Flowers for the Führer in Landsberg Prison

From : Piegel On Line

Photo : http://www.spiegel.de/

New historical documents show that Adolf Hitler wanted for nothing during his short incarceration at Landsberg Prison in 1924. He was able to hold court and maintain his political .

A personnel manager couldn't have been more well-meaning in his description. "He was always reasonable, frugal, modest and polite to everyone, especially the officials at the facility," prison warden Otto Leybold wrote about the inmate on Sept. 18, 1924. The prisoner, he added, didn't smoke or drink and "submitted willingly to all restrictions."

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Guilt Trip

From : The Books

Photo : www.tnr.com

Acting White: The Ironic Legacy of Desegregation
by Stuart Buck
Yale University Press, 261 pp., $27.50

In 2000, in a book called Losing the Race, I argued that much of the reason for the gap between the grades and test scores of black students and white students was that black teens often equated doing well in school with “acting white.” I knew that a book which did not focus on racism’s role in this problem would attract bitter criticism. I was hardly surprised to be called a “sell-out” and “not really black” because I grew up middle class and thus had no understanding of black culture. But one of the few criticisms that I had not anticipated was that the “acting white” slam did not even exist.

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The Rebel Who Challenged and Changed a Nation,

From : The Globe And Mail

Photo : http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Take careful note of the subtitle: It is a summary of the argument of the book. This fresh take on Richard Bedford Bennett, Canada’s 11th prime minister, who governed from 1930 to 1935, suggests most historians and other commentators have badly misunderstood the man.

He was not actually the pompous, priggish millionaire loner after whom such unhappy Depression icons as the horse-drawn “Bennett buggy” were named. Nor was he a thin-skinned and ineffectual political leader who opportunistically swayed from traditional Tory beliefs to curry support with his “New Deal.”

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Travails of a revolutionary prisoner

From : The HINDU

Photo : http://www.hindu.com/

CAPTIVE IMAGINATION -

Letters From Prison: Varavara Rao;

Penguin/Viking, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-

110017. Rs. 350.

The oxymoronic title ‘Captive Imagination' could not have been more apt. The 13 essays in this volume on the days he spent in prison compel the reader to empathise with the author, who eloquently portrays the helplessness of a prisoner when the state takes away the right to communicate with the outside world.
Varavara Rao, a poet and revolutionary who penned these essays, does not stop with detailing the physical suffering and hardship he underwent during the long periods of imprisonment. He goes on to show how the system could never shackle his imagination. So what if he has been confined to the four walls of the prison? His unflinching conviction and hope in the ‘New Democratic Revolution' is what sustained him.

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Young Mandela

From : The Guardian

Photo : http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Young Mandela by David James Smith
Mark Gevisser on a myth‑busting look at Mandela's personal life

There could not be a more poignant moment for the release of a book about Nelson Mandela's personal life, and the complex interplay of political imperatives and family commitments that have bedevilled it. On the eve of the World Cup that he was to preside over as his final glorious public act, Mandela's great-granddaughter was killed in a car accident; the driver, a member of the extended Mandela family (although not related by blood), has been accused of being drunk. Young Mandela is the backstory.

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From : In Character

Photo : http://incharacter.org/

Marcus Aurelius:

A Life, by Frank McLynn,

Da Capo

$30.00,

720 pages

Ours is not a philosophical age, much less an age of Stoicism. As Frank McLynn explains in his new biography of Marcus Aurelius, the last of Rome's "five good emperors," commander of Rome's prolonged campaigns against the invasions of barbarian German tribes, and the last important Stoic philosopher of ancient days, our philosophers (academics) no longer profess to help the average person answer life's great metaphysical questions. Contemporary philosophers might contemplate such abstruse problems as whether mental properties can be said to emerge from the physical processes of the universe; what the necessary and sufficient conditions are for self-interest; where the mind stops and the rest of the world begins-not, perhaps, the pressing existential questions presented by the normal course of a human life.

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The Tyranny of Guilt

From : National Interest Online

Photo : http://www.nationalinterest.org/



Pascal Bruckner, The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 256 pp., $26.95.



WHERE DID Europe Go?” shouted the cover of Time’s continental edition earlier this year, not even bothering to add the word “Wrong.” Every kind of woe is said to be afflicting the European Union, and the great scheme of unification has shuddered to a halt. A concatenation of crises over the past few months, of which the near bankruptcy of the Greek state is only the most lurid, has heightened an urgent question of which direction, if any, the Continent is now taking.


