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Sun May 9 22:42:53 EDT 2010
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Books Of the Times: ‘The Last Hero,’ Howard Bryant on Henry Aaron - Thirty-six years after Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record, a proper full-dress biography has appeared.



An Expatriate Filipino Writes of a Parallel Life - Miguel Syjuco’s first book, a satire of the chaos and violence of Philippine politics called “Ilustrado,” won the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize.



A Name for Newborns Thanks to the Vampires - Cullen, the surname of a vampire in the “Twilight” series, leaped almost 300 spots on the Social Security Administration’s list of most popular baby names.



Chronicling Steinbrenner During a Turbulent Era - In “Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball,” Bill Madden of The Daily News recounts George Steinbrenner’s blustery, profane, sometimes wacky ways.



Books of The Times: Nouriel Roubini Calls for Reform in ‘Crisis Economics’ - Nouriel Roubini, who predicted the financial meltdown, now explains it and offers solutions, with his co-author Stephen Mihm.



Jerusalem Journal: Israelis and Palestinians Hail Writers and the Word, Just Not With One Another - The Palestine Festival of Literature and the International Writers Festival of Israel both took place this week without mutual awareness or acknowledgment.



Books of The Times: ‘The Imperfectionists’ by Tom Rachman - Tom Rachman’s comic novel features doings, wacky and otherwise, by employees of an English-language newspaper in Rome.



Pam Grier Tells What She’s Learned in ‘Foxy’ - In a new memoir, one of blaxploitation cinema’s biggest stars tells of the loves and hardships in her life.



Books of The Times: ‘In the Place of Justice,’ Wilbert Rideau’s Prison Memoir - Wilbert Rideau’s prison memoir traces his path from despair to redemption in the notorious Angola prison in Louisiana.



Books of The Times: In ‘The Bedwetter,’ How Sarah Silverman Found Her Vulgar Voice - In a new memoir, Sarah Silverman talks about her childhood, especially one embarrassing nighttime problem.



Book Review - Trials of the Diaspora - By Anthony Julius - Anthony Julius’s fiercely relevant book on British anti-Semitism is particularly strong on Shylock, Fagin and the whole cavalcade of Jew-hatred in English literature.



The Jewish Question: Martin Heidegger - Martin Heidegger was undeniably a Nazi. But was his affiliation an “escapade,” as Hannah Arendt claimed, or is his philosophy itself fundamentally corrupt? Two new books reconsider the question.



Book Review - Friedrich Nietzsche - A Philosophical Biography - By Julian Young - A biography of Friedrich Nietzsche emphasizes the personal and historical circumstances that acted as backdrop to his ideas.



Irène Némirovsky’s Life and Stories - A biography of Irène Némirovsky and a collection of her stories raise questions about her relationship to her Jewish roots.



Book Review - Eaarth - By Bill McKibben - Earth is irreparably broken, Bill McKibben argues. So now what?



Book Review - The Long Song - By Andrea Levy - In this novel, a former slave tells Jamaica’s story, and describes the false promises of emancipation.



Book Review - Lonelyhearts - By Marion Meade - In Hollywood in 1940, Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney improbably married. Then came the car crash.



Book Review - Spoon Fed - By Kim Severson - A New York Times food writer illuminates her own story with mini-profiles of Alice Waters, Rachael Ray and others.



Book Review - American Subversive - By David Goodwillie - A bombing unites a blogger and a beautiful eco-terrorist in this literary thriller, an exploration of what motivates radicalism in an age of disillusion.



Book Review - Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived in That House - By Meghan Daum - From New York to Nebraska to California, Meghan Daum recounts a lifetime of compulsive house-hunting.



Book Review - The First War of Physics - The Secret History of the Atom Bomb, 1939-1949 - By Jim Baggott - This history of the atomic bomb, from the discovery of nuclear fission to the first Soviet test, skillfully depicts the fear-driven competition between Germans, Americans and Russians.



Book Review - The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy - By Richard A. Posner - Richard A. Posner argues that Congress is rushing to devise remedies for a financial crisis that has yet to be understood.



Book Review - Losing Charlotte - By Heather Clay - The two siblings in this novel never outgrew their rivalry, and one remains obsessed with it.



Book Review - The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers - By Thomas Mullen - Brothers with special powers rob banks in 1930s Chicago in this novel.



Book Review - Betsy Ross and the Making of America - By Marla R. Miller - In this admiring biography, a historian shows that the life of the real woman behind the flag legend is well worth recovering.



Hardcover Fiction - Top 5 at a Glance
1. THE 9TH JUDGMENT, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
2. LOVER MINE, by J. R. Ward
3. THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
4. DELIVER US FROM EVIL, by David Baldacci
5. HANNAH’S LIST, by Debbie Macomber



Hardcover Nonfiction - Top 5 at a Glance
1. THE BIG SHORT, by Michael Lewis
2. THIS TIME TOGETHER, by Carol Burnett
3. CHELSEA CHELSEA BANG BANG, by Chelsea Handler
4. OPRAH, by Kitty Kelley
5. THE OTHER WES MOORE, by Wes Moore



Paperback Trade Fiction - Top 5 at a Glance
1. SAVOR THE MOMENT, by Nora Roberts
2. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
3. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
4. LITTLE BEE, by Chris Cleave
5. THE HOST, by Stephenie Meyer



Paperback Mass-Market Fiction - Top 5 at a Glance
1. WILD FIRE, by Christine Feehan
2. SWEET TEA AT SUNRISE, by Sherryl Woods
3. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
4. SUMMER ON BLOSSOM STREET, by Debbie Macomber
5. THE LAST SONG, by Nicholas Sparks



Paperback Nonfiction - Top 5 at a Glance
1. MENNONITE IN A LITTLE BLACK DRESS, by Rhoda Janzen
2. ARE YOU THERE, VODKA? IT'S ME, CHELSEA, by Chelsea Handler
3. EAT, PRAY, LOVE, by Elizabeth Gilbert
4. MY HORIZONTAL LIFE, by Chelsea Handler
5. CONSERVATIVE VICTORY, by Sean Hannity



Essay: Theory, Literature, Hoax - What strange force is stalking departments of literature? A philosopher investigates.



Crime: Mystery Novels by Donna Leon, Paul Doiron, Michael Harvey and Jassy Mackenzie - Mystery novels by Donna Leon, Paul Doiron, Michael Harvey and Jassy Mackenzie.



The Mind Research Network and Charting Creativity - Researchers are making new inroads into the neurology of inspiration.



Gen X Has a Midlife Crisis - How can a generation whose cultural trademark is a refusal to grow up have a midlife crisis? Sam Lipsyte’s novel “The Ask” and the films “Hot Tub Time Machine” and “Greenberg” ponder this predicament.



From Sarah Silverman, an Adorable Look, Followed by a Sucker Punch - Sarah Silverman’s look is an integral part of her comedy: it provides the buffer of adorableness.



Bookshelf: A Black Abolitionist and Barbecue Diplomacy - Short takes on books by Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Robert Egan, Kurt Pitzer and Samuel Zipp.



TBR: Inside the List - “The Other Wes Moore,” new on the nonfiction list, is about two men with the same name and similar backgrounds, one a Rhodes scholar, the other in jail for killing a police officer.



Editors’ Choice - Recently reviewed books of particular interest.



Paperback Row - Paperback books of particular interest.



Up Front: Harold Bloom - Harold Bloom is probably the most prominent — and the most formidable — literary critic and commentator in America today.