2book

Graphic Novels & ComicsComics

When worlds collide

Feature by Becky Ohlsen

The unifying theme for the latest batch of comics and graphic novels is the blending of two worlds that are usually thought of as separate: fiction and reality, artists and material, families and their ancestors.

Confronting the truth
Even before you peek inside, it’s clear that The Unwritten is an unusual book. The extremely cool cover, by Yuko Shimizo, shows someone reaching or falling out of a cloud of tangled words in the sky, through a blank distance and into an open book. Simple but wild, it also turns out to be a perfect reflection of the story. Volume 1 collects the first five issues of the ongoing series, a labyrinthine metafictional tale about the art and power of storytelling. The art is beautiful if not earth-shattering, but the plot takes serious risks—and is deeply rewarding. It hinges on Tom Taylor, the son of a man who wrote a Harry Potter/Books of Magic-type series of books, the star of which was named Tommy Taylor. The series ended without its final volume, on a cliffhanger, and fans are still rabid. Tom’s dad is long gone, but the younger Taylor still makes the comic-convention circuit, signing autographs and trying to maintain the boundary between his own personality and that of the fictional hero based on him. Mostly he succeeds. But when a probing question at one convention raises public suspicions about Tom’s real origins, the line between fiction and real life blurs. Add to that a creepy mansion, a mad vampire, a couple of possible femmes fatales, a hit man whose glove dissolves objects into words, a winged cat and Rudyard Kipling, and—well, we can’t wait for Volume 2.

Chabon’s Escapist comes to life
Like The Unwritten, The Escapists is about the joy of storytelling and the often insubstantial membrane that separates the fictional world from the physical one. Inspired by Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, it features a collaboration of artists bringing to life Brian K. Vaughan’s story of three youngsters who buy the rights to a long-dead comic book character, the Escapist, and attempt to revive him. The blend of styles works perfectly to move the story between the real world and the comic-within-the-comic, which naturally move along parallel tracks. The dark, large-paneled, painterly pages of the new Escapist book are simply gorgeous, and the interplay between the two worlds in the book is not only entertaining but also makes some sharp observations about the origins of inspiration, life’s impact on art and vice-versa, and the difficulty of recognizing which “reality” is more important. There’s also a charming introduction by Chabon.

One town, two worlds
Positioned for young readers, but with a richness of ideas and atmosphere that adults will equally enjoy, Mercury, the latest from Hope Larson (Chiggers), spans two worlds: a farm community in Nova Scotia in 1859, and the same setting 150 years later. In the first, Josey Fraser falls for the mysterious stranger Asa Curry, who turns up on her family’s doorstep with a proposition. While stealing Josey’s heart, he persuades her father to help him dig for gold on the family’s land, a project that leads eventually to disaster. A century and a half down the road, in the same spot, teenage Tara Fraser is struggling to work her way back into public school life after her family’s house, where she was home-schooled, burns down. The two stories converge when Tara comes across a necklace with a strange power to pull her toward history and a kind of multigenerational redemption. Larson’s spare line drawings are great at evoking movement and emotion—family tensions around a dinner table, for instance—and they lend themselves nicely to her touches of the supernatural.

A peek at the creative process

Anyone interested in how comics end up looking the way they do will be fascinated by Rough Justice, a behind-the-pages study of the work of Alex Ross, the legendary artist behind the Kingdom Come epic as well as various famous character re-imaginings. Through the pencil and ink sketches that eventually become Ross’ characteristically gorgeous paintings, you can see the artist experimenting with his characters, their expressions, costumes, postures and even the lines on their faces, all in the service of the larger story. How many crinkles should the Kingdom Come Superman have beneath his eyes? How much gray in the temples will look right? There are also proposals for new looks for reinvented characters, such as one story idea in which a disabled Batgirl spends some time in the Lazarus Pit and comes out healed but much darker. For fans, witnessing the artist/writer’s creative process at its very beginning is a treat, and it doesn’t hurt that the art looks incredible even in these embryonic stages.

Becky Ohlsen is a freelance writer in Portland, Oregon.

The unifying theme for the latest batch of comics and graphic novels is the blending of two worlds that are usually thought of as separate: fiction and reality, artists and material, families and their ancestors.

Confronting the truth
Even before you peek inside, it’s clear that…

American History

The American Revolution revisited

Feature by Edward Morris

America’s Revolutionary War is so encrusted in myth and preconceptions that there always seems room for another angle. Three new histories take only sidelong glances at the war itself, instead examining such aspects as motivation, political maneuvering and the significant people who never achieved the status of “Founding Fathers.”

FROM THE GROUND UP
T.H. Breen’s American Insurgents, American Patriots argues that without the anti-royalist groundswell that occurred throughout the colonies following Parliament’s passage of the Coercive Acts in 1774, the men now acknowledged as our Founding Fathers would have constituted no more than a debating society. The Coercive Acts were Britain’s tough response to the Boston Tea Party. In showing its willingness to punish the people of Boston indiscriminately, Britain simultaneously revealed the danger it posed to the freedoms of all colonials. Responding to that perceived danger, towns and villages from New Hampshire to Georgia began forming militias and “committees of safety” to resist imperial heavy-handedness. They used newspapers and pamphlets to advance their arguments and keep abreast of each other’s activities. Their collective pressure, Breen notes, made the First Continental Congress, which convened in Philadelphia in September 1774, far more radical in its outlook than it otherwise would have been. These local resistance units were manned by volunteers in the months leading up to the war; but as other histories have shown, volunteerism waned dangerously as the war progressed. Filled with anecdotes about citizen hyperactivity, Breen’s book is a valuable addition to Revolutionary War scholarship.

OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE
Jack Rakove’s Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America delineates the political realities Americans faced from just before the war began until the ascent of George Washington to the presidency. He does so by chronicling the political evolution and interactions of dozens of activists, among them the firebrands John and Samuel Adams; the moderates John Dickinson, Robert Morris, James Duane and John Jay; Washington as a military leader; Tom Paine as the supreme propagandist; George Mason as a constitutional theorist; and Henry and John Laurens as ambivalent anti-slavers. In the post-war period, Rakove dissects the uneven contributions of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison (“the greatest lawgiver of modernity”) and Alexander Hamilton. While Rakove’s research traverses well-worn territory, he presents an excellent overview of intricate Revolutionary politics and the role personality played in shaping them.

