New Nonfiction

Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird
by Andrew D. Blechman (Grove)

For many, daily encounters with members of the Columbidae family arouse feelings of annoyance or even repulsion. Andrew D. Blechman examines these curious, head-bobbing beasts and their place in human culture and history by revealing how misunderstood they have come to be. For those in whom city life has not yet instilled an outright hatred of these noble creatures, this book will provide informative, entertaining, and much-needed rejoinders to the all-too-common arguments against the beauty of these birds. Even pigeon haters would do well to peruse a chapter or two. -D. Evans

The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma
by Thant Myint-U (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Positioned at the crossroads of Asia, Burma has long been a strategic goal for empires on the march. This rich and complex history is dramatically recounted in The River of Lost Footsteps, a well-paced and energetic effort that reads like a travelogue of the forgotten corners of Southeast Asia. Thant Myint-U, grandson of former UN Secretary-General U Thant, delicately weaves his own family’s history into this colorful tableau, guiding us inevitably to the nightmarish current period. This important debut serves primarily as a discussion on Burma's evolution and how those foundations will continue to affect this ever-changing land. -J. Reiner

Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime
by Patricia Hampl (Harcourt)

In 1972, Hampl came upon Matisse's Woman before an Aquarium at The Art Institute of Chicago. A woman stares, eye-level, at goldfish in a bowl in a room backed by a blue Moroccan screen. Something about the timeless depth of the woman's gaze, juxtaposed with the distant exoticism of the patterned screen, seemed to whisper secrets. Using Matisse's painting as a launch point, Hampl's contemplative journey weaves from Matisse to Ingres to Katherine Mansfield to eighteenth-century harems as she reflects on the impulse to express what it means to exist and the transcendent beauty of a life sensuously lived. -L. Paus

On Truth
by Harry G. Frankfurt (Knopf)

Frankfurt made a tremendous impact with his treatise, On Bullshit (Princeton). Now he has turned his attention to what appears to be an increasingly disappearing concept: truth. Frankfurt sets forth his argument as to why the truth is important, and why we should care about it. As a society we superficially acknowledge the importance of the truth, while energetically bathing ourselves daily in lies and deceit. Frankfurt advocates for the "protean utility of truth." When truth becomes regarded as relative, it becomes a perversion. -G. Berry

Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life
by Linda H. Davis (Crown)

To say that Charles Addams was creepy (or kooky) would be a disservice to his body of work and his life itself. A man of vibrant personality, this quick-witted artist (creator of The Addams Family cartoons featured in The New Yorker) led a life of peaks and narrows that were echoed in his outré drawings. Davis casts a loving eye on her subject (in the first biography of Addams), peppering the pages with some of his best cartoons, family snapshots, and diary entries, creating a vibrantly readable portrait of a man as bizarre as the spelling of his last name. -C. Joyner

Why Choose This Book?
by Read Montague (Dutton)

If you don't know why you chose this book, don't worry—you will by the time you finish it! Read Montague, a neuroscientist, approaches the perennial question, "Why do we do what we do?" from a perspective combining computer science, evolutionary biology, and cognitive science. At one point he marvels at the brain's efficiency compared to computers and at the next suggests a new relationship between dopamine and reward. In the end we understand how our motivation makes us different—from other animals and from each other. -C. Schwennsen

A Stew or a Story: An Assortment of Short Works
by M.F.K. Fisher
edited by Joan Reardon (Shoemaker & Hoard)

"Honest and fantastic and artful" describes M. F. K. Fisher's mythical Perfect Restaurant, but it is also an apt description of her essays and short stories collected in A Stew or a Story. This work was mostly gathered from the 1940s and 1950s, when coffee shops were "hellholes of gastronomy" and one felt most comfortable in "the small wifely kitchen." Fisher's honesty is now pleasantly anachronistic. But her call to slow down, with the wisdom to dine rather than eat, resonates with today's Slow Food movement, and reminds us that the more we taste, the more we see and hear. -G.M. Berry

