bookpagedev

His nose knows

Review by bookpagedev

Biophysicist Luca Turin was born with an incredible sense of smell. He can identify the ingredients of thousands of scents right down to their individual molecules. Turin’s study of smell resulted in the revolutionary theory that it’s not a molecule’s shape but its vibration that produces scent. The implication of these findings was that perfume manufacturers could predict the odor of new molecules without having to prepare and evaluate them, thus saving millions of dollars in developing new fragrances.

Instead of being welcomed by the industry, Turin encountered hostility and ignorance. Author Chandler Burr tells his strange tale in The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses. If you harbor the notion that perfume-making consists of pulverizing flowers into liquid and adding a dash of this and a dab of that, you’ll learn that’s not how it’s done. The process, as Burr shows, is more complicated. Every year each of the seven big fragrance firms with armies of research chemists working in competitive secrecy makes about 2,000 compounds, any one of which might require a complex and exact blending of more than 100 ingredients.

The author begins the book with the simple story of the creation of a scientific theory, but it becomes a “larger, more complex story of scientific corruption” as he uncovers what he sees as examples of closed minds and vested interests. Burr relates Turin’s exasperating effort to publish in the esteemed journal Nature. After a long peer review, his research was rejected by scientists who did not or did not want to understand his work. However, there’s hope: a year ago a company was formed to design fragrances using Turin’s methods. As to his molecule theory, some people again are daring to whisper the words “possible Nobel.” Alan Prince of Deerfield Beach, Florida, is a retired newsman.

Biophysicist Luca Turin was born with an incredible sense of smell. He can identify the ingredients of thousands of scents right down to their individual molecules. Turin's study of smell resulted in the revolutionary theory that it's not a molecule's shape but its vibration that…
NonfictionPolitics

The Texas roots of George W. Bush

Review by bookpagedev

Political journalist Michael Lind has nothing but well-documented contempt for his fellow Texan, President George W. Bush. In his new book, Made In Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics, Lind describes Bush’s Texas conservatism as a combination of “seventeenth-century religion, eighteenth-century economics, and nineteenth-century imperialism.” Made In Texas views Bush as a product of a culture that is more of the plantation South than the egalitarian and free-wheeling West. Lind, former Washington editor of Harper’s, identifies it as a culture that believes in profligate use of land, cheap labor, ethnic and religious homogeneity and class privilege. Examining each element education, favorite charities, residential preferences, church affiliation, attitudes toward hard work and science Lind attempts to demonstrate why Bush, in his opinion, has a civilized manner atop a socially malignant belief system. He finds the president’s religious outlook troubling. “In the early years of the Information Age,” Lind notes, “when a scientific and technological revolution was transforming civilization, one of the issues that fascinated George W. Bush was the question of whether non-Christians will go to heaven or hell.” Nor does Lind find Bush’s economic perspective he calls it “Southernomics” measurably more enlightened. Instead of valuing efficiency and labor-saving technology, Lind says, Southernomics prefers the old imperialist way: finding and using more natural resources and incubating a less expensive workforce of foreigners or illegal aliens.

Changing circumstances have a way of altering the most reasonable speculations about what politicians will do. But Bush-watchers will find Made In Texas an interesting look at the roots of this president’s behavior.

Political journalist Michael Lind has nothing but well-documented contempt for his fellow Texan, President George W. Bush. In his new book, Made In Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics, Lind describes Bush's Texas conservatism as a combination of "seventeenth-century religion,…
LifestylesEnvironment

