Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 3/3/2008

-- Publishers Weekly, 3/3/2008

NONFICTION

A Fragile Modernism: Whistler and his Impressionist Followers
Anna Gruetzner Robins.Yale, $60 (256p) ISBN 9780300135459
Robins (Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec: London and Paris 1870-1910), a British art historian at Reading University, writes about a lesser known side of the American-born artist James McNeill Whistler. Spending most of his adult life in Europe, he played a pivotal role in the British art world of the late 19th century, setting the standard “for judging modern painting in Britain based solely on the surface effect.” Whistler argued that a painting—which is inherently two-dimensional—should be “looked at with only one eye.” While he did not initially receive much support, by 1886 he was elected president of the Society of British Artists. Basing her study on personal letters and newspaper accounts in addition to Whistler’s paintings, Robins has chosen to focus on the years between 1880 and 1892, a period of time when Whistler surrounded himself with a group of British artists intent on using paint to create surface effects in a unique and “exhilarating” way. This work makes a cogent argument that they should not be grouped with the French Impressionists, but treated as a separate school of modern painting; it should intrigue the more academic of art buffs. 90 b&w, and 40 color illustrations. (Feb.)

Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of “Energy Independence”
Robert Bryce. PublicAffairs, $26.95 (384p) ISBN 9781586483210
In this often caustic and thought-provoking book, Bryce (Pipe Dreams, Cronies), a self-described “charter member of the Disgusted Party …a raging moderate who leans toward the libertarian,” attempts to debunk the pervasive call for U.S. energy independence, arguing that despite continuous rhetoric from all sides to the contrary, energy independence is neither “doable nor desirable.” The book gives a short history of oil, delineating the gradual shift of power from Texas to OPEC to foreign markets and the escalating U.S. militarization of the Persian Gulf to try to maintain energy security. Bryce contends that “energy demand will almost surely continue rising” and the proposed alternatives—biofuels, wind and solar energy—are chimeras, preventing Americans from confronting the reality that we “will be relying on fossil fuels for years to come.” The book argues that, rather than try to militarily control oil-rich nations to secure our energy needs, the US should accept that energy trading is global and pursue diplomatic routes to assure open, healthy and efficient markets. Despite the wisdom and lucidity of his analysis, Bryce’s arguments are undermined by his curmudgeonly attacks on environmental activists on the left and right, and his stance as apparently one of the last remaining global warming skeptics somewhat cripples his credibility. (Mar.)

The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths that Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By
Scott A. Shane. Yale, $26 (224p) ISBN 9780300113310
The word “entrepreneur” can invoke a glittering rags-to-riches fable, but the reality, as Shane informs us, is much more mundane: someone who dislikes working for others, forms a company and, likely as not, fails (only 33% of new businesses survive to their seventh year). Shane (From Ice Cream to the Internet: Using Franchising to Drive the Growth and Profits of Your Company) draws on a host of credible data to counter other commonly held myths and the results are sometimes surprising. America is not a particularly entrepreneurial country—ranking in the bottom third, internationally. Young people are less likely to be entrepreneurs. Venture capitalists provide money to less than one-tenth of one percent of all startups. The typical entrepreneur works more hours and earns less money than his employed counterpart. Shane’s portrait of the most common entrepreneurial type is similarly stereotype busting: a married white man in his 40s who attended but did not complete college, still living in his home town and beginning a business within an industry in which he has worked for years. Start-up financing is typically $25,000 of his own savings. This makes an excellent reality-check for anyone considering beginning his or her own business. (Feb.)

The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi
Aram Roston. Nation, $26.95 (304p) ISBN 9781568583532
Although the agenda to invade Iraq was in place well before 9/11, many insiders maintain it wouldn’t have happened without the subject of this lively, often dismaying biography. A child when his wealthy parents fled Iraq during the 1958 revolution, Chalabi attended college in America before entering his family’s banking business in 1977. Moving easily in Washington social circles, he joined Iraqi groups opposed to Saddam Hussein. Other exiles enjoyed grassroots support; Chalabi had something better: contacts among American leaders who preferred him to bearded clerics or exotic Kurds. Although he had no political credentials, he insinuated himself in—and was funded by—the CIA, the State Department, and the Department of Defense. His denunciations of Hussein appealed to the neoconservative movement; most significantly, his spurious claims affirming that Hussein was harboring WMDs marshaled much of the public support for the war. Readers will shake their heads as Roston reminds them that leading newspaper and TV journalists accepted these fictitious claims as facts. The author’s obvious dislike of Chalabi is shared by the journalists and officials who fell under his spell and now feel betrayed. Although the bungled occupation of Iraq has severely undermined Chalabi’s influence in his power base—American neoconservatives—interviews with those who knew him portray a complex, charismatic figure who won over naïve Americans by telling them what they wanted to hear. Readers will find an avalanche of disturbing information to chew over, although they will often find themselves gnashing their teeth. (Mar.)

Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey and His Dream of Mother Africa
Colin Grant. Oxford Univ., $27.95 (518p) ISBN 9780195367942
Marcus Garvey, the charismatic organizer of the Back-to-Africa Movement and founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), remains a revered and disparaged figure whose influence on African American history and thought is profound. In this comprehensive biography, BBC radio producer Grant follows Garvey from his childhood and early peregrinations through Central America and England to his ventures in the United States—the phenomenal growth of the UNIA, the tortuous history of the Black Star Line, the collapse of both. Convicted of mail fraud, later deported, Garvey died in London. Garvey biographers have tended to focus on the UNIA, but Grant’s book is richly evocative of the times and places in which he lived (pre-World War I Jamaica and England, the Harlem Renaissance) and the people who mentored, admired, and quarreled with him—Grant’s attention to the exceptional women in Garvey’s life, particularly his wives Amy Ashwood and later Amy Jacques is especially noteworthy. Garvey, the radical journalist and editor (The Negro World), emerges more fully than usual, with all his contradictions present. Dense with detail, but consistently readable, this splendid book is certain to become the definitive biography. Garvey was a dreamer and a doer; Grant captures the fascination of both. (Mar.)

Treasure-House of the Language: The Living Oed
Charlotte Brewer. Yale, $30 (336p) ISBN 9780300124293
An expansive treatment of the making of the world’s most comprehensive dictionary, this book begins where Sir James Murray, creator of the 1879 edition, left off. Producing the dictionary proved to be an ongoing process that defied projected publication dates and Brewer outlines in detail the resulting conflict between the Oxford publishers and the lexicographers. A highlight is the complicated personality of J.M Wyllie, who took over the project in 1929 and whose intense dedication to the dictionary led to a crippling mental illness. While brewer describes the process of creating definitions and supplying quotations, she focuses more on the individuals involved than the lexicographical procedure. The middle chapters of the book are devoted to the many projects, spawned by the OED, that tackle the daunting task of keeping the original as current and complete as possible. The publishers continue to squirm as the lexicographers make demands for supplements and revisions. The final chapter deals extensively with one of the company’s smartest accomplishment: their decision to introduce an electronic version of the dictionary in 1986, years before the major Internet boom. This dense volume is ideal for readers seeking a very detailed account of the making of this landmark text. (Feb.)

Up to Our Eyeballs: How Shady Lenders and Failed Economic Policies are Drowning Americans in Debt
José García, James Lardner and Cindy Zeldin. New Press, $25.95 (240p) ISBN 9781595582119
Why are so many Americans perilously close to losing their homes or filing for bankruptcy? According to the authors of this persuasive and accessible book, they’re caught in a nightmare of expanding debt, thanks to the confluence of deregulated financial markets and a “fraying social safety net.” The authors, all analysts at the liberal think tank Demos, marshal moral indignation and rigorous research to argue that the deregulation of the last 30 years has not delivered on its promise; instead of increasing competition and thereby making prices lower and services better, deregulation has allowed financial institutions to sell shoddier products and profit handsomely from deceptive or exploitive practices. Those practices include escalating and “hair-trigger” fees on credit cards, payday loans with exorbitant interest rates and refinancing mortgages foisted on people who can’t afford them. Meanwhile, regulators regularly gave in to the lending industry’s demands or failed to provide oversight, allowing banks to raise interest rates and abdicate their obligation to lend responsibly. While the book can be dogmatic—the authors downplay any evidence detracting from their theses—it offers an illuminating history of the financial-services industry and its political influence, as well as a strong argument in favor of reforms that protect consumers and curb abusive lending. (Mar.)

