Arts & Entertainment

Sail Into Summer from page C6

NONFICTION
The Bagel: The Surprising History of a
Modest Bread by Maria Balinska (Yale
University Press; $24) weaves Polish,
Jewish, American, Canadian and British
history (with brief visits to China and
Italy) in a tale of the popular, unassuming
roll that has managed to bridge cultural
gaps, rescue kings from obscurity and
charge the emotions while pleasing palates
and occasionally challenging jaws.

The Golden Willow: The Story of a
Lifetime of Love by Harry Bernstein
(Ballantine; $25) is the 99-year-old
author's final book in his highly praised
memoir trilogy, which he began five
years ago after the death of his beloved
wife, Ruby; The Invisible Wall told a
haunting tale of forbidden love in World
War I-era England, The Dream related the
touching story of his family's immigrant
experience in Depression-era Chicago
and New York and this volume is an
account of his nearly 70-year romance
with Ruby as they pursue the American
Dream, weathering much but sharing an
incredible love.

Arthur Miller by Christopher Bigsby
(Harvard University Press; $35), a close
friend as well as a student of the great
American playwright, is a lengthy,
sympathetic biography that includes
new material on Miller, a University of
Michigan graduate, who gave Bigsby
boxes and boxes of previously unseen
material just before his death in 2005;
Miller's relationship with Marilyn
Monroe reveals the other side of a man
revered for his great intellect.

Under Their Thumb: How a Nice Boy
From Brooklyn Got Mixed Up with the
Rolling Stones (and Lived to Tell Abut
It) by Bill German (Random House;
$25), a reporter who has reported on
the Stones for radio stations including
WCSX in Detroit, is his up-close-and-
personal account of falling in love with

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June 25 2009

the rock group as a 10-year-old Hebrew
day school student; going on to chronicle
their activities at age 16 in Beggars
Banquet, which became the band's offi-
cial newsletter; traveling the world with
them from concert to concert and being
invited into their homes; and why his
childhood dream became a passion he
finally had to part with.

Invisible Sisters by Jessica Handler
(Public Affairs; $24.95) is the author's
coming-of-age story and chronicle of love
and loss about not only how to survive
family tragedy but build a new life in its
aftermath; as the daughter of progressive
parents who moved to Atlanta to partici-
pate in the social-justice movement of
the 1960s, Jessica is the healthy middle
child living in the shadow of her older
and younger sisters' illnesses and even-
tual deaths who finds a way to redefine
herself anew.

My Remarkable Journey by Larry King
(Weinstein Books; $27.95) covers the
Jewish author's life from his humble
roots in Depression-era Brooklyn (where
he lost his father at age 9) through his
personal, professional and health set-
backs, to his success as the host of CNN's
Larry King Live; in addition to personal
anecdotes, King reflects on many of the
people he's interviewed in a 50-year
career.

The Jewish Body by Melvin Konner
(Schocken Books; $22), an anthropologist
and physician, is the latest installment of
the Jewish Encounters series published
by Schocken and Nextbook and traces
the Jewish body through two chrono-
logical progressions — the growing and
aging of a single body (Konner contem-
plates sex, circumcision, menstruation,
muscles, Jewish genes and the origins of
the first nose job) and the transforma-
tion of the univer-
sal body of

Jews, as it passed from the powerlessness
of exile to the earthbound embodiment
of rediscovered nationalism; he also dis-
cusses the fraught relationship between
the Jewish conception of the body and
the Jewish conception of a bodiless God.

Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love
and Death Behind the Gates of Palm
Beach by Laurence Leamer (Hyperion;
$25.95) is the author's inside story of the
winter home of the mega-wealthy (some
of it devastated by the Ponzi scheme of
Bernie Madoff); Leamer looks at the way
wealth makes its own rules, takes readers
into the scandals and tragedies of some
of the wealthiest families in the country
and captures the clash between old and
new money, religion and status (includ-
ing a look at the Jewish community) and
the love, lust and hatreds that determine
the shape of Palm Beach society.

Paul Newman: A Life by Shawn Levy
(Harmony Books; $29.99), a film critic
for The Oregonian, is the first complete
biography of the late actor; in addition to
covering Newman's stellar acting career,
passion for car racing, hugely success-
ful entrepreneurial and philanthropic
endeavors and enduring 50-year romance
with actress-wife Joanne Woodward,
the author delicately probes the darker
side to Newman's stardom: little-known
facts about the actor's alcoholism; his
estranged relationship with his only son,
Scott, who died of a drug overdose; and
his affair with another woman while
married to Woodward.

Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller
Autobiography by Jerry Lieber and
Mike Stoller with David Ritz (Simon &
Schuster; $25) is the story of the Jewish
pop songwriters who began their career
while still in their teens working with the
pioneers of rock 'n' roll; a few years later,
"Hound Dog" would be a
No. 1 hit for Elvis

Presley, and the duo's fresh talent and
love for American R&B would create a
soundtrack for a generation.

Zubin Mehta: The Score of My Life
($27.99) by Zubin Mehta (Amadeus
Press; $27.99) is a memoir by the
Indian-born, music director for life of
the Israeli Philharmonic; Mehta shares
an insider's view of the classical music
world at its highest levels, gives personal
accounts of events like the Three Tenors
concerts and close friendships with
Daniel Barenboim and Itzhak Perlman
and recalls his close relationship with
Israel and his efforts to use music to
bring people together.

Not Becoming My Mother & Other
Things She Taught Me Along the Way
by Ruth Reichl (Penguin Press; $19.95)
is the Gourmet magazine editor's
examination of her mother's life and
the discovery of a woman she never
really knew; along the way, Reichl, a
U-M grad and author of three bestsell-
ing memoirs, confronts the transition
her mother made from hopeful young
woman (she wanted to be a doctor, but
her parents feared no one would marry
her) to an increasingly unhappy older
one and comes to understand the les-
sons of rebellion, independence and
self-acceptance her mother succeeded in
teaching her.

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes
from My Kitchen Table by Molly
Wizenberg (Simon & Schuster; $25) is
a memoir in which the founder of the
food blog Orangette shares stories of an
everyday life and a way of eating that is
both playful and mindful, with lessons
we can learn in the kitchen about who
we are, who we love and who we want
to be; the 50 recipes that accompany
Wizenberg's writing are an integral part
of the story. 7