review. Mr. Silvers, the editor, continues to
flatter me with the implication that I'm some kind of an art
critic.
Innocent Amateur
Nawotka: All along, you've maintained that you're an
amateur?
Updike: I don't have any connection with the art world as
such. I don't live in New York. I don't go to the galleries. So
I do come to the shows with a certain innocence, about as much
as an average showgoer.
Nawotka: This book ranges from John Singleton Copley to
Edward Hopper. Do you have a favorite?
Updike: Hopper. Some of the earlier ones, the New York
ones, when you're looking in a window. I like the way he sees
America.
Nawotka: You seem to have a strong relationship to the
Abstract Expressionists. In (1963's) ``The Centaur,'' the main
character is an expressionist painter, and in (2002's) ``Seek My
Face,'' there is a characterization of Lee Krasner, Jackson
Pollock's wife.
Updike: Yes, there was an attempt to imagine what it was
like to be a woman in the Abstract Expressionist scene. I'm
attracted to it because it was the most spectacular and dramatic
group movement in my lifetime. And for the first time, the
American colonies were bringing artistic news to Europe.
Macho Art
Nawotka: It was also quite masculine, macho.
Updike: It was macho, perhaps the last unembarrassed macho
art movement we have.
Nawotka: I understand you had an encounter with Andy
Warhol, of whom you write a short appreciation in this book.
Updike: I met him at some party. He was wearing a tuxedo
and I remarked that I didn't expect to see him in a tuxedo. So,
he unbuttoned his pants to show he was wearing blue jeans
underneath the tuxedo pants. I thought it was quite a Warholean
moment, a 3-D, surreal event.
Nawotka: If there was a particular artist from history that
you could spend some time with, who would that be?
Updike: It would have been nice to been able to advise
Leonardo that his ``Last Supper'' wouldn't last the way he was
painting it.
Reckless Chemistry
Nawotka: You mean you'd advise him to use better materials?
Updike: I don't know what he did wrong, but many painters
I've discovered in my limited self-education have used ruinous
methods. Including some of the Abstract Expressionists. Certain
things by Rothko are deteriorating with great speed. It wasn't
the Abstract Expressionist style to worry about posterity. They
used what materials they could and were quite reckless in their
chemistry, though the Pollocks hold up quite well. He did use
hardware store paints to great effect.
Nawotka: Have you collected art?
Updike: My present collection includes some things I've
been given, a Steinberg, and Andrew Wyeth had given me things
which I framed. By and large, I'm not a collector. I think the
amounts of money people expect to get is alarming.
Nawotka: Too disproportionate to what a writer might get
for a short story?
Updike: Oh, yes, or a poem. You can write quite a wonderful
poem and get just $60 for it, so you tend to harbor your pennies
if you're a writer.
Nawotka: Would it be far out to guess your next project is
a novel?
Updike: It is a novel. It even has a title: ``Terrorist.''
As a writer, you find that the older you get, the more removed
you get from the action. But I'm still trying to take the pulse
of the country.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Bored With Xbox 360? Try `Freakonomics' and `Mao' as Gift Books
Bored With Xbox 360? Try `Freakonomics' and `Mao' as Gift Books
(Review. Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The
opinions expressed are his own.)
By Edward Nawotka
Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- You might think that a book reviewer
asks Santa for the Complete Penguin Classics Library -- 1,082 books
listed at $13,315.84.
Not so. What I really want for Christmas is an Xbox 360 game
console from Microsoft Corp. hooked up to a wall-sized plasma
television screen. And I don't feel guilty for asking, thanks to
Steven Johnson's ``Everything Bad Is Good for You'' (Riverhead, 256
pages, $23.95; Allen Lane, 10 pounds). Playing video games improves
our ability to decode complex puzzles, Johnson argues. Eureka! Pass
the controller so I can hone my critical faculties.
After all that mental exertion, I'll crave something less
taxing -- like a book explaining why the world is flat. Luckily,
publishers provided several top-shelf nonfiction titles to choose
from this year.
Start with Malcolm Gladwell's look at cognition, ``Blink''
(Little, Brown, 288 pages, $25.95; Allen Lane, 16.99 pounds). As in
``The Tipping Point,'' Gladwell marshals scientific research and
anecdotal evidence to challenge conventional thinking. This time,
he argues that gathering more data doesn't necessarily help you
make a better decision, be it choosing a mate or plotting a war
game. Sometimes following your instinct is best.
Freaky Economics
Counterintuitive thinking also informs Steven D. Levitt and
Stephen J. Dubner's ``Freakonomics'' (HarperCollins, 256 pages,
$25.95; Allen Lane, 20 pounds). This book gives serious
consideration to such questions as whether it's more dangerous for
kids to have a gun -- or a swimming pool -- in the house.
If you're among the multitudes who've read Thomas Friedman's
``The World Is Flat'' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 488 pages,
$27.95; Allen Lane, 20 pounds), skip ahead. If not, you'll want to
know that the New York Times columnist says globalization has
become a greater threat to U.S. economic dominance than it was when
he published ``The Lexus and the Olive Tree'' six years ago.
Speaking of American hubris, don't forget the boys at Enron
Corp. Sure, you think you've heard enough about Ken Lay, Jeff
Skilling and Andy Fastow. Yet Kurt Eichenwald's ``Conspiracy of
Fools'' (Broadway, 784 pages, $26) invests the tale with enough
drama to trump most thrillers.
Another title that aspires to be a definitive account is ``102
Minutes'' by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn (Henry Holt, 322 pages, $26;
Arrow, 7.99 pounds). The authors recovered e-mail traffic and phone
transcripts to create a harrowing narrative of what happened inside
the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
Vikings Fade Away
With Hurricane Katrina and all the other weather-induced
misery of 2005, my nominee for book of the year is Jared Diamond's
``Collapse'' (Viking, 592 pages, $25.95; Allen Lane, 25 pounds).
