Promotion & Discouragement
Loosely grouped under three intriguing categories ("Parents," "Autonomy" and "Collaborations"), Ambition & Love in Modern American Art tracks definitions of significant art as they changed over the 20th century. In looking for what shapes significance, artist Jonathan Weinberg (Speaking for Vice) focuses on the role of ambition, celebrity and desire, the forces of public life outside the artist's studio, and their inevitable encroachment on what happens within it. His nine loosely connected essays examine the works and lives of Whistler, Jackson Pollock, Sally Mann, Jean-Michel Basquiat and others. But rather than capturing and isolating some element of timeless significant form, Weinberg suggests that an artist's real talent "is a matter of convincing others that you are talented." (Yale, $35 336p ISBN 0-300-08187-1; June 19)
In Why Art Cannot Be Taught: A Handbook for Art Students, James Elkins (The Object Stares Back), professor of art history, theory and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, paints a nasty picture of what goes on in art schools. Critiques of students' art are comparable to "psychodramas," with the usual result of the criticized artist breaking down into tears. The chapter "Teaching and Learning Mediocre Art" begins from a sour premise, that "most artists do not make interesting art." Art students and teachers might find a grim sort of gallows accuracy in this deadly portrait of their activities. (Univ. of Illinois, $39.95 248p ISBN 0-252-02638-1; paper $16.95 -06950-4; June)
Roads and Rivers
"In any sparring match... a person must be utterly in the moment.... The second you jump ahead or fall back in time, you are reminded of the present in a very solid, physical manner." Thus BK Loren, a black belt in shao-lin kung fu, describes the influence of martial arts on her everyday experience in The Way of the River: Adventures and Meditations of a Woman Martial Artist, her first book. In essays about "the magnetism of false leadership" in the person of a violent, controlling martial arts teacher she had as a teenager; fending off her friend's abusive father; seeing beyond the myth of the safety of the suburbs via the stories of her affluent female self-defense students, Loren's careful, direct prose reflects the still gaze of the martial arts expert. (Lyons, $22.95 224p ISBN 1-58574-301-1; June)
To Boldly Go
Increased shareholder activism and the celebrity status of individuals like Jack Welch and Bill Gates are placing corporate boards under the microscope. Corporate Boards: New Strategies for Adding Value at the Top is an outgrowth of a provocative article published in the Harvard Business Review in 1999 by Jay A. Conger, Edward E. Lawler III and David L. Finegold, all colleagues at the University of Southern California's Center for Effective Organizations. They argue that, with technology at the heart of 21st-century business, corporate directors need to recognize the value of knowledge as a strategic asset, putting their focus on meeting not only the demands of shareholders but also those of stakeholders, including employees and the no-longer-neatly-defined global communities in which they operate. (Jossey-Bass, $31.95 224p ISBN 0-7879-5620-1; June)
Like their colleagues above, Warren Bennis, Gretchen M. Spreitzer and Thomas G. Cummings, all professors at USC's Marshall School of Business, have puzzled over the challenges and demands facing 21st-century corporate leaders. In The Future of Leadership: Today's Top Leadership Thinkers Speak to Tomorrow's Leaders, they bring together their insights with those of other recognized leadership experts from academia and the private sector, including Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow) on the importance of creativity, Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence) on establishing leadership staying-power in a start-up-crazed marketplace, and Barry Z. Posner and James M. Kouzes (coauthors of The Leadership Challenge) on the lessons of yesterday that will continue to have value tomorrow. (Jossey-Bass, $26.95 320p ISBN 0-7879-5567-1; June)
"If the owners of small companies do not think globally, they may not be prepared when one of their local or international competitors begins to encroach on their local markets." Moreover, continues Eduardo da Costa in Global E-Commerce Strategies for Small Businesses, even those small businesses that are not necessarily geared to exporting can benefit from e-commerce. Presenting seven success stories of small businesses that have become international operators, da Costa, a visiting scholar at Harvard and president of two small businesses, offers business leaders a range of practical, valuable information on maximizing the wave of the future that's easy to absorb and to use. (MIT, $24.95 224p ISBN 0-262-04190-1; June)
Skill Sets
Business professionals who want to brush up their speaking skills should not be deterred if they feel they have no acting talent. Even professional actors do not rely on talent alone, acknowledge Deb Gottesman and Buzz Mauro (coauthors of The Interview Rehearsal Book) in Taking Center Stage: Masterful Public Speaking Using Acting Skills You Never Knew You Had. As directors of Center Stage Communications, a consulting firm specializing in applying acting techniques to the business world, Gottesman and Mauro present serious advice on such issues as defining and clarifying objectives and overcoming stage fright. (Berkley, $13 paper 208p ISBN 0-425-17832-3; June)
