Nonfiction Reviews

As vice chairman of a global executive search firm, Ramakrishman uses his access to the top executives at major corporations to ask the one question aspiring CEOs, and even new entrants to the business world, would most like to know: What do you know now that you wish you had known 20 years ago? The result is a low-key, highly personal look back at success. The advice Ramakrishman elicits from the executives delves into such areas as the importance of choosing only 'A' players when seeking to assemble a strong team and striving for a flatter organizational structure to promote communication and information flow. The subject matter does not vary significantly from standard career topics like the importance of networking, but the real value here is access to the wisdom and guidance of proven leaders such as Steve Reinemund of Pepsi and Terrence Marks of Coca-Cola. Chapter-ending executive summaries underscore key points that will benefit anyone—regardless of their corporate ranking—looking to advance in their field. (Nov.)

The Arno River flood that deluged Florence, Italy, in 1966—killing 33 people and damaging 14,000 works of art and countless books and antiques—frames this meditation on the relationship between art and life. Clark (River of the West) embarks first on a leisurely history of Florence's intertwined experience of great floods and great art, through the perceptions of Dante, Leonardo, E.M. Forster and other writers and artists. The world's rapt concern for Florence's cultural treasures contrasts sharply with its neglect of the city's inhabitants, Clark argues, offering his impressionistic account of the 1966 disaster as seen through the eyes of artists, photographers, volunteer “mud angels” who swarmed the city to help rescue its waterlogged art and Communist militants who organized relief for poor neighborhoods. He then follows the decades-long and rancorously debated restoration projects, especially the controversial rehabilitation of Cimabue's 13th-century Crucifix, seeing in them a metaphor for artistic beauty as an endless work-in-progress. Clark's study is sometimes unfocused, but by building up layers of atmospheric chiaroscuro—the drying city, he notes, lay “lacquered in tints of warm earth and azzuro sky... like pigments just brushed on and still moist”—he achieves an evocative portrait of Florence as its own greatest masterpiece. (Oct. 7)

As he did in his previous books on Henry Ford (The People's Tycoon) and Walt Disney (The Magic Kingdom), Watts carefully details the life of Hugh Hefner and the influence his Playboy magazine has had on American culture. Using unrestricted access to the magazine's archives, Watts skillfully charts the intersection of Hefner's professional and personal history: the “sexual titillation” of his first issue; his mid- to late-1960s championing of leftist politics and writers such as Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut; his 1970s retrenchment after assaults by the women's liberation movement; his financial and personal troubles in the '80s and '90s; and his current position as the “retro cool” figurehead of an institution that is now a “midsize communications and entertainment company.” Watts evokes a time when Playboy was seen by its critics as a key “symptom of decadence in American life,” and is at his best when exploring his subject's early years, showing how Hefner's sexual and material “ethic of self-fulfillment” drove him to challenge “the social conventions of postwar America.” (Oct.)

Essayist and public radio regular Vowell (Assassination Vacation) revisits America's Puritan roots in this witty exploration of the ways in which our country's present predicaments are inextricably tied to its past. In a style less colloquial than her previous books, Vowell traces the 1630 journey of several key English colonists and members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Foremost among these men was John Winthrop, who would become governor of Massachusetts. While the Puritans who had earlier sailed to Plymouth on the Mayflower were separatists, Winthrop's followers remained loyal to England, spurred on by Puritan Reverend John Cotton's proclamation that they were God's chosen people. Vowell underscores that the seemingly minute differences between the Plymouth Puritans and the Massachusetts Puritans were as meaningful as the current Sunni/Shia Muslim rift. Gracefully interspersing her history lesson with personal anecdotes, Vowell offers reflections that are both amusing (colonial history lesson via The Brady Bunch) and tender (watching New Yorkers patiently waiting in line to donate blood after 9/11). (Oct.)