TRUTHS AND MYTHS
William Hogeland’s Declaration takes the reader inside the nine weeks of wheeling and dealing—May 1 to July 4, 1776—that culminated in the passage and signing of what is now called the Declaration of Independence. (Originally, it had no title.) Although America was fully embroiled in war at that time, sentiments still ran high in some of the colonies—particularly in Pennsylvania, where the Second Continental Congress was meeting—to reach a resolution with England that did not involve actual separation from the mother country. Hogeland describes how Samuel Adams and his faction, which burned for independence, conspired successfully with working-class radicals to turn Pennsylvania around. The author also shreds some myths about the Declaration, noting, for example, that it isn’t a legal document but an explanatory one; that it didn’t flow fully formed from Thomas Jefferson’s pen but was picked apart by other delegates before it was agreed on; and that it was not signed by the delegates on the day of passage (July 2, not July 4) but over a period of six months. Declaration is immensely readable and entertaining—almost like being there.

America’s Revolutionary War is so encrusted in myth and preconceptions that there always seems room for another angle. Three new histories take only sidelong glances at the war itself, instead examining such aspects as motivation, political maneuvering and the significant people who never achieved the…

FictionAudioLiterature

A seminal novel turns 50

Feature by Lacey Galbraith

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is more than a literary classic; it’s a 50-year testament to the ways a well-told story can inspire readers and impact a culture.

Oprah Winfrey has called it America’s “national novel,” and Tom Brokaw remembers the “electrifying effect” it had on the country the year it debuted. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961, and in 1962 a movie adaptation garnered three Academy Awards (having been nominated for eight). Today, this treasured gem has sold more than 30 million copies.

To Kill a Mockingbird was first published in the summer of 1960 when its author, Nelle Harper Lee, was 35 years old. Living in a cold-water flat in New York City’s Yorkville neighborhood, she had been supporting herself with a series of odd jobs, from sales clerk in a bookstore to ticket agent for Eastern Airlines. For years, her ambition had been to become a writer. Her childhood friend Truman Capote (who appears in the book as the character Dill) had done it, but for Lee, any future literary success was contingent upon her ability to carve out time in the evenings after work to write.

Those close to Lee, like best friends Joy and Michael Martin Brown, believed in her though, and on Christmas Day, 1956, they presented Lee with an envelope. Inside was a note reading, “You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.” Free to devote herself full time to her writing, Lee produced a bestseller.

To honor Lee’s achievement and celebrate the novel’s 50 years of enduring popularity, publisher HarperCollins is organizing events across the country—from readings to live re-enactments—and publishing several new editions of the classic. There’s an elegance to the To Kill a Mockingbird slipcased edition, while the 50th-anniversary hardcover is especially lovely with its vintage reproduction of the original book jacket. Also available is a mass market paperback.

Paying tribute to the novel’s lasting legacy is Mary McDonagh Murphy’s Scout, Atticus & Boo, a collection of 26 interviews with mostly well-known Americans reflecting on how the book has touched their lives. Included are Anna Quindlen, Jon Meacham, Allan Gurganus, Mary Badham (the actress who played Scout in the movie) and even Lee’s sister, Alice Lee.

Gaining a million more readers every year, To Kill a Mockingbird’s enduring success can be traced both to the novel’s subjects—Scout’s coming-of-age, the trial of Tom Robinson—and to Lee’s storytelling. The book tackles the injustice of racism, takes a stand for what is right, yet thankfully lacks any tone of self-righteousness or high-minded piety. Lee’s characters are wonderfully crafted, so vivid and alive. Her prose is beautifully languid, her descriptions sharp-eyed and her humor smart.

Harper Lee accomplished something great with To Kill a Mockingbird, and with every passing decade, another generation of readers is wholly, and completely, captivated by its magic.

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is more than a literary classic; it’s a 50-year testament to the ways a well-told story can inspire readers and impact a culture.

Oprah Winfrey has called it America’s “national novel,” and Tom Brokaw remembers the “electrifying effect” it…

Children's & YAPicture Book

From studio to stage: Dance breaks down boundaries

Feature by Julie Hale

If you know any stagestruck youngsters begging for ballet lessons, a trio of new dance books will get them off on the right foot. As these stories demonstrate, everyone has a special sort of grace, an inner vision that’s worth expressing through movement. Share these inspiring books with aspiring Sugar Plum Fairies, and they’ll be demanding an encore.

Authors Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan have collaborated on several award-winning art books for young readers, including Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Through the Gates and Beyond. They have a gift for distilling multilayered historical incidents into appealing, easy-to-understand narratives. Their new book, Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring, is a fascinating account of the history-making collaboration that occurred in the 1940s between composer Aaron Copland, sculptor Isamu Noguchi and modern-dance choreographer Martha Graham. Re-imagining the give-and-take that transpired between the trio as they completed the legendary dance piece Appalachian Spring, Greenberg and Jordan offer readers a unique glimpse of creative minds at work.

The story takes place in the studio and on the stage, as Martha develops movement for the dance, which features a cast of American archetypes: The Pioneer Woman, the Preacher, the Bride and her Husbandman. Noguchi, meanwhile, creates minimalist sets to suit Martha’s aesthetic, and Copland composes “rarin’ to go rhythms” that synthesize traditional American musical genres—a blend of reels, ballads and hymns that provide the perfect melodic backdrop for the piece. The dance’s triumphant premiere takes place on October 30, 1944, with Martha herself performing as the Bride. Brian Floca’s detailed watercolors deliver a sense of the choreographic style—athletic, angular and somewhat primitive, with none of ballet’s gentle refinement—that would make Martha famous. For young readers unfamiliar with modern dance, this is a magical introduction to an important artist. Source notes, biographies and a bibliography supplement this accessible story.

Brontorina, a winning picture book by James Howe, shows that the spirit of dance can strike any species. When Brontorina Apatosaurus, an orange dinosaur of planetary proportions, appears at Madame Lucille’s Dance Academy for Girls and Boys, she’s dying to unleash her inner ballerina. Madame is initially confounded by her would-be pupil, but the children persuade her to let Brontorina take the class, where she proves surprisingly graceful—although a flip of her tail nearly flattens the students, and with every jeté, her head scuffs the ceiling.

