Sacramento
July 2010
Book Review VOLUME 2, ISSUE 11
F R E E
NEW AND OF INTEREST
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Twelve Rooms With a View A New Life Page 2
American Taliban
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Falling into fundamentalism Page 5
Beautifully done collection and presentation of contemporary world literature and translation Edited by Margaret Jull Costa and Marilyn Hacker Center for the Art of Translation, $14.95, 280 pages
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Translators, literature students, and ranslating literary works from teachers will love the collection of stories one language to another is an art. and poems featured in Wherever I Lie Is It does not suffice to translate a Your Bed. It includes a diverse sampling of work, word for word, into another language. contemporary writing If this were the case with translation, then “I will be forced to steal again, translated from Russian, robots could do the job and this time I will not regret Greek, French, German, and call it good. But it: Theft is no crime for those Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Lithuanian, Kurdish, great stories and powho truly know hunger.” Yiddish, and Arabic. The ems aren’t written by -Tarek Eltayeb’s “Cities translators provide brief robots; they are written by gifted people. Without Palms” as translated profiles of the authors by Kareem James Abu-Zeid. they worked with and Translators seek to explain the challenges of pass an author’s gift on preserving the essence of each piece from its to a new audience. Two Lines, a program of original language. Translations of poems are the Center for the Art of Translation, offers us this edition of its publication to continue given in full, but novels are restricted to one its celebration of international literature chapter; readers will have to seek out copies and translation. of any of the novels they wish to read. Two words: Beautifully done! Reviewed by Viola Allo
The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson The ability of resistance Page 6
The Oxford History of Britain Two thousand years of Britain’s history so deftly, intimately written that it reads like a 700page gossip Page 8
The Vegetable Gardener’s Book Of Building Projects Practical, structurally sound, and aesthetically-pleasing designs for your garden Page 17
91 Reviews INSIDE!
Popular Fiction What Becomes By A. L. Kennedy Knopf, $24.95, 224 pages What Becomes is best read in spurts lest the stories began to run together like a letter left out in the rain. Each story, in this collection of twelve tales of the broken-hearted, will leave the reader more unsettled than the last. Each character in Kennedy’s short tales is damaged, some beyond repair. Whether conveyed through the feelings of supporting characters or by the unease of the main protagonist, the reader may not know exactly what is wrong, only that something is dreadfully horrific. She describes so eloquently, so realistically the inner life of human condition where pain is brutal and intimacy fleeting, one feels they must look away if just for a second. Most painful of the bunch, is most likely “Story of my Life” in which a routine visit to the dentist goes painfully wrong. She concludes the four pages of torture with the advice “it’s best, if you can, to close up every story with a kiss.” Even if that kiss comes from a homeless man. “Love-sick. Love-sickened. Love-sickness. There’s bound to be a workshop you can take for that.” Despite its dark undertones, What Becomes is an incredible work of art and shouldn’t be missed. Just make sure you’ve filled your anti-depressant prescription first and go hug a puppy immediately after you turn that last page. Reviewed by Lanine Bradley How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly By Connie May Fowler Grand Central Publishing, $23.99, 288 pages If you only read one book this year make sure this is the one. How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly is an incredible tale of rebirth and yearning, with layers upon layers of goodness. Although the first forty or so pages may have the reader questioning why they pulled this book off the shelf, the story picks up with such velocity, hours will go by unnoticed. Soon they will arrive at the end with a gasp and a hankering to start all over again. Clarisa Burden, a thirty-something writer, is trapped in an unhealthy marriage that is stifling her ability to write. Her husband
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Iggy, a verbally abusive and unsuccessful artist, paints and sculpts mostly naked young women while complaining how her success “strangles” him. When a friend comes to visit on the warmest summer solstice recorded in Hope, Florida history, Clarissa embarks on a twenty-four hour period of time that will change her entire life. Connie May Fowler has crafted a well-written, clever novel filled with twists, turns and a eclectic, eccentric cast of characters. Perfect choice for your book club. Reviewed by Lanine Bradley The Friday Night Club: A Novel By Jacob Nelson Lurie BookSurge Publishing, $11.99, 350 pages It has finally hit him: Davis Robertson is about to get married, and he’s no longer sure he’s making the right choice. He thought he loved Pam, but the past few days have raised some doubts. A crazy bachelor party in Vegas has brought back memories of his college days with the Friday Night Club, various ex-girlfriends and lovers, and the woman he believed for many years to be the love of his life. These reflections will lead him to make a decision for his future, but what will that decision be? Lurie’s The Friday Night Club is a comingof-age story written for men, with a storyline that many will be able to identify with on some level. The days of college parties, the typical bachelor party at a strip club (gone horribly wrong), and the drugs and drinking are all crucial elements of life for many, and Davis’s struggle to come to terms with his past will resonate deeply with some readers. Davis is a surprisingly realistic protagonist, despite his potentially unrealistic past, and his battle with his inner demons will keep the pages turning. Reviewed by Holly Scudero Molly Fox’s Birthday By Deirdre Madden Picador, $14.00, 240 pages Can one have an entire novel about a character who never once steps foot in the story? Apparently one can. On Molly Fox’s birthday--could be forty, no one quite knows--she’s jetted off to New York leaving her Irish flat in the hands of the narrator. The narrator (whose name we never learn)
Twelve Rooms With a View By Rebeck, Theresa Shaye Areheart Books, $24.99, 352 pages
The Finn sisters are shocked when their mother dies suddenly. Even more shocking was the unexpected inheritance she may or may not have left them: a $12 million piece of Upper East Side real estate left to her by her second husband, Bill. At her sister’s insistence, Tina Finn, a “chronically broke” maid more used to living in a trailer park than an over-sized luxury apartment, allows herself to be manipulated into staying at the odd residence. When Bill’s sons vow to regain the apartment, Tina finds herself smack dab in the middle of the biggest real estate battle of her life. But the stepbrothers are the least of her worries, an apartment building full of eccentric and elitist snobby residents and a corrupt co-op board want the apartment for themselves. “When a rich man you never knew dies and his opulent apartment is left to you, you’d think it was the answer to your dreams. But perhaps it is the start of a living nightmare.” Tina is the type of heroine readers wish for; a little unsure of her place in the world yet well-intentioned. At various turns compelling, yet just a little bit devious. Only by interacting with each of the players in this farce does Tina define who she is and her place in the world. Make sure to add this book to your reading list this year. Reviewed by Lanine Bradley
is a successful playwright. One who enjoys a long friendship with the actress, but doesn’t seem to know her all that well. The playwright takes possession of the flat with the intention of churning out her latest masterpiece but instead spends the day puttering around the pad indulging in various remembrances of mutual friends and past events. Molly Fox’s Birthday is an interesting novel, not quite crossing the line into enjoyable, yet still a worthwhile read. This is a novel which inspires the reader to ponder on what makes us who we are and how well do we ever know those around us. Are we, as people, merely a collection of interrelated experiences that bind us to one another? Deidre Madden will have readers examining their own lives and relationships. Reviewed by Lanine Bradley Nothing But a Smile By Steve Amick Anchor, $15.00, 336 pages This is a story about a guy and two gals, to use the vernacular of the novel. Wink returns from World War II with one functioning hand (not the one he draws with) and a concern about what to do with the rest of his life. His stopover in Chicago to deliver a message to a buddy’s wife turns into a new career producing pin-up girl photos for GI magazines. Set in more innocent times, the romance that filters through the plot sounds down-to-earth and sometimes corny. So does the language. But the author offers a composite glimpse of life when posing sug-
gestively as a pin-up girl was beyond the pale of the GIs and their brides who were settling down in the suburbs and the House Unamerican Activities Committee was hunting down “deviant” acts. Author Steve Amick knows a lot about black-and-white photography and what was needed to make photography an art in those pre-digital times. Sometimes he wants to tell the reader too much, to the detriment of the plot. But he still managed to keep me turning the pages and looking for his next book. Reviewed by Marj Stuart
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Book Review 1776 Productions 1215 K Street, 17th Floor Sacramento, CA 95814 Ph. (916) 503-1776 info@1776productions.com EDITOR IN CHIEF Ross Rojek ross@1776productions.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Kaye Cloutman kaye.cloutman@1776productions.com GRAPHIC DESIGN/LAYOUT Heidi Komlofske heidi.komlofske@1776productions.com Rowena Manisay COPY EDITORS Joe Atkins Megan Just Lori Miller Viola Allo Glenn Rucker EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Jen LeBrun Mary Komlofske Aiya Madarang WEBSITE/SOCIAL NETWORKING/ APP DEVELOPMENT Ariel Berg Gwen Stackler Robyn Oxborrow Deborah Lewis
IN THIS ISSUE Popular Fiction...............................................2 Biographies & Memoirs..................................4 Current Events...............................................4 Modern Literature..........................................5 Music & Movies...............................................6 Mystery, Crime & Thrillers.............................6 Poetry & Short Stories....................................7 Reference........................................................7 History...........................................................8 Historical Fiction............................................9 Business & Investing......................................9 Cooking, Food & Wine..................................10 Children’s.....................................................11 Humor-NonFiction.......................................13
DISTRIBUTION Sacramento Distribution Service
Horror..........................................................13
ADVERTISING SALES larry.lefrancis@1776productions.com
Science Fiction & Fantasy............................. 14 Young Adult..................................................15
The Sacramento Book Review is published monthly by 1776 Productions. The opinions expressed in these pages are those of the individual writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sacramento Book Review or Sacramento Book Review advertisers. All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright holders. All words © 2010, 1776 Productions.
Subscriptions Send $18.00 for 12 monthly issues to 1776 Productions, 1215 K Street, 17th Floor, Sacramento, CA 95814.
Tweens.........................................................16
FROM THE EDITOR Well as the summer in the Central Valley heats up, so does our publication. There are some great summer books in this issue— something for every taste. And speaking of taste, the summer Cooking, Food & Wine books should provide some new ideas and recipes for everyone; from vegan and vegetarian to meat-lovers grilling. And as far as wine goes, we’re working with several local AVA’s for some special advertising supplements in upcoming issues like last month’s Dry Creek insert. Look for a focus on Livermore in August. This month also marks the launch of our first iPhone app. We decided to start with Children’s Books, being that we have reviewed almost 800 of them so far, and because there wasn’t already a Children’s Book review app on the market. We’re every excited about it, and by the time you read, this it should be approved by Apple and available for download. Not only does it have all of our reviews in one handy place, but you can also mark them as Favorites for easier recall when at the store or library, post them to your Facebook page, or Twitter them. We’ll have some new elements to it in weeks to come, and also another book review app for another genre coming soon. For all that the media says that books are dead or dying and that people are losing the attention span to read an entire book, authors keep writing good ones and publishers keep printing them. Sure, we have a vested interest in the whole book market, but as long as people write good books, they’ll find an audience. And we’ll be reviewing them. Thanks again for picking us up this month. We hope you find something good to read. Happy reading, Ross Rojek —Editor-in-Chief ross@1776productions.com 1776 Productions
Technology...................................................16 Sequential Art.............................................. 17
Coming Up...
Romance.......................................................18
August will have a Back To School theme, September will be our bi-annual Science Fiction & Fantasy insert, and October will be another Cooking, Food & Wine insert. We’re just starting to look at the upcoming Fall books, and it looks like there will be some great reading coming up.
