Bookmark These: October 2008
ELLE's October book recommendations
This month, get up close and personal with Poe, the 50 states, and someone else's family drama
In his debut book, Things the Grand­children Should Know (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's), Mark Oliver Everett, front man of the indie-rock band Eels, captures the drama of a suburban Virginia family bedeviled by illness, early death, and madness, and illustrates how such adversities shaped his striking musical gifts—and now this pitch-perfect memoir.
Chockablock with faces, figures, and facts, Michael Largo's Genius and Heroin: The Illustrated Catalogue of Creativity, Obsession, and Reckless Abandon Through the Ages (Harper) makes for mad good reading on the divinely inspired, hopelessly self-destructive class. Poe, Piaf, Warhol, anyone?
State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America (Ecco), edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey, takes a page from the great WPA guides of the 1930s, with writers, reporters, and even a cook and a musician weighing in on the 50 states, such as Louise Erdrich (ND), Barry Hannah (MS), and Andrea Lee (PA).
Maria Shriver Wants Us to Stop Wanting to 'Have It All'
John Oliver Smacks Down America's Pumpkin Spice Latte Mania
The Must-See Movies of November (Trust Us )