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Orwell Diaries
George Orwell
£12.99
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Family Album
Penelope Lively
£7.99
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What the Water Gave Me
Pascale Petit
£8.99
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4 (-)
Cloud Atlas
David Mitchell
£7.99
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5 (1)
Memento Mori
Muriel Spark
£7.99
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Duel at Dawn

From : The New Criterion
Photo : www.newcriterion.com

Abstract adventuring
A review of Duel at Dawn: Heroes, Martyrs, and the Rise of Modern Mathematics (New Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine) by Amir Alexander.

The title of Amir Alexander’s new book (his second) and the beautiful unidentified landscape painting on its jacket, refer to an early dawn duel on a deserted street in Paris. On May 30, 1892. Éveraste Galois, a brilliant young mathematician who pioneered the study of groups, a branch of abstract algebra, was killed in a ridiculous pistol duel over a woman. The duel was so little newsworthy that to this day no one knows for sure who shot Galois in the stomach and left him to die. He was twenty. As soon as Galois was buried, a legend formed about him. He became a martyr unjustly scorned by the French establishment, a scorn that contributed to his poverty and early death. This myth found its strongest expression in a flawed chapter on Galois in Eric Temple Bell’s bestseller Men of Mathematics.

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HARDCOVER NONFICTION

MY DAD SAYS, by Justin Halpern. (It Books/HarperCollins, $15.99.) A coming-of-age memoir organized around the musings, purveyed on Twitter, of the author’s father.

MEDIUM RAW, by Anthony Bourdain. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $26.99.) The author of “Kitchen Confidential” looks critically both at the changes in the food and restaurant culture in the past 10 years and at the people responsible for them.

SPOKEN FROM THE HEART, by Laura Bush. (Scribner, $30.) A memoir from the former first lady.

THE BIG SHORT, by Michael Lewis. (Norton, $27.95.) The people who saw the real estate crash coming and made billions from their foresight. Excerpt

WAR, by Sebastian Junger. (Twelve, $26.99.) The intense lives of American soldiers in a lethal corner of Afghanistan, by the author of “The Perfect Storm.”

CHELSEA CHELSEA BANG BANG, by Chelsea Handler. (Grand Central, $25.99.) More humorous personal essays from the comedian.

CHANGE YOUR BRAIN, CHANGE YOUR BODY, by Daniel G. Amen. (Harmony, $25.99.) Using the brain-body connection to lose weight and avoid depression.

THE LAST STAND, by Nathaniel Philbrick. (Viking, $30.) Custer, Sitting Bull and the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Excerpt

HITCH-22, by Christopher Hitchens. (Twelve, $26.99.) The trans-Atlantic journalist’s memoir.

OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) Why some people succeed, from the author of “Blink.” Excerpt

Beautiful and Damned

From : Weekly Standard

Photo : http://www.weeklystandard.com/

Getty Images: Duff and Lady Diana

Cooper,1944

Power, glamour, and the vagaries of transatlantic alliances.

In 1996, at age 47, Bill Patten, son of Susan Mary Alsop, the author and doyenne of the great age of Georgetown, found out to his shock that he was the son not of his mother’s first husband, Bill Patten Sr., but of Duff Cooper, the British politician and diplomat (and with his wife, Lady Diana, one-half of one of the 20th-century’s most glamorous couples) with whom his mother had had an affair. Understandably poleaxed by this revelation, he embarked on a struggle to regain his bearings, which led him in turn to this book: a personal story, a social history, and a four-part assessment of his mother and the three leading men she encountered: his real father Duff Cooper; his putative father Bill Patten; and her second husband, Joseph Alsop, the well-known (and gay) American journalist, who entered into a chaste marriage with his boyhood friend’s widow, and served as the younger Bill’s stepfather and mentor until he, Alsop, died.

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1
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, by Stieg Larsson. (Knopf, $27.95.) The third volume of a trilogy about a Swedish hacker and a journalist. Excerpt
THE LION, by Nelson DeMille. (Grand Central, $27.99.) John Corey, now a federal agent, pursues a Libyan terrorist who has returned to America bent on revenge.

