Nonfiction Book Reviews 1/11/2010

Jan 11, 2010

Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of CultureNaomi Cahn and June Carbone. Oxford Univ., $29.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-19-537217-5

Family law scholars Cahn (Test Tube Families) and Carbone (From Partners to Parents) defuse America’s bitter culture wars in this measured, statistics-based look at the societal pressures and changing economic realities that influence regional ideologies and voting patterns. The book focuses on the blue state/ red state division, acknowledging the demographic data suggesting that life patterns differ regionally, and that these differing family structures influence political allegiances: the bluest states have fewer teen mothers and lower divorce rates, and emphasize responsibility; red states have high teen birth and divorce rates and emphasize tradition. According to the authors, these core differences are the crucible from which the battles over abortion, same sex marriage, and contraception spring. Their suggestion? Return to a federalized approach that allows each region to address its constituents’ specific needs. The authors allow that a return to decentralization might not be feasible, but given the recent national debates over health care, the Stupak amendment, and same sex marriage laws, the book’s illuminating (if very technical) statistical data and dispassionate approach render it invaluable. (Apr.)

Ideas That Matter: The Concepts That Shape the 21st Century: An Opinionated GuideA.C. Grayling. Basic, $29.95 (448p) ISBN 978-0-465-01934-2

Grayling (The Choice of Hercules) winnows a universe of ideas, ideologies, and philosophies into “a personal dictionary” for understanding the new century. With topics chosen according to the author’s interests and for their “intrinsic significance,” the alphabetically organized list leaps from the antediluvian—“Afterlife”; “War”—to the contemporary—“Artificial Intelligence”; “Internet.” Each self-standing entry includes a concise introduction intended as a starting point for further investigation by the reader, but the author eschews references and includes only a brief bibliography. While some readers will question the inclusion or omission of specific concepts—why “Vegetarianism” but not global warming?—the list is largely conventional if abstract and rather coolly academic. Grayling’s dictionary will appeal to readers looking for a perspective of the 21st century’s big ideas as seen from the ivory tower. (Apr.)

Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956—1978Kai Bird. Scribner, $27 (384p) ISBN 978-1-4165-4440-1

Bird, Pulitzer Prize—winning coauthor of American Prometheus, offers a compelling hybrid of memoir and history, weaving together recollections of his childhood in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt; the stories of his wife’s Holocaust survivor parents; and rigorous scholarship on the region. The book’s titlesal—Mandelbaum Gate once separated Israeli-controlled Western Jerusalem from the Jordanian-controlled East—indicates a view on the conflict, and it’s certainly that, but it’s also much more: readers are given ringside seats to Cairo under Nasser, the author’s American family’s friends (including Osama bin Laden’s elder brother), and Bird’s years in India and the U.S. during the heyday of the antiwar movement of the ’60s. Notable events and figures (airplane hijacker Leila Khaled, for example, or the Palestinian-Jordanian battles known as Black September) are given detailed treatment and their continuing resonance is made clear. Bird’s brushes with history—his first girlfriend was held hostage on an airplane hijacked to win Khaled’s release, for instance—brings home the deeply messy humanity of the stories he binds together in this kaleidoscopic and captivating book. (Apr.)

Be Very Afraid: The Cultural Response to Terror, Pandemics, Environmental Devastation, Nuclear Annihilation, and Other ThreatsRobert Wuthnow. Oxford Univ., $29.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-19-973087-2

Wuthnow (American Mythos) surveys the cultural response to the “prospect of devastation, even annihilation” in this provocative if uneven study. Relying on government reports, scientific studies, poll results, novels and films, and extensive interviews, the author examines the response of Americans to a series of apocalyptic threats since WWII: nuclear holocaust, pandemic influenza, terrorism, and global warming. He categorically dismisses suggestions that “denial and immobilization” have been the default responses of Americans facing disaster and argues instead that “we have responded quite aggressively.” The “great outpouring of cultural activity” in the face of these crises suggests our propensity to creatively search for solutions, not to be paralyzed by fear. But given their daunting scope and complexity, individual action has largely yielded to collective action, and these “crises have essentially become institutionalized” in large-scale organizations like the Department of Homeland Security. A solidly resourced, cogently analyzed, and persuasively argued brief. (Apr.)

