Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 4/06/2009

-- Publishers Weekly, 4/6/2009

NONFICTION

Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experience
Jeremy Mynott. Princeton Univ., $29.95 (384p) ISBN 9780691135397
Mynott, a birder and former chief of Cambridge Univ. Press, is fascinated by birds and by the human response to them: why do we expend so much effort to observe, catalog, describe, listen to and study birds? Citing a broad range of sources (Romantic poets, Japanese haiku masters, the Song of Solomon, Monty Python, Thoreau), Mynott ponders our perceptions of worth, our emotional responses to landscapes, and the process of vision itself. Most people respond only unconsciously to birds—a flash of color, a burst of melody, wheeling flight—and Mynott encourages active observation, springboarding to a discussion of general awareness. Elsewhere he tackles the human penchant for collecting, but he also addresses birder-specific idiosyncrasies like “twitching,” when a flock of birders convene on the location of an unusual sighting, where they mark their lists and disappear just as quickly as they arrived. Mynott is also happy to goof on himself and his fellows, presenting a bird-spotting version of the Beaufort wind speed intensity index (level 9 birder behavior includes “high anxiety, travel[ing] long distances at great expense... los[ing] sense of humour (or job or partner).” Though Mynott provides ample references for further reading, this leisurely, thoughtful, generous book provides ample information and amusement. (Mar.)

Café Society: The Wrong Place for the Right People
Barney Josephson with Terry Josephson. Univ. of Illinois, $29.95 (328p) ISBN 9780252034138
This inspirational, exciting, atmospheric read takes readers to New York's West Village in the late 1930s, and the white-owned establishment that championed jazz, discovered Billie Holiday and welcomed its mixed-race crowd in a time when such mingling was unheard of. Former New Jersey shoe salesman Josephson (1902-88), frustrated with frivolous American clubs and their racial discrimination, was inspired by European political cabarets to open Club Society in the West village in 1938. A jazz club in which most of the performers, and much of the audience, was black, Josephson’s stories from the pioneering music spot are incredible, including Leonard Bernstein performing Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock solo on piano at five in the morning; the virtually unknown Billie Holiday performing, for the first time, Lewis Allen's Strange Fruit; and a well-known policy of kicking out anyone who “objected to sitting next to Negroes.” Other Society notables include Lena Horne, Zero Mostel, Sarah Vaughn, and Hazel Scott, and the club's success led to a second location on Park Avenue (which quickly proved wrong predictions that the uptown crowd would never integrate). (Apr.)

Deep Travel: In Thoreau’s Wake on the Concord and Merrimack
David K. Leff. Univ. of Iowa, $32 (280p) ISBN 9781587297892
If canoeing down a slow river is your idea of fun, you may enjoy this travelogue from Leff, an author (The Last Undiscovered Place), poet and former deputy environmental commissioner of Connecticut. Retracing a short trip down the Concord and Merrimack rivers taken by the Thoreau brothers in 1839, Leff doesn't leave the babbling to the water, lecturing readers and occasional co-travelers (his son, his girlfriend, his neighbor). The idea he calls “deep travel” is an investigative-improvisational mode of travel that requires extraordinary attention: “One observation leads to another and questions beget... delicious distractions.” Leff travels through former mill towns and defunct canals, paddling waters wide, narrow, polluted and occasionally populated. Leff weaves heavy-handed history lessons into the narrative, researched and presented as meticulously as Thoreau's work. Along with standard nature issues like disappearing bird species and industrial development on New England's waterways, “delicious distractions” include fatherhood, love and city planning. Leff's “forensic” sensibility (“to see the landscape as the coroner [sees] a body”) makes this an intersection of the clinical and the transcendental: a detailed, dense journey, reminiscent of Thoreau's own work. (Apr.)

