Author of SIMA'S UNDERGARMENTS FOR WOMEN featured in Shelf Awareness

As the excitement mounts over next month's publication of Sima's Undergarments for Women , Shelf Awareness featured a Q&A with the author, Ilana Stanger-Ross, in today's Book Brahmin piece:

Ilana Stanger-Ross grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. She holds an undergraduate degree from Barnard College and an M.F.A. from Temple University and is currently a student midwife at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine. She has received several prizes for her fiction, including a Timothy Findley Fellowship, and her work has been published in Bellevue Literary Review, Lilith magazine, the Globe and Mail and the Walrus magazine, among others. Her new novel, Sima's Undergarments for Women, is a February Overlook Press publication.

On your nightstand now:
I covet a nightstand. But on the floor between my bed and my bedroom door is a more or less upright stack of books, including John Updike's Pigeon Feathers, Tony Horowitz's A Voyage Long and Strange, Wayne Johnston's The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and Maureen Freeley's Enlightenment. I read a few of the Updike stories while watching my daughters in the bath the other night, and they're incredibly rich and almost unbearably sad. The others are all still in the good-intention stage.

Favorite book when you were a child:

If I'm Lost, How Come I Found You? by Walter Olesky. It's hard to pick one favorite, but that was the first chapter book I read on my own. It was a Christmas gift from my second grade teacher--we all were given one book to read over the holidays, and I chose that one out of the grab-bag. I loved it. I no longer remember the plot other than it involved a lost child and some heartwarming adventures, but I do remember the enormous sense of pride in reading a chapter book entirely on my own.

Book you've faked reading:

Oh, I don't fake. But I have perhaps let on that I liked certain experimental books more than I did. Barthes comes to mind. Also Moby Dick--I skipped the whaling detail parts.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Tell Me a Riddle by Tillie Olsen. If you haven't read it--go read it right now. Now. It's a slim novella--you can be through it in an hour, easy, though you'll want to sit and savor it if you can. There's an Alice Walker blurb on my paperback edition. She writes, "Every time I read Tell Me a Riddle it breaks my heart." I can't say it better.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Vox by Nicholas Baker. I was in seventh grade and found myself drawn to the hot-pink cover. Or maybe that's just the excuse I gave myself after devouring the first few pages in the chain bookstore near my junior high. Pretty shocking material for a seventh grader--the hot pink meant something on that one.

Book that changed your life:

Our Bodies, Our Selves by the Boston Women's Health Collective. As a 13-year-old at summer camp, I pored over it along with all the other pre-teen campers. It was my first introduction to women-centered care, healthy sexuality, queer-positive thinking, etc. I'm currently studying to be a midwife, and I can trace my interest in women's health at least in part back to those bunk bed study sessions.

Favorite line from a book:

In To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Ramsay is trying to remember a poem. And the line she remembers, which apparently comes from a poem written by a not particularly well-regarded poet Woolf knew, is "And all the lives we ever lived, and all the lives to be, are full of trees and changing leaves." Isn't that lovely and true? I first read To The Lighthouse in high school, and that little rhyme has stayed with me. (Though, like Mrs. Ramsay herself, I am forever doomed to not remember the rest of the poem.)

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. I read it over a few days while sitting in a rocking chair in our Toronto apartment, my then-infant daughter Eva asleep across my lap. I loved the novel and couldn't put it down, but more than just the wonder of that story I want to revisit the moments during which I read it: winter outside, warm inside, my first baby (now four) asleep against me, and nothing to do but rock and read the most wonderful adventure.

DARWIN SLEPT HERE Reviewed in Outside Magazine

Darwin Slept Here: Discovery, Adventure, and Swimming Iguanas in Charles Darwin's South America, by Eric Simons, is reviewed in the new issue of Outside: "February marks the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin and, naturally, he publication of a slew of new books about him. But while most--like the fine, brainy Banquet at Delmonico’s, by Barry Werth—portray the naturalist as an earnest, white-bearded thinker, journalist Eric Simons celebrates a refreshingly different Darwin: a twenty-something traveler fond of hurling iguanas into the sea and charging up any tall peak he could find. With copies of The Voyage of the Beagle in hand, Simons headed for South America, retracing parts of his famous 1831 trip and doing what Darwin did when he wasn’t studying finches: riding with Argentinean gauchos, hunting rheas and ogling senoritas. “There’s a danger in labeling someone as a genius; it makes them inaccessible,” Simons writes. “But Darwin the person—well, he was a lot like us.”

