Web-Exclusive Reviews: Week of 2/5/2007

-- Publishers Weekly, 2/5/2007

NONFICTION

THE ANTI 9-TO-5 GUIDE: Practical Career Advice for Women who Think Outside the Cube
Michelle Goodman. Seal, $14.95 paper (220p) ISBN 9781580051866

Snappy and practical, this guide to quitting your job at the "e-mail-saturated, meeting-happy cube farm" will prove indispensable to any young professional itching to strike out on her own. Goodman, a successful freelance writer, aims her book at women between 25 and 35, but young men will likely find her advice (always send a thank you note after an informational interview; play it cool if you snort coffee out your nose) just as relevant. From "sussing out the gigs" to guidance on taxes and health insurance to battling "the inertia that binds one's derriere to the sofa like a tongue to a frozen flagpole," Goodman covers all the aspects of going solo. A "Show Me the Money" section at the end of each chapter gives readers money-saving tips (eat all the food in your fridge before it "liquefies or grows spores"), and checklists covering steps readers must take before becoming self-employed. Goodman's advice is applicable to a broad range of careers, though the non-profit and international travel chapters are useful primarily for pointing to other, more in-depth sources. Goodman's tone is realistic—taking into account the obstacles facing a generation burdened early by debt—but she retains a sense of humor, making this information-dense guide an encouraging, buoyant lifesaver. (Feb.)

BEING SUGAR RAY: The Life of Sugar Ray Robinson, America's Greatest Boxer and the First Celebrity Athlete
Kenneth Shropshire. Basic, $25 (304p) ISBN 9780465078035

Shropshire (The Business of Sports Agents) calls this "the biography of an idea": Sugar Ray Robinson as the first sports figure to engineer a synergistic success machine out of a flashy image, a fancy entourage and a business plan. Indeed, rather than a straight recount of the storied fighter's life, Shropshire uses scenes from it to create a prism through which the phenomenon of the celebrity athlete reveals itself. Consequently, this volume often reads like a CliffsNotes version of the African-American boxer's troubled youth, 25-year career, restless retirement and demise. Though hardly a saint in or out of the ring, Robinson carved a legacy that Shropshire contends athletes have been trying to emulate (consciously or otherwise) ever since. Race obviously plays a big role in Robinson's story, and the author (African-American himself) handles the topic admirably; on the subject of contemporary sports stars, however, he isn't as evenhanded, making examples of the usual suspects—Kobe Bryant, Terrell Owens, Randy Moss—and arguing how each could learn from Robinson's example. Vivid, present-tense you-are-there retellings of boxing matches balance nicely a narrative that often runs dry on textbook-like prose. (Feb.)

THE CUBICLE SURVIVAL GUIDE: Keeping Your Cool in the Least Hospitable Environment on Earth
James F. Thompson. Villard, $12.95 paper (240p) ISBN 9780812976762

Veteran cubicle laborer Thompson has gotten into every nook and cranny of his subject, the ubiquitous workplace environment known, unofficially, as the "cubicle farm," in this humorous but uneven workplace guide. Chapters cover basics like handling the phone (including how to surreptitiously screen calls) and inter-office communication (never whisper), as well as advanced topics like "Anti-Spy Methods" (equipping one's computer monitor with rear-view mirrors) and maintaining proper posture and blood circulation (through exercises like the "Red-Carpet Chest Thrust" and the "Booger Flick"). Though there are sound tips here, funny stuff dominates—Thompson includes a handy "Stink Pyramid" to measure the relative offensiveness of lunchtime smells like fast food, microwave meals and fish. In other places, advice reads more like filler: when confronted with a coworker's family photos, Thompson suggests that readers "…be sincere, but cautiously so. … most of us are indeed ugly, warped and possess faces that age like fallen apples on a driveway." True enough, but mere common sense will probably preclude the idea to insult coworkers' loved ones. More an excuse for frivolity and catharsis than a practical resource, this hit-and-miss guide will give cube dwellers plenty to chuckle over in the break room. (Feb.)

