The Book Babes

FAT CHANCE: The Latest Book on Diets

ELLEN: The new book Good Calories, Bad Calories:
Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight
Control and Disease by Gay Taubes (Knopf) is a fat
little sucker in its own right. It makes a good
argument for the theory that refined carbs are
responsible for the obesity epidemic. Publishers
Weekly gave it a starred review. I don't think
there's a more serious or pervasive health problem
right now that this one.

MARGO: Oh please. I'm a skeptic when it comes to such
anti-pasta talk. Doesn't it seem odd that Italians
in Milan don't have the same obesity problem as
Americans in Muncie, Indiana do? Could our excess
poundage be caused by our sedentary ways and our
penchant for overeating and not by spaghetti alfredo?
I think Mireille Guiliano (French Women Don't Get
Fat) and Naomi Moriyama (Japanese Women Don't Get
Fat or Old) got it right. French women eat for
pleasure not for comfort and therefore they don't
binge. Japanese women have the lowest obesity rate on
the planet (3 percent) and they eat rice at almost
every meal, but their meals, which also usually
include vegetables and fruit, are never huge ones.
Supersizing Americans do nothing in moderation.

ELLEN: Based on my experience, I'd agree with you. An
au pair from Denmark who lived with us 20 years ago told me she
was amazed at how Americans snacked all the time, and
I suspect what you're talking about --lifestyle
habits -- are a big factor in our ever-expanding
waistlines. But Taubes says it's primarily because we're on a sugar
high. He's not the first one to associate weight gain
and the diabetes epidemic with the enormous amount of
sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup in our diets.
But he explains why, refuting the accepted wisdom of a
low-fat diet and exercise as keys to good health.

MARGO: Don't get me wrong. I do think that the rise in
diabetes and obesity in this country comes from our
dependence on corn syrup. Anyone who's read Michael
Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A History of Four
Meals will be convinced of that (his riveting account
of where our meals really come from by the way is just
out in paperback from Penguin, so if you haven't read
it, now's the time). But anyone who thinks he can eat
his way to health without getting up off the couch is
nuts. We need to get moving. I know you like yoga as
much as I do, so I recommmend Yoga As Medicine: The
Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing by Timothy
McCall (Bantam). Its a book geared to old ages and to people in
all states of wellness. An M.D., medical editor of
Yoga Journal and a longtime yoga practioner, McCall
combines Western medicine with the ancient discipline
of yoga and provides some practical ways to stretch
and breathe your way to feeling better, addressing
specific ailments such as back pain, arthritis, asthma
and even cancer. He doesn't over cures, but here's
what he says about yoga's effect on diabetes: "Because
high levels of stress hormones like adrenaline and
cortisol raise blood suar levels, and high cortisol
levels also tend to promote both overeating and the
accumulation of intra-abdonminal fat, which
contributes to insulin resistance, as well as to the
risk of having a heart attack, yoga's impact on stress
can ultimately do a lot to promote health and prevent,
delay, or minimize the effects of the disease."

THE BOOK BABES RADIO SHOW

The Book Babes Radio Show will be streaming live today, August 15, at 11:30 at www.wmnf.org and after that will be archived on the site. To find it in the archives, go to news stories, click on more and then when you see a search prompt, type in Babes and hit search and our programs (two so far!) will show up.

Here are the highlights of our August 15 show:

* The Book Babes Pick of the Month: Ellen recommends "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman; Margo gives the nod to "The Tenderness of Wolves" by Stef Penney.

* An interview with Maureen Adams, author of "Shaggy Muses: The Dogs Who Inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edith Wharton, and Emily Bronte.

* Books in the News: The Book Babes discuss the avalanche of books by and about the current (and possibly future) Presidential candidates.