Milton Glaser's DRAWING IS THINKING: "A Deep Exploration Into the Mind of One of Our Greatest Artistic Minds"

Milton Glaser's provocative new book Drawing is Thinking is reviewed by Creative Contact: "Twenty-five years after the publication of Milton Glaser: Graphic Design, the longest-selling design book in publishing history, Glaser took a stance with Art Is Work, a collection of his design work that shunned the conceptional and steered toward the process; brilliantly displayed in sequences showing the path a design takes from infancy to completion. In Drawing is Thinking, the follow up to Art is Work, the focus is, somewhat, back on the process, linking the physical act of drawing to the unconscious of the artist, akin to the act of automatic drawing the Surrealist artists practiced at their epoch. Glaser sees it, in the introduction stuffed into the beginning of this “meditation,” as an approach to “looking at the world without judgment and allowing what is in front of us to become understandable. Art, in fact, may be the best way we have to experience truth or what is real.” He seeks truth not only through drawing, but narrative as well. While most retrospective works focus on a chronological or stylistic time-line, Glaser would rather organize his work here rather randomly; letting narrative, or rather, multiple narratives, form and branch off in directions toward the unknown. And it works. In his apparent scrap-book method he denies giving us a narrative to follow, because he would be foolish to pretend he knew what said narrative was. Following his theory of meditation through assemblage of work, there is no reason why his narrative needs to be the same as ours. If art can be interpreted in any number of ways, why should the artist bother laying down the official set of blueprints for us to track when we can draft our own? Well, if the last sentence seems a tad bit naive, don’t be nervous. I don’t fully believe it myself. Much of conceptional art is built on this kind of foundation, and I agree that it can be helpful, even essential at times. And in a way, if Glaser did not let us know in the beginning that he wanted us to forge our own path through the terrain that followed, who’s to say we would have gone along and done it ourselves? He gives us a formula to follow, and it so happens to be that the formula is open ended. But these qualms, in hindsight, seem unnecessary: I found the path I followed a rather enjoyable one, unexpectedly. As a fan of Glaser’s design work, I was not ready for what seemed at first sight a glorified sketchbook, and what became, at the finish line, a deep exploration into the mind of one of our greatest artistic minds."

THE DARKROOM OF DAMOCLES Named Finalist for Best Translated Book of the Year

The Darkroom of Damocles, by Willem Frederik Hermans, has been named one of the ten finalists for the Best Translated Book of the Year by Three Percent. This classic novel is widely considered one of the great masterpieces of post-war literature, and Hermans (1921-1995) is also the author of Beyond Sleep, also published for the first time in the U.S. by Overlook. Before devoting his entire life to writing, Hermans had been teaching Physical Geography at the University of Groningen for many years. He had already started writing and publishing in magazines at a young age. His polemic and provocative style led to a court case as early as 1952. In his novels and stories, Hermans places his characters in a world of certainty for themselves but equivocal for the reader. It is in this field of tension that the intrigue in De tranen der acacia’s (Acacia’s Tears, 1949) and in De donkere kamer van Damocles (The Darkroom of Damocles, 1958) develops. Although stories such as Moedwil en misverstand (Malice and Misunderstanding) and Paranoia have a surrealistic tendency, Hermans’ novels The Darkroom Of Damocles, Nooit meer slapen (Beyond Sleep), Uit talloos veel miljoenen (From Countless Millions) are more realistic or satirical and everything in his rich oeuvre is subordinate to the author’s pessimistic philosophy."

SMOGTOWN Co-Author Chip Jacobs on President Obama's Auto Emission Policy

Chip Jacobs, author of Smogtown with William J. Kelly, takes part in a New York Times roundtable online, discussing President Obama’s decision to allow states to enact anti-global warming auto emission standards stricter than federal rules: "On Nov. 2, 1967, when Obama and I were both little kids, California became the first ever to win the authority to ramp up anti-smog standards, and there was jubilation from Sacramento to Santa Monica. Today, those standards, which many others have copied around the world, have helped make California cars 99 percent cleaner than they used to be. You would’ve figured the American automakers would’ve embraced the message Californians sent. You might’ve thought they would’ve done what the Japanese car makers did: start building cleaner cars cleaner from the production lines up. For all that, Ford, G.M. and Chrysler apparently heard a different tune, and perhaps the distress they’re in now is another word for karma."

