NPR had some fabulous book recommendations on this morning. Of those mentioned, here are a few I’m now ready to buy & read:
- Evolution Man, or How I Ate My Father:
Human evolution as a kind of domestic situation comedy? Well, Lewis’s yarn–an autobiographical narrative by an ape-man named Ernest–recounts the efforts of Father, the leader and inventive genius, to evolve his tribe into the dominant species–preferably before the end of the Pleistocene. Weary of being terrorized by fierce carnivores with big teeth, Father obtains fire from a nearby volcano and transforms the lives of the tribe. Soon they’re driving bears out of all the best caves, inventing cooking, and taking a break from endless flint-chipping. Then Father, with his eye on social evolution, forces his sons to steal wives from a neighboring tribe. Meanwhile, Uncle Vanya stubbornly refuses to leave the trees and condemns the whole enterprise; Uncle Ian returns from his travels in China, only to fall off an unfortunately unevolved horse and break his neck; and Ernest and his brothers finally lose patience when Father gives away the secret of making fire–they wanted a monopoly. So when Father invents the bow and arrow, thus threatening the jobs of traditional spear hunters, the brothers decide it’s time to get rid of Father. - The Bear Went Over the Mountain:
William Kotzwinkle, the esteemed author of The Fan Man and E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, is in top comic form in this outrageous and uproarious parable featring Hal Jam—a big black bear who finds a manuscript under a tree in the Maine woods, dons a suit and a tie, and heads off to the big city to seek his fame and fortune. What follows is a riotous magical romp with the buoyant Hal Jam as he leaves the quiet, nurturing world of the forest for the glittering and corrupt world of humans. New York and Hollywood and all that lies between serve as an expansive palette for Kotzwinkle’s wickedly funny satiric brush. The Bear Went Over the Mountain skewers our age’s obsession with money and fame in a delicious bedtime story for grown-ups. - His Monkey Wife:
Emily, a chimp, is the only attentive student in Mr. Fatigay’s class in the heart of South Africa. Her desire to learn, gather information, and better herself through knowledge touches the heart of her teacher, and gives Amy Flint-his alluringly hateful fiance-a competitor in the race for the schoolteacher’s hand in marriage. This classic work of biting satire and radiant prose playfully uses this strange courtship to illuminate two abiding kinds of souls, the faithful and the unfaithful, and shows how man’s soul deepens in the presence of love. - A Girl Named Zippy:
It’s a clich‚ to say that a good memoir reads like a well-crafted work of fiction, but Kimmel’s smooth, impeccably humorous prose evokes her childhood as vividly as any novel. Born in 1965, she grew up in Mooreland, Ind., a place that by some “mysterious and powerful mathematical principle” perpetually retains a population of 300, a place where there’s no point learning the street names because it’s just as easy to say, “We live at the four-way stop sign.” Hers is less a formal autobiography than a collection of vignettes comprising the things a small child would remember: sick birds, a new bike, reading comics at the drugstore, the mean old lady down the street. The truths of childhood are rendered in lush yet simple prose; here’s Zippy describing a friend who hates wearing girls’ clothes: “Julie in a dress was like the rest of us in quicksand.” Over and over, we encounter pearls of third-grade wisdom revealed in a child’s assured voice: “There are a finite number of times one can safely climb the same tree in a single day”; or, regarding Jesus, “Everyone around me was flat-out in love with him, and who wouldn’t be? He was good with animals, he loved his mother, and he wasn’t afraid of blind people.” (Mar.)
