Like Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fireis a masterpiece that imprisons us inside the mazelike head of a mad émigré. Yet Pale Fireis more outrageously hilarious, and its narrative convolutions make the earlier book seem as straightforward as a fairy tale. Here's the plot—listen carefully! John Shade is a homebody poet in New Wye, U.S.A. He writes a 999-line poem about his life, and what may lie beyond death. This novel (and seldom has the word seemed so woefully inadequate) consists of both that poem and an extensive commentary on it by the poet's crazy neighbor, Charles Kinbote.

According to this deranged annotator, he had urged Shade to write about his own homeland—the northern kingdom of Zembla. It soon becomes clear that this fabulous locale may well be a figment of Kinbote's colorfully cracked, prismatic imagination. Meanwhile, he manages to twist the poem into an account of Zembla's King Charles—whom he believes himself to be—and the monarch's eventual assassination by the revolutionary Jakob Gradus.

In the course of this dizzying narrative, shots are indeed fired. But it's Shade who takes the hit, enabling Kinbote to steal the dead poet's manuscript and set about annotating it. Is that perfectly clear? By now it should be obvious that Pale Fireis not only a whodunit but a who-wrote-it. There isn't, of course, a single solution. But Nabokov's best biographer, Brian Boyd, has come up with an ingenious suggestion: he argues that Shade is actually guiding Kinbote's mad hand from beyond the grave, nudging him into completing what he'd intended to be a 1,000-line poem. Read this magical, melancholic mystery and see if you agree. —Tim Appelo

At last, a fresh take on a country that no one can seem to understand.

The French smoke, drink and eat more fat than anyone in the world, yet they live longer and have fewer heart problems than Americans. They take seven weeks of paid vacation per year, yet have the world’s highest productivity index. From a distance, modern France looks like a riddle. But up close, it all makes sense. Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong shows how the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

Decrypting French ideas about land, food, privacy and language, the authors weave together the threads of French society—from centralization and the Napoleonic code to elite education and even street protests—giving us, for the first time, an understanding of France and the French.

Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong is the most ambitious work published on France since Theodor Zeldin’s The French. It goes beyond Adam Gopnik’sParis to the Moon to explain not only the essence of the French, but also how they got to be the way they are. Unlike Jonathan Fenby’s France on the Brink, the authors do not see France in a state of decline, but one of perpetual renewal.

A revealing look at the college freshman experience, from an insider’s point of view

After fifteen years of teaching anthropology at a large university, Rebekah Nathan had become baffled by her own students. Their strange behavior—eating meals at their desks, not completing reading assignments, remaining silent through class discussions—made her feel as if she were dealing with a completely foreign culture. So Nathan decided to do what anthropologists do when confused by a different culture: Go live with them. She enrolled as a freshman, moved into the dorm, ate in the dining hall, and took a full load of courses. And she came to understand that being a student is a pretty difficult job, too. Her discoveries about contemporary undergraduate culture are surprising and her observations are invaluable, making My Freshman Yearessential reading for students, parents, faculty, and anyone interested in educational policy.

Italy, a country half the size of Texas, is composed of 20 regions, each with its own distinctly marvelous food. In Rustico, author Micol Negrin offers 10 recipes from each region—from the Alpine Val d'Aosta to the southernmost islands of Sicily and Sardinia. Other cookbooks serve up Italian regional dishes, but few American ones, if any, provide such a sweeping tour of authentic fare. Readers will be captivated instantly by dishes such as Lombardy's Butternut Squash Gnocchi in Rosemary Butter; Emilia-Romagna's Veal Roast Stuffed with Spinach, Pancetta, and Frittata; and Latium's Pike in Velvety Egg-Lemon Sauce, among many others—appetite-whetting food that cries out to be made. The key to Negrin's success is that she has chosen her recipes beautifully, and has presented them accessibly, illuminating relevant techniques and ingredients throughout (Negrin encourages cooks to find the real stuff, but also offers sage substitution advice). She also provides fascinating cultural illustration (for example, cheese production and meat curing throughout Italy are complementary activities, as the former means excess whey which, combined with bran and corn, becomes perfect porcine nourishment).

The rustic dishes range from antipasti to dolce, and include more familiar "specialties" such as Tuscany's Summer Bread and Tomato Salad and Milan's Saffron Risotto, and the excitingly unexplored, such as Molise's Hand-Cut Pasta Squares in Asparagus Cream and Apulia's Orecchiette with Wilted Arugula and Tomatoes. Baked goods are particularly irresistible and include Basilicata's Smoked Bread with Sweet Onion, Tomato and Basil, and herb-showered Griddle Bread from Romagna. Sweet lovers will delight in the likes of Calabria's Chocolate Covered Roasted Figs and Mint-and-Lemon-Laced Cheese Pillows in Warm Chestnut Honey from Sardinia, among other simple desserts. With a section of basic recipes, a fine ingredient glossary, and photos throughout, the book is a true tour de force. —Arthur Boehm

In recent years `culture' has become a central concern in a wide range of fields and disciplines. This book introduces the main substantive and theoretical strands of this `turn to culture' through the medium of a particular case study: that of the Sony Walkman. Using the example of the Walkman, the book indicates how and why cultural practices and institutions have come to play such a crucial part in our lives, and introduces some of the central ideas, concepts and methods of analysis involved in conducting cultural studies.

The authors identify five major cultural processes - representation, identity, production, consumption and regulation - which together constitute a kind of `cultural circuit' that can be used to structure the study of any cultural text or artefact. It is the cultural circuit which is used here to analyze the Walkman as a cultural object.

This unique book offers not only an introduction to key issues and debates in contemporary cultural studies, but also a practical illustration of how cultural studies can be used to make sense of our everyday lives.

Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman is the first of a series of books developed by the Open University which aims to offer a comprehensive and innovative introduction to contemporary cultural studies. The series editor is Professor Stuart Hall.