Denver Post: Books

Book review: Gratitude and too much of a good thing

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:03:25 -0700

"It is a fact of life that people give dinner parties, and when they invite you, you have to turn around and invite them back," Laurie Colwin wrote in her bite-size masterpiece, "Home Cooking," published in 1988. "Often they retaliate by inviting you again, and you must then extend another invitation. Back and forth you go, like Ping-Pong balls, and what you end up with is called social life." Colwin wasn't complaining, exactly. She liked dinner parties.

Book review: A still life with gentle morality

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:03:03 -0700

Early in the sixth novel in Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie series, the title character — an Edinburgh philosopher and well-meaning intervener in the affairs of others — makes a comment that suggests the kind of entertainment "The Lost Art of Gratitude" is going to be.

Book Review: Essays from observer in Iraq and elsewhere

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:02:43 -0700

At first, it appears as though the collection of 24 pieces by George Packer will be all Iraq, all the time. It is only after about 170 pages that readers will discover Packer writes just as compellingly about other parts of the world as he does about Iraq.

Book review: Philosopher Michael Sandel brings clarity to hard issues

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:02:26 -0700

The philosophy prof as TV star: Not many thinkers can pull that off, but Michael Sandel has taken his courses on political philosophy from the halls of Harvard to the nation's small screens, courtesy of PBS.

Book review: Tales prove Grisham's talent towers

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:02:08 -0700

Because John Grisham has always produced novels as plentifully as peanuts, because his second novel, "The Firm," sold a bazillion copies, or maybe because he's handsome, well-behaved and decorous, "real" writers (whoever they may be) have traditionally held him in low esteem.

"Interesting Times" by George Packer

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:56:48 -0700

Introduction

The decade covered by this collection of essays is actually seven years, from the morning of September 11, 2001, to the night of November 4, 2008. The margins of a historical period don't conform to the turning of a new zero; eras are defined less precisely but more truly by events, a prevailing moral atmosphere, what it felt like to live during a certain time.

Children's Books

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:29:13 -0700

I am Jack, by Susanne Gervay, $14.99. Jack's a good kid, but when he beats the school bully at a handball game, his unanticipated reward is a new nickname, courtesy of his defeated opponent, who calls him Butt Head.

Books: Denver Best Sellers

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:27:24 -0700

The Denver area's best-selling books, according to information from the Tattered Cover Book Store, Barnes & Noble in Greenwood Village, the Boulder Book Store and Borders Books in Lone Tree.

Books: National Best Sellers

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:27:02 -0700

The New York Times listings are based on sales at 3,985 bookstores and wholesalers with 50,000 retail outlets for the week ended Nov. 12. A "(b)" indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders.

Books in Brief: David Byrne, rolling; the book, scrolling

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:19:21 -0700

Hitch a ride with former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne as he bikes around Detroit, Istanbul, London, San Francisco, Manila, New York — you name it. He cycles through cities bike-friendly and bike-hostile, musing on the myriad advantages of getting around on two wheels.

Hitting the Shelves

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:11:25 -0700

A Good Fall: Stories, by Ha Jin, $24.95. From the National Book Award-winning writer of "Waiting" comes a new collection that focuses on Flushing, one of New York City's largest Chinese immigrant communities. With startling clarity, Jin explores the challenges, loneliness and uplift associated with discovering one's place in America.

Foreward

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:06:44 -0700

Readers can be forgiven for feeling a bit confused. Sarah Palin's memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life," was published Tuesday, right? Yes. So what are all these other Palin books that are garnering so much attention?

"Twisted" author John Irving a straight shooter

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:02:48 -0700

John Irving is an expert storyteller, and a deliberate one. The author, in Denver to promote his latest book, "Last Night in Twisted River," talked about his novels and his writing process during a sit-down at a local bookstore.

Book Calendar

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:18:51 -0700

Book review: Jungle engulfed Ford's grand idea

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:56:58 -0700

Had Henry Ford stumbled into El Dorado, the Amazon's legendary golden city, he probably wouldn't have had much use for it. First of all, he was rich. Furthermore, Ford's idea of a jungle city was a tad more austere.

