What Boomers Want: Books for Grownups II

-- Publishers Weekly, 5/31/2007 7:16:00 AM

Once again, PW and AARP have teamed up to bring boomers a list of new books for, by and about them. This time around, you'll find everything from a fictionalized account of life in 1960s Greenwich Village to a groovy encyclopedia of flower-power-era trivia, from a novel about a woman newly reborn at 50 to a true story of a woman born "white" in South Africa but re-"classified" as "coloured" during apartheid, and from an impassioned argument against women leaving the workforce to raise kids to a guide to getting along with adult children. Again, there's probably something here for everyone, and with summer getting going, there's no better time to read.

FICTION

Sylvia: A Novel
by Leonard Michaels
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
978-0374271077
You can almost see the black turtlenecks and smell the smoke in this newly re-released novel about a couple in 1960s Greenwich Village. It’s a harrowing look into a dark night of the soul by the late author of The Men’s Club.

The Best Place to Be: A Novel in Stories
by Lesley Dormen
Simon & Schuster
978-1416539582
Eight linked stories about a New Yorker who’s been through just about everything but doesn’t feel as if she’s "arrived" until she turns 50.

Love and War in California: A Novel
by Oakely Hall
St Martin’s Press
978-0312357627
A good, old-fashioned novel about a guy who comes of age at Pearl Harbor—and manages to live through most of the global and personal upheavals of the last half of the 20thcentury.

The King of Colored Town

by Darryl Wimberley
Toby Press
978-1592641819
In Civil Rights–era Florida, a black high-school junior takes as her first lover a man equal parts trouble and heart. Guess which wins out?

The Back Nine
by Billy Mott
Knopf
978-0307265364
The author moonlights as a caddy—and his novel about a return to the links after 20 years is a literary hole-in-one.

NONFICTION

When She Was White
by Judith Stone
Miramax
978-0786868988
The true story of a woman who was born "white" but re-"classifed" as "coloured" in South Africa and how she and her family were torn apart first by apartheid, and then by its dismantling.

The Violin Maker: Finding a Centuries-Old Tradition in a Brooklyn Workshop
by John Marchese
HarperCollins
978-0060012670
Can you improve on perfection? Well, you can try to match it, which is what one celebrated Brooklyn violinmaker attempts when he sets out to create an instrument equal to the Stradivarius.

The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?
by Leslie Bennetts
Hyperion/Voice
978-1401303068
This one struck a chord with boomer women, probably because Bennetts doesn’t hold back: choosing to leave the work force to raise a family is your choice, she says, but you always pay for that choice, literally and otherwise.

The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement
by Mark Hamilton Lytle
Oxford University Press
978-0195172478
Believe it or not, some people cared about the environment before Al Gore did. Carson was an anti-pesticide pest on behalf of the living things she loved so dearly. This is her story.

The Encyclopedia of Sixties Cool: A Celebration of the Grooviest People, Events, and Artifacts of the 1960s
by Chris Strudder
Santa Monica Press
9781595800176
A kind of old-fashioned "my space" of our generation, this is a compendium of more than 250 profiles of actors, musicians, writers, politicians, athletes, and others who defined a —or is it "the"?—decade.

SELF-HELP/LIFESTYLE

Vegetable Harvest
by Patricia Wells
Morrow
978-0060752446
It’s all about the veggies—even if you’re going to eat meat or fish. That’s the message behind this recipe- and charm-filled cookbook by the renowned author of The Provence Cookbook, among many others.

Ending the Tobacco Holocaust
by Michael Rabinoff
Elite Books
978-1600700125
We hardly need another reason to quit, or stay off, cigarettes, but this meticulously researched book provides many: from an expose of the way cigarettes are pushed to children overseas to the causality between smoking and mental illness.

Walking on Eggshells: Staying Close to Your Adult Children

by Jane Isay
Doubleday/Flying Dolphin Press
978-0767920841
The title just about says it all and reminds us of the adage: Little children, little problems. Big children… well, you know.

Health Care Half Truths: Too Many Myths, Not Enough Reality
by Arthur Garson Jr. and Carolyn L. Englehard
Rowman & Littlefield
978-0742558298
A much needed dose of realism about the need for health-care reform—and, surprisingly, a quick and engaging read.

The Citizen-Powered Energy Handbook
by Greg Pahl
Chelsea Green
978-1933392127
The future, she is here: solar roof panels, backyard wind turbines and biofuel stills—they’re not just for environmental geeks anymore.