Nonfiction Reviews: Week of 9/10/2007

Journalist and military historian Budiansky (Her Majesty's Spymaster) pulls no punches in this hard-hitting examination of the most sordid aspects of Reconstruction in the South from 1865 to 1876. The “brutal war of terrorist violence” that he surveys certainly has not escaped the history books. But this worthy effort goes a long way toward highlighting the most venal aspects of how, in the 10 years after the Civil War, the white Southern power structure managed to erect the Jim Crow laws that for nearly a century legalized many aspects of racial discrimination. Budiansky also highlights “men and women of courage, idealism, rectitude, and vision” who confronted the establishment: Pennsylvania-born U.S. Army major Lewis Merrill, who fought the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina; Prince Rivers, a former slave and Union army Colored Troop sergeant who became a state legislator and trial judge in South Carolina; and Maine-born Adelbert Ames, a Union general who served as Mississippi's provisional military governor. Budiansky brings the unpleasant details of the era alive in a smoothly written narrative. (Jan. 28)

In tackling the story of Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, Frantz and Collins (Death on the Black Sea) are entering a crowded field. As Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark did in Deception (reviewed July 30), this husband-and-wife team divides attention between Khan's influence over Pakistan's nuclear program and how the American government ignored evidence of his progress because Pakistan served as a convenient ally. While much of this story is familiar, Frantz and Collins do provide more detail on Khan's background and draw on several different U.S. sources. (They reveal, for example, that the State Department discussed assassinating Khan as far back as 1978.) They also give the Pakistani government more benefit of the doubt than most other commentators: an internal corruption investigation ordered by Pervez Musharraf shortly after he became Pakistan's president is interpreted as suggesting that Khan's dealing with nations like Libya and Iran might not have been sanctioned by his government. Deception has more about Pakistan's internal politics and an edge in readability and “zing,” but this is an equally serviceable overview. (Dec. 3)

Travel writers lie, argues Thompson, and their editors not only know and excuse it, but demand it. As laid out in this vivid and ribald memoir by veteran travel writer Thompson—a former editor of Maxim and Travelocity.com's short-lived print magazine—the industry is packed to the rafters with hacks churning out the same reheated swill for thinly disguised advertorial copy in glossy magazines. Sick of “leaving the most interesting material on the cutting-room floor,” Thompson slashes through the clichés of the travel industry's snake-oil salesmen with unmitigated glee. The Caribbean is “a miasmic hellscape.” The supposed narcoterrorist danger zone, Colombia, is a wonderful place with wonderful people (“But who buys magazines to read that?”). And the widely respected Lonely Planet guidebooks have ruined more travel destinations than have the tourists its writers sermonize against. If all Thompson was aiming for had been caustic observations about the industry he knows from the inside out, the book would have been an amusing but limited experience. But Thompson weaves his take on the travel racket and the damage it does into an engagingly personal narrative about his own nomadic life, tossing out raucous anecdotes about teaching ESL in a remote Japanese town or snorting cocaine with fellow staffers in the Alaska House of Representatives. (Dec.)

There are iconic excesses—nude sweat-lodge ceremonies, interminable house meetings, ghastly raw-food diets, a public birthing followed by placenta-enriched soup—in the author's fraught memoir of her childhood on the titular rural Virginia commune and attached free school, founded by her mother, Carla. Psychologist Eugster was duly scarred by the countercultural chaos and flux of strangers into, and friends out of, the commune, which left her feeling “trapped in freedom,” lonely, alienated and withdrawn, “a child adrift in an adult's idealized venture.” Still, this isn't Augusten Burroughs territory. Nothing too outrageous happened to Eugster, and Carla, the book's charismatic, domineering center, also appears a responsible parent who fights epic battles to enforce a 9 p.m. bedtime. Indeed, many of the traumas that occasion Eugster's dudgeon—a snit with a schoolmate who rebuffs her, a pet accidentally run over by a communard's car—seem like ordinary growing pains. Young Sandra's sensitive, sometimes neurotic temperament often looms larger than the commune's transient, unstructured environment in explaining her intense feelings of anomie and abandonment. Eugster paints an engaging portrait of the odd Nethers lifestyle, but it's very much a child's view—an idiosyncratic perspective that alternates between scenes of idyllic beauty and small tragedies blown out of proportion. (Dec.)

Some locks of hair found in the secret compartment of a family heirloom was the catalyst for Ball, a National Book Award winner for Slaves in the Family, to embark on a genetic family history. He became animated with the thought that through DNA analysis of the hair he could discover some truths about his Ball ancestry, such as whether his father's maternal grandmother, Kate Fuller, was part African-American. As he relates his experiences with various DNA labs, Ball also describes the hard science behind DNA forensics, informed by conversations with experts in the field. But the account's drama comes from a finding that suggests a Native American ancestor in his family tree. Another lab contradicts this evidence, and the error affects Ball profoundly, leading him to rail about the fallibility of science, the dangers of making science the new religion and scientists, specifically molecular biologists, the new priests. Forensic DNA testing has become hot (exemplified by Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s televised testing results), and as Ball's own emotions show, is also playing into Americans' sense of identity. Ball's tale will intrigue America's many amateur genealogists and also serve as a cautionary tale. (Nov. 6)

The name Van Allen (1914–2006) is known primarily today through the eponymous belt of radiation discovered in 1958 by equipment he placed on America's first satellite. But science writer Foerstner (Picturing Utopia: Bertha Shambaugh and the Amana Photographers) says, “Van Allen's career crystallizes the entire history of space exploration.” She tells the story of the Iowa boy who became a major scientific figure but spent his entire professional career working out of the backyard workshop environs of the physics building at the University of Iowa. Van Allen went on to design experiments for early missions to Venus and Mars that determined these planets do not have magnetic fields. Late in his career, the famous Pioneer X and XI voyages to the far reaches of the solar system carried his instruments. Foerstner portrays Van Allen as a wheeler-dealer, knowledgeable in the political workings of NASA but also, in the best Midwestern tradition, a staunch advocate of his students and colleagues. The author had access to all of Van Allen's papers and diaries, and space buffs interested in an important figure of the space era will find this bio worthwhile. 52 photos. (Nov.)