BOOK BABES DEBUT RADIO SHOW TALKING WITH DAVE EGGERS ABOUT DARFUR, LOST BOYS AND OTHER THINGS AFRICAN

The Book Babes’ radio show on WMNF, an independent FM channel based in Tampa, is debuting this week. (Check out the station’s website at www.wmnf.org). Our first guest is Dave Eggers, publisher of McSweeney’s and author of “What Is the What,” a novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the so-called lost boys of Sudan.
In the interview, Eggers talks about African writer Ishmael Beah, who was conscripted in the army in Sierra Leone at age 13. Eggers writes about Beah and his book, “Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” in Vanity Fair’s July issue on everything Africa, guest-edited by Bono.
You may have seen the book in Starbucks. African lit seems to be popping up everywhere these days. Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe, who South African novelist Nadine Gordimer called the "father of modern African literature, " received this year’s Man Booker international prize, awarded biannually for an exceptional lifetime's achievement. Fellow Nigerian writer Chimanada Ngozi Adichie capped this year’s Orange Prize for Fiction for her novel set in Nigeria during the Biafran war, “Half of a Yellow Sun.”
Here are some of our recent favorites out of Africa:

1 "The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears," by Dinaw Mengestu
Set in D.C., the central character of this hot new novel is a young man who escaped from Ethiopia. He works in a grocery store and commiserates with two fellow African immigrants about the countries they left behind. Addressing the challenge of adapting and realizing the so-called American dream, Mengestu is obviously not the first to tackle this theme, but he is a darn good writer and tells his tale well.

2. “What Is the What,” by Dave Eggers
Award-winning novelist Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) fictionalizes a true story based on the experiences of a young man he befriended who was caught up in the Sudanese civil war and ended up as a refugee in America.

3. "Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier," by Ishmael Beah
Beah, conscripted at age 13, tells the story of his journey from the fighting in Sierra Leone to the United States, where he arrived when he was 18. It's an amazing account.

4. "In the Country of Men," by Hisham Matar
A finalist for Britain's prestigious Man Booker literary prize, this is a story set in Libya under Qaddafi, told from the point of view of a 9-year-old whose father belongs to the political opposition. The young boy in this moving and psychologically complex novel is his mother's confidant, but he's at a loss trying to understand her grief and anger over being forced into marriage with a man she didn't love. What happens to the family and to the mother's relationship with her husband when Qaddafi's thugs close in makes for compelling reading.

5. "Measuring Time," by Helon Habila.
This is the story of twin brothers raised in a Nigerian village. One runs away and becomes a mercenary soldier. The other, more sickly boy, remains behind and becomes a local historian. Habila artfully contrasts the life of the mind and the life of action, and how both can be swept up in violence.

6."Half of a Yellow Sun," by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Through a cast of characters that includes twin sisters, a radical professor, and an Englishman, Adichie tells the story of Nigeria in the 1960s. As the colonial order is collapsing, tribal loyalties reemerge, and ideas that sounded good on paper are suddenly swept up in a maelstrom of violence. The novel won the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction.

7. "From a Crooked Rib," by Nuruddin Farah
First published in 1970 and just reissued by Penguin, From a Crooked Rib, the debut novel by Somalia’s Farah, is the story of an 18-year-old woman who flees her village to avoid a forced marriage only to find other forms of female oppression in the big city. Also check out Farah’s new novel, Knots, which tells the tale of a Somalian woman raised in North America who returns to her native land and struggles with the fact that its women are expected to wear the veil.

8. "Wizard of the Crow," by Ngugi Wa'Thiong'O
One of the most ambitious novels to come out of Africa lately, Wizard of the Crow by Kenyan author Ngugi Wa’Thiong’O is a satire of African corruption set in the fictitious Republic of Aburiria. It is a mammoth book — nearly 800 pages long – reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch with its elements of magical realism and indictment against the craziness of tyrants.

10 PAPERBACKS TO PEP UP YOUR SUMMER VACATION

As book critics, the Babes are used to reading ARCs -- Advance Reading Copies. These are basically books without covers, which makes them less expensive to produce. They're sent to reviewers and booksellers prior to publication in hopes of stirring up interest and media coverage.

Much as we love the sturdy feel of a hardback, for travelling we can't live without these trimmed-down versions of the latest books. They're so darn portable. In that spirit of lightening your load this summer, we'd like to suggest some terrific paperbacks for your reading -- and travelling -- pleasure. Bon voyage!