Home & Garden............................................18 Art, Architecture & Photography.................21 Science & Nature..........................................21
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Biographies & Memoirs Winston’s War: Churchill, 1940-1945 Back to Cuba: The Return of the Butterflies By Elio Beltran Xlibris, $22.99, 374 pages In Back to Cuba, the author employs the pseudonym Michael E. Beltran in a thirdperson memoir. Over the narrative, Beltran’s life actually seems quite interesting, he leads a happy childhood in a peaceful Cuba, he’s a momentary student activist interacting with Fidel Castro at the height of the student political strength, he works for Shell Oil before the ousting of Batista, he flees to the U.S. with his wife and two daughters (he vaguely gets divorced and his children stop talking to him), he becomes an artist, he has a spiritual awakening in a dream, he returns to a significantly changed Cuba late in life, and he finishes with a chapter discussing the impotent facade of our global leaders sympathizing with the Cuban diaspora while reinforcing the structural issues that make it continue. There’s no doubt that Beltran, as a person, has lived through some intense situations that the world might find insightful, but the overall structure of the narrative obscures the story in a distracting way. Though the narrative is primarily chronological, there are many places where chapters, or even
paragraphs, leap the span of a lifetime to comment on details that lack significance. The text—with frequent emboldened words, paragraphs, or entire chapters—obscures the reading experience, and this technique doesn’t seem to have any underlying logic, to the point that it disrupts what John Gardner called “the vivid and continuous dream.” With some diligent editing and revision, this story might appeal to a wide audience of people concerned about Cuban-American relations. Ultimately, it’s an interesting story, painfully written. Sponsored Review Winston’s War: Churchill 1940-1945 By Max Hastings Knopf, $35.00, 576 pages Whether the world needs another Churchill biography seems a reasonable question, given the recent spate of revisionist nonsense to come down the pike. Yet Max Hasting’s Winston’s War: Churchill 1940-45 offers a subtle often provocative reexamination of one of modern history’s most over- examined lives. He deflates the myth of British harmony in the war years, when in reality Churchill dealt with substantial disunity and labor stoppages. The critical look at Churchill’s weaknesses as warlord, in particular his limited under-
standing of logistics, his passion for wasteful heroic missions, and an inability to fully comprehend the paradigm shift brought on by mass mechanized warfare, are all fascinating. While the author offers compelling evidence of the material, personnel, and leadership weaknesses of the British military, he shies away from fully indicting the Prime Minster for these shortcomings, but who can blame an author for a bit of hero worship for the man who saved civilization? Readers can find other works that cover the complexity of the often obscure Churchill-Roosevelt relationship, but Hasting’s does a fine job here. The chapter dealing with Churchill’s activities in Greece, both when the Nazi’s invaded and in structuring the post war Greek government proves particularly enlightening, covering considerable new material. Hastings never pretends to be writing a definitive biography, but he brings the eye of an excellent military historian to his examination of the war years in a readable account that you won’t want to miss. Reviewed by Jordan Magill Unfinished Business: One Man’s Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things By Lee Kravitz Walker & Company, $25.00, 209 pages When Lee Kravitz lost his job, he realized he had an opportunity to rededicate himself to things he’d left unsaid, undone, and unfinished. And so he spent the next
year making phone calls and trips (many, many trips) to different parts of the globe in order to tie up all the loose ends that had been left hanging when he became a busy adult with a demanding job. He found this experience so rewarding he decided to write a book about it. In theory, this is great. People should pay more attention to each other; a little kindness can go a long way. The problem here is the execution, which seems to have been done less for the sake of others and more for the sake of Kravitz. In itself, this isn’t a terrible thing, but the tone of the book comes across as more than a little self-important, and I found myself wondering how correct the author was in his reports of how very, very important he had been to all of the people he’d lost contact with over the years. It seemed like everybody he’d reconnected with had been in a state of suspended animation until he came back. I know this can’t have been the case and that the book can only tell us what Kravitz himself believes to be true. But that’s the problem. As much as I wanted to appreciate the author’s efforts to make his life better, I couldn’t get over the feeling that he believed he was making everybody else’s life better simply by being generous enough to take the time to reconnect with them. See UNFINISHED, page 12
Current Events The Big Lie: Spying, Scandal, and Ethical Collapse at Hewlett Packard By Anthony Bianco Public Affairs, $26.95, 355 pages The Big Lie: Spying, Scandal, and Ethical Collapse at Hewlett-Packard uses testimony and records of written communications to paint an unflattering picture of petty interpersonal conflict among top leaders at Hewlett-Packard. It starts with a history of people and events leading to the Spygate scandal that revealed the worst in HP’s leadership. The scandal began with unauthorized leaks of confidential information to the press. The information leaked was known only to HP’s board, and it prompted an internal investigation that used unauthorized access to the personal phone records of board members and journalists in an effort to
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identify the leaker. The investigation caused a maelstrom of infighting, petty grudges, and back stabbing. The principle players are Board Chairman Patricia Dunn, CEO Mark Hurd and board member Tom Perkins. Ethical boundaries were crossed under Dunn’s watch, and the problem was exacerbated by the cronyism mentality of Tom Perkins. In this exposé, good becomes evil and evil becomes good. This reviewer suspects that some parts might not be accurate representations. The book concludes by focusing on how some people will pay a high price to usher in a culture of openness in corporate governance. A captivating book; like reading a drama. Reviewed by Grady Jones The Political Theory Reader By Paul Schumaker, Editor Wiley-Blackwell, $44.95, 352 pages For those seeking an introduction to political theory and wishing to read excerpts of the relevant primary texts, The Political
Theory Reader offers a fine choice. The editor, Paul Schumaker, has compiled a selection ranging over much of the history of the topic, complete with excellent introductory essays. Unfortunately, he tends to favor the period from the Enlightenment to the present day, which seems a slight on foundational thinkers such as Aristotle and Plato, whose basic argument we continue to play out every day on 24hour news channels. He also gives short shrift to the relevant medievalists, but I suppose choices must be made. As with all such collections, this one offers at best a taste of political theory’s intellectual richness, and I would say the editor did the reader no favor by organizing the volume by topic rather than chronology, but this is perhaps an individual bias. Hopeful-
ly, interested readers who pick up the book will feel compelled to read on and grapple with history’s greatest thinkers, rather than think they can gain a serious understanding by perusing snippets. One word of warning, readers may note the relative brevity of this book given its topic; between a small font and two columns of text per page, some young readers will find themselves reaching for a magnifying glass. Reviewed by Jordan Magill
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Modern Literature The Threadbare Heart By Jennie Nash Center Point, $15.00, 325 pages After a long, seemingly successful marriage, Lily moved to Santa Barbara with her husband in an effort to invigorate their relationship. After a wildfire destroys their home and takes his life, she begins to doubt everything that once made up her life. She doubts her marriage, the depths of her love, and wonders if perhaps her mother Eleanor, who never truly loved any of her husbands, had the right of things. She doesn’t know that Eleanor secretly envies the strong, secure marriage Lily had, or that her son Ryan constantly compares his own marriage to that of his parents, coming up short every time. Is it all worthwhile? Jennie Nash’s novel The Threadbare Heart touches on the subjects of love and marriage and how they do – and don’t – intersect. The lost potential of Lily’s marriage is symbolized by her grandmother’s heirloom lace, a beautiful piece of fabric that Lily has never had the nerve to actually sew with. Sewing is used as a lovely metaphor throughout the story, and the idea of how one’s life is stitched together over time speaks to the soul. The characters are well-developed, their motives never fully explained but still understandable, their actions and emotions true to life. Reviewed by Holly Scudero Every Last One By Quindlen, Anna Random House, $26.00, 299 pages Mary Beth Lethem, wife, mother, and businesswoman narrates the challenges of her life that, at least as our story begins, are ordinary and yet exquisitely rendered in Anna Quindlen’s Every Last One. Mary Beth’s daughter Ruby, too bright, too beautiful, and too independent is entering her last year of high school and trying out new personas. Her twin sons, Alex the athletic superstar and Max the introverted drummer, have other issues, particularly Max, who suffers from severe depression. In crafting these relationships, Quindlen displays all of the gifts for which she is deservedly praised: emotionally vibrant characters, intricate relationships, and beautiful, philosophically rich prose. “I hate the early mornings...but it is the only time I can rest without sleeping, think without deciding, speak and hear my own voice.”
Quindlen’s work has long plumbed the depths of emotional turmoil and family trauma, and while walking that well trod path, it is a testament to her skills that she doesn’t stumble into saccharine sentimentality. Her characters’ well textured interactions draw us in, making us care, and raising ordinary crises to the stuff of art. However, without giving away anything more than the book flap, Every Last One climaxes midway through in an act of violence which smells too much from having been ripped from the headlines. Despite this short-coming, I still couldn’t put the book down, Quindlen having already deeply invested me with her characters. While I prefer her stories when more grounded in reality, she still shows all the skill of an author in her prime. Reviewed by Jordan Magill Learning to Lose By David Trueba Other Press, $16.95, 608 pages It’s a story of four people and how their lives intertwine. Sylvia is sixteen when she gets hit by a car and has her leg broken. The driver, soccer star Ariel, is drawn to her by a need to make amends that turns into an allconsuming love affair. Meanwhile, Sylvia’s father Lorenzo just murdered an old friend, while his father, Leandro, deals with his wife’s rapidly declining health by repeatedly visiting a prostitute. Each of these people will deal with the ups and downs of their lives, and each will ultimately learn how to let go of something that has only recently become important to them. Despite the seemingly small-scale subject matter, Learning to Lose is an intricate read of epic proportions. The characters feel real, from Lorenzo’s fears of discovery to Sylvia’s innocence and purity in love. The story is believable, and while most readers won’t directly understand just how the characters are feeling, they will emphasize and want to comprehend it. Ultimately, the story winds down into the only possible ending for the circumstances, and it is satisfying. Reviewed by Holly Scudero Balancing Acts By Zoe Fishman Harper, $13.99, 365 pages At a 10-year college reunion in New York City, Charlie, a co-owner of a new yoga studio in Brooklyn, convinces three of her college acquaintances to form a small-group yoga basics class on Saturday mornings. Over the course of the six weeks of the class, the introspective quality of yoga helps each of the women to balance the reality of life with the vision of life she’d had for herself while in college.
American Taliban
By Pearl Abraham Random House, $25.00, 258 pages This is an evocative and very disturbing journey through the evolution of a brilliant but unbalanced mind. To a religious skeptic, the only point of view from which I can approach this work, the essential vulnerability of the protagonist is a gaping hole in his existential grasp of the world. His Achilles’ heel is spirituality, an open-minded contemplation, at the core of his intellectual development. “So I’m right,” Yousef said. “Your problem isn’t sex, just submission. American men aren’t used to that, but they can learn ...” Pearl Abraham has crafted a work that grips at one’s heart like talons. Her ability to represent points of view as diverse as a DC lawyer’s and a Pashtun tribesman’s are remarkable. And this deeply grounded writer’s ability to follow the development of a longing mind through the embrace of an alien fundamentalism, the transition from heterosexual to bisexual orientation, his divorcement from his support base, is an entrancing capability. Beginning in the multi-boarding culture of the athletic young, privileged John Jude transitions from surf riding and a wriggly surfer-girl lover to Arabic studies in New York, to Arabic and Pashto immersion in Islamabad, to military training for the Taliban, and submissive homosexual sex before he disappears into the chaos of post-9/11 Afghanistan. Segueing thereafter to his liberal mother’s anxiety and contemplation of the civil liberties problems surrounding the Bush administration’s legal tactics, this novel dips into commentary without losing its piquancy. Whatever your political, spiritual, or philosophical stance, this is a book well worth reading and elements of it will haunt your dreams for years. Reviewed by David Sutton Bess, a journalist, is stuck writing snarky captions at a tabloid magazine, while resisting a move to Los Angeles to be with her boyfriend. Sabine, who once wanted to be a writer, is now an editor of romantic novels, and about to have a first date with her longtime subway crush. Ex-model and photographer Naomi, now a single mother, is experiencing early symptoms of MS. Charlie, who came to yoga after abruptly leaving a career on Wall Street, still struggles with a breakup she went through two years earlier. With its four unmarried women, in their early 30s but obsessed neither with finding Mr. Right nor with synchronizing their lives to their biological clocks, Balancing Acts is a refreshing addition to women’s fiction. Author Zoe Fishman maintains a tight structure as she rotates between protagonists’ different perspectives, using the six yoga classes as the basis for the plot’s pacing. Reviewed by Megan Just The Cookbook Collector By Allegra Goodman Dial Press, $25.00, 394 pages Yearnings of love and kinship pepper The Cookbook Collector, as techno-geeks and ecology warriors try to harness their clashing sentiments. Often, the insights and dissection of morals and different views of life do grab attention. But not often enough.
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Loosely centered on a book dealer’s discovery of an out-of-print range of pre-20th century recipe books, Allegra Goodman strains to weave together strands of difficult complexity. The result is the equivalent of a talented, promising amateur cook presenting lobster thermidor in a five-star restaurant. It takes a huge amount of training to get the dish right. Earnest Berkeley tree-sitters flitter in and out, rabbis want to extend their influence, Silicon Valley start-ups fizzle and splutter and one of the main protagonists heads for a date with catastrophe and death. Characters are partly formed but need more time in the oven to become fully rounded. They wait for destiny, but any indication of where this might lie peters out. The intricacies of IT start-ups are hardly guaranteed to keep the reader breathless. And the post-modern fixation on exact details such as the names of streets and stores belabors the interest quotient. As with so many novels today, this would really sparkle with sharper supervision. Reviewed by Martin Rushmere
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Music & Movies When that Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison By Greil Marcus Public Affairs, $22.95, 195 pages Greil Marcus has provided the world with a love letter--one addressed to Van Morrison. Anyone who’s heard Van Morrison’s music is likely to admire this book. It’s one of the few nonfiction books in which the prologue and introduction do not serve as unnecessary baggage; Marcus takes us back to the world of a very young Morrison with Them.
