Nonfiction Book Reviews

This delightful, dense and illuminating book by Ellard, an experimental psychologist, explores how we navigate space and hone our sense of direction, despite being paradoxically spatially primitive and overly evolved. All animals, monocellular and multicellular alike, find their way to their basic needs—heat, light and nourishment—but while ants, for example, don't get lost and amoebas are guided by an “internal toolkit,” most human beings face unique difficulties. Unlike the Inuit, who have a superb sense of direction, most people find that the more sophisticated their environments, the weaker their grasp of space and direction. Ellard offers insights into how humans navigate their own homes and why they select certain spots for refuge—preferences influenced by gender, culture and history. He emphasizes the importance of orienting children to natural space as well as “virtual spaces,” and his chapter on cities serves as an excellent primer on urban planning and psychogeography, the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographic environment on the emotions. (July)

Bangkok is the sponge that absorbs “those who have lapsed into dilettantism,” writes Osborne (The Accidental Connoisseur) in recounting his time in the fabled city of recreational sex and Buddhism. As he encounters characters questing for sensation and knowledge, he muses on how easy it is for Westerners to remake themselves in the East—much as the 19th-century English schoolteacher Anna Leonowens did when she tutored the royal children of Siam and fashioned herself into a mythologized literary figure. As he discovers in an encounter with a Catholic missionary, it is the ideal place to lose the burdensome grip of the “self.” In Osborne's narrative, Bangkok serves as an existential crossroads for a cast of British, Australian and Spanish expatriates who are haphazardly searching for and running away from responsibilities; in the labyrinthine city, these tourists have established a playground for adult pleasure. As their documentarian, Osborne is at once incisive and romantic. He creates a character-driven travelogue that reveals but does not exploit the salacious subtext of Bangkok nightlife. It is a journey flush with atmosphere but tempered with a subtext of lonely Western wonder. (June)

In his latest book, New Yorker writer Wilkinson (The Happiest Man in the World) gives due praise to the influential American singer Pete Seeger, who humbly told his biographer that “what's needed is a book that can be read in one sitting.” It is just such a spirit of humility that emerges from Wilkinson's lovely and, indeed, brief profile of Seeger (who turns 90 in May), at once social activist, environmentalist and, above all, courageous musician, the peoples' singer, who wholeheartedly believed in his father's dictum that “music, as any art, is not an end in itself, but is a means for achieving larger ends.” Wilkinson's thorough research is artfully couched in his extended interviews with the singer on his wooded property in upstate New York, during which Seeger elucidates his storied genealogy, recounts his times with Woody Guthrie and describes his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955 (the full transcript of which is reprinted as an appendix). Wilkinson's biography reads as lucidly as if we were there with him, listening to Seeger's history as he boils maple sap down to syrup and chops his daily quota of firewood. In Wilkinson's writing, one can almost hear Seeger's axe splitting the logs. (May)

Actor-producer Farrell's 2007 memoir, Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist, traced his spiritual odyssey from a working-class childhood to fame from TV's M*A*S*H and his worldwide humanitarian efforts. Promotion of that paperback led him on an 8,882-mile book tour to 25 cities, documented in dispatches to the Huffington Post. Now he collects his journal entries from that 36-day road trip with “Mule,” his nickname for the Prius hybrid rental car he drove from city to city in May and June 2008. For Farrell, the trip was an opportunity to network with the human rights and justice organizations co-sponsoring the tour, while meeting old friends, giving interviews and doing q&a sessions where he could speak out: “One woman asked me what I thought were the three most critically important things we had to do to get this country back on track. I said, 'Elect Barack Obama, elect Barack Obama, elect Barack Obama.' ” The book is nicely designed, with page numbers inside little road sign shapes; chapter headings list mileage, destination and such co-sponsors as the ACLU, Center for Victims of Torture and Greenpeace. Sidebars throughout detail the aims and accomplishments of groups like the Southern Center for Human Rights, which represents hundreds on death row. Farrell writes with an upbeat, optimistic attitude, infused with humor, insights and soul. As he drives across the landscape, he also drives home important social justice issues. (May 1)

A genuine culinary and historical keepsake: in the late 1930s the WPA farmed out a writing project with the ambition of other New Deal programs: an encyclopedia of American food and food traditions from coast-to-coast similar to the federal travel guides. After Pearl Harbor, the war effort halted the project for good; the book was never published, and the files were archived in the Library of Congress. Food historian Kurlansky (Cod; The Big Oyster) brought the unassembled materials to light and created this version of the guide that never was. In his abridged yet remarkable version, he presents what some of the thousands of writers (among them Eudora Welty, Zora Neale Hurston and Nelson Algren) found: America, its food, its people and its culture, at the precise moment when modernism and progress were kicking into gear. Adhering to the administrators' original organization, the book divides regionally; within each section are entries as specific as “A California Grunion Fry,” and as general and historical as the one on “Sioux and Chippewa Food.” Though we've become a fast-food nation, this extraordinary collection—at once history, anthropology, cookbook, almanac and family album—provides a vivid and revitalizing sense of the rural and regional characteristics and distinctions that we've lost and can find again here. (May 14)

