This capable biography by Chambers (Madison Avenue and the Color Line), an advertising professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, traces the career of ad man Tom Burrell, a “pioneer” whose “work helped shape perceptions of black middle-class life in America.” Born on Chicago’s South Side in 1939, Burrell’s career began in 1960 when Wade Advertising became the first Chicago agency to hire a Black employee. Starting as a mail room attendant, Burrell quickly worked his way up to the copywriting team. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Chambers notes, pushed many agencies to hire their first nonwhite employees and opened opportunities for Burrell, who moved to the more prestigious Leo Burnett agency in 1964. Seven years later, Burrell started his own firm, which specialized in marketing to Black consumers. Chambers credits the naturalistic portrayals of Black people in Burrell’s ads with providing more positive and accurate representation than the stereotypes that had previously dominated. The matter-of-fact accounting of the ins and outs of the advertising industry from the 1960s through Burrell’s retirement in 2004 is somewhat niche, but Chambers’s extensive interviews with his subject illuminate how a corporate trailblazer navigated the changing mores of the post–civil rights era. Business historians and advertising professionals will want to take a look. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

“Financial events that seem unprecedented on the surface are, in fact, driven by the same underlying economic currents and human behaviors,” according to this ambitious debut chronicle. Investment consultant Higgins offers a sweeping overview of the American economy from the Founding Era through the present. Beginning with Alexander Hamilton’s establishment of the First Bank of the U.S. to steady a tumultuous economy wracked by Revolutionary War debt, Higgins discusses such developments as the nationalization of state-chartered banks after the Civil War, the buildup of industrial manufacturing capabilities toward the end of the 19th century, the contribution of credit-based stocks to the Great Depression, the popularity of mutual funds after WWII, and the late-20th-century rise of Silicon Valley. He draws illuminating parallels between eras, as when he contends that bullish economists who believed that real estate prices wouldn’t fall nationally in the early aughts because they’d never fallen before would have known better had they studied crashes in the 1820s and 1840s driven by weak crop yields and “the collapse of cotton prices,” respectively. The involved discussions of “fractional reserve banking principles” and the structure of close-ended and open-ended funds are a bit arcane, but Higgins has a talent for synthesizing macro-economic trends into a cogent narrative. Readers who stick it out will be glad they did. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

Veterinarian Morgan debuts with a riveting and joyous account of his work over the past decade caring for the elite canine athletes who participate in Alaska’s annual 1,049-mile-long Iditarod race. Morgan details how veterinarians ensure that the huskies pulling the sleds are well treated and safe while dealing with frigid winter conditions in remote wilderness. Recounting episodes alternately humorous and harrowing, Morgan tells of catching a mischievous husky raiding another team’s food stores (a not insignificant problem when the only available food must be flown in) and treating dogs seriously injured after a snowmobile driver deliberately rammed a sled for unknown reasons. Morgan backs up his belief “that huskies experience love, fear, happiness, sadness, and maybe even hope” with observations from the trail. For example, he notes that many of the dogs enjoy racing so much mushers have to use an “anchor... set firmly in the ice” to keep the harnessed canines from speeding away before the starting signal, and that injured dogs who have to be left behind at checkpoints for treatment often “howl all night,” distraught at being separated from their team. The novelistic narrative captures the excitement of the race, and Morgan manages to be sensitive to the dogs’ interior lives without anthropomorphizing them. Even those with no prior interest in the Iditarod will be enthralled. Photos. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

Poet and essayist Ervin grapples in her moving debut memoir with the emotional damage caused by a parent’s violent death. In 1986, when Ervin was eight years old, her mother, Kathy, was kidnapped from an Oklahoma shopping mall. Days later, her body was found in an oil field, but it would be years before the details of her rape and murder were revealed, and decades before a suspect was identified. Ervin writes candidly of the ways her mother’s absence and the lack of closure around the case left her ill-equipped to handle hardships including sexual abuse from the men in her life and a sour relationship with her father. Then, in 2008, long after Ervin had given up hope for a conviction, a DNA match turned up the name of one of the men who abducted her mother. He was already incarcerated for an unrelated crime, and agreed to extend his previous sentence to life in prison instead of standing trial or submitting an admission of guilt. (The second suspect was identified two years later, after his death.) In lucid prose, Ervin unflinchingly documents her grief and untangles how her mother’s murder impacted myriad aspects of her life. This will haunt readers long after they’ve turned the last page. Agent: Mary Krienke, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

New York University sociologist Klinenberg (Palaces for the People) revisits in this complex and at times riveting work the tumultuous and traumatic first year of the Covid-19 pandemic in New York City. Presenting powerful personal narratives drawn from in-depth interviews alongside surveys and other studies, Klinenberg captures the year’s political upheaval by showcasing a wide variety of individual perspectives, ranging from those who protested George Floyd’s murder to those radicalized by the loss of individual liberties in the name of public health. Poignant stories of people caught up in the chaos and uncertainty are the book’s greatest strength. Thankachan Mathai, a trained physicist from India who had found work as a janitor with the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, felt duty-bound to continue working in the very early days of the pandemic and succumbed to the disease in March of 2020. Daniel Presti, another profile subject, was launching a new bar when Covid first emerged; feeling increasingly abandoned by city government, he began to operate the bar in defiance of local health measures. In the volume’s latter half, Klinenberg leans more heavily into studies and surveys, somewhat to the detriment of the narrative. Still, readers ready to reflect on 2020 will want to check out this vivid and nuanced account. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

