Book Rec of the Day 6/19-6/26/08

“Disorienting and reorienting the reader to devastating effect. . . . As suspenseful and harrowing as anything in Conan Doyle.”—Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review

Fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone is an autistic math genius who greatly admires Sherlock Holmes. When his neighbor’s poodle is found skewered on a pitchfork and Christopher is accused of causing the dog’s death, he decides to use Holmesian deductive logic to solve the crime. Haddon’s depiction of the boy’s mind and the stratagems he uses to survive in what to him is a truly strange world make this first novel a truly clever and compelling read.

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME, by Mark Haddon (Vintage, 2004)

SHEER INSANITY

Caveat: If you can’t stand the misogynistic heat, stay out of this book. Webmaster and self-made pirate “Maddox” has been ranting and raving for about five years on his website, thebestpageintheuniverse.com. A favorite among teenage boys, Maddox is like a thinking man’s Howard Stern. His stance is to hate almost everything, but special targets include vegetarians, anything with Mel Gibson in it, Idaho, artwork by children, and on and on and on. Most readers, though, will eventually find themselves helplessly giggling at something or other; it’s partly the writing style, which pins you under an avalanche of vituperative, vindictive, venomous verbiage.

THE ALPHABET OF MANLINESS, by “Maddox” (Citadel, 2006)

SPLENDID BUILDING

After first tearing down 1,000-year-old St. Peter’s Basilica, built to house the sacred remains of the apostle himself, Pope Julius II laid the first stone of Donato Bramante’s audacious architectural vision in 1506. Several popes, architects (including Raphael, Michelangelo, and Giacomo della Porta), and architectural styles were to pass before the cupola went up on the splendid dome 100 years later. Imagine the civic and church politics, the artistic clashes, the greed and pique and graft that attended this project. Scotti brings it all to life again.

BASILICA, THE SPLENDOR AND THE SCANDAL: BUILDING ST. PETER’S, by R. A. Scotti (Viking, 2006)

“Rarely has a novel so deeply probed the thoughts and actions of physicians and scientists as they strive to succeed.”—Slate

This excellent novel is set in the Boston-Cambridge area, where a prominent cancer laboratory is the petri dish for the ambitions, betrayals, ideals, and passions of scientific researchers Cliff and Robin (who are ex-lovers) and administrators Sandy and Marion. This is what happens when powerful, dissonant personalities are forced to coexist in a crisis of their own making.

INTUITION, by Allegra Goodman (The Dial Press, 2006)

SAY IT WITH STYLE

One might have thought that this classic was in no need of improvement, and the idea of illustrating it might seem almost blasphemous, but in fact The Elements of Style changed much over the years. First published in 1935, it was revised in 1957 and went through two more editions, selling more than 10 million copies. In 1999, after White’s death, a new edition came out under the auspices of White’s stepson, Roger Angell, a longtime New Yorker writer, with an afterword by Charles Osgood and a new glossary and index. This new edition is based on 1999’s and, given Kalman’s contribution, may turn out to be a classic in its own right.

THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE, ILLUSTRATED, by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White; illustrated by Maira Kalman (1935; Penguin, 2005)

CLASSIC

Le Père Goriot is one of the best known and best crafted of the Parisian novels in Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine (The Human Comedy), and the one that many readers find the easiest to identify with. Rastignac is the starving writer who claws his way out of his roach-infested garret (where Goriot is his landlord and confidant) on the backs of women and at the expense of everyone around him, especially Goriot—but in that regard Goriot’s own adulterous, gold-digger daughters precede and outdo Rastignac. Gambling, sex, journalism, high finance, bad manners, and influence peddling—like Dallas but a million times better, and more haunting.

PÈRE GORIOT, by Honoré de Balzac; translated by A. J. Krailsheimer (1835; Oxford University Press, 1999)

SAD BUT TRUE

“In this quirky, fascinating, strangely hypnotic book, Hunt explores the intersection of geography and psychology. Part travelogue, part memoir, part meditation, Cliffs of Despair is an original and provocative addition to the vast literature of suicide.”—George Howe Colt, author of The Enigma of Suicide and The Big House

Hunt, whose brother committed suicide, investigates suicide from as many angles as his sensitive, probing, brave, and poetic mind will take him, and we go with him, painful though the subject may be.

CLIFFS OF DESPAIR: A JOURNEY TO THE EDGE, by Tom Hunt (Random House, 2006)

JANE AUSTEN LIVES

In a sequel to Mr. Darcy’s Daughters and The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy, Elizabeth Aston delivers an irresistible new novel set in the world of Jane Austen. Mr. Darcy’s artistic and willful eldest cousin, Cassandra, has been disowned and is trying to make a living by painting. But it’s so hard for a girl to do the right thing sometimes! Horatio Darcy, a twig from yet another branch of the Darcy tree, is sent in to save Cassandra from a mess of compromising letters and extortion that she’s unwittingly stumbled into, and Cassandra’s charm and pretty face take care of the rest. A delicious period piece in a sparkling voice.

THE TRUE DARCY SPIRIT: A NOVEL, by Elizabeth Aston (Touchstone, 2006)