Having aroused the ire of righteous mothers with her confession to loving her husband more than her children, Waldman (Love and Other Impossible Pursuits) offers similar boldface opinions in 18 rather defensive essays. The mother of four, living in Berkeley and married for 15 years to an ideal partner who told her on their first date that he wanted to be a stay-at-home husband and father (he also happens to be novelist Michael Chabon), Waldman was a Jewish girl who grew up in 1970s suburban New Jersey, where her mother introduced her to Free to Be You and Me and instilled in her the importance of becoming a working mother. With her supportive husband to manage the domestic drudgery, Waldman did pursue a law career, until she quit to be with her growing family. As a champion of “bad mothering,” that is, dropping the metaphorical ball—making mistakes and forgiving yourself for it—Waldman writes in these well-fashioned essays how a mother's best intentions frequently go awry: she really meant to breastfeed, until one of her children was bottle-fed because of a palate abnormality; she denounced the playing of dodgeball in her children's school, out of her own memories of schoolyard humiliations; and she confesses to aborting a fetus who suffered a genetic defect. Her determinedly frank revelations are chatty and sure to delight the online groups she frequents. (May)

For every drug addict there are at least four people affected, a depressing assertion by some experts that is clearly borne out in this soft-spoken, utterly honest account by educator Cataldi. The mother of two sons, Jeff and Jeremy, Cataldi became head of the Calverton School in Maryland in 1987, where the boys attended; she recounts chronologically how her oldest, Jeff, a bright, capable student, embarked from adolescence onward into an ever deepening and perilous spiral of drug abuse. From getting caught smoking at school in fifth grade, attending drug-sodden raves in high school, being arrested for possession of cocaine and ketamine, and selling drugs on campus, Jeff was continually rescued by his take-charge but admittedly naïve mother, now divorced from their father. Entering Boston University seemed to give Jeff a fresh start, yet he was soon enmeshed in the party scene; in debilitating health, he dropped out and bounced around among halfway houses and rehab centers. Jeff had become a master manipulator to get his fix, even when later jailed for heroin possession, and Cataldi learned to stop enabling her “chameleon son” by joining Al-Anon. Taking an Italian expression to heart, stagli vicino, she learned to stay close and let Jeff find his way, and while her love proved steadfast, a safe outcome was never assured. (May)

Iris Burton for years ran one of L.A.'s most aggressive talent agencies and maintained the town's biggest roster of child stars, helping to launch the careers of Drew Barrymore, Henry Thomas, the Olsens, River and Joaquin Phoenix, Tori Spelling, Kirsten Dunst, Fred Savage, Corey Feldman, Hilary Duff and more. In this vivid memoir, Snyder, Burton's executive assistant, tells his own story as he probes the lifestyles of actors, agents and producers, depicting a high-octane Hollywood with a desperate dark side that viewers of HBO's Entourage will find intriguing. Beginning with Burton's funeral in 2008, he intercuts flashbacks, recalling the day he was hired and began working for the woman who “had been the first agent to negotiate million-dollar deals for her underage clients.” In the 1950s, Burton was on screen as a Paramount contract player, but life as a single mom led her to work as a saleswoman and a Playboy Club waitress, followed by a talent agency job. Developing clients and her reputation, she opened her own agency one year later. In spite of her tantrums and tirades, Burton had much empathy for her clients, and the heart of this book is a moving recreation of Burton and Snyder's final days with River Phoenix. Snyder has succeeded in capturing the humor and spirit of the woman who called herself “the legendary Iris Burton.” (May 1)

In this deeply honest memoir, Weiss reflects on her first seasons living in coastal Alaska, serenely recording the stunning unpredictability of the place and people. Initially moving from Oregon, where she was a fifth-grade science teacher, to the “halibut capital of the world” in south-central Alaska with her boyfriend, John, a teacher and naturalist, Weiss felt “adrift and confused” by the new pattern of weather and fish, and the alien behavior of the sea. Securing teaching jobs in the village of Homer, Weiss and John embarked on an exploration of the area, becoming acquainted with the town's early history as a coal outpost, its Natives and throwback community of Old Believers (Russian Orthodox); befriending far-flung neighbors who proved a valuable support network; and trying to make themselves self-sufficient in this unforgiving landscape. They learned to dipnet in the Kenai River (the locals' favorite way to catch enormous quantities of salmon to freeze for the coming winter), lay in supplies and harvest wild foods, kayak across the treacherous Kachemak Bay in summer and ski during the long, dark winters over vast snowy vistas. However, the isolation and forced introspection eventually fractured the couple, and Weiss headed out on her own, to catalogue, in sometimes limpid prose her, romance with the largest state, in the grip of change. (May)