War on Terror Inc.: Corporate Profiteering from the Politics of Fear
Solomon Hughes. Verso, $26.95 (262p) ISBN 9781844671236
British journalist Hughes casts a transatlantic perspective on the phenomenon of privatizing the state’s policing and war-making powers. He vividly expands (through often hair-raising illustration) the conventional understanding of the increasingly tangled political and business interests that Eisenhower famously dubbed “the military-industrial complex” and updates post-9/11 as the “security-industrial complex,” accounting for its vast and unprecedented expansion via privatization schemes begun under Thatcher and Reagan and carried forward by successive UK and US administrations. Again and again—from managing military bases to operations on the battlefield itself—poor job and safety records, repeated public scandals and a consistent pattern of failing to deliver on the vaunted cost-savings of the free market are no hindrance to continued government support for privatization. As Hughes shows, this is as much the result of government helplessness in the face of corporate will as the (frequently literal) investment of state officials in the privatization ideology. Some of the multinational companies discussed, like Halliburton and DynCorp, have been the targets of extensive criticism by now, but Hughes contextualizes them within a larger shift of authorized “power over people” from state hands and into those of private enterprise—a historic and far-reaching transformation that has gone forward with little public debate. (Mar.)

ILLUSTRATED

Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years: The Illustrated Edition
Carl Sandburg, edited by Edward C. Goodman, intro. by Alan Axelrod. Sterling, $29.95 (464p) ISBN 9781402742880
An illustrated edition of Sandburg’s definitive Lincoln biography, this volume makes a handsome gift for a Lincoln buff. Sandburg’s original work covered six volumes and won a Pulitzer Prize, and was widely hailed as the most noteworthy historical biography of its time. Familiarity with Lincoln’s life makes this heavily abridged volume less revelatory, but Sandburg’s prose is remarkable, capturing some of the spark of Lincoln’s love of language. Here, Lincoln’s birth welcomes him “into a world of battle and blood, of whispering dreams and wistful dust,” and, a lifetime later, the poet-biographer notes that “None threw a longer shadow than he.” Many of the images here also make this volume notable. From Lincoln’s boyhood cabin to photos of his wife-to-be, from members of his cabinet to those who carried out his orders on battlefields, from the train car that took him to the White House to the one that bore his body, the photographs add an extra layer to our understanding of the man and his time. All in all, an excellent, well-written and concise biography of the president our country still so reveres. Photographs. (Feb.)

A Camera, Two Kids and a Camel: My Journey in Photographs
Annie Griffiths Belt. National Geographic, $35 (224p) ISBN 9781426202452
In this delightful account of three decades of work for the National Geographic Society, Belt’s photographs almost have no need for text, they’re so compelling. Thankfully, Belt does provide a warm, loving glance into the life she lived while gathering these shots, with pride of place belonging to her children and husband—her almost constant travel companions. As one of its first female photographers, and the youngest on staff when she started, Belt was lucky enough to catch the eye of the Society’s leading lights early on, and admits that, “I was blessed with opportunity before experience… I paid for it in terror.” She has spent the subsequent years gracefully recording the joys and struggles of people rich and poor on every continent but Antarctica, while maintaining a rich (if highly unusual) family life. It’s a mark of the quality of her writing and gorgeous photography that the reader is left craving even more details, more stories, more photographs. Belt’s book is charming and wise and suffused with her humanity and belief that, “All people are not alike, but mostly they have the same hopes and fears; judging people does great harm, but listening to them enriches.” 150 photos. (Mar.)

FICTION

Before Green Gables
Budge Wilson. Putnam, $22.95 (416p) ISBN 9780399154683
Wilson’s sizable collection of successful children’s and young adult books (including The Courtship and Leaving) is one book richer with this release, which provides the authorized backstory to L. M. Montgomery’s classic character, Anne of Green Gables. Set in Nova Scotia, the book follows Anne through a string of foster homes full of diapers, dirty dishes, screaming children and endless chores. Orphaned at three months by her schoolteacher parents, she searches for knowledge and love in the chaotic, grueling, unpredictable world she inhabits. Every time Anne is on the brink of finding happiness it’s taken away from her, though by the time she’s 11 and living with her second (but not last) foster family, the Hammonds, it appears as if Anne’s life might be calming down. But after a tragic turn of events, her future is uncertain yet again. Although a little long, the book is a quick read that will keep the reader invested in its compelling characters from start to finish. (Feb.)

