By Alan Caruba


Fast Food Vindicationby Lisa Tillinger Johansen, MS, RD, a registered dietician, ($11.98, J, Murray Press, softcover) dispels the widespread belief that Americans are getting fat because of the fast-food outlets throughout the nation. In a clear, easy-to-understand text she offers the reasons why there is an epidemic of obesity in Americaand, indeed, in many other nations. People are just eating too much, not getting enough exercise, and snack too often. She notes that sit-down restaurants, more often than not, offer too much food on the plate and fill up the bread tray, thus providing more food than you need to eat at a sitting, as opposed to fast-food outlets that now commonly offer alternatives to a juicy, delicious hamburger or other food choice. And it comes down to choices and moderation. One thing is for sure, it is not the government’s job to intervene in what your child eats in school or what you eat. That’s your job. How people arrive at their beliefs in all manner of things, true or not, is the subject of Second That Emotion: How Decisions, Trends, and Movements are Shaped by Jeremy D. Holden ($25.00, Prometheus Books) an advertising and communications professional knows a lot about how to influence people’s opinions and he has written a lively, interesting book about the way people form those opinions. Contrary to the view that we arrive at our opinions via slick Madison Avenue and other “spin”, Holden shows that while advertising and propaganda can provide a spark and social media can provide the kindling, individuals create consumer, political, and cultural trends based, more often than not, on thought processes that they know logically are flawed. This is a book about the decision-making process and how our passion for an idea, a politician, or a brand is often emotion-based and fuels our support for movements of all kinds. For writers who take their work seriously, Constance Hall has written Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooth: Let Verbs Power Your Writing ($26.95, W.W. Norton) and it will greatly enhance anything you write as she takes the reader through contemporary and classic examples to demonstrate how to overcome some of the “rules” we carry around in our head about what works and what doesn’t.



No doubt, the many fans of Bruce Springsteen will welcome news of the first biography in 25 years to be written with the full cooperation of Springsteen. Peter Ames Carlin has written Bruce ($28.00, Touchstone, an imprint of Simon and Schuster) and was granted unprecedented access to the artists, his family, friends, and bandmates, past and present, including Clarence Clemons’ final interview before his passing. It does justice to his more than four decades of a remarkable career that has yielded twenty Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award along with more than 120 million albums sold. It is a revealing account of an American music icon who overcame an unhappy childhood that included a mentally ill father who suffered from depression. It’s all here in a hefty book that is just short of 500 pages. Carlin has authored other such biographies including the Beach Boys and Paul McCartney. 



















No More Pointless Meetings by Martin Murphy (17.95, Amacom, softcover) takes a harsh, but accurate view of the way so many meetings fail to accomplish their goal of effective and productive collaboration. It doesn’t have to be that way says the author who presents an alternative he calls workflow management—how to get more done in less time and with much less grumbling for participants. Over the years I have seen any number of books on this topic and Murphy’s book offers a very comprehensive guide for managers to identify information gaps and use workflow sessions to create value for the entire organization. Murphy is the founder and president of Quantum Meetings, a management education consultancy whose clients includes some of biggest corporate names as well as nonprofits. If this is a problem within your organization, you should get a copy of this book.



Here are some new books for kids age 4 through 7 years. In no particular order, there’s Steve Light’s Zephyr Takes Flight, a picture book about an airplane-loving little girl that teaches important lessons about imagination, friendship and family ($16.99, Candlewick). Zephyr wants to fly and she has a secret door in her room that leads to a place full of flying machines where she a little pig named Rumbus share all kinds of adventures. The author has written and illustrated many children’s books. Nightime Ninja by Barbara DaCosta, is mostly one of artwork by Ed Young, a Caldecott Medalist, ($16.99, Little Brown and Company) in which a pint-size ninja climbs and clambers around the house taking thevery young to hot springs, salt flats, oil ponds and other extreme

By Alan Caruba

My Picks of the Month

When I was growing up the music of Gary U.S. Bonds could be heard, from “New Orleans” and “School is Out” in the 1960s to “This Little Girl in 1981 and many more hits still being played these days. He will be celebrating his 74^thbirthday as a published author with an autobiography, By U.S. Bonds—That’s My Story ($30.00, Wheatley Press, L.L.C.) written with Stephen Cooper. Suffice to say his life spans the early days of R&B and rock music to the present. He was an influence on Bruce Springsteen and a member of the E Street Band, Steven Van Zandt, has written a forward to it. Bonds shares memories of traveling with B.B. King and Sam Cooke, his big break on the Dick Clark show, and a raft of stories that will entertain anyone who enjoyed his music and that of his illustrious contemporaries. Bonds did not fall prey to many of the temptations of the music industry, remaining true to his beloved wife and daughter. There are life lessons about perseverance and the support derived from friends and family.

By Alan Caruba































A host of softcover novels offer all manner of summer reading fun. The world of show business is featured in two of them. The Star Attraction by Alison Sweeney ($14.99, Hyperion) introduces the reader to Sophie Atwater, a CrackBerry-addicted, coffee-guzzling, sleep-deprived publicist extraordinaire on the rise at Los Angeles’ elite boutique firm, Bennett/Peters. She has an attentive, somewhat conventional boyfriend and she’s just landed the client of a lifetime, Billy Fox, Hollywood’s new ‘golden boy.’ Fox has the brains and brawn that put him in competition with George Clooney and Ryan Gosling. Put in close quarters with Fox, sparks begin to fly and Sophie learns what it is like to be on the arm of a rising movie star. This is a kind of Bridget Jones meets Hollywood Boulevard story, full of fun and is a debut novel for Sweeney who is a host on the NBC series, “The Biggest Loser”, and a role in “Days of Our lives.” How she found time between that, plus being a wife and mother, to write this novel is anyone’s guess, but we’re glad she did. In Primetime Princess, ($14.95, Amazon Publishing) another novelist makes her debut. Former NBC Executive Vice President, Lindy DeKoven, taps into her real-life network television career to write a deliciously scandalous story in the tradition of “The Devil Wears Proda.”  At the center of the novel is Alexa Ross, vice president of comedy development at Hawkeye Broadcasting System who has fought her way passed the boy’s club and after firing Jerry Keller her sleezy ex-boss, Alexis thinks she’s really at the top. Then she learns Keller has been re-hired and is her newest employee. All-out war ensues and Alexa has to wonder if all her efforts have been worth it. You will have to read this entertaining novel to find out.

By Alan Caruba

 

Ten Steps to Relieve Anxiety: Refocus, Relax and Enjoy Life by H. Michael Zal ($14.95, softcover) is not officially due out until October, but if you have problems with anxiety you might want to make a note to yourself to pick up a copy. I have been a lifelong worrier and I suspect I inherited the trait. It has never incapacitated me and has often protected me from making decisions that would likely not turned out well. There are those, estimated at 6.8 million Americans who suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Dr. Zal, a psychiatrist for the past forty years and a clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, has all the credentials and experience to write about the subject. The good news, then, is that you are not alone and the better news is that this book provides ten easy-to-follow steps to achieve a less stressful, calmer life.

By Alan Caruba
Founding Member of the National Book Critics Circle

My Picks of the Month

Occasionally one receives a book for review that is simply astonishing for its lack of candor and common sense. Clean Energy Nation by Rep. Jerry McNerney, PhD, and Martin Cheek ($27.95, Amacom) is subtitled “Freeing America from the tyranny of fossil fuels.” What tyranny is McNerney talking about? The entire world runs on coal, oil, and natural gas. All transportation depends on gasoline or diesel. Fifty percent of all the electricity produced in the U.S. depends on coal and the U.S. is often described as the Saudi Arabia of coal because we have such vast reserves of it. We also have over an estimated trillion worth of untapped barrels of oil. To argue that this should be abandoned in favor of solar, wind, or biofuels energy, none of whose producers would exist without large government subsidies backed up by mandates for their use is a kind of willful ignorance or insanity.. Suffice to say, this is an extraordinarily silly book.

America is often called a Christian nation based on its historical roots and majority population of Christians, so one can only imagine what a chilly reception The End of Christianity, edited by John W. Loftus, ($11.99, Prometheus Books, softcover) will receive. Loftus is a former minister and now recognized as a leading spokesperson for atheism. The contributors to this book are also noted atheists. What makes the book interesting, however, is its historical review of how Christianity came into being, what religious beliefs preceded it in the ancient world, and how, theologically, it challenges believers to accept some extraordinary beliefs on pure faith. This book is not some screed decrying Christianity, but rather a studied effort to understand its roots, its spread, and the assertions on which it is based. As such, it makes for some very interesting reading. We all need our beliefs challenged on occasion to determine the strength of one’s faith. By contrast, Beginner’s Grace: Bringing Prayer to Life by Kate Braestrup ($15.00, Free Press, softcover) offers practical suggestions on how to incorporate prayer into one’s life for all occasions and situations, as well as the role that parents can play in instructing children in faith. A chaplain to the Maine Warden Service that engages in search-and-rescue, the author shares her experiences and insights.

There are currently more than 6,000 languages spoken around the world and yet one can say “hello” anywhere and be understood. The English language is the lingua franca of the world, required for everything from business and science, diplomacy and education, and entertainment. In China, more people speak English than in America as it taught in its schools to prepare Chinese to go out into the wider world. The English is Coming!How One Language is Sweeping the World by Leslie Dunton-Downer ($14.00, Touchstone, softcover) takes the reader on a journey across commerce and culture, war and peace, to show how everyday English words have become a shared piece of understanding and the way people around the world communicate with one another. This is a wonderful book for anyone who loves words and loves the language that has gone global.

Compared with the work involved in writing a book, fiction or nonfiction, getting it published is often as arduous and difficult as task. Literary history is filled with now famous writers being rejected over and over again. Mike Nappa has written 77 Reasons Why Your Book was Rejected(and how to make sure itwon’t happen again!) ($14.99, Sourcebooks, softcover). It is often brutally honest, but this is made more palatable by the humor he brings to this awful task. A literary agent, Nappa knows most of the reasons given for rejection as well as the ones never expressed. The fact is that, with the invention of the computer, just about everyone has become convinced they can and should write a book. In addition, there are many affordable outlets that will publish it for you, for a fee. With thousands of book proposals flooding agents and editors, it would be useful for the aspiring writer or one who has been rejected to know why one’s book simply cannot find a publisher. I suspect Nappa grew tired of explaining over and over again why a book was rejected. Now he need only hand them his new book and, if you have a book you want published, you should read it!

While wandering the aisles of the Book Expo, I came across Urban Farming: Sustainable City Living in Your Backyard, in your Community, and in the World ($24.95, Bowtie Press, softcover) by Thomas J. Fox. I confess I am not enamored of all the tree-hugger talk of sustainability because it often masks an agenda to control people’s lives, but this book offers a lot of information about how to grow healthy vegetables and fruits in an urban setting. It is a practical guide filled with how-to advice, enhanced by many handsome full-color photos. Our little backyard in New Jersey always had space set aside where Mother would plant a variety of items that graced our dinner plates with fresh vegetables throughout the spring, summer, and into early fall.

Dog owners are a special breed—no pun intended—and some write wonderful books about their furry companions. Stanley Coren has established himself as an expert with two previous books on “How Dogs Think” and “How to Speak Dog.” His latest is a delightful memoir, Born to Bark: My Adventures with an Irrepresible and Unforgettable Dog ($16.00, Free Press, softcover). Coren writes “For Christmas the woman who would become my wife bought me a dog—a little terrier. The next year her Christmas gift to me was a shotgun. Most of the people in my family believe that the two gifts were not unrelated.” The dog was Flint and this psychologist’s memoir will provide lots of laughter as he relates his experience with an extraordinary, willful pooch and those that had preceded it.

Getting Down to Business (Books)

Those in the field of marketing are always searching for answers to why we purchase what we purchase. In interesting book will help answer that question. The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature by Gad Saad ($25.00, Prometheus Books) answers what it is that all successful fast-food restaurants have in common. Why women are more likely to be compulsive shoppers than men, but men more likely to become addicted to pornography. How the fashion industry plays on our innate need to belong and many other questions that involve the underlying evolutionary basis for most of our consumer behavior. While culture is important, says Dr. Saad, a professor of marketing at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University, there are deeper forces at work in our psyche that range from survival to reproduction to kin selection. All of which makes this a very interesting book to read for any reason whatever. In a somewhat similar fashion Glued to Games: How Video Games Draw Us in and Hold Us Spellbound by Scott Rigby and Richard M. Ryan ($34.95, Praeger) explores the heart of gaming’s powerful psychological and emotional allure. Indeed, it is no longer just kids and teens who are hooked on them, but adults as well. Parents, researchers, and those who love these games will find this book of interest, particularly if there’s someone in the family or a friend who is addicted to them. Both authors come to the subject with backgrounds in psychology and related research, so this is a serious book about an entertaining topic.

It’s a topic that politicians, business executives, celebrities, and many others find of great interest, Elements of Influence: The Art of Getting Others to Follow Your Lead ($26.00, Amacom). Terry R. Bacon says it is not some kind of magic power, but rather something that we do all the time whenever we want someone to do something, to believe something, to agree with us or to behave differently. While it is not possible to influence anyone to do anything, it is possible to develop the skills necessary and the author explains how influence really actually works, ethically, consensually, and productively, in business, in everyday life, and in a world of cultural diversity. It does, however, require “a great deal of adaptability, perceptiveness, and insight into other people” says the author. Backed by decades of research, I have no doubt that this book would prove useful to anyone seeking to improve their ability to influence those around them. In the world of business, the best result is leadership.

On a lighter level there’s Dumbemployed: Hilariously Dumb and Sadly True Stories About Jobs Like Yours by Phil Edwards and Matt Kraft ($13.00, Running Press, softcover) that is filled with more than 800 short paragraphs that demonstrate you are not alone if your workplace sometimes resembles a madhouse. Divided into five chapters, bosses, customers, just dumb, overtime and weird shift, it is a chronicle of every workplace misery you could imagine, plus some you can’t. These short takes will make you laugh (or groan) from page to page.

Let’s Get Cooking

Cookbooks come in all sizes and varieties, but one especially good idea is one that comes in a five-ringed binder that permits the cook to lay it flat on the counter top and, when you add in tabbed sections, the ease of use is matched by the quality of its recipes. This is the case of the Taste of Home Baking: All-New Edition ($29.95, Taste of Home Books) that is officially due out this September. It offers 786 recipes that are accompanied by more than 730 color photos in 510 pages. This is a hefty book that is likely to serve its user for a lifetime with its comprehensive collection of recipes on just about every kind of baked item from cakes to breads and everything in between. It would make an ideal gift for the newly married homemaker who wants to bake but does not want to deal with often daunting recipes. Instead, if offers all the tips and advice one could want for a beginner, but plenty of recipes for the most advanced baker.

Put your order in now to get your copy of All About Roasting by Molly Stevens ($35.00, W.W. Norton) due in the bookstores in November. If I could only eat food prepared in one fashion, it would be “roasted” because it brings out the taste of meats. The author describes when to use high, moderate or low heat to get the best results in juicy, well-seared meats, caramelized drippings, and concentrated flavors. There are 150 recipes that include beef, lamb, pork and poultry, as well as herb-roasted shrimp and basted broccoli. Suffice to say this is a book for anyone who is really serious about producing meals that will linger in the memory of family and guests for years after. The author has won both the James Beard and IACP cookbook awards, and is a contributing editor at Fine Cooking magazine. It will become a treasured reference and guide on the bookshelves of those who purchase it.

From Da Capo Press come two food-oriented books, two of which are devoted to the vegan lifestyle. Just out in July is Vegan for Life:Everything You Need to Know to be Healthy and Fit on a Plant-Based Diet by Jack Norris, RD, and Virginia Messina, MPH, RD ($17.00, softcover) and Sinfully Vegan: More than 160 Decadent Desserts to Satisfy Every Sweet Tooth by Lois Dieterly ($18.00, softcover). The former book addresses how difficult it is to give up meat, fish, eggs, dairy, and all other animal-derived ingredients and it acknowledges that “many new vegans can suddenly find themselves suffering from deficiencies of fundamental nutrients like protein, calcium, and iron.” That a warning sign worth considering insofar as the human body, over millennia is designed and intended to eat meat. There are teeth in everyone’s mouth whose purpose is to chew meat. For those who, for whatever reason, intend to become vegans, this book will be helpful, but I personally do not recommend the vegan diet. As for vegan desserts, you will find plenty in the latter book.

Women have their special needs and an interesting book, Eat to Defeat Menopause: The Essential Nutrition Guide for a Healthy Midlife---with more than 130 Recipes ($19.00, Lifelong Books, softcover) by Karen Giblin and Mache Seibel,.MD. The midlife “change” is subject to myths, uncertainties, and some trepidation. It makes sense that what one eats can have good or bad effects on the body’s changing chemistry. The good news is that black bean and rice salads, lobster and duck chow mein, and chocolate mouse pie are among the many ways to satisfy every craving or mood swing. You will learn why eating foods that contain phytoestrogens, such as soy and garlic, combat hot flashes, mood swings are stabilized by eating omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin B. There is a lot of excellent and interesting dietary information in this food.

I have seen so many diet books over the years that I am wary of most, but Timothy S. Harlan, MD, has penned Just Tell Me What to Eat! The Delicious 6-Week Loss Plan for the Real World ($25.00, Da Capo Press). It addresses the fact that there are an estimated 145 million Americans, aged 25 and up, who are overweight. After hearing from patients complain how confused they were by all the various diet plans, he decided to write one of his own. It is not a fad diet, nor a typical diet plan because it not only tells the reader what to eat, but why to eat it. The recipes reflect a variety of cuisines from Italian and French to Spanish and American. It even discusses convenience food alternatives when there isn’t time to prepare a meal. It is an informed and informative book about dieting that should prove helpful to take its advice and stick to it.

Science & Math Stuff

As someone who has difficulty with sums, I am in awe of those who can do them in their head and actually think math is fun! For them, there’s Here’s Looking at Euclid by Alex Bellos ($15.00, Free Press, softcover) “From counting ants to games of chance, an awe-inspiring journey through the world of numbers”, says the subtitle. The book is full of interesting information such as the fact that numbers of not innate to humans, but came into use about 8,000 years ago. There’s a tribe in the Amazon that can only count to five. Apparently they need one hand to count the fingers on the other. Who knows? If you love numbers, odds are you will enjoy this book. Even more arcane is The Wave Watcher’s Companion by Gavin Pretor-Pinney ($15.00, Perigee, softcover) that will appeal to anyone who has wondered about the motions we call waves, from brain waves to sound waves, infrared waves, to all manner of comparable patterns that appear to have a similarity. This book isn’t just for those into science, but also natures, history, and even surfing.

There has been controversy about the theory of evolution since Charles Darwin put it forth and, indeed, a friend of mine, Robert W. Felix, disputes it in his book “Magnetic Reversals and Evolutionary Leaps” that correlates such phenomenon with mass extinctions and the sudden emergence of new species. The Fact ofEvolution by Cameron M. Smith ($18.00, Prometheus Books, softcover) asserts that evolution is, well, a fact. He offers all manner of real-world examples to show that not only does it happen, but that it must happen. Suffice to say this is some very deep scientific writing about things such as “phyletic gradualism vs. punctuated equilibrium.” Don’t ask me what any of that means. You will have to read the book to find out, but I have my doubts about anything that has to come up with arcane, undecipherable language to describe its views. From the same publisher comes The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe is Not Designed for Us by Victor J. Stenger ($28.00, Prometheus Books). Stenger is a physicist who goes after the view that the universe was the creation of God and why nature is not part of a divine plan. A great deal of effort is expended in this effort and, if you’re an atheist, you will find comfort in the author’s conclusion. If you’re not, reading it will not likely change your mind. I doubt the universe really cares what anyone thinks.

National Issues

As the 2012 election begins to loom in the minds of Americans who will be tasked to select a President and Congress, it is not surprising that there are books offering to provide information and a point of view on national issues.

People who self-identify as patriots, members of the Tea Party movement, and other groups devoted to the U.S. Constitution and national values are being derided regularly these days by those who want to change America into something it was never intended to be. If you would like to learn what that is, I recommend that you read The Patriot’s History Reader: Essential Documents for Every American ($17.00, Sentinel, softcover). The editor, Larry Schweikart, first came to notice with his book, “A Patriot’s History of the United States”, and other books based on history, a subject he teachers at the University of Dayton. This new book contains a whole range of reading matter from the original Articles of Confederation (that were replaced by the Constitution) to Barack Obama’s “A New Beginning” speech in 2009. There are many such documents from our history that provide valuable insights to the choices we made and the nation we became.

Dr. L. Lynn Cleland, Ph.D., has authored Save Our System, subtitled “Why and how ‘We the People’ must reclaim our liberties now.” We know that too many Americans have passed through the educational system without receiving the knowledge they need to understand the Constitution and what it was the Founding Fathers had in mind when they fashioned the federal government, a republic composed of separate republics, the States. The book ($16.95, Two Harbors Press, softcover) is not a diatribe against either political party, but it does identify the nation’s systemic problems, along with their causes, evolution, solutions, and actions citizens can take to return the nation to its fundamental principles. You will learn what effect “career politicians” have on both creating and distorting the answer to problems, government systems that are near failure, and much more in this excellent “textbook” to bring any reader up to speed to make important decisions about the future at election time.

Adrift: Charting Our Course Back to a Great Nation by William C. Harris and Steven C. Beschloss ($25.00, Prometheus Books) brings together Harris, the president of Science Foundation Arizona and other science-related organizations, and Beschloss, a journalist who was a Pulitzer Prize nominee. The authors offer their diagnosis of what they deem to be critical systemic weaknesses plaguing America. The blueprint they propose leans a tad to liberal solutions, but their proposals are worth considering.

There’s considerable irony that all the proposals offered by President Obama during his 2008 campaign and first year in office regarding issues involving the programs put in place by former President Bush were abandoned in their favor and continued maintenance. In National Security, Civil Liberties, and the War on Terror ($21.00, Prometheus Books, softcover), those issues are hotly debated in a collection of essays edited by M. Katherine B. Darmer, a professor of law at Chapman University School of Law and an assistant US Attorney in New York, NY, and Richard D. Fybel, an associate justice of the California Court of Appeal in Santa Ana, CA.

Novels, Novels, Novels

Novels arrive daily and my office table has more than forty of them in various stacks during any given month. They come from the mainstream publishers, large and small, some university presses, and self-published authors. (See my Pick of the Month book on why most authors have their books rejected.) Humans are story-telling creatures from the days they huddled around fires in caves.

One of this year’s most exciting new novels reflects recent headlines that the Pentagon has been under cyber attack from a foreign nation. Its timing could not be much better. If I could, I would want everyone in the White House, the Congress, the Pentagon, and the business community to read The Chinese Conspiracy by John Mariotti ($22.95, iUniverse, softcover). It is a thrilling novel of cyber war whose author has established himself as a successful writer of nine non-fiction books, as well as a contributor to blogs on the Forbes and American Express websites. The story begins with a scenario of America’s vital communications and elements of its infrastructure system, including the Pentagon, shut down by an unknown cyber enemy. Imagine the chaos if all the traffic lights in New York turned green at the same time? Mariotti uses his extensive knowledge of commerce and computer technology to envision an America in which no one can talk via their cell phones or access the Internet. It is one in which millions of computers have been invaded by a “worm” that controls their use. This may, in fact, be the way a future war will be fought, but for now this novel offers a globe-spanning story that will remind you of novels by Tom Clancy. If you read just one thriller this year, make sure it is this one. The best place to purchase this novel is via Amazon.com.

The itch to write a novel is one that so seizes some people that it would be better described as an addiction. The authors that amaze me are those who managed to put thousands of words on page after page. The only rule I apply is whether they manage to hold your attention. This was the task before Sam Djang who spent eight years and traveled to many nations—Russia, China, Mongolia, among others—to research the life of Genghis Khan. To the extent that Genghis Khan: The World Conqueror (Volumes I and II) is 90% factual, held together by a skein of fiction, he has more than succeeded in capturing the life, the times, and the impact of a man who, in his lifetime, conquered more land than Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, or the size of the Roman Empire, surely makes him a worthy topic. By 2010 A.D., the Mongol Empire measured 13,754,663 square miles, the largest in history. Volume One and Volume Two are both 420 pages in length ($29.95/$19.95, New Horizon Books, hard and softcover editions.) Khan’s was the age when human civilization gained knowledge of the compass, paper, gun powder, astronomy, mathematics, and developed techniques to make glass. Anyone who loves history will thoroughly love this book.

If you are in the mood for a courtroom thriller, pick up a copy of Margaret McLean’s Under Fire ($24.99, Forge) who has already been hailed as one of next new faces of Boston crime fiction with her debut. On a tragic night, a Boston firefighter is shot and killed in the line of duty while rescuing Amina Diallo and her 15-year-old son, Malick, from their burning store. A Senegalese Muslim immigrant, she is arrested for arson and murder, facing a likely conviction given Boston’s unease with its growing immigrant and Muslim population. Her defense attorneys are facing more than just prejudices, but attacks on their client and key defense witness. Ms. McLean, a former prosecutor, trial attorney, and currently a professor at Boston College, joins a well-worn path from attorney to novelist with her first novel and does so in ways that will keep you turning the pages.

Another debut novel is Luke Williams’ The Echo Chamber ($25.95, Viking) that was published in Great Britain in May to rave reviews and is available now in America. The reader is invited into the world of Evie Steppman, born in 1946 during the dying days of the British Empire in Nigeria. Evie has acute hearing and, to her, the world is a loud, cacophonous place. She is too young to make sense of all the sounds, but she hoards them in a vast internal sonic archive. The novel is narrated by a 54-year-old Evie, now living in Scotland, sorting through an attic filled with objects from her past. Her powers of hearing are beginning to fade and she sets out to record her history before it disintegrates on her. Family, empire, and memory coalesce in a novel that is an amazing feat of imagination. This one is surely worth reading. And still another novelist makes his debut with The Butterfly Cabinet ($22.99, Free Press). Bernie McGill has spun a tale based on a true story of the death of the daughter of an aristocratic Irish family at the end of the 19th century. It begins with a former nanny, now in her 90s, who received a letter from the last of her charges that evokes a secret she has been keeping for more than 70 years about what really happened on the last day in the life of Charlotte Orman, the four-year-old, only daughter in a house where she was employed. If you’re thinking of the recent Casey Anthony trial, this novel suggests that such events have a way of repeating themselves.

Cheryl Crane, the daughter of movie star, Lana Turner, gained fame when in 1957, at the age of 14, she stabbed to death one of her mother’s lovers, a Hollywood hoodlum, who was threatening to kill her mother. She has written a number of books and has authored The Bad Always Die Twice ($24.00. Kensington). It goes on sale officially on August 30. This novel draws on her own life in real estate and debuts a Nikki Harper series based pm a realtor-turned-amateur sleuth. It closely reflects her own life as a realtor to the stars. It begins with a frenzied call from Nikki’s business partner, Jessica Martin, saying that a TV has-been, Rex March, has been found dead in Jessica’s bed. Especially shocking is that, as far as anyone knew, Rex had died six months earlier. It’s obvious that Jessica is being framed and Nikki knows she must act swiftly to find out who the killer is. This is a very lively, fast-paced thriller that is sure to please fans of this genre. You Never Know by Lilian Duval ($21.95, Wheatmark, Tucson, AZ) explores what happens when extraordinary things happen to ordinary people. The author is a survivor of the 9/11 attack and lives in New Jersey where the novel’s protagonist, Tobias Hillyer, has a life filled with both tragedy and extraordinary luck. This is a novel in which the characters intertwine in an ever-changing landscape of events, capped by Hillyer’s win of a MegaMillions lottery that, despite the millions involved, evoke a whole new set of problems. It an intriguing story filled with unexpected twists and turns.

There are scores of softcover novels. Just out this month there’s The Whole Package by Cynthia Ellingen ($15.00, Berkley) who makes her debut with a novel about three women approaching forty who find that even though things haven’t gone according to plan, their friendship and resourcefulness present them with the perfect opportunity for a new venture, a restaurant staffed exclusively by handsome men. Women, of course, will enjoy this one. There’s love and lust to spare in Francine Thomas Howard’s novel, Paris Noire, (14.95, AmazonEncore) about African American and Caribbean immigrants to France as the U.S. Army liberates Paris in 1944. The widowed mother of two young adults is concerned as they embark on their romances and contemplates a new one for herself in a story that explores race, sex, and a vivid time in history.

That’s it for August and ahead are the many new books that are published each autumn. Be sure to come back to Bookviews as we select from the torrent, leaving the bestsellers to the mainstream media while we mine for lesser literary gems. Tell your book-reading friends and family members about Bookviews, bookmark it, and come back in September.

By Alan Caruba
Founding member of the National Book Critics Circle

My Picks of the Month

Five Stars! If you want to learn how the U.S. got into the financial mess we’re in, I recommend you pick up a copy of Lost Decades: The Making of America’s Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery by Menzie D. Chinn and Jeffrey A. Frieden ($26.95, W.W. Norton). It is singularly one of the best books on the subject I have read as the authors present an interesting history of what is shaping up to be the Great Depression 2.0. Not only does the reader learn of the history of the Great Depression and the measures that emerged that turned what should have been a relatively short recession cascaded into a period between 1929, through the 1930s, and ending with the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the nation into World War Two. While we speak of globalization these days, the 1920s was a period in which the developed nations were closely linked financially with considerable lending and investment back and forth across the Atlantic. When the U.S. slid into the Depression, Europe followed soon after. A very nearly comparable scenario is playing out now. Then, as now, the remedies the political class put forth failed as we have seen more recently with the “stimulus” programs and other programs that have not stemmed increasing unemployment, foreclosures, and the misery that characterizes such crises. The book provides a clear, concise, and impartial explanation of how we got here.

Four Stars!The Anatomy of Israel’s Survival by Hirsh Goodman ($26.99, Public Affairs) looks at the conditions threatening Israel’s future, offering his view that it is demography, the growing Arab population within and beyond Israel that is the greatest challenge and one that requires the acceptance of a Palestinian state. There is a parity between Israel’s Arab and Jewish populations, but in a decade this will shift to the Arabs. This is one of the best books you will ever read on the history of Israel’s struggle to survive and the threats that exist today. Goodman is a longtime journalist who now holds a senior research position at the Institute for National Security Studies at the University of Tel Aviv. All around the Middle East nations are in upheaval and everyone awaits the outcome of the turmoil in Egypt, Libya, Syria and elsewhere. Achieving peace with the Palestinians may be difficult, he argues, but holds the key to the future. Anyone concerned with the welfare and future of Israel will find his analysis of great interest. The Ayatollahs’ Democracy: An Iranian Challenge ($15.95, W.W. Norton, softcover) by Hooman Majd provides valuable insights to Iranian politics, controlled by a small group of fanatical Islamists intent on achieving Middle East hegemony and, of course, nuclear weapons parity while opening threatening Israel with annihilation. Majd, a former Iranian, a journalist, spells out what has occurred since the ayatollahs took control of Iran in 1979 and how they use draconian methods to stay in power. While our concerns have turned inward toward our own economic survival, we need to remain alert to external threats and both Iran and China are at the top of the list these days.

Four Stars! A second revolution of sorts occurred in the 1950’s and 60’s when the Civil Rights movement was instrumental in ending segregation and the Jim Crow oppression of Blacks in the South. It was so successful that, by 2008, Americans elected their first Black President. Even so, the Black population in America has been outpaced by every other minority and suffers from a pathology that has destroyed its family structure and rendered much of its youth ignorant and unskilled with a large portion of its men incarcerated. Dr. Seth A. Forman, a social scientist who teaches government and public policy at Stony Brook University, has just had American Obsession: Race and Conflict in the Age of Obama published ($17.95, Booklocker.com, softcover). I heartily recommend it for the manner in which the author links facts, history, and sociology together to render a portrait of what the Black community is doing to itself, how it is influencing the politics and social policies of our times, and how Whites, who made great strides in erasing the ills of the past, are reacting at both the local and national level. Its examination of President Obama’s racial identification and adoption of black liberation theology and politics is masterful. Those interested in politics will enjoy his examination of the 2008 election. In many ways this is a courageous book for the truths it addresses that hinder Black assimilation into the larger society and its values. It comes as America’s first Black President begins a campaign to be reelected. His polling numbers are all plummeting. The 2012 election is likely to be a massive rejection of Obama and the Democratic Party.

Also in the area of policy, I recommend David H. Brown’s Full Body Scam: The Naked View of Current Airport Security ($14.95, Authorhouse, softcover). What Brown doesn’t know about aviation and air travel is probably not worth knowing. As far back as the late 1960s, Brown was the press officer for the Federal Aviation Administration’s Task Force on the Deterrence of Air Piracy. He was a response to a spate of airline skyjackings to Cuba. After 9/11 an understandable panic set in because three airliners were used to perpetrate it. The problem was the response in the form of the Transportation Safety Administration and its insane practice of treating 100% of all travelers, including babies and elderly invalids, as potential terrorists. Brown has written books on this topic heretofore and has combined two of them into this new look that raises serious questions about the erosion of Constitution rights to privacy Americans used to take for granted. I am happy to recommend this book to anyone with an interest or concern about the way the TSA has turned air travel into a very unpleasant experience for everyone without once having actually found a terrorist waiting for a pat down or a body scan.

It’s no secret that I love reading history and occasionally a book comes along that provides an unusual insight beyond the standard telling of a given event. Signing Their Rights Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the United States Constitution ($19.95, Quirk Books) is the work of Denise Kiernan and Joseph D’Agnese who previously introduced us to the men who signed the Declaration of Independence and their fates. Now they have turned their attention to the 39 men who met in the summer of 1787 to create the Constitution and to sign their names to it. Though rarely taught in our schools, the Constitution, written behind closed doors in Philadelphia, was a response, eleven years after the Revolution, to save the new nation from the chaos of the former Articles of Confederation. The nation was facing political collapse, citizens feared a strong central government, banks were issuing their own currencies, and out of that came the oldest living constitution in the world! The book chronicles how these men put aside their personal gain for the greater good of the nation, arrived at compromises, and combined the knowledge of legal scholars, those who had served in war, and were just as quirky and flawed as elected officials today. It is a truly fascinating story that puts their achievement in perspective.

Does it say something about a society in which a creature called a “metrosexual” has emerged? Most certainly, Hollywood keeps churning out films with cartoon super heroes that make men look puny by comparison. An entertaining and useful new book, Manskills: How to Avoid Embarrassing Yourself and Impress Everyone Else by Chris Peterson ($15.99, Creative Publishing International, distributed by Quayside Publishing Group softcover) provides short, page to page instructions on things like how to catch a fish without a rod and reel, iron a dress shirt, and be a great host. In truth, this would be a great gift for young men in high school or college, as well as older men who never learned fundamental skills from jumping a dead battery to selecting the best steak. Indeed, for the “foodies” among us (and I most certainly am one) there’s a delightful book by Albert Jack, What Caesar Did For My Salad: The Curious Stories Behind Our Favorite Foods ($18.00, Perigee, Berkley Publishing Group). You will be the hit of any dinner party as you explain that the word “salary” comes from the practice of paying Roman soldiers in salt. It is also why we often say someone is worth his salt. Black pepper has been in use for seven thousand years. I have a cousin who loves Cob Salad, but I bet he doesn’t know it was invented by Robert H. Cobb, founder of the famed Brown Derby restaurant chains in Los Angeles. He made it from whatever he found in the refrigerator for Sidney Grauman, owner of the Chinese Theatre, who loved it and began ordering it to a point where it caught on and became part of the menu. The book is filled with the history of foods and makes for great reading.

It is no secret that the nation’s educational system has been so dumbed down since around the 1960s that the kids passing through are being fed a diet of diversity, sex education, and distorted history, among other ills. Ron Clark was named America’s teacher of the year by Disney and deemed phenomenal by Oprah. His Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta has been visited by more than 10,000 teachers from around the world to learn how to improve education. He’s written The End of Molasses Classes: Getting Our Kids Unstuck ($23.00, Touchstone, a division of Simon and Schuster) offering real solutions for parents and teachers in which he spells out his recommendations for parents who want to instill the right attitudes and skills in their children from an early age and for teachers who need strategies to help every students achieve success in school. He also has advice for communities as to what they can do. This is a man on a mission and I recommend this book to one and all. It’s clear to anyone who was educated long ago when mastery of the English language was an essential part of learning that entire generations are deficient.