Abundance of Valor: Resistance, Survival, and Liberation: 1944—1945Will IrwinPresidio, $28 (416p) ISBN 978-0-345-50176-9

Allied special operations units fight and flounder in the ill-fated Market-Garden offensive in this colorful but unfocused WWII picaresque. Former Special Forces fighter Irwin (The Jedburghs) recounts the exploits of three-man “Jedburgh Teams” sent into German-occupied Holland to organize Dutch resistance fighters in support of General Montgomery’s infamous “bridge too far” debacle. The author focuses on two Americans: Lt. Harvey Allan Todd, who was taken prisoner by the Germans at Arnheim, and Maj. John Olmsted, who organized a secret intelligence network behind enemy lines. There’s not much shape or significance to these largely unrelated plot lines, which concern some of the most ill-conceived and useless operations of the war. Olmsted lost important enemy plans; in Todd’s case, an American rescue force is captured by the Germans and imprisoned in the very POW camp it was supposed to liberate. Still, the author vividly recounts many varieties of WWII experience: blood-and-guts combat set pieces; a tense espionage thriller; and a harrowing captivity narrative. Irwin’s angle on the oft-told Market-Garden fiasco doesn’t make for a grand epic, just a collection of well-told war stories. Photos, 4 maps. (Mar. 23)

The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western MasochismPascal Bruckner. Princeton Univ., $26.95 (264p) ISBN 978-0-691-14376-7

In a critique of the West’s postcolonial self-flagellating tendencies that is both fascinating and repellent, prize-winning French novelist and essayist Bruckner (Tears of the White Man) offers a broad defense of neoliberal democracy as a force for progress, enlightenment, and emancipation. In polemical tones, the author identifies how the aftermath of WWII and postcolonial liberation movements spawned a pathology of remorse and guilt corrupting the European self-image that was maintained by its own intelligentsia and by a variety of immigrants, Islamists, and Arabs. Though the book offers insightful analyses of how discourses of guilt and self-hatred can serve to mask self-glorification and assertions of cultural superiority, it is marred by a monolithic, often Franco-centric view of Europe, a tendency toward overgeneralization, and an almost total disregard for how global economic concerns and practices are linked to international dissatisfactions with the behavior of Western democracies. Nonetheless, as a work that takes seriously the challenges posed by multiculturalism and the changing face of Europe, it is a worthy attempt to resuscitate the ideals of progressive enlightenment, political action, and civic pride. (Mar.)

Thank You for Firing Me!: How to Catch the Next Wave of Success After You Lose Your JobKitty Martini and Candice Reed. Sterling, $14.95 paper (240p) ISBN 978-1-4027-6956-6

This funny and energetic guidebook for the recently (or repeatedly) fired from entrepreneur and comedian Martini and journalist Reed begins with a sympathetic but no-nonsense plan for picking yourself up after you’ve lost a job, and moves swiftly into the brainstorming and planning necessary to start the next—and more satisfying—career. Readers are challenged to answer the all-important question “What are you passionate about?” and strategize from there with an eye to becoming a self-employed independent contractor. Martini and Reed investigate such potential growth markets as green industries and the Gen Y market as well as the new outcropping of nontraditional jobs for women. Advice on finding community and places to get help and a plethora of resources elevate this cheerful, encouraging book into an invaluable resource. (Mar.)

Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian LifeFrances MayesBroadway, $25 (320p) ISBN 978-0-7679-2982-0

In her most recent Tuscan tour, Mayes conducts readers through the gentle and sometimes violent and disruptive undulations of the seasons from winter to summer in her Tuscan home of Bramasole. In this new memoir, she reflects on the palpable scents emitted by the old-growth chestnut, apple, and olive trees, the jovial hospitality and strength of her friends and neighbors, and the familiar and sometimes disturbing sounds of herds of wild boars rushing through the orchards. Mayes and her husband, Ed, situated themselves even more firmly in Tuscany a few years ago when they discovered a falling-down stone cottage on a rugged slope and restored it as a second home. We follow Mayes as she forages for the prized amarini, cherries the size of five-caret rubies, which are bottled with alcohol and brought out in winter to spoon over polenta cake, pears, blackberries, asparagus, fennel flowers, and figs. We continue on our journey with her as she leads us in search of the great Renaissance artist Luca Signorelli from Cortona, where her new house lies. Mayes’s affectionate and warm memoir vividly celebrates the lush abundance and charm of daily life in the Italian countryside. (Mar.)

