FEBRUARY 2007 - BOOK REVIEWS
Short Stories, Epic Tales, and Engrossing Novels | |  
| | I Like You (Hospitality Under the Influence)
Amy Sedaris – Warner Books
When Amy Sedaris isn’t starring in right-brain freakouts like Strangers with Candy or appearing as Dave’s favorite guest on The Letterman Show, she can be found entertaining in her rabbit and cupcake strewn Greenwich Village apartment. Join her for a schizoid but surprisingly practical guide to good old fashioned hospitality. As she notes in the introduction, her approach to hostessing may not be the proper way, the best way or even the legal way, but it is all Amy. So sit back with a badly mixed drink as she explains everything from how to bake the perfect pumpkin pie - the recipe is on the back of the can, to considerations about troublesome guest combinations at dinner parties - astronomers should generally not be seated next to astrologers. Click on the image to buy now!
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| | Mirrors of the Unseen: Journey in Iran
Jason Elliot – St. Martin’s Press
This hugely rewarding book is much more than the travelogue its title implies. Written in the style of a memoir, its themes extend from day-to-day discussions with taxi drivers and tradesmen on the streets of Tehran to masterfully written examinations of Persian architecture, mathematics and a dozen other themes which combine to form a dazzlingly faceted mosaic of this little understood nation as it teeters between the early 21st century’s geopolitical techtonic plates - Islamic fundamentalism on one side and George W. Bush’s rezoning plans for the Middle East on the other. Click on the image to buy now!
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| | The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent and the Glorious Excess of 1970s Paris
Alicia Drake – – Little, Brown and Co.
Alicia Drake’s intricately researched work is part spotlight upon the velour jacketed glamours of seventies Paris, part expose of the epic rivalry between two of fashion’s greatest designers, and part chronicle of the European couture industry’s power transfer from haute collections to pret-a-porter. To get to the bottom of all of this Drake conducted over one hundred and fifty interviews, creating a sense of a time and place examined with a thoroughness normally reserved for academic scholarship. Don’t worry though, you won’t feel like you’re laboring through a text book as the tale sashays its way through a supporting cast populated with the likes of Pablo Picasso, Bianca Jagger and the booze, drug and paranoia addled hangers-on of party-saturated Paris in the pre-AIDS era. Click on the image to buy now!
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