On the table at the front of the store, we have a display of 50 of our favorite books during the past 25 years – 25 fiction and 25 nonfiction. Click here to see the entire list. Our hope was that people would rediscover some of the books that we have loved, many of which only sell infrequently now. Some on our list have obviously piqued your interest and others have been less successful. So I want to say more about five of them today: George Packer -- The Assassins’ Gate, David Remnick -- King of the World, David Maraniss – Clemente, Chang Rae Lee – A Gesture Life; and Ursula Hegi – Stones from the River.
George Packer’s The Assassins’ Gate is the single best book about how the U.S. fell into the Iraq War and what happened when we got there. George is going to be at the store on November 18 for his new book of essays, Interesting Times. You can read The Assassins’ Gate before he comes and ask him questions.
David Remnick writes equally well about politics and sports as does David Maraniss. Each of them has a brilliant sports book on our list of favorites. David Remnick’s King of the World is such a subtle and touching evocation of Mohammad Ali. It’s a great biography. So, too is David Maraniss’s Clemente. In neither case do you need to care about boxing or baseball because each book is full of detail about race and class, as well as grace and charm.
Among our fiction selections, Chang Rae Lee’s A Gesture Life is very sad, yes, but also so very beautiful. Many Americans aren't aware of how the Japanese treated Koreans when they occupied Korea between 1905 and World War II. Lee’s book portrays with extreme sensitivity how that tragic time played out for an emigrant to Westchester County. (A lovely new novel, The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim also concerns that occupation and Korean dignity). Chang Rae Lee has a new book - The Surrendered - coming out early next year.
Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi was an enormous bestseller fifteen years ago, and not only because it was one of the first books adopted by Oprah for her book club. Hegi, who grew up in Germany, wrote about Nazi terror from the point of view of Germans. She’s written other good fiction, but none that so captured people’s imagination as this book about the residents of a small German town.