Brontorina feels more at ease in the studio after Clara, a fellow student, comes to class with a surprise: a pair of ballet slippers in Brontorina’s size (that’s extra-, extra-, extra-large). When all is said and done, Brontorina’s large-scale talent exceeds the limits of the Dance Academy, and a search for an adequate performance space ensues—with unexpected results. “I want to dance,” Brontorina insists from the start. By the end of this amusing book, her dream has come true. Brought charmingly to life by Randy Cecil’s ebullient illustrations, Brontorina’s story will please ballet lovers of all ages.

The author of more than 50 books for young readers, Lesléa Newman presents an inspiring story about the importance of perseverance with Miss Tutu’s Star. Selena is a girl who lives to dance. It’s how she moves through the world. It’s what she does instead of socializing. Inevitable, then, is the trip she and her mother make to Miss Tutu’s Dance Academy so she can enroll in ballet class. At the studio, the lithe, limber Miss Tutu teaches an assemblage of adorable students—bewildered-looking boys and prim girls, all clumsy and uncertain as they struggle with new steps.

In class Selena is discouraged by ballet’s challenges, but her teacher provides encouragement: “Even when Selena fell, / Miss Tutu said, ‘You’re doing well. / What matters most is from the start, / My dear, you’ve always danced with heart.’” With patience and practice, Selena becomes more accomplished, and she makes a surprising stage debut that brings the audience to its feet. Delivered in delightful rhymed verse, her story is sure to strike a chord with little ballerinas. Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ colorful paintings convey Selena’s love of movement—the sheer joy she experiences through dance. A fun, frolicsome tale, Miss Tutu’s Star proves that practice pays off.

If you know any stagestruck youngsters begging for ballet lessons, a trio of new dance books will get them off on the right foot. As these stories demonstrate, everyone has a special sort of grace, an inner vision that’s worth expressing through movement. Share these…

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Party ideas for kids

Feature by Joanna Brichetto

In Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes, author, educator and Emmy Award-winning TV science wizard Steve Spangler conjures new tricks for kids, kidders and kids at heart. He makes it easy to transform ordinary household stuff into extraordinary outcomes, most of which tend to “ooze, bubble, fizz, bounce and smoke,” not to mention spew diet soda 12 feet into the air. Even the seemingly simple are fun: Who knew a hex nut could make a balloon scream? A few experiments are particularly suitable for Halloween parties, such as the gloriously gross cornstarch/borax goo (which made a kid lose his lunch at my daughter’s fifth birthday party), the giant smoke rings and all activities involving dry ice. Spangler’s fun-centric approach insists “it’s not about the science, it’s about the experience,” but parents and teachers can be assured the science is solid; experiments are framed with easy-to-understand explanations and real-world applications.

POOHSTICKS 101
Turkish Delight & Treasure Hunts by Jane Brocket is a collection of recipes, activities and, as the author describes them, “'I want to do that!’ moments” culled from beloved books like Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins, The Chronicles of Narnia and so on—books in which children always seem to be eating or doing “all sorts of marvelous things.” Each marvelous thing gets a brief introduction to establish context, to remind us why these classics are so formative to our lives and to entice us to read classics we may have overlooked. Readers can now bake Ma’s Hand-Sweetened Cornbread from Little House on the Prairie, whip up Enid Blyton cocoa, munch “Wind in the Willows River Picnic Cress Sandwiges” and try “Heidi’s Grandfather’s Simple Cheese and Bread Supper.” We can also make a Borrowers house, try Alice in Wonderland croquet, learn poems by heart just like Anne of Green Gables and plant a Secret Garden. Aside from being a charming excuse to revisit favorite stories, Turkish Delight & Treasure Hunts is a ready-made opportunity to connect with young readers who “need to find out about the things children have always done [and] to make their own literary discoveries.”

TOP PICK FOR LIFESTYLES
Even the healthiest-minded readers of Candy Construction by Sharon Bowers may want to rush out and buy ridiculously large amounts of candy for the children in their lives. My own whole-food, organic scruples have been chocolate-chipped away by this seductive volume. Why? Because these sweet creations are not just cute as a (candy) button and easy as (moon) pie, they are seriously fun to make. And I mean fun to make with kids, not merely for kids, because even though the end product might be fabulous, the real goal is in the messy, focused, cooperative and creative process. With a few building materials—frosting “glue,” store-bought brownies, Rice Krispie treats and other no-bake structural elements—plus basic dollar-store candy, kids can make pirate ships, pyramids, steam trains, construction sites, fairy-tale castles, creepy critters, games and even jewelry, all 100% edible. Simple instructions and big color photos bring out the inner engineer in all of us. Perfect for a group activity at birthday or holiday parties, or for one of those days when folks are trapped indoors.

In Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes, author, educator and Emmy Award-winning TV science wizard Steve Spangler conjures new tricks for kids, kidders and kids at heart. He makes it easy to transform ordinary household stuff into extraordinary outcomes, most of which tend to “ooze, bubble,…

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Connecting boys with books

Feature by Eliza Borné

Jon Scieszka—author of hilarious children’s classics like The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs—is the king of boy books.

Although he doesn’t want to be pegged as an author who only writes for boys (“I have some of the craziest girl fans!”), Scieszka tends to write action-driven stories with goofy male characters. “I can hardly help it, having had five brothers and no sisters,” he said in an interview with BookPage.

It’s no secret that boys are usually slower to read than girls, have lower test scores and are less likely to read for fun. To combat this gap, Scieszka founded GuysRead.com, an interactive website filled with guy-friendly book suggestions divided into funny categories like “At least one explosion” and “Monkeys and/or apes.”

“Rather than imposing something from the top down, Guys Read is really the ultimate grassroots kind of movement,” Scieszka says. “We hear from our readers what they enjoy.”

Scieszka, who once worked as an elementary school teacher, says the current emphasis on standardized testing has made it even more difficult to connect boys with appealing books. “The whole country has followed this mania for testing, and it’s pushed it down to younger and younger grades, which has really had a terrible adverse effect on boys who are not developmentally ready. The boys are even less equipped to be successful in that world.”

The key to getting boys to read, Scieszka says, is to “show them a reason to want to be a reader, and support them in their interests.”

