Here are 11 books that might have flown under the radar but shouldn't be overlooked.
'Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars' by Sonia Faleiro. 240 pp. Black Cat. $15.
The subtitle does not lie: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars.Faleiro chronicles that world through the experience of 19-year-old exotic dancer Leela, who seems more like Faleiro's close friend than a reporting subject, and the Bombay club scene bears upon you as if it were your own neighborhood.
'Brothers: On His Brothers and Brothers in History' by George Howe Colt. 480 pp. Scribner. $30.
The story of Colt's relationship with his three brothers—the adored Harry, the emo Ned, the troubled Mark—is woven around entertaining anecdotes of famous siblings like Edwin and John Wilkes Booth and Theo and Vincent van Gogh. A perfect gimmick that makes this book even livelier than The Big House.
'Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat' by Bee Wilson. 352 pp. Basic Books. $27.
A book to keep at your side as you cook. Consider the fork. It's a piercing, sharp weapon associated with the Devil. How did this unlikely tool become the West's most popular and indispensable utensil? Wilson serves up brisk histories of everything you use in the kitchen.
'A Ditch in Time: The City, the West and Water' by Patricia Nelson Limerick, Jason Hanson (Contributor). 352 pp. Fulcrum Publishing. $20.
The first book in 25 years by MacArthur-winning historian Limerick is an entertaining history of the Denver Water Board. (Stealing, even stealing water, is always good copy.) Best of all, this deftly wrought history banishes our complacency about where water originates.
'It's Fine By Me: A Novel' by Per Petterson. Translated by Don Bartlett. 208 pp. Graywolf Press. $20.
In this coming-of-age novel about a tenacious teen boy with a nose for trouble, Petterson, author of the critically acclaimed sleeper hit Out Stealing Horses, tells his story in sentences so full of momentum that they insist on being read.
'Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet' by Andrew Blum. 304 pp. Ecco. $27.
Most books about the Internet tell us how it's ruining our minds and social lives, but Blum does something far more interesting and ambitious: he sets out to figure out how it actually physically works. He follows all the cables and cords that crisscross our oceans and our floors.
'Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy' by Douglas Smith. 496 pp. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. $30.
It may seem strange in the midst of economic turmoil to urge readers to spend time with the last Russian aristocrats as they watched their palaces sacked and their family members hunted down by Stalin. But Smith tells a mesmerizing tale
of how glamorous toffs figured out how to survive.
'Life Goes On: A Novel' by Hans Keilson. Translated by Damion Searls. 272 pp. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. $15.
Two years ago Dutch-Jewish writer and psycho-analyst Keilson was discovered by the English-speaking world at the age of 101 for novels he wrote decades before. Now his first novel—an autobiographical story set in Germany after World War I—has been gloriously translated. There will sadly be no more of his fine prose as he died last year.
'Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic' by David Quammen. 592pp. W. W. Norton & Company. $29.
The scariest book you'll read this year. Science journalist Quammen explores the nastiest, most virulent diseases on earth—and says that more
are likely to emerge as humans encroach further
on the animal world, and viruses jump species
from them to us.
'Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II' by Keith Lowe. 480 pp. St. Martin's Press. $30.
How do you end a war? A peace treaty often means nothing for the millions displaced, injured, and seeking revenge, as Lowe brilliantly shows in his history of ravaged Europe after the end of World War II. The relative success of the European Union seems all the more remarkable in light of
what he describes.
'When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail' by Eric Jay Dolin. 416 pp. Liveright. $28.
Amidst the U.S.'s election-year demagoguery against China, Dolin's engaging history of the origins of trade between the two countries proves that we've been making insane amounts off China for centuries—and that the growth of American capitalism is inextricable from the East.
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