Sacramento
Nov 11 VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1
F R E E
Book Review NEW AND OF INTEREST
9
Spies of the Balkans
Furth novel in Greece Page 11
Food From Many Greek Kitchens
Greek recipes, stunning photos, great reading Page 22
12
The Butterfly Cabinet
Sometimes, it’s better not to know Page 45
Orpheus in Manhattan
43
A little bit of everything... and then some Page 52
Best Tuscan home cooking By Pamela Sheldon Johns Andrew McMeel Publishing, $21.99, 185 pages
57
Italian regional cookbooks appear on bookshelves like mushrooms in the fall. There are many good ones, but Cucina Povera is simply awesome. This hard-covered volume is medium-sized and its production spared no expense — it is beautiful. Illustrations match the peasant theme with many photos showing village folks in their homes and surroundings, landscapes and, of course, food. Most photos are full color but some are black and white. They are all artistic and wonderful. Each chapter is preceded by a full-page black and white photo and its
own table of contents — very convenient. The first 41 pages include stories and memories of the villagers and accompanying photos. Recipes are excellent and range from very simple (sliced cured meat arranged on a board) to fairly complex, but few cooks would have a problem following them. Each recipe is illustrated, and head notes are informative and appropriate to the recipe. The layout was designed with a cook’s convenience in mind — rarely do you need to flip pages to work on a recipe. Ingredients in See CUCINA, page 3
The Golf Delusion Golf is hard, but reading is fun Page 55
Frank Lloyd Wright Designs The Wright holy grail Page 65
257 Reviews INSIDE!
IN THIS ISSUE 1776 Productions. LLC 1722 J Street, Suite 9 Sacramento, CA 95811 Ph. 877.913.1776 info@1776productions.com EDITOR IN CHIEF Ross Rojek ross@1776productions.com
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Albert Reihle Zara Raab
GRAPHIC DESIGN/LAYOUT Heidi Komlofske heidi.komlofske@1776productions.com
COPY EDITORS Lori Miller Lori Freeze Diane Jinson
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Lisa Rodgers Justin Salazar-Stewart Elizabeth Tropp Mia Atienza Erin McDonough
MEDIA SALES Hannah Walcher
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The Sacramento Book Review is published monthly by 1776 Productions, LLC. 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 San Francisco Book Review advertisers. All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright holders. All words © 2011, 1776 Productions, LLC.
Classics........................................................... 3 Humor-Fiction................................................ 3 Children’s Books............................................. 4 Modern Literature.......................................... 8 Crafts & Hobbies............................................ 9 Mystery, Crime & Thriller............................ 10 Historical Fiction.......................................... 14 History......................................................... 16 Cooking, Food & Wine.................................. 20 NaNoWriMo: Encouraging Writing or GreedBased Con?................................................ 23 Feel Like Makin’ Love................................... 24 Poetry & Short Stories.................................. 25 Horror.......................................................... 26 Science Fiction & Fantasy............................. 28 Tweens......................................................... 32 Games........................................................... 34 Health, Fitness & Dieting............................. 34 Parenting & Families.................................... 35 Sequential Art.............................................. 36 Young Adult.................................................. 38 An Interview with Chana Bloch.................... 41 Popular Fiction............................................. 42 Romance....................................................... 47 Business & Investing.................................... 48 Current Events & Politics............................. 49 Biographies & Memoirs................................ 50 Religion........................................................ 54 Spirituality & Inspiration............................. 55 Sports & Outdoors........................................ 55 Science & Nature.......................................... 56 Self-Help....................................................... 60 Reference...................................................... 62 Popular Culture............................................ 63 Art, Architecture & Photography................. 64 Humor-Nonfiction........................................ 66 Home & Gardens........................................... 67 Sex & Relationships...................................... 67
FROM THE EDITOR Welcome to November. It seems like just last week the weather was warm, skies were clear and it was still summer time. Come to think of it, I am describing last week, with unseasonably warm weather. We even sat outside on our porch on Halloween handing out candy it was so nice. November is an exciting month for us. Not only do we have a new issue of Sacramento Book Review out, but we’ve also licensed the Tulsa Book Review to the Tulsa City County Library System. Their first issue came out this month, and we’ll be producing it for them monthly. We’re excited to be doing it for them and expanding our group of locally focused city book reviews further around the country. Now that we’ve settled into our new Midtown Sac offices, we’re been able to expand our office staff and interns. We’ve added Lisa Rodgers as our new editorial assistant, and Justin Salazar-Stewart and Mia Atienzam as interns. Working outside of the office is Beth Tropp, helping us all the way from Pennsylvania. Now that we’re in the office five days a week, feel free to stop by and say hi. More of our local reviewers are coming by to pick up their books, and it’s nice to put faces to names. November is also National Novel Writing Month. We have two different opinions of it here from two of our reviewers on the attention it gets. There are plenty of book reviews in this issue, an expanded digital edition viewable on your iPad and any other tablet you happen to use. We’re going to be doing a lot more with digital in upcoming months, so expect to see more soon. Thanks for picking us up this month. As always, we hope we’ve helped you find some new good books, or helped you avoid some bad ones. Ross Rojek - Editor-in-Chief ross@1776productions.com 1776 Productions
Book Reviews
Classics
The Little Big Book of Christmas By Lena Tabori Welcome Books, $24.95, 352 pages The Little Big Book of Christmas is a reprint of a book long out of print. At 7-by-7 inches, this is a handy book for a hostess gift or Christmas stocking. It contains a sprinkling of poems, stories, carols, and recipes, and is illustrated by drawings that often look like they leapt off a Victorian age holiday greeting card. Although many traditional Christmas tales are found in this book, such as the Bible tale of Christmas, O. Henry’s the “Gift of the Magi,” and Clement C. Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” many unfamiliar — but just as moving — tales are found within its pages. It is these “new” treasures that make the book stand apart from the many other Christmas books lining bookshelves. With 59 different entries you can enjoy something new from Thanksgiving to Epiphany. For those sharing this book with children, a few of the tales are sad, even tragic. But for the most part, it makes an ideal choice for a daily dose of Christmas that is more than gifts, gifts, gifts — and manages to include a lesson with the fun. Reviewed by Jodi Webb
Pinocchio By Carlo Collodi with illustrations by Alice Carsey Everyman’s Library, $16.95, 203 pages Those of you who only know the Disney retelling of the story of Pinocchio will be delighted, amazed, and entertained by reading this classic. The Everyman’s Library edition has beautiful chapter illustrations and a bookmark ribbon to augment this wonderful and timeless story. Pa r t ic u l a rly appropriate in this era of greed is the fable of a puppet that is so energetic and full of boy energy that his life force in the block of wood comes alive immediately. Of course, he seeks out adventure and easy money before he has the moral underpinnings to sustain such adventures. Like the Disney retelling of The Little Mermaid, which left out her death, when Pinocchio squashes the cricket in Chapter IV, the reader will be stunned. This is not your Disney Jiminy. This book would make a wonderful present for any child or adult who loves brilliant adventure and storytelling with accessible moral lessons cloaked in Pinocchio’s adventures. Like a real boy, it takes a lot of adventure to make him understand that his human connections are more important than the accumulation of fun and money. This is a timely fable for the times in which we live. Highly recommend and essential for a complete classic library. Reviewed by Julia McMichael
Arrrrgggghhhh! i should have checked the sacramento book review website before buying this book!
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HumorFiction
Sad Monsters: Growling on the Outside, Crying on the Inside By Frank Lesser with illustration by Willie Real Plume, $13.00, 176 pages Most people believe the life of a monster is all about scaring people, destroying cities, and eating small children. Not so, as Frank Lesser sets out to show in Sad Monsters: Growling on the Outside, Crying on the Inside, a collection of short essays, letters, diary entries, and more. One essay details the complexities of maintaining a good relationship with your wish-granting genie (the goal is to get him to grant wishes because he wants to, not because he has to), while in another, Godzilla questions the purpose of existence. The Abominable Snowman seeks an office job, and a vampire struggles with past relationships and his own sexuality. While the concept of this book has great potential, the resulting collection falls sadly short of expectations. The individual stories are well-written and the book is organized in a very orderly fashion; some of the illustrations are pretty awesome, and the author definitely gets points for having a great idea. But, simply put, the essays themselves are just not that funny. Reading them did not elicit a single chuckle, and midway through the book, even the act of reading the stories got a little tedious. The right reader might love this book, but most will likely be unimpressed. Reviewed by Holly Scudero Q: A Novel By Evan Mandery Harper, $13.99, 368 pages An author needs a wealth of chutzpah to write a philosophical sci-fi/comedy/ romance, and a still deeper well of talent to pull it off. Impressively, Evan Mandery mostly succeeds with his poignant, often hilarious, consideration of our universal curse of second guessing. Our narrator, (“I”) is a professor of history and novelist, who writes alternative
Sacramento Book Review • November 2011 • 3
histories about such profound questions as what if President William Harrison had taken his mother’s advice and worn a jacket to his inauguration (thus avoiding the pneumonia which killed him a mere 32 days later), and what if Freud stayed with his initial topic of study (the search for the elusive eel testicle). I tells of how he met the love of his life, Quentina Elizabeth Deveril , the “Q” of the title. All is paradisiacal until a visit from the narrator’s time-traveling, 60-year-old self, referred to as I-60. I-60 persuades I not marry Q. However, ending the engagement brings little happiness (in present or future). A series of future selves arrive later, pushing I in this and that direction (and usually insisting that their advice must be given over a meal at an exclusive New York restaurant, and no, time travelers can’t bring along their wallets). This spiral structure remains fresh — though one begins to wonder why I continues to accept all this less-thanstellar advice. Much of Q’s success lies in Mandery’s obvious empathy for I and his delightful sense of humor. Perhaps my only quibble is that Mandery’s efforts at Woody Allenesque absurdist one-liners sometimes blunt his sharp, Vonnegut-like, humorous social criticism. Any short-comings, however, will surely be forgotten at the novel’s moving final chapter, which will make you want to embrace that person who you love most. It will take a reader with a very hard heart not to be moved by Q. Reviewed by Jordan Magill
CUCINA, cont’d from page 1 the 60-plus recipes are mostly easily available and when uncommon, the author gives alternatives. The subject index, both in English and Italian, is excellent and well crossreferenced. Reviewed by George Erdosh
Book Reviews
Children’s Encyclopedia Mythologica: Dragons and Monsters Pop-Up By Matthew Reinhart, Robert Sabuda Candlewick Press, $29.99, 12 pages Some soar, some roar. Some loom larger than life, and others skulk in the shadows. But never before have these creatures of myth and legend been more stunningly realized than in the pages of Encyclopedia Mythologica: Dragons and Monsters. These incredibly intricate fold-outs are works of art, unfurling and leaping from the page to rival anything your imagination has conjured. This is by far the most amazing pop-up book I’ve ever seen. I marveled at the yeti as it reared toward me, powerful arms reaching for the sky, utterly dominating the two-page spread. This is no mere kids’ book; this is something to spark the wonder inside us all. The write-ups accompanying each display are concise and informative, never burying the magic with facts, but never ignoring the dubious evidence behind the existence of some of these creatures. The authors’ affection for the subject is obvious. And the smaller foldouts beneath the main pop-ups are a real treat, making the reader an active participant in the experience. I cannot say enough good things about this book. It’s a masterpiece. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas The Snowman’s Revenge By Mark Smythe Mark Smythe, $9.99, 44 pages What happens to snowmen after the kids have forgotten their newly forged friend and gone inside? How do snowmen cope with abandonment? Do they accept it with a quiet, dignified grace, or do they succumb to bitterness and jealousy, plotting against their tormentors? While the story of a snowman who grins and bears it might be alright, Smythe shows us the flip side of possibility with The Snowman’s Revenge, a darkly funny and somewhat sad tale of a vengeful snowman who just wants to be part of the group. Illustrated with vibrant warmth and rich colors, the book nonetheless grants the snowman a fair bit of malevolence, piquing the reader’s curiosity. What is the snowman’s plan? Will he get his revenge?
It wouldn’t be much of a children’s book if he did, but the very thought is subversively delightful. (In a similar vein, you can’t help but notice that every tree branch ends in a very hand-like clump of twigs, leaving the reader to ponder just how many snowmen this snowstorm has spawned, and how many of them are plotting revenge.) Parents and kids alike should get a kick out of this slightly bent seasonal story. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Biomimicry: Inventions Inspired by Nature By Dora Lee with illustrations by Margot Thompson Kids Can Press, $18.85, 40 pages Look to nature to find the perfect design. In this vividly illustrated book, the author shows how man takes advantage of patterns in the natural world to foster new designs and inventions for human use. Blue mussels make a protective adhesive that scientists are attempting to copy. Look at the iridescent nacre which lines abalone shells, it is a super strong material that if reproduced would be invaluable for builders. In the realm of communication, fiber optics was already used by ancient sea sponges. Dolphins gave us the clue to separating sound waves from other interfering water noises, knowledge that was used to develop modems. The flight of birds led to the development of the airplane. Read the book to find out why the famed Japanese bullet train resembles a kingfisher’s long pointed beak, or how the scales on the back of a Brazilian beetle sparked the idea to channel light in photonic computers. Robots fashioned to move as snakes are used to find victims buried by earthquakes. These are just a few examples of how biomimicry works. Youngsters will be awed by the amazing way scientists and inventors translate nature into modern technology. Reviewed by Aron Row
Ten For Me By Barbara Mariconda with illustrations by Sherry Rogers Sylvan Dell, $8.95, 32 pages Some of the most powerful moments in teaching small children occur when learning happens as a natural extension of having fun. For that reason, Barbara Mariconda’s Ten for Me is a wonderful find. In this slim book, Rose and Ed have a friendly competition as they tally the number of butterflies they catch and release over ten days. As they record their results, Rose and Ed inadvertently discover all of the addition facts totaling ten. All of this is told in delightful rhyme with charming illustrations. (The depiction of Rose’s outfit is particularly humorous.) To add a cross-curricular element, pages of Rose and Ed’s butterfly manual fall open to reveal interesting facts about butterflies throughout the story. Finally, the last four pages of the text contain activities to extend the learning opportunities, including numbers and patterns and butterfly body parts, life cycle, and identification. Additional activities and teaching resources can be found on the publisher’s Web site included in the book. Ten for Me is a fun, little story that makes addition facts and nature study fun. Reviewed by Annie Peters Chippy Chipmunk: Babies in the Garden By Kathy M. Miller Celtic Sunrise, $19.95, 40 pages Kathy M. Miller writes a beautiful story around photographs she took that will not only appeal to young children, but also will capture the hearts of the adults reading to the little ones. This book communicates on many levels. The story of Chippy, Lily, and the four newborn chipmunks — Rosalie, Roosevelt, Rachel, and Benjamin — is a fun, interesting read, shared realistically and lovingly. When the baby chipmunks come out of the burrow, they interact with each other as their instincts help train them in what they need for independence, under the watchful eye of their parents. The photographs are phenomenal! They add a unique level to a children’s picture book, allowing the child to witness the actual animals as they start out in life. The front of the book has the significance of each of the babies’ names that Miller chose, while the back of the book shares facts in such a fun way that science and nature come alive. Reviewed by Angie Mangino
Sacramento Book Review • November 2011 • 5
LOCAL AUTHOR Why Am I Blue? By Kevin Clemons, Illustrations by Suganthi Manickam KLC Productions, $9.95, 14 pages The endearing, colorful characters of Why Am I Blue? are brought to life through the animated storytelling of Kevin Clemons and the illustrations of Suganthi Manickam. This children’s book tells the tale of the beloved colors and their creation. Sweetly narrated, a bettersuited bedtime story would be hard to find. Blue is the delightfully unassuming protagonist, patiently waiting his turn while all the other colors get picked to play their role in the world. However, as the roles diminish, Blue questions his part, and finally learns how truly important he is. Children will enjoy the romp with the colors as they lead themselves through and to self-discovery. And where would they be without the illustrations, which capture the livelihood of the colors. Why Am I Blue? teaches self confidence and individuality. Perhaps this is a conventional story, but it still gives readers a heads-up for up-andcoming children’s author Clemons and illustrator Manickam. Sponsored Review Little Black Book By Renee Khatami Random House Books for Young Readers, $8.99, 14 pages Black cat. Black bunny. Black velvet dress. These and other enticing objects are the focus of Little Black Book, a sense-stimulating board book that invites babies and toddlers to explore the look, feel, and smell of the color black. Each page features a photograph of something black, along with an interesting texture to experience — soft rabbit fur, stiff cat whiskers. There is a scratch-andsniff page for black licorice, and a lift-the-flap page that reveals a bat flying out of a magician’s hat. Black, this book points out, is everywhere in the world around us. Though this is surely an entertaining addition to any toddler’s touch-and-feel collection, the color-focused theme of the book isn’t enough to make it particularly enlightening or interesting. The rhyming text feels haphazard (“black is … the soft fur on my big pet bunny, / a cat mask that is so funny!”), and the featured objects, namely the black licorice and a decidedly unfunny cat mask, seem more than a bit short of familiar for the youngest readers. Many other books emphasize color concepts and sense exploration opportunities with more narrative and visual punch. Reviewed by Margo Orlando Littell
Book Reviews
The Bravest Woman in America By Marissa Moss and Andrea U’Ren Tricycle Press, $16.99, 32 pages History tells us that women were content to sit at home; sometimes that home, however, was not as safe as it should be. The Bravest Woman in America is the story of Ida Lewis, a woman who took over lighthouse duty from her father. It highlights her training, especially how she became one of the strongest rowers in the area, and how she eventually took over the role of lighthouse keeper from her father. The book also highlights some of her adventures, including saving the lives of three boys. The art is a lot more rough-hewn than it perhaps should be, but it works well for the story. The lettering is inconsistent, sometimes boxed, sometimes not; that’s the book’s biggest flaw. Otherwise, the story is told simply and with a nice little cap at the end that brings it all together. Ida comes across as someone who wanted to spend time with her dad, and then grew up to be the daughter who would always be by his side. For mothers looking to find a story about a girl who becomes what she wants to be, this is a great little story. Reviewed by Jamais Jochim
Children’s Books
Lights Out, Night’s Out By William Boniface Andrews McMeel Publishing, $6.99, 23 pages What goes on after dark? What lurks in the night? In Lights Out, Night’s Out, author William Boniface and illustrator Milena Kirkova have created a wonderful book for children will enjoy. Boniface’s rhyming text paired with colorful whimsical pictures by Kirkova cast a light on some of nighttime’s nocturnal inhabitants and their activities. Sleepy-eyed owls, cuddly hedgehogs, stripey-legged crickets, howling wolves, and even domesticated critters like hamsters rule the hours of night. Kirkova’s illustrations are further enhanced with glow-in-the-dark inks that come alive after exposure to light, adding to the fun of this delightful book. Though children will enjoy the pictures and rhymes, they will most definitely feed their imaginations and dreams as well, perhaps delaying bedtime for a little while. This book is sure to delight young and old! Reviewed by Laura Friedkin
Over and Under the Snow By Kate Messner with art by Christopher Silas Neal (illustrator) Chronicle Books, $16.99, 44 pages Have you ever wondered where animals such as bullfrogs, beavers, and bumblebees go when the world is covered in snow? In Over and Under the Snow, we meet a young girl and her father as they crosscountry ski through a forest on a snowy day. Through simple, clean prose, Kate Messner alternates between describing the world the little girl and her father see and the secret kingdom of the animals living warm and safe under the snow. Christopher Silas Neal’s mixed media illustrations complement the text and encourage the listener to find the various creatures mentioned in the story. Messner further deepens the listener’s experience of the story by thoughtfully providing an author’s note discussing further the subnivean zone described under the snow. She also includes a glossary giving more information about the lifestyles of the animals mentioned in the story and a list of resources for further reading. Somewhat reminiscent of Robert McCloskey’s books, Over and Under the Snow will make a wonderful book for adults and children to snuggle with on a cold, snowy day. Reviewed by Annie Peters
Llama Llama Home with Mama By Anna Dewdney Viking Juvenile, $17.99, 40 pages In this latest installment of the popular Llama series by author Anna Dewdney, Little Llama is feeling a bit under the weather. He is unsure of what is going on with his nose. At first, it feels a bit tickly and he gets progressively sicker as the day moves on. Mama Llama, as per usual, is on the scene and knows exactly what is going on. She tells Little Llama to stay in bed and not to worry about going to school. She gives him medicine and leaves him for a bit so he can play with his toys. The medicine makes Little Llama feel a bit woozy so he takes a nap; when he wakes up feeling better, he finds Mama Llama in poor shape. Little Llama shows growth of character in the series by understanding that his mama is not feeling well and begins to take steps to take care of her. Llama Llama Home with Mama is a fantastical continuation to a well-loved-by-me series. I adore each new volume and the illustrations never lose their unique style and bright, bold primary colors. Highly recommended. Reviewed by Pam van Hylckama Vlieg
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app thousands of book titles, find author events, listen to author interviews searchable database Sacramento Book Review • November 2011 • 6
Book Reviews
Princess Zelda and the Frog By Carol Gardner with photography by Shane Young Feiwel & Friends, $16.99, 40 pages Princess Zelda has it all: beauty (the kind that’s in the eye of the beholder), jewels, gorgeous gowns, fabulous treats, and expensive toys. She also happens to be an English bulldog. In this wacky retelling of The Princess and the Frog, Zelda has a problem. She can’t sleep at night. One day, hoping fresh air will help, she goes outside with her golden ball, but drops the ball in a mud puddle. What to do? A princess can’t get dirty. A frog retrieves the ball for her, but only after exacting several promises from Zelda. She must let him eat from her golden bowl. She must let him sleep on her golden pillow. The list goes on, including a promise that she will be his BFF. Zelda promises, but she doesn’t mean it. To her horror, the frog shows up at the castle that very evening, expecting Zelda to keep her word. Shane Young’s wild photographs capture Zelda at her most, uh ... elegant: in a purple satin dress with puffed sleeves, or a purple bikini, always with her jeweled tiara. And Froggy’s bulldog soul gleams from beneath his frog eyes. This book will keep kids laughing. Reviewed by Elizabeth Varadan Grandpa Green By Lane Smith Roaring Brook Press, $16.99, 32 pages The child narrating the touching, whimsical story Grandpa Green knows a lot about his great-grandfather’s life. He knows about his great-grandfather’s childhood on a farm, a bout of chicken pox, and his service in a world war; he knows that his great-grandparents met in Paris. He’s learned all these things from his wizened great-grandfather whose memory is no longer what it used to be. As the child traipses through a remarkable garden full of elaborate topiaries that reflect pieces of his great-grandfather’s past, he collects objects that his great-grandfather has forgotten — a trowel, a pair of glasses, a floppy straw hat. But the child understands that these are trifles. The important things, he knows, are immortalized forever in his great-grandfather’s garden.
Children’s Books
The text and illustrations in Grandpa Green work in perfect harmony to evoke both the curious wonder of childhood and the reflective contentment of old age. It’s impossible not to be moved by the child’s cheerful recounting of his great-grandfather’s history, which has clearly been painstakingly passed on across four generations. The fanciful topiaries will make this a compelling read for children, but the story itself will likely appeal even more strongly to parents. Reviewed by Margo Orlando Littell Bugs by the Numbers By Sharon Werner and Sarah Forss Blue Apple Books, $19.99, 56 pages There are some kids’ books that you just do not want to give to the kids. Bugs by the Numbers is a fascinating exploration of the world of bugs, looking at the little creatures from a numerical pervspective. What makes the book somewhat neater is that the insects are made up of the numbers that are being discussed; an ant, for example is divided into the three parts, so its head is made of ones, its thorax is twos, and the abdomen is threes, making for an incredible visual motif. The book is a visual masterpiece in its simplicity. As an exercise in practical typography, it makes for a visually stunning book, especially when combined with the cut-outs. This is a very pretty book, and it covers a wide variety of insect facts. Even the inside covers continue the theme, with trails of facts covering them. This is probably a book that will be used as a reference for at least the first several grades, presuming that you let the kids have this book in the first place. Reviewed by Jamais Jochim Just Being Audrey By Margaret Cardillo, Julia Denos Balzer + Bray, $16.99, 32 pages Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Roman Holiday, those large doe eyes and chic style—this is what most people know about Audrey Hepburn. Just Being Audrey gives the back story—a hint of it, at least—and shows how an awkward young would-be ballerina from Brussels became the film and stage icon we know today. It may surprise young readers that a woman
as gorgeous as Hepburn was once teased for her too-big eyes and her impressive height; or that such a glamorous actress once struggled to live with no heat and little food while hiding from the Nazis during World War II. What seems to a casual observer like a charmed life had, instead, many twists and turns. Just Being Audrey is far from a definitive biography; but the beautiful watercolor illustrations do justice to Hepburn’s modest beginnings, touching aspirations, and, later in her life, her noble work with UNICEF. A timeline at the end of the book hints at more to the story—her impressive roster of awards, for example, as well as her multiple marriages—but perhaps it isn’t surprising that in a life like Hepburn’s, there is always more story to tell. Reviewed by Margo Orlando Littell
Wild Rose’s Weaving By Ginger Churchill, Nicole Wong Tanglewood Press, $15.95, 32 pages Wild Rose has things to do. Though her grandmother asks her again and again to come learn how to weave, Wild Rose would rather run through the meadow, playing with the sheep, thrilling at the fear she feels at distant lightening, spinning in the wind, and dancing in the rain. Her grandmother’s weaving seems dull and too quiet compared to the excitement outside. But when her grandmother invites her to see the rug she’s completed, Wild Rose is stunned. There in the fibers are all the natural phenomena that had so thrilled Wild Rose. She wonders how her grandmother could have known about them since she’d stayed inside the whole time. The grandmother’s explanation leads Wild Rose to discover her own power to capture nature in color and pattern. Wong’s watercolor illustrations and Churchill’s touching story charmingly convey the common misunderstandings between old and young—and the places where they can come together to share adventure and imagination. Wild Rose has much to learn from her grandmother, but their happiness ultimately comes from the time they spend exploring the world together. Reviewed by Margo Orlando Littel
Sacramento Book Review • November 2011 • 7
A Good Knight’s Rest By Shelley Moore Thomas with illustration by Jennifer Plecas Dutton, $16.99, 32 pages The Good Knight has been very busy. Not only has he saved three princesses from peril, but he’s also rescued a cat stuck in a tree. The king suggests that he take some time off, so the Good Knight and his dragon pals hit the road for some relaxation. However, as soon as they get on the road, the troublesome dragons are overcome by pressing needs: “I’m hungry!” “I’m thirsty!” “How much longer?” “I need to use the bushes!” This happens over and over again. Every time the Good Knight is close to getting a moment’s rest, the rambunctious dragons cause a great ruckus. The Good Knight is about to lose his cool; he yells at his friends, “I need a break!” The dragons begin taking care of him and bring him back home, where they all get a much needed rest. This fun-filled road trip is quirky and a pleasure to read. Any kid who has ever asked “Are we there yet?” will surely get a laugh out of it, and every parent who has dealt with such a child will completely sympathize with the knight’s plight. While my children loved the story, the book’s binding was absolutely terrible. I don’t know if it was my copy, but the pages were not even attached to the cover and were falling out as we read. The book barely lasted one reading. What were they thinking? Reviewed by Jennifer Melville
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Book Reviews
Modern Literature The Night Circus By Erin Morgenstern Doubleday, $26.95, 387 pages The Night Circus is the magnificently written debut novel by Erin Morgensten. She eloquently tells the tale of the constantly moving, unique circus that “... arrives without warning” beginning at dusk and continuing through the night. Unlike most circus-going experiences, this nocturnal adventure is different. “He had expected it to be a show. Something to sit in a chair and watch. He realized quickly how wrong he was. It was something to be explored.” Many tents are available to explore, each with its own theme. A competition is underway. For years, Celia and Marco have been training diligently for the challenge for which they were inducted by their trainers. A world of mystery, magic and illusion; Morgenstern easily draws the reader into the nocturnal world of Le Cirque de Reves. What the competitors do not know is that in order for a winner to be determined, only one can be left standing. The Night Circus provides the venue for this competition to take place. Celia and Marco didn’t expect to fall in love, which makes their challenge much more difficult. I truly enjoyed this novel, down to the artwork of the book keeping with the color theme. The Night Circus draws you into its magical world and leaves you with a feeling of hope and the desire to dream as any majestic fairy tale would. Completely captivating, mysterious, romantic, and a dream-like fantasy bound into one book! Morgenstern is quite successful in this, her debut novel, craftily written, and providing a truly unique reading experience. It would be wonderful to see this book go to film, for the magical scenes Morgenstern so brilliantly expresses and conveys are vividly seen by the reader. She achieves all of the goals a writer wishes to achieve as she takes you on the journey of The Night Circus. Well done! Reviewed by Jennifer Ochs
Schoolgirl By Osamu Dazai, translated by Allison Markin Powell One Peace Books, $11.95, 94 pages Despite close ties between the United States and Japan, Japanese literature is not well known in the United States. Manga, which are Japanese comics, male up the majority of Japanese literary works found in the U.S., so it is a rare joy when something like Schoolgirl comes along. In the form of a novella, famous Japanese author Osamu Dazai brings to life one day of a Japanese school girl’s struggles with life, social standing, and the future. One Peace Books brings us this translation of Dazai’s story, written in 1939, which brilliantly depicts the psychological forces at play; for a girl coming of age in a society filled with anxeity about war. Told from the perspective of the girl, we get to examine the world as she sees it. Osamu Dazai was a tortured soul, attempting suicide many times before finally succeeding just before his 39th birthday. Many of his books reflect his family background, his self-destructive life, his pessimism, and Schoolgirl is no exception. A short work, it packs a powerful punch. This is a book to be enjoyed by fans of good literature in any language. Reviewed by Kevin Winter The Lost Wife: A Novel By Alyson Richman Berkley, $15.00, 334 pages What makes this Holocaust novel different from others is that the focus is on love, not tragedy. Of course, there are heartbreaking moments but at the core of the novel, there is love: between man and woman, between brothers and sisters, between friends, and between parents and children. And it is this force that allows the main characters, Josef and Lenka, to survive. I’m not giving
anything away if I tell readers that both lovers survive the Holocaust, although it takes years before they meet up again. Josef and Lenka meet in Prague during the war, but they are separated. The lyrical narrative is told from both their points of view. Each character brings the reader up to date in terms of what has happened in the 60 intervening years since they parted. Each still holds a torch for the other and dreams that they will meet again. Josef escapes to America but not without
severe loss and self-doubt, whereas Lenka ends up in Terezin concentration camp. Terezin was supposed to be a “model” camp that the Germans could hold up and show the world that they were not mistreating the Jews. The unusual aspect of Terezin is that many well known musicians and artists were brought there, and much Holocaust art work survived via an underground movement by the imprisoned artists. Exploring how artistic expression both helped and harmed the prisoners was enlightening. Reviewed by Leslie Wolfson
Crafts & Hobbies Get Started with Origami By Robert Harbin Hodder & Stoughton, $16.95, 201 pages Everyone knows someone with a flair for origami, whether they make fortune-telling toys or flapping cranes. But it’s more than an idle way to pass the time. Origami has become a global phenomenon, and designs are only getting more intricate and mind-bending with time. So, with thousands of possible creations to fold, where do you start? Get Started with Origami is a good suggestion. Harbin, one of the foremost practitioners of origami today, offers the reader a short history of origami and its growing international presence before embarking on a quick tutorial, introducing the reader to the symbols that will be used throughout the book. First there’s a series of folds to grow accustomed to, and then you can dive in with designs of increasing complexity. In his quest to maximize the number of designs in the book, he has truncated the instructions somewhat, and even with the starter tutorial, I occasionally found myself trying two or three times to fold something before getting it right. But patience and familiarity with Harbin’s particular style soon yielded results. If you’ve never tried origami before, Get Started with Origami is a fine introduction. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas
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The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook: More Than 200 Fibers, from Animal to Spun Yarn By Carol Ekarius and Deborah Robson Storey Publishing, $35.00, 438 pages The authors of The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook undertook a massive endeavor: to sample as many different types of wool as possible for knitters, weavers, and spinners. The first section defines the terms used throughout the book, from the various fibers available to what constitutes a “breed.” The authors also emphasize the environmentally friendly benefits of supporting small farmers and their sheep. The second, and largest, section is subdivided into sheep families, which is further separated into specific breeds. Each family has a brief introduction that explains its general history, geographic location, and wool characteristics. The authors elaborate on the specific characteristics, history, and uses of each breed. Both sections are peppered with interesting factoids, anecdotes, and info-graphs. Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius have compiled an amazing resource for people who love sheep and wool. The information presented is both informative and interesting. I was never left confused by the terminology or utterly bored; they struck an excellent balance between scientific explanation and accessibility. The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook is an excellent resource for veteran fiber-enthusiasts, as well as hobbyists looking for a general overview. Reviewed by Lisa Rodgers
Book Reviews
Mystery, Crime & Thriller Spies of the Balkans By Alan Furth Random House Trade Paperbacks, $15.00, 288 pages Most genre World War II spy novels tend to happen in the same locals, usually France, Germany, or England. Whether it is because those are popular settings for readers, or because that makes them easier for authors to do location and setting “research” (probably by reading other spy thrillers set in the same places and times) will probably remain a mystery. So finding a new setting is almost as exciting as discovering the mole in MI-6. Spies of the Balkans is Alan Furst’s latest novel, a spy story set in Europe in 1940, but instead of the core France/Germany/England backdrop, this one is set in Greece. Italy has invaded Greece and found it a harder task than originally planned. Even though Greece is holding its own, common knowledge is it is only a matter of time before Germany steps up to finish the job that Italy has so poorly bungled. At the same time, Germany is pushing its way into the nearby Balkan states, making Greece a hot spot of espionage. Furst introduces Constantine Zannis a senior police official, assigned the “special cases;” those involving diplomats or high-ranking officials needing special handling. Zannis works in Northern Greece, close to the Yugoslavian border, letting Furst add in the oncoming presence of the German army as part of the background. Zannis is an honorable policeman, trying to do his best in difficult times, and has many wellplaced friends and contacts throughout the region. This desire to do the right thing leads him to assist the Jewish underground railroad from Germany through the Balkans and on to Egypt and Turkey (and a British scientist needing rescue from France). The action is palpable, Furst specializes in using the setting almost as another character in the book, and as an added bonus, primary characters from other Furst novels show up as secondary characters in Spies, a technique he uses often. While not the best of Furst’s books, Spies is still an excellent spy novel that should introduce many a spy-thriller fan to a new
theater of WWII espionage, and for new Furst readers, hours of catching up with his oeuvre. Reviewed by Ross Rojek The Vault By Ruth Rendell Scribner, $26.00, 276 pages At the close of Rendell’s 1999 novel A Site for Sore Eyes, two dead bodies and one living are entombed in an underground chamber beneath the charming Orcadia Cottage. Twelve years later, in the opening of The Vault, a new owner of the cottage lifts a manhole cover in the garden and finds a grisly site. This is a sort-of-a-sequel. Now we have the retired inspector Wexford, the hero of more than twenty books, poking around as a kind of amateur detective, working unofficially with the London police. There are four bodies. Who were these people, and how did the disappearance of four people go unnoticed for so long? The Vault is Rendell at her best — combining the police procedural with the psychological thriller. This book is so great. The clues, the seemingly unrelated details, are well hidden. The atmosphere is creepy. The city of London is a character itself — of obsession, instability, and unnerving, simply when Wexford takes his walks amidst the Georgian houses. Now in her eighties, Baroness Rendell, winner of three Edgars, three Gold Daggers, is at the top of her form. Reviewed by Phil Semler Murder in the 11th House: A Starlight Detective Agency Mystery By Mitchell Scott Lewis Poisoned Pen Press, $24.95, 239 pages Astrologer David Lowell uses birth charts and other tools to solve cases at the Starlight Detective Agency. When his daughter, a young defense attorney representing
a bartender accused of murdering a federal judge, asks for his help, he doesn’t know what he’s getting into. This case threatens not only his life, but the lives of his daughter, colleagues, and friends. Will he have the street smarts and astrological chops to solve this case? Murder in the 11th House uses a number of two-dollar words, which works when the protagonist speaks but sometimes becomes distracting during descriptions. The mystery ties into the current political malaise that’s spawned both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements, giving it a contemporary feel. The astrological analysis adds an interesting flavor to the mystery, allowing the protagonist to narrow down his list of suspects in a unique way. This book is a good choice for mystery fans looking for an offbeat read. Reviewed by Kelly Garrett Northern Deception: A Century Series Novel By Joseph S. Nicholas PublishAmerica, $29.95, 392 pages Northern Deception is a modern mystery novel set in the fictionalized town of Century, Montana. Century finds itself the center of attention during the state governor’s race, with one of its local (and ethically lacking) native sons running for office. With the help of a former spy, Jamison Handley has the new electronic voting machines hacked to guarantee his election and put him in the state capitol. During the same election, the local sheriff’s race is also an upset, with the Century citizens electing young patrol officer John Bingham, over the incumbent toady to the Century mayor, Stan Workman. This election was also a personal victory for John, as Stan
Workman had beaten John’s father previously for the position. The action starts after the election, as John finds himself in a much more complicated and dangerous position as sheriff than had ever been in Century’s previous history. A cold missing person case becomes much more active, the fixed election starts to unravel, and the players behind it are trying hard to keep it together. The local politics of the county and the nearby reservation both provide an extra layer of stress and complexity to the situation. Nicholas does an excellent job creating the sense of community and personalities and the depth of conflicting agendas between them all. And while the city of Century might be fictional, the Blue Hills of Montana, where it was set, are real enough and provide some colorful background to the setting. Sponsored Review
Falling to Pieces (A Shipshewana Amish Mystery) By Vannetta Chapman Zondervan, $12.99, 352 pages When Callie Harper arrives in small town Shipshewana, she doesn’t realize how much her life will change. Following her aunt’s death, she inherits Daisy’s Quilt Shop, which she plans to sell as soon as possible. Unfortunately, a murderer is loose in Shipshewana, and hot-tempered Callie be-
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comes the prime suspect. This quaint novel draws a portrait of Amish and English life, comparing and contrasting Callie’s urban upbringing and values with those of Deborah, a young Amish mother. While these women seem to have little in common, they come together to support each other through the murder investigation. Callie uses her business savvy to assist her new Amish friends, and Deborah uses her intelligence and peaceful calm to protect and defend Callie. Chapman writes a straightforward murder mystery with likeable characters and an interesting plot. She entices the reader to learn more about the Amish community and about the world of quilting. Chapman leaves out any gore or horrific scenes, leaning more toward a traditional detective story filled with clue hunting, suspects, and traps. A sweet story of friendship, Falling to Pieces is a fun read and the perfect gift for fans of strong female characters, mysteries, quilting, or Amish culture. Reviewed by Kerry Lindgren A Vanishing of Divas By Larry Long ClemAdele Publishing, $4.99, 506 KB When a series of mysteriously linked women start disappearing from their homes - each of them past sorority members that graduated Northwestern University in the late 1960s - it becomes apparent to the public that they have more in common with each other than meets the eye. Kurt McBride takes the case with hesitation after being contacted by one woman who considers herself a target, but he quickly develops a more personal interest in the case when the kidnapper hits closer to home. McBride enlists some of his most capable friends and colleagues to help him on the case, but the targeted women won’t talk, which proves both frustrating and enticing for an investigator like McBride. He knows there is not much work he can do with their secrets and lies looming over the case, frequently reminding them that their silence will cause them great danger. The suspense keeps the book page turning, and although the writing is jumbled at times, it’s hard not to have compassion for the well-developed characters or to enjoy the humorous undertones. Sponsored Review
Mystery, Crime & Thriller
Bling By Gerald Boyden Lulu, $, 127 pages The plan was simple; ex-rodeo performer Tex Bradley, down on his luck, is persuaded to join a ragtag group of criminals who conspire to execute what they imagine to be the perfect crime; a jewelry store safe full of cash and diamonds just ready to be stolen. However as one catastrophe after another befalls the group, they soon come to realize there is no such thing as easy money. Pared down to the bare bones at an anemic one-hundred and twenty-three pages, Bling reads more like a screenplay than a novel. From the opening line, “a light drizzling rain is falling on the deserted streets of San Pedro,” author Gerald Boyden provides a front row seat to “rundown bars, cafes and liquor stores [that] dot each side of the mean streets of skid row” and encircle the truly terrible people that live there. With descriptive scene setting and expressive dialogue, “He won’t squeal. He’d rather be dead,” the reader can easily imagine themselves staring up at the big screen as the drama unfolds before them. Although Boyden is successful in painting a heady atmosphere of desperation and greed, he’s much less successful in evoking any reader empathy for the characters. The storyline skips from one to the next, each character a little worse than the last, with little inner monologue and even less background, barely allowing the reader time to form an attachment, let alone any sympathy. As the characters meet their inevitable end, readers shrug, feeling, if anything, a mild satisfaction as each delinquent receives their just deserts. In its present form, the novel is easy to set aside without much thought. However, with proper plotting, twists, and turns and increased character development Bling has the potential to become an exciting and interesting read. At the moment, it’s straight to DVD with this lackluster storyline. Sponsored Review
Lincoln Child’s series with great anticipation. I was not disappointed. Cold Vengeance is the second book of the Helen Trilogy. In this latest volume, Pendergast continues where the previous novel left off as Pendergast pursues answers and revenge concerning his wife’s death. In true Pendergast style, his pursuit is relentless, and the action does not let up. Indeed, he seems almost superhuman at moments. Furthermore, Preston and Child expertly reveal more about unresolved questions from the first book of the trilogy, only to vtantalize the reader with new unresolved twists. Out of concern for revealing too much, I think the most telling comment I can make on Cold Vengeance is that I am once again left waiting with little patience for the publication of the next installment in the series. Reviewed by Annie Peters
The Stonehenge Legacy By Sam Christer Overlook, $24.95, 368 pages When a brilliant professor commits suicide, his estranged son wants to know why. But as Gideon Chase delves into the mysterious past of his father Nathaniel, he is nearly killed by a shadowy assailant, and a world of strange obsessions, cult conspiracies, and stunning secrets is revealed. What was Nathaniel so desperate to stop? Why does someone want Gideon out of the way? And will Stonehenge’s fanatical servants bring their plan to fruition? The Stonehenge Legacy is a topnotch thriller, replete with carefully plotted twists, turns, and complications. It stumbles, however, when it comes to the characters who are mostly one-dimensional plot devices. This is mitigated somewhat by the myriad story See STONEHENGE, page 24
A serial killer is on a killing spree of the religious in New York City, and a seasoned police detective is the only one who can stop him.