1. IF YOU'VE EVER MOURNED A LOST LOVE... Read "Evening," by Susan Minot (Vintage) -- and also see the movie, which will be released June 29. This is a poignant story about a dying woman's memory of a long-ago summer love affair. It was a terrific novel when it first came out in the '90s, and with a cast including Vanessa Redgrave, Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Patrick Wilson, Glenn Close, Natasha Richardson and Meryl Streep, it should make a superior movie. Minot wrote the screenplay with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Cunningham.

2. IF YOU NEED SOME GOOD NEWS FOR A CHANGE ... Read "Love in the Present Tense," by Catherine Ryan Hyde (Vintage). This novel from the author of "Pay It Forward" captures the same affirmative spirit, telling the story of a bond between a 5-year-old abandoned by his mother and the man who unintentionally gets the job of raising him.

3. IF YOU'RE HEADING FOR EUROPE (OR WISH YOU WERE!)... Read "The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece," by Jonathan Harr. Any trip to Italy requires a full immersion in Renaissance art, but if you can't get there this year (especially with that pricey euro!), this book is a good substitute. Harr describes the real-life search for a long-lost painting by a 16th-century master and, in doing so, highlights the dedication to recovering the work of major artists.

4. IF YOU DREAM ABOUT BEING SOMEWHERE ELSE... Read "Swapping Lives," by Jane Green (Plume). The irrepressible Green (who claims that she doesn't write chick lit, or if she does, why must people call it that?) hands the weary mom or working woman a tasty after-dinner mint with this breezy novel about a magazine editor in England who switches places with a suburban housewife in America. What a difference a month can make!

5. IF YOU FEEL READY FOR A COCKTAIL... Read "And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails," by Wayne Curtis. Curtis takes you from the grog that entertained sailors in the 18th century to the mojitos supermodels sip today, showing how important rum has been to the American economy and culture. By book's end, you'll definitely want to raise a toast to Ernest Hemingway and the bartender at El Floridita in Havana, where the daiquiri was born. Bonus: Rum drink recipes included.

6. IF YOU USE BOOKS AS YOUR GREAT ESCAPE... Read "Literacy and Longing in L.A.," by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack (Delta). When Dora, the heroine of this novel, is depressed, she goes on a book binge. So, in telling the story of her crumbling life, she can't help making use of the characters and plots she's read about. The result is a summer book binge that you can be part of: The authors provide a book list at the end for your own bender.

7. IF YOU TAKE VACATIONS IN MINUTES, NOT DAYS... Read "Tourist Season," by Enid Shomer (Random House). If you're time-deprived, short-story collections are one way to get out of your skin for a few minutes at a time. Tampa poet Shomer delivers 10 exquisite choices, from the story of a Florida Jewish woman who is told she is Buddha reincarnated, to the tale of a couple struggling to cope with life together in retirement. Consider this as a pick for your book club: Included are a reading guide and an interview with the author by her friend and fellow poet Maxine Kumin.

8. IF YOU LIKE TO REMEMBER THE PAST SO AS NOT TO REPEAT IT... Read "A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914-1918," by G.J. Meyer (Delta). This is where the trouble all started, you know. The course of modern history can be traced to this paradigm-shifting, psyche-shattering event, which set the stage for WWII and helped shape the Middle East as we know it today. Meyer's hefty book is not definitive, but it's a highly readable, thorough look at a piece of the past that will keep you occupied for days if not weeks!

9. IF YOU NEED REMINDING THAT THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME... Read "Stuart: A Life Backwards," by Alexander Masters (Delta). This unusual memoir about Masters' friendship with a homeless man is, indeed, told backwards. You trace Stuart from his days as a friendless drunk back through the crime and violence and drugs to find the promising man he once was.