THE PASSAGE, by Justin Cronin. (Ballantine, $27.) More than a hundred years in the future, a small group resists the vampires who have taken over North America. Excerpt

THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett. (Amy Einhorn/Putnam, $24.95.) A young white woman and two black maids in 1960s ­Mississippi.

THE SPY, by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott. (Putnam, $27.95.) In 1908, a detective investigates spies who are trying to keep America from developing dreadnought battleships.

DEAD IN THE FAMILY, by Charlaine Harris. (Ace, $25.95.) Sookie Stackhouse is exhausted in the aftermath of a Fae war.

61 HOURS, by Lee Child. (Delacorte, $28.) Jack Reacher helps the police in a small South Dakota town protect a witness in a drug trial. Excerpt

BULLET, by Laurell K. Hamilton. (Berkley, $26.95.) Anita Blake, vampire hunter, is menaced by the Mother of All Darkness, who wants to take over her body.

STORM PREY, by John Sandford. (Putnam, $27.95.) Lucas Davenport’s wife is a witness to a botched robbery and murder in the 20th novel in the “Prey” series.

INNOCENT, by Scott Turow. (Grand Central, $27.99.) Turow revisits the characters from “Presumed Innocent.” Excerpt

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS

From : The Hindu


Photo : http://www.hindu.com/

Norms of global criminal law
AMITA DHANDA
Provides a fair sample of the issues that require deliberation in the realm of international criminal law and human rights .






On the 12th anniversary of the International Criminal Court, the United Nations Secretary-General urged that more countries should accede to the Rome statute so that an era of accountability could be ushered in. Both the institution (ICC) and the statute are important in themselves. Yet any serious discussion on international criminal law cannot be limited to the Roman statute. A collection of essays, the book under review provides a fair sample of the issues that require deliberation in the realm of international criminal law and human rights. While at one end of the spectrum there is an essay discussing the legitimacy of using torture to fight terrorism, at the other end there is another that wants an international legal response to the problem of domestic violence. The history and evaluation of international criminal law; the judicial exposition on serious violations of humanitarian law; and the norms of equity that should guide the ICC in the exercise of its powers are some of the other subjects discussed in the book.
Uneven





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Impasse at pass

From : The economist

Photo : http://www.economist.com/

The shooting of Kelsang Namtso
Murder in the High Himalaya: Loyalty, Tragedy, and Escape from Tibet. By Jonathan Green. PublicAffairs;

304 pages; $26.95

AT THE heart of Jonathan Green’s new book is an ugly encounter that underscores both China’s barbarous treatment of Tibetans and the West’s confused, thin-blooded response to it. In September 2006 Chinese border guards shot dead a 17-year old nun, Kelsang Namtso, in front of dozens of international mountaineers on a pass between Nepal and Tibet. A Romanian climber filmed the killing, which was broadcast around the world.

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What The Internet is Doing to Our Brains

From : The Book

Photo : http://www.tnr.com/

Nicholas Carr’s lucid if tendentious book improves on his essay in the Atlantic a couple years ago, which was more memorably—and misleadingly—titled with the self-answering question, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

Carr’s article was all the more interesting because he was not a grumpy and decadent humanist but an engaging tech writer and a former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. He was asking out loud a question that was deservedly on a lot of contemporary minds. The Shallows is a less catchy and more accurate title for his alarm, which turns out to have little to do with Google. It is much bigger than that.

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Top for the Los Angeles Times

Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers
1.
Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth (Scribner: $24). The connection between eating and core beliefs that brings fulfillment.
7
2.
The Big Short by Michael Lewis (W.W. Norton: $27.95) How the U.S. economy was driven to collapse by the bond and real estate markets
11
3.
Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle (Free Press: $25) A Jesuit priest recounts working with L.A. youth through his gang intervention program.
10
4.
War by Sebastian Junger (Twelve: $26.99) The author's account of 14 months with a U.S. Army platoon in Afghanistan.
3
5.
The Promise by Jonathan Alter (Simon & Schuster: $28) An inside look at President Obama's first year in office. .
2
6.
Spoken From the Heart by Laura Bush (Scribner: $30) The former first lady's memoir of growing up in West Texas and life in the White House.
4
7.
Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern (HarperCollins: $15.99) A son's compilation of his elderly father's ramblings and observations.
4
8.
Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler (Grand Central: $25.99) Essays and amusing tales from the comic's personal life.
7
9.
The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman (Harper: $25.99) The stand-up comic known for her salty humor shares her life story.
6
10.
Nomad by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Free Press: $27) In her follow up to “Infidel,” the Somalian-born Muslim tells of her emigration to the U.S.