Those of my generation grew up enjoying Ripley’s Believe It or Not, a syndicated newspaper column that was filled with oddities. The Ripley’s empire has recently published Ripley’s Believe It or Not: Strikingly True ($28.95, Ripley Publishing), a collection of incredible and bizarre facts, stories, interviews, lists, and features that adds up to hours of entertaining reading. Begun in 2004, this annual reference has a million copies worldwide in circulation and, in 2010, made it to The Wall Street Journal bestseller list. It is just page after page, lavishly illustrated, that provide the kind of diversion that only a book can. Keep it handy at bedside or in the bathroom to pass the time.

Lastly, this month marks the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and it is to be expected that some publisher would put out a book to do so. Lyons Press has published 9/11: The World Speaks ($24.95) offering a selection of the cards expressing the thoughts of some of the two million people who visited the World Trade Center Visitor Center. Regrettably, they are mostly rather banal and predictable. I wish I could say it was inspiring, but it is not.

Memoirs, Biographies, Real People

Five Stars! Do you know someone who is a huge fan of Judy Garland? A big coffee table book, Judy: A Legendary Film Career by John Fricke ($30.00, Running Press) will be a birthday or holiday gift that will dazzle them. This year marks the 75th anniversary of her film debut, as well as other achievements that made her a superstar for the generations that flocked to her films and live performances. Fricke is the preeminent Garland historian and tells her story in unprecedented detail, augmented by more than 500 photos and illustrations. This has got to be the ultimate Garland book for all the information it contains. From 1936 to 1963, she provided memorable performances, singing, dancing and acting. Her life and career left an indelible imprint on her era. She was a great entertainer and now she has a book that matches her talents.

Before there was Martin Luther King Jr., there was Martin Luther King Sr., a driving force for civil rights in Atlanta from the pulpit of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Murray A. Silver, an attorney, has written Daddy King and Me: Memories of the Forgotten Father of the Civil Rights Movement ($29/95, Continental Shelf Publishing, Savannah, GA), a slim memoir that encompasses the author’s experience at the heart of the civil rights movement, aiding not just King Jr., but all the key players in that great struggle of the 1950s and 60s. Especially close to King Sr., he was an eye witness to the events and personalities. His memoir is especially useful for anyone interested in that period of U.S. history. It is a warm, fact-filled selection of the highlights of that period and one that takes the reader behind the veil of history into the homes of his family and Dr. King Sr’s. Since his wife and Coretta Scott King shared a birthday, they celebrated together, but this book is particularly interesting for the depth of emotional attachment it reveals that kept the various participants strong in periods of shared tragedy. The power of Daddy King’s faith and his capacity for love was the platform from which his son led a revolution.

Coming in October is Paul Johnson’s short biography of Socrates ($25.95, Viking) taking the reader back to the fifth century B.C. in Athens, demonstrating how his thoughts still shape our actions, our understanding of body and soul, and providing a portrait of a middle class citizen of that nation-state whose philosophy shaped the thoughts of generations that followed. Mary Bowman-Kruhm has written a biography of anthropologist, Margaret Mead ($17.00, Prometheus Books, softcover) who came to prominence when her book “Coming of Age in Samoa” was published in 1928, swiftly becoming a bestseller. For the next five decades, she became the public face of anthropology in the U.S., generating both acclaim and controversy. She had a career at the American Museum of Natural History, three marriages, and at one time came to the aid of the American Anthropological Association when it was in financial straits. She encouraged a whole generation of anthropologists. The author has written more than thirty books for children and young adults, but the book will serve the interest of older readers. Just out this month is Einstein On the Road by Josef Eisinger ($25.00, Prometheus Books) that tells the story of how Albert Einstein, at the height of his fame traveled around the world between 1922 and 1933. At that point, the Nazi takeover of Germany caused him to leave for sanctuary in Princeton, NJ, where he became an American citizen as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study. Einstein kept notes of his observations as he traveled to places such as Japan, Spain, the British mandate of Palestine that would become the state of Israel, and to America, meeting with royalty, presidents, movie stars, and the greatest scientists and physicists of his era. Einstein was interested the advances, the arts and the culture of his day. Anyone interested in Einstein and the history of his times will find this a very enjoyable read.

The human side of the practice of medicine is revealed in The Man Who Lived in an Eggcup: A Memoir of Triumph and Self-Destruction by Dr. John Camel, MD ($14.95, Bascom Hill Publishing Group, softcover). The publisher describes it, saying, “In the corridors of every hospital lurk tales of triumph and tragedy, lives won and lost to the world of medicine. But the complexity of the human psyche cannot be stripped down to mere science. Indeed, it’s in this environment—where people remain at their most vulnerable—that the human condition manifests itself the strongest.” This is a look behind the scenes in hospitals where life can hang in the balance and when diagnosis, success and failure, includes the human component of emotions brought on by tragedy. Tragedy involving a mentally ill mother is the theme of The Memory Palace: A Memoir by Mira Bartok ($15.00, Free Press, softcover) “Even now, when the phone rings late at night, I think it’s her. I stumble out of bed ready for the worst. The last time my mother called it was in 1990. I was thirty-one and living in Chicago. She said if I didn’t come home right away she’d kill herself.” Norma Bartok was a piano prodigy in her youth, but a severe case of schizophrenia created a hellish upbringing for Mira and her sister. To survive, the decided to stay away and, for 17 years, her contact was through letters to a post office box so her mother could not find her. The author of 28 books for children, this memoir will interest anyone who has a family member suffering from this mental illness. It debuted to an avalanche of much deserved praise.

In 1946, Tomas Castellano, age 17, set sail from Franco’s fascist rule in Spain. Without telling them of his plans, he had to leave his family behind, but his desire for freedom was so great that he stole a sailboat and set sail across the Atlantic for America. The story is told in Journey ($13.40, Authorhouse.com, softcover) by his son, Stephen Mateo. It took 90 days to make the journey and a lifetime for the story to unfold. It is filled with many interesting people who helped Tomas fulfill his dream and who became a part of his life. It was not until 1955 that he was able to return to Spain and visit with the family he had left behind. In America he would marry and raise a family in freedom. It’s too easy for a story like this to slip by unnoted, but this one deserves a wide readership.

Life upon the ocean waves and the search for the treasure of sunken ships below is the subject of Capt. Syd Jones’ account, Atocha Treasure Adventures: Sweat of the Sun, Tears of the Moon: A True Story ($25.00, autographed copy, order from www.atochatreasureadventures.com, softcover). It presents three individual story lines that eventually come together as it tells the story of Treasure Salvors, Inc’s occasionally desperate and often self-destructive search for shipwrecked Spanish treasure galleon riches. The story is told through the experiences of the actual people and events, some reaching back four hundred years ago, in such a way the reader gets to experience the thrills and disappointments of today’s real treasure hunters with all the human elements of adventure, romance, tragedy, betrayal, greed, and uncommon optimism involved in finding the richest treasure galleons ever, as told by one of its participants.

I knew nothing of the Boyce-Sneed feud until I read Vengeance is Mine: The Scandalous Love Triangle that Triggered the Boyce-Sneed Feud by Bill Neal ($24.95, University of North Texas Press). It became a legend in West Texas when it erupted in bloodshed in 1912. Almost a half century later, the author has pieced together the elements of the story that featured Lena Snyder Sneed, a high spirited, headstrong wife; Al Boyce, Jr., Lena’s reckless, romantic lover; and John Beal Sneed, Lena’s arrogant and vindictive husband who responded to her plea for a divorce by having her locked up in an insane asylum. When Al rescued Lena from the asylum, the chase was on as the lovers fled to Canada. Sneed would assassinate Al’s father and later Boyce. He was twice acquitted of murder. It was a crime of passion and trials that were dramatic for the tactics used. It is great social history.

Marriage, Parenting Skills

Marriage is the greatest leap of faith anyone can make and it behooves those who plan to get married to know how to avoid one that will turn out badly. Psychotherapist Isabelle Fox, PhD, and attorney Robert M. Fox, have written The Prospective Spouse Checklist: Evaluating Your Potential Partner ($14.95, New Horizon Press, softcover) that is officially due out in October. The authors provide a rational approach to evaluating the person in order to avoid emotion-driven and unwise marriages. This is a good idea given the high rate of divorce in America and the too-frequent emotional and other damage involved. The book provides 35 keys to evaluate including ten red-flag warning signs. I would not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone contemplating marriage.

After marriage (and sometimes without) come children. Annie Murphy Paul has written Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our lives ($15.00, Free Press, softcover). Childbearing has long been the subject of various myths and advice. The author sorts it out in ways that make this book an absolute must-read for expectant mothers and those who care about them. The mysteries of pre-natal development are explored in ways that make the experience less stressful and can lead to a successful, healthy birth. The Hour that Matters Most: The Surprising Power of the Family Meal by Les and Leslie Parrott. Psychologists, with Stephanie Allen and Tina Kuna ($15.99, Tyndale House, softcover) particularly resonated with me because, in my family, the evening dinner always began at 5 PM and, since my Mother was a teacher of gourmet cooking, it was always a special treat. More importantly, it was an opportunity for my older brother, myself and my parents to exchange information that was useful to them and to us. It created a strong bond, built on good food, camaraderie, and love. If dinner hour at your home is a scattershot affair, you need to read this book and benefit from it. Keeping Your Child in Mind by Dr. Claudia M. Gold, MD, ($15.00, Da Capo Press, softcover) focuses more on “what to be” as a parent, as opposed to “what to do” with children. A pediatric physician, the author bring a lot of experience and knowledge that helps the reader understand the world from the child’s perspective so that various behavior problems can quickly and effectively be addressed while controlling one’s own strong emotions. The book looks at various ages and stages of development, imparting excellent advice that will make the job of parenting much easier.

Bullying has become a major problem at schools and this particularly affects teenagers. Every parent wants to help their bullied teenager and Hey, Back Off: Tips for Stopping Teen Harassment by Jennie Withers with Phyllis Hendrickson, M.Ed. ($14.95, New Horizon Press, softcover) is filled with advice that provides tens and parents the proven tools, tips and strategies to stop bullying as well as ways to prevent them from becoming bullies. In an age of cell phones, texting, and social networks like Facebook, there has been a rise in this behavior and it behooves all concerned parents to learn what to do.

Kid’s Books

How was it that early pioneers on isolated farms or in towns where one school taught all ages were able to teach an entire generation or two of children how to read and do their sums when today’s schools often pass them through, totally illiterate, to graduation? And what role do parent’s play in encouraging youngsters to acquire a love of reading? Given the vast quantity of new and existing books for younger readers, including pre-schoolers, there is no excuse for this.

One of my favorite publishing houses for younger readers is American Girl and it is, of course, directed at girls and their particular interests. They have a number of excellent new books for the autumn. Among them are Stand Up for Yourself Journal ($9.95) that offers quizzes and questions to help girls stand strong against bullying. Feeling Great: A Girl’s Guide to Fitness, Friends & Fun ($8.95) discusses various strength exercises, yoga poses, and games for girls to explore for a healthier lifestyle. These girls, ages 7 to 10, will also enjoy A Crafty Girl’s Planner ($9.95) that is filled with ideas of things to make and do that are far more fun than just staring at the television. In a similar fashion Just Grandma and Me ($10,95) offers lots of ideas that girls can do with their grandmothers to create a bond and memories that will last a lifetime. The reader age 8 to 11 will enjoy the Innerstar University series that includes A Surprise Find and Dive Right In ($8.95 each) that explore sharing and how to accept someone more talented or skilled into your life. Growing up is filled with questions and challenges and A Smart Girl’s Guide to Knowing What to Say: Finding the Words to Fit Any Situation ($9.95) is a great way to prepare a girl to deal with all kinds of situations from asking a teacher for help to standing up to a bully.

Another favorite children’s book house I like is Kids Can Press. They, too, have a raft of new books for kids. Reaching by Judy Ann Sadler and illustrated by Susan Mitchell ($16.95) uses rhyming verse to describe a sunny afternoon with the family as a baby experiences new things and is helped in many ways. A young child with a new baby in the family would benefit greatly from having this read or, as a early reader, reading it on their own. Just for fun, there’s Binky Under Pressure by Ashley Spires ($16.95), part of a popular series about a cat. Told largely through cartoons, it follows his adventures adjusting to another cat in the house and is very funny. Another cartoon book is Big City Otto: Elephants Never Forget by the prolific and talented Bill Slavin ($16.95) who writes and illustrates his books. Otto has a good memory and cannot stop thinking about his long lost friend, Georgie, a chimp, snatched from the jungle. With his parrot pal, Crackers, they set off for America to find him and thus begins a hilarious story for the younger reader, Cartoons are also the format for Luz Sees the Light by Claudia Davila ($16.95) that explores when a blackout occurs and her mother experiences financial difficulties, introducing Luz and the reader to a future with less of everything. Finally, there’s Space Tourism for the Machines of the Future series. Written by Peter McMahon and illustrated by Andy Mora, it not only discusses future space flight, but offers some fun projects to demonstrate things like gravity and propulsion for those ages 8 to 12.

From Tanglewood Books comes Ashlee Fletcher’s first book for children, My Dog, My Cat ($13.95) that’s perfect for the earliest readers, preschoolers or those just learning their ABCs and words as it explores the pet lovers’ views of whether dogs or cats are their preferred pet. It is very simple and direct with illustrations by the author that any child will enjoy. From Reader’s Digest came two books for youngsters, Write (Or Is That ‘Right’?) Every Time by Lottie Stride ($9.95) and My Grammar and I…Or Should That Be Me? How to Speak and Write It Right by Caroline Taggart and J.A. Wines ($14.95) that take the mystery out of writing and speaking correctly and well. Perhaps no other two skills separate winners from losers in this society and these two books would be a terrific help to so many students passing through elementary and high schools these days without grasping the importance of the many elements of the language to determine sentence structure and of grammar, the proper way of speaking and writing.

Love jazz? Want to pass that love along to your children? Then pick up a copy of Anna Harwell Celenza’s wonderful book, Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite ($19.95, Charlesbridge, Watertown, MA), illustrated by Don Tate and it includes a CD recording! Together with his friend, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington composed, orchestrated, and recorded some of the greatest jazz classics. When offered a recording contract and told he could do anything he wanted, Strayhorn, a classically trained musician, playfully suggested he do a version of the Nutcracker Suite and soon enough the Sugar Plum Fairy became the Sugar Rum Cherry! This one is a keeper!

Novels, Novels, Novels

Though it may be hard to believe, I receive one or two emails daily from authors who have published their own books. This trend has been increasing over the years and, in particular, for novels. It is understandable that many do not wish to put themselves through the meat grinder process involved. Unspoken in this rush to self-publish, however, is the fact that most will not likely sell any copies, even if they turn them into e-books. The market place is over-saturated and one good way to know if a novel has any merit whatever is whether a mainstream publisher, large or small, has published it.

The popularity of the new film version of Planet of the Apes may well be reflected in J.E. Fishman’s new novel, Primacy ($24.95, Verbitrage). The novel takes readers from New York’s Central Park to the jungles of the Congo River where researcher Liane Vinson discovers that her bonobo Bea has begun to communicate to other bonobos in a decipherable language. She is a monkey Liane had once performed chemical and genetic testing, but Bea knows secrets that must never see the light of day. Major ethical questions arise. Does she have a memory? Can she decipher human language? The author raises questions about the experimentation on animals, vertebrates, but the reader needs to also know that major medical and pharmaceutical breakthroughs have resulted from such science. Suffice to say that animal rights advocates will love this book and there’s enough suspenseful action to please the general reader. A very different story is told in Sebastian Barry’s On Canaan’s Side ($24.95, Viking) just out this month. The narrator is 81-year-old Lilly Bere. As a teenager Lilly and her fiancé, Tadg Bere, were forced to flee Ireland under threat of death from the IRA. They came to America where they settle in Chicago where Tadg is brutally murdered. Lilly moves to Cleveland where she marries, finds happiness, enduring the Depression and World War II. Becoming pregnant at 43, her husband mysteriously disappears and Lilly moves to Washington, DC where she finds work as a cook for a wealthy family and raises her son. This novel is just one tragedy upon another as Lilly strives to survive against the odds.

Wunderkind by Nikolai Grozni ($24.00, Free Press) is drawn from the author’s life as a piano prodigy growing up behind the Iron Curtain in Sofia, Bulgaria. As a teenager he wins a competition that gives him the opportunity to stay with a welcoming Italian host-family during which he becomes fully aware of the oppression under a communist government’s social and psychic dictatorship. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the author left for the United States where he studied jazz and composition. For a look at life under communism, this book provides many insights, enough to make the reader value the freedoms we take for granted in America. World War Two is the background for Klara by Joseph Leary ($14.95, Dog Ear Publishing, softcover). Set in the 1970s America, it is a look at the thousands of Polish, Ukrainian and other residents of Chicago’s ethnic enclaves, many of whom escaped the horrors in their homelands during World War Two. A seemingly kind Ukrainian carpenter, a single parent raising his young daughter, comes under suspicion of having been a truck driver who transported children to Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp. Klara’s memories of her escape are beginning to invade her dreams. The novel looks at the way decent, hard-working people who had experienced unfathomable horrors tried to forget a past that confronts them years later and how a local parish becomes the center for that past. It is a powerful story.

Heaps of softcover novels stack up each month. Here is a selection from among them.

Winner of the prestigious Canadian Governor General’s Literary Award, The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger ($15.00, Touchstone-Simon and Schuster) marks the author’s American debut novel. Based on the real lives of famed traveler, Lady Duff Gordon and her maid, the novel takes the reader on a journey from the high society of Victorian England to the uncharted far reaches of Egypt’s Nile Valley. A bout of tuberculosis causes the move to a drier climate. In Cairo, she and her maid, Sally Naldrett, are joined by Omar as a servant and guide as they travel to Luxor. Lady Duff goes native, begins language lessons, and throws herself into weekly salons with local community leaders. Sally finds romance and, when she asks for more freedom than her status permits, she is brutally reminded that she is mistress of nothing. This is a great read. The Price of Guilt by Patrick M. Garry ($17.50, Kenric Books) marks the sixth or seventh novel this author has written. It is a modern morality tale with a suspenseful plot that explores the destructiveness of misguided guilt. It is told as a flashback as Thomas Walsh sits in a jail cell. An accident that occurred when he was age 12, one that left a classmate blind and orphaned has plagued Walsh. Years later as a prominent lawyer, though reeling from a recent political scandal and mired in marital problems, Walsh seeks out his childhood friend only to become drawn into events that leave him wondering who was really the blind one. I previously reviewed Garry’s “A Bomb Shelter Romance”, and he continues to demonstrate he is one of America’s best unknown novelists!

The British seem to have a special gene in the DNA when it comes to novels, both serious and fanciful. Helen Smith is testimony to this with her new novel, Alison Wonderland ($13.99, Amazon Encore) which is set in today’s London. After discovering her husband has been unfaithful, 20-something Alison divorces him and joins an all-female detective agency. Though exciting and fulfilling at first, Alison grows bored by the routine of catching cheating spouses. It convinces her not to wait around for “Mr. Wonderful.” Then she is put on an odd case involving genetic testing and animal mistreatment. Suffice to say it is filled with memorable characters as Alison and her friend Taron become involved with some scary folks, their evil projects, and the prospect of new romance. Two Amazon Encore novels take the reader to places in America rarely visited. The Dummy Line by Bobby Cole ($13.95) is a white-knuckle ride into the backwoods of Alabama where a man must either kill or watch his only daughter be killed. What should have been a spring evening spent shooting pool with his tomboyish, clever daughter turns into a life and death nightmare in which Jake Crosby must put his hunter’s and backwoods skills to work in a cat-and-mouse thriller. In Johnny Shaw’s Dove Season($13.95) Jimmy Veecher heads home to the Imperial Valley, a hotbed for Mexican border crossings to visit his ailing father Big Jake one last time. When asked to locate a Mexican prostitute, Yolanda, he is joined by his friend Bobby Maves, to fulfill his father’s request to bring her to him. Mission performed, he wakes up days later with a huge hangover to discover that Yolanda’s body has been found floating at the bottom of a cistern. It gets very busy for Jimmy after that and I will not spoil the fun with more details.

That’s it for September! Tell your book loving friends and family members about Bookviews.com and come back in October for more news about the latest in non-fiction and fiction books hot off the presses.

By Alan Caruba
Founding member of the National Book Critics Circle

My Picks of the Month

If you want to understand why there is so much unemployment in America these days or why Red China has the ability to destroy our financial system, you need to read Peter Navarro’s and Greg Autry’s Death by China: Confronting the Dragon – A Global Call to Action ($25.99, Prentice Hall). No single book that I have read in recent years so clearly describes how Red China has set upon a strategy to dominate manufacturing through currency manipulation and the willful refusal to abide by World Trade Organization rules. Allowed to get away with this by the U.S. and other nations, it is acting in a criminal fashion on so many levels that it boggles the mind. The great service this book performs is to reveal what it is actually doing as opposed to the myth that its 1.3 billion population represents a great new market for the U.S. and others. Quite the contrary, most are so poor they cannot afford the products we export. How bad is it?

“In terms of absolute size, America imports almost $1 billion a day more than it exports from China every business day of the year.” That’s a massive outflow of our money and it is often for products that are lethal, ranging from adulterating vitamins and pharmaceuticals, food produced under unsanitary polluted conditions, and products that can burst into flame. This book should be read by every member of Congress, in the White House, and what is left of America’s industrial base. We must disengage from China before there is only a hollowed out America with millions of unemployed citizens.

If you find Pakistan a confusing, unpredictable place, then I recommend you read John R. Schmidt’s book, The Unraveling: Pakistan in the Age of Jihad ($27.00, Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Schmid had a thirty-year career in the U.S. diplomatic service and spent several years stationed in Islamabad. For most Americans, trying to figure out if Pakistan is an ally or not depends on what day of the week it is. Internally, Pakistan is a feudal nation with patronage being the primary relationship between a handful of landed, wealthy families and the rest of the population. Political power is sought in order to be able to dole out favors. The overall welfare of the nation takes a distant second place to that. Moreover, the various governments used the Taliban as a proxy to control its neighbor Afghanistan, only to have them threaten its own government. An obsessive fear of India has dictated most of its foreign policy since it was founded in 1947 and the army is about the only stable factor the nation can depend upon. This book will give you more insight to Pakistan than you could ever get trying to parse the daily headlines.

Grand Theft Auto: How Entrepreneurs Fought for the American Dream ($26.95, New Year Publishing, Danville, CA) by Alan and Alison Spitzer provides more insight into the way two auto manufacturers and the present administration in Washington, D.C. that bailed them out attempted to deprive their franchised dealerships of their businesses and lost. It is the story of how those dealerships, many of which had been passed down from grandparent to parent to children, all involving the investment of huge amounts of money to maintain, all independent businesses who are the actual purchasers of cars and trucks, were arbitrarily told they were terminated. The insanity of the bailout and subsequent bankruptcy proceedings was that the administration’s Auto Task Force was that the dealerships were the lifeblood of the manufacturers, their market. People purchase cars from dealership, not direct from the manufacturers. As the book reveals, there never was a rationale for terminating a business relationship that the states had long recognized as binding. Rather than lose everything into which their family, from father to son, had poured their lives, Alan Spitzer fought back, along with other dealers whom they organized in a grassroots effort, they achieved a miracle; a bipartisan piece of legislation passed by the Congress to restore their rights. The book is a chilling look at the arrogance of Chrysler and General Motors, combined with a task force of bureaucrats with no experience in the auto industry. It is an inspiring look at what can be done when Americans band together and demand justice for themselves, their thousands of employees, and ultimately their customers.

Economics is often called the dismal science and we have seen over the decades since the days of Roosevelt and other presidents that the advice they received from economic advisors was flawed and often very wrong. The U.S. is now the greatest debtor nation on earth, thanks in part from the advice the present occupant of the Oval Office has received. That’s why Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics ($28.95, W.W. Norton) is a very worthy book to read. It tells the story of John Maynard Keynes and Friedrick Hayek, two economists whose views of the role government should play in a nation’s economy sharply differed. Keynes favored government intervention to alleviate problems such as unemployment. Hayek favored less government, believing that the free market would solve the occasional recessions that occurred from the over-enthusiasm generally called “bubbles” and all bubbles burst. Keynes was 16 years the senior of Hayek and world famous, but Hayek, late in life, would receive a Nobel Prize for his theories. The failure of the communist Soviet Union proved Hayek correct, just as the rise of totalitarian governments following World War One would as well. Keynes’ legacy is Social Security and Medicare, two giant government programs sucking enormous amounts of money out of the private sector to be maintained. This book is well worth reading to understand our present dilemma and the crisis facing European nations as well.

Last year I reviewed “New Deal or Raw Deal?” by Burton Folsom, Jr. It was and, in my view, still is the best book I have read on this period in the nation’s history that spanned the Great Depression years of the 1930s. Michael Hiltzick, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist has written The New Deal: A Modern History ($30.00, Free Press) of the same period 80 years ago and come to some very different conclusions. Indeed, his take on that period and especially on Franklin D. Roosevelt are quite different from Folsom’s. In many ways it is an apologia for FDR, a rewrite of the many other books that examined this period that generally assert that FDR’s administrations actually extended and worsened the Depression with its hodge-podge of programs and its taxation policies. Astonishingly, Hiltzick asserts that FDR was in fact a conservative as were his remedies. Hiltzick has labored hard and produced a large book that is the reverse mirror image of the way most others perceived the Depression.

For those who seek new knowledge and new insights, to challenge their intellect, two such books will surely do so. There is probably no single threat to the future of America than the “global” efforts to bring it and all other nations under the control of organizations like the United Nations, the EU and the International Criminal Court. John Fonte poses the question Sovereignty or Submission: Will Americans Rule Themselves or be Ruled by Others? ($25.95, Encounter Books) A PhD in world history and director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for American Common Culture, Fonte examines the way “globalists”, including America’s leading progressive elites, are working to establish a “global rule of law.” We are seeing efforts to re-interpret the U.S. Constitution and impose so-called global law in its place and the result can only be a day on which Americans awake to discover that all the protections they have taken for granted have vanished. In many examples drawn from around the world, this book issues a warning that must be heeded. Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John R. Bolton, says “John Fonte’s comprehensive dissection of the global governance impulse should be required reading for anyone interested in preserving America’s constitutional freedoms.” The other intellectual challenge is found in Five Foundations of Human Development by Errol Gibbs and Philip Gray ($25.95, Author House, softcover). It is the result of eleven years of research and writing, and the combined travel experiences to 36 countries. It explores the question of whether our materially driven lives undermines the spiritual purpose of our existence. The authors, both Christians, examine five foundations, spiritual, moral, social, intellectual, and physical that define our existence. Together they have spelled out a blueprint for the survival of humanity. Christians will find much to enjoy in this book as they are its intended readers.

Kill the Messenger: The Media’s Role in the Fate of the World by Maria Armoudian ($25.00, Prometheus Books) explores a question of great importance insofar as print and broadcast media have played a role in three deadly conflicts, Nazi Germany, the former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda. The author documents how the media were used to spread hate that resulted in the Holocaust and the genocides in the latter two nations. Then she discusses how the media acted constructively, citing its role in the peace process in Northern Ireland, rebuilding democracy in Chile, and bridging ethnic divides in South Africa. This is an interesting exploration of how the media interact with psychological and cultural forces.

Offbeat, Interesting Books

I have never been in a fight in my life, but I have come close. For most of us, the prospect is slim unless we live in places where fights are common. For those people, I recommend How to Win a Fight: A Guide to Surviving Violence by Lawrence Kane and Kris Wilder ($17.00, Gotham Books, softcover) both of whom are veteran martial arts instructors. The lessons the book offers begin with knowing how to avoid violence. In the military, it’s called situational awareness, spotting trouble. Other lessons include how to stave off violence ranging from non-lethal to lethal force. There are self-defense tips and seven mistakes to avoid in a fight. I would recommend this book to everyone for its advice and the peace of mind that comes with it.

For film lovers, the publication of Leonard Maltin’s 2012 Movie Guide ($20.00, Plume, softcover) is an annual treat, filled with information of the many new films that have debuted in the previous year and tons of news about virtually every film including the older classics. The 2012 edition has nearly 17,000 entries that include more than 300 new ones, plus listings of more than 12,000 DVD and 12,000 videos. The guide includes an updated index of leading performers and directors, along with Maltin’s all-new theatrical recommendations. This book is virtually indispensable for anyone who loves films, old and new. Hollywood, the military, even criminals along withother aspects of our culture have gifted us with all manner of phrases that have been incorporated into our daily conversations. Alan Axelrod has gathered them together in The Cheaper the Crook, the Gaudier the Patter: Forgotten Hipster Lines, Tough Guy Talk, and Jive Gems ($12.95, Skyhorse Publishing, softcover) that is great fun if you’re a language buff. Terms like “drugstore cowboy”, “button man”, “Glad rags”, and many more can be found in its pages, gathered from World Wars One and Two, the Depression, prohibition, and the Jazz Age.

With the kids back in school, parents often find themselves being asked questions about subjects they have long forgotten from their school days. Two books have some fun with this. I Used to Know That: Geography – Stuff Your Forgot from School by Will Williams and Caroline Taggart ($14.95, Reader’s Digest) covers a wide range of geography-related topics in easy, short takes that are an entire education that can be easily read and enjoyed to the point where your kids and others will think you’re some kind of genius. This makes learning fun! Why Read Moby-Dick? By Nathaniel Philbrick ($25.00, Viking) answers a question that even grownups ask. Indisputably one of the great American novels, the length and its esoteric subject matter are daunting. Philbrick loves the novel and he skillfully navigates Melville’s world, providing insight to the book’s humor and unforgettable characters, finding the thread that binds Ishmael and Ahab to our present time. Who knows? You may actually read the novel!

Biographies, Etc

My friend, Dr. Alma Bond, was a psychoanalyst for 37 years. While she still has a limited practice, based on the Freudian theories, she has in more recent years devoted herself to writing books that are quite distinctive and which demonstrate her powerful imagination. Her latest will no doubt fascinate fans of the late Jacqueline “Jackie” Kennedy who became an icon of the 1960s when her husband Jack was President until his assassination. The public could not get enough of her. She was beautiful, intelligent, the mother of two, married into the already famed Kennedy clan.. The assassination changed much. She married the Greek shipping magnate, Aristotle Onassis and when that marriage failed, her companion became a stout, adoring Wall Streeter, Maurice Templeton. She took a position as a book editor and, at the age of 63, non-Hodgkins lymphoma took her life. Throughout her life she protected her privacy, but now Dr. Bond has written a unique “autobiography” for her, Jackie O On the Couch, ($21.99, Bancroft Press) that she never wrote herself, bringing the events and personalities in her life to the reader in her voice. This is an audacious literary project, based on fact, but a work of fiction and Dr. Bond pulls it off. Anyone who lived through those years and was a fan of Jackie will greatly enjoy this book.

Lovers of rock and roll and fans of the Eagles are going to want to find Eagles: Taking it to the Limit by Ben Fong-Torres in their Christmas stocking. ($30.00, Running Press). Just out this month, it’s a large format, coffee table book to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the band’s formation. It’s been a long trip from the bar of the Troubadour on Santa Monica Boulevard in 1971 to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The author is renowned for his many books on the music scene and the book is handsomely and extensively illustrated with many photos from the past four decades, along with an excellent text. Responsible for many classics, “Peaceful Easy Feeling”, Desperado”, “Hotel California” and “New Kid in Town”, the band spent ten years together living the rock and roll dream, but in addition to the constant touring, there were the usual tensions and fights that go with that lifestyle. It’s a great story, captured between two covers.

Coming in November is Walk Like a Man: Coming of Age with the Music of Bruce Springsteen by Robert J. Wiersema ($16.95, Graystone Books) that is a rock journey through twenty years of the author’s life set to the Springstein’s music. The author is emblematic of Springstein’s fans, seeing him as the paragon of all that is cool in the world of rock and roll. He brings good credentials to the book having authored two novels, been a reviewer and independent bookseller. Immersed in Springstein’s music, he is the reason the word “fan” is rooted in the word “fanatic.” This is an autobiographical tale of someone who, like others, marked the highs and lows of his life with Springstein’s music. It is the story of his coming of age along with many others, celebrating the music of his favorite performer.

Also from the world of entertainment, for fans of Lucille Ball there’s I Love Lucy: A Celebration of All Things Lucy by Elizabeth Edwards ($30.00, Running Press), a big coffee-table book out this month for the 60th anniversary of her television show and what would have been Lucy’s 100th birthday. It is filled with everything one could imagine or hope for regarding the show and its star, photos, character bios, music lyrics, and even recipes featured on the show. Many of the unforgettable episodes are presented in thumb-nail sketches. The author has worked with the Arnaz family since 1992 and this is the culmination of two previous Lucy-related books. For those of a certain age who look back fondly on this television icon and the laugh-filled show that is still in re-runs today, there’s a lot to enjoy.

The name Leonardo Da Vinci is so well known that we give it little thought beyond the fact that he was a remarkable figure in history. Indeed, we may not even know what his contributions were! Stefan Klein has corrected that with Leonardo’s Legacy: How Da Vinci Reimagined the World, now in paperback ($16.00, Da Capo Press). A painter, sculptor, scientists, inventor, and writer, his discoveries changed history. With each chapter, another invention and another facet of Da Vinci’s endless imagination are explored. Klein is a leading European science writer and anyone with a love of history and science will quickly find themselves drawn into a distant time in which this giant intellect and talent transformed the world in ways we still experience today. As noted last month, Paul Johnson has written Socrates: A Man for Our Times ($25.95, Viking), now officially on sale. Johnson is a noted historian and he brings the Greek philosopher and the times in which he lived to life. It’s a visit to the fifth century B.C. and the life of a man whose thoughts helped shape our actions and our understanding of the body and soul. The author has taken an ancient, iconic figure and made of him a living, breathing individual, albeit and intellectual giant. All of Western civilization is indebted to him.

A very different and thoroughly delightful memoir is found in Zelda, the Queen of Paris: The True Story of the Luckiest Dog in the World by Paul Chutkow ($22.95, Globe Pequot Press). A journalist, Chutkow was working in India when Indira Gandhi was in charge. Zelda adopted Chutkow and became a steadfast companion to the author, his wife, and newborn son because of her “boundless courage, humor and high spirits.” The Hindus believe in reincarnation and Zelda may have been someone with the same traits. She came along when the family was reassigned to Paris where, at first, Parisians considered Zelda a ragamuffin, but she developed a taste for Camembert cheese, warm croissants, and homemade borscht. When Zelda helped police apprehend a burglar, she became the “Queen of Paris” and “very picture of European refinement. In time, she journeyed to America as well. This is a story anyone who has ever loved a dog will love.

Getting Down to Business

Once past Labor Day people get serious about doing business, hoping to gin up profits before the end of the year. There are, of course, always books ready to offer all manner of advice.

Building A Winning Business by Tom Salonek is useful for its pragmatic approach ($9.95, softcover, http://www.intertech.com/) as it focuses on 70 “takeaways” that will improve anyone’s management skills. Based on his own experience and his father’s advice on how to work with people, the author shares how he grew his own company from $2 million in annual revenue to more than $10 million, despite the burst of the technology bubble and the worst recession of our time. He offers succinct, good advice on the fundamentals of hiring and managing employees, identifying top talent, and weeding out those with poor performance. I have seen a lot of books filled with management advice, often twice or three times as thick as this one, but this book delivers the goods. Joe Banda asks whether you are a leader and then answers with his book, You are a Leader ($14.95, Langdon Street Press, softcover). A slim volume, the book uses historical and political examples of why anyone can become an effective leader by tapping qualities they have, believing in themselves, and taking charge. It is a conventional book of unconventional wisdom that explores ten intangible qualities that exist in everyone.

