Nonfiction Reviews

Kara, a former investment banker and executive, uses theoretical economics and business analysis to propose measures that could eradicate sex trafficking by undermining the profitability of the illegal activities associated with the crime. At considerable personal risk and expense—he is nearly attacked by a gang of pimps in Mumbai—the author penetrates seedy underworlds and forced labor markets to meet the women and children in the “dungeon of human disgrace” in Asia, Europe and the U.S. He highlights ubiquitous and disturbing trends—the heavy involvement of law enforcement agencies and personnel in trafficking and slavery—but this book's intentions suffers from Kara's self-professed “rudimentary” economic analysis, which often borders on the offensive (a theoretical calculation of the lifetime value of a sex slave) and an unscientific, ad hoc research model. While the evidence indicates the urgent need for action—a woman or child is trafficked for sexual exploitation every 60 seconds—Kara's economic approach fails to shed new light on the human cost of sex slavery and seems at the best of times beside the point, although the detailed statistical information he compiles—on everything from the costs of running a brothel in Queens, N.Y., to massage parlor and bonded labor economics worldwide—is a resource for researchers in the field. (Jan.)

In this spare, eloquent memoir, Rinella (The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine) describes his fascination with the American bison, which culminated in his tracking, shooting and butchering one. Rinella was one of 24 people in 2005 to win a lottery to hunt buffalo in the foothills of Alaska's Wrangell Mountains. So Rinella set off into the wilderness to fulfill his lifelong ambition. As he pursues the buffalo herd, Rinella also explores the long relationship between humans and an animal that they drove to the edge of extinction. In his journey through the wilderness, Rinella encounters grizzlies, white water rapids and frostbite; in his trek through history he depicts fur traders, early Native Americans and epics of slaughter that left the prairies littered with buffalo bones. Rinella's understated prose shows great flexibility, and he is by turns moving and downright funny. An experienced outdoorsman and hunter, Rinella writes with authority about the process of turning a living creature into steak, and easily renders an enormous amount of historical and scientific information into a thoroughly engaging narrative. (Dec.)

Davis was regarded by many as, in the words of one journalist, “the wickedest, canniest, deepest, slickest, baddest musician” of the last century, and Maher (Kerouac: His Life and Work) and Dorr, a poet and literary agent, have put together a collection of interviews covering the full spectrum of his career, from publicity materials linked to one of his earliest recordings for Columbia Records in the 1950s to a conversation two years before his death. Davis wasn't always the easiest person to talk to—“if you're going to shut up, man, I'll tell you” was his impatient response in one frustrating conversation—but when approached by the right person, someone with the perceptiveness of Nat Hentoff or Art Taylor, he could produce dazzling insights (in one 1987 interview, he spins intricate technical details on getting the right sound out of synthesizers). It's the little scenes that are most memorable: Davis at a birthday party for Louis Armstrong, or trying to persuade his “errand boy” biographer Eric Nisenson to make a late-night drug delivery. In some unfortunate cases, the interview is more about the self-important journalist celebrating his proximity to a jazz legend than about Davis himself, but even then it's impossible for anybody but Davis to hold the spotlight for long. (Nov.)

In 1941, a German-controlled radio station in Belgrade broadcast a recording that soldiers later referred to affectionately as “Lili Marlene.” Leibovitz (Aliya) and Miller (a Columbia School of Journalism student) offer this fascinating history of “one of the world's most recorded tunes,” detailing the careers of the artists involved in its creation. The original lyrics, based on Hans Leip's poem “Song of a Young Sentry,” were set to music by Norbert Schultze and evoked “every woman left behind at home to wait and worry.” Singer Lale Anderson's rendition transfixed soldiers from both sides of the war throughout Europe and North Africa. So potent was the song, it caused unofficial cease-fires when it played nightly. Set against the rise of Nazism, the authors paint chilling portraits of the megalomaniacal Joseph Goebbels and the cruel machinations of German culture boss Hans Hinkel. Despite the Nazis' attempts to censor the words, or the Allies' rewriting the lyrics, the original recording captured the “true essence of the song.” “Lili Marlene” was “a reminder of unity, hope, and brotherhood,” bringing soldiers to tears and comfort to the women left behind. (Nov.)