The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism Is Seducing America
Drew Pinsky and S. Mark Young.Harper, $26.99 (368p) ISBN
Celebrity doctor Pinsky, a director at the Las Encinas Hospital treatment center and host of television (Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew) and radio shows (Loveline) has, over the past 15 years, witnessed a generational shift among celebrities: “Beyond any doubt, the trajectory of dysfunctional celebrity behavior has escalated,” along with an unshakable sense of entitlement, to “toxic levels.” As stardom becomes more about media attention than talent, and audiences become transfixed by the downward-spiral of deeply disturbed stars like Anne Nicole Smith, the implicit lesson is that “being famous... [is] a game anyone can play” by engaging in the “same unregulated, often troubling, behavior that dominates reality TV and the Internet.” Along with researcher and entertainment business scholar Young (Management Accounting), Pinsky conducted a study in 2006 that found narcissism “not a byproduct of celebrity, but a primary motivating force that drives people to become celebrities.” The danger of the “mirror effect,” however, is that it encourages otherwise level-headed people to develop a dysfunctional life-style. Especially valuable for parents, this of-the-moment volume speaks to a national obsession too often treated as inconsequential, especially among impressionable youth. (Mar.)

My Ambulance Education: Life and Death on the Streets of the City
Joseph F. Clark. Firefly, $19.95 (256p) ISBN 9781554074649
A “distillation of eight years in three ambulances and two emergency rooms,” this energized, gruesome collection of true tales comes from a University of Cincinnati neurologist who cut his teeth as an emergency medical technician (EMT). This faithful memoir of life in the ambulance lane and the characters who populate it—“unbridled heroes… losers with whom no one wanted to work”— contains its share of poignant moments, but is far from sentimental; at 18, Clark had to grow, quickly, a strong sense of gallows humor to deal with the gore and mortality. The author remarks that “you can't have a conversation with [an EMT]... without hearing about blood, guts, vomit or death”; accordingly, the holy trinity of blood, vomit and feces is invoked on nearly every page. Stories about suicide attempts, stroke and gang violence abound, and, unsurprisingly, it eventually becomes too much for Clark, who burns out (like so many of his colleagues) trying to do the right thing. Occasionally clunky writing and a listless romantic subplot distract, but readers with the stomach for it will be drawn in by this high-speed, adrenaline-powered ride-along. (May)

The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial and the Concert That Awakened America
Raymond Arsenault. Bloomsbury, $25 (320p) ISBN 9781596915787
Commemorating the 70th anniversary of African-American contralto Marian Anderson’s culture-shifting 1939 Easter Sunday performance at the Lincoln Memorial, the story of this underappreciated Civil Rights milestone resonates even louder in the wake of President Obama's election. Civil rights historian Arsenault (Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice) paints a detailed portrait of America's struggle for racial equality through one of the 20th century's most celebrated singers (of any color). Despite a 40-year career as a world-class entertainer, performing around the globe, Arsenault suffered innumerable racist indignities in her homeland, culminating in the controversial declaration by the Daughters of the American Revolution that barred her from performing in Washington, D.C.’s Constitution Hall. In defiance, Anderson and her entourage arranged for the free, open-air Easter concert, which drew an estimated crowd of 75,000. The peaceful demonstration struck a vital blow for civil rights, and in particular for integration at Constitution Hall, nearly 25 years before Martin Luther King's march on Washington. Arsenault relies heavily on historical manuscripts and newspaper articles, but his vivid understanding of the players keeps the narrative fresh and insightful. Anderson died in 1993, at age 96, but this vivid tribute to her work and times does her memory a great service. (Apr.)

We Are All Moors: Ending Centuries of Crusades Against Muslims and Other Minorities
Anouar Majid. Univ. of Minnesota, $24.95 (240p) ISBN 9780816660797
In his latest, University of New England professor Majid (A Call For Heresy: Why Dissent is Vital to Islam and America) traces the history of the Moors, the Muslim minority that suffered horribly for centuries in Europe, in the context of Western minority persecution throughout history. Majid begins with the 1609 edict to expel the Muslims, considered a religious threat, from Spain. European Jewry faced similar efforts in the 15th century and in WWII, and Majid finds that a national legacy of tragic discrimination makes it more likely to occur: “The Moor... continues to haunt nations and drive them into violent outbursts of intolerance.” Majid draws much-needed comparisons between events leading to atrocities like the Spanish Inquisition and present attitudes and trends, including growing disdain for Muslims in Europe and Hispanics in the U.S. Further, he shows how nations are strengthened by the acceptance and integration of the foreign (as is the trend, following initial xenophobic fits, in the U.S.), while cultural expulsion and/or cleansing hurts people and states (as in Germany's post-WWII “occupation and dismemberment”). With this intriguing historical analysis, Majid sounds a clear warning against the West's latest slide toward cultural scapegoating. (Apr.)