Skidmore, a Ph.D. candidate in Tudor history and adviser to the British shadow secretary for education, provides a revealing glimpse into the tumultuous six-year reign of Edward VI, who ascended to the English throne in 1547, at the age of 10, following the death of his father, Henry VIII. Edward's youth and brilliant precocity led many to hope his reign would be kinder and gentler than Henry's, and the young monarch was likened to the biblical King Josiah, who dramatically reformed Judah after the tyranny of King Manasseh. Young Edward was scholarly, studied theology and left more than 100 essays, one of them denouncing the papacy. During his reign the Church of England continued to flourish and grow. But Edward's rule was also a time of political, economic and religious crisis marked by intrigue and deceit. His own uncle and adviser, Thomas Seymour, was sent to the block for attempting to kidnap Edward, and his sister Mary refused to give up the banned Catholic mass. Skidmore's fast-paced biography, which draws on Edward's journals and correspondence, brings this king and his brief reign to vivid life. 16 pages of color photos. (Nov.)

In 1528, 300 conquistadores embarked on the ambitious mission of colonizing Florida. They all disappeared. Eight years later, a band of Spanish slave-traders were rounding up their fleeing human cargo in northwest Mexico when they espied a group of men who appeared to be natives approaching them. One was white. Just as astonishingly, a companion of his was African. Who were these strange figures? They, and two others, were the last survivors of the lost expedition. Their march across Florida, their voyage on spindly rafts across the Gulf of Mexico, their captivity in Texas and their trek across the southwest to the Pacific coast form the backbone of Reséndez's riveting account of the epic journey. The author, a history professor at the University of California–Davis, tells the tale from the Spanish, African and Indian points of view: Native Americans were just as amazed by the original visitors as the visitors were by them, and Reséndez focuses on how the interlopers remade themselves as medicine men and made sense of “social worlds other Europeans could not even begin to fathom.” Told from an intriguing and original perspective, Reséndez's narrative is a marvelous addition to the corpus of survival and adventure literature. 15 illus, 16 maps. (Nov.)

In this lucid and creative work, Sandoval-Strausz, an assistant professor of history at the University of New Mexico, situates the rise of hotels within the history of the triumph of capitalism and of an increasingly mobile society. Hotels, he says, facilitated mobility and the integration of frontier lands into larger networks of capital and commerce. Hotels were also part of the gradual process that dissociated people from particular places. If hotels solved some social problems, Sandoval-Strausz shows, they created others: guardians of domesticity, for example, worried about urban dwellers who chose to live full-time in hotels. In exploring the social and political meaning of hotels, the author pursues countless avenues, from menus to morals (“Hotels were magnets for prostitution” and other forms of illicit sex). There's a bit of labor history thrown in, too, since, in order to make good on the promise to be patrons' “home away from home,” hotels employed a huge number of workers, from cooks and launderers to janitors, Sandoval-Strausz also traces hotels' exclusion of Jews and blacks—the book ends with the 1964 Supreme Court case that desegregated public accommodations. From start to finish, this is a fascinating study. 93 color, 58 b&w illus. (Nov.)

We think of hunger and famine as symptoms of a failed economy and government. But shifting cultural perceptions of hunger are historical agents in their own right, as this probing study, concentrating on 19th- and 20th-century Britain, shows. Berkeley historian Vernon starts with premodern notions of hunger as divine punishment for sin or a Malthusian corrective for a lazy, overbreeding proletariat. This changed, he contends, with the 19th-century “humanitarian discovery of hunger” thanks to sensational newspaper stories of women and children, and later honest working men, starving through no fault of their own. Famines in Ireland and India fueled nationalist criticisms of British imperial rule, and suffragist hunger strikers made starvation a symbol of moral authority against an unjust state. Later, the nascent science of nutrition reimagined hunger in terms of a nutritional minimum that government should supply, and reformers made their efforts to eliminate hunger the rationale and the centerpiece of Britain's emerging welfare state. Following Michel Foucault, Vernon sees this history as a case study in social democracy's entanglement in liberalism, market ideology and elite demands for social discipline. Some of his arguments are weakly supported—was premodernity really so complacent about hunger?—and his topic rambles as far afield as kitchen appliances. Still, Vernon offers much lucid, trenchant rethinking on a resonant subject. 34 b&w illus. (Nov.)

Frommer (A Yankee Century; Red Sox vs. Yankees) spares no detail in this exhaustive but sometimes tedious recounting of the 1927 New York Yankees championship season. The team, which won 110 games when the regular season was eight games shorter than it is today, starred the iconic Babe Ruth and a young Lou Gehrig. Ruth had his career high 60 home run season, and Gehrig batted in a league-leading 175 runs. The Yankees' trademark rallies were dubbed “Five O'clock Lightning,” as they often scored in late innings when the clock struck five (Yankee Stadium in those days had no lights, and most games started at 3:30 p.m.). Frommer sets the stage with a sweeping overview of New York in the 1920s, and then chronologically rehashes the preseason, spring training, each month of the regular season and then the four-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. He concludes with a chapter containing obituaries of all 31 members of the team, many of whom succumbed at early ages: Gehrig died 14 years after the 1927 season, at the age of 38, and Ruth 21 years later, at 53. Unfortunately, Frommer fails to put together an engaging narrative, simply offering a compendium of facts and statistics. (Nov.)

In 1956, millionaires Eddie Lowery and George Coleman made an off-the-cuff bet on a golf match and inadvertently set up one of the sport's most climactic duels; “this one casual game has become the sport's great suburban legend.” Frost (The Greatest Game Ever Played) diligently covers the two pros slightly past their prime, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, who squared off against two top amateurs, Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi. It happened “in the last hours of Hogan's playing career, and ten years after Byron had left the stage,” but at the near pinnacle of the amateurs', whose personalities couldn't have been more diametrically opposed (Venturi the classic up-and-comer, and Ward the inveterate playboy who performed hungover on two hours' sleep). The match itself, scrupulously teased out by Frost for maximum drama, is less interesting than the people involved and the historical backdrop. The match happened near the sport's great cusp, as it transitioned from something for amateurs to a professional career, from a pastime for wastrel aristocrats and entertainers (and Bing Crosby, with his annual booze-soaked Clambake charity matches) to a mainstream suburban obsession. Frost has a penchant toward the florid, but as he writes, “Because he was Ben Hogan, and it was just past twilight, and his like would never pass this way again,” he captures an elusive magic in this improbable matchup and what it meant for those who played and witnessed it. (Nov.)

