Nonfiction Reviews: Week of 12/10/2007

What saves this youthful memoir from being a dreary litany of boozy nights spent entertaining drunken big-spenders at Tokyo clubs is American translator Jacobson’s knowledge of Japanese culture and language. Having originally landed in Japan in 2003 after college at McGill to work as a kindergarten teacher, Jacobson was fired from her job at the Happy Learning English School in Yokosuka city because the psychiatrist she saw for anxiety revealed her condition in a letter to her employer. Outspoken about discrimination against women in Japanese society, fond of drinking and prone to eating disorders and self-cutting, Jacobson drifted among teaching jobs before settling into the more lucrative but taxing employment as a hostess at the Palace, on Tokyo’s Ginza strip, where the reigning mama-san taught her the fine art of being a decorative “bar flower” who serves men drinks and light conversation without being touched. Jacobson soon found her job leaching into all aspects of her life, and the paid dates, drinking and partying prompted a destructive spiral of cutting and blacking out. Truly fascinated by Japanese mores, Jacobson nonetheless elevates her story with compelling digressions into ukiyo (“the floating world”), geisha tradition and the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923, among other topics, for a candid version of cultural immersion. (Apr.)

“Ayy Blood, we gotta take a ride. Hop yo’ ass in the bawr,” shouts a veteran gangbanger to Morris near the beginning of this disappointing work. Raised in poverty by a crack-smoking single mother, Morris spins a woeful tale of constant violence, serious crime and murder galore. Shuttled back and forth across the country as a boy, he quickly falls in with the Bloods—an African-American street gang whose thirst for inflicting pain on others seems rarely slaked. Attack breeds revenge in an endless cycle of death, with Morris placing himself at the center of it all. “There’s an adrenaline rush when I whip my burner out,” he writes. “It’s a confidence-booster to see how the toughest guys cry for their lives when I cock that shit back.” Obviously meant to be raw and from the “street,” this whole project reads as self-aggrandizing. Compounding the amateurish feel are clunky poems penned by Jason Davis preceding each chapter. If all this is meant to inspire African-American and Latino youth to turn their backs on the thug life, as Terrie Williams writes in the overwrought afterword, it fails miserably. What it does is reinforce stereotypes that already dominate the mainstream media. (Apr.)

Numbering 25 million, the Kurds remain the largest ethnic group in the world without its own nation. This is not for want of trying, as British reporter Lawrence writes in this lucid, eye-opening account of the long, brutal struggle that continues despite opposition from Mideastern nations and the U.S. After centuries of oppression under the Turks, the Kurds had a chance at statehood when the Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1918. The Middle East was remapped, with the Kurds divided among Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Decades of bloody rebellion were ignored until Saddam Hussein’s defeat in the First Gulf War. The Kurds rose again, anticipating U.S. assistance. Only media horror at Hussein’s genocidal suppression of their revolt galvanized Western nations into action. When the “no-fly” zone was established in northern Iraq, Baghdad lost its capacity for governing the Kurds. Still fearful of Hussein, the Kurds cooperated eagerly as the U.S. planned a second Iraq invasion, but the Kurds’ vision of statehood remains unfulfilled. Readers will close this engrossing but disturbing history with respect for a people that has struggled for millennia and whose difficulties continue to generate headlines. 30 b&w photos. (Apr.)

What was the fate of Marie-Thérèse (1778–1851) after the beheadings of her parents, King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette of France? Nagel, professor of humanities at Marymount Manhattan College (Mistress of the Elgin Marbles), relates the dramatic highs and lows experienced by the woman known as “Madame Royale.” Her uncle, the Austrian emperor, wanted her to marry his brother, when she escaped from the Temple Prison at age 17 after three hellish years. Instead, she endured a loveless and childless marriage to her Bourbon cousin the Duc d’Angoulême, but became the close political ally of their uncle, Louis XVIII, whom she joined in his peripatetic exile and saw in his triumphant return to France in 1814 as king. Marie Thérèse survived the 1830 abdication of her father-in-law, Charles X, and died in exile. Known for her kindness and wit, she also endured persistent rumors that she was not the “real” Marie-Thérèse and the constant threat of abduction and assassination. Nagel’s highly detailed and sympathetic account competently fills in historical gaps, but, unfortunately, is hampered by plodding prose. 16 pages of color illus; map. (Apr.)

British professor Milne borrows the title of his book from a comparison made by a critic of Rostow’s influence on Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, but the Rostow presented here has none of the Russian monk’s cynicism or pragmatism. Rostow began as an idealist who put his faith in the American Dream’s exportability in both its political and economic contexts. Like President Kennedy, he believed in taking the Cold War to America’s enemies—and extending it to those likely to fall under Communist influence. With the force of a powerful intellect and a persuasive personality, Rostow supported intervention in Vietnam, the war’s successive Americanization and “staying the course.” His idealism hardened into ideology in the Johnson years. Milne describes Rostow’s principled refusal to concede that the war was un-winnable and his inability to recognize the consequences of a truncated Great Society and intensified Cold War. An unrepentant Rostow spent the remaining years of his career indicting others for their irresolution in waging what he still considered a necessary war. Milne’s indictment of Rostow depends on his interpretation of Vietnam as “misguided” and its consequences as “uniformly bleak.” Both interpretations are becoming debatable enough to make this book a polemic as well as a scholarly study. (Mar.)