Ilana Stanger-Ross's SIMA'S UNDERGARMENTS FOR WOMEN in The New York Post

Sima's Undergarments for Women, by Ilana Stanger-Ross, is reviewed by Sarah Weinman in The New York Post: "Hidden beneath the red and orange brick two−story homes of Boro Park, Brooklyn, is Sima Goldner's basement lingerie shop, where for 35 years she has practiced the mystic art of finding and fitting just the right brassiere for all types of women. In a glance she could see their size, the back and the cup combined. 36−D, she'd say. In vain the women protested, 'but I'm a 34. I've always been.' (But) when on her advice they slipped back on their shirts to evaluate the shape a new bra gave, they inevitably agreed." So, too, will readers slip into Brooklyn native Ilana Stanger−Ross's debut novel, finding something both comforting and uplifting. Sima's life looks enviably stable, with her successful business, her tight−knit Orthodox community and her decades−long marriage to Lev. But Sima herself is very much an outsider: "no one gathered at her table for Shabbat dinner, no one caught her up on the gossip outside synagogue on Saturday." And her marriage has lasted years, but it comes with a sense of emptiness and crippling distance as Lev repeatedly chimes, "I didn't notice you were gone." Then a young, vivacious Israeli named Timna blows into her shop, sticks around as a salesgirl and proves to be the catalyst that will reveal the gaping wounds bubbling underneath Sima's placid exterior."

Peter Quinn's Letter to President Barack Obama in America Magazine

Peter Quinn, author of Looking for Jimmy, Banished Children of Eve, and Hour of the Cat, offers an open letter to President Barack Obama in the current issue of America magazine:

"I have not had higher hopes or greater expectations for any president since John F. Kennedy. You are every bit as intelligent, articulate and capable as he was. You seem wonderfully agreeable and genuinely decent. Your call for a new era of bipartisanship is admirable. You have set out an ambitious agenda that includes rescuing the economy, undoing the free-market idolatry that resulted in ruinous deregulation, reversing arrogant and self-defeating unilateralism in the conduct of foreign affairs, repairing the decades-long neglect of our infrastructure, instituting sane, long-range environmental protections and achieving universal health care. But do not be deceived. Great presidents must take on powerful enemies as well as tackle great crises. Lincoln had the Copperheads. Franklin D. Roosevelt had the "economic royalists.'' You will have yours, too. Sooner or later, as day follows night, the diehards will set out to frustrate any process of significant change. Be resolute. Be tough. Stick to your beliefs. Markets were made for man, not the other way around. Free enterprise is a guide, not a god. The world is now and forever interdependent. No country or society can go it alone. The environment is our home; it is not for sale. The poor will be with us always; and as always, the poorest and most vulnerable will need our help. With malice toward none, Mr. President, but with firmness to do what is right, remember you cannot make everyone a friend. Partisanship is not pleasant. But there are times when it is necessary. Sometimes a measure of a president's success is the vehemence of the enemies he makes.

-PETER QUINN, a novelist and essayist, was the speech-writer for two New York governors.

Celebrate ROBERT BURNS Birthday with Rosemary Goring's SCOTLAND: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Early birthday greetings go out to the great Scottish poet Robert Burns, who turns 250 on Sunday, January 25. In Rosemary Goring's recent account of Scottish history, Scotland: The Autobiography, she includes both the famous review by Henri Mackenzie of Burns's first collection of poems in 1786, and Sir Walter Scott's account of his meeting with Burns in 1787.

SIMA'S UNDERGARMENTS FOR WOMEN Featured in Lilith Magazine

Get a sneak preview of Ilana Stanger-Ross's brilliant first novel, Sima's Undergarments for Women, in the current issue of Lilith Magazine (Winter 2009). Already drawing widespread praise, Sima's Undergarments for Women is a unique and meaningful reading experience. Set in a Brooklyn basement bra shop, this debut novel explores a secret New York sisterhood where women of every shape and creed can come to share their milestones, laughter, loves, and losses. On sale February 5!

