Nonfiction

Apr 12, 2010

The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers Who Inspired 'Chicago’ Douglas Perry Viking, $25.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-670-02197-0

This jaunty retrospective of two Jazz Age trials introduces us to the real-life originals of the killer ladies of the musical Chicago—and to the society that adored them. Journalist Perry (The Sixteenth Minute: Life in the Aftermath of Fame) revisits the 1924 cases of Belva Gaertner, a swanky divorcée, and Beulah Annan, a beautiful married woman, both accused of shooting their lovers to death. They were the most photogenic on Cook County jail’s “Murderess’ Row” of defendants in a spate of woman-on-man killings that inflamed the press and captivated a public grown bored with gangland murders. (Perry’s third heroine is skeptical female reporter Maurine Watkins, who bemoaned the inability of all-male Chicago juries to convict killers with pretty faces.) The author gives an entertaining, wised-up rundown of the cases and the surrounding media hoopla, which the defendants and their lawyers cannily manipulated. (Annan hired a fashion consultant for court appearances and falsely declared herself pregnant to win sympathy.) Beneath the sensationalism, Perry finds anxieties about changing sex roles as feisty flappers and aggressive career women barged into public consciousness; his savvy, flamboyant social history illuminates a dawning age of celebrity culture. Photos. (Aug. 9)

Zebratown: The True Story of a Black Ex-Con and a White Single Mother in Small Town America Greg Donaldson. Scribner, $24 (304p) ISBN 978-1-4391-5378-9

After a photo of Kevin Davis was used as the cover art for Donaldson’s first book, The Ville, Davis was identified, arrested, and convicted on a weapons charge. The two men met in 2002, a year after Davis completed his seven-year sentence, and the ex-con persuades the author “that his warrior ethic, his prison exploits, and his connection to the rap music world should be the subject of a book.” Donaldson obliges, following his subject through prison stints, jobs, and relationships with women. “Sub-Saharan black” Kevin “loves white girls, always has,” and the book follows his partner, the pseudonymous “trim blond woman” Karen Tanski as well. Donaldson has a dubious capacity for entering the mind of his subjects, and his tone ranges from purple to pulp (“Sure, Margaret favored light skin when it came to beauty, but when it came to sexual attraction, a light-skinned man couldn’t do anything but show her where to find a black man”), accented with descriptions of nature and historical tidbits. While putatively a serious sociological study, this book reads more like clunky urban lit. (Aug.)

Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade Justin Spring. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30 (480p) ISBN 978-0-374-28134-2

Life in the closet proves boisterous indeed in this biography of an iconic figure of the pre-Stonewall gay demimonde. Steward (1909—1993) was an English professor, a novelist who wrote both well-received literary fiction and gay porn, a confidant of Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder, a furtive but exuberant erotic adventurer whose taste for sailors, rough trade, and violent sadomasochism endeared him to sex researcher Alfred Kinsey; later in life, he became “Phil Sparrow,” official tattoo artist of the Oakland, Calif., Hell’s Angels. Spring (Paul Cadmus) fleshes out this colorful story by quoting copiously from his subject’s highly literate journals and sex diaries—his “Stud File” contained entries on trysts with everyone from Rudolph Valentino to Rock Hudson—which afford an unabashed account of Steward’s erotic picaresque and the yearnings that drove it. (His swerve from academia into tattooing, with its mix of physical pain and proximity to nubile male flesh, was essentially a fetish turned into a business.) Spring’s sympathetic and entertaining story of a life registers the limitations imposed on homosexuals by a repressive society, but also celebrates the creativity and daring with which Steward tested them. Photos. (Aug.)

American Politics, Then & Now—And Other Essays James Q. Wilson. American Enterprise Institute, $29.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-8447-4319-6

The controversial neoconservative political scientist holds forth on social science and public policy in this scattershot collection of essays culled from three decades’ worth of his writings in Commentary, the Public Interest, and other journals. The collection touches on Wilson’s longstanding interests: the importance of “character” in thinking about crime and education, the centrality of religion in national life, and the role of heredity in shaping behavior (in one recent essay he argues that our genes are a major factor in determining our political attitudes.) Wilson is at his best when he argues from close readings of historical evidence and social science data, which often yield trenchant insights—on the growth and solidification of federal programs, the unimportance of school spending and class size to educational outcomes compared with intangibles like academic expectations and discipline. But sometimes, as in his grousing about Obamacare and his dismissal of “European-style social democracy” on no firmer grounds than its alleged incompatibility with “American exceptionalism,” he simply repeats conservative preconceptions. Always good at provoking intellectual brawls, Wilson doesn’t always succeed at settling them. (July)

The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home Dan Ariely. Harper, $27.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-199503-3

Ariely (Predictably Irrational) expands his research on behavioral economics to offer a more positive and personal take on human irrationality’s implications for life, business, and public policy. After a youthful accident left him badly scarred and facing grueling physical therapy, Ariely’s treatment required him to accept temporary pain for long-term benefit—a trade-off so antithetical to normal human behavior that it sparked the author’s fascination with why we consistently fail to act in our own best interest. The author, professor of behavioral economics at Duke, leads us through experiments that reveals such idiosyncrasies as the “IKEA effect” (if you build something, pride and sentimental attachment are likely to give you an inflated sense of its quality) and the “Baby Jessica effect” (why we respond to one person’s suffering but not to the suffering of many). He concludes with prescriptions for how to make real personal and societal changes, and what behavioral patterns we must identify to improve how we love, live, work, innovate, manage, and govern. Self-deprecating humor, an enthusiasm for human eccentricities, and an affable and snappy style make this read an enriching and eye-opening pleasure. (June)