Rough God is a series of essays on the artist as a young and very mature man rather than a conventionally structured biography. The entire point of the book, however, is to pay tribute to Morrison’s now 41-year-old masterpiece, “Astral Weeks.” The producer of the record said that just 30 seconds into recording the album, “My whole being was vibrating.” Marcus delves deeply into what Lester Bangs called the “mystical awe that cut right through the heart of the work.” If you’ve never quite understood the meaning of AW, Marcus translates it and makes it clear. This in itself is worth the admission, as if one were unlocking the core of “Pet Sounds” or “Rubber Soul.” This work also examines some of Morrison’s lesser known recordings, like his song, “Domino.” Reviewed by Joseph Arellano
“To this day it gives me pain to hear it. Pain is the wrong word - I’m so moved by it.” Lewis Merenstein, producer of Astral Weeks
Mystery, Crime & Thrillers The Whisperers: A Charlie Parker Thriller By John Connolly Atria, $26.00, 416 pages Charlie Parker is contacted by a man who is grieving the loss of his son. The boy, an Iraq veteran, committed suicide and though that is not in doubt, his father suspects something else had to be involved. When he hires Parker on a false pretense, Charlie knows that the real job is to bring a grieving father some peace of mind and doesn’t expect the case to last very long. The deeper Parker looks though, the more he sees that things are not as they seem, and after being warned off and water boarded by an angry group of men, Parker strengthens his resolves and won’t let go.The Whisperers by John Connolly, like most of his books, is brilliant. Connolly combines great mystery and thriller elements with just a hint of the supernatural, giving his rich private detective Charlie Parker both a case to solve and a bit of the unknown to contend with. In the hands of a lesser writer, this could easily be a bit too much, but in Connolly’s skilled hands, it turns into a
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page-turning thrill ride that you won’t want to put down. My only complaint is all the money I have to spend on all the other Charlie Parker books now! Reviewed by Albert Riehle Agents of Treachery By Edited by Otto Penzler Vintage, $15.95, 430 pages In this baker’s dozen of espionage stories by master spy writers, the reader is slipped like a clever listening device inside the pockets of spies, jihadists, and traitors plying their trade in world capitols from New York to Hamburg to Nairobi, and in a few out of the way places like Chesapeake Bay and rural Norfolk. In London, an unhappily married Cold War ordnance officer selling bogus information to the Russians is about to be exposed as a traitor when his hooker girlfriend neatly steps in to solve his problems. In the tiny African country of Ndala, an American operative carrying one hundred thousand dollars in cash and indeed “wondering why [he is] . . . not yet dead,” observes the assassination of a petty African dictator. In Hamburg, an
The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson By Mark Fisher Zero Books, $19.95, 318 pages
In the days and weeks following Michael Jackson’s death the world was bombarded by a pop-media complex mourning the man (if we dare reduce him to such) that symbolized the percussive, quiet interconnectedness of politics and culture. It’s no surprise therefore that in death Michael was bigger than he ever had been before – we’d expect nothing less from the zombie he’d come to resemble. Mark Fisher assembles a cast of global music critics who in turn examine the person and the spectacle of the King of Pop, as seen through multiple lenses. These perspectives coupled with detailed historic connections enable us to see Jackson as a problematic symptom of his time. The writings here cover his start with the Jackson 5; the abuse he received from his family; his role as Scarecrow in The Wiz; going solo and merging black music with a white audience; the “Thriller” video; performing the moonwalk on live television; catching fire as the face of Pepsi; remaking his image and his body continuously – literally changing from black to white, human to post-human; meeting the Reagans in the White House; Captain Neo and NGOs; placing statues of himself across Eastern Europe where the idols of communism had just been removed; marrying into the Presley family; buying the rights to the Beatles; having two children via artificial insemination; his utopic/dystopic Neverland ranch and references to Peter Pan; Pinocchio; his multiple child abuse trials; his drug-induced death; and how not even then was his legacy over. Alex Williams summarizes it best (page 266): “Beneath the name ‘Michael Jackson’ lies a limitless media architecture, and infestation and corrosion of a most peculiar form of space. We enter the maze of Jackson’s body, his corporeal body leading out onto his incorporeal body, his scars and his neuroses, feeding into the network of story-line/lies stretching all around him in a spider’s web, and we are lost in an enchanted revulsion at the possibilities of contemporary capitalism itself. This form of space, produced by capitalism’s ability to relentlessly abstract whilst simultaneously investing such structures with intense libidinal force is not just restricted to the tabloid media. For the same form of hyper-libidinized, yet abjectly abstract, architecture underpins the configurations of international finance, whose recent catastrophic collapse and the aftermath ironically coincided with the death of Jackson. The error, after all, was to believe that it was simply he who was trapped within the mirror maze, rather than ourselves.” Reviewed by Joe Atkins aging spy at the end of his career uses all his craft to elude his employers in his mission to reveal trade secrets of torture to the press. Treachery, graft, cowardice, heroism, naiveté, and amorous attachment can mean torture and death in these gripping tales of intrigue in which plots twist and turn with all the deviousness of a well-kept secret. Reviewed by Zara Raab The Alchemy of Murder By Carol McCleary Forge, $24.99, 368 pages Reporter Nellie Bly is on the trail of a despicable madman and she garners a lot of famous help along the way. Set during the 1899 World’s Fair in Paris, The Alchemy of Murder is a historical tale of murder, mayhem and mystery that will keep you turning pages at a fast clip. Bly is after the man who murdered a friend she made while undercover at Blackwell’s Asylum. Knowing only the name he went by at the hospital, Dr. Blum, she trails him to London where she investigates the similar Jack the Ripper killings. She loses the trail there, but picks it up again in Paris,
the City of Light. Bly realizes she needs influential help and introduces herself to none other than Jules Verne for assistance. He grudgingly joins the search which leads them to need the assistance of Oscar Wilde and Louis Pasteur. The poor are dying in droves in the slums of Paris and it will take all of their combined geniuses to put a stop to it. While this may sound farfetched, it is beautifully set and completely believable. If you enjoyed Caleb Carr’s The Alienist or the film, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, this debut work is right up your alley. Reviewed by Gwen Stackler
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Poetry & Short Stories A Song Beneath Silence: A Collection of Poetry By Apryl Skies By Apryl Skies AuthorHouse, $16.99, 114 pages Apryl Skies, author of A Song Beneath Silence, has a dreamy name that speaks of seasonality. Her name gives a lot away, makes one think of the uppermost realm of the our planet—the sky—and the visually transient mysteries it holds: clouds, rain, sunlight, moonlight, darkness, and stars. Her poems are filled with these natural elements, and beyond this, they are filled with the supernatural, too. This poet takes it all in! She seeks to transcend the limits of being human and bound to the Earth. Emotions can be liberating, and her poems capture the heights we attain when we love and live passionately. Readers will find her poems intriguing but oftentimes abstract. The choice of concrete images and themes, and how to use them without being too abstract, is something many poets grapple with, because readers seek experiences they can latch onto and make their own. At times, her poems left me wanting more sensory details I could claim. Nonetheless, I could hear the music in her lines and see the landscapes she paints. Every poet is bound to a place; Apryl Skies is rooted in her southern California home, lured by what is near it and beyond it—the ocean and the heavens. She seeks what it means to be human but able to transcend the boundaries of where and how we live and the limits of what we feel and perceive. Sponsored Review
How to Escape from a Leper Colony: A Novella and Stories By Tiphanie Yanique Graywolf Press, $15.00, 240 pages Every once in a while, one happens upon a book that is so perfect, so complete, that the thought that it could easily have never come to one’s attention is almost terrifying. Such is the case with Tiphanie Yanique’s How to Escape from a Leper Colony, a novella and collection of stories filled with believable, if exaggerated, characters who reflect the postcolonial world that Yanique, a native of the Virgin Islands, invites her readers to. In this world, sex, violence, racial, and cultural tension coexist and mingle in barely— and sometimes not at all—concealed ways and conflicts of culture and class have a much larger effect on the outcomes of peoples’ lives than we’d like to think about. Set largely in the Virgin Islands, How to Escape from a Leper Colony is a sometimes disturbing, often beautiful, collection of stories with impressive depth, written by a woman whose skill with the language is matched by her ability to craft three-dimensional characters who garner sympathy, even in their imperfections. Yanique doesn’t tell us everything; rather, she lets us experience secondhand, through a collection of stories that are the largely implausible, yet very real, truths she wants us to discover. Reviewed by Ashley McCall
Poetry in Person: Twenty-five Years of Conversation with America’s Poets By Edited by Alexander Neubauer Knopf, $27.95, 350 pages Poetry in Person represents the life’s work of a great poet. Alexander Neubauer has edited this volume that presents a veritable archive left behind by Pearl London. Poet and extraordinary poetry teacher Pearl London organized sessions with poets she invited to join her class at the New School in Greenwich Village and discuss their poems-in-progress. For over two decades, she welcomed poets to her classroom. She shared her gift for seeing into the heart of a poem and the mind of its author. The magical thing: she recorded these conversations, leaving behind words we can learn from. Sifting through London’s audio archive, Neubauer selects poets to feature in Poetry in Person and picks out what portions of conversations to include. Each conversation highlights a poem and gives an excerpt from the manuscript. Thus, readers can get a sense of what phases each poet went through to arrive at a completed poem. Short biographies of each poet are provided. Poetry in Person features London’s conversations with some of the greatest poets of our time such as Galway Kinnell, C.K. Williams, James Merrill, Derek Walcott, Robert Hass, Lucille Clifton, Philip Levine, Edward Hirsch, Charles Simic, Li-Young Lee. A priceless book! Reviewed by Viola Allo
Poems: Edna St Vincent Millay By Edna St. Vincent Millay Everyman’s Library, $13.50, 219 pages The Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets collection has a special place in my heart, and this collection Edna St. Vincent Millay Poems demonstrates all the reasons why. As the imprint’s name implies, these are small, sturdy volumes, uncluttered with essays, introductions, or annotations, instead offering readers the undiluted nectar of the poet’s own words. Thus, one is spared lengthy biographical details of Millay (rich and ribald though they may be), and may focus on her work. Also included with the poems is one of her plays. Although this volume is far from a compilation of her complete works, the works included are well-chosen.
The Best of Everything After 50 By Barbara Hannah Grufferman Running Press, $15.95, 320 pages What Barbara Hannah Grufferman has produced here is an owner’s manual for your body and lifestyle after the age of 50. Grufferman covers everything: sex, personal clutter, hormone therapy, nutrition, skin care, finance, achieving new goals, and everything in between. While Grufferman is the main author, she calls on the ideas of experts in several different fields. Grufferman very often presents a personal scenario and then calls in an expert to explain in detail why this is a good or bad decision and what might have worked better.
The Best of Everything After 50 is filled with commonsense tips, as well as things that wouldn’t ordinarily pass through someone’s stream of consciousness with regard to mental, physical and financial health. There is some subject matter here for men but most of the book will apply to more to women, especially with regard to health topics. As a man reading this book I found it useful, but it probably is much more so for women. Grufferman’s writing style flows easily from one subject to the next. Every subject is broken down, easy to read and understand. Reviewed by Marc Filippelli
Wordcatcher: An Odyssey into the World of Weird and Wonderful Words By Phil Cousineau Viva Editions, $15.95, 305 pages Bandersnatch. Seeksorrow. Cahoots. Jinx. Panache. Gossamer. Kerfuffle. Mythosphere. The English language is absolutely teeming with words bizarre and beautiful, mellifluous and macabre, and Wordcatcher: An Odyssey into the World of Weird and Wonderful Words gleefully presents dozens of examples of all shapes, sizes, languages, and syllable counts. From arachibutyrophobia (the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth) to zemblanity (the opposite of serendipity; an unhappy accident or unfortunate encounter), Cousineau’s book illuminates each word with playfulness, curiosity, and genuine affection, revealing the author as a true devotee of words.
With intriguing backstory on each word’s etymology, as well as anecdotal developments, linguistic siblings, and unexpected twists in usage, Wordcatcher is a delight, the perfect guide to adding much-needed color to any reader’s vocabulary. There are numerous entries both obscure and commonplace. (Heck, in just the B’s, you’ve got borborygmus for the former and buccaneer for the latter.) Whether an unabashed wordnerd or a casual reader, a dictionary hound or someone looking to expand your own personal lexicon, there is plenty to interest you in Wordcatcher. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas
“She loves me all that she can, And her ways to my way resign; But she was not made for any man, And she never will be mine.” Millay’s poetry--rhythmic, naturalistic, and enchantingly sparse-- continues to demonstrate why she stands as one of America’s greatest poets, and this book, for the right reader, will surely be a treasured companion for years to come. Reviewed by Jordan Magill
Reference
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History Roseville (Images of America) By the Roseville Historical Society Arcadia Publishing, $21.99, 128 pages Old photographs hold an allure that is sometimes hard to identify. The people in the photographs are most likely strangers to the viewer; the buildings may or may not be standing today; the roads, trees, and landscape are probably all very different from how they are today. But perhaps that’s the magic of old photographs: what appears in the image is the same yet completely different. Whatever it is, the Arcadia Publishing company certainly has it figured out, as they’ve partnered with historical societies across the country to produce collections of photography on a community level under the “Images of America” line. Preserving this shared history is admirable work, and this latest edition on Roseville does an excellent job of capturing the long and varied history of the town. Organized thematically, the photographs are reproduced on high-quality paper, and the captions are informative. It would have been nice to see more photographs from the earliest days of Roseville (1861 and the following decade), but the selection from the forties and fifties more than makes up for this failing. Any Roseville citizen would be glad to have this collection on their bookshelf. A set of fifteen postcards is also available. Reviewed by Margo Orlando Littell Glamour: Women, History, Feminism By Carol Dyhouse Zed Books, $30.00, 230 This book is basically for scholars with many footnotes and allows one to compare fashion from the past centuries to the present. It might have been also useful to trace the development of fashion in various European countries which is not emphasized in this book under review. One might ask how have male fantasies in many trashy magazine become a symbol of the growth of feminism. Perhaps it might have been proper to show extracts from magazines in 19102010 gossip and what to wear at night as an example. “Beauty is not just having a beautiful cover as this book entails but is about bone structure in models and not only about make up, hair curling, creams, and lotions.,
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There is little shown in this book on how Hollywood and its stars included items such as furs, feathers and pearls. It is possible that wearing fur coats in the 20th century is also part of the changing economy. A more detail account in the 1960’s and 1970’s perhaps in cross-cultural perspective might have been better portrayed and how it became part of the feminist movement. Also how did women become like popular models might have been more in depth discussed especially in terms of the changing Hollywood scene. Reviewed by Claude Ury American Dreams: The United States Since 1945 By H.W. Brands The Penguin Press, $32.95, 421 pages In this book under review, well known historian H.W. Brands of the University of Texas, Austin, analyzes the power and promise of the post-war years in light of the collective and individual dreams that have enticed Americans toward the future. “Americans in 2010 were collectively less confident than their grandparents had been in 1945 that reality would favor their dreams.” The author describes the changes we have gone through as a nation, becoming more economically equal, more religious, rural, and more liberally engaged with the rest of the world. One sees in these pages the unfolding of America from Watergate to the Berlin Wall from Apollo 11 to 9/11. Alternatively, one realizes the significances of the immigration reforms of the 1960s and the abandoning of the gold standard in 1971, which allowed for globalization and the recent financial crisis. The results of CNN’s debut in 1979 which increased the news cycle and changed the role of American foreign policies by putting its issues on live television screen are also discussed. A key analysis is made of the political and cultural history of America in terms of life, liberty, happiness, and how Americans as dreamers interact with each other and the U.S. globalized world. A study of this nature could have certainly use a bibliography along with the notes. Reviewed by Claude Ury
The Oxford History of Britain By Edited by Kenneth O. Morgan Oxford University Press, $18.95, 848 pages
For all too long, classroom history courses dwelt on a succession of soldiers and kings taking their country from one spell of glory to another and allowing fewer pages for the failures. Around the mid-1960s came a turning point since which time many countries (with exceptions that shall remain nameless) began to tell their history more inclusively, even more honestly. The new edition of the unabridged, paperback Oxford History of Britain bears this out. Edited by Kenneth O. Morgan, it covers two thousand years of Britain’s political, social, and economic history. The early pages address the Roman arrival with soldiers, chariots, and elephants ready to challenge the British tribes. The eleventh century Norman Conquest brought national consolidation, subsequently interrupted only from within the British Isles rather than from abroad. Such accounts as the evolution of royal families and development of the empire, the genesis of the industrial revolution and its subsequent expansion make each chapter compelling. The historians have translated their knowledge and enthusiasm to make for first-rate reading and in the epilogue address the global issues of the new millennium from a transatlantic perspective. The narrative is rounded out with maps, a chronology, further reading suggestions and an index. Reviewed by Jane Manaster
Lost Rights By David Howard Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $25.00, 352 pages On February 24, 2000 a man with two burly mafia-looking companions walked in to First Federal Congress Project’s office with a document to authenticate. While the bodyguards were a new twist, the request for authentication was not. Everyone and their mother, thanks to the Antiques Road Show, thinks that have found an original copy of the Declaration of Independence or some other important document in their attic or barn. 99 times out of a hundred, they are wrong and the experts, Charlene Bickford and Ken Bowling, say sorry, no, and send them on their way.
really get a handle on what he was looking at, the document was whisked away and he wouldn’t see it again for many years. Lost Rights is the story of the document’s final return to its rightful owner and the nefarious trip it took to get there. From its disappearance during the Civil War, the hundred years spent on a living room wall, to the FBI and years of courtroom battles. It may sound dry, but it isn’t. At its heart, this is the story of what our founding fathers fought for, told from the people’s perspective. A peek inside the manuscript/ document trade that bounces off the pages and makes you question what is more important, the rights or the document and the dreams it created. Reviewed by Gwen Stackler
“Priceless? Not to collectors. If a buyer and seller come to terms on a sale amount, no object is priceless.” This time was different for a reason other than the bodyguards. This time the document was not only real, it was one of the only 14 known Bill(s) of Rights to ever exist. (13 went to the colonies and 1 went to the Federal government) Before Bickford could
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Historical Fiction Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet By Stephanie Cowell Crown, $25.00, 330 pages The lives of great artists like Claude Monet fascinate us mediocre toilers in this world because we want to capture the same fire that fueled their brilliance and creativity. The romance and drama, as they searched for a new horizon! – most of them penniless and shunned by society. They wanted to overthrow the ancien regime, which declared that art must be in the style of centuries before, a past that had been overtaken. To us mediocrities it’s amazing that this group of fiery spirits, indeed anyone, could possess such mental, emotional and artistic energy – restless, never satisfied with what they were doing but certain that art lay in a new direction.