Creating the right environment for work starts with the office and Smart Office Organizing: Simple Strategies for Bringing Order to Your Workspace by Sandra Felton and Marsha Sims ($13.99, Revell, softcover) will prove very helpful to those whose offices are a mess with piles of paper, files that need organizing, and represent the pressures of time and project management. It is filled with advice on how to use organizational tools, taking advantage of electronic advances, and to maintain control. If you or someone you know has this problem, this book is the answer. It seems obvious, but Michelle Tillis Lederman has written The 11 Laws of Likeability ($16.95, Amacom, softcover) that takes a look at the fact that online job boards and LinkedIn still do not substitute for face to face actual conversations and are the key to finding and keeping a job. An expert on effective business and interpersonal communications, the author shows how networking can be easy, enjoyable, and beneficial to job goals. Citing a Forbes.com survey that said 41% of more than 59,000 new employees credited personal networking as a critical job-hunting method. Her book is full of advice on how to develop the skills necessary. I have a friend who has built a business on such personal contact and it works.

In these times lots of people are paying close attention to their personal finances and to help them Paul A. Tucci has written The Handy Personal Finance Answer Book ($19.95, Visible Ink Press, softcover). His book avoids jargon while providing some good, fundamental advice anyone can apply. Combining recent data and findings, the book features financial information suitable for a wide range of ages and is particularly useful to the neophyte, perhaps just out of college or starting a new career or business. These are things rarely taught in school at any level. How do you balance your check book? What are the most common mistakes investors make? What should one consider before investing? And much, much more. To get real control over your financial life and your future, this is an excellent book. A useful book for those who have over-used their credit cards is Harvey Z. Warren’s Drop Debt: Surviving Credit Card Hell Without Bankruptcy ($14.95, Greenleaf Book Group Press, softcover). Warren, a debt relief expert has helped thousands of families find relief from debt and has written a book that will help the reader negotiate with creditors, explains why minimum payments on your credit card debt can hurt your credit rating, how to use a debt-settlement company, and much more. This is the kind of critical information that those in debt need when they are feeling the pressure and often desperate to find a way out. Instead of making more bad decisions, the book steers the reader in the right direction.

Eat, Drink & Be Merry

Naked Wine: Letting Grapes Do What Comes Naturally by Alice Feiring ($24.00, Da Capo Press) reminded me of my Mother, an international authority on wines and the way she would tell her students that wine naturally throws off all impurities during the fermentation process and why it offers so many benefits to health. The author, a food and wine journalist, tells of a growing movement to champion natural wines that avoid any additives. She’s no fan of many California and other wines she regards as “over-ripe, over-manipulated, and over-blown.” She worries that wine has become “an industry”, but the fact is that there has long been a growing global demand for wine and the insistence on “organic” wine and food ignores the obvious fact that food is organic and combined to enhance its taste. That’s why, for example, we love sauces. When it comes to wine, quality and taste always comes down to the grapes and the soil in which they are grown. In the end, the author comes off as a wine and food snob.

For those vegetarians and vegans out there, Brandan Brazier has written Thrive Foods: 200 Plant-Based Recipes for Peak Health ($20.00, Da Capo Press, softcover). It is also fairly idiotic in that he is so environmentally correct, the author discusses what foods use the least amount of natural resources to produce, require little “of our dwindling water supply, and cause a minimal amount of pollution.” Does any really care about such things when putting together the evening meal? Does it matter to anyone that farmers are probably more concerned about such things than you? They are not in the business of running up the water bill if Mother Nature will provide some rain. They are not in the business of polluting the food crops on which they depend. That said, there are some 200 recipes in this book, but you’d probably enjoy even tastier ones if you bought another cookbook. That brings me to Joanne Fluke’s Lake Eden Cookbook ($18.95, Kensington Publishing Corp). Fluke is best known for her mysteries featuring Minnesota bake shop owner Hannah Swensen. The cookbook is a compilation of recipes from mysteries and some vignettes involving the fictional Lake Eden characters. Fluke’s novels have names like “Cherry Cheesecake Murder” and “Key Lime Pie Murder.” All very entertaining for sure, particularly for fans of her novels, but the recipes are mouth-wateringly good and are mostly traditional favorites of every description cookies, cakes and pies. This one’s a keeper.

War! War! War!

War has generated books going back to the earliest accounts of such conflicts. In our era, the most epic war was World War II and it has spawned accounts at all levels from generals to privates.

General George S. Patton, Jr. was one of WWII’s greatest generals and one in whom the Germans took a great interest. Fighting Patton: George S. Patton, Jr. Through the Eyes of His Enemies by Harry Yeide ($30.00, Zenith Press) is a thick history and biography of a man who Hollywood immortalized in film. His real life equaled and surpassed that drama. At the age of five he told his parents he intended to be “a great general” and he did. He studied war like others study music or architecture. It was his passion. This book is the first to examine the legendary general through the eyes of his opposing generals, the Germans who devoted time and effort to know as much as possible about him and, during the conflict, where he was and where he was headed. They had good reason because he was instrumental in their defeat. This book is a wonderful piece of history on many levels by an author who understands the story of the mechanized cavalry—tanks—and the men who drove them into historic battles. Patton’s armored division was a key player in one of those battles that turned the tide for the allies in WWII was the Battle of the Bulge. Michael Collins and Martin King have written Voices of the Bulge ($28.00, Zenith Press) that is told through numerous first-person accounts of American officers and enlisted personnel who successfully repelled the German attack that was intended to shift the momentum of a fading war back in German hands. Almost a million men eventually took part in the conflict that generated unfathomable casualties. The book comes with a DVD that, together, is a fitting tribute to the men who made the ultimate sacrifice and the veterans who lived to tell their story.

In the Pacific theatre of World War II, the untold story of B-24s is told in Finish Forty and Home by Phil Scearce ($24.95, University of North Texas Press). In the early years of WWII in the Pacific, against overwhelming odds, young American airmen flew the longest and most perilous bombing missions of the war, often facing Japanese fighters without fighter escort, relentless anti-aircraft fire, and all while covering thousands of miles over water with no alternative landing sites. Scearce tells the true story of the men and missions of the 11th Bombardment Group as it fought alone and unheralded in the South Central Pacific. It is an homage to his father, Sgt. Herman Scearce who, at age 16, lied about his age to join the Army Air Corps. This book takes you back to a time when Americans were more engaged in the war in Europe, before the island campaigns that brought our Pacific force closer to Japan and the ultimate end of the war. The bombardment of Wake Island, Tarawa, and finally Iwo Jima made that possible. It took great courage and the 42nd Squadron lost nearly half its men through 1943. Another chapter in the Pacific is told by Joseph A. Springer in Inferno: The Life and Death Struggle of the USS Franklin in World War II (19.95, Zenith Press, softcover). On March 19, 1945, off the coast of Japan, the USS Franklin had just launched its aircraft for an attack on the shipping industry in Kobe Harbor. A single enemy aircraft came out of the cloud cover and, in a matter of second, its bomb would strike the Franklin, setting off a chain reaction of exploding ordnance and aviation fuel. More than a thousand died or were wounded. Listing heavily to starboard, it seemed the great ship was doomed, but the remaining crew of Big Ben, officers and enlisted men, volunteers to remain on board to save the ship as the USS Santa Fe came along side to rescue the wounded and nonessential personnel. The ship made an arduous journey from Okinawa to the Brooklyn Navy Yard in a great story of endurance and seamanship for a great chapter in the history of the U.S. Navy.

Children’s Books

Children’s stories have been part of the cultural heritage of all nations. A Norse tale, Sister Bear ($17.99, Marshall Cavendish Children) as retold by Jane Yolen and beautifully illustrated by Linda Graves is the story of Halva who finds a bear cub alone in the woods and brings her home to raise. Sister Bear becomes part of the family and saves Halva from some terrible trolls at one point. Ideal for ages 5 through 8. For a slightly young set, there’s Creepy Monsters, Sleepy Monsters ($14.99, Candlewick Press) about two like human kids go to school, play outside, take a bath, and finally settle down to sleep. It’s a cute and clever way to debunk fears. For the same ages comes The Cave Monster by Thomas and Peter Weck ($15.95, Lima Bear Press) When Joe Bean, Lima Bear’s cousin, has been captured by the Cave Monster, Lima must rescue him from the Black Cave. It has a happy ending and a lesson about facing up to one’s fears.

Goosebottom Books has an excellent series on famous and infamous women from history. It’s called “The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Dastardly Dames” and the books are devoted to six women who wielded great power. The series includes Cleopatra, Agrippina, Mary Tudor, Catherine de’ Medici, Marie Antoinette, and Cixi, the last empress of China. Aimed at ages 9-13, well written by different authors and illustrated by Peter Malone, they are priced at $18.95 each. There is a world of history in each and, even though the women featured were wicked in their own way, there are many lessons to take from this series. Caldecott Medalist and bestselling illustrator Ed Young has created a poignant and powerful memoir of his childhood home in China and the house his father built. The House Babe Built ($17.95, Little Brown). As war clouds gathered over Shanghai, Baba’s home provided a place for the Young family, cousins, friends, and refugees, a place indeed of refuge. It is not just Young’s youth, but a history lesson that is beautifully told and a feast for the eyes of youngsters ages six to ten, as well as youngsters of all ages.

Two unique children’s books address the issue involving illness. The Princess and the Peanut ($15.95, Wild Indigo Publishing) deals with life-threatening peanut allergies. It helps the reader with food allergies understand they are not alone and that their lives to do not have to be defined by their condition. In a similar fashion, Even Superheroes Get Diabetes has the same theme. Written by Sue Ganz-Schmitt and illustrated by Micah Chambers-Goldberg, they will prove especially helpful to parents with children who have medical problems.

Nicole Haas has been writing poetry since she was a young girl and now she’s the mother of Wyatt and Cody. For the very young, she’s written a clever, rhymed tale, Freedom Bee, a Hive Story ($8.99, Tate Publishing, Mustang, OK) about a hive whose queen bee begins to demand all the pollen for herself, resulting in the worker bees losing interest in gathering it. The old hive collapses, a new one is built, and the queen learns her lesson. Along with its eye-catching illustrations, it’s a way to teach a useful lesson about individual freedom. In addition to the paper version, one can download a free audio version. Also for the pre-school set, Kathy M. Miller has authored and photographed a sequel to her first book about Chippy Chipmunk which garnered 15 national book awards. The new title is Babies in the Garden ($19.95, Celtic Sunrise) that is filled with more than 80 photos of the first days of chipmunks out of the burrow. Children 4 and older will enjoy this story of four chipmunks as they encounter birds, butterflies, rabbits, and even the resident cat!

Novels, Novels, Novels

Humans seem to have a need to tell stories. I receive far more novels than I could ever take notice of in this monthly report. The best I can hope for is to share word of some of the best that arrive daily.

The cliché is “ripped from the headlines”, but it fits Amil Imani’s new novel, written with Cyrus Azad, Operation Persian Gulf, ($16.99, FreeAmericanPress.com, softcover) because the reader learns more about Iran, its “mad mullahs”, and its quest to acquire nuclear weapons, than one might otherwise learn by reading various newspaper headlines. The novel is about a small team of Iranian-Americans whose deep love for their former homeland drives them to fulfill a daring scheme to disable Iran’s newly activated nuclear facility at Bushehr in order to delay the weaponizing of its waste product. In that regard it is an old-fashioned thriller, filled with assassination teams, and other mayhem, but this novel is endorsed by one of the foremost authorities and authors on Islam, Robert Spencer, and Pamela Geller, a noted commentator on current events. The novel is so up-to-date it includes references to the Stuxnet virus that was planted in Iranian facilities’ computers for the same objective, to slow its relentless effort to secure nuclear weapons. That would be a major game-changer. This novel is a highly entertaining way to learn why Iran’s people live as hostages to their dictatorial mullahs and why a potential Armageddon must be avoided.

Black as Snow by Nick Nolan is his third novel ($13.95, Amazon Encore, softcover). It is a modern-day deconstruction of Snow White and one, to repeat a cliché, “ripped from the headlines.” The novel’s main character leads a religious cult and, unfortunately for him, he finds himself mixed up with fanatics who are anticipating his demise and the end of the world. Sebastian Black is blessed with good looks, loads of charm, and a talent for telepathy. His mother is a prophetess, Kitty Black, and together they have forged a spiritual movement that warns of mass extinction. Suffice to say this novel has more twists and turns than a corkscrew and you will turn the pages as fast as you can to find out what happens next. A very different story is told in Tom’s Wife by Alana Cash ($12.95, Hacienda Press, softcover). Set during the Great Depression, it is the story of a very unhappy wife, a dirt-poor family, and Annie who is married to Tom, a coal miner who leaves her to tend to his farm with all the chores that involves. Despite visits from her friend Twila, life is bleak and lonely until a peddler named Jake Stern shows up to sell “notions.” After that, everything on the farm belongs to Tom except Annie’s heart. This novel rings true on many levels and women will especially grasp its message.

Some novels take a long time to gestate and this is true of First the Torch by Richard Baker ($22.00, http://www.junglesnaps.com/). Well before the U.S. got involved in Vietnam, it was the French colonial forces that were facing the Viet Minh. The story, however, begins far from Vietnam in South Dakota where Bix is a young man who wants some adventure before he settles on the family farm. He meets French-educated Chau, a Vietnamese girl who has been victimized by the racism that could be found in early 1950s American culture. They become friends and Bix decides he should join the French Foreign Legion to help save Chau’s homeland from the communists. His best friend, Steve, joins him and both end up in Dien Bien Phu. Meanwhile Chau has changed side and joined the Viet Minh. The two friends discover how quickly life can change. The author served in Viet Nam where he was twice wounded. On his return home he held many jobs and earned a master’s degree in fiction writing, earning the Ernest Hemingway Award. He currently works as an editor of Vietnam Cultural Window in Hanoi. This is a “big novel” for the themes it tackles and the story it tells. The French lost the six month siege of Dien Bien Phu. The U.S. stepped in and, as they say, the rest is history.

For those who enjoy fantasy, K.V. Johansen has penned Black Dog ($17.00, PYR, an imprint of Prometheus Books, softcover). It is filled with necromancy, treachery, massacres, rebellions, and gods dead or lost or mad. A caravan guard, Holla-Sayan, escaping the bloody conquest of a lakeside town in a land where gods walk the hills and goddesses rise from the river, stops to help an abandoned child and a dying dog. The girl is the incarnation of Attalissa, goddess of Lissavakail, and the dog is a shape-changing guardian spirit. To read this book is to enter another land, one of fantasy, of danger, and page-turning adventure. Just out this month is Trespass by Rose Tremain ($14.95, W.W. Norton, softcover). It is a gothic tale by an award-winning novelist. It is a darkly drawn tale of sibling love, family hate, and of revenge, set against the backdrop of a crumbling stone farm in Southern France. The characters are flawed as a younger sister, Audrun, longs for the day when the farm and its home will be hers. Other characters add to the general madness that runs through the macabre story.

Women are at the core of two softcover novels that offer plenty of entertainment. Angela Sloan by James Whorton, Jr., ($14.00, Free Press) is a trip back to the 1970s with a winning 14-year-old heroine, the daughter of a former CIA agent who confronts a crazy cast of characters while maintaining her undercover identity. It is a rollicking story of a straight-faced innocent who is somehow both “wised up and clueless.” When her father goes underground she is left with few answers after she receives the keys to a Plymouth Scamp and a few sequentially numbered hundred-dollar bills. Despite trying to stay under the radar, strangers keep popping up. Trying to unravel what has happened to her father and the story is told as her account of what happened while she waited for get some answers. The novel is very funny and an homage to classic espionage tropes and insider lingo. A very different story is told in The Glass Harmonica-A Sensualist’s Tale by Dorothee E. Kocks ($16.00, Rosa Mira Books) that is set largely in New England in the heady period after the founding of America. Turns out that our Puritan predecessors weren’t always as virtuous as we’ve been led to believe. Indeed, about one in three brides in the 1700s showed up pregnant on their wedding day. The story follows an immigrant from Corsia, Chjara Valle, who scandalizes her American audiences with her playing of a glass harmonica, a musical instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin; in its day it as a sensation for its ethereal sound. Not only is Chjara pregnant when she marries, her husband runs a clandestine business in erotic books and goods. This is a novel about America’s first sexual revolution when half the population was under twenty years old and the ideas of freedom filled the air. It’s definitely not for the prudish.

That’s it for October! Come back in November as we look at some great books for Christmas giving and hours of pleasurable reading. Tell your book-loving friends and family about Bookviews.com and bookmark it for news of books you may not learn about in the mainstream media.

By Alan Caruba
Founding member of the National Book Critics Circle

My Picks of the Month

With the headlines filled with news about the financial crisis in Europe, Dr. Johan Van Overtveldt has written The End of the Euro: The Uneasy Future of the European Union ($24.95, Agate Publishing, Evanston, IL). It is a timely analysis and, while international economics and business may not seem the most exciting topic, the Belgium-based economic journalist has made it one with a highly readable history of how and why the European Union came into being as a response to World War Two and the threat of Soviet domination. The euro’s fate is tied to the dysfunctional economies of Greece, Portugal, and Spain, and dependent on the decisions that Germany makes in the days and weeks ahead. The author makes a convincing case that Germany may well opt out of its support for the euro which, in turn, will impact the entire European monetary union. His examination of previous failures to unify Europe’s monetary systems suggests he may be right. In a way, the book is a testament to the value of national sovereignty and the need for nations to act responsibly to avoid deficit spending, particularly on socialist programs that redistribute wealth by heavily taxing their populations, retarding growth, punishing the middle class, and taking on too much debt. Since every nation is connected in some fashion to all the others, the fate of the EU is worth learning about.

With a global population of seven billion, issues involving food and disease are going to take on greater importance in the event millions begin to starve—they already are in North Korea—or if an epidemic threatens. In Three Famines: Starvation and Politics ($27.99, Public Affairs) Thomas Keneally takes a look at famine, not just natural causes such as crop failure and drought, but by man-made famines based on bad ideologies and attitudes. Looking at three devastating food shortages in modern history in Ireland and India, both ruled by England at the time, and in Ethiopia in the 1970s and 1980s, Keneally provides a portrait of famines that resulted in massive losses of life when a more sensible, compassionate, and moral response could have been taken. Those in administrative positions had the power to stop the suffering, but did not. This book is a reminder that administrative neglect and incompetence have been more lethal than the crop failures. Jonathan Bloom is on a crusade to get Americans to stop throwing out food which he calculates at 197 pounds of food a year. American Wasteland ($18.50, Lifelong Books, an imprint of Da Capo Press, softcover) is one of those tiresome books that blames Americans for enjoying a lifestyle of abundance and generally ignores the enormous export of grains, poultry, and meat we ship to other nations as an important element of our economy. Any time there’s a natural disaster somewhere, Americans send food and aid. Instead Bloom instructs not to keep our refrigerators full, why we should not buy food in bulk-sizes, and why we should monitor our eating habits. If all the fat people I see every day are evidence of waste, apparently a lot of food is being consumed as opposed to being thrown out. The great scourge of mankind has been malaria, the mosquito-born disease that kills some 800,000 every year in Africa, 38,000 in the Middle East, and 36,000 in Asia. Alex Perry has written Lifeblood: How to Change the World One Dead Mosquito at a Time ($25.99, Public Affairs) in which he take the reader to some of the most malaria infested towns in the world. It is an often surprising portrait of modern Africa and the efforts being made to stamp out malaria, those in the past and present aid programs that are making breakthroughs. If we could go to the Moon, we can surely rid the world of malaria. All it requires is killing its agent, the mosquitoes, and we know how to do that.

I enjoy reading history and I am very fond of big, fat books. When you combine the two as Matthew White does in The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History’s 100 Worst Atrocities ($35.00, W.W. Norton), you get a compelling look at history that reveals how it is defined as much by its horrors as by achievements. As history, the author makes clear that “destruction and creation are intimately intertwined. The fall of the Roman Empire cleared the way for medieval Europe.” Tying it all together are the mega-deaths whether they were the Crusades or the partition of India in the late 1940s, but the book includes conflicts we may not learn about in school or college, but which had a significant impact. We tend to know something of our own Civil War which was a bloodbath for both sides and how, in the last century, the destruction of human life was perfected from the First World War to the Second. Though its title aptly calls it a horror story, it is an impressive work of scholarship regarding the ways civilizations expanded or were conquered and disappeared. It is well worth reading. Another great big book is The Space Shuttle: Celebrating Thirty Years of NASA’s First Space Plane by Piers Bizony ($40.00, Zenith Press). It is a classic coffee table book, 10.5 x 11.25, 300 pages and filled with 900 color photos. In short, the perfect Christmas gift for someone who is an enthusiast for life and travel in outer space. In the 1980s, on assignment, I had the opportunity to visit the John F. Kennedy Space Center and tour the site where rockets and space shuttles were launched. I saw a shuttle up close and that is to say I saw a vehicle that was the size of a small building and marveled that it could be lifted beyond Earth’s gravity to circle the planet. One can only marvel at the courage of the crews that went aloft and the scientific and technological mastery that made it possible. This book is a keeper!

In 2007 I reviewed Jim Camp’s NO, The Only Negotiating System You Need for Work and Home ($23.00, Crown Business) and it went on to become a bestseller. Camp is an internationally recognized negotiation coach. Now, Nightingale Conant, the leading producer of motivational and educational audiobooks, has published The Power of No: Negotiating Secrets the Pros Don’t Want You to Know ($99.00) in which the author shares his contrarian and results-oriented program that teaches how to avoid making deals based on being needy and emotional. There is no aspect of life in which we are not negotiating something and this audiobook will unlock the secrets of successful negotiation that will transform your life. It is the very essence of arriving at agreements that are an improvement over those first offers you receive or the dreaded “maybe” answer. In my view, whether you are a corporate executive, work in a governmental position, have responsibility for an organization of any kind, or just want to navigate successfully through life, this audiobook is a terrific investment. You can visit the website of the Camp Negotiation Institute to purchase it and, while there, learn how you can become a certified negotiation expert.

Regular visitors to Bookviews know that books of unique specificity also interest me. One such is My City, My New York: Famous New Yorkers Share Their Favorite Places by Jeryl Brunner ($12.95, Globe Pequot Press, softcover) in which more than 300 folks of varying degrees of fame, actors, literary types, the very rich, et cetera, explain why they could not live anywhere else. Mercifully the book is small or short enough not to exhaust the topic as their views are mostly one paragraph long. If you have a New Yorker in your life, this would make a great holiday gift. If they happen to love the Giants then you can also give them 100 Things Giants Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Dave Buscema ($13.95, Triumph Books, softcover). I ignore virtually all sports so all I can say is that this book appears to be the sum total of all useful and interesting information about the Giants. In the interest of fairness (and fun) Jets fans will enjoy Jets Underground by Jeff Freier ($14.95, Triumph Books, softcover) that is a far cry from the usual boring statistics. Instead, Freier treats the reader to a collection of the maddest and baddest of everything related to the NFL’s most colorful franchise. It is subtitled “Wahoo, Joe Willie, and the Swingin’, Swaggerin’ World of Gang Green.” It is very entertaining reading.

Tolstoy called The Iliad by Homer a miracle. Goethe said that it always thrust him into a state of astonishment. Homer’s epic poem is widely regarded as an essential element of an individual’s education though it has not been a part of most curriculums for a long time. Part of the problem have been previous translations, but Stephen Mitchell has remedies that with his translation of The Iliad ($35.00, Free Press) that brings to life its heroes, Achilles and Patroclus, Hector and Priam. Despite having been authored 2,700 years ago, this translation reminds us that war and all the human characteristics we regard as modern phenomenon existed long ago in ancient Greece. Mitchell has been widely hailed for his masterful translations and this one, I think, will be regarded as the capstone of his reputation. Simply stated, it is a marvelous story, filled with excitement, strong characters, and a plot that, despite its length, keeps one reading to its profoundly moving end.

Getting to Know Your Brain

By coincidence, a number of books regarding the workings of one’s brain have been published. In no particular order, let’s begin with What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite by David DiSalvo ($19.00, Prometheus Books, softcover). The former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today and a contributor to science journals, DiSalvo asks why do we routinely choose options that don’t meet our short-term needs and undermine our long-term goals? Why do we insist that we’re right when evidence contradicts us? Why do we yield to temptations that undermine our need to overcome addictions? His conclusion is that what our brains want is frequently not what your brain needs. This book is an excellent way to get to know how your brain (and everyone else’s) works and how to turn that awareness into the kind of action that yields a better life and better decisions about that life.

Your Brain on Childhood: The Unexpected Side Effects of Classrooms, Ballparks, Family Rooms, and the Minivan by Gabrielle Principe ($17.00, Prometheus Books, softcover) takes a look at the way, for most of humanity’s existence, childhood was spent in natural environments, out-of-doors, exploring the world. How different modern existence is with its artificial environments intended to make life easier and more secure for children, strapped into bouncy seats, sitting in front of a television set, playing with battery-operated toys, or interacting with computers. The perfect metaphor is the film 2001 where two astronauts had to deal with the computer HAL that tries to kill them. In basic terms, real childhood development comes from face-to-face communication and freewheeling pretend play. The strict regimen of school—which seem to begin a younger and younger ages is really designed for a society intent on developing a new generation of drones as opposed to freeing young minds to learn at their own pace. For today’s parents, this book is well worth reading. The Power of Neurodiversity: Unleashing the Advantages of Your Differently Wired Brain by Thomas Armstrong, PhD ($16.00, Da Capo Press, softcover) aims at eliminating negative terms and labels that put millions of people into categories of mental illness, often reducing their opportunity to make the most of one’s brain despite being said to have attention deficit problems (common to anyone bored to tears) or depression (which may be a perfectly rational response to tragedy or other challenges). In effect, the author redefines what are considered mental disorders, explaining why may of the world’s greatest thinkers from Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, and Ludwig van Beethoven, if they were alive today, would be labeled in this fashion. The book is filled with practical tips for employers, parents, and teachers to make the most of one’s neurodiverse brain. While acknowledging that the medical model has been helpful for people with serious mental disorders, his model is more flexible and more encouraging when it comes to understanding how the brain works.

Pieces Missing: A family’s journey of recovery from traumatic brain injury by Larry C. Kerpelmann, PhD ($16.00, Two Harbors Press, softcover) tells the story of the author’s wife, Joanie, who was out jogging when a freak fall caused her to sustain a traumatic brain injury. Their tranquil life became one of emergency room visits, two hospitalizations, one brain surgery, and months of rehabilitation. It is the story, too, of her determination to recover the pieces missing from her memory, speech, confidence, and joy of life. For those encountering such injuries and their families, it is a memoir of love, hope, family, healing and recovery. A similar memoir is that of Martin Magoun in Russian Roulette ($17.76, Wharfratbooks.com, softcover) who suffered from depression with insights to the way depressed people view the world, medical studies of depression, and its crippling affect on people. It is testimony that one can recover from a disorder that is fraught with ignorance and misunderstanding.

William Ian Miller has written Losing It whose entire title goes on to say “In which an aging professor laments his shrinking brain, which he flatters himself formerly did him noble service. A pliant, tragic-comical, historical, vengeful, sometimes satirical and thankful in six parts, if his memory does yet serve” ($27.00, Yale University Press.) I confess I requested it thinking it was about the affects of aging on the brain from a scientific point of view, but I found instead an intellectual examination of how old age was regarded in ancient civilizations, its pleasures and its indignities as youth gives way to natural decay, and how we cope with it these days. There are moments of pure delight in this book, but one needs to have an inclination for digressions and discussions of Icelandic sagas, references to Beowulf, Vikings, Hebraic, and many other elements of literature. If you are prepared to take a leisurely walk through questions regarding aging, then this book will provide much to illuminate one’s mind, so long, of course, you’re not losing it.

The most devastating definition of “losing it” is Alzheimer’s disease and the affect on the family can be as hard, if not more so, than its victim. Kerry Luksic grew up in a family of fifteen, her mother and father, and twelve siblings. Throughout it all, her mother was the source of calm, of wisdom, of support, operating, as Kerry says with the efficiency of an engineer in Life Lessons from a Baker’s Dozen: 1 Mother, 13 Children, and Their Journey to Peace with Alzheimer’s ($17.99, plus shipping, purchase direct from www.kerryluksic.com, softcover) It is also available from Amazon.com. This is the story of Bobbie Lonergan who like too many really wonderful people fell victim to Alzheimer’s and, in time, did not know the names of her children, losing the memory of her own life. Kerry takes us on that amazing, sometimes heartbreaking, journey that led ultimately to her mother’s most powerful life lesson. She includes a very useful resource section for anyone whose life is affected by the disease. I am happy to heartily recommend this book about family relationships, motherhood, and eldercare.

Christopher W. DiCarlo has written How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass: A Critical Thinker’s Guide to Asking the Right Questions ($19.00, Prometheus Books, softcover) that examines one’s own and other’s answers to questions such as what can I know? What am I? Why am I here? How should I behave? And what is to become of me? How you answer such questions, says the author, reveals a lot about yourself and the same applies when you ask other. The book provides the tools that allow you to question beliefs and assumptions held by those who claim to know what they’re talking about. These include politicians, lawyers, doctors, teachers, clergy, and just about everyone else. The book teaches how to analyze your own thoughts, ideas and beliefs, and to understand why you act on them, as well as understanding others who might hold opposing views. In this regard, it can open doors to your mind that are extremely helpful. Stephen F. Kaufman wants you to question some of your fundamental beliefs, but particularly those that do not want you to question faith as a belief system. Faith, Kaufman asserts, covers up the failure to have confidence in our own intellect. In two softcover books, Self-Revealization Acceptance and Practicing Self-Revealization Acceptance ($14.95 and $18.95, Hanshi Warrior Press, New York) takes the reader on a journey in which one defines themselves in ways that enhances their potential for independence, and the ability to be the person they want to be and become. If you have doubts about the faith-based system into which you were born or accepted, these books will prove of interest.

Memoirs, Biographies & Autobiographies

From those in ancient times to today, the urge to write of their lives never ends and, in many cases, that is a good thing as we get to know ourselves better as a result.

Caesars’ Wives: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Roman Empire by Annelise Freisenbruch ($16.00, Free Press, softcover) is a study of some of most powerful women in early Western civilization. Not only is it excellent scholarship, it is a fascinating chronicle and narrative of the women behind the men who created and maintained the Roman Empire for five centuries. The wives, mistresses, mothers, sisters and daughters of the Caesars have been the basis for novels and dramas, but who were they really? The author provides the answer amidst some of the most intense intrigue imaginable.

Then and now populations were on the move and Towards A Better Life: America’s New Immigrants in Their Own Words—from Ellis Island to the Present by Peter Morton Caon (26.00, Prometheus Books) is an excellent way to understand why immigration has played such an essential role in American history. Today, immigrants comprise nearly a quarter of the U.S. population, a larger proportion than at any time since World War II. Ten percent are here illegally, but when you read this book you will understand why America has been such a magnet for people willing to leave their homes behind and launch themselves into a new life. The answer is freedom and America offers more than any other nation and backs it up with the oldest living Constitution. As the grandson of immigrants and one who loves history, I greatly enjoyed this book and you will too. A very different story is told in A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deceptions, and Survival at Jonestown by Julia Scheeres ($26.00, Free Press) the story of the largest mass suicide in modern times when, on November 18, 1978, the followers of Jim Jones either voluntarily or were forced to drink Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. It was really more a mass murder than a suicide thirty-five years ago, but it shocked people worldwide. It is a terrifying story, but one that testifies to the utter evil of Jones and his lieutenants.

I do not know how many books have been written by survivors of the Nazi concentration camps and the Holocaust that took the lives of six million Jews and another five million Christians, gypsies, homosexuals, and assorted “enemies” of the Nazi state. David Karmi has written a memoir, Survivor’s Game, ($20.00, Arborhouse, softcover) about his life as a teenager in the death camps. We need to read such books to fully grasp the horror of the deliberate genocide of Europe’s Jews and the fate that others shared as well. The author survived almost by pure instinct and after being liberated by the allies made his way to what was then the Palestinian mandate administered by the British until a Jewish state was proclaimed in 1948. Later he moved to the U.S. and had a thriving career in construction in New York City. This is history as lived during a nightmare and one with a happy ending. Another nightmare is recounted in a memoir by Bonnie E. Virag in The Stovepipe ($17.95, Langdon Street Press, softcover). The author was just age four, living on her family’s farm in rural Canada with her parents and four sisters until they were taken away by force and put into the Children’s Aid Society, spending the next 14 years being pulled apart and struggling to reconnect. Some nights the only warmth they had came from a stovepipe in an attic. It is a heart wrenching memoir but a testimony to the human spirit and the resilience of four young girls. Every region of the nation has its legendary outlaws and Larry Wood has written Desperadoes of the Ozarks ($15.95, Pelican Publishing, softcover) that is a collection of stories from the era of bootlegging, highway robbery, and vigilante courts. From the cow-town of Baxter Springs, Kansas to the mining camp of Granby, Missouri, the Ozarks were a magnet for lawlessness. Whether you live there or not, this is very entertaining reading. These days the former bootleggers are into selling “meth” and other drugs so not all that much has changed except the names on the wanted posters.

Gang life is too often romanticized by Hollywood, but Luis J. Rodriguez tells the true story in It Calls You Back: An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing (24.99, Touchstone, an imprint of Simon and Schuster). It is a compelling autobiographical account of growing up as a Latino gang member in the mean streets of Watts and East Los Angeles. His previous memoir, Always Running, became a huge bestseller and this one too is likely to do the same as it recounts the challenges facing urban youth and the perils of gang life.

Usually, such illness is covered up in the interest of career, but Sorbo has written an interesting memoir in True Strength: My Journey from Hercules to Mere Mortal—and How Nearly Dying Saved My life ($26.00, Da Capo Press). Actor Kevin Sorbo was on top of the world in late 1997, playing the role of a popular television show, Hercules. He had just become engaged to the woman of his dreams, but one morning while doing bicep curls, a searing pain show down his left arm. A visit to a chiropractor found a “soft but moveable” lump near his shoulder. He was advised to see an internist right away. The drive home became a nightmare as his brain “went haywire.” He had suffered a stroke. The story of what followed will be of interest to his fans and others.

Cook It, Bake It, Enjoy It

I love anything that is roasted. It brings out the flavor. One of the best books on the topic, All About Roasting: A New Approach to a Classic Art, ($35.00, W.W. Norton) doubles as a great holiday gift for anyone who loves preparing delicious meals. This large format, coffee table book, features 150 mouthwatering recipes by Molly Stevens, accompanied by gorgeous color photos in a book that is just over 370 pages in length. She is already a James Beard award-winning cookbook author and the Bon Appetit Cooking Teacher of the Year. The book will teach you how to choose the best cuts of meat, chicken and fish, basis roasting methods, roasting times and doneness tests, and everything else you need to know to master roasting. I have seen many cookbooks, but this one is in a class of its own.

Kathleen Flinn has written The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, ($26.95, Viking) whose sub-title is “How a few simple lessons transformed nine culinary novices into fearless home cooks.” It’s an entertaining story of how Kathleen looked into their cabinets and refrigerators, sampled their cooking, and taught them basic booking skills. Instead of loading up on processed foods, she teaches how to opt for fresher alternatives and to create easy meals. This basic knowledge is not necessary being passed along these days as many women work and preparing meals often takes second place to having time for other pursuits. Nothing beats a real home-cooked meal or replaces sitting down together to enjoy it. As one’s self-confidence in the kitchen grows, it affects all aspects of one’s life. Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese ($24.00, Free Press) takes a similar approach as she tells often funny stories surrounding her learning curve, asking questions such as is homemade better, how much time is involved, and a host of similar questions those new to the kitchen ask. To help the reader, she provides more than 120 recipes. Take my word for it, nothing beats home-baked bread, warm from the oven, and other dishes prepared with love.