The power and peril of coal

Review by bookpagedev

Last summer’s plight of nine Pennsylvania crewmen trapped 240 feet underground reminded the nation that coal mining still exists. Because nine of every 10 tons of the nation’s coal vanishes into power plants, many Americans hold the illusion that coal is no longer a major energy player, but here’s the reality: Coal produces at least half of the nation’s electricity, and we’re burning more of it than ever before. In Coal: A Human History, author Barbara Freese tells the remarkable story of how this fossil fuel has shaped and shortened untold thousands of lives, tracing the history of the substance to long-ago times in Asia and Europe when it was used as jewelry and when some folks, considering coal a form of living vegetation, suggested that rubbing it with manure would help it to grow. Freese points out that coal fueled the steam engine, which, as the waterwheel’s successor, became the pumping heart of the Industrial Revolution in England and perhaps the most important invention in the creation of the modern world. And by fueling the railroads, coal became the number one factor in converting the wilderness that was the United States into an industrial power. It also helped the Union defeat the Southern states in the Civil War.

More than a tale of history, this book is also a plea for action by governments now making energy investments that will be with us for decades. An assistant attorney general in Minnesota, where she battled coal firms charged with fouling the environment, Freese was fascinated by coal’s history but angered by its modern-day effects. She quit her job primarily to research this book. She cites estimates linking power plant emissions to 30,000 deaths annually in the United States and to as many as a million in China. Coal thus becomes a strong plea added to an ever-growing international chorus asking governments to remove risk from the act of breathing.

Last summer's plight of nine Pennsylvania crewmen trapped 240 feet underground reminded the nation that coal mining still exists. Because nine of every 10 tons of the nation's coal vanishes into power plants, many Americans hold the illusion that coal is no longer a…
Memoir

Memoir of a gonzo journalist

Review by bookpagedev

Few journalists reach celebrity status. But if anyone is a superstar in his profession, it’s Hunter S. Thompson, who combined an adventuresome personal spirit with a hard-hitting, colorfully wrought style of writing, emerging from the ’60s as America’s legendary “gonzo” chronicler of politics and societal change. This somewhat scattershot memoir subtitled “Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century” features Thompson’s ruminations on a wide variety of public and private events, capturing along the way his committedly independent persona.

Thompson first offers some recollections from his early life growing up in Louisville, where he cut his teeth as a newspaper reporter, then launches into various episodes that either critically shaped his career or epitomize his seemingly fearless ability to venture into subcultural milieus and emerge not only with a story but also with a firmer sense of self.

Thompson’s experiences encompass work in the San Francisco sex industry, hanging with the Hell’s Angels, covering the tempestuous 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago and consorting closely with politicians, movie stars, musicians and the Beat poets, among many others. Thompson loves football, guns (he was renowned for shooting up his typewriters), cars and motorcycles, pretty women, drugs and Colorado not necessarily in that order and he writes of his passions with the same intensity with which he infused his dozen previous books.

Now in his early 60s and still filing his characteristically opinionated stories with national and international publications, Thompson also includes some serious reflection on 9/11 and other current events, his constant references to our “Child President” making it pretty clear how little he regards the present chief executive. Still crazy after all these years, Thompson yet again manages to display his zeal for writing quirkily and well.

Few journalists reach celebrity status. But if anyone is a superstar in his profession, it's Hunter S. Thompson, who combined an adventuresome personal spirit with a hard-hitting, colorfully wrought style of writing, emerging from the '60s as America's legendary "gonzo" chronicler of politics and…
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Unlikely duo takes on Tinseltown

Review by bookpagedev

Ronnie Deal, a Hollywood movie producer on the fast-track at Velocity Pictures, is young, beautiful and smart. Pizza deliveryman Ellis Langford is a 30-something ex-convict on parole. What do Ronnie and Ellis have in common? They both have checkered pasts, a steely determination to succeed in Hollywood and ruthless homicidal psychopaths who would like to see them dead. These intriguing characters are at the center of Ray Shannon’s stylish and bold new suspense novel, Man Eater. Man Eater begins one fateful evening at the Tiki Shack bar. Ronnie is having a bad day at work, and it gets worse when she crosses swords with street thug Neon Polk. Ronnie impulsively steps in to help a young women being beaten by Polk, who is the ultimate bad guy and the worst enemy she could have. Ronnie clobbers Polk with a beer bottle and makes her escape. For a man like Neon Polk, losing a physical altercation to a man is one thing, but losing to a woman is intolerable. With his fearsome street reputation to uphold, he seeks revenge.