Stephanie Cowell portrays Monet from the viewpoint of Camille, his lover, his model, and later his wife. No letters between the two have been found; she extrapolates their tempestuous relationship from what is known about Monet and his fellow, equally tempestuous, free spirits. From the Franco-Prussian war onwards, Stephanie Cowell gets inside Monet’s mind and emotions and splendidly invokes the passion, motives and despair that spurred him on. She vividly recreates the effects on Monet and his fellow exiles in London of the death of Frederic Bazille, the siege of Paris, and the Commune. These are drawn out in skilful prose. For the other two-thirds of the book, she seems unsure of just how events and the characters mesh, but still gives a lively depiction of Claude and Camille’s lives. Cowell also gives a plausible reason for Monet painting Camille on her deathbed: grief and fury at his own neglect of her, exacerbated by his relationship with Alice Hochede, who was living in the same house. (He married Alice years later, after her husband died.)
Cowell extends her speculation to Frederic Bazille and whether he was gay. A critical moment for the Impressionist movement was the aborted first exhibition (when they still called themselves Anonymous Artists), which Bazille had pledged to fund. He withdrew at the last moment; Cowell reckons his family refused to help when they found out he was gay. In today’s climate, one could simply say (or write), “He was gay.” But no such proof has been found; the truth about Bazille remains unclear. Truth, of course, was what the Impressionists were after – a horizon that is always elusive and shifting in all of the arts. Reviewed by Martin Rushmere A Wish After Midnight By Zetta Elliott AmazonEncore, $12.95, 270 pages We all wish for something. Fifteen-yearold Genna, the self-reliant heroine of A Wish After Midnight, wishes she could live in someone else’s body far from her family’s cramped Brooklyn apartment. In an ironic twist, she mysteriously journeys back in
time to 19th century Brooklyn, where she awakens in a bruised and beaten body. Is it a dream? Will she ever return to her world? While she struggles internally with these questions, Genna must adapt on the outside to the limitations and dangers she faces as an African American woman in a country at civil war and a city on the brink of violent rioting. This well-imagined story is worth reading. Author Zetta Elliott weaves many interesting elements into Genna’s story, including time travel, first love, self-esteem, race relations, and the New York City Draft Riots of 1863. By carefully developing her main character’s double life, Elliott creates a telling reflection of how far we have come collectively and how far we still have to go in respecting the dignity of the human person. Reviewed by Diana Irvine
Business & Investing Fundraising with The Raisers Edge: A Non-Technical Guide By Bill Connors Wiley, $45.00, 265 pages Bill Connors, author of Fundraising With the Raiser’s Edge is an independent consultant and trainer for the sophisticated database “The Raiser’s Edge.” An honors graduate of Yale University, he was involved in the development and design of the database, and has been teaching it for more than 15 years. The book has a simple premise: If you are smart enough to be a professional fund raiser, you’re smart enough to learn to properly use the software. Eschewing jargon and technical terms, Connors explains clearly and as simply as possible how to maximize the efficiency of an organization’s fund raising by utilizing “The Raiser’s Edge” to reduce duplicative efforts and wasted time, allowing the fundraiser to concentrate on what’s important – raising money. Connors’ work has a 3-fold purpose: to enable the professional to work with database staff to meet objectives with the least possible confusion and stress; to familiarize the professional with the parts of the database that it is necessary to master, in order
to best utilize it (without becoming a database “expert”); and, finally, to enable the organization’s staff to set up, maintain, and maximize the database’s usefulness. The fact that Connors meets these objectives in a concise and readable manner makes this book a “must-have” for every professional fundraiser. Reviewed by Claudette Smith Retirementology: Rethinking the American Dream in a New Economy By Gregory Salsbury FT Press, $19.99, 219 pages This book provides an analysis of retirement planning with investment psychology and the market meltdown of 2008. It enables one to think about how we spend, save, borrow, and invest. Dr. Gregory Salsbury, executive vice president of Jackson National Life Distributions, denotes some of the mistakes people make when it comes to retirement planning. As an example, why do people drive 45 minutes to use a $200 coupon? Why won’t people sell a poorly performing stock? Why do people spend differently with a credit card than they do with cash? Why do people believe that they pay no income tax because they receive a refund? Retire-
ment age can no longer be ignored or viewed as a simple event. One must understand that every spending and financial decision one makes will have an impact on the way they will spend their retirement or golden years. “Finacial crisis has caused many people to do irrational things with their money and make emotional decisions that may have been detrimental to their lives.” Retirmentology also introduces the reader to a new and entertaining consumer vocabulary which enables one to understand the key issues influencing investor behaviors and retirement planning. Reviewed by Claude Ury Engage! By Brian Solis Wiley, $24.95, 382 pages If you think your business is on the cutting edge because you have a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account, think again! According to marketing, communications, and new media guru Brian Solis, you’re just a novice. In Engage! Solis introduces readers to hundreds of new and lesser-known new media tools and, more importantly, teaches
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businesses how to join the enigmatic online conversation and measure their success. New media beginners will love part two of the book, titled “The New Media University.” From “Social Media 101” to “MBA Program—Second Year,” Solis teaches about gradually more complex new media tools and the concepts behind their development and successful implementation. Parts three and beyond relate social media to advanced business aspects of branding, marketing, and customer service. Solis emphasizes the importance of establishing new media plans and goals before beginning and advises businesses to create social media rules of engagement for employees who communicate on behalf of the company, as well as employees who might have an indirect impact by their own personal actions online. “In the social economy and the imminent attention economy, relationships and influence are the new currencies.” Although many of the concepts Solis discusses in his book seem geared toward large companies with large marketing and communications staffs (in some cases, entire staffs of new media professionals), even small business owners and entrepreneurs will gain much insight from Solis’s expertise, as well as his frequent real-life examples of other companies’ innovative use of social media. Reviewed by Megan Just
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Cooking, Food & Wine Stonewall Kitchen: Grilling: Fired-Up Recipes for Cooking Outdoors All Year Long By Johnathon King Chronicle Books, $19.95, 144 Pages A book for healthy grilling all year? Living in sunny California--where the outdoor barbecue is used spring, summer, autumn, and sometimes in between winter rain showers—I knew this book belonged on my counter, pages open and liberally sprinkled with cracked pepper. Having reviewed Stonewall Kitchen books before, I was nonetheless impressed with this diverse piece as well as its focus on tasty-yetgood-for-you dishes, all written down with a reverence for outdoor cooking. “Don’t try to rush the process. Enjoy being outdoors. Enjoy the primal scent of wood or charcoal mingled with the fresh flavors of your dinner being released into the air.” The Lamb-Mint Sliders were a hit with our family, served with a grilled summer squash salad with tomatoes and lemon-mint vinaigrette. The pistachio-lime butter worked wonderfully as a glaze on chicken breast, not only imparting the delicious flavor of California nuts but the lime zest seemed to sprint alongside with its tangy freshness. Not neglecting the side dishes, King, Stott and Gunst included some delightfully healthy recipes designed to compliment the seared flavors of the hot food and so without sacrificing flavor. Being only somewhat familiar with grilling techniques, I found the included recipe “Variations” and “Helpful Hints” useful and practically worded. Reviewed by Meredith Greene Melissa’s Everyday Cooking With Organic Produce By Cathy Thomas Wiley, $29.95, 336 pages Written by “the nation’s largest distributor of specialty and organic fruits and vegetables,” Melissa’s Everyday Cooking with Organic Produce acts as a guide to incorporating more fresh foods into your diet. Despite being a marketing push for a single business, the reader can easily help their local farmer by heeding the wisdom in this guidebook. “Apple-green flesh dotted with a ring of petite black edible seeds lie beneath kiwi’s fuzzy brown camouflage.”
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The text serves as both a cookbook and a how-to guide. While the recipes don’t burst with ingenuity, the how-tos are useful. The book is written alphabetically from apple to turnip. Each section provides tips for buying and storing the produce, how to prepare it, how to use it, the time of year it’s available, nutritional information, and finally, recipes for eating it. The book specifically steers away from nontraditional items, so you’re likely to recognize most of the produce: banana, pineapple, celery, peach, orange, etc. If there are several varieties of a fruit or veggie, like apples and potatoes, the book provides photos and labels to help you distinguish among them. Finally, there are recipes. You’ll find peachy French toast, broccoli mac ‘n’ cheese, and sweet potato and chicken stew. If you need a basic guide to using produce, this book can get you started. Reviewed by Amber K. Stott The Ciao Bella Book of Gelato & Sorbetto By F. W. Pearce, Danilo Zecchin Clarkson Potter, $24.99, 176 pages Gelato and sorbetto have long been favorites of Italians and are now giving ice cream a run for it’s money here in the West. Gelato has a lower fat content, leaving room for a more intense flavor and density and sorbetto’s fresh fruit and little to no fat content makes the choice simple. The Ciao Bella Book of Gelato & Sorbetto by F.W. Pearce and Danilo Zecchin, founder and “executive chef and master flavor creator” of the original Ciao Bella, gelato and sorbetto makers, makes any mouth water, no matter the season. With a stirring array of eye-popping colorful photographs this collection is at once a volume of recipes, history, and inspiration. No need to travel to Little Italy for the sweetness of this cool treat, now readers can recreate the flavors with the ease of an ice cream maker and a zest for flavor. So where does one start? After the initial familiarization of supplies and equipment, scan the pages and follow the saliva trail from The Basics. Feeling a little more daring? Skip to the Italian Classics, where you will find such flavors as Prune and Armagnac. Move to American Classics, Adults Only, and Sorbets. You will never be the same. “[T]he history of frozen desserts goes back to the Bible, when Isaac offered Abraham goat’s milk mixed with snow and told him, ‘Eat and drink; the sun is torrid and you can cool down.”’
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ook Passage, the liveliest bookstore in the Bay Area for more than thirty years, is my newest treasured find. This fiercely independent bookstore in Corte Madera, California, and at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, hosts more than 700 author events a year. Their list of guests includes famous writers James Rollins, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Anna Quindlen, Lewis Black, Isabel Allende, Amy Tan, and Salman Rushdie to name a few – and many once-unknown authors say that an event hosted by Book Passage President Elaine Petrocelli helped lead to their success. She is often called by major media to comment on books, authors, and the book business. Last June 17, I had the pleasure of attending their “Cooks with Books” event, which celebrated and honored Anthony Bourdain and his newly released book Medium Raw. The book signing that started around 10 am at the Ferry Building was jam-packed, for lack of a better word. With more than 300 attendees, his title had sold a whopping 1,136 copies that morning alone, and the crowd was especially elated over Bourdain’s warmth and renowned antics. He proceeded at noontime to Battery Street for the special luncheon prepared for him at Il Fornaio. I arrived at this venue earlier and was very privileged to meet and speak with Bourdain as well. His unique signature scribbled on the first page of my Medium Raw copy also included a knife. Whether this was some sort of a threat to only deliver a great review of his book is beyond me. He really was a very likable guy, down-to-earth, and approachable—his aura will brighten up any place. This luncheon had a very long line of people waiting for the doors to open. The fee included a copy of Medium Raw, a signing and photo-op with Bourdain, a threecourse meal paired with wines, courtesy of Trione Vineyards, and a guaranteed intimate and unforgettable experience. More than 250 people filled the place, the staff was gracious, and the service was excellent. Donald George, acclaimed National Geographic, Lonely Planet, and Gadling.com travel writer and editor commemorated the event with a heartfelt and moving introductory speech. Later that night, Bourdain continued with a sold-out dinner at the Left Bank Brasserie at Larkspur. “It was the most memorable Cooks with Books event I have ever done. The owner, chef, and staff truly went out of their way to make sure that this was a book launch to remember. Bourdain’s signature skull insignia printed on their black shirts, black linen table cloths, and guest table menu on black card stock created an extraordinary off-the-chart experience,” explained Marguerita Castanera, Director of Cooks with Books Events. Executive Chef Sean Canavan wowed the crowd’s taste buds with his heavenly house-made charcuterie, which was prepared the day before. “Left Bank was a full-house with 250 attendees and more than 30 additional guests paid to sit at the patio that evening. It was the biggest Cooks with Books event that we have ever done, and Tony Bourdain truly delivered with his graciousness and wit,” Castanera added. The 15-year-old Cooks with Books Program organized by Book Passage started at Island Café which eventually blossomed into a regular partnership with Left Bank Restaurant. I truly relished the intimacy and pleasure of meeting like-minded aficionados, and most especially, the gifted author Bourdain, whom we all celebrate and admire. Read my review of Medium Raw at www.sanfranciscobookreview.com.
