Nonfiction Reviews

Quinn (Marie Curie) does a superb job of recounting the rise and fall of the Federal Theatre Project, a wing of FDR's WPA meant to employ playwrights and actors while providing diversion and inspiration for Depression-ravaged Americans. Quinn shows how, under the management of the irrepressible Hallie Flanagan, the left-leaning FTP facilitated such controversial masterpieces as Triple-A Plowed Under and The Cradle Will Rock while unintentionally setting the stage for the House Un-American Activities Committee and much of the red-baiting and blacklisting of the 1940s and '50s. The Daily Worker applauded FTP projects such as a dramatization of Sinclair Lewis's antifascist novel, It Can't Happen Here. Among the actors, directors and writers sponsored by the program were John Houseman, Orson Welles, Will Geer and Meyer Levin. Experimentation thrived: Welles oversaw an all-black production of a “voodoo” version of Macbeth that played Broadway and toured nationwide. All of this Quinn describes eloquently and artfully, summoning a not-so-distant time when a nation bled and great artists rushed as healers into the countryside. B&w photos. (July)

In this unusual hybrid of history and memoir, Harvard Review editor Thompson examines the historical collisions between Westerners and Maoris through the lens of her marriage to a Maori man. As an American grad student in Australia, Thompson met her husband-to-be, known as “Seven,” while on vacation in New Zealand. She was petite, blonde and intellectual; he was large, dark and working-class. Yet within a short time, they had married and started a family. Their relationship, and her scholarship, took them back and forth across the Pacific, until they finally settled in her family's New England home outside Boston. Thompson's deep knowledge of the history of Europeans in the Pacific allows her to trace the misunderstandings and stereotypes that have marked perceptions of Polynesians up to the present day. A sensitive observer and polished stylist, Thompson is never dully tendentious or dogmatic. The narrative moves smoothly by way of well-told anecdotes both personal and historical. At times, Thompson covers so much territory—there's a stray chapter about her family's interactions with Native Americans in Minnesota—that it can feel like she's trying to do too much, yet her prose never disappoints. Seven, the man at the center of the book, remains pleasingly opaque, as if Thompson is saying that we can never know completely even those we love best. (July)

Realizing she needed to do serious work on her junk food/junk sex–littered lifestyle, Alter, a “recently divorced thirty-seven-year old” freelance writer, decided to spend each month of the coming year following the advice of a major women's magazine “without question.” She picked nine titles focusing on a “how-to ethos” more or less aligned with her own demographic: Elle, Marie Claire, O, Allure, Self, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, InStyle and Real Simple. Each month she'd work on a particular “damage zone”—diet, social fears, clothes, relationship snafus, cooking, sex, etc.—and follow the advice of her chosen magazine as earnestly as possible. Meanwhile, she'd also begun dating a new guy, which brought up relationship challenges her magazine mentors loved to address—spicing up the sex, learning to cook instead of eating out and deciding if his birthday present meant a marriage proposal was imminent. While she ends up feeling positive about the self-improvement her magazine experiment has brought, she knows if she hadn't been ready and willing to change, all the advice in the world wouldn't have helped. In the end, fans of Bridget Jones will also enjoy Alter—she's funny and endearing. (July)

In June 2006, a man named Vincent Ferrari had a shockingly combative conversation with an AOL sales rep; he recorded it and posted it on YouTube. More than 62,827 viewings later, AOL's reputation was irretrievably damaged. In the digital age, disgruntled customers are now in the driver's seat, argues Blackshaw in this thoughtful and engaging book. With the advent of Consumerist.com and other venues where customers can blow off steam about bad service or deficient products, consumer generated media is a force to be reckoned with. Since consumers trust other consumers above companies or brands, a company's success depends on its credibility and its ability to gain the trust and support of Web-savvy, outspoken and influential customers. Through remarkable stories of mass consumer advocacy and the power of bloggers and ordinary Joes with an Internet connection and a bone to pick, Blackshaw advises executives on how to build credibility into their businesses through blogs, Web sites and video postings. Informative, energetic and entertaining, this is a marvelous argument for corporate responsibility and accountability, interesting to laypeople and instructive for executives. (July)

Vidal's daunting career has encompassed 24 novels, 11 essay collections, six plays, two memoirs and countless occasional writings. This new collection is an entry point into this literary giant's work for a new generation of readers, offering some of Vidal's most famous and entertaining essays from the past 50-odd years. Compiled and introduced by Parini (The Last Station), Vidal's literary executor, the pieces range across Vidal's far-flung areas of expertise, resting most frequently and contentiously on literature and presidential politics of the past and present. His assessment of “The Top Ten Bestsellers” of January 7, 1973, is a savagely meticulous dissection of middlebrow American taste, while “American Plastic” tacks in the opposite direction, skewering the academy-approved, theory-based fiction of Donald Barthelme and William Gass with derisive glee. Vidal's comfort in puncturing conventional wisdom with his wit and analysis is fully displayed throughout, most notably in his discussion of the battle over the Kennedy legacy in “The Holy Family” and the controversial “Black Tuesday,” which condemns the Bush administration for its alleged imperial ambitions in the wake of September 11. (June 17)

