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The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn
by Alison Weir
Ballantine Books
Our Price: $28.00
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Alan H. suggests...
On May 19, 1536 Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second queen, was beheaded at the Tower of London on sensational charges of adultery; her destruction had been accomplished in less than a month. Anne's story has been told in many good biographies (and a few really bad historical novels), but this book is the first time her fall has been studied in depth as an isolated event in itself. The reliability of the surviving documentary sources varies wildly and constitutes something of a minefield, but Weir, in laying out the case for and against Anne, leaves little doubt that she was the victim of a ruthless frameup by Thomas Cromwell, the protagonist of Hilary Mantel's recent Wolf Hall . Anne's legion of enemies rejoiced at her downfall while remaining skeptical about her guilt. Among the relevant facts Weir brings to light is that a French executioner was summoned to behead Anne many days before she had even been found guilty — so much for Tudor justice. We are left with the portrait of a difficult, fiercely intelligent woman facing an increasingly certain disgrace and death with courage and who maintained her innocence to the end with a spirit worthy of the mother of the future Elizabeth I.
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Cat and Girl: Volume II
by Dorothy Gambrell
Our Price: $15.95
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Alex M. suggests...
You may remember the "Time Traveler's Convention" sponsored by MIT a few years ago; what you may not know: it was inspired by a Cat and Girl comic. Now in its second volume, Cat and Girl combines idealistic twenty-something angst with the cleverness of an offbeat New Yorker cartoon, and the deadpan tone of a slogan t-shirt (worn ironically, of course). With recurrent references to conspicuous consumption, the peculiarities of the internet, performance artist Joseph Bueys, the artifice that is hipster-ism, David Foster Wallace, and the other minutia Gambrell finds tucked away in the corners of our culture, Cat and Girl takes that liberal arts education off the shelf and gives it something to do.
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The Mayor's Tongue
by Nathaniel Rich
Riverhead Books
Our Price: $16.00
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Amanda N. suggests...
For the first half-dozen pages, this book seems to be headed in the direction of a "young, malcontent, privileged male trying to find himself by living in near poverty and doing manual labor" story. And then you begin to get ever-increasing hints that something else might be lurking under that veneer. Following two separate story lines, The Mayor's Tongue turns out to be a wonderfully bizarre story about the nature of communication, love, and dependence. Fans of Jonathan Safran Foer will enjoy Nathaniel Rich's debut novel.
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Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of the VHS Box
by Jacques Boyreau
Fantagraphics Books
Our Price: $19.99
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Andy N. and Sam C. suggests...
Yes, the VHS...yes, I rented ILSA: She Wolf of the S.S...No, I'm not proud, but thanks to this book I can now remember that awful night in 9th grade...and oh so much more... For all those who miss the lurid mystery of the VHS box and the questionable wonders it promises...this book is for you... Love-Andy and Sam
Read all of Andy N. and Sam C.'s recommendations
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Bandido: The Death and Resurrection of Oscar "Zeta" Acosta
by Ilan Stavans
Northwestern Univ Pr
Our Price: $13.95
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Ann M. suggests...
This is the true story of “Dr. Gonzo,” the lawyer character in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He is not Samoan. He lived (and possibly is still living) a most inspiring life. The furious nihilism of Fear and Loathing renders most surprising Acosta’s dedication to social justice and his intellectual swagger. This is a fine corrective. Stavans’ musings on biography are also great.
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Change Has Come: An Artist Celebrates Our American Spirit
by Kadir Nelson
Simon & Schuster
Our Price: $12.99
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Ariel R. suggests...
Kadir Nelson was approached by editors at Simon and Schuster just after the election with the idea for Change Has Come. He began work on the sketches included in this book while he was on tour for Abe’s Honest Words: The Life of Abraham Lincoln, and he completed them in just ten days. Known for his glowing colors and polished paintings, this was the first time I had seen looser sketches by Kadir Nelson. These sketches show all of the skill of his other books, but also have a moving spontaneity. Kadir Nelson captures Obama, as well as the spirit of America at this time, beautifully. Change Has Come is perfect for introducing your child to Barack Obama, or as a gift or keepsake for anyone inspired by this election (and who isn’t?).
