AARP The Magazine and Publishers Weekly have teamed up to let you know about the latest fiction, nonfiction, and lifestyle/self-help of interest to you. Once you've checked out the selections below, visit Publishers Weekly's
fiction and nonfiction pages for reviews, author Q&As, and more.
FICTION
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The Little Book
By Selden Edwards (Dutton, $25.95)
Edwards began writing this, his first novel, in 1974. It’s a time-traveling epic that takes a man from 1988 San Francisco to the 1897 Vienna of Freud and Mahler, and ends up being a sweet, wistful elegy to the fantastic promise and failed hopes of the 20th century.
Something to Tell You
By Hanif Kureishi (Scribner, $26)
A middle-aged London psychoanalyst dogged by a crushing secret and a long-burning torch for his first love narrates Kureishi’s brilliant spin through contemporary adulthood, fraught as it is with regret, hope, and a bit of insanity.
Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me
By Martin Millar (Soft Skull, $13.95)
Millar’s nostalgia trip back to the days of feathered hair and bell bottoms tells the story of a mildly fictitious young Millar whose life is forever altered by a Led Zeppelin concert. It’s like being there, minus the acid.
Man in the Dark
By Paul Auster (Holt, $23)
Auster’s back with another cryptic hall-of-mirrors tale, this one featuring an aging book critic whose imagined characters come to life and set out to assassinate him. This dark, serpentine story weaves together politics, nostalgia, and a bit of domestic drama.
The Bordeaux Betrayal
By Ellen Crosby (Scribner, $25)
Wine lovers will enjoy Crosby's third mystery set in Virginia’s vineyard country and the oenophilic supper at Mount Vernon featuring a prize bottle of Bordeaux that Thomas Jefferson supposedly bought for George Washington.
NONFICTION
Hippocrates’ Shadow: Secrets from the House of Medicine
By David H. Newman, M.D. (Scribner, $26)
An emergency-room physician reveals some of the less savory aspects of medical care—the scant time physicians spend observing their patients; the dubious benefits of certain treatments; the imprecision of X-rays, EKGs, and symptom interpretation; and how little physicians are trained—or inclined—to communicate honestly with patients. A page-turning eye opener.
The Dictator’s Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet
By Heraldo Muñoz (Basic, $27.50)
Muñoz had a front-row seat for both the short-lived government of Chile’s Salvador Allende and its overthrow by Augusto Pinochet. In a shrewd but balanced account, Muñoz assesses Pinochet from the leader’s position as head of the moderate left that opposed the dictator’s regime.
Epilogue: A Memoir
By Ann Roiphe (HarperCollins, $24.95)
In poignant flashes of everyday moments and memories, Roiphe tells an unflinching and unsentimental story of widowhood's stupefying disquiet, of surviving her husband’s death and living on.
The Letters of Allen Ginsberg
Edited by Bill Morgan (Da Capo, $30)
The Beat icon’s entire life—from his literary efforts to his experiments with LSD—is on display in more than 3,700 letters to fellow poets, journalists, and politicians, ranging from Jack Kerouac to Ezra Pound to Bill Clinton.
Ghost Train to the Eastern Star
By Paul Theroux (Houghton Mifflin, $28)
Reprising the itinerary of his 1975 The Great Railway Bazaar (with a detour around Iran and Afghanistan into the Central Asian republics), Theroux, now in his 60s, focuses an astute and entertaining eye on the transformation of Asia over the intervening decades.
LIFESTYLE/SELF-HELP
Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers
By Karyl McBride (Free Press, $24)
According to the author, as many as 1.5 million American women have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), which can be detected by their self-absorption, inability to empathize, and their fixation with looks and appearance. McBride presents specific steps toward recovery that daughters of any age can use as they grieve for the love and support they didn’t receive, set healthy boundaries with their mothers, and access an “internal mother” as a source of self-comforting.
Energy Medicine: Balancing Your Body's Energies for Optimal Health, Joy, and Vitality (updated and expanded)
By Donna Eden with David Feinstein (Tarcher, $17)
Eden has been conducting workshops and lectures for 30 years on the ancient practice of healing the body via its own energy systems. She explains that by keeping these energy systems balanced and flowing, one can help prevent illness, promote well-being, aid the body in self-healing, and get better results from traditional medicine.
The Migraine Brain: Your Breakthrough Guide to Fewer Headaches, Better Health
By Carolyn Bernstein, M.D. and Elaine McArdle (Free Press, $25)
Bernstein, a neurologist, approaches the reader as she might a patient—“creatively, scientifically, and sympathetically”—offering a range of tactics and treatments to help migraine sufferers control and mitigate their pain.
Olives and Oranges: Recipes and Flavor Secrets from Italy, Spain, Cyprus, and Beyond
By Sara Jenkins and Mindy Fox (Houghton Mifflin, $35)
Although many chefs and cookbooks find inspiration in the culinary traditions of the Mediterranean, this appealing, beautifully photographed tome by Jenkins (chef of New York City’s Il Buco and Mangia restaurants, and the recently opened Porchetta) and Fox (editor of La Cucina Italiana) synthesizes a rich mix of regional styles while adding fresh ideas.
Branding Only Works on Cattle: The New Way to Get Known (and drive your competitors crazy)
By Jonathan Salem Baskin (Business Plus, $26.99)
Baskin debunks branding as an outmoded marketing strategy in this sharply written book that presents persuasive research and case studies of branding campaigns (Burger King, Pepsi, Gap, Starbucks). His argument is provocative and goes to the very root of what does (and doesn’t) influence consumer choices.
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