Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 3/10/2008

-- Publishers Weekly, 3/10/2008

NONFICTION

Becoming Holyfield: A Fighter’s Journey
Evander Holyfield with Lee Gruenfeld. Atria, $25 (288p) ISBN 9781416534860
With the help of Gruenfeld (The Street), Holyfield recounts the story of his career with remarkable honesty and surprising wisdom. Despite becoming the heavyweight champion of the world four times, Holyfield has had a lot of bad luck, from the questionable Olympic disqualification to suffering a heart attack in the ring. He’s also candid about his struggles with relationships and monogamy, having sired almost a dozen children with nearly as many women. While he could have expounded further upon certain oddities—Rapper MC Hammer’s brief stint as his manager, his daughter’s decision to change her name and, of course, his role on television’s Dancing with the Stars—what we get is a portrait of a true champion. In an age of whiny, arrogant athletes, Holyfield is a remarkably good sport, allowing his work to speak for itself, reserving judgment and forgiving every person who has wronged him—including Mike Tyson. The only thing he gets defensive about is retirement: he’s adamant that his goal is to reclaim the heavyweight title, despite the potential health risks. This memoir is a testament to the strength of his desire and the purity of his drive. (Feb.)

Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA
Melvin A. Goodman. Rowman & Littlefield, $27.95 (400p) ISBN 9780742551107
A senior fellow at the Center for International Policy with 24 years of experience as an analyst at the CIA, author Goodman (Bush League Diplomacy) declares that without efforts to improve the country’s intelligence community, particularly the CIA, “we can expect more terrorist attacks without warning.” Goodman distinguishes early on the CIA’s “proper” function—clandestine intelligence collection—from covert actions like the overthrow of popularly elected leaders that, though tactical successes, have led to false hubris and ruinous foreign policy decisions; in particular, he convincingly attributes the present debacle in Iran to 1953 policies in serious need of revision. Much of the book deals with “the perils of politicization” in the CIA, from the Vietnam war to the present, including the “extreme… kind of pressure placed on the intelligence community” by administrations like Nixon’s and Reagan’s, that latter of whom exaggerated the threat of a crumbling Soviet Union in order to keep military expenditures high. Concluding with the community’s failure to predict 9/11 and the flawed intelligence on pre-invasion Iraq, he castigates the CIA’s “seeming inability” to tell the truth to those in power, “which finds the Agency without a moral compass.” This is an important and eye-opening account for policy makers and concerned citizens alike. (Mar.)

I See Black People: The Rise and Fall of African American-Owned Television and Radio
Kristal Brent Zook. Nation, $18.95 paper (304p) ISBN 9781560259992Zook (Black Women’s Lives: Stories of Power and Pain) introduces a diverse cast of characters in this interview-based history of African American media ownership. Some made millions, others struggled until being forced out of the industry, but all offer important insight into the decline of African American media ownership. In a time when giants like Clear Channel are quashing small operators and the FCC has discontinued affirmative action, many of Zook’s subjects have defied steep odds. James L. Winston, executive director of the National Association of Black-Owned Broadcasters, sets the tone by talking about the establishment of the Minority Tax Certificate, a major tax incentive for media owners to sell their businesses to minorities which was repealed in the 1990s. Dorothy Edwards Brunson, the first African American woman to own a radio station, speaks about media consolidation and the business acumen it takes to succeed in the industry. In the introduction and her perceptive questions, the author helps articulate the importance of black ownership as well as any of her subjects and the compilation of these interviews creates an important story. (Mar.)


Italy’s Sorrow: A Year of War: 1944-1945
James Holland. St. Martin’s, $39.95 (656p) ISBN 9780312373962
British historian and journalist Holland (Fortress Malta) vividly recalls the final year of World War II in Italy in this masterful narrative. The controversial decision to invade Sicily and Italy following the North African campaign was “purely opportunistic” and intended to draw German resources away from the main action in Normandy. As critics had feared, Italy, with its rugged mountains, was “a truly terrible place to fight,” and the campaign became a bloody war of attrition. The final toll on combatants, civilians, and the Italian landscape was staggering; total casualties exceeded a million and entire cities were leveled. Cassino, the site of a decisive battle, was “utterly—100 per cent—destroyed” and Benevento resembled “a post-apocalyptic ruin.” Holland’s balanced account of the savage fighting and wholesale destruction draws on the eyewitness testimony of Allied and German combatants, Italian partisans and Fascist loyalists. He concludes—echoing historian Rick Atkinson’s excellent recent account of the campaign, The Day of Battle—that despite its terrible cost, the fight in Italy played a decisive role in defeating Germany. A complementary volume to Atkinson’s account focusing on the earlier stages of the campaign, this is popular history at its very best: exhaustively researched, compellingly written and authoritative. (Apr.)