Enter Ellis, who has some deadly enemies of his own. He has spent the last eight years in prison, putting an end to his dream of retiring young and rich. Naturally, he put his time in prison to good use by writing novels and screenplays. Now, leading the constricting life of a pizza-delivering parolee, Ellis finds that Tinseltown is not the promised land for an ex-con. Ellis and Ronnie, attempting to dodge their pasts, form a shaky alliance in an attempt to stay alive and pursue their elusive dreams.

The violent side of Hollywood makes it the perfect backdrop for the vivid and eccentric characters that populate Man Eater. These power brokers, script-sellers, gangsters and drug dealers form a combustible combination fueled by raging egos, greed, revenge and jealousy.

Ray Shannon, described by the publisher as a pseudonym for an award-winning California author, tells a fast-paced and riveting tale that will keep the reader’s pulse racing. The author’s artful depiction of Hollywood and the movie business is a treat. His talent for mixing quirky characters, bone-jarring violence and sly humor will no doubt invite comparisons to some of Hollywood’s best big-screen adventures. C.

L. Ross reads, writes and reviews in Pismo Beach, California

Ronnie Deal, a Hollywood movie producer on the fast-track at Velocity Pictures, is young, beautiful and smart. Pizza deliveryman Ellis Langford is a 30-something ex-convict on parole. What do Ronnie and Ellis have in common? They both have checkered pasts, a steely determination to succeed…
Fiction

Picking up the pieces after 9-11

Review by bookpagedev

In her new novel, Joyce Maynard explores the tragedy many Americans either experienced or imagined in their nightmares: the loss of a loved one on September 11th, 2001. In what is billed as the first novel to focus specifically on the aftermath of the terrorist attacks,13-year-old Wendy leaves for school one day feeling irritated at her family and comes home to find that her mother may have disappeared forever. Hope dwindles as each week passes, as countless flyers on street corners yield nothing and the workers at the World Trade Center site lose hope of finding survivors. Wendy’s realization of her mother’s death is gradual. As her acceptance of the loss sets in, Wendy’s father appears in New York after years of absence, asking to take her home to California with him. Despite the misgivings of her stepfather and 4-year-old brother Louie, Wendy decides to leave behind all she knows and move in with her father. During her first day of school in California, she walks off the playing field into an adjoining neighborhood and never returns to school. Instead, without the knowledge of her father, she spends each day as she pleases. Unlike many children her age who would misuse such freedom to get into trouble, Wendy uses the time to form friendships of her own and explore her feelings about her mother’s death. Central to the story are Wendy’s relationships with her father, stepfather and little brother and her varying degrees of affection for each family member. She is particularly drawn to her brother, whom she loves deeply and whose reaction to their mother’s death is troubling. Joyce Maynard, a teen writing phenom in the 1970s who is perhaps best known for a memoir revealing her long-term affair with J.D. Salinger, conveys with poignancy and realism Wendy’s struggle to cope with her mother’s disappearance. As she finds her own way through the rubble and discovers pockets of hope and optimism in her future, Wendy serves as an inspiration for anyone touched by tragedy, at any age. Alison Burke is a freelance writer in Annapolis, Maryland.