Stone is as unconventional as he is brilliant, and this provocative interpretation of the Great War combines impressive command of the literature with a telling eye for relevant facts and a sensitive ear for telling epigrams. Stone presents a Europe that in 1914 bestrode the world like the proverbial colossus. Four years later, the continent faced a spectrum of disasters: shattered economies, shattered societies, shattered lives and shattered illusions. Stone demonstrates the contingent nature of the war's outbreak and analyzes the continued failure to achieve decision on the Western Front until 1917. Stone specializes in Great War Russia, does a first-rate job of presenting the consequences of the collapse of four empires: Hapsburg, German, tsarist and Ottoman. He challenges current interpretations of the postwar treaties, presenting them as a list of failures. The attempt to integrate the world economy collapsed. The postwar expansion of colonial empires proved ephemeral. The League of Nations “declined into irrelevance.” Stone reserves his harshest criticism for the punitive terms imposed on a Germany convinced neither of its defeat nor the injustice of its cause. That, he asserts convincingly, laid the groundwork for a second, more terrible conflict. Photos, maps. (May)

The July 20, 1944, plot to kill Hitler has received much historical attention from historians (and lately from Hollywood, in the recent eponymous film starring Tom Cruise), and this slim volume adds a little to that literature. As a rare firsthand memoir by a participant, this narrative gives a personal account of the events and conspirators' motives. The first half of the book is less thriller than an account of von Boeselager's military exploits leading a German cavalry division on the Russian front, and illustrates his growing disillusionment with the Nazi regime. He and his brother Georg, a fellow army leader and co-conspirator, were persuaded to join the plot co-hatched by Col. Henning von Tresckow. Readers already familiar with the history of Valkyrie will gain an insider's perspective, the portrait of a man of honor and independent mind, but readers new to the subject may want to read this along with histories of the plot. 17 photos. (May 13)

Roberts offers an outstanding example of a joint biography in this study of the actions and interactions of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, George Marshall and Alan Brooke. The president, the prime minister and their respective army chiefs of staff were the vital nexus of the Anglo-American alliance in WWII. The path was anything but smooth. London-based historian Roberts (A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900) demonstrates his usual mastery of archival and printed sources to show how the tensions and differences among these four strong-willed men shaped policy within a general context of consensus. The politicians had to master strategy; the soldiers had to become political. The result was “a complicated minuet.” The increasing shift of power in America's direction coincided with the achievement of the central war aims agreed on for the Mediterranean and with the viability of a cross-channel attack. Last-minute compromises continued to shape grand strategy, a good example being the choice of Dwight Eisenhower over Brooke to command Operation Overlord. Flexibility and honesty, Roberts concludes, enabled focus on a common purpose and established the matrix of the postwar Atlantic world. 16 pages of b&w photos, 7 maps. (May)

Conventional impressions of WWII's aftermath—wild celebration, triumphal return, ebullient prosperity—hide a grimmer reality, according to this somber history of postwar discontents. University of Pennsylvania historian Childers (In the Shadows of War) uses contemporary statistics and press reports to sketch the hardships returning veterans faced, including unemployment and homelessness; resentment at the years wasted in the war; alienation from family, friends and civilian life in general; and physical and psychological wounds that never healed. He builds his account around biographical narratives of three veterans: an infantryman who lost his legs to an enemy shell; an airman taken prisoner by the Germans; and Childers's father, who spent the war relatively safe in England but whose life and marriage, the author contends, were subtly darkened by the conflict. Childers's beautifully written, novelistic profiles movingly convey his subjects' wartime travails and their twilight struggles with disability and post-traumatic stress. His attempt to blame decades of dysfunction on the war sometimes overreaches; his subjects' failed marriages, business reversals and unfulfilling jobs often seem like the ordinary quiet desperation of men's lives. Still, Childers's absorbing study offers an important corrective to sanitized tributes to the Good War's legacy. Photos. (May 13)

A colorful cast of characters descended on Paris for the 1889 World's Fair, and Jonnes (Conquering Gotham) offers an atmospheric overview of the celebrities who made belle époque Paris their stage during the memorable event. Annie Oakley amazed crowds with her precisely executed shots. Thomas Edison, a master at promoting both himself and modern technology, chafed at the leisurely French way of life, delighted the masses with his phonograph and chatted with Louis Pasteur at his institute. Paul Gauguin was enthralled by a troupe of Javanese temple dancers and miffed that the Americans only intended to exhibit 17 of his 27 etchings, while James McNeill Whistler, who delighted in provocations and feuds, decamped to the British, who displayed even fewer of his works. The fair's undisputed main attraction both at the fair and in Jonnes's account, was the controversial wrought-iron tower of unprecedented height that, Jonnes says, appeals for both its technological genius and its “aerial playfulness and charm.” It perfectly embodies “the triumph of the modern” that Jonnes so well captures in her sprightly account. Photos. (May 4)

