PW picks 10 must read books which include:
RABID: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy (Viking)
In Rabid, Wired senior editor Wasik and public health and veterinary expert Murphy (who are husband and wife) study the history of rabies, an insidious disease that attacks humans via the bite from a rabies infected animal. The 4000 year journey begins with the Greeks and their love-hate relationship with their hounds. We then move on to the Middle Ages where Islamic scholars made the first real advances in understanding the disease. The 19th century discovery of the “germ theory” is also highlighted. The authors trace back how science has labored to conquer this disease throughout centuries past but despite modern day treatment, through a series of injections, the disease remains unconquered.
Waski and Murphy also take us on a somewhat whimsical and mythical journey in relation to our cultural fear of rabies, which includes how we have taken the monstrous face of rabies and applied it to vampire, werewolf, and zombie characters in literature and films right up to the present day Twilight phenomenon of films inspired by the series of books by Stephenie Meyer which have sold over 100 million copies worldwide.
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CREOLE BELLE
A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke (Simon & Schuster)
Burke’s 19th Dave Robicheaux novel. While the deputy sheriff is recovering in a New Orleans hospital from a bullet wound, he receives a visit from Cajun singer Tee Jolie Melton, who leaves him an iPod loaded with music, including the blues song “My Creole Belle.” The mystery builds as it seems Tee Jolie had been reported missing for months before she appeared in that hospital room. To add to the suspense pot, teenage sister, Blue Melton, has just turned up frozen in a block of ice.
Suspects in question investigated by the deputy sheriff and his best friend, Clete Percel, include corrupt politicians, oil men, and a possible Nazi war criminal.
Go here for a PW interview with Burke a modern day master storyteller.
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THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS
Chris Bohjalian. Doubleday
Bohjalian’s (The Night Strangers) newest offering depicts the Armenian genocide and one contemporary novelist’s quest to uncover her heritage. In 1915, Bostonian Elizabeth Endicott arrives at a compound in Aleppo, Syria, to provide humanitarian aid to Armenian refugees. Fresh out of nursing school, Elizabeth has learned only rudimentary Armenian, but soon befriends Armen Petrosian, an engineer who lost his wife and daughter during the chaos of the deportations and mass murders. Though Armen departs for Egypt to fight with the British Army in WWI, their relationship blossoms into an epistolary romance. The atrocities of the genocide and the First World War continue, and Bohjalian spares no detail in his gritty depictions.
Nearly a century later, Laura Petrosian is living in the suburbs of New York City when a friend alerts her to a possible photo of her grandmother being used to advertise an exhibit about “the Slaughter You Know Next to Nothing About.” As she explores her past, Laura discovers that what she once considered to be her grandparents’ eccentricities—their living room was dubbed the “Ottoman Annex”—speak to a rich and tragic history.
Go here for the full list of PW picks for the week of July 16, 2012
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