Some interesting book finds

In 2004, the food world was rapt. Julie Powell, a secretary from Queens, was cooking her way through every recipe in Julia Child’s 1961 landmark cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Powell was documenting her progress—struggles and triumphs—on a blog known as the Julie/Julia Project, and readers were on the edges of their chairs, rooting for her. Would the aspic set? Would she cook all 524 recipes within the year? Would her marriage survive this insane challenge she set for herself? If you are a foodie or if you just appreciate a quirky mind, you must read this fascinating, one-of-a-kind memoir.

JULIE & JULIA, by Julie Powell (Little, Brown, 2005)

A Victorian novel with a decidedly un-Victorian bent. Faber’s novel is in many ways like a lost work of Dickens’s: The sights and sounds of London are vivid, gritty, and intricately detailed. The cast of characters is as motley, the plot as gripping, and the length as impressive (it’s 900-plus pages long). The subject, however—a prostitute’s rise from squalor to security—gives it a contemporary bent. The result is “an old-fashioned page turner” (The Washington Post Book World) that transports the reader to another time and place. No wonder it was named a best book of the year by People, Entertainment Weekly, and the Chicago Tribune.

THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE, by Michel Faber (Harvest Books, 2003)

“...An inspiring meditation on the enduring nature of love...”—Us Weekly

The heart, brain, and funny bone are all connected in this memoir of a woman whose husband sustains a serious brain injury. A book on brain injury? You must be joking. No joke. It’s wonderful—warm and wise and often very funny. Anyone who has experienced a family crisis of any kind—especially a serious accident—will find much to admire in Crimmins’s ability to pick up the pieces and reconfigure her life.

WHERE IS THE MANGO PRINCESS?: A JOURNEY BACK FROM BRAIN INJURY, by Cathy Crimmins (Vintage, 2001)

The American Society of Journalists and Authors gave Where Is the Mango Princess? its Outstanding Book Award.

ON MAUGHAM

“The modern writer who has influenced me the most.”—George Orwell

“One of my favorite writers.”—Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“A writer of great dedication.”—Graham Greene

Maugham’s novel follows the obsessions of an English banker who runs off to Tahiti to live as an artist, leaving the lives of those closest to him in ruins. Based on the biography of painter Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence is a master’s rumination on the destructive nature of genius. If you’ve never read Maugham, now’s the time.

THE MOON AND SIXPENCE, by W. Somerset Maugham (1919; Penguin, 1993)

Big Brother is watching. Did you know that rental car companies can monitor your driving in real time? Did you know that companies and the government can track almost anything about you from what Web sites you visit to what kind of coffee you buy? Washington Post reporter O’Harrow’s thorough investigation of the information trade in the post-9/11 years is eye-popping. Find out who knows what about whom and how in this shocking, enlightening book that reads more like a thriller than an exposé.

NO PLACE TO HIDE, by Robert O’Harrow Jr. (Free Press, 2005)