Winifred Wagner: A Life at the Heart of Hitler's Bayreuth
by Brigitte Harmann
trans. by Alan Bance (Harcourt)

Winifred Wagner became Richard Wagner's daughter-in-law, the head of the vaunted Bayreuth Opera Festival, and a Nazi. Historian Brigitte Hamann has crafted an engrossing and well-written biography about this powerful woman and her conflicted life. Using previously unavailable sources, she thrusts us into the world of severe German nationalism and guides us through Winifred's life: from World War I, to her encounters with Hitler and their close friendship, to her selfless acts to save Jews who were increasingly threatened by Hitler's rule. -C. Stryer

Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment
ed. by Linda Gordon and Gary Y. Okihiro (Norton)

Essays about the life of photographer Dorothea Lange and about the World War II–era internment of Japanese Americans set the scene for this previously censored, mostly unpublished collection of photographs taken by Lange in her capacity as a War Relocation Authority photographer documenting the California portion of the evacuation. These photographs are eloquent. Friends shake hands through a departing train's window in one. Disembodied hands tag and grasp an old man's coat in another, while in the last image in the book a man teaches his grandson to walk a short distance from a row of tar-paper barracks. -K.M. Allman

About Alice
by Calvin Trillin (Random House)

Calvin Trillin for years made reference to his late wife in the books that he wrote. With About Alice he has written a beautiful, poignant, and loving tribute to his wife, who was so much more. Trillin has a way of making you feel like you are an intimate of his family without writing in the characteristic, crass tell-all style of the day. Instead he writes with a droll lightness of touch, which I found most affecting and memorable. You too won't soon forget Trillin's celebration of Alice's life. -G. Berry

Letters of E.B. White: Revised Edition
Originally Edited by Dorothy Lobrano Guth
Revised and Updated by Martha White (HarperCollins)

Elwyn Brooks White, author of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little (HarperCollins), was a New Yorker writer, a man about town whose friends filled the Algonquin Round Table, and a householder who loved rusticating in Maine. He was also a delightful, and funny writer of letters, who chronicled his life through correspondence.

Reading other people's mail can be a risky business; illusions can be shattered with one mean-spirited sentence. This isn't the case with Mr. White, whose correspondence will leave readers with only one regret—that they were not lucky enough to open an envelope that held one of these letters. -J. Brown

How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change meaning, and Languages Live or Die
by David Crystal (Overlook)

The study of language is fortunate to have David Crystal on its side. His latest contribution to the expanding field is books within a book: focused explorations of the ways language achieves its goal and a comprehensive picture of our uniquely human ability. Crystal leaves no aspect of language untouched: grammar, speech sounds, and dialects all get equal attention. And by discussing the curious nature of e-mail and the growing need to understand languages other than our own, he shows us how the study of language is becoming more and more relevant and necessary to understanding our lives. -C. Schwennsen

Was She Pretty?
by Leanne Shapton (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Jealousy can turn a perfectly sane person into a peeker, a stalker, a self-doubter, a middle-of-the-night bed-tosser and ceiling-starer. Especially when it comes to a lover's past amours. Leanne Shapton trains a penetrating eye on the feelings aroused by the "ex," combining exquisite line drawings with spot-on narration. From boyfriends who keep past love letters in a kitchen drawer, to the women who replace you (with "poutier lips, thinner ankles, and PhDs"), to the guy who won't let you answer the telephone in his apartment, Shapton zeroes in on the insecurities and fears that plague the delirious passion play called dating. -L. Paus

Spotlight on Drama

by David Hsieh

Chilly winter months are great times to curl up and read a play. This season there are many noteworthy dramas to choose from. The recent Tony Award–winner The History Boys (Faber and Faber) by Alan Bennett, set in a British boarding school, is brilliant and funny...as is David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole (Theatre Communications Group), a poignant story about a family coping with loss. Another must-read is August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean (TCG), delving into turbulent times for African Americans in 1904. And the collection 365 Days/365 Plays (TCG) by Suzan-Lori Parks is a shining example of the variety and vitality of drama and the many forms and places where it can exist, enabling us to read a play (and see one staged) every day for a year.