In her new novel, Joyce Maynard explores the tragedy many Americans either experienced or imagined in their nightmares: the loss of a loved one on September 11th, 2001. In what is billed as the first novel to focus specifically on the aftermath of the terrorist…
Fiction

Enduring a test of faith

Review by bookpagedev

The Book of Job, one of the most troubling tales in the Bible, depicts a devout man whose faith is brutally tested through disease, poverty and the death of his loved ones. In Alison McGhee’s moving new novel, Was it Beautiful?, a modern-day version of Job appears in the form of William T. Jones, a haunted man who lives in the Adirondack region of upstate New York. McGhee, author of the critically acclaimed novel Shadow Baby, portrays in spare and beautiful prose a setting and community that recall the cold, harsh landscapes of Richard Russo’s fiction. At the novel’s outset, William T.’s 27-year-old son has died (possibly from suicide); his wife has divorced him; his feisty, old, adored cat, Genghis, dies from a bear-mauling; and he loses his job. William T., previously more than content in his typical life, suddenly finds that he has no one other than a collection of misfit animals in a broken-down barn with whom to live out his days.

And though he goes through the motions of living his life feeding the animals, eating breakfast at his favorite local diner and visiting his daughter-in-law, Sophie William T.’s desperate loneliness permeates the narrative. When he goes to a restaurant where Sophie waits tables, “She refused to look at him even though he willed her to. Look. Look. Look at me, Sophie. She took out her order pad. Poised her pencil. Look at me, Sophie. Please.” William T., a broken man who doesn’t know how to express himself, suffers in silence, secretly begging those around him to see and understand his plight oftentimes seeking solace from people who are trying to find their own way through grief.

By necessity, Was it Beautiful? is a solemn-toned work with few breaks from its dark mood, but just as Job is rewarded at the end of his trials, William T. is ultimately redeemed, and the novel’s conclusion provides readers with a feeling of release and the sense that while God may indeed “taketh away,” He also, of course, “giveth.” Jenn McKee is a writer in Berkley, Michigan. One of her short stories appears in Best New American Voices 2003.

The Book of Job, one of the most troubling tales in the Bible, depicts a devout man whose faith is brutally tested through disease, poverty and the death of his loved ones. In Alison McGhee's moving new novel, Was it Beautiful?, a modern-day version of…
FictionHistorical Fiction

Erdrich’s tale of an immigrant’s quest

Review by bookpagedev

<B>Erdrich’s tale of an immigrant’s quest</B> In beautiful early novels such as Love Medicine and Tracks, Louise Erdrich reckons with the Native-American strain in her own ancestry, interweaving ancient folklore and contemporary life. Now, in <B>The Master Butchers Singing Club</B>, Erdrich pays tribute to the other side of her bloodline. She tells us in the acknowledgements that her grandfather was a butcher who fought on the German side in World War I, and whose sons served on the American side in World War II. Out of this poignant scrap of autobiography arises a grand and generous fiction, Erdrich’s most sweeping and ambitious tale yet.

From the very first page, <B>Master Butchers</B> breathes the air of the Homeric epic, with an irony befitting the modern, godforsaken era in which it is set. Erdrich’s Odysseus, the German sniper Fidelis Waldvogel, takes only 12 days to walk home from his war (the Great War). Eva, the woman Fidelis comes home to wed, has not been waiting faithfully for <I>him</I>, but for his best friend Johannes, whose child she carries, and whose death in the war Fidelis must now report to her. With this dark homecoming in 1918, the odyssey really begins.

Hoping to make a new life with his grieving bride, Fidelis makes the na•ve attempt to trace a piece of American bread whose manufactured perfection astonishes him back to its source. Fidelis gets as far as Argus, North Dakota, a place so culturally distant from Germany (and so remote from anywhere) that he must start his life almost from scratch. But not entirely: Fidelis has brought sausages with him in his traveling case, sausages as magically effective as any enchanted object in a fairy tale, for they are the most delicious sausages in the world, the pride of generations of master butchers in the Waldvogel family, whose secret art now falls to Fidelis.

