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By Nico Vreeland, on January 2nd, 2012 [This feature is a brief monthly summary of interesting books coming out this month. Follow it here. Click the pictures or the title links to find these books at Goodreads.]
A brand-new year kicks off with a metric ton of notable books. Here we go:
 Agent 6, by Tom Rob Smith (out 1/5)
Tom Rob Smith’s first book, Child 44, is one of my favorite thrillers ever, and his second book, which I’m reading now, is damn good, too. Agent 6 completes the trilogy, about Leo Demidov, an ex-State Security agent in Stalinist Russia, whose conscience strains against the needs of survival in a fascist regime. If you haven’t read the first two, start there (here’s my review of Child 44)—I won’t say more so as not to give anything away. If you’ve already read the first two, you won’t need my convincing to pick this one up.
 The Operators, by Michael Hastings (out 1/5)
Michael Hastings instantly became one of the most famous journalists in the country when his profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of all U.S. forces in Afghanistan, got McChrystal fired. (Hastings also turned in a couple of posts for this very website, just before he took off, which obviously didn’t hurt.) The Operators is his book-length investigation of the war in Afghanistan. Weirdly, it was canceled by his first publisher, Little, Brown, before being snapped up by a Penguin imprint. I haven’t seen any reviews yet, but since the Rolling Stone piece was such a hit, The Operators is a pretty safe bet.
 Distrust That Particular Flavor, by William Gibson (1/3)
The father of cyberpunk is back with a collection of journalism and essays culled from a thirty-year career. As his last novel showed, Gibson remains a foremost talent when it comes to cultural analysis, so an entire book full of that kind of thing should be awesome.
 Blueprints of the Afterlife, by Ryan Boudinot (out 1/3)
This is one of those books whose official flap copy is a checklist of the weird ideas it features. It’s the post-apocalyptic future, called the “Afterlife.” The human nervous system, thanks to computerized health care, can be hacked. North America has been ravaged by a sentient glacier named Malaspina. An Olympic medal-winning dishwasher (as in, he’s the best dishwasher in the world) gets a note from his future brain. So on and so forth. It’s one of those conceits that could be wildly successful or entirely unbearable. I’ve just started it, but so far it’s been wildly successful. Look for my full review next week.
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By Nico Vreeland, on December 29th, 2011  Author: Maile Meloy
2011, Putnam Juvenile
Filed under: Thriller, Fantasy, Young Adult
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
6 |
| Entertainment..... |
8 |
| Depth..... |
6 |
It’s 1952. Janie is a regular 14-year-old American girl, living in Los Angeles… until she discovers that her parents are Communists, about to be arrested for un-American activities. The family flees to London.
Once there, Janie starts flirting with a boy in her class named Benjamin, and they embark on a mission to spy on a man that Benjamin thinks is a Russian agent. Only, the man he meets is Benjamin’s own father, the apothecary of the title.
From there, Benjamin and Janie begin a fairly typical young-adult-novel adventure: they follow clues, use newfound powers, and become embroiled in a massive conflict with no less than the world at stake.
It’s a familiar arc, and while Meloy writes it well, it’s a relatively forgettable novel. Except, that is, for one aspect, a facet of the mythos of The Apothecary that’s fairly original, but also quite uncomfortable. (Minor spoilers ahead. If you want to go in fresh, skip the rest of this. If you like Harry Potter and the Lemony Snicket books, you’ll probably like this one, as well.) …
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By Nico Vreeland, on December 28th, 2011 [In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]
 [sic], by Joshua Cody, reviewed by Dwight Garner (New York Times)
[sic] has been building buzz for a couple of months now, since its release in October, but its cloying title has always kept me from taking a closer look. I was missing “such filthy and ecstatic sex writing that the author makes you feel you’ve been, your entire life, doing it feebly and wrong.” So that’s too bad. But it’s also just the start. In addition to an unabashed sex fiend and drug aficionado, Cody is a composer and a professor of music, and he includes a handful of insights about music and culture, ranging from the technical to the poetic. Then there’s the fact that, as if all this wasn’t enough, [sic] is actually about Cody’s fight against an aggressive cancer that came quite close to killing him. These threads braid together in mesmerizing ways, like the twisted scene in which Cody has sex with a fellow cancer patient. Take a look.