Biographers return again and again to the Jameses—the great novelist Henry, groundbreaking psychologist and philosopher William, diarist Alice (who became a feminist icon) and their parents and other siblings. Now Fisher, who has taught American literature at Harvard, Yale and other institutions, delivers a solid and crisp narrative of this fascinating American clan. In addition to the three prominent siblings, two other brothers labored to shine from behind the shadows they cast. But as Fisher reveals, much darkness and bitterness—along with a brilliant father who was both a Christian socialist and heir to a fortune—shaped these remarkable people. For all of its successes, the James family harbored its share of trouble: alcoholism, repressed sexuality, heartbreak, jealousy and adultery. Most importantly, in a rigidly prim Victorian world, the expatriate Henry, a resident of London, wrestled with homosexuality. He lived a closeted life of clandestine affairs with younger men—always wary of the dark fate that had befallen Oscar Wilde. Fisher narrates all of this, and more, vividly, cleanly and engagingly. (June 10)

The life of Rosamond Pinchot Gaston has the makings of a great story. In 1926, the 20-year-old debutante was headed home from France when a Broadway producer on the ship discovered her and launched her acting career. But the same year, Rosamond also fled fame and wealth to toil at a cannery in California. “She planned to force herself to survive without her family, her name, her past, or her bank account.” By 1927 she had returned to the stage, though her continued stardom didn't bring happiness: Rosamond committed suicide in 1938. Bibi Gaston, Rosamond's granddaughter, learned about the star only when she received a box containing Rosamond's diaries and scrapbooks. But the author fails to draw us into Rosamond's story. Gaston writes in summary rather than scenes and gives an incomplete sense of Rosamond's character: Rosamond's diaries don't always explain her motivations, such as why she took her “hiatus” in California. Gaston also writes about her own life and how learning about her grandmother's dramatic life affected her, but the memoir aspect of the book is a distraction from the juicy part of the story. 50 b&w photos. (June)

Daughan brings a long academic career and solid command of his sources to this provocative history of the origins of the U.S. Navy. Conventional wisdom has the navy beginning in the 1790s. Daughan instead traces its roots to the Revolution. The fleet established by the Continental Congress had a relatively undistinguished career, but Daughan demonstrates that the Americans gained technical experience, produced talented officers, trained seamen and developed a basic understanding of how a navy should be employed. The question then was whether a navy would concentrate too much authority in the central government and risk embroiling the new country in foreign quarrels. By contrast, a coastal defense force of small ships threatened nobody, foreign or domestic. Daughan traces the debate through four administrations, smoothly integrating political with external influences like the Quasi-War with France (1798–1800) and the campaign against the Barbary pirates. Not until the War of 1812, when the navy proved critical, did a national consensus emerge that preparing for war was the best way of avoiding one—a lesson that remains worth remembering. (June)

Accounts of the Normandy campaign are not in short supply, but this one from a French military historian delivers an energetic, mildly revisionist overview. Historians tend to write that lack of resources postponed a 1943 cross-channel attack, but Wieviorka instead pins the delay on the diversion of men from Europe to other theaters. Only at the November 1943 Tehran conference did FDR commit to a 1944 invasion despite Churchill's objections. Wieviorka vividly paints the frantic six-month scramble to organize the landing despite critical shortages, tensions between commanders and Churchill's persistent reluctance. The author excels in describing the complex campaign to conceal details of the invasion, assisted by Germany's incompetent intelligence service. The June 6 landing proved much easier than predicted, but the advance inland, largely ignored by planners, was slow and costly. Wieviorka's final chapters describing de Gaulle's maneuvers to wrest control of France from both the Allies and his French rivals may deliver more than American readers want to know. But aided by a fluent translation, this is an engrossing history of the Normandy campaign. 10 maps, 3 charts. (June)

Eisenhower (So Far from God: The U.S. War with Mexico), a military historian and retired army general, has a secure mastery of his subject and his era in this addition to the American Presidents series of nutshell biographies. Taylor's career, in Eisenhower's retelling, had two principal foci. First, he was a general in the American incursion into Mexico in 1846, and his campaign, crisply recounted here, was perceived as a success by the American populace, catapulting Taylor (1784–1850) to national prominence. Second, Eisenhower spotlights Taylor's equivocal relationship to slavery. A lifelong slave owner himself, he opposed abolishing slavery where it existed to preserve the Union. Yet Taylor claimed to oppose slavery on principle as well as its spread to California, New Mexico and other new states. Taylor lived only 16 uneventful months after his inauguration in March 1849, so Eisenhower's treatment of his presidency necessarily deals more with congressional debates on slavery than with Taylor himself. Eisenhower takes a nuanced view of the 12th president, finding Taylor gentle in civilian life, something of a disappointment as a soldier, but most fundamentally a man who aimed to preserve the Union. 1 map. (June)