My late Mother, Rebecca Caruba, taught gourmet cooking and baking for three decades and authored cookbooks. She loved French cuisine and we all loved their desserts. Now you can learn their secrets in Les Petits Macarons: Colorful French Confections to Make at Home by Kathryn Gordon and Anne E. McBride ($18.00, Running Press). The macaron is a meringue-based sweet with two colorful almond-flour cookies sandwiching a creamy, fruit-based or chocolaty filling. They can often be expensive to buy, if you can find a story that offers them. The authors provide information on, not only the French, but the Italian and Swiss meringue methods. Feeding friends and family these incredibly delicious treats will make you a legend among those fortunate enough to enjoy them. Even vegetarians enjoy a treat and Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero have teamed up to write Vegan Pie in the Sky ($17.00, Da Capo Press, softcover) with 75 recipes that include tasty pie crusts, fruit, creamy and chocolate pies. Vegans will enjoy its delicate tars, crumbly cobblers, and other delicious desserts.

Getting Down to Business (Books)

There is no lack of books to teach you how to be a successful entrepreneur, how to manage people, how to plan, et cetera. For anyone who has not spent four years in business school, they are a handy shortcut and they have the benefit of adapting to changing and challenging condition.

It’s Your Biz: The Complete Guide to Becoming Your Own Boss by Susan Wilson Solovic ($22.95, Amacom) is a perfect example. At a time when many people are thinking about starting their own businesses because of the bleak job market, the problem is that, in good times or bad, more than half of such enterprises fail. Some of today’s largest companies began as start-ups in down times. The transition from a W-2 employee to being their own boss is not easy and especially for those who do not know what really makes a small business work. The author has learned from experience after four decades of being “a serial entrepreneur.” If you or someone you know is contemplating going out on their own, I strongly recommend they read this book for its pragmatic advice. I liked Plan B: How to Hatch a Second Plan That’s Always Better Than Your First ($26.00, Free Press) for the same reason. David Kord Murray asks and answers why some companies have stayed flexible enough to survive even after a stumble or two? It’s one thing to have a Plan A with which to begin an enterprise or expand one’s business, but one needs a Plan B and that involves knowing how and when to make changes to your business model. Murray argues that too many strategic plans aren’t flexible enough to change with a changing business environment. Product life cycles once measured in decades are now being measured in years, even months. Making the necessary transitions depends on being able to confronting existing problems, responding to market conditions and the moves of your competition; companies that did this are still around and thriving. Those that didn’t are gone.

The Enemy of Engagement: Put an End to Workplace Frustration—and Get the Most from Your Employees ($25.95, Amacom) is one of those titles that tells the whole story. In this book Mark Royal and Tom Agnew, leaders of the Hay Group’s employee researcher division, share their insights regarding why some employees become frustrated, examining the sources of their aggravation. For example, depending on the industry, between 32% and 48% of employees report work conditions that prevent them from being as productive as they could be. One-third of employees report that they do not have the resources to do their jobs well. Another third say they lack sufficient authority to carry out their job responsibilities effectively. The key to happier employees is enabling them to do their jobs, inhibiting their opportunity to shine. The authors contend that, as often as not, it is the workplace, not the worker that is the problem. This is a book managers at all levels need to read. The Diversity Index by Susan E. Reed ($27.95, Amacom) is subtitled “The alarming truth about diversity in corporate American…and what can be done about it.” I am old enough to remember when women stayed home and raised children, when blacks and other minorities had limited opportunities in the corporate world, Suffice to say it is a very different world today and has been since, fifty years ago, the first affirmative action policy was created by executive order by John F. Kennedy. What Ms. Reed discovered after studying the leadership structure of Fortune 100 companies from 1995 to 2009, that white women have made remarkable gains in climbing the corporate ladder, but that there appears to be significant barriers against native-born men and woman of color. In 2009, more than 40% of the Fortune 100 had no minorities among their executive officers. More than half of the Hispanic and Asian executive officers were born outside the United States. Like JFK famously said, life is unfair.

For women aspiring to positions of leadership, Christine K. Jahnke has written The Well-Spoken Woman: Your Guide to Looking and Sounding Your Best ($19.00, Prometheus Books). Jahnke is a renowned speech coach who has been teaching women what works and what doesn’t when it comes to delivering a speech or presentation. Whether it’s the PTA or the boardroom, this ability is often deemed among the most important to master. This holds true for both sexes, but this book will prove especially helpful to women with its strategic advice on everything from messaging to hair and hemlines that give one the edge.

Lastly, in times when housing prices are low and real estate opportunities exist for the bold, Dr. David Schumacher, PhD, with Steve Dexter have written Buy and Hold Forever: How to Build Wealth for the 21st Century ($21.95, Schumacher Enterprise, softcover). Schumacher is a multimillionaire property owner. Dexter is the president of National Capital Funding and both have authored award-winning books describing their strategies. If, like me, what you know about real estate investing could fit in a bug’s ear, this book holds the potential to make you into an expert like the authors as they explain how to select properties with real profit potential, choose the locations that will become tomorrow’s hottest neighborhoods, and to negotiate lucrative real estate deals. If have always found it unique that successful people like these two would share the “secrets” of their success with anyone who wants to become successful too, but in America we have a philosophy that wealth is a good thing and derives from hard work.

Novels, Novels, Novels

Based on the daily requests for reviews of novels, it sometimes seems to me that everyone is writing one. It is impossible to review them all, let alone read them all, so here’s a selection of a few that made it past the gate.

Erin Brockovich made a name for herself exposing toxic waste sites and became the subject of an Oscar-winning movie that bears her name. She has joined with CJ Lyons, a medical suspense author, to author Hot Water ($25.99, Vanguard Press), a novel about an environmental activist who is drawn into an investigation of a nuclear facility in South Carolina designed to create medical isotopes with the potential to save millions of lives. The plant, however, has been plagued with mishaps that have defied previous investigations and drawn the attention of anti-nuclear groups. This is an old-fashioned thriller. Another thriller is based on the very real prospect of the massive volcano that exists beneath Yellowstone Park. It’s the reason the park’s geysers are such an attraction, but if it every erupted, the impact would be unimaginable. Well, that is until Mike Mullin imagined what would happen in Ashfall ($16.95, Tanglewood, Terre Haute, IN). Given the increase in volcanic activity worldwide, this is a very timely novel and I think you will enjoy a story about a teenager whose life is turned upside down when the Yellowstone caldera erupts and his harrowing search for his family and friends begins. With a fellow teen, they must fund the strength and skills to survive an epic disaster.

The unrest between Islamism and the rest of the world is the backdrop of Hotamah! by Jay J. Schlickman ($27.25, available at Amazon.com) that is based on the Koranic verse 104, a prophesy of nuclear conflagration. It opens in 1982 Tehran and projects forward to an imagined 2045 alliance between prominent Islamic leaders to achieve world domination. Carefully researched, the novel examines Iran’s drive to acquire nuclear weapons, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but most of all the danger that religious fanaticism represents to the entire world. The author says that the book is intended to educate readers to a better understanding of Middle Eastern dynamics, the current crisis as the fortunes of nations in the region shift and change, and what a holy war would produce if steps are not taken to retard its progress.

The author, John Barth, has established himself among top-ranked writers and his fans will enjoy Every Third Thought ($24.00, Counterpoint Press) in which an elderly American writer/professor experiences the destruction of his home due to a tornado. He notes that it occurs on the 77th anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash, a detail that would be insignificant were it not for several subsequent events. As he and his wife depart on a European vacation, he suffers a fall on his 77th birthday, and he begins to experience five serial visions, each appearing to him on the first day of the ensuring seasons and each illuminating the successive stages of his life and career. It is a story of uncanny coincidences and one that will keep you turning the pages. Another novel that explores how chance can turn one’s life upside down is The Gentlemen’s Sport & Social Club by Joe Petterle, ($19.95, Langdon Street Press) in which a one-dimensional life is upended when a recluse from his former corporate life meets a beautiful and engaging woman who invites him to join her exclusive club. It is part metaphysical adventure and part mysterious romance. Incarnation and past lives are the basis of My Memories of a Future Life by Roz Morris ($10.77, softcover, also available on Kindle, Amazon.com) when a gifted musician experiences an injury to stop playing, she meets a healer, liar, fraud who may be her future incarnation or just a psychological figment. It is a multilayered story of souls on a conjoined journey in real time and across the centuries. Not my cup of tea, but sure to be of interest to those who find such themes intriguing.

Those of a certain age who can recall growing up before, during or after World War II are in for a treat from two non-fiction novels based on the life of E.E. Smith. Boardinghouse Stew and Times Like These ($24.95 each, Phoenix International) capture an earlier, simpler time from the perspective of six decades later. In the first novel, we encounter an 11-year-old girl, happy to have found work as a maid and cook in a down-at-the-heels Sacramento guest house in 1943 and the second is a sequel set in 1945 when she has relocated to a small town in Nevada, both of which evoke the way patriotism and mutually experienced hard times brought people closer together. Older readers will recognize many aspects of those days and young readers will benefit from learning about them. The author takes you in, sets a place at the table for you, and recreates the life of a young girl in a totally engaging way. Finally, World War II has generated many novels because it was a great traumatic drama. In Hitler’s Silver Box ($16.95, Two Harbors Press, softcover), Dr. Allen Malnack has created a thriller in which a physician, the chief emergency room resident at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital has his attention diverted from his practice by the mysterious death of his uncle Max, a Holocaust survivor. He discovers a journal of his ordeal at Theresienstadt concentration camp that sheds light on his death and sets him on a quest to find a document written by Nazi leaders and hidden in a silver box. Dr. Malnack’s father came to the US from Lithuania at age 16. All the men, women and children of that family were sent to the death camps and exterminated by the Nazis. There is a quality of authenticity that mixes with the story and gives ian immediacy to the events described.

That’s it for November!

Wow, 2011 is almost over. More than 800 fiction and non-fiction books have been the subject so far of Bookviews and we have December yet to go. Please do tell your friends, family and co-workers to visit Bookviews and discover a world of publishing that is generally overlooked in the mainstream media these days due to the end of book sections or even a page or two devoted to new books that used to exist. And come back in December for some great gift books to give for the holidays.

By Alan Caruba
Founding Member, National Book Critics Circle

My Picks of the Month

As the European Union totters on collapse as several member nations face default and as the U.S. fails to address and solve its own financial problems, perhaps the one book you need to read to understand what is happening now, in the past, and in the near future is James Rickards Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis ($26.95, Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin) that explains in an easily understood fashion what U.S. policy makers have done or failed to do to protect the integrity and value of the U.S. dollar, the nation’s economy, and its natural security, All three are interlinked. Rickards tells of previous currency wars, their causes and outcomes, identifying the present situation as the third such war. He discusses how, when this war is over, the global balance of economic power may look very different and America’s role on the world stage could be dramatically reduced. The failure of the so-called Super Committee to agree on spending cuts and the possibility of sequestration or automatic cuts are part of this larger picture. At present, the annual Gross Domestic Product, the value of the sale of all goods and services, is approximately $14 trillion. The national debt is now $15 trillion and growing. You don’t have to be a math genius to see where this is going.

It’s not going to leap onto any bestseller list but it surely deserves to be widely read. It’s Regulators Gone Wild: How the EPA is Ruining American Industry by Rich Trzupek ($23.95, Encounter Books). A chemist and principal consultant at Mostardi Platt Environmental, he has been an environmental consultant for twenty-five years for several Fortune 500 companies. Trzupek brings a wealth of scientific knowledge and his experience to focus on something many people suspect, but lack the time to explore. The Environmental Protection Agency, established in 1970, has long since strayed from its original purpose to ensure clean air and water, becoming a rogue agency more concerned with aggressive regulation of all aspects of our lives, but in particular all business and industrial activity, large and small. The result is jobs lost because of decisions not to start or expand a business, or to conduct it offshore. For years now the EPA has been waging a war against access to and the use of all the facets of energy Americans need and use. This is a surprisingly short book for such a big topic, but the author covers all the bases and the examples he cites are chilling. I strongly recommend this excellent expose of a government agency run amuck.

These are election times as the merits of the GOP candidates are being evaluated and we are now beginning to look back at the previous administration with some perspective. A softcover edition of Decision Points by former President George W. Bush ($18.00, Broadway) is now available and provides his story of his life and the reasons he made the decisions he did during two terms leading the nation; the first involving the 9/11 attacked that changed our lives in its wake. The President comes across as a man with a deep religious faith, but also uniquely prepared for the job as the son of a former President, a pilot in the Reserves, a businessman, and as Governor of Texas. He comes across as honest, doing the best he could, and pretty much what we all saw at the time. Mitt Romney is a GOP candidate that many want to know better and R.B. Scott has authored Mitt Romney: An Inside Look at the Man and His Politics ($16.95, Lyons Press, softcover) that answers many of the questions in voter’s minds. It is the first independent, unauthorized biographical profile and draws on research from two decades, including interviews with people who know him well, allies and adversaries alike. The book also looks at the Mormon Church and its march toward the religious mainstream. If you’re still trying to make up your mind, you will be aided by this book.

December is the month when book lovers look for interesting gifts and anyone who loves elephants—and I do—I recommend An Elephant’s Life: An Intimate Portrait from Africa by Caitlin O’Connell ($29.95, Globe Pequot Press) which is filled with her photos of elephants being elephants in glorious color. The author is a leading field biologist who has immersed herself in a study of elephant society for nearly two decades. Her narration of the photos is kept to a minimum so that the pictures speak for themselves, but it is also invaluable for the understanding and insight it provides. This is photojournalism and nature documentary at its best. It is an intimate portrait. A totally different, but hearty, recommendation is for Insidethe Jewish Bakery by Stanley Ginsberg and Norman Berg ($24.95, Camino Books, Philadelphia, PA) subtitled “Recipes and Memories from the Golden Age of Jewish Baking.” There are few joys to rival fresh-baked breads, bagels, and other taste treats. The Ashkenazi Jewry from Eastern Europe brought with them baking traditions that went back centuries, as did the Sephardic or Mediterranean Jews. This book is more than a collection of recipes and because so much of Jewish cuisine has become part of the American dining scene, you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy this book. But it helps! The authors recall their youth in Brooklyn and the Bronx, large Jewish enclaves even today. The recipes are based on professional formulas, but adapted for home kitchens. The book is enhanced by many color photos of a range of breads, pastries, cookies and cakes. It’s a great Hanukkah or Christmas gift.

I love big, fat books filled with useful information and was greatly impressed when I received African American Almanac: 400 Years of Triumph, Courage and Excellence by Lean’tin L. Bracks ($22.95, Visible Ink Press, Canton, MI, softcover). It has biographies of more than 750 influential figures, is filled with little known or misunderstood historical facts, enlightening essays on significant legislation and movements that explore the past, the progress, and current conditions of African Americans. As a true almanac, it covers the civil rights movement, African American literature, art and music, as well as religion, advances in science and medicine, theatre, film and television. It is a tremendous value for the vast amount of information it provides.

One of the most common questions I receive comes from writers who want to know if I can recommend a literary agent or a publisher for their book. The best answer I have is to pick up a copy of Jeff Herman’s encyclopedic 2012 Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, & Literary Agents ($29.99, Sourcebooks, softcover). It is an extraordinary compilation of data about the many publishing houses that exist, what their preferences are, who their personnel are, and everything else you need to know. The same applies to the section on agents and to independent editors who can assist a writer. The guide even includes a section on the future of book publishing in regard to the ever-changing technology as well as resources for writers, websites and a glossary for those new to the process of finding the people that can transform a manuscript into a finished book. Herman has a track record of representing bestselling authors and this guide will prove a worthy investment.

Memoirs, Biographies & Autobiographies

Kurt Vonnegut whose novels like “Slaughterhouse Five”, “Cat’s Cradle”, and “Breakfast of Champions” became iconic markers of the twentieth century. Generally speaking, the man, himself, was not well known. His life was a series of tragedies that include his mother’s suicide, being a prisoner during World War II, the loss of a sister to cancer. One suspects he survived because he distilled it in his novels and leavened it with his unique sense of humor. Fans will welcome Charles J. Shields’ And So It Goes—Kurt Vonnegut: A Life ($30.00, Henry Holt and Company). It is an authorized biography, the result of five year’s research, hundreds of interviews, and more than 1,500 letters. Just out in November, it has been greeted with praise, hailed as “triumphant” and “definitive”, the best praise may be that it is very entertaining.

The passing of Apple’s Steve Jobs evoked worldwide notice. George Beahm just had his book, I, Steve: Steve Jobs in his Own Words ($10.95, Agate Publishing, softcover) published. It is a collection of Job’s quotations a vast array of topics, from anxiety to zen. Nor is this a fat compendium of lengthy statements, but rather a selection of short takes, often no more than a single sentence, so the 200 quotes actually fit in the palm of your hand. They capture his thoughts, ideas, and opinions on business, technology, culture, and life. Just as we look back at the genius of Edison in his era of innovation and invention, future generations will do the same for Jobs.

The story of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomatic envoy who risked his life to save the lives of more than 100,000 Jewish men, women, and children during World War II. Alex Kershaw tells that story in The Envoy ($16.00, Da Capo Press, softcover) recounts the final winter of the war and the extraordinary story of how Wallenberg used “safe passage” passes and secret “safe houses” throughout Budapest, using material gleaned from international archives as well as interviews with eyewitnesses, survivors and relatives of those whom he saved. The Talmud says that he who saves a single life, save the entire world. Wallenberg’s fate remains unknown, but his story lives on. Fast forward and Anna Badkhen offers a memoir of Afghanistan and Iraq from the point of view of a war reporter in Peace Meals: Candy-Wrapped Kalashnikovs and Other War Stories ($15.00, Free Press, softcover). It is an unsparing and intimate history of the last decade’s most vicious conflicts, bringing the human elements to life along with the dehumanizing realities of war, the people, the compassion they scraped from catastrophe, and the food they ate to survive. It is a very different view of the conflict that reflects the culture that has declared jihad against the West.

Manny Pacquiao, who many consider the best boxer of our times, has his life told in Pacman by Gary Andrew Poole ($15.00, Da Capo Press, softcover) that takes one behind-the scenes in this first major biography. More than a superb athlete, Pacquiao is a cultural icon known as much for his philanthropy to his country. He has been elected a congressman in his native Philippines, using his position to fight the severe poverty from which he came. Many predict he will one day be the president of that nation. In a classic rags to riches story, fans of boxing in particular will greatly enjoy this biography. From the music scene, fans of the group, Black Sabbeth, will enjoy Iron Man: My Journey through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbeth, a memoir by Tony Iommi ($26.00, Da Capo Press) that recounts how his band emerged around 1968 to break through the folksy songs of the hippie subculture to address war, famine, and political corruption, shocking and angering people with a new genre that would be known as heavy metal. As their lead guitarist he recounts how an accident sliced off the tips of the two middle fingers on his right hand, affecting the way he played, producing the deeper, more powerful musical tones for which the band became famous. He recounts his drug and alcohol abuse, marital discord, and the constant management problems that included exists by band members, the most famous of which was Ozzy Osbourne.

Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski recount the surprising story between a busy ad executive and a hungry little boy, Maurice Maczyk, who she encountered one day on a Manhattan street corner. An Invisible Thread ($25.00, Howard Books, a division of Simon and Schuster) tells the story of how something about the boy touched her heart “as if we were bound by some invisible, unbreakable thread.” The boy, born to an abusive father and drug-addicted mother, living in welfare hotels with his knife-weilding grandmother, had all the odds stacked against him, but he had a special spirit and what began as a simple lunch shared between strangers became a weekly ritual and life-changing friendship. Ron Franscell’s The Sourtoe Cocktail Club, ($18.95, Globe Pequot Press, softcover) is subtitled “The Yukon odyssey of a father and son in search of a mummified human toe…and everything else.” A lifelong journalist, the author grew up in Wyoming. He has witnessed and written about the evolution of the American West, the first months of the Afghan war and the devastation of Hurricane Rita. The author of many books, this one is an account of a road trip with his son where they drank a cocktail containing a mummified human toe and spent the longest day of the year under an Arctic sun than never set. Quite simply, he is an extraordinary writer and the memoir can be read for the pleasure of his prose. Anyone who has ever owned a horse will identify with and thoroughly enjoy Jana Harris’s Horses Never Lie About Love ($24.00, Free Press). When she and her husband moved to Washington State, she wanted to fulfill her dream of starting a horse farm. On a visit to a ranch where horses had been corralled for sale, she fell in love with a handsome mare and her foal, a black colt. When they were delivered three months later, however, she was unrecognizable, having survived a range five that had scarred her head and ears, and damaged her lungs. Could this now half wild horse be gentled? Harris’s book is a heartwarming story of the bonds between those who love horses and the horses who love them back.

Memoirs can also be painful while being cathartic. Betrayal and the Beast by Peter S. Pelullo is subtitled “a true story of one man’s journey through childhood sexual abuse, sexual addition, and recovery” ($15.95, Only Serenity LLC) Pellulo focuses on his corporate life in the music industry where he gained recognition for recording acts like the Rolling stones, Foreigner, and Stevie Wonder. He was active as well in the telecom industry, the Internet, and the financial world, but despite success in these fields, he could not overcome the scars of the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of two older neighborhood kids in the 1950s. This book points up, as Pelullo notes, that it is estimated that one in three girls and one in four boys experience sexual abuse before the age of 18. In his case, it led to a hidden life of sexual promiscuity and pain he sought to dull with prescription drugs, alcohol, and work. He had no one he considered a close friend. This book tells of his journey to recovery which he shares to give other victims like himself hope they too can recover.

Reading History

My understanding of the present and concerns about the future are informed by a life spent reading history. It never fails to fascinate me.

A brilliant new book about the history of Christianity is Rodney Stark’s The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World’s Largest Religion ($27.99, HarperOne). From an obscure Jewish sect whose teacher was executed by the Romans, the story of Christianity is quite extraordinary one. Stark previously authored “The Rise of Christianity”, but this new book carries history forward from its origins to the conquest of Roman society. His new book applies his considerable intellect to the last two thousand years, often challenging the conventional interpretations of many major events in the Christian narrative. He argues that Constantine’s conversion did the Church a great deal of harm and notes that the majority of converts to early Christianity were women. Some books on religion engage the reader in ways that either strengthen or decrease their faith, but this is a book of history and, as such, it is filled with insights that depart from much that is taken for granted by the faithful. Most surely, Stark’s belief that religion must disappear to allow for a more secular world, confident of its own achievements, is provocative, but he also explains why faith remains vigorous almost everywhere around the world and why Christianity continues to play an important role.

Have you ever wondered what it would have been like to have lived in an earlier century? If so, you are in for a treat when you read The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer ($15.00, Touchstone Books, a division of Simon and Schuster, softcover. “Imagine yourself in a dusty London street on a medieval summer morning. A servant opens an upstairs shutter and starts beating a blanket. A dog guarding a traveler’s packhorses starts barking. Nearby traders call out from their market stalls…and you, in the middle of all this, where are you going to stay tonight? What are you wearing? What are you going to eat?” Instead of stories about jousts and chivalry, Mortimer brings to life, the daily sights, sounds, smells and tastes of England in the Middle Ages, hundreds of years before electricity, indoor plumbing, and modern medicine. This is history experienced in ways most other books do not convey.

The American Revolution tends to be taught in fairly sterile terms of battles and books about the leaders, but it was fought by real people and experienced by others that by Noel Rae ($30.00, Lyons Press) whose thoughts and experiences were captured in diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and other sources of the time has been captured in a great read, The People’s War: Original Voices of the American Revolution. To gain insight to what it meant to live through that long, tumultuous period, this book is the one to read. We are familiar with George Washington and his colleagues, but here we are introduced to a farm boy who ran away to sea at age twelve, a pretty young widow roughed up by Tory ruffians, and a slave who escaped to the British after witnessing his mother being flogged. Not everyone favored the Revolution in much the same way we differ among ourselves over today’s conflicts. This is history at its most entertaining and authoritive, as told by witnesses to the events.

Much of history is about wars and two define much about America. Grant’s Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant’s Heroic Last Year recounts the last year of the military genius brought the Civil War to an end and served as President. Charles Bracelen Flood goes beyond Grant’s memoirs, written in his final days, beset by terminal cancer and cheated of his wealth by a business partner. They were his effort to save his family from destitution and, finished just four days before his death, became a bestseller. Flood paints a picture of a man devoted to his family. His determination, love of family and nation, is captured in this biography. Pearl Harbor Christmas: A World at War, December 1941 by Stanley Weintraub ($24.00, Da Capo Press) recalls the days that followed December 7, 1941 that brought the U.S. into the World War that had been raging in Europe and Asia while Americans resisted being drawn into it. The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor altered history forever. An award-winning historian, author and co-author of more than fifty books, Weintraub describes how Churchill, at great risk, traveled to the U.S. to meet with Roosevelt to set in motion the events of WWII. He arrived on December 22. The book captures the unique feeling of a nation on the brink of war and provides the an insight to the strategic planning of the two most respected politicians of the 20th century. Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 by Ian W. Toll ($35.00, W.W. Norton) chronicles the first two years the followed the attack on Pearl Harbor that claimed 2,500 lives and dealt a blow to U.S. naval power, locking American and Japan in a titanic struggle for control of the Pacific ocean, a struggle that became the largest naval war in history. It tells of the panic, triumph, and sacrifice of the early months of the epic contest and the admirals, political leaders, sailors and pilots on both sides of the conflict. From Pearl Harbor to the Battle of Midway, the collapse of the Japanese Empire was set in motion. Little wonder this aspect of the war holds our interest to this day. This book is a gripping story that anyone who loves history will devour despite its length or because of it.

Some years just stand out in our nation’s history, 1776, 1864, 1941 and 1968. The last is the subject of a book, The 1968 Project: A Nation Coming of Age by the staff of the Minnesota Historical Society ($24.95, Minnesota Historical Society Press, softcover) does a terrific job with texts and photos catching the highs and lows of a year that was unique culturally, politically, and in so many other ways. 1968 saw the assassination of both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy. It was the year of the Democratic Party national convention in Chicago with its epic battles with protests in Lincoln and Grant parks. Hubert Humphrey was the Democratic nominee. Richard M. Nixon was the GOP choice and, in November, he was the winner. There were more than 549,000 troops in Vietnam; 17,000 had been killed in combat that year. For a sense of a turning point that influenced much of what has since followed, this is an excellent book to read.

For the younger reader there is perhaps nothing more inspiring than to read the lives of men and women who, as Sandra McLoed Humphrey puts it, “made a difference.” They may learn about such people on television or from movies, but nothing is quite so intimate than to hold a book in one’s hands and to read about them. That’s why I would recommend They Stood Alone! 25 Men and Women Who Make a Difference ($14.00, Prometheus Books, softcover) by Ms. Humphrey who takes the reader on a tour in which she says, “heroes are ordinary people who accomplish extraordinary things…” From DaVinci and Newton to Curie and Einstein, from Gandhi to Neil Armstrong and Rosa Parks, this is a gift that should be under the tree or near the menorah as it celebrates vision and courage.

Advice, Advice, Advice

In the world of books there is no end to advice on every single aspect of life. One of the most challenging is how to find a mate and then how to fashion a successful marriage. It’s not easy but Bari Lyman has written Meet to Marry: A Dating Revelation for the Marriage Minded ($14.95, Health Communications, softcover). Lyman has coached hundreds of singles as a modern-day marriage-broker and her book helps the single reader to find their way to lasting love. She teaches how to recognize one’s own blind spots and to change the way one thinks when mind-sets hinder relationships. One must first be able to live in harmony with oneself while being visible to one’s partner. She offers a three-step program—Assess, Attract and Act. I think this book will help a lot of singles avoid the pitfalls and take the right steps. Then there’s the question, “What does your husband—whom you still love—do that drives you nuts?” It was a question that Jenna McCarthy posted on her Facebook page and out of it came If It Was Easy, They’d Call the Whole Damn Thing a Honeymoon: Living with and loving the TV-Addicted, Sex-Obsessed, Not-So-Handy Man You Married ($15.00, Berkley Publishing, softcover). McCarthy is happily married and the mother of two daughters. She is also the author of five books and a very funny writer who brings laughter and clarity it to this subject. Women will identify with what she deems male idiocy, but she also dishes some straight talk to the girls as they navigate through marriage.

A very different approach is found in Draw Close ($19.99, Revell) written for Christian couples by Willard F Hartley, Jr. and his wife, Joyce. They share their insights for growing a strong marriage with a devotional because they believe one must draw close to God as well as each other. They must be doing something right. They have been married 48 years! The book addresses a variety of topics that every couple faces in marriage ranging from love to time issues, honesty, harmful habits, selfish demands, criticism, respect, parenting, and so much more. If one’s marriage includes a mouthy, moody teenager, I have just the book for you. It’s Dr. Kevin Leman’s Have a New Teenager by Friday ($17.99. Revell) in which this family expert and author of more than forty books reveals how to deal with the most familiar bad attitudes of teenagers with advice that really works; how to gain respect, establish healthy boundaries, communicate effectively, turn selfish behavior around, and be the influence for the better person you want your teenager to be. Two other Revell books to check out are A Confident Heart: How to Stop Doubting Yourself & Live in the Security of God’s Promises by Renee Swope ($13.99, softcover) and Walk Strong, Look Up by Chantel Hobbs ($13.99, softcover) the author of “Never Say Diet” who is back with a book on the healthful benefits of walking to transform your physical, mental, and spiritual outlook. It is filled with practical advice.

Stephen R. Covey gained fame with his book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” which sold 20 million copies and he is back now with The 3rd Alternative: Solving Life’s Most Difficult Problems ($28.00, Free Press) which looks at the traditional way of conflict resolution—my way or your way. He offers a third way in which the parties engaged in “creative dialogue” and temporarily suspend their entrenched positions. This is not exactly a big breakthrough, unless you’re one of those people who believe in “my way or the highway” and then maybe you need to read this book! Most of life involves a degree of flexibility and compromise and that is what Covey’s new book addresses.

Last Laughs: A Pocketful of Wry for the Aging seems an appropriate way to close out this discussion of advice books ($14.95, Two Harbors Press). Actually, Everett Mattlin serves up a collection of essays that skip all the usual feel-good chatter about growing old and gets right to all its most annoying aspects. His advice is to get lazy and be lazy in your “golden years” because as he says, there is nothing wrong with spending your time wallowing in all the wonderfully clichés of old age, a comfy rocking chair, old movies on TCM, your favorite libation, and just remember the good old days. It works for me!

Getting Down to Business

Ronn Torossian has built a reputation for himself and for his public relations firm, 5W Public Relations, over the years as being among the top practitioners of PR that benefits his clients in New York, Los Angeles, and points in between as one of Inc Magazine’s list of the top 500 entrepreneurial firms. So what should a successful PR professional do at this point in his career? Write a book of course. For immediate Release, written with Karen Kelly ($24.95, Benbella Books, Dallas, TX) is testimony to the triumphs and pitfalls of public relations. It is filled with good advice based on real world case histories of what works and what doesn’t. Over my 40+ years as a public relations counselor I can attest to the many ways this book can help everyone from the CEO of a giant corporation to a start-up new business. Much of what we read or hear in the media is directly related to the information provided by PR practitioners as they seek to help their clients and, indeed, federal and state governments engage in massive amounts of PR to advance their agendas and policies, so it isn’t just private enterprise. Non-profits, too, use PR for their causes. This is one of the best books on PR that I have read in years.

Getting new business and then servicing it are the subjects of two softcover books of interest. Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing by Neal Schaffer ($21.95, Windmill Networking) While most who sign up on Linkedin for the purpose of getting a job, Schaffer explores the network’s potency in connecting sales and marketing forces and backs it up with 15 business owners and professional’s case histories. The book shows how to create a sales-oriented profile and connections policy to attract more leaders. He recommends becoming an industry thought leaders by establishing your own community within the LinkedIn demographic. The networking website clearly offers many such opportunities and this book shows you how to get the maximum value from it. Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service is now in its fifth edition ($18.95, Amacom), testimony to its advice on how customers both shop and relate their experience. Readers will benefit from its new tips, tools, and techniques to impress and retain customers, on problem-solving, working with generational and cultural differences and even how to handle the “customer from hell.” For the start-up or the old pro, this book has proven itself over and over again.

When Life Strikes: Weathering Financial Storms by Cal Brown ($24.95, Brown Books Publishing Group, Dallas, TX) takes a look at the many different problems that life throws in our path, examining questions that include what if “I lost my spouse?”, “I lost my career?”, “I lost my investments?”, along with similar questions regarding marriage, the loss of parents, stolen identity, the loss of health and even one’s mind! The author is a financial planner and brings his experience to bear on these common situations. The book is filled with excellent advice on how to prepare for these problems, looking ahead for the sale of one’s spouse, children, and personal future. Put this one on your “must read” list. In Affluence Intelligence: Earn More, Worry less, and Live a Happy and Balanced Life ($25.00, Da Capo Press) authors Stephen Goldbart, PhD, and Joan Indursky Difuria, MFT, join to discuss what constitutes a fulfilling, financially secure life in which you work at what you love, have satisfying relationships, and life a life that has meaning and purpose. We often do not address these questions until too much time has passed by, so a book like this allows you to begin to focus well before it’s too late.

A rather specialized book is Andrew J. Sherman’s Harvesting Intangible Assets: Uncovering Hidden Revenue in Your Company’s Intellectual Property ($29.95, Amacom). The author says that most companies allocate little structured attention to cultivating the resource of their intellectual property; companies that do include Google, IBM, Amazon, and others. Based on his work with some of the world’s most innovative and successful companies, Sherman presents systematic methods for managing, measuring, maximizing, and protecting these assets in an information-centric, innovation-driven world.

Exile onWall Street: One Analyst’s Fight to Save the Big Banks from Themselves ($29.95, Wiley) by Mike Mayo could not be more timely in light of the events of 2008 and the “Occupy Wall Street” attack on the nation’s banking system. The author is an award-winning Wall Street analyst, Mayo writes about the biggest issue of our time, the role of finance and banks in America. In doing so, he lays out the truth about practices that have diminished capitalism and tarnished the banking sector. He brings to bear his experience working at six Wall Street firms, analyzing banks and protesting against bad practices for two decades. In doing so, he blows the lid off the true inner workings of the big banks. This book deserves not only to be read, but to be a template for correcting the ills and misfortunes of today’s banking community.

Children’s & Young Adult Books

I am one of those people that thinks that, under the Christmas tree, there should be books as well as toys. A child can always return to a favorite book for some quiet time and usually benefit from its story.

There’s Hanukkah, too. The Jewish festival of lights and one of the most entertaining and charming stories with that holiday theme is The Story of Hanukkah Howie, written by Jan Dalrymple and illustrated by her husband, Bob Dalrymple ($18.00, Peanut Buttler Publishing, Seattle, WA) in which a toddler awakes one day with a spike of hair on the top of his head and one by his ear. This is followed by more such spikes of hair and always as Hanukkah is close at hand. It is an amusing tale of how Howie tries to cope with this strange phenomenon as he grows older until a youngster points out that his hair resembles of menorah with nine candles. If there’s a Jewish youngster around 6 to 9 or so that you know, this would make a great gift. Parents can read the story to those of pre-school age.

For the very young there are books that are indestructible, made with thick cardboard pages and covers, but wonderfully illustrated. Parents can develop a love for books by giving them as a gift and reading from them at bedtime. One example is A Bedtime Kiss for Chester Raccoon by Audrey Penn and illustrated by Barbara L. Gibson ($7.95, Tanglewood Publishing, Terra Haute, IN). As a beam of sun makes the rounds of his nest, young Chester’s imagination gets the best of him as various creatures are conjured up and sleep is slow to arrive. From the same publisher there’s Wild Rose’s Weaving by Ginger Churchill and illustrated by Nicole Wong ($15.95) for the early reader, 5 to 7, about a little girl whose grandmother wants to teach her how to weave, but she wants to play outside and enjoy nature. When she returns home, there’s a rug that’s been woven that has all the colors and shapes of nature and Rose decides she too wants to learn how to weave. Jabberwocky Books has published a book specifically for the pre-teen who suffers from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and there’s an estimated one in one hundred that do. Stuck by Rhonda Martin, M.A., ($15.77) and illustrated by Denis Proulx is about a seven year-old girl who gets “stuck” on things like cleaning her hands, the use of words, and even saying goodbye to her parents. The book will help both the OCD child and their parent deal with the disorder and to know that they are not facing it alone.