Lorance's “revisionist” book zooms in on the crucial late 1920s and early '30s when Buckminster Fuller worked on a project for industrially produced housing that eventually came to be known as the Dymaxion House. Lorance, an architectural historian at New York's School of Visual Arts, has studied the many volumes of Fuller's famously unreadable diary, the Chronofile, along with his wife's diary, and both Fuller's own business records and those of his previous employers. Fuller's houses were designed as hexagonal structures, clad in glass and metal and held in tension by piano wire. As Lorance shrewdly shows, Fuller was an early master of the art of “spin,” and Lorance illustrates his frequent manipulation of early biographers in ways that insured his struggles were viewed as those of a misunderstood underdog. In fact, says Lorance, much of his technology was not considered original enough to earn patent protection, and the American Institute of Architects never endorsed the project. Once Fuller realized the house would not be built, he took the advice of the publicity director at Marshal Fields and renamed it the Dymaxion House, the House of the Future. Fuller's career as visionary had begun. 66 illus. (May)

A fascinating follow-up to the 2006 Art in the Blood dialogue with leading crime writers, this collection by journalist and fiction writer McDonald (Head Games) underlines the “rogue male” theme by putting some of the most influential crime fiction wizards under the spotlight. Among the personalities of murder and mayhem interviewed are Elmore Leonard, James Crumley, James Sallis, Daniel Woodrell, James Ellroy, Ken Bruen and Lee Child. There are choice nuggets in the chatter between MacDonald and the scribes, Leonard revealing the secret to James Patterson's profitable corporate brand, Andrew Vachss endorsing the merits of print journalism and Ellroy labeling the late poet Anne Sexton “hot but doomed.” Wannabe writers will savor the various tidbits of information about novelization and screenwriting from veterans Max Allan Collins, Stephen J. Cannell and Pete Dexter. The troubadour section of the book has its crowning glory with a howling yuk-fest by singer/ writer Kinky Freedman and an insightful tit-for-tat by literary mavericks James Sallis and Ken Bruen. Informative, compulsively readable and mentally spicy. (May)

Stressing the elements of irony and malice, Harmon (coauthor, Elvis and Me) sidesteps the usual Mob yarn to tell the somber, dark story of a coldhearted Mafia chieftain and his obedient son, who takes the fall for his father out of familial love and respect. Wily mob head Gregory Scarpa Sr., with a 50-man crew in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, scammed, stole and killed under FBI protection starting in the 1960s, informing against hundreds of gangsters and crooked lawyers for decades. But when faced with arrest for his crimes, the elder Scarpa betrays his adoring son, Gregory Jr., whom he'd groomed to take his place. Convicted for racketeering, the young Scarpa does a long stretch in a federal maximum security prison, where in 1998 he overhears terrorist schemes to attack America from a prisoner named Ramzi Yousef. But his words are discounted until the September 11 attacks. Harmon, a very capable writer, gets inside the heads of the diabolical father and the submissive son (who is still in prison) in this sinister tale of bullets and betrayal. A disturbing, jagged true-crime thriller worthy of prime Hammett, Chandler or Puzo. (May)

Even the ancients understood that some places had healing powers. But in the late 20th century, scientists began to study how space affects both mental and physical health for good and ill. NIH researcher Sternberg (The Balance Within) thoroughly chronicles research on the neural pathways that connect our sensory perception of our environment with our ability to heal. Why, for instance, do hospital patients whose window looks out on a grove of trees require less pain medication than patients looking out on a brick wall? Sternberg also examines how incorporating light and nature into our cities and buildings can promote health and reduce stress, and how this concept is influencing urban design and the layout of hospitals. Finally, Sternberg counsels individuals to find that place in the world that invites and promotes healing and reduces stress (for her, it is a garden of her youth). The conclusions—e.g., that noise induces stress, which can impede healing—seem intuitive and well known, but readers interested in neuroscience will learn much about the research on why this is the case. (May)

The world's largest corporation has grown to prominence in America's Sun Belt—the relatively recent seat of American radical agrarian populism—and amid a feverish antagonism to corporate monopoly. In the spirit of Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas? historian Moreton unearths the roots of the seeming anomaly of “corporate populism,” in a timely and penetrating analysis that situates the rise of Wal-Mart in a postwar confluence of forces, from federal redistribution of capital favoring the rural South and West to the “family values” symbolized by Sam Walton's largely white, rural, female workforce (the basis of a new economic and ideological niche), the New Christian Right's powerful probusiness and countercultural movement of the 1970s and '80s and its harnessing of electoral power. Giving Max Weber's “Protestant ethic” something of a late-20th-century update, Moreton shows how this confluence wedded Christianity to the free market. Moreton's erudition and clear prose elucidate much in the area of recent labor and political history, while capturing the centrality of movement cultures in the evolving face of American populism. (May)