Was Mary Surratt an accomplice in Lincoln's assassination and justly sent to the scaffold? Larson freshly tackles these questions in this spirited narrative, mining just about every shred of evidence. While having started out believing in her subject's innocence, she ends up convinced that Surratt was guilty of joining John Wilkes Booth's plot to kill the president. Less sure, however, that Surratt should have swung from the gallows, Larson (Bound for the Promised Land) leaves this deeply freighted moral question open, as it should be. The tale itself could not be better told, nor could the cast of characters be brought more to life. What mars the work is Larson's maddening, anachronistic use of “Mary” to name her subject (no “Abe” for Lincoln here, no “John” for Booth) and her missing the chance to draw out the implications of the role of Surratt—a widow in an otherwise all-male plot—for our understanding of women's place in her day. But it's now up to those who still think Surratt innocent to prove Larson wrong. They'll be hard put to do so. Illus., maps. (June)

United in their obsession with a grisly Italian serial murder case almost three decades old, thriller writer Preston (coauthor, Brimstone) and Italian crime reporter Spezi seek to uncover the identity of a vicious serial killer in this chilling true crime saga. The murders took place outside of Florence where Preston had moved with his family. From 1974 to 1985, seven pairs of lovers parked in their cars in secluded areas were brutally killed. With all of the chief suspects acquitted or released from prison on appeal, the authors began to snoop around, although witnesses had died and evidence was missing. Preston and Spezi's sleuthing continued until ruthless prosecutors turned on the nosy pair, jailing Spezi and grilling Preston for obstructing justice. Only when Dateline NBCbecame involved in the maze of mutilated bodies and police miscues was the authors' hard work rewarded. This suspenseful procedural reveals much about the dogged writing team as well as the motives of the killers. Better than some overheated noir mysteries, this bit of real-life Florence bloodletting makes you sweat and think, and presses relentlessly on the nerves. (June 11)

In a raw and emotional literary anthology, 30 women express their frustrations about motherhood, their disappointment with unsupportive work environments and their deep desire for social change. In her debut effort as an anthology editor, Strong brings together voices of veteran and first-time writers in a cacophony of cries that mothering isn't just personal, it's political. The stories include Jennifer Margulis and her husband who, unable to reconcile full-time work and parenting, quit office work and begin a home business; and Helaine Olen's horror stories of "mean moms" in playgroups who look down on stay-at-home mothers. Anne Lamott writes of the difficulty of espousing a pro-choice position before a largely Catholic audience. This book has a liberal bent, and happy, content mothers don't get much airtime. Young women considering motherhood may be taken aback by the rage and unchecked anger in some of the essays and the lack of solutions presented. But if shock spurs action, this anthology has done its job. (June)

The Pact: Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the Rivalry that Defined a Generation Steven Gillon. Oxford Univ., $25 (384p) ISBN 978-0-19-532278-1

An unlikely, fleeting and largely unknown alliance between the former president and speaker of the House occupies center-stage of this thoughtful book that recreates the tumultuous years of the Clinton administration. Gillon (10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America) provides compelling evidence suggesting that political foes Clinton and Gingrich formed a secret alliance in 1997 and were prepared to forge a bipartisan compromise on Social Security and Medicare, a plan that was derailed when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. In slightly shapeless early chapters, Gillon surveys the parallels and divergences in the early lives and careers of both men, casting his two protagonists as mirror images of each other: deeply intelligent children of the 1960s greatly affected by the politics of the decade, they became passionate, charismatic leaders who succumbed to personal weaknesses and saw their brilliant careers overshadowed by ignominy. Though Gillon slightly overreaches in framing his story as an epilogue to the culture wars of the '60s, he nevertheless renders a fraught moment in American political history with clarity. (June)

Veteran journalist Scheer (With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush, and Nuclear War) takes aim at America's defense policy and bloated military budget in this pugnacious and rigorously researched polemic. “Tragedy can be opportunity,” Scheer writes, and 9/11 provided the defense industry with the opportunity it had long been seeking. Unable to persuade the first Bush and Clinton administrations to invest in expensive, state-of-the-art weapons, the defense industry found fresh life as the current President Bush launched his “war on terror” and military expenditures swelled to the highest level in history. Scheer argues that war cannot defeat terrorism. What's required is simple police work—dogged, boring and not terribly expensive—not trillion-dollar bombers, submarines and nuclear arsenal—expenditures he contends are unrelated to defeating terrorists and of little use in Iraq. He soberly reminds readers that Americans have never objected to wasteful defense budgets, and antiwar elected officials fight as viciously as neoconservatives to bring money to their district's defense industries. Scheer's prose is as clear as his evidence; readers will be galvanized by his incendiary account. (June 9)