Editor and food writer Hesser (Cooking for Mr. Latte) selects 26 essays that originally appeared in the New York Times Magazine to conjure up foreign places and familiar people through tastes and smells. While some of the essays follow a classic Proustian remembrance—a pungent clove of garlic evokes Gary Shteyngart's escape from the bland boiled dinners of his parents' home in Little Neck, Queens, N.Y., and dizzying orange blossom oil stirs up embarrassing moments from Henry Alford's trip to Morocco—the collection's wide-ranging essays also include less conventional descriptions of meals, such as Ann Patchett's elusive word game with her future husband in the Paris restaurant Taillevent, where the conversation is memorable but the sole and a sublime dessert escape her recollection. Empty Tang bottles become a powerful signifier in Yiyun Li's China, and the sound of crashing pots and pans invites a memorable excursion with John Burnham Schwartz and his expat friends in Paris. Chef Gabrielle Hamilton's faces a profound test of patience with a blind line cook emptying French fries into the drain, while George Saunders offers a hilarious and hyperbolic recipe for air. Illus. (Nov.)

For decades, biographer Muhlstein (Letters from Russia) and her husband, novelist Begley (Matters of Honor), have traveled to Venice to spend their summers writing. This evocative collaboration—three short works, which together celebrate their beloved home away from home—translates the original, German edition released in 2004. In the first section, an essay, Muhlstein reflects on how they came to know the city through its people, in spite of the couple's strict, self-imposed rules against making friends during their sabbaticals. Their guides were the owners of the four charming restaurants that became their staples. Particularly memorable is Muhlstein's passage about Ernesto, who describes the devastating flood of November 1966. In the second section, a novella by Begley, the reader encounters Venice from the perspective of an American college student who travels there in pursuit of an older woman. She soon rejects him; however, in romance's stead, a deeper, more lasting affection for Venice and a friendship with a classmate develop. In the third section, Begley writes a treatise on Venice's role in the works of three authors he admires: Henry James, Marcel Proust and Thomas Mann. This triptych of works draws on the best of both worlds: the dazzled, fresh eyes of a pilgrim and the insight of a perennial resident. This book works less as a straightforward guide to piazzas and palazzos than as a stimulant to travels real and imaginary. (Nov.)

When CUNY professor Caws traveled to Provence over 30 years ago, she simply wished to translate the poetry of René Char. Quite soon, however, she came to deeply love the region and in this slow-paced memoir, Caws sings her paean to Provence by praising its food, it markets and its languorous lifestyle, With great humor and gusto, she tells the tale of how she and her husband bought their cabanon, or cottage. Meeting over a glorious lunch with the agent and the seller, the Caws slip the seller an envelope of cash under the table and end up with a dilapidated structure with no electricity or running water. She praises the virtues of community held so dear by her neighbors: “villagers pay great attention to each other and to the timing of things.” The first memoir section of the book simply traces her day-to-day life of cooking, translating poetry, going to market and visiting friends, mostly for long and sumptuous meals. In the second section of her memoir, she includes some of her favorite recipes from her friends in the region that can be prepared quickly and easily. (Nov.)

From the Italian ciambella in a 17th-century portrait of a young prince to the 1959 album Bagels and Bongos by pianist Irving Fields, journalist and BBC radio editor Balinska traces the cultural identity of a New York City icon from its humble beginnings in Poland to the freezer section of American supermarkets. Balinska's own interest in the bagel began with a year spent in Warsaw, Poland, as a graduate student, where she learned that her “own family history was relevant to that of the bagel.” She then unearths a plethora of little-known facts about this breakfast staple, recounting its role in children's nursery rhymes, Poland's economic crisis of 1929, even its place in a McCall's magazine spread in 1963 next to Shirley Temple where the magazine encouraged its readers to “Join the stars below in this salute to Manhattan's most popular breakfast—bagels and lox.” While the book may be too dry for the run-of-the- mill bagel lover, academics and dedicated foodies will appreciate Balinska's considerable research as well as her forays into the late 19th-century Jewish immigrant experience and American pop culture. Photos. (Nov.)