Lifestyle

The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl: Real Life Career Advice You Can Actually Use
Karen Burns. Running, $14.95 (288p) ISBN 9780762433483
In a disclaimer, Burns makes it clear she is “not an expert in the field of work. Or in any other field.” Her credentials are nonetheless impressive: 40 years of dedicated work in 59 different jobs across America and Europe (listed in a handy appendix, from Minnesota paperboy to Versailles “disciplinarian” to Kirkland, Washington artist). With a seemingly endless supply of experiences, Burns unveils a flurry of short pieces, each designed to illuminate a single point in the galaxy of employment options, obstacles, aggravations and accidents. Divided into three sections—“Clueless,” “Confident” and “Carefree”—Burns looks at standard issues like interviewing and resume writing (“Bad news: You can write the perfect resume, but you can’t make ’em read it. More bad news: You have to write the perfect resume anyway”), but also the health hazards of gainful employment, three easy steps for dealing with mistakes, juggling multiple jobs, and operating outside of your element. Burns is encouraging and funny, but also a hard-nosed pragmatist who isn’t about to do the work for you—but neither is she going to waste your time with pages condescending instruction. Instead, her snappy chapters provide perspective and action points for a cascade of work conditions, indexed helpfully in multiple appendices. (Apr.)

The Herb Garden Gourmet: Grow Herbs, Eat Well, and Be Green
Tim Hass and Jan Beane. Sourcebooks, $16.99 paper (304p) ISBN 9781402217142
In this handy guide, columnists and gardening experts Haas and Beane dispense plenty of salient advice while covering the growth and use of herbs, from seed to supper. Tricks to getting the most out of herbs include selecting the right location, planting complementary and strategic combinations (planting some green onions will help keep rabbits away from your lettuce), and their best uses for soups, stews and other dishes. The authors offer specific, thorough information in 15 herb profiles (including basil, dill, oregano, coriander, tarragon, chives, etc.) and numerous recipes. Recipes balance the familiar—a White Bean Soup with earthy sage highlights, a shrimp boil, a Sour Cream and Dill Sauce—with dishes that encourage experimentation, such as a Chicken Salad with Rosemary, Baked Potatoes with Brie (and chives), and Sun-Dried Tomato Thyme Muffins. The final chapter offers thematic meals that revolve around a particular herb (though dessert recipes don't necessarily incorporate any herbs), including shopping lists. A lively, refreshing collection, this volume will make a useful resource for gardeners of all skill levels. (May)

Paula Deen’s The Deen Family Cookbook
Paula Deen with Melissa Clark. Simon and Schuster, $26 (288p) ISBN 9780743278133
Spunky Food Network matriarch Deen returns with yet another down-home Southern recipe compilation, including the input of family members this time around. Classic comfort food is what Deen and family do best, and in that respect this collection doesn’t disappoint: dishes like Beefy French Onion Soup, Caesar salad, Michael's Navy Bean and Ham Hock Soup, Carrie's Bacon Creamed Spinach and a simple baked fish topped with a buttery mixture of lemon and green onion are surefire hits for cooks of all skill levels. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Deen production if there weren’t some serious bacon-, dairy- and mayonnaise-based dishes involved; artery cloggers include Candied Bourbon Bacon Bites, Croque Madame Casserole and indulgent Deluxe Twice-Baked Potatoes with Shrimp. Shockingly, Deen devotes a whole chapter to healthy food, including Red Pepper-Balsamic Dip, Easy Poached Salmon and a Spicy Chicken and Green Chile Chili that’ll give hearts and waistlines a well-deserved break before Deen carts out the Coconut Cream Bread Pudding with Chocolate Velvet Sauce. (Apr.)