THE GENTLE SUBVERSIVE: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement
Mark H. Lytle. Oxford Univ., $20 (176p) ISBN 9780195172461

Biologist Rachel Carson (1907–1964), an outspoken forerunner of the environmental movement and author of the National Book Award-winning The Sea Around Us (1951), is best known for her groundbreaking, highly controversial tome Silent Spring (1962), a scathing exposé of the effects of DDT and other pesticides. In this brief, fascinating ecological biography by historian and fellow environmentalist Lytle, Carson's life is separated into four chapters¾Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter—each focusing on the genesis, gestation and publication of Carson's four books. Lytle takes care in balancing his account, devoting equal attention to Carson's family life (for decades, Carson took care of her ailing mother, sister and nieces) as well as the arduous path of her career. Although she ultimately achieved wide recognition both as a writer and an ecologist, clearing the way for landmark environmental policy change, Carson endured staggering setbacks, including years of overcoming gender prejudice in a male-dominated field, her costly familial burden and several battles with recurring breast cancer¾a fight she would ultimately lose at age 56. Lytle's spirited, thoroughly documented re-telling sheds ample light on the implications of this remarkable scientist's commitment to "protect the living things she loved so dearly." Photos. (Feb.)

KIDNAPPED: A Diary of My 373 Days in Captivity
Leszli Kalli, trans. from the Spanish by Kristina Cordero. Atria, $14 (320p) ISBN 074329131X

In 1999, the plane carrying then 18-year-old Kalli and her father was hijacked by a leftist guerilla group and flown to a Colombian jungle, where the passengers were held captive for just over a year. Kalli kept a diary of her experience, reprinted here in a competent translation that retains Kalli's vivid intensity, even as she's explaining the fear and tedium of daily life as a hostage. At its best, Kalli's account offers a sharp examination of the relationships between guerillas and hostages: "my mind was unable to process the difference between an event that for some, was pure happiness, and for others, an exercise in pure humiliation." Unfortunately, the publishers have made an error in reproducing the diary on its own, giving Kalli's amateur effort sole responsibility for detailing the complex predicament. Without outside accounts of the situation—news reports, government records, etc.—to illuminate the big picture, delineate major players and cover the logistics, the narrative loses focus. For instance, the facility by which Kalli communicates with her family back home, and even receives clothing and food from them, is never explained, a perplexing omission. Kalli's diary contains powerful writing about a unique and compelling situation, but a well-edited excerpt, supported by outside reporting, would have made a stronger impact. Illustrations. (Feb.)

NECK DEEP AND OTHER PREDICAMENTS
Ander Monson. Graywolf, $15 paper (214p) ISBN 9781555974596

This esoteric collection, awarded the second annual Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, is described by contest judge Robert Polito as "astonishing," a "dismantling and reinvention of the essay as an instrument for thought." Readers are bound to agree; in his first nonfiction book, poet and novelist Monson (Vacationland) offers a parade of quirky, at times avant-garde methods for exploring his obsessions with everything from frisbee golf ("The Long Crush") to car washes ("The Big and Sometimes Colored Foam: Four Annotated Car Washes") to the lost art of sending telegrams ("Afterword: Elegy for Telegram and Starflight"). He pits working-class values against those of Michigan's suburban upper crust—grappling with his own point throughout—in "Cranbrook Schools: Adventures in Bourgeois Topologies," an ironic, semi-nostalgic look at his pre-expulsion years in an elite boarding school. In "Outline Toward a Theory of the Mine Versus the Mind and the Harvard Outline," a well-crafted outline unpacks the history of mining in northern Michigan. "Index for X and the Origin of Fires" is perhaps the best of the bunch; Monson explains it in his notes as "the original index to my novel, Other Electricities, before it was trimmed out and became this something else. One hopes it still refers to a (or the) recognizable world." Wonderfully recondite and cunningly executed, Monson's work will make a brilliant discovery for open-minded fans of narrative nonfiction. (Feb.)

