You can't be too rich or too thin—or have too much power. That's the premise of this beguiling self-help manual for control freaks, which explains how to win in love and at work by waging what the authors call "civilized warfare." Take the working lunch, for example: You readily accepted a rival's invitation to meet at that downtown bistro. Oops. That's a violation of Law 8: Make Other People Come to You. Not to worry—you can regain the upper hand with Law 4: Always Say Less Than Necessary. "Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less," we are instructed.
Former Esquire editor Greene and noted designer Elffers (Play With Your Food) have done their research: This literate, 430-page tome is chockablock with history, drawing on everyone from P.T. Barnum to Casanova. Some exemplars are obvious (Andy Warhol and Law 4); many more are fascinating (Thomas Edison was an ace at Law 6: Court Attention at All Cost). Read this book over a homemade sandwich. It'll taste pretty good when you reach Law 40: Despise the Free Lunch. In the world of power, nothing comes cheap. (Viking, $24.95)
Bottom Line: A wry primer for people who desperately want to be on top
by Julia Alvarez
Reading Julia Alvarez's new collection is like curling up with a glass of wine in one hand and the phone in the other, listening to a big-hearted, wisecracking friend share her hard-earned wisdom about family, identity and the art of writing.
The 48-year-old author of the best-selling novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents serves up a blend of insights and recollections about her life as a child in the Dominican Republic, her efforts to learn English and adopt hippie fashions once she moved to New York City in 1960 and how a pudgy Dominican boy (who courted the teenage Alvarez when she returned to the island for a summer) unwittingly taught her that she had become a cultural hybrid who could never truly go home. A likable storyteller, she also writes with candor and humor about her picky eating habits, her decision not to have children and her vagabond life as a writer and teacher. "We need to tell, and we also want to know (don't we?) the secret heart of each other's lives," she writes. We do, especially when it's Alvarez doing the telling. (Algonquin, $20.95)
Bottom Line: Appealing essays in a wise and sassy voice
by Ethan Canin
At 27, Canin made a spectacular critical debut with his 1988 short story collection Emperor of the Air. In 1991 he tried a novel, Blue River, and did not fare so well. How does a young talent deal with the possibility his gifts have deserted him? Perhaps by writing about mediocrity, as Canin does in his second novel.
When cautious Midwesterner Orno Tarcher meets reckless genius Marshall Emerson at Columbia in 1974, the world is their oyster. Orno is set on being a doctor, Marshall a writer. Years pass and Orno's dream has dimmed: He will be a dentist. Marshall has settled into the decadent life of a Hollywood producer. "I am not the kind to find a new world. You are," says Orno to the friend whose life he has long envied.
Not surprisingly, Canin's best writing—and here it's superb—occurs when he is limning worlds unknown to Orno, like that of Marshall's exotic childhood in Turkey. Unfortunately, in the joyless unfolding of Orno's story, a key figure, Marshall's sister Simone, is badly neglected; the reader hungers to know what she looks like and why Orno suddenly falls for her. It seems even Canin finds Orno's world a bore. (Random House, $24.95)
Bottom Line: Unconvincing tale of a noble average Joe
by John Burnham Schwartz
College professor Ethan Learner is driving his wife and kids home from a summer concert when he stops at a gas station so his young daughter can use the lavatory. "Move away from the road, Josh," he tells his 10-year-old son. But then an ordinary Connecticut evening turns into a nightmare: A speeding car hits the boy, killing him instantly, and disappears. A standard hit-and-run accident would hardly seem the stuff of great fiction. But from the first sentence, Schwartz—author of the exceptional 1989 novel Bicycle Days—has you as hooked as a gawker at an accident scene. You can't look away, and then you're drawn deeper and deeper into the lives that converged in that one horrific moment on Reservation Road.
In bone-dry prose, Schwartz skillfully employs shifting perspectives and captures not just the pain and guilt of the survivors but the bizarre way that, even after heart-shattering tragedy, life has a troubling way of going on. (Knopf, $24)
Bottom Line: Tense novel of family tragedy has top-notch stamped all over it
by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith
Page-turner of the week
A Washington, D.C., politico with a notoriously roving eye, whiffs of scandal back in his insular home state, even an engaging hound named Buddy—nope, despite what you may be thinking, this is not the Bill Clinton story. Instead, author Smith exploits current headlines to put a knowing, insider gloss on her tale of old sins and timeless treachery.
The smooth operator here is actually Rhode Island Rep. Owen Hall, who seduces unhappily married true-crime writer Denise Burke into investigating a triple murder in his district—and much more. But no sooner does she start to believe the wrong man may have been imprisoned than both her life and Hall's are jeopardized. With its fascinating setup and scrappy sleuth, Smith's fifth novel is a fast-paced thriller that truly respects a reader's intelligence. (Holt, $23)
Bottom Line: Capital suspense
>PURE DRIVEL Steve Martin The comedian offers a short, antic collection of sketches he calls "after-dinner mints to the big meal of literature." Titles include "Lolita at Fifty," "Bad Dog" and "The Sledgehammer: How It Works." (Hyperion, $19.95)
NOW YOU SEE HER Linda Howard Steamy romance morphs into murder mystery in this follow-up to the popular Kill and Tell, as a sexy Manhattan painter named Paris Sweeney discovers unexpected psychic powers. (Pocket Books, $23)
THE VOYAGE OF THE NARWHAL Andrea Barrett A mid-19th-century expedition to the Arctic frames an adventure and love story by the author of Ship Fever, which won the 1996 National Book Award for fiction. (Norton, $24.95)
- Contributors:
- Paula Chin,
- Laura Jamison,
- Erica Sanders,
- Thomas Fields-Meyer,
- Pam Lambert.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