History and the Enlightenment by Hugh Trevor-Roper

From : New Humanist


Photo : http://newhumanist.org.uk/

History and the Enlightenment by Hugh Trevor-Roper, edited by John Robertson (Yale).










When the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper died in 2003, at the age of 89, the obituaries were plentiful but not very kind. Trevor-Roper had been Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford for more than 20 years, then Master of Peterhouse College, Cambridge, and he was appointed to the House of Lords in 1979; but despite his high-Tory credentials he did not command much affection in the corridors of power. He had also been a director of The Times, but he got no mercy from the top people’s obituarist.





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Fiction
1 (1)
Memento Mori
Muriel Spark
£7.99
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2 (-)
Theodora
Stella Duffy
£15.99
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3 (2)
Rich and Mad
William Nicholson
£6.99
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4 (-)
Family Album
Penelope Lively
£7.99
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5 (4)
Cloud Atlas
David Mitchell
£7.99
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The maestro of carnivore porn

From : The Globe and Mail

Photo : http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Taking no prisoners, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain offers a meaty look at restaurant culture.

When the Black Hoof – a restaurant specializing in charcuterie – first opened its doors in Toronto a couple of years ago, I ended up there one night with a bunch of kids in their early 20s. They were hip. They were cool. They knew how to work the no-rez system and had strong opinions about the off-cuts scrawled on the blackboard. They were jonesin’ for the Hoof’s tongue sandwiches and the bone marrow soup. Dinner quickly became a pissing contest about who had eaten more nasty bits in their short dining careers – the off-cuts their immigrant grandparents probably spent a lifetime trying to avoid. A few companions were also Jewish; for them, pig’s feet and chicharrones scored even higher points.

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1 (2)
Memento Mori
Muriel Spark
£7.99
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Orwell Diaries
George Orwell
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3 (3)
Rich and Mad
William Nicholson
£6.99
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4 (1)
Keeper
Andrea Gillies
£8.99
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5 (-)
Family Album
Penelope Lively
£7.99
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The ‘Beauty Bias’

From : In These Times


Photo : http://www.inthesetimes.com/










The ‘Beauty Bias’ at Work, and What Should Be Done About It.

In her provocative new book, The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Law and Life, Stanford law professor Deborah Rhode argues that workers deserve legal protection against appearance-based discrimination unless their looks are directly relevant to their job performance.
Six cities and one state already ban various kinds of appearance-based discrimination. Contrary to the dire predictions of critics, these laws have not generated a flurry of litigation. Michigan, which banned appearance discrimination in the 1970s, averages





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Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers
Fiction
Weeks on list
1.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest by Stieg Larsson (Knopf: $27.95) The final book of the “Millennium Trilogy.”
2
2.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam: $24.95) The lives of a maid, cook and college graduate intertwine.
54
3.
The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan (Hyperion: $17.99) Siblings battle Egyptian gods to uncover family secrets and find their Egyptologist father.
4
4.
61 Hours by Lee Child (Delacorte: $28). Roving ex-military cop Jack Reacher helps a small South Dakota town deal with sinister forces.
3
5.
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (Dial Press: $25) The goings-on at a ragtag English-language newspaper in Rome.
2
6.
Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris (Ace: $25.95) Sookie Stackhouse copes with loss and paranormal politics.
4
7.
Innocent by Scott Turow (Grand Central: $27.99) Rusty Sabich and Tommy Molto return to the courtroom after the mysterious death of Rusty's wife.
4
8.
Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham (Dutton: $16.99) A 13 year old aspiring lawyer finds himself in the middle of a murder trial.
1
9.
Storm Prey by John Sandford (Putnam: $27.95). Agent Lucas Davenport's surgeon wife is a key witness in a botched robbery case.
3
10.
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Publisher: $26.95) Lovers at a Paris University are forced to return to Hungary by the Nazis.

How the Greeks met their gods

From : Times On Line

Photo : http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/

How the Greeks met their gods
What was so mysterious about mystery cults in the ancient world?