SO SAD TO FALL IN BATTLE: An Account of War
Kumiko Kakehashi. Presidio, $24.95 (240p) ISBN 978089119037

For most Americans, Iwo Jima begins and ends with Joe Rosenthal's famous WWII photograph: Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi. But the riveting story that freelance writer Kakehashi presents in this book, detailing the rarely-seen Japanese perspective, will give readers a new angle on the pivotal American victory. Part of the basis for Clint Eastwood's Academy Award-nominated film, Letters from Iwo Jima, Kakehashi's cogent narrative reconstructs, from family letters and interviews, the months leading up to the March 1945 battle. Kakehashi focuses primarily on Japanese General Tadamachi Kuribayashi, a man described by U.S. Commander Lt. General Holland M. Smith as the "most redoubtable" Japanese leader he faced, but who strayed far from the stereotype of the Japanese warrior. Kakehashi's sensitive portrayal of Kuribayashi is revealing and moving: "the soldier who masterminded a battle was also a husband who worried about the draft in his kitchen back home." Her description of battlefield conditions is similarly compelling: "Japanese soldiers were dying of thirst while a few kilometers away American soldiers were drinking coffee and taking showers." Though it can be repetitive, Kakehashi includes many illuminating glimpses into daily life, such as the devastation soldiers felt when they were told "from today there will be no post," evaporating the lifeline home. The haunting epilogue alone, in which Kakehashi accompanies families on a one-day memorial pilgrimage to Iwo Jima in 2004, is worth the price of the book. (Jan.)

WHISKEY RIVER (TAKE MY MIND): The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk
Johnny Bush with Rick Mitchell, foreword by Willie Nelson. Univ. of Texas, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 9780292714908

Brash country performer and Texas Country Music Hall of Fame inductee Bush, a one-time star who penned Willie Nelson's classic "Whiskey River," recounts the early days of Texas honky-tonk in this raucous autobiography. So poor he and his brother went to school without shoes, Bush's rough early years in Houston took a change for the better after his parents divorced and he moved in with his uncle, "Smilin'" Jerry Jericho. A well-liked veteran of the local music scene, Jericho took Bush under his wing and brought the boy into a world of living legends like Gene Autry and Lefty Frizzell. Fans of live music will get a kick out of Bush's fond but brutally honest memories of life on the road, playing gigs with Willie Nelson and Bush's idol Ray Price, performing behind chicken wire while fights rage on the dance floor, indulging in one-night stands and abusing plenty of drugs and alcohol. Bush also recounts his battle with a vocal disorder, which for a time robbed the singer of his voice and, ultimately, his shot at super-stardom. In addition, Bush covers a double-handful of his Texas contemporaries, his multiple marriages and his disrespect for the contemporary Nashville sound—all with unabashed love for the music and a humble, endearing self-regard. (Feb.)

ZAATAR DAYS, HENNA NIGHTS: Adventures, Dreams, and Destinations Across the Middle East
Maliha Masood. Seal, $15.95 paper (300p) ISBN 9781580051927

Disillusioned with her daily routine—phone tag, email, multitasking—Masood leaves her job and her family in Seattle and sets off for the Middle East from whence she came. This travelogue follows Masood, strapped into an REI backpack and sporting a well-thumbed Lonely Planet guidebook, as she travels from Egypt and Jordan to Syria and Turkey over the course of 10 months, hoping "to come to terms with a truer me, a more essential self that couldn't entirely be placed amid the bullet points of my resume." A Pakistan-born Muslim American in her late 20s, Masood finds herself blending into her environment—visiting mosques regularly, making friends easily—without entirely fitting in, a dichotomy ethnic Americans often grapple with while abroad and the ambitious, fascinating topic Masood excels in exploring. Unfortunately, Masood is less interested in describing sights and sounds—the dusty air of Egypt, the bustle of Turkey—and in so doing may fail to hook readers more interested in exotic locales than self-discovery. Though there's much here that's stimulating and relatable, fans of travel writing may feel they've been invited on the trip, but denied the pleasure of losing themselves in it. (Feb.)

LIFESTYLE

COOKIES YEAR-ROUND: 50 Recipes for Every Season and Celebration
Rosemary Black. Stewart, Tabori and Chang, $17.95 (120p) ISBN 9781584795926

"Cookie baking is both art and science," writes author and New York Daily News food editor Black, and she effectively marries the two in her compilation of 50 easy-to-follow cookie and bar recipes. Selections range from the classic, such as Chocolate Chip, Gingerbread Men and Black & White to seasonal fare such as Apple Cobblers and Pecan Triangles. Black's approach to each cookie or bar is straightforward, and she covers every aspect of cookie-making, including tips for packing and shipping. The distinguishing feature of the book, its flip-top design, is also its most frustrating: though it allows the book to act as its own easel, standing upright for easy mid-baking reference, it also makes navigating the book a chore. With no index or complete, centralized table of contents, would-be cookie makers are forced to flip through the entire book, turning it this way and that to find the right recipe. Amid a sea of cookie cookbooks, most of which offer more recipes and an easy-to-use format, this entry comes up short. (Mar.)

