May Books

These are some titles from last month's New York Times Book Review section (and Diamond Previews catalog) that I might like to read at some point:

Fiction

Billy Hazelnuts - Tony Millionaire; "Transmutes nursery rhymes and the golem myth into a storybook about Becky, girl scientist, her friend Billy Hazelnuts (who was created from cooking ingredients by tailless mice), and their journey to find the missing moon while battling an evil steam-driven alligator with a seeing-eye skunk."

Elliot Allagash - Simon Rich; "Saturday Night Live writer's first novel (after two humorous collections) is a hit and miss riff on Pygmalion in which genial high school loser Seymour gets a life-changing makeover after meeting Elliot, a fabulously wealthy malcontent who has transferred to Seymour's Manhattan private school. Elliot's lessons on the power of money and the fine art of popularity are given in exchange for chubby Seymour's agreement to do whatever Elliot tells him to do, and, sure enough, Seymour transforms from consummate outsider to a Harvard-bound, straight-A class president."

Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s - John Benson and Greg Sadowski; "Of the myriad genres comic books ventured into during its golden age, none was as controversial as or came at a greater cost than horror; the public outrage it incited almost destroyed the entire industry. Yet before the watchdog groups and Congress could intercede, horror books were flying off the newsstands."

Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer - John Grisham; "Theo knows every judge, policeman, court clerk—and a lot about the law. He dreams of being a great trial lawyer, of a life in the courtroom. But Theo finds himself in court much sooner than expected. Because he knows so much—maybe too much—he is suddenly dragged into the middle of a sensational murder trial. A cold-blooded killer is about to go free, and only Theo knows the truth."

Wally Gropius - Tim Hensley; "Wally is the human Dow Jones, the heir to a vast petrochemical conglomerate. When the elder Thaddeus Gropius confronts Wally with the boilerplate plot ultimatum that he must marry 'the saddest girl in the world' or be disinherited, a yarn unravels that is part screwball comedy and part unhinged parable on the lucrativeness of changing your identity."

Nonfiction

Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself - David Lipsky; "A few weeks after Infinite Jest was published in February 1996, Rolling Stone magazine sent a reporter to accompany its author, David Foster Wallace."

The Beats: A Graphic History - Harvey Pekar and Ed Piskor; "This comic book treatment is celebratory and not in any way definitive, as it acknowledges."

Land of the Lost Souls: My Life on the Streets - Cadillac Man; "Thomas Wagner, known as Cadillac Man, became homeless in 1994, when he was 44."

Making Haste From Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World, A New History; "An Englishman, had what is perhaps a more alluring idea: to devote himself largely to the prehistory of the men and women who founded the colony. His book roams through archives and repositories in the British Isles."

This Time Together - Carol Burnett; "The comedian describes her rise in show business and the people she's met along the way."