London-based novelist Louvish (The Cosmic Follies) is a former documentary filmmaker who has written biographies of W.C. Fields, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers and Mae West. Shifting from comedy to drama, he surveys the career of pioneering director DeMille in this well-researched, unauthorized biography. When the DeMille estate offered no assistance, Louvish was forced “to relate DeMille’s saga largely through his films,” so the reader gets only occasional brief glimpses of the director’s “harem” of mistresses and similar intimate items of his private life. DeMille is mainly remembered today as the creator of lavish Hollywood epics such as Samson and Delilah (1949) and The Ten Commandments (1956), but the flamboyant biblical spectacles were only a fraction of DeMille’s 80 films. His 1930s films focused on frontier America, and during that same period he became a familiar voice in American households, reaching 40 million weekly listeners as the host of the popular Lux Radio Theater. Louvish highlights the hokum and hype, but he also offers his insightful analyses of the films, capturing the “pictorial beauty” and apocalyptic aspects along with DeMille’s working methods and industry innovations. 58 b&w illus. (Mar. 4)

After writing about the folk scene of the early 1960s in Positively 4th Street, Hajdu goes back a decade to examine the censorship debate over comic books, casting the controversy as a prelude to the cultural battle over rock music. Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent, the centerpiece of the movement, has been reduced in public memory to a joke—particularly the attack on Batman for its homoeroticism—but Hajdu brings a more nuanced telling of Wertham’s background and shows how his arguments were preceded by others. Yet he comes down hard on the unsound research techniques and sweeping generalizations that led Wertham to conclude that nearly all comic books would inspire antisocial behavior in young readers. There are no real heroes here, only villains and victims; Hajdu turns to the writers and artists whose careers were ruined when censorship and other legal restrictions gutted the comics industry, and young kids who were coerced into participating in book burnings by overzealous parents and teachers. With such a meticulous setup, the history builds slowly but the main attraction—EC Comics publisher Bill Gaines’s attempt to explain in a Senate committee hearing how an illustration of a man holding a severed head could be in “good taste”—holds all the dramatic power it has acquired as it’s been told among fans over the past half-century. (Mar.)

In this “unconventional, nonsequential, generational autobiography, AKA cultural memoir,” Moore, a professor of English at Ohio University, describes growing up as a child of the 1950s. “Panic” characterized his youth, as he watched “the symbols of safety and security” on television—Leave It to Beaver, Father Knows Best—while his real world fell apart. His mother had left his often-inebriated father, but couldn’t handle raising the children herself. “Paranoia” was the theme of his teen years, as JFK and King were assassinated; the draft and the Vietnam War drove young men to extremes; and characters like Charlie Manson, Squeaky Fromme, Mark David Chapman and John Hinckley Jr. all took aim at public figures. Moore’s own paranoia was only heightened by using LSD and smoking dope while tooling around in his VW Beetle. Miraculously, “desire began to overtake panic”; he discovered a passion for writing, which has focused him ever since. Moore lays all this out in a series of free-form, almost playful essays; only there’s something serious here, too, as he realizes our history seems to repeat itself: the Patriot Act sounds like 1984 and Iraq feels like Vietnam all over again. In the end, Moore (The Accidental Buddhist) takes readers on a quirky, entertaining joyride. (Mar.)

In his grumpy but informative memoir, Wareham, the lead guitarist and vocalist for seminal independent rock bands Galaxie 500 and Luna, recounts the highs and lows of his life as a musician. While Wareham’s narrative voice is not particularly warm, he is refreshingly frank (though quite defensive) about the personal conflicts that broke up Galaxie 500, as well as about his later, somewhat more conventional rock and roll antics, which included drug use and infidelity. For most readers, the heart of the book will come in the first hundred odd pages, which focus on the financially difficult but artistically fruitful run of Galaxie 500, featuring Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang, in the late 1980s and early ’90s. The stories of nights spent on the floors of college radio station managers and recording classic albums in three days are the stuff of do-it-yourself legend, and at its best, the book serves as a clear narrative of the travails of independent musicians in the days before mp3s and Pitchfork Media (which gets a snarky shout-out). Wareham gets a lot of mileage out of frustration with booking agents, band mates and radio stations, and over the course of the book, one gets a prevailing sense of how truly difficult it can be for some great musicians to break through the mass media wall. (Mar.)

Torgovnick, who skipped all of her Durham, N.C., high school’s mandatory pep rallies, decided at age 25 that cheerleaders are largely misunderstood and set about to illuminate the realities of the sport. Inspired by research she first did for a Jane article about the rise of cheerleading injuries, she set out to cover the 2006–2007 season, from the tryouts to the national championship, following three highly ranked teams: the Stephen F. Austin University Lumberjacks, in Nacogdoches, Tex.; the Southern University Jaguars, in Baton Rouge, La.; and the University of Memphis All-Girl Tigers. One commonality she finds among the majority of the young women is the myopic obsession with appearance and thinness, particularly for flyers, who are lifted and thrown. Cheerleaders, she writes, are “not a carrot-stick kind of crowd” although an entire chapter is devoted to one woman’s story of how an addiction to cocaine to lose weight resulted in accolades from her coach and teammates. Torgovnick has clearly done her homework, though important characters and major narratives are lost within scores of inconsequential details. (Mar.)

In 1986, after rescuing a live sheep from a pile of dead animals in a stockyard, the author founded Farm Sanctuary, an organization that rescues discarded living animals from stockyards, slaughterhouses and factory farms; provides shelters for them; and advocates for humane animal treatment. In this impassioned book, Baur paints an appealing picture of these shelters and the animals that live there far from the brutality of industrial farming, which he describes in detail. Some of this inhumane treatment is not news—chickens packed into tiny cages—but accounts of living animals discarded like garbage because they are ill or weak surprise. Baur’s nonprofit promotes legal remedies to stop the inhumane conditions chronicled. He believes that the best way to demonstrate concern for industrially farmed animals is to adopt a vegan lifestyle, but doesn’t proselytize. Rather, he makes a strong case that meat eaters have an ethical responsibility to ensure that the animals they eat have not been abused. His well-argued book includes helpful lists of resources and organizations that deal with factory farming, animal welfare rights, humane food production and the environment. 18 b&w photos. (Mar.)

Written by the owners of advertising agency The Gate Worldwide, this book aims to take the sacred cows of business out to pasture, showing how adages like “always trust your research,” “success breeds success” and “the customer is always right,” are not only old and tired but may lead a business completely astray. At first the book’s quirky, humorous style is a welcome change from drier business books, but after a while this chattiness starts to distract from the advice, which tends to be old itself, less than cutting edge. For instance, the Super Bowl XXIX Budweiser campaign in which frogs croaked out the company name was clever, but is now 12 years old; likewise, one discussion of Nike harks back to the Michael Jordan era. The authors may be experts in their field, but this book leaves the reader asking, “Where’s the beef?” (Mar.)

