from the editor’s desk:
From the Editor’s Desk: The 66th National Book Awards Ceremony B Y C LA I B ORNE
SM I T H
Photo courtesy Michael Thad Carter
Photo courtesy Robin Platzer/Twin Images
Photo courtesy Robin Platzer/Twin Images
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editor’s note
President & Publisher M A RC W I N K E L M A N #
“If you’re not in the mood to hear people talk about themselves, you’re in the wrong place,” satirist Andy Borowitz said as he opened the National Book Awards ceremony on Nov. 18. It was Borowitz’s third time to emcee the ceremony, so he knew what he’s talking about. But by any standard, the 66th National Book Awards ceremony was an autobiographical night: almost all of the writers who won awards this year had deeply personal stories to tell about writing their books (see nationalbook.org for a full list of winners). Neal Shusterman won the Young PeoClaiborne Smith ple’s Literature Award for Challenger Deep, a YA novel about a 14-year-old’s descent into schizophrenia. Inspired by his son Brendan’s battles with mental illness, Challenger Deep is “about a kid who struggles with a lot of the things that Brendan did,” Shusterman said at the ceremony. “It’s been a healing process for both of us to open up a dialogue about mental illness,” he said as he brought Brendan on stage. “We have to open up and talk about it more so we can understand it better. And I hope this book helps do that.” But Ta-Nehisi Coates, who won the nonfiction award for Between the World and Me, stood out for his ability to turn his experience into a book that doesn’t sugarcoat his anger and frustration about race. The book also won the 2015 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, and Coates was also named Clay Neal Shusterman and a MacArthur Fellow in September. “This moving, potent son Brendan Robin Platzer/ testament might have been titled ‘Black Lives Matter.’ Or: Twin Images ‘An American Tragedy,’ ” our reviewer writes about the book. (See our nonfiction editor Eric Liebetrau’s thoughts about the book on p. 14.) Written as a letter to his son about being a black man in America, Between the World and Me is dedicated to Coates’ college friend Prince Jones, who “was mistaken for a criminal,” Coates said at the ceremony, and shot by a policeman. At the heart of America is the fact “that we’re okay with the presumption that black people somehow have a predisposition to criminality,” Coates said. “Every day you turn on the TV and you see some kind of violence being directed to black people. I’m a black man in America. I can’t punish that officer….I don’t have that right; I don’t have that power. What I have the power to say is that you won’t enroll me in this lie. You won’t make Ta-Nehisi Coates me a part of it.”
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Chairman H E R B E RT S I M O N
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contents special issue: best books of 2015
1 december 2015 issue
best nonfiction books of 2015
fiction
REVIEWS.............................................................................................4
INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS.......................................................71
EDITOR’S NOTE.................................................................................. 6
REVIEWS............................................................................................71
INTERVIEW: SUSAN SOUTHARD.................................................. 10
MYSTERY........................................................................................ 100
FEATURE: TA-NEHISI COATES...................................................... 14
SCIENCE NONFICTION & FANTASY........................................... 108
INTERVIEW: RITA GABIS............................................................... 18
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INTERVIEW: ADA CALHOUN......................................................... 22
INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS.................................................... 109
INTERVIEW: JILL LEOVY................................................................ 26
REVIEWS......................................................................................... 109
INTERVIEW: HARRISON SCOTT KEY........................................... 30
children’s & teen books
best teen books of 2015
INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS.....................................................137
REVIEWS...........................................................................................49
REVIEWS..........................................................................................137
EDITOR’S NOTE................................................................................ 50
POP-UP AND NOVELTY BOOKS.................................................. 165
INTERVIEW: LYNDA BLACKMON LOWERY................................. 54
indie
INTERVIEW: DANIEL JOSÉ OLDER.............................................. 58 INTERVIEW: ADI ALSAID............................................................... 62
INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS.....................................................177
INTERVIEW: ADAM SILVERA........................................................66
REVIEWS..........................................................................................177
INTERVIEW: AMIE KAUFMAN & JAY KRISTOFF.........................68
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special issue: best books of 2015
nonfiction OUT ON THE WIRE The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio
Abel, Jessica Illus. by the author Broadway (240 pp.) $17.00 paper | Aug. 25, 2015 978-0-385-34843-0
A richly engaging graphic narrative about radio storytelling and storytelling in general. Though drawing cartoons about radio would seem to be counterintuitive—exploring such an aural medium through visual means—Abel (La Perdida, 2006, etc.) shows what a complementary, multilayered relationship the two can have. This is a narrative about narrative—how it works and why—and the author is its narrator, so it provides insight into her work as well as that of Ira Glass and so many others involved in This American Life and other NPR storytelling programs. “Turns out, I need to read this book in order to write it,” she explains toward the end in an untitled epilogue that finds the artist alone in the wilderness, trying to find a path through the trees. “In the end, that’s kind of what happened. I wrote the book and read it, rewrote it and read it, and drew it and read it.” The results are rewarding for author and reader alike, as the latter will not only discover the keys to narrative radio (along with the laborious work, including months of planning and hours of taping), but also the keys to graphic narrative as well. All are not only “character-driven,” but “the characters change and they grow and they learn something new, and surprising.” “A bunch of anecdotes aren’t enough to make a powerful story,” shares one of the characters in Abel’s book, about the characters in one of the many radio stories illustrated here. “You need the person to undergo a change.” Glass, the primary character and narrator here, other than the author, insists, “radio is a very visual medium.” The illustrations of radio in action, the scenes behind the scenes, underscore that assertion. A spirited work whose readership should not be limited to those who make radio narrative or love to listen to it.
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THE HOUSE OF TWENTY THOUSAND BOOKS
Abramsky, Sasha New York Review Books (344 pp.) $27.95 | Sep. 1, 2015 978-1-59017-888-1 Memoir of Jewish intellectual life and universal history alike, told through a houseful of books, their eccentric collectors, and the rooms in which they dwelled. Chimen Abramsky (1916-2010) and his wife, Miriam, were easily overlooked people who made a long life in a brick house in North London. But they were giants of a kind, for what a house it was: sprawling and ramshackle but jammed to the rafters with books and papers, serving as “one of left-wing London’s great salons.” In this entertaining, deeply learned book, Sasha Abramsky (Writing/Univ. of California, Davis; The American Way of Poverty, 2013, etc.) adds materially to Chimen and Mimi’s 20,000 volumes. On another level, the book, like that grand library, is a narrative of the broad sweep of Jewish diaspora history. Chimen was a collector of useful books. For him, that doctrine of usefulness embraced the works of Karl Marx in explaining how the modern world works, Charles Darwin in explaining how life evolved, Maimonides in explaining how life should be lived, and so forth. Chimen had a sticky mind that remembered everything, and he made connections among all the things stored within: Abramsky the grandson remembers marveling when, as a very old man, Chimen, who “had almost certainly never once kicked a ball,” was able to discourse smartly on David Beckham’s career prospects simply by virtue of all the oddments he had collected about him. As the story unfolds, we follow Chimen and Mimi from room to room, most of them colonized by the former as the children grew up and moved out, and we hear their stories: of Chimen’s angry annoyance when someone said Hitler was crazy, which “gave Hitler and the Germans a free pass,” of the couple’s rich minds and witty conversations, and of the thought of vicariously “touching a book that Marx had owned and commented on.” If you finish this brilliantly realized book thinking you need to own more books, you’re to be forgiven. A wonderful celebration of the mind, history, and love. (43 b/w photos)
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The author is an accomplished critic with a penetrating grasp of art history, but erudition never overwhelms the cogency or delights of his prose. keeping an eye open
IT’S WHAT I DO A Photographer’s Life of Love and War
Addario, Lynsey Photos by the author Penguin Press (384 pp.) $29.95 | Feb. 5, 2015 978-1-59420-537-8
KEEPING AN EYE OPEN Essays on Art
Barnes, Julian Knopf (288 pp.) $30.00 | Oct. 6, 2015 978-1-101-87478-3
English novelist Barnes (Levels of Life, 2013, etc.) focuses his analytical prowess on significant artists and their oeuvres, opening fresh vistas to readers—and viewers. The author is an accomplished critic with a penetrating grasp of art history, but erudition never overwhelms the cogency or delights of his prose, as much about the heart as |
RAIN A Natural and Cultural History
special issue: best books of 2015
A remarkable journalistic achievement from a Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Fellowship winner that crystalizes the last 10 years of global war and strife while candidly portraying the intimate life of a female photojournalist. Over the last decade, Addario has been periodically beaten, robbed, kidnapped, shot at and sexually assaulted from one end of the Middle East and North Africa to the other. Risking her life for images that might change public policy, she ran into Taliban fighters who fired on her in the Korengal Valley, Gadhafi loyalists who imprisoned her in Libya and Israeli soldiers who abused her outside the Gaza Strip. A deadly car accident in Pakistan nearly claimed her life. Many of Addario’s friends and colleagues did die during that time, while lovers faded away and family members freaked out. But such was the cost of the author’s life’s work. Told with unflinching candor, the awardwinning photographer brings an incredible sense of humanity to all the battlefields of her life. Especially affecting is the way in which Addario conveys the role of gender and how being a woman has impacted every aspect of her personal and professional lives. Whether dealing with ultrareligious zealots or overly demanding editors, being a woman with a camera has never been an easy task. Somewhere amid Addario’s dizzying odyssey, she also became a mother. However, instead of slowing her down, it only deepened the battle-hardened correspondent’s insight into the lives of those she so courageously sought to photograph. “Just as in Somalia,” she writes, “when I had felt my baby moving inside me as I witnessed the suffering of other infants, I could suddenly understand, in a new, profound, and enraging way, the way most people in the world lived.” A brutally real and unrelentingly raw memoir that is as inspiring as it is horrific.
the mind. He decodes the romantic notion of a “charismatic, secret process” of art, arguing persuasively for the revolutionary influence of Manet and Cézanne on painting and stating that Cézanne is where modern art began. Art changes over time, as does what is considered art, and Barnes claims that it is difficult today to respond to an older work as the artist intended. Especially with works that have endured, we forget how quickly “the shock of the new becomes absorbed, museumified and commodified.” Also, each new art movement implies a reassessment of the past, thus altering it, but also “re-alerting the sensibility, reminding us not to take things for granted.” So we locate new stimulation in the work, knowing that all art movements have inherent strengths, weaknesses, and shelf lives and that painters seldom live to see exactly what they achieved. Barnes weighs the possibility of prejudice in his own observations, yet little is betrayed. Cannily, he wonders if the greatest art is that which melds beauty with mystery, which withholds “even as it luminously declares.” He reminds us that just as art moves on, so do art history and museum conventions. Works of art are not spared the vagaries of fashion or material decline. In time, subject matter becomes less important, while the skill of exhibition hanging (its geometry and narrative) remains pivotal. Barnes knows that one of the immeasurable pleasures of art is its capacity to approach us from unexpected angles and excite our senses of wonder. The same may be said of his scholarly and astute yet accessible and exciting essays.
Barnett, Cynthia Crown (368 pp.) $25.00 | Apr. 21, 2015 978-0-8041-3709-6
An environmental journalist returns with a multifaceted examination of the science, the art, the technology and even the smell of rain throughout history. Barnett, who has written previously about hydrology (Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis, 2011, etc.), has an eclectic agenda for her new work. She takes us back to the Big Bang and then moves rapidly forward, explaining in crisp, evocative sentences why Earth is our solar system’s only habitable planet. She then discusses rainfall issues around the globe before commencing her focus on individual facets of the subject. Barnett writes about historical cycles of drought and flood and how they affected the world’s principal religions—from Noah to Indian rain dances. She segues into weather forecasting, with an emphasis on the meticulous records that Thomas Jefferson kept (she returns to him at various other times). She pauses to tell us about the developments of the raincoat and the umbrella and provides a couple chapters on rain in American history—with details in one chapter about the westward migration, including the difficulties in Nebraska and elsewhere on the Great Plains. A particularly engaging chapter deals with “rainmakers,” from kirkus.com
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the year in nonfiction In this issue, you’ll find full reviews for each of the 100 best nonfiction books of the year. In this space, I’d like to hand out a few personal awards from the top 100: Most Important/Likely to Be Discussed 50 Years from Now and Beyond: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me. This fiery book hit me harder than any other (for a slightly deeper discussion of why, see p. 14), and my feelings were further validated when our judges chose it as the winner of this year’s Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction. Most Appropriate for Book Geeks: Tie: Matthew Battles, Palimpsest, and Sasha Abramsky, The House of Twenty-Thousand Books. Battles provides an “illuminating look at the origins and impact of writing,” and Abramsky’s tale of his eccentric grandparents, “told through a houseful of books, their eccentric collectors, and the rooms in which they dwelled,” is pure bliss for bibliomaniacs.
Best Book about a Single City Block: Ada Calhoun, St. Marks Is Dead. It’s really about more than just St. Marks, of course, as Calhoun “vividly details the long legacy of artistic upheaval, political foment, demographic transformation, and resistance to gentrification along the street on New York’s Lower East Side.” (See our interview with Calhoun on p. 22.) Most Illuminating Journey in Ceramics: Edmund de Waal, The White Road. In this follow-up to the magnificent The Hare with Amber Eyes, ceramic artist de Waal explores his obsession with white porcelain in a “lyrical melding of art history, memoir, and philosophical meditation.” Best Memoir from a Member of Sleater-Kinney: Carrie Brownstein, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl. One of my favorite memoirs of the year, this page-turning account of the author’s life in music is “revealing and riveting. On the page as in her songs, Brownstein finds the right words to give shape to experience.”—E.L. Eric Liebetrau is the nonfiction and managing editor.
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PALIMPSEST A History of the Written Word Battles, Matthew Norton (256 pp.) $26.95 | Jul. 21, 2015 978-0-393-05885-7
Best Work from a Dead Author: Mark Twain, Autobiography, Volume 3. The final volume in this “unexpurgated, cross-referenced, and richly annotated” autobiography finds the legendary satirist wrapping things up in fine fashion.
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charlatans to scientists. The author then tries to show the influence of rain on various arts, from Chopin to Dickens to Dickinson to Woody Allen. (This topic needs an entire book of its own.) Next comes the scent of rain, the perfume industry in India, and the problems of rainwater in urban areas, with a focus on Seattle and Los Angeles. Barnett also deals with the oddities of rain (frogs falling from the sky), and she ends with some sharp comments for climate change deniers—and with a visit to the rainiest place on earth, a town in India. Highlights the severity of some of our environmental problems with knowledge, humor, urgency and hope.
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An illuminating look at the origins and impact of writing. In this richly detailed cultural history, Battles (The Sovereignties of Invention, 2012, etc.), associate director of the research group metaLAB at Harvard, traces the evolution of writing from cuneiform in the fourth millennium B.C.E. to digital communications. Emerging as an accounting system in Mesopotamia, writing became evidence of power as well as a means of personal expression. It also changed the human mind; writing “exploits (and transforms) circuits in our brains....Writing teaches our brains to do all kinds of somersaults and tricks.” Besides communicating immediate needs, writing allows for the transmission of cultural knowledge, bears witness to the past, and influences the future. All writing, Battles has discovered, is composed of “lines that cross, connect, and loop, and they arrange themselves into linear sets,” whether it takes the form of Chinese characters, Egyptian hieroglyphics, or Greek, Sanskrit, or Cyrillic alphabets. Battles underscores the way writing shapes reading and thinking: “in the form of word and sentence, chapter and verse,” he asserts, “writing teaches.” The author highlights several texts as especially significant, including the saga Gilgamesh, unearthed from clay tablets, which imparted lessons about kingship and heroism that influenced later literature; and the Bible, which “hides its own writing from us in a haze of myths and mystical formulae.” Before the printing press, hand copying made all books—including the Bible—vulnerable to changes: “Each instance of book production was a reading, and an editing.” Movable type changed the production and availability of books, but early printed volumes allowed for ample margins so that illuminators could ply their craft. Battles deftly excavates layers of human history from a wide range of sources to reveal that writing “is always palimpsestic; there is no setting-down that is not a setting-among, a setting-upon.” A fascinating exploration stylishly and gracefully told. (15 illustrations) |
Lovers of Roman history will revel in this work, and new students will quickly become devotees. s.p.q.r.
S.P.Q.R. A History of Ancient Rome
ARDENNES 1944 The Battle of the Bulge
Beevor, Antony Viking (480 pp.) $35.00 | Nov. 3, 2015 978-0-670-02531-2
Beard, Mary Liveright/Norton (512 pp.) $35.00 | Nov. 9, 2015 978-0871404237
Award-winning military historian Beevor (The Second World War, 2012, etc.) examines the Battle of the Bulge in-depth, with a detailed order of battle for all the combatants, a full array of maps, and extensive quotations from original sources, including secretly taped comments by German officers in British POW camps. The result is a panoramic and remarkably frank treatment of the German attack, ordered by Hitler as a last-ditch attempt to reverse the momentum of battle in Western Europe. The Allied armies had made significant progress since the D-Day invasion in June, pushing the German armies out of France and most of the Netherlands and Belgium. Pulling tanks and troops off the eastern front, where the Red Army was pushing hard, the Germans put everything into an attempt to split the Allies and force the British out of the war. The attack, launched in December, caught the Allies off guard—caused partly by squabbles that distracted the Allied generals. British commanding general Sir Bernard Montgomery was clearly jealous of the American commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and kept pushing to be given more independence. American generals George Patton and Omar Bradley, among others, detested Montgomery and blamed him for not securing the port of Antwerp. Meanwhile, one of the worst winters on record made for nearly impossible fighting conditions, punishing soldiers and ruining their equipment until the Allies finally prevailed. Beevor skewers the pretensions and weaknesses of generals and details atrocities and mistreatment of both civilians and surrendering enemies by both sides. The author takes for granted more knowledge of the battle, the terrain, and the German language than general readers may possess, and he occasionally repeats information attentive readers will recall from previous mentions. But these are small quibbles. On the whole, this is a treasure of memorable portraits, striking details, fascinating revelations, and broad insights—likely to be the definitive account of the battle for years to come. Essential reading for anyone interested in World War II.
special issue: best books of 2015
The acclaimed classicist delivers a massive history of ancient Rome, which “continues to underpin Western culture and politics, what we write and how we see the world, and our place in it.” Beard (Classics/Cambridge Univ.; Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up, 2014, etc.) writes fascinatingly about how Rome grew and sustained its position. More importantly, she sorts the many myths from history. As in her previous illuminating works, she is no myth builder; she is a scholar who reaches down-to-earth conclusions based on her years of dedication to her subject. This is no simple chronological biography of rulers. The author provides a broad overview of how events from the rape of Lucretia to Caracalla’s granting of citizenship to everyone (except slaves) strengthened and eventually weakened the empire. The rulers of Rome never planned a land grab to build an empire. As the author points out, they didn’t even have maps. However, they continued to conquer peoples, took slaves and bounty, and made their men part of the army and, eventually, citizens. Beard writes of the reformers who fed the people and instituted laws of compensation for abuse. What they failed to do was establish a policy of succession, instead leaving it to luck, improvisation, plots, and, usually, violence. Because the author is such an expert linguist who is exceedingly comfortable in her field, she is able to step back to see the entire Roman world. Throughout the narrative, Beard refers to works by Polybius, Livy, Suetonius, and Tacitus, as well as the prodigious correspondence of Cicero and Pliny the Younger. She shows us how to engage with the history, culture, and controversies that made Rome—and why it still matters. Beard’s enthusiasm for her subject is infectious and is well-reflected in her clever, thoroughly enjoyable style of writing. Lovers of Roman history will revel in this work, and new students will quickly become devotees. (100 illustrations; 16 pages of color; 5 maps)
GIVE US THE BALLOT The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America
Berman, Ari Farrar, Straus and Giroux (384 pp.) $27.00 | Aug. 4, 2015 978-0-374-15827-9 An incisive look at the many issues surrounding the right to vote.
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Berman (Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics, 2010), a contributing writer for the Nation and investigative journalism fellow at the Nation Institute, tracks the struggle to gain the vote, from Reconstruction, the backlash of Jim Crow, and the 1960s, when it all seemed to come together. The 1965 march across Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge was a tipping point. Before then, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson felt voting changes would endanger the president’s Great Society project. The horror and brutality of that day changed everything, and the most liberal Congress since the New Deal passed the Voting Rights Act. After Johnson signed the act in August 1965, he said that the South was lost to the Democratic Party for the next generation. He was absolutely right. What he didn’t foresee was the opening of the floodgates to deny and disenfranchise voters across the South and well beyond. The author recounts how the act enabled the Department of Justice to gain ground through three generations of cases. They outlawed literacy tests and poll taxes, dismantled gerrymandered districts and at large elections, and fought for a fair share of political power. This emotional book runs the gamut from great joy at the quest accomplished in 1965 to pride at the success of the judicial system in upholding voting rights to disbelief as the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush courts shattered 50 years of work. Voter ID laws, shortened early polling days, and voter roll purges are just the latest tactics in a fight that continues. Not just a compelling history, but a cry for help in the recurring struggle to gain what is supposed to be an inalienable right. (b/w illustrations)
THE CRIME AND THE SILENCE Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne
Bikont, Anna Translated by Valles, Alissa Farrar, Straus and Giroux (544 pp.) $30.00 | Sep. 15, 2015 978-0-374-17879-6 Polish journalist Bikont (editor: And I Still See Their Faces: Images of Polish Jews, 1996) delivers a daring exposure of the crimes of her countrymen in the first week of July 1941. At the time, the deaths of the Jews of Jedwabne and those of Radzilów and Wasosz were glossed over, until a book commemorating them appeared just before the 60th anniversary. Jan Tomasz Gross based her book Neighbors (2001) partly on the Jedwabne Book of Memory, edited by rabbis Julius and Jacob Baker. It was the first time the testimony of eyewitness Szmul Wasersztejn was published, a good first step for Bikont to begin her search for witnesses. Sixty years after hundreds of Jews were herded into a barn that was then burned to the ground, the author found a host of disturbing reactions from the local residents. There are blatant denials that any Poles took part and 8
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assurances that it was the Germans who forced locals to participate. Many told Bikont that since it occurred so many years ago, she should just leave it alone. Her persistence in chasing down those who might tell her the facts took her all over Poland and to Israel, the United States, Cuba, and Costa Rica. Her most shocking discovery was the still-virulent anti-Semitism in the area. For years, the Catholic Church had preached against the Jews, so when neighbors were exiled to Siberia during the Russian occupation of 1939-1941, the Jews were the best scapegoats, and it was a good excuse for the beginnings of the pogroms. The elements of competitive suffering that the author uncovered in her interviewees appear to be just more excuses. Bikont’s fearless research—she even confronted the brothers known to have led the Jedwabne murders—makes this a fantastic book. It was first published in Poland in 2004, and the European Book Prize it won in 2011 (for the French version) should be only the first of many awards for this significant work. (26 b/w illustrations)
IRREPRESSIBLE The Jazz Age Life of Henrietta Bingham
Bingham, Emily Farrar, Straus and Giroux (384 pp.) $28.00 | Jun. 16, 2015 978-0-8090-9464-6
A colorful portrait of a daring woman. F. Scott Fitzgerald never invented a Jazz-Age seductress as bold, brash, and devastating as Henrietta Bingham (19011968), the author’s great-aunt. A biographer and historian, Bingham (Mordecai: An Early American Family, 2003, etc.) discovered a cache of love letters sent to Henrietta by two ardent suitors. One was John Houseman, not yet a noted director and producer. Most of Henrietta’s lovers, though, were women: Mina Kirstein (sister of ballet impresario Lincoln and lover of Clive Bell), who had been her teacher at Smith College; Bloomsbury artist Dora Carrington, who experienced “ecstasy” in Henrietta’s arms; Wimbledon tennis champion Helen Jacobs, with whom Henrietta had an affair lasting several years; actress Beatrix Lehmann, sister of novelist Rosamund and Hogarth Press editor John; and many others. Henrietta was, apparently, irresistible; she “could beguile brilliant and creative people,” the author notes, but her affairs, which “began passionately...rarely held her attention.... With one lover after another Henrietta acted skittish and immature, ambivalent and distant.” Her behavior was likely shaped by her relationship with her wealthy and powerful father, emotionally, but not physically incestuous, characterized by “mutual obsession and dependency.” He repeatedly offered her careers that would have ensconced her in her native Kentucky, and she repeatedly refused. Yet when he was made Franklin Roosevelt’s ambassador to England, Henrietta reveled in aristocratic life and often served as his hostess. The “seductiveness and ambivalence” Henrietta felt toward her father contributed to a lifetime of neuroses, which she sought to alleviate through treatment with |
As always, Bloom conveys the intimate, urgent, compelling sense of why it matters that we read these canonical authors. the daemon knows
Freudian psychoanalyst Ernest Jones, who became her mentor and confidant and who freely shared details of Henrietta with Mina, also his analysand. As she aged, Henrietta succumbed to drink and assorted pharmaceuticals, suffering more than a dozen breakdowns in the decades before her death. Throughout, the author ably illuminates the character of her great-aunt, who “took freedom as far as she could.” Deeply researched, Bingham’s engrossing biography brings her glamorous, tormented ancestor vividly to life.
THE DAEMON KNOWS Literary Greatness and the American Sublime
Bloom, Harold Spiegel & Grau (528 pp.) $35.00 | May 12, 2015 978-0-8129-9782-8
Brands, H.W. Doubleday (816 pp.) $35.00 | May 12, 2015 978-0-385-53639-4
Monumental life of the president whom some worship and some despise— with Brands (History/Univ. of Texas; The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace, 2012, etc.) providing plenty of justification for both reactions. At least some of Ronald Reagan’s (1911-2004) perceived greatness, suggests the author, came about as a gift of historical accident. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker “squeezed the inflationary expectations out of the economy and put it on the path to solid growth” in the middle of Jimmy Carter’s recession-plagued presidency, just in time for Reagan to harvest the praise when things did turn around. Some came about because the man, though actually distant, expressed a warmth that made people think he cared about them, a good talent for a politico to have. Some came about because, though Reagan had an ideology, he was also a pragmatist who understood that the reason to enter government is to govern—something so many of his followers have forgotten. Brands, a lucid, engaging writer, traces interesting connections between Reagan the politician and Reagan the actor: he was typecast early on as a good guy who played the law-and-order type against more compelling villains, and he learned from Errol Flynn’s blacklisting for left-wing views that conservatism was a safer bet. Brands gives Reagan full honors for realism and hard work, as well as a grasp of the need to do sometimes-unpopular things like raising taxes: “American conservatives...disliked taxes but disliked deficits even more.” Given the timidity of later politicians to own up to unpleasant facts, there’s fresh air in all that, even when it had bad or mixed results—the “most sweeping revision of the tax code since World War II,” say, or Iran-Contra, which, by Brands’ account, was a phase in Reagan’s long war against his “ultimate target,” Fidel Castro. An exemplary work of history that should bring Reagan a touch more respect in some regards but that removes the halo at the same time.
special issue: best books of 2015
Elegiac, gracious literary ponderings that group and compare 12 giants of American literature. Pairing these seminal authors of the “American Sublime” sometimes by influence (Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James) or because they are contemporaneous (Walt Whitman and Herman Melville) or populist and ironical (Mark Twain and Robert Frost), literary titan Bloom (Humanities/Yale Univ.; The Shadow of a Great Rock: A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible, 2011, etc.) lends his enormous, shaggy erudition to their works. Now 84, the author examines the poems of Whitman or of Hart Crane (his avowed favorite), as well as such characters as Isabel Archer from James’ novel The Portrait of a Lady, Candace Compson from William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, and Hester Prynne from Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Wildness might be another way of characterizing the “daemonic” elements in the works of these authors, a ferocious unbounded self-reliance, as espoused in Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was full of ambivalence, pageantry, and “heroic erotic vitality.” With each author, Bloom carefully considers his or her specific work (Emily Dickinson is the only female), cited in fairly robust extracts, in terms of “tricks, turns and tropes of poetic language,” which he delights in tossing up and playing with—e.g., Shakespearean influences and great American tropes such as the white blankness of Ahab’s whale. Yet as gossamer as Bloom’s pearls of literary wisdom are, his personal digressions seem most true, striking, and poignant. He characterizes himself as the “Yiddish-speaking Bronx proletarian” who arrived at Yale at age 21 and was not made to feel welcome. He brought with him a boundless enthusiasm for Hart Crane and uneasiness with the “genteel anti-Semitism” of T.S. Eliot (one of Bloom’s “Greats,” but grudgingly so). As always, Bloom conveys the intimate, urgent, compelling sense of why it matters that we read these canonical authors.
REAGAN The Life
HUNGER MAKES ME A MODERN GIRL A Memoir Brownstein, Carrie Riverhead (256 pp.) $27.95 | Oct. 27, 2015 978-1-59448-663-0
First-class account of the life and times of an essential riot grrrl and the band she helped create. |
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life in nagasaki didn’t stop after the atomic bomb fell
Photo courtesy Gina Santi Photography
When Susan Southard was a high school student in the early 1970s, a study abroad trip to Japan brought her to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. There, looking at photographs of the city’s atomic bomb victims along with her fellow Japanese classmates, a “visceral understanding of war” awakened in her. It would take Southard several decades to find language, imagery, and characters to map the horror of the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki that she first saw in those photographs. This path culminated in her new work of narrative journalism, Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War, which traces the lives of five victims of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki from their childhoods when the event occurred to their adult lives coping with the social isolation that comes with being hibakusha, or “bomb-affected people,” to their old ages. One of Southard’s points, subtly expressed throughout the book, is that the lives of the hibakusha didn’t end with the bomb, so why should their stories? One of her favorite subjects is a survivor named Yoshida Katsuji. A young child when the bombing occurred, he was standing in a field with his friends, looked up toward the sky, where he saw two parachutes that the planes carrying the atomic bomb had dropped to measure blast and radiation. He was facing the bomb when it exploded; because of this his face was very badly burned. “When he started telling me this story…he got so anSusan Southard imated and so alive and intense about it,” Southard recounts. But his post-bombing story was just as inspiring for Southard. She marveled at how kind and funny he was, considering he had lived through nuclear war. “It was a conscious decision on his part,” she explains. “Eventually he decided that he was going to be happy.”—A.N. Alexia Nader is a writer living in San Francisco and a senior editor at The Brooklyn Quarterly. 10
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In this debut memoir, Brownstein, co-founder of the iconic punk band Sleater-Kinney, traces her evolution from the daughter of a secure but secretly unhappy home—closeted gay father, anorexic mother—to a gawky teenage rock fan and, ultimately, to becoming an artist in her own right. (She does not delve into her work on Portlandia.) The story of her life is also, inevitably, the story of her own band: meeting (and having a close but tortuous relationship with) co-founder Corin Tucker, the endless process of writing and co-writing songs and guitar leads, firing drummers (they went through three before striking gold with Janet Weiss), and the way life on the road both forges and fractures relationships. For Sleater-Kinney fans, the book is an absolute must, as it not only describes the rise of the band, but also delves into the making of every album. Furthermore, for a band in which song authorship has never been perfectly clear, Brownstein gives some insight as to who wrote what. More than that, the book is deeply personal, an act of self-discovery by a writer both telling her story and coming to understand herself at the same time. “In Sleater-Kinney,” she writes, “each song, each album, built an infrastructure, fresh skeletons.” The author writes focused and uncluttered prose, choosing the best, most telling details, as she recounts stories that show what it means to perform for the first time and what it means for a woman to be both a fan and a star in a staunchly male-dominated world. Unlike many rock star memoirs, there’s no sense that this book is a chore or a marketing effort. It’s revealing and riveting. On the page as in her songs, Brownstein finds the right words to give shape to experience. (8-page b/w photo insert)
THE OREGON TRAIL An American Journey Buck, Rinker Simon & Schuster (448 pp.) $28.00 | Jun. 30, 2015 978-1-4516-5916-0
A crazy whim of a trip on a covered wagon turns into an inspired exploration of American identity. Journalist Buck (Shane Comes Home, 2005, etc.) chronicles his summerlong journey across the “Great American Desert” in a covered wagon, an arduous, astonishing journey that traced the same exodus of more than 400,000 pioneers across the Oregon Trail in the 15 years before the Civil War. The author and his brother had the knowledge and wherewithal to make such an ambitious journey largely because of their upbringing in rural New Jersey, where their father, a Look magazine editor and former pilot, kept horses and wagons and took the family of 11 children on a similar, though shorter, journey into Pennsylvania in the summer of 1958. Once Buck realized he could not manage three mules and a wagon all by himself, he enlisted his big, enormously capable brother, and the two procured the authentic 19th-century Peter Schuttler wagon and three specially bred American mules (each with its own wonderfully eccentric personality) and all the |
A stirring history of that bad time, 45-odd years ago, when we didn’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind was blowing, though we knew it was loud. days of rage
necessary equipment for breakdowns and repairs. The preparations were daunting, and Buck fascinatingly walks readers through all of them, all with an eye to how the early settlers made the actual journey, from St. Joseph, Missouri, to the Willamette Valley, Oregon: 2,000-plus miles of carefully plotted trail, encompassing high desert and mountains, rivers and shaky bridges, thunderstorms, scant water, and patches of no road. Throughout, the travelers were, by necessity, required to frequently jettison supplies. “See America Slowly” was the theme of the men’s boyhood trip, a theme resurrected sweetly for this one. The journey encouraged delighted observers to shelter and feed the men and mules, often in the towns’ communal rodeo grounds, and allowed the brothers to reconnect over childhood memories and with the American land they cherished. By turns frankly hilarious, historically elucidating, emotionally touching, and deeply informative.
1920 The Year that Made the Decade Roar Burns, Eric Pegasus (400 pp.) $27.95 | May 15, 2015 978-1-60598-772-9
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DAYS OF RAGE America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence Burrough, Bryan Penguin Press (608 pp.) $29.95 | Apr. 7, 2015 978-1-59420-429-6
A stirring history of that bad time, 45-odd years ago, when we didn’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind was blowing, though we knew it was loud. The 1970s, writes Vanity Fair special correspondent Burrough (The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes, 2009, etc.), saw something unknown since the American Revolution: a group of radical leftists forming “an underground resistance movement” that, as his subtitle notes, is all but forgotten today. The statistics are daunting and astonishing: In 1971 and 1972, the FBI recorded more than 2,500 bombings, only 1 percent of which led to a fatality. In contrast to the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, which killed 168 people, the “single deadliest radical-underground attack of the decade killed four people.” The FBI, of course, took this very seriously. As Burrough records, it embarked on a campaign of infiltration and interdiction that soon overstepped its bounds, legally speaking. The author takes a deep look into this history on both sides, interviewing veterans of the underground on one hand and of the FBI on the other. He traces the bombing campaign back to the man he deems a “kind of Patient Zero for the underground groups of the 1970s,” who began seeding Manhattan with bombs in the year of Woodstock and provided a blueprint for radicals right and left ever since. It is clear that the FBI has Burrough’s sympathy; after all, many of those who went underground got off lightly, while overly zealous federal agents (the man who would later be unmasked as Watergate’s Deep Throat among them) were prosecuted. The author’s history is thoroughgoing and fascinating, though with a couple of curious notes—e.g., the likening of the Weathermen et al. to the Nazi Werewolf guerrillas “who briefly attempted to resist Allied forces after the end of World War II.” A superb chronicle, long—but no longer than needed— and detailed, that sheds light on how the war on terror is being waged today.
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In a fascinating work about a remarkable year, former NBC News correspondent Burns (Invasion of the Mind Snatchers: Television’s Conquest of America in the Fifties, 2010, etc.) shows us what put the roar in the Roaring ’20s. The end of World War I brought reactions in the form of anarchy, the birth of jazz, the first Ponzi scheme, Prohibition, women’s suffrage and the birth of “mass media.” Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and his assistant, J. Edgar Hoover, fought the Red Scare against the likes of Sacco and Vanzetti and the most notorious anarchist, Luigi Galleani, who swore by the “propaganda of the deed.” Their work would lose effectiveness as their agents were diverted to enforce Prohibition, which caused its own problems. The Anti-Saloon League was the first of the special interest groups, and Prohibition cost organized crime its organization, as it became a growth industry to provide unregulated, and often lethal, liquor to the masses. The election of Warren Harding in 1920 was the first in which women voted and the first time returns were broadcast on radio. It also brought the “Ohio Gang” into Washington, a group who imported Canadian liquor by the trainload, sold Teapot Dome and ran cons that Ponzi, who made millions in a few short months, would have loved. There was also extensive birth and growth. The migration of blacks to the North looking for work brought the Ku Klux Klan in their wake, but they also brought jazz and other cultural elements. Jazz brought men like Louis Armstrong to Chicago and then New York and Harlem. The Harlem Renaissance was spurred not only by jazz, but also by literature—by Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes and countless others. Burns follows it all with verve.
In this delightfully readable book, the author expertly shows how those affected by the Great War linked together, nourished each other and really did change the world.
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ST. MARKS IS DEAD The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street
BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME Notes on the First 150 Years in America
Calhoun, Ada Norton (416 pp.) $27.95 | Nov. 2, 2015 978-0-393-24038-2
Coates, Ta-Nehisi Spiegel & Grau (176 pp.) $24.00 | Jul. 8, 2015 978-0-8129-9354-7
An illuminating stroll through the decades of one of the most culturally significant streets in America. The first book by journalist Calhoun vividly details the long legacy of artistic upheaval, political foment, demographic transformation, and resistance to gentrification along the street on New York’s Lower East Side where she grew up. St. Marks Place doesn’t submit to the easy stereotyping of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, perhaps because “hippies” and “Summer of Love” represented such a comparatively brief blip in American culture. The hippies of St. Marks preferred to be called “freaks,” with less of an emphasis on love and more on the liberation of anarchy. But as the author traces the legacy of St. Marks back four centuries, she shows how the street has long served as a magnet for radical visionaries, crackpot artists, self-proclaimed prophets, and runaways with nowhere else to go. “Disillusioned St. Marks Place bohemians—those who were Beats in the fifties, hippies in the sixties, punks in the seventies, or anarchists in the eighties—often say the street is dead now, with only the time of death a matter of debate,” she writes, and then counters, “but this book will show that every cohort’s arrival, the flowering of its utopia, killed someone else’s.” In quickly paced, anecdotal fashion, Calhoun connects the dots between Emma Goldman and Abbie Hoffman, Charlie Parker and the Velvet Underground, those who occupied the neighborhood during different decades but sustained its character as kindred spirits. While readers looking for a more thorough documentation of the Beats or CBGB might consider the narrative a little hitand-run, the breezy approach underscores the radical, significant transformations experienced by St. Marks and leads to her engagingly personal reflection on how a child raised there might not feel much nostalgia for blocks of discarded needles, used condoms, and threats of pedophilia: “though St. Marks Place will probably always elude true respectability, the street today is safer and more pleasant than at any point in the last fifty years.” Rather than a nostalgic lament, this revelatory book celebrates an indelible cultural imprint. (60 illustrations)
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future. Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.” This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
THE GIRL FROM HUMAN STREET Ghosts of Memory in a Jewish Family Cohen, Roger Knopf (336 pp.) $27.95 | Jan. 13, 2015 978-0-307-59466-2
In an effort to understand the modern Jewish experience, distinguished New York Times columnist Cohen (Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis’ Final Gamble, 2005, etc.) examines his family history of displacement, despair and resilience. 12
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Unlike other, neater narratives of being lost and found, Connors’ story—told with harrowing insight and fierce prose—is messy and incomplete and makes no apologies for being anything but. all the wrong places
The author has always prided himself on confronting the truth in his writing, but he knew that his work allowed him to escape the more difficult task of articulating a deeper personal truth. In this honest and lucid book, the British-born Cohen tells how his Lithuanian Jewish ancestors came to South Africa. Tolerated by white South Africans because they were also white-skinned, the author’s relatives made prosperous lives as business people while avoiding the fate of millions of other Jews in Nazi Europe. Despite their successes, however, members of both sides of his family were plagued by mental illness. The genes that caused it “formed an unbroken chain with the past,” which many of them tried to ignore. Cohen focuses in particular on the tragic story of his mother, June. Gifted and beautiful, she was also bipolar. When she and her family relocated to London, her symptoms surfaced and remained with her for the rest of her life. Cohen links June’s unraveling with her sense of being a stranger in a strange land. Like one of his mother’s relatives who ended up in Israel and eventually committed suicide, “[June] was a transplant who did not take.” All too aware of how many South African Jews turned a blind eye to the problem of apartheid in South Africa, Cohen also examines Israel’s evolution into a colonial nation that oppresses Arab minorities. Millennia of persecution and eternal exile have made a Jewish homeland a necessity, yet Israel will never fully succeed as a state until peaceful coexistence—of the kind white and black South Africans have slowly worked toward—becomes a reality. With limpid prose, Cohen delivers a searching and profoundly moving memoir.
Connors, Philip Norton (256 pp.) $25.95 | Feb. 16, 2015 978-0-393-08876-2
Connors (Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout, 2012) reflects candidly on the years he spent unmoored after a family tragedy; he continuously found himself in places he felt apart from. “A natty socialist at the Wall Street Journal. A white guy in a black neighborhood. Strange how comfortable my discomfort became,” writes the author, who, at the age of 23, after the shocking death of his brother, turned completely inward, “a man shrouded in almost total self-regard.” As Connors struggled to find a place for his pain where it wouldn’t devour him, he stumbled into a career in journalism, even after he convinced himself he had given up on the business. “But the fact was I’d borrowed twenty-five grand to pay for an education in print journalism,” he writes, “so I had little choice but to pursue a career in print journalism.” At his desk in the Leisure & Arts section of the WSJ, surrounded by conservative editorial writers, Connors proudly displayed his left-wing politics by hanging posters of Emma Goldman and Ralph Nader. He had |
WENT THE DAY WELL? Witnessing Waterloo
Crane, David Knopf (384 pp.) $30.00 | Apr. 29, 2015 978-0-307-59492-1
As the armies gathered in June 1815, few doubted that a world-shaking event was in the works. Britons poured into Belgium to witness the excitement; those remaining behind agonized, debated, and quarreled; others went about their daily lives. Most important, they wrote letters, kept journals, and tangled with the law. British historian Crane (Empires of the Dead: How One Man’s Vision Led to the Creation of WWI’s War Graves, 2013) mines this bonanza of material for a delightful chronicle of how Britons, famous and obscure, in and out of the Duke of Wellington’s army, experienced the iconic battle. Crane astutely reminds us that not everyone yearned for a British victory. Britons were free, but they were governed by an aristocratic oligarchy mired in corruption and supported by a minuscule electorate. Reformers, energized by the French Revolution but devastated by 20 years of war and vicious attacks on their patriotism, made their voices heard. Crane creates a vivid portrait of perhaps the most notorious Napoleon advocate, the driven, misanthropic writer William Hazlitt, but he was only one of a coterie of famous names (Lamb, Byron, Hunt, Godwin) who spoke for a voluble and not insignificant number of their countrymen. Readers will marvel at the richly expressed feelings of servants, soldiers, prisoners, wives, and lovers, rich and poor, not excepting many who, preoccupied with their own problems, ignored the great battle. “Beyond London,” writes the author, “spreading out in concentric rings across the blackness of the country and the farms and villages and towns of Britain, thirteen million souls lived out their own separate lives in this strange phoney pause in the nation’s life....The day of Waterloo had begun.” A historical tour de force—a fascinating panorama of Great Britain during the summer of Waterloo. kirkus.com
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ALL THE WRONG PLACES A Life Lost and Found
passionate, failed affairs and emotionally charged encounters with his neighbors as one of the only white faces in his BedfordStuyvesant neighborhood. Connors’ missing sense of purpose is keenly felt through passages that combine lyricism with dark humor to draw lines between grief and the uncanny. His search toward understanding his brother’s death—which included studying graphic images from the autopsy report and reaching out to his brother’s ex-girlfriends—ultimately ends in a place of belonging. But the redemptive ending of this story, which Connors smartly does not dwell on, is far less compelling than the unique and brutally raw accounts of his search for connection. Unlike other, neater narratives of being lost and found, Connors’ story—told with harrowing insight and fierce prose—is messy and incomplete and makes no apologies for being anything but.
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letter to america
Photo courtesyNina Subin
On June 17, my hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, endured one of the most horrific mass murders in recent memory. In addition to the unimaginable grief of each of the victims’ families and friends, the tragedy was also a devastating blow to the city’s collective psyche (especially given that we were only a couple months removed from the Walter Scott shooting), and many of us were worried about enduring further turmoil similar to that in Baltimore earlier this summer. Thankfully, we came together as a community and mostly avoided further senseless violence. However, the racial implications of the crime remain—and are yet another example of the vulnerability of black lives in America today. Few writers or commentators are more eloquent and incisive on this issue than Atlantic contributor Ta-Nehisi Coates, and his latest book, Between the World and Me, is a literary and sociological firebomb, an unquestionably revelatory exploration of the black experience in America. The nonfiction judges for the 2015 Kirkus Prize chose the book as the winner of this year’s Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, meaning that Coates received $50,000. In the form of letters to his teenage son, who was visibly shaken by the verdict in the Michael Brown case, Coates delivers not just an indictment or screed. He methodically shows how sadly ingrained, how unremarkable it is that the black body is constantly under assault in this country (after all, he notes, the very foundations of the U.S. were built on the backs of African slaves). As our reviewer wrote in a starred review, Ta - Nehisi Coates Coates “came to understand that ‘race’ does not fully explain ‘the breach between the world and me,’ yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by ‘majoritarian bandits.’ ” For years, Coates has been the most honest and important voice on race in America, and his latest book is not just further testament to that fact. It’s one of the most significant memoirs/cultural studies of the year and has all the makings of a modern classic.—E.L.
ETERNITY’S SUNRISE The Imaginative World of William Blake
Damrosch, Leo Yale Univ. (336 pp.) $30.00 | Oct. 27, 2015 978-0-300-20067-6
Acclaimed scholar and biographer Damrosch (Literature/Harvard Univ.; Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World, 2013, etc.) brings decades of study to this analysis of William Blake’s art, poetry, religion, and philosophy. Those with little experience with the 18th-century poet will probably benefit the most from this fascinating work. As the author writes, Blake’s poems are undeniably strange, and his genius has always challenged the focus of his readers (he was overlooked during his lifetime). Especially difficult is tracing the complications of the unpublished poem “The Four Zoas” and their feminine emanations. Blake’s outlooks on the divine, which is contained in all nature, and institutional religion, which he loathed, show in his invented symbols and unique myths. He sought the incarnation of the divine spirit of the human in the everyday, and he looked at conventional marriage as institutionalized prostitution and conventional religion as theatrical performance. In “London,” nothing is sacred as Blake indicts church, law, monarchy, property, and marriage. He produced his own engravings and writings, and those who bought them tended to ignore the text. The author’s study of the man and clear style make this much easier to read and tempt readers to seek out more. Blake was a complicated man, given to visions and paranoia, and he often heard voices, and Damrosch guides us through the paths of Blake’s mind to ease our journey. Blake’s poems and art were used to challenge and inspire, never to preach, and his first works had a social message. His long prophecies were not epics, however; a better analogy is music, as they resembled oratorios with key changes and tempo contrasts. Damrosch expertly navigates Blake’s “question imagination,” which “has never ceased to startle and inspire.” General readers looking for a challenge will love this book and will dive into Blake’s work. Many will find him just too far off the beam, but they, too, will enjoy the many color illustrations included in the text.
THE LAST LOVE SONG A Biography of Joan Didion Daugherty, Tracy St. Martin’s (688 pp.) $35.00 | Aug. 25, 2015 978-1-250-01002-5
An eloquent work on the life of Joan Didion (b. 1934), fashioning her story as no less than the rupture of the American narrative.
Eric Liebetrau is the nonfiction and managing editor. 14
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A lyrical melding of art history, memoir, and philosophical meditation. the white road
THE WHITE ROAD Journey into an Obsession
de Waal, Edmund Farrar, Straus and Giroux (416 pp.) $27.00 | Nov. 3, 2015 978-0-374-28926-3
A lyrical melding of art history, memoir, and philosophical meditation. Ceramic artist de Waal (The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family’s Century of Art and Loss, 2010, etc.) is obsessed with white porcelain, “thin as silver...white as driven snow,” a material so exceptional that it invites comparison to “smoke coiling up from a chimney, or from incense on an altar, or mist from a valley.” Porcelain gets its quality from two kinds of mineral: petunse, a fairly common stone, which yields amazing translucence and hardness; and the rarer kaolin, a soft, white earth that imparts plasticity. In short passages of allusive, radiant prose, the author chronicles his journeys in search of both the materials and the history of porcelain, discovering along the way men as obsessed as he. In 14th-century China, the Yongle emperor coveted porcelains of |
the purest white—“white as transcendence,” de Waal writes— with finely drawn decorations under a lucent glaze. In 17th-century France, Louis XIV built the Trianon de Porcelaine, filled with Delft imitations until a porcelain industry began in Rouen, Saint-Cloud, and Limoges. In early-18th-century Germany, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, “philosopher and mathematician and observer of how the world changes,” pursued his investigations in Dresden’s Goldhaus, a laboratory for natural philosophers and alchemists. In Cornwall, the Quaker William Cookworthy and the enterprising Wedgwoods perfected porcelain manufacture. Shockingly, in 1940, the Allach Porcelain Factory moved to Dachau, where inmates made figurines beloved by Nazis. Amassing a cache of kaolin, each with idiosyncratic properties, de Waal created an installation of 2,455 porcelain pots, glazed in white. For the author, white has mystical resonance: “White is truth; it is the glowing cloud on the horizon that shows the Lord is coming. White is wisdom....White brings us all into focus....It reveals. It is Revelation itself.” De Waal’s poetically recounted journey is a revelation, as well: of the power of obsession and the lust for purity. (45 b/w illustrations)
LEAVING ORBIT Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight
Dean, Margaret Lazarus Graywolf (320 pp.) $16.00 paper | May 19, 2015 978-1-55597-709-2
special issue: best books of 2015
Didion’s works of fiction, nonfiction, and journalism relentlessly probed the times in which they emerged. In this wonderfully engaging biography, Daugherty (English and Creative Writing/Oregon State Univ.; Just One Catch: A Biography of Joseph Heller, 2011, etc.) wisely sticks to Didion’s near obsession with making sense of an increasingly incoherent narrative during the tumultuous decades of the waning 20th century. Showing the “construction of persona” of the California-raised author, Daugherty examines Didion’s exploration of the concept of the Western-moving pioneer, resilient and stoical in the face of any calamity, a trope underscored by her mother’s somewhat depressed motto, “what difference does it make?” The author also discusses Didion’s journal keeping, which fed her penchant for eavesdropping; her early stylistic training under Berkeley instructor Mark Schorer and his “channeling of [Joseph] Conrad; her “frailty” and devotion to being the outsider; and her maddening “elisions,” first honed from reading Hemingway. Didion’s early pieces of New Journalism for Vogue—where she spent her early formative years, until the mid 1960s—reveal the “helter skelter” process that shaped her work: the contingency and chance, rather than the deliberation that critics assumed. In book reviews, movie-star profiles, and political reporting, she was struggling to find an “effective American voice.” Enter Time writer John Gregory Dunne, whom she married after the publication of her first novel, Run, River, in 1963, and with whom she moved back to California to work in the more lucrative industry of TV and film. Daugherty devotes much of the later pages of his biography to their remarkable literary partnership, which ended with his sudden death in 2003—an event that inspired her haunting memoir The Year of Magical Thinking (2003). A dogged biographer elicits from Didion’s life much more than tidy observations of “morality and culture.”
Beguiled at an early age by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Dean (English/Univ. of Tennessee; The Time It Takes to Fall, 2007) deftly chronicles the history of American spaceflight and what the end of the space program means for American culture. The author structures her narrative around trips to the Kennedy Space Center in order to witness the final space shuttle launches. Seeking “to write about those places where the technical and emotional intersect,” Dean introduces readers to Florida’s Space Coast; the NASA technicians who work on the shuttles; and astronauts, avid space fans, and the locals whose livelihoods depend on the space agency. Like any great storyteller, the author weaves in numerous cultural, political, historical, literary, and personal threads, widening the story’s focus and enriching its texture. Dean notes that the style of writing known as creative nonfiction smoothly overlapped with the beginnings of American spaceflight in the 1960s. The author enlists the voices of such writers as Tom Wolfe, William Burrows, Norman Mailer and Oriana Fallaci for their insights into the saga of American space travel. Dean frequently reiterates her passion for the literature of spaceflight. “When I read all these books,” she writes, “I’m encountering other minds struggling with the same questions while walking the same landscape.” The author analyzes her struggles assembling her manuscript, providing kirkus.com
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THE DEATH OF CANCER After Fifty Years on the Front Lines of Medicine, a Pioneering Oncologist Reveals Why the War on Cancer Is Winnable—and How We Can Get There
useful insight into her creative process, and she includes her students’ remarkable ideas regarding the space program and its conclusion. Dean recounts the ruthless tactics of professional autograph seekers during a book signing by Buzz Aldrin and shows how Americans’ perceptions of space travel changed after the 1986 Challenger disaster. Throughout, the author’s stimulating prose enhances topics that at first glance might seem lacking in broad appeal—e.g., engineering issues or the politics of NASA’s perpetual underfunding. One of those books you can’t put down, don’t want to finish, and won’t soon forget.
HOW WE LIVE NOW Redefining Home and Family in the 21st Century
DePaulo, Bella Beyond Words/Atria (320 pp.) $26.00 | Aug. 25, 2015 978-1-58270-479-1 An eye-opening survey of the different living arrangements Americans have come to embrace. As a proponent of living alone, DePaulo admits, “I don’t want to live with any other humans of any age.” Yet she finds high levels of satisfaction among those whose living arrangements deviate from what was once considered the social norm. That norm might be an aberration at a time when people are marrying later (if at all), living longer and healthier, and trying to strike a balance between privacy and community. “Americans are living the new happily ever after,” she writes. “They are living with people they care about, sharing meals, indulging in the comforting ritual of how-was-your-day exchanges and spending holidays together. The ‘new’ part is that the people with whom they are sharing homes and lives may not be just spouses and romantic partners.” They may be single parents who have come together through “CoAbode, an online matching service for single mothers looking to share a home with other single mothers.” They may span multiple generations of the same family. They may be older people, widowed or divorced, who seek community and perhaps even romance but without marriage. They may be communities that share common areas—dining, lawns—but have individual living spaces and finances that distinguish them from the communes of old. The author admits that her book is “biased” toward those who have found happiness and that those who seek out such arrangements are a self-selected lot to begin with. But if those who have found tension or trouble in sharing space with former strangers are given short shrift, the book nevertheless builds a compelling case that “in twenty-first century America, individuals are freer than they have ever been before. They are no longer tied to predetermined courses in which marrying, having kids, and staying married are obligatory.” An informative and inspirational guide to the myriad ways of making a home.
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DeVita Jr., Vincent T. & DeVita-Raeburn, Elizabeth Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (320 pp.) $28.00 | Nov. 3, 2015 978-0-374-13560-7
One of the world’s most renowned and forward-thinking oncologists recounts 35 years of cancer research and tells us why we should be optimistic about the future. In the last 20 years, cancer survival rates have skyrocketed thanks to the innovative researchers and physicians pioneering effective therapies. Leading this “war on cancer” is DeVita (Medicine and Epidemiology and Public Health/Yale School of Medicine), whose career credentials include stints as director of the National Cancer Institute, president of the American Cancer Society, and director of the Yale Cancer Center. Even more impressive: he developed a cure for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the first true cure for any form of cancer and the first of many successes to come in the field of combination chemotherapy. In each chapter, the author deftly navigates the many nuances of cancer research and treatment using accessible language to describe exciting technological advances while also providing a gritty look at the uneasy relationship between government and science. On one hand, writes DeVita, programs like the NCI exist because of federal funding, and many of America’s cancer centers are among the best in the world. However, the author also delivers a no-holds-barred analysis of bureaucracy’s weakness: it remains challenging to get new treatments approved, even in an era in which many cancer drugs show incredible promise. DeVita reports on this and myriad other issues facing cancer doctors and the patients they care for, imbuing his superb science writing with an emotional back story—including his own cancer diagnosis—that enriches the joys and struggles he has faced in his long career. This book is also far more than a history: it’s a manifesto in which the author states plainly what needs to be done to eradicate the disease. In the meantime, he arms readers with behind-the-scenes details about where to seek treatment, insisting that we’ve arrived at “the beginning of the end” of the disease. One of the most absorbing and empowering science histories to hit the shelves in recent years. (16 pags of b/w illustrations)
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Sprawling, engrossing, and highly relevant to the ongoing controversies about policing post-Ferguson. blue
OUR MAN IN CHARLESTON Britain’s Secret Agent in the Civil War South
Dickey, Christopher Crown (400 pp.) $27.00 | Jul. 21, 2015 978-0-307-88727-6
special issue: best books of 2015
In this biography of Robert Bunch, the British consul in Charleston, South Carolina, at the beginning of the Civil War, Daily Beast foreign editor Dickey (Securing the City: Inside America’s Best Counterterror Force—The NYPD, 2010, etc.) illustrates how an outside observer can understand more about a situation than the parties involved. The years leading up to the war were vitally important for the British to understand the feelings and actions of that hotbed of secession and slavery. The British and Americans banned the slave trade in 1807, but the Americans added a proviso of a 20-year delay. Bunch’s great talent was in convincing Charlestonians to see him as being on a friendly mission. They revealed their plots, plans, and hopes to him, which he used to compose invaluable dispatches to Britain’s virulently anti-slavery government. The author thoroughly understands the point of view of the South regarding the slave trade. Cotton was king, and England was its largest customer. While the production had grown 3,000 percent, the slave population increased only by 150 percent. As new states entered the Union, hopefully as slave states, even more workers would be needed for the laborintensive industry. Virginia and Maryland, states where cotton had depleted the soil, now bred and sold slaves to the new markets, and some argued that the price of long-standing slaves had grown so much that new “stock” would devalue them. Dickey’s comprehension of the mindset of the area, coupled with the enlightening missives from Bunch, provides a rich background to understanding the time period. Bunch’s work in Charleston helped guide Britain’s decisions regarding the cotton-export ban, the blockade, and whether to recognize the Confederacy. A great book explaining the workings of what Dickey calls an erratic, cobbled-together coalition of ferociously independent states. It should be in the library of any student of diplomacy, as well as Civil War buffs.
Journalist Domanick (Cruel Justice: Three Strikes and the Politics of Crime in America’s Golden State, 2004, etc.), associate director of John Jay College’s Center on Media, Crime, and Justice, argues that the philosophical conflicts within the LAPD convey the “larger saga of big-city American policing.” He weaves this complex narrative around several key figures—officers, administrators, civilian commissioners, and gangbangers-turned-interventionists—and events, starting in 1992 with the ugly flash point of the Rodney King beating and the subsequent riots. The LAPD was unprepared for a conflagration stoked by its reliance on paramilitary tactics in minority neighborhoods. Domanick considers this the key feature of the LAPD since the reign of martinet chief William Parker in the 1950s and ’60s. Parker’s protégé, Daryl Gates, was unapologetically provocative, promoting hyperaggressive policing during the violent crack era of the 1980s. In the post-King political wreckage, Gates was succeeded by two African-American chiefs, outsider Willie Williams and admired local cop Bernard Parks. Both failed to address the LAPD’s baroque leadership structure and aggressive tactics, and they were plagued by the flawed investigation of O.J. Simpson and the “Ramparts CRASH” corruption scandal. The city finally turned to William Bratton, the driven, ambitious proponent of statistically oriented policing who claimed credit for New York’s historic crime reductions. Bratton saw his LA appointment as an opportunity to “remake [police] culture into a community-policing model without undoing his broken-windows strategy.” Domanick paints on a broad canvas, often pausing to look at other cities’ parallel struggles with policing and crime. He adeptly balances a complex discussion, addressing both the necessity of proactive law enforcement in neighborhoods plagued by gang violence and the fundamental injustice of the “Drug War” model as applied to low-income communities. While the focus on multiple biographies can become tedious, this is a well-executed, large-scale urban narrative. Sprawling, engrossing, and highly relevant to the ongoing controversies about policing post-Ferguson, which Domanick addresses in an epilogue.
GALILEO’S MIDDLE FINGER Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science
Dreger, Alice Penguin Press (340 pp.) $27.95 | Mar. 10, 2015 978-1-59420-608-5
BLUE The LAPD and the Battle to Redeem American Policing
Domanick, Joe Simon & Schuster (436 pp.) $28.00 | Aug. 11, 2015 978-1-4516-4107-3 An incisive examination of American policing, using a tumultuous two decades in Los Angeles as a lens. |
Dreger (Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics/Northwestern Univ.; One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal, 2004, etc.) passionately investigates character assassinations in academia and how “[s]cience and social justice require each other to be healthy, and both are critically important to human freedom.” Among others, the author examines the case of anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, whose blunt characterization of kirkus.com
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a poet investigates some dark history— her family’s
Photo courtesy Rina Castelnuovo
Rita Gabis began to look into the history of her grandfather after wrestling with two disturbing dreams. “Dream one: I’m being hunted down...Dream two: I’m a murderer,” she writes in the prologue to A Guest at the Shooters’ Banquet: My Grandfather’s SS Past, My Jewish Family, a Search for the Truth. The intuition that these dreams might have to do with her family’s history, particularly her grandfather’s during World War II when he worked under the Gestapo as the chief of security police in the small Lithuanian town of Švenčionys before immigrating to the U.S., started Gabis on a knotted path that took her to archives, uncomfortable family meals, and the apartments of WWII survivors from the Bronx to Lithuania. For a while, Gabis had no idea what she was doing or where her research into her grandfather’s wartime life was going to take her. Normal, healthy for an open-minded writer at the beginning stages of research. She had a few questions in mind: was her grandfather involved in killing Jewish and Polish residents living in and around Švenčionys during the war? And if so, was he involved indirectly or directly? A Guest at the Shooters’ Banquet closely chronicles Gabis’ difficult research journey. Gabis called on her experience as a poet to help her embrace the element of unknowingness in her story. “I always say to my poetry students that the best poem ends not with a ribbon tied into a bow but with a question mark for the reader,” Gabis explains. “I think that was the nature of the book and Rita Gabis that was something I had to live with as a writer—that there would be some things that would be unsolvable.”—A.N. Alexia Nader is a writer living in San Francisco and a senior editor at The Brooklyn Quarterly.
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the Yanamomö tribe in Brazil led to accusations that he had fomented tribal violence. This was false, Dreger demonstrates, abetted by a disgraceful lack of fact-checking, personal animus and a belief in tribes as “noble savages.” Following her doctoral thesis on Victorian doctors’ attitudes toward hermaphrodites, Dreger’s writing caught the attention of the intersex movement, which she joined to support the rights of mixed-sex individuals to self-determine their sexual identity. Similarly, she supported transsexual rights but soon became a target for uncovering the dirty dealings of three transgendered females. The women were incensed by a researcher who proposed that the sex changes of some male-to-female transsexuals were motivated by eroticism. The trio exploited social media with outrageous fabrications of the researcher’s work and life. In other studies, Dreger found serious ethical issues with the research of a pediatrician who espouses the use of a potent steroid drug in certain pregnancies to forestall virilizing a female baby. The author also takes to task feminists who attacked an evolutionary psychologist for suggesting that rape, found in humans and other species, could be a way of perpetuating a male’s genes. Dreger’s investigations all turn on how human identity and behavior have been defined in history and why challenges to conventional wisdom are so inflammatory. That explains her homage to Galileo, whose mummified middle finger she saw in a museum in Florence. The finger points skyward to symbolize his opening the heavens to scientific investigation, she writes, while at the same time “giving the finger” in defiance of Vatican authority. Let us be grateful that there are writers like Dreger who have the wits and the guts to fight for truth.
THE QUARTET Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789
Ellis, Joseph J. Knopf (320 pp.) $27.95 | May 5, 2015 978-0-385-35340-3
A brilliant account of six years during which four Founding Fathers, “in disregard of public opinion, carried the American story in a new direction.” In a virtuosic introduction, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Ellis (Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence, 2013, etc.) maintains that Abraham Lincoln was wrong. In 1776—four score and seven years before 1863—our forefathers did not bring forth a new nation. American revolutionaries hated distant governments, taxes, armies and inconvenient laws. Their Colonial governments seemed fine. Ellis reminds us that the 1776 resolution declaring independence described 13 “free and independent states.” Adopting the Constitution in 1789 created the United States, but no mobs rampaged in its favor. In fact, writes the author, the “vast majority of citizens had no interest in American nationhood, indeed regarded the very idea of national government as irrelevant to |
Fagan brings consummate skill to this frequently horrifying study of humanity’s interaction with animals. the intimate bond
their love lives.” Ellis delivers a convincing argument that it was a massive political transformation led by men with impeccable revolutionary credentials. The indispensable man was George Washington, whose miserable eight years begging support for the Revolutionary army convinced him that America needed a central government. Its intellectual mastermind, James Madison, not only marshaled historical arguments, but performed political legerdemain in setting the Constitutional Convention agenda, orchestrating the debates and promoting ratification. Less tactful but equally brilliant, Alexander Hamilton’s vision of American hegemony would provoke stubborn opposition, but during the 1780s, the people that mattered had no objection. An undeservedly neglected Founding Father (Thomas Jefferson became our first secretary of state only after he declined), John Jay was close to the others and a vigorous advocate of reform. This is Ellis’ ninth consecutive history of the Revolutionary War era and yet another winner.
THE GAY REVOLUTION The Story of the Struggle Faderman, Lillian Simon & Schuster (760 pp.) $35.00 | Sep. 8, 2015 978-1-4516-9411-6
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THE INTIMATE BOND How Animals Shaped Human History
Fagan, Brian Bloomsbury (304 pp.) $28.00 | Apr. 14, 2015 978-1-62040-572-7
Fagan (Emeritus, Anthropology/Univ. of Calif., Santa Barbara; The Attacking Ocean: The Past, Present, and Future of Rising Sea Levels, 2013, etc.) brings consummate skill to this frequently horrifying study of humanity’s interaction with animals. The author considers his book a purely historical inquiry, not simply an account of how our relationships to Earth’s other inhabitants have changed over 2.5 million years, but how our interdependent relationships with eight mammals—dogs, goats, sheep, donkeys, pigs, cattle, camels and horses—have profoundly shaped human history. Fagan notes that the very word “animal” has roots in the Latin term anima, or “soul.” He then reveals how early humans defined their world in terms of the animals that were potent ritual partners and discusses how animals went from being respected as individuals to the modern commodification of select species as work animals and food. Eventually, traditional hunting, subsistence farming and husbandry yielded to systematic agriculture, large-scale herding, permanent settlements, cities and the Industrial Revolution. But the story is subtler and more involved than a partnership-to-exploitation narrative, involving not only Western concepts of animals as human possessions, but also a fundamental, distancing shift in humankind’s relationship to the natural environment. Fagan ably explains the various mentalities and contradictions inherent in that story, and he studies a priceless archive of memory, embodied in legend and folklore, regarding associations between animals and people before wholesale domestication became subjugation. Still, our understanding of the factors that transformed wild creatures into domestic beasts owes much to conjecture and interpretation, something Fagan is keen to point out. His analysis, however, is sound, the product of an accomplished archaeological and anthropological background. Though reminding us of the cruelties still visited upon animals and insisting that we respect them anew—not merely as pets or idealized creatures of the wild—Fagan offers no resolutions to our conflicting attitudes toward them, but his compelling, cohesive book calls for further enlightenment.
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The history of the struggle for gay rights in the United States. In this superbly researched book, acclaimed LGBT scholar Faderman (My Mother’s Wars, 2013, etc.) examines the roots of the sociopolitical movement that, for the last 60 years, has worked to achieve justice for LGBT people. The author begins in the 1950s, when “the government, the law, the church, [and] the psychiatric profession all colluded to tell homosexuals they were guilty just by being who they were.” Yet a brave few individuals—e.g., Harry Hay, Phyllis Lyon, and Del Martin—took action by creating organizations intended to offer safe alternatives to gay and lesbian bars. In these groups, homosexuals could offer each other support and seek the respect they desired from mainstream heterosexual society. As the organizations grew, they assimilated ideas from such political catalysts as the burgeoning civil rights movement. By 1969, the Stonewall riots revealed a far more radicalized community, contingents of which created political groups that actively agitated for civil rights rather than simple respect. Mainstream society responded with “family values” movements led by such icons as Anita Bryant. Her anti-gay zeal actually worked to unite the LGBT community and help its members push for political change at the local and then, into the 1980s and beyond, national levels. Faderman documents the tragedy of AIDS and how that epidemic also brought together gays and lesbians and created a still greater sense of solidarity among homosexuals, who, by the 1990s, had begun to press for workplace protections as well as recognition of gay and lesbian families. The author concludes with the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, specifically its provision that marriage
be defined in heterosexual terms only. Throughout this engaging and extremely well-documented book, Faderman clearly shows that for the LGBT community, equality is not a completed goal. Yet the ideal of fully integrated citizenship is closer to becoming reality than ever before. Inspiring and necessary reading for all Americans interested in social justice.
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WHIRLWIND The American Revolution and the War that Won It
A KIM JONG-IL PRODUCTION The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator’s Rise to Power
Ferling, John Bloomsbury (416 pp.) $30.00 | May 5, 2015 978-1-62040-172-9
From servants to citizens: a nuanced study of the American Revolution focused on how the war changed the way Ameri-
cans saw themselves. Having written abundantly about the Revolutionary War, accomplished scholar Ferling (Emeritus, History/Univ. of West Georgia; Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry that Forged a Nation, 2013, etc.) employs his extensive knowledge to relay a tremendously complicated and multilayered story of the gradual embracing of ideas of independence by the once-loyal colonists. Economic incentives drove the colonists to question the relationship with the mother country. They were offended by having to pay for Britain’s chronic warfare, furnish soldiers and then endure England’s “coldhearted indifference” to matters of the colonists’ “vital interests.” Attempts by Britain to enforce imperial trade laws—by the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, one-third of England’s trade was with the colonists—only led to more alarm that Britain was scheming to take away liberties. Little by little, the colonists began to react, and Ferling takes note of certain important early firebrands, e.g.—Virginia’s Patrick Henry, Boston’s Samuel Adams, John Dickinson and his “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania.” Others, such as Benjamin Franklin, emissary to London, played both sides until they were sure which way the wind was blowing. Ferling effectively shows how the colonists’ sense of themselves changed from the very bottom up. From deep in the provincial hamlets, they were organizing, training their militias and accepting more egalitarian proclivities and self-governing practices, such as freedom from the Anglican yoke. Hostilities against Britain provoked a “rooted hatred” for the mother country and a “growing sense of identity as Americans,” although the outcome was in no way certain. In fact, for many years, it looked quite bleak. Ferling impressively demonstrates how the military reality eventually galvanized the fledgling country. A first-rate historian’s masterful touch conveys the profound changes to colonists’ “hearts and minds.”
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Fischer, Paul Flatiron Books (368 pp.) $27.99 | Feb. 3, 2015 978-1-250-05426-5
Exhaustively researched, highly engrossing chronicle of the outrageous abduction of a pair of well-known South Korean filmmakers by the nefarious network of North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il. Filmmaker Fischer carefully presents a well-documented story of the kidnapping of South Korean actress Choi Eun-Hee and her former husband, film producer Shin Sang-Ok, amid some suspicion that the two secretly defected in order to jumpstart their stalling careers (though the author provides ample evidence to the contrary). After a stunningly successful moviemaking collaboration that spanned the mid-1950s until their divorce in 1974, Choi and Shin had gone their own ways by 1978. Choi was raising their two adopted children and mostly teaching acting while Shin saw his studio stripped of its license due to his wheeling and dealing. Meanwhile, Kim Jong-Il—a film fanatic who cleverly insinuated himself as the sole standing heir to his father, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea founder Kim Il-Sung, via his richly propagandistic output by the Korea Film Studio—craved validation and expertise in order to be taken seriously in the international community. Hence the scheme to kidnap the two reigning South Korean film idols, re-educate them and allow them all they needed to refashion the North Korean film industry. This is just what happened: The two stars were lured to Hong Kong—first Choi in January 1978, then Shin in September—and hustled onto a freighter and taken to Pyongyang. Isolated, imprisoned in luxury homes (Shin spent two years in prison for trying to escape), summoned periodically to Kim’s birthday parties and expected to drink heavily and be merry, the two were eventually thrown together in 1983 and directed to reignite their collaboration and marriage. Seven films later, including the Godzilla-like Pulgasari (1985)—they took asylum in the U.S. Embassy in Vienna. A meticulously detailed feat of rare footage inside the DPRK’s propaganda machinery. (8-page color photo insert)
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Gabis brings her sensibility as a poet and indefatigable energy as a historian to this engrossing memoir. a guest at the shooters’ banquet
THE GREAT DIVIDE The Conflict Between Washington and Jefferson that Defined a Nation
A GUEST AT THE SHOOTERS’ BANQUET My Grandfather’s SS Past, My Jewish Family, a Search for the Truth
Fleming, Thomas Da Capo/Perseus (424 pp.) $27.99 | Mar. 15, 2015 978-0-306-82127-1
Gabis, Rita Bloomsbury (320 pp.) $28.00 | Sep. 8, 2015 978-1-63286-261-7
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The daughter of a Lithuanian Catholic mother and Russian Jewish father, Gabis (The Wild Field, 1994) brings her sensibility as a poet and indefatigable energy as a historian to this engrossing memoir. As she notes, the author’s family spoke little about their past. Gabis knew that her maternal grandparents had come to America after World War II; that her grandfather had fought bravely against Russian invaders; that her grandmother had been arrested and sent to labor camps. However, several years ago, she found out more: her grandfather had been a Nazi security chief in a town where at least two mass slaughters had occurred. Shocked, Gabis suddenly recalled anti-Semitic remarks he made as she was growing up. For the next several years, she became obsessed with one question: was the man she had loved a murderer? The author’s research involved repeated trips to Israel, Poland, and Lithuania, where she still has relatives. In each place, she interviewed Holocaust survivors whose persecution she recounts in moving detail; in Lithuania, she talked with witnesses to Russian and German occupations. Lithuania, she discovered, “as a country...is indistinguishable from the invaders, collaborators, ghosts, heroines, thieves, defenders, and healers it contains....It’s those who know nothing about what went on behind closed doors and those who stood by and watched, those who shrugged and walked away.” The author also interviewed her aunts, whose stories were contradictory. Gabis petitioned for information from Lithuanian archives, discovered documents at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and eventually amassed some 400 pages of archival material. Her journey was frequently interrupted by obstacles: emergency heart surgery that delayed a research trip; a destructive flood in her apartment that damaged documents; food poisoning; her husband’s illness. But the greatest obstacle proved to be the blurred, slippery past, which continually frustrated her. “If I didn’t unravel” her grandfather’s mystery, she thinks, “it would unravel me.” An eloquent testimony to the war’s enduring, violent impact.
