Knopf 100--Day 21

Before we get to today's picks, I'd like to point out that this is the 500th post we've made to this crappy, half-assed book blog. I think that the only proper celebration would be for Gianna to bring me brownies. 500 brownies. It's okay if that many brownies makes me vomitous; this blog does as well. Bring on the books!

77. Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru, originally published in 2012. This book has some of my favorite things...like possible aliens, and national parks, and multiple, interconnected plot lines. The novel begins with an autistic child disappearing while he and his parents--at their wit's end with raising a disabled child--are on vacation in the Mojave Desert. The Pinnacles, the rock formation where the child vanishes, are a focal point for the book and site for native legends, a desert cult, a rock star, a bunch of weird occurrences. Hari Kunzru is probably a genius.

78: Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montifiore, originally published in 2004. Oh Stalin, be still my heart! I love (biographies of) totalitarian dictators and I love Russian/Soviet history. Throw in that Montifiore writes great histories that aren't in any way dull. Stalin is fascinating reading, from power plays and eliminating one's rivals to controlling one's country's popular culture on every level. I love this book and Joe's bushy mustache.

79. Find a Way by Diana Nyad, originally published in 2015. Diana Nyad is the woman who, at age 64, swam from Cuba to the United States in open ocean. I read her memoir Find a Way expecting it to be cheesy, but I wanted to know why the hell anyone would want to swim 100 miles nonstop in the ocean. Or anywhere. It's a crazy endeavor. What I didn't expect was how much I'd love this book. Nyad is truly inspirational without taking for granted anything in her life. From an abusive childhood she found peace in open water swimming and became the first woman to swim around Manhattan. In her 20's she attempted the Cuba swim several times, but each time she failed. After a successful broadcasting career, in her 60's Nyad realized that she'd left a dream unfulfilled. Most of this book is the story of her impossible quest, the failed attempts, the people who carried her through jellyfish and sharks and fatigue and pain, and the strength of following one's dreams. It's not cheesy at all and I now consider Nyad one of my heroes.

80. Mating by Norman Rush, originally published in 1991. Mating is another book I borrowed from my boyfriend once upon a time. Unlike Gianna, though, I never stole any of these borrowed books. Here's the thing about Mating: I'm an educated person with degrees in English and History. I read constantly. And I've never needed to look up as many vocabulary words as when I was reading this book (luckily the boyfriend had a dictionary on hand). Set in Botswana, Mating is the story of a woman with an anthropology thesis in progress that's going nowhere when she meets the head of what seems to be a utopian society on the edge of the Kalahari Desert. She is lustful and this novel is a unique, literary tale of romance and the exotic erotic.

The Zhivago Affair

I am a sucker for Soviet Russian history. The Cold War. Guys in red uniforms (my loves for Mounties and the red army undoubtedly are linked. Mmmm...Cossacks). A country with a cultural history of lauding writers even while oppressing thought. This is my golden age of history. You bet I was eager to read The Zhivago Affair.

What I knew before reading the book: Boris Pasternak wrote only one novel, Doctor Zhivago, which was made into a pretty good movie with a soundtrack that sticks in your head. Pasternak was a poet. He won the Nobel Prize. He didn't accept it. I knew that the early translation of Doctor Zhivago wasn't great because I sold the new translation a few years ago and we were told that the early translation wasn't great. Holy cow, though, there's so much more to this story.

Boris Pasternak on
the cover of Time

In The Zhivago Affair, authors Peter Finn and Petra Couvee dig into the history of Pasternak, the novel, and how it came to be. Pasternak was the biggest writer of his era in Russia, a celebrity whose prestige earned him sweet housing from the communist regime. He started writing a novel set during the Russian Revolution, and as he wrote it, he gave readings at parties. People knew that the book existed. Some of those people, though, were Communist Party members who worried that the book was subversive and anticommunist. The Soviets never hesitated to smack down free expression that wasn't pro-Revolution. So here is the greatest writer in the largest country in the world and he can't publish his book. Enter the CIA.

The CIA edition of the novel,
published in Europe and
smuggled back into the USSR.

Peter Finn and Petra Couvee utilized previously sealed documents to tell the story of Doctor Zhivago's publication. His Italian publisher smuggled the manuscript out of Russia. The CIA, seeing an opportunity to strike a cultural blow to the Soviet Union, worked to publish copies in Russian and then worldwide. As Doctor Zhivago jumped to the top of the US bestseller lists, Russians couldn't read it. Then some Russians attended the World's Fair, where they left to return home with black market, free copies of Doctor Zhivago tucked in their luggage. The hottest book in Soviet Russia wasn't even available technically.