Dreaded by competitors, “the China price” has become “the lowest price possible,” the hallmark of China’s incredibly cheap, ubiquitous manufacturers. Financial Times editor Harney explores the hidden price tag for China’s economic juggernaut. It’s a familiar but engrossing tale of Dickensian industrialization. Chinese factory hands work endless hours for miserable wages in dusty, sweltering workshops, slowly succumbing to occupational ailments or suddenly losing a limb to a machine. Coal-fired power plants spew pollutants into nearly unbreathable air. Migrants from the countryside, harassed by China’s hukou system of internal passports, form a readily exploitable labor pool with few legal protections. The system is fueled by Western investment and, Harney observes, hypocrisy. Retailers like Wal-Mart impose social responsibility codes on their Chinese suppliers, but refuse to pay the costs of raising labor standards; the result is a pervasive system of cheating through fake employment records and secret uninspected factories, to which Western companies turn a blind eye. But Harney also finds stirrings of change; aided by regional labor shortages, rising wages and intrepid activists. Chinese workers are demanding—and gradually winning—more rights. Packed with facts, figures and sympathetic portraits of Chinese workers and managers, Harney’s is a perceptive take on the world’s workshop. (Mar. 31)

Why, according to 2003 figures, do women constitute 49% of law school graduates but only 27% of practicing lawyers? Defying taboos, Pinker, a psychologist and columnist for the Globe & Mail, presents a compelling case for a biological explanation of why men and women make different career choices. Drawing on comprehensive scientific and social evidence and case studies, she proposes that hormones are a determining factor. The hormones predominant in men lead to action, focus and, often, to competitive and rigidly hierarchical professions such as law. Women’s hormones lead them to focus on empathy and social interaction, and careers as teachers or social workers. Thus, despite their early advantages—girls have better language skills and discipline, while boys are more prone to dyslexia, autism and Asperger syndrome and other difficulties—women tend not to seek out “the highest status or the most lucrative careers”: They’re reluctant to take jobs whose demands won’t allow them the choice to focus on other aspects of their lives. Pinker says she isn’t calling for a return to the 1950s housewife model. She emphasizes individual differences among men and women, but hopes that wider recognition of gender differences can lead to greater workplace flexibility and room for women’s professional advancement on their own terms. She may draw a great deal of fire for this book, but her strong evidence could also open a better-informed discussion of the issues. B&w illus. (Mar.)

Launched in 1935, at the bottom of the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) served as a linchpin of FDR’s “New Deal.” Through the WPA, Roosevelt put millions of unemployed Americans to work on public construction projects, from dams and courthouses to parks and roads. The WPA’s Federal Writers Project employed a host of artists and writers (among them Jackson Pollock, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston and Studs Terkel); theater and musical artists also received funding. Taylor (Ordinary Miracles: Life in a Small Church) vividly and painstakingly paints the full story of the WPA from its inception to its shutdown by Congress in 1943, at which point the war boom in manufacturing had made it unnecessary. In an eloquent and balanced appraisal, Taylor not only chronicles the WPA’s numerous triumphs (including New York’s LaGuardia Airport) but also its failures, most notably graft and other chicanery at the local level. Taylor details as well the dicey intramural politics in Congress over which states and districts would get the largest slice of the WPA pie. All told, Taylor’s volume makes for a splendid appreciation of the WPA with which to celebrate the upcoming 75th anniversary of the New Deal’s beginnings in 1933. (Mar. 4)

Morie Sawataishi had never owned a dog, but in 1944, when the Japanese man was 30 years old, the desire for one came over him like a “sudden... craving.” During WWII, snow country dogs were being slaughtered for pelts to line officers’ coats; working for Mitsubishi in the remote snow country, Morie decided to rescue Japan’s noble, ancient Akita breed—whose numbers had already dwindled before the war—from certain extinction. Raised in an elegant Tokyo neighborhood, his long-suffering wife, Kitako, hated country life, and his children resented the affection he lavished on his dogs rather than on them. The book brims with colorful characters, both human and canine: sweet-tempered redhead Three Good Lucks, who may have been poisoned to death by a rival dog owner; high-spirited One Hundred Tigers, who lost his tail in an accident; and wild mountain man Uesugi. To Western readers Morie’s single-mindedness may seem selfish and Kitako’s passivity in the face of his stubbornness incomprehensible, but former Washington Post staffer Sherrill (The Buddha from Brooklyn) imbues their traditional Japanese lifestyle with dignity, and Morie’s adventures (he is now 94) should be enjoyed by dog lovers, breeders and trainers. B&w photos. (Mar. 3)

Offering a brilliant study of the history of the Byzantine empire, Herrin—whose groundbreaking The Formation of Christendom challenged traditional views on the development of Christianity—draws a similarly original portrait of a tradition-based yet dynamic empire that protected Christianity by checking the westward expansion of Islam. Herrin progresses in lively fashion, chronicling the 1,000-year history of Byzantium from its rise in A.D. 306 to its demise at the hands of the Ottomans. Along the way, Herrin, a professor at King’s College, London, introduces an astonishing cast of characters, such as the empire’s first leader, Constantine I; religious leaders such as Patriarch Photios; and Anna Komnene, the great 12th-century historian whose Odyssey-like epic, the Alexiad, celebrated the 37-year reign of her father, Alexios I. Drawing on letters, journals and other primary documents from both political figures and ordinary citizens, Herrin splendidly recreates an empire whose religious art, educational curriculum, tax and legal systems, and coronation rituals preserved the best of the empire’s pre-Christian Greek past while at the same time passing along advances to the rest of the world. Herrin’s history is hands-down the finest introduction to Byzantium and its continuing significance for world history. 8 color illus.; 16 b&w illus.; maps. (Feb.)