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Wall and Piece
by Banksy
Random House UK
Our Price: $22.95
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Ben N. suggests...
Self-effacingly clever and brave, Banksy’s Wall and Piece is—well, it’s different. It’s graffiti, it’s performance art, it’s an essay. Banksy takes aim at social constructions, “normal” ideas, propriety, culture. This book is full of powerful thought. Whether or not you agree with any of the statements Banksy paints into existence and shapes into form, the stuff makes you think (and then re-think).
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Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer
by Tracy Kidder
Random House
Our Price: $14.00
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Carole H. suggests...
Like John McPhee, Kidder can interest me regardless of his topic. Finally he has a subject whose importance matches his considerable talents: Dr. Paul Farmer, infectious-disease expert, anthropologist, winner of a MacArthur grant, founder of Partners in Health, brilliant and tireless worker in brining health care to the world's poorest people. Farmer understands the political economy of disease and poverty, he believes that radical change is possible and he has proved it with his work in Haiti. The story is fascinating -- awe-inspiring, engrossing, funny and yet deadly serious.
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Malice
by Chris Wooding
Scholastic Pr
Our Price: $14.99
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Carter H. suggests...
Oh man oh man oh man- this is an incredibly exciting book. Yeah, it's creepy, but surprisingly not all that scary. My head's still reeling after reading it. I can't wait for part 2, Havoc, due out in May. This is clearly a book for fans of Hunger Games and The Lightning Thief. I'm talking to you buddy. Read this book.
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Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals
by Christopher Payne
Mit Pr
Our Price: $39.95
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Christina C. suggests...
On pages 42 and 71, you will find photographs of the Northampton State Hospital. There, when I was 16, my friends and I were threatened with arrest by police who patrolled the decrepit grounds day and night. This monstrously vast facility fascinated us, as it had others who had pried their ways inside to explore not just exam rooms still containing x-rays, mortuaries, underground tunnels, and other mysterious, otherworldly realms of the past, but also simply the time-saturated, crumbling walls. Flip through to find lonely beds, empty theaters, ghostly hallways, numbered graves, dry baths, abandoned medical supplies, and suitcases that never found their way home.
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The Armies
by Evelio Rosero
New Directions
Our Price: $14.95
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Churchill P. suggests...
This novel is one of the best pieces of fiction that I have read this year. It is the beautiful and sad tale of a retired schoolteacher and his life in Colombia, caught between warring factions who kidnap and murder with no hesitation. As the teacher's village loses touch with its once simple existence, so does his mind lose touch with reality. I could not recommend it more.
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Eating Animals
by Jonathan Safran Foer
Little Brown & Co
Our Price: $25.99
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Clare M. suggests...
I would be tremendously disappointed if the majority of people who pick up this book are vegetarians simply seeking validation for their dietary choices, and I bet Foer would be too. As a writer, Foer is renowned for engaging with the darkest truths in human experience in a wholly original manner. In his first nonfiction book, Foer saddles up to one of the most polarizing topics today: eating animals. Despite Foer's self-confessed vegetarianism, he offers narratives from all sides of the debate...factory farmers, animal rights activists, vegetarian ranchers, vegan slaughterhouse architects (you read that correctly). Most importantly, Foer lays the hard facts about factory farming out on the table, so that readers can come to their own fully informed decisions. Articulate, meticulously researched, equally funny and disturbing. Foer gently forces us to face the good/bad reality of consuming animals, in the most digestible way possible.
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Mariana
by Monica Dickens
Persephone Books Ltd
Our Price: $15.00
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Erica M. H. suggests...
