New in Paperback: Alex’s Wake by Martin Goldsmith

Survivor guilt is the tragic thread that winds through much of Alex’s Wake: A Voyage of Betrayal and a Journey of Remembrance (Da Capo) by Martin Goldsmith (The Inextinguishable Symphony). A single paragraph in the introduction sums that feeling up almost too eloquently:

With the help of my wife and my therapist, I came to recognize a rhetorical question that hung over me like the mist that follows in the wake of an ocean liner: “How can I ever be truly happy, how can I ever deserve happiness,” I would say to myself, “when my grandfather was murdered in Auschwitz?”

In some ways, that is the theme of Alex’s Wake: the author’s coming to terms with the loss of several family members under horrific and inhuman conditions. Appropriately for this particular trip, the author quotes Martin Buber as the first chapter ends: “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”

If Alex’s Wake is not sunshiny reading, it is definitely thought-provoking and carefully researched. Goldsmith brings us the Holocaust in a way you've not seen in textbooks as the story he tells reverberates through his own consciousness. The horror, yes. And the guilt.

It is not a spoiler to tell you that Goldsmith does find a bright point when a memorial plaque to his grandfather becomes the touchstone that allows the grandson freedom from at least some of the guilt he has been feeling.

There’s certainly been no shortage of Holocaust recollections, but this is an especially good one. Available now in paperback, and you can find it here. ◊

New in Paperback: The Last Pirate by Tony Dokoupil

If you missed The Last Pirate: A Father, His Son, and the Golden Age of Marijuna (Anchor Books) when it first came out in the spring of 2014, you have a great chance to catch it now in paperback. If you enjoy memoirs featuring larger-than-life characters and strong hits of comedy with all of life’s drama, you’ll enjoy Tony  Dokoupil’s account of growing up as the son of the 1980s dope king of Miami, Anthony Edward Dokoupil.

Dokoupil ran the US operations of one of the largest marijuana rings in the 20th century. By several accounts, “Big Tony” was personally responsible for the distribution of at least fifty tons of the stuff.

“Little Tony” writes beautifully. A senior writer for NBC news, Dokoupil the journalist examines his memories and incorporates deeply personal stories into a tale that reflects not only the story of his own family, but provides an interesting and sometimes even illuminating tale about how drugs have fit into the American picture.

If you smoked Columbian weed in the 1970s and 1980s, I owe you a thank-you card. You paid for my swim lessons, bought me my first baseball glove, and kept me in the best private schools in south Florida, alongside President George H.W. Buch's grandsons, at least for a little while.

It is this personal voice that elevates The Last Pirate beyond a simply  interesting story about a colorful and somewhat tragic character. As the book begins, Dokoupil describes the end of his father’s drug dealing days in colorful strokes:

Each day ended with the ocean smeared purple, the men holding their ladies close, and the kids clustered on the bow, dreaming of shipwrecks, pirates, and buried treasures. Thew old around was fenceless and so was the future. But the Old Man was restless in this paradise. He had broken a cardinal rule of dealing and become an addict himself. Coke and hookers mostly. He left the party early in search of both.

 Dokoupil has spun pure gold. Moving, sometimes funny, gorgeously etched and compellingly told. Whatever you come to The Last Pirate expecting,  Dokoupil delivers more. ◊


Linda L. Richards is the editor of January Magazine and the author of several books.

New Today: Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee by William C. Davis

Few names from the era loom as large as those of the top generals from North and South each: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. In story and fable, both men have been elevated to the place of myth.

Author William C. Davis (Three Roads to the Alamo, The Pirates Lafitte) combs through the four historical meetings the two men actually had in an effort to uncover details that might have impacted where they both ended up.

Davis has said that Crucible of Command (Da Capo) is not a conventional biography. “I’m not interested detailing every incident of their lives.” Rather, “the focus is on their moral and ethical worlds, what they felt and believed and why.”

On that journey, Davis states more than once that, without the Civil War, neither man would have come close to his potential. “Without the war, Grant would have remained a civilian working in his father’s leather goods store… Lee… was dissatisfied with the army, with his life and just about everything else when the war came. It is not too much to say that both were heading nowhere when the war plucked them out of their old lives.”

Once activated, though, both men had a huge part in shaping the post-war nation.

Davis is the author of more than 50 books, and he demonstrates his experience in Crucible of Command, a magisterial dual biography that rises far, far above the average. Davis balances fact and research with searing action and penetrating personality. This very entertaining history is much more than the sum of its parts. ◊

Biography: The Good Luck Cat by Lissa Warren

Depending on who you listen to, the Internet is alternately ruled by cats or made of them. Either way, it is well established that denizens of the Internet like a good cat tale. And, honestly, they don’t get much better than what can be found in Lissa Warren’s The Good Luck Cat (Lyons Press).

The author’s father was gifted a retirement companion, a Korat cat called Ting with whom he would bond and who would, in many ways, become the very heart of the family. Warren covers the introduction of the cat into the family with affection, while explaining her own long-standing affinity for cats:

Bilbliophile. Ailurophile. I like books and cats. Lovers of the written word do seem naturally drawn to cats. Perhaps it’s because reading is a solitary activity but feels less so when a cat’s bside you. Not even my favorite books could hold my attention like Ting, though, with her delicate purr and appreciative licks -- and propensity for trouble. I don’t know what it is about cats that makes people like them better when they’re naughty. But they are, most certainly, the biker boyfriend of the animal world: You know you should stay away, but you can’t.

Ting’s incorporation into her new home was rapid and complete. More than a decade later, Warren’s father died of a heart attack. Less than a year after that, his constant companion, Ting, was diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition. Warren and her mother determined to fight for the little cat’s life, unwilling to lose yet another member of their small family. And it is work that prepares the two women for yet another diagnosis still to come.

The Good Luck Cat: How a Cat Saved a Family, and a Family Saved a Cat is gorgeously written and generously shared. And it is a beautiful tribute not only to a beloved and much missed father, but also to feline companions everywhere who give far beyond the obvious to the people who adore them. ◊

Linda L. Richards is the editor of January Magazine and the author of several books.

