Nonfiction Reviews: Week of 5/14/2007

by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 5/14/2007

Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind
Bruce Watson. Viking, $25.95 (440p) ISBN 978-0-670-06353-6

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are among the most famous political martyrs of 20th-century America, convicted of murder by a Massachusetts jury and executed in 1929. Watson (Bread and Roses) expertly runs through the facts of the case and the basic legal injustices perpetrated against the two men, beginning with their arrest on suspicion of a payroll robbery up to their electrocution, without agitating for either end of the political spectrum. He carefully establishes the context of anarchist terrorism that stirred public sentiment against the two admittedly radical defendants—including the judge at their trial, who made numerous prejudicial remarks outside the courtroom. Fellow radicals (and many moderate liberals) were outraged by the proceedings, but Watson observes that most Americans were too caught up in the “amusement park” mentality of the 1920s to care about them—a conclusion slightly at odds with the passionate debate to this day over their guilt. Watson quotes extensively from Sacco and Vanzetti's letters, with their imperfect English, to flesh out their personalities (he has also written an introduction to a new Penguin Classics edition of the correspondence). 16 pages of b&w photos. (Aug. 20)

The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness
Elyn R. Saks. Hyperion, $24.95 (352p) ISBN 978-1-4013-0138-5

In this engrossing memoir, Saks, a professor of psychiatry at U.C.–San Diego, demonstrates a novelist's skill of creating character, dialogue and suspense. From her extraordinary perspective as both expert and sufferer (diagnosis: “Chronic paranoid schizophrenia with acute exacerbation”; prognosis: “Grave”), Saks carries the reader from the early “little quirks” to the full blown “falling apart, flying apart, exploding” psychosis. “Schizophrenia rolls in like a slow fog,” as Saks shows, “becoming imperceptibly thicker as time goes on.” Along the way to stability (treatment, not cure), Saks is treated with a pharmacopeia of drugs and by a chorus of therapists. In her jargon-free style, she describes the workings of the drugs (“getting med-free,” a constant motif) and the ideas of the therapists and physicians (psychologist, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, cardiologist, endocrinologist). Her personal experience of a world in which she is both frightened and frightening is graphically drawn and leads directly to her advocacy of mental patients' civil rights as they confront compulsory medication, civil commitment, the abuse of restraints and “the absurdities of the mental care system.” She is a strong proponent of talk therapy (”While medication had kept me alive, it had been psychoanalysis that helped me find a life worth living”). This is heavy reading, but Saks's account will certainly stand out in its field. (Aug.)

Painting Chinese: A Lifelong Teacher Gains the Wisdom of Youth
Herbert Kohl. Bloomsbury, $19.95 (176p) ISBN 978-1-59691-052-2

In this memoir, seasoned educator Kohl (36 Children) comes to terms with entering his twilight years. Kohl devoted his career to alternative education and to social justice, and in his mid 60s he created and directed a teacher-education program at the University of San Francisco that merged these two passions. In its fourth year, the program folded due to lack of funding, leaving Kohl despondent. On a walk through a predominantly Chinese commercial area near the university, he happened upon a fine arts school and on a whim signed up for beginners' level Chinese ink painting. On the first day of class, he discovered that he was by far the oldest pupil—his fellow students were five, six, and seven years old. He decided to stay, and over the next several years, painting took on a meditative quality for him. Kohl tells of studying alongside the children, reflecting on his life. The supportive environment and hands on, noncompetitive learning process renew his sense of wonderment, patience, love of learning and freedom of expression. The narrative is interspersed with samples of his painting as well as Chinese poetry and literary excerpts explaining the symbolism behind traditional Chinese painting imagery. Kohl writes with a bit of a tin ear, but his earnestness and plainly told account are fitting for a story of rediscovering the peace and unfettered joy of childhood. (Aug.)

Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife
Irene Spencer. Center Street, $24.95 (400p) ISBN 978-1-59995-719-7

Raised in a polygamous home, Spencer was barely 16 when she married her sister's husband, a young Mormon who went on to marry eight more women. Since the Church of Latter-Day Saints renounced polygamy in 1904, these fundamentalist Mormons had to keep their practice covert. Spencer's husband's family moved to a remote part of Mexico to build a community, but familial insanity and grinding poverty kept them moving from place to place. Spencer was willing to work hard and was willing to do without decent clothing or food—but she couldn't stand limited access to her husband's affections. Their sect proscribed all but procreational sex, and since she was constantly pregnant or nursing, she never seemed to have much sex with her husband. Finally, after 28 years of marriage and bearing 13 children, she knew that although she loved her husband, she had to leave him. She moved to Alaska, where she became a born-again Christian with a monogamous husband. Spencer's story has everything—a strangely complicated religious sect, a plucky heroine, a conflicted but good-hearted man and even a reasonably happy ending. (Aug.)

A Place to Call Home: The Amazing Success Story of Modern Orphanages
Martha Randolph Carr. Prometheus, $26 (336p) ISBN 978-1-59102-510-8

Afounder of the Shared Abundance Foundation (which gives scholarship aid to orphanage alums), Carr believes orphanages have a bad reputation because our 19th-century institutions were so cruel. She argues that, if policymakers would only visit America's modern residential education facilities (or REFs, as orphanages are now called), they might be more supportive, or at least not so biased in favor of foster care. As Carr sees it, most states pass legislation favoring foster care because they believe they are offering homeless children the next best thing to the nuclear family, unaware that good foster families may be scarce. REFs, on the other hand, specialize in offering children the therapy and support they need after a lifetime of abuse and neglect. In her opening chapter, Carr introduces herself as a divorced mother with a troubled son, before segueing into a brief history of American orphanages. In subsequent chapters she visits a handful of REFs to admire their successes, which she interweaves with accounts of her own son's deepening problems. In fact, the last REF she visits, the Mercy Home in Chicago, becomes her son's home when she can no longer parent him herself. More inspirational than informative, Carr's book should touch hearts and open discussions. (Aug.)

The Devil, the Lovers, and Me: My Life in Tarot
Kimberlee Auerbach. Dutton, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-525-95021-9

Aperformance artist and former Fox News producer, Auerbach offers an earnest, though light memoir about learning to open herself to life through a first-time reading of the tarot cards. During a dark period of her life, when she felt stuck in her job after seven years, and stymied in a relationship with a loving man, Noah, who still wouldn't pop the question, the author, at 33, visited a clairvoyant in order to find out what the future held for her. Iris was not a typical tarot reader, but heavily into Kabbalah, and she navigated for Auerbach a reading of the 22 Major Arcana. The cards Auerbach drew included the Fool, the Wheel of Fortune, the Lovers and Temperance, and for each the author dwells literally on a chapter of her life, from being the dork back in grade school in Short Hills, N.J., to becoming the poster girl for her father's creation, Le Clic camera. Auerbach's parents were controlling (her father actually bought an engagement ring for Noah to give her), but she learned to forgive them. Iris was a kindly maternal figure who urged her to accept gracefully the natural cycles of one's life, but it's a simplistic lesson, and the answers too pat. (Aug.)