British journalist Christiansen (Paris Babylon) offers a curiously dry, encyclopedic look at the evolution of aunts (as in mother's and father's siblings) in this slender gift volume illustrated by Stephanie von Reiswitz. Starting with a “short history of the aunt” from her barest mention in classical literature to her finest hour in the Victorian era, the author moves into specific examples, from famous people raised or heavily influenced by their aunts (Tolstoy, Coco Chanel, Truman Capote, John Lennon) to famous aunts in literature (Aunt Leonie in Proust, the four Dodson sisters in The Mill on the Floss and Jane Eyre's malevolent Mrs. Reed). Alternating with brief bios of iconic and brand-name aunts are italicized testimonies by nieces and nephews of real-life aunts who've made a lasting impression on young lives, from places as far apart as Canada and Pakistan. Most interesting are the occasional in-depth accounts of heroic or eccentric aunts such as learned astronomer Caroline Herschel, whose relationship with her nephew defined her later years; and Aunt Jessie in Cecil Beaton's My Bolivian Aunt. Aunt Ginny, aka Virginia Woolf, earns a well-fleshed study, as does Aunt Jane Austen. (Nov.)

In this spiritual memoir, pianist prodigy and composer Bailiff delves into her early genius, her passion for her husband and kindred spirit, Paul, and her debilitating struggle with multiple sclerosis. Bailiff met her husband-to-be at Baltimore's Peabody Conservatory in 1986, where Paul studied composition and the author, at only 16, was a college sophomore and competition performer. The book alternates between the points of view of these two (which can be stilted), who ended up studying and working in Europe: the author became a soloist in Vienna, where she played with Leonard Bernstein's Viennese Symphony, and she and Paul married. However, a series of apparently stress-related illnesses and horrific bouts of pain culminated in her collapse onstage in 1992, and she was finally diagnosed with MS, which spelled the end of Bailiff's career. She and Paul, still living in Vienna, tried alternative therapies such as a macrobiotic diet and holistic medicine, as well as returning to their Jewish faith. With their move to Seattle and her pregnancy, Bailiff's grief only increased: their baby, David, died of heart problems at age two, and Paul committed suicide some months later. Despite the book's problematic structure, this is an astounding tale of talent and woe. (Nov.)

The bulk of the interviews in this oral history—co-edited by Sherr, his colleague at ABC News, freelance book editor Darnton, and Jennings's widow—were conducted in the days immediately following the anchorman's death from lung cancer in August 2005. Friends and fellow reporters retrace every step of his career, starting with his first jobs in Canadian radio to his coverage of major events like the 9/11 attacks. When he was just 26, he was hired by ABC to anchor the evening news, a job he himself would later admit he was “simply unqualified” for at the time. So he demanded to be sent out into the field as a foreign correspondent, building up his experience until he became what Ted Koppel calls “a complete package” as a journalist: smart, attractive and graceful under pressure. The tone of the interviews is predictably positive: even the criticism that he allowed ABC's ratings to slip by refusing to devote more airtime to O.J. Simpson's murder trial is immediately followed by praise for his expanded coverage of the Bosnian genocide. Sections on his personal life along with testimonials from statesmen like Bill Clinton and Colin Powell flesh out the portrait, reminding readers of the commanding presence Jennings held over broadcast journalism. (Nov.)

This comprehensive biography of the Broadway legend (1908–1984) may lack some of the vitality of Brian Kellow's Ethel Merman: A Life (which boasts more than 100 new interviews with Merman's contemporaries offering backstage anecdotes; see review below), but is better written and researched. Flinn offers a more psychologically complex portrait of the fiercely talented and competitive Merman (deftly sorting through and debunking rumors of her being a bigot, anti-Semite and homophobe). She also clears up speculation about Merman having a lesbian affair with Jacqueline Susann, which turns out to have been a one-sided obsession on the part of Susann (who later exacted revenge for her spurned affections by giving her Valley of the Dolls villainess, Helen Lawson, many of Merman's traits). Flinn's extensive use of Merman's 50+ scrapbooks (covering the early 1930s to 1970s) enables her to cover Merman's professional career with microscopic precision. But this is not just a recitation of Merman's long string of Broadway successes (beginning with 1930's Girl Crazy and stretching to 1970's Hello, Dolly!), Flinn (The New German Cinema) masterfully analyzes Merman's work on stage, screen and TV with a sophisticated eye for detail that will delight theater buffs. Photos not seen by PW. (Nov.)

With dueling Merman biographies being released just prior to her birth centennial in 2008 (see review above of Caryl Flinn's Brass Diva), Kellow's slimmer tome is the livelier of the two with new interviews with friends, family and co-workers bringing vibrant life and clarity to even familiar anecdotes. Kellow (The Bennetts: An Acting Family) is less interested in digging for psychological insights and bluntly paints a more temperamental portrait of the Broadway belter, but readers will be swept up in the colorful eyewitness accounts of her stage triumphs (Anything Goes; Call Me Madam; Annie Get Your Gun; Gypsy; Hello, Dolly!) and her less successful attempts to move from stage to screen (There's No Business Like Show Business; It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World). With four failed marriages (including a legendarily short one to Ernest Borgnine—she flew back alone from their honeymoon after just two days), a distant relationships with her son and daughter (who died of an accidental overdose in 1967) and volatile personality, there's plenty of diva drama. She found a younger audience with appearances on Love Boat and a show-stopping cameo in Airplane!, but an inoperable brain tumor finally silenced the bombastic singer in 1984. Testimonies from those who were there during her decline bring an emotional wallop to her final days. Photos not seen by PW. (Nov. 5)