New This Week: I’m the Man: The Story of that Guy From Anthrax by Scott Ian

Scott Ian must be one of the hardest working guys in metal. The rhythm guitarist cofounded the iconic metal outfit Anthrax with some high school buddies in 1982. That formation would lead to the beginning of the thrash metal movement along with Megadeath, Slayer and Metallica.

It was Ian who got the idea to get together with rap supergroup Public Enemy back in 1991 to record and then tour. He was also one of the founders of Stormtroopers of Death which fused hardcore punk with thrash metal for the birth of crossover thrash. In 2001, Ian became host of Rock Show for VH1. He hosted 48 episodes, interviewing many iconic guests including The Cult, Tenacious D, Ozzy Osbourne and others.

There’s more. Quite a lot of it. Ian is accomplished and passionate and seemingly always up for a challenge. What you might not know is he’s also tremendously funny, with a bright take on life that not only seems unexpected in a heavy metal icon, but that shines through every page of I’m the Man (Da Capo) Ian’s newly released biography. As he writes early on in I’m the Man:

I didn’t get into music for pussy. I got into it for music. Sure, there were girls along the way, but not like there were for those '80s hair bands. For the longest time, thrash metal was a dude scene; if there were any chicks at the show, they were usually dragged along by their boyfriends. Basically, I’m a guy who made a name for himself by working my ass off.

It sets the tone. Anthrax fans will enjoy Ian’s candid insights and surprisingly charming take on his full metal life.

Now 50, the metal legend is married to Pearl Aday, daughter of Meat Loaf and an accomplished musician in her own right. (Ian supported her on guitar on her album, The couple have one child, a son Revel Young Ian, born in 2001. ◊

Biography: John Marshall: The Chief Justice who Saved the Nation by Harlow Giles Unger

One gets the feeling that Harlow Giles Unger gets material for new book topics while researching still other books. What else could explain this prolificacy? Unger has delivered truly stellar biographies year after year on such diverse characters as John Quincy Adams and George Washington, to name just two.

While Unger is not the only biographer dealing with material steeped in American history these days, he is certainly in the very top tier of those who do. Not only that, despite a publishing schedule that has seen Unger produce more than 20 books, his work remains highly readable and even interesting. As anyone who has read historical non-fiction will tell you, that’s a tall order. Even for someone not publishing as frequently as this author does.

In John Marshall: The Chief Justice Who Saved a Nation (Da Capo), Unger puts his laser sights on the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, John Marshall, who served in that position from 1801 to 1835. As Unger’s subtitle suggests, some of Marshall’s decisions were pivotal… though mostly unpopular and he remains the longest serving Chief Justice in American history.

Unger looks at the whole of Marshall’s life and concludes that some of the decisions he made on the bench would have far-reaching effects. Some of them impacting us even today. Beyond his work on the bench, Marshall made other contributions to society.  He was an officer in the Revolutionary War and distinguished himself mightily. He was a member of Virginia's constitutional convention, a lawyer, a congressman, diplomat and was for a tim U.S. Secretary of State.

Unger’s book is a fair, lucid and highly readable look at the life of a quietly remarkable man. ◊


Aaron Blanton is a contributing editor to January Magazine. He’s currently working on a book based on his experiences as an American living abroad.

New in Paperback: Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson

Scott Anderson (Moonlight Hotel, The Man Who Tried to Save the World) brings the gravitas of an accomplished novelist and war correspondent to Lawrence in Arabia (Anchor Books).

This is a stellar look at some of the major issues in the Middle East and the influence that early 19th century outsiders, including Lawrence of Arabia’s TH Lawrence, had on the direction in which the modern Middle East was formed.

The writing here is breathtaking (and the book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2013) and the research it must have taken actually set me aback: this is an intricate work, well beyond the scope of anything you’re imagining.

As a biography of Lawrence, it would have been superb, but Lawrence in Arabia is so much more: offering an illuminating visit to a time and events that still cause ripples across the region and with a contradictory character whose actions continue to cause controversy 80 years after his death. ◊


Aaron Blanton is a contributing editor to January Magazine. He’s currently working on a book based on his experiences as an American living abroad.

New in Paperback: Blue Plate Special by Kate Christensen

PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author, Kate Christensen, delivers a stirring ands sometimes heartbreaking read in Blue Plate Special (Anchor).

Ostensibly a memoir about “the transformative nature of food,” Christensen’s first work of non-fiction is so much more than that. Despite the addition of a decent helping of interesting recipes, Blue Plate Special delves deeply into the psyche of a brilliant and complicated author. Perhaps even more deeply than Christensen initially intended or planned.

Christensen deals with her father’s violence, her own abuse by a high school teacher and her subsequent sexual confusion that was the result. Though this material is so moving -- and brilliantly handled -- it’s difficult to see beyond it when you look back, there truly is so much more, much of it viewed through an interesting lens of food.

The author was born in 1962, and so we travel with her through the 1970s, 80s and beyond, indulging, experiencing and even weeping with her through glorious meals and all types of experience.

Christensen demonstrates that she is not only a writer with a great deal to say, she says it so beautifully we don’t want the journey to end, even when it’s difficult to watch.

A note: there was an elegant postscript to the book in Elle magazine earlier this year where the author shares the resolution to the story of her sexual abuse. It’s a resolution that occurred after and because of the publication of the book. If you’re wondering if Blue Plate Special is a book you’d like to read, that article will convince you. As always, Christensen is stunning. ◊


Linda L. Richards is the editor of January Magazine and the author of several books.

Holiday Gift Guide: “Mr. President” by Harlow Giles Unger

Would it even be the holidays without a political biography for dad from Harlow Giles Unger (Lion of Liberty, John Qunincy Adams).

“Mr. President”: George Washington and the Making of the Nation’s Highest Office (DaCapo) is a very good book in a series of them. In his typically lucid and conversational style, Unger paints a never-before-seen portrait of Washington as a surprisingly beleaguered leader whose challenges in many ways echo those of the current occupier of the White House.

Though much has been written about that first presidency, no one has ever looked at it in quite this way before. But Unger has that gift and also that advantage, having done serious research on men whose presidencies touched this one.