Rational Optimists: How Prosperity Evolves Matt Ridley. Harper, $26.99 (448p) ISBN 978-0-06-145205-5

Ideas “have sex,” in Ridley’s schema; they follow a process of natural selection of their own, and as long as they continue to do so, there is reason to retire apocalyptic pessimism about the future of our species. Erstwhile zoologist, conservationist, and journalist, Ridley (The Red Queen) posits that as long as civilization engages in “exchange and specialization,” we will be able to reinvent ourselves and responsibly use earthly resources ad infinitum. Humanity’s collective intelligence will save the day, just as it has over the centuries. Ridley puts current perceptions about violence, wealth, and the environment into historical perspective, reaching back thousands of years to advocate global free trade, smaller government, and the use of fossil fuels. He confidently takes on the experts, from modern sociologists who fret over the current level of violence in the world to environmentalists who disdain genetically modified crops. An ambitious and sunny paean to human ingenuity, this is an argument for why “ambitious optimism is morally mandatory.” (June)

Mohamed’s Ghosts: A Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland Stephan Salisbury. Nation, $27 (320p) ISBN 978-1-56858-428-7

In May 2004, the FBI and local Philadelphia police raided the Ansaarullah mosque and arrested its imam, Mohamed Ghorab, on the charges that his first marriage had been fraudulent; he was eventually deported to Egypt. The incident is the focus of Salisbury’s harrowing but shapeless book, which examines the devastation of Philadelphia’s Muslim community after the government investigation and anti-Arab hysteria after 9/11. A Pulitzer Prize—winning staff writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Salisbury builds the text around the personal stories of the many people he interviewed over four years; along the way, he delivers harsh criticism of the government’s investigative techniques and draws explicit parallels to his own family’s experiences with government surveillance in the late 1960s. Though digressive and anecdotal, the text acquires cumulative power, especially in its vivid portrayals of Imam Ghorab, whom it follows from his childhood, and his wife, Meriem Moumen, who discovered religion as a single mother in her 20s. Their heartbreaking story gives this frequently diffuse text a human center. (June)

Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism Peter Marshall. PM Press (IPG, dist.), $28.95 (800p) ISBN 978-1-60486-064-1

The goal of an egalitarian, communal society has always united Marxists and leftist socialists, some of the latter (often if not always described as anarchists) refusing any truck with centralized power At various times, such ideas have found relatively wide appeal, and this era is one—expressed for instance in the antiglobalization movement’s emphases on local control and direct democracy—making Marshall’s comprehensive treatment a timely read. Newly revised and updated, this indispensable history of social libertarian thought now reaches into the 21st century—touching upon themes echoed in other recent titles, including Raj Patel’s The Value of Nothing. Marshall casts a wide net, gathering all traces of antiauthoritarian socialist thought in works from Lao Tzu through Noam Chomsky, social ecology, and the Zapatistas. Readers will be repeatedly rewarded by Marshall’s judiciousness and close readings of both the great names in anarchist history—Proudhon, Kropotkin, and Tolstoy—and less expected contributors—Rousseau, Swift, and Burke. Blowing away cobwebs of misunderstanding and misrepresentation, this is a stimulating portrait of a highly varied but distinctive political ideal, tradition, and practice arising from the enduring human impulse to be free. (June)

Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water Peter H. Gleick. Island, $26.95 (288p) ISBN 978-1-59726-528-7

Tap water is safe almost everywhere in the U.S. So why does someone buy a bottle of water every second of every day? And where do the thousands of plastic bottles discarded daily end up? Gleick, recipient of a MacArthur fellowship and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, argues passionately for a new era in water management. “[P]ublic access to drinking water would be easy, and selling bottled water... difficult,” he writes, and government regulatory agencies should protect water from contamination and the public from “misleading marketing” and “blatant hucksterism.” Bottled water companies should be forced to include the true environmental costs of the production and disposal of plastic bottles in the price of bottled water, leaving it as an expensive option that most people will avoid With the gusto of a born raconteur and the passion of a believer, Gleick makes a sound case for improving the developing world’s access to and the developed world’s attitude toward safe, piped drinking water purified by the natural hydrologic cycle. (June)

Lips Unsealed: A Memoir Belinda Carlisle Crown, $27 (304p) ISBN 978-0-307-46349-4

The Go-Go’s lead singer who went on to a solo career recounts a remarkable early Cinderella story that morphs into a frank, though at times self-indulgent, story of drug abuse and failure. Hailing from a working-class section of Los Angeles, the eldest daughter of divorced parents, Carlisle struggled early on with shame over her mother’s depression and her step-father’s drinking problem; teased for her chubbiness, she sought escape from a difficult home and found it in the mid-’70s’ burgeoning L.A. punk scene. Steeped in the brash music of Iggy Pop and Queen, crazy about the iconoclastic new look, she and her friends haunted Hollywood clubs while she worked as a hairdresser and secretary. In 1978 she, Jane Wiedlin, and Margot Olaverra came up with the idea of starting their own band, eventually adding Charlotte Caffey and Gina Shock, and within a short time the all-girl Go-Go’s had moved from being a novelty to a super-cool pop band with their dance hit, “We Got the Beat.” Alongside dizzying stardom came the requisite drug-and-alcohol frenzy, and much of this memoir is a chronicle of one party after another and a list of celebrity who’s who. Carlisle writes candidly, and her chronic fear of being exposed as a “fake” is heartfelt and winning. (June)

