Denis Dutton has made a significant contribution to the field of art appreciation and interpretation, which is accessible to the novice, but will provide important and provocative discussion material for the expert. By weaving together philosophy and aesthetics, cognitive anthropology and human development, ideas about cultural relativism and standards of beauty, he leads the reader on a fascinating journey through questions about what makes human seek meaning, influence their surroundings, and define the world through the creative impulse.



The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution
By Denis Dutton
Published by Bloomsbury Press
Sells for $25.00

"The Art Instinct" combines art and evolutionary science in a provocative new work. Sure to provoke discussion in scientific circles and uproar in the art world, this book offers radical new insights into both the nature of art and the workings of the human mind.

*Publisher Comments*

In a groundbreaking new book that does for art what Stephen Pinker's "The Language Instinct" did for linguistics, Denis Dutton overturns a century of art theory and criticism and revolutionizes our understanding of the arts.

"The Art Instinct" combines two fascinating and contentious disciplines--art and evolutionary science--in a provocative new work that will change forever the way we think about the arts, from painting to literature to movies to pottery. Human tastes in the arts, Dutton argues, are evolutionary traits, shaped by Darwinian selection. They are not, as the past century of art criticism and academic theory would have it, just "socially constructed."
Our love of beauty is inborn, and many aesthetic tastes are shared across remote cultures--just one example is the widespread preference for landscapes with water and distant trees, like the savannas where we evolved. Using forceful logic and hard evidence, Dutton shows that we must premise art criticism on an understanding of evolution, not on abstract "theory." He restores the place of beauty, pleasure, and skill as artistic values.
Sure to provoke discussion in scientific circles and uproar in the art world, "The Art Instinct "offers radical new insights into both the nature of art and the workings of the human mind.

Just a brief update from last week, until I finish my current stack of books. They may also meet your needs for Father's Day appreciation.

Scott McClellan's book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What's Wrong with Washington is back in our stores. Call now if your Dad needs one on his breakfast tray Sunday morning. On sale with 10% off for $25.16.

Another that your Dad may appreciate... if he is of an open-minded politically-thoughtful persuasion... Newsweek columnist Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World. Insightfully analytic about the shifting nature of the world's wealth and influence, especially within the portion that is traditionally perceived as "third-world"; about these new rising economic and political powerhouses; and about the changing role that the United States will play. Also a 10%-off Bestseller for $23.36.

On the more entertaining side, Sebastian Faulks was tapped to carry on the Ian Fleming legacy, and, after portraying Engleby, the emotionally-disconnected, young egoist, who else could capture the cool-headed Bond in true Ian Fleming style. Check out Devil May Care... with a deformed evil mastermind, an objectifiably one-dimensional leading lady, thrilling super-human escapes, it fits the 007 bill. Also a Booksense Bestseller at 10% off for $22.46.

And while it's not on sale, Walter Borneman's biography Polk: The Man who Transformed the Presidency reads like a novel, elucidating a man and a time that changed not only the role of the president, but also the position of the United States geographically and politically, and as a result, affected the mindset of the American people.

And finally, one for yourself... or perhaps for a father who doesn't fear a less than positive comparison. Augusten Burroughs' father was distant and an alcoholic, but publicly charming and a successful professor. We have been exposed to him previously in Running with Scissors. Now A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father gives him the full Burroughs humorous and shocking treatment. 10% off at $22.46.

Until next week,
Andrew

It's a big week for new book releases. Scott McClellan's expose, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What's Wrong with Washington no sooner hit the shelves than we were sold out. The publisher assures us the new print run will arrive soon, but we recommend reserving a copy if you want one. Also, out now, in case you didn't know, are new books by Alan Furst, Chuck Palahniuk, and David Sedaris, for which we are a bit more prepared!

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris was just featured on the Daily Show with John Stewart. They had a brief and very funny conversation about the title, about how David quit smoking by moving to Japan - where it is illegal to smoke on the street, not because of lung cancer, but because it is so crowded that a smoker might accidentally burn a passerby, or set them on fire. Of course the story is much more involved, with many hilarious non-sequiters, so I encourage you to buy it and read it yourself! I also loved his story about how when he went to college, prayer was compulsory, but it was before Jesus, so they worshipped a five-eyed god named Sashatiba; credit for courses was pass-fail, but failure mandated public immolation; and if he was ever burned alive for failing his courses, his parents would have killed him. John concluded by saying, "The book is phenomenal . . . if you like joy," and who doesn't need more joy?!

