Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Some Ideas for Those 2016 Reading Resolutions

New Year's Eve is around the corner, so I'm coming up with reading resolutions for 2016. My list of want-to-read books is based on reviews, past experience with an author, or just personal interest. For nonfiction, I'm looking back to some great 2015 books that I meant to read but somehow missed. Leading the list is the award-winning Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, an intelligent autobiographical and historical meditation, as told to his son, about racism in America. And from New York Times book critic Janet Maslin's 2015 recommendations, I'm picking up two more biographical histories: The Wright Brothers by David McCullough (on my book club's reading list, too) and The Ingenious Mr. Pyke: Inventor, Fugitive, Spy by Henry Hemmings about a British "mad scientist" working on World War II covert strategy, which has the unbeatable teaser: "Only now, following the release of previously classified documents by MI5, can this man's extraordinary story be told in full." When it comes to fiction, I'm looking forward, however, and my thanks to The Washington Post for recommending a bevy of new novels releasing in 2016. From a long list, I'm cherry-picking The Man Without a Shadow by best-selling Joyce Carol Oates, about a neuroscientist who falls in love with the famous amnesiac subject of her research, coming out in January. Because I loved Yann Martel's The Life of Pi, I'm looking forward to the February release of The High Mountains of Portugal, in which Martel weaves together three tales that are part quest, ghost story and contemporary fable of love and loss. I'm also a Jane Austen fan, so I'm curious to read Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld, a playful modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, when it comes out in April. You can't beat Stephen King for popular thriller fare, so if you've followed the saga of retired police detective Bill Hodges and his unlikely sleuthing allies through Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers, you'll want to snap up King's End of Watch, the "spectacular finale" of the trilogy in June. For advice on making reading resolutions that you can actually accomplish, I'll pass along tips from the Huffington Post article "How to Make Non-Intimidating Reading Resolutions for 2016" at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/non-intimidating-reading-resolutions_5682e8abe4b0b958f65a9b9c

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Christmas Magic Inspires Classic Mystery Writers

It's almost Christmas, and, for mystery lovers, that means a slew of seasonal mysteries. Besides all the "cozy" murder tales rife with small-town festivities and pie recipes, the holiday has inspired some classic mystery authors. For example, Agatha Christie penned Hercule Poirot's Christmas: The Belgian detective, spending Christmas with a friend in an English village, offers to help the Lee family solve the bloody murder of a tyrannical patriarch at their holiday family reunion. Christie also wrote The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, a gathering of short mysteries featuring Poirot and her other beloved sleuth Miss Marple. If Christie doesn't satisfy your thirst for British Yuletide mayhem, you can curl up with Silent Nights: Christmas Mysteries, a short-story collection of vintage British mystery writers' holiday-themed tales. For a more recent holiday mystery offering, read New York Times bestselling author Anne Perry. Perry writes a Christmas-themed mystery each year, and this year's 13th seasonal tale is A Christmas Escape: On the Mediterranean island of Stromboli, protagonist Charles Latterly arrives at a small hotel hoping that the island’s blue skies will brighten his spirits. Although orphaned teenager Candace Finbar helps introduce lonely Charles to the island's beauty, his fellow guests turn out to be unhappy, quarrelsome, suspicious company. As the local volcano stirs ominously, a body is found, and Charles suspects a killer among the other guests. Now, for those readers who want to focus on the mystery of Christmas without the murder, check out this list of the 50 best Christmas books for adults or kids, ranging from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi, and Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory, all the way to Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas: http://www.stylist.co.uk/books/50-best-christmas-books

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Reading About Terror in the Season of Peace

Most of my friends and relatives are immersed in shopping, feasting and happy parties. When it comes to reading, 'tis the season for uplifting tales of hope and love. But the darker, real world intrudes--the Paris terror attacks, the Russian airplane downing, the San Bernardino mayhem, the terror-threat LAUSD school closure, the fiery rhetoric of presidential candidates--and all that grim news sometimes drowns out the cheery mall music. Heading up the enemies of peace is ISIS, the violent movement to create an Islamic caliphate. So, paradoxically, to further peace and goodwill this season, some of the best gifts may be books that help explain ISIS and today's terror threat, because only by understanding can we mount an effective defense and avoid irrational reactions that risk injecting our own society with the hate-filled bigotry we fear. A recent Wall Street Journal blog post provided 10 must-read recommendations on the topic. Focusing on those published or updated just this year, there is The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State by William McCants, director of the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution and translator of a key Jihadist text, “Management of Savagery.” For a wider and longer viewpoint, read The Levant: A Fractured Mosaic by William Harris, a survey of the Middle East's Levant region including Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and parts of Jordan and Iraq. Harris offers a sweeping history of the structural and geographic determinants of today's turmoil there. Finally, you can refocus on ISIS with 2015's ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror by U.S. journalist Michael Weiss and Syrian analyst Hassan Hassan, who describe the group’s history and tactics within the context of Iraq and its post-2003 insurgency. For more book suggestions, read http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/11/17/10-must-read-books-on-terrorism/

