David Brooks' The Social Animal combines neuroscience with philosophy to uncover the secrets of happiness. Or, if long life is your goal, consult The Longevity Project, which digests life lessons from an 80-year study of 1,528 10-year-olds. Finally, an all-black crew explores whiteness on an expedition to – where else? – Antarctica in the wickedly satirical Pym.
The Social Animal
The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement
by David Brooks
David Brooks' The Social Animal begins with the announcement that "This is the happiest story you've ever read. It's about two people who led wonderfully fulfilling lives." The book isn't a story, however, so much as a giant parable about the power of our unconscious. It suggests how we might improve ourselves and our world by understanding how we really think. In the tradition of Rousseau, Brooks illustrates this through narrative. He invents two characters, Harold and Erica, whom we follow from childhood to grave. Watching their lives unfold, we're treated to commentary about how and why these characters behave and believe as they do. They become vehicles through which Brooks highlights a dizzying range of philosophy and research – everything from the Greek concept of thumos, to IQ assessments, moral reasoning and behavioral economics. The Social Animal is a sort of "theory of everything," a valiant attempt to explain human behavior through a multitude of ideas and characters.
Hardcover, 448 pages; Random House; list price, $27; publication date, March 8
The Longevity Project t
Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study
By Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin
The Longevity Project has two big things going for it: universal appeal and a sterling pedigree. Who doesn't want to know the secrets of long life? And how better to uncover them than by tracking 1,528 bright and healthy 10-year-olds through their entire lives? Over 90 years the project charted nearly 10 million pieces of data on these kids' character traits, habits, personal lives, career paths, ups and downs and ultimate fates. Its founder, Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman, wasn't interested in longevity. His thing was how to predict achievement. (He invented the IQ test still in use today.) Terman's successors seized the chance to address diverse questions: How does personality affect health? Is it better to be an optimist or a worrier? How does divorce (your parents' or your own) affect your lifeline? Does it help to believe in God?
Hardcover, 272 pages; Hudson Street Press; list price, $25.95; publication date, March 3
Pym
A Novel
By Mat Johnson
Mat Johnson's bitingly satirical Pym pushes along at breakneck speed, driven by the protagonist's obsession with Edgar Allan Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. The protagonist is the "blackademic" Christopher Jaynes, a professor of African American Literature and self-described "octoroon" who is fixated on "the pathology of Whiteness." When he is denied tenure for teaching Poe instead of Ralph Ellison, the professor is freed up to chase down the veracity of a manuscript he finds suggesting that Poe's outlandish novel was based on fact. The alleged facts include the presence of white, Sasquatch-like snow monkeys in Antarctica and an island of black people with black teeth. Manuscript in hand, Professor Jaynes sails south aboard the good ship Creole with an all- black crew and a dog called White Folks. The snow monkeys (or "snow honkies " as one character calls them) enslave the crew of the Creole. Except, that is, for one crew-member who buys his freedom with junk food. As Johnson piles on the ironies, events build to an apocalyptic climax.
Hardcover, 336 pages; Spiegel & Grau; list price, $27; publication date, March 1
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