Cold Vengeance By Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child Grand Central Publishing, $26.99, 358 pages Before beginning this review, I should admit one prejudice. I love the character of Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast. To my mind, he’s a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, in all of his intense, enigmatic, edgy brilliance. For this reason, I awaited this eleventh installment of Douglas Preston and
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Book Reviews
Historical Fiction Becoming Marie Antoinette By Juliet Grey Ballantine, $15, 434 pages What comes to mind when you think of Marie Antoinette? Decadence, selfishness, and disconnect with the common person perhaps? It turns out, Hollywood has done a lot to tarnish Antoinette’s reputation. Author and historical researcher Juliet Grey introduces us to Marie as a young girl in the first of her three-part series, Becoming Marie Antoinette. This novel is a beautiful work of art. I couldn’t put it down for a second and am counting down the months until the second book is released. “My mother liked to boast that her numerous daughters were “sacrifices to politics,” the young Marie states. The fifteenth child of Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, Marie was betrothed to the young Dauphin of France at the age of 10 or 11, and married to him when she was a very young teenager. I was flabbergasted to learn of the extreme physical and mental makeovers young Marie underwent before being considered good enough for France. Imagine the terror she went through, leaving her naïve and sheltered existence, and being sent to spend the rest of her life in the foreign, backstabbing French court with a husband who wanted nothing to do with her? Becoming Marie Antoinette is some of the best historical fiction this year. The writing is historically accurate and melodiously composed. I can’t give Grey enough praise. I learned so much about Marie Antoinette. I respect her much more than I did before reading this masterpiece of historical prose. I simply cannot wait to find out what happens next. Reviewed by Jennifer Melville The Traitor’s Emblem By Juan Gomez-Jurado Atria Books, $24.99, 321 pages Love, revenge, and betrayal – all themes appearing in the new book The Traitor’s Emblem, by Spanish author Juan GomezJurado, which tells the story of two brothers in pre-World War II Ger-
many. They are the sons of a Baron, one who gambles away the family money and then makes a pact with a Jewish businessman to save the family finances. The brothers fight each other, often. Eventually, the youngest, Paul, sets off to find out what happened to his father, with disastrous consequences. The older brother joins the Nazis. Paul returns to find the love of his life was pregnant with his child, and now he must save her from his older brother. This story is highly cliched. The execution is weak and the characters rarely go beyond a one dimensional feel. The romantic female lead is a whiny, complaining, unsympathetic character. The time skips between sections make little sense, especially the last one. The traitor’s part of this book is only mentioned briefly at the end, and has no impact on the story. Reviewed by Kevin Winter The Reservoir By John M. Thompson Other Press, $15.95, 368 pages The Reservoir opens with the dead body of an eight-months-pregnant woman, floating in a reservoir. This evocative scene pitches readers head-first into 1885 Richmond, still reeling from the end of the Civil War and struggling to find its new moral footing. At first, the death seems like the suicide of a young woman in trouble; but as clues are discovered at the scene, murder becomes the predominant theory. Once the identity of the woman is revealed as Lillie Madison, those searching for justice zero in on a possible culprit: Tommie Cluverius, an ambitious young lawyer whose relationship with Lillie is murky even to Willie, Tommie’s brother. As the evidence against Tommie grows and his case is taken before a judge and jury, pieces of Tommie and Lillie’s story eventually come to light, adding suspense and complexity to the intense courtroom action. Basing his story on an actual murder case, Thompson gives these char-
acters vibrant lives and backgrounds; the story is not so much a historical excavation as a creative reimagining of a case that was once front-page news. The final resolution is far from neat, and the question of who really was culpable for Lillie’s death lingers beyond this book’s final page. Reviewed by Margo Orlando Littell The American Heiress By Daisy Goodwin St. Martin’s Press, $25.99, 468 pages As the beautiful only child of America’s richest family, she’s the most anticipated debutante of her generation, but even her great wealth can’t buy her a place in New York’s tight Knickerbocker society. He’s a handsome, British duke with bloodlines 700 years long, but his palace and estates are crumbling under his impoverished feet. Even without the addition of love, Cora and Ivo are a match made in Gilded Age heaven. However, the two are in love and the book focuses largely on their newlywed years as Cora struggles to understand her husband’s mysterious past and her place in the icy British society, while the duke adjusts to changes Cora’s confidence— and money—are bringing to his estate. Reminiscent of Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers, American Heiress takes readers on an absorbing journey deep into the giltz and strict rules of high society in the late 1800s. Beneath the primary story of the duke and Cora’s relationship simmer the pair’s mothers: the duke’s scheming, spotlight-stealing “Double Duchess” and Cora’s domineering mother who has trained Cora like a special forces soldier for a marriage to impress. Large sections of the book are told from the perspective of Cora’s faithful, personal servant, Bertha, which gives the story anchors behind the scenes of the divergent American and British households, as well as in the showy fronts. Reviewed by Megan Just The Days of the King By Filip Florian and Alistair Ian Blyth Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $22, 207 pages The Days of the King is a story of 19th century Romanian politics beckoning to whisk you to a forgotten time in Eastern Europe. Prussian dentist Joseph Strauss learns that one of his clients is heading to Romania to ascend the throne as Prince of the United Principalities of Romania. He decides to follow him there and travels across
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Eastern Europe at a time full of tension. He settles in Bucharest and finds himself in the middle of political upheaval. This novel is a niche book. If you’re intrigued by Romanian politics and culture, you’ll likely love this story. If you’re not familiar with Romanian history and politics, it might not be your cup of tea. The author is Romanian and assumes that his readers have a broad knowledge of Romanian history. For many American readers, this isn’t the case. I personally found the novel tedious. The “Political Background” section at the end of the book helps clear up some of the confusion, but not enough to make reading the book interesting. For the right reader, Days of the King may be a real treat. For the rest of us, it’s not a novel you’ll likely make it through unless it’s a reading assignment. Reviewed by Jennifer Melville Pao: A Novel By Kerry Young Bloomsbury, $15, 288 pages Pao may be young, but when he arrives in Jamaica from China at the end of the Chinese Civil War, he is already full of pluck and ingenuity. With the help of his Uncle Zhang, he learns the culture of his new home and the sometimes awkward place of the Chinese men and women who live there. As Pao grows older and wiser, he slowly assumes Zhang’s responsibility of looking after Kingston’s Chinatown, a task that involves often legally dubious acts that nonetheless seem always to land Pao on the right side of the moral line. As Pao’s importance in Chinatown increases, he relies on Sun Tzu’s ancient text The Art of War to guide his decision-making. It provides a steady force in a land that is changing more rapidly than anyone expects. Young’s prose perfectly captures the lilting, multilingual rhythm of Jamaica and strengthens her characters’ profound humanity as they sin, struggle, and triumph. Pao is a coming-of-age story of both its title character and the country in which he lives, an evocative portrait of political change and personal transformation. Reviewed by Margo Orlando Littell
Book Reviews
History The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island By Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo Free Press, $26, 256 pages Rapa Nui, more commonly known as Easter Island, is a small 63-square-mile island isolated in the Pacific Ocean. What makes this island so captivating are its inhabitants, somber iconic gigantic stone statues carved out from the hills of the island and transported to stand as sentinels in various areas. Over the years, scientists and laypersons have speculated on the symbolism of these massive monoliths, wondering how these monumental giants were transported, reflecting on the ecological devastation that occurred and the fate of its natives. Archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lippo review the earlier suggestions of the island’s history and have replaced the previous assumptions that the natives had abused the natural environment and invited the disaster that followed. Using explorers‘ records and their archaeological finds, the authors arrive at a different explanation from the conventional view of the history of the island. The reader should review the new evidence and try to solve the mystery of the ecological disaster that destroyed this Polynesian Island and its inhabitants, but left the gigantic mysterious, mesmerizing gigantic stone statues as memorials to a former flourishing civilization. Reviewed by Aron Row Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand Up to the Facts By The Editors of Popular Mechanics, David Dunbar, Brad Reagan, James B. Meigs Hearst, $17.95, 216 pages September 11th was one of the worst days in American history. Thousands of lives were snuffed out, and the security blanket of perceived invincibility was snatched away from an entire nation. And when the answers came, many were unsatisfied, and immediately began seeking alternate explanations, ones that required greater deceptions, deeper horrors, and more sinister machinations. Don’t be fooled. There WAS a conspiracy at work on 9/11. It’s just not the one con-
spiracy theorists would have you believe. Debunking 9/11 Myths is the latest edition of a series published by Popular Mechanics striving to set the record straight on what actually happened on that darkest of days. And while quelling the paranoia and doubt of conspiracy theorists is nigh-impossible, the authors have done a phenomenally thorough job of answering many of the claims posed by Truthers and their ilk. Through exacting photographic analysis and citing numerous testimonials by experts and witnesses alike, the book tackles everything from the mysterious collapse of Building 7 to the demise of Flight 93, confronting fallacies and misquotes of all shapes and sizes. The devotion and integrity of those at Popular Mechanics have created the definitive response to fear and doubt with Debunking 9/11 Myths. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Signing Their Rights Away By Denise Kiernan and Joseph D’Agnese Quirk, $19.95, 255 pages The men who drafted the Constitution of the United States helped usher in a new nation, one that would operate under a new set of rules. They envisioned a republic that would hold regular elections and have peaceful transfer of power between presidents. It was a bold gamble, one that many felt might not work. These men took the gamble because they felt there was no other option. All of their names should be famous, but only a few are still recognized today. This book could help bring more of these important historical figures back into the forefront. Each person gets a short biography, which includes what they did after the Constitution came into effect. Quite a few lost all their money in land speculation, a few died in duels, and a few should have become famous but did not. The authors do an excellent job highlighting each person. This is a suitable book for a high school or middle school student, and would be a perfect companion book for history class. Reviewed by Kevin Winter
Battlefield Angels: Saving Lives Under Enemy Fire From Valley Forge to Afghanistan By Scott McGaugh Osprey Publishing, $24.95, 272 pages Over the last two centuries, more than one million Americans have died on battlefields. Many times they have been wounded and rescued. Veteran journalist Scott McGaugh goes beyond the popular TV drama M*A*S*H of the 1970s and ABC’s current series Combat Hospital. Beginning with the Revolutionary War, McGaugh marks the heroism of medics and corpsmen alongside the advancement of emergency medical procedures as he brings to life engagements of the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. While one facet of war focuses on killing, McGaugh describes the other war against infections, disease, shock, blood loss, combat, operational stress reaction, and post-traumatic stress disorder. He describes the selfless individuals who risk their own lives to save others. Heroes such as Casper Wistar, Wheeler Lipes, James Okubo, and Monica Brown, who was awarded a Silver Star for her bravery under fire in Afghanistan. Written without squeamish qualms, not all the battlefields stories end well. Reader beware! Sometimes you can get the injured soldier out of the war, but you can’t the war out of the injured soldier. Reviewed by Casey Corthron Citrus Heights (Images of America) By James Van Maren Arcadia Publishing, $21.99, 127 pages Residents of Sacramento and the surrounding area might be shocked by the more than two hundred vintage photographs of the area as it developed from its Native American roots through the Gold Rush years to a thriving community. Van Maren’s work includes old maps and handbills as well as some rare drawings of the mid-nineteenth century farm layouts.| Of particular interest amid the pictures of old roadhouses and prominent farms, are two aerial photographs taken above the broad expanse of Auburn Boulevard and Greenback Lane in 1958 and 1976. In the first photo you see nothing but farmland and a few scattered houses, reminiscent of a 1940’s snapshot of two spirited girls playing around a country road sign bearing the marker, “Greenback Lane”, which is also part of this photo-history. The aerial photo-
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graph taken a mere eighteen years later is unrecognizable from its earlier image. Gone are the farm fields and citrus groves, and in their place are housing developments and broad thoroughfares.|All that is missing is one more aerial photograph showing the area’s current crop of modern development. Indeed, the population growth of Citrus Heights has ripened from a suburb to a city of its own standing. Reviewed by Casey Corthron The Book No Pope Would Want You To Read By Tim Leedom, Maryjane Churchville EWorld Inc, $19.95, 366 pages The Roman Catholic Church’s record over the centuries is hardly spotless. There have been thieves, charlatans and monsters beyond imagination sheltered under its umbrella over the last two thousand years. In The Book No Pope Would Want You to Read, Leedom and Churchville lay out as many of the church’s scandals and nefarious deeds as possible, casting a wide net in order to condemn the entire organization. No matter your political or religious stance, you cannot deny the absolute wealth of important and disturbing information put forth in this book. From “papal infallibility”, indulgences, and the crusades to modern-day molestation reports and charges of genocide, the evidence against the church is impressive. Unfortunately, the zeal of the authors has resulted in a somewhat slipshod work, with more than a few typos, as well as pictures placed haphazardly throughout the book. (In one particularly jarring case, a section on molestation cover-ups appears to conclude with a photo of Rev. Kevin Annett, an advocate for native peoples brutally mistreated and persecuted by the church. Some chapter separations or a bit more diligence in photo placement could have avoided that.) Read it with an open mind and a skeptic’s eye. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Angels of Mercy: White Women and the History of New York’s Colored Orphan Asylum (Empire State Editions) By William Seraile Fordham University Press, $27.95, 287 pages Orphan asylums were a major part of cities all around the world. They were a place to raise not only orphan children, but halforphans and neglected children. They were generally places where children were educated, learned skills and then were indentured to families to become apprentices and tradesmen. Girls generally were sent out as domestics.
Book Reviews
In this book, William Seraile explores the history of New York’s colored orphan asylum. It was the first orphanage for colored children, one of the few places that would take them. It was founded by the wives of rich and famous white men. The women felt that they could turn these colored children into good, hard-working members of society; they didn’t want them to aim farther than their position in society allowed. In its long troubled history, mainly financial trouble, the orphanage went through several changes and helped many children until it closed its doors in the mid-20th Century. This is a well-written book. It explores a side of New York that is not known to many people. It brings to life the children of minority parents and their experiences. The only quibble with this book is that it becomes bogged down with names. Reviewed by Kevin Winter Breakfast at the Exit Cafe: Travels Through America By Wayne Grady, Merilyn Simonds Greystone Books, $16.95, 256 pages Journeying from British Columbia without a definitive route into America, husband and wife collaboration Wayne Grady and Merilyn Simonds write an enlightening, exploratory travelogue. What they see in Selma, Albuquerque, Eureka, Escalante, Jefferson, Athens, the Grand Canyon, and Route 66 is cleverly illuminated through an outsider’s lens. In one memorable discussion of Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz’s creative partnership, Simonds reflects, “I am happy when Wayne goes off to join a scientific expedition to China, or Patagonia, or the North Pole. I can’t wait for the private time those trips allow me, yet I rarely carve out that solitary space for myself.” This honesty permeates the narrative and allows Simonds to seamlessly expose the relationship between America and Canada through her own. She gallantly suggests that “a little time alone” might help these countries get along. We learn about Grady’s fascination with the Redwoods and the fear of facing his own African American ancestry in the Deep South, while Simonds reveals her idiosyncrasies, her delight for hash browns and parades. Their perspective is balanced, rich
History
with literary references, anecdotes, and history as they discover the local food, scour used book stores, and explore the idea of the American Dream. Reviewed by Wendy Iraheta Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950 By Michael Thomas Barry Schiffer Publishing, $24.99, 160 pages Fade to black is indeed an illuminating collection of short memoirs about the academy awardees of cinema during the golden age of film from 1927 to 1950. Starting at the end of the silent films, this period continued to the dissolution of the studio system with the passing of the imperious movie moguls. Hollywood was the celebrity center of the entertainment world and while many films were produced, some still remain as classics that set the tenor for the movie industry. With the academy awards serving as the focus, Michael Thomas traces the careers of the academy awardees for almost a quarter century and follows them to their burial sites. While this may sound ghoulish, this quest is done in the effort to pay homage to these megastars, whose memories remain imprinted on the film world. This is a book that will appeal to movie buffs and all those viewers of ancient film classics who are too young to have seen these stars in their heyday, as well as those of us who recall these personalities with reverence. The classic Norma Shearer beat out Gloria Swanson for best actress in the 1920’s. In the following decade, so many remembered names like Lionel Barrymore, Marie Dressler, Frederic March, Helen Hayes, Charles Laughton were awarded best thespian honors for their gender. Among directors, Frank Capra, John Ford, and John Huston. along with others, stand out. And who can forget the poignant Judy Garland as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and if you follow her genealogy tree, she shares a branch with Ulysses S. Grant. Continue on with the familiar names of the indomitable Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Greer Garson, Jennifer Jones, Laurence Olivier, Ronald Colman, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Vivien Leigh. More recently, but still in the past, the iconic Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman, who shocked the country with her independent life style and survived the furor her affairs aroused. Read the book to recapture the magic that these, and so many more, brilliant players bequeathed to the public. The author draws a compassionate composite outlining the careers and influences
of the Academy awardees. Like the rest of us, the stars experienced the joys and tragedies so characteristic of life. We see them at their most radiant, but they too underwent the vicissitudes of time and fortune. Reportedly, their deaths are recorded as due to cardiac attack, strokes, cancer, accidents, suicide, and natural aging processes. Remarkably, now nonagenarians, the famous feuding sisters Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland are living quietly in separate locations. Reflecting the black and white of this film era, the text is fittingly grey toned with wonderful reproductions of the stars in their glory and finally accompanied by photos of the gravesites. Each of the luminaries is succinctly described, from birth to film career tidbits and family life. There are tasty morsels of gossip peeking at the peccadillos of some of the stars, which makes them all the more appetizing. This charming recollection of movie greats captures the history of the cinema along with the mixed personalities that endowed it with greatness. It is fitting that we smile in tribute to their memories by reviewing their contributions. This is our inheritance and one that the reader will enjoy. Sponsored Review Alameda County Fair (Images of America Series) By Victoria Christian Arcadia Publishing, $21.99, 127 pages A jockey rides high in the saddle, moving up through the pack in the last turn. Suddenly, an opening appears as his mount breaks around the outside. The thunder of hooves brings the crowd to its feet, cheering wildly as the long-shot surges to the front to win by a nose. What began as a ranching family’s love of horse racing evolved into one of the most exciting summer events in the country. Most Bay area residents don’t need directions to find their way to Pleasanton for the annual Alameda County Fair. Victoria Christian recounts the history that officially began in 1912, in anticipation of the upcoming centennial celebration next summer. Christian emphasizes the main attractions – exhibits, rides, contests, wine tasting competitions, livestock shows – but focuses on the central feature: the horse races. This Pleasanton tradition has endured even during the war years when the fair itself was canceled. With more than two hundred captioned photographs and a detailed map of the fairgrounds,
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Christian brings us so close to the festivities that we can almost taste the cotton candy. Reviewed by Casey Corthron Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World By Catherine E. McKinley Bloomsbury, $27, 256 pages Who doesn’t have a favorite color? Colors can symbolize different things to different people. For author Catherine McKinley, her color is blue. And not just any shade of blue – indigo. One might say she has an obsession with indigo, and her obsession takes her on a journey across Africa. What she learns of indigo’s origins isn’t always a happy understanding of her most revered color. Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced The World is the result of her journey, but it doesn’t read like research. Rich with heritage and history, it reads like other genres full of mystery, tragedy, history – even romance. Readers will be drawn into the allure of indigo, as I was, through the pictures of the exquisite dyed batik fabrics that capture the unique beauty of indigo within their very fibers. Little did I know the rich history of this beautiful color, which is derived from the small green leaf of a parasitic shrub. What it represented to me is now bolstered by a greater understanding and appreciation for its roots. Reviewed by Laura Friedkin US Small Arms in World War II: A photographic history of the weapons in action (General Military) By Tom Laemlein, Dale Dye Osprey Publishing, $35, 247 pages A cigarette dangles from his lips as he gazes over the bayonet tipped M1 Garand. Grizzled-faced from days of battle, another soldier holds his BAR at the ready. Beside him with the thousand mile stare of an ole warhorse, another hikes up his Grease Gun in anticipation while the youngest among the four crouches low with his Springfield. Gun collectors and weapons enthusiasts will appreciate Laemlein’s photo selection in this coffee table book of World War ll veterans in combat with their tools of the trade. These high gloss black and white action shots include rarely seen images of an OSS soldier on patrol with a Johnson rifle. From handguns to the M55 Browning fifty caliber machine gun, and everything in between, these photographs bring back the past. “...there was nothing small
Book Reviews
about the small arms they used to defeat the German and Japanese enemy at close quarters from 1941 to 1945,” says Captain Dale Dye, USMC (retired), who is the Senior Military Adviser on HBO’s series The Pacific, and writer of the Forward to this book. “...the guys who souped-up Dad’s tractor or built a rapid soapbox racer out of orange crates knew how to modify their weapons for better service. You’ll see some of those field expedient modifications in this book and it’s a rare glimpse into American ingenuity.” Reviewed by Casey Corthron The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture By Gary Saul Morson Yale University Press, $30, 340 pages “Is ‘Eat my shorts’ a quotation?” asks Gary Saul Morson in his latest book, The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture. Morson isn’t afraid to fly in the face of literary fundamentalism. Questions are raised, and debunkers are debunked, while the reader is led into a deeper exploration of the shortest of literary forms. This tightly packed treatise is not for the casual reader; he or she will quickly lose interest during the discussion of anthologies. Rather, it will appeal to those fascinated by the complexities of language. A literary critic and popular academic, Morson’s thoughts are rational and often beautifully articulated: “Even in our dreams, we hear the words of others.” A delightful section cleverly titled “Don Quoxote,” recalls the impossible dreamer reprimanding his faithful sidekick, Sancho Panza, for speaking in the proverbs of others (even while Don Quixote does the same). Morson pens: “We easily take as original what we learned as quotations. For this reason, quotations can exercise enormous power over us when least expected. As inns may appear to be castles, the words of others may seem like our own.” Reviewed by Diana Irvine Searching for Utopia By Gregory Claeys Thames & Hudson, $40, 224 pages This table-top book chronicles the “history of an idea,” from its birth to its current implications. The survey of the influence of the idea of Utopia is divided into fourteen chapters – plus an introduction and a conclusion – and each chapter contains pertinent color illustrations and biographies of key people. The most significant utopias
History
throughout history – whether envisioned or attempted – are covered, including visions of the ideal society in various regions of the world. It reads like a textbook (and is priced like one, too), which is not surprising because the author is a professor. Obviously intelligent and well-read, the author demonstrates extensive knowledge of his subject. That said, there are times when his tone and opinion on the subject matter overwhelm the subject itself, coloring it so darkly it’s hard to separate fact from opinion. There are also a few instances when the author generalizes to such a degree that it makes it difficult to trust him throughout the rest of the chapters. But the writing is sound and the concluding chapter packs a punch that makes it worth reading. Reviewed by Kayli Crosby The Incas By Craig Morris and Adriana Von Hagen Thames & Hudson, $26.95, 256 pages Renowned for his excavation of Huánuco Pampa, an ancient Incan settlement, Craig Morris co-authors with co-director of the Leymebamba Museum in Peru, Adriana von Hagen, this book, which offers readers an authoritative survey on the rise of the Incas. How did they accumulate such vast wealth and become a legendary source of golden treasures? We learn about the social and political elements of their economy, how the Incas governed their provinces and exchange system, the sacred origins of kingship, processions, sun temples and their ideologies, viewing their gods as sacred forces. To record everything, the Incas used knotted devices known as khipus , still undecipherable by today’s experts. Supplemented with 189 illustrations of temples, offerings, mummies, and maps, The Incas takes us into the sacred city of Cusco where, “no one could go in or leave the city at night” onto the roads of Machu Picchu and back to sixteenth century when Pizarro first landed on Peru’s north coast. These authors provide a lucid and exceptional introduction of the rise and fall of the largest empire in preColumbian America. Reviewed by Wendy Iraheta
Ten Years That Shook the City: San Francisco 1968-1978 By Chris Carlsson, editor City Lights, $18.95, 341 pages Ten Years That Shook the City by editor Chris Carlsson collects almost two dozen political essays and first-person accounts to bring the somewhat recent political history of San Francisco alive. One will find here the contrarian history which bridges the 1960s to the decade that follows. This is a follow up to Reclaiming the City, which also sought to exert the ideological and progressive aspirations of the city. The assembled share a depth of knowledge with activists writing about education strikes, alternative neighborhoods, feminism, labor, tenant rights, gay and lesbian rights, alternative arts, e nv i ron me nt a l i s m , and music. This San Francisco history has been forgotten by some with political murals being covered over by paint or new buildings, and neighborhoods being changed (not to the benefits of all) by recent development. One will get a deeper understanding of the city’s struggles with this collection, which helps one scratch below the surface. The reader is likely to be inspired to work for more progressive change, as all these battles are not yet over. Maybe the word ecology is used too generally here, but it is part of the new progressive zeitgeist, and it is nice to see it in the limelight in a contemporary form. Reviewed by Ryder Miller Rome: Day One By Andrea Carandini Princeton University Press, $24.95, vv184 pages Historians have explored and argued over Rome’s foundation myths, that Romulus and Remus conceived by Rhea and the god Mars were suckled by a she wolf and became natural leaders who desired to found a new city. In a controversial and enlightening look at these origins, Andrea Carandini investigates this myth and gallantly declares that Rome was founded in the mid-eighth century BC on April 21 through a series of rituals. One momentous ceremony involves a bull and cow attached to a bronze ploughshare that uplifts the soil and traces the position of ancient Palatine Wall. Having conducted many significant archeological excavations in-
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cluding the unearthing of the Palatine Wall, Carandini develops a convincing case that Rome’s origin myths are not simply mythical. He uses detailed cross section drawings, reconstructions of early Rome’s urban landscape and illustrations of ceramic objects to piece together its early days and shed light on its impact on our world today. Despite Sartarelli’s flat translation of Carandini’s thorough recreation of Rome’s beginnings, readers with an interest in ancient Roman history and the bewildering effects of rediscovering origin myths will enjoy sifting through the archeological phases that gave birth to the Roman Empire. Reviewed by Wendy Iraheta 1861: The Civil War Awakening By Adam Goodheart Knopf, $28.95, 460 pages In his latest book, Goodheart delves deeper into any single year than perhaps any Civil War historian has before. But this book does more than simply cover the year’s events; Goodheart attempts to examine the motivations, urges, and atmosphere of 1861 by examining the religion, science, and entertainment in which the people living in that year were immersed. In 1861, Abraham Lincoln took office, the Confederates bombed Fort Sumter, and the Civil War began. But rather than be guided—or restrained—by these momentous events, Goodheart uses them as background for an investigation into the minds and hearts of men and women across the land. He visits an Ohio state senator named James Garfield (future Civil War soldier and U.S. president) to understand the mentality of anti-slavery Republicans near the western frontier. He journeys with readers to California to assess the effects the transcontinental railroad and telegraph have on the nation. He takes readers inside Fort Sumter itself to understand just what the first bombardment of Americans by Americans meant to the people who experienced it firsthand. From Washington, D.C., to California to the Deep South, Goodheart plumbs the depths of the American psyche in 1861, providing a truly marvelous examination of the Civil War era. Reviewed by Margo Orlando Littell
Book Reviews
Cooking, Food & Wine Perfect Pies By Michele Stuart Ballantine, $25.00, 198 pages If you already own a shelf-full of good cookbooks, Perfect Pies is unlikely to add anything useful to your collection. Few of the recipes are original, and nearly all of them can be found in standard cookbooks and baking books. If you are a novice cook and baker, this is a good collection of standard pie recipes, some 66 of them including 13 savory pies. The recipes are good but not outstanding. The author included a few unusual pies , such as Candyland Pie made with Oreo cookie crust and filling that includes Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, mini marshmallows, Snicker Bars and fudge brownies. The recipes are well written and instructions are good, though novice bakers may scratch their heads at times reading the recipe steps. The designer of the book (most likely a non-cook) did a poor job on the layout as many recipes inconveniently flip over to next pages. The head notes are only fluff, not often informative. The sidebars are more interesting and instructional. Each recipe is labeled according its difficulty (from less than one hour to more than two hours prep time). In my advanced proof copy, the subject index is missing. Food photo illustrations are beautiful. Reviewed by George Erdosh The Professional Chef (9th Edition) By The Culinary Institute of America Wiley, $75.00, 1232 pages Weighing seven pounds and six ounces, is the new edition of The Professional Chef a heavyweight worthy of shelf space? Should a person buy it if he has the revised editions of everything from Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking to Larousse Gastronomique? The answer to both questions is a resounding yes. To a casual cook, the sheer volume of material can be daunting. Yet, to any reader with dreams of becoming a professional, this book is an excellent start on the path of culinary greatness.
Students and restaurateurs should consider investing in this tome. The beautiful photos serve as a visual reference to almost all available ingredients in North America and as a refresher course on techniques. Indeed, reading through this book reminded this reviewer of her grueling months in culinary school. Methods for fundamental recipes are described both in detail and in “at a glance” sections, making the book easy to use no matter how much time you have. A casual cook may be surprised by some of the proportions. Like other cookbooks designed for professionals, recipes (like for soups and salad dressings) are meant to supply a banquet. Happily, a lot of the entrees can serve ten to twelve people. While it’s too heavy to bring along on a daily commute or to even read in bed, The Professional Chef is an essential manual for aspiring and experienced cooks. It’s time to make space on the shelf. Reviewed by Rachel Anne Calabia The Kosher Carnivore By June Hersh St. Martin’s Press, $29.99, 439 pages No, you don’t need to be an observant Jew who keeps a kosher kitchen to use this cookbook, but a kosher butcher nearby is essential. The Kosher Carnivore is a good cookbook, very well written with a large variety of good recipes from standard international repertoire. If you like pork, ham, and bacon, forget it — these are treif (not kosher). As the title suggests, the emphasis is on meat. Brief chapters deal with starches, vegetables, and other accompaniments, mostly standard recipes. Good head notes lead each recipe; these are useful to read before working on the recipe. The author has three somewhat confusing additional features: one, called Feedback, is at the end of many recipes, and includes recipe-related suggestions; Behind the Counter is useful if you have your own butcher (and how many of us do?); and finally, Side Notes, which give side dish suggestions.
Apart from eight center-bound photos, the book is not illustrated. Recipes, though well-written and easy to follow, run without breaks to the inconvenience of the cook. The index is brief but very good and well crossreferenced. Reviewed by George Erdosh The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen By Laura B. Russell Celestial Arts, $22.99, 201 pages The mouth-watering photos in The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen: Recipes for Noodles, Dumplings, Sauces, and More by Laura B. Russell are an invitation. Russell, who developed an aversion to gluten, never lost her desire to eat Asian food. Her passion for Asian food translates into a hundred gluten-free (GF) recipes. There are those she had to perform a GF overhaul from their traditional recipes (dumplings), those she tweaked for GF compatibility (sauces), and included those dishes that are naturally GF (rice cakes). All dishes are also dairy free. Some items she recreated from Asian travels. How did she get these recipes that highlight Thai, Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese cuisines right? By inviting her non-GF friends to test the finished recipes and to prepare them at home. The dishes in the photos are beautiful, they do not accompany each recipe. However, Russell, who is the former associate editor of Food & Wine cookbooks, has tried to introduce simplicity. The first chapter spends time on the ingredients used, including a chart with trusted GF brands and details on whether a reader might find the item in an Asian market or in a grocery store. The dessert section is split with innovative drink ideas. Reviewed by Elizabeth Humphrey Home Made By Yvette Van Boven Stewart Tabori & Chang, $40.00, 429 pages This beautifully produced book is filled with great full-page and some two-page food photos and many smaller snapshots. It claims to be cookbook for DIY cooks who like scratch cooking, but basically it is an ordinary cookbook with a huge variety of recipes featuring upscale, trendy, sometimes unheard-of ingredients. Some ordinary recipes combine unusual ingredient to create new flavors (tabouleh with fava beans and pomegranate). It is disappointing that many baking recipes use self-rising flour that true DIY would never touch. Most recipe ingredients are readily available, but you are likely to search a while
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before finding many (double-smoked chicken breasts, ash-covered goat cheese, taleggio). Recipes range from simple (almond-apple muffins) to quite complex (Irish oyster soup with mussels and samphire). The layout is well-designed with recipes placed on single pages, many illustrated. They include preserving fruits, vegetables, making pickles and jams, smoking fish and meat, making cheeses and even three dog food recipes. Extensive menu suggestions for every occasion end the book. This cookbook is mostly for more adventurous cooks. A good subject index is missing; it has an index of dishes and an index of ingredients. If you want to find muffins, for example, it will take some looking. Reviewed by George Erdosh Cooking Without Borders By Anita Lo and Charlotte Druckman Stewart Tabori & Chang, $35.00, 239 pages Some restaurant chefs write cookbooks thinking of home kitchens, but not many. This first cookbook by a chef/owner of a highly rated restaurant is not one of those. The 100-plus recipes are well-written and easy to follow yet few home cooks would benefit having this book on their shelves. These are written by and for restaurant chefs who can easily add unusual and hard-to-find ingredients to their next order (Kyoho grapes, pickled burdock roots, fresh shiso leaves to name a few). Very few recipes are simple and easy and most home cooks would labor in the kitchen for many hours to prepare most for a special occasion. Many recipes call for two, three, even five preparations (Filet of Venison) before assembling. The recipes are mainly taken from the Asian repertoire but most are typical of today’s fusion cuisine that many high-end chefs favor. Book design is poor — for many recipes, you flip pages back and forth in your preparation because of ill-chosen layout. Scattered full-page professional photo illustrations are beautiful. The index is not userfriendly, written in a style in which categories are hard to separate. It is brief and not fully cross-referenced. Reviewed by George Erdosh Quick-Fix Vegan By Robin Robertson Andrews McMeel Publishing, $16.99, 212 pages One of Robin Robertson’s goals in QuickFix Vegan is to show it’s possible to cook quick, healthy vegan meals. Her recipes are broken into several segments: snacks, one-pot stovetop meals, soups, sandwiches, make-ahead bakes, desserts, sauces, and more. There are also basic recipes cooking staples such as vegetable stock, pizza dough, and seitan that you can make ahead and freeze. She also has good time-saving tips
Book Reviews
in the beginning of the book. The jerk seitan was vibrant with a bit of tasty zip from the jalapeno. The hummamole (hummus crossed with guacamole) was a simple dip for a tailgate party, and no one noticed it was vegan. Some of the dishes, such as Sloppy Portobello or Black Bean Sunburgers, are family-friendly meals. Intrepid readers can use these recipes as building blocks for their own vegan meals. For example, the seitan was easy to make and very delicious, and the recipe made enough for four meals. I’m sure I’ll make it in the future, although I can see myself playing with spices to replicate sausage and other tastes. This cookbook was lacking images, and I would have appreciated a few photos of the foods sprinkled throughout the book. This is an excellent book for people who want to mix tasty, easy vegan meals into their diet. Reviewed by Kelly Garrett Vegan for Life: Everything You Need to Know to Be Healthy and Fit on a PlantBased Diet By Jack Norris and Virginia Messina Da Capo Lifelong Books, $17.00, 283 pages Many people think that a vegan diet, devoid of all animal products, is inherently unhealthy and unsustainable. As more public figures change the way they eat, it’s hard to ignore the buzz surrounding what at first glance is a highly restrictive diet. How does one get balanced nutrition, and keep meals interesting, with just plant foods? Vegan for Life serves to answer those questions and more for anyone curious about a meatless lifestyle. This book answers the ubiquitous question of protein sources, while addressing other nutrients that vegans can easily consume enough of with just a bit of planning, such as zinc and iron. Authors Norris and Messina, both dieticians, discuss the important notion of dietary supplements, provide tips for transitioning to a vegan diet, and even talk about healthfully maintaining a vegan diet during pregnancy, breastfeeding, and child rearing. There are no recipes offered, but the authors provide some basic ideas for preparing simple vegan foods, and point readers in the direction of a number of triedand-true vegan cookbooks.