You Don’t Know Me: Reflections of My Father, Ray Charles Ray Charles Robinson Jr. Harmony, $24.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-307-46293-0

From the eldest son, who lived through Charles’s success, adultery, and addictions, comes this candid yet compassionate memoir. At age six, Robinson, now 54, found his father twitching and bloody from shooting heroin. He was nearly 50 before meeting many of his half-siblings from his father’s affairs. In between, his parents successfully created a normal life in Southern California—strict rules, curfew times, a sense of community. Ultimately, Robinson knew his father through his father’s affections, not his fame. He knew a remarkable man with an acute mind who would ride on a Vespa and play chess—a father whose attentions he craved but never thought he had captured. So despite earning a business and economics degree, working with and for his father, and starting a family, Robinson felt rejected. “I had nursed resentment against my father for most of my adult life, “ he writes, “always assuming that someday we would be together and everything would be made right.” Instead, things got worse, and Robinson abused cocaine. Beyond new insider details, this book is a cathartic tale of a son confronting his father’s legacy. (June)

Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World Mark Frauenfelder Portfolio, $24.95 (260p) ISBN 978-1-59184-332-0

In this overwrought ode to doing it yourself, Make magazine editor Frauenfelder attempts to “forge a deeper connection and a more rewarding sense of involvement with the world” by making more of the things his family uses and eats. His DIY projects are varied—organic gardening, building a chicken coop, constructing cigar-box guitars, keeping bees, tutoring his daughter—and not uniformly successful: chickens get devoured by a coyote; the bees subsist on sugar-water handouts; his daughter fails the big math test. (Not to worry, he insists, since accepting mistakes is foundational to the DIY ethos.) Frauenfelder’s hand-making procedurals are engaging, but, for him, practicality takes a back seat to spirituality, to living authentically, to grokking “the Japanese concept of wabi sabi, the beauty found in an object’s imperfections.” He often presents DIY as a form of therapy: spoon-whittling isn’t about spoons, it’s about “the calming and focusing effect of spoon-whittling.” (And like most therapies, these projects often require lots of disposable income—a thousand dollars for a load of mulch!—and spare time.) People have hobbies because they are interesting and fun; by inflating hobbyism into a belief system, Frauenfelder doesn’t add much to their appeal. (June)

Seaworthy: A Swordfish Captain Returns to the Seas Linda Greenlaw Viking, $22.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-670-02192-5

After a 10-year hiatus from blue-water fishing, Greenlaw (Hungry Ocean) went cautiously to sea, seeking a payday and perspective on her life. Thanks to The Perfect Storm phenomenon (both book and film), she was celebrated as America’s only female swordfish boat captain. She was now also a mother and an author who relished a new challenge, traveling 1,000 miles from her Maine home with an eager crew of four guys—three of them experienced sailing buddies—looking for swordfish on the 63-foot, six-and-a-half—knot steel boat Seahawk on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. It was a 52-day trip—and a sensational misadventure. Nearly everything that could go wrong, did, including her arrest for illegally fishing in Canadian waters. Greenlaw chronicles it all—a busted engine, a malfunctioning ice machine, squirrelly technology—with an absorbing mix of nautical expertise and self-deprecation. After inspecting the Seahawk, Greenlaw calls it rough, but stable and capable. Then she writes, “Although I was referring to the boat, I couldn’t help thinking the same could be said of her captain.” From mishaps to fish tales, Greenlaw keeps her narrative suspenseful. Between bad luck and self-doubt, she moves from experience to wisdom, guiding both crew and readers on a voyage of self-affirmation. (June)

The Bucolic Plague: From Drag Queen to Goat Farmer: An Unconventional Memoir Josh Kilmer-Purcell HarperCollins, $24.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-06-133698-0

Raised in rural Wisconsin, Kilmer-Purcell moved to Manhattan to work in advertising in the 1990s. In his memoir I Am Not Myself These Days, he wrote about moonlighting as a nightclub drag queen. Now he recalls how he and his partner, Dr. Brent Ridge, a Martha Stewart Omni Media v-p, became weekend farmers after purchasing the 19th-century Beekman Mansion on 60 acres near the “hauntingly beautiful” town of Sharon Springs, N.Y. Kilmer-Purcell writes with dramatic flair and trenchant wit, uncovering mirthful metaphors as he plows through their daily experiences, meeting neighbors, signing on caretaker Farmer John, herding goats, canning tomatoes, and digging a garden, as they fix up the 205-year-old house. Cleverly contrasting ad agency life with rustic barn mucking, he must choose: “I just can’t face spending the rest of my life behind a desk selling dish soap to Middle America. Hell, I want to be Middle America.” This entertaining book gets an extra big boost from the forthcoming Beekman Farm, a Planet Green documentary TV series about the dynamic duo’s eco-adventures scheduled to air this spring. (June)

Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place On Earth James M. Tabor Random, $27 (304p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6767-1

Tabor, a former contributing editor at Outside magazine and author of Forever on the Mountain, contrasts two sterling teams, one American and the other Russian, in their perilous search to locate the deepest supercave on earth. While the book dwells largely on the obsessive, authoritative American star caver, Bill Stone, the writer gives just enough ink to the bold Soviet team counterpart ,Alexander Klimchouk, and his fair-but-firm leadership in his expeditions into the subterranean world. However, the personalities of the adventurers aside, it’s the fascinating information of the big supercave treks that holds the reader to his seat, containing dangers aplenty with deadly falls, killer microbes, sudden burial, asphyxiation, claustrophobia, anxiety, and hallucinations far underneath the ground in a lightless world. Using a pulse-pounding narrative, this is tense real-life adventure pitting two master cavers mirroring the cold war with very uncommonly high stakes. (June)

Marcus of Umbria: What an Italian Dog Taught an American Girl About Love Justine Van der Leun Rodale, $23.99 (224p) ISBN 978-1-60529-960-0

A sweet, disarming story finds a young New York editor venturing to Italy to pursue romance with a sexy gardener and ending up falling for a neglected dog instead. In her straightforward, unembellished prose, Van der Leun recounts how she shucked her job editing the Letters page for an unidentified “lifestyle” magazine because she wasn’t good at getting along with the other grasping workers, broke up with “a perfect modern man” who was also Mr. Boring, and spent a summer month at an acquaintance’s house in Collelungo, a sheep-farming village of 200 souls in Umbria. There she met one of the town’s sons, the handsome, earnest gardener Emanuele, whose entire hard-working, ample-eating, non-English-speaking family she grew to know and love over the year she returned to live in the town. But she was appalled by the younger brother’s treatment of his animals, specifically the dogs he used for hunting, and nursed to health a sadly starving young English pointer she named Marcus. Over the year, the relationship with Emanuele did not blossom; but Van der Leun became crazy about her sleek, dark-headed fast-running bird dog—a female, it turned out, who needed quickly to be spayed. The author manages to capture the lovely, vanishing Old World ways of these tightly knit people, while also interweaving a heart-melting tale. (June)

Barnum Brown: The Man Who Discovered Tyrannosaurus Rex Lowell Dingus and Mark A. Norell. Univ. of California, $29.95 (400p) ISBN-978-0-520-25264-6

American Museum of Natural History paleontologists Dingus and Norell recount the life of the legendary paleontologist who discovered the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex in Montana. The authors meticulously annotate many of the hundreds of finds Barnum Brown made over his lifetime. These descriptions take on a repetitive quality, but the other aspects of the business of fossil hunting will better hold the nonspecialist’s attention. Brown’s interactions with local cultures as he travels from the U.S. to India, Burma, Greece, Canada, and various countries within Africa on his expeditions, his relationships with other paleontologists, and the well-integrated story of his extracurricular life, which included a stint as a spy for the OSS, all contribute to a well documented whole. Brown’s story is also the story of paleontology in the first half of the 20th century, and the authors capture the excitement of the ever-expanding knowledge as it is communicated among the field’s leaders, as well as the controversies that inevitably followed. Dingus and Norell do justice to the unconventional, many-faceted if somewhat mysterious Brown, aptly named after showman P.T. Barnum and to his private and public personae. 44 b&w photos; 9 maps. (June)

Dark Harbor: The War for the New York Waterfront Nathan Ward. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25 (240p) ISBN 978-0-374-28622-4

This gritty examination of the corrupt New York City waterfront provided by Ward, a former editor with American Heritage and Library Journal, has all of the local color, rich detail, and notorious gangland figures of Elia Kazan’s film masterpiece, On the Waterfront. Ward parallels the 1948 muckraking efforts of Malcolm “Mike” Johnson, a legendary New York Sun reporter, to uncover three decades’ worth of unsolved rubouts on the West Side docks. Instead, he discovered, in Ward’s words, “a city apart, with its own bosses, language and codes, bankers, soldiers, and even martyrs.” Johnson found widespread corruption linking the city fathers, police, and waterfront racketeers. Ward serves up some stirring profiles of characters like “suave” lawyer Jim Longhi, with a radical past; shrewd, politically well-connected union boss Joseph Ryan; Father John Corridan, the anticorruption “waterfront priest”; and stoolie Abe Reles, whose plunge from a Coney Island hotel window ended an early probe into the bloody antics of Murder Inc. Extremely valuable to all interested in 20th-century New York City, the book tells a bitter truth: despite Johnson’s three-week-long scandal-baring newspaper series, which stirred the pot, nothing loosened the iron grip of the mob on the waterfront. (June)

The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age Juliet Nicolson. Grove, $25 (302p) ISBN 978-0-8021-1944-5