THE BALLAD OF BLIND TOM Reviewed in Publishers Weekly

Deirdre O'Connell's riveting biography of Blind Tom Wiggins earns praise from Publishers Weekly: "O’Connell recounts the engaging story of slave prodigy, entertainment sensation and national curiosity Blind Tom (1849-1908). The son of slaves, Tom displayed early musical acuity and a fierce attachment to his owners’ family piano, amazing onlookers with his ability to emulate music, dialog and sounds in nature; from age five, Tom was entranced by storms, which he could perfectly mimic, and later was able to play two tunes at a time with his back to the keyboard. Classified as an idiot, yet possessed of remarkable skills (including the ability to perform odd athletic feats), Tom’s 40-year career enriched his owners and managers, especially as the effects of war and the opening of northern venues broadened Tom’s audience (which included famous commentators like Mark Twain). Tom himself, of course, would struggle under the control of others his entire life, culminating sadly in a debilitating, career-ending stroke. O’Connell’s vivid, carefully researched narrative reflects the tenor of the times, the culture of the Old South, the chaos of emancipation and Blind Tom’s single-minded devotion to his performances."

Charles Freeman's A.D. 381 in Library Journal

Charles Freeman's A.D. 381: Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State gets a glowing notice in the current issue of Library Journal: "Freeman's exceptional book is a continuation and refinement of his The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason, in which he argued that the alliance of the Roman Empire with the Christian Church in the fourth century C.E. closed down a vibrant tradition of intellectual and religious toleration. The critical point was in the titular year when Emperor Theodosius I banned disagreement over the nature of the Trinity, making religious dissent a state crime for the first time. Theodosius's action was unfortunate, argues Freeman: proponents of the Nicene Creed (i.e., that the three parts of the Trinity were coequal in substance) could find little support in the Bible for their position; debate on the question was still lively. In the next century, Augustine nailed the lid on discussion with his forceful dismissal of reason: all articles of faith were above discussion. A.D. 381 is a well-argued and -documented study of the rise of the monotheistic state in the late Roman Empire and its aftereffects. Of the many excellences in Freeman's book, not least are the eloquence, grace, and subtlety of argument with which he presents his case."

THE LOLITA EFFECT Author M.Gigi Durham on "X-Rated America"

Professor M. Gigi Durham, author of The Lolita Effect, contributes a provocative essay on sex and pornography on college campuses in the current issue of The Chronicle Review.

"Last year," writes Durham, "the American Psychological Association convened a task force on the sexualization of young girls; the ensuing report documented the lasting harm done to girls by a culture in which they are constantly positioned as sexual objects. Worldwide, child pornography and child sex trafficking are burgeoning industries. Real-world sexual violence against women is almost epidemic."

Milton Glaser's DRAWING IS THINKING Featured in O, The Oprah Magazine

Milton Glaser's Drawing is Thinking is featured in "The Reading Room" column in the February issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. The full-page is illustrated with Glaser's pen and ink drawing from 2000, "Portrait Study." The images in Drawing is Thinking represent a sweeping range of subject matter taken from the full range of Milton Glaser's legendary career. They represent the author's commitment to the fundamental idea that drawing is not simply a way to represent reality, but, as the title suggests, a way to understand and experience the world.

New in Paperback: GREEK FIRE, POISON ARROWS, and SCORPION BOMBS

New in paperback this month is Adrienne Mayor's lively study of biological and chemical warfare in the ancient world, Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs. Featuring a new introduction by the author, this exploration of the origins of biological and unethical warfare draws extraordinary connections between the mythical worlds of Hercules and the Trojan War, the accounts of Herodotus and Thucydides, and modern methods of war and terrorism.

R. Scott Bakker Introduces New Series with THE JUDGING EYE

Releasing to bookstores next month (on-sale date February 19) is the long awaited new novel - and first in a new trilogy -The Judging Eye: The Aspect Emperor, Book One.

"R. Scott Bakker burst onto the epic fantasy scene with his masterpiece trilogy, The Prince of Nothing, which remains to this day a landmark of the genre and, dare we say it, of contemporary literature too. The Judging Eye is the long-awaited continuation of the original series, dealing with the impending Second Apocalypse twenty years after the end of The Prince of Nothing trilogy…Full of absolutely brilliant vignettes…The Judging Eye is a must-read that will not only appeal to fans of R. Scott Bakker’s brilliant Prince of Nothing trilogy, but also new readers wanting to see what all the fuss is about.” – FantasyBookCritic

Lydia Raurell's YEAR OF DANCING DANGEROUSLY in Palm Beach Daily News

A profile of Lydia Raurell, author of A Year of Dancing Dangerously, has splashed across the pages of the Palm Beach Daily News. Lydia's inspiring journey to become a ballroom dancer is documented in this new book, which also includes full-color photography, dance tips, and a complete listing of amateur dance competitions. A Year of Dancing Dangerously was also reviewed this week in Story Circle: "This inspirational and educational book, beautifully written by a dancer who is also a writer, will motivate anyone who reads it. . . Anyone who has a dream will be encouraged by Lydia's effort, determination, and courage."