Cooking, Food & Wine
Clearly written and easy to understand, this book is a must for both long-term vegans and those just considering such a path. Reviewed by Holly Scudero Food from Many Greek Kitchens By Tessa Kiros Andrews McMeel Publishing, $35.00, 333 pages This exceptional cookbook is really three books in one: a true cookbook, a photographic art book and a reading-forpleasure book. It excels at all three. The photographs, mostly full-page but some presented in two-page foldouts, are spectacular. Most are taken inside the kitchens and dining rooms of simple Greek folks, with some outside and in their gardens. The writing is so good that you may just want to sit down with the book simply for reading pleasure. The author avoids a long introduction, and the usual reminiscence of childhood food inspiration is mercifully missing. A list of the Greek alphabet and a twopage glossary helps you understand Greek food terms (even obvious terms like feta cheese), and the book starts unceremoniously with the first recipe. Each recipe title is in Greek (using English alphabet), in English, and in Greek alphabet. The subject index is also very good. Most recipes are authentic from Greek kitchens, but the book also includes nonGreek fare such as French fries. It helps to have a Greek market source for some ingredients, yet most recipes use items found in any well-stocked market. The author is careful to give alternative ingredients if Greek is not available. Note that Greek food is not light and many recipes should be avoided by anyone on a strict diet. The recipe format is unusual in that the author doesn’t follow the traditional stepby-step style in the instructions, instead offering a light narrative style; nevertheless, recipes are very easy to follow, and even novice cooks will have no difficulties. The layout of recipes is excellent; all carefully placed on single pages (with a few exceptions on longer recipes). The head notes are informative with bits of personal touches. Occasional vignettes from the Greek lifestyle are amusing and enlightening. With some 115 recipes, there are ample choices from traditional Greek foods through baker’s foods to There + Then foods (long cooking or roasting foods). Some are surprisingly simple (watermelon and feta), most are moderately complex, and only
with an occasional recipe will you spend more than an hour in preparation. This book is a wonderful addition to any serious cook’s bookshelf. Reviewed by George Edrosh Sweet & Skinny: 100 Recipes for Enjoying Life’s Sweeter Side Without Tipping the Scales By Marisa Churchill Clarkson Potter, $24.00, 240 pages Let’s begin by issuing a gentle reminder: no traditional desserts, not even ones cooked from Sweet and Skinny, are good for you. But it’s possible to reduce calories and fat content without sacrificing taste. That’s what Marisa Churchill does in her book of 100 recipes. Churchill has an impressive cooking resume so it’s no surprise that some recipes get a little complicated. That said, there is a chapter called “desserts in a hurry,” which keeps things simple. So whether you’re a pastry chef or the kind of person who isn’t exactly sure what a zester looks like, there are recipes for you. There are desserts for special holidays (such as orange-chile chocolate bark, 60 calories), all American desserts (peach cobbler, 160 calories), plus cakes, puddings, drinks, truffles, and cookies. Calories and grams of fat are listed with each recipe. And, yes, these desserts taste good. They taste dang good. Reviewed by Kayli Crosby Insanewiches By Adrian Fiorino St. Martin’s Press, $16.99, 224 pages If you live for 75 years and eat three meals a day that’s 81,125 meals. If just 10 percent of those meals include a sandwich, that’s more than 8,000 sandwiches. Imagine the peanut butter! Insanewiches shows there’s more to a sandwich than a slice of lunch meat slapped between two pieces of white bread, or a quick PB&J. Written by the creator of the blog with the same name, this book includes 101 recipes for mind boggling sandwiches including recipes, photographs, templates, and more. In addition to a chapter on sandwich making advice, this book contains nine other chapters divided into themes such as breakfast, dessert, supersize, and special events. For most “it’s 6 a.m. and I have to slap together a sandwich before I leave for work/
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school” folks, the sandwiches in this book will mostly go unmade. They require time, ingredients, patience. But this isn’t a traditional cookbook. Readers may not follow any recipes exactly, but the recipes and photos offer “outside the breadbox” ideas for creating your next sandwich. Perhaps you’ll grab a rice cake, a mini-donut or a cookie cutter and add a little fun to your lunch. Insanewiches isn’t about recipes. It’s about inspiration. Reviewed by Jodi M. Web The Cuban Kitchen By Raquel Rabade Roque Knopf, $20.00, 430 pages This is an enormous collection of predominantly Cuban recipe collected by a native Cuban. The many non-Cuban recipes have been changed to reflect Cuban flavors, though you’ll find recipes for boiled potatoes, mashed potatoes, and boiled eggs. Each chapter is extensive with numerous recipes. The book starts with a chapter of 30 alcoholic beverages (mainly Cuban) and continues through many chapters, some conventional (Soups, Salads, Chicken), others atypical (Plantains in Many Variations, Cuban Baby Food, The Cuban Pressure Cooker). With more than 500 recipes, the emphasis seems to be on quantity rather than quality. Casual cooks looking to experiment with Cuban foods may be challenged by the sheer number of choices. However, the recipes are well written and, with some exceptions, ingredients generally are available on most pantry shelves and markets. The layout of recipes is poor; for many you have to flip pages back and forth while preparing a dish. My review copy is an uncorrected proof, and I hope errors of page designation in the table of contents will be corrected. In this copy there is no subject index. Reviewed by George Edrosh Scanwiches By Jon Chonko, Creator powerHouse Books, $19.95, 149 pages This highly unusual and unique book is so excellent it is in a class of its own. It is not a cookbook — there is no cooking involved (well, just a little here and there like frying bacon), and it is not a coffee table book because of its unlikely small size for a coffee table. Yet, it is a book you want to own both to enjoy reading its superb text and to slowly flip through the pages for the great See SCANWICHES, page 35
Halloween is over, but every November, people forget that it’s just not right for adults to continue playing make-believe after the calendar rolls on. Sadly, on November 1st every year, hundreds of thousands of people decide that they want to pretend to be novelists and participate in National Novel Writing Month. Every year, I feel compelled to speak up against it, too. There are a lot of things I hate about NaNoWriMo, as it’s been nicknamed, and perhaps that nickname is a good place to start. No one who nicknames something NaNoWriMo is ever going to be creative enough to write a book—at least not a good one. But that’s a trivial thing. I suppose the thing I hate most about it is the lack of respect it shows for the craft of writing. The presumption is that anyone can write a novel. Writing, however, is extremely difficult, and those who are able to just sit down and do it, very likely, already have. We’d think it preposterous to have a National Brain Surgeon Operating Month, where we all took a stab at poking around in our friend’s heads. And, of course, that’s a bit of a stretch as the object of an analogy, but the point is that we devalue the novel and the novelist when we presume that anyone can do it. We further denigrate the profession when we just sit down and start writing. Some very talented writers are able to do this and put together a coherent and cohesive novel, but the fact of the matter is that most books worth reading have been thoroughly researched and outlined before the writing process has begun. NaNoWriMo doesn’t bother with that step—which is a shame because first-time writers need the structure of good research and outlining to keep their attempt at writing a novel on track and away from meandering. NaNoWriMo wants you to just start writing. Don’t worry if you don’t know where the narrative is going to go. Don’t worry if you haven’t puzzled out the intricacies of the plot. Just write and fix it all later. Just get to your word limit for the day. Great writers will tell you that it’s impor-
tant to write every day. They’ll tell you that routine is important. Many set time limits and push themselves to write—or attempt to write for a certain period of time each day. The only purpose of a word limit—as NaNoWriMo suggests writers adhere to—is to get the number of words needed to form a novel in as short of a time period as possible. Quality be damned. Just write, baby! If that seems odd to you, then you should, perhaps, Google the phrase: National Novel Writing Month. You’ll come across a website that promotes NaNoWriMo. It offers you the chance to track your progress (because apparently everyone else’s version of Word doesn’t have a word-counter on the bottom of their screen like mine does), get pep talks and support (because real novelists do their best work when they have cheerleaders— J.K. Rowling is even rumored to have hired a staff of professional cheerleaders to spell her name over and over again as she wrote the Harry Potter novels) and it allows you to meet fellow “writers,” both online and in person (because everyone knows that writing a novel isn’t a personal and spiritual journey one undertakes on one’s own, it’s a social experience). Sounds good, right? It gets better! Check out NaNoWriMo’s sponsors! After your second day of writing, when you realize—holy smokes, this is hard—you can take advantage of a some software you can purchase that helps you outline (remember that word?), edit, storyboard and write! Or, perhaps you made it through without buying the software and after zombie-typing to your word limit every day, you realize that your novel doesn’t make a whole lot of sense? No worries, there’s a sponsor who offers professional editing services! I’m sure that NaNoWriMo has only the purest of intentions though. It’s not a Hallmark Holiday for people who hate their jobs and think that because they love to read and can construct a sentence, they can be novelists, too! It’s definitely not a bunch of companies who want to schlep their various writing-based commodities to a bunch of
unsuspecting dreamers who just want a better a life and figure they have a better shot at writing a novel than winning the lottery or American Idol. Sadly, that’s what NaNoWriMo truly is, folks. It’s those first weeks of American Idol where all those people who are convinced they have talent stand up in front of real professionals and sing songs out of tune and off-pitch. Then the judges laugh at them and they are shown in their most humiliating moment on television for all to see. NaNoWriMo is a bit gentler: You don’t get embarrassed in front of millions of people. The sponsors just take your money by selling you on a dream that will never come true. There is perhaps no greater cruelty than telling those who lack talent that they have it for the purposes of bleeding them of their hard-earned money. It almost makes Simon Cowell look like a saint. Better to have your dreams shattered by an arrogant Brit than to be bled dry by people who just want to take advantage of your dreams. If you want to write a book, that’s great. Do it. Start by practicing. If you want to be good at anything, you have to practice and learn. Maybe you’ll find that you write best when you outline. Maybe you’ll find that you’re one of those people who write best when it’s more a stream of consciousness. Maybe you’ll see that your writing gets better the more you educate yourself about the topics and themes you’re writing about. With practice, maybe you’ll learn whether you write best in first-person or third. Maybe you’ll learn if your story needs an omniscient narrator or one who is limited. Most importantly, maybe you’ll learn that it’s simply not as easy as sitting down to do it and sticking to a word schedule. If you need NaNoWriMo for any reason, then you are not ready to write your novel. If you need the feedback and criticism of strangers, then you are not ready. If you need the structure in order to keep and maintain a writing schedule, then you are not ready. If you need to be patted on the back for reaching your daily goals, then you are not ready. Writing a novel is an intensely personal,
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grinding, grueling and intense experience. It’s a journey. It’s one of the ultimate forms of soul searching. It’s not a community activity with a cute name and sponsors who are out to bleed you dry in the name of helping you reach your dreams. If you want to write a book and you want to start it in November with all the other game show contestants, then go right ahead. If you want your novel to be one worth reading, then dare to be different. Take that road less travelled. Respect the craft and the process and, most importantly, yourself. Don’t take part in a writing exercise for sheep. I review a lot of books and I see the very best and very worst of the writing world on a regular basis. I don’t want to have to trash your work someday because you took the easy route. Learn. Grow. Practice. Then, when you’re ready, write. It will make all the difference, and I won’t have to say any nasty things about you in my reviews. We’ll both be winners.
About Albert Riehle When Albert’s not reading and reviewing, he’s usually found working as a Sales & Marketing Manager. He enjoys long, romantic walks on the beach, but not as much as he loves short, spiteful sprints on the water. His beloved hometown Chicago Cubs have broken his heart 35 times and counting. Albert has broken far fewer television sets after learning to surround himself with soft, squishy items when the Cubs game is on so that he does less damage when he throws them. He occasionally remembers to update his blog. Finally, he’d like you to know that no animals were harmed in the writing of this bio. For another viewpoint on NaNoWriMo, visit “Book Banter” at sanfranciscobookreview.com
The Wall Street Journal blog recently reported that Paulo Coelho, author of the multimillion-selling The Alchemist, current best-seller Aleph, and several other books, takes two weeks to write his books. “Once every two years, he writes for ten hours a day for fifteen days until his book is completed,” reports Barbara Chai. In his own words, Coelho describes the experience similar to “making love to [the] computer.” [Note to self: Find out what computer he’s using––and ask him if it comes in a Javier Bardem model. (Just sayin’––that might make it easier for me.)] I am a huge fan of Coelho. I believe him when he says he can churn out a book in two weeks, because I did that, too. Although, I doubt he and I share the same “vision.” These days, my idea of “making love” means watching said Javier Bardem in his latest movie, killing a bottle of wine with my husband, and hoping to make it to the bedroom moments before our six-year-old son barges in wearing his brightly shining miner’s light, while groggily ordering us to “move over.” Then again, that’s exactly how it was for me when I wrote Proof of Heaven. I felt inspired––almost as if an electric charge was bursting through my entire body (sort of like the one I get watching Javier on screen). I also felt a little dizzy, maybe even drunk on the prospect of what I was writing and creating, and then I made the mad, crazy dash to
get it all done before I lost the moment, fell asleep, became distracted, or was interrupted. As a full-time editor, adjunct professor, freelance writer, wife, and mother of two children, I don’t have a lot of free time to write. I have to squeeze in––not seize––moments to write every day. So when I sent my little chapter called Proof of Heaven to a New York City agent on a whim and she wrote back enthusiastically asking for the rest of the book, I told her that I could get it to her in two weeks and that I just needed to “tidy it up.” What I needed to do was write the next 300 pages. I don’t recommend this method and know it’s not for everyone. But as a veteran rejection-letter recipient and owner of several dusty, neverto-be-read manuscripts wrapped in rubber bands in my top desk drawer, I have earned my stripes and heard my fair share of “No, thank you.” Like Chad Harbach, the writer of The Art of Fielding, I labored for years (almost eighteen in my case) writing various novels and memoirs and hoped for a “bite” from an agent or a publisher. I just kept at it and hoped all that practice would pay off. So when an agent saw potential in my latest story, I knew this was a rare opportunity and I had to take advantage of it. For two weeks (after my husband came home from work at 6:30) I wrote until dawn. During the weekend, I worked fifteen to eighteen
hours a day. I drank several pots of coffee, ate innumerable M & Ms, and slept in two hour bursts. Unhealthy? Yes. Productive? Absolutely. The ironic thing is I never heard back from that initial agent I sent my query to until long after several other agents showed interest in the book as well. (I sent queries out to a few others, because I thought if one agent was interested, there might be others. It was a good gamble.) I ended up with a fabulous agent and champion, who worked with me and my editor over the next year and a half to polish and refine what I had initially blasted off in two weeks. Yes, I may have written my book quickly, but it took almost two years to make it to the shelves. So I guess I could even make the concession that writing a book in two weeks is less like making love and more like making a baby. Sure, it takes no time to get the initial deed done, but the gestation and development take time and great care. In the end, when I finally beheld Proof of Heaven in my hands, it wasn’t totally unlike the feeling I had when I held my firstborn. At once, I knew she was all mine and I somehow played a part in bringing her into the world, but at the same time I couldn’t believe I played any role at all––she seemed otherworldly. I don’t know, maybe I could go so far as to say she seemed to me to be proof of heaven?
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About Mary Curran Hackett Mary Curran Hackett, author of Proof of Heaven, is an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati, freelance writer, and a book editor. She is also a wife and mother of two children, Brigid and Colm. For more information about the writing of Proof of Heaven and her Story Behind the Story please visit her website.
STONEHENGE, cont’d from page 12 threads weaving throughout the narrative, and by the more engaging and fleshed-out protagonists, Megan and Gideon. While some comparisons to Dan Brown are inevitable, those actually do a disservice to Christer’s work, which is more darkly ambitious. His villains are more tangible as well, becoming an almost overwhelming presence in the book. This unfortunately leads to a rushed and somewhat unsatisfying conclusion. As a standalone work, The Stonehenge Legacy has its flaws, but as the potential first entry in a series, it could be part of something great. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas
Book Reviews
Poetry & Short Stories Stories: All-New Tales By Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio, editors Harper Perennial, $16.99, 428 pages A man returns from war a stranger to his family. A fisherman with questionable motives picks up a woman. Hessian cavalrymen discover a lake said to promise riches. A husband obsesses over his newfound hunger for raw meat. A strange man with a secret arctic base meets an aspiring explorer. A conspiracy theorist traces a cult over the centuries based on their key symbol: a fake nose. A therapist attempts to save a woman from an invisible threat. A frat boy on acid attends a game show taping. The tales featured in Stories represent two dozen writers at the peak of their craft and creativity, a who’s who of storytelling that runs the gamut from crime to speculative fiction and back again. In fact, the collection’s greatest asset is its greatest weakness. The sheer variety of styles and genres contained within might prove a bit of a deterrent for readers who prefer one genre to another. On the other hand, perhaps those readers will find new avenues to explore as they pick and choose their way through the book. No matter what your preference, the steady hands of Gaiman and Sarrantonio have something waiting for you within the pages of Stories. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Anyone’s Love Story By Daniela Bayer CreateSpace, $9.99, 171 pages Described in the book’s prologue as “the unfolding story” of the author’s heart, Anyone’s Love Story chronicles the various stages in the perennial experience of love and loss. In this, Daniela Bayer reconciles the painful end of a failed relationship with reaffirmation of self, possibility for new love,
and an enlightened sense of being. Marked by candid disclosure, Bayer’s poetic journey will no doubt resonate with many both for its emotional sincerity and universality. Anyone’s Love Story reads smoothly as a 7-step guide for the broken-hearted, with an understated Self Help tone—this, perhaps, allows for a more forgiving reading of some too-familiar phrases in the text: “Believe in a fairytale ending,” Bayer implores the reader, and, towards the end: “Bite the bullet,” she encourages. This is not, however, to say that the book is without verbal texture. Insights, such as “the cost of fighting for what I think I am entitled to/ is far greater than/ the cost of letting go of everything,” ring concise and true in a visceral way that begs reflection. Daniela Bayer should be given kudos for a successful first publication and for the earnestness with which she writes. Sponsored Review Poemas de Amor (Spanish Edition) By Mailen Izquierdo Xlibris, $15.99, 45 pages Mailen Izquierdo has crafted a melody of midnight whispers, forbidden fruit, and perfect pitched pillow talk in her debut Poemas de Amor. From the hazy love at first sight to talking about reaching the divine together, and ultimately, the disappointment of the goodbye, her poetry speaks soft and loud at once, declaring all of the heart’s melodic yearnings and pains. Of course, penned in Spanish, the language of love, this slim volume, separated into three parts, reminiscent of novelas, is irresistible just in auditory tones alone, no translation required, but as the words glide over the tongue and slip into the ear and the meaning is converted (if need be) then the story unfolds and is transformed. In her poem, “Hablame de amor” the images alone grab the reader and whisk them off to a language love fest. Have a taste, “Desnuda mi pasado/Atándome tu piel/ Mirándome a las ojos/Amándome también.” Here, the speaker is passionate in her language, almost as much as she is
about her lover, “Naked my past/ Tying me to your skin/ Looking at me in the eyes/ Love me too.” Usually translation does not cross over the meaning as well as this poem does; Izquierdo’s use of imagery and word choice is spot on here and throughout much of the rest of her work. She has a keen ear and eye and her heart leads the way as her readers will experience. The speaker carries her readers through the seasons of love and, inevitably, the torment of it as well. In “La Tormenta” (The Storm) the ache is lifted from the page and settles right where we know it deepest, “As I dream to keep you/ Undressed here in my bed/ Cheated my body/ On feigned passion./ How strange the past/ and our nights without Moon/ Those that we pass/ Killing for love.” The translation does not do justice, but the image and feeling behind the original is honest and, like an open wound, raw with tenderness. Ms. Izquierdo has made a promising effort, one she can be proud of and her readers can be thankful for. Sponsored Review Coming to That: Poems By Dorothea Tanning Graywolf Press, $15.00, 52 pages Readers will easily be swept away by Dorothea Tanning’s latest collection of poems. Coming To That is a splendid book that will be read again and again. Some poems will be read multiple times before moving on to the next. Tanning starts off by shooting the reader into “a surreal sky” in “Free Ride,” hearing the wind rustle through trees in “Woman Waving to Trees,” then waiting with the other months for June to show up in “Forecast.” Tanning details small, imaginary scenes that appear to open into other worlds, yet keep the reader grounded. It is difficult not to get excited about writers like Tanning. Her writing is fun and imaginative. Readers may get the sense that Tanning has fun writing these poems, and may be surprised to find themselves not wanting to leave the page. Coming To That would make an excellent book to teach from, as it is a great example of paying attention to the smaller scenes in life, and would be suitable to share with a friend who may be unfamiliar with poetry. Reviewed by Robyn Oxborrow Pulse: Stories By Julian Barnes Knopf, $25.00, 227 pages The mental and intellectual pulses of the upper British middle class beat at a stately, languid rate, cushioned against vicissitudes, unmoved by events in the actual world, and fueled by measured dollops of red wine.
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That is one of the themes of this two-part, short story collection which, in the hands of a lesser craftsman, would prove exceedingly boring and irritating. But, Barnes is a fine writer and he can reel out selfindulgent musings that hold the reader’s attention because the themes and conversations flow smoothly. His prowess really takes in the second half. Tales of Garibaldi — the unifier of Italy — a music instructor and his influence on a blind virtuoso in the 19th century, a manuscript illustrator cheated by an aristocrat. They are among the delightful reads (when not interrupted by maudlin accounts of a marriage breakdown) that become almost sumptuous. It’s as though Barnes (author of Arthur & George) says to himself, “No more smug blathering, let it rip.” A tip: Read the second part first before being drawn into the navel gazing at British dinner parties. Reviewed by Martin Rushmere PEN/O.Henry Prize Stories 2011: The Best Stories of the Year By Laura Furman Anchor, $15.00, 432 pages The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2011 is an uneven collection.| However, some of these award winners curl around your soul. The pleasure is the discovery of some author with whom you are previously unfamiliar but whose work you will now seek. “Your Fate Hurtles Down at You” reminds readers why so many consider Jim Shepard a master story teller. He examines the lives of a group of avalanche researchers in Switzerland in the 1930’s. Lynn Freed reminds me why she remains my favorite writer of short stories with “Sunshine,” a strange piece charged with sexuality and violence about a sadist who comes to possess a feral young girl. As is always true with Freed’s work, the story contains an honesty, which will leave you breathless.| Tamas Dobozy’s “The Restoration of the Villa Where Tibor Kalman Once Lived” demanded that I read this story twice. It takes gumption for a writer to take the reader inside the mind of a protagonist so flawed and detestable. Dobozy’s success at this earns him special attention.| This collection is as diverse in theme and subject as any I’ve read; offering the chance to swim in an unknown reef, encountering denizens both familiar and surprising. Reviewed by Jordan Magill
Book Reviews
Horror Grimscribe: His Lives and Works By Thomas Ligotti Subterranean Press, $40.00, 226 pages Grimscribe is a reprinting of the second volume of Thomas Ligotti’s collected works, also titled Grimscribe, that was originally published in 1991. The book contains some of the Mr. Ligotti’s best work, including his Lovecraft homage “The Last Feast of the Harlequin,” “Nethescurial,” “The Shadow at the Bottom of the World,” and ten more stories. These versions of his work have been amended and revised by the author and constitute definitive editions of the horror author’s work. Ligotti is a cult figure in horror writing, though his fiction has received critical praise and has won numerous awards, the man was referred to by the Washington Post as contemporary horror’s best kept secret. Grimscribe is the ideal introduction to the man’s writing containing many of his more popular and accessible pieces of work. Mr. Ligotti’s success in horror and weird fiction has been his uncanny ability to create an atmosphere a pathos that fully engages the reader’s emotions, this coupled with an uncanny knack for creating horrors that remain more terrifying off the page than on it makes for wonderfully chilling and at times macabre stories. For those of use who enjoy that kind of thing Grimscribe is recommended. Reviewed by Jonathon Howard Fateful By Claudia Gray HarperTeen, $17.99, 325 pages Fateful by Claudia Gray should be an exciting, luscious romance between a young woman and man who aren’t meant to be together. The reason Fateful doesn’t work is because Gray relies on too many clichés. The book feels unoriginal. Tess Davies works for the Viscount Lisle and his family, who are headed to New York City on the RMS Titanic. When the ship docks, Tess will start a new life. The night before she leaves, Tess is attacked. She’s saved by Alec Marlowe, the heir to Marlowe Steel, who is also a passenger on the Titanic. Tess’s attacker, Mikhail, stalks her on the ship and Alec comes to her rescue again. Both these men
can transform in werewolves. Mikhail is part of a secret Brotherhood that wants to take over the world. Alec becomes Tess’ protector and will keep her safe from Mikhail. And then an iceberg hits the Titanic and things go from bad to worse. When you find yourself uninvolved with the plight of the main characters and the so-called luscious romance falls flat, that’s when you move onto something more satisfying. Gray’s fans and young readers will enjoy Fateful because it has many appealing attributes, but for this reader, it’s a pass. Reviewed by Kate Garrabrant The Book of Cthulhu By Ross E. Lockhart, editor Night Shade Books, $15.99, 540 pages Anthologies are a mixed bag, especially science fiction/fantasy/horror anthologies. This is true even for one of the more mythic beings of 20th Century literature, Cthulhu. Cthulhu was created from the mind of H.P. Lovecraft, who wrote many of his stories for pulp magazines at the turn of the 20th Century. He created the Cthulhu mythos – a world within a world – populated by Elder Gods who are older than man and wanting to destroy our minds. The mythos did not take off for many years, but has gained popularity in the past 30 years. In this collection Ross Lockhart tries his hand at the Cthulhu mythos, a world that should be full of possibilities; but this one stretches the limits, and not in a good way. The stories themselves are generally not that bad, and Mr. Lockhart does a good job in selecting them, but readers unfamiliar with the Cthulhu mythos will likely feel lost and give up. Another problem is that this anthology includes at least four stories that do not fit. Cthulhu lives, both in our minds and nightmares, but there are better collections on the market. Reviewed by Kevin Winter Steel: And Other Stories By Richard Matheson Tor Books, $14.99, 256 pages This book begins with Matheson’s classic story “Steel,” where the sport of boxing has replaced flesh and blood champions with
advanced machines. Add two previously unpublished stories, as well as twelve of Matheson’s speculative fiction stories dating back to the 1950s, and you have an anthology that offers readers some of Matheson’s best and early work. Notable stories include “The Window of Time,” featuring an elderly man who climbs out a window and finds himself over sixty years in the past. On the surface this is a tender tale of old age and wonder; beneath, it becomes an exploration on classic genre themes — questions of how we affect the past by traveling back into it and the uncanny possibility of meeting a younger version of ourselves. “The Doll That Does Everything” recounts the circumstances of a family that buys a doll to serve as their troubled son’s companion. The least quirky of the stories, it reads like a moral tale about the dangers of not caring for your child. This collection ultimately offers readers a good introduction to Matheson’s bizarre and satirical world of characters. Reviewed by Wendy Iraheta Screamplays By Richard Chizmar, Martin H. Greenburg, Dean Koontz, and Stephen King Cemetery Dance Publications, $40.00, 545 pages A loyal cat tries to protect a little girl. A team tackles a haunted house. A woman seeks justice for a construction company’s negligence. A man questions his sanity when it appears he’s killed a woman. A guntoting reverend arrives in a cursed town. A young man spends time with his uncle after his cousin’s death. A lawyer in a Laundromat tries to elude a killer. These are merely the hooks, seedlings that sprout into tales of terror under the watchful eye of some of the genre’s most legendary names, including King, Matheson, and Ellison. Featuring screenplay formatting instead a standard fiction layout, Screamplays takes an unusual track by inviting the reader to not only picture the story, but to imagine it realized on film, complete with close-up and voiceover cues. It makes for an intriguingly tense reading experience, as the reader becomes both audience and director. The sheer dimensions of the book are a slight hindrance — Screamplays is hardly a slip-in-your-pocket tome — but they do allow for a handful of shiver-inducing drawings that pepper each story, offering your imagination a moment’s respite even as your nerves continue to fray.