This collection of autobiographical stories by Bottoms (Angelhead) is set in the world of suburban strip malls circa 1983. These coming-of-age vignettes (accompanied by Powell's gritty chapter illustrations) feature Bottoms as a 12-year-old from in southeastern Virginia who's become attached to his buddy Mark and to Mark's divorced father, Bill, a macho, profane, hard-living construction worker: “He made me want to drink, to have command over women, to get good at all of it, to tell these kinds of stories, to be a man.” Left to their own devices, Greg and Mark spend the summer getting high, drinking beer at abandoned construction sites, trying to avoid the town bully and navigating their first crushes (“I imagined us from above—as if we were in a movie—a movie in which we were about to have hot, carefully lit, and musically accompanied sex—and I wasn't almost a foot shorter than she was and my muscles were bigger and I didn't have braces or a first peppering of zits”). This collection is filled with short, humorous scenes and pitch-perfect, sex-obsessed adolescent dialogue that illuminate a boy's uneasy journey toward adulthood. (Oct.)

Film critic Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film) gives cinephiles and film novices alike a comprehensive yet personal list of 1,000 must-see films. Arranged alphabetically—a chronological index is included—Thomson's tome opens with a slapstick American comedy (1948's Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein) and closes with a social critique from talented Italian director, Antonioni (Zabriskie Point from 1970). For Thomson, films are products of both their time and our own, and the act of watching (and re-watching) reminds us that film is a medium where the past perpetually enhances the present. It can't be a coincidence that the oldest entry (1895's L'Arrosseur Arrossé) and the newest (2007's No Country for Old Men) are both twists on the revenge epic helmed by innovative brothers (the Lumières and the Coens, respectively). As Thomson points out, “Story is as long and twisty as a hose. It goes on forever.” (Oct. 15)

Allison and Gediman's newest omnibus highlights 75 more essays from the archives of the successful NPR program, a contemporary version of Edward Murrow's classic radio show. Culled from writers both legendary and previously unfamiliar, each essayist presents what he or she believes in 500 words. From Robin Baudier's tract on “Strange Blessings,” detailing her experience living in her parents' FEMA trailer after the devastation of Katrina, to Michelle Gardner-Quinn's credo for “upholding reverence for all life” (Quinn was tragically murdered after completing this essay) to Kim Phuc's essay on “Forgiveness,” borne of her experience as that “girl in the picture” running naked, napalm-burnt on a road near Saigon, each micro-essay stuns with its singular beauty, lucidity and humility. Icons like Helen Prejean, Studs Terkel and Elie Wiesel find estimable company in heretofore unknown writers who distill their individual truths with affecting sincerity and admirable aptitude. (Oct.)

In this essay collection, British writer Dalrymple (Life at the Bottom) lays out a case for the decline of Western civilization, finding its symptoms lurking in everything from multiculturalism to the “delusions of honesty” by political leaders. Although less of a lovable curmudgeon than plain ferocious in his ire, the author's forays into literary criticism are appealing if amateurish; a former prison doctor, the author is most cogent when on his own beat, analyzing the criminal justice and medical systems. Predictably pessimistic on the political front, the author has sharp words for his fellow Brits (“They are educated by the state, the state provides for them in old age and has made saving unnecessary or, in some cases, actually uneconomic; they are treated and cured by the state... they are housed by the state.... Their choices concern only sex and shopping”). He saves his worst condemnation for Muslims: (“[Muslim men] satisfy their sexual needs with prostitutes and those whom they quite openly call 'white sluts' ”); his pieces on terrorism and suicide bombers abound with ugly stereotyping from which this otherwise entertaining book never fully recovers. (Oct.)

At the center of this philosophical tale by the acclaimed author of The Island at the Center of the World is a simple mystery: Where in the world is Descartes's skull, and how did it get separated from the rest of his remains? Following the journey of the great 17th-century French thinker's bones—“over six countries, across three centuries, through three burials”—after his death in Stockholm in 1650, Shorto also follows the philosophical journey into “modernity” launched by Descartes's articulation of the mind-body problem. Shorto relates the life of the “self-centered, vainglorious, vindictive” Descartes and the bizarre story of his remains with infectious relish and stylistic grace, and his exploration of philosophical issues is probing. But the bones are too slender to bear the metaphorical weight of modernity that he gives them. Their sporadic appearance in the tale also makes them a shaky narrative frame for the sprawling events Shorto presents as the result of Descartes's work: the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the 19th century's scientific explosion, 21st-century battles between faith and reason. Given Shorto's splendid storytelling gifts, this is a pleasure to read, but ultimately unsatisfying. (Oct. 14)