As a 12-year-old in England in 1976, Barrowcliffe (Lucky Dog) made a fateful choice: he started playing Dungeons and Dragons. Role-playing games were just beginning their rise, and Barrowcliffe, along with 20 million other socially maladapted boys, spent his adolescence in dining rooms and basements as a druid, warrior or magician, throwing oddly shaped dice and slaying monsters. While D&D allowed Barrowcliffe to escape his mundane, much-bullied existence in an all-boys school, it also threw him into an equally cruel nerdiverse of Nazi wannabes, boys with nicknames like Rat and Chigger, and his polymath, Falstaffian best friend who once ate a still-frozen chicken pie on a bet. Barrowcliffe, whose own schoolboy nickname was “Spaz,” wonderfully captures the insensitivity, insecurity and selfishness of the adolescent male. His eye for the oddities of 1970s British life is equally astute. At times, Barrowcliffe's relentlessly self-deprecating humor descends into a tedium of self-loathing. The book also loses some of its focus toward the end when D&D gives way to heavy metal clubs and tolerant girlfriends. However, these are minor imperfections when measured against the quality of the author's vision. Barrowcliffe renders all the comedy and sorrow of early manhood, when boys flee the wretchedness of their real status for a taste of power in imaginary domains. (Nov.)

This superb, exuberant oral biography of editor-author-actor Plimpton (1927–2003) is described by Aldrich as “a kind of literary party, George's last.” As the subtitle makes clear—“George Plimpton's Life as Told, Admired, Deplored, and Envied by 200 Friends, Relatives, Lovers, Acquaintances, Rivals—and a Few Unappreciative Observers”—this is modeled after the cut-and-paste technique employed in Edie, Plimpton and Jean Stein's book about actress-model Edie Sedgwick. In addition to Plimpton family members, the 200 voices that speak here include David Amram, Harold Bloom, Christopher Cerf, Jules Feiffer, Norman Mailer, Peter Matthiessen, William Styron, Gay Talese and Gore Vidal. The chronological coverage spans Plimpton's life, from his privileged childhood, education at Exeter and Harvard and life in the U.K. at King's College, Cambridge, to his books, movies and legendary parties. His five decades editing the Paris Review and the inner workings of that publication are detailed in depth. When one scans any page at random in this appealing assemblage of anecdotes, it becomes difficult to stop reading. Plimpton's colorful personality emerges in a high-definition prismatic portrait. B&w photos. (Nov. 4)

V.S. Naipaul's biographer aims not “to sit in judgment of the Nobel laureate, but to expose the subject with ruthless clarity to the calm eye of the reader.” In this he succeeds admirably. Descendant of poor Brahmins, born in 1932 in Trinidad and educated in Oxford, Naipaul is haunted by matters of race, colonialism and sex. He is, says award-winning author French (Younghusband), both the racist (against those darker than he) and the victim of racial prejudice, tendencies that come through in his novels and in his treatment of friends and lovers. Haunting this biography are Naipaul's women. His wife, Pat, supported him, overlooked his affairs and his visits with prostitutes, and subordinated herself to his genius; Naipaul gave equally little to Margaret, his mistress. Naipaul and his books may be the subject of this work, but it is these and the other women whom he depended on and took for granted—from his editor to his mother—whose stories will keep that “calm eye of the reader” glued to the pages of this disturbing biography. 16 pages of photos. (Nov. 7)