Sovereign Ladies: The Six Reigning Queens of England
Maureen Waller. St. Martin's, $29.95 (576p) ISBN 978-0-312-33801-5

Waller (Ungrateful Daughters: The Stuart Princesses Who Stole Their Father's Crown) highlights the triumphs and travails of England's six female monarchs: Anne, the two Marys, the two Elizabeths and Victoria. In Waller's view, Mary II and Victoria colluded in their own diminishment by domineering husbands. Elizabeth II, portrayed as passive and unimaginative, indulged her mother while wounding her husband by keeping the Windsor name, and surrendered her prerogative to choose a midterm prime minister. Often wrongly dismissed as a fat, sickly dullard, says Waller, Anne was politically shrewd and ambitions to be queen, instigating malicious rumors that her Catholic half-brother was a changeling. Waller says that the burning of Protestant Archbishop Cranmer for heresy was a “propaganda disaster” for Mary I, while image-conscious Elizabeth I promoted her own association with the Virgin Mary. Separate chapters for each sovereign make for repetitious reading on the Stuart sisters; other stories—like Mary I's phantom pregnancy and Elizabeth II's blunders after Princess Diana's death—are familiar. Yet revelations about the less frequently dissected Mary and Anne Stuart are welcome, and Waller's vigorous, substantive prose takes no prisoners, whether calling Edward VI a “cold, imperious little prig” or Prince Charles and siblings “arrogant, spoilt and selfish.” 16 pages of color illus. (Aug.)

Femme Fatale: Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari
Pat Shipman. Morrow, $25.95 (464p) ISBN 978-0-06-081728-2

Executed as a German spy by the French in 1917, the notorious Mata Hari was born Margaretha Zelle in 1876, the spoiled daughter of a prosperous Dutch merchant who would later abandon her to the care of relatives after a humiliating bankruptcy and his wife's death. She married a much older, jealous, heavy-drinking and insolvent officer stationed in Indonesia who probably gave her and her children syphilis; the disastrous union ended after her young son died of poisoning, possibly from a botched syphilis cure, and Margaretha relinquished custodial rights to her daughter. Financially destitute, Margaretha reinvented herself in Paris as Mata Hari, gaining fame and fortune performing in various stages of undress in exotic dances that evoked the East, and she collected a series of highly placed, fawning lovers. Shipman (The Man Who Found the Missing Link) makes a good case that Mata Hari was a naïve, innocent scapegoat for a demoralized French military that had endured heavy losses and mutinous troops, and that she was also the victim of a hypocritical, rigidly moralistic patriarchy offended by her shameless sexuality. Shipman offers an engrossing biography of an unusual woman for whom, she says, the truth was whatever she wanted it to be; unfortunately, the book is somewhat marred by repetitious prose and digressions. Photos. (Aug.)

Four Girls from Berlin: A True Story of a Friendship that Defied the Holocaust
Marianne Meyerhoff. Wiley, $24.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-471-22405-1

The author, a filmmaker who conducted oral history interviews for Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation, recounts the affecting experience of her mother, Lotte, a German Jew who barely escaped the fate of family members murdered by the Nazis. In 1938 Lotte followed her new husband to Cuba on the ill-fated S.S. St. Louis. After the ship was turned back to Europe, she was interned in a Dutch detention camp, smuggled out to Cuba and reunited with her husband (from whom she was later divorced). Lotte mostly refused to talk about the past, but a carton sent by three close German Christian friends from her childhood—Ilonka, Erica and Ursula—loosened her tongue. These young women, at great personal risk, had collected and preserved photos, documents and artifacts from Lotte's family. Because of their gift, Meyerhoff visited Germany many times to meet the surviving Ursula and Erica and their families. Much of the rambling text deals with the closeness that she developed with them and her desire to integrate her warm feelings toward her new friends with the tragic loss of a homeland that darkened her mother's life in America. (Aug.)

Timbuktu: The Sahara's Fabled City of Gold
Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle. Walker, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-8027-1497-8

For the Victorians, Timbuktu, a town in central Mali, evoked visions of mysterious, faraway lands, but in fact it has been in a gradual decline since the Moroccan invasion more than 400 years ago. Although today it is rife with malaria, dengue fever, poverty and corruption, Timbuktu boasts an illustrious, lucrative past as a nexus for the gold and salt trades from the 14th through the 16th centuries. Timbuktu was also a center for Islamic scholarship, as evinced by the 14,000-manuscript Mamma Haïdara Library; its owner unlocks a storage closet in his home to reveal to one of the authors piles of priceless ancient manuscripts (one dating to 1204), some gathering dust on the floor. The nomadic Tuareg herdsmen, pegged by some legends as Timbuktu's 11th-century founders, practice an unorthodox brand of Islam in which the men are veiled and the women are not, and women can divorce their husbands. This history-cum-travelogue gives a legendary city its due with an abundance of cogent, rich anecdotes, but falls short with a lack of narrative tension as the authors (Sahara) remain remote from the action, never venturing on a daring quest of their own, as writers of the best books in the genre do. Illus., maps. (Aug.)

Death in the Pot: The Impact of Food Poisoning on History
Morton Satin. Prometheus, $24, (262p) ISBN 978-1-59102-514-6

In this unexpectedly timely account, Satin makes a case for how food poisoning has affected human events over time, although he acknowledges that there's not much scientific evidence for his theories. Still, his speculations are fascinating. Satin, a molecular biologist who has worked for many years in the food industry (Food Alert! The Ultimate Sourcebook for Food Safety), relates dramatic examples of possibly toxic food and drink. He considers various theories to explain what he says is a case of mass food poisoning in the Bible, when the Israelites in the desert died after eating quail. The epidemic of lead poisoning during the Roman Empire was due to the preparation of wine in lead-lined containers and, according to the author, contributed to Rome's downfall. Leapfrogging through time, Satin describes how Westerners living in Hong Kong were deliberately poisoned with arsenic in their bread during the Second Opium War in 1857. Of particular interest is a lengthy overview of the evolution of food and beverage standards in the U.S.; first established in the late 19th century, the rules stopped the practice of harmful adulteration by unscrupulous manufacturers. He also deals with the recent outbreaks of E. coli and the possibility of bioterrorism. Though the account rambles, many of the details are quite arresting. Illus. (Aug.)

Perfect Figures: The Lore of Numbers and How We Learned to Count
Bunny Crumpacker. St. Martin's/Dunne $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-312-36005-4

In this lighter-than-light tour, Crumpacker (The Sex Life of Food) reconstructs the history of each of the numbers one through 12, their etymology, how they came to be written and their perceived qualities across various cultures. To this she adds a farrago of facts, observations and her own odd and usually humorous free associations. For example, about one and two, she points out that in some languages, “God is the same as the word for one, and two is the same as the word for sin”; about three, she says that “Captain Kirk and Spock played chess three times.... Kirk won all three games.” And she tells us that in China nine signifies good luck, in Japan bad. Besides these cultural references, Crumpacker includes a description of the evolution of counting strategies, discussions of Fibonacci numbers, the Golden Mean, and binary and other bases. Crumpacker is erudite and packs hundreds of facts that range from the educational to the frivolous into a work that is best described as “frothy.” (Aug.)