The ancient Greeks and Romans must have been very good at keeping secrets. Or so our lack of information on the famous “Eleusinian Mysteries” (celebrated in an impressive sanctuary just a few miles outside Athens) would suggest – not to mention our lack of information on all the other, similar, initiatory religions found throughout the ancient world, from the ecstatic cult of Dionysus featured in Euripides’ Bacchae to the worship of the god Mithras by the Roman squaddies on Hadrian’s wall. There must have been literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of initiates, across the millennium of Classical history. And at Eleusis they included some of the most prominent (and garrulous) writers, thinkers and politicians of antiquity: Socrates and Plato, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, and many more. These cults are often set apart, by modern writers, from the calmer, less participatory, less emotional traditions of Graeco-Roman state religion. But we have no explicit ancient account of what the secret mysteries of any cult actually were, what happened at initiation or what exactly was revealed to the initiates. So far as we can now tell, there was hardly a leaky vessel among them; or, at any rate, whatever the gossip on the ancient street, there was no one who risked committing the religious secrets to writing and so sharing them with posterity.

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A critical appraisal of globalisation

From : The Hindu

Photo : http://www.hindu.com/

SOCIO-CULTURAL DIVERSITIES AND GLOBALIZATION -

Issues and Perspectives: Edited by S.R. Mehta;

Indian Institute of Advanced Study,

Rashtrapati Nivas, S

himla-171005. Rs. 595.

A critique of the globalisation concept, this collection of papers — presented at a seminar held by the Indian Institute of Advanced Study at the Goa University in 2006 — reflects a morbid obsession of the authors with cataloguing what they see as its malevolent consequences.


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Postulates Of the Pitch

From : The Wall Street Journal


Phtoto : http://online.wsj.com/

Postulates Of the Pitch
Here's a categorical imperative: Put the ball in the net.










In a blissfully funny, vintage Monty Python sketch, there is a soccer game between Germany and Greece in which the players are leading philosophers. The always formidable Germany, captained by "Nobby" Hegel, boasts the world-class attackers Nietzsche, Heidegger and Wittgenstein, while the wily Greeks, captained by Socrates, field a dream team with Plato in goal, Aristotle on defense and—a surprise inclusion—the mathematician Archimedes


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Paris under water

From : Time on Line

Photo : http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/

Paris under water
A new study of the revenge of the Seine tells the story vividly but would benefit from a wider context .

In February 1910, Paris suffered a catastrophic invasion by water. There had been floods throughout the Middle Ages, and there was a particularly dramatic one in 1658, but since then the Seine had been dredged and embanked with many more quays, bridges had been strengthened, and locks and canals had been created. The river’s various tributaries, including the Marne, which flows in at the eastern edge of Paris, were also disciplined. By the start of the twentieth century, that era of radiant modernity, filled with new inventions, which was celebrated in Paris by the Exposition Universelle of 1900, it was believed that the wonders of engineering had made excessive flooding a thing of the past.
Yet, far from protecting Paris from its traditional

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Paperback Fiction Bestsellers
1.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson ($14.95)
2.
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson ($15.95)
3.
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann ($15)
4.
Little Bee by Chris Cleave ($14)
5.
Tinkers by Paul Harding ($14.95)
6.
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick ($14.95)
7.
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese ($15.95)
8.
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein ($14.99)
9.
The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan ($7.99)
10.
Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner ($15)

Angel Factories

From : The Republic

Photo : http://www.tnr.com/

Angel Factories
What Really Happened to Children in the Gulags?

The Inside Story.
Children of the Gulag
By Cathy A. Frierson and Semyon S. Vilensky
(Yale University Press, 496 pp., $55)

Several years ago, a friend who helped me to find my way around the Russian State Archives in Moscow asked if I would like to meet another woman who was also working there. She was not doing research for a book, and she was not a scholar. Instead, she was indulging her curiosity and her nostalgia. Forty years earlier, she had worked as a baby nurse in a children’s home inside one of Stalin’s labor camps. Now she wanted to find out what had happened to some of the people she had known there, to jog her memory of names and dates.
A meeting was arranged, and we talked for perhaps an hour—without

