Sunday: Pico Iyer's long sentences and Stephen Hawking's birthday

Call it the value of complexity in a frantic time. That’s the thought that came to mind when I first read Pico Iyer’s engaging essay on why he’s made the conscious decision to write longer sentences. What Iyer, whose latest book, “The Man Within My Head,” was published this month, is saying to us (and for us) is that the world of instant communication is far too distracting and that there is gratification -- and a relief from the mundane -- in reading something complex and engaging. It is an interesting proposition by one of our favorite writers. His essay begins on the front page of Sunday’s Arts & Books section. (For more on this topic, I would recommend David Ulin's book "The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time," which was developed from Ulin's article in the Aug. 9, 2009, issue of The Times.)

Sunday is also Stephen Hawking's 70^th birthday and, to mark the occasion, Sara Lippincott is reviewing Kitty Ferguson’s latest book on the eminent physicist: “Stephen Hawking: An Unfettered Mind.” As Lippincott notes, 70 is a real milestone for the superstar of the cosmos who has lived almost 50 years with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig’s disease). Also, Carolyn Kellogg reviews “Power Concedes Nothing: One Woman’s Quest for Social Justice in America, from the Kill Zones to the Courtroom,” the memoir of Connie Rice, the civil rights advocate and agitator who has made it her business to balance the scales of justice in Los Angeles.

On the fiction card, book critic David L. Ulin assesses playwright and television writer Alan Bennett’s latest work, a collection of  stories called “Smut.” And Susan Carpenter looks at “A Million Suns,” the second installment in the “Across the Universe” young adult fantasy trilogy by Beth Revis. Universe? Hawking? A birthday present?

And, of course, we have our weekly look at the bestsellers.

Thanks for reading.

-- Jon Thurber, book editor

Photo: Stephen Hawking at the 2010 World Science Festival opening night gala in New York. Credit: Jemal Countess/Getty Images

 

This Sunday: James M. Cain minus the noir

As we look forward to 2012 with all its hope, promise and presidential politics, it seemed a good idea to also look back to a simpler time in Southern California. Or at least that’s the goal in reprinting James M. Cain’s extensive essay “Paradise”: We've included an excerpt in our Sunday print edition of Calendar’s Arts & Books section and the full text of the piece is available online.

For those who think of Cain as a writer of three great noir novels set in California -- “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “Double Indemnity” and “Mildred Pierce” -- his life as a journalist should be something of a revelation. In the 1920s and early '30s, he wrote articles for H.L. Mencken’s The American Mercury and was an editorial writer for Walter Lippman at the New York World. For a brief time, he was managing editor of the New Yorker working for the legendary Harold Ross. The job didn’t fit, however, and after nine months he left for Paramount Studios to be a screenwriter, even though eventually he wound up, again, as a freelancer writing numerous articles for magazines and newspapers.

Cain's essay “Paradise” was the cover story of The American Mercury’s March 1933 issue. Book critic David L. Ulin also offers an introduction to our coverage of “Paradise.” I hope you’ll give “Paradise” a look: Many of his observations of Southern California seem spot on today, while others may surprise you.

Also this week Ulin reviews Tom Zoellner’s effort to make sense of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting in “A Safeway in Arizona: What the Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Tells Us About the Grand Canyon State and Life in America.” Ulin and Carolyn Kellogg offer some Faces to Watch in the book world next year, and Kellogg also weighs in with a review of “Karaoke Culture,” a compelling collection of essays by Dubravka Ugresic. In her Not Just For Kids column, Susan Carpenter looks at the YA title “Cinder,” an inventive retelling of the Cinderella story. And we have our weekly bestsellers list.

Happy new year to all and thanks for reading.

 --Jon Thurber, book editor

 Photo: James M. Cain in 1946.  Credit: Associated Press 

In Sunday books: On Patti Smith, Tolstoy and life in the marginalia

What's in a book? Ideas and language, of course, and, remarkably, Lynell George has been able to trace her mother's life in the marginalia she left in many of her books. As George notes in her essay, "A Life in the Marginalia," that starts on the cover of this Sunday's Arts & Books section, to open her mother's books was "to reveal all manner of ephemera -- from transit passes to cards to notes in her mother's elegant English teacher cursive -- and all marking chapters in a rich, full life. And, in a way, a gentle guidance." Just as her mother's books and love of reading were a gift to her, George's memoir reminds us of the gift of books in enhancing the fabric of a home.  