Queen Mary’s diary and the recollections of an under-chauffeur to the Portuguese ambassador are two of the disparate sources Nicholson (The Perfect Summer) uses in her anecdotal account of the period between the end of WWI on November 11, 1918, and the burial of an unknown soldier in Westminster Abbey two years later. Vividly portraying the horrors of trench warfare and the misery of the bereaved and wounded, she uses the metaphor of the “great silence”—two minutes of stillness commemorating the armistice—to explore Britons’ attempts to cope with the “growing despair generated by broken promises and false hopes.” Industrial unrest, advances in women’s rights, increasing drug use, and “the new craze of jazz” reveal, says Nicolson, the clamor of the nation’s progress through grief. Her sometimes affecting pastiche of Britain’s post-WWI mood is marred by the absence of source notes, disconnected vignettes, and minor inaccuracies, such as the origins of the word “barmy” (which relates to beer’s froth, not to the Barming Hospital at Maidstone) and the postwar fashion for men’s wristwatches. 37 b&w photos. (June)

Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century Philip Terzian. Encounter (Perseus, dist.), $19.95 (112p) ISBN 978-1-59403-378-0

Terzian, literary editor of the Weekly Standard, describes the impact of Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower on the dramatic transformation of the United States from a relatively quiet secondary position in the world to its current “hyperpower” status. Though vastly different in upbringing and early experiences, Roosevelt and Eisenhower shared, says Terzian, a firm belief in American resources and American capabilities. Each managed to direct his personal ambition toward projecting and protecting the best interests of his country and, through intelligence, ability, and charm, provided leadership to a world in need of fresh ideas and firm responses. Roosevelt understood that American prosperity depended not only on American security but on the security of the world as a whole, and Eisenhower grasped the fact that calm analysis of various crises and a meaningful doctrine of peace through strength would ensure the continuation of that security. This regrettably too brief essay makes its point that the 20th century was indeed “the American century” and that America’s rise to leadership, even with the flaws inherent in that leadership, has produced great benefits for the global community. (June)

John Barry: An American Hero in the Age of Sail Tim McGrath Westholme (Univ. of Chicago, dist.), $35 (640p) ISBN 978-1-59416-104-9

This book establishes McGrath, an executive who has written for Naval History magazine, as an accomplished naval historian. Combining sophisticated use of sources with a pleasing writing style, he masterfully rescues a father of the U.S. Navy from unmerited eclipse. McGrath’s own extensive recreational sailing experience adds an extra dimension by vividly conveying the physical facts of life at sea that structured the navy’s military and economic aspects. An Irish Catholic, John Barry (1745—1803) went to sea as a boy, emigrated to Philadelphia, and became a successful merchant captain. In the fledgling Continental Navy of the American Revolution, he began by commanding a converted merchantman. He finished by fighting the war’s last naval battle as a frigate captain. In between, he established a reputation as a skillful seaman, fighting captain, and successful taker of prizes. Returning to the merchant service, Barry made one of America’s first trading voyages to China. In 1794 he was named the first commissioned officer in the new U.S. Navy and continued to offer valuable service through the quasi-war with France in 1798—1799, confirming his contemporary reputation as “first of patriots, and best of men.” 51 illus. (June)

Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America Jack Rakove. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30 (480p) ISBN 978-0-618-26746-0

This superb book is about a few of the men—“revolutionaries despite themselves”—who helped birth the U.S. and give it political and moral dimension. In keeping with its subtitle, it’s new in being a distinctive, fresh retelling of this epochal tale. Rakove, a Pulitzer Prize winner for Original Meanings, doesn’t linger over the war for independence. That’s because his eye is on the strands of thought, experience, and vision that led through the Declaration of Independence, diplomacy, state constitutions, and the Constitution of 1787 to the remarkable breakthroughs in thought and intention that marked the nation’s youth. The result is a sparkling, authoritative work whose principal defect is lack of attention to those not among the elite. Men like John Dickinson, George Mason, and Henry and John Laurens, rarely leading characters in similar works, put in strong appearances here. But the focus is on the big five: Washington, Franklin, John Adams, Jefferson, and Hamilton. Everyone interested in the founding of the U.S. will want to read this book. (May)

Religion

Connecting Like Jesus: Practices for Healing, Preaching, and Teaching Tony Campolo and Mary Albert Darling. Jossey-Bass, $21.95 (303p) ISBN 978-0-470-43102-3

Numerous opportunities for introspection, study, and practice in developing “holy habits” that foster Christ-like communication are presented in this well-organized and accessible guide. Coauthors Campolo and Darling (The God of Intimacy and Action) offer combined expertise in preaching, public speaking and spiritual direction, resulting in a thought-provoking, valuable resource for Christians seeking to engage in “spiritually charged communication.” They draw insights from the writing of John Wesley as well as from interviews conducted with contemporary Christian figures Brian McLaren, Mindy Caliguire, and Shane Claiborne to illuminate ways that Jesus’ ministry explicitly models how today’s Christians can live in “dynamic communion with God, ourselves, others and the world.” The authors apply a Christian lens to familiar communication techniques such as empathic listening, practicing forgiveness, and knowing one’s audience. For example, in noting the importance of self-awareness for loving communication, they quote Jesus’ admonition, “First take the log out of your own eye,” and then suggest several spiritual practices to help Christians identify personal strengths and weaknesses. This book’s blend of kindly spiritual insights and practical wisdom may well appeal to those beyond the target Christian audience. (June)

Under the Influence: California’s Intoxicating Spiritual and Cultural Impact on America Monica Ganas. Brazos, $18.99 paper (208p) ISBN 978-1-58743-179-1

