A VERY GOOD YEAR?
With 2008 fast approaching, we’re marking our calendars for some excellent entertainment options. By Jenna Schnuer and John Ross
Books We Can’t Wait to Read
1 THE BOOK: Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home by Kim Sunée (Grand Central Publishing, $25)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: One of the most graceful memoirs to come along in recent memory, Trail of Crumbs takes readers along on the author’s search for her identity after her mother left her sitting on a park bench in South Korea when she was just three years old.
DON’T READ IT WHEN YOU’RE HUNGRY: When Sunée, an accomplished cook, writes about the food she serves to the people in her life, you can almost feel the warmth of her kitchen.
WHEN YOU’LL FIND IT: In January
2 THE BOOK: The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt (Houghton Mifflin, $24)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: This may be one of the most buzzed-about books of the winter season. With her father about to zip off in a time machine (stick with us here), Louisa, a chambermaid at the Hotel New Yorker in 1943, befriends inventor Nikola Tesla. Apparently, they both have a love for pigeons. The book follows their friendship as well as that whole time-traveling thing.
NO, YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A GEEK TO GET IT: It would be tempting to shrug it all off as sci-fi foolishness, except that the author has published and presented some stellar fiction in the New Yorker and McSweeney’s and on public radio’s This American Life.
WHEN YOU’LL FIND IT: In February
3 THE BOOK: American Photobooth by Näkki Goranin (W.W. Norton and Company, $30)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Photobooths. No, really. It’s a photo book about photobooths. And why not? There’s just something about a photobooth, isn’t there? The little half curtain that serves up a small dose of privacy in the midst of a busy spot, the strip of pictures, the captured moment in time.…
A GOOD REASON TO LOOK AT PICTURES OF STRANGERS: Goranin, a collector of historic photos, delivers plenty of strips that showcase how other people have spent their minute in the booth. But she also focuses on the history of photobooths — where they came from, how they’ve changed — and shows why, in the age of the camera phone, we still love them.
WHEN YOU’LL FIND IT: In February
4 THE BOOK: The Ten- Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; $26)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Before Elvis was swiveling his hips on Ed Sullivan, parents and kids were clashing over a different pop-culture phenomenon: the sensational and bloody breed of comics some felt was too adult for children. So shocking and graphic was the content that some comics were burned in public bonfires and banned by local governments. The stir reached national proportions when Congress held hearings on the matter.
ELLINGTON AT NEWPORT SEEMS LIKE FITTING READING MUSIC: Hajdu, a journalism professor at Columbia University, knows something about pop culture and controversy — he’s also written biographies of Bob Dylan and Duke Ellington’s composer, Billy Strayhorn.
WHEN YOU’LL FIND IT: In March
Movies We’re Waiting to See,
if Only for Their Handsome Casts
THE MOVIE: The Other Boleyn Girl
THE PRETTY PEOPLE: Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana BRUSH UP ON
YOUR BRITISH HISTORY: Before Henry VIII (played here by The Hulk’s Bana) got divorced, he got married. Before that, his affections were the source of a fierce competition between Anne Boleyn (played by Portman) and her sister, Mary (played by Johansson).
WILMA OR BETTY? RACHEL OR MONICA? NATALIE OR SCARLETT? Who’s your favorite? And who do you think should win the king’s heart? That probably depends on what you know about what the real-life winner ended up losing. (Hint: It was her head.)
CHECK THE BOX OFFICE: In February
 THE MOVIE: Leatherheads
THE PRETTY PEOPLE: George Clooney, Renée Zellweger, and John Krasinski
SPRINGTIME FOR FOOTBALL: It will actually be baseball season by the time this football-themed film hits theaters in the spring. And perhaps that’s appropriate, given that the plot of Leatherheads sounds a lot like that of Bull Durham. It’s about an aging pro athlete competing with a green but talented rookie for the affections of a hardscrabble woman who follows their team’s every move.
KEVIN COSTNER DOES NOT APPEAR: The truth is, Leatherheads isn’t really like Bull Durham at all. Leatherheads is set in the post–World War I Midwest. It was directed by Clooney, who also stars in it. And where Bull Durham reveled in sports clichés and sentimentality, Leatherheads — costarring Zellweger as a sports reporter and The Office’s Krasinski as the rookie — spins the clichés for comic effect. Plus, people hit each other really hard and no one mentions the novels of Susan Sontag.