Lakoff (Don't Think of an Elephant) harnesses cognitive science to rally progressive politicians and voters by positing that conservatives have framed the debate on vital issues more effectively than liberals. According to his research, conservatives comprehend that most brain functioning is grounded not in logical reasoning but in emotionalism—as a result, huge portions of the citizenry accept the Republican framing of the “war in Iraq” and “supporting the troops” rather than liberal appeals and phrasing of “the occupation in Iraq” and “squandering tax money.” George W. Bush won the presidency by concocting a “redemption narrative,” persuading tens of millions of voters that his past moral and business shortcomings should be viewed as a prelude to pulling himself up, rather than as disqualifying behavior. While sections of the book employ technical scientific terminology, the author masterfully makes his research comprehensible to nonspecialists. His conclusion—that if citizens and policy-makers better understand brain functioning, hope exists to ameliorate global warming and other societal disasters in the making—will be of vital importance and interest to all readers. (June)

Shenkman (Presidential Ambition) makes the provocative argument that as American voters have gained political power in the last 50 years, they have become increasingly ignorant of politics and world affairs—and dangerously susceptible to manipulation. The book provides a litany of depressing statistics—most Americans cannot name their representatives in Congress, only 20% hold a passport, 30% cannot identify the Holocaust—as Shenkman inquires whether Americans are capable of voting in the nation's or even their own best interests. Although Shenkman clearly derives some pleasure in pointing out the stupidity and irrationality of the American public, his concern is genuine and heartfelt. In lucid, playful prose, he illustrates how politicians have repeatedly misled voters and analyzes the dumbing down of American politics via marketing, spin machines and misinformation. Shenkman initiates an important conversation in this book and makes welcome suggestions to reinvigorate civic responsibility and provide people with the knowledge and tools necessary to efficaciously participate in the political process. (June)

In this eloquent travelogue, Macfarlane (Mountains of the Mind) explores the last undomesticated landscapes in Britain and Ireland in a narration that blends history, memoir and meditation. Macfarlane journeys to salt marshes, mountaintops, forests, beaches, constantly expanding and refining his understanding of wildness. Walking a Lake District ridge at night, he observes that “with the stars falling plainly far above, it seemed to me that our estrangement from the dark was a great and serious loss.” Crossing a moor, he finds its vastness and “resistance to straight lines of progress” analogous to the inability of mere words to convey a landscape's variety and immensity. Nonetheless, Macfarlane's language is as surprising and precise as his environments, with such evocative phrases as “heat jellying the air,” “ice lidded the puddles” and descriptions of birds that “gild” a tree and the sky as “a steady tall blue.” His striking prose not only evokes each locale's physicality in sensuous, deliberate detail, it glows with a reverence for nature in general and takes the reader on both a geographical and a philosophical journey, as mind-expanding as any of his wild places. (June)

When most people read about dating an ancient artifact, we think of carbon-14 dating. But as earth scientist Macdougall (Frozen Earth) tells readers, carbon dating works only if the object contains carbon, and then it can't be more than about 50,000 years old. Many other elements are radioactive, allowing, for example, for a potassium-argon dating system of volcanic and Precambrian rocks, and other applications in studying archeology and human evolution. Macdougall says that scientists have used these various radiometric dating systems for research as far-flung as dating the age of the solar system, figuring out when humans immigrated to the North America and when the Neanderthals died out, determining that a huge tsunami was created by a massive earthquake off the Northwest Pacific Coast in 1700 and nailing down the age of the Shroud of Turin (it dates to the Middle Ages, though controversy persists). Science buffs from all fields along with general readers will find this a helpful handbook on how we are now able to travel to the distant past. B&w photos, line drawings, map. (June)

Veteran science writers, the Gribbins (Richard Feynman: A Life in Science) tell the stories of 11 18th- and 19th-century botanical explorers. Two were Swedes, including the renowned taxonomist Carl Linnaeus, who botanized in Lapland. The others came from Great Britain, including Joseph Banks, who sailed with Captain Cook, and Francis Masson, sent to South Africa by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. With David Douglas, sent to North America by the Horticultural Society of London to obtain plants to sell to affluent gardeners, came the age of plant exploration for profit. Robert Fortune was sent to China to collect tea plants for the East India Company. Richard Spruce obtained seeds of the South American tree that produces quinine, the drug used to treat malaria. Joseph Hooker brought rhododendrons from India to Victorian Britain. Marianne North searched several continents for material for her flower paintings. The adventures of these botanists, who often risked their lives in search of exotic species, should make for exciting reading, but the Gribbins' dry biographical sketches fail to capture the drama. 30 color and b&w illus not seen by PW. (June)