Publish This Book: The (Incredible, Unforgettable, Hilarious, Heartwrenching, Unbelieveable, and) Completely (Mostly) True Story of How I Wrote, Got Published, and (Hopefully) Sold a Memoir About NothingStephen MarkleySourcebooks, $24.99 (480p) ISBN 978-1-4022-2935-0

It doesn’t matter what problems you’ve got with Markley’s sprawling, self-referential account of his efforts to sell a book about his efforts to sell the book he’s writing at that very moment—he’s already anticipated your criticisms, from the imperfect echoes of writers like Dave Eggers and Chuck Klosterman to the preponderance of dick jokes and other forms of frat boy humor. “Of course, on a basic level, the book is a stupid idea,” he admits early on; later, he concedes, “I’ve just been winging it, and it shows.” He might have been better off cutting down some of the more self-indulgent sections, like a minihistory of his tenure as a “political sex columnist” for his college paper or an exploration of the fake memoir phenomenon featuring made-up conversations with Chicago drug dealers and underprivileged high school students. But there are compelling, emotionally resonant passages, too: a reflection on what it’s like to shake loose the influence of a literary mentor, for example, or a best friend’s realization of just how much an unplanned pregnancy has changed his life (Mar.)

The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s PastimeJason Turbow, with Michael Duca. Pantheon, $25 (304p) ISBN 978-0-375-42469-4

Nearly as long as baseball has existed in its current form, so too have unofficial rules that professional players have strictly adhered to. Yet as Turbow demonstrates in this highly entertaining read, every rule of the code has certain variations. Most casual baseball fans are keenly aware of many topics that Turbow broaches, and some are universally agreed upon—hitters admiring home runs is severely frowned on, as is arguing with one’s manager in public view and being caught stealing signs. But other rules are less cut-and-dried. On the subject of retaliating for a teammate being hit by a pitch: some believe the pitcher should be plunked in his next at-bat, while others say it should be a player with corresponding talent to the hit batter. Turbow has an example for nearly every conceivable situation, and with quotes from dozens of former major league players, managers, and broadcasters, the reader can better understand the actions that can set off even the most even-tempered ball player. It’s a comprehensive, sometimes hilarious guide to perhaps a misunderstood aspect of our national pastime, and will come in handy should one ever be involved in a beanball war. (Mar.)

The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes: A Mother’s StoryRandi DavenportAlgonquin, $23.95 (384p) ISBN 978-1-56512-611-4

An academic and writer at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, offers a dense, achingly inconclusive tale about her developmentally challenged son, whose difficulties remain elusively untreatable and largely undiagnosed. Davenport writes poignantly about her increasing sense of helplessness over the years as her son, Chase, moving into his teens, grows harder and harder to manage, from his inability to focus and sit still, to his paranoia and obsession with morbid thoughts, his seizures, to his eruptive agitation and truculence that eventually warranted long-term hospitalization. What was wrong with him? Davenport lists the dozens of doctors’ suggestions over the years, from autism and severe ADHD to seizure disorder, psychosis, and schizophrenia. Yet, stubbornly, Chase’s diagnosis remains unnamable, and a plethora of drugs often fail him, such as Clozaril, which checked his psychosis but left him vegetative. Chase’s indefinable state proves problematic for insurance providers, who cut off his hospital coverage though no long-term care facility will take him. As a result, Chase has to spend a frightening stint at the state mental hospital. Davenport’s memoir is intensely thorough and affecting. (Mar.)

Gonville: A MemoirPeter BirkenheadFree Press, $25 (272p) ISBN 978-1-4165-9883-1

A fraught and funny father-son memoir tells the terrible tale of growing up in the late 1960s and ’70s with a gun-packing Brooklyn leftie of violent temperament. Birkenhead, an actor and journalist, was the eldest of four kids born to a Brooklyn College economics professor and his pianist-composer wife. Birkenhead’s dad was a vociferous, Jewish political hothead who kept a collection of Martini-Henry guns and was prone to sudden fits of rage that were usually turned on his family in the form of punching and verbal abuse. While his mother and two younger brothers received the brunt of it, the author learned early on to deflect the anger by “conflict-defusing, Dad-distracting skills.” Acting in small parts in his father’s summer stock theater in Hyannis, Mass. (the book is named for the father’s favorite character, Gonville Bromhead, from the film Zulu, about a British lieutenant fighting in South Africa), allowed the author a happy release. Birkenhead’s memoir is intensely detailed, thus the feelings magnified, and full of the blistering ambivalence of a loving son who wondered whether it would have been easier to have a dad who was “all bad instead of almost good.” (Mar.)