New Fiction

Last Seen Leaving
by Kelly Braffet (Houghton Mifflin)

Danger is everywhere in Braffet's relentlessly readable novel. You'll stay up all night to see if Anne will find her estranged daughter before it's too late, whether George is a killer or a harmless weirdo, and what really happened to Anne's husband when his plane went down over Central America.

Braffet's intricate, perfectly paced plot is matched by an understanding of the tenuous connections between people—and the lengths to which they'll go to preserve those bonds. There is peril here, too: the vulnerability inherent in reaching out to others, and the menace of failing to make a connection at all. -E. Staudt

The Aeneid
by Virgil
trans. by Robert Fagles (Viking)

Princeton scholar Robert Fagles has produced a breathtaking rendition of Virgil's The Aeneid, describing the legendary origin of the Roman nation, and of the Trojan prince Aeneas, who, along with his companions, abandons Troy to its doom. They make sail for Italy, stopping at Carthage and even traveling through the very depths of hell.

With Fagels's use of modern verse, the story loses none of its brilliance, intensity, or passion. He has successfully translated The Aeneid for a modern reader who may have a limited grasp of Latin, or has newly discovered the classics. -J. Ditzel

The Teahouse Fire
by Ellis Avery (Riverhead)

The tumultuous final years of the nineteenth century are brought to life in this unique novel of Japan. After a fire a young girl, Aurelia, is discovered sleeping in the prominent Shin family's teahouse. She is accepted into the family as a companion to teenage Yukako. From Aurelia's perspective we are introduced to chado, The Way of Tea, a remarkably beautiful ceremony. As Western culture invades Japan, the Shins must find a way to perpetuate the tradition of tea. The Teahouse Fire is a story of contrasts: modest and erotic, stoic and impassioned, Eastern and Western. -J. Darrah

Berlin
by Pierre Frei
trans. by Anthea Bell (Grove)

It is 1945. The war is over and the residents of the American-occupied Onkel Toms Hütte neighborhood of Berlin are tired of fear and bloodshed. Unfortunately, there seems to be a psychopathic killer in their midst. Frei takes this premise and deftly zips to and fro in time, weaving an erotically charged thriller. The fully populated neighborhood of expertly rendered narrative voices is slowly culled as the mysterious stranger feeds his bloodlust. Drawing from personal knowledge of war-era Berlin, Frei creates a rich, multilayered narrative to form a titillating page-turner of real substance and artistry. -J. Zaidi

The View from Castle Rock
by Alice Munro (Knopf)

Munro, rightfully championed as one of the finest storytellers of our time, returns with a collection of short stories that mines her own family history. She re-creates her ancestors' voyage from Scotland to Canada; she imagines the courtship she wishes her parents had; she recounts her own first infatuations and humiliations. She does all this with those inimitable Munro-ian sentences—each one elegant and incisive, building into paragraphs and pages that manage to be both forceful and graceful, intimately detailed and panoramic in scope. Munro is a writer of staggering empathy and wisdom; each story is a gift, a life. -E. Staudt

Measuring the world
by Daniel Kehlmann
trans. by Carol Brown Janeway (Pantheon)

Austrian writer Daniel Kehlmann's novel is about two geniuses of the enlightenment: Alexander von Humboldt, referred to as the second Columbus, and mathematician and astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss. They were of two completely different temperaments: von Humboldt was a man of action, exploring the world and recording what he saw, while Gauss, the recluse, sat at home doing mathematical formulas that changed the world. Kehlmann captures these two eccentric men wonderfully as they rise to prominence and fame and later meet in Berlin following the fall of Napoleon. -G. Berry