CHECK THE BOX OFFICE: In April
A TV Show We’ve Already Set the TiVo For
THE SHOW: Miss America Live!
SHE’S A LITTLE BIT COUNTRY AND A LITTLE BIT ROCK AND ROLL: Once upon a time, before there was a channel for everything, including openheart surgery, the Miss America pageant was a big deal. Those days officially ended in 2004, when ABC bumped the pageant from its airways. And though CMT has aired the pageant for the past two years, Miss America was as ill-fitting on the country channel as are a pair of Kenny Chesney’s jeans. That’s where TLC comes in. The network that makes a living telling you What Not to Wear, among other things, has inked a long-term deal with the event that gives a crown to a woman who is not young enough to be Miss Teen America and not married enough to be Mrs. America.
REAL DRAMA: What we’re really excited about isn’t the pageant itself. That’s just the finale, after all, to the monthlong reality show TLC is producing. It features, in TLC’s words, “52 of the country’s smartest and most beautiful women as they prepare for a competition they’ve dreamed of their entire lives.” So it’ll be like Top Chef, only without the knives. Maybe. WATCH FOR IT: The show begins in January, and the competition concludes with the January 26 telecast on TLC.
A CD We’re Pretty Sure Will Rock and/or Roll
THE CD: Jukebox
THE SINGER: Cat Power
YOU’VE HEARD OF HER, EVEN IF YOU HAVEN’T HEARD OF HER: Surely it’s not by design, but Cat Power’s career seems to have been scripted for a VH1 special. The plot? Musician plays inventive, original music culled from troubled past; develops following; becomes more troubled in the process; puts on wacky, rambling stage shows; sinks deeper; goes to rehab; emerges as an even better performer, blending a sparse style with a beautifully mournful voice that makes critics swoon; and so on.
THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME, ALTHOUGH DIFFERENT: Given that her career has played out in such an unfortunately traditional way, it’s only appropriate that Power pays tribute to other troubled or tragic musical legends — Bob Dylan, for one — by releasing her second album of cover songs. Her first, titled The Covers Record (what else?), came out in 2000 and included songs from Dylan, Lou Reed, and the Rolling Stones. On the new album, songs from Hank Williams and James Brown get Power’s unique, slimmed-down, acoustical, and somber treatment. And that, oddly, makes us very, very happy.
CHECK THE RECORD STORES: In January
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 Gift Lit
When all else fails, buy them a book — like maybe one of these 2007 releases that you might have missed. By Jenna Schnuer
FOR THE CELEBRITYOBSESSED: A BOOK ON BEING FAMOUS In My Blood: Six Generations of Madness and Desire in an American Family by John Sedgwick (HarperCollins, $26). A deep depression inspired John Sedgwick to look at his family history and the mental illness that runs through his family tree. He found that Sedgwicks have played a role in American history from the earliest days. Theodore Sedgwick? Friend of George Washington. Ellery Sedgwick? Ran the influential Atlantic Monthly for 30 years. Kyra Sedgwick? Scores high in Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
FOR THE HOME COOK: RECIPES FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE WELL KNOWN BUT WHO AREN’T CELEBRITY CHEFS American Food Writing: An Anthology with Classic Recipes, edited by Molly O’Neill (The Library of America, $40). Lit-minded foodies must make room on their bookshelves for this comprehensive look at food in America. It covers everything from what Lewis and Clark downed during their journey to the modernday organic obsession. It even features what is believed to be the first-ever recipe for ice cream written by an American. His name? Thomas Jefferson.
FOR THE TRAVELER: MAPS THAT MAKE YOU SMARTER Cartographia: Mapping Civilizations by Vincent Virga (Little, Brown; $60). Put the borders you’ve crossed in your personal travels into historical context. This book is packed with maps from the Library of Congress that detail how the world has been divvied up during the last six centuries.
FOR THE NONREADER: A BOOK TO READ How to Talk about Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard (Bloomsbury, $20). The author, a psychoanalyst and a professor of French literature at the University of Paris VIII, offers help to those of us with holes in our reading history. “Skimming books without actually reading them does not in any way prevent you from commenting on them,” Bayard argues. “It’s even possible that this is the most efficient way to absorb books, respecting their inherent depth and richness without getting lost in the details.” Word.