Reviewed by Sky Sanchez
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Children’s Miss Brooks Loves Books (and I Don’t) By Barbara Bottner Knopf Books for Young Readers, $17.99, 32 pages In Miss Brooks Loves Books (And I Don’t), we meet Missy, a very reluctant reader, and Miss Brooks, her librarian who “loves books. A lot.” Even worse for Missy, Miss Brooks wants children to be as excited about books as she is. Missy, on the other hand, thinks, “Miss Brooks gets a little too excited.” Much to Missy’s consternation, Miss Brooks asks the children to pick a favorite story for book week and show why they really love it. Missy is certain that she will never love a book the way Miss Brooks does and proceeds to denigrate every book which crosses her path. Only when Missy’s mother remarks that Missy is “as stubborn as a wart” does Missy find the subject that captures her interest: warts! From there, Missy discovers a book called Shrek! and her own love of books. Barbara Bottner captures Missy’s less-than-enthusiastic tone perfectly. Michael Emberley’s illustrations of Miss Brooks with wild hair and crazy costumes and of the dismayed Missy in her slouching
pink and green cap complement the writing beautifully. Overall, this is a genuinely fun book that just might give a reluctant reader food for thought. Reviewed by Annie Peters Treasure Ship (Can You See What I See?) By Walter Wick Cartwheel Books, $13.99, 35 pages My sons love the I Spy series of picture puzzle books. Therefore, when I saw Walter Wick, who is the photographer for the I Spy series, created Treasure Ship, I knew we had to have it. What I didn’t realize was how much we would like it. Treasure Ship starts with a photograph of a gold coin. On the next page, the camera pulls away to show the gold coin among other treasure. Each successive photograph continues to pull further away. The viewer sees the treasure in a sunken ship, the sunken ship in a glass bottle, the glass bottle in a window display, that window in a shop, the outside of the shop that could be made from the remains of the boat, that shop on a street, and that street in a post card. In the final photograph, the post card lies on a beach where the gold coin has
washed up. All of this taken together hints at a story with many possible interpretations. Treasure Ship provides the same well designed puzzle pictures we expect in the I Spy series, but with an intriguing twist. This book will make an excellent choice for any child who loves picture puzzles. Reviewed by Annie Peters A Most Vivid Day! By Justin Young Golden Tree Press, $16.95, 40 pages Nocturnal Tommy the bat sees the world only in shades of black and grey until a caterpillar tells him about color. Curious, Tommy stays awake until sunrise so he can see color. Just as Tommy is about to fall asleep, the caterpillar shows him the Sun, who rises to paint the world each day. Tommy watches, fascinated as everything the Sun’s brush touches become filled with vibrant color. From there, the story continues to unfold in unexpected ways and ends with Tommy falling asleep as the Moon repaints the world in dark colors. That is all right, however, because the Sun will re-
turn the next morning to paint the world in color once again! In A Most Vivid Day!, Justin Young has written a delicious fantasy and filled the pages with whimsical, vivid watercolors. I particularly love how Young characterizes the Sun in a way reminiscent of Tim Burton’s Willie Wonka. This book makes wonderful bedtime reading by filling children’s minds with lovely images as they fall asleep and the hope they might see the Sun and his paintbrush the next morning. Reviewed by Annie Peters Doug-Dennis and the Flyaway Fib By Darren Farrell Dial Books for Young Readers, $16.99, 40 pages On an otherwise boring afternoon, Doug-Dennis and Ben-Bobby decide to go to the circus, where they buy a candy bar and a tub of popcorn, respectively, for a snack. Doug-Dennis secretly eats all of Ben-Bobby’s delicious popcorn and when Ben-Bobby asks what happened to it, Doug-Dennis says monsters ate it. Suddenly, his lie lifts him high above the circus into space, a space filled with tellers of other lies, big and See DOUG, page 11
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DOUG, con’t from page 10 small. Once Doug-Dennis’s lie stops growing and Doug-Dennis realizes how very far away he is, he must figure out how to escape the world of fibs and get back to Ben-Bobby, the circus, and home. Only a drastic measure— telling the truth—can save him now. Each page of Doug-Dennis is full of visual humor, side jokes, and funny commentary that come to live through pen-and-ink drawings and digital graphics. Drawing fibs from popular culture (“Abs like this in just 5 seconds!”) and schoolyard memory (“The dog ate my homework”), writer/illustrator Darren Farrell creates a world where lying seems pointless and difficult and telling the truth seems easy—a surprisingly moral lesson from such a witty and engaging journey. Reviewed by Margo Orlando Littell Mama, Is It Summer Yet? By Nikki McClure Abrams Books for Young Readers, $17.95, 32 pages It is a disheartening sight for the young child in Mama, Is It Summer Yet?: bare tree branches outside the window. It is winter, and the child yearns for summer, posing the question of the title repeatedly to his mother. Though summer is far away, as the seasons pass, the mother points out signs that signal summer’s approach, including leaf buds on the branches, a busy squirrel building her nest, the softening earth, singing swallows, new ducklings, and apple blossoms. Eventually, to the child’s delight, it is summer, with buzzing bees, blooming flowers, and juicy berries. The gorgeous cut-paper illustrations are captivating in and of themselves; and the scenes they depict, of mother and child enjoying the unique charms of each season, are captivating as well. From mittens warming cozily on a radiator to the gathering of sticks for a fort to the planting of seeds and the reading of books underneath an apple tree, this mother and child find countless ways to enjoy all that nature has to offer, no matter
the temperature outside. It’s a perfect book for encouraging backyard exploration. Reviewed by Margo Orlando Littell
”Mathilda had never seen anything so magnificent. At once, something inside her woke up.”
Goldilocks and the Three Bears By Emma Chichester Clark Candlewick Press, $14.99, 40 pages Goldilocks and The Three Bears is a classic fairytale known and loved by generations of children. Author and very skilled illustrator Emma Chichester Clark has truly freshened up an ageless child’s bedtime story with colorful illustrations and a bold portrayal of Goldilocks, who’s become quite the little nosey busybody. Clark shows us that good fashion sense and style knows no species boundaries as Papa Bear pairs plaids with flowers. Mama Bear works hard to make a cozy, comfortable home for her family complete with a well tended garden, cherished family heirloom china, and tasteful, even grand furniture that would welcome anyone in to make themselves comfortable there. Ironically, Baby Bear has beloved stuffed teddy bear toys and nursery rhyme storybooks like “Little Red Riding Hood” and of course his little bed is just perfect for the intrusive Goldilocks. Clark gives new life to this beloved children’s book that will captivate readers young and old alike. Sure to become a favorite to pass on to the next generation. Reviewed by Laura Friedkin
The other sheep of couse, immediately rideicule the idea.“You’re a sheep,” they tell her, “and you’ll always be a sheep.” Under Mathilda’s persistent questioning, however, their very arguments seem feeble. In her own clever way, she is able to turn each description of an orange balloon into a description of herself, so that their explanations only strengthen her case. This is a charmer of a picture book. Mathilda is an endearing character, reasonable and cheery as she goes about showing her fellow sheep she can be whatever she wants to be. Corace’s illustrations have verve and humor showing the inner working of Mathilda’s imagination and the secret dreams of the other sheep, once they realize anything is possible., Reviewed by Elizabeth Varadan
Mathilda and the Orange Balloon By Randall de Seve Balzer + Bray, $15.99, 28 pages Mathilda is a young, curious sheep among a herd of incurious grass-munchers. Collectively, they are about as dull and gray as a herd of sheep can get. Then one day an orange balloon drifts by on a breeze and changes Mathilda’s life. As she watches it float away, she decides she wants to be a big orange balloon.
Fancy Nancy: Poet Extraordinaire! By Jane O’Connor HarperCollins, $12.99, 32 pages Jane O’Connor has written another Fancy Nancy book, Poet Extraordinaire!, complete with fancy vocabulary and Nancy Clancy’s rhyming name. Like usual, each fancy word is translated into simpler words or explanation. In this book, Nancy says her teacher, Ms. Glass, reads poems everyday and encourages her students to write their own poems. When Ms. Glass gives the class a poet-tree assignment, Nancy’s whole family gets involved, but everyone, it seems is having a good time composing poems except her. She searches and waits for inspirations. She is STUCK. In the book, O’Connor mentions different kinds of poems, such as couplets and limericks, and the fact that some poems do not even have to rhyme. She also shows a couple of acrostic poems. Poems can be so fun with or without the rules. With all these in mind, however, Nancy is still some-
Arrrrgggghhhh! i should have checked the sacramento book review website before buying this book!
what stuck until, finally, she writes a poem true to her character. Any girl who is familiar with the Fancy Nancy collection would enjoy Nancy turned poet-extraordinaire! The illustrations are exquisite and full of fancy expression...with glitter, of course. Also in the book, O’Connor quotes poems in a special “Nancy’s Favorite Poems” booklet. Reviewed by Sophie Masri
UNFINISHED, cont’ from page 4 I also take issue with the book’s subtitle, One Man’s Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things. If anything, it seems out of touch with the current American financial climate. Wouldn’t the right thing when you’ve lost your job involve staying at home with your family, saving money, and trying to find new employment? Kravitz wasn’t a blue collar factory worker, I know, but since unemployment was the catalyst of Kravtiz’s journey of self-improvement, I don’t think it’s unfair for me to point out that, for most of us, the anxiety of losing a job wouldn’t exactly inspire us to hop the next plane to Kenya. Reviewed by Amanda Mitchell
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Humor-Nonfiction God Made Me Do It: True Stories of the Worst Advice the Lord Has Ever Given His Followers By Marc Hartzman Sourcebooks, $12.99, 282 pages God can be pretty talky sometimes, if you go by the number of people who claim to have heard the divine voice. And oddly enough, these days God seems mostly concerned with ordering them to undertake the strangest tasks. Ramming fellow drivers, robbing banks, creating the ultimate barbecue sauce, putting a wedding chapel in a pawn shop, destroying department store Christmas displays (because Santa is the devil, of course) ... God apparently keeps a massive to-do list, and God Made Me Do It assembles some of the more curious entries on that list. For the most part, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable read. My only issue with the book is that I wish Hartzman had broken the articles up into sections separating lighthearted and less pleasant fare. It’s occasionally jarring to switch from the patently ridiculous (directing traffic topless or not paying taxes) to the genuinely disturbing (cannibalism or cult leaders who murder their followers), and it detracts everso-slightly from the reading experience. In the beginning, God told Marc Hartzman to write this book. And it was good. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas P.S. I Hate It Here: Kids’ Letters from CampHis Followers By Marc Hartzman Abrams Image, $12.95, 160 pages It’s close to forty years since Allen Sherman had us in stitches with Hello Muddah, Hello Fadah a parody of his son’s heartfelt letter from camp sung to Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours.” Diane Falange’s book is almost a travesty. The children’s camp letters she gathered by email from friends and friends’ friends for P.S. I Hate It Here are not particularly funny, in fact not really funny at all. Printed on too-small pages that demand squinting, the handwriting is pretty much illegible, unless you happen to be the parent or teacher. It’s a fun idea, like the original children’s letters to God, but overall very disappointing. Unless you are wholly unfamiliar with the first homesick days and the about-turn when the weather and the food and fun improve, there
is nothing new. It may be curmudgeonly or rebellious or even sound anti-kid to dislike the book, or to say the awful spelling is an indictment of the education system, but that is the nasty taste that lingers. Reviewed by Jane Manaster Little Billy’s Letters: An Incorrigible Inner Child’s Correspondence with the Famous, Infamous, and Just Plain Bewildered By Bill Geerhart William Morrow, $19.99, 240 pages When is a hoax or prank in bad taste? For this book triggered acid reflux as my gut reaction. This incorrigible child resides within the mind and body of an almost middleaged adult, who as a prank posts letters from a supposed ten-year-old to the infamous and famous familiar to us. Among those who responded to the deceitful notes of a supposed innocent child who beseeches advice about continuing with school, are the Menendez brothers, the Unabomber, Charles Manson and other notorious celebrities. “Mr. Manson’s barn photo didn’t make much sense, but it sure freaked out Little Billiy’s parents. It was around this time Mr. Geerhart bought his first gun.” In his childish persona, the author requests advice from professors, Supreme Court justices, and film stars among others. These crude and rude notes include a stamped envelope for a reply. Many of the celebrities returned the letters with their autographed photos noted with love as their only comment. Filling the book pages are copies of the childish scrawled letters and a narrative about the person, company, or charity addressed. Congratulations to those who refused to respond to the letters, but these personalities are regarded as sore losers for not taking on the challenge of responding to the intrusive letter. This publication should get the reward for boorishly immature behavior. Reviewed by Rita Hoots
A Brief History of Lies: The Most Brilliant Book Ever Written By Daniel Nanavati CreateSpace, $8.00, 100 pages Everybody lies. We lie to protect ourselves, to protect others, to prevent hurt feelings, to get what we want, to stay out of trouble. We lie for reasons both selfish and selfless. There are big lies and little lies, and statements that are lies to some but truths to others. A Brief History of Lies examines the culture of lying, focusing on not only how pervasive lying is, but how it has become a fundamental part of human interaction. There are catalogues of different kinds of lies and liars, all in an attempt to
understand the importance of lying. This is reinforced by a quotation on every page (some of which become rather repetitive as the book progresses).While the book has some funny moments, I’d have to say the facetious tone of the subtitle is misleading; overall, Navavati’s work is profoundly bleak. Because money, relationships, and countries are social constructs, they are lies. I find this unnecessarily pessimistic. A few jokes and lighthearted jabs here and there can’t mitigate that sort of oppressive tone. As a scholarly treatise, A Brief History of Lies succeeds admirably, but it could do with a bit more heart. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas
Horror Slights By Kaaron Warren Angry Robot, $7.99, 512 pages When Stevie briefly died, she woke up in a room surrounded by the spirits of grudgebearers, eager to cause her pain. Orphaned at 18, she lives alone in her family’s house, digging up family secrets in the backyard and obsessed with how to discover more— and increasingly uncaring about how she does it. Narrated dispassionately by Stevie, Slights is told in a series of squirm-inducing vignettes jumping between her present and her childhood. At the least antisocial and at the most a sociopath, Stevie veers between casual cruelty and sulking resentment. She is a character virtually impossible to like, and it is to Kaaron Warren’s credit that a shred of sympathy remains, if only by constantly and sometimes tryingly insisting that Stevie cannot control and can hardly comprehend her impulses. Slights is not suspenseful; the family secrets and Stevie’s progression are deliberately foreseeable. With such scant plotting, Stevie’s many misadventures become repetitive to the point of loosing the reader’s interest. While Slights is no chiller, it is still a creeper, and Stevie’s ramblings will crawl under your skin. Reviewed by Ariel Berg
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The New Dead By Christopher Golden Griffin, $14.99, 384 pages The zombie fiction genre has exploded over the last few years, and where there was once a dearth of decent zombie-centric stories of any length, there is now a thriving market. The New Dead exemplifies the potential of the genre, featuring quality tales of all shapes and sizes. (There’s even one told entirely in Tweets.) In John Connolly’s Lazarus, we learn what Lazarus’s life was like after being resurrected, while David Wellington’s Weaponized features the terrible possibilities of the military utilizing zombies for warfare. In What Maisie Knew by David Liss, the underground zombie fetish scene offers a zombie a strange second chance, whereas James A. Moore’s Kids and Their Toys juxtaposes the darkness of childhood with the horrors of the undead. Perhaps the most thoughtful piece is Jonathan Maberry’s Family Business, the engaging story of the world after the zombie apocalypse, as a freelance zombie hunter tries to show his younger brother the ropes of his rarified trade. With names like Joe Hill, Aimee Bender, Max Brooks, and Tim Lebben at his disposal, Christopher Golden has assembled an outstanding collection, one worth the time of any devotee of the genre. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas
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Science Fiction & Fantasy Android Karenina By Ben H. Winters Quirk Books, $12.95, 595 pages Quirk Classics has made a name for itself by combining old books with new features, and creating something new, such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Their newest book, Android Karenina, keeps up that tradition. The book follows Anna Karenina’s romance of sorts with Count Alexei Vronsky, and is paralleled by others throughout the story, allowing a fuller understanding of that romance. Although it may seem strange at first, Tolstoy and science fiction are a very good mix. Science fiction has always been a great medium for exploring important themes, and the addition of robots to Anna Karenina helps to sell its theme of truth versus falsehood, aristocracy, and hypocrisy. The robots allow for a greater level of exposition than in the original, allowing the characters to explore their emotions a bit better and not feeling faked as if they were talking to themselves. The standing in of the UnConScya’s fanatic scientists for the Serbian revolt is a nice touch. Although the almost passive telling may turn some off, the book takes on an almost steam-punk air. Ultimately, it’s a great read that explores a number of modern themes, and stands on its own. Reviewed by Jamais Jochim
selves on opposing sides of the upcoming conflict, Cyn tricks the green-haired “pix” onto his ship. Cyn makes Yara nervous like no one else, with his conspicuous scar and cocky readiness. But bred to wield power, Yara has no place in her life for someone like the freighter captain. Her planet needs her, and she’s been bred to be their leader. But she feels very empty, with only a cat the size of a small hippopotamus for company. Jess Granger’s Beyond the Shadowswon’t win over those who dislike futuristic romance, but it is an entertaining read with passion in space. Reviewed by Axie Barclay
Beyond the Shadows By Jess Granger Berkley, $15.00, 307 pages When two strong-willed people clash in this futuristic romance by the National Bestselling Author of Beyond the Rain, sparks and worlds ignite. In a journey through space, his renegade cleverness collides with her embedded honor, as they find themselves on opposite sides of a war.