Time magazine correspondent Shuster debuts with an up-close account of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s transformation from comedian and political satirist to steadfast wartime leader and world symbol of “fortitude.” Drawing on unprecedented access to Zelensky as well as interviews with the president’s friends, advisers, ministers, staff members, and wife Olena, Shuster tracks how the celebrity actor went from “naive charmer preparing to enter a world of cynics, oligarchs and thugs who took him for an easy mark” to “stubborn, confident, vengeful, impolitic” leader of a beleaguered nation. In addition to chronicling Zelensky’s successful bid for the presidency in 2019 and his first days in office, when he “showed a painful sensitivity to criticism,” Shuster describes how the former TV star, driven by “professional” instincts from the start of the Russian invasion, made highly publicized appearances—including at South Korea’s parliament, the World Bank, and the Grammy Awards—with the goal of winning over Western leaders and securing weapons. Soon “it turned into a political rite of passage” for European heads of state to travel to Kyiv and pose for a selfie with Zelensky. The president’s critics will note Shuster downplays accusations of his subject’s “high-handedness,” though he does discuss Zelensky’s crackdowns on the Ukrainian press. This is a crisp snapshot of a national leader under fire. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 01/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

Peabody Award–winning journalist Marie adapts her podcast The Dream for a piercing debut investigation into the pyramid schemes underlying such well-known American brands as Amway, Avon, and Mary Kay—companies, Marie alleges, whose tactics enrich the few at the top of the pyramid while impoverishing the many at the base. Chronicling the early origins of these multilevel marketing companies, or MLMs, Marie describes how Tupperware began as a “Tupperware Wonder Bowl” that sold in retail stores until it was discovered by single mother Brownie Wise, who invented the “Tupperware Party.” Marie tracks how MLMs have since come to function like quasi-cults—encouraging sellers to target friends and family for conversion and promising financial independence and imminent riches while discouraging negativity and excommunicating the faithless. These companies now wield great political power, Marie shows, noting that former education secretary Betsy DeVos obtained her government position after $82 million in political donations to Republican campaigns and causes from the DeVos family, owners of Amway, while Donald Trump earned $8.8 million promoting an MLM called the American Communications Network. Most revealingly, Marie reports on how the industry’s lobby group, Direct Selling Association, has thwarted the Federal Trade Commission and defanged legislation intended to regulate MLMs. The result is an urgent and riveting exposé of the fraudulent tactics behind direct sales organizations. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

A teenage girl “want[s] to scream.... A battle cry loud enough to shatter the glass above her and obliterate what tries to contain her,” according to this shortsighted debut guide to learning from and connecting with teen daughters. Academic tutor Goodan contends that teen girls are frequently silenced by society, and parents would do well to ask nonjudgmental questions (“How can I support you in this?”) that make space for emotions without trying to “solve” the issue at hand, thus allowing their daughters’ natural problem-solving skills to emerge. Unfortunately, Goodan undermines that helpful advice with some selective interpretations (selfies almost exclusively help girls empower themselves, she suggests, without adequately unpacking how posting such images in search of “likes” can create a harmful validation loop). In addition, parents will struggle to apply such vague lessons as “rather than working to prevent and judge teenage girls’ sexual choices, let’s work to create a world that thoroughly educates everyone on sexual responsibility and pleasure.” Despite the author’s good intentions, this stumbles. Agent: Karen Murgolo, Aevitas Creative Management. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

In this loving ode, Reed (Why Did I Get a B?), a creative writing lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh, serves up witty reflections on the joys of books. When “reading, I was never lonely, the way I sometimes felt in real life,” Reed writes, describing how as a child she found books to be a welcome respite from talking with others, whom she often struggled to understand because of a hearing impairment. Recounting notable episodes from her reading life, she recalls becoming an “excellent skimmer” as a kid by participating in a Pizza Hut program that rewarded students with slices for each book read and discusses drawing motivation from subpar books she reviewed in her 20s (“If they can publish a book, who’s to say I can’t?”). Reed blames elitist disdain toward genre fiction for turning off many would-be readers and encourages people to pick out whatever books they’re personally drawn to. The meditations on reading are at once wry and heartening (she calls the habit “a dear friend who’s always there for me but never, ever asks for a slice”), and the humor amuses (a list of “signs you may be a character in a Shakespearean play” includes “you are dead, but still speaking”). Bibliophiles will find much to love. Agent: Bonnie Nadell, Hill Nadell Literary. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

In this energetic program, Serhant (Big Money Energy), a real estate broker and star of the Bravo reality television show Million Dollar Listing New York, tells readers how to develop a personal brand. His three-step process involves identifying “the special thing that makes you you,” promoting that message with a steady stream of content on social media, and then expanding to other venues, including speaking engagements and articles for newspapers and magazines. Interviews with company founders illustrate the advice. For instance, Serhant emphasizes the importance of determining a brand’s “purpose, intentions, and goals for the future” by telling how Tom Bilyeu cofounded Quest Nutrition to make health food that his family, who struggles with obesity, “could choose based on taste that happened to be good for them.” Helpful tips for boosting social media engagement recommend prioritizing quantity over quality and hooking viewers by announcing at the start of a video what they’re going to learn. Serhant’s enthusiasm enlivens the proceedings (“I’m practically jumping out of my chair while I write this!”), though the persistent use of all caps grates (“The vision you create should inspire and excite you EVERY SINGLE DAY”). Still, it’s a useful guide to making a name for oneself. Agent: Brandi Bowles, UTA. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/05/2024 | Details & Permalink