Triumph of the City
by Edward Glaeser
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Venice: Pure City
by Peter Ackroyd
(Nan A. Talese, $37.50)
“In the long years of its decline, Venice has always managed to evoke both the rhapsodic and the mysterious,” said Tim Rutten in the Los Angeles Times. Peter Ackroyd’s 32nd book, written in “lapidary prose,” compiles an encyclopedic amount of information about “La Serenissima,” from its founding by “marsh dwellers” to its faded present. His “evocation of Venetian light—and of the role distinctive building materials play in refracting it—fits lovingly into the rhapsodic tradition.”
Odessa
by Charles King
(Norton, $28)
Something about Odessa has always set the city apart, said Steven Zipperstein in The New Republic. Founded just two centuries ago “on land grabbed from the Ottomans,” it’s never quite been Russian and “certainly not Ukrainian,” and Charles King’s “crisp, reliable” portrait captures that. King also handles well the story of a city that was both an ethnic melting pot and a site of massive Jewish pogroms, a city that was both young and a source of nostalgia from the moment it came to be.
Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas
by Rebecca Solnit
(Univ. of California, $25)
In this “deeply evocative” collection of maps and essays, author Rebecca Solnit makes visible her notion that “no two people live in the same city,” said Lynell George in the Los Angeles Times. Enlisting the help of more than a dozen other writers and cartographers, the San Francisco essayist has created 22 maps representing 22 different ways that their city exists in its residents’ imaginations. The book encourages you to recognize that “place” is a concept that’s “beyond subjective.”
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Mermaiding: the underwater subculture on the riseUnder the Radar Cosplay meets fitness in an escapist fin-omenon that's making waves around the world
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Delhi's dogs earn Supreme Court reprieveIN THE SPOTLIGHT After an outcry from the public and animal rights activists, India's Supreme Court walks back a controversial plan to round the city's stray dog population into shelters
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8 hotels with ace tennis courtsThe Week Recommends Bring your A game
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”