Most people have at least one reader to buy for this holiday
season. Here are some ideas for a variety of interests
Reviewed and compiled by the Christian Science Monitor
Non-Fiction
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century
– by Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $24.95)
In his third book on global trends, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman describes the leveling process taking place across planet Earth, driven by new technology and software. Friedman’s analysis is simple, practical, and rich in insight.
BLINK: THE POWER OF THINKING WITHOUT THINKING
– by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, $23.95)
New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell decodes the science of rapid cognition in this work in which he analyzes snap judgments – the split-second decisions we so often make with only the subtlest of clues.
WHEN COMPUTERS WERE HUMAN
– by David Alan Grier (Princeton University Press, $35)
nonfiction (cont.)
For two centuries before the development of computers, there was a class of workers – mostly women – who served as the human drudges of mathematical calculation. This book tells their stories.
Fiction
THE HA-HA
n by Dave King (Little, Brown, $23.95)
With this story of a mute Vietnam vet suddenly asked to care for a 9-year-old boy, King creates a strangely lovable hero.
MY JIM
– by Nancy Rawles (Crown, $19.95)
Nancy Rawles takes the brief mention of the wife of Jim, the runaway slave in “Huck Finn” and from that richly invents the life and love of a remarkable woman.
PEARL
– by Mary Gordon (Pantheon, $24.95)
In this provocative novel, political extremism becomes a stark reality to a mother when her daughter – who has been studying in Ireland – begins a hunger strike.
A LONG LONG WAY
– by Sebastian Barry (Viking, $24.95)
This Booker prize nominee employs beautiful language to tell the horrifying tale of life in the trenches of World War I.
TILTING AT WINDMILLS
by Julian Branston
(Shaye Areheart Books, $23)
A witty, modern novel created as a companion to Cervantes’s grand classic “Don Quixote.”
MISS LEAVITT’S STARS
-by George Johnson (Atlas Books/W. W. Norton, $22.95)
This biography of Henrietta Swan Leavitt tells the life story of an exceptional example of a human computer (see review above). Leavitt worked at the Harvard University Observatory in the 1880s, and although largely forgotten today, discovered the calculations required to measure the galaxy and map the universe.
HIS OLDEST FRIEND: THE STORY OF AN UNLIKELY BOND
– by Sonny Kleinfield (Times Books, $24)
This lovely tale of an unlikely friendship between a nonagenarian and the teenager hired to keep her company first appeared in The New York Times. Times reporter Sonny Kleinfield fills the story out beautifully in the book-length version.
fiction (cont.)
In this provocative novel, political extremism becomes a stark reality to a mother when her daughter – who has been studying in Ireland – begins a hunger strike.
A LONG LONG WAY
– by Sebastian Barry (Viking, $24.95)
This Booker prize nominee employs beautiful language to tell the horrifying tale of life in the trenches of World War I.
TILTING AT WINDMILLS
– by Julian Branston (Shaye Areheart Books, $23)
A witty, modern novel created as a companion to Cervantes’s grand classic “Don Quixote.”
Children’s
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE
– by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic, Inc., $29.95)
No list of the top books of the year would be complete without mentioning Book 6 in the Harry Potter series. This story is perhaps the darkest of the tales about the child wizard, but the series maintains all of its original enchantment even as Harry continues to inch his way toward manhood.
GIRLS IN PANTS: THE THIRD SUMMER OF THE SISTERHOOD
– by Ann Brashares (Delacorte Press, $16.95)
The third book of this series finds the four young heroines getting ready to leave home for college. The magic here comes not from the special jeans these girls share but from the characters and the author.
Sports
The Last Coach: A Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant
– by Allen Barra (W.W. Norton, $26.95)
In Alabama “Bear Bryant” was as good as royalty. This new biography examines the life and achievements of one of college football’s most-winning coaches.
THREE NIGHTS IN AUGUST
– by Buzz Bissinger (Doubleday, $25)
Tony LaRussa, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, tells his own story to Buzz Bissinger as he focuses on a pivotal August 2003 series between the Cardinals and their despised arch rivals the Chicago Cubs. It’s a tale full of baseball lore and a good deal of humanity as well.
Music
LIKE A ROLLING STONE: BOB DYLAN AT THE
CROSSROADS
– by Greil Marcus (PublicAffairs, $25)
In a sometimes hyperbolic but sincere paean to Bob Dylan’s masterpiece “Like a Rolling Stone,” music writer/historian Greil Marcus chronicles what it was like to be alive that summer and how it felt to hear that song for the very first time.
ROOM FULL OF MIRRORS: A BIOGRAPHY OF JIMI
HENDRIX
– by Charles R. Cross (Hyperion, $24.95)
Flashy, raucous, sad – Jimi Hendrix’s brief life was all of the above, but it was also seminal to music history. Charles R. Cross’s biography of Hendrix does not break new ground but does skillfully illuminate the details of Hendrix’s career.
poetry
DELIGHTS & SHADOWS
– by Ted Kooser (Copper Canyon Press, $15)
A sense of wonder and compassion runs through this Pulitzer Prize-winning volume of verse by America’s poet laureate. Kooser’s poetry is understated yet manages to skillfully illuminate the small moments of life.
SEARCH PARTY: COLLECTED POEMS
– by William Matthews (Mariner Books, $15)
This posthumous collection of Matthews’s best work is occasionally coarse, with some poems intended to shock, but it is also filled with subtlety and depth.
Mysteries
THE LINCOLN LAWYER
– by Michael Connelly (Little Brown, $26.95)
No, he’s not as honest as Abe – he just happens to drive a big Lincoln Town Car. But Mickey Haller, defense attorney and latest creation of bestselling thriller writer Michael Connelly seems destined for success. This book is a smooth read, with some especially good courtroom scenes.
IN THE SHADOW OF THE LAW
– by Kermit Roosevelt (Farrar Straus and Giroux, $24)
This intricate, intelligent legal thriller is a debut novel for Kermit Roosevelt who’s also a law professor and a former Supreme Court clerk. (And yes, he’s one of those Roosevelts.) It tells the tale of three young law firm associates working to defend a chemical plant against a class action suit.
A SLIGHT TRICK OF THE MIND
– by Mitch Cullin (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $23.95)
This portrait of Sherlock Holmes after World War II is perhaps more of a character sketch than a mystery. But fans of Holmes will enjoy getting one more glimpse of the master, now 90, living with his housekeeper and her son.
Religion
IN THE DOORS OF THE SEA: WHERE WAS GOD IN THE TSUNAMI?
– by David Bentley Hart (Eerdmans, $14)
When the tsunami pounded southern Asia last December, David Bentley Hart tackled the title question, first in a Wall Street Journal article, and then later fleshed out in book form. It’s a slim volume but a penetrating read, raising questions perhaps not frequently enough included in the public debate.
PRAYER: A HISTORY
– by Philip and Carol Zaleski (Houghton Mifflin, $29.95)
These two Smith College professors offer a thoughtful, probing look at prayer. They trace its presence throughout time and across cultures and seek to distinguish between different types of prayer. The book manages to shy away from advocacy even while offering a sensitive and respectful treatment of its topic.