Harvard law professor Sunstein (Radicals in Robes) explores the nature of group decision making, largely expounding on his contention that homogenous groups of like-minded people tend to adopt more extreme positions than groups with a diversity of opinions. As in his previous, coauthored book, Nudge, in which he argued that small incentives can subtly push people toward making better decisions, Sunstein marshals empirical evidence in aid of his argument, which largely focuses on politics and public policy. As President Obama's nominee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Sunstein's ideas about such matters have now attained a level of national importance, but with the exception of a few notable potshots at the decision making in George W. Bush's White House, the book is not ideological and displays a keen interest in diverse areas ranging from the mindset that leads to genocide to how conspiracy theories form and are propagated. Interestingly, and most helpfully, Sunstein returns repeatedly to the recruitment and decision-making processes of Islamic terrorists, finding in these groups the purest example of the radicalizing “echo chamber” effect that the book warns against. (May)

Evolutionary psychologist Miller (The Mating Mind) examines conspicuous consumption in order to further his (not entirely complementary) goals—to rectify marketing's poor understanding of human spending behavior and critique consumerist culture. According to the author, our purchases are powerful indicators of our personality and are used to lure in suitable mates and friends. The book defends the current psychological view of personality as varying along six axes: intelligence, openness to new experiences, conscientiousness, agreeableness, emotional stability and extroversion. While there is significant support for the author's contention that variation in these basic categories reflect genetic inheritance, preferences for each of them vary from society to society, from historical moment to moment and even within individual lives (e.g., conscientiousness tends to increase over the course of our lives as mating strategies shift from attracting short-term partners to maintaining long-term relationships). Miller is an engaging writer, even if his attempts at humor fall flat. What remains troubling is his failure to account for how a full range of traits can coexist in the same cultural environment and continue to be perpetuated across generations. (May)

It's pure myth that human beings are fundamentally rational creatures—we are sublimely emotional at heart and work best when treated as such, argues consultant Herr, who contends that companies need to take a hard-science approach to the soft side of the business if they want to maximize their gains. He explores the human social appetites—innovation, skill mastery and deployment, goal attainment, cooperation and self-protection—maintaining that these drives are as integral to our biology as our need for food, sex and love. People want to excel at work, and companies that encourage that desire bring out the best in their employees. Arguing against a hyper-rational, bureaucratic management, Herr advocates a “tribal” connected workforce, a corporate superorganism composed of individual human beings who strive toward the same goal. Some fairly heavy theory is backed up with solid practical advice for leaders, including a methodology to create a high-performance workplace. The biological approach lends a fresh aspect to the subject of employee performance enhancement, and the well-researched, entertaining presentation should make this an appealing reference for progressive business leaders. (May)

This academic analysis of our evolution from an industrial to a postindustrial “portfolio society” offers provocative clues for anyone seeking to understand the current financial crisis and Americans' financial security. Davis, professor of management at the University of Michigan, asserts that in the eras of financial capitalism (1900–1930) and managerial capitalism (1930–1980), Americans looked to the corporation and long-term savings to provide them with security. In the wake of the takeovers and financial move to high risk savings in the 1980s, and deregulation and corporate scandals in the late 1990s, however, Americans have become disillusioned with the corporation as a source of lifetime employment and retirement capital and have instead relied on financial markets for security and “wealth creation.” In describing George W. Bush's “ownership society,” Davis notes that “when individuals come to see themselves as free agent investors, the consequences for society can be dire.” While a compelling read, this book offers few predictions for the new investor society, suggesting only that big government might have to clean up the mess that individual Americans have made. (May)

Posner (How Judges Think) is uncharacteristically dry in this dense book that states flatly that we are in a recession only because we are too frightened to call it a depression. He makes a near-heroic attempt to delve into the roots of the current crisis, citing some of the harder questions: how did it happen? why was it not anticipated? how is the government responding? A great deal of ground is covered, and the book takes the form of a high-altitude survey, assessing all the major points without getting bogged down in detail. Quickie explanations of subprime mortgages and the credit crunch orient the reader, and Posner addresses the takeaway lessons about capitalism and government, the puzzling lack of foresight from the economist community, the apportioning of blame and the resulting future of conservatism. All good topics, thoroughly and thoughtfully presented, but much of Posner's material is already woefully out of date. This book will make a serviceable study of the current crisis, but it does not serve its intended audience well in the meantime. (May)