The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language
Christine Kenneally. Viking, $26.95 (340p) ISBN 978-0-670-03490-1

This book grows out of Kenneally's conviction that “investigating the evolution of language is a good and worthwhile pursuit”—a stance that most in the field of linguistics disparaged until about 20 years ago. The result is a book that is as much about evolutionary biology as it is about linguistics. We read about work with chimpanzees, bonobos, parrots and even robots that are being programmed to develop language evolutionarily. Kenneally, who has written about language, science and culture for the New Yorker and Discover among others, has a breezily journalistic style that is occasionally witty but more often pragmatic, as she tries to distill academic and scientific discourses into terms the casual reader will understand. She introduces the major players in the field of linguistics and behavioral studies—Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Philip Lieberman—as well as countless other anthropologists, biologists and linguists. Kenneally's insistence upon seeing human capacity for speech on an evolutionary continuum of communication that includes all other animal species provides a respite from ideological declamations about human supremacy, but the book will appeal mainly to those who are drawn to the nuts and bolts of scientific inquiry into language. (July 23)

Talking Hands
Margalit Fox. Simon & Schuster, $27 (368p) ISBN 978-0-7432-4712-2

The world of sign languages and cognitive research comes to life in this story of a remote Israeli village that's become a test bed for understanding how the human brain processes language. New York Times reporter Fox follows researchers, led by University of Haifa professor Wendy Sandler, to the Bedouin village of Al-Sayyid, where isolation, genetics and inbreeding have led to a higher than usual percentage of deafness in the population. In response, the villagers have created a home-brew sign language used by both the hearing and deaf. By studying this unique language, Sandler and her cohort hope to gain deeper insight into how the brain acquires and uses language. Chapters alternate between the painstaking work in Al-Sayyid and a history of sign language itself. Both are gracefully reinforced with vivid examples, from the early insistence of “experts” that proper sign language must produce words in one-to-one correspondence with spoken language to a lively gathering in Al-Sayyid where conversation flows freely in six languages: English, Hebrew, Arabic, American Sign Language, Israeli Sign Language and the local sign language. Fox takes readers on a fascinating tour of deaf communication, clearly explaining difficult concepts, and effortlessly introducing readers to a silent world where communication is anything but slow and awkward. (Aug. 21)

The World Without Us
Alan Weisman. St. Martin's/Dunne, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-312-34729-1

If a virulent virus—or even the Rapture—depopulated Earth overnight, how long before all trace of humankind vanished? That's the provocative, and occasionally puckish, question posed by Weisman (An Echo in My Blood) in this imaginative hybrid of solid science reporting and morbid speculation. Days after our disappearance, pumps keeping Manhattan's subways dry would fail, tunnels would flood, soil under streets would sluice away and the foundations of towering skyscrapers built to last for centuries would start to crumble. At the other end of the chronological spectrum, anything made of bronze might survive in recognizable form for millions of years—along with one billion pounds of degraded but almost indestructible plastics manufactured since the mid-20th century. Meanwhile, land freed from mankind's environmentally poisonous footprint would quickly reconstitute itself, as in Chernobyl, where animal life has returned after 1986's deadly radiation leak, and in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, a refuge since 1953 for the almost-extinct goral mountain goat and Amur leopard. From a patch of primeval forest in Poland to monumental underground villages in Turkey, Weisman's enthralling tour of the world of tomorrow explores what little will remain of ancient times while anticipating, often poetically, what a planet without us would be like. (July)

Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism
Edited by Mike Davis and Daniel Bertrand Monk. New Press, $26.95 (330p) ISBN 978-1-59558-076-4

In the evil paradises of this uneven anthology edited by scholars Davis and Monk, the free market coddles the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. With contributions from academics, architects and journalists, the essays explore how cities like Beijing and Johannesburg disregard good governance for prestige projects adored by the nomadic business elite. Though the message is consistent, the tone wanders from a fun and flimsy piece on Orange County by journalist Rebecca Schoenkopf to history professor Jon Wiener's overly somber look at Ted Turner's two million–acre landholding. In one essay, Davis launches a salvo at Dubai, distilling the glittering emirate into “Milton Friedman's Beach Club,” powered by the labor of imported near-slaves. California-style gated housing developments are a recurring theme, popping up in Iran and Hong Kong. More original is science fiction novelist China Miéville's brilliant essay “Floating Utopias” about a seafaring metropolis and tax haven to dwarf the largest ocean liner. The catch? This libertarian dream project will probably never be built because that philosophy, Miéville explains, is for people “too small, incompetent or insufficiently connected” to avoid taxes or, for that matter, to build a boat equipped with an airport. Even when it's not so pithy, this leftist world tour reminds us of development's human cost. (July)

The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China, and What It Means for All of Us
Robyn Meredith. Norton,$27.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-393-06236-6

Meredith, who covers India and China for Forbes, upends conventional wisdom in this well-reported book, arguing that the U.S. shouldn't fear these two rising economic powers. The U.S. (“buyer to the world”) and China (“factory to the world”) have, respectively, the largest and fourth largest economies, but they will reach parity in 2015. Though American politicians tax Chinese goods, Meredith points out that Americans actually gain from the undervalued yuan: our companies profit from the cheap goods the Chinese manufacture. Meanwhile, India (“backoffice to the world”) has picked up most of the one million white-collar jobs that moved out of the U.S. by 2003. But Meredith notes that for every dollar that goes overseas, $1.94 of wealth is created—all but 33 cents of which returns to the U.S. Protrade and antiprotectionist, she makes a compelling argument that China is doing better than India because it moved toward a market economy in 1978, while India began to liberalize in 1991. She also looks critically at each country's plans for the future, noting that China's citizens save more, while India's infrastructure and education system are falling behind. She concludes that “if inward-facing India and communist China can transform themselves, so can the United States of America.” (July)

Feasting on the Spoils: The Life and Times of Randy “Duke” Cunningham, History's Most Corrupt Congressman
Seth Hettena. St. Martin's, $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-36829-6

Without fanfare, Hettena, an Associated Press reporter based near Republican congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham's district in Southern California, lays out the facts of his political downfall in 2006— which some observers believe tarnished the GOP and enabled the Democrats to regain their congressional majority. Though the shockwaves emanating from Cunningham's downfall have continued to make headlines—among eight federal prosecutors forced to resign from the Justice Department last year was Carol Lam, who ran the investigation of the two defense contractors who gave Cunningham $2.4 million over a five-year period, more than half of it in just three months—Hettena doesn't reach for the broader political ramifications. He debunks the most lurid stories of contractors providing prostitutes for congressmen at the Watergate, but the corruption and sexual harassment he does pin down are more than sufficiently sordid. He also probes Cunningham's background as a self-aggrandizing Vietnam fighter pilot and combative politician who once got into a fistfight with a Democratic colleague outside House chambers. This straightforward account is a strong summation of Cunningham's ignoble career. (July)

Parts Per Million: The Poisoning of Beverly Hills High School
Joy Horowitz. Viking, $24.95 (460p) ISBN 978-0-670-03798-8

Commingling fame and wealth, Beverly Hills embodies the modern version of the American dream, but journalist Horowitz (Tessie and Pearlie) argues that it's also a modern American nightmare. Her tale of corporate neglect, petty politics, endless legal wrangling and our love-hate relationship with petroleum centers on Beverly Hills High School and its illustrious alumni, oil derricks and alarming number of cancer victims. Initially skeptical of the idea that the profitable oil pumps adjacent to the school have led to an array of horrible diseases among its graduates, especially with celebrity advocate Erin Brockovich poking around the case, Horowitz quickly found herself pulled into a story that raises fundamental questions about how we assess risk and balance our desire for justice with scientific and legal ambiguities about establishing causes and assigning blame. Horowitz is better at raising such questions than answering them, largely because in her case the truth does not come out, the public and even people involved in the litigation begin to lose interest, and no lawsuits have come to trial, let alone been resolved. That doesn't make for very satisfying reading, but it's faithful to a time in which, as Horowitz says, even our will to do right by our communities has been contaminated by competing desires. (July)

High Cotton: Four Seasons in the Mississippi Delta
Gerard Helferich. Counterpoint, $25 (352p) ISBN 978-1-58243-353-0

