Janet Maslin’s Picks for 2011

Janet Maslin’s Picks for 2011
By JANET MASLIN


DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC: A TALE OF MADNESS, MEDICINE AND THE MURDER OF A PRESIDENT by Candice Millard. A staggering tale about the American presidency by a historian who, as she did in “The River of Doubt,” her book about Theodore Roosevelt, zeroes in on what other historians overlook. Ms. Millard digs deeply into the turmoil that got James A. Garfield elected, the lunacy that got him shot and the medical malfeasance that turned a minor wound into a mortal one. Her story is so full of outsize figures — not least of them the unexpectedly noble Garfield — that Alexander Graham Bell is only a bit player. (Doubleday, $28.95)



JUST MY TYPE: A BOOK ABOUT FONTS by Simon Garfield. This gleeful survey of typefaces illuminates their histories, uses and meanings. Got a font fetish yet? Mr. Garfield will happily give you one and make sure that you never look at a logo, ad or traffic sign in quite the same way. Not for nothing was Steve Jobs enough of a font fan to make font choice a basic Apple feature. Not for nothing do font wonks fight about relative merits of different ampersands. Ever wonder how the @ sign is described by Czechs? As a roll-mop herring. (Gotham Books, $27.50)



STEVE JOBS by Walter Isaacson. This biography is essential reading, though its insights are not particularly intimate or deep. Here is the authorized version of how an astounding array of devices was created, right down to the tiniest nuances — and an account of how all of Mr. Jobs’s creations reflect his turbulent nature. Here too is a story of remarkable alchemy: an explanation of how Mr. Jobs fused the ’70s-era West Coast cultures of music, microchips, meditation and extreme physical bravado into an ethos of exquisite simplicity. Find out how and why he rocked your world. (Simon & Schuster, $35)



YOU KNOW WHEN THE MEN ARE GONE by Siobhan Fallon. This lean, hard-hitting short-story collection outshone some of the year’s most imposing doorstop-size novels. Ms. Fallon knew firsthand what life was like for military spouses at Fort Hood, Tex., when she wrote these loosely interlocking tales about their shaky camaraderie and lonely ordeals. A husband comes home from Baghdad to find his worst fears realized. In one of Ms. Fallon’s typically fierce moments, he stands above his sleeping wife and her lover, holding his knife like “a judge’s gavel raised,” not knowing himself where it will land. (Amy Einhorn Books/G. P. Putnam’s Sons, $23.95)



SWAMPLANDIA! by Karen Russell. Nobody’s pulse ever quickened at the idea of a novel about a family of alligator wrestlers in a dilapidated Florida theme park. But Ms. Russell is that rare writer who can use bizarre ingredients to absolutely irresistible effect. And there is nothing cute about her book’s idiosyncratic charms. This is a family story distinguished by ghosts, gators, a wildly febrile physical environment (“our swamp got blown to green bits and reassembled, daily, hourly”), exceptional command of language and darkly idiosyncratic humor. It is strange at the start and unforgettable by the time it’s over. (Alfred A. Knopf, $24.95)



IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS: LOVE, TERROR AND AN AMERICAN FAMILY IN HITLER’S BERLIN by Erik Larson. Novelistic nonfiction doesn’t get any more gripping than this. Mr. Larson draws upon the writings of William E. Dodd, who was appointed the American ambassador to Germany in 1933, and the even more unguarded writings of Martha Dodd Stern, his self-styled ingénue of a daughter. There are plenty of hindsight-laden books about Hitler’s rise, with its atmosphere of fear and mounting oppression. But there has been nothing quite like Mr. Larson’s true chronicle of the myopic Dodds, unlikely innocents abroad, who found themselves caught in a new Germany full of nasty surprises. (Crown, $26)



RAWHIDE DOWN: THE NEAR ASSASSINATION OF RONALD REAGAN by Del Quentin Wilber. In this newly revealing account of the shooting of President Reagan 30 years ago, Mr. Wilber provides the firsthand testimony of doctors, hospital workers, former Secret Service agents and other close witnesses who were not in a position to speak about the attack when it occurred — and who had not been asked much about it in the intervening years. Surprised at how lightly the incident had been taken, Mr. Wilber reconstructs an episode much more serious and dire than it has been made to seem. The courage of the president, the delicacy of the situation faced by his doctors and the sloppiness of security measures are all given new attention. (Henry Holt & Company, $27)



MOBY-DUCK: THE TRUE STORY OF 28,800 BATH TOYS LOST AT SEA AND OF THE BEACHCOMBERS, OCEANOGRAPHERS, ENVIRONMENTALISTS AND FOOLS, INCLUDING THE AUTHOR, WHO WENT IN SEARCH OF THEM by Donovan Hohn. A tale about rubber ducks gone amok, written by an endlessly inquisitive schoolteacher, full of questions about what happened to a toy shipment lost at sea. How much cargo vanishes that way, and where does it go? What kind of people hunt this flotsam, anyhow? What are the politics of duck dumping? What kind of weather patterns exist underwater? Mr. Hohn provides seafaring adventure, scientific inquiry and all the humor that the title “Moby-Duck” promises. (Viking, $27.95)



LOST MEMORY OF SKIN by Russell Banks. Mr. Banks’s tough, sprawling novel is his best in years, tackling difficult and topical subject matter. He has written many times about virtue and how it can be eroded. Now he transfers those concerns to the Internet age, in which identity can be blurred and lives ruined forever by bad judgment. Mr. Banks’s main character, called the Kid, is legally designated a sex offender, but this book is suspenseful in revealing exactly what made him a pariah. An obese, mysterious and vaguely sinister Professor takes a strong and peculiar interest in the Kid, adding another layer of eeriness to an already deeply chilling novel. (Ecco, $25.99)



THEN AGAIN by Diane Keaton. A far-reaching, heartbreaking, crystal-clear collage of a book about mothers, daughters, childhood, aging, mortality, joyfulness, love, work and so much more. Show business too: Ms. Keaton weaves her love affairs with three very famous film luminaries into the larger tapestry of her life with family and friends. Now 65, Ms. Keaton packs an emotional wallop by juxtaposing her happiness as the mother of young children with the agonizing final stages of her parents’ lives. (Random House, $26)