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The camaraderie among America’s Founding Fathers did not survive independence in 1783. Disagreement over the role of government grew into virulent antagonism, and that acrimony persists today. Prolific historian Fleming (A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War, 2013, etc.) delivers a vivid, opinionated history of this conflict. The author clearly favors George Washington’s famous practicality over Thomas Jefferson’s fiery revolutionary fervor. Fleming begins with the Constitutional Convention, chaired by Washington, whose eight years of failure to persuade the Continental Congress to support his Revolutionary army convinced him that the United States needed a strong central government. In France as America’s ambassador, Jefferson took no part in the debates and was lukewarm to the outcome. Described by Fleming as “that most troublesome of politicians—an ideologue,” Jefferson believed that humans in their natural state— i.e., virtuous American farmers—did not require government. This utopian faith included passionate support of the French Revolution, during which he defended the Terror and mass executions. Fleming portrays Jefferson as a disloyal secretary of state to President Washington and an equally disloyal vice president to John Adams, working behind the scenes to defeat their policies and lying to their faces. As president, he downsized the government, eliminating all internal taxes and crippling the Army and Navy, which were unable to resist the increasing British depredations that led to the War of 1812. Among historians, Jefferson’s star has been falling for 50 years. Fleming’s frank hostility puts him at the far end of the scale, but he makes a fascinating case that Jefferson’s charisma—which peaked early with the Declaration of Independence—was accompanied by fanciful political beliefs that continue to exert a malign influence on the office of the presidency. (8 pages of b/w photos)
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a short street long on wonderful stories “Nobody goes there anymore,” the late Yogi Berra once said of a New York nightspot, adding, by way of explanation, “It’s too crowded.” It’s in that light that the title of New York journalist Ada Calhoun’s lively new book St. Marks Is Dead: The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street should be read: for generations, she notes, the residents of “America’s hippest street” have lamented that its last, best days were sometime before the present, when rent was cheap, the wine flowed freely, and peace and love prevailed in the streets. For a moment or two, such things did happen on St. Marks Place, which lies in the heart of Manhattan’s East Village. Leon Trotsky lived there, at No. 77. Allen Ginsberg, Bill Graham, Bob Dylan, W.H. Auden, Jean Shepherd, Joey Ramone, Paul Krassner— all had their moments in the sun on its leafy length, the epicenter of the capital of the world, just a few blocks in extent. You should have been there, man—it was really something. “I think it’s funny that so many people have loved this street so much,” Calhoun says, “and yet all have this conviction that the place and the good times ended at some point.” St. Marks isn’t dead, but sometimes it looks a little green around the gills. “I navigated sidewalks cluttered with crack vials, used condoms, and junkies on the nod, and witnessed the Tompkins Square Park riots from my window,” writes Calhoun without a trace of nostalgia for a time not so long ago, one that some St. Marks dwellers think of as a golden age. In her Ada Calhoun engaging, provocative book, she takes readers down a short street that is extraordinarily long on memory—and, as those readers will discover, long on wonderful stories.—G.M.
ALL THE WILD THAT REMAINS Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West
Gessner, David Norton (320 pp.) $26.95 | Apr. 20, 2015 978-0-393-08999-8
The lives and legacies of two influential environmentalists. Gessner (Creative Writing/Univ. of North Carolina, Wilmington; The Tarball Chronicles: A Journey Beyond the Oiled Pelican and into the Heart of the Gulf Oil Spill, 2011, etc.) weaves together biography, cultural criticism, travel and nature writing in this engaging record of a journey to discover the American West and two of the region’s most prominent celebrants: Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Wallace Stegner (1909-1993) and Guggenheim Fellow Edward Abbey (1927-1989). Besides reading the two men’s published works, Gessner visited the places in which they lived; interviewed family, friends, co-workers and students; and mined their manuscripts. Although both men felt passionately about the West and their commitment to environmentalism, they were starkly different: “Saint Wallace the Good” was the “intellectual godfather” of Western writers, “the man of order, the man of culture.” He taught at the University of Wisconsin and Harvard, founded Stanford’s creative writing program, patiently sat on environmental committees, and was a devoted husband and father. “ ‘Radical,’ ” Gessner discovered, “was a word he came to despise.” Abbey, scruffy and combative, was the “the man of wildness, the counterculturalist...serious about his anarchism,” who carried out—and incited—acts of environmental sabotage. Married five times and a desultory father to five children, he was “more beatnik than cowboy...right down to the jugs of wine and many women.” Yet for all their differences in style, they converged in recognizing the increasing vulnerability of the West to drought, fires, fracking and overwhelming tourism. They both battled romantic Western myths of cowboy culture and rugged individualism. Those myths and a “lyric celebration of nature,” Stegner argued, undermined effective environmentalism, which should be focused on practical steps for ensuring responsible land use. Stegner and Abbey “are two who have lighted my way,” nature writer Wendell Berry admitted. They have lighted the way for Gessner, as well, as he conveys in this graceful, insightful homage to their work and to the region they loved.
Gregory McNamee is a contributing editor.
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Any student of the Renaissance should read this excellent work showing Spain’s enormous impact on the arts and, with her vast American empire, the world. spain
SPAIN The Center of the World, 1519-1682 Goodwin, Robert Bloomsbury (608 pp.) $32.00 | Jul. 21, 2015 978-1-62040-360-0
SAM PHILLIPS The Man Who Invented Rock ’n’ Roll Guralnick, Peter Little, Brown (600 pp.) $32.00 | Nov. 10, 2015 978-0-316-04274-1
A monumental biography of the largerthan-life loner who fought for the acceptance of black music and discovered an extraordinary group of poor, country-boy singers whose records would transform American popular culture. |
special issue: best books of 2015
A bright, wide-ranging chronicle of the golden age of the Spanish empire. Though Goodwin (Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies/Univ. Coll. London; Crossing the Continent 1527-1540: The Story of the First African-American Explorer of the American South, 2008) denies that he has written a magisterial work filled with scholarly detail but rather a book for the “idle reader,” it is a well-researched, intelligent, and easily understood history of the first global empire on Earth. The author divides the work into two sections: “Gold” deals with the historical, economic, and political history, and “Glitter” explores literary and artistic works. At the beginning of the empire, King Charles V realized that the great wealth of silver and gold arriving from America would require a bureaucracy to ensure the availability of the banks, postal service, food, and roads essential for the movement of troops and supplies. He had to be well-organized and wealthy to wage wars and contain an empire that included the Netherlands, Naples, the Holy Roman Empire, and, eventually, Portugal. Charles was also an avid collector of Renaissance art and appointed the Venetian artist Titian as court painter. His son, Philip II, inherited a well-oiled machine that enabled him to expand the vast art collection his father had begun. He laid the path for Spain’s great artists Velázquez, Murillo, and El Greco, who were joined by great writers and thinkers like Cervantes, Góngora, and Quevedo. Goodwin not only shows the greatness of Spain’s empire, but also explains the psyche of Spaniards during the time. They preferred poverty over labor and honor over trade, and they were obsessed with purity of blood. The latter aspect was one of the prime drivers of the Inquisition, formed to rid Spain of lapsed Christians who had converted from Judaism during the diaspora of 1492. Any student of the Renaissance should read this excellent work showing Spain’s enormous impact on the arts and, with her vast American empire, the world.
Celebrated music historian Guralnick (Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, 2005, etc.) recounts the life of Sam Phillips (1923-2003), an Alabama farmer’s son who founded Sun Records in Memphis, where, during the 1950s, he first recorded the music of Ike Turner, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich, and others. In earlier books, including a two-volume Presley biography (Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love), the author has written about such artists and the rise of rock ’n’ roll, “this revolutionary new music that combined raw gutbucket feel with an almost apostolic sense of exuberance and joy.” Now he turns to “unreconstructed individuali[st]” Phillips, who opened the door to untutored talents, recognizing their originality and mentoring them with “patience and belief.” A sickly child who became enamored of African-American music while picking cotton alongside black laborers, Phillips was bright, observant, and much influenced by a blind black sharecropper who lived with his family. He started out as a radio DJ and engineer and realized when he recorded Ike Turner’s hit “Rocket 88” (1951) at Sun that black music had potentially universal appeal. His discoveries—related here with contagious excitement—were not happenstance but rather the result of his dedication to finding the “pure essence” of performances. Guralnick met the charismatic Phillips in 1979 and became a close friend, and he makes no secret of his affection and admiration. However, he also covers his subject’s problems and foibles: his early mental breakdowns, his troubled marriage and affairs, his financial difficulties, his later drinking, and his penchant for bragging about his (rightful) place in music history. A wonderful story that brings us deep into that moment when America made race music its own and gave rise to the rock sound now heard around the world.
RAVENSBRÜCK Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women
Helm, Sarah Talese/Doubleday (768 pp.) $37.50 | Mar. 31, 2015 978-0-385-52059-1
Just when you thought you knew all about the Holocaust camps, Helm (A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII, 2006) chronicles the history of this muchignored site for women. It was little different from other camps, its primary purpose removing those who would sully the German gene pool and using them as slave labor. In the Nazis’ obsessive record-keeping, each inmate had a file and was identified by a colored patch dividing them into political prisoners, asocials (lesbians, prostitutes), Jehovah’s Witnesses and Jews. Prussian efficiency required paperwork and approvals for every action or move. Even punitive beatings (as opposed to the everyday cruelties) required the signature of Heinrich Himmler himself. However, this is not really the story kirkus.com
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of the deaths by gas, firing squad, lethal injection, poison and neglect (starvation); the author smartly focuses on the incredible ways that a wide variety of women fought to survive. Those who were sent to factories, like Siemens, purposely sabotaged the arms they worked on. The imprisoned Jehovah’s Witnesses and Red Army medics succeeded in refusing to work on armaments. Poles who had been used in medical experiments found a way to smuggle their stories out written in their own urine. Not all had the strength to withstand the barbaric conditions, and 40,000 to 50,000 of the 123,000 prisoners died. Only a Swedish mission miraculously saved 17,000 lives toward the end of the war. This camp isn’t well-known for a number of reasons: The staff destroyed all records, it was in the Russian zone, victims wouldn’t discuss it, Russian prisoners were actually punished for being caught, the camp was on a smaller scale, and the contention was that “they were only women.” Not just another tale of concentration camp terrors, Helm delivers a gripping story of the women who outlasted them and had the strength to share with the author and us 60 years later.
BLACKOUT Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget
Hepola, Sarah Grand Central Publishing (240 pp.) $26.00 | $12.99 e-book | Jun. 23, 2015 978-1-4555-5459-1 978-1-4555-5457-7 e-book
A razor-sharp memoir that reveals the woman behind the wine glass. Addiction’s death grip and the addict’s struggle to escape it is an old story, but in Salon personal essays editor Hepola’s hands, it’s modern, raw, and painfully real—and even hilarious. As much as readers will cry over the author’s boozy misadventures—bruising falls down marble staircases, grim encounters with strangers in hotel rooms, entire evenings’ escapades missing from memory—they will laugh as Hepola laughs at herself, at the wrongheaded logic of the active alcoholic who rationalizes it all as an excuse for one more drink. This is a drinking memoir, yes, and fans of Caroline Knapp’s Drinking: A Love Story (1996) will recognize similar themes, but Hepola moves beyond the analysis of her addiction, making this the story of every woman’s fight to be seen for who she really is. Generation X women, in particular, will recognize an adolescence spent puzzling over the rash of parental divorces and counting calories as a way to stay in control of a changing world. Hepola strews pop-culture guideposts throughout, so any woman who remembers both Tiger Beat magazine and the beginning of the war on drugs will find herself right at home. It was an age when girls understood that they weren’t destined to be housewives but were not so clear on the alternatives, and it’s no wonder the pressure led many to seek the distance that drinking promised. Promises, of course, can lead to all sorts of trouble, and Hepola 24
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tells the naked truth of just how much trouble she got into and how difficult it was to pull herself out. Her honesty, and her ultimate success, will inspire anyone who knows a change is needed but thinks it may be impossible. A treasure trove of hard truths mined from a life soaked in booze.
BIG SCIENCE Ernest Lawrence and the Invention that Launched the MilitaryIndustrial Complex
Hiltzik, Michael Simon & Schuster (496 pp.) $30.00 | Jul. 7, 2015 978-1-4516-7575-7
Europe’s Large Hadron Collider cost more than $10 billion, paid for by a consortium of nations. Its success owes much to charismatic physicist Ernest Lawrence (1901-1958), who invented the cyclotron, the Collider’s ancestor. Los Angeles Times business columnist Hiltzik (The New Deal: A Modern History, 2011, etc.) attempts to combine Lawrence’s biography with the revolutionary consequences of his invention. He succeeds superbly with the biography. After 1900, scientists explored the atom by bombarding targets with feeble streams of particles from radioactive elements such as radium. Researchers yearned for means to produce more particles with higher energies. In the late 1920s, Lawrence conceived of an electromagnet and oscillating electric charge that accelerated protons around a device the size of a breadbox. After several years’ labor, mostly by brilliant, often unpaid graduate students, and huge (for the 1930s) expense, a functioning cyclotron began spewing out particles. By the early ’30s, Lawrence was famous; in 1939, he won the Nobel Prize in physics. During World War II, he was a central figure in the Manhattan project and the development of the atom bomb. Afterward, he became a proponent of the hydrogen bomb and a polarizing Cold War figure, although his advocacy of bigger cyclotrons remained undiminished. Except for an epilogue, Hiltzik ends with Lawrence’s death in California. Decades later, “Big Science”—i.e. wildly expensive, often government financed—continues to flourish. The author disapproves of its proliferation for the usual unconvincing reason—that it diverts money from more worthy endeavors, such as small science, education, and social programs. In fact, when massive projects such as America’s superconducting supercollider are cancelled, the money often never goes to worthy programs; it usually disappears. A fascinating biography of a physicist who transformed how science is done. (16-page b/w photo insert)
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A full-fleshed, thrilling portrait, troubling and full of family secrets. eleanor marx
ANONYMOUS SOLDIERS The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947
ELEANOR MARX A Life Holmes, Rachel Bloomsbury (528 pp.) $35.00 | Feb. 24, 2015 978-1-62040-970-1
Hoffman, Bruce Knopf (640 pp.) $35.00 | Feb. 24, 2015 978-0-307-59471-6
The extraordinary life of Karl Marx’s feisty feminist youngest daughter told with passionate sympathy and conviction. The relationship between her committed socialist parents forms the key to the vivacious life of Eleanor “Tussy” Marx (1855-1898), as portrayed chronologically by British writer Holmes (African Queen: The Real Life of the Hottentot Venus, 2007, etc.). Exiled from Germany and France after their participation in the failed democratic revolutions convulsing Europe in 1848, the Marxes relocated to London. With only three surviving daughters, they scraped by largely thanks to colleague Frederick Engels’ generous subsidies. While the two elder daughters enjoyed some formal education, Tussy was mostly schooled at her parents’ knees, imbued with their firebrand ideals of collectivism and internationalism and their advocacy for the proletariat and the principles of the International Workingmen’s Association, and she aided her beloved father in his research for his opus Capital at the Reading Room in the British Museum. Having watched her mother’s intelligence and ambition subsumed by her father’s work, then seeing her two older married sisters shackled by motherhood and household drudgery, Tussy chose free love with talented older men and an autonomous life earning her own wages as a tutor, translator and writer. Indeed, writes Holmes in this consistently illuminating biography, she was the “apple of [her father’s] eye” and later became his executor. She channeled her high spirits first into the theater (she and her father had recited Shakespeare together as a way for him to learn English), translated Madame Bovary into English, among other works, and eventually set up house in London with the “reptilian” fellow actor and intellectual Edward Aveling, who never married her despite his 14-year promises. Holmes is absolutely outraged by Aveling’s betrayal and Tussy’s horrifying, untimely death—a tragic tale of a brilliant light eclipsed by the stifling patriarchy of her age. A full-fleshed, thrilling portrait, troubling and full of family secrets.
special issue: best books of 2015
How Jewish terrorists defeated British rule. Terrorism scholar Hoffman (Security Studies/Georgetown Univ.; Inside Terrorism, 2006, etc.) draws on British, Israeli and American archives, uncovering much new material, in this history of Zionists’ determination to oust the British from Palestine. Terrorism, carried out by two rival groups—Irgun and the more extreme Lehi—resulted, after 30 years of violence, in British withdrawal and the creation of Israel. Britain’s presence had been authorized by the Mandate of Palestine, a consequence of the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. By 1929, despite improvements to infrastructure and standard of living, both Arabs and Jews were seething with resentment. “The situation was...like the Wild West,” one British commander remarked. And it worsened: In the 1930s, hundreds of thousands of Jews fleeing the Nazis pressed for permission to immigrate, incensed over Britain’s quota; Arabs, threatened by an increase in population, formed marauding guerrilla bands. With British soldiers fighting the war, the police force was inadequate and demoralized. In 1938 alone, 5,708 terrorist incidents occurred. Of more than 90 protagonists in this teeming drama, Menachem Begin emerges as one of the most violent, the mastermind behind the horrific bombing of the King David Hotel in 1939. “We fight, therefore we are!” he exclaimed. British leaders, some openly anti-Semitic, vacillated as terrorists fulfilled their mission to make Palestine ungovernable. Never, a statesman said ruefully, would the region be a place “in which Jew and Arab would settle down together....” Winston Churchill, with considerable understatement, admitted that Britain’s Mandatory administration had been “a thankless, painful, costly, laborious, inconvenient task.” Hoffman concludes that the “rise of Israel was the product of many powerful forces in addition to terrorism.” But the Irgun’s success, he chillingly notes, laid the groundwork for today’s globalized terrorism. An authoritative, sweeping, important history that shows how terrorism “is neither irrational nor desperate but instead entirely rational and often carefully calculated and choreographed.”
EMPIRE OF FEAR Inside the Islamic State
Hosken, Andrew Oneworld Publications (304 pp.) $15.99 paper | Sep. 15, 2015 978-1-78074-806-1 An exploration of the spreading terror of the self-proclaimed new caliphate. Senior BBC reporter Hosken, who has covered 9/11 and the Arab Spring, among other major world events, has been tracking the rise of the Islamic State since 2003,
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jill leovy’s ghettoside asks tough questions (and offers tough answers)
Photo courtesy Jill Connelly
Bryant Tennelle was shot dead on May 11, 2007, as he walked with a friend down the south side of West 80th Street in South Central Los Angeles. He was an 18-year-old black man, just recently graduated from high school, and he was wearing the wrong hat. Tennelle’s murder was one of 845 that year in Los Angeles, most of them concentrated in a few neighborhoods and many of which involved black men shooting other black men. It’s a pattern of violent crime that pockmarks urban areas across the country, particularly in the South. In the United States, black men make up only about 6 percent of the population but are almost 40 percent of those murdered, the overwhelming majority by other black men. Jill Leovy’s Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America tells the story of the police investigation of Tennelle’s murder and uses it as a jumping-off point to explore the seemingly endemic high rates of black-on-black homicide in South Central. A journalist at the Los Angeles Times, Leovy was embedded with the Los Angeles Police Department’s 77th Street Division starting in 2002. Her book is as important as it is difficult, especially now. The high rate of black-on-black homicide—that of violence itself—becomes a system unto itself, like that of the rule of law. In her words, “lawlessness is its own kind of order.” And, left unchecked, this violence becomes self-sustaining. Jill Leovy “This book is about a very simple idea: where the criminal justice system fails to respond vigorously to violent injury and death, homicide becomes endemic,” she writes.—W.H. Walter Heymann is a freelance writer and screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles. 26
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as it took root with the United States–led invasion of Iraq. There are enormously complicated yet logical steps to the terrorist organization’s horrifying rise, and the author does a thorough job of building the chronology. The first Jordanian leader of IS, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was radicalized in prison by Islamist extremism and the idea of eradicating apostasy, in the form of anyone not subscribing to the narrow Salafist ideology—e.g., Shia Muslims, Yazidis, Christians, and many others. From 1996 to 2003, followers adhered to a specific blueprint and embraced a bloodthirsty campaign of purging Shia enemies (the majority in Iraq) and employing widespread terrorism, culminating in the declaration of a caliphate by 2014— embodied with the capture of Mosul. The U.S.’s disastrous decision to dissolve the Ba’ath Party led many embittered generals to join the insurgency. After al-Zarqawi’s death in June 2006, the next leader and future caliph of IS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, followed the terror strategy laid out in a manual called The Management of Savagery: suicide bombs, massacres, beheadings, abduction and rapes of women and children, terrorizing the population of Anbar province. Al-Baghdadi made the crucial decision to enter the Syrian civil war in 2011, which gave the group deadly new impetus leading to the declaration of a caliphate. Hosken does an excellent job of sorting out the American reaction, the failure of the Iraqi leadership in the form of Nouri al-Maliki and others, and how IS has becomes the richest terrorist group in the world. A tremendously useful, insightful study of the frightening spread of a culture of death. (8-page b/w photo insert)
THIS IS ALL A DREAM WE DREAMED An Oral History of the Grateful Dead Jackson, Blair & Gans, David Flatiron Books (528 pp.) $32.99 | Nov. 10, 2015 978-1-250-05856-0
Coming on its 50th anniversary and just after the band’s farewell tour, an engaging, near-comprehensive oral history of the Grateful Dead. If “the Grateful Dead” and “disco” are not phrases that go together, it’s not for want of their trying. As Jackson (Grateful Dead Gear—The Band’s Instruments, Sound Systems, and Recording Sessions, from 1965 to 1995, 2006, etc.) and musician Gans (Conversations with the Dead: The Grateful Dead Interview Book, 1991, etc.)—collectors and archivists who know as much as nearly anyone alive about the storied band—chronicle, midway into the 1970s, with albums such as “From the Mars Hotel” and “Wake of the Flood” under their belts, the Dead were enough under the sway of Saturday Night Fever to attempt a disco-ish take on “Dancing in the Street.” Chalk it up to Mickey Hart, one of the many thorns in this thorny narrative hide, whose return to the band wrought big changes. “We had to tell him [what to play],” said guitarist Bob Weir in 1977, “which means we had to be thinking about it, which means while we were thinking about it, we might as well rethink things in general.” As fans already |
An inventive, beautifully crafted memoir, wise and insightful. the folded clock
know but will further note, the superficially peace-and-love demeanor of the Dead disguised all sorts of tensions, from personality clashes to money worries and differences over musical direction. But it all worked, despite Jerry Garcia’s drug use and increasingly erratic behavior. Says sound tech Bob Bralove, “The energy around [the last tour with Garcia] was kind of confusing, because there was this really positive energy coming from the band, but it was missing a key ingredient.” For all that, there’s plenty of peace and love here and lots of smoke and psychedelia, as well as the usual Altamont regrets, all voiced by people in and close to the band. Worthy of Studs Terkel and an essential addition to the books of the Dead.
NEGROLAND A Memoir
Jefferson, Margo Pantheon (256 pp.) $25.00 | Sep. 8, 2015 978-0-307-37845-3
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Julavits, Heidi Doubleday (320 pp.) $26.95 | Apr. 7, 2015 978-0-385-53898-5
Reflections on being and becoming. Novelist, Guggenheim Fellow and cofounder of the Believer magazine, Julavits (Writing/Columbia Univ.; co-editor, The Vanishers, 2012, etc.), now in her mid-40s, noticed that the smallest unit of time she experiences is no longer a minute, a day, nor even a week, but years. That disquieting perception inspired this book: “Since I am suddenly ten years older than I was, it seems, one year ago, I decided to keep a diary.” Time is much on her mind in gently philosophical entries that do not appear chronologically but instead are disrupted and reordered, recounting two years of her life in New York, where she and her husband teach; Maine, where she grew up yearning to leave and now spends joyful summers; and Germany, where the family lived during her husband’s fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin. Admitting that she is a “sub-sub-subtextual” reader of the world, Julavits analyzes her marriage; the needs and growing independence of her young son and daughter; her visits to a psychic, with whom she discusses the mystical power of objects and synchronicity (“My life seems marked by a high degree of coincidence and recursion,” Julavits confesses); former lovers; her aspirations as a writer; and such guilty pleasures as watching the reality series The Bachelorette, whose “love language” she and her husband gleefully parse. Other pastimes include shopping on eBay, which, she writes, “has immeasurably improved my quality of life more than doctors or drugs”; succumbing to temptation at yard sales; and swimming, despite her overwhelming fear of sharks. Some entries are slyly funny, gossipy and irreverent; others, quietly intimate, reveal recurring depression and anxiety, “alternate states of being” to which she gratefully returns: “When you become you again, you can actually greet yourself. You can welcome yourself back.” An inventive, beautifully crafted memoir, wise and insightful.
special issue: best books of 2015
From a Pulitzer Prize–winning theater and book critic, a memoir about being raised in upper-class black Chicago, where families worked tirelessly to distance themselves as much from lowerclass black people as from white people. Born in 1947, Jefferson (On Michael Jackson, 2006) has lived through an era that has seen radical shifts in the way black people are viewed and treated in the United States. The civil rights movement, shifting viewpoints on affirmative action, and the election of the first black president, with all the promise and peril it held: the author has borne witness to changes that her parents could only have dreamed about. Jefferson was born in a small part of Chicago where a “black elite” lived, to a father who was the head of pediatrics at Provident, the country’s oldest black hospital, and a socialite mother. The author describes a segment of the population intent on simultaneously distinguishing itself from both white people and lower-class black people and drawing from both groups to forge its own identity. She writes about being raised in a mindset that demanded the best from her and her family, while she also experienced resentment regarding the relative lack of recognition for the achievements they had earned. Jefferson tells a story of her parents seeing Sammy Davis Jr. on stage, early in his career, when he hadn’t yet established himself enough to completely let his own unique style shine through. Her parents could see the change coming, though—the self-assuredness in his performance—and they saw that as emblematic of their own rise. Jefferson swings the narrative back and forth through her life, exploring the tides of racism, opportunity, and dignity while also provocatively exploring the inherent contradictions for Jefferson and her family members in working so tirelessly to differentiate themselves.
THE FOLDED CLOCK A Diary
SWANSONG 1945 A Collective Diary of the Last Days of the Third Reich
Kempowski, Walter Translated by Whiteside, Shaun Norton (480 pp.) $35.00 | Apr. 13, 2015 978-0-393-24815-9
From the absurd to the sublime, and everywhere heartbreaking: a collage of voices from the tail end of the world’s conflagration. kirkus.com
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In 2005, German novelist Kempowski (1929-2007) published this cross section of voices, ordinary and otherwise, commenting on the end of World War II in German as part of a series of compositions largely exploring German guilt for the war. Over 20 years, he collected an astonishing array of autobiographies, letters, diaries and other documents to create a raw, tremendously moving set of reactions to the momentous events of April through May 1945: the lugubrious birthday celebrations of Adolf Hitler on April 20, the Allied liberation, VE-Day, and the very different takes by the international participants on the final signing of Germany’s capitulation at Karlshorst, Berlin, on May 8. In the preface, Kempowski notes that he composed this wealth of voices like an imagined Tower of Babel, revealing a similarly teetering longing by frail and inadequate humans for some kind of recognition of or consolation for their experience and suffering. Among dozens of other situations, the author examines German soldiers lying wounded in American hospitals; Joseph Goebbels, the “diabolical seducer,” continuing his vituperative radio address, declaring that “Chaos will be tamed!”; the scores of Berliners vulnerable to the retribution of marauding Russians; the prisoners in concentration camps, hanging by the barest thread; Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, persistent in his maddeningly correct accounts until the very last signing ceremony; and Hitler’s own final maniacal insistence that the blame of the war lay squarely with the Jews. Kempowki juxtaposes the voices of the poignantly unknown with the famous—from Thomas Mann eagerly following the movements of the Allied armies into Germany from his home in Los Angeles to Edmund Wilson in London wondering what the “roast duck” on the menu really was (probably crow). A riveting portrait of what Kurt Weill called the “total breakdown of all human dignity,” revealed through the bric-a-brac of war-shattered lives.
THE WORLD’S LARGEST MAN A Memoir
Key, Harrison Scott Harper/HarperCollins (352 pp.) $26.99 | May 12, 2015 978-0-06-235149-4 Oxford American humor columnist Key (English/Savannah Coll. of Art and Design) pens a memoir about his father, a man with “the emotional tenderness of
a Soviet farm tractor.” As a boy, the author was partial to sock puppets, calligraphy, and poems tapped out on an electric typewriter. Even so, “Pop” attempted to teach his son all the necessary outdoor skills so important to a growing boy, including contact sports, fishing, fighting, and the frequent employment of firearms to “kill shit.” (In a “Note to the Reader,” the author writes, “I have changed the names of many characters...because most of those people own guns.”) Those were the pertinent and suitable activities for boys coming of age in the environs of Coldwater, Mississippi. 28
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Key’s relationships with his loving mother, a badass elder brother, and, eventually, a beloved wife and cherished children all connect with Pop and the author’s position as the strange scion of a big man with a huge head on a red neck. The author eventually evolved from a blameless, scared kid to an innocent, scared adult as he learned the odd joy of danger and how to wear a bow tie. Pop evolved, as well, as the paterfamilias who learned to disregard his instinctive rule for human contact: men over here, women over there. Key had his basic training in American civilization, particularly as practiced in the not-so-long-ago South. His spouse supervised such matters as babies—how to make them, diaper them, and raise them—though she is never mentioned by name. Forget the touch of Jean Shepherd, the satire of Gary Shteyngart, or the dash of Dave Barry; Key’s talent is all his own, and it is solid. Consistently seasoned with laughs, this memoir is adroitly warm and deep when it is called for. An uncommonly entertaining story replete with consistent wit and lethal weaponry.
DEAD WAKE The Last Crossing of the Lusitania Larson, Erik Crown (464 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 10, 2015 978-0-307-40886-0
Larson (In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, 2011, etc.) once again demonstrates his expert researching skills and writing abilities, this time shedding light on nagging questions about the sinking of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915. “Lucy,” as she was fondly known, was one of the “greyhounds,” ships that vied for the Blue Riband award for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. A gem of the Cunard fleet, she drew the cream of society, and life aboard was the epitome of Edwardian luxury. The author works with a broad scope, examining the shipping business, wartime policies, the government leaders and even U-boat construction. More fascinating is his explanation of the intricacy of sailing, submerging and maneuvering a U-boat. Gaining position to fire a torpedo that has only a 60 percent chance of exploding belies the number of ships sunk. Throughout the voyage, many omens predicted disaster, especially the publication of a German warning the morning of sailing. The British Admiralty had broken the German codes and could track the whereabouts of submarines, particularly the deadly U-20. They knew that six U-boats left base during the last week of April, and three ships sank in the same channel the week before the Lusitania. The admiralty had decided to open a safer northern channel to merchant shipping but hadn’t directed the Lusitania to use it. Larson explores curiosities and a long list of what ifs: If the Lusitania had not been late in sailing, if the fog had persisted longer, if the captain hadn’t turned to starboard into the sub’s path and if that one torpedo hadn’t hit just in the right spot, the Lusitania might have arrived safely. |
Will now stand as the definitive Bellow biography. the life of saul bellow
THE MAKING OF ASIAN AMERICA A History
An intriguing, entirely engrossing investigation into a legendary disaster. Compared to Greg King and Penny Wilson’s Lusitania (2014), also publishing to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the sinking, Larson’s is the superior account.
THE LIFE OF SAUL BELLOW To Fame and Fortune, 1915-1964 Leader, Zachary Knopf (816 pp.) $40.00 | May 5, 2015 978-0-307-26883-9
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A sweeping study of the fastest growing group in the United States that underscores the shameful racist regard white Americans have long held for Asian immigrants. A historian of immigration whose ancestors hailed from China, Lee (History/Univ. of Minnesota) delineates the specific history of Asians in America—Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hmong, and others—while also lending a general sense of what immigrants have endured: discrimination in work, wages, education, and housing, and even incarceration during World War II. The author tells a thorough tale, beginning with the first “chinos” (Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese) who migrated from 16thcentury Manila (trade between Spain and Asia first ran through the Philippines) to Acapulco and even proto-California. Colonial trade routes brought goods like tea, porcelain, and fabrics from Asia, and immigrants followed to Mexico and Peru and North America, especially as the need for labor grew. Readers might be surprised to learn of the huge influx of South Asian “coolies,” or indentured laborers bound under contract, to the Americas and the West Indies during the 19th century, feeding another form of slavery and fueling discrimination. Due to adverse economic conditions in many Chinese provinces in the mid-1800s, the Chinese migrated in huge numbers; one great attraction was “Gold Mountain” (California), which drew Lee’s great-great-great-grandfather. Official U.S. immigration discrimination kicked in by 1875, codified in certain exclusion and immigration acts (1882, 1924) and restricting citizenship. Of course, the irony was that despite the enormous contributions of Asians in building American industry and wealth, they were never considered fully American. But Asians in exile were able to work for revolution and change in their own countries (China, India) while pushing all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to challenge discrimination in housing, work, and other venues. For readers interested in even further study, the author provides a highly useful bibliographic essay. A powerful, timely story told with method and dignity. (73 b/w images)
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The author of The Life of Kingsley Amis (2007) returns with the first installment of a two-volume biography of Saul Bellow (1915-2005), winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. Leader (English/Univ. of Roehampton) is a believer in the hefty biography (Amis’ nears 1,000 pages), and his new volume—which takes us to the publication of Bellow’s Herzog— will bend a hardwood shelf, as well. The research underlying the text is formidable. Leader certainly read everything, talked to everyone relevant who would talk with him (not everyone would), and visited numerous significant sites. Throughout, the author expresses his gratitude to the (few) Bellow biographers who have gone before, occasionally pausing to disagree— especially with James Atlas, although Leader later provides some praise in source notes. In structure, this volume is traditional. After an introduction that praises Bellow, he takes us to Russia (Bellow’s ancestral home) and then marches steadily forward chronologically. In many places, the author stops his narrative to explore fictional analogs among Bellow’s actual experiences, friends, and lovers. This occurs in every section and sometimes goes on for quite a while, occasionally trying even an indulgent reader’s patience. But what a busy life Bellow had. He taught at the University of Minnesota, Bard College, the University of Chicago, and at other venues, including Puerto Rico, where he found the heat oppressive. Among his students were William Kennedy and Donald Barthelme. Bellow also traveled around Europe, and he hung out with Ralph Ellison, partied with Gore Vidal, dined with Marilyn Monroe, attended a Kennedy White House tribute to André Malraux, had sex with myriad women—but was stunned to discover that his second wife had been having a long affair with one of his friends, writer Jack Ludwig. Some violence ensued. The volume ends with some pages about Herzog, the novel that propelled Bellow into celebrity. Will now stand as the definitive Bellow biography.
Lee, Erika Simon & Schuster (512 pp.) $29.95 | Sep. 1, 2015 978-1-4767-3940-3
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the world’s largest man (and his strangely dressed son)
Photo courtesy Chia Chong
A funny thing happened to Harrison Scott Key when a publicist sent out press kits for his debut memoir, The World’s Largest Man: he wound up on Southern Living’s list of “50 Best-Dressed Southerners 2015.” In one photo, Key mimes reading aloud to a mounted wildebeest head. He wears a square-patterned bow tie, plaid shirt, blue blazer with a red bandanna for a pocket square, and mustard-colored jeans. As readers of The World’s Largest Man will discover, Key is practiced at defying expectations. Born a “great big gourd-head baby” in Memphis, Tennessee, he seemed destined to resemble his father in constitution as well as cranium: Pop was 100 percent, all-American Southern male— hunter, intimidator, athlete, coach, provider, fighter—“the world’s largest man” to his son. But when his father moved the family to Mississippi, equipped young Harrison with a gun, started bundling him up each hunting season—until he resembled “the world’s largest camouflage throw pillow”—and sending him into the woods, well...it became clear the boy would rather knead dough than shoot a deer. Instead of a professional athlete or fearsome hunter, Key became a professor of English at Savannah College of Art and Design, a husband, a father of three girls, and a man who mixes patterns with insouciance. He’s written speeches, essays, and a humor column for the Oxford American that often touched on his fish-out-of-water upbringing. The final chapter, “The World’s Largest Man,” eulogizes his father, who died in May 2014, while Key was finishing the book. “The humor Harrison Scott Key comes from a place of sadness—not just sadness, but a sort of disconnect between a father and a son, the disconnect between any two people who are trying to love each other. You laugh because you cry. It’s all right there at the same time.” —M.L. Megan Labrise is a freelance writer and columnist based in New York. Follow her on Twitter. 30
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TY COBB A Terrible Beauty
Leerhsen, Charles Simon & Schuster (448 pp.) $27.50 | May 12, 2015 978-1-4516-4576-7
The former executive editor of Sports Illustrated explores the idea that Tyrus Raymond Cobb (1886-1961), perhaps the greatest player in baseball history, was also a violent, racist, roundly hated person. Leerhsen (Blood and Smoke: A True Tale of Mystery, Mayhem and the Birth of the Indy 500, 2011, etc.) began his journey through the life of Cobb accepting the conventional wisdom. The intentional spiking of opponents, the ugly accounts of racism, the overall dirty play—these and other conceptions have, as Leerhsen shows, infected much of the writing about the Hall of Fame player known as the Georgia Peach. But throughout his text, the author reveals that he found a very different Cobb, and he does not hesitate to slam those writers (principally biographer Al Stump, whom he brands a liar) who have created and passed along those odious tales. Leerhsen charts Cobb’s rise from his Georgia boyhood to the summit of professional baseball to his becoming a millionaire, through endorsements and investments. He praises his work ethic, study of the game, and inventiveness. And, yes, he finds plenty of evidence about fistfights and a fiery temper. However, Leerhsen does not accept either the intentional spiking stories or the racism, pointing out several times that Cobb was an outspoken advocate for integrating professional baseball. Although informed and often eloquent about Cobb’s hitting and spectacular base running, he seems less interested in Cobb’s defensive prowess, and he does seem to prefer the pro-Cobb interpretation in controversial incidents, like a late-career gambling charge. But why not? Others have assumed the worst; now Cobb has an advocate, one who’s actually read all the old newspaper clippings (some of which flatly contradict common “knowledge”), visited the terrain, and interviewed as many relevant people as he could find. Cobb was indeed a bruised peach but, as the author shows convincingly, not a thoroughly rotten one. (8-page insert of 18 b/w photos)
GHETTOSIDE A True Story of Murder in America Leovy, Jill Spiegel & Grau (336 pp.) $27.00 | Jan. 27, 2015 978-0-385-52998-3
Los Angeles Times reporter and editor Leovy looks at the thinly veiled racist origins of violence in South Central LA. In her debut, the author journeys where most fear to tread: the perennially mean streets of South Central LA, where she uses the senseless murder of a policeman’s |
Whether you call this a personal story or nature writing, it’s poignant, thoughtful and moving—and likely to become a classic in either genre. h is for hawk
progeny as a jumping-off point to investigate broader issues of why, even as violent crime as a whole in America continues to drop, that urban area sees so many of its people dying by tragically violent means. Leovy’s big-picture thesis is that whether you’re talking about the “rough justice” of vigilante revenge killings in Ghana, Northern Ireland or South Central LA, the one underlying cause is the same: a vacuum left by a legal system that fails to serve everyone equally. Leovy posits that the gang violence in LA is the result of the local police simply not doing their jobs. On a microcosmic level, the author follows the lives of two LAPD officers, John Skaggs and Wally Tennelle, the former investigating the murder of the latter’s son. Tennelle’s decision to buck the trend among LA cops and live within the city limits furthered his career as a police officer but had deadly consequences for his son. Intertwined with Leovy’s swiftly paced true-crime narrative involving Skaggs’ methodical tracking down of Tennelle’s killer is some probing sociological research into how blacks in LA got the short end of the socioeconomic straw: Hispanics may have been treated unfairly in the jobs they worked, but as Leovy points out, African-Americans were, even as far back as the 1920s, often excluded from even the lowestskilled jobs in the city. Unfortunately, however deftly the author interweaves the more personal angle of officers Skaggs and Tennelle with broader sociological “root cause” investigations, there is little to suggest that real change will arrive soon in South Central LA. A sobering and informative look at the realities of criminality in the inner city.
An inspired, beautiful and absorbing account of a woman battling grief—with a goshawk. Following the sudden death of her father, Macdonald (History and Philosophy/Cambridge Univ.; Falcon, 2006, etc.) tried staving off deep depression with a unique form of personal therapy: the purchase and training of an English goshawk, which she named Mabel. Although a trained falconer, the author chose a raptor both unfamiliar and unpredictable, a creature of mad confidence that became a means of working against madness. “The hawk was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life,” she writes. As a devotee of birds of prey since girlhood, Macdonald knew the legends and the literature, particularly the cautionary example of The Once and Future King author T.H. White, whose 1951 book The Goshawk details his own painful battle to master his title subject. Macdonald dramatically parallels her own story with White’s, achieving a remarkable imaginative sympathy with the writer, a lonely, tormented homosexual fighting his own sadomasochistic demons. Even as she was learning from |
LORD FEAR A Memoir
Mann, Lucas Pantheon (240 pp.) $24.95 | May 12, 2015 978-1-101-87024-2 978-1-101-87025-9 e-book
An ambitious, literary-minded memoir of the author’s relationship with his late brother, a much older heroin addict. Mann (Writing/Univ. of Massachusetts, Dartmouth; Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere, 2013) works on a number of different levels, delivering a narrative of addiction, memory, and family dynamics; of the attempt to see someone through the eyes and different memories of other people; and of the challenges faced by a writer as he attempts to fulfill his literary ambitions. Ultimately, this is a memoir about trying to write a memoir: the challenge, the impossibility, and the catharsis. It begins at the funeral of Mann’s older brother, Josh, since the author, 13 at the time, “once read a Philip Roth novel that begins over a grave.” Before he’s done, he will invoke Nabokov, Burroughs, Woolf, and Kincaid as literary antecedents whose inspiration has informed his own work. Unlike, say, James Frey, Mann drops his cards on the table from the start, admitting in his author’s note that though the focus of the book is a real person, “it is not, however, an exact representation of his life. People’s memories contradict one another, and many of the scenes are my imagined versions of the stories they told me, complete with my own subjectivity.” In the book, in death, and in the memories of the author and others, Josh is larger than life, a person who “could have been a rock star so easily. Some kind of star,” as a friend recalls. He was a would-be musician, a would-be writer, the lover of all sorts of gorgeous, exotic women, a troubled child from before the author’s birth, and a junkie who died alone, unexpected and inexplicably, after he’d shown his family and friends he’d cleaned up. In constructing his aching, poignant narrative, Mann offers a fine meditation on fate and on how “the story of addiction is the story of memory, and how we never get it right.”
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H IS FOR HAWK
Macdonald, Helen Grove (288 pp.) $25.00 | Mar. 3, 2015 978-0-8021-2341-1
White’s mistakes, she found herself very much in his shoes, watching her life fall apart as the painfully slow bonding process with Mabel took over. Just how much do animals and humans have in common? The more Macdonald got to know her, the more Mabel confounded her notions about what the species was supposed to represent. Is a hawk a symbol of might or independence, or is that just our attempt to remake the animal world in our own image? Writing with breathless urgency that only rarely skirts the melodramatic, Macdonald broadens her scope well beyond herself to focus on the antagonism between people and the environment. Whether you call this a personal story or nature writing, it’s poignant, thoughtful and moving—and likely to become a classic in either genre.
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DO NO HARM Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery
Marsh, Henry Dunne/St. Martin’s (304 pp.) $25.99 | May 26, 2015 978-1-250-06581-0
A British neurosurgeon delivers fascinating, often harrowing stories of several dozen cases intermixed with compelling digressions into his travels, personal life,
and philosophy. In 25 chapters, each built around a neurosurgical operation (infections and strokes but mostly tumors), the author provides vivid accounts of patients before and after surgery as well as encounters with Britain’s National Health Service, which is far skimpier than America’s system (even hospital beds are in short supply). The quality of medicine, however, is first-class. American neurosurgical trainees serve in his hospital, and Marsh admires but does not share the gung-ho optimism of America’s “death is optional” surgeons. While happy to recount dramatic cures, he admits that these are not routine in a neurosurgeon’s practice and that aggressive surgery often leaves patients with catastrophic brain damage. Few American surgeons, worried about being sued (a legitimate concern), would dare write, “I am more experienced than in the past and more realistic about the limitations of surgery....I have become more willing to accept that it can be better to let someone die rather than operate when there is only a very small chance of the person returning to an independent life.” Far more than the average doctor-memoirist, Marsh does not conceal his feelings, whether dealing with patients, colleagues, assistants, or superiors, and he spares no one when matters turn out badly. Readers will share his emotions, including contempt for a penny-pinching, meddling government. Unlike American doctor/government haters, there is no sour right-wing ideology or any impression that he is defending an obscenely high income. Nor does he trumpet his compassion; that is never in doubt. Beautifully written and deeply moving—one of the best physician memoirs in recent memory.
THE WAR ON ALCOHOL Prohibition and the Rise of the American State
McGirr, Lisa Norton (352 pp.) $27.95 | Nov. 11, 2015 978-0-393-06695-1
The surprising ways in which a failed social experiment helped shape modern America. In this splendid social and political history, McGirr (History/ Harvard Univ.; Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right, 2001, etc.) offers a vivid account of Prohibition (1920-1933) 32
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and its “significant but largely unacknowledged” long-term effects on the United States. Writing with authority and admirable economy, the author traces the decadelong effort to discipline the leisure of urban immigrants, led by Protestant clergyman driven by “a powerful animosity toward working-class drinking in the saloon.” With support from temperance groups and businessmen (“Until booze is banished we can never have really efficient workmen,” said one manufacturer), the 18th Amendment banning the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages not only gave rise to the familiar Prohibition story of bootlegging, violence, and speak-easies but also had diverse, wide-ranging consequences that resonate to this day. Drawing on archival research, McGirr shows most importantly how the war on alcohol greatly expanded the role of the federal government, especially with regard to policing and surveillance. Prohibition awakened the nation’s religious right, spurred the electoral realignment that resulted in the New Deal, and served as a “cultural accelerant” that began with the emergence of urban nightlife and drinking by women and youths and spread “ideals of self-fulfillment, pleasure, and liberation” across the country. These and other perceptive insights are contained in a bright, taut narrative that covers everything from the growing popularity of jazz to the selective enforcement of Prohibition in places from Chicago to Virginia to the tenor of everyday American life in these years. McGirr’s discussions of the class aspects of the “dry” crusade will leave many feeling that booze—and the supposed criminality of the saloon— was the least of the problems. An important book that warrants a place at the forefront of Prohibition histories. General readers will love it, and scholars will find much to ponder. (8 pages of illustrations)
PAID FOR My Journey Through Prostitution
Moran, Rachel Norton (304 pp.) $15.95 paper | Sep. 8, 2015 978-0-393-35197-2
Leaving her Dublin home and dysfunctional family at 14, Moran became homeless before she turned to prostitution to survive. Her stirring memoir chronicles her seven-year journey on the streets and in the brothels and examines the costs to society and her soul. The author’s experience convinced her of several things. First, she realized that prostitution is a collective experience among the women caught in this tragic lifestyle, and second, the job is never glamorous. On the second page, Moran clearly states the goal of her book: “exposing prostitution for what it really is...the illumination that comes from shining a light in dark places.” Writing down her story took the author 10 years. The first section of the memoir details Moran’s dismal childhood, complete with social exclusion, economic hardships, parental mental illness, and lack of social advantages. These conditions helped to create the foundation for her |
A fiercely provocative and intellectually audacious memoir that focuses on motherhood, love and gender fluidity. the argonauts
entry into prostitution. In the second section, the author skillfully debunks the myths perpetrated by society and the media about prostitution—e.g., the high-class hooker or the control prostitutes supposedly wield or pleasure they experience. The final section recounts Moran’s struggle to escape the lifestyle and re-enter larger society. The author’s writing style is restrained yet piercingly clear and forceful. In each section, she dissects the harmful effects of prostitution to herself and the women and girls she came to know. Though the physical abuse she encountered was significant and terrifying, the severe emotional turmoil has been even more difficult to bear. Today, the author still struggles with overcoming the denial of “the reality of her own experience.” If at times somewhat repetitive, this minor quibble takes nothing away from the author’s discussion of a subject that needs more attention. Moran’s thoughtful, highly readable, and provocative treatise shines a necessary light on a dark and underdiscussed topic.
THE ARGONAUTS
Nelson, Maggie Graywolf (160 pp.) $23.00 | May 5, 2015 978-1-55597-707-8
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THE COMEDIANS Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy
Nesteroff, Kliph Grove (416 pp.) $28.00 | Nov. 3, 2015 978-0-8021-2398-5
A comprehensive history of American stand-up comedy, from vaudeville to Twitter. At the beginning, Nesteroff, a former stand-up comedian and host of Classic Showbiz Talk Show, makes two important assertions. First, he sets out to dispel the myth of the tragically flawed funnyman who uses comedy as a way of hiding his insecurities. While there is some truth to the trope, not all comedians fit the stereotype of the tragic clown figure. Second, Nesteroff states that comedy does not age particularly well. It is an art form very much of its time, one that is not typically designed for posterity. It’s a worthwhile distinction, because while the author describes the acts of the comedians he profiles, clearly explaining their differences and similarities, he is careful not to excerpt too much of their actual acts. A good comedian is principally judged by his peers, and Nesteroff reclaims the legacy of many of the older, forgotten comedians. For instance, the name Shecky Greene has long been shorthand for out-of-touch and dated comedy, but Nesteroff restores some of Greene’s credibility by showing how his contemporaries considered him “one of comedy’s great nonconformists” and a “genuine comedian’s comedian.” Developing out of vaudeville, stand-up comedy was officially created by Frank Fay, who began emceeing in between acts to entertain the crowd. Nesteroff ’s narrative follows the form through the mob-run nightclubs of Las Vegas and Miami Beach, radio and TV, and the emergence of comedy-specific clubs in the 1970s. The author skews toward midcentury comics with only a passing mention of the new millennium, but this is in part because that was when comedy was a business and culture unto itself. The high stakes of comedy at its peak is perhaps best evidenced by the purported assassination attempt on comedian Jackie Mason in 1966. Anecdotes, firsthand recollections, and gossip like this are what distinguish Nesteroff ’s history as a definitive volume. A lively, raucous, and immensely entertaining love letter to the funny business.
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A fiercely provocative and intellectually audacious memoir that focuses on motherhood, love and gender fluidity. Nelson (Critical Studies/CalArts; The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning, 2012, etc.) is all over the map in a memoir that illuminates Barthes and celebrates anal eroticism (charging that some who have written about it hide behind metaphor, whereas she’s plain from the first paragraph that she’s more interested in the real deal). This is a book about transitioning, transgendering, transcending and any other trans- the author wants to connect. But it’s also a love story, chronicling the relationship between the author and her lover, the artist Harry Dodge, who was born a female (or at least had a female name) but has more recently passed for male, particularly with the testosterone treatments that initially concerned the author before she realized her selfishness. The relationship generally requires “pronoun avoidance.” This created a problem in 2008, when the New York Times published a piece on Dodge’s art but insisted that the artist “couldn’t appear on their pages unless you chose Mr. or Ms....You chose Ms., ‘to take one for the team.’ ” Nelson was also undergoing body changes, through a pregnancy she had desired since the relationship flourished. She recounts 2011 as “the summer of our changing bodies.” She elaborates: “On the surface it may have seemed as though your body was becoming more and more ‘male,’ mine more and more ‘female.’ But that’s not how it felt on the inside.” The author turns the whole process and concept of motherhood inside out, exploring every possible perspective, blurring the distinctions among the political, philosophical, aesthetic and personal, wondering if her writing is violating the privacy of her son-to-be as well as her lover. Ultimately, Harry speaks within these pages, as the death
of Dodge’s mother and the birth of their son bring the book to its richly rewarding climax. A book that will challenge readers as much as the author has challenged herself.
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MARY MCGRORY The First Queen of Journalism
BETWEEN YOU & ME Confessions of a Comma Queen
Norris, John Viking (352 pp.) $28.95 | Sep. 22, 2015 978-0-525-42971-5
Norris, Mary Norton (240 pp.) $24.95 | Apr. 6, 2015 978-0-393-24018-4
Mary McGrory’s life (1918-2004) as a Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington columnist is so interesting that it’s hard to understand why there hasn’t been a book about her until now. Enter Norris (The Disaster Gypsies: Humanitarian Workers in the World’s Deadliest Conflicts, 2007, etc.) with this balanced, page-turning biography. Despite the subtitle, it seems McGrory might have been the last queen as well: in her regal bearing and imperious manner, her influence on politicians and journalists, and her manner of getting others to do her bidding. Early on, it seems a little off-putting that so much is made of her romantic life (or public lack thereof), her attractiveness, and her gender in general. Ultimately, however, being a woman who found her voice and came to power during the McCarthy era is crucial to her journalistic singularity. McGrory may well have been a feminist icon, but she wasn’t above playing the frail female when it worked to her advantage or employing her considerable charms in ways that might undermine journalistic objectivity. She dated the future President John F. Kennedy (once), was propositioned forthrightly by President Lyndon B. Johnson (once), and had a romantic relationship with candidate Eugene McCarthy, whose campaign manager was the true love of her life. She once said, “I would have loved to be a housewife, but it just never happened that way. I want to drop dead in the newsroom.” McGrory reported more aggressively than most columnists and injected more opinion into her pieces than most reporters, making her a curious fit on the news pages of the Washington Star, which she preferred to the op-ed section. When the Star folded, she moved to the Washington Post, where her influence increased but she was never as comfortable. She could be tough, even on her friends, but frequent target Ted Kennedy proclaimed her “poet laureate of American journalism,” and this nuanced portrait provides plenty of evidence. Norris is plainly in love with his fascinating subject, which is not only McGrory, but newspaper journalism in general.
A New Yorker editor since 1978, Norris provides an educational, entertaining narrative about grammar, spelling and punctuation. The author devotes chapters to commas (who knew a printer more or less invented comma usage in 1490?); apostrophes; hyphens; the difference between “that” and “which”; the proper usage of “who” and “whom” (would Ernest Hemingway have published For Who the Bell Tolls?); dealing with profanity in a national magazine (a chapter in which Norris demonstrates that not all copy editors are prudish); which dictionary (if any) to rely on; and, as a bonus, an ode to pencils with and without erasers. Raised in the Cleveland area, Norris had a vague notion growing up of being a writer. But after attending college, she did not know how to proceed toward that goal, so she worked jobs that included delivering milk to homes, packaging cheese in a factory for sale to supermarkets and washing dishes in a restaurant. The possibility of an editing job at the New Yorker arose only because Norris’ brother knew an important person there. Once at the New Yorker, the author engaged in spirited debates with more senior copy editors about all manner of decisions about grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Though she observed the rules, she also began to realize that sometimes she had to compromise due to the fact that accomplished writers for the magazine followed their own logic. Norris delivers a host of unforgettable anecdotes about such famed New Yorker writers as Philip Roth, Pauline Kael, John McPhee and George Saunders. In countless laugh-out-loud passages, Norris displays her admirable flexibility in bending rules when necessary. She even makes her serious quest to uncover the reason for the hyphen in the title of the classic novel Moby-Dick downright hilarious. A funny book for any serious reader.
EMPIRE OF SELF A Life of Gore Vidal Parini, Jay Doubleday (480 pp.) $35.00 | Oct. 13, 2015 978-0-385-53756-8
An intimate but unblinking look at Gore Vidal (1925-2012), the gifted essayist, playwright, novelist, and public personality, who, for a time, seemed ubiquitous in the popular culture. Poet, novelist, and biographer Parini (English/Middlebury Coll.; Jesus: The Human Face of God, 2013, etc.) met his subject in the mid-1980s, and he begins his chronicle with that encounter. 34
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Real-world storytelling of the highest order. love and other ways of dying
They became fast friends as well as professional colleagues, though Parini continually reminds readers of Vidal’s often difficult personality. Petty, jealous, judgmental, and imperious—all applied to him. But so do others, as the author ably shows: Vidal was generous, brilliant, assiduous, and innovative. Like many other fine artists, Vidal worked until he could no longer do so. Parini precedes each chapter with a vignette, a focused memory from his own experiences with Vidal. They range from amusing to deeply moving. Parini is a wise general biographer of a literary figure. He tells us about each of Vidal’s major works (and the major reviews thereof) but never in prose choked with jargon or self-importance. The goals are exposition and elucidation, and he achieves them gracefully. Like other critics, Parini believes Vidal’s essays surpassed his other work. We learn some quirky details about the writer, as well—his fascination with Billy the Kid (and, later, with Timothy McVeigh), his fondness for celebrities of all sorts, his discomfort with academics, and his rivalries with Norman Mailer (with whom he reconciled) and William F. Buckley Jr. (with whom he didn’t). There is also a lot about Vidal’s sexuality (he preferred anonymous sex with male partners) and his drinking problems. Finally, the author examines Vidal’s sad decline and death. Parini uses detail in agile, unobtrusive fashion—though he erroneously reports that John Brown was killed at Harpers Ferry (he was hanged later in Charles Town). A superbly personal biography that pulsates with intelligence, scholarship, and heart.
Paterniti, Michael Dial Press (464 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 3, 2015 978-0-385-33702-1
A collection of long-form nonfiction from GQ and New York Times Magazine contributor Paterniti (The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese, 2013, etc.). The Telling Room was one of the most critically acclaimed books of 2013, and this carefully curated selection of features demonstrates the breadth of the author’s peculiar, personal style of storytelling. There are familiar pieces—Paterniti’s account of ferrying Einstein’s brain around the country is front and center, as is “The Fifteen-Year Layover,” which recounts the long exile of the refugee who spent 15 years at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Others are lovingly crafted portraits of interesting people like “The Giant,” whom Paterniti sought out in Ukraine after reading reports of a man well over 8 feet tall. The author has spent a considerable amount of time overseas, and he recounts his trip to China to meet the man credited with stopping hundreds of suicides on a bridge over the Yangtze River, as well as his journey in Japan following the 2011 tsunami. However, Paterniti is not limited to merely capturing great stories. Another pair of articles deliciously describes food and the people who craft it |
BAREFOOT TO AVALON
Payne, David Grove (336 pp.) $26.00 | Aug. 4, 2015 978-0-8021-2354-1
Ruminations on family and success, in the context of a fraternal tragedy. Novelist Payne (Back to Wando Passo, 2006, etc.), a founding faculty member of the Queens University MFA Program, builds his memoir around an unbearable burden. In 2000, George A., his charismatic yet bipolar brother, died in a crash while helping the author move long-distance. In the past, they shared a charmed but dark Southern childhood, their genteel mother overwhelmed by their manipulative, alcoholic father. “My oldest competitor and ally,” writes Payne, “he was the only one who knew or ever would know what that time and place had been for me.” Although George had suffered manic episodes before, he’d always recovered sufficiently to resume a career as a broker—until 1991, when he was fired and moved in with their mother. In the face of George’s deterioration, writes the author, “my certainties and resentments seemed suddenly small and brittle.” Payne narrates his own story as a series of improbable ups and downs, from attending Exeter as his parents’ marriage disintegrated to early success followed by penury as a novelist. The author’s ambition and determination to flee—he impulsively bought land with a book advance, a decision that would haunt him as leading to George’s death—kept him from seeing how he and his brother seemed fated to repeat their father’s self-destruction. Both brothers entered optimistic marriages that produced children, then imploded. “Our father’s actions,” he writes, “were those you’d take against your enemies when you burn their houses to the ground...and in a way George’s actions are terminal like Bill’s were.” Payne’s prose is lyrical, allowing him to convey intense meaning in mundane interactions and distantly recalled family crises as well as a clear sense of a variety of settings. His dense, sprawling sentences may demand patience, but they illuminate a riveting family history and ask complex questions about social prestige, mental health, and the ties that bind. A powerful, above-average literary memoir. kirkus.com
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LOVE AND OTHER WAYS OF DYING Essays
into wonderful things: the author’s portrait of Spanish chef Ferran Adrià and a similarly mouthwatering feature, “The Last Meal,” in which the author re-creates the final orgiastic meal of French President François Mitterrand. This is journalism unlike the standard fare found in newspapers and tabloid magazines and a tribute to the durability of the human spirit. In a lovely but spare introduction, the author summarizes the process of creating this collection: “If The Game was fantasy and The Work has been cold reality, in both cases they’ve come to represent, at least for me, the same underlying need to make sense of the way that love and loss, justice and devastation, and beauty and pain can fuse to make some bearable, or at least fathomable, whole.” Real-world storytelling of the highest order.
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WORLDS APART A Memoir Plante, David Bloomsbury (368 pp.) $35.00 | Aug. 25, 2015 978-1-4088-5480-8
The second installment of American novelist Plante’s memoir (Becoming a Londoner, 2013, etc.) of his long love affair with Nikos Stangos (1936-2004), the Greek-born editor of the publishing house Thames and Hudson. In this elegant follow-up to Becoming a Londoner, the author concentrates on the 1980s, moving among London, Italy, and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Deaths among his gay community from HIV/ AIDS were just becoming a creeping, recurring reality in Plante’s diary, which he kept dutifully during his life with Stangos. Since the mid-1960s, the two had cultivated a deep friendship with poet Stephen Spender and his Russian wife, Natasha. They benefitted from Spender’s stellar social connections with artists like David Hockney and moved in a tight artistic circle in London and New York as well as Lucca, Italy, where Plante and Stangos lived together. The worldly Spender (in his 70s) appears here infatuated with a young American student, and their correspondence was strictly kept from his wife by using Plante and Stangos as go-betweens. Plante, in his mid-40s, also battled duel affections—e.g., for his former Turkish lover who lived in New York and died shockingly of AIDS; and successful American artist Jennifer Bartlett, about whom Plante was truly conflicted. Both relationships caused Stangos terrible agonies of jealousy, while Stangos’ flirtation with a young man in his publishing office greatly affected Plante. The most engaging moments in the book chronicle the time when the author shared a house in Tulsa with prickly Australian critic Germaine Greer and they both got jobs teaching at the University of Tulsa. Also entertaining is Plante’s anecdote about when he was asked by acquaintance Philip Roth to accompany him to Israel to research a new novel. Full of questions about Plante’s non-Jewishness and sexuality, Roth may have used Plante as a model for his goyish character in The Counterlife (1986). An understated, observant, and earnest memoir from an acclaimed novelist.
OUR KIDS The American Dream in Crisis Putnam, Robert D. Simon & Schuster (416 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 10, 2015 978-1-4767-6989-9
A political scientist calls attention to the widening class-based opportunity gap among young people in the United States. 36
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Putnam (Public Policy/Harvard Univ.; co-author: American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, 2010, etc.) author of the best-selling Bowling Alone (2000), argues that the American dream has faded for poor children in the past five decades. Beginning with the stories of individuals, he compares the opportunities for upward mobility in his hometown of Port Clinton, Ohio, when he was in high school (he graduated in 1959) with the situation today, and he finds tremendous differences. For getting ahead in the world, social class mattered relatively little then, but now it is paramount, and the institutions, both public and private, that helped young people of all backgrounds are no longer serving the disadvantaged well. Putnam expands his view from his hometown to a number of towns across the U.S., looking at how young people in different social classes fare. Using personal stories, statistics and studies, and focusing in turn on families, parenting, schooling and community, the author demonstrates that the class gap in America has been growing. Although there is a fair amount of repetition, occasional sociological jargon and perhaps too much use of illustrative personal stories, Putnam’s prose is highly readable, and the figures and tables that dot the text are generally simple and clear. In the final chapter, Putnam discusses what this disparity in opportunity means for the future of our country economically and politically, as well as what it says about our ideals and values. He then tackles the question of what to do about it, offering a number of specific ideas and citing approaches that have had positive results. The best hope is a strong economy that benefits less-educated, low-paid workers. An insightful book that paints a disturbing picture of the collapse of the working class and the growth of an upper class that seems to be largely unaware of the other’s precarious existence.
EIGHTY-EIGHT YEARS The Long Death of Slavery in the United States, 1777–1865 Rael, Patrick Univ. of Georgia (400 pp.) $32.95 | Aug. 15, 2015 978-0-8203-4839-1
Rael (History/Bowdoin Coll.; Black Identity and Black Protest in the Antebellum North, 2002, etc.) examines the long, slow death of slavery in the United States, masterfully showing how each event is connected and letting us in on secrets that textbooks never mentioned. As he tracks the history of abolition from the founding until the end of the Civil War, the author refutes long-held theories with logical, well-researched ones. For example, Georgia and the Carolinas never threatened to reject the Constitution. It would have been suicide, since the Spanish to their south and the Creek Indians to the west threatened them. It is often said that slavery would have died a natural death if left alone. Not at all true, writes Rael; the invention of the cotton gin expanded |
A highly atmospheric, entertainingly earnest, and intimate engrossment with the world’s most popular topic of conversation. thunder & lightning
the cotton industry, requiring even more slaves and more land. What fueled the run-up to the Civil War was a fight to establish slavery in the expanding U.S. The Missouri Compromise was ruled unconstitutional by the 1857 Dred Scott decision, which not only required the slave’s return, but also declared that the federal government had no right to outlaw slavery in any territory. The author rightly states that the turmoil surrounding the three-fifths compromise became the true basis of the conflict. It empowered the slave states in representation, in judicial appointments, and in the Electoral College, giving them the power to block legislation. Rael enlightens us on the wide differences in slavery throughout the New World and its ending through the Caribbean and Latin America, and he effectively shows the difficulties of emancipation, reconstruction, and the pervading white supremacy of the North. There are not enough superlatives to describe the wealth of information in this book and the bright, clear way in which it is taught. Just buy it.
DARK MATTER AND THE DINOSAURS The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe
Randall (Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology/Harvard Univ.; Knocking on Heaven’s Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World, 2011, etc.) explores the causes of the fifth major extinction event, which occurred 66 million years ago and wiped out terrestrial dinosaurs and three-quarters of all other species living on Earth. Dinosaurs dominated life on Earth for 135 million years. Geologists and paleontologists now agree that their relatively sudden extinction is attributable to the impact of a comet or asteroid hitting the Earth and precipitating major climate change. The author seeks to test her hypothesis that “a disk of dark matter in the plane of the Milky Way was responsible for triggering the meteoroid’s fatal trajectory.” For Randall, the role of dark matter in the evolution of the universe is the next scientific frontier. Dark matter constitutes 85 percent of the matter in the universe. It is not composed of atoms or electrons (the stuff of ordinary matter), and it does not interact with light or other radiation. We only know of its existence because of its measurable gravitational effects. Randall believes that it may have played a significant role in the existence of life on Earth not only by triggering a major climate-changing meteoroid collision, but by precipitating smaller impacts that deposited the heavy elements necessary for life (e.g., carbon) and possibly even amino acids. Now that the existence of the Higgs boson has been confirmed, the author is setting her sights on this exciting scientific area, which is built on the advances in |
THUNDER & LIGHTNING Weather Past, Present, Future
Redniss, Lauren Illus. by the author Random House (272 pp.) $30.00 | Oct. 27, 2015 978-0-8129-9317-2
Redniss (Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout, 2010) delivers an arrestingly unconventional exploration of weather. This is a terrific celebration of weather as an elemental force in not only our daily lives, but in our global stories, myths, history, and cultural identities. It is part powerful graphic novel (with impeccable color sense) and part meteorological text. The author divides the book into chapters such as Cold, Rain, Sky, Heat, Dominion, Profit, and Forecasting, and within each chapter is an array of anecdotes and factoids, vest-pocket biographies, and elegant place descriptions. After an introduction to the Arctic explorer Vilhjálmur Stefánsson, Redniss discusses the demographics of the far-north Svalbard archipelago (“Today, Svalbard has a population of approximately 2000 people and 3000 polar bears”). Then she moves on to a lightshow in South America’s Atacama Desert: “in the shifting light, the Atacama’s sands turn gold, orange, and violet. In the shadows, the landscape is blue, green, violet. Treeless, plantless expanses of stark grandeur roll out like a Martian landscape.” Redniss details what we know about the dynamics of lightning and why lightning often gives us the shivers. “Lightning can charge out of a bright blue sky,” she writes, “traveling horizontally 10 or more miles from a nearby storm. Lightning can, and does, strike twice.” The author also looks at the meteorological effects of the death of Kim JongII as reported by North Korea’s official news outlets (“winds were stronger, waves higher, and temperatures the coldest of the season”), the money to be made off ice at Walden Pond, and Benjamin Franklin, who “was a proponent of air baths, the practice of sitting naked by an open window.” This book is not simply a collection of oddments and odd fellows, but rather a genuine demonstration of weather as a phenomena and how it is fantastical on both the symbolic and systematized levels. A highly atmospheric, entertainingly earnest, and intimate engrossment with the world’s most popular topic of conversation.
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Randall, Lisa Ecco/HarperCollins (406 pp.) $29.99 | Oct. 27, 2015 978-0-06-232847-2
scientific understanding of cosmic events over the past 50 years. Specifically, this involves establishing the possibility that there was a periodicity in the five extinction events reflective of stillunknown cosmic events possibly involving dark matter. Writing in a deceptively chatty narrative style, Randall provides a fascinating window into the excitement of discovery and the rigor required to test and elaborate new hypotheses. A top-notch science book from a leading researcher.
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DREAMS TO REMEMBER Otis Redding, Stax Records, and the Transformation of Southern Soul Ribowsky, Mark Liveright/Norton (380 pp.) $27.95 | Jun. 1, 2015 978-0-87140-873-0
Intellectually complex life of Otis Redding (1941-1967), the doomed King of Soul. It’s a supreme irony, at least of a kind, that Redding never lived to see his “Dock of the Bay” hit the mainstream pop charts, as it did just after he died in an icy plane crash. “Redding seemed primed to carry some sort of soul mantle,” writes Ribowsky (The Last Cowboy: The Life of Tom Landry, 2013, etc.) of the period when Redding’s star was just rising. Though it lasted just a couple of years, that period irrevocably changed the face of American pop, when AM radio played black and white music side by side, Creedence next to James Brown next to the Beatles. Redding was a slightly more countrified progeny of Brown’s who, like so many other soul singers, defied expectations and sometimes confounded fans. As Ribowsky remembers, Redding was friendly with a white supremacist sheriff who would later issue shoot-to-kill orders on blacks suspected of looting. Was that Uncle Tom-ism? Redding was so smart that there must have been a method to that particular madness, something that went along with his pointed habit of counting box office receipts after a show, pistol in waistband. Ribowsky serves up some tantalizing what-if scenarios: if Redding had not been in that plane crash, would he have drifted into jazz or soft pop—or even country? Might he have found common cause with Jimi Hendrix, who seemed so much his opposite at Monterey Pop, Redding sweaty and masterful, Hendrix “soldering generational nihilism with undefined sexual rage,” both blowing the collective minds of the audience. Ribowsky considers Redding in the context of racial justice and injustice, the civil rights movement, and, most important, popular music as it spread through a nation hungry for the message brought by the preacher’s son who “had precious little time to enjoy the air up there.” Excellent from start to finish, demanding a soundtrack of Stax hits as background listening.
KATRINA After the Flood
Rivlin, Gary Simon & Schuster (452 pp.) $27.00 | Aug. 11, 2015 978-1-4516-9222-8
waterlogged city. 38
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During Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, the levees of New Orleans broke, causing $135 billion in damages, killing over 1,800 people, and leaving 80 percent of the city flooded. Most devastated were the lowest-lying (poor, black) neighborhoods. News coverage and a plethora of books have burnished the images of those days in the American psyche—the rubble and wrecked cars, the FEMA trailers, the 25,000 people stranded in the fetid Superdome, and the seeming inability of officials to act decisively to rescue black residents who could not afford to flee. Rivlin arrived early on to cover the tragedy and stayed with the story for 10 years, conducting hundreds of interviews, exploring every imaginable aspect of the “botched rescue” and recovery, and delving sympathetically into the lives of countless people, black and white, who stayed, left, or returned. Throughout the book, the author provides intimate portraits— e.g., black banker Alden McDonald, who worked tirelessly on behalf of black residents; white suburbanite Joe Canizaro, head of the official recovery commission; former Black Panther Malik Rahim, who led rebuilding efforts in the 9th Ward. This is a nightmarish story of variously powerless, incompetent, and politicking figures, from the George Bush administration, hampered by “incompetence” and “ideology,” to the “ineffectual” Mayor Ray Nagin, now imprisoned for public corruption, and, most disturbing, white blue bloods who looked forward to a city without blacks. Rivlin’s exquisitely detailed narrative captures the anger, fatigue, and ambiguity of life during the recovery, the centrality of race at every step along the way, and the generosity of many from elsewhere in the country. Although federal monies eventually helped give the city a “massive makeover,” widespread poverty remains, with only a third of houses now occupied in the lower 9th. Deeply engrossing, well-written, and packed with revealing stories.
THE AGE OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Sachs, Jeffrey D. Columbia Univ. (544 pp.) $35.00 | Mar. 10, 2015 978-0-231-17315-5 A leading economist offers a brilliant analysis of the worldwide need to balance economic development and environmental sustainability. Sustainable development is “the greatest, most complicated challenge humanity has ever faced,” writes Sachs (Sustainable Development, Health Policy and Management/Columbia Univ.; To Move the World: JFK’s Quest for Peace, 2013, etc.). In an important, comprehensive and remarkably accessible book—a standout in a sea of jargon-laden titles that fail to explain and vivify this enormously complex topic—the author writes lucidly about a staggering array of intertwined challenges, including poverty, overpopulation, species extinction, overextraction from oceans, urbanization, social mobility and climate change. Sachs stresses that sustainable development is “inherently an exercise in problem |
A profound, scientifically based appeal for recognition of the kinship of all living things. beyond words
solving,” and he calls for a holistic approach and new ideas to produce “prosperous, inclusive, sustainable, and well-governed societies.” He explains the history of world economic development, the factors that help make some nations more impoverished than others (such as the landlocked nature of much of Africa), the science of climate change, how technical advances have fostered the depletion of ocean fisheries, the “unfinished business” of social mobility, and the pressing need for sustainable technologies and higher farm yields (especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia). In each instance, the author offers telling details and anecdotes accompanied by useful charts, maps and photographs that drive home his points. Two photos of Shenzhen, China, taken three decades apart, convey the astonishing growth of that major southern city. Examining each aspect of his topic in detail within the context of the Sustainable Development Goals formulated at the Rio+20 Summit in 2012, Sachs argues that solutions are feasible and affordable, despite strong opposition by vested interests and the inaction of governments. Required reading for policymakers and students, and general readers will finish the book realizing they actually understand what sustainable development is all about.