“A man was coming and with him, change.”
“Her merciless rebel… had awoken the woman within her, and saved them all.” Since the first moment he saw her, Cyn wanted the angry passion of Commander Yara in his arms. But as the heir to the throne of Azra and the candidate favored by the rebelling lower classes in her bid for power, Yara is far beyond the reach of an outlaw like Cyn. Though they find them-
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Haunting Warrior By Erin Quinn Berkley, $15.00, 372 pages From the first sentence, Haunting Warrior is flush with Irish mists, legends, visions, passion, Irish mysticism, and an Irish grandmother in blue leggings and white tennis shoes appearing and disappearing, infuriatingly accurate and cryptic even as a ghost. Complex, flawed characters grace the pages, and the rich brogue and prose fairly leap from the page as Erin Quinn, an engaging storyteller with a lovely sense of pace and detail, follows the tale of Rory MacGrath and his dream woman, Saraid of the Favored Lands.
Rory is tossed back through time into the arms of the woman of his dreams, only in the body of another man, the one already engaged to her. She holds secrets of his family and past, and at the center of it all, the strange black bound and gold trimmed Book of Fennore. Called “very satisfying, complex and mysterious” by Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series and fellow historical paranormal romance writer, the book indeed satisfies with the complex and mysterious, like the three entwined circles with no beginning and no ending as two lovers reach for each other across time. Reviewed by Axie Barclay
29: A Novel By Adena Halpern Touchstone, $14.99, 288 pages Ellie Jerome is 75 years old. She’s lived a long, successful life which she is generally happy with. But everything is turned upside-down when her birthday wish, to be 29 again for one day, comes true! Now Ellie is young, beautiful, and out for a day with her granddaughter Lucy, eager to explore all of the opportunities she thought were lost to her forever. Spicy foods? Sexy clothes? Cute men? Check! But what if she could stay this way, stay young and re-live her life? This experience will force Ellie to think deeply on what she’s made of her life so far. The novel 29 explores what is surely a secret fantasy of many older women: to be young again. Ellie is a fun protagonist; her early revelations about her life and family are a guilty pleasure to read, and many readers will cheer her on as she achieves what the rest of us only dream about. Her ultimate decision, and the deeper reflections on the value of family and friends, will resound deeply with everyone. This book is quirky and fun, a great option for a quick summer read. Reviewed by Holly Scudero
heroes originated with Moore’s Watchmen, the hostility between humans and ‘extrahumans’ is an X-Men staple, and the concept that a hero needs a villain to fight is reminiscent of Millar’s Dark Knight series. These themes are used well, if not with the depth of their sources. To the coauthors’ credit, they do not try to make profound statements. What they have done is craft an absorbingly entertaining story, one that’s hard to put down and leaves you wanting more. Reviewed by Ariel Berg
Shades of Gray By Jackie Kessler, Caitlin Kittredge Spectra, $16.00, 416 pages It’s summertime, and as jaunty action blockbusters burst onto movie screens, your bookshelf might need a little entertainment. Superhero novel Shades of Gray, light, fun, and well-paced, serves it up nicely. Sequel to the well-received Night and Day, Shades continues to follow quick-witted, snarky ‘extrahumans’ Jet and Iridium, once best friends, now archenemies. Jet struggles to preserve order, knowing that CorpCo, her former employer, brainwashed her, while villain Iridium, protecting her territory against extrahumans driven mad by years of mind control, is bemused to find herself hailed a hero. Meanwhile, into the already devastated New Chicago strolls escaped inmate Doctor Hypnotic, powerful, insane, and bent on revenge. Kessler and Kittredge knowledgably mix themes from the superhero tradition. The corporate-sponsored, complexly motivated
At first the plot bounces along too quickly for Raimi to contemplate his inability to remember his origins, an oddity possibly related to his name’s Incan roots, a trait shared with several other characters with similarly missing backgrounds. This magical subplot adds atmosphere to the gangster plot but crumbles once forced to take center stage and was possibly selected by Shan merely for the grab-bag of exotic names. Originally published in 1999 in Britain, Procession is enjoying a second release due to the author’s growing popularity in young adult fiction, including the Cirque du Freak series. Fans should know that Procession goes a few bodies, kisses, and crude words past adolescent appropriateness. The start to The City trilogy, Procession is shallow fun, but the adventure will only be sustained if for the sequels Shan digs a little deeper. Reviewed by Ariel Berg
Procession of the Dead By Darren Shan Grand Central Publishing, $19.99, 278 pages Procession of the Dead wants nothing more than to be a 1930s gangster story, albeit without pesky “crime doesn’t pay” moralizing. For better or worse, it succeeds. Procession follows the affable, breezy Capac Raimi and his mindlessly ambitious quest to become a gangster, specifically to be top gangster, a position held by his idol the legendarily ruthless Cardinal. “Stories about the Cardinal were as legion as the corpses buried in the city’s concrete foundations. Some were outlandish, some cruel, some spectacular. Like the day he played a pope at chess and won a couple of countries.”(1)
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Young Adult Stringz By Michael Wenberg Westside Books, $16.95, 216 pages Jace Adams, a mixed-race high school freshman, has just relocated to Seattle with his mother to live with a harsh, city bus-driving aunt. On the first day at his new school, Jace sees a pack of bullies ready to crush another student’s violin. Jace, who has preferred to make neither friends nor enemies at the dozens of schools he’s attended in recent years, is a talented cellist and can’t help but intercept to save the instrument. Between dodging the bullies and outwitting the prejudiced white orchestra teacher, Jace begins playing his cello on the streets of downtown Seattle for cash, where he receives a mysterious invitation for private lessons with the region’s most talented cellist. Before he knows it, Jace is practicing for a minority music competition that could earn him a full music scholarship. But just when everything is starting to turn around for Jace, his mother skips town with a new boyfriend. “’That’s my ride,’ Marcy said. ‘So it’s all set. I’ll meet you tomorrow at the Colman Dock, eleven o’clock sharp.’ Then, she turned and trotted off to the car without waiting for a word from me. I watched her slip inside, talking animatedly to the woman driving—her mom—who was smiling and nodding. I wondered if she and Elvis realized how lucky they were to have parents like theirs. Probably not.” Author Michael Wenberg’s Jace Adams – a gentle and gifted musician – is a memorable protagonist who is touchingly frank with readers as he encounters racial stereotypes, reacts to his abandonment, and admits his crush on a fellow cellist. Although Jace encounters many struggles in the book, Stringz is a smart, uplifting tale that will leave the reader smiling. Reviewed by Megan Just Gimme a Call By Sarah Mlynowski Delacorte Books for Young Readers, $17.99, 301 pages Wouldn’t it be cool if you could re-do a part of your life and ultimately change the future? With a modern twist on the time machine concept, by substituting a cell phone, Devi, a high school senior, is able to talk to her freshman self and change the outcome of her life. Devi is unhappy with the fact that she wasted her high school years by dropping her friends and hanging with her boyfriend; also, she is stuck going to “Stupid State,” a local college that accepts 100% of
applicants. Senior Devi (i.e. Ivy) and freshman Devi (i.e. Frosh), exchange frequent phone calls in which Ivy instructs Frosh how to stay away from former boyfriend Bryan, what school clubs to join, what will be on the Spanish quiz, and how to keep a friend from joining gymnastics and becoming anorexic. Each girl has a distinctive personality, despite actually being the same person. Each time Frosh does something, no matter how small, it affects Ivy in an intriguing way. The book is a fast read, and the author creatively invents minor crises and unusual situations. The novel is a welcome respite for this reviewer, who has read too many edgy YAs (not that there’s anything wrong with edgy YAs, by the way.) Suspension of disbelief is required, yet the story is believable within its imaginative premise. Reviewed by Leslie Wolfson Restoring Harmony By Joelle Anthony Putnam Juvenile, $17.99, 305 pages Author Joelle Anthony gives an absorbing story of 16-year-old Molly, sent to Portland, Oregon to return with her grandfather, a retired doctor, to care for her mother who’s having a troubled pregnancy. Isolated on an island in British Columbia, Molly was not aware how much the Collapse (of oil) in 2031—ten years prior—had changed the world. Without fuel, roads, and cities are in shambles and only the ruthless survive. Challenging her instincts, she is forced to trust Spill, a friendly, but secretive young man. Her grandparents, who had once been wealthy, are barely surviving through the meager generosity of a neighbor who throws over the fence overripe produce from his weed-infested garden. Through Molly’s compassionate heart and vision, we meet innocent children who are not yet aware of their tentativeness in the world. We meet her grandmother who survived a stroke, and when forced to save her family at Molly’s direction, comes through. And we come to understand the stabilizing effect Molly’s passion for fiddle music has in her life. This heartfelt, compelling story moves briskly through situations that challenge Molly’s beliefs, stretch her reasoning, and test her survival instincts. The intriguing characters and plot will keep the pages turning to the last. Reviewed by Susan Robert
Spilling Ink: A Young Writer’s Handbook Heist Society By Carter, Ally Hyperion Children’s, $16.99, 304 pages An inspirational writing book for young writers, Spilling Ink is a perfect gift book, and could easily be used in the classroom or for home study. Chapters are short, quirky, and joyful. They are filled with inspiring wisdom from two veteran children’s book authors, Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter. Taking turns, the two authors discuss different kinds of writers, the benefits of keeping a “mental compos”’ and how to use a ‘chicken-nugget sky’ to better see life’s details. They discuss shape shifters (metaphors and similes); snap, crackle and plots; noisy tag lines; how to build suspense; and the advantages of the less-is-more and more-is-better writing styles. To complete their discussion of creativity, the two authors explore how to “evolve” a budding artist’s writing habit and even how to discern positive from negative criticism and ways to use it criticism to improve one’s work. The two writers spill all their writing secrets. Spilling Ink is light, easy to read and humorous. The authors sprinkle “I Dare You” challenges in each chapter to invite aspiring writers to expand their experience and abilities. This is a delightful book I wish I had read as a child. I applaud illustrator Matt Phelan for his endearing sketches that capture the intense — and humorous focus — of young writers. Reviewed by Susan Roberts For the Win By Cory Doctorow Tor Teen, $17.99, The Gold Rush of the Future It’s rather scary to think that everything we understand in reality will someday end. Chris Impey demonstrates how everything in the universe will eventually wind itself down, and ends with an intense examination of everything that matters. He essentially proposes that everything is born, grows to maturity, withers and dies. Everything from living things to inanimate objects, like space rocks, planets, stars, solar systems and galaxies, eventually passes away. In effect, the whole shebang will end.
