The book that really got to me from this week’s Daily Beast/Newsweek Hot Reads was She Matters. It’s a memoir of an unusual variety. It’s also a real heart-breaker. Every woman has befriended (or been) a Susanna somewhere along the way.
The Great Agnostic
Reading The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought by Susan Jacoby, I came across this elegant bit of rhetoric from Ingersoll describing his vision for the future:
The popes and priests and kings are gone– the altar and the thrones have mingled with the dust– the aristocracy of land and cloud have perished from the earth and air, and all the gods are dead. A new religions sheds its glory on mankind. It is the gospel of this world, the religion of the body, of the heart and brain, the evangel of health and joy. I see a world at peace, where labor reaps its true reward, a world without prisons, without workhouses, without asylums for the insane, a world where the poor girl, trying to win bread with the needle, the needle that has been called “the asp for the breas of the poor,” is not driven to the desperate choice of crime or death, of suicide or shame. I see a world without the beggar’s outstretched palm, the miser’s stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the pallid face of crime, the livid lips of lies, the cruel eyes of scorn. I see a race without disease of flesh or brain, shapely and fair, the married harmony of form and use, and as I look life lengthens, fear dies, joy deepens, love intensifies. The world is free. This shall be.
As they say in Sanskrit: “tathastu.”
The Girl in the Photograph
A delicious read. 
Despite its title, Lygia Fagundes Telles’s The Girl in The Photograph is really about three young women. They are Lia, Ana Clara, and Lorena—college girls who live in a Catholic boarding house somewhere in Brazil. The trio is bound by an intense friendship. Although Lia, Ana Clara, and Lorena can’t help thinking uncharitable things about one another from time to time, when they’re together, their connection is electric. They borrow each other’s handkerchiefs, cars, and money. They share jokes, verbal tics (“money,” is always “yenom”—Lorena thinks saying it backwards brings luck), clothes, and intimacies. They even tuck in each other’s shirttails.
Head over to Words Without Borders for the full review.
Tunisia
Some snapshots from my end-of-the-year vacation earlier this month.
Love and Death in Miami
The big think author panels The Takeaway did at the Miami Book Fair on death and love finally aired on Thursday and Friday and are now all online. At http://www.thetakeaway.org/loveanddeath/ there’s a neat little interactive with short bios with mini audio clips for everyone.
From top left to right: Benjamin Busch (Dust to Dust), Carol Blue (the afterward to Mortality), Deni Bechard (Cures for Hunger), Judy Goldman (Losing My Sister) and Susannah Cahalan (Brain on Fire) talked about death.
In the bottom row, left to right: Chris Beha (What Happened to Sophie Wilder), Jami Attenberg (The Middlesteins), Nina Revoyr (Wingshooter), Robert Goolrick (Heading Out to Wonderful) and Scott Hutchins (A Working Theory of Love) came together for a conversation about love.
Hot Reads: Climates, Nature Wars, She Loves Me Not, The Amistad Rebellion, Selected Letters of William Styron
This week I found a “manic pixie dream girl” in a 1928 French novel, tried to get in the head of Walter Berglund, and learned that William Styron called Dorothy Parker “my little crumpet.” Full reviews here.
Miami Book Fair International
Three days, fourteen authors. That’s the rough itinerary for this weekend in Miami, where it’s 70 degrees and sunny and I have a suitcase full of books. Takeaway host John Hockenberry and I flew into town for the Miami Book Fair International yesterday; we leave tomorrow. Yesterday, John spoke with New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik about what makes a family dinner table come alive; tomorrow, he’ll be talking to graphic novelist Derf Backderf on what it was like to be high school classmates with serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. All of those conversations — as well as two “big-think” author discussions on love and death — will be airing the week after next (about the time when it dawns on me once again just how cold New York winters really are).
Hot Reads: Hallucinations, Dear Life, Stranger to History, Lost at Sea, A Man of Misconceptions
Superstorm Sandy edition. Some excellent books for a mess of a week. Full reviews at The Daily Beast/Newsweek.
Hot Reads: Several Ways to Die in Mexico City, Try the Morgue, the Middlesteins, A Free Man, The Greatcoat
Let me tell you about this week’s Daily Beast/Newsweek Hot Reads. The Greatcoat was a fine way to spend a rainy afternoon. Several Ways to Die in Mexico City stumbled into my lap and changed the way I think about what I eat and drink. The Middlesteins is the book I happily read in one sitting. Try the Morgue is the book I haven’t been able to stop talking about. A Free Man is the book I wish I’d written that I think everyone should read.
Hot Reads: The News from Spain, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Familiar, Do the Movies Have a Future?, All Gone
The weather is crisp and the reads are hot. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore put a smile on my face, All Gone made me thank my lucky stars, Familiar tripped me out, The News From Spain tugged at my heart and Do the Movies Have a Future? got me thinking about just how strange and tenuous cultural criticism can be in the first place. Check out this week’s reviews for The Daily Beast. Bonus feature: I recommended A Free Man for Newsweek’s round-up of essential new books on India.
Mythili G. Rao 