Thomas Jefferson once declared, “For depth of purpose, zeal, and sagacity, no man in Congress exceeded, if any equaled, Sam Adams.” Yet the American revolutionary from Massachusetts (1722–1803, cousin of John Adams) has become the forgotten founding father, and Stoll attempts to pull Adams out of this oblivion. Rebellious Americans' passionate vision of themselves as an incarnation of the Israelites freeing themselves from Egyptian slavery was invoked by Adams, one of the most religious American revolutionaries. He called on Americans to fulfill their God-given freedom and was a radical who endured physical danger, poverty and the death at 37 of his only son. But for Stoll, a managing editor of the New York Sun with a long career in newspapers, Adams was also the consummate newspaperman, a pundit dispersing the ideals of freedom. Occasionally apt to settle into litanies of Adams's various tasks and redundant statements on the divine right of American independence, Stoll also sporadically recounts evocative details of the period, such as the lyrics from revolutionary songs. This account might sustain a renewed interest in Adams as the founder of a distinctly American spirit. (Nov.)

On April 30, 1871, a posse of Americans, Mexicans and Tohono O'odham Indians descended upon an Apache camp in Arizona and massacred some 150 of its sleeping inhabitants, mostly women and children. Jacoby (Crimes Against Nature), an associate professor of history at Brown University, re-examines what happened in the notorious Camp Grant Massacre and its aftermath in an original way. An unusual wealth of documents about this raid allow him to narrate from four different angles, each centering on a community involved in the massacre, thereby offering a view of the histories, fears and motivations of each group. Some readers might prefer a more conventional and chronological narrative, but Jacoby's structure succeeds in leading readers “toward a deeper revisioning of the American past.” Jacoby wants readers to consider the West not just as the seat of America's Manifest Destiny, but as an “extension of the Mexican north and... the homeland of a complex array of Indian communities.” For buffs more accustomed to traditional tales of Custer and Wounded Knee, this telling might prove an unexpected delight. Illus. (Nov. 24)

D'Este (Patton: A Genius for War) is a master analyst of 20th-century military leadership, and this book may be his finest yet. Showing a remarkable knowledge of archival and printed sources, he tells the complex story of a statesman and warrior. As a child, Winston Churchill was “headstrong, highly opinionated, and virtually impossible to control.” Those traits remained throughout a life he often regretted having spent in council chambers rather than on battlefields. His experiences as a young man in India, South Africa and the Sudan left him with both an abhorrence of war and a passion for soldiering. D'Este skillfully demonstrates how these traits shaped Churchill's persistent advocacy for preparedness and negotiation as means of averting war and his determination to see war through when deterrence failed. D'Este camouflages neither personal weaknesses nor questionable policies. But his expertise as a military historian provides contexts too often lacking in evaluating Churchill's roles in the 1915 Gallipoli campaign, 1940's Battle of Britain and the D-Day invasion in 1944. Elegantly written, this tour de force belongs in every library addressing the 20th century. 16 pages of b&w photos, 9 maps. (Nov.)

Historian and novelist Best, former fiction critic for the Financial Times, offers a sophisticated presentation of the effects of the Great War's final week on its military and civilian participants. Day by day, he presents firsthand accounts from a spectrum of familiar and unfamiliar sources. On November 5, 1918, Scots Guards Pvt. Stephen Graham took part in an attack with an elite British division, while American artillery Capt. Harry Truman picked flowers to send his fiancée and contemplated running for Congress when—and if—he got home. On November 8, Evelyn Blücher, an Englishwoman married to a German prince, feared an outbreak of riots or revolution in Germany. And on November 11, Armistice Day, a crowd of Australians celebrated by storming Boulogne's red light district to the battle cry of “let's fuck 'em free!” What might have been merely a kaleidoscopic series of vignettes is given shape and focus by Best's skill at paraphrasing the narratives and synergizing the experiences of those who lived through “the greatest day in history,” knowing they had survived the deadliest war up to then—and suddenly asking, “What happens now?” 16 pages of b&w photos. (Nov.)