The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Grown. It’s Born. Here’s How.
Daniel Coyle. Bantam, $25 (256p) ISBN
With a canny grasp of his subject, author and Outside contributing editor Coyle (Lance Armstrong’s War, Hardball: A Season in the Projects) looks at the development of extraordinary talent, particularly in athletes, and the “revolutionary scientific discoveries” unlocking the “talent code” behind it. Cutting across the nature/nurture argument, Coyle examines research into myelin, a neural insulator produced when we repeatedly “fire a particular circuit”; the more myelin produced along that circuit, the “stronger, faster, and more accurate our [relevant] movements and thoughts become.” Interviewing top coaches, educators and researchers, traveling to talent hot spots and neurology labs, Coyle describes three steps (roughly: visualizing and comprehending, repeating and perfecting, and emotional connection) employed (knowingly or not) by talents like the skate-boarding Z-Boys, Brazilian soccer players, the Bronte sisters, pop musicians, outperforming school kids and others, as well as ways to understand and spur that process along (in ourselves and others). An exciting, accessible window into research that could trigger a revolution in education and the treatment of mental illness, this intriguing study also puts better-known models of learning into perspective: “Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.” (Apr.)

The Vineyard Cookbook
Barbara Scott-Goodman. Welcome, $24.95 (162p) ISBN 9781599620640
In this collection of 60 seasonally-themed dishes, with wine suggestions, cookbook writer Scott-Goodman (The Beach House Cookbook, Sensational Salads, The Diabetes Menu Cookbook, etc.) gives readers a virtual tour of U.S. wine country. Presented as a dozen multi-course meals, organized by season, and interspersed with short profiles of various American wineries, Goodman keeps the book moving. Whether it’s a Lobster, Corn and Tomato Salad for summer, a creamy Linguine with Asparagus and Peas in the spring, or vanilla-scented poached pears in the fall, virtually all the dishes come together fairly quickly and with a minimum of fuss. As for the wines, Chardonnay and white wine fans will find a lot to like here, though merlot and cab lovers won’t feel too left out. Regardless of wine preference, Goodman’s suggestions for wine and cheese pairings will be of particular interest, making a complex subject easily digestible over the course of just a few pages. Gourmands may find recipes like warm mixed olives, wild mushroom soup and guacamole rather simplistic, but those new to wine or cooking in general will find this an encouraging compilation with practical suggestions for memorable meals the year round. (Apr.)

What We Eat When We Eat Alone
Deborah Madison and Patrick McFarlin. Gibbs Smith, $24.99 (272p) ISBN 9781423604969
Veteran cookbook author and food writer Madison (The Greens Cookbook, Local Flavors, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone) looks at what we eat when no one's looking in this charming if overlong study (with recipes). Madison's informal survey of friends, colleagues and complete strangers about what they eat at home doesn't yield many earthshaking findings—men more enjoy familiar staples while women enjoy thinking out their meals, comfort foods predominate, and priority goes to ease of preparation. Many of the exceptions are included among the hundred recipes scattered throughout, including a flank steak stuffed with cremini mushrooms, spinach, bacon and cheese; a shrimp, feta and bulgur wheat salad; and a polenta with blue cheese sauce. Plenty of fare best eaten over the sink is also included, such as sardines on toast or an open-faced cheese and tapenade sandwich. Madison's non-judgmental tone is refreshing and friendly, and recipes are varied enough that any home cook will find something worth adding to the repertoire. Though it can get repetitive–—Madison never really reaches any conclusions—readers interested in the dining practices of others will find this a light but satisfying indulgence (not unlike sardines on toast). (May)