Just as Fidelis and Eva (who joins him in Argus) are displaced Germans who can never fully be at home in North Dakota, so too this American novel must look elsewhere for its center. Fidelis forms a singing club, where he meets the passionate Delphine Watzka, a young woman who becomes the real Odysseus of the novel. Like Homer’s hero, she comes home from her travels and sets her ruined father back on his feet again. The Odyssean parallels compound: Delphine faces a terrible "Underworld" of unquiet spirits (in her father’s cellar), is detained by a god-like lover with whom there can be no hope of true love (the beautiful acrobat Cyprian), is charmed by a Circe (her childhood friend Clarisse, now the town’s undertaker), whose job it is to turn human beings into something else, and must outwit the Cyclopean "Tante," Fidelis’ sister, who would "eat" Fidelis’ children by taking them back to Germany.

At the heart of the novel is the friendship between Delphine and Eva, a phenomenon as beautiful, as unlikely and as strangely inevitable as butchers who sing like angels. Delphine loves Eva so luminously, she would do anything for her. In the end, this is precisely what happens.

Louise Erdrich is always a step and a half ahead of us with her limitless compassion, taking account of all that is most implacable in life, for good or ill, whether it is the love that burns us or the deaths that claim us and those we love. <I>Michael Alec Rose teaches at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.</I>

<B>Erdrich's tale of an immigrant's quest</B> In beautiful early novels such as Love Medicine and Tracks, Louise Erdrich reckons with the Native-American strain in her own ancestry, interweaving ancient folklore and contemporary life. Now, in <B>The Master Butchers Singing Club</B>, Erdrich pays tribute to the…

Fiction

When visiting relatives come to stay

Review by bookpagedev

Lily Hill, the main character in Nancy Clark’s delightful debut novel The Hills at Home, is more of a balance wheel than a protagonist. Lily is both uber-maiden aunt and Mrs. Noah, providing a refuge for family members who need to come in out of the rain. All in one summer, they descend on her and her elastic New England homestead.

First, her thrice-widowed brother, Harvey, shows up; then her niece, self-dramatizing Ginger, fleeing her own mistakes, together with her daughter, Betsy. Toward the end of June, along come Lily’s nephew, Wall-Street reject Alden and his sensible wife Becky, with their four teenage children. Finally, Harvey’s grandson, aspiring comedian Arthur, arrives, with his girlfriend, Phoebe. When the young sociologist Andy Happening joins the throng to study the family for his Ph.

D. thesis, the cast is, more or less, complete. Lily makes room for them all, and Clark records the year that follows in this wry, dense chronicle that sets a new standard for modern family novels, a 20th century Trollope (it’s set in 1989, which permeates its pages), a more ambitious, and funnier, Anne Tyler. First in a series of three projected novels about the same family, The Hills at Home values observation (pinpoint) over action (glacial). Readers won’t complain because the observation itself is jam-packed with movement, not only of ideas, but of all those little quirks, tics and tropes lesser novelists ignore. (“Becky had a way of withholding comment that was very marked.”) If Clark does not gain recognition as one of the best new writers of the year, it may be because her book does not take itself as seriously as some literary novels. Still, her portrait of the day-to-day strains in family life is sharply drawn, and, what’s more, offers a harvest ground of subtle, smile-out-loud hilarity. We wish Clark good luck in her future efforts. The Hills at Home is a formidable act to follow.

Lily Hill, the main character in Nancy Clark's delightful debut novel The Hills at Home, is more of a balance wheel than a protagonist. Lily is both uber-maiden aunt and Mrs. Noah, providing a refuge for family members who need to come in out…
FictionWorld Fiction

Secrets of an Italian village

Review by bookpagedev

It is not by chance that author NiccolËœ Ammaniti sets his third novel, a riveting tale of a boy’s coming of age, in the ironically named Acqua Traverse (literally translated as “water crossings”), for it is the summer of 1978, and the fictional southern Italian village is scorched by record-breaking heat and parched by drought. Here, where nine-year-old Michele Amitrano lives with his younger sister and their parents amid the four other households that make up the tiny community, lack of rain has caused the land to sear and hearts to wither. But all is not as drowsy and sunburnt as it seems in the daytime. Night brings the village adults to Michele’s house for cabal-like meetings while he sleeps, in turn awakening Michele to his father’s true nature.

