Summer Reading: Penny Vincenzi's Classic Trilogy "The Spoils of Time"

Penny Vincenzi has just released a new novel The Best of Times, published by our friends at Doubleday, that is sure to be a summer bestseller. One of Britian's best-loved and most popular authors since her first novel was published in 1989, Penny Vincenzi has sold over four million books worldwide. Introduced to American readers by The Overlook Press, Penny's beloved backlist titles continue to find new readers. Coming this Fall from Overlook is Windfall, and a new paperback, An Outrageous Affair. For summer reading, we recommend Penny's classic Lytton family trilogy - "The Spoils of Time" - beginning with No Angel, followed by Something Dangerous and Into Temptation.

New in Paperback: TODAY I WROTE NOTHING: THE SELECTED WRITINGS OF DANIIL KHARMS

Now available in bookstores is the long-awaited paperback edition of Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil KHARMS. Daniil Kharms has long been heralded as one of the most iconoclastic writers of the Soviet era, but the full breadth of his achievement is only in recent years, following the opening of Kharms' archives, being recognized internationally. In this brilliant translation by Matvei Yankelevich, English-language readers now have a comprehensive collection of the prose and poetry that secured Kharms’s literary reputation—a reputation that grew in Russia even as the Soviet establishment worked to suppress it.

More Praise for Joe Bennett's WHERE UNDERPANTS COME FROM

Foreword Magazine reviews Joe Bennett's rollicking and informative tour through China in Where Underpants Come From?

"What do we know about China, the enormous nation that will most likely dominate the next century? Already most of us are clothed by China, shod by China, supplied with hardware by China, effectively in debt to China. And yet most of us know very little about China, the author writes. With this query in mind, and a new $2.99 pair of mens underpants in hand, Joe Bennett sets out to learn about world trade by finding the origins of his made-in-China knickers . . . Often, the book's ostensible purpose-mapping the path from the manufacture to the shipping of a pair of mens shorts-is merely a vehicle for Bennetts detailed descriptions of people and places. The chaotic traffic, the chess and spitting in the park, chopstick lessons in a restaurant-Bennett brings China to the page. No detail escapes his attention or his wry humor: In the communal dining room a much older woman squats in the corner like a refugee. She is shaving vegetables over a blue plastic bucket with a cleaver that would bring gasps from a jury. As the book progresses, not one but three cultural gulfs emerge. The first is the vast lack of knowledge the average Westerner has about the Middle Kingdom and the resulting Chinese xenophobia. The second is no less sobering: the communication barriers between the average Joe and the huge corporations that dream up, order, manufacture, and transport all of our stuff. The third is the tension between the Uighurs of northwest China and the ruling Chinese.

This is a richly written book; Bennett threads his narrative through detailed description of his surroundings and concise, and at times, refreshingly frank accounts of Chinese history and political and economic development. He shows us heedless taxi drivers, giggling waitresses, and Swiss businessmen eager to make their fortunes. The history of Chinese writing, corruption, the odd gathering of expatriates, the mass migration of the Chinese out of rural provinces and into cities, and the pollution that hangs over everything-its all here. . . By turns philosophical and hilarious, Bennett keeps moving toward a hopeful conclusion about the meaning of his experience: Everything I have ever heard or read about this country stressed its difference. But a few trivial merry minutes in a middle-of-the-road restaurant on a damp Wednesday evening in Shanghai have stressed its similarity. These people are people. What's more they are easy-going people, people who like to laugh and people who dont consider a restaurant meal to be an exercise in isolation, formality or social pretension. While the Chinese have good reason to mistrust foreigners, Bennett believes that continued trade will continue to break down barriers between people. With Bennett as our guide, and with the benefit of his ability to map the humor and humanity of any situation, we are in good hands."