The sentiments at the heart of this book are admirable: an understanding that democracy is constantly evolving (“democracy is the only political system... which accepts its perfectibility.... Democracy is always to come”); the belief that it is only by engaging the Other that we can end humanity's struggles; the need to remember that there is no single way of being Muslim or Western. However, the ideas are enervated by their poor presentation; the conversation between Derrida and Chérif is meandering and esoteric and not intended for a general audience; furthermore, this slim volume is also deeply repetitive and all but devoid of actionable suggestions—readers will be frustrated by repeated calls for dialogue that come unencumbered by suggestions as to how to work toward that goal. The book's most peculiar flaw is its paucity of Derrida—the short conversation is overwhelmed by two introductions, a conclusion and a touching afterword—a eulogy to the philosopher, who died some 15 months after this discussion took place. (Oct.)

Garcia (The New Mainstream) explores disturbing trends of men leading increasingly socially isolated lives and dropping out of high school and college in record numbers, naming them victims of an “invisible epidemic.” According to the author, modern men have failed to forge a new and productive role in the 21st century. Garcia charts the rise of feminism and the changing societal roles of both men and women, illustrating how and why men have become so confused about what defines masculinity; having lost their traditional role as provider and protector, men flirt with hollow substitute identities—drawing on “Jackass culture” (“men pretending to be boys”), gangster culture (“boys pretending to be men”) and “metrosexual” obsessions with grooming and body image—that have reductively redefined manhood and led men away from compassion, responsibility and family. Garcia wisely avoids degrading feminism or pitting men against women; instead, he offers an astute and well-researched meditation on how men might reclaim their identity and place in modern America and why such a transformation is important to future generations of both men and women. (Oct.)

This first gathering of literary criticism by poet Warren (Departure) shines, much like her verse, because of her ability to make the past and present connect. Warren writes skillfully about English poetry (in a fine piece on negation in Thomas Hardy) and modern France (with superb introductions to the poets Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire, though there are few surprises when she examines Rimbaud). She also advances fine arguments about how English-language poets use the classical past: Swinburne's adaptations of Sappho, for example, and Auden's Alcaic elegy. Warren's father was the poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren (All the King's Men), and some readers may focus on the few essays that include autobiography (more about Warren's own artistic development than about her family life). Other readers, no doubt, will find these essays too highbrow—and they do sound “academic” at times. On the whole, though, the book deserves great praise: Warren is a matchless guide to her favorite major poets. (Sept.)

Cunliffe, emeritus professor of archeology at Oxford, colorfully weaves history, geography archeology and anthropology into a mesmerizing tapestry chronicling the development of Europe. The sheer size of the European coastlines, as well as the inland rivers pouring into these seas, enabled many groups to move easily from one place to another and establish cultures that flourished commercially. Between 2800 and 1300 B.C., for example, Britain, the Nordic states, Greece and the western Mediterranean states were bound together by their maritime exchange of bronze, whose use in Britain and Ireland had spread by 1400 B.C. to Greece and the Aegean. From 800 to 500 B.C.—the “three hundred years that changed the world”—the Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans and Carthaginians emerged from relative obscurity into major empires whose struggles to control the seas were for the first time recorded in writing. Cunliffe points out that each oceanic culture developed unique sailing vessels for the kinds of commerce peculiar to it. Richly told, Cunliffe's tale yields a wealth of insights into the earliest days of European civilization. Illus., maps. (Sept.)