Everything Is Wrong with Me: A Memoir of an American Childhood Gone, Well, WrongJason MulgrewHarper Perennial, $13 paper (240p) ISBN 978-0-06-176665-7

Blogger Mulgrew, an Irish Catholic son of working-class South Philly, grew up in the early 1980s. In his irreverent, self-deprecating, but frequently funny first book, based on his blog, he revisits his childhood and adolescence. Following in the footsteps of his storytelling father, who hung out with other guys in dive bars, the author encountered (and makes somewhat cursory use of) characters like the local kleptomaniac, a neighbor’s teenaged uncle, who expanded on lessons in hustling previously laid down by a numbers-running grandfather, and the friend who launched further escapades in both entrepreneurship and juvenile pyromania. Mulgrew doesn’t dwell sentimentally on his parents’ rocky relationship, and in comparison to the seemingly endless run of adventures in ersatz jock-and-studhood, there’s relatively little about his mother or his siblings. Instead, the book takes readers deep into a traditional, working-class social world where sports, Jackass-type pranks, and loyalty reigned. True to the lad-lit form and content, the narrative is often downright crude, with a Maxim-article tone. (Mar.)

You Couldn’t Ignore Me if You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a GenerationSusannah GoraCrown, $26 (384p) ISBN 978-0-307-40843-3

The phrase was coined by David Blum in the headline “Hollywood’s Brat Pack,” heralding his cover story for the June 10, 1985, issue of New York magazine with its cover photo of Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, and Judd Nelson. The label stuck, Gora notes, and extended to describe other actors: Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, and Anthony Michael Hall. A former editor at Premiere, Gora guides the reader through the creation of the teen cinema of the 1980s, described by the American Film Institute as “the cultural phenomenon which helped make us what we are today.” To recall the era, she interviewed two dozen actors, plus the directors and producers behind the Brat Pack’s memorable movies, including The Breakfast Club, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo’s Fire and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. As Gora sees it, “The films changed the way many young people looked at everything from class distinction to friendship, from love and sex to fashion and music.” Writer-director John Hughes’s ability to capture adolescent angst is highlighted. The 1980s youth films maintain their popularity on TV and DVDs, and Gora gives them near-encyclopedic, comprehensive coverage. (Feb. 9)

Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to GatesAdrian JohnsUniv. of Chicago, $35 (656p) ISBN 978-0-226-40118-8

The recording industry’s panic over illegal downloads is nothing new; a century ago, London publishers faced a similar crisis when “pirate” editions of sheet music were widely available at significantly less cost. Similarly, the debate over pharmaceutical patents echoes an 18th-century dispute over the origins of Epsom salt. These are just two of the historical examples that Johns (The Nature of the Book) draws upon as he traces the tensions between authorized and unauthorized producers and distributors of books, music, and other intellectual property in British and American culture from the 17th century to the present. Johns’s history is liveliest when it is rooted in the personal—the 19th-century renegade bibliographer Samuel Egerton Brydges, for example, or the jazz and opera lovers who created a thriving network of bootleg recordings in the 1950s—but the shifting theoretical arguments about copyright and authorial property are presented in a cogent and accessible manner. Johns’s research stands as an important reminder that today’s intellectual property crises are not unprecedented, and offers a survey of potential approaches to a solution. 40 b&w illus. (Feb.)

Religion

After You Believe: Why Christian Character MattersN.T. Wright. HarperOne, $24.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-06-173055-9

How do you develop a character suited for God’s Kingdom? Practice, practice, practice. That, in a nutshell, is the message of this volume on building Christian character by Wright, a prodigiously prolific Bible scholar and Anglican bishop of Durham, England. In arguing for “this new vision of virtue, which is a vision of Jesus Christ himself,” Wright carefully explores such classical exponents of character as Aristotle. He also acknowledges the existence of other notions of encouraging behavior-based rules, duty, or being “true to oneself.” Drawing on scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, Wright asserts that true transformation comes through the work of the Holy Spirit and through worship, mission, and “following Jesus.” As the habits of virtue grow, the church community will become the royal priesthood it is meant to be, anticipating (one of the author’s favorite words) God’s coming new world. A follow-up to Wright’s Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope, this solid volume will appeal to Christians who appreciate biblical interpretation that hews to tradition but incorporates an emphasis on contemporary social justice as an element of Christian virtue. (Mar.)

Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three ContinentsIan Buruma. Princeton Univ., $19.95 (144p) ISBN 978-0-691-13489-5

The place of organized religion in the public square is well-trammeled territory; in this brief volume, journalist and Bard College professor Buruma (Murder in Amsterdam) adds to the discussion with political and cultural analyses from the United States, Europe, and Asia. By examining the history of church/state relations in the U.S. and Europe, the role of religion in the politics of China and Japan, and the growing role of Islam in contemporary Europe, Buruma makes “an attempt to sort out, in different cultures, how democracies have been affected... by these tensions [between religious and secular authorities].” One of his most provocative investigations involves secular, liberal Europeans, some of whom now find common ground with conservatives in their opposition to Islam out of fear that it will roll back the progressive gains of the past decades. Buruma takes issue with theocrats and “strict secularists” alike, using the example of Martin Luther King Jr. to argue instead that “expressions of religious beliefs in politics are legitimate as long as those beliefs inform positions that are subject to reason.” Some readers may have difficulty following the thread of Buruma’s thesis through the dense weave of historical data. (Mar.)

Don’t Quit in the Pit: Power to Turn Any Situation AroundDanette Joy Crawford. Whitaker House, $12.99 paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-60374-184-2

A televangelist to an audience of 165 million homes and president of Joy Ministries Evangelistic Association, Crawford tells her personal story of never quitting despite adverse circumstances of poverty, rejection, and betrayal. She recalls her feeble first steps as a Christian believer who trusted God to overcome any and all odds in her life. The author’s faith was quickly put to the test when after a brief marriage to a man addicted to pornography, she was pressed into single motherhood with no financial resources. Convinced that God had called her into full-time evangelistic ministry, the author details account after account of how God met her every need in the years that followed. This rousing and inspiring text tells Crawford’s life story and, with every chapter, challenges fellow followers of Jesus to entrust themselves to God no matter what “pit” they find themselves in. Crawford’s large audience will be pleased she put into print the messages she preaches. (Mar.)

God and His DemonsMichael Parenti. Prometheus, $25 (260p) ISBN 978-1-61614-177-6

Anyone looking for a catalogue of religion’s darkest moments will find it in this angry volume by the Berkeley-based cultural critic and activist. A New Atheist in the mold of Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins, Parenti spares no adjectives in describing the evils of religion, be it creationism or televangelists. He claims he does not want to destroy other people’s beliefs and that his book is not addressed to religious progressives, whom he finds tolerable. But he writes about religion, whether Christianity or Islam, with unconcealed scorn and derision. Parenti makes no clear argument, nor does his polemic offer an introduction or conclusion. Instead it might be understood as a call to arms against what he calls “religionists” the world over. He complains that “progressive dissidents usually are denied access to mass media audiences,” a charge that might confound his publisher and the industry that has made leading New Atheists household names. His condescending tirade is directed not so much at religion as at human beings whom—one gets the impression—he can barely suffer. (Mar.)

The Good and Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became ChristianizedJames H. Charlesworth. Yale Univ., $45 (736p) ISBN 978-0-300-14082-8

Despite its imposing size and the reputation of its author as a formidable scholar (Charlesworth is a professor of New Testament language and literature at Princeton Theological Seminary and author of more than 60 books), this book is a surprisingly readable treatment of all things snake in religious iconography and literature of the ancient Near East. Beginning with the question: why would Jesus be equated to a serpent in the New Testament gospel of John when serpents get such a bad rap (isn’t the Eden snake a symbol of Satan, after all?), Charlesworth goes on to show, in great and well-documented detail, how much more nuanced serpent imagery was in the ancient Near East and in the Bible itself. This includes an excellent treatment of popular assumptions about that Eden snake and the problems with such assumptions. When Charlesworth returns at the book’s end to his initial question, readers can appreciate how powerfully positive the ostensibly puzzling gospel image is. The book could have been better edited to remove some repetition, and it occasionally assumes specialized knowledge, but Charlesworth offers a fascinating treatment overall. (Mar.)

Giving Church Another Chance: Finding New Meaning in Spiritual PracticesTodd D. Hunter. IVP, $18 (176p) ISBN 978-0-8308-3748-9

Hunter (Christianity Beyond Belief) sought God in many churches, from the United Methodist Church of his youth through “contemporary fundamentalism” to Vineyard, then emerging churches, and finally the Anglican Church. He discovered that the “genuine Christian spirituality you’ve been dreaming of is possible by repracticing the spiritual routines of church.” Hunter investigates nine church practices—attendance, prelude, doxology, scripture reading, sermons, liturgy, offering, communion, benediction—as “a launching pad to life.” He avoids lengthy theological dissection of each practice, instead sharing how each can point to “real and lasting life in Jesus.” His words ring true for those tired of church as usual, who want to take Jesus outside the doors but aren’t sure why or how. Hunter advocates church for spiritual nourishment, but he’s also about applying church practices to the heart, then flinging open the church doors to help the world. Hunter describes repracticing communion as changing “Eucharist as a noun to Eucharist as a verb.” That linguistic transformation exactly conveys his exciting premise for all church practices. (Mar.)