Amazing Disgrace
by James Hamilton-Paterson (Europa)

The over-refined and over-indulgent ghost biographer Gerald Samper returns in this sequel to Cooking with Fernet Branca (Europa.) His subject this time is the foulmouthed, one-armed yachtswoman Millie Cleat, Australia's treasure, who has just sailed the globe alone and finds herself the leader of a fringe environmental group. Samper, with his typical flair and wit, loathes his subject and finds a way to beat her at her own publicity game with help from a bogus photo that depicts the "soul of the sea." As wickedly funny as the original, and filled with Samper's unique and imaginative culinary inventions, this is the perfect escape. -H. Myers

The Saffron Kitchen
by Yasmin Crowther (Viking)

After indirectly causing the miscarriage of her grandchild, Maryam leaves her London life and returns to her homeland and the forbidden love of her youth. Her daughter follows in an attempt to bring her back and uncover past secrets. The book crackles with Maryam's split self and the complexity of two cultures, two lives, unable to meet within her. The beauty of Iran comes alive in this brilliantly written debut; readers will ache for the music, colors, and flavors of this novel every moment that it is not being read. -L. Redinger

Redemption
by Frederick Turner (Harcourt)

Few authors have been able to write about the troubled city of New Orleans without being heavy-handed or overly saturated, or indulging in bloated sentimentality. Frederick Turner has found an intoxicating balance in his novel, set before Prohibition, centered on the doings of Francis Muldoon, a limp-legged ex-cop who is now the eyes and ears for Tom Anderson, the top man of the Storyville District's underworld in New Orleans. When Anderson's position starts to be rivaled by a new brothel (which features a scorching singer with ties to Anderson's past), all involved have to question where their loyalties lie. -C. Joyner

The Alchemy of Desire
by Tarun J Tejpal (Ecco)

Some authors use a well-conceived plot to perform a little literary sleight of hand, distracting readers from the tepid marginality of their prose. Unearthing a book in which the author is concerned with both the story and the storytelling without resorting to overwrought pyrotechnics has become increasingly rare. Fortunately we now have Tarun Tejpal. His novel teems with allusions, keen sociocultural observations, and artful turns of phrase. Gorgeously rendered scenery in both the material and psychological realms makes it an experience as much as a story. Step out from the norm and get drenched in this monsoon of the imagination. -J. Zaidi

Against the Day
by Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press)

For many, the quiet patches of Thanksgiving and other holidays will be given over to an auspicious new tome that lands just before the turkey does. Against the Day is but Thomas Pynchon's sixth novel in forty years. Upon arrival, each has become an event—debated, discussed, never dismissed. This looks to be his biggest since Gravity's Rainbow (Penguin) and most resembles it in scope. Set broadly over a period more and less than one hundred years ago, this kaleidoscopic tale portrays a country clueless, careening, and greedily amuck. It's so vivid about then, it rather resembles now. But that is only the beginning. -R. Simonson

Paula Spencer
by Roddy Doyle (Viking)

Ten years after he wrote The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (Penguin), Doyle revisits his boozy, profane protagonist, Paula Spencer, in a novel of the same name. This is a masterful novel; Doyle writes Paula with such clarity, you feel like you are living her life, and it is a life full of troubles. Her abusive husband, Charlo, is long dead—thank goodness. Paula is off the drink, and she is struggling to make her life and her children's lives better. Doyle's novel is driven by remarkable dialogue that reveals Paula's heart. -G. Berry

Inés of My Soul
by Isabel Allende (HarperCollins)

Isabel Allende expertly combines the gruesome with the gorgeous. Rape, pillage, cannibalism, betrayal, passionate love, and courage beyond measure are woven throughout this epic adventure. You will fall in love with the beautiful possibility of Chile and then its actual spectacular glory. You will lust for it with these Spanish conquistadors, fight for survival, and wage war against the indomitable Mapuche people alongside Inés Suárez and the men she enables to be heroes. This conquistadora is powerful, resourceful, and inspiring. One can only read this book with mouth wide-open in awe. -L. Redinger