COMPETING WITH “THE SCREEN”
Another obstacle in getting boys to read is the instantly accessible entertainment available online and on television. That entertainment is more reachable than ever as younger kids have cell phones or even iPads, which Scieszka calls “just like crack or candy—some combination of both.”

The rewards that come from reading are “so different from what you get watching a screen, or even interacting with a screen,” Scieszka says, although he has become involved with creating different kinds of digital entertainment—like Spaceheadz, book one in his new series from Simon & Schuster.

Spaceheadz is about a group of aliens—two in the form of wacky kids, one in the form of a hamster—who invade Michael K.’s fifth grade class. Their mission is to get 3.14 million (and one) kids to say they are Spaceheadz—or else the world will turn off.

The aliens have learned everything they know about Earth from advertising, so their hilarious dialogue sounds like a kooky commercial mash-up. Readers are introduced to the story traditionally—through short, fast-paced chapters in a book packed with Shane Prigmore’s expressive illustrations—but they can continue it off the page with a whole slew of online media. For example, the hamster has a Twitter page, and Michael K.’s teacher has a website readers can really visit. There’s also a “Be SPHDZ, Save the World” website where kids can press a button to support the Spaceheadz cause. Since the website launched a few months ago, more than 12,000 kids have signed up.

Scieszka’s latest project is Funny Business, volume one of the Guys Read Library, which he edited along with Jordan Brown of Harper’s Walden Pond Press. Funny Business has a humor theme and is filled with stories from superstars such as Jeff Kinney, Adam Rex, Mac Burnett and Kate DiCamillo. (Scieszka is quick to point out that “there are plenty of women writers who have written stuff that really appeals to guys, too.”) He is now working on the second volume in the Library, a mystery- and thriller-themed book for which Brett Helquist is illustrating stories by the likes of Walter Dean Myers and Margaret Peterson Haddix.

In the introduction to Funny Business, Scieszka writes that he found “some of the best and funniest writers around” to contribute to the collection—but he explained in our interview that it’s not “the easiest potty humor.” Funny Business is what a guy might read when he needs something beyond those simpler stories.

“I really love the Captain Underpants stuff, how it mixed up visuals and text, but I know that just drives some people crazy,” Scieszka says. “There are misspellings intentionally in there—the grammar’s not right. The same thing happened to me when I was reading the Sweet Farts books or Sir Fartsalot. . . . It’s sort of like the cheap movie laughs when someone just gets kicked in the crotch. It’s sort of funny, but that’s not hard to do. There are a lot funnier things. So we always try to challenge our readers to aspire to something funnier, more thrilling, more mysterious.”

AN ONGOING ADVOCATE
During 2008 and 2009, Scieszka served as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, a post Katherine Paterson took over in January. Scieszka remains involved with the Children’s Book Council, “trying to promote children’s books in the best and most broad way.” A message he is passionate about now is the value of the picture book, which he says has “been a victim of that test mania of people thinking that their kids have to be overachievers,” a trend that garnered national attention with the publication of a recent article in the New York Times. The article reported that many parents are steering their children away from picture books in the belief that only chapter books can increase test scores—a claim that has provoked a furious backlash from many teachers and librarians.

“I think that’s a thing we can do out of the Ambassador program—talk to people and say, ‘no, go ahead, let your kids read picture books.’ They don’t have to have a test on everything.”

In all his years promoting books for boys, Scieszka has seen a great change in how people view the issue. Although boys’ test scores are “just as miserable” as they’ve always been, Scieszka says people can at least talk about the problem now. Ten years ago that was not the case; there was just an “unspoken understanding” that boys don’t read.

What is most exciting to Scieszka is the burgeoning credibility of genres that typically appeal to boys—like graphic novels, fantasy and science fiction.

He said, “A lot of those kinds of reading that I talked about way back when have really become accepted in the teachers and library world.”

Jon Scieszka—author of hilarious children’s classics like The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs—is the king of boy books.

Although he doesn’t want to be pegged as an author who only writes for boys (“I…

NonfictionMemoir

True tales of love and marriage

Feature by Amy Scribner

If a heart-shaped box of chocolates just won’t cut it this Valentine’s Day, pick up one of these unique takes on finding—and keeping—love. They’re entertaining, thought-provoking and way lower on calories than a chocolate cherry cordial.

MEET ME IN MANHATTAN
What is it about New York City romances? We love those stories about couples who happen upon each other at the top of the Statue of Liberty or wandering through Times Square. Author Ariel Sabar has a theory about why Manhattan is so conducive to coupling: It’s all by design. “If you want strangers to talk, give them something to talk about: an unusual sculpture, a mime, a juggler, a musician, a street character. . . . It takes two strangers with ostensibly nothing in common and, through a shared, immediate experience, links them, even if just for a moment.”

Sabar’s thoroughly engaging Heart of the City profiles nine couples who met at famous New York City public spaces, much like his own parents, a Kurdish Iraqi father and upper-crust American mother who met by chance in Washington Square Park. The stories span generations, from the sailor who met a lost teenage girl in Central Park in 1941, to Claire and Tom, who met in 1969 at the top of the Empire State Building (“with its setbacks, clean lines, and needle-tip mast, the building looked like some precision scientific instrument, a scalpel under operating room lights”). Sabar has teased out each of these couples’ magnificent, ordinary stories and compiled them into a sparkling love letter to the city.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND
Want a more practical take on love? Settle in with Spousonomics, a wry and convincing treatise from two financial journalists on why economics is the key to building a marriage that endures through good times and bad. Paula Szuchman, a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, and Jenny Anderson of the New York Times clearly explain why common marital problems can be solved by applying simple economic principles. Fights over housework are really just an issue of division of labor. Are never-ending arguments the bane of your marriage? You might be loss-averse. And sex, say Szuchman and Anderson, is a simple “function of supply and demand.”

The thing is, Spousonomics actually makes a lot of sense, and you don’t feel like you’re reading a hellish undergrad textbook. When they explain the principle of incentives (a tool to get what you want), you understand that in economics, incentives work because they entice you to buy a pair of shoes just to get a second pair half off. In a marriage, incentives work because they get your husband to finish his honey-do list. Spousonomics “doesn’t demand that you look each other in the eye until you weep tears of remorse. It doesn’t require you to keep an anger log, a courage journal, or a feelings calendar.” It is simply a common-sense, laugh-out-loud guide to a happier marriage.