Although he was a practicing Christian, baptized into the Church of England at age 12, British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's (1804–1881) Jewishness was a central fact about him. Drawing on previous biographies, histories of English Jewry and Disraeli's autobiographical novels and other writings, poet and New York Sun book critic Kirsch (Invasions) interprets Disraeli's life as emblematic of “both the possibilities of emancipation for European Jewry, and its subtle impossibilities.” Kirsch sheds welcome light on Disraeli's father's ambivalence toward Judaism and his decision to baptize his children; the crude Jew-baiting Disraeli encountered at school and, later, in politics; his imagining Palestine as the site of Jewish national sovereignty; his ascent in the Conservative party, which, Kirsch says, was paradoxically a testament to English liberalism; and the half-century rivalry between Disraeli and Gladstone that defined Victorian politics. Two of Disraeli's greatest political achievements, recounted here, are the passage of a bill that broadly expanded voting rights and the purchase, with a loan from his Rothschild friends, of a share in the Suez Canal Company for the British government. This is a lively, inquiring biography that reveals the prideful, exceptional man behind the famous politician. (Sept.)

Hunter College Russian professor Draitser recalls a post-WWII Odessa youth blighted by a pernicious and pervasive anti-Semitism that made him ashamed of being Jewish—so ashamed that decades after arriving in America, he still whispered references to things Jewish. A bewildered and reluctant observer of the rise of Russian chauvinism as the Cold War erupted, Draitser remembers how gangs of youngsters hunted Holocaust survivor children and permanently maimed his seven-year-old cousin; the discovery of his beloved Pushkin's hateful characterizations of Jews left him confused and disgusted with himself. He recalls the clouds of suspicion surrounding his mother's friend, a pediatrician, when Jewish doctors were targeted with trumped-up charges of sabotage in the 1950s “Doctors' Plot.” His parents' yearning to connect to their heritage is movingly portrayed: Draitser's father saved the peel from an Israeli orange, and his mother traveled to the boonies to surreptitiously purchase Passover matzos. This painful and acutely observed memoir will resonate with many readers; unfortunately, it ends with Stalin's death. How Draitser and his parents made their way to America and how they fared here are unexplored. 22 b&w photos. (Sept.)

This is the fourth biography of Boone since 1992—it's the most readable and balanced, and, because it benefits from those earlier studies, also the most complete and satisfying. Every biographer of Boone has to contend with the idolatry that grew up around the man when he was alive. But Brown, in his first book, steers clear of hero worship. He sees Boone whole, praising him where praise is warranted while scrupulously recording his failings—risking his family's lives, losing sons in battles with Indians, never succeeding as a land speculator. Yet Boone emerges again as a truly remarkable figure. Caught up in the Revolutionary War, the unending Indian warfare that followed and westward expansion, he managed to remain a loyal American while moving among the tribes whose ways he knew and, unlike so many others, respected. His legendary marksmanship and daring protected him and his followers for decades. Brown's Boone remains a larger-than-life figure: heroic without posturing, steadfast without foolishness, patriotic without Indian hatred. This is a book for those who seek an accurate, not pietistic, history of a way of life long past. 25 illus., 8 maps. (Sept.)

Diamond, a defense analyst and former reporter for USA Today, presents a perceptive account of the reasons behind a double-barreled intelligence fiasco: 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. In the case of 9/11, Diamond claims that the CIA failed to determine the “target, timing, and perpetrators” of an attack it knew was coming. With Iraq, he says, the CIA perceived a threat that did not exist: weapons of mass destruction. The failures were linked, Diamond says. The implosion of the Soviet Union ended the threat the CIA was designed to meet, leaving the agency at loose ends in an unstructured global environment. Revelations of intelligence failures bred a “culture of failure,” by which Diamond means a crisis of confidence in the CIA's abilities. That generated internal friction and factionalism, with blind spots and biases shaping judgments. One result was failure to assemble a coherent image of developing security threats. Another was overcompensating for 9/11 by reasoning that with Iraq, safe was better than sorry. Diamond's evaluation of the CIA's crisis of confidence adds insight to debates about intelligence failures. 10 illus. (Sept)