Monica Dickens, great-granddaughter of Charles, wrote this delicious coming of age novel 70 years ago. Dickens chronicles with deftness, compassion, and a sometimes ruthless honesty, the life of one completely unexceptional woman in the 1930’s. There is a frankness in Dickens’s portrayal of Mary, the main character, that I found refreshing. Mary could be petty, or generous; exuberant, or depressive, and all without a shred of coyness. Details of contemporary life abound, from fox hunting, to hat styles, to the minutia of proper English etiquette. Mariana enthralled me (there’s no other word) in the same way that Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre or Bridget Jones’s Diary did. Persephone books, a family owned publisher in London, wiped the dust off of this forgotten classic and printed it up beautifully with french flaps, gorgeous cover art and an introduction by Harriet Lane. Curl up with a sherry to read this one.
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Reflections in a Golden Eye
by Carson McCullers
Mariner Books
Our Price: $10.00
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Erica S. suggests...
Set in a remote southern army base during peacetime, "Reflections in a Golden Eye" is a startling novella, chronicling the experiences of two couples. It packs a few punches - infidelity, latent homosexuality, mutilation, revenge - it’s disturbing, compelling and completely engrossing. What makes it more interesting is that the extraordinary events are based solidly in the ordinary, chronicling how boredom and sedentary living can erupt, twisted and brutal. I liked "Reflections in a Golden Eye" more than McCullers’ more well received and popular title, "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter," and recommend it as something to try if you were slightly underwhelmed by that book, or as further reading if you loved it.
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The Infinity of Lists: An Illustrated Essay
by Umberto Eco
Rizzoli Intl Pubns
Our Price: $45.00
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Frances H. suggests...
This book is wonderful in that it can be as difficult or as easy as you want to make it. If you just want some light intellectual exercise, feel free to only read Eco's own short observations and skim his examples. If you'd like some heavier lifting, you can focus on one chapter by reading every word and picking apart the visual examples, too. I really appreciate the opportunity to think about the larger concepts he presents here without the pressure of struggling to understand every example, because really, if I wanted to think that hard I'd go back to school.
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Swann's Way
by Marcel Proust
Penguin Classics
Our Price: $16.00
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Geoff S. suggests...
Forget the pretense. Just have your heart broken as you look back to the far reaches of your own fleeting memories. Lydia Davis's is a sure and gentle hand to guide you.
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Vacation
by Deb Olin Unferth
Pubilshers Group West
Our Price: $22.00
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Jane D. suggests...
Vacation is told in a voice I hadn't read before, and one that kept me up all night reading. It's a mystery why these characters are following each other around their neighborhoods and all over the world and how Deb Olin Unferth can show us familiar things through alien eyes, make us see, somewhat objectively, the bizarre world we're used to. It's funny and sad and you can't tell which is which. I loved every minute of it.
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Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
by Judi Barrett
Atheneum
Our Price: $6.99
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Jen C. suggests...
This book is the BEST picture book involving food EVER. The illustrations and story are a joy, and the people I introduce the book to invariably love it, whether they are 5 or 15 or 50 years old.
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The Bible: A Biography
by Karen Armstrong
Grove Press
Our Price: $13.00
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Julia M. suggests...
This book is readable and fascinating. The Judeo-Christian Bible is possibly the text (in all its forms) that has caused the most joy and also the most devastation of any book ever to exist. Armstrong's treatise examines the development of Judaism and eventually Christianity and how individuals and groups have constructed, interpreted and reinterpreted the Bible over the 3,000-odd years of its life. Understanding this history is essential to understanding our Christian-influenced country/world.
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Waiting for Winter
by Sebastian Meschenmoser
Kane Miller Book Pub
Our Price: $15.99
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Kari P. suggests...
This is my favorite picture book of the year. The artwork is pretty amazing. There is so much implied motion in the seemingly simple lines, and the details are so much fun. (The little bits of stuff stuck on the hedgehog in every picture make me smile.) How can anyone resist the charm of a story that has a sleep-rumpled bear appearing after being awakened by a squirrel and a hedgehog singing sea shanties? Seriously. Just take a look. You won’t regret it. I promise.