HEART, SOUL . . . AND KIDNEY
Angela Balcita has already undergone one kidney transplant and needs another when her new college boyfriend Charlie O’Doyle offers his kidney—an unorthodox way to kick off a romance, to be sure. Moonface is about what happens after she says yes to this most unusual proposal.

Balcita writes with humor and dignity about her second transplant at age 28, outlining the incredibly complex, fascinating process of removing and replacing an essential part of the body. But at its core, Moonface is a not-so-simple love story. “I wanted to take all of him, not just his kidney,” Balcita writes. “I wanted us to be like one person, one brain and one body, moving through the world. It was already starting to feel this way.”

Most gratifyingly, unlike so many memoirs of illness and recovery, this one keeps going after Balcita gets better. It won’t spoil the reader’s enjoyment to reveal that she and Charlie stay together and even have a baby. With her sharp ear for dialogue and unflinching honesty, Balcita offers a sweet story of love and healing.

If a heart-shaped box of chocolates just won’t cut it this Valentine’s Day, pick up one of these unique takes on finding—and keeping—love. They’re entertaining, thought-provoking and way lower on calories than a chocolate cherry cordial.

MEET ME IN MANHATTAN
What is it about New…

Children's & YAPicture Book

The road to freedom

Feature by Robin Smith

Every year as Black History Month approaches, dozens of excellent children’s books on the subject arrive in my mailbox. It’s always a joy to discover new selections for my library and classroom. Here are three of my favorites from this year’s offerings.

Shane W. Evans’ Underground is a good choice for the youngest readers. As soon as parents and teachers introduce books about Harriet Tubman, children want to read the story for themselves. Evans has created a book just for this audience. The font is plain, the words are few and the illustrations pack an emotional wallop. The first half of the book contains only this spare text: “The darkness. The escape. We are quiet. The fear. We crawl. We rest. We make new friends.” Each phrase is accompanied by a blue-and-black illustration of the night escape. When the family is welcomed by new friends, the yellow of their lantern becomes a potent symbol of hope. As the runaways move North, the sky lightens, culminating in a brilliant yellow on the book’s last spread. This stunning simplicity respects the young audience and makes us want to join in with the book’s closing words, “Freedom. I am free. He is free. She is free. We are free.”

Slightly older readers will enjoy the poems that tell the story of The Great Migration: Journey to the North. Longtime collaborators Eloise Greenfield and Jan Spivey Gilchrist come together in what I think is their best book yet. One of the universal human stories is the story of migration, but many young people still do not know about the movement of more than a million African Americans in the early 20th century, fleeing the threats of the Ku Klux Klan and the economic conditions of the South, to northern cities. What’s remarkable about this book is how much these poems are reminiscent of the diaries of the Oregon Trail and the stories of European immigrants to America. Here is the pain of leaving the beloved farm, the excitement of new possibilities and the worry that the past will be forgotten. The story is elevated by the stunning collages—ephemera and manipulated photographs set into a lush painted background. Almost every face looks directly out, inviting the reader into the world of the frightened and excited traveler, and out at the new places to explore. The Great Migration is a treasure for parents, teachers and students who want to learn more about this important time.

Arnold Adoff’s poetry continues to challenge and amaze his fans. Roots and Blues: A Celebration, which includes stunning Expressionistic paintings by award-winning illustrator R. Gregory Christie, inspires me each time I return to it. Adoff’s unique poetic style, with unusual spacing and lining, reminds readers of the music he is celebrating. From the days of the Middle Passage, the seeds of the blues were being planted into the musical soul of African Americans. The endpapers of the book, with handwritten names of hundreds of blues musicians from John Lee Hooker to Ethel Waters and everyone in between, remind the reader of the scope of the genre, while the poems themselves reflect the influences on it. When young readers (and adults, too!) take the time to explore Adoff’s riffs, they will never look at poetry the same way again.

Every year as Black History Month approaches, dozens of excellent children’s books on the subject arrive in my mailbox. It’s always a joy to discover new selections for my library and classroom. Here are three of my favorites from this year’s offerings.

Shane W. Evans’ Underground…

Women's History

Strong women who paved the way

Feature by Deanna Larson

The theme of Women’s History Month 2011 is “Our History is Our Strength.” These new books present biographies full of intellect, tenacity, courage and creativity.

WOMEN BEHAVING BADLY
Actress and blogger Elizabeth Kerri Mahon puts readers smack in the middle of some incredible female lives with her blog, Scandalous Women. Her mini-biographies are now compiled in Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History’s Most Notorious Women. Mahon, a self-proclaimed “history geek,” reclaims history “one woman at a time” in short, lighthearted accounts of the lives of rich and famous—and ordinary—women who caused wars, created drama, “defied the rules and brought men to their knees.” Each chapter features five women who created whole genres of scandal, from Warrior Queens (Cleopatra, Eleanor of Aquitaine), Wayward Wives (Jane Digby, Zelda Fitzgerald), Scintillating Seductresses (Emma Hamilton, Mata Hari), Crusading Ladies (Ida B. Wells, Anne Hutchinson), Wild Women of the West (Calamity Jane, Unsinkable Molly Brown), Amorous Artists (Camille Claudel, Billie Holiday) and Amazing Adventuresses (Anna Leonowens, Amelia Earhart). While many of the facts surrounding these lives are familiar, Mahon weaves page-turner narratives from her passion and affection for these spectacular but often misrepresented women.

AN ENDURING LEGACY
The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, was a controversial and groundbreaking book that turned the myth of the “content and fulfilled” housewife and mother on its head. The best-selling and radical book by Betty Friedan—often read undercover—inspired a generation of women to buck societal pressures and the prevailing belief that “women’s independence was bad for husbands, children, and the community at large” and seek change in their lives. In A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s, award-winning social historian Stephanie Coontz conducts interviews with nearly 200 women (and men) who were affected by Friedan’s book and traces its societal impact, including its influence on issues of gender equality today. Coontz examines the eras of relative freedom for women that predated the book, from getting the vote and the bobs and short dresses of the 1920s to hard-working Rosie the Riveters of the 1940s, and the erosion of those freedoms in postwar America. Friedan, “just another unhappy housewife” and writer for women’s magazines, conceived her book in the Mad Men era, when men had total legal control over the lives of their families and women couldn’t get credit in their own names. While other books of the time tackled similar problems, Friedan—a former activist—made readers feel passionate and validated in their frustration with their gilded cages. Packed with fascinating statistics and research on 20th-century American social history, including the effect of “liberation” on middle-class, working-class and African-American women, Coontz shines new light on a landmark work.