Grant (The World We Created at Hamilton High) persuasively argues that “economically and racially balanced schools are the key to revitalizing declining cities.” He compares the problem-ridden public school system of his native Syracuse, N.Y., with the superior schools in Raleigh, N.C., arguing that the disparity exists because the Syracuse school district has remained confined to the core city, while Raleigh merged city and suburbs in 1976, creating the Wake County district. Students are assigned to schools to ensure “a healthy mix of children by race and socioeconomic class.” Although some parents object to the busing, the majority are reportedly convinced that the results are worth the inconvenience. Whereas nearly half of Syracuse's ninth graders fail to graduate from high school, Wake County students produce high levels of success. Although Raleigh is the prime example here, other Southern schools are similar success stories—a paradoxical twist, as parts of the South, long fiercely resistant to integration, can show the way for struggling Northern cities. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in urban planning, race relations and education reform. (May)

In this acerbic collection of essays, Comanche cultural critic and art curator Smith (Like a Hurricane) riffs on the romantic stereotypes of Indian as “spiritual masters and first environmentalists,” as tragic victims of technology and civilization, as primal beings brimming with nomad authenticity, their every artifact a gem of folk art. Such tropes, he complains, hide the riotous complexity of the modern Indian experience, which he visits in pieces that explore his grandfather's Christian church, Sitting Bull's savvy manipulation of his media image (he had an agent) and the author's own Comanche forebears, who were both “world-class barbarians” and avid adopters of the white man's gadgetry. These loose-limbed essays range all over the landscape, from Hollywood westerns to the 1973 siege of Wounded Knee to (somewhat obscurely) the contemporary Indian art scene. Smith doesn't entirely square his view of Indians as “just plain folks” with his advancing of a unique Indian cultural perspective, but his keen, skeptical eye makes such ironies both amusing and enlightening. Photos. (May)

Journalist and photographer Hamilton presents a multicultural snapshot of the American sustainable agriculture movement, profiling a Texas dairyman, a New Mexican rancher and a North Dakotan farmer, all who have converted from conventional to sustainable agriculture for economic and personal reasons. Harry Lewis, born to a family of former slaves who began farming in a Texas “freedom colony,” switched to organic farming to avoid price-gouging by agribusiness but also to support his core philosophical tenets. Virgil Trujillo, whose Native Americans ancestors were the first settlers of Abiquiu, N.Mex., practices holistic resource management at a dude ranch/retreat center. David Podoll “set out to prove organic agriculture wrong,” but instead was converted; he and his brother now buck the North Dakotan trend of farm consolidation and corn, soybean and wheat monoculture by focusing on the family garden and breeding plants for diversity, beauty and strength. The book vividly shows how these stubborn individualists rooted in the soil struggle are forging a path away from monolithic agribusiness to sustainable agriculture for its promise of spiritual integrity, community and food security. (May)

Former South African Member of Parliament Feinstein delivers a damning portrait of the African National Congress in this lacerating political memoir. The author, who won a seat in the provincial legislature in South Africa's first democratic elections, affectionately recounts the tenure of Nelson Mandela as president, reserving his criticism for Mandela's successor, Thabo Mbeki, whom he excoriates repeatedly—and sometimes repetitiously—for his denial of the country's AIDS crisis and failure to exert political pressure on Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe. The book's central narrative hinges on an investigation into an arms deal that revealed the depth of corruption in the Mbeki-led ANC. The text follows the investigation and the changing fortunes of the ANC through Mbeki's resignation in September of 2008, concluding at a moment of uncertainty for the country and the party. The author occasionally digresses from his compelling history of South African politics to reflect on his own Jewish-African identity and his philosophical approach to government—influenced by the writings of Vaclav Havel. Charged with passionate conviction, this book is a deeply personal but far-reaching insider's account of a political party losing its way. (May)

Silvertown, an evolutionary biologist at Britain's Open University, and six colleagues have produced an attractive, easy-to-navigate book that explains the data supporting evolutionary theory. “You don't need any background in science to enjoy this book,” note the authors, and this is both its greatest strength and weakness. The discussion is easy to grasp, but also somewhat superficial. The 19 brief chapters are arranged in four sections: “Origins,” on the genetic relatedness of all living things; “Body Building,” on the process of developmental change and the evidence for it in the fossil record; “Diversity,” on the importance of sex in creating diversity and speciation; and “Here and Now,” on evolution's significance today. Readers will learn about the myriad interactions among genes and how easy these interactions make it for new evolutionary patterns and processes to develop. And readers will learn that evidence from a wide variety of fields, from geology to molecular genetics, physiology and evolutionary psychology, consistently support one another, demonstrating the power of evolutionary theory. The abundant and very attractive color pictures help illustrate the underlying science and are a pleasure to look at in their own right. (Apr. 15)

While one might think of the taco as a simple street snack, Miller, chef and founder of Santa Fe's Coyote Cafe, takes the Mexican favorite to a new level in this single-subject title comprising 75 recipes. Organized by protein (with additional chapters on breakfast, salsas, sides and drinks), recipes for taco fillings take center stage and are preceded by informative headnotes and paired with suggested tortillas, accompaniments and drinks; each is tagged with a handy heat level indicator. The selection of tacos range from classic (pork carnitas) to inventive (Thai shrimp) and include a good number of vegetarian options. While some might be intimidated by ingredients such as wild boar, buffalo, elk and tamarind paste, the author includes source suggestions and some substitutions. Prep times for some recipes can be up to six and a half hours and may discourage those who want to keep things fast and easy in the kitchen. Nonetheless, this well-designed title has an appealing sense of enthusiasm and authority. (May)

