Opinion

Required Reading

Joseph Anton

A Memoir

by Salman Rushdie (Random House)

Who is Joseph Anton? It’s the alias Salman Rushdie used during his years of hiding following a death sentence from noted book critic Ayatollah Khomeini, who blasted his novel, “The Satanic Verses,” for being anti-Islam. (Sound familiar?) Rushdie got the name from two of his favorite authors — Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov. Finally telling of his time on the run, the author worried not only for his own safety, but for his family’s — he writes of one time when he thought his 8-year-old son had been kidnapped and possibly murdered. Strong stuff.

San Miguel

by T.C. Boyle (Penguin)

From Westchester-born Boyle (“World’s End” and “The Road to Wellville”) comes a story of heading west. Two families, one in the 1880s and one in the 1930s, journey to a small island off the Southern California coast. In 1930, fictional New York City librarian Elsie Lester moves with her family to San Miguel in hopes of fending off the Great Depression. Her family’s story echoes an earlier one, of Marantha Waters, who came to the island in 1888 to restore her failing health, in this tale of struggle, self-reliance and America’s Western destiny.

The Cocktail Waitress

by James M. Cain (Hard Case Crime)

It’s almost criminal that one writer could come up with so much great, lasting work: “Double Indemnity,” “Mildred Pierce,” “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” Just before his death in 1977, Cain was finishing this one. In his final, never-before-published noir, Joan Medford makes ends meet slinging drinks after her husband mysteriously dies. At the lounge, she falls hard for a handsome young schemer but marries a wealthy older man.

The Wine of Solitude

by Irène Némirovsky (Vintage)

One of the eagerly awaited novels of the season actually has been around since 1935, in French. Russian-French Jew Némirovsky was a writer of some fame in 1930s and early ’40s Paris. But in 1942 she was killed at Auschwitz. Her manuscript “Suite Francaise,” was discovered in the 1990s and translated into English. The latest of her translated work is her most autobiographical and tells the story of emigres who flee Kiev in the Russian Revolution, seek refuge in Finland and then finally head to Paris, where the novel’s heroine, Helene Karol, comes of age.

Buy Shoes On Wednesday

and Tweet at 4:00

More of the Best Times To Buy This, Do That and Go There

by Mark Di Vincenzo (William Morrow)

When the going gets tough, the tough . . . go shopping. But according to Di Vincenzo — who also wrote “Buy Ketchup in May and Fly at Noon” — they shop for swimsuits on Sundays, Christmas cards in January and scan Craigslist in the evenings. Time is important in non-shopping activities as well: Go to Antarctica in February, we’re advised. It’s the best month for whale watching and to see newborn penguins. The book has the best time to do everything from selling stocks to breaking up with somebody.