Diamond explains why some civilizations thrive and others, like the
Viking empire, fade away. He focuses on the environment, arguing
that how well we nurture nature may determine our fate.
Joan Didion made a comeback with her book ``The Year of
Magical Thinking'' (Knopf, 228 pages, $23.95; Fourth Estate, 12.99
pounds). In this painfully honest chronicle, Didion describes her
life following her husband's sudden death from a heart attack a
month before their 40th wedding anniversary.
Two other memoirs -- ``Oh the Glory of It All'' by Sean Wilsey
(Penguin Press, 496 pages, $25.95; Viking, 14.99 pounds) and ``The
Tender Bar'' by J.R. Moehringer (Hyperion, 384 pages, $23.95;
Hodder and Stoughton, 16.99 pounds) -- show that a misspent youth
can be redeemed.
Wealth and Barflies
Wilsey, who was raised by rich, crazy parents in San
Francisco, has written a laugh-out-loud chronicle of his absurd
childhood. Moehringer, who spent much of his Long Island youth
listening to barflies discuss the wisdom of Sinatra, delivers a
moving tribute to male camaraderie.
Plenty of noteworthy biographies came out this year, from
Doris Kearns Goodwin's look at Lincoln and his circle, ``Team of
Rivals'' (Simon and Schuster, 934 pages, $35), to Ron Powers's
superb ``Mark Twain,'' (Free Press, 726 pages, $35; Scribner, 25
pounds). One broke more new ground than the others: ``Mao'' by Jung
Chang and Jon Halliday (Knopf, 815 pages, $35; Cape, 25 pounds). It
highlights Mao Zedong's murderous legacy. The book is banned in
China.
Lastly, I recommend Temple Grandin's ``Animals in
Translation'' (Scribner, 368 pages, $25; Bloomsbury, 16.99 pounds).
The author, an autistic professor, uses her illness to decode
animal behavior. Did you know that pigeons have been trained to
distinguish between a Picasso and a Monet? Or that prairie dogs
have a language with sounds resembling nouns, verbs and adjectives?
You'll never see your pets the same way again.
(Review. Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The
opinions expressed are his own.)
By Edward Nawotka
Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- You might think that a book reviewer
asks Santa for the Complete Penguin Classics Library -- 1,082 books
listed at $13,315.84.
Not so. What I really want for Christmas is an Xbox 360 game
console from Microsoft Corp. hooked up to a wall-sized plasma
television screen. And I don't feel guilty for asking, thanks to
Steven Johnson's ``Everything Bad Is Good for You'' (Riverhead, 256
pages, $23.95; Allen Lane, 10 pounds). Playing video games improves
our ability to decode complex puzzles, Johnson argues. Eureka! Pass
the controller so I can hone my critical faculties.
After all that mental exertion, I'll crave something less
taxing -- like a book explaining why the world is flat. Luckily,
publishers provided several top-shelf nonfiction titles to choose
from this year.
Start with Malcolm Gladwell's look at cognition, ``Blink''
(Little, Brown, 288 pages, $25.95; Allen Lane, 16.99 pounds). As in
``The Tipping Point,'' Gladwell marshals scientific research and
anecdotal evidence to challenge conventional thinking. This time,
he argues that gathering more data doesn't necessarily help you
make a better decision, be it choosing a mate or plotting a war
game. Sometimes following your instinct is best.
Freaky Economics
Counterintuitive thinking also informs Steven D. Levitt and
Stephen J. Dubner's ``Freakonomics'' (HarperCollins, 256 pages,
$25.95; Allen Lane, 20 pounds). This book gives serious
consideration to such questions as whether it's more dangerous for
kids to have a gun -- or a swimming pool -- in the house.
If you're among the multitudes who've read Thomas Friedman's
``The World Is Flat'' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 488 pages,
$27.95; Allen Lane, 20 pounds), skip ahead. If not, you'll want to
know that the New York Times columnist says globalization has
become a greater threat to U.S. economic dominance than it was when
he published ``The Lexus and the Olive Tree'' six years ago.
Speaking of American hubris, don't forget the boys at Enron
Corp. Sure, you think you've heard enough about Ken Lay, Jeff
Skilling and Andy Fastow. Yet Kurt Eichenwald's ``Conspiracy of
Fools'' (Broadway, 784 pages, $26) invests the tale with enough
drama to trump most thrillers.
Another title that aspires to be a definitive account is ``102
Minutes'' by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn (Henry Holt, 322 pages, $26;
Arrow, 7.99 pounds). The authors recovered e-mail traffic and phone
transcripts to create a harrowing narrative of what happened inside
the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
Vikings Fade Away
With Hurricane Katrina and all the other weather-induced
misery of 2005, my nominee for book of the year is Jared Diamond's
``Collapse'' (Viking, 592 pages, $25.95; Allen Lane, 25 pounds).
Diamond explains why some civilizations thrive and others, like the
Viking empire, fade away. He focuses on the environment, arguing
that how well we nurture nature may determine our fate.
Joan Didion made a comeback with her book ``The Year of
Magical Thinking'' (Knopf, 228 pages, $23.95; Fourth Estate, 12.99
pounds). In this painfully honest chronicle, Didion describes her
life following her husband's sudden death from a heart attack a
month before their 40th wedding anniversary.
Two other memoirs -- ``Oh the Glory of It All'' by Sean Wilsey
(Penguin Press, 496 pages, $25.95; Viking, 14.99 pounds) and ``The
Tender Bar'' by J.R. Moehringer (Hyperion, 384 pages, $23.95;
Hodder and Stoughton, 16.99 pounds) -- show that a misspent youth
can be redeemed.
Wealth and Barflies
Wilsey, who was raised by rich, crazy parents in San
Francisco, has written a laugh-out-loud chronicle of his absurd
childhood. Moehringer, who spent much of his Long Island youth
listening to barflies discuss the wisdom of Sinatra, delivers a
moving tribute to male camaraderie.
