《纽约时报》榜单推荐:2012年度十大好书(二)

BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. 《永恒美丽的背后：孟买地下城的生命、死亡与希望》 By Katherine Boo. 作者：凯瑟琳·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. 这份荣获国家图书奖的报告记录了孟买贫民窟Annawadi的生活。报告极其写实的风格使人想起狄更斯笔下的各色下层人物和角色。凯瑟琳·布娴熟且入木三分地刻画了贫民窟的居民，展现了他们的悲天悯人、冷漠无情以及足智多谋。 FAR FROM THE TREE Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity. 《背离亲缘：父母、儿童与自我寻求》 By Andrew Solomon. 作者：安德鲁·所罗门 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. 数十载来，安德鲁一直在用“横向自我”概念研究抚养子女的挑战、困难和回报，以及子女不愿与父母分享的特性。作者涉及面十分广泛，在探索抚养神童、侏儒儿、精神分裂症患儿、变性患儿的家庭或所谓的强奸怀孕家庭的分离聚合时，安德鲁告诉读者：爱、牺牲与成功远比我们想象的复杂。 THE PASSAGE OF POWER The Years of Lyndon Johnson. 《走向权力的通道：林登·约翰逊的岁月》 By Robert A. Caro. 作者：罗伯特·A·卡罗 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. 本书为卡罗的“约翰逊总统传记”系列第四卷，这部卷帙浩繁巨作共有三千多页。作者以包罗万象的戏剧手法、心理学洞察力以及细致艰辛的调查展现了约翰逊作为副总统的风雨岁月。彼时，约翰逊受肯尼迪政府内部排挤，同时还被剥夺了权力。今天看来，约翰逊当时丝毫不曾料到会遇上那个可怕的日子——刺客的枪口顶着约翰逊，他所领导的国家正翻开新的篇章。 THE PATRIARCH The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy. 《开天辟地：老约瑟夫·P·肯尼迪时代的辉煌与动荡》 By David Nasaw. 作者：戴维·纳索 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. 纳索花了六年时间才完成这部煌煌巨著。乔·肯尼迪身兼银行家、投机商、电影制作人以及大使等职，同时还是整个肯尼迪家族的创始人。他完全就是那个时代的历史风云人物，而他的传记作者则令人信服地将其视为整个庞大出名且强盛的肯尼迪家族中最具魅力的人物。 WHY DOES THE WORLD EXIST? An Existential Detective Story. 《世界为何存在：一个关于存在的侦探故事》 By Jim Holt. 作者：吉姆·霍尔特 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. 几个世纪以来，思想家们一直在思索：“世界为何存在？”为解答这一问题，霍尔特将读者引入一段智慧博学的旅程；从伦敦、巴黎到奥斯汀及德克萨斯州，作者走访了各个领域的哲学家、科学家乃至小说家，得出或合理或神秘的答案，有些答案很奇怪，却也很有意思、引人深思。