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December 17, 2005
Of course there's no time to read right now, but how about over the holidays? Browse through some of our new books on the Relax & Read shelves and you'll probably find something of interest.
Non-Fiction
Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis by Jimmy Carter
Carter offers a personal consideration of "moral values" as they relate to the important issues of the day. He puts forward a passionate defense of separation of church and state, and a strong warning of where the country is heading as the lines between politics and rigid religious fundamentalism are blurred.
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman
The first book in history to examine breakfast cereal, reality television, tribute bands, Internet porn, serial killers, and the Dixie Chicks. Klosterman has an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and a seemingly effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter. Whether deconstructing "Saved by the Bell" episodes or the artistic legacy of Billy Joel, the symbolic importance of The Empire Strikes Back or the Celtics/Lakers rivalry of the 1980s, Chuck will make you think, he'll make you laugh, and he'll drive you insane -- usually all at once.
Also new to the shelves:
Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash by Elizabeth Royte
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
Wild Ducks Flying Backward: The Short Writings of Tom Robbins
Fiction
Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan
A provocative new novel from the bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and The Bonesetter's Daughter. On an ill-fated art expedition into the southern Shan state of Burma, eleven Americans leave their Floating Island Resort for a Christmas-morning tour -- and disappear. Through twists of fate, curses, and just plain human error, they find themselves deep in the jungle, where they encounter a tribe awaiting the return of the leader.
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
A Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is an Englishman abroad and a long-suffering professor at a liberal New England arts college. He has been married for thirty years to an American woman who no longer resembles the sexy activist she once was. Their three children passionately pursue their own paths: Levi quests after authentic blackness, Zora believes that intellectuals can redeem everybody, and Jerome struggles to be a believer in a family of strict atheists. Faced with the oppressive enthusiasms of his children, Howard feels that the first two acts of his life are over and he has no clear plans for the finale.
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
One of fiction's most audaciously original talents, Gaiman now offers a mythology for a modern age complete with dark prophecy, family dysfunction, mystical deceptions, and killer birds. Not to mention a lime.
Also new to the shelves:
The Mercy of Thin Air by Ronlyn Domique
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
Short Story collections of interest
Best American Mystery Stories 2005 edited by Joyce Carol Oates
Best American NonRequired Reading 2005 edited by Dave Eggers with an introduction by Beck
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