Philadelphia's “Boy in the Box” is one of the country's most famous unsolved crimes, but New York Times reporter Stout delivers a disappointing account of the long-running investigation. In February 1957, the body of a boy between ages four and six was discovered in a cardboard box in a wooded area in Philadelphia's Fox Chase section. Even with an apparent abundance of clues—the plaid blanket wrapped around the body, the cap found nearby—the case went cold fast, though it would become a lifelong obsession for several investigators. Remington Bristow, from the Medical Examiner's office, spent the rest of his life tracking down leads. Detectives Bill Kelly and Sam Weinstein joined the city's elite Vidocq Society—forensic professionals and others who try to solve such crimes—in the hopes of finally giving the boy a name. In 1998, the boy's body was exhumed for DNA testing. A woman has recently claimed that her parents killed the boy but authorities have been unable to prove—or disprove—her story. Stout's uneven chronology, further hampered by myriad digressions, will confuse even the most attentive reader, and frequent lapses into melodrama cheapen a compelling tale. (Sept. 2)

There is much to praise in this authorized biography of Rene “Boxer” Enriquez, penned by Peabody Award–winning journalist Blatchford (Three Dog Nightmare). While this is a superb cautionary tale about the dangers of youth falling into senseless gang violence, it also rates as a probing, redemptive story of Enriquez, a vicious, heroin-addicted killer for Los Angeles's largest criminal street gang, with 20,000 members involved in extortion, drug-dealing, vice and murder. Blatchford explores with grim accuracy Enriquez's criminal past, prison killings, turf wars and contract eliminations around the West Coast. But the book also reveals Enriquez and his crew's total commitment to hoodlum honor, the cost in lives and status, and the betrayals and intrigues both behind bars and out in society. This is a savvy account of Enriquez's arduous self-education and personal transformation from cold killer to a man who, in his own words, educates law enforcement and the public about a “prison and criminal subculture that should scare the hell out of them.” (Sept.)

In this engaging study, art historian Lopez examines—as did Edward Dolnick's Forger's Spell, published in June—the fascinating case of Han van Meegeren, a notorious Dutch art forger. Van Meegeren, who sold Hermann Goering a fake Vermeer, was convicted of collaboration; he became a folk hero for duping the Nazi leader. But according to Lopez, van Meegeren was a successful forger long before WWII, and contrary to van Meegeren's claim that he was avenging himself on the art critics who had scorned his own work, Lopez says he was motivated by financial gain and Nazi sympathies: “What is a forger if not a closeted Übermensch, an artist who secretly takes history itself for his canvas?” Lopez asks provocatively. The author gives a vivid portrait of the 1920s Hague, a stylish place of “mischief and artifice” where van Meegeren learned his trade, and brilliantly examines the influence of Nazi Volksgeist imagery on van Meegeren's The Supper at Emmaus, part of his forged biblical Vermeer series. Lopez's writing is witty, crisp and vigorous, his research scrupulous and his pacing dynamic. 88 b&w photos. (Sept.)

The title of Garber's erudite, incisive study contains the crux of her persuasive proposal: though financially supported by foundations, corporations and wealthy individuals, the arts are also deemed “nonessential.” These two types of patronizing, Garber argues with wit and aplomb, have led to art's simultaneous devaluation (as “recreational”) and overvaluation (as transcendent). This paradox is not a problem requiring a solution, she says, but rather, an inevitable dialectic. Harvard English professor Garber (Vested Interests: Crossdressing and Cultural Anxiety), begins by uncovering the contradictions inherent in patronage: the word's very origin is the Latin pater, “father,” and its connections to patriarchy, she says, are not coincidental. Garber traces the patron/artist relationship through the centuries and considers the new class of “American Medicis” in the private, government and corporate sectors. She counterbalances the paradox of patronage with the “paradox of the artist,” whose work's usefulness lies in its “apparent uselessness.” Garber concludes with a call for increased arts patronage by colleges and universities. Her stimulating analyses, both highly informed and refreshingly unpedantic, will be of great interest to the scholar and general reader who appreciates a salient cultural critique. (Sept.)