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Screamplays is a feast for cineastes and readers alike. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas The Janus Tree and Other Stories By Glen Hirshberg Subterranean, $40.00, 230 pages Books and movies seem to feel overwhelming with the amount of in your face gore, monsters, and the odd, so much so that one can feel a bit jaded. Glen Hirshberg’s new book, The Janus Tree, can help cure one’s boredom and send chills running down the spine once again. The Janus Tree includes eleven seemingly ordinary stories that can quickly pique readers’ curiosity. In Hirshberg’s first story, a young man starts to slowly understand why his childhood friend left town, and the ancient magic brought back by the town’s wealthy businessman. In “Shomer,” a young Jewish man accepts the task of protecting his beloved, dead uncle’s body inside the mortuary, not knowing what is involved in being a shomer, he soon sees the threat the living face when an immediate family member dies. Hirshberg is amazing at twisting the mundane into one creepy story. While the story at first seems ordinary, Hirshberg subtly drops in hints to make the reader feel as if they are seeing through a peephole. In the end, no one gets a full view of the horror that has occurred. Instead, readers are left with the sense that perhaps they shouldn’t know and should just keep the blinders over their eyes. Reviewed by Robyn Oxborrow Forever Azathoth By Peter Cannon Subterranean Press, $40.00, 238 pages Not many can pull off a good parody, especially when much of the material stems from fantasy collections such as those by H.P. Lovecraft, who created hundreds of odd creatures in his novels. However, Peter Cannon does this fairly well in Forever Azathoth where he plays with pastiche and parody writing styles. The first two sections of this book are his most successful as the plots pull readers down into the fantasy. There, Cannon continues the Edward Derby tales where Edward’s descendants and followers begin to unravel his writing surrounding Azathoth. See AZATHOTH, page 63
Book Reviews
Science Fiction & Fantasy Ganymede By Cherie Priest Tor, $14.99, 349 pages The Civil War has dragged on for decades now, and each side is desperately searching for any advantage, no matter how dangerous. Josephine Early, New Orleans entrepreneur and madam, has something that might tip the scales in the Union’s favor, if she can find someone to pilot the blasted thing. When word reaches airman Andan Cly in Seattle, he sees an opportunity, not only for profit, but for a chance at a fresh start. Ganymede is the latest in Cherie Priest’s thoroughly enjoyable Clockwork Century series, and her storytelling is only becoming more ambitious. While Boneshaker and Dreadnought were more action-oriented tales, Ganymede is a character piece, exploring various relationships in Priest’s complex and fascinating world. Characters new and old bring weight and pathos to a dark time, and the far-flung locales of Priest’s alternate America grow richer in detail and charm. Josephine is a wonderful addition to Priest’s burgeoning pantheon of capable and strong women, and is perhaps the most indomitable yet. The highlight of Ganymede is its slowburn tension, building toward something important even as the book concludes. Whether it’s the end of the war or some greater horror to come, I cannot wait to see what Priest has for us next. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities By Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, editors Harper Voyager, $22.99, 320 pages The bear gun. The armor of Sir Locust. Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny. Addison Howell’s Clockroach. A parsimonious skull. Names so evocative and baffling that the imagination latches onto them with ferocity. From monstrous contraptions to anatomical peculiarities, the images they conjure only grant them a deeper mystery. These are just a few of the oddities featured in The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of
Curiosities, a glimpse into the labyrinthine collection of the infamous Dr. Lambshead: entrepreneur, accumulator of the bizarre, scientist of dubious sanity, and mastermind behind The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases. In reality, this collection of stories and musings by some of speculative fiction’s most imaginative voices, from Alan Moore and Mike Mignola to Holly Black, Ekaterina Sedia, and Jeffrey Ford, all of which contribute to the ludicrous legend of Thackery T. Lambshead. Some are funny, some are unrepentantly dark and disturbing, and most are utterly ridiculous, but that’s partly the point. While this format is so esoteric that it will put off some readers immediately, those who stick around will delight in its macabre humor and singular style. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Ghost of a Smile By Simon R. Green Ace, $7.99, 279 pages The Ghost Finders are an eclectic trio of miscreants, each with a decidedly offkilter skill set to wield against the worst and weirdest paranormal forces the darkness has to offer. But when a drug company suddenly goes into lockdown, the team is recruited to find out why. What happened to the security team that preceded them? What malevolence awaits them inside? And what has the terrible marriage of science and the supernatural wrought on our world? In the sequel to the engaging Ghost of a Chance, Green deviates from his usual fare by taking us on a dark journey inspired more by Scientific American than by myth or ghost stories. He gleefully tweaks the natural fear of experimentation (and the inscrutable motivations of the men behind it), bringing some real world paranoia into his fantasy-laden playground. It’s a gamble that pays off nicely. While the lack of hard-and-fast rules for their world can be a bit off-putting, the fact
that the characters often seem to be at a loss is a comfort to the reader. Supernatural detective or not, we’re all in the same boat here. With his Nightside series ending soon, the Ghost Finders books are quickly proving to be worthy replacements. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Syn in the City: A Synemancer Novel By Mertianna Georgia ImaJinn Books, $15, 244 pages Cara Augustine has men issues. Syn in the City is her origin story, where she discovers her powers and begins dealing with the implications of those powers. In this book, a demonic entity is aware of her potential and that only Cara will be able to defeat it. On the path towards their meeting, Cara’s powers manifest, making life very interesting for her and those around her. She has the ability to switch part of her soul with that of another supernatural creature, gaining some of the limitations of that person while at the same time focusing that power and combining it with others to create some very powerful effects. The key to this book is its great character development. Cara starts as the least powerful character in the book, with no confidence on how to deal with men. She expects to be forgotten, but then her powers manifest, making her the most powerful character and giving her all of the confidence with men she would ever need. The men are presented fully-fleshed, and as she falls in love with each it is shown what they bring to the table as equals and not just living power batteries. The plot is solid, even allowing for the time that passes in the story, and then it builds to a very satisfying climax, in more ways than one. This is definitely a fun romp. Although it sometimes combines romance with urban fantasy, those romances add spice the story, making a story that traverses some great territory and never gets boring. This book shows that not all great books need be steak; sometimes the best book is the literary equivalent of lemon meringue pie, and this book is definitely tart enough for the most discriminating palate. This is definitely the fun read of the season. Sponsored Review The Last Seer and the Tomb of Enoch By Ashland Menshouse Dog Ear Publishing, $17.95, 440 pages Aubrey Taylor is beginning high school, and his first-day jitters don’t even prepare him for how difficult his freshman year is going to be. While he still has his friends from middle school, Buzz and Rodriqa, he
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also has to contend with the pack of bullies who have targeted him in previous grades. But to make it all even worse, Aubrey finds himself haunted by ghosts, causing him insomnia and trouble in school. Add in a Sasquatch, magic, and a buried cavern of secrets, and you have a bad start to the new school year. However, Aubrey has his friends to depend on. Buzz is the eccentric genius inventor, and Rodriqa is the focused and stable one. Both help Aubrey not only get through the obstacle course that is his life, but also help solve the new mystery enveloping their Appalachian town of Lake Julian. From the traveling circus performers disappearance, to the appearance of a new town member that everyone seems to think has always lived there, Lake Julian is the center of a war between to sides one trying to open the Tomb of Enoch and the other trying to keep it sealed under the the local mining operation. Menshouse takes the traditional elements of urban fantasy and fits them into small-town Appalachia. They are familiar enough to be recognizable, but unique enough to be fresh in The Last Seer. Aubrey is an Everyman caught up in forces beyond his ken, but with the help of his friends, navigates through the shoals and comes out stronger for it. Morehouse has written an excellent debut novel whose characters and dialog rings true to life. An entertaining book for tweens and YA. Sponsored Review The Urban Fantasy Anthology Edited by Peter Beagle and Joe Lansdale Tachyon Publications, $15.95, 431 pages They are the modern masters of the genre, together in one anthology. Names like Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Jeffrey Ford, Kelley Armstrong, Norman Partridge, Carrie Vaughn, Holly Black, Tim Powers, and Al Sarrantonio, representing the best, brightest, weirdest, and wildest in speculative fiction today. Whether it’s a hitman hired by an angel or a man carpooling with Jesus and the devil, a zombie crashing a party, or puberty that results in lycanthropy, you never know what you’ll encounter within the pages of The Urban Fantasy Anthology, but rest assured it will be something wondrous and special. Unlike most short story compendiums, The Urban Fantasy Anthology organizes its stories into stylistic subsets, complete with introductions to the form and prominent examples in popular culture. It’s an inno-
Book Reviews
vation perfectly designed to welcome new readers as well as devoted fans of the genre. Of course, every collection has its duds and misfires, but Lansdale and Beagle, two visionaries of the form themselves, have nonetheless assembled a new benchmark against which many other anthologies will be measured. As a rabid short story reader, I cannot wait to see what new collections rise to the challenge. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel By Greg Keyes Del Rey, $15, 336 pages The mysterious floating city of Umbriel continues to drift toward the Imperial City, an undead army growing in its shadow. Annaïg and Mere-Glim, still trapped on Umbriel, continue to look for a way to destroy the threat from the inside, while Prince Attrebus and the mysterious Sul quest for the sword Umbra, believing it the only way to destroy the city. In the Imperial City itself, Colin searches for the traitor who may have been helped to summon Umbriel out of the realms of Oblivion. Anyone who has not played the popular RPG Oblivion, or read Greg Keyes’ prior Elder Scrolls novel, would undoubtedly be confused by Lord of Souls. Fans, however, will be pleased to finally find out the rest of the story that was left hanging in the previous book. Gamers will have no trouble imagining the world of Cyrodiil, but the author does a fair job in bringing the landscape to life even to those unfamiliar with it. The story is vividly unique, but rendered with such attention to detail as to seem truly plausible to the imaginative reader. This is an exciting novel sure to please any fan of the fantasy genre! Reviewed by Holly Scudero One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel By Seanan McGuire DAW, $7.99, 368 pages This fifth book in the October Daye urban fantasy series gets high marks on three points: Toby does a little less running around, some important story lines get resolved, and McGuire introduces us to
Science Fiction & Fantasy
the awesome undersea world of the fae. Another day, another big problem to solve for October Daye. This time someone has kidnapped the two sons of the regent of the Undersea Duchy of Saltmist. Only a month has passed since Toby was brought back from the brink of death, and now she has a new place to call home – Goldengreen. But she has only has three days to avoid allout war between the sea fae and those on land Using a helpful spell from the terrifying sea witch, the Luidaeg, Toby is able to breathe underwater and here McGuire presents exciting and colorful descriptions of the unusual and fascinating underwater fae. McGuire seems to have fun with One Salt Sea, exploring her protagonist’s personality and revealing some great origin stories for the world of fae. Fans of the series will be swept up in this story, hooked to the very end where they get some answers and a sense of satisfaction that few books deliver this well. Reviewed by Alex Telander Citadels of the Lost: The Annals of Drakis: Book Two By Tracy Hickman DAW, $24.95, 432 pages The escaped slave Drakis and his companions have followed the sound of dragonsong to the northern lands, only to discover that dragons are real! They’re also dangerous, and their flight from this new foe sends the group to an unknown land. Drakis must bring back the magic of Aether to the lands they now find themselves in. Doing so, however, will mean working together, difficult due to the secrets and mistrust swirling around them all, and the skepticism in an arrogant young guide who surely has other motives. Meanwhile, former Iblisi Inquisitor Soen knows his fate is tied to the escaped slaves, and he must find them before his own enemies in the Rhonas Empire find him. Citadels of the Lost is the exciting second book in the Annals of Drakis series, and like its predecessor, it does not disappoint. All of the characters readers know — and may or may not love — from the first book are back, and the story only gets more intricate as it goes on. Hickman writes with authority, masterfully and flawlessly switching between different points of view and keeping this novel flowing toward an epic conclusion that only promises more to come in the next book. A must-read for fans of the
fantasy genre. Reviewed by Holly Scudero Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years Volume 9 By Gaylord DuBois, with illustrations by Jesse Marsh Dark Horse, $49.99, 240 pages Everyone needs someone swinging in to save their life once in a while. Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years compiles Dell Comics Tarzan 44, 45 and 46 and the Tarzan’s Jungle Annual #9 from 1953 into one hard-backed volume. The book features some of the best work of Jesse Marsh, one of the best Tarzan artists. The collection includes not only the photo covers of Johnny Weissmuller, but also the games and some of the advertisements as well. It’s fun comparing older comics to the digitally colored comics of today. Dell Comics had its heyday before the Silver Age began, so it makes for an interesting compare and contrast for any serious comics person; the comics are pretty good, but that is because they are so relatively simple compared to the multi-layered plots and detailed backgrounds of today’s comics. This is not to say that they are boring, but it is a refreshing change to read the older books every so often, just to get a feel for the difference. Not only are they a great read, but this is a great series of books for anyone. Reviewed by Jamais Jochim Alien Invasion: How to Defend Earth By Travis S. Taylor and Bob Boan Baen, $16, 225 pages It’s among the most popular concepts in science fiction: the alien invasion. Hundreds of movies, TV shows, novels, and stories have explored potential invasions and, often, the aftermath. But what would humanity need to do to prepare for a genuine alien invasion? That’s the question tackled by Dr. Taylor and Dr. Boan in Alien Invasion, taking a deadly serious and deeply thoughtful look at humanity’s dismal chances against an alien force. Since we have zero real-world knowledge of actual alien societies, biologies, or technologies, Taylor and Boan focus on the preparation aspect, comparing the calamity of an extraterrestrial invasion with other real-world catastrophes and analyzing our effectiveness (or lack
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thereof) in handling civilian evacuations, disaster response, and the like. They supplement this with detailed segues into the possibility of alien visitation and the formation of a government organization dedicated to monitoring and preparing for alien encounters, including weapon advancements and satellite networking. With pop culture references galore for comparison purposes, Alien Invasion paints a somewhat startling picture of a planet ripe for conquest, no matter how unlikely the scenario. But beyond that, it’s a fascinating look at our society from an unexpected angle. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Indomitable By Terry Brooks Subterranean, $35, 96 pages Indomitable, presented in novella form by bestselling author Terry Brooks, is the story of a few fan-favorite characters from his third novel, The Wishsong of Shannara, and takes place just a few years after the events of that book. A single page of the Ildatch, the living book of evil, survived the power of Brin Ohmsford’s magic and was recovered by unscrupulous Mwellrets who covet its evil power. The shade of Allanon charges onceDruid Cogline with convincing Brin’s younger brother Jair to go back to the one place in the Four Lands he swore he’d never go, Dun Fee Aran Prison, where he almost died, to destroy it and end the Ildatch’s powerful evil forever. This book is a gift to fans of the Shannara world and should be regarded as such. While it’s readable for newcomers, I’d hate for anyone to read this novella and have it encapsulate Terry Brooks’ talent in their minds. Missing is a lot of the color and magic of Brooks’ prose, sacrificed for brevity, and while it’s good, it’s not Terry Brooks at his best. Fans of Jair, Cogline and Garet Jax won’t want to miss out but newbies would be much better served reading Brooks’ magical series from the start first. Reviewed by Albert Riehle Ghosts of War By George Mann Pyr, $16, 234 pages In a world where the memories of World War I weigh heavy on the mind, and the U.S. and Britain are embroiled in a bitter cold war, Manhattan finds itself under siege by an altogether different terror: vicious mechanical raptors swooping from the sky on fleshy wings and kidnapping people from
Book Reviews
dark streets and alleyways. Can The Ghost, Manhattan’s mysterious protector, accompanied by a triggerhappy ex-girlfriend, stop the raptors and their sinister creator before the world is plunged once more into war, the horrors of which no one could possibly imagine? Picking up where Ghosts of Manhattan left off, Ghosts of War is a marvelous throwback to the old radio serials of the past, with a touch of steampunk for good measure. The Ghost is like a Jazz Age Batman, complete with playboy identity and emotional scars, but Mann makes the archetype his own with flair, taking us on a wild ride through a curious world enough like ours to make us marvel at the differences. I certainly hope there is more to come for The Ghost and his Manhattan, since this brief visit was great fun. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Happily Ever After By Gregory Maguire, Bill Willingham, Susanna Clarke, and Neil Gaiman Night Shade Books, $16.99, 457 pages Fantasy lovers, rejoice. Now you can partake of a delicious feast of retold fairy tales in Happily Ever After. Assembled by editor John Klima, this chunky tome contains thirty-three stories by the best in the fantasy, horror, and young adult worlds. Add tales by several newcomers and you have a delicious, and sometimes frightening, collection. Granted, many of the fairy tale-inspired pieces were originally printed in other works, but Klima knows how to select stories that offer twists and turns of the original stories. Gregory Maguire’s The Seven Stage a Comeback sets the tone as the dwarves search for Snow White, contemplating why she did not return to them. Peter Straub’s Ashputtle sends chills down my spine with his retelling of Cinderella. With heavy hitters by Karen Joy Fowler, Susanna Clark, Holly Black, Jane Yolen, and Neil Gaimon, Happily Ever After supplies readers with hours of reading entertainment. These aren’t your children’s fairy tales filled with sweet, singing birds, stereotypical evil witches, and dashing princes. No, these retellings pull readers to the dark side,
Science Fiction & Fantasy
to the brink of a tumultuous end, and bring us back. We may never be the same. Reviewed by LuAnn Schindler Naked City By Ellen Datlow, editor St. Martin’s Press, $15.99, 560 pages The genre known as “urban fantasy” has grown to become its very own strong and prominent category in fantasy, and yet there are still many people who have yet to read an urban fantasy book, or an urban fantasy story for that matter. Where are said readers supposed to begin? An anthology is a good place to start; this particular anthology – Naked City – is a great one. With so many authors writing urban fantasy, it’s hard to decide on one to like and read. Naked City makes that easy for the reader by offering twenty stories by different authors. The book kicks off with a great romping ride courtesy of Jim Butcher, and this time Harry Dresden is on the case of the Chicago Cubs curse. Naomi Novik’s entertaining tale, “Priced to Sell,” is about vampires buying real estate in Manhattan. Patricia Brigg’s “Fairy Gifts” features a vampire called home to save those who freed him from a curse. Melissa Marr’s “Guns for the Dead” is the story of a dead man trying to get by in the afterlife. In the introduction, popular and prolific editor Ellen Datlow writes about the importance of place in Naked City, with most of the stories featuring an important location as their focus point. Readers will learn about various towns across America in Naked City, as well as other places not found on any known map. Reviewed by Alex Telander Dragon’s Time: Dragonriders of Pern By Anne McCaffrey and Todd J. McCaffrey Del Rey, $26, 320 pages In the last couple of years, I’ve watched as Todd McCaffrey entered his mother’s Pernese universe. At first, it was a subtle, harder feel, more recognition of cruelty and stress, not less craft, but something different. There was exploration of the mythical chemistry and biology of Pern. Still fun reads. The problems that are developing in this series are several. The names we are expected to remember between books and even
across separated scenes are proliferating, points of view are becoming more shortly visited and unnecessarily numerous. Often the reader is left to grope for location or time based only on a name hint. This whole book reads like some muse on the vapors of gestation. Most of what action occurs is now telling and not showing. I hope these talented writers pull up their socks and rediscover their craft before complacency thins their readership. Reviewed by David Sutton The Kings of Eternity By Eric Brown Solaris, $7.99, 367 Pages This is one of those novels where you are drawn into the story, immersed into characters and plotline without fully realizing until you are deeply involved in how the author subtly weaves the elements of science fiction into it. Mr. Brown’s great writing skills are demonstrated as he seamlessly transports the reader from the present to different time periods, blending the science-fiction and the modern worlds together. Upon being summoned from London to help investigate strange events, four men discover something unusual in a copse of woods in 1935. The discovery of a portal to another world and technology that will completely change their lives are the focus of a novel that follows these men as they forge a new path in life, based on a trust that is absolute and a secrecy on which their lives depend. It all led to a conclusion that was rather satisfactory. The Kings of Eternity made me think a little bit about my life, what I would like to accomplish, and the legacy I would like to leave behind. While I love science-fiction novels with all of the in-your-face technology, I have always enjoyed Eric Brown’s novels for their subtle use of technology. Although somewhat predictable in its plotline and the lack of double-entendre, I could easily put that aside and just enjoy the character development, the great descriptions, the atmosphere, and the subtle use of technology. For those who enjoy an interesting sciencefiction novel, I recommend they take a look at this novel. Reviewed by Stephanie Nordkap Out of the Waters By David Drake Tor, $25.99, 400 pages This second in The Books of the Elementsseries is set in a fictionalized version of Rome, where there are a host of different
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elements railroaded into service in this fantasy/multiverse/time travel story. The author succeeded blending all the disparate elements into a seamless whole, though it’s a bit of a mess. Worse, the action is hopelessly delayed by the author filling in with his background research. My advice is to read the first hundred introductory pages with a superficial eye. You then arrive refreshed at the more interesting part where our group of “heroes” is dispersed into different times or realities, and must fight their way back to defend Carce (i.e. Rome) from a potentially lethal attack. The theme is potentially inspiring. If good men become effective warriors, they sacrifice some, or all, of their humanity. When the battle is won and they return to society, it’s left to their women to remind them who they used to be. Some are saved. The second half of this story redeems the first and it adds up to be reasonably entertaining. Reviewed by David Marshall Hidden Cities By Daniel Fox Del Rey, $15, 432 pages Daniel Fox has lost control of his many story threads and characters in Hidden Cities, the third book of his trilogy Moshui: The Books of Stone and Water. As a result, we get only scraps about Mei Feng’s troubled pregnancy, hints about Han’s complicated relationship with the dragon, and a seeming change of heart from Old Yen about his devotion to his goddess, though without a genuine explanation. The plot doesn’t seem to advance much, either, as the emperor Chien Hua wages no battles to regain his kingdom and attempts to resolve his problems with two traitors by playing them off against one another. None of the many stories resolves satisfactorily; one would be tempted to think that Fox had decided to spin his story out to a greater length, with a few more books coming, were it not that his website refers to Hidden Cities as the conclusion of the series. It is disappointing to see a series that started so promisingly in Dragon in Chains finish so weakly. Reviewed by Terry Weyna SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY cont’d on page 46
Book Reviews
Tweens Sidekicks By Dan Santat Arthur A. Levine Books, $12.99, 224 pages I read my first graphic novel 20 years ago. Since then, I’ve read, well, zero graphic novels. After reading Dan Santat’s Sidekicks, I’m kicking myself for not picking up others in this genre earlier. Santat captures the saga of an aging superhero – Captain Amazing – who believes he’s getting too old to fight crime and assist little old ladies across the street. When he arrives home, he informs his pets he plans to hold auditions for a sidekick. Captain Amazing’s pets, Roscoe the dog and Fluffy the chameleon, believe they are the natural choice. Even Shifty the chameleon gets tangled in the web of mystery and intrigue. When an old nemesis returns to Metro City, it takes all of Captain Amazing’s strength to battle the bad guy. In a well-constructed flashback, Manny the cat, returns to the foray, and along with the other pets, fights to save the day. Geared toward the tween market, Sidekicks should keep their attention, with focus on characterization and themes of friendship and fitting in. Santat spent seven years perfecting this piece. It shows. Each frame shows great detail and employs vivid colors. It’s a visual feast of fun! Reviewed by LuAnn Schindler The Worst-Case Scenario Ultimate Adventure: Mars By Hena Khan, David Borgenicht, Robert Zubrin Chronicle Books, $12.99, 208 pages The Worst Case Scenario Ultimate Adventure #2 – Mars! is a new adventure in reading. Not only is the young reader a character in the book, but he or she also guides the action. Do they want to explore the Mars frontier with a “borrowed” vehicle? Turn to page 81. Or head back to base with a valuable discovery? Turn to page 116. With each scene, there’s a new choice to be made and a new twist. The format of this book makes it an ideal
choice to encourage reluctant readers. After all, what fifth grader can groan “lame story” when he’s the one calling the shots? And in order to offer readers plenty of choices, this book is chock full of action and excitement: fires, broken equipment, missing astronauts ... You can’t resist finding out what disaster they face next. Not only will students read it once, but this book will get taken out again and again — especially if readers fail in their mission (to make it to Mars and back safely). Who could resist starting the story again, wondering “if I had made a different decision here … or here, maybe I would have made it”. Welcome to endless stories in one book! Reviewed by Jodi Webb Lexie By Audrey Couloumbis Random House Books for Young Readers, $15.99, 208 pages The Jersey shore in the summer was the best thing for ten-yearold Lexie. She and Mom would stay all summer and Dad came on weekends. Now things would be different. Mom and Dad divorced and Mom couldn’t come any more. At least Lexie would have Dad to herself for a whole week at the shore, and maybe some weekends too. That’s what she thought, until Dad told her his girlfriend, Vicky, and her two boys would be coming along. She couldn’t have her old room. They would clear out the tiny storage room for her. She would share the beach with fourteen-year-old Ben. The girlfriend’s sticky-fingered three-year-old Harris doesn’t talk, but makes truck noises all the time. Vicky tries a little too hard and everyone is very uncomfortable. Maybe this will be the worst week of Lexie’s life. Or maybethere’s a nice surprise in store. This pleasant little book will capture the interest of eight to ten year old girls. Since Lexie never shows real anger, everyone is too nice, and the package is a little too tidy to be believable, it may not model the real emotions of a young girl and her family. Reviewed by Rosi Hollinbeck
Elizabeth I, the People’s Queen: Her Life and Times, 21 Activities By Kerrie Logan Hollihan Chicago Review Press, $16.95, 144 pages Designed for children ages nine and up and featuring exercises and projects, this concise history of Queen Elizabeth reads well enough to educate adults. An accomplished writer in the genre, Hollihan describes the Elizabethan world of Shakespeare, Sir Francis Drake the Pirate, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the political intrigue surrounding the murderous plots that resulted in the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots, a cousin to Elizabeth. This is not your typical stodgy textbook. Beautifully illustrated, Hollihan includes wood cuttings, sketches, and prints depicting the sixteenth century along with maps, time lines, and the Tudor family tree in addition to the numerous sidebars with Shakespearean quotes, and snapshot histories of customs and famous people in Elizabeth’s day. Except for the twenty-one interactive projects, this authoritative biography might well be marketed to an adult interested in European Reformation and Shakespearean England. Certainly Hollihan succeeds in revealing England’s gilded age and how Elizabeth’s monarchy fulfilled her parliamentary declaration: “Though you have had, and may have, many princes more mighty and wise sitting in this seat, yet you never had nor shall have, any that will be more careful and loving.” Reviewed by Casey Corthron The Mistaken Masterpiece By Michael D. Beil Knopf Books for Young Readers, $16.99, 309 pages This romp set in New York City has too much going on. Sophie—a middle grade student who often sounds older—and three friends have a band, The Red Blazer Girls. They play in gigs at a place called Perkatory. They are detectives. They are multi-talented. Sophie is sporty, Margaret is literary, Becca artistic. Leigh Ann dances. Their new case involves a painting that should be a Pommeroy original given to the great-grandfather of their friend, Father Julian. In a recent appraisal, gallery owners have asked for proof it was painted before the artist’s death. Father Julian only has a box of photographs where the painting is seen clearly in some, partially in others— and two historical baseballs, one of which may be phony. Side plots involve the film star the Blazers idolize, Nate Etan, and his dog; a rivalry
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with Sophie’s swim team-mate, Livvy, (who breaks Sophie’s nose at practice); an artist name Gus, who hides in a back room of the gallery where Father Julian had the painting appraised; and a couple of burgeoning romances. Dialogue makes this a fun read, but plot threads are much too coincidental to believe. Reviewed by Elizabeth Varadan Big Nate on a Roll By Lincoln Peirce HarperCollins, $12.99, 224 pages Nate has a few problems – the new kid at school, Artur, is perfect at everything and is going with the girl Nate is crazy for, Nate’s dad is the king of discipline, and Nate seems to be just about the unluckiest guy on the planet. For him, everything that can go wrong seems to. Two weeks away from earning his attendance merit badge in Timber Scouts, Nate gets detention and ends up missing the meeting through absolutely no fault of his own. In fact, it’s Artur’s fault. When Nate finally arrives just after the meeting, he finds Artur has joined scouts and there is a competition for who can sell the most for a fund raiser. Artur plans on winning, so, of course, Nate makes it his goal to beat him. Nate comes up with some pretty interesting, unusual ideas for winning, few of which have anything to do with selling the fundraiser product. Nate’s hand-drawn comics on nearly every page and his silly antics will make this a favorite for middle-grade boys. It’s a quick read and very clever in every way. Lincoln Peirce is on a roll with this latest book in the Big Nate series. Reviewed by Rosi Hollinbeck The Mostly True Story of Jack By Kelly Barnhill Little Brown for Young Readers, $16.99, 336 pages Jack was almost invisible. He never appeared in family photos. He had no friends at school. When his parents decided to divorce, they sent him for the summer with weird Uncle Clive and Aunt Mabel in Hazelwood, Iowa, a far cry from his home in San Francisco. It’s complicated. Jack meets Anders, Wende, and Frankie, a boy with a terribly scarred face. At last, Jack has friends. Soon he discovers Hazelwood is no ordinary town. There are tales of disappearing children, stolen souls, and his aunt and uncle’s See JACK, page 34
Book Reviews
Games Wrath of Ashardalon: A D&D Boardgame By Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast, $64.99, 32 pages This is the perfect companion piece to the table-top, role-playing game. Wrath of Ashardalon is a cooperative system, meaning that you can play solo, but the system works better with a group. It allows a group to essentially access a different board each game, and to attempt adventures with
different goals. With the monsters, tiles, and
cards provided, there are a wide variety of adventures one can attempt. Unfortunately, the key word is “attempt.” Set-up for even a quick adventure takes at least half an hour, and taking the game down takes almost as long. It is just an onerous task to even set-up. Worse, the
Health, Fitness, and Dieting
monsters tend to proliferate quickly; if you don’t kill them quickly, it’s easy to be overrun. Throw in all of the various details you are trying to keep track of, from different monsters moving to which cards have been used, and all of the tokens, playing this game is just too complicated. If the monsters don’t get you, the rules will. However, those looking for a great representation of the roleplaying game will be happy. It can be made to work, but it just takes determination. Reviewed by Jamais Jochim
The Sustainable You - Somatics and the Myth of Aging By John Loupos Langdon Street Press, $16.95, 277 pages The word somatic, from the Greek, means of the body. From John Loupos’ book about somatics, readers learn about their body and about the pioneer teachings of health and wellness by the late Thomas Hanna, PhD.|Loupos is a certified Hanna somatic educator who explains that somatics practitioners are educators, not therapists. He expounds on Hanna’s teachings of how to live in your body in the best and most sustainable way by getting the muscles and brain to collaborate optimally. He quotes Hanna that each of us “…is largely responsible for who and what we become.” Aging, of itself, does not mean the body and quality of life must decline. Our bodies experience various degrees of “insults” in our lives, the culmination of which is responsible for the body’s decline and pain. Somatics offers a way to rectify those insults with retraining one’s brain through gradual, consistent specific movements.|This book explains in great detail the general theories of somatic and applied somatics in the first two parts. Loupos shares his thoughts and answers questions in the third part, concluding in part four with somatic movement patterns to bring the practice of somatics for readers. Reviewed by Angie Mangino Healthy, Sexy, Happy: A Thrilling Journey to the Ultimate You By Nancy Deville Greenleaf Book Group Press, $24.95, 350 pages When I first picked up Healthy, Sexy, Happy – A Thrilling Journey to the Ultimate You and saw a picture of the author Nancy Deville, I couldn’t believe she could be sixty years old. The face I saw looks years younger than sixty. I’d even go so far as to say she looks more like thirty-something. If her looks are indicative of healthy lifestyle hab-
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its, I wanted to learn more. Healthy, Sexy, Happy makes big promises. Who wouldn’t love never having to diet again? And reversing the aging process? Yes, please! The truth, according to Deville, is that we live in a toxic world. There’s a lot of serious reading here and hard work is involved. If you’re looking for a quick fix, this book will most definitely NOT be the one you should reach for. Is it possible to achieve the goals Deville promises? Perhaps, if you completely rethink everything about everything you put into your body. I want to believe there are things we can do for our health, such as refusing to buy into the preservatives and the over processed foods that fill the grocery store shelves. I hope to dig deeper into this book, and maybe adapt some of the suggestions. Getting healthy and living healthy are things we as a society should all strive harder to achieve. Reviewed by Laura Friedkin
JACK, cont’d from page 33 house seems to be alive. It’s complicated. When Wende disappears, it’s up to Jack, Anders, and Frankie to save her and to save the town. It turns out only Jack can really do it. It has to do with Good and Evil and reuniting them into the mother he once knew. It’s complicated. This complex book is scary and mysterious and downright complicated, but it will engage readers well beyond the middlegraders it targets. Kelly Barnhill has written a page-turner of a fantasy/mystery filled with engaging characters and a setting that is as much a character as the usual kind. It’s complicated. Reviewed by Rosi Hollinbeck
Book Reviews
Parenting & Families All Together Singing in the Kitchen By Nerissa Nields and Katryna Nields Roost Books, $22.95, 253 pages One part music and two parts fun, this how-to-make-merry handbook has the potential to help seasoned musicians and novices alike. Nerissa and Katryna Nields, professional folk musicians, give the reader a background of their lives growing up in a musical family. By being exposed to music and music making, their family explored their interests and talents together. Beginning with the basics of singing, tempo, and simple percussion instruments, the Nields teach us how to introduce music into the lives of our families. This book contains very basic, simple music lessons for singing and playing the guitar and piano, however, the real treasure of this volume is contained in the many games, crafts, and songs that can help families make music together. Each chapter introduces different songs with the guitar chord accompaniments, and the book comes with a thirty-song CD to help families sing and play along. The Nields offer advice on writing your own songs, how and when to choose instruments for your children, and how to bring musical programs to your community. I recommend this book to families, teachers, babysitters, and daycare providers to encourage children to be creative and to find the joy in creating music together. Reviewed by Kerry Lindgren Making the Choice: When Typical School Doesn’t Fit Your Atypical Child By Corin Barsily Goodwin, Mika Gustavson MFT, Sarah J. Wilson GHF Press, $5.95, 56 pages As the school year begins, many parents are sending their children to school for the first time, hoping those children will thrive in their new
environment. Some, however, will come to discover that they are the parents of gifted children, who may also have secondary learning issues, for whom the traditional educational system does not provide a good fit. For those parents suddenly seeking alternatives, Making the Choice will prove invaluable. In this small but informative book, Corin Barsily Goodwin and Mika Gustafson address definitions of giftedness, the role and types of testing, what it means to be twice exceptional and/or asynchronous, different approaches to gifted education and why they might not work, red flags for which parents should watch, different types of homeschooling, transitioning from a school environment, college prospects, and socialization among other topics. They also provide an appendix containing additional resources. Finally, these authors know of what they write. Goodwin is the homeschooling mother of two children who founded of the Gifted Homeschoolers Forum, while Gustavson is a homeschooling mother and a marriage and family therapist specializing in helping gifted children thrive. For parents of gifted children whose needs are unmet by their schools, Making the Choice will provide a welcome wealth of answers. Reviewed by Annie Peters The End of Molasses Classes: Getting Our Kids Unstuck — 101 Extraordinary Solutions for Parents and Teachers By Ron Clark Touchstone, $23.00, 352 pages Here’s a surefire antidote to despondency. Ron Clark’s The End of Molasses Classes launches an exhilarating slap in the face to conventional educators. His solutions to doldrums will bolster every teacher confronting the classroom with a no-win feeling, dreading the next batch of tests, the next parents voicing protests, the
next round of cutbacks. The book’s pace and style are as impressive as the content. His ideas leap over each other as he describes the Ron Clark Academy, his Atlanta, Georgia, school for boys and girls, mostly African-American, who find a unique opportunity to strut their stuff, provided they work and play hard, and buy into a philosophy that rejects failure as an option. Clark’s methods are contagious; the staff and kids undoubtedly embrace his enthusiasm. In this age of financial shortfall, Clark shares his know-how for raising funds, garnering support from community benefactors, and from educators around the country who attend his dynamic workshops. Like a latter-day Aladdin he calls up the genie with each rub of the magic lamp. Despite the tacky title and about twenty too many ‘extraordinary solutions,’ the book still warrants an A plus. Reviewed by Jane Manaster Keeping Your Child in Mind: Overcoming Defiance, Tantrums, and Other Everyday Behavior Problems by Seeing the World Through Your Child’s Eyes By Claudia M. Gold Da Capo Lifelong Books, $15.00, 225 pages Keeping Your Child in Mind: Overcoming Defiance, Tantrums and Other Everyday Behavior Problems by Seeing the World through Your Child’s Eyes by Dr. Claudia M. Gold sets a goal to change the way parents interact with (and react to) their children. As Gold explains, instead of telling parents “what to do,” she encourages parents in the direction of “how to be” with their children. Gold suggests parents, first, understand behavior in terms of a child’s developmental level. Secondly, parents should empathize, and help a child contain complex emotions. And, finally, Gold indicates that the parents should also regulate and contain their own intricate feelings. In Keeping Your Child in Mind, Gold strongly admits that parents are the experts with their own children. However, she wants parents to give advice so that parents are able to develop a new way to be with their children. The book is divided into nine parts, six of the chapters are focused on specific developmental stages from newborn to teenager. Gold supports her recommendations using easy-to-understand situations, examples and solutions gathered from her interactions with her clients and referring to current research in child development. Reviewed by Elizabeth Humphrey
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When Your Child Is Being Bullied: Real Solutions for Parents, Educators & Other Professionals By J.E. DiMarco and M.K. Newman Vivisphere Publishing, $17.99, 125 pages Bullying is a problem that affects us all. When Your Child is Bullied offers real solutions, as per the cover, for dealing with bullying. There is a lot of information on how to deal with the parents of bullies, as well as how to make reticent school officials more active in helping root out established bullies. There is great advice on how to deal with legal issues. Overall, this is definitely a book for parents and other adults to crib from. It goes through the various issues that normally handicap parents and shows how to plow though them. The sole strike against the book is that there is little for kids dealing with bullying, but that is beyond the scope of the book. It is refreshing to see a book that does allow them some self-defense, in that it does point out that kids should be allowed to fight back, if necessary, but otherwise the sole solution is to notify an adult. Nonetheless, although it is a little dry, this is a great book for parents, teachers, and others looking for some way to fight back against bullying. Reviewed by Jamais Jochim
SCANWICHES, cont’d from page 22 photos. The author lists 68 sandwiches in alphabetic order in the Table of Contents with thumbnail photos above the names. He prepares each of these sandwiches, cuts them in half, places them cutside down on a scanner and their scanned images now appear under their entry. They are imaginative, unique, and each is accompanied by text worth careful reading (not just scanning). The background of the pages is squid-ink black, the text white (yet easy to read). Interesting tips, trivia, and variations appear with many of the sandwiches. Additional illustrations are also excellent. Next to French Dip sandwiches, for example, sketches illustrate the steps: step 1: dip; step 2: bite; step 3: repeat. Even if you hate sandwiches, this book is highly recommended. Reviewed by George Erdosh
Book Reviews
deeply human story of Gandhi. Reviewed by Phil Semler
Sequential Art Habibi By Craig Thompson Pantheon, $35.00, 672 pages Imagine you are a child bride. Thieves enter your home, murder your husband, and sell you into slavery. No one is on your side: not your family, not the law. You are alone. That is, until you rescue a little boy nine years younger than yourself. Craig Thompson’s latest creation is a far cry from the innocent adolescent awakening of Blankets. He crafts an exquisite tapestry of language, imagery, and layout. The Islamic geometric patterns and Arabic characters are not merely decoration; they are the patterns and characters of the narrative. The characters’ lives parallel the history of their people, prophets, deities, and legends. Habibi draws on the Qur’an, the Bible, One Thousand and One Nights, and astronomy to tell the story of a little girl who raises a little boy. The reader is compelled to love beautiful Dodola and faithful Zam as they endeavor to survive in the desert, the palace, and the slums. The book weaves in fantastic layouts, ranging from simple squares and rectangles to intricate patterns based on Arabic script and art. Thompson knits his magnum opus so tightly that it stands as a mythology in itself, imparting the story of the human race. Reviewed by Kerry Lindgren The Joker: A Visual History of the Clown Prince of Crime By Daniel Wallace Universe, $50.00, 208 pages He is the Clown Prince of Crime, the Harlequin of Hate, Batman’s greatest enemy, and a true force of nature in the DC Universe. He is the Joker, and Daniel Wallace’s eponymous volume is both a love letter and an examination of the most impactful villain DC Comics has ever produced. Charting the development of the Joker in movies, television, animation, and of course, comics, The Joker is an exhaustive resource, chronicling his path from homicidal maniac in his earliest days to cartoonish nuisance in his heyday and back again. His weapons, his greatest capers, his allies (like the in-
imitable Harley Quinn), his numerous (and conflicting) origin stories ... each are given due attention within its pages. Boasting images from every era and incarnation, as well as those influential voices who contributed most to his legacy, this book is an absolute delight, arguably the be-all and end-all of informative tributes. Featuring an introduction by Mark Hamill, who provided his now-legendary voice in the seminal animated series, The Joker is a treasure trove of sumptuous art and rich detail, some of it obscure and rarely seen. Even a diehard Bat enthusiast will find some hidden gems within its pages. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Gandhi: A Manga Biography By Kazuki Ebine Penguin, $15.00, 192 pages Gandhi, one of the most recognizable figures of the 20th Century, known for his non-violent protests and even saintliness, called Mahatma (great soul), is the subject of this manga bio. Award winning Japanese manga artist Ebine’s biography is about a great man as a real human being. Rather than a didactic or mystical approach, Ebine presents Gandhi as a man, studying in England, discovering the real meaning of the Bhagavad-Gita, as a shy lawyer in South Africa, the beginning of his activism, and his return to India to lead the movement for independence. The story tells of the difficulties of India during World War II, England finally leaving India, helping set up a government with Hindu and Muslims, the “blood for blood” riots, and his assassination. As Gandhi said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” This is a powerful lesson. The graphic biography is drawn with quiet but powerful illustrations, with minimal prose, mostly simple dialogue, with the gripping narrative of a man who strove to keep faith in his beliefs and lead his people to a better life. This book should be an inspiration to those of the new generation who read graphic books and want to learn the
Becoming By Kelley Armstrong, with illustrations by Angilram Subterranean, $45.00, 80 pages It seems many writers are flocking to the graphic novel format. Not only do graphic novels allow authors to tell stories in an entirely different way, but authors are exposed to people who wouldn’t normally read their text-only adventures. Kelley Armstrong is now one of those creators. She announces in the introduction of her book Becoming that fans have been wanting more details of Elena Michaels’ past, and a visual presentation was the only way to go. The book focuses on Elena’s early werewolf turn and how she copes with losing her normal life. The graphic novel does not lose any of Armstrong’s creepy style. If anything, this is the best novella turned comic I have read in a while. The story is emotionally driven, and is very powerful in that sense. The illustrations are sharp and clear, with “internet sensation” Angilram providing the artwork. The coolest feature of the book is the amount of extras that are included. A quarter of the book consists of things such as inked preview pages and a file on the main characters – that little bit extra that makes the book worth checking out. Reviewed by Kevin Brown Girl Comics (Women of Marvel) By Trina Robbins, Devin Grayson, Ann Nocenti, G. Willow Wilson Marvel, $15.99, 120 pages Girls in comics usually make for some great reading. Girl Comics combines the first three issues of the Marvel Comics into one trade. Although a great concept, there is some good news and bad news. The bad news first: the stories are uneven, with few stand-out stories. Some labeling of the characters would have helped considering that some of the heroines featured are pretty far down the roster. Another issue is that some of the stories feature guys; although seeing Nightcrawler is bittersweet considering his recent death, but the Punisher and four Wolverine stories were a bit unnecessary. However, there is some good news. The sections on creators were great, especially Fab Flo Steinberg. It was nice to see some of
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the characters, such as Molly “Shamrock” Fitzgerald and Satanna. The Venus and Invisible Woman stories were fun, and it was great to see them have some fun with the relationship of the Richards kids. The Power Pack and Kitty Pryde stories were also fun, especially with all of the cameos in the latter story. The filler pages were also a nice touch. This is great for a comics fan, but probably not for a more casual reader. Reviewed by Jamais Jochim Grimm Fairy Tales, Volume 8 By Joe Brusha, Ralph Tedesco, and Raven Gregory Zenescope, $17.99, 264 pages Founded in 2005 by Joe Brusha and Ralph Tedesco, Zenescope Entertainment has quickly become one of the most recognized independent comic book and graphic novel publishers in the world. Their flagship title Grimm Fairy Tales is very cool with great visuals, edgy storylines, and character development. Every twist had me riveted. These beautifully designed books for older readers re-imagine the fairy tale characters that you knew and adored as a child — but now with eroticism and tough women (think cheesecake covers, skimpy outfits, and large breasts) and shocking twists that will absolutely intrigue the older reader. Volume 8 reprints the comic series Grimm Fairy Tales, issues number s 43-50, plus the short story “Pool Party at the Rock Hard Hotel,” which first appeared in Grimm Fairy Tales, Swimsuit Edition #1. Volume 8’s frame story revolves around Sela Mathers, a doctor/professor of literature, who has been given the ability to help people by showing them fairy tales with lessons about their lives. She searches for a unicorn loose in Central Park before it can be killed by evil forces. She struggles with the fact that people ignore her advice and ruin their lives anyway, and she begins using her ability to dispense justice instead. Sela’s nemesis is Belinda, who has the same ability as Sela but uses it for evil. Reviewed by Phil Semler The Canterbury Tales By Seymour Chwast, Geoffrey Chaucer Bloomsbury, $20.00, 148 pages Seymour Chwast’s graphic novel adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is a hard book to review. Mr. Chwast is a talented artist and storyteller whose studio and work have won awards and influenced visual communicaSee CANTERBURY, page 46
Book Reviews
Young Adult Carrier of the Mark By Leigh Fallon HarperTeen, $8.99, 343 pages As the first Inkpop.Com novel published by HaperTeen, The Carrier of the Mark has a lot of live up to. Luckily, it’s well written with an addictive plot. After a nomadic childhood, American Megan starts a new school in Ireland. She has a lot to adjust to, from learning a whole new culture to learning Irish slang and names. On her first day of school, she meets the enigmatic Adam DeRis. Little does she know her destiny is tied up with Adam’s and his family. The Carrier of the Mark has superficial similarities to Twilight (girl starts new school, meets mysterious boy, boy saves girl in accident using his special powers), but it features a strong, powerful protagonist able to stand on her own two feet. The mythology of the story is well thought out and unique, and Megan’s journey to developing her new powers is believable. This is an excellent novel for fans of YA paranormal romance novels. Reviewed by Kelly Garrett Beautiful Days By Anna Godbersen Harper, $17.99, 368 pages In the sequel to Bright Young Things, we are once again romping with Astrid Donal, Cordelia Gray, and Letty Larkspur in the glamorous New York City of 1929. The girls are lying pretty low and licking their wounds after the losses, but that doesn’t last long. This is the Roaring Twenties, the Grays are bootleggers, and Letty Larkspur is looking for her big break. What is special about the series is the vastly different backgrounds and upbringings of the three main characters. One comes from a fragile privilege, one is an orphan, and the last comes from a large, somewhat poor family, but she dreams big. Many sequels can stand alone, but I suggest reading the first book before you pick this one up. That way, you will be more invested in the characters and understand why they do what they do. Godberson is a master at creating 1929 New York and bringing you along with her, but there aren’t any major
story arcs to deal with. I hesitate to say that it has no plot. It does have one and a wonderful ending, but without the added background of the first book, the characters come off as more self-centered and spoiled than they would otherwise. Reviewed by Gwen Stackler Modelland By Tyra Banks Delacorte Books for Young Readers, $17.99, 576 pages I wanted to read Modelland mostly to see how Tyra Banks would weave her professional modeling career into a novel for teens. To be quite honest, I made it exactly 139 pages into the book before I decided that I couldn’t finish it. Maybe once every five years a book comes along that is completely without merit and I am unable to finish reading. Usually there is some small nugget of plot to pull me along through the story, and normally to a conclusion I can admire. It’s not often that a book is so poorly written and full of incredulous indulgence that it is painful to read. Modelland follows the story of Tookie de la Creme who is a Forgetta Girl, completely unremarkable in every way. She is conveniently chosen to become an Intoxibella, one of the few models who walk runways for the highest of fashion and lives in the best section of the city. It seems like Banks tries to invoke Westerfeld’s Uglies and mix it with a middle grade fantasy. The combination is confusing at best and the story never hooked me. In fact, in all the pages I read, I never truly knew what exactly was going on in the story. Reviewed by Pam van Hylckama Vlieg Jane Jones: Worst. Vampire. Ever. By Caissie St. Onge Ember, $8.99, 230 pages Life for a teenage girl can be awkward. Life for a vampire who’s been a teenage girl for ninety years is a bit more so. Life for Jane Jones, however, is harder still, thanks to a singular genetic quirk: She’s a vampire who’s allergic to blood. An outcast among outcasts, perpetually trapped in high school, hounded by her mother’s expecta-
tions and the viciousness of her fellow teenage vamps, Jane is searching for some cure to her ills, be it the interest of a cute boy or the promise of a scientific miracle. In a genre dominated by brooding handsomeness and effortlessly perfect beauty, Jane Jones is a breath of fresh air. An antiBella who struggles simply to fit in, let alone stand out, our protagonist is believable despite her supernatural trappings, and the reader can’t help but root for her. St. Onge establishes the curious rules of her universe quickly, allowing the reader to stick to the story and explore Jane’s world more organically. And while the rapidfire plot developments falter a bit near the end, the book remains an engaging read, as well as an effective set-up for more stories to come. Here’s hoping we see Jane again soon. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Glow By Amy Kathleen Ryan St. Martin’s Griffin, $17.99, 307 pages Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan is about a whole new world. It is a world where people live on a ship in space. Glow drew me in because of the synopsis and the cover of the book. It is unlike the types of books I typically read, but it is compelling. I really enjoyed that people did not live on Earth, but on a ship. I also liked the idea that for many years, people were not able to produce children; another ship was able to steal all the girls so their citizens could reproduce. The thing about this book is that it’s a little slow for me, including the many details about how the ship is breaking down. At times, I found myself wanting to skip to the parts where there was communication between the ships. Besides the book being a little slow, it was an okay-good novel. There were some unexpected things that happened, and it was not what I expected at all. Glow is an interesting story about a new kind of existence. If you like reading about a different lifestyles and enjoy unexpected twists and turns, then check out Glow. Reviewed by Ivy Leung Eve By Anna Carey HarperCollins, $17.99, 322 pages In the future, everyone who takes the vaccine dies; only a few remain. Eve is valedictorian of her class, all of whom are
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protected. They are taught the arts, and strive to go to college. Then Eve finds out a terrible secret and runs away to a sanctuary called Califia. On her journey there she finds a classmate and encounters Caleb. Eve is weary of men, being taught that they are dangerous. Slowly she learns how to love Caleb and must make a choice of how to survive because the king’s men are after her. Anna Carey starts off a trilogy with a captivating book. I was always reaching to pick it up after being forced to put it down. The alien-ness of the interaction of guys and girls explores real-life connections, giving a fresh look of what it means to love someone. Eve’s world was very realistic. I enjoyed looking at another futuristic version of tomorrow. Eve also reminds me of Wendy from Peter Pan when she teaches the boys. The ending haunted me even after I closed the book. All I could think was oh my gosh, noooooo! When’s the next sequel? Reviewed by Amanda Muir Abarat: Absolute Midnight By Clive Barker HarperCollins, $24.99, 592 pages Candy Quackenbush is back in the Abarat, and this time she must face her most dangerous enemy, Mater Motley. Along with her beloved group of friends, she will try to save the mysterious land before an evil darkness blots out the light forever. The New York Times bestselling series The Books of Abarat continues as author Clive Barker brings fans the deeply anticipated third installment, Abarat: Absolute Midnight. The first two books of the series centered on Candy’s exploration of the different Abarat islands and introduced many fantastic characters (most good, some very diabolical). Barker dives headfirst into the action this time around. There is some review, but read the first books anyway, because they are so enjoyable. Barker has worked tirelessly for over a decade creating the many paintings that illustrate the series. Absolute Midnight, alone, has more than 125 stunning, fullcolor paintings. Some of his illustrations can be quite frightening to younger readers. The recommended age is 12 and up. Barker’s writing style is descriptive, humorous, and multi-layered. Adults will be hooked on the series just as quickly as kids. It is fantastic to see a strong female heroine (whom boys and girls will root for equally). Reviewed by Kathryn Franklin
Book Reviews
Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. By Medeia Sharif Flux, $9.95, 229 pages Almira Abdul’s family is strictly Muslim, meaning she is not allowed to even think of boys and must follow Muslim customs or face the disappointment of her whole family. Her parents expect her to be perfect with her grades and since Ramadan is around the corner she can’t eat from sunrise to sunset! Her mother said she could stand to lose a few pounds, but life without pizza sounds torturous. To make things worse, she and her best friend have the same crush and Almira thinks he might like her back. Between all that, a new Muslim girl who wears miniskirts, and trying to navigate the relationships of high school, Almira has her hands full. Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. Focuses on a Muslim girl struggling to stick to her culture but also be American. I found it interesting to see problems in a Middle Eastern/ American family perspective. Medeia Sharif expresses the feelings of girls well and how they interpret relationships. My favorite aspect was how far someone would go to salvage ties with a friend because while having boyfriends some girls lose important relationships. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a good read and doesn’t mind high school drama! Reviewed by Amanda Muir The Power of Six (I Am Number Four) By Pittacus Lore HarperCollins, $17.99, 406 pages In this sequel to I Am Number Four the author dutifully delivers to fans a novel that is fun and fast, if not on the beaten path. “John Smith” rises again, with Number Six, Bernie Kosar (the dog), and his friend Sam by his side. He has had just about every law enforcer in America on his tail and his face is splashed across national news, but what they don’t know is that he’s an alien – one of the nine Lorien sent to protect the galaxy who are taking refuge on the home planet Earth. The charm protecting the Lorien children has been broken and now only their wits and a couple of tricks (invisibility, for instance) can save them. This book’s predecessor got a lot of hype, seemingly undeserved. Sure, it’s got a great plot, but the writing didn’t hold my at-
Young Adult
tention. There’s got to be something wrong when you’re falling asleep during a chapter featuring an air raid of flaming balls and mutant insects. Perhaps the teenybopper crowd will enjoy it, but I found no need for Benadryl during nights of insomnia. I had The Power of Six. Reviewed by Alex Masri Flying Blind: The Dragon Diaries By Deborah Cooke NAL, $9.99, 309 pages Donovan and Alex’s daughter, Zoe, is the new Wyvern in this spin-off paranormal YA by the author of the adult paranormal romance Dragonfire Novels, Deborah Cooke. The sexual nature of the parent books, which focus on a race of dragon/ human shape-shifters seeking to propagate their species and an enemy that tries to prevent it, has been toned down but not eliminated in this version for young adults, which starts with a fifteen-year-old girl summoning menses and seeing a vision of a shirtless young man with “one heck of a six-pack.” The protagonist is the only adolescent female in a community of adolescent male shape shifters, but the rest of the cast of adolescent characters include a human female psychic, a human male magician, and of course, the bad guys who take the form of adolescents. The writing is compelling though inane. This book is all fantasy, and true to form, serves as a solid introduction to the next book in the series. Reviewed by Robin Martin Ashes, Ashes By Jo Treggiarai Scholastic Press, $17.99, 344 pages Floods, droughts, and a disease has killed off 99% of the world population, including Lucy’s family. She’s forced to survive alone in the wilderness trying to avoid Sweepers, those who collect the plague infected, wild animals and a mysterious group that appears to be hunting for her. While running from a pack of hunting dogs, she is rescued by Aidan and reluctantly joins his band of survivors as she tries to figure out who is after her.