Immortal
Traci L. Slatton. Delta, $14 paper (528p) ISBN 9780385339742
This debut novel combines history and fantasy, encompassing 200 years in Renaissance-era Florence through the life of one unusual man. Born in the early 14th century, Luca Bastardo was left to make his way alone in the world at an early age. Blessed with unearthly beauty, supernatural longevity, psychic abilities and unpredictable healing talents, he is nevertheless beset throughout his long life by the vengeance of the Silvanos, descendants of the brothel owner he killed in order to escape a life of prostitution. Luca is waiting to meet the great love of his life, glimpsed in a vision and destined to both grant him happiness and spell his doom. Meanwhile, he searches for the truth about his long-lost parents and encounters many of Florence’s notables—Giotto, Petrarch and da Vinci among them. The novel aspires to be a sweeping epic, but the plot lacks the heft and narrative flow to succeed. The ending, clearly foreshadowed, is meant to be spiritually uplifting, but some readers might find it pointlessly grim. Slatton provides some effective descriptions and interesting scraps of philosophy, which may bear fruit in a sophomore effort. (Feb.)

The Triumph of Deborah
Eva Etzioni-Halevy. Plume, $14 paper (368p) ISBN 9780452289062
A courageous heroine takes center stage in the third biblical novel from Etzioni-Halevy (The Garden of Ruth). In this captivating account of a prophetess, leader and judge, the author interweaves a scriptural narrative with a riveting plot. From her post amidst the mountains of Efraim, in the ancient Israelite realm, Deborah doles out justice to those seeking arbitration even as she struggles to channel her prophesies and come to terms with her love life. At the same time, in the hostile kingdom of Canaan, Princess Asherah’s husband leads the Canaanite army into battle against the Israelites. Etzioni-Halevy clearly portrays the brutal violence and harsh realities of war and slavery. When the Israelite army gains the upper hand, Deborah realizes her destiny is linked to the lives of two other women. Some readers may take umbrage at Etzioni-Halevy’s depiction of Deborah as a promiscuous woman but after a sluggish beginning, the author delves more fully into the historical context and social mores of an ancient but vibrant culture. Despite millennia of separation, this book illustrates that the archetypal themes of love and war never age. (Feb.)

RELIGION

Conscious Love: Insights from Mystical Christianity
Richard Smoley. Jossey-Bass, $24.95 (224p) ISBN 9780787988708
Heady, eclectic and bold, Smoley’s latest book is a thoughtful treatise on humanity’s vaulted and elusive bond: love, that which “unites self and other.” Kin in structure to C.S. Lewis’s The Four Loves, Smoley (Inner Christianity: A Guide to the Esoteric Traditions) looks at romance, marriage, families and friends, but goes deeper with chapters to explore social justice and forgiveness. Much emphasis is placed on the transactional “exchange” basis of most love relationships. In Smoley’s seemingly cold eye, this is not necessarily a shortcoming, but more a direct biological and social assessment of the way things are. Each love type has redemption because “[e]ach type of love contains a sort of gamut that runs from our basest impulses to our highest.” Agape, or conscious love, “enables one to relax the sense of self and other” and move toward a “sense of the cosmic Christ.” Befitting his education at Harvard and Oxford universities and his post as Quest Books editor, Smoley’s reach of sources and metaphors is exceptionally broad, strong and scholarly. Fresh and utterly devoid of syrup, the book renders a sublime image that distills love’s evanescence, pain, beauty and joy. Contemplative readers, who need not be Christian, will find much new food for thought here. (Apr.)

Everything Matters, Nothing Matters: For Women Who Dare to Live with Exquisite Calm, Euphoric Creativity and Divine Clarity
Gina Mazza Hillier. St. Lynn’s (www.stlynnspress.com), $17.95 paper (320p) ISBN 9780976763185
Spiritual seeker extraordinaire, Hillier chronicles her explorations and growth through the rich garden of a Christian background, Buddhist sensibilities and practices, “create-your-own-reality” paradigms, spiritual healers, New Age thought and other paths. The common ground is the desire to live life fully in the now. Hillier also cites popular luminaries like Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, David Hawkins, David Whyte and Rumi to flavor the stew. In seven chapters, she instructs like-minded souls to embrace the values of intention, daily practice, paying attention, turning within, working with a mentor, witnessing and integration. Hillier, who also works as an editor, could have benefited from a stronger editorial hand herself to increase precision. Her style is full of breezy lingo (“Follow me through a personal tale of woe then whoa”; “There’s no place like OM”; “For all you dudes out there...”) that is not timeless. Yet, her good intention to find the path to the sacred life is. Her strongest chapter, on witnessing, gracefully explains how to simultaneously live life and observe it. A chapter with complementary exercises and activities for each preceding chapter concludes her sincere effort. (Apr.)

