10.02.07
Terrell’s Front Table Books
What book lover doesn’t welcome the coming of autumn? The shorter days and cooler temperatures are perfect for curling up with a good book and the publishers are gearing up for holiday sales by releasing streams of wonderful new hardbacks. It was a difficult job trying to pick just a few Front Table books to write about from this bounteous harvest.
My first pick would have to be The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama. I’m a huge fan of her literary historical fiction and I was happy that she returned to the Japanese setting of Samurai’s Garden in this new novel although this one covers a longer time frame. The book tells the story of Hiroshi and Kenji, orphaned brothers being raised by their grandparents in pre-war Tokyo, who both choose to pursue careers rooted in Japanese tradition: one as a sumo wrestler and the other as a mask maker for Noh dramas. We follow them through the sweeping changes wrought by the World War II into the drastically different world of post war life. California author Tsukiyama is so skilled at rendering the delicate details that make this setting come alive and it is enlightening to hear about a period of Japanese history that has been little reported in the West. ($24.95)
Let’s move to Italy with End Games, which, sadly, will be the last adventure of detective Commisario Aurelio Zen. His creator, Michael Dibdin passed away here in Seattle in the spring. Each installment of the Zen mysteries has taken us to a different part of Italy and this one sends us to Calabria, the rocky and poor province in the toe of Italy’s boot, where the Venice born and bred Zen feels decidedly out of his element. When an American lawyer with ties to the film industry is found dead, apparently the victim of a kidnapping gone wrong, our hero—or anti-hero—must sort out the truth of the matter. Dibdin’s quirky observations about life in Italy and the darkly humorous nature of his main character always take these genre tales to the next level. He and Aurelio will definitely be missed. ($23.95)
Noah Charney’s first novel, The Art Thief, takes us into the esoteric world of stolen art. A Caravaggio altar piece from Rome, a supremacist painting in Paris and a London museum’s latest acquisition are all stolen in apparently separate incidents. Renowned art historian, Gabriel Coffin, is called in to investigate and detects a pattern but twists, forgeries and double crosses complicate the case. Although there’s plenty going on in the plot line, the real interest in this novel lies in the wealth of information Charney provides about the inside story of art theft investigation. This young author and art historian is forging a career as an innovator in the field—he’s starting a new think tank in Rome on the subject—while writing and developing television projects on the side. If you’re interested in art this is a great opportunity to get the inside scoop. ($25.00)
It wouldn’t be a Fall publishing season without a new book from bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith and this month he treats us to a fourth installment in his Isabel Dalhousie series, The Careful Use of Compliments. He opens this one with a couple of twists, Isabel has a new baby by her much younger lover and she abruptly gets fired as the editor of “The Review of Applied Ethics”. Naturally these complications give our heroine plenty of opportunity to exercise her patented methods of gentle insight and influence to save the situation. A subplot about the death of a famous Scottish painter moves the story along but the interaction between the main characters and the vividly drawn scenes of Scotland are what really keep us coming back for more McCall Smith. ($21.95)
Another prolific author has a new book out this season. Although best known in our store as the author of travel essays, Paul Theroux’s The Elephanta Suite is his thirtieth book of fiction. This set of three loosely connected novellas set in India all center on the misconceptions harbored by the American travelers who star in each story and their rather brutal encounters with the real India. As always, Theroux’s writing is polished and enticing, and also as always, his focus on some of the more unpleasant aspects of human nature can be eye opening, even shocking. Both the American and the Indian characters are portrayed with all their flaws in full view but it seems to me that it’s Theroux’s ability to tell the truth about his observations that we really value in his writing. More conservative readers should be aware that there’s a lot of sexual content in this book. ($25.00)
And finally, I chose one book of non-fiction off the Front Table, The Year of Eating Dangerously by Tom Parker Bowles. If that name seems familiar, it should. He is Camilla’s son and a well-known food writer in England. Having two friends with odd food phobias sparked his curiosity about weird and dangerous edibles and sent him on a year-long journey through Asia, Europe and the Americas. Whether it’s something truly dangerous like fugu, the poisonous blowfish considered a delicacy in Japan, or something just gross like Laotian water beetles, Parker Bowles is always up for the next meal and happy to describe it in witty, very British prose. Fortunately for those of us who love travel as much as food, he also gives us hilarious portraits of the people and places who supply him with his bizarre menu items. Nothing weighty here (unless you eat everything along with him), just a pleasant romp. ($24.95)
Those are my picks for the month but there’re plenty more where these came from. Stop by the Front Table and choose your own basketful.
