Web Exclusive Reviews: 9/21/2009
-- Publishers Weekly, 9/21/2009
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Web Pick of the Week |
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Michael Anthony. Adams, $22.95 (256p) ISBN 9781440501838NONFICTION
The Bizarre Truth: How I Walked Out the Door Mouth First... and Came Back Shaking My Head
Andrew Zimmern. Broadway, $24.99 (288p) ISBN 9780767931298
Host of his own Travel Channel show, chef and food writer Zimmern has made a career of unusual travel destinations and even more unusual food. In this memoir of his exotic experiences, Zimmern shares his favorite experiences as well as his broad-mined approach to the world. From illegal lobsters in Cuba to roasted bats in Samoa to a simple bowl of noodles in Guangzhou, China, Zimmern lets his gusto be his guide, resulting in a passionate but messy read. While he helpfully avoids overloading readers with shock after shock (knowingly referring to himself as “a guy who eats bugs”), he's seemingly uncertain whether to organize his stories by theme or location, leading to repetition nonetheless. Popular ecological themes—sustainable food production, neutral carbon footprints, local ingredients—wend throughout, but the tantalizing focus is Zimmern's unrelentingly positive methods of travel and immersion, emphasizing keystone values like graciousness, open-mindedness and leaving assumptions behind while stirring readers' appetite for adventure. (Sept.)
Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture
David Hajdu. Da Capo, $17.95 paper (352p) ISBN 9780306818332
In this rollicking collection of mostly previously published essays, Hadju (The Ten-Cent Plague; Positively 4th Street) combines the cutting candor of Lester Bangs and the measured and judicious cultural learning of Lionel Trilling as he takes aim at subjects ranging widely from jazz, rock and country music and cartoon characters like Elmer Fudd to broader cultural topics such as blogging, MySpace, and remixing. Hadju writes affectionately about the old Warner Brothers cartoons, recalling the respite they provided from the tumult of the 1960s, every night before dinner. In another essay, he uses the release of Joni Mitchell’s album, Shine, as an entrée into a moving retrospective of her music and a bit of mourning over her recent absence from the music scene. In a superb comparison of the music of Lucinda Williams, Taylor Swift, and Beyoncé, he captures Williams as a woman rare among pop stars, possessing unfeathered intelligence, untheatrical carnality, and uncompromising humanity. Hadju’s opening essay on jazz great Billy Eckstine is alone worth the price of admission, a poignant portrait of a brilliant musician whose star might have risen even higher had he been born in a different era. Hadju’s essays never fail to amuse, please and provoke. (Oct.)
I Want: My Journey from Addiction and Overconsumption to a Simpler, Honest Life
Jane Velez-Mitchell. HCI, $24.95 (268p) ISBN 9780757313714
Host of her own Headline News show, journalist Velez-Mitchell addresses a number of her own issues in this honest but ultimately unremarkable narrative, focusing largely on former addictions to alcohol, cigarettes, food and money: “I’ve consumed all of those in massive quantities, and they’ve just made me miserable. Now, I want… the opposite of material. As sappy as it might sound, what I want is spiritual.” Velez-Mitchell then recounts a childhood with parents who taught her to shun all authority but their own; a young adulthood in which she nearly drank herself into oblivion; her decision to get sober; how she came to terms with her homosexuality; and her climb to success in the world of television news. Despite these revelations, though, Velez-Mitchell’s off-putting, self-righteous tone may make readers feel they’re being scolded, rather than invited to understand or sympathize. (Sept.)
