Lifestyle

This week’s must-read books

Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters
An Eccentric Englishwoman and Her Lost Kingdom
by Philip Eade (Picador)

A courtier’s daughter runs off to help rule an exotic, far-away kingdom — but it’s not the next “Game of Thrones” novel. In fact, this story, chronicled by journalist Eade in his first book, is true. Born in 1885 in London, Sylvia marries Vyner Brooke — “the last white Raja” of Sarawak in 1911. (His family ruled the land for three generations). We get a picture that includes too much drinking, prostitutes, odd relatives and flying saucers. Plus an end to the British colonial way of life with Japan’s invasion of Sarawak in 1941.

Note to Self
by Alina Simone (Faber and Faber)

Pink-slipped from her cubicle job at a Midtown law firm, Internet-obsessed Anna (she collects spam) — who, of course, lives in Brooklyn — allows her more stable friend, Leslie, to be her life coach. Of course, that doesn’t stop her from trolling Craigslist — and she answers an ad to work with experimental filmmaker Taj, who is active in the Nowism art movement. First-time novelist Simone, a Ukraine-born Brooklyn resident, has a sharp, satiric eye for observation.

Down the Shore
by Stan Parish (Viking)

Tom Alison and Clare Savage come from different worlds: Tom, with Jersey Shore roots, is raised by a single mom who’s a caterer; Clare comes from wealth. But both boys, seniors at New Jersey’s prestigious Lawrenceville school, are in trouble. Tom’s been busted for dealing pot, and his admission to Columbia has been revoked. Clare’s parents have disappeared after his financier father is accused of a Madoff-like scam. Both wind up at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland, where they’ve escaped for different reasons, in Parish’s coming-of-age novel.

Tibetan Peach Pie
A True Account of an Imaginative Life
by Tom Robbins (Ecco)

With the author of such irreverent classics such as “Another Roadside Attraction” and “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” the subtitle here could just as well be “An Imaginative Account of a True Life.” Robbins, who reveals his mother’s pet name for him was “Tommy Rotten,” insists this is not an autobiography, writing that “only authors who are household names should write autobiographies . . . but those rare homes in which [my name] is spoken with any regularity are likely to be under police surveillance.”

Dark Aemilia
A Novel of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady
by Sally O’Reilly (Picador)

We all know Shakespeare wrote love sonnets. Now, O’Reilly’s new novel brings us the Bard’s sonnet-writing lover and sonnet-inspiring muse. In this fictional take on Shakespearean-era poetess Aemilia Layner, a smitten Will pursues Aemilia, a lady of the court, and carries on an affair with her until she becomes pregnant. Later Aemilia meets the real Macbeth, and also employs witchcraft to save her child. Historical fiction, with the emphasis on the fictional liberties.