This second and final volume (after Henry James: The Young Master) of Novick's epic James biography covers the period beginning immediately following the 1881 publication of The Portrait of a Lady and ends with James's extended final illness and death in 1916. In between, James's personal and literary life is exhaustively chronicled in a meticulous fashion. Novick's goal is to show James as an “active, passionate, engaged” man of his time, rather than as the repressed, passive man of literary myth, and he achieves this goal resoundingly by allowing the reader access to James on almost a daily level, often through his frequent letters to friends and family. Novick's first volume caused a small stir through its elucidation of James's romantic feelings toward Oliver Wendell Holmes, and this conclusion offers a similar opinion of his “romantic friendship” with the poet Arthur Benson. Despite the occasional dramatic flareups, however, including the recounting of a literary rivalry with Oscar Wilde and James's pledge of loyalty to the king of England during WWI, the book is most concerned with the day-to-day politics and publishing practices of James's lifetime, and any reader interested in the master's political development or prolific working methods would do well to turn to this definitive work. (Nov. 13)

Bestselling author Iris Chang's 2004 suicide at age 36 so shocked friends and colleagues that some initially claimed that Japanese extremists had murdered her to avenge Chang's acclaimed exposé in The Rape of Nanking of atrocities against Chinese civilians perpetrated by Japanese invaders in 1937–1938. Lacking the artistry of Ann Patchett's recent portrait of her friendship with writer Lucy Grealy, this effort by Kamen (All in My Head) is a tedious, obsessive, exploitative effort, drawing on her Salon.com eulogy to Chang. Kamen, who had known Chang since college, repeats some of the far-fetched, irresponsible conspiracy theories before settling on the sad truth that Chang, suffering from bipolar disorder, shot herself in the head with an antique pistol after much planning. Kamen describes her admiration for and jealousy of her “rival,” Chang's grating ambitiousness and the first-generation American's attempts at being a “real” American, epitomized by her campaign to be college homecoming queen. Kamen also probes the stigma of mental illness in the Asian-American community, Chang's sense of guilt over her son's autism, her veneer of perfection and the deterioration of her mental state. Despite its flaws, this could find a sizable audience among those Chinese-Americans who lionized Chang. 60,000 first printing. (Nov. 9)

The first collection of Huxley's correspondence since 1969, this presents hundreds of letters never before published, including previously embargoed love letters, offering an illuminating look at an author who left an indelible mark on the 20th century. Sexton's selections cover the full span of Huxley's life, from a six-year-old's note to his older brother in 1901 to his last letter to his son two months before Huxley's death from cancer in 1963. The letters, presented chronologically, illustrate Huxley's friendship with his patron, Lady Ottoline Morrell, and detail a young Huxley's search for employment. Huxley wrote fan letters to H.L. Mencken and Margaret Sanger, enjoyed lunching with Noël Coward and found Charlie Chaplin to be “[t]he most ravishing man.” Most notable are the playful and intimate letters to his mistress, Mary Hutchinson. To her, he frets about his “book about the future,” Brave New World: “It advances slowly—and the future becomes more and more appalling with every chapter.” Later letters detailing a plan to help a Jewish woman escape Nazi Germany by marrying an Englishman, show a determined antifascist and peace activist. Sexton, who co-edited Huxley's complete essays, helps reveal Huxley and the fast-changing world he loved to write about more fully than ever before. (Nov.)

As a basic literary overview of the major figures and events of the beat generation, Evans's handsome coffee-table book serves its purpose satisfactorily, if not with particular attention to insight or detail. Evans, for example, perfunctorily recounts Kerouac's oft-cited Benzedrine-fueled writing of On the Road with no mention of the fact that most recent publications have downgraded his principal writing aid to coffee. Someone looking for biographical complexity, however, has an ever-growing library of other volumes to choose from; this book's value lies largely in the photographs, original book covers and various other visual elements that enhance nearly every page. Evans does an elegant job of visually charting the beats' trajectory from the intensely personal inner circle of the '40s and mid-'50s to the national praise, misunderstanding and often ridicule that greeted their ideals in the late '50s and '60s. He accomplishes this transition by subtly shifting the bulk of visual material from intimate photos of the principal figures to an expanding network of junk (The Beat Generation Cookbook) and inspiration (the happenings of Claes Oldenberg) that mirrors the mass culture explosion of America through the decades. Color and b&w illus. (Nov.)

Career army officer Boyd breaks his half-century of silence to tell the remarkable story of a top-secret “black” operation behind enemy lines during the Korean War. Code-named Broken Reed, the operation sent a 10-man team into North Korea to collect badly needed intelligence “on enemy capabilities and intentions” to aid President Harry Truman in making “a fateful decision”: to escalate the conflict or accept a stalemate. Boyd, a young signal corps lieutenant, was selected for the mission because of his top-secret clearance and his knowledge of Morse code. Boyd would transmit whatever intelligence the team gathered to a communications aircraft over the Sea of Japan. Inserted into North Korea by submarine, the team collected and transmitted intelligence that “revealed a staggering enemy buildup” and convinced Truman not to escalate the conflict. Discovered and ambushed, seven of the team were killed and three wounded—two grievously. In a desperate flight, the wounded reached their rendezvous point and were rescued by a waiting ship. If true—and there are “no records, transcripts, or evidence” of the operation and Boyd is the “only known survivor”—this suspenseful saga of heroism and sacrifice is further proof that truth can be stranger than fiction. (Nov.)

One in every eight Hollywood movies features “a rape scene,” writes Bourke in the first chapter of this groundbreaking study of sexual violence. While much has been written about rape, notably Susan Brownmiller's pioneering 1975 Against Our Will, it has almost always focused on female victims/survivors. Bourke boldly focuses her study on the rapist: “Why do some people set out to sexually humiliate and torture others?” Bourke (An Intimate History of Killing), a professor of history at Birkbeck College in London, effectively synthesizes an enormous amount of material—from sentencing rates for rape to historical records—across a wide range of topics: the history of laws relating to sexual psychopathology in the United States and Britain; how military culture influences discussions of sexual assault; the legal and cultural differences between indecent exposure and exhibitionism. Bourke delineates the effect of popular culture on the public discourse about rape—including the politics of blaming popular culture for the sexual abuses at Abu Ghraib—and adds significantly to that discussion. In her final chapter, Bourke radically revises aspects of contemporary feminist thought. In this provocative, well-argued exploration, she constructs a theory of sexual violence with an emphasis on female bodily integrity, yet does not fall into easy gender categorization such as accusing all men of sexual aggression. (Nov.)