The story starts off interesting enough, but never picks up enough steam to make it a spell binding read. The characters were not developed enough for the reader to become fully invested in their lives and what happens to them in the end. The romance also falls a little flat as for someone who has been on her own for so long she seems to fall for Aidan far too quickly. Then when the story starts to get interesting as it’s revealed why Lucy is such a person of interest the book ends with a completely anti-climatic conclusion. While not a bad book it has so much potential but did not quite hit the mark to make it a must read dystopia. Reviewed by Debbie Suzuki Forever By Maggie Stiefvater Scholastic Press, $18.99, 400 pages In the two previous books of the Shiver trilogy, Maggie Stiefvater introduced us to teens who “shift” into wolves during the long, cold months in Minnesota and resume their human lives during the warmer summer. Sam and Grace have fallen in love but are doomed to be apart because of the ways the wolf bites they have both experienced have affected them. In Forever, Sam waits for Grace to return to her human form for the summer, even as he finds out that the men in the area have decided it’s time to kill all the wolves once and for all – including Beck, Sam’s father figure, who is now permanently a wolf. Stiefvater has created a whole stable of complex, interesting characters whose points of view crisscross the pages of her books. Sam and Grace are the main characters, but the feelings and fates of the troubled Cole and the entitled, closed-off Isabel become just as important to readers as those of Sam and Grace. This is the last book in the series, a fitting conclusion to a set of books that have been thoughtful, poetic, and quietly powerful. Reviewed by Cathy Carmode Lim Thirteen Reasons Why By Jay Asher Razorbill, $9.99, 288 pages Thirteen lives. Thirteen directions. And a fateful package containing thirteen tapes— these people will never be the same. To be honest, we’re not either. When Jay Asher published Thirteen Reasons Why four years ago, this novel, at first dubbed contemporary young adult, became everyone’s book.
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It had good reason for doing so. What an exhilarating, enthralling, wondrous novel this is. It opens with a quiet, dark, plain curtain; Clay Jensen finds a box containing thirteen unlabeled tapes from an unknown recipient. What was first approached as a mysterious surprise morphs into an ugly…yet intriguing nightmare. Clay, horrified, hears the voice of the girl he loved who committed suicide several months ago, the infamous Hannah Baker, recorded for posterity throughout thirteen tapes. These tapes are narrated by a brilliant, spunky character who is immediately adored by readers. However, these stories come with a warning: listen to the tapes or their contents will be released. And, in a kaleidoscope-like fashion, Asher unveils story after story, souls intrinsically connected which collectively tumble into an inevitable demise. Hannah’s reputation is first erected, then corrupted, and readers watch as she begins to spiral down, and though we know the end, Asher successfully stuns, humbles, and gives us hope in one fell swoop. It’s no wonder we love this book so damn much. Reviewed by Alex Masri Jersey Tomatoes are the Best By Maria Padian Knopf Books for Young Readers, $16.99, 341 pages You’ve heard the Jersey jokes: it’s the land of HBO’s Sopranos, home of the Garden State, and an extension of New York City. If you survive, you’ll be one tough Jersey girl. Lifelong friends Eva and Henry, short for Henriette, struggle with helicopter parents and athletic practices in Maria Padian’s Jersey Tomatoes are the Best. Both girls look forward to new athletic opportunities the summer before their junior year, but sometimes, summer can be cruel. Henry’s father, Mark,hovers over her at the tennis court, drilling her until she’s ready to drop. Now she has the chance to attend a prestigious camp in Florida and perfect her skills, maybe evetn fall for a guy. Eva’s mother, Rhonda, feeds from the attention her daughter earns as a ballerina. But Eva keeps her own secrets, pushing herself to remain rail thin and graceful while at Young Adult cont’d on page 46
Chana Bloch’s books of poetry include Mrs. Dumpty, and Blood Honey. She is the co-translator of The Song of Songs (with Ariel Bloch). In collaboration with Chana Kronfeld and Stephen Mitchell, she translated several books by Yehuda Amichai and Dahlia Ravikovitch. She holds degrees from Cornell, Brandeis and U.C. Berkeley, and taught for more than 30 years at Mills College, where she directed the Creative Writing Program. Go to www.chanabloch.com for readings of poems from each of her books. Zara Raab: What draws you to poetry and translation? Chana Bloch: I’ve always loved language, the sound and music of words. And I love the compression of poetry, saying a lot in a small space. Early on, I discovered that the outside and inside of things don’t always correspond, and I wanted to understand what was happening on the inside of my life. I was drawn to translation from Yiddish and Hebrew about the same time. As a first-generation American connected to the Jewish culture I grew up with, I wanted to contribute something of substance to American-Jewish culture, which seems me to increasingly light weight. . . I started translating from Yiddish, my parents’ language, which I studied as a child — Jacob Glatstein’s poems and Isaac Bashevis Singer’s stories. I studied Hebrew in college and grad school, and during the five years I lived in Jerusalem, and I went on to translate the Israeli poets Dahlia Ravikovitch and Yehuda Amichai. ZR: You translated Song of Songs, a poem of passionate love, with your first husband, the linguist Ariel Bloch. Your relationship with him was, I gather from the opening poems of Mrs. Dumpty, loving, even passionate. But with his mental illness, your marriage disintegrated. Reading these two books back-to-back was revelatory.
CB: Ariel and I were married almost twenty-four years. In the beginning we had a good marriage. Toward the end, his mental illness became more and more evident, and our marriage came apart. After we separated, I wrote Mrs. Dumpty over four consecutive summers at Yaddo. The first poems came pouring out, fueled by a fury of emotions I hadn’t allowed myself to feel during the years when Ariel’s breakdowns dominated our family life. Each summer after that, I could feel the pain and confusion subside. By the time I wrote the tender, loving poems — the ones at the beginning of the book — I had come to terms with an almost unfathomable experience. Putting it into words saved my sanity. . . When I taught at Mills, I talked to students about writing poems based on your own life. You can be faithful to the truth without being tied to literal fact. Once you set the material on paper, it becomes an object asking to be shaped by its own laws. Metaphor, phrasing and precision of language can take you beyond the raw stuff of the “confessional.” ZR: In your essay on translation, “Learning from Translation” [the Judith Lee Stronach Memorial Lecture delivered at UC Berkeley in May 2011], you mention Robert Lowell’s advice to you: “You can learn to write from your own translations.” What exactly did you learn? CB: The translator chooses among possible alternatives to convey meaning and register, image, mood and music. Each choice sharpens your skills as a poet. An example? I struggled with a particular verse in the Song (2:5) for months. The King James Bible has “I am sick of love,” which meant “stricken by passion” in 17th-century English. Some translations resort to “I am sick with love,” which is just as bad, or “I am faint with desire,” which sounds Victorian. One day, suddenly, it came to me: “I am in the fever of love.” Maybe only another word-nut would understand what it means to be
obsessed with a turn of phrase in that way. Only another poet. ZR: In “Learning from Translation,” you discuss how one thinks within a language and a culture. Do you want to add to that? CB: Some translators make their translations reader-friendly by editing out cultural particularity. Others work hard to preserve the flavor and feel of the original. I started out closer to the first type, but through my collaboration with Chana Kronfeld, I have moved in the direction of the second. Why domesticate the foreign? It’s like tourist travel made easy. If you travel to another place, you should come back with something you couldn’t find at home. Why assume the reader won’t make the effort? ZR: In addition to poems and translations, you also wrote a critical study of the 17-century poet George Herbert. What drew you to him? CB: I fell in love with Herbert in graduate school. We made an unlikely pair — a Jewish girl from the Bronx and a devout 17-century Anglican minister wrestling with his faith. But, in essence, he is writing about conflicts of the inner life. I could easily relate to that––up to the point where he turned to Jesus. His poems have a beautiful dignity, candor and seriousness, and a sharp, unsparing wit. In your review of Blood Honey you wrote that there is a moral value in economy; that’s something I find in Herbert’s poetry too.
profound and mysterious. I’ve learned a lot from Yehuda Amichai’s irreverent use of the Bible, his acerbic wit, his mixing of tones. His work is warm, alive and very human — funny and serious at the same time. Among earlier poets, Emily Dickinson. ZR: How do you go about making a poem? Would you share your own process? CB: Sometimes a poem will start with an image or a phrase, something I’ve heard or read. A New Yorker article about knife sharpening, a New York Review of Books essay on brain research, a musician’s comment on the Stradivarius violin — those generated poems called “Cleave,” “Happiness Research,” “The Little Ice Age.” After working hours at the computer, walking unglues my brain. When I walk, I take pencil and paper, and scribble down lines that come to me. I work slowly, and I revise and revise. ZR: What are you working on at the moment?
See CHANA, page 46
ZR: What other poets do you appreciate?
About the interviewer, Zara Raab
CB: I value clarity — an old-fashioned virtue — and concision. I like poetry that appears to be clear on the surface, with unexpected depths. Among my favorites: Anna Akhmatova, Elizabeth Bishop, Ruth Stone, Jane Kenyon, Charles Simic. Tomas Tranströmer’s poems are concise,
Zara is a poet and writer in Berkeley, CA. Her most recent book is Swimming the Eel. For more information, visit her website.
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Book Reviews
Popular Fiction If Wishes Were Horses By Robert Barclay Harper, $7.99, 386 pages Wyatt Blaine still endures the pain of losing his wife and son in a car accident five years ago. The accident was caused by Jason Powers, a drunken driver who also died in the crash. As an attempt to heal his broken heart, Wyatt fulfills his late wife’s dream: He reopens her horse therapy program for teens. Gabby Powers, Jason’s widow, enters her son Trevor in the program to help him cope with the death of his father. At first, Wyatt feels reluctant to help the son of the man responsible for his family’s death, but Wyatt also feels drawn to the beautiful Gabby. As Wyatt and his family teach Trevor how to ride and care for a horse, they also teach him how to be a part of a family. Gabby teaches Wyatt how to love again. While overly sentimental and repetitious at times, Barclay tells the story of a family in which we can see ourselves in their attempts to understand each other. An enjoyable love story, I recommend this book to those who love horses and novels about the South. Reviewed by Kerry Lindgren Men with Broken Faces By James Ostby Dog Ear Publishing, $14.99, 251 pages In this engrossing novel, we meet Morgan Feeney, an epileptic, drunken, and out-ofwork shepherd. He suddenly finds himself enlisting in the United States Army during World War I, and for the first time in his life, Morgan discovers his strength as a leader of men. Morgan’s camaraderie with his fellow soldiers gives him a sense of belonging, while also filling him with dread that he must risk losing them. After witnessing the horrific deaths of his friends, Morgan’s epilepsy is now compounded by shell shock, which haunts him for years after surviving the war. Morgan thinks, “If I could be a man in war, I can be a man always.” Unfortunately, he finds himself labeled a lunatic, rather than a hero. Only one person understands
him, Genevieve, a nurse who also served in World War I. Men with Broken Faces, with its gripping scenes of warfare and philosophical insight, is an excellently crafted novel. The reader finds in Morgan a sympathetic character, and we follow his transformation from a ne’er-do-well, to hero, to town crazy, and to hero again. Ostby’s visceral scenes and compassionate insight into Morgan’s mind reveal in Ostby not only a great writer but a humanitarian. Reviewed by Kerry Lindgren Ghost on Black Mountain By Ann Hite Gallery Books, $15.00, 329 pages Everyone knew that nothing good would come of Nellie marrying Hobbs Pritchard. Everyone, that is, except for the sweet, se ve ntee n-ye a r - old bride. Quickly disillusioned with matrimonial bliss and living a life of seclusion on Black Mountain, Nellie begins seeing ghosts of the people her husband has mur-dered. Will Nellie be able to escape Black Mountain and her husband’s abuse? Or, is she destined to be her husband’s next victim? Ann Hite’s Ghost on Black Mountain is a haunting Southern gothic tale told from the viewpoint of five different women across three generations. Magic and ghosts combine with life during the Great Depression to create a novel with a strong sense of time and place. The writing is wonderfully crafted and the themes of redemption and forgiveness blend well with the ghost story as the past always affects the present, even if the otherworldly don’t show up to warn us to beware. Perfect for fans of literary literature while also appealing to those who enjoy paranormal tales and Southern fiction. Reviewed by Kelly Garrett Starting From Happy By Patricia Marx Scribner, $24.00, 234 pages When Imogene meets Wally, she forgets his name immediately, perfectly content in her non-demanding current relationship
with a married man. When Wally meets Imogene, he is impressed by her profession (she designs lingerie) and becomes immediately smitten. Soon enough, an unlikely romance blossoms, fueled by nightly phone conversations and nonstop emails. Wally and Imogene have so much in common it’s scary! But can their relationship, which started so unassumingly happily, endure the test of time? Patricia Marx’s hilarious new novel Starting From Happy is an unexpected little gem of awesomeness. Told in an innovative way, through a series of extremely short chaplettes, this book is perfect for readers with short attention spans as well as readers with a habit of staying up late into the night glued to a good story. Marx’s writing style is bizarre and more than a little obscure, but absolutely hilarious. Esoteric illustrations include renditions of undergarments, various charts and graphs, and even a pictorial guide to different shapes of pasta. This book is riotously funny and delightfully unpredictable; you never really know what’s coming next, but you can’t wait to read more and find out. Definitely comes out a winner. Reviewed by Holly Scudero The Language of Flowers By Vanessa Diffenbaugh Ballantine, $25.00, 336 pages Victoria has aged out of the foster care system without a high school diploma, work experience, or family. Her only skill is the language of flowers she learned while in the care of Elizabeth, a woman with her own haunted past. Working with a florist, Victoria discovers a gift and passion for arranging flowers that solve her customers’ problems. But when she runs into a young man at a market who knows the language too, Victoria is flung back into her past with Elizabeth and the disastrous night that ruined her chance for a happy and normal life. Don’t be fooled by the title of Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s debut novel. The Language of Flowers is not a love story between a man and woman, instead it is about learning to trust and love oneself. Diffenbaugh’s writing is quick and concise. The plot moves smoothly from Victoria’s present life to the time she spent as a child with Elizabeth. Though, technically, it’s an easy read, I had difficulty accepting Victoria’s anger toward the secondary characters who cared for her. But, I kept reading to see if she would get her happy ending and to learn more about Elizabeth’s past. Altogeth-
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er it’s a good debut novel and worth a read. Reviewed by Hannah Walcher Pretty By Jillian Lauren Plume, $15.00, 275 pages After a car accident kills her boyfriend and leaves Bebe Baker scarred, body and mind, she finds herself in a halfway house, counting down hours through cosmetology school, and ruminating on her ex-status: ex-stripper, ex-Christian, ex-drug addict. Caught in Los Angeles, amidst the psychotropic drugs, acrylic nails, and the paranoid schizophrenic Jesus delusions of a veteran fellow ex-addict, Bebe looks toward a San Francisco Mecca, especially when the dangerously magnetic men in her life threaten to knock the spinning plate of her life into a wall. Pretty by Jillian Lauren, is rich with storytelling, overmedication, and the inner life of this deeply troubled young woman. “Some people are just trying to learn not to want to die all the time,” Bebe explains. And this, her deepest struggle, tops the overeating, the overmedication, and the over-diagnosis that plagues her and her posse of dynamic fellow inmates in the halfway house. Bebe works to escape the labels, the delusions, and the drugs of LA, and to build a better life. Lauren’s powerful narrative confronts what it is to be a pretty girl, how to accept your flaws, and how to rebuild a wrecked life. An outstanding fiction debut from this author. Reviewed by Axie Barclay The Family Fang By Kevin Wilson Ecco, $23.99, 309 pages As a kid, parents seem to exist only to embarrass you, but when your parents are performance artists the embarrassment doubles. And when they make you a part of their art, it doubles again. Such was the childhood of Annie and Buster Fang, children of famous performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang. Fleeing a childhood spent as little more than props in their parents’ bizarre works of art, Annie and Buster carve out new lives for themselves – lives that suddenly come tumbling down. Now they’re back home, and whether they like it or not, in the middle of the biggest performance of their parents’ careers ... or is it? The Family Fang is bizarre, astonishing, and utterly mesmerizing. Wilson’s prose is like electrified honey – the words are golden and smooth while
Book Reviews
their meaning hits you with a bit of zap and tingle. The complexities of family dynamics take on weird dimensional shapes, as does the question of what does and does not constitute art. The utterly relatable moments juxtaposed with the equally bizarre moments seem to cause an enhancement loop, making the characters even more relatable and more bizarre by turns. You simply have to read through to the end to make sure nothing happens without you. Reviewed by Heather Ortiz The McCloud Home for Wayward Girls By Wendy Delsol Berkley, $15.00, 324 pages Jill McCloud once gave up her dreams of college in order to help her mother, Ruby, run the family bed and breakfast, while raising a newborn child at the same time. But when Jill agrees to host the wake for the town’s former matriarch, she doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into. The wake brings guests who evoke all kinds of memories, including the matriarch’s nephew (Jill’s exboyfriend) and Jill’s wild and irresponsible sister. Ruby seems to be developing problems in her old age, while Jill’s now fourteen-yearold daughter Fee is starting to delve into the question of her father’s identity. The resulting events threaten to tear the family apart. Wendy Delsol’s debut novel, The McCloud Home for Wayward Girls, is more than the fluffy piece of chick-lit it appears to be. Here readers will find a full-bodied, fascinating story of mothers, daughters, and sisters, and the family secrets that bind them together. Delsol does a wonderful job developing the backstories of Ruby and Jill; every time readers think they’ve guessed what’s going on, the author adds something new to changes everything, which will keep readers engrossed and eager for more. Reviewed by Holly Scudero I Curse the River of Time By Per Petterson Picador, $15.00, 227 pages For many readers, Scandinavian bleakness is trending. And nobody now does it better than Petterson. The “River of Time” is actually an image from a poem by Mao. The protagonist’s name is Arvid Jansen —an utter failure in life — once a radical Maoist, still an over-educated factory worker in 1989. The harrowing northern landscape kills feeling. Freezing, windswept,
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dark, light and darkness battling it out in nature. Relationships, death, divorce, against the backdrop of the Berlin Wall coming down. Petterson deftly combines melancholy, hope, and comedy in this brief novel. Bleak, dreamy, melancholy, tenuous; alternating between present and past, the first-person narrator’s sentences are simple, distilled, stark, and emotional. Everything seems inevitable, as if he is without free will, indeed, unable to stop fate in a world he didn’t choose and doesn’t control. Even his dying mother and long absent father withhold any love from him. By the end, Jansen is utterly obliterated, unheard, dead, permeated by the dense Oslo fog — it’s only the stunning prose that keeps us reading, the unsolved mysteries of family, perhaps answering the question: Why continue to live in the face of the abyss? The translation by Charlotte Barslund is simply beautiful and aching. Reviewed by Phil Semler In The Sea There Are Crocodiles By Fabio Geda Doubleday, $21.95, 213 pages At the age of ten, Enaiatollah Akbari’s mother takes him to Pakistan and leaves him there, returning to Afghanistan herself to care for her other two children in their small, now Taliban-controlled village. Enaiatollah is left to fend for himself; he ekes out an existence selling things on the street, but eventually his desire for a safe place to call home leads him further abroad. His journey takes him to Iran, Turkey, Greece, and finally Italy, where he wins political asylum. In these troubling times of political conflict, it is easy to overlook the individual stories that cut to the heart of why change is needed. Enaiatollah’s story, told in author Fabio Geda’s In the Sea There Are Crocodiles, is a stark and heart-wrenching reminder of why the world cares so much about what goes on in the Middle East. Told with a simplicity not often seen in personal stories, this narrative chronicles the danger inherent in the journeys refugees take, and reminds readers that there is so much more to an immigrant’s story beyond breaking the law. The conversational tone of the book makes it
easy, even inviting to read; at the same time, Enaiatollah’s harrowing experiences will keep readers on the edge of their seats. Reviewed by Holly Scudero The Rape of the Muse By Michael Stein Permanent Press, $28.00, 206 pages This novel begins at the Connecticut superior courthouse where the thirty-year friendship between artists Simon Pruhar and Harris Montrose has found itself. Pruhar is suing Montrose. “The Rape of the Muse depicted or portrayed the plaintiff as a violent criminal, a portrayal which this plaintiff says is false. It is further claimed that when the defendant offered this computer image to Vanity Fair, he did so deliberately and with calculated intent to subject the plaintiff to hatred, contempt and ridicule, and that act caused him to be defamed.’” The narrator of the book is Rand Taber, a young artist once deemed by The Times as being one of “25 artists under 25 to watch.” When Taber finds his art stalled, unable to find his muse, he left New York to become an assistant to Montrose in New Haven. A desire to achieve fame drives Taber. Montrose achieved that fame in New York, but gave it up, moving to Connecticut because Pruhar took a teaching job at the art school there. Told from the courtroom to the back-story leading to the court, this novel paints an insightful story of the art world and of the relationships within it. Reviewed by Angie Mangino Cousins & Pranksters By Steve Edsall Xlibris, $19.99, 146 pages Cousins and Pranksters records the intersections of several scams involving online dating in North Carolina, gold treasure buried in Budapest, embezzling motivational speakers, and so-called valuable art from the Azores. Sven, the owner of a paper shredding business, and Ariella, an accountant, can count at least a dozen scam artists, thieves, and murderers among their family and friends. They both lived with a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude, but when Sven and Ariella become romantically involved, these characters begin
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meeting (not always with good results), and the new couple has to deal with the ensuing chaos. Not to mention the escaped Komodo dragon! You may have to suspend your disbelief a bit to accept the fact that all these crazy people would actually meet, but the unbelievable aura is what makes Cousins & Pranksters so much fun. Edsall takes the “eccentric family” novel to new levels. Not only is everyone involved in questionable schemes, but sometimes they’re even partners with each other and don’t know it. This book is a literary ride on the bumper cars at the amusement park. You know all the characters, but you’re never sure when they’re going to come careening into view or who they’ll crash into.Because most of the characters have one or more names, you may find your head spinning as you try to keep track of everyone and their misdeeds. But the random insertion of odd characters traits helps to distinguish one character from another, not to mention earning a few laughs and keeping you reading in hopes of discovering the significance of the things like the purple Buick, the Komodo dragon, and the duck in formal wear. Edsall also sticks to short chapters, often labeled with a time or place to help out readers. This is the type of book you have to read twice, just so you can catch all the hints and jokes you missed the first time around when you were speeding to the last page, wondering who would get nabbed by the cops and who would escape. The second time, with a bit of insider info, you can enjoy new aspects of the book. Sponsored Review Book of Dreams By Davis Bunn Howard Books, $14.99, 330 pages Between the well-written prose and the mysteriously unraveling plot, Davis Bunn’s Book of Dreams is gripping down to the very last page. The book is an intricate blend of human relationships, biblical history, mystery, and a bit of surrealism. The plot is centered on a psychiatrist, Elena Burroughs, whose life is plagued by the pain of the loss of her husband. When a new patient is referred to her by a longtime friend whom she has grave respect for, the patient’s story strikes a significant chord within Elena. The story is of a series of shuddering nightmares, and in order to help figure them out, Elena uses an ancient book filled with prayers and powers of the Holy Spirit. Throughout the book, Elena experiences a
Book Reviews
dream shift of her own that is both powerful and terrifying to her, especially because the dreams unleash dangerous visions for her patient and for the economy as a whole. Even for those who don’t generally gravitate toward novels with biblical undertones, Bunn weaves through the story elegantly and with increasing suspense, ultimately creates a very fine read. Reviewed by Jordan Younger Anthropology of an American Girl By Hilary Thayer Hamann Spiegel & Grau, $16.00, 576 pages A piece of literary fiction for the high school girl, the college woman, and beyond, this book is an experience of love, passion, heartbreak, choices and consequences, and learning to depend on oneself. The comingof-age story is set in 1970s New York, as the novel’s heroine Eveline Auerbach evolves from a seventeen-year-old girl to a young adult. Encountering everything from sexual awakening to the death of a close friend, Evie’s is a universal story about the struggles of growing up in America, reconciling identity, and capturing the air of Reaganera America. Raw and beautiful, this is no light beach read, but rather something to sit in the sun and contemplate; something of far more substance that brings literary fiction and chick lit together with a bang. This originally self-published work is not something to be tackled lightly or only with half-attention. It will engage your senses and bring rushing back all those days of high emotion and teenage fragility. Profound and thrilling, Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann captures the spirit of an era. Reviewed by Axie Barclay The Dog Who Came in from the Cold: A Corduroy Mansions Novel By Alexander McCall Smith Pantheon, $24.95, 290 pages One may think that Sir Freddie De La Hay is an odd name for a spy dog, but that is just the beginning of a mélange of oddly named and curiously inactive characters in this small but highly peopled novel. One’s seat belt should be fastened for the other twenty-six characters in 103 pages, and await the introduction of sixteen more. It is as if someone bet the popular and loveable
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novelist Alexander McCall Smith to write a story-less, character-filled novel by introducing a new character every few pages. This is a deeply disappointing book which, of course, is hard to read through because of the confusing characters and time spent trying to figure out why in the world they were put in what purports to be a dog story. Poor Freddie De La Hay is relegated to a small role in the huge cast of characters; why, an elusive yeti is even introduced. If this is a parody of similar spy novels, this reviewer is still left out in the cold wondering what the author was thinking – or if he was. Reviewed by Julia McMichael The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation By Elizabeth Berg Ballantine, $15.00, 253 pages It’s an urge nearly every modern woman has had at one time or another: why not just forget the “diet” for a day, and eat whatever I want? The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted, the title story of Elizabeth Berg’s new collection, features a woman who decides one day to do just that. The book is full of little acts of freedom, from a woman trying to spice up her romantic life, to three friends daring each other to make contact with an ex, to a woman deciding on a whim to take a whirlwind trip to Las Vegas. Berg has an uncanny familiarity with all walks of life, women young and old, from many different walks of life and in all sorts of scenarios; readers will undoubtedly find at least one story in this collection that will resonate with them deeply. The stories range from uplifting to heartbreaking, inspiring nearly every emotion in between. Berg is one of those wonderful writers who can instantly draw you into her stories, setting the scene with just a few quick sentences and making you feel like you already know what’s going on. This is simply a wonderful collection. Reviewed by Holly Scudero Ten Thousand Saints: A Novel By Eleanor Henderson Ecco, $26.99, 385 pages Jude, a bored teenager in small town Vermont, spends most of his free time getting high with his best friend Teddy. Jude’s sixteenth birthday ends in tragedy when Teddy dies of an overdose, leaving Jude bereft and directionless, and their new friend Eliza unexpectedly pregnant. Jude’s self-destructive
downward spiral leads him to stay with his father in New York, where he falls under the sway of Teddy’s older brother Johnny and his militant straight edge lifestyle. Johnny, struggling with his own sexuality in an unforgiving time, is determined to do right by his brother’s child, while Jude finds a new kind of high in hardcore punk music and refusing drugs, sex, and meat. But in this world of confused teenage secrets and good intentions, finding the right path is anything but simple. Eleanor Henderson’s novel Ten Thousand Saints is about so much more than a teenager choosing straight edge over drugs. It’s about family dynamics and loyalty, dangerous secrets and lack of communication, responsibility and weighty decisions, societal acceptance, and misguided love. The characters are so multidimensional that readers aren’t always certain who are the “good” characters and who the “bad,” and the way the narration slips smoothly between different viewpoints keeps the story flowing. An excellent debut; don’t miss it! Reviewed by Holly Scudero The Necrophiliac By Gabrielle Wittkop ECW Press, $14.95, 92 pages Lucien is a lonely antiques dealer who keeps a diary and just happens to be a necrophiliac. Shocking right from the first page, what follows is, well, beautiful and grotesque in a way that no other book ever has been. Evoking the Marquis de Sade, Baudelaire, and other dark writers, it will be either something that entrances or makes you run for the hills. Wittkop allows Lucien to describe his lifestyle and the origins of his predilection through his diary entries and Lucien doesn’t hold back. The lengths he goes to procure his objects de amor, to preserve them, and to describe his time with them are riveting, when you allow yourself to get past the revulsion. It is really the sickest and thankfully shortest love story you may ever read. He doesn’t pass judgment on his lovers, just as you shouldn’t pass up this opportunity to read a loving account of a man who loves the dead as few others can or would.
