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CHILDREN’S NONFICTION REVIEW BY ABBY MCGANNEY NOLAN
Get the real scoop
Full of scatological facts, jokey illustrations and groan- inducing puns (“The Origin of Feces,” anyone?), this entertain- ing chronicle also sneaks in plenty of information about dis- ease, science and communal living since hunters and gather- ers decided to stop roaming and settle down. Discerning read- ers will be happily disgusted by sidebars about smelly castle moats and occupations that involved scavenging in sewers. And no one will miss the immense significance of clean water and decent plumbing. In her chatty, informative style, Sarah Albee shows that civi-
POOP HAPPENED! A History of the World from the Bottom Up By Sarah Albee Illustrated by Robert Leighton Walker. Paperback, $15.99; ages 9 and up
lization didn’t evolve in a straight line. In medieval Europe, the ancient Roman plumbing system was thrown over in favor of filth and sanitary superstition. Insects combined with bad sewage systems to kill more people than wars did, and the habits of the upper classes were neither hygienic (King Louis XIV had two baths in his entire adult life) nor easy on servants (who had to handle all sorts of cleaning up). Albee has dug deep into the past (the book also features plenty of edifying ar- chival photos and illustrations); but, in closing, she also touches on the future: new technology for toilets and diapers as well as the perils of accumulated waste. It’s a dirty world, and someone’s got to wade through it.
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AUDIO BOOKS REVIEW BY KATHERINE A. POWERS
OPERATION MINCEMEAT How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory
By Ben Macintyre Unabridged, 11 ½ hours Random House Audio, 9 CDs, $35
audible.com download, $28
John Lee’s cultivated, Celtic-tinged voice, in turns quizzical, wry and matter- of-fact, is well-matched with this mor- dantly funny account of an extraordi- nary episode in World War II: the launching of a corpse kitted out as an of- ficer carrying fake top-secret papers to mislead the Nazis about Allied war plans. Made famous by the movie (and book) “The Man Who Never Was,” the scheme was likely put forward by Ian Fleming and involved plotting, charac- ter and setting that might have been ele- ments in a novel. Lee’s past perform- ances reading Patrick O’Brian, Alex- andre Dumas and Macintyre’s own brilliant “Agent Zigzag” extend this gift- ed reader’s tradition of exhilarating der- ring-do.
Mark Twain, one of the fathers of American literature, was also parent to one Susy Clemens, who decided at age 13 to fix the popular impression of her father. People “think of Mark Twain as a humorist, joking at everything.... I never saw a man with so much variety of feeling as Papa has.” Within this inspired picture book are passages from Susy’s biography (sewn into the seam as mini books), which she began in secret before gaining full cooperation from her subject. Barbara Kerley and Edwin Fotheringham have collaborated
THE EXTRAORDINARY MARK TWAIN (According to Susy) By Barbara Kerley Illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham Scholastic, $17.99; ages 9 - 12
before on a book about a spirited daughter (“What to Do About Alice?”), but even Alice Roosevelt would take a backseat to Mark Twain. Kerley nicely sets up Susy’s biography with her text, and Fotheringham’s illustrations bring both father and daughter to life (even when young Samuel Clemens is shown pretending “to be dying so as not to have to go to school”). In one of the book’s many handsome spreads, Fothering- ham presents the Twain’s Victorian Gothic residence as a huge dollhouse open to view. Susy’s observations about her father — how he conferred with their cats, how he paced and speech- ified at dinner, and how he threw his shirts out of the window when they were missing buttons — are all depicted as happen- ing at once so that six Twains, five Susys and at least 9 cats are visible. Perhaps this full-to-bursting book will lead some young readers to write their own in-house biographies over the summer. Just in case, Kerley includes instructions.
bookworld@washpost.com
Abby McGanney Nolan frequently reviews for Book World.
