Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 6/30/2008
-- Publishers Weekly, 6/30/2008
nonfiction| Web Pick of the Week |
|
|
John Scully. Fitzhenry & Whiteside, $24.95 (224p) ISBN 9781554550906NONFICTION
1434: The Year A Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance
Gavin Menzies. Morrow, $26.95 (384p)9780061492174
In Menzies’s 1421, the amateur historian advanced a highly controversial hypothesis, that the Chinese discovered America; in this follow-up, he credits the Renaissance not to classical Greek and Roman ideals (a “Eurocentric view of history”) but again to the Chinese. His thesis in both works is based on the seven (historically undisputed) voyages undertaken by a large Chinese sailing fleet between 1405 and 1433; while it is known that they traveled as far as east Africa, Menzies believes that they landed in Italy and sent a delegation to the Council of Venice, held in Florence in 1439. There, they provided the knowledge and technique—introducing the painter Alberti, for instance, to the methods of perspective drawing—that sparked the Renaissance. Menzies sets the stage by recapitulating arguments from his first book, including the ingenious method for calculating longitude that Chinese navigators may have used. Though Menzies writes engagingly, his assumption that the Chinese fleet landed a delegation in Florence is highly speculative, and hardly substantiated by any facts (Alberti could just have easily learned perspective from classical sources; the Greeks knew about the relationship between perception of length and distance in the 1st Century BCE). (June)
Camp Camp: Where Fantasy Land Meets Lord of the Flies
Roger Bennett and Jules Shell. Crown, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 9780307382627
In his foreword, filmmaker Ivan Reitman writes, “Between the ages of seven and fifteen, going to summer camp was the most important influence in my life”; indeed, he launched his film career in 1979 with Meatballs, a movie inspired by his experiences at Camp White Pine in Haliburton, Ontario. In their latest, New York-based authors Bennett and Shell (co-creators of the similarly-themed Bar Mitzvah Disco) elicit more fond memories, photos, letters home and art projects from a long list of young writers, artists and entertainment industry pros, including Paul Feig, A.J. Jacobs, Rachel Sklar and David Wain. In a fitting scrap-book style, Bennett and Shell compile these communal camp memories, drawn from original interviews, and also include broader essays on chapter topics like “Camp Gastronomy,” “Socials,” “Camp Love” and “Visiting Day.” Though most of the camps included here are in New York and Massachusetts, the subject matter of this colorful tribute—from Arrival Day to Last Night—will connect with anyone who looks back fondly on their camp experience (those who disliked camp, or never went, would probably do better renting Meatballs). (May 20)
Chosen Forever: A Memoir
Susan Richards. SoHo, $22 (288p) ISBN 9781569474921
Far better than a book tour chronicle has any right to be, Richards’ follow-up to her bestseller Chosen by a Horse again shows her gift for clarity in description, of both her physical surroundings and the landscapes of her heart and mind. The publicity campaign (and cover photo) focus on Richards’s surprise romance with renowned photographer Dennis Stock, who appears at one of her book signings: “I remember thinking that no one like that would ever be interested in someone like me.” But he was interested, so much so that there’s little suspense involved their relationship. While her observations about later-in-life love are spot-on, the heart of Richards’ book is how she comes to accept herself as a worthwhile author, despite crushingly low self-esteem. As she travels around the country, reconnecting with folks from her past and addressing small audiences, she reveals an infectious passion for her craft; that Chosen by a Horse turns out to be a phenomenon, and that Stock ends up marrying her, just makes Richards’s work of self-discovery sweeter. (June)
Feed the Hungry: A Memoir, with Recipes
Nani Power. Simon & Schuster, $23 (224p) ISBN 9781416556060
