Do not look a gift horse in the mouth. It’s been nearly a year since this issue came into self’s hands. She has since suspended her New York Times Book Review subscription (in case dear blog readers were wondering. It was just too depressing seeing the book review in her mailbox every week, and not being able to read for months and months and months.)
It just so happens that the By the Book interview is with Michael Connelly, and he has many, many interesting book recommendations, which include the following:
- Act of War: Lyndon Johnson, North Korea, and the Capture of the Spy Ship Pueblo, by Jack Cheevers
- The Public Burning, by Robert Coover
- The Little Sister, by Raymond Chandler
This issue also has the list of Ten Best Books of 2013, and since self is well aware that time is a river, and self is disappearing quick, she has to be choosy about which of the Ten she really really wants to read, and it is these:
In Fiction
- Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- The Flamethrowers, by Rachel Kushner
- Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson
- Tenth of December: Stories, by George Saunders
In Nonfiction
- Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, by Sheri Fink
- Wave, by Sonali Deraniyagala
One of the highlights of this issue is a review (by Anthony Doerr) of Brown Dog: Novellas, by Jim Harrison. Self doesn’t know why exactly but she’s loved Jim Harrison for a long long time. His books are violent, they are pungent, they are precise, and they are very, very funny.
And here’s a round-up of a burgeoning sub-genre, the cookbook as memoir:
- Biting Through the Skin: An Indian Kitchen in America’s Heartland, by Nina Mukerjee Furstenau
- Three Squares: The Invention of the American Meal, by Abigail Carroll
- Fried Walleye and Cherry Pie: Midwestern Writers and Food, by Peggy Wolff
And here’s a sub of a sub-genre, the fate of elephants in America:
- Topsy: The Startling Story of the Crooked-Tailed Elephant, P. T. Barnum, and the American Wizard Thomas Edison, by Michael Daly
- Behemoth: The History of the Elephant in America, by Ronald B. Tobias
And one about elephants in Africa:
- Silent Thunder, by Katy Payne
Finally, much thanks to Rivka Galchen and Pankaj Mishra for recommending (in the end-paper, Bookends) two books by authors self hasn’t yet read:
- My Struggle, by Norwegian writer Ove Knausgaard
- Zibaldone, by Giacomo Leopardi
Whew! Finally self has arrived at the end of a monster post. Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 