Plenty of noteworthy biographies came out this year, from
Doris Kearns Goodwin's look at Lincoln and his circle, ``Team of
Rivals'' (Simon and Schuster, 934 pages, $35), to Ron Powers's
superb ``Mark Twain,'' (Free Press, 726 pages, $35; Scribner, 25
pounds). One broke more new ground than the others: ``Mao'' by Jung
Chang and Jon Halliday (Knopf, 815 pages, $35; Cape, 25 pounds). It
highlights Mao Zedong's murderous legacy. The book is banned in
China.
Lastly, I recommend Temple Grandin's ``Animals in
Translation'' (Scribner, 368 pages, $25; Bloomsbury, 16.99 pounds).
The author, an autistic professor, uses her illness to decode
animal behavior. Did you know that pigeons have been trained to
distinguish between a Picasso and a Monet? Or that prairie dogs
have a language with sounds resembling nouns, verbs and adjectives?
You'll never see your pets the same way again.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
McCourt's School Days, Moehringer's Boozer, War Doctor: Memoirs
(Review. Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The
opinions expressed are his own.)
Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Before Frank McCourt won the Pulitzer
Prize for ``Angela's Ashes,'' he taught a creative-writing class in
a public high school in New York.
The course was so popular that one desperate mother offered to
spend a weekend with him -- sharing a bed at the resort of his
choice -- just to get her daughter admitted.
McCourt recounts this and other episodes from his 30 years as
an educator in New York in his latest memoir, ``Teacher Man''
(Scribner, 258 pages, $26; HarperCollins UK, 18.99 pounds).
On his first day at a Staten Island vocational school in 1958,
McCourt confronted ``a vista of breasts and biceps'' --the hostile
children of working-class dads who had fought in World War II. Five
schools, one community college and 33,000 classes later, he teaches
brainiacs at Manhattan's elite Stuyvesant High School how to get
into the Ivy League.
The classroom was good to McCourt. It's where he found the
irreverent, self-deprecating voice that he employs here, as in
``Angela's Ashes'' and ``'Tis.'' That charming blarney, along with
his knack for creating offbeat homework assignments -- he once
asked students to write an excuse note from Adam and Eve to God --
won over pupils and uptight school administrators alike.
Some scenes smack of every inspirational school movie ever
made. Yet McCourt regenerates the genre with his keen eye and
unfailing ear for New York argot. (``Youse don't lissena teacher,''
says one father.) Ignore the echoes of ``Goodbye, Mr. Chips.'' This
book is worth reading in its own right.
`The Tender Bar'
Like McCourt, who sought succor from school-induced stress in
the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, J.R. Moehringer has
spent plenty of time on bar stools. In fact, he wasn't old enough
to drink when he first landed on one.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Los Angeles Times,
Moehringer grew up as the child of a single mother. He sought a
surrogate father among the denizens of Dickens, a tavern where his
Uncle Charlie tended the bar in Manhasset, Long Island. He recalls
his search in ``The Tender Bar'' (Hyperion, 368 pages, $23.95; to
be published in the U.K. next month by Hodder and Stoughton, 16.99
pounds).
Dickens was a place filled with cigarette smoke and Sinatra on
the jukebox. It was the 1970s, and the customers were mostly men
who drove Cadillacs, wore Foster Grant sunglasses and spent their
days half-lit on Vodka Gimlets.
Drinking and Carousing
While Moehringer's mother and her extended family provided
food and shelter, the tavern offered education. There, Uncle
Charlie and his sidekicks -- Colt, Bobo and Joey D -- schooled him
in the arts of drinking, carousing and skirt chasing.
The memoir follows a classic coming-of-age trajectory, tracing
Moehringer's flight out of Long Island, first to Yale and on to the
New York Times. As the book closes, he returns to the bar after the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to report on the funerals of
almost 50 Manhasset dead. You'll grow so fond of the tavern that
you'll ache for the fathers Moehringer outgrew.
Jonathan Kaplan is a triage surgeon who admits to reading
``the war news like job-vacancy ads.'' He honed his skills on
battlefields in Angola, Eritrea and Mozambique. He recounts his
evolution as a doctor in his latest book, ``Contact Wounds: A War
Surgeon's Education'' (Grove, $25, 278 pages; to be published in
the U.K. this February by Picador, 17.99 pounds).
A white South African born in 1954, Kaplan was inspired by his
father, an orthopedic surgeon who served with the British army
during World War II and defied apartheid to operate on blacks back
home.
Severed Nerves
The author's wanderlust set in early. Before becoming a
doctor, he worked on a kibbutz in Israel and lived in the
Seychelles among witch doctors. As soon as he qualified to practice
medicine, he went off to a war in Angola, where 100,000 land-mine
victims offered him plenty of practice.
Though Kaplan's depictions of suffering feel uncomfortably
voyeuristic at times, his descriptions of surgical techniques are
vivid. When preparing a limb for amputation, he severed nerves so
cleanly that they ``retracted up into the flesh,'' he writes.
Kaplan's previous memoir, ``The Dressing Station,'' offered
even greater medical detail. This account is more reflective,
delving into his motives. Far from thinking he's God, Kaplan voices
doubts about his professional ``suitability.''
War gave him a sense of purpose, he says: In battle, his doubt
``vanished in the immediacy of survival.''
(Review. Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The
opinions expressed are his own.)
Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Before Frank McCourt won the Pulitzer
Prize for ``Angela's Ashes,'' he taught a creative-writing class in
a public high school in New York.
The course was so popular that one desperate mother offered to
spend a weekend with him -- sharing a bed at the resort of his
choice -- just to get her daughter admitted.
McCourt recounts this and other episodes from his 30 years as
an educator in New York in his latest memoir, ``Teacher Man''
(Scribner, 258 pages, $26; HarperCollins UK, 18.99 pounds).
