New Non-Fiction

A Temple of Texts: Essays
by William H. Gass (Knopf)

Philosopher, fabulist, professor (in the fullest sense): William Gass has for over forty years been one to pay tribute at the altar of language, our ability to inhabit the imagination and, thus, real life. He has done this through landmark works of fiction and dazzling demonstrations of the essay. His newest book is a veritable temple, whether he is ruminating on Rilke, on how influence happens, or on his foundational "Fifty Literary Pillars." This is the work of a master, one who enriches the language we write, babble, daydream, dare, denounce, praise, pray, prey, lampoon, long, love, or amen with. -R. Simonson

Fantasyland: A Season on Baseball's Lunatic Fringe
by Sam Walker (Viking)

In 1980, several patrons of a New York restaurant called La Rotisserie Française solidified an idea that forever changed the lives of many sports fans. By 2005, an estimated five million Americans play Rotisserie or "fantasy" baseball and fifteen million compete in some fantasy sport. Sports journalist Sam Walker gives it a shot and lands a spot for the 2004 season in one of the most competitive Rotisserie leagues in America. Fantasyland chronicles Walker's ensuing madness. Walker's account—from sensible statistical analysis to following "gut feelings" and even outright irrationality—illustrates the wild ride that makes fantasy sports so irresistible. -J. Zaidi

A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army, 1941-1945
ed. and trans. by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova (Pantheon)

If Vasily Grossman had been a visual artist, this book would have been Guernica. A war correspondent with the Red Army, Grossman traveled with the soldiers to the Eastern Front and filled notebooks with stories of blood, fire, and starvation.

"You know that the terrible sight that your eyes have just taken in is going to haunt you and lie heavily on your soul all your life." Grossman conveys the horror that is war in stark, simple words. When he writes in 1944, "There are no Jews in Poland," his readers understand the necessity for that horrible war in that dreadful period of history. -J. Brown

Incendiary Circumstances: A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times
by Amitav Ghosh (Houghton Mifflin)

This first nonfiction collection by Amitav Ghosh, author of The Glass Palace (Random House), reveals a sensitive writer documenting human resilience in the face of both man-made and natural disasters and a keen observer witnessing moments where history turns.

Quoting Mahatma Gandhi, Ghosh writes that "means are ends," whether these means are the violent return to "Year Zero" in Cambodia, the murderous attacks in retribution for Gandhi's assassination, or writers' responses to terrorist acts and government repression. His demonstration that nonviolent resistance is a typical, yet less dramatic, response to violence is in itself an intervention against bystanders' indifference and powerlessness. -K.M. Allman

The Weather Makers
by Tim Flannery (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Your next-door neighbor was a contributor to Hurricane Katrina. Your mother was behind the last heat wave in the South, and all the people in Kansas send a word of gratitude for the tornado you sent them last August. Welcome to our world of weather makers, where your everyday Joe can be the climate's nemesis. Scientist/explorer Flannery makes the science behind our "aerial ocean" exceedingly accessible, describing how our everyday existence affects the climate, from the world's tallest peaks to its deepest fathoms, offering simple advice about curbing our habits and protecting our future. -C. Joyner

The Colony
by John Tayman (Scribner)

This is a story about the Hawaiian island Molokai, a leper colony for 140 years, with its questionable exiles and the fascinating people it attracted, such as Mother Marianne Cope, Father Damian, Robert Louis Stevenson, and many more. Tayman creates a humanistic portrayal of the colony—researched through letters, archives, and the personal histories of four exiles—inescapably intertwined with the politics of Hawaii and a nation's reaction to incurable disease. –A.C. Jennings

I Love You More than You Know
by Jonathan Ames (Black Cat)

At one point in his newest collection of essays, while contemplating the great American novel, Ames describes himself as "the great American pervert." Ames has a compulsive and neurotic fascination with deviance—mostly his own. Prostitution, transsexuals, pimples, sadomasochism, nose picking, and butt scratching are meditated on, punctuated by explosive attacks of irritable bowel syndrome, and—contrary to what you might be thinking—make for hilarious reading. He makes his shortcomings fodder for the reader's laughter. Thanks, Jonathan Ames, for sharing. -G. Berry