The End as I Know It
by Kevin Shay (Doubleday)

Through twenty-twenty hindsight we now flippantly recall the prophecies of international collapse, anarchy, and total devastation that served as the menacing, blazing fuse inching ever closer to the spectacular dud that was the Y2K computer bug. Set in 1998, this is the tale of Randall Knight's cross-country odyssey to warn loved ones of the impending catastrophe. He funds his trip by performing an increasingly hilarious and ultimately profane musical puppet show to schoolchildren along the way. Although this book is outright silly and laugh-out-loud funny, there is a genuinely beautiful heart beating at its core that is touching and fulfilling. -J. Zaidi

The Owner's Corner

by Peter Aaron

The recent publication of collections by two Palestinian poets—Mahmoud Darwish's Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone? (Archipelago), and Taha Muhammad Ali’s So What (Copper Canyon)—are now serendipitously and fittingly joined by the long-awaited paperback publication of Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai's final collection, Open Closed Open (Harvest), originally published in a hardcover edition in 2000, the year of Amichai's death. Amichai and Darwish were close friends and mutual admirers. Their work—along with Ali's—hauntingly testifies the truth that is apparent—it seems—to everyone other than crazed zealots, mind-numbed homunculi, and political and military leaders: there are no sides—there are only people, resplendent and fascinating in their differences.

The epigraphic opening poem of Amichai's collection is both a scathing and a yearning anthem of this truth to which those with their fingers on the wallets, pipelines, and triggers are so tragically and self-righteously blind.

The Amen Stone

On my desk there is a stone with the word "Amen" on it,
a triangular fragment of stone from a Jewish graveyard destroyed
many generations ago. The other fragments, hundreds upon hundreds,
were scattered helter-skelter, and a great yearning,
a longing without end fills them all:
first name in search of family name, date of death seeks
dead man’s birthplace, son’s name wishes to locate
name of father, date of birth seeks reunion with soul
that wishes to rest in peace. And until they have found
one another they will not find perfect rest.
Only this stone lies calmly on my desk and says "Amen."
But now the fragments are gathered up in lovingkindness
by a sad good man. He cleanses them of every blemish,
photographs them one by one, arranges them on the floor
in the great hall, makes each gravestone whole again,
one again: fragment to fragment,
like the resurrection of the dead, a mosaic,
a jigsaw puzzle. Child's play.

And we must ask ourselves, who are the stones, and who the child? What do we permit, and why do we wait?

Children's & Young Adult Books

The Stone Light
by Kai Meyer (McElderry Books)

Venice is under attack, with Egyptian mummies killing citizens left and right. This exciting sequel to The Water Mirror (Simon Pulse) continues with Merle on the back of a flying obsidian lion, on a mission to hell, where they will find Lord Light, maybe the last hope for Venice. Master thief Serafin must join forces with his archenemy, Dario, and none other than a powerful Egyptian rebel in a dangerous attempt to save the city. Meanwhile Junipa has been kidnapped; it seems Lord Light has plans for her mirror-eyes. There's betrayal at every turn and terrifying creatures to contend with. -L. Redinger

Miracle on 49th Street
by Mike Lupica (Philomel)

Twelve-year-old Molly Parker has found her father. He just happens to be Josh Cameron of the Celtics, the biggest star of the NBA. When Molly's mother knew she was dying, she began writing her only daughter a series of letters, which chronicled the circumstances around Molly’s birth. Getting Josh Cameron to believe that Molly is his daughter is not that hard; it’s getting Josh Cameron to want Molly as his daughter that is proving difficult. This heartfelt book, which will captivate both girls and boys, explores what life is all about: friendship, family, and believing dreams do come true. -H. Myers