WOMEN WHO RULES BEFORE ELIZABETH
Elizabeth I ruled England with history-making style. But Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Margaret of Anjou and Matilda, granddaughter of William the Conqueror, were equally powerful, ambitious women who thrived in a cutthroat world well before her reign. Award-winning British historian Helen Castor (Blood and Roses) tells their extraordinary stories in She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth. “Man was the head of woman, and the king was the head of all,” Castor writes. “How, then, could royal power lie in female hands?” Castor answers that suspenseful question in dense, historically rich accounts that set out every detail of the complex social mores, political machinations, familial manipulations and feuds that formed their paths to power and influence. Women who claimed their earned power—even their birthright—outright during the 12th-15th centuries were seen as fanged, bloodthirsty “she-wolves.” “Freedom to act,” Castor writes, “did not mean freedom from censure and condemnation.” Their stories—like young French bride Isabella’s fight for her royal rights in England at the age of 12—featured subtle negotiations, covert confrontations, manipulations and sharp analysis worthy of any male ruler during such tumultuous, war-ravaged times, and She-Wolves makes for exceptional, even inspirational reading.
 

The theme of Women’s History Month 2011 is “Our History is Our Strength.” These new books present biographies full of intellect, tenacity, courage and creativity.

WOMEN BEHAVING BADLY
Actress and blogger Elizabeth Kerri Mahon puts readers smack in the middle…

Food & Drink

Find renewal abroad

Feature by Eliza Borné

Whether you’re planning a trip, imagining a radical move across the globe or simply hoping to explore from the couch, travelogues provide entertainment and inspiration.

BON APPÉTIT
The premise of Lonely Planet’s latest anthology is one upon which we can all agree: “Wherever we go, we need to eat.” In A Moveable Feast, edited by veteran travel writer Don George, eating is something to relish on trips—sometimes it’s even the point of the trip. Thirty-eight essays will take you from a hospitable yurt in Mongolia, where Stanley Stewart happily samples sheep intestines and fermented mare’s milk, to barbeque capital Kansas City, where Doug Mack and his father have some long-anticipated bonding time over a plate of heavenly ribs. The essays are short and easily digestible—A Moveable Feast would be perfect for stop-and-go reading while you’re in transit to your next destination (or for anytime you want to fantasize about being somewhere more exotic). In one of my favorite essays of the collection, Alexander Lobrano writes of getting “almost teary” as he muses on a “magical meal” in Portugal—pork and clams in tomato sauce, juicy chicken, fried potatoes and rice. You may find yourself salivating as you read about these fabulous food experiences and charming international characters, and the stories will inspire you to remember your own magical meals while traveling.

GOT THE BEIJING BLUES
There’s a lot to love about Alan Paul’s Big in China, a story about plunging into life in a foreign culture—and rocking out with a Chinese blues band. Paul and his wife moved their three young kids to Beijing after she got a posting as China bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal. A journalist with a flexible schedule, Paul became one of the few male “trailing spouses” in their neighborhood in Beijing, an identity he embraced as it allowed him to pursue creative opportunities he never could have imagined prior to moving around the world. He wrote an award-winning column for WSJ.com titled “The Expat Life” and fronted a blues and jam band called Woodie Alan with three Chinese men and another American. The group rose to prominence in Beijing, and Paul writes poignantly about performing in a multicultural band that became like a second family. Besides telling a good story, Paul honestly addresses the complexity of uprooting kids, making career sacrifices for a spouse and living in a foreign land. He writes, “One of the lessons I had taken from expat life was that no one was destined to live by any single reality.” In Big in China, Paul learns that “home” is where the people you love happen to be.

THE HAPPIEST COUNTRY
Lisa Napoli’s Radio Shangri-La will undoubtedly be compared to Eat, Pray, Love—in both, women in the midst of midlife crises find peace on adventures far away from the U.S. But Napoli’s destination of Bhutan is no Bali. Americans rarely visit this small nation in South Asia because of a steep tourist tax and limited plane access, and the country is remarkably sheltered from outside influences: Bhutan’s capital, Thimphu, is the only one in the world without a traffic light, and the king legalized television in the country just 12 years ago. Napoli was working for NPR’s Marketplace when a chance encounter led to an invitation to advise Kuzoo FM, Bhutan’s youth radio station. Sick of producing 90-second segments, Napoli “felt hungry for knowledge, deeper meaning, time to synthesize the world.” So she went to Bhutan in a time of great transition for the country: new king, new constitution, impending democracy. And though she initially envisioned a “media-free universe,” she quickly realized that new technologies in Bhutan meant that things were changing fast. Radio Shangri-La is as much about the charming characters at Kuzoo FM and the culture of Bhutan as it is about Napoli’s personal transformation. Readers will enjoy learning about a part of the world far different from our own, a place where success is measured not by GDP, but by Gross National Happiness.

NEW GUIDES FOR THE WORLD TRAVELER
Several travel publishers are introducing new series and destinations in 2011—here are some of the most notable additions.

•DK Eyewitness Guides: This popular series is getting an overhaul in 2011, with pull-out maps and a cleaner look. New destinations added this year include Back Roads Germany, Chile & Easter Island and Cambodia & Laos.

•Fodor’s Guides: Celebrating their 75th anniversary this year, America’s oldest travel guide company is adding Honduras & the Bay Islands, Prague & the Czech Republic, Venice & the Best of Northern Italy and Essential India to their roster of more than 600 destinations.

•Lonely Planet Discover Guides: Brand new in 2011, this series of focused, full-color, portable guides covers hotspots like London and Paris as well as less traveled destinations like Peru, China and Barcelona.

•Pocket Rough Guides: Billed as “slim, stylish and pocketable” these smaller versions of the best-selling Rough Guides are full-color and city focused—the 10 destinations include Barcelona, Prague and Rome.
 

Whether you’re planning a trip, imagining a radical move across the globe or simply hoping to explore from the couch, travelogues provide entertainment and inspiration.