Actress and model Hemingway (Mariel Hemingway's Healthy Living from the Inside Out) shares her secrets for cooking nutritious and appetizing food in this lavishly photographed book. She focuses on seasonal foods, organizing the book by what's fresh at each time of year. For each season, she provides simple and comfortable breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert and snack dishes, suited for busy lifestyles. Recipes share common ingredients to make preparation fast and don't require extensive shopping. Often core recipes feature in other meals. Spinach pancakes are used instead of pasta in spinach and mushroom lasagna. Vegetables and fruit are the centerpieces of her dishes. Highlights include roasted bell pepper tapenade; ricotta “No Bread” pudding with blueberries; tomato, tarragon and a mostly egg white frittata; and portobello mushrooms with spinach and goat cheese. Poultry and fish are featured in such dishes as oven “Fried” chicken; seasoned wild salmon with minted mango salsa; and black cod with snow peas. Hemingway proves that healthy food can be enticing, and her dishes will appeal to even the least health-conscious among us. (May)

Golden Door, the Southern California luxury spa known for its inspired cuisine, marks its 50th anniversary with the publication of its first cookbook, bringing its flavorful, healthy dishes into the home. The spa advocates that good food is about feeling sated, nurtured and healthy, so its recipes center on lean proteins, whole grains and fresh vegetables, using natural whole foods. Most of the recipes included in this volume are new, although some have been on the spa's menu for decades, such as its famed Potassium Broth. Highlights include beer-steamed shrimp with avocado-citrus vinaigrette; red lentil veggie burger with garlicky yam fries and a spicy mango ketchup; and Maryland crab cakes with caramelized pineapple and roasted pepper remoulade. Lean meats and desserts also get ample attention, including crispy duck breast with cracked wheat, caramelized shallots and blackberry gastrique; and a warm flourless chocolate cake with Grand Marnier orange sauce. Nutritional information for each recipe is listed, and the basics section includes recipes for staples such as stocks, herb oil and caramelized onions. Offering a variety of appealing, healthful recipes with numerous sidebars on better living, this long overdue volume offers appetizing alternatives for everyday meals and everyday living. (Apr.)

And it came to pass that Stanley Lobel, son of Morris, and his own sons and nephew, did toil on the island Manhattan, and grew wise in the ways of butchery, of the cleaver and of the cutting board, so that they may bring unto us this season these eight chapters and lead us into temptation. They tell of the beast that chews its cud so that we may know the difference between the shell steak and the tenderloin, the hanger steak and the skirt. And that we may know the proper ways to beget steak tartare, beef jerky and carbonade of beef in Belgian beer. Lo, the cloven-hoofed animal shall be known by its pancetta and prosciutto. It will lieth down in an Alsatian pork-and-potato casserole and riseth up in Kansas City–style baby back ribs. That which cock-a-doodles shall ne'er be overlooked, but shall be stewed in a spicy tomato-peanut sauce with okra. And its sister, the guinea hen, shall ramble in rosemary and white wine when it is braised. And so it is also with the veal and with the lamb, the hare and the quail. Stocks, sauces and chutney will make covenant with the flock so that chimichurri sauce might enliven beef, and Russian dressing make whole a Reuben sandwich. Recipes number 135, well photographed and indexed. And it is good. (Apr.)

This new edition of a modest book by six young inner-city students 30 years ago under the tutelage of Percy, an educator, author and lecturer who was then their teacher, expresses the philosophy that children should be respected and valued. Heartwarming and poignant, the book includes a number of entries that reveal the students' yearning to be understood and treated with kindness. Ann Arthur, who first approached Percy with her writing when she was 10 years old, contributes an introductory essay from her current perspective as a parent and pediatric ophthalmologist. Born to West Indian immigrants struggling to raise seven children, Arthur explains how she was inspired and motivated by Percy's encouragement and trust; she also makes some astute observations about parenthood. Even as children, these writers knew that parenting requires a great amount of responsibility, love and patience. This slender edition, accompanied by b&w photos, breathes new life into their poetry and prose. Included are survey questions created by Percy that readers can use to help evaluate and enrich their relationships with their children. (May)

Chadwick, who wrote a Weight Loss Diary column for Shape, lost 26 pounds over the course of one year. During the process, the mother of two worried about how her weight-loss project would affect her 13-year-old daughter, and she began to explore her own feelings about how her mother had negatively influenced her body image. Through interviews with experts, mothers and daughters, and personal reflection, Chadwick concludes that moms hold a crucial key to how girls will feel about themselves for years to come. An essential step in raising girls with a positive body image, Chadwick maintains, is to be a positive role model; she encourages mothers to “walk the talk” by following a healthy life style, exuding confidence and by refraining from disparaging their own bodies. Helpful boxes on how to help girls build a positive body image conclude each chapter, with tips ranging from respecting girls' clothing choices to helping them find a physical activity or sport. Chadwick, who suffered from anorexia as a teen, emphasizes the importance of stressing health over weight loss. This is a thoughtful guide for moms who are rightly concerned about the body image legacy they will inevitably pass on to their daughters. (May)

Three writers explore the history of gardening.