Since California is often equated with Hollywood, the state’s culture can often seem more fantasy than reality. Author Ganas, a professor at California’s Azusa Pacific University, is a former actor, director, and producer, so she has the unique perspective of an insider who is also spiritually grounded. The author knows the California culture, both popular and societal, and she provides the intellectual means for digging beneath its superficial glamour and finding something of spiritual substance. When appropriate, the author integrates movie, television, and literature references, but she also leans heavily on scripture scholar Walter Brueggeman and author Evelyn Waugh. Ganas utilizes all these sources to raise important queries regarding community, criticizing California culture for promoting disconnection among people. She also turns her sights on the California approach to weddings and funerals and its almost religious worship of the automobile, using those subjects as stepping stones for fascinating inquiries into religious and spiritual truths connected to these practices. Helpful insights, indeed, especially for those who believe that as goes California, so goes the U.S. (June)

The Mindfulness Code: Keys for Overcoming Stress, Anxiety, Fear, and Unhappiness Donald Altman. New World Library, $14.95 paper (284p) ISBN 978-1-57731-893-4

In Art of the Inner Meal and Meal by Meal, Altman, who is also a therapist, explored healthy, conscientious food relationships. Though diet only plays a supporting role in this joyful look at residing in the present moment, reading Altman remains a profoundly nourishing experience. This is one of stacks of books to feature mindfulness exercises (observing breathing and emotions, sensing the body, loving-kindness prayers), but the added discussion of neuroscience studies that support the practice and the author’s conversational, intimate tone make it one of the most worthwhile. Altman’s four “keys” to mindfulness—mind, body, spirit, and relationships—are each given 11 concise, straightforward chapters. Autobiography, lecture, stories form counseling sessions, and exercises for tuning into the now with greater clarity are the teaching tools for each key. Targeting stress and anxiety, Atman’s prose and message is a peace-promoting prescription for anyone frazzled by life’s breakneck speed. Mindfulness veterans and newcomers alike will find a trustworthy guide to a discipline gaining greater popularity and scientific validation. Altman addresses the mind while writing from the heart. (June)

This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity Susan Moon. Shambhala, $14.95 paper (192p) ISBN 978-1-59030-776-2

In her mid-60s, Bay Area Zen practitioner Moon, former editor of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship’s Turning Wheel magazine, writes, “I wanted to look right into the face of oldness. What is it?” Gentle essays are grouped into three sections: mind/body, relationships, and spirit. Moon uses detail vividly in her determination to make peace with the many failures of brain and body (from forgetting her Social Security number to wondering if she’ll ever have sex again), though not all readers may want to follow her into the intricacies of retinal detachment and an elderly mother on a ventilator. Her best writing occurs when memory, emotion, and spirit coalesce as she recovers parts of herself left behind in childhood or comes to terms with solitude. Overall, the book is long on dignity but a bit short on both Zen and humor, focusing on earnest self-disclosure. But Moon’s honesty about the inner and outer realities of aging conveys an urgent reminder of inevitable loss; indeed, as she reminds us, “I am not getting old alone.” (June)

Science vs. Religion: What Do Scientists Really Think? Elaine Howard Ecklund. Oxford Univ., $27.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-19-539298-2

Ecklund, a professor at Rice University, surveyed 1,700 scientists at 21 elite universities to ascertain how many of them were influenced by religion. She sent a 34- question survey and did 275 personal interviews. Her well-footnoted book profiles how natural and social scientists interact with each other in their own departments, the university at large, students they teach, and the general public. Within the survey, she discovered individuals who identified no religious tradition but considered themselves to be spiritual (“spiritual atheists”). Among those who were religious, she found varying beliefs about the ultimate nature of things, including intelligent design, evolution, and creationism. Professors presented their convictions or silenced them, either bringing religious thinking into classrooms or keeping it out. Many saw religion as useful in teaching ethical behavior in society. Ecklund concludes by dispelling myths about today’s science professors, offering an evidence-based peek behind the doors of academia. (May)

Pat Robertson: A Life and Legacy David Edwin Harrell Jr. Eerdmans, $29.99 (430p) ISBN 978-0-8028-6384-3

To many, especially liberals, Pat Robertson is little more than a Christian charlatan whose intemperate remarks on diverting hurricanes and divine healings are a symptom of religiosity gone bad. Harrell, a retired professor at Alabama’s Auburn University, is convinced otherwise. His biography of Robertson portrays the religious broadcaster as a centrist within the charismatic Pentecostal movement and a major player in the spread of American Christianity around the world. His thick tome is thorough, if not always insightful. He paints Robertson, the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, the Christian Coalition, Regent University, and the American Center for Law and Justice, in a sympathetic but not fawning light. No excuses are given for Robertson’s disastrous business deals abroad or his reckless comments about world leaders. Instead, Harrell gives Robertson credit for uniting conservative Roman Catholics, evangelicals, and Pentecostals on many culture war issues, such as abortion, and against what Robertson—and others—see as a growing secular establishment hostile to Christianity. This volume will be appreciated as evenhanded but not especially far-reaching. (May)

Ethics of the Word: Voices in the Catholic Church Today James F. Keenan. Rowman & Littlefield (208p) $49.95 ISBN 978-0-74259-956-7; $19.95 paper ISBN 978-0-74259-957-4

