Lifestyle

This week’s must-read books

Waiting for Electricity
by Christina Nichol (Overlook)

In her spot-on satire, debut novelist Nichol skewers the former Soviet Union as well as the American Dream. Slims Achmed Makashvili, a maritime lawyer at a government ministry in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, hears of an opportunity to attend a US State Department-sponsored seminar in America. He applies with a letter to Hillary Clinton — and ends up in San Francisco, living with his American host, a seaweed harvester/roofer. Slims’ hopes of importing Georgian sheep to America sends him on a high jinks-filled cross-country trip.

Poking a Dead Frog
Conversations with Today’s Top Comedy Writers
by Mike Sacks (Penguin)

If you’re a fan of funny — and who isn’t? — you’re sure to find something of interest in Sacks’ follow-up to “And Here’s the Kicker.” Among the tidbits, we discover that network honchos first suggested Bill Cosby as Cheers’ Sam Malone, Bill Hader puts “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” on his 200 essential films for comedy writers, and Jimmy Fallon and Onion writer Mike Dicenzo advise: “Write as much as you can . . . write a bunch of jokes on Twitter, start a Web series, a funny Tumblr, anything. All it takes is one person in the comedy business to notice you and find your stuff funny.”

Em and the Big Hoom
by Jerry Pinto (Penguin)

This literary novel about family and mental illness is set in India — where this book was first published. In Pinto’s debut, an unnamed narrator recalls his childhood struggles with mother Em’s bipolar disorder. He puzzles over how his father (a k a the Big Hoom) ended up with his mother, who makes embarrassing public scenes and tries to kill herself. As the narrator investigates his parents’ courtship in 1960s Bombay, the novel unearths some truths about the forces that keep families together.

The Never Never Sisters
by L. Alison Heller (NAL)

For New Yorkers trying to get away to the Hamptons this summer, a novel about . . . New Yorkers trying to get away to the Hamptons this summer. In Brooklynite Heller’s latest work, marriage counselor Paige Reinhardt can’t wait to spend her vacation on Long Island’s trendy East End, until a crisis at her husband’s office wrecks their plans. When Paige’s troubled, estranged sister shows up after a 20-year silence, things go from bad to worse. Paige discovers that finding oneself comes at a tremendous cost.

Indonesia Etc.
Exploring the Improbable Nation
by Elizabeth Pisani (Norton)

Former Reuters correspondent Pisani goes far beyond the big island, Java, of the world’s fourth most populous country. She takes readers on a fascinating journey that goes from the hectic, modern capital of Jakarta to tiny, remote village in one of the nation’s 13,500 islands that have not changed since before Dutch colonization.