On his first day at a Staten Island vocational school in 1958,
McCourt confronted ``a vista of breasts and biceps'' --the hostile
children of working-class dads who had fought in World War II. Five
schools, one community college and 33,000 classes later, he teaches
brainiacs at Manhattan's elite Stuyvesant High School how to get
into the Ivy League.
The classroom was good to McCourt. It's where he found the
irreverent, self-deprecating voice that he employs here, as in
``Angela's Ashes'' and ``'Tis.'' That charming blarney, along with
his knack for creating offbeat homework assignments -- he once
asked students to write an excuse note from Adam and Eve to God --
won over pupils and uptight school administrators alike.
Some scenes smack of every inspirational school movie ever
made. Yet McCourt regenerates the genre with his keen eye and
unfailing ear for New York argot. (``Youse don't lissena teacher,''
says one father.) Ignore the echoes of ``Goodbye, Mr. Chips.'' This
book is worth reading in its own right.
`The Tender Bar'
Like McCourt, who sought succor from school-induced stress in
the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, J.R. Moehringer has
spent plenty of time on bar stools. In fact, he wasn't old enough
to drink when he first landed on one.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Los Angeles Times,
Moehringer grew up as the child of a single mother. He sought a
surrogate father among the denizens of Dickens, a tavern where his
Uncle Charlie tended the bar in Manhasset, Long Island. He recalls
his search in ``The Tender Bar'' (Hyperion, 368 pages, $23.95; to
be published in the U.K. next month by Hodder and Stoughton, 16.99
pounds).
Dickens was a place filled with cigarette smoke and Sinatra on
the jukebox. It was the 1970s, and the customers were mostly men
who drove Cadillacs, wore Foster Grant sunglasses and spent their
days half-lit on Vodka Gimlets.
Drinking and Carousing
While Moehringer's mother and her extended family provided
food and shelter, the tavern offered education. There, Uncle
Charlie and his sidekicks -- Colt, Bobo and Joey D -- schooled him
in the arts of drinking, carousing and skirt chasing.
The memoir follows a classic coming-of-age trajectory, tracing
Moehringer's flight out of Long Island, first to Yale and on to the
New York Times. As the book closes, he returns to the bar after the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to report on the funerals of
almost 50 Manhasset dead. You'll grow so fond of the tavern that
you'll ache for the fathers Moehringer outgrew.
Jonathan Kaplan is a triage surgeon who admits to reading
``the war news like job-vacancy ads.'' He honed his skills on
battlefields in Angola, Eritrea and Mozambique. He recounts his
evolution as a doctor in his latest book, ``Contact Wounds: A War
Surgeon's Education'' (Grove, $25, 278 pages; to be published in
the U.K. this February by Picador, 17.99 pounds).
A white South African born in 1954, Kaplan was inspired by his
father, an orthopedic surgeon who served with the British army
during World War II and defied apartheid to operate on blacks back
home.
Severed Nerves
The author's wanderlust set in early. Before becoming a
doctor, he worked on a kibbutz in Israel and lived in the
Seychelles among witch doctors. As soon as he qualified to practice
medicine, he went off to a war in Angola, where 100,000 land-mine
victims offered him plenty of practice.
Though Kaplan's depictions of suffering feel uncomfortably
voyeuristic at times, his descriptions of surgical techniques are
vivid. When preparing a limb for amputation, he severed nerves so
cleanly that they ``retracted up into the flesh,'' he writes.
Kaplan's previous memoir, ``The Dressing Station,'' offered
even greater medical detail. This account is more reflective,
delving into his motives. Far from thinking he's God, Kaplan voices
doubts about his professional ``suitability.''
War gave him a sense of purpose, he says: In battle, his doubt
``vanished in the immediacy of survival.''
Monday, December 12, 2005
Gift Guide for Guys: Christmas Books for Those Grumpy Old Men
Gift Guide for Guys: Christmas Books for Those Grumpy Old Men
(Review. Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The
opinions expressed are his own.)
By Edward Nawotka
Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Books remain an ideal holiday gift.
They're not too pricey, yet reflect the thoughtfulness of the
giver. So why's it so hard to find a good book for a guy?
Blame it partly on packaging. Publishers wrap even macho
titles in dust jackets meant to attract women, who buy more books
than men do. Take James Frey's ``My Friend Leonard,'' a gritty
memoir about suicide and the Chicago mob: It comes dressed in a
pale pink cover and girly cursive type.
To help cut through the camouflage, here's a list of guy
books, sorted by personality types. You might find what you need
for that man who never wants anything (except a vintage Ferrari).
For the Alpha Males among us, there's ``Ultramarathon Man'' by
Dean Karnazes (Tarcher Penguin, 280 pages, $19.95). Karnazes has run
226 miles (364 kilometers) nonstop without sleep and raced 130 miles
through Death Valley, where his shoes melted. His autobiography shows
how much pain it takes to become an elite athlete.
For the man who has almost everything, consider ``The Complete
New Yorker'' (Random House, 125-page book and eight DVDs, $100), a
handsome set that collects all 4,109 issues in the 80-year run of
the New Yorker magazine through January 2004. You can browse on
your computer and print what you like.
Mr. Know-It-All might enjoy ``The Areas of My Expertise'' by
John Hodgeman (Riverhead, 235 pages, $22). This ``almanac'' of fake
history, oddball lists and absurd advice includes such things as
``short words used on a submarine to save oxygen.'' Also included
are ``jokes that have never produced laughter'' and ``brief lives
of some notable hoboes.''
`Smooth, Shiny Girls'
Dog lovers will fall for ``Marley & Me'' by John Grogan
(Morrow, 292 pages, $21.95), the story of how a young couple's
marriage profoundly changed after an irrepressible yellow Labrador
weighing 97 pounds (44 kilograms) joined the family.