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This is Gabrielle Wittkop’s first novel, originally published in France in 1972, and the first time it has been translated to English. Can’t imagine what took them so long. Reviewed by Gwen Stackler The Butterfly Cabinet By Bernie McGill Free Press, $22.99, 224 pages Maddie has a story to tell that she should have told long ago. A former nanny in her nineties, she needs to unburden herself to her last charge, Annie, now a grown woman expecting her first child. Before dropping a few bombs of her own, she gives her a diary that Annie’s grandmother wrote while imprisoned for killing her daughter, Annie’s Aunt Charlotte. The story alternates between passages in Lady Harriet Ormond’s 1892 prison diary and Maddie, telling her side of the story to Annie in 1968 and even with the passage of time, it feels almost seamless. Lady Ormond had a fairly brutal way of raising children to be responsible, well brought-up adults, but was she really guilty of murdering Charlotte? The household staff doted on the children, but was Lady Ormond the only monster in the house? The Butterfly Cabinet will stick to you long after you’ve finished. Every person has a story, every story has multiple viewpoints, and after reading this, one can’t help but wonder that our future offspring might be better off not knowing it. I wonder if Annie wishes that she had never listened. Reviewed by Gwen Stackler Lord of Misrule By Jaimy Gordon Vintage, $15.00, 304 pages “Inside the back gate of Indian Mound Downs, a hotwalking machine creaked round and round…” So begins Jaimy Gordon’s stunning new book. As much a story about a place as it is about the characters who inhabit it, Gordon’s book magically transports the reader to a fourth-rate racetrack in depressed West Virginia. Indian Mound Downs isn’t a place where a person—or a horse—would necessarily want to end up. Usually the last stop on the racing circuit for both man and beast, it offers no chance of moving up—and there isn’t much left below it. The people, at least, tend to hang on until the bitter end. So when young Maggie Koderer blows in with a good horse, it’s like a breath of fresh air in the musty old stalls
Book Reviews
of the racetrack. The disturbance she creates—and what she’ll leave behind—will affect the inhabitants and the horses of Indian Mound Downs more than any of them could ever imagine. With characters that sound as true as the starting bell at the racetrack, Gordon has brought to life an overlooked community that will linger in readers’ minds. Reviewed by Margo Orlando Littell SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY cont’d from page 31 The Fall By Guillermo Del Toro, Chuck Hogan William Morrow, $26.99, 320 pages The vampire introduced in the previous book has taken over the Big Apple and is moving fast across the country, threatening the entire world. The head of the Center for Disease Control, Eph Goodweather, leads a small group to stop this vampire plague, even though it might already be too late. Meanwhile, a war between New World and Old World vampires erupts as each group seeks domination. In the midst of this, Eph’s wife has been turned by the Master, and now she haunts the city, looking to claim their child for herself. With the fate of humanity on the line, Eph and his team must battle an enemy whose plan is more terrifying than annihilation. This demented, fast paced page-turner will leave the reader enthralled and on the edge of their seat. One part science, one part fantasy, and three parts vivid, visceral action and description, the book will suck you into this twisted world. The book delivers just as well as The Strain, the first book, and it leaves the reader waiting for the third and final book, and the end of a brilliant, scary, and superbly written series. Reviewed by Unknown Gateways By Elizabeth Anne Hull Tor Books, $25.99, 416 pages This is quite simply a feast for science fiction fans! Gateways is a collection of science fiction stories and tributes by eighteen authors in the style of Frederick Pohl. Pohl long ago wrote a seminal creative novel called Gateway, and he was perhaps the first
Popular Fiction
to predict the current day realities of personal computers and mobile phones. Many of the tales in this collection focus on futuristic space travel and wars between alien cultures. One of the best, and clearly unique, stories (“Shadows of the Lost”) is about an encounter between very early humans and Neanderthals. It is an unexpected treat. Not all of the stories work, however. “Gunn’s Tales”—about spaceship travel— is one that goes on far too long and fails to arrive anywhere. (Star Trek it is not.) Federick Pohl is now 90. He was a contemporary of Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Kurt Vonnegut. In his day, he won science fiction’s two major awards for writing. This worthy tribute compilation should put Pohl’s name on the radar for younger readers who are just coming to appreciate the many flavors of fine science fiction. Reviewed by Joseph Arellano
CANTERBURY, cont’d from page 37 tion around the world. On the other hand, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is one of the founding documents of English poetry and while the reader will get the bare bones of the story from Mr. Chwast’s adaptation none of the magic of Chaucer’s language comes through. Without the poetry I found myself asking while I read, “what’s the point?” Despite that question I can’t deny Mr. Chwast’s ability to tell The Canterbury Tales through picture and word and his ability to condense Chaucer’s opus, hundreds of pages long, into a single slim graphic novel. Mr. Chwast’s artwork is equal to his writing. His lines are crisp and clear and his page layouts easy to follow. This version of The Canterbury Tales can be enjoyed in an hour or so, I only hope readers are entranced enough by the characters in it to pick up the original work! Reviewed by Jonathon Howard
YOUNG ADULT cont’d from page 40 a prominent ballet school. Does physical perfection exact a hefty toll on young female athletes? Padian explores sensitive themes, including female athlete triad syndrome, anorexia, and performance pressure. Considering the stress placed on today’s developing athletes, the author isn’t afraid to tackle concerns that are often hidden from outsiders. Padian successfully integrates myriad themes relevant to teens: friendship, overbearing parents, loneliness, and acceptance. Jersey Tomatoes are the Best may be the most honest YA novels I’ve ever read. Gold medal winner! Reviewed by LuAnn Schindler
CHANA, cont’d from page 41 CB: My new manuscript includes poems drawn from personal, Biblical, European, and human history. The title poem has an epigraph from Pascal: “If Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter, the whole history of the world would have been different.” ZR: How do you decide what to read?
CB: I follow the reviews in Poetry and other literary journals; I devour the New York Review of Books. I belong to a group that meets to read poetry together — ancient, medieval, contemporary, in English and in translation, each month a different poet chosen by the group. I like the Polish poets Wislawa Szymborska and Zbigniew Herbert. Herbert’s a Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark: Blackwood’s wonderful poet, ironic and heartbreakGuide to Dangerous Fairies ing (and by the way, a distant relative By Guillermo Del Toro of George Herbert). I like to read about Hyperion Children’s, $24.95, 263 pages nature and evolution, especially since Emerson Blackwood has always trod the my younger son became a wildlife biolopaved highway of scigist. My children’s interests have always ence … until a chance spurred my own. discovery thrusts him onto the savage footZR: Do you have any other advice for a path of superstition. poet or writer just starting out? Leaving behind his reputation as a scholCB: To a great extent, you have to teach ar, Emerson travels yourself. W.S. Merwin said, “No one can the world, studying teach you to listen for what only you can and cataloging those hear.” Read a lot and keep writing and beings referred to as don’t get discouraged. Don’t take somethe Hidden Folk, especially those known one else’s criticism as the absolute truth; as Toothbreakers, also referred to as Tooth often it’s a matter of taste. A critique of Fairies. Their dark origin and bloody history a poet’s work ought to be true and usewith humans takes on more significance ful — that is, phrased in such a way when Emerson realizes that they know who that the poet can use it. My approach he is. Now his only hope of protecting his is: “Let’s identify what’s working best in wife and child lies in a sacred covenant made this poem and think about how to bring a thousand years ago. But will it be enough? the rest up to that level.” Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is actually a precursor to the movie of the same name. It ZR: A song cycle based on your poems ends right where the movie starts. Written premiered at San Francisco’s Yerba Buein journal-entry style and sporting numer- na Center for the Arts and your translaous ink drawings, the book relates Emerson tion of the Song of Songs was performed Blackwood’s journey from respectable Eng- by the San Francisco Contemporary lish gentleman and scientist, to unhinged Music Players and elsewhere. What was madman. Interspersed with the journal en- it like working with composers who set tries are catalogs of dangerous fairy races, your work to music? organized by regions. Despite the brevity of the tale and the simplicity of the writing, CB: It was fascinating. The song cycle the story is still thoroughly bone-chilling was composed by David Del Tredici, who and disturbing. It is hard to put this book called it “Chana’s Story.” I also worked down and even harder to turn off the light closely with Jorge Liderman, the Argenwhen done. tinian composer who composed a cantaReviewed by Heather Ortiz ta based on my translation of the Song of Songs. He really caught the passion and youthful exuberance of the Song with his Latin rhythms and unusual combination of instruments. My website has links to the CDs of Chana’s Story and the Song of Songs, and a sampling of each.
Sacramento Book Review • November 2011 • 46
Book Reviews
Romance Secrets To Seducing A Scot By Michelle Marcos St. Martin’s, $7.99, 306 pages Scotland was torn by violent revolution. When Serena Marsh’s father was appointed as a mediator between England and the Scottish rebels, her privileged life of London luxury was turned upside down. How could her father expect her to give up her successful weekly column? It was unfair! Not only was Scotland backwards, boorish, and uncivilized, but her assigned protector Malcolm Slayter was downright infuriating! Headstrong Serena won’t listen to his advice and takes off without her protector … until she realizes just how much danger she’s in. While Serena learns to control her actions a bit, she can’t control her intense feelings for Slayter. Serena and Malcolm’s romance is so hot, it practically radiates off the pages. The multiple plots intertwine perfectly and the reader is left trying to catch her breath. Can Malcolm fight for the woman he loves and reclaim his family name? Can Serena survive a deadly revolution without her headstrong ways getting her killed? Secrets to Seducing a Scot is fresh, fun, and engaging in a genre overpopulated with Highland Regency romance. Michelle Marcos takes a popular genre and makes it something new and spectacular. I love how she incorporates historical fact without making the novel dry. Serena is a likable heroine and Malcolm is absolutely delectable; I can’t imagine a single woman who wouldn’t love having him as her protector. This book is delicious from start to finish. Reviewed by Jennifer Melville When Passion Rules By Johanna Lindsey Gallery, $25.00, 400 pages The victim of an attempted murder, Alana, heir to the throne of Lubinia, is spirited away by who she thinks is an eccentric uncle. One day, her visions of marriage and a normal life in England is shattered as her uncle reveals her true identity and tells her they must journey back to her homeland. There, she is arrested by Christoph, the head of the Lubinian king’s guards and must convince him of her true identity.
While not up to par with Lindsey’s Malory series, this was an enjoyable read that had a few twists and turns to keep things interesting. Alana’s character was a little disappointing in that her unusual education in weapons is emphasized, but she never truly utilizes her skills as one would expect from the build up. If anything, the supporting characters are truly what makes the story. Alana’s “uncle” was fascinating as the assassin turned father figure and it was unfortunate that the readers do not get to see more of him. The same could be said about Christoph’s family. The romance was sweet but nothing remarkable. All in all, a nice addition to Lindsey’s work, but not one of the stars. Reviewed by Debbie Suzuki Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue By Stephanie Laurens Avon, $7.99, 448 pages Heather Cynster is determined to find her hero instead of settling for a marriage of convenience. When she is kidnapped and family friend Viscount Breckenridge takes off after the kidnappers to rescue her, it’s possible she just might have found her hero. Whether a long time fan of Stephanie Laurens or a new reader to her Cynsters series, hurry out to pick up this book. Heather is a strong, independent, and above all smart heroine; and unlike many other romance heroines, she does not make silly decisions just for the sake of stubbornness. Breckenridge is almost as close as you can get to the ideal man. He’s domineering and protective but does not let that overcome common sense and he is able to deal with Heather as an equal and not a helpless female. The chemistry between of the two is sizzling and draws the reader into their story. What makes this book rise above the others is that the supporting characters are equally strong. The villains are atypical,
which can make the reader laugh and actually feel sorry for them. The end will leave readers satisfied and eager to get their hands on the next book. Reviewed by Debbie Suzuki The Darkest Surrender By Gena Showalter Harlequin, $7.99, 384 pages Continuing with their ongoing mission, the next episode in the Lords of the Underworlds saga follows Stryder – the Lord who houses the demon of Defeat. Stryder has entered the Harpy games to steal the prize of an ancient artifact, but Kaia, a Harpy known as The Disappointment among her kind, is dead-set on winning the prize herself. I was a little shocked by Stryder being paired off with Kaia since he seemed to have such great chemistry with Haidee in The Darkest Lie. However, after reading this, I can say that the pairing is a perfect match. Both characters are strong-willed and unable to accept defeat – Kaia because of pride, and Stryder because of the insufferable pain he has to endure every time he loses. There are also some unexpected plot twists with all of the Lords that kept me guessing and wondering what will happen next. Author, Gena Showalter has brought us another great read about our favorite Lords, filled with the action and witty dialogue that we have come to know and love so much. As another chapter closes for a Lord and his happily-ever-after, another will begin as we all eagerly await the next Lord’s happy ending. Reviewed by Missy Wadkins The Dark Enquiry By Deanna Raybourn Mira, $14.95, 400 pages After a long and eventful honeymoon, Julia and Nicholas Brisbane have finally returned to London and their normal lives. As they formally set up household together, Julia continues in her endeavors to be part of Brisbane’s life in every way, including in his private enquiry business. And when she finds out that one of his newest clients is her very own brother, she can’t help but be determined to help however she can. But this investigation may be more than she bargained for, and as matters get more dangerous, the couple is forced to either unite their talents or risk their lives falling apart. Deanna Raybourn’s newest installment in the Lady Julia Grey series, The Dark Enquiry continues the ever-
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exciting saga of two beloved characters. As always, Raybourn’s writing is exceptional, the mystery complex and unpredictable, the backdrop vibrant and real. The characters themselves are like dear friends, wholly three-dimensional and easy to love. Readers will gladly immerse themselves into Lady Julia’s world, racing to solve the mystery as the stakes get more and more dire. Fans of the series will not be disappointed; this novel is hard to put down. Reviewed by Holly Scudero The Deal, the Dance, and the Devil: A Novel By Victoria Christopher Murray Touchstone, $15.00, 416 pages What would you be willing to sacrifice for five million dollars? Your home? Your family? Your marriage? It’s a storyline ripped right out of today’s headlines. Adam and Evia Langston are your typical upper middle class couple. Two incomes, two cars, big house with a high mortgage, kids in private school, and all the toys a modern family could want or need. Then Adam loses his $200,000 dollar a year job and can’t seem to See THE DEAL, page 53
The Ultimate Love Triangle ISBN 9780970880857 Available at: Book Stores, Amazon & Barnes & Noble theworldofdavid.com
Book Reviews
Business & Investing Affluence Intelligence: Earn More, Worry Less, and Live a Happy and Balanced Life By Stephen Goldbart and Joan Indursky DiFuria Da Capo Lifelong Books, $25.00, 239 pages Cofounders of the Money, Meaning, & Choices Institute, Stephen Goldbart and Joan Indursky DiFuria want to share some lessons in Affluence Intelligence: Earn More, Worry Less, and Live a Happy and Balanced Life. Goldbart and DiFuria first want their readers to know that acquiring a lot of money does not provide happiness nor does it solve problems. The authors cite the “law of diminishing returns” and also provide seven elements and directions for readers to embark on the Affluence Intelligence Program and combine the strength of one’s head, heart, and spirit to unlock what may prevent us from reaching our potential. By focusing on priorities, behaviors, attitudes, and financial effectiveness, Goldbart and DiFuria provide direction and tools to guide readers into strengthening their AIQ (Affluence Intelligence Quotient). The authors provide examples from their clients while setting the stages to help a reader evaluate their own AIQ. Within the twelvechapter book, there are three tests that establish directives to set a three-month AIQ program in motion. Because the writing and the examples are approachable, especially during the current economic climate, Affluence Intelligence is a thorough tool that can help bring balance, focus, and perhaps happiness, instead of financial worries. Reviewed by Elizabeth Humphrey Inside the Leader’s Mind: Five Ways to Think Like a Leader By Liz Mellon FT Press, $19.99, 202 pages Given the fact that there are millions of books on developing leadership abilities, is there anything truly innovative to add to the discussion? Generally, these books posit a theory and then dig up examples to prove the premise. This tends to build a procrustean bed of examples to fit theories that
tend not to hold up longitudinally. Unfortunately, in this new book, some examples, particularly those on “I Am the Enterprise,” tend to affirm the opposite when her exemplar CEO’s adamantly deny that they are “the enterprise; “its bigger than me.” The paradoxes inside the author’s leadership model make the book – and her thesis – incoherent and unreadable. The author says that this book differs from other leadership books in putting the emphasis on how leaders think – not what they do. Unfortunately, in this book, we do not get many trips Inside the Leader’s Mind. There are good and valuable self-assessment questions at the end of every chapter that could have been used to frame her argument in a more organized and understandable fashion. This book is all over the map in terms of building a credible case for a leadership model. However, one can benefit by the thoughtful end of chapter exercises. Reviewed by Julia McMichael You Are a Leader: A Journey towards Enlightened Leadership By Joe Bandra Langdon Street Press, $16.95, 103 pages The author makes a case that ordinary people need to pick up the mantle of leadership and that it is attainable for everyone. In defining true leadership, he makes a clear distinction between charisma and presence. He feels that while charisma may be superficial, presence is the underlying truth of each individual; something that is a universal and compelling truth. Presence is a life force which is latent in everyone. This small book will easily fit into purse or backpack for a quick read. Eleven percent of the book is taken up by both an introduction and forward pages. The author is billed as an “average Joe who found success.” While some of the book
is rather simplistic or cute, the precepts are enlivened by interesting stories. The women’s night story could bear editing; it is somewhat redundant. The Kent Nerburn story on page thirteen is truly inspiring and will stay with the reader long after the book is closed. There are many books on leadership and managing. This book is a better read than many by more popular and well known authors. Reviewed by Julia McMichael The Esoteric Investor: Alternative Investments for Global Macro Investors By Vishaal B. Bhuyan FT Press, $39.99, 301 pages The Esoteric Investor: Alternative Investments for Global Macro Investors, by author Vishaal B. Bhuyan, is a product of research he did for his own investment management firm that focuses on making completely unusual demographic investments. According to the author, this book is not a book about investment philosophies but a 10,000-foot view of interesting opportunities that exist because of dramatic changes occurring around the world. This book focuses on life markets composed of longevity and mortality risk instruments such as life settlements, reverse mortgages, social security, retirements, and the like. In reality the author paints a grim but factual picture of the matters of life and death. People are living longer, but what does this really mean in terms of life, death, and payouts? Baby boomers make up almost 25% of the United States population, but they are retiring. Longer-living retirees can destroy the fiscal soundness of governments and companies. The United States is spearheading a catastrophic pension collapse in the Western World and in Japan. What about China and India? Simply put, man is globally destroying everything including the food and water we consume. The Esoteric Investor: Alternative Investments for Global Macro Investors should be a documentary. Reviewed by Vivian Dixon Sober Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present By Jeffrey G. Madrick Knopf, $30.00, 465 pages In the 1950’s and 1960’s America created financial, social, and economic reforms. During The Depression and the 1940’s, one saw the development of the war. Further, in the 1950’s, America built highways, allowed men to probe the space in the so-called “sputnick era,” and provided subsidized housing. In the 1960’s one saw the development of Medicare and provided legislation to protect consum-
Sacramento Book Review • November 2011 • 48
ers and workers. Alternatively, during this later period, America created anti-poverty programs and passed civil rights legislation. One sees the American economy growing rapidly during the 1960’s and wages nearly doubling for workers at every income level. The 1970’s saw high inflation and the development of lobbying organizations that were well-funded and the growth of think tanks, such as the Rand Corporation and the Brookings Institution. Most American citizens believed at this time that our government had exceeded its limits and many social programs were being eliminated. By means of short portraits, it is shown that regulators were eliminated and a tax revolt started slowly which extended past the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. One is shown in the pages of this outstanding book sketches of such individuals as George Soros, a hedge fund manager who gave much of his wealth to causes that were detrimental to his personal financial interests. Finally, Economist Milton Friedman was not interested and is shown becoming wealthy but took the economy along a tragic and unfortunate path. There are lessons to be learned about the Wall Street financial crisis after reading this excellent book written by a journalist, along with the recently passed Debt Bill in Congress and the lowering of America’s credit rating by Standard and Poors. One of the finest books written to date on the Financial crisis on Wall Street. Reviewed by Claude Ury The Cultural Intelligence Difference: Master the One Skill You Can’t Do Without in Today’s Global Economy By David A. Livermore AMACOM, $22.00, 206 pages Take a look at today’s news and you’ll easily understand how interconnected we all are in the world. The Cultural Intelligence Difference: Master the One Skill You Can’t Do Without in Today’s Global Economy by David Livermore spells out a persuasive argument as to why your CQ (Cultural Intelligence) is essential to succeeding in today’s global and interdependent business world. Divided into three parts, the first part gives the reader grounding in CQ and the research that underscores CQ’s importance. Those who purchase the book are encouraged to take the CQ Self-Assessment test online and then move into part two, which encourages the reader to improve CQ through improving See CULTRUAL, page 67
Book Reviews
Current Events & Politics The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Trials of Amanda Knox By Nina Burleigh Broadway, $25.00, 319 pages Rarely has a murder case drawn so much international attention before, during and after the trial of Amanda Knox, for the sexual slaughter of Meredith Kercher—both of them college students and roommates in the ancient cloistered city of Perugia. Burleigh’s in-depth chronicle, released in August, comes merely weeks before Amanda’s retrial. Amanda’s initial quest to study Italian ended up educating a global audience in ways she nor the rest of us ever expected. ll To many who followed the plethora of internet gossip and tabloid stories of the drama, Amanda Knox is a heartless vixen who seduced two young men to stab her roommate to death in a ritual sex game on All Soul’s Eve while the local Perugia matrons paused to honor the millions of women burned alive as witches during the Inquisition. To others, the trial represented a travesty of justice that sacrificed a bewildered and innocent American girl in order to satisfy the lusty thirst of a jingoistic judiciary. ll Burleigh dissects the controversial evidence presented amid the unprovable rumors, and reveals previously undisclosed exculpatory facts about what actually happened the night Meredith Kercher died. Reviewed by Casey Corthron The Left Coast: California on the Edge By Text by Philip L. Fradkin and photos by Alex L. Fradkin University of California Press, $29.95, 115 pages Forty years ago, Philip Fradkin’s young son, Alex, accompanied his father on his research for his book The Golden Coast. Now, in a reversal of roles, father accompanies photographer son on another state tour to create The Left Coast. The portrait that
emerges is really eight portraits of coastal regions divided by human and commercial use, each region richly complex and diverse, from the remote wilderness of the Lost Coast to the world-class shipping commerce of the Port of Los Angeles. Whether he’s discussing agriculture land use in western Marin County, the popular tourist destination of Monterey, or the military installations in San Diego, Fradkin provides historical perspective, interviews, and, where relevant, analyses of legal battles over land use and environmental damage from land misuse. This handsome book includes dozens of color plates of California’s famous beaches by Alex Fradkin. Whether he’s photographing oil rigs under the stars, a dead bird picked clean on Rodeo Beach, or the forest of Big Sur, Fradkin’s photographs are technically superb, lyrical, and often haunting. He also has a warm eye for the human and the humorous, as in his photographs of high fashion models, or a family and their little red truck, posing at the beach. Reviewed by Zara Raab The Digital Divide: Writings For and Against Facebook, Google, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking By Mark Bauerlein Tarcher, $17.95, 347 pages In The Digital Divide: Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking, Mark Bauerlein has compiled a rich collection of essays that keep the conversations about our electronic world moving. Introducing the book with an example of how the debate over the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother exploded on the Internet, Bauerlein explains how this one (of many) examples exemplifies how much our digital world has changed and seem-
ingly democratized debate. He then poses questions about Facebook and texting, and how our digital behavior has impacted our non-digital behavior. The Digital Divide, which addresses both pro and con arguments, is divided by topics such as the brain, social/personal life, and culture. The 27 essays tackle a myriad of subjects, such as usability, video games, and Wikipedia. Examples of some of these important and often fascinating essays include Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and “Love Online” by Henry Jenkins, or “The End of Solitude” by William Deresiewicz. Because Bauerlein has grouped the essays by subject, the pro and con arguments are mixed throughout. Bauerlein also wrote The Dumbest Generation. Reviewed by Elizabeth Humphrey Circle of Greed: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Lawyer Who Brought Corporate America to Its Knees By Patrick Dillon, Carl Cannon Broadway, $18.00, 532 pages Not since Woodward and Bernstein have two journalists masterfully put together an amazing true-life story of American corruption. Circle of Greed tells of the downfall of the plaintiff litigator, William S. Lerach, who was the nemesis of corporate greed— and in the absence of any enforced regulations—may have protected the public from the overwhelming fraud widely practiced in corporations in recent times. Authors Patrick Dillon and Carl M. Cannon are able to introduce a huge cast of characters and remarkably bring them to life for the reader. Unlike many books that attempt this scale, the authors deftly manage to tell a great story in a very readable fashion. Litigator Lerach took on corporate giants such as Disney, Drexel Burnham, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Keating and the granddaddy of fraud: Enron. When he went after Vice President Cheney for his Halliburton windfall, Lerach may have sown the seeds for his own downfall, disbarment and disgrace. Despite this story’s complexity, the authors are able to present evidence impartially and weave a fascinating tale that should be mandatory reading for the general public, and especially wary investors. Highly recommended reading. Reviewed by Julia McMichael Capital and Its Discontents: Conversations with Radical Thinkers in a Time of Tumult By Sasha Lilley PM Press, $20.00, 320 pages The economic system that we’re all familiar with, the one that we currently find ourselves in, is Capitalism. Since the fall of the Soviet Empire and China’s economic
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reforms, there has been no opposing or alternative economic model on Earth. Despite its near universal usage, Capitalism has always had its detractors, professional and otherwise, who felt the system was broken, inefficient, wasteful, and deeply, deeply biased. These people’s voices haven’t had much chance to be heard in the past though, when things were good. The recent economic disaster and the resulting crash and our current recession have changed that. Now with people looking at the numerous crises approaching they wonder why the current model seems incapable of (or refuses to) handle them and they’ve start to look for alternatives. In Capitalism and its Discontents Sasha Lilley collects interviews with fifteen eminent thinkers, economists, and political scientists on the Left – including such luminaries as Noam Chomsky, David Mcnally, and Ursula Huws. Their collected thoughts and wisdom on Capital’s failings and what the future might hold was not simple read but there isn’t a better time for it to be heard than now. Reviewed by Jonathon Howard World 3.0: Global Prosperity and How to Achieve It By Pankaj Ghemawat Harvard Business Press, $29.95, 368 pages An economist at the University of Barcelona indicates that an increasingly high unemployed in developing countries, along with capital and trade imbalances have caused our current financial crisis. People around the world must secure their prosperity in order to become globalized? It is argued that globalization is part of deregulation, and regulation means protectionism. After reading this book, numerous questions can be asked, but primarily how does trade cause more or less environmental pollution? And how does the impact of globalization on labor markets compare to that of technological change? It is shown that business firms not markets cause most international exchanges. It was of interest to note that “globalization” was first mentioned in the U.S. dictionary in 1951, and the Library of Congress catalog in the early 1990s listed fewer than 50 publications per year on globalization. Many social scientists, such as historian Paul Kennedy, sociologist Anthony Giddons, and political scientist Joseph Nye, CURRENT EVENTS & POLITICS cont’d on page 53
Book Reviews
Biographies & Memoirs The Orchard: A Memoir By Theresa Weir Grand Central Publishing, $24.99, 227 pages Theresa Weir met and married her husband, Adrian Curtis, at flashpoint speed, going from bartender to farm wife in such record time that it left her spinning. Rejected by her young husband’s family as well as her own, the struggle of this street-savvy city girl to adapt to the strange and often dangerous life with the virtual stranger she married, and adapt to the loneliness and futility of farm life, is mesmeric. At its core, The Orchard is an inspiring and heartbreaking tale of a woman’s journey from rootless wanderer and borderline alcoholic, to farm wife and mother, to author. Apples, chemicals, and in-laws flavor this memoir of the American heartland as Weir peels away the layers of the idolized farm life in one long strand and leaves bare the starred core heart of farm, heritage, family, love, and endurance. The strength of character in this novel is astounding, as well as the reports of chemical abuses and the impact it takes on families. You’ll never be able to look an apple the same way again. Reviewed by Axie Barclay True Strength: My Journey from Hercules to Mere Mortal — and How Nearly Dying Saved My Life By Kevin Sorbo Da Capo Press, $26.00, 276 pages But wherever there was evil, wherever an innocent would suffer, there would be … Kevin Sorbo? That’s right, the autobiography of the man who played the son of Zeus on the hit television series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys has hit shelves. True Strength: My Journey from Hercules to Mere Mortal and How Nearly Dying Saved My Life is the journey from Midwestern boy to Hollywood star, but especially how an aneurysm nearly sucked the star into the underworld. With chapters from others associated with the show, such as co-star Michael Hurst, wife Sam Sorbo, and director Bruce Campbell, True Strength covers the stunning transformation of how a powerful man
found himself brought low, and how embracing his frailties saved him from missing out on what really matters: love and family. While not the most polished or highly literary of books, Sorbo’s voice nonetheless draws in readers, holding them spellbound with a “goofy but fun” approach. The Hercules-brand humor that made the show a success combines with Sorbo’s trademark can-do attitude. The narrative voice is genuine and powerful, with Sorbo’s infectious positive attitude and guileless approach to success. That largeness of character and can-do approach reflect true celebrity and a great strength of will, all of which embody what it is to be of mythic spirit, on screen and in life. Reviewed by Axie Barclay Hemingway’s Boat By Paul Hendrickson Knopf, $30.00, 531 pages As I started Hemingway’s Boat, I wondered did he deserve another biography? What could be left to say, and who would want to read it? Revered and reviled — both his writings and life — what could Hendrickson add besides the metaphor of Hemingway’s true mistress — his beloved motor yacht Pilar — trying to keep it afloat? Just a few pages in, and as I continued reading and as I finished, I knew this was really Hendrickson’s book. It’s a deeply felt book, subjective, sad; there’s no mythologizing. Papa really didn’t do anything after the thirties but write mostly bad books, kill large fish and fauna, and drink frozen mai tais. So why read this book? I suppose it’s still fascinating to read not about the early exuberance of the man, his early successes, but to read about the famous depressed writer, the parodied writer, the writer who parodied himself, the writer who battled against the “jackals of the mind,” finally blowing his head off. A made-to-order case for Freudians, it’s fascinating to read about his transvestite son, Gigi, who died in a Miami jail as a transsexual, and wonder at the connection between Papa’s virile
macho and disdain for “pansy faggots.” How through all his sicknesses — migraines, hypertension, diabetes, kidney failures, depression, paranoia, and suicide wishes — the man kept writing until he could no longer write. Reviewed by Phil Semler Starmaker: Life as a Hollywood Publicist with Farrah, the Rat Pack and 600 More Stars Who Fired Me By Jay Bernstein, as told to Larry Cortez Hamm with David Rubini Ecw Press, $16.95, 347 pages Starmaker is Jay Bernstein’s memoir taking readers inside the world of Hollywood over the course of his life. The book takes readers from Bernstein’s childhood in Oklahoma City, to his death in 2006 with Farrah Fawcett at his hospital bedside. Until Bernstein’s massive stroke, he had collaborated for a year with Hamm “to write a history of Hollywood as seen from the inside looking out, interweaving his personal experiences during a period just short of fifty years.” Bernstein had said, “The only rule in Hollywood is there are no rules,” which he proves in recording his life where his clients went to the heights of success, with stars firing and rehiring him after his extreme publicity gimmicks. Chapter 2 alone includes Milton Berle, Paul Anka, Danny Thomas, Dick Van Dyke, Nick Adams, Robert Conrad, and Diane McBain. Chapter 3 begins with the “Rat Pack,” giving an indication of the magnitude of celebrity that will follow. Bernstein shares all the gossip of the stars from his viewpoint. It is a story, whether all true, or whether embellished in line with his tactics originally promoting them to stardom, which will pull readers in for a not previously seen glimpse of the stars. Reviewed by Angie Mangino Marijuana Withdrawal After 40 Years: Sixty Days of a Withdrawal Odyssey By Leo A. Sielsch Book Publishers Network, $16.95, 185 pages Grass, pot, cannabis, dope, hash, ganja, herb, maryjane, reefer. Whatever you call marijuana, it’s a hot topic, with government arguing over it, shops popping up like mushrooms, and people flocking for their license. With all the controversy about the pros and cons of smoking the herb, what happens when someone stops smoking… after forty years? This is what Leo Sielsch wanted to find out. Thus his sixty-day hiatus from his daily date with the pipe. In Marijuana Withdrawal After 40 Years, he offers answers to some commonly asked questions regarding pot: Does withdrawal hurt? Is marijuana a “gateway drug” to other drugs? Does marijuana affect memory? How does
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it affect restless leg syndrome? How does joy change? How does s-e-x change? Where does alcohol fit in? …and an array of other questions and concerns, all concerning that great consternation to the law-makers, otherwise known as marijuana. The book is arranged in chapters one through sixty, each day covering a topic related to marijuana or its withdrawal or legal status. Each day meditates upon a specific topic, or interrelated topics, all answering the ultimate questions: can he go sixty days without the ganja? What are the effects? And why prohibit marijuana usage? Sielsch is an engaging writer with a keen attention to the issues surrounding the use of marijuana. His thoughtful style and round-about arguments give the book a laid-back approach to a topic often taken too seriously, but does so in a way that lends a level of honesty and credibility. Overall, the book is for those who enjoy watching the arc of human experience unfold as someone attempts to conquer a difficult task—in this case, giving up maryjane for sixty days—and are interested in the marijuana argument. Sponsored Review Never Give In To Fear: A Memoir By Marti MacGibbon CreateSpace, $14.99, 305 pages Addicts act less like people and more like animals. They misplace thoughts of selfpreservation with a need to find the next fix. The book, Never Give In To Fear follows Marti MacGibbon’s descent into her own personal hell, filled with loss, regret, and drug abuse. She moved to San Francisco in the early 1980s to pursue a stand-up comedy career. She even had a chance to be on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Unfortunately, Marti’s recreational drug use quickly became a full-scale addiction. In the book, Marti’s spiral downward takes us from the Russian River people, to her imprisonment in Japanese prostitution ring, and a meth-fueled drive to Nebraska. While the overall tone of the book is dark and seedy, Marti’s natural humor and storytelling help balance out the book into a symmetrical tale of both hurt and healing. I had to remind myself that Marti is going to survive each encounter in the book. That thought gave me an emotional safety net. Some of the places the book travels to are so fantastical and dangerous that it is a miracle that Marti survives. The narrative was the best part of the book. It felt like there were two narrators telling the story.