Nickell, a senior research fellow at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (Real-Life X-Files), relates short anecdotes about 40 years spent searching for the truth behind stories of psychic abilities, alien encounters, faith healing and other paranormal phenomena. As a former stage magician, private investigator and folklorist, Nickell has the right skills to separate truth from confabulation. Blurry photographs of ghosts said to haunt a historic Louisiana plantation or the gas chamber at Dachau are explained as photographic errors, if not outright fakery. Sightings of ghosts or religious figures in burnt tortillas most likely result from pareidolia, the ability to find shapes in random patterns like clouds. But Nickell's no-nonsense style fails to brings his stories to life. Confusion results from widely separated discussions of seemingly similar phenomena and from the inclusion of nonparanormal topics such as Jack the Ripper, the possible historical sources for Frankenstein and the fake cancer drug Laetrile. Finally, details are lacking on Nickell's “Ghostly Encounters Questionnaire,” which he claims shows that those who experience paranormal events have “fantasy-prone” personalities. Nickell's work is fascinating, but one wishes he were better at describing it. 68 photos. (Nov.)

As Keynesianism has been surpassed by a resurgent free market ideology, many of the policies, institutions and regulations of the New Deal have been abandoned in favor of a more business-friendly orientation. Kuttner argues that these changes have further enriched the already wealthy at the expense of America's lower and middle classes, exacerbating inequality and systematically weakening the economy. The controversial American Prospect editor favors a form of “soft capitalism,” in which the vicissitudes of the market and the risk to which it exposes ordinary Americans are tempered by government intervention—or, as he colorfully puts it, “public regulation of the market's self-cannibalizing tendencies.” Bringing a wealth of historical knowledge to bear on the problems of financial regulation, Kuttner compares the causes of the Great Depression and other economic crises to behavior patterns evident in our market system today, with unfavorable conclusions. However, much of the argumentation may be too technical to hold the interest of a nonspecialist for very long. While some of Kuttner's statistics are dubious and some of his policy recommendations have been thoroughly and universally discredited (e.g., reregulation of the airline industry, bringing the Federal Reserve under presidential control), his book is a useful corrective to more extreme libertarian works. (Nov.)

Paleontologist Novacek (Time Traveler) tells the story of our ecosystem and warns that humans are transforming it so drastically that it may not be habitable in the future. Discussing the evolutionary processes that led to the diversification of all life, he asserts that people who reject the theory of evolution impede efforts to preserve the ecosystem because they ignore the importance of biological diversity. To demonstrate biodiversity's crucial role, he considers the evolution of flowering plants and the myriad insect species that pollinate them, stressing that as we decimate these insect populations, we interfere with “the very core of what has been built by evolution.” Extinction is normal during the course of evolution, but studies cited by the author show that every year tens of thousands of species may now be going extinct, thousands of times faster than they would naturally do so, as humans exploit the ecosystem by cutting forests, exhausting sources of fresh water, polluting the air, destroying habitats, depleting the ocean and introducing invasive species to new habitats. We can avoid this, Novacek contends, if we learn to appreciate the history of our ecosystem in all its beauty and complexity, and have the will to reverse our destructive course. His timely book, with its wealth of lucidly presented information, should go a long way toward promoting this appreciation. (Nov.)

Emphasizing strategies for maintaining an indigenous cultural identity within the dominant society's constant assault on tradition and memory, this anthology of contemporary Native American writing is a sequel to 2003's Genocide of the Mind, which emphasized the assimilation of indigenous peoples. In more than 30 autobiographical essays and personal reflections, writers, educators and artists representing a wide variety of tribal affiliations address such battlegrounds as history, poverty, language and image-making in contemporary struggles for indigenous identity and self-representation. The volume also includes a selection of artwork that echoes the ideas advanced by these writers. In a spirit of resolve that Simon J. Ortiz describes as “resistance against disappearance,” the pieces invariably emphasize intergenerational dependence, as in Scott Richard Lyons's charming firsthand appreciation of the life and career of the late Vine Deloria. Also shown is the individual's need to reconfigure tradition within the present, as in Annabel Wong's reflections on photography and self-portraiture or Sherman Alexie's episodic “unauthorized autobiography.” As Alexie notes, “So much has been taken from us that we hold onto the smallest things left with all the strength we have.” And yet, as this illuminating volume amply demonstrates, there remain sovereign worlds to discover, reconfigure and repossess. (Nov.)

In an unusual take on America's leadership crisis, Maccoby calls for a new kind of leader: collaborators rather than stern bureaucrats, who are able to attract a new kind of follower. For workers in the information economy who are “skeptical of father figures,” psychoanalyst Maccoby (Narcissistic Leaders) advocates relationships to bosses that are less parental and more siblinglike. Exploring “why people follow different leaders in different times and circumstances,” he rests his analysis on Freud's concept of unconscious transference. Though Maccoby's language is straightforward, skeptics will question the book's emphasis on personality: today's workers seem too detached to see their bosses and CEOs as siblings, much less parental figures. The author moves from theory to practice in calling for “exceptional” leaders to find new sources of clean energy, quality education and universal health care. In a detailed, hands-on chapter, Maccoby brings together leadership, personality types and organizational design to describe how a premier health-care organization should function. But it's his chapter on “the president we need”—examining personality types and managing styles—that will draw attention. Maccoby makes no endorsement for 2008, but he lays out the flaws of the current president, who, he writes, “has taken big gambles without fully understanding the odds or the consequences of failure.” (Nov.)