THE POETRY AND LIFE OF ALLEN GINSBERG in The Electric Review

Just reissued in paperback, The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg, is reviewed in The Electric Review: "Ed Sanders is a brilliant writer with a deeply original imagination – a man with the rare ability to synthesize thought into bite-sized chunks so that it can be easily absorbed into the dank cold buried crevices of the mind. Here, Sanders is able to capture the full breadth of Ginsberg’s epic life in fine detail, weaving the ‘life and times of Allen Ginsberg’ into a swift-rolling narrative poem that brings us back to the best elements of the late bard. Who else but the enigmatic Sanders would have the guts to write a biography in such sprawling form, using the non-structure of poetry to illuminate the sweet essence of the poet? This book is a true ‘page-turner’ from start-to-finish and serious students of the Beat era will find it indispensible." ~John Aiello

Deirdre O'Connell, author of THE BALLAD OF BLIND TOM, Interviewed on The Book Show

Deirdre O'Connell, author of The Ballad of Blind Tom, Slave Pianist, recently appeared on The Book Show with Linda LoPresti of Australian Public Radio to talk about the lost musical genius. Click here to download the show.

This critically acclaimed biography of Blind Tom Wiggins has received worldwide attention since its publication last year. Stay tuned for more news and events - author Deirdre O'Connell will make several appearances in the New York area in November.

Terry Golway's WORDS THAT RING THROUGH TIME in Booklist

Coming this Fall is Words That Ring Through Time: The Fifty Most Important Speeches in History and How They Changed Our World. Edited by historian and author Terry Golway, this superb new collection is reviewed in the August 1 issue of Booklist: "Selected and introduced by historian Golway, the historically significant speeches in this anthology either crystallized a philosophy or addressed war, revolution, or national liberation. Prefacing them with the immediate contexts of their delivery, Golway permits the words to speak for themselves, without much analysis of their rhetorical arrangement. Readers are immediately immersed. . . Also includes a Barack Obama speech, possibly the first collection to confer consequential significance to his oratory."

Summer Reading: P.G. Wodehouse's GALAHAD AT BLANDINGS

Book reviewer Mary Whipple offers a critique of P.G. Wodehouse's Galahad at Blandings, just released in Overlook's beloved Collector's Wodehouse series: "In this ninth of his eleven Blandings Castle farces, P. G. Wodehouse brings a large cast of mostly repeating characters to Blandings Castle in Shropshire, where their adolescent behavior, their misplaced values, and their obliviousness to real issues in a real world, allow Wodehouse to create gentle but pointed satire of the British upperclass, of which he himself was also a member. Written in 1965, but set in 1929, this novel, like all Wodehouse writing, is timeless in its ability to capture the silly, the petty, and the laughable in complex and hilarious plots in which numerous misunderstandings occur because characters refuse to be honest with themselves and with each other. Wodehouse selects perfect, absurd details to describe these characters as they engage in perfectly outrageous actions, as he encourages readers from all walks of life to laugh with those whom “society” considers to be “upper” class. . . The action is fast and furious, with one complication following another. The humor is obvious and very visual, with silly characters behaving much the way they do in the earliest TV sitcoms or Marx Brothers movies. Wodehouse’s sense of timing and his fine grasp of his characters, many of whom repeat throughout the series, keep readers amused and feeling as if they are reading about the escapades of old friends who don’t quite “get it.” A delightful entertainment which allows Wodehouse to tweak upper-class pretensions and values, which he has seen up close in his own life, Galahad at Blandings is fun to read for the pictures it conjures of a much earlier time and place."

Suzanne Brøgger’s THE JADE CAT in Publishers Weekly

Suzanne Brøgger's acclaimed novel The Jade Cat is reviewed in Publishers Weekly: "Brøgger’s lively and insightful novel chronicles the fates of the Jewish Løvin family as they endure the tragicomic events of the 20th century and adhere to patriarch Max’s injunction: “Thou shalt be a personality.” Forging an identity, however, becomes complicated when the family is torn apart by war and forced to abandon its religious identity and nationality. Although the novel expands its breadth by including anecdotes about even the most minor players, the narrative’s emphasis is on three generations of women—strong-willed Katze; her daughter, Li, who comes of age during WWII; and Li’s eldest daughter Zeste. Hypocrisy, particularly with regard to gender-appropriate sexual conduct, is a major issue for all three, though each fares badly in the battle of the sexes. Attitudes toward Jewish identity—animosity, denial, ambivalence—also provide a common link among the stories. Brøgger offers readers a powerful, personal account of rapidly changing times through the lens of a family whose comedies, tragedies and absurdities are magnified by historical context and whose contemporary descendants provide a glimpse of a more hopeful future."