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Books for Novice and Expert Cooks in Your Life

My holiday gift shopping list always includes cookbooks for the foodies in my life, but the list of possibilities is so huge that I scour the Internet for recommendations. I've found that the Food Network has a good list of cookbooks for a range of tastes (from foreign gourmet dining to down-home BBQ to gluten-free believers) and a range of skill levels, from novice to expert. While TV celeb chefs are perhaps overrepresented, there are many listed books that I found recommended by multiple other sources, such as gourmet magazines, book reviewers and lifestyle editors. The books that seem to be getting the biggest buzz this year include: Lucky Peach, a 101 easy Asian recipes from the independent foodie mag; Nopi: The Cookbook, a collection of Asian-meets-Middle-Eastern recipes from the famed London restaurant Nopi's Head Chef Ramael Scully teamed with author Yotam Ottolenghi; Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking, featuring Israeli cuisine from the Philadelphia restaurant of James Beard Award-winning Chef Michael Solomonov; Bien Cuit: The Art of Bread by New York artisanal baker Zachary Golper; Milk Bar Life featuring new savory recipes from Christina Tosi, author of Momofuku Milk Bar's creative sweets; Near & Far: Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel offering 120 vegetarian dishes from the personal collection of award-winning food blogger Heidi Swanson; Gjelina, the first cookbook inspired by Travis Lett's Venice Beach-based California-Mediterranean restaurant; The Nomad Cookbook with sweet and savory creations from New York's popular The Nomad restaurant menu, plus bonus cocktail recipes; and, finally, Mexico from the Inside Out, a debut cookbook from Chef Enrique Olvera, combining the sophistication of his Mexico City Pujol restaurant with family home cooking. For many more gift ideas, go to http://www.foodnetwork.com/holidays-and-parties/photos/cookbook-gift-guide.html


Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Annual Tribute to Fiction's Worst Sex Scenes

One of my favorite "literary" awards, the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award, has announced this year's winner! The award was established back in 1998 by the British Literary Review’s then-editor Auberon Waugh, with the hope of discouraging authors from penning laughably bad fictional sex scenes. It just underscores the challenge of writing erotic and emotionally resonant sexual descriptions that the award hasn't run short of nominees, and that nominees often include otherwise acclaimed writers. Despite shaming examples of failed eroticism with a booby prize, authors still stumble into porno slang, off-putting anatomical terms, or strained metaphors of a natural (otters and butterflies), mechanical (plows and pistons), or cosmic (supernovae and black holes) kind. The unintended reader response to poorly written descriptions of sexual intimacy is wincing, gagging or giggling--and sometimes all three. A case in point is the 2015 winner, the debut novel List of the Lost by former Smiths vocalist Morrissey, which includes this awful sex romp: "At this, Eliza and Ezra rolled together into one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation, screaming and shouting as they playfully bit and pulled at each other in a dangerous and clamorous rollercoaster coil of sexually violent rotation with Eliza’s breasts barrel-rolled across Ezra’s howling mouth and the pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement as it whacked and smacked its way into every muscle of Eliza’s body except for the otherwise central zone." Nominees for 2015 include The Martini Shot by the celebrated screenwriter of TV's "The Wire," George Pelecanos ("I rubbed myself against her until she was wet as a waterslide"); Joshua Cohen’s Book of Numbers ("her breasts were like young fawns, sheep frolicking in hyssop"); and Before, During, After by Richard Bausch ("When she took him, still a little flaccid, into her mouth, he moaned, 'Oh, lover.'"). For a sampling of fiction's worst sex scenes by previous winners: http://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/articles/1057381/the-worst-sex-scenes-in-fiction-ever