Monday's Body of Work

A Fresh New Look

Don’t call it a comeback. John Irving has been here for years. His latest effort is garnering applause, but is it up to snuff? The LA Times weighs in. Twitter is a surefooted technological tool. We only wish it would steer clear of literature. Just look what it’s doing to Bill Shakespeare. Sarah Vowell is one smart cookie. Her new book about Roger Williams and his brethren will have you laughing over and mourning for America’s early religious sects. Ayn Rand is a time-transcending lightning rod. Love her or hate her, she’s caught the attention of The Economist. Pol Pot, another historical figure — albeit despised by thousands — is in the news. Words Without Borders has a drive-by account. One thinks of Ansel Adams in black and white. Take a gander at some of his more colorful work. Finally, it’s jazz, baby. Long ago a comprehensive book was written, which traced the arc of this monumental art-form. The Jazz Book goes all the way back to ragtime, and then travels across the landscapes of big band, bepop and fusion. All you cats should have a listen. — Kevin Murphy

– The opening passages of “Last Night in Twisted River” recycle John Irving’s signature themes at such dizzy speed, it’s as though the author were ticking boxes. New England? Check: The story begins in New Hampshire, where Irving once situated an eponymous hotel. Subversive Christian symbolism? Double-check: The first character introduced is fallen Angel Pope. Fractured family? But of course: Irving heroes, like those in Dickens and Disney cartoons, are invariably short a parent or two; here, young Danny Baciagalupo’s mother absents herself early on, sucked beneath the frosted tide of Twisted River one bleak midwinter’s night in 1944. — John Irving in the LA Times

– Deciphering William Shakespeare plays in school essays apparently was not enough for two university students who have written a book of Twitter entries that summarize and satirize works of literature. “Twitterature: The World’s Greatest Books Retold Through Twitter,” which Penguin releases next month in the United Kingdom, is an irreverent, profane and sometimes brilliant collection of 20 comments on the ideas and themes in 60-some classics. — Twitterature in Reuters

He's A Super Freak, Super Freak

– Humorist, historian, superhero. Sarah Vowell is a woman of letters and voices. Her four books and her contributions to public radio’s This American Life display a brilliant, droll wit, but also a serious mind. Her most recent book, The Wordy Shipmates (just out in paperback), combines a detailed history of the Puritan settling of Providence and Boston with thoughtful reflections on the perils of mixing faith and government, plus humorous observations on everything from 1970s sitcoms to Indian casinos. — Sarah Vowell in the Boston Phoenix

– For all its faults socialism is manifestly superior to capitalism in one area: the making of myths. Capitalists can never equal the emotional appeal of socialism’s martyred heroes. Ayn Rand, however, is a conspicuous exception to this rule. She has been given short shrift by the intellectual establishment. Literary critics bemoan her cardboard characters and tabloid style. Political theorists dismiss her as a shallow thinker whose appeal is restricted to adolescents. But such disdain has done nothing to damage her popular appeal. — Ayn Rand in the Economist

Ansel Was A Colorful Man

– The road through the landscape. You have to drive well below the speed limit of 70 kmh unless you already know the wheeltracks, the potholes, the curves. Roads in Cambodia aren’t much different. An ancient pathway that has grown wider over the centuries. Coated with asphalt in modern times. A surface now thinning and cracked.The society builders are looking in another direction. — Pol Pot in Words Without Borders

– I’m so accustomed to thinking of Ansel Adams as a black-and-white photographer that when I first saw this book, “Ansel Adams in Color,” I thought someone had gone into Photoshop and given his pictures a color rinse. Silly me. Adams shot in color for almost as long as he did in black and white. And he experimented with it for the rest of his life, snapping over thirty-five hundred shots. — Ansel Adams in the New Yorker

– Here was a book that did not get long-winded about this potentially blah-blah-blah topic. Philosophical in only small bursts, The Jazz Book was more like an interpretive encyclopedia than a history. It didn’t feature interviews or essays like most jazz books. Rather, it attempted to explain the music in almost taxonomic terms. — The Jazz Book in Pop Matters

Video: Sonny Rollins Live