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Have You Seen This Animal? |
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In these two new scientific travelogues, an extinct bird and a critically endangered wildcat lead a couple of skilled writers on globe-spanning quests. |
Glen Chilton. Simon & Schuster, $25 (320p) ISBN 9781439102473
Richard Mahler. Yale Univ., $27 (376p) ISBN 9780300122251Lighting Their Fires: Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-Up, Muddled-Up, Shook-Up World
Rafe Esquith. Viking, $24.95 (208p) ISBN 9780670021086
In his follow-up to Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire, elementary school teacher Esquith focuses on financially disadvantaged but scholastically ambitious fifth-graders from Hobart Elementary School, located in the middle of a critically poor Los Angeles neighborhood. Directed primarily at parents, educators and administrators, this volume offers anecdotes and suggestions for inspiring and encouraging each child to live up to his or her tremendous promise. Framed by the story of a Dodgers baseball game to which he brings a small group of students, Esquith notes the values of his students in contrast to many of the adult ticket-holders: punctuality, focus, confidence, selflessness, humility, and others. He then probes the meaning of each value, like the way being on time reflects a belief in control over one's destiny, as well as a sense of responsibility. Celebrating his young students' everyday accomplishments, Esquith outlines the struggles and stakes that face them all, while making teaching (and learning) look easy. (Sept.)
My Fellow Americans: Presidents Speak to the People in Troubled Times
Michael Worek. Firefly, $29.95 (312p) ISBN 9781554075492
Though overwhelming in its entirety, this collection of presidential speeches provides an insightful look at our nation’s darkest periods, and the careful words our leaders chose to offer comfort and inspiration. In each of the book’s six sections, covering 1935 to the present, author, publisher and historian Worek’s carefully selected speeches illustrate perfectly each era’s most pervasive challenges. Some speeches will spark instant recognition, including FDR’s inaugural speech (“the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”) and Gerald Ford’s swearing-in (“I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots”), and many phrases from Depression-era speeches, though 75 years old, sound eerily contemporary. The book’s focus on devastating national events (the 1995 Oklahoma Bombings, the September 11 terrorist attacks, etc.) is inescapably depressing, but brings a measure of much-needed perspective on today’s pressing issues. Happily, Worek ends with words of hope from President Obama: “We will rebuild, we will recover.” (Sept.)
Rich Dad’s Conspiracy of the Rich: 8 New Rules of Money
Robert T. Kiyosaki. Grand Central/Business Plus, $12.99 paper (260p) ISBN 9780446559805
In the latest installment of Kiyosaki's Rich Dad series, he opts for an innovative approach with largely diminished returns: struggling with a way to inform average citizens on the current economic crisis, and how to rise above it, Kiyosaki decided to write a book in online installments, seeking the questions and comments of his readers (which are peppered throughout this print version). Though an undeniably effective technique for help readers identify with the material, more professional input would have produced a volume buoyed by more of Kiosaki’s lucid explanation, and less bogged down with repetition, poor pacing and a rigid view of government policies. Regurgitating dogma from previous books without fleshing them out, it seems Kiyosaki is less interested in creating a new volume than in teasing his old volumes. Kiyosaki's fans will doubtless buy this and may enjoy it, but readers new to the Rich Dad series will feel obligated to buy his other books for a proper understanding—something of a “conspiracy of the rich” in itself. (Sept.)
The Seasons on Henry’s Farm: A Year of Food and Life on a Sustainable Farm
Terra Brockman. Agate Surrey, $25 (312p) ISBN 9781572841031
After reading Brockman’s lyrical portrait of a central Illinois sustainable farm, citizens of the Fast Food Nation and Slow Foodies alike will gain a renewed appreciation for a fresh tomato or a fistful of basil. Covering a year on her family’s farm, biologist and writer Brockman takes readers through the cycle of farming, transmitting the chill of numb fingers harvesting lettuce and the searing heat of cucumber and tomato harvests, not to mention the meticulous winter seeding and backbreaking weeding that ensure a successful crop. Brockman doesn’t pull any punches, from the slaughter and processing of poultry, to the politics of plastic shopping bags at the farmers’ market, to harrowing tales of pesticides that will have readers rethinking supermarket peaches. Digressions involving farming methods and quirky residents like Lucky Tom the turkey entertain rather than distract; recipes for fresh corn, pea soup and fried green tomatoes also enhance Brockman’s multi-dimensional take on what, in less gifted hands, could have been a pedestrian story. Sure to inspire a trip to the farmers market, and a much deeper appreciation of its bounty, Brockman covers her subject with hard-earned expertise and organic passion. (Oct.)