BEYOND WORDS What Animals Think and Feel
Award-winning ecologist Safina (Nature and Humanity/Stony Brook Univ.; The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World, 2011 etc.) disputes the dogma among scientists that forbids speculations about the “the inner lives of animals.” As the author notes, “a young scientist is taught that the animal mind—if there is such—is unknowable.” They are taught to always refer to animals as “it” rather than “who.” Attributing emotions to animals is to commit the sin of anthropomorphism. Safina refutes this idea by examining the social behavior of primates, elephants, wolves, whales, and many others. “Not assuming that other animals have thoughts and feelings was a good start for a new science,” he writes. “Insisting that they did not was bad science.” To dissociate man from other animals is to deny the evidence. We recognize when animals are hungry, so why not admit “when animals seem joyous in joyful contexts, joy is the simplest interpretation of the evidence.” The author cites experiments that demonstrate how electrical stimulation of the brains of animals and humans trigger similar emotional responses, and he based his examples on his personal observations of animals in the wild and discussions with experts with firsthand knowledge of them. For example, the matriarch in an elephant or wolf family depends on other adults for support, and they, in turn, depend upon her. Safina illustrates this with poignant descriptions of how the social lives of both adult and |
THE REBEL OF RANGOON A Tale of Defiance and Deliverance in Burma
Schrank, Delphine Nation Books/Perseus (352 pp.) $26.99 | Jul. 14, 2015 978-1-56858-498-0
A dogged journalist penetrates the deeply secretive dissident underground in Burma’s police state in this compelling look into a traumatized society in flux. During her time as the Burma correspondent for the Washington Post, Schrank, now a contributing editor at the Virginia Quarterly Review, delved into this highly censored, authoritarian country of largely Buddhist citizens at her peril to record how the state has gradually cracked open to some democratic currents since 2011. She chronicles the lives of two “rebels,” rivals in the democratic movement, whose tireless struggles to effect peaceful change since the first student uprising of 1988—despite beatings, imprisonment, and torture—represent the efforts of an entire population pushing against the successive Burmese military dictatorships since independence in 1947. Under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi, who was anointed by the people when she returned from England to care for her mother in 1988, the National League for Democracy began a well-oiled, tenacious freedom struggle—even though its leaders were persecuted relentlessly, and Aung herself was placed under house arrest for the next 15 years. Schrank finagled her way inside Burmese society, slipping by suspicious military authorities to access the leaders of the democratic underground, whom she followed in Rangoon like “a fly on the wall.” These include “Nway,” a 30-something Twantay native, chosen by “Auntie” (Aung) as a natural activist leader and able to organize protests and vigils despite being pursued relentlessly by the “Dogs,” the secret intelligence agents; “Nigel,” his charismatic counterpart and a teacher of English caught up in the political struggle of the “Saffron Generation” and radicalized by incarceration; and “Grandpa,” aka U Win Tin, a man of letters released from prison in 2008 after nearly 20 years and resolved never to renounce future political activity. Throughout the book, Schrank displays an elegant style and determined journalist’s diligence. A remarkable chronicle of a multigenerational struggle in Burma bringing about important change.
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Safina, Carl John Macrae/Henry Holt (480 pp.) $32.00 | Jul. 14, 2015 978-0-8050-9888-4
young animals are shaped by the interplay of individual adult personalities within the family. The author’s chronicles of his observations of wild animals are captivating, but they also serve to make a larger point: why are people unwilling to admit that nonhuman animals also think and feel as we do? Safina suggests that perhaps it is “because acknowledging the mind of another makes it harder to abuse them.” A profound, scientifically based appeal for recognition of the kinship of all living things.
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TARGET TOKYO Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid that Avenged Pearl Harbor Scott, James M. Norton (640 pp.) $35.00 | Apr. 13, 2015 978-0-393-08962-2
A new treatment of the daring Doolittle raids over Tokyo that fills in many of the gaps in the true story. In his glowing assessment of the bravery and innovation of the Doolittle raiders, historian Scott (The War Below: The Story of Three Submarines That Battled Japan, 2013, etc.) does not neglect to explore the ultimate horrendous cost of the mission in human lives. After the sneak attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt and his military commanders were desperate for a retaliatory measure that would help buoy national morale. Figuring out how to wage a bombing mission over Tokyo took the best heads of the Navy and Air Force, specifically Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold’s staff troubleshooter, the legendary racing pilot Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle. Immediately taking up the mission and demanding that he also lead it, Doolittle chose the “aerial workhorse” B-25 as the sole craft whose wingspan could clear the superstructure of an aircraft carrier. The problem was the fuel load required to fly from a Pacific carrier to Tokyo then onward to China—landing at approved airfields not in the control of the Japanese—all while keeping absolute secrecy. Spotted by the Japanese well over 800 miles from Tokyo (they were supposed to get 200 miles closer), the all-volunteer crews of the 16 bombers aboard the carrier knew when they took off on April 18, 1942, that they had little chance of reaching the Chinese coast. Of the 80 men, 61 survived the war; four died in crash landings, and four fell into the brutal hands of the Japanese. The damage to Tokyo spurred the Japanese to focus next on Midway, while the Japanese retaliatory slaughter against the Chinese as a result of the raids totaled some 250,000 deaths, a fact that Scott does not fail to note. A spirited, comprehensive and highly readable account of the tremendous wherewithal required for this extraordinary effort. (16 pages of illustrations)
MADNESS IN CIVILIZATION A Cultural History of Insanity, from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine Scull, Andrew Princeton Univ. (456 pp.) $39.50 | Apr. 1, 2015 978-0-691-16615-5
Far-ranging, illuminating study of minds gone awry across space and time. 40
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Scull (Sociology and Science Studies/Univ. of California, San Diego; Madness: A Very Short Introduction, 2011, etc.), a specialist in the history of science, warns at the outset that the very word “madness” is laden with cultural baggage: our idea of the subject, limned by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and various psychotropic medications, would likely be alien to a maenad-beset Greek of old. “We run enormous risks of misconstruing history,” he writes, “when we project contemporary diagnostic categories and psychiatric understandings back on to the past.” Still, when we look at Achilles, we can see PTSD, just as Mozart is better explained by throwing a little bipolarity into the picture. Though careful, Scull allows some imaginative readings into his long but utterly absorbing tour of history from ancient times to our own. Without overexplaining, he looks at medical controversies through time in familiar ways. The anti-vaccination crowd takes on different colors when seen as modern-day followers of the old temple gods: “If these methods did not bring about the desired result, failure could always be explained away. The gods were still displeased, the prayers insufficiently fervent.” Just so, by Scull’s account, traditional Chinese medicine, beloved of so many today, represents a victory of conservatism over progress, though Chinese physicians did tend to eventually reject the idea of wind-caused madness. Scull is sharp on every point, but some of his best moments come when he explains the introduction of psychoanalysis into pop culture in the postwar period, thanks in good part to Hollywood, and when he takes a sidelong look at both the drug-dependent psychiatry of today and its discontents, such as Scientology. To be read as both corrective and supplement to Foucault, Szasz, and Rieff. Often brilliant and always luminous and rewarding.
THE SONG MACHINE Inside the Hit Factory
Seabrook, John Norton (320 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 5, 2015 978-0-393-24192-1
New Yorker staff writer Seabrook (Flash of Genius: And Other True Stories of Invention, 2008, etc.) examines the seismic shifts in the music industry. There are plenty of good books that have shown how “hits are the source of hard dealings and dark deeds.” If it’s no surprise that the music industry can be a dirty business, the author shows just how radically the business has changed, with power shifting from the American-British axis to Sweden (and Korea and China on the horizon), with album-oriented rock eclipsed by contemporary hit pop and with streaming undermining not only the sales of CDs and downloads, but the future of the music business as we know it. Even those wellversed in the trade might be surprised to learn that a South African native named Clive Calder, through his Jive label, “is and for the foreseeable future will be the single richest man the music |
Cheerless and even nightmarish, one of the best books yet about the war in Central Asia. the dogs are eating them now
business ever produced.” Those riches accrued from his involvement with the Backstreet Boys, ’N Sync, and Britney Spears but even more from his visionary focus on producers rather than performers and publishing rights rather than record sales. His story intersects with that of the notorious Lou Pearlman, now imprisoned for “a giant Ponzi scheme” but formerly involved in manufacturing those acts and more. But some of the freshest and most fascinating material concerns the way that Swedish musical masterminds whose names are little-known to American music consumers have been able to dominate over decades and genres by bridging pop hooks and dance-floor beats. Max Martin, for one, has enjoyed a string of Billboard chart-toppers extending from Spears’ breakthrough and Bon Jovi’s comeback through recent work with Taylor Swift. Seabrook goes deeper into the career developments of Rihanna and Katy Perry, but most of the artists hold insignificant power within the international behemoth that this industry has become and even less control over their own musical progression. A revelatory ear-opener, as the music business remains in a state of significant flux.
OBJECTIVE TROY A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone
New York Times national security reporter Shane compares and contrasts the trajectories of President Barack Obama and Anwar al-Awlaki, the American citizen residing in Yemen whom Obama ordered to be killed by a drone. Al-Awlaki grew up in an educated Yemeni family. When his parents obtained their educations in the United States, he was born a citizen. He grew up in Yemen and returned to the United States at age 19. Obama was also born in the United States to a foreign father who was a secular-minded Muslim. Then Obama resided in Indonesia, returning to the United States at age 10. Due to 9/11, the superficial similarities between Obama and alAwlaki became more meaningful. One would react by becoming an elected politician, the other by becoming a Muslim holy man who initially spoke for the moderate wing of his religion. But by the time Obama reached the presidency in 2008, al-Awlaki had unexpectedly become a militant calling for the death of the “infidel” Americans. Obama began to explore whether he had the authority as commander in chief of the military to send a drone into Yemen to kill al-Awlaki, even though the cleric had not been charged with a crime. By the time the book ends, alAwlaki is dead, as is his teenage son. Shane became obsessed about learning how Obama, a former constitutional law professor, justified the drone strikes, especially given his opposition to the conduct of the war on terror created by his predecessor, George W. Bush. The author was equally intrigued by the |
THE DOGS ARE EATING THEM NOW Our War in Afghanistan Smith, Graeme Counterpoint (304 pp.) $26.00 | Jan. 13, 2015 978-1-61902-479-3
Think Afghanistan is bad now? Just wait until American forces leave entirely and the dragon rises again. The dragon trope is foreign correspondent Smith’s, borrowing from the old cartographer’s notation that dragons lurk in unmapped corners of the Earth. “The thing about modern civilization,” says one battle-hardened GI, “is that we can’t stand those empty spots. The dragons fly out and bite you in the ass.” So they do, and by Smith’s account, the dragons are multiplying. Eloquent and sometimes-hallucinatory, reminiscent at turns of Michael Herr’s Dispatches and Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, Smith’s narrative takes us from bad to worse. In one set piece, a coalition soldier lets loose a rocket with the remark, “There goes a Porsche,” precisely because the rocket costs as much as a sports car. Meanwhile, the enemy makes lethal weapons out of scraps, odd bits of fertilizer, plastic buckets and rusty tools. The result is devastating, and Smith does not shy from decidedly not-for-workplace descriptions: “Charred pieces of human flesh stuck to the armour. A television reporter wrinkled her nose at the sight, and I asked her: ‘Can you believe they were trying to sell me a story about how things have gotten better in Panjwai?’ ” Smith is a master of the battlefield description, but he’s even better at slyly noting the ironies and complexities of the war: for instance, destroying a farmer’s opium crop, while falling under the rubric of the war on drugs, would likely turn the farmer against the United States. Solution? Hire mercenaries to “slip into areas secured by NATO troops and raze the fields, without telling anybody they were sent by the foreigners.” Worse, in the author’s formulation, is now that we’re mired, we’re stuck, no matter how we pretend otherwise: “At best, we are leaving behind an ongoing war. At worst, it’s a looming disaster.” A dragon awaits, in other words. Cheerless and even nightmarish, one of the best books yet about the war in Central Asia.
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Shane, Scott Tim Duggan Books/Crown (432 pp.) $28.00 | Sep. 15, 2015 978-0-8041-4029-4
change in philosophy adopted by al-Awlaki, which required a return to Yemen, as something of a fugitive, despite a privileged life in the U.S. In addition to following his two principals, the author examines the drone technology that gave Obama the remarkable ability to target someone thousands of miles away. Shane’s reporting is superb, and the way he frames the public policy debate makes the narrative compelling from start to finish. (8-page b/w photo insert)
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NAGASAKI Life After Nuclear War
Southard, Susan Viking (416 pp.) $28.95 | Jul. 28, 2015 978-0-670-02562-6
Intense, deeply detailed, and compassionate account of the atomic bomb’s effects on the people and city of Nagasaki, then and now. The generation of hibakusha, or atomic-bomb survivors, is sadly passing away, as journalist and artistic director Southard (Essential Theatre, Tempe, Arizona) acknowledges in her tracking of the experiences of five who were teenagers in the once-thriving port city of Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. As the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the bomb over Nagasaki approaches, the author aims to enlighten her American audience, whose largely unequivocal stance about the rightness of forcing Japan to capitulate and the ignorance regarding radiation exposure the U.S. government took great pains to promote have kept readers unaware, she believes, of the magnitude of this nuclear annihilation—“a scale that defies imagination.” These five teenagers, and many like them, had all been enlisted in the war effort, as had their families in Nagasaki, one of Japan’s first Westernized cities, containing the largest Christian population. One of the teens delivered mail, one was a streetcar operator, and several worked in the Mitsubishi factories that lined the river. When the bomb obliterated the Urakami Valley, where many of them lived, all lost family members and were horribly injured and scarred for life. Southard’s descriptions stick to the eyewitness accounts of these and other survivors, and they are tremendously moving, nearly unbearable to read, and accompanied by gruesome photos. She alternates first-person accounts—e.g., reports by the Japanese doctors who first treated the burns and identified the subsequent radiation “sickness”—with an outline of the political developments at the war’s conclusion. The author emphasizes the postwar censorship imposed by the U.S. occupying force in Japan regarding the discussion of the bombing or radiation effects (see George Weller’s First into Nagasaki), as well as the bravery of the hibakusha, who were determined to speak the truth. A valiant, moving work of research certain to provoke vigorous discussion.
A HOUSE IN ST JOHN’S WOOD In Search of My Parents
Spender, Matthew Farrar, Straus and Giroux (448 pp.) $27.00 | Oct. 13, 2015 978-0-374-26986-9 A frank memoir of Spender’s problematic poet father and his emotionally remote pianist mother. 42
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Growing up among a generation of brilliant, creative British men who had to overcome enormous obstacles to their embrace of homosexuality left poet Stephen Spender’s only son, sculptor and writer Matthew, with both a deep reverence for the creative act and a nose for self-deception. When his mother, Natasha Litvin, died in 2010 at the house in St. John’s Wood where she had lived for nearly 70 years, the author recognized that he felt angrily ambivalent about his mother, who accused him of not properly guarding the rather romantic legacy of his father, who died in 1995. In his tremendously honest memoir, Spender explores his mother’s absurd attempts to keep up appearances whiles her husband’s work was devoted to truth, both in word and in politics, into which he plunged with his magazine Encounter. Spender traces the early life and career of his father and his important friendships with W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, who all influenced each other. Dallying with communism briefly and between romances with men and an early marriage, the poet married the classically trained Natasha in 1941. A pianist “who lived on her nerves,” according to her son, she was continually devastated by her husband’s dalliances with men, which began to dawn on the son when he read his father’s autobiography. Gaps and silences pervaded the household, especially when his mother took off to care for Raymond Chandler in Palm Springs and his father took up with a young Reynolds Price. In the latter part of this touching memoir, the author looks at his father’s political naiveté over the CIA’s bankrolling of Encounter and his own youthful romance with Maro Gorky, whose elusive father would become the subject of his first book, From a High Place: A Life of Arshile Gorky (1999). A pointed family memoir from a writer keenly attuned to and reverent of genius. (27 b/w illustrations)
STALIN’S DAUGHTER The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
Sullivan, Rosemary Harper/HarperCollins (752 pp.) $35.00 | Jun. 2, 2015 978-0-06-220610-7 A biography of haunting fascination portrays its subject as a pawn of historical circumstance who tried valiantly to
create her own life. Canadian biographer Sullivan’s previous works (Villa AirBel: World War II, Escape, and a House in Marseille, 2006, etc.) often took her into the complicated lives of women artists, and in this sympathetic biography of Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva (1926-2011), the author has illuminated another challenging, mercurial subject. There is a parallel strangeness to the two halves of Svetlana’s life. In her early years, she grew up in the ideologically strenuous Soviet Union, with the run of the Kremlin and various dachas. She was the darling of her supreme dictator father, but before she turned 7, her mother killed herself—though suicide was not the “official” cause of |
As with the best of Holiday’s music, this elegant and perceptive study is restrained, nuanced, and masterfully carried out. billie holiday
death. Svetlana was also held somewhat apart in school, shadowed by bodyguards and agents, and she learned the shattering truth about her mother’s death from English-language magazines when she was 15. In the second half of her life, she walked into the American embassy in New Delhi in 1967, where she had been allowed to scatter her husband’s ashes, and defected, carrying a manuscript and abandoning her two older children in Moscow. Determined not to end up silenced as an artist, she enlisted the help of former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union George Kennan and others. Svetlana had seen her family and artist friends disappear—executed or vanished into the gulags— and she had grown disillusioned and embittered by the Soviet system, to the skittishness of American officials, who were afraid of a Soviet political backlash. With great compassion, Sullivan reveals how both sides played her for their own purposes, yet she was a writer first and foremost, a passionate Russian soul who wanted a human connection yet could not quite find the way into the Western heart. The author manages suspense and intrigue at every turn.
BILLIE HOLIDAY The Musician and the Myth
Szwed, John Viking (240 pp.) $28.95 | Apr. 1, 2015 978-0-670-01472-9
tragic victim. More than any other vocal artist of her era, Billie Holiday (1915-1959) continues to capture the attention of historians and critics. The grim details of her life are, by now, well-known: how she emerged from a background of poverty and prostitution and, for the remainder of her years, struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, abusive relationships, and racism. Szwed does not gloss over these facts, but neither does he dwell on them, instead centering his account on Holiday’s enigmatic persona and its relationship to her art. He calls the book a “meditation” on Holiday rather than a strict biography and assumes that readers will have some familiarity with her life story. The first part of the book, “The Myth,” is a fragmentary but detailed exploration of how Holiday’s persona developed outside of her recordings, focusing on her controversial autobiography Lady Sings the Blues (especially what was edited out of the manuscript) along with her film and TV appearances. The second part, “The Musician,” which takes up more than half the book, is an erudite blend of cultural history and musical insight that examines the historical context of Holiday’s career, placing her in a lineage of female singers that reaches back to the 19th century. Szwed also takes a close look at Holiday’s innovative vocal approach, reminding us that although she had no formal training, she possessed a remarkable gift for improvisation and interpretation, |
THE DEVIL’S CHESSBOARD Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government Talbot, David Harper/HarperCollins (704 pp.) $29.99 | Oct. 13, 2015 978-0-06-227616-2
Former Salon founding editor-in-chief Talbot (Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love, 2012, etc.) shares his extensive knowledge and intense investigations of American politics with a frightening biography of power, manipulation, and outright treason. The story of Allen Dulles (1893-1969), his brother John Foster, and the power elite that ran Washington, D.C., following World War II is the stuff of spy fiction, but it reaches even further beyond to an underworld of unaccountable authority. Dulles’ career began in the New York law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, where he built a powerful client list. During wartime in Switzerland, he worked to protect his clients’ corporations and build his own organization. In direct opposition to Franklin Roosevelt’s policy, he sought a separate peace with the Germans to use them to fight communism. Talbot delivers a variety of thrilling stories about Dulles that boggle the mind, from skimming funds from the Marshall Plan to using Richard Nixon as his mouthpiece in Congress. It is really about the power elite, the corporate executives, government leaders, and top military officials who controlled the world. They protected corporate interests in Iran, Guatemala, and elsewhere, and they fomented revolutions, experimented in mind control, and assassinated those who got in their way. With John Foster as secretary of state, this “fraternity of the successful” enforced a Pax Americana by terror and intimidation, always invoking national security and often blatantly disobeying policy guidelines. The author asserts that the Bay of Pigs was an intentional failure, meant to force John F. Kennedy to invade Cuba and retrieve corporate properties. Even out of office, Dulles’ conspiracies continued. Talbot also delves into CIA involvement in Kennedy’s assassination. Ultimately, the blatant manipulative activities of the Dulles brothers will shock most readers. Washington, D.C., regulars may know some of this information, and foreign nations certainly do, but all engaged American citizens should read this book and have their eyes opened. (16-page b/w photo insert)
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Esteemed music scholar Szwed (Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the World, 2010, etc.) offers a portrait of Lady Day as artist and mythmaker rather than
often reshaping melodies to the extent that she essentially rewrote them according to her own idiosyncratic visions. As with the best of Holiday’s music, this elegant and perceptive study is restrained, nuanced, and masterfully carried out.
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THE WORLD IS ON FIRE Scrap, Treasure, and Songs of Apocalypse
Tevis, Joni Milkweed (312 pp.) $16.00 paper | May 12, 2015 978-1-57131-347-8
Evocative essays on faith, life and wonder. In these lyrical, finely crafted pieces, Tevis (English and Creative Writing/Furman Univ.; The Wet Collection: A Field Guide to Iridescence and Memory, 2012) reflects on haunted places: a house with 160 rooms stalked by its owner’s ghost; a nuclear bomb testing ground in Nevada; the site of Buddy Holly’s plane crash; auction rooms filled with abandoned furniture; and, not least, her own memories. Apocalypse, she writes, means “unveiling,” and she searches for wisdom in devastation and despair. In the 1950s, the Nevada Test Site was a popular vacation destination where families gathered for the thrill of seeing a nuclear bomb explode, incinerating Doom Town: model houses staged with mannequins. From 1952 until 1992, 1,021 bombs exploded, the first hundred aboveground, contaminating the land forever. Tourists in Las Vegas could take a bus to the site; or they might have visited the Liberace Museum, where mannequins wore the performer’s gaudy costumes, “dusted with silver, crusted with cabochons,” as gorgeous and surreal as the bomb. Death haunts the Salton Sea, a vast inland body of water created by a mistake in irrigation in California’s Imperial Valley. Now it is polluted, “stark and sad....Scalded, scabbed.” Fish are gone, except for tilapia; birds, too. One year, park rangers cremated massive numbers of dead pelicans. The sea, Tevis writes, is “a practice apocalypse, terrible but local: if you’re lucky, you can leave it behind.” Like poets Gerard Manley Hopkins and Mary Oliver, Tevis sees the natural world imbued with spiritual power. “I don’t want to be the same after this trip,” she tells herself in the stark, forbidding landscape of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And she was not, discovering she was pregnant. During labor, “spells fill the space” and “a strange glow marks this seam between life and death.” That seam glows fiercely, startlingly bright, in these rich, revelatory essays.
THE MUSHROOM AT THE END OF THE WORLD On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt Princeton Univ. (360 pp.) $29.95 | Oct. 1, 2015 978-0-691-16275-1
An unusually rewarding meditation on how a wild mushroom can help us see the world’s ruined condition after the advent of modern capitalism. 44
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The matsutake—a beloved species of mushroom that fetches high prices in Japan—is a survivor that grows inches below ground in deeply human-disturbed forests. Difficult to find and impossible to cultivate, it is said to have been the first living thing to emerge from the devastated landscape of Hiroshima. Bursting with ideas and observations, Tsing’s (Anthropology/Univ. of California, Santa Cruz; Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection, 2004, etc.) highly original ethnographic study follows this spicy-smelling mushroom’s global commodity chain, from the forests of Oregon’s Cascade Mountains and elsewhere to Tokyo auction markets. She recounts her interviews with mushroom pickers, scientists, and entrepreneurs in the United States, Asia, and elsewhere to explore the matsutake’s commerce and ecology. “We are stuck with the problem of living despite economic and ecological ruination,” she writes. “Neither tales of progress nor of ruin tell us how to think about collaborative survival. It is time to pay attention to mushroom picking. Not that this will save us—but it might open our imaginations.” In prose that is both scholarly and deeply personal, Tsing shows how the matsutake, emblematic of survival amid changing circumstances, thrives in transformative collaboration with trees and other species and points the way toward coexisting with environmental disturbance (“the uncontrolled lives of mushrooms are a gift—and a guide—when the controlled world we thought we had fails”). The author covers a staggering array of topics, from freedom, foraging, and forestry to DNA research and the music of John Cage. Consistently fascinating, her story of the picking and selling of this wild mushroom becomes a wonderful window on contemporary life. Serious readers will delight in these pages.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN, VOLUME 3 The Complete and Authoritative Edition Twain, Mark Griffin, Benjamin & Smith, Harriet E.—Eds. Univ. of California (792 pp.) $45.00 | Oct. 15, 2015 978-0-520-27994-0
In which the greatest of American writers goes into the night—and not such a good night at that, and not at all gently. Covering just the last couple of years in Twain’s long life, this is the concluding volume of the masterful University of California edition of his autobiography: unexpurgated, crossreferenced, and richly annotated. (Few modern readers would understand, for instance, that Twain was alluding to a Thackeray story in calling one unfortunate fellow “Jeames.”) The swan song reinforces things well established by its predecessors. For one, Twain lived a whirlwind life, interested in almost everything, particularly when it was cool, modern, and gadgety; he was always investing in tools and toys, sometimes losing his shirt thereby. For another, Twain, cynic though he appeared |
Vanhoenacker’s workplace is the cockpit of a 747. Leaving a contrail of information with lapidary prose, he shows why he loves his job. skyfaring
to be, tended to trust people, sometimes at great cost. A large section of this volume is devoted to an aggrieved account of a yearslong episode in which members of Twain’s staff bilked him of money, land, and jewels, taking advantage of the old man. Even when angry, though, the author puts humor to work, writing of one of them, “the first thing I ever noticed about Miss Lyon was her incredible laziness. Laziness was my own specialty, & I did not like this competition.” Elsewhere, Twain, a jet-setter before jets, writes with both humor and a certain archness of people like Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew Carnegie, the latter of whom he sends up for philanthropy from the supposed kindness of his heart: “He has bought fame and paid cash for it,” Twain writes, “he has deliberately projected and planned out this fame for himself; he has arranged that his name shall be famous in the mouths of men for centuries to come.” Of considerable interest to all readers of Twain but especially to working writers following Twain’s habit of tracking his astonishing writing income—even though, as he writes, “if I should run out of all other nourishment I believe I could live on compliments.”
SKYFARING A Journey with a Pilot
Vanhoenacker, Mark Knopf (320 pp.) $25.95 | Jun. 3, 2015 978-0-385-35181-2
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KL A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps
Wachsmann, Nikolaus Farrar, Straus and Giroux (880 pp.) $40.00 | Apr. 14, 2015 978-0-374-11825-9 A harrowing, thorough study of the Nazi camps that gathers a staggering amount of useful and necessary information on the collective catastrophe. In a tightly organized, systematic narrative, Wachsmann (Modern European History/Birkbeck Coll., Univ. of London; Hitler’s Prisons: Legal Terror in Nazi Germany, 2004, etc.) presents an “integrated” treatment of the Konzentrationslager of the title that moves beyond any attempt to endow the camps with universal meaning. He looks at forces both inside and outside the camps, from Hitler’s ascension in early 1933 to the liberation by the Allies in the spring of 1945. The author tries to move away from looking at the camps as occupying “some metaphysical realm” and stick to primary sources that reveal the voices of the prisoners and the perpetrators. To deal with the mass arrest of Hitler’s enemies in the spring and summer of 1933, the earliest camps morphed from existing workhouses and state prisons located all over Germany (Wachsmann provides maps of the camps as they evolved over the years), housing mostly political prisoners and communists, with Jews constituting only a small percentage, to a template fixed at Dachau, which SS leader and Munich police president Heinrich Himmler established as the “first concentration camp.” Schooled in brutal, bloodthirsty methods, the guards were encouraged to treat the prisoners as animals, running the camps in relentless military fashion, employing routine terror, forced labor and euphemisms regarding the murders of inmates as “suicides” and “shot trying to escape” for PR purposes. The camp system grew with the purge of SA leader Ernst Röhm and other “renegades” in July 1934 and took off with the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938, after which Jews numbered predominately. As the war progressed, so did the methods of mass extermination, from mass shootings to the Auschwitz gas chamber: first weak prisoners, then Soviet POWs, then Jews. A comprehensive, encyclopedic work that should be included in the collections of libraries, schools and other institutions.
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Vanhoenacker’s workplace is the cockpit of a 747. Leaving a contrail of information with lapidary prose, he shows why he loves his job. The author takes his readers on a journey that is far removed from terrestrial concerns, part memoir of wanderlust and part handbook of professional flying. Before each trip, there is the gathering of the crew, numbering in the teens, who may never have met before, and the aircraft is inspected. Vanhoenacker describes some of the electronic instrumentation aboard a modern airliner, as well as the process of lifting the massive plane into another world where there is no local time. The author notes that there are various compass headings that show diverse ways north, and each may be useful. In the sky, nearly everyone uses English, whether they are from Tokyo, Amman, Beijing, London, or countless other global cities. When the autopilot is disengaged before landing, an alarm sounds to verify that flying manually is really intended. At a critical point during the descent, the pilot is ordered by the computer to decide whether to touch down or head up again. Vanhoenacker also informs us that airports are distinguished places—in Japan, ground crews have been seen bowing to departing 747s. For those not privy to the view from the cockpit, the calculus of flight is fascinating. The author artfully considers geography and aerodynamics, but there is more. He reflects aloft what earthbound readers seldom think about, and his engaging essays consider the texture and weight of air and clouds and the essence of speed, place, night, day, and time.
This pilot is an accomplished stylistic acrobat who flies—and writes—with the greatest of ease. The anatomy of an airliner and peripatetic aerial travel, as well as a sophisticated worldview, combine for first-class reading—sure to enhance your next flight.
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BLACK FLAGS The Rise of ISIS
THEIR LAST FULL MEASURE The Final Days of the Civil War
Warrick, Joby Doubleday (368 pp.) $28.95 | Sep. 29, 2015 978-0-385-53821-3 Crisply written, chilling account of the personalities behind the emergence of the Islamic State, or ISIS. Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporter Warrick (The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole Who Infiltrated the CIA, 2011) confidently weaves a cohesive narrative from an array of players—American officials, CIA officers, Jordanian royalty and security operatives, religious figures, and terrorists—producing an important geopolitical overview with the grisly punch of true-crime nonfiction. Initially, he focuses on Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a sullen thug who discovered Muslim fundamentalism while incarcerated in the 1990s and turned it into a framework for savagery against other Muslims. Against the backdrop of the bungled American invasion of Iraq, al-Zarqawi stoked a SunniShiite civil war and normalized horrific tableaux like the suicide bombing of the United Nations mission. Soon, “Islamist media were awash in Zarqawi-inspired gore,” effectively increasing his support, until he overstepped with a hotel bombing in Jordan. Although the U.S. military killed al-Zarqawi in 2006, Syria’s civil war provided a second front for the remnants of al-Zarqawi’s jihadis. His successor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who transformed the group into ISIS, “was not a violent troublemaker like Zarqawi or an adventurer like Osama bin Laden.” Indeed, Warrick notes, “had it not been for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Islamic State’s greatest butcher would likely have lived out his years as a college professor.” Yet, ISIS achieved rapid military success across Iraq and Syria beginning in 2013 and revived their emphasis on terrorist atrocity, with Baghdadi’s goals clear, as a U.S. official noted: “He was talking about physically restoring the Islamic caliphate in a way that nobody else did.” The author focuses on dramatic flashpoints and the roles of key players, creating an exciting tale with a rueful tone, emphasizing how the Iraq invasion’s folly birthed ISIS and created many missed opportunities to stop al-Zarqawi quickly. Warrick stops short of offering policy solutions, but he provides a valuable, readable introduction to a pressing international security threat.
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Wheelan, Joseph Da Capo/Perseus (432 pp.) $26.99 | Apr. 1, 2015 978-0-306-82360-2
First-rate study of the often overlooked closing months of the Civil War, which, though the impending end was visible, saw some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict. So desperate was Confederate resistance, writes former Associated Press editor Wheelan (Bloody Spring: Forty Days that Sealed the Confederacy’s Fate, 2014, etc.), that in the late winter of 1865, it did the unthinkable: it enlisted African-Americans into the army, conferring “the rights of a freedman” on anyone who signed up. Hearing the news, Abraham Lincoln rightly remarked that the South was done, “and we can now see the bottom.” It helped the Union cause that the generals under Ulysses Grant were committed to a program of total war. As Wheelan notes, William Tecumseh Sherman had earlier “held the conventional view that war was between armies and did not involve civilians,” but a spell in Tennessee convinced him otherwise—and even in surrender, many Southerners vowed to continue hating their Northern foes. “Hatred was practically all that remained for many former Confederates,” Wheelan sagely writes, for the South lay in utter ruin. The author capably traces the closing military campaign in Virginia, with Robert E. Lee’s fast-dwindling army encircled by a vastly superior Union force, and he examines the lesser-known theaters that remained, including pockets of resistance in the Deep South and Texas. At the same time, he writes critically, by way of foreshadowing, of the failure of Reconstruction, which would follow the North’s perhapstoo-lenient policies of repatriation of former Confederate leaders, some of whom quickly returned to Congress. Particularly interesting are Wheelan’s occasional forays into speculation: what might have happened had Lee fought a strictly defensive war? Is there any way the South might have prevailed? Wheelan has combed entire libraries to make this thoroughly readable, lucid survey. Well-practiced buffs will welcome the book, but novices can approach it without much background knowledge, too. (8 pages of b/w photos)
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The preternaturally curious writer returns with a series of high-resolution literary snapshots of the Pacific Ocean. pacific
PACIFIC Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World’s Superpowers
1944 FDR and the Year that Changed History
Winik, Jay Simon & Schuster (624 pp.) $35.00 | Sep. 22, 2015 978-1-4391-1408-7
Winchester, Simon Harper/HarperCollins (480 pp.) $28.99 | Oct. 27, 2015 978-0-06-231541-0
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The preternaturally curious writer about everything from the Oxford English Dictionary to volcanoes to the Atlantic Ocean (Atlantic: A Vast Ocean of a Million Stories, 2010, etc.) returns with a series of high-resolution literary snapshots of the Pacific Ocean. Winchester, who now lives in Massachusetts, does not do the expected: there is no chapter about the geological history of the ocean, followed by a slow chronology. Instead, realizing the difficulty of his own task, the author focuses on 10 aspects of the ocean and its inhabitants—islanders, those on the shores— and uses them to illustrate some historical points. He issues dire warnings about the damage we’re doing to the natural world and about the geopolitical forces—especially the military rise of China—that threaten us all. Occasionally, Winchester makes what seem to be odd pairings (a chapter on both a volcano in the Philippines and the rise of China) and narrative choices (a chapter on the rise of Japan accelerated by manufacturing transistor radios), and he also looks at the international nightmare caused by the 1968 case of the USS Pueblo and North Korea. No matter what the putative subject of the chapter, though, we learn a lot about the ocean: its challenged wildlife, the swirling areas of plastic debris, the Pacific Plate, El Niño, and the Pacific’s vast dimensions. As we’ve come to expect from Winchester, there are plenty of delights. A chapter on surfing has guest appearances by both Jack London and the Beach Boys; and the author examines America’s egregious abuse of islanders during aboveground nuclear testing. Deep worries abound, as well: the dying coral reefs, climate change, and military posturing of the superpowers. The author ends with a hopeful but probably doomed wish for international fraternity. Winchester’s passionate research—on sea and land— undergirds this superb analysis of a world wonder that we seem hellbent on damaging.
An accomplished popular historian unpacks the last full year of World War II and the excruciatingly difficult decisions facing Franklin Roosevelt. Allied military victories during 1944 assured the eventual surrender of Nazi Germany, accounting for what Winston Churchill called “the greatest outburst of joy in the history of mankind.” And yet Winik (The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800, 2007, etc.) asks whether, by focusing so wholly on winning the war, Roosevelt missed “his own Emancipation Proclamation moment,” the chance to make the war about something bigger, specifically “the vast humanitarian tragedy occurring in Nazi-controlled Europe.” FDR’s failure to address unequivocally the Holocaust, the millions of deaths that left “a gaping, tormenting hole echoing in history,” has frustrated historians for decades. More in sorrow than in anger, Winik explains this apparent moral lapse by the world’s foremost humanitarian. Preoccupied with his 1944 re-election and mollifying various political constituencies, supervising the invasion of the European continent, holding together a contentious alliance, and intent on destroying Hitler, Roosevelt was also in extremely precarious health. Moreover, a sluggish, indifferent government bureaucracy, likely tinged with antiSemitism—here, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and the War Department’s John J. McCloy take a beating—either ignored or thwarted any plan to relieve or rescue refugees or liberate prisoners in the death camps. Still, as Winik vividly demonstrates in a number of set pieces featuring escapees, underground leaders, and government advocates for relief, surely by 1944 FDR knew: about the camps, the atrocities, the desperate refugees, and, as one memo sternly warned, “the acquiescence of this government in the murder of Jews.” Still, beyond the belated establishment of the War Refugee Board, the president faltered. The author’s fair assessment of the evidence, detailed scene-setting, deft storytelling, and sure-handed grasp of this many-stranded narrative will inspire any reader to rethink this issue. Do we ask too much of Roosevelt or too little? A complex history rendered with great color and sympathy.
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Humboldt was the Einstein of the 19th century but far more widely read, and Wulf successfully combines a biography with an intoxicating history of his times. the invention of nature
THE INVENTION OF SCIENCE A New History of the Scientific Revolution
THE INVENTION OF NATURE Alexander von Humboldt’s New World
Wootton, David Harper/HarperCollins (768 pp.) $29.99 | Dec. 8, 2015 978-0-06-175952-9 Not exactly a history of science but of our idea of science: a shrewd, thoughtful analysis of how our view of finding truth held steady throughout history and then, over a century, changed and produced the dazzling progress we often take for granted. Until the 16th century, most people believed that everything worth knowing was already known and that all questions could be answered with deep thought. Aristotle, the ultimate authority in the West, taught that one found truth through logical deductions from incontestable premises. Thus, since the heavens are unchanging and the only permanently unchanging movement is circular, all heavenly movements are circular. According to that worldview, observations are irrelevant. Columbus shattered this concept in 1492; no deduction could have predicted a new continent. Within decades, men—e.g., Copernicus in astronomy and Vesalius in anatomy—were examining phenomena with a new curiosity, claiming their findings were true even if they contradicted the official views of those in power. Many boasted of their achievements. Wootton (History/Univ. of York; Galileo: Watcher of the Skies, 2010, etc.) describes this as “a quite new type of intellectual culture: innovative, combative, competitive, but at the same time obsessed with accuracy.” The author maintains that modern science took form between 1572, when Tycho Brahe saw a nova, or new star, and 1704, when Isaac Newton published Opticks, which demonstrated that white light consists of all colors of the rainbow and that color inheres in light rather than in objects. Except for denouncing modern philosophers who teach that truth is culturally determined, so all explanations of reality are equally valid, Wootton’s account, as massive and sweeping as it is, stops with Newton. A superbly lucid examination of a dramatic revolution in human thought that deserves a place on the shelf with Thomas Kuhn and David Deutsch.
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Wulf, Andrea Knopf (496 pp.) $30.00 | Sep. 8, 2015 978-0-385-35066-2
Engrossing biography of “a visionary, a thinker far ahead of his time,” who “revolutionized the way we see the natural world.” For most of his life, explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was a household name. Never just a simple collector or adventurer, he poured out his ideas in lectures, conversations, and books that made him the public face of science during his era. In this fine account of an unbelievably energetic life, British commentator and historian Wulf (Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens, 2012, etc.) emphasizes that his insights marked the end of the universal view (at least among scientists) of animals as soulless automatons and the belief that humans were lords of the Earth. He ushered in the modern era of natural science, including—although he usually gets little credit—environmentalism. Humboldt, writes the author “saw the earth as a great living organism where everything was connected, conceiving a bold new vision of nature that still affects how we understand the world.” The son of a wealthy Prussian aristocrat, he used his money to finance his iconic, grueling 1799-1804 expedition through the jungles and mountains of Latin America, ending with a long visit to President Thomas Jefferson, a lifelong correspondent. He eventually returned to Europe, wrote of his experiences in 34 bestselling volumes, and continued to travel, lecture, write, and excite artists, poets, scholars, and scientists for the remainder of a very long life. Wulf pauses regularly for chapters on other great men who acknowledged Humboldt’s immense influence, including Goethe, Simón Bolívar, Charles Darwin, Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. Humboldt was the Einstein of the 19th century but far more widely read, and Wulf successfully combines a biography with an intoxicating history of his times. (8 pages of full-color illustrations; 69 illustrations throughout; 3 maps)
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teen books SIMON VS. THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA
Albertalli, Becky Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (320 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Apr. 7, 2015 978-0-06-234867-8 978-0-06-234869-2 e-book
THE TIGHTROPE WALKERS
Almond, David Candlewick (336 pp.) $17.99 | Mar. 24, 2015 978-0-7636-7310-9 Dominic Hall is “a caulker’s son, a tank cleaner’s grandson” in the river town of Tyneside in northern England... but the boy dreams of writing. It’s in Dom’s blood to work in and “breathe the bliddy fumes” of the hellish shipyards. Is it pure snobbery, then, to aspire to the exalted, creative life his |
NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES
Alsaid, Adi Harlequin Teen (320 pp.) $17.99 | Aug. 4, 2015 978-0-373-21154-8
special issue: best books of 2015
A gay teen comes out to friends, family and classmates after his secret correspondence with another boy is discovered. Ever since he discovered a post about being gay on his school’s unofficial Tumblr, Simon has been corresponding with its author, an anonymous gay classmate who calls himself Blue. Their conversations, which readers see interspersed with prose chapters written from Simon’s point of view, are heartfelt, emotionally intimate and increasingly flirtatious—enabled, perhaps, by the fact that neither boy knows the other’s identity. Simon is impulsive, full of heart and not always as careful as he should be. When he leaves himself logged into Gmail at the school library, a boy named Martin reads Simon’s emails with Blue and uses the threat of outing Simon to insinuate himself into a relationship with one of Simon’s female friends. Simon’s social landscape is carefully and seemingly effortlessly drawn. Through light and often humorous detail, readers see clearly not only each individual character, but also the complex set of group dynamics at play in Simon’s loving family and circle of friends. While Simon is focused on Blue, other characters go on journeys of their own, and the author is careful not only to wrap up Simon’s story, but to draw attention to the stories the romance plot might overshadow in lesser hands. Funny, moving and emotionally wise. (Fiction. 12-18)
artist friend, Holly Stroud, lives with her fancy, wine-drinking father? Dom is torn. Maybe he wants to be more like Vincent McAlinden, the black-souled bully who initiates him into “scary ecstatic afternoons” of killing helpless creatures for fun, thieving and brutal fighting that ends in kissing. Is Dom a “tender innocent” or a “brute”? Is God a sentimental comfort, as he is to the silent tramp, Jack Law, or is he a cruel joke, a “creamy shining bloody body” suspended lifelessly by thin cords at the local Catholic church? As they grow up from bairns, Dom and Holly are tightrope walkers, literally and figuratively, trying to find their balance, hoping the inevitable falls aren’t too painful. The award-winning Almond poetically plumbs the depths of his 1950s and ’60s childhood to explore themes of violence, war, God, creativity, beauty, death, art, the soul, our animal selves, whether we ever grow up or can really know each other...in short, life. (Fiction. 14 & up)
Two best friends discover love during their last few months of high school. Dave and Julia have always been thick as thieves. Before starting high school, the pair concocted a list of things they promised to never do in order to fight becoming high school clichés. Now it’s the end of their senior year, and Julia has decided to take out the Nevers list and break the rules, one at a time. Meanwhile, Dave has decided to set aside his longtime crush on Julia and date the sporty Gretchen. Sparks fly, hearts are broken, and love is found in this charming rose-colored depiction of the last few months of school. Peppered throughout this love story are amusing asides involving substitute-teacher seduction and prom escapades, but its beating heart lies in the friendship and romance between Dave and Julia, a pair of teens who are genuine, emotional, and sometimes too clever for their own good. There is a kernel of truth in every cliché, and Alsaid cracks the teen-lit trope of friends becoming lovers wide open, exposing a beautiful truth inside. He also perfectly captures the golden glow of senioritis, a period when teens are bored and excited and wistful and nostalgic all at once. Everything is possible in this handful of weeks, including making up for squandered time. A good romance is hard to come by. This is a great one. (Fiction. 12-16) kirkus.com
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a year’s worth of unforgettable characters In this year’s best books for teens, richly developed, convincingly flawed characters populate the pages of fiction and nonfiction alike, representing a dizzying array of genres. There is Daniel Ellsberg, the Cold Warrior who became disgusted by the conduct of the United States in Vietnam, which led him to leak the Pentagon Papers. In Most Dangerous, Steve Sheinkin makes the Xeroxing of 7,000 pieces of paper a white-knuckle event. And there’s the genderqueer protagonist of Lizard Radio, forced into CropCamp in an indeterminate future. Pat Schmatz creates this universe, which contains some unexpected allies, with precise and idiosyncratic language that masterfully gets readers into Lizard’s skin. Congressman John Lewis continues telling his story in Volume 2 of his graphic memoir, March. Together with Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell, he takes readers to the very center of the civil rights movement with a passion that bridges decades. In Valynne E. Maetani’s debut, Ink and Ashes, Claire Takata’s understanding of herself and her family crumbles when she discovers that her father, 10 years dead, was a member of the yakuza. Her grit and determination carry this uncommonly convincing teen thriller. Mexican-American Naomi and African-American Wash anchor Ashley Hope Pérez’s Out of Darkness, an impossible romance blooming between them in 1937 East Texas. Readers will be rooting for them even as they fear the worst. Poet Marilyn Nelson makes an entire community her protagonist in the multivoiced My Seneca Village, in which the residents— mostly African-Americans and Irish and German immigrants— of this integrated neighborhood are ousted to make way for Central Park. The protagonist of E.K. Johnston’s shimmering A Thousand Nights is never named, but she nevertheless holds readers as rapt as she does the demonic Lo-Melkhiin in this Arabian Nights–based fantasy that celebrates the hidden power of women. These and the protagonists of the best of 2015: all unforgettable.—V.S. Vicky Smith is the children’s & teen editor. 50
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SYMPHONY FOR THE CITY OF THE DEAD Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad
Anderson, M.T. Candlewick (464 pp.) $25.99 | Sep. 22, 2015 978-0-7636-6818-1
The epic tale of the siege of Leningrad and its native son, composer Dmitri Shostakovich, whose seventh symphony comforted, consoled, and rallied a population subjected to years of unspeakable suffering. Anderson vividly chronicles the desperate lengths residents went to, including acts of cannibalism, to survive the Wehrmacht’s siege, a 3-year-long nightmare that left more than 1 million citizens dead. The richly layered narrative offers a keeneyed portrait of life in the paranoid, ruthlessly vengeful Stalinist Soviet Union, its citizens living under a regime so capriciously evil that one could be heralded a hero of the motherland one day and condemned as a traitor the next. The storytelling is captivating, describing how Shostakovich began composing the symphony under relentless bombardment in Leningrad and later finished it in Moscow, its triumphant performance in Leningrad during the siege, and how it rallied worldwide sympathy for Russia’s plight. Music is at the heart of the story. As Anderson writes in the prologue, “it is a story about the power of music and its meanings,” and he communicates them with seeming effortlessness in this brilliantly written, impeccably researched tour de force. A triumphant story of bravery and defiance that will shock and inspire. (photos, author’s note, sources notes, bibliography, index) (Biography. 14 & up)
CUT OFF
Bastedo, Jamie Red Deer Press (320 pp.) $12.95 paper | Oct. 1, 2015 978-0-88995-511-0 A teen classical guitar prodigy finds new fame as an Internet blogger until cyberaddiction nearly kills him in this coming-of-age novel. Indio McCracken, half Canadian, half Mayan, leads what appears to be a privileged life as the son of the owner of a gold mine. But behind the 10-foot wall and armed guards of his family’s Guatemalan home, Indio leads a lonely, isolated life dominated by hours of guitar practice dictated by his overbearing father. When Indio discovers the computer lab at school and begins blogging about his guitar playing, he quickly develops a following—and a dependence on the attention. The gold mine’s exploitation of the indigenous Mayans brings trouble and forces the family back to Canada—a place Indio knows nothing about. He stops playing guitar and |
This is no cookie-cutter dystopia. the scorpion rules
falls into a depression that is only cured by his mother’s gift of an iPhone. He invents a new persona, Ian—a true blue Canadian—and begins another blog. Soon, blogging takes over his life. Indio’s narration is completely believable throughout as he wrestles with identity and belonging. Bastedo gives readers who may be inclined to scoff at the addictive-cyberdevice premise the space to assess Indio’s actions and reasoning and reach their own conclusions, all the while keeping the tension and pace high. A first-rate adventure with a powerful message. (author Q&A) (Fiction. 12-17)
FALLOUT
Bond, Gwenda Switch/Capstone (304 pp.) $16.95 | May 1, 2015 978-1-63079-005-9 Series: Lois Lane, 1
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Bow, Erin McElderry (384 pp.) $17.99 | $7.99 e-book | Sep. 22, 2015 978-1-4814-4271-8 978-1-4814-4273-2 e-book Once there was war, until an artificial intelligence named Talis took over the world. Four hundred years later, Talis still rules; he has made the world peaceful, but the price is the blood of children. Should a government declare war, its heir, raised in a U.N.– (and Talis-) controlled Precepture, a monasterylike enclave, dies. Greta, Crown Princess of the Pan Polar Confederacy, is one of those Children of Peace. When war claims classmate Sidney and his replacement appears in chains, obedient Greta finds herself questioning everything. This is no cookie-cutter dystopia. Talis (whose voice lends a sharp, outsize, and very dark humor to his every word and scene) may not be a bad supreme ruler. The boy (Elián) is not Greta’s love interest (Princess Xie is), and anyway the love story is only a piece of a much larger story about love and war, forms of power, and the question of what is right when there is no good answer, all played out on a small and personal stage. Bow’s writing never falters, from the vivid descriptions of the Precepture goats to the ways in which her characters must grapple with impossible decisions, and she is equally at home with violence and first kisses. Slyly humorous, starkly thought-provoking, passionate, and compassionate—and impeccably written to boot: not to be missed. (Science fiction. 13 & up)
special issue: best books of 2015
A teen reporter busts a cyberbullying ring at her new school in Metropolis. Lois Lane is new in town, and she’s doing her best to keep her head down and her nose clean. Her Army general father is hoping to make their family’s stay in Metropolis permanent, and Lois doesn’t want to jeopardize that. She joins the Daily Scoop, a teen subsidiary of the Daily Planet, in an effort to make friends. Of course, trouble always has a way of finding Lois Lane. This first entry in a planned series gets plenty right. Lois is as fully rounded as she is in the comics, headstrong, smart, capable, and equipped with a solid moral compass. Bond (Girl on a Wire, 2014, etc.) provides her with plenty of interesting supporting characters to bounce off, establishing a world worthy of a series. Bond also resists the fan-service urge: there’s no mention of Gotham, the Waynes, Lex Luthor, Central City, or any other landmark DC icon. The one big connection Bond makes is a playful one: Lois’ online pal goes by the name “SmallvilleGuy,” and few readers will not put the pieces together quickly regarding his true identity. Bond plays with their knowledge though, effectively turning this eye-roll–worthy quirk into a knowing smile, similar to the one Supes gives to viewers at the end of many a comic book and film. This lighthearted and playful tone permeates the novel, making for a nifty investigative mystery akin to Veronica Mars or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Readers are in for a treat. A spectacular prose start for DC Comics’ spectacular lady. (Fiction. 12-16)
THE SCORPION RULES
THE GAME OF LOVE AND DEATH
Brockenbrough, Martha Levine/Scholastic (336 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Apr. 28, 2015 978-0-545-66834-7 978-0-545-66835-4 e-book A lovingly realized Depression-era Seattle becomes the field of play for the latest round in the titular, age-old game. In February 1920, Love and Death choose their newest pawns as infants: Love’s is Henry, a white boy of privilege (though influenza and grief rob him of much of it); Death’s is Flora, the soon-to-be-orphaned daughter of African-American jazz musicians. In spring of 1937, the game begins. Flora sings in—and actually owns part of—the family’s nightclub, but her heart is in the skies, where she flies a borrowed biplane and dreams of owning her own. Henry, a talented bass player, is poised to graduate from the tony private school he attends on scholarship with his best friend, Ethan, whose family took him in upon his father’s suicide. They meet when Henry and Ethan visit the airstrip where Flora works; the boys kirkus.com
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Damico writes with wry wit and constant dark humor. hellhole
are in pursuit of a story for Ethan’s newspaper-magnate father. Brockenbrough’s precise, luscious prose cuts back and forth among the four protagonists, according each character equal depth, with Ethan playing a heartbreaking supporting role. The contrast between the youthful excitement of ardent Henry and pragmatic Flora and the ageless, apparent ennui of the immortals gains nuance as readers come to understand that Love and Death are not without their own complicated feelings. Race, class, fate and choice—they join Love and Death to play their parts in Brockenbrough’s haunting and masterfully orchestrated narrative. (Magical realism. 12 & up)
WEIRD GIRL AND WHAT’S HIS NAME
Brothers, Meagan Three Rooms Press (336 pp.) $16.95 paper | Oct. 13, 2015 978-1-941110-27-0 In a small town in North Carolina, a close friendship between two eccentric high schoolers breaks apart, leaving a rift. Lula and Rory have always had two things in common: their outcast status and their love of the 1990s paranormal TV series The X-Files. Rory is generally overlooked by his classmates. Lula’s “weird girl” moniker comes from her being both bookish and outspoken and taking after her equally headstrong grandfather. Rory, who is out to Lula as gay, nevertheless keeps secret his illicit relationship with his middle-aged boss, Andy, an equivocal divorcé who continually deflects Rory’s questions about their future. One night, after one of Rory and Andy’s many fights, Lula discovers the relationship and confronts Rory. Later that night, she disappears. The void left by Lula’s disappearance is palpable and leads both estranged friends down surprising paths. Rory narrates the first half of the book and Lula, the second, and both voices are crisply and intimately drawn. Minor characters are equally vibrant, particularly Walter, Lula’s rugged but kind stepfather, and Seth, the school’s unexpectedly wholesome and gentle quarterback. The X-Files, the details of which both Lula and Rory lovingly recount, provides a strong common language and set of symbols throughout. Carefully and subtly imagined. (Fiction. 14-18)
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HELLHOLE
Damico, Gina HMH Books (368 pp.) $17.99 | Jan. 6, 2015 978-0-544-30710-0 A dark comedy follows the misadventures of a boy trying to get rid of the devil that has moved into his basement. Yes, Max starts the book by doing something bad: He steals a silly toy for his sick mom. Then he indulges his paleontology obsession by digging a hole on the hill that looms over his town, only to open a huge, apparently bottomless crater. Sadly, it seems that Max’s decision to embrace the criminal life is enough to bring the powers of hell down upon his head—or rather, into his basement. Upon returning home from his excavation efforts, he finds an actual devil named Burg happily snacking on junk food and declaring himself a permanent resident in Max’s home. Seeing a possible advantage in his new supernatural housemate, Max makes a deal: the constantly wisecracking Burg will cure his mom’s critical heart disease if he can find Burg a free mansion with a hot tub. Lore, a girl who understands Max’s dilemma only too well, teams up with him to try to appease Burg before he starts killing people. Damico, who explored the lives of teenage grim reapers in her Croak trilogy, writes with wry wit and constant dark humor. She mixes in a bit of possible romance, as Max wonders if he has any chance with the vastly different Lore, also to great comic effect. Hilarious—all the way through. (Fantasy. 12-18)
BOYS DON’T KNIT
Easton, T.S. Feiwel & Friends (272 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 24, 2015 978-1-250-05331-2 An unwilling accomplice to petty theft organized by his dim friends, English teen Ben Fletcher is annoyed that he was the one busted when he collided with a crossing guard. Probation requires him to keep a journal using a template, which he considers beneath him, as he’s been keeping a diary for years. But he soldiers on, hilariously recounting the details of the “Great Martini Heist” and its aftermath. He’s also required to take a community college class. The pathetic choices include car maintenance, taught by his father, a mechanic who’s always trying to get Ben (not a sports fan) to go with him to soccer matches. Ben opts for knitting because he has a crush on the teacher. When it turns out she’s actually teaching pottery, he’s stuck with knitting and stuck in a lie, unable to admit to his father and friends what he’s up to. It turns out that he’s a natural at knitting, able to appreciate the mathematical precision of the patterns and create his own. When Ben’s coerced into entering a knitting contest, the jig is |
up. Despite some unnecessary Americanization of the text, this wonderfully funny novel is infused with British slang, including dozens of terms easily understood in context. Wacky characters, a farcical plot and a fledgling romance are all part of the fun in this novel that will appeal to fans of Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging. (Fiction. 12-16)
WILLFUL MACHINES
Floreen, Tim Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster (368 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Oct. 20, 2015 978-1-4814-3277-1 978-1-4814-3279-5 e-book Same-sex dating is tricky when your dad is a right-wing political figure. Then there’s that whole robot-fueled terrorist attack thing threatening to directly
special issue: best books of 2015
strike at any second. In the not-so-distant future, robotics enthusiast Lee Fisher is the closeted son of the ultra-conservative U.S. president. With only one kiss under his belt, Lee has earned his nickname, Walk-In (as in closet). His father has a strict moral agenda to steer the country back to ancient ideals, proselytizing the dangers of technology; indeed, Lee’s mother was murdered by an “artificially conscious” robot named Charlotte who is now plotting a terrorist attack. Lee, tailed by the Secret Service and scrutinized by the media, wants to keep a low profile. When svelte, charismatic, Chilean Nico Medina arrives at Lee’s stuffy prep school, the stakes change. Lee decides to explore romance even if Nico might not be who he says he is—and even if Charlotte has Lee in her cross hairs. Many au courant topics are challenged: equal rights, conservative closedmindedness, terrorism, global acceptance of same-sex couples, the stickiness of coming out. From a first-person perspective, Lee fumbles from self-deprecation to self-confidence. As varied as his opinions are of himself, so too is the landscape, mixing technology with gothic settings à la Poe and Stoker. Gothic, gadget-y, gay: a socially conscious sci-fi thriller to shelve between The Terminator and Romeo and Juliet. (Science fiction. 12-17)
things happen in their family. “Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom.” And sometimes people die, including Cara’s father nine years ago. Since then she’s gained a new ex-stepbrother, Sam (he stayed with them when his own father disappeared), and a new best friend, mystical Bea, somewhat callously, or so she thinks, abandoning Elsie, the friend who supported her during her childhood grief. Elsie still attends their school but has mysteriously gone missing. Only when they throw a Halloween party in a haunted house, inviting everyone they know to come as the people they are behind their everyday masks, do the secrets start to ignite. Elsie is worn out from trying to protect them all—and some of the accidents weren’t accidental. Written in Cara’s voice, Fowley-Doyle’s unflinching first-person narration conveys the impossible in prosaic, ordinary language that nonetheless sings: “I think of all the things our brains deny, all the memories they hide from us, all the secrets they keep.” What emerges from the smokescreen is a moving portrait of a fractured family, knitting itself back together with courage and love. A powerful novel from an exciting new talent. (Fiction. 14 & up)
THE ACCIDENT SEASON
Fowley-Doyle, Moïra Kathy Dawson/Penguin (304 pp.) $17.99 | Aug. 11, 2015 978-0-525-42948-7
Ghosts, secrets, and magic collide in this Irish author’s astonishing debut. For as long as she can remember, 17-year-old Cara, her mother, and her 18-year-old sister, Alice, have dreaded the accident season. For a few weeks every autumn, horrible |
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walking again down the road to freedom
Photo courtesy Robin Cooper
When Lynda Blackmon Lowery set her sights on marching from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, she had two goals. First and foremost, she wanted to help her father and grandmother win the right to vote. But after having been severely injured and traumatized on the infamous day known as Bloody Sunday, she also aimed to confront the governor of Alabama. “I wanted to let him know that I was not going to stop,” says Lowery, who at age 15 was the youngest person to march the entire way from Selma to Montgomery with Dr. Martin Luther King. “Someday I was going to be his worst nightmare: an educated, independent, black female, and he would have to deal with me.” Though she never came face to face with Wallace, she was well on her way to becoming the strong woman she is today. Lowery’s remarkable story is chronicled in Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom, written by veteran children’s and young adult writers Elspeth Leacock and Susan Buckley. After 35 hours of interviews and the passage of 10 years, Leacock and Buckley finally completed the book. Lowery says that in addition to the satisfaction she derived from serving as a primary source, telling her story to her co-authors was extremely cathartic for her. “The more you talk about Lynda Blackmon Lowery it, the more you feel the pain leaving you,” says Lowery. “Part of my desire when I was doing this was to get it out so I could deal with the hurtful parts for myself. When I would talk about being beaten on that bridge, I would cry. When I would talk about seeing my sister and thinking she was dead, I would cry. And now I have gotten to a point where I can talk about them and not cry.” —L.J. Laura Jenkins is a writer living in Austin, Texas.
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SEE NO COLOR
Gibney, Shannon Carolrhoda Lab (192 pp.) $18.99 | Nov. 1, 2015 978-1-4677-7682-0 Biracial Alex, 16, high school baseball star and pride of her white, adoptive father and coach, sidesteps thinking about her parentage and racial identity, lying to finesse uncomfortable issues—but hiding her adoptive status from Reggie, an attractive, black player on an opposing team, troubles her. At dinner, her younger sister, Kit, demolishes their parents’ insistence that they don’t (and shouldn’t) see race. Kit brings Alex a letter from her black birth father, one their parents have kept secret, feeling Alex is too young to read them. (The gentle content suggests the adoptive parents’ motives for withholding them may be mixed.) Forced to confront long-suppressed questions, Alex seeks to locate, nail down, and inhabit the unitary, undivided identity expected of her, but she gradually realizes the jigsaw pieces of her identity, drawn from different puzzles, may never fit neatly in one harmonious whole. Visiting a black hair salon isn’t a joyful marker of identity reclaimed (“finally someone knows what do with my hair!”); it’s just another ordeal. Her hair reflects her mixed heritage and requires treatment as such. Reggie and Kit want to know Alex for who she is, but how, when she doesn’t know herself? Gibney, herself transracially adopted, honors the complexities of her diverse, appealing characters. Transracial adoption is never oversimplified, airbrushed, or sentimentalized, but instead, it’s portrayed with bracing honesty as the messy institution it is: rearranging families, blending cultural and biological DNA, loss and joy. An exceptionally accomplished debut. (Fiction. 14-18)
CONVICTION
Gilbert, Kelly Loy Disney-Hyperion (352 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | May 19, 2015 978-1-4231-9738-6 978-1-4847-1943-5 e-book When 16-year-old Braden Raynor’s father is arrested for a hit-and-run accident that leaves a police officer dead, every hidden secret is dragged into the light. Braden’s father is known for his aggressive stance on his evangelical radio show, but what plays well on the airwaves can be horribly destructive at home. The anger and abuse that drove Braden’s older brother, Trey, away have driven Braden to be the perfect son. But in spite of his stellar talent on the pitcher’s mound, his exemplary performance in school, and his strong faith in God, Braden fears he will never be enough. When Braden is called to testify on behalf of the defense, he must decide if the |
Even minor characters here are carefully conceived, and every bit of dialogue and social media activity is chillingly note-perfect. what we saw
truth is worth risking his entire world. While the mystery of what really happened on the foggy stretch of highway is the driving force behind the narrative, it is Braden’s unfolding story that will captivate readers. His father’s incarceration forces Braden to admit that the father he loves is also the monster he fears. There are no easy answers. Love is both beautiful and cruel. God is both loving and mysterious. And family is both comforting and suffocating. Both hopeful and devastatingly real. (Fiction. 14 & up)
THE SHADOW BEHIND THE STARS
Hahn, Rebecca Atheneum (256 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 1, 2015 978-1-4814-3571-0 978-1-4814-3573-4 e-book
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In a fictional analog of the 2012 Steubenville, Ohio, rape case, allegations of gang-rape at a high school party expose a small town’s ugly truths. Star basketballer John Doone’s party inspires soccer player Kate and her childhood friend Ben to admit their long-held feelings for each other. The party also—if cheerleader Stacey Stallard is to be believed— saw several prominent members of the basketball team rape Stacey while she was incapacitated. The arrests of Doone and three other boys in the cafeteria spark both a media frenzy and a schoolwide rally to defend the alleged rapists. Ben stands up against the worst of his teammates’ behavior at school, but as Kate’s romance with him deepens, so does her need to know the truth. Kate, who listens more than she talks, makes an ideal narrator, observing her friends’ dismissals of Stacey’s story with increasing uncertainty. Even minor characters here are carefully conceived, and every bit of dialogue and social media activity is chillingly note-perfect. Classroom scenes and conversations offer frameworks for understanding what has happened and why, but the touch is so light and the narrative voice so strong that even a twopage passage breaking down the sexism in Grease! avoids seeming didactic. A powerful tale of betrayal and a vital primer on rape culture. (Fiction. 14-18)
special issue: best books of 2015
From the author of the radiant A Creature of Moonlight (2014), a heartbreaking fantasy tackles life’s big questions. Why do terrible things happen? How is one supposed to keep on going afterward? And what is there left to live for? After her life is brutally destroyed, the devastated Aglaia seeks out the three Fates of Greek myth and demands answers. Motherly Serena and even dour Xinot take pity on the innocent girl, but from the very beginning, youngest sister Chloe, who spins the threads of destiny for the other two to measure and cut, senses that Aglaia—with her stunning beauty, clear vision, and fierce determination—threatens the very foundations of their reality. For as the sisters are drawn inexorably into Aglaia’s suffering and plans for vengeance, they become increasingly immersed in the human lives, filled with all their hopes and joys and tragedies and griefs, from which the Fates need isolation. Chloe’s narrative voice is piercing and poetic, encompassing both youthful heedlessness and eternal power, rich in minute observations, delicate metaphors, restrained accountings of atrocities, and reluctant wisdom. Alongside her sisters, she comes to sing mortals “a tune of cataclysms, of breaking points, of beautiful horrors”—but the final aching chord of helpless love becomes the unexpected triumphant resolution to every impossible question. Shattering and transcendent. (Fantasy. 14 & up)
WHAT WE SAW
Hartzler, Aaron HarperTeen (336 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 22, 2015 978-0-06-233874-7 978-0-06-233876-1 e-book
JUNIORS
Hemmings, Kaui Hart Putnam (320 pp.) $18.99 | Sep. 22, 2015 978-0-399-17360-8
Moving to Hawaii and enrolling at prestigious Punahou midyear, Lea feels isolated and, despite her island roots, uncertain where she fits in the complex cultural mosaic; everything changes when her mother, Ali, accepts Eddie and Melanie West’s offer of their guesthouse in upscale Kahala. Lea misses easygoing, windward Oahu, where her longtime summertime friend, Danny, Punahou senior and, like her, partHawaiian, lives, but it’s hard to argue with free housing—school fees eat a big chunk of her mother’s TV-acting income. As her friendship evolves with the Wests’ kids, Will and Whitney, also at Punahou, Lea benefits from Whitney’s status at school, but she’s unsettled by Whitney’s rapport with Danny—and unbalanced by her own attraction to Will, who has a girlfriend. Eddie, Ali’s old flame, takes a perplexing interest in Lea, while Melanie makes adroit social use kirkus.com
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Hoose tells this largely unknown story with passion and clarity, providing exactly the right background information to contextualize events for readers. the boys who challenged hitler
of Ali’s celebrity, dragging her to parties and wangling access to her co-stars. As in The Descendants (2007), Hemmings turns her plot on intergenerational family complexities and contradictions, secrets and revelations. Appealing and volatile, Lea’s a quintessential teen, by turns hypersensitive and hypercritical, impulsive and cautious, insightful and clueless. Hawaii, Hemmings’ closely observed home turf, is more than interesting wallpaper; details of island life (including tensions among natives and newcomers, locals and vacationers) resonate with theme and plot. Wryly funny, generous-hearted, garnished with sun, surfing, and shave ice—a genuinely literary beach read. (Fiction. 14 & up)
THE BOYS WHO CHALLENGED HITLER Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club
Hoose, Phillip Farrar, Straus and Giroux (208 pp.) $19.99 | May 12, 2015 978-0-374-30022-7 A handful of Danish teens takes on the occupying Nazis is this inspiring true story of courageous resistance. Unlike Norway, which was also invaded on April 9, 1940, the Danish government did little to resist German occupation. Some teenagers, like 15-year-old Knud Pedersen, were ashamed of their nation’s leaders and the adult citizens who passively accepted and even collaborated with the occupiers. With his older brother and a handful of schoolmates, Knud resolved to take action. Naming themselves the Churchill Club in honor of the fiery British prime minister, the young patriots began their resistance efforts with vandalism and quickly graduated to countless acts of sabotage. Despite the lack of formal organization and planning, this small band of teenagers managed to collect an impressive cache of weapons and execute raids that would impress professionally trained commandos. The Churchill Club was eventually captured and imprisoned by the Germans, but their heroic exploits helped spark a nationwide resistance movement. As he did in Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (2009), Hoose tells this largely unknown story with passion and clarity, providing exactly the right background information to contextualize events for readers. He makes excellent use of his extensive interviews with Pedersen, quoting him at length and expertly interweaving his words into the narrative to bring it alive. A superbly told, remarkable true story and an excellent addition to stories of civilian resistance in World War II. (photos, bibliography, chapter notes) (Nonfiction. 12-18)
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THE LOST MARBLE NOTEBOOK OF FORGOTTEN GIRL & RANDOM BOY
Jaskulka, Marie Sky Pony Press (272 pp.) $16.99 | Apr. 7, 2015 978-1-63220-426-4
A THOUSAND NIGHTS
Johnston, E.K. Hyperion (336 pp.) $18.99 | Oct. 6, 2015 978-1-4847-2227-5
A loose retelling of The Arabian Nights frame story from Morris Award– and Kirkus Prize–finalist Johnston takes ideas of power and gender, belief and love, and upends them. Somewhere in the pre-Islamic Middle East, an unnamed girl narrates how, with the intent of saving her beloved sister, she sets herself against a king who has already wed and killed 300 wives before the story begins. Desert spirit Lo-Melkhiin (neither djinn or afrit is used but readers familiar with Arabic tradition will recognize the mythic wellspring) has possessed a king and feeds upon human creativity; he is also the only named character throughout the novel, a bold stylistic choice that shapes the entire tone. This is a story of the unnamed and unnoticed in which women’s unrecognized power (from the prayers of the narrator’s mother, sister, and sister’s |
THE TRUTH COMMISSION
Juby, Susan Viking (320 pp.) $18.99 | Apr. 14, 2015 978-0-451-46877-2 When curiosity leads three students at a Nanaimo, British Columbia, art school (“Serving oddballs in grades ten through twelve since 2007”) to ask a classmate why she had “renovations done,” her surprisingly positive response prompts the trio to form the Truth Commission, an experiment in bringing hidden truths to light. Unlike fellow commissioners Dusk and Neil, Normandy has understandable misgivings about the endeavor even after an inquiry into a school administrator’s legendary crabbiness turns out well (ostriches are involved). For years, Normandy and her parents have served as source material for her prodigy sister Keira’s wildly successful graphic-novel series. While Normandy acknowledges fragile Keira’s extraordinary gifts, knowing she owes her own school scholarship to Keira’s status, she hasn’t bought into the family myth that Keira’s vicious ridicule is OK. Now Keira’s returned home from college without explanation, ending the family’s brief respite from meeting her many needs. The more lives the Truth Commission touches, the more ambivalent Normandy feels about its mission, which threatens her own passive acceptance of her family’s status quo. In a tellall, socially networked world, balancing the right to know (and use) “the truth” against the right to privacy is both confusing and challenging. Readers will root for these engaging characters to chart a successful course through these murky waters. Hilarious, deliciously provocative and slyly thoughtprovoking, Juby’s welcome return is bound to ignite debate. (Fiction. 14-18)
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Trying to escape their broken worlds, two teens fall in love with devastating results. The story begins with the first meeting between Random Boy and Forgotten Girl. They are never given proper names, and their labels indicate their template relationship—“insert your name here,” Jaskulka seems to invite readers. Forgotten Girl and Random Boy write their first-person free-verse poems in notebooks—this is the structure of the narrative—sharing their doubts, fears, hopes and needs as they fall in love and hope to erase the pain of their home lives. Readers learn that Forgotten Girl’s father has recently abandoned her, and Random Boy’s father physically abuses both Random Boy and his mother. Eventually the love between Random Boy and Forgotten Girl teeters into obsession and then worse. “As much as he loves / is as hard as he hits, / which makes the pain / reassuring / in a sick way.” Why Random Boy begins abusing Forgotten Girl and why she stays with him (ultimately getting herself out) is told with such complete believability that the descent seems almost foregone, given the wounds that each has brought to the relationship. Jaskulka’s narrative explores the hows and whys of an abusive teenage relationship with heartbreaking honesty, and her delicate touch renders the dark story even more powerful. Graceful. Searing. Haunting. (Verse fiction. 12-17)
mother to the creative genius of women in the qasr, entirely overlooked by Lo-Melkhiin) provides the magic that defeats the demonic presence. Fueled by prayers and love (her family has made her a smallgod, or local deity, something usually done only after death), determined to stop the cycle of pointless deaths, the narrator tells stories that become truths, possibly including her own. Detailed and quiet, beautifully written with a literary rhythm that evokes a sense of oral tale-telling, this unexpected fantasy should not be missed. (Fantasy. 12 & up)
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reality is the source of the magic at the heart of shadowshaper
Photo courtesy Ashley Ford
“The impulse for Shadowshaper came from loving Harry Potter and loving Octavia Butler, and I wanted to put those things together,” says Daniel José Older about his debut teen novel. That pretty much makes meeting Older akin to meeting J.K. Rowling at Platform 9 3/4. But Older says he felt “a certain disconnect” with Harry Potter. “As much as I loved it, I was looking for characters that represented us more, us being Latinos and people of color in the United States. So I thought it would be an amazing thing to write a magical story for teenagers that’s set in the city, that feels true to the city, and I felt like it was needed,” he says. Shadowshaper, a finalist for the 2015 Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature, is the story of Sierra Santiago, a Latina Brooklynite who likes to get lost in her artwork but ends up finding herself in it too. Murals in her neighborhood begin fading, even crying. As she digs deeper to determine why—and make sure she isn’t losing her mind—she is introduced to a remarkable world of spirituality, ancestry, anthropology, and community. Sure, there are moving murals, shadows being shaped, a little bit of romance, a lot of action, and one truly creepy, Machiavellian anthropologist in Shadowshaper. At its core, though, the novel is a story of family, history, community, and the need to preDaniel José Older serve those things at all costs. How do you walk the line of cleaning up a neighborhood without completely eliminating all of the magic and mystery that made it a neighborhood in the first place? “There’s this narrative in gentrification where we say the first wave is the artists,” says Older. “What we don’t say is the first wave was the white artists. And when we don’t say ‘white,’ it sounds like there weren’t any artists there before.”—G.W. Gordon West is a writer and illustrator living in Brooklyn. He is at work on his own picture book and teen novel.
