Most of us love lists. Sometimes we even love looking at lists when they don’t make a lot of sense to us and their methodology has not been explained. Here’s a list of the best places to live. The hottest spots to vacation. The best schools. The top breeds of dog. The best restaurants. The hippest place to get a fish taco. The… well, you get the idea. Most of us love lists. I’m not […]
An Accidental American by Alex Carr (Random House Mortalis) 240 pagesThis novel introduces Nicole Blake, an ex-con living a carefully compacted life in France. The daughter of an American grifter and a Lebanese mother, Nicole is a forger by trade, living in the shelter of the Pyrenees after a six-year stretch in a Marseilles prison. But when John Valsamis, a CIA officer, locates Nicole, the bottom drops out of her peaceful existence. He’s determined to […]
A Miracle of Catfish by Larry Brown (Algonquin Books) 335 pagesFor me, there was no doubt that Larry Brown’s final, unfinished novel is the one that still burns bright. Brown died of a heart attack the day before Thanksgiving in 2004 and this year his long-time publisher delivered the author’s Southern-fried magnum opus. Set in rural Mississippi, A Miracle of Catfish sprawls across a year in the life of about a dozen characters, including 72-year-old […]
America, 1908: The Dawn of Flight, the Race to the Pole, the Invention of the Model T and the Making of a Modern Nation by Jim Rasenberger (Scribner) 320 pagesWe think of our own times as being the fastest-paced, most astonishing in American history. But people living in 1908, the subject of ex-Vanity Fair editor Rasenberger’s delightful new book, must have felt the same. Packed into that single 12-month period were Henry Ford’s introduction of […]
Architectural Inspiration: Styles, Details, Sources by Richard Skinulis and Peter Christopher (The Boston Mills Press) 528 pagesIn a world gone mad with home renovations and new construction, Architectural Inspiration is the ultimate design and wish book. This is the go-to-guide for the homeowner facing rethinking their existing home — or designing a new one — helping filling in the blanks that would-be designers without an actual design background will encounter. Are you dealing with double […]
The Alphabet from A to Y With Bonus Letter Z by Steve Martin and Roz Chast (Flying Dolphin Press/Doubleday) 64 pagesIt’s no secret that celebrity names sell books. In the last few years, we’ve seen children’s books from Madonna, Jamie Lee Curtis, Billy Crystal, Bill Cosby, Maria Shriver, Jerry Seinfeld and many others. In some ways, it’s not right to lump Steve Martin in with these others. While Martin is an actor, he’s also recognized […]
Even though selecting a gift book can’t help but be subjective, the editors of January Magazine have combed through the stacks and chosen the books we’d most like to get — and give — in art & culture, children’s books, cookbooks, crime fiction, fiction and non-fiction this holiday season. As usual, we’ve included links to an online bookseller. This is not necessarily intended to help you purchase. Feel free to print the relevant pages and […]
Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker by Stacy A. Cordery (Viking) 608 pagesBrash but beautiful, an assiduous rules-breaker known for smoking in public and speaking her mind, Alice Longworth, the oldest child of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, turned a desire to gain her father’s attention into a determination to influence politicians for most of the 20th century. She wed a Republican congressman from Ohio, who went on to become […]
The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps: The Best Crime Stories from the Pulps During Their Golden Age — the ’20s, ’30s & ’40s edited by Otto Penzler (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) 1,150 pages“Like jazz, the hard-boiled private detective is entirely an American invention, and it was given life in the pages of pulp magazines.” So writes the estimable Otto Penzler, bookstore owner, critic and editor of this blunt weapon of a short-story anthology. His was […]
24: Ultimate Guide by Michael Goldman (DK Books) 144 pages24 is one of those television programs that creates addicts. It certainly created one in me. I came late to the party, watching the seasons on DVD before having to endure the seven days between episodes that come when you watch every week on Fox. Seasons one through five were pretty epic most of the time, and season six tanked. Made almost no sense. Still. Now […]
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