Uncommon Gratitude: Alleluia for All That IsJoan Chittister and Rowan Williams. Liturgical, $16.95 (136p) ISBN 978-0-8146-3022-8

The prolific Benedictine nun Chittister (The Liturgical Year) joins the erudite archbishop of Canterbury in a series of reflections on finding the hidden face of God in a variety of circumstances and offering praise. “Alleluia” is a hail to God, a call offered not nearly as frequently as complaint is in these times. But Chittister explains that alleluia is “a call to reflection... the final Amen to all that is.” The varied subjects of the 23 essays—faith, doubt, Genesis, saints—are very loosely grouped, and Williams contributes only five, a shortcoming of the book given the provocative originality with which the Anglican primate thinks. He writes of “good sinners”—those with a degree of awareness of something much larger or of “divine fullness preparing to create its own echo” in the world. Chittister is pre-eminently practical: the purpose of wealth is generosity, doubt gives birth to faith. The two authors are nicely complementary in the ways they anchor their insights in real-life conditions. This is thoughtful theology with its boots on, ready to walk out in the world. (Mar.)

Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All TimeKristin Swenson. Harper, $24.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-172829-6

Drawing upon the most recent scholarship concerning the origins, interpretation, and translation of the Bible, Swenson, a professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and occasional contributor to PW, joins her own voice to the babel of tongues talking about the Bible and its impact on popular culture. With nonchalance, she goes through topics as diverse as the history of the Bible, the history behind the Bible, misquoted passages from the Bible, great heroes and heroines of the Bible, and places in the Bible. For example, in choosing a Bible translation, Swenson recommends getting and comparing a number of different translations because seeing the ways that the translations differ yields remarkable insights into the Bible’s development. Swenson peppers her survey with references to popular culture, from the Simpsons to Metallica, as she demonstrates the Bible’s continued influence on society. In her sometimes overly simple, sometimes humorous book, Swenson successfully shows why, in spite of all its difficulties, the Bible remains a thought-provoking and infinite source of inspiration and debate for all kinds of people. (Feb.)

The Bread of Angels: A Memoir of Love and Faith in DamascusStephanie Saldana. Doubleday, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-385-52200-7

With a family history of untimely death and madness, Saldana easily took to a career of danger journalism, reporting from risky locales. In a deliberate attempt to stop courting danger, Saldana attempted a normal life at Harvard Divinity School. When the love affair that had provided her a sense of normalcy ended, she opted to take the Fulbright scholarship she had won to study the Muslim Jesus in Damascus, arriving in Syria in 2004 amid the post-9/11 war in Iraq. The tension of American foreign policy and Saldana’s own vivid memories of death and destruction witnessed during her reporting life earlier in the Middle East haunted her, particularly when she embarked upon the Catholic rite of spiritual exercises at the Syrian desert monastery of Mar Musa. In lovely prose and with elements of foreshadowing, Saldana shares her struggles to become religious again and overcome feelings that God has abandoned her. Touches of melodrama weigh down an otherwise gorgeous and enlightening read, as Saldana’s scholarly knowledge of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism subtly infuse her story. An Eat, Pray, Love for the intellectual set, Saldana’s beautiful memoir should not be missed. (Feb.)

Hear No Evil: Marching in the Lord’s Army, Fleeing the Devil, and Finding a Righteous GrooveMatthew Paul Turner. WaterBrook, $13.99 (240p) ISBN 978-1-4000-7472-3

After a childhood roped off from popular culture, Turner (The Christian Culture Survival Guide) chased dreams of becoming a Christian singer only to find the “safe” genre more plastic than relevant. In this memoir, Turner strings together his journey from starstruck child to Christian music editor, with tales of music’s influence on his Independent Fundamental Baptist upbringing. At times, the book takes aim at the denomination, lamenting the anxiety its moral absolutes produce: “few things existed that were more frightful than a syncopated beat.” At other points, the book becomes a critique of unoriginal Christian music. Turner calls for honesty from all Christians, begging artists to tap into guarded imaginations and urging churches to be more forgiving when singers step outside the box. Despite his misgivings, Turner maintains a playful tone, like a teenager rolling his eyes at an embarrassing parent. Still hopeful, he seeks not to discount Christian music and its listeners but to fine-tune his Christian church and shake up the genre that remains a “consistent thread of grace” in his life. (Feb.)