BON APPÉTIT
The premise of Lonely Planet’s latest anthology is one upon which we can all…

YA FictionYA

New directions for fantasy novels

Feature by Deborah Hopkinson

Can teens today get enough of fantasy? Luckily for readers who grew up on series such as Harry Potter and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, this ever-expanding genre is continuing to attract new and distinctive voices, producing imaginative offerings for discerning teen readers. Here are three titles representing some of the best new work in fantasy.

FINDING HER PLACE

Nnedi Okorafor, who teaches creative writing at Chicago State University, has written for both teens and adults, winning critical acclaim and honors such as the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature. Okorafor, who was born in the U.S. to two Nigerian parents, sets her latest book, Akata Witch, in Nigeria. But like the author herself, Sunny, the heroine, is American by birth.

Sunny isn’t having an easy time of it in school. She is an albino, which means not only must she carry a black umbrella everywhere to protect her skin from the sun, but she is also teased and ridiculed by her peers. Her first friend is her classmate Orlu, who introduces her to a girl named Chichi. But these are not ordinary teen friendships: Before long Sunny finds that, like her companions, she is one of the Leopard People, someone imbued with magical powers. Soon the three friends, plus an American boy named Sasha, are being trained by Anatov, their teacher, in the mastery of their magical powers—which they will have to draw on to confront a serial killer of children who is terrorizing the community.

This is a wonderful coming-of-age story with an intriguing setting and an original magical world that will draw in readers. As Sunny comes to terms with her growing powers, she also discovers a connection to her late grandmother, and manages to find a way to navigate the two separate worlds of her existence. Teens beginning their own life journeys apart from parents and home will find much that resonates in Sunny’s story.

A JOURNEY OF THE HEART

Cindy Pon’s new novel is the conclusion to her debut title, Silver Phoenix, named one of the Top Ten Fantasy Novels of 2009 by Booklist. In Silver Phoenix, readers were introduced to Ai Ling, a 17-year-old girl in the kingdom of Xia, who has magical abilities, including the capacity to throw her spirit outside of herself in order to listen to others or even touch their spirits. In the first book, Ai Ling met Chen Yong, a young man of mixed races who was searching for the truth of his birth. As Fury of the Phoenix begins, Ai Ling stows away on the same ship as Chen Yong, concerned for his safety as he undertakes a long and dangerous sea journey to continue his search for his birth father.

When Ai Ling is discovered on board the Gliding Dragon, she pretends to be Chen Yong’s sister who has stowed away to be near her brother. The ship’s captain, Peng, is a fair and wise leader, who suspects that the relationship between Ai Ling and Chen Yong is not what it appears. As the journey progresses, the story alternates between Ai Ling’s onboard adventures and the story of a young man named Zhong Ye, the highest-ranking adviser to the Emperor. Ai Ling and Zhong Ye are inextricably linked through a mysterious past: “She could almost see his pale gray eyes, felt as if it were yesterday that their spirits entangled when she killed him. No matter how often she tried to push Zhong Ye from her mind, he lingered, festering like some dark wound.”

Cindy Pon weaves an intricate tale of adventure and romance in Fury of the Phoenix, creating a magical yet believable world infused with the incense of its ancient Chinese setting.

RESTORING THE BALANCE

Like Cindy Pon’s work, Malinda Lo’s novels also draw their inspiration from China culture, with shades of Irish folklore as well. Her first novel, Ash, has been described as “Cinderella . . . with a twist.” In Lo’s novel Ash is not swept away by a prince, but falls in love with Kaisa, the King’s huntress.

Huntress is set in the same world as Ash, but the story takes place many centuries earlier, during a time when nature is out of balance. The sky is continually overcast, and the sun has not shone in a long time; people are faced with starvation because of failing crops. Not only that, strange creatures are beginning to appear, some masquerading as human children.

When an invitation from the Fairy Queen arrives, two 17-year-old girls are tapped to make the journey to try to help restore balance in the human world. Taisin is the most celebrated student seer of her generation, but Kaede can’t figure out why she is being asked; while she has been studying at the Academy of Seers for years, it is clear she doesn’t have a magical bone in her body. Yet she has other skills, including the ability to throw a knife. And, as Kaede soon discovers, there is another reason for her selection: Taisin has had a vision of her. In fact, Taisin’s vision reveals her deep love for Kaede—a love that is forbidden because Taisin wants to be a seer, and seers must be celibate.

Filled with dangerous adventure, an evocative setting and a compelling romance between its two leads, Huntress is an appealing and exciting offering from this talented author.

Can teens today get enough of fantasy? Luckily for readers who grew up on series such as Harry Potter and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, this ever-expanding genre is continuing to attract new and distinctive voices, producing imaginative offerings for discerning teen readers. Here are…

Graphic Novels & ComicsGraphic Memoirs

Strangers in strange lands

Feature by Becky Ohlsen

These three graphic novels might not seem to have anything in common, but in a sense they do: All three are written from the perspective of a lone explorer making his or her way through an unfamiliar landscape. One involves a woman tracing her heritage in an Israel that bears little resemblance to the country she’d imagined; in another, the child of Vietnamese immigrants digs into his parents’ past; and in the third a miserably single American man navigates the terrifying world of dating.

SEEKING TRUTH IN THE HOLY LAND
In her graphic memoir How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, Sarah Glidden runs the emotional gamut, from stubborn to weepy to giddy to furious and all the way back around. The book records a “Birthright Israel” trip she took several years ago; the Birthright fund pays for trips that give non-Israeli Jews their first introduction to Israel. Sarah went intending to “discover the truth behind this whole mess once and for all,” meaning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Packing her suitcase, she tells her boyfriend, “It’ll all be crystal clear by the time I come back.” But of course everything turns out to be more complicated than she expected. Between touring cultural sites and hearing wise counsel from various perspectives, Sarah finds that her convictions are shaken but her understanding deepened through her engagement with Israel. Given the complex material and the fairly text-heavy panels, Glidden’s clear and simply drawn illustrations, painted in watercolor, add just the right amount of emotional impact to the story.