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Personal Days
by Ed Park
Random House Inc
Our Price: $13.00
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Katherine C. suggests...
Fans of workplace humor such as the TV series The Office or the recent National Book Award winner Then We Came To The End will enjoy Ed Park’s Personal Days. It recounts the misadventures of the disgruntled employees of a dysfunctional office, regarding email goofs, inter-cubicle romances, quirky coworkers, and a mysterious series of firings. An amusing and surprising portrait of the self-contained, fluorescent-lit world within an office’s four walls.
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Big Box Reuse
by Julia Christensen
Mit Pr
Our Price: $29.95
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Katie L. suggests...
It’s a particular thrill to receive a present that shows the giver knows you well. When a friend gave me this one, it was like she had conjured it out of my psyche. Converting abandoned Wal-Marts into civic centers? Sign me up! But when I sat down with Christensen’s brilliant documentary project, I realized that poetic justice, made material, is only one of many facets to this surprising, timely portrait of America’s landscapes: how corporations have shaped them, and how regular people are reclaiming them. Its multi-dimensionality (including gorgeous, haunting photographs) gives Big Box Reuse broad appeal, making it a wonderful gift for anyone who gets a kick out of: (a) community building (b) environmentalism (c) architecture (d) politics (e) alternative economics (f) sociology (g) beauty (h) inspiration (i) books (j) goodness
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The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor
by Flannery O'Connor
Farrar Straus & Giroux
Our Price: $23.00
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Leah F. suggests...
I am delighted that Brad Gooch's Flannery has endeavored to shine new light on the quirks and brilliance of Flannery O'Connor, one of the century's most unapologetically weird and opinionated fiction writers. But no one can have better insight into the head of the writer than Flannery herself. The Habit of Being, letters first lovingly compiled by O'Connor's friend Sally Fitzgerald, risks a hagiographic tone in its introduction—but this, I'm glad to report, is summarily dismissed by the crackly voice of the letter-writer.
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The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb
by R. Crumb
W W Norton & Co Inc
Our Price: $24.95
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Lillian D. suggests...
Best known for his nightmarish depictions of acid trips, fornicating cats, and sweaty, record collecting misfits, R. Crumb has now used his artistic powers for the greater good, by illustrating the first book of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. It may seem like an odd choice for the king of underground comics, but lucky for Crumb there is plenty of evil and carnal pleasures to hold his attention and ours. Completely accurate and faithful to the text, Crumb has cleverly side stepped any wrath from conservatives, who then might have to admit that Genesis is in fact, a little racy. Full of pen crosshatches and a stout legged Eve, R. Crumb's style paired with the fascinating stories of the Old Testament make this more than a comic book, and less than a real Bible. Basically, your perfect gift.
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Henry in Love
by Peter McCarty
Balzer & Bray
Our Price: $16.99
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Lizzy G. suggests...
Henry the cat likes Chloe the rabbit. He likes her likes her. You know. He\\\'s also a pretty fast runner, and has a fresh blueberry muffin for snack. How could he lose? This new offering from McCarty is more than adorable. Charming illustrations aside, it was the story of Henry’s crush that drew me in and eventually struck me as being eerily realistic. I may be long out of grade school (and I’ve never been a cat), but I was totally feelin’ the saga of Henry (and I desperately need to believe that that says something about this book, as opposed to something about me).
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Cheever: A Life
by Blake Bailey
Knopf
Our Price: $35.00
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Mark L. suggests...
This terrific book goes immediately to my top shelf of literary biographies. John Cheever lived in endless turmoil with his contradictions—the erudite high school dropout; the closeted bisexual who despised gay men, guilt-ridden, manipulative and rampant in his pursuits; the snob most at ease with workers; a man who idealized husband-and-fatherhood, and an alcoholic compulsively unkind to his children and estranged from his wife. Given a lesser biographer all this could be merely lurid, but Bailey’s clean, low-key style and generous insights tease out the strands of harsh judgment and emollient self-deception in Cheever’s journals, and convincingly trace them into the effort and effect in his stories and novels. I don’t expect to read anything better this year. Brilliant.