Unger shows us a Washington early in his presidency, a figurehead at the head of a country but without much power at all. Then, slowly but steadily, Washington manages to wrest more and still more power for his office, including the “executive privilege” Presidents expect today.

Though some of Washington’s tactics in gaining power for his office expose a single-minded determination to his mission and even, on occasion, a deadly intelligent cunning, Washington emerges as a good and even worthy President. Unger has said that it is his opinion that Washington was “probably the most selfless, self-sacrificing president in American history.” ◊

Aaron Blanton is a contributing editor to January Magazine. He’s currently working on a book based on his experiences as an American living abroad.

Biography: Under the Eagle by Samuel Holiday and Robert S. McPherson

Former soldier Samuel Holiday and history professor Robert S. McPherson get together to tell Holiday’s amazing story in Under the Eagle: Samuel Holiday Navajo Code Talker (University of Oklahoma Press).

Moving from Holiday’s childhood in rural Utah to the depths of the United States’ campaign in the Pacific during World War II when Navajo men were enlisted so the Marine Corps could use their native language for secret communication on the front.

Under the Eagle is deeply compelling. From the majesty of Monument Valley and the enchantment of beliefs very different from those likely to read the book, to the horrors of the Pacific theatre and back to an awkward readjustment in a world in which nothing is altered yet everything seems strangely changed.

Though there has been some discussion about code talkers in recent years, Under the Eagle touches on aspects that others haven’t brought us. The authors incorporate not only Holiday’s own life and background, but elements of Navajo beliefs and culture. This comes from Holiday’s own thoughts that the journeys he made as a soldier were “as much mental and spiritual as … physical.”

Though movies and books have gone before, Under the Eagle provides the only account of a code talker from the code talker’s own perspective. The view from that angle is riveting. ◊


Jones Atwater is a contributing editor to January Magazine.

New Next Week: Eminent Hipsters by Donald Fagen

We haven’t yet had a chance to peek at Eminent Hipsters (Viking) by Steely Dan frontman Donald Fagen, but it’s definitely one January Magazine art director, David Middleton, is keen to pour over. And why? He’s a fan of both Steely Dan and clever, nerdish writing. It sounds very much like Eminent Hipsters will improve the reader’s knowledge of the former while delivering loads of the latter.

As Telegraph music editor Bernadette McNulty remarks in her review, Fagan’s “‘art-o-biography,’ much like his music, is nerdishly clever, entertainingly original and even a moving reconfiguration of the memoir format.”

And the book does sound like a nerdfest of the musical order (and we mean that in a good way):

The early scholarly bombardment of the essays feels partly designed to shake off the casual browser, rhapsodising over obscure, cult figures of the 20th century, including jazz singer Connie Boswell, science fiction writer AE van Vogt and radio DJ Jean Shepherd. Fagen’s fanboy discussions are worth sticking with, though, as he teases out fascinating nuances and connections. He perceives in Boswell, born in the same year as Frida Kahlo, and also disabled, a similar impulse in her singing to “pull apart” her source material, “reorganise its parts and reshape it into something richer than the original”.

It’s interesting to note that McNulty is not of an age that she listened to Steely Dan as they were coming up. As a result, she had to acclimate her ear:

The sound baffled me at first – with its closeted atmosphere, noodly jazz structures, and slightly reedy, elliptical lyrics it sounded like the Eagles reimagined by Woody Allen – but there was also enough to intrigue me and, ultimately, enough to keep me going back to songs for which, like jazz or wine, you eventually develop a taste.

The full review is very sharp, and it’s here.

Biography: Queens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways by Evelyn McDonnell

Though there’s much to like about Evelyn McDonnell’s well thought out and researched biography of The Runaways, the first all-girl, all-teen rock band, Queens of Noise (Da Capo). But what slays me are the might-have-beens.

By rights, more than 35 years after their late 1970s debut, The Runaways should be legends. And like the legendary rock bands that have gone before them, they should be rolling a retirement tour by now, lining their nests while we scream and applaud youthful memories.

The Runaways had the right stuff: contacts, contracts, line up and chops. But though the four years the girls performed together would yield significant success in the US, and substantial attention overseas, the group would ultimately implode under the combined weight of youthful exuberance, personality clashes, too much of a lot of things (drugs, alcohol, etc) and an industry that, in the 70s, seemed designed to be ultimately unhealthy for what would turn out to be a proto Riot Grrrl outfit that set the stage for the glam rock that would follow.

Though history and films have consistently cast The Runaways’ manager, Kim Fowley, as the evil hand that created and then destroyed the group, McDonnell disputes his ultimate sway. Part of that legend might simply have come from what people expect young women to do and create. Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre says it very well in Queens of Noise: “When you hear something like that on a record, I feel like a lot of people are trained to think a full-grown man is doing that. To be able to conceptualize that it’s not a full-grown man, it’s actually a teenage girl doing it -- it changes what is possible for yourself as a girl, as a woman.”

Though The Runaways did not survive either the 1970s or the five bandmates’ approach to adulthood, all but one of band members did survive and even thrive. Joan Jett and Lita Ford would go on to have brilliant solo careers. Cherie Currie turned successfully to the arts, Fox “went to Harvard Law School with Barack Obama and became an entertainment attorney” and her band replacement, Vicki Blue, is now a filmmaker. Drummer Sandy West ended sadly, perhaps the strongest musician among them, died in 2006. After a life of crime and addiction, she was diagnosed with lung cancer while in prison and.

Though McDonnell’s biography of the band occasionally echoes with a sharp feminist trill, it is perhaps not misplaced here. This is a girl’s story. A woman’s story. And the influence this bouquet of teenagers would have on the music scene is perhaps still being calculated. ◊

Sienna Powers is a contributing editor to January Magazine.

Biography: Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas by Eric Fischl

The idyllic suburban childhood was a facade. What appeared like American perfection from the outside was, from inside, a living hell. Eric Fischl’s mother was an alcoholic, their family life often violent and dark. Fischl, thought of as America’s foremost narrative painter, attributes this early duality with the focus of his art:

I began to experience a profound, dizzying sense of disassociation. I became acutely aware of the disconnect between appearance and reality, between people’s emotional needs and desires and the status symbols and objects they surrounded themselves with….I became increasingly aware of the differences between what things looked like and how I felt as my world spun erratically and dangerously off its axis.

