New & Recommended New & Recommended (January 07, 2004)

This month's picks, from Frank Sanchez, book buyer at Kepler's, include a book about the year 1968, a book of short stories based in Chicago, a book about poker, a fictionalization of Tiny Tim from Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" growing up, and more.

"1968: The Year That Rocked the World" by Mark Kurlansky is a look back at the tumultuous year which included the Tet offensive in Vietnam, President Lyndon Johnson deciding not to seek re-election, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the violence at the Chicago Democratic National Convention, Prague Spring, and a near revolution in France when workers and students united.

"I Sailed with Magellan" by Stuart Dybek is a collection of interconnected stories about two boys growing up in Chicago. Dybek has been compared with the late Chicago writer Nelson Algren for the realism of the streets of Chicago he brings to his writing. He had previously written two other volumes of short stories.

"Read 'Em and Weep: A Bedside Poker Companion" by John Stravinsky is a collection of writings about the suddenly popular card game popularized by ESPN and other TV networks.

"Mr. Timothy" by Louis Bayard is a novel based on the character Tiny Tim growing up. In this story, the 23-year-old young man is living in a whorehouse, has fond memories of the idealism of his father, and is immersed in a murder mystery.

"Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake" by Carol Loeb Shloss is a biography of the daughter of writer James Joyce, a woman afflicted by mental illness after her parents refused to let her pursue a career in modern dance. She remained estranged from her family. The author teaches at Stanford.

"The Bookseller of Kabul" by Asne Seierstad is an inside look at war-torn Afghanistan. The author, a Norwegian journalism, lived with a Kabul bookseller and his family for three months after the Northern Alliance liberated the city from the Taliban.

"If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things" by Jon McGregor is a novel about the lives of families who live on a single suburban London block and together witness a bad traffic crash. The novel has nominated for a Booker Prize in England.

"How to Breathe Underwater" by Julie Orringer is a short story collection that has been getting glowing reviews. The stories all deal with darker issues of loss and difficulties. This is a debut collection by a young writer.

"The Beast in the Garden: A Modern Parable of Man and Nature" by David Baron is the account of a story from Boulder, Colo. in 1991 when the city's residents are captivated by sightings of a mountain lion on their streets and do not heed warnings until a jogger is killed. The author is a National Public Radio journalist.

--Don Kazak

E-mail a friend a link to this story.