New York Times Notable Books 2009
The Globe Corner Bookstores Selection, 15%-20% off
Fiction
Nonfiction
Gift Books
Cookbooks
Travel Gift Ideas
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JEFF IN VENICE, DEATH IN VARANASI
By Geoff Dyer
This haunting novel is like a rough guide to transformation: moving from scenes of erotic decadence to scenes of squalor, the death it describes is that of craving, of intention, even of self.
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LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN
By Colum McCann
It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in Colum McCann’s intricate portrait of a city and its people.
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LOVE AND OBSTACLES: STORIES
By Aleksandar Hemon
The stories of Love and Obstacles are about coming of age and the complications – the obstacles – of growing up in a Communist but cosmopolitan country, and the consequent uprooting and move to America. Each one is punctuated with unexpected humor, ultimately building to an insightful, often heartbreaking conclusion.
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THE MUSEUM OF INNOCENCE
By Orhan Pamuk; translated by Maureen Freely
The city of Istanbul is on exhibit in Pamuk’s novel of first love painfully sustained over a lifetime. Kemal, scion of one of the city’s wealthiest families, is about to become engaged when he encounters Fusun, a beautiful shopgirl.
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ONCE THE SHORE: STORIES
By Paul Yoon
Elemental tales of lives on a South Korean island, in spare and beautiful prose. Spanning over half a century – from the years just before the Korean War to the present – the eight stories in this collection reveal an intricate portrait of a single place in its entirety.
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COLD: ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD’S FROZEN PLACES
By Bill Streever
From the physics of absolute zero to the cold-resistant gluttony of small birds, Streever reports on the extreme regions of low temperatures and the scientists who love them.
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FORDLANDIA: THE RISE AND FALL OF HENRY FORD’S FORGOTTEN JUNGLE CITY
By Greg Grandin
Fordlandia, Henry Ford’s settlement on an Amazonian rubber plantation, quickly became the site of an epic clash. On one side was the car magnate, lean, austere, the man who reduced industrial production to its simplest motions; on the other, the Amazon, lush, extravagant, the most complex ecological system on the planet.
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THE LAST EMPRESS: MADAME CHIANG KAI-SHEK AND THE BIRTH OF MODERN CHINA
By Hannah Pakula
Pakula’s biography presents Madame Chiang as far more complicated, awful and brilliant than we had imagined. With the beautiful, powerful, and sexy Madame Chiang Kai-shek at the center of one of the great dramas of the twentieth century, this is the story of the founding of modern China.
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THE LOST CITY OF Z: A TALE OF DEADLY OBSESSION IN THE AMAZON
By David Grann
After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, acclaimed New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve “the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century”: What happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest for the Lost City of Z?
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A PARADISE BUILT IN HELL: THE EXTRAORDINARY COMMUNITIES THAT ARISE IN DISASTER
By Rebecca Solnit
A startling investigation of what people do in disasters and why it matters. Solnit examines how disaster throws people into a temporary utopia of changed states of mind and social possibilities, as well as looking at the cost of the widespread myths and rarer real cases of social deterioration during crisis.
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ZEITOUN
By Dave Eggers
This suspenseful nonfiction account of what happened to a Syrian-American man and his family after Hurricane Katrina is a powerful indictment of Bush-era policies.
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LOOKING IN: ROBERT FRANK’S THE AMERICANS
By Robert Frank
In 83 photographs, Frank looked beneath the surface of American life to reveal a people plagued by racism, ill-served by their politicians and rendered numb by a rapidly expanding culture of consumption. Yet he also found novel areas of beauty in simple, overlooked corners of American life.
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LEARNING FROM HANGZHOU
By Mathieu Borysevicz
Over the last ten years, the ancient city of Hangzhou, China, has tripled in size and added over a million people to its population. Learning from Hangzhou is an extended photoessay that situates Hangzhou within the physically and culturally transformative pressures of China’s unbridled economic expansion.
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LOST BUILDINGS
By Jonathan Glancey
Lost Buildings is an invitation to visit buildings long vanished or those demolished within living history. In addition, acclaimed architecture writer Jonathan Glancey examines imaginary buildings from literature and myth as well as fantastic designs that were never built.
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Gift Books
THE CITY OUT MY WINDOW: 63 VIEWS ON NEW YORK
By Matteo Pericoli
Mr. Pericoli has been invited into the apartments of 63 New Yorkers–some of them famous, some of them not–and has drawn the views from their windows in elegant black and white. In these intimate drawings of window views The City Out My Window shows us a series of private New Yorks.
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THE HEART OF THE GREAT ALONE
By David Hempleman-Adams, Sophie Gordon and Emma Stuart
The achievements of the early polar photographers stand out in the history of photography for the beauty of their images and the almost impossible conditions they encountered. And none of these are more remarkable than the photographs recorded by the official chroniclers of two epic Antarctic expeditions–that of Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton.
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THE BOOK OF EXPLORATION
By Ray Howgego
The Book of Exploration presents more than 150 of the most influential and unusual journeys of discovery, setting each firmly in its historical context. The book is organized simply and chronologically, beautifully illustrated with contemporary maps, paintings, journal entries and other artifacts.
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PARIS UNDERGROUND: THE MAPS, STATIONS, AND DESIGN OF THE MÉTRO
By Mark Ovenden
In this follow-up to Transit Maps of the World, Ovenden now turns his attention to the famous Paris transit system with its inimitable Art Nouveau inspired stations and Art Deco signs. This overstuffed book — packed with vintage maps, photographs and posters — is a train spotter’s delight.
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MY NEW ORLEANS
by John Besh and Dorothy Kalins
Besh tells us the story of his New Orleans by the season and by the dish. Archival, four-color, location photography along with ingredient information make the Big Easy easy to tackle in home kitchens.
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LAROUSSE GASTRONOMIQUE: THE WORLD’S GREATEST CULINARY ENCYCLOPEDIA (UPDATED)
By Librairie Larousse, created by Joel Robuchon
Larousse Gastronomique has been the foremost resource of culinary knowledge since its initial publication in 1938. Long revered for its encyclopedic entries on everything from cooking techniques to food histories, it is the one book every chef must have on his or her kitchen shelf.
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SIMPLE FRESH SOUTHERN
by the Lee Brothers
From two South Carolina-bred brothers comes the ground-breaking cookbook for new Southern cooking. Matt and Ted have combined the old with the new, infusing family recipes with bright flavors.
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AKASHIC BOOKS NOIR SERIES
There’s no better introduction to a foreign land than a tour of its seedy underbelly, and Akashic Books’ world-spanning series of noir anthologies takes you from the rough bars of Dublin to the sleazy parks of Delhi.
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STRANGE MAPS: AN ATLAS OF CARTOGRAPHIC CURIOSITIES
By Frank Jacobs
Spanning many centuries, all continents, and the realms of outer space and the imagination, this collection combines beautiful full-color illustrations with quirky statistics and smart social commentary. Includes everything from maps of Thomas More’s Utopia to area codes mentioned in rap songs by Ludacris.
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