Walking With the Comrades, by Arundhati Roy, reviewed by Chandrahas Choudhury (Washington Post)
Another book that I haven’t paid enough attention to is this one, a nonfiction volume by the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The God of Small Things. As fiction fans might not know, Roy has spent the 14 years since her one and only novel becoming an outspoken political leader in India. Walking With the Comrades explains and recounts the conflict between the Indian powers that be, and ragtag (though numerous) marginalized indigenous left-wing gangs known as Maoists. It’s a first-hand account of these Maoists’ operations, including their violent, distinctly un-Gandhian methods, which have gotten better results than a series of nonviolent campaigns.
Why We Broke Up, by Daniel Handler, reviewed by Susan Carpenter (L.A. Times)
Daniel Handler writes the Lemony Snicket children’s books, and also an assortment of novels for various ages under his own name. His latest, meant for readers age 15 and older, is an illustrated account of a high-school breakup. Carpenter finds few surprises in its construction (from its cliched opposites-attract conceit to its predictable ending), but is still notably charmed by Handler’s style, which is quite understandable (Adverbs is my favorite novel of his).
Savage Messiah, by Laura Oldfield Ford, reviewed by Iain Sinclair (Guardian)
I’m not entirely sure what to make of this book. It seems to be a collection of “post-authorial” guerilla pamphlets, whatever those are. If you figure it out let me know.
In brief: The first paragraph of this review of the new Pauline Kael biography is funny in an oddball way. … Publishers square off against libraries; generally, anytime you find yourself on the other side of a fight with a library, you are wrong. … The best literary moments of the year, in cartoon. … Let’s not forget that Lenore Hart is a plagiarist and that her publisher still refuses to admit it. The latest news is that Hart has been asked to take a leave of absence from her fellowship at the Norman Mailer Center.
By Nico Vreeland, on December 25th, 2011 Merry Christmas! Several thousand people at least will be unwrapping an iOS device today. Here’s a list of the major ereader apps, and their pros and cons. We’ll see you again on Tuesday, when we go back to regular programming.
iBooks: Perfect for iOS readers
 Pros: Buying books through the app store. Great highlighting, syncing, dictionary, and a ton of layout options. Two-page layout on the iPad, and fewer glitches than any other app.
Cons: Doesn’t work on any non-iOS device. Not your Kindle, not your Nook, not any E-Ink ereader. If you want to use one of those devices, you’ll want to use a different app. There isn’t even a desktop version of iBooks, you can only use it on an iPhone or an iPad. There’s also no real iBooks website, and navigating through the Books section of iTunes is a proper pain, so you’ll need to come to the app with a title in mind.
The gist: iBooks is also the only app that will let you buy books through the app store and your iTunes account—that ability is turned off for all other ebook apps. But that ease-of-buying-books is not what makes iBooks the best ereader app; instead, it’s the fact that all the others have significant downsides. iBooks has all the core functions—note-taking, highlighting, search, dictionary, and layout options—and they all work. If your iPhone and/or iPad is your main ereader, look no further for your new favorite app. …
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By Nico Vreeland, on December 23rd, 2011  Author: Lou Beach
2011, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Filed under: Literary, Short Stories
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
6 |
| Entertainment..... |
6 |
| Depth..... |
3 |
These stories started life as Lou Beach’s Facebook updates (Facebook limits updates to 420 characters, thus the name). I was initially skeptical of this project since social media rarely lends itself to art creation. But 420 Characters has festooned itself in blurbs from many great writers, including George Saunders, and secured the talents of Jeff Bridges and Ian McShane to read some of the stories—so the scales tipped back the other way and I bought the book.