In a religion that calls its central figure “the Word made flesh,” words clearly matter. Keenan (Moral Wisdom) explores their use in hopes of promoting among Catholics a respectful and honest way of speaking. The author, a priest and ethicist who teaches at Boston College, began to record his ideas about how church members talk in a series of essays published in Church magazine. Here, he develops them further, revisiting such topics as lying, promise keeping, civil discourse, challenging words, and apologies. Keenan breathes life into his thoughts by illustrating them with examples from his personal history and relationships. For instance, in a chapter on the value of silence in the face of certain events, he tells of the loss his parents suffered when their home was destroyed by fire and how “respectful silence”—not the spoken word—was what they most needed as they coped with the tragedy. Keenan has given readers much to consider and makes a convincing case that all of us, regardless of faith tradition, could benefit from an “ethics of the word.” (May)

The Blueprint: A Plan for Living Above Life’s Storms Kirk Franklin. Gotham, $25 (279p) ISBN 978-1-592-40547-3

Franklin is a musician and seven-time Grammy Award winner whose early life was anything but a blueprint for success. Yet succeed he did. Born to a teenage mom who didn’t want him and to a father he never knew, he was adopted by his aunt. Franklin was introduced to Christianity early on, but his home environment was harsh and unloving. Given his history, this artist’s future often seemed dismal, and yet Franklin tells his fans that God reached down and changed him, and slowly, but markedly, transformed his thinking and his lifestyle to one that followed a pattern of biblical manhood. Throughout the text, Franklin expounds upon faith, relationships, parenting, sex, and marriage, with a casual, energetic verve that will either win readers over or annoy those who find it disorganized and underedited. No doubt, Franklin’s story is told to ennoble men and women of faith, but much of the content comes across as put together in piecemeal fashion. (May)

The Radical Disciple: Some Neglected Aspects of Our Calling John Stott. InterVarsity, $15 (144p) ISBN 978-0-8308-3847-9

If this book of reflections on what it means to be a faithful Christian nonconformist has a poignant quality, it is not solely because its author, one of the world’s leading evangelical preachers and writers, ends it with the word: “Farewell!” The author of Basic Christianity and Why I Am a Christian focuses what is likely his final written work eight aspects of Christian practice that he feels are not taken seriously enough. These include nonconformity, Christlikeness, maturity, care for the creation, simplicity, balance, dependence, and death. Of particular interest are the author’s ideas on materialism and where Christians are asked to be active in advocating and practicing social and ecological justice. While the writer’s unadorned prose, threaded with biblical references, adheres to the essentials of Christianity orthodoxy, his deep concern for the prophetic and evangelical dimensions of Christianity comes through loud and clear. This slim volume will have special meaning for admirers, but it may also touch those unacquainted with this longtime evangelical lion as his public voice falls silent. (May)

Jesus, Career Counselor: How to Find (and Keep) Your Perfect Work Laurie Beth Jones. S&S/Howard, $19.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-4391-4906-5

She taught readers how to be Christians in business. Now Jones, business consultant and author of the bestselling Jesus CEO, is helping readers find their ideal careers. Jones encourages readers to cultivate a vocation in which they can naturally and joyfully be fruitful. Each of the book’s chapters describes one of 12 dreams the Holy Spirit has for humans: to renew, revive, risk, etc. This framework doesn’t offer a step-by-step process for job hunters; instead, it exposes the big questions anyone should face before making career decisions. No beach reading here: readers will work through auxiliary activities and apply ideas through reflection and action. Employing biblical examples and her own experiences, Jones coaches readers, directing them to decipher what “bubbles up inside” and can be “poured into the world from your soul while you’re working.” Recognizing the complexities of career hunting, she also offers practical advice, résumé-writing techniques, and categorical prayers. For the many who are out of work or for those who just need a change, Jones’s wisdom may stir them to view work in a new light. (May)

Rooted in Good Soil: Cultivating and Sustaining Authentic Discipleship Tri Robinson. Baker, $14.99 paper (176p) ISBN 978-0-8010-7253-6

Don’t scoff at the idea of a pastor who is also a farmer writing about Jesus’ parable of the sower. Robinson is the real deal—a farmer who lived off the land for two decades, raising children with his wife and without electricity. He is also founding pastor of Vineyard Boise Church and author of several books, including Saving God’s Green Earth: Rediscovering the Church’s Responsibility to Environmental Stewardship. The book resonates with the injunction to live simply so others can simply live and has a profound simplicity of message and tone. Sometimes focus is lacking; many specific details of people and places are interesting—young lovers in a cabin—but other details belong in memoir, which the book doesn’t claim to be; they bog down the exposition. In the end, the book redeems itself by its humility and raw edge—“Notice me,” the author confesses as a young man. In a gently admonitory tone the author offers a radical call to all believers to join in the harvest of a healthy crop of followers in the fields of the Lord. (May)

Burdens Do a Body Good: Meeting Life’s Challenges with Strength (and Soul) Michele Howe and Christopher A. Foetisch. Hendrickson, $14.99 paper (144p) ISBN 978-1-59856-433-1