For the fellow who fantasizes about becoming a private eye, try
``Philip Marlowe's Guide to Life'' by Raymond Chandler (Knopf, 83
pages, $14.95). This anthology of quotes from Chandler's noir novels
is made for wannabe tough guys who can appreciate a line like this:
``I like smooth, shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin.''
Does the man like a laugh? He'll cachinnate over ``Don't Point
That Thing at Me'' by Kyril Bonfiglioli (Overlook, 174 pages,
$13.95; Penguin, 9.99 pounds). First published in the U.K. in the
1970s, this comedy detective novel stars Charlie Mortdecai, an
aristocratic art dealer/thief, and his manservant, Jock Strapp.
Plimpton on Golf
For the sports nut, look no further than ``Coach,'' edited by
Andrew Blauner (Warner Books, 283 pages, $25.95). An anthology of
25 stories about coaches, this book includes contributions from Pat
Conroy (about his basketball coach at the Citadel) and Jonathan
Ames (on the French commando who taught him to fence at Princeton).
George Plimpton discusses golf.
For adults who like comics, consider ``Absolute Watchmen'' by
Alan Moore (DC Comics, 484 pages, $75; Titan Books, 75 pounds).
This graphic novel, first published in 1986 and repackaged in a
gorgeous slipcase edition, is the original anti-hero superhero
comic and a classic.
Know a guy who plays air guitar? He might groove on ``Music
Lust'' by Nic Harcourt (Sasquatch Books, 285 pages, $16.95).
Harcourt is the Los Angeles DJ who gave artists like Norah Jones
their first spins on U.S. radio. His book recommends music for
``every mood, moment and reason.''
Cinematic Snobs
Movie snobs will appreciate ``Never Coming to a Theater Near
You'' by Kenneth Turan (Public Affairs, 401 pages, $14). A Los
Angeles Times film critic, Turan reminds you of ``all those great
movies you promised you'd see once they came out on video'' but
have probably forgotten about.
For the would-be world traveler, there's ``Honeymoon With My
Brother'' by Franz Wisner (St. Martin's Press, 275 pages, $23.95).
Wisner, a former Republican publicist and real-estate consultant,
was ditched at the altar. He consoled himself by selling his house
and taking a yearlong trip around the world with his kid brother.
Lastly, any family man should take a look at ``Why Do I Love
These People?'' by Po Bronson (Random House, 385 pages, $24.95; to
be published in the U.K. next month by Harvill Secker, 12.99
pounds). The self-help guru interviewed hundreds of families,
seeking to decode their secrets. He concludes that a happy family
life requires far more than love, though love is a good start.
(Review. Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The
opinions expressed are his own.)
By Edward Nawotka
Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Books remain an ideal holiday gift.
They're not too pricey, yet reflect the thoughtfulness of the
giver. So why's it so hard to find a good book for a guy?
Blame it partly on packaging. Publishers wrap even macho
titles in dust jackets meant to attract women, who buy more books
than men do. Take James Frey's ``My Friend Leonard,'' a gritty
memoir about suicide and the Chicago mob: It comes dressed in a
pale pink cover and girly cursive type.
To help cut through the camouflage, here's a list of guy
books, sorted by personality types. You might find what you need
for that man who never wants anything (except a vintage Ferrari).
For the Alpha Males among us, there's ``Ultramarathon Man'' by
Dean Karnazes (Tarcher Penguin, 280 pages, $19.95). Karnazes has run
226 miles (364 kilometers) nonstop without sleep and raced 130 miles
through Death Valley, where his shoes melted. His autobiography shows
how much pain it takes to become an elite athlete.
For the man who has almost everything, consider ``The Complete
New Yorker'' (Random House, 125-page book and eight DVDs, $100), a
handsome set that collects all 4,109 issues in the 80-year run of
the New Yorker magazine through January 2004. You can browse on
your computer and print what you like.
Mr. Know-It-All might enjoy ``The Areas of My Expertise'' by
John Hodgeman (Riverhead, 235 pages, $22). This ``almanac'' of fake
history, oddball lists and absurd advice includes such things as
``short words used on a submarine to save oxygen.'' Also included
are ``jokes that have never produced laughter'' and ``brief lives
of some notable hoboes.''
`Smooth, Shiny Girls'
Dog lovers will fall for ``Marley & Me'' by John Grogan
(Morrow, 292 pages, $21.95), the story of how a young couple's
marriage profoundly changed after an irrepressible yellow Labrador
weighing 97 pounds (44 kilograms) joined the family.
For the fellow who fantasizes about becoming a private eye, try
``Philip Marlowe's Guide to Life'' by Raymond Chandler (Knopf, 83
pages, $14.95). This anthology of quotes from Chandler's noir novels
is made for wannabe tough guys who can appreciate a line like this:
``I like smooth, shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin.''
Does the man like a laugh? He'll cachinnate over ``Don't Point
That Thing at Me'' by Kyril Bonfiglioli (Overlook, 174 pages,
$13.95; Penguin, 9.99 pounds). First published in the U.K. in the
1970s, this comedy detective novel stars Charlie Mortdecai, an
aristocratic art dealer/thief, and his manservant, Jock Strapp.
Plimpton on Golf
For the sports nut, look no further than ``Coach,'' edited by
Andrew Blauner (Warner Books, 283 pages, $25.95). An anthology of
25 stories about coaches, this book includes contributions from Pat
Conroy (about his basketball coach at the Citadel) and Jonathan
Ames (on the French commando who taught him to fence at Princeton).
George Plimpton discusses golf.
For adults who like comics, consider ``Absolute Watchmen'' by
Alan Moore (DC Comics, 484 pages, $75; Titan Books, 75 pounds).
This graphic novel, first published in 1986 and repackaged in a
gorgeous slipcase edition, is the original anti-hero superhero
comic and a classic.
Know a guy who plays air guitar? He might groove on ``Music
Lust'' by Nic Harcourt (Sasquatch Books, 285 pages, $16.95).