Another Rave for Kris Saknussemm's PRIVATE MIDNIGHT

P.P.O. Kane reviews Private Midnight, the acclaimed novel from Kris Saknussemm on The Compulsive Reader: "As an all-lights-blazing tour of one rogue cop’s interior hell, Private Midnight makes for a compelling psychological thriller. It is best seen, though, as a synthetic remolding of the crime novel, rather than a wholly original take on it. The ‘cult of woman’ or Fem Dom aspect is implicit in much hard-boiled fiction and many noir films (perhaps Hitchcock’s Vertigo, above all) . . . There is an old movie called The Seventh Victim, which like Private Midnight combines elements of detection and the supernatural. It ends with a woman, dressed for life and laughter, stepping out into the night. That is what we see. Yet what we hear is the sound of a chair falling – which is, as we know from previous frames, the sound of another less fortunate woman stepping off it and into a noose. We next hear the words, ‘I run to death and death meets me as fast. And all my pleasures are as yesterday.’ It is a stunning ending: elegiac, joyous, strange and perverse. Private Midnight has something of this same contradictory, impossible-to-process-all-at-once quality. Read it."

Allan Tannenbaum's NEW YORK IN THE 70s: Pictures from the Exhibitions

Allan Tannebaum, award-winning photojournalist and author of New York in the 70s, was recently honored at the Not Fade Away gallery by the New York City Councilmember Alan Gerson with a proclamation for outstanding service to the community through his photography. For a spectacular tour of Allan's recent exhibitions at in New York, Los Angeles and London, click here.

Joe Bennett Talks to Urbanatomy About WHERE UNDERPANTS COME FROM

Alana Filipovich reviews Where Underpants Come From on Urbanatomy: "If you read only one China book this year, make it Joe Bennett’s Where Underpants Come From. Bennett does witty travelogue better than Bill Bryson, and dissects what makes countries and their economies tick better than PJ O'Rourke did in Eat the Rich. The book’s premise in ingeniously simple – it’s basically an undie hunt, a quest to track a pack of Y-fronts from Chinese cotton fields to department store in Bennett’s adopted home of New Zealand (where the Englishman is a well-known newspaper columnist). It’s witty as hell, and filled with informed insights as to what makes the New China tick. As Bennett says in the book's intro: “There are plenty of better-informed books about China, but I suspect this is the only one to begin with a pair of underpants.” Actually, Bennett is pretty well informed for someone who spent only a short time here and his insights are sager than many a so-called China expert. No surprise that the book scooped the grand prize at the seventh annual Whitcoulls Travcom Travel Book of the Year Award.

Urbanatomy caught up with Joe Bennett for this chat...

Why underpants? That is, how'd you come up with the idea of writing the book?
I bought some underpants and then started to think about them. It was genuine curiosity sparking a simple idea. And that simple idea seemed to me to expand into a lot of stuff that mattered.

How has writing the book changed your own attitude towards China? Towards underpants? Towards underpants, not one bit. Towards China, hugely. The country has gone from being a vague and mildly threatening mystery, to somewhere I have become very fond of, a place full of people who are simply people, and with both a history and a future that interest me a lot. It was an education.

Do you think following the trail of underwear around Asia gave you an accurate portrayal of culture and commerce? Would you recommend 'Underpant Travel' to other tourists? I'd recommend people to go to China, certainly, but there's no reason for them to follow pants. Whether I've gained and written a fair picture of China, well, i would like to think so, and several people who live there have written to me to say kind things, but in the end it's for readers to judge whether I've got it right. I do, of course, realise that there are vast swathes of this vast country that I haven't been anywhere near. But then again, nor have most Chinese.

What was the best moment of your trip? The worst? You seem to have handled the language barrier with good grace, but did you have any especially frustrating moments? Hard to pick out a best moment. But I do keep coming back to a night in a Shanghai restaurant early on when I suddenly realised that the Chinese were just people like me, with different customs perhaps, but with the same essential humanity. As regards the language, I was frustrated by the characters, as I explain in the book. I found them so hard to memorise. And that in turn made it hard for the spoken language to stick. I would have greatly liked to be able to converse more freely with people in bars and restaurants and public places. In the business world most people spoke enough English.