Told convincingly in the first person by an adult Michele, I’m Not Scared is translated here by Jonathan Hunt from Ammaniti’s native Italian (the book has already become a runaway bestseller in Italy, where it was first published). With similarities to Stephen King’s The Body upon which the hit movie Stand By Me was based I’m Not Scared is as much a compelling study of one boy’s awakening to the literal horrors of real life as it is a parable of trust gained and lost, dreams realized and shattered. When Michele one day sets off with his sister and their four friends on a journey to explore an abandoned farmhouse on a nearby hill, little does he know that he will soon uncover a secret so horrible and unbelievable that it will change his world forever. In a scene that eerily echoes William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies, the children claim the hill as their own in a base and gruesome way, foreshadowing that life in Acqua Traverse will never be the same.

Haunting passages and subtle snippets of Italian life make I’m Not Scared a highly effective look at how our ideas and perceptions as children are dictated by the “reality” our parents and other adults shape for us. When Michele discovers the world-shattering truth on the hill, he learns a hard lesson: that life is not always what it seems and that trust can be as easily lost as it is gained. Thomas A. Grasso lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.

It is not by chance that author NiccolËœ Ammaniti sets his third novel, a riveting tale of a boy's coming of age, in the ironically named Acqua Traverse (literally translated as "water crossings"), for it is the summer of 1978, and the fictional southern Italian…
Fiction

The legacy of a brother’s crime

Review by bookpagedev

<B>The legacy of a brother’s crime</B> She used to be Cady Miller, until her brother committed a brutal crime that sent him to prison for life and ruined their family. Now she is known as Jana Johansen and leads a carefully constructed life as a physician, wife and mother. No one in her new life has ever heard of Cady Miller including her husband and young son.

That Jana hides her real identity even from her own spouse is a testament to how thoroughly her brother Varney’s crime affected her. It’s a secret that pulls at her every day, particularly as she watches her spirited 6-year-old son grow up. Is it a laughable prank when Evan and a playmate tie down and shave the family cat? Is it normal mischief when he threatens the neighbors on Halloween? Are routine red-faced tantrums par for the course? Or are these signs of a troubled boy who has inherited his uncle’s unstable mind? <B>His Mother’s Son</B>, by first-time novelist Cai Emmons, is a page-turning hybrid part mystery, part family drama. There is the gradually unfolding truth of just what happened that caused Cady to abandon her own identity. And then there are Jana’s struggles to curb her hypercautious parenting and her tendency to erupt at Evan for any perceived misbehavior. It’s a maddening dilemma for Jana: Is her son simply acting out because she treats him like a problem child or is he displaying the early signs of mental illness? When a prison chaplain tells Jana that her brother is dying, she must decide whether to renew contact with the sibling she’s denied for 16 years. She’s surprised at the fierce love she still feels for Varney, whom she raised while their parents drank, fought and drifted through life largely unaware of their children. But Jana knows that seeing Varney means acknowledging her previous life, something that could finish off her already strained marriage. Jana heads to California and her brother still unsure of how to make peace with her past and whether she even wants to.

Emmons, an Oregon playwright and professor, offers a gift of a book, an affecting story of violence and forgiveness. Jana’s ultimate choices neither easy nor perfect have powerful repercussions and speak to the need for second chances. <I>Amy Scribner is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.</I>

<B>The legacy of a brother's crime</B> She used to be Cady Miller, until her brother committed a brutal crime that sent him to prison for life and ruined their family. Now she is known as Jana Johansen and leads a carefully constructed life as a…
FictionPoetry

Heart to heart: books to share

Review by bookpagedev

What is love? We look for it, long for it, lose it and anxiously chase after it again. We ought to know its definition, but just when we think we’ve pinned it down, it changes.

