Magill's Literary Annual 2010: Essay-reviews of 200 Outstanding Books Published in the United States During 2009 With an Annotated List of Titles PDF
Preview Magill's Literary Annual 2010: Essay-reviews of 200 Outstanding Books Published in the United States During 2009 With an Annotated List of Titles
MAGILL’S LITERARY ANNUAL 2010 MAGILL’S LITERARY ANNUAL 2010 Essay-Reviews of 200 Outstanding Books Published in the United States During 2009 With an Annotated List of Titles Volume One A-LIT Edited by JOHN D. WILSON STEVEN G. KELLMAN SALEM PRESS Pasadena, California Hackensack, New Jersey Cover photo:Courtesy, U.S. Senate Copyright © 2010, bySalem Press Allrights in this book are reserved. No part of this work may be usedorreproducedinanymannerwhatsoeverortransmittedinany formorbyanymeans,electronicormechanical,includingphoto- copy, recording, or any information storage and retrievalsystem, withoutwrittenpermissionfromthecopyrightownerexceptinthe caseofbriefquotationsembodiedincriticalarticlesandreviewsor inthecopyingofimagesdeemedtobefreelylicensedorinthepub- lic domain. For information address the publisher, Salem Press, [email protected]. ∞ThepaperusedinthesevolumesconformstotheAmericanNa- tionalStandardforPermanenceofPaperforPrintedLibraryMate- rials, Z39.48-1992 (R1997). Library of Congress Catalog Card No ISBN (set): 978-1-58765-655-2 ISBN (vol. 1): 978-1-58765-656-9 ISBN (vol. 2): 978-1-58765-657-6 first printing printed in the united states of america CONTENTS Publisher’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Complete Annotated List of Titles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Contributing Reviewers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxv Author Photo Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxviii A. Lincoln: A Biography—Ronald C. White, Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science—Richard Holmes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 All Other Nights—Dara Horn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 American Radical: The Life and Times of I. F. Stone— D. D. Guttenplan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life—Adam Gopnik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 The Antelope’s Strategy: Living in Rwanda After the Genocide— Jean Hatzfeld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 The Anthologist—Nicholson Baker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Ardent Spirits: Leaving Home, Coming Back—Reynolds Price . . . . . . . . . 33 The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution—Denis Dutton. . . . 37 Baader-Meinhof: The Inside Story of the R.A.F.—Stefan Aust. . . . . . . . . . 42 Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock—Pete Fornatale . . . . . . . . . 46 Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace—Ayelet Waldman . . . . . . . . . . . 50 The Bard: Robert Burns, A Biography—Robert Crawford . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 The Believers—Zoë Heller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America— Timothy Egan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experience—Jeremy Mynott . . . . . 68 Blame—Michelle Huneven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Blood’s a Rover—James Ellroy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys—Lilian Pizzichini . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 The Book of Night Women—Marlon James . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 The Book of Samuel: Essays on Poetry and Imagination— Mark Rudman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 The Book of William: How Shakespeare’s First Folio Conquered the World—Paul Collins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 v MAGILL’S LITERARY ANNUAL 2010 Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi— Timothy R. Pauketat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Can Poetry Save the Earth? A Field Guide to Nature Poems— John Felstiner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 The Canal Builders: Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal— Julie Greene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Castle—J. Robert Lennon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Catcher: How the Man Behind the Plate Became an American Folk Hero—Peter Morris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Cheever: A Life—Blake Bailey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Chronic—D. A. Powell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Chronic City—Jonathan Lethem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Cold: Adventures In the World’s Frozen Places—Bill Streever. . . . . . . . . 133 Collected Poems—C. P. Cavafy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Columbine—Dave Cullen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 The Cradle—Patrick Somerville. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Crossers—Philip Caputo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression— Morris Dickstein. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Darwin’s Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin’s Views on Human Evolution—Adrian DesmondandJames Moore. . . . 160 Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5—Christopher Andrew. . . 166 Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South— Lacy K. Ford. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music— Amiri Baraka. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Digital Barbarism: A Writer’s Manifesto—Mark Helprin. . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Don’t Cry: Stories—Mary Gaitskill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 The Dynamite Club: How a Bombing in Fin-de-Siècle Paris Ignited the Age of Modern Terror—John Merriman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 Eating Animals—Jonathan Safran Foer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays—Chinua Achebe . . . . . 196 1848: Year of Revolution—Mike Rapport. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815— Gordon S. Wood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Endpoint: And Other Poems—John Updike. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfilment in Early Modern England— Keith Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Every Man Dies Alone—Hans Fallada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned—Wells Tower . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Evidence—Mary Oliver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 vi CONTENTS The Face on Your Plate: The Truth About Food— Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Field Days: A Year of Farming, Eating, and Drinking Wine in California—Jonah Raskin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor—Brad Gooch . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City— Greg Grandin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 The Future of Liberalism—Alan Wolfe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Gabriel García Márquez: A Life—Gerald Martin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 A Gate at the Stairs—Lorrie Moore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China—Jay Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 Generosity: An Enhancement—Richard Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 Genesis—Bernard Beckett. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 The Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness— Joan Roughgarden. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280 Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible—David Plotz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 A Good Fall—Ha Jin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme—Tracy Daugherty . . . . . . 294 The Hindus: An Alternative History—Wendy Doniger . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 Homer & Langley—E. L. Doctorow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304 Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of U.S. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan—Doug Stanton. . . . . . . . . . . 308 House Of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street—William D. Cohan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization—Jonathan Lyons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318 The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War—Alexander Waugh . . . . . . . 322 The Housekeeper and the Professor—Yoko Ogawa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 How Rome Fell—Adrian Goldsworthy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 How to Paint a Dead Man—Sarah Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 The Humbling—Philip Roth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340 Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris: Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry—Leanne Shapton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 In Other Rooms, Other Wonders—Daniyal Mueenuddin . . . . . . . . . . . . 349 In Such Hard Times: The Poetry of Wei Ying-wu—Wei Ying-wu. . . . . . . . 354 In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect—Ronald Kessler . . . . . . 358 vii MAGILL’S LITERARY ANNUAL 2010 Inherent Vice—Thomas Pynchon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364 Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia—Jonathan Brent . . . 369 Invisible—Paul Auster. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374 It Will Come to Me—Emily Fox Gordon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379 Italian Shoes—Henning Mankell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383 Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi—Geoff Dyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387 Judas: A Biography—Susan Gubar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391 A Jury of Her Peers: Celebrating American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx—Elaine Showalter. . . . . . . . . . . 396 The Kindly Ones—Jonathan Littell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400 King’s Dream—Eric J. Sundquist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405 Kipling Sahib: India and the Making of Rudyard Kipling—Charles Allen . . . 410 Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic—Michael Scammell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415 The Lacuna—Barbara Kingsolver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420 Laish—Aharon Appelfeld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425 Lark and Termite—Jayne Ann Phillips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429 Last Rites—John Lukacs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433 Laura Rider’s Masterpiece—Jane Hamilton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437 “Le Cid” and “The Liar”—Pierre Corneille. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442 Leaving India: My Family’s Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents—Minal Hajratwala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447 Leavings: Poems—Wendell Berry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452 The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Vol. I: 1929-1940—Samuel Beckett . . . . . . 457 Life in Space: Astrobiology for Everyone—Lucas John Mix . . . . . . . . . . 462 The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty— Peter Singer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466 Lit: A Memoir—Mary Karr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470 viii PUBLISHER’S NOTE Magill’sLiteraryAnnual,2010isthefifty-sixthpublicationinaseriesthatbegan in1954.Criticalessaysforthefirsttwenty-twoyearswerecollectedandpublishedin the twelve-volume Survey of Contemporary Literature in 1977; since then, yearly setshavebeenpublished.Eachyear,Magill’sLiteraryAnnualseekstoevaluatecriti- cally200majorexamplesofseriousliterature,bothfictionandnonfiction,published duringthepreviouscalendaryear.Thephilosophybehindourselectionprocessisto coverworksthatarelikelytobeofinteresttogeneralreaders,thatreflectpublishing trends,thataddtothecareersofauthorsbeingtaughtandresearchedinliteraturepro- grams,andthatwillstandthetestoftime.Byfilteringthethousandsofbookspub- lishedeveryyeardownto200notabletitles,theeditorshaveprovidedbusylibrarians withanexcellentreader’sadvisorytoolandpatronswithfodderforbookdiscussion groupsandaguideforchoosingworthwhilereadingmaterial.Theessay-reviewsin theAnnualprovideamoreacademic,“reference”reviewofaworkthanistypically found in newspapers and other periodical sources. Thereviews inthetwo-volume Magill’sLiteraryAnnual, 2010 arearranged al- phabeticallybytitle.Atthebeginningofbothvolumesisacompletealphabeticallist, by category, of allcovered books thatprovides readers withthetitle,author, and a brief description of each work. Every essay is approximately four pages in length. Each one begins with a block of reference information in a standard order: (cid:127) Full book title, including any subtitle (cid:127) Author:Name, with birth and death years, where available (cid:127) First published: Original foreign-language title, with year and country, when pertinent (cid:127) Original language and translator name, when pertinent (cid:127) Introduction, Foreword, etc., with writer’s name, when pertinent (cid:127) Publisher:Company name and city, number of pages, retail price (cid:127) Type of work:(chosen from standard categories) Anthropology Essays Literary criticism Archaeology Ethics Literary history Autobiography Film Literary theory Biography Fine arts Media Current affairs History Medicine Diary History of science Memoir Drama Language Miscellaneous Economics Law Music Education Letters Natural history Environment Literary biography Nature ix
The list of books you might like