The U.S. aircraft carrier Bunker Hill and the Japanese kamikazes that struck her on May 11, 1945, embodied two fundamentally different approaches not only to war but to life, according to Kennedy. The Bunker Hill manifested American material power, and its civilian sailors reflected the determination of a nation to punish Japan's aggression with total victory. The pilots of the Divine Wind (or kamikaze) , on the other hand, represented a philosophical and spiritual response, an epic of pride, honor and virility. And when the kamikazes struck the Bunker Hill, it seemed for a time that a few determined men could frustrate American power, killing almost 400 Americans and wounding another 250. In what he views as a relevant lesson for the age of terror, Kennedy (Make Gentle the Life of This World) explores “how an individual's desire to live can be so successfully suppressed” that he will train for certain death. The author combines extensive archival research with interviews of American and Japanese participants in a spellbinding account showing that much more than geopolitics was at stake in the Pacific war. Photos. (Nov. 4)

As national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy was the prototypical “best and brightest” Vietnam War policymaker in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Bundy was, according to foreign policy scholar Goldstein, an out-and-out war hawk who “again and again demonstrated a willingness, if not an eagerness, to deploy military means” in Vietnam. Goldstein worked with Bundy in the year before his death, in 1996, on an uncompleted memoir and “retrospective analysis of America's path to war.” While drawing on that work in this warts-and-all examination of Bundy's advisory role, this book is something different, containing Goldstein's own conclusions. He painstakingly recounts his subject's role as national security adviser and ponders the complexities of the elusive “inner Bundy”: for example, the buoyant good humor in the 1960s that seemed unbowed by the weight of difficult strategic decisions. Among the surprising revelations: late in life Bundy came to regret his hawkish ways, although he maintained to the end that the presidents, not their advisers, were primarily responsible for the outcome of the war. Vietnam, he said, was “overall, a war we should not have fought.” (Nov.)

Distracting obsessive-compulsive behaviors are bad, but a lover's or artist's obsession is revered in contemporary society. How did we achieve this split in our review of obsession? In this sometimes humorous but often pedantic survey, Davis (My Sense of Silence: Memoirs of a Childhood with Deafness) explores how, in the mid–18th century, obsession went from being seen as possession by demons to a nervous disorder, an increasingly medicalized view. By the late–20th century, researchers used brain scans and other medical technology in an attempt to discover why one in every 10 persons is diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Davis contends that obsession arises from a constellation of biological and cultural forces. Throughout his study, he offers compelling examples of his thesis through close readings of novels such as William Godwin's Caleb Williams, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Emile Zola's The Masterpiece, among others, as the fictional expressions of their authors' obsessions with certain cultural ideas. Davis acknowledges but dismisses the charge that he uses the word “obsession” loosely, and his academic approach limits the book's audience. 17 b&w illus. (Nov.)

Soussan, a former program associate for the United Nations, provides an insider's perspective on the U.N.'s oil-for-food scandal in this absorbing memoir. The author was a 24-year-old idealist when he went to work for the U.N.'s recently launched program to provide aid to Iraqi civilians suffering under the economic sanctions imposed after the Gulf War. He found a “culture of incompetence” where “there is no truth but consensus” and “initiative is highly risky.” Amid the turf wars and bureaucratic timidity at the U.N., Saddam Hussein was able to subvert the oil-for-food program with a regimen of bribes and kickbacks. Unable to persuade his superiors to expose the fraud, Soussan resigned in frustration after three years. When the massive fraud surfaced after Saddam's fall, the author published an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, which launched an independent investigation that uncovered billions of dollars in bribes and implicated global corporations, sovereign governments and U.N. officials—including Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son. Soussan brings provocative wit, a keen eye for detail and a knack for revealing anecdotes to this important account of the rampant greed, hypocrisy and cynicism festering behind the United Nations' humanitarian credo. (Nov.)

Though Prince Bandar bin Sultan is the titular subject of this engrossing book, its real focus is the “special relationship” that developed between the United States and Saudi Arabia in the period following WWII, which began to unravel during the administration of George W. Bush. While pursuing a career in the Saudi Royal Air Force, Bandar emerged as a crucial broker of this diplomatic relationship, inadvertently falling into the role of messenger between King Fahd and President Jimmy Carter. Bandar retained this central role through the Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton years, before finally leaving Washington in the summer of 2005. Ottaway (Chained Together) draws on interviews with many of the book's principals in writing this history, including Bandar himself, who proves a compelling figure but an unreliable source (the author makes special note of his tendency toward embellishment and self-aggrandizement). Aside from extremely brief forays into Bandar's personal life, Ottaway remains most interested in the unique political role the prince played, using Bandar's story to relay a rich, nuanced history of recent U.S.-Saudi relations. (Nov.)