The Worst Hard Time
by Timothy Egan (Houghton Mifflin)

Using victims' personal accounts as a framework, Timothy Egan has once again brought his formidable journalistic skills to bear in laying out the confluence of the economic and ecological disasters known as the Dust Bowl. The Worst Hard Time is aptly named, as the reader soon develops a yearning for large glasses of water while being literally swept up by the infamous "black blizzards." The decade-long horror depicted here is all the more depressing when Egan makes clear how avoidable it all was. -J. Reiner

Timothy; Or, Notes of an Abject Reptile
by Verlyn Klinkenborg (Knopf)

This eloquently told story, narrated from the point of view of a tortoise plucked from her home on the Turkish coast to live, eventually, in the gardens of eighteenth–century naturalist Gilbert White, is both lush in its reptile's-eye-view description of the natural world and poignant in its depiction of human tendencies to "persecute and destroy" this same world. Inspired in part by White's journals, as well as by the author's close observation of the flora and fauna of the English countryside, Timothy is a quietly luminous, wise, and thoughtful book. -K.M. Allman

House Thinking: A Room-by-Room Look at How We Live
by Winifred Gallagher (HarperCollins)

Home is where the heart is, so the saying goes, but many of us live in homes that "look good" but don't "feel good" or are dysfunctional, cluttered, depressing, or dull. Winifred Gallagher takes us on a psychological house tour in a fascinating book that looks at the changing nature of the American home, from the tiny clapboard farmhouse to the suburban McMansion. Drawing on interviews with environmental behaviorists, historians, architects, designers, and house and apartment dwellers, Gallagher explores the impact of place and how altering one's setting can revitalize daily experience, reduce stress, and help express and nurture one's true self. -L. Paus

The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World
by Matther Stewart (Norton)

Gottfried Leibniz and Baruch de Spinoza were arguably two of the greatest minds of the seventeenth century—even while Descartes, Newton, Hobbes, and other "men of reason" also walked the planet.

The pair were often opposed on countless aspects of philosophy and faith. One was a brilliant apologist for church doctrine, the other the most notorious heretic in Europe. Stewart's meticulous research hints at their underlying similarities in intellectual prowess and uncovers a secret, and fleeting, friendship in an age when religious persecution and wars of conquest could be spurred by a single correspondence. Stewart captures his central figures and the turbulent Enlightenment in a tone often wry, salacious, rigorous, and profound. -V. Verano

In the Time of Madness: Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos
by Richard Lloyd Parry (Grove)

During his first visit to Indonesia in 1996, journalist Richard Parry's nights are plagued by eerie nightmares featuring menacing and unnatural figures. Three years later, he finds it difficult to recognize which is more terrifying: the real or the imagined. An archipelago of a nation that spans a width exceeding that of the Atlantic Ocean, Indonesia is a mysterious combination of isolation and cultural integration. During his travels in the islands, Parry encounters black magic, bulletproof cannibals, nefarious dictators, student protests, and Timorese guerillas. You'll keep reading, if only to find out how he survived long enough to write this book. -J. Zaidi

A Fool's Gold: A Story of Ancient Spanish Treasure, Two Pounds of Pot, and the Young Lawyer Almost Left Holding the Bag
by Bill Merritt (Bloomsbury)

As a young lawyer, Bill Merritt finds himself thrust into a story of crime and intrigue following the death by heart attack of his boss, Thaddeus Silk. A load of cash and possibly some Spanish treasure have gone missing from Silk's safe on the night of his death. Merritt finds himself embroiled and accused of involvement. He takes on the cases of two local "characters," which slowly begin to connect to his own troubles. Merritt's book is living proof that truth is stranger than fiction. -G. Berry

Wave of Destruction
by Erich Krauss (Rodale)

In a world that has been damaged repeatedly by recent natural disasters, we're becoming numb. We complain about the cost of heating our comfortable homes, while people in Pakistan suffer winter cold in minimal shelter.