Swift, a former London Times gardening columnist, invites readers to slow down, taste the fresh fruit and sniff the blooming flowers. Entwining gardening with natural and local history, family memories, garden visitors like insects, animals and people, and religious traditions, Swift explores the cycles of the seasons and life while providing a fresh breath of country air. Was quince responsible for the Trojan War as well as Adam and Eve's fall from Paradise? Garden tidbits, such as pear trees living for 250 years and damson plums having provided the dye for British military uniforms, are abundant. But more so, Swift offers an exploration of the world as seen through the eyes of a longtime gardener. The months in the garden are explored alongside the medieval Catholic book of hours; days and seasons cycle with Swift's narratives of garden design, Roman history, astronomy and brain chemistry. Swift's meditative prose should appeal to gardeners (armchair or soil-based) and nature lovers alike with its invitation to pause for reflection. (May)

Though as famous in his day as Thomas Edison, agricultural pioneer Luther Burbank (1849–1926) is little remembered; in this straightforward, engaging biography, author and historian Smith (Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine) recounts Burbank's life and its context, chronicling also agribusiness's turn-of-the-century growth and industrialization. Smith covers Burbank's rural New England childhood; the influence of Darwin on his horticultural ideas; his move to Santa Rosa, Calif.; and the establishment of his experimental gardens and nurseries. Amazingly, Burbank discovered independently the Mendelian principles that form the basis of genetics, and developed more than 800 varieties of fruits, nuts, vegetables and flowers. He made little money, largely owing to insufficient patent law (plants were not covered at the time) and his own paranoia, but he gained ample fame amid the 19th-century vogue for “progress.” (Apr.)

Wulf, a German-born journalist, wonderfully conveys the allure and cultural importance of the garden. Spanning nearly 100 years and several continents, Wulf begins her cultural investigation with the creation of the first manmade hybrid by devout Christian gardener Thomas Fairchild, who spent the rest of his life racked with guilt for the blasphemous act. She also introduces egomaniacal Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, who scandalized British society with his sexual system of classification; his book was banned by the Vatican. There is New World farmer John Bartram, who braved storms and steep mountains to discover new plants and send them back to his customers in England, hungry for exotic vegetation from America. As Wulf fills her readily accessible book with adventures aboard Captain Cook's ship, petty rivalries and outsized personalities, she provides an entertaining account of kooky botanists traveling the world and explores how gardening neutralized class lines, how horticulture and botany brought wealth and power, and how the English garden had a profound impact on modern landscape gardening, elevating the humble pursuit into the highest art. (Apr.)

Breaking up may be hard to do, but it also has its rewards, say these two books.

In her first book, essayist Bram convincingly disputes the common belief that there's no life after divorce. At age 41, the mother of three young children, Bram was in a loveless marriage. But she was surrounded by people who insisted it would be hell on her and her children; even the marriage counselor she and her husband saw presented her with studies about the irrevocable trauma divorce inflicts on children. But Bram was out to prove them wrong, and in her memoir, she recounts the steps she built to create a new life and take joy in finding her own true self. Whether slogging through legal paperwork, arranging custodial visits or re-entering the world of romance, Bram put her sons first, and they all came through intact. For anyone facing divorce, Bram's frank and optimistic tale shows that one can not only survive divorce but thrive in the new possibilities life will offer. (Apr.)

In keeping with the almost defiant title, this collection of 29 essays is a mixture of ballsy and introspective, humorous and bleak—though never bleak for long. Though individual and quirky, these essays share a theme. As Julie Hammonds writes pithily in “The Love List”: “What to do next with my life? Where to go? Who to become? Big questions, fear inducing.” She decided to travel solo for six months. And while the economic effects of divorce are all too real, each woman has a chance to become stronger, more herself. As Marrit Ingman says with delightful economy in “Breakup Buddies,” “Our fortunes declined. But at the same time, our struggles had a reason, at last. Bad odds were better than no chance at all.” Editor Walsh (Moving to New York) steps up the honesty in revealing that she left her unhappy marriage after falling in love with her female therapist, ultimately finding her true love via Match.com. These stories of exploration and change, whether tentative or bold, will inspire readers who are questioning their own status. (June)