Has science replaced religion for a modern society unwilling to bear moral responsibility? Questions of life and death lie in doctors' hands. Even a diagnosis, says science writer and psychologist Greenberg, is a moral statement: the doctor is “telling you what's wrong with your life and how to fix it.” This unconvincing statement exemplifies Greenberg's difficulties in his muddled attempt to grapple with our faith in scientific truth. Diseases are invented, not discovered, he claims. By exploring various medical issues—such as addiction, depression, brain death—he tries to demonstrate that “deciding which suffering should be relieved and how is not as simple as applying a stethoscope to a chest”—hardly an original idea. The truth becomes a casualty of organized medicine's need to provide relief to all who say they are suffering, and that need is institutionalized and commercialized by structures like the FDA and the drug industry. The “noble lie” inherent in the treatments offered for common diagnoses can't last, says the author. But while Greenberg's questions about the scientific validity of medical research and treatments are urgent, they have been explored more capably and cogently elsewhere. (Sept.)

In his latest effort, Pearlman (The Bad Guys Won!) tells the story of how the Dallas Cowboys went from being a league doormat to a Super Bowl–winning machine. It's the cast of characters that makes this story a page-turner, starting with controlling owner Jerry Jones; all-business coach Jimmy Johnson, who would cut a player without blinking; and star players Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, Emmitt Smith and Deion Sanders. Pearlman explores the many other people who bought into the philosophy that “if you were going to be a Dallas Cowboy... you needed to live the life”—and that meant, in the early '90s, plenty of infidelity, cocaine, nightly trips to gentleman's clubs and hangovers at practice. Pearlman interviewed nearly 150 members of the Cowboys organization for the book, but much of the terrific detail comes from such tangential folks as journalists, players' wives and staff at the local Cowboys restaurant. The anecdotes range from uplifting (the heartwarming story of quarterback Troy Aikman granting a wish to a dying boy) to raunchy (defensive end Chris Haley, while playing for the 49ers, often masturbated in the locker room). In the end, Pearlman has produced a narrative that is as entertaining as it is insightful. (Sept.)

Ross, a law professor at Penn State, and Szymanski, an economics professor at Cass Business School in London, believe American sports fans are in an abusive relationship. Since the four major leagues (baseball, football, basketball and hockey) are essentially run by the owners, they can wallow in greed and laziness while fans idly suffer: “Clubs who are guaranteed perpetual membership in a monopoly league and who then get to set the rules for themselves have every incentive to act in their own self-interest and contrary to the interest of fans and taxpayers.” The authors outline a plan to end that, stressing league control via an independent entity (as is the case in NASCAR) and employing soccer's promotion and relegation system, which demotes underperforming teams and encourages competition. With real-life examples and solid research, the authors support their version of a sports utopia. In the end, however, the authors' stodgy, academic writing (they use “stadia” as the plural for “stadium”) becomes tedious and stifling. (Sept.)

One frigid Midwestern winter night in 1988, a ginger kitten was shoved into the after-hours book-return slot at the public library in Spencer, Iowa. And in this tender story, Myron, the library director, tells of the impact the cat, named DeweyReadmore Books, had on the library and its patrons, and on Myron herself. Through her developing relationship with the feline, Myron recounts the economic and social history of Spencer as well as her own success story—despite an alcoholic husband, living on welfare, and health problems ranging from the difficult birth of her daughter, Jodi, to breast cancer. After her divorce, Myron graduated college (the first in her family) and stumbled into a library job. She quickly rose to become director, realizing early on that this “was a job I could love for the rest of my life.” Dewey, meanwhile, brings disabled children out of their shells, invites businessmen to pet him with one hand while holding the Wall Street Journal with the other, eats rubber bands and becomes a media darling. The book is not only a tribute to a cat—anthropomorphized to a degree that can strain credulity (Dewey plays hide and seek with Myron, can read her thoughts, is mortified by his hair balls)—it's a love letter to libraries. (Sept.)