After the death of her beloved Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, an only child with a pathological fear of being alone, turned her ninth child, Beatrice, into her permanent companion, infantilizing her and robbing her of any chance of a normal life. The consequences for Beatrice were difficult: as Dennison shows, over the years the spunky young Beatrice turned docile and acquiescent. Some of her siblings resented her proximity to the seat of power. Victoria even determined never to let her companion marry, a vow she abandoned only when Beatrice, at age 27, fell in love with the German Prince Henry of Battenberg, who agreed to abandon his home and career and move in with his wife and mother-in-law. He died 10 years later, in the Ashanti War in Sierra Leone, where he had traveled with British forces in an effort to exert some personal independence. Beatrice mourned, then resumed her duties as her mother’s companion. Dennison, a British journalist, does a fine job of laying out facts, but he doesn’t spare readers his opinion. Though he’s not impressed with Victoria’s parenting skills and lack of consideration for Beatrice’s emotional well-being, his compassion for his subjects is obvious. That, as much as his detailed portraits, will keep readers engaged. 16 pages of b&w photos. (Feb.)

McMillen, who chairs the history department at Davidson College, presents a fine history of the 1848 Seneca Falls convention, which galvanized the women’s movement through the remainder of the 19th century and also affected concurrent struggles for temperance, abolition and educational reform. Narrowing her focus to four suffragists—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone—McMillen nimbly weaves their stories with the larger narrative of reform. After a splendid introductory chapter that outlines the legal injustices most women suffered (typically, they could not vote, hold property or receive equal pay for their work), McMillen describes the convention itself, about which we know relatively little (Stanton gave it just two sentences in her mammoth memoir) and then traces its unexpectedly weighty impact on reformers through the decades. She does an outstanding job of discussing how religion functioned as both an impetus and an obstacle to reform, and pays particular attention to how the women’s movement broke apart during Reconstruction because of internal bickering, racism and class divisions. This is not a revisionist work or a substantial challenge to the conventional historiography of suffrage, but a well-written and cogent synthesis accessible to the general reader while remaining firmly grounded in primary sources. 20 b&w illus. (Feb.)

This memoir of a Jewish man’s experience in wartime Berlin is less a tale of suffering than of courage. By 1942, Schönhaus’s family had been deported; the 20-year-old was spared because he worked in an arms factory. In that year, he began using his graphics background to forge IDs for Jews in hiding, and eventually went underground himself. His efforts, aided by anti-Nazi Germans, saved the lives of hundreds of Jews. He maintains a determined tone about the war—“At last, I didn’t have to just look on helplessly at what they were doing to us,” he writes about being asked to forge documents—but Schönhaus’s account has all the elements of a thriller. (In fact, Schönhaus’s story is being made into a film.) Despite the doom around him, he lives boldly, enjoying sailing escapades and sexual encounters with women, seemingly defying the Nazi authorities to find him until he flees over the border into Switzerland. While adding to our knowledge about wartime Berlin, this work also tells us something about how the human spirit can thrive amid destruction and tragedy. (Feb. 1)

Floyd first bought a gun in 1991 to better understand what her late brother loved about firearms. Along the way, the Georgia State photography professor formed a club with other women at a gun range and interviewed and photographed 50 women to learn what motivated them to pick up a gun, which guns they preferred, and how they handled being women in a mostly male arena. One woman who was a prominent Black Panther in the ’60s insists the militants armed themselves for self-defense, and another says she was tired of being victimized as a lesbian. A Georgia woman, posing on her grandmother’s quilt with multiple shotguns, describes how her grandmother was killed by a burglar with her own gun. More compelling are Floyd’s personal gun-range experiences, the blast and recoil of her first handgun and the allure of her stainless steel Para-Ordnance P-16. While a discussion of famed sharpshooter Annie Oakley places Floyd’s experiences in historical context, her treatment of gun women in films, detective shows like Cagney and Lacey and popular fiction is lackluster and ends with the 1990s. Overall, Floyd covers too much ground and with a surprising lack of bite given the controversial nature of her topic. 80 color, 70 b&w illus. (Feb.)

Hooking-up” is the term du jour, connoting a wide range of consensual sexual activities, with no pretense of starting a relationship, between young, mostly college-age students. This study by Bogle, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at LaSalle University—based on 76 interviews with mostly white college students and recent graduates from 2001 to 2006—gives a wide range of voices and opinions on hooking-up culture. While there are few surprises (women are still, for the most part, subjected to a punishing sexual double standard)—Bogle is a smart interviewer and gets her subjects to reveal intimate and often embarrassing details without being moralizing. She interrogates her subjects about alcohol use, the relationship of gay and lesbian students to hook-up culture, and opting out of hook-up culture. Bogle’s work is important because it offers a complex portrait of young people grappling the best way they know how with the sexual realities of a rapidly changing world. Although limited in scope, this evenhanded, sympathetic book on a topic that has received far too much sensational and shoddy coverage is an important addition to the contemporary literature on youth and sexuality. (Feb.)

Former homicide prosecutor Burke is a better lawyer than writer in this account of his quest to bring to justice Leonard Paradiso, a brutal thug he suspected was responsible for a series of Boston-area murders in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1982 Burke was investigating a triple homicide when a young woman, learning of his commitment to solving the case, called to ask for his help with the dead-end pursuit of the murderer of her sister, Marie Iannuzzi, in a neighboring county. Burke brushed aside potential jurisdictional challenges and, with the aid of State Trooper Andrew Palombo, went full steam ahead to lay the Iannuzzi murder at the door of Paradiso, uncovering evidence along the way that his suspect might also have killed missing Harvard graduate student Joan Webster, among others. The narrative details the investigation’s setbacks and successes, culminating in Paradiso’s 1984 trial for the Iannuzzi murder. While the author was clearly a tenacious investigator and advocate, the heavy-handed writing style and dramatized presentation of the facts (including the author’s referring to himself in the third person) get in the way of the story. (Feb. 19)

