Category: book Nook
Below is an article that I've pieced together off the n p r news page. The first part is a list of recommended summer reading and the last part is some of the books in brief descriptions. I'm going to keep my eye out for some of these. Enjoy.
Carla
Fiction
List of 4 items
• The Whole World Over by Julia Glass. Pantheon, 2006.
• Prisoner of Memory by Denise Hamilton. Scribner, 2006.
• The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard. HarperCollins, 2006.
• Darcy's Story: Pride and Prejudice Told From a New Perspective by Janet
Aylmer. Harper, 2006.
list end
Nonfiction
List of 6 items
• My Life in France by Julia Child. Knopf, 2006.
• Julius Rosenwald: The Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause
of Black Education in the American South by Peter M. Ascoli. Indiana
University
Press, 2006.
• We’ll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light by John Baxter.
Harper Perennial, 2006.
• Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein by Dorothy and Thomas
Hoobler. Little, Brown, 2006.
• The Book of Lost Books: An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You’ll
Never Read by Stuart Kelly. Random House, 2006.
• The Stolen Prince by Hugh Barnes. Ecco, 2006.
list end
Cookbooks
List of 3 items
• A Passion for Ice Cream by Emily Luchetti. Chronicle Books, 2006.
• Killer Ribs by Nancy Davidson. Chronicle Books, 2006.
• The Asian Grill by Corinne Trang. Black Dog and Chronicle Books, 2006.
list end
Young Adult
List of 2 items
• A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life by Dana Reinhardt. Wendy Lamb Books,
2006.
• The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan. Miramax Books, 2006.
list end
Photography/Design
List of 3 items
• Unseen America: Photos and Stories by Workers edited by Esther Cohen.
Bread and Roses, 2006.
• Dictator Style: Lifestyles of the World’s Most Colorful Despots by Peter
York. Chronicle Books, 2006.
• The New Yorker Book of Cartoon Puzzles and Games. Black Dog and Leventhal
Press, 2006.
list end
If rising airfares keep you from making that trip to Paris this summer, you
can still get there in your mind. Your tour guide is John Baxter, a film
critic
and biographer who lives in the City of Light. His We'll Always Have Paris:
Sex and Love in the City of Light takes us to the places you'd expect --
literary
haunts frequented by Stein, Fitzgerald, de Beauvoir and Baldwin -- but
Baxter is pretty good at showing off the seamy underside of Paris that
doesn't always
end up in the tour guides. Bon voyage!
Read an Excerpt: 'We'll Always Have Paris'
The nature-or-nurture argument didn't start in the 20th century. More than
300 years earlier, Russia’s Peter the Great conducted his own experiment
when
he adopted a 7-year-old Abyssinian slave boy and set out to put the best of
Western civilization at his feet. The goal, of course, was to show Europeans
that Africans could be made "civilized" with the right exposure. Abram
Petrovich Gannibal didn’t disappoint: He outshone his tutors and became one
of the
czar's most trusted political strategists and Europe’s first black
intellectual. Gannibal stories have floated around Russia for centuries, but
historian
Hugh Barnes is the first person to spend years separating fact from fiction.
The result is The Stolen Prince, a very readable biography that Russians and
Westerners alike will find fascinating.
Read an Excerpt: 'The Stolen Prince'
List of 3 items
• Julius Rosenwald: Peter Ascoli, Rosenwald's grandson, traces the Sears and
Roebuck founder's rise as a successful businessman and remarkable
philanthropist.
• Monsters:
Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler's
story behind the horror story, documenting Mary Shelley's creation of
Frankenstein, is deliciously creepy.
• The Book of Lost Books:
Stuart Kelly
chronicles the vanished (and sometimes recovered) works from Jane Austen,
Sylvia Plath and others.
list end
Novels of Mystery and Charm
Julia Glass wowed readers when her first book, Three Junes, came out in
to be continued...
Novels of Mystery and Charm
Julia Glass wowed readers when her first book, Three Junes, came out in
2002. (It remains a perennial book club favorite.) Critics lauded her skill
at deftly
capturing the feel of longing, regret and hope that comes with love -- or
the lack of it. The Whole World Over allows Glass to strut her stuff again,
with
an ensemble cast of characters that are emotionally engaging, a storyline
that loops forward and backward to connect several of their lives and
dialogue
that sounds as if it came from real life -- not to mention a dénouement that
involves the Sept. 11 attacks. Read it before they make a movie of it and
ruin it with the wrong casting and a compressed storyline.
Read an Excerpt: 'The Whole World Over'
Denise Hamilton's mystery series features reporter/sleuth Eve Diamond, who
is to modern Los Angeles what Raymond Chandler was to the 1930s City of
Angels.