In this richly detailed and passionately argued book, Jackson (What's Happening to Home?) warns that modern society's inability to focus heralds an impending Dark Age—an era historically characterized by the decline of a civilization amid abundance and technological advancement. Jackson posits that “our near-religious allegiance to a constant state of motion” and addiction to multitasking are “eroding our capacity for deep, sustained, perceptive attention—the building block of intimacy, wisdom and cultural progress” and stunting society's ability to “comprehend what's relevant and permanent.” The author provides a lively historical survey of attention, drawing upon philosophy, the impact of scientific innovations and her own experiences to investigate the possible genetic and psychological roots of distraction. While Jackson cites modern virtual life (the social network Facebook and online interactive game Second Life), her research is largely mired in the previous century, and she draws weak parallels between romance via telegraph and online dating, and supernatural spiritualism and a newfound desire to reconnect. Despite the detours (a cultural history of the fork?), Jackson has produced a well-rounded and well-researched account of the travails facing an ADD society and how to reinvigorate a “renaissance of attention.” (June)

Holleran (Dancer from the Dance) has expanded and rereleased his classic collection of 1988 Christopher Street essays for a generation for whom the 1980s New York AIDS epidemic may seem “as exotic as ancient Egypt.” Holleran recreates “that vanished time and place: gay New York, when no one knew the way out” in his tender elegies for his dead and dying friends, in masterfully rendered imagery—a polluted Fire Island shore mirrors a sea of potentially diseased partners—and in examining the paradoxes of survival—a French journalist transcends “the mediocrity and materialism” of his previous life by writing an internationally renowned novel on the very disease that's killing him. Confusion and terror radiate from these pages, and humor of the blackest variety predominates (a young man endows a rubber in his pants pocket with the talismanic quality of “a crucifix in a land of vampires”). While Holleran may be correct that the only thing anyone wants to read about AIDS is “CURE FOUND,” his essays—originally titled Ground Zero—stunningly illuminate New Yorkers coping with modern tragedy. (June)

According to columnist Parker, men are an endangered species struggling against everything from mere hostility to literal emasculation. Starting in elementary school, where a teacher “most likely a feminist” will demand that boys sit still and listen and continuing through college, where freshmen must endure rape awareness workshops, men are besieged by disrespect. Belittled by bumbling portrayals in sitcoms, their importance as fathers is so devalued that they are perceived as little more than “sperm and a wallet.” Parker trots out the usual suspects—“mass culture,” unspecified “feminists,” The Vagina Monologues, Murphy Brown, metrosexuals and “girlymen”—to propose that a “feminist” campaign is afoot and eager to effeminize, denigrate and destroy American men. Although Parker's deliberate provocations make for lively reading, the majority of her claims are too fanciful and unsubstantiated to be genuinely thought provoking or even interesting (erectile dysfunction is caused by “young, sexually aggressive women”; women serving in the army put the nation at risk). Parker makes a poor conspiracy theorist, and her statistics and unverifiable theories are unable to make her case, however vehement or entertaining their presentation. (June)

First published in 1936, with the chilling subtitle “A Guide for the Extra Woman,” this bestseller became a manifesto for single women (and those “between husbands”) keen on embarking on stylish solitary living. Although many of Hillis's prescriptions are naturally outmoded, it's impossible not to be charmed by her arch humor and old Hollywood glamour as she demands that her genteel readers simply must have four bed jackets, seven kinds of liquor and the right cold cream. A Vogue editor and proponent of “solitary refinement,” Hillis exhorts women to indulge themselves unblushingly—albeit thriftily—within their homes. Despite her fascination with frou-frou and beaux, Hillis bucks convention—arguing that women should be free to entertain men at home, drink in bars and generally do as they please; “you will soon find that independence, more truthfully than virtue, is its own reward,” she advises. If slight on prescriptions suitable to modern-day living, this slim guide is replete with entertaining illustrations by Cipé Pineles and case studies about “live-aloners” (“Miss P. is a young woman of limited income, but unlimited ingenuity...”) providing ample nostalgic pleasure. (June)

Physician Harris challenges some basic assumptions about the all-American tradition of the pursuit of happiness, drawing heavily on the “acceptance and commitment therapy” (ACT) work of University of Nevada professor Steven Hayes, which argues that happiness is not a normal state of being; pain is inevitable and what matters is how it is dealt with. The ACT prescription is to be “mindful” of negative thoughts and emotions, reconnect with core values, act in accordance with values and with the “psychological flexibility” to adapt to any situation. ACT techniques include diffusion—decreasing the impact of self-defeating thoughts (without making them go away), turning off the “struggle switch,” practicing “expansion” to make room for self-observation and connecting with the present moment. While these concepts might sound like typical self-help fare, Harris makes key distinctions: ACT is not a form of meditation or a path to enlightenment—to reap the benefits, action is imperative. More of an ACT primer than anything else, there's enough interesting content here to keep the reader, um, happy. (June)