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ILLUMINAE
Kaufman, Amie & Kristoff, Jay Knopf (608 pp.) $18.99 | $10.99 e-book | $21.99 PLB Oct. 20, 2015 978-0553-49911-7 978-0-553-49913-1 e-book 978-0-553-49912-4 PLB Series: Illuminae Files, 1 In the wake of an interstellar incident, a post-mortem dossier comprising interview transcripts, memos, instant-messaging transcripts, diary entries, and more is assembled in this mammoth series opener. Teenage colonists and exes Kady’s and Ezra’s lives are rocked by the 2575 assault on the Wallace/Ulyanov Consortium’s illegal mining colony by their corporate rival, BeiTech Industries. They are among the lucky ones who manage to evacuate—Kady to the science vessel Hypatia and Ezra to the United Terran Authority’s battlecarrier Alexander. The latter escorts both Hypatia and the freighter Copernicus in a monthslong race to safety while pursued by a BeiTech dreadnought, one likely to win should the ships engage again. Ezra’s recruited as a fighter pilot. Kady avoids conscription by flunking tests and highlighting her defiant personality, which allows her freedom to hack the ships. What she discovers disturbs her and leads her to communicate with Ezra again—both for more information and because of their unfinished business. The two teenagers—a focus of the dossier due to their sleuthing—share and uncover disturbing information about an incident with Copernicus, the damage sustained by Alexander’s artificial intelligence system, and a terrifying virus. The design’s creative visuals take advantage of the nontraditional format, which gracefully juggles document types, foreshadowing, clues, voices, and characters. As the characters’ time runs out, the story ambushes readers with surprises. The account completes the incident’s history but not its fallout. Ambitious, heartbreaking, and out-of-this-world awesome. (Science fiction. 13 & up)
FINDING AUDREY
Kinsella, Sophie Delacorte (288 pp.) $18.99 | $10.99 e-book | Jun. 9, 2015 978-0-553-53651-5 978-0-553-53652-2 e-book Audrey, 14, is on a long, slow upswing from disabling anxiety disorders that resulted from the vicious abuse of bullies at school. Under the guidance of thoughtful Dr. Sarah, Audrey begins to deal with her inability to make eye contact—or even to leave the house—by crafting videos of her quirky, near-farcical family, a nifty narrative device that especially shows off her “twitchy” mom. Audrey’s brother Frank is |
Exciting. Dramatic.
EXPLOSIVE. Kirkus Reviews’ Best Teen Books of 2015
The Anatomy of Curiosity
Maggie Stiefvater, Tessa Gratton, and Brenna Yovanoff Ages 13 & Up • $18.99 “The true-to-form stories will deliver and delight.” —Booklist
978-1-4677-7489-5
978-1-4677-4202-3
978-1-4677-2398-5
School Library Journal’s Best Books of 2015
Out of Darkness
Last Night at the Circle Cinema
Ashley Hope Pérez
Emily Franklin
Ages 13 & Up • $18.99
Ages 13 & Up • $18.99
Kirkus School Library Journal
“A sweet and wonderful tale.” —School Library Journal
Bill Sommer and Natalie Tilghman Ages 13 & Up • $18.99
Either the Beginning or the End of the World
978-1-4677-7590-8
978-1-4677-7682-0
978-1-4677-7483-3
978-1-4677-7917-3
A 52-Hertz Whale
See No Color
The Way Back from Broken
Ages 12 & Up • $18.99
Ages 11 & Up • $18.99
Shannon Gibney
Terry Farish
Ages 13 & Up • $18.99 “[An] emotionally intimate story...” —Publishers Weekly School Library Journal
special issue: best books of 2015
Kirkus Reviews’ Best Teen Books of 2015
Amber J. Keyser
Kirkus Publishers Weekly
Booklist
Celebrating 5 Years of Award-Winning YA carolrhodalab.com
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determined to win an online gaming championship with his team, in spite of their mom’s frenetic attempts to remake the family based on newspaper advice—which, sadly for Frank, includes giving up computers. Complicating this is the fact that Frank’s team includes sensitive Linus, who delicately, tenderly navigates Audrey’s vividly portrayed roadblocks. As their relationship blossoms, Audrey gains both strength and courage. The counterpoint of absurd humor against Audrey’s uncertain progress toward healing, graphically depicted in her appealing and slightly ironic first-person voice, is compelling. Since the nature of the bullying is never fully revealed, it can readily represent the experiences of other victims. It’s only as the narrative approaches its conclusion that the true source of the dysfunction in Audrey’s family is revealed: all of them have become victims in myriad ways. An outstanding tragicomedy that gently explores mental illness, the lasting effects of bullying, and the power of friends and loving family to help in the healing. (Fiction. 12-18)
ARCHIVIST WASP
Kornher-Stace, Nicole Big Mouth House (250 pp.) $14.00 paper | May 12, 2015 978-1-61873-097-8 A ravishing, profane, and bittersweet post-apocalyptic bildungsroman transcends genre into myth. In a desolate future, young girls marked by the goddess Catchkeep fight to the death to become Archivist, needed but feared and shunned for her sacred duty to trap, interrogate, and dispatch ghosts. After three years as Archivist, Wasp is weary of killing, of loneliness, of hunger, of cruelty, of despair, so she barters with a supersoldier’s ghost to find his long-dead partner in exchange for a chance at escape. But looking for answers in the land of the dead only reveals that everything Wasp knew was a lie. Equal parts dark fantasy, science fiction, and fable, Wasp’s story is structured as a classic hero’s journey. Her bleak and brutal world, limned with the sparest of detail, forges her character: stoic, cynical, with burning compassion at the core; in contrast, the rich and mosaic (if capricious and violent) underworld overflows with symbol and metaphor that tease at deeper meanings never made fully explicit. Meanwhile, the nameless ghost’s history, told through disconnected snatches of memory, encompasses heroism, abuse, friendship, and betrayal in a tragedy only redeemed by the heart-rending convergence of their separate narratives. Names (and their absence) form a constant leitmotif, as identity is transformed by the act of claiming it. Difficult, provocative, and unforgettable—the most dangerous kind of fiction. (Science fiction/fantasy. 14 & up)
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I DON’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
Kreslehner, Gabi Translated by Tanaka, Shelley Groundwood (128 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 13, 2015 978-1-55498-803-7 A girl tries to cope with her parents’ divorce and her own developing friendships and romance. This award-winner from Austria focuses on Charlotte, who has become enraged by her parents’ divorce. First, her mother moves the children out of their home and into Charlotte’s grandmother’s small row house. Then Charlotte spots her father with his new wife, a blonde bombshell. As her rage grows, she neglects her schoolwork and keeps returning to her old home, sold to new owners, who begin to shoo her away. Now 15, she meets new friends at school, including handsome, Italian Carlo, who’s trying to cope with the death of his father. But then her mother abruptly moves them again, into a home in their old neighborhood, as she begins a relationship with another man. Just when things begin to settle down, more turmoil occurs. At last Charlotte begins to see life through the same lenses as her parents and makes her own decisions. Kreslehner develops a multilayered characterization of Charlotte, convincingly getting under the skin of a girl whose life becomes disrupted by divorce. It’s an immersive, believable portrait of how adolescents cope, or not, with divorce, drawn from an inside view. Powerful and deeply resonant. (Fiction. 12-18)
SCARLETT UNDERCOVER
Latham, Jennifer Little, Brown (320 pp.) $18.00 | $9.99 e-book | May 19, 2015 978-0-316-28393-9 978-0-316-28389-2 e-book A 16-year-old gumshoe’s new case reveals ancient—perhaps magical—family secrets. Intrepid sleuth Scarlett has tested out of the last years of high school, founding a detective agency instead of going to college. Ever since the deaths of her Egyptian father and Sudanese mother, Scarlett’s insisted on taking care of herself. Her older sister, a doctor, is too busy to spend much time at home, so Scarlett is proudly independent. When she takes a case from a frightened 9-year-old, Scarlett discovers a terrifying conspiracy that’s endangered her own family for generations. As she investigates clues pointing to an ancient myth that the children of King Solomon are at war with the descendants of the jinn, she stumbles upon a cult of true believers. Scarlett is supported by a crew of irregulars that would make any private eye proud: a loving sister; a handsome Jewish best friend who’s becoming |
The contrast between the dignified marchers and the vicious, hate-filled actions and expressions of their tormentors will leave a deep impression. march
something more; and solicitous neighbors from bakers to cops. Meanwhile, she must come to terms with her feelings about her sister, her memories of her parents, and her unobservant relationship with Islam. With some secrets left unresolved, dare we hope this is not the last mystery Scarlett will solve? This whip-smart, determined, black Muslim heroine brings a fresh hard-boiled tone to the field of teen mysteries. (Mystery. 12-15)
UNDER A PAINTED SKY
Lee, Stacey Putnam (384 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 17, 2015 978-0-399-16803-1
Lewis, John & Aydin, Andrew Illus. by Powell, Nate Top Shelf Productions (192 pp.) $19.95 paper | Jan. 20, 2015 978-1-60309-400-9 Heroism and steadiness of purpose continue to light up Lewis’ frank, harrowing account of the civil rights movement’s climactic days—here, from cafeteria sitins in Nashville to the March on Washington. As in the opener, Powell’s dark, monochrome ink-and-wash scenes add further drama to already-dramatic events. Interspersed in Aydin’s script with flashes forward to President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, Lewis’ first-person account begins with small-scale protests and goes on to cover his experiences as a Freedom Rider amid escalating violence in the South, his many arrests, and his involvement in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s formation and later internal strife. With the expectation that readers will already have a general grasp of the struggle’s course, he doesn’t try for a comprehensive overview but offers personal memories and insights—recalling, for instance, Martin Luther King Jr.’s weak refusal to join the Freedom Riders and, with respect, dismissing Malcolm X: “I never felt he was a part of the movement.” This middle volume builds to the fiery manifesto the 23-year-old Lewis delivered just before Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech and closes with the September 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. The contrast between the dignified marchers and the vicious, hate-filled actions and expressions of their tormentors will leave a deep impression on readers. Lewis’ commitment to nonviolent—but far from unimpassioned—protest will leave a deeper one. Backmatter includes the original draft of Lewis’ speech. “We’re gonna march”—oh, yes. (Graphic memoir. 11 & up)
special issue: best books of 2015
Two girls on the racial margins of mid-19th-century America team up and head west. As the book opens, Samantha, a 15-year-old Chinese-American violinist, yearns to move back to New York City in 1849, though her kind and optimistic father, owner of a dry goods store in the bustling outpost of Saint Joe, Missouri, has great plans for them in California. When the store burns down and her father dies, she is forced to defend herself from their predatory landlord. Suddenly on the run from the law, Samantha and Annamae, a 16-year-old African-American slave who covets freedom, disguise themselves as boys and head west on the Oregon Trail. Well-crafted and suspenseful, with more flow than ebb to the tension that stretches like taut wires across plotlines, Lee’s tale ingeniously incorporates Chinese philosophy and healing, music, art and religion, as well as issues of race and discrimination (including abolitionist views and examples of cruel slave treatment), into what is at its center a compelling love story. “Sammy” and “Andy” meet up with Cay, West and Peety, three young, good-hearted cowboys with secrets of their own, who help them on their arduous, dangerous journey. Emotionally resonant and not without humor, this impressive debut about survival and connection, resourcefulness and perseverance will keep readers on the very edges of their seats. (Historical fiction. 12-16)
MARCH Book Two
THE ASTROLOGER’S DAUGHTER
Lim, Rebecca Text (330 pp.) $11.95 paper | Jun. 9, 2015 978-1-922182-00-5
A fiercely realized teen uses astrological skills to solve a heartbreaking mystery. Joanne Crowe, an astrologer so accurate and empathetic that clients became obsessed with her, knew her days were numbered. She’d always insisted on the truth of her impending “eventuality” to her daughter, Avicenna, but when Joanne goes missing, it’s still a shock. As Avicenna embraces her own ability to read destinies in the stars and planets to unravel the mystery of her beloved mother’s disappearance, her skills introduce her to both unlikely allies and revolting, violent foes across Melbourne’s most luxurious and down-at-the-heels neighborhoods. Avicenna is |
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putting a reallife spin on high school romance
Photo courtesy Peter Ross
Adi Alsaid speaks with me on his American cellphone; he has two, one he uses when visiting family in Las Vegas, where he attended school, and one for Mexico, where he was born and raised by Israeli parents and now writes and teaches school in an artsy neighborhood he calls the “Greenwich Village of Mexico City.” Alsaid’s ease with borders and boundaries makes him a natural author for Never Always Sometimes, which focuses on best friends who fall in—and out of— love, transgressing the boundaries of relationships. Those best friends are Dave and Julia, high school seniors who drew up a Never List of clichés to avoid, ranging from No. 1: Never be recognized by your lunch spot. Keep moving to No. 10: Never date your best friend. Darkly comic, the book explores the tensions between being yourself and fitting in, the borders of where you end and others begin. “When you’re a teenager, you’re constantly trying to figure out who you are, how you fit into the world around you,” Alsaid says. “You want to stay unique and original but also get along with everyone.” And all along, Dave has been violating No. 8: Never pine silently after someone for the entirety of high school. Julia and Dave head down a path unforgiving of both U-turns and happy endings. At its heart, the novel reveals that what you want isn’t always what you need, and even the mature, platonic love of true friendship exacts a price. Alsaid doesn’t shy away from controversial—albeit honest—teen topics in Never Always Sometimes. The book’s drinking Adi Alsaid party involves bad behavior and Julia’s disappointed dads. “I wanted to tackle putting Dave and Julia into all these clichés,” he says, pointing out the revered parents-are-out-of-town-let’s-drink trope in every teen movie, ever. “I wanted to put them in that situation and maybe then put real-life spin on it.”—L.S.
a revelation: prickly and brilliant—she’s the first student in years to ace the entrance exam at a highly competitive magnet high school—she pursues the truth doggedly even as the likelihood of her mother’s death forces her to re-experience the physical and emotional trauma of the fire that took her father’s life 10 years prior. Lim throws class differences into high relief and highlights the casual, cruel racism multiracial people still face in modern Australia. Her taut, assured thriller weaves together astrology and mythology, poetry and poverty, and several generations of mothers whose love can’t protect their children from humanity’s ugliest tendencies. Teen and adult readers who like their mysteries gritty and literary, with a touch of magic: seek this one out. (Mystery. 15 & up)
NOT IF I SEE YOU FIRST
Lindstrom, Eric Poppy/Little, Brown (320 pp.) $18.00 | $9.99 e-book | Dec. 1, 2015 978-0-316-25985-9 978-0-316-25981-1 e-book “Rule #1: Don’t deceive me. Ever.... Rule #INFINITY: There are NO second chances.” Parker Grant doesn’t trust surprises—her blindness intensifies them too much. After she finds her father dead of a drug overdose, she’s further disoriented when her overprotective aunt and aloof cousin move in and junior year starts. Disorientation becomes dizziness when she meets Jason, who knows “how to talk to a blind girl,” and it escalates to panic when she encounters Scott, the ex-boyfriend who betrayed her in eighth grade. She finds stability in running, but her outward equilibrium is maintained only by the gold stars she awards herself for not crying. Fortunately, she has her best friend, Sarah, and a no-nonsense, dark-humored outlook that she parlays into tough-love peer counseling because she can’t see people flinch. But with so many changes and memories, is it enough? Lindstrom’s immersive portrayal of the dimension Parker’s blindness adds to both atypical and everyday angst imbues his protagonist with mature complexity. Like the Army vest covered in slogans or the colorful blindfolds she wears like a “Rorschach test,” Parker’s snarky bravado is not only for armor, but for input—a way to gauge other people’s capacity for honesty, critical for navigating her world. Parker herself does not escape analysis (or sympathy), ultimately confronting her problems through what others reveal. An unflinching exploration of trust, friendship, and grief. (Fiction. 14 & up)
Lora Shinn is a former youth and teen services librarian and now writes full-time about literacy, health, and travel. 62
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The novel’s twists and turns will keep readers riveted and guessing even after they finish the book. ink and ashes
TURNING 15 ON THE ROAD TO FREEDOM My Story of the Selma Voting Rights March
Lowery, Lynda Blackmon & Leacock, Elspeth & Buckley, Susan Illus. by Loughran, P.J. Dial (128 pp.) $19.99 | Jan. 8, 2015 978-0-8037-4123-2
INFINITE IN BETWEEN
Mackler, Carolyn HarperTeen (480 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 1, 2015 978-0-06-173107-5 978-0-06-232305-7 e-book A Breakfast Club–style, randomly assigned freshman orientation group experiences the highs and lows of four years of high school. The prologue gives the concept— five teens write letters to their future selves during freshman orientation and agree to assemble again after graduation to read them—and teases the whens and whats of big surprises to come. Gregor’s a small, quiet musician; Zoe, the daughter of a famous actress; Jake, the all-American type; Mia, the weird brainiac; and Whitney, the beautiful, popular girl. Their storylines over the next four years occasionally cross paths and share reoccurring supporting characters. Gregor is hopelessly in love with Whitney, whose primary social entanglements aren’t her series |
INK AND ASHES
Maetani, Valynne E. Tu Books (400 pp.) $19.95 | Jun. 1, 2015 978-1-62014-211-0
Claire’s parents are keeping secrets that could kill her. Sixteen-year-old Claire Takata is a spirited, inquisitive amateur locksmith and sleuth. Claire and her brothers have always believed their father died of a heart attack 10 years ago and that their mother met their stepdad after he died. But when Claire finds an old letter in her father’s journal and pictures locked away in her stepdad’s desk that reveal otherwise, she is determined to find out the truth. Why have her mom and stepdad lied to her? Why does her mom never want to talk about her father? And what really happened to him? Through letters Claire has written to him over the decade since his death, Claire’s father has served as her confidant, an outlet for her grief, frustrations, and longings. The author also makes smart use of these letters, interspersing them between chapters to deliver important back story. Claire’s grief and sense of loss are compounded when she eventually discovers that her father had been a member of the yakuza, transnational Japanese organized crime syndicates—and then her sleuthing attracts the attention of someone tied to her father’s past....The romantic tension between Claire and her best friend, Forrest, plays out authentically in a subplot, and the novel’s twists and turns will keep readers riveted and guessing even after they finish the book. This fantastic debut packs a highly suspenseful blend of action, intrigue, and teen romance. (Thriller. 12 & up)
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In 1965, Lynda Blackmon Lowery turned 15 during the three-day voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery. In this vibrant memoir, Lowery’s conversational voice effectively relates her experiences in the civil rights movement on and before that march. The youngest person on the march, she’d already been jailed nine times as a protester, once for six days and once in a hot, windowless “sweatbox” where all the girls passed out. At a protest on “Bloody Sunday,” earlier in 1965, a state trooper beat her so badly she needed 35 stitches in her head. The terror of that beating haunted her on the march to Montgomery, but she gained confidence from facing her fear and joining forces with so many, including whites whose concern amazed her after a childhood of segregation. Lowery’s simple, chronological narrative opens and closes with lyrics of freedom songs. Appendices discuss voting rights and briefly profile people who died on or around “Bloody Sunday.” Double-page spread color illustrations between chapters, smaller retro-style color pictures and black-and-white photographs set in generous white space will appeal even to reluctant readers. Vivid details and the immediacy of Lowery’s voice make this a valuable primary document as well as a pleasure to read. (Memoir. 11-16)
of boyfriends but the best friends she falls in and out of favor with. Mia tries to reinvent herself, while Jake tries to accept himself, and Zoe’s too busy trying to hide from expectations to figure out who she wants to be. Protagonists experience fleeting loves and lose attachments, they develop emotionally and sexually, and each tackles varying degrees of family conflicts and—for some—tragedies. Despite the prologue’s forecasting, many twists still surprise. Problem-novel subjects are elevated by both the humanity of the characters and the intricate ways that they weave in and out of each other’s lives. Characters live, grow, and ultimately come of age in a beautifully constructed world. (Fiction. 13 & up)
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Life is full of tragedies and triumphs alike, and Manzano shows how both helped her become the actress that generations of children grew up seeing on Sesame Street. becoming maria
BECOMING MARIA Love and Chaos in the South Bronx
Manzano, Sonia Scholastic (272 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Aug. 25, 2015 978-0-545-62184-7 978-0-545-62186-1 e-book Actress Manzano, best known as Maria from Sesame Street, provides a lyrical and unflinching account of her tough Nuyorican upbringing in the South Bronx. Split into three parts, this touching memoir is a chronological series of vignettes in the author’s life, starting with her earliest memories as a diaper-clad toddler witnessing her father’s drunken outbursts and meeting a mysterious “dark little girl,” who turns out to be her older half sister. The author doesn’t give many dates or ages; her memories are fragments of her Spanglish-filled life in a large, poverty-stricken Puerto Rican family. She writes about the fear and confusion of having an abusive father and a battered mother doing the best she could with four kids to clothe and feed. She describes the communal shame of cousins and friends “ruined” by teen pregnancies. But her childhood isn’t all grim. Manzano lovingly details life-changing moments: seeing West Side Story with a teacher and two other Latina classmates; visiting Puerto Rico, the place her parents fled but cherished; listening to a record of Richard Burton playing Hamlet; and later successfully auditioning for a spot in Manhattan’s illustrious High School of Performing Arts. Life is full of tragedies and triumphs alike, and Manzano shows how both helped her become the actress that generations of children grew up seeing on Sesame Street. In stark and heartbreaking contrast to her Sesame Street character, Manzano paints a poignant, startlingly honest picture of her youth. (Memoir. 12 & up)
MY SENECA VILLAGE
Nelson, Marilyn Namelos (96 pp.) $21.95 | Nov. 1, 2015 978-1-60898-196-0
The little-known story of the settlement that preceded Central Park. Newbery and multi–Coretta Scott King honoree Nelson here re-creates Seneca Village, a path-breaking 19th-century Manhattan community that included the first significant assemblage of African-American property owners living alongside Irish and German immigrants. In a series of poems, Nelson constructs the lives of more than 30 characters based on names found in census records. Their story is at once celebratory and tragic, highlighting the struggles and triumphs of this transformative moment as dirt-poor Irish immigrants escape the potato famine of 1845, German immigrants struggle 64
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to make it in the New World, and African-Americans negotiate the transition from slavery to freedom and property ownership: “Freed by a miraculous codicil, / I find myself the owner of one me, / two slightly swampy lots, one deeeep well, / one one-room palace, and opportunity.” This incredibly integrated society comes to an end when the city executes powers of eminent domain to create Central Park. Nelson chooses prose narrative to connect these 40-some lyric fictional portraits that include schoolchildren, a mariner, a bootblack, a hairdresser, a musician, bar owners, lovers, and a fortuneteller, among others, along with poignant snapshots of famous historical figures Frederick Douglass and Maria Stewart, the first African-American woman to lecture on politics and religion. Artfully crafted, an engrossing and important collection of memories and moments from a pivotal time in American history. (foreword, notes on poetic forms) (Historical fiction/poetry. 10 & up)
THE REST OF US JUST LIVE HERE
Ness, Patrick HarperTeen (336 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Oct. 6, 2015 978-0-06-240316-2 978-0-06-240318-6 e-book It’s not easy being normal when the Chosen One goes to your high school. High school senior Mikey Mitchell knows that he’s not one of the “indie kids” in his small Washington town. While they “end up being the Chosen One when the vampires come calling or when the Alien Queen needs the Source of All Light or something,” Mikey simply wants to graduate, enjoy his friendships, and maybe, just maybe, kiss his longtime crush. All that’s easier said than done, however, thanks to his struggles with anxiety, his dreadful parents, and the latest group of indie kids discovering their “capital-D Destinies.” By beginning each chapter with an arch summary of the indie kids’ adventures before returning to Mikey’s wry first-person narration, Ness offers a hilarious—and perceptive—commentary on the chosen-one stories that are currently so popular in teen fiction. The diverse cast of characters is multidimensional and memorable, and the depiction of teen sexuality is refreshingly matter-of-fact. Magical pillars of light and zombie deer may occasionally drive the action here, but ultimately this novel celebrates the everyday heroism of teens doing the hard work of growing up. Fresh, funny, and full of heart: not to be missed. (Fantasy. 13 & up)
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WE ARE ALL MADE OF MOLECULES
Nielsen, Susin Wendy Lamb/Random (256 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | $19.99 PLB May 12, 2015 978-0-553-49686-4 978-0-553-49688-8 e-book 978-0-553-49687-1 PLB A nerdy boy and a queen-bee girl become stepbrother and -sister in this
SHADOWSHAPER
Older, Daniel José Levine/Scholastic (304 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Jun. 30, 2015 978-0-545-59161-4 978-0-545-59162-1 e-book When walking corpses—and worse— show up in the city, a teen discovers family secrets and ancestral powers. Sierra’s summer plan is to paint an enormous mural on an abandoned, unfinished five-story building. On an older mural nearby, unnervingly, a painted face changes expression and weeps a tear that glistens and drops. Grandpa Lázaro, mostly speechless from a stroke, grasps a lucid moment to warn Sierra, “They are coming for us....the shadowshapers.” Abuelo can’t or won’t explain further, and Sierra has no idea what shadowshapers are. Her regular |
OUT OF DARKNESS
Pérez, Ashley Hope Carolrhoda Lab (408 pp.) $18.99 | Sep. 1, 2015 978-1-4677-4202-3
A Mexican-American girl and a black boy begin an ill-fated love in the months leading up to a catastrophic 1937 school explosion in East Texas. The powerful story opens with the legendary school explosion in New London and then rewinds to September 1936. Naomi has begrudgingly left behind her abuelitos in San Antonio for a new life with her younger half siblings, twins, and their long-absent white father, Henry. Now a born-again Christian, Henry struggles to atone for his sins. The siblings struggle to fit into the segregated oil town, where store signs boast “No Negroes, Mexicans, or dogs.” The precocious twins read better than half the senior class, and dark-skinned Naomi is guilty of not only being Mexican, but also of being “prettier than any girl in school.” Their one friend is Wash, a brilliant African-American senior from the black part of town. Pérez deftly weaves multiple perspectives—including Henry and “the Gang,” the collective voice of the racist students—into her unflinchingly intense narrative, but the story ultimately belongs to Naomi and Wash. Their beautifully detailed love story blossoms in the relative seclusion of the woods, where even stepfathers can’t keep them apart. But as heartbreaking events unfold, the star-crossed lovers desperately hope that any light can penetrate the black smoke cloud of darkness spreading around them. A powerful, layered tale of forbidden love in times of unrelenting racism. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 14 & up)
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comedy/drama. Hilarity ensues when 13-year-old Stewart learns that he and his dad are moving in with Caroline and her 14-year-old daughter, Ashley. Stewart copes well enough, thanks to his outstanding intelligence, precocious emotional maturity, math skills, and the calm outlook with which he assesses his successes and failures. He’s excited to have a sister. Ashley, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about school and wants nothing to do with her new almost-stepbrother—who, to her mortification, has been bumped up a year and is now in her class. She’s also terrified that people will learn her estranged dad is gay. Ashley scores big when she lands the handsome Jared as a boyfriend, but Stewart knows Jared is a bully because he’s trapped in physical education class with him. The psychodrama is narrated by the two kids in alternating chapters, leavened with constant, wry humor that should keep readers chuckling even as the story grapples with serious emotional issues. Stewart comes across as absolutely adorable. He knows he’s a complete geek with imperfect social skills. His disarming honesty about his intelligence and especially about his weaknesses holds the entire book together, allowing readers to take self-absorbed Ashley with a grain of salt as she goes through what her mother terms the “demon seed” stage. This savvy, insightful take on the modern family makes for nearly nonstop laughs. (Fiction. 12-18)
world explodes into a “mystical Brooklyn labyrinth” shimmering with beauty but deadly dangerous. Walking corpses with icy grips and foul smells chase her, and a throng haint—a shadowy phantom with mouths all over—almost kills her. In Bed-Stuy, Prospect Park, and Coney Island in the middle of the night, Sierra fights to stay alive and to decipher her role in this chaos. This story about ancestors, ghosts, power, and community has art and music at its core; Sierra’s drawing and painting turn out to be tools for spirit work. Sierra’s Puerto Rican with African and Taíno ancestors; her community is black and brown, young and old, Latin and Caribbean and American. Sometimes funny and sometimes striking, Older’s comfortable prose seamlessly blends English and Spanish. Warm, strong, vernacular, dynamic—a must. (Urban fantasy. 14-18)
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forgetting is all too easy to do
Photo courtesy Margot Wood
Adam Silvera is easy to talk to. He’s cheerful, flattered, and has a laugh somewhere between ebullient and sheepish. I could have chatted with him for half an hour about our dogs alone, but duty called and we needed to discuss his debut novel of self-deprecation, fruitless attraction, and suicide. “It’s tragic and beautiful and—” Silvera pauses to find the right word for More Happy Than Not’s tale of brutally unrequited love. “Bittersweet is what we can roll with.” Sixteen-year-old Bronx resident Aaron Soto is fumbling through the wake of his father’s suicide. He’s not without anxiety and depression (a telltale scar on his wrist reminds him of his fragility) but he has a devoted girlfriend endeavoring to distract him. When he begins spending time with Thomas from a neighboring project, Aaron is increasingly attracted to him and feels distanced from his girlfriend. Conflicted by his feelings for Thomas and still reeling from the death of his father, his inner turmoil proves stifling. He opts to pursue a procedure from the Leteo Institute promising to help its patrons forget. Sound familiar? Comparisons to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, though not entirely accurate, have been affixed to More Happy since an early pitch. “The idea for me was always to explore a character living in both worlds, as both a straight kid and Adam Silvera a gay kid,” says Silvera. “I’ve always wanted to explore the whole coming out thing but from a nurture vs. science angle. If you were gay, and you could choose to be straight, would you do it? As a teenager, I would have considered that, but at 24, I’m good.” He jokes that dashing lads like Andrew Garfield keep him happily gay these days. “At 16 in the Bronx, I would have gone the easy way out.”—G.W. Gordon West is a writer and illustrator living in Brooklyn. He is at work on his own picture book and teen novel.
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LIZARD RADIO
Schmatz, Pat Candlewick (288 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 8, 2015 978-0-7636-7635-3 In a dystopian future, Kivali Kerwin, nicknamed Lizard, is sent to prepare for adulthood at a government-run CropCamp. Lizard’s adoptive family has always resisted authority, but attending camp as a teen makes it easier to avoid being sent to the prisonlike Blight as an adult. As a midrange bender—roughly equivalent, in today’s terms, to having a nonbinary gender—Lizard is at risk of being sent to Blight. At camp, Lizard unexpectedly forms deep connections to other campers. At the same time, Lizard increasingly suspects something sinister behind the camp’s strong community spirit and the seemingly kind mentorship of director Ms. Mischetti. The world here is revealed gradually. The poetic, evocative prose is littered with unfamiliar neologisms— “skizzer,” “Mealio,” “vape”—with the expectation that readers will either pick up their meanings from context or be willing to wonder. Some words prove more useful than contemporary vocabulary: when Lizard develops a crush on a female camper, the word “jazz”—denoting everything from flirtation to sexual acts—provides a simple but startlingly effective way to talk about sexuality and attraction. Mischetti’s warm leadership and disarming tendency to acknowledge disturbing rumors make her a dangerous enemy and mean Lizard’s mission is more complicated than simply uncovering the truth. Sophisticated, character-driven science fiction, as notable for its genderqueer protagonist as for its intricate, suspenseful plot. (Science fiction. 14-18)
MOST DANGEROUS Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War
Sheinkin, Steve Roaring Brook (384 pp.) $19.99 | Sep. 22, 2015 978-1-59643-952-8
Following his award-winning World War II–era volumes Bomb (2012) and The Port Chicago 50 (2014), Sheinkin tells the sweeping saga of the Vietnam War and the man who blew the whistle on the government’s “secret war.” From 1964 to 1971, Daniel Ellsberg went from nerdy analyst for the Rand Corp. to “the most dangerous man in America.” Initially a supporter of Cold War politics and the Vietnam War, he became disenchanted with the war and the lies presidents told to cover up the United States’ deepening involvement in the war. He helped to amass the Pentagon Papers—“seven thousand pages of documentary evidence of lying, by four presidents |
Debut author Silvera has an ear for dialogue and authentic voices. more happy than not
and their administrations over twenty-three years”—and then leaked them to the press, fueling public dissatisfaction with American foreign policy. Sheinkin ably juggles the complex war narrative with Ellsberg’s personal story, pointing out the deceits of presidents and tracing Ellsberg’s rise to action. It’s a challenging read but necessarily so given the scope of the study. As always, Sheinkin knows how to put the “story” in history with lively, detailed prose rooted in a tremendous amount of research, fully documented. An epilogue demonstrates how history repeats itself in the form of Edward Snowden. Easily the best study of the Vietnam War available for teen readers. (bibliography, source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)
CHALLENGER DEEP
Shusterman, Neal Illus. by Shusterman, Brendan HarperTeen (320 pp.) $17.99 | Apr. 21, 2015 978-0-06-113411-1
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Silvera, Adam Soho Teen (304 pp.) $18.99 | Jun. 16, 2015 978-1-61695-560-1 In a Bronx neighborhood of the near future, it’s no secret that at least one person has taken advantage of the Leteo Institute’s new medical procedure that promises “cutting-edge memory-relief.” Reeling from his discovery of his father in a blood-filled bathtub, there are lots of things that Aaron Soto would like to forget—the smile-shaped scar on his own wrist attests to that. Puerto Rican Aaron meets a boy named Thomas from a neighboring (and sometimes rival) project who shares his love of comic books and fantasy fiction. The two develop a friendship that makes Aaron wonder if he’s a “dude-liker,” leading to a breakup with his girlfriend. When Thomas doesn’t reciprocate, Aaron considers the Leteo procedure for himself. This novel places a straightforward concept—what if you could erase unwanted memories?—squarely within an honest depiction of the pains of navigating the teen years and upends all expectations for a plot resolution. Debut author Silvera has an ear for dialogue and authentic voices. He scatters references to his characters’ various ethnicities in an unforced manner—of a midnight showing of a movie based on their favorite fantasy series, Thomas says “I was the only brown Scorpius Hawthorne.” Thomas is the foil to Aaron’s conviction that there’s an easy way out in a multifaceted look at some of the more unsettling aspects of human relationships. A brilliantly conceived page-turner. (Speculative fiction. 13-17)
special issue: best books of 2015
Fantasy becomes reality in an exploration of mental illness based partly on the experiences of the author’s son, who is also the book’s illustrator. For 14-year-old Caden Bosch, his gradual descent into schizophrenia is a quest to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest place on Earth. In an internal reality that’s superimposed over Caden’s real life— where his behavior slips from anxiety to hearing voices and compulsively obeying signage—an Ahab-like captain promises riches in exchange for allegiance, while his parrot urges mutiny for a chance at life ashore. Shusterman unmoors readers with his constant use of present tense and lack of transitions, but Caden’s nautical hallucination-turned-subplot becomes clearer once his parents commit him to Seaview Hospital’s psychiatric unit with its idiosyncratic crew of patients and staff. However, Caden’s disorientation and others’ unease also make the story chillingly real. Except in the heights of Caden’s delusions, nothing is romanticized—just off-kilter enough to show how easily unreality acquires its own logic and wit. The illustrator, who has struggled with mental illness himself, charts the journey with abstract line drawings that convey Caden’s illness as well as his insight. When the depths are revealed with a dream-logic twist and Caden chooses an allegiance, the sea becomes a fine metaphor for a mind: amorphous and tumultuous but ultimately navigable. An adventure in perspective as well as plot, this unusual foray into schizophrenia should leave readers with a deeper understanding of the condition. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14 & up)
MORE HAPPY THAN NOT
THE ALEX CROW
Smith, Andrew Dutton (432 pp.) $18.99 | Mar. 5, 2015 978-0-525-42653-0
Three stories wind round one another in unexpected ways in this science-fiction offering peppered with recurring symbols. Fifteen-year-old Ariel Burgess survived a nightmarish attack on his home village by hiding in a refrigerator. He was taken in by a family in Virginia, and to his chagrin, he has now been packed off along with his adoptive brother, Max, to stay at Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys, a free perk his family receives for the work done by their inventor father for a research group. A multitude of strange and grimly funny characters populates the camp, including Mrs. Nussbaum, a prim therapist whose forced cheer is at one point hilariously described as being “about one-half-octave above ‘drunkenly enthusiastic’ and just below the sound baby kirkus.com
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a teen novel that credits readers’ intelligence
Photo courtesy Christopher Tovo
Amie Kaufman might have a degree in law but even that was not enough to crack the tax documents she needed to file as an Australian author working with U.S. publishers. Then she heard about fellow writer Jay Kristoff, who had figured it out on his third try and who was willing to help. The Kaufman-Kristoff partnership might be rooted in international taxation law but it has since moved on to bigger and better things. Case in point: Illuminae, an imaginative sci-fi thriller set far in the future when young-adult protagonists Kady and Ezra have to use every ounce of their resources to outsmart the bad guys. After an attack on their illegal mining colony, the two end up on different spaceships and must navigate a way to safety even as a destructive artificial intelligence force, AIDAN, is looking to decimate everything they hold dear. Top it all off with a nasty virus, Phobos, which is systematically infecting the population, and you’ve got the recipe for an epic disaster for Illuminae’s characters. Kaufman and Kristoff worked together seamlessly—no fights yet, they say. Kaufman wrote Kady’s lines while Kristoff filled in Ezra’s. The reader pieces the Jay Kristoff & story together using an assortAmie Kaufman ment of emails, dossier-style reports, and other snippets of information. “We wanted to credit the reader for being smart,” Kaufman says. “We wanted to put it all out there and for them to slowly figure it out.”—P.A.
dolphins make” and who offers the first hint that all may not be as it seems. Two other narrative threads—one involving a ship called the Alex Crow stuck in the ice during the 1800s and the other detailing the madness of a character called the “melting man,” who hears various voices urging him to commit acts of violence—are juxtaposed against Ariel and Max’s story, smartly weaving their ways into it right up to the surprising conclusion. Magnificently bizarre, irreverent and bitingly witty, this outlandish novel is grounded by likable characters and their raw experiences. (Science fiction. 14 & up)
NIMONA
Stevenson, Noelle Illus. by the author HarperTeen (272 pp.) $17.99 | $12.99 paper | $8.99 e-book May 19, 2015 978-0-06-227823-4 978-0-06-227822-7 paper 978-0-06-227824-1 e-book A not-so-bad villain fighting against a not-so-good hero teams up with a spunky shape-shifting heroine in a cleverly envisioned world. Nimona, a plucky, punk-tressed girl, is determined to be the sidekick of the nefarious (in name only) Ballister Blackheart, the sworn enemy of the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics and their sporran-sporting champion, Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin. Blackheart, intrigued by Nimona’s moxie and ability to shape-shift, takes her on, and the two decide they’re going to take down the Institution. Nimona and Blackheart learn that the supposedly benevolent Institution has been hoarding a great quantity of a poisonous plant, jaderoot. As they delve deeper into its inner workings, they soon find that the lines that separate good and evil aren’t simply black and white. Stevenson’s world is fascinating: an anachronistic marvel that skillfully juxtaposes modern conventions against a medieval backdrop. Imbued with humor, her characters are wonderfully quirky and play with many of the archetypes found in comics. The relationships among her characters are complex and compelling: for an antihero, Blackheart dislikes killing and mayhem, while Goldenloin is not averse to cheating and trickery. Stevenson’s portrayal of the relationship between good and evil is particularly ingenious, as is her attention to detail and adroit worldbuilding. If you’re going to read one graphic novel this year, make it this one. (Graphic fantasy. 13 & up)
Poornima Apte is a Boston-area freelance writer and book reviewer.
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Thrash perfectly captures all the feelings of an adolescent first love: the insecurities, the awkwardness, and self-doubts along with the soaring, intense highs of proximity. honor girl
HONOR GIRL A Graphic Memoir Thrash, Maggie Illus. by the author Candlewick (272 pp.) $19.99 | Sep. 8, 2015 978-0-7636-7382-6
THE UNLIKELY HERO OF ROOM 13B
Toten, Teresa Delacorte (304 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | $20.99 PLB Mar. 10, 2015 978-0-553-50786-7 978-0-553-50788-1 e-book 978-0-553-50787-4 PLB What would it feel like to wake up normal? It’s a question most people would never have cause to ask—and the one 14-year-old Adam Spencer Ross longs to have answered. Life is already complicated enough for Adam, but when Robyn Plummer joins the Young Adult OCD Support Group in room 13B, Adam falls fast and hard. Having long assumed the role of protector to those he loves, Adam immediately knows that he must do everything he can to save her. The trouble is, Robyn isn’t the one who needs saving. Adam’s desperate need to protect everyone he loves—his broken mother, a younger half brother with OCD tendencies, and the entire motley crew of Room 13B—nearly costs him everything. Adam’s first-person |
MARTIANS
Woolston, Blythe Candlewick (224 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 13, 2015 978-0-7636-7756-5 A 15-year-old girl supports herself with a retail job as her close-to-reality dystopia spirals into hilariously surreal (yet tragic) chaos. Zoë Zindleman doesn’t mind school and enjoys math (the foundation of responsible consumer citizenship). One day her weepy, drunken teacher is interrupted by the small-government Governor’s shocking announcement: schools are privatized, all students are graduated, and everyone gets an e-tificate of graduation and a job referral. Many students are pipelined straight from the classroom to prison, but lucky Zoë is given two choices: AllMART or Q-MART. Thank goodness for the job, because Zoë’s beloved AnnaMom comes home with news of her own: she’s off to hunt for a job, leaving Zoë to fend for herself in their empty cul-de-sac. As the quirky humor dissolves into the baffling unrealities of loneliness and commerce, Zoe moves into an abandoned mall taken over by other unwanted children all looking out for one another. As a new AllMART trainee, Zoë—or Zero, according to her name badge—performs menial, unending, and Kafkaesque work, always with a smile: remember, a “smile is AllMART’s welcome mat”! Subtle callbacks to Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles enhance the mood of eerie devastation for those who catch the references but don’t detract for those who don’t. Cheery commercial scripts, news transcripts, and other ephemera of this plastic society punctuate Zoë’s narration, bearing witness to her grim environment, which, heartbreakingly, has no defeatable villain. A gorgeous and gut-wrenchingly familiar depiction of the entropic fragmentation of society. (Science fiction. 13-17)
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Thrash chronicles one monumental summer at an all-girls’ camp where she experienced her gut-wrenching first love. Every summer, Maggie, an Atlanta native, attends Camp Bellflower, an all-girls’ camp in Kentucky, complete with tents, shooting, and Civil War re-enactments that have been a camp tradition for nearly 100 years. The summer that she turns 15, however, she falls in love for the first time. She meets Erin, a 19-year-old counselor who studies astronomy and plays guitar. Her summer is filled with the usual camp melodrama, although along with the everyday banalities, Maggie must try to hide what she’s feeling toward Erin. Rumors thrum throughout the camp about girls who are whispered to be lesbians, leading to their eventual ostracism; Maggie, though honest with both herself and a confidante, tries to avoid her own social exile. Thrash perfectly captures all the feelings of an adolescent first love: the insecurities, the awkwardness, and self-doubts along with the soaring, intense highs of proximity. Thrash’s remembrances are evinced with clear, wide-eyed illustrations colored with a dreamily vibrant palette. She has so carefully and skillfully captured a universal moment—the first time one realizes that things will never be the same—that readers will find her story captivating. A luminescent memoir not to be missed. (Graphic memoir. 13 & up)
account of his struggle to cope with the debilitating symptoms of OCD while navigating the complexities of everyday teen life is achingly authentic. Much like Adam, readers will have to remind themselves to breathe as he performs his ever worsening OCD rituals. Yet Toten does a masterful job bringing Adam to life without ever allowing him to become a one-dimensional poster boy for a teen suffering from mental illness. Readers be warned: like Augustus Waters before him, Adam Spencer Ross will renew your faith in real-life superheroes and shatter your heart in equal measure. (Fiction. 12 & up)
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Dual stories of strength and resilience illuminate the effects that war has on individuals and on father-son relationships. the emperor of any place
THE EMPEROR OF ANY PLACE
Wynne-Jones, Tim Candlewick (336 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 13, 2015 978-0-7636-6973-7
After the shock of his father’s sudden death and the arrival of a grandfather he was taught to hate but never met, Evan must unravel a family mystery. His father, Clifford, had been reading a peculiar, leather-bound memoir of a Japanese soldier who was marooned on an island during World War II. An accompanying letter suggests that it’s somehow connected to Evan’s grandfather Griff, a military man with “steel in [his] backbone.” Evan knows that his father never got along with Griff, whose very presence irritates Evan as well, especially when he calls him “soldier.” Not wanting to reveal anything to Griff, Evan starts to read Isamu Oshiro’s memoir and finds himself mesmerized by the haunting, sad journal addressed to Isamu’s fiancee. This book within a book, with its monsters, ghost children, and mysterious glimpses of the future, is as tightly written as Evan’s modern-day story. Evan’s resistance to his grandfather, colored by his father’s poor relationship with him, slowly adjusts the deeper he gets into Isamu’s memoir. Dual stories of strength and resilience illuminate the effects that war has on individuals and on father-son relationships, effects that stretch in unexpected ways across generations as Evan and Griff make their ways toward a truce. An accomplished wordsmith, Wynne-Jones achieves an extraordinary feat: he illuminates the hidden depths of personalities and families through a mesmerizing blend of realism and magic. (Fiction. 13-17)
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fiction THE FIRST ORDER
These titles earned the Kirkus Star:
Abbott, Jeff Grand Central Publishing (480 pp.) $26.00 | $13.99 e-book | Jan. 5, 2016 978-1-4555-5841-4 978-1-4555-5840-7 e-book
13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT A FAT GIRL by Mona Awad...................72 FORTY ROOMS by Olga Grushin....................................................... 80 DICTATOR by Robert Harris............................................................... 82
An epic struggle between two brothers throws Russian-American relations in jeopardy during this strong installment of Abbott’s series (Inside Man, 2014, etc.) featuring ex–CIA sleuth Sam Capra. Just when Capra is sure he’s about to retire, he gets word that his brother, Danny, thought to have been beheaded in a terrorist video, may still be alive. He doesn’t yet know that Danny, now known as Philip Judge, has become a killer for hire who’s just taken on his biggest assignment, executing the president of Russia for $20 million. Both brothers wind up infiltrating the circle of Russian billionaires who’ve landed in Miami. To stop Danny from carrying out the execution, Sam needs to find the identity of Firebird, the president’s associate who commissioned the hit. Sam is helped considerably by his ability to attract women: he charms hard-partying Russian celebrity Katya Kirova and falls into a sexual affair with Irina Belinskaya, the widow of a high-ranking official, whose rumored vengeance on her husband’s killers has earned her the title of Russia’s most dangerous woman. Meanwhile, Sam’s associate Mila, has her own reasons to find Danny and keeps her information hidden from Sam—throwing him into further danger before the brothers reach their climactic confrontation. Abbott loads his story with entertaining plot twists, not all of which make perfect sense, but the bond and betrayal between the two brothers add emotional depth to the action.
OUT OF THE LINE OF FIRE by Mark Henshaw................................ 82 AND AFTER MANY DAYS by Jowhor Ile........................................... 84 THE SLEEP GARDEN by Jim Krusoe..................................................87 TENDER by Belinda McKeon.............................................................. 89 I’M GLAD ABOUT YOU by Theresa Rebeck.........................................93 GINNY GALL by Charlie Smith.......................................................... 94 THE LONGEST NIGHT by Andria Williams...................................... 98 DOG RUN MOON by Callan Wink..................................................... 99 THICKER THAN WATER by Sally Spencer........................................ 107
THE LONGEST NIGHT
Williams, Andria Random House (400 pp.) $27.00 | $13.99 e-book Jan. 19, 2016 978-0-8129-9774-3 978-0-8129-9775-0 e-book
THE DAREDEVILS
Amdahl, Gary Soft Skull Press (368 pp.) $15.95 paper | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-59376-629-0 Amid the violent labor struggles of early-20th-century America, the wealthy son of a prominent San Francisco family immerses himself in theater and politics and obsesses over the distinction (or lack thereof) between performance and “real” life. |
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A devastating novel but also a deeply empathetic one. 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl
All the world’s a stage in Amdahl’s (The Intimidator Still Lives in Our Hearts, 2013, etc.) dense, sometimes confounding novel. The bulk of the action takes place in the run-up to America’s entry into World War I. Charles Minot, son of a mover and shaker with connections to Theodore Roosevelt, is staging a production of Henry James’ The American at his family’s theater. Self-serious and insecure, Charles becomes involved with Vera, one of his actresses, and through her dives headfirst into the gritty world of radical labor activists. After Charles’ affiliation with alleged anarchists is revealed in the press, his theater is bombed during a performance. Charles and Vera repair to the Midwest, where they consort with a colorful cast of unionists and their adversaries and revel in the performative nature of “reality.” This obsession with life as theater is provocative, but the idea is explored so often and so pointedly (“He was not free of the necessary falseness of reality, not free of the stage, but wished to be”) that it becomes challenging to invest in the characters. Amdahl’s command of language is powerful, but the emotional payoff isn’t commensurate with the intellectual investment required to appreciate this ambitious novel. So immersed is Amdahl in the politics of the era and the philosophical questions at the novel’s core that he too often sacrifices clarity for concept.
classic, torturous uncertainty, she puzzles over the meaning of every encounter and the crushing blank of Hugo’s frequent absences. Andersson’s cleareyed depiction of this abject state is merciless, her writing clean to the point of starkness. But that harsh style is suited to the subject matter—the book asks, are human beings responsible for vulnerabilities in others? And can a woman win a man solely with intellectual firepower? The book is lean and compulsively readable as Ester finds increasingly improbable reasons to cling to hope. Andersson’s sketching of the lovesick Ester and the preoccupied Hugo is so well done that every incensed text she sends him is another little piece of our collective heart as we follow a struggle that has existed for as long as human life: the lover and the loved.
13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT A FAT GIRL
Awad, Mona Penguin (240 pp.) $16.00 | $9.99 e-book | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-14-312848-9 978-0-698-40893-7 e-book A young woman navigates uneasy relationships with herself, her weight, and the world in Awad’s painfully raw— and bitingly funny—debut. When we meet Lizzie March, she’s in high school, fighting the profound boredom of suburbia and adolescence with her best friend, Mel. “The universe is against us, which makes sense,” she observes. “So we get another McFlurry and talk about how fat we are for a while.” Later—the novel is told in a series of self-contained vignettes, snapshots of Lizzie from fat adolescence into thin adulthood—we watch Lizzie spend a tortured afternoon trying to take an acceptable full-body shot to send to her online boyfriend; we watch her date, or sort of date, a sleazy jazz harmonica player (“Archibald doesn’t take me to dinner, but I can be naked in front of him”). Lizzie becomes Beth, graduates from college, eats tiny salads; loses some weight, and then some more, committed to never being hungry for anything. Increasingly thin, she marries a man who fell in love with her when she was fat, and we watch him wish, sometimes, that she were still that girl: now, Elizabeth’s life—by this point, she’s Elizabeth—is dedicated to the maintenance of her hard-won figure, displayed in tight, joyless cocktail dresses. She’s trapped by her body, whatever size she is, and the shame of her own physical existence is isolating, a lens that filters every interaction. But it’s too simple to say that this is a novel “about” body image and self-hatred and the systemic oppression of women (though that wouldn’t be totally wrong); in Lizzie, Awad has created a character too vivid, too complicated, and too fundamentally human to be reduced to a single moral. Lizzie’s particular sadness is unsettlingly sharp: she gets under your skin, and she stays there. Beautifully constructed; a devastating novel but also a deeply empathetic one.
WILLFUL DISREGARD A Novel About Love
Andersson, Lena Translated by Death, Sarah Other Press (208 pp.) $15.95 paper | $12.99 e-book Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-59051-761-1 978-1-59051-762-8 e-book An intellectual young woman falls for a prominent artist in this story of obsessive love. In plain, unsparing prose, Swedish author Andersson (this is her first novel to be translated into English) tells the story of Ester Nilsson, a woman who loses her bearings over a man. Ester is a sensible scholar and freelance writer when the book starts; she lives with her unexciting but reliable boyfriend, Per, and is contentedly devoted to intellectual pursuits. Then she’s asked to give a talk on renowned artist Hugo Rask, with whom she immediately develops a fascination. She’s determined to dazzle him with her lecture, thinking men like him were “receptive to the power of formulations and their erotic potential.” She succeeds, is enthralled by his attention, and the stage is set for a relationship defined by her hero-worship and his passive acceptance of it. Ester notices the power imbalance early on: “Hugo never followed up anything Ester said. Ester always followed up what Hugo said. Neither of them was really interested in her but they were both interested in him.” But, as will seem horribly familiar to some readers, this indifference doesn’t deter her; instead it’s fuel to the fire. Ester leaves Per and throws herself into a love that starts to guide all her waking movements. With 72
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THE LIFE OF ELVES
even at age 12, are prodigious. Maria’s powers are elemental and growing, Clara’s derive from music, but their abilities reach far wider and form a bulwark against the overwhelming evil led by a seductive entity named Aelius. Barbery’s rhapsodic descriptions of the Burgundy landscape and peasantry, wildlife and creativity are eclipsed by more visionary and mystical scenarios studded with lambent imagery: a red bridge, an iris, a path of stones. Intense and impassioned but also fitfully obscure, distracted by tangents, and teasingly incomplete (especially when it comes to those dark forces), the novel can both enchant and confound. There are echoes of Milton, Tolkien, and Rowling, especially in the epic attack that suddenly pits Maria, her family, and community against the unearthly powers of a “storm-clad devil.” While the Elfin Council watches, Maria and Clara fight the first battle in a war that may be part historical and part ecological and which concludes, at least for the elves, on a sober yet optimistic note. Although possibly too abstract for children and too fey for some adults, this fervent, idiosyncratic fable is undeniable evidence of a richly lyrical imagination.
Barbery, Muriel Translated by Anderson, Alison Europa Editions (256 pp.) $17.00 paper | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-60945-315-2 The conjoined powers of two magical children bring about a new alliance to thwart evil and unite the natural world in this fantastical novel from a bestselling French writer. Seven years after the publication of her surprise international hit, The Elegance of the Hedgehog (2008), Barbery returns with something completely different: a fairy story of parallel but connected human and elf worlds and of dark forces and extraordinary goodness clashing in an age-old battle. Neither exactly pantheistic nor biblical, the novel expresses a spirituality rooted in art, nature, and, above all, love. Its heroines are Maria and Clara, the former born of elf parents but perfectly human in appearance, the latter half human, half elf. Their gifts,
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DISCOVER NEW TITLES GREAT STORIES. UNIQUE PERSPECTIVES. An Unfortunate War Joe East
www.iuniverse.com 978-1-4917-7628-5 Paperback | $20.95 978-1-4917-7630-8 Hardback | $30.95 978-1-4917-7629-2 E-book | $3.99
Three hundred sixty-seven parsecs from Earth, a battle looms. Faster-than-light hyperdrive technology has enabled the colonization of distant worlds, but conflicts can arise even in the far reaches of the galaxy. To defend their natural resources, sovereignty, and survival from alien invaders, the peaceful human residents of the planet Haven prepare for war—against the United States Army. Seven to Seventy
Judge Not
Lavera Goodeye
Lee Lowry
www.iuniverse.com
www.iuniverse.com
978-1-4917-1398-3 Paperback | $19.95 978-1-4917-1400-3 Hardback | $29.95 978-1-4917-1399-0 E-book | $3.99
978-1-4917-7202-7 Paperback | $17.95 978-1-4917-7204-1 Hardback | $27.95 978-1-4917-7203-4 Ebook | $3.99
Seven to Seventy serves as the appropriate title as author Lavera Goodeye decides to share her personal journey. Her inspiring memoir recalls her experiences living with trauma and religious conflict while building productive careers, creating satisfying relationships, and raising four sons. Insightful, this account can be a well of life lessons for readers who seek inspiration for their own journey.
When Jenny Longworth, newly married to widower David Perry, discovers that his first wife, Sandrine, was unfaithful, she must decide how - and whether or not - the affair should come to light.
Maggie Gets Her Wish
Quantum Consciousness
Louise Loria
Shantilal G. Goradia
www.authorhouse.com
www.authorhouse.com
978-1-4969-6887-6 Paperback | $19.99 978-1-4969-6889-0 Hardback | $26.99 978-1-4969-6888-3 Ebook | $3.99
978-1-4567-5109-8 Paperback | $10.49 978-1-4567-5108-1 Ebook | $7.99
The long-awaited sequel to Lee Lowry’s If You Needed Me finally arrives as Jenny and David navigate their now-blended family dynamic. Will they live happily ever after?
The fi ne structure constant, and the strong coupling constant are two main physical constants that defi ne our understanding of the world. In Quantum Consciousness, a well recognized creative thinker, Shantilal G. Goradia, combines Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle with consciousness for overall unification. Goradia excites the readers with his original ideas towards the fundamental cause of unification with quotes from Isaac Newton.
Maggie Gets Her Wish is the charming tale that follows a little girl who makes the same wish as always on her fifth birthday. After years of wishing, she receives an unexpected gift that leads her on a new adventure! Bundled with colorful illustrations and a fascinating narrative, young readers are bound to be absorbed from fi rst page until last!
Assumptions Can Mislead
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M. C. DYE
The Way I Saw It
www.trafford.com
Harold A. Stein M.D. MSc. (OPH) FRCSC
978-1-4917-7202-7 Paperback | $16.95 978-1-4917-7203-4 E-book | $3.99
www.authorhouse.com
An Eric Hoffer award book. These stunning true stories show how we may find ourselves in painful situations if we fail to recognize incorrect assumptions. Assumptions are interwoven into the fabric of our lives. When we make an assumption we take something for granted. We accept it as fact. Recognizing incorrect assumptions can avoid misunderstandings, mistakes or tragic outcomes.
Dr. Harold Stein grew up in the small border town of Niagara Falls, Canada and became a world authority in ophthalmology. A HUMOROUS LOOK AT LIFE AS AN OPHTHALMOLOGIST AND FUNNY LIFE CHANGING EVENTS.
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THE SWANS OF FIFTH AVENUE
THE WOLVES
Benjamin, Melanie Delacorte (368 pp.) $28.00 | $13.99 e-book | Jan. 26, 2016 978-0-345-52869-8 978-0-345-53975-5 e-book
Berenson, Alex Putnam (400 pp.) $27.95 | $13.99 e-book | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-399-17614-2 978-0-698-40746-6 e-book
Class, cliques, and cattiness converge in this New York fable based on the lives of Truman Capote and his greatest fan, Babe Paley. As it happens, Benjamin (The Aviator’s Wife, 2013, etc.) puts more honey than vinegar in her rendering of the disarming palship between the openly gay author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and his much-married “Bobolink”—Barbara “Babe” Cushing Mortimer Paley, the outwardly towering, inwardly cowering Upper East Side matron he squired around town for a quarter century. A chorus of the couple’s BFFs provides commentary on their history, as Benjamin spirals chirpily through the hedonistic ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, cherry-picking scenes of their first, chance weekend together at the Paleys’ compound in Jamaica (“So many wanted to catch him at it! Watch as genius burned!”), thick as thieves over lunch at Le Cirque, or swapping confidences about their narcissistic mothers—more craved than kisses—at slumber parties in the Hamptons, all the way through to the publication of Capote’s masterpiece, In Cold Blood, and his infamous Black and White masquerade ball. The event that allegedly drove them apart—when Truman mauled Babe and her set in thinly disguised print—has been raked over repeatedly by critics, filmmakers, and biographers (including Babe’s friend Slim Keith—one of the Kennethcoiffed swans alluded to in the title), so it’s no surprise when the novel re-creates some iconic moments leading up to the rift: such as when Truman notices for the first time that Babe’s husband—CBS executive William S. Paley—smiles “like a man who had just swallowed an entire human being.” (Capote recognizes a keeper—and files it away “in his photographic memory, to be used at a later date.”) The character Benjamin takes most imaginative liberty with, naturally, is Babe—the cool cucumber in Mainbocher who (the chatter went) could brush off her husband’s wolfishness with practiced ease and neither bleeped a word against nor spoke to her literary pet again after he published “La Cote Basque 1965.” Elegant Babe’s thoughts, if not her lips, are unsealed at last. Those unaware of the scandal get CliffsNotes; and everyone else gets a chance to judge whether a swan’s muteness can be more interesting than her gripe.
This adrenaline-filled thriller pits ex– CIA man John Wells against formidable foes. Multibillionaire Aaron Duberman has tried and failed “to fake the United States into a war” with Iran in order to help Israel. Wells stopped the plan and now “has made a mission of destroying Duberman’s life.” But they are gunning for each other, and neither man will ever be safe while the other is alive. Wells fans know from earlier novels (The Counterfeit Agent, 2014, etc.) that the ex–CIA man is a convert to Islam. Of course, some people will always suspect him for his conversion. In the White House, the president asks Wells to kill Duberman, who believes it’s “his right
McCann
Volume 1 of the Cleanskin Short Stories By John Benacre “[A] series of first-person accounts of Michael’s childhood generate sympathy and showcase Benacre’s knack for description.” “’A Picture To Keep’ is a standout...” “…simple passages (‘I was bleeding from somewhere, from everywhere it seemed’) offer dynamic harrowing imagery.”
“The book’s historical backdrop, too, is first rate...“
−Kirkus Reviews
ISBN 9780986300431 A highly readable collection of short stories about human nature, human frailty and inhuman behavior. It traces the life and times of Michael McCann: the central character of the novel Easter, Smoke and Mirrors and one of the first global monsters of the 21st Century. Beautifully written by an experienced counter-terrorist officer, McCann is thought-provoking , starkly relevant and highly entertaining. A must read for anyone interested in the centuries-old struggle for a united Ireland. Or just life. www.johnbenacre.com
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Riddled with twists and turns worthy of Daphne du Maurier. black rabbit hall
THE IMMORTALS
to start a war.” Meanwhile, Duberman feels unsafe in his Hong Kong home and hopes to gain political asylum in Russia because he’s being kicked out of Israel. Sure, he didn’t amass a $30 billion fortune without making some enemies, but it’s really best that Wells not be one of them. So the two mortal adversaries are after each other in “not an assassination, or even a sniping, but a slow-motion duel.” The billionaire isn’t the only threat, however. Arms dealer Mikhail Buvchenko, who “sold death for a living,” hates Wells, so of course each wants to kill the other. And crossing everyone’s paths is Chinese Gen. Cheung Han, who wants to make China’s air force the strongest in the world. The man is a pedophile for whom no girl is too young. Too bad for him he’s in the same novel as Wells, who is not much given to mercy in a showdown. Fans of the John Wells series won’t be disappointed. They’ll agree with his enemies that if Wells isn’t Superman, he’s super something.
Brodsky, Jordanna Max Orbit/Little, Brown (432 pp.) $25.00 | $13.99 e-book | Feb. 16, 2016 978-0-316-34718-1 978-0-316-38587-9 e-book A debut novel that imagines a modern world where ancient Greek deities still find themselves entangled in human affairs. Selene DiSilva’s calling is avenging the wrongs perpetrated on women by men. She’s been doing it for thousands of years—ever since she lived in ancient Greece and was known by the name of Artemis. When a Columbia professor is found murdered in what appears to be a revival of ancient cult practices, Selene realizes she has a new challenge on her hands. And though she usually works alone, the murdered woman’s colleague (and ex-lover) professor Theodore Schultz becomes her unlikely sidekick: Selene must draw on his knowledge of the ancient world to help solve the mystery of the ritual murder before the ceremony’s 10-day window of time closes. This isn’t the only race against time Selene faces. As the Greek gods fade from cultural memory, and the realms they stand for (hunting, the hearth) become obsolete, she must try to catch the killer before her powers—and her life—fade away. Brodsky is clearly having fun writing this novel; one can feel her relish on the page in imagining what Greek gods like Hades, the God of the Underworld, or Hermes, the messenger god, might be doing in the 21st century. Consequently, the novel’s greatest strength is its detailed and engaging use of both widely known and more obscure elements of ancient Greek life and myth. However, lovers of ancient myth know that, despite the way mythological figures are often oversimplified to represent a few attributes— philandering, mighty Zeus, for example—these characters are usually more complicated than they seem on the surface. While Brodsky has fun with the cartoonish aspects of the gods’ personalities, these broad strokes unfortunately extend to the novel’s human characters, too, which create portraits that border on stereotype. A fun, if flawed, treatment of myth and mystery.
KEEP CALM
Binder, Mike Henry Holt (384 pp.) $28.00 | $14.99 e-book | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-62779-347-6 978-1-62779-348-3 e-book An American ex-cop is suckered into a plot to overthrow the British prime minister in this debut thriller by the director/writer. Adam Tatum has lost his job after taking part in a politically motivated—and illegal—union scheme. He rebounds by landing a corporate job with the help of his English father-in-law. Selected to travel to the U.K. as part of a high-level business deal, he discovers he’s been used as patsy when the deal turns out to be a cover for a plot to take over the British government. Tatum comes under suspicion and goes on the run. The competently handled plotting moves on parallel tracks between Adam’s travails and the investigation of Davina Steel, the savvy young British agent who begins to realize Adam is not the culprit he’s assumed to be. But the book is unpleasant, using mayhem directed toward women as a plot device without according their suffering any weight. Adam is framed for beating up a call girl, and though his manipulators make the charges go away, there’s not a word about the fate of the girl. Davina can’t simply be threatened to stop investigating the power broker she suspects is guilty, she has to be tied to the bed in her parents’ home and digitally raped. It’s not just women who get a raw deal, either. This is the sort of book where as soon as someone exhibits bravery or selflessness, you know he’s dead. The author even stoops to shooting a few dogs to toughen up a scene. It adds up to nearly 400 pages of bad things happening to people you haven’t been made to care about. It’s one thing for thrills to come cheap, but they needn’t be so unimaginative or so lacking in finesse.
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BLACK RABBIT HALL
Chase, Eve Putnam (384 pp.) $26.95 | $13.99 e-book | Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-399-17412-4 978-0-698-19145-7 e-book Thirty years apart, two women’s secrets unfold within Black Rabbit Hall, a ramshackle ancestral home set in windswept Cornwall. In the late 1960s, Hugo Alton doted on Nancy, his gorgeous and gregarious wife. Indeed, Amber and her twin brother, Toby, often felt a bit like intruders when their |
parents kissed. Vacations spent at Black Rabbit Hall—a magical place where slates flying off the roof don’t matter because the stars shine more brightly near the stormy sea—were the highlight of the children’s lives. That is, until Nancy’s unexpected death. Yet at Nancy’s funeral, a mysterious woman enters the church, a woman Hugo seems to know well. Much too soon for Amber’s taste, this icy woman, Caroline Shawcross, and her dark son, Lucian, have ensconced themselves into their lives, with devastating effects. Three decades later, the Hall is in a pitiable state, and its remaining guardian, Mrs. Caroline Alton, is eager to hire it out as a venue for weddings. Enter Lorna Dunaway and her fiance, Jon. Jon questions whether the wilds of Cornwall might be a little far for their London family to travel; he’s even more alarmed at the leaky roof, warped woodwork, and layers of dust. Is it even safe? Lorna, however, is absolutely smitten with Black Rabbit Hall, and she seizes eagerly upon Mrs. Alton’s invitation to stay for a few nights, much to Jon’s dismay. Soon enough, the house begins to weave a spell over Lorna, nudging her to notice relics that seem to point to her own past. Debut novelist Chase weaves together Lorna’s investigations
with Amber’s tribulations, a tapestry embroidered with madness, a horrifying accident, and malicious lies. Compellingly readable and riddled with twists and turns worthy of Daphne du Maurier, Chase’s tale will delight fans of romantic mysteries.
EVERY ANXIOUS WAVE
Daviau, Mo St. Martin’s (288 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-250-06749-4 978-1-4668-7586-9 e-book A punk-rock time-travel love story for the ages—all of them. When Karl Bender finds a time machine in his closet, he does what any other 40-year-old former musician would do: goes to every awesome concert he can think of. Naturally,
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he and his friend Wayne quickly set up a side business sending customers from his bar into the past, but only for rock concerts, judging those who choose Woodstock over his favorites, like Elvis Costello in New York, 1991, and Stereolab in Chicago, 1998. Concerts are it, and there are lots of rules; changing the past is not permitted. After Wayne goes rogue by trying to save John Lennon’s life and gets stuck in 1980 Manhattan, Karl hunts for an astrophysicist to get his friend back and finds Lena Geduldig, a Northwestern student who’s down on her luck and willing to help in part because she loved Karl’s old band. Lena and Karl start breaking all the rules of time travel, both for Wayne and for their blossoming relationship—and then Karl gets an email from his future self, breaking his life wide open. As the plot begins to time travel along with Karl, the story stays true to its core and is easy to follow, with new revelations on each journey. Daviau is ferocious with her sad and flawed characters, whose pain propels the story through several iterations. Because the tale keeps changing with every visit to the future, the book doesn’t end the way even its characters expect it to but is satisfying nonetheless. A dark and funny love story that, like its main characters, is much sweeter than it appears on the surface.
ticking. (And translator Taylor ably shifts between the book’s plainspoken and more lyrical registers.) But once the crucial decision is made midway through, the remainder of the book feels anticlimactic. Though there’s some drama in finding a recipient for the heart and performing the transplant, the chief drama is settled early. A sophisticated medical drama whose pulse-pounding strength diminishes a touch too quickly.
LORD OF THE SWALLOWS
de Villiers, Gérard Translated by Rodarmor, William Vintage Crime/Black Lizard (256 pp.) $15.00 paper | $9.99 e-book Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-8041-6937-0 978-0-8041-6938-7 e-book Thriller in which lustful affairs send Soviet and American agents, spies, and counterspies plotting and panting in what nearly becomes a bedroom farce. It’s hard to believe the CIA would employ the services of Austrian playboy Malko Linge, who so easily and frequently loses his head in fits of passion. But there you have it in the late de Villiers’ latest case (publicity claims more than 200 installments for this French James Bond) involving Linge, who freelances for the agency. As written by de Villiers, Linge’s boudoir exploits are a series of howlers. One moment has a woman grip Linge’s male member “like a drowning man clinging to a life jacket.” Other scenes, falling somewhere between soft- and hard-core pornography, are sexist and offensive. Consider: “the black woman’s plunging neckline displayed three quarters of a bosom that proved that silicone had reached African shores.” It’s no surprise, then, that the plot evolves from an affair. At a Red Cross charity ball in Monte Carlo, Zhanna Khrenkov, a Russian blonde, flirts, to uncertain effect, with Linge while his fiancee fumes nearby. Khrenkov eventually tells Linge what she wants: her husband, Alexei, has been chasing Lynn Marsh, a British dentist, and Khrenkov asks Linge to rub her out. As leverage, Khrenkov says she’ll hand over to Linge the names of a group of Soviet spies (the eponymous “swallows”) lurking in the United States if he’ll “kill the bitch.” It’s a flimsy premise not strengthened by any revelations about what the Soviet spies are up to and how great a threat they may pose. The CIA nevertheless wants the spies identified. Once the game gets going, de Villiers sets the Kremlin, the CIA, Khrenkov and her husband, Linge, and the dentist all to watching each other, second guessing each other’s motives, and calibrating their strategies accordingly. Meanwhile, Lynn links up with Alexei, “the sexual tornado” who “thud[s] at her like a woodcutter.” Even Bond might blush.
THE HEART
de Kerangal, Maylis Translated by Taylor, Sam Farrar, Straus and Giroux (256 pp.) $25.00 | $11.99 e-book | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-374-24090-5 978-0-374-71328-7 e-book Doctors and other medical experts hasten to prepare a young man’s organs for transplant and reckon with the need to be both compassionate and precise in a hurry. Acclaimed in France upon its publication in 2014, de Kerangal’s fifth novel (and first to be translated into English) reads partly like reportage, detailing how various professionals snap to attention when human organs become available for donation. In this case, the story begins with Simon, a college student left brain dead and on life support when the van he was riding in with his surfing buddies crashed into a pole. A cast of characters enters in rapid succession, including Pierre, the head doctor of the ICU; Cordelia, a new nurse; Thomas, the staffer who assists Simon’s parents as they agonize over whether their son would want his organs donated; Marthe, the donor database manager charged with finding appropriate matches; and so on. But de Kerangal also means to explore how what looks like a fine-tuned clinical process from the outside in truth masks roiling emotional complexity. The most fully formed character in both cases is Thomas, who’s a classical music fan (fitting for his role as orchestrator) and who owns a goldfinch (“guarded like treasure”) that’s even more nakedly symbolic in a book about matters of the heart. In the first half of the book, de Kerangal’s balancing act is winning and effective, particularly as Simon’s parents must weigh reason and raw emotion while the clock is 78
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NIGHT ROAD
hangs out in a pub, reading a biography of the vibrantly eccentric Duchess of Marlborough—a real person worth a Google search—who had lived in Banbury. Annie and the book catch the attention of Gus, an older gentleman who frequents the pub and knew the Duchess (aka Gladys) years ago, when she lived in the village as a recluse. Gus shares stories of the duchess’s last years, and here the author blends fact with a story built around two fictional characters, the biographer and the duchess’s paid companion, both of whom helped her outwit family members who were trying to get their hands on her fortune. After Annie realizes the home where the Duchess lived is the same property her mother is trying to sell, some investigation reveals she has a more personal stake in the story than she imagined. Gable (A Paris Apartment, 2014) tells an engaging story of a fascinating, largely forgotten historical figure against the backdrop of two fledgling romances, those of Annie and her fiance, who grow closer through emails, and the biographer and the companion, whose romantic adventures went awry but may still be salvaged decades later. Blending fact and fiction in an entertaining but occasionally confusing way, the author offers
DuBois, Brendan Midnight Ink/Llewellyn (408 pp.) $15.99 paper | Feb. 8, 2016 978-0-7387-4639-5 A truck laden with suspicious and perhaps dangerous cargo is crossing from Canada to the U.S., and everyone on either side of the border wants a piece of the action. Naturally, backwoods New Hampshire drug dealer Duncan Crowley, who, with his ex-con older brother, Cameron, has been charged with ensuring that the shipment arrives on schedule, has an interest in the truck. So does Francois Oullette, president of Quebec’s Iron Steeds biker gang, after his attempt to extract a pass-through fee from the Crowleys ends with the execution of the collectors, Oullette’s nephew and his driver. When Tanya Gibbs, a Homeland Security agent obsessed with avenging a friend who worked at the World Trade Center, gets wind of the shipment, she reaches out to Zach Morrow, who went to school with Duncan Crowley before he enlisted in the Coast Guard and earned a dishonorable discharge, to intercept the truck. Back on his home turf, Zach quickly insinuates himself into Duncan’s gang but finds himself more and more reluctant to betray his old schoolmate and his wife, Karen, who lost her virginity to Zach in high school. Meanwhile, since Tanya’s clearly gone rogue in dealing with Zach, Gordon Simpson, her boss at Homeland Security, reveals an interest in the shipment that doesn’t exactly coincide with hers. It strains belief that so many people (and there are others) would know about the most fraught Canadian delivery to the U.S. in the two nations’ histories. But the creator of disgraced government agent Lewis Cole (Fatal Harbor, 2014, etc.) juggles his warring factions so deftly that you may find yourself forgetting how unlikely the threatened apocalypse really is. A bonus: just when you think you know exactly how this mishmash will turn out, DuBois throws in a pleasing final surprise that will make you forgive the soft-boiled ending.