Also Sunday,  David Ulin checks in on Patti Smith's "Woolgathering," a collection of prose poems that Ulin says speaks volumes about the broad diversity that makes up the life of Smith as a rocker, mother, poet, artist.

You can also listen here to an excerpt of Smith reading from her award-winning memoir "Just Kids," which has just been released as an audio book: Pattismithexcerpt

Daniel Handler, known more familiarly to some as Lemony Snicket, is back with his YA-debut "Why We Broke Up," which Susan Carpenter describes as "a brief but intense teen relationship gone wrong." Carpenter says that few of these "tragic trajectories have been written about as poignantly" as in this book, which is illustrated by Maira Kalman.

Then there's Tolstoy. Yes, the life of the count is detailed in Rosamund Bartlett's "Tolstoy: A Russian Life." Reviewer Martin Rubin notes that Tolstoy was "a loner, a quintessential outsider and a generally awful and quarrelsome individual." So how was he able to "understand and evoke the glittering social whirl and intricacies of fashionable salons" that made up much of his fiction?

Shari Roan reviews Mary Johnson's "An Unquenchable Thirst: Following Mother Teresa in Search of Love, Service and an Authentic Life," a memoir that will "fascinate not only Catholics but anyone who has wondered about the human capacity to vow lifelong celibacy, poverty and charity" and gives us a fascinating portrait of Mother Teresa. Online at The Siren's Call, Nick Owchar talks to novelist Richard Zimler about his recent visit to Poland to discuss the novel "The Warsaw Anagrams" with Polish audiences.

And, of course, we have our Best-Sellers lists of what's hot at Southern California stores.

Again, thanks for reading (and for listening).

-- Jon Thurber, book editor 

Photo: One of several books that were part of writer Lynell George's mother's collection. George's mother imprinted the book with a hand and footprint of her daughter when she was a baby. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

 

The year in review and Mt. Everest too

So, not to be outdone by the actual calendar, we are getting a jump on the end of the year this Sunday with our review of 2011. In a notes-on-the-year-essay, our book critic, David L. Ulin, finds it heartening that a couple of brick-and-mortar book businesses are exploring some interesting strategies to thrive in a world captivated by the digital imperative. He also offers a thoughtful list of his 10 favorite books of the year. Murakami’s there, so is Lethem, but you may be  surprised by some of the others.

Our weekly book review coverage includes Richard Rayner’s review of the compelling "Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest” by Wade Davis. World War I saw the obliteration “of almost an entire generation of young men,” Rayner writes, and a few of the hearty souls that survived decided to test their mettle against Everest, the great unconquered foe.  Those climbing expeditions in the early 1920s captivated Britain and much of Europe looking for a positive human experience to replace the fog of war. 

Deputy books editor Nick Owchar offers a  Q&A with Philippa Gregory on the challenges of writing history as history and history as fiction, in this case the English Wars of the Roses.  Wesley Bausmith looks at “Identify: Basic Principles of Identity Design in the Iconic Trademarks of Chermayeff and Geismar” and finds that firm’s creations have “left some of the more lingering impressions of contemporary graphic design.”  Susan Carpenter is back this week with another trip into the world of YA books with “Planesrunner,” an adventure in parallel worlds from sci-fi novelist Ian McDonald. And we also have our weekly bestsellers list.

Two shopping days are left before Hanukkah and six before Christmas, and you still don’t know what to buy for the book lovers in your family? Our handy holiday books and gift guide still offers some good options. Check it out.  

Sadly, Christopher Hitchens died Thursday of cancer at 62. It would be hard to name another voice in contemporary letters who made it such a firm practice to go his own way and often against the conventional grain. If you missed Elaine Woo's obituary of Hitchens, please take a look.  David L. Ulin checks in with a thoughtful appraisal of Hitchens' work. 

As always, thanks for reading.