Kids Can Press is a publishing dynamo for children’s books. For those ages 3 to 5 there’s My Name is Elizabeth! Written by Annika Dunkler and illustrated by Matthew Forsythe ($13.95) about a little girl who loves her name and does not want to be called anything else like Liz or Lissie. It’s very funny in a sweet way. From the same publisher and also for this age group is Hocus Pocus by Sylvie Desrosiers and illustrated by Remy Simard ($14.95) about a battle of wits between a magician’s rabbit named Hocus Pocus and the magician’s grumpy canine called Dog. Dog wants to sleep. Hocus Pocus wants to eat carrots. The two have a merry time trying to outwit each other. This age group will also enjoy The Call of the Cowboy by David Bruins and illustrated by Hilary Leung ($16.95) about a little cowboy who has to learn that all the noise he is making is annoying his friends, especially a bear and a ninja. They go off on their own and he discovers the value of being quiet around others who return to be his friends again.

For others, Kids Can Press, has some educational books that are also fun to read. Ages 4 to 7 or so will enjoy Look at That Building! A First Book of Structures by Scot Ritchie ($16.95) that’s a brightly illustrated introduction to basic construction concepts of walls, floors and roofs, as well as the many different kinds of structures there are, even in nature. Basic concepts of physical science and space are explained in Motion, Magnets and More by Adrienne Mason will illustrations by Claudia Davila ($18.95). Any parent who works in these fields will want to share this with their child. That’s how young scientists and engineers are guided. And breathes there a child who is not fascinated by dinosaurs? From its series, Tales ofPrehistoric Life, there’s Ankylosaur Attack by Daniel Loxton, illustrated by the author and Jim W.W. Smith ($16.95) and when I say “illustrated” I mean absolutely extraordinary artwork that brings that lost era alive. The story is a real adventure.

Young Adult

For young adults, there’s a graphic novel, The Sign of the Black Rock by Scott Chantler ($17.95, Kids Can Press) from the Three Thieves series, part two. Told comic book style, it is a story of friendship, betrayal, and escape—all on one dark and stormy night as Dessa, Topper and Fisk continue their search from Grayfalcon in the hope he will lead them to Dessa’s brother. It’s a long night at Black Rock Inn, only to come face-to-face with their pursuer, Captain Drake. It’s a page turner. Just published in November by Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group comes Snow in Summer: The Tale of an American Snow White by Jane Yolen ($16.95) in which the fairy tale is turned into a modern, rather grim story of young Summer, a girl growing up in West Virginia who loses her mother and her baby in childbirth, followed by her father’s marriage to a step-mother with a very dark side to her personality. Yolen has authored more than three hundred books, has won a heap of awards, and knows how to spin a tale. The SeaWall by Leslie Ann Keatley ($11.99, Arbor Books, softcover) is a timely novel set in the fictional town of Moss Ridge, California, where 17 year-old Audrey Kelly finds herself the target of a group of bullies known as the Cheerleaders. Fed up with being a victim, Audrey sets out on a campaign of revenge against the group’s leader, Caroline, but her so-called harmless pranks get out of hand. The novel demonstrates what can happen when frustration and anger get out of control and how dangerous such aggression can be. The book works just as well for an older reader, too.

A new Christmas-themed story is The Taste of Snow by Stephen V. Masse ($20.00, Good Harbor Press, Medford, MA) is ideal for ages 8 through 14. It takes the reader to an Alpine wonderland, Gartendorf, Austria, just days before the Feast of Saint Nicholas where eleven-year-old Nicole Kinders has stopped at Boznik’s market stall on the way to school so her younger sister, Ashley, can buy a sweet. Boznick offers Nicole a candy cane saying, “This is a magic candy cane. The magic will be revealed.” One taste unlocks memories of the most wonderful flavors in her memory. But trouble is waiting when Nicole intervenes in a quarrel between students on the tram home from school. Will the candy cane’s magic work to recapture the joy of the season? You will have to read it to learn. Chengli and the Silk Road Caravan by Hildi Kang ($14.95, Tanglewood) takes the reader to China in 630 A.D. where Chengli is an orphaned errand boy in Chang’an. At age 13 he feels ready for independence and joins a caravan on the merchant route known as the Silk Road. In part he is searching for a father who disappeared many years earlier. Also on the caravan is a princess and her royal guards. This is a coming of age story filled with adventure and heroism that will delight a young reader. Finally, for lots of fun, there’s Elliott Stone and the Mystery of the Summer Vacation Sea Monster by Carl DiRocco ($8.99, Blue Martin Publications, softcover) in which Elliot, unhappy to be missing events and friends far from the Vermont family cabin on Neshobe Island in the middle of Lake Bomoseen thinks he may have spotted a sea monster and meets Marley “a totally cute girl next door” that turns the summer into an adventure.

Novels, Novels, Novels

David H. Brown puts his experience dealing with Washington, D.C. agencies, taps the current interest evoked by the forthcoming election, and then hypothesizes that would happen if an act of terrorism killed the incoming and outgoing presidents and vice presidents on Inauguration Day! The succession would go to the Speaker of the House and next to the President of the Senate Pro Tempore, but neither is available to serve. Instead, a new Speaker is named and she is given the oath of office, vowing revenge for the perpetrators. You’re not likely to put down Next in Line to the Oval Office ($25.99, but only $16.30 direct from Author House, also available as an e-book) as the search is on to track down the killers. A very timely novel, indeed!


Chick-Lit

There is a gusher of softcover novels available and, in no particular order, there’s It’s a Waverly Life by Maria Murnane ($14.95, Amazon Encore), a sequel to “Perfect on paper: The (Mis)adventures of Waverly Bryson.” Waverly is a popular blogger whose fans call her an ‘American Bridget Jones.’ Busy with her dating advice blog, Waverly has also fallen in love with Jake McIntyre, a physical therapist for the NBA in Atlanta. Having had one broken heart with a previous romance, she is struggling. Life is getting very complicated for Waverly and if this sounds like ‘chick-lit’, it is. The girls will love this one and, no doubt, A Pinch of Love by Alicia Bessette ($15.00, Plume) who tells a warm-hearted story about the young widow of a Katrina volunteer who forms an unlikely friendship with Ingrid her 9-year-old neighbor. Rose Ellen ‘Zell’ Roy is still morning the death of her husband Nick who died on a relief mission. She has taken up baking to pass the time and has set her eye on winning the grand prize to donate in Nick’s honor. The theme of female friendship is explored in Inseparable by Dora Helt, as translated by Jamie Lee Searle ($14.95, Amazon Crossing, also available as an e-book) Life can be complex. Christine’s best friend ran off with her now ex-husband and she is pretty sure she doesn’t need another BFF in her life. Still reeling from her recent divorce, she is hardly looking forward to her upcoming 44th birthday. Then her editor assigns her to write a column about what she’s been through and, when she does, her two other friends hatch a plan, a surprise party, to snap her out of her doldrums. Believe it or not, this is often a laugh-out-loud story as it we discover how important friendships are. This one is a winner!

Mysteries

For the guys (and girls) who prefer some mystery, a bit of violence, and psychological complexity, there’s Already Gone by John Rector ($14.95, Thomas & Mercer, softcover). Rector’s complex characters and intricate plots have won him plaudits from the media, fellow writers, and a burgeoning fan base. This is his third novel. His main character is Jake Reese, who is teaching writing at a university in the Southwest, has been married to Diane for just over a month, and has a mild drinking problem more or less under control. What could go wrong? Everything. After leaving a local bar to head home, he is assaulted y thugs who do not take his money or car, but just his wedding ring and the finger it was on! The local police are not much help, so he decides to track down his attackers himself. Then he receives news that his wife’s body was found in a car wreck. In his previous life, Jake was a criminal and he reaches out to the crime boss who mentored him for help. Suffice to say this novel has more twists and turns than you can imagine, all quite gripping and worth reading. Another mystery story is Waterfall by David Zini ($17.95, Langdon Street Press) in which police investigators Mark Truitt and Jamie Littlebird are trying to unravel a succession of deaths at Midwest Research Labs, a Minnesota business. The finger points to the Pallidin family that owns the labs, but are they villains or just pawns in a deadly game to control the world’s population? At the center of the story is a vicious contract killer with total disdain for humanity. Scary? You bet!

That’s it for 2011

Wow! 2011 is in the history books and we will now turn our attention to 2012, a year for a national election and who knows what else? In terms of new fiction and non-fiction, I can predict the usual deluge because there is no end to storytelling and to books of all kinds that help us ensure good health, run our businesses better, and provide insight into history. Others teach us about cooking and baking, child care and parenting, and every other aspect of life. Some ask me if ebooks will replace traditional ones. My answer is no. Nothing can replace a book you can hold in your hands and then put on a shelf to revisit.

Tell your friends and other book lovers about Bookviews.com!

By Alan Caruba

My Picks of the Month

A book that has proven so provocative that even Congress is currently trying to fashion a re-write of laws applying to its members is Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich off Inside Stock tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism that would Send the Rest of Us to Prison ($26.00, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Its author, Peter Schweizer, is the William J. Casey Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has a resume as long as your arm. The service his book provides is one that the Washington, D.C. corps of journalists has largely ignored for years in what Schweizer calls “an incestuous relationship” based on the fact that journalists fear losing access to the members of Congress if they dared to expose the larceny that takes men and women elected to office go from moderate income to owning millions. The book describes the process and names names when it comes to the graft involved that includes insider trading, conflicts of interest, and kickbacks. This goes well beyond mere bribery, something regarding as rather old-fashioned at this point. Since Congress has exempted itself from laws that would send others doing the same thing to jail, the process has been completely legal. “Unfair, unethical, and immoral—but legal. By leading a team that examined the records Congress critters are required to make public, albeit a year after the transactions, Schwiezer was able to put together a book that is an astonishing revelation of self-enrichment at the expense of the public they are said to serve.

The Tea Party movement in America was a spontaneous response to legislation passed during the first two years of the Obama administration to aroused dispute and rejection, the best known of which is “Obamacare.” An interesting new book, Ten Tea Parties: Patriotic Protests that History Forgot by Joseph Cummins ($18.95, Quirk Press) tells the story, not only of the famed Boston Tea Party, but of others in the American colonies from Philadelphia to New York and other cities. It offers a thorough explanation why the British imposed taxes on tea, the role in played in the lives of the colonists, and how the taxes, one that followed the Sugar and Stamp Acts, galvanized Americans of that era to resist Great Britain and ultimately declare their independence. It is an exciting rendition of the people and events that sparked the American Revolution.

Some books are just so extraordinary that one marvels at the intelligence and creativity they represent. This is the case with Theodore Gray’s Elements Vault: Treasures of the Periodic Table ($39.95, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers), a slip-cased box of wonders based on an earlier book, “The Elements”, by Popular Science columnist, Theodore Gray in 2009. The book eventually ended up on the Wall Street Journal’s bestseller list and thousands of people discovered the genius of the periodic table, listing all the chemical and mineral elements of which our planet is composed. It was created by a Russian chemist, Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev. Gray’s new book, co-authored with Simon Quellen Field, is a response to the readers who wanted to learn even more about the elements, to touch and feel some of them if possible. It is possible because the book contains samples including pure gold, silicon, boron, europium and zirconium. Throughout the book are 23 important historical and supplementary documents related to the elements and the field of chemistry. It is an extraordinary experience enhanced by many stunning photos by Gray. This book should earn a shelf of awards but the biggest reward will be for the reader who delves into it.

Another large format book is the Lights of Mankind: The Earth at Night as Seen from Space ($32.50, Lyons Press, imprint of Globe Pequot Press), edited by L. Douglas Keeney. At night the Earth from space is a two-billion kilowatt map of civilization and the cities that are lighted to reveal where electricity keeps its cities active long after the sun has set on them. Japan is a garland of lighted islands in the Pacific, Egypt is mostly in darkness except for the Nile that snakes through its desert, bejeweled in light. These are photos, taken by NASA’s astronauts in a program that the current administration has ended. Any aficionado of space exploration will enjoy this remarkable tribute to the only planet in our galaxy that not only supports life, but is illuminated by it.

You might not think concrete is a particularly interesting topic, but you would be wrong. In Concrete Planet: The Strange and Fascinating Story of the World’s Most Common Man-Made Material ($26.00, Prometheus Books) Robert Courland provides a lively history to a material that we use for buildings, bridges, dams, and road. It is everywhere man lives and works, and it has been around for a very long time. King Herod of Judea, a major builder, as well as Roman Emperor Hadrian, and others all relied on concrete, so it’s history is intertwined with the rise of civilization. In America, Thomas Edison once owned the largest concrete plant in the world. Buildings like the Coliseum and the Pantheon are testimony to the skill of ancient architects and builders. The secrets of concrete were lost for nearly a thousand years after the fall of the Roman Empire, but were rediscovered in the late 18th century. It wasn’t until the end of the 19th century that the use of concrete exploded. Anyone with an interest in history will enjoy this book.

Now that the holidays are over many are thinking about their cooking and baking skills, often to either begin or to improve on them. For them there’s Kitchen on Fire: Mastering the Art of Cooking in 12 Weeks (Or Less) by Olivier Said and Chef MikeC. ($35.00, Da Capo Press) and Baking with the Cake Boss by Buddy Valastro ($30.00, Free Press). The former book was written by the founders and instructors of the acclaimed Berkeley cook school of the same name and it prepares the reader to take on any recipe in any cookbook and even to invent new recipes. This is a book about cooking principles which one can apply to any meal. Extensively illustrated, it is a good book for the new bride or anyone who has not learned the fundamentals of cooking. This is a great way to become a master chef in the comfort of one’s own home. The latter book takes its name from the author’s popular television show, The Cake Boss, and offers “100 of Buddy’s Best Recipes and Decorating Secrets.” All manner of delicious treats plus great ways to decorate cakes and other baked goods are described and illustrated with mouth-watering photos.

There is considerable distrust these days of journalism and journalists these days. Thus, The Bloomberg Way: A Guide for Reporters and Editors by Matthew Winkler, Editor-in-Chief of Bloomberg News ($45.00, Bloomberg Press, an imprint of Wiley) would be a good investment for any journalist. I don’t expect the general public to plunk down that kind of money to learn the rules of financial reporting, but I do think that journalists, students, business professionals and anyone who wants to write about money should make the investment. Winkler’s approach is pragmatic and stresses the ethical standards we expect of today’s journalists. As he says, there is no such thing as being first if the news is wrong. He advises that a journalist explain the role of money in all its forms to reveal the true meaning of the news. At a time when the news is filled with reports about unemployment, huge deficits and debt, the threat to the Euro, this is a very timely, important book.

The election of President Obama spurred the increased sale of handguns, so if you are among those who have made such a purchase or possess handguns, I recommend The Complete Illustrated Manual of Handgun Skills by Robert Campbell ($27,99, Zenith Press, softcover). The manual provides instructions for taking care of your firearms, from cleaning to general maintenance. It demystifies the sometimes confusing array of ammunition available in every caliber, and provides the basics on firearm safety, marksmanship, competitive shooting, hunting, and person protection. The author is a former peace officer with twenty years on the job. He has published more than six hundred articles.

Memoirs, Autobiographers, Biographies, Etc

Many Americans are looking back at the Reagan era with fondness these days, remembering how he handled economic problems, the threat of Soviet-style Communism, and the other great issues of his time. John A. (Jack) Svahn was a close adviser of Reagan, serving him during both of his terms as the Governor of California and as President. In that capacity he was the a Commissioner of Social Security, Undersecretary of Health and Human Services, and as the U.S. Commissioner to the Canal Alternatives Commission in Panama. He has written “There Most Be a Pony in Here Somewhere”: Twenty Years with Ronald Reagan ($18.95, Langdon Street Press, softcover) The memoir blends humor with a serious, candid look at both the political and personal moments spent as part of Reagan’s inner circle. He writes that Reagan was an optimist, a man who always saw the glass as half full, not half empty. This book is an important contribution to our knowledge and insight regarding Reagan and will surely please his legion of admirers.

The world has moved on since the horrendous 7.0 earthquake in January 2010 destroyed its capitol city and surrounding areas. In Rubble: The Search for a Haitian Boy ($l6.95, Lyons Press, an imprint of Globe Pequot Press, softcover.) Sandra Marquez Stathis who had lived and worked in Haiti for four years as a human rights observer in the 1990s, tells of her return to search for Junior Louis, an unforgettable boy she had met when he was seven years old and homeless. He was like a son to her and she was determined to find out if he had survived. Her story is not just his story, but a story of Haiti, and a very compelling one. It is only natural to give scant attention to events occurring in far-off lands, but So Far to Run: The Memoir of Liberian Refugee by Louise Geesedah Barton ($l3.95, Bascom Hill Publishing Group, softcover) is quite extraordinary given that Liberia was established on the African coast as a place to which slaves could return from their captivity in America. At the age of seven Louise became a domestic servant in Monrovia. She had a thirst for knowledge, but just as she was entering collage, Liberia was overrun by deadly rebels, forcing her to flee for her life. Thousands died in the conflict and she spent the next ten years on the run, much of it on foot, through two countries and escaping to a third by motoring over 70 miles in a small boat through the high seas. She currently lives in Atlanta where she now is an advocate for those who remain refugees, unable to return to their homes. We tend to forget that there is plenty of poverty right here in America.

Sandra’s Story: It’s Not Gonna Be a Very Good Day by Garrett Mathews ($14.95, Plugger Publishing, softcover) follows a year in the life of Sandra, a fifth grader who lives in a $200 a month apartment with holes in the wall and mice in the ceiling. A retired columnist of the Evansville, Indiana Courier & Press, Matthews tells of being asked to speak to Sandra’s class and, in the process, learns that many of the boys and girls had never been to a mall, a museum, or a baseball game. He began to take three or four at a time to these places. It was an eye-opening experience for Mathews and his book reminds us that many children in America are living in poverty. The book is filled with events that will touch your heart and open your eyes. Bruce Farrell Rosen is a very talented writer who shares the same publisher as William Soroyan, Laurence Ferlinghetti and Allan Ginsburg, but he is no hippie. He has written If You Ever Need Me, I Won’t Be Far Away ($18.50, Alma Rose Publishing, softcover). It is a classic memoir, drawing on his life and it is dedicated to his mother who was clearly an extraordinary person, a psychic , and a family of fairly unique, if flawed individuals. Tolstoy said that “All happy families are alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This memoir is testimony to that. Rosen tells us of his life, his family, his marriage, et cetera, but he does so quite movingly and you might just, like looking in a mirror, see someone you recognize.

Sports are so much a part of American life that those who play and those who coach become demigods. One of the best biographers of sports figures, Carlo DeVito, has written Parcells: A Biography ($24.95, Triumph Books) about a football legend, Bill Parcells, a two-time Super Bowl winning coach of the New York Giants, taking us through his life beginning with his 15-year collegiate coaching career, examining his demand for perfection from his players and coaches, which may just explain why he has turned around many NFL franchises, including the Jets and Patriots. The book covers the life of a man who says, “You are what your record says you are.” In Parcells’ case, it is the record of a winner on and off the field. Basketball, too, has its legion of fans at the collegiate and professional level. One of the most successful collegiate coaches is Jim Boeheim is told by Scott Pitoniack in Color Him Orange: The Jim Boeheim Story ($24.95, Triumph). A Basketball Hall of Fame coach for his alma mater, Syracuse University, it is an inspiring story that begins with his youth in a small town, making the Syracuse team as a walk-on, turning down lucrative offers to coach elsewhere, and the incredible run to the NCAA championship in 2003. Along the way he coached young men who went onto great careers in basketball.

There is a growing mythology about the 1960s as a decade of drugs, anti-war protests, the assassinations of Kennedy and King. Among the minor players was Ed Sanders who became a counterculture icon. Fug You ($26.99, Da Capo Press) is his story and, for someone who played such a small role in that decade’s events and dedicated himself to legalizing marihuana, it is a hefty tome. Sanders ran the Peace Eye Bookstore and founded a folk-rock group called the Fugs. He came in contact with some real movers and shakers of the era such as Allan Ginsberg, Frank O’Hara, Andy Warhol, and William S. Burroughs. Time has passed him by, but it can’t be said he didn’t live an interesting life. This is a Call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl by Paul Bannigan ($26.99, Da Capo Press) is a biography of musician Dave Grohl, a key figure in bands that included Nirvana, Foo Fighters, and Queens of the Stone Age. The ups and downs of Grohl’s life will no doubt be of interest to rock fans, including his reaction to Curt Cobain’s suicide made him put aside his career, but he was drawn back in when Tom Petty asked him to play drums with the Heartbreakers on a Saturday Night Live session. He has known great success and being homeless, so the biography is quite a ride since the 1980s.

In a delightful memoir Joann Puffer Kotcher put her values on the line when, fresh out of the University of Michigan, a year of teaching, she became an American Red Cross Donut Dolly in Korea, later setting up four duty stations in Vietnam where she visited the troops from the Central Highlands to the Mekong Delta, the South China Sea to the Cambodian border. She tells her story in Donut Dolly: An America Red Cross Girl’s War in Vietnam ($24.95, University of North Texas Press). This is a unique, personal view of the war, recorded in a journal she kept during her tour. And it wasn’t just handing out donuts. She was once abducted, dodged an ambush in the Delta, and experienced that war in a way that most memoirs do not tell. It is an inspiring story of the men who go to war and of a woman who put her life on the line to bring a measure of cheer when they did. Years ago as a child, I had the opportunity to see and hear Eleanor Roosevelt, then in her later years in the wake of World War II and the beginnings of the United Nations. She had been the First Lady for thirteen years and had redefined the role. In Eleanor Roosevelt’s Life of Soul Searching and Self-Discovery ($19.95, Flash History Press, Paoli, PA, softcover) Ann Atkins tells her remarkable story, highlighting her role in championing African-Americans, Jews, and women. FDR said she was his eyes and ears as she traveled to the front lines of the Pacific and throughout the nation. She was much more. She was his conscience, urging him to accept the changes occurring nationwide and worldwide. Rather than accept society’s rules, she challenged them and, in the process, led a meaningful, purposeful, and successful life.

To Your Health

Parents have lots of questions about maintaining their children’s health and happily Nutrition: What Every Parent Needs to Know is now out in his second section from the American Academy of Pediatrics ($14.95, softcover), edited by William H. Dietz, M.D. and Loraine Stern, M.D. Both have impressive resumes and the book is a complete guide regarding nutritional health from birth through adolescence. It includes standards of weight and height, eating disorders, allergies, and concerns about food safety. The new edition has been updated since it was first published a decade ago. The editors stress that teaching children healthy eating habits is an on-going activity and advises on how to allow for individual preferences, as well as the importance of shared mealtimes that are stress and guilt-free.

The Complete Book of Bone Health by Diane L. Schneider, M.D. ($21.00, Prometheus Books, softcover) is a comprehensive survey of osteoporosis, its nature and causes, along with sensible approaches toward its prevention and management. The most common problem older people encounter is hip fractures and can even be killers; one in five women will die within a year of breaking a hip and one in three men. The good news is that one can reduce one’s risk for breaking bones and it can be prevented at any age. The is a fat book of information on everything from basic health, risk factors, bone density scans, the role of exercise and nutrition, and much more. It is designed to be practical and user-friendly, so that anyone interested in maintain strong bones and good health will come away with a world of information that can prolong and enhance one’s life.

Anti-Aging Cures: Life Changing Secrets to Reverse the Effects of Aging by Dr. James Forsythe ($25.99, Vanguard Press) will surely interest anyone who wants to retain their youthful looks, energy, and lifestyle. A foreword by Suzanne Somers says “The key to youth, good health, and vitality as we age comes from our body’s master hormone, human growth hormone. By rejuvenating the master hormone gland using a range of safe and natural biostimulators, as this book shows, we can improve the quality and duration of the human lifespan.” Since my own knowledge of such matters is slim, I can only say that it appears to provide a useful body of information, but since I am also in my seventies, I have little doubt that, one way or the other, one’s body is going to age despite one’s best efforts. I rely on a full range daily of vitamins and minerals and would certainly recommend them. The author devotes attention to those that work best with regard to the aging process.

Military Matters

Wars have always played a role in history and their potential continues to threaten peace. Several books regarding various aspects of war reflect the ongoing interest in this topic.

Time has published Special Ops: The hidden world of America’s toughest warriors by Jim Frederick ($19.95, Time Home Entertainment Inc.). Frederick is a Time international editor who has reported on the world of military special operations, from the U.S. Navy SEALS who eliminated Osama bin Laden in Pakistan to the Green Berets of the Vietnam War. He traces the history of this units, the missions they fought, from World War II to present missions in a lively, well illustrated book. Continuing these topic, there’s MARSOC: U.S. Marine Corps Special Operations Command by Fred Pushies ($24.99, Zenith Press, softcover) that traces the Marine Corps rich tradition of special operations—the tip of the spear—from World War II’s famed Marine Raiders to Vietnam’s legendary Marine Force Recon companies. In the wake of 9/11, the need for special operations forces dramatically increased and the Marine Special Operations Command (MARSOC) was created in 2006. Its mission is to win wars before they begin, taking combat beyond the frontlines.

Airmen will enjoy two books devoted to former aircraft. The Douglas DC-3 Dakota and the North American F-86 Sabre are subjects of an “Owner’s Workshop Manual.” The former was written by Paul and Louise Blackah and the latter by Mark Linney ($28.00 each, Zenith Press). The Douglas DC-3 revolutionized air transport in the 1930s and 1940s. Tough, reliable, and easy to operate, it played a crucial role in World War II. The F-86 was the first operation Allied swept-wing transonic jet fighter of the post-war era that fought with distinction in the Korean War where it was pitted against the Soviet MIG-15. Both books are sure to please those who flew them and anyone interested in military aircraft.

There are countless books on World War II from the American point of view, but Colin D. Heaton and Anne-Marie Lewis have co-authored The German Aces Speak ($30.00, Zenith Press) that tells the story of those who flew against the Allies and is a reminder of how effective they were. As military history, it will surely interest those who find this of interest. A memoir, Brothers at War, by Werner Gramskow ($14.00, Arbor Books, softcover) tells the story of a boy in Hamburg, Germany in the 1930s who dreamed of going to America. His brother, Hans, had moved their ten years before the start of World War II, but history intervened and Werner was drafted into the Wehmacht. He eventually served in Stalingrad and, knowing he was marching to certain death, he hid out in a tiny German village. Unbeknownst to Werner, Hans had returned to their homeland as an intelligence officer with the U.S. Army. By serendipity, Hans found Werner and, when the war ended, sponsored his immigration to the U.S. It is a fascinating story. Lastly, from WWII is Last Man Standing: The 1st Marine Regiment on Peleliu by Dick Camp. For nearly 70 years historians and military brass have debated the necessity of the invasion of the small Japanese-held Island. What is not debated is the determination, perseverance and sacrifice displayed by a regiment known as “The Old Breed.” Peleliu would become on of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history and now its story is told in a work of excellent military history.

Science, Real and Fake

The vast global warming fraud, perpetrating since the 1980s, has caused a lot of people to be turned off by claims said to be based on scientific investigation and findings. Suffice to say the alleged data supporting global warming, now called climate change, was found to be utterly corrupt. So naturally, along comes John Grant’s book, Denying Science: Conspiracy Theories, Media Distortions, and the War against Reality ($25.00, Prometheus Books). Unfortunately, it is just Grant’s reality as he continues to rail against “deniers” of the discredited “science”. The book is one long rant against what he regards as “unscientific” ideas regarding a wide range of topics. Suffice to say there is no such thing as a “consensus” among scientists because science exists to be both challenged and expanded with new findings. The book is essentially rubbish. Caveat emptor.

Also from Prometheus Books, Drive and Curiosity: What Fuels the Passion for Science ($26.00) by Istvan Hargittai, PhD, DSc is a tribute to many fine scientists who have advanced our knowledge and improved our world. Little known to those outside the scientific community are the challenges they had to endure while retaining their belief in their discoveries that were often derided by others in their field. In one case, chemist Dan Shechtman who discovered “quasiercrystals” in 1982 encountered rejection and mockery for years, but in 2011, he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Anyone with an interest in science or who teaches courses to encourage students to pursue careers in science will enjoy this book. Philip Kitchner, a philosopher, has written Science in a Democratic Society ($28.00) to explore issues such as “climate change”, religiously inspired constraints on biomedical research, and similar topics. As with many such books, its appeal is limited to those who want to grapple with such matters. The historic record is filled with science frauds and is testimony to the human failings of those who perpetrate them knowingly or not. In a comparable fashion, Sam Harris has written The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values ($15.00, Free Press, softcover). Harris takes a distinctly liberal approach to the questions he raises, but it all comes down to the ancient debates about good and evil.

Deadly Powers: Animal Predators and the Mythic Imagination by Paul A. Trout ($26.00, Prometheus Books) is an evocative exploration of the origin and function of storytelling, based on thousands of years in which our human predecessors had to cope with predatory animals who thought then and now that we were a tasty meal. The mythology that emerged from this served as a warning about them and responded to our visceral fears of them that exist to this day. It has manifested itself in literature, including children’s fairytales, and in modern movies in which fantastical creatures threaten humanity. It has shaped human culture and readers will find this an interesting book.

Novels, Novels, Novels

So many novels—hardly a day goes by that I do not receive an email request to review a novel or two. Many increasingly are self-published and stories of the success their authors have found as ebooks now abound. The publishing scene is changing, but this reviewer still prefers what I call “dead tree” books, the traditional book one can hold in one’s hands without worrying if the battery will die.

Some novelists are so good at what they do they develop a fan base that looks forward to their next piece of work. This has been the case for me regarding the novels of Lior Samson, a pseudonym for a writer whose first three novels, “Bashert”, “The Dome” and “Web Games” took the reader to Israel for some classic spy-counterspy suspense. His newest novel, The Rosen Singularity, ($16.95, Gesher Press, an imprint of Ampersand Press, softcover) departs from that and I would be lying if I did not say I was delighted to find myself quoted on the back cover saying “This extraordinary author has the ability to anticipate events in ways that enhance his novels.” This time Samson delivers a medical thriller; one with plenty of action from page one to the end. The main character, Rosen David, is a research biologist who prefers to mine the work of others to find patterns and, indeed, he makes a major discovery. In 2005, Steve Jobs told a commencement audience at Stanford that "Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.” Rosen has stumbled upon a discovery that puts his life and those around him at risk. The cast of characters include an invisible network of people who want to cheat death and think Rosen’s research can make that happen. I promise you that, if you read this Samson novel, you will want to read the other three.

Perlmann’s Silence by Pascal Mercier, the author of the acclaimed “Night Train to Lisbon” ($26.00, Grove Press) is surely worth celebrating. It is an exploration of grief, a profound story of a man struggling to cope with the death of his wife and the impact it has on his life. Phillipp Perlmann is a noted linguist. Scheduled to speak at a gathering of international academics in a seaside town near Genoa, he struggles with the text of the keynote presentation until he realizes he can produce nothing. His confidence has deserted him and, desperate, he decides to plagiarize the work of a Russian colleague who is not able to attend the gathering. But Leskov unexpected arrival is suddenly announced and Perlmann panics. He contemplates even more drastic measures. Deeply emotional and intellectual novels like this are a rare occurrence. Italy is the setting for Joe Costanzo’s new novel, Calabria to be specific. In Restoration ($15.95, Charles River Press, softcover) Stephano Strazzi, an Italian-American from the fiction town of Roccamonti returns to recapture his memories of being raised there before his family immigrated to America. He quickly falls under its spell and, in the process of trying to help restore a medieval church, he finds himself in the midst of an old vendetta that erupts with frightening consequences. Constanzo was born in Pedivigliano and draws on the wellspring of his own life to create a compelling story that reflects both the enchantment and the passions of Italy. A veteran journalist, he displays a fine eye for detail and as a novelist he adds to his reputation as an excellent storyteller.

The American West is the setting for Richard S. Wheeler’s The Richest Hill on Earth ($25.99, Forge) as he turns is well-established storytelling talent to a tumultuous time in Montana history when the copper kinds battled for riches, glory, and control of Butte, the fledging government of the then-new State. Caught up in the struggle are the miners, their wives and children, journalists, and even psychics, all trying to make their fortune in the late 1890s. Several memorable characters play out their part in the struggle, from newspaper editor John Fellowes to Marcus Daly, an Irish immigrant of humble origins who rose to create the Anaconda Copper Mining Copper and his political rival, William Andrews Clark who bought a seat in the U.S. Senate, and Augustus Heinze who tried to steal the mines using lawyers and bribed judges, only to be crushed by the Rockefellers. This is fictionalized history, but it is also a very entertaining look at the real story behind the struggles that hinged on wealth and power. When it comes to westerns, novels that evoke a fabled period, few do it better than Jim Best. His latest is Murder at Thumb Butte ($12.95, Wheatmark, Tucson, AZ, softcover) and I guarantee that you will also want to read The Shopkeeper and Leadville. These are part of a “Steve Dancy” series and, in the case of “Murder at Thumb Butte”, it is the spring of 1880 and Dancy has traveled to Prescott, Arizona to gain control of a remarkable invention. He has barely unpacked when he learns that his friend, Jeff Sharp, has been arrested for a midnight murder and Dancy launches an investigation to find who really did it. The problem is, the whole town of Prescott wanted him dead! He turns to another old friend, Captain Joseph McAllen of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to sort out the suspects and find the real killer before Sharp ends up swinging from the gallows. Best is best at dialogue and his novels move along at a swift pace with some of the best dialogue you’ll find. Nothing fancy, but it reflects real people in real situations. Treat yourself to one or all three of the series.

Murder mysteries are a favorite genre in fiction and D.C. Brod delivers a good one in Getting Lucky (24.95, Tyrus Books) with the story of a freelance writer who is hired to finish one of the stories written by a young reporter killed in a hit-and-run accident. In the process she uncovers shady Illinois land deals. At the same time she is trying to come up with enough money to keep her mother in an assisted living facility. Conflict of various kinds is at the heart of the story that moves along at a satisfying pace. At timely as today’s headlines regarding illegal aliens, Craig McDonald, an Edgar Award nominee, takes us to New Austin, Ohio in El Gavilan ($24.95, Tryus Books) where the locals are struggling with waves of undocumented workers who exert tremendous pressure on schools, police and city services. Three very different kinds of cops scramble to maintain control and impose order, but the rape-murder of a Mexican-American woman triggers a brutal chain of events that threaten to leave no survivors. You will keep turning the pages in a story filled with shifting alliances and circumstances.

A finalist for Germany’s prestigious Friedrich Glauser Prize for Best Crime Novel, Morgue Drawer Four by Jutta Profit ($14.95, Amazon Crossing) is one of several new softcover novels worth reading. It is a change of pace blending a witty genre-bending fusion of hard-boiled crime fiction and a comic ghost story that takes place in cosmopolitan Cologne’s seamy underbelly, a hidden world of gangsters, hustlers, and its red light district. A mismatched pair of impromptu detectives is at the center of the story. One is the ghost of a recently murdered career criminal seeking justice and the other is a quiet, unassuming coroner with the blessing or curse of being able to communicate with the deceased! This is a quirky, well-paced, and very entertaining story. A very different time and place is the setting for an Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg ($15.00, Penguin, softcover) in her debut as a novelist. It is 1830 and Neil McKenzie has accepted a post on the islands of St. Kilda, an isolated archipelago off the coast of Scotland. He is there to minister to a small community of islanders. Joining him is his pregnant wife, Lizzie. He is there to test his own faith against the old pagan ways of the islanders who live in squalor. The result is that his faith, marriage, and their sanity is tested in a place of extreme hardship and unearthly beauty. Mary Shelley gave us Frankenstein and Erica Ferencik gives us Dr. Astra Nathanson in Repeaters ($14.95, Waking Dream Press, Framingham, MA, softcover) and the question must be asked, why are women so good at writing stories that scare the pants off you, have you checking the locks on the doors, and keeping the lights on to fend off the dark? I am not giving away any secrets by telling you that the “repeaters” are the murdered among us, forced to repeat their lives until they find someone to love and thus granted eternal peace. Failing that, they bear the scars of the manner in which they were murdered in past lives. This is one scary story that readers who like their thrills bloody will love.

