More from My Bedside Table

摘要

Bill Ott The TV tray I optimistically call my bedside table is once again overflowing with galleys (and the odd coffee cup). The last time I used this column to report on an archaeological dig through my TV tray, the findings were mainly books I had intended to read but hadn't--their once shiny covers eclipsed by additional layers of literary civilization. This time I've dug my way down to a different kind of treasure: books I've read but haven't managed to review yet. This is both a good and a bad thing. Good because at least the damn books have been read; bad because, at Booklist, we're supposed to turn around our work quickly, not let it molder on top of a piece of faux furniture that went out of style in the 1950s. This column, then, is intended to serve a dual purpose: First, I hope it alerts readers to a handful of soon-to-be-published books that might look good on your own bedside tables; and, second, it is designed to function as a kind of stretchingexercise for my easily strained reviewing muscles. If I can manage a couple of sentences about these books today, who knows, maybe I'll work up to a full review sometime before the paperback editions appear next year. The Bookman's Promise by John Dunning. Mar. 2004. Scribner, $25 (0-7432-4992-5). It's no surprise that Dunning's Cliff Janeway mysteries are favorites of librarians. What's not to like? A sleuth who's an antiquarian bookseller but not in the least wussy (he's even a former cop); plots full of book lore and musty ambience; and a dollop of sex, just so we don't forget that a literary life can still be robust. This time the story hinges on a first edition by 19th-century explorer Richard Burton, who makes an appearance in an extended interlude based on a lost journal. A Spectacle of Corruption by David Liss. Mar. 2004. Random, $24.95 (0-375-50855-4). For writers of literary thrillers, late-17th- and early-18th-century England--from Cromwell through the Jacobites--has become what New Orleans is to contemporary hard-boiled authors: rich soil. And Liss makes the most of it in this sequel to the popular Conspiracy of Paper (2000). Benjamin Weaver, former pugilist, current thief-taker (one who helps victims of robbery recover their goods), is in the soup again, framed for a murder and without a clue as to who or why. All the intrigue of the Jacobite era mixed with a Dickensian feel for London's lower depths. Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma by Jeremy Bernstein. Apr. 2004. Ivan R. Dee, $26 (1-56663-569-1). I've been fascinated by Robert Oppenheimer since a 1980s PBS series in which Sam Waterston played the legendary physicist and director of the Manhattan Project. Bernstein, a former colleague of Oppenheimer's at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study and the author of a series of celebrated profiles of scientists in the New Yorker, just may be the perfect writer to tackle the enigmatic Oppie. This is a short book, but it's an extremely revealing one, and it does nothing to change my opinion that Oppenheimer was one of the most fascinating figures of the 20th century. Sunset and Sawdust by Joe R. Lansdale. Mar. 2004. Knopf, $22 (0-375-41453-3). I've been meaning to read Lansdale for years--sometimes you just know when a writer belongs on your A list. He's there now, thanks to this Depression-era country noir about a woman who kills her abusive husband, then takes over his job as constable of an East Texas sawmill town, and quickly discovers that oil isn't the only thing buried in the black dirt. Like Daniel Woodrell, another country-noir virtuoso on my A list, Lansdale mixes grit, humor, violence, and earthy sensuality in just the right proportions. ADDED MATERIAL