WHAT'S NEW?(77 SQUARE SUNDAY)

Byline: Jeanne Kolker jkolker@madison.com

FICTION

Everything Hurts by Bill Scheft (Simon & Schuster, $24)

It's a pretty entertaining premise: Newspaper columnist Phil Camp becomes a casualty of a faltering industry, writes a fake self-help book under a pseudonym, and society embraces his brand of healing. Camp is a crusty, cranky guy who hides behind the guise of optimistic alter-ego Marty Fleck, whose book "Where Can I Stow My Baggage?" resonates with millions of readers. As Camp struggles with constant leg pain, he turns to and embraces the psychogenic theories of Dr. Samuel Abrun, a self-help guru who claims to cure people of their mind-induced pain. Camp finds himself buying into all that he's mocked. The alter-ego set-up allows for hilarious scenes and an opportunity to mine the rich territory of identity and family. Scheft, an Emmy-nominated humorist who writes for David Letterman, delivers a disjointed yet touching narrative with his trademark rapid-fire prose.

POETRY

Endpoint by John Updike (Knopf, $25)

Sure, his novels and short story collections far outnumber his books of poetry, but Updike's poetic voice is not to be overlooked. In "Endpoint," he scribbles out ruminations on the last years of his life, especially looking back on his family and his career. "My harried father told me, 'Dog eat dog.' I opted for a bloodless universe of inked imaginings. ... My many dreams of future puissance - as a baseball star, test pilot, private eye, cartoonist, or as Errol Flynn or Fred Astaire - did not include a hope to be the hidden hand and mind behind some musty, clothbound maze." The title work is a collection of thoughts from recent birthdays as the author struggles to come to grips with his mortality, wondering at the hostile, weird, wrinkled face looking back at him in the mirror: "Where was the freckled boy who used to peek into the front-hall mirror, off to school?" The poem wraps up a scant month before Updike's death in January. The collection is filled out with other poems on some lighter subjects, including an ode to the look of old currency, before Lincoln and Hamilton got anti-counterfeit facelifts. These entries are a welcome breather after the profound reflections on death that precede them.

TRAVEL

Some of the Dead are Still Breathing by Charles Bowden (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24)

How can a person live a moral life in a culture of death? Journalist Bowden pulls the reader across a raw, punishing landscape of dwindling natural resources, flourishing terrorism, and borderland cruelty. Bowden combines memoir, natural history, and keen reportage into a free-flowing narrative, which is why this book largely defies categorization. "By death I do not mean something symbolic or metaphoric," he writes. "I mean the actual death of other peoples and other living things." He lingers in a post-Katrina New Orleans, a barely recovered Bali, a sinister Mexican border town. At one point he uses the story of Winkie, the elephant who previously lived at Vilas Zoo and who killed one of her handlers in Tennessee in 2006, to illustrate his point of the increasingly fine line between the crimes we commit as a species and the unnatural disintegration of the natural world. It's an explicit, bleak book, but Bowden's spare, seemingly soulless writing possesses a strange beauty.

WHAT'S NEW?(77 SQUARE SUNDAY)

Byline: Jeanne Kolker jkolker@madison.com

FICTION

Everything Hurts by Bill Scheft (Simon & Schuster, $24)

It's a pretty entertaining premise: Newspaper columnist Phil Camp becomes a casualty of a faltering industry, writes a fake self-help book under a pseudonym, and society embraces his brand of healing. Camp is a crusty, cranky guy who hides behind the guise of optimistic alter-ego Marty Fleck, whose book "Where Can I Stow My Baggage?" resonates with millions of readers. As Camp struggles with constant leg pain, he turns to and embraces the psychogenic theories of Dr. Samuel Abrun, a self-help guru who claims to cure people of their mind-induced pain. Camp finds himself buying into all that he's mocked. The alter-ego set-up allows for hilarious scenes and an opportunity to mine the rich territory of identity and family. Scheft, an Emmy-nominated humorist who writes for David Letterman, delivers a disjointed yet touching narrative with his trademark rapid-fire prose.