Tito Perdue's FIELDS OF ASPHODEL Featured on "BookMark"

Don Noble, host of "BookMark" on Alabama Public Radio and professor at the University of Alabama, offers a thoughtful review of Tito Perdue's Fields of Asphodel: "Tito Perdue, retired on the family property in Brent has been writing for 25 years, with critical but not much popular success. At the end of Perdue's fourth volume of fiction, the protagonist, Leland "Lee" Pefley, dies at age 73. On the first page of Fields of Asphodel, Pefley, who always introduces himself as Pefley, the Alabama branch, wakes up in the afterlife, in the underworld, but not exactly the Christian heaven or hell or purgatory. . .The inhabitants of the Asphodelian Fields wander like pilgrims, essentially aimlessly. In his wanderings, Pefley, like the others, moves from desert to seaside to surrealistic cityscapes. His wanderings would be pointless, like everyone else's, except that Lee has a quest. His greatest virtue as a living person was as a loving and faithftil husband to Judy, his petite wife who had preceded him in death. Pefley's wanderings then become a quest for Judy, and give his afterlife some meaning. He is an old-fashioned romantic, a Quixote, and worships his Judy. Along the way, Perdue has a good deal of fun with the punishment centers Pefley discovers in the Meadows of Asphodel. More predictably, the punishment for the idle rich is to have molten gold poured down their gullets. This is practically a classic. The harmful rich — those who gained wealth by injuring others — and publishers, are in Tartarus, being punished in ways too gruesome to view. Pefley is essentially a libertarian. He is an individualist but hates greed, excess, and yuppies. He has read thousands of books, as he will tell you proudly, but loathes postmodernism in literature and theory in literary criticism. If there was a perfect, a heavenly time for Pefley it would not be the late 20th century, but around 1890 to 1910, where the three Graces of our day — Atrophy, Entropy and Anomie — did not reign. Pefley is also a stickler for the correct even the most Latinate or Hellenic of language, and the style of Fields of Asphodel is a highly literate, idiosyncratic diction. Perdue is not afraid to mention stromatolites (rock formations) or atrabilious clouds and walk on. This is a smart novel, a thoughtful novel and, obviously, an odd one—and, for this critic, a nice palate-cleanser from the usual Southern fare."

P.F. Kluge's GONE TOMORROW Featured in The Weekly Standard

David Skinner takes a look at Gone Tomorrow, the new novel by P.F. Kluge in The Weekly Standard: "P.F. Kluge is an accomplished writer with a number of good books under his belt. Eddie and the Cruisers, which is being reissued by Overlook Press, is a delicate work about the jagged soul of rock 'n' roll music and the type of introverted writer who wants nothing more than to be its amanuensis. Biggest Elvis was another rock 'n' roll novel, an often riveting take on the U.S. military pullout from the Philippines, the exporting of American culture, and the adrenaline rush of stage performance. So Kluge remains affectionate toward the pop culture of his youth, but he has filed more than a few complaints about the kids of today. A professor who teaches writing and postwar American literature at Kenyon, he's used his perch in Gambier, Ohio, to observe and criticize the coddled American college student, whom he suggests would be much better off if his behind were kissed less often by administrators with dollar signs in their eyes and U.S. News & World Report rankings where their hearts used to be. Such thinking--in Alma Mater, his book on the life of a liberal arts college, and a rather tough essay entitled "Camp Kenyon" that appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education--has made Kluge a magnetic and yet crotchety character at the school of which he is both a critic and an old friend. . . Gone Tomorrow is thoroughly pleasurable: a solid academic comedy; a moving consideration of what it means to join a community and say, despite reservations, Here is Where I Belong; and a warm thank-you note to writers famous and forgotten for the reader's reward of a good lean book."