FOR THE WORKOUT FANATIC: THE SPEED-WALKING ROUTINE YOU’LL NEVER DUPLICATE A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca by Andrés Reséndez (Basic Books, $27). Not long after Christopher Columbus did his thing in North America, four shipwrecked men journeyed from what is now Florida to the West Coast and dealt with a load of tough tasks along the way, including years of enslavement in the Southwest. Luckily for modern man, Reséndez is a marvelous storyteller who makes you feel like you are there — even if you’re really just lying on the couch.
FOR THE HUCKLEBERRY HOUND BOOK CLUB: THE BOOK OF THE YEAR The Hanna-Barbera Treasury by Jerry Beck (Welcome Books, $45) Admit it: You still watch The Flintstones, and Scooby-Doo still does right by your funny bone. Well, now you can celebrate all the good that Hanna- Barbera cartoons were without feeling the least bit silly. This book looks at the studio’s work as art. And art is good for you.
Holly, Jolly Holiday Tomes
Celebrate the season with two new books that offer a quirky look at our favorite time of year.
The History of the Snowman by Bob Eckstein (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, $15). They sit ever so quietly on front lawns. They grace holiday cards. They ask for nothing. They’re snowmen. Humor writer Bob Eckstein is finally giving the snowman his due. Packed with cartoons, loads of info you didn’t know you’d want to know (but, trust us, you do), and wonderful old pictures, The History of the Snowman is one of the quirkiest and most charming history books to come along in years. You’ll never nonchalantly stick a carrot in an unsuspecting snowman’s face again.
How to Spell Chanukah … and Other Holiday Dilemmas, edited by Emily Franklin (Algonquin, $19). Whether you spell the Jewish holiday Chanukah or Hanukkah or Hanukah or you don’t have any idea how to spell it at all, you’ll find plenty of “that happens in my family, too” in this book. The Festival of Lights is the jumping- point for a collection of essays with everything from an obsession with Christmas to how to handle parents’ tchotchkes when they them to you because they’re downsizing to a condo. — J.S.
Kids’ Books Comeback
A Kentucky publishing company is giving new life to lost children’s classics.
By Kristin Baird Rattini
There is no shortage of children’s books on the market. Indeed, when you think of all the kids’ books being written by celebrity authors, it might seem like there are far too many children’s books around these days. So how do you get a book noticed in a crowded market? A savvy entrepreneur finds a way to sell something that already has name recognition — something, in fact, that people are willing to pay a premium to get. Something like Mr. Pine’s Purple House or Mr. Bear Squash-You-All-Flat.
Yes. Squash-You-All-Flat. Maybe you didn’t read it growing up, but a lot of people did. And now they want to pass it, and books like it, on to the latest crop of child readers. That’s where Jill Morgan comes in. In 2000, Morgan, a used-book dealer based in rural Cynthiana, Kentucky, founded Purple House Press with a simple goal: to revive well-loved children’s books from decades past that had fallen out of print. Since then, she’s had more than simple results. Purple House Press has sold more than 250,000 copies of the books it has revived.
With Purple House Press’s 33rd title — Three Little Horses by Piet Worm — set to hit bookstores in January, Morgan told us what it takes to unearth these buried treasures.
How did you get into the business of republishing out-of-print children’s books?
I used to sell out-of-print books. A lot of people requested Mr. Pine’s Purple House by Leonard Kessler. It was a favorite of mine too. When I first started, it sold for $25 online. But as demand for the book increased, the price rose to $300. I thought that was outrageous. I decided to see if the author would let me reprint it. For the company, that’s the greatest reward — knowing that people have been looking for these books for so, so long. Now that they’re back in print, they can get as many copies as they want, and the books don’t cost a fortune.
Mr. Pine was first printed in 1965. Was Kessler shocked when you contacted him?
He was surprised that people remembered Mr. Pine so fondly, because it had been 30 years since he had done the book and it had since gone out of print. He decided to trust me. It worked out well. He has designed the two logos for our company. He’s also become kind of like a surrogate grandfather for me. I never thought when I was three years old that I would meet the author of my favorite book.
Is it always that easy to find the authors or their estates?