Erich Krauss gives faces to last winter's tsunami victims by telling the stories of the inhabitants of a Thai village that was destroyed by the wave. Families who eked out an existence in "the most dreadful village in all of Thailand" describe the horror of being engulfed by a forty-foot wave, and its aftermath. This book is an essential vaccination against compassion fatigue. -J. Brown

The Oracle: The Lost Secrets and Hidden Message of Ancient Delphi
by William J. Broad (Penguin Press)

The Oracle of Delphi has persisted in the popular imagination for centuries, a priestess swept up in the throes of ecstatic prophecy while the emissaries of monarchs watched in awe. In the late-nineteenth century, French archaeologists declared the impossibility of such prophetic activity. In recent years a geologist, archaeologist, geochemist, and toxicologist turned classical history on its head with what they found. Broad's compelling account of the Delphi controversies and ensuing discoveries reads like a primer on Ancient Greek history and a thrilling scientific-detective story, ultimately showing how the solution of one mystery opens the door to countless others. -V. Verano

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
by Elizabeth Gilbert (Viking)

Reeling from the effects of a particularly vicious divorce, Elizabeth Gilbert decides to take a vacation from her New York life. Dividing the next year into three parts, she spends it indulging her appetite in Italy, searching for spiritual practice in India, and finding a balance between the two in Bali.

The story of how she achieves this, while exploring these three very different corners of the world, is perfect reading for those who don't shrink from change. Who knows? Maybe she'll spark a trend by inspiring women to take to the open globe in search of a well-shaped life. -J. Brown

Poetry

After: Poems
by Jane Hirschfield (HarperCollins)

Jane Hirshfield is a master at suspending a moment in time, describing its weight and transience, its fleeting power. Her latest collection of poems—exploring topics as diverse as "Instant Glimpsable Only for an Instant," "Late Self-Portrait by Rembrandt," and "Beneath the Snow, the Badger's Steady Breathing"—testifies to her remarkable attentiveness and deep seeing. Whether she is investigating a bad year, the notion of possibility, or "Why Bodhidharma Went to Motel 6," these are poems of quiet strength, possessing both the intimacy and scope of Chinese brush paintings. -L. Paus

Drama

The Pillowman
by Martin McDonagh (Faber & Faber)

Irish playwright Martin McDonagh's most recent play tells the story of a writer, Katurian, who finds himself arrested and under interrogation in a totalitarian state. The series of Grimm-like short stories that Katurian has written bear a striking resemblance to a series of child murders that has taken place. McDonagh is known for startling examinations of violence in his plays. The reader/theatergoer is left wondering about the causal relationship between stories and life. Which imitates what in this powerful and moving play? -G. Berry

New Fiction

The Brooklyn Follies
by Paul Auster (Henry Holt)

Nathan Glass has come home to Brooklyn to die, having lost almost all ties to his ex-wife and adult daughter. To occupy his time, Nathan has begun writing The Book of Human Folly—less a book than a collection of scraps of paper tossed into a box along with brief anecdotes from his life. One of Nathan's regular haunts is the bookstore in his neighborhood, owned by Harry Brightman, where Nathan is reunited with his nephew, the once-promising intellectual Tom Wood. There are no secondary characters or plot lines in Paul Auster's novels, only a symphonic blending of faces and places. -H. Myers

Arthur & George
by Julian Barnes (Knopf)

Millions of readers would happily stand in line to thank the mother of the creator of the most beloved detective in literature for having spun yarns about Arthurian knights to her son, thus sparking his unparalleled imagination. From this beginning, Barnes launches his biographical novel of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a lesser-known figure in his life, George Edalji, a trained solicitor convicted of mutilating livestock in his parish. Barnes lovingly re-creates the childhoods and adult lives of both men, focusing on Doyle's intent on clearing Edalji's name in this quietly amazing and wholly satisfying book. -C. Joyner

Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes
by T Cooper (Dutton)