Helferich (Humboldt's Cosmos) chronicles in exhaustive detail a year on a small cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta. Working alongside his wife's first cousin, Zack Killebrew, who farms 1,000 acres of cotton in the town of Tchula, he observes every aspect of the cotton-growing business—machinery, planting procedures, irrigation, harvesting, weeds and insects and the chemicals used to control them. He even visits the spinning mill where Zack's cotton is processed. His matter-of-fact approach does not make for exciting reading, but he paints a sympathetic picture of Zack, a practical, resilient man who must contend with the vagaries of the weather, unreliable hired hands, broken machinery and the realization that the government subsidies that keep him going may soon vanish. At his best, Helferich provides valuable insights into the historical and cultural significance of cotton in the United States and the implications of the transition from slave labor to the sharecropping system, “a more insidious method of binding the workers to the land.” When mechanical pickers replaced hand labor, many sharecroppers flocked into cities, he observes, leaving the Delta region with a continuing legacy of poverty and racial inequality. Zack treats his hired hands fairly, but, as the book makes clear, not much has changed in the past half century for the children of the Delta's black sharecroppers. (July)

Wolf of the Deep: Raphael Semmes and the Notorious Confederate Raider CSS Alabama
Stephen Fox. Knopf, $25.95 (320p) ISBN 978-1-4000-4429-0

When you think of Confederate Civil War heroes, the names Lee, Jackson, Stuart and Longstreet, among others, come to mind. Historian Fox (The Mirror Makers, et al.) makes a convincing case that Confederate Navy Capt. Raphael Semmes should be added to that list, at least because of his brilliant seafaring skills. Fox's fact-filled, cleanly written account of Semmes's life focuses on his amazing 22-month stint as captain of the most famous Confederate privateer, the Alabama. Under Semmes's command, the Alabama roamed the world's waterways for nearly two years, seizing or sinking nearly 70 Union merchant schooners, whalers and other commercial ships to counteract the Yankee blockade of Southern ports, until June, 1864 when the Alabama was sunk by the U.S.S. Kearsage. Born in 1809 into a slave-owning, tobacco-farming family in southern Maryland, Semmes was orphaned at an early age, grew up in Washington, D.C. and joined the U.S. Navy at 17, remaining a staunch Southern partisan who espoused racist views and strongly believed in slavery. After serving without any particular distinction for 35 years, he made his mark with the Confederate navy. This well-conceived and executed military biography will have extra appeal for those who are familiar with nautical terms. (July)

The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears
Thea Perdue and Michael D. Green. Viking, $19.95 (178p) ISBN 978-0-670-03150-4

This compact book by eminent historians Perdue and Green moves from the time when all Cherokees “lived in the southern Appalachians” to their forced expulsion to the Indian Territory, as American policy morphed from “civilizing” Native Americans to what might today be deemed ethnic cleansing. The Indian Removal Act (1830) fixed in law “a revolutionary program of political and social engineering that caused unimaginable suffering, deaths in the thousands, and emotional pain that lingers to this day.” It's a tangled tale of partisan politics and Cherokee power struggles, of juridical argument and economic motive, of bitter personal disputes and changing public policy. Perdue (Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Southeast) and Green (The Cherokee Removal) have written a lucid, readable account of the legal complexities of the 18th-century “right of conquest doctrine” and the 19th-century “emerging doctrine of state rights”; the treaties, alliances, obligations and assurances involved; and the landmark cases Cherokee v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia (one effectively denying Cherokee self-government, one ineffectively affirming Cherokee sovereignty). Over it all hangs the disquieting knowledge that in the history of interaction between Euro-Americans and Indians, Cherokee removal “[exemplifies] a larger history that no one should forget.” (July)

The Shawnees and the War for America
Colin G. Calloway. Viking, $19.95 (225p) ISBN 978-0-670-03862-6

In placing the Shawnee “center stage,” Calloway (editor of the Penguin Library of American Indian History and Dartmouth Native American studies chair) achieves a remarkably accessible distillation of Shawnee history. He guides the reader through a thicket of wandering as the Shawnees' forced movement scatters them from the Ohio Valley during the late 17th century, before they reassembled in Ohio in the mid-18th century, and then gathered again in Oklahoma in the 19th century. “The Shawnees stand out as hard liners when it came to defending Native lands, Native rights, and Native ways of life,” says Calloway. Indeed, their history is a cycle of killings and revenge killings, battles and massacres by both sides, swallowing up those who made accommodations (Black Hoof and the model farm at Wapakoneta) as well as those who resisted (the legendary brothers, Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh). Daniel Boone, who “played a key role in destroying the Shawnees' world in Kentucky,” is part of that history, as is General Amherst, who advocated using germ warfare. The treks and treaties are not always easy reading, but Calloway's text is enlivened with judicious first-person excerpts and his passion for his subject. His heart is with the Shawnees, but he writes with balance of the fateful “meeting of the cultures on the frontiers.” (July)

Rising Sons: The Japanese-American GIs Who Fought for the United States in World War II
Bill Yenne. St. Martin's/Dunne, $25.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-312-35464-0

More than 21,000 Japanese-American men and women volunteered for service in the U.S. armed forces in World War II, with more than 9,000 receiving Purple Hearts and 21 holding the Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. decoration for bravery. Yenne (Superfortress, etc.) shows that many were patriots, who put duty above grievance while wondering if the country whose uniform they wore would ever accept them again. In Hawaii, Japanese-American reaction to Pearl Harbor was near-effervescent loyalty to the U.S., leading to the organization of the famous 100th Infantry Battalion, half of whose original officers were nisei. Their mainland counterparts volunteered from detention centers in numbers sufficient to form the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Without overlooking persistent racism in both Hawaiian and mainland versions, Yenne highlights the good sense and good will that emerged once the shock of Pearl Harbor wore off. Chief of Staff George C. Marshall spoke for American society as a whole when in May 1942 he declared, “I don't think you can permanently proscribe a lot of American citizens because of their racial origins.” (July)

Starring You! The Insiders' Guide to Using Television and Media to Launch Your Brand, Your Business, and Your Life
Marta Tracy and
Terence Noonan with Karen Kelly. Harper Entertainment, $14.95 paper (278p) ISBN 978-0-06-117112-3

The subtext of this media primer for businesspeople by two veterans of various TV shows is far more interesting than the actual content. Not only do the authors take it for granted that most individuals want to appear on television, but they argue that the very skills that position one for a closeup have “universal application” beyond electronic exposure. “Learning to define yourself as a brand, clarify your message, and convince someone that your idea is worth paying attention to (or, eventually paying for) in a crisp, concise way are valuable tools whether you want to get on television, become head of your PTA, or land that dream job,” they coo. They lay out a fairly unsurprising collection of lessons such as familiarizing yourself with the shows, creating something pitch-worthy before pitching and respecting the time of those in the business. Interviews with “television insiders” slow down what is already a tanklike velocity. Still, if one knows nothing about getting TV exposure, this book may well increase the slim odds of landing a spot. (July 3)

Lessons on Leadership: The Seven Fundamental Management Skills for Leaders at All Levels
Jack Stahl. Kaplan, $22 (304p) ISBN 978-0-7931-9474-2