Liar’s Paradise: The Seven Degrees of Corporate Deceit
Graham Edmonds. Southbank (Trafalgar Sq., dist.), $16.95 (160p) ISBN 9781904915157
Tell more white lies—that’s the message of this humorous and quirky treatise about dishonesty in the workplace. Lying, Edmond claims, “will make the world a happier place, people will think better of you and you will think better of yourself.” Throughout this UK import—peppered with appealing British tics, surprising statistics and the varying categories of liars—the author pushes the premise that offices are hubs of deception “where facts are not facts and the truth is obscured.” The key, according to Edmonds, is to know how to function in this fraudulent environment, tell the right kinds of lies, and spot the liars around you. Edmonds bolsters his case with references to everyone from Saint Augustine to Kant, pointing to historical examples of lying and reminding us of some basic truths: nearly everyone lies at least twice a day, fakes something on their resume or pilfers pens from the office-supply closet. Much of this is stuff any workplace drone already knows; of course meetings are good time-wasters and multi-bulleted Powerpoint presentations often conceal complete inadequacy. But for that it’s no less an enjoyable read; at the very least, Edmonds (Bullshit Bingo) reminds cubicle-dwellers that they’re not alone and can survive their morally gray purgatory. (Mar.)

Life Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives
Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek. Jossey-Bass, $24.95 (256p) ISBN 9780787988623
This well thought-out, inspirational book is designed to help people creatively construct their best lives “through opportunity, recognition, innovation and action.” Experienced entrepreneurs with backgrounds in education, Gergen and Vanourek interviewed 55 individuals who have applied successful business lessons to their personal lives and extracted a number of hands-on lessons for their readers: if you discover your “core identity,” learn to recognize opportunities, develop a “life vision” and set clear, purposeful, achievable—but challenging—goals, you too can have an extraordinary life, they claim. While the book’s content is standard inspirational fare, the authors have given it a spin that effectively taps into modern day work trends and language and taken their thinking beyond the surface level of many books of this kind. They balance specific advice, such as stumbling blocks to avoid when setting goals, with big ideas concerning “untethering from traditional careers,” authenticity and integration. Despite occasionally lapsing into a paternalistic tone, they sprinkle enough juicy first-person accounts throughout their chapters to keep their maxims alive. (Mar.)

No Man’s Lands: One Man’s Odyssey Through The Odyssey
Scott Huler. Crown, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 9781400082827
As this literary travelogue opens, NPR contributor and author Huler (Defining the Wind) sounds like he’s going to renege on his 2001 pledge never to read James Joyce’s Ulysses. He joins a Ulysses reading group, but finds himself more fascinated by the story behind it: Homer’s The Odyssey, which he’d also never read. A plan is born: to retrace Odysseus’ twenty-year travels. Huler’s first challenge is that nobody really knows where any of the locations actually are—finding them, he says, is like hunting for the Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz. Although Huler initially tries too hard to relate his slapdash wanderings to the text (a ride on a Homer-themed cruise has him saying, “I found myself among these magical seafarers, exactly like Odysseus”), he eventually gives in to the randomness of his travels, and the book is all the better for it. While fighting his way onto crowded ferries or showing up in tiny hamlets with no hotel reservations, he has some realizations about the man he’s following and about journeying as its own reward. Huler’s book is not without flaws, but in essence, as he himself concludes about The Odyssey’s continuing appeal, “the story has good bones.” (Mar.)