Harcourt is the Los Angeles DJ who gave artists like Norah Jones
their first spins on U.S. radio. His book recommends music for
``every mood, moment and reason.''
Cinematic Snobs
Movie snobs will appreciate ``Never Coming to a Theater Near
You'' by Kenneth Turan (Public Affairs, 401 pages, $14). A Los
Angeles Times film critic, Turan reminds you of ``all those great
movies you promised you'd see once they came out on video'' but
have probably forgotten about.
For the would-be world traveler, there's ``Honeymoon With My
Brother'' by Franz Wisner (St. Martin's Press, 275 pages, $23.95).
Wisner, a former Republican publicist and real-estate consultant,
was ditched at the altar. He consoled himself by selling his house
and taking a yearlong trip around the world with his kid brother.
Lastly, any family man should take a look at ``Why Do I Love
These People?'' by Po Bronson (Random House, 385 pages, $24.95; to
be published in the U.K. next month by Harvill Secker, 12.99
pounds). The self-help guru interviewed hundreds of families,
seeking to decode their secrets. He concludes that a happy family
life requires far more than love, though love is a good start.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Caravaggio Portrayed in New Bios: Bloody Brawls, Food Fight
Caravaggio Portrayed in New Bios: Bloody Brawls, Food Fight
(Book Reviews. Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg
News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
By Edward Nawotka
Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- One afternoon in 1604 Caravaggio
flung a plate of fried artichokes in a waiter's face and
threatened him with his sword. The fellow couldn't tell the
painter which were prepared in oil and which in butter.
(Caravaggio had ordered four of each.)
Though a genius when it came to portraying the intensity of
faith in dramatic light, Caravaggio (1571-1610) could have
benefited from anger management classes.
Judging by two new books on the artist, ``The Lost
Painting'' (Random House, 261 pages, $24.95) by Jonathan Harr
and ``Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles'' by Francine Prose
(HarperCollins, 149 pages, $21.95), he spent a lot of time
trolling the streets of Rome looking for a fight or a girl for
the night.
The painter was in and out of jail. Both books relate how
Caravaggio supposedly slashed a rival in the Piazza Navona for
chatting up his favorite prostitute and model.
Not long after, rather than pay off a debt on a lost sports
bet, Caravaggio picked a fight with the winner and stabbed him
to death. That murder forced Caravaggio to flee Rome for good
and sent him into exile in Naples, Sicily and Malta. He died of
malaria while on his way back to Rome to receive a pardon from
the Pope.
Mystery Man
Other than his police record and his art, little is known
about Caravaggio -- in particular what happened to his
paintings. A number are missing and presumed destroyed.
``Fewer than eighty authentic Caravaggios -- some would
argue no more than sixty -- are known to exist,'' writes Harr,
who chronicles the search for one masterpiece, ``The Taking of
Christ.''
Harr's story begins when Francesca Cappelletti, a 24-year-
old Italian student, discovers what may be an entry in a
centuries-old ledger for the sale of the painting. The paper
trail leads her from Italy to London to Scotland, and eventually
to Dublin, where by strange coincidence the painting is
discovered in a Jesuit dormitory by an Italian art restorer
working for the National Gallery of Art.
Harr won the 1995 National Book Critics Circle for ``A
Civil Action,'' which detailed the fight between the citizens of
Woburn, Massachusetts, and a pair of corporations over
groundwater contamination. He was able to breathe life into a
lawsuit, thanks largely to the charismatic attorney at the heart
of the story (played by John Travolta in the 1998 movie).
Sick Brawler
Here, Harr struggles to keep the action flowing. Although
we learn a great deal about the subtleties of combing through
archives in dusty basements of ancient palazzos, such academic
research is almost impossible to dramatize. Instead, he relies
on the personal life of Caravaggio and of the contemporary
characters to add zip.
Though Prose is the author of 13 novels, she paints a more
methodical portrait in her book, which is part of the ongoing
``Eminent Lives'' series of short biographies published by
HarperCollins and Atlas Books.
Believing that most everything about Caravaggio ``can be
inferred from what he painted'' Prose focuses on creating a
chronology of the paintings and tying the events of his life to
the best-known works including ``The Gypsy Fortune-Teller,''
``The Crucifixion of Saint Peter'' and ``David with the Head of
Goliath.'' In that vein, she describes ``Sick Bacchus'' as a
portrait of the painter looking ``diseased, hollow-eyed,
bilious'' and dates it to a time when Caravaggio was
hospitalized after being kicked by a horse -- or what Prose
calls ``the era's equivalent of running into a door.'' He was
probably suffering from injuries sustained in a fight.
Different Approaches
Never mind their different approaches, both authors rely on
some of the same source material and enjoyed residencies at the
American Academy, which is housed in a magnificent villa on the
Janiculum, Rome's highest hill. Prose quotes extensively from
other biographers and relies particularly on Helen Langdon's
authoritative 2000 biography ``Caravaggio: A Life.'' Read
together, Harr tells a more colorful story and Prose is better
at interpreting the art.
(Book Reviews. Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg
News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
By Edward Nawotka
Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- One afternoon in 1604 Caravaggio
flung a plate of fried artichokes in a waiter's face and
threatened him with his sword. The fellow couldn't tell the
painter which were prepared in oil and which in butter.
(Caravaggio had ordered four of each.)
Though a genius when it came to portraying the intensity of
faith in dramatic light, Caravaggio (1571-1610) could have
benefited from anger management classes.
Judging by two new books on the artist, ``The Lost
Painting'' (Random House, 261 pages, $24.95) by Jonathan Harr
and ``Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles'' by Francine Prose
(HarperCollins, 149 pages, $21.95), he spent a lot of time
trolling the streets of Rome looking for a fight or a girl for
the night.
The painter was in and out of jail. Both books relate how
Caravaggio supposedly slashed a rival in the Piazza Navona for
chatting up his favorite prostitute and model.