You write about how a few Chinese people strove to befriend you, even joining you for dinner uninvited. In the book, the locals seem to be either exceedingly friendly or largely indifferent. Please give us your take on Chinese people. Did you face any adverse reactions at all? Yes, some were friendly, some indifferent. In general, as I've said, I don't think one can generalise. I've travelled a fair bit and pretty well everywhere I've been I've met a similar mix of friendliness and indifference. It's human make-up rather than any racial or national characteristic. And offhand I can remember no active aggression from anyone, apart from from the street vendor in urumqi and I think she'd got hold of the wrong idea about me. I felt sorry for her.

Finally, what kind of underpants do you wear?
I wear, am wearing now, exactly the sort of ordinary cheap briefs I describe in the book. Always have.

A DANGEROUS LIASION in New York Post's Page Six

Leave it to Page Six of The New York Post to uncover the most salacious bits of information on the intimate lives of Jean-Paul Sarte and Simone de Beauvoir, the subject of A Dangerous Liasion by Caroline Seymour-Jones:

Famed French existentialist Jean-Paul Sarte had a lifelong affair with philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, but was turned off by her voracious sex drive, a new bio reveals. "Sartre was bewildered by the sexual demands made of him, which he found impossible to meet," writes Caroline Seymour-Jones in A Dangerous Liasion, out in September.

Finally available in the U.S., A Dangerous Liasion is a compelling and fascinating account of what lay behind the legend that this brilliant, tempestuous couple created. Moving from the corridors of the Sorbonne to the cafés of Paris’s Left Bank, we discover how the strikingly beautiful and gifted young Simone DeBeauvoir came to fall in love with the squinting, arrogant, hard drinking Jean-Paul Sartre. We learn about that first summer of 1929, filled with heated debates that went on long into the night, sexual rivalry and betrayal, and the dangerous ideas that led people to experiment with new ways of behaving. We hear how Sartre compromised with the Nazis and fell into a Soviet honey-trap. Thanks to recently discovered letters written by the avowed feminist DeBeauvoir, Seymour-Jones reveals the darker, more dangerous side to their philosophy of free love, including Simone’s lesbianism and her pimping of younger girls for Jean-Paul in order to keep his love.

New in Paperback: Maureen Freely's ENLIGHTENMENT

The Cleveland Plain-Dealer takes note of the new paperback edition of Enlightenment by Maureen Freely as it hits bookstores this month: "Freely, best known as an English translator of Orhan Pamuk's books, ties together a post-9/11 story that stretches back to a group of radical Turkish and American students who come together in Istanbul in the 1970s. Split up by political and social betrayals, two group members are brought together more than 20 years later in Istanbul when the husband of one is detained by U.S. Homeland Security. The St. Petersburg Times acknowledged that "the book gets too complex in trying to connect its many strands. However, Enlightenment is an important work. At a time when the European Union is seriously considering granting Turkey membership, the poor democratic and human rights record of the nation, which comes through in this book, should make European leaders wary." The Washington Post thought Freely's novel was overwhelming in its attempt to be "a psychological thriller, a murder story, a rumination on friendship and a political investigation." The paper's reviewer noted that "'Enlightenment' may be too long and, at times, too opaque to win the audience it deserves, but it is a brave, unflinching work of art" with "a story almost impossible to summarize but hard to forget. It's remarkable for its descriptions of the city (Istanbul) as it was in the 1970s and as it is now, after the breakup of the Soviet Union has released so much energy around the area. Freely is an almost perversely original writer, sharply observing the world she knows so well and upending all one's suppositions and assumptions."

More Praise for Dilip Hiro's INSIDE CENTRAL ASIA

Author and historian Dilip Hiro's new book, Inside Central Asia, offers an invaluable overview of some of the most interesting, and misunderstood, countries in the world: Uzbekistan, Turkemenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikstan, Turkey, and Iran.

Dow Jones Newswire notes: "The nations of Central Asia are often referred to as "the Stans," a shorthand term that implies obscurity and exoticism at the same time. The region falls through the cracks between the Middle East, Russia and South Asia; there are few well-known"Central Asian studies" programs in Western and Asian universities; and "Kazakh" and "Uzbek" are words that sound more like punchlines than actual languages and cultures with long, fascinating histories. When a newsworthy event from the region happens, experts hurry to the cable-news networks, and then the region sinks back into oblivion. Dilip Hiro's new book is an attempt to remedy that situation. An update to his 1995 volume Between Marx and Muhammad, Mr. Hiro's Inside Central Asia chronicles the 20th-century history of the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia, and brackets them with chapters on Turkey and Iran for context. A newcomer to Central Asia will find Mr. Hiro's book an approachable introduction that is free of both academic jargon and cultural stereotypes. . Mr. Hiro provides good coverage to all the issues, as well as to the political history of the period just before the breakup of the Soviet Union, which is crucial for understanding how the region ended up the way it did."