The Normal Personality: A New Way of Thinking About People
Steven Reiss. Cambridge, $26 (216p) ISBN 9780521881067
This latest from Ohio State University psychology professor Reiss (Who Am I?) takes on a good majority of working therapists and academics by positing that “[v]alues, not unconscious psychodynamics, drive the human psyche.” With vigorous research, analysis and anecdotal evidence, Reiss argues convincingly that by addressing ordinary personal problems with “constructs developed to study mental illnesses,” the community has pathologized normal human personality traits and behaviors: “orderliness is a mild form of Obsessive-Compulsive disorder; unhappiness is a mild form of depression.” Reiss’s model, “motivation analysis,” sees problems as the result of frustrated goals or values in the here and now, rather than hidden reserves of anxiety or anger. One’s mix of goals and values can be determined and analyzed using the Reiss Motivation Profile (RMP), based on what Reiss argues is the most complete taxonomy of personality yet developed. Extensive empirical research has led Reiss to identify sixteen basic desires (including acceptance, curiosity, family, power and tranquility) that, together, provide an accurate personality portrait. Reiss makes an accessible case for his approach’s superior ability to understand problems and predict behavior. It should provide food for thought for anyone in the mental health community, as well as those who feel they’ve been underserved or misunderstood by traditional psychotherapy. (Mar.)

Opa Nobody
Sonya Huber. Univ. of Nebraska, $24.95 (380p) ISBN 9780803210806
In her first book, teacher and activist Huber reaches across time and space to find guidance and camaraderie in the reconstructed life of Heina Buschmann, the German grandfather she never met. Struggling to balance her personal and political lives, Huber looks to Heina to find out why she so burns to change the world, and what her sense of mission will cost her and her newborn child. Born in 1902 to a union coal miner, Heina devoted his life to German socialist movements in much the same way Huber devotes hers to American leftist activism. And just as anxiety, depression and exhaustion accompany Huber’s political highs, failure, frustrations and alienation accompanied Heina’s. In his world—a sooty Germany awash in communist, socialist, and fascist movements—we feel the urgency and impact of personal politics as history gathers the factions in its maelstrom. Although the imagined dialogue sometimes falls flat, the family relationships and political situations are wrought finely enough to illustrate what’s at stake for Heina. Unfortunately there are so many gaps in the portrait Huber paints of her own political world that the reader is left wondering about her own motivation. (Mar.)

The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal
Lily Koppel. HarperCollins, $23.95 (336p) ISBN 9780061256776
Journalist Koppel found the inspiration for this book, based on her 2006 New York Times article, after discovering Florence Wolfson’s diary in a Manhattan dumpster. Koppel eventually locates Florence in Florida and surprises the 90-year-old with this artifact from her past, which reveals her views on growing up as an intelligent, ambitious and creative teenager on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the 1930s. Florence received the diary as a present on her 14th birthday. She recorded everything from her first kiss (with a boy) to her crush on actress Eva Le Galliene (which led her to question her sexuality) to her passion for writing and art. The diary acts as a window into a fascinating and privileged world, one that Koppel tries to recreate by writing in a novelistic way, using no more than snippets of text from Florence’s diary and, we can presume, multiple interviews as support. The result, which some readers may find frustrating and others rewarding, is that the original inspiration—the diary itself—becomes no more than a starting point for a much larger story: that of Florence’s life. (Apr.)

Somebody Scream!: Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power
Marcus Reeves. Faber & Faber, $25 (336p) ISBN 9780571211401
Journalist Reeves proves himself an insightful and capable historian in this collection of essays examining the rise of ten distinct hip-hop movements and their respective avatars. The author displays a remarkable talent for linking lyrics and interviews with broad artistic and historical themes. Locating each artist within their larger social context, he also uses artist lyrics as apertures to overriding socio-political motifs, combing through tracks and imputing rhymes to the relevant racial struggles of the day. This method is convincing when applied to early hip-hop pioneers such as Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Herc, and Grandmaster Flash, whose art stood in direct response to the urban decay of their communities, or used side-by-side with a discussion of the feminist movement in a history of Salt-N-Pepa. It is less effective when connecting politics and more contemporary hip-hop practitioners. For example, Reeves curiously intertwines Jay-Z’s iced-out swagger with the Affirmative Action dispute of the late 1990’s, and DMX’s thug spirituality with the incarceration and release of Black Panther leader Geronimo Pratt. That these links are harder to forge perhaps speaks to hip-hop’s ever-growing disengagement from identity politics and the hardships of the communities it claims to represent. (Mar.)