-- Jon Thurber, book editor

Photo: George Mallory and Andrew Irvine as they prepare to climb the peak of Mt. Everest in June 1924.    Credit: Associated Press

Happy birthday, Naguib Mahfouz

He was the first Arab author to be awarded the Nobel Prize in literature and, had he lived, today would be Naguib Mahfouz’s 100^th birthday.  His writings — most famously his magnum opus “The Cairo Trilogy” — evoked what John Daniszewski, the former Times staff writer who wrote his obituary, termed “the scent, color and texture of life in the streets of his native Cairo.” Born Dec. 11, 1911, Mahfouz, who was also a screenwriter, journalist and essayist, died in 2006 at 94.

To commemorate his 100^th birthday, the American University in Cairo Press (and Oxford University Press) has published a 20-volume Naguib Mahfouz Centennial Library, which includes the author’s 35 novels. Anchor Books, a division of Random House, is reissuing his Cairo trilogy in new paperback editions.

A social critic, philosopher and passionate defender of free expression, Mahfouz was often threatened by religious extremists who, Daniszewski wrote, "considered his work an affront to Islam." In 1994, he was attacked by a young fanatic who plunged a knife into Mahfouz’s throat, nearly killing the writer. The attack left him unable to work with his right hand, his writing hand, and his health further deteriorated.

A private man who avoided travel at all costs — he sent his daughter to Stockholm to collect his Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988 — Mahfouz once remarked to the New York Times that he could have done without the celebrity that came with the award. “I am a very old man, an introvert. So winning the Nobel was terrible for me. I won the prize, yes, but I lost everything else.”

At the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq after 9/11, he feared that chaos would engulf Arab nations. “I have a terrible vision of the reign of chaos,” Mahfouz told Egypt’s semi-official Al Ahram newspaper. “And those Arabs who imagine they will be a safe distance are under a foolish and grave illusion, for they will be the first to pay the price of the war.”

The chaos he envisioned didn't come as a result of the war in Iraq, but a different kind of change came to the Arab world this year, first in Tunisia, then in Egypt. Hosni Mubarak was forced from power, and now Egypt is going through the growing pains of revolution. It’s a shame that Mahfouz isn’t around to provide perspective on the historic changes taking place in his homeland.

More after the jump

This Sunday: Jerusalem and the man who played Mark Twain

Jerusalem, the holy city that has mesmerized conquerors for centuries, takes the featured spot in our book coverage this weekend with a review of Simon Sebag Montefiore’s "Jerusalem: The Biography," an epic history of a city that, as Montefiore notes, has been “the desire and prize of empires” but curiously is “of no strategic value.” Our reviewer, Wendy Smith, a contributing editor to the American Scholar, writes that Montefiore “embraces Jerusalem’s paradoxes in his chronological account” while remaining “even-handed” in laying out the city’s exhaustive history.

Times Theater Critic Charles McNulty examines actor Hal Holbrook’s accounting of his life and career. Holbrook, best-known for his illustrious portrayal of Mark Twain and as Deep Throat in “All the President’s Men,” recounts his troubled childhood after he was abandoned by his parents at the age of 2, and his discovery of acting in the  book “Harold: The Boy Who Became Mark Twain.”  McNulty writes that while “Holbrook’s career deserves being memorialized,” the memoir struggles because it lacks intimacy.

Also this Sunday: Carolyn Kellogg checks out the middle novel of Lydia Millet's trilogy that began with “How the Dream Died” in 2008. Kellogg writes of Millet's new book, “Ghost Lights,” that the author has “made it easy for those not familiar with the first book to start with this.” Times columnist Hector Tobar, author of the novel “The Barbarian Nurseries,” reviews Anita Desai’s “The Artist of Disappearance,” a collection of novellas about contemporary India, “where deep-rooted tradition meets the great, cruel engine of unbridled capitalism.” Tobar says Desai “mines this territory artfully, again and again.”

Thanhha Lai’s YA novel-in-verse “Inside Out and Back Again” recently won the National Book Award in the children’s category, and Susan Carpenter says it paints a “much needed portrait” of the author’s harrowing journey from a falling Saigon to life in Alabama.  And deputy book editor Nick Owchar looks at Michael Dirda's “On Conan Doyle: Or the Whole Art of Storytelling,” which first appeared last month in his Siren's Call column. Dirda’s brief volume explores the broad writing career of an author best known for creating Holmes, Watson and Baker Street.