Not long after, rather than pay off a debt on a lost sports
bet, Caravaggio picked a fight with the winner and stabbed him
to death. That murder forced Caravaggio to flee Rome for good
and sent him into exile in Naples, Sicily and Malta. He died of
malaria while on his way back to Rome to receive a pardon from
the Pope.
Mystery Man
Other than his police record and his art, little is known
about Caravaggio -- in particular what happened to his
paintings. A number are missing and presumed destroyed.
``Fewer than eighty authentic Caravaggios -- some would
argue no more than sixty -- are known to exist,'' writes Harr,
who chronicles the search for one masterpiece, ``The Taking of
Christ.''
Harr's story begins when Francesca Cappelletti, a 24-year-
old Italian student, discovers what may be an entry in a
centuries-old ledger for the sale of the painting. The paper
trail leads her from Italy to London to Scotland, and eventually
to Dublin, where by strange coincidence the painting is
discovered in a Jesuit dormitory by an Italian art restorer
working for the National Gallery of Art.
Harr won the 1995 National Book Critics Circle for ``A
Civil Action,'' which detailed the fight between the citizens of
Woburn, Massachusetts, and a pair of corporations over
groundwater contamination. He was able to breathe life into a
lawsuit, thanks largely to the charismatic attorney at the heart
of the story (played by John Travolta in the 1998 movie).
Sick Brawler
Here, Harr struggles to keep the action flowing. Although
we learn a great deal about the subtleties of combing through
archives in dusty basements of ancient palazzos, such academic
research is almost impossible to dramatize. Instead, he relies
on the personal life of Caravaggio and of the contemporary
characters to add zip.
Though Prose is the author of 13 novels, she paints a more
methodical portrait in her book, which is part of the ongoing
``Eminent Lives'' series of short biographies published by
HarperCollins and Atlas Books.
Believing that most everything about Caravaggio ``can be
inferred from what he painted'' Prose focuses on creating a
chronology of the paintings and tying the events of his life to
the best-known works including ``The Gypsy Fortune-Teller,''
``The Crucifixion of Saint Peter'' and ``David with the Head of
Goliath.'' In that vein, she describes ``Sick Bacchus'' as a
portrait of the painter looking ``diseased, hollow-eyed,
bilious'' and dates it to a time when Caravaggio was
hospitalized after being kicked by a horse -- or what Prose
calls ``the era's equivalent of running into a door.'' He was
probably suffering from injuries sustained in a fight.
Different Approaches
Never mind their different approaches, both authors rely on
some of the same source material and enjoyed residencies at the
American Academy, which is housed in a magnificent villa on the
Janiculum, Rome's highest hill. Prose quotes extensively from
other biographers and relies particularly on Helen Langdon's
authoritative 2000 biography ``Caravaggio: A Life.'' Read
together, Harr tells a more colorful story and Prose is better
at interpreting the art.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Action Heroes Jackson, Roosevelt; Sleepy Descartes: New Bios
Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) --In an 1806 duel, Andrew Jackson let
rival Charles Dickinson shoot him in the chest from just 24 feet
away. It was a calculated risk.
Jackson knew Dickinson was the better marksman and reasoned
it was ``wiser to take the blow, recover one's balance and
return a careful shot,'' writes H.W. Brands in his vivid new
biography of the seventh U.S. president: ``Andrew Jackson: His
Life and Times'' (Doubleday, 621 pages, $35). Jackson was right:
He survived the wound and shot Dickinson dead. His resilience,
both physical and political, earned him the nickname ``Old
Hickory.'' A hickory branch, writes Brands, is ``thin but
impossible to break.''
Born to Ulster-Scots immigrants in South Carolina, Jackson
later moved to Tennessee, where he worked as a lawyer while
moonlighting as a land speculator, horse breeder and slave
trader. He was elected to the U.S. Senate at age 30, but quit to
take over the Tennessee militia and fight Indians.
There's far more to Jackson's legacy than his granite-
jawed, swoop-haired visage on the $20 bill. All his life,
Jackson battled ``birth and breeding as requisites for personal
advancement.''
Eventually, Jackson's astounding one-sided victory against
the British at the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812
made him a hero of the people, who in turn elected him to two
terms as president, from 1829-1837.
Echoing previous Jackson biographers such as Arthur
Schlesinger Jr., Brands remembers Jackson primarily as the
founder of the Democratic Party, the man who broke down
patrician barriers to politics. He was the first president to
shake 10,000 hands at his inauguration -- a feat seemingly every
president since him has felt the need to match or surpass.
Teddy Roosevelt
Where Brands has delivered a presidential biography full of
action, Candice Millard has written an action-adventure story
starring a president.
In ``The River of Doubt'' (Doubleday, 416 pages, $26), the
former National Geographic editor recounts an amazing episode
from the life of Teddy Roosevelt -- his exploration of a remote
section of the Amazon River in Brazil after he lost his run for
a third term in 1912.
Roosevelt was accompanied by his son Kermit, Colonel
Candido Rondon and a coterie of guides, porters and scientists,
some from the Museum of Natural History in New York.
Hungry Cannibals
The trip was ill-conceived. The group's dugout canoes were
heavy and couldn't handle the massive rapids and waterfalls they
encountered along the river. The food they'd expected to forage
and hunt was virtually nonexistent, and the water was filled
with giant killer catfish. Then, indigenous cannibals began
tracking the group, eyeing the plump, 220-pound Roosevelt.
By the end of the trip, even a hungry man-eater would have
recoiled at the prospect of a presidential platter. Roosevelt,
sick with malaria and an infected leg, was injecting quinine
directly into his belly. Millard recounts the moment when
Roosevelt offered to commit suicide with a lethal dose of
morphine so that his companions could more easily make it out of
the jungle.
Millard's riveting tale of exotic adventure adds a new
dimension of vulnerability to the myth of TR's uber-manliness.
It's the ideal book to read by the comfort of a roaring fire
while digesting an enormous Thanksgiving feast.