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Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers
Place
Book
Weeks on list
1.
Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth (Scribner: $24) The connection between eating and core beliefs that brings fulfillment.
8
2.
War by Sebastian Junger (Twelve: $26.99) The author's account of 14 months with a U.S. Army platoon in Afghanistan.
2
3.
The Promise by Jonathan Alter (Simon & Schuster: $28) An inside look at President Obama's first year in office.
1
4.
The Big Short by Michael Lewis (W.W. Norton: $27.95) How the U.S. economy was driven to collapse by the bond and real estate markets.
11
5.
Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle (Free Press: $25) A Jesuit priest recounts working with L.A. youth through his gang intervention program.
9
6.
Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco: $27) The singer’s early days and relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe.
16
7.
Spoken from the Heart by Laura Bush (Scribner: $30) The former first lady's memoir of growing up in West Texas and life in the White House.
3
8.
The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman (Harper: $25.99) The stand-up comic known for her salty humor shares her life story.
5
9.
Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert (Viking: $26.95) The author tackles her fears of marriage by delving into the institution's history.
13
10.
The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole Laporte (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: $28) The rise and fall of DreamWorks Studios.

HOW THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE BECAME WORLD'S LANGUAGE

From : The Guardian

Photo : http://www.guardian.co.uk/



Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language


by Robert McCrum.
Deborah Cameron examines a history of linguistic globalisation.

Last month, as volcanic ash drifted across the skies of Europe, I found myself in a van travelling from Dubrovnik to Antwerp with a Belgian, a German, a Turkish couple living in Holland, a Russian studying in Dublin, a Chinese woman heading to Beijing via Amsterdam, and two Croatian drivers whose services we had hired. How did we communicate? In English, of course. That "of course" is the starting point for Robert McCrum's book, an account of how English achieved its present status, framed by an argument about the present and future consequences.





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Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers
Place
Book
Weeks on list
1.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam: $24.95) The lives of a maid, cook and college graduate intertwine.
53
2.
61 Hours by Lee Child (Delacorte: $28). Roving ex-military cop Jack Reacher helps a small South Dakota town deal with sinister forces.
2
3.
Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris (Ace: $25.95) Sookie Stackhouse copes with loss and paranormal politics.
3
4.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson (Knopf: $27.95) The final book of the Millennium Trilogy finds Lisbeth convalescing while Blomkvist investigates her father's death and cover-up.
1
5.
Innocent by Scott Turow (Grand Central: $27.99) Rusty Sabich and Tommy Molto return to the courtroom after the mysterious death of Rusty's wife.
3
6.
Storm Prey by John Sandford (Putnam: $27.95). Agent Lucas Davenport's surgeon wife is a key witness in a botched robbery case.
2
7.
The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan (Hyperion: $17.99) Siblings battle Egyptian gods to uncover family secrets and find their Egyptologist father.
3
8.
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (Dial Press: $25) Daily life in a ragtag English-language newspaper in Rome.
1
9.
Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead (Penguin: $17.99) Rose prepares for graduation from the Vampire Academy while still yearning for Dimitri.
1
10.
Fever Dream by Douglas Preston (Grand Central: $26.99) Special Agent Pendergast delves into his wife’s mysterious and tragic death.
3

One Hand Clapping

From : D R B


Photo : bluehydrangeas.wordpress.com

In Search of J. D. Salinger,


by Ian Hamilton,


Faber and Faber,


222 pp, £12.00,


ISBN: 978-0571269273

In the Information Age, the surest path to celebrity is the long-term, single-minded effort to avoid it. For writers of serious fiction, who function best while keeping the world at bay yet depend on publicity to develop a readership, the paradox of contemporary fame is particularly perilous. For them, the work is all; yet nothing – except perhaps a fatwa – diverts attention from a book as thoroughly as a successful author’s insistence on utter privacy.

Of course most writers pass their careers completely unnoticed by the general population, and many of those who toil anonymously welcome any attention that might sell a few books. But the inexorable advance of media technology continues to hone fame’s double-edged sword, to shorten the shelf-life of the work itself and to ensure that huge swathes of the public become familiar with the images and names of renowned authors they will never read. Those writers who refuse to fan the fire of celebrity are the first to be devoured by its flames.

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Top from the Guardian :

Last 24 hours

1. My obsession with a New York cup of coffee and a doughnut
2. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer
3. Used books, new books, looking for the perfect book ...
4. Questions that authors are never asked
5. Marilynne Robinson: Can science solve life's mysteries?

Memoir of love & anger

From : The Hindu

Photo : http://www.hindu.com/

SONGS OF BLOOD AND SWORD

A Daughter's Memoir:

Fatima Bhutto; Penguin Books Pvt. India Ltd.,

11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,

New Delhi-110017. Rs. 699.

