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Diving Horses, Bodacious Buds
This season’s bookcase bounty includes portraits of the Steel Pier, flower power, Bon Jovi, coming of age in Piscataway, and advice for hip wrinklies.
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Longtime Jersey resident and podiatrist Jonathan Singer rediscovered his love for photography five years ago when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. After giving up foot surgery and returning to the camera he has released Botanica Magnifica (Abbeville Press), a collection of 250 photographs of exotic plants and flowers around the world. Singer, also a research collaborator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of History, produced images that are lush and detailed, showing nature at its most extravagant and flamboyant.—Mallory Gelert
Still figuring out how to Twitter? (It’s “tweet,” don’cha know?) Wondering what “hooking up” means? Are you guilty of wearing mom jeans? Do yourself a favor and grab a copy of Pamela Redmond Satran’s How Not to Act Old (HarperCollins). Building on her blog (hownottoactold.com), the Montclair resident shares 185 hip insights on how to recapture your inner youth (even in the bedroom). Just don’t let your kids catch you reading this in public. That would be so not cool. —Emily Faherty
Paul Rudnick, a contributor to the New Yorker and other magazines, is also a playwright and screenwriter. But all you really need to know is that he is hilarious. His new memoir/fiction hybrid, I Shudder: And Other Reactions to Life, Death, and New Jersey (HarperCollins), is a collection of fifteen essays on subjects like Rudnick’s formative years in Piscataway. The book is worthy of the kind of massive audience garnered by fellow essayist David Sedaris. —Tammy La Gorce
After touring with the band, photographer Phil Griffin compiled new and old photos, along with snippets of conversations, for Bon Jovi: When We Were Beautiful (Collins Design). The coffee-table book is an insider’s portrait that captures Jon, Richie, Dave, and Tico in intimate moments as well as in the limelight. Griffin shoots and listens as the Jersey boys reminisce about their roots in Sayreville and reflect on how far they have come.—Drew Anne Scarantino
In its heyday, the Steel Pier in Atlantic City hosted big bands, movies, acrobats, and throngs of people who flocked to this all-in-one entertainment mecca. Although the novelty and innocence of the Pier’s golden age seems a world away, Steve Liebowitz’s new coffee-table book, Steel Pier, Atlantic City (Down the Shore Publishing), uses photographs and postcards to bring the beloved Jersey attraction back to life. —Drew Anne Scarantino