Fischl’s art came of age in the turbulent, decadent 80s and in Bad Boy (Crown), the artist spends a fair amount of time with us in New York in that decade of almost violent artistic change: the drugs, the friendships and what it was to be a rising star in that place and time.

Throughout the book, Fishchl’s own words are peppered by sidebars written by friends and family. His wife, celebrated landscape artist April Gornik, painters Ross Bleckner, Julian Schnabel, Bryan Hunt and others, writer/actor Steve Martin and even tennis great John McEnroe, with whom Fischl swapped tennis lessons for painting lessons for many years.

Fischl emerges from this self-portrait as the truly great talent we know him to be. He writes engagingly about his life and his journey as both an artist and a person, while continuing what he calls “the great debate”: What qualifies as art? And, in a way, where does art stop and life begin? “I’ve been searching for a sense of wholeness and belonging all my life,” Fischl writes at one point. “If there’s been any theme uniting the stages of my life and my art, it’s been that theme of redemption -- the recovery of openness, intimacy and trust.” ◊


Linda L. Richards is the editor of January Magazine and the author of several books.

Biography: Official Truth: 101 Proof: The Inside Story of Pantera by Rex Brown and Mark Eglinton

A decade after they were torn asunder, super metal group, Pantera, has more than seven million Facebook fans. Numbers like would be a major feat for an active group, never mind an essentially dead one. And make no mistake, though three of the original four bandmembers are still alive, Pantera is no more, nor will it be. That much is clear from Official Truth: 101 Proof: The Inside Story of Pantera (DaCapo).

Of course, the pivotal moment in Pantera’s story comes near the end. It’s a part that was documented in Zac Crain’s very compelling Black Tooth Grin: The High Life, Good Times, and Tragic End of “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott.

Abbott was the founder of Pantera, an act that seemed as turbulent and fraught as the decade that gave the band its biggest success. Pantera was metal in the age of grunge and they were unapologetic.

What helps give Official Truth its authentic ring is the voice of co-author Rex Brown, the bass player who joined the band in 1982, just a year after the mercurial Abbot brothers put the outfit together. The fact that the voice grates at times is apparent almost from the very beginning. And though he’s earned -- he can walk that walk -- Rex Brown’s rock god arrogance can be a little hard to take.

Though it doesn’t sound like life in Pantera was ever much of a party (other than the very nastiest kind),
in 2004, Darrel Abbot was killed by a deranged fan while he was onstage, putting a dramatic finale on a story that seemed headed for tragedy almost since the very beginning.

Official Truth is a proper rock biography, but it’s not for the faint of heart. Some readers will find it a little too gritty and a little too real and, certainly, the F-bomb gets thrown around sometimes more than one would ever have thought possible. But it’s a portrait, of sorts. And if you ever thought the world of a rock god was sexy and golden, read Official Truth and think again. ◊


Lincoln Cho is a freelance writer and editor. He lives in the Chicago area where he works in the high tech industry. He is currently working on a his first novel, a science fiction thriller set in the world of telecommunications.

New in Paperback: This Is a Call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl by Paul Brannigan

When This Is a Call (DaCapo) came out in hardcover late in 2011 it was well reviewed by critics and fans alike. This is the definitive biography of one of the most important and influential musicians of his era by a rock journalist who was as well-equipped as any who might have bitten off this assignment. This is a Call’s opening lines explain why:

Dave Grohl has just slapped me across the face. It’s the early hours of 20 December 2005, and he and I are in a central London rock bar. Neither of us is meant to be here.

Brannigan goes on to explain his relationship with Grohl and the connections they’ve shared. From a very early point, one gets the feeling that this will be the best sort of bio, containing both respect and meat. And it does.

Despite his punk rock background, Brannigan begins his biography carefully and at the beginning, sketching out all of the characters and influences who would come to impact on future head Foo Fighter, Dave Grohl.

Though there are many intimate details and lots of juicy stories, the portrait of Grohl that Brannigan paints is both careful and sensitive. One gets the feeling that Grohl is that rock and roll royalty rarity: a true talent who has ove the years had all of the crazy and all of the temptation thrown at him and still managed to emerge relatively unscathed. More: as a force and talent still very much to be reckoned with. ◊

Aaron Blanton is a contributing editor to January Magazine. He’s currently working on a book based on his experiences as an American living abroad.

This Just In… I, Win: My Journey as a Disabled Woman Living in a Non-Disabled World by Win Charles

Author Win Charles details her absolutely amazing life in her autobiography, I, Win: Hope and Life, My Journey as a Disabled Woman Living in a Non-Disabled World.

A lifelong sufferer of cerebral palsy, Charles lived her life in a way that many people cannot imagine. Cerebral palsy can affect many areas of a person’s life, such as speech, movement, hearing and seeing.

Despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacle of being a person with cerebral palsy, Win chose to treat life as the gift it truly is. Instead of drowning in her sorrow and wishing she could change the cards that were dealt to her, she instead faced life head on, with vigor and strength of spirit that is rarely found. Inspired by her mother, who was her sole caregiver for twenty three years before she sadly passed away in August of 2010, Win found a reason to make her life both inspirational and moving, not only for others who suffer from cerebral palsy, but for those who don’t, as well.

All too often, people can take life’s gifts for granted. Many people will never know firsthand the trials and difficulties faced by the author. However everyone, everywhere, can benefit and draw courage from her tale of incredible determination against the challenges she faced. Choosing to dedicate the book to her mother, Charles tells her story not only for those who have cerebral palsy, but for others as well, in order to let them inside the world of someone who suffers from this disease.

Extraordinarily touching, powerfully moving, and never less than inspiring, I, Win is a book that will reach the hearts and minds of all readers. No matter their particular difficulties, all can draw inspiration from Win’s sunny and positive outlook on life.