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in JapanJake Adelstein. Pantheon, $26 (352p) ISBN 9780307378798
A young Japanese-schooled Jewish-American who worked as a journalist at Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shinbun during the 1990s, debut author Adelstein began with a routine, but never dull, police beat; before long, he was notorious worldwide for engaging the dirtiest, top-most villains of Japan’s organized criminal underworld, the yakuza. A pragmatic but sensitive character, Adelstein’s worldview takes quite a beating during his tour of duty; thanks to his immersive reporting, readers suffer with him through the choice between personal safety and a chance to confront the evil inhabiting his city. He learns that “what matters is the purity of the information, not the person [providing it],” considers personal and societal theories behind Tokyo’s illicit and semi-illicit pastimes like “host and hostess clubs,” where citizens pay for the illusion of intimacy: “The rates are not unreasonable, but the cost in human terms are incredibly high.” Adelstein also examines the investigative reporter’s tendency to withdraw into cynicism (“when a reporter starts to cool down, it’s very hard… ever to warm up again”) but faithfully sidesteps that urge, producing a deeply thought-provoking book: equal parts cultural exposé, true crime, and hard-boiled noir. (Oct.)
The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life
Ivanka Trump. Touchstone, $24.99 (256p) ISBN 9781439140017
A child of privilege with one of the most familiar surnames in America, Trump has managed to avoid many of the pitfalls that routinely plague children of the rich and famous (reckless partying, drug abuse and other mindless self-indulgences) to become a focused, successful woman in her own right—a model, entrepreneur and vice president of the Trump Organization. Eager to share what she’s learned at some of the best schools in the country, as well as from her driven, successful parents, Trump is straightforward and fully self-aware, realizing that readers will dismiss her achievements as simple nepotism; as such, she owns her privilege, acknowledges her advantages and then sets about disabusing readers of their presumptions with intelligent, well-conceived, positive advice; unbridled ambition; and a strong measure of graciousness and humility. Throughout this self-help memoir, Trump has sprinkled succinct, practical quotes from famous associates like Arianna Huffington and Tory Burch, bringing further weight to this young career woman’s accomplished work. (Oct.)
LIFESTYLE
A Tired Woman’s Guide to Passionate Sex: Reclaim Your Desire and Reignite Your Relationship
Laurie B. Mintz. Adams, $14.95 paper (256p) ISBN 9781605501079
Psychologist Mintz offers solutions for women with flagging sex drives and lackluster love lives in this accessible guide. A onetime sufferer herself, Mintz speaks from a place of experience and professional wisdom, encouraging readers to explore the (admittedly gimmicky) “Five T’s”—thoughts, talk, time, touch and trysts—in an effort to reconnect with their libidos. After covering common causes (stress, life transitions, parenting, etc.), Mintz moves on to the techniques, many of which can be boiled down to increasing self-awareness, easing anxiety over charged thoughts or activities, and communicating with one’s partner; Mintz goes so far as to offer sample scripts for broaching the subject of sex issues. Bolstered with plenty of case studies, readers are bound to identify with at least some of the examples here, learn to disregard the concept of “normal,” , and find plenty of worthwhile exercises. Taking her topic seriously (also addressing, early on, more serious concerns such as illness, sexual trauma, and infidelity), Mintz offers deep sympathy and a number of sound options for rekindling burned-out sex lives. (Sept.)