10. IF YOU THOUGHT ARMCHAIR TRAVEL WAS ENOUGH... Read "A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler," by Jason Roberts (Harper Perennial). Blind from the age of 25, James Holman was a legend of the 19th century -- the Blind Traveller, as he was called. He not only trekked across the world -- a much more arduous task then than now -- but also did it solo, racking up more kilometers than anyone else in his day. Reading about Holman's ordeals in sub-zero Siberia should offer a bit of perspective when you learn that the airline lost your luggage.

HEAR THE BABES!

This week America's booksellers and many of our book-critic colleagues are meeting in New York for the annual literary love-in called BookExpo. Thousands are descending on the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan, where the National Book Critics Circle has organized several events to talk about the decline of book sections in daily newspapers and the future of book reviewing.

As luck would have it, these were our very topics last month when we visited Minneapolis. The Book Babes discuss the industry in a podcast with Minneapolis Star-Tribune book editor Sally Williams, we offered our views on the state of book reviewing, the fate of newspapers, and our hopes for keeping the book conversation alive.

These are tremulous times for the book business at multiple levels. Bibliophiles may or may not be an endangered species -- you'll see from our chat that each of the Babes takes a different slant on this problem -- but, regardless, we both agree on the need to keep books front and center in our culture. Unfortunately, the newspaper industry may see literacy as part of the key to its survival, but the cultivation of book readers and literature -- no way!

BEYOND NEWSPAPERS: TEN PLACES TO GO BOOK CRAZY

Financially strapped, newspapers have been cutting
back, and book coverage has felt the pinch. Some book
editors who still have their jobs, like Star-Tribune book
editor Sally Williams, are feeling survivor's guilt:
Her newsroom, Williams told us, looks like the end of a Tim LaHaye novel -- with only
a few heads "left behind."
The Babes still have some favorite
newspaper book pages (the ones that run The Book
Babes, of course). We read The New York Times Book
Review (and, occasionally, when we have days to kill,
The New York Review of Books).
But the so-called new media has become a bibliophile's paradise, and the "old" media -- that is, print -- has a few special charms you ought to know about. So here's our top-10 list of places to find about books. Happy reading!
-- The Book Babes

1. Arts & Letters Daily, www.aldaily.com -- This is Ellen's home page and one of Margo's
favorite bookmarks. Aldaily gives you intelligent
commentary on lots of stuff from here and abroad. It
offers a good round-up of which books are contributing
to the discussion in the world of ideas.

2. Bookmarks Magazine, www.bookmarksmagazine.com -- This bimonthly magazine,
which bears the subhead "For Everyone Who Hasn't Read Everything,"
belongs in every library, if not every book lover's
home. It includes a review of the latest and best
books. It covers literary fiction, genre fiction and
non-fiction and feature articles about authors dead or
alive.

3. Critical Mass, www.bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com -- The blog of the National Book Critics Circle is
not just for reviewers. It includes interviews with
authors and commentary on the book publishing scene --
all good background material to inform your reading
and understanding of what makes literature.

4. The Book Sense Bestseller List, www.bookweb.org/booksense/bestsellers/ -- This list is compiled by independent bookstores
on the American Booksellers Association site and
reflects what is selling at dozens of great
independent bookstores across the country. These guys
really know good books.

5. Publisher's Weekly, www.publishersweekly.com -- A magazine that serves as the bible of the book industry, PW offers great capsule reviews of fiction, nonfiction and genre titles months before they appear in the bookstores. Be the first on your block to hear about an upcoming book!

6. Book Page, www.bookpage.com -- You can find copies of Book Page free at your
local library or bookstore. Or you can access it online. Started in Nashville in 1988, Book Page offers
monthly reviews of new books, including literary
fiction, romance, history, science fiction, and
cookbooks. This is not literary criticism, just
friendly suggestions on what to read next, aimed at
the general reader. We especially like to check out
Buzz Girl (can we make her an honorary Babe?). She sits down with publicists every spring
and fall to find out what they will be touting in
their next catalog.

7. Book List, www.booklist.com -- This is the official magazine of the American
Library Association. Although written for professionals, it's an interesting way to look over
the shoulder of your librarian to see what he or she
is reading that might end up on your library shelf.