You can order I, Win here. Visit author Win Charles on the web here. ◊


This Just In... is a column that shares basic information on selected titles. Titles are included at the editor’s discretion and on a first come, first served basis. Want to see your new book included? You can see details here.

Best Books of 2012: Non-Fiction

This is the Best Non-Fiction segment of January Magazine’s Best Books of 2012 feature. Also available are our picks for best SF/F, best books for children and young adults,  best crime, mystery and thriller fiction of 2012, in two parts: one and two. As well, here are the best cookbooks of 2012. Still to come: our contributors’ selections of the Best Fiction of 2012. 

Both Flesh and Not: Essays by David Foster Wallace (Little, Brown)
With the verve and bite of 2007’s seminal Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace’s Both Flesh and Not brings together 15 of the author’s finest essays, never before published in book form. For me this collection was bittersweet. This is, after all, the voice of the man A.O. Scott called the “best mind of his generation.” His writing was always sharp and his curiosity seemingly endless. Seemingly because, of course, it was not: Foster Wallace died by his own hand in 2008. And therein lies what, for me, can’t help but be bittersweet: pure brilliance damped by the knowledge that the star has dimmed. It should be noted that, since Both Flesh and Not collects essays from throughout Foster Wallace’s writing life, the book will most likely appeal to readers of a certain age. Here the author comments on the best book of 1994, the best film of 1990 and tennis matches that are mostly not recalled at all. He writes about the conspicuously young crop of writers of 1987 (of which he would have been one) and the sexual armageddon unleashed by heterosexual AIDs. Though the topics will have limited appeal after so much time has passed, the author’s insights and gorgeous prose will not. Also included is a selection from Wallace’s personal vocabulary list. An assemblage of unusual words by a man who loved them. Swanskin, tarn, swage, purlieus, rachis. All of them interesting. All of them reminders of why we miss him so much. -- Linda L. Richards

Darwin’s Devices by John Long (Basic Books)
Robotics viewed through a biologist’s lens, that’s a bit of what Darwin’s Devices: What Evolving Robots Can Tell Us About the History of Life and the Future of Technology boils down to. But with scientific precision from a professor/author with a poet’s soul. It’s all intensely exciting. When you surf along with the author’s engaged and engaging voice, it becomes very obvious that his topic is not rocket science. That is, it’s a new and evolving field, one that he’s championing and one that has been powerful in his own work. What Long does is create an environment where his models and robots can evolve. Not nearly as odd as it sounds. The robots compete against each other for food and other basic survival needs and their responses provide important clues to the evolution of extinct species. Long shares his disappointments as well as his triumphs and he does so in a lucid and sometimes even humorous way. We come away from Darwin’s Devices with the idea that, whatever work Long is doing here, it’s deeply interesting and even important. I suspect that this will not be the final work on this topic, but Long lays the groundwork for a future filled with discovery and adventure. -- Jones Atwater

Falling for Eli by Nancy Shulins (Da Capo Lifelong)
Nancy Shulins’ fantastic personal journey is made all the more powerful by her fierce talent. The twice Pulitzer Prize-contending journalist knows how to tell a story; knows how to bring us along. “Letting go of a dream is a process,” she tells us early in Falling for Eli , “a series of openings and closings of the hand, as you watch the magic dust you’ve been cradling so carefully trickle away in thin streams.” The word “cradle” in this context is, no doubt, a conscious one. In Falling for Eli, we watch Shulins come to terms with the fact that she’ll never have the baby she always longed for. What surprises her, as well as all of those around her, is when the heartbreak she feels at the loss of something she never even had is eased from an unexpected place: when she decides to fulfill a life-long dream by learning to ride a horse. The riding leads her to her own horse, a chestnut gelding named Eli, and we participate in the complex relationship that builds between the two. Like the very best memoirs, Falling for Eli is a wonderful story, but it is also so much more. We are made, in a way, to think about motherhood and how the definitions around it have changed and continue to change. In other ways, it is a story of redemption and even triumph of spirit, as Shulins moves from depression at the realization that she will never give birth to a child, through her transformation as she works through a difficult period of relationship building with her new horse, to triumph as she enjoys a satisfying -- if complicated -- relationship with her 1200 pound “baby.” -- India Wilson

From the Forest: A Search for the Hidden Roots in Our Fairytales by Sara Maitland (Counterpoint)
Published in the UK by Granta as Gossip from the Forest, Sara Maitland’s book is a charming and thought-provoking look at the history and development of our folk stories. Each chapter looks at a different story and how the forest it sprung from shaped the tale we know. This is lyrical, fanciful stuff. As Maitland tells us, “forests are places where a person can get lost and hide -- losing and hiding, of things and people, are central to European fairy stories in ways that are not true of similar stories in different georgraphies.” Regardless of whether you buy what Maitland is positing here, her foray straight to the heart of some of the stories we love best is unforgettable. -- Monica Stark

Gifts of the Crow by John Marzluff and Tony Angell (FreePress)
Few creatures are as misunderstood as the crow. Their black plumage and watchful demeanor can evoke fear and even shadows of future evil. But in reality, contend authors John Marzluff and Tony Angell, in many ways crows are much more like us than most people would care to admit. “The gifts of the crow are physical, metaphorical, and far-reaching,” they write in Gifts of the Crow, setting us up for a journey of stories that demonstrate the almost magical intellect of the crow. This isn’t this authorial duo’s first visit in the corvid world. In the Company of Crows and Ravens (2007) gives a first intimate look at the birds. Gifts of the Crow extends the lessons shared in that work but does not depend on readers having read the first one. Gifts of the Crow is a deeply astonishing book. At the same time, it is also oddly satisfying. Somehow seeing the similarities between humans and crows makes us feel less alone. -- Jones Atwater

Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic’s First-Class Passengers and Their World by Hugh Brewster (Crown)
As the title of this book suggests, the focus here is on those fortunate folk able to book the most luxurious accommodations on the Titanic’s ill-fated, April 1912 maiden crossing from Southampton, England, to New York City. Lily May Futrelle, the wife of American mystery writer Jacques Futrelle (who perished in the sinking), described her first-class shipmates as “a rare gathering of beautiful women and splendid men.” Included in their number were real-estate magnate John Jacob Astor IV and his pregnant 18-year-old wife; tennis player and future Olympic gold medalist R. Norris Williams; Denver socialite and women’s rights champion Margaret Brown; Major Archibald Butt, the military aide to U.S. President William Howard Taft; and silent-film actress Dorothy Gibson. (Financier J.P. Morgan had planned to sail on the Titanic as well, but instead stayed behind with his mistress in France.) Although Gilded Lives relies often on speculation about the shipboard activities of the Edwardian celebrities lost in that maritime calamity, Brewster balances that with his splendid use of first-hand accounts from the survivors -- a much greater percentage of whom were cabin-class passengers than poorer, steerage travelers. Although Walter Lord’s 1955 book, A Night to Remember, remains the standard for Titanic histories, Brewster’s Gilded Lives contributes greatly to our understanding of that tragedy’s human dimension. -- J. Kingston Pierce

Hello Goodbye Hello by Craig Brown (Simon & Schuster)
Of course you know about six degrees of separation. Not the amazing John Guare play of that name, but the idea of it, that we’re separated from everyone on the planet by only six people. One line in the play mentions how wonderful that is, yet also how maddening -- since the trick is knowing which six people. Hello Goodbye Hello takes this idea into an unexpected but fun area: meetings. Craig Brown’s book chronicles 101 meetings between celebrities. He sets the scenes, draws the personalities and shares what the two said to each other. Best of all, each conversation really happened -- and each one is linked to the next (though not always chronologically). This is one string of meetings: Helen Keller and Martha Graham, Graham and Madonna, Madonna and Michael Jackson, Jackson and Nancy Reagan, Reagan and Andy Warhol, and so on. The book begins and ends with meetings involving Hitler, opening with a meeting with John Scott-Ellis and ending with a meeting with the Duchess of Windsor. This amazing book will turn you into the proverbial fly on the wall -- and leave you wanting more, more, more. -- Tony Buchsbaum

I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen by Sylvie Simmons (Ecco)
There were so many singer-songwriters breaking on the scene of the 1960s and ’70s, we took them all for granted -- every Tim, Richie and Harry -- for as long as we wished. Leonard Cohen proved to be a keeper: a Canadian poet and novelist who sang in a somber, spellbinding near-monotone (was this the voice of the common Garden-of-Eden snake?). Cohen is singing still, half a century later; and his 2012 CD, Old Ideas, is (for some of us) the record of the year. Veteran author Sylvie Simmons tells the beguiling saga of L. Cohen at suitable length and with admirable style in I’m Your Man, which follows her poetic pilgrim’s progress from before his 1934 birth and privileged Montreal upbringing up to the present. Versifier, novelist, recording artist, city dweller, island exile, world traveler, ladies’ man, husband, father, monk -- Cohen has played many roles. One virtue of this grand biography is how it finds unifying elements among such a diverse life’s seeming disarray. “Did he tell you about the writing on the wall?” Cohen’s ex-flame Marianne (“So Long, Marianne”) asked his biographer of one of LC’s LSD visions: “It was in gold paint and it said, ‘I change, I am the same, I change, I am the same ...’ I think it was beautiful.” Also fine to behold is the way in which I’m Your Man’s writer arranges the parts of her scrupulously gathered material in a mosaic at once pleasing and recognizable, yet still appropriately ambiguous. Sylvie Simmons proves to be something of a poet herself. -- Tom Nolan

John Quincy Adams by Harlow Giles Unger (daCapo)
No one writes biography quite like Harlow Giles Unger. His last half dozen or so books have brought as many long dead presidents back to something like literary life. I loved 2010’s Lion of Liberty, an action-packed portrait of Patrick “liberty or death” Henry. James Monroe, Lafayette, Noah Webster, John Hancock, George Washington and others all have been breathed to life for us with skill and vigor and Harlow Giles Unger’s well seasoned pen. The first few words of John Quincy Adams illustrate Unger’s skill: in a very few words he tells us everything we really need to know about his subject, introduces the idea of why we should care and teases us to go on. It’s a great ride. -- Aaron Blanton

The Life of Super-Earths by Dimitar Saddelov (Basic Books)
It doesn’t take long for Harvard professor of astronomy Dimitar Saddelov to get down to business in The Life of Super-Earths. The second line in the book: “What is life and how did it come to be?" In a conversational tone, Saddelov sets out to answer that, as well as anyone can. As he points out, “The actual origin of Earth remains as elusive as ever and may well stay that way. After all, it is a historical question that requires knowing environments that are not preserved in the Earth’s geological record.” Even so, Saddelov points out, there are things we can look at -- and other branches of knowledge and science -- that can perhaps bring us closer to understanding. From life here on Earth, it’s a short journey to looking for life in other places. As an astronomer, this isn’t a new thought for Saddelov and, as he points out, “it seems likely that on some of these Earth-like planets, we will find signs of life.” Beyond anything, it seems to me that The Life of Super-Earths is an exploration, both of discoveries and possibilities. As the the sub-title promises: “How the hunt for Alien Worlds and Artificial Cells Will Revolutionize Life on Our Planet.” Considering the nature of the beast -- Saddelov is a scientist, after all -- this subtitle might be a bit of oversell. He is here exploring what is real and what may well be real, after all. Still, this is exciting, thought-provoking stuff. These are the latest and most cutting edge thoughts on that age old question: are we alone in the universe? And perhaps a new wrinkle: If we are alone, will it be for very long? -- Aaron Blanton