Recently we have seen plenty of irrational behavior, whether in politics or the world of finance. What makes people act irrationally? In a timely but thin collection of anecdotes and empirical research, the Brafman brothers—Ari (The Starfish and the Spire), a business expert, and Rom, a psychologist—look at “sway,” the submerged mental drives that undermine rational action, from the desire to avoid loss to a failure to consider all the evidence or to perceive a person or situation beyond the initial impression and the reluctance to alter a plan that isn't working. To drive home their points, the authors use contemporary examples, such as the pivotal decisions of presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and George W. Bush, coach Steve Spurrier and his Gators football team, and a sudden apparent epidemic of bipolar disorder in children (which may be due more to flawed thinking by doctors making the diagnoses). The stories are revealing, but focused on a few common causes of irrational behavior, the book doesn't delve deeply into the psychological demons that can devastate a person's life and those around him. (June)

Journalist Conley examines the implications of brand-centric marketing in an incisive investigation that illustrates how defenseless consumers are against advertising—on any given day, they are assaulted by 3,000 to 5,000 ads and branding stratagems that subtly dictate every aspect of their lives. Harnessing scientific innovations, branding has become increasing insidious—whether it is the Xbox audio logo or Southwest Airlines' incorporation of the “fasten seatbelt” sound in their marketing campaign—consumers are being conditioned to think in brands. Beyond ad creep and product placement in entertainment programming, viral and word of mouth (WOM) marketing now make even personal recommendations suspect. According to Conley, 1% of American children and 7% of mothers are compensated for participating in WOM marketing. Even social policy is being corrupted—the author asserts that public branding initiatives such as post-Katrina New Orleans' allocation of public funds toward refurbishing its Mardi Gras City image rather than addressing its safety issues shifts resources away from problem-solving in favor of perception. Conley's perspective on branding's encroachment into social areas is as alarming as it is stimulating. (June)

This well-reasoned and useful guide argues that successful innovators can develop products that “resonate” by connecting deeply with consumers. This simple idea is delivered in a conversational tone and illustrated in well-structured chapters laying out a six-step “Tuned in Process” and examples that span borders and industries. From anecdotes about countryside hotels that sprouted up to provide respite for Japanese salarymen to Nalgene plastic bottles, which escaped the laboratory to achieve cult status and ultimately mass market consumer appeal, fascinating case studies abound. However, as appealing as the concept and the many examples are, the enthusiastic presentation begins to grate; the repeated invocation of the “Tuned in Process” may tire readers looking for more subtlety and fewer sound bites. Still, there is sufficient fodder for anyone who wants to shake the sleep out of an organization and renew a focus on creating the kind of value that customers are willing to pay for. (June)

If you've ever observed how an actress accepting an award thanks everyone around her, whereas a little boy who has spilled milk on the floor tries to pin it specifically on his sister, you have already witnessed the fine processes of credit and blame in action. Drawing upon sources as disparate as Dostoyevski, Darwin, water-cooler conversations and truth commissions, Tilly (Why?) illustrates how assigning credit and blame stems from and redefines “relations between the creditor and the credited, the blamer and the blamed.” Society is saturated in credit/blame “social shows”—from high school honor societies to job promotions to the Nobel prizes—and in case studies of the Academy Awards and the 9/11 commission, Tilly astutely analyzes how people accept credit and society assesses blame, and the commonalities between the two (“blame is not simply credit upside down... blame resembles credit as an image in a funhouse mirror resembles the person standing before it”). With its most vivid examples drawn from the author's own life, this book is simultaneously highbrow and humble and a close analysis of social interaction. (June)

Seeing his family's sailboat wasting away under a tarp on his cousin's property, Robb, a carpenter and author (Crossing the Water), thought to himself, “I could write about rebuilding her.” The boat in question is Daphie, a 68-year-old, 15½-foot sloop built by Nathana Greene Herreshoff, “genius of American design and engineering.” As he takes stock of the boat, Robb dutifully presents its story, which is interwoven with the history of his family, himself and the Woods Hole area of Cape Cod, where his family has deep roots and Robb currently lives. Robb spends the time he doesn't use to work on Daphie enjoying endless cups of coffee and tea with colorful local characters and craftsman who give him advice on boatbuilding, lend a hand bending and replacing boat frames or advise against the project altogether. Robb is a craftsman as well, with words as well as with a hammer, as he constructs a charming tale that both details the technical nature of boatbuilding and captures the essence of the past, present and future of a New England maritime community. (June)