I've only just begun reading The Spies of Warsaw by Alan Furst and I'm already having a hard time putting it down to write this column. It is everything we would expect from the great master of the spy thriller. It takes place in the neutral territory between the east and west of Warsaw in the decadent period after WWI and as the German menace is growing. The characters are described with subtlety and dimension, and Furst hooks you into their selfish moral duplicity from the very first pages, taking you along step by step as a character is led down the slippery slope of betrayal during the rise of Nazism. While patriotism could be one motivation towards espionage, and for the most part the characters carry themselves with dignity, in this case it is pure self-interest and self-preservation that compels them.

If you missed our author event with Chuck Palahniuk for Snuff this past week, I'm sorry, but I'll try to summarize.

Once again, Mr. Palahniuk shines in his ability to explore the lives of marginal, perhaps even despicable personalities, and yet make them seem reasonable and even honorable when viewed from a certain angle. Palahniuk conveys that it was not necessarily they who chose to be who they are, but society that formed them, and the fact that they developed strong character at all should be viewed as an achievement to be admired rather than an indictment.

In this book, he turns his attention to the porn industry and three men who show up for a world record breaking film shoot with an aging female porn star. The history of this much maligned and idealized subculture is exposed in Palahniuk's inimitable simultaneously repellent and yet beguiling manner.

At the event, he regaled us with a story written especially for the book tour, gave us a glimpse into the upcoming movie version of Choke, answered questions presented by Eric Nuzum (author of The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires...), encouraged everyone to read Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock, and presented trivia questions, challenges, and prizes to the audience! A great time for everyone involved, and there are still autographed copies of the book available in all our stores.

Some and visit us soon to see these and other great new reads!

-Andrew

Older fans of Harry Potter have found their next big thing! Young adults and adults who are young at heart have discovered the magic and thrill of Stephenie Meyer and her new book The Host has just hit the stores, providing everything that her readers have grown to love! This is a stand alone story (and possibly a new series?), but it is no less enthralling as we wait for the fourth installment in the Twilight/ New Moon/ Eclipse series.

First, for the uninitiated, Ms. Meyer has made her mark with a captivating saga about a teenage heroine named Bella who is in love with a vampire named Edward. Star-crossed? Just wait. There's a love triangle that develops with Bella's friend Jacob who becomes Edward's rival. Jacob also happens to be a werewolf.

So the question everyone wants to know is, can Stephenie Meyer pull off
the same magic with new characters and a new scenario? Absolutely!

This time the action centers on the fact that aliens have taken over the world. This particular variety of alien is a parasite or a symbiote, depending on your perspective. The humans definitely think that they are under a body snatcher form of attack, although the book is told from the point of view of an alien named Wanderer so the reader is going to find himself or herself swayed by her opinions. Wanderer has lived in many other worlds (and bodies) before coming to earth, and shares her perspective with the reader in this first person narrative. The problem she faces on Earth is a bit different, however. Her host - a young woman named Melanie - loses control of her muscles, but retains her identity, emotions, and memories in what Wanderer now thinks of as HER brain. This power struggle is the core conflict of the book, and what happens to Melanie, Wanderer, and the human race as a whole is an engrossing read.

And to keep things interesting, once again there's a love triangle - or a love quadrilateral to be more precise. Melanie continues to have feelings for another human named Jared; and living in Melanie's body, Wanderer has inherited Melanie's physical attraction for, and emotionally charged memories of, Jared; yet, nonetheless, with her own mind and spirit, Wanderer begins to be drawn to a fourth character. Ah, modern love! Perhaps this was enough for Little, Brown to market the book as a Adult Fiction title rather than Young Adult genre, but kids, while it does get steamy and a bit emotionally complicated, your parents don't need to worry about the PG-13 rating.

If you miss J. K. Rowling, and haven't yet met Stephenie Meyer, do yourself a favor and try The Host! And then go back and read Twilight and the rest!