The Zhivago Affair is a great cultural history of Russia, a fascinating biography of Pasternak (wife, mistress, writing career, and death), and espionage thriller too good to be true...except that it is. If you are a Liz-esque nerd, here's what you do:

Read this translation of
Doctor Zhivago. 

Step One: Read Doctor Zhivago. I'd give you a pass and say watch the movie, but A) that soundtrack will get stuck in your head, and B) you need to buy the book so I can stay employed. If you already have read the book or seen the movie, proceed to the next step.

Step Two: Read The Zhivago Affair. Go ahead and imagine Boris Pasternak dressed in a red uniform. That adds to the experience (Fifty Shades of Grey my ass. Fifty Shades of RED. Mmmmm.)

Step Three: Read Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan. This novel plays with the cultural manipulation at play during the Cold War and is a good literary thriller from a Booker Prize-winning author with a new book out this fall.

Step Four: Add The Children Act by Ian McEwan to your list of fall books to buy when they are released. You'll be hearing more about it later (unless you're smart enough to quit reading this blog).

Step Five: Read Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore. It's a great history of Stalin's dictatorship, isn't at all dry, and really gives a sense of what life inside the Soviet Union was like.

Step Six: Read Alice Munro. She won the Nobel Prize. Boris Pasternak won the Nobel Prize. Read all of the Nobel Prize winners.

Post photographic proof that you've completed all six steps to our Facebook page and Gianna will bake you cookies. Cookies...that look like Stalin!

Best of 2011 Countdown: #30

Thanksgiving has passed, so it's time to get down to the business of the Best Books of 2011.  This year we've decided to countdown to our #1 picks over the course of a month.  Our fan seemed to like our 30 Day Book Challenge, and it's a pleasure listening to Gianna whine about posting everyday even though it was her idea.  These are our favorite 2011 books from the publishers we sell.  Don't argue with us if you don't see, say, Haruki Marakami's 1Q84 on the list.  I haven't read it.  No doubt it will appear on bunches of best lists, but those people have staffs and we're just two lowly book reps trying to get by.  (We take bribes, so if you're an author and stumble upon our blog while doing a Google search for "Bobby Hill eats a steak"--that's a real search--send us your leftover pie.  Liz doesn't eat pumpkins or other gourdy nastiness.)

Best of 2011 #30

Gianna:

West of 98
Edited by Lynn Stegner and Russell Rowland
University of Texas Press

Sixty-six writers share what it means to be a Westerner through essays, poems, and stories. From Texas to North Dakota these pieces cover race, politics, landscape, and what home really means. Rick Bass, Louise Erdrich, Jim Harrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, David Guterson, and Walter Kirn are among some of the writers included. Here is an excerpt from the really wonderful essay by Larry McMurtry reminiscing on his cowboy days and what it means now:

“My experience with Lonesome Dove and its various sequels and prequels convinced me that the core of the Western myth – that the cowboys are brave and cowboys are free – is essentially unassailable. I thought of Lonesome Dove as demythicizing, but instead it became a kind of American Arthuriad, overflowing the bounds of genre in many curious ways.”

Many of these are contradicting; each writer seeming to have his or her own view of western life and connectedness with landscape and history.   Unsentimental and often brutally honest, this was a great collection to start off my career  at University of Texas Press.

Liz:

Jerusalem: The Biography

By Simon Sebag Montifiore

Knopf

With my love of Russia, I had previously read Simon Sebag Montifiore's biographies Stalin: Court of the Red Czar and Young Stalin.  (I like my crushes in red military uniforms.  I love Mounties!)  He is a wonderful writer who has the ability to keep histories featuring numerous figures and events enthralling.  I was somewhat nervous about this new book, though, because I wasn't an internally inclined to the subject in the way I am to the sweet Soviet.  Nonetheless, I found Jerusalem rich and enlightening, a worthy and successful attempt to capture the holy city on paper.  How did this one outpost city become the center of three religions and the key to Middle Eastern peace and perhaps eternal salvation?  Here are the players, from Herod to Disraeli, Caligula to Churchill.  Jerusalem is the epicenter of our world and, depending upon what you believe, Apocalypse HQ.  This is a terrific book.