From August to October 1913, 43-year-old Joseph Knowles went alone, naked and without supplies, into the Maine woods, vowing to live for two months by his own devices. The stunt, sponsored by the Boston Post, generated publicity for Knowles and increased readership for the newspaper, but later proved to be a hoax, one of several examples of nature fakery in the early 20th century that Motavalli (Forward Drive) discusses in this entertaining and evenhanded account of the life of the Nature Man. Knowles got another chance to prove himself when William Randolph Hearst backed a second naked wilderness foray, this time in California and with sanctioned observers to watch over Knowles. A third expedition would have put Knowles in the Adirondacks with a naked woman, but this fizzled when “Dawn Woman,” as she was called, quit after realizing she would have to endure cold weather and kill wild animals. Motavalli sees the humor in these exploits, but also describes Knowles as a skilled woodsman with a sincere love of the outdoors that reflected the back-to-nature movement of his time. He paints a sympathetic picture of a man with a tragic flaw, showing how Knowles succumbed to media hype and tried to maintain his Nature Man image long after public interest in his wilderness experiment had subsided. Illus. (Feb.)

New York Times contributing writer Strausbaugh (Black Like You) is fed up with the “sissies” of America. His distaste for our growing culture of “fat, soft, stupid, fearful, whiny, infantile, narcissistic, fatalistic, group-thinking victims” emanates from every page. Tracking the movement’s origins to the conformist 1950s and its maturation during the Vietnam War-saturated 1960s and ’70s, Strausbaugh satirically highlights what he perceives to be the major factors contributing to today’s unmasculine man: conformity, religious fundamentalism and “victimology.” Strausbaugh seems to relish making politically incorrect and often crude analyses of America’s cultural failures. His most provocative material concerns the treatment of real victims and grieving 9/11 families (his advice to alleged overmourners: “Get over yourselves”). His solution for ending the “sissy” epidemic is that offenders should simply stop their whining. Strausbaugh is too slap-happy at times, but effectively hammers home his point. (Feb.)

Art historian Yochelson and history professor Czitrom examine the life and legacy of Jacob Riis. Riis started out as a carpenter with some literary training who emigrated from Denmark to New York City in 1870, where the day-to-day lives of the impoverished fascinated him. His path to renown began in 1889 when his tenement housing reports appeared in Christian Union magazine. Riis then expanded his reportage to How the Other Half Lives, a bestseller, still considered a journalistic classic. Czitrom chronicles Riis’s life from his birth in 1849 to 1890; from there Yochelson carries the story to his death in 1914, studding her half of the book with Riis’s photographs. Riis did not consider himself a skilled photographer (and with good reason), but his images portray unforgettable people and settings. His reportage and photos—while somewhat flawed by personal and political biases—resonate today. Must so many new immigrants, he asked, begin their lives in the U.S. housed in slums? What should government, churches and private philanthropies do to help? Are some immigrant groups less likely to escape tenement life? These questions that guided Riis’s life will remind the reader that history is a useful instructor in the here and now. 95 b&w photos. (Feb.)

This rambling account of the eccentric, reclusive billionaire stresses Hughes’s relationship with Las Vegas, where he spent much of his adult life. Vegas reporter Schumacher draws upon research from other books, interviews and a lifetime of covering his native city to produce an entertaining volume about a relentlessly fascinating character. Hughes (1904–1976) became famous as a producer of such Hollywood classics as Hell’s Angels, The Front Page and Scarface. Applying his energy to aviation, he designed planes, broke speed records and founded TWA and Hughes Aircraft. Schumacher swiftly covers these accomplishments, then focuses on the last 30 years of Hughes’s life. It is a lively record of business deals, legal battles and personality clashes as Hughes’s peculiarities and drug use degenerate into serious addiction and obsessive germophobia. Hughes spent his last decade as a secluded, unwashed, unshaved invalid with attendants who overlooked his best interests. Ignoring chronology, Schumacher’s book reads like a series of well-researched, opinionated newspaper articles that include cameos by famous supporting characters like Jane Russell and vignettes about the fight over his estate and Clifford Irving’s fake Hughes autobiography. Readers should look elsewhere for an organized biography, but they will find plenty to enjoy in this scattershot collection. Photos not seen by PW. (Feb.)

There are many ways to tell Israel’s story, and most will raise the ire of someone. Here the Strobers (Giuliani: Flawed and Flawless) aim to corral these conflicting viewpoints to tell the nation’s history; to a very limited extent, this goal is achieved. Various opinions are expressed about the British during the Mandate period (1920–1947) and a number of interpretations are given on the Oslo peace process (early 1990s), but this portrait of Israel’s history needs filling in. Rather than starting with the 19th century Zionist movement that led to the country’s founding, the authors open the book with a chapter on the Holocaust. Other significant facts of Israeli history are equally overlooked. Though Israel’s Labor Party ruled steadily for nearly a quarter of the country’s 60-year history, there is scant discussion of Labor-led politics. In spite of the Strobers’ ambition to show the diversity of Israeli experiences, Jews with roots in Arab lands—who make up roughly half the Israeli-Jewish population—receive marginal coverage. This volume is less the history of an actual nation and more an incomplete collection of some stories Israelis have to tell. (Feb.)