Mickey Cohen: The Life and Crimes of L.A.’s Notorious Mobster by Tere Tereba (ECW Press)
Hollywood, from the roaring 1920s to the current day, has always loved making gangster movies. And in the 1940s and ’50s, it had its own real-life hoodlum to scrutinize and lionize: Mickey Cohen, “the King of the Sunset Strip,” a dapper, diminutive mobster who could have been played on the screen by Edward G. Robinson or John Garfield. The newsboy-turned-boxer-turned-crook oversaw criminal activities from his base in an unincorporated stretch of Los Angeles following the 1947 assassination of his former mentor, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. Cohen -- who also owned such legitimate businesses as an ice-cream parlor and a haberdashery -- cut a wide swath through L.A.; and the publicity he received from appearances with such diverse types as Billy Graham and Mike Wallace helped make him a national figure. It was Cohen’s associate Johnny Stompanato who was stabbed to death at Lana Turner’s Beverly Hills home in 1958. When Russia’s Nikita Khrushchev visited Hollywood in 1959 and twitted L.A. police chief William Parker about its “gangster” problem, he was referring to Parker’s nemesis, Cohen. Crime-fiction writers from Ross Macdonald to James Ellroy (who, as a youngster, met this mobster) found inspiration for stories in Mickey Cohen. Singer-songwriter Warren Zevon’s gambler father, “Stumpy” Zevon, once worked for Mickey. First-time author Tere Tereba does a notable job telling Cohen’s story -- warts, wounds, sleaze and all. Her well-researched chronicle should put to rest forever the notion that organized crime is somehow glamorous, while allowing readers (to quote another Sunset Strip figure, Jim Morrison) one last “wallow in the mire.” -- Tom Nolan

Modern Furniture: 150 Years of Design edited by Fremdkoerper (H.F. Ullmann)
In 2012 more than any other year it was easy for me to select the book that had the most impact on me and that I could not do without in my collection.  Even though Modern Furniture: 150 Years of Design is an update of a well known (in design circles) classic, to me it remains one of the most important design books every time it is reissued. And for good reason. In essays and photos it looks back over the 150 years of the modern design era. The essays are far-reaching and published in French, German and English (not as confusing as it sounds!) and cover every aspect of modern furniture design. But what makes this an impossibly great resource are the photos. They are chairs, almost one per design year, beginning with  the 1867 Demonstration Chair probably designed by August Thonet. What will most startle those unfamiliar with Modern furniture is how contemporary the real classics still appear. If you’ve never seen Josef Hoffman’s Kubus from 1910, for example, nothing will prepare you for what will likely strike you as classic 1970s lines. And everyone is familiar with Ludwig Mies van deer Rohe’s Barcelona Armchair -- by sight if not by name. However many people are startled when they realize it was designed for exhibition in the German Pavilion at the 1929 World’s Fair, held in Barcelona. It’s also interesting to page through the really terrific and well-documented photos and observe which designers and firms have had the most influence over the years. Again: Modern Furniture: 150 Years of Design is an important and well-excuted book. My bookshelf will never be without it. -- David Middleton

Reinventing Bach by Paul Elie (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Paul Elie’s memorable first book, The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage (2003), was a group-portrait of four people linked by a common creed (Catholicism). In a way, the author follows that same pattern in Reinventing Bach, a hefty, ever-readable study of how a musical oeuvre composed nearly 300 years ago survived into the present, shaping and being shaped by genius interpreters. The organist-humanist Albert Schweitzer, cellist Pablo Casals, conductor Leopold Stokowski, pianist Glenn Gould, cellist Yo-Yo Mama: all receive pocket-biographies chronicling their personal and professional devotion to Johann Sebastian Bach. Arching over all is the figure of the composer himself, whose story is parceled out according to this book’s structural needs. But many other performing artists, writers, commentators, producers, technicians, theorists -- the author, too -- appear on the pages of this engrossing study, which shows Bach’s seemingly eternal power to inspire, instruct, console. Like one of Bach’s own works, Elie’s text unfurls, repeats, works variations and returns to the root -- all in sentences often as graceful as his main subject’s musical lines. “Certainly, Bach envisioned that his music would be made by musicians other than [those of his own time],” Elie writes near the end of this work. “Surely he envisioned that his music would be taken up for other instruments, some known to him and others freshly invented ... But did he envision that his music, in time, would be ‘played’ by people who could not sing or play a musical instrument, would be ripped and remixed and mashed up, and would withstand the process, even thrive through it? Could he have envisioned the digital present? He could, and he did.” -- Tom Nolan

The Southern Journey of Alan Lomax: Words, Photographs and Music by Tom Piazza (Norton)
The year 1959 was a sort of annus mirabilis in American music. Advances in recording technology helped produce an abundance of noteworthy jazz LPs (from Dave Brubeck’s Time Out to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue). German jazz-scholar Joachim Berendt and Los Angeles photographer William Claxton made a historic road-trip throughout America, documenting jazz music at its sources. And the legendary folklorist Alan Lomax, fresh from a multi-year European sojourn, returned for two months to the American South, photographing and recording white and black rural musicians with new, high-quality stereophonic equipment. Lomax had been a groundbreaking cultural historian for decades, first with his father, John, and then on his own. Together or separately, the Lomaxes advanced the reputations of such seminal figures as Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Jelly Roll Morton and Muddy Waters. Alan Lomax’s importance to the course of American and world vernacular music can hardly be overestimated. Songs he gathered in the 1930s fueled an American folk-music movement -- as well as showing up in such concert-music as Aaron Copland’s Rodeo. Programs he produced for the BBC launched the 1950s skiffle craze in England, out of which grew the British rock scene of the 1960s. His recordings of Spanish music more than influenced Gil Evans’ and Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain LP. And his New York City apartment in the early ’60s was an open-house graduate-seminar for such budding artists as Bob Dylan. Lomax’s 1959 Southern hegira was perhaps his last great adventure. Tom Piazza (and, in an introduction, William Ferris) provides the text and context for Lomax’s simple, powerful photographs; a 12-track CD gives highlights from the trip’s 80 hours of field recordings. “Most civilizations have to wait to be buried before being dug up,” Piazza writes. “Lomax did the spade work in real time ... looking for music that hadn’t been commodified ... [H]e had good luck and great instincts, and he was able ... to record some of the last of a breed ...” -- Tom Nolan