This rambling memoir takes readers from a Virginia plantation to punk-era New York City, with stops in the Bahamas, Brazil, Japan and other alluring destinations. Power, a novelist and foodie, takes a haphazard approach, with seemingly no organizing principle or purpose other than to share her love of various foods, certain family members, and a few different men. Nevertheless, for every moment of self-indulgence (in both the writing and the eating), there are moments of pure, poetic joy: “My older uncle Harrison… even shot a bear once, and we baked a haunch of it, a massive, fulvous hunk covered in grease as thick as Vaseline.” Further, the author takes such obvious pleasure in reminiscing over meals and friends that it’s hard not to enjoy them alongside her. For anyone who’s never tasted authentic Persian rice, her painstaking description of both preparing and eating the dish makes the crispy-bottomed specialty feel close at hand. Moreover, her recollection of crispy Peruvian chicken “with homemade chunky fried potatoes and a sharp green chile sauce” is positively mouthwatering. A few recipes garnish the end of each chapter, including dishes like Marinara Sauce, Cold Borscht, and the Brazilian stew Feijoada, a selection as idiosyncratic as the memoir itself. (June)
Mortal Coil: A Short History of Living Longer
David Haycock. Yale Univ., $30 (320p) ISBN 9780300117783
Author Haycock, a Greenwich-based historian of culture and medicine, surveys Western civilization’s hopes and schemes for longevity over the past four centuries, beginning with the last days of Sir Francis Bacon (who caught a fatal chill while stuffing a dead chicken with snow, so that its viability “might be long preserved”) and ending with Dr. Aubrey De Grey, whose current, controversial research into stem cells, he says, will eventually result in human lifespans of a thousand years or more. Along the way he writes about Benjamin Franklin, who delivered his famous “death and taxes” line just before his death (at 84), the longevity of characters from the Old Testament, Mary Shelley’s vision of electric “reanimation,” and a huge range of lesser-known figures obsessed with the mystery of the human life span—what’s “natural,” what’s “impossible,” what’s “normal,” and what can be done about it. According to Haycock, now in his 30s, chances are better than ever that he’ll live to see the 22nd Century; his own book shows he may have some misplaced optimism, but he also has an entertaining read with lots of fascinating sidelights. (July)
Bill Moyers. Doubleday, $26.95 (416p) ISBN 9780385523806
Veteran journalist and author Moyers (Moyers on America, The Power of Myth) staunchly attacks conservative government as one of “millions of Americans [who] are restless to get on with [their] revolution.” In this volume—a collection of speeches, addresses, talks and lectures from as far back as the ’80s—Moyers argues that participatory citizenship breathes life into American democracy, and whatever undermines active citizenship threatens to destroy the system. Moyers reminds readers that the U.S. stands “on the shoulders of brave ghosts,” and challenges them to treat, with courage, the country’s socio-political ills. The author provides illustrative portraits of dear friends like Fred Friendly and Hubert Humphrey, positioning himself among passionate journalists and left-leaning politicians. Some may recoil from his lobbyist outrage (they “hide… behind the flag while ripping off a country in crisis”), but his long-lived devotion to the American ideal of self-governance, on the whole, guides him well. His insight, sweeping political and historical expertise, and unflinching defense of his ideals should captivate both scholars and concerned citizens, though it’s more likely to appeal to those already on Moyers’s wavelength. (May)
Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind
Colin Renfrew. Modern Library, $23 (240p) ISBN 9780679640974
In this complex, closely argued text, best suited to archaeology professionals, field giant Renfrew sets forth quite a task, to sum up the progress of prehistoric archaeology thus far and then explore current challenges. In Part I, Renfrew surveys the history of the concept—prehistory refers to the long period of “human existence before… written records”—and how it developed into a rich field of study, developing excavation and chronological techniques and coming to major, sometimes startling conclusions (like the parallel evolution of distant cultures throughout the world). Part II considers the prehistory of the human mind—that is, how concepts such as relative value and social rank came into being. In a compelling but debatable argument, he finds that sedentarism—permanent residence in one place—was a pre-requisite for the emergence of material culture. Ultimately, however, “good local narratives” can be compiled for societies such as ancient China, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Mesoamerica, but a unifying model that encompasses their individual trajectories has yet to be developed; Renfrew regards its development as a major task for 21st century prehistorians. The value of Renfrew’s book is that it lays out these arguments, with the intent to spur thought, debate, analysis and, especially, theoretical modeling of social evolution. (July)