Wisdom 2.0: Ancient Secrets for the Creative and Constantly Connected
Soren Gordhamer. HarperOne, $13.95 (256p) ISBN 978006151519
Author, Web entrepreneur and stress-reduction consultant Gordhamer (Just Say Ohm!) begins by asking readers whether they think they have time to read this book; those who answer “no” are most likely to benefit from making time for it. Taking into account all the ways in which our lives are networked today (cell phone, email, IM, Facebook, personal blogs, collaborative online communities), Gordhamer sorts through the mess of connections to outline methods for a lifestyle “with deeper connections and greater ease… creatively instead of stressfully responding to… our lives.” Gordhamer’s strategies for increasing conscientiousness, lowering stress, mining creativity and pursuing truth draw on detailed knowledge of Buddhist traditions, technology and cutting-edge communications science. Action points and “daily practice exercises” (eating properly, conscious relaxation) abut themed chapters (referred to, oddly, as “tools”) like “access with presence,” the idea that we “more effectively engage the creative mind through attention than through thinking.” Though his principles conform to similar self-help titles, his presentation is succinct and cannily geared toward those proud to be plugged-in, but seeking to restore balance to their lives—those who might otherwise never consider a print-and-ink solution to their high-tech anxiety. (Apr.)

Illustrated

Cezanne And Beyond
Joseph J. Rishe and Katherine Sachs. Yale Univ. $65 (600p) ISBN 9780300141061
Accompanying the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Spring 2009 exhibition, this book of prints and essays examines the influence of Cezanne, once called “the linchpin in the history of modernism,” on 19 modern and post-modern artists. Essayists take many different approaches. Describing Cezanne as “not only the primary form maker of his era but also its primary form breaker,” Robert Storr discusses the debt owed by Pop artists like Richard Hamilton. John Elderfield makes a compelling case for Cezanne’s influence on the divergent work of Picasso, who said that “it’s not what the artist does that counts, but what he is… Cezanne’s anxiety—that’s Cezanne’s lesson.” Other artists discussed include Gorky, Jasper Johns and Matisse (who called Cezanne  “a sort of god of painting”). The book itself is beautiful, containing color reproductions of work by Cezanne and the 19 artists considered, plus a few more. An informative introduction traces Cezanne’s influence across Europe, during his life and after, referring often to the 1895 exhibition which would have been viewed by many of the artists mentioned. This close examination, buttressed by gorgeous plates, makes this a standout volume on the popular artist. (Mar.)

Fiction

A Sandhills Ballad
Ladette Randolph. Univ. of New Mexico, $26.95 (352p) ISBN 9780826346858
After youthful rancher Mary Needham loses her husband and her left leg in a terrible car crash, she's convinced that God has abandoned her and that no one will love her again. Her fear of being alone pushes her to marry charismatic but conservative preacher Ward Hamilton, but by the time she realizes her horrible mistake she's pregnant and unable to leave him. But when Ward spearheads a lawsuit against the family of Mary's dead husband, she risks everything she has built to get away from him. Stark and engrossing, this debut novel from short story writer, editor and Ploughshares director Randolph (This Is Not the Tropics) fixes an empathetic but relentless gaze on a woman determined to expunge the regrets from her life. The small-town American plains setting is strangely void of temporal context, trapped much like its heroine, whose trepidation and hesitancy Randolph handles with unexpected skill, keeping Mary likable when she could easily have grown frustrating. An immersing achievement, this novel should please any fan of good fiction, not just the horses-and-heartthrobs set. (Apr.)

Woodsburner
John Pipkin. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $24.95 (384p) ISBN 9780385528658
Most readers know Thoreau’s Walden as a treatise on man’s respect for nature, but Pipkin’s debut novel adds something new to the equation. A fictionalized version of a true event, this book explores Thoreau’s overwhelming guilt for a Concord forest fire he accidentally set a year before his Walden retreat. Pipkin jumps effortlessly among the perspectives of Henry David and several unconnected townsfolk brought together by the fire, taking the blaze itself as his central character: “not one enemy but many, thousands of individual flames, chewing through trees, taking possession of the woods as if this were their inheritance.” Fire chews through his character’s lives as well; as the flames grow too large to control, the townspeople must one by one face the absurdity of man’s bulwarks against nature. Pipkin tosses off hints of Thoreau’s writings (“man’s inability to conceive of the world’s limits,” instructing a local bookseller to “come to this very spot and build your home from the blackened timbers”), but his novel succeeds beyond the confines of its literary pedigree, making it a thought-provoking page-turner in its own right, a successful balance of story and character study. (May)