Boston Book Festival’s 2009 Picks - Just In Time!
In our opinion, these cold dark nights are just perfect for curling up (Snuggie, anyone?) with a good book and a cup of your favorite steaming beverage. And getting books are just as fun as giving them (not just because they are easy to wrap!). So we’ve compiled a list of 2009 recommendations from some Boston Book Festival friends and colleagues to help you with gift ideas for that reader on your list (even if that reader is you.)
Here’s what we’re saying about some of our favorites:
Debbie Porter, Founding President, Boston Book Festival
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
“A novel ostensibly about a house – a glass house built in Czechoslovakia between the wars – that represents everything its owners feel about a future that appears bright with the promise of enlightenment and modernism both for themselves and their country. But the enormous forces of history and shattering personal truths of the inhabitants of the glass house blow apart the dream. A 2009 Booker Prize finalist The Glass Room’s plot will keep you reading and the ideas will keep you thinking.”
Emily D’Amour Pardo, Executive Director, Boston Book Festival
Invisible by Paul Auster
“At once a riveting psychological page-turner and a philosophical exploration of the truth of memory, Invisible is a coming-of-age story that showcases Auster’s inventiveness and ability to create characters that will stay with you long after you finish the book.“
Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and author of That Old Cape Magic
Safe From The Neighbors by Steve Yarbrough
“Steve Yarbrough's Safe From the Neighbors is the best book I've read in quite a while. I loved the way its intimate, private narrative merges with a larger public one.”
Helene Atwan, Director, Beacon Press
Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
“I’m currently rereading Jamaica Kincaid’s pitch perfect first novel, Annie John, which is almost like reading poetry. I recommend reading it while reclining on a sofa without any distractions. And you won’t need the bon-bons.”
Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka by Adele Marie Barker
“For the adventurous (armchair) traveler, I also recommend one of our books, just out, Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka; appropriate reading as the fifth anniversary of the tsunami approaches on 12/26.”
Esmond Harmsworth, founding partner, Zachary Schuster Harmsworth Literary Agency
The Hypochondriacs: Nine Tormented Lives by Brian Dillon
“My favorite 2009 book has only come out in Ireland and it is very quirky, Brian Dillon's The Hypochondriacs: Nine Tormented Lives, a book on famous, mostly literary and artistic hypochondriacs, from Proust to Andy Warhol, James Boswell and Charlotte Bronte. It turns out that Proust was not a hypochondriac at all: in the late 19th century, allergies and asthma were considered psychosomatic illnesses, and one popular cure was to burn pungent powders and inhale the smoke, which Proust did every day in his cork lined room. Not surprisingly this did not help his severe asthma.”
Elinor Lipman, bestselling author of Then She Found Me and The Family Man
How I Became A Famous Novelist by Steve Hely
“When I reviewed How I Became A Famous Novelist for the Washington Post last summer I wrote, "I may have read a funnier book in the last 20 years, but at this moment I'm hard-pressed to name it."
John Taylor "Ike" Williams, The Kneerim & Williams Agency
Union Atlantic by Adam Haslett
"Haslett paints a portrait of Capitalism's effect on American life as good as Henry James did of Class "
Union Atlantic will be released on 2/9, so you’ll have to pre-order, but remember, good things come to those who wait!
Joyce Linehan, President, Ashmont Media
Nobody Move by Denis Johnson
“I didn’t read a lot of new books in 2009 – spent much of the year revisiting criminally underappreciated British fiction writer Jonathan Coe. But I did love Denis Johnson’s Nobody Move, a noir so black it could function as parody.”
Mike Swartz, Creative Director, UpStatement
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford
“Crawford's reflection on the satisfaction of physical work doesn't just center on the fact that it's manual labor, but on the idea that diagnosing a motorcycle engine's busted tappets is just as intellectual (and perhaps more so) than most work that requires "higher" education. Highly reminiscent of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Crawford's 'Chautauqua' asserts that there is an inherent honesty and feeling of worth that comes from clear-cut thinking and fixing. My life as a web designer is pretty much the digital equivalent of small engine repair, but with less leather and much more cursing.”
Karen Wulf, Executive Director, PEN New England
36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
“36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction is further proof that Rebecca Goldstein, celebrated philosopher and novelist, can do it all. It has everything you want in a book: great writing, captivating characters, sharp observations, and serious subject matter artfully presented, beautifully told. It is the perfect argument for why fiction matters: it’s about everything that matters most, and I will be giving it to everyone who matters to me.”
And last, but certainly not least, Tom Perrotta, bestselling author of Election, Little Children, and The Abstinence Teacher, and Judith Donath of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society both gave two thumbs up (so that’s a total of four thumbs!) to:
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christo H. Papadimitriou
Tom:
“I'm not a regular reader of graphic novels, but I've read a few great ones over the years--Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel, of course, and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, to name two. To this select group, I'd like to add Logicomix, which is a beautifully written and illustrated account of some of the important intellectual and emotional events in the life of Bertrand Russell. It's challenging, thought-provoking, and a deeply engaging book that turns the life of the mind into a gripping adventure.”
Judith:
“There is something about the graphical form that invites self-reference, and Logicomix, with its interludes of conversations among author and artists, and its references to mathematicians as superheroes, is even more self-conscious than most. But it also does an extraordinary job of turning the development of 20th century philosophical logic into a riveting story, and in the process makes the math clearer than many texts do. It's a bit ironic that a book about the search for absolute truth plays fast and loose with facts - but it's intermingled examination of the relationship between logic and madness make even the breaks from reality into part of the plot.”