What's New
Selected new additions to the collection
Franklin and Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherford, and the other remarkable women in his life by Joseph E. Persico
Persico (Roosevelt's Secret War) engagingly and eloquently narrates the tangled relationships between Franklin and the various women to whom he became close, including his mother; his wife; Lucy Mercer (the young Eleanor Roosevelt's social secretary during WWI and later Mrs. Winthrop Rutherford); his longtime secretary, Missy LeHand; and his distant cousin Margaret (Daisy) Suckley. These relationships have been examined before; the major revelation of the volume backed up by documents recently discovered by Mercer's descendants is that her relationship with FDR continued throughout his life, even after it was supposedly ended by Franklin at the demand of his mother, who threatened to cut off both his income and his inheritance were he to leave his wife and family. (Previously, it was believed that FDR's relationship with Mercer only rekindled once Franklin's mother died, at the very end of his own life.) Another intriguing aspect of the book is Persico's informed speculation on how Franklin's frequently nonchalant womanizing affected Eleanor, who appears, quite possibly, to have pursued several relationships of her own, both hetero- and homosexual. In sum, Persico offers what will prove an important, lasting addition to the literature of the Roosevelts. (Apr. 29) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Fire to fire: new and selected poems by Mark Doty
SignatureReviewed by Reginald ShepherdDoty's first book, Turtle, Swan, appeared in 1987. He has published six books of poetry and four memoirs, all excellent, since. This hefty selection from his seven collections, plus a generous sheaf of new poems, should solidify his position as a star of contemporary American poetry.Doty's poetic career really took off with My Alexandria (1993), his third book, which made his reputation. Fire to Fire contains only two poems from his first two books Adonis Theatre, about an old movie palace turned gay porno theater, and The Death of Antinous, about the Roman emperor Hadrian's lover's afterlife in statuary, both of which are meditations on representation, absence and desire. Desire, and its capacity to transform and transfigure, is one of Doty's main themes. Enough desire (so often mixed, as T.S. Eliot wrote, with memory) can make us as beautiful as the objects of our desire.Unlike many of his contemporaries, Doty has never eschewed beauty. Indeed, beauty, its unlikely, often unexpected, yet constant recurrence and its elusive fleetingness, is central, as demonstrated by several new poems titled Theory of Beauty, each with a parenthetical specific occasion. Beauty is found everywhere in Doty's poems, in a band playing cast-off chemical drums in Times Square, even in Chet Baker falling from an Amsterdam hotel window: a blur of buds//breathing in the lindens/and you let go and why not.The title poem Fire to Fire, from School of the Arts (2005) is a gorgeous meditation on the way that life's fire infuses the world, in sunflowers, goldfinches, and even a neighbor's puppy: fire longs to meet itself/flaring, longing wants a multiplicity of faces,//branching and branching out. The selections from The Vault (which really needs to be read in its entirety) reveal the poetry in men meeting other men's bodies in a sex club, incorporating references to the Middle English poem Western Wind and to James Wright's A Blessing, and including a subtle revision of Rilke's Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes in which the men are deep in the club's mine of souls, that shaft where inner and outer//grow indissoluble.At times the poems unnecessarily explain what their vivid images and striking phrases makes clear, but the commitment to the particular, and to its possibilities, is unwavering. As Doty writes in Ararat, Any small thing can save you. The poems combine close attention to the fragile, contingent things of the world with the constant, almost unavoidable chance of transcendence, since desire can make anything into a god.Reginald Shepherd's most recent books are Fata Morgana, poems, and the just-published Orpheus in the Bronx, prose on poetry. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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The ghost soldiers: poems by James Tate
Starred Review. Over the past several books, the prolific Pulitzer Prize winner Tate (Return to the City of White Donkeys) has been inching toward the invention of a new kind of American poem, a hybrid of prose poetry (though he's got loose, almost arbitrary line breaks), fable, surrealism and a sort of outsider folk poetry. These chatty, narrative works humorously treat all kinds of subjects, from civil unrest ( 'There are soldiers everywhere. Its' hard/ to tell which side they're on,' I said. 'They're against us./ Everyone's against us. Isn't that what you believe' ) to altruism (I said I didn't want any help from anyone, but, then,/ when no one offered to help, I was really hurt) and wildcats (I loved his quick, agile movements, never doubting himself,/ as most of us do). A dark undercurrent runs beneath them all, and war and politics which tend to confuse the poems' speakers are frequent subjects. It's rare that a poet so far into his career this is Tate's 15th collection comes up with something new; quietly, Tate has found a fresh way of telling some of America's stories. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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The essential best foods cookbook by Dana Jacobi
This thorough collection of recipes keeps health-conscious eating simple by making the most of fresh vegetables, lean meats and low-fat dairy products. Author Jacobi (12 Best Foods Cookbook) focuses on classic preparations with inventive twists: egg salad is brightened by curried onions, and citrus and capers turn that self-righteous standby kale into an appealing side dish. Main courses are wholesome, hearty, and frequently vegetarian, like Crisp Buckwheat Polenta with Mushroom Topping, which transforms humble ingredients into a decadent, crisp-salty treat. However, the book does include several meat and fish recipes, including Persian Chicken with Sour Cherries, a whole bird stewed in an exotic mix of fruit and spices, and Roasted Salmon with Moroccan Tomato Compote, which benefits enormously from the addition of fresh summer tomatoes (the sauce that pools at the bottom of the plate begs to be mopped up with a thick piece of bread-whole-wheat, of course). Since virtuous does not always mean abstemious, Jacobi concludes with a nice assortment of desserts, including offbeat options like Nutty Popcorn Bundt Ring and Tropical Fruit Salad with White Tea Syrup. Nutritional information at the bottom of each recipe assures that even these tempting indulgences won't end in regret. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Embrace the night by Karen Chance
Returning from Touch the Dark and Claimed by Shadow, Cassie Palmer has finally become Pythia, the supernatural community's all-knowing oracle. She's struggling with her new powers (such as shifting back and forth through time) and is stuck between good and evil factions of the paranormal community. Her main concern, though, is to figure out how to reverse a pesky spell that threatens her independence: the geis, once placed on her for protection, is now trying to bind her to the handsome master vampire, Mircea, with results detrimental to them both. The only solution is to find the fabled book that has the counterspell find it in space and in time. Cassie in her struggles between her passionate need for independence, her burgeoning feelings for Mircea and her conflicts with her new role as Pythia is a well-rounded character, and the intensity and complexity of the plot puts her through her paces physically, emotionally and psychically. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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