I read my “artistic” definition of love to my straightforward friend Elaine: “Being in love is like being in a hot tub out in the snow. While you’re in it, the world is wonderful it’s magic! But outside of it, the world is cold and cruel, and all you can think of is how to get back into that warmth and wonder.” “That’s nice,” Elaine said. (Meaning “nonsense.”) “But I’d say, ÔLove is like the flu: It strikes suddenly, knocks you off your feet, and before you know it lands you in bed.'” Same difference.

Whether or not February 14th finds you basking in love’s warmth or out in the cold, we’ve found a collection of new books sure to sweeten your romantic outlook. A good place to start is with something familiar. Truly Mars &and Venus: The Illustrated Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, by John Gray, Ph.

D., (HarperCollins, $19.95, 160 pages, ISBN 0060085657) celebrates the 10th anniversary of the best-selling book that coined a concept which is now part of our collective mindset that men and women are so different it’s as if they originated from different planets. One difference, for example, is the way they handle stress. Martians (men) deal with it by going alone into their “caves” to sort things out, whereas Venusians (women) de-stress by openly talking about their problems. Unless you’re from another solar system, the gentle humor and pointed truths in this illustrated gift book are sure to lead toward better communication and more fun on Valentine’s Day.

Of course, to understand members of the opposite sex you need to have one around. If you’re caught in the revolving door of half-baked romances and long to find a solid, loving relationship, Ronda Britten’s Fearless Loving: 8 Simple Truths That Will Change the Way You Date, Mate, and Relate (Dutton, $23.95, ISBN 0525947078) is a must-have resource. The author of Fearless Living and the founder of the Fearless Living Institute, Britten says that to conquer fear, you must be willing to make changes in yourself. “The pain you suffer in relationships is a direct result of staying faithful to your fears and to a past that no longer serves you . . . you must be willing to see things differently and make new choices and take new actions.” Along with her simple truths, (among them: “Love is up to you” and “Chemistry is between your ears”) Britten offers plenty of fear-busting exercises to move you forward on the path toward a more loving and loveable you.

Nothing says “love” (“aside from diamonds,” Elaine says) better than poetry, and two charming new volumes would make great gifts: The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time, edited by Leslie Pockell, (Warner, $11.95, ISBN 0446690228) and Kiss Off: Poems to Set You Free, edited by Mary D. Esselman and Elizabeth Ash Velez. The 100 Best Love Poems features everything from timeless classics like Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” to modern pieces like Donald Hall’s zany “Valentine.” If you or someone you know is recovering from love gone wrong, Kiss Off might be a more appropriate choice. Designed to help the wounded move beyond heartbreak and regain strength and confidence, the poems are divided into sections such as Hurting: When Things Fall Apart, Hiding: When You Shut Down, and Believing: When You Stay Strong.

Then again, maybe your love life just needs a little TLC. If you’re hoping to catch the “love bug,” Chicken Soup for the Romantic Soul: Inspirational Stories about Love and Romance (HCI Books, $12.95, ISBN 0757300421) could be just the comfort food you and your Valentine need. This collection of heart-warming real-life stories reminds us that love, in all its many forms and by any other name, is part of all our stories, from the time we are young until “death do us part.” Whether written by celebrities, professional humorists, or Chicken Soup readers, this compilation creates an uplifting and inspiring collage, sure to evoke some tears along with the smiles. There is enough romantic wit and wisdom tucked inside these books to impassion the dullest Romeo or warm up the coolest Juliet. Make up your own definition of love, and inscribe it, lovingly, in the dust jacket of your personalized Valentine gift!

What is love? We look for it, long for it, lose it and anxiously chase after it again. We ought to know its definition, but just when we think we've pinned it down, it changes.

