Books
Check out our picks of this month’s page-turners.
The House That George Built— With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty
Wilfrid Sheed (Random House, $29.95)
“The sweetest sounds I’ll ever hear,” composer Richard Rodgers wrote, “are still inside my head.” If so, to Sheed, an elegant social commentator and author, songwriting means “the wonderful ability to go in there and get them.” From the 1910s to the 1950s, from ragtime to the stirrings of rock ‘n’ roll, the piano was the instrument of choice. During songwriting’s Golden Age, talents from all over the map— geographically, artistically and emotionally— produced the songs the world heard, sang and hummed through the radio and recordings, in Broadway theaters or local movie palaces. Two world wars—bookends for the Jazz Age and the Depression—had a decided impact. Leading the parade until his untimely death was George Gershwin—who, in the words of one colleague, was “the only man I knew who could make a piano laugh.” Blending firsthand and research sources, Sheed, a selfdescribed glutton for melody, has fashioned a breezy, exuberant and occasionally gossipy study of the creators of songs that lodged themselves “in every hole and corner of my memory” across the decades. In Cole Porter’s words, what a swell party it is! —Michael J. Bandler
When the World Was Young
Tony Romano
(HarperCollins, $24.95)
Romano’s debut novel is set in Chicago’s Italian neighborhoods in the summer of 1957. The Old World is deeply ingrained in Agostino and Angela Rosa Peccatori, Italian immigrants trying to raise their five United States-born children. Caught between two worlds—the Italian traditions and new American ways—the family struggles to find its place. “We make our own troubles,” one character says. And they do. The impact of a young child’s death on each family member triggers this story of deceptions that has more than a whiff of soap opera about it. Yet through the imagery (a striking example—the contrasting fervor of political and religious pageantry separated by decades and an ocean), Romano draws a world that, sadly, now exists only as a memory.
Ten Points
Bill Strickland
(Hyperion Books, $23.95)
Every so often a book comes along that seizes the reader, like The Kite Runner and Tuesdays with Morrie. It happens again here. Magazine editor Bill Strickland places his own life—traumatic roots and all—in the context of a challenge and within the framework of an obsession. The subject is amateur bicycle racing—a grueling sport resulting in rare, if any, fulfillment. At its core is a bond between father and daughter—the mirror opposite Strickland’s tormented childhood. His passion is rooted in the bicycle, which, he says, “reached inside me and touched something essential to my spirit.” His young daughter’s wish that he’ll score a daunting 10 points (through a complex system) over a season of weekly competitive racing becomes an Everest of sorts, with flashbacks to long-buried, dispiriting times. Often painful, this isn’t an easy book to read—or forget.