Stahl, Revlon CEO and former president of Coca-Cola, doesn't live up to his potential to share a wealth of management tips in this leadership guide. He delivers on the title's promise of identifying key skills, ranging from leadership and management to delivering people, brand positioning and financial strategies. But his emphasis on developing clear strategies and setting measurable objectives, or defining a unique product or service, is bland, particularly for regular business leadership–book readers. Too often, Stahl turns to generic examples to illustrate his points, rather than focusing on his own experience. And when he does touch on his professional life, he often leaves the reader wanting more. For instance, he mentions a moment early in his career at Coca-Cola when he toured East Germany in 1989, just after the Berlin Wall came down, and had to decide how to approach the new market, then quickly drops it—although that experience could have leant itself to a deeper market development case study. Readers may justly wonder why he held back. (July)

Apples Are Square: Thinking Differently About Leadership—The Six Critical Values That Are Changing the Way We Lead and Succeed
Susan Smith Kuczmarski and
Thomas D. Kuczmarski. Kaplan, $25 (272p) ISBN 978-1-4195-9392-5

The Kuczmarskis, a pair of business consultants, trainers and authors, deliver a lackluster primer on the personal and managerial strategies of 25 people from many walks of life. A few are famous, such as Dean Kamen (inventor of the Segway scooter), Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist, the Internet classified ad service) and actress Susan Anton. Most are less well-known CEOs, political activists, educators, arts administrators and someone who calls himself an “esoteric healer.” But for such an eclectic group, there are few unusual insights. Most of their ideas come across as platitudes about the importance for leaders of such traits as humility, compassion, transparency and inclusiveness. Many of the anecdotes and inspirational homilies are retreads, though a few are intriguing—for example, the story of how Rep. Jan Schakowsky got started in public life as a crusader for freshness dating on food packages. But even interesting stories often lack a compelling point—Schakowsky's tale, for example, appears in a chapter about encouraging one's colleagues. This attempt to offer “chicken soup for the leader's soul” provides thin gruel. (July)

...And His Lovely Wife: A Memoir from the Woman Beside the Man
Connie Schultz. Random, $24.95 (288) ISBN 978-1-4000-6573-8

Schultz (Life Happens) gives a frank and adoring account of standing by her man, Sherrod Brown, in his run for U.S. Senate from Ohio. Ashtabula-bred Schultz and Democratic Congressman Brown, both middle-aged, longtime divorced single parents, married in 2004, and by the middle of the next year had decided he would quit his congressional seat and oppose two-term Republican Sen. Mike DeWine. While a supportive and loving wife, Schultz is also a feminist, devoted to her work as a journalist (she won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005); she reluctantly gave in to the pressure to take a sabbatical from her Cleveland Plain Dealer column during the course of the campaign. However, she became a valuable tool to her husband's success, from forcing his handlers to give the exhausted candidate time to recoup to trotting out her working-class family's hard-luck story when convenient. There are many funny moments (Brown was criticized for his unruly curls and his “cheap suits”), and DeWine's negative ads (led by Republican strategist Karl Rove) prompted Brown's team, in Hillary Clinton's words, to “deck him” with an ad of its own. (Schultz's own newspaper didn't endorse Brown.) Eventually, he won, and Schultz could happily return to her column. Her diary is upbeat, sometimes overly but affably composed. (July)

House of Happy Endings: A Memoir
Leslie Garis. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24 (320p) ISBN 978-0-374-29937-8

Artfully stitched like a well-made quilt, the patches of Garis's memoir encompass three generations. When she was eight years old, her grandmother Lilian, who wrote the early Bobbsey Twins, and grandfather Howard Garis, who created and virtually became Uncle Wiggily, moved into her family's home in Amherst, Mass. In this spellbinding memoir of green moments and gray ones, Garis chronicles how, in this book-reading, music-playing and, most importantly, loving family of writers, her grandmother “went from being a vibrant woman to a recumbent recluse” and how the years damaged her father, who “seemed perfect”; her “beautiful” mother; and her “adorable” brothers. “You can't turn away from the truth because it's lurid and jarring,” her playwright father advises. In lesser hands, the quarrels, litigation and violence that surface might control the narrative, but even as the family copes with disappointment, financial stress, nervous breakdowns, physical illness and death, Garis's capacity for conveying the family's vibrancy and vigor trumps. Garis's remarkable accomplishment in this memoir is to convey the normal, the enviable and the gothic with unsentimentalized affection, grace and painful honesty. (July)

The House that George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty
Wilfrid Sheed. Random, $29.95 (352p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6105-1

Sheed (Office Politics), who won a 1987 Grammy Award for Best Album Notes (for Sinatra's The Voice), spoke over the decades with many of these Great American Songbook creators and their families. In this book, he employs an informal, anecdotal approach as he looks back at the top tunesmiths of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and Hollywood. Composer Arthur Schwartz recalled that he “dashed off the tune in 20 minutes” after lyricist Howard Dietz casually remarked, “What is life but dancing in the dark?” Beginning with Gershwin and Irving Berlin, Sheed quotes numerous lyrics throughout his lilting, witty profiles (of Harold Arlen, Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, Richard Rodgers and others), plus brief comments on 57 more. Since Hurricane Katrina, Louis Alter's “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” has served as a national anthem, so the curt dismissal of Alter (“more a swinging musician than a songwriter proper”) is curious amid the many choruses of praise. Sheed soars on the wings of song with scintillating, lyrical writing. (July 3)

Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television
Lee Siegel. Basic, $30 (362p) ISBN 978-0-465-07810-3

In this book of collected television criticism, Siegel channel surfs and rides every wave, and no genre of programming escapes his analysis. Siegel, a senior editor at the New Republic, plumbs game shows, reality programming, cartoons, sitcoms, miniseries and iconic personalities with equitable rigor and flare. Above all, this collection showcases Siegel's talent as a semiotician, as he unmasks and dismantles the value systems at work behind popular shows. Siegel proclaims that “the television critic's job is not really to pass judgment at all. It's merely to announce a new reference point.” Luckily, the author rarely adheres to his own rule. While Siegel announces cultural referents aplenty, amid discussion of Baudrillard's “Simulacra,” the post 9/11 “Irony Controversy,” the Frankfurt school of criticism and the “august status” of contemporary fiction, perhaps his greatest strength as a critic is his ability to tell what's good from what's bad. There are as many surprising victors as there are victims. Siegel stands firm that Jon Stewart's comedy is poisoning politics and the work of Ken Burns “brings Caucasian condescension to a new low,” while Friends has “lent dignity to ordinary experience.” One of Siegel's favorite modes, as well as one of his favorite words, is “deconstruction.” Thankfully, Siegel deconstructs as a means to an end: to discern quality programming from drivel. (July)

The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington
Robert D. Novak. Crown Forum, $29.95 (672p) ISBN 978-1-4000-5199-1

The barbs start flying on page one (Bush critic Joseph Wilson: “What an asshole!”) and continue to nearly the end (CNN correspondent Ed Henry: “duplicitous phony”) of this thick memoir by the conservative journalist and pundit. Novak recounts his journey from Associated Press cub reporter through longtime “Evans and Novak” columnist scooping up Beltway political dirt to ubiquitous talk-show talking head. Along the way he drinks and gambles, battles liberal media bias, wrangles contracts with cable channels, settles scores with critics (more-hawkish-than-thou pundit David Frum is “a cheat and a liar”), defends his outing of Valerie Plame and tosses in many old columns, which read like a seismograph tracing of political microtremors (Melvin Laird to be Nixon's defense secretary!). More tantalizing are the glimpses of his relations with official sources, who know they won't be attacked in print as long as they give good tips. Novak's insider perspective, vitriolic pen and damn-the-torpedoes frankness make it a lively and eye-opening account of big-foot journalism. (July)