This is the second notable novel that has appeared within the last six months about a white slave catcher and an escaped slave woman. The first was Soul Catcher by Michael White, which I wrote about in my October blog on American Journeys. Each of these sagas has its unique contribution to understanding the time and the people of this era of history. While the first focused on an educated and reflective slave catcher caught in "the trade" by his own weaknesses, the second focuses on the woman and her visionary ability to see what she believes is the future of her people. The first looks at the awkward community formed by the slaves and the slave catchers as they journey back to the South. The second examines the community that free blacks and slaves create under the nose of the whites and the "code" that enables them to openly pass secret messages about runaways in public.

James McBride first won adulation for his portrayal of his childhood and of his widowed mother's determination to raise and properly educate her family. He established a reputation as an engrossing story-teller with the vignettes he pulled from his own experiences and the memories he wrangled from his mother, who was reluctant to reveal her past as the child of Jewish immigrants who ran away to marry a black Baptist preacher. The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother is an unusual but nonetheless quintessentially American tale in which the author searches to understand his heritage and family origins.

His current book, Song Yet Sung, is fictional but is no less rooted in American culture, and no less an exploration of American origins. At one point, it imagines that the predecessors of Martin Luther King, Jr. might have been such people as are characters in this story, and by extension that this is a story that belongs to all of us who yearn for freedom for want, worry, and concern, and dream of a sense of purpose, inner peace and security, the ability to achieve our dreams.

The story has a local flavor as it takes place on the eastern shore of Southern Maryland - a spit of land between the Chesapeake and the Atlantic Ocean, where watermen earn a hard living scraping oysters off the sea floor. It portrays the unusually interdependent relations among slaves, free blacks, poor watermen, slave catchers (and the hardened and deceitful slave stealers), and wealthy landowners. There are many character threads to follow: a wild man living in the marshes, a young man secretly planning his break for freedom, a white woman and her slave who both were widowed in the same fishing accident, a cruel and lawless band who will lock up any black person free or slave and sell them down South.

The principal character is a woman named Liz; she is running for freedom and has the distinction of being "two-headed" - she has dreams that reveal the future. This future seen in visions and the characters she meets in her present suggest that even legally free people enslave themselves to other forms of bondage, and freedom will be a longer time coming than a simple flight to the North. Before she ever meets Denwood, the slave catcher who pursues her, other slaves tell him of her visions and interpretations of reality, and the messages begin to make sense to him. He has also suffered in his life, working hard with little reward, feeling loss of love, despair, and loneliness.

"He realized with a bit of shock...that their lives were exact mirrors of his, filled with silent, roaring, desperate, human fury and humiliation. He realized at that moment that he despised them even as he admired them. How could you like someone and hate them at the same time?" But he discovers that they seem to know more about the way the world operates than any of the white people who have been his companions. Like Cain in Michael White's Soul Catcher, he admires them and understands them, and yet needs them to accomplish his goals.

"He disliked making deals with slaves and free blacks. It hampered him in too many ways, mostly internally, because in making deals with them, they became more human to him, and in doing so - try as he might to resist the feeling - they became less slave and more man to him. he could not make a deal with a pig, or a dog, or a piece of pork. But if a man says to another man or woman, I'll give you this for that, then who are you dealing with? An equal? Or chattel? But he had no choice. She was enemy or friend."

As Liz's visions become clearer and Denwood's circular pursuit of her continues, Mr. McBride weaves in more of the straightforward religious conviction that keeps hopes up, and which he revealed in The Color of Water as so instrumental in his own upbringing. A free black man working for the Gospel Train, as they call the Underground Railroad, describes his perspective to the Dreamer, Liz,

-No need to fret about what's done, Clarence said matter-of-factly.
It's God's world. He washes you clean. He makes you whole. He puts
rain in your garden and sunshine in your heart. Just pray when you get
free, child. Pray for what you've done and what you gonna do. Lotta
folks around here believe in you. I don't, but lots do. You got some
kind of purpose, they say. It's got to be.
-But I don't know who I am.
-Well, there it is, he said ruefully. That's a problem, ain't it. If
you don't know who you are child. I'll tell you: you's a child of God.
-With all I seen, I don't know that I believe in God anymore, she said.
- Don't matter, the old man said. He believes in you.

Another epic tale that gives insight into our American story. Click to reserve your copy of Song Yet Sung (Riverhead, 1594489726, $25.95) now.