Book Rec of the Day 8/3-8/12/2008

ADDAMS FAMILY

Just when you thought you’d lost the old family recipe for Mushrooms Fester and Hearts Stuffed, here is a delightful “kookbook,” put together posthumously from the works of legendary New Yorker cartoonist and wizard of the weird Charles Addams. Half-Baked is based on a project Addams had in the works in the 1960s, and the recipes—dandelion beer, reindeer rice curry, the children’s curative “influenza punch,” the intriguing “transparent pie”—can actually be followed.

CHAS ADDAMS HALF-BAKED COOKBOOK: CULINARY CARTOONS FOR THE HUMOROUSLY FAMISHED, by Charles Addams; foreword by Allen Weiss (Simon & Schuster, 2005)

YOU GOTTA LAUGH

Have you ever noticed that there are no official U.S. holidays in August? Ellie Bishop did, and she’s here to save the sick day, just in time to squeeze in one last trip to the beach or mountains or golf course before September sets in. Her invaluable tips will not only make your excuses sound completely plausible but may elicit real sympathy from your higher-up—and even have him or her trying to persuade you to take another day off.

THE SICK DAY HANDBOOK: STRATEGIES AND TECHNIQUES FOR FAKING IT, by Ellie Bishop (Conari Press, 2006)

BEACH READ

It’s chick lit by a guy, and that’s only the first surprise. Entertainment lawyer Cassandra French has some very familiar complaints: a boring job, the beginnings of love handles, and many failed love affairs. How does she take action? By anesthetizing three former boyfriends and dragging them down to the basement for some etiquette lessons, Cassandra French style. The plan to release three perfect gentlemen into the world is going marvelously until a fourth beau is murdered, and even Cassandra can’t keep things under control.

CASSANDRA FRENCH’S FINISHING SCHOOL FOR BOYS: A NOVEL, by Eric Garcia (ReganBooks, 2004)

DR. STRANGELOVE

“Curiosity will impel even [Teller’s] harshest critics into these memoirs, where both his powerful intellect and his imperious ego are on full display.”—Booklist

The “father of the hydrogen bomb” tells his version of a long, complicated story: his life. Teller, a preeminent physicist, founded the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. He advised President Reagan concerning the “Star Wars” antimissile defense shield. And, in one of the more dramatic and notorious chapters of his life, he testified against J. Robert Oppenheimer in the 1954 hearings that eventually led to the revocation of Oppenheimer’s security clearance.

MEMOIRS: A TWENTIETH-CENTURY JOURNEY IN SCIENCE AND POLITICS, by Edward Teller with Judith Shoolery (Perseus Books, 2002)

Epitaph is the darkly satirical memoir of Bras Cubas, a well-to-do Brazilian who more or less squandered his life and died of pneumonia in 1869. Machado de Assis’s method and themes foreshadow much 20th-century literature, from Borges to Calvino to García Márquez. It’s a smart, lean little novel with a remarkably pithy and mordant style. If you have never read Brazil’s greatest novelist, start with this. Epitaph of a Small Winner has also been translated by Gregory Rabassa under the title Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, published in 1997 by Oxford University Press.

EPITAPH OF A SMALL WINNER, by Joaquim Machado de Assis; translated by William L. Grossman; foreword by Susan Sontag (1881; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990)

ANYTHING BUT ORDINARY

Rusesabagina, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Civil Rights Museum’s 2005 Freedom Award, is the hotel owner depicted in the movie Hotel Rwanda. During the 100 or so days in 1994 when some 800,000 people were slaughtered while civil war raged in Rwanda between the Hutus and the Tutsis, Rusesabagina was able to appeal to the “soft side” that he says resides in even the darkest individual and save 1,268 people in his hotel, the Milles Collines. Even for those who think they know the story or have seen the movie, Rusesabagina’s own telling has the force of deeds behind the deceptively simple words, and the combination is devastatingly powerful.

AN ORDINARY MAN, by Paul Rusesabagina and Tom Zoellner (Viking, 2006)

FAMILY QUARRELS

In his first book, The Preservationist, David Maine fleshed out the story of Noah and the Ark. In Fallen he uses his prodigious imagination to show us the lives, times, spats, quarrels, and family crises of Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel. The story moves backward from Cain’s old age to the murder of his brother and ultimately to the moment when the first mother and father find themselves standing outside the gates of Eden. Maine is brilliant in creating living, breathing characters out of the spare but elegant sketches that the Bible provides.

FALLEN, by David Maine (St. Martin’s Press, 2005)

SMALL GLORIES

Paper clips, Post-it Notes, Q-tips, Frisbees, pasta, the ice-cream cone—we take them all for granted. They almost seem a part of nature. And that’s why Paola Antonelli, curator in the department of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art, has singled them out, showing us not only the design we generally overlook but also using these elegant and utilitarian objects to illustrate what great design should aspire to be. The book is illustrated by gorgeous photographs.

HUMBLE MASTERPIECES: EVERYDAY MARVELS OF DESIGN, by Paola Antonelli; photographs by Francesco Mosto (ReganBooks, 2005)

“Once again, the . . . imaginative Roberts deftly imbues a deliciously subtle sense of menace into a chilling and thrilling plot.”—Booklist

In a valley of the spectacular Grand Tetons, a young woman witnesses a murder through her binoculars. No one else sees the crime, however, and there is no sign that it actually happened. Is she crazy? Or is she in line to be the next victim? Bestselling author Nora Roberts enthralls her readers with another absorbing blend of romance and suspense.

ANGELS FALL, by Nora Roberts (Putnam, 2006)

THE AMERICAN DREAM

In 1920, Charles Ponzi adopted a small-potatoes con game known as the “rob Peter to pay Paul” scam. Under Ponzi’s inspired direction, it became a $2-million-a-week operation with a large staff. His customers included members of the Boston police and many other upstanding citizens. Ponzi is portrayed here as a charming, likable immigrant pursuing the American dream just like everyone else. Zuckoff nicely contrasts his story with that of Richard Grozier, the Boston Post editor who eventually exposed Charles Ponzi and his impossible scheme.

PONZI’S SCHEME: THE TRUE STORY OF A FINANCIAL LEGEND, by Mitchell Zuckoff (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2006)