Book Rec of the Day 7/21-7/30/2008

HAPPY NOW?

Gilbert, a funny, curious, and responsible researcher, offers not a self-help book but a study of how our minds work. He examines why, though we imagine scenarios of our future happiness, we are not very good at achieving it—in part because we forget certain things and overemphasize others, because we don’t see ourselves as others see us, and because even as we learn from the past, we have already been changed by it. “This is a psychological detective story about one of the great mysteries of our lives. If you have even the slightest curiosity about the human condition, you ought to read it. Trust me,” wrote Malcom Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink.

STUMBLING ON HAPPINESS, by Daniel Gilbert (Knopf, 2006)

IT’S A MYSTERY

Gardam’s 15th novel tells the story of barrister Sir Edward Feathers (known as Filth), who at age 80 retires to Dorset after the death of his wife and tries to piece together his dysfunctional past, a life full of incident and exotic locales but lacking in love and warmth. Born in Malaysia, he spent his tragic youth in Wales and then Singapore. As an adult he emigrated to Hong Kong and enjoyed a very respectable career as a judge, but everywhere he’s gone, the British empire has been crumbling, and, as an ex-pat several times over, he has always been on the outside looking in . . . or back.

OLD FILTH, by Jane Gardam (Europa, 2006)

KILL TIME WITHOUT DOING TIME

Not looking forward to that sales conference in Dayton, Ohio? Help is here! Ever tried making towel origami, dental-floss pom-poms, or soap scrimshaw? How about toilet tennis or in-line tray skating? Hotel Hobbies offers 50 boredom-banishing and completely legal ways to have fun while you’re cooped up and far from home.

HOTEL HOBBIES: 50 THINGS TO DO IN A HOTEL ROOM THAT WON’T GET YOU ARRESTED, by Marcus Weeks (Thunder Bay Press, 2006)

YOU GOTTA LAUGH

Our heroine, Jude Lee, is a spoiled brat sprung from a very long line of spoiled brats in Korean aristocracy. But now the world is crashing in upon them—there’s no more money and only a dim memory of aristocracy. Jude must do the unthinkable: get a job. That’s how she ends up in thrall to Madame Tartakov’s Translation Services, where young women, all overeducated, cast-off aristocrats, provide their “services”—and an occasional translation—to an exclusive New York City clientele. Madcap, brainiac, rich-brat shenanigans ensue. This is a razor-sharp satire from a scintillating new voice.

KEPT: A COMEDY OF SEX AND MANNERS, by Y. Euny Hong (Simon & Schuster, 2006)

THE BEES DO IT

“Perhaps the most original advice manual ever written. . . . Judson has pulled off the rarest coup: a science book that’s actually fun to read.”—The New Republic

Using the device of an advice column for the sex-lorn (“Like, what’s the deal? I’m a sleek young California mouse and am so in heat”), evolutionary biologist and journalist Judson exposes the bizarre, complicated, humorous, and sometimes gory sex lives of the animal world. Copulations that last 10 weeks (stick insects), penises on the head (slugs), masturbation with sticks and twigs, and homosexuality. Sprightly, racy, and endlessly fascinating.

DR. TATIANA’S SEX ADVICE TO ALL CREATION, by Olivia Judson (Owl Books, 2003)

IT’S A MYSTERY

In this dark, labyrinthine novel set in 1946, Adam Miller is in Venice visiting his widowed mother. A former war-crimes investigator in Frankfurt, Adam is drawn into murky waters of deception, murder, and betrayal involving everyone he knows and loves. Kanon, author of The Prodigal Spy and The Good German, excels at putting a human face on the specter of history and evil.

ALIBI, by Joseph Kanon (Picador USA, 2006)

HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS

Former philosophy professor and the author of the bestselling If Aristotle Ran General Motors, Tom Morris here defines leadership and vision, wisdom and teaching, learning and courage, in terms of the Harry Potter characters, as well as a panoply of philosophers, sages, and the occasional CEO: “Dumbledore . . . embodies the virtues essential to leadership excellence and guides his own path forward with a profound philosophy of life. He sets the standard high for what all wizards—and the rest of us, too—should aspire to become.” A fun take on business and character.

IF HARRY POTTER RAN GENERAL ELECTRIC: LEADERSHIP WISDOM FROM THE WORLD OF THE WIZARDS, by Tom Morris (Currency, 2006)

OTHER WORLDS

It’s 1991, just after Namibian independence, and Larry Kaplanski from Cincinnati has gone to Namibia to teach in a Catholic boys’ school. Mavala Shikongo is a beautiful ex-guerilla-turned-kindergarten-teacher, the object of lust and longing for Larry and the students. Love blooms among the dry, bittersweet stories of everyday life in the hardscrabble aftermath of apartheid and colonialism. A first novel from prize-winning short story writer Orner, who has lived in Namibia.

THE SECOND COMING OF MAVALA SHIKONGO, by Peter Orner (Little, Brown, 2006)

BOOK LOVER’S PARADISE

“Sixpence House is the bookworm’s answer to A Year in Provence.”—The Boston Globe

Hay-on-Wye is a Welsh town of about 1,500 people and hundreds of thousands of books. After finishing the well-received Banyard’s Folly: Thirteen Tales of People Who Didn’t Change the World (2001), Paul Collins moves his young family from San Francisco to the picturesque little book lover’s paradise that he remembers from childhood holidays. Rambling happily among aisles of books and jumping lightly from curiosity to curiosity as he struggles to adjust and buy a house, Collins offers a first-rate treat.

SIXPENCE HOUSE: LOST IN A TOWN OF BOOKS, by Paul Collins (Bloomsbury, 2003)

OTHER WORLDS

“A sprawling, gorgeous intergenerational saga, in which the spice and savor of traditional India progresses painfully into the present. . . . Song of the Cuckoo Bird is mesmerizing.”—Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean

Malladi’s fourth novel is set in an ashram in southern India, where 11-year-old Kokila is sent to await the onset of menstruation, when she can be given away in marriage. Kokila opts out of marriage and decides to remain cloistered in the ashram for the rest of her life. A family life of sorts is created among the misfits and malcontents who hide here, away from the world.

SONG OF THE CUCKOO BIRD, by Amulya Malladi (Ballantine Books, 2005)