CHILDREN’S
Karma for Beginners
Jessica Blank. Disney-Hyperion, $16.99 (320p) ISBN 9781423117513
Blank (Almost Home) pens a second tale involving drug abuse, absentee parenting and neglected teens flouting authority. As in her debut, she sets her sights on a fringe community—this time, a hippie cult—and catalogs life there, with mixed results. Many of her descriptions of communal life border on the cliché: waifish, beatific followers in flowing skirts and white robes, chanting sessions, daily seva (“selfless service,” aka chores), a lecherous TV-watching guru, and touchy-feely mantras about surrendering desires and “Purity of Being.” But 14-year-old Tessa’s flight from her mother, who is desperate for a spiritual makeover, despite Tessa’s misery on the commune, and into the willing arms of Colin, a 20-year-old who fixes broken VW buses on the ashram, strikes a nerve. While Tessa’s clandestine relationship may initially seem deliciously rebellious and romantic to some, things quickly spiral out of control, both for Tessa and her mother, whose sexual connection to the guru is revealed. Eventually, wayward mother and daughter reunite, but not before unfortunate (and implausibly wrapped-up) lessons are learned on both ends. Ages 13–up. (Aug.)
Break
Hannah Moskowitz. Simon Pulse, $8.99 paper (272p) ISBN 9781416982753
Seventeen-year-old Jonah is on a quest to break every bone in his body, and his best friend Naomi is there to film each attempt, as he crashes his skateboard or dives into an empty pool. His 16-year-old brother, Jesse, has deadly food allergies and their parents aren’t vigilant about keeping the house safe, so that job has fallen to Jonah, who is weighed down by the responsibility. He breaks his bones so that as he heals he becomes stronger (“It’s sort of a natural bionics thing. Break a leg, grow a better leg. Break a body, grow a better body”), a belief treated with almost religious reverence from some, like Naomi (who calls it a “revolution”), but that eventually results in his being institutionalized. Moskowitz, who wrote the story while a high school junior, paces the story well and creates in Jonah a believable and complex protagonist. Love interest Charlotte is one-dimensional, and Naomi strains credulity as she eggs Jonah on. But the brothers’ relationship is poignant, and Moskowitz’s depiction of Jonah and Jesse’s respective traumas—and a family drowning in dysfunction—are viscerally real. Ages 14–up. (Aug.)
Hancock Park
Isabel Kaplan. HarperTeen, $16.99 (272p) ISBN 9780061246524
Set in Los Angeles, teenage author Kaplan’s debut details 16-year-old Becky’s struggles with her parents’ divorce and her social life after her best friend moves to New York. Readers (and Becky) learn of her intelligence when she takes an IQ test and has high results, but little in her observations and narrative suggest a genius to accompany that score (her involvement in the Model UN at all-girl’s academy feels forced). Her desire to be popular fluctuates between her scorn for the Trinity, the popular girls in her junior class, and her joy at hanging out with them (“I had gone out with an extremely attractive, very popular boy, and I was friends with the most popular girls in school. Life was good”). Slowly, Becky makes some positive changes—she switches from a prescription-happy psychiatrist to a more effectual one, and realizes her new boyfriend is a jerk. Her problems will resonate with and be familiar to readers, though her personal growth feels rushed and does not build in a realistic way. Ages 14–up. (July)
The Plague
Joanne Dahme. Running Press Teens, $16.95 (272p) ISBN 9780762433445
This dark piece of historical fiction, set during the Black Death, is gritty and realistic in its portrayal of the pandemic, even as Dahme (Creepers) introduces supernatural elements to the story. Orphaned Nell, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Princess Joan, daughter of England’s King Edward III, is enlisted by the king to be his daughter’s body-double. When the princess dies from the plague that is ravaging Europe, Nell is unwillingly made party to a plot—masterminded by Joan’s brother, the Black Prince—to marry the Spanish Prince Pedro in place of the late princess. With the help of some accomplices, Nell and her younger brother, George, flee, finding the deceased and dying at every turn. Throughout, Dahme makes the plague’s emotional toll evident (“we watched cart after cart empty their contents into the pits. I couldn’t call them people, the things in the carts, or I would have to cry out in despair.... There was nothing to define these forms as men, women, or child”). A harrowing and grim historical fantasy. Ages 14–up. (May)
FICTION