FIRE IN THE EAST Warrior of Rome By Harry Sidebottom Unabridged, 14 ½ hours
Blackstone Audio, 12 CDs, $59; 1 Mp3 CD, $29.95
audible.com download, $25.17 It’s 255 A.D., and the Roman Empire
is stretched beyond its ability to main- tain authority. Riddled with corruption, treachery and eschatological religion, this empire was made for summer read- ing. Here the pleasure is amplified by the imperial baritone of narrator Stefan Rudnicki. At the center of things is a Ro- man officer sent to Persia to defend an isolated Roman citadel against the Sas- sanid army. The story abounds with treachery, action and details of material life and ancient military technology, while Rudnicki’s doomy voice seems to come out of that distant, ill-fated past.
THE LAST HERO A Life of Henry Aaron By Howard Bryant
Abridged, Random House Audio, 8 CDs, 9 ½ hours, $35,
audible.com download, $28 Unabridged, Books on Tape, 17 CDs, 21 ¾ hours, $50;
audible.com download, $42
KidsPost’s Summer Book Club is underway and a different book will be featured each week. So check out Wednesday’s KidsPost for the lists of all the books and how to sign up.
Dominic Hoffman delivers hours of absorbing baseball and American his- tory in his narration of Howard Bryant’s outstanding biography of the reserved, misjudged, prickly man who, among other formidable accomplishments, broke Babe Ruth’s lifetime home run record. This is a big book, long and wide, and it is well worth springing for the un- abridged version, which retains all the detail of the countless tributary stories. They move through the business of base- ball, the role of the press and race rela-
tions in the United States, especially in the crucial decades of the 1950s and ’60s. The book is deeply insightful about Aaron the man and the obstacles, in- cluding death threats, that he grimly surmounted. Hoffman has a grave, matte-finished voice and reads in a measured, deliberate manner, distin- guishing between the work’s extensive quotations and its narrative text through skillful pacing and inflection. While this is a book for listeners who are interested in baseball, it encompasses far, far more than simply the game.
STILL MIDNIGHT By Denise Mina Unabridged, 11 hours BBC Audio, 9 CDs, $29.95
audible.com download, $20.97
Denise Mina’s witty and unexpected- ly moving crime novel set in Glasgow is enthralling enough on its own, but I can see listening to it just for the pleasure of hearing Jane MacFarlane’s wonderful Scottish voice. The story involves a kid- napping perpetrated by a couple of ex- bouncers and a junkie who have blun- dered out of their depth. Detective Sgt. Alex Morrow, an ambitious woman with a chip on her shoulder, is on the trail, all the while doing battle with members of her own police force. Any number of other characters pop up to cause mis- chief and mayhem, presenting MacFar- lane opportunities for well-executed re- gional accents, including those of Ulster and Lancashire. This is an audio book for a long drive, say 11 hours — shorter than that will find you parked, stuck in your car, unable to turn off your player.
DEATH OF A DOXY By Rex Stout Unabridged, 5 hours BBC Audio, 5 CDs, $29.95
Audible.com download, $28
Though it appeared over three dec-
ades after orchid-doting, woman-chary, homebody Nero Wolfe solved his first case, “Death of a Doxy” is just as snappy and riddlesome as any episode in that ageless epicurean’s career. Orrie Cather, one of Wolfe’s occasional assistants, is going to marry an airline stewardess, but a vengeful paramour — make that “doxy” — wants Orrie for her own. When the doxy shows up dead, Orrie looks like the culprit. Archie Goodwin, Wolfe’s leg- man and Boswell, is right in the middle of it, relating events with his customary thoroughness and wit. Veteran narrator Michael Prichard is a perfect fit for Goodwin, brandishing an ample, old- fashioned voice with a suitably wised-up delivery. His rendering of the fastidious, condescending Wolfe, too, is flawless in tone and interpretation, right down to a vintage, dismissive “phooey!”
bookworld@washpost.com
Katherine A. Powers, who regularly reviews audio books for Book World, writes a literary column for the Boston Globe.
THE WASHINGTON POST • BOOK WORLD • SUNDAY, JUNE 20, 2010
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