Shopping for Porcupine: A Life in Arctic Alaska
Seth Kantner. Milkweed Editions, $28 (256p) ISBN 9781571313011
In a lovely memoir, writer and photographer Kantner (author of the novel Ordinary Wolves) shares scenes from life in Alaska, from his childhood in the remote tundra, where his parents lived off the land in an isolated, “semi-Eskimo existence,” to his current home, the small town of Kotzebue, with his wife and daughter. Kantner reflects on wilderness, global warming and human encroachment, the changes that slowly make their way to the tundra (“the snowmobile and the demise of working dogs was a major tipping point”) and the hard reality behind the American Dream: “as in the Old West, it is what we’ve lost that marks who we are much more than these things we’ve gained.” While turning in a thoughtful and captivating memoir of subsistence living, isolation and uncertainty (“There was always meat but questions too: What would happen if our dad fell through the ice…?), he documents the wisdom of the disappearing Inuit culture his dad revered, and locates its place in modern life. With a sensitive, graceful voice and his own stunning color images, Kantner proves an appealing and talented artist. (June)
Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on BiodiversityEdited by Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, foreword by E. O. Wilson, prologue by Kofi Annan. Oxford, $34.95 (568p) ISBN 9780195175097
In 1992, the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School agreed to coordinate a massive, international scientific effort under the direction of Nobel Peace Prize-winning scientist and author Chivian (Critical Condition: Human Health and the Environment) to catalog “what was known about how other species contribute to human health.” The result of that extraordinary collaboration, involving more than 100 contributors, is this thorough volume, an invaluable resource for policy makers and a fascinating exploration for general readers of their hyper-connected biosphere. Species diversity, it turns out, acts as a kind of insurance policy for humans, by buffering stresses to the environment. The “mosaic of ecosystems” provide “services” (food, timber, air and water purification, waste decomposition, climate regulation) necessary for life that, due to their complexity and scale, are almost impossible to substitute. Naturally, the system is robust but vulnerable: the vultures of southern Asia, for instance, are threatened with extinction because their natural diet—carrion—has been poisoned with medicine routinely prescribed for livestock and humans. Another “service” contributed by the ecosystem is the highly useful E. coli bacteria, used in biomedical research to develop new medications and provide insight into Alzheimer’s and other diseases. This book represents a landmark addition to our understanding of our ecological heritage, and the importance of preserving it. 175 color illus. (June)
Why Men Die First: How to Lengthen Your Lifespan
Marianne J. Legato. Palgrave,, $27.95 (272p) ISBN 9780230605176
Legato, a physician and one of the founders of gender specific medicine, provides a broad-brush look at the relative fragility of men who “at every point of their lives die an average of seven years earlier than women.” Much of the book will be familiar to anyone who read John Gray’s Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (or, indeed, Legato’s own Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget), emphasizing the debatable notions that men and boys are aggressive where most women are team players, and that women value “the ambiance of the workplace and their relationship with other workers” over attaining power within a corporate structure. She breaks newer ground when she examines the genetics; the Y chromosome, she contends, may be more vulnerable to mutation, leading her to ponder whether “men have a future,” or might disappear in 125,000 years (on the other hand, it may be that “the Y drives evolution”). Later chapters look at depression, diseases, sports and work as they relate to men. Though a well-sourced overview, Legato’s attempt to give readers a “new view of men” suffers from a lack of fresh perspective. (June)
You Can Observe a Lot by Watching: What I’ve Learned About Teamwork from the Yankees and Life
Yogi Berra with Dave Kaplan. Wiley, $24.95 (240p) ISBN 9780470079928
