New York Times Notable Books of 2009
Shop Class as Soulcraft
Crawford, Matthew B.
In this wise and often funny book, a philosopher/mechanic systematically destroys the pretensions of the high-prestige workplace and makes an irresistible case for working with one's hands Shop Class as Soulcraft brings alive an experience that was once quite ordinary, but now seems to be receding over the cultural horizon, the experience of making and fixing things. Working with your hands, as Mathew B. Crawford describes it, connects us to the world around us. Those of us who sit in an office often have intuitions of something gone amiss, a sense of unreality accompanied by feelings of impotence. What, after all, do we do all day? In this wholly original debut, Crawford offers a brief for self-reliance and a sustained reflection on this problem: how to live concretely in an ever more abstract world. Shop Class as Soulcraft seeks to restore the honor of the manual trades as a life worth choosing for anyone who felt hustled off to college, then to the cubicle, against their own inclinations and natural bents. On both economic and psychological grounds, Crawford questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a "knowledge worker." This imperative, he explains, is based on a misguided separation of thinking from doing, the work of the hand from that of the mind. Crawford shows in precise detail how such a partition, which began a century ago with the assembly line, degrades work for those on both sides of the divide. But he offers good news as well: The manual trades are very different from factory work. They require a lot of thinking and may even give rise to moments of genuine pleasure. Based on his own experience as an electrician and mechanic, Crawford makes a case for the intrinsic satisfactions and cognitive challenges, the soulcraft, of manual work. The work of builders and mechanics cannot be outsourced. They tie us to the local communities in which we live and instill the pride that comes from doing work that is genuinely useful. Speaking squarely to a culture that continues to grapple for a way to reconcile work and life and to find fulfilling work of all stripes, Shop Class as Soulcraft offers inspired social criticism and deep personal exploration. It will change your understanding of the value of work and the work of bringing value and meaning to your life, whatever you do now or hope to do one day.
Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It
Meloy, Maile
Award-winning writer Maile Meloy's return to short stories explores complex lives in an austere landscape with the clear-sightedness that first endeared her to readers.Meloy's first return to short stories since her critically acclaimed debut, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It is an extraordinary new work from one of the most promising writers of the last decade.Eleven unforgettable new stories demonstrate the emotional power and the clean, assured style that have earned Meloy praise from critics and devotion from readers. Propelled by a terrific instinct for storytelling, and concerned with the convolutions of modern love and the importance of place, this collection is about the battlefields and fields of victory that exist in seemingly harmless spaces, in kitchens and living rooms and cars. Set mostly in the American West, the stories feature small-town lawyers, ranchers, doctors, parents, and children, and explore the moral quandaries of love, family, and friendship. A ranch hand falls for a recent law school graduate who appears unexpectedly and reluctantly in his remote Montana town. A young father opens his door to find his dead grandmother standing on the front step. Two women weigh love and betrayal during an early snow. Throughout the book, Meloy examines the tensions between having and wanting, as her characters try to keep hold of opposing forces in their lives: innocence and experience, risk and stability, fidelity and desire. Knowing, sly, and bittersweet, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It confirms Maile Meloy's singular literary talent. Her lean, controlled prose, full of insight and unexpected poignancy, is the perfect complement to her powerfully moving storytelling.
Closing Time
Queenan, Joe
A deeply funny and affecting memoir about a great escape from a childhood of poverty Joe Queenan's acerbic riffs on movies, sports, books, politics, and many of the least forgivable phenomena of pop culture have made him one of the most popular humorists and commentators of our time. In Closing Time Queenan turns his sights on a more serious and personal topic: his childhood in a Philadelphia housing project in the early 1960s. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Closing Time recounts Queenan's Irish Catholic upbringing in a family dominated by his erratic father, a violent yet oddly charming emotional terrorist whose alcoholism fuels a limitless torrent of self-pity, railing, destruction, and late-night chats with the Lord Himself. With the help of a series of mentors and surrogate fathers, and armed with his own furious love of books and music, Joe begins the long flight away from the dismal confines of his neighborhood (with a brief misbegotten stop at a seminary) and into the wider world. Queenan's unforgettable account of the damage done to children by parents without futures and of the grace children find to move beyond these experiences will appeal to fans of Augusten Burroughs and Mary Karr, and will take its place as an autobiography in the classic American tradition.
The Weight of a Mustard Seed
Steavenson, Wendell
General Kamel Sachet was a favorite of Saddam Hussein's, a hero of the Iran-Iraq war, head of the army in Kuwait City during Desert Storm, governor of the province of Maysan, and father of nine children. When author Wendell Steavenson became intrigued by his story, she began with a few questions about Sachet and his fellow Baathist loyalists: ""Why had they served such a regime? How had they accommodated their own morality? How had they lived? How had they lived with themselves?"" Her journey to find these answers took five years, and an accumulation of facts, opinions, fears, confessions and suspicions from Sachet's family, friends, and enemies. The result is not just a gripping account of one man's rise and fall, but a vivid and compassionate portrayal of the Iraqi people. As Sachet rose from policeman to Special Forces officer and then General, he made more and more sacrifices to remain in Saddam's good favor. Steadfast in his loyalty to God and his President, Sachet attended military executions and endured his own imprisonment as Saddam's behavior took increasingly paranoiac and power-crazy turns. But when it came time for Sachet's sons to do their military service, he refused to let them join the ""criminal"" organization to which he had given his life. Kamel Sachet realized, too late, that he'd become a participant in the terror regime that had strangled his county and destroyed its people. Through his story and the stories of those around him, Wendell Steavenson shows the choices Iraqis have had to make between exile and collaboration, God and jihad. Here are the Iraqis behind the headlines and the tragedy begotten of unintended consequences. And here is the first full-length narrative from an immensely talented journalist who has already been compared by critics to Bruce Chatwin and Ryszard Kapucinksi.