In the early twentieth century, the Lipshitz family, fleeing Russia's violent anti-Semitism, arrives in America. Their youngest son, Reuven, disappears on Ellis Island, and, later in life, Reuven's despondent mother becomes convinced that her missing son is actually Charles Lindbergh. Meanwhile, in the early twenty-first century, T Cooper, the last surviving Lipshitz, has abandoned a promising writing career and is working as an Eminem impersonator—"Slim Lindy"—and entertains at bar mitzvahs. Spanning a hundred years of family history without once losing its soul or spine, this scathingly funny novel will thrill fans of Philip Roth's The Plot Against America (Vintage) or Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex (Picador). -P. Constant

The Killing in This Town
by Olympia Vernon (Grove)

This third novel by Olympia Vernon is as challenging and haunting as one would expect from such a brilliant author. She brings startling symbolism and grit to describing the hatred—born from the heart and bones of the "free and automatic white men"—that enveloped Bullock, Mississippi. The Ku Klux Klan spreads unapologetic murder and fear through two families, who seem helpless in their fate. Vernon perfectly captures despair, malevolence, and eventually redemption with a realism that is undeniable. -J. Wells

Becoming Strangers
by Louise Dean (Harcourt)

Try as we might to put our lives on hold for a week by jetting off to a tropical paradise, surrounded by towel boys and strangers, we always carry ourselves (and often our spouses) as baggage. In Becoming Strangers, Louise Dean captures this truth about the microcosm of a luxury resort with a dry wit and a cast of characters that is both colorful and shockingly average. As her characters suntan and skinny dip, they are forced to face the pesky realities of terminal cancer, Alzheimer's, and their own shaky marriages. -M. Hickner

Gate of the Sun
by Elias Khoury
trans. by Humphrey Davies (Archipelago)

First published to huge acclaim in 1998, this epic by the Lebanese writer Elias Khoury vividly tells of the disasters that have been visited upon, and endured by, the Palestinian people from the middle of the twentieth century on. Likened by many to 1001 Nights, it casts in the role of Sheherazade a man, loosely defined as a doctor, who narrates the years to his friend and mentor, now lying in a coma. The stories that pour forth—of peoples' lives, displacements and deprivations, brutal oppression and self-inflicted folly—are told, sagely, sadly, funnily, to keep his friend, and memory, alive. -R. Simonson
    Note: Elias Khoury is scheduled to read at Elliott Bay on April 22, 2006, a visit not to be missed.

Passarola Rising
by Azhar Abidi (Viking)

Azhar Abidi tells a charming story of adventure and airships and growing up, of battle and kings and the wits of Enlightenment Europe; but this tale of a young man following his older brother in his quest for the sublime has an element of wistfulness and meditation that gives the charm substance. The sheer whimsy of a flying ship has its attractions, yet the core of the story is the life of the younger brother, Alex, growing up in the shadow of a genius, and it is his remembrances of his brother's tortured soul that give this book its heart. -M. Helsel

Queen of the Underworld
by Gail Godwin (Random House)

Home is not necessarily a place. It is more a feeling of acceptance and comfort, a feeling we often associate with a particular place. In the summer of 1959, Cuban exiles are beginning to come north, seeking new lives and possibilities in Miami. Armed with a journalism degree, Emma Gant heads south from her rural North Carolina home, hoping Miami will hold acceptance for her as well. In a kaleidoscopic world of eccentric characters and mysterious dealings, Godwin unfurls an absorbing adventure in which Emma learns that if you open your eyes, you can be at home while in exile. -J. Zaidi

White Ghost Girls
by Alice Greenway (Grove)

In this story of communist revolution, family allegiances, sexual awakenings, and corpses, Alice Greenway takes on the perception of war and revolution through the eyes of a teenage girl living on the fringes of the battlegrounds. Two teenage sisters from an American family are living in Hong Kong with their mother, while their father is in Vietnam photographing the war. This novel is indeed a sensory experience, causing each incident described, from the embrace of a father to the discovery of a bloated body, to be sharply felt. -M. Hickner