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Why Architecture Matters
by Paul Goldberger
Yale Univ Pr
Our Price: $26.00
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Meagan P. suggests...
'It was a language of masonry, redolent with ornament and detail, emerging from the belief that every building, no matter how private, showed a public presence - that it had an obligation to the street and to anyone who paused before it, whether or not they had reason to walk through its doors.' The passion in Goldberger's sweeping, vivid descriptions gave me goosebumps. Read it. Read it especially if you have never read about architecture before. It inspires the desire to set out on an architectural tour of the world, but like me, you may have to settle with an extensive Google image search.
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Nothing: A Very Short Introduction
by Frank Close
Oxford Univ Pr
Our Price: $11.95
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Megan K. suggests...
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Things We Didn't See Coming
by Steven Amsterdam
Pantheon Books
Our Price: $24.00
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Megan S. suggests...
Amsterdam’s debut features nine stories linked by a single narrator, related over several increasingly difficult decades of post-apocalyptic life. But instead of focusing on the pain and awfulness of the situation, Amsterdam has produced a series of original, dense stories about the canniness it takes to overcome adversity.
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Butcher's Crossing
by John Edward Williams
New York Review of Books
Our Price: $14.95
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Mike C. suggests...
"You said it would be all right." His voice gained strength, became accusing: "You said we'd make it out before the snows came."
They don't, but you already know that if you've read the blurb on the back. But Williams tricks you into thinking that maybe things will be all right; maybe Miller will find his buffalo and make his fortune; maybe young Will Andrews will connect with nature and find those transcendent truths he left Harvard to seek; maybe Schneider will live out the rest of his days with a full belly and a warm bed and pleasant company; maybe Charley Hoge's Bible and whiskey will keep him safe; maybe four men can plunder a wilderness and still ride off into the sunset.
A suspenseful, philosophical page-turner that you won't soon forget.
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The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity
by Mac Barnett
Simon & Schuster
Our Price: $14.99
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Rachel A. suggests...
It's been a long time since I laughed out loud on the T and had people ask "what book are you reading". This is that kind of book! Hearkening back to vintage good ole sleuth novels, Steve Brixton and the nation's most powerful secret agents (librarians – sshhh!) are out to recover a national treasure hiding important secrets. Laughter will ensue as Steve battles baddies and thugs. Fans of The Three Investigators, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys will love this first installment of The Brixton Brothers.
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Weekend Knitting: 50 Unique Projects and Ideas
by Melanie Falick
Stewart Tabori & Chang
Our Price: $18.95
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Rachel C. suggests...
First, an admission: I have not yet made any of the patterns in Weekend Knitting. That being said, I love this book. I just learned to knit, and I picked it up in a frenzy of enthusiasm. Even though I don’t have the skills to tackle most of the projects, it’s been an endless source of inspiration. In fact, there’s almost nothing in here I don’t want to try. And since it contains a mix of difficulties (although admittedly not marked, so be sure to read the instructions all the way through before beginning a project), I’ll be able to grow into it. I plan to start with the backgammon tote on p. 50 (the bag at least is well within my skill set), and I aspire one day to be able to tackle the finger puppets at the end.
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Finnikin of the Rock
by Melina Marchetta
Candlewick Pr
Our Price: $18.99
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Regina S. suggests...
I’m maybe a little jaded about epic fantasy, because I’ve read so much of it. Finnikin of the Rock is a delight, though - despite its retreading of a familiar formula, the characters are interesting people, and the journey they take to reach an inevitable conclusion was not at all what I expected. Even when Finnikin is behaving like an idiot (which he does - he is, after all, under a lot of pressure), and Evanjelin seems to have completely lost her mind, I wanted to know what was going to happen to them. If you’re not as jaded as I am, I suspect this journey will be a particularly memorable one.
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