Notorious for his run-ins with the English language, baseball great Berra has become an improbably prolific author. He and coauthor Kaplan follow up 2002’s What Time Is It? You Mean Now? with this charming, if meandering, book about teamwork. In anecdote after anecdote about his legendary career with the Yankees, his not-so-legendary career as a manager, and his days growing up on the streets of St. Louis, Berra shows how respect and cooperation made him a success on the field and in life. Lessons include the importance of punctuality, owning one’s mistakes, and a positive attitude. For better or worse, nuggets of wisdom (“Never give an opponent added motivation”) are buried beneath a mountain of less-than-insightful sports ephemera (Derek Jeter is “a good leader because he always knows and does what’s right”). Still, Berra’s optimism and wry, absurdist sense of humor make it a fast read that should resonate with fans; as one would expect, Berra includes plenty of well-meaning advice in his signature, well-near-meaningless style: “Unless you have an excuse, there’s no excuse.” (May)
LIFESTYLE
Remake Restyle Reuse: Easy Ways to Transform Everyday Basics in to Inspired Design
Sonia Lucano. Watson Guptill, $19.95 paper (144p) ISBN 9780823098422
Parisian designer Lucano gives crafters over 40 options for tasteful, contemporary updates to everyday items in this easy-to-reproduce collection. After a quick overview of basic techniques such as embroidery, dyeing and engraving, Lucano offers a number of projects for each, ranging from engraved wine glasses and vases to embroidered sheets and artwork. Emphasizing a minimalist approach, Lucano adds simple designs and/or phrases to modify existing materials, be it a curtain, carafe, plate or clay pot. All DIYers need to replicate her creations is access to a copier to make life-size reproductions of the patterns and images. The stark black and white style of her collection will not appeal to everyone, but those with an eye for the contemporary will appreciate her style as well as the cohesiveness of the collection. (June)
Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me:A Chef’s Stories and Recipes from the Land
Denis Cotter. Collins, $37.95 (322p) ISBN 9780007251971
Irish chef Cotter’s lyrical rumination on local fruits and vegetables is much like a relaxing Sunday afternoon walk in the country. Following a loose structure, Cotter wanders from topic to topic, from discussing the etymology of sea spinach to an early morning wild mushroom hunt with little transition. While this may frustrate some readers, Cotter covers a remarkable amount of culinary ground and eventually gets to all the major players in the garden, from root vegetables and tomatoes to multiple varieties of kale and the joys of fresh asparagus. Supplemented with plenty of recipes for dishes ranging from the familiar (Tomatillo Salsa, Field Mushroom and Potato Gratin) to the exotic (Nettle Risotto, Watercress Soup with Walnut and Sweet Pepper Salsa), the real treasures are buried in the text, where Cotter offers numerous riffs on standards like beets, and how to employ turnips in a curry. Readers accustomed to skimming will gloss over many of the jewels scattered throughout the book, but patient cooks will be rewarded with a renewed appreciation for their garden’s bounty. (June)
ILLUSTRATED
The Americans
Robert Frank, introduction by Jack Kerouac. Steidl, $39.95 (180p) ISBN 9783865215840
In this 50th anniversary reissue, celebrated photographer Frank maintains the format (left page: brief caption, right page: photo) and introduction (Jack Kerouac: “with the agility, mystery, genius, sadness and strange secrecy of a shadow [Frank] photographed scenes that have never been seen before on film”), the images themselves have been re-scanned, re-cropped by Frank and, in two cases, changed. Frank’s images, taken all across the country, leave the viewer with a solemn impression of American life. From funerals to drug store cafeterias to parks, Frank recorded every shade of everyday life he encountered: the lower and upper classes, the living and dead, the hopeful and destitute, all the while experimenting with angle, focus and grain to increase impact. Preceding an exhibition that will tour U.S. galleries in 2009, this volume will no doubt introduce new generations to Frank’s inimitable record of daily life fifty years ago. Kerouac says, fittingly, that “[a]fter seeing these pictures you end up finally not knowing any more whether a jukebox is sadder than a coffin”; those who don’t comprehend Kerouac’s comment have yet to experience this classic collection. 83 tri-tone plates. (June)
RELIGION
A Christianity Worth Believing: Hope-filled, Open-armed, Alive-and-well Faith for the Left Out, Left Behind, and Let Down in Us All
Doug Pagitt. Jossey-Bass, $21.95 (256p) ISBN 9780787998127