Steven Spielberg: A Retrospective by Richard Schickel (Sterling)
This was bound to happen sooner or later, and I’m just happy it’s happened now. Someone has seen fit to write an in-depth look at the films of Steven Spielberg. Richard Schickel, onetime film critic at TIME magazine, has taken an exhaustive look at the director’s career, from his childhood and the little 8mm films he made, all the way through last year’s War Horse and a peek at this year’s Lincoln. I said exhaustive -- not exhausting. Spielberg: A Retrospective is a magnificent volume, stuffed with photos and insightful essays about the films and how they were made. Included, of course, is a great wealth of interview material, all of it original with the author, much of it created for this book (the rest of based on past conversations between the two). I found myself lost in these pages for a good while, and that was, I know, just the beginning. As I find with the man’s films every time I see one (and then see it again), I know I’ll find much more to discover every time I open this wonderful look at one of the best filmmakers Hollywood has produced. -- Tony Buchsbaum

Working the Dead Beat by Sandra Martin (Anansi)
Award-winning journalist Sandra Martin has been working the dead beat at the Globe and Mail for many years. It’s a beat Martin has loved, despite less than enthusiastic reactions from those she encounters. As she writes in the very moving Working the Dead Beat, “I’ve grown accustomed to the arched brow, the flash of revulsion, the involuntary step backwards, and the exclamation, ‘But that’s so morbid’ when I tell people what I do for a living.” In her book, Martin shares the obituaries of 50 prominent Canadians who died between 2000 and 2010. In her introduction, Martin remarks that obituary writing has been transformed in the period covered in the book. “Once the preserve of the rich, the noble, and the worthy, obituaries now encompass scoundrels as well as saints, eccentrics as well as celebrities.” As well, Martin writes, “There is a new frankness, an unwillingness to camouflage warts under layers of unctuous hyperbole.” Martin has written hundreds of obituaries for the Globe. More. So choosing 50 for inclusion in the book was a challenge. She writes that she “tried to cover a range of occupations, achievements, locations, and aspirations. Most of all, I wanted to write about individuals whose stories moved me and whose lives said something larger about the country and our collective history.” Included are Martin’s portraits of Pierre Trudeau, Jane Jacobs, Pierre Berton, Maurice “the Rocket” Richard, Oscar Peterson, Jane Rule and Mordecai Richler. For a book that at first seems entirely focused on death, Martin gifts her subjects with a real and lasting life. Working the Dead Beat is a beautiful book. -- Linda L. Richards

Biography: John Quincy Adams by Harlow Giles Unger

No one writes biography quite like Harlow Giles Unger. His last half dozen or so books have brought as many long dead presidents back to something like literary life.

I loved 2010’s Lion of Liberty, an action-packed portrait of Patrick “liberty or death” Henry. James Monroe, Lafayette, Noah Webster, John Hancock, George Washington and others all have been breathed to life for us with skill and vigor and Harlow Giles Unger’s well seasoned pen. The first few words of John Quincy Adams (Da Capo) illustrate Unger’s skill: in a very few words he tells us everything we really need to know about his subject, introduces the idea of why we should care and teases us to go on:

He served under Washington and with Lincoln; he lived with Ben Franklin, lunched with Lafayette, Jefferson, and Wellington; he waked with Russia’s czar and talked with Britain’s king; he dined with Dickens, taught at Harvard, and was an American minister to six European countries. He negotiated the peace that ended the war of 1812, free the African prisoners on the slave ship Amistad, served sixteen years in the House of Representatives, restored free speech in Congress, led the antislavery movement…… and …He was the sixth President of the United States.John Quincy Adams was all these things -- and more.

Interestingly, if one moves from this concise beginning to the first line of the first chapter, one gets a more dramatic reading:

“Mr. Adams!” the old lady shrieked. “You’re embarking under very threatening signs. The heavens frown, the clouds roll, the winds howl, the waves of the sea roll upon the beach.”

As the country rolls towards election, looking over our shoulder can be an interesting -- and sometimes even helpful -- exercise. And, as usual, Harlow Giles Unger delivers some of the best. ◊

Aaron Blanton is a contributing editor to January Magazine. He’s currently working on a book based on his experiences as an American living abroad.

New in Paperback: Truth Be Told by Larry King

Those who enjoy Larry King’s odd style and eclectic guest list as well as his acerbic and slightly off-the-wall approach will have no trouble getting into Truth Be Told, new in paperback from Weinstein Books this month.

The subtitle summarizes: Off the Record about Favorite Guests, Memorable Moments, Funniest Jokes, and a Half Century of Asking Questions. And, truly, King really has asked a lot of questions over the last 50 years!

Enjoyably for his readers, King is the ultimate name-dropper. “When I interviewed President Obama…” King says at one point. “No interview was quite like Brando’s” he says at another and “Gaga told me she’s constantly thinking of unique ways to shock and annoy people,” he says at another still. If you’re looking for big, dark insights on the many, many people King has interviewed, you won’t find them here. Rather, these are chirpy observations and friendly anecdotes and -- somehow? -- that’s just right. ◊

Aaron Blanton is a contributing editor to January Magazine. He’s currently working on a book based on his experiences as an American living abroad.

Biography: Paris in Love by Eloisa James

Paris in Love (Random House) is a book about living the dream. The fact this it was penned by a writer of talent and intense charm makes spending a year in the city of love with her and her family both sweet and remarkable.

In a single week in November, I missed up immanent with imminent, paramount with tantamount, and soup with soup. I addressed my friend Philip as “Paris,” and I put a roll of paper towels in the dishwasher, rescuing it in the nick of time. In the middle of the night, I came to the stark conclusion that my brain must be dying.

With a serious medical diagnosis forcing her to take a good look at her life, professor and New York Times bestselling romance novelist Eloisa James quit her job, sold her house and dragged her family to Paris for a year. While there, James participated and observed, her eyes sharp and her heart open. It’s a lovely journey.

This morning I dropped Anna off at school, then walked across the Siene on a lavishly gilded bridge. The wind was fiercely chilly, but the sky bright blue, and the way the sun shone on the river and danced over all that gold leaf opened a door straight from winter to a slice of spring.

Paris in Love is comprised of snippets from James’ Twitter feed, updates from Facebook as well as longer essays about all aspects of James and family’s Paris year. The resulting book is part travel guide, part diary and -- inexplicably -- part letter from a friend. ◊

Monica Stark is a contributing editor to January Magazine. She currently makes her home on a liveaboard boat somewhere in the North Pacific.