The Lost SymbolDan Brown. Doubleday, $29.95 (528p) ISBN 9780385504225
After scores of Da Vinci Code knockoffs, spinoffs, copies and caricatures, Brown has had the stroke of brilliance to set his breakneck new thriller not in some far-off exotic locale, but right here in our own backyard. Everyone off the bus, and welcome to a Washington, D.C., they never told you about on your school trip when you were a kid, a place steeped in Masonic history that, once revealed, points to a dark, ancient conspiracy that threatens not only America but the world itself. Returning hero Robert Langdon comes to Washington to give a lecture at the behest of his old mentor, Peter Solomon. When he arrives at the U.S. Capitol for his lecture, he finds, instead of an audience, Peter’s severed hand mounted on a wooden base, fingers pointing skyward to the Rotunda ceiling fresco of George Washington dressed in white robes, ascending to heaven. Langdon teases out a plethora of clues from the tattooed hand that point toward a secret portal through which an intrepid seeker will find the wisdom known as the Ancient Mysteries, or the lost wisdom of the ages. A villain known as Mal’akh, a steroid-swollen, fantastically tattooed, muscle-bodied madman, wants to locate the wisdom so he can rule the world. Mal’akh has captured Peter and promises to kill him if Langdon doesn’t agree to help find the portal. Joining Langdon in his search is Peter’s younger sister, Kathleen, who has been conducting experiments in a secret museum. This is just the kickoff for a deadly chase that careens back and forth, across, above and below the nation’s capital, darting from revelation to revelation, pausing only to explain some piece of wondrous, historical esoterica. Jealous thriller writers will despair, doubters and nay-sayers will be proved wrong, and readers will rejoice: Dan Brown has done it again. (Sept. 14)
The Midnight Guardian
Sarah Jane Stratford. St. Martin’s, $24.99 (304) ISBN 9780312560133
Stratford’s debut, the first in the Millennial series, matches up two groups of smug, self-righteous evildoers: Nazis, who want to “purify” the human race, and all-powerful vampires, who want to consume it. In 1939, Brigit, a vampire who has earned awesome powers by surviving over a thousand years, and her fellow millennials seek to bring down the Nazis, primarily to prevent another war that might diminish their human food supply. Despite the vampires’ powers of suggestion and superhuman strength, the Nazi war machine will not be easily broken. Digressions into Brigit’s past dig deep into vampire lore and provide emotional heft with sensuous descriptions of love, music, hate and death that evoke early Anne Rice, but readers will be frustrated by the lack of sympathetic characters and the complicated, unresolved plot. (Oct.)
Space Captain Smith
Toby Frost. Myrmidon (Trafalgar Square, dist.), $14.95 paper (320p) ISBN 9781905802135
Frost’s debut, a light-hearted interstellar adventure, focuses on a second-rate captain, Isambard Smith. Plucked from a desk job in the bureaucracy of the 25th century British Space Empire, Smith, whose attitudes are straight out of the original British Empire, is sent on a simple mission to escort Rhianna Mitchell from her home on the hippie planet New Francisco to the spaceport Midlight. Naturally the mission isn’t as straightforward as Smith is led to believe and he finds himself making mortal enemies of the alien 462 and the evangelical Captain Gilead. Sudden scene changes leave the reader momentarily confused, and offhand references to pop science fiction culture are more clichéd than clever. An ironic sense of British rectitude nicely contrasts with the satire of 1940s space opera, but Frost never quite finds his voice or pacing. (Oct.)
When You Went Away
Michael Baron. The Story Plant (Perseus, dist.), $7.99 paper (368p) ISBN 9780981956800
Baron’s carefully crafted debut tale, the Story Plant’s first mass market original, is too true-to-life to be interesting. Gerry Rubato’s wife has died and his teenage daughter has run away from home, leaving him alone to raise an infant son. Despite the recent tragedies, the focus of the novel is on rather ordinary non-events, such as Gerry’s work at a catalogue company, opinions about the Yankees and tedious descriptions of food. As Gerry struggles to confront his runaway child, he chronicles his emotional reactions in a series of journal entries. A romantic subplot involving a colleague provides predictable conflict. Buried in the minutiae is an earnest tale of a man’s emotional awakening and grief, but a too-easy resolution makes this more of a tour through Gerry’s processing than a story. (Oct.)
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