Do you still need some ideas for holiday giving?  Don't forget about our special guide to Holiday Books & Gift Ideas, which offers great suggestions in a variety of genres, ranging from fiction and nonfiction to coffee-table and quirky books (Don't know what to do with the hair shed by your cat? There's a book for it!). In our guide you can also find plenty of tips on tablets, audio books and other accessories for the book lovers in your life. 

Thanks for reading,

-- Jon Thurber, Books Editor

 Photo: The Dome of the Rock Mosque in East Jerusalem, 2007.   Credit: Lefteris Pitarakis / Associated Press

Photo: 2011 Holiday Books and Gift Ideas   Credit: Elvis Swift / For The Times

 

This weekend: Ry Cooder, holiday book guide

OK, OK. Maybe they're not together in the same issue -- more on that later -- but this weekend's book coverage includes Times’ book critic David L. Ulin’s fascinating conversation with musician Ry Cooder about his newfound career as a short-story writer. Cooder's book "Los Angeles Stories" (published by City Lights) brings to the printed page the same storytelling process that inspired his so-called California Trilogy of albums “Chavez Ravine,” “My Name Is Buddy” and “I, Flathead.” Ulin calls the stories "deftly rendered” as they offer a panorama of the city between 1940 and 1958, the year the Dodgers came to town. We've got an excerpt of Cooder's story "All in a Day's Work" here.

Other reviews in Sunday Arts & Books offer a virtual travelogue of interesting  places and people. Times Theater critic Charles McNulty looks at James Wolcott, Vanity Fair’s “takedown artist extraordinaire,” as he recounts growing up in '70s New York and his friendship with critic Paulene Kael in "Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in Seventies New York." Carolyn Kellogg reviews “Salvage the Bones,” the pre-Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi-based novel that just won the National Book Award for fiction. The author, Jesmyn Ward, Kellogg notes, “wanted to write about poor, black rural Southerners in such a way that the greater culture would see their stories....”

Out of Africa, this week, is our review of L.A. Times reporter Christopher Goffard’s “You Will See Fire: A Search for Justice in Kenya,” the true-life tale of American Catholic priest John Kaiser and his quest for social change in one of the most corrupt countries in Africa. Kaiser dies for his trouble, and that fact fuels Goffard's narrative, which our reviewer, Richard Rayner, calls “a moving and powerful” story.  The reporting for the book came from a three-part series of articles that Goffard wrote for The Times in 2009.  

And, lest we forget, next Wednesday marks the 70^th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor: We include an excerpt from “Pacific Crucible," Ian W. Toll’s history of the war in the Pacific during 1941-42. In her Not Just for Kids column on YA books, Susan Carpenter looks at Cassandra Clare’s “The Clockwork Prince: The Infernal Devices, Book Two,” in which the author blends "societal restraint and an otherworldly battle into a steamy steampunk drama."

Ok, so back to holiday books. This week we present our annual 28-page holiday guide of book choices and gift ideas (Section U in the print newspaper) along with reviewer lists, including thoughts from book critic Ulin on what titles to load onto that electronic device you may be giving someone, Carolyn Kellogg on what tablet devices are selling this season, Susan Carpenter on what’s hot for kids of all ages and Nick Owchar on compelling reads about history’s turning points.

Thanks for reading.

-- Jon Thurber, Book editor  

Image: Cover of the L.A. Times holiday books & gift ideas guide. Credit: Elvis Swift / For The Times

Bob Edwards for free again

Bob Edwards is giving it away. His memoir, this is, but only in e-book form and only for a limited time. Edwards is the host of "The Bob Edwards Show" on Sirius XM Radio and "Bob Edwards Weekend" on public radio, and his memoir is called “A Voice in the Box: My Life in Radio.” 

It will be available gratis through major e-book retailers Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the Google ebookstore from now through Sept. 9, according to an announcement from the University Press of Kentucky, which is publishing the book.  The print copy, not so free, goes on sale in mid-September.

Edwards, a Louisville native, is also the author of "Fridays With Red: A Radio Friendship," about his relationship with the late sportscaster Red Barber, and "Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism."