This eye-opening but muddled volume tells companies to “remain true to self” or, at least, to appear genuine, arguing that “in a world increasingly filled with deliberately and sensationally staged experiences... consumers choose to buy or not buy based on how real they perceive an offering to be.” Everything that forms a company's identity—from its name and practices to its product details—affects consumers' perceptions of its authenticity. Juggling philosophical concepts, in-depth case studies and ad slogans, Gilmore and Pine (The Experience Economy) run into trouble with a chapter called “Fake, Fake, It's All Fake,” which eviscerates the entire idea of authenticity: “Despite claims of 'real' and 'authentic' in product packaging, nothing from businesses is really authentic. Everything is artificial, manmade, fake.” The argument is unexpected and perhaps brilliant—yet rather confusing, since most of Authenticity argues that businesses should strive to not only appear authentic but to be so. The book's bullet points, charts and matrices add to the tangle, as the authors' early advice (“your business offerings must get real”) becomes a demand for furrowed-brow soul-searching. Still, the prose is snappy and conversational, and the book is densely packed with insights and provocations, and may inspire some executives to consider how consumers see their company. (Nov.)

Less a memoir than an extended brochure for his nonprofit institution, the Carter Center, President Carter's latest book ruminates on his work since leaving the Oval Office. With major programs in election monitoring, conflict negotiation and disease prevention and eradication, the center has been active in nearly 100 nations since its 1984 inception. Carter structures this book as a series of vignettes detailing his involvement with a specific nation or issue, from Haiti to schistosomiasis. While he does not hesitate to criticize American policy, those hoping for extensive political analysis will be disappointed. Some of the chapters provide useful insight into international development practices and high-level diplomatic negotiation, and Carter presents a compelling rebuttal to criticisms of his hobnobbing with dictators and totalitarians. Sharing the 39th president's boundless energy and enthusiasm for humanitarian work, the book is written in a highly personal and informal style: Carter exults in having convinced his Chinese minders to allow him and Rosalynn to bike freely around 1981 Beijing, and fumes with indignation upon being subjected to tobacco advertising on a flight home from the Balkans. Ultimately, though, this book doesn't measure up to his bestsellers of recent years. (Oct.)

Hungarian-Canadian author and sailor Máté (The Hills of Tuscany) recounts in wry, candid detail how he rebuilt a Tuscan ruin into a world-class winery. Living in Tuscany with his artist wife and son while savoring the landscape, food and pleasant neighbors wasn't enough for Máté, who admits he thrives on adversity. He wanted his own castle and finagles the purchase of a 13th-century friary in Montalcino, with a proper forno (oven), a forest crammed with porcini and 60 acres of land—15 of which he fashions over three hard years of work into a vineyard sprouting robust harvests of Sangiovese, merlot, cabernet sauvignon and Syrah grapes. His diary of sorts regales the reader on the process of restoring the ancient ruin, called La Colombaio: first by detailing how an Etruscan house was constructed, then by observing how the various workmen were hired (and what they ate for lunch). While hacking in the forest, he finds the remains of a 3,000-year-old city, inviting the interest of archeologists. Máté breaks from the construction and excavation for treks through the Dolomites before returning to prepare for the toilsome but ultimately satisfying vendemmia (harvest). (Oct.)

Memoirs have become a vital genre in Holocaust studies, and while all are important, the uniqueness of some makes them especially important. Mayer Kirshenblatt (b. 1916) grew up in the small Polish town of Apt, a center of rabbinical culture, and in 1934 emigrated to Canada. When he was in his mid-70s his wife and daughter urged him to paint a visual record of the everyday life of his youth. Kirshenblatt's paintings are amazing—a cross between a childlike realism and the embroidered fantasy of memory; they convey a sense of boyhood innocence tinged with grief. The subjects range from people shopping in town stores and chopping wood to celebrations like weddings and the festival of Succoth. Kirshenblatt has an eye for quirky visual and social detail, as in his picture The Kleptomaniac Slipping a Fish Down Her Bosom. These exactingly reproduced paintings are enhanced by Kirshenblatt's equally fresh memoirs, transmitted to his daughter, Barbara (co-editor, The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times): from jokes that emanated from the women's mikve, or ritual bath, to the mechanics of the local laundry. This collection of pre-Holocaust memories will be a lasting contribution to our understanding of Eastern European Jewish life and culture before its destruction. (Oct.)

Art environments are as unique as the individuals who have created them,” writes Umberger, but she may as well have said that the individuals are as unique as the environments they create. The bulk of this coffee-table book consists of illustrated biographies of more than 20 of these artists. They created first and foremost for themselves, to decorate the world around them, to occupy their time and their mind, to stave off loneliness, even for self-preservation. This is the joy of folk art: it is personal and generous. David Butler saw his art as protective charms. Emery Blagdon, who watched both of his parents die following painful illnesses, called his creation The Healing Machine and felt that it “sent energy coursing through the room and drew deleterious matter out of an afflicted body.” The biographies and photographs (both historic) and lavish, full-color documentary photos provide the best, possibly the sole, access to these imagined worlds for a larger audience. The book also justifiably promotes the preservation and collection work being done by the Kohler Arts Center, where Umberger is a senior curator, which specializes in built environments, particularly in the Midwest. (Oct.)

These two volumes in Acanthus's Urban Domestic Architecture series cover a 50-year period that saw a thousand-fold increase in population in an area whose architecture, according to Watters, reflected a “city in search of a past to inform its future.” In 1885, Charles Lummis walked from Cincinnati to Los Angles with a conviction that the purity of California's Spanish past should pave the way for architectural development. But the few Mission Revival projects he sponsored were soon overwhelmed by homes built in developments for the very wealthy, who favored adaptations of the types of homes they had left behind in the East or the Midwest. There were Queen Anne and colonial revival mansions and English country estates, with the occasional medieval castle or Moorish palace. Watters cites Elmer Grey, one of the more thoughtful and intellectual of the architects, who wrote in 1916 that California's “peculiar province is... to harmonize the styles of other climes, and her own distinctive style to consist of beautifully welded hybrids.” In Volume II, Watters shows that by the 1920s a Mediterranean revival style, sensitive to the climate and terrain, dominated the field. Each volume contains an introduction to the changing social situation from a time when oil wells were pumping in Beverly Hills until Hollywood and aeronautics helped the city weather the Depression. In all, Watters, who teaches at USC's architecture school, discusses 80 homes, illustrated with 400 color (not seen by PW) and black-and-white archival photographs and floor plans, a valuable record of houses now mostly lost to later development. Short biographical profiles of the architects provide helpful information on the many unfamiliar names. (Oct.)

