《紐約時報》榜單推薦:年度十大好書(二)
BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity.
《永恆美麗的背後：孟買地下城的生命、死亡與希望》By Katherine Boo.
作者：凱瑟琳·布This National Book Award-winning study of life in Annawadi, a Mumbai slum, is marked by reporting so rigorous it recalls the muckrakers, and characters so rich they evoke Dickens. The slum dwellers have a skillful and empathetic chronicler in Boo, who depicts them in all their humanity and ruthless, resourceful glory.
這份榮獲國家圖書獎的報告記錄了孟買貧民窟Annawadi的生活。報告極其寫實的風格使人想起狄更斯筆下的各色下層人物和角色。凱瑟琳·布嫺熟且入木三分地刻畫了貧民窟的居民，展現了他們的悲天憫人、冷漠無情以及足智多謀。
FAR FROM THE TREE Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity.
《背離親緣：父母、兒童與自我尋求》By Andrew Solomon.
作者：安德魯·所羅門For more than a decade, Solomon studied the challenges, risks and rewards of raising children with “horizontal identities,” traits that they don’t share with their parents. As he investigates how families have grown stronger or fallen apart while raising prodigies, dwarfs, schizophrenics, transgendered children or those conceived in rape, he complicates everything we thought we knew about love, sacrifice and success.
數十載來，安德魯一直在用“橫向自我”概念研究撫養子女的挑戰、困難和回報，以及子女不願與父母分享的特性。作者涉及面十分廣泛，在探索撫養神童、侏儒兒、精神分裂症患兒、變性患兒的家庭或所謂的強姦懷孕家庭的分離聚合時，安德魯告訴讀者：愛、犧牲與成功遠比我們想象的複雜。THE PASSAGE OF POWER The Years of Lyndon Johnson.
《走向權力的通道：林登·約翰遜的歲月》By Robert A. Caro.
作者：羅伯特·A·卡羅The fourth volume of Caro’s prodigious masterwork, which now exceeds 3,000 pages, explores, with the author’s signature combination of sweeping drama, psychological insight and painstaking research, Johnson’s humiliating years as vice president, when he was excluded from the inner circle of the Kennedy White House and stripped of power. We know what Johnson does not, that this purgatory is prelude to the event of a single horrific day, when an assassin’s bullet placed Johnson, and the nation he now had to lead, on a new course.
本書爲卡羅的“約翰遜總統傳記”系列第四卷，這部卷帙浩繁鉅作共有三千多頁。作者以包羅萬象的戲劇手法、心理學洞察力以及細緻艱辛的調查展現了約翰遜作爲副總統的風雨歲月。彼時，約翰遜受肯尼迪政府內部排擠，同時還被剝奪了權力。今天看來，約翰遜當時絲毫不曾料到會遇上那個可怕的日子——刺客的槍口頂着約翰遜，他所領導的國家正翻開新的篇章。THE PATRIARCH The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy.
《開天闢地：老約瑟夫·P·肯尼迪時代的輝煌與動盪》By David Nasaw.
作者：戴維·納索Nasaw took six years to complete this sprawling, arresting account of a banker-cum-speculator-cum-moviemaker-cum-ambassador-cum-dynastic founder. Joe Kennedy was involved in virtually all the history of his time, and his biographer persuasively makes the case that he was the most fascinating member of his large, famous and very formidable family.
納索花了六年時間才完成這部煌煌鉅著。喬·肯尼迪身兼銀行家、投機商、電影製作人以及大使等職，同時還是整個肯尼迪家族的創始人。他完全就是那個時代的歷史風雲人物，而他的傳記作者則令人信服地將其視爲整個龐大出名且強盛的肯尼迪家族中最具魅力的人物。WHY DOES THE WORLD EXIST? An Existential Detective Story.
《世界爲何存在：一個關於存在的偵探故事》By Jim Holt.
作者：吉姆·霍爾特For several centuries now, thinkers have wondered, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” In search of an answer, Holt takes the reader on a witty and erudite journey from London to Paris to Austin, Tex., as he listens to a varied cast of philosophers, scientists and even novelists offer solutions that are sometimes closely reasoned, sometimes almost mystical, often very strange, always entertaining and thought-provoking.
幾個世紀以來，思想家們一直在思索：“世界爲何存在？”爲解答這一問題，霍爾特將讀者引入一段智慧博學的旅程；從倫敦、巴黎到奧斯汀及德克薩斯州，作者走訪了各個領域的哲學家、科學家乃至小說家，得出或合理或神祕的答案，有些答案很奇怪，卻也很有意思、引人深思。