Eat This! 1,001 Things to Eat Before You Diet
Ian Jackman. HarperCollins, $14.95 paper (400p) ISBN 978-0-06-088590-8

Jackman's compendium of American foods and foodstuffs is an informational tour-de-force, a guidebook suitable for everyone from the couch potato to the frequent flyer. In the interest of finding out where to get the best, whether it's organic produce or fast food, delivery or fine dining, the author has eaten widely if not always well. Wondered when your favorite ready-to-eat cereal hit the market? What a runza is? Where to go for your last meal on earth? Jackman, who was the managing director of the Modern Library and coauthor of Stickin', includes all the foods and facts, from coast to coast (and including Alaska and Hawaii). The book is organized about as well as something so wide-ranging can be without tilting into a work of reference. The first part, “Eating In,” isn't a how-to-eat-better so much as a how-to-eat-the-best-possible. Its second, larger part, “Eating Out,” might make one want to cash in an IRA and hit the road for a year or two to eat everything he's listed. Readers will soon find themselves flipping the pages from restaurant to dish, and that's when they'll start fingering their car keys—it's just the thing for the summer travel season. (July)

The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate
Michael Wallis, photos by Michael S. Williamson. Norton, $39.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-393-05938-0

One look at the retro artwork on the cover of this travel tome will tell you what's in store for you—a visit down memory lane the length of the U.S. Following the 3,000-mile Lincoln Highway—much of it has been replaced or renamed—from New York City's Times Square to San Francisco Bay, Wallis (Route 66: The Mother Road) expertly captures the oft-forgotten and offbeat sights and tales of an America bypassed by superhighways. Most every town, restaurant, mom-and-pop store the author encounters along “The Main Street Across America” has seen better days, but Wallis still takes the time to celebrate their classic architecture and down-home recipes. With an eye for details and a gift for storytelling, he moves just as smoothly between the role of tour guide and yarn spinner as he does between the road's history and its current incarnation. The juxtaposition between old and new is further underlined by the presentation of classic images and new photographs by Williamson. With a chapter dedicated to each of the 13 states that the highway passes through, this book will delight those looking to uncover their local roots as well as adventurers yearning for that American rite of passage—a cross-country road trip. (July)

Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity
Virginia Smith. Oxford Univ., $30 (416p) ISBN 978-0-19-929779-5

Smith, a British historian and honorary fellow at the Centre for History in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene, traces the origins of our modern standards of cleanliness by reaching back to the ancient Mesopotamians to look at the kind of grooming we now call “pampering”: baths, manicures and hairstyling. She argues that the impulse toward maintaining a cleanly outward appearance, which plays a central role in sexual attraction, is opposed by a psychological or religious desire for “inner” purity linked to Christian asceticism, which disdained physical adornment. Thanks to the development of “an ethos of sanitary need” in the Victorian era, which linked cleanliness to purity, personal hygiene has now reached the stage of “general consensus,” with newly emerging middle classes around the world eager to buy hygienic and cosmetic products to meet Western standards of appearance. Smith's chronicle is sprinkled with interesting details and draws on a broad cultural canvas, but the tone is academic; general readers will prefer to await a more popular history. 25 illus. (July)

Lives of the Planets: A Natural History of the Solar System
Richard Corfield. Basic, $30 (352p) ISBN 978-0-465-01403-3

Corfield (The Silent Landscape) paints a companionable guide on this tour of the solar system. With a subject spanning 4.6 billion years, many billions of miles and eight (well, maybe nine) planets, a host of moons, asteroids galore, a plethora of comets and more, it is not surprising that many of the details are not filled in. Nonetheless, there is much to grab the average reader. Corfield focuses in turn on each major item in the solar system. Chapters begin by discussing the early ideas humans had about each object and then move to the advances we've made over the past 50 years. Finally, Corfield synthesizes available knowledge and explains what we currently know and why we know it. Throughout, he does a good job of articulating why he believes the billions of dollars spent on space exploration have been worthwhile. Discussing the joint NASA/ESA Cassini-Huygens project to explore Saturn and Titan, one of its moons, Corfield says, “We went to Titan because it seemed the world most similar to the Earth when our world was new.” With his strong writing and expansive subject, it is impossible not to be infected with Corfield's enthusiasm for planetary science. 28 color photos. (July 9)

The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body
Les Fehmi and Jim Robbins. Shambhala/Trumpeter, $22.95 with CD (176p) ISBN 978-1-59030-376-4

Alongtime clinician and researcher in biofeedback, Fehmi (with the assistance of science writer Robbins, author of A Symphony in the Brain) advances his program for learning to relieve stress by attaining what he calls open focus—a more diffuse, flexible form of attention that, paradoxically, allows one to focus better and in a more relaxed way. According to Fehmi, most of us habitually operate in a narrow-focus stress mode that results in anxiety and a host of physical problems, including digestive upsets, rashes and migraines. Fehmi draws on his experience with neurofeedback (brain-wave biofeedback) to explain how we can shift our brain waves to attain open focus. These mental techniques help you to experience your body and even your heart in a new way and change how you perceive the space around you. Fehmi grounds his plan in research and patient anecdotes showing the techniques can reduce pain and improve relationships and athletic performance. Fehmi acknowledges the results of open focus are similar to those from meditation, but even readers skeptical of Eastern spirituality may find Fehmi's science-based program useful. (The accompanying audio CD was not heard by PW). (July 10)

What Happy Women Know: How New Findings in Positive Psychology Can Change Women's Lives for the Better
Dan Baker and Cathy Greenberg with Ina Yalof. Rodale, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-1-59486-545-9

Happiness is in many ways “gender specific,” says Baker (What Happy People Know), because women's brains are wired to allow them to feel more, and more frequent, positive feelings than men. Baker, founding director of Canyon Ranch's Life Enhancement program, and Greenberg (What Happy Companies Know) draw on positive psychology to show women how to find happiness. Negative traps prevent women from achieving happiness, they say. These traps are easily recognizable: perfectionism, thinking you'll never be happy without a lot of money or a man, focusing on work as opposed to relationships. Happy women, on the other hand, have a sense of personal responsibility, the ability to find opportunity in adversity, a sense of purpose and courage. Writer Yalof helps make all this accessible, but many of these ideas are truisms, and the authors sometimes characterize women with facile generalizations, for example: “Most women don't know themselves well enough to determine what their special qualities are.” Still, women who find themselves in one of the negative traps may find help here in learning how to look on the bright side. (July)

Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love
Zane. Atria, $25 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7434-5705-7

The hugely popular erotica author Zane gets right to the point: “This is a book about fucking. This is a book about love,” she warns in the aggressively defensive introduction (“Do not start protests at your local library to ban me from the shelves”) to this collection of letters she has received from the “lost and confused” in need of sexual advice. The chapters in her first nonfiction book are grouped around such useful topics as virginity/young love, sexual addiction, oral sex, dissatisfied lovers/lack of sex drive and how to make love to a woman. Zane writes with grim humor and uses explicit, slangy language that obviously resonates with her audience of younger, sexually active women. She encourages wild, no-holes-barred sex, but presents hot, monogamous unions as her goal. Dump him and find a man to respect you is her response to the women who complain of being exploited or cheated on by their lovers. Despite the out-there language, Zane's advice is sympathetic and sensitive on every area of sexual confusion and difficulty. (July)

Correction: The pub month for Norman Pearlstine's Off the Record (Reviews, Apr. 30) is June.