I Want to Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on EarthBrenda Peterson. Da Capo, $25 (288p) ISBN 978-0-306-81804-2

Talk of the rapture—the ascent to heaven of true Christians before the end of the world—surrounds Peterson (Duck and Cover), and she engages this conversation with delicacy, humor, frustration, and, at times, a begrudging respect, in this memoir about growing up among Southern Baptists and not quite fitting in. Peterson’s story is told through what is really a series of vignettes, tied together by two themes, faith and the environment. She looks back at her childhood, college, and then adulthood, stopping here and there, selecting scenes from her life that show why she finds God outdoors, and why the rapture-obsessed family and community of her youth quickly loses its appeal. Her love for this world and everything in it is far greater than any promise of salvation apart from and above it. Readers interested in a story about leaving behind theologically conservative Christianity and other types of extremism will find Peterson’s collection of anecdotes and remembered conversations engaging. The chapters can be read on their own, and her prologue, “The Trumpet Shall Sound,” and chapter “In the Garden” are among the best. (Feb.)

Pocket Peace: Effective Practices for Enlightened LivingAllan Lokos. Penguin/Tarcher, $13.95 paper (240p) ISBN 978-1-58542-781-9

Simple exercises based on the 10 paramis (paramitas), or perfections, described in Buddhist philosophy are scattered throughout the pages of this short book. Lokos, founder of New York’s nonsectarian Community Meditation Center and an interfaith minister, has studied with teachers from various Buddhist traditions; he offers eclectic anecdotes and personal reflections on such virtues as generosity, patience, loving kindness, and truthfulness. The author is proficient at identifying ordinary choices—making a phone call, passing a street person asking for money—that can contribute to spiritual growth. Gentle and compassionate practices range from the specific (“sincerely praise others’ words or deeds”) to the general (“don’t hold grudges”). However, simple truths and profound Buddhist insights such as impermanence and interdependence jostle with clichés and self-help platitudes. Some unfortunately chosen examples (Lokos illustrates “relinquishing” with giving up his weekend home) weaken this earnest, well-meaning book. Readers new to daily practices may find these snippets useful; others may want to dig more deeply into the many excellent books on Buddhist mindfulness training. (Feb.)

The Melody of Faith: Theology in an Orthodox KeyVigen Guroian. Eerdmans, $14 paper (163p) ISBN 978-0-8028-6496-3

Guroian (Incarnate Love: Essays in Orthodox Ethics), professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, sets out with a bold mission—to write a series of theological “tonal poems,” each reading more like music than prose. This, he asserts, will not produce a “rational” or “linear” organization, but rather create an aesthetic reading experience in which literary themes will develop into melodic variations and fugues. Hymnody, he asserts, existed before any Christian art and architecture because it integrated the feeling of doctrine along with the thought of theology, creating a richer spiritual understanding. Consequently, the book divides itself into six hymnlike chapters that “sing” the Orthodox theologies of creation, the apocalypse, redemption, the Virgin Mary, the crucifixion, and resurrection. To a large extent, the execution of the book’s mission is successful, particularly the author’s method of separating each chapter into verse-like subsections. Yet the reader may feel lost at times in the complexity of the author’s intent. To fully appreciate the musical style of the prose, one may at times be required to pay less attention to the beauty of the very theologies Guroian wishes to convey. (Feb.)

Toying with God: The World of Religious Games and DollsNikki Bado-Fralick and Rebecca Sachs Norris. Baylor Univ., $24.95 paper (210p) ISBN 978-1-60258-181-4

For Bado-Fralick and Sachs Norris (religious studies professors at Iowa State University and Merrimack College, respectively), religious games and dolls are charged with “the magic of childhood combined with the mystery of religion.” The authors brilliantly use their subject to reveal a complex interplay between worship and the workings of popular culture. A detour into ancient divination practices using dice, magical dolls, and sports as ritual shows these items to be anything but superficial, and raises a central question: why do religious playthings often evoke feelings of unease? Like the religious toys it analyses, this book is at once fun and serious business. Dolls like Buddy Christ and Nunzilla or unwinnable Buddhist board games may produce a few perplexed laughs, but a game like Missionary Conquest, won by setting up the most global missions, has an undeniably colonialist edge. The authors also use toys and dolls to explore consumerism, feminism, politics, and the nature of ritual and play. In this readable and fresh look at religious culture, the authors are critical and respectful. They’d rather cast dice than throw stones. (Feb.)