With Divine Nobodies, “emerging church” leader Palmer touched a nerve with readers who gravitate toward cutting-edge evangelical writers like Brian McLaren and Donald Miller. Similarly, this book employs a personal, homespun style to dissent from Christianity-as-usual. Palmer examines such spiritual disciplines as honing one's belief system in accordance with biblical principles; advancing the gospel outside of church walls; dismantling ineffective church practices; and discovering purpose in unexpected places. He might raise the hackles of some evangelicals with a confessional narrative of putting aside the Bible for a season, recognizing that it was at the center of “...a religion that had left [him] empty, exhausted, and disillusioned.” Palmer shed this conventional religion as he purposefully “tuned out preachers and others quoting or referring to it,” and writes that the result was that God spoke to him through nature, people, art, film and music. Palmer might be termed a renegade, but most young evangelicals will see him as a rebel with a cause and a message worth considering. (Dec. 4)

Ph.D.s and writers Bock (Jesus According to Scripture) and Wallace (author of one of the most widely used textbooks on New Testament Greek grammar) team up to address what they refer to as “Jesusanity”—the trend to “dethrone” Jesus and view him as a wise and revered leader rather than as the Christ of Christianity. They examine the ideas of numerous scholars and theorists, including Bart Ehrman, Elaine Pagels, Marcus Borg and James Tabor. With precision and care drawn from their years of research, they study six key claims—including the idea that the original New Testament manuscripts were corrupted beyond recovery, that Jesus' message was primarily political, that new gospels like Thomas and Judas throw traditional views of Jesus into doubt and that Jesus' tomb has been discovered. What emerges is an appreciation for the rigors of biblical study and a wealth of support for traditional views of Jesus. The writing is at times unclear and difficult, and could not compete on its own with the books Bock and Wallace critique. However, this overview provides a concise and well-researched evangelical Christian response to numerous popular theories, and conservative readers will be especially likely to welcome it. (Nov. 6)

As minister of Harvard University's Memorial Church, Gomes was a popular preacher well before The Good Book became a bestseller in 1996. Several subsequent books were, or read like, first-rate sermon collections, but this is an incisive original aimed at cautious defenders of conventional wisdom. Asserting that “we are meant to go beyond the Bible in order to discover the gospel,” Gomes points away from the past toward “a future in which promise and fulfillment meet.” Meanwhile, “we must manage to live in the world as it is”—a world steeped in hostility, suffering and injustice. If we take the gospel seriously, “then like Jesus we will risk all, and might even lose all.” Still, we hang on to a muscular hope that is “not mere nostalgia for what never was, but an earnest expectation of what is to be.” A born storyteller, Gomes knows how to spin an aphorism: “The opposite of fear is not courage but compassion.” And indeed his tone is compassionate even when he chides those who fear conflict and change, but especially when he extols God's provision “for the healing and care of all his creation, and not simply our little part of it.” (Nov.)

Sadly, the name of Lilias Trotter is no longer remembered by many people, except those 19th-century art experts who recall her as the painter who caused art critic John Ruskin to rhapsodically change his mind about the ability of women to be artists. Though all but forgotten now as an artist, Trotter (1853–1928) is venerated as a pioneering Christian missionary—she founded and funded a mission in North Africa where she served for nearly 40 years. In this gift book, Rockness, author of the Trotter biography A Passion for the Impossible, brings together Trotter's dual lives—promising artist in her 20s, devoted missionary in her 30s and beyond—by pairing Trotter's paintings and sketches with devotional thoughts from her journals and many books, including Parables of the Cross. Trotter was clearly a deep thinker with a poetic soul, and her paintings practically shimmer on the page. While they match up perfectly with her devotions, the scripture references can sometimes feel less relevant or tacked on; it would also be helpful if the source or context of each Trotter quote were identified. Still, this lovely book is a feast for the eyes and the spirit. (Nov.)

In this collection of meditations on some of the themes that undergird and define the Christian spiritual life, Jordan-Lake confronts what it means for believers to experience “the difficult and disconcerting and, frankly, appalling teachings of Jesus.” A professor at Belmont University and a former Baptist chaplain at Harvard University, the author mines her personal history as a pastor, mother, social justice activist and friend to illumine and interpret ideas such as resurrection and hope. Sometimes wry, occasionally stern, Jordan-Lake, with a touch of Southern gothic sensibility, argues that foundational concepts of Christian living, like worship and blessedness, may often be disruptive, disturbing, frequently joyful and often deeply life-changing experiences. Although she has a gift for welcoming, lucid and insightful prose, there is something a bit ephemeral about this volume, as with a sermon in which an audience remembers the story but forgets the point. As though to balance out the structural weakness of such a heavily anecdotal book, Jordan-Lake includes discussion questions for each chapter, so that readers may grapple with how these exigent words of Jesus can be applied to their own lives. (Nov.)

After his first stay at a monastery 25 years ago, writer and social activist Claassen knew monastic retreats were destined to become a significant part of his life. Having found a community that understood his hunger for silence and solitude, he went on to repeat the experience many times at monasteries in North and South America. This book, an account of one such retreat at Assumption Abbey in Missouri, brings together Claassen's many and diverse experiences both inside and outside various monastery walls. In the context of his own retreat, the author skillfully mingles details from his life with those of the monks and monastery visitors he meets during his stay, adding flashbacks to his past and sketches of his dreams. In so doing, he shows how “The retreats are not an escape, but rather an opportunity to come face to face with my shadows and with my light.” Claassen, who was raised as a Protestant, confirmed as a Catholic and now attends Quaker meetings, writes appreciatively of the welcome he has always received at the various monasteries he has visited. Such communities, he says, are inclusive and nonjudgmental, rejecting the “conquer and convert” approach to religion. Claassen's blended religious background and perspective make this an inviting book for readers of any or no faith, and his photographs provide added visual interest. (Nov.)

