Sticks and Stones War, statutory rape, child abuse and racism are hardly the stuff of comedy, but in Towelhead (Simon & Schuster, $22), Alicia Erian succeeds in blending this weird and sometimes shocking mix of elements into a funny, poignant and utterly readable first novel. (Her collection of short stories, The Brutal Language of Love, was published in 2001.)…
John Brown did not make it easy for people to love him — until he died on the gallows. Perhaps no other figure in American experience straddles the blurred line between myth and history, legend and reality, quite like the domineering, violent, Calvinist abolitionist who attacked the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in 1859 and provided, in a way, the Pearl Harbor of the Civil War.
Some of the most fascinating books on modern African American history have recast the civil rights movement as an expansive freedom struggle with visionary goals that reached beyond domestic legal battles and attained global significance. During the past quarter-century, these writings have shown that black political militancy sought not just civil rights legislation but also broader political and economic gains. Rather than assuming that this militancy was carefully orchestrated by Martin Luther King Jr., contemporary historians have increasingly directed their attention to the grassroots leaders who spearheaded local struggles for black advancement. They insist that leaders of national civil rights groups…
MIDNIGHT AT THE DRAGON CAFÉ By Judy Fong Bates. Counterpoint. 315 pp. Paperback, $14…
PARIS: The Biography of a City By Colin Jones. Viking. 566 pp. $29.95…
THE ALMOND PICKER By Simonetta Agnello HornbyTranslated from the Italian by Alastair McEwen…
Feeling Sheepish Hans Breuer, Austria’s last wandering shepherd, seems like a terrific character for a novel. He’s got comic potential: Picture this middle-aged man in a wide-brimmed hat, singing folksongs while he ushers his flock through Alpine villages past bemused locals. He’s got a serious side, too: In addition to being something of a relic by profession, Breuer is conspicuous as a Jew in a country that has yet to come to terms with its Nazi past….
Blood From a Stone By Donna Leon (Atlantic Monthly, $23)…
THE FIRST EMANCIPATOR
The Forgotten Story of Robert Carter, the Founding Father Who Freed His Slaves