In this sincere though slight autobiography, Taylor, guitarist for the 1980s pop band Duran Duran, delivers an extended backstage look at the band's rise and fall. He includes an album-by-album look at how the band, which combined glam fashion and keyboard-driven synthpop with outrageous (and expensive) videos featuring exotic locales such as Sri Lanka, became synonymous with early MTV. Taylor discusses—sometimes underplays—the band's outrageous drug and alcohol habits—much of which was better covered in MTV's 1999 Behind The Music segment. He is clearly aware that the band's “materialistic image” was a key part of London's transformation in the 1980s into a city where “it was a dominant part of popular culture to aspire to be successful.” The frustrating part is that his attempts to put Duran Duran into a wider musical perspective are far too infrequent, and his own story can't quite carry the narrative. (Sept.)

Journalist Einhorn's mother, Irena, was born in the Jewish ghetto of Bedzin, Poland, in 1942. A year later, as Irena's parents were being sent to concentration camps, her father made a deal with a Polish woman to hide Irena in exchange for his property. Irena's mother died at Auschwitz, but her father survived, and after the liberation met Irena in Sweden to go to America. As an adult, Einhorn decided to return to Poland to find her grandfather's house, hoping she might also meet the Polish woman who'd hidden Irena. As Einhorn worked on her family quest, she explored the somewhat surreal world of modern Polish-Jewish relations—from concentration camp tourism to faux-Jewish nightclubs featuring raucous renditions of “Hava Nagila.” Einhorn's earnestness serves her well in this beautifully told, genuinely inquisitive memoir; she insists on trying to “do right” by the Polish family who hid her mother, even if they only did it for money. (Sept.)

Three books venture into unexplored areas as Lincoln's 2009 bicentennial approaches.

In this intriguing biography, English professor and literary biographer Kaplan (The Singular Mark Twain) analyzes Abraham Lincoln's writings, from the great civic anthems of his presidency to love letters, legal briefs, poems and notebook jottings, and finds a first-rate literary talent—a master storyteller with an earthy wit, sharp logic and an ear for poetic phrasing. From wide reading, Kaplan contends, Lincoln gleaned influences—an Aesopian moralism, a biblical sense of providence, a Byronic melancholy, a Shakespearean understanding of human complexity—that shaped his approach to issues and, through his words, the nation's attitude toward slavery and war. Kaplan sometimes overdoes his critical exegeses of Lincoln's more forgettable efforts (“[Lincoln's] comic depiction of what happens when two people of the same sex are bedded has a heterodox clarity that reveals his familiarity with bodily realities”) but many of these readings, like his recasting as free verse a speech on agricultural improvements, are eye-opening. The result is a fresh, revealing study of both Lincoln's language and character. (Nov. 3)

Given the importance of Lincoln's role as commander-in-chief to the nation's very survival, says McPherson, this role has been underexamined. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom), the doyen of Civil War historians, offers firm evidence of Lincoln's military effectiveness in this typically well-reasoned, well-presented analysis. Lincoln exercised the right to take any necessary measures to preserve the union and majority rule, including violating longstanding civil liberties (though McPherson considers the infringements milder than those adopted by later presidents). As McPherson shows, Lincoln understood the synergy of political and military decision-making; the Emancipation Proclamation, for instance, harmonized the principles of union and freedom with a strategy of attacking the crucial Confederate resource of slave labor. Lincoln's commitment to linking policy and strategy made him the most hands-on American commander-in-chief; he oversaw strategy and offered operational advice, much of it shrewd and perceptive. Lincoln may have been an amateur of war, but McPherson successfully establishes him as America's greatest war leader. (Oct. 7)

Even the most committed of Lincoln's fans have sometimes questioned his actions in the four months between his 1860 election and his inauguration: a period when seven states seceded from the Union. In an engrossing narrative, Holzer (Lincoln at Cooper Union), chairman of the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, painstakingly retraces Lincoln's few public statements and numerous private initiatives during this key period, revealing an astute political operator assessing the situation, organizing his government, reaching out to the South “and most of all, “[drawing] a line in the sand to prevent the spread of human slavery.” Holzer shows Lincoln shrewdly and methodically manipulating friend and foe alike, while also taking the first cautious steps toward preparing both himself and his country for a grim trial by fire. 16 pages of b&w photos. BOMC and History Book Club main selection, first serial to Civil War Times and Smithsonian magazines. (Oct.)