The recent spate of cataclysmic natural events—including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan—drew editors de Flon and Wallace to collect this set of essays from Catholic scholars and writers (about half in religious orders). Struggling with the difficult topic of divine involvement in the world—are these disasters really “acts of God”?—the authors explore the natural world, the Bible and faith to gain insight into the mystery of human suffering. Drawing from personal reflection as well as theologians like Walter Brueggemann and Jürgen Moltmann, this unfocused but sometimes interesting collection includes advice for dealing with tragedies, discussion of Catholic moral theology and two essays presumably for preachers on liturgy in times of crisis. Several authors consider the idea that some natural disasters, like Hurricane Katrina, may involve human agency—and moral accountability. The writing is generally weak and too often pedestrian, but this book is an earnest attempt to address a key problem of faith without coming to easy (or offensive) answers; study questions and suggestions for further reading are included. (Nov.)

As the son of Robert H. Schuller, founding pastor of the Crystal Cathedral megachurch in California and host of The Hour of Power television broadcast, Schuller (Getting Through What You're Going Through) grew up knowing that he would have big shoes to fill. Although he is inheriting the ministry reins, Schuller's goal has been to do so in his own way, and in this book he hopes to inspire others to fulfill their God-given potential and pursue their dreams. The encouragement is fairly trite: Schuller encourages readers that God is with them on their journey, that bad things that happen will be a good part of God's overall plan, and that God has a unique purpose for everyone. While there is a lot of scripture throughout, these are shallow skimmings, with brief thoughts held together by numerous stories and one analogy after another. Tinges of prosperity gospel teaching and undercurrents of pop psychology lead to advice like “Christ died for the purpose of ensuring you success in your journey,” and “Develop an overview and create your own personal map.” Despite a built-in audience and a coveted foreword from Dr. Phil, this book may alienate readers with its stale, unclear writing. (Nov.)

The traditional interpretation of the Protestant Reformation's translation of the Scriptures into various vernacular languages is that it liberated common folk from the prisons of authoritarian readings of these writings by priests. While the translations of William Tyndale and Martin Luther, among others, most certainly had such an effect, they also, according to Harvard English professor Simpson, encouraged a literal reading of Scripture that gave rise to violence against those who refused to read the Bible in the same way. Far from a liberating process, reading Scripture involved recognition of one's unworthiness—reinforced by Scripture—and the knowledge that one's salvation had already been determined. Thus, as Simpson points out, Protestants' readings of the Scriptures put them in a double bind; the Bible they loved induced in them a self-loathing because they knew they could never live up to the many laws it required of them. Simpson's style can be workmanlike and repetitious, summarizing information at the end of each chapter and informing readers what to expect in the next. Drawing deeply on the history of biblical translation and of English literature from Tyndale through Thomas More to Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Simpson's story often challenges conventional readings of the history of biblical interpretation. (Nov.)

British philosopher Flew has long been something of an evangelist for atheism, debating theologians and pastors in front of enormous crowds. In 2004, breathless news reports announced that the nonagenarian had changed his mind. This book tells why. Ironically, his arguments about the absurdity of God-talk launched a revival of philosophical theists, some of whom, like Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne, were important in Flew's recent conversion to theism. Breakthroughs in science, especially cosmology, also played a part: if the speed or mass of the electron were off just a little, no life could have evolved on this planet. Perhaps the arrogance of the “New Atheists” also emboldened him, as Flew taunts them for failing to live up to the greatness of atheists of yore. The book concludes with an appendix by New Testament scholar and Anglican bishop N.T. Wright, arguing for the coherence of Christian belief in the resurrection. Flew praises Wright, though he maintains some distance still from orthodox Christianity. The book will be most avidly embraced by traditional theists seeking argumentative ammunition. It sometimes disappoints: quoting other authorities at length, citing religion-friendly scientists for pages at a time and belaboring side issues, like the claim that Einstein was really a religious believer of sorts. (Nov.)

This first book in English from Korean-American pastor and prolific author Kang (Oriental Mission Church in Los Angeles) presents 52 reflections on spiritual growth. “Most of us long for transformation but are afraid to change,” he writes, focusing on the deepening of the interior journey. Kang identifies with both his Asian and American roots, and his emphasis on balance and harmony reflects Eastern spiritualities interwoven with his orthodox, biblical evangelicalism. He focuses on simple metaphors and stories from both the Old and New Testaments; themes include silence, solitude, waiting, the wilderness, fruitfulness and self-giving as well as care of the soul. Kang gently urges “character before success, integrity before popularity, maturity before growth and service to others before accomplishment in your own life.” He is direct in his countercultural insistence that ”worldly wealth isn't true wealth; external success should never be our aim.” Rather than providing practical advice on spiritual disciplines, this book leans more toward devotional reading. While some of his observations are vague, Kang's sensible wisdom and quiet emphasis on depth over superficiality on the path toward change make this book a refreshing return to themes of classic Christian spirituality. Richard J. Foster (Celebration of Discipline) provides the foreword. (Nov.)

Ten years ago, professors Stephen Robinson and Craig Blomberg pioneered the Mormon-evangelical dialogue book with How Wide the Divide?, in which they addressed the differences between Mormonism and evangelicalism on issues of Scripture, salvation, the nature of God and the role of Christ. Now, Millet (a professor of religious education at BYU, the flagship Mormon university) and McDermott (a Lutheran pastor and college professor) take up that gauntlet, calling upon years of friendship and conversation to present a more focused, specialized exchange between an evangelical and a Mormon. By concentrating solely on how both faiths address the identity and meaning of Jesus Christ (a topic Millet has previously discussed in A Different Jesus?), this dialogue delves deeply into issues Robinson and Blomberg could only skim. It also means that this more scholarly and heavily footnoted book will be a challenging read for the average evangelical or Mormon who simply wants an overview of both religions' theology. The authors assume a familiarity with theological terms, Christian history and soteriological debates, and some of their explanations are highly technical. For the serious student, however, this in-depth doctrinal comparison of Mormonism and evangelical Christianity, written in a spirit of mutual respect, will be a treasure trove of information. (Nov.)