"A Fiery Peace in a Cold War" by Neil Sheehan

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:48:20 -0700

The men in the Schriever family were venturesome types who immigrated to America to better themselves or took to the sea. Schriever's paternal grandfather, Bernhard, after whom he was named, had jumped ship as a young German sailor in the port of Norfolk, Virginia, in 1860 and volunteered for the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

"The Tyranny of E-Mail" by John Freeman

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:41:57 -0700

Chapter OneThe Pitched Battle 1 Words in Motion I watched a letter that I had written start off on its journey in a howling snowstorm, high in the mountains of Finnish Lapland.

"Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary" by Bertrand M. Patenaude

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:33:17 -0700

Books: Denver Best Sellers

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:22:56 -0700

The Denver area's best-selling books, according to information from the Tattered Cover Book Store, Barnes & Noble in Greenwood Village, the Boulder Book Store and Borders Books in Lone Tree.

Books: National Best Sellers

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:22:03 -0700

The New York Times listings are based on sales at 3,985 bookstores and wholesalers with 50,000 retail outlets for the week ended Nov. 6. A "(b)" indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders.

Regional Fiction

editor@denverpost.com (Sybil Downing) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:21:29 -0700

Year of the Horse, by Justin Allen, $18.95. "Year of the Horse," a Western with a distinctly different twist, is told through the eyes of Tzu-Lu, a 14-year-old Chinese boy who is in his last term of school when the story opens. Unlike the other Chinese boys he knows, he has no interest in making beds or serving drinks on stern-wheelers. He simply wants to see the world.

Book review: Two-volume "Fantastic Tales" geniuinely haunting

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:20:17 -0700

There are scary stories, and then there are scary stories, just as there is writing, and then there is writing. Evidence supporting that fuzzy tautology is abundantly provided in this excellent two-volume collection, "American Fantastic Tales," edited by Peter Straub.

Denver author Obmascik wins award for outdoor book

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:15:23 -0700

Denver author Mark Obmascik joined nationally prominent historian Douglas Brinkley in winning an award from the National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation. Obmascik's "Halfway to Heaven" won the outdoor literature prize.

Leon Trotsky's downfall; Jewish refugees' struggles

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:13:32 -0700

NONFICTION Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary, by Bertrand M. Patenaude, $27.99For an architect of the 20th century's signature people's revolution, Leon Trotsky wasn't much of a people

Hitting the Shelves

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:09:36 -0700

Ford County: Stories, by John Grisham, $24. Grisham took seven of his unused plot ideas and turned each of them into a sharp, lean tale free of subplots and padding. At an average length of slightly over 40 pages, these narratives are shorter than novellas but longer than conventional short stories.

Book review: Sheehan's Cold War chronicle lacks fire, but not depth

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:05:38 -0700

Less than six months after the end of World War II, Gen. Henry "Hap" Arnold, the father of the U.S. Air Force, remarked that the first world war had been won by "brawn" and the second by "logistics." The next war, he announced, would be "won by brains."

Foreward

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:01:37 -0700

Liaquat Ahamed's "Lords of Finance," a vivid history of how four central bankers brought on the Great Depression, has won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the year.

Book review: African boy's triumph, stunningly told

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:59:51 -0700

"The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" is a stunning narrative, a description of persistence and accomplishment told matter-of-factly. It's the story of how William Kamkwamba, at 14, brought electricity to his family's Malawi farm. But this story exists against a larger background, and is it the capture of the whole cloth that makes it remarkable.

Book review: An erudite swat at the digital swarm

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:56:36 -0700

My name is Dylan and I am an e-mail addict. I just got my first iPhone, and like a rat in a cocaine study, I have stopped eating and ignore my children. All I do is check my e-mail. I have hit rock bottom.

Book Calendar

editor@denverpost.com (The Denver Post) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:29:53 -0700