In Hamilton's fifth novel, Prisoner of Memory, Eve discovers the body of a
high school boy, shot to death on a jogging path in a local park. When she
tries
to discover who executed him, she incurs the wrath of the Russian Mafia. The
book is a mystery in a puzzle, wrapped in an enigma.
Read an Excerpt: 'Prisoner of Memory'
Louis Bayard made his debut in 2003 with the fetching period mystery Mr.
Timothy, set in 19th-century London. Now, Bayard takes us across the pond to
upstate
New York in The Pale Blue Eye. A retired New York detective, Gus Landor, is
pressed into service when a cadet is discovered hanged on West Point's
campus.
Landor's inside man turns out to be a cadet with a taste for pretty women
and too much drink, and the ability to write impressive poetry: a young
Edgar
Allan Poe (who really did attend West Point, albeit briefly). Prepare to
stay up all night.
Read an Excerpt: 'The Pale Blue Eye'
List of 2 items
• A Million Nightingales: Susan Straight’s work often focuses on the margins
of society. Her latest novel is the story of a biracial teen girl, set in
Louisiana
as it makes the transition from French property to American state.
• Darcy's Story: In Janet Aylmer’s version of Jane Austen's Pride and
Prejudice, we get to see things from Fitzwilliam Darcy’s side, and discover
that his
chilly exterior is a good disguise for the molten interior he's hoping to
keep hidden.
list end
For Younger Readers...
Kids who enjoyed last year's The Lightning Thief will be delighted to know
that Rick Riordan has written the second book in his Percy Jackson and the
Olympians
series. Sea of Monsters continues the adventures of its half-god, half-human
hero. Riordan's planned pentalogy is based on the question, "What if the
gods
of Olympus were alive in the 21st century?"
Read an Excerpt: 'Sea of Monsters'
Dana Reinhardt's book, A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life, looks at what
happens to a 16-year-old girl who has been living happily with her adoptive
parents. Then her biological mom calls and asks to see her, and,
predictably, things get complicated. It's an engrossing story told in a very
believable
teen voice.
Read an Excerpt: 'A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life'
For the Love of Food
Everybody argues about where the best barbecue comes from. But Nancy
Davidson, who believes regional chauvinism should never constrain one's
options, offers
glimpses from around North America in Killer Ribs. She travels as far as
Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue (located, despite its name, in Kansas City, Kan.),
and
(hold onto your hats) Canada.
Recipes: Pork Ribs, Bourbon Sauce
When you get tired of throwing ribs on the barbie, Corinne Trang's The Asian
Grill has tasty alternatives such as spicy Thai-basil-and-lime marinated
jumbo
shrimp, grilled baby eggplant with ginger-miso paste and some wonderful side
dishes.
Recipes: Shrimp, Marinated Sirloin
Time for dessert: A Passion for Ice Cream. Whether you have a $1200
stainless-steel gelato maker or the $49.9
screw it part 3 continued...Time for dessert: A Passion for Ice Cream. Whether you have a $1200
stainless-steel gelato maker or the $49.95 special from Target, you can turn
out frosty
drinks (watermelon bubble tea -- the home version of a fruity boba drink)
and sweet constructions such as gingersnap lemon ice cream sandwiches or the
silly-sounding but delicious-looking Cho Cho Cho. Worth an hour on the
Stairmaster! Or you can just drink in the delicious photos.
Recipes: Cho Cho Cho, Espresso Floats
One of the greatest revolutions for home cooks in America was Julia Child's
multi-volume opus, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her biography, My
Life
in France, was begun a few years before her death and dictated to her
great-nephew, Alex Prud’homme. Child describes living and eating in France
after
World War II, and her determination to bring the delights of the French
table to an America that was ready to wean itself from processed cheese and
instant
rice. It's Child’s declaration of love to France, to her husband, Paul (her
lifelong collaborator) and to good food.
Read the Introduction
Antidotes to Reading Fatigue
List of 3 items
• The New Yorker Book of Cartoon Puzzles and Games: Friends putting you up
for the weekend? Bring them this book as a thank you. With almost 700
cartoons,
there’s something for everyone.
• Dictator Style: It's Architectural Digest for the democracy-impaired. See
Nicolae Ceausescu's bathrooms, Adolf Hitler's library, Manuel Noriega's
Christmas
tree.
• Unseen America: Photos and Stories by Workers: Photos of the working life
by workers themselves, who are often immigrants or the children of
immigrants.
done
Thanks, it's certainly a good idea. Nice one.