Bitter Sweets by Roopa Farooki (St. Martin’s)
The debut from Pakistan-born, London-raised novelist Farooki tracks the travails of three generations whose family ties are built on a web of lies and deceptions. It all starts when 13-year-old Henna Rub is married off to Ricky-Rashid Karim, the son of a well-to-do Cacutta family. He thinks she’s an educated, poetry-loving girl. But she’s a lazy, illiterate shopkeeper’s daughter.
The Best of LCD: The Art and Writing of WFMU edited by Dave the Spazz (Princeton Architectural Press)
For those who don’t know, WFMU (91.1 FM) is the best, the craziest, the most eclectic radio station around. And this labor of love from deejay Dave the Spazz and the rest of his quirky cohorts captures that karma in print. The book is like a more subversive MAD with a concentration on primitive rock ‘n’ roll, kooky pop music and art direction by someone like R. Crumb. Our faves include an essay on “Killer Monster Punk Garage Music” and “The Hound’s Guide to Buying Re-Issues.” LCD, by the way, refers to the station’s onetime program guide, “Lowest Common Denominator.”
A Pigeon and a Boy by Meir Shalev (Schocken Books)
With a new round of Middle East talks in Annapolis, maybe we can learn something from acclaimed Israeli novelist Sahlev’s latest, which offers thoughts about the sense of being home. While middle-age tour guide Yair Mendelson reconnects with a girlfriend from his youth, flashbacks tell the story of two homing pigeon handlers – Baby and the Girl – and their doomed relationship during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.
Tabasco: An Illustrated History by Shane K. Bernard (McIlhenny Company)
It’s easy to say this is a hot holiday book. The coffee-table tome includes history, ads and trivia – a “Tabasco in Hollywood” section tells us the sauce appeared on film with Laurel & Hardy, Bugs Bunny, the Little Rascals and James Bond and even in “Apocalypse Now.” Our fave picture is a 1954 poster in English and Hebrew boasting “The Only Pepper Sauce Under Rabbinical Supervision.”
Bella Abzug: How One Tough Broad from the Bronx Fought Jim Crow and Joe McCarthy, Pissed Off Jimmy Carter . . . edited by Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux)
Admittedly, the hat-wearing, feminist, antiwar congresswoman/activist wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. And while most of the folks who tell about Bella in this oral-history bio are FOBs, to its credit it does include some detractors. Ed Koch, for one, weighs in: “Bella and I just disliked one another intensely, personally as well as politically. . . . if Bella is for something, there’s an automatic number who will be opposed to it . . .”