17 Things I'm Not Allowed to Do Anymore
by Jenny Offill & Nancy Carpenter (Schwartz & Wade)

All ideas start with a simple thought, but not all ideas are great. Such as using the stapler to attach your brother's hair to the pillow, or gluing his slippers to the floor, or walking backward to (or home from) school, or deciding to do your George Washington report on beavers instead. And when no one understands your very clever ideas, it is not a good idea to think about running away from home. Terrific mixed-media illustrations make looking at this funny book and reading it aloud a really great idea. -H. Myers

Kay Thompson's Eloise in Hollywood
by J. David Stern and David N. Weiss
based on the art of Hilary Knight
illus. by Ted Enik (Simon & Schuster)

Dahlings, Eloise is off to Hollywood to meet a rawther famous Movie Mogul. But first, of course, she and Nanny must pack (so they can travel in—cog—nito), and then on the train they must eat, eat, eat. And in Hollywood there is Shirley Temple the cocktail and the movie star, and just everyone has a car and does lunch, ooh, and you have to be rawther careful in an earthquake. While on the set of Funny Face in 1957, Kay Thompson first thought of bringing the beloved character of Eloise to Hollywood, and ooh, it's worth the wait. -H. Myers

Pop! Go the Pictures

by Rebecca Crawford

Pop-up books have enjoyed a renaissance of late, and this holiday season brings some excellent new releases. First and foremost is Maurice Sendak's Mommy? (Michael Di Capua), in which a boy wanders through a monster house searching for his mommy. Sendak's predilection for the bizarrely wonderful holds true; the monsters are more scared of the boy than vice versa. Robert Sabuda has a new book, Christmas (Orchard), conveniently stocking-sized and filled with lovely, deceptively simple pop-ups in the style of Sabuda's The Night Before Christmas (Simon & Schuster). Finally, Robert Crowther's railroad book, Trains (Candlewick), should not be overlooked—Trains! Pop-ups! What's better than that? Yes, it's a fine pop-up season—enjoy!

Our Favorite Books of 2006

As our store looks back at the nearly past year, staff members are asked to choose a title that they thought was outstanding. The result is a list of some of the books that we have read and loved in 2006.

Fiction and Poetry

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson (Little, Brown)
So What by Taha Muhammad Ali (Copper Canyon)
The Unyielding Clamor of the Night by Neil Bissoondath (Bloomsbury)
The Dead Fish Museum by Charles D'Ambrosio (Knopf)
Vellum by Hal Duncan (Ballantine)
Intuition by Allegra Goodman (Dial)
The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show by Ariel Gore (Harper San Francisco)
The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford (Knopf)
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (Algonquin)
The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel by Amy Hempel (Scribner)
Forgetfulness by Ward Just (Houghton Mifflin)
The Cottagers by Marshall N. Klimasewski (Norton)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Knopf)

Children and Young Adult

This is All by Aidan Chambers (Abrams)
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick)
Owen & Mzee by Isabella Hatkoff (Scholastic)
When You Were Small by Sara O'Leary (Simply Read)
The Boy Who Loved Words by Roni Schotter (Schwartz and Wade)

Non-Fiction and Graphica

The Best American Comics 2006 (Houghton Mifflin)
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin)
Blackstock's Collections by Gregory Blackstock (Princeton Architectural Press)
Heat by Bill Buford (Knopf)
My Life in France by Julia Child (Knopf)
The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery (Atlantic)
The War of the World by Niall Ferguson (Penguin)
Through the Children's Gate by Adam Gopnik (Knopf)
Kramer's Ergot 6 by Sammy Harkham (Gingko)
Endgame Volume 1 by Derrick Jensen (Seven Stories)
Endgame Volume 2 by Derrick Jensen (Seven Stories)
Bikes of Burden by Hans Kemp (Visionary World)
Life is Meals by James and Kay Salter (Knopf)
The Places in Between by Rory Stewart (Harcourt)
The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright (Knopf)