Why Do I Love These People?
by Po Bronson
[STARS 4]
Think your family's dysfunctional? Bestselling author Po Bronson (What Should I Do with My Life?) decided in 2002 that he wanted to "decode the mystery" of family relationships. Bronson gave the project three years, interviewed 700 people and found 18 fascinating families whose secrets are revealed here. Along the way, he unearthed enough juicy drama for 20 episodes of Oprah—homing in on the heartbreak and healing, the emotional tremors and transitions that are part of every family's saga.
Few readers will be surprised by the author's assertion that the face of the American family is changing. He notes that fewer than 23 percent of the 57 million married couples in the United States have children, and that disparate racial and religious backgrounds are no longer a rarity. It's what's going on inside those families that captures our attention; the book's strength lies in Bronson's depiction of the sometimes eccentric ways family members maintain their ties. Anne Jacobsen asked for and received her husband's permission to have an affair; Mary Garrett, a post office worker, never hugged her eight children but sacrificed beyond measure to send six to Ivy League colleges. Bronson's conclusion? "Real love...is a mere starting point." It's a theme worth exploring and a book worth reading.
by Maureen Dowd
[STARS 3]
Watch out when you read this on the subway, chickadees—with its crime-noir-style cover and saucy title: Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide, Maureen Dowd's latest announces itself as a manifesto for the fed-up. But even if you feel self-conscious diving into Dowd's neon rehash of flash points in gender politics, don't desert her; she'll keep you (and maybe some of your best male friends) turning pages. Author of the bestselling Bushworld, the New York Times columnist examines topics including the humbling of Hillary Clinton, new courtship rituals ("romantic Googling can be as dangerous as drunk text messaging") and the paradoxical role of intelligence in romance. Researchers at four British universities, she notes, found that a high IQ boosts a man's chances of getting married but hampers a woman's. She does lob in too many quotes from Times-folk and her pun-pocked style is irksome, but no matter: Dowd has a voice that carries.
THRILLER
by Scott Turow
[STARS 3]
Ordinary Heroes, Scott Turow's seventh novel, abandons the legal world he has mined since 1987's smart, genre-defining Presumed Innocent in favor of World War II-era Europe and a tale of espionage and self-discovery. When present-day journalist Stewart Dubinsky learns that his deceased father was court-martialed in 1945 for releasing an accused spy from military custody, he pursues the long-hidden story in an effort to understand his dad.
What follows is an often engrossing account of the older man's mission to apprehend an insubordinate O.S.S. officer; it includes a love story and meditations on war and race. Several Heart of Darkness motifs are woven through too-familiar set pieces—a midnight parachute drop, the Battle of the Bulge, a liberated concentration camp—but the parallel Turow sets up between the father and son builds to a graceful, poignant ending.
NOVEL
by Christopher Wilson
[STARS 3]
Cotton, by British novelist Christopher Wilson, begins in 1950s Mississippi, when African-American Leif Cotton is born looking exactly like a blue-eyed, blond white baby, thanks to the meeting of recessive genes. It's not long before Leif gets away from Mississippi and its racial strife and veers straight towards Forrest Gump territory: Over the next 25 years, the mutable narrator changes from Leif to Lee, black to white, and man to woman, naively bumping up against racism, sexism and other timely touchstones. During his meanderings he works in a hospital, does a stint in the Army, finds employment as a nude model and, finally, happens upon true love. "I observe, mostly," he tells one paramour. It's a tricky scenario—the simpleton narrator let loose in a complex world and Wilson's story stumbles over a few Gump-esque aphorisms and a too-cute ending. Most of the time, though, his sense of humor and snappy pacing make this an appealing tale of a bygone America where truly anything can happen.
by Andrea Goldsmith
[STARS 3.5]
The sins and sorrows of parents are visited upon their children in Goldsmith's riveting fifth novel, which explores the Holocaust and its aftermath. Six-year-old Alice Lewin, daughter of a Jewish merchant, is spirited away from Germany before the war, but Alice's father loses his life to an excon who steals his papers and starts over in Australia as Henry Lewin. Fifty years later, Alice, living in San Francisco, visits "Henry" in Australia. Instead of a long-lost relative, she discovers the terrible truth. Goldsmith's fluid writing keeps the action moving at the pace of a whodunit, and apt details and metaphors (Alice's past is "thinner than a fingernail") dot her prose. Despite its over-the-top finale, this graceful effort shines as a study of the long shadow cast by the past—and the futility of the effort to capture that shadow.
>HEALTHY AGING You're never too young, says Dr. Andrew Weil, to start thinking about growing older gracefully. Some tips from his latest bestseller:
DO:
•Embrace aging rather than fearing it. "As we grow older, we gain in experience and compassion."
•Drink turmeric tea to help prevent inflammation; take arctic root capsules to improve sexual energy.
•Learn a new language. "It's like running different software through your system. People who know more than one are less susceptible to Alzheimer's."
•Have friends of all ages. "It keeps you young and interested."
DON'T:
•Accept old models of aging. "Baby boomers may refuse to get shunted off to nursing homes. We may see a revival of communes."
•Take human growth hormone. "There is no evidence it extends life."
•Have cosmetic surgery. "That makes it easier to pretend aging isn't happening."
•Believe stars look ageless naturally. "I had a quote in the book from [a major actor] saying he would never get a facelift—then he did, so I pulled the quote. That shows how enormous the pressure is."
- Contributors:
- Ed Nawotka,
- Michelle Green,
- Josh Emmons,
- Allison Lynn,
- Natalie Danford.
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!