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Ironically, Chris Impey’s How It Ends is really a quest to discover where we are going. Impey does this consistently by exploring the lives of larger structures such as the Fate of Species, Beyond Natural Selection, The Web of Life, Threats to the Biosphere, Living in the Solar System, the Sun’s Demise, Our Galactic Habitat and finally, How the Universe Ends. We are immediately shaken by the reality that Impey bestows through his work. Yet, our eyes are opened to the vague concerns we all foster in the back of our minds. Of course, the amount of time involved for nature to carry out her demise is daunting to comprehend. But scientists are grappling with ever more unsettling ideas than things phasing out. Impey concludes that even though life may seem distressing, it’s still great to know that we are alive. Reviewed by Alex Telander Forget-Her-Nots By Amy Brecount White Greenwillow Books, $16.99, 384 pages On her 14th birthday, Laurel receives a letter from her now-dead mother, written shortly before she passed away. The letter includes the line “Lily of the Valley for the Return of Happiness” which puzzles Laurel. After some investigation, Laurel discovers the Victorian language of flowers, where each flower in a bouquet symbolizes a secret message. After doing a report on the subject, Laurel starts making love bouquets as a hobby and giving them to people at her school. It isn’t long before everyone wants one of Laurel’s bouquets, which seem to really work. What is it about Laurel’s sudden affinity for flowers? Do her bouquets actually make a difference? The main thing this book has going for it is the sheer uniqueness. The language of flowers, while not a new idea, certainly gets an interesting modern twist in these pages. Laurel’s character is very easy to relate to, as she deals with her mother’s recent death, a new school, trying to make friends, her first love, and mean people. One minor drawback is that some readers may find Laurel’s constant obsession with flowers overwhelming of her personality. However, the plot makes up for the flaw nicely. A great read for anyone looking for a fantasy that’s a little different than anything out there right now. Reviewed by Alyssa Feller
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Tweens Ranger’s Apprentice: The Kings of Clonmel: Book 8 By John Flanagan Philomel, $17.99, 357 pages The riveting Ranger’s Apprentice series’ new installment, The Kings of Clonmel is yet again an exciting adventure, this time into the land of Hibernia, where Halt’s past is slowly uncovered. Ranger’s Apprentice follows the lead character, Will Treaty, as a newly-initiated Ranger, who makes sure that his fief, Seacliff is safe from any possible threat or danger. , Halt, Will’s mentor and the closest thing he has to a family, often embarks on exploits that take him far into the realms of his world. This time, a group of religious leaders called the Outsiders has been visiting villages with a humble cover-up but nasty intentions. They have been pillaging the unaware naiveté with messages of piety. It is the Ranger’s job to help their next victims – the people of Hibernia – from the Outsiders and their scheming leader, Tennyson. However, Halt’s connections with Hibernia run far deeper than mere nobility, and go back to his childhood, a misty unknown that even his apprentice, Will, has only a small grasp of. Flanagan never fails to bring a new facet of his imaginative realm to life in his Ranger’s Apprentice books, now on the eighth novel. Hibernia presents not only a new setting for fans to explore, but brings back
Flanagan’s signature intrigue, smart dialogue, and witty prose. Fans will, yet again, be enthralled. Reviewed by Alex Masri
clean, so parents should have no worries about handing it to younger readers as well. Reviewed by Alyssa Feller
Ivy’s Ever After By Dawn Lairamore Holiday House, $16.95, 311 pages Princess Ivy is ten when she learns about the Dragon Treaty, a document designed to create peace between the dragons and the kingdom of Ardendale. On her 14th birthday, the princess of Ardendale is locked in a white tower guarded by a dragon until she can be rescued by a prince. Ivy has no desire to be rescued, and instead teams up Elridge, the dragon guarding the tower, to escape. Together the pair face trolls, krakens, and swamp sprites as they try to change their fates and save the kingdom. If you’re expecting a fairy tale retelling when reading this, you’ll be disappointed. The story is completely original, although it contains elements from many familiar fairy tales. The characterization here is fantastic, and Ivy is a great character, completely unconventional for a proper princess. The villain is completely despicable, the kind you want to reach out and slap through the pages. But the true star of the show is Elridge, who even though he’s not really a ‘proper’ dragon, is completely loveable. A great read for teen readers who love fantasy and fairy tales. And it’s squeaky
How to Train Your Dragon Book 4: How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse By Cressida Cowell Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, $5.99, 241 pages Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third is back in the fourth How to Train Your Dragon book. In this gratifying sequel to the wildly popular original and now movie, Hiccup’s best friend, Fishlegs, comes down with a nasty cold. When Hiccup takes his friend to the town doctor, Old Wrinkly, he discovers he has been stung by the Venomous Vorpent and needs to acquire the antidote; the rare and fabled Vegetable-That-No-One Dares-Name, a potato from Hysteria. Fishlegs has only hours to live if Hiccup doesn’t get the potato back in time. He sets off with his friend Camicazi and his pet dragon, Toothless, on a deadly quest. Author and creator Cressida Cowell doesn’t disappoint in the new adventures of Hiccup and his Barbarian friends and family. She introduces new scary dragons and creatures such as the Squealers and the frightening Doomfang. Page-turning excitement on every page and wonderfully authentic graphics throughout the book will keep young readers reading! Reviewed by M. Chris Johnson
Finally By Wendy Mass Scholastic Books, $16.99, 296 pages Rory Swenson is finally 12. For years, her overprotective parents have kept muchdesired preteen privileges – such as owning a cell phone, staying home alone, going to boy-girl parties, and getting her ears pierced — at bay, telling Rory she has to wait until she’s 12. It’s a good thing Rory has kept a record of the promises, because now she’s ready to cash in. As Rory makes her way through the long-awaited items on the list, with oftendisastrous results, she and her friends ready themselves to audition to be extras in a teen movie starring the latest teen heartthrobs, which is to be filmed at their school. Finally is an endearing book with an absolutely endearing protagonist, who shares the realistic plights of a new 12-year old through clever and humorous observations. The supporting characters are gems as well; from Rory’s coupon-clipping mother to her Fudge Hatcher-like little brother, to her fashionista and busy-body best friends. An 11 1/2 year-old avid reader zipped through the book in three days, finding it enjoyable and easy to relate to Rory’s struggles. Mothers will be relieved to know Finally is not a book featuring over-mature preteens in serious adult situations, but is, rather, a clean, worthwhile, and age-appropriate read. Reviewed by Megan Just
Technology Facebook: The Missing Manual By E. A. Vander Veer Pogue Press, $19.99, 257 pages Have you ever wondered what all of those other gadgets on Facebook do, but were too busy chatting with your friends to investigate? I would venture to say that 90% percent of the traffic on Facebook is purely social networking; however, there is a growing percentage of Facebook users and businesses that use Facebook as a marketing and sales place. What Facebook: the missing manual does in the first few chapters is walk the user through creating an account, joining
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groups, networks, blogging, profile and security settings. The sections I enjoy most are the business advertising sections. I understand why so many businesses are getting on Facebook; it represents an incredible business opportunity, and what author E. A. Vander Veer does is succinctly walk the user/reader through creating an account setting up Facebook advertising. Vander Veer includes side bars called tips (Informational snippets on how to do things) and others called notes (the consequences of the topic being discussed). Facebook: the missing manual is very good for the beginner to intermediate user. However, I felt this book was a little light on the business functionality of Facebook, but still good for the basics. Reviewed by Marc Filippelli
Make: Technology on Your Time Volume 22 By Make Editors O’Reilly Media, $14.99, 176 pages The summer issue ofMAKE magazine is all about remote control. The largest portion of the magazine is turned over to nine projects “to automate your life,” though it seems some supervision is still required. Sadly, this is the first issue of MAKE I’ve reviewed that has no project in it that is appropriate for my abilities. A remote control lawnmower is way beyond my ability to construct, wire, and program. As are the TV-B-Gone hoodie, control of home ap-
pliances through a web-chat client, and the automatic chicken coop. I had to sit out on the sidelines this time and just enjoy other people’s ingenuity. In addition to the projects, there are a couple of really interesting articles on pinball machines and heavy metal music (the kind with instruments that look like they belong in a factory and not a music store.) A good read but, I’m still waiting for the MAKE editors to make good on their promise and start incorporating CRAFT like projects into their magazine. Reviewed by Jonathon Howard
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Sequential Art The Umbrella Academy: Dallas By Gerard Way, Gabriel Ba Dark Horse, $17.95, 192 pages A post-modern, self-referential dark super hero farce, somewhat in the spirit of Warren Ellis’s “Next Wave: Agents of Hate,” Umbrella Academy: Dallas picks up where the first volume left off. Bereft, mourning heroes, still trying to process the secrets revealed at the death of their “father,” wander searching for answers. Fair warning for those who’ve not yet read volume one, the web of characters and lack of a proper introduction can make it hard to pick up the story in this second collection. At the same time, the art and Ba’s quirky, violent sense of humor make this a comic that’s hard to resist. When time travelers journey to Dallas in November of 1963, some are looking to prevent the Kennedy assassination, while others wish to facilitate the president’s death. Which are the heroes and which the villains? The answer may surprise. Reviewed by Jordan Magill
Judge Sn Goes Golfing By John Scalzi with illustrations by Gahan Wilson Subterranean Press, $18.00, 32 pages A hilarious chapbook by the Hugo and John W. Campbell award-winning author John Scalzi. Set in the world of his popular The Android’s Dream novel, the story tells the tale of how Judge Nugan Bufan Sn – a selfish and socially awkward but intelligent jurist – goes golfing on the one course still open to him. The notoriously awful Dulles Woods is, a course built on tarmac and designed by a video game player. Scalzi mixes punnery, buffoonery, and satire together to recount a tale that seems to be of a formerly arrogant and selfish character turning to goodness and light, only to twist it on its head in the final moments. Judge Sn seems to be having his best round of golf ever, that is until wave after wave of assassins make attempts on his life, something Sn takes with uncharacteristic aplomb. Though misanthropic, Sn is a compelling character, and Scalzi narrates his simple tale with panache and trademark wit. Illustrated throughout by The New Yorker cartoon contributor Gahan Wilson, this short story is a side-splitting must read. Reviewed by John Ottinger
50,000,000 Pearls Fans Can’t Be Wrong: A Pearls Before Swine Collection By Stephan Pastis Andrews McMeel Publishing, $12.99, 127 pages In this newest collection of Pearls Before Swine comic strips, Rat, Pig, Goat, and Zebra join the notoriously dumb Crocs, Lil’ Guard Duck, and Snuffles the cat for plenty of funny adventures. Pastis not only shows himself a master of puns, but adept at incorporating current events as well (such as Snuffles and Lil’ Guard Duck trying to invade Cuba). Another noteworthy element is Pastis’ ability to poke fun of himself as a cartoonist, which leads to some very interesting strips, including a short series where he kills himself off. One thing some readers may overlook is the introduction, which is actually one of my favorite parts of the book. The writing is signature Pastis, but the story he shares is truly heartwarming, which is a stark contrast to the overall more sarcastic tone of the book. The one thing that doesn’t bring this collection up to par with some Pearls books is lack of commentary. Having read the treasuries before, it’s obvious that many of Pastis’ strips have a story behind them,
and it would be nice to learn those little details. Still, fans won’t be disappointed by this book, even if they have to wait to read the treasury. Reviewed by Alyssa Feller
mance, it lacks the magic that makes Martin’s books special. The fire between the two main characters and a secondary conflict between Aislinn and her sister, Nora, definitely make this a worthwhile summer read. However, Martin typically writes books that sparkle and this one just doesn’t have that special something. Reviewed by Lanine Bradley
he doesn’t know is the killer could be someone working in his own department. Special Agent Kylie Donovon may look like a young college student, but she knows what she’s doing. Using herself as bait, her job is to travel from town to town and weed out sexual predators. When Kylie ingratiates herself with his teenage nieces, Perry knows something is up but to his frustration he just can’t quite figure out what. Plus, he can’t quite control the attraction he feels for Kylie. Strong Sleek and Sinfulis a gritty, sexy romance that’ll have you biting your nails as you turn the pages. The sensual scenes are red hot, but the action sequence will keep the heart pounding. Good summer fun! Reviewed by Lanine Bradley
again and when Bella discovers the truth of her abduction years ago she enlists the Captain to assist her in exacting revenge. Jo Beverley’s protagonists complement each other extremely well and their witty dialogue is a treat. A particularly enjoyable aspect of the novel is the seamless incorporation of current events and political obligations. Unbeknownst to Bella, Captain Rose is an oft-used disguise of the Duke of Ithorne; he enjoys the anonymity but his obligations as a duke are never forgotten. That the two meet up more than once in various incarnations makes for interesting scenes as the story progresses. At times, the writing is a little more explanatory than it needs to be, but The Secret Duke will still be very enjoyable for fans of romance. This book may also appeal to fans of 18th century historical fiction. Reviewed by Rachel Wallace
Resistance By Carla Jablonski; Leland Purvis, Illustrator First Second, $16.99, 121 pages It is 1942, as World War II rages across Europe and Nazis occupy France. Paul Tessier and his sister Marie are too young to fully understand what is going on all around them, but they are brave enough to hide their Jewish friend Henri after his parents disappear. This act of defiance introduces the children to the world of the resistance, French people fighting against their occupiers in secret. Paul and Marie’s first assignment: getting Henri away from their hometown to safety in Paris. This graphic novel touches on a subject that many of us are unabashedly fascinated with: World War II and Nazi Germany. But more than that, Resistance delves deeper into the blurry territory of doing what’s right despite harsh opposition, and it shows how seemingly cowed French citizens may be more patriotic than at first glance. The artwork is wonderful, the story is engrossing, and readers will be left eagerly anticipating Book 2 in the series. Reviewed by Holly Scudero
Romance Straight Up By Deirdre Martin Berkley Sensation, $7.99, 352 pages Deirdre Martin writes incredibly, entertaining stories centered around the New York hockey scene which makes her latest installment all the more interesting. Hero Liam O’Brien has run afoul of the New York mobsters. He’s sent swiftly to the old country (Ballycraig, Ireland) to work in a tavern and hide out until the heat dies down. Local shepherdess Aislinn McCafferty’s been hurt before. Therefore the hardworking, independent woman keeps to herself and minds her sheep. But along with the rest of the village, she finds herself curious about the latest addition, and the two have a little run-in at the local tavern. Liam wagers he can crack her tough shell. Anticipation builds as readers await the fireworks they know are coming. While Straight Up is a solidly written ro-
Strong, Sleek and Sinful By Lorie O’Clare St. Martin’s Press, $7.99, 416 pages With the popularity of shows like To Catch a Predator and warnings flashing across the news every single day, Lorie O’Claire’s newest installment couldn’t be more relevant if it tried. Hero Lieutenant Perry Flynn is sure someone is luring teens over the internet. He knows the perp pretends to be a friend or classmate, and arranges a meeting before he kidnaps, rapes and murders young teen girls. What
