Barry

Beloved by staff and customers alike, Barry held court at our front register for over twenty years – he was proud of having been hired on the very first day the bookstore opened on Central Street in 1999. Considered by many the unofficial mayor of Wellesley, he took a genuine interest in those around him, warmly greeting customers (and their dogs) by name and recalling every detail of previous conversations. Barry was a gifted writer and a formidable scholar, possessing a deep knowledge of history, religion, baseball and music. He always relished the challenge of helping a customer track down some esoteric and often out-of-print treatise on one of his favorite subjects. We will miss his sense of humor, his affectionate banter, his freely-expressed opinions, his extraordinary intellect and his kind heart. Our community has lost a dear colleague and a true friend. We love you, Barry. Rest in peace.

In Barry's own words: "The great majority of the books I read are nonfiction--mostly history, religion, archaeology, linguistics, and science, with occasional forays into music, sports, and food lit."

Books: 
Staff Pick Badge
The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood By Jane Leavy Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9780060883539
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Harper Perennial - October 4th, 2011

We may not have baseball right now, but we do have classic baseball books, and Jane Leavy's 2010 biography of Mickey Mantle is one of the very best. Almost from the beginning of Mantle's career, he was enveloped by thick layers of mythology. When he was playing, that mythology was overwhelmingly positive; he was, without a doubt, the best-loved player of his era. After he retired, frequent reports of behavior not befitting an idol added a dark element to the whole Mantle myth. Jane Leavy's signal accomplishment in this biography is rescuing Mantle from the realm of caricature and supplying a perspective that was hardly available for sixty years: Mickey Mantle as a flesh-and-blood human being. A stunning piece of reportage, research, and writing.


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Religion as We Know It: An Origin Story By Jack Miles Cover Image
$14.95
This title is currently unavailable to order. Please check back, as stock may become available in the future.
ISBN: 9781324002789
Published: W. W. Norton & Company - November 12th, 2019

For much of ancient history, religious belief and practice were so intertwined with civilization as a whole (whether Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Indian, Chinese or other) that it doesn't appear that people thought of "religion" as a separate or separable human activity. Eventually, that all changed, at least in some parts of the world. How did it happen that humans began to categorize religion as a particular kind of activity, to the point where the comparative study of religion evolved as its own field of study? Jack Miles offers a thoughtful, elegant, convincing explanation.


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The Crucible of Islam By G. W. Bowersock Cover Image
$27.93
ISBN: 9780674237728
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Harvard University Press - May 20th, 2019

This is not a book for beginners, but if you already know something about the life of Muhammad and the emergence of Islam, the freshness of Bowersock's interpretations--and the exceptionally broad scope of his research--will be a revelation. He looks at what was happening in the Arabian peninsula, the Byzantine empire, the Sassanian Persian empire--even in Ethiopia--in the decades just before Muhammad's birth, during his life, and just after his death. By establishing a firmer context for the seventh-century CE rise of Islam, he is able to make persuasive sense out of the ocean of often conflicting data that confronts historians who devote themselves to this controversial subject.

Has Bowersock succeeded in telling us exactly what happened? No, no one can do that. That's not what writing history is about. But I think this book likely brings us a little closer to the truth than we have ever been before.


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The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List By Alana Newhouse, Tablet Cover Image
$24.95
ISBN: 9781579659066
Availability: Usually ships to store in 4-6 days.
Published: Artisan - March 19th, 2019

You want erudite? This book is erudite, although it wears its learning lightly. (Oy--only the second sentence, and already he's dragging out the cliches.) You want funny? Trust me, it doesn't stint on the funny. You want definitive? Of course it's not definitive--take a look at the subtitle. You want good writing? Contributors include Ruth Reichl, Mimi Sheraton, Joan Nathan, Maira Kalman, Ian Frazier, Daphne Merkin, and plenty of others who are comparably gifted.

There are people who won't appreciate this book, but they put mayonnaise on pastrami and ketchup on scrambled eggs.