Descartes
Unlike Jackson or Roosevelt, Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
didn't like to get out of bed, where he spent a good deal of
time cogitating (I sleep, therefore I think). The philosopher's
eccentric habits are the subject of ``Descartes' Secret
Notebook'' (Broadway, 288 pages, $24.95) by Amir Aczel.
Aczel, author of the bestselling ``Fermat's Last Theorem,''
frames his latest book as an investigation into the decoding of
one of Descartes's notebooks discovered by the German
mathematician Gottfried Leibniz in 1676. The real question is
why Descartes kept his work secret at all.
The son of French nobility and a Catholic who spent much of
his life living in Protestant Netherlands, Descartes may have
been a member of the Rosicrucians, a shadowy fraternity of
scholars who toyed with mysticism and alchemy. He may have
resorted to code in fear of the Inquisition.
Math Primer
Aczel does an adequate job of explaining Descartes's
mathematical and philosophical breakthroughs in the context of
his era, but the book too often reads like a dull math primer.
In a confounding, if intriguing final chapter, Aczel tries
to connect Descartes's formula for Platonic solids and the work
of contemporary cosmologist Jeffrey Weeks.
Weeks created a new model of the geometry of the universe,
one that allows travel through space as if it were a two-
dimensional plane. Think of the video game ``Asteroids,'' in
which a spaceship leaving the right edge of the screen reappears
on the left. It's a fascinating notion, but one that requires
another book to support it, not just seven pages.
rival Charles Dickinson shoot him in the chest from just 24 feet
away. It was a calculated risk.
Jackson knew Dickinson was the better marksman and reasoned
it was ``wiser to take the blow, recover one's balance and
return a careful shot,'' writes H.W. Brands in his vivid new
biography of the seventh U.S. president: ``Andrew Jackson: His
Life and Times'' (Doubleday, 621 pages, $35). Jackson was right:
He survived the wound and shot Dickinson dead. His resilience,
both physical and political, earned him the nickname ``Old
Hickory.'' A hickory branch, writes Brands, is ``thin but
impossible to break.''
Born to Ulster-Scots immigrants in South Carolina, Jackson
later moved to Tennessee, where he worked as a lawyer while
moonlighting as a land speculator, horse breeder and slave
trader. He was elected to the U.S. Senate at age 30, but quit to
take over the Tennessee militia and fight Indians.
There's far more to Jackson's legacy than his granite-
jawed, swoop-haired visage on the $20 bill. All his life,
Jackson battled ``birth and breeding as requisites for personal
advancement.''
Eventually, Jackson's astounding one-sided victory against
the British at the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812
made him a hero of the people, who in turn elected him to two
terms as president, from 1829-1837.
Echoing previous Jackson biographers such as Arthur
Schlesinger Jr., Brands remembers Jackson primarily as the
founder of the Democratic Party, the man who broke down
patrician barriers to politics. He was the first president to
shake 10,000 hands at his inauguration -- a feat seemingly every
president since him has felt the need to match or surpass.
Teddy Roosevelt
Where Brands has delivered a presidential biography full of
action, Candice Millard has written an action-adventure story
starring a president.
In ``The River of Doubt'' (Doubleday, 416 pages, $26), the
former National Geographic editor recounts an amazing episode
from the life of Teddy Roosevelt -- his exploration of a remote
section of the Amazon River in Brazil after he lost his run for
a third term in 1912.
Roosevelt was accompanied by his son Kermit, Colonel
Candido Rondon and a coterie of guides, porters and scientists,
some from the Museum of Natural History in New York.
Hungry Cannibals
The trip was ill-conceived. The group's dugout canoes were
heavy and couldn't handle the massive rapids and waterfalls they
encountered along the river. The food they'd expected to forage
and hunt was virtually nonexistent, and the water was filled
with giant killer catfish. Then, indigenous cannibals began
tracking the group, eyeing the plump, 220-pound Roosevelt.
By the end of the trip, even a hungry man-eater would have
recoiled at the prospect of a presidential platter. Roosevelt,
sick with malaria and an infected leg, was injecting quinine
directly into his belly. Millard recounts the moment when
Roosevelt offered to commit suicide with a lethal dose of
morphine so that his companions could more easily make it out of
the jungle.
Millard's riveting tale of exotic adventure adds a new
dimension of vulnerability to the myth of TR's uber-manliness.
It's the ideal book to read by the comfort of a roaring fire
while digesting an enormous Thanksgiving feast.
Descartes
Unlike Jackson or Roosevelt, Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
didn't like to get out of bed, where he spent a good deal of
time cogitating (I sleep, therefore I think). The philosopher's
eccentric habits are the subject of ``Descartes' Secret
Notebook'' (Broadway, 288 pages, $24.95) by Amir Aczel.
Aczel, author of the bestselling ``Fermat's Last Theorem,''
frames his latest book as an investigation into the decoding of
one of Descartes's notebooks discovered by the German
mathematician Gottfried Leibniz in 1676. The real question is
why Descartes kept his work secret at all.
The son of French nobility and a Catholic who spent much of
his life living in Protestant Netherlands, Descartes may have
been a member of the Rosicrucians, a shadowy fraternity of
scholars who toyed with mysticism and alchemy. He may have
resorted to code in fear of the Inquisition.
Math Primer
Aczel does an adequate job of explaining Descartes's
mathematical and philosophical breakthroughs in the context of
his era, but the book too often reads like a dull math primer.
In a confounding, if intriguing final chapter, Aczel tries
to connect Descartes's formula for Platonic solids and the work
of contemporary cosmologist Jeffrey Weeks.
Weeks created a new model of the geometry of the universe,
one that allows travel through space as if it were a two-
dimensional plane. Think of the video game ``Asteroids,'' in
which a spaceship leaving the right edge of the screen reappears
on the left. It's a fascinating notion, but one that requires
another book to support it, not just seven pages.
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