No. Usually I end up plugging away on the Internet, searching for them. For Three Little Horses, the author lived in the Netherlands. I found the name of the little town where he was born. I wrote an e-mail to a museum in his town. They gave me someone else to contact, who then gave me someone else. Finally, I got a contact for the family.
For those who missed it the first time around, what’s Three Little Horses about?
It’s about little horses that dress up as people and go into town. It has princesses and horses — every girl’s dream.
How do books come to your attention?
A lot of books we’ve done are those that I remember from when I was a kid and now have trouble finding. Others were requested by my customers when I sold out-of-print books.
In that case, you probably hear a lot of, “There’s this really great book …
” Yes. Sometimes people bring me a book to look at. We’ve actually found a few books that way. I’ve had quite a few people ask me for Miss Suzy by Miriam Young and Miss Twiggley’s Tree by Dorothea Warren Fox, and it’s great to be able to tell them that we have it already. Miss Suzy is one of our bestselling books.
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Lucy Liu Can Parle Français
Plus five other things you might like to know about one of the stars of ABC’s Cashmere Mafia. By Ken Parish Perkins
Much ado has been made about the similarities between ABC’s Cashmere Mafia and HBO’s Sex and the City. And, certainly, the shows have much in common, not the least of which is that Sex and the City creator Darren Star is an executive producer on the new show. But here’s one big difference between Cashmere and City: Lucy Liu’s character is a lot deeper than Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw — even if they do share a passion for fashion.
 1 When Liu was growing up, her dinnertime was also lesson time. On the door of the refrigerator in her childhood home, there was a picture of an emaciated child. “We didn’t have much money,” Liu says of her days growing up as the child of Chinese immigrants. “We struggled quite a bit. So my father put the picture on there to show us that no matter how bad we had it, there were people elsewhere who were suffering even more — even starving. More than anything else, the picture was a reminder to focus on what we had, not on what we didn’t have. So we’d eat our rice and cucumber and not whine about it.”
2 She has at least one thing in common with Angelina Jolie. Her movie work, particularly the Charlie’s Angels films, has given Liu international name recognition, which she’s leveraged since 2005 in her role as a celebrity ambassador for UNICEF. “It’s been eye-opening,” she says. “I’ve traveled to South Africa to assist in the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and I went to Pakistan after the earthquake there. I was in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo recently, where we met young boys who were fighting alongside adult soldiers, and young girls who were survivors of sexual slavery. It’s heartbreaking. These children don’t know what a real childhood is. Instead, they’ve had to endure these unspeakable horrors so early in their lives. What we don’t realize is that this war has taken more lives than World War II. You’re talking about over three million people.”
3 She speaks more languages than just English and Mandarin. Many more. “We spoke only Mandarin growing up,” says Liu, who graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Asian languages. “When my older sister went to school, we started learning English. I did one movie in Mandarin (3 Needles). But I also speak Spanish, some Italian, and Japanese and French. It’s not an ego thing. I just want to understand and communicate with people when I travel.”
4 She might be wearing some of your old clothes. Liu’s own fashion sense is apparent on her new ABC drama, Cashmere Mafia, a show about four high-powered Manhattan businesswomen. “I like to mix for myself things that are high-end and low-end,” she explains. “You can get something from Fendi and mix it with [something from] H&M and make it look fabulous. And that’s something that we are doing on the show. We went to Bergdorf’s and had a fitting there for three hours, and then we went to the Lower East Side and went to a secondhand store. We found things from the ’80s that no one would ever probably wear. I think that makes it more unique — not to just have something that’s right off the rack. But that’s my particular character.”
5 She collects art. Oh, and she also makes it. Liu attends art classes when she’s between acting gigs. And her own artwork has been exhibited in Hong Kong, Nova Scotia, and New York. She does photography and collage, “but lately,” Liu says, “I’ve been painting more than anything else. It’s perhaps one of the more gratifying things I’ve done, besides acting. I find both art and acting to be quite personal. I would never stop doing one for the other.”
6 She is not Ling Woo. Hollywood execs have previously tried to cast Liu as the ice-queen type she played on Ally McBeal, however, she hasn’t let them. “Hollywood is about box-office success, so the actors are often put in boxes themselves,” she says. “But you don’t have to stay there. I’ve worked really hard to try and diversify my roles. It happens fast for some and slow for others, like me, because it takes a while to get to a place where you can say no. I feel like I’m really close to that place.”
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