POETRY

Endpoint by John Updike (Knopf, $25)

Sure, his novels and short story collections far outnumber his books of poetry, but Updike's poetic voice is not to be overlooked. In "Endpoint," he scribbles out ruminations on the last years of his life, especially looking back on his family and his career. "My harried father told me, 'Dog eat dog.' I opted for a bloodless universe of inked imaginings. ... My many dreams of future puissance - as a baseball star, test pilot, private eye, cartoonist, or as Errol Flynn or Fred Astaire - did not include a hope to be the hidden hand and mind behind some musty, clothbound maze." The title work is a collection of thoughts from recent birthdays as the author struggles to come to grips with his mortality, wondering at the hostile, weird, wrinkled face looking back at him in the mirror: "Where was the freckled boy who used to peek into the front-hall mirror, off to school?" The poem wraps up a scant month before Updike's death in January. The collection is filled out with other poems on some lighter subjects, including an ode to the look of old currency, before Lincoln and Hamilton got anti-counterfeit facelifts. These entries are a welcome breather after the profound reflections on death that precede them.

TRAVEL

Some of the Dead are Still Breathing by Charles Bowden (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24)

How can a person live a moral life in a culture of death? Journalist Bowden pulls the reader across a raw, punishing landscape of dwindling natural resources, flourishing terrorism, and borderland cruelty. Bowden combines memoir, natural history, and keen reportage into a free-flowing narrative, which is why this book largely defies categorization. "By death I do not mean something symbolic or metaphoric," he writes. "I mean the actual death of other peoples and other living things." He lingers in a post-Katrina New Orleans, a barely recovered Bali, a sinister Mexican border town. At one point he uses the story of Winkie, the elephant who previously lived at Vilas Zoo and who killed one of her handlers in Tennessee in 2006, to illustrate his point of the increasingly fine line between the crimes we commit as a species and the unnatural disintegration of the natural world. It's an explicit, bleak book, but Bowden's spare, seemingly soulless writing possesses a strange beauty.

WHAT'S NEW?(77 SQUARE SUNDAY)

Byline: Jeanne Kolker jkolker@madison.com

FICTION

Everything Hurts by Bill Scheft (Simon & Schuster, $24)

It's a pretty entertaining premise: Newspaper columnist Phil Camp becomes a casualty of a faltering industry, writes a fake self-help book under a pseudonym, and society embraces his brand of healing. Camp is a crusty, cranky guy who hides behind the guise of optimistic alter-ego Marty Fleck, whose book "Where Can I Stow My Baggage?" resonates with millions of readers. As Camp struggles with constant leg pain, he turns to and embraces the psychogenic theories of Dr. Samuel Abrun, a self-help guru who claims to cure people of their mind-induced pain. Camp finds himself buying into all that he's mocked. The alter-ego set-up allows for hilarious scenes and an opportunity to mine the rich territory of identity and family. Scheft, an Emmy-nominated humorist who writes for David Letterman, delivers a disjointed yet touching narrative with his trademark rapid-fire prose.

POETRY

Endpoint by John Updike (Knopf, $25)

Sure, his novels and short story collections far outnumber his books of poetry, but Updike's poetic voice is not to be overlooked. In "Endpoint," he scribbles out ruminations on the last years of his life, especially looking back on his family and his career. "My harried father told me, 'Dog eat dog.' I opted for a bloodless universe of inked imaginings. ... My many dreams of future puissance - as a baseball star, test pilot, private eye, cartoonist, or as Errol Flynn or Fred Astaire - did not include a hope to be the hidden hand and mind behind some musty, clothbound maze." The title work is a collection of thoughts from recent birthdays as the author struggles to come to grips with his mortality, wondering at the hostile, weird, wrinkled face looking back at him in the mirror: "Where was the freckled boy who used to peek into the front-hall mirror, off to school?" The poem wraps up a scant month before Updike's death in January. The collection is filled out with other poems on some lighter subjects, including an ode to the look of old currency, before Lincoln and Hamilton got anti-counterfeit facelifts. These entries are a welcome breather after the profound reflections on death that precede them.