Charles McCarry on the CIA in The Wall Street Journal

Legendary espionage novelist Charles McCarry offers his view on today's CIA in the Saturday op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal. McCarry, author of eleven novels and eight nonfiction books, served for a decade overseas as a CIA agent. This April, Overlook will release a hardcover edition of Shelley's Heart, a masterful political thriller set in Washington DC.

Celebrate the Birth of the King with THE ELVIS ENCYCLOPEDIA

Today is the birthday of Elvis Presley - and Elvis fans, many of whom are gathering this morning at Graceland, are celebrating the King's birthday all over the world. Elvis was born on January 8, 1935 at 4:35am in Tupelo, Mississippi. For a comprehensive account of this day in the life of Elvis Presley, check out The Elvis Encyclopedia.

Overlook Preview: THE REPUBLIC OF VENGEANCE by Paul Waters

New this month is an extraordinary debut novel set in the classical world of Rome and Greece, The Republic of Vengeance, by Paul Waters.

This remarkable story is a tale of a young man's pursuit of his father's murderer and of the values and qualities he develops that will make him a man. More than a historical adventure, The Republic of Vengeance explores timeless questions of freedom, right, duty, and love. On sale in bookstores on January 20.

Early praise for The Republic of Vengeance:

"With its restrained, elegant and poetic tone, The Republic of Vengeance brings to mind Mary Renault. The ancient world has a new and insightful spokesman in Paul Waters."- Margaret George, author of The Memoirs of Cleopatra

This is a rare treat – a truly convincing historical novel. I’ve waited ages for something this good to come along, and this debut instantly brings to mind one name – Mary Renault."- Sue Baker, Publishing News

"Ancient Greece has claimed more than its fair share of outstanding historical novelists - Naomi Mitchison, Mary Renault, Rosemary Sutcliff, William Golding - and Classicist Paul Waters deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as they. Altogether a most powerful and promising debut."- Paul Cartledge, author of Thermopylae and The Spartans.

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ABRAHAM is a "Time-Transcending Experience"

Library Journal offers a glowing review of In the Footsteps of Abraham: The Holy Land in Hand-Painted Photographs: "Looking at these 180 mesmerizing photographs is a time-transcending experience. They succeed in evoking the Holy Land of centuries ago. Only occasional images (like the stylish attire of Jewish women and children at the Wailing Wall) bring the viewer back from the poverty and daily toil associated with traditional ways of living. The photographers of the Matson Photo Agency of Jerusalem's American Colony took these pictures in the early 20th century, and Ari Speelman, a Dutch Christian enthralled with the Holy Land after visiting, ordered 1200 lantern slides (on glass plates) to be hand painted for shows throughout Holland before World War II. Authors Hardiman (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) and Speelman, an artist and granddaughter of Ari Speelman, relate the engrossing story of the Christian expatriate American colony. The book focuses on landscape views of geographical areas related to biblical verses (e.g., the Jordan River and the Dead Sea) and on the people, including Muslims and Bedouins. Because it documents a part of the world to which people of different faiths relate, this is recommended for all."

Remembering Book Soup's Glenn Goldman

We are deeply saddened by the news from Los Angeles that Glenn Goldman, founder and owner of the legendary Book Soup in Hollywood, passed away on Saturday. Glenn was a bookseller extraordinaire, fiercely dedicated to independent publishing, and a great supporter of The Overlook Press. David Ulin, book editor of the Los Angeles Times, offers a fond farewell on the Times blog.

CARRY ON JEEVES and the Famous Hangover Cure

Time magazine notes that P.G. Wodehouse assigned a hangover cure to his most famous fictional creation, Jeeves, the estimable butler famous for his bracer of Worcestershire sauce, raw egg, and pepper. "Gentlemen have told me they find it extremely invigorating after a late evening," he explained to a red-eyed Bertie Wooster in the 1916 short story, Jeeves Takes Charge, which appears in the Carry On Jeeves volume of the Collector's Wodehouse. And the foodie website, Serious Eats, also comments on the cure: "Jeeves confronts Bertie's wretching hangover with his magic potion: raw egg, Worcestshire sauce, and red pepper. As Jeeves puts it: It is the Worcester sauce that gives it its colour. The raw egg makes it nutritious. The red pepper gives it its bite. Gentlemen have told me they have found it extremely invigorating after a late evening."