The second thing you see, when starting this book (the first being the odd, wolf-bird half-dust jacket pictured) is an author’s note. It reads:
The stories you are about to encounter were written as status updates on a large social networking site. These updates were limited to 420 characters, including letters, spaces, and punctuation. The author hopes you enjoy them.
This note teems with bad omens. There’s the disinclination to name Facebook as the “large social networking site” in question. There’s the irrelevant definition of a character. There’s the author’s bald, plaintive hope that you enjoy his work, a plea I’ve never read in any book I’ve actually enjoyed.
But most troublingly, there’s the implication that these stories were not edited or polished or changed in any way. They did not simply “start out” on Facebook, as I had initially assumed, they “were written” there, and there’s no indication that they’ve been touched since. Frankly, it shows. Beach has talent (more as an illustrator than a writer), but these stories are too often (at least half the time) exactly what you fear they will be—i.e., tossed off college-level writing exercises, without drama or meaning.
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By Nico Vreeland, on December 13th, 2011 [In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]
 Death Comes to Pemberly, by P.D. James, reviewed by Anna Mundow (B&N Review)
P.D. James, who turned 91 this year, has written just 19 novels in her lifetime, which is a lot for a normal person, but barely a year’s work for the modern, superhumanly prolific mystery novelist. In other words, P.D. James still actually writes her own books. This latest has gotten mixed reviews. Mundow, for one, did not like it, but Michael Dirda did. Both agree that Pemberley (a mannered mystery that coopts the characters and setting of Pride and Prejudice) is “stately,” but Mundow calls it “plodding,” and Dirda “witty.” If you’re not a Jane Austen fan, this one probably won’t hit home. But if you are, perhaps it will. (And if you have a mystery fan on your shopping list, take a look at this.)
1Q84, by Haruki Murakami, reviewed by Christopher Tayler (London Review of Books)
This is not the first time we’ve mentioned Murakami’s recent epic novel (this is), but Tayler’s essay deserves a look because it’s quite a bit less positive than the average 1Q84 review, and because it ranges into the real-life weirdness of Murakami and his cultish appeal.
Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward, reviewed by Carloyn Kellogg (L.A. Times)
We did not see this one coming. Few did, before it won the National Book Award a couple weeks ago. This review reads like a rush job, likely commissioned on the night of the awards ceremony, and its effusiveness has a tendency to obscure its authority. But since the award conveys authority enough, it should give you an idea of what Salvage is about. Go here for a pretty interesting profile of Jesmyn Ward.
Look, I Made a Hat, by Stephen Sondheim, reviewed by Charles Isherwood (New York Times)
Sondheim’s new book is evidently the second half of a set, something of an artistic memoir, about working with a new writing partner and experiencing a “vital artistic renewal.” It’s always interesting to watch a genius investigate himself.
In brief: This is completely mind-blowing: after author Lenore Hart got caught having plagiarized an entire novel, she claimed, stunningly, that copying the words and exact plot of another book isn’t actually plagiarism. The kicker? Her publisher agrees. RIP St. Martin’s Press. … For comic book fans, 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die. … Abraham Verghese describes his writing process. … And a pretty amazing list of the year’s worst nonfiction books.
By Nico Vreeland, on December 8th, 2011 [As each year comes to a close, we ask our contributors to give us their picks of the best books that came out in the previous 12 months--and we let a few older ones slip in as honorable mentions. You can follow the entries through the rest of the year here, and check out the picks from 2009 and 2010 while you're at it.]
