Under The Lamplight

Stuff your mind and stomach with great books

By Caroline Leavitt
Published: Dec 15, 2007

Slam
By Nick Hornby
G. P. Putnam’s Sons $19.99

The men in Hornby’s (About a Boy) wonderful novels are usually not exactly on the ball when it comes to maturity or women. But here, Hornby gives us a teenaged boy who could teach all those fictional men a thing or two about life and love. Skateboarder Sam respects his girlfriend Alicia, worries about his mom’s dating habits, and plans on college. But when Alicia gets pregnant and decides to have the baby, Sam’s forced to grow up fast. It’s impossible not to fall in love with Sam, who sticks by Alicia and cares for the baby, even as visions of his probable future roll through his head. Funny, warm, and full of sparks

It’s So You: 35 Women Write about Personal Expression Through Fashion & Style
Edited by Michelle Tea
Seal Press $15.95

If you’ve ever found irrepressible joy wearing a tattered t-shirt, you’ll love this collection of subversive essays about fashion and feminism. Thirty-five women from a wide range of gender identifications and sexualities write about their thorny relationship with style. Felicia Luna Lemus pays homage to red lipstick’s ability to turn anyone into a powerful bitch. In my fave essay, Dexter Flowers writes about the humiliation of her mother’s boyfriend loving her green velour pants so much that he bags a pair of his own. More about personal power, love and identity than hemlines, this is a book far more interested in the soul than the sole.

Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire - Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do
By Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa
Perigree Press $ 23.95

What can the so-called beautiful people teach us? Just about what ever we need to know about human behavior, suggest researcher Kanazawa and Professor Miller. According to the authors, although man stopped evolving ten thousand years ago, what we were then still impacts who we are today. Those centuries old instincts to find the right mate and be fruitful and multiply are hardwired into our psyches and affect everything in our modern life from getting a job to beliefs in God to why having sons reduces the likelihood of divorce. Provocative and a whole lot of fun.

The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken: A Search for Food and Family
Laura Schenone
Norton $26.95

Ok, so I’m prejudiced because I live in Hoboken, where parts of this irresistible book are set, but James Beard award winning author Laura Schenone’s quest to find her great grandmother’s ravioli recipe is nothing short of delicious. As she journeys through New Jersey to Italy, she crafts a virtual poem to ravioli making and a paean to family. Recipes, like love and connection, are passed down through the generations, and the more Schenone finds out about her ancestors, the more she discovers about her own place in the world. Go ahead, try not to buy a pasta machine as soon as you turn the last page.

The Zookeeper’s Wife
Diana Ackerman
Norton $24.95

How do you remain human when the world around you is not? While the Nazis were busy brutally decimating populations in their attempt to leave only the “purebred,” Polish Christian zookeepers Jan and Antonina Żabiński saved over 300 Jews and refuges, hiding them in zoo cages or in corners of their own home. As Jan led an underground group against the Nazis, the Żabińskis also took care of their young son, their animals, and their very special guests. Ackerman relies on Antonina’s real-life diaries to craft a story that reads like a novel but is terrifyingly true.

Caroline Leavitt is the prize-winning author of 8 novels, most recently Girls in Trouble. She can be reached at http://www.carolineleavitt.com

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