Gary's Staff Picks

Rare is the writer whose novels and short stories are all of the same excellence. Boyle is one of our best in both the short form and long. If you've never read him, these stories are a good entry into his work. As in his novels, he pulls you right in with his unique blend of wide-ranging imagination, cultural curiosity, and beautifully modulated contemporary American prose.
Gary

"Enlightenment" once referred to a glorious 18th century efflorescence of rationality in European thought. Now it's a commodity, available in ten easy steps or via twelve rules or for $24.95--anyway, happily supplied by the latest guru with a sincere-sounding rap. Wisdom is hard, platitudes are easy, and it is a startling thing to see Wheen's illustrations of just how many of us take the easy route. Read it and laugh, blush, or weep.

Between murmuring with delight at beautiful turns of phrase and positively detonating with laughter at some of the funniest stuff I've ever read, I found this to be an audibly pleasurable experience. Murray is a wickedly intelligent Wodehouse for the twenty-first century.

It might give you an angle of approach to Sarah Vowell's work to know that the title isn't a joke. Her idea of a vacation is to visit the sites of U.S. presidential assassinations, do some research, and riff her unique take on various aspects thereof. Sardonic without being sour, skeptical, acute, sometimes morbid and frequently hilarious, she views things with a jaundiced but sharp eye and a refreshing sensibility. It's a curious hybrid: a road trip, history lesson, and a continually amazing entertainment.

This fascinating, insightful examination of Bull Run, the first major battle of the Civil War, is satisfying for a general history reader as well as (I'm told) the serious Civil War enthusiast. There's a lot of good stuff about historical context, the details of army life, the shock of actual warfare, and, ultimately, the accuracy of certain historical legends. Detzer makes it read like a novel.

Pressfield's evocation of Antiquity is right up there with that of Robert Graves, Gore Vidal and Mary Renault. As in his earlier Gates of Fire and Tides of War, his command of the nuts and bolts of ancient warfare - much of it necessarily extrapolated or entirely invented - is amazing. He makes the ancient world ring true, this time in the words of Alexander the Great himself. This takes skill and talent, not to mention audacity, and the author pulls it off beautifully.
Gary

Paul Watkins' newest novel is as satisfying as a fine seven-course meal. It has richly drawn characters and elegantly interlocking plot points. It expertly evokes atmosphere and is a cracking adventure to boot. Especially recommended for outdoorsmen, outdoorswomen and mountain nuts.

Beginning with the Paris of 1900 and arriving at century's end in Sarajevo, Dutch journalist Mak moves us over the continent chronologically, narrating historical incidence, talking with witnesses and descendants and sprinkling it all with enriching anecdotes and the occasional pithy opinion. The result is an engrossing travelogue, an unusually vivid history, and a ruminating on-site examination of Europe's 20th century.
Gary

Gary read this book. Gary laugh so hard he forget about pondering existential dilemmas of our time. Gary think one of funniest books he ever read.

A mischievous pick perhaps but great fun for that. If you enjoyed the Da Vinci Code and have become curious about the historical and religious context, this little book goes into everything: art, myth, locale, source material (Holy Blood, Holy Grail for instance), Dan Brown's cheats and mistakes. Informative, entertaining and, frankly, more fascinating than the original novel.

To play the publisher's game of hooking a book to supposedly similar authors: Dorsey is like Hiaasen mixed with Hunter Thompson and, uh, David McCullough. The berserk protagonist is an amateur Florida historian. Understandably, he's occasionally driven to murder. He's basically id-driven, whereas his sidekick doesn't even have that level of control. This book is absolutely nuts and borderline hysterical. Better not read it in public - you might get hauled off to the giggle farm.

In the last half of the 20th century Africa transformed from a European-controlled resource-rich backwater to a central player on the world stage. The Suez crisis and the Algerian war signaled the twilight of the British and French world empires. Insurrections and revolutions served as an endless series of Cold War proxy conflicts. Whole new nations came into being. Great men and real monsters came to power - some starting as one and ending as the other. Meredith has succinctly told the myriad linking stories of this extraordinary era, the exhilarations of independence, the power grabs, corruption and genocide, the instances of subhuman bestiality and moments of true grace. This is a harsh and vivid mirror of recent history and a series of lessons for the future.

