Cheryl Strayed's Wild, a memoir of the author's solo trek up the West Coast's Pacific Crest Trail, is not a typical nature narrative. Of course, the conflict of woman versus the outdoors is present, but Strayed had faced more than her fair share of challenges before ever setting foot on the trail. By the age of 26, she'd lost both her mother and her marriage. Unmoored, she'd found her way fromMinnesota toPortland, where a new… more »
Julia Severn, the protagonist of Heidi Julavits's latest novel, The Vanishers, is not doing too well. Her symptoms and prescriptions number in the double digits, and yet no doctor has been able to confirm the origin — or even the nature — of her illness. It turns out, Julia's affliction is an occupational hazard: As a talented initiate at the Workshop, a prestigious graduate program for psychics, she's made herself vulnerable to the competitive ire… more »
This time of year, drugstore aisles are packed with cards extolling the virtues of the Best Mom Ever. It seems that the happy families Tolstoy once spoke of are truly alike enough to warrant the mass printing of cards with specific childhood memories of cookies, homework help, rides to soccer practice. There are apparently also enough maternal saints to make "Thanks for putting up with me" cards popular. It's rare for a mother to give her… more »
It's hard to believe, in this age of Twilight, The Hunger Games and a million imitations thereof, that books for teen readers haven't always been so plentiful. Though coming-of-age stories and novels told from an adolescent point of view have been written and published throughout the history of modern literature, it wasn't until the 1950s and '60s that teens were considered an important demographic for booksellers. And it wasn't until the 1970s and '80s that… more »
It's still early in 2012, but it's reasonable to say that Lauren Groff's ambitious new novel Arcadia is one of the most important books of the year. Groff, a New Yorker fiction contributor and the New York Times bestselling author of The Monsters of Templeton, tackles the concept of utopia and all its strengths and failings. It's a big-idea book, but it's also an intimate relationship drama, following the life of a young boy named… more »
In his new book, cult comedy hero and prolific tweeter Michael Ian Black eats "lesbian cereal," contemplates killing his colicky baby and chastises himself for buying a BMW. Part bildungsroman, part love poem, You're Not Doing It Right exposes the un-fuzzy feelings of marriage and family. eMusic's Alice Gregory spoke with Black about regressive humor, writing about the people you love, and hecklers-as-editors. You open one chapter with a confession: "We are four months into parenthood and… more »
A side-splittingly funny debut
Listening to Jenny Lawson — often better known by her nom de web The Bloggess — read her side-splittingly funny formal debut Let's Pretend This Never Happened, is to be put in grave danger. Whatever muscles that exist in the gut will be pulled like taffy. Listening while operating a moving vehicle may result in bodily harm. This "mostly true memoir" will make endorphins shoot through the brain as though driven by some fantastic opioid derivative.
Unless, perhaps, you're Jenny Lawson. Then maybe passages about being raised by an amateur taxidermy enthusiast who creates a squirrel sock puppet (made, alas, of more squirrel than sock) will end up less like a fever dream and more like a… more »
The full story of the most expensive manhunt ever conducted
Osama bin Laden was responsible for what is probably the most devastating attack to occur on U.S.soil, outside of the Civil War. So it makes a kind of perverse sense that he would be the subject of the most expensive manhunt ever conducted. It's this decade-long fight to get just one man that Peter Bergen expertly recounts in his authoritative Manhunt. Notably,Bergen doesn't skimp on the early phases of this long story, going as far back as the 1990s to show us the foundations of this massive struggle. Bergen's familiarity with bin Laden's deep history shines — he's been on this beat for nearly 20 years and even managed to snag… more »
Communicates what might be resonant and timeless about such a calamity
The ship that wrecks in Charlotte Rogan's The Lifeboat is, explicitly, not the Titanic — Rogan's Empress Alexandra meets its watery grave approximately two years after the sinking of its famous predecessor, according to Grace Winter, the novel's narrator — but the book's release was no doubt timed to coincide with the recent spate of shipwreck-mania. Lucky for us, then, that The Lifeboat communicates what might be resonant and timeless about such a calamity.
After an explosion on the mighty England-to-New York-bound Empress, Grace finds herself on an overfull lifeboat with an assortment of other passengers who were lucky enough to escape the foundering ship. Survival is, of course, utmost on… more »
Humor, intrigue and the secret life of mechanical bees
Nick Harkaway is a master of wordy, straight-faced silliness. If you want a hint at what you're in for with his marvelous second novel, look no further than the first appearance of the mysterious Rodney Titwhistle and Arvin Cummerbund. "Those are our actual names, I'm afraid. Life is capricious. If you should feel the urge at any time to chuckle, we're both quite big enough to share the joke." The man they're addressing is our accidental hero Joe Spork, a person who knows a thing or two about name baggage. Being the son of notorious London gangster Matthew Spork doesn't help. (Harkaway, meanwhile, is John Le Carre's kid; read into that what… more »
The idea that diverse languages are a form of divine punishment, serving only to separate us, is a popular one in numerous mythologies and religious traditions. In Genesis, humanity is unified by a common tongue… more »