Max Frei's THE STRANGER in the California Literary Review

Ed Voves of the California Literary Review takes a look at The Stranger by Max Frei: "Imagine that you are meeting a person for the first time in a distant land. Deferring to local custom, you hold a hand over your eyes and say in greeting, “I see you as though in a waking dream.” If this arcane ritual strikes a familiar note with you, then there are two possibilities. You are either a resident of the mysterious realm of Echo or you have read Max Frei’s fantasy novel, The Stranger. The second scenario is the more likely. The Stranger is a translation of the first of a wildly popular series of novels from Russia. By turns serious and screwball, it combines sly, sometimes campy, humor with a yearning for personal insight and a good day’s sleep. The Stranger is an episodic quest set in a parallel universe, in which a Sherlock Holmes-Dr. Watson duo combat malign magicians and search for the perfect restaurant. . . . The Stranger is a hugely enjoyable mix of madcap mirth and fantastical adventure. Hold a hand over your eyes and say magic words and perhaps you too will glimpse the wondrous realm of Echo “as though in a waking dream.”

Starred Review in PW for THE ALCHEMASTER'S APPRENTICE by Walter Moers

Publishers Weekly has given the new Walter Moers novel The Alchemaster's Apprentice a starred review in next week's issue: "Moers’s elegantly written fourth stand alone comic fantasy set in Zamonia (after 2008’s The City of Dreaming Books) takes us to the city of Malaisea, where everyone is sick except for two characters: Echo, a Crat (a talking cat, more or less), and Ghoolion, an evil alchemist likely responsible for Malaisea’s afflictions. Crat and alchemist cross paths when the starving Echo is offered a month of food, entertainment and alchemical secrets, after which Ghoolion will kill him to boil down his fat. Ghoolion proves a magically masterful chef, and Echo quickly becomes fascinated by Ghoolion’s work, particularly the morphic meals that seem to transform Echo into different creatures. Secrets are revealed, old bodies unearthed and strange allies made in this entrancing tale of darkness, determined survival and incredibly luxurious cuisine."

Marilyn Powell's ICE CREAM: THE DELICIOUS HISTORY Now Available in Paperback

New in paperback and just in time for those hot summer days is Marilyn Powell's Ice Cream: The Delicious History. In this informative and entertaining volume, we are taken on an exotic journey from the old world to the new, from ice harvesting in ancient China to birthday celebrations in the age of Louis XIV to ice cream cones painted by Andy Warhol in the twentieth century. It’s a story filled with history, adventure, myth, and intriguing facts about ice cream. Containing illustrations, anecdotes, and famous recipes, Ice Cream will delight ice cream lovers around the world.