These full-color reproductions of the Sunday funnies from the turn-of-the-last-century New York World are a spectacular treasure, all the sweater for having almost been lost. This is amazing stuff. These superbly illustrated, jam-packed pages make our modern day Sunday comics sections look positively anemic. A cursory perusal gleans articles by Mark Twain, Nicholas Tesla, Teddy Roosevelt, true stories and fun facts, puzzles and games, household hints and high fashion (even the ads are entertaining: "A beautiful waist for Easter, $2.50"). A fascinating window into history and popular culture--and out-and-out "bully!" entertainment.

The adjective "serious" was the highest praise to Susan Sontag, whereas Pauline Kael used it as a put-down. Their approaches differed enormously, but Sontag and Kael were both acute social observers and dynamic writers. Seligman considers the oeuvres and the attitudes of both and the result makes for some stimulating reading of its own. It's a curious hybrid of a book, part criticism, part appreciation, and as unique as its subjects.

This is way more than merely a film guide. In this context, "cult" means more thoughtful, fascinating, challenging, or downright weird than the usual mainstream fare. There are many wicked, cool moves out there that you may never have heard of (and, no doubt, many that you feel should be included). You can debate the choices, rediscover obscure old cinematic treasures, make notes for future viewing, or merely enjoy reading the clever and perceptive reviews and sidebars. Lots of goodies; lots of fun.

Some say he's the representative artist of modern day America. Some say he's a keen observer and sharp parodist. Many say he's a stone riot. Here, anyway, is an entire intro and celebration of the zapped world of the great cartoonist, folk humorist and one-time countercultural icon.

Cutuk's world is one of endless white horizons, smoke, seal oil, salmon, sled dogs, and the vicissitudes of Arctic life, and it's vividly evoked, as is his journey from a simple existence to the more complicated one beyond the long horizons. This is one of those books that you live with as you're reading it, that leaves you a little surprised when you find yourself back in your own world. An amazing, beautiful first novel.

"...Harsh life experiences had made both men cynical about people's motives and encouraged convictions that outdoing opponents required a relaxed view of scruples." Putting it mildly. Utilizing much newly declassified material, Dallek expertly synthesizes recent history and uses it to reveal character, as he has done previously with LBJ and JFK. Nixon and Kissinger "...were as much alike as they were different: both self-serving characters with grandiose dreams of recasting world affairs." Their transit of history's stage is as unignorably fascinating as a car wreck. A primer in dirty tricks, manipulative statecraft, and psychopathology.
Gary

Great fun. This is what you get when you catapult Philip Marlowe up past drug culture, governmental implosion, irony and postmodernism into our contemporary twisted wasteland. In his first novel, DC Comics' Ellis tells a coolly delirious tale of polymorphous sex 'n' violence that's clever and, for what it is, pitch-perfect. The sort of book that makes you laugh as you throw it across the room.
Gary

Perl documents the genesis of many cultural legends in this full-bodied, comprehensive account of that seismic moment in Western art, the postwar shift from Europe to New York City. It's frankly astonishing to consider the extent of the talent, the scene, and the creatively heroic personalities working in Manhattan in the '50s. A must for anyone's art library.

Notorious Irish gang leader Martin "The General" Cahill stole several high-profile old masters from an estate in Ireland, and Hart details his pursuit by a modest but dogged police force in a chronicle that reads like a well-plotted novel. The Irish Game forms the core of the book, but it also examines the vicissitudes of high-end art theft today. (How, for instance, does one unload a hot Vermeer?) There are also accounts of our own Gardner Museum debacle, the theft of Munch's "The Scream," and one of the more thrilling episodes of art restoration that you're ever likely to read.

A thrilling thing happened in periodicals in the mid-60s. Mainstream magazines like Harper's and Esquire had a greater importance amongst the chattering classes than today, but by the mid-60s they were growing stale and anemic. Then a couple of revolutionary editors came along and blasted it all loose. They changed content and format, exposed and encouraged a new generation of writers, and shocked the reading public with the birth of the "New Journalism". Here are the beginnings of many ultimately big names in the lit biz, wrestling with the violently unsettled times and finding their voices. It's quite a tale.

In a discussion of rock in the movies, Hampton essentially describes his own work: "...the new synthesis of the mythic and the quotidian..." A next step in the progression from "Highbrow/Lowbrow" to Sontag's "Notes on Camp" to the whirring potlatch that is today's cultural scene, he hungrily gleans from here and there and explores fascinating connections between the images and the soundtrack of our times.
Gary

Review your geography knowledge! Test the outer limits of your tolerance for bad taste! Giggle in horror! Learning can be (appalling) fun!
Gary