A VIVID FAMILY HISTORY
GB Tran takes a much more impressionistic approach to memoir in his Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey. The book, appealing enough in its black-and-white version but stunning in full color, describes Tran’s parents’ decision to leave Vietnam for America in 1975. In flashbacks and retold stories, Tran learns about what life was like for his mother and father when they were young children, what their parents were like, and how much they left behind when circumstances forced them to abandon the lives they had made and start from scratch. Tran is 30 when he returns with his parents to Vietnam for a visit shortly after the death of his last two grandparents. The combination of the young American’s disorientation and the many disjointed recollections he hears from various family members can be confusing if you try to follow the story in strict linear fashion; the key is to relax and let the gorgeous images wash over you. The wild, vivid pages here work the way oft-told and half-remembered family stories from long ago normally do; they’re more about conveying emotion than information.

HOPE AMONG THE RUINS
Daniel Clowes is great at many things, not least of which is leaving readers with a sense of alienation and vague disgust for humanity. But in Mister Wonderful he does something unusual: He transcends his customary gloom and despair to find hope. The story follows a guy named Marshall on a blind date. Marshall is divorced, unemployed and severely lacking in confidence. His scathing internal monologue as he sits at a coffee shop waiting for his date is painful to behold. Told in Clowes’ characteristically tidy style, with its neat rows of panels and straightforwardly drawn characters in plain, blocky urban settings, the story veers often into miniature fantasies, illustrated by miniature versions of the characters. When Marshall’s date, Natalie, appears and is charming, he can’t decide whether to be thrilled or to embrace the miserable certainty that she’s out of his league. But it turns out Natalie is equally fragile. Their delicate emotional parrying, complete with awkward misunderstandings, large and small faux pas and even a mugging, makes for a suspenseful and affecting read. The fact that the story comes down on the side of cautious optimism only increases its impact.

These three graphic novels might not seem to have anything in common, but in a sense they do: All three are written from the perspective of a lone explorer making his or her way through an unfamiliar landscape. One involves a woman tracing her heritage…

NonfictionTrue CrimeMilitary History

Sample a true story this summer

Feature by Heather Seggel

For some readers, summer means enough time to tackle a serious work of history. Other readers relish the vicarious thrills of true crime and courtroom drama, while armchair travelers settle in for an exciting new journey (and save a bundle on luggage fees). These books share one trait vital to any summer read: unputdownability.
 

BATTLE BETWEEN OLD AND NEW
If you know anything about the Crimean War, it’s likely a story told from the British point of view. In The Crimean War, historian Orlando Figes consulted Turkish, Russian, French and Ottoman sources as well, to create a broader picture of “the major conflict of the nineteenth century.”

This battle, both religious and territorial in nature, was the first truly modern war. Steamships and railways were crucial, as well as technology like the telegraph, field hospitals and medical triage. It was also the first to have war reporters and photographers directly on the scene. Yet older traditions such as truces to allow each side to collect their dead from the battlefield were still observed, and “war tourists” traveled from all over the world, opera glasses and picnic baskets in hand, to observe the fighting. Some soldiers were hampered by enforced adherence to traditional dress codes that barely allowed them freedom of movement and didn’t keep out the elements; the war killed almost a million soldiers, but many of those deaths were from cholera and exposure.

It’s fascinating to see a young Leo Tolstoy appear in the story, reporting on the fighting in Sevastopol to Tsar Nicholas and finding his voice as an author in a setting that inspired some classic literature. The Crimean War takes readers through the famous Charge of the Light Brigade, but also well beyond and deeper, in a bold re-examination of this 150-year-old war.

CORRUPTION ON THE CAPE
On January 6, 2002, Christa Worthington’s body was found on the floor of her Cape Cod cottage, stabbed, beaten and half-naked, her two-year-old daughter clinging to her side. Who could have done such a thing? Reasonable Doubt follows the investigation, the trial and its aftermath, and reaches a disturbing conclusion: An innocent man is now in jail for life, and Christa’s real killer is free.

Journalist Peter Manso intended to write a quickie “trial book,” but once he started researching the story, things turned ugly. Christopher McCowen, an African-American garbage collector with an IQ bordering on mental retardation, was interrogated for hours but no recording was made, and his statements were condensed and edited by the investigating officer. Now in jail for life, he maintains his innocence, and can point to a more likely suspect whose connections in law enforcement may have granted him a pass. Manso finds corruption in every corner of Cape Cod law enforcement, possibly even in the presiding judge’s decision to deny appeals for a retrial that would have hurt his chances for promotion. Entrenched racism in the affluent white community made it easy to sell the story of a black murderer, and many believed that a possible sexual liaison between McCowen and Worthington could only have been rape.

It’s a grim tale from any angle, and Manso balances a straightforward accounting of the investigation and trial with a more inflammatory section at the end of the book, listing the missteps by DA Michael O’Keefe along with a Q&A designed to explain the fallibility of DNA evidence and many other pieces of information that were kept out of the trial (but were, in Manso’s opinion, crucial to an understanding of what really happened). Readers will of course draw their own conclusions, but Reasonable Doubt raises potent questions about our courts and the true beneficiaries of justice.

WHEN IN SIENA
Robert Rodi fell so in love with one part of Tuscan culture, it bordered on obsession. Seven Seasons in Siena chronicles the author’s multiple trips to Siena, home of the Palio, a bareback horse race around the town’s central piazza. Seventeen independent societies, known as contrade, compete in the race, and Rodi is determined to find acceptance in the Noble Contrada of the Caterpillar. It’s not a simple matter of asking permission: The culture is insular and macho, while Rodi is a gay American writer who’s just getting a handle on conversational Italian. But he doesn’t give up.

Rodi has been compared to Bill Bryson, and rightly so; Seven Seasons in Siena is packed full of history, trivia and details about Siena, yet reads like a breezy travelogue. It’s also frequently hilarious. When a native indulges Rodi’s rudimentary language skills, “He grins widely, as though listening to a parakeet try to speak Latin.” Seconds after tasting some proffered homemade grappa, Rodi says, “I can feel all the hair on my chest just quietly drop off.” You may decide to spend a season in Siena yourself after reading this love letter to a passionate people and their beautiful corner of the world.

For some readers, summer means enough time to tackle a serious work of history. Other readers relish the vicarious thrills of true crime and courtroom drama, while armchair travelers settle in for an exciting new journey (and save a bundle on luggage fees). These books…

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