Joe Bennett's Astonishing WHERE UNDERPANTS COME FROM in Bookstores Everywhere

Joe Bennett's new travelogue, Where Underpants Come From: From Checkout to Cotton Field: Travels Through the New China and Into the New Global Economy, is reviewed by Nicolette Westfall in Feminist Review: "It's absolutely astonishing to realize how much junk people in North America consume only to throw away. Most of it is from China. When I started to read Where Underpants Come From, I picked up various objects in my office--from the mechanical pencil I write with to my iPod--and I discovered that yes, everything had been made in China. Author Joe Bennett, who is based in New Zealand, does a fantastic job of describing his experience of traveling to that far off land to discover the process of how his cheap underpants were manufactured. The idea is absurd, but he runs with it anyway. China is the cheapest bidder on manufacturing most of the convenient items we consume at an exhausting rate. It comes as no surprise that the giant nation is, as a result, driving its peasant labor force for meager wages and polluting the air, land, and water at an even faster rate. Statistics aren't necessary; just take a look at the dirty grey-brown clouds of smog that hover over Chinese cities. Bennett does more than observe the grainy air; he physically visits various places in China to see for himself what the industrial giant has created in order to keep the Western materialist appetite satisfied. It isn't pretty, but his encounters are often humorous. As other journalists (such as Anderson Cooper, in the Planet in Peril series) have pointed out, China's bid to create the cheapest industrial production of everything from underpants to machinery is creating environmental destruction on an astronomical level. Chinese citizens are also just as disposable. When I was a little girl (in Canada) during Mao's time, I became interested in not only American Vietnam War veterans, but in the Vietnamese and Chinese soldiers who--as the National Geographic displayed them--were left rotting in dilapidated vet hospitals. Bennett's descriptions of countless health and safety hazards and substandard machinery show that while Mao may have died in 1976, the view that Chinese workers are easily replaceable has not. Bennett's account gets past the stats and much-repeated talk of China as an economic giant. He offers readers glimpses into people's lives. He goes where the Chinese won't--places like Urumqi south, where Muslim populations exist--and tries to communicate with the locals. His angle lends compassion and a sincere urge to understand all sides. He admits to his own prejudices against China and its peoples before he actually arrives and notes that people are people everywhere. As I sit here and type my review on my 'Made In China' laptop, the darkness is lit by my 'Made In China' lamp, and I drink Chrysanthemum tea (grown and harvested in China) from my 'Made in China' glass, I hope that people will take the time to read Bennett's work. Despite the pollution and slack labor laws and high rate of labor deaths, Bennett finds the people he encounters to be generally happy. Yes, they are driven, but they take time to live for the sake of living and family takes care of family. We Westerners monetarily benefit from the fruits of their hard work, but materialism has only left us miserably wealthy, fat, and insecure."

R.J. Ellory, author of A QUIET BELIEF IN ANGELS, at The Mysterious Bookshop in New York

Otto Penzler and The Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan opened its doors on Friday night to an enthusiastic group of authors and Thrillerfest attendees. Attending the festivities was Overlook's R.J. Ellory, who signed advance reading copies of A Quiet Belief in Angels. Ellory is in town for Thrillerfest, the annual conference hosted by the International Thriller Writers Association. Visit the The Ellory Journal for the author's impressions of his first trip to The Big Apple.

R.J. Ellory, author of A QUIET BELIEF IN ANGELS, at ThrillerFest 2009 in New York

R.J. Ellory, author of the forthcoming A Quiet Belief in Angels (September 2009) will appear at ThrillerFest in New York on Friday, July 10. Sponsored by the International Thriller Writers organization, Thrillerfest is an annual celebration of the thriller world, and a meeting place for authors, readers, budding writers, and publishing industry professionals. Click here for registration details.

Ellory will appear on the Friday morning panel "What's So Great About Thrillers?" moderated by Richard Doetsch. Panel participants include Steve Martini, Carla Neggers, Shane Briant, Andrew Gulli, and H. Terrell Griffin. He'll also sign advance reading copies of A Quiet Belief in Angels from 11:50am - 12:20pm. Don't miss this rare opportunity to meet the author and get a signed copy of his new book!

Michael Greenburg's PEACHES & DADDY in The New York Times

Sam Roberts of The New York Times takes a look at one of the great stories of Jazz Age New York: the sensational love affair between real estate tycoon Edward West Browning and a young teenager Frances "Peaches" Heenan.

On the evening of March 5, 1926, well-known, fifty-one-year-old Manhattan millionaire, Edward "Daddy" Browning, waltzed through the doors of the legendary Hotel McAlpin, and into the life of a fifteen-year-old high school girl named Frances Belle "Peaches" Heenan. Thirty-seven days later, amid blaring newspaper headlines announcing the event and with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in close pursuit, they were married. Within ten months they would begin a courtroom drama that would blow their impassioned saga into a national scandal. Their 1920s romance sent riptides across the moral landscape of America for years to come. Peaches and Daddy, by author Michael Greenburg, vividly recounts the amazing and improbable romance, marriage, and ultimate legal battle for separation of this publicity-craving Manhattan couple in America's "Era of Wonderful Nonsense." Their story is one of dysfunction and remarkable excess, yet at the time, the lurid details of their brief courtship and marriage captured the imagination of the American public like no other story of its day. Their affair propelled them into the headlines and the bylines of the nation's tabloid press for a magical moment in time; their legacy is one of an enduring contribution to the sometimes almost mad history of the country.

