The Interestings
by Meg Wolitzer (Riverhead)
An author who calls her book “The Interestings” runs a risk. But Wolitzer’s story of six teenage friends from an artsy upstate summer camp, and their journey forward from that summer of 1974, lives up to the title. Among the group are aspiring comic actress Jules, guitar-playing Jonah, cartoonist Ethan and would-be actress Ash. Flash forward to 2009: Jules is a therapist, Jonah an engineer. Ethan has a hit animated TV show and is married to Ash, an acclaimed stage director. The road the group follows — packed with detours — and the people they become, is, we have to say, interesting.
The Village
400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues — A History of Greenwich Village
by John Strausbaugh (Ecco)
From his current home in Brooklyn Heights, former Village resident Strausbaugh has written a complete — and loving — history of his old neighborhood. On the other side of the “official boundaries” of New Amsterdam, he tells us of the lesser-known early days, “Dutch, Native Americans and half-free black settlers farmed there.” By the American Revolution, the Village had become “a magnet for misfits.” He continues on with the more familiar misfits, bohemians, writers and artists of the later days in the Village.
Palisades Park
by Alan Brennert (St. Martin’s)
Jersey-raised writer Brennert has penned an ode to the long-gone amusement park. Spanning the 1930s to the 1970s, we meet the Stopka family. Mom and Dad sell cotton candy and hot dogs at the Jersey park. Their two kids help out. Along the way, a variety of quirky carny types are part of the Stopkas’ lives, as the Depression, WWII, the Civil Rights Movement and more cause changes for the family and the park.
The Creation of Anne Boleyn
A New Look at England’s Most Notorious Queen
by Susan Bordo (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
For generations, Anne Boleyn, the raven-haired seductress queen beheaded by Henry VIII, has been called a witch and the thing that rhymes with it. Feminist author Bordo says it’s time to stop the hating. Here, she debunks 500 years worth of popular lore on Henry’s second wife to conclude that Anne wasn’t evil or even raven-haired: During her own lifetime, the main account of Boleyn’s behavior was written by the BFF of the wife she replaced. The real Anne? Highly educated with dishwater-brown hair and not well suited for the subservient role of a Tudor-era queen.
Marathon Man
My 26.2 Mile Journey from Unknown Grad Student to the Top of the Running World
by Bill Rodgers and Matthew Shepatin (Thomas Dunne Books)
One of the world’s foremost marathoners — and a pioneer in the field — Bill Rodgers was a conscientious objector to the Vietnam draft. When he started running in the 1960s, drivers passing by would toss beer cans at him and yell: “Where’s the fire?” or “Get a job, hippie!” He shocked everyone by winning the Boston Marathon in 1975.