Tag Archives: Books

This week I headed down to New York City for one of the highlights of my year -- Book Expo America.  It's such a great event for us word nerds: all of the big (and little) publishing houses show off their upcoming wares.  Authors do signings and wander the crowds...and get the sort of rockstar treatment that is usually reserved for, well, rockstars.  And in many ways, it's just delightfully random -- where else could you, in the span of two days, rub elbows with people as diverse as David Pogue, Ina Garten, Meghan McCain, Molly Ringwald, Neil Young, and Dan Rather?  (And those are just some celebrity names.  The famous authors (as distinguished from "already famous people who have written books") elicit just as much excitement from the crowd.  I saw a group of middle-aged women do a full-on fangirl squee over James Patterson when he happened to walk past them downstairs near the bag check area -- and you should see people reacting to meeting Lemony Snicket!)   It's so much fun, and there's always such a positive energy in the crowd -- there's something so awesome about being around likeminded people, and how can it be bad to be around people who love books?

I always love BEA, but this year I feel like everyone outdid themselves.  My coworker and I agreed that it seemed like there were far more giveaways (both of galleys/finished books and of swag) than there have been in past years.  Last year it seemed like several of the big publishers (HarperCollins comes to mind) were really trying to push e-galleys, but this year paper was back in a big way.  The number of books I have stacked in my living room right now is really sort of obscene....and I was being SELECTIVE in what I picked up.

And after I took this picture, I found a few more stragglers that didn't make it into the stacks.  I think there are about 80 books, all told.  Like I said, sort of obscene.  As always, some are destined for the library's permanent collection; some are destined for my (and Ian's, and Jim's) permanent collection; some are galleys that I will circulate around friends and family and coworkers.

There are a lot of books here that I'm really excited to read.  Going into the conference, I was hoping to snag galleys of Where'd You Go, Bernadette and The Age of Miracles -- two books I've heard a lot of buzz about and have already pre-ordered for the library -- and was able to get both (signed, even!).  The Yellow Birds was one that everyone was talking about (and is one of Entertainment Weekly's 10 Most Anticipated Books of 2012); I missed the author event but got a copy of the galley.  I loved Gretchen Rubin's book The Happiness Project, and am looking forward to reading the sequel.  Ian has a copy of the forthcoming Skippyjon Jones book, Cirque de Ole.  The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets has a totally appealing title; as does Things I Want To Punch In The Face.  I already loved Alice Bliss, so it was a genuine pleasure to get to meet and converse with Laura Harrington.  And I've already (!) finished one book, The Good Girls Revolt, an utterly absorbing story about the women who sued Newsweek for sex discrimination back in the early days of Title VII. (Review to come closer to the book's publication date.)

I have so much to read now, I barely know where to begin!  I'd better go crack a few spines...

The Woman Who Wasn't There: The True Story of an Incredible Deception by Robin Gaby Fisher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Two years after the attacks of 9/11, a survivor named Tania Head started posting to survivor's forums online. She was one of only 19 people who had been above the point of impact in the South Tower of the World Trade Center and survived. Her remarkable story of escape -- her arm nearly torn off, her assistant decapitated, the fireman who led her to safety as the tower collapsed, her days of unconsciousness in a New York City burn unit -- was made all the more heartrending by the fact that her husband died in the North Tower.

In a short period of time, her forceful, magnetic personality, combined with her amazing story, made her the face -- and the heart -- of the survivors' network. She helped found and became the beloved president of the World Trade Center Survivors' Network and lobbied successfully to have the 9/11 survivors recognized on par with rescue workers and the victims' families. She gave tours of Ground Zero to visitors and dignitaries such as Rudy Guiliani and Eliot Spitzer. She was instrumental in the saving of the "survivors' staircase," which had been slated for demolition. She got the survivors admitted to the official anniversary ceremonies.

In time, though, discrepancies in her stories started to be noticed. She grew increasingly paranoid and wary of the press and started to have something of a split personality, being unimaginably cruel at times to other survivors -- people who were supposed to be her best friends. Eventually her story was entirely discredited, and in September 2007 the New York Times revealed her to be a true fraud -- she had not even been in the United States on the date of the attacks, and not a single part of her story was true.

I know a couple of people who I believe to be pathological liars, and as bizarre as their fabrications are, this blows them out of the water. Perhaps the strangest part of the story is that Tania Head made no money off of her deception -- her motivation has never become known, but she received no monetary benefit (and, in fact, spent sums of her own money on the survivors' cause) and collected only acclaim, concern, and love.

I couldn't put this book down. The first part of it goes into Tania's (fabricated) story in great detail. The reader knows from the beginning -- from the title and the information on the book flap -- that none of it is true, which makes it even more compelling. The amount of research about the attacks that Tania must have done in order to concoct her story had to have been astounding. By the time I reached the end, I couldn't decide whether I should be angry, sad, disgusted, or some combination of all of the above. What would ever lead someone to do something like this? Did she do it out of cruelty to the true survivors? Was her own life so sad and meaningless that this was the only way she could feel loved and appreciated? Mostly, though, I felt betrayed right along with the real survivors.

Publication date 4/3/2012

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If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home by Lucy Worsley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

From the title of this book, you might expect a historical treatment of the home itself -- perhaps a book about architecture -- but it's far more than that. Lucy Worsley, chief curator for Britain's Historic Royal palaces, uses the four main rooms of the home -- the bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen -- as a framework for revealing the lives of the people who live within those walls.

It sounds dull on paper, but the book is fascinating. And it answers questions I've always wondered about (how on earth did women go to the bathroom in those gigantic dresses? How did families manage to all sleep in a single bed/bedroom?) and things I never realized I wanted to know (how were bodies preserved for public viewings? How did personal hygiene evolve?). The book touches on all sorts of topics -- sexuality, cooking, sleeping, boardinghouses, outhouses, you name it -- and shows how societal norms evolved alongside such things as indoor plumbing, automatic appliances, and duvets.

This isn't a scholarly history, but it's an engaging, lively work of popular history, with Worsley's dry wit evident throughout. I would particularly recommend it to people who enjoy Downton Abbey, The Tudors, or other period television shows, as it provides an interesting backdrop to what's happening onscreen and why.

Electronic review copy received from the publisher via NetGalley. Publication date March 7, 2012.

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