The date was October 17, 2007. I was in Karachi to report for The Hindu on Benazir Bhutto's return to Pakistan the next day from her self-imposed exile after striking a deal with General Pervez Musharraf. Through the day busloads of people were pouring into Karachi for the welcome rally. In Dharavi-like Lyari, a traditional Pakistan People's Party stronghold, there was singing and dancing. After a while, I headed towards 70 Clifton, the historic house that Benazir's

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The Prince of Mist

From : Barnes and Noble


Photo : http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/






The Prince of Mist (Hardcover)

$17.99 List price

$12.95 Online Price




In this tale by the internationally bestelling author of Shadow of the Wind, the Fleischmann family is relocated to the Spanish Coast during World War II. The brother and sister teens, Alicia and Max, make friends with a local boy and soon find themselves caught up in a suspenseful story of supernatural horror. Originally published in 1993, this is the first English translation. Age 12 and up.





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Family Britain, 1951-1957

From : The Guardian


Photo : http://www.guardianbookshop.co.uk/

David Kynaston
RRP: £10.99
Publisher: BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING
Publication Date : 03/05/2010
Paperback.




In stock, usually despatched within 24 hours.
Guardian Bookshop Notes:
The second volume in David Kynaston's landmark social history, following the success of "Austerity Britain". Combining personal experiences of ordinary people, with the political, social and cultural events, this is an impressive and compelling achievement.
Publisher's description:
Presents a picture of everyday life in the 1950s Britain. This title tells the story of Britain from VE Day in 1945 to the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979





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A vivid account of the Himalayan region

From : The Hindu


Photo : http://www.hindu.com/

HIMALAYAN WONDERLAND -


Travels in Lahaul and Spiti: Manohar Singh Gill; Penguin/


Viking, 11, Community Centre,


Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110017. Rs. 599.







Manohar Singh Gill, a former Chief Election Commissioner and currently a member of the Rajya Sabha and Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, was the first IAS officer to be trained in mountaineering by the Everest hero, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, in 1961. His book, Himalayan Wonderlandruns on three essentially different lines: his acceptance of the position as Deputy Commissioner to work in the Himalayan regions; his arduous and hazardous trek capturing, nostalgically, the time and place with exacting emotional precision; and his deeply felt and keenly observed account of the customs and manners of the natives who inhabit the region.

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Form : The Globe and Mail

Photo : http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A Question of BeliefBy Donna Leon,

Atlantic Monthly Press,

288 pages, $30

There are a bare handful of mystery authors who can maintain quality over 19 books. There are even fewer who can claim the latest works are some of their best. A Question of Belief puts Donna Leon in that category. It is a stunning novel, the best of this brilliant series, with a twist at the end that will leave even the most sophisticated reader gasping.
As all fans know, the setting is Venice. It’s August and wiltingly hot. Commissario Guido Brunetti is fed up with the heat, the tourists, and the Venetian police bureaucracy. It’s time for him to head for a mountain holiday, complete with down comforters, exquisite meals and time to catch up on his beloved reading of history.

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Top from the Los Angeles Times

Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers
1.
Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth (Scribner: $24). The connection between eating and core beliefs that brings fulfillment.
7
2.
War by Sebastian Junger (Twelve: $26.99). The author's account of a year embedded with a U.S. Army platoon in Afghanistan.
1
3.
Spoken From the Heart by Laura Bush (Scribner: $30). The former first lady's memoir of growing up in western Texas and life in the White House.
2
4.
The Big Short by Michael Lewis (W.W. Norton: $27.95). How the U.S. economy was driven to collapse by the bond and real estate markets.
10
5.
... My Dad Says by Justin Halpern (HarperCollins: $15.99). A son's compilation of his elderly father's ramblings and observations.
2
6.
The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman (Harper: $25.99). The stand-up comic known for her salty humor shares her life story.
4
7.
Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle (Free Press: $25). A Jesuit priest recounts working with L.A. youth through his gang intervention program.
8
8.
The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary by Jeff Kinney (Amulet: $14.95). Behind the scenes during the making of the movie.
10
9.
Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler (Grand Central: $25.99). Essays and amusing tales from the comic's personal life.
5
10.
The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole Laporte (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: $28). The rise and fall of DreamWorks Studios.

