Book Rec of the Day 6/12-6/17/2008

POET’S BIO

“Fueled by an infectious enthusiasm for the poems . . . [Feinstein’s] book turns Neruda’s life into an opera—a blend of aria and recitative.”—The Guardian

Gabriel García Márquez calls Neruda “the greatest poet of the twentieth century—in any language.” Neruda was also one of the world’s greatest lovers of women and a passionate political warrior. Esteemed journalist and translator Adam Feinstein has given us not only the first English-language biography of this important figure but likely the definitive one for some time to come.

PABLO NERUDA: A PASSION FOR LIFE, by Adam Feinstein (Bloomsbury USA, 2005)

FAMILY TROUBLES

Picoult is known for using her fiction to take on difficult subjects (euthanasia and teen suicide, for instance). My Sister’s Keeper is no exception. The story centers on Kate, who has leukemia and requires quantities of donor-matching bone marrow and now a kidney that only Anna, her younger sister, can provide. It turns out that her parents conceived Anna for that very reason, and, at age 13, she sues them for control of her own body. Picoult has taken a mind-shaking premise and has crafted an enthralling page-turner that keeps the reader’s rapt attention to the very surprising end.

MY SISTER’S KEEPER, by Jodi Picoult (Washington Square Press, 2005)

WALKING AFGHANISTAN

“If, finally, you’re determined to do something as recklessly stupid as walk across a war zone, your surest bet to quash all the inevitable criticism is to write a flat-out masterpiece. Stewart did. Stewart has.”—Tim Bissell, The New York Times Book Review

In 2002, just weeks after the Taliban’s fall, Rory Stewart undertook to walk east to west across Afghanistan. “You will die, I can guarantee,” an Afghanistan Security Service officer told him before he began. Stewart was undeterred, and the resulting story is one of the absolutely best works of travel writing to come our way in years.

THE PLACES IN BETWEEN, by Rory Stewart (Harvest, 2006)

“Only a handful of twentieth-century writers, such as Kafka and Proust, have as important, as authoritative, as irrevocable a voice and style.”—Susan Sontag

One of the great rule-breaking and disturbing novels of the 20th century, Our Lady of the Flowers is a kind of mythic re-creation of Genet’s Parisian life. The story of male prostitute Divine, who lives an underground life among thieves, murderers, pimps, and transvestites, stands conventional morality on its head. Daunting and titillating both.

OUR LADY OF THE FLOWERS, by Jean Genet (1943; Grove Press, 1988)

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT, ALFIE?

Neil Strauss, with his big nose, glasses, and balding pate, assessed himself as an AFC (Average Frustrated Chump). Then, at the suggestion of his editor, he began investigating a community of pickup artists, and in no time he morphed into a first-class PUA (Pick-Up Artist). Strauss studied the secrets of seduction at the feet of a Toronto magician, known as “Mystery.” Under his new nom d’amour, “Style,” Strauss spent the next two years bedding legions of women. Ultimately, he discovered he was a one-woman guy after all. Well stocked with tips and tricks,The Game is a truly insightful look into the world of men who live to pick up women.

THE GAME: PENETRATING THE SECRET SOCIETY OF PICKUP ARTISTS, by Neil Strauss (ReganBooks, 2005)

SHE WROTE MYSTERIES

Elizabeth George, beloved for her Inspector Lynley series, has collected and provided a wonderful introduction to 26 top-notch crime stories by women, starting with Susan Glaspell from 1917 and ending with a story from 2001 by Minette Walters. In between, Joyce Carol Oates, Nancy Pickard, Dorothy Sayers, and many other masterful mistresses of the genre take star turns shocking us, scaring us, and giving us the creeps.

A MOMENT ON THE EDGE: 100 YEARS OF CRIME STORIES BY WOMEN, edited by Elizabeth George (HarperPaperbacks, 2005)