Murphy, a first-term representative from Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District, recounts the story of his unlikely political journey in this partisan autobiography. Born to a policeman and a legal secretary in 1973 Philadelphia, Murphy’s early life was unexceptional. After meeting President Clinton in 1996—“a defining moment in my life”—Murphy graduated from Pennsylvania’s King’s College and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the army. He attended the Widener University School of Law before joining the army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps. As an army lawyer, he served at West Point and was deployed to Bosnia before joining the 82nd Airborne Division. In 2003, he was deployed to Iraq and led a Brigade Operational Law Team (BOLT) for seven months. After leaving the army, he challenged Republican Rep, Mike Fitzpatrick—“a rubber stamp for George Bush on Iraq”—in the 2006 congressional election. A staunch critic of the Iraq War, Murphy won a narrow victory and now serves “on the front lines in Washington” at “a defining moment in our history.” Short on self-awareness and long on hyperbole, Murphy’s narrative fails to rise above conventional campaign biography. (Feb. 19)

Written by the anchor of Open House, CNN’s weekly half-hour real estate show, this book is like having a good friend on call to answer all of a first-time home buyer’s questions about the process. Willis covers questions you might be embarrassed to ask: “How much house can I afford?” or “What kinds of maintenance do I need to do to my home each season?” Divided into four sections—“Buying, Maintaining, Upgrading, and Selling”—this book walks the reader through the whole process, from providing formulas to calculate an affordable mortgage to landscaping. (Willis provides tables that list names of shrubs and their growing regions.) Bold headers allow the reader to dip in to each section as needed. With a straightforward style and concrete advice—Willis doesn’t just tell you that you should interview your real estate agent or general contractor; she lists the questions you should ask—this book will help those who are completely new to the housing market approach the field with confidence. (Feb. 26)

In this sympathetic biography, Chandler (Ingrid: The Girl Who Walked Home Alone) chronicles Crawford’s life—from a brutal Midwest childhood to her self-imposed exile in New York. Crawford (1905–1977) began as a dancer, but her extraordinary features, perfect for the new medium of film, served her well. Her career spanned silents to Hollywood’s golden era, and her body of work is legendary—Grand Hotel, The Women and Mildred Pierce, to name just a few. Divided into 10 sections, including the luminous MGM and Warner years, the book provides a brief description of her films and studio life, and offers a sanitized view of her four marriages as well as a strong refutation of the “Mommie Dearest” claims. Chandler isn’t interested in sex or scandal; she had, however, extensively interviewed Crawford; her first husband, Douglas Fairbanks Jr.; and scores of film luminaries, like Myrna Loy and Bette Davis. All reveal a hardworking, disciplined and generous woman who lived for work. “Joan Crawford and her camera. It was the greatest love affair I have ever known,” said director George Cukor. Chandler’s bio is a breezy, laudatory read that would have pleased Crawford, who was fiercely protective of her iconic status. (Feb.)

Karlin, coauthor of Jon Stewart’s America, establishes that if there is one thing men have in common, it is their lack of understanding and the misguided information they have acquired about women. With miniessays from famous comedians and writers, including Nick Hornby, Stephen Colbert and Bruce Jay Friedman, this book is organized into short chapters of truth, testimonies and realizations about the women that got away and, sadly, the women that they never had to begin with. Some of the essays offer advice, such as Bob Odenkirk’s bitter nine-year plan, where he discusses why nine years is the perfect amount of time to be in a bad relationship (by year nine “you [had] tried everything, including depression and deep boredom”). Some of the men’s experiences proved to be valuable lessons such as Dan Savage’s essay “I Am a Gay Man,” where he finds that women can be detestable, and learns that he doesn’t have to “fake being straight or join the priesthood” and can instead just be a gay man; or Patton Oswalt’s realization that his crazy, stripper ex-girlfriend helped him appreciate his wife. Whether the men pathetically recall their failed dating attempts or are celebrating their record number of “dumps” as learned experiences, these witty, comical approaches to being dumped are sure to entertain anyone who has entered the world of dating. (Feb.)

Kennedy, a McSweeney’s contributor, offers an entertaining explanation of how, after years of stumbling through adulthood, he landed an improbable gig writing and producing ads for Atlantic Records. For a kid who grew up dressing like Gene Simmons each Halloween in the 1970s, this should be a dream job—hobnobbing with rock stars and industry legends while making more money than he ever had before. The trouble is that, by the early 21st century, he finds that Atlantic is more corporate than rock. Kennedy’s run-ins with rock stars involve helping Jewel sell razors and mistaking Duran Duran’s manager for a member of the band. When he’s not inadvertently insulting aging rockers, Kennedy worries incessantly about office politics—whether he’s made a permanent enemy of a co-worker by asking what kind of muffin she’s eating, which executives to greet in the hallway and which to ignore. Kennedy’s style—hilarious, paranoid and vulnerable—captures wonderfully the absurdity of the corporate music industry. Readers will appreciate the many lists that pepper the book, including “Inappropriate Greetings and Salutations for Middle-Aged White Record Executives to Exchange: #1. Hello, Dawg.” (Feb.)

In this affecting memoir, Coffin relates tales from his childhood and the complications that arise from being the offspring of an interracial couple in the late 1970s. Coffin’s father was a U.S. soldier who met his mother in Taiwan during the Vietnam War. Not long after they venture to America to start a new life, Coffin’s parents separated and he and his younger sister, Tahnthawan, moved to Maine with their mother. Coffin was taken back to his mother’s Taiwanese village several times during his childhood, and, on one occasion, encountered an elderly Buddhist priest who claimed the boy should come and live as a monk. Years later as a university student, he returned to the village to become a monk in the hopes of finding himself and his true identity. He meditated and learned prayers and chants, but often found himself alone in his room, sleeping on the floor next to his Buddha statue until he begins to question whether he is meant for the life of a monk. In heartfelt prose, Coffin beautifully captures his journey, both geographical and internal. (Feb.)

Exploring the connections between “post-secular” culture and emerging forms of belief, Taylor (artist-in-residence at Fuller Theological Seminary and associate rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills) argues that “ 'spirituality’ is the new religion of our times.” This wide-ranging book uses examples from pop culture, particularly movies, and ideas from a variety of postmodern observers to argue that a democratization of spirit is leading to new forms of faith and a “re-enchantment of Western culture.” Taylor then turns from observer to evangelist as he calls for “an end to the present form of Christianity” in favor of “Christian spiritualities.” While Taylor brings considerable enthusiasm and extensive reading to bear on his topic, many of the book’s vague generalities are unsupported by evidence, and he fails to define who is actually affected by the cultural sea change he insists is occurring. His intended audience isn’t clear, and weak writing and tone shifts also mar this ambitious book. In tracing nascent trends and arguing for traditional Christianity’s demise, Taylor ignores the vigorous ongoing practice of Christian religion around the globe, including the call to social justice in a suffering world. (Mar.)

