How About Never — Is Never Good For You? My Life in Cartoons
by Bob Mankoff (Henry Holt)
Bob Mankoff has been cartoon editor for The New Yorker for 17 years, and in case you’re wondering — yes, he is funny. At least based on his cartoon-strewn memoir. Informing us some 14,000 cartoons have been published under his aegis, he adds: “Sometimes I take my aegis out of my drawer just to admire it.” And he devotes an entire chapter to the “Seinfeld” New Yorker cartoon episode (written by cartoonist Bruce Eric Kaplan), which he enjoyed, except that they called the editor Elinoff. “I wish they had used my name,” he writes, “but I had to settle for the last three letters.”
Every Day Is For the Thief
by Teju Cole (Random House)
The Nigerian-American author of “Open City” wrote this book before that acclaimed 2011 novel. The unnamed narrator — who returns home to Lagos from New York for the first time in after more than a decade — tell us, “The air in the strange, familiar environment of this city is dense with stories . . .” And we get enough stories to paint a fascinating picture of the sprawling, anarchic city. We meet “yahoo yahoo” boys and their Internet scams. And there’s the beautiful woman reading a Michael Ondaatje book on a bus — a missed connection.
A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Times of Alex Chilton From the Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man
by Holly George-Warren (Viking)
Memphis-born Chilton was all of 16 when the blue-eyed soul group he was in, the Box Tops, topped the charts in 1967 with “The Letter.” In the 1970s, he grew as a songwriter with Big Star, which made just three albums — but the likes of R.E.M., Wilco and the Replacements have cited as an influence. The sometimes ornery artist disappeared for a time, played a solo act and wound up living in New Orleans and with a new generation of acolytes before his death in 2010. George-Warren’s well-researched book illuminates Chilton’s music and his struggles.
Notes From the Internet Apocalypse
by Wayne Gladstone (Thomas Dunne Books)
What if the Internet was suddenly wiped from the face of the earth and New York City went nuts? That’s the terrifying (to some) and amusing premise of Cracked.com columnist Gladstone’s satirical first novel. As casual encounters are advertised on bulletin boards and librarians rent themselves out as “human search engines,” rumors surface that someone in the city is still online. The book’s narrator (named Gladstone) tries to find that person — and save humanity. Start printing everything out.
You Should Have Known
by Jean Hanff Korelitz (Grand Central Publishing)
The New York author of “Admission,” a best-selling novel (and Tina Fey movie) about Princeton University, explores her Upper East Side home turf in this new novel about — an author. As pop therapist Grace Reinhart Sachs sets out to tout her tome about relationships, “You Should Have Known” (a “Lean-In”-Princeton Mom mash-up) her husband disappears. Left to face her fears of loneliness and public humiliation, Grace turns sleuth to discover her husband’s whereabouts and makes some discoveries about herself.