Netsurfer Recommendations

The Perfect Storm
Sebastian Junger
W W Norton & Co; ISBN: 039304016X

The Andrea Gail was lost nearly nine years ago in a seasonal nor'easter of such extraordinary savagery that it was labeled The Perfect Storm - widely acknowledged to be the worst storm ever recorded, the exact nature of which was still being debated years after its fury had faded. Coastal communities in New England reported that as the storm gathered power, the tide ebbed but the seas rose - then, the storm's landfall coincided with high tide. The extratropical cyclone, as it's known, produced flooding and sustained high winds lasting nearly a week in some areas of the United States and Canada, and cost four lives along the coast and millions of dollars in damages. The fishing boat Andrea Gail, out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, caught in the heart of the storm, was crewed by six men whose exact fate can never be known. The story is certainly on the Andrea Gail, but Junger places the drama in the context of the maritime economy and the pressures that routinely drive men into the heart of misery and into this kind of danger.

San Francisco Bizarro: A Guide to Notorious Sights, Lusty Pursuits, and Downright Freakiness in the City by the Bay
Jack Boulware
Griffin Trade Paperback; ISBN: 0312206712

How can you argue with a book about our own fair San Francisco Bay area which includes an international society of garden gnome lovers, taxidermied mice dressed like the Pope, our strange and blossoming sexual underground, the largest selection of tequila outside Mexico, Oakland's Black Panther Legacy Tours, the hotel room where Billie Holiday was busted for opium, Charlie Manson's Haight-Ashbury apartment, and the museum of Pez dispensers? You can't, of course.

Darwin's Ghost: The Origin of Species Updated
Steve Jones
Random House; ISBN: 0375501037

Darwin's world-view changing work The Origin of Species is a book that's more commented upon than read. Steve Jones set out to make it more accessible to modern readers and the result is not only wonderfully enlightening but highly entertaining. Jones keeps to Darwin's original chapter structure, but illustrates the great man's argument using modern examples and cutting edge research. This is not so much Origin rewritten, as Origin rebuilt into a modern, readable, and absorbing work. Jones' re-presentation is a highly rewarding book for readers of all scientific abilities who wish to understand one of the cornerstones of modern science. Very highly recommended.

Me Talk Pretty Some Day
David Sedaris
Little Brown & Company; ISBN: 0316777722

David Sedaris is well known among National Public Radio affectionados as a very funny essayist and author who regales listeners with wild tales of life as he knows it. In this new collection of his short writings, Sedaris tackles his quite odd childhood in North Carolina and his move to France. It's the latter foreign adventure that gives rise to the title taken from his stories of amazing linguistic manglings. Everybody we asked - and we actually did for a change - says that Sedaris is best enjoyed when he reads his own work. Thus you may want to hear his impression of Billie Holiday singing commercial jingles on the audiocassette edition of the book. Roll on the floor funny.

Billie Holiday: The Complete Decca Recordings [Box set]
Billie Holiday
Uni/Grp; ASIN: B000003N36

Speaking of Lady, in the 1940s, when she was signed with Decca, Billie Holiday left behind the jazz stylings that had made her reputation and surrendered to Decca's lush string arrangements and torchy lyrics. Despite the constraints of the torch song and arrangements, Holiday managed to make her expressive renditions distinctly her own and raised the bar for torch singing ever after. Here's a collection that shows how she did it. On this two-CD box set about half the songs come with discarded alternative versions of the final familiar recording. With Holiday's voiced stilled for so long now, it's a jolt to catch the difference in oft-heard standards, variations that come from a slight change in phrasing, a tiny choice about timing, or the simple twist on a note. Unlike the more impassioned, extemporaneous Lady of her early and late career, you can hear Holiday experimenting and layering her choices in successive takes. It took Holiday almost eight hours, for instance, to put down a master of Big Stuff that passed muster - obviously not all of it offered here. Beautifully presented, the set includes a hardback linen cover and a first-rate illustrated booklet.