I’LL SEE YOU IN PARIS
Gable, Michelle Dunne/St. Martin’s (400 pp.) $25.99 | $13.99 e-book | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-250-07063-0 978-1-4668-8096-2 e-book After becoming engaged to a Marine just before he ships off to the Middle East, Annie travels with her mother to England, where a mysterious crumbling estate and an aging aristocrat change her life. Annie meets Eric in a bar and finds herself engaged to him within a month. He’s preparing to deploy, and she’s packing for a trip to Banbury, England, with her mother, Laurel, who has some oddly secretive business to take care of. Days pass while Laurel is locked in complicated negotiations, so Annie |
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A little girl walks into a bedroom to find a mermaid sorting through her mother’s jewelry. forty rooms
THE BEAUTIFUL POSSIBLE
a fascinating version of the reclusive years of the larger-thanlife duchess. Many aspects of her life are hard to believe, yet it’s the fictional story that sometimes stretches the threshold of credibility. Characters try too hard to maintain big secrets that, once revealed, seem unworthy of such effort, especially given how easily some of the big conflicts could be eliminated with simple conversations. A fine tribute to a one-in-a-million character despite a few hard-to-swallow plot devices.
Gottlieb, Amy Perennial/HarperCollins (336 pp.) $15.99 paper | $10.99 e-book Feb. 16, 2016 978-0-06-238336-5 978-0-06-238337-2 e-book
A trio of young Jews is caught in a web of desire in the years following World War II. Sol Kerem, a rabbinical student in New York, is engaged to be married to the beautiful Rosalie when a mysterious German Jew named Walter Westhaus suddenly appears in his classes. After witnessing his own fiancee and his father shot down by Nazi soldiers, Walter escaped to an ashram in India, where he spent the remaining war years. Now in his mid-20s, Walter has been brought to New York by an academic who believes in his intellectual promise. Walter and Sol become study partners, and soon, Walter and Rosalie become partners in much more than study. Their affair spans decades. As Rosalie builds both a congregation and a family with Sol in New York, she continues to carry on with Walter, who has moved out to Berkeley. Gottlieb’s debut novel is an ambitious study of faith, doubt, and desire both erotic and spiritual. Unfortunately, the novel begins at an emotional pitch so high it can’t be sustained. Walter and Rosalie’s passion for each other begins to feel tiresome. Sol, who endures a spiritual crisis as well as this cuckolding, is a flat and pathetic character, mostly unrealized. For a book that takes intense emotion as its subject, it is peculiarly unfeeling. After all, what about Sol? The only thought that Walter and Rosalie give him is a sideways one: their affair, Rosalie thinks, is “possible and beautiful and wrong all at the same time.” That affair is described in purple, overheated prose that fails to comprehend the nuance of its own subject. The end result feels, peculiarly, both overblown and underarticulated. A debut novel about faith and desire falls short of its ambitious goals.
FIND HER
Gardner, Lisa Dutton (416 pp.) $27.00 | $12.99 e-book | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-525-95457-6 978-0-698-40422-9 e-book A kidnapping survivor–turned-vigilante tries to save another young woman while the police do everything they can to save them both. Flora Dane might look unscathed but she’s permanently scarred from having been abducted while on spring break in Florida seven years earlier by Jacob Ness, a sadistic trucker who held her captive for 472 days, keeping her in a coffin for much of the time when he wasn’t forcing her to have sex with him. Now back in Boston and schooled in selfdefense, Flora is obsessed with kidnapped girls and the nature of survival, a topic she touches on a bit more than necessary in the many flashbacks to her time in captivity. Gardner (Crash & Burn, 2015, etc.) must walk a fine line in accurately evoking the horrors of Flora’s past ordeals without slipping into excessive descriptions of violence; she is not entirely successful. When Flora thwarts another kidnapping attempt by killing Devon Goulding, her would-be abductor, Gardner regular Sgt. Detective D.D. Warren’s interest is piqued even though she’s meant to be on restricted duty. Then Flora disappears for real, and Warren, along with Dr. Samuel Keynes, the FBI victim specialist from Flora’s original kidnapping, fears it’s related to the kidnapping three months earlier of Stacey Summers, a case Flora followed closely. Gardner alternates between Warren’s investigation into Flora’s disappearance and Flora’s present-day hell at the hands of a new enemy, but the implausibility of the sheer number of kidnappings, among other things, strains credulity. A gritty, complicated heroine like Flora Dane deserves a better plot than this needlessly complicated story.
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FORTY ROOMS
Grushin, Olga Marian Wood/Putnam (352 pp.) $26.95 | $13.99 e-book | Feb. 16, 2016 978-1-101-98233-4 978-1-101-98309-6 e-book The award-winning author of The Dream Life of Sukhanov (2006) and The Line (2010) contemplates the tension between art and domesticity. A little girl walks into a bedroom to find a mermaid sorting through her mother’s jewelry. The mermaid knows the story of every bauble: these earrings were a gift from the czar’s uncle to the girl’s great-grandmother, a ballerina; that uncut emerald was prised from an icon during the revolution and purchased by the girl’s grandfather for a “length of smoked sausage and a box of German sweets.” In the cramped kitchen of her family’s |
THE FORGETTING TIME
Moscow apartment, this same girl is secretly reading forbidden verse when she meets an angel—or is he a god? “Do you want to be immortal?” he asks her. She says, “Yes.” The exhilarating opening chapters of Grushin’s latest novel are narrated by an unnamed heroine who can see through mundane reality—beneath it, beyond it—into other worlds. She is a poet. Scornful of the ordinary life her parents imagine for her, she travels from Russia to the United States. There, she experiences doomed love and the romance of suffering for one’s art. But—moment by moment, choice by choice—her commitment to immortality recedes until the passionate young poet telling her story disappears and re-emerges as “she,” a character observed from a distance, a woman who will soon come to be known as “Mrs. Caldwell.” It’s taken as a given that an upper-middle-class wife and mother cannot be an artist. There is magic, even in the suburbs; it’s just that Mrs. Caldwell can’t see it. But, at the same time, Grushin is too sly to be bound by cliché. If Mrs. Caldwell fails to be true to herself—and that “if” is sincere— this is because there are real questions about who that true self is. These are questions that women, especially, will recognize. Honest, tender, and exquisitely crafted. A novel to savor.
Guskin, Sharon Flatiron Books (320 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-250-07642-7 978-1-250-07643-4 e-book A single mom confronts the possibility that her troubled 4-year-old is the reincarnated spirit of a murdered child. Thirty-nine-year-old Janie Zimmerman becomes pregnant after an interlude with a stranger while on vacation in Trinidad. Four years later, her son, Noah, is kicked out of preschool because he’s talking about guns, drowning, and the scary parts of the Harry Potter books. He constantly asks Janie if he can go home now and if his other mother is coming soon; he absolutely refuses to take a bath. Attempts to address this situation by visiting psychiatrists and specialists result only in draining Janie’s savings and in a tentative diagnosis
MISSING PIECES
Gudenkauf, Heather Harlequin MIRA (288 pp.) $26.99 | $11.99 e-book | Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-7783-1865-1 978-1-4880-1019-4 e-book An accident forces a man to return to his small Iowa hometown and confront violent secrets from his past, ones he’s kept hidden from his wife. Sarah Quinlan thought she knew everything about her husband, Jack: an accident killed his parents when he was 15 so he left Penny Gate, Iowa, and has only been back once. But when the couple gets news that Jack’s beloved aunt Julia, who raised Jack and his younger sister, Amy, after their parents’ deaths, is gravely injured in a fall, the prodigal son returns. Gudenkauf (Little Mercies, 2014, etc.) makes it clear from the start that nothing should be taken at face value, not Jack’s story about his parents (his mother was actually bludgeoned to death, and his father, now MIA, was the prime suspect) or the seemingly idyllic small-town atmosphere. This, however, does little to heighten the suspense as advice columnist Sarah takes on the role of amateur detective in sniffing out Quinlan family secrets past and present. Through her we meet Jack’s terse cousin Dean and his too-perfect wife, Celia, along with Julia’s husband, Hal, who became like a father to Jack in the wake of his own family tragedy, and Amy, who couldn’t be more stereotypically “troubled.” Jack and Amy’s tragic past, which becomes the central mystery of the plot once Sarah figures out that her husband has been lying to her for two decades, is tied to Julia’s not-so-accidental fall, but only for the purposes of a neatly sewn-up plot. Light on surprises and character development, this tepid thriller will have most astute readers correctly guessing the ending halfway through. |
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The plot hurtles toward the most famous incident in all of Roman history—the assassination of Caesar. dictator
of early-onset schizophrenia. In her desperation, she gets out a bottle of bourbon and Googles the words “help” and “another life.” She ends up watching a documentary featuring Dr. Jerome Anderson, “who for many decades has been studying young children who seem to recall details from previous lives.” But Anderson is having troubles of his own. Still staggering from the death of his wife one year earlier, he’s been diagnosed with aphasia, a form of dementia that involves the gradual loss of language. Though his work has been jeered at by the scientific community, he’s now written a book for the general public which has been accepted for publication by “one of the top editors in the field,” who requires only that he add one more compelling case history. His phone call from Janie Zimmerman will provide that opportunity, but will his mental faculties hold out long enough for the threesome to solve the mystery of Noah’s past? The novel includes many excerpts from a real book called Life Before Life: Children’s Memories of Previous Lives by Jim Tucker—these describe reallife cases of apparently transferred memories. Guskin’s debut novel tells a sentimental story with a murder mystery at its core, and it’s interesting even if you don’t go for the premise.
courageous but wary of the grandstanding of the martyr. In Harris’ hands, the other principle actors emerge fully rounded: Cato, the uncompromising stoic; Pompey, brave but vainglorious; Crassus, greedy and self-serving; Brutus, whom Cicero feared “may have been educated out of his wits”; Julius Caesar, whose “success had made him vain, and his vanity had devoured his reason”; and Mark Antony, who “has all of Caesar’s worst qualities and none of his best.” Unfortunately for Cicero, his assessment of Octavian— “he’s a nice boy, and I hope he survives, but he’s no Caesar”—proves fatally wrong.
OUT OF THE LINE OF FIRE
Henshaw, Mark Text (304 pp.) $14.95 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-922182-55-5
An Australian writer heads to Germany, where he gets strong doses of philosophy, violence, taboo sex, and unreliable narration. As Stephen Romei explains in his introduction, the debut novel by Henshaw (The Snow Kimono, 2015) divided readers in his native Australia when it was first published in 1988. It’s not hard to see why. The heart of the story centers on Wolfi, a German scholar who (in documents given to the Australian narrator) relates his harsh upbringing by his cold, philosophical father, his erotic obsession with his sister, his lost virginity to a prostitute scheduled and paid for by his grandmother, and his involvement in shoplifting and an ill-fated attempt to shake down patrons of gay male prostitutes in Berlin. Dour and/or distasteful as all that might be (though the prostitute incident plays as an adolescent comedy of errors), Henshaw isn’t going for shock value: Wolfi’s memoir is a document that the narrator is picking apart and testing for accuracy, and the whole novel is a kind of study on the trustworthiness of narrative. The story is awash in references to deep-meta novelists like Italo Calvino, Albert Camus, and Peter Handke and philosophers like Wittgenstein and Heidegger, and there are regular asides about misperception and mistranslation. “The gap between fiction, between abstract speculation and socalled reality became blurred for me,” the narrator writes, and the novel is remarkable for juggling its blend of sex, secrets, and philosophy without losing narrative force or structural integrity. Indeed, the closing chapters have real drama as the narrator attempts to uncover the truth about Wolfi’s storytelling. The novel feels like an id laid bare, and Henshaw keeps the story in line while constantly pointing out the limitations of words to capture reality. A remarkable and brainy work of metafiction.
DICTATOR
Harris, Robert Knopf (416 pp.) $26.95 | $12.99 e-book | Jan. 12, 2016 978-0-307-95794-8 978-0-307-95796-2 e-book Set during the last gasp of the Roman Republic, the final volume of Harris’ Cicero trilogy chronicles the great Roman statesman’s fateful encounters with both Julius and Augustus Caesar. Harris has written smart, gripping thrillers with settings as varied as England during World War II (Enigma, 1995) and the contemporary world of international finance (The Fear Index, 2012), but his Cicero novels are more akin to Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall in their subjects—men of towering intellect and humanity—and in their visceral evocation of history. The first two books, Imperium and Conspirata, recounted events familiar only to classical history buffs—Cicero’s rise from relative obscurity to become one of Rome’s leading lawyers, orators, and writers and, in 63 B.C.E., getting the top job, consul. This third book starts with his exile after running afoul of Julius Caesar, the brilliant general whose dangerous ambition Cicero alone seems to grasp. The plot hurtles toward the most famous incident in all of Roman history—the assassination of Caesar. Cicero is not involved in the plot, but he assumes a major role in its aftermath as Mark Antony, an enemy, and Octavian (later Augustus), a young friend who is also Caesar’s adopted son, vie for leadership of the empire. The book is charming as well as engrossing, largely due to the immensely likable person of Cicero, who is wise but not pedantic, moral but not sanctimonious, 82
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HORSEFEVER
“You know why these people colonised us, right?” a friend says early on to the character known only as the Magistrate. “It’s the cold, it drives a man mad, so, when they came to Africa and saw us lounging in the sun, it drove them absolutely berserk.” Huchu is a master of crafting savvy and wry social observations. Here, complex characters are organically created through heightened, vivid dialogue and stream-of-consciousness interior thoughts. The Magistrate—who served in this judicial capacity back home in the city of Bindura, Zimbabwe, but has yet to find work in Scotland—feels the shame of being unable to provide for his family “looping round his intestines” while his relationship with his wife grows strained because of it. Farai, a Ph.D. student in economics whose family remains back in Zimbabwe, instead aches with the absence of his family and his homeland. The pot-smoking Maestro simply seeks comfort in drugs and entertainment. The loss and preservation of one’s own culture in an alien land is a major theme: “his daughter had been here too long” and was in danger of losing her Zimbabwean cultural values, moans the Magistrate. “Already her speech had a slight Scottish inflexion.” But as the political situation in Zimbabwe
Hope, Lee New Rivers Press (350 pp.) $17.00 paper | Feb. 1, 2016 978-0-89823-332-2 In her debut novel, Hope explores what happens when characters obsessed with the world of horse eventing have to choose between competition and personal relationships. Nikki is an accomplished dressage and steeplechase competitor struggling to conquer her highspirited horse; her lack of confidence has kept her from competing at the highest national and international levels. Her aloof husband, Cliff, jealous of her love for horses but unable to deny her passion, “buys” her a horse trainer for their 15th anniversary. Gabe is half paralyzed following a riding accident, but in Nikki, he sees his second chance to compete vicariously at the highest level. Despite injuries both human and equine, Nikki and Gabe’s relationship deepens, making their spouses angry and leading, ultimately, to violence and tragedy. As in professional ballet, there is a particular romanticism that surrounds the world of competitive riding. Hope strips this away to reveal the sordid, corrupt, and obsessive underbelly that lies beneath the polished, trained surface. Some of the offhand comments about the complicated relationships between horse owners with money and the riders/ trainers who work for them provide a deeper lens into the dysfunction, but most of the action seems more like a soap opera than the exploration of a competitive sport. The riding takes a back seat to the rather uninteresting questions of whether Nikki and Gabe are going to sleep together and whether their spouses, punishing them pre-emptively, would really care that much. Ultimately, we don’t either. The horses end up the most interesting characters in the novel because they are granted more unpredictable personalities, and their “dark urges [and] bright lusts” seem much purer than those of their human counterparts. Even those who love horses, or perhaps especially those who love horses, will eventually be disillusioned by the flat, manipulative characters.
THE MAESTRO, THE MAGISTRATE, & THE MATHEMATICIAN
Huchu, Tendai Ohio Univ. (312 pp.) $18.95 paper | Feb. 1, 2016 978-0-8214-2206-9
In this much-anticipated second novel from Huchu (The Hairdresser of Harare, 2015), the lives of three Zimbabwean transplants to Edinburgh intertwine as they struggle to make a place for themselves in a foreign land. |
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Kennedy has a knack for portraying characters readers love to hate. the blue hour
WHAT TO DO
grows unstable, the personal lives of the expatriates also spiral dangerously out of control in a series of suspenseful, albeit somewhat contrived, plot points. A sensitive exploration of the concepts of identity, family, and home grounded in a rich, intricately detailed depiction of the immigrant experience of the global African diaspora.
Katchadjian, Pablo Translated by Posada, Priscilla Dalkey Archive (112 pp.) $14.00 paper | Jan. 12, 2016 978-1-56478-705-7 A writer and his friend talk about all manner of things while the world dissolves around them like a Salvador Dali painting. Argentinean wunderkind Katchadjian is currently in legal trouble in his native country for daring to remix a novel by the late writer Jorge Luis Borges, so it’s an interesting time to introduce him to English readers. This slim, surrealistic novel is utter nonsense, but at least it’s literary gibberish that’s quite fun to read in the right frame of mind. In the opening pages we meet our nameless narrator and his friend, Alberto, who spend their days lecturing about a variety of subjects at an English university. Of course, on the opening page we also see Alberto grab a questioning student and stuff him into his mouth, as one does. The author is clearly playing with literary conventions, but his automatic writing style is jarring as he makes his playful but absurd attempt at capturing the narrative of thought. There’s a lot of this: “Then, we’re suddenly in an English university and we teach. Then we run through a forest. Then we’re in a tavern with eight hundred wine drinkers. Then we’re in a plaza with an old man who is also a pigeon.” Perhaps Katchadjian is trying to say something about the nature of change, as people and places in the novel constantly transmogrify and shift. The novel still has its touchstones—sometimes the narrator and his friend are on a ship trying to reach an island; sometimes they find themselves at war. But mostly they’re endlessly lecturing at an English university before the universe decides to drop them into another strange and different situation. The overall effect falls somewhere between the delicate constructions of Cesar Aira and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (1969). An aesthetically pleasing but perplexing experiment that may prove too improvisational for many readers.
AND AFTER MANY DAYS
Ile, Jowhor Tim Duggan Books/Crown (256 pp.) $25.00 | $11.99 e-book | Feb. 16, 2016 978-1-101-90314-8 978-1-101-90315-5 e-book A family reckons with the sudden, inexplicable disappearance of a child in this debut novel from a young Nigerian writer. On the eve of Ajie and Bibi’s return to high school, their 17-year-old older brother, Paul, steps out to see a friend and doesn’t return. The night passes, then another day. Paul, the well-behaved, exemplary student, has never disappeared before, and the household is thrown into turmoil. “Paul knows how dangerous the roads can be at night,” murmurs his worried mother. Paul’s father turns to the police, then radio and newspaper announcements. As the last person to see Paul before his disappearance, Ajie, the youngest child, is wracked with guilt that shadows his relationships with his sister, Bibi, and their parents. The story gracefully weaves back and forth in time from the siblings’ early childhood to the present day in their Port Harcourt, Nigeria, neighborhood, and suddenly, every little thing is imbued with deeper meaning, made fateful through retrospect. “Things happen in clusters,” Ajie thinks. And this was a year “of rumors, radio announcements, student riots, and sudden disappearances,” a year where “five young men had been shot dead by the square in broad daylight.” This is the world of Ajie and his family, a world Ile builds in rich, vivid details. But the disappearance of Paul remains the central driving question of the narrative. Where did he go? And was his disappearance fair play or foul? This engrossing novel, couched in poetic, evocative language, creates a suspenseful yet sophisticated narrative from the first page. Here are beautifully drawn characters grounded in the universal story of young Ajie discovering the world around him—a world recovering from the not-so-distant wars of the previous generations and their legacy, which still bleeds into present politics. A deeply rewarding novel that heralds the birth of a major new literary talent.
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THE BLUE HOUR
Kennedy, Douglas Atria (368 pp.) $26.99 | $12.99 e-book | Feb. 16, 2016 978-1-4516-6637-3 978-1-4516-6640-3 e-book A dream Moroccan vacation turns into a series of progressively more disastrous misadventures for an accountant from Buffalo. Robin turned to accounting in her 30s as a hedge against the unpredictability of life. Ignoring her now deceased mother’s very cogent warnings, she marries Paul, who at 58 is 18 years her senior. He’s an artist of middling reputation |
and an inveterate spendthrift—they meet while Robin is handling his IRS woes. Robin wants a child, and Paul, whose chief attractions seem to be in the bedroom, appears to be on board. He surprises her with a trip to Morocco, site of his formative adventures as a young artist, and at first their stay in Essaouira, miles from Casablanca, is all lovely sunsets and wine-soaked trysts. Paul is producing his finest drawings ever in a local cafe when Robin makes her first fateful mistake—checking email on vacation: an associate has discovered receipts for Paul’s vasectomy. Livid, she leaves a nasty note and storms out, returning later to find the hotel room spattered with blood and torn-up artwork. Remorseful, she embarks on a frantic search for Paul. One step ahead of the gendarmes who suspect her of murder, she flees to Casablanca, where she discovers, with increasing horror, that Paul has a Moroccan ex-wife, an adult daughter, and a former friend who has become his worst enemy, the affable but sinister Ben Hassan. Hassan, once a painter before an escapade involving Paul destroyed his career, has extended the kind of loan Paul is singularly ill-equipped to repay. And that is only the beginning of Robin’s descent into hell. It would be unfair to
reveal more, except that readers will continually be urging her, no-o-o, don’t do that! And she will ignore their advice just as she ignored her mother’s. Despite her appallingly bad judgment, Robin still manages a laughable degree of smug self-satisfaction. Kennedy has a knack for portraying characters readers love to hate.
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GODDESS OF FIRE
her Maria, and gives her a hovel to live in and a job helping in the kitchen. Moorti, a bright and ambitious girl with some education, quickly proves her worth as a cook, although she soon realizes that mastering English will be her path to success. Job, who is so enamored of India that he dresses in native clothing, finds Moorti both beautiful and helpful. She in turn falls in love with him even as she struggles to improve herself and overcome the English dislike of darker-skinned people. Duplicity reigns among the workers and the business agents. Luckily, Moorti saves Job from a plot to kill him. Their love blossoms, but can it overcome the very dangers and prejudices that face them in their efforts to improve trade and the conditions of the poor? Kirchner’s background as a cookbook writer and novelist (Darjeeling, 2002, etc.) shines through in her luscious descriptions of food and the mores of the time. Based on a true story, this tale is best read for its historical detail.
Kirchner, Bharti Severn House (288 pp.) $29.95 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-0-7278-8550-0
Seventeenth-century Bengal India is a place of wild beauty, great wealth, dire poverty, and violent battles between the many rulers of small kingdoms. Moorti is about to be immolated on her late husband’s funeral pyre when an Englishman traveling the Ganges rescues her and forever changes her life. Job Charnock is an agent of the English East India Company, which is slowly making inroads into the Dutch trade in India. The company promises advancement and wealth to men like Job, a poor farmer’s son who would have little chance of success back in England. Job takes Moorti back to his factory, a walled compound of buildings including a grand house where all the business agents live, renames
ALMOST EVERYTHING VERY FAST
Kloeble, Christopher Translated by Kerner, Aaron Graywolf (320 pp.) $16.00 paper | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-55597-729-0
A young man sets out with his disabled father to learn the truth about his heritage. This is German novelist Kloeble’s third novel and his first to reach English readers via this translation by Kerner. The story’s protagonist is Albert, a 19-year-old who was raised in a Bavarian orphanage due to the mental incapacities of his much older father, Fred. When Albert discovers Fred is dying, he takes the old man and sets off on a fairy tale–like adventure to find his real mother. The story turns dark when Kloeble rockets readers back more than 100 years to explore the history of Albert’s family. Beginning in 1912, the author spins out the story of Josfer and Jasfe, two attractive siblings who can’t resist doing the wild thing and producing kids, not to mention that little hunting trip where Josfer kills his father to make things easier on the domestic front. This familial thread picks up again in 1924 with the story of Julius Habom, one of the siblings’ offspring, who has a similarly tumultuous relationship with his own sister. Albert’s family tree might be a bit arcane but it is patently clear Kloeble is trying to upend the conventions of fables and modern notions about parenthood. “Hansel and Gretel crumbs,” Albert says. “You follow them because you think they’re going to help you get out of the forest. And all they do is lead you deeper and deeper in. Till you can’t tell the day from the night anymore. Then, all of a sudden, the trail ends.” In the end, it’s hard to tell whether it’s the preposterous story or Kloeble’s sentimental style that derails the book. Nevertheless, all but the most adventurous readers are likely to be repelled by this whimsical coming-of-age story liberally seeded with incest and murder. 86
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THE SLEEP GARDEN
A grotesque and puerile reimagining of German folklore.
Krusoe, Jim Tin House (352 pp.) $15.95 paper | Jan. 27, 2016 978-1-941040-18-8
ROBERT B. PARKER’S BLACKJACK
In Krusoe’s latest surreal effort, a collection of oddballs living in (and never leaving) a strange underground apartment called the Burrow grapple with life’s—and the afterlife’s—mysteries. The apartment, next to a vacant lot in a town called St. Nils, houses five “twilight souls, caught somewhere between dark and light, knowing and unknowing.” There are no windows, leaving one of its tenants, Madeline, puzzled by all the mirrors, which “multiply the dark.” She’s sleeping with Viktor, a mud bath obsessive who hopes to get out of this place with money he makes online in the stock market. Previously, she was with Raymond, having taken up with him and his worrisome collection of duck decoys after
Knott, Robert Putnam (320 pp.) $26.95 | $13.99 e-book | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-101-98253-2 978-1-101-98254-9 e-book Knott (Robert B. Parker’s The Bridge, 2014, etc.) continues the inimitable Parker’s Western series with marshals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch caught up in the aftermath of a Denver policeman’s wife’s murder. Sgt. Roger Messenger has traced his wife’s alleged killer, Boston Bill Black, down to Appaloosa territory, where Cole and Hitch keep the law. Messenger confronts Boston Bill, who’s busy setting up a new gambling hall, and is killed by one of Bill’s henchmen. Bill and two bodyguards flee. Cole and Hitch pursue, but in the chase, popular deputy sheriff Skinny Jack is killed. The marshals bring in the bodyguard who killed Messenger, with the other shot dead. But it’s bounty hunter Valentine Pell who brings Boston Bill back to Appaloosa for trial. Hitch is astounded to learn that Pell is Cole’s long-lost, and disreputable, half brother. More complications soon occur for Cole and Hitch. Westerns need atmosphere as much as story, and Knott has a knack for sixgun verisimilitude, sketching the land and summer heat, the horses and the shopkeepers. Knott’s especially good with the prototypical Old West marshal, Virgil Cole, “perfectly present in the here and now,” every inch stoic lawman: “ ‘Tangled goddam web,’ I said. ‘Is,’ Virgil said.” Other conversational exchanges, however, occasionally include idioms and phrasing seemingly too modern. Knott’s a descriptive writer—he sees a lawyer as “a tall narrow man with thick tangled eyebrows”—and his tale gallops along without confusing readers new to the series. The undercurrent of the unspoken mutual attraction between Hitch and Virgil’s common-law wife, Allie, continues to heat up the narrative, but this time Hitch takes comfort in the arms of the mysterious Daphne Angel, the gambling hall’s bookkeeper. A tad off the bull’s-eye hit by Larry McMurtry’s Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae adventures but a darn good way to pass an afternoon for Western fans.
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This is a tortured novel and yet a redemptive one. It isn’t a happily-ever-after story, but Marro casts a ray of hope that a good life can be lived after terrible tragedy.
leaving his sad-sack best friend, Jeffery. Completing the group is Heather, a phone sex operator writing a children’s book, Ballerina Mouse, whose heroine has a deformed hind foot. Krusoe invokes a terrible cult TV show set in the 1960s featuring farmers, neo-Nazis, and a young woman named Heather—played by an actress who looked a lot like the apartment-dwelling Heather and got killed in a car accident at the exact time Heather of the Burrow said her name. Then there’s the Captain, whose fluctuating “Death Quotient” tells him what percentage of him at a given moment is willing to call “the whole thing...over and done.” Krusoe (Parsifal, 2012, etc.) can’t resist winking at the reader, providing charts to make sure we’re keeping the characters straight. But the book is as unsettling as it is funny. In questioning our very existence, it captures the kind of disorientation we experience in that brief interval between dreaming and waking. From one of our great deadpan absurdists—a new member of the club to which George Saunders, Robert Coover, and Stanley Elkin belong—comes a book of unearthly delights that will have you, too, wondering nervously what that incessant grinding sound is.
THE HIGH MOUNTAINS OF PORTUGAL
Martel, Yann Spiegel & Grau (352 pp.) $27.00 | $13.99 e-book | Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-8129-9717-0 978-0-8129-9718-7 e-book Three grieving men’s odysseys fitfully interconnect in this latest meditation on loss, faith, and belonging from Martel (Beatrice and Virgil, 2010, etc.). In December 1904, Tomás leaves Lisbon in a new car he hardly knows how to drive. Since the deaths a year ago of his servant lover, their young son, and his father, he has become obsessed with the 17th-century diary of a Portuguese priest stationed in Africa who wrote of making a special kind of crucifix that Tomás believes ended up in the high mountains of Portugal. After a long journey that makes vividly palpable the perils of early-20th-century motoring, he finds the crucifix, makes a dramatic pronouncement about it that reveals his personal fury at the god who robbed him of everyone he loved—and this first portion of the novel abruptly ends. Cut to New Year’s Eve 1938, as pathologist Eusebio Lozora, catching up on work at the hospital, receives an odd visit from his devoutly religious wife and an even odder one from a woman carrying a suitcase containing her dead husband’s body, on which she insists Eusebio immediately perform an autopsy. The autopsy’s outré results seem to have some link to the crucifix Tomás found, but rather than elucidating, Martel piles on more bizarre developments before once again chopping off his narrative with multiple dangling ends. Both of these sections are extremely readable, with strongly developed characters whose intriguing stories make it frustrating when they are truncated. This authorial strategy might be acceptable if the third section, set in 1981—which features human/animal interaction as provocative and moving as the one in Martel’s mega-selling Life of Pi (2001)—drew together these narrative strands in a way that made sense of the novel’s spiritual and artistic themes. Instead, we get by-the-numbers connections of incidents and family relations that obscure Martel’s much more interesting musings on how we deal with tragedy and find our true home. Provocative ideas straitjacketed in an overdetermined plot.
CASUALTIES
Marro, Elizabeth Berkley (368 pp.) $15.00 paper | $9.99 e-book Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-425-28346-2 978-0-698-40985-9 e-book Marro’s debut novel is a gritty tragedy that unrelentingly addresses painful issues of war, suicide, and the shady dealings of defense contractors. Ruth Nolan, a powerful executive for a military contractor, finds herself entangled in RyCom’s legal debacle at the same time her son, Robbie, returns home from a stint in Iraq, mentally still at war. In turmoil of her own, Ruth makes a decision that she will regret forever. Robbie commits suicide, and she blames herself. When she abruptly flees, trying to outrun memories, regrets, and the people who remind her of them, she creates her own combat zone. Casey MacInerney, a vagrant and gambler also grieving his past, takes advantage of Ruth and forces her to take him with her on her cross-country journey. Ruth’s and Casey’s survival depends on trusting each other. Traveling together forces each to examine past actions and seek ways to forge a future worth living. Marro’s perception of the hurt and guilt her characters carry is deftly portrayed, although she provides readers no relief as they wrestle with their demons—not a minute to take a breath, nothing to chuckle about, nothing peaceful with which to buffer the storm of, well, casualties. But through her characters’ soul-searching and self-discovery, Marro provides a clear sense that, while the past can’t be undone, the future always offers a chance to make amends, and the human spirit can triumph over pain and find hope in family and forgiveness. 88
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McKeon captures something essential about friendship, vulnerability, love, and longing. tender
TENDER
Violet Mayfield is from the South, but after a personal tragedy she leaves home to reinvent herself in the West. Falling into a job at Selznick International and looking for a roommate, she’s directed to Audrey Duvall, who has a sweet little bungalow and a busy social life. Violet is folded into Audrey’s elegant and sophisticated circle, made up of industry insiders and colleagues from the studio. Audrey and Violet both work as secretaries, but once upon a time, just before sound came to the movies, Audrey was on the cusp of stardom. Always trying to recapture that opportunity, she ignores the affection of close friend Bert, and a chagrined Violet begins to fall in love with him. When an evening of drinks ends at the studio, Violet and Audrey admire some of Scarlett O’Hara’s costumes and try on a version of the green velvet hat fashioned from the plantation house’s curtains. The next morning, the hat turns up missing, a detail which will cast a long, strange shadow over all their lives. Years later, when the bungalow is being cleaned out, the hat is mistakenly delivered to a vintage clothing shop, and as owner Christine arranges to have it returned, she’ll discover a connection to the hat from her own past. Meissner spins an entertaining, touching story of
McKeon, Belinda Lee Boudreaux/Little, Brown (416 pp.) $27.00 | $13.99 e-book | Feb. 16, 2016 978-0-316-34432-6 978-0-316-34431-9 e-book In McKeon’s exquisite second novel, two Dublin young people—poet and student Catherine and aspiring art photographer James—tumble into a friendship that, though its lines shift and blur, ultimately helps bring their identities into focus. From almost the first moment they meet, Catherine and James are inseparable. They talk on the phone for hours and write long letters to each other when they’re apart, walk arm in arm, and share a special common language when they’re together. Although Catherine, still adjusting to life at university and away from her rural childhood home, is studying art history and English, James, who also grew up outside the city and is just back from a stint working as an assistant to a well-known photographer in Berlin, seems (to her, at least) to know far more about, well, everything than she. With James, Catherine learns to be bold and take risks—intellectual, emotional, physical. James, too, finds a path to himself and to his future. But as their relationship, tracked over the course of a little more than a year, in 1997-’98, becomes increasingly complex and weightier and takes on new dimensions, it begins to fracture. McKeon, whose debut novel, Solace, won the 2011 Faber Prize and was voted the Irish Book of the Year, captures something essential about friendship, vulnerability, love, and longing. As it explores the push-pull of this achingly intimate, increasingly obsessive relationship—the way James and Catherine attract and repel each other as if they were two strong magnets turned this way and that—the story throbs with the tension between them. This is youth; this is yearning. These are the lessons we learn about desire and disappointment, discovered strengths and regrettable weaknesses—and how to forgive ourselves for the mistakes we made when we did not yet know how to keep ourselves from making them. McKeon regards the characters in her keenly wrought love story—for all their flaws and fragility—with insight, sensitivity, and a compassion that proves contagious.
Don’t miss the new novel from the author of the “top-notch”* An Unseemly Wife
E.B. MOORE “In spare and Psalmlike prose, E. B. Moore expertly transports the reader on an epic yet intimate journey.” —Christopher Castellani, author of All This Talk of Love
“A powerful story…a memorable, multifaceted protagonist.” —Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
STARS OVER SUNSET BOULEVARD
Meissner, Susan New American Library (400 pp.) $15.00 paper | $9.99 e-book | Jan. 5, 2016 978-0-451-47599-2 978-0-698-19784-8 e-book
ON SALE NOW
Two women become friends while working at Selznick International Studios during the heady days of filming Gone With the Wind.
Also available ebmoore.net
*Jenna Blum
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PERFECT DAYS
two friends who meet on the buzzing set of one of the most famous movies in history and whose dreams, hopes, and ambitions will be forever entwined. A lovely, well-crafted story that peeks at a fascinating moment in cinematic history and examines the power and vulnerability of sincere friendship.
Montes, Raphael Penguin Press (272 pp.) $26.95 | Feb. 16, 2016 978-1-59420-640-5 Psychopathology, Carioca style: wellpaced but troubling thriller by Brazilian novelist/lawyer Montes. “He didn’t want to come across as sick or a psycho”: Hannibal Lecter he’s not, not yet, but when we learn that the only person medical student Teo Avelar likes is his dissecting corpse, Gertrude, who, “in the pale light...took on a very peculiar brownish hue, like leather,” well, we’re sure that bad things are about to ensue. Teo lives with his crippled mother and her dog in a Rio walkup, scarred by unhappy memories. A vegetarian, nondrinker, and otherwise abstemious chap, Teo nonetheless finds himself at a party, where he is smitten by the tiny but overflowingly confident Clarice—her name not just that of a Brazilian novelist (“For God’s sake,” our Clarice yells, “don’t talk to me about Clarice Lispector, because I’ve never read anything by her!”), but also that of Hannibal Lecter’s bête noire, Clarice Starling. Accident? It wouldn’t seem so, any more than the poor dog’s passing is, and certainly not when Teo kidnaps Clarice, trusting that one day she’ll love him as much as he loves her. Their interaction is ugly and violent, and it’s not entirely believable that Clarice is able to turn the tables—and then Teo, and then Clarice, until the game of cat and mouse seems more like cat and cat. The suggestion that Clarice is complicit in her own captivity is both daring and controversial; John Fowles did it neatly in The Collector, but half a century on, Montes handles the question somewhat less deftly, and in any event, the characters seem incomplete, their motivations not quite clear save that Teo has a Norman Bates–ian sensitivity to matters maternal. The ending in particular lies on the very border of good and bad taste, but Montes gets points for neatly—and appallingly— connecting it to the opening of his narrative, ironic title and all, in a most unpleasant full circle. Readers of Thomas Harris and Henning Mankell may feel that they’ve been here before, but a fast and fluent read all the same.
SHUTTER MAN
Montanari, Richard Mulholland Books/Little, Brown (432 pp.) $26.00 | $13.99 e-book | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-316-24477-0 978-0-316-24478-7 e-book The streets of Philadelphia swim with blood in the latest Byrne and Balzano adventure. Kevin Byrne, one of Philly’s best homicide cops, and Jessica Balzano, his former partner who’s become a prosecutor, team up to stop a killer who’s brutally murdering people with no apparent connection. The first killings, of a family named Rousseau, leave a woman, her husband, and their teenage son dead. All three have been duct-taped to chairs and shot once in the chest. In addition, the mother’s face has been cut off. Other murders follow, all identical in nature. Each time, the victim’s face has been hacked off and an old linen handkerchief with a strange five-letter word written in blood is found at the scene. Witnesses also report seeing a singing woman in white nearby. Flashback to Byrne’s childhood, when he and three other boys roamed the Irish neighborhood known as the Devil’s Pocket. When a little girl named Catriona is murdered, the boys immediately know who killed her: a degenerate named Des Farren, the not-quite-right son of a murderous criminal family When Des is killed, Byrne has his suspicions as to the killer’s identity, and the memory of the day the little girl died floods back when another Farren is implicated in the citywide killings. Montanari creates rich, interesting characters, but he spills buckets of blood and brutally murders everyone who crosses his killer’s path. Fans of writers who keep the carnage to a minimum will find Montanari’s bloody stories both disturbing and rife with unnecessary violence; those who like their bad guys depraved, killings graphic, and violence amped to high volume will find this and the author’s other works more to their liking. Montanari researches his books well, but the almost clinical explanations of police procedure add little to the narrative and serve mostly as a vehicle to yank the reader out of the story.
THE POISON ARTIST
Moore, Jonathan Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (288 pp.) $24.00 | $11.99 e-book | Jan. 26, 2016 978-0-544-52056-1 978-0-544-54643-1 e-book A mysterious woman, a breakup, and a man haunted by his bloody and dark past coalesce in Moore’s moody thriller. Caleb, a toxicologist, is dealing with a terrible fight that ended when his girlfriend, Bridget, threw a glass at him, leaving his face bloodied,
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and then walked out. Now, he’s drowning his sorrows in a small, out-of-the-way bar called the House of Shields, trying to forget his torpedoed relationship. When a mysterious woman catches his eye, Caleb becomes obsessed with finding her but instead finds himself answering questions posed by two detectives from the San Francisco Police in conjunction with the disappearance of another man from the same bar. Caleb helps his best friend, Henry, who happens to be the medical examiner, run a toxicology analysis on a body that was found floating in the bay and finds that the man died from poison. As more bodies surface, Caleb connects with his mystery woman, and soon they’re engaging in an odd relationship that may or may not have something to do with Caleb’s terrible past. Moore writes beautiful, careful prose and presents readers with an atmospheric story that’s often so obscured in fog it’s difficult to piece together exactly what’s happening. He keeps the reader in the dark about the reason for Bridget’s extreme reaction during their argument and what’s at the center of Caleb’s mysterious past. Where he excels is in the sensuousness of his writing: food, sex, alcohol—he fully engages all of the senses. Moore dribbles small amounts of information here and there, like bread crumbs, but he leaves the big questions of the sexy but strange woman, Caleb’s past, and the reason Bridget beaned him with a tumbler hanging until the very end, when everything is kinda-sorta explained. Absinthe, oysters, the painter John Singer Sargent, a classic car, and a string of disturbing deaths, possibly brought about by poison, make this dark tale memorable.
off his triumphs and celebrity. Also don’t expect too much from the book’s title, which gives unwarranted freight to the boxer’s wearing a Star of David on his shorts for a 1933 bout with Hitler favorite Max Schmeling. The fictional Baer is more interested in publicity than in crusading. Last and worst, don’t expect much of a clue as to why the author of a quasi-historical novel would create a pair of incestuous black siblings and link them to the pugilist. An accomplished writer, Neugeboren draws a nice sketch of an ebullient, affectionate Baer, but overall he leaves too many questions unanswered.
MAX BAER & THE STAR OF DAVID
Neugeboren, Jay Mandel Vilar Press (206 pp.) $17.95 paper | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-942134-17-6
As the real-life prizefighter Baer rises to become heavyweight champion and a national celebrity, he shares himself and his good fortune with a black couple who guard an awful secret. Neugeboren (The American Sun & Wind Moving Picture Company, 2013, etc.) starts this odd historical novel with a Foreword in which a fictional African-American biblical scholar introduces the book as a memoir dictated to his mother, Joleen Littlejohn, by his visually challenged uncle, Horace, whom he thought of as a father, before his death in 1999. The scholar also reveals that his biological father was Max Baer and that his mother, besides sleeping with the boxer, had sex for years with brother Horace, who was also a bedmate of Baer’s. It’s quite a setup that not only discloses almost all the book’s juicy stuff, but tries to give it a biblical blessing by citing the Song of Solomon’s praise of physical love. Neugeboren goes on to flesh out a narrative loosely hung on the real-life Baer’s boxing career. The siblings meet him in 1929 and sexual sparks fly. But don’t expect Fifteen Rounds of Grey here. The steamy action is offstage as the Littlejohns work for Baer, living on his ranch and |
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It’s the artist’s pleasure to create. But what of the philosopher’s? arcadia
THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW
implications. “I want to construct a society that works,” says Henry Lytten. “With beliefs, laws, superstitions, customs. With an economy and politics. An entire sociology of the fantastic.” Alas, the 1960s will seem a golden age when that sociology takes shape. One of many possible futures, the world of the 23rd century, would do a robber baron proud. Bad corporatista Zoffany Oldmanter is determined to corner the market on everything; says our shadowy narrator, determined to thwart a hostile takeover, his priorities under the circumstances are to preserve his property and “prevent the entire universe being reshaped in the image of a bunch of thugs and reduced to ruin.” Good luck, though if the future baddies seem to have a head start on time travel, Lytten has a lock on the fantastic, to say nothing of a pergola portal into a medieval-tinged time in which 11-year-old Jay, having determined that Lytten’s assistant, Rosie, is not a fairy, blossoms into manhood after staring “a spirit in the eye without flinching” and otherwise proving that wispy bookworms are not without inner resources. Within those three broad swaths of time lie many alternate futures, and Pears darts from one to the other to the point that the reader who isn’t confused isn’t quite getting what he’s up to. Suffice it to say that there’s plenty of metacommentary on the art of storytelling, science fiction (ahem: “We say speculative fiction”), the destruction wrought by greed, and other weighty matters. A head-scratcher but an ambitious pleasure. When puzzled, press on: Pears’ yarn is worth the effort.
Oates, Joyce Carol Ecco/HarperCollins (272 pp.) $27.99 | $13.99 e-book | Jan. 19, 2016 978-0-06-241609-4 978-0-06-241611-7 e-book Oates explores the lives of an amnesiac and the neuroscientist who studies and adores him. Elihu “Eli” Hoopes, who will be forever known in the annals of science as E.H., loses his short-term memory as a consequence of encephalitis at age 37. The scion of a prominent Philadelphia family, this would-be leftist–turnedstockbroker contracted the fever at the Hoopes’ lodge on Lake George. Referred in 1965 to psychologists at the University Neurological Institute, he becomes, in effect, a career guinea pig, subjected daily to various tests by the illustrious Dr. Milton Ferris and his staff, which includes 24-year-old graduate student Margot Sharpe. However avidly he takes notes and makes sketches, Eli can’t retain memories of anyone he meets. He greets everyone as if for the first time, with an affable “hel-lo.” Where most of his family is concerned, the forgetting is mutual—they have abandoned him to the care of an aunt. Eli ruminates obsessively about his past since his memories of the years before 1965 are intact. Many of his charcoal drawings depict the figure of a drowned girl, around 11 years old, beneath the surface of a stream near Lake George. Eli’s italicized thoughts about this girl introduce a murder mystery: his cousin Gretchen disappeared one summer, and the Hoopeses hushed it up. Is Eli the killer? As Margot ages and advances in academia, her private life becomes increasingly fraught—she has an affair with Ferris, a married womanizer, and allows him to pillage her ideas but refuses to expose him—and then she begins an affair with Eli. Oates excels at creating spooky, off-kilter atmospherics, less so at funneling scientific data onto the page in digestible chunks. The maze of memory is an ideal setting for Oates’ trademark mixture of melodrama and pathos.
THREE FACES OF AN ANGEL
Pehe, Jiri Translated by Turner, Gerald Jantar Publishing/Dufour (368 pp.) $32.00 | Dec. 31, 2015 978-0-9568890-4-1
An expansive, multigenerational novel about Western Europe that takes on the big questions. Besides being a novelist, Pehe is a political analyst and was an adviser to Czech President Václav Havel. This is the second novel in an ambitious trilogy, the first to be translated into English (by Turner). In Wim Wenders’ acclaimed film Wings of Desire, set in West Berlin, unseen angels watch over their human charges. Here, an angel, Ariel, visits three generations of a Czech family, the Brehmes, from the late 19th century to the early 21st. Pehe’s wide-ranging story touches on two world wars, the Holocaust, Soviet expansionism and its demise, ending in New York City on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. In the first part, Ariel instructs Joseph Brehme to write a long letter to his mother, who abandoned him when he was 6. It’s 1940; he’s 40 years old. We learn he grew up in “two linguistic worlds” (Czech/German) and studied music and violin in the bustling, creative Prague of Jaroslav Hašek, Max Brod, and Alfons Mucha. He fought in a Czech brigade in 1914 and lost two fingers. Part 2 opens in 1968 during the Prague Spring. Hanna, Joseph’s daughter, is confined to a psychiatric hospital. Under Ariel’s influence, she takes pen
ARCADIA
Pears, Iain Knopf (528 pp.) $27.95 | $13.99 e-book | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-101-94682-4 978-1-101-94683-1 e-book Arcadia: a kind of heaven on Earth. Arcade: a place where games are played. Somewhere between the two lies this odd confection by the restless, genrehopping Pears (Stone’s Fall, 2009, etc.). It’s the artist’s pleasure to create. But what of the philosopher’s? As Pears’ latest opens, a younger Inkling—a member of the learned society to which C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien belonged, that is—is deep in a project with countless 92
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A rare honest story about love, ambition, and compromise. i’m glad about you
MOONLIGHT OVER PARIS
to paper to tell her harrowing story of being taken in by Jewish grandparents and hiding to escape the German occupation of Prague. As Hanna writes, “I must...most of all try to explain it.” Her section is highly affecting and well-drawn. The third part, weakest of the three, opens in 2001. Hanna’s son, Alex, a famous, disillusioned American professor, feels Ariel’s influence in the guise of his girlfriend, Leira. His diary completes Pehe’s powerful saga of this Czech family. Set against the complex, turbulent political and cultural tableau of central Europe, Pehe’s sweeping novel confronts the existential questions concerning God’s existence and man’s brutality to man.
Robson, Jennifer Morrow/HarperCollins (400 pp.) $15.99 paper | $10.99 e-book Jan. 19, 2016 978-0-06-238982-4 978-0-06-238983-1 e-book
After recovering from a near-fatal illness, 28-year-old Lady Helena Montagu-DouglasParr of London decides it’s time to move to Paris and start living life to its fullest. Historical fiction writer Robson (After the War Is Over, 2015, etc.) delivers a novel in which Lady Helena aims to break free of the aristocratic life in which she has become the focus of gossip and ostracism due to her broken engagement with an ill-suited World War l veteran. She successfully enrolls in a selective art school in Paris, where she will live with her freespirited Aunt Agnes. With a one-year reprieve from her staid London existence, Helena promises herself she will transform
I’M GLAD ABOUT YOU
Rebeck, Theresa Putnam (384 pp.) $26.95 | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-399-17288-5
A rare honest story about love, ambition, and compromise. “But what is a demimonde, anyway?” asks Alison Moore in the opening line of this novel by Rebeck, the creator of TV’s Smash and a widely produced playwright. Rebeck’s insider knowledge of the demimonde of entertainment and celebrity is put to excellent use as she tracks the upward trajectory of a young actress from Cincinnati, from cattle-call auditions for a two-line role through a lead in a television series and to the brink of Hollywood superstardom. Every type in showbiz is unmasked here, from the writer—“It’s only two lines but there has to be stakes”—to the columnist—“Hi Jessica, you look fantastic! Can I grab you for a few minutes to talk about your know-nothing role as a gun-toting whore in Evil Dead 12?”—to the actress herself, “light-headed with hunger all the time” on the orders of her agent: “Beautiful food is for you to look at, and other people to eat.” While her stock goes up careerwise, Alison’s personal life is in free-fall. The decision to move to New York abruptly ended her relationship with her high school sweetheart, Kyle, and their inability to recover ends up warping both of their lives. An idealistic doctor and a committed Catholic, shellshocked Kyle ends up in a pediatric practice catering to entitled suburbanites and, worse, married to a woman he doesn’t love. Every time Alison comes home for a visit, they run into each other and bad things happen. Though she’s something of a black sheep in her extended family, where grandchildren Nos. 24 and 25 are on the way, Alison identifies deeply with the Midwest itself, its culture, its values, its nice people with good manners. Even the parties are better, in her opinion. The snappy dialogue and plot you’d expect from a veteran dramatist plus the rich exploration of character that novels are made for.
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A riveting protagonist moves through unbearable racial carnage into a kind of legend. ginny gall
These stories exploring how life on the water affects everyday people make for amiable reading, but they become most compelling when Ruffin taps into the bleaker impulses found below a more cordial facade.
her life, a venture made even more exciting given the backdrop of romantic Paris of the 1920s. Rather than the sizzling and multilayered story that early chapters hint will unfurl, the novel offers a linear account of a year in the life of a likable yet uninspiring protagonist who interacts with similarly benign and tepid characters. Helena’s friends at art school all reveal potential complexity, yet none are explored or developed. Her love interest, Sam, an American journalist, is also a vague character sketch. Even Aunt Agnes, described as wildly avantgarde, ventures only as far as suggesting Helena take a lover. Also frustrating are the unsatisfying cameos by Lost Generation literary icons like Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. (Though the quick scene between the spatting F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald is fun.) These real-life characters are written into chapters as if to merely acknowledge their existence in the same time and place as Helena but serve no purpose to advance a slow-moving plot. Writing about a young art student restless for adventure in postwar Paris seems like a promising idea. Sadly, Robson delivers a dim tale devoid of moonlight.
SAVING JASON
Sears, Michael Putnam (368 pp.) $27.00 | $13.99 e-book | Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-399-16672-3 978-0-698-13630-4 e-book Sophisticated sleuth Jason Stafford gets drawn into a mysterious corporate takeover plot in Sears’ (Long Way Down, 2015, etc.) latest high-finance thriller. During a slow office day, Stafford notices the firm he works for has been subject to a run of low-return “penny trades,” all of which trace to the same rural address. All he finds at the location are a field of trucks and a herd of charging buffalo, which he must escape on foot. Before Stafford can discover the significance of the trades, his trouble escalates: the firm wants him out, a shady lawyer tries to put him back in jail for a previous insider trading charge, and hired thugs pursue him in a near-fatal chase on the Long Island Expressway. Now his only option is to become a protected witness, but while in custody, his autistic son, known as The Kid, is abducted; this prompts yet another potentially deadly chase. Once he unravels an impending hostile takeover, he employs some complex negotiations to draw out the perpetrators. As usual in this series, Sears alternates high-stakes action sequences—which show his hero to be in improbably great physical shape—with slowerpaced boardroom scenes that are often highly technical. While the chases are fun, the financial action may leave the reader as confused as Stafford sometimes gets himself. You don’t need a background in economics to get drawn into this thriller, but it probably helps.
THE TIME THE WATERS ROSE And Stories of the Gulf Coast Ruffin, Paul Story River Books (280 pp.) $19.95 paper | $17.95 e-book Feb. 1, 2016 978-1-61117-614-8 978-1-61117-615-5 e-book
In Ruffin’s new collection, men, boats, and bodies of water collide unexpectedly, with results that are often humorous, violent, or both. Most of the eight stories contained in this collection— really, seven, along with an excerpt from Ruffin’s novel Pompeii Man (2002)—are largely set, as the title indicates, around the Gulf Coast. The title story is an exception: it’s a loose and irreverent retelling of the story of Noah building the ark, from the perspective of one of his neighbors, who isn’t terribly thrilled with the idea of dying in a flood. Given the casual tone in which the story is narrated, there’s more than a little rural America here—Scripture reimagined as a kind of barroom tall tale. Fishing, whether for sport or for one’s livelihood, plays a large part in several other stories, and in some, stories nestle within stories. “Mystery in the Surf at Petit Bois” and “The Hands of John Merchant” convey the details of friendship between men with unpleasant glimmerings beneath the surface, and in “The Drag Queen and the Southern Cross,” Ruffin moves from a comedy of manners to an account of fanaticism and violence aboard a shrimp boat. (That’s the Drag Queen of the title, its name a reference to the work it does rather than the more well-known meaning of the phrase.) In it, a trio working on a boat take on a temporary employee whose religious devotion ultimately gives way to something more sinister. It’s memorably unpredictable. 94
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GINNY GALL
Smith, Charlie Harper/HarperCollins (464 pp.) $26.99 | $12.99 e-book | Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-06-225055-1 978-0-06-225056-8 e-book A violent and sorrowful Jim Crow South brims in this brutal novel. For his 17th book, poet and novelist Smith creates a harrowing, luminous Jim Crow story that takes its title from “a negro name, Ginny Gall, for the hell beyond hell, hell’s hell.” The terrain is so frequently hellish—lynchings, firebombings, beatings, rapes—that one wonders how Smith stomached the work. His writing, in its lyricism, makes a queasy juxtaposition between horror and beauty. The story hinges on a reimagining |
of the Scottsboro Boys trials, in which nine African-American youth were railroaded on false rape charges. This novel begins “on the hot July day in 1913 exactly fifty years after the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg, a day uncelebrated in Chattanooga.” A prostitute named Cappie Florence gives birth to her fourth child, Delvin Walker, who becomes the Bigger Thomas–like protagonist here. The birth is perilous, the child—who reads at an astonishingly early age—is pronounced “wonderanemous,” and the reader is gulled into thinking the story might be picaresque. Instead, Cappie flees police before Page 20 when Delvin isn’t yet 5. He and his siblings are dumped into a foundling home, but the resourceful child finds himself, some two years later, apprenticed to a prosperous African-American funeral home director. Smith divides his novel into four books, and to start Book 2, he conjures a racial misunderstanding that puts teenage Delvin on the road at the cusp of the Great Depression. The adolescent traveler, like this novel, is ruminative, and for long stretches, his story is more pastoral than propulsive. Smith writes lushly, with a painterly eye. He depicts a mesmerizing, theologically rich funeral for a lynched man; Delvin’s yearning for a college girl with whom he has one afternoon of rapturous conversation is achingly, gorgeously executed. Everywhere racism chars these pages. By Book 3, armed white men have forced Delvin and his doomed cohort off a Memphis-bound train. The writing can be a touch ripe: here is a man without consequence shutting a door in the street: “The sound was like a last clap of a civilization closing up.” Still, for the resilient reader, a spell is cast. A riveting protagonist moves through unbearable racial carnage into a kind of legend.
two you can still muddle your way through the central action. Interspersed with the names are the objects that populate Weynfeldt’s life: the Swiss furniture, the designer clothes, the expensive wine. The main action of the novel, when we reach it at last, has to do with art forgery and a woman who alternates between the femme fatale and the damsel in distress, without much nuance. It’s entertaining, if also predictable. Characters behave the way you expect them to, and there’s never a sense that Weynfeldt, with his art collection and sizable inheritance, is ever in any real danger. Although enjoyable, Weynfeldt’s story doesn’t leave much of a lasting impression, for better or worse.
THE LAST WEYNFELDT
Suter, Martin Translated by Morris, Steph New Vessel Press (280 pp.) $14.95 paper | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-939931-27-6
Fine art, fine wine, and old money collide with forgery and extortion in Zurich. It’s clear at the outset that Adrian Weynfeldt, the novel’s protagonist, is a dying breed. He comes from old money and makes a habit of standing on ceremony, literally standing and buttoning his jacket, for example, each time a woman enters the room. Weynfeldt likes nice things and so he buys nice things, and that might be the end of his character were it not for his keen awareness of himself. He is isolated and constantly mindful that his wealth creates a divide between himself and his friends. His depression and anxieties are subtly wrought and feel painfully inescapable. The same subtlety cannot, unfortunately, be said for most of the other characters in this novel, and there are many. In fact, nouns abound. We are asked to remember the names of Weynfeldt’s older friends, his employees, family friends, younger friends, tailors, and potential love interest. Not all of them are completely necessary to the novel’s main story, though, so if you do forget one or |
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THE VIEW FROM PRINCE STREET
Elsie, recently returned from a miserable year in Paris—her alternative to college—and now reveling in her own free fall, has a job writing obituaries for her small-town Southern California paper and an explosive relationship with an alcoholic rockabilly guitarist/drug dealer named Jared (“Here was an answer to the question of what to do with my life,” she notes, bleakly). Trying to escape both Jared and her current existence, she buys a ticket to Sri Lanka. “I had known other versions of myself that allowed me to hope the situation I was in would not be my life,” she explains. Sri Lanka, appealing for both its incongruity—“a tropical paradise that was also a recent war zone”—and its distance, offers a kind of desperate hope. This could be the beginning of an exhausted cliché: young, pretty American woman has transformative experience traveling through Third World country; meets local people; finds meaning and purpose. But it isn’t—this is not that book. Elsie does develop meaningful connections, of course, but even her most intimate interactions are fraught, warm but complicated; upon returning home, she is not transformed. “I felt I could handle the wrong choices now, that I could live the old life in a new way,” she explains: more Jared, more drifting, a fledgling French translation project, another man, another troubled relationship. And then a letter arrives that draws her back to Sri Lanka for a trip that is both deeper and more demanding than the first. With bracing insight, Tennant-Moore captures not only Elsie’s inner life, but also her physical existence; the novel stands out not only for its emotional precision, but for its incredible attention to the visceral realities of having a body. Often unsettling, sometimes funny, always meticulously observed; a quietly intoxicating novel that resists easy answers.
Taylor, Mary Ellen Berkley (352 pp.) $16.00 paper | $9.99 e-book Jan. 5, 2016 978-0-425-27826-0 978-0-698-18339-1 e-book
Two women try to move past the 15-year-old legacy of a devastating car accident. When renovation work on Rae McDonald’s Alexandria Colonial home uncovers an old bottle, history buff Margaret McCrae tells her it’s likely from the 1750s and “designed to ward off a witch’s spells and evil curses.” Three intact bottles found recently on properties belonging to families who helped settle the area lead Margaret to wonder if their stories are connected. Researching Rae’s family papers for clues, Margaret delves into the McDonalds’ distant past, but Rae is focused on more recent history. When she was a teen, her sister, Jennifer, died in a car crash, and the generally cautious Rae went wild and ended up pregnant. Rae hid the shameful secret from everyone, leaving town to have the baby. Giving her son up for adoption broke her heart, so she buried her emotions, determined not to get close to anyone. Now a teenager, her son has reached out to her for information about his family’s past. Rae has never cared about her family’s history before, but now that she might actually have a legacy beyond her work, she’s interested in learning more. Meanwhile, Jennifer’s best friend, Lisa Smyth, who survived the accident, is back in town to care for her failing great aunt—who has recently uncovered a family mystery of her own—and desperate for forgiveness for her own dark secrets. Margaret’s search will discover long-standing family secrets and connections among three founding families, while Rae and Lisa explore more modern ties that can either bind them forever to a sorrowful past or free them to a hopeful future. Taylor’s complex tale spans three families over two centuries and includes a dose of ancient magic, but the story remains grounded in fascinating history and emotional turmoil that is intense yet subtle. An intelligent, heartwarming exploration of the powers of forgiveness, compassion, and new beginnings.
ARCADIA
Treadwell, James Emily Bestler/Atria (512 pp.) $17.00 paper | $9.99 e-book Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-4516-6170-5 978-1-4516-6172-9 e-book The last of Treadwell’s (Anarchy, 2014, etc.) trilogy is a spiritual quest unfolding in an awe-inspiringly imagined dystopian world. Although no one “in the world knows What Happened,” civilization has collapsed worldwide, a calamity that began in a mysterious Valley deep in Cornwall, England. In the trilogy’s most straightforward and cohesive narrative, 10-year-old Rory is the last surviving male on the Isles of Scilly off the English coast. Sea creatures—call them mermaids, or sirenes—lure and kill any male past puberty. Rory is seduced into helping three shipwreck survivors. There’s Per, a grumpy, giant sailor, Oochellino, an acrobatic Italian of owlish demeanor, and Roma girl Silvia. The three steal a boat, shanghai Rory, and head for England’s mainland. Their goal is “Pendura. Where magic lives,” but that’s deep in the forbidden Valley. Ashore, Per is killed, and Silvia and Oochellino
WRECK AND ORDER
Tennant-Moore, Hannah Hogarth/Crown (256 pp.) $25.00 | $12.99 e-book | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-101-90326-1 978-1-101-90327-8 e-book Tennant-Moore’s sharp debut follows a defiantly self-destructive young woman—powerfully intelligent and profoundly lost—as she grapples with identity, spirituality, and purpose. 96
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WHAT THE WAVES KNOW
disappear. Rory’s taken in by Dolphin House, a part warrior, part matriarchal tribe, and then journeys with them to seek an oracle in a desolate, abandoned radar station, all while trekking across lands ruled by the Black Pack, brutal rogues who worship dogs. Gawain and characters from previous volumes join the narrative as Rory, “small and far from Home, on a quest he doesn’t understand,” reaches the Valley’s heart. There too is Silvia, who, along with Rory, is Treadwell’s most fully realized character. With surreal imagery and metaphors spun from Apollo, Christianity, and the crucifixion, Treadwell meditates on God, creation, the lost magic of Eden—the “door to all the knowledge that runs in the veins of the earth and blows around the stars.” With allusions to works from the Bible to the The Lord of the Rings series, this is perhaps the most accessible of Treadwell’s loosely linked trilogy.
Valentine, Tamara Morrow/HarperCollins (352 pp.) $14.99 paper | $10.99 e-book Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-06-241385-7 978-0-06-241384-0 e-book
In a novel rich in mythology and childhood secrets, a girl searches for her voice in the Rhode Island town where she stopped speaking at age 6. Eight years after her father disappeared on her birthday, Izabella Haywood is still writing on notepads to avoid speaking the truth about what happened. Inside her head we catch glimpses of a creative but troubled man who hunts for fairies late at night, who fights with Izabella’s mother constantly, and who ultimately leaves his daughter and wife behind. Viewed through the lens of a child who was too young to understand what she saw that night, the question of why is especially poignant—and the answer
HE WILL BE MY RUIN
Tucker, K.A. Atria (352 pp.) $25.00 | $9.99 e-book | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-5011-1207-2 978-1-5011-1209-6 e-book When the police rule her best friend’s death a suicide and refuse to investigate any further, Maggie Sparkes decides to play detective. The daughter of energy-business moguls, Maggie always tried to distance herself from her parents’ wealth; her closest confidante is Celine, the daughter of her family’s housekeeper. Having started her own philanthropic foundation, Maggie has spent the last six years working sustainability projects in the poorest of countries. Meanwhile, too proud to accept money from Maggie, Celine has been studying and scraping by, hoping to save enough to attend the prestigious Hollingsworth Institute of Art and fulfill her dream of becoming an antiques appraiser. Celine has everything to live for, so news of her suicide stuns Maggie, who speeds to New York, determined to discover the truth. As she sifts through Celine’s collection of antiques, however, Maggie discovers several clues: a florist’s card, signed by a mysterious “J”; a picture of a nearly naked Jace Everett, governor’s son and wealthy hedge fund manager, in her secret lockbox; and a set of diaries that reveal Celine’s dark secret, but the last diary is missing. Convinced Celine was murdered, Maggie enlists the help of an elderly mystery novelist, the irresistible building superintendent, and a talented private investigator. Not surprisingly, Maggie’s investigation quickly begins to endanger her own life. Tucker (Surviving Ice, 2015, etc.) spins a compelling web, rife with quirky characters and steamy romps with charismatic men. Yet things are tied up too quickly at the end, leaving several of the reader’s own questions unanswered. An entertaining and often captivating tale but an unsatisfying mystery.
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Scintillating marital drama set at a nuclear testing station in the late 1950s. the longest night
Warlick is not a bad writer, and this novel is an ambitious effort. In the end, though, it never makes us care about its star-crossed trio.
is hidden in plain sight. The book is mostly set in the summer of 1974, and its historical details, such as an outdated film title on a marquee, gently place Izabella’s memories in a not-toodistant past where missing persons make the nightly news. For Izabella, the truth might still be lying around the house if she knows where to look. On Tillings Island, the locals are preparing for their annual festival to celebrate the African ocean goddess Yemaya, and the loose spirituality that permeates the community echoes the dreamlike quality of Izabella’s thoughts. But normalcy beckons to Izabella as she reconnects with Grandma Jo, whose braless joie de vivre presents a cheerful foil to the cold war brewing between Izabella and her mother. The family dog, Luke, also whimpers and nuzzles his way through Izabella’s silence with surprising force. When the truth finally emerges, Izabella’s heartfelt revelation puts sharply into focus the unspoken terror of being a child in an unpredictable world. This dreamy coming-of-age mystery unfolds in tantalizing waves with keen insight and lush prose.
THE LONGEST NIGHT
Williams, Andria Random House (400 pp.) $27.00 | $13.99 e-book | Jan. 19, 2016 978-0-8129-9774-3 978-0-8129-9775-0 e-book Scintillating marital drama set at a nuclear testing station in the late 1950s. Paul Collier is an enlisted man who grew up poor and gambles that a new career as a nuclear operator will pay off and be worth uprooting his family from the West Coast to Idaho; he hardly cares if the experimental reactor’s success means American missiles will be able to “hit pay dirt...if the Soviets did anything stupid”—just one of the sore points between him and his wife, Natalie, a California girl whose outspokenness and nonconformity captured him when they were dating but in his current position make him uneasy. Her husband’s soldierly reticence about his colleagues’ behavior on and off the test site backfires and drives Nat into a more-than-confiding friendship with a local cowboy named Esrom. Readers are also treated to the hilarious musings of Jeannie Richards—the wife of Paul’s new boss, Mitch; her job is to keep her scurrilous silver-haired spouse from botching his retirement payout. Williams keeps the narrative interest percolating with great period details and by allowing her characters’ thoughts and emotions full expression—Jeannie lays out battle dress before a dinner welcoming her husband’s new man (“a bra that would catapult her little ladies upward like rocket boosters”), but Mitch himself keeps undermining her Borgia-esque ambitions. Paul’s buttoned-up personality frustrates the hell out of Nat, but her daredevil nature, even as a mother of young children, confounds him more: “He’d had to sit by and watch strangers cheer her on for something he’d not wanted her to do, as if their approval was more important than his concern.” Meantime, plunked alongside potato fields and cattle ranches, other reactors (human and atomic) threaten to blow their stacks. Spoiler alert: a major mishap is all but promised in the prologue, and the afterword describing the nation’s only fatal accident at a reactor will send some readers to look up Idaho’s role in American nuclear history. A smoldering, altogether impressive debut that probes the social and emotional strains on military families in a fresh and insightful way.
THE ARRANGEMENT
Warlick, Ashley Viking (320 pp.) $25.95 | $12.99 e-book | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-525-42966-1 978-0-698-40754-1 e-book Blending fact and fiction, this historical novel covers nine eventful years in the life of legendary food writer M.F.K. Fisher. All the ingredients for a lively, literate page-turner are here: a beautiful, talented protagonist; lush settings; illicit sex; mouthwatering food. But the novel falls flat—ironic considering how buoyant and lyrical Fisher’s own writing is. Beginning in 1934, the book is mostly about the unraveling of Mary Frances Kennedy’s marriage to Al Fisher, a college professor, and her affair with—and eventual marriage to—Dillwyn “Tim” Parrish, a painter and sometime writer who edited and encouraged her early work. The narrative, which faithfully follows the outlines of Fisher’s life, moves between California, France, and Switzerland, where the Fishers briefly lived with Parrish. The two men were close friends, and there is plenty of agonizing on the part of the adulterous lovers on the right course of action to take with regard to Al, who has problems with sexual and professional performance. Perhaps as a result, the novel often feels gray and despairing. Another problem: Fisher’s life is not exactly unexamined. In addition to a gastronomic memoir, she published many books—in which she figured prominently—as well as journals and correspondence. Since her death in 1992, two biographies have appeared. That doesn’t leave so much for a novelist to imagine. Warlick, author of three previous works of fiction, contributes invented dialogue—some of it stilted—and fairly graphic sex scenes, which don’t really deepen our understanding of the characters. She also tells the story from multiple perspectives, which proves distracting—better to have homed in on Fisher’s point of view. 98
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DOG RUN MOON Stories
cruelty. In the title story, a gem of pacing and menace, a man who frees a chained dog thinks of a recent breakup while he’s fleeing naked in the night from the dog’s owner, Montana Bob, and his strange sidekick, Charlie Chaplin. “In Hindsight” takes a woman from 20 to 73, through a rough marriage, solitude, a love affair, and the final settling of a feud, all linked masterfully by her relation to animals. In another complex narrative, “Sun Dance” moves its main character from an accidental death on a construction site to a vision in a sweat lodge of one Indian’s fall from grace on a basketball court and then to a kind of redemption in the brutal dance of the title. Wink doesn’t deal in the romance of the Old West or dwell on the frontier past, yet both myth and history color these highly satisfying fictions about the way men and women struggle to shape their lives.
Wink, Callan Dial Press (272 pp.) $26.00 | $12.99 e-book | Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-8129-9377-6 978-0-8129-9378-3 e-book A collection of stories set mostly in Montana, where life tends to be hard, money short, the land gorgeous, and relations between lovers and kin troubled. A man performing in annual re-enactments of Custer’s Last Stand also sleeps each year with an Indian woman from the show. He remembers to call his wife, who is being treated for breast cancer, and comforts her while his lover listens. The proximity of wife and lover recurs in the disturbing “Breatharians,” in which a man’s wife continues to live on his dairy farm while his hired teen helper becomes his lover. Caught in this psychological mire is the young son who learns too much about
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he lost an eye and was badly scarred in the line of duty years back, and he has love handles and varicose veins. He’s nearly 60 and a widower; Amanda’s 54 and a single mother; but they’re as randy as teenagers around each other. Even though Jack has stepped down from Community Policing, which he established and which is really a front for MI5, he’s back in the field, despite suffering from PTSD. He’s too valuable to MI5, especially since he recently reeled in the criminal Lionel Thacker—aka Len, Lionel Thackeray, or Norafarty for Moriarty—as an informant. When Jack and a beautiful young DC with shady family connections and a curious bond with Jack investigate the rumors of a dead dog or dogs thrown into the harbor, Jack is shot again. Then the head of the British Armed Forces is found dead and a prominent banker is murdered. Moreover, a star chamber for very senior retired military officers appears to have an even more select and shadowy group operating above it. Jack has a good idea why and why he has to leave the womenfolk behind for a final showdown with the forces of power and greed—even though he’s Portsmouth’s worst shot. All credit to Adams (Irony in the Soul, 2013, etc.) for his fertile imagination but not for knowing when his muddle of bathroom jokes, sentimentality, slap and tickle, violence, and Jane Austen quotations gets tiresome.
THE CASE OF THE MISSING MORRIS DANCER
Ace, Cathy Severn House (224 pp.) $28.95 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-0-7278-8554-8
Wedding plans are made even more difficult when a man goes missing. Henry Twyst, the 18th Duke of Chellingworth, is about to marry Stephanie Timbers in a grand ceremony at his Welsh estate. A quiet and pompous fellow, the duke is overwhelmed by all the arrangements. Luckily, his mother, the sprightly Dowager Duchess Althea, has things well in hand until the musician for the Morris Dancers vanishes. Althea is an honorary member of the WISE Enquiries Agency, whose other members have made their homes on or near the estate since solving an earlier case for the duke and dowager duchess (The Case of the Dotty Dowager, 2015, etc.). The roster of WISE includes the heavily pregnant Carol Hill, a Welsh computer expert; the Honorable Christine Wilson-Smythe, a well-connected Irishwoman; retired Scottish nurse Mavis MacDonald; and Annie Parker, a Londoner born in the Caribbean. Their very different strengths and skills come in handy as they search for Aubrey Morris, a respected but secretive local handyman who plays for the Morris Dancers and keeps all the tools of their trade, which have vanished as well. Everyone pitches in to try to keep the wedding plans on track while the ladies of WISE explore Aubrey’s background, hack his computer, and pick up every bit of local gossip in hopes of finding the missing man. The diverse sleuths are charming enough to raise WISE’s latest adventure above the rather mundane mystery.