JOEY GREEN'S MEALTIME MAGIC: More than 250 Offbeat Recipes Using Beloved Brand-Name Products
Joey Green. Rodale, $22.95 (304p) ISBN 9781594865817

The dinner table serves as the latest front in Green's seemingly inexhaustible mission to repurpose common household products (Joey Green's Rainy Day Magic, Incredible Country Store, Gardening Magic, etc.) in this hefty collection of uses for American cupboard staples like Tabasco sauce, 7UP, Cheez Whiz and Cheerios; the results alternate between ingenious and ghastly. Some recipes, such as Pineapple Glazed Pork Chops, which uses a glaze made from Dole crushed pineapple, ginger, cinnamon and apple jelly, are innovative and tasty. Other dishes aren't fit for prisoners: Heinz Ketchup's Love Apple Pie is a stomach-churning mélange of granny smith apples, lemon juice, spices and, yes, a third cup of ketchup; cloying Orangey Rice is flavored with a packet of Tang breakfast drink. Peppered with product trivia, readers will be happy to learn they can use vinegar to clean tarnished pans, but perhaps less thrilled to learn how they can cook shrimp in the dryer. Novelty aside, those looking for reliable ways to use their brand-name products would be better served by traditional recipes. (Mar.)

FICTION

* THE DIAGNOSIS OF LOVE
Maggie Leffler. Delta, $13 paper (400p) ISBN 9780385340465

A young doctor learns the true meaning of "physician, heal thyself" in Leffler's inspiring debut. Dr. Holly Campbell and her twin, Ben, attend a psychic's TV show in the hopes of achieving some closure after their mother's death. Her mother—via the medium—tells them someone's moving to England and congratulates Ben on his engagement. After Ben confesses his recent engagement to Alecia, a TV journalist, Holly impulsively decides to leave her Pittsburgh residency and her new boyfriend, Dr. Matthew Hollembee, to be a "travel doc" in Winchester, England. There she must deal with childhood abandonment issues stemming from her mother's affair with a medical student in Grenada as well as sort out her feelings for Matthew and a cute English orderly she meets. Life becomes even more problematic after a frustrated Alecia arrives, needing help with other family challenges. Eventually, Holly discovers love can be a choice. Leffler, a practicing physician, infuses Holly's spiritual search with liberal doses of humor, exquisite insight and rich details about the U.K. medical profession. (Mar.)

THE PERFECT FIT
Louise Kean. Harper, $13.95 paper (352p) ISBN 9780061173080

In this smart, endearing third outing from London-based Kean, witty and knowing 28-year-old Sunny Weston lives in a London suburb, where she runs a home-based Internet business selling sex toys. Sick of being overweight and in unrequited love with the unattainable Adrian, Sunny loses 98 pounds the hard way—a strict diet and exercise. But now that she can have Adrian, she no longer wants him. Her navel gazing, however, is soon interrupted when a young boy is kidnapped before her eyes from a Starbucks. With her newly athletic body, Sunny is able to chase down the kidnapper, and, with the help of another bystander, Cagney, return the boy to his panicked mother. This event sets in motion the process of coming to terms with her notions of the perfect body and the perfect man. Kean follows Sunny as her life returns to normal, which includes hanging out with friends Anna and Lisa, and seeing her therapist, with whom she questions her relationships with food, her body and men. Finally, Sunny must find her own terms for happiness. Well-written and engrossing, this novel may inspire and entertain those who are tired of the hunger for love, or just tired of hunger. (Feb.)