In today’s economy with headlines such as the collapse of a major hedge fund, bailed out banks, and famed media moguls, Richard Wanderer has authored The Holiday Party ($15.95, Two Harbors Press, softcover) that features a high-powered media mogul holding a dark secret, a publisher with a belief in the supernatural, and an assistant who no longer wants to assist. The result is a novel of corporate greed that leaps off its pages. Adam Gladstone is an heir to the family media empire and, with his brother, is running the business like a family. Meanwhile, mogul Daniel Davenport’s mistress is tired of being his concubine and assistant, and wants to take over the Gladstone umpire for herself, not Daniel. The author, a member of the California Bar, brings his experience working in the advertising departments of major magazines and newspaper publishing companies to good use in this novel that rings true as it explores the machinations of greed and betrayal.

Fans of short fiction will enjoy Geoff Schmidt’s Out of Time ($14.95, University of North Texas Press, softcover) a winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. A debut collection, it is a meditation on meaning and mortality. In his stories, vengeful infants destroy and rebuilt the world, rival siblings and their mother encounter witches and ghosts, along with others, all of whose time is running out. This is definitely a very different literary cup of tea!

That’s it for January as we all embark on a tumultuous year in which people and parties are pitted against one another for the future of the nation. Tell your family, friends, and coworkers about Bookviews.com, the most eclectic monthly report on news fiction and non-fiction. And come back in February for more!

By Alan Caruba

My Picks of the Month

In my parent’s home, the living room was a library. One wall was floor to ceiling shelves and among the books was the complete set of the Harvard Classics, the books that constituted an education in Western philosophy, history and literature. Another shelf was for the Encyclopedia America. These sets of books were very popular in pre-television America as was the Book of the Month Club. Americans, whether they graduated high school or went to college, could self-educate and many did. Blue Collar Intellectuals: When the Enlightened and the Everyman Elevated America by Daniel J. Flynn ($27.95, ISI Books, Wilmington, DE) looks at the lives of people like historians Will and Ariel Durant, Mortimer Adler’s Great Books movement, economist Milton Friedman, longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer, and science fiction writer Ray Bradbury’ to reveal the impact they had on the generations of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s before television became the drug of choice. As Flynn puts it, “Stupid is the new smart” and anyone watching TV these days or observing the too-connected and too-distracted newer generations would be hard pressed to disagree. These are delightful, brief biographies of people from humble backgrounds who became major movers and shakers in the intellectual life of the nation.

Michael Grabell has authored Money Well Spent? ($28.99, Public Affairs) and I would suggest you save some money by taking a pass on it. It is, in essence, an apologia for the Obama administration’s massive stimulus effort, but to his credit, even Grabell says “For all its promise, the federal stimulus package became one of the most reviled pieces of legislation in recent memory.” Conservatives hated the massive outlay of billions, seeing it as a form of political patronage for unions and others who got a piece of it. Liberals thought that not enough money was spent. Grabell makes a mighty effort to justify it, but in the end, it just doesn’t stand up to serious scrutiny. It is not the government’s job to pick winners or losers. The banking system was bailed out because it could not be allowed to fail. The stimulus just rewarded states and cities that had, like the federal government, spent too much, signed civil service union contracts that were far more rewarding than private citizens could expect from their jobs, and wasted money on various projects. The stimulus spent $825 billion with little to show for it except an increase in the largest debt in the nation’s history.

An interesting book that may well save you money is Scammed by Chistopher Elliott ($24.95, Wiley) in which he reveals that many kinds of scams that exist to part you from your hard earned cash. Most of us are familiar with the scams out of Nigeria and, increasingly, other foreign nations, but Elliot provides an introduction to scams that include non-existent charities or by companies that sell you their products. He advises you avoid “gift cards” that rake in $90 billion annually, but only 7% are redeemed! Fake liquidation sales are another. Marking up the price of a product and then announcing a sale is yet another. If you read this book, you will no doubt conclude its price was well worth the money it will save you. Guy P. Harrison, a freelance writer, has gathered together 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True ($18.00, Prometheus Books, softcover) that is an entertaining look at why some people believe in astrology (instead of astronomy) or are still looking for Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Others believe that aliens from outer space helped build the pyramids or their bodies are stored in Area 51. Harrison says that humans are a believing specie and, as such, prone to believe in things that lack any scientific proof and can be absurd. Regrettably, he stumbles when it comes to “global warming”, the greatest hoax of the modern era and he is skeptical of all religious beliefs. Overall it is refreshing to read a skeptic’s views even if some require some more skepticism themselves.

Every so often a really beautifully produced book reaches my desk. A case in point is the Southern Living® Wedding Planner & Keepsake ($29.95, Oxmoor House). It is the perfect gift for the bride-to-be whether they want to splurge or are working with a tight budget. Either way, its advice is excellent and will enable one to stay organized while creating a keepsake. Its lay-flat, concealed wire binder has pockets in which to save business cards, receipts, dress swatches, and other items that add up to memories. It will help keep track of every detail, including checklists and worksheets. It is also wonderful eye candy with more than 175 images, including more than a hundred full-color photos from real, dream weddings across the South. Those girls know how to do weddings!

I suspect that most people have no idea of the sheer immensity of India, but it has long held a fascination for those in the West as an exotic place. One of its gifts to us has been Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, the recipient of the Booker Prize, two Academy Awards for the adapted screenplays of “A Room with a View” and “Howard’s End”, and many other awards. Happily, the first collection of stories by this talented writer has been published after nearly ten years. A Lovesong for India: Tales from the East and West ($26.00, Counterpoint Press) debuts this month and each of the stories provides a glimpse into the lives of men and women who call India home. In one, a young girl in pre-Mumbai, then Bombay, leaves a pre-arranged marriage for New York where she meets, falls in love and marries the son of a famous Indian actor. Their return becomes the topic of tabloids. In stories set in India, England and New York City, we are treated to her lifelong meditation on the East and West, and the emotions and experiences that united us across oceans, cultures, and lifetimes.

Editorial Services

Are you writing a book? Need some copywriting or ghostwriting? Could you use a personal writing coach? For these services and everything related to writing, check out http://www.ronmarr.com/ which is the website of—guess who?—RON MARR. I have known him for years and he has authored books and written for leading magazines and newspapers. If you want to start a project, are half-way through one and stuck, or need keen judgment regarding a finished one, visit his website. You will be happy you did.

Minding Your Mind

Writers learn to pay attention to what they are thinking and to constantly “feed” their mind with new information and ideas. The process of growing up is one of training the mind to deal with the world, learning what to avoid that might cause injury, learning from experience, and coping with various fears and anxieties. A host of books address how to make your mind a better servant of a better life.

A Better Way to Think: Using Positive Thoughts to Change Your Life by H. Norman Wright ($12.99, Revell, softcover) debuted in October and offers practical and positive steps to create “healthy patterns of self-talk”, discovering how, with time, it is possible to change, and most importantly, gaining control over one’s emotions and behavior. Biblically based, it is a useful book for anyone, but I would think of particular use to those in adolescence or dealing with any stage of maturity. Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life: Train your Brain to get More Done in less Time by Paul Hammerness, MD, and Margaret Moore with John Hanc ($16.95, Harlequin Enterprises, softcover) is the result of the work by a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist and a noted executive wellness coach and change specialist, and co-founder of the Institute of Coaching at Harvard Medical School. Together they offer a way to overcome mental disorganization and distraction with their often debilitating side-effects of stress, anxiety, frustration, and a sense of frenzy. It is based on neuroscience and their work with people who had had disorganized minds. If this problem sounds like one you have or that of someone you know, this book can be extremely helpful. In a comparable fashion, Chip Conley offers Emotional Equations ($24.00, Free Press) filled with simple formulas that help the reader focus on things they can change in their life while identifying those one can’t. It’s a way of understanding and managing one’s emotional life. There are, as you can see, dozens of such books with, no doubt, more to come. I am sure some do help, but can only report those that are new and available.

Neuroscience is the basis for Allyson Lewis’ new book, The 7 Minute Solution, ($25.00, Free Press). Ms. Lewis is a well known time management expert and motivational speaker and her thesis is that change is often made up of tiny choices and habits that must be made on a daily basis. Employing her technique can, she says, lead to major improvements in any facet of life. My own life is one of a comfortable routine designed to ensure proper nutrition, rest, and a routine that allows maximum performance. Her book appears to confirm these habits of the mind and body. For those “at loose ends” much of the time, this book can prove very helpful. Seeking Enlightenment by Catherine H. Morrison is subtitled “The spiritual journey of a psychotherapist” ($26.99, Two Harbors Press, softcover). She asks if you are frustrated with your spiritual journey, wondering and searching. Through her own story and her professional knowledge and skills, she provides information about one’s emotional evolution and into maturation.

There are few challenges worse than dealing with someone with a mental disorder. It takes a toll on everyone around them. One is “borderline personality disorder” (BPD) and in Compassion for Annie: A Healthy Response to Mental Disorders ($16.95, Langdon Street Press, softcover) Marilyn Dowell who describes the behaviors that someone with BPD exhibits through the story of a fictional married couple, chapter by chapter explaining what it is to struggle with the disorder, someone exploring what it is, and how it can be dealt with. Dancing in the Dark: How to Take Care of Yourself When Someone You Love is Depressed 15.95, Central Recovery Press, softcover) by Bernadette Stankard and Amy Viets is a guidebook for those in or out of recovery who live with or care for one of the millions of Americans who battle depression every year. In 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that one in twenty Americans over the age of 12 has suffered from depression. The book offers tried-and-true suggestions, helpful hints, and up-to-date resources for anyone whose life is affected by the depression of another. Breaking Free from Depression: Pathways to Wellness ($21.95, The Guilford Press, softcover) is authored by a leading psychiatrist, Dr. Jesse Wright and his daughter, Dr. Laura McCray, a family physician, both of whom have seen thousands of depressed patients in their practices. They understand that depression is different for everyone and that there is no universal cure. Their book samples the numerous treatments available, allowing the reader to put together a personalized anti-depression action plan. The big softcover outlines six strengths-based treatment methods along with numerous worksheets, questionnaires, and exercises that can guide the reader toward a healthy, successful outcome.

As this was being written, a friend is on a succession of flights from Washington, D.C. to Copenhagen and then to New Orleans. It is part tourist and business travel over a week’s time and he knows how to get through it successfully. This is in sharp contrast to the more than 25 million people who suffer from fear of flying, aerophobia. Flying Fear Free: 7 Steps to Relieving Air Travel Anxiety by Dr. Sandra M. Polino, MD.Ed, Psy.D ($14.95, New Horizon Press, softcover) addresses the fears associated with commercial flights. If you are one of the four million that take one on any given day, the author explores and defines the causes and associated phobias, offering her proven approach (and experience as a former flight attendant). She discusses a number of therapies, stress and relaxation techniques, and behavioral tools to make the experience more comfortable.

Biographies, Memoirs, Etc

I have no idea how many biographies of Adolf Hitler have been published, but there are a lot. R.H.S. Stolfi wanted to write one that would explain why Hitler was so evil. The result was Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny ($27.00, Prometheus Books) and, aside from the fact that he revisits already known facts, the effort to get into Hitler’s demented brain was hardly worth it. Hitler was a very successful nut job who saw himself as Germany’s messiah and who played on that nation’s anger over the outcome of World War One. He had a talent for speaking to groups large and small. But he was still a nut. You don’t have to read this book to come to that conclusion. That such people have risen to positions of power is hardly news. Where mental instability is concerned, the memoir Crazy Enough by Storm Large ($25.00, Free Press) may prove of interest to fans of the rock star or of anyone who finds her story of trying to cope with her mother’s full blown mental illness and making a lot of bad early decisions about her own life, sleeping with strangers, experimenting with drugs, and having no roots. An invitation to sing with a friend’s band opened her life to that of music and gave her the opportunity to pull back from the edge. This is an artist’s journey of self-realization, but it is also a tad raw and crude in ways the younger crowd will like.

It is a great relief to read a memoir that does not involve some kind of confession regarding the numerous ways people find to screw up their lives. Charlie: A Love Story by Barbara Lampert ($14.95, Langdon Street Press, softcover) is for anyone who has ever loved a dog and been loved in return. Lampert is a psychotherapist and the best therapy in her life is her Golden Retriever, Charlie. He inspired the author as he overcame numerous health problems, exhibiting a zest for life and courage. The memoir is of Charlie’s last few years. I have a friend who has always had dogs as his companions. He has cared for them and he has seen them die. He has grieved them and he has renewed his life by finding new ones. This is a short, wonderful read. Fat is the New 30 by Jill Conner Browne ($14.95, Amazon Publishing, softcover) is not really a memoir in the usual sense of the term. It is “The Sweet Potato Queen’s Guide to Coping with (the Crappy Parts of) Life. The author aka the Queen, has a large following with 6,200 chapters in 22 countries around the world based on her previous books. She started her reign in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1982 when she and some friends decided to join the local St. Patrick’s Day parade. Since 1999, she has penned one bestseller after another. This new collection of essays will be released in March with an official publication date of April. Suffice to say, she knows how to keep the reader entertained and passes along a lot of wisdom as she does.

Anyone who has had the good fortune to grow up in a small town will thoroughly enjoy Side-Yard Superhero by Rick D. Niece, PhD ($15.95, Five Star Publications, softcover). In this case it is DeGraff, Ohio and this is a memoir of his life as a newspaper boy whose route included Bernie Jones, confined to a wheelchair with severe cerebral palsy, but with an indomitable spirit that inspired Rick who went on to become an educator, starting as a school teacher and ultimately becoming a university professor, provost, and president of the University of the Ozarks. Everyone’s childhood memories are specific to themselves, but the author’s memories have universality to them that evoke gentler times and better values than are found in present times. For Rick, his customers on that route were some of his best teachers, but especially Bernie. It’s a heartwarming memoir of a time and place I hope will not be lost to the matrix of digital connections to the world outside.

A new graphic book is out, The Zen of Steve Jobs, by Caleb Melby and JESS3, in collaboration with Forbes Media ($19.95, Wiley, softcover), displays the talents of a freelance writer and a creative agency that specializes in data visualization for major corporate clients. If you grew up reading comic books and are a fan of the late genius behind the success of Apple Computer Company, this story envisions Jobs friendship with a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest, Kobun Chino Otogawa. The story moves back and forward in time from the 1970s to 2011, the year of Job’s death, and the period when Kobun taught Jobs “kinhin”, a walking meditation, as Jobs sought “ma”, the Japanese concept of simplicity. It translated into the design of many Apple products.

Mathematics

I knew early on in life that my mind was not wired for the acquisition or use of mathematics. I am a wordsmith and struggle to this day with the simplest efforts at arithmetic. Oddly, my late father was a Certified Public Accountant and could do sums in his head with ease. Three new books are devoted to this topic.

Colin Pask has authored Math for the Frightened: Facing Scary Symbols and Everything Else That Freaks You Out about Mathematics ($19.00, Prometheus Books, softcover. It is a noble effort to help the math-challenged and it succeeds. Pask, a mathematician, introduces the reader to the main ideas of mathematics and explains how they are expressed in symbols, explaining how and why they are used. He takes the reader on a trip into the world of mathematics, explaining how it is used in science and elsewhere in ways that makes it a very entertaining and enlightening experience. Math for Life by Jeffrey Bennett ($25.00, Roberts and Company Publishers, Greenwood Village, CO) is subtitled “Crucial ideas you didn’t learn in school.” Bennett presents a wide array of simple math skills that can be used in every day applications, many of which are a mystery to those whose doubt their math skills. In doing so, he shows how math plays a role in everything from taking out a loan to understanding important national issues. It focuses on quantitative thinking, not on solving equations, and offers suggestions on how to improve the teaching of math in schools.

The Glorious Golden Ratio by Alfred S. Posamentier and Igmar Lehman ($27.00, Prometheus Books) is definitely for those who love mathematics, exploring how for centuries mathematicians, scientists, artists and architects have been fascinated by a ratio that is ubiquitous in nature and commonly found across many cultures. It is called “the Golden Ratio” because of its prevalence as a design element and its seemingly universal esthetic appeal. From the ratio of certain proportions of the human body and the heliacal structure of DNA to the design of ancient Greek statues and temples, as well as modern masterpieces, it is a key pattern with endless applications and manifestations.

The Business of Business

America is about freedom, liberty, and that includes the opportunity to become wealthy. This explains why there are so many books devoted to the subject. Here a few of the latest.

Get Rich Click! The Ultimate Guide to Making Money on the Internet by Marc Owtrofsky ($22.99, Free Press) is a classic example of advice by an author, an online pioneer and internet entrepreneur whose various enterprises earn $75 million annually. The author shares the strategies that made him a multimillionaire despite having no technical skills and never creating a single website. There’s no arguing with the fact that the internet has become the most powerful business tool in history while changing how fortunes are made. This book shows the reader how to make money online with no money upfront, how to use readily available apps to save money and make it online, how to effectively use blogs, email, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, and how to buy Internet traffic and resell it for many times your original investment. Creating the right environment to build wealth is the subject of Stephen M.R. Covey and Greg Link’s new book, Smart Trust: Creating Prosperity, Energy, and Joy in a Low-Trust World ($27.00, Free Press). Covey previously authored a bestseller, “The Speed of Trust” and with his business partner, they share principles and anecdotes of numerous “outliers” of success from people and organizations that utilize the techniques they describe. Following the 2008 financial crisis, it was obvious to them that the greatest challenge to world economic growth was the subsequent loss of confidence and trust. They identify the loss of trust as a key factor in the current malaise and impediment to the economy.

On an individual basis, Mary Hunt offers 7 Money Rules for Life: How to Take Control of Your Financial Future ($17.99, Revell). In an economy where credit card debt has reach $828 billion and 77% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and 43% have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, this is a very timely book. Too many Americans have not been taught how to handle their personal finances and this book seeks to remedy that, especially for those wallowing in debt. Consider, too, that the current president has increased the national debt more than all previous presidents combined! The rules she offers are simple and sensible. This book may just be the best investment anyone coping with debt can read and apply to their own life.

Those in management positions will benefit from 2600 Phrases for Setting Effective Performance Goals by Paul Falcone ($11.95, Amacom, softcover). The author says “Motivation is internal, and I can’t motivate your any more than you can motivate me, but as a leader within your organization, you’re responsible for creating an environment in which people can motivate themselves.” This is a handy and sage guide coaches the reader on how to reinforce core competencies and he critical characteristics for concise, compelling, and actionable goals, using tried and true phrases that managers can use to encourage higher levels of individual accomplishment. The “Knock’em Dead” series have proven helpful addressing various aspects of business and the newest addition is for those seeking a new job. How to Write a Killer Resume: The Ultimate Job Search Guide 2012 by Martin Yate, CPC, teaches how to turn job interviews into job offers. Yates is a leading expert in the world of job search and career management, the author of several books in the series. In a difficult job environment, this is the one book I would recommend to anyone seeking a new job for its advice on how to write a resume, get job interviews, and negotiating the best offer. This book, now in its 26th edition, is packed with the latest online tools, tips, and tricks to land the job you want.

Economics is often called the “dismal science” and William A. Barnett, the Oswald Distinguished Professor of Macroeconomics at the University of Kansas, Director at the Center for Financial Stability in New York and a senior fellow at the ICS Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, has authored Getting It Wrong: How Faulty Monetary Statistics Undermine the Fed, the Financial System, and the Economy ($35.00, MIT Press, softcover). This is not light reading and not directed to the general reader, dealing as it does with economic measurement, arguing that governments, corporations, and even household lack the requisite information to judge systemic risk. Better data could have signaled the misperceptions and preventing the erroneous systemic-risk assessments that imploded the financial system in 2008. At the heart of this book is his assertion that the U.S. Federal Reserve has been providing inaccurate monetary statistical data. It is a worse case toxic mix.

Kid’s Books


Not too many books for the very young and teens of late, but it’s early in the year. Howard B. Wigglebottom is back in Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns About Sportsmanship: Winning Isn’t Everything by Howard Binkow and illustrated by Sue Cornelison ($15.00, Thunderbolt Publishing, www.wedolisten,com) Aimed at those age 4-8 years old and especially those who think they have to win every time and are angry and unhappy when they don’t. Told through an amusing text, supported by lively artwork, this book reflects the importance of being a team player and the ideals of good sportsmanship. It’s a great way to impart these lessons. My only concern is that winning is an important component of success in life. In a similar fashion, a series written and illustrated by Susan Castriota teaches valuable life lessons in Wilson Gets Adopted and Wilson Learns Manners ($12.95 each, available from Barnes and Noble and Amazon) Wilson is a poodle who was adopted by the author and in both books he and his doggie friends learns to appreciate his good luck and the importance of good manners to get through life smoothly. These two books are aimed at the fourth grade reading level. The author is a talented artist. They are, as you might imagine, a delightful way to impart some lifelong values and one cannot start too young to do that.

A favorite publisher of mine is American Girl (http://www.americangirl.com/) and they have kicked off 2012 with a number of books. Their “McKenna” series by Mary Casanova for those eight and up, illustrated by Brian Hailes, features ten year old McKenna in two books, McKenna and McKenna, Ready to Fly ($12.95 each) In the former, McKenna who has always done well in school and gymnastics begins to find that, in fourth grade, learning has become more challenging. She is helped by a wonderful tutor who happens to be in a wheelchair. An injury in gymnastics sidelines McKenna and she must reacquire her confidence and move on. In the latter story, her cast is coming off and she must learn how to help others conquer their fears and deal with other’s jealousies. Take the Challenge! Crazy Challenges and Silly Thrills to Explore Your Talents and Everyday Skills by Apryl Lundsten and illustrated by Galia Bernstein ($9.95) is also for those eight years old and up. Through a series of fast and fun games, readers learn how to find all kinds of ways to stretch their skills and explore their talents with more than a hundred different challenges. This book is a great confidence builder for little girls.

American Girl is famous for creating characters sustained through a number of books. In August 2011 it introduced two girls of different races in 1853 New Orleans, Cecile Ray and Marie-Grace are part of a six-book series to demonstrate the power of friendship through this historical figures who reach across boundaries of race and culture to help their families, friends, and community during a time of great need. This is an inspirational series and one I am pleased to recommend.

The Jerk Magnet by Melody Carlson ($12.00, Revell, softcover) is aimed at today’s teenage girls. When Chelsea Martin’s future stepmother helps transform her from a gawky and geeky girl into the hottest girl at her new school she discovers that her new look is attracting lots of guys who have one thing in common; they’re jerks. Being the center of attention also gets in the way of finding a good friend to other girls. When a great guy catches her eye, Chelsea must come up with a way to get his attention or will her new image ruin everything? Carlson has authored more than 200 books and shows her fine hand in this one, providing inspiration and worthwhile learning experiences.

Novels, Novels, Novels

Every so often you pick up a novel that is so authentic, so well paced, so filled with details that can only be drawn from the author’s actual experience that it draws you into its plot so swiftly that you have to know how it ends because the characters have become real for you. Imagine, then, if al Qaeda in 2002 had gotten its hands on a small Soviet-era nuclear device intended to be used in the event of a conflict with NATO. That is the plot of Barbarossa by Charles Faddis, ($14.95, Orion Strategic Services, Edgewater, MD) a retired CIA officer who spent twenty years in the Near East and South Asia, working against terrorist groups, rogue states, and WMD smuggling networks. Not every former clandestine agent turns out to be a skilled novelist, but Faddis is. He has four prior novels to his credit. He takes us inside the CIA as they discover via drone surveillance that the nuke has been acquired and being moved to an area in Iraq under the control of al Qaeda. From there on a special operations team must be put together, bringing the main character of the story, Bill Boyle, and his longtime girlfriend, Aphrodite, a former Greek terrorist in her own right. Set mostly in the Near East, the novel provides a powerful and utterly frightening insight to the minds of Islamic terrorists then and now. It also serves as a powerful reminder that the clandestine service is the front line of defense against the nation’s enemies. The novel is available via Amazon.com.

J.A. Jance has been entertaining readers for years with her Ali Reynolds series, the J.P. Baumont series, the Joanna Brady series, and four interrelated southwestern thrillers featuring the Walker family. How does she do it? Talent and hard work! Her latest Ali Reynolds’ novel is Left for Dead ($25.99, Touchstone Books, imprint of Simon & Schuster), just out this month. Set in Arizona, along a desolate border plagued by illegal immigrant crossings and an escalating drug war, when one of Ali’s classmates from the Arizona Police Academy is gunned down during a seemingly routine traffic stop, she rushes to the hospital where Santa Cruz deputy Jose Reyes clings to life. She meets her friend, Sister Anselm, who is serving as a patient advocate for another seriously injured victim. Suffice to say, like all good mysteries, this one involves characters with whom you identify and events that unravel in surprising ways, all the time avoiding becoming more drug cartel victims themselves. Ireland in1956 is the time and setting for Frank Delaney’s The Last Storyteller ($26.00, Random House). It was a time when Ireland was impoverished, not just financially, but emotionally and intellectually. The struggle for independence from England had gone on for decades and would continue for decades, but it is the Ireland in which Ben McCarthy lives and contemplates his life. He yearns for carefree former days and for Venetia, the girl now married to another man. Entangled with an IRA gun-runner, Ben must find his way toward a better life, unencumbered by his past and his present concerns. Delaney is an acclaimed writer, born in Tipperary, Ireland, but now living in the U.S. This novel is the third in a series, the first two of which garnered high praise. Delaney is, himself, a master storyteller.

Another thriller asks what happens when the world’s economic system collapses. Dan Romain provides his answer in The Quaker State Affair ($22.95, Two Harbors Press) in a thriller that seems ripped from the headlines and will not let you stop reading as it presents a world in which oil prices are skyrocketing, nuclear secrets are stolen, and events begin to come together to undermine the global system based largely on trust as money moves at lightning speed from bank to bank, et cetera. The one man whom the government turns in the crisis is a physicist who wants nothing to do with it. America’s salvation or ruin hangs in the balance. It should not surprise you that the author was among those who predicted the 2008 economic meltdown or that he build one of the most successful insurance firms in the country. A combination of experience and talent results in this novel. There’s excitement to be found in Code Blood by Kurt Kamm ($14.95, MCM Publishing, softcover) that connects the lives of a fire paramedic, a Chinese research students with the rarest blood in the world, and the blood-obsessed killer who stalks her. The story opens when Colt Lewis, a young Los Angeles County fire paramedic responds to a fatal car accident where the victim dies in his arms. Her foot has been severed, but is nowhere to be found. In the week that follows, he risks his career to find the victim’s identity and her missing foot. It leads him to an underworld of body part dealers and underground Goth clubs. The sense of reality Kamm evokes has been the mark of his first two novels, this one, and the one he’s working on. Another novel also deals with body parts. It’s Tessa Harris’ The Anatomist’s Apprentice ($15.00, Kensington, softcover), the first of a “Dr. Thomas Silkstone” mystery series. This novel is set in 18th century England that combines that historical setting with a forensic investigation of the death of Sir Edward Crick, late citizen of Oxfordshire. He was a dissolute young man, mourned only by his sister and, when her husband comes under suspicion of murder, she seeks the help of Dr. Silkstone, a pioneering forensic detective from Philadelphia. The author will make you familiar with the world of the laboratory, scalpels, dissections, and other elements that will keep anyone who enjoys today’s “CSI” television shows highly entertained.

Historical fiction has the advantage of being based on actual personalities and events. Erasmus: The Man Who Laid the Egg—Luther, the Man Who Hatched It by Barth Hoogstraten ($28.00, Two Harbors Press) examines the lives of this rivals of the Reformation Movement and how their personal debate nearly destroyed the Catholic Church, at the time the world’s greatest empire. It transports the reader back to the 16th century and tells of Erasmus’ effort to reform the Church from the inside, arguing his belief in humanism, and of Luther, a fellow priest and scholar, who thought the Church could not be reformed from the inside and had become so corrupt a new system of belief in Christianity had to replace it. Anyone who enjoys history and particularly this portion that transformed it will enjoy this chapter in which two brilliant and diverse minds eventually became adversaries in the greatest debate of that era.

I am at a loss to describe Blueprints of the Afterlife by Ryan Boudinot ($14.00, Black Cat, softcover) which is set in a future where the distinctions between nature, humanity and technology have all blurred. It is called absurdist fiction, satire, and no doubt a lot of other things. The author has been compared with Vonnegut and Barthelme, and praised by Tom Robbins, the author of “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” and other novels. It has been called “speculative madness” by Kirkus Reviews. It is, suffice to say, a very bizarre future and, if this kind of thing interests you, it will more than get the job done.

That’s it for February! Come back in March to learn about the new novels and non-fiction books, some of which will prove helpful while others will simply entertain. Tell your friends, family and co-workers about Bookviews.com.

By Alan Caruba

My Picks of the Month

Charles Murray, a scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has written a number of books that have garnered both recognition and controversy. He’s back with another that is sure to do the same, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 ($27.00, Crown Forum). Murray has looked back, dating his conclusions from November 21, 1963 when the assassination of President Kennedy set the nation off in a new direction with Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” spending and the expansion of the Vietnam War. Murray, however, is interested in the values Americans shared then and the erosion of those shared values, along with the rapid pace of technological and other changes in society, has brought us to the point where the old class divisions have given way to a new, narrow “elite” of perhaps five percent of the population and everyone else. These are people, 25 and older, the children of the “Boomers” who arrived on the scene after World War Two. These are the people in management and the professions, those whose rise has depended on superior educations and just generally being smarter than others. At the top are those who have “risen to jobs that directly affect the nation’s culture, economy, and politics.” This book is not light reading, densely and thoroughly researched, and coming to conclusions about our society, our culture, and our future that do not bode well unless our former, nationally shared values can be renewed and restored.

In his book, American Nightmare, Randal O’Toole ($25.95, Cato Institute, softcover) says “The 2008 financial crisis was not caused by regulation, low interest rates, or other federal actions alone, but by the conflict between federal efforts to stimulate home ownership and state and local efforts to discourage single-family housing.” O’Toole argues that policies implemented by state and local governments to slow the supply of houses caused wild swings in housing prices. No doubt that urban growth policies and stringent zoning and land-use laws played a role, but the heart of the financial crisis was the purchase by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac of mortgages that were then “bundled” and sold as secure assets. Together they still own some 50% of all the mortgages in American and the “toxic” assets they created bankrupted investment houses and put banks at risk of insolvency. If this is a topic of interest to you, the book is surely food for thought.

Another phenomenon in American life has been the spontaneous movement called the Tea Party. We tend to forget it was a response against the passage of Obamacare. It has since evolved and had a significant affect on the 2010 elections, electing enough Republicans in the House of Representatives to give the party control and narrowing Democrat control of the Senate. Tea Party Patriots: The Second American Revolution by Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin ($23.00 Henry Holt and Company, softcover) tells the story of what may well be the most famous modern grassroots movement, a political force with which to reckon. It is composed of people who believe the federal government is increasingly out of control, over-regulating, borrowing and spending recklessly. If you believe power in America belongs to the people (the Constitution says it does), then this book will interest you with its long range plan for the future that applies to the government, the educational system, and even the entertainment media.

All In: The Education of General David Petraeus ($29.95, The Penguin Press) is a book for anyone trying to understand the Iraq war and our continued presence in Afghanistan, now the longest war in U.S. history. Written by Paula Broadway with Vernon Leob, it is by a woman who graduated with honors from West Point and knows the U.S. Army A-to-Z. She has had considerable access to the man who now is director of the CIA and who had an illustrious military career. Patraeus is the classic over-achiever, gifted with intelligence, the personality of a born leader, and a dedication to his nation. He wrote the Army manual on counter-insurgency and saved the Iraq war when former President Bush ordered the “surge”. He was put in command in Afghanistan by President Obama where his methods achieved a measure of success, but the real message of the book is that billions have been wasted on that effort. The sheer level of corruption there was and is a defeat for U.S. efforts. Much of this book will appeal to those who are interested in recent military history and the men charged with carrying out our campaigns in a region that defies modernization and democracy as we know it in the West. It is well written, well-researched, and a lesson about U.S. efforts since 9/11.

A book written by an environmentalist, David Owen, The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and Good Intentions Can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse ($14.00, Riverhead Press, softcover) overtly and inadvertently exposes the failure of the environmental cult and the “solutions” it offers for things over which humans have no control, i.e., the climate and population. At its heart, Owen embraces environmental beliefs in manmade emissions of “greenhouse gases” that are believed to cause “global warming” when, in fact, the Earth’s atmosphere keeps it from being a desiccated version of Mars or the Moon. Carbon dioxide is the gas that is responsible for all vegetation on Earth and, without it, all animal life would die. Owen exposes the failure of environmental beliefs, ideas, and its desire to “transform” human behavior to “save the Earth” which requires no saving. While goals of clean air and clean water are laudable, a massive bureaucracy determined to require changes in our behavior and the destruction of our economy is not. For a quick look into the “greener than thou” mentality, this book is worth reading.

The gun invented by Samuel Colt is famed as the one that won the West. Later two gentlemen, Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson created some marvelous firearms. Now a book, Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun by Paul M. Barrett ($26.00, Crown Publishers) tells the story of the invention of the iconic handgun of modern times. In the 1980s, Gaston Glock, an obscure Austrian engineer, came up with an innovative design of a handgun, one with only 36 durable, interchangeable parts, and one that could fire 17 bullets without reloading. It has since become the handgun of choice for two-thirds of America’s law enforcement departments and countless handgun owners. It is an intriguing story of genius marketing, uncanny timing, and the glamour that came to be associated with the semi-automatic handgun, filled with political maneuvering, bloody shoot-outs, and even an attempt on the life of the inventor. In turbulent and dangerous times, it is a reminder that Founding Fathers understood the need for an armed citizens as a brake on a potentially tyrannical government. There’s a reason why, after guaranteeing freedom of speech, the press, religious practice, and free assembly in the First Amendment, the right to own and bear arms was the Second Amendment.

Rabbi Shumley Boteach has authored 27 books and his latest is Kosher Jesus ($26.00, Geffen Publishing House.) It is bound to stir controversy because Rabbi Boteach asserts that the biblical Jesus and the historical Jesus are quite different and the facts that can be known about the human Jesus cancel out the belief that he was also divine. This is, of course, the heart of Christianity which assigns divinity to Jesus, but Rabbi Boteach makes a strong case that the human Jesus was a charismatic rabbi in a time of tumult in Israel as Jews sought to throw off the occupation of the Roman Empire. Citing the gospels as well as the Torah and Talmud, Rabbi Boteach effectively demonstrates that the historical Jesus was preaching exclusively to Jews as a Jew. The New Testament that came about several decades after his crucifixion is the Christian sect’s effort to seek accommodation with the Romans and assign a divinity that no Jew of that time or the present would ever accept as anything other than a form of paganism. That said, the author argues for Jesus as a bridge between the two religions, both faced with an Islamism that threatens them. It is, to say the least, a thought-provoking book.

I love “fun” books, often collections of items that have become part of our national culture. Scandalous! 50 Shocking Events You Should Know About (So You Can Impress Your Friends ($13.99, Zest Books, softcover) fulfill this description with a timeline that begins in 1906 with the murder of famed architect Stanford White by his ex-lover’s rich husband and concludes with the drama of the 2000 Bush-Gore election that was decided by a Supreme Court verdict. The events are real and they made headlines for good reasons. Over the years I have edited Bookviews I have rarely included individual poets because it tends to bring a deluge of books by other poets. Poetry is a highly individual literary artform and I prefer anthologies with lots of different poems from which to select. Recently I received Night of the Republic by Alan Shapiro ($21.00, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). As a founding member of the National Book Critics Circle, I note that he was an award finalist and has won many awards for his work. Being a traditionalist, I like my poetry to rhyme and am reminded of Robert Frost’s definition of modern poetry as “playing tennis without the net.” Shapiro does not rhyme, but he brings a poet’s eye to his own life and life around him. His work reflects well on our republic.