JANE AND THE WATERLOO MAP Barron, Stephanie Soho Crime (320 pp.) $25.95 | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-61695-425-3
A royal summons embroils veteran Regency sleuth Jane Austen. Jane’s come to London to negotiate the publication of her next novel and stays to nurse her brother Henry as he recovers from a near-fatal fever. His Highness the Prince Regent’s own court physician, Matthew Baillie, helped save Henry’s life, and when word gets back to HRH of Jane’s stay in London, he bids her come work in the library at Carlton House. One doesn’t decline a prince’s invitation, but Jane gets no chance to write. Instead, she discovers Col. Ewan MacFarland twitching and retching on the library floor. She wipes his lips with her handkerchief, and he utters the words “Waterloo map” and dies. When Jane examines the handkerchief, she discovers fine evergreen needles in traces of his vomit; her brother’s personal physician suggests they might be needles of the poisonous yew. She returns to Carlton House to find a watercolor map that MacFarland hid in a book in the royal library just before he was stricken. On the back of the map is a man’s last words to his beloved, with a numerical cipher and instructions to guard the map because the emperor will have need of it. Although it won’t do Napoleon much good in his exile after Waterloo, someone values the map enough to attack Jane and stab Dr. Baillie nearly to death. Jane can think of only one man to trust with the map: the artist Benjamin West’s son, Raphael, who is also an artist
A BARROW BOY’S CADENZA
Adams, Pete Urbane Publications (360 pp.) $12.95 paper | Feb. 1, 2016 978-1-909273-96-2
A third adventure for an aging cockney copper and his colorful colleagues. DCI Jack “Jane” Austin—member of the Church of Egypt (De-Nile), dispenser of nicknames, cheerful mangler of the English language—was shot and nearly killed two months ago in breaking up a pedophile ring. Even more recently, he’s survived an explosion while he was wearing a tutu in the streets of Portsmouth. Now he thinks he’s dying again, although his lover and boss, DS Amanda Bruce, assures him he’s merely hung over. Nor is he much of an Adonis: 100
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Case’s first novel plunges a New York cop and the man charged with investigating him into a world of trouble. the big fear
OUT OF THE BLUES
and a spy for the government. The race is on to break the map’s code before whoever has already been desperate to kill for it can seize it by any means necessary. Barron, who’s picked up the pace since Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas (2014), portrays an even more seasoned and unflinching heroine in the face of nasty death and her own peril.
Boyce, Trudy Nan Putnam (352 pp.) $26.95 | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-399-16726-3
A veteran Atlanta cop’s debut novel presents a newly minted homicide detective who’s struggling to keep her sights trained on the cold case she’s been assigned while Atlanta seethes around her. Last year, when Sarah “Salt” Alt was a beat cop, she was shot by a man she was arresting: Curtis Dwayne Stone, a fearsome gangster who worked out of The Homes, the housing project where Salt grew up. Now that she’s out of danger and working with Atlanta Homicide, their relationship’s about to change dramatically. Stone, looking to slice some years off his sentence, has offered evidence that blues singer and guitarist Michael Anderson didn’t kill himself with an overdose years ago; he was given “a hot pop,” a dose of pure heroin, by someone he trusted. Sgt. Charlie Huff puts Salt on the old case with no partner or backup, and it’s clear that she’s got her work cut out for her. Stone’s not exactly forthcoming with new details when she visits him in prison, and Mike’s parents, still mourning their son, recoil in horror from her questions. All Salt can do is follow the trail of dubious tips that leads her to Mike’s girlfriend, Melissa Primrose, his friend and band mate Dan Pyne, and homeless singer Pretty Pearl White. Her slow progress is further impeded by hints that seem to link Mike’s death to the Rev. Midas Prince’s Big Calling Church and the execution-style shootings of highflying lawyer Arthur Solquist’s wife and daughters—a white-hot case Salt’s live-in lover, Detective Bernard Wills, is working and an emphatic nofly zone for her. Less whodunit than odyssey, as Salt—clearly bent, as Wills observes, on fixing the world one sociopath at a time— navigates anti-woman prejudice in her unit, anti-cop sentiment in her hometown, and the steaming corruption that reaches from Atlanta’s lower depths to its very top.
FUNERAL HOTDISH
Bommersbach, Jana Poisoned Pen (254 pp.) $26.95 | $15.95 paper | $9.99 e-book $23.95 Lg. Prt. | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-4642-0456-2 978-1-4642-0458-6 paper 978-1-4642-0459-3 e-book 978-1-4642-0457-9 Lg. Prt. An Arizona transplant chases the scoop of the century while folks back in her Minnesota hometown discover club drugs. When Joya Bonner spots Sammy “The Bull” Gravano in a Tempe coffee shop, she realizes that her piece on research fraud at Arizona State University is small potatoes compared to the story that’s landed in her lap. The investigative reporter somehow thinks it would be OK to disclose the location of a federally protected witness if the revelation would help her trump a rival newshound. Her boyfriend, police detective Rob Stiller, persuades her to hold back, not because trumpeting Sammy’s whereabouts in her weekly, Phoenix Rising, would put the Mafioso in the cross hairs of any members of the Gambino crime family his testimony hasn’t already sent to jail, but because the police suspect Gravano’s back in the business and are running a sting operation to catch him. While Joya sits in the Maricopa sheriff ’s office listening to wiretaps, her parents back in Northville, North Dakota, are reeling along with the rest of the town over the death of vibrant young high school senior Amber Schlener, who let her boyfriend, Johnny Roth, talk her into taking just one Ecstasy pill, which made her happy, happy, happy, and dead. Sick of Sheriff Sylvester Joseph Potter’s failure to arrest whoever supplied Johnny with the drug, Joya’s father, Ralph, and two of his pals take the law into their own hands and hatch a revenge plot that deals Northville a second deadly blow. Like the eponymous hotdish, Bommersbach’s debut novel contains a little of everything but nothing that spells haute literary cuisine. The author of The Trunk Mur deress: Winnie Ruth Judd: The Truth About an American Crime Legend Revealed at Last (1992) might be better off sticking with true crime.
THE BIG FEAR
Case, Andrew Thomas & Mercer (314 pp.) $15.95 paper | Feb. 23, 2016 978-1-5039-5222-5 Playwright Case’s first novel plunges a New York cop and the man charged with investigating him into a world of trouble. Called to join the harbor patrol on a midnight run to check out a report of a suspicious boat, Detective Ralph Mulino of the Organized Crime Control Bureau finds two men aboard the craft, one of them dead. Only after he calls out a warning and shoots at the other does he realize he’s killed Detective Brian Rowson. |
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Mulino’s case would normally fall into the bailiwick of Christine Davenport, who heads the Department to Investigate Misconduct and Corruption. But Davenport quits DIMAC just in time to pass the case to her second-in-command, Leonard Mitchell, and promptly goes to work in the private sector. On her first day on her new job, she brings some suspiciously coded emails to the attention of Eliot Holm-Anderson, the patriarch of EHA Investments, a firm noted for spotting securities whose values are about to take nosedives. That’s Davenport’s last day on the job as well, because she’s drowned—the NYPD says because she jumped off a ferry—that night. Suddenly Mitchell and Mulino, natural enemies by any measure, are questioning the same people, investigating the same institutions, and wondering whether they can trust any of New York’s finest or each other. Mitchell, beaten by a neighborhood patrol officer outside his Crown Heights home and tracked down to the hospital where he’s recovering, finds himself taking refuge with Roshni Saal, whose global paranoia about law enforcement makes her the last person in the world he would have expected to ask for help, as the clock ticks down toward a fearsome act of profitfueled sabotage. The case is slow to gather momentum but rises to an improbable, rousing finale in which the bad guys, who’ve been consistently more clever and resourceful than the good guys, finally get theirs.
to the killing of Army Sgt. Willis Peterson in North Carolina and the 1997 slaughter of the Crozier family, almost certainly by Dean Crozier, the son whom there wasn’t enough evidence to arrest—a son reported killed in Afghanistan in 2004. Just how long has the Samaritan been at it, how many victims has he claimed, and when will the killing end? Fans of Jeffery Deaver—that other thrill-master who can’t resist piling on the climactic twists even as the lights are coming up and you’re looking for your umbrella— should be enthralled.
BLOOD WILL TELL
Dams, Jeanne M. Severn House (224 pp.) $28.95 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-0-7278-8555-5
A visit to Cambridge University is educational in more ways than one. Anglophile expat American sleuth Dorothy Martin and her husband, retired Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt, have come to Cambridge, where Alan is speaking at a police conference and Dorothy plans to enjoy the beauty and soak up the atmosphere. But Dorothy gets lost while looking for Newton Hall, site of the conference at St. Stephen’s College, and stumbles into a laboratory with a pool of blood on the floor, where she gets the barest glimpse of someone in a lab coat vanishing through a door. Although there are many possible explanations, Alan doesn’t take Dorothy’s fears lightly and introduces her to Superintendent Elaine Barker, who understands her concerns but must tread lightly in a city where the colleges, each with its own security staff, shun that sort of publicity. Dorothy continues to sleuth, and Elaine’s nephew, science student Tom Grenfell, makes some suggestions. Perhaps, after all, it’s merely an undergraduate prank. An African student experimenting with rats seems to be hiding something, but it’s only when Grenfell goes missing that the whole matter is taken seriously. Fortunately, Dorothy finds clues in a few of her favorite Dorothy L. Sayers mysteries, including Gaudy Night, that help lead to a solution. Cambridge science takes center stage in this latest cozy in Dams’ traveling series (Days of Vengeance, 2014, etc.). It’s an average mystery saved, especially for Anglophiles, by an atmospheric look at the famous university.
THE SAMARITAN
Cross, Mason Pegasus Crime (416 pp.) $25.95 | Feb. 15, 2016 978-1-60598-953-2 Carter Blake, the “locating consultant” who made such a splash in his debut (The Killing Season, 2015), returns to help locate a bad boy who’s been awfully busy for an awfully long time. The first corpse reported to Detective Jessica Allen, LAPD, isn’t that of Sarah Dutton, who disappeared from her wealthy father’s home with the Porsche he’d given her, but that of her friend Kelly Boden, who drove the Porsche back—well, partway back—from a wild party. The bodies of two other young women are discovered so soon thereafter that there’s never any doubt that a serial killer is at work, abducting women, torturing them, and ritualistically killing them. The Samaritan, as he’s swiftly dubbed by a TV reporter who’s apparently getting information from an unauthorized source, seems to prey on women stuck on lonely roads who need a helping hand. How long has he been at it? Allen’s research identifies at least two likely earlier victims. But these discoveries, disquieting as they are, are overshadowed by her much more disturbing memory of an unsolved murder she worked in Washington, D.C., before coming to LA six months ago, suggesting that the Samaritan has worked both coasts with a break of more than two years between killing sprees. Enter Blake with even more chilling news: the M.O. of all these murders links them both 102
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MURDER AT THE MANOR
THE MYSTERY OF THE VENUS ISLAND FETISH
Edwards, Martin—Ed. Poisoned Pen (384 pp.) $12.95 paper | $9.99 e-book Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-4642-0573-6 978-1-4642-0574-3 e-book
Flannery, Tim Minotaur (336 pp.) $24.99 | $11.99 e-book | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-250-07942-8 978-1-4668-9215-6 e-book
This first novel from Australian science writer Flannery (Atmosphere of Hope, 2015, etc.) travels back in time to 19321933—and back in cultural mores a lot further—when intrigue swirls around an aboriginal mask enshrined in the Sydney Museum. “Enshrined” may not be quite the right word. Anthropologist Archibald Meek, returning from five years embedded with the natives of Venus Island, is horrified to discover the gigantic mask, ringed with 32 human skulls, prominently displayed in the museum’s boardroom. To be fair, Dr. Vere Griffon, the museum’s director, is equally unhappy that Archie overstayed his Venus Island posting by two years and fears he may have gone native—a fear shared in her own way by virginal archaeology registrar Beatrice Goodenough, who, swept off her feet by Archie’s posted marriage proposal, was seriously jolted by the personal gift that followed it. While he’s trying to mend fences with Beatrice, Archie can’t help noticing that four of the skulls surrounding the fetish are a different color than the others and that the buck-toothed mouth of one of them reminds Archie very much of Cecil Polkinghorne, his mentor, the latest of four museum employees to have vanished without a trace. Could someone be removing the original skulls, memorials of an 1892 shipwreck, and replacing them with more recently harvested products? Archie has precious little energy to devote to serious detective work when he must spend his days negotiating a cast of colleagues, board members, and government overseers straight out of P.G. Wodehouse and renegotiating his relationship with his ladylove. But the truth is bound to out, one way or another. The detection is nominal, and the mystery takes a back seat to the comic bedlam that reigns throughout. But readers who have never before encountered sentences like “He knew he must get his foreskin back” will cheer Archie’s debut and hope for more.
Let the guest beware in these 16 reprinted stories, spanning roughly 65 years, set in British country houses. None but Sherlock Holmes could figure out why a governess’s duties include wearing a specific dress in Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Copper Beeches.” In Dick Donovan’s “The Problem of Dead Wood Hall,” a tiny bluish scratch on each of two murder victims is the only indication of foul play. “Gentlemen and Players” features E.W. Hornung’s Raffles in a witty blend of cricket and thievery, and a falling diamond bracelet upsets a desperate plan in W.W. Jacobs’ “The Well.” In G.K. Chesterton’s “The White Pillars Murder,” a notable detective’s protégés learn the difference between listening and hearing, and Ernest Bramah combines an ancient family house, an ancient family curse, and very ancient Druidic ruins in “The Secret of Dunstan’s Tower.” J.J. Fletcher’s “The Manor House Mystery” offers three different solutions to a country magistrate’s murder. A debt-ridden man almost gets away with murder in J.J. Bell’s “The Message on the Sun-Dial”; “The Horror at Staveley Grange” is a haunted room where Sapper (H.C. McNeile) introduces two healthy men who died of heart failure. Anthony Berkeley presents a dead body that disappears twice from a thicket of trees in “The Mystery of Horne’s Copse,” and James Hilton’s “The Perfect Plan” is an almost perfect murder. What should be a hostess’ social triumph ends in humiliation in Margery Allingham’s “The Same to Us.” E.V. Knox’s “The Murder at the Towers” sends up the classic amateur detective who solves the murder of the most disagreeable of houseguests. A nurse spends a night of terror in Ethel Lina White’s “The Unlocked Window”; Nicholas Blake exposes a long-held family secret in “The Long Shot”; and a greedy husband and wife ruin far more than their own lives in Michael Gilbert’s “Weekend at Wapentake.” The more gracious the home, the worse the crime in this anthology by a who’s who of mostly golden-age writers.
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A novel to warm the hard-bitten cockles of a noir fan’s heart. city of rose
ONE UNDER
balance, rough without being sadistic, gritty without being sordid. Ash’s reluctance to use violence to deal with his adversaries resolves itself in a way that doesn’t duck the moral quandary of pacifism, though the vengeance he finally takes isn’t presented as triumphant, either. Still, that reluctance goes on too long. Ash’s slowness in accepting that the bad guys are clearly not open to reason strains not just the credibility of the plot, but the hero’s commitment to the safety of the stripper and her daughter. Occasional lapses into sentimentality don’t detract from an engaging read, but they do fall short of the book’s best moments, which are characterized by Hart’s quick and witty turns of phrase. A novel in which a woman announces “This is the most I’ve smoked since I found out I was pregnant” is one to warm the hard-bitten cockles of a noir fan’s heart.
Harrod-Eagles, Cynthia Severn House (224 pp.) $29.95 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-0-7278-8556-2 Digging into an architect’s suicide reveals all manner of felonious perversion in London. There’s no doubt that George Peleponnos topped himself. Video footage shows him throwing himself under the wheels of a train arriving at the Shepherd’s Bush station, and an obliging witness confirms that there was no one near him when he jumped. But Bill Slider, recently promoted to DCI, can’t leave the case alone even though his higher-ups keep telling him that there is no case. He can’t forget the financial connections the North Kensington Regeneration Trust established between Peleponnos and a number of highflying donors or the very recent telephone calls Peleponnos exchanged with Kaylee Adams, a teenage shoplifter killed by a hit-and-run driver out on the fringe of London. And once Slider links Kaylee’s death to that of her friend Tyler Vance, fished out of the Thames six months ago, he’s convinced that something terrible has been going on at the raucous parties local MP Gideon Marler has been holding. When Marler, chair of the Police Select Committee, speaks to Assistant Commissioner Derek Millichip, another NKRT donor whose domain includes Shepherd’s Bush, Slider is told in no uncertain terms to cease and desist. Naturally, he soldiers on, uncovering pretty much exactly what you’d expect, but he’s outmaneuvered at every step by well-placed enemies a lot less impulsive than he is. No prizes for the dogged detective work by Slider and his colleagues (Star Fall, 2015, etc.), who mostly examine phone records and keep interviewing the same forbidden subjects. But if you’re looking for moral outrage in the face of unabashed evil, Shepherd’s Bush is your kind of place.
THE LANGUAGE OF SECRETS
Khan, Ausma Zehanat Minotaur (352 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-250-05512-5 978-1-4668-5825-1 e-book
Khan’s winning Canadian cops return— and this time, it’s really personal. Khan’s hero, Detective Esa Khattak, a second-generation Canadian Muslim, and his young partner, Rachel Getty, are back from her debut novel (The Unquiet Dead, 2015) to investigate a terrorist cell planning a series of devastating attacks. The stakes for Khattak become agonizingly personal when an estranged friend is murdered by the cell, his relatively green partner goes undercover as a convert, and his difficult-at-best little sister becomes engaged to the cell’s handsome, charismatic leader. Soap opera elements abound, but Khan’s sophisticated grasp of the religious, political, and social issues at play grounds the narrative in a thoughtful dissection of the conflicting motives underlying the various players’ actions; thoughtful to a fault, occasionally, as the characters tend to pedantically verbalize these complex ideas in lieu of engaging in recognizable human dialogue. Still, rhetoric comes with the territory, and the story functions effectively as a mystery thriller, as Khan deploys an impressive depth of knowledge about the subject matter (the cell’s plot is based on a real-life scheme by the socalled “Toronto 18,” an extremist group that intended to attack Canadian Parliament in 2006), trusting the reader to keep up with context cues when confronted by unfamiliar ideas and scenarios. The characters are well-drawn and pleasingly varied: Khattak is a compelling protagonist, a cerebral, reserved Muslim comfortable with his faith but not ruled by it, and the buoyant, hockey-loving Getty is an endearing foil. The cell members are afforded fully dimensional personalities and varied passions, ideals, and justifications for their actions; everyone has their reasons, Khan understands, and her nuanced exploration of those reasons elevates her second novel above the general run of detective fiction.
CITY OF ROSE
Hart, Rob Polis Books (304 pp.) $14.95 paper | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-940610-51-1 A strip-club bouncer sets out to find a dancer’s missing child in the second novel featuring the detective Ash McKenna. Leaving New York City in the wake of tragedy, Ash turns up working in a vegan strip joint in Portland, Oregon. His vow to keep a low profile goes out the window when he’s warned not to look into the case of a dancer whose small child was taken by her junkie ex. The trail brings Ash in contact with both Mexican drug cartels and an ambitious local pol. This is familiar hardboiled territory, but it’s well executed and strikes an appealing 104
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AND IS THERE HONEY STILL FOR TEA?
A smart, measured, immersive dive into a poorly understood, terrifyingly relevant subculture of violent extremism.
Murphy, Peter No Exit Press (384 pp.) $16.95 paper | $7.99 e-book | Feb. 1, 2016 978-1-84344-401-5 978—184344-402-2 e-book
PACIFIC BURN
Lancet, Barry Simon & Schuster (384 pp.) $25.00 | $9.99 e-book | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-4767-9488-4 978-1-4767-9490-7 e-book
A distinguished British solicitor brings action against an American professor in this Cold War drama. As a younger son, James Digby never expected to inherit either the family estate in Lancashire or the baronetcy that went with it. Instead, James fell in love with chess and dreamed of playing it professionally. He settled on a career as a solicitor in Chancery, even after the deaths of his older brother and his father made him Sir James. When an article by Yale professor Francis Hollander accuses Digby of being a spy for the Soviet Union, he hires his own solicitors and barristers to bring a libel suit. As Digby’s legal team, including junior barrister Ben Schroeder, tries to help him clear his name in court, they consider Hollander’s evidence far too scanty to hold up. Even highly sensitive information from MI6 agents willing to pay part of Hollander’s expenses isn’t compelling enough to make Digby want to settle. Side by side with the legal activities is Digby’s narration of his childhood, his years at Cambridge, his growing commitment to socialism—despite his privileged background— his marriage, his membership in a secret society, and his visits to the Soviet Union to report on chess tournaments. At the same time, Schroeder’s romance with a young clerk in a solicitor’s firm presents him with his own legal challenges. Even though it’s 1965, the rules about fraternization between barristers and solicitors are still stuck in the 18th century, and Schroeder could face disbarment if he continues the relationship. That’s the last worry he needs, especially given the increasing pressure of Digby’s case—and the interest that MI6 and the CIA have in keeping his libel suit out of the courtroom. Even though this complex legal thriller is advertised as Ben Schroeder’s third case, Murphy (A Matter for the Jury, 2014, etc.) doesn’t give him center stage. Digby, the real protagonist, will keep you guessing until the very end.
In the third big case taking him from his home in San Francisco to his native Japan, antiques dealer–cum-detective Jim Brodie tracks down the killers who have been knocking off the members of a friend’s family. Brodie, who inherited the Tokyo-based investigative agency of his American father, badly wants to stay at home looking after his adorable 6-year-old daughter and selling rare ceramic pieces. But after the son of prominent artist Ken Nobuki is murdered, Nobuki himself is shot by a sniper, and other family members are targeted, the bilingual detective travels to Washington, D.C., to protect Nobuki’s daughter, Naomi. A well-known reporter, she has made significant enemies with her anti–nuclear power crusades—including, apparently, higher-ups in various U.S. agencies. After being attacked by a guy with knives in Nobuki’s hospital room back in San Francisco, Brodie flies off to Tokyo, where he is reunited with Rie, a Tokyo cop with whom he has a budding romance (his wife was murdered), and Noda, the taciturn lead detective at Brodie Security. Brodie’s homecoming is spoiled by a scary yakuza member called TNT who forecasts his death and a legendary assassin called Steam Walker who is said never to fail on the job. As ever, Lancet stages some good fight scenes—no one gets beaten up as well as Brodie—and keeps the action going. But while the book is a decent addition to the series, a certain predictability is taking hold of the plotting. Could be that Lancet needs to settle on one locale or find a new one. The third Jim Brodie thriller is a solid, action-filled effort but lacks the edgy excitement of the first and best installment, Japantown (2013).
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WHEN BUNNIES GO BAD
Browning, the defendant’s lawyer, earns his million-dollar fee by making mincemeat of the other complainants, and when Kate has her day in court, it’s not her best day either. The Mayor walks, leaving his victims with no redress. Kate can’t even accept the comfort of her family; her mother, Suzy, died of an overdose years ago, and she was estranged from her father even before that. It doesn’t help Kate that Carl Burns has returned to town after a stretch in prison for setting a fire that claimed a man’s life. Carl’s not the type to beg for his daughter’s forgiveness. But he is the type to lend a hand to Suzy’s sister, Frances Rourke, an organic farmer who’s battling a factory-farm importer and a toxic landfill proposed by city councilor Bud Stephens and Hank Hofferman, the pig farmer whose half-built barn Carl had torched. Wouldn’t it be nice if The Mayor had a hand in this latest round of skullduggery as well so that father and daughter could fight common enemies and not each other? A slow-burning tale of vigilante justice leading to a satisfying ending that relies equally on convenient coincidence and the audience’s wishes.
Simon, Clea Poisoned Pen (264 pp.) $26.95 | $15.95 paper | $9.99 e-book $23.95 Lg. Prt. | Mar. 1, 2016 978-1-4642-0533-0 978-1-4642-0535-4 paper 978-1-4642-0536-1 e-book 978-1-4642-0534-7 Lg. Prt. The sixth entry in Simon’s Pet Noir series (Kittens Can Kill, 2015, etc.) is just as blanc as the first five. By the morning after he’s bullied his girlfriend, redheaded Cheryl Ginger, at Hardware, perhaps the finest dining establishment in Beauville, Massachusetts, reputed mobster Teddy Rhinecrest has gotten his comeuppance, and more, as Pru Marlowe, the “animal behaviorist”—all right, pet psychic—who overheard the quarrel, sees when she finds him stabbed to death in the doorway of his rented condo. Jim Creighton, Beauville’s top cop, makes it clear that he doesn’t want his main squeeze’s help as he works with the Feds to track down Berkshire Forest, aka Bunny in the Snow, a painting Teddy allegedly boosted from an art museum. But everyone else is dying for Pru’s help. Cheryl asks her to train her spaniel, Stewie, whom in her ignorance she calls Pudgy. Teddy’s widow, Theresa—that’s right, the no-goodnik was married all along—wants Pru to meet with private eye Martin Parvis. Local gangster Gregor Benazi, who’s something of a fixture in Beauville, asks her to keep an eye out for something he declines to describe very closely. Although everyone wants Pru’s help, no one seems to be leveling with her: not the sparse human cast, not Stewie, not even Henry, the wild rabbit new client Marnie Lundquist is minding while her vet-tech granddaughter is taking a gap year in Asia. What’s the big secret? Not much of a secret at all, it turns out. Fans will know better than to expect much mystery to get in the way of Pru’s communications—however cryptic this time around—with the animals she loves.
THE MAJOR CRIMES TEAM Vol. 1: Lines Of Enquiry
Smith, Graham Caffeine Nights (144 pp.) $14.95 paper | Feb. 1, 2016 978-1-910720-30-1
A squad of Scottish detectives probes diverse cases while working under a cloud of well-earned suspicion for their maverick methods. DCI Harry Evans and his team are called in when someone puts a knife in the back of thug Jimmy Watson, who’s been intimidating people out of their homes on behalf of the larcenous Leighton family. Though quick to solve cases like this one, Evans and his detectives are not in the good graces of DI John Campbell, who, constantly frustrated by Evans and his team’s renegade ways, plans to replace him. Case in point: Lauren Phillips, unbeknownst even to her partners, goes undercover as a stripper at a sleazy club called Shakers to break up a high-stakes crime ring. But she can’t long keep this effort from Evans, who supports her without her knowledge before confronting her about her dangerous endeavor. When personal tragedy strikes Evans, work becomes his lifeline. The other members of the team, Neil Chisholm and Amir Bhaki, probe an odd case in which someone with a grudge against a celebrity chef sabotages the opening of his new restaurant with, of all things, downed trees. Smith’s closing episode finds Campbell in an old-school cop drama featuring a car chase and busting down a door, all of which just might give him greater insight into (and empathy for) Evans. Stay tuned. This neo-pulp series debut from Smith reads like a cycle of short stories, a brisk, gritty, entirely apt way to introduce his cop squad.
ROUGH JUSTICE
Smith, Brad Severn House (256 pp.) $29.95 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-0-7278-8560-9 The creator of sleuthing farmer Virgil Cain (Shoot the Dog, 2013, etc.) launches a new series that tosses a hard-used rape victim and her father into a sea of civic corruption in small-town Ontario. Kate Burns won’t be the only person taking the stand against Joseph Sanderson III, who served as mayor of Rose City for so long that he’s still called The Mayor. Prosecutor Thomas Grant plans to call Maria Secord, Debra Williams, and Amanda Long to tell how The Mayor raped them when they were teenagers, half a lifetime ago. But Miles 106
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THICKER THAN WATER
Spencer, Sally Severn House (224 pp.) $28.95 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-0-7278-8561-6
DCI Monika Paniatowski (Best Served Cold, 2015, etc.) returns with passion from maternity leave. Trading in her red MGA for a clunky Ford Cortina is just one of the painful sacrifices Monika is ready to make for Thomas and Philip. But just as the cop in her never shrinks from duty, the mom in her must do what’s best for her infant sons. And right now, what’s best is for her to return to work and prove her value to Chief Inspector Clive Barrington and Chief Constable Keith Pickering of the MidLancs Constabulary, who are still concerned about promoting a woman to the rank of chief inspector. Their choice is challenged immediately. Councilor William Danbury, whose wife, Jane, is found bludgeoned to death in their posh home in Milliner’s Row, is a chauvinist of the first order, showering love on his two sons but ignoring his youngest child, Melanie. Even when Melanie disappears from the family home the night of her mother’s murder, it’s not concern for his child that the rich and powerful Danbury shows but rage that Monika, a woman, should be in charge of the case. Hearing Danbury’s dad, Archie, pontificate about the importance of manliness—and seeing evidence that Archie routinely beats his wife, Ethel—helps Monika realize how Danbury’s attitude developed. But his contempt for women only confirms Monika’s opinion that he’s the most likely person to have killed Jane, a view that puts her at odds with the very men who hold her future in their hands. Although Spencer’s path is a familiar one, she treads it with authority. It’s good to have Monika back, doing what she does best.
DRAWING BLOOD
Verne, Deirdre Midnight Ink/Llewellyn (336 pp.) $14.99 paper | Feb. 8, 2016 978-0-7387-4228-1 A dysfunctional family to die for. CeCe Prentice’s life became ever more complicated when her brother was murdered, her father disgraced, and her mother sent to rehab. As it turned out, Teddy Prentice was not her real brother but rather the twin of Detective Frank DeRosa, who helped solve his murder. Both boys were taken in as babies by CeCe’s father, who founded Sound View Labs in the wealthy New York suburb of Cold Spring Harbor. He had an obsession with proving his hypothesis that nature tops nurture, so he placed Frank with a poor, uneducated family and was dismayed that |
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he made a success of his life. Most of the family’s problems, even Teddy’s murder, were caused by Prentice’s illegal genetic schemes. Learning that her father had harvested an egg from her and probably fertilized it with Teddy’s sperm, CeCe realizes that she may have a child out in the world and resolves to find the truth. At the same time, Big Bob, her pal from the local recycling center, goes missing and turns up dead in a pile of garbage. Naturally, CeCe and Frank are an item. She’s a talented sketch artist who picks up extra money working with the police to help support the freegan lifestyle that she and the housemates in her ramshackle family home supplement with an organic garden and the sale or trade of homegrown products. What possible connection could Bob’s fascinating garbage art have with a warehouse full of toxic products, storage units, and an online meeting place Bob ran? The answer to that question will help solve a murder and lead CeCe to the truth about her putative child. Familiarity with CeCe’s debut (Drawing Conclusions, 2015) will help readers digest the complex back story. But her second case is every bit as twisty and surprising.
THE SILENCE OF STONES
Westerson, Jeri Severn House (240 pp.) $29.95 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-0-7278-8562-3
An unfortunate coincidence brings a disgraced knight to the attention of the king he once plotted against. Crispin Guest kept his head but little else when he was accused of treason against King Richard II. Now he ekes out a living as The Tracker, a medieval private investigator, assisted by Jack Tucker, his young apprentice. When they attend a church service at Westminster Abbey, an explosion causes a near riot, and the Stone of Destiny is found to have vanished from its place beneath the Coronation Chair. Richard, who has no love for Guest, seizes Jack and gives Guest three days to find the stone before Jack is executed. Closer examination reveals that the explosion blew up a plaster imitation of the stone; no one knows how long the real stone has been gone. Suspicion falls on the Scots, the former owners of what they call the Stone of Scone, but Guest is confused when he discovers several groups of Scots in London apparently working at cross purposes. Meanwhile, Jack is removed from his prison cell to the apartments of Katherine Swynford, mistress of the duke of Lancaster, where his restless nature lands him in the queen’s garden and a problem of his own. A piece of jewelry has been stolen from the queen, who fears its absence may be noted by the king, since it appears to implicate her in an affair with another man. With the help of a cross-dressing friend, Guest scours the city for clues, while Jack risks his life to help the queen. It’s clear that their cases are intertwined, but are three days enough time to work out the connection?
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science fiction and fantasy
Westerson (Shadow of the Alchemist, 2013, etc.) may not exhibit the depth of research other medieval mystery writers display, but her tortured protagonist is never dull, and his newest adventure leads to a swift and satisfying conclusion.
THIS CENSUS-TAKER
Miéville, China Del Rey/Ballantine (208 pp.) $24.00 | $11.99 e-book | Jan. 5, 2016 978-1-101-96732-4 978-1-101-96733-1 e-book Miéville (Three Moments of an Explosion, 2015, etc.) has two main modes: the pyrotechnics of a puzzle maker and the austere depth of a mythmaker. Brief and dreamlike, his latest novel is in his sim-
pler, stronger style. The unnamed narrator—called “the boy,” “I,” or occasionally “you”—looks back on his childhood from his future as some sort of writer or record-keeper. The setting has a post-apocalyptic feel, with savaged machinery, orphaned urchins squatting in shacks built on a bridge, and generators that run on wood scraps, but it also has the timeless provinciality of a village in a fairy tale. The boy lives alone with his parents on a hill above town, where his mother grows their food in her garden and his father serves as a witchy locksmith: “His customers would come up from the town and ask for the things for which people usually ask—love, money, to open things, to know the future, to fix animals, to fix things, to be stronger, to hurt someone or save someone, to fly—and he’d make them a key.” One day when he’s about 9, the boy witnesses something he describes first as his mother killing his father, and later as his father killing his mother. Backtracking through his childhood, we see his mother as a force of chilly stability and his father as a warmer but more terrifying presence, a loving man who periodically bludgeons animals and perhaps even people to death and throws them down a seemingly bottomless hole in the hill. What really happened between the narrator’s parents? Is the boy in danger? Can he escape? Is escape ever truly possible? Is accountability? A deceptively simple story whose plot could be taken as a symbolic representation of an aspect of humanity as big as an entire society and as small as a single soul.
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nonfiction THE LUCKY YEARS How to Thrive in the Brave New World of Health
These titles earned the Kirkus Star: BLOOD AND EARTH by Kevin Bales................................................ 111
Agus, David B. Simon & Schuster (288 pp.) $27.00 | Jan. 5, 2016 978-1-4767-1210-9
THE PROFITEERS by Sally Denton................................................... 117 THE IMMORTAL IRISHMAN by Timothy Egan................................119 THE AGE OF GENIUS by A.C. Grayling........................................... 121 SPAIN IN OUR HEARTS by Adam Hochschild.................................126 STRANGE GODS by Susan Jacoby.....................................................126 MARGARET THATCHER by Charles Moore...................................... 130 A CANCER IN THE FAMILY by Theodora Ross................................. 133 THE MYSTERIOUS WORLD OF THE HUMAN GENOME by Frank Ryan..................................................................................... 133 ONE BREATH by Adam Skolnick.......................................................134 THE MEDICI by Paul Strathern.......................................................... 135
THE IMMORTAL IRISHMAN Thomas Meager and the Invention of Irish America
Egan, Timothy Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (384 pp.) $28.00 Mar. 1, 2016 978-0-544-27288-0
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A pioneering oncologist explores the latest advancements in general medicine. In previous volumes, Agus (Medicine and Engineering/Univ. of Southern California; A Short Guide to a Long Life, 2014, etc.) offered useful, accessible health tips for attaining prime physical health. Here, he expands on that platform by addressing readers from a futuristic vantage point and insightfully discusses how recent technological trends have the ability to boost both the medical industry’s ability to effectively treat patients and its public perception, something that has incrementally declined through the last decade. The author’s praise for the legacy of Canadian physician Sir William Osler and his hands-on bedside clinical training approach reminds readers of the importance of making a personal, interactive investment in wellness. At its bare-bones minimum, the book reiterates the enduring importance of quality sleep, sex, and touch, though more enterprising readers interested in breakthrough clinical developments will find Agus’ explorations of gene therapy, immunotherapy, and revolutionary stem cell research highly informative. The author advocates for greater oversight of these technologies by the medical community to avoid careless errors or misuse. He implores those reluctant to embrace newer medical technology to become “comfortable with gadgetry and terminology” since these enhancements can greatly improve quality of life. Rejecting the “one-size-fits-all” generalization of health recommendations today, Agus takes a progressive stance on the subject of customized, precision medicine, though he concurrently acknowledges its perils. He encourages readers to embark on a two-week challenge to track and identify the habits and patterns that may enhance the quest for ideal healthfulness. A section examining the gluten debate is particularly eye-opening, as are opinions on what Agus considers the biased and flawed nature of most medical studies and the hoax of anti-aging gimmickry. The author fully supports the “lucky years” of medical innovation, yet he views this era as a “privilege of the prepared and the knowledgeable”; everyone must remain mindful of their overall well-being. Practical health information fortified with exciting news from the forefront of modern medical technology.
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LOCALLY LAID How We Built a Plucky, Industry-Changing Egg Farm—from Scratch
THE GUNPOWDER AGE China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History
Amundsen, Lucie B. Avery (320 pp.) $25.95 | Mar. 1, 2016 978-1-59463-422-2
Andrade, Tonio Princeton Univ. (496 pp.) $39.95 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-0-691-13597-7
One family’s attempt to get out of the rat race and into the poultry race. For years, former Reader’s Digest Association editor and Minneapolis Star Tribune contributor Amundsen and her husband, Jason, were just a normal, educated middle-class couple with middle-class lives in the middle of America. Despite this, readers will root for them because they dreamed of something other than being—well—in the middle. They decided to vacate a seemingly underwhelming existence and embark on a journey through “middle agriculture,” those farms situated between factory farms and boutique operations. The idealism of Amundsen’s husband became the fulcrum on which their lives began to pivot. Driven by decency and principled morals—and perhaps the likelihood of suffering a “boredom aneurysm” in their “Beige Rambler” Amundsen considered her “forever house”—Jason proposed to start a midsized, commercial, pasture-raised egg farm even though their main experience in egg farming consisted of caring for a few pet hens who lived in their garage. The book opens with a scene of their first shipment of commercially raised chickens that don’t quite know how to be chickens (“until today, they have NEVER SEEN THE SUN”). As we soon learn, the Amundsens don’t quite know how to be chicken farmers. The author’s skepticism and her husband’s optimism collide to create a laughable, empathetic tale of re-education for (wo)man and beast. Behind the humor, however, Amundsen reveals the complex and sometimes-alarming methods by which farms operate in the U.S. The author ably synthesizes a large amount of detailed information, including the important differences among pasture-raised, organic, and cage-free eggs. She also shows how her family’s struggle in the amorphous landscape between big agriculture and small-scale farming is not unlike the struggle of the American middle class in general. Don’t let Amundsen’s self-deprecating humor fool you into taking this book lightly. In between capers, she makes a nuanced plea to respect local farms and the animals that populate them.
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A vigorous military history of China, linking technological changes to political events over time. There is a push and pull in trade and innovation. As Andrade (History/Emory Univ.; Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China’s First Great Victory over the West, 2011, etc.) notes, Chinese gunpowder inspired the development of a range of Western arms that then returned to China, only to be further developed there and radiated outward—far from the static model found in many histories, which hold that China copied but did not innovate, fearful of violating Confucian values of stability and hierarchy. It was Confucian scholars, Andrade writes, who “studied gunpowder weapons, tested them, experimented with their manufacture, developed tactics and strategies for deploying them, and wrote about all of this in detail.” Stimuli for development came from trade and contact with far-flung nations, including Japan and Vietnam, as well as the European powers that came calling. The weakness of the Chinese state when those powers divided China in the 19th century has been attributed to a long period of resource-wasting internal wars, but Andrade holds that conflict was but one cause among many, including ethnic tensions and poor governance. Moreover, warfare has proven a spur for innovation and political concentration, yielding dynasties and such tools as the “thunderclap bomb.” In initial contact with Europeans, the Chinese were outgunned, but they adjusted, incorporating Western-style arms against the invading Portuguese, for instance. The Sino-Portuguese wars, writes the author, “mark a watershed in military history, inaugurating a period of deep military innovation in China.” Today, Andrade writes, China is similarly innovative, and the pattern of history suggests that its long period of consolidation may herald a time of “huge wars of expansion.” If this signals a “new warring states period,” then the world may be condemned to live in interesting times indeed. Accessible and of interest to students of international relations but mostly intended for military historians and Asia specialists.
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A cleareyed account of man’s inhumanity to man and Earth. Read it to get informed, and then take action. blood and earth
WISDOM’S WORKSHOP The Rise of the Modern University
BLOOD AND EARTH Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World
Axtell, James Princeton Univ. (416 pp.) $35.00 | Mar. 1, 2016 978-0-691-14959-2
A celebration of America’s elite research universities. Axtell (Emeritus, Humanities/Coll. of William and Mary; The Making of Princeton University, 2006, etc.) offers an authoritative, panoramic history of American higher education, from its origins in 12th-century Europe to the present. Drawing on prolific research, including student and faculty diaries, the author makes a convincing case that “the university is the most versatile institution in contemporary society,” with America’s leading research institutions “at the apex of the higher education system,” serving as “ ‘sieves’ for sorting people, regulating mobility, and credentialing experts...and as secular ‘temples’ for the legitimation of official knowledge and new ideas.” In medieval Europe, higher education focused on training clergy, but with the growth of an “increasingly complex and litigious urban population,” students moved toward legal studies to train for positions in royal or church administrations. Axtell’s investigation of changes in faculty, curricula, and student life yields some surprising facts—at the Oxbridge colleges in the 16th century, needy students served the sons of aristocrats. Curricular change often responded to students’ desires: French and Italian, for example, were offered when students expressed a wish to travel or seek employment in diplomatic missions. In antebellum America, the nation’s “touching faith in education” resulted in “the wildfire spread of versatile academies and small denominational colleges.” The author attributes the rise of universities to the professionalization of the academic career and the creation of specialized disciplines, which in turn led to the development of laboratories and libraries. In the 19th century, with American universities still in a nascent stage, many faculty were trained in Germany, importing to their home institutions the seminar format, a demand for growth in libraries, and the elective system. Today, argues the author emphatically, because they compete for excellent faculty and students, foster research, and are committed to broad liberal education, elite American universities will continue to thrive. A thoroughly researched and vigorous history of an institution that has “gained new vigor and proliferated progeny not only in the United States but around the globe.”
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Bales, Kevin Spiegel & Grau (304 pp.) $27.00 | Jan. 19, 2016 978-0-8129-9576-3
In a heart-wrenching narrative, Bales (Ending Slavery: How We Free Today’s Slaves, 2007, etc.) explores modern slavery and the devastating effects on its victims as well as the environmental degradation caused by this morally reprehensible institution. As co-founder and former president of Free the Slaves, the world’s largest abolitionist organization, the author has dedicated his life to exposing the evils of slavery. For his latest book, Bales traveled around the globe for seven years documenting the wretched lives of the enslaved and revealing how their forced work destroys the natural world. Weaving together interviews,
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history, and statistics, the author shines a light on how the poverty, chaos, wars, and government corruption create the perfect storm where slavery flourishes and environmental destruction follows. “When we better understand the interrelationship of environmental issues and human rights,” he writes, “we’re likely to see in many ways that working to solve one can help to solve the other.” In this system, men, women, and children are lured into work extracting the various commodities our modern appetites desire, including gold from Ghana, shrimp from Bangladesh, granite from India, and timber from Brazil. Bales provides an excellent account of the 11-step supply chain required for procuring the minerals needed to build cellphones and laptops, revealing the individuals involved at each stop along the way, from slaves working in the Congolese mines to the consumer with his or her cellphone in hand. The author offers some hope for change, as well, describing various slave-free models, including the development of small family farms, cooperatives, and small-scale mines. Bales prods readers to consider the origins of our consumer products and the conditions under which they are made. While taking these steps will only cause “some inconvenience” for most of us, “small choices, made at the right moment, can bring very big changes.” Bales also includes a list of organizations working for change in the Eastern Congo. A cleareyed account of man’s inhumanity to man and Earth. Read it to get informed, and then take action.
PALE HORSE Hunting Terrorists and Commanding Heroes with the 101st Airborne Division
Blackmon, Jimmy St. Martin’s (384 pp.) $27.99 | Mar. 1, 2016 978-1-250-07271-9
Blackmon narrates the blow-by-blow experience of flying helicopters through embattled mountains during the Afghan War. The 101st Airborne Division is legendary for its actions in the D-Day invasion and Battle of the Bulge. As a squadron commander in the 2000s, the author helped lead the division’s modern incarnation. Small teams of infantrymen patrol the Afghan countryside in weaponized choppers, and the narrative is an endless series of ambushes and firefights. His subject matter is in turns suspenseful and violent, but Blackmon’s writing remains calmly technical: “Smoke began to fill the cockpit as the fire continued to burn in the back of the helicopter. Sergeant McLowhorn disconnected his safety strap and retrieved an extinguisher.” While the book is intended for military buffs, and Blackmon uses authentic jargon, he never loses average readers. More importantly, he adds personal touches that humanize the story. Blackmon grew up in Georgia and labels himself as a born fighter, and he idolizes his fellow servicemen, who come off as selfless, courageous, and professional. The author honestly reflects on PTSD and the damage it has wreaked on his colleagues. In one scene, a 112
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flight surgeon recounts his nightmares, which involve blown-off limbs and abandoning soldiers in the battlefield to die. Blackmon doesn’t delve much into civilian politics, and his outlook is rigidly martial, but he seems to empathize with the people and problems of the Middle East. “For me, there was no questioning the necessity of our mission in Afghanistan,” he writes. “What troubled me was how we could convince isolated tribesmen like those in the Helgal to embrace our vision of their future. It must have seemed like such a foreign concept to them, like my grandmother trying to convince me that castor oil was good for me as a child.” A vivid, action-packed combat memoir, Blackmon’s book explores what life is like for those boots on the ground, as well as in the air. (16-page color photo insert)
WHY BE JEWISH? A Testament
Bronfman, Edgar M. Grand Central Publishing (256 pp.) $26.00 | $13.99 e-book | Mar. 22, 2016 978-1-4555-6289-3 978-1-4555-6288-6 e-book
The late businessman and philanthropist answers his title’s question with a last testament of sorts. In the ancient Jewish tradition of an ethical will that dispenses not tangibles but moral principles, Bronfman (The Bronfman Haggadah, 2013, etc.) completed his manuscript just weeks before his death. Describing himself as a secular Jew—not a believer in a singular anthropomorphic authority whose avocation is to check on individual mortals—he finds much that is wonderful in the teachings and traditions of Judaism. He celebrates the warmth of his family relationships, unlike those of his childhood, and he speaks of goodness, not geopolitics, of morality, not dissention. A “cultural Jew,” eschewing rigid ritual, Bronfman teases out meaning from age-old texts. He examines the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, rabbinic commentaries, exegesis from oral tradition, philosophical writing, and modern interpretations. The author revels in the particularly Jewish toleration of independent thinking and, if need be, argument with God. In this short book, especially relevant to a generation that knows little of its faith and finds little in it, there is a review of the holidays and holy days of the Jewish calendar. The author discusses the moral imperatives of charity, loving kindness, repair of the world, and repair of one’s own spiritual life. Bronfman’s text leans neither to the right nor the left of Jewish thought; it reflects the writer’s own studies. It is all just slightly self-congratulatory, though, as we learn of the good works of his Samuel Bronfman Foundation, his presidency of the World Jewish Congress, and other exemplary efforts. His easily accessible primer concludes on a lengthy, oddly mundane note, in which Moses is presented as providing specific lessons in the art of leadership. One man’s personal call to laggard Jews to study, learn, and seek justice in a broken world. Readers of other persuasions may also profit from his insight into bits of Jewish thought and practice.
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Despite a dearth of material, the authors deliver a chilling, wellresearched biography that opens a whole new window on the world wars and the German psyche at the time. the first nazi
THE FIRST NAZI Erich Ludendorff, the Man Who Made Hitler Possible
Brownell, Will & Drace-Brownell, Denise with Rovt, Alex Counterpoint (356 pp.) $30.00 | Mar. 15, 2016 978-1-61902-609-4 The story of the man who set the mold for Adolf Hitler; both were delusional, megalomaniacal, irrational, and brilliant propagandists. Brownell (So Close to Greatness: The Biography of William C. Bullitt, 1988) and Drace-Brownell introduce us to one of history’s most fearsome and least-known characters. Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937) helped lead the German army in World War I; victories were rousingly reported and losses rarely mentioned, even to the kaiser. Though the authors describe Ludendorff as a man without a shadow, impossible to fathom, a biographer’s nightmare,
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they successfully describe this beast of a man. He hated Jews and swore Germany would build a world empire. He had no friends and was rude to everyone, including the kaiser; he was effectively a dictator whom no one dared question. A short war required a speedy conquest of France before turning on Russia, foreshadowing World War II. The authors stress that the war was lost early on, stalled by the Belgians. In 1916, there was a chance for a compromise peace, but Ludendorff refused to accept anything but complete victory, convincing gullible Germans of their greatness while doubling causalities. The authors amply demonstrate the absurdity of some of his wild plots, none of which featured reasoned or workable strategies. Allowing Lenin to return to Russia changed world history, but it was useless in freeing up troops who were needed to enforce his draconian peace. He never really had a Plan B and never took responsibility for his failures. He invented the stab-in-the-back legend that Germany lost because of the Jews, and he swore that the “next war” would see them gassed just as his troops had been. Hitler and Ludendorff had similar philosophies, identical fanaticism, a strong belief in the German superman, and a desire to eliminate the Jews.
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Despite a dearth of material, the authors deliver a chilling, well-researched biography that opens a whole new window on the world wars and the German psyche at the time.
HELL IS A VERY SMALL PLACE Voices from Solitary Confinement
Casella, Jean & Ridgeway, James & Shourd, Sarah—Eds. New Press (240 pp.) $24.95 | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-62097-137-6
The founders of a watchdog group dedicated to stopping the practice of solitary confinement gather voices from victims of this hellish punishment. The editors of this slim but powerful collection of essays may wear their political agendas on their sleeves, but they make
their arguments with undeniable efficacy. Casella and Ridgeway are co-founders of Solitary Watch, and journalist Shourd chronicled her 410 days of solitary confinement in her memoir A Sliver of Light (2014). In collecting essays from prisoners and mental health experts, the editors dig deep into the frailties of the human mind as well as the savagery of the American penal system and its ilk. Many of the men and women whose voices are captured here measure their time in solitary not in years but in decades. Some are soul-deadening, such as William Blake describing his nearly 30 years of solitary in “A Sentence Worse Than Death”: “I’ve experienced times so difficult and felt boredom and loneliness to such a degree that it seemed to be a physical thing inside so thick it felt like it was choking me, trying to squeeze the sanity from my mind, the spirit from my soul, and the life from my body.” Other writers are startlingly articulate and unnervingly funny, despite the violence and grief spilled out on the page. Take Thomas Bartlett Whitaker, whose essay “A Nothing Would Do as Well” starts with an attention-getter: “The first time I met Mad Dog, he nearly shot me with a Hepatitis C–infected blowgun dart.” The stories by people victimized by solitary confinement are followed by articulate essays by medical and legal professionals about the human costs of the practice. In her introduction, Shourd says it best: “Locking a person in a box is a sick and perverse thing to do. It benefits no one—not even the governments who allow it. It’s torture.” A potent cry of anguish from men and women buried way down in the hole.
OPEN LETTER On Blasphemy, Islamophobia and the True Enemies of Free Expression
Charbonnier, Stéphane Little, Brown (96 pp.) $16.99 | Jan. 5, 2016 978-0-316-31133-5
The late Charlie Hebdo editor, murdered two days after completing this book, speaks about self-censorship, oppression, and religious zealotry. France has no direct equivalent of the First Amendment, and so a satirical publication such as Charlie is subject to attack on all sides, official and otherwise. Catholic clerics blustered against the magazine as much as any imam did, while the ruling government, which treats France like “a salami that the Socialist Party has the annoying tendency of slicing up into special-interest groups,” was never quick to defend Charlie’s right to be a gadfly. So writes “Charb” Charbonnier, who is quick to assert his atheism and leftism and to stick it to whatever deity one wishes to propose: to be a believer, he insists, is “above all, to fear,” while a God with the powers ascribed to him “is big enough to take care of himself ” and does not require the interventions of mullahs or bishops. Charb’s nose-tweaking sometimes drifts into the juvenile, obscuring his more serious message: namely, that people who hate Islam really hate Muslims. As a thought experiment, he invites us to consider who would lose his job 114
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Fascinating to dip into casually and essential to students of the Kennedy administration, the Cold War, and late-20th-century world history. the presidential recordings
first, a European convert to Islam or an Arab immigrant—and that bigotry is bigotry no matter whom it is directed against. Professing irritated amusement with the spectacle of death threats being issued against cartoonists, Charb takes on “God’s wingnuts,” a vision of a supreme being as someone who is “mean as fuck and dumb as a plank,” and “a few purportedly Muslim wackos” with gleeful abandon, even as he acknowledges—and as events proved—how dangerous his stance is. The logic is sometimes wobbly: to criticize Charlie is not necessarily to side with radical Islam any more than criticizing America, contra Bush, meant siding with al-Qaida. And, being so brief, the book is cursory, sometimes too much so. Nevertheless, this is a welcome and necessary essay in provocation—a lively, readable hornet-stirring in defense of free expression.
ZERO FOOTPRINT The True Story of a Private Military Contractor’s Covert Assignments in Syria, Libya, and the World’s Most Dangerous Places Chase, Simon & Pezzullo, Ralph Mulholland Books/Little, Brown (320 pp.) $28.00 | Jan. 12, 2016 978-0-316-34224-7
A well-developed look inside the life and work of an accomplished private military contractor. Formerly with the British Royal Marines and British special forces, Chase (a pen name, aided in this absorbing narrative by co-author Pezzullo) found an enticing and lucrative segue as a private military operator in such dangerous hot spots as Afghanistan and Iraq from 1999 until recently. Hired to do “the dirty and dangerous jobs the military and intelligence services can’t or don’t want to do,” Chase initially found his special services attractive to companies like Scimitar Security, which needed to provide security to the prime minister of Qatar. After 9/11, however, the jobs became increasingly perilous and high level, involving the U.S. government’s need to arm and support the Afghan Northern Alliance against the Taliban and even track Osama bin Laden in the caves of Tora Bora in 2004—a disastrous mission that accomplished very little and cost the lives of three members of Chase’s team. In Iraq, Chase was part of the U.S. government’s efforts to rebuild the country. Specialforces units needed to do “recon and hearts-and-minds work” in remote areas where sympathy for foreigners was never ensured. Since the U.S. government could not be caught openly aiding the rebels against the Syrian regime, it hired contractors like Chase to help arm the Free Syrian Army (“zero footprint”) and even, according to his spectacular revelations, ascertain firsthand whether President Bashar al-Assad was using chemical weapons on the rebels. Another amazing depiction involves the attack on the U.S. Embassy compound in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, where Chase found himself fortuitously, having been |
hired to do gunrunning and doing business with some of the same jihadis he had previously been fighting. Throughout, the author candidly shares the emotional toll that the constant danger took on his life and the lives of his colleagues. Detailed, acronym-mad, well-wrought, and exciting.
THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDINGS John F. Kennedy Volumes IV-VI: The Winds of Change: October 29, 1962February 7, 1963 Coleman, David & Naftali, Timothy & Zelikow, Philip—Eds. Norton (1,728 pp.) $150.00 | Feb. 8, 2016 978-0-393-08124-4
Three months, 1,700 pages. But what months they were: a season in the midterm administration of John F. Kennedy marked by faltering polls, the aftermath of near nuclear war, and one crisis after another. Yes, JFK secretly taped conversations in the White House, just like Nixon—and Johnson, Eisenhower, Truman, and Roosevelt. Nixon’s problem was refusing to acknowledge that his tapes existed. Kennedy, write the editors of this exhaustive set of transcripts, most probably taped in order to preserve moments for his post–White House memoir, and they “find no evidence that he taped only self-flattering moments.” Indeed, the tapes find the president wondering whether he’d been responsible for the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, the immediate results of which occupy him and his advisers in the first 1,000 pages of this collection, housed at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. The present set of volumes opens the day after the crisis, “the world’s closest brush with global thermonuclear war,” ended; it closes with Kennedy still preoccupied with the cat and mouse of dealing with Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev even as other leaders—from France’s Charles de Gaulle to emboldened Congressional Republicans at home—jockeyed to take advantage of changes in global realpolitik. One of those changes was a perceptible rise in American military readiness: as the editors note, on Nov. 4, the Strategic Air Command reached the peak of its force, such that “if the President ordered retaliatory strikes against the Soviet Union on this day, 1,749 nuclear bombers and 182 ballistic nuclear missiles were ready.” Even so, the collection sees Kennedy and aides such as Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara resisting the military’s demands for more funding and new weapons. For instance, said Kennedy to his chief military adviser of a submarine-mounted missile, “I don’t see quite why we’re building as many as we’re building.” Fascinating to dip into casually and essential to students of the Kennedy administration, the Cold War, and late-20th-century world history. (3-volume slipcased hardcover)
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THE POWER AND INDEPENDENCE OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE
THE FEVER OF 1721 The Epidemic that Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics
Conti-Brown, Peter Princeton Univ. (368 pp.) $35.00 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-691-16400-7
An examination of the origins, evolution, structures, and functions of the American government’s most opaque institution. This country’s argument over the wisdom, indeed the constitutionality, of a central bank is as old as Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Now, after 100 years of the Federal Reserve System, the Hamiltonians have won the debate, but confusion about the Fed’s role and unease with its extraordinary power persists. Indeed, groups as disparate as the tea party and Occupy Wall Street are prepared to abolish it. Conti-Brown (Legal Studies and Business Ethics/Univ. of Pennsylvania; co-editor: When States Go Broke: The Origins, Context, and Solutions for the American States in Fiscal Crisis, 2012) touches only lightly on the Fed’s controversial history and rejects radical reforms such as auditing the Fed or establishing a default monetary policy rule. He argues in favor of simplifying the Fed’s governance, reforming the Board of Governors and the Federal Reserve Banks, and making more of the professional staff subject to presidential appointment. These sensible proposals emerge organically after the author’s focused discussion of the Fed’s many missions and the various internal and external constituencies that shape its policy. Conti-Brown stresses two principal themes: that it’s not enough to look only at the Fed’s legal architecture to understand it properly and that assessing the institution through the lens of its vaunted “independence” is not analytically useful. It’s too much to say that the author humanizes the Fed, but he goes a long way toward demystifying it. A creature of statute, yes, but the Fed is also a product of political compromise shot through with features that can only be understood by knowing history, by understanding how law and personalities relate one to another, and by accepting that in a democracy, politics and ideology are rarely inseparable from any governmental enterprise. Generalists will appreciate Conti-Brown’s gentle handholding, and specialists will argue over his analytical slant that dispenses with a narrow and legalistic view of what the Fed’s all about.
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Coss, Stephen Simon & Schuster (356 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 8, 2016 978-1-4767-8308-6
In his debut, Wisconsin-based historian Coss examines the Colonial smallpox epidemic and how it influenced the forging of American identity and politics. The outbreak of smallpox in Boston in 1721, though long overdue, caused panic and coverup, as reported in this compelling though slightly overlong narrative. The HMS Seahorse was certainly carrying smallpox-infested passengers from England when shipmates were allowed to shuttle into Boston in April, spreading the virus around town and causing outbreak by May. The eminent minister Cotton Mather, undergoing personal crises at this point (even though the trauma of the Salem witch trials were 30 years behind him) and still determined to continue progress in the community through his effective leadership, grasped the efficacy of inoculation through Royal Society articles and began to promote it. Meanwhile, a crusading Boston physician and apothecary, Zabdiel Boylston, resolved to attempt the inoculation procedure, using his own son and slave as patients, in defiance of the town meeting that condemned the procedure. (Inoculation had already been undertaken in London.) James Franklin (Benjamin’s older brother), the Boston publisher of the New-England Courant, first attacked the cause of inoculation and let the public controversy within his pages fuel his circulation. All these public-health events foamed around the ongoing resentment of the vilified governor, Samuel Shute, who was battling for supremacy in the Massachusetts House. Franklin’s “taunting and belligerent” Courant offered outrageous editorial commentary on a running dispute over official reaction to meeting Native American aggression, and the publisher was jailed as a result. Coss valiantly weaves these threads together, though these are only some of the many roiling disputes of the day; in the end, the convergence entailing Franklin’s Courant seems somewhat forced. Nonetheless, Coss offers a fascinating glimpse inside the Boston mindset of the era. A solid first book in which impressive documentation undergirds an ambitious assertion.
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In this incredible-seeming but deeply researched book, the author traces the phenomenal rise of the California-based corporation that became famous for building the Hoover Dam. the profiteers
THE PROFITEERS Bechtel and the Men Who Built the World
Denton, Sally Simon & Schuster (384 pp.) $30.00 | Feb. 16, 2016 978-1-4767-0646-7
Investigative journalist Denton (The Plots Against the President: FDR, A Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right, 2012, etc.) offers an ambitious “empire biography” of the Bechtel family and the secretive, privately held construction company–turned–diversified international conglomerate that has been “inextricably enmeshed” in U.S. foreign policy for seven decades. In this incredible-seeming but deeply researched book, the author traces the phenomenal rise of the California-based corporation that became famous for building the Hoover Dam and went on to handle billion-dollar projects from the Channel Tunnel to the Big Dig; to construct airports, power plants, and entire cities; to
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cart away the wreckage of the World Trade Center and rebuild Iraq; to privatize America’s nuclear weapons business (assuming control of Los Alamos, etc.); and, in the end, to complete 25,000 projects in 160 countries. Now the world’s largest contractor, with offices in 50 nations, Bechtel, from 1999 to 2013, received $40 billion in contracts from the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense. “Despite its fiercely antiregulatory, antigovernment stance,” writes Denton, “the Bechtel family owes its entire fortune to the U.S. government.” She describes the dizzying revolving door between Bechtel’s headquarters and the federal government: Bechtel executives that include John McCone, George P. Shultz, and Casper Weinberger have passed through, forging links with the CIA and other government agencies and leading to favorable contracts and subsidies. Whether in war-torn Europe, the Middle East, or elsewhere, it has always been “difficult to determine if Bechtel was doing favors for the US government, or if it was the other way around.” Parts of this mammoth story have been told before, but Denton has shaped it into a taut, page-turning narrative detailing the company’s machinations under five generations of family leadership. She concludes that the firm is “either a brilliant triumph or an iconic symbol of grotesque capitalism.”
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THE MAKING OF THE AMERICAN ESSAY
Filled with stories of cronyism and influence peddling, Denton’s riveting and revealing book will undoubtedly displease the so-called “boys from Bechtel,” who refused to talk to Denton, referring her to the company website.
INTO THE MAGIC SHOP A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart
Doty, James R. Avery (288 pp.) $25.95 | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-59463-298-3
A Stanford neurosurgeon and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education relates how to achieve lofty life goals by harnessing the power of both the brain and the heart. When Doty was an adolescent, he had a chance encounter at a magic shop with a benevolent older woman named Ruth, who over the next few weeks instructed him on a series of empowering mind-body exercises that would dramatically alter the direction of his life. Having grown up in impoverished circumstances in Lancaster, California, with an alcoholic father and depressed, suicidal mother, he would go on to achieve phenomenal success and wealth as a surgeon and entrepreneur. However, two episodes threatened to disrupt his future: a near-death experience from a car crash while still in medical residency and, later, a misguided business decision that led him to the brink of bankruptcy. By recalling Ruth’s guided exercises—most crucially, her instruction of first opening his heart—Doty was able to regain momentum in his career and eventually realize a more richly profound destiny. In this well-meaning hybrid of inspirational self-help book and memoir, the author applies scientific investigation to the example of his life story, proving that you can overcome adversity and achieve meaningful success and enlightenment by embracing compassion along with focused willpower. “When our brains and our hearts are working in collaboration—we are happier, we are healthier, and we automatically express love, kindness, and care for one another,” he writes. “I knew this intuitively, but I needed to validate it scientifically. This was the motivation to begin researching compassion and altruism. I wanted to understand the evolution of not only why we evolved such behavior but also how it affects the brain and ultimately our health.” An optimistic and engagingly well-told life story that incorporates scientific investigation into its altruistic message.
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D’Agata, John—Ed. Graywolf (656 pp.) $25.00 paper | Mar. 15, 2016 978-1-55597-734-4 A literary anthology and textbook incorporating some three dozen presumably teachable essays—some of which are not essays at all. Why would Charles Reznikoff ’s Testimony: The United States (1934), a classic of modernist poetry, figure in an anthology devoted to the essay? We’ll never know, apart from the whispery suggestion that the poem had its origins in court transcripts that were then broken into lines of verse “to accentuate common speech”—thus, presumably, qualifying as an essay. But what of T.S. Eliot’s “Dry Salvages,” the third of his famed four quartets? Again, D’Agata (Creative Writing/Univ. of Iowa; About a Mountain, 2010, etc.) offers an indistinct distinction in which an essay is presumably a piece that addresses “how each of us individually processes perception, how experience is layered, and knowledge uncertain.” At this point, Montaigne would be reaching for his rapier. The value added to an anthology of any sort is the interpretation of the pieces that make it up on top of whatever rarity or literary quality they might have. In this regard, the editor’s glancing notes are far from useful; although admittedly poetic and spiritually embracing, his remark that the book finds its contents “situated as essays always are between chance and contrivance, between the given and the made” is completely unhelpful. As for rarity? Any anthology that includes Henry David Thoreau’s “Walking,” available in dozens of other anthologies and hundreds of websites, lacks vigor; several hundred pages are in the public domain and readily available elsewhere. What about literary quality? In that regard, the anthology shines, for there are some very good things, including selections from the captivity narratives (not essays, mind you) of Mary Rowlandson, albeit without meaningful interpretation of her place in literary history; from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s now little-read The Crack-Up, ditto; and from Gay Talese’s essential but still already muchreprinted “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.” The editors of the Norton anthologies need not worry: their position in literature and in the market remains secure.
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Egan’s impeccable research, uncomplicated readability, and flowing narrative reflect his deep knowledge of a difficult and complex man. the immortal irishman
THE IMMORTAL IRISHMAN Thomas Meager and the Invention of Irish America
THIS IS AN UPRISING How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century
Engler, Mark & Engler, Paul Nation Books/Perseus (368 pp.) $26.99 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-56858-733-2
Egan, Timothy Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (384 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 1, 2016 978-0-544-27288-0
The story of Thomas Meagher (18231867), an Irishman radicalized by the famine who became a hero on three continents. New York Times columnist Egan (Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis, 2012, etc.), winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, could have written multiple books about Meagher’s broad successes. He was a natural-born orator, and his gift encouraged his fellow Irish in hopes of freedom sooner, rather than “in time,” as per the Great Liberator, Daniel O’Connell. The author imparts the desperation of the starving families while pointing to the many wealthy Catholics and Protestants who worked to achieve liberty. During the Great Famine, England exported 1.5 billion pounds of grain as well as more beef than any other colony, while millions starved without the blighted potatoes that sustained them. After a fiery speech in Conciliation Hall and a betrayal by John Balfe, the English arrested Meagher and a handful of others for speaking out. Meagher was sent to Tasmania, and while he was not put into forced labor, he had limited contact with his fellow Irish. Discovering that the traitor Balfe had been given a land grant, he sent an anonymous series of letters to the press, exposing his perfidy. Eventually, with help from his wealthy father, he escaped. His reputation preceded him, and his welcome in America was riotous. His leadership and oration made him a great recruiter of his fellow countrymen during the Civil War. A different side of the Civil War emerges as the author describes the frustrations of war under Gen. George McClellan and the devotion of Meagher’s men. Exhausted after Chancellorsville, Meagher resigned and moved to Montana with his wife, where he fought yet again against a rabid vigilance committee. A fascinating, well-told story by an author fully committed to his subject. Egan’s impeccable research, uncomplicated readability, and flowing narrative reflect his deep knowledge of a difficult and complex man. (11 b/w illustrations)
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Optimistic overview of the recent surge in politically directed, nonviolent mass advocacy movements, focused on historical examples and the tactical future. Co-authors Mark Engler (How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy, 2008) and Paul Engler, founding director of the Center for the Working Poor, collaborate on a cleareyed, enthusiastic treatise, seeing evidence in diverse historical and recent events that collective civil actions are supplanting violent rebellions in creating social change. At the outset, they wonder, “what if periods of mass,
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spontaneous uprising are neither as spontaneous nor as unbridled as they might at first appear?” They build their response around a number of longitudinal real-world examples, ranging from Martin Luther King’s 1963 campaign in Birmingham to Gandhi’s 1930 “salt march,” which discredited the British Raj, to the recent Occupy protests. They synthesize these narratives with an overview of effective strategies, based on theorists Saul Alinsky, Frances Fox Piven, and Gene Sharp (an obscure academic considered a perennial favorite for the Nobel Peace Prize), producing a clearly organized mix of history and handbook. Although King was an early proponent of “momentum-driven mass mobilization,” the Englers note that his approach was more improvisational and high-risk than is historically remembered. They hold up the surprisingly quick mainstream acceptance of gay marriage as an example of successful legislation and networking; in contrast, the divisive tactics of ACT UP in response to the 1980s AIDS crisis produced both backlash and effective change. In a chapter on organizational discipline, the authors examine how the Weather Underground’s destructive approach essentially crippled the New Left. Although the authors write with clear passion regarding these examples of dramatic social change, they acknowledge that the Arab Spring has provided a counternarrative: “the revolution in Egypt presents a troubling case.... Not all efforts to create change prevail over the long term.” A usefully organized, concise history of social movements that will appeal to newer generations of activists.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN LONDON The British Life of America’s Founding Father
Goodwin, George Yale Univ. (352 pp.) $32.50 | Feb. 16, 2016 978-0-300-22024-7
A fleshed-out examination of Benjamin Franklin’s affinity with England. British scholar Goodwin (Fatal Rivalry: Flodden, 1513: Henry VIII and James IV and the Decisive Battle for Renaissance Britain, 2013, etc.) takes up the case of Franklin’s time in England, which proved to be quite fruitful. Franklin spent two stints in London, first as a young printer’s apprentice learning the trade between 1724 and 1726 and then as a mature professional, scientist, author, and political representative for the Pennsylvania Assembly and Deputy Postmaster for America between 1757 and 1775. By the end, in the midst of the full-blown Colonial insurrection, Franklin was compelled to travel home to Philadelphia just prior to his arrest as what Parliament referred to as “one of the bitterest and most mischievous Enemies this Country had ever known.” The gentleman philosopher and winner of the Royal Society’s highest award for his groundbreaking work in electrical conduction, Franklin was warmly welcomed and celebrated in London when he first arrived in 1757. Enjoying a comfortable life on Craven Street, 120
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being admitted into the houses of the influential, and partaking in an intellectual flirtation with the young Polly Stevenson, Franklin nonetheless maneuvered discreetly but effectively to press for American grievances—e.g., against the Stamp Act and Quartering Act. However, his initial resistance to these strictures underestimated the American mood of revolt, and he soon actively propounded reconciliation for the benefit especially of less-restrictive trade and commerce between motherland and colony. Goodwin threads Franklin’s way among diverse British-American influences with a light, sure touch and fascinating detail. Overall, Franklin is shown as an astute player of men who subscribed to his own Poor Richard saying: “Let all Men know thee, but no man know thee thoroughly.” The British author provides finely textured, subtle shading to a well-known American Founding Father.
ORIGINALS How Non-Conformists Move the World
Grant, Adam Viking (336 pp.) $27.95 | Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-525-42956-2
A blend of old and new—and sometimes original—informs this pop-science piece on creativity and its discontents. Grant (Wharton Business School; Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success, 2013) has a flair for the novel and the outwardly puzzling, though the writing is merely capable and the book likely to have “negligible impact” against leviathans such as Daniel Kahneman and Malcolm Gladwell. Unkind words, but Grant sets them up, observing that negative book reviews sound 14 percent smarter than positive ones, so we’re being self-serving in our negativity. Self-service is to the point, since, by Grant’s account, institutions that are friendly to innovation are also generous of spirit, creating “strong cultures of commitment” and building an atmosphere of love and collegiality, even familiarity. Along the way to discussing how creativity flourishes—and it does indeed hinge on nonconformity, as the subtitle promises, which is by way of saying that it requires risk—Grant lands on such things as how parents encourage children just the right amount: a parent who successfully encourages a child to be independent, an explorer of the world, has to step back and allow that child to find greater models than himself or herself. As Grant puts it, provocatively, “Parents aren’t the best role models.” Interestingly, the author turns back to the old birth-order hypothesis, in which firstborns and laterborns have different approaches to risk and thus different creative abilities; he finds it to have validity, “a better predictor of personality and behavior than I had expected.” Grant sometimes gets tangled in jargon, but he turns up some fascinating tidbits, including the observation that “our intuitions are only accurate in domains where we have a lot of experience”—an insight worth the cover price alone.
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Another thought-provoking winner from Grayling. the age of genius
A mixed bag but of interest to readers looking to jumpstart their creative powers and raise quick-witted children.
THE AGE OF GENIUS The Seventeenth Century and the Birth of the Modern Mind Grayling, A.C. Bloomsbury (352 pp.) $30.00 | Mar. 10, 2016 978-1-62040-344-0
A British philosopher examines a century of profound intellectual change. In this sweeping, lively historical survey, Grayling (Philosophy/New Coll. of the Humanities, London; The Challenge of Things: Thinking Through Troubled Times, 2015, etc.) argues vigorously that in the 17th century, an “age of strife and genius,” humankind experienced “the greatest ever change in...mental outlook.” Certainly the century was
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peopled by some major figures, including Descartes (the subject of one of Grayling’s biographies), Shakespeare, Cervantes, Milton, Hobbes, Spinoza, Pascal, Galileo, Newton, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. Besides giving an overview of their contributions, the author reveals how they interacted in the rich “republic of letters” in which they shared ideas. Letter writing, he contends, flourished because of the availability of cheap paper and both public and private postal services. Significant among the busy correspondents was a French Minim monk, Marin Mersenne, whom the author describes as “the seventeenth century’s closest thing to an internet server”—he corresponded with about 150 leading mathematicians, astronomers, and philosophers and fostered the sharing of their ideas. It was Mersenne, Grayling notes, who put Descartes together with Pascal. Also influential in disseminating ideas was the polymath Samuel Hartlib, who boasted nearly 500 correspondents across Europe, including Galileo, and wrote dozens of letters each day. Grayling sets the robust intellectual life against the politics of the day, which saw unrest, upheaval, and almost constant war. Only for three years was there no fighting; war was “the normal condition of the time; war was the wallpaper.” Nevertheless, war pushed
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scientific innovation as armies sought improved weaponry. Grayling examines scientific change more broadly, contrasting religious and occult perspectives on understanding nature with the rise of the scientific method. By the end of the century, faith had been repudiated as a method of inquiry. Out of a “fractured and fractious time,” the author asserts persuasively, the medieval mind evolved into the modern. Another thought-provoking winner from Grayling.
FREE REFILLS A Doctor Confronts His Addiction Grinspoon, Peter Hachette (240 pp.) $27.00 | Feb. 16, 2016 978-0-316-38270-0
The memoir of a doctor whose addiction derailed his career offers flashes of illumination amid clouds of defensiveness and denial. If there really is a textbook case of a delusional addict, the narrative perspective here could provide that textbook. Early on, Grinspoon admits that “the problem at this point was that I was still blaming everyone and everything else for what I was going through: Work was so stressful, H. was such an unforgiving bitch, and it was exhausting being a parent to two small children.” What he was going through was a felony arrest for writing false prescriptions for narcotics to feed his addiction. Work was his role as a primary care physician, one in which he showed little empathy and seemed to receive less satisfaction: “It’s not human nature to be that caring all day long.” H. is, of course, his wife, and his attitude toward her (and hers toward him) seems harsher as the narrative progresses, though he occasionally admits that being married to a lying, self-sabotaging addict was no walk in the park. Their children ultimately provide more than exhaustion, though being caught between two parents who couldn’t stand each other couldn’t be much fun for them. Grinspoon never developed much appreciation for the lawyer who navigated his way through rehab, suspension, and a return to the practice of medicine; felt unfairly targeted by drug tests that he knew he couldn’t fail but did; and never showed anything but contempt for 12-step programs (“I didn’t want anything more to do with AA for the next thousand lifestyles”). The author resents the judgment passed by alcoholics who think they are somehow morally superior to drug addicts, yet he passes judgment on practically everyone the narrative encompasses. His recovery from addiction seems to end on a positive note, but every addict knows that a positive test is just one slip away. Grinspoon’s story is instructive, with readers potentially learning more than the author has.