I read my "artistic" definition of love to…
FictionPoetry

Heart to heart: books to share

Review by bookpagedev

What is love? We look for it, long for it, lose it and anxiously chase after it again. We ought to know its definition, but just when we think we’ve pinned it down, it changes.

I read my “artistic” definition of love to my straightforward friend Elaine: “Being in love is like being in a hot tub out in the snow. While you’re in it, the world is wonderful it’s magic! But outside of it, the world is cold and cruel, and all you can think of is how to get back into that warmth and wonder.” “That’s nice,” Elaine said. (Meaning “nonsense.”) “But I’d say, ÔLove is like the flu: It strikes suddenly, knocks you off your feet, and before you know it lands you in bed.'” Same difference.

Whether or not February 14th finds you basking in love’s warmth or out in the cold, we’ve found a collection of new books sure to sweeten your romantic outlook. A good place to start is with something familiar. Truly Mars &and Venus: The Illustrated Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, by John Gray, Ph.

D., (HarperCollins, $19.95, 160 pages, ISBN 0060085657) celebrates the 10th anniversary of the best-selling book that coined a concept which is now part of our collective mindset that men and women are so different it’s as if they originated from different planets. One difference, for example, is the way they handle stress. Martians (men) deal with it by going alone into their “caves” to sort things out, whereas Venusians (women) de-stress by openly talking about their problems. Unless you’re from another solar system, the gentle humor and pointed truths in this illustrated gift book are sure to lead toward better communication and more fun on Valentine’s Day.

Of course, to understand members of the opposite sex you need to have one around. If you’re caught in the revolving door of half-baked romances and long to find a solid, loving relationship, Ronda Britten’s Fearless Loving: 8 Simple Truths That Will Change the Way You Date, Mate, and Relate (Dutton, $23.95, ISBN 0525947078) is a must-have resource. The author of Fearless Living and the founder of the Fearless Living Institute, Britten says that to conquer fear, you must be willing to make changes in yourself. “The pain you suffer in relationships is a direct result of staying faithful to your fears and to a past that no longer serves you . . . you must be willing to see things differently and make new choices and take new actions.” Along with her simple truths, (among them: “Love is up to you” and “Chemistry is between your ears”) Britten offers plenty of fear-busting exercises to move you forward on the path toward a more loving and loveable you.

Nothing says “love” (“aside from diamonds,” Elaine says) better than poetry, and two charming new volumes would make great gifts: The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time, edited by Leslie Pockell, and Kiss Off: Poems to Set You Free, edited by Mary D. Esselman and Elizabeth Ash Velez (Warner, $14.95, ISBN 0446690287). The 100 Best Love Poems features everything from timeless classics like Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” to modern pieces like Donald Hall’s zany “Valentine.” If you or someone you know is recovering from love gone wrong, Kiss Off might be a more appropriate choice. Designed to help the wounded move beyond heartbreak and regain strength and confidence, the poems are divided into sections such as Hurting: When Things Fall Apart, Hiding: When You Shut Down, and Believing: When You Stay Strong.

Then again, maybe your love life just needs a little TLC. If you’re hoping to catch the “love bug,” Chicken Soup for the Romantic Soul: Inspirational Stories about Love and Romance (HCI Books, $12.95, ISBN 0757300421) could be just the comfort food you and your Valentine need. This collection of heart-warming real-life stories reminds us that love, in all its many forms and by any other name, is part of all our stories, from the time we are young until “death do us part.” Whether written by celebrities, professional humorists, or Chicken Soup readers, this compilation creates an uplifting and inspiring collage, sure to evoke some tears along with the smiles. There is enough romantic wit and wisdom tucked inside these books to impassion the dullest Romeo or warm up the coolest Juliet. Make up your own definition of love, and inscribe it, lovingly, in the dust jacket of your personalized Valentine gift!

What is love? We look for it, long for it, lose it and anxiously chase after it again. We ought to know its definition, but just when we think we've pinned it down, it changes.

I read my "artistic" definition of love to…

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