Fiction
 The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick deWitt
The brothers of the title are Charlie and Eli Sisters, a pair of ruthless hired killers tracking down a fugitive inventor in the old West. The brothers are not anti-heroes or vigilantes or freedom fighters. They do not conform to an unconventional moral code, they conform to no moral code at all. But they are not sociopaths and deWitt’s nuanced characterization of such men makes this novel great. It’s also fantastically well-written, and funny to boot. This “revisionist Western” was well-received and shortlisted for the Booker Prize; it’s perfect for any Western or adventure fan with a tolerance for violence. (Full review)
 Machine Man, by Max Barry
A thought-provoking absurdist adventure-comedy about a socially stunted engineer named Charlie Neumann who accidentally cuts his leg off in a lab accident. He becomes frustrated with his limited prosthetic, so he builds himself a new one, a very good one, a prosthetic so good that he cuts his other leg off so he can have two. Things only get weirder from there, but Charlie’s pitch-perfect voice keeps the novel grounded in humanity. An outstanding read for anybody. (Full review)
 Reamde, by Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson, over the years, has transitioned away from tight, stylish novels like Snow Crash, and toward sprawling, expansive everythingscapes, like Anathem, and, most recently, Reamde. This latest features virtual worlds, Chinese gold farmers, ransomware, gangsters, terrorists, and much more. While its writing is not Stephenson’s best, he’s good enough to make even this slightly flabby thriller a great novel, if also an exhausting one.(Full review)
 Love and Shame and Love, by Peter Orner
This novel in fragments covers the lives of three generations of the Popper family as they try (and fail) to hold on to love. It’s beautifully written, and while many of the brief chapters are tiny jewels, the artful gaps between them sometimes rob the larger narrative of its impact. If you like your reading material to ask a lot of you, this is your book. If you want lighter fare, this isn’t it. Orner, though, is one to watch. (Full review)
Nonfiction
 You Are So Smart, by David McRaney
Freelance journalist David McRaney’s first book is part psychology survey, part self-help guide, and part humor column. Each of its 48 chapters details a different way in which our fallacious instincts deceive us. The result is a winning formula perfect for just about anybody who doesn’t have a psych degree. (Full review)
Late addition from 2010
 The Dream of Perpetual Motion, by Dexter Palmer
In an alternate-history twentieth century, mechanical men perform nearly all the jobs in a futuristic city. Their creator, genius (and possibly insane) inventor Prospero Taligent, has also created a real-life unicorn and a zeppelin which runs on a tiny perpetual motion engine that might not exist. Against this backdrop, debut novelist Dexter Palmer tells a witty, mesmerizing postmodern sci-fi story, rich with invention and depth. A must-read for any fan of sci-fi or postmodernism. (Full review)
By Nico Vreeland, on December 7th, 2011 [This funny, accessible human psychology survey is a C4 Great Read.]
 Subtitle: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself
Author: David McRaney
2011, Gotham
Filed under: Nonfiction
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
8 |
| Entertainment..... |
10 |
| Depth..... |
8 |
Freelance journalist David McRaney’s first book is part psychology survey, part self-help guide, and part humor column. McRaney contends that we are all driven by a need to feel awesome and perfect. That’s an evolutionary advantage, because it means that those of us who aren’t very awesome (almost all of us) won’t commit suicide, and the human race can continue. But it also means that we civilians know next to nothing about the real reasons we like and do the things we like and do. Instead, we make up rationales and convince ourselves that our fables are truth.
Each of McRaney’s 48 chapters deals with a different way in which we deceive ourselves—”Self-Fulfilling Prophecies,” “The Bystander Effect,” “Confimartion Bias.” McRaney collects and synthesizes the results from a myriad of psychology studies, and interprets the ramifications with a healthy dose of sarcasm and humor. Here’s the one-paragraph summary:
You are a story you tell yourself. You engage in introspection, and with great confidence you see the history of your life with all the characters and settings—and you at the center as protagonist in the tale of who you are. This is all a great, beautiful confabulation without which you could not function.
The ways this confabulation plays out are often strikingly dramatic.
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By Nico Vreeland, on December 1st, 2011 [This feature is a brief monthly summary of interesting books coming out this month. Follow it here. Click the pictures or the title links to find these books at Powell's.]
It’s a scrappy month for Book Radar: several of the books I was watching for were pushed back to January. In any case, here’s hoping one of these tickles your fancy. If you’re anticipating a book I missed, let me know in the comments.