Editorial Services

Are you writing a novel, a memoir, and any other kind of book or project? Need some mentoring and editing to ensure it comes out just right? If so, I recommend you visit http://www.ronmarr.com/ and access the experience and skills of a published author, a former journalist, and a skilled magazine writer who can help you produce something of which you can be proud. I have known Ron for years, have his books in my collection, and seen him guide many writers of varying skill levels toward the satisfaction of a job well done.

Pregnancy, Caring for the Ill, and other Health Issues

The 7th edition of Your Pregnancy Week by Week ($15.95, Da Capo Press, softcover) is now available. Co-authors, Dr. Glade Curtis, MD, and Judith Schuler, have written 18 books together over the years. Dr. Glade is board certified by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and this book has been updated to provide as comprehensive a body of information about pregnancy as you will find anywhere. Formatted in an weekly schedule, it covers all the questions and concerns that pregnancy involves, including a new appendix for couples having trouble conceiving. Not all pregnancies go smoothly and High-Risk Pregnancy—Why Me? Understanding and Managing a Potential Preterm Pregnancy is a medical and emotional guide by Kelly Whitehead with Dr. Vincenzo Berghella, MD ($26.95, Evolve Publishing, softcover). A scientist by training, the author was facing a high risk “preemie” pregnancy after the loss of her first child at nearly 23 weeks. She discovered there was a scarcity of information for women facing a similar situation and joined forces with Dr. Berghella, a specialist in fetal/maternal medicine. The objective was to write a book that the lay person could understand. An estimated 500,000 women in the U.S. encounter this and now there’s a book to guide them through to successful births. An interesting and disturbing book, Grade A Baby Eggs: An Infertility Memoir by Victoria Hopewell ($15.95, Epigraph Books, softcover) addresses the 7.3 million couples “whose eggs and sperm are not quite up to the task. Infertility is an existential slap in the face.” The author, a clinical psychologist who has held academic appointments at the medical schools of both Harvard and Cornell, reveals the truth about the in-vitro fertilization industry, “a wild-west baby business where women’s eggs are bought and sold over the Internet, and prices are based on everything from the donor’s SAT scores to how much you’re welling to pay to make sure your baby is technically Jewish.” The IVF attempts each year average more than $12,000 each “and it’s virtually unregulated” says the author. For anyone encountering this problem, this book must be read. It deserves wider media attention as well.

Walking on Eggshells: Caring for a Critically Ill Loved One ($14.95, New Horizon Press, softcover) by Amy Sales is filled with pragmatic advice and insightful self-assessments for caregivers. It advises what to say in difficult conversations, how to regain the patient’s sense of control, and new methods for self-care in order to bring their best to care-giving. This book addresses the unique needs of care-givens of parents, children, adult children, and spouses. It offers advice for care-givers who need to attend to their own health while providing for seriously ill loved ones. Anyone who has been through it will tell you it can be a difficult and daunting task. If you or someone you know is dealing with this, this book will prove invaluable. In April the Central Recovery Press of Las Vegas will publish When the Servant Becomes the Master by Dr. Jason Z.W. Powers, MD ($18.95, softcover) described as “a comprehensive addiction guide for those who suffer with the disease, the loved ones affected by it, and the professionals who assist them.” It covers a wide range of topics from what addiction is, its dynamics and neurochemistry; to drugs of abuse, treatment approaches and interventions, to relapse prevention. Not all addictions involve substance abuse. The book includes gambling, food, and sex addictions as well. Addiction is treated like a disease, not a moral failure. Colleagues have great praise for this book, noting that it is filled with relevant, clinically useful information that will help people understand addiction and take the right steps toward healing.

A Lethal Inheritance: A Mother Uncovers the Science Behind Three Generations of Mental Illness by Victoria Costello ($19, Prometheus Books, softcover) is part memoir, detective story, and scientific investigation as the author tells the story of the mental unraveling of her 17-year-old son compelled her to look back into her family history for clues to his condition. She traced it back to his great grandfather’s suicide in 1913, but that brought no relief because, within two years of Alex’s diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, both she and her youngest son succumbed to two different mental disorders, major depression and an anxiety disorder. After a struggle to secure the best mental health care for her sons and herself, they each achieved full recovery. In the process, she discovered new science that explains how clusters of mental illness traverse family generations. If this describes your family or one you know, this book provides needed information and insight, particularly now that it is known that mental illness can be passed or skip from generation to generation.

Love, Loss, and Laughter: Seeing Alzheimer’s Differently by Cathy Greenblat ($24.95, Globe Pequot Press) is a remarkable collection of photos and text by the author who documents that those receiving an emerging kind of care that treats the person, not just the “patient”, is a portrait of how Alzheimer’s can be dealt with effectively by sustaining their connections to others, to their own past lives, with a level of success higher than is generally believed at this time. The book has a foreword by Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, the daughter of movie star, Rita Hayworth, who had Alzheimer’s. “This book is not about the difficulties of dementia can cause, as some might expect. It is about the lives that continue in spite of it. It really is about seeing Alzheimer’s differently.” She is the president of Alzheimer’s Disease International and honorary vice chair of the Alzheimer’s Association (USA). The book is filled with excellent and inspiring advice for the families of those afflicted with this cruel disease. It’s photos are wonderful and it would make a great gift for anyone who is caring for a loved one.

Love, Love, Love

What kind of a world would it be without love? Dreadful! Much Ado About Loving: What our Favorite Novels can Teach you about Date Expectations, Not-so-Great Gatsbys, and Love in the Time of Internet Personals is one of those titles that pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the book. For lovers of fiction, Jack Murnighan and Maura Kelly ($19.99, Free Press) have gotten together to examine the vast body of literature with the view that there is much to be learned from the characters portrayed that can be applied to our own lives as we read about their foibles, misadventures, and eventual triumphs. The authors, relationship gurus, know that finding and keeping love is often tough for present-day folks who often turn to all manner of self-help books, daytime TV, magazines, friends, relatives and shrinks for guidance. This is a book about how to form relationships and make them work, using literature as signposts.

We know that fifty percent of marriages these days do not last, but Tiffany Current, the author of How to Move In With Your Boyfriend (and Not Break Up With Him) is of the opinion that living in sin ain’t what it used to be. She thinks that “shacking up” is almost a rite of passage with more couples living together than ever ($12.95, Hunter House, softcover). Let us note that Tiffany successfully navigated the perils of her live-in relationship and went on to marry the man who provided the fodder for her entertaining guidebook. She admits they got off to a rocky start and, as many couples discover, cleaning habits, house rules, and decorating tastes, and everything else can turn into an argument. She emphasizes communication, teamwork, and compromise to make a relationship work. It’s a witty and very sensible book that any girl should read.

Love for No Reason: 7 Steps to Creating a Life of Unconditional Love by Marci Shimoff ($15.00, Free Press), a bestseller, is now in softcover and has been hailed by Dr. Mehmet Oz, Jack Canfield, the co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and has a foreword by Marianne Williamson, all renowned in their own fields as relationship gurus. The best relationships in life are based on this principle and, if you are seeking to achieve it, this is the right place to begin. Then there is love at the end of life. When All That’s Left of Me is Love: A Daughter’s Story of Letting Go by Linda Campenella ($17.99, Tate Publishing, softcover) was published in August 2011, so I am reporting on it a bit belatedly, but its message is eternal and the memoir about learning her mother had terminal cancer will resonate with many who have had time to bid goodbye to a beloved parent while ensuring their last days would be filled with as much joy as possible. She made that last year count and those who are experiencing a similar situation, they should too.

Loving History

When it comes to reading, I love history and a number of excellent new books serve it well.

We are all taught about the Lewis and Clark expedition, commissioned by Thomas Jefferson, our third President. It did much to help open up the American West, at that time largely terra incognita to most who lived along the East Coast and in the South. Thomas C. Danisi has written a biography, Uncovering the Truth About Meriwether Lewis ($26.00, Prometheus Books), shedding light on the adventurous life and controversial death of this great explorer. Lewis encountered many difficulties in his life, suffering from incurable malaria for much of it, being court martialed at one point, enduring the challenges of the expedition, and either being murdered at the end or taking his own life.


The Civil War was the nation’s great trauma and continues generate many books on the subject. One of the latest is Decided on the Battlefield: Grant, Sherman, Lincoln and the Election of 1864 by David Alan Johnson ($27.00, Prometheus Books). The critical election for Lincoln’s reelection is the focus as the war had dragged on for more than three years with no end in sight. Lincoln was being challenged by George B. McClellen and he needed a victory to lift the voter’s spirits. It was the battles of Generals Grant and Sherman that made that possible and, in particular, the conquest of Atlanta. Lincoln would be reelected with a majority of 400,000 votes. The war would continue for five months before the South surrendered and the republic was reunited. This is a very interesting book on many levels and well worth reading. The South, of course, has its own version of the Civil War and it is served up by Leonard M. Scruggs in The Uncivil War: Shattering the Historical Myths ($16.95 plus $2.95 shipping, Universal Media, Inc., softcover). For southerners and others who pursue this chapter of our history, there is much they will find of interest in this book. For the South, the issue was state’s rights and the U.S. Constitution which they replicated in large part for the Confederacy. The war’s casualties were nothing less than astonishing. Its conduct was brutal.

Another brutal conflict occurred when Egyptians revolted against the decades of dictatorship of Hosni Mubarack and the military that backed him. Revolution 2.0: The Power of the People is Greater Than the People in Power by Wael Ghonim ($26.00, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) tells the story of the author’s anonymous launch of a Facebook page in 2010 to protest the death of an Egyptian man at the hands of the security forces. The page’s followers quickly expanded and, on January 14, 2011, it made history when more than 350,000 friends clamored to join and a revolution was declared. Ghonim was captured and held for twelve days of brutal interrogation. This is a remarkable story of how the modern communications technology of social networking on the Internet sparked a revolution and what came to be called the Arab Spring.

A much lighter topic is the subject of The Persian Room Presents: An Oral History of New York’s Most Magical Night Spot by Patty Farmer ($28.95, Vantage Press) which tells the story of this famed gathering place for the glitterati and visitors to the city. For more than forty years, from 1934 to 1975, the Persian Room showcased an unparalleled array of performers and many of them recall it. Among its contributors are Andy Williams, Polly Bergen, Diahann Carroll, Carol Lawrence, and others. It is filled with show business stories of the famous entertainers and other figures of that era. It is a wonderful remembrance of a past time of glamour and talent.

Kid’s Books, Younger Readers

The next time you’re feeling blue, if you have a pre-schooler, one in grade school, buy a book for their age group and watch how much fun it is to read it together. For pre-teens, sometimes called “tweens”, there are some excellent new books as well.

You can never go wrong with a published called Kids Can Press. They have some of the most imaginative books for both age groups. When I read the ones for the very young, I find myself laughing just like one of them!

Dear Flyary, as in “diary”, by Dianne Young and illustrated by John Martz ($16.95) is a hoot! It involves a kid from another galaxy who gets bright, new red spaceship and all problems that ensue when it begins to make strange noises, not unlike cars do on occasion. The fun is in the language of the story which is a space-talk version of English and very amusing. This one is for the very young up to around five. Also for this age group is Larf, written and illustrated by Ashley Spires ($16.95) about a hairy, seven-foot-tall vegetarian Sasquatch who is quite content to live alone with his pet bunny, Eric. Thinking he is the only Sasquatch, when he reads that another Sasquatch will be at a nearby town, he decides to go. He disguises himself (which is not easy for a Sasquatch to do) but it turns out it’s just some guy in a costume. Fate intervenes in the form of Shurl, a girl Sasquatch—also disguised—who he invites for supper. A happy ending is expected. A Hen for Izzy Pippik, written by Aubrey Davis and beautifully illustrated by Marie Lafrance ($16.95) has the feel of a Yiddish tale from former times. When a chicken turns up on Shaina’s doorstop, she tries to return him to her owner, Mr. Pippik, but he’s no where to be found. As time goes alone, more chicks are born until they are everywhere in the town. The townspeople discover that the chickens were so popular that business began to boom as people came from all around to see them. When Mr. Pippik turns up, he decides to give them all to the town. Roosters crowed. Children cheered. Hens cackled with glee! Virginia Wolf by Kyo Maclear and Isabelle Arsenault ($16.96) is not about the famed author—spelled Woolf—but rather the sister of Vanessa who has awakened in a foul mood, like an angry wolf. Cheering her up is the task before Vanessa and this is the story of how she did it.

On a more serious and educational note, there’s Faith: Five Religions and What They Share by Dr. Richard Steckel and Michele Steckel ($17.95) and provides a brief description of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism. There are chapters on the cultural aspects of each such as their houses of worship. For ages six to ten or so, this book provides an look at the way various people pursue their religious lives. Get Outside: The Kids Guide to Fun in the Great Outdoors ($16.95) is written y Jane Drake and Ann Love, and illustrated by Heather Collins. It is filled with activity that will put kids in touch with life beyond computer games and television, from building a birdhouse, making a tire swing, planting a garden, and much more. When I was a child, we were outdoors all the time and I would recommend this one to today’s parents.

Early readers, aged seven to ten or so, will enjoy three stories that include Jasper John Dooley: Star of the Week by Caroline Adderson with illustrations by Ben Clanton ($15.95). These are books where the story is the main attraction. This book is the first of a series about Jasper, a quirky and enthusiastic boy with an offbeat view of the world. Young readers will find much to laugh about when they read this one. Lower the Trap: The Lobster Chronicles 1 by Jessica Scott Kerrin ($15.95) tells of a gargantuan lobster caught by the main character’s father and the adventures that result. It’s a delightful introduction to lives devoted to the bounty of the sea. Finally, there’s The Island Horse by Susan Hughes ($16.95) It is a wonderful story of a girl who has to move to Sable Island off the coast of Nova Scotia, but home to wild horses. While Ellie loves horses, she is not happy to leave her little village. Once there, however, she forms a friendship with a beautiful chocolate-colored horse, but will he and his herd be taken away? These three books are a great introduction to the fun of reading.

Novels, Novels, Novels

The flood of novels continues and, happily, there are a number of very good ones worth recommending.

For those who love stories involving America’s intelligence services, The Right Guard by Alexandra Hamlet ($24.95, Foxboro Press, Annapolis, MD) is going to prove a suspenseful and satisfying story with ramifications of present times. Set in 1978, it reflects the present political and economic climate of the United States. Recall that Jimmy Carter was still president and the Iranian hostage taking of our diplomats was still a year away. When more than one million military weapons and equipment are missing from U.S. military inventories across the nation, CIA operatives struggle to find out who is involved in a secretive, “phantom” group hostile to a wildly spending, intrusive U.S. administration. The action is set against the world of intelligence and defense in the 1970s and chapters often begin with actual newspaper articles relating to the topics that are contained in the novel. This is the author’s debut novel and one can only hope she has another on the way.

Before the Poison ($25.99, William Morrow) by Peter Robinson is an old-fashioned thriller about a composer, Chris Lowndes, who leaves California after twenty-five years there writing musical scores for films. He has decided to return to the Yorkshire dales in England where he has bought, sight-unseen, a big, old, remote mansion. Turns out that his realtor neglected to mention that it was the scene of a murder in 1953 and Grace Fox, the wife of the victim was hanged for having poisoned him. Intrigued, the more he learns about the case, the more convinced he becomes that she was innocent. Despite warnings, he digs into it and you will dig into this mystery too. A thriller by Aric Davis, A Good and Useful Hurt, ($14.95, 47North, Las Vegas, softcover) features a tattoo artist who uses the ashes of the customer’s loved ones in their tattoos. The author is himself a tattoo artist who works at a popular parlor in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In the novel his fictional tattoo artist is on a collision course with a serial killer. As more requests for similar tattoos commemorating a lost one, his life begins to spin out of control when Deb, another tattooist, joins his firm and a romance ensues. This is a complex story worth reading. In a Long Drive Home by Will Allison ($14.00, Free Press, softcover) a single impulsive act leads to unintended consequences. When Glenn Bauer jerks his steering wheel to scare a reckless driver, it results in a crash that kills the driver. Realizing that he is the only witness to the accident—as well as the likely cause—he begins to lie to the police, his wife, and even his six-year-old daughter. When his wife panics with the potential of punishment, he begins to wonder if he did cause the crash. This novel is an exploration of culpability.

Everybody Says Hello by Michael Kun ($30.00, Livingston Press, University of West Alabama, softcover) is about someone we all know. In this novel it’s Sid Straw and his correspondence, and it reveals a man who is a good and decent person, but one for whom things just always take a wrong turn. He comes close to a right decision, but then swerves into a wrong one. Sid tries too hard, says a little too much, makes that extra effort that proves his undoing. If he could get out of his own way, his life was be so much better. This novel draws you into his life and is written by an author whose work has been well received over the past two decades. Welcome to the world of Sid Straw. The South has given us many fine novelists and has his own distinct culture. In The Lost Saints of Tennessee ($25.00, Atlantic Monthly Press), Amy Franklin-Willis mines the fault lines in one Southern working class family as it moves from the 1940s to the 1980s. It revolves around Ezekiel Cooper and his mother, Lillian. As the saying goes, if Zeke didn’t have bad luck, he wouldn’t have any luck at all. He loses his twin brother to a mysterious drowning and his wife to divorce. Only the ghosts remain for him in Clayton, Tennessee and he decides to leave and, in doing so, leaves behind two adolescent daughters and his estranged mother, herself a figure of sadness too, hoping to save what remains of her family. Zeke finds refuge with sympathetic cousins in Virginia’s horse country until he must decide whether to cling to the past or to move on. This novel is the real deal. In The Union Quilters ($15.00, Plume, softcover) Jennifer Chiaverini takes us back to the days of the Civil War with a story that addresses the challenges faced by women left behind when their men answered the call to arms and as they dealt with southern sympathizers as well as the many ethical questions the war raised. An informal group of women come together for comfort and support in a deeply moving story of an era fraught with conflict.

The Pacific Northwest is the setting for an historically based novel, Bring Me One of Everything ($16.95, Grey Swan Press, softcover) by Leslie Hall Pinder. Twenty-five years ago this Canadian writer debuted with her first novel to much critical acclaim. Four years later her second novel was published and now, twenty years later she returns after devoting herself to being an attorney protecting the rights of indigenous people. The result infuses this novel with her knowledge of native rituals and practices. An anthropologist, Austin Hart, who was charged by the Smithsonian to “bring me one of everything”, he was responsible in the 1950s for bringing the last of the totem poles of the Haida tribes who inhabit the Queen Charlotte islands in British Columbia. Now Alicia Purcell has been commissioned to create the libretto for an opera about him. The fusion of both their lives and the conflicts within her life are the heart of this remarkable novel.

For those who love an epic story, Jack Whyte has authored The Forest Land ($25.95, Forge) based on the life of the heroic figure of Scotland’s William Wallace. It is the first in his “Guardian’s trilogy” that will include the fight for Scotland’s freedom by Robert the Bruce and Sir James (the Black) Douglas. This is history writ large and in a fashion that will please anyone who loves the great battles of the past and the men who led them.

That’s it for March. So much to read and enjoy. So much more to come. Tell your family and friends about Bookviews.com so they too can have their lives enriched by the fiction and non-fiction that light up the dark places of our heart and illuminate our lives with their stories. Come back in April!

by Alan Caruba

My Picks of the Month

I love reading history and for anyone trying to figure out the trends occurring worldwide there is no better way of understanding what is occurring now. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson ($30.00, Crown) addresses and answers questions that have stumped the experts for centuries. Acemoglu is the Killian Professor of Economics at MIT and Robinson is a political scientists and economist, an expert on Latin America and Africa, teaches at Harvard. The book is a hefty tome, but reads smoothly as the authors explore why some nations are wealthy and others are poor. One example is the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Some nations have had several revolutions without any real change in the way they are governed. Egypt is such an example. The authors address the question of whether America’s best days are behind it and whether China authoritarian growth machine is sustainable. Without giving away any secrets, the answer to the question of growth and failure is freedom. Put this book on your reading list this year. Charles Goyette has written Red and Blue and Broke All Over: Restoring America’s Free Economy ($25.95, Sentinel, an imprint of the Penguin Group) takes a look at our present crisis from a libertarian point of view and, not surprisingly concludes that the increasing size of government, crony capitalism, and too much spending has brought us to the brink of a financial crisis even greater than what occurred in 2008. It is a thought-provoking book and very timely. Sometimes you cannot improve on an author’s own description of what he has written. I am a fan of James D. Best’s novels based on the old West and the early days of the American Republic, so I was not surprised that he turned his hand to non-fiction to write Principled Action: Lessons from the Origins of the American Republic ($13.95, Wheatmark, Tucson, AZ, softcover). “Prior to 1776, world history was primarily written about kings and emperors. The American experiment shook the world. Not only did the colonies break away from the biggest and most powerful empire in history, they took the musings of the brightest thinkers of the Enlightenment and implemented them. The Founding of the United States was simultaneously an armed rebellion against tyranny and a revolution of ideas-ideas that changed the course of world history. Principled Action shows how the Founders built this great nation with sacrifice, courage, and steadfast principles.” There is no more important time in our present times to learn the how and why of the founding of our great republic. This highly readable book is a very good place to start.

I keep wondering if it is going to take another 9/11 for Americans to wake up to the threat of Islamo-fascism that exists within our very midst? Peter Feaman has written The Next Nightmare: How Political Correctness Will Destroy America ($14.99, Dunham Books, softcover) with a foreword by Congressman Allan West. It is a short read, but it is one that makes clear how the failure to recognize the spread of Islamic fanaticism within the nation continues to pose a threat to our society, noting how the number of mosques has gone from around fifty after World War II to more than 1,200 today and that many, if not most, are centers for radical Islamism, including recruiting efforts inside America’s prison population. How Americans cannot witness the assault by Muslim communities on European nations and not understand that it can and will happen here is suicidal. Put this one on your reading list! Of course, not all Muslims are plotting terrorism and Irshad Manji’s book, Allah, Liberty and Love: The Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom ($16.00, Free Press, softcover) reveals how, within Islam, many of its faithful are yearning for a reformation and greater tolerance of other faiths. The author gained notice with her bestselling book, “The Trouble With Islam Today”, and she makes her case for the need for change. She teaches “moral courage” and that is necessary for change from within and for the willingness to speak out against the imposition of Sharia law by terrorism that intimidates its victims and encourages its perpetrators. The United States has had a long history of dealing with the Middle East dating back to President Thomas Jefferson’s decision to respond to attacks on American ships by Barbary pirates (“to the shores of Tripoli”). In 1866, American missionaries founded a small college in Beirut, Lebanon that would later be renamed the American University of Beirut. Under the leadership of four generations of the Bliss and Dodge families, it became an influential institution of higher learning. It’s story is told in American Sheikhs by Brian VanDeMark ($25.00, Prometheus Books). Far more than just a family saga, it is the story of how the university graduated countless leaders, legislators, ambassadors, educators, scientists, doctors and businessmen whose lives and accomplishments played a significant role in the modern history of the Middle East. Anyone who loves to read history will enjoy this book.

Just out this month is the second edition of a terrific compendium of facts, The Handy Religion Answer Book by John Renard, PhD, ($21.95, Visible Ink, softcover) that provides a world of facts about the different faiths; what people believe and how their faith profoundly influences the way they act. It provides descriptions of major beliefs and rituals worldwide. This publisher also offers"The Handy Science Answer Book ($21.95) now in its fourth edition. These books are treasuries of knowledge that will make you the smartest, best informed person in the room! For folks who like to find a lot of information in one spot, there’s International Affairs by Davis K. Thanjan ($22.95, Bookstand Publishing, Morgan Hill, CA, softcover). Nation by nation, the author has accumulated the most recent information with an emphasis of U.S. foreign policy and foreign relations. The result is a quick, short analysis of each nation’s economic and strategic importance in relationship to U.S. interests. It is a prodigious piece of research that puts the data at your fingertips and for anyone who wants to understand America’s position in the world today, it is filled with insights that would require tons of research that, happily, the author has done for you..

This is a political year and there are some 600,000 public offices up for election throughout the nation. Though it is not widely known, the majority of Americans self-identify as politically conservative. For them Craig Copland has written the 2012 Conservative Election Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Elect Conservatives from Dog Catcher to President ($14.95, available in various e-reader formats at www.conservawiki.com and elsewhere). This is an excellent book that covers all aspects of planning, running, and winning an election. (It’s even available for free if you are a conservative running for office.) While its purpose is to elect conservatives, this book is so thorough that, it must be said, a liberal candidate would benefit just as much from it. I have seen a number of such books over the years and this qualifies as one of the best.

Animal lovers, particularly of horses, will love The Rescue of Belle & Sundance: One Town’s Incredible Race to Save Two Abandoned Horses by Birgit Stutz and Lawrence Scanlan ($22.00,Da Capo Press.) The horses had been abandoned on Mount Renshaw in Canada’s British Columbia province. Everything was fine until winter set in at which point a four-person effort to save them turned into a village-wide, week-long mission to dig a path off the mountain through six feet or more of snow to create an 18-mile descent to safety. It is a delightful story that is well worth reading. In December of last year I recommended The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe by Theodore Gray. It was rather pricey in its hardcover edition, but now for those who love science and learning, it is available in softcover for $19.95 (Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers) offering gorgeous photos of the 118 elements in the periodic table, packed with information about the building blocks of the universe. This is the kind of book that, in the hands of a young or old exploring mind, opens entire new vistas to our world, stimulating one’s sense of wonder.

Like everyone else, I like to dress fashionably and, frankly, have not given it much thought. Jessica Wolfendale and Jeanette Kennett have and the result is an interesting book, Fashion—Philosophy for Everyone ($19.95, Wiley-Blackwell, softcover). This is not one of your usual fashion books on what’s hot and what’s not. It is a serious look at the subject by two scholars, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at West Virginia University and a Professor of Moral Psychology at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Together they explore the strong connection between fashion and the aesthetic of an era, the difference between the servile and sensible fashionista, the politics of individual style and fashion choices, and much more. It is a book for the intellectual fashionista and, believe it or not, a lot of fun to read. What I know about woman’s fashion you could put in a bug’s ear, but fortunately Dr. Jennifer Baumgartner, a practicing clinical psychologist and wardrobe consultant has written a book to help the fashion-challenged in time for the new spring line. You Are What You Wear: What Your Clothes Reveal About You ($16.00, Da Capo Press, softcover) provides insights into the way your choices reflect inner struggles, fears, desires and dream. Her book’s nine chapters diagnose nine distinct shopping complaints and wardrobe mistakes from failing to dress one’s age to being a slave to labels. For anyone who approaches the purchase of new clothes either buying and spending too much or with a certain sense of dread, this is definitely the book to read!

Memoirs, Biographies, Lives

Reading about other people’s lives, whether they are famous or just sharing their experiences, is one of the best ways to understand your own life. A number of books fit that description this month.

One of the delights of my youth were the Saturday matinees where one could see movies starring cowboys like Roy Rogers and his wife Dale Evans, both of whom transitioned to television. Roy was in the tradition of singing cowboy and had a long career. He and Dale had thousands of fans and Tricia Spencer was among them. She has written a delightful book, The Touch of Roy and Dale ($21.95, West Quest, softcover) subtitled, “The impact and influence of Roy Rogers, the King of the Cowboys, and Dale Evans, the Queen of the West, as Only Their Fans Could Tell It.” In the 1990s She acquired a treasure of 40,000 pieces of fan mail from the Rogers estate and draws on them and the collected recollections and essays of their children, family friends, and western silver screen stars and others emerge a picture of a couple who lived their Christian faith. The book is greatly enhanced by many photos from their lives. Roy and Dale left behind a great legacy, including their non-profit charity, The Happy Trails Foundation, that can be enjoyed in this wonderful book.

Aretha Franklin: The Queen of Soul by Mark Bego ($16.95, Skyhorse publishing, softcover) will surely please her fans. She celebrated her 70th birthday in March and the author, one of the best popular culture biographers around, has provided a no-holds-barred look at this extraordinary talent. I was surprised to learn she recorded her first album at age 14 and found stardom in her twenties. It has not been an easy life. She had two teen pregnancies and an abusive marriage, plus drinking problems, and battles with her weight. Then there was the murder of her father, so fabled as her singing career has been, she has had her share of troubles. In the end, it will be her career that people will remember her for, but for those who want to know about the rest, this book will fill in the gaps. Another singer/song writer who left his mark on American culture was Woody Guthrie and Robert Santelli, executive director of the Grammy Museum, has written a homage to him in This Land is Your Land ($24.00, Running Press). This large format book is a definitive Guthrie biography, filled with the kind of information that often comes as a surprise. Among his numerous friendships, for example, were John Steinbeck, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan. Guthrie is remembered for his advocacy for the working man and it was a part of all his music. His travels throughout the nation inspired much of it. Any fan of folk music will want to add this book to their library.

The story of four remarkable sisters is told in Sisters of Fortune: America’s Caton Sisters at Home and Abroad by Jane Wake ($16.99, Touchstone, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, softcover) reads like a Jane Austen novel, but they were real life women, daughters born to wealth in nineteenth century America, arguably the first American heiress. There was Marianne, a soul-mate to the Duke of Wellington; Bess who was a wizard at the stock market and successful speculator; Louisa who became the first American duchess and was a friend of the Queen; and Emily who stayed home in America, marrying a Scots-Canadian fur trader, remaining her sister’s lifeline to their childhood home and family life.

For lovers of history, Westholme Publishing of Yardley, PA, is a treasure of excellent books. Due out officially in May is The Final Mission by Elizabeth Hoban and Lt. Col. Henry Supchack ($24.95) about a mission in July 1944 that the Colonel was flying in his B-17 when it was hit by antiaircraft fire. As the plane was going down, he realized it was on a collision course with an Austrian village and managed to steer it away before escaping the craft. He would later be liberated by Patton’s Third Army in 1945. Years later, little did he know that a world away, an Austrian entrepreneur was searching for the pilot that had fallen out of the sky and whom he had never forgotten. This is an inspiring story of forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing from the devastation of war. Click on www.westholmepublishing.com to check out a number of interesting books drawn from history that are well worth reading.

The Book of Drugs, a Memoir is Mike Doughty’s account ($16.00, Da Capo Press, softcover) of a life that could have been wasted in addictions to drugs and alcohol, but which he escaped after several close calls with death convinced him he had to get sober. In a music career that included a 90s rock group, Doughty began to make a name for himself, but his addictions stole the joy from the fame that came his way. When Dave Matthews signed him to his label, ATO Records, he realized he had been given a second change to redeem himself and his music. He has stayed sober for more than eleven years and this story will interest those who following the contemporary music scene and who will enjoy a look behind the spotlights and glamour. There may be no more frightening experience than to be falsely accused of a crime and been found guilty in a court of law. That was the experience of Gloria Killian, a law student who spent 16 years in prison for a murder she did not commit. Her story is told in Full Circle: A True Story of Murder, Lies and Vindication by Gloria and journalist Sandra Kobrin ($24.95, New Horizon Press) and just out this month. After ten years in prison, massive exculpatory evidence, hidden evidence, and prosecutorial misconduct and perjury was found and ultimately led to her release. During her years of incarceration, she became an advocate for others who were unjustly convicted and for the humane treatment of women prisoners. What happened to her could happen to anyone and her book is a riveting story of injustice and redemption.

A very different story is told in The Sorcerer’s Apprentices: A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adria’s Elbulli ($16.00, Free Press, softcover) by Lisa Abend. Available at last in softcover, the author was given extraordinary access to a famed chef and his restaurant; one elected the best restaurant five times before it made international headlines when it closed in 2011. Here is a look behind the scenes where culinary magic is created and how he trained a new generation of chefs as they struggle to master the long hours, the techniques, and the tensions evoked. For “foodies”, it is a grand read.

To Your Health!

There are so many books that address various aspects of one’s health that there is hardly any condition that does not deal with a problem shared by others.

Paintracking: Your Personal Guide to Living Well with Chronic Pain by Deborah Barrett ($20.00, Prometheus Books, softcover) is a perfect example. Millions of people suffer from debilitating chronic pain from arthritis, fibromyalgia, low back pain, chronic headache syndromes, neuropathies and other painful conditions. This book offers a hands-on approach to improving life with chronic pain, whatever its underlying cause. The author is a psychotherapist and sociologist with firsthand experience. She provides a systematic method to empower individuals with the ability to navigate the often overwhelming array of treatment options in order to incorporate the most effective ones into their lives. The same publisher also offers Choosing Cesarean: A Natural Birth Plan by Dr. Magnus Murphy, MD, and Pauline McDonaugh Hull ($21.00, Prometheus Books, softcover). Cesarean delivery is often portrayed as an emergency procedure when a woman cannot deliver naturally, but the authors argue that these attitudes are misguided. While not promoting planned cesarean delivery as the best or safest option for all women the authors make a case for it as an option. Written in accessible, jargon-free language with a glossary of medical terms, it is a very useful guide for women, their families, and medical professionals as well.

Freeing Yourself from Anxiety: 4 Simple Steps to Overcome Worry and Create the Life You Want by Tamar Chansky, PhD ($16.00, Da Capo Press, softcover) is one of those titles that says it all. It is written for everyone, not just for those struggling with anxiety disorders or depression. She explores how one can change negative thoughts to achieve a more rational way of seeing oneself and the world, using real life examples of the way fear of criticism, procrastination, perfectionism and other ways people encounter and foster anxiety in their lives. If this problem is one in your own or the life of someone else you know this book will prove a life-changing experience. Harness Your Dark Side: Mastering Jealousy, Rage, Frustration and other Negative Emotions is the subject of Al Graves’ new book ($14.95, New Horizon Press, softcover). The author is a licensed psychologist, a PhD who addresses how we can stop being so hard on ourselves, providing strategies and techniques to confront the negative drives, deep-rooted incorrect beliefs, and troubled feelings that make up our dark sides. He offers therapeutic self-help exercises and strategies to living well by becoming aware of our emotions. Our prisons are filled with people who failed to do so and our lives are often stunted by our own failure to harness our feelings. This is the first step to real self-help for many people. New Horizon Press has many self-help books worth checking out at www.newhorizonpress.com.

Why Is Brian So Fat? We all know examples of some child, often dealing with a dysfunctional family, who turns to eating as a way to avoid dealing with his feelings. Gary Solomon, PhD knows whereof his speaks ($14.95, Central Recovery Press) and that is why he has written a book for youngsters aged 8 to 14, along with families dealing with overeating issues, as well as teachers and other professionals trying to help such youngsters. Due out officially in May, the book focuses on a young boy’s feelings and what changed his life so that he could get in touch with those feelings. There are very few books that address the subject of overeating and the resulting obesity. It includes a list of websites that children and adults can access to learn more about it. Written in a friendly and welcoming tone, young readers will instantly relate to Brian.

What’s Cooking?

My mother taught the fine art of gourmet cuisine for more than three decades, so we had a lot of cookbooks in our home. They ranged from inspired and gorgeous to useful and practical. I tend to look at cookbooks with a practiced eye.

These days there are all sorts of crazes about food with everyone telling everyone else they’re too fat, eating too much the wrong thing, will surely die from fast food, et cetera. Eating in moderation is the key to good health and, after that, eat the main course before you treat yourself to dessert, okay? I was reminded of these time-tested truths while reading Shirley Law Jacobus’ We’re Eating What? It is “a memoir, recipes, and how-to-guide from America’s longest-running gourmet group” ($24.95, Publish America, softcover) that truly lives up to its title. The author invites the reader into her life and the lives of a group of people who loved to prepare and taste new foods. For anyone who shares this enthusiasm, the book will read like an old friend who is sharing favorite recipes and memories of good times together with friends. It is offbeat and a lot of fun.

We tend to associate cookbooks with countries like France and Italy, but Poland, that’s unique. Of course, every nation and group has its own particular cuisine and getting to know about it is part of the fun. Rose Petal Jam by Beata Zatorska and Simon Target ($35.00, Tabula Books) is a real treat as Ms. Zatorska shares memories of learning to make rose petal jam, pierogi, and other Polish recipes in the kitchen of her grandmother’s farmhouse in a remote village in the foothills of the Karkonosze Mountains where she grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. Accompanied by her husband, Simon, Beata spent a summer exploring her home country in what became a culinary journey as well. The book is beautifully and lavishly illustrated with hundreds of full color photographs of the recipes, the countryside, and the main cities, Warsaw, Gdansk and Krakow. You will want to try your hands at beetroot-shoot soup, cabbage rolls, beef goulash, apple pancakes, Carpathian vanilla torte and, of course, rose petal jam.

