These are some titles from last month's New York Times Book Review section that I might like to read at some point:
Fiction
Bad Things Happen - Harry Dolan; "This first novel is full of tricky reversals and dry academic humor, as a killer picks off contributors to a literary mystery magazine to the consternation of its editor."Far North - Marcel Theroux; "Postapocalyptic road novel will inevitably be compared to that other postapocalyptic road novel Oprah liked, and while Theroux (son of Paul) is not the existential stylist McCarthy is, he is a superior plotter."
Freedom - Jonathan Franzen "cracked open the opaque shell of postmodernism, tweezed out its tangled circuitry and inserted in its place the warm, beating heart of an authentic humanism. His fictional canvas teemed with information - about equity finance, railroad engineering, currency manipulation in Eastern Europe, the neurochemistry of clinical depression. But the data flowed through the arteries of narrative, just as it had done in the novels of Dickens and Tolstoy, Bellow and Mann."
Meeks - Julia Holmes; "In the dystopia of this wry first novel, a hierarchical society forces young bachelors to find brides - or else."
My Hollywood - Mona Simpson; "But the nannies know that one wrong move could land them on a plane back to Manila. Ignoring that specter, they jockey for position like trophy wives, aware at all times of the risk of divorce, rupture, reversal."
The Pages - Murray Bail; "A philosopher and a psychoanalyst travel from Sydney to a remote sheep station to evaluate a manuscript in this novel about different ways of thinking."
Star Island - Carl Hiassen: "A paparazzo attempting to kidnap a drug-addled pop star grabs her stunt double by mistake."
The Surf Guru: Stories - Doug "Dorst's acclaimed debut, Alive in Necropolis, folded sci-fi, horror, and noir elements into a layered coming-of-age story, and a similar mix of lively imagination and love of craft are on display in this excellent collection."
Super Sad True Love Story - Gary Shteyngart; "A tender but doomed love affair in a future America on the verge of collapse." (See also: Can America Survive? - John Hagee; "A pastor sees 10 signs that we are the terminal generation.")
The Thousand Autums of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell; "Reinvents himself with each book, and it's thrilling to watch. His novels like Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas spill over with narrators and language, collecting storylines connected more in spirit than in fact."
Nonfiction
97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement - Jane Ziegelman; "Keeping faith with their native cuisines, the newcomers made a series of counteroffers - sauerkraut, spaghetti, borscht - that changed the national palate forever."The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture - Nathan Rabin; "I found my lasting family in the art and junk that has sustained me."
Encounter - Milan Kundera; "Illuminating essays on the arts in the context of a 'post-art' era."
The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English - Ray Peter Clark; "A manual for the 21st century endorses breaking rules that make no sense."
Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture - Thomas Chatterton Williams; "Transformed from a skinny teenager who shoots hoops, gets into bloody brawls and smacks his girlfriend, into a philosophy major and author."
Memoir: A Memoir - Tom Grimes; "His memories are steeped in the writerly process, but the book also encompasses more universal themes: expectation, disappointment, and the need to impress your heroes. What Grimes does, beautifully, is emphasize the communal elements of a solitary profession."
Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities - "Surveying Socrates, Rousseau, Dewey, Rabindranath Tagore and others, she investigates the key insight of progressive pedagogy through the ages."
Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language - Patricia T. O'Connor and Stewart Kellerman; "Take on the 'linguaholics' who rigidly follow meaningless restrictions, like the ones against splitting infinitives or ending sentences with prepositions."
The Self Sufficient-ish Bible: An Eco-Living Guide for the 21st Century - Andy and Dave Hamilton; "Making your own deodorant, baby wipes, dandelion wine, cough syrup and more."
Twain's Feast: Searching for America's Lost Foods in the Footsteps of Samuel Clemens - Andrew Beahrs; "This is a culinary stunt book fixated on the nostalgic list of American foods Twain included in his 1880 travel memoir, A Tramp Abroad.
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