Religion

Listen with Your Heart: Spiritual Living with the Rule of Saint Benedict
M. Basil Pennington, edited by Chaminade Crabtree. Paraclete, $15.95 (164p) ISBN 978-1-55725-548-8

Before he died in 2005, Pennington, a Cistercian monk and abbot, had talked of writing a commentary on the sixth-century guide for monastic life known as the Rule of Benedict. Though Pennington never achieved his goal, his secretary saw that the abbot's talks to monks at Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery in Conyers, Ga., formed a partial commentary on the rule. He subsequently transcribed and posted the talks on the community's Web site, leading to this publication in book form. Those who take up this collection of reflections will need to consider that they were designed not for readers but for listeners, and read them as if they were being spoken. Readers who can thus “hear” the talks, which also are available on CD, will discover in them the rule's enduring wisdom. Although these talks are directed at monks, their content is readily applicable outside monasteries, especially in the areas of prayer and living in harmony with others. Pennington, for example, observes that even when Benedict is describing the four different types of monks, he is merely identifying human tendencies found in all people, such as instability, singularity and self-will. This is recommended reading for disciples of Benedict and newcomers to the Rule. (Sept.)

Wonderlust: A Spiritual Travelogue for the Adventurous Soul
Vicki Kuyper. New Hope (Broadman & Holman, dist), $14.99 paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-59669-076-9

Atitle as alluring as Wonderlust can't help evoking fantasies of the author's recollections, taking the reader floating across the world in luxuriously reflective repose or exciting adventure. Unfortunately, Kuyper (101 Ways to Be a Great Mom) does not quite deliver on the book's titular promise. Though her many vignettes tell of travels as far and wide as Machu Picchu in Peru, Assisi in Italy and the wilds of the Amazon, these are usually too short to suggest much sense of place and each ends abruptly with a laundry list of textbook like questions that attempt to shepherd readers through a similar revelatory spiritual moment. Though perfect for the morning commute, these short chapters won't satisfy the traveler who's settled in for a long trip. Rather than trust readers to “journey toward” the various chapter themes (Healing, Identity, Integrity, among others) on their own, she interrupts with awkward questions like “What has God used to 'warm' you toward being more 'positively' pious in your life?” For readers who can forgive the short chapters and ignore the textbookish style, rewards do await: though too hastily recounted Kuyper's travels (to 40 countries on five continents) are adventurous and fascinating on their own. (Sept.)

Knit Together: Discover God's Pattern for Your Life
Debbie Macomber. FaithWords, $22.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-446-58087-8

Bestselling novelist Macomber ventures into nonfiction as she encourages Christian women of faith to knit themselves into God's purpose for their lives. Just as many of her novels (A Good Yarn; The Shop on Blossom Street) feature knitting and characters who knit, this narrative nonfiction employs knitting as a metaphor for a creative, persistent and visionary spiritual journey. Fans will appreciate Macomber's lively, positive outlook and the behind-the-scenes look at her personal highs and lows. Macomber joyfully recounts the often arduous road to success, interspersing these difficulties with faith issues such as dreams, risks, success, balance, relationships, work, laughter, gratitude, blessing and worship. Within each chapter, she draws upon Psalm 139 and unequivocally assures readers that God has created every person with a worthy purpose, a dream to be followed and happily realized. Practical as well as inspirational, the guide debunks common misconceptions that hinder dream actualization (“Lie number one: It's who you know. Lie number two: I'm too old. Lie number three: It's too hard”). Macomber's work is both cheerful and cheering, and both faithful fans and newcomers will resonate strongly with her delightful message. (Aug. 21)

Asphalt Jesus: Finding a New Christian Faith Along the Highways of America
Eric Elnes. Jossey-Bass, $22.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7879-8608-7

Arizona pastor Elnes (United Church of Christ) had an “idea that wouldn't go away”: develop principles of a “more generous and affirmative” faith to counter the dominance of conservative Christianity in the media, and to witness for this faith by walking with other Christians 2,500 miles from Phoenix to Washington, D.C. Using as a guide these biblically based principles, emphasizing love of God, neighbor and self (described in his previous book The Phoenix Affirmations), Elnes recounts the cross-country journey as the walkers tried to spread the news that a vital alternative is flourishing in America's churches. The CrossWalk America travelers discovered extraordinary hospitality—and sometimes hostility—across surprising denominational lines as they searched for common ground with other Christians. The book shines when Elnes focuses on the walkers' encounters with people and churches in small towns across the U.S., but lags as he interprets biblical stories and discusses the Phoenix Affirmations. Less a narrative than a series of extended anecdotes, the book raises questions it doesn't answer about the walk and its impact on participants' faith. (Aug. 3)

Light in the Dark Ages: The Friendship of Francis and Clare of Assisi
Jon M. Sweeney. Paraclete, $16.95 paper (212p) ISBN 978-1-55725-476-4

She was “rudder to his sail” and “yin to his yang,” but the relationship between medieval saints Clare and Francis of Assisi was hardly the love affair depicted in literature and film, as this joint biography makes clear. Sweeney, author of the St. Francis Prayer Book and The Lure of Saints, sketches the true nature of the liaison, which he says was marked by natural affection, but never led to marriage or an affair. “There is little reason to believe that Francis and Clare shared any romance other than one that was jointly with God,” Sweeney writes of the partners in the spiritual movement that revolutionized Western religion. Relying on early biographies of Francis by Thomas of Celano and Bonaventure as well as more recent scholarship, Sweeney examines Francis's conversion and decision to “marry” poverty, showing how Clare, 12 years his junior, fled her family to embrace his radical way of life. Sweeney deals, too, with the controversy and dissension that erupted in the movement after just two decades as some followers softened the radical mendicancy espoused by Francis and Clare. Readers interested in an accurate portrayal of these two powerful figures will find this an excellent introduction to a movement that has captured the imaginations of moderns more than 700 years after the deaths of Francis and Clare. (Aug.)

Flow of Grace: Chanting the Hanuman Chalisa
Krishna Das. Sounds True (www.soundstrue.com), $21.95 (80p, with 2 audio CDs) ISBN 978-1-59179-551-3

Das, a devotee of the Indian guru Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji), spends his time introducing people to the path of devotion. Using his skills both as a guide and as a recording artist, he puts together a beautifully illustrated interpretation and primer to the Hindu literary classic, the Hanuman Chalisa, a 40-line lyrical poem written in praise to the monkey god best known for his limitless devotion. Das briefly shares his own path before giving a lengthy description of the Hindu tradition of the story of Hanuman, though he briefly touches on both the Tibetan and Chinese traditions as well. The explication of the text is very accessible, though a more thorough translation of the Indian words that pepper his writing would make this easier for the completely uninitiated. In addition to the transliteration at the end, one CD provides a well-paced reading of the poem, as well as a line-by-line recording. Most striking is the second CD, which offers a heartfelt chanting of the verses. In his deep, soulful voice (reminiscent of the Crash Test Dummies' lead singer, Brad Roberts), Das shows us all—devotees, seekers and the merely curious—the exquisite beauty of the Hanuman Chalisa. (Aug.)