I confess I have never understood why anyone would give up meat, pork, fish or any other animal worth eating to pursue a vegan lifestyle. A lot of people, however, must be doing this because there are three vegan cookbooks on my desk. Chloe’s Kitchen: 125 Easy, Delicious Recipes for Making the Food You love the Vegan Way by Chloe Coscarelli ($18.99, Free Press, softcover) lives up to its title by this TV personality. The book’s foreword by Dr. Neal D. Barnard explains how a vegan diet can help you lose weight, reduce cholesterol, and deal with diseases. The author demonstrates that vegan cooking need not be bland, visually unappetizing and mostly just sprouts. Fact is, the photos will make your mouth water. Da Capo Press is a major publisher of books about the vegan lifestyle and two of its latest titles are Gluten-Free Vegan Comfort Food by Susan O’Brien ($18.00, softcover) and Let Them Eat Vegan! ($20.00, softcover) by Dreena Burton, a hefty book with 200 recipes while the “gluten” book offers 125. Ms. Burton has authored two previous books of vegan recipes while Ms. O’Brien wears a number of hats as a food-management consultant.

Getting Down to Business

The way the Internet has changed doing business so swiftly that a new book, The Age of the Platform by Phil Simon ($19.95, Motion Publishing, Las Vegas, NV, softcover) will prove a very useful way to make sense and take advantage of it. It is subtitled “How Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Have Redefined Business” and Simon, a technology expert, shows how these companies have pioneered an entirely new business model based on a model that other businesses, large and small, should adopt if they want to thrive in the years ahead. The key has been their ability to secure passionate users, adapt quickly to change, embrace risk-taking and experimentation, continually add valuable planks—products, services or user communities, and integrate multiple devices, websites, and services under one umbrella. It is a treasure trove of information that can help any enterprise grow.

Earn What You’re Really Worth by Brian Tracy ($25.99, Vanguard Press) is a practical program for getting to the top for today’s businessperson. Whether you work at an entry level position or aspire to the corner office, this book is about working smarter, gaining respect, and earning more. There’s a lot of pressure on everyone these days of high unemployment to either keep or secure a job. The author offers tested strategies for modern career advancement for employees who are undervalued by their companies, people in job transition situations, students who are entering the workforce, and, of course, those who are unemployed. It is a combination of a motivational book with one that provides insights to today’s workplace. Due out next month, the author of The 3 Power Values: How Commitment, Integrity, and Transparency Clear the Roadblocks to Performance ($32.95, Jossey-Bass) by David Gebler examines how the culture of the workplace can harm any business venture and why it is necessary to spot the signs that it is harming growth. He points to troubling shop talk that suggests workers believe they are just cogs in a machine, are working under a cloud of fear, and simply in a survival mode. This can happen to any company and can lead to costly problems when safety procedures are ignored or internal scandals occur. Removing roadblocks like inconsistent policies and bad managerial attitudes keep employees from applying the right values to their jobs. It is filled with good advice to keep everyone happy, motivated, and on the right track so that everyone enjoys the feeling of success. Snap: Seizing Your Aha! Moments by Katherine Ramsland ($25.00, Prometheus Books) is not just about business, but it surely applies in that area. The author examines how sudden flashes of inspiration have triggered many discoveries and inventions throughout history, offering a fascinating overview of the latest neuroscience thought processes or “snaps.” She explains that snaps are much more than new ideas. They are insights plus momentum, often occurring after ordinary problem solving hits an impasse. When the brain “reboots”, the solution can suddenly pop into our heads. Written in an accessible, jargon-free narrative, it can jump-start your problem solving skills.

If money is the root of all evil, than many of us are rooting for it! David Walman takes us on a journey, The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Technies, Dreamers—and the Coming Cashless Society ($25.00, Da Capo Press) in which he explores what the world would be like without cash, giving the reader a crash course on the rise and fall of physical money, beginning with Marco Polo’s fascinating with the paper notes who saw circulating in China, then taking a look at the gold standard and the ascent of national currencies. In our rapidly changing, technologically advanced world, people around the world are embracing new ways of replacing the local bank with a cell phone apt. It is an interesting look at the way the exchange of money has changed over the years and what it is likely to be in the future.

Novels, Novels, Novels

Douglas Wilson likes to write books. He has authored over thirty on a variety of topics. As the pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, he brings his experience and deft wit to bear in a satirical novel called Evangellyfish ($21.00, Canon Press) about the slow-motion collapse of the fictional Chad Lester’s Midwest megachurch. As the head pastor of Camel Creek, Lester is riding high as thousands gather every Sunday to hear him preach, others hear him via the airwaves, and his books are read by millions (often before he reads them himself.) Then Lester is accused of molesting a young male counselee and everything starts to come unglued. This is a gripping novel about sex, scandal, and hypocrisy in contemporary church culture. You will laugh, get angry, and laugh some more, but you will not be bored.

The gospels of the New Testament get a re-write in Kristen Wolf’s audacious novel about Jesus, The Way ($25.00, Crown Publishers) told through the experiences of a tomboy, Anna, who is disguised as a boy and sold to a band of shepherds and then captured by a secret society of women hiding in the desert. Instead of running away she embraces their teachings and healing abilities they call “the Way.” And along the way she crosses paths with Jesus and with a “magician” who uses accomplices to simulate healing and make his living from the money the crowds give him. The actual events portrayed mingle with the fictional ones she creates as she relates life in ancient Israel devoted to an omnipotent male deity and the powerful Roman occupiers. Both the old Testament and New celebrate the role of women and this novel brings a perspective that many will find challenging and fascinating.

If the stacks of novels in my office suggest anything, it is that lots of women are writing them these days insofar as most of those I have received of late are by women. One that stands out is Glow by Jessica Maria Tuccelli ($25.95, Viking) and though it debuted just last month it is already collecting rave reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist to name just two. It involves six generations of a family that evolve through deep-rooted ethnicity, family secrets, and the land they believe is theirs. It begins in 1941 when Amelia McGee, a young woman of Cherokee and Scotch-Irish descent, active in the NAACP, hastily puts her young daughter, Ella, on a bus to Georgia. What follows is a story told in five voices, rich in the history that preceded Ella, reflecting the society and politics of the South. Having lived in Georgia in the 1960s, the novel had a familiar to it and rings true. Also from Viking is a completely different and often quite daffy family story, A Surrey State of Affairs by Ceri Radford ($25.95), who assumed the character of a 53-year-old meddling mother, Constance Harding, to blog a satire of the conservative, middle class values of England’s “Home Counties” for the Daily Telegraph. Expanded into a novel, Constance, long oblivious to much of what has been going on around her, including a scandal involving her husband, a daughter who’s become a bit of a strumpet, and a son who will not settle into a proper Surrey lifestyle. You don’t have to be British to get a kick out of how the blinds fall from Constance’s eyes or how she copes.

Among the softcover novels is Gothic Spring by Caroline Miller, her second novel, ($15.95, Koho Pono). Victorine Ellsworth knows something about the death of the vicar’s wife…but what? Is she the killer? Or the next victim? It is a journey into a mind that is unraveling. She is a young woman poised at the edge of sexual awakening and cursed with more talent and imagination than society will tolerate. The conflict between her desire and the restrictions that rule her life lead to tragic circumstances arising out of the death of the vicar’s wife. The Caribbean is famed as a place to vacation, but for those who live there, it can be a challenge. Dr. Alvin G. Edwards has played a role in the popular Caribbean television series “Paradise View” while also a medical practitioner who resides in Antigua. Now he’s an author as well with Once Upon An Island ($14.95, Author House). It is a fictionalized account of events experienced by friends, family and others concerning a family that leaves Jamaica to start a new life on Antigua, but who discover the transition isn’t as easy as they had thought. Life on a new island comes with the same problems as life on the larger one, particularly if the legal systems leave something to be desired. The author’s island is fictional, but for a taste of life in the Caribbean, this novel is probably as close to the truth as you will experience.

That’s it for April! The world of non-fiction and fiction is alive and well, and changing. What you will find here is a selection of traditional hard and softcover books. What you will not find are ebooks even though they are in ascendancy as new way to read books. If you enjoy Bookviews monthly look at new and unique titles, tell your family, friends and coworkers to visit here to get news of books you may not find anywhere else. And come back in May!

By Alan Caruba

My Picks of the Month

I have known Brian Sussman from the years when he and I would get together on the radio in his hometown of San Francisco on KFSO to discuss the events of the day. A television journalist turned meteorologist, Sussman used his knowledge to debunk the global warming hoax and, when a cache of emails between its leading perpetrators was leaked to the Internet, he wrote “Climategate”, a book still worth reading, but his latest book, Eco-Tyranny: How the Left’s Green Agenda Will Dismantle America ($25.95, WND Books) should be “must” reading for anyone who has begun to suspect something very dangerous about the activities of the leading environmental organizations, the United Nations Environmental Program, and the Environmental Protection Agency, all of whom are engaged in an attack on private property, the keystone of capitalism and foundation of the U.S. economy. Step by step, Sussman demonstrates how environmentalism hides its deep roots in communism and its contempt for humanity. Even as the global warming hoax fell apart, the Greens are engaged in a new version in the name of “sustainability”, claiming the Earth cannot sustain its population and the use of its bounty, particularly in the area of energy, is destroying the Earth. Communism is responsible for at least 110 million deaths since it was introduced in Russia in 1917 and later in China and elsewhere. It is the enemy of freedom and its latest reincarnation as environmentalism is as well. This is a chilling examination of the way Americans are being denied access to the nation's treasure trove of oil, natural gas, and coal. It is a look at the way more and more of the landmass of the nation is being put off-limits to development by the government. If you read no other book this year, this would be the one I would recommend for your sake, for your family’s and the nation’s future.

Funding the Enemy: How US Taxpayers Bankroll the Taliban by Douglas A. Wissing ($25.00, Prometheus Books) is one of those books that the mainstream press doesn’t want you to know about. The author was recently interviewed on C-Span as he related the way that the government, over two administrations, has mismanaged billions of development and logistics dollars, bolstered the drug trade, and literally dumped untold millions into Taliban hands. It is a scathing critique of the war in Afghanistan. The troops in the field are well aware that the war is lost and of the way the corrupt Karzai government and the Taliban has gamed all the “development” money spent there to enrich his cronies as well as the Taliban we’re told we are fighting. The result is that Americans have been funding both sides of the war. While Americans have a general awareness of the menace that Islam poses for the nation and the world, one can gain a far more thorough understanding by reading Ali Sina’s new book, Understanding Muhamad and Muslims ($18.95, Felibri.com, an imprint of Freedom Bulwark Publication). As an occasional contributor to Sina’s website, FaithFreedom.org, I have come to know Sina through his books and writings. Born in a Muslim family in Iran, educated in Italy, and now living in Canada, Sina has established himself as a leading critic of Islam and has helped thousands to leave Islam and secure a life free of this cult built around the life of Muhamad. Passing himself off as a prophet, Muhamad fashioned a religion to impose his will on gullible followers. Sina has put together a psychological portrait of a man for whom the ends always justified the means. The violence associated with Islam was an early element of the emerging cult and is, of course, practiced today by suicide bombers and those who perpetrated 9/11. I highly recommend this book.

Dog lovers and owners will love Things Your Dog Doesn’t Want You To Know by Hy Conrad and Jeff Johnson ($12.99, Sourcebooks, softcover), a collection of essays written from dog’s point of view revealing why they do what they do. Just as human behavior is often a mystery, now you can learn why they wait by the table for scraps, regard your bed as theirs, and “The Reason I Ate the Sofa” among more than a hundred other topics by Conrad, one of the original writers for the TV series “Monk” and Johnson who works in advertising. It is hilarious and a great gift for anyone sharing their lives with a dog. I have a friend, Ron Marr, who has always had companion dogs in his life. He is also the author of An Explorer’s Guide: The Ozarks—Includes Branson, Springfield & Northwest Arkansas ($21.95, The Countryman Press, Woodstock, VT, softcover) that is available via Kindle as well. It has been completely updated in its second edition and it is a treat, especially as more Americans are choosing to vacation in destinations to which they can drive. The Ozarks offer a bounty of cultural delights, museums, great dining and shopping. Ron’s guide is jam-packed with the kind of information that guarantees some great one-day trips or longer stays for all manner of recreation. Did you know that you can visit “Stonehenge” in Rolla, Missouri, or that the region is filled with some great state parks? Here’s a book that unlocks a wonderful part of the nation.

Do you ever get the feeling that we live in a society that encourages immaturity through escapism, various distractions, and an emphasis on youth? Do you suspect you have not fully matured in your own life? If so, an interesting book, Dare to Grow Up: Learn to Become Who You are Meant to Be by Paul Dunion ($16.95, Bartleby Press, Savage, MD, softcover) is a soulful new guide to personal accountability and emotional maturity. This book is about a self-examined life, offering counsel on how to develop self-loyalty, avoiding self-betrayal, and developing a solid foundation for emotionally intimate relationships. In short, it is about integrity and when you have that, your life is vastly improved. I normally am wary of self-help books, but this one is well worth reading.

Memoirs, Biographies, Autobiographies

I confess that over the decades I have seen so many books written by survivors of the Holocaust—the Nazi program to kill all the Jews of Europe—that I have sometimes thought that every one of them has written a book about it. I think they have written these memoirs as a warning to future generations not to forget what occurred in the mid-20th century. Three softcover books representative of this genre have arrived and each one of them is worth reading. Noike: A Memoir of Leon Ginsburg ($15.00, Avenger Books) by his daughter Suzanne Ginsburg. Leon Ginsburg has been the subject of several books on World War II. Known as a child by his Hebrew name, Noike, Leon was the only child survivor from Maciejow, a shtetl of 5,000 in Eastern Poland (now part of the Ukraine). Leon was interviewed by Peter Jennings for his seminal book, The Century and by Jane Marks for her book, Hidden Children of the Holocaust. It is an extraordinary story of survival by a ten-year-old child who eluded death many times. Surviving the Angel ofDeath by Eva Mozes Kor and Lisa Rojany Buccieri ($8.95, Tanglewood) was written for younger readers, age 12 and up, but older readers will find its story of twins who arrived in Auschwitz at age ten and, while their parents were swiftly killed in its gas chambers, were turned over to Dr. Josef Mengele who performed sadistic “medical” experiments. Many sets of twins died as a result. It is the story of extraordinary evil and, yes, of survival. Lastly, there’s Bitter Freedom: Memoir of a Holocaust Survivor by Jafa Wallach ($18.95, Gihon River Press), the personal account of a Polish Jew who survived a Nazi sweep of Southern Poland. After sending her 4-year-old to safety, she with her husband spent twenty-two agonizingly long months in a grave-like space hidden by a brave Pole, the town’s mechanic, who provided food and water. The hole was located less than twenty feet from a Gestapo headquarters in the small town of Lesko. Ultimately the family made their way to America in May 1947.

Religion is at the heart of an interesting memoir by Mary Johnson, An Unquenchable Thirst, ($32.95, Bond Street Books, an imprint of Random House Canada). At age 17 Mary Johnson saw a picture of Mother Teresa, founder of the Missionaires of Charity, and was so moved by it that she entered a convent in the South Bronx to begin her training. From a typical Texas teenager she was transformed by her quest for meaning in her life, for an identity. She became Sister Donata and rose through the ranks of the order to find herself working with Mother Teresa. All along the way, however, she had to wrestle with her own desire for love and a deeper personal connection to a life with faith. In 1997 she left the order after twenty years and has become a respected teacher and public speaker.

A life spent around madness is the subject of Riding Fury Home: A Memoir by Chana Wilson ($17.00, Seal Press, softcover). In 1958, when she was age of seven, her mother held a rifle to her head and pulled the trigger. The gun jammed and she was taken away for the first of many visits to a mental hospital. Other suicide attempts would follow and the author chronicles forty years of her relationship with her mother and the way it was affected by the changes in the social landscape of their time. She was the sole caretaker of her mother and it was not until she left for college in Iowa that she was able to break the dysfunctional bonds and find her own space which included her own lesbianism. The author has been a psychotherapist for twenty-five years and this book must surely have been cathartic.

A more traditional biography is found in Gordon Bowker’s James Joyce ($35.00, Farrar, Straus and Giroux) due out in June. Fans of this author will find this an absorbing account of his life and work. Bowker deftly connects all the dots between his writing and his life such as how his years in Trieste influenced the shaping of “Ulysses” and the way he dealt with friends, poverty, and ill health. The miracle is how he was able to write epic novels celebrating the lives of ordinary people. He was an extremely complex man and hard even on his friends. Joyce is an acquired taste and regarded as a literary giant. This may well be the best biography to have been written about him.

Finally, Ron Reagan, the former President’s son, authored a memoir of their lives together that is now in softcover, My Father at 100, ($16.00, Plume). For fans of Ronald Reagan, this is a privileged portrait by someone who knew him as a father, a mentor, and a moral compass. A century after Reagan’s birth, even his son had to undertake a journey to learn about his youth. It is an interesting story.

Reading History

In March a Financial Times article was titled “Bleak Outlook for U.S. Newspapers” and called them “America’s fastest-shrinking industry.” Advertising revenues are half what they were in 2005 and now at 1984’s levels. Part of the challenge has come from the growth of the Internet as the go-to source for news, but part can be attributed to the loss of confidence in the objectivity and accuracy of what newspapers, with exceptions, report as news or fail to report entirely. For those like myself who began his career as a reporter and editor, that is sad news, but Christopher B. Daly, a veteran journalist and historian, has just had a splendid book published, Covering America: A Narrative History of a Nation’s Journalism ($49.95, University of Massachusetts Press) that will please its readers on many levels. Daly remains optimistic, noting that American journalism has always been challenged, going through deep change in the 1830s and again in the 1920s. Daly provides a lively, interesting review of journalism’s many personalities, events and trends. It is an excellent work of history concerning the profession and business of journalism, filled with anecdotes and intriguing facts. It surely belongs on the shelves everywhere journalism is celebrated.

An excellent look at The Elizabethans by A.N. Wilson ($30.00, Farrar, Straus and Giroux) is out this month. It is worth reading because this period in England’s history set in motion so much that followed. It was a time of exceptional creativity, wealth creation, and political expansion and was filled with colorful and dynamic characters, not the least of which was Elizabeth I. Sir Francis Drake not only defeated the Spanish Armada, but circumnavigated the world. Shakespeare wrote his plays in this period. Declaring its independence from the Church, England laid the foundations for the explosion of the British Empire. This extraordinary era is captured in a single volume that anyone interested in history will want to read and add to their personal library.

If you love a historical mystery, you will enjoy Midnight in Peking, subtitled “How the murder of a young Englishwoman haunted the last days of old China” by Paul French ($26.00, Penguin original). It is a true crime story about the murder of a British school girl, Pamala Werner, found at the base of the Fox Tower. With the Japanese already in Manchuria and encircling Peking, an investigation by a former Scotland Yard officer takes him deep into Peking’s seedy underworld of crime, drugs, and prostitution. Her father’s life is consumed with his own investigation. The author provides the resolution and transforms a front page murder into an absorbing and emotional expose.

History was on Tim Wendel’s mind when he wrote Summer of 68: The Season that Changed Baseball and America Forever ($25.00, Da Capo Press). For those too young to recall and those old enough to do so, 1968 was a tumultuous year, filled with political turbulence, civil unrest, and violence. There were riots in a hundred cities and the year saw the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. 1968 was also “the year of the pitcher” with men like Don Drysdale of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Luis Tiant of the Cleveland Indians, Denny McClain of the Detroit Tigers, and Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals. Wendel captures the spirit of the time and weaves together the stories of the year’s events, the teams and players in a thoroughly entertaining fashion; particularly for anyone who loves the game. This book demonstrates the deep connection between the nation and its national game. For Yankees fans, there's The New York Times Story of the Yankees ($29.95, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers). Edited by Dave Anderson, it is a compendium of 382 articles, profiles, and essays from 1903 to the present. This book will bring joy and hours of great reading for any fan of this legendary team, Anderson is one of the leading sportswriters of our era and has done a great job selecting and organizing the book that is also filled with memorable photos.

We are getting deeper into the election year activities that will dominate the latter part of the year. For anyone who loves history and all the electioneering paraphernalia, there is a unique book, Presidential Campaign Posters, from the Library of Congress that includes 100 ready-to-frame posters ($40.00, Quirk Books). Each poster is accompanied by a short text about the particular election, starting in 1828 with Andrew Johnson’s campaign. This is a great way to learn about the campaigns that have shaped our nation. Not surprisingly, candidates have pretty much campaigned on the same issues.

Getting Down to Business Books

There is a constant stream of books about doing business. Anyone who is engaged in management, sales or entrepreneurial endeavors can benefit from them. A lot about success has to do with one’s personal attributes. The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling ($28.00, Free Press) have teamed up to address the issue of execution because, as they say, MBA programs focus heavily on strategy, but virtually no training in execution—actually getting things done. The authors work for the FranklinCovey firm, a company with operations in 141 nations worldwide, providing guidance to corporations and organizations on getting the best results by training people to be their best and to thus achieve their goals. The book addresses strategic organizational changes that improve performance. Anyone in a managerial position will greatly benefit from reading this book.

There is lots of buzz about doing business in China as that huge market has become available to companies large and small. It has its pitfalls, however, and Stephen M. Perl, MS, MBA, an expert in Asia trade, has penned Doing Business with China: The Secrets of Dancing with the Dragon ($19.99, ChinaMart USA Book Publishing, Los Angeles, softcover). It’s estimated that China represents a $10 trillion market that is up for grabs in the next decade. This book is essential reading for any American firm that wants to do business in China. It is a practical, nuts-and-bolts handbook. There are secrets to establishing successful relationships with the Chinese government and business leaders. This book provides an invaluable cultural, political, and business insight from the U.S. perspective and it is not just for CEOs of large companies. Rather, it applies to small companies as well, to entrepreneurs, and is useful for government and private think-tank policymakers, as well as employees, who are doing or planning to do business with China.

Parenting and Women’s Issues

To most men, women remain a mystery. Being either sex poses its unique challenges and there are books with advice. Susanna Foth Aughtmon has written I Blame Eve: Freedom from Perfectionism, Control Issues, and the Tendency to Listen to Talking Snakes ($12.99, Revell, softcover), a humorous and encouraging book that explores “our deep need to be in control.” It blends Scripture (Revell is a Christian publishing house) with insight and the view that there is “a unique path laid out for each of us.” In contrast, Orna Gadish addresses the fact that 47% of young adults have never been married, 51% are living without a spouse, and choosing to be single is now a worldwide phenomenon. Don’t Say I Do! Why Women Should Stay Single ($14.95, New Horizon Press, softcover) officially due off the press in July. Our society has afforded women the freedom to hold jobs that give them a freedom that did not exist for earlier generations. The author focuses on the “inadequacies and dissatisfaction with traditional marriage” encouraging women to think for themselves and stay single. Clearly this is transforming the male-female relationship that has been the keystone for society and has significant implications for the future. I am old fashioned enough to think that marriage has worked well enough for generations and single women raising children have a raft of problems that need to be addressed. Some women, however, will find comfort in this book.

Parenting has long been a topic for authors and these days are no different. The loss of parental control to schools and government agencies is beginning to percolate into a major issue. Honeycomb Kids: Big Picture Parenting by Anna M. Campbell, the mother of three ($17.95, Chelsea Green Publishing, softcover) has a strong environmental focus. Unfortunately the way environmentalists have been terrorizing children with doomsday scenario needs to be addressed, but this book, despite its otherwise useful advice, contributes to this problem. I don’t recommend it. One reason for concern is the way schools have been turned into indoctrination centers for environmentalism and increasingly for teaching socialism as superior to capitalism. Your Teacher Said What? Trying to Raise a Fifth Grade Capitalist in Obama’s America by Joe and Blake Kernan ($15.95, Two Harbors Press, softcover) recounts the challenges of teaching the value of free market capitalism to a child in the grip of the nation’s educational system and a popular culture that attacks capitalism in the name of the redistribution of wealth, communism’s promise. Prior to his anchoring duties, Joe Kernen was CNBC’s on-air stock editor, after having joined the Financial News Network. Previously he had been a stock broker. If this is your concern too, I recommend you read this book. A growing trend over the years has been homeschooling and it is well known that such children score better and do better than their contemporaries in schools that often resemble minimum security prisons. More than 1.5 million Americans have chosen this for their children. Homeschooling: Why and How by Gail Nagasako ($15.95, Two Harbors Press, softcover) provides a wealth of information on how parents can provide their children with an excellent education and positive socialization.

Bay and Her Boys: Unexpected Lessons I Learned as a (Single) Mom by Bay Buchanan ($25.00, Da Capo Press) offers a very different, far more cheerful look at parenthood. As of 2011, 24% of children in the United States were living in single-family homes. It is no longer a rarity. A former Treasurer of the U.S., she is a political strategist and an influential conservative leader. She tells of a surprise and devastating divorce twenty-three years ago. Pregnant at the time, she was left to raise her sons while becoming a working mom. She hopes to change the national dialogue about single women while recounting what it was like to hold on to traditional values. The book offers some very good advice for all mothers, single or married.

A problem that has been gaining more public attention is autism. Stop Autism Now: A Parent’s Guide to Preventing and Reversing Autism Spectrum Disorders by Dr. Bruce Fife ($17.95, Picadilly Books, Ltd., Colorado Springs, CO, softcover), a prolific author of health-related books, addresses the fact that more than a million people have autism and it appears to be on the rise. Other related disorders include attention deficit and hyperactivity syndrome. Autism remains a mystery to the medical community and to the parents of children, but this book undertakes to solve the mystery offering a theory on the brain’s microglia that have a function similar to white blood cells, protecting the brain from assaults by infectious microorganisms and toxins. Dr. Fife says it is not a hopeless condition and offers his solutions. I cannot attest to his findings, but he makes a strong case.

Parents will love Don’t Sit on the Baby! The Ultimate Guide to Sane, Skilled, and Safe Babysitting by Halley Bondy ($12.99, Zest Books, softcover). Due out in June, babysitting is a popular part-time job for teens and this book is written for parents to their babysitters to impart everything they need to know from dealing with diaper rash to CPR. It is filled with advice on what to expect from infants to those age ten and provides strategies for communicating with parents. If you are the parent of a teenager contemplating this as a way to earn a few dollars, I would heartily recommend you give them this book.

Books for Kids and Young Readers

There are so many books for kids and younger readers that it is a bounty of entertainment and knowledge.

Starting with books that a parent can share with pre-schoolers, reading to them, or for early readers, there’s a new addition to the popular “Chester Raccoon” series. A Color Game for Chester Raccoon by Audrey Penn, illustrated by Barbara L. Gibson ($7.95, Tanglewood) it is made to survive the often rough handling the very young give a book. Its great artwork and text provides an introduction to different colors. The Animal Masquerade by Marianne Dubuc ($16.95, Kids Can Press) is a fanciful tale of animals that disguise themselves as other creatures, providing an introduction to different creatures in a very entertaining way. A very amusing story is told in The Klampie Mystery by Luis Rodriguez ($14.95, Mascot Books) about Samantha who gets a life-sized stuffed Koala toy whose arms clamp onto anything. When her family takes a trip to Australia, she takes the toy named Klamie along and there the fun begins when a real koala replaces it. A growing concern among parents is the way video games and electronic devices not only keep kids indoors, but ill-serve the development of their imagination, a key factor in creativity. That’s why I liked OneDay I Went Rambling by Kelly Bennett, illustrated by Terri Murphy ($17.95, Bright Sky Press) for those ages 5-8. It is about a boy who finds all kinds of things while playing outside and how his imagination converts them into things like a pirate’s magic ring. This is a great book for the very young. Kids are naturally fascinated by all living creatures and that can include insects. Bug Off! Creepy, Crawly Poems by Jane Yolen, illustrated by some great photos by Jason Stemple ($16.95, WordSong, an imprint of Boyds Mills Press, Honesdale, PA) is an excellent introduction to bees, butterflies, ants, spiders and other common insects.

A Pirate Girl’s Treasure: An Origami Adventure by Peyton and Hilary Leung ($18.95, Kids Can Press) that uses the Japanese art of folded paper sculptures combined with a story about a girl whose pirate grandfather sends her a treasure map. This, too, is for the pre-schooler or very early reader, aged four and up. Parents of twins will welcome Take Two! A Celebration of Twins by J. Patrick Lewis and Jane Yolen, illustrated by Sophie Blackall ($16.95, Candlewick) may have something to do with the fact that Lewis is a twin. It is filled with facts about all things “twin”, fraternal, identical, and record-setting, all told with poetry. Daisy’s Perfect Word by Sandra V. Feder and illustrated by Susan Mitchell is a great introduction to independent reading and the joys of playing with language. As a longtime writer, I am biased, but the gift of reading and writing is one of the best a parent can pass along to any youngster.

For readers age eight and older, a number of books will provide hours of great reading. Robert Jae Sky has written To Dream the Impossible ($9.95, Create Space, Charleston, SC, available from Amazon.com). This father of three and grandfather of five was inspired by Olympic gold medalist Ross Powers and has written a lovely story of Rippy, a rabbit who wants to ski despite being told by everyone that rabbits do not ski. Not one to take no for an answer, Rippi perseveres and young readers will learn a value lesson while being highly entertained by this story. Margaret and the Moth Tree by Brit and Kari Trogen ($15.95, Kids Can Press) It is a classic story of an orphanage, a wicked woman who runs it, how Margaret defeats her and learns the power of making friends to find happiness in life. Alexander, Spy Catcher by Diane Stormer ($10.95, iUniverse, softcover) is about Alexander and his brother Ben who enjoy the usual things while coping with learning algebra, sports tryouts, and talking with girls. Then they discover that their Uncle Charlie may be in danger because of a secret government project he is working on. When they tell him of the strange things they have noticed, he disappears without a trace! They have to help their family discover what has happened to him and therein lies a gripping story. Riley Mack and the Other Known Troublemakers by Chris Grabenstein ($16.99, Harpercollins Childrens) is a title that instantly appealed to me. Written by a former improv comedian and president of the New York chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, it introduces seventh-grade mastermind, Riley and his pals, the “Gnat Pack”, as they fight the town bully and his crooked cop of a father. They liberate dogs held captive in a puppy mill and thwart a bank robbery! This one is a real page turner that is sure to please.

Finally and especially for girls, American Girl has a number of new books with clever twists such as its “Innerstar University” series that include The New Girl and Behind the Scenes, ($8.95 each) books that have twenty different ends starring the reader. These are interactive and take place on the Innerstar University campus where girls can discover how their decisions can change the outcome of the story. Clever idea. Another useful book is A Smart Girl’s Guide to Liking Yourself—Even on Bad Days ($9.95) that teaches how to overcome low self-esteem and develop confidence; always a good thing for any youngster. A series of mysteries featuring young girls in different time periods of America’s history includes The Crystal Ball, The Hidden Cloud and The Cameo Necklace at an affordable $6.95 each. In each a girl experiences an adventure that will keep any reader turning the pages.

Novels, Novels, Novels

Day after day I receive emails promoting new novels. They come from established publishing firms and from self-published novelists. They are so frequent I have an automatic email reply message wish them well, but noting that the volume of new novels makes it impossible to accept their request.

Here are just a few new novels that have arrived in the last month or so. Let’s begin with the hardcover novels and move on to the softcover. I am convinced that inside of every lawyer is a novelist. Margaret McLean is a former criminal prosecutor who has drawn on a notorious chapter of Boston history as the framework of her second novel, Under Oath ($24.90, Forge) to create an exciting courtroom mystery involving a murder, conspiracy, and the infamous code of silence that has kept murders on the streets. When gangster Billy Malone stands accused of killing Trevor Shea, a suspected informant, with a poisoned dose of heroin, prosecutor Annie Fitzgerald must get witnesses to testify. When her chief witness is killed the question is whether justice will prevail over FBI cover-ups and a jury that defies their instructions. This is a worthy contribution by Emily St. John Mandel from one of the best publishers of novels, Unbridled Books. The Lola Quartet by ($24.95) begins with a photograph. Eilo Sasaki takes a picture of a young girl she meets while handling a home foreclosure in Florida. The child bears a striking resemblance of her brother Gavin and is approximately ten years old. Her last name is Montgomery and, ten years earlier, Gavin’s girlfriend, Anna Montgomery, disappeared amidst rumors that she was pregnant. When Gavin is shown the photo, he begins to ask questions about the past. This is her third novel and Mendel is making a name for herself in literary circles and with a growing fan base. If you read this novel, you know why.

Bethany Frankel is a three-time bestselling author, a popular TV reality star, successful businesswoman and devoted mom. She makes her fiction debut with Skinnydipping ($25.00, Simon and Schuster), a sexy and hilarious story of Faith Brightstone, an iconic aspiring actress just out of college who wants to conquer Hollywood and have all the perks of fame. Like so many others, her plans do not pan out as she gains a behind-the-scenes experience, suffers heartbreak, and abandons La La Land for New York. The resemblance to Frankel’s real life is unmistakeable. Faith is discovered at a fancy food show after establishing a business, becomes a reality TV star, and wins a contest for her own show. Frankel’s fans will jump at the chance to read this thinly disguised autobiographical novel. A unique look at life in Israel is provided by Sayed Kashua, an Arab who has enjoyed success there, having written two previous novels and as the creator of a groundbreaking Israeli sitcom, “Arab Labor”. He straddles two cultures and his novel, Second Person Singular, ($25.00, Grove Press) is about an Arab criminal attorney in Jerusalem who has a thriving practice in the Jewish part of Jerusalem. By chance, in a bookstore he picks up a book by Tolstoy that has a love letter in his wife’s handwriting. He is immediately consumed by suspicion and jealousy, and determined to find the book’s previous owner. This is a powerful novel of love and betrayal, a complex psychological mystery, and a searing dissection of individuals who live in a divided society.

Some softcover novels offer entertainment and insight. The Mermaid Garden by Santa Montefiore ($16.00, Simon and Shuster) is now in softcover. It is a complex and compelling story that spans four decades in the lives of its characters, set in Tuscany and on the coast of Devon, England that begins when a young girl spies on a beautiful palazzo from beyond its iron gate. Abandoned by her mother and left in poverty by her alcoholic father, ten year old Floriana finds La Magdalena a perfect place to escape into daydreams. One day she is spotted by Dante, the son of the villa’s wealthy owner. He invites her inside and shows her the villa’s enchanting Mermaid Garden. They become friends and Floriana becomes convinced that her destiny in that garden with him. The story moves to a charming old hotel by the sea that has fallen on hard times. When a charming, handsome Argentine artist, the lives of the owner and her family. Another story takes you to Japan. The Briefcase by Hiromi Kawakami traces the story of Tsukiko who happens to meet a former high school sensei (teacher) in a local bar. Their relationship develops from a perfunctory acknowledgement of each other as they eat and drink alone at the bar into an enjoyable sense of companionship, and finally into a deeply sentimental love affair. Memoirs of a Porcupine by UCLA professor Alain Mabanckou is set in Africa ($15.95, Soft Skull Press) and is an example of magical realism based on an African legend that says all human beings have an animal double! Some are benign while others are wicked. When Kibandi at age ten is initiated into this world, he fuses with an animal and, from then on, he and his porcupine double become accomplices in nefarious adventures.

Last, but hardly least, is a delightful collection of 88 “short-short” stories found in Flush Fiction ($16.95, softcover) “you can read in a single sitting.” Published by Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader (Ashland, Oregon), it was compiled by the editors of the Bathroom Reader’s Institute. They are all shorter than a thousand words and run the gamut of various genre from humor to mystery, romance to adventure, et cetera. You can check it out at http://www.bathroomreader.com/ and for folks who love to read no matter where they are, it is a real treat.

That’s it for May. Be sure to tell all your book-loving friends, family, and coworkers about Bookviews.com so they too can learn about the many fiction and non-fiction books that stand out from the deluge and deserve to be read. Then come back in June for more!