Tag Archives: Publishers Weekly

Books

W. W. Norton offers a pair of must-read books, both true stories and both riveting

W.W. Norton has released a pair of books that will whet the appetite of fans of literary biographies as well as true crime thrillers.

Colin Asher’s Never a Lovely So Real ($39.95) is the definitive biography of National Book Award-winning novelist Nelson Algren (The Man With the Golden Arm), whose career as a writer was stalled by a decades-long FBI investigation into his ties to the Communist Party, and ultimately subsumed by changing tastes in literature. In its starred review, Publishers Weekly calls the book “a generous, stylish portrait of an impulsive, directionless outsider who nonetheless established a place among the lions of mid-twentieth century American literature”.

Noted fans of Algren’s include Don DeLillo, whom Algren mentored, and Russell Banks; he was friends with Richard Wright and had a long affair with Simone de Beauvoir. CUNY literature instructor Colin Asher’s close reading of Algren’s work, and his access to Algren’s FBI file, allow him to reconstruct in vivid detail Algren’s life, from his Depression-era struggles to his Army service to his sudden fame and then his struggles late in his life. A fascinating glimpse into the world of a writer who deserves to be remembered and re-read by new generations of readers.

In The Last Job: The “Bad Grandpas” and the Hatton Garden Heist, ($26.95), New York Times reporter Dan Bilefsky’s offers a riveting account of the biggest bank heist in the U.K. since the Great Train Robbery. Over Easter weekend 2015, a motley crew of six English thieves, several in their sixties and seventies, couldn’t resist coming out of retirement for one last career-topping heist. Their target: the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit, in the heart of London’s medieval diamond district.

Perhaps not the smoothest of criminals—one took a public bus to the scene of the crime; another read Forensics for Dummies in hopes he would learn how to avoid getting caught—they planned the job over fish and chips at their favorite pubs. They were cantankerous and coarse, dubbed the “Bad Grandpas” by British tabloids, and were often as likely to complain about one another as the current state of the country. Still, these analog thieves in a digital age managed to disable a high-security alarm system and drill through twenty inches of reinforced concrete, walking away with a stunning haul of at least $19 million in jewels, gold, diamonds, family heirlooms, and cash.

Books

Haven’t heard of Tanguy Viel? You will, when his book “Article 353” debuts in March.

We loved when we come across a book by an author when haven’t met. Yet. Equal parts courtroom drama and psychological thriller, Article 353 (Other Press, $15.99), by internationally bestselling author Tanguy Viel, employs subtle, enthralling prose to raise questions about the pursuit of “justice” within the confines of the law.

We aren’t the only who were caught up with the book: Publishers Weekly raves about the book in a recent review calling it a “beguiling noir” and an “elegant effort” sure to win new fans in the U.S.

With echoes of Herman Koch’s The Dinner and Scott Turow’s Limitations, Article 353 is a noir novel retracing the steps that led to a murder off the coast of Brittany. A bestseller in France, winning the Grand Prix RTL-Lire and Prix François Mauriac, the book has sold in 10 territories to date, including Germany, Italy, Spain, and China.

In a depressed town on France’s northern coast, a man named Martial Ker­meur has been arrested for the murder of real estate developer Antoine La­zenec after throwing him overboard. Kermeur has long led an upstanding life, raising his son as a single father and humbly working as a groundskeeper after he’s laid off from the shipyard. Running counter to his signature ethically driven and measured demeanor, Kermeur finds himself swept up in the glit­tering promises of Lazenec, who entices Kermeur into investing the entirety of his savings. Called before a judge, Kermeur goes back to the beginning to explain what brought him to this desperate point: his divorce, his son’s acting out, layoffs at his job, and, above all, Lazenec’s dazzling project for a seaside resort.

 Kremeur’s story, told in retrospect, takes on an eerie prophetic tenor, acting as a parable shedding light on a timeless undercurrent of societal ills that still resound in today’s climate of financial and judicial turmoil. Here, Viel, a born storyteller, examines not only the psychology of a crime, but also the larger social maladies that may offer its justification.

We tell no more except buy it and read it. It hits shelves March 12.

Books

Wake up America! Jeff Nesbit’s “This is the Way the World Ends” paints a call-to-arms

Adolph Frump doesn’t believe in life.

Yet we are facing down the end of the world as we know it. Previous director of public affairs for two federal science agencies and current executive director of Climate Nexus, Jeff Nesbit offers a “nonpartisan call-to-arms” (Publishers Weekly) to face the environmental challenges humans have created with This is the Way the World Ends: How Droughts and Die-offs, Heat Waves, and Hurricanes Are Converging on America (Thomas Dunne Books, $29.99).

This Is the Way the World Ends: How Droughts and Die-offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes Are Converging on America

The world itself won’t end, of course. Only ours will: our livelihoods, our homes, our cultures. And we’re squarely at the tipping point. Longer droughts in the Middle East. Growing desertification in China and Africa. The monsoon season shrinking in India. Amped-up heat waves in Australia. More intense hurricanes reaching America. Water wars in the Horn of Africa. Rebellions, refugees and starving children across the globe. These are not disconnected events. These are the pieces of a larger puzzle that environmental expert Jeff Nesbit puts together, check this out: Facts from TIHTWE

Unless we start addressing the causes of climate change and stop simply navigating its effects, we will be facing a series of unstoppable catastrophes by the time our preschoolers graduate from college. Our world is in trouble . . . right now. This Is the Way the World Ends tells the real stories of the substantial impacts to Earth’s systems unfolding across each continent. The bad news? Within two decades or so, our carbon budget will reach a point of no return.

But there’s good news. Like every significant challenge we’ve faced—from creating civilization in the shadow of the last ice age to the Industrial Revolution—we can get out of this box canyon by understanding the realities, changing the worn-out climate conversation to one that’s relevant to every person. Nesbit provides a clear blueprint for real-time, workable solutions we can tackle together.

How good is the book? Says Senator John Kerry:  “With This is the Way the World Ends Jeff Nesbit has delivered an enlightening—and alarming—explanation of climate challenge as it exists today. Climate change is no far-off threat. It’s impacting communities all over the world at this very moment, and we ignore the scientific reality at our own peril. The good news? As Nesbit underscores, disaster is not preordained. The global community can meet this moment—and we must.”