Halos and Avatars: Playing Video Games with God Edited by Craig Detweiler. Westminster John Knox, $19.95 paper (241p) ISBN 978-0-664-23277-1

Rather than write off as childish one of the most influential popular culture phenomena ever, Detweiler (Into the Dark: Seeing the Sacred in the Top Films of the 21st Century) assembles a savvy group of experts to explore the spiritual and theological implications of video gaming. Those not familiar with the contemporary scene will be amazed to discover how far video games have evolved since the days of Pac Man and Space Invaders. Video games, as a number of these scholars point out, have integrated a narrative aspect that is fascinating and complex—the characters have literally become three-dimensional. Some of the other important issues raised include the power of gaming to build virtual communities, the ways games can help children develop virtues, and the myriad ways religion is portrayed. Especially compelling is an examination of how Muslims are characterized in games. These essayists are fans who lovingly approach and reproach video games, and they earnestly hope that all who pick up a joystick will reflect on the spiritual possibilities. (Feb.)

Racial Justice and the Catholic ChurchBryan N. Massingale. Orbis, $26 paper (240p) ISBN 978-1-57075-776-1

Lamenting that he sometimes feels “like a motherless child... a long ways from home” in his own church, Massingale, a black priest and moral theologian, levels a strong indictment of the Catholic response to racial injustice in this review and analysis. After answering the question “What is racism?” at some length, Massingale delves into Catholic history on the issue, taking apart three documents on racial justice from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1958, 1968, and 1979. Although he says the last two improved on the first, which offered nothing in the way of recommendations for action, none was marked by the depth of social analysis found in many of the bishops’ other social justice documents. To improve Catholic engagement in racial justice, Massingale proposes using such resources of the tradition as the practice of lament, compassion, solidarity, conversion, baptism, and Eucharist. The author’s moving personal reflections add a human face to his message, which readers who have a heart for social justice will no doubt find to be prophetic. (Feb.)

Signature

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of ProhibitionDaniel Okrent. Simon & Schuster, $35 (480p) ISBN 978-0-7432-7702-0

Daniel Okrent has proven to be one of our most interesting and eclectic writers of nonfiction over the past 25 years, producing books about the history of Rockefeller Center and New England, baseball, and his experience as the first public editor for the New York Times. Now he has taken on a more formidable subject: the origins, implementation, and failure of that great American delusion known as Prohibition. The result may not be as scintillating as the perfect gin gimlet, but it comes mighty close, an assiduously researched, well-written, and continually eye-opening work on what has actually been a neglected subject.

There has been, of course, quite a lot of writing that has touched on the 14 years, 1919—1933, when the United States tried to legislate drinking out of existence, but the great bulk of it has been as background to one mobster tale or another. Okrent covers the gangland explosion that Prohibition triggered—and rightly deromanticizes it—but he has a wider agenda that addresses the entire effect enforced temperance had on our social, political, and legal conventions. Above all, Okrent explores the politics of Prohibition; how the 18th Amendment, banning the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating beverages, was pushed through after one of the most sustained and brilliant pressure-group campaigns in our history; how the fight over booze served as a surrogate for many of the deeper social and ethnic antagonisms dividing the country, and how it all collapsed, almost overnight, essentially nullified by the people.

Okrent occasionally stumbles in this story, bogging down here and there in some of the backroom intricacies of the politics, and misconstruing an address by Warren Harding on race as “one of the boldest speeches ever delivered by an American president” (it was more nearly the opposite). But overall he provides a fascinating look at a fantastically complex battle that was fought out over decades—no easy feat. Among other delights, Okrent passes along any number of amusing tidbits about how Americans coped without alcohol, such as sending away for the Vino Sano Grape Brick, a block of dehydrated grape juice, complete with “stems, skins, and pulp” and instructions warning buyers “not to add yeast or sugar, or leave it in a dark place, or let it sit too long,” lest it become wine. He unearths many sadly forgotten characters from the war over drink—and readers will be surprised to learn how that fight cut across today’s ideological lines. Progressives and suffragists made common cause with the Ku Klux Klan—which in turn supported a woman’s right to vote—to pass Prohibition. Champions of the people, such as the liberal Democrat Al Smith, fought side-by-side with conservative plutocrats like Pierre du Pont for its repeal.

In the end, as Okrent makes clear, Prohibition did make a dent in American drinking—at the cost of hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries from bad bootleg alcohol; the making of organized crime in this country; and a corrosive soaking in hypocrisy. A valuable lesson, for anyone willing to hear it.

Kevin Baker is the coauthor, most recently, of Luna Park, a graphic novel published last month by DC Comics.