Fanfair

HOT TYPE ELISSA SCHAPPELL

August 2004
Fanfair
HOT TYPE ELISSA SCHAPPELL
August 2004

HOT TYPE ELISSA SCHAPPELL

It's neither the heat nor the humidity, darling. It's the stupidity. Francis Wheen's Idiot Proof (Public Affairs) shows that, while science and technology are galloping forward, we. as a people, appear to be getting more lamebrained. Aching to know the reason for the rise of cults, quacks, irrational panics, gurus, and just general dim-wittedness in our culture? Well, then (if you still possess the chops), read it!

Also hot under the collar: Esteemed senator Robert C. Byrd, fearing that we are Losing America (Norton), calls on all patriots to confront the reckless, arrogant presidency of George W. Bush. Hey Rube (Simon & Schuster) mainlines the rantings from Doctor Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN column—perhaps the only place one can find sex, mescaline, and Republicans in the same sentence. Warren St. John barrels headlong and shrieking into the mind of fandom and the heart of southern football mania in Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer (Crown). Sportswriter Buster Olney hits a grand slam with Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty (Ecco), a play-by-play of how George Steinbrenner's Yankees fashioned the game of baseball in their own perverse image. Health clubs replace houses of worship in Kit Reed's not-so-science-fiction novel Thinner than Thou (Tor). Twenty-five years ago a beautiful Peace Corps volunteer was brutally killed by a fellow volunteer who was never punished; in American Taboo (HarperCollins), Philip Weiss explains how this injustice came to pass.

Also this month: Ann Hood's gorgeous and haunting story collection. An Ornithologist's Guide to Life (Norton), is a life list of human experiences, lighting on obsession, seduction, and grief. The late Edward Said charts a course for peace in From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map (Pantheon). In Copies in Seconds (Simon & Schuster),

David Owen salutes Chester Carlton, inventor of the Xerox machine—arguably the most important contribution to the world of letters since the amanuensis. Chinua Achebe's Collected Poems (Anchor) represents a lifetime's worth of poetry from the greatest w riter of African literature in the English language. For Mrs. Tependris.. . Just Before the Olympic Games in Athens, painter Konstantin Kakanias turned to storytelling and his fictional muse, the megalomaniacal Greek socialite, for a loving jab at this summer's biggest ticket. Flesh-eating-insect fans (or simply those who thrill to tales of killer ticks and nasty fire ants) will adore the true medical stories in ELISSA SCHAPPELL Dr. Pamela Nagami's Bitten (St. Martin's). Ronin Ro's marvelous Tales to Astonish (Bloomsbury) salutes the artists behind the American comic-book revolution, particularly Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, proud co-parents of such captivating heroes as the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men, and Silver Surfer. The Dog Walker (Atria) of Leslie Schnur's debut novel is a dreamy voyeur prone to snooping through the private belongings of her charges' masters. The Synthetic Cubism of Tamara de Lempicka (Royal Academy of Arts/ Abrams), the quintessential Art Deco painter, captures the decadence of Paris in the 20s and 30s. Welcome Benjamin Cheever'sThe Good Nanny (Bloomsbury) to the fastest-growing, hardest-working genre in literature these days: nanny lit (coming soon: au pair porn). Don't blow your entire Social Security check on bingo—save some for Elvis Presley: The Man. The Life. The Legend (Atria), in which style monitor Pamela Clarke Keogh tells us "why Elvis matters." The relatively unsung life and work of New York street photographer Rudy Burckhardt (Abrams) are finally given their due in this, his first monograph. Eric P. Nash and Randall C. Robinson Jr. bask in the pleasures of Miami modern in MiMo (Chronicle). Because the world needed it, Bradley P. Dean edited Henry David Thoreau's Letters to a Spiritual Seeker (Norton). Next time someone takes umbrage at your dangling participle, produce The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time (Simon & Schuster), a compilation of New York Times Magazine columnist William Safire's "On Language" columns. Hot stuff!