The Book Studio Blog

Greetings, patient readers. We've been offline for a couple of weeks -- but I want to assure you it's because we've got all kinds of new plans for this site, and we've been working very hard to put them into place. We're looking forward to sharing them all with you soon!

Today I can give you one peek behind the curtain -- an important part of our new content will be our monthly Top 10 Reads list, and below are July's Top Ten Reads. These are the best new books of the month -- the ones you'll want to pick up when wondering "what to read." Feel free to agree, disagree, or comment on these choices below.

Most foodies will admit that the act of eating can and should be a gustatory revelation for the mouth. Tasting is one of the senses particularly dependent on pleasure. The last thing someone wants is a bitter or disgusting flavor in their mouth.

In Aimee Bender's novel, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, a girl named Rose discovers that she has an unusual palate when she eats a piece of cake her mother bakes for her. Rose quickly realizes she has developed a heightened sense of taste; she can detect people's emotions in the food that they prepare or cook.

Putatively a sequel to Less Than Zero, Ellis’s latest actually has nothing in common with his audacious debut except for the same setting and character names. Twenty-five years after the fictional birth of coked-out-of-his-mind teenager Clay, here he is again as a 43-year-old screenwriter, newly returned to LA after a years-long stint in New York. (Like its predecessor, Imperial Bedrooms takes place in a four-week span over the winter holidays.) But any other textual links are curiously absent. One would think that in 25 years, the characters, Clay included, would have lived lives and probably considered their tangled relations as teenagers and the questions left at Less Than Zero’s end.

It's time for us to air out the cupboards here at The WETA Book Studio -- we must give away some books in order to make room for new ones to arrive!

If you like light romantic comedy, "Lovesick" by Alex Wellen -- the tale of a man who's got the girl but can't pop the question -- is for you. Prefer something deep with a narrative conceit? Try "The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-Six" by Jonathon Keats. However, if what you really want is a chilling spy story, "The Arms Maker of Berlin" by Dan Fesperman fits the bill.

Wait! You don't have to choose...if you are one of the ten lucky winners of this week's giveaway, you'll get copies of all three books. Just respond in the Comments section to the following question:

Which book or books are you planning to get to this summer?

In "Rules for My Unborn Son," Walker Lamond shares as much wisdom as one man can -- while in "The Council of Dads," Bruce Feiler attempts to gather several men who will share their wisdom with his twin daughters in the event of his demise (good news: Feiler is now cancer free and about to celebrate Father's Day with his wife and girls). Both books are fantastic gift choices for the dad in your life!

We'll give away 10 two-book bundles to 10 readers who respond to the following question in our Comments:

What's the wisest thing your father shared with you?

I love literary fiction.

There. I said it. I will no longer be ashamed! I love fiction that explores questions without necessarily giving answers, that eschews happy endings for meaningful ones, and allows characters to transcend archetypal roles. 

Sonya Chung believes in literary fiction, too -- and it's what she writes. Her first novel, "Long for This World," hits another things that I love, however:

I love fiction about other places in the world. 

Is it because my parents had stacks of National Geographic magazines in the basement? Maybe it's due to my love of actual travel, which my parents also supported. 

Chung has written a book that shows Korea and Koreans in a natural light. I so enjoyed speaking with her about "Long for this World," and I hope you will enjoy watching us, too.

In some stories, place almost becomes a character -- so it is with Wendy Webb's novel "The Tale of Halcyon Crane." The fictional spot of Grand Island, Michigan has so much character I almost wanted to pick up and visit. Good thing Grand Island is based on the real-life Mackinac Island, where locals really do forbid automobiles and sweeping porches and verandas aren't just house details, but part of the lifestyle.

Webb has cleverly chosen to contrast the sweetness and light of old-fashioned island life with some very dark happenings and motivations. Hallie James travels back to her deceased mother's house and discovers nobody in her family was who she thought they were, and there are quite a few family members whose legacies will come to haunt her both literally and figuratively. 

Ruth Kassinger looks quite sane, by which I mean she looks as if she keeps her life in balance: Time for work, family, play... You would never guess that beneath her calm exterior lurks the heart of an obsessed artiste, a woman who would let nothing, not even a complete lack of knowledge, stop her from building an old-fashioned conservatory.

We either must redefine "quite sane," then, or be glad that Kassinger is not so, since her recounting of her obsession, "Paradise under Glass: An Amateur Builds a Conservatory Garden" is pure delight. She walks us through her conservatory's development by telling us about conservatories through history, including tales of exotic plant hunters and quirky greenhouses. 

There is a reason they call economics "the dismal science." It's not much fun to realize there isn't enough of anything to go around...

But for me, economics is dismal because I can't wrap my head around it. I tried! I took undergraduate course in both macro- and micro-economics, and I can't blame my professors, either: One of them is such an entertaining and dynamic expert in his field that his books on baseball and economics have become famous. I am just not an "econ head."

Fortunately, Alan Beattie, like my former prof, is both an "econ head" and an entertaining and dynamic expert in his field, which is why it was such fun to read his new book "False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of the World." When you're untangling deep ties between asparagus and diamonds, economics takes on the kind of life that it can't in textbooks.