Amid a heightened wave of xenophobia directed at Arabs and Muslims, San Francisco Chronicle writer Curiel reminds readers of a rich store of cultural borrowings and relationships that have gone deep into the very fabric of American society, including its most precious symbols and artifacts. While many will readily recall the “Arabic” strains in 1960s rock groups like the Doors, less obvious is the formative personal background at work in a classic like “Miserlou” (Turkish for “The Egyptian”) by Dick Dale. Still fewer Americans are likely aware of the blues' significant debt to Arab and Muslim musical traditions (imported by Muslim West Africans kidnapped into slavery). While the relative interest and import of these and other examples varies, Curiel's cultural odyssey moves swiftly and engagingly across time and geography, as he excavates everything from the “Moorish” architecture of New Orleans and the Alamo to the stories of the Arab and Muslim victims among the 9/11 World Trade Center dead. His research and focused interviews with leading scholars and musicians yield many surprises and leave little doubt about a crucial historical connection too easily forgotten in facile appeals to American identity. (Nov.)

Sociologist Hollander made his name dissecting the pathologies of anti-Americanism, but his scalpel has dulled in this uneven collection of essays. Anti-Americanism, he argues, is a form of bigotry like racism, sexism and anti-Semitism, most luridly exemplified by hate-filled Islamist terrorists and their Arab supporters. But his main target is American leftists of the “adversary culture,” Noam Chomsky presiding, who, he contends, scapegoat America for the world's ills and reflexively side with its enemies. (Hollander himself cops to misgivings about America's infotainment culture and love of SUVs.) Many of these thin, repetitive pieces first appeared in publications like National Review and the online FrontPage, and are the weaker for preaching to the choir: lazy ironies abound—Michael Moore denounces rich people, but he's rich himself!—and the author often merely gestures at the excesses of left-wing ideologues rather than carefully rebutting them. That's too bad, because his intriguing thesis that discontent with modernity fuels anti-Americanism could stand fuller development. Hollander's oft-voiced wish that Americans would criticize themselves less and foreign tyrannies more seems wrongheaded; it's precisely the habit of searching self-criticism that distinguishes liberal democracies from their foes. (Nov.)

Once known as “Mr. NAACP,” Walter White and his contributions to African-American history have been lost in the margins of memory. Dyja (The Moon in Our Hands) offers a straightforward biography of the light-skinned, blue-eyed, blond-haired black man who served as executive secretary of the NAACP for the “complex and pivotal decades” from 1931 to 1955. White's daring made him an unparalleled investigator into the horrendous violence and systematic peonage that characterized the decades before WWII. His accomplishments were history making: desegregation of the armed forces owes a debt to his investigations into the treatment of black soldiers in Europe and the Pacific; the Legal Defense Fund owes much to White's focus on litigation. Usefully but often controversially, this “man of few theories and many tactics, remained squarely, sanely and consistently down the middle for almost four decades” and kept the NAACP along that same path. As in White's life, the NAACP holds the center, but Dyja attends to White's place as a writer of the Harlem Renaissance and to his more intimate life, including his “last act”—White's marriage to a white woman that, according to the author, “cost him his place in history.” (Nov.)

Bloch, a leadership coach, and Whiteley, a writer and columnist for the Times of London, explore the challenges of managing diverse teams that span continents. Through interviews and questionnaires, the authors extract insights from successful managers and distill their experiences into strategies and key learning points. With case studies from multinational corporations such as Coca-Cola, Shell and United Biscuits, the book is divided into two sections, focusing on the team and the individual. The team section covers direction, communicating in a virtual world, culture, leadership skills and creating a good team. The individual portion addresses EQ, intelligence and work/life balance. Each chapter lists key points and a section that helps the reader navigate and extract relevant themes. Especially useful are their 10 strategies—which address teamwork, building trust, respecting cultural differences—which provide a good foundation and frame of reference for professionals to develop their management strategies in a changing business world. Timely and succinct, this much-needed book will improve the management skills of those overseeing staff in multiple locations domestically and around the world. (Nov.)