8. January Magazine, www.januarymagazine.com -- January Magazine, surprisingly enough, was not
launched in January, but in November, 1997. For its
founders, the name signified a new beginning and new
ideas. Covering books, from fiction to cookbooks,
published in the English language for 10 years, the
site offers reviews and author interviews (some more than 40,000 words). A year ago, its crime
newsletter was spun off as its own blog, The Rap Sheet.
Its success led to a redesign of January, so it starts out blog-like itself now. By the way, to
celebrate its anniversary year, The Rap Sheet asked an
impressive list of mystery writers to name one crime,
mystery, or thriller novel they thought had been most
unjustly overlooked, criminally forgotten, or
underappreciated over the years? Look for answers from
Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, Ian Rankin, Lee
Child, Sara Paretsky, Declan Hughes and
many more in the coming weeks.

9. Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Wiki, www.booklust.wetpaint.com --
It's hard to think of a librarian as a celebrity, but Seattle librarian Pearl is exactly that -- in sensible shoes, no less. Her popular books of recommendations (her latest is called "Book Crush" and focuses on good reads for young people) reflect a real love of reading. Now you can go online and check out the almost breath-taking range of her reading tastes, from highly literary types such as Iris Murdoch to popular page turners.

10. The Book Babes own guide to books -- We've each spilled plenty of ink talking about books in newspapers and magazines. Together we've been constants on the Internet since 2003. Now we're working on a book that distills our philosophy of reading for pleasure, profit and the needs of the soul. Stay tuned!

BABES GO WEST... NO, EAST

The Book Babes live at opposite ends of the country -- Margo in the Southeast, namely St. Petersburg, FL; Ellen in the Pacific Northwest, namely Portland, OR. But we have been known to travel, and this past week we met up in the Twin Cities to 1) participate in a secret government program, and 2) enjoy the good company of one of our favorite book editors, Sally Williams at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune (pictured at left with the yours trulies).

On that first part, we can only reveal this much: The governing agency was not the CIA, but the National Endowment for the Arts, and our mission concerned the Big Read, the NEA's initiative to bring books to the folks through community-wide readathons. We had the pleasure of spending time with an illustrious group of literati and library people, including the Big Read's director, David Kipen (who, for a certain book critic out there who recently covered David's new book, "The Schreiber Theory: A Radical Rewrite of American Film History," spells his name with one p). We also got a tour of the Loft Literary Center from Jerod Santek. It's a stone's throw from the Minneapolis stadium but a universe away from the world of the gridiron and start your engines (i.e., monster trucks).

On the second matter, we want to say a small prayer of thanks that, as heads have rolled and jobs have been cut at the Star-Tribune, the aforementioned Ms. Williams is still gainfully employed and covering the book scene for her newspaper. But things are not pretty at the ST: The classical music critic is gone (in a community with a premier orchestra and St. Paul's Chamber Orchestra, no less!!), and it's hard to say whether management takes seriously any of what has made Minneapolis and St. Paul such a vibrant community for the arts and literature.

This is what's happening all across the country: Newspapers are being sold at fire-sale prices and then gutted to produce the kind of profits that will make them look appealing to the next investor down the line. The public service component is el-gonno. But if newspapers are going to kill book coverage, we can't stop 'em. All we can do is take our book bags and go elsewhere.

So stay tuned! We continue to believe that the world of reading will survive.

Next week: The Babes Tell You the 10 Best Places to Find Out About Books!

TEN BOOKS FOR REAL MOMS -- NOT THE FAIRY-TALE VERSION

Ever wonder why mothers are as beloved as apple pie? It's because we put up with so much in the name of maternal devotion! For Mother's Day, give your mom (or a caring surrogate) a book that recognizes it's not all roses and show your gratitude.

1. "Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, An Oscar, An Atomic Bomb, A Romantic Night and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother," by Peggy Orenstein (Bloomsbury) -- Orenstein was a career woman who postponed starting a family and then found out that getting pregnant was not a cakewalk. Her determined quest evokes laughs and tears while bringing home the effort to which some women go to become mothers.

