HOT TYPE ELISSA SCHAPPELL

FANFAIR

In Brief, but Fondly

Sophie DahI reminisces about Playing with the Grown-Ups (Doubleday). Simon Doonan cultivates an Eccentric Glamour (Simon & Schuster). John Hodgman prefaces The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes (Vintage). Nathaniel Rich sticks out The Mayor's Tongue (Riverhead). Joanna Hershon gives away The German Bride (Ballantine). Bemd H. Dams, Andrew Zega, and Hubert de Givenchy revel in the fanciful architecture of Chinoiseries (Rizzoli). John Gwen swoons in Cal/as Kissed Me . . . Lenny Too! (Powerhouse). Max Hasting seeks Retribution (Knopf)

What is worth fighting for? Who is God? Filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet make a pilgrimage,In God’s Name(National Geographic), to 12 of the world’s foremost spiritual leaders in search of answers to these questions and other greatest hits, such as: What is death? What is worth dying for?

Why can’t we be friends? Tired of feeling stepped on, former nice guy Martin Kihn re-invented himself as a despicable, ravenously ambitiousAsshole(Broadway), and you can, too! Christopher Catherwood and Joe Divanna demonstrate the ways governments and corporations transmogrify themselves intoMerchants of Fear(Globe Pequot). Louis P. Masur's The Soiling of Old Glory (Bloomsbury) re-creates the fateful day in 1976 when a photograph taken at a protest in Boston captured not only a white man consumed with hatred lunging to impale a black man with an Americanflag pole but the racial turmoil of a nation. Jeff Gordinier foresees the day whenX Saves the World (Viking), so back off, smug baby-boomers and trashculture-obsessed millennials, and all hail the slacker generation.

Bill McKibben'sAmerican Earth(Library of America) recycles 200 years of environmental writings, from Henry David Thoreau to Rachel Carson.Havanas in Camelot (Random House) gathers the essays ofthe late, great William Styron. Until now enigmatic surf legend Miki Dora’s history was written only on the water, but David Rensin's primoAll for a Few Perfect Waves(Harper Entertainment) catches the life of this charismatic renegade. Robert Schlesinger'sWhite House Ghosts(Simon & Schuster) invokes the spirits of presidential speechwriters dating from F.D.R. and J.F.K. to Reagan and Bush II. A southern debutante chafes against polite society in Katie Crouch's very amusing debut novel-in-stories,Girls in Thicks(Little, Brown). The stories in Jhumpa Lahiri'sUnaccustomed Earth(Knopf) beautifully cultivate a world of characters with rich, dark lives.V.F.’sLondon editor, Henry Porter, cracks Y.A. fiction with his magical murder mystery,Master of the Fallen Chairs(Orchard). The essays in Reeve Lindbergh'sForward from Here(Simon & Schuster) see her sallying into her 60s—an age of surprise and personal discovery, not the least of which is father Charles’s three other families. Jon Gibson and Chris McDonnell'sUnfittered(Universe) amasses an archive of anti-Disney animator Ralph Bakshi’s work, from the incendiary X-rated toonFritz the Catto the inspired Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures.Got Schadenfreude? Paul Slansky and Arleen Sorkin'sMy Bad(Bloomsbury) is a treasure trove of public apologies and the ghastly antics that inspired them. Question: Does everyone deserve forgiveness?