Howe and Foetisch offer a unique blend of inspiration and practicality in their first book collaboration. Howe, a women’s lifestyle writer (Still Going It Alone) and PW reviewer, provides the inspirational flavor as she taps into the many personal and situational life challenges women face. Foetisch, an orthopedic surgeon, adds the “weight-bearing exercises”—health tips and practices—to heighten each chapter’s healing potential. Paired are such subjects as regret and the impact of stress on surgery recovery; parental behavior and handling disrespect; aging and good life habits. Occasionally a disconnect occurs between topic and accompanying exercise (hopelessness and rotator cuff tears, for example), but there are nuggets of truth throughout. Readers will find themselves in at least one of the 30 life challenges and “discover new ways of dealing with old problems.” (May)

Faith and Power: Religion and Politics in the Middle East Bernard Lewis. Oxford Univ., $24.95 (208p) ISBN 978-0-19-514421-5

Well-known Middle East historian and analyst Lewis collects essays and speeches in his latest book, rather incoherently organized around the titular theme of “faith and power.” Since the text lacks footnotes, the reader may wonder if Lewis is presenting historical fact or his own opinions, weighted toward a dark view of Islam, which could explain his appeal to neoconservatives. His assertions, for instance, that early Muslims had no respect for or understanding of Christianity and that Muhammad “conquered” Mecca run contrary to what many other scholars, as well as practicing Muslims, write and believe. His understanding of the Qur’an is shallow; he criticizes the Muslim term khalifa, meaning caliph or leader, as showing Muslim ambition because of the term’s vagueness, but the Qur’an specifically cites the term khalifa in a well-known verse enjoining Muslims to be the vice-regents or “khalifas” of God on Earth. In his chapter analyzing Osama bin Ladin’s fatwa against the United States, he fails to mention that fatwas are not binding on Muslims, misleading the reader into believing that Muslims, on the whole, abide by them. His obstinately Eurocentric view has him criticizing Muslims for all manner of far-flung vices, such as failing to learn European languages and music. Readers looking to learn more about Islam and the Middle East should seek a less rigid text. (May)

Embracing Your Second Calling: Find Passion and Purpose for the Rest of Your Life Dale Hanson Bourke. Thomas Nelson, $16.99 paper (256p) ISBN 978-0-8499-4697-4

Like more than 40 million other middle-aged American women, Bourke is coming to terms with aging. A successful businesswoman and author (The Skeptic’s Guide to the Global AIDS Crisis), Bourke was depressed by her 50th birthday. She uses the biblical story of Naomi from the Book of Ruth as a model for life’s second act. Life inevitably entails loss: of youth, social status, physical robustness. But what comes next can be rich and authentic, Bourke argues. The author draws much on her own life and circumstances in sketching an arc for fulfillment through service to what is truly important. Some may find her too self-absorbed, a common complaint about the sizable baby boom cohort. But many of her age peers will find something of use in the many practical suggestions she offers, or nod in agreement with one of many insights. Bourke is at her best when she writes about the trips to Africa she has taken, which moved her quite literally outside her comfort zone. This is a book that women of a certain age may wish to give to friends. (May)

“The Man Who Never Was”

Two views: a journalist and a historian recount the Allies brilliant WWII bluff.

Deathly Deception: The Real Story of Operation Mincemeat Denis Smyth Oxford Univ. $29.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-19-923398-4

Smyth, a professor of history at the University of Toronto, applies the research and analytic skills of his discipline to a subject primarily addressed by general audience writers. The story of Operation Mincemeat is familiar: it was an elaborate ruse to distract the Germans from a planned invasion of Sicily by leading them to believe Greece was the Allied target. In early 1943, British Intelligence produced a briefcase containing documents alluding to the purported Aegean campaign. They invented an officer’s identity, found a body to fit, and released the corpse and briefcase from a submarine. “The man who never was” washed ashore in Franco’s Spain, and the Nazis eventually swallowed Mincemeat whole. Smyth sacrifices none of the dramatic details of the plan’s construction and implementation, down to reconfirming the identity of the man who became “Major William Martin.” Smyth completes the story in three ways. He presents the complex processes of the false information’s evaluation by German intelligence, the high command, and Hitler himself. Second, he describes the painstaking method by which the British verified Mincemeat’s progress. And third, he relates the vital achievement of Allied intelligence to convince the military commanders to undertake the deception. As a strategic success, Mincemeat has few rivals and no superiors. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Aug.)

Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory Ben Macintyre. Harmony. $25.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0307-45327-3

London Times writer-at-large Macintyre (Agent Zigzag) offers a solid and entertaining updating of WWII’s best-known “human intelligence” operation. In 1943, British intelligence conceived “a spectacular con trick” to draw German attention away from the Allies’ obvious next objective, Sicily. The bait was a briefcase full of carefully forged documents attached to the wrist of “Major William Martin, Royal Marines”—a fictitious identity given to a body floated ashore in neutral Spain. Making the deception plausible was the task given to two highly unconventional officers: Lt. Comdr. Ewen Montagu and Squadron Leader Charles Cholmondeley. Macintyre recounts their adventures and misadventures with panache. The body was that of a derelict. Its costuming included the underwear of a deceased Oxford don. An attractive secretary provided the photo of an imaginary fiancée. The carefully constructed documents setting up the bogus operation against Greece and Sardinia convinced even Hitler himself. The Sicily landings were achieved as almost a complete surprise. And “the man who never was” entered the history and folklore of WWII. Photos. (May)