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There is the Marti of the story, the plucky young woman that had to live day-to-day getting high. There was also Marti, the writer, whose voice added much-needed levity and humor to the book’s overall tone. The book is successful as a motivating tool and touching story. In the end, her saving grace comes in an unlikely form, and it almost brought a tear to my eye. Never Give In To Fear is a book everyone needs to read. This is not only a story about the danger of drugs, but about the power of the human spirit. Sponsored Review The Killing Game: The Writings of an Intrepid Investigative Reporter By Gary Webb, Eric Webb, and Bob Parry Seven Stories Press, $19.95, 382 pages For 17 years, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Gary Webb lived the dream of all aspiring journalists as he garnered awards and accolades for his investigative journalism. All that changed when his controversial 1996 “Dark Alliance” series about CIA involvement in drug trafficking appeared in the San Jose Mercury News. For his efforts, Webb received a barrage of criticism from the national media. The Killing Game: Selected Writings by the Author of Dark Alliance features eleven articles (not including “Dark Alliance”) from 1980 to 2004 written by Webb. Two articles are quite lengthy and challenging to wade through, one of which is “The Coal Connection,” a 17-part series from 1980 showcasing Webb’s exhaustive research (with Thomas Scheffey) into a labyrinth of corruption affecting the Kentucky coal industry. In October 2004, just two months before his death in Sacramento, he wrote “The Killing Game,” a fascinating piece on a first-person shooter computer game designed by the U.S. military to identify potential recruits. Besides an array of stories exposing abuses of power, the collection also includes perspectives from fellow journalists on Webb and the “Dark Alliance” fallout. This book is bound to contain something of interest to a wide swath of readers. Reviewed by Diana Irvine The Long Journey Home: A Memoir By Margaret Robison Spiegel & Grau, $26.00, 277 pages Author Margaret Robison takes the reader through her own dysfunction. At points, the reader will be heartbroken for Robison, and at other times she will anger the reader with her decision-making processes. At other times, the book is just an amusing read
Biographies & Memoirs
— that is, if you find watching the Jerry Springer show amusing. Springer show aside, The Long Journey Home is a good read. The reader sees Robison through all of the difficult periods in her life, loves, and relationships with her parents and children. The book has a good flow to it. The characters are interesting, and as much as the reader won’t like Robison at times, there’s a kind of heartfelt emotion that comes through. Both of Robison’s sons have written memoirs about their lives (Augusten Burroughs with Running with Scissors and John Elder Robison in Look Me in the Eye), which she references in The Long Journey Home. It comes across in the book that she’s trying to defend her actions with regard to how she raised her kids. Reviewed by Marc Filippelli Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard By Liz Murray Hyperion, $14.99, 329 pages Although the title of the book sounds like it could be a sequel to the Twilight saga, it actually refers to staying outdoors all night, which is where Liz Murray lived for several of her teenage years because she was homeless. This straightforward, positive, non-self-pitying memoir traces Liz’s childhood as the daughter of two intravenous drug users who were always just a step away from imploding. Her story is compelling and filled with hope, despite her highly dysfunctional upbringing. Between her and her sister Lisa, Liz was the caretaker who put her mother to bed when she came home drunk from the bars, listened to her mom’s personal problems as a young girl, and scavenged and shoplifted food so the family could eat. Lisa, the older sister, was the angry one, who realized how crazy their lives were, and knew theirs wasn’t a “normal” family. Amazingly, in spite of everything, both sisters saw the value of education and graduated from college. What helped Liz stay sane was her savvy and intelligence. She also had a supportive group of friends, and
later teachers, who believed in her and came to her aid. That Liz graduated from Harvard is icing on the cake. The book is about determination, survival, and hope. Reviewed by Leslie Wolfson The Churchills By Mary Lovell Norton, $35.00, 624 pages In spite of the scandals and power wielded by the Churchill family, the author has managed to dull down this family’s incredible story. This book is recommended only for dyed in the wool anglophiles who have an insider’s knowledge of the peerage and knack for keeping them all organized. The Spencers, Churchills, Guests, Abercorns, Beaverbrooks, Marboroughs, et al, make for a dazzling array of names, titles and family connections guaranteed to thoroughly confuse the reader. What this book does do is inform the reader how truly avaricious, immoral, and incestuous the peerage is. It also depicts the estate holders during the Gilded Age as eagerly seeking American heiresses to subsidize their lavish lifestyles and noblisse oblige. The children in these entitled families fare poorly. They are kept away from their parents until a tea time appearance and ensconced in boarding schools as quickly as possible. The account of Winston Churchill’s boarding school torture is a compelling part of this story. The fact that he doted on his own children is a tribute to this remarkable man. This is a difficult book to stick with and generally not recommended. There are more readable and fascinating accounts of this remarkable extended family. Reviewed by Julia McMichael Ethan Allen: His Life And Times By Willard Sterne Randall Norton, $29.95, 618 pages Ethan Allen is a name that should bring to mind more than just a furniture store, yet many Americans would be hard pressed to identify the Revolutionary War hero in any other way. In this highly ambitious biography, author Willard Randall introduces readers to Ethan Allen and the times in which he lived. Ethan Allen grew up in Puritan New England, his formal education limited by the death of his father. After getting kicked out of several towns
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he moved to the frontier of what is now Vermont, and led settlers in their struggles against New York. In the years spanning the Revolutionary War and the birth of a new nation, Ethan Allen fought for local rights, and local leaders. He did not want land barons of New York to take over. When war broke out he helped take Fort Ticonderoga, but was later captured and spent several years as a British prisoner. This biography is massive, and there are times when the subject is lost as the author focuses on the time period in which he lived. Reviewed by Kevin Winter Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart By Candace Fleming Schwartz & Wade, $18.99, 118 pages Beautifully written and graphically distinctive, Candace Fleming’s Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart will appeal both to the middle school readers it’s written for, and to their teachers and parents. In alternating chapters that help build a suspenseful narrative, Fleming cuts between the drama of Amelia Earhart’s last flight and disappearance over the Pacific Ocean and the back-story of her childhood and young adulthood, building up to her career in aviation. As in Fleming’s award-winning children’s biography of P.T. Barnum, Fleming never talks down to her readers, addressing life matters (such as Earhart’s father’s alcoholism and the breakup of their family) directly and sensitively. Amelia Earhart’s desire for independence and the freedom to build a career of her own is a significant part of this story, making her a positive – if complex – role model. The design of the book is impeccable, providing educators with many built-in lesson plans. Photos, old report cards, newspaper clippings, and other archival materials give readers a nuanced sense of the life and times of Amelia Earhart, while informational sidebars suggest further avenues for student research. Highly recommended for all school and home libraries. Reviewed by Catherine Hollis Orpheus in Manhattan: William Schuman and the Shaping of America’s Musical Life By Steve Swayne Oxford University Press, $39.95, 692 pages Although not the most prolific composer of the 20th century, William Schuman may well be the most influential American musician of his era. He was a brilliant composer
Book Reviews
and an important educator as president of the Juilliard School of Music in New York. In addition, he was the first president of Lincoln Center at a time when this burgeoning American complex most needed astute leadership. The internationally-famous Juilliard String Quartet, now in its 65th year, was founded during his tenure at Juilliard, and his years at the Lincoln Center saw the foundations laid for the Film Society of Lincoln Center, among other adjunct entities. He was one of the advocates of joining together the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts with the School of Performing Arts to include dance and drama along with music and art. (This school was the impetus for FAME, among other shows of that ilk.) As a composer, in 1943, Mr. Schuman received the very first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded for Music, and his music is as vital and enjoyable now as when it was first written, even though that was perhaps only fifty years ago. He composed for piano, voice, orchestra and band: concertos, symphonies, ballets and operas. Many of his titles (and the music they accompany) display his sense of humor. For instance: ‘Mail Order Madrigals’, from 1972, is set to texts from the 1897 Sears Roebuck catalog. In 1987 he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. As a boy, his first love was baseball, and in 1953, as an adult, he wrote an opera ‘The Mighty Casey’ with libretto by Jeremy Gury, then later a cantata for narrator based on the famous poem ‘Casey at the Bat’ by Ernest L. Thayer. I’ve heard the Cantata version, and it’s a fascinating wonderful musical tribute to the American game of baseball. The Cantata did double-duty; the composer envisioned it as part of a tribute to the American Bicentennial Celebration of 1976. Three years later, (1979) upon the premiere of Schuman’s Tenth Symphony ,a critic for the NY Times wrote: It is determinedly, blissfully old-fashioned. Mr. Schuman writes his music in calm contradiction of nearly every avant-garde musical fashion of the last 40 years…his anachronistic qualities sound as if he simply hasn’t been ‘listening’ to the music of his time. This prompted a response from Joseph Machlis, an author and opera translator. “The idiot who passes for a critic on the Times was sure you wrote the way you did because you had not heard what’s being done these days. Did it never occur to him that you wrote the way you
Biographies & Memoirs
did precisely because you HAD heard what people are doing nowadays?” Actually, as it turns out, his music was almost squarely between what was and what is. But that wouldn’t be known until a decade or two later. This big book might give the appearance of being intimidating, but truly it isn’t. It’s very well-written, easily accessible to anyone, has many photos, and in addition to his family background, includes snippets from Schuman’s letters (and letters to him) plus other archival materials. Text encompasses the first 555 pages; Notes, 557-652; Bibliography, 653-662; Composition Index, 663-666 and the Topical Index 667-692. If you’d like to hear some of Schuman’s music, the author of this book has created a website that features a goodly selection of it. Enjoy! Reviewed by Kelly Ferjutz The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White By Daniel J. Sharfstein The Penguin Press, $27.95, 416 pages The title of Daniel Sharfstein’s provocative, erudite, and ultimately satisfying The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White pretty much says it all. The author unfurls his topic by examining three very different families that moved over the color line: the Gibsons, the Spencers, and the Walls. The Gibsons emerge from a wealthy, influential African American farmer in back country South Carolina. After relocating several times, the Gibsons end up in Louisiana as nothing less than Southern aristocracy: attending Yale, owning slaves, and holding high political positions both before and after Secession. The Spencers are Appalachian back-country farmers, who switch without even moving. Perhaps most tragic of all three case studies is that of the Walls, who fight in the Civil War and afterward become leaders in Washington’s African American community. Nonetheless, legal and social discrimination convinces members of the clan that they are better off slipping over the line, even if it means abandoning status in the black community for anonymity among the majority. The question of “passing” leads to an examination of the meaning of race. Both
historical and philosophical, Sharfstein’s consideration ends with the realization that these categories are nothing more than artificial constructions. Race was determined not by lineage, genetics, nor even physical features, but rather the perception of the community. The Gibsons were white because their status made them white. The Walls were white for much the same reason, though on the other end of the economic and social spectrum. A word of caution: Some readers may at first find Sharfstein’s decision to alternate chapters between his three subjects somewhat off-putting. In pretty short order the reason for this structure becomes apparent and only serves to reinforce the book’s central argument. Indeed, the parallels between these families are not only intellectually stimulating, but make you realize the brutal emotional toll wrought by the very concept of race. Reviewed by Jordan Magill THE DEAL, cont’d from page 47 find a new one. One by one, the family starts to lose everything of value. Their savings, their dreams, and finally their values, when the couple is offered the ultimate get out of jail free card. When Evia is asked to rent out her husband for the weekend, she can’t say no fast enough. But as the bills start to mount, and the fear on her children’s faces tears a hole out of her heart, Evia is forced to reconsider. While, The Deal, the Dance and the Devil starts off as an entertaining peek into a couple faced with an impossible and fantastical situation, the surprise ending will leave readers reeling long after they turn that last page. Reviewed by Lanine Bradley
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CURRENT EVENTS & POLITICS cont’d from page 49 agree at the present time that one is living in a new age of globalization. Readers desiring further information on globalization would do well to consult Rodrick’s Globalization Paradox (2011) and Stiglitz’s Free Fail (2011), both of which are simpler to understand. Reviewed by Claude Ury Liberty Defined By Ron Paul Grand Central Publishing, $21.99, 328 pages Representative Ron Paul has assembled this collection of essays while serving twelve terms in Congress and maintaining a medical practice. It would be astonishing for that alone. There is herein a clear-eyed evaluation of the market and the essentiality of human freedom for prosperity. All fifty essays are arguments for freedom. He challenges things any Libertarian would, like the draft, but his arguments are also from his stance as a religious person. Endorsing the golden rule, he claims it an essential precursor to free markets. Also, unlike most Libertarians who argue for a woman’s right to reproductive choice based on her essential ownership of her body, he apparently had traumatic exposure to abortions when he was a young doctor and believes abortion rights should kick back to state level. Dr. Paul is one of those who believes we should starve government to lessen its warmaking capacity. I mention that with some trepidation, having a good grasp on the fragility of our peaceful borders. This is a tremendously thoughtful writer. I urge everyone who votes read this book. Reviewed by David Sutton
A new Titanic book, "an intimate literary gem." -- Randy Bigham, Encyclopediatitanica.com "...the true tale of a fascinating man in a fascinating time." -- Debbie Applegate, Pulizer Prize recipient "...a moving bit of biography and history, very highly recommended reading." -- Midwest Book Reviews
Available on Amazon! ISBN 9780878502011
Book Reviews
readers will find only painstakingly researched facts. Reitman’s writing is clear and logically packaged. The resulting book is a fresh look at the polarizing topic of Scientology. Reviewed by Holly Scudero
Religion Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith By Robert E. Barron Image, $27.99, 279 pages Catholicism as a celebration of God comes alive in Father Robert Barron’s soaring work, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith. Culled from scripts he wrote for an ambitious ten-part documentary (Catholicism), part of which is airing on some PBS stations, Father Barron takes the reader on a guided tour of Catholicism at its best. His book is comprehensive but not exhausting. Flowing narrative, art appreciation, architectural
An Introduction to The End of the World As You Knew It ISBN 9781452038728 Available at: Book Stores, Amazon and Barnes & Noble
analysis, sacred scripture, great saints, and much more keep the reader engaged. Father Barron describes the first time he beheld the north rose window — a masterpiece in glass — at Notre Dame de Paris. A weary, disoriented doctoral student, just arrived in Paris, he stood mesmerized for twenty minutes gazing at beauty. Critics might disparage his rosy depiction of Catholicism. True, he doesn’t dwell on negatives. He also doesn’t shy away from controversial church teaching, nor, when describing holiness, does he deny unholy acts of Catholics past and present. This book is an outstanding illumination of the Catholic faith with depth and breadth to appeal to a wide audience. Reviewed by Diana Irvine Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion By Janet Reitman Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28.00, 464 pages Anybody who knows anything about Scientology is bound to have an opinion about it. To some, it’s a religion dedicated to selfbetterment, and the golden path to recognizing one’s true potential. To others, it’s a wacky pseudo-scientific brainwashing cult created by a hack science-fiction writer looking to get rich. The truth, explains journalist Janet Reitman, is that Scientology is different things to different people. In her extensive new work, Inside Scientology, Reitman explores different aspects of the controversial practice, delving into the lives of both its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and its current leader, David Miscavige. She details its evolution from the self-help program Dianetics to a government-recognized and tax-exempt religion, and its reputation as a mecca for big-name celebrities, offering numerous personal interviews with former and current Scientologists, both disillusioned and devout. One of the best things about this book is how everything is presented completely dispassionately and without bias. The interviews provide a surprisingly balanced insider’s view, and important events are chronicled with intense precision. Here
The Man Who Sent the MAGI: A Religious Rosetta Stone By Douglas Roper Krotz Intermedia Publishing Group, $19.95, 274 pages Christianity has a number of interesting origins. The Man Who Sent The Magi looks at the truly Old Time Religion: the Zoroastrianism religion. Krotz explores the history of Zoroastrianism, from its origins in Zarathustra’s reform of its own religion to its spread throughout the ancient world, including a look at Zoroastrian scripture. He then compares it to Judaism and thence Christianity, and how it may have influenced by the older religion. It’s a fascinating look at why the visit of The Magi to the infant Jesus represents a passing of the torch from one religion to the next. The Man Who Sent The Magi compares Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity, looking for their similarities more than their contrasts. Through this exploration of their common origin, insight is given into the past, and why Christianity was more a reform of Judaism, an attempt to return it to its Mosaic beginnings in order to make it more universal. This book is something those interested in the past should explore, especially if they are interested in gaining a different sense of God. There are a few problems with the book. The editorial comments within the scriptural text make it harder to read, especially as there is no visual separation between scriptural text and the normal text of the book. Also, it tends to drag in spots due to the sheer amount of scriptural text; although the text is needed, there is the problem that it can slow reading down for a reader who is studying the text. Otherwise, once past that, the book attempts to show that Christianity owes a debt to Zoroastrianism and encourages its exploration as a way of understanding Christianity better. It is a fascinating exploration of the past of Christianity, as told through the lens of what came before it. Sponsored Review Closer Walk With Jesus By Victor ‘Yinka Vidal Lara Publications, $23.95, 472 pages A Closer Walk with Jesus: Conversations with Jesus in the Oracle of God is an invitation to accompany the author as he revisits his lifelong spiritual journey. The introduction contains a helpful summary noting that this is the first of several volumes and explaining how the book came to be. The
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book is an interesting hybrid that at times reads like a suspense novel and at other times as a study guide. I found myself either frantically turning the pages to discover what happens next, or thinking I should be taking notes in order to fully digest what I was reading. Although he is an educated man, ‘Yinka Vidal labors mightily to describe his conversations with God as delivered by Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God himself. It is obvious that what he has experienced is profound, and beyond normal human experience. Mr. Vidal’s story is very personal. He does not shy away from describing his internal struggles to surrender to the power of God. He recounts his reluctance to discuss his visions for fear of being viewed as crazy, as well as his excitement and joy at being chosen for God’s mission. The chapters are grouped into sections which focus on specific lessons or themes that Mr. Vidal is trying to convey. One recurring theme is that negative emotions harden a person’s heart so that he/she cannot hear the voice of God and instead hears the voice of Satan. Mr. Vidal provides specific examples of how this occurs and tips for neutralizing satanic forces. Along with its content, I often judge a book by how it makes me feel. The content of A Closer Walk with Jesus is complex and there are many lessons contained within its pages. However, what sticks with me most is the sense of joy and hope I felt after reading it. Available at Anchor Book Distributors. Sponsored Review My Little Book of Zoroastrian Prayers With Fun Activities By Rebecca Cann with illustration by Nassim Azadi Asha Publications, $14.95, 73 pages Rebecca Cann’s book, with illustrations by Nassim Azadi, is written for Zoroastrian children. Zoroastrianism is an ancient religion founded by the Persian prophet Zoroaster. Belief in a supreme deity and a cosmic contest between good and evil are at the center of Zoroastrianism. The first part of the book is a prayer book, and includes shortened and simplified versions of more than forty prayers from the Avesta, the religion’s sacred book. The rest is part catechism and part activity book. Many of the activities involve reading songs and prayers that are not included in the first part of the book. Zoroastrian prayers were never meant to be easily unSee ZOROASTRIAN, page 67
Book Reviews
Spirituality Sports & Inspiration & Outdoors The Life Cycle of the Human Soul – Incarnation – Conception – Birth – Death – Hereafter – Reincarnation By Ralph Metzner Regent Press, $25.00, 134 pages In this book, Dr. Ralph Metzner, a leading scholar in studies of consciousness and transformation discusses the experience of birth and of prenatal life, the soul’s choosing human incarnation and its connection to family ancestors. One also is given an analysis of the experience of death of the physical body and the soul’s life before choosing rebirth.. The book draws on observations from meditation, psychedelic experiences and hypnotherapy. One is shown breathing practices along with findings from spiritual workshops. Chapter 1 looks at how the experience of traumatic birth can affect the structure of the psyche. Chapter 2 shows how dreams and visions in adults and children relate messages from one’s souls to the family. Chapter 3 looks at the experience of dying and being born and also provides an analysis of Tibetan Buddhism teachings on dying. Chapter 4 deals with the near death experiences between the living and the dead. In Chapter 5 one is taken on a journey from Tibetan teachings and guiding spirits. An invaluable bibliography is provided in this outstanding book which will be of interest to all readers. Reviewed by Claude Ury
Meditation: An In-Depth Guide By Ian Gawler, Paul Bedson Tarcher, $16.95, 398 pages Life is all hustle and bustle. It’s downright exhausting. It seems we never have time to be kind to ourselves. Maybe to some, meditation is a bunch of chanting and humming, and looks like a silly waste of time. Meditation - An In Depth Guide by authors Ian Gawler and Paul Bedson is a well written “manual” to debunk those attitudes. Meditation can be healing and transformative. Wouldn’t we all appreciate feeling better? Aren’t there things we feel helpless to change about ourselves and about our lives? Meditation could be the stepping stone. Gawler and Bedson’s guide explains various meditation practices and how these can help people with health issues, stress, chronic illnesses and pain. The guide explains the ways in which meditation can connect us to ourselves, to our “spirits”, and to enable us to live more authentically. Authenticity seems to be one of those “New Age” catchphrases these days, but we are all seeking the ability to be our real and truest selves and not the self society presses upon us to be.|Take some time to get in touch with your true self. Listen. Learn. It might make all the difference in the world. Reviewed by Laura Friedkin
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The Elite Forces Wilderness Survival Guide By Chris McNab Thomas Dunne Books, $19.99, 320 pages McNab has an impressive list of publications to his credit. The inside cover on this one says that it is “the definitive pocket guide for anyone stranded in the wilderness — it could save your life.” I will concede The Elite Forces Wilderness Survival Guide contains some good information. It is not a pocket guide. It weighs a whopping fifteen ounces. It would be a fine early planning aid, particularly for someone with no prior training. Much of the coverage is so broad as to be useless without practice and area-specific research. It is essentially a dolled-up scouting manual. Having said that, the navigation and movement segment is a good framework for self-training. So is the segment on first aid. Everyone should memorize the universal edibility test and know where it is inapplicable. The illustrations of everything from making traps to water filters to snowshoes to an improvised compass are clear. This would be fine in a glove compartment or in a plane. There is no treatment of cordage or twine at all, a serious lack. I found one horribly dangerous mistake. On bear attacks, if you first drop and play dead and the attacker is a black bear, you will probably be savaged or killed. They have to be driven off. Death feigning is first response to a grizzly attack. Polar bears don’t care if you are dead, they’re after meat and must be fought. Reviewed by David Lloyd Sutton The Golf Delusion: Why 9 Out of 10 Golfers Make the Same Mistakes By Steve Gould and D.J. Wilkinson Elliott & Thompson, $24.95, 256 pages This is an exercise fraught with peril. I’m not referring to playing golf; the perils there go without saying. No, it’s reviewing a golf instructional book that gives me the yips. One misquote, a turn of the hands to the left rather than the
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right and Titleists will be flying through clubhouse windows around the world. The insurance industry will hate me. So let’s just look at The Golf Delusion as a book. First of all, it is absolutely gorgeous to hold and to read. The typefaces are clean, the sidebars well organized, and the photos large and colorfully eloquent. Authors Gould and Wilkinson are instructors at the Knightsbridge Golf School in London. The school is in a basement, which certainly must save them money on lost balls. Despite the non-verdant setting, the Knightsbridge School has tuned the games of many a top professional, including U.S. Open winner Julie Inkster, who flies from San Francisco to the UK for regular swing checkups. So what exactly is the delusion referred to in the title? Well, sorry to break it to you, but there is no tip that is magically going to improve your game. No tip, no swing aid, no odd device advertised on The Golf Channel. You’re a sucker if you think otherwise. This is going to take some work. There are many, many instructional books warping the shelves of all golfers. I’ve read at least a dozen myself. The one I’ve always held up as the benchmark for the others to attain is Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons. You might argue with Hogan’s flat swing, but for clarity and sheer beauty it has never been surpassed. The Golf Delusion also acknowledges Hogan and with its attributes I can fairly say that this is a book that can help you. As a gift, it will definitely be appreciated. Reviewed by Hubert O’Hearn
Book Reviews
Science & Nature The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must By Robert Zubrin Free Press, $16.99, 383 pages Mars has been on everybody’s mind lately. Can we afford to go? Can we afford not to go? Here is the book we’ve been desperately waiting for. It builds on the book Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. Robert Zubrin’s The Case for Mars is based on his original book by the same title, which was published 15 years earlier. It was endorsed by a distinguished collection of astronauts, scientists, and writers, including Buzz Aldrin, the late Arthur C. Clark and the late Carl Sagon. In the 1990 movie, Total Recall, based on a sci-fi by Philip K. Dick, the author depicts a corrupt society built on Mars. Just like The Case for Pluto by Alan Boyle, author Zubrin paints a glossy picture of the red rock with all the justification of a mission in The Case for Mars. Zubrin believes there is yet room for a Mars exploration, replete with building a base on Mars, the colonization of Mars and terraforming of Mars. He then begins to speculate on his vision of the significance of the Martian frontier. I think Mars’ time has come and Zubrin has put it right in a brilliant, intense read. Reviewed by D. Wayne Dworsky The Best American Science Writing 2011 By Rebecca Skloot, Floyd Skloot, and Jesse Cohen, editors Ecco, $14.99, 327 pages Science can seem like a vast and intractable subject, even to those for whom comprehension comes easy. Which is why I’m eternally grateful to the The Best American Science Writing series for compiling each year’s most engaging and informative articles in one, easyto-read volume. Here you get everything from human-interest stories about LSD use in Hollywood and mothers battling misinformation about disease to wide-scope examinations of environmental and social crises, such as the BP spill, and the debate over global warming. The Best American Science Writing 2011 is the perfect gateway to the wider world of modern science in all its variety and won-
der. The writing is engaging and perfectly suited to readers of any interest level, and with stories spanning the spectrum from the lighthearted (science predicts the longest home run that will ever be hit) to the heartstring-tugging (the increased study of the connection between animal cruelty and other acts of violence), there’s something for everyone here. The world around us is infinitely diverse, and the pursuit of scientific understanding has so much to teach us. The Best American Science Writing 2011 provides a brilliantly brief glimpse into that fascinating world. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Certainly More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast By Milton Love Really Big Press, $29.95, 672 pages Certainly Mote than You Want to Know about the Fishes of The Pacific Coast is a study in seeming contradictions. Although it is a catalog of many of the fish of the Pacific and their traits, it is not a cure for insomnia. Love’s descriptions of the fish, their life cycles, and their habitats are entertaining to say the least. He is not your run of the mill zoological scribe. He quotes both Shakespeare and Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). How many journalists can do that and make it make sense? You may be surprised to note that it is a paperback, but it is certainly a “coffee table book.” The photos are clear and sharp and display the fish accurately. The diagrams are well done and sprinkled liberally with humor. On the other hand, the prose is so well done that one might be tempted to read it cover to cover. This tome would be a welcome addition to any fish lover’s library Reviewed by Michael Huff The New Players in Life Sciences Innovation: Best Practices in R&D from Around the World By Tomasz Mroczkowski FT Press, $59.99, 340 pages Innovation—it is the bedrock of our economy. According to economists, we are moving away from a manufacturing
economy to an innovation economy. With this as the future, the stakes could not be higher. It is important to keep pace with the rest of world by encouraging students to become interested in math and science, so the United States can keep its top position in the new world. In this book, the author explores the economies that are starting to grow in life science innovation those countries include, China, India, and South Korea. Those countries are starting to build new bioparks and invest more and more into R&D.The author explores ways that big pharmaceutical companies have been changing the way they invest in R&D. But all is not lost for the west, we can still be the leader in the future, if we continue to invest in the infrastructure, R&D, and basic science research. This book does have a flaw, however. It focuses too much on the positives of the other countries and not how the west can retain its leadership in this field. Reviewed by Kevin Winter The Atlas of Birds: Diversity, Behavior, and Conservation By Mike Unwin Princeton University Press, $22.95, 144 pages This may be the ultimate educational coffee table book. Or, it could be a gift to a youngster, providing a nice overview of the world of birds. You can pick it up, turn anywhere, and find something new and well presented. Photographic illustrations are striking, and the divisions are helpful: evolution, birds by order, distribution, migrations, characteristics, and threats to birds along with movements and organizations to help them. I am listing only a sketchy overview. Any page or two is worth reading and retaining. The book itself, as a whole, would take a long evening. For experienced birders ... probably not, but for anyone new to birding or for young folks, this is a fine acquisition, and would be a long-treasured Christmas or birthday gift. Had I had it fifty years ago, I would have been not only delighted, but privileged. The Atlas of Birds is going on my bird shelf against the time when my grandchildren are reading proficiently. I’ll delight in going through it with them! Reviewed by David Sutton Cosmic Numbers By James Stein Basic Books, $25.99, 228 pages Cosmic Numbers by James D. Stein attempts to tell a fascinating history of science by documenting how certain scientific constants and numbers were derived by math-
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ematical means. Some of the figures include Absolute Zero, The Planck Constant, and The Chandrasekhar Limit. There is great fun here for the mathematician who may be better adept at following all the formulas and figures. But even if one is not up to this challenge, there are plenty of fascinating stories in the history of science to keep one’s interest. The story starts in the time of Newton and proceeds from the discovery of the Gravitational Constant to the cosmic values of Omega. Stein is a lively teller of this exacting tale of scientific discovery. One will appreciate the ingenious ways some of these numbers and variables were determined or figured into equations. For those interested in the math, either close attention or an adequate background is required. The book, however, is entertaining enough for those who are interested in the big discoveries out there. One will leave the work either humbled or inspired by the discipline that was necessary to answer these questions. Reviewed by Ryder Miller The Intuitive Compass: Why the Best Decisions Balance Reason and Instinct By Francis P. Cholle Jossey-Bass, $27.95, 242 pages In The Intuitive Compass, Francis Cholle wants his readers to understand that the source of creativity and sustainability are the same. Cholle is an international business consultant who was developing a training seminar on managing creative teams and this lead him to the idea of balancing reason and instinct. The Intuitive Compass sets forth a new way of thinking, an intuitive intelligence, which embraces four tenets: think holistically, think paradoxically, notice the unusual, and lead by influence. Intuitive intelligence, Cholle argues, is a new way of doing business and a way to make better use of our creative processes and our non-conscious thought. The Intuitive Compass uses illustrations, quizzes, and academic research and explains how the mind processes decisions. Giving a strong visual cue, Cholle uses a compass illustration that recurs and is applied to scenarios throughout the book, illustrating the four quadrants: reason, results, instincts, and play. Cholle builds upon what we know to explain why instinct and reason need balance. Throughout the book, Cholle provides real-world business examples of his approach. Cholle’s approach
Book Reviews
Science & Nature
seems applicable to businesses and individuals who are willing to engage in Cholle’s suggestions for embracing a non-linear approach to success. Reviewed by Elizabeth Humphrey On the Origin of Tepees: The Evolution of Ideas (and Ourselves) By Jonnie Hughes Free Press, $25.00, 288 pages Ideas really do have a life of their own. On the Origins of Teepees explores the idea of the noosphere, a sphere where ideas have their own life and live and evolve, just as live animals and plants. Each idea has its own evolution, with idea that those that survived have been able to adapt. Among other examples, the book focuses on teepees and how they have changed for each tribe that used them. Hughes is able to chart their evolution based on a few basic differences in teepee design, showing how the idea of a perfect teepee has changed over a few centuries. Hughes is able to create an interest in the idea itself, as well as bring some interesting perspectives on it. An example of this is his discussion of cowboy hats, which makes for an interesting case that the Stetson could either have invented the hat or that the hat was a culmination of different ideas that Stetson put together. The basic concept that ideas have their own life is definitely fascinating, especially in an era where pop culture references abound. The concept of the noosphere is an interesting one and is likely to make for some interesting discussion. Reviewed by Jamais Jochim
Following the Last Wild Wolves By Ian McAllister, Paul C. Paquet, Chris Darimont Greystone Books, $17.95, 184 pages Wolves are some of nature’s most misunderstood animals, and thanks to myths, tales, and urban legends, they’ve been hunted to near extinction and vilified undeservedly. Author Ian McAllister has spent years following two distinctively different bands of wild gray wolves in British Columbia, Canada. His book Following The Last Wild Wolves chronicles those years of study. Written like a field guide, McAllister’s text reads in first person, taking the reader along into the deep woods, minus the wet socks, mosquito bites, and fear of grizzly bear attacks. This is wild country. Rainforests, uninhabited islands, and coastal mountain ranges make up western British Columbia, hours from the metropolis of Vancouver. As the reader trods off into the wilds with McAllister, we come to know the Fish Trap Pack and the Surf Pack and their pack members. We learn that these wolves have tight family relationships, and that they have adapted well to their rugged environs and they eat salmon, moose, and other animals, but even more surprisingly, they can take down and feed on grizzly bears as well. As a nature lover and a supporter of reintroducing wolves back into the national parks of the U.S., I hope the wolves of British Columbia continue to thrive and flourish. Perhaps some of their descendants will make the journey south into Washington, that I may one day enjoy the thrill of hearing their call from the forest near my home. Reviewed by Laura Friedkin
The Theory of Planetary Clusters Uncluttered Available at:
bookstores, Amazon, Barnes & Noble iTunes Books ISBN 9780982795736
Evolution: A View from the 21st Century By James Alan Shapiro FT Press, $34.99, 253 pages Although we see myriad new books on evolution, finally, one has a twist worth exploring. In his attempt to modernize the concept, the author has introduced new fields to explore within the standard evolutionary context. These include symbiogenesis and epigenetics, new attempts at explaining natural selection. James Alan Shapiro is eager to explain evolution not only in terms of the classical geneticists, but also in terms of gene splicing, evolution of the cell and the complexity of misfits. He does this in a richly toned literary style that reaches out to fundamental concepts that support some of the greatest ideas in biochemistry. The book is intensely scientific and should be read with a lot of time. But the author is true to his task by deriving his ideas from substantial scientific knowledge. For those not so scientifically inclined, the author has included a comprehensive, 25page glossary, 64 pages of references that cover 1,162 citations, as well as a generous 13-page index for cross referencing. The reader may want to reread many of the passages, particularly those pertaining to highly technical biological structures quite necessary to a fuller understanding of the author’s main premise. In all, the book is 253 pages of powerful information and remains a must read for serious readers of science non-fiction. Reviewed by D. Wayne Dworsky The Secret Lives of Backyard Bugs: Discover Amazing Butterflies, Moths, Spiders, Dragonflies, and Other Insects! By Judy Burris, Wayne Richards Storey Publishing, $14.95, 144 pages Here is a book for intrepid youngsters exploring the garden who are fascinated by all the creepy, crawly, flying, digging, stinging creatures that share the yard with them. Judy Burris and Wayne Richards are brother and sister author/photographers who have put together this visual handbook to aid the neophyte to identify and to become familiar with the natural denizens that dwell in our yards. Beginning with an overall introduction to cycles of seasons, plant, soil, insects and spiders; the book then dives into details about beetles, dragonflies, wasps, ants, stink bugs, various butterflies and
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different moths with many more described insect types. Characteristics, descriptions, behavior and survival strategies of these arthropods are clearly described and the reading will whet the curiosity of bug fanciers. Outstandingly vivid photographs of the backyard bugs artfully embellish the text. These recordings will encourage readers to use the digital camera as the instrument to acquire insect collections. Did you know that the adored ladybug is also known as the lady beetle, or ladybird, or ladyclock, or ladyfly, or even (a new one for me) ladycow? For all aspiring entomologists, or even just plain nature lovers, this book should be part of your library. Reviewed by Aron Row Earth: The Operator’s Manual By Richard B. Alley W. W. Norton & Company, $27.95, 479 pages Although there are currently 20 books in print that bear the title, Earth, Richard B. Alley tries to make a fresh point in his new book earth. To the many publications out there on the subject, Alley contributes nothing especially new. However, his widespread knowledge and close connection to the documentaries on PBS make his book a must read. The book’s comprehensive scope provides broad appeal for anyone — pro or con — on climate change. The book doesn’t scold mankind for having languished in the midst of the petroleum era, but offers ways in which we can see the error of our ways and provide hope in stabilizing destructive elements. The reader is compensated for his quest to devour the conceptual language within the volume. While the text drifts in and out of anecdotal episodes to discuss and break down the complex information that Alley puts forward, he does so in a realistic way, bringing the entire environment into the picture so that the reader can readily observe cause and effect and judge the state of affairs for him or herself. I particularly loved, Put It Where the Sun Doesn’t Shine. It’s good fall reading and keeps you up to date on cable TV’s most popular arena. Reviewed by D. Wayne Dworsky Future Science: Essays from the Cutting Edge By Max Brockman Vintage, $15.95, 272 pages If you’ve ever wondered how the forces of attractiveness influence us, whether social rejection can affect us physically, or marveled at our ability to read others’ moral minds, this new collection, compiled by
Book Reviews
Max Brockman, offers a serious but accessible look at the endeavors of today’s young scientists. In the introduction, Brockman makes his intention clear: These featured essays are written by the rising stars of their designated fields, those excited about their work and those forming the forefront as future communicators of science. Some first-rate essays include astrobiologist Kevin Hand’s lucid account of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, and the insight its ocean offers us about life beyond Earth. Professor Felix Warneken helps illuminate whether the factors responsible for altruism in children are the sole outcome of their adherence to cultural norms. Naomi Eisenberger’s fascinating essay, “Why Rejection Hurts” shows us why the pain we experience over social rejection cannot simply be regarded as a figure of speech; when we say our hearts are broken, we express psychological anguish through words that represent physical pain. Brockman’s selections assemble into a compelling survey for readers interesting in the natural, yet more puzzling qualities of the scientific discipline. Reviewed by Wendy Iraheta Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives By Thomas French Hyperion, $14.99, 304 pages Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Thomas French does not let the reader down. He takes you on a mental safari, detailing the twists and turns of his quest from the African Savannah and forests of Panama to Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo. Along the way, you get to know the animals and those who care for them. You also get to know about the arguments for, and opposed to, animal captivity. For some it’s a sanctuary—for others, a prison. No matter how you regard those who take sides, no doubt Thomas French has clarified the air and got to the heart of the dilemma with insight and compassion. He talks about the animal world with the curiosity of a child, the regard of a scientist and the narration of a writer. The book is packed with anecdotes that lead you one-way and
Science & Nature
then another. He builds a sustainable argument in favor of zoos, yet he respects the freedom wild animals need. It is a thoughtful look at how we regard the natural world. Reviewed by D. Wayne Dworsky Clean Energy Nation: Freeing America from the Tyranny of Fossil Fuels By Congressman Jerry McNerney Ph.D. and Martin Cheek AMACOM, $27.95, 308 pages Clean Energy Nation is an indepth exploration of a potential optimistic energy future. Co-writers U.S. Congressmen Jerry McNerney and journalist Martin Cheek argue that we need to adopt alternative energy for a myriad of reasons, including public health, national defense, economic security, environmental security, and energy freedom. The authors do strive to present a balanced argument, which might draw the ire of those who believe that politics is standing in the way of the necessary changes. New technology has been developed which will see to it that we are not at the mercy of natural processes or foreign oil providers as we were in the past. This inspiring book presents the issues in historical context, starting chapters with important historical figures. The tales are told in a California-centric manner, which will help educate readers in the Golden State about efforts locals have made to solve these problems. One will also find here a scientific approach to many of the inter-related subjects. Here presented is a dream, but one cognizant of our potential shortfalls. It is easy to imagine that these aspirations for “energy freedom” are too good to be true. Some might not agree. Reviewed by Ryder Miller The Book of Universes By John Barrow Norton, $26.95, 354 pages Time is an unstoppable arrow (at least, in three dimensions), charting the progress of human knowledge across the centuries. Our thinking has come a long way from the days when we looked up at the sky and knew we were the center of creation. It took a wealth of brilliant minds, abstract thinkers, and dedicated theorizing to bring us here, and The Book of Universes chronicles that journey from our earliest days to the present. Barrow has crafted a beautifully concise