It turns out it's lonely at the top, after all, according to the 150 top chief executives whose interviews are compiled in this richly informative collection from businessmen Tappin and Cave. The interviewees—including such heavy hitters as Sir Terry Leahy of Tesco and Lord John Browne of BP—speak frankly and in depth about their motivations and key business strategies. In a useful taxonomy, the guide divides business professionals into five main leadership approaches—commercial executors, financial value drivers, corporate entrepreneurs, corporate ambassadors and global missionaries—and describes the changing role of a CEO in a rapidly changing marketplace, illustrating how leaders have successfully addressed issues such as sustainability, alternative capital and attracting Web users and talent. There are grim cautionary reminders that professional success often requires a choice between family and career, and that the job of CEO should come with a serious health warning. The content is thoughtful and well-reasoned, peppered with enthusiastic encouragement from the likes of Tony Robbins, but hampered by its appeal to already-established CEOs (not up-and-comers) and heavily British-leaning research. (Nov.)

Fans of Plummer's acclaimed Shakespearean performances or his stately film roles, from Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music to the Klingon General Chang in Star Trek VI, may not recognize him in this breezy, bawdy memoir. Plummer drinks and parties his way through a six-decade career; beds starlets, prompters and wardrobe girls; and endures countless mid-performance indignities and pratfalls. (Lesson repeatedly learned: actors and stagehands should not get drunk right before the show.) Plummer is ebullient, a bit hammy (“I cried myself to sleep for weeks,” he sobs, after his dog Toadie dies), full of canny insights into the actor's craft and prone to occasional stabs of self-reproach over his own failed marriages, aloof parenting and unjustified tantrums. Throughout, he's an enchanting observer of the showbiz cavalcade, drawing vivid thumbnails of everyone from Laurence Olivier to Lenny Bruce and tossing off witty anecdotes (“George C. Scott turned up at our doorstep one morning at 4:30 a.m. looking most sinister and as usual dripping blood from head to toe”) like the most effortless ad libs. The result is a sparkling star turn from a born raconteur for whom all the world is indeed a stage. Photos. (Nov. 11)

Alex is the African gray parrot whose ability to master a vocabulary of more than 100 words and answer questions about the color, shape and number of objects—garnered wide notice during his life as well as obituaries in worldwide media after his death in September 2007. Pepperberg, who teaches animal cognition, has previously documented the results of her 30-year relationship with Alex in The Alex Studies. While this book inevitably covers some of the same ground, it is a moving tribute that beautifully evokes “the struggles, the initial triumphs, the setbacks, the unexpected and often stunning achievements” during a groundbreaking scientific endeavor spent “uncovering cognitive abilities in Alex that no one believed were possible, and challenging science's deepest assumptions about the origin of human cognitive abilities.” Pepperberg deftly interweaves her own personal narrative—including her struggles to gain recognition for her research—with more intimate scenes of life with Alex than she was able to present in her earlier work, creating a story that scientists and laypeople can equally enjoy, if they can all keep from crying over Alex's untimely death. (Nov.)

Fischer, Pulitzer Prize–winner for Washington's Crossing, has produced the definitive biography of Samuel de Champlain (1567–1635): spy, explorer, courtier, soldier, sailor, ethnologist, mapmaker, and founder and governor of New France (today's Quebec), which he founded in 1608. This extraordinary and flawed individual was a man of war who dreamed of establishing a peaceful nation in the New World. Fischer once again displays a staggering and wide research, lightly worn, including no fewer than 16 fascinating appendixes covering everything from the “Indian Nations in Champlain's World, 1603–35” to Champlain's preferred firearm. The bibliography is equally impressive, and the same should be said of Fischer's literary skills and approach. He does not have “a thesis, or a theory, or an ideology,” but instead answers questions (“Who was this man? What did he do? Why should we care?”) to weave together his epic story. With 2008 the 400th anniversary of the foundation of New France, the time is ripe for this outstanding work. 16 pages of color photos; b&w photos, maps. (Oct.)

