Barbara Graziosi
Oxford University Press

If Graziosi was daunted by the task of offering fresh perspectives on the Odyssey and the Iliad ¨C and in the scope of such a brief format ¨C there¡¯s no sign of it in this clear, beautifully written, enthusiasm-radiating volume. We learn of textual and material clues to the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵric question, the ¡°poet in the poems¡±, Achilles¡¯ wrath, Hector¡¯s tragedy, wily Odysseus of course, the underworld, and women and monsters. On every page, insights such as this gleam: ¡°For all the dangerous girls, women, goddesses, and monsters Odysseus meets on his way home, it is Penelope herself who constitutes the greatest peril for him.¡±

David Brody
University of Chicago Press

Design scholar and unabashed hotel fan Brody serves up a wonderfully readable mix of personal anecdote, historical overview, theoretical analysis and ethnography in a perceptive study of the ¡°invisible¡± work of housekeeping, and an industry that ¡°does everything in its power to make certain that guests do not have to think about the hard work involved in cleaning guest rooms¡±. Labour organising and sustainability, ¡°located¡± design practice and the spectacle of leisure travel, Neil Simon¡¯s Plaza Suite and reality TV show Hotel Impossible, turndown service and TripAdvisor all find room at the inn.

Sali A. Tagliamonte
Cambridge University Press

ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

When her children reached preadolescence, a linguist discovered, ¡°the kitchen table became an unexpected laboratory¡±, and the result is ¡°linguistic analyses of some of the most frequent, innovative, but also intensely ill-reputed, features of teen language circa late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries¡±. Present and (in)correct are ¡°so¡±, the ¡°quoting ¡®like¡¯¡±, ¡°yeah¡±, ¡°stuff¡±, ¡°whatever¡±, intensifiers and online abbreviations, as is a welcome examination of gender differences, and the parting observation that some day soon, ¡°adults will talk with like, just, so, and all that stuff¡± and to the ¡°youth of tomorrow it will sound stuffy and old-fashioned¡±.

Kjetil Fallan and Grace Lees-Maffei, editors
Berghahn

ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

Everyone fancies a little exoticism in their design, of course, but historical studies of the subject have traditionally turned West. The able Norwegian and British editors of this valuable volume know that there¡¯s more ground to be covered, and draw in contributors from five continents to deliver detail and analysis. Southern African design history (¡°does it exist?¡±), ¡°Kiwiana¡± in New Zealand, Bohemian crystal, Japanese design and Pevsner, 1960s Lebanon, the myth of Danish design, the ¡°transatlantic domestic dialogue¡± and the domestic advice genre, and tropes of authenticity in Mexican-American food packaging feature. Recommended.

Adam Weiner
Bloomsbury

Thesis: that appalling fiction by an appalling woman is not only a reliable shelf-scanning test when sizing up dates for arrogance or stupidity, but literally toxic. Weiner¡¯s pugnacious look at the bad, bad, morally and stylistically bad books of Alisa Zinov¡¯yevna Rosenbaum pans back to show us Alan Greenspan and the crash on one end of a comedy of horrors, and a key Rand influence, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, on the other, via Nabokov and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. You¡¯ve got to love a scholar who starts with ¡°On the Dubious Virtues of Selfishness¡± ¨C and ends with ¡°In the Graveyard of Bad Ideas¡±, a closing shot of Atlas Shrugged¡¯s chain-smoking ghouls, a crack about lung cancer and the words ¡°The vulture will always come home to roost.¡±

karen.shook@tesglobal.com