A British fashion industry insider, Brampton wrote for Vogue and the Observer before launching Elle magazine in the U.K. By midlife, she had a successful, creative career, many close friends and a lovely daughter. Everything was going fabulously—until she fell apart. A paralyzing depression gripped her so intensely, she finally acknowledged that she needed to be institutionalized. Unfortunately, she was one of the many with “treatment-resistant depression”—high-tech pharmaceuticals just didn't work for her. As she cycled in and out of mental wards, survived suicide attempts and tried countless therapies, she learned a lot about depression—the stigma surrounding it, how it's triggered, the range of available therapies. With unflinching honesty, she describes her own experiences as well as sharing her research, letting readers “take from it what you need and leave the rest.” Brampton is particularly good at describing the currently favored therapies, like cognitive behavioral therapy, positive psychology and cognitive mindfulness behavioral therapy. Her openness to all sorts of treatment, including acupuncture, is refreshing, as is the ease with which she advises friends and family on how to be most helpful. Brampton's story is accessible and endearing. (June)

Anchored by the married couple of Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon, and propelled by democratically distributed experiments from all four group members, underground music icons Sonic Youth, as chronicled by Browne in his compulsively readable new biography, are a model for how to sustain a career in the burnout-friendly world of rock music. Browne traces each phase of the band's career with the easy, anecdotal grace of an accomplished journalist: he sketches each band member's youth and initiation into the New York music scene, provides accounts of the years of day jobs and thrifty recording sessions, and gives a play-by-play account of the band's courting by labels following the independent success of the album Daydream Nation. The book is most engaging in its middle third, an in-depth account of the band's initial struggles and successes at Geffen, their major label home for the past two decades of their career. While Browne succeeds at capturing the personalities and debates that shape the band's character, at times the author's engagement with the band's actual music is not as incisive or comprehensive as it could be. (June)

In this spirited narrative, Leerhsen, an editor at Sports Illustrated, tells the now-forgotten saga of Dan Patch, a race horse that at one time drew an estimated 60,000 people to a single event in 1903. Admitting from the outset that “the events of this book may seem as if they transpired on another planet,” Leerhsen delivers a mesmerizing look into a strange corner of American sports and folk history when Dan Patch became a household word, earning roughly $1 million a year at a time when, Leerhsen notes, “the-highest paid baseball player,” Ty Cobb, was making $12,000. The arc of Dan Patch's career involves a range of often unscrupulous entrepreneurs: his first owner, Dan Messner Jr., who overpays by mistake for an injured pace horse and whose drunken decision to breed the pace horse with a wild stallion results in Dan Patch's birth; the horse's second trainer, Myron McHenry, who despite his conflicts with Messner grooms the horse for success; and M.W. Savage, the horse's final owner, who makes millions from Patch-related merchandise while overworking an obviously tired animal. But the heart of the book is Dan Patch himself, a horse with an almost human capacity for calm and determination that deserves to be rediscovered by a modern audience. (June)

Chef Goldstein, author of several Mediterranean cookbooks, focuses here on “146 delicious salads and small plates... to show the versatility of Mediterranean dressings as marinades and finishing sauces.” And with these, she hopes to change the way the average American diner thinks of salad—as a bowl of leafy greens tossed with a dressing, served as a precursor to a meal. In fact, leafy greens make up only one of seven categories included in Goldstein's collection (others include fruit, bean, and grain salads as well as protein-based seafood, meat and poultry salads). Although many ingredients are repeated, Goldstein manages to make each recipe fresh and enticing. Readers may be familiar with some of the traditional classics such as Panzanella (bread salad) and Salad Niçoise. However, the real magic of the book lies with the lesser-known dishes like Italian Parsley Salad with Pecorino, Catalan Salt Cod and Pepper Salad, and Vitello Tonnato (veal with creamy tuna sauce). Well researched, and highly informative, each section begins with a list of ingredients and their definitions, while each recipe includes history on the dish as well as some of Goldstein's related personal experiences. This book is a delight, an inspiring collection. (May)

Haffner (From Diapers to Dating), an ordained Unitarian minister, isn't afraid to tackle the big questions, including drinking, drugs and teen sex. But while Haffner “tells it like it is,” she also presents the research and statistics to prove that many of parents' worst fears are unfounded. Instead of a media-hyped view of the challenges parents face in the 21st century, Haffner concludes that most kids are on the right track; in fact, she claims that they are “smart, committed, and engaged in their families and communities,” and that they are making better choices about health and related issues than many of their parents did at the same age. The author stresses that parenting style can have a significant impact on whether kids go down undesirable roads. Utilizing what she calls the “Affirming Parent” style, she offers a number of viable solutions to common problems, ranging from Internet use to overscheduling. Haffner covers a great deal of ground in this compact book; readers will appreciate her just-the-facts-please approach as well as her tendency to interpret the stats from the bright side. (May)