2. "The Early Birds," by Jenny Minton (Knopf) -- From infertility to babies by the cartload: When Jenny Minton delivered twin boys in 2002, she was more than two months ahead of her due date. Her sons spent 64 days in intensive care while Minton struggle with greif and guilt about undergoing in-vitro fertilization. The happy ending is less the point than Minton's own drive to bring those kids home.

3. "The Women Who Raised Me," by Victoria Rowell (William Morrow) -- Here's a fresh twist: a memoir about how the foster system worked. In this case several self-appointed moms stepped in to raise a little girl who became a ward of the state because of her birth mother's mental illness. That little girl, Victoria Rowell, grew up to be a mom and a successful actress (she plays Drucilla Winters on "The Young and the Restless"). This is her tribute to those kind souls.

4. "Still Life with Chickens: Starting Over in a House by the Sea," by Catherine Goldhammer (Plume) -- Her's a triple whammy: divorce, a dying father, and an unaffordable house in a rich suburb dubbed "Hearts-Are-Cold" by the author. Godlhammer buys a run-down cottage by the sea and six chickens, the last her way of luring a reluctant 12-year-old daughter for a year of renovations and recovery.

5. "Wiped: Life With a Pint-Sized Dictator," by Rebecca Eckler (Villard) -- Bridget Jones in diapers: This is definitely not your genteel mom's guide to dealing with a newborn. But Canadian journalist Eckler, author of "Knocked Up: Confessions of a Hip Mother-to-Be," helps new mothers laugh through their tears with the Mommy moments people forget to tell you: 1) You will feel like a walking, talking zombie; 2) you will obsess about the pregnancy pounds that haven't gone away, and 3) newborns can be very, very boring.

6. "Meditations for Mothers," by Denise Roy (Random House Audiobooks) -- This audiobook might be just the thing for moms who do carpools. Adapted from Roy's book, "MOMfulness: Mothering With Mindfulness, Compassion and Grace." A family therapist, mother of five and author of -- yes, you'd better believe it -- "My Monastery Is a Minivan," Roy encourages moms to bring meditation practice to their busy lives. There goes the road rage...

7. "The Makind of a Mother: Overcoming the Nine Key Challenges -- From Crib to Empty Nest," by Valerie Davis Raskin (Ballantine). Mother of three and a Chicago psychiatrist, Raskin specializes in treating the emotional needs of mothers and says she runs into a lot of low maternal self-esteem. She studied 40 moms from various backgrounds to understand their common challenges and offer her recipe for coping.

8. "And Nanny Makes Three: Mothers and Nannies Tell the Truth About Work, Love, Money and Each Other," by Jessika Auerbach (St. Martin's Press). A veteran of 19 nannies, au pairs and parttime babysitters, Auerbach admits that the interaction between moms and their surrogate caretakes is "one mother of a relationship." Her book is based on interviews with both. A working mother's resource guide, for sure!

9. "Friends & Mothers: A Novel," by Louise Limerick (St. Martin's) -- Post-partum depression is no picnic, and this novel about five mothers who meet regularly jumps into action when one of them has a mental breakdown at a shopping mall just after the birth of her second child. The mother is catatonic and the newsborn is nowhere to be found. As the story unfolds, each of her friends isforce to consider their own adaptation to motherhood and their failure to prevent what happened.

10. "Black & White," by Dani Shapiro (Knopf). Clara Brodeur hasn't seen her mother Ruth, a famous art photographer, for 14 yearse -- and with good reason. Ruth made the young Clara the subject of her photos and a platform for her art when she was young. Now, with Ruth dying from cancer, the two are reunited in a time of reckoning and healing, which poses the issue of how and will we forgive our mothers for their transgressions.

"THE ROAD" LESS TRAVELED

Dear Margo,

I don't want to be the one who finds the dark cloud in the silver lining here, but here's my "and yet..." regarding Cormac McCarthy's "The Road." The book, already picked for Oprah's Book Club, just was announced as winner of the Pulitzer Prize:

As we have discussed, it's a brilliant novel. Archetypal in the way he uses spare language and a lack of detail to add power to the narrative. Our minds fill in the details, and they're more horrific because of this.