The Fugitive Wife
by Peter C. Brown (Norton)

This is Brown's first novel, and it is a resounding success. His well-structured narrative weaves together the worlds of turn-of-the-century midwestern U.S. farm life and gold rush Alaska. Essie is a young woman fleeing from personal tragedy who finds herself in Seattle, caught up in the outward tide of swindlers, businessmen, and gold diggers all headed for Nome. Few novels so successfully combine a compelling story with such fascinating historical detail, particularly the rush-and-tumble economic system of a prospector's Alaska. Read Essie's story for a taste of the adventure and possibility that were so much a part of the times. -T. Hayes

The World to Come
by Dara Horn (Norton)

The World to Come begins with a grave and ends with a birth, and in between Dara Horn treats her readers to an intricately woven story about family, grief, a Marc Chagall painting, and the surprise of choosing life. Whether describing poverty, despair, or new love, Horn's prose glows true, and her flights into the image-laden world of Yiddish tales produce a magic that underscores the aching truth of her story. Like the lives, paintings, and stories that it chronicles, this novel is a joy, as delicately crafted as a sestina and as richly patterned as Bach's fugues. -M. Helsel

The Amalgamation Polka
by Stephen Wright (Knopf)

It's difficult to discern a launching point when trying to explain even a fraction of the goings-on in this Civil War novel of expansively epic proportions. The narrative centers around Liberty Fish, born to abolitionist parents in upstate New York, and follows him as he matures, enlists in the Union army, encounters and is essentially kidnapped by his Nazi-esque, slave-owning grandfather (with a penchant for homicidal experiments).

That's just a portion of what awaits the reader. The true joy of the novel is Wright's flourishing use of language—brandishing words like swords, ready to slash through even the most seasoned reader's expectations. -C. Joyner

The Space Between Us
by Thrity Umrigar (HarperCollins)

With each new generation, there are some prejudices that are thankfully washed away and others that still endure. Thrity Umrigar introduces us to the inequalities and hardships that are still a part of life in contemporary India in this story of an educated, middle-class woman and her poor and illiterate housekeeper. As we follow the heartbreaking lives of these two women, we learn that love alone can't save their families from circumstance, but their strength will carry them far. -M. Hickner

The Inheritance of Loss
by Kiran Desai (Atlantic Monthly Press)

In this gorgeously described novel, place is more than character; it is a prime mover. Desai's lush descriptions maneuver her characters, and the reader, about the globe—from a decaying colonial house at the foot of the Himalayas, to the multicultural mix of New York's restaurant kitchens; from Moscow to a Delhi monastery. An orphaned teenage girl, an aging judge, a young man adrift but with ties still to his hopeful father: all these characters negotiate the obstacles and opportunities of their particular geographies. It poses the question: What is determined by place and what by the determination of those who people the places? -T. Hayes

The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster
by Kaye Gibbons (Harcourt)

Spunky, independent Ellen Foster is back in this new novel by acclaimed author Kaye Gibbons. Now older and finally settled in a happy home, Ellen must decide what to do with her future. College would be the best place to utilize her extraordinary intellectual gifts, but financially it seems impossible. Then there is her longtime friend, Stuart, who has his own plans for Ellen's future. As she adjusts to her approaching adulthood, Ellen must decide if the rural life she knows and loves will satisfy her in the long term. -K. Markowitz

Children's & Young Adult Books

Fancy Nancy
photography by Jane O'Connor
illus. by Robin Preiss Glasser (HarperCollins)

If there were a little-kid's Vogue, Nancy would be the editor—except that her family doesn't get Nancy's feather boas, baubles, glitter, and gusto. So—with a little friendly encouragement—mom, dad, and baby sister agree to take "fancy lessons" from Nancy. Soon they are the hottest family ever seen! The illustrations by a New York Times award winner make this book irresistible fun, even for fashion grumps. At its heart, this story is about family. Whether Nancy is too cool, or loses her cool, her family is there to love her, and that's no fluff. -T. Radebaugh