The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham'

From : The Los Angeles Times


Photo : http://www.latimes.com/







The Secret Lives of Somerset MaughamA


BiographySelina HastingsRandom House:


640 pp., $35

The story of William Somerset Maugham, the stammering young boy who became a doctor and then the world's most famous writer since Dickens, has often been told, but in this new biography, "The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham," Selina Hastings draws upon previously unavailable material to create the fullest, most sympathetic portrait thus far. Hastings, while making her partiality toward her subject clear enough, writes with wit and offers a wealth of new detail. The achievement by the end (and the book is pretty hefty) is monumental, even if the starting point is familiar enough.




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Top From the Los Angeles Times :

Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers
Fiction
Weeks on list
1.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam: $24.95). The lives of a maid, cook and college graduate intertwine.
52
2.
Innocent by Scott Turow (Grand Central: $27.99). Rusty Sabich and Tommy Molto return to the courtroom after the mysterious death of Rusty's wife.
2
3.
Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris (Ace: $25.95). Sookie Stackhouse copes with loss and paranormal politics.
2
4.
The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan (Hyperion: $17.99). Siblings battle Egyptian gods to uncover family secrets and find their Egyptologist father.
2
5.
The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon: $24.95). Multiple adventures await sleuth Precious Ramotswe.
4
6.
Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk (Doubleday: $24.95). A washed-up actress looking for a comeback embarks on a love affair with a gold-digging suitor.
1
7.
Fever Dream by Douglas Preston (Grand Central: $26.99). Special Agent Pendergast delves into his wife's mysterious and tragic death.
2
8.
The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan (Disney Hyperion: $17.99). Percy Jackson and his army of demigods battle the Lord of Time.
23
9.
Point Dume by Katie Arnoldi (Overlook: $24.95). Surf culture and marijuana farming collide in Malibu.
1
10.
Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende (HarperCollins: $26.99). Crises confront a slave girl and plantation owner in the Caribbean in the 1700s.

Everything Flows

From : The Book

Photo : http://www.tnr.com/

Everything Flows

by Vasily Grossman

New York Review of Books, 272 pp., $15.95

Not least among Vasily Grossman’s great achievements as a Soviet writer was his ability to fashion a true art form out of the procrustean genre of socialist realism. His technique was as simple as it was subversive. Rather than employ his characters as monotone metaphors acting in the service of revolutionary fantasy, he made them into variegated people besieged by revolutionary reality. As the protagonist of Everything Flows, Grossman’s third novel, puts it: “The literature that called itself ‘realist’ was as convention-ridden as the bucolic romances of the eighteenth century. The collective farmers, workers, and peasant women of Soviet literature seemed close kin to those elegant, slim villagers and curly-headed shepherdesses in woodland glades, playing on reed pipes and dancing, surrounded by little white lambs with pretty blue ribbons.” Grossman let war, persecution and genocide serve as his backdrop but he was most preoccupied with the fate of ordinary human beings caught up in extraordinary circumstances. Down to the last battlefield commissar, guilt-ridden informant, or NKVD agent, his characters were imbued with a psychological and moral complexity rare for any age, much less a totalitarian one that forced an artistic parade ground upon what Max Eastman once witheringly termed “writers in uniform.”

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1 (-)
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Alastair Campbell
£25.00
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2 (1)
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£20.00
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3 (-)
Making of the British Landscape
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£30.00
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4 (-)
Road of Bones
Fergal Keane
£25.00
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Hare with Amber Eyes
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A Personal History of the Cold War

From : The National

Photo : www.thenational.ae

The British historian Norman Stone's 'personal' account of the Cold War is by turns passionately opionated, scabrously humorous and shamelessly partisan, writes Matthew Price.The Atlantic and Its Enemies: A Personal History of the Cold WarNorman StoneAllen LaneDh158The Cold War was both an era of armed peace and global violence. The United States and the Soviet Bloc may have avoided the nuclear annihilation that many feared, but the rest of the world saw little peace between 1946 and 1989. The chilling concept of Mutual Assured Destruction added a sinister novelty to what was, in essence, a simple continuation of the geopolitics of imperial rivalry that have been a hallmark of the modern age. Europe was divided, but not in ruins; the actual wars of the Cold War were fought in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere, as the United States and the USSR shot at each other by proxy.

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali
£12.99
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Reluctant Bride
Lucy Mangan
£7.99
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Moon Tiger
Penelope Lively
£8.99
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A J Jacobs
£7.99
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£7.99
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