Pagitt, a leader in the Emergent church movement, came to faith as a teenager at a Passion play, but Christian theology often didn't cohere with his own raw, powerful and inclusive experiences of and intuition about God. Here Pagitt tells his own story and weaves together a new theology for the Emergent movement, viewing Christian doctrine from a slightly different perspective and trying to break it out of the firm grasp of Greek thinking by returning it to its Jewish context, the way it would have been understood by first-century readers. To Pagitt, humanity's fallen state as a result of sin should not be emphasized so much as God's desire to partner with people to do good work in the world. The Bible is not so much about truth and error as it is a picture of God attempting to reconnect, while Jesus represents our potential to live in love and establish the kingdom of God now. Pagitt clearly articulates both the heart and theology of the Emergent movement. Conservative critics will no doubt consider this Christianity subtly twisted out of recognition, but postmodern readers struggling with current expressions of faith will see love and hope. (June)
FICTION
The Chorister at the Abbey
Lis Howell. Soho Constable, $24.95 (368p) ISBN 9781569475089
Slow pacing and unmemorable characters weigh down Howell’s second Norbridge Chronicles mystery (after 2006’s The Flower Arranger at All Saints), set in the north of England. Shortly before Christmas, tenor Tom Firth, a member of the Norbridge Abbey chorus, trips over the bloody corpse of Morris Little, the leader of the group’s bass singers, in a blacked-out corridor of Norbridge College. Alex Gibson, of the college’s finance department, who finds the traumatized Firth, has been something of a recluse after the loss of a parent to dementia, but an amateur investigation into Little’s murder soon revitalizes her. Skeptical of the official line that local toughs committed the crime, Alex pursues the real killer with the aid of a TV producer friend and the friend’s significant other. The solution may strike some readers as a bit muddled, while others may find the police’s near invisibility implausible. (May)
Vanish
Tom Pawlik. Tyndale, $12.99 paper (384p) ISBN 9781414318936
In Pawlik’s debut novel of inspirational suspense, two men and one woman wake up one morning to find that every other human being on the planet seems to have disappeared. (Yes, one character even uses that tell-tale phrase “left behind.”) The three survivors hallucinate and sense they are being watched. But by whom? Protagonists Mitch, Conner and Helen not only struggle to survive physically, but find themselves pondering vivid memories and grappling with issues from the past. Helen, for example, regrets certain choices she made in her personal life years ago, and Mitch ponders unresolved issues with his parents. Conner mourns his dead son and failed marriage, and tries to cope with the fact that his ex-wife and daughter have become evangelical Christians. The circumstances of his survival prompt him to wrestle with questions of belief. Resolution and even redemption come for some of the heroes, but the prose is flat and the character development is thin enough that readers will have a hard time caring. (July)
Wind River
Tom Morrisey. Bethany, $13.99 paper (352p) ISBN 9780764203473
Morrisey’s sixth novel begins in a promising way with convincing, vivid descriptions of his young protagonist, first in the back country of Wyoming, and then in Iraq. The attention to detail suggests that the reader is in expert hands. But several more chapters in, the book devolves into a plodding and superficial treatment of two presumably scarred souls seeking redemption in the mountains near Wyoming’s Wind River. Much of the novel is a dissertation on wilderness camping and fly fishing, which seems designed more to showcase the author’s considerable knowledge of these subjects than to drive a narrative. The inevitable revelation of past secrets doesn’t start until two-thirds of the way in, and then spills forth in a single rush of confession, followed by an equally hurried and predictably convenient ending. Even readers who might appreciate the slow-paced exploration of beautiful country will be disappointed in the book’s hasty, shallow reflections on confession. Good and evil are carefully contained on separate sides of the track, with no question as to which characters belong where, and therefore little drama in their redemptive moments. (July)
| Our Reviewers | ||
| Barbara Axelson Daniel Bial Antonia Blair Patrick Brown Alexis Burling Rachell Carlisle Katrina Edenfeld Jonathan Ellowitz Christina Eng Kate Foster Shelley Gabert |
Isabelle Gason Allison Gaudet Adam Geiger Gabrielle Gurley Christy Henry Andrea Hoag Sarah Hoffman Joe Jeffreys Diane Langhorst Crystal Lassen Alex Masulis Tracey Middlekauff |
Stephen Milioti Nora Ostrofe Michael Popke Mythili Rao Shannon Reed Harry Sawyers Angelina Sciolla Andrew Seidler Joseph Shepley Diane Snyder Kyle Tonniges Carol White |