Small Steps
by Louis Sachar (Delacorte)

In this sequel to Holes, our reluctant hero Armpit (or Theodore, as he'd prefer to be called) is back with a new job, a new look, and a new philosophy for success: taking small steps. Even the smallest of steps become terrible, complicated leaps when money, girls, and peer pressure seep into his life and force him to make some tough decisions. With characters we care about and a story that will bite into you, Small Steps is a worthy continuance of Theodore's struggle to find his own footing in this slippery world. -J. Schurk

The Outlaw Varjak Paw
by SF Said
illus. by Dave McKean (David Fickling)

Once again, Varjak Paw is called to adventure. When Sally Bones and her gang begin to take over the city, Varjak and his friends are forced into hiding. Amidst mutilations and hunger, with the loss of friends and the discovery of unlikely allies, Varjak begins to doubt the Way, his cat Kung-Fu, at a time when those around him believe he is their only hope. With nowhere else to turn and no faith in his abilities, Varjak learns from his Grandfather Jalal, who visits in dreams, that there is more to being a warrior than the ability to fight. -V. Verano

Uncle Peter's Amazing Chinese Wedding
by Lenore Look
illus by Yumi Heo (Simon & Schuster)

Lenore Look's endearing story shows the ancient traditions of Chinese weddings and how they are practiced today in the United States. Little Jenny is outraged when she realizes she will no longer be Uncle Peter's one shining star, now that he is marrying Stella, and Jenny gets so mad she steals the leaves from the tea ceremony. Meanwhile, the festivities—illustrated vibrantly in the colors of the bride's dresses—continue, like jumping on the newlyweds' bed. An amazing tradition saves the day and allows Jenny to be a big part of the celebration. -T. Radebaugh

The Owner's Corner

by Peter Aaron

A year since the beginning of the second term; five years since the onset of this government—this regime—this (we must face it) reflection of who we are, in the aggregate, at this period in history, as a people. And finally the cracks begin to appear, to spread, to widen in the fiercely glazed surface. Disclosures in the news—cavalier corruption, pervasive illegal eavesdropping (and, finally, signs of at least some voices in journalism summoning the nerve to do their jobs again—to investigate, to inquire, to disclose).

And at last, resistance—in, of all places, the usually stodgy, somnambular Senate: refusal to swallow absurd Supreme Court candidates; refusal to mechanically pass legislation perpetuating the incursions into civil liberties built into the "Patriot Act"; balking at the insertion of an amendment permitting oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska into a bill authorizing Defense Department spending.

Perhaps it's beginning—the crumbling from the inside out, the revulsive swing of the pendulum away from the prevailing extremism. The falling away of the scales of indifference we've hung over our collective eyes.

And what has this to do with books, with bookstores? Everything—for what we read, what we write, is inescapably connected to the times, and the conditions, in which we live. Try reading anything from the Greeks, to Shakespeare, to pre– and post–World War II Western literature, without being struck by ominous relevances to our era. How can we help but be struck, when reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's marvelous Lincoln biography Team of Rivals (Simon & Schuster), by the resonant similarities of administrative deceit and intrigue and the diametrical difference of presidential competence, vision, and moral grounding compared to the present?

Last year, in Ian McEwan's Saturday (Random House), to cite just one example, we saw the beginning of enduring fiction reflecting and exploring the ramifications of a post-9/11 world. And in the forthcoming novel Seeing (Harcourt; to be reviewed in the next Booknotes edition), Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago realizes a time and place in which voters, disgusted with the absence of meaningful alternatives presented by the political parties, turn out in droves to cast blank ballots.

For the truth is that, either intentionally or subliminally, what we read is connected, if not motivated—in our search for stimulation, comprehension, solace, or even escape—by the prompts and exigencies of the times in which we live.

Here, then, is a wish for a new year: may we continue to find, in the art of the written word, the courage and wisdom of which we are in such dire need; and may we cherish and defend—at whatever cost—the precious freedom and privacy to create, express, and explore.