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Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past By David Reich Cover Image
$20.00
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ISBN: 9781101873465
Published: Vintage - February 5th, 2019

David Reich of Harvard Medical School is one of the geneticists who led the way in developing new methods for studying very ancient DNA and using those techniques to sequence the genomes of individuals who lived many thousands of years ago. Here he combines the results (many of which came out of his own lab) with findings from archaeology, anthropology, and historical linguistics to tell a substantially revised story of how early humans spread out of Africa and settled the globe. If you're familiar with an older version of the migration-out-of-Africa-to-everywhere-else story, you're in for some stunning surprises.


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Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States By James C. Scott Cover Image
$22.00
ISBN: 9780300240214
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Yale University Press - July 24th, 2018

If I were to tell you this is a book that's largely about ancient Mesopotamia (what is today southern Iraq) and left it at that, you'd probably say, "Uh, that doesn't really sound like my cup of tea" (or Sumerian beer, as it were). But this book happens to ask very big, extremely interesting questions. To wit: What do we mean when we refer to the "origins of civilization" or "early civilizations"? Was "civilization" typically a good thing for all those involved?  Admirers of Jared Diamond and Yuval Harari -- prepare to engage with James Scott's restless and brilliantly original mind. 


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Basketball: Great Writing About America's Game: A Library of America Special Publication By Alexander Wolff (Editor), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Foreword by) Cover Image
By Alexander Wolff (Editor), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Foreword by)
$35.00
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ISBN: 9781598535563
Published: Library of America - February 27th, 2018

Of course Michael Jordan is pictured on the cover, because -- and I say this with full awareness that I'm at risk of being tried, convicted, and sent to Clichémongers Prison -- this book is the Michael Jordan of anthologies of basketball writing.  Take a look at the table of contents: John McPhee, Pete Axthelm, David Halberstam, Frank Deford, Curry Kirkpatrick, Bob Ryan, Charlie Pierce, Darcy Frey, John Edgar Wideman, Pat Conroy. . . . a veritable Dream Team! (Did I really say that?) 


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Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages By Gaston Dorren Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9780802125712
Availability: Usually ships to store in 4-6 days.
Published: Grove Press - December 13th, 2016

I'm fascinated by language, but I've never been very adept at learning foreign languages. Dutch linguist/polyglot Dorren is clearly quite good at learning them (he claims to speak six and read an additional nine, and I have no reason to doubt him).  In sixty short chapters, he succeeds in telling us one or two (or more) really interesting things about each of sixty of the languages of Europe. All the biggies are here, of course, but think what a star you'll be at parties when you inject something about Galician, Romani, Manx, or Frisian into the conversation! I guarantee that the book's breezy, conversational style will draw you in if you're at all predisposed to the subject matter.


Joe Gould's Teeth By Jill Lepore Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781101971796
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Vintage - April 18th, 2017

Of the many famous profiles that have appeared in The New Yorker, two of the best known are the two published by the late Joseph Mitchell--22 years apart -- about Joe Gould, a Greenwich Village derelict/madman/man-about-town who claimed to have written a 9-million-word "Oral History of Our Time."  Current New Yorker staff writer (and Harvard history professor) Jill Lepore began to suspect that there was a lot more to Gould's story than Mitchell had ever uncovered (or let on), and this riveting little book is the result of her investigations. An amazing piece of detective work that leads to unexpectedly creepy revelations.


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Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies By Jared Diamond, Ph.D. Cover Image
$19.95
ISBN: 9780393354324
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: W. W. Norton & Company - March 7th, 2017

Guns, Germs, and Steel was first published in 1997, but I didn’t read it until 2005-2006, shortly after a hardcover edition containing a new chapter on Japan and Korea became available. I underlined the text generously and filled my copy with notes in the margins – everything from expressions of amazement at Diamond’s brilliant insights to angry dissents when I thought he was overstating the role of geography in the development of human civilizations. A boundless intellectual feast whether you agree with the author’s conclusions or not.