Winning is Not Enough
Jackie Stewart. Headline (Trafalgar Sq., dist.), $27.95 (548p) ISBN 9780755315376
Part sports autobiography, part self-help book and part business guide, Stewart’s tell-all is an honest and occasionally self-indulgent account of a life well lived. Stewart raced Formula One cars during the 1960s and ’70s, when the sport was much more primitive and dangerous than today, and much of this mammoth book is devoted to his stubborn and successful efforts to implement safety reforms. Narrated with brutal honesty, the book captures the driver’s struggle with dyslexia and his rise from working in a family-owned service garage to world-class clay-pigeon shooter and winner of three F1 world championships and 27 Grand Prix races. Upon retiring from the track, Stewart worked as a television announcer and businessman, as well as developed his own F1 racing team. His dry Scottish character shines through here, and his recall of specific races as if they happened last week is impressive. Unfortunately, Stewart occasionally gets caught up in his own pride, name-dropping obsessively, and some content (such as an entire chapter about the dogs he’s owned) is unnecessary. Nevertheless, Stewart’s story is, for the most part, well told. 14 pages of b&w and 8 pages of color photographs, plus a DVD. (Apr.)

LIFESTYLE

Baking with Agave Nectar: 80 Recipes Using Nature’s Ultimate Sweetener
Ania Catalano. Ten Speed/Celestial Arts, $15.95 paper (144p) ISBN 9781587613210
Boasting a low glycemic index and fewer calories per serving than refined sugar, agave nectar has been embraced by the health-conscious for years, and is becoming increasingly easier to source. Catalano, owner of Gourmet Whole Foods Catering and Cooking School in Milford, Conn., gives readers 80 ways to use the versatile sweetener in this impressive collection. Agave-sweetened versions of favorites like sticky buns, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cake, lemon bars and creamy cheesecakes should be a boon for those previously unable to enjoy their sweets. As a bonus, a handful of recipes are vegan and gluten-free as well. Novices may be intimidated by the labor-intensive sticky buns and the prospect of making pie crust from scratch, but Catalano does her best to keep the recipes as simple as possible. As in many books of this type, ingredients like sprouted spelt flour, unsweetened soymilk powder and quinoa flour can be difficult to source, but Catalano helpfully provides a comprehensive guide to ordering them. (Feb.)

The Healthy Senior Cookbook: Ideal Meals and Menus for People Over Sixty (Or Any Age)
Marilyn McFarlane. Hatala Geroproducts, $19.95 paper (212p) ISBN 9781933167305
Shocked by her widowed mother’s poor eating habits, travel author McFarlane (Quick Escapes to the Pacific Northwest) was inspired to put together this collection of over 190 simple, “healthy” recipes. Most recipes are straightforward, scaled down standards like meat loaf, stuffed peppers and French onion soup. Unfortunately, more than a few give pause. For instance, McFarlane’s Pineapple Danish, made by spreading cream or cottage cheese on a slice of whole wheat toast, topping it with a dollop of canned pineapple and a dusting of nutmeg and cinnamon, then broiling, is about as far from a Danish as one can get. Beef ‘N Beans, an otherworldly concoction of beef, beans, pineapple, brown sugar and catsup could well be described as depression on a plate. And her Frozen Banana—wrap a ripe banana in plastic wrap, freeze it, then thaw slightly before eating—is hardly a recipe. Though supplemented with advice on topics like decreasing sodium intake and conserving energy (“cook enough for more than one meal” on days when you have more energy), the recipes’ hit-and-miss quality suggest readers would be better served elsewhere. (Feb.)

A Woman's Guide to Recovery
Brenda Iliff. Hazelden, $14.95 paper (256p) ISBN 9781592854790
For many chemically dependent men and women, the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is the bible of recovery. Iliff, director of Hazelden Women's Recovery Center, understands that there are significant differences between the genders in terms of both addiction and recovery. Gleaned from years of working with women struggling to stay clean and sober, this “book of great hope” gears the Twelve Steps to women’s specific needs, offering insight into all aspects of recovery: health and wellness, relationships, spirituality, dealing with change and recovering bonds with children and other family. As women often are “expected to be the center of stability in their families and communities,” their struggles with addiction typically touch more lives; Iliff illustrates well how these added pressures make recovery for women more challenging than a similarly-afflicted male. Women in recovery will gain much from this; for their spouses, significant others, friends and children, it may prove indispensable. (Mar.)