Noted Yale historian Demos has devoted almost half a century to studying the European and American witch crazes, and his new book distills all he has learned. The book focuses from roughly A.D. 500 through 1700, with a concluding section on the characteristically modern phenomenon of “witch-hunts without witches”—such as McCarthyism. What all witch hunts have in common is a targeting of “the enemy within”—a member of the community who is identified as disloyal. Such fears coalesced: toward the turbulent end of the Middle Ages, when one was expected to adhere to Christian beliefs; in late 18th- and 19th-century America, when Masons' loyalty to republican principles was questioned; and in the late 20th century, when threats real and imagined to the family culminated in the day-care satanic cult allegations. Succinct and lucid in his analysis, Demos offers vivid examples of the accuseds' travails as well as probing the mindsets of their tormentors. This should appeal to a wide array of general readers and specialists alike. (Oct.)

In this solid history, Rose (Washington's Spies) explores the development of the rifle, such as how it evolved in American history to become an iconic symbol of freedom and how it developed as an effective military instrument as well as a private citizen's firearm. Drawing on numerous primary sources, from letters and journals of ordinary soldiers to the writings of inventors such as Samuel Colt, Rose traces the rise of the rifle from its original use as a hunting tool and a means of defense and protection to its eventual use as an offensive weapon in wars of conquest. Loaded with facts, the book reveals that firearms didn't come into their own in the colonies until 1609, when Samuel de Champlain led his men on a raid of the Mohawks. In their increasing contact with European adventurers and traders, Native Americans recognized the power of firearms and cannily traded for such weapons. By the early 18th century, gunsmiths of German extraction invented a rifle that had greater accuracy and distance than muskets. The Kentucky rifle, so named because it's rumored that Daniel Boone carried one of these early rifles in his travels around the frontier, was easier to load and could drop a bear, or a British soldier, in fewer shots and at a more distant range than a musket. In his entertaining history, Rose engagingly chronicles Americans' peculiar quest to build a more refined and effective firearm. (Oct.)

Maverick Records CEO Oseary presents this collection of photographs he took of client Madonna on her 2006 Confessions tour. He admits in the introduction that he was an amateur who was using an unfamiliar camera. At times it shows, but the mostly large-format, single-page shots and collages feature Madonna gyrating or playing her shiny black guitar—complete with stage pyrotechnics and the backstage action, as well as audience reaction throughout. In the end, Oseary nicely captures the feel of the tour. Fun highlights include a section on Madonna's disco set and white, Saturday Night Fever–inspired costume, entitled “Music Inferno.” Proceeds from the book go to Michael Berg and Madonna's charity, Raising Malawi, which brings relief to the large orphan population in Malawi. (Oct.)

Branding expert Baskin plays the merry iconoclast in this witty guide that marshals the latest research and a good serving of common sense to debunk branding's many myths. The author's claim that “branding is a waste of money” is likely to be controversial, but his research is sound and persuasive: he covers the failure of the Gap's Red campaign, the useless Burger King mascot, why Starbucks' success has nothing to do with branding, and he revisits Coke and Pepsi's rivalry, which culminated in their multimillion-dollar dueling ads featuring Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera that had scant effect on sales. Baskin's understanding of consumer behavior is nuanced and sophisticated, as are his explanations for why branding myths have so perniciously persisted (he draws parallels between the longevity of outmoded marketing strategies and that of Ptolemy's geocentric concept of the universe). Baskin is impatient with the resources and energy poured into branding, and readers will be, too, when they realize how little it influences consumer choices—and his well-reasoned, well-written book will garner him a wide and appreciative audience. (Sept.)