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REDEEMING THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR
Guelzo, Allen C. Harvard Univ. (208 pp.) $22.95 | Feb. 12, 2016 978-0-674-28611-5
Lincoln scholar Guelzo (Civil War Era/Gettysburg Coll.; Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, 2013, etc.) explores race in America as an element of African-American history as affected by Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Declaration. Lincoln condemned slavery politically and economically but never with a mention of the racial aspect. He thought of slaves as being equal but not equal enough for the vote; in fact, he did not favor any equality of civil privilege. He never spoke of slaves as black. He believed in the separation of the races and did not want slavery to be allowed in the new territories because he wanted “them for the homes of free white people.” The author points to Lincoln’s deeper aims. He felt that slaveholders, in their greed for profit, threatened the white man’s charter of freedom, the Declaration of Independence. He saw slavery as an outrage against the law of nature. Self-determination for states was equally wrong, as a mere majority rule cannot reverse natural law. If so, when the majority turns its restrictive power against you, you will be unprotected. Guelzo provides a wonderful section on reparations, pointing out the difficulties of who should sue whom and for what. The author points out that, as only state laws allowed slavery, there is no statutory culpability in federal court. Finally, he delves into Lincoln’s religion. He was not a member of an established church but read and quoted the Bible with ease. He once said, “if General Lee was driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the declaration of freedom to the slaves.” The author includes the political achievements of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington’s economic work, and W.E.B. Du Bois’ cultural determination to further illuminate our perceptions of race and responsibility. A clear, concise look at one aspect of Lincoln, the man and the president.
THE MATH MYTH And Other STEM Delusions Hacker, Andrew New Press (240 pp.) $25.95 | Mar. 1, 2016 978-1-62097-068-3
A lively argument against the assumption that if the United States is to stay competitive in a global economy, our students require advanced training in mathematics. In this book, Hacker (Emeritus, Political Science/Queens Coll.; Mismatch: The Growing Gulf Between Women and Men, 2003, etc.) expands on his piece, “Is Algebra Necessary?” which appeared in the New York Times in 2012. The author is dismayed
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that students are required to pass mandated mathematics courses, pointing out that it is the principal academic reason for the high dropout rate in American high schools and colleges. He shows how the requirement filters out talented liberal arts students, that math in the workplace bears little relationship to math in the classroom, and that the claim that studying math instills desirable modes of thought is built on unverified premises. Further, he alleges that there is no shortage of qualified Americans to fill positions in the computer industry but that the industry prefers to hire foreigners at entry-level positions to keep wages low. To bolster his arguments, the author sprinkles his text with pages of speech balloons containing quotes from former students who agree with him, and he inserts difficultto-read white-on-black math problems made to look like an exercise in chalk on a classroom blackboard. Such devices are superfluous; Hacker’s prose is direct and clear. The final chapter, “Numeracy 101,” one of the most fascinating and rewarding in the book, features samples of the kind of material on quantitative reasoning Hacker believes should be taught and that he developed for an experimental introductory mathematics course. Readers who never took algebra, geometry, or calculus, or who have no recollections of what they learned in those courses, will be challenged and engaged by the exercises. Hacker’s arguments may convince some anxious students and be welcomed by their parents, but the reaction from academics is sure to be mixed.
theaters: “There wasn’t much logic or background explained to us. We were like ‘rent-a-muscle.’ ” He notes that a certain coldbloodedness is essential for the sniper: “Due to the magnification of the scope, you do tend to see the person you are about to shoot.” Even after being wounded by an IED, Harrison was returned for combat to Afghanistan. He excels at capturing the nitty-gritty of being an operating high-end combat sniper, ably discussing equipment, optics, shooting theory, and stalking tactics. Seeing the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts through the eyes of a British soldier also helps the book stand out. Otherwise, a sense of the author’s inner life does not really develop beyond the laconic conservatism one might expect. Will appeal to fans of unapologetically brutal military writing.
THE LONGEST KILL The Story of Maverick 41, One of the World’s Greatest Snipers Harrison, Craig St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $26.99 | Feb. 16, 2016 978-1-250-08523-8
Gritty combat memoir by an elite British sniper. Harrison’s memoir focuses on the technical aspects of high-level gunfighting, as battle-tested during his multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. He opens with a tense encounter in Afghanistan, setting up the shot that would earn a world record for a long-distance kill, then downshifts into recounting his hardscrabble, dreary childhood. Things pick up for Harrison and readers when he signs on at age 16 with the British Household Cavalry. He learned about the ugly realities of war during a posting in the Balkans, where he bore witness to Serbian war crimes, and then a tour of Iraq that “had come close to breaking me.” Instead, in 2006, he pestered his way into sniper school: “I just kept asking—literally for years— until I ground them down.” As in the United States, the training is grueling, yet Harrison persevered, winning top student. His new skills served him well in 2007, he notes, when “I was back for another tour in the shithole that was Iraq.” Promoted to command after his first Afghanistan tour, the author documents frequent ambushes and grisly combat tableaux in both |
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A stimulating and sure-to-be discussed critique of monotheism. putting god second
TRUE CRIMES A Family Album
Harrison, Kathryn Random House (240 pp.) $28.00 | Apr. 5, 2016 978-1-4000-6348-2
Memoirist and novelist Harrison (Creative Writing/Hunter Coll.; Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured, 2014, etc.) again taps the well of her personal life for a series of essays dealing with long-standing preoccupations and compulsive navel-gazing, the result being an alternately compelling and uncomfortable reading experience. While many readers will sympathize with the author, admiring her candor, courage, and flashes of excellent writing, these pieces will connect most strongly with readers as neurotic as she is—those prone to hand-wringing, crying jags, and obsessing, sometimes for decades, over the same, possibly unresolvable issues. For Harrison, writing is not merely catharsis, but dissection, a meticulous reading of the entrails of her experiences. Memory is the linchpin of the book, but the author is smart enough to know that memory is unreliable. In piece after piece, Harrison revisits (and re-evaluates) her anguish and confusion over her resentful young mother, a manipulative father (the author chronicled her incestuous relationship with him in The Kiss), her emotionally insatiable grandmother, the death of her much-loved father-in-law, and her fascination with Joan of Arc. The author also explores the joys of a happy marriage and the pleasures of raising three children, but it is the pain that lingers. Harrison is at her best in such essays as the moving “Mini-Me” and the incisive “The Forest of Memory,” while the title essay offers what is perhaps the most interesting weave: luridly macabre imagination twined with real-life experience. Given the autobiographical design of the collection, it may seem churlish to attack the book for going where the author so often has gone before; yet Harrison is selfaware to the point of self-absorption and self-effacing to a fault. However, the author’s intelligence shines, and these ruminations may encourage some to confront their own anxieties.
PUTTING GOD SECOND How to Save Religion from Itself
Hartman, Donniel Beacon (208 pp.) $24.95 | Feb. 16, 2016 978-0-8070-5392-8
Why, asks Hartman (The Boundaries of Judaism, 2007, etc.), do so many religious groups and individuals fail to live up to the standards of their faith traditions? 124
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Why do people who purport to follow an almighty and benevolent God so often resort to contention at best, violence at worst? Hartman asserts that religion maintains innate “autoimmune diseases” that stem not from the ethical failings of individual believers but from built-in faults of religion itself. He identifies two such problems. First is “God intoxication,” which causes followers to place God ahead of all moral and ethical decisions. Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son without argument or hesitation is the prime biblical example. Such thinking leads to individual acts of injury against innocent people in the name of God’s honor. Second, “God manipulation” is characterized by the belief that God is on the side of a particular faith tradition, blessing and nurturing that group’s actions over and against those of other faiths. This thinking has led to the cycles of religiously induced violence seen throughout human history. Hartman addresses ways in which faith traditions can break free of these “diseases.” Namely, he advocates putting God second while putting ethical considerations first. “Religion will be saved from itself, its autoimmune diseases cured once and for all,” writes the author, “when we recognize that by putting God second, we put God’s will first.” As Hartman notes, “God is not in competition with the ethical, for God desires the ethical above all else.” The author realizes that some of his conclusions will lead to controversy, but he believes religion must overcome these problems in order to flourish in modernity. By invoking a wide array of ancient Jewish sources, Hartman forms a learned, solid argument for changing the direction of Judaism and, more widely, of monotheism itself. By challenging religion’s deepest understanding of its role, Hartman pleads for change. A stimulating and sure-to-be discussed critique of monotheism.
SNOWBALL IN A BLIZZARD A Physician’s Notes on Uncertainty in Medicine Hatch, Steven Basic (320 pp.) $27.99 | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-465-05064-2
An exploration of the uncertainty that lies at the heart of Western medicine. Hatch (Medicine/Univ. of Massachusetts Medical School), an infectious disease specialist, seeks to help patients understand the consequences of this uncertainty. He presents a spectrum of uncertainty, ranging from strong evidence supporting a high confidence of benefit through pure speculation all the way to strong evidence supporting a high confidence of harm. His focus is the middle of the spectrum, the known unknowns, where much of medicine functions. The opening chapters deal with uncertainty in diagnosis, which takes the author into a discussion of the debate over screening for prostate cancers and breast cancers—reading a mammogram can be as tricky as looking for a snowball in a blizzard. In the next section, Hatch considers uncertainty in treatment, including controversies over how to treat hypertension and
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Lyme disease. The author also examines uncertainty in drug trials, how the media deal with uncertainty in their reporting, and how patients can best use their knowledge of these uncertainties. In writing, Hatch strives to find “that sweet spot where readability and scholarliness overlap.” Generally, he succeeds, telling stories that clarify the points he’s making, and he even includes a highly personal anecdote that shows him struggling to deal with doctors who were sure they knew the right treatment for his elderly, hospitalized father. The illustrations, however, often seem to have been lifted straight from academic papers and add little to the text. A challenging appendix on the concept of statistical significance provides more information on the subject for curious readers. For doctors, Hatch’s message is that it is acceptable to say, “I don’t know.” For patients, he suggests asking lots of questions and remembering that your doctor should be your guide, not your director. Hatch ably reveals the shortcomings of medicine but is less successful in providing guidance for those trying to find their ways through the confusion.
Beecroft’s performance pieces, like vb45, deploy the “rhetoric of painting in the space of sculpture,” positioning women, often nude, in various poses for hours at a time. Hickey has piquant, insightful things to say about all of these artists. Some readers will find cause for disagreement, but these fun-to-read essays delight, intrigue, and, most of all, educate.
25 WOMEN Essays on Their Art
Hickey, Dave Univ. of Chicago (192 pp.) $29.00 | Jan. 28, 2016 978-0-226-33315-1
Idiosyncratic assessments of contemporary women painters, sculptors, and installation and performance artists by an enfant terrible of art criticism. Hickey (Pirates and Farmers: Essays on Taste, 2013, etc.), now 74, has been a thorn in the side of art criticism for years. In “A Ladies’ Man,” the introduction to this admirable collection, he admits loving women, his most favorite people. The essays have no agenda or art politics and little feminism: “There is a lot of euphony, death, vogue, fanciful narrative, and fugitive nuance.” The author often talks about the art by talking about something else, “lest writing shatter the art like a fragile leaf in clumsy hands.” All of the artists are alive and working except Sarah Charlesworth and Joan Mitchell, one of Hickey’s favorites. Her abstracts, like “classical epigrams...intertwine the light and dark, the petulance and grandeur.” Rowdy and fearless, she “got into the same car everyone else did,” but she “drove it in the opposite direction, back toward the hard, Godless specifics of living.” Hickey’s writing is clever, straightforward, and honest. Literary quotes abound. He draws on Gilles Deleuze’s concept of “plasticity” to describe the “bounded experimentation” of Bridget Riley’s paintings, which destabilize the “entire zone between the beholder and the work.” Readers will no doubt discover artists they aren’t familiar with, such as Fiona Banner and her 2010 installation piece Harrier, in which the British plane hangs from the ceiling like a captured bird. Lynda Benglis’ vertical wax landscapes seemingly ooze out of a wall, and Michelle Fierro’s set pieces, “mandarin grunge,” create “Zen gardens out of painting’s refuse.” Vanessa |
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Jacoby draws the first detailed maps of a terrain that has been very much in need of intelligent, careful cartography. strange gods
SPAIN IN OUR HEARTS Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939
STRANGE GODS A Secular History of Conversion
Hochschild, Adam Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (464 pp.) $30.00 | Mar. 29, 2016 978-0-547-97318-0
A nuanced look at the messy international allegiances forged during the Spanish Civil War. Accomplished historian and Mother Jones co-founder Hochschild (To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 19141918, 2011, etc.) considers every facet of this complicated civil war, using personal narratives of some of the participants, especially the Americans in the Lincoln Brigade, for elucidation and depth. The war was not a clear-cut idealistic struggle between Republican and Fascist, good and bad, although the author delineates well how both sides had hoped it would be. With Francisco Franco’s right-wing military coup of July 1936, launched from Spanish Morocco and amply supplied by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, the Nationalists were on a reactionary mission to purge the country of the democratically elected Popular Front government, communists, union members, and anyone left-leaning and anti-Catholic. Hochschild points out that the revolution was very much a social upheaval, in which the class system was abolished, women were emancipated, and workers were allowed to own the farmland that they toiled. On one hand, the socialist euphoria erupting in the Basque and Catalonia regions attracted many left-leaning sympathizers in America and Europe, such as Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell. On the other hand, that very “virus of bolshevism” scared many conservative governments from offering military aid—e.g., England and isolationist-gripped America, where an arms embargo against Spain was declared and niftily skirted by Texaco’s chief Torkild Rieber, who supplied the oil for the German planes to bomb the country into submission. In desperation, Republican leaders reached out to the Soviet Union for military aid, further complicating the political mix. The author looks at the poignant stories of young American couples who helped galvanize world opinion while sacrificing their dreams for the bitter, brutal, anti-fascist struggle that proved merely the warm-up for the world war to come. Hochschild ably explores subtle shades of the conflict that contemporary authors and participants did not want to consider.
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Jacoby, Susan Pantheon (512 pp.) $29.95 | Feb. 16, 2016 978-0-375-42375-8
In a work blending culture, religion, history, biography, and a bit of memoir (with more than a soupcon of attitude), the author of The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought (2013, etc.) returns with a revealing historical analysis of religious conversions. Jacoby’s introduction uses the prism of her own family history of conversions to cast color on the topics she will cover. Then she begins her chronological pursuit of her story with Augustine, a pursuit that ends with the Islamic State and the enduring attempts to coerce conversions. Throughout, the author writes candidly about her own atheism and allows herself at times to snap at ferociously religious people; near the end, she mentions the “goofy religious myths” that allow groups of people to feel superior to others. In some sections, Jacoby uses key individuals to introduce and/or illuminate a topic or historical period. There are chapters on John Donne, Margaret Fell, Heinrich Heine, and—perhaps a surprise for some readers—Muhammad Ali, whose conversion to Islam was “inseparable from the contemporary social upheaval.” Jacoby argues that conversion is a far more complex issue than other writers have acknowledged. She spends lots of time on coercive conversions—from the early Roman Catholic Church to modern radical Islam—but she also shows how other factors cause conversions, including intermarriage and personal security. She celebrates the United States, which, from its beginning, refused to endorse a state religion—the founders had seen the consequences of this in the bloody European religious wars—noting that our vast geographical space also allowed various religious groups to establish their own communities and havens. The author, whose political and religious views will no doubt alienate some readers (not to mention her slashing comment about adult fans of Harry Potter!), impressively combines thorough research and passionate writing. Jacoby draws the first detailed maps of a terrain that has been very much in need of intelligent, careful cartography. (8 pages of b/w photos)
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THE KING’S BED Ambition and Intimacy in the Court of Charles II
IN EUROPE’S SHADOW Two Cold Wars and a ThirtyYear Journey Through Romania and Beyond
Jordan, Don & Walsh, Michael Pegasus (374 pp.) $28.95 | Mar. 15, 2016 978-1-60598-969-3
Jordan and Walsh (White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain’s White Slaves in America, 2007, etc.) look deeper into England’s “Merry Monarch” and his character—or lack thereof. The English civil war and his father’s execution, in 1649, forced Charles II, his mother, and his siblings to flee England, and his years of exile at the amoral French court shaped him profoundly. Following his restoration, his only aims were revenge and pleasure. To build their narrative, the authors make excellent use of a great wealth of resources. Contemporary correspondence, particularly between Charles and his younger sister, gives the most honest picture of the man. In addition, diarists Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn (who wrote about Charles II, “an excellent prince doubtless had he been less addicted to women”) bring out everyday life at court. Charles was a genial, affable man, but he was also selfish, trivial, and hateful of anything that got in the way of his pleasure. He had little interest in statecraft, calling Parliament only to wring money to give to his mistresses, and he generally ignored his capable men of state. He showered his women with titles, properties, and even income that should have gone to the Exchequer. He had a few chief mistresses among his innumerable flings. The first, Barbara Palmer, bore him multiple children and ruled him with countless demands and frequent tirades. His truest “friend” was Nell Gwyn, the actress who made few demands and amused the king greatly. There was also Louise de Kérouaille, a beauty sent by Louis XIV as a spy to promote France’s aim to conquer the Netherlands. Louis’ enormous bribes effectively put Charles in his pocket, and while Charles swore none influenced his decisions, it seems he had better things to do anyway. The authors’ easy, readable style makes this a solid biography of Charles II, full of sturdy history and enough salacious information to keep it interesting. (8 pages of color and b/w illustrations)
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Kaplan, Robert D. Random House (320 pp.) $28.00 | Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-8129-9681-4
Romania was a journalistic backwater when the author’s bestselling Balkan Ghosts appeared in 1993. In this equally captivating sequel, veteran journalist Kaplan (Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific, 2014, etc.) brings matters up to 2015. The Ukraine is across the border, Russia and the Middle East just beyond; all are hot spots putting increasing stress on Romania, which is making remarkable progress after 40 miserable years as a Soviet satellite following 10 as a Nazi ally. Its leader during the final 24 years of Soviet rule, Nicolae Ceauşescu, enjoyed praise from the free world for his independence from Moscow, but he ran a particularly oppressive and corrupt government, “nothing less than a very Latinstyle tyranny, a blend of Joseph Stalin and Juan Perón in the underbelly of Eastern Europe.” His murder by revolutionaries in 1989 left an impoverished nation with no democratic traditions, a situation that Kaplan described vividly in Balkan Ghosts. Repeating his technique in this book, the author zigzags around the country and occasionally beyond, admiring the landscape, describing the cities (crumbling Stalinist architecture giving way to vast malls and apartment complexes, with the occasional jewel from earlier centuries), and interviewing government officials, surviving apparatchiks, intellectuals, historians, and fellow journalists. He seems to have read every novel, history, and scholarly work on his subject and quotes liberally, delivering a scattershot, often contradictory, and always entertaining avalanche of opinions on Romania’s history, national character, and worries (mostly, again, about Russia). Kaplan does not promote Romania, but he has written a journalistic tour de force that will convince readers that it’s a fascinating place whose people, past, and current geopolitical dilemma deserve our attention.
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An action-packed, nondidactic examination of how Israel’s special operation units rose to the challenge of the Palestinian intifada. the ghost warriors
NATIVE Dispatches from an IsraeliPalestinian Life
THE GHOST WARRIORS Inside Israel’s Undercover War Against Suicide Terrorism
Kashua, Sayed Translated by Mandel, Ralph Grove (304 pp.) $24.00 | Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-8021-2455-5
Katz, Samuel M. Berkley Caliber (432 pp.) $26.95 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-59240-901-3
A journalist and novelist’s sharp-eyed take on his life as a Hebrew-speaking Palestinian in Jerusalem. In this collection of columns for Haaretz, a weekly Israeli newspaper, Kashua (Israel Studies/Univ. of Illinois; Second Person Singular, 2012, etc.) illuminates the condition of Palestinians in Israel by offering humorous, and at times painful, anecdotes about his own life. In the opening essay, the author establishes the satiric tone that characterizes the text, poking fun at himself as “a chronic liar [and] gossip” by assuming the voice of his long-suffering wife. Kashua then goes on to detail the inconveniences that his family suffers as ethnic and religious minorities in Jerusalem. Believers in a bicultural, bilingual Israel, the author and his wife found their ideals under constant siege. In “High Tech,” for example, he describes an outing with his young daughter when he told her she could speak Arabic “everywhere, anytime [she] want[ed], but not at the entrance to a mall,” which was protected by heavily armed Israeli security guards. His deeper anxieties about being a minority are apparent in such essays as “Taking Notice.” There, he tells the story of a sign he put up at the all-Jewish apartment complex where he and his upwardly mobile family moved. The possibility of not being accepted by his neighbors bothered him so much that he worried incessantly about everything, including whether he was using proper Hebrew phrases and handwriting techniques. Yet the careful moderation he practiced while living in a country hostile to Palestinians offered him neither peace nor safety from either “Israelis who hurl accusations of betrayal and disloyalty...[or] Arabs who hurl accusations of betrayal and segregation.” Eventually, Kashua and his family moved to the United States, where they faced “another type of society and the inevitable acclimatization problems.” By turns funny, angry, and moving, Kashua’s “dispatches” offer revealing glimpses into the meanings of family and fatherhood and provide keen insight into the deeply rooted complexities of a tragic conflict. A wickedly ironic but humane collection.
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An action-packed, nondidactic examination of how Israel’s special operation units rose to the challenge of the Palestinian intifada. In a work of formidable research, Katz (Relentless Pursuit: The DSS and the Manhunt for the Al-Qaeda Terrorists, 2002, etc.) meticulously examines the makeup of the Israeli undercover anti-terrorist organizations, such as the Shin Bet and the Ya’mas (Border Guard), which infiltrated deep inside enemy lines (the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem) to root out Hamas-directed Palestinian terrorists bent on making Israel “bleed.” Although not a “war,” the protracted intifada erupting between 2000 and 2008 was as bloody as any of the other numerous wars in the region, fought not on battlefields but in shopping malls and other civilian sites where suicide bombers and lone shooters wreaked havoc. Katz moves chronologically from 2000 as several specialized units were developed to meet the growing Palestinian terrorist cells, such as the tightknit Ya’mas, a diverse mix of Israeli’s minority communities, who had Arabic language and customs and could infiltrate the West Bank and elsewhere. As diplomacy broke down—most recently, the Camp David meetings between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders organized by President Bill Clinton in July 2000—tensions increased when the botched attempt to assassinate leader Mahmoud Abu Hanoud aroused Palestinian ire. Conflict also followed Ariel Sharon’s well-publicized visit to the al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount. Subsequently, the specialized forces met the intensified insurrection with renewed force and organization, launching Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank in March 2002. Katz smoothly moves from one hot spot to another—e.g., Itamar, Jenin, Hebron, Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip—following high-profile terrorists like Hamas operative Ziad Musa and delineating specifically the operations that shut down the terrorist cells and allowed the country “to maintain the semblance of day-to-day normalcy inside a country mercilessly under siege.” A detailed book that is refreshingly full of sound research rather than polemic.
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THE RISE OF A PRAIRIE STATESMAN The Life and Times of George McGovern
BLUE IN A RED STATE A Survival Guide to Life in the Real America Krebs, Justin New Press (208 pp.) $24.95 | Mar. 1, 2016 978-1-59558-972-9
Knock, Thomas J. Princeton Univ. (544 pp.) $35.00 | Mar. 1, 2016 978-0-691-14299-9
The first volume in the biography of George McGovern (1922-2012). Knock (Foreign Relations, 20thCentury U.S. History/Southern Methodist Univ.; To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order, 1992, etc.) depicts his subject as really too good to be true, or at least too good to become president: decent, conscientious, and authentically progressive. Raised in the small, insular town of Mitchell, South Dakota, the product of a Methodist minister and his second wife, McGovern was inculcated by the devout, hardscrabble, patriotic America of the Depression and World War II—indeed, he returned from the war a hero as a bomber pilot. Despite the Republican slant in the state of South Dakota, there was also a strong progressive streak, as most residents admired and benefited from the policies of the New Deal, especially in farming and agriculture. Already a married man with children when he plunged into his graduate work in American labor history and a winning debater since high school, McGovern naturally gravitated toward politics. He was deeply troubled by the red-baiting in the 1948 election between Henry Wallace and Harry Truman. Moreover, as the Cold War hysteria heated up, McGovern began to forge in his writing and speeches the core of his vital beliefs, as Knock unravels chronologically and meticulously. As he writes, McGovern believed that America “erred in attempts to impose its own values and institutions upon other countries” (e.g., in Latin America and China) and that the wasteful and unnecessary military-industrial buildup could better be spent at home on education, mental health facilities, and other programs. Courageously, McGovern went against the normative grain during his stint as a congressman and later senator, especially regarding the Vietnam War. Though the writing is merely capable, Knock delivers an important reconsideration of a significant 20th-century politician. A fine, steady study sets the stage for the second volume: running for president in 1972.
Krebs (538 Ways to Live, Work, and Play Like a Liberal, 2010) seeks to paint a portrait of liberals living among the enemy, as it were, by choice. As a campaign director for MoveOn.org and founder of Living Liberally, a national network of political social clubs, the author writes knowledgeably about people across the country—in Waukesha, Wisconsin; Little Elm, Texas; Fayetteville, Arkansas; Pawleys Island, South Carolina; Pomeroy, Iowa; and elsewhere—who have chosen to stay in a politically unwelcoming environment for a variety of reasons. For some, it’s home, where they were raised. For others, they state that it’s not so bad and that there are residents who, like them, think liberally but keep quiet about it. Many stay because moving to a big city, college, or coastal town is too much like giving up; plus, there’s no challenge there. The author proclaims that equating churches with conservatism is as wrong as equating atheists with liberalism. Furthermore, there are radicals in every way of thought, and liberalism is not immune. Some liberals quietly listen but stand up when called for, giving to and taking part in their communities. Others live provocatively, with bumper stickers and lawn signs for elections, always ready to jump into the fight. The majority love where they live, and they count on their neighbors and return the favor. One woman said her town was a great place to live; it just had no health care, maintained infrastructure, or working educational system. Another mentions that many of the residents think that the recycling program is a socialist plot. Throughout, Krebs approaches his subjects with candor and respect. From Massachusetts and Florida to Montana and Alaska, with each chapter, both conservative and liberal readers will react strongly, but most will do nothing about it. Hopefully, however, the book will spur discussion and civic action.
THE LIGHTS OF POINTE-NOIRE A Memoir Mabanckou, Alain Translated by Stevenson, Helen New Press (208 pp.) $23.95 | Mar. 1, 2016 978-1-62097-190-1
Beset by memories, a Congolese writer revisits his native village. In 1989, when he was 22, novelist, poet, and essayist Mabanckou (Literature/ UCLA; Letter to Jimmy, 2014, etc.) left Pointe-Noire, in the Congo, and went to France. Twenty-three years later, he returned, feeling |
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Moore will probably not change minds about the Iron Lady, but readers inclined to be as fair-minded as he will find much of interest in his account of her years in power. margaret thatcher
“like a migrating bird,” with “one foot suspended, hoping I might stop the flow of my existence, whose smooth course is troubled by the myriad leaves blown down from the family tree.” In lyrical and disarmingly serene prose, the author evokes his shock, wonder, and sometimes dismay as he searches for his past. At the Lycée Karl Marx, where he attended secondary school, he hoped “to relive the moment when my spirit ventured far from our native land, in search of universal knowledge.” Filled with apprehension as a new student, he saw education as his path away from the insularity of his family and into the world. He was incredulous when he learned that the school had been renamed, honoring a tyrannical governor of French Equatorial Africa. Much of the memoir evokes Mabanckou’s family: his strong-willed mother, whose death in 1995 was so traumatic that he could not face returning for her funeral; his aunt, whom he calls Grandma Hélène, “one of those people who you think has to have been born old, toothless, white haired, hesitant in her movements, like a stray gastropod”; his mother’s cousin, the lecherous Grand Poupy; assorted relatives; and others who insist they are related to him, the better to extract money. They live in a world pricked by petty squabbles and swirling with superstition. Grandma Hélène, for example, has “an obsessive fear of whites” because she believes a white woman will kiss her on the forehead and lead her to the land of the dead, where the sun never rises. A tender, poetic chronicle of an exile’s return.
CURE A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body
Marchant, Jo Crown (320 pp.) $26.00 | Jan. 19, 2016 978-0-385-34815-7
Marchant (The Shadow King: The Bizarre Afterlife of King Tut’s Mummy, 2013 etc.) explores how traditional and alternative medicine overlap. As a science journalist and former editor at New Scientist, the author is uncompromising in her commitment to the scientific method and the necessity of rigorous trials to determine the efficacy of medical treatment. In answer to the question of whether “by harnessing the power of the mind, alternative treatments can offer something that conventional medicine has missed,” she finds the role of the mind to be central to both. A significant element related to this question is the placebo effect. When new therapies are being tested, subjects are divided into two groups, only one of which is given the treatment. “To avoid individual biases when testing new therapies, neither doctors nor patients know what treatment is being given,” writes the author. “The results are analyzed using rigorous statistical techniques” in order to eliminate the element of suggestibility from the results. Marchant turns this idea on its head. Her aim is to explore curative effects of placebos themselves as a clue to the relationship between the brain and the body’s immune system. Despite the fact that placebo effects are subjective, they are “underpinned by 130
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measurable, physical changes in the brain and body.” This relationship is especially relevant to the treatment of autoimmune diseases, problems that may arise with organ transplants, and the nature of controversial diseases such as chronic fatigue syndrome. It also offers clues to understanding why nontraditional medical treatments may prove effective. Marchant explores a number of nontraditional therapies such as the use of hypnosis, visualization, and mindfulness meditation to deal with chronic pain and stressrelated diseases. However, she is not optimistic that a revolution of medicine is in the offing—drug companies are too influential in shaping research—despite the promise of these approaches in dealing with medical and psychological issues. A balanced, informative review of a controversial subject.
MARGARET THATCHER At Her Zenith: In London, Washington and Moscow Moore, Charles Knopf (880 pp.) $35.00 | Jan. 5, 2016 978-0-307-95896-9
British historian/writer Moore delivers the second volume in his authorized biography of the pioneering—and divi-
sive—prime minister. As this volume opens, Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) is riding high on the British victory over Argentina in the Falklands and the consolidation of power that it enabled. Inclined ever to go it alone, Thatcher abolished the policy group surrounding her, one that labored ceaselessly to keep the Conservative message strong while avoiding any overt impression of ideological purity, “which, if leaked, could cause such mayhem.” But leaked it was: whether dealing with Irish nationalists, striking coal miners, or a recalcitrant European Community, Thatcher was steely and bent on uncompromising success, evidenced by her “angry will” and unwillingness to make coalitions. The real world does not often work that way, of course, and in the few places where Moore’s narrative bogs down, it is in the details of bureaucracy that so maddened Thatcher—e.g., the matter of getting a budget passed. The author is surprisingly evenhanded: as he notes, Thatcher, like Ronald Reagan, seemed thoroughly uninterested in self-reflection, and some of the best writing in the book concerns the solid wall of cultural resistance that built up in the U.K., fueled by punk rock and Red Wedge–ish theater and writing. Stephen Frears, for instance, noted that his 1987 film Sammy and Rosie Get Laid was intended “to bring the government down.” Of course, if Thatcher was ever bothered by the negative depictions, she seldom let on. Moore closes by chronicling how she closed out 1987 with a stunningly comprehensive electoral victory. “No prime minister in the era of universal suffrage had ever won a third consecutive term before,” he carefully writes, though no thanks were due to Thatcher’s “extreme anxiety, ill tempers, and misjudgments in the campaign.”
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THE SILK ROAD Taking the Bus to Pakistan
Moore will probably not change minds about the Iron Lady, but readers inclined to be as fair-minded as he will find much of interest in his account of her years in power.
MY FATHER, THE PORNOGRAPHER A Memoir
Offutt, Chris Atria (272 pp.) $26.00 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-5011-1246-1
A fond memoir of life with a prolific writer of science fiction and pornography. Screenwriter (True Blood, Weeds) and essayist Offutt (No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home, 2002, etc.) describes his father, Andrew, as “fiercely self-reliant, a dark genius, cruel, selfish, and eternally optimistic.” In the opening chapters, the author charts his father’s declining health and grave prognosis from alcoholinduced cirrhosis, which spurred the author to return home to Kentucky in the midst of his own divorce. Offutt delves deep into his father’s history as a former traveling salesman who carted his family around to sci-fi conventions and who harbored a temperamental persona with a penchant for creating alter egos. Beginning with an Old West novel written when he was just 12, Andrew was in many ways “an old-school pulp writer” whose early novels, penned in the hushed privacy of a locked home office and often under pseudonyms, helped finance Offutt’s desperately needed orthodontia. Upon his death in 2013, the mother lode of his father’s squirreled away gemstones, coins, and assorted clutter was unearthed, but it was the 1,800 pounds of manuscripts and papers bequeathed to Offutt that exposed Andrew’s true nature and later career as a “workhorse in the field of written pornography.” The author’s father produced an incredibly imaginative oeuvre of hard-core graphic erotica, from ghost porn to inquisition torture, incrementally (and chillingly) escalating in violence against women as time went on—something Andrew believed prevented him from becoming a serial killer. Admitting to his mother that his “Dad was the most interesting character I’ve ever met” speaks volumes about not only the kind of father Andrew was to his son, but also the kind of son Offutt became because of (and in spite of) the things he’d been taught. Though his relationship with his father was distant, melancholic, and precarious, Offutt quite movingly weaves his personal history into a fascinating tapestry of a compulsive writer with a knack for the naughty.
Porter, Bill Counterpoint (288 pp.) $16.95 paper | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-61902-710-7
In this latest installment in his decadeslong journey through China, Porter (South of the Clouds, 2015, etc.) wanders westward into the mountains, never quite courting danger, never quite avoiding it. How does one pack for a trip along what the Chinese traditionally called the Road to the West and Westerners the Silk Road? First, get a rucksack, not a pack with a rigid frame. Then put some whiskey in a flask and put the flask in the rucksack. “Once I had the pack and the whiskey out of the way,” Porter, aka Red Pine, amiably writes, “the rest was easy: a couple changes of clothes, silk longjohns, a cashmere vest, a lightweight jacket, a wool hat and gloves.” An extra stomach lining and a big shovel might have come in handy, as we learn, following Porter’s travels from Xi’an into the desert and high country. Fortunately for Porter, though beset by some appallingly bad food, a goodly number of con artists, and a brush with death along a cliffside highway in the Karakoram, he had his wits with him, as well as a firm command of history and literature. Occasionally, his approach to all that learning is a little scattershot: the great Turkic conqueror Tamerlane turns up here and there (e.g., “if Tamerlane hadn’t died, it’s quite possible there would be more mosques today in China than temples”) but sometimes as an afterthought and sometimes repetitively. Still, a little absentmindedness is fine, especially in so unflappable a travel guide. Porter is at his best when interpreting history, a touch less so when updating Michelin (“In addition to coffee and omelettes, John offered other Western favorites, like fried potatoes”) along the way from the Yellow River to the Pakistani frontier. Fans of Owen Lattimore, The Road to Oxiana, Aurel Stein, and other like-minded ventures and adventurers will find Porter’s latest a pleasure and an inspiration.
THE PRESIDENT’S BOOK OF SECRETS The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America’s Presidents from Kennedy to Obama Priess, David PublicAffairs (400 pp.) $29.99 | Mar. 1, 2016 978-1-61039-595-3
A history of the president’s secret daily national security summary. Since the John F. Kennedy administration, the CIA has produced a daily summary of news and analysis for review by the president and a handful of senior officials. The President’s Daily Brief, known colloquially as “the book,” is classified top |
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A lucid description of a year that made all the horror possible, even inevitable. 1924
secret and contains nearly up-to-the-minute intelligence from human agents, electronic intercepts, and other sources. Former CIA intelligence officer Priess interviewed more than 100 former senior U.S. policymakers and intelligence officials to produce this history of the PDB, describing its formats, production process, distribution, and daily presentation to the president over the course of half a century. Presidents have responded to the PDB with varying degrees of enthusiasm; Richard Nixon distrusted the CIA and often ignored it, while George H.W. Bush, a former director of Central Intelligence, devoured it every morning in the company of at least one agency briefer. Barack Obama gets his on an iPad, a change in format that permits near real-time updates and hyperlinks to more thorough analysis. Despite his extensive research and clear prose, Priess is disadvantaged by a serious limitation. Because the contents of the PDB are classified, he can’t discuss any of them. As a result, while he lays out in considerable detail how the book has been assembled, who saw it, whether the president preferred an accompanying briefing or read it alone, and so forth, Priess is not permitted to explain how or why the PDB ever made any difference to anyone. Readers hoping to gain insight into how CIA briefings have affected specific national security decisions will be disappointed; the president’s book retains its secrets. The author is also loath to criticize any of the book’s first customers, even when their overextensive circulation of the book jeopardized its integrity or when they scorned it altogether. The CIA may value this deferential piece of institutional history, but civilian readers will learn little of interest from it.
1924 The Year that Made Hitler Range, Peter Ross Little, Brown (320 pp.) $28.00 | Jan. 26, 2016 978-0-316-38403-2
Following the current trend of focusing a work of history on a single year, a journalist and academic examines the year that Hitler spent in Landsberg Prison for his failed putsch of 1923. Range (Murder in the Yoga Store, 2013, etc.)—a former correspondent for U.S. News & World Report and a visiting scholar who’s sojourned at several prestigious institutions, including Harvard and the University of North Carolina—takes some time escorting us through 1923, and even earlier, before arriving at 1924 nearly 125 pages in. He rehearses the life of Hitler, the German defeat in World War I, and the horrible postwar economy that was one of the factors enabling a fiery ex-corporal from Austria to rise in Germany’s extreme right-wing political world. Range seems simultaneously disgusted and dazzled by his subject. Hitler’s political and cultural views were, of course, repellant and murderous, but the man could deliver a stemwinder and could somehow attract to his cause all sorts 132
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of adherents, from the thugs who pounded on his enemies to the wealthy folks who kept him financially afloat. One society woman bought for him the typewriter that he used to pound out the first volume of Mein Kampf during his yearlong incarceration. (He wrote the second volume shortly after his release.) Range shows us Hitler’s despair after his failed putsch late in 1923 and his hunger strike and other behavior in Landsberg. It was, the author demonstrates, his trial that re-energized the future dictator and drew even more Germans to his cause. He had a steady stream of visitors, and one fellow prisoner, Rudolf Hess, became a key figure in the Third Reich. Range’s style is generally fluid and journalistic; his deep knowledge of the figures and events enables him to narrate clearly without being sucked into excessive explication. A lucid description of a year that made all the horror possible, even inevitable.
THE INDUSTRIES OF THE FUTURE
Ross, Alec Simon & Schuster (320 pp.) $28.00 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-1-4767-5365-2 From the former Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a survey of technologies that will dominate the global economy in the coming decades. From 2009 to 2013, Ross served as Clinton’s top adviser on innovation and technology, traveling to more than 40 countries to observe a variety of technological advances. In this book, he explores emerging fields, focusing primarily on the industries of robotics, genomics, and big data. The author likens the approaching robotics age to the Internet explosion we have witnessed over the past two decades. He notes the significance of a burgeoning geriatric population that will require robotic assistance and the potential for nanorobots to diagnose and treat disease on a cellular level. Genomics, another field with health care implications, will soon enable earlier cancer diagnoses and genetics-based treatments as well as new opportunities for treating mental illnesses and slowing the effects of age. Ross cites “cyber” as another incipient arena, stating that recent cyberattacks on large corporations have made cybersecurity one of the fastest growing industries today, with the market currently valued at $78 billion and projected to reach $120 billion by 2017. He also discusses the social consequences of big data and its potential to solve big problems. Where will the next Silicon Valley be? Ross predicts that these innovations will be geographically diverse. The key, he claims, is openness. Russia, with its policies of extreme control, will not be a player. Estonia, which remade itself into an innovative and open technocracy after the collapse of the Soviet Union, will. Ross also points to the empowerment of women and the younger digital natives entering the workforce as factors that will contribute to leadership in these future technologies.
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THE MYSTERIOUS WORLD OF THE HUMAN GENOME
Discerning insights on approaching changes to our economic and social landscapes and solid advice on how we should navigate them.
A CANCER IN THE FAMILY Take Control of Your Genetic Inheritance
Ross, Theodora Avery (304 pp.) $24.95 | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-101-98283-9
A valuable resource for those wondering whether there is a chance that cancer runs in their family. Ross (Director, Cancer Genetics Program/Univ. of Texas Southwestern Medical Center) has the ideal background: oncologist, cancer survivor who carries a cancer gene mutation, and cancer gene researcher with a mission to help people. She sends an upbeat message that learning about a cancer mutation in one’s family history is not about coping with bad news; it is about taking control and making choices. Although readers learn about the author’s decision-making process when she discovered the risks of her mutant gene, she does not claim that they were the best choices at the time nor does she prescribe what choices others should make. She organizes her information with great care and clarity, and thankfully, she lightens the reading with her personal story and those of the cancer patients she has known. Ross explains how cancer mutations are passed through families, how to recognize the signs of a cancer mutation, how to create a revealing family tree, how to get genetic counseling and genetic testing, and how to tell family members that they may be at risk, often information they may not want to hear. Furthermore, she describes how to manage one’s risk when experts give conflicting information or when information is limited. The chapter on targeted treatments, subtitled “Realities, Myths, Possibilities,” is sometimes a bit technical, but Ross calmly advises readers to evaluate current research on new treatments in the same way they researched their family history: with persistence, honesty, and toleration for the discomfort of not knowing. Appendices provide additional practical information on inherited cancer syndromes and their risk management, and a resource list contains the names and websites of helpful support organizations. Highly recommended: an exceptionally well-organized, authoritative, and readable resource book.
Ryan, Frank Prometheus Books (342 pp.) $28.00 | Feb. 16, 2016 978-1-63388-152-5 The information revolution in silicon gets the headlines, but a revolution in genetics has been running in parallel and will soon affect our lives even more profoundly. Plenty of authors are paying attention, but British physician and researcher Ryan (Metamorphosis: Unmasking the Mystery of How Life Transforms, 2011, etc.) delivers an up-to-date history that will be definitive—at least for a few years. After a passing glance at Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin, Ryan explores the work of one of the greatest scientists to never have won a Nobel Prize: Oswald Avery, who led the team that discovered, in the 1940s, that DNA carries genetic information. Until that point, everyone assumed that genes were proteins—extremely complex molecules. However, despite an impressive size, DNA has a simple, repetitious structure. In an act of dazzling creativity (others did the actual research), James Watson and Francis Crick determined the makeup of DNA in 1952. Researchers soon deciphered its code, and the race was on to learn how genes make a living thing. Matters have become complicated in recent years, but we’re getting close. Ryan quotes liberally from The Eighth Day of Creation (1979), Horace Freeland Judson’s masterpiece on the early decades of DNA research. Like Judson, Ryan conducts thoughtful interviews, describes experiments in precise detail, and takes care to include the inevitable politics, personalities, frustrations, and controversies. He manages to make sense of a relentless stream of discoveries that have already revolutionized our picture of human evolution and which will allow us—not quite yet but any year now—to create life in the lab and cure disease. “In April 2015 the human embryo was deliberately engineered in a scientific experiment for the first time,” writes the author. “I believe that this is as great a leap as the discovery of gravity by Newton [and] relativity by Einstein.” An enlightening account of past and present knowledge and the future possibilities of human heredity.
THE CIVIL WARS OF JULIA WARD HOWE A Biography
Showalter, Elaine Simon & Schuster (288 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 8, 2016 978-1-4516-4590-3 An energetic new look at the author of the lyrics for “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” finds a modern feminist thread in the heroine’s frustrated marriage.
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A worthy addition to the growing body of literature on adventures that test the limits of nature and mankind. one breath
Accomplished women’s studies scholar and author Showalter (Emerita, English/Princeton Univ.; A Jury of Her Peers: Ameri can Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx, 2010, etc.) focuses on the unhappy marriage of New York heiress and bluestocking Julia Ward (1819-1910) to the crusading Boston doctor for the blind and handicapped, Samuel Howe, a union that lasted from 1843 until his death in 1876. Ward was a gifted singer and cultured young woman, and she fell for the handsome, moody “knight errant” Samuel despite early signs that he had a controlling, morose temper. The marriage grew increasingly strained through numerous pregnancies—unwanted by Howe, who yearned for an equitable, affectionate companion and dreaded the strictures of motherhood. Samuel, very much a man of his era, believed women should be completely fulfilled by domestic duties and motherhood and was no doubt bewildered and angry by Julia’s restlessness. Showalter can’t help that Howe comes across from her letters as whiny and spoiled and thus not a terribly sympathetic character. After refusing to come home to Boston from a trip to Rome, during which she plunged into her poetry and found her voice, she returned just ahead of a scandalous marital separation and was shocked by the tanned skin and “harsh voices” of the older children she had left behind. Readers may be shocked when reading about submission to her husband’s sexual will in order to avoid scandal (producing yet more children) and her inability to reveal to him her first book of poetry. The power struggle continued with her fame as the lyricist of the “Battle Hymn.” Still, Howe certainly came into her own in later years, embracing women’s suffrage and feminist causes, elements that the author might have dwelt more on. A rich life well deserving of reconsideration. Showalter provides a solid launching point.
ONE BREATH Freediving, Death, and the Quest to Shatter Human Limits
Skolnick, Adam Crown Archetype (320 pp.) $26.00 | Jan. 12, 2016 978-0-553-44748-4
A fatality spurs an inquiry into an extreme sport, illuminating the risks—as well as the rewards—of free diving. After writing a couple dozen guidebooks for the Lonely Planet series, Skolnick shows sharp reportorial instincts in this multilayered narrative beginning with the 2013 tragedy of Nicholas Mevoli, “the first athlete to die in an international freediving competition.” The obscure sport tests the limits of its athletes, who dive as deep as 100 meters or more, holding their breath for some four minutes, risking blackouts from the pressure or worse. “Their feats dazzled because with each dive they were risking their lives,” the author writes of one such competition. “No one knew where that unknown limit was.” Interspersed with an examination of the sport of free 134
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diving—loosely organized, self-governed, with most of the athletes spending considerable sums without sponsorship—is the story of an athlete considered remarkable well before his death and who lived his life with an uncompromising purity— though he always attracted romantic attention, he committed to celibacy for as long as four years—and who made it his priority “to live, not merely exist.” Parallel tracks show Mevoli’s life as he pushed himself toward an early death that quite possibly could have been prevented and the development of the sport as it gained the perspective of mortality that his death underscored. “Nick’s was the first fatality in more than 35,000 dives,” writes Skolnick. “Afterward, they were forced to admit that nobody could say for sure how repeated depths impacted the body....This wasn’t a matter of conflicting science; research was almost nonexistent.” This is a page-turning book about how and why Mevoli died (with a suggestion that a doctor shouldn’t have cleared him to dive), but it’s also about the competitors drawn to the sport, the ones for whom “freediving is both an athletic quest to push the limits of the body and mind, and a spiritual experience.” A worthy addition to the growing body of literature on adventures that test the limits of nature and mankind. (24 full-color photos)
SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THIS A Life in Music Stewart, Dave NAL (336 pp.) $27.95 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-451-47768-2
A rock star who realizes that he’s a very lucky man shares how he made his own luck. Most music fans think of Stewart as the lesser partner in Eurythmics, a duo that owed much of its success to the voice, allure, and songs of Annie Lennox. Yet it was Stewart’s anything-goes adventurism that coaxed the best from Lennox, as he served not only as the sounding board who provided the music, but also the duo’s producer and manager. The most fascinating part of this memoir illuminates the complex relationship the author continues to enjoy with the woman he calls “my dearest friend and closest collaborator,” though what began as a love-at-first-sight romantic relationship was ending even as the two were shifting from the Tourists, their first band together, into the collaboration that would become the Eurythmics. “It’s not easy, this transition from lovers to something else,” writes Stewart. “How do you break up when you’re still together?” Yet just as the contrast between the impetuous Stewart and the more reserved Lennox caused personal tension, their success proceeded from equally disparate elements: “We wanted to create the feeling of beauty and sadness together, like in a garden when the roses have just peaked and are turning blood red—a kind of sweet decay.” Soul and folk, acoustic and synthesized, organic and experimental—“every
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song became a sonic collage.” His approach also found success beyond the Eurythmics, with Tom Petty scoring big with “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” a song Stewart relates he started after falling into and out of bed with Stevie Nicks. His creative and social orbit eventually included various Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jack Nicholson, and Microsoft’s Paul Allen, though after the Eurythmics, the memoir starts to read, as he quotes an early responder, like “a hell of a cast” in search of a story. Amid the glut of music veteran memoirs, this holds more interest than most, though Stewart admits that he isn’t very reflective and he too rarely goes deeper than surface anecdote.
THE MEDICI Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance Strathern, Paul Pegasus (448 pp.) $28.95 | Mar. 15, 2016 978-1-60598-966-2
The prolific author continues to do what he does best—bring history to wondrous life—with this thorough history of the Medici family, the stimulus and backbone of the Renaissance. Strathern (Death in Florence: The Medici, Savonarola, and the Battle for the Soul of a Renaissance City, 2015, etc.) begins this bright, novelistic history with the 14th-century banker Giovanni di Bicci, who laid the groundwork for his family’s wealth. The Italians invented banking and double-entry bookkeeping, and to avoid accusations of usury, Giovanni charged only a percentage for “risk.” Eschewing politics, he concentrated on building wealth. It was his son Cosimo who took advantage of the erudite refugees from the fall of Constantinople to promote ancient Greek and Roman writings. He supported the arts and began dominating Florentine politics. Cosimo ruled without appearing to rule, with the family always supporting the working class. In addition to economics lessons, Strathern provides wonderful thumbnail sketches of the great artists and writers of the time. One of the Medici’s best moves was supporting the papal candidates, realizing that having the popes’ backing, as well as their lucrative banking, would provide strength. Through unrest, church schisms, invasion by the Holy Roman Empire and France, the Medici flourished, none more so than the flamboyant Lorenzo. This was the time of Savonarola, the fiery anti-humanist, but also Botticelli, Brunelleschi, and Machiavelli. The strength of the Medici continued with the papacies of Leo X and Clement VII. The author dubs the Medici godfathers to the Renaissance, but it was Clement’s dawdling over the divorce of England’s Henry VIII that unwittingly led to the final break with the church and the Reformation. The ladies of the family played their own parts, with Catherine de Medici dominating the Valois of France, followed to the throne by her cousin Marie. |
A fantastically comprehensive history covering the breadth of the great learning, art, politics, and religion of the period. (8 pages of color illustrations)
BREAKING THE CHAINS OF GRAVITY The Story of Spaceflight Before NASA Teitel, Amy Shira Bloomsbury Sigma (304 pp.) $27.00 | Jan. 16, 2016 978-1-4729-1117-9
Spaceflight didn’t start with Neil Armstrong, or even with Sputnik, as this well-researched account of the early days of rocketry makes clear. In her debut, science journalist and blogger Teitel begins with the German rocket enthusiasts of the 1920s. Inspired by the science fiction of Jules Verne, Hermann Oberth kicked off the craze with a book touting the potential of rockets for getting human explorers off Earth. His writings became vital for a group of experimenters who spent the ’20s launching increasingly sophisticated rockets. By the 1930s, the German army was taking notice, and thanks to a loophole in the Treaty of Versailles, rocket research wasn’t prohibited. The main beneficiary was Wernher von Braun, a young engineer who was soon in charge of a Nazi program to create weapons that could bomb distant targets with no chance of interception. At war’s end, von Braun managed to find his way to American lines, hoping to get a chance to work on rockets for the victors. He became America’s top rocket man and eventually put the first American satellite in orbit. Teitel effectively captures the bureaucratic infighting among different branches of the armed services, and she offers interesting insights into lesser-known facets of the early space race, such as the high-altitude balloon program. She also provides solid coverage of the treatment of space exploration in the popular press—e.g., von Braun’s provocative series in Collier’s, a huge influence on how the next generation envisioned the conquest of space. The author excels at describing action, such as Chuck Yeager’s breaking of the sound barrier or Joe Kittinger’s pioneering balloon ascent. She occasionally drops the ball—for example, skipping over the reasons for the failure of the much-ballyhooed Vanguard rocket in 1957—and she could have further explored how von Braun was responsible for the use of slave labor in the German V-2 program. However, the book is full of fascinating information on a central facet of 20th-century history. A must-read for anyone interested in the early history of space exploration.
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Vilcek artfully joins the chronicle of his scientific work and the dramatic events that punctuated his life under two totalitarian regimes, culminating in his flight to freedom. love and science
THE PENNY POET OF PORTSMOUTH A Memoir of Place, Solitude, and Friendship Towler, Katherine Counterpoint (272 pp.) $25.00 | Mar. 15, 2016 978-1-61902-712-1
The tale of the author’s discovery of a compelling “minor poet” in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In the early 1990s, novelist Towler (Writing/Southern New Hampshire Univ.; Island Light, 2010, etc.) moved to Portsmouth, where her husband had taken a position as a psychologist. At first, she was surprised to find herself in a place whose conservative politics felt alien to her and where unannounced visits by neighbors were a common occurrence. Having moved 20 times along the East Coast, with “a vaguely articulated notion that staying in one place too long” would undermine her ability to gather observations for her first novel, she worried about settling down. In Portsmouth, though, the author found inspiration for several novels and, now, a closely observed memoir of her ultimately inscrutable friendship with Robert Dunn, whose aspirations to be a “minor poet” were as intense as Towler’s desire to become a major novelist. “Minor poets have more fun,” Dunn declared. “There is no joy in the struggle for recognition, for money and fame and all they entail,” the author came to realize, “but there is a joy in the thing itself, the making of the poems.” Despite Dunn’s overt satisfaction with his life, Towler often imagined negativity for which there seemed to be no evidence. Celebrated as the poet laureate of Portsmouth, Dunn was pleased to offer readings and appear at events, a response that surprises Towler. She imagined that he found meetings of the Poet Laureate Program dull and tedious, when in fact, he seemed to enjoy them. She imagined that he was annoyed at her “frantic anxiety” over her “craving for recognition,” seeing in his eyes “a hint of accusation” that he did not articulate. As Dunn aged and was beset by illness, he came to rely on Towler for errands and support, a dependency that often puzzled her and is likely to puzzle readers. A gently told memoir of an elusive poet and a mysterious friendship.
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LOVE AND SCIENCE A Memoir
Vilcek, Jan Seven Stories (272 pp.) $27.95 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-60980-668-2
A memoir of the extraordinary life and circumstances that led the author to the groundbreaking discovery of Remicade, which successfully treats two previously untreatable autoimmune diseases, Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis. In 2013, Vilcek (editor: American Odysseys: Writings by New Americans, 2012, etc.) was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Barack Obama for his discovery, which utilized a protein naturally produced in the human body’s defense system against tumors. In that year, Remicade was reported to be “the second-highest selling drug in the world, with sales of $10.1 billion.” Born in 1933 to a middle-class Jewish family in what is now Slovakia, Vilcek and his family were among the relatively few Jews to escape the Holocaust while remaining in Czechoslovakia. In his estimate, this was due to the family’s decision to convert to Catholicism and his father’s position as a business executive. In 1948, Czechoslovakia was taken over by communists, and the author and his family were forced to adjust to the new totalitarian regime. After attending medical school, Vilcek married and pursued a research career in the upcoming field of virology. He established contacts with Western researchers who facilitated the publication of his work. Despite the fact that he had launched a productive career, he and his wife wanted to escape the oppressive political regime. With help from Western friends, Vilcek was invited to join the faculty at New York University’s School of Medicine, where he ran his own laboratory. His continued effort to find a treatment for autoimmune diseases proved successful and resulted in the commercial development of Remicade, which received FDA approval in 2000. His share of royalties has allowed him and his wife to sponsor careers in science and the arts. Vilcek artfully joins the chronicle of his scientific work and the dramatic events that punctuated his life under two totalitarian regimes, culminating in his flight to freedom. An inspiring page-turner. (two 8-page b/w photo inserts)
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children’s & teen GET A HIT, MO!
These titles earned the Kirkus Star:
Adler, David A. Illus. by Ricks, Sam Penguin Young Readers (32 pp.) $14.99 | Feb. 16, 2016 978-0-670-01632-7 Series: Mo Jackson
SOAR by Joan Bauer ..........................................................................139 ¡OLINGUITO, DE LA A A LA Z! / OLINGUITO, FROM A TO Z! by Lulu Delacre...................................................................................143 SNAPPSY THE ALLIGATOR (DID NOT ASK TO BE IN THIS BOOK) by Julie Falatko; illus. by Tim Miller................................................ 146 BUDDY AND EARL GO EXPLORING by Maureen Fergus; illus. by Carey Sookocheff.................................................................. 146 NOW YOU SEE THEM, NOW YOU DON’T by David Harrison; illus. by Giles Laroche.........................................................................148 LUCKY by Chris Hill..........................................................................150 GOOD NIGHT LIKE THIS by Mary Murphy....................................156 THE WORD FOR YES by Claire Needell........................................... 157 WHERE FUTURES END by Parker Peevyhouse................................159 GREENLING by Levi Pinfold.............................................................159 BLEEDING EARTH by Kaitlin Ward................................................ 164 THE COLOR MONSTER by Anna Llenas........................................... 171 HOW MACHINES WORK by David Macaulay................................ 172 THE WHITE HOUSE by Robert Sabuda............................................. 174
In this tale of overcoming odds, Mo Jackson, the youngest, smallest player on his Little League team, is excited about helping the Lions to a win. Will he be the hero? Or will he strike out? “One more strike and the game is over. People are standing. People are cheering.” Adler zeroes in on that crucial last-inning, last-out opportunity to bring the runners home, overcome the deficit on the scoreboard, and become the most unlikely team hero. The odds are predictably insurmountable. The team places him in right field because “no balls ever come to right field.” Offensively, Mo has already struck out twice before in the same game. Coach Marie stands across from Mo at the plate, shouting something readers never find out but can only imagine to be “Swing!” Mo turns to hear her better, and the bat turns too. Crack! Such a fortuitous accident leaves everyone confused, including Mo—there’s nothing to do but run! His teammates on base break for home and tap the plate just in the nick of time. The text is appropriately simple, yet Adler cunningly coaxes emerging readers to use their understanding of narrative conventions and their prediction skills to make savvy inferences. African-American Mo and his multiethnic, mixedgender, woman-coached team make for a nicely inclusive read. This second in the Mo Jackson series is a home run for the home team of early readers. (Early reader. 5-8)
PLACE VALUE
¡OLINGUITO, DE LA A A LA Z! / OLINGUITO, FROM A TO Z! Descubriendo el bosque nublado / Unveiling the Cloud Forest
Delacre, Lulu Illus. by the author Children’s Book Press (40 pp.) $18.95 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-0-89239-327-5
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Adler, David A. Illus. by Miller, Edward Holiday House (32 pp.) $17.95 | $17.95 e-book | Feb. 15, 2016 978-0-8234-3550-0 978-0-8234-3612-5 e-book Adler tackles yet another difficult math concept using simple language and an excellent comparison. Just as “A is both a word and a letter,” “1 is both a number and a digit.” Both letters and digits have to be carefully placed in order to express what the writer wants: “cafe” and “face” |
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use the same letters but are most certainly not the same word, and 216 and 621 are different numbers that use the same digits. Using place-value charts throughout (repeated on the front and back endpapers) that highlight in red the individual digits Adler is focusing on, the digital illustrations depict a bunch of smiling monkeys as they follow a recipe to bake a Colossal Banana Cupcake—colossal so as to use the big numbers Adler is describing. On two facing pages, Miller shows towers of eggs—216 white ones and 621 brown ones—divided into hundreds, tens, and ones. Though the hundreds stack of white eggs is 20 tall and the brown one, 25 tall, still readers get the idea that 600 is much greater than 200. When introducing numbers containing decimals, Adler turns to money and gives a good explanation of our number system’s history. Throughout, Adler teaches not only the place value, but also how the numbers should be read— there is no “and” in 6,324, but there is one in 632.4. When paired with adult guidance, a “valuable” look at place value. (Math picture book. 5-8)
STRANDED ON PLANET STRIPMALL!
Angleberger, Tom Illus. by the author Marvel Press (224 pp.) $13.99 | Mar. 8, 2016 978-1-4847-1452-2 Series: Rocket and Groot, 1 Origami Yoda’s creator kicks off a trilogy for young readers starring twofifths of the Guardians of the Galaxy. At book’s opening, Rocket Raccoon and Groot have barely escaped a swarm of giant space piranhas, crash landing on a small, uncharted planet. With the ship destroyed, Rocket has no way to keep a captain’s log, except the recording abilities of Veronica, a hyperintelligent if slightly too literal tape dispenser. (She’s also handy, as far as Rocket is concerned, for bashing bad guys on the head.) The planet is not only uncharted, it’s also one big strip mall. Personnel at every store they enter, from Granny Nano’s Country Fresh ’n’ Clean Nano-Cleaners to H.F. (for High Fructose) Happy Tooth’s Candy Shop, seem to want the trio to use the bathroom rather than to buy anything...and the toilets are hungry. Will Rocket and Groot (and Veronica) be literally consumed by consumerism? Or can they save the galaxy from the planet’s perilous plumbing? Angleberger cleans up Rocket’s potty mouth and slapsticks up the violence to gift those too young for the movie and comics with a goofball adventure that’s sure to please the Captain Underpants set. As in film and comics, Groot still only says “I am Groot,” but Rocket often translates. Dotted with Angleberger’s (as Rocket) purple-and-white scribbly illustrations and cartoons, the book will include Groot’s polished art at the close (provided by John Rocco). Final art not seen. Good fun for Marvel fans. (Science fiction. 7-10)
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LIVING FOSSILS Clues to the Past
Arnold, Caroline Illus. by Plant, Andrew Charlesbridge (32 pp.) $16.95 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-58089-691-7
Six creatures whose essential appearances haven’t changed in millions of years provide an introduction to the idea of “living fossils.” Scientist Charles Darwin introduced this phrase in 1859, and, though it’s not scientifically accurate, it’s a popular way to refer to animals that seem to have retained ancient features. Some have even reappeared, alive, after having disappeared in the fossil record. Arnold illustrates this with intriguing examples: coelacanths, horseshoe crabs, dragonflies, tuatara, chambered nautiluses, and Hula painted frogs. Her choices range widely across the animal kingdom and come from around the world. After introducing the concept with the coelacanth, she presents the other five, each with two double-page spreads: then and now. An accompanying narrative describes major features, when and where the species can be found, something about its behavior, and, usually, some natural threats. Further facts appear in the backmatter. The pleasing design offers a clear image of the animal stretching across the fold to a column of text. Inset boxes detail adaptations that have allowed each animal to survive. (In the case of the extremely endangered frog, the question becomes “Will They Survive?”) Plant’s realistic acrylic paintings show his subjects in their natural habitats and, sometimes, as fossils. School and public libraries whose copies of James Martin’s Living Fossils (1997) have worn out will welcome this inviting new look at a popular subject, as will kids with an interest in paleontology and evolution. (timeline, glossary, resources) (Nonfiction. 7-10)
THE RELIC OF PERILOUS FALLS
Arroyo, Raymond Illus. by Caparo, Antonio Javier Crown (336 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | $19.99 PLB Mar. 8, 2016 978-0-553-53959-2 978-0-553-53961-5 e-book 978-0-553-53960-8 PLB Series: Will Wilder, 1 When an impulsive bet sets an ancient prophecy in motion, one boy might be all that stands between a small town and the forces of evil. Twelve-year-old Will Wilder has been seeing shadowy creatures in his peripheral vision all his life. Doctors and his parents have attempted to explain them away as the symptoms of fatigue, but when the dark shapes begin attacking the town, kirkus.com
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Jeremiah’s voice is perfect: plucky, vulnerable, pragmatic, smart, and immensely endearing. soar
Will is the only one who can fight them. However, if he is going to follow in the footsteps of his relic-hunting great-grandfather and combat the rising evil, Will is going to need his loyal friends, his tough-as-nails great-aunt Lucille, his intelligence, and a good measure of faith. Unfortunately, this too-familiar adventure is hobbled by several significant problems. Action scenes are hampered by odd pacing, poor description, and simplistic puzzles, while the quieter scenes are filled with cringeworthy dialogue and improbable characters. Readers will be continually frustrated by Will’s mindless rebelliousness, Aunt Lucille’s ineffectual mentoring, and the one-dimensionality of Will’s friends. Even the forces of evil seem to lack any real conviction. Includes black-and-white illustrations. An unhappy blend of an imitative story and mediocre writing. (Fantasy. 8-11)
NEVER INSULT A KILLER ZUCCHINI
Azose, Elana & Amancio, Brandon Illus. by Clark, David Charlesbridge (32 pp.) $16.95 | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-58089-618-4
SOAR
Bauer, Joan Viking (320 pp.) $16.99 | Jan. 5, 2016 978-0-451-47034-8 Jeremiah has a lot of heart, which is a little ironic, since the heart that beats in his chest is a transplanted one. For a sixth-grader, he’s very wise. When his adoptive dad, Walt, has to make a temporary move to a small, baseball-fixated Ohio town, it seems like the perfect opportunity for Jeremiah to make use of his can-do attitude to revive the nearly defunct middle school baseball team. He’s too sick to play, but he loves the game, and he’s an incredible coach. He also brings those same brightly inspiring skills to bear on his across-the-street neighbor, Franny, who’s suffering from a loss that involves her absent father. Meanwhile, the discovery that the championship high school baseball team’s members
An alphabetical walk through the exhibits in a school science fair is the backdrop to one killer zucchini’s vendetta. A young student’s zucchini project has eyes for the science fair judge...until a careless remark turns the vegetable from thoughts of love to thoughts of revenge. All this plays out among the remainder of the science projects, until the judge redeems himself. Less a story than an un-paneled comic that is a series of quips, this book takes some attention to detail to follow, and the humor is likely too mature for even the oldest typical picture-book readers. Under the Cloning project sign, two identical kids argue about who is the real one, and for the Hybrid project, a child remarks that “Mrs. Punny likes you, Mr. Farnsworth.” The project is a combination rabbit and parrot. Quantum Mechanics depicts a cardboard box labeled “Tool Box.” Inside are two Einstein look-alikes holding a wrench and a screwdriver: “They fix stuff before it breaks.” Backmatter gives a tongue-in-cheek though educational paragraph of information about each of the projects and the science behind it—all have some basis in reality. Clark’s bright and busy illustrations portray a nice mix of genders and races. All in all, more fun for the science-fair judges than the participants. (Picture book. 8-12)
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This second entry shines when it comes to the characters’ relationships, particularly the evolving love story between Darren and Opal. let sleeping dogs lie
have been using steroids rocks the town after the pitcher dies from the illegal drug, possibly provided by his win-at-all-costs coach. Jeremiah’s voice is perfect: plucky, vulnerable, pragmatic, smart, and immensely endearing. Bauer masterfully manages the various plotlines: the inept middle school team’s evolving proficiency, good-hearted Walt’s bumbling efforts at dating, Franny’s gradual acceptance of her father’s abandonment, the town’s adjustment to a new reality, and especially the way Jeremiah’s uncertain health heartbreakingly colors all his efforts. Bauer writes her characters white as default, relying on naming conventions and description to indicate her characters of color. An outstanding, tender exploration of courage and the true nature of heroism and, for good measure, a fine homage to America’s game, as well. (Fiction. 9-13)
LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE
Becker, Helaine Illus. by Playford, Jenn Orca (240 pp.) $9.95 paper | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-4598-1038-9 Series: Dirk Daring, Secret Agent, 2 Dirk Daring, Secret Agent (2014) returns for another spy romp. Darren Dirkowitz, aka Dirk Daring, is trying his best to survive middle school. Unfortunately, the odds are not in his favor. The Wolf Lords, a gang of teen toughs, are extorting hundreds of dollars from Darren and his pals, and there are rumors that his beloved Preston Middle School might be merging with the dastardly Northern Senior Public School. And on top of all that, Darren’s circle of friends is growing up—and possibly apart. Becker spins a lot of plates, with varying degrees of success. The school-merger plotline is a bit of a bust, and the extortion drama just doesn’t hold a candle to the blackmail plot of the previous book. But this second entry shines when it comes to the characters’ relationships, particularly the evolving love story between Darren and Opal. The author perfectly captures a middle school crush that is getting just deep enough to matter but not so much so that it’s troublesome to either participant. The narrative is also peppered with the same spy jargon that made the first Dirk Daring adventure such a blast. This is a very silly book, but it never crosses the line into inanity. With a smart balance of humor and heart, this is a winning sequel. (Fiction. 8-12)
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THE DRAGON’S TOOTHACHE
Besant, Annie Illus. by Sen, Rayika Karadi Tales (36 pp.) $15.95 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-8-1819-0306-8
A resourceful narrator finds a way to alleviate a dragon’s pain. A child with spiky pigtails, long bangs, and big eyes meets a red dragon crying for help. The child is carrying a bag with many objects that prove useful. The flashlight reveals “an old bone stuck in a broken tooth.” Bravely walking into the dragon’s maw, the child is swallowed and meets a rooster, a dentist, a puppy, a cat, a goat, and a monkey, all of whom have failed to cure the dragon’s toothache. Inventively, the narrator directs the monkey to stand on the goat, the rooster to go on top of the monkey, and so on. Balancing on the very top, the child uses some twine to lasso a tooth and climb out, then helps the others. She extracts the bone, and Dr. Dentist uses clay to cover the tooth. Everyone goes on their way, and after giving the dragon a toothbrush, the junior dental expert goes home to a dinner of well-deserved custard pies. The bright, highly saturated collaged illustrations picture the child in Indian clothing, albeit with a very hip look, but aside from this and the monkey, there is nothing particularly South Asian about this story. A whimsical quest, pure fun to read aloud, that may even remind kids to brush their teeth. (Picture book. 4- 7)
BAD LUCK
Bosch, Pseudonymous Illus. by Moreno, Juan C. Little, Brown (384 pp.) $17.00 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-316-32042-9 Series: Bad Books, 2 Still struggling to keep up with his wizardly fellow campers, Clay finally discovers his particular talent when the arrival of a large cruise ship touches off a round of assaults and rescues on remote Price Island. It seems there’s a secret sleeping at the heart of the island’s all-too-active volcano, and Brett Perry, genially vicious owner of the luxury liner Imperial Conquest, has come to seize it for the nefarious Midnight Sun society. Against his horde of well-armed thugs, it would seem that his chubby 12-year-old son, Brett Jr.— plus Clay, airy kleptomaniac Leira (spell it backward), and other residents of Earth Ranch—stands no chance of mounting any effective resistance. But when there is magic in the air and also a new ally who has the young folk envisioning a “Titanic meets Godzilla” scenario, anything becomes possible. More intrusive than ever, “Bosch” not only lays in fussy digressions and many wordy footnotes, he even dedicates the story to himself (with his real name) and inserts himself directly as a character from his earlier Secret series. Along with making his protagonist look kirkus.com
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a lot ridiculous and, by the end, a little bit heroic, the author strews the tale with fart jokes and gross goo, oblique references to Harry Potter (“expel-your-anus!”), and other crowd-pleasing elements. For readers who like (or at least don’t mind) continual authorial asides, a sturdy middle volume. (“backmatter”; map and illustrations, not seen) (Fantasy. 12-14)
THE JAR OF HAPPINESS
Burrows, Ailsa Illus. by the author Child’s Play (32 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 1, 2016 978-1-84643-729-8
Malice’s evil laugh is 10 times crazier than his, and her robot might win the diabolical-robot contest. (It has a freeze ray and a shrink ray.) The battle ends on a cliffhanger, which is fitting for a superhero story but a little anticlimactic in a picture book. Campbell paints great Rube Goldberg–style devices, though, and the book is sprinkled with terrific jokes. The funniest passage will comfort a lot of parents: “super-villain babies are much like any others. They don’t like bedtime. They throw their food.” The story feels slight, but the details are clever enough to make it worth reading: students wear hats shaped like shark fins and land mines, for instance. Dylan and Addison are both white, but Astrid Rancid’s has a few students of color (Principal Sinister is a green, warty monster). Dylan may have his flaws, but he does his name proud. (Picture book. 4-8)
A little girl loses her happiness...but just for a while. Curly-haired brunette Meg has her own secret recipe for happiness. She puts a dab of this and a spoonful of that into a jar and carries it with her everywhere, trailed by her faithful cat. It’s her jar of happiness. It’s red, yellow, and “all the other best colors.” She uses the jar to cheer up her glum friend Zoe and to bring a smile to her grandmother, who has been feeling under the weather. And Meg’s little brother, Leon, who gets on her nerves sometimes, also gets the benefit of the happiness jar... sometimes. One day, Meg’s jar goes missing; she can’t find it anywhere. Zoe arrives to cheer her up, and Oma gives her a big hug and lots of tickles. Leon goes all out, dressing as a monster and performing for his sister; he says that thinking happy thoughts can scare away “gloomy feelings, bad smells and even monsters.” By the end of the day, Meg still hasn’t found her jar, but she has found happiness and can sleep soundly. The final illustration puckishly shows the solution to the mystery of the missing jar of happiness. Burrows’ gentle tale is gracefully told and well-pitched to a very young audience, with minimal text, clean compositions, and plenty of white space. Meg and her family are white, while Zoe has light-brown skin and straight, dark hair. Sweet and simple. (Picture book. 3-6)
DYLAN THE VILLAIN
Campbell, K.G. Illus. by the author Viking (32 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-451-47642-5
Dylan Snivels wants to make a name for himself. Many kids would find being called Dylan the Villain a source of distress. But Dylan Snivels considers the nickname a badge of honor. Born with a mask over his eyes and a wicked smile, he attends Astrid Rancid’s Academy for the Villainous & Vile—a school with a refreshingly honest name. His parents are always assuring him that he’s “the very best and cleverest super-villain in the whole wide world!” But he has competition: Addison Van |
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THE TROUBLE WITH FUZZWONKER FIZZ
and adventure. Each character, good or evil, possesses sympathetic qualities that draw readers to the page, and each new obstacle reveals another layer to the characters, making them tangible. Secrets, friendships, families, and a supernatural world anchor the steady-paced action. A thrill from start to finish, the book will have readers eager to return to the magical world of Simon Thorn. (Fantasy. 8-12)
Carman, Patrick Illus. by Sheesley, Brian Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (160 pp.) $12.99 | $8.99 e-book | Mar. 1, 2016 978-0-06-239390-6 978-0-06-239391-3 e-book Series: Fizzopolis, 1 In this effervescent startup, Harold discovers that the soda pop his dad invented produces more than just awesome belches. Harold is invited as a 10th birthday present to tour at last the secret underground lab/factory where his loving but distracted adoptive father manufactures the wildly popular (and sugar free!) Fuzzwonker Fizz. He is delighted to discover that the process makes not only froth, but Fizzies—popeyed creatures who, not unlike Oompa-Loompas, cheerfully live and toil in the subterranean community of Fizzopolis. Disaster nearly ensues when Harold recklessly takes Floyd, a small green Fizzy with a truly short attention span, to school. After several misadventures, Floyd is carried off to the rival Snood Candy Factory by archenemy Garvin Snood. Will the Snoods, makers of the heavily sugared Flooze, foundation for dozens of ghastlysounding products, pull the tab on Fizzopolis and the secret formula for Fuzzwonker Fizz? No, as it happens, but another explosive secret does pop before the episode’s abrupt cutoff. Stay tuned. Sheesley splashes silly cartoon sketches through Harold’s sugar rush of a narrative. A gas, despite a sour whiff in the supporting cast and a plotline that’s not quite topped off. (Adventure. 8-10)
SIMON THORN AND THE WOLF’S DEN
Carter, Aimée Bloomsbury (320 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-61963-704-7 Series: Simon Thorn, 1
Simon Thorn enters a supernatural world as the unlikely hero of Carter’s middle-grade novel. Simon has one goal: survive seventh grade. Between middle school bullies and hiding his ability to speak to animals, Simon longs for normalcy. He wishes he had the intimidating build of his uncle Darryl, who’s raised him, or at least a reassuring piece of advice from his constantly traveling, not-quite-absent mother. An early morning visit from a mysterious golden eagle on the first day of school shatters his reality and propels him into a world he never knew existed. Outspoken mouse Felix and fearless new girl Winter join Simon on his quest to unravel the mystery behind the golden eagle and his own identity. Carter unveils a magical world full of amazement 142
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THE EXTINCTS
Cossanteli, Veronica Illus. by Muradov, Roman Henry Holt (240 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-62779-403-9 Animals—mythical and extinct— abound in George Drake’s hometown, Squermington. In Cossanteli’s debut novel, 11-yearold George lives with his frazzled mum and two older sisters. Between his dad’s leaving, large electric bills, and their family’s unsuccessful shop, times are tough. So, in an effort to replace his recently stolen bike, George starts a quest for a job that ends when he comes across a sign that reads, “Help Wanted / Interest In Wildlife Necessary / Must Be The Right Person.” The quirky Mrs. Lind, the owner of Wormestall Farm, and Lo, a tall, blue-eyed boy, orient George in his responsibilities. These include tending to an overprotective dodo, feeding 8-foot carnivorous ducks, milking aurochs, and staying alive. Redheaded Prudence, the new girl at school, also finds her way to the farm, which offers an escape from her villainous, taxidermist stepmother, Diamond Pye. When basilisk Mortifier wanders from the farm, leading to the disappearance of both neighborhood pets and chicken vindaloo from Indian restaurants, it’s up to George and Prudence to bring Mortifier back before Diamond can add the large serpent to her collection. Uneven pacing and clunky plot development mar this otherwise appealing and imaginative story, though Muradov’s stylized vignettes successfully add elements of magic, emotion, and movement to George’s narration. A mostly enjoyable British import that should be better than it is. (glossary) (Fantasy. 8-12)
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The beautifully detailed mixed-media artwork urges readers to look closely. ¡olinguito, de la a a la z! / olinguito, from a to z!
