Book Topics

Jimbo's memoir mirrors his alpha-male tennis career

Jun 16, 2013

Jimbo's memoir mirrors his alpha-male tennis career

by Tim Adams

Like most great tennis players of the million-dollar era, the career of Jimmy Connors began prenatally. As with Andy Murray, his Grand Slam gene was passed down the maternal line. THE OUTSIDER: My Autobiography, by Jimmy Connors. Bantam, 2013, 400 pp., $28.99 (hardcover) Connors’ ...

Scrutinizing identity through one's family

Jun 9, 2013

Scrutinizing identity through one's family

by Michael Hoffman

Lucky great-grandfather Julius. This first member of the Helm family to settle in Japan was “as rooted in his German identity as an old oak tree.” For his mixed-race descendants, life would not be so simple. YOKOHAMA YANKEE: My Family’s Five Generations as Outsiders ...

Taking anime too seriously

Jun 2, 2013

Taking anime too seriously

by Michael Hoffman

"Why study anime?" the author of this study of anime asks himself. Good question, thinks the reader. Why indeed "study" a pop art whose appeal is less to thought than to mass, unreflecting, spontaneous enjoyment?

Recipe for a well-fed world

Jun 2, 2013

Recipe for a well-fed world

by Alex Renton

Food got bigger than DIY about a decade back, but publishing took a while to hoist its tired old frame on to the bandwagon. Now the food books tumble out, unstoppable, in a startling range of sub-genres. There’s the cookbook with jokes. The memoir ...

Wit and wisdom endures in poetry

Jun 2, 2013

Wit and wisdom endures in poetry

by David Cozy

In considering the collected poems of Nanao Sakaki, one has to deal with a problem: his life. That life, by all accounts a marvelous adventure, threatens even now, more than four years after the adventure’s end, to overshadow his work. HOW TO LIVE ON ...