FICTION

The Lady Elizabeth
Alison Weir. Ballantine, $25 (496p) ISBN 9780345495358
Weir (Innocent Traitor) lends her considerable historical knowledge to the early years of England’s famous queen in this absorbing second novel. The tale chronicles the life of Elizabeth I from her early childhood to her coronation, through the final years of her father, Henry VIII, and the brief reigns of her siblings, Edward VI and Queen Mary. Renowned for her “mercurial temperament” and “formidable intelligence,” in Weir’s account Elizabeth spends her childhood shuttling between royal estates and preparing for life as a “great lady” after she is stripped of her position as successor to the British throne following the execution of her mother, Anne Boleyn. As Elizabeth grows, her progressive views on women’s roles, religion, and politics take shape—including her legendary vow never to marry, forged through observation of others’ relationships as well as a painful first-hand brush with romance at age fourteen. Weir’s Elizabeth is nuanced and enchanting, and the author lends a refreshing perspective to well-known characters and events in British history, such as the fates of her father’s six wives and the brief reign of Lady Jane Grey, the subject of her first historical novel. History buffs will enjoy this entertaining look into the rarely explored early life of one of England’s most fascinating characters. (Apr.)

Hunting The King
Peter Clenott. Künati (IPG, dist.), $24.95 (384p) ISBN 9781601641489
On the eve of the Iraq invasion, American archeologist Molly O’Dwyer, who has for years undertaken digs throughout the Middle East, seeks what she believes will be evidence that Christ not only survived the Crucifixion but afterward moved, with wife and children, to Mesopotamia. A practicing Catholic, Molly realizes how much this will put not only her faith but the faith of millions to the test. Meanwhile, others—Iraqis, Israelis, the U.S. government, the Vatican—are also closing in on the site where Molly suspects the proof will be found. Clenott’s book speeds by so fast that the reader only fully notices afterward how ill-defined are its characters, how flat its dialogue, how unlikely its plot. This one-dimensional novel had potential, but in maintaining such a relentless pace, the author repeatedly fails to stop long enough to take full, or even partial, advantage of his material. (Apr.)

AUDIO

Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You with the Bill)
David Cay Johnston, read by the author. Penguin Audio, abridged, five CDs, 6 hrs., $29.95 ISBN 9780143142966
The U.S. government is serving out a free lunch, but, alas, it’s a feeding frenzy for those already fat on cash cows. As big businesses continue to reap the benefits of government subsidies—many unnecessary and unjustifiable—Americans are throwing away billions of tax dollars every year to make these companies richer. Through a variety of anecdotal but quite expansive evidence and legitimate research, Johnston reveals that the true dividing line in Washington is between the corporatists and “peopleists,” that is representatives who bend over backwards for businesses and those who want to protect citizens. As a narrator, Johnston’s passion is evident just as much as his annoyance and frustration with the current state of affairs. While overall his performance keeps listeners engaged, often his discussion of numbers (particularly when discussing shifting percentages of different levels of class income over the past 40 years) can easily confuse the reader. Simultaneous release with the Portfolio hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 5). (Jan.)

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears at the World’s Most Famous Cooking School
Kathleen Flinn, read by Cassandra Campbell. Penguin Audio, unabridged, 10 CDs, 10.5 hrs., $34.95 ISBN 9780143142539
Flinn’s engaging account of her studies at famed French cooking school Le Cordon Bleu should strike a chord with anyone who has dreamed of leaving the rat race and following a passion for food. The main course, Flinn’s narrative of her trials and triumphs as she moves through the three levels of cuisine, is supplemented by plentiful helpings of drama, romance and near-tragedy in her personal life. Cassandra Campbell’s reading is superlative: her American accent for Flinn slides gracefully into French, French-accented English and various accents for other international students. Her voice also exactly captures Flinn’s shifting emotions, from fear and paralysis when facing the “Gray Chef” and resentment of selfish classmates, to pleasure when she wins praise for a well-prepared sauce and joy when she realizes she is starting to understand French better. Foodies and memoir fans will be enchanted. Each chapter ends with a recipe (which all helpfully appear in PDF on a separate disc). Simultaneous release with the Viking hardcover (Reviews, June 25). (Dec.)