Meant to post this yesterday, and forgot: Katherine Boo's travel/memoir/investigative work Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity has won the National Book Award for Nonfiction (Louise Erdrich won the prize for fiction, for her novel The Round House).
I have no opinion on this, save to say I've had Boo's book home and just couldn't find the interest to read it. It is supposed to be very good, though.
In other hilarious nonfiction book news, Paula Broadwell's biography of David Petraeus, All In, will be available in paperback on 12/24/12. Wonder what all this* will do for sales?
*By the way, I am LOVING this story. It's like my Christmas present, only early. Every day it gets a little stupider: Generals sleeping with their biographers! Generals emailing socialites! FBI agents sending out shirtless photos! Honestly. You couldn't write this stuff.
My favorite was the Tampa woman who is a make believe "social liaison" who wondered if she could get some of diplomatic immunity when the reporters started camping out in front of her house. I can't even imagine the reality these people live in.
Posted by: Venta | 16 November 2012 at 09:07 AM
Venta,
I couldn't even BEGIN to pick favorites in this story, although the shirtless FBI agent comes close. I don't think you want to imagine the reality these people live in. Clearly I need me a job (high up, of course) in the military, so I would have time to email up to 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails. I email a lot anyway and I don't get anywhere close to that! Don't they have anything else to be doing? And frankly, when does the head of the CIA have time to have an affair? That's what blows my mind.
Posted by: Citizen Reader | 16 November 2012 at 09:14 AM
I haven't read Boo's new book, but I have liked her writing in The New Yorker for ages, particularly "The Marriage Cure," which detailed people's experiences with a government program that was supposed to encourage mothers to get married or stay married.
Posted by: laura | 17 November 2012 at 01:42 PM
Laura,
I've never read anything by Boo, but I'll have to look that article up! Thanks. Sometimes it's easier to try someone out with their shorter pieces.
Posted by: Citizen Reader | 17 November 2012 at 08:15 PM