"If you can’t get enough of the story of Peaches, Michael M. Greenburg’s Peaches and Daddy: A Story of the Roaring 20s, the Birth of Tabloid Media and the Courtship That Captured the Heart and Imagination of the American Public (The Overlook Press, $26 ) is peppered with titillating court transcripts and even more profound conclusions."

FREDDY THE PIG Makes the List of "The Best Kids' Book Ever"

Nick Kristoff, Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, offers his opinion on The Best Kids’ Books Ever:

So how will your kids spend this summer? Building sand castles at the beach? Swimming at summer camp? Shedding I.Q. points?

In educating myself this spring about education, I was aghast to learn that American children drop in I.Q. each summer vacation — because they aren’t in school or exercising their brains.
This is less true of middle-class students whose parents drag them off to summer classes or make them read books. But poor kids fall two months behind in reading level each summer break, and that accounts for much of the difference in learning trajectory between rich and poor students.

A mountain of research points to a central lesson: Pry your kids away from the keyboard and the television this summer, and get them reading. Let me help by offering my list of the Best Children’s Books — Ever!

So here they are, in ascending order of difficulty, and I can vouch that these are also great to read aloud.

1. “Charlotte’s Web.” The story of the spider who saves her friend, the pig, is the kindest representation of an arthropod in literary history.

2. The Hardy Boys series. Yes, I hear the snickers. But I devoured them myself and have known so many kids for whom these were the books that got them excited about reading. The first in the series is weak, but “House on the Cliff” is a good opener. (As for Nancy Drew, I yawned over her, but she seems to turn girls into Supreme Court justices. Among her fans as kids were Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.)

3. “Wind in the Willows.” My mother read this 101-year-old English classic to me, and I’m still in love with the characters. Most memorable of all is Toad — rich, vain, childish and prone to wrecking cars.

4. The Freddy the Pig series. Published between 1927 and 1958, these 26 books are funny, beautifully written gems. They concern a talking pig, Freddy, who is lazy, messy and sometimes fearful, yet a loyal friend, a first-rate detective and an impressive poet. These were my very favorite books when I was in elementary school. A good one to start with is “Freddy the Detective” or “Freddy Plays Football.” (Avoid the first and weakest, “Freddy Goes to Florida.”)

5. The Alex Rider series. These are modern British spy thrillers in which things keep exploding in a very satisfying way. Alex amounts to a teenage James Bond for the 21st century.

Charles Freeman's A.D. 381 and "A Turning Point that Time Forgot"

A nice recommendation from Library Thing for Charles Freeman's A.D. 381: ""In AD 381, Theodosius, emperor of the eastern Roman empire, issued a decree in which all his subjects were required to subscribe to a belief in the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This edict defined Christian orthodoxy and brought to an end a lively and wide-ranging debate about the nature of God; all other interpretations were now declared heretical. It was the first time in a thousand years of Greco-Roman civilization free thought was unambiguously suppressed. Yet surprisingly, the popular histories claim that the Christian Church reached a consensus on the Trinity at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381. Why has Theodosius's revolution been airbrushed from the historical record? In this groundbreaking new book, acclaimed historian Charles Freeman shows that the council was in fact a sham, only taking place after Theodosius's decree had become law. The Church was acquiescing in the overwhelming power of the emperor. Freeman argues that Theodosius's edict and the subsequent suppression of paganism not only brought an end to the diversity of religious and philosophical beliefs throughout the empire, but created numerous theological problems for the Church, which have remained unsolved. The year AD 381, as Freeman puts it, was "a turning point which time forgot."

Peter de Bolla's THE FOURTH OF JULY and the First of July 1776

Was July 1 really America's Independence Day? Peter de Bolla, writing in The Fourth of July, offers a very different version of America's actual birthday:

"Many of those present recognized that by the end of Monday, July 1, 1776, the resolution was fait accompli. This was certainly the view of of the man who is said to have cast the first vote for independence, Josiah Bartlett, a physician from New Hampshire. He had written from Philadelphia to John Langdon on 1 July: 'The affair of Independency has been the day determined in a Committe of the Whole; by next post I expect you will receive a formal declaration of the reasons . . .' So a case could be mounted for proposing 1 July as the significant punctual moment, especially given the fact that notwithstanding the secrecy which surrounded the deliberations of the Committee of the whole, it would appear that the entire city was aware what was happening."