Before going to satellite radio, Edwards had a long career at National Public Radio, co-hosting "All Things Considered" before moving on to host "Morning Edition," a job he had for more than 24 years  He left NPR in 2004 after the network announced it was planning to replace him.

"You can think of this as the ulimate pledge drive premium, considering most public radio supporters already have plenty of coffee mugs and tote bags," Edwards said in the announcement.

-- Jon Thurber

the Bob Edwards Show on Sirius XM Radio

Noir on the water

It had all the makings of  Hollywood film noir, except it was for real. Between 1927 and 1939, gambling ships run by local rumrunner Tony Cornero floated off Santa Monica and San Pedro just past the three-mile limit, then the international demarcation for legal authority. The ships carried names like the Rex, the Monte Carlo, the Lux and the Tango. 

The cargo on many of the ships consisted of all the necessities for  casino-style gambling: slot machines, roulette wheels, card tables. All of this ran very openly. Leading Southern California newspapers would carry advertisements for the ships. Gamblers would be enticed aboard with offers of free dinners, free drinks and free rides on water taxis to the ships. Once aboard the fleecing began.

It didn’t end until state Atty. Gen. Earl Warren, who would later become the governor of California and, after that, chief justice of the United States, brought it to a halt -- using an innovative legal strategy and a high-profile raid -- in 1939.

This fascinating chapter of Southern California history is brought to life in “Noir Afloat: Tony Cornero and the Notorious Gambling Ships of Southern California” by Ernest Marquez. Published by Angel City Press.

Photos: 'Noir Afloat'

-- Jon Thurber

Photo: The offshore gambling ship The Rex, which first anchored off Santa Monica in 1938. Credit: "Noir Afloat: Tony Cornero and the Notorious Gambling Ships of Southern California"

Suzanne Mubarak's literary career

It has been an interesting year for Suzanne Mubarak. On Jan. 1, she was the first lady of Egypt. A few weeks later her husband fell out of favor and lost his longtime job. He's no longer the president, so she's no longer the first lady. 

Things went from bad to worse for Hosni Mubarak. He's being investigated in Egypt in connection with accusations of financial wrongdoing and has been hospitalized since last month for what has been termed "health complications." On Friday, Suzanne herself was ordered detained for at least 15 days as part of the financial inquiry. Later that day, she was hospitalized with what media reports said was a possible heart attack. As of this writing, she's still hospitalized, but on Monday, according to Reuters news agency, she apparently relinquished some of her assets to the state.

In some countries -- including the United States -- an arrest or detention order followed by a health crisis might spur interest in the career of a public figure such as Suzanne Mubarak, especially if she has a new book ready for publication.

That book is "Read Me a Book: The Story of Egypt's First Lady and Her Grandson" and, according to the catalog of her publisher, the American University of Cairo Press, it is her "personal chronicle of a child's intellectual and emotional growth through reading."  The book's description notes that her grandson "died tragically at the age of twelve." A quick check in our files found that Mohammed Mubarak died on May 18, 2009, after being rushed to Paris for emergency care following what was termed "a health crisis lasting two days." 

Even though Suzanne Mubarak got her bachelor's and master's degrees from the American University in Cairo, the AUC Press is no mere vanity publisher. Its spring catalog, which listed her book and showed her smiling picture, also includes some excellent work by the late Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz and novelist Alaa Al Aswany's analytical work, "On the State of Egypt: What Made the Revolution Inevitable."

Since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak husband after 30 years in power, the nation has ordered the removal of the former first couple’s names and images from all public institutions, including libraries.

Which brings us back to her book. If libraries won't allow her image, what about her book? A New York representative for the American University of Cairo Press said by email that the book is ready to go to press but that the publication date has been delayed, at Suzanne Mubarak's request, until autumn.  And it may need a new title: "Read Me a Book: The Story of Egypt's First Lady and Her Grandson" seems to have been overtaken by events.

Jacket Copy is generally pro book, so we hope it comes out, if only that it may shed more light on the Mubarak family.

-- Jon Thurber

Photo: Hosni and Suzanne Mubarak in 2006. Credit: Cris Bouroncle / AFP/Getty Images