TRAVEL

Some of the Dead are Still Breathing by Charles Bowden (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24)

How can a person live a moral life in a culture of death? Journalist Bowden pulls the reader across a raw, punishing landscape of dwindling natural resources, flourishing terrorism, and borderland cruelty. Bowden combines memoir, natural history, and keen reportage into a free-flowing narrative, which is why this book largely defies categorization. "By death I do not mean something symbolic or metaphoric," he writes. "I mean the actual death of other peoples and other living things." He lingers in a post-Katrina New Orleans, a barely recovered Bali, a sinister Mexican border town. At one point he uses the story of Winkie, the elephant who previously lived at Vilas Zoo and who killed one of her handlers in Tennessee in 2006, to illustrate his point of the increasingly fine line between the crimes we commit as a species and the unnatural disintegration of the natural world. It's an explicit, bleak book, but Bowden's spare, seemingly soulless writing possesses a strange beauty.

WHAT'S NEW?(77 SQUARE SUNDAY)

Byline: Jeanne Kolker jkolker@madison.com

FICTION

Everything Hurts by Bill Scheft (Simon & Schuster, $24)

It's a pretty entertaining premise: Newspaper columnist Phil Camp becomes a casualty of a faltering industry, writes a fake self-help book under a pseudonym, and society embraces his brand of healing. Camp is a crusty, cranky guy who hides behind the guise of optimistic alter-ego Marty Fleck, whose book "Where Can I Stow My Baggage?" resonates with millions of readers. As Camp struggles with constant leg pain, he turns to and embraces the psychogenic theories of Dr. Samuel Abrun, a self-help guru who claims to cure people of their mind-induced pain. Camp finds himself buying into all that he's mocked. The alter-ego set-up allows for hilarious scenes and an opportunity to mine the rich territory of identity and family. Scheft, an Emmy-nominated humorist who writes for David Letterman, delivers a disjointed yet touching narrative with his trademark rapid-fire prose.

POETRY

Endpoint by John Updike (Knopf, $25)

Sure, his novels and short story collections far outnumber his books of poetry, but Updike's poetic voice is not to be overlooked. In "Endpoint," he scribbles out ruminations on the last years of his life, especially looking back on his family and his career. "My harried father told me, 'Dog eat dog.' I opted for a bloodless universe of inked imaginings. ... My many dreams of future puissance - as a baseball star, test pilot, private eye, cartoonist, or as Errol Flynn or Fred Astaire - did not include a hope to be the hidden hand and mind behind some musty, clothbound maze." The title work is a collection of thoughts from recent birthdays as the author struggles to come to grips with his mortality, wondering at the hostile, weird, wrinkled face looking back at him in the mirror: "Where was the freckled boy who used to peek into the front-hall mirror, off to school?" The poem wraps up a scant month before Updike's death in January. The collection is filled out with other poems on some lighter subjects, including an ode to the look of old currency, before Lincoln and Hamilton got anti-counterfeit facelifts. These entries are a welcome breather after the profound reflections on death that precede them.

TRAVEL

Some of the Dead are Still Breathing by Charles Bowden (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24)

How can a person live a moral life in a culture of death? Journalist Bowden pulls the reader across a raw, punishing landscape of dwindling natural resources, flourishing terrorism, and borderland cruelty. Bowden combines memoir, natural history, and keen reportage into a free-flowing narrative, which is why this book largely defies categorization. "By death I do not mean something symbolic or metaphoric," he writes. "I mean the actual death of other peoples and other living things." He lingers in a post-Katrina New Orleans, a barely recovered Bali, a sinister Mexican border town. At one point he uses the story of Winkie, the elephant who previously lived at Vilas Zoo and who killed one of her handlers in Tennessee in 2006, to illustrate his point of the increasingly fine line between the crimes we commit as a species and the unnatural disintegration of the natural world. It's an explicit, bleak book, but Bowden's spare, seemingly soulless writing possesses a strange beauty.