However: I just finished "The Pesthouse," by Jim Crace -- another apocalytic novel that has the bad luck of coming out just as "The Road" is swamping the media machine that can make or break books of this kind.

Crace is among my favorite contemporary novelists ("Being Dead" is amazing and rightly won the National Book Critics Circle prize). "The Pesthouse," while by no means surpassing "The Road," is worthy in its own right. For one thing, it actually has a FEMALE character. For another, the ending seems to evolve more naturally from the story. In "The Road," it feels as if McCarthy couldn't sustain his hopeless vision and flinched.

Crace is a British author who lacks the mystique that McCarthy enjoys in this country. McCarthy is perceived through his writing as a man's man and a teller of the "American story" -- whatever that is. I have no beef with the accolades and attention that are spilling down on such an accomplished writer. But I do hope readers will take the time to read and compare. "The Road" and "The Pesthouse" are very different takese on a similar subject. And "The Pesthouse" contains the sly wit that is quintessentially British. Monty Python, we hardly knew ye...

THE COMING TO OLD AGE NOVEL

Hey Ellen,

First we had the coming of age novel. Now, not surprisingly as baby boomers turn sixty, there's a new genre on the horizon: the coming-to-old-age novel.

I just read one that surely will be made into a movie starring Judi Dench: "No, I Don't Want to Join a Book Club" by Virginia Ironside. It's the British baby boomer's update of "Bridget Jones Diary." But unlike Bridget, Marie Sharp isn't so endearing at first. Isn't sixty a bit early to be complaining of bunions and watery eyes? Do the British grow older faster than Americans? I grew to like her "I'm old and I'm glad" attitude, though: She doesn't want to be pushed into bungee jumping at seventy or trekking across country at eighty. She doesn't even want to join a book club. She just wants to enjoy old age, alone and on her own terms.

Well, not exactly alone. By book's end, Marie's, well, sharp edges: She comforts her best friend when she's dumped by the younger guy she met on the Internet; she attends to her dying gay friend and his partner, and she goes gaga over her new grandson. I like this new kind of heroine: sassy, smart and post-menopausal.

And for those who prefer to read a real person's coming-to-old-age tale, I'd recommend two recently published memoirs: Sara Davidson's "Leap," which I talked about in our last post (see "This Is My Life --- Maybe) and "Short Trip to the Edge: Where Earth Meets Heaven -- A Pilgrimage," by Scott Cairns, published by HarperSanFrancisco. When Cairns, a professor of literature at the University of Missouri-Columbia and a poet who is in his early fifties, faced a mid-life crisis, he didn't buy a red sports car or grab a blonde (he's married with a son and a daughter). He went to Mount Athos to seek God. Yes, Mount Athos is that monastery in Greece that doesn't allow female visitors -- not even female animal visitors. You know I'm not normally a "God-obsessed" person (that's what Cairns calls himself). That's your department, Ellen, but this memoir is enchanting and a fascinating glimpse into a spiritual world that leaves me out.

Hi Margo,

Funny you should bring up "Short Trip to the Edge" on the same day that I met with a new group tentatively called Centered Women/Centered Men. It's an outgrowth of the Center of Spiritual Development in Portland, an ecumenical organization based at the Episcopal cathedral here, which brings in high-powered theologians such as Karen Armstrong, author of many books on religion and her own testimonial about depression, "The Spiral Staircase," and Marcus Borg, a scholar who is both funny and brilliant -- and just happens to be married to the priest who directs the center.

Long story short: There is a huge hunger among some of us for spiritual food in a Costco culture, and books are a lifeline -- they're portable and they are personal, in that we can take from them what we need.
Even a person who is not so-called "religious" can be curious about the ineffable. And it's not necessary to limit yourself to scholarly work or memoirs: A novel published last year that does a wonderful (but not conventional) job with this elusive topic is Kathryn Davis' "The Thin Place." If you believe in the resurrection as literal or metaphorical, this story will touch your heart.