Professionals in the business of collective bargaining and arbitration who aspire to improve their negotiating skills will appreciate Henry S. Kramer's well-conceived, clearly presented and in-depth book, Game, Set, Match: Winning the Negotiations Game. Kramer, professor at Cornell's New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, lays bare the delicate intricacies of negotiating, illustrating each point with an anecdote and highlighting important tips throughout the book. While Kramer's book could help readers buy a house or secure a raise, its real value is for people whose business it is to schmooze, finagle and, ultimately, come out winners. (ALM [105 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016; 800-537-2128; www.americanlawyermedia.com], $19.95 paper 384p ISBN 0-9705970-2-9; June) In the style of Og Mandino's inspirational business classic The Greatest Salesman in the World (Frederick Fell, 1968), Robert Nelson, former National Trade Association training director and motivational speaker, presents The Greatest Sales Training in the World, fixed on the same "10 ancient scrolls" Mandino used, which he reconfigures for his purposes. Nelson's 10 lessons, including persistence, people skills and self-improvement, are each accompanied by the insights of a high-profile achievers, like Anthony Robbins, Ken Blanchard and Brian Tracy, who credit Mandino's principles with helping to inspire their own success. Clear and concise, this book is a merger of motivational and concrete advice. (Frederick Fell, $20 paper 208p ISBN 0-88391-002-0; June) Contrary to what most of us have been taught since we first started school, knowledge is not the key to success, according to entrepreneur, motivational speaker and professional trainer Christine Harvey (Secrets of the World's Top Sales Performers). Writing with organizational development consultant Bill Sykes, Harvey argues that the highest achievers—those people most of us would consider successful businessmen and women—are those who can motivate others and get their ideas across most effectively. Harvey and Sykes's high-energy In Pursuit of Profit... The Ultimate Sales and Marketing Success Guide walks readers through the fundamental steps of winning—and keeping—customers. 15-city author tour. (Intrinsic [Seven Hills, dist.], $14.95 paper 240p ISBN 1-931031-08-8; June 15)
June Publications
From the first British involvement in the French Revolution in 1793 to the end of the War of 1812, England's wooden walls fought off French, Danish, Dutch, Spanish, Turkish and American ships to maintain control of the seas—and Britain's essential maritime trade. Rather than concentrate on all the big battles of the period, veteran British writer Richard Woodman, with both history and fictional sea tales to his credit, resuscitates now-forgotten ship captains and their quotidian gun duels with enemy ships in The Sea Warriors: The Fighting Captains and Their Ships in the Age of Nelson. Men like Edward Pellew, Thomas Cochrane and Josiah Willoughby contended with defective ships, bad crews, lack of good hygiene and food, and lack of support from their Royal Navy superiors. Press gangs and oftentimes harsh corporal punishment upped the stakes, and mutinies were fairly common. From Woodman's vivid account, it's not hard to see why. (Carroll & Graf, $26 384p ISBN 0-7867-0855-7) With 365 Travel: A Daily Book of Journeys, Meditations, and Adventures, Lisa Bach offers "a talisman to turn to day or night to find comfort, wisdom, and inspiration, whether at home or on the road." Enamored of "crossing and expanding both geographical and personal boundaries," Bach culls quotations from Camus (on the benefit of fear), D.H. Lawrence, Linda Hogan, Pico Iyer (on the familiar becoming exotic during travel) and hundreds of others on the wonder, exhilaration, discomfort and uncertainty that one encounters on a journey. And also on the pleasure of return, as articulated by Mrs. William Beckman: "How can I describe the joy that filled my heart when the shores of my own country first greeted my eyes through the gray atmosphere of the sea." (Travelers' Tales, $14.95 paper 400p ISBN 1-885211-67-8)
A countercultural media activist and founder of RE/Search Publications, V. Vale presents Real Conversations 1, a collection of lengthy interviews with indie-media luminaries Henry Rollins, Billy Childish, Jello Biafra and Lawrence Ferlinghetti that will be the first in a series of interview books. These punks and poets extemporize passionately, angrily, hopefully, fearfully and humorously on how to stay independent in a corporatized world, covering everything from SUVs, the WTO and the prison industry to visual art, punk music, independent presses, and artistic and political protest. Filled with controversial, sometimes conflicting and occasionally unexpected commentary born of years of artistic, industry and political experience, this book will appeal to a broad cross-section of progressive artists, writers, independent publishers and producers, skateboarders, intellectuals and activists. 30 photos and illus. (RE/Search [SCB, dist.], $12.95 paper 240p ISBN 1-889307-09-2) In 1989, 30% of youth suicides were committed by homosexual teens, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Among the activists and service providers who were prompted to create outreach programs to gay youth are Jeff Perrotti and Kim Westheimer, coauthors of When the Drama Club Is Not Enough: Lessons from the Safe Schools Program for Gay and Lesbian Students and the founding and current director (respectively) of the Massachusetts Department of Education initiative. They tell of their experiences with supporters, opponents, legislators, faculty, administrators and students, including one high school football team captain who sought the authors' advice on coming out to his team. (They strategized with coaches and administrators, and the captain won his teammates' support.) Numerous accounts and testimonies, not all of them happy, enliven this guide for introducing gay rights protection into schools. (Beacon, $22 220p ISBN 0-8070-3130-5; June 22)