No Other Gods: Confronting Our Modern-Day Idols
Kelly Minter. David C. Cook, $13.99 paper (224p) ISBN 9780781448970
Minter—worship leader, songwriter and author of the popular Living Room series of Bible study guides—offers readers surprising depth and breadth in this book on modern-day idols. It would have been easy to focus on surface idols such as materialism, beauty and media, and Minter does touch on those things, but she digs deeper into the false gods we really worship, using examples from the Bible throughout. “Simply put, it’s anything and everything that takes the place of God in my life,” she explains. She first establishes that God is personal, desiring a relationship with each of his children, then explains why we are so drawn to idolatry instead of that relationship. She describes core issues such as “being unloved or perpetually un-chosen,” the pain of not having enough (insert love or children or significance) and the lie that something other than God can meet deep needs. There are chapters on what idols look like, the pitfalls of legalism and the difficult issue of surrender. Minter does a fair amount of soul-searching, all with a healthy dose of humor that will have readers laughing while examining their hearts. Although it’s marketed to women, this book will have a wide appeal to all Christian readers. (Apr.)

AUDIO

Creating a World Without Poverty: How Social Business can Transform Our Lives
Muhammad Yunus, read by Patrick Lawlor. Blackstone Audio, unabridged, eight CDs, 10.5 hrs., $29.95 ISBN 9781433208355
While many capitalists are comfortable with letting those on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder waste away in misery, Nobel Peace Prize–winning Yunus and others are coming up with ways to help the impoverished elevate themselves out of squalor. As one of the originators of micro-lending, with his creation of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh 30 years ago, Yunus promotes a new enterprise called “social business.” Using the alliance of Grameen Bank and the Dannon Company as a model, he explains how a new mode of business could result in unique and improved ways to help poor people. Patrick Lawlor’s deliberateness and emphasis help navigate listeners through text that could have been confusing. Sometimes, his rendering of the text sounds a bit condescending and often his accents feel a bit too much like vocal caricatures. Overall, though, his performance works well with the material and is only hindered by poor sound editing, including several vocal shifts and occasionally repeated lines. Simultaneous release with the Public Affairs hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 26). (Jan.)

Hate Mail from Cheerleaders: And Other Adventures From the Life of Reilly
Rick Reilly, read by Lloyd James. Tantor Audio, unabridged, eight CDs, 10 hrs., $34.99 ISBN 9781400105557
It takes great skill to do justice to another author’s first-person essays, but Lloyd James pulls it off with believability and flair. Reilly’s sardonic wit is showcased in this collection of 100 of his most memorable Sports Illustrated columns. James musters up the appropriate righteous indignation when describing, say, the bad-boy tactics of Barry Bonds or the murder accusations leveled against Baltimore Ravens star Ray Lewis, as well as the pathos required for stirring columns on 9/11 heroes and individuals who have overcome tremendous physical obstacles to compete in sports. He also nails Reilly’s biting humor. Each essay comes with a postscript, describing readers’ response to the column and giving updates on the piece. A table of contents could have helped listeners find especially funny pieces from the master of the pithy back-page essay. Simultaneous release with the Sports Illustrated hardcover (reviewed online). (Dec.)

Inheriting the Trade
Thomas Norman DeWolf, read by the author. Brilliance Audio, unabridged, eight CDs, 9 hrs., $34.95 ISBN 9781423350644
Written and narrated by DeWolf, a descendant of one of the largest slave-trading families in the history of the U.S., this tale is an account of his own struggles to comprehend the bloodied past while confronting it head-on. Despite his inexperience, DeWolf’s reading is concise and firm, never wavering as he relates the tragic tale or distancing himself from its weighty reality. Offering believable, sympathetic characters throughout, DeWolf seems a seasoned narrative professional and never falls into self-indulgence, doing this amazing story justice. Simultaneous release with the Beacon Press hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 22). (Jan.)

The Snows of Kilimanjaro
Ernest Hemingway, read by Charlton Heston. Caedmon Audio, unabridged, one CD, 1 hr., $14.95 ISBN 9780061457845
Charlton Heston’s 1998 recording of Hemingway’s classic 1938 short story makes its CD debut a decade later. The story itself needs no introduction. This tale of man versus nature, and in turn himself, is a theme Hemingway repeatedly analyzed and returned to throughout his career. The narration doesn’t get much better than this, with Heston offering a stern, compelling reading that breathes new life into the material. He offers a truly surprising reading that is underplayed, never going over the top or unnecessarily overemphasizing the prose. Heston’s believability offers a slightly different take on the story, a classic tale that demands repeated listenings. (Feb.)

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