This effort to bring clarity to the question of how Catholics should vote is aimed at dispelling the notion that certain issues—abortion in particular—carry more weight than others when Catholics cast their ballots. Evans, who holds a chair in rural social ministries at St. John’s School of Theology in Collegeville, Minn., begins by saying that religion and politics can and do mix. However, he insists that focusing on a limited number of issues distorts overall Catholic teaching on the subject of voting. He suggests that Catholics take a wider view by considering such things as the living wage, capital punishment, health care, education, immigration, housing and public assistance, all of which he sees as related to the church’s strong position in defense of the dignity of human life. Evans bases his premise on “Catholic social teaching” and cites various church documents, including statements of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. This teaching, he posits, invites consideration of the needs of the larger community, the protection of human life and the promotion of the interests of the poor and marginalized when participating in an election. While some readers will appreciate his more broad-brushed view of the political landscape, others will be troubled by Evans’s reluctance to make certain issues nonnegotiable. (Mar.)

For centuries those who suffer have been pointed toward the Book of Job. What they find there is a God who essentially asks: “What do you know? Were you there when I made the world?” That isn’t much of an explanation of suffering, nor was it meant to be, according to Burrell, professor of philosophy and theology at the University of Notre Dame. Rather, the Book of Job provides a corrective to the idea that if we are good God will bless, and when we sin God will punish. While Job’s story doesn’t explain suffering, it does demonstrate the importance of the relationship between creature and Creator. Job’s unhelpful friends talk about God to Job, while Job courageously speaks directly to God instead. Remarkably, God listens to and answers Job; according to Burrell, the fact that God does so is more important than what God actually says. Burrell’s review of classical commentaries on Job, contemporary philosophies of suffering (theodicy), as well as a chapter on an Islamic perspective on the Job figure (Ayyub) in the Qur’an will speak mostly to academic audiences. Clergy and pastoral counselors, however, will find material helpful to those who seek guidance in the midst of pain. (Mar.)

In this apologia for Christian faith, Keller mines material from literary classics, philosophy, anthropology and a multitude of other disciplines to make an intellectually compelling case for God. Written for skeptics and the believers who love them, the book draws on the author’s encounters as founding pastor of New York’s booming Redeemer Presbyterian Church. One of Keller’s most provocative arguments is that “all doubts, however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternate beliefs.” Drawing on sources as diverse as 19th-century author Robert Louis Stevenson and contemporary New Testament theologian N.T. Wright, Keller attempts to deconstruct everyone he finds in his way, from the evolutionary psychologist Richard Dawkins to popular author Dan Brown. The first, shorter part of the book looks at popular arguments against God’s existence, while the second builds on general arguments for God to culminate in a sharp focus on the redemptive work of God in Christ. Keller’s condensed summaries of arguments for and against theism make the scope of the book overwhelming at times. Nonetheless, it should serve both as testimony to the author’s encyclopedic learning and as a compelling overview of the current debate on faith for those who doubt and for those who want to re-evaluate what they believe, and why. (Feb. 14)

MacCoun follows up her acclaimed novel Beyond the Abbey Gates with a richly gratifying exploration of alchemy. Writing for the advanced magical practitioner who is a novice alchemist, MacCoun represents this ancient art as a kind of spiritual graduate school. Through her vivid storytelling and crystalline prose, she maps out the mental landscape of alchemy, showing how the process is similar to that used by religious mystics. MacCoun devotes the first half of the book to encounters with spirits the practitioner can expect while on the alchemical path. In the rest, she explains how the everyday can become fodder for spiritual growth. Using the traditional components of alchemy as a metaphor, the base metal of a tragic life event or even a bad mood can become source material in the process of personal transformation. Everything in MacCoun’s cosmos stands ready to lead the adept toward the deeper truths of reality. This approach may disappoint literalist readers who are hoping for the secret to transforming base metals into real gold, but for MacCoun the purpose of alchemy is the construction of a philosopher’s stone in one’s heart, leading to the total transformation of the self. (Feb. 12)

Seeking to provide “a set of intellectual and spiritual resources to encourage a sophisticated conversation about Judaism, social justice and environmental responsibility,” this book more than meets its mark. The contributors, who are activists, intellectuals and spiritual leaders, broadly interpret their mission, touching on topics such as social justice, toxic waste, renewable energy, stem cell research, domestic violence and Middle East peace. Unsurprisingly, many touch on the Jewish imperative, tikkun olam—mending the world—and how we might better accomplish our part. However, those authors’ focus on mending the world doesn’t stop with recommendations for service but centers just as much, if not more, on far-reaching reform—changing social systems for the better. While written for progressive Jews and their communities, anyone struggling with the age-old conundrum of “...but what can I do?” should sample this wonderful buffet of ideas, replete not just with tradition but with innovative interpretations suited to a 21st-century approach toward social action and reform. A must-have for libraries, Hillel chapters and campus multicultural centers, it promises to fuel more than a few late-night conversations, whether around the Shabbat table, boardroom or dorm. (Feb.)

Some of us never got ”the talk” from our folks, and still others of us were left to the mercy of our well-meaning but possibly misguided friends. Where do we find room for someone to explain that sex is spiritual and special, yet also meant to be sought, savored and even enjoyed within the confines of a committed marriage? Enter Scott, pastor and psychologist. With a well-balanced combination of personal and professional anecdotes, scriptural reference and approachability, Scott takes the whispered rumors of sex into a spirited discussion. He doesn’t mince words—or topics—covering not only masturbation and ecstasy but also abuse and addiction. Working within the framework of a conservative Christian background, he gently (and not so gently) breaks down the walls so often created around the mysteries of intimacy, all the while stressing the need not only for covenant but for a transcendent relationship with God. In an unusual twist, Scott includes welcome references to Judaism and other religious traditions as well as Christianity. Readers struggling with this most personal part of their marriage should find comfort within these pages as they come to understand that “far from being a distraction from spiritual life, sex is a form of spiritual life.” (Feb.)