yet detailed history of our discovery of the solar system’s mechanics, and how those revelations have evolved into a quest to understand and formulate a model of the universe as a whole. For a book that covers as expansive and complex a topic as the universe, it’s wonderfully designed to include new readers and enthusiasts alike. The language is simple without being condescending, and Barrow eases in the reader across chapters, building up the necessary scientific familiarity to tackle the more complicated concepts to come, all the way from Aristotle and Copernicus to M-Theory and the multiverse. More science texts should be as informative and welcoming as The Book of Universes. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival By David Kaiser Norton, $26.95, 372 pages How The Hippies Saved Physics by MIT physicist and science historian David Kaiser is a historical tale of a group of underemployed scientific rebels who changed the way physicists saw the theory of relativity and the universe. The Fundamental Fysiks Group, which met in Berkeley from 1975 to 1979, could not find work in the area of their studies due to budget cutbacks, but through perseverance they managed to move certain areas of physics beyond its academic inertia. All told this is a fascinating history not only of science but also the counter culture and New Age Movement. The fruits of their discussions made physics more tenable for changing, mainstream audiences. The book is not all fun and games and some may not appreciate the attempts at humor. Some of the conclusions may be bothersome, and the sometimes difficult subjects may be hard to follow with only one read. The book, however, is inspiring even if it seems to veer off course when it follows the career problems of the once assembled. It is a great book that understands the counter currents in society and the potential role of the outsider in physics, a field which seeks to stay abreast of modern culture. Reviewed by Ryder Miller
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The Mathematics of Life By Ian Stewart Basic Books, $26.00, 358 pages The Mathematics of Life is written in easy-to-understand language. Many people are familiar with the role math plays in the physical sciences, particularly chemistry and physics. Ian Stewart explores the role and relationship of math in the life sciences. Recent discoveries are discussed, how they inter-relate and how mathematicians and scientists are working together in an attempt to answer many questions facing humanity. Using mathematical models, Stewart describes how some of our biological processes work. The application of math to the life sciences has developed into a branch known as biomathematics. Stewart succeeds in giving the reader an overview in simplistic terms. Any reader can easily relate and comprehend Stewarts’ terminology. From a simple cell to a more developed organism, Stewart discusses the application of math models and processes to convey the interactions that both share.The Mathematics of Life commences with the basic molecule and culminates with the ongoing search for the answers to the origin of life itself. It was interesting to have the opportunity to see both of these fields, math and science, discussed in terms I can understand. Stewart, a professor of mathematics, shows his passion for the field of his specialty, as well as his love for science and the world, which we continue to explore, as he brings the reader closer to the knowledge of ever-changing and always advancing fields of math and science. Reviewed by Jennifer Ochs Crazy: Notes On and Off the Couch By Rob Dobrenskiv Lyons Press, $24.95, 224 pages We each have our foibles. It is only when such flaws become unmanageable that one may be labeled as crazy rather than eccentric. Rob Dobrenski is a practicing psychologist who recalls his graduate school interactions with colleagues and patients. During this early phase of his career, he admits his doubts and confusion due to hvmis inexperience. As he works with clients afflicted with depression, grief, anxiety, psychosis, schizophrenia, psychopathy, sexual deviance, and several other conditions described in the diagnostic manual of mental disorders, his confidence slowly increases. While clients can be labeled with these mental disorders, it surprises him that SCIENCE & NATURE cont’d on page 67
Book Reviews
Self-Help Nine Insights For A Happy and Successful Life By Mitchell Earl Gibson MD CreateSpace, $14.95, 185 pages Self-help books don’t always need to be thick. Nine Insights looks at nine ways to make one’s life more successful and happy. Each of the insights is discussed, with most of the narrative given to examples of each one. Cartoons are also included, although they are mostly for a humorous break rather than as part of the lesson. Gibson draws from his wide experience in psychiatry to effect, showing how his insights have helped his clients — and by extension anyone who applies those insights to their lives. It is a great book for those looking for simple advice on how to live a more fulfilling life. Strangely enough, it feels like there should have been a little bit more. Although the examples are great, drawing both from the ranks of celebrities living and dead, as well as from his actual clients, there should have been more of a discussion of what the basis of the problem that the insight solves. A number of the chapters feel as if they were shorter than they needed to be; he gets going on a tear and then he stops abruptly. It is a good solid read, but could have been more so if there just would have been a little more context. The cartoons, although definitely funny, come off as space-fillers; they are rarely relevant to the section being discussed. Even allowing for that, however, this is a great book for someone who wants a quick read that will inspire a less hectic life. Too many inspiring books tend towards loquaciousness, and it can get tiring having to slog through too many words to get to the point. It could have used a few more pages, but this is a nice short read. Sponsored Review The Power of Wow: A Guide to Unleashing the Confident, Sexy You By Lori Bryant-Woolridge Viva Editions, $15.95, 260 pages We’ve all seen that girl. The one who walks with an air of confidence. Someone who breathes sensuality and charisma. And in our own way, we each somehow aspire to be like her. We wish we were con-
fident, sexy, and sure of ourselves. Author Lori Bryant-Woolridge is one of those girls. And her book The Power of Wow: A Guide to Unleashing the Confident Sexy You will give readers tips and exercises to gain that confidence, to come closer to being that girl, or at least, that’s her promise to readers. Laid out as a course at “Stiletto University,” readers work through sections focusing on sensuality, charm and flirting, seduction and power. There’s even a final exam and “graduation.” If it were only so easy! Reading through this book, maybe I missed the whole point. Maybe it is meant to be self indulgent. For me, the exercises were fluff. I don’t believe one can acquire some of these traits by reading and working through exercises in a book. A lot of it is how much we choose to let society influence us and the way we feel about ourselves, our bodies, our personalities. Good luck readers, if you believe this book will help you. My advice is to be the best YOU you can be, without the influence of society and peers. You might find you’re better than THAT girl, in so many ways. Reviewed by Laura Friedkin Making Sense of People: Decoding the Mysteries of Personality By Samuel Barondes FT Press, $25.99, 215 pages After reading about the bizarre acts that individuals commit, it would be nice to be able to make sense of people and actually gauge their personalities. As a psychiatrist studying human behavior, the author describes the five personality traits currently used to evaluate human behavior and subsequently to classify the type personality to which individuals conform. Much space is spent reviewing what is termed the Big Five: Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness, and Extraversion (CANOE). In detailing how the traits are used, anecdotes of noted personalities are featured to illustrate the analysis. Bill Clinton, Marilyn Monroe, and O. J. Simpson are just a few of the examples. Each of us is genetically endowed with a specific personality, and the studies investigating the influence of “na-
ture vs. nurture” are reviewed. While the environment can at times affect personality, it is not always a definitive factor. For the casual reader, inexperienced in psychiatric analysis, it may be useful to rely on intuition while relating to those around us. While it is interesting to gain an insight into the studies of how personalities are categorized, it still appears to be a fuzzy science for the layperson. Reviewed by Aron Row 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done By Peter Bregman Business Plus, $24.99, 253 pages By organizing his book into four parts, Peter Bregman helps readers systematically reclaim their lives and focus on what they want to achieve. Basing this book on his Harvard Business Review columns, Bregman offers help for the overwhelmed by presenting a realistic plan to change focus. Pause. What is this year about? What is this day about? What is this moment about? Told in a story format with specific examples to bring home the message, each section ends with a blocked main idea to reinforce the message before a reader continues. This serves the dual purpose of being a quick future reference when readers implement Bregman’s plan in their lives. “Now what?” the conclusion asks. Bregman suggests readers choose the one tip in the book that would make the most difference in their lives and do that. He advises that by doing this one thing consistently, the rest will naturally follow, as more and more of these ideas move life in a more purposeful direction. 18 Minutes is a workable, easy-to-understand, plan worth exploring. Reviewed by Angie Mangino Life Is Yours to Win: Lessons Forged from the Purpose, Passion, and Magic of Baseball By Augie Garrido, Kevin Costner Touchstone, $23.00, 255 pages Rather than simply looking at statistics, Garrido sees baseball with a Zen-like approach. Baseball is not a nine-inning game, he writes—baseball is nine one-inning games. What matters is paying attention to detail, not looking ahead. Every pitch and every at bat is important. The purpose is to either score runs, or stop the other team from scor-
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ing runs. Quality at bats and productive outs are also important. He’s a passionate devotee of “small ball.” Sometimes this is a difficult message to get across to egotistic major league prospects.|After forty-three seasons, Garrido is the winningest coach in NCAA history. Currently at the University of Texas, Garrido has coached many future major leaguers, including J.P. Howell, Huston Street, Mark Kotsay, Drew Stubbs, Phil Nevin, and Tim Wallach.}In this surprising new-age book, Garrido comes off as a wise ancient guru evoking eastern mysticism and the spirituality of baseball: unconventional tactics, flow, shared experience, not doing things half-ass, mindfulness, teamwork, setting goals—and just having fun playing baseball. Playing baseball at a higher level is a privilege and blessing, he often writes. Kevin Costner—a friend says— “Augie is always in the moment.” Reviewed by Phil Semler Stop Saying You’re Fine: Discover a More Powerful You By Mel Robbins Crown, $24.00, 259 pages In most people’s lives, we reach a place where we feel “stuck” in our lives. There’s a sense of disappointment, as if “this is all there is” to life and our purpose for being here. I can relate to this book because I’m one of those people. Author, Mel Robbins has written Stop Saying You’re Fine - Discover A More Powerful You with the intention of leading us out of our ruts and giving us the motivation and insight to see more about our lives and to work towards our dreams. What’s tough to accept is acknowledging that the problem lies within us. Change is difficult for most people. This book is a workbook, loaded with questions to ask yourself, and places to write your responses. The exercises are designed to move you to make changes. I can’t say that I’ve completely gotten out of my own rut. After all, the ruts we build for ourselves occur over time, and it takes time to climb out of them. But I can definitely see that Robbins’ approach is encouraging. This book requires time and focus and the desire to work towards change. What are you waiting for? Reviewed by Laura Friedkin lOCAL AUTHOR Learning to Laugh When You Feel Like Crying: Embracing Life After Loss By Allen Klein Goodman Beck Publishing, $14.95, 198 pages Local San Francisco author Allen Klein has written a book for those experiencing a loss “in order to return to living life more fully again.” Klein shares from a professionSee LEARNING, page 63
Book Reviews
Reference Sloth: A Dictionary for the Lazy By Adams Media, editor Adams Media, $10.95, 160 pages Put each of the seven deadly sins in a colorful hardback pocket-size book and then select 500 related dictionary terms that painstakingly elaborate on the designated evil and the collection evolves into this engaging thesaurus set. Sinfully related words, with their definitions, are arranged in sequential alphabetical order making up the body of each book. What makes the contents especially appealing are the aphorisms that preface each of the 26 divisions, those wise words that command the reader’s reflection are excerpted from diverse sources such as the Bible, Shakespeare, Bombeck, Einstein, the Romans, Franklin, and so many other noted references. Within Gluttony: A Dictionary for the Indulgent, a French proverb is used to describe a glutton as one who digs his grave with his teeth. Goethe is quoted in the volume on envy: “Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.” Within the dictionary of greed, Robert Herrick comments on the selfish as “Who covets more is evermore a slave.” The reader may recall the observation that society drives people crazy with lust and calls it advertising, or that fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud. If you require a cache of terms to fit these vices, they can be found in these dictionaries. You may not agree with all the inclusions, but you will enrich your vernacular and be amused by the related quotes. Each of us has, at times, been infected with traces of these vices and they are visible in those around us. These petite packaged deadly dictionaries will certainly invite comment, especially if pulled from a Christmas stocking. Reviewed by Aron Row What Color is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers 2012 By Richard N. Bolles Ten Speed Press, $18.99, 350 pages Updated annually for more than 40 years, What Color is your Parachute? is still the best manual for job-hunters and career-
changers. Written in an easy-to-read style, it lists “Eighteen Job-Finding Alternatives,” the “Best and Worst Ways to Look for Job Vacancies,” and “Sixteen Tips about Interviewing.” It discusses how best to use the Internet and social marketing in your search, and, in using those techniques, what your odds are of success. Richard N. Bolles goes into great depth discussing one of the most effective job search techniques: taking a self-inventory. He believes that using your strengths to describe yourself broadens your job options beyond the last job title you held. He shares the facts that while unemployment numbers are running high, more than 300,000 people found new jobs; jobs are always out there, but you must work hard to find them and prepare yourself for them. He invites you to keep your attitude open in three specific ways to take advantage of the job options available. If you can only buy one book for your job search, consider this one. Reviewed by Susan Roberts Flash Techniques for Macro and CloseUp Photography By Rod and Robin Deutschmann Amherst Media, $34.95, 128 pages Award-winning fine art photographers and photography instructors Ron and Robin Deutschmann have been offering a fresh view and down-to-earth approach to the magic of macro photography for years. In their new book, they pass along their knowledge of capturing this tiny world to help today’s photographers master macro photography using equipment they already have and by returning to the simple basics of the medium. This book will take you through a fundamental understanding of working with these small subjects and an in-depth discussion on using the gear to achieve amazing results. You will be walked through lighting up your outdoor macro shots using
flash and reflectors and bringing this tiny world inside to a small studio environment where you can more easily control the lighting. For any amateur photographer who is interested in the world of macro photography, this book will start them out on the right foot with no need for expensive lighting equipment. Reviewed by Doreen Erhardt The Bird Photography Field Guide: The essential handbook for capturing birds with your digital SLR By David Tipling Focal Press, $15.95, 192 pages Focal Press, known for beautiful layouts, crisp reproductions, and subject-specific information, has released this new guide by David Tipling, which is aimed at digital single-lens-reflex photography. Broken into three major sections (Equipment, Photographing Birds, Digital Photo Editing), it gives suggestions regarding preparation, techniques of shooting, and post-production using Adobe Photoshop. The informative text is supplemented by photographs actually taken by the author, as well as by technical diagrams. A short reference chapter at the end includes a helpful glossary and index. More manuals like this one that focuses on a particular photographic subject are needed because catching the avian image in motion has been especially elusive for even seasoned shutterbugs. Armed with information on the latest digital SLR equipment, along with detailed instructions for fine-tuning images electronically, Tipling conveys a wealth of advice. The only unfortunate thing is that larger, reader-friendly text is sacrificed for portability; though accurate, the contents may be hard to actually read while in the field. Nevertheless, this handy little reference could be a wonderful aid to amateur bird photographers as well as to other adventurers who seek to capture fauna in its natural habitat. Reviewed by Richard Mandrachio Light and Shoot 50 Fashion Photos By Chris Gatcum Focal Press, $24.95, 143 pages This book is an asset to any bookshelf but really should be a table book. There are 50 artsy pictures taken by impeccable photographers. The make-up on these models is fabulous, and the clothing creates scenes from different eras, but lighting is the key enabling us to see the beauty. Light creates mood, and fashion photographers are highly skilled at utilizing it
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– as these pictures expose. This book is an inspirational and practical guide to shooting fashion in a wide range of styles and settings with the emphasis on the use of lighting, rather than digital processing, to create a specific look or feel. Some of the images tap into your creativity, while others may not be for you, but one thing for sure: all of these pictures are exciting and dramatic. It is easy to focus on the eye-catching models, but it’s hard to imagine these photos without the exceptionally skilled photographers who control the fashion shoot. Light and Shoot 50 Fashion Photos by Chris Gatcum shows us the artist behind the camera. Thank you, Chris Gatcum! Reviewed by Vivian Dixon Sober Impossible?: Surprising Solutions to Counterintuitive Conundrums By Julian Havil Princeton University Press, $18.95, 235 pages If a coin-flip is a 50/50 chance, why are streaks of nine or ten heads in a row so prominent? Why does closing roads often make traffic run more smoothly? How can one sphere mathematically be divided into two of nearly the same size as the original? An absolutely mind-bending indictment of what we consider “logical thinking,” Impossible? presents a plethora of mathematical dilemmas to baffle and amaze, complete with proofs and equations galore to back them up. One premiere example is my personal favorite, a classic of counterintuitive thinking, colloquially known as the Monty Hall problem, and confronting the odds on choosing between Door #1, Door #2, and Door #3, and how changing your answer can affect your chances at winning the big prize. It is mindboggling stuff. I’m not ashamed to admit that some of these proofs and arguments took me a few reads to grasp. While Havil does a marvelous job of making the material as accessible as possible, the sheer mass of equations and technical jargon can be a bit daunting. But if you take your time, if you stay patient, Havil’s words will unfurl bizarre and fascinating worlds before your very eyes. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Grammar Girl’s 101 Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know By Mignon Fogarty St. Martin’s Press, $5.99, 120 pages Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl, has once again expanded her “Quick and Dirty [Grammar] Tips” beyond the Internet. 101 Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know is an easy-to-transport (practically pocket-sized) vocab list that includes words
Book Reviews across various subjects and disciplines. Grammar Girl is not going for obscurity here. The words in this list are commonly seen in textbooks, on the news, in novels, or spoken in everyday conversation. Each entry contains a definition, some etymology, and an example of the word in action. Not surprising for a grammar guide, Grammar Girl also includes, when needed, details that prevent misuse of
the words she has included in the list. This book would make a fun and useful gift for any grad. If the words are new, the detailed information makes them easy to learn and remember, and if a reader is already familiar with them, Grammar Girl’s quick wit and entertaining examples will still amuse. Even those well beyond high school graduation will probably find a few minutes to flip through the pages of this guide. Reviewed by Rachel Wallace
Pop Culture Geek Wisdom By Stephen Segal Quirk, $14.95, 233 pages It’s not news to anyone that the geek has gone mainstream. From movies and TV shows to novels and comic books, geek chic has become the latest trend to cash in on. But behind the light sabers and Vulcan salutes, behind the ten-sided dice and the Tolkien worship, there lie deeper and more profound lessons to be learned. Geek Wisdom appears at first to be a celebration of geek culture, but as the reader peruses the short essays accompanying each quotation, it transcends mere geek idolatry and becomes a study of what real-world applications can be wrung from these catchphrases and quotable touchstones. As funny as some of these observations are, far more of them are poignant and thought-provoking. (I certainly never caught the similarities between Yoda’s most famous warning and the writings of George Washington Carver.) But the book never descends into selfimportant farce. Segal and his collaborators are simply plumbing the depths of popular culture and unearthing some overlooked nuggets of gold. Geek Wisdom is a marvelous exercise in deep thinking for a shallow time. I suspect it will inspire more than a few interesting term papers in the near future. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Tracking the Man-beasts: Sasquatch, Vampires, Zombies, and More By Joe Nickell Prometheus Books, $19.99, 239 pages Bigfoot. Mothman. El Chupacabra. Werewolves, giants, and dwarfs. Beings of all sorts that straddle the line between human
and inhuman have been part of our folklore for centuries. Tales of strange encounters with bipedal beasts and humanoid monsters alike certainly stir the imagination, but is there any truth behind the fanciful trappings? Joe Nickell tackles each of these curious cases with gusto in Tracking the Manbeasts, bringing his keen eye and keener mind to bear on mysteries both modern and ancient. And while he obviously goes into each investigation skeptical, he’s not out to debunk these stories... he’s out to find a verifiable explanation. Most importantly, he never condescends, he never belittles, and he certainly never patronizes. Each case is examined on its own merits, and his reports on each event are rewarding reads, rich in detail and analysis. The sense of wonder that pervades these mysteries isn’t lost on Nickell, either. He rejoices in exploring the facts and seeking the truth. This genuine spirit makes his work utterly readable and thoroughly enjoyable. The believer, the skeptic, and the investigator in all of us will each find much to enjoy in Tracking the Man-beasts. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas How Shakespeare Changed Everything By Stephen Marche Harper, $21.99, 203 pages Stephen Marche, who completed a doctorate degree on William Shakespeare and taught classes about the bard, said he chose his subject because he knew it never would be boring. However, he fails to point out that Shakespeare could be a hard read nonetheless. Four centuries have passed since the sometimes antiquated bard (1564-1616)
wrote his poems and plays, and he takes some close study to appreciate his gifts and contributions. A close study is usually rewarded for, as Marche describes, this messy, secular, gifted, and influential writer. In contrast, Marche’s How Shakespeare Changed Everything is very accessible, but both are fun to read. The enthusiasm is affecting and the trivia he provides is both fascinating and wonderful. Though not a page turner, one is in for a treat from this short book about “the foremost poet in the world.” How Shakespeare Changed Everything is involving, well told and profound. This book is about his huge impact rather than a close reading of his oeuvre. One may be surprised to find out about his profound effects on romance, race relations, politics, and the environment. Critics are also discussed, such as Leo Tolstoy, who did not like Shakespeare because he thought life should be fair. Mysteries still surround the bard, but here is a chance to really know of him. Reviewed by Ryder Miller A Geek In Japan By Hector Garcia Tuttle, $18.95, 160 pages Some subtitles can be misleading. For instance, “Discovering the Land of Manga, Anime, Zen and the Tea Ceremony” hardly scratches the surface of the real contents of A Geek in Japan. This colorful book discusses several salient points of Japanese culture. It is a great resource for someone who has minimal knowledge of this Asian nation. Presented with numerous photos of Japanese life — both common and rarely seen scenes — the book is engrossing and easy to read. It attempts to explain everything to the novice, from the symbolism in Buddhist temples to the proper way of handing over a business card. It is especially insightful on Japanese verbal and non-verbal language, and how it is to be a foreigner living and working in Japan. For some geeks obsessed with robots and manga, this book may not be encyclopedic enough. For a volume that’s slim enough to slip into a carry-on bag, however, it has valuable information that can save an executive or a tourist from a major faux pas. While not a traditional guide book, A Geek in Japan certainly makes a reader want to hop on a plane to experience everything firsthand. Reviewed by Rachel Anne Calabia
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AZATHOTH, cont’d from page 19 Cannon creates very likable characters in this section as readers hope each one will soon be able to find the answer. In Cannon’s second set of stories, readers follow a Sherlock Holmes-like figure in Bertram “Bertie” Wooster, and his butler Jeeves, as friends and relatives pull the two men into the rooms of sick scientists and underground caverns. The third section, can feel daunting for readers who may not be familiar with the books that Cannon pastiches. Here, readers are taken to dreamland where ghouls, ancient men, and great kings rule over an unknown realm. It would be advisable for readers to become more familiar with Lovecraft and other authors that Cannon mentions in his introduction before delving into these stories. Reviewed by Robyn Oxborrow
LEARNING, cont’d from page 61 al level, as well as from his experience as a widower. His personal story adds a deeper dimension to his advice, since he is someone who has been there. One of the most frustrating things to hear is the well-intentioned, “I know how you feel.” Klein does not do that, sharing at the beginning that this worked for him when his wife died, but that the reader should “take what fits and leave the rest behind.” Klein’s approach brings the reader gently through the five stages of grief: losing, learning, letting go, living, and laughing. If the reader wants more to read about loss and life, at the end Klein provides his favorites in a suggested reading list. With short, easyto-read, compassionate sections, this book gives the reader something someone hurting needs: a chance to absorb what one can at the time. It does not overwhelm, is never preachy, and offers support that helps one go on to live more fully. Reviewed by Angie Mangino
For more reviews, visit sacramentobookreview.com
Book Reviews
Art, Architecture & Photography The Book of Skulls By Faye Dowling Laurence King Publishers, $14.95, 160 pages Bound with a coptic-stitch and printed on card stock, this book is a piece of art in itself. Dowling collects more than one hundred fifty artistic renderings of the skull, ranging from actual skulls to abstract representations. She includes artists such as Shepard Fairey, Mouse and Kelley for the Grateful Dead, Frank Sadilek of the the Hells Angels, editorial illustrator Noma Bar, and graffiti artist Chaz Bojorquez. Traditional mediums used include oils, ink, photography, sculpture, clothing, and jewelry. Other artists produce skull tattoos, screen printing, quilting, lace, stickers, skateboards, and graffiti. While each artist depicts skulls differently, these images create an awareness of death’s constant presence. For some, skulls are seen as a way of differentiating oneself from mainstream society, as in Goth, skate, and gang cultures. For others, skulls show the universality of life and death that we face as individuals and collectively. Dowling weaves together these brilliantly crisp images with background information regarding the Mexican Day of the Dead, the Renaissance theme of vanitas, and the skull as musical iconography. A beautifully collected and presented piece, The Book of Skulls gives us a fascinating look at the allure of our humanity in its purest form. Reviewed by Kerry Lindgren Wet Men By Francois Rousseau Universe, $55.00, 151 pages Francois Rousseau is one of the best photographers alive. His images are powerful and portray a sense of strength that many photographers and other artists never find. A renowned commercial photographer for Lacoste, he has held international exhibitions of his work. You could fly to cities
around the world and pay quite a bit of money for an original photograph, or just buy this book. It features the male body – its power, its strength, and its beauty. It features men who are wet, perhaps from swimming or just playing in the water, or are about to get wet. The wetness showcases the physique of the subjects, bringing out fine details that might otherwise get lost. Rousseau does a masterful job of capturing the perfect moment, such as when the water is falling off the chin. He creates a sense of playfulness, and a sense that we are witnessing something that we see everyday, but in a different way. This book is something different and powerful. This is a work of art. The subjects change from picture to picture, but the raw emotion and power remain strong. Reviewed by Kevin Winter Frank Lloyd Wright Designs: The Sketches, Plans, and Drawings By Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer Rizzoli, $85.00, 420 pages There are those who might be tempted to pigeonhole this as a coffee table book; they would be very wrong. For fans of Frank Lloyd Wright, this is the holy grail, you might say. As a former apprentice to Wright and now the director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer has opened the vault and shared numerous plans, sketches, and drawings on
the favorites, as well as projects that were never seen or were torn down long ago. Even more thrilling are the stories included about the various projects and the brief biographical sketches of Wright himself. From famous homes, such as Fallingwater, to grand public buildings like the Imperial Hotel and Midway Gardens, the sketches offer not only the beginning spark of idea, but the vistas of buildings long lost to time. The book is like an expertly guided tour of Wright’s mind and his work that no other book has been able to come close to capturing. It is so comprehensive it’s almost staggering. This would make the ultimate gift for any fan; and it would create fans of those new to his work. Reviewed by Gwen Stackler New York: A Photographer’s City By Marla Hamburg Kennedy, Editor Rizzoli, $45.00, 304 pages New York City is home to the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, and Central Park, and many more historic places. It is one of the most iconic cities in the world. People from all over the world visit New York everyday, and many people arrive to live in the Big Apple. It is an artist’s haven, a place for the rich and famous to mingle, and a place where average people struggle to get by. It is a place of contrasts. In this collection, Marla Hamburg Kennedy brings together the best in photography that captures the soul and life of New York. From the iconic images and locations to the nitty and gritty of the waterfront; from people walking down the street, to lights of airplanes taking off at the airports. These images captures what it means to be in New York. That it is possible to create a city that is truly a photographer’s city. These images capture the underbelly, the average person. They do not care about being famous, or looking glamorous. These photographs are beautiful, from old school black and white, to ultra modern digital technology. Each in its own way captures the essence of the city. This is a book for people who love photography. Reviewed by Kevin WInter The Wizard’s Book of Spells By Beatrice Phillipotts Palazzo Editions, $8.95, 96 pages A pictorial history of the lore of wizardry is contained in this compilation that depicts legendary sorcerers, alchemists, and enchantresses along with their spells and accoutrements. We are given an inside look into casting spells, using talismans, deciphering riddles, and unraveling ancient mysteries. Divided into three sections (A Chronicle of Spells, Practical Magic, and Spells for Different Purposes), all text is fully illustrated.
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Descr iptions of this book as an “essential guide” may be misleading in that no serious practitioners of the magical arts would consider using this book as a source for spells. Neither would an historian look to it as a bona fide reference because it gives equal significance to characters from both history and legend without making much of a distinction between them. It does, however, provide some necessary connections between ancient traditions and the work of more recent fantasy writers, such as J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Philip Pullman, and George Lucas. It also contains a beautifully designed layout with classic art of the genre: Ingpen’s specially commissioned illustrations deserve their place here alongside the work of notable fantasy artists like Arthur Rackham. All in all, this book is a fascinating romp for uninitiated magicians of all ages. Reviewed by Richard Mandrachio LOCAL AUTHOR Before The Paparazzi: 50 Years of Extraordinary Photographs By Steven P. Unger, M. Stefan Strozier, and Arty Pomerantz World Audience, $29.00, 222 pages Arty Pomerantz is not a famous name in photojournalism, not like his protégé Weegee, who was his lifelong mentor and friend. But Pomerantz is great. This book contains 250 pictures — most appear with the story behind the shots which were published in New York Post from the ’60s to the ’90s. Many were on the front page. Pomerantz pioneered the use of 35mm cameras, which revolutionized the industry. In his career, he won many journalism awards and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Anybody who was famous in New York in those years was captured on film by him: the Kennedys, Elizabeth Taylor, the Beatles, Sinatra, Mafia figures, even the looters of the city during the Blackout of 1977. He had total access. The press agents were only too happy to get the reporter and photographer together with their stars. Working at night, he never knew what he might be shooting — a fancy fund-raiser, a politician, or a crime scene. Pomerantz hustled to crime scenes, fires, and murders; his pictures might show up in the next day’s paper. These times no longer exist in New York. It is no longer the “naked city,” as Weegee called it. But we have these pictures and stories. Reviewed by Phil Semler See ART, page 66
Book Reviews ART, cont’d from page 65 Tomorrow’s Houses By Alexander Gorlin Rizzoli, $65.00, 256 pages Modernism comes in many different forms. Most people think of art, specifically painters of modern art, rather than houses. The trend of Modernism happened for a very short period of time, and was generally located in a specific place; New England. In this collection we get a brief look at the major houses that made up New England Modernism. The first part of the book explores the history of Modernism, how it rose in the early part
of the 20th century and how it failed to live past the 1970’s. Before these homes were rediscovered many of them were almost torn down for new homes. That is how far Modernism has fallen. The majority of the book examines each house, with a brief description and several pictures. While the pictures are beautiful, this books feels out of place. The idea that Modernism is going to make a comeback sounds ridiculous. It died because the homes had problems, were small, and did not make sense. These types of homes have been replaced with McMansions, and cookie cutter homes. This work feels like a museum piece. These are not tomorrow houses, they are yesterday’s. Reviewed by Kevin WInter
Humor Nonfiction God, No! By Penn Jillette Simon & Schuster, $24.99, 231 pages This is not a simple book about the rationality of atheism. Oh, it makes cogent arguments for atheism and against the trap of religion, but it’s much richer than that. Perhaps the most notable take I have from this paper roller coaster is its exuberance for freedom. I’d seen Penn Jillette in a television interview talking about God, No!; he sounded smart, well controlled, and civil. After reading I know he is undoubtedly smart and an obviously well-read Libertarian. But I am forcefully reminded of George Will’s snarky comment on Libertarians when they first started coming on the national scene, calling them “Libertines.” God, No! is the raunchiest read I’ve ever undertaken. Penn positively delights in employing the f- and mf-words. And he tells of his sexual explorations and accomplishments a lot. He includes a fair proportion of embarrassments. Reading about the time he was using a lady’s hairdryer instead of a towel and cauterized his
glans on the red-glowing grill of the thing is a literary gem. Jillette is a creature of Vegas, of show business, and his art is to shock and intrigue. A fine sense of life shines through those lenses. It shines very brightly. Reviewed by David Lloyd Sutton Does a Bear Sh*t in the Woods?: Answers to Rhetorical Questions By Caroline Taggart Plume, $13.00, 159 pages What price glory? Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? All the lonely people, where do they all come from? How do you solve a problem like Maria? Where does the time go? What’s not to like? Rhetorical questions are an everyday part of modern discourse, so much so that we hardly notice them anymore. The deepest philosophical ones can inspire great debates, and the silliest ones can inspire laughter and goofy discussion akin to that of a Would You Rather...? question. And if some of these questions are worth answering, then aren’t all of them worth answering? Well, come hell or high water, Caroline Taggart has taken it upon herself to answer
as many rhetorical questions as possible, from ancient ponderings to contemporary song lyrics. Armed with a vast arsenal of trivia and a keen wit, Taggart takes the rhetorical question to task. Considering the sheer number of rhetorical questions she’s assembled — more than a few were new to me — she tackles them with gusto. Where trivia fails to satisfy, Taggart’s snark takes over. Does a Bear Sh*t in the Woods? is an easy read and a pretty fun way to pass an hour or so. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas Punching Tom Hanks: Dropkicking Gorillas and Pummeling Zombified ExPresidents—-a Guide to Beating Up Anything By Kevin Seccia St. Martin’s Press, $13.99, 244 pages It doesn’t matter if you’re a lover or a fighter at heart. At some point in your life, you’re going to have to fight. Whether it’s a famous actor, a mythical creature, or the common cold, conflict is inevitable. But how do you prepare for such varied and unexpected threats? Thankfully, Kevin Seccia has the answer with Punching Tom Hanks, a compendium of advice on how to beat up virtually any person, animal, object, or force of nature you could possibly encounter. With advice ranging from the violently and viscerally graphic to the hilariously abrupt and pragmatic, dozens of survival techniques tailored to myriad situations are offered. Seccia’s bombastic and self-congratulatory tone is a treat, and makes his occasionally insane suggestions easier to swallow. He punctuates his decades of combat expertise with brief treatises on weapon use, intimidation through witty comebacks, and helpful sidebars with additional info. He’s so confident, in fact, that he allows several celebrity subjects to refute his arguments! You may never find yourself standing toeto-toe with Aimee Mann or King Kong, but if you do, you’ll be glad to have the wisdom of Punching Tom Hanks in your back pocket. Reviewed by Glenn Dallas You Don’t Know Sh*t By Doug Mayer and Val Stori and Tod Van Jahnes St. Martin’s Press, $12.99, 214 pages How much time does the average person spend on the toilet in their lifetime? How did our ancestors relieve themselves in times past? How do astronauts defecate in zero gravity? All of these questions and more are answered in this witty and surprisingly informative book. This volume is not just a collection of random fecal facts and trivia,
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though. The authors provide quality information on such topics as methods of pooping throughout history, the pooping process, varying practices of pooping around the world, waste disposal, and toilet technology. They even reference experts in these fields. As the title suggests, however, the authors do not take themselves or the topic too seriously. Their explanations are laugh-out-loud funny because they are not afraid to call a turd a turd. Use of familiar terms for feces (and introducing some new ones) makes the description of pooping on Mt. Everest by swinging over a ledge even more enjoyable. The authors don’t go out of their way to be disgusting, but they spare no details either, such as when they explain the proper way to “go left.” There are plenty of laughs here, but this short book would serve as a reference for science projects as well. Reviewed by Mark Polzin
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Book Reviews
Home & Garden
Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit By Barry Estabrook Andrews McMeel Publishing, $19.99, 220 pages Books exposing big-business operations are trendy and sell well. Meat, grapes, dairy, and feeding lots have all been exposed. Here Estabrook attacks Florida tomatoes. This exposé goes into the finest details, probably more than most readers are willing to read. The book starts with the history of the tomato from its Chilean ancestry to its current production by enormous agri-businesses. The writing is very good. The book is filled with stories that we would rather not know or we will never buy a winter tomato again. The dozens of chemicals used to grow Florida tomatoes ($2000 worth of fertilizers and pesticides on every
acre), and the workers’ miserable conditions (some 30,000 tomato harvesters in near slavery status constantly exposed to a whole series of harmful chemicals) and so on. Florida winter tomatoes are near the bottom on the list of surveys conducted on consumers (why do they buy them?). A slight optimism shines through from stories of small growers that buck the trend of agribusiness with their own new, flavorful varieties. Illustrations would help this book. Reviewed by George Erdosh
SCIENCE & NATURE, cont’d from page 59 these labels may also apply to one’s self and one’s colleagues. Anxiety, alcoholism, drug dependence, obsessive compulsive behavior, panic attacks, and depression are common features found in both the therapist and patient. While psychology is not an exact science, the therapist must be sufficiently sharp to share sympathy and empathy with the client in order to progress to cognitive therapy. This approach is not always successful. This is the author’s story of self-effacing anecdotes as he haltingly stumbles to learn how to better understand and treat human behavior disorders. Reviewed by Aron Row
tion as it is a book of mysticism. Bernstein sees the world from the vantage point of Quantum Theory, through the eyes of those whose research evokes such images as the CERN Collider and the Dalai Lama. He quotes big names extracting colossal ideas, leaving the reader with a larger number of questions than when he started. The elusive titles of his chapters stimulate the imagination to surrender its doodles, which, in turn, take us to the exhilarating edge of original thinking. The author gives us a sense of the origins and ongoing debates that Quantum Mechanics has stirred in the 20th Century. Be prepared to reflect often on the issues raised in this volume and the possibility that you will reread the book. Reviewed by D. Wayne Dworsky
Quantum Leaps By Jeremy Berstein Belknap Press, $15.95, 240 pages Endowed with a rich writing tone, Jeremy Bernstein takes the reader on an existential ride. The work is as much a scientific reflec-
Sex & Relationships Cheat on Your Husband (with Your Husband): How to Date Your Spouse By Andrea Syrtash Rodale, $15.99, 201 pages If the title doesn’t catch your interest, nothing will. Columnist and author Andrea Syrtash’s Cheat On Your Husband (With Your Husband): How to Date Your Spouse is a breath of fresh air in the relationship genre. Open its pages to learn how to create an exciting and more fulfilling marriage. Learn how to be passionate about your own life and discover the possibilities waiting for you. A new partner or lover isn’t the answer. Whether you’ve been married for one year or fifty, this book is a relationship gem sure to spice up your love life. If you don’t read the subtitle, you might think this book was a sleazy guide to beZOROASTRIAN, cont’d from page 54
ing immoral. My husband certainly gave me a strange look when he saw it lying on the counter! Syrtash certainly succeeds in getting attention. Inside, readers will find relationship medicine. Learn about finding balance in your marriage, the modern relationship, and keeping love alive after kids. Learn to improve your communication skills and solve arguments effectively. “Your love story doesn’t end at “I do” — it is always evolving.” This book is a quick and easy read full of great advice and interesting stories. I learned a lot and can’t wait to apply some of these ideas to my marriage. Who couldn’t use a little spice in their relationship? Reviewed by Jennifer Melville
read the creation stories of other religions. derstood by the uninitiated, so this book It’s no stretch of the imagination to suggest might be improved by children’s versions of non-Zoroastrians could find something here that resonates with their own faith. the referenced prayers. Sponsored Review What Cann does very well is show the child how the tenets of this ancient religion can help them make wise choices. She notes that Zarathustra rejected the use of CULTURAL, cont’d from page 48 haoma, a plant used as a drug in his time, as it adversely affected people’s behavior. More one’s motivation, knowledge, planning, and broadly, she notes that prayer alone does not behaviors. The third section gives examples please God. Many times she refers to the tri- of practical applications of CQ and details ad of good thoughts, good words, and good rock stars to corporations as they apply the deeds. Even a child can see that one leads lessons of CQ. A practical approach to applyto the other, and if our good thoughts and ing CQ, Livermore addresses how everyone good words are not followed by good deeds, from executives to middle managers can we have not done all we can to please God, bring about change to their companies in our families, and others. As a catechism, this interdependent world. Livermore prothis is more than just a question-and-an- vides concrete guidance for those interested swer method of teaching religious doctrine. in transcending our differences to make a People have choices, and it is possible to difference in the world. Livermore is also the learn from the bad choices and start making author of Leading with Cultural Intelligence. Reviewed by Elizabeth Humphrey good choices. Although the book is written for Zoroastrian kids, I see it as valuable to anyone willing to look beyond the imagined points of contention between the world’s religions and see the points of agreement. Near the end of the book, Cann invites the child to
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