The Secret Duke By Jo Beverley Signet, $7.99, 413 pages The Secret Duke is set in late 18th century England and opens with Captain Rose taking an interest in a woman in need. Bella appreciates the help but doesn’t trust Rose enough to confide the truth of her situation and, after her rescue, takes her first chance of escape. Four years later, their paths cross
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Home & Garden Fix It, Make It, Grow It, Bake It By Billee Sharp Viva Editions, $15.95, 263 pages Ever wish you could live a life that is healthier, more enjoyable, and costs less? Billee Sharp offers a solution in her little “guide to the good life.” This book reflects the quintessential Californian lifestyle—in San Francisco, that is, not L.A. Use the public library. Eat organic. Tie-dye your clothes. Make homemade cleaning supplies. Grow your own tomatoes. Sharp offers her guidebook as a solution to an economy that has crumbled due to greed. She hopes her ideas about living a “good life” will be good for her readers, but also good for our communities and our planet. You needn’t be a tree hugging hippie to enjoy some of Sharp’s tips. She provides advice on saving a cell phone that has been dropped in water, and offers websites for downloading free music legally. You will even find a section dedicated to party games. This is by no means a comprehensive guide to living an affordable, planet-friendly lifestyle. But it is a start. From gardening tips to recipes for baking bread at home, you’re sure to find a gem of practical wisdom that sits well with you. Reviewed by Amber K. Stott Italian Rustic By McBride, Simon Artisan, $35.00, 226 Pages Not everyone can travel to Italy, let alone build a stone farmhouse from the ground up... but one can take several design elements, finishes, and landscape ideas from these pages and produce a rather satisfactory result. The section which most appeared useful to me was the chapter on wall finishes, specifically the breathtakingly subtle effect of organic washes in lieu of latex paint. Throughout Italian Rustic, Minchilli emphasizes that the ‘rougher’ finishes, floors, and beams are really the key to attaining the true “look” of an Italian farmhouse. I did chuckle a bit at one of the pictures following said advice which portrayed a dining area with rough-hewn floorboards and a ‘minimalist’ farm table…over which hung an exquisite crystal chandelier. Scattered throughout this piece are fascinating historical facts, whimsical design touches and ancient building methods, many of which could prove useful to remodelingminded homeowners of today. Reviewed by Meredith Greene
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Real-Life Decor: 100 Easy DIY Projects to Brighten Your Home on a Budget By Jean Nayar & the experts at PointClickHome.comFilipacchi Publishing, $21.99, 128 pages The economy might be in shambles but your home doesn’t have to be. Real-Life Décor contains helpful, doable projects for the homeowner who wants to spruce up their home on a budget. No more broken chairs or ratty throw pillows, Real-Life Décor has clear and concise step-by-step instructions to guide even the craft-challenged through renewing home accents in thrifty and inventive ways. Make a pocket pillow to store your glasses and book so it’s ready every time you want to curl up on the couch. Or create a stylish pot rack from an old step ladder. Organized by headings such as furniture fix-ups and easy accents, author Jean Nayar’s focus lies on practical home and eco-friendly DIY design. Each project is marked by skill level required, from beginner to advanced, and covers projects from needle and thread to table saw. There’s a picture of the final project, a comprehensible materials list, and set of instructions. Each project is adaptable to any given home, leaving room for each individual’s own flash and flair to come through and create something unique, smart, and eyecatching for their home interior for less. Reviewed by Axie Barclay The Beginner’s Guide to Edible Herbs: 26 Herbs Everyone Should Grow and Enjoy By Charles W. G. Smith Storey Publishing, $12.95, 145 pages This delightful book will benefit any gardener hoping to eat what they grow. Complete with tips on how to grow, where to grow, and lots of full-color photos, this guide book is an herb-filled education sure to enhance your garden. The book covers 27 herbs ranging from common basil and dill to the rarer hyssop and borage. Edible Herbs is packed with expert gardener tips. You’ll learn which herbs attract beneficial insects, how to propagate and spread herbs, the difference between varieties, and the best time and soil in which to plant. This is a truly comprehensive guide as the author also imparts kitchen wisdom, telling you how to use and preserve each herb, and providing recipes for each. In fact, this is as much cookbook as gardening guide. You’ll find instructions for preparing basil pesto, pizza, refreshing beverages, marinades, and even a mustard
The Vegetable Gardener’s Book Of Building Projects By the editors of Storey Publishing Storey Publishing, $18.95, 151 pages
This is a handy do-it-yourself book for the serious gardener. You’ll find everything you need to help your garden grow and to help you enjoy your peaceful outdoor setting. The book begins with a basic list of tools, materials, and tips for building, such as how to mark the layout of your project or countersink a screw. This section is short, allowing you to dive right into the welllaid projects. The projects are the highlight of this book. You’ll find schematics and instructions for building everything from a garden cold frame, raised garden bed, or basic tomato cage, to a garden swing. You’ll find designs for bird feeders, sitting benches, garden gates, and arbors. If you want these features in your garden, this book shows how to build them. “The built-in benches on this handy planter provide a convenient and comfortable perch for tending your plants.” The plans are simple to follow and don’t lack for beauty. The window box planter has three dimensions and a decorative wooden front panel. The outdoor storage bin has wrought iron handles. Practical, structurally sound, and aesthetically-pleasing, the designs in this book will inspire you to spend more time in your garden. If you’re looking for some crafty garden projects, this book will come in handy. Reviewed by Amber Stott recipe. Preservation techniques range from dehydration to making jams. This well-written, easy-to-navigate book also provides interesting historical facts about herbs, and tips for getting the most from them. This claims to be a beginner’s guide, but most gardeners will find practical use from this book. Reviewed by Amber K. Stott The Big-Ass Book of Home Decor By Mark Montano Stewart Tabori & Chang, $22.50, 271 pages Mark Montano’s The Big-Ass Book of Home Décor offers 100 creative home ideas for items big and small. From plates to windows, tables to beds, and walls to ceilings, there are ideas for emulation and inspiration. The ideas are organized according to the items you can decorate them with, but with a little imagination, each idea can actually be used anywhere. One section that particularly stands out is that on decorating Ikea furniture--no more plain wood! There are some projects I wouldn’t do, though, for safety purposes, the broken mirror wall lamps and chandelier, in particular. If your idea of decorating is of the traditional and classic, this book might not be for you. But generally, I find the book very useful, as well as pretty enough to be a coffee table book. Reviewed by Jennifer LeBrun
The Organic Farming Manual By Anne Larkin Hansen Storey Publishing, $29.95, 437 pages You don’t have to be a farmer to appreciate this book. But if you are an aspiring farmer, this guide will sure help! Written for beginners, this hefty manual reads like a textbook, but if you like gardening, it’s a lot more fun. It’s well-researched, thorough, and filled with stories from real organic farmers across America—a highlight of the book. For anyone interested in the organic food movement, this text provides essential background on organic farming history in our country, government standards for becoming certified, and the philosophical perspective behind it. The book also includes the essentials of becoming a farmer, detailing how to find the right land for your use, understanding your soil, planting crops, and raising animals. Finally, the book offers detailed steps on applying for organic certification. This informative read is eye-opening for any Americans interested in how organic food is grown. You’ll learn just as much about conventional farming practices as you do about organic methods, and understand the important differences. Whether you’re a home gardener or a backyard farmer, you’ll take away helpful techniques about pruning, harvesting, and pest control. This is a useful and enjoyable guide from a farmers’ perspective on sustainable food. Reviewed by Amber Stott
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Find out why the answer could be yes in a new groundbreaking book: Living With Evolution or Dying Without It
Rendez Vous Cafe 106 S. El Camino Real San Mateo, CA 94401-3810 Ph: 650.342.8558 Saturday, July 24, 2010 12pm- 2pm
"From the Big Bang to Gang Bangers in LA, K.D. Koratsky helps us understand how the universe has evolved to this point--and where it's headed from here. An enlightening, if sometimes unsettling, read. -- Mike Ball, Author of “What I've Learned So Far” and Winner of the 2003 Erma Bombeck Award
“Koratsky is to evolution what Webster's is to words. He is the definitive name in describing the human condition.” -- Jess Todtfeld, Former FOX-TV Producer President, Success In Media, Inc.
"Koratsky takes the principles behind evolution and applies them to social groups, societies and governments. His conclusions on why we've ended up where we are now will be hotly debated, as will his suggestions on using actively evolutionary principles for reform in health care, prisons and welfare. Agree or disagree, it is a debate that should happen." -- Ross Rojek Sacramento/San Francisco Book Reviews
“Finally! A book about Evolution...that does not merely enter that rocky arena of whether or not it is fact: brilliant author K.D. Koratsky takes the stance of challenging us to examine our current values and compare those with societies that have either thrived or died in the past. Koratsky’s no-nonsense writing addresses so many issues such as how we deal with criminals, our puzzling use of welfare...and healthcare. Swallow or gulp before finishing this book because it is bound to change minds in a natural way for those strong enough to admit Koratsky is right!” -- Grady Harp TopTen Amazon Reviewer
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Art, Architecture &Photography CHINA: Portrait of a People By Tom Carter Blacksmith Books, $24.95, 638 pages One man, the provinces of China, and a camera. That is how Tom Carter sets off across the entire country of China to take pictures of its people and ever-changing places. Mr. Carter might not be the most artistic photographer, but that is not the point of this work. This work is to bring to life the China that people around the world might not know, the everyday, from people living and playing in Shanghai, to farmers in the middle of the countryside who modernity seems to have passed by, as well as the many ethnic groups that make up China that seem to be forgotten by society. Mr. Carter goes from province to province. He captures the essence of the Chinese people, old grannies chatting and modern apartment buildings next to centuries-old houses. He documents that in their rush to become modern, China is destroying its past, bulldozing over historic buildings to build modern, utilitarian high raises. Farmers still live as they have for centuries, off the land,
though more and more are heading towards the cities to find work. This work shows that China is changing quickly, though the path is not yet clear. Reviewed by Kevin Winter Great Public Squares By Robert F. Gatje Norton, $65.00, 224 pages I am a devoted pedestrian - I live in one of the most ‘walk able’ cities in America, San Francisco. So, this book, which the author classifies as “...not so much about architecture as about space,” is a book made for those of us who relish the two-footed transportation experience. The first thing one notices in the table of contents is the geographical break down: twenty of the spaces illustrated and discussed are in Italy, six in Rome itself. London and New York have one; SF zero. Part of the reason for this is that after WWII, enlightened planners rebuilt Europe to favor mass transit and pedestrians. Compare this with the USA, which embarked on a frenzy of highway construction. The author
contrasts Piazza di Spagna, Rome and Times Square, New York. Despite their similar shape and size, only the former is included here because the latter is an “auto-centric” space. This kind of insightful background information is one of the reasons this book rises above being a mere travelogue with pretty pictures. Another is the clear, beautifully rendered architectural drawings which show important but often overlooked factors such as shadow patterns. This high-quality, large-format book makes one want to visit the places depicted, which also include sites in Germany, France , the Czech Republic, Spain, and Portugal, Santa Fe, Portland, Boston, and more. It is a welcome relief from the tomes celebrating the PRIVATE mansions, condos, and offices of the rich and famous. Reviewed by Bruce Marshall How to Survive Modern Art By Susie Hodge Tate Publishing, $19.95, 128 pages Have you been to an art museum lately? Did it have a Modern wing? Did you risk all and enter it? Were you left bewildered and confused by the “art” surrounding you? Some of it might have been on walls, while other installations might have been more
aural? Perhaps you saw some kinetic art or a video? Did you leave asking yourself, “What in the heck was that?” You are not alone and thankfully for you, me, and anyone else not neck deep in the art scene, Susie Hodge has created a guide for the bewildered. Ms. Hodge breaks it all down for you in this full color guide to the world of modern art from the various movements within the genre to the most prominent practitioners. How to Survive Modern Art is more than just a guide to this often misunderstood movement in art, Ms. Hodge provides much needed context to works and artists allowing the reader to not only understand the piece but also what the artist was trying to say when they made it. For someone who hasn’t visited the world of art since the Renaissance, like this reviewer, How to Survive Modern Art is an invaluable guide. Reviewed by Jonathon Howard
Science & Nature Why Dogs Eat Poop, and Other Useless or Gross Information About the Animal Kingdom By Francesca Gould and David Haviland Tarcher, $12.95, 247 pages Deliciously disgusting stories delight the young reader. This is the third book in the series by the same author that include Why You Shouldn’t Eat Your Boogers and Why Fish Fart, titles that fire one’s curiosity. Divided into eight chapters with amusing headings such as Amazing Animals, Filthy Fauna, Crafty Creatures, Vicious Varmints and so on, one can see that this will be a fun book ... both to write and to read. “There are a number of species of bird that have developed sewing skills, which they use to construct their nests.” Useful information and clear explanations follow the posed questions. The reply to the query about whether you get two worms by cutting an earthworm in half is no, and by reading on you can find out why. Lots of esoteric details are expressed in fun
ways, such as: do fish fish for fish? or do animals tell lies? or how might a mite mate? One can pick up a lot of factoids to fascinate friends or to open a conversation. Actually there are many interesting details included in this book which is essentially a study of animal behavior. Children and young adults will be amused, fascinated, and/or disgusted by some of the questions and the answers. A good book to pick up and browse through while it tickles your ears with its word play. Reviewed by Rita Hoots How It Ends By Impey, Chris Norton, $26.95, 352 pages It’s rather scary to think that everything we understand in reality will someday end. Chris Impey demonstrates how everything in the universe will eventually wind itself down, and ends with an intense examination of everything that matters. He essentially proposes that everything is born, grows to maturity, withers and dies. Everything from living things to inanimate objects, like space rocks, planets,
stars, solar systems and galaxies, eventually passes away. In effect, the whole shebang will end. Ironically, Chris Impey’s How It Ends is really a quest to discover where we are going. Impey does this consistently by exploring the lives of larger structures such as the Fate of Species, Beyond Natural Selection, The Web of Life, Threats to the Biosphere, Living in the Solar System, the Sun’s Demise, Our Galactic Habitat and finally, How the Universe Ends.
We are immediately shaken by the reality that Impey bestows through his work. Yet, our eyes are opened to the vague concerns we all foster in the back of our minds. Of course, the amount of time involved for nature to carry out her demise is daunting to comprehend. But scientists are grappling with ever more unsettling ideas than things phasing out. Impey concludes that even though life may seem distressing, it’s still great to know that we are alive. Reviewed by D. Wayne Dworsky
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