THE WATCHERS
Mark Andrew Olsen. Baker/Bethany, $19.99 (384p) ISBN 9780764228186

Twenty-year-old Abby Sherman has a blog on a social networking website called "mycorner.com." When she innocently blogs about a very vivid dream, she sets in motion the events that comprise the bulk of this novel, in which Christy nominee Olsen (The Assignment) admirably ties together myriad plot points. Not only does Abby blog, but she also appears on an Oprah-like show, travels the world, learns about several cultures and religious traditions, and fights battles against the spiritual forces of darkness. The juxtaposition of Abby's youth against her wisdom and power are reminiscent of Buffy the Vampires Slayer, and the book's take on spiritual warfare seems to owe more to Joss Whedon than it does to Frank Peretti. Olsen fascinatingly weaves questions of race and gender into the epic supernatural war he depicts, and despite staying faithful to the conventions of the suspense-thriller genre, he only occasionally wanders into clichéd territory. Though much of Abby's dialogue develops her as a smart, strong heroine, the novel's weakest points are Abby's blog entries and her heartfelt but largely stultifying monologues about her otherworldly gifts. Nonetheless, Olsen delivers an entertaining thriller likely to be enjoyed especially by fans of the spiritual warfare genre. (Mar.)

POETRY

WHY SPEAK
Nathaniel Bellows. Norton, $23.95 (128p) ISBN 9780393062403

This verse debut from novelist Bellows (On This Day) might look familiar to those who admire his fiction: it's clear, bleak, detailed, full of pathos and largely concerned with coming of age in rural Maine. Farms, forests and fields provide stark backgrounds for characters who struggle both to fit in with, and to stand apart from, their families: "We ate from the garden till it was spent, then/ threw its left-behinds at each other—failures/ still in their beds, scabbed over with saltmarsh hay." Such lines represent Bellows at his confident, articulate best, neither a rhyming formalist nor a plain-style writer, and one instead able to apply the resources of the American language to a frustration that seems peculiar to New England. Other work may sound too talky, or too close to prose, as in one of five poems based on paintings by Howard Pyle in which, "The captain will pay for his mistreatment of those who once admired him." Toward the end of the collection come poems set in Boston and New York, and poems about other paintings, poems whose sophistication makes Bellows sound happier, but perhaps less powerful. Long unrhymed lines link past to present, Winslow Homer to 21st-century Brooklyn, fashioning a style which may not seem entirely his own, but which should keep readers attentive anyway. (Feb.)

AUDIO

HOME TO BIG STONE GAP
Adriana Trigiani, read by the author. Random House Audio, abridged, four CDs, 5 hrs., $27.95 ISBN 9780739319444

As a narrator, Trigiani slips into the roles of the characters she created as naturally and comfortably as she would a well-worn pair of slippers. As the creator of protagonist Ave Maria, Trigiani has a deep understanding of the character and is able to express all her emotional nuances: her trepidation at all the sweeping changes in her life (her daughter has gotten married and moved overseas to Italy; her husband's health takes a frightening turn for the worse; she discovers that her best friend has been keeping a life-shattering secret from her); her deep love for her family, friends and town; and most of all, her ability to embrace all the lessons life has to offer, good and bad. Trigiani's narration makes all of the colorful characters feel real. They all have a Virginia "country" accent, but she deepens her voice here, adds an emphasized "twang" there to create distinctive voices for each character. Fans of this warm, homey series will find added dimension by listening to their favorite characters brought so perfectly to life. Simultaneous release with the Random House hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 4). (Nov.)

WHAT WAS SHE THINKING: Notes On A Scandal
Zoe Heller, read by Nadia May. Blackstone Audio, unabridged, six CDs, 7.5 hrs., $25.95 ISBN 9780786162369

Heller's 2003 novel earned tremendous acclaim, including a spot on the shortlist for the prestigious Man Booker Prize. The audio release coincides with the 2007 film adaptation, Notes on a Scandal, starring Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench. Sheba Hart—a beautiful and charming bohemian high school art teacher in her early 40s—places her family, career and social status in grave jeopardy through a sexual relationship with 15-year-old Steven Connolly. Sheba's dowdy colleague and confidant Barbara Covett recounts the story from a deliciously twisted perspective steeped in obsession and jealousy. Veteran narrator Nadia May brings nuance to Barbara's voice. The layered structure of the tale itself—a lonely spinster relating the details of a steamy intergenerational love affair secondhand—presents a challenge for the audio format, but one that May meets with finesse. Listeners wanting to cut to the chase and escape into a garden-variety sexual thriller may grow impatient, but those with an appreciation for character-driven drama will not be disappointed. Simultaneous release with the Picador paperback (Reviews, May 26, 2003). (Jan.)