February's Best Books

Ad men and Madmen are amongst our picks by Caroline Leavitt


Sima’s Undergarments for Women
By Ilana Stanger-Ross
The Overlook Press

Welcome to the lively, intimate world of an underground Brooklyn bra shop, where proprietor Sima Goldner brings out the best in other women’s bodies, even as she grapples with her barren marriage and a long-held secret. But when she becomes obsessed with the young gorgeous Israeli girl she takes on as her seamstress, her life slowly awakens.  A wonderfully rich and deeply moving story about female friendship and the power of reinvention, whether it’s with the proper bra—or the right person.



How to Live: A Search for Wisdom From Old People (While They Are Still on This Earth)
By Henry Alford
Twelve 

Michelangelo finished the Pieta at 92. Benjamin Franklin put his John Hancock on the Constitution at 91. Isn’t it time for youth-obsessed America to consider the wisdom of our elders? In this exuberantly hopeful book, Alford goes on a journey to be enlightened by the aged, interviewing famous and unknowns, like LSD pioneer Ram Dass and a 79-year-old woman who divorces to start a new life.  Alford puts himself in the story, too, watching helplessly as his stepfather turns back to the bottle and his mother moves into a retirement home. Funny and heart-wrenching, and proof that we do wise up as we get older.



The King of Madison Avenue: David Ogilvy and the Making of Modern Advertising
By Kenneth Roman
Palgrave Macmillan

Want to meet a real Mad Men? In this fascinating bio, Palgrave gives us an intimate portrait of his 26 years with his flamboyant boss, David Ogilvy, who transformed advertising. Ogilvy put the eye patch on the man in the Hathaway shirt and took a company’s feminine, red-tipped (so it wouldn’t show lipstick) cigarette and handed it over to the rugged Marlboro Man.  An eccentric who worked in British intelligence before opening his agency at 40, Ogilvy was also asthmatic and unhappy in love. Roman shows him warts and all, making this an advertisement for a truly remarkable man.


Voluntary  Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin
By Norah Vincent
Viking

Shortly after Vincent writes Self Made Man, about living disguised as a man for 18 months, she spirals into depression. Committing herself to a mental institution, Vincent begins to ponder mental health care in America, and sets out to investigate. Further voluntary stays follow in private and boutique facilities, and as she struggles with her depression, she reveals the doctors, patients and sometimes outrageous treatments that go along with these places.  Riveting, funny and sometimes shocking, this you-are-there book makes you realize “You don’t finish (treatment).  You continue.”


Nova
By James Boice
ScribnerBe forewarned that Boice’s book is not the easy-going kind you tuck in your resort bag and breeze through. A dense, stream of consciousness tale about a 17-year-old who hanged himself from a basketball hoop, Boice artfully probes the reasons why, limning the lives of the boy’s family, friends and neighbors, even as he exposes the dark side of a Northern Virginian suburb.  Haunting, brilliant and unlike anything else you’ve ever read. 



Shout Out: One Big Happy Family: 18 Writers Talk about Polyamory, Open Adoption, Mixed Marriage, Househusbandry, Single Motherhood, and Other Realities of Truly Modern Love
Edited by Rebecca Walker
Riverhead

What makes the 21st century family work?  Dan Savage adopts the son of a drug addicted mom, a woman marries her gay friend to keep him in the USA, and this terrific compendium of stories shows how the idea of one big happy family is really made up of a multitude of possibilities. 


Caroline Leavitt thinks that any month that has Valentine’s candy is okay by her. She can be reached at http://www.carolineleavitt.com.

 

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