A ventriloquist and psychologist, Linn (Consuming Kids) claims that the act of make-believe is disappearing. In her impassioned plea for its survival, Linn reveals that play has many benefits, including helping kids develop problem-solving, critical thinking and social skills. Play also enables children to explore their inner feelings, cope with challenges and promotes emotional healing. Linn reveals how she uses puppets to encourage deeply troubled kids to explore their feelings, pointing out that imaginative play helps all children cope with such issues as separation, anger and fear. Tragically, Linn claims, play is on a downswing, replaced by TV time and highly marketed media-linked toys and electronic media that discourage real creativity. In fact, despite the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation to prohibit screen time until the age of two, a study Linn cites reveals that 40% of infants under three months are regular screen viewers. The director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Linn claims that the demise of play is a public health problem requiring an urgent campaign. She concludes with ways parents can incorporate creative play, while acknowledging the challenge of swimming against the powerful media tide. (May)

Husband-and-wife researchers present for the lay reader intriguing results from two decades of close observation and early detection of autism and Asperger's syndrome in babies. Instead of relying on language deficits and socialization to identify these developmental disorders, which has been the traditional approach by doctors, delaying detection and thus treatment to two years and older, this team reasoned from watching videos concerned parents made of their infants that atypical movement patterns signaling autism were apparent within the first year. While a typical baby achieves milestones of righting himself, crawling, sitting and walking through specific movements, the autistic child's “ladder of motor development” progresses differently, for example, in asymmetrical positions, lagging reflexes or impaired sense of balance. Each chapter defines what is typical and what is problematic, what parents can do to stimulate growth and how to seek help. The authors emphasize the importance of keeping records and offer a “Observation Journal” for the infant's caregiver, as well as numerous pages of resources. Nonsexist, reasoned if somewhat urgent in tone, this work, which is sure to be controversial, aims to turn the caregiver's intuition into positive, early action. (May)

Hopkins, known as “The Makeover Guy,” explains fashion dos, don'ts and oh-no-she-didn'ts for women in the “second act” of their lives. A quiz helps the reader identify which of six “Image Profiles” suits her tastes (“Casual,” “Romantic,” “Innovative,” etc.); clothes, hair and makeup tips follow accordingly. Hopkins is encouraging and helpful: he does not simply tell women to clean their closets of any unsuitable clothes. He provides a checklist of “what you'll need,” a 10-step to-do list and a questionnaire to determine which clothes to keep and which to toss. Benefiting from this book requires a certain amount of dedication—this is no quick-fix beauty mag article. There is even a “revival guide” journal in the back where readers can mark down outfits that worked or didn't work, collect contact information on their personal “beauty team” and keep track of daily, weekly and monthly beauty tasks. Hopkins's constant self-marketing can get annoying: irrelevant photos of himself litter the pages, and he wastes space touting his fashion victories over difficult clients. But his appearances on Oprah, the book's attention to detail and some astounding before-and-after photos attest to Hopkins's expertise. (May)

Accompanying the eponymous exhibit at Dartmouth College's Hood Museum, this collection of essays is as richly insightful as it is beautifully produced. Eight contributors analyze representations of black women from “separate but intersecting perspectives: the traditional African, the colonial, and the contemporary global.” Accessible essays and artist commentaries are interleaved among 128 color plates. Thompson's essay opens with the black female “body on display” in Europe and moves to the recovery of “traditional African ideologies of womanhood,” setting the stage for Ifi Amadiume's examination of “traditional African art practices” and Enid Schildkrout's demonstration of cross-cultural exchange. Investigating western “colonizations” and imaginings of black women, Kimberly Wallace-Sanders's analysis of “representations of Mammy” shifts the ground to the United States, and Deborah Willis considers how photographs from black family albums between the 1890s and 1940s countered racist images in popular culture. Thompson's closing meditation leads the reader back to the “new, thought-provoking and often confrontational images of an empowered and outspoken black female presence” at the heart of this exhibit. The originality of the images and interpretations make this catalogue essential to understanding how fully clothed the unclothed body truly is. (Apr.)

This spring brings two books geared toward young Jewish cooks.

Ideal for women who “enjoys life” but not cooking but still want to nurture their families (Tarn and Fine's definition of the Jewish Princess), this attractive book offers quick, accessible recipes and kitchen tips. The flavors are global, with chicken curry alongside chicken schnitzel, though everything is kosher; Jewish classics (latkes, cholent, honey cake) appear throughout and star in a section on “the ultimate Friday night dinner.” The stream of tongue-in-cheek Jewish Princess jokes keeps things bubbly and encouraging for inexperienced cooks facing a brisket or springform pan for the first time. (May)

But for the title, a glance through this book's wide-ranging recipes would never give away that they're kosher. Kosher cooks new to the kitchen—as well as those new to keeping kosher—who want more than the standard Jewish fare will cheer at seeing the array of classy alternatives: pumpkin bisque instead of chicken soup; arepas rather than latkes; Mexican hot chocolate brownies, not halvah. And they can make everything with the confidence that it will adhere to dietary laws: Fein provides a comprehensive yet readable explanation of their principles, and all the dishes are composed to ensure they pass. (Apr.)