Western Christians may feel safe from being called to die for their faith, but Hovey (adjunct professor at the University of Redlands and Fuller Theological Seminary) explores the Gospel of Mark to find evidence that “every church is meant to be a martyr-church.” For Hovey, “all Christians [should] refuse to relegate the threat of martyrdom to the fringes of history or remote parts of the globe.” A martyr-church is one in which members acknowledge the essential opposition of the church to the world and the possibility that they, too, may die in Christian witness. In a dense theological inquiry, Hovey uses the events in Mark to demonstrate that martyrdom is an inextricable feature of the Christian message. Hovey’s inaccessible writing doesn’t draw on the lived experiences of actual Christians in danger or analyze the differing relations between the church and the “principalities and powers” around the world. By not engaging nonspecialist readers or considering the real-life contexts of martyrdom, Hovey has probably limited his book’s appeal to fellow theologians. (Feb.)

Marks’s first work of nonfiction began as a segment that he produced for 60 Minutes on the Left Behind phenomenon. During the research, a devout evangelical Christian couple made a deep impression on him, leaving him with the question of whether he would be left behind when Christ returns on judgment day. The problem gnawed at him. After getting laid off from 60 Minutes, the novelist (The Wall; War Torn) embarked on a two-year quest to uncover the wellsprings of America’s most popular religion. While this memoir of longing and doubt treads some of the same territory explored by atheists such as Sam Harris, it is the first that doesn’t simply reject the evangelical worldview. Marks discovers much that is positive, especially in the way churches rallied to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina. What makes this book most compelling, however, are the ways in which Marks allows his interviewees to engage him as a potential convert. He is so sympathetic to them that until the very last page it is uncertain whether he will decide to abandon his secular life. In the end, Marks gives us a stunning glimpse of American evangelicalism in all its variety. (Feb.)

It seems as though the Catholic Church is going through a “retro” phase. Pope Benedict XVI recently declared that the Latin Mass, which has seen limited use since the late 1960s, can now be celebrated by priests and laity all over the world. Woods, author of How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, has no doubt that this is a good idea. He may be in a minority camp in his church, but it is a vocal and passionate minority that desires to be heard. The author presents a hybrid of history, apologetics and theology in an effort to explore the mystery and beauty of the Latin Mass and answer what he views as misconceptions about this form of liturgy. However, his attempt at describing in ordinary words the various facets of this “extraordinary” form of liturgy falls flat. He does make an excellent point that contemporary liturgy can be too “wordy,” while the more traditional mass, with its generous use of silence, “offers us the opportunity to focus our hearts and prayers on the action taking place at the altar, and to unite ourselves fervently to that action.” Those interested in the evolution of liturgy will gain some insights from Woods’s reflections. (Feb.)

Walsh, former cohost of The 700 Club and current Women of Faith speaker, writes specifically to Christian women on prayer, but rarely digs deeply into the meat of the Bible for lasting insight. Statements such as “The discipline of prayer offers no easy solutions for the wounds and worries of life, and it often goes without physical sensation” beg for deeper study and scriptural support. Yet the book has a few fine-tasting morsels. In her chapter on why God says no, Walsh makes the intriguing observation: “Confronting God with our why becomes being with God in our need.” The book is divided into four parts—path, problem, plan and purpose—with chapters addressing questions such as “Is God angry with me?” and “Can I ask for anything if I have enough faith?” Walsh is candid about her struggle with depression and her wrestlings with prayer, yet that openness doesn’t translate into much real protein. Readers may come away hungry for something beyond bland statements such as “All God looks for is a desire to begin moving in the right direction, and he will be there.” It’s certainly time for a hearty book on prayer specifically for Christian women, but this isn’t it. (Feb.)

In this ultimately disappointing book, Antonucci, a Virginia-based pastor, criticizes the superficial subculture of American Christianity. Antonucci’s working assumption is that many Christians are actually disenchanted by their spiritual lives and wonder why they don’t have the abundant life Jesus promised. The solution to this deadening state of affairs? Christians need to shake loose the trite trappings of Christian-speak and get back to the “adventure” of faith. Antonucci takes aim at some of the beloved shibboleths of evangelicalism, suggesting, for example, that instead of talking about having a relationship with Jesus, Christians should worry about whether (as per John 15) they “abide” in Jesus. Some of his turns of phrase are thought provoking, as when he urges readers to “be the good news” before they worry about sharing it. But his autobiographical vignettes go on too long, and his message—that the Bible asks us not to behave well or even to believe in Jesus, but to follow him—is not greatly different from many Christian-living books. Too often, Antonucci replaces the clichés he disdains with more platitudes. On prayer: “spending large quantities of quality time with God—face-to-face” will make believers “glow.” In short, this book promises more than it delivers. (Feb.)

First, the good news: according to Wallis, founder of Sojourners and author of the bestseller God’s Politics, the era of the religious right is over, and a new crop of under-30 progressives may well be taking American religion—and American politics—by storm. The bad news: people of faith need to get to work to further this grassroots support for social justice. Wallis draws on lively stories from his speaking engagements and world travels to discuss how the silent majority of religious Americans who don’t feel represented by the religious right’s agenda can first take comfort in their sheer numbers and then take action in their communities to fight poverty, clean up the environment and eradicate disease. The book is as passionate, engaging and emotionally moving as readers have come to expect from Wallis, who comes across as a Rauschenbuschian teddy bear, alternately stumping for justice and proclaiming God’s love. As a cohesive book, however, this has a rough and clunky sensibility, with considerable repetition of ideas, examples and even phrasing. It has the feel of discrete essays and speeches that have been knocked together and too lightly edited. Still, fans of God’s Politics who are eager to learn of the next step will find compelling ideas and stories. (Jan. 22)