Each Moment Is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time
Dainin Katagiri. Shambhala, $21.95 (240p) ISBN 978-1-59030-408-2

Move over, Martin Heidegger. The late Japanese Zen master Katagiri Roshi offers a Zen interpretation of being and time. As text editor Andrea Martin explains in her introduction, the core Buddhist teachings of impermanence and emptiness lend themselves to considerations of time and being. Zen may be anticoncept and nonabstract, but it is certainly pro-insight. So Katagiri explains his understanding of time, based squarely on his interpretation of the work of influential 13th-century Zen master Dogen, whose work has inspired a number of contemporary Zen teachers. But Katagiri is no academic, and the language he uses to express complex ideas is extremely simple (“this is called going into mud and water”) and often enthusiastic (“Touch it and bounce!”). The editor has successfully transmitted the oral style that helps make the content accessible. Katagiri conveys a zest for Zen understanding that differs from the calm inscrutability of other Zen Buddhists; he also brings up terms like hope and beauty. Katagiri's statement “I think the purpose of spiritual life is to just go toward the future with great hope” may sound metaphysical, but it comes from a teacher who has spent time on the meditation cushion and applied insight to the day-to-day life that Zen embraces. (July 10)

African American Folk Healing
Stephanie Y. Mitchem. NYU Press, $20 paper (186p) ISBN 978-0-8147-5732-1

Mitchem, who teaches religious studies at the University of South Carolina, explores folk healing as a “faith expression” in black communities. While she includes some of the remedies used by African-Americans (e.g., to lower your blood pressure, put Spanish moss in your drink), her research goes far beyond collecting cures. Indeed, Mitchem argues that for African-Americans healing practices are part of a larger system of meaning, one that is sometimes in conflict with institutionalized medicine. Black folk healing has persisted in part because a racist society has long denied adequate care to black people—folk healing, Mitchem persuasively argues, allows African-Americans agency “in defining their own bodies, exerting some control over life.” But even when African-Americans can find equitable medical care, folk practices will persist because they are life-giving and because they holistically address physical, economic and spiritual needs. Mitchem could have offered a more robust analysis of the commodification of folk medicine—she notes that a Detroit “Hoodoo 101” class cost $75, but fails to adequately probe the meeting of folk medicine and the marketplace. That omission is a minor flaw in a fascinating study that makes a real contribution to discussions of health, wellness and faith in America. (July)

Pray Big: The Power of Pinpoint Prayer
Will Davis Jr.. Revell, $12.99 paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-8007-3204-2

Everything is bigger in Texas—even prayer. Davis pastors the Austin Christian Fellowship church, whose attendance averages 1,100 strong and where he challenges his congregation to “pray big”: praying in specifics rather than generalities and pleading with such focus as to pinpoint the exact need. Davis dissects the Lord's Prayer, telling readers that today's believers should follow the same precise pattern for every prayer offered. Analyzing Jesus' prayer, Christians can see that Christ petitioned for certain exact “targets”: God's glory, God's agenda, God's provision, relational health and God's protection. Davis encourages fellow intercessors to begin developing a prayer discipline that beseeches God's favor for the mundane as well as the miraculous, for the rejuvenation of the spiritually dead and for unifying agreement with spouses, children and even oneself. A particularly insightful section deals with effectively interceding for nonbelievers through persistent and continuous prayer, asking Jesus to have compassion on those individuals, meet them where they are, call them by name and remove any spiritual stumbling blocks from their lives. Davis's work not only urges Christians to pray, but teaches them how to do so with theological accuracy. (July)

Harvest of Hope: Stories of Life-Changing Gifts
Kay Marshall Strom. InterVarsity, $16 paper (204p) ISBN 978-0-8308-3442-6

Curious about philanthropic “gift catalogues” that allow donors to sponsor a child, furnish medical supplies or buy an animal for an impoverished family, Strom followed the money through several organizations to trace the individual stories of recipients around the globe. Her intended audience is clearly Christian evangelicals who share the author's views that temporal assistance can and should also stand as a witness of God's love. The stories are gripping, inspiring and heart-wrenching—about abandoned street children in Senegal and hardscrabble mountain villages of remote Indian provinces, for example. And this is not your parents' philanthropy—these organizations have learned from the well-meaning but often culturally insensitive assistance of yore. Their programs are designed as partnerships with local communities and built for sustainability. Strom makes an effort to point out the stumbling blocks for many efforts, but mostly she writes through a lens of faith, occasionally bordering on the maudlin. Repeatedly negative characterizations of Islam mar the book, which is heavy with evangelical rhetoric. It ends with the satisfied stories of donors and the power that their sense of personal connection to recipients has wrought in their lives. The book is flawed, but cannot fail to inspire readers to stretch past donor fatigue and dig into their pocketbooks a little deeper. (July)

The Gospel According to Hollywood
Greg Garrett. Westminster John Knox, $16.95 paper (176p) ISBN 978-0-664-23052-4

It is easy to see the religious imagery in movies like The Passion of the Christ and The Mission, but much more difficult to uncover it in mainstream Hollywood films. Garrett, professor of English at Baylor University and popular author, analyzes dozens of films and extracts their religious and spiritual themes. Rather than focus solely on contemporary films, Garrett digs into the past five decades and investigates important works that are often overlooked in similar books. He masterfully weaves threads of Christian history, doctrine and tradition into the chapters, utilizing these films as platforms from which to teach the reader. The chapter on peace and justice is especially powerful, as the author not only instructs but also advocates for working toward a more just society. Being a Christian means to put one's faith in action, and Garrett is able to elucidate how these movies can have the power to encourage some to live a more authentic Christian life. While he realizes that not all Christians will buy into his primary thesis—that movies can reveal something about spirituality and God's action in the world—he also understands that “many theologians have argued that nothing in creation is outside the scope of God.” This is a bold and courageous belief, and kudos to Garrett for advancing it. (July)

The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine
Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath. InterVarsity, $16 paper (144p) ISBN 978-0-8308-3446-4

When authors write books that criticize other books, they have usually already lost; the original book has set the agenda to which the critics respond, and the outcome is foretold. Not in this case. The McGraths expeditiously plow into the flank of Dawkins's fundamentalist atheism, made famous in The God Delusion, and run him from the battlefield. The book works partly because they are so much more gracious to Dawkins than Dawkins is to believers: Dawkins's The Blind Watchmaker “remains the finest critique” of William Paley's naturalistic arguments for deism available, for example. The authors can even point to instances in which their interactions with him, both literary and personal, have changed his manner of arguing: he can no longer say that Tertullian praised Christian belief because of its absurdity or that religion necessarily makes one violent. The McGraths are frustrated, then, that Dawkins continues to write on the a priori, nonscientific assumption that religious believers are either deluded or meretricious, never pausing to consider the evidence not in his favor or the complex beliefs and practices of actual Christians. They conclude disquietingly: perhaps Dawkins is aware that demagogic ranting that displays confidence in the face of counterevidence is the way to sway unlearned masses. (July)

Butterfly in Brazil: How Your Life Can Make a World of Difference
Glenn Packiam. Tyndale, $12.99 paper (200p) ISBN 978-1-4143-1329-0

Lots of folks dream of dramatically changing the world for God, but many don't really try to do it. Desperation Band member Packiam clues readers in on why so many fall short and offers wonderful insight into how to start. “Instead of waiting for great things to happen, we should be asking God, 'What do I do about this idea now?'... Everything that God has put inside us must be expressed and acted on here and now—or it will never multiply and grow.” The little things we do now, he says, can be transformed into big things for God. Packiam uses the biblical story of Nehemiah as a backdrop for his discussion of the secrets of creating lasting change, which he says is small, local and gradual. Packiam calls readers to stay focused, recognizing that change must be accompanied by love and that it will ultimately cost something. This is a clear and necessary call to change Christians' thinking about how to best live for God. Packiam's writing and message are strong: “When everyone is faithful with what they have to do, right where they are, over long periods of time, together we make an impact large enough to change the world.” (July)