Washington Is Also Reading . . . Selling Well in Local Independent Bookstores

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Sunday, November 26, 2006

Get Down: Stories

By Asali Solomon (FSG, $21)

These short stories, bound by the common thread of a Philadelphia setting in the Reagan years, tackle the middle-class experience of (mostly) African American teens navigating the tricky world of private school while coping with the anxieties and temptations of youth. (F)

The Planets

By Dava Sobel (Penguin, $13)

Ruminative essays on the celestial objects in our solar system, weaving together the author's own take on the heavens with their portrayal in genres as varied as art, song, SF and astrology. Even the recent hullabaloo over Pluto (planet or no?) is considered. (NF)

The Blind Side

By Michael Lewis (Norton, $24.95)

No, not that obscured patch on the left side of a driver's vehicle, but rather that spot to the quarterback's left that can be equally precarious if unguarded. Lewis examines the rise in prominence of the left tackle in NFL football, the lineman tasked with preventing sacks. (NF)

Find More Reviews and Features in Books

A pandemic waiting in the wings

Alan Sipress's superb and sobering "The Fatal Strain" details the shadowy progression of a virulent avian flu now moving across Asia.

The captive imagination

In "A Good Fall," Ha Jin turns a new prism on the question of freedom, showing that life in a foreign culture may be the most isolating situation.