Born Round
Bruni, Frank
The New York Times restaurant critic's heartbreaking and hilarious account of how he learned to love food just enough after decades of wrestling with his weight Frank Bruni was born round. Round as in stout, chubby, and hungry, always and endlessly hungry. He grew up in a big, loud Italian family in White Plains, New York, where meals were epic, outsize affairs. At those meals, he demonstrated one of his foremost qualifications for his future career: an epic, outsize appetite for food. But his relationship with eating was tricky, and his difficulties with managing it began early. When he was named the restaurant critic for the New York Times in 2004, he knew enough to be nervous. He would be performing one of the most closely watched tasks in the epicurean universe; a bumpy ride was inevitable, especially for someone whose writing beforehand had focused on politics, presidential campaigns, and the Pope. But as he tackled his new role as one of the most loved and hated tastemakers in the New York restaurant world, he also had to make sense of a decades-long love-hate affair with food, which had been his enemy as well as his friend. Now he'd have to face down this enemy at meal after indulgent meal. His Italian grandmother had often said, "Born round, you don't die square." Would he fall back into his worst old habits? Or had he established a truce with the food on his plate? In tracing the highly unusual path Bruni traveled to become a restaurant critic, Born Round tells the captivating story of an unpredictable journalistic odyssey and provides an unflinching account of one person¿s tumultuous, often painful lifelong struggle with his weight. How does a committed eater embrace food without being undone by it? Born Round will speak to every hungry hedonist who has ever had to rein in an appetite to avoid letting out a waistband, and it will delight anyone interested in matters of family, matters of the heart, and the big role food plays in both.
New Releases
for the Week of February 7, 2010
The Soul Jar
Colgan, Jennifer
A romance three thousand years in the making. When Bree Sennett breaks into Ming Xao Chen's Curiosity Shop to recover the fabled Soul Jar of Ammonptah, the last thing she expects to find among the tacky souvenirs is a ghost. But there he is, Mason "Chance" MacKenzie, back from the dead and stirring a confusing mix of joy at seeing him alive...and betrayal for leaving her. Two years ago, Chance faked his own death to save both their lives. It's taken him that long to convince himself she's better off without him, that she'll never forgive him much less love him. Yet as their mutual search for the Soul Jar brings them face to face, he realizes the only one he was fooling was himself. Now the woman who stole his heart is about to steal the Soul Jar, but a life he promised to protect hangs in the balance. There's only one way to satisfy both their clients. Make a deal. And hope he can trust her to help him complete his mission before he loses her forever. This book has been previously published. Warning: This title contains too much caffeine, just the right amount of fireworks and a heaping scoop of steal-your-heart Australian hunk.
Christmas Peril
Daley, Margaret
Christmas bells ring with danger in these suspenseful holiday storiesMerry Mayhem by Margaret DaleyWhen single mom Annie Coleman unexpectedly arrives in Christmas, Oklahoma, police chief Caleb Jackson suspects she's hiding secrets. He'll be watching her closely. And his protection is just what Annie and her daughter need, as danger has followed them to their new home.Yule Die by Debby GiustiIt's hardly a happy holiday for medical researcher Callie Evans...until she discovers her ailing patient is her long-lost brother. And he's being watched by undercover police officer Joe Petrecelli. When the trio is abducted by a cadre of bad guys, Joe and Callie will have to fight to keep her brother--and themselves--alive.
Powerful Greek, Unworldly Wife
Morgan, Sarah
Gorgeous Greek billionaire Leandro plucked plump Millie from her farm and swept her into his glamorous world! Wrapped in his arms and draped in diamonds, she thought nothing could touch their romance.But the deepest, darkest betrayal did. Her sister claimed she was expecting Leandro's baby. So Millie ran away, distraught. The designer dresses had clearly never hidden how unsuitable and unglamorous she truly was.Now, though, Leandro's powerful voice is demanding that his wife come home. And, to her shame, she's willing....
A Doctor, A Nurse: A Christmas Baby
Andrews, Amy
Pediatric nurse Maggie Green is devoted to the children on the intensive care ward at Brisbane's Children's Hospital.Nash Reece is a top-notch doctor with a reputation as a heartbreaker. He's attracted to Maggie--and, for the first time, one night just isn't enough. For this confirmed bachelor Maggie is trouble...and he can't resist her! It's Christmas--a time for miracles--and Maggie's dreams of motherhood are about to come true. But how will Nash react to Maggie's Christmas baby bombshell?
Phoenix and the Darkness of Wolves
Cummings, Shane Jiraiya
Australia has been devastated by a supernatural inferno. Damon believes he is the last ash-covered survivor, a man's whose past-and future-is inextricably tied to the magick that caused the conflagration. He tracks a phoenix through this apocalyptic wasteland in the hopes of using its magick to restore his lost family to humanity. His family, in turn, have been condemned to limbo as shadow wolves, emerging for a few fleeting moments every sunset to hunt Damon in the hope his death will free them from their torment. The hunt is on!
Field of Danger
Richards, Ramona
"Who killed my father?" Eyewitness to a murder, April Presley wants to answer the deputy sheriff's harrowing question. But she can't. She barely caught a glimpse of the crime through the deep Tennessee cornfield, and cannot recall anything to help the investigation. Or can she? Daniel Rivers is certain that April remembers more of his father's death than she realizes. And the killer agrees.In the race to uncover April's missing memory before the killer finds her, Daniel is the only one she can trust to keep her safe. Yet will he stay by her side when the shocking truth is unveiled?