 420 Characters, by Lou Beach (out 12/6)
These stories started as a Facebook project in which Beach wrote a story per day as a status update. Normally, that conceit would be enough for me to write off the entire thing. But since Machine Man, one of my favorite books this year, started as a blog experiment, I’m giving this one a shot. (It doesn’t hurt that everybody from Jonathan Lethem to George Saunders have given the thing raving blurbs.) The short-shorts come accompanied by Beach’s illustrations (and illustrating seems to be his first love), and you can find samples of them, and audio files of several being read by no less than Jeff Bridges and Ian McShane, at the book’s website.
The Artist of Disappearance, by Anita Desai (out 12/6)
Multiple Booker prize shortlistee Anita Desai turns in three novellas about the art world. The Guardian calls it her best work in years, and also calls her “India’s best living writer.” Worth taking notice.
Stone of Kings: In Search of the Lost Jade of the Maya, by Gerard Helferich (out 12/6)
When modern archaeologists first excavated Maya cities, they discovered a trove of stunning jade artwork, but they couldn’t find the source of the stone. Helferich’s account of the 300-year search for Maya jade claims to be a rollicking jungle adventure tale. I like those.
Angel Makers, by Jessica Gregson (out 12/6)
This creepy debut novel, based on a true story, follows an ostracized medicine woman who lives outside a remote village in early 20th century Hungary. When the men of the village return after World War I, the women decide their lives are better without them, and start killing them off. Sounds like a decent option for the right kind of reader.
By Nico Vreeland, on November 29th, 2011 [In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]
 Lightning Rods, by Helen DeWitt, reviewed by Scott Esposito (L.A. Review of Books)
Given the ludicrous premise at the core of this book, Glory Holes would have been a more accurate (if less appealing) title. It involves comic adventures based around corporate-sanctioned anonymous sex, and Esposito says the glory hole inventor’s intricate sexual fantasies provide the book’s “deepest look into a character’s soul.” With a premise this weird, Lightning Rods should either be awful or amazing, and given the rave reviews (cf. NYT and Millions) I might just be tempted to give it a try.
And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life, by Charles J. Shields, reviewed by Christopher Buckley (New York Times)
This bio sounds worth reading as much for the story of Vonnegut’s personal life, marked repeatedly by tragedy, as for the expected behind-the-scenes glimpses at famous novels. Buckley’s review is sharply written and enjoyable; his verdict is “diligent, readable but uneven.”
The Language Wars, by Henry Hitchings, reviewed by Barton Swaim (Wall Street Journal)
The Language Wars sounds full of historical anecdotes about linguists and lexicographers, from matters of taste (like why Americans don’t spell “labor” with a “u” ) to technical questions of usage (like whether “hysterical” should be used as a synonym for “hilarious”). In addition, Swaim discusses the conflicts between grammatical “prescriptivists” who eschew strict grammatical guidelines, and the rest of us who, as Swaim says, simply want “to know if using ‘impact’ as a verb will make [us] sound stupid.” Intriguing review, and a good book for word nerds. Also, Barton Swaim is an awesome name.
Parallel Stories, by Peter Nadas, reviewed by Benjamin Moser (New York Times)
Claims that a long novel is too labyrinthine must be taken seriously when they come from a reviewer who calls Proust “gossipy bubbliness.” It sounds like there’s a lot to like in Nadas’s epic new novel, but if, like me, you’re on the fence, this review might tip you back.
In brief: The guy who wrote The Invention of Hugo Cabret, now a Martin Scorsese movie, also wrote the eye-catching YA novel, Wonderstruck. Read more about him here. … Jonathan Lethem’s new collection of essays is worth a look. … Ghost Lights draws comparisons to both The Pale King and Heart of Darkness. … This review of Margaret Atwood’s latest weird book provides an excellent overview of Atwood’s struggle against the “science fiction” label. … This review of a historical novel about Vladimir Nabokov’s younger brother wants you to like the book, but I’m not convinced.
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