¡OLINGUITO, DE LA A A LA Z! / OLINGUITO, FROM A TO Z! Descubriendo el bosque nublado / Unveiling the Cloud Forest
Delacre, Lulu Illus. by the author Children’s Book Press (40 pp.) $18.95 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-0-89239-327-5
By means of the alphabet, this bilingual book introduces the cloud forest habitat of the olinguito, a recently discovered mammalian species from the Ecuadorean Andes. Via text that reads like poetry, readers join a zoologist in the cloud forest of the Ecuadorean Andes as he searches for the elusive olinguito. Using the alphabet as a device, Delacre presents the habitat of the olinguito. By focusing on the habitat rather than the animal the author reinforces the important concept of interconnectedness. In a nice departure from the usual bilingual
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book produced in the States, Spanish is presented first, and the alphabet includes the “ñ.” In another welcome departure, both languages have been allowed to breathe and sound fluent. The Spanish text, often alliterative, hews closer to the corresponding alphabet letter than the English does; if it doesn’t work for the English text the author has allowed it to be so. For example, “Pp: Pica, pica, picaflor del paraíso de las palmas de cera / A hummingbird sips nectar in this paradise of wax palms.” The beautifully detailed mixed-media artwork urges readers to look closely, and the author further encourages exploration by listing some of the things readers can go back and search for in the illustrations. The book is rounded out with bilingual backmatter. Poetic and informative, a breath of fresh air in the toooften-contrived world of bilingual books. (author notes, glossaries, author’s sources) (Bilingual informational picture book. 5-9)
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The figures look almost like porcelain miniatures, each tiny and detailed, using bits of collage and a color scheme with a great deal of red, white, and blue. president lincoln
PRESIDENT LINCOLN From Log Cabin to White House
ink-and-watercolor artwork has a steady energy, finely choreographed and sure of hand while possessing a delicacy that makes for a nifty encounter between child and beast, while the elders totally lose their cool. Sally has an energetic mop of yellow hair, jeans, and a white T-shirt; the whole family is white. “I told you!” Ah...words of gratification. (Picture book. 4- 7)
Demi Illus. by the author Wisdom Tales (32 pp.) $16.95 | Feb. 12, 2016 978-1-937786-50-2
With a jewel cutter’s precision of image and a like economy of language, Demi tells the story of the 16th U.S. president. She succeeds particularly well at conveying the iconic stories associated with Lincoln: birth in the one-room log cabin; the early death of his mother and the arrival of a gifted and loving stepmother; the fierce self-education; the debates against his Senate opponent, Stephen Douglas, which Lincoln lost but which brought him wide attention. Almost every page or double-page spread holds a quote from Lincoln set on a small scroll, reflecting the primary narrative. The Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and his assassination continue the story. Demi includes child-friendly details such as Lincoln’s love of animals and his creation of the Thanksgiving holiday while also conveying the larger sweep of history in his Gettysburg Address and the participation of thousands of African-Americans as soldiers for the Union cause. The figures look almost like porcelain miniatures, each tiny and detailed, using bits of collage and a color scheme with a great deal of red, white, and blue. While there are no footnotes, the backmatter includes a map of the United States in 1861, the full text of the Gettysburg Address, a timeline of Lincoln’s life, and further quotes. A picture-book portrait that’s beautiful as well as admiring. (Picture book/biography. 5-10)
A HIPPO IN OUR YARD
Donnelly, Liza Illus. by the author Holiday House (32 pp.) $16.95 | $16.95 e-book | Mar. 15, 2016 978-0-8234-3564-7 978-0-8234-3592-0 e-book Donnelly, a cartoonist for the New Yorker magazine, brings her twisty imagination to strange happenings in Sally’s backyard. For starters, when Sally goes outside, there’s a hippo in the yard. “Mom, we have a hippo in our yard,” yips Sally, flying through the backdoor. “I don’t think so, dear,” replies Mom, nose buried in the newspaper (there’s a rare touch). Sally returns to the backyard with a little lettuce for the hippo, then spies a tiger in a tree. “Dad, we have a tiger in our tree!” Dad can’t unglue himself from the monitor—though he does offer a rhyme: “No, Sally. That can’t be.” Sally, catching on: “Come see! Come see!” Then Dad lets it crumble: “Maybe later.” Both sib Liz (“Go away”) and Nana (“You can give them some grapes”) find Sally’s claims— zebras! koalas!—a bit far-fetched. They’ll get their comeuppance in this sly take on the unexpected, which celebrates the little subversions in our lives that undermine everyday rules. Donnelly’s 144
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GAMES WIZARDS PLAY
Duane, Diane HMH Books (624 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-547-41806-3 Series: Young Wizards, 10
Apprentices become teachers, friendships turn to romance, and long-simmering subplots achieve resolution in the 10th entry of this well-loved fantasy series. Kit, Nita, and Nita’s sister, Dairine, are accustomed to being the hotshot wizards-in-training, so it’s somewhat disconcerting when the Powers That Be propose that they serve as mentors to the newest crop competing in the prestigious Invitational. Kit and Nita are assigned obnoxious, arrogant Penn, who’s tinkering with solar engineering, while Dairine works with shy, self-sabotaging Mehrnaz and her earthquake project. The tournament storyline serves mostly as a framework to explore the shifting and expanding of characters’ relationships and roles. The spotlight this time is on Nita, struggling with her developing visionary powers, her place in the wizarding world, and (not least) her new and scary “boyfriend” label for Kit. Still, the leisurely narrative also provides plenty of pages to scrutinize brilliant, fiery, guilt-ridden Dairine, display a dazzling variety of ingenious spells, and check in with an effortlessly diverse multitude of supporting characters. Only in the final chapters do the stakes suddenly spike to “apocalyptic”; in a conflagrant climax overflowing with images of glory and wonder, Duane neatly manages to pull together and tie off plot threads that have been dangling since the earliest volumes. A delightful treat for dedicated fans but well-nigh impenetrable as an entry point to the series. (Fantasy. 12 & up)
MARGUERITE’S FOUNTAIN
Elliot, Rachel Illus. by Brown, Petra Hutton Grove (24 pp.) $19.99 | $7.99 paper | Feb. 4, 2016 978-1-857337-97-6 978-1-85733-823-2 paper
In this British picture-book melodrama, a dancing mouse named Marguerite is bullied by the rat Randolph and eventually rescued by the shy but heroic mouse Benjamin. A calligraphic letter B starts off the descriptive text: “Benjamin lived at the bottom of the tallest steeple in the cathedral yard....Marguerite lived next to the little fountain....Every day kirkus.com
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Benjamin watched Marguerite dancing around the fountain. He longed to be friends with her but Benjamin was shy and didn’t dare. So Marguerite danced alone.” When Randolph, whose eyes are “as black as oil,” dances with Marguerite, it is only because he is scheming to have the fountain to himself. When Randolph banishes Marguerite to a tiny space in the old sewer, Benjamin—with some assistance from Marguerite—finds and realizes his own courage and ingenuity. The artwork is priceless: watercolors that accurately reflect all the rodents’ emotions and show well-conceived backgrounds. Unfortunately, they draw on tired tropes of color: villainous bully Randolph is black; dainty, beautiful Marguerite is white; timid Benjamin is light brown. This combines with the antiquated maiden-in-need-of-rescue storyline to reinforce attitudes and associations that need to be put in the past. At times, the busy layouts make following the text sequence difficult, which distracts from the high drama that provides a primer on bullying. A classic, traditional tale of heroine, villain, and hero— perhaps too traditional. (Picture book. 4- 7)
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THE ADVENTURERS
Elliot, Rachel Illus. by Docampo, Valeria Hutton Grove (24 pp.) $19.99 | $7.99 paper | Jan. 1, 2016 978-1-910925-19-5 978-1-910925-18-8 paper Snow outside is no obstacle to worldspanning adventures inside for a child and her toys. “Let’s go adventuring!” suggests “the Child.” Without further ado, she and companions Rocking Horse, Velvet Cat, Blue Elephant, Russian Doll, and Pirate are careening through snowy mountains, sailing over moonlit seas, snoozing in a desert oasis, and playing with monkeys in a jungle. At each stop the quickthinking Child heroically delivers her party from an exciting threat—a toothy yeti, a sea monster, a wicked genie—that drives the travelers on, until at last a wild ride down a foaming waterfall deposits them all, safe and sleepy, back in the cozy playroom. In full-bleed jumbles of swirling, close-up action Docampo’s broad-faced figures change garb but not general form (Child, Pirate, and Russian Doll are all white) and switch
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expressions between glee and apprehension with each page turn. The comments each calls out (“I swim with mermaids and dive for pearls”; “But a wicked genie traps us in a deep, dark, [sic] cave!”) serve both to build scenarios and to preserve the breathless pacing. The peaceful closer leaves Child and all dozing intimately in each other’s laps or arms. The Child’s harem costume and the genie smack of Orientalism; the Pirate sports both a peg leg and an eye patch. Crossing the ocean like the Child and her friends, this mildly precious 2011 tale joins a plethora of similar journeys tempting younger readers to embark on imaginary flights. (Picture book. 6-8)
SNAPPSY THE ALLIGATOR (DID NOT ASK TO BE IN THIS BOOK)
Falatko, Julie Illus. by Miller, Tim Viking (40 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-451-46945-8
Picture Rita Skeeter as a chicken for a general sense of this book’s goofy take on intrusive narration and one-sided reporting. The tale of Snappsy the alligator hits a snag from the start when his trip to the grocery store is interpreted with inaccurate (according to Snappsy) and increasingly nasty commentary. While the authoritative narrator presents Snappsy as a vicious predator, readers who look at the pictures and hear Snappsy’s objections to this misrepresentation will see another side to the story. “Snappsy looked hungrily at the other shoppers,” intones the narrator, while the illustration reveals the alligator mildly smiling and waving as he studies a jar of peanut butter. Eventually Snappsy decides to throw a house party, more to please the narrator by making the tale sound interesting than anything else. And who just happens to come knocking at the door in a party hat? None other than the narrator, ready for the chicken dance. What sets this apart from standard-issue picture-book metafiction is its commentary on selective reporting. Unreliable narration is normally the purview of the novel, but this picture book asks elementary-age readers to question the truth of what they’re being told. Illustrator Miller’s style is cartoonish, showing how background characters are initially swayed by the narrator’s erroneous charges and then won over by Snappsy’s charisma. More than merely meta, Snappsy is clearly a book, if not a protagonist, with bite. (Picture book. 4- 7)
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BUDDY AND EARL GO EXPLORING
Fergus, Maureen Illus. by Sookocheff, Carey Groundwood (32 pp.) $16.95 | Mar. 1, 2016 978-1-55498-714-6
There are few things as pleasurable as a little nighttime adventure in which you get to trash the kitchen. Chums Buddy the dog and Earl the hedgehog have had an eventful day and are ready for some slumber. At least Buddy is. Earl looks down from his cage at Buddy on the floor and whispers, “Wish me bon voyage.” Once Buddy is told what bon voyage means, he wants to know more, even if it does give him the collywobbles. Well, it means Earl is going to run, run, run. Pooped, Earl looks around: “This place looks eerily similar to the place I just left.” (The promise and treachery of the exercise wheel.) But there are other places to explore. It is squeeze-your-heart charming when Earl turns Buddy’s water bowl into a moonlit lake, and Buddy— the clumsy literalist—knocks over the garbage can only to find gold: meatloaf. There are monsters to tend with—hairbrush-eating purses, menacing vacuum cleaners—but better, there are fine sentences with which to wrestle: “It was a spur-of-the-moment decision”; “Wherever the road leads me....However long it takes.” Drawn with spare linework and great blocks of soft, dreamy color in a nighttime palette, the pals’ setting appropriately shifts between mundane and extraordinary, just like their adventure. Roll, fetch, bite. Life is good for Buddy and Earl in this aerobic exercise of the imagination. (Picture book. 4- 7)
THE WONDERFUL HABITS OF RABBITS
Florian, Douglas Illus. by Sánchez, Sonia Little Bee (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-4998-0104-0
Florian’s whimsical poem is set against a plethora, indeed a veritable multitude, of rabbits. These bunnies come in many colors and shapes and sizes and, frankly, occasionally resemble animals not of the cony sort (children will be forgiven for wondering why the occasional kangaroo is playing with the bunnies). But their activities are not exactly bunnylike either, such as enjoying the smell of flowers (while eating same, with a napkin tied neatly around the neck) or building a snow bunny in winter, to say nothing of being tucked in “with a hug and a kiss.” The bouncy rhyme goes along happily with occasional rabbity thumps, which is as it should be. Though ostensibly about rabbits, of course, it’s really about children, and young readers and listeners will no doubt cotton on to the iteration of their own habits right away. The colors are soft and muted, with the occasional pop of bright red kirkus.com
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Mama Duck’s equal and unfeigned delight with all three of her hatchlings sits at the story’s center. duck, duck, dinosaur
or orange. Working with gouache and then Photoshop, Sánchez takes advantage of the media to play with texture, juxtaposing small, scratchy lines with soft, blurry edges to create a countryside with just as much energy as its hopping inhabitants. The rabbits themselves are a happy combination of colors and patterns, a bounty of domestic bunnies let loose against the green. Small and friendly. (Picture book. 4- 7)
STUDY HALL OF JUSTICE
Fridolfs, Derek Illus. by Nguyen, Dustin Scholastic (176 pp.) $12.99 | $12.99 e-book | Jan. 26, 2016 978-0-545-82501-6 978-0-545-83356-1 e-book Series: DC Comics Secret Hero Society, 1 Young students with oddly familiar names team up to investigate the nefarious agenda of their school’s administration in this batty series opener. In fact, hardly has Bruce Wayne hung a couple of bats in his new locker at Gotham City’s exclusive Ducard Academy than glimpses of lurking ninjas, an encounter with cream-pie–bearing bully Joe Kerr, and other signs raise his suspicion that something’s not right. With plenty of help from exchange student Diana Prince and hayseed classmate Clark Kent, he does indeed expose a scheme to recruit young villains—explained in detail by principal Rā’s Al Ghūl—before he escapes in the wake of a climactic ninja battle. Along the way Bruce and company try out for extracurricular activities (“Boys’ sports: All pain, some gain! To sign up, see Coach Zod”), attend classes taught by the likes of Alice in Wonderland–obsessed Jervis Tetch, and adopt distinctive Halloween costumes for the climactic dust-up. Spun out in a mix of journal entries, chat transcripts, screenshots, and panels of comic art as loose as the plotline, the tale hurtles its inconclusive way to a close that leaves Bruce looking forward to the bats, shadows, and mysteries of summer camp. Stay tuned. Not much more than a vehicle created to spotlight middle school versions of DC Comics heroes and baddies, but fans, at least, will enjoy catching the references. (Graphic fantasy. 9-11)
A BIRTHDAY CAKE FOR GEORGE WASHINGTON
Ganeshram, Ramin Illus. by Brantley-Newton, Vanessa Scholastic (32 pp.) $17.99 | Jan. 5, 2016 978-0-545-53823-7 Delia’s papa, Hercules, faces a seemingly insurmountable challenge: how to bake a birthday cake for his master, President George Washington, without sugar? |
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Food writer Ganeshram applies her considerable expertise to this historical tale of culinary ingenuity. How, exclaims Papa, can the larder be stocked with West Indian nutmeg, Mexican chocolate, African coffee, English cheese, Italian olives, Indian mangoes, and Arabian oils—but no sugar? Fortunately, the president has a taste for honey, and Papa improvises successfully. A full double-page spread is devoted to the preparation and combination of ingredients, presented as a team effort. Every last one of the enslaved kitchen crew is smiling, as they are throughout. Brantley-Newton explains those smiles in the backmatter, noting that the real-life Hercules and his staff evidently took pride in their work for the president: “There is joy in what they’ve created through their intelligence and culinary talent.” Ganeshram confronts Delia’s and Papa’s bondage on one page, when Delia tells readers proudly that “Papa is the slave President and Mrs. Washington trust the most.” A full-page author’s note goes into detail about Hercules’ life, informing readers that he escaped in 1797, leaving Delia still enslaved. The book is a sorry contrast to Emily Arnold McCully’s The Escape of Oney Judge (2007), which explicitly tells the story of one of Martha Washington’s enslaved servants who took freedom. Children whose grown-ups do not address the material in the notes with them will be left with a sorely incomplete understanding of both the protagonists’ lives and slavery itself. (recipe) (Picture book. 5-8)
DUCK, DUCK, DINOSAUR
George, Kallie Illus. by Vidal, Oriol Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-06-235308-5
Sibling competition is muffled beneath the wings of loving Mama Duck in this oblique pondside parable. Though the first duckling to hatch, Feather is the most insecure. “I AM big,” she boasts, lording it over her drooping younger brother Flap. “I am full of bigness.” But then, out of the third, oddly humongous egg in the clutch, comes Spike—a massive green dinosaur whose first, roared word says it all: “BIG!” The tension continues as Feather’s claim to be “sweeter” after bringing Mama a flower is trumped when Spike lumbers up with an entire flowering tree (“SWEET!”) and culminates, after a splashy dip in the pond, with all three sibs wet and shivering. “That won’t do,” says Mama. “Who wants a cuddle?” In the ensuing cozy scene, as throughout, Vidal’s large, soft-edged, broadly curved figures create an underlying visual harmony that takes the edge off the trio’s rivalry. But not only does Spike’s outsized presence arrest a slide into blandness, occasional touches such as a final view of Mama Duck with a watering can, sprinkling the pond greenery, add further whimsical elements. Moreover, Mama Duck’s equal and unfeigned delight with all three of her hatchlings sits at the story’s center, serving as both a worthy model for parents and potential reassurance for sibs unsure of their places in the family pecking order. |
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The poems are graceful and often humorous, giving good introductions to the reasons behind each animal’s protective coloration. now you see them, now you don’t
Ultimately, with differences at least temporarily forgotten, everyone here is, as Spike puts it, “HAPPY!” (Picture book. 3-5)
FEATHERED DINOSAURS
Guiberson, Brenda Z. Illus. by Low, William Henry Holt (40 pp.) $17.99 | Mar. 1, 2016 978-0-8050-9828-0
Recently discovered hints that most dinosaurs may have been feathered cap a gallery of prehistoric predecessors to today’s birds. The presentation has more of a cobbled-together feel than Guiberson’s previous look at the deep past, The Greatest Dinosaur Ever (illustrated by Gennady Spirin, 2013). Despite the title, the book goes beyond feathers. Guiberson discusses how the colors of fossilized feathers can be deduced from the shapes of their microscopic melanosomes, but she also describes early appearances of other avian features such as wishbones and a two-legged stance. But that anatomical focus doesn’t extend to the illustrations, as in the dimly lit paintings, dinosaurs loom indistinctly, their colors muted and limbs tightly folded or otherwise angled so that structural details are hard to make out. Eoalulavis appears only as a few tiny figures winging past a pair of immense sauropods, and the towering ornithischian confronting a modern ostrich on the final spread isn’t identified at all. The portraits are arranged in rough chronological order, but there are no clues in text or pictures to the dinosaurs’ specific eras. Despite a reference to the “teeny wings” of Hesperornis and a few other breaks in tone, the author’s commentary is otherwise solid...until its grand but insupportable closing claim that birds now inhabit “every environment on Earth.” Fine viewing, but more of an art exhibit than a systematic family history. (bibliography) (Informational picture book. 8-10)
A BIG SURPRISE FOR LITTLE CARD
Harper, Charise Mericle Illus. by Raff, Anna Candlewick (40 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-7636-7485-4
What will Little Card be? Every card has a job. Wide Card’s a postcard who gets to travel. Round Card’s a price tag, and Tiny Card’s a prize ticket. Only Little Card and Long Card don’t know what they’ll be. When a letter arrives telling “L.C.” to report to birthday-card training, Little Card thinks it’s addressed to him. He loves birthday-card school: the surprises, the cake, the games, the presents, and mostly the songs. When Long Card informs him that their letters got mixed up, Little Card learns his real job 148
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will be as a library card. After some small trouble with loudness, Little Card learns all about the library, along with Alex, the little girl he’ll belong to. They play games, snack, and read a rainbow of books. And since Little Card loves to sing, he sings a library song. Librarian Miss Penny gives him a gold star. But Little Card believes library day only comes once a year (like birthdays)... then Alex tells him Library Day can be six days a week every week! Fantastic! Harper’s addition to the intro-to-library canon, with its anthropomorphic card cast, is a goofy winner. Raff ’s mixed-media collages, digitally colored, are a bright, perfect match for Little Card’s excitement about all things library. Alex is a brown-haired white girl, and Miss Penny is a gray-haired African-American woman with groovy boots. Check it out! (Picture book. 3- 7)
NOW YOU SEE THEM, NOW YOU DON’T Poems About Creatures That Hide Harrison, David Illus. by Laroche, Giles Charlesbridge (32 pp.) $17.95 | Feb. 16, 2016 978-1-58089-610-8
Nineteen different animals, placed in five animal categories, are represented first by artwork and poetry and finally by brief paragraphs and references for further reading. The poems are graceful and often humorous, giving good introductions to the reasons behind each animal’s protective coloration. The illustrations, which involve “drawing, cutting, painting, and gluing,” likewise effectively convey how camouflage works, without pretense of photorealism. The categories—sea life, reptiles and amphibians, mammals, insects and spiders, and birds—reveal a wide variety of animals, from ghost crab to Bengal tiger, walking stick to hawk. An especially funny but accurate poem is the double-page spread about the copperhead, whose letter to “Mr. Vole” is full of sibilance, reinforced in a literal sense: “Find me / if you can, / my sssskin / deceivessss, / helpssss me / dissssappear.” The accompanying art shows the mottled, coppery serpent under a scattering of autumn leaves. In contrast, a fawn hides, scentless, “saved by fawny / polka dots / that blend with / gentle sunny spots.” The text educates young readers about useful camouflage for predators and for prey, without resorting to anything truly disturbing. Other than a “buzzy fly” becoming “fast food” for a spider and some tiny fish disappearing, predators are shown as merely threatening, and prey are shown as successfully hiding. Endnotes, cover, and layout all add to a thoughtful, well-executed book. An attractive, informative blend of science and the arts. (Informational picture book/poetry. 5-10)
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THE GIRL FROM EVERYWHERE
Heilig, Heidi Greenwillow/HarperCollins (464 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Feb. 16, 2016 978-0-06-238075-3 978-0-06-238077-7 e-book
She was born in Honolulu’s Chinatown late in the Hawaiian monarchy, but the only home Nix has known is the Temptation, the ship her father, Slate, and his crew sail through time to destinations real and imaginary, seeking a way into the past—before her mother died giving birth to Nix. Nix is unsure what will happen if they succeed. Will she cease to exist? Other concerns include her emotionally volatile father’s opium addiction and her own growing attachment to her friend and crewmate Kashmir. Nix longs to learn Navigation—the secret craft her father’s mastered that allows him to follow maps anywhere, even through time. Though he refuses to teach her, Slate can’t Navigate without Nix’s help. He’s devastated when a map long sought leads them to 1884 Honolulu, years too late. To Nix, Oahu’s almost home (and it contains Blake, the young white American who shares his love for Hawaii with her). She’s fascinated by elderly Auntie Joss, who cared for her as an infant and knows more about Nix’s past, present, and future than she lets on. Meanwhile, her father demands her help when he’s drawn into a plot to rob the royal treasury (an event drawn from an unconfirmed, contemporary account). As narrated by Nix, it’s a skillful mashup of science fiction and eclectic mythology, enlivened by vivid sensory detail and moments of emotional and philosophical depth that briefly resonate before dissolving into the next swashbuckling adventure. A nonstop time-travel romp. (author’s note; maps, not seen) (Fantasy. 14-18)
WHEN SPRING COMES
Henkes, Kevin Illus. by Dronzek, Laura Greenwillow/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-06-233139-7 Caldecott Medalist and Newbery honoree Henkes hands over the paintbrush for this ode to spring. Recalling the central activity in his winsome Waiting (2015), Henkes’ text emphasizes patience. “If you wait, / Spring will bring / leaves and blossoms” to cover bare winter branches. “If you wait, Spring will make” snow melt to nothingness (eventually) and turn brown grass green. A read-aloud dream, the meticulous text catalogs Spring’s awakenings and its characteristic weather. “I hope you like umbrellas,” the narrator dryly advises before also acknowledging that Spring “changes its mind a lot,” as the drooping, snow-covered daffodils attest. As the season advances, the text grows giddy with alliteration and |
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syllabic bounce: “There will be buds / and bees / and boots / and bubbles.” Dronzek’s thick-lined, bright acrylics are as simultaneously wry and joyous as the text. Readers will chuckle at the slowly melting snowman reduced to sticks and pieces of coal over five vignettes, and they will thoroughly luxuriate in highly saturated double-page spreads bursting with flowers and color (and kittens!). A towheaded child and a brunette older sibling, both white, also feel the joy. A final medallion showing three kittens amid strawberry plants teasingly reminds readers that the waiting’s not over: “Now, you have to wait for Summer”; endpapers tantalize with fireworks, Popsicles, and flip-flops. Henkes and Dronzek make waiting almost as much fun—if not more so—than the payoff. (Picture book. 4-8)
IT’S GETTING HOT IN HERE The Past, the Present, and the Future of Global Warming Heos, Bridget HMH Books (224 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-544-30347-8
A comprehensive introduction to the scientific history and current understandings about climate change. Heos opens her well-organized presentation with a strong statement of the reasons readers need to know about this issue: “Scientists agree that human-induced global warming is well under way, and that it is cause for great concern.” Chapter by chapter, she explains what climate is, describes its changing nature since Earth’s beginnings, tells how scientists have determined that Earth is warming again, this time as a result of human actions, and suggests reasons for humans’ lack of response. Each chapter ends with tips on how to “Be the Change,” suggesting what readers can do personally to assess their own energy use; reduce household, fuel, agricultural, industrial, and waste emissions; and spread the word. A concluding section offers further and larger-scale solutions. Even the design of this well-thoughtout briefing will remind readers that things are heating up: page numbers are set on red circles; almost every spread includes a red-bordered photograph or other graphic; and the suggestions to take action are printed in white on a red background. Many of the author’s sources, listed in an extensive bibliography, are available online. Determined readers can find and follow them up, but most of her revealing statistics are not footnoted. “Rooted in science” and offering teen readers tools for individual action, this is a necessary purchase for most libraries. (bibliography, photo credits, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)
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LUCKY
A beloved grandparent gift purchase to be sure but also a toddler-friendly inclusion to an intergenerational storytime. (Picture book. 2-4)
Hill, Chris Chicken House/Scholastic (208 pp.) $16.99 | $16.99 e-book | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-545-83977-8 978-0-545-84053-8 e-book
THE TRUTH
Lucky, a red squirrel, is nothing like his new adopted family. The gray Cloudfoots are bigger, stronger, and faster than he. It will take all of his wits to survive the Cadet Troop training and avoid being Cast Down. Instead of becoming cynical about his misfortune, Lucky develops compassion and determination. He quickly befriends Nimlet, another outcast. Together they develop a strategy for surviving the final race that will decide their fate in the Clan. But when the Northenders, a group of rival gray squirrels, attack their home, Lucky and Nimlet will need more than cunning and speed to keep the two clans from destroying each other. While Lucky is the perfect hero, upholding truth and honor above scheming and victory, he is only one of a large cast of interesting characters, including Finlay, a retired police dog; Eric a softhearted Staffordshire terrier; Amber a sly fox; and Tarragon, a Northender—all are part of the amusing, entertaining, and heartwarming cast. An author’s note explains the history of the invasive gray and indigenous red squirrels in the U.K. and offers resources for those interested in red-squirrel conservation. A sweet story that begs a sequel—ideal for fans of the Warriors series. (Animal fantasy. 8-11)
GRANDPA LOVES YOU!
James, Helen Foster Illus. by Brown, Petra Sleeping Bear Press (32 pp.) $15.99 | Feb. 15, 2016 978-1-58536-940-9
A grandfather rabbit celebrates the birth of a new baby bunny and recounts the many adventures they will have. Grandpa—complete with bushy, white brows and gray, furry coat—is delighted when his grandbunny is born. Sweet prose follows the cotton-tailed duo. “Life is much better / with you, little one, / cutie pah-tootie, / my bundle of fun.” They fly kites together, tell jokes, and burrow together in the ground. A large cast of woodland creatures scampers through the pages to watch the two bunnies frolic and play. Soft autumnal hues and piles of crunchy leaves warm this sentimental ode. Not tipping to saccharine too much, Grandpa gives wise words of advice: “Be brave and take chances, / have fun and enjoy, / each moment, my love, / my pride, and my joy.” As with the previous works by this author-and-illustrator team (Grandma Loves You, 2013 and Grandma’s Christmas Wish, 2014), a special section to write a letter from grandpa to grandchild and include a photo is appended in the back. 150
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Johnston, Jeffry W. Sourcebooks Fire (224 pp.) $9.99 paper | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-4926-2320-5 A teen hostage is forced to recount his battle with a home invader. Chris is just an ordinary kid stuck in an extraordinary situation. Eight days ago an intruder found his way into Chris’ home, and Chris shot him dead. Now the intruder’s brother, Derek, has Chris held hostage, demanding an honest account of the fateful night and threatening to cut off a few fingers if Chris dares to lie. It’s a great, flashy premise, but Johnston comes very close to squandering it. Chris is focused solely on protecting his younger brother after their father died a few years ago and their mother grew distant. It’s solid motivation, but it’s the only characterization Chris gets, and that one note gets old all too fast. Derek isn’t much better; his most interesting attribute provides a dark mirror image of Chris, as he is haunted by his failure to protect his own brother when it counted. The author makes this mirror very explicit, which undercuts the resonance. The most problematic element of the book comes in the very end in the form of Derek’s haunting, brutalized past, a pitch-black element that doesn’t fit the pulpy tone of the rest of the novel. Even in a book with the threat of torture and gunplay, this darkness is one step too far. A crackerjack idea hobbled by weak characters and the author’s heavy hand. (Thriller. 12-16)
ARE YOU THE PIRATE CAPTAIN?
Jones, Gareth P. Illus. by Parsons, Garry Andersen Press USA (32 pp.) $17.99 | Mar. 1, 2016 978-1-5124-0427-2 Arrrgh! A job opening on a jolly pirate ship turns out to be unexpectedly hard to fill. First Mate Hugh—a ragged, sandy-haired Everylad in Parsons’ cartoon scenes—announces in rhyme to the crew that the docked pirate ship’s “mopped and swabbed and scrubbed” and ready to set sail. But who’ll be captain? Alas, one flamboyantly dressed passer-by’s hook is just a clothes hanger, another with what looks like a torn treasure map is only holding a shopping list, the parrot hoisted by a third dandy is but an umbrella handle, and a fourth’s “glistening silver blade, / two gold teeth and underneath, / a beard tied in a braid!” turns out to be a party costume. But when this last gent sapiently suggests “You’ll kirkus.com
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Koehler’s chunky, bold lines and varying perspectives are comical and lively. super jumbo
need one who / will lead your crew / and not just look the part” and asks who it was who actually organized the ship’s latest spiffing-up, all eyes turn to the erstwhile First Mate...instantly promoted to “Pirate Captain Hugh!” The illustrations appear pretty much phoned-in, as background details are at times left uncolored, and the effort to add diversity by tucking in a pair of darker-skinned figures—one a girl to boot—to the knavish cast comes off as perfunctory at best. Some verses of an original chantey fore and aft of the tale can be heard on the British edition’s online book trailer. A point worth pondering, however facile its making. (Picture book. 6-8)
SUPER JUMBO
Koehler, Fred Illus. by the author Dial (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-8037-3923-9 A small elephant’s superhero ambitions leave unintended chaos wherever he goes. The determined Jumbo, in gray overalls, takes a creative approach to being super: he hoists barbells crafted from two halves of a watermelon, fires a plumber’s helper from a curved bow, and sports a bright yellow cape and eye mask cut from the middle of the living-room curtains. Messes abound in his wake. Out in the neighborhood, Jumbo stops traffic (assorted animal pedestrians and drivers) for a small parade of snails. He brings a ladder to “help” a cat up a tree. He shoos birds away from popcorn scattered by an elderly elephant in the park. These deeds go unappreciated, as the young audience will guess. Yet faced with the opportunity to be of real assistance, sweet-toothed Jumbo resists the call of the wares in the cake-shop window. He hurries to help, has just the right tool at hand, and makes a friend. Koehler’s chunky, bold lines and varying perspectives are comical and lively, while the simple text offers several moments of nicely silly contrasts between the elephantine wannabe superhero’s intentions and his results. Amusing vignettes of the superhero on the title page, verso, and dedication page offer glimpses of Jumbo’s challenges. A box of Jumbo cookies makes its appearance early on and reappears several times before the end. Broadly entertaining. (Picture book. 3-6)
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THE PAGES BETWEEN US
Leavitt, Lindsey & Mellom, Robin Illus. by Dening, Abby Harper/HarperCollins (288 pp.) $16.99 | $9.99 e-book | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-06-237771-5 978-0-06-237773-9 e-book Sixth-grade friends chronicle their transition to middle school in a shared journal. When best friends Piper and Olivia discover they have only one class together, they start a shared journal to communicate with each other. While the girls vow to remain best friends, each feels socially adrift at school. Piper’s unexpected opportunity to have a special birthday party motivates the girls to devise a plan to join school clubs in order to widen their social circles. From badminton to spelling bees, the girls valiantly search for a club that suits them, with some comical and a few calamitous results. Leavitt and Mellom address the self-consciousness and uncertainties of navigating social life in middle school. Their astute observations also reveal the girls’ family concerns: Piper yearns for personal attention amid her bevy of siblings, while Olivia longs for her father’s time and approval. As each girl struggles to find her niche, their journal entries become increasingly self-reflective. With their interests diverging, their friendship reaches a crisis point as the date of Piper’s party approaches. The book’s format, featuring journal entries between the girls, emails, text messages, and blog posts, combines with Dening’s whimsical artwork to create the feel of a well-tended journal. Leavitt and Mellom’s humorous and perceptive tale deftly explores the quandary of how to sustain a cherished friendship while nurturing individual growth. (Fiction. 9-13)
IDA, ALWAYS
Levis, Caron Illus. by Santoso, Charles Atheneum (40 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Feb. 23, 2016 978-1-4814-2640-4 978-1-4814-2641-1 e-book This is a picture book about loss and grief, so it is probably not a coincidence that it is pictorially dominated by skies. Santoso paints amazing skies. There’s a spectacular view of the sky on almost every page of the story. When the sky isn’t visible, it’s usually reflected in a pool of water. They’re city skies, so the clouds are shaped like buses and taxis, but sometimes they look like bears chasing each other through the air. This is apt, as the main characters in the book are Gus and Ida, two polar bears living in the city zoo. Some days, Ida is too weak to swim or play, and sometimes she coughs or sleeps too long. The book is very blunt about what’s happening: “one day, when her body stopped working, Ida would die.” Levis writes about death and the bears’ mutual devotion with surprising beauty: “There were |
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With just eight words repeated again and again, one short sentence per spread, and only 24 pages, success is almost guaranteed for struggling readers. i see and see
growling days and laughing days / and days that mixed them up.” But some of the most affecting passages are hardly poetic at all. Gus’ distress is emphasized in large, bold type: “ ‘Don’t go,’ he growled. ‘Don’t go, don’t go...DON’T!’ ” The final image shows Gus beneath a cloud shaped like a lone bear. The text says: “And Ida is right there. Always.” If the text is occasionally sentimental or overwritten, the pictures are so simple they’re heartbreaking. (Picture book. 4-8)
I SEE AND SEE
Lewin, Ted Illus. by the author Holiday House (24 pp.) $14.95 | $6.99 paper | $14.95 e-book Feb. 1, 2016 978-0-8234-3544-9 978-0-8234-3545-6 paper 978-0-8234-3596-8 e-book Series: I Like to Read The latest entry in the I Like to Read series involves very little reading. With just eight words repeated again and again, one short sentence per spread, and only 24 pages, success is almost guaranteed for struggling readers. The word “see” appears 12 times and without competition from other words that start with “s.” The picture-book trim size, as opposed to the standard earlyreader format, is also nicely nonthreatening. The problem is that struggling readers are often smart enough to know that this isn’t a real story. There is no plot. What the boy sees seems arbitrary and disconnected—a dog, three different trucks, flowers, an arborist (“a man” in a tree with a saw), a butterfly, a bird, a merry-go-round. There is no sense of neighborhood or place. Most reluctant new readers will know that the trucks are particular types—bulldozers, a cement truck, a street sweeper—but they are not challenged with this specific vocabulary. Lewin’s charming pencil-and-watercolor illustrations and the winsome African-American boy who draws what he has seen at the end of the book rescue it from mediocrity. Teachers will want to point out that the drawings were made by the child who served as Lewin’s model before assigning the inevitable task to “make a book about what you see.” A useful instructional addition for beginning readers who need to experience success. (Picture book/early reader. 3-6)
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BANISHED
Little, Kimberley Griffiths Harper/HarperCollins (416 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-06-219501-2 978-0-06-219503-6 e-book Series: Forbidden, 2 A Bronze Age desert adventure continues in this second trilogy entry, spicing its inspirational romance with the sybaritic wickedness of pagan sex worshippers. Jayden and Kadesh, having failed to rescue Jayden’s tribe from her villainous betrothed (Forbidden, 2014), race through the desert to Kadesh’s home kingdom of Sariba. They flee the conquering armies of those tribes whose ambition is empowered by the pagan Temple of Ashtoreth. The Temple of Ashtoreth has already seduced Jayden’s beloved sister into ungodly wickedness, so shameful for a desert princess. Jayden and Kadesh are both descendants of the biblical patriarch Abraham, and though Jayden seems to vacillate between worshipping an ancient Mother Goddess and “the God of Abraham,” she and Kadesh clearly despise “the cults of gods and goddesses who demand your body and soul.” Indeed, this particular goddess cult seems to be a murdering, drugging, brainwashing crop of fiends—for when Kadesh and Jayden finally arrive in Sariba, the machinations of the debauched temple acolytes might prevent their marriage and doom the kingdom. Jayden’s journey through the ancient Arabia of The Book of Mormon leaves her plenty of opportunity to learn sword fighting, befriend the Queen of Sheba, and take bubble baths. A cliffhanger leaves all that Jayden’s achieved at risk. Readers won’t learn history from this anachronistic and sometimes-inconsistent adventure, but they might enjoy some angst-ridden passionate yearning. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 12-16)
LITTLE BUTTERFLY
Logan, Laura Illus. by the author Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (32 pp.) $14.99 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-06-228126-5 When her cat injures the wing of a monarch butterfly at the opening of this wordless story, the blonde little white girl is delighted to discover that the creature can still fly. Curling up under her orange cape for a nap in the grass, she is soon covered with a blanket of monarchs, who carry her over land and sea to a grove of trees covered in butterflies. Alighting, she sprouts monarch wings of her own and then, abruptly, is depicted lying on the ground again. Working with pencils and digital media, Logan uses a controlled palette: the butterflies, the girl’s cape, and a few leaves and flowers are orange; the water and occasional patches of sky are blue; everything else is soft kirkus.com
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gray. A rent in the girl’s cape together with its color connect her visually with the injured butterfly, a detail children will appreciate. They will, however, be puzzled by much else, starting with the story’s ambiguity: is her journey real, or is it a dream? The pictorial clues are mixed. How does the little girl grasp all those butterflies? And, having established the visual leitmotif of the torn wing, Logan disappoints readers by not clearly depicting the girl’s special friend during the fantastical flight. In a note, Logan describes her feeling of wonder at butterfly migration. Avoid this confusing fantasy and instead seek out one of the many excellent books that directly discuss the monarch’s amazing journey. (Picture book. 4- 7)
SUPER HAPPY MAGIC FOREST
Long, Matty Illus. by the author Scholastic (32 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-545-86059-8
In the full-color world of Super Happy Magic Forest, everyone recognizes what evil looks like...or do they? This over-the-top happy place with fun, dancing, and picnics every day maintains its positive energy because of three Mystical Crystals of Life. After a two-sentence exposition, readers learn that someone has stolen the crystals, throwing all the forest inhabitants into panic. The five bravest warriors, including the reluctant Blossom, a unicorn, and Trevor, a redand-white mushroom, go in search of the culprit, only to find in the end that their arduous journey has been for naught. In this debut picture book, Long fills nearly every page with details that will keep young readers engaged and interested: a penguin distraught over losing the frying pan it evidently uses as a cudgel, a gravestone bearing the name of one of the warriors, a headless skeleton preparing to decapitate the clueless Blossom. Some pages will remind readers of the Smurfs’ village—another superhappy place—while others seem to take a page from video game journeys, with many twists and turns. In the end, though, this book that exudes youthfulness and joy delivers quite a cynical message: sometimes those in whom we’ve placed the most trust can betray us. And when they do, they should expect a comeuppance sans mercy. For Where’s Waldo? graduates who are ready for heavyduty irony. (Picture book. 8-10)
MISS MARY REPORTING The True Story of Sportswriter Mary Garber
Macy, Sue Illus. by Payne, C.F. Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Feb. 16, 2016 978-1-4814-0120-3 978-1-4814-0121-0 e-book
Macy illuminates the pioneering sportswriter’s 50-year career. One of three daughters, Garber was introduced to sports by her father. She quarterbacked football with boys, created a lively family newspaper instead of writing letters to relatives, and pursued newspaper work after college. A society reporter at Winston-Salem’s Twin City Sentinel, Garber got a career break during World War II. With the male sportswriters gone, her editor assigned her the sports pages. Garber soon moved to sports for good, covering competitive contests from football to marbles. Macy’s clear, anecdotal writing is backed with solid research and documented quotations. She highlights Garber’s coverage of Jackie Robinson and demonstrates that Garber made inroads too, reporting on games at North Carolina’s segregated African-American schools. She overcame her own discriminatory roadblocks as a woman barred from press boxes and locker rooms. Macy clearly connects Garber’s determination, talent, and sense of fair play with deserved recognition: she garnered a host of awards and widespread admiration. Payne’s otherwise handsome mixed-media illustrations present Garber in caricature—far more so than other figures. The artist disrespects Macy’s respectful narrative, depicting the petite Garber as an unchangingly childish figure throughout, with owlish round glasses, outsize head and ears, and scrawny neck. A winning tribute to an important game-changer— with points off for its discordant pictorial representation. (author’s note, acknowledgements, chronology, resources, sources, notes) (Picture book/biography. 5-9)
RED INK
Mayhew, Julie Candlewick (320 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-7636-7731-2 In her debut novel, Mayhew deftly explores the ways the sudden death of 15-year-old Melon’s mother affects their family’s oral history. The book’s nonlinear structure makes each section a moment in time that reveals a different piece of the puzzle. The chapter titles orient readers by indicating when the scene takes place in relation to Maria’s death. Interspersed between the chapters is “The Story”—Melon’s written account of the family history her mother told her again and again. The
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simple prose exposes the difficult realities of many teenagers in modern-day London. Melon is an explosive character. The social workers, her friends, and even the bullies at school tiptoe around her grief, which exacerbates her abrasive personality. Melon grapples with anger and guilt as she tries to understand her late mother. Her explicit and unfiltered language reflects both her frank temperament and the sensitive subjects in the narrative. The sexual objectification of the mother’s black boyfriend is an unfortunate throughline that mars the book. Despite writing Paul as a full and nuanced character, the author does not adequately address the racist underpinnings of the repeated discussions of his body. A taut portrayal of grief, pain, and the ties that bind families, to be read with a careful, critical eye. (Fiction. 15 & up)
MARKED
McCaffrey, Laura Williams Clarion (352 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 16, 2016 978-0-547-23556-1 Lyla is 16, and her only goal is to keep her seat in the Bright—the section of school for the smartest children—and earn the best grades so that she may go on to university one day and become an inventor. In her society, only the elite get the opportunity to thrive. The rest have to work risky, low-paying jobs. And if they are Marked—tattooed as evidence of committing a crime—their chances of employment and thus survival are greatly diminished. The Marked sometimes go over to the side of the Red Fists, the highly dangerous rebel group that takes advantage of those angry, desperate, and frustrated with the system. Lyla takes a risk and makes a costly mistake, which ends up getting her Marked. She is then offered a shot at redemption, but it comes at quite the price: her second chance at the future she’s always dreamed of means betraying an old friend she may be falling in love with, risking her relationships with her family members, and maybe even more. Interspersed with Lyla’s story are snatches of Pirate Jackman, a graphic-novel zine that reveals both the history and the current state of Lyla’s world. McCaffrey’s society has a Dickensian feel to it, with a heaving, discontented underclass dominated by the barons who control the source of power and the inventors who wield it. An original, textured page-turner. (Fantasy. 12 & up)
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EMMA AND JULIA LOVE BALLET
McClintock, Barbara Illus. by the author Scholastic (32 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-439-89401-2
Ballet is indeed beautiful for both a student and a performing ballerina. In parallel stories, Emma, a young white girl, and Julia, an African-American dancer, awaken and set off for their ballet classes. Each loves her familiar routine and practice session. In the evening, Emma and her parents attend a performance in which Julia dances. A special treat awaits Emma as she gets to go backstage and receive not only an autograph, but also a hug from Julia. In both her words and her colorful illustrations, done in ink, gouache, and watercolor, McClintock deftly balances the two worlds and the preparations involved in being a fan and a member of a company. Emma’s mother chauffeurs her, while Julia waits for a city bus. Emma enjoys a family dinner, while Julia snacks with fellow dancers. Detailed drawings show a not-yet-accomplished student, while on the facing page, the ballerina executes her steps with perfect grace; there’s no sweating or falling in this world. It is certainly a good thing to see an African-American ballerina, especially given the recent publicity about the lack of diversity in ballet, but why couldn’t Emma also be a student of color—like three of the other girls in her class? It is nice to see a white girl looking to a black role model, however. Young fans will dream big while enjoying this picturebook–perfect world. (Picture book. 4- 7)
THE SHADOW’S CURSE
McCulloch, Amy Flux (456 pp.) $11.99 paper | Feb. 8, 2016 978-0-7387-4512-1
A lost prince and his ladylove must defeat the tyrant rampaging over the steppes with an army of enslaved spirits in this sequel to The Oathbreaker’s Shadow (2015). Raim is haunted by the spirit of his best friend, Khareh—a spirit that appeared when Raim accidentally broke an oath made by another, leaving him magically marked and exiled from his nomadic tribe as an oathbreaker. Khareh yet lives, but with the best part of himself lost in the spirit, his ambition has become megalomania. Not content to be khan of his tribe alone, Khareh aims to join all the northern nomads into one massive khanate. Raim seeks control over his spirit but also yearns to rescue Wadi, the dark-skinned desert girl to whom he’s given his heart. Wadi is Khareh’s captive, and she is more than capable of freeing herself from the cruel young khan; nevertheless she must stay a captive. It’s her destiny to make a king of Raim, she learns from a blind seer in one of the stalest kirkus.com
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Barton uses digitized pencil sketches to capture the wide-eyed, breath-holdingfeeling of seeing a caterpillar for the first time. little bitty friends
tropes of superpowered disability. Raim, Khareh, and Wadi travel all over the steppes of Darhan, giving a solid glimpse of this fantasy world roughly based on the lives of Mongolian nomads. A dense narrative of tiny chapters with shifting points of view leaves little time to become invested in each character’s journey. Though it’s a bit of a slog, readers of Book 1 will find it worth the time for its unexpected conclusion. (Fantasy. 13-15)
LITTLE BITTY FRIENDS
McPike, Elizabeth Illus. by Barton, Patrice Putnam (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 2, 2016 978-0-399-17255-7
With expressions of wonder and delight, little toddlers explore nature in its tiniest forms, seeing critters and flowers with the curiosity of new eyes. McPike and Barton have created a companion book to their comforting bedtime read-aloud, Little Sleepyhead (2015). This outing repeats the same rhythmic couplets, bringing together the simplest of flora and fauna with a racially diverse group of toddlers. Barton uses digitized pencil sketches to capture the wide-eyed, breath-holding feeling of seeing a caterpillar for the first time. The children’s delight in the snails, bluebirds, and bunnies is a gentle introduction to quietly observing nature. “Little bitty chipmunks, chattering all the day / Little bitty ladybug always comes to play.” (Here a ladybug crawls across a giggling toddler’s forehead.) The illustrations are open and breezy with white space, and the spare text printed in different colors keeps the focus simple. While the repeated phrase of “little bitty” provides a consistent thread from beginning to end, the uniqueness of every child is clear. Yet even the wide range of skin tones and hairstyles is secondary to the universal feeling of wonder. Is this a nature book? Not really. But with beautiful young faces respecting living creatures, it is a great choice for toddler libraries. (Picture book. 1-3)
NOT FOR ALL THE HAMANTASCHEN IN TOWN
Milhander, Laura Aron Illus. by Chernyak, Inna Kar-Ben (32 pp.) $17.99 | $7.99 paper | $6.99 e-book Feb. 1, 2016 978-1-4677-5928-1 978-1-4677-5930-4 paper 978-1-4677-9613-2 e-book
The three little pigs of fairy-tale fame attend a Purim carnival and once again outwit the big bad wolf. Rishon, Sheni, and Shlishi (“First,” “Second,” and “Third” in Hebrew) live together in a brick house. Following the fairy-tale pattern, each spends more time and thought than the pig before in making a King Ahasuerus crown. Rishon uses purple paper, |
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Sheni uses poster board, gold foil, and glue, and Shlishi’s is a sturdy papier-mâché. Meanwhile, the big bad wolf smells hamantaschen and decides to go to the carnival to buy some. But wait— without a costume, the sinister-looking wolf with his curled mustache, bushy eyebrows, and fancy laced shoes will be feared and unwelcome. So he decides to steal the crowns, with this familiar-sounding exchange. “Little pig, little pig, give me your crown!” / “Not for all the hamantaschen in town!” / “Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your crown off!” The two lightweight crowns blow away, but when the wolf goes to grab Shlishi’s relatively sturdy one, a child dressed as the good Mordechai offers the wolf the evil Haman hat; a bullying lesson ensues. Chernyak’s bright, mixed-media, folk-art–inflected illustrations present an all-animal cast. Unfortunately, at its root this parody makes little sense. If the wolf was willing to steal a crown, readers will wonder why he didn’t just go ahead and steal the hamantaschen? Irksome and even a bit dimwitted. (recipe, author’s note, glossary) (Picture book. 3-5)
WOMEN OF COLONIAL AMERICA 13 Stories of Courage and Survival in the New World
Miller, Brandon Marie Chicago Review (240 pp.) $19.95 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-1-55652-487-5 Series: Women of Action
A collection of brief yet informative biographies of American women of the Colonial era. Most of the women described in this effort were exceptional for their time. Some, such as Pocahontas, Puritan lay preacher Anne Hutchinson, and poet Anne Dudley Bradstreet, may be familiar to readers. The brief biographies of others will provide new revelations regarding the lives of the women of the era. Elizabeth Ashbridge started as an indentured servant and became a respected Quaker leader; Mary Rowlandson heroically survived being taken prisoner by Indians during King Philip’s War; and Eliza Lucas Pinkney, whose letters reveal much about her life, managed her father’s plantation at the age of 16. With literacy still relatively uncommon among women of the time, and since they only rarely rated the attention of male record keepers, it becomes the exceptional woman for whom biographical information survives. However, each chapter includes enlightening history of the time and place, and the biographies make it clear that these women were not always typical of their time. Parts of the book were originally published in 2003 as the much shorter, juvenile nonfiction work Good Women of a Well-Blessed Land: Women’s Lives in Colonial America. Detailed endnotes and an extensive bibliography round out an excellent nonfiction offering for sophisticated readers. A valuable and entertaining resource for both budding historians and those seeking biographical information on a few of the many nearly forgotten women of that time. (index not seen) (Nonfiction. 12-18) |
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Vibrant illustrations use a glowing palette of golds and purples, swirling lines, and Murphy’s signature thick, black outlines to create an evocative atmosphere of deepening twilight. good night like this
50 IMPRESSIVE KIDS AND THEIR AMAZING (AND TRUE!) STORIES
Mitchell, Saundra Puffin (320 pp.) $14.99 | $8.99 paper | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-101-99832-8 978-0-14-751813-2 paper Series: They Did What?
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic,
and artistic glory? Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesserknown luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page. A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)
WHOOPS!
Moore, Suzi Illus. by Ayto, Russell Templar/Candlewick (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-7636-8180-7 Whoever heard of a cat that can’t meow? Three animals unable to make the appropriate noises—the cat can’t meow, the dog can’t bark, and the mouse can’t squeak— are determined to remedy their unfortunate situations. But what can they do, and to whom should they turn? A wise (or perhaps not-so-wise) owl suggests they ask the old lady in the tumbledown house if she knows of a spell to solve the problem. Stylized and very appealing mixed-media illustrations portray the trio as they approach the old lady, a purple- and blue- and orange- and pink-haired (by turn) eccentric, who is perfectly 156
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happy to try to find a solution. But whoops! Things do not go according to plan, and as spells are cast and the tumbledown house whisks around, comic results follow. Judicious repetition of relevant words will help young readers join in and follow along, and youngsters already familiar with animals and their sounds will enjoy identifying each mishap. Is a happy ending possible? A funny one is guaranteed! Though the rhymes are sometimes bumpy and lose their flow, the text is clear and entertaining, and the changing palette and quirky tableaux full of action are a thorough delight. Full of fun and sure to evoke giggles, meows, bowwows, and squeaks. (Picture book. 3- 7)
CHICKEN LILY
Mortensen, Lori Illus. by Crittenden, Nina Victor Henry Holt (40 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 29, 2016 978-1-62779-120-5 Lily the chicken is chicken. Lily the plump, yellow chick is a good colorer (always between the lines) and is patient at working puzzles. She’s a pro at hide-and-seek (she never makes a peep). However, she won’t take the training wheels off her bike or try new foods at lunch, and she never raises her hand in class, even when she knows the answer. When the teacher announces a poetry slam, all Lily’s barnyard friends are excited to read their poems on stage; Lily is terrified. She’s too scared to tell Mrs. Lop about her stage fright, so she’s on the bill, but that doesn’t help her with her writer’s block. It’s not until she considers how much worse it would be to be onstage without anything to read that Lily writes her poem. Facing her fear makes her a slightly less chicken chicken. Mortensen’s tale of timid poultry fearing poetry rises above other fear-of-the-new titles when its protagonist tackles her own anxiety instead of taking direction from an outside source. Young listeners will identify with her fears. Crittenden’s slightly anthropomorphic farm folk, rendered in watercolors, are a smiling and supportive if slightly generic group. Touches of humor, verbal and visual, make Lily’s baby step toward bravery believable and replicable. Nice addition to storytimes and good bibliotherapy for anyone who’s a little chicken. (Picture book. 3-8)
GOOD NIGHT LIKE THIS
Murphy, Mary Illus. by the author Candlewick (32 pp.) $12.99 | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-7636-7970-5 Series: ...Like This
The third entry in Murphy’s ...Like This series explores the nighttime world of animal parents and babies settling down for sleep. kirkus.com
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Each double-page spread shows a different adult-baby animal pair (or grouping of several youngsters) in its own outdoor environment. The adult-baby pairs or groups clearly convey deep attachment, but the pairings are not specified as mother-child, so the book is equally meaningful for dads or grandparents or caregivers to read to their favorite little ones. The patterned text offers a few descriptive words in a rhyming couplet followed by a simple “good night, sleep tight” wish. A cleverly designed half-page flap then turns to show the animals sleeping “like this.” A tiny animal or insect pops up on these sleepy pages with a white speech balloon offering a cheery “Good night!” These little critters are also skillfully camouflaged on the full-page illustration the flap lies over, providing an additional layer of interest as readers look back to spot the hiding places. Vibrant illustrations use a glowing palette of golds and purples, swirling lines, and Murphy’s signature thick, black outlines to create an evocative atmosphere of deepening twilight. This is a bedtime story that has it all: humor, playful language, and a soothing combination of rhyme, rhythm, and repetition woven together with compelling illustrations that have the surrealistic edge of the dream world. Move over, Goodnight Moon. There’s a new star on the bedtime bookshelf. (Picture book. 1-5)
THE WORD FOR YES
Needell, Claire HarperTeen (256 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Feb. 16, 2016 978-0-06-236049-6 978-0-06-236051-9 e-book In the aftermath of a devastating incident at a high school party, three sisters struggle to help one another. Melanie has always resented her older sister Erika, a beautiful wunderkind with few social skills. Now that the eldest sister, Jan, has left for college, they’re left with a mother lost in her work and in her new life after leaving their father. Under the weight of these new growing pains, Melanie is overrun with emotions, and her bullying of Erika has never been harsher. But when Erika invites Melanie and her friends to a Halloween party, everything changes. Erika discovers Melanie unconscious and halfdressed on a bearskin rug. As blurry memories come together, a close friend’s intentions are questioned. Embarrassed, Melanie makes it clear to Erika that no one is to ever find out. And at college, Jan has too many problems to help either of them. Each sister must find her way back to the others before she can truly heal. Melanie, Erika, and those orbiting them thrum with all the sharp edges and beauty of real people—no one is simple or predictable. Their story, much like real life, isn’t clear-cut or easy to read, but it’s very, very important. An engrossing story proving the hard truth that it isn’t always strangers who hurt us the worst of all. (Fiction. 14-18)
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DON’T CALL ME GRANDMA
Nelson, Vaunda Micheaux Illus. by Zunon, Elizabeth Carolrhoda (32 pp.) $19.99 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-1-4677-4208-5
Scary grandmas are always called “grandMOTHER,” especially if they are 96-year-old great-grandmothers who have “chocolaty brown” skin and are named Nell and sometimes growl into their mirrors. This little girl’s great-grandmother is glamorous and has wigs, earrings, and “bottles and bottles and bottles of perfume.” Nelson’s young protagonist is mesmerized by her great-grandmother’s rituals, from posing in her bathing suit on the beach to applying ruby red lipstick. Even though her great-grandmother is old, the young girl knows she is “not worn out.” Nell, who never hugs or kisses, still deigns to share beauty tips and stories of long ago. Zunon’s mixed-media illustrations of paper collage, pastel, and watercolor lend warmth to this tender story of an aging dragon of a diva and her great-grandchild. The facial expressions span the emotional gamut from pique to sorrow to haughtiness and are all spot-on. When Nell reminisces, vague watercolor impressions evoke the perfect tone of wistfulness. Black-and-white photo reproductions accompany brief recollections of the civil rights movement. But the sterling moment shines at the very end of the story when the grandchild steals a kiss with no remorse. “Even asleep, Great-Grandmother Nell is scary. But I like her that way. I give her a little hug. She smells like peaches. I kiss my grandma. // She won’t know.” Children will best appreciate this nostalgic journey when accompanied by a doting loved one. (Picture book. 5-8)
APOLLO The Brilliant One
O’Connor, George Illus. by the author Neal Porter/First Second (80 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 paper | Jan. 26, 2016 978-1-62672-016-9 978-1-62672-015-2 paper Series: Olympians
O’Connor makes out his latest Olympian as a tragic hero “who has had many loves, but whose loves seldom prosper.” To say the least. No sooner are the frowning lad and his twin sister, Artemis, welcomed to Olympus by their father, Zeus, than Apollo is off to avenge his mother, Leto. He riddles Python, the humongous serpent who had harried Leto at Hera’s instigation, with fiery arrows. He then proceeds himself to harry the virgin nymph Daphne until she is transformed into a laurel, gruesomely flense the satyr Marsyas for claiming to be a better musician, kill his bosom buddy Hyacinth, prince of Sparta, with a misguided discus, and get Artemis to shoot the unfaithful mother of his own not-yet-born son, |
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Asklepios. Finally, he later sees his miraculously rescued son himself killed for creating, as Hades puts it, “a glitch in the system” by healing so many mortals. These and other incidents are narrated, sometimes in Classical meter or rhymed prose, by the nine worshipful Muses—lissome figures who pose and dance gracefully through the panels, then gather at the end to explain why their immortal patron’s unique blend of gifts and faults is profoundly inspirational: “The most divine god is also the most human.” As in previous series entries, the backmatter includes commentary, analysis, reading lists, and discussion questions. Apollo’s darker tendencies overshadow his divine radiance here but, as usual, make better tales. (Olympian family tree) (Graphic mythology. 8-14)
THE CASE OF THE BATTLING BOTS
O’Donnell, Liam Illus. by Deas, Mike Orca (176 pp.) $9.95 paper | Feb. 23, 2015 978-1-4598-0813-3 Series: Tank & Fizz Young sleuths stumble on a demonic conspiracy to blow the lid off Slick City’s new sports arena. Just for a start. Goblin Fizz Marlow and troll gearhead Tank Wrenchlin are convinced that slimeball schoolmate Rizzo Rawlins’ supposedly homemade battle bot illegally incorporates professional-grade code and components. Their search for proof leads them and elven trainee wizard Aleetha to several puzzles. Who is the mysterious “Codex,” and why is he (or she) supplying Rizzo as well as hacking Slick City’s computer systems to threaten disaster if the just-finished Slurp Stadium is opened for the upcoming Battle Bot Cup? How did the stadium come to be built over a magic stone that could, as old maps hint, serve as a portal to demon worlds? What can a trio of fourth-graders do, opposed by corrupt officials, a bully with a pair of hulking hench-ogres, and a local business tycoon with—as it turns out—a high-tech hand-held demon controller? Well, plenty, though not without a few missteps, help from a surprising temporary ally, and lots of climactic bot-smashing. In a slick mix of narrative blocks and panels of nonscary monsters delivering punch lines in dialogue balloons, the exploit careens along to a triumphant close. High-energy high jinks in a multicultural, or at least multispecies, setting. (Graphic/mystery/fantasy hybrid. 9-11)
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BEHOLD THE BONES
Parker, Natalie C. HarperTeen (368 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-06-224155-9 978-0-06-224157-3 e-book Series: Beware the Wild, 2 Following Beware the Wild (2014), Candy and the supernatural swamp have unfinished business. Practical Candy, determined to leave small-town Southern life and bumpkin stigmas behind her, wants nothing to do with the supernatural happenings of the local swamp. But after her birthday—a strange family celebration, as Candy is the latest to be burdened with their family curse, in which a new bearer is born the same day the last one dies—the ghostly activity starts picking up. This frustrates supernaturalrepellent Candy, the only one who can’t see ghosts or the Shine. It also lures in the King family, headed by a ghost-hunter television star and including three kids: a small child, a reckless teenage girl, and the prerequisite attractive new boy who will—as one does in paranormal novels—eventually warn Candy to stay away from him as he shouldn’t be trusted. Happily, the romantic storylines are secondary to Candy’s wonderful friendships and familial relationships. At a huge, fancy party thrown by the Kings, a spirit arrives and Candy banishes it, giving her an unwanted reputation and attracting attention, as the town is plagued by more and more ghosts. What to do? Ghost-handling fame would ensure that Candy would never be taken seriously anywhere else. Candy’s practical motivations combine with a witty, inventive narrative voice, creating one heck of a heroine. Shines with spooky Southern charm. (Paranormal romance. 13 & up)
WHOSE HANDS ARE THESE? A Community Helper Guessing Book Paul, Miranda Illus. by Powell, Luciana Navarro Millbrook/Lerner (32 pp.) $19.99 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-1-4677-5214-5
Rhyming verses and illustrations of hands working give readers the opportunity to guess what community jobs people do. “Stop and go, these hands are waving. / Catch that guy! He’s misbehaving! / These hands help us keep the peace. / Hold yours up, it’s the... // police!” The richly colored and nicely textured illustrations show a hand holding a radio, a pointing index finger, hands writing a summons, and a hand holding a stop sign. From the commonplace to those that rarely appear in picture books, the other occupations include farmer, cook, scientist, potter, news reporter, mechanic, architect, referee, and physician. The final puzzle reveals the hands of teachers, a perfect segue to the final spread, which shows a classroom full of tots kirkus.com
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Peevyhouse plays with the unspoken to hint at the larger ideas. where futures end
dressed as community helpers before an adult audience of the same. In both the pictures showing only hands and in the full-page reveals, people of all genders, ages, and ethnicities are displayed. Backmatter includes two double-page spreads describing each of the careers—what that job entails and the education/experience needed for it. A great addition to libraries’ and teacher’s shelves for units on community helpers. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 3- 7)
WHERE FUTURES END
Peevyhouse, Parker Kathy Dawson/Penguin (304 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-8037-4160-7
Five novellas weave together a possible future of a decaying world where everyone wants to find their way to the Other Place. Cunningly set in a moving future (“one year from now”; “ten years from now”), with stories that look back to one another, these novellas each portray a specific moment while also contributing to a thematic look at missed connections and toxic connections among both individuals and entire parallel worlds. From Dylan, who first finds his way across universes, to Quinn, who will need to destroy a world to save a world, Peevyhouse plays with the unspoken to hint at the larger ideas. Each teen grapples with similar issues, seeking love and purpose, and despite strange futures, the five protagonists remain recognizable and sympathetic. Each protagonist has “vorpal,” a kind of will that can be imposed upon others and can bridge to the fairy-tale–like world of the Other Place (it’s hinted that it may be shaped partially in response to human desire). The stories beyond the first one (Dylan’s) provide a science fiction– and fantasy-imbued examination of the uncertain future of Earth (melting ice caps, rising wealth inequity, social media as collateral), parceled out with hints embedded in slices of individual lives. Strange and compelling, this won’t be for every reader; the ones who love it will feel transported to another place. (Science fiction. 13 & up)
GREENLING
Pinfold, Levi Illus. by the author Candlewick (40 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-7636-7598-1 When a green baby creature appears on their remote Australian farm, the Barleycorns take it in, nurture it, and become part of its natural world—at least for a season. The intricate paintings in this haunting fantasy have an ominous edge right from the sepia-toned title page that shows |
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a small wooden farmhouse snug against a railroad trestle in an otherwise vast and empty landscape. In the story, after the husband takes the baby in, he, his wary wife, and even commuters stranded at their farm by the sudden rampant expansion of all growing things, enjoy the fruits of a lush summer. But the Greenling is a creature of summer, and when fall comes, he, like the growing plants, disappears, leaving who knows what to come. A final double-page spread shows wind vanes instead of power lines, green grass and small flowers growing, but no visible humans. The rhyme and insistent rhythmic pulse of the text add a sense of inevitability. This ecological fable, a British import, has the folkloric atmosphere of Pinfold’s Kate Greenaway Medal–winning Black Dog (2012). It will have sinister overtones for those who know that according to folklore, John Barleycorn’s life ends with folks drinking his blood, but most readers will simply enjoy the artist’s surreal vision and detailed imagery, which includes surprising Australian fauna. Chilling and thought-provoking, this picture book for older readers invites discussion. (Picture book. 9 & up)
ON EDGE
Price, Gin Poisoned Pencil (264 pp.) $10.95 paper | $5.99 e-book Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-929345-20-5 978-1-929345-21-2 e-book Series: Freerunner Mystery The closing of two high schools results in strife between rival gangs. Emanuella “LL” Harvey’s brother, Warp, and his friends are deeply suspicious of graffiti artist Haze and his group. Though Haze and LL share an instant attraction when their schools consolidate, acting on it could further heighten tensions. The challenge of keeping Warp and Haze apart gets harder after pictures of her done in Haze’s style begin appearing on walls around town. Their secret, budding relationship, along with Haze’s determination to learn who murdered his sister, are set against LL’s efforts in her brother’s parcours group: athletic young people who practice the sport of dashing through city streets, overcoming obstacles by running, leaping, and jumping. LL has responded to the loss of her mother, the frequent absences of her trucker dad, and too many older brothers by becoming outspoken and daring; her voice is strong and authentic. There is much else to admire in this debut novel. The depiction of the sport of parcours brings distinctive action to the narrative. LL and her brother are mixed-race, introduced as a characteristic rather than a major issue. Secondary characters are well-drawn, especially the troubled Warp and his good friend Surge. The twists and resolution are satisfying, though the writing sags at times, and a gymnastics subplot disappears, leaving readers wondering. Intriguing characters, a different take on an urban landscape, and the element of mystery will captivate readers. (Mystery. 12-18) |
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The text stresses Dorothea’s perseverance despite her “forever-withered leg” and makes a clear, egalitarian stand about her subjects: “They are good people in real trouble.” dorothea’s eyes
JUST MY TYPE Understanding Personality Profiles
Rosen, Michael J. with Carlson, Daniel Twenty-First Century/Lerner (80 pp.) $34.65 PLB | Feb. 1, 2016 978-1-4677-8010-0
A guided tour through the ages demonstrates how philosophers, scientists, and doctors have tried to understand “the workings of human personality.” What makes people tick? What is personality? Can your favorite flavor of ice cream tell something about your personality? Can the positions of stars and planets affect earthly affairs? Astrology, humorology, the nature-vs.-nurture debate, Freudian theories of the unconscious, and various modern means of personality testing have all been ways to gain insight into human personality. Rosen’s slight and engaging text would make a fine unit in philosophy or life skills classes, where students—natives of a social media–dominated culture “so fascinated with personality profiling”—would be interested and amused by historical explanations of personality. Colorful diagrams, sidebars, and “Try It” exercises relieve the dense text, though the format still feels jam-packed. The tone is light yet serious, and the information is unexpectedly fascinating. Though a lively introduction sets up the tour, the volume ends abruptly, with no conclusion to point out lessons learned or the relevance of personality profiling. A serviceable exploration of the role of personality in science and pop culture. (source notes, glossary, bibliography, for further information, websites) (Nonfiction. 12-18)
DOROTHEA’S EYES Dorothea Lange Photographs the Truth
Rosenstock, Barb Illus. by DuBois, Gérard Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills (40 pp.) $16.95 | Mar. 8, 2016 978-1-62979-208-8
This brief, illustrated biography explores how the life of pioneering photojournalist Dorothea Lange influenced her art. Although the oil-pastel depictions of human bodies are at times distractingly awkward, the mostly autumnal palette complements the text as it teaches about its subject’s (called Dorothea throughout) difficulties: polio, poverty, paternal desertion, and eventually, a family opposed to her “unladylike” choice of profession. After an excellent red-and-black spread depicting Dorothea’s darkroom, the returning tawny colors work equally well to conjure the Great Depression. Throughout, boldly red-inked sentences suggest what apparently drove Dorothea from her lucrative, private portrait practice to become the sole woman on FDR’s team of documentary photographers: “Dorothea sees with her eyes and her heart,” and “Her heart knows all 160
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about people the world ignores.” Interestingly, the text introduces the idea of “invisibility” as a photographer’s asset. It also stresses Dorothea’s perseverance despite her “forever-withered leg” and makes a clear, egalitarian stand about her subjects: “They are good people in real trouble.” Backmatter reproductions of Lange’s photographs greatly enhance the story. An excellent beginner’s resource for biography, U.S. history, and women’s studies. (author’s note, bibliography, resources, timeline) (Picture book/biography. 8-12)
GO, LITTLE GREEN TRUCK!
Schotter, Roni Illus. by Kuo, Julia Farrar, Straus and Giroux (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 16, 2016 978-0-374-30070-8
A little green truck is the farm’s best work truck, until he is replaced by a bigger and better model. Little Green is proud to work on the farm. He has sturdy tires, a shiny coat of bright green paint, and a front fender that curves into a winning smile. He scoots around, picking up packages from town and doing chores. But one day he hears the “Ehrr-ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh!” sound of a bigger, boastful truck. Big Blue seems to say, “I’m the biggest. I’m the bluest. I’m the best.” Poor Little Green is left out in the pasture to rust. (It’s the saddest picture of dismal abandonment one has ever seen, though he does have butterflies and birds to keep him company). Luckily, the farmer’s daughter, Fern, has a brilliant plot to revive Little Green. They spiff him up and use him to transport crops to the farmers market—a gentle, delicate job. Little Green lives up to his color more than ever: he is now fueled with biodiesel and does his part to support sustainable agriculture. Kuo’s lush, folk-art meadows roll across the pages to round out the farm, outlined in white instead of black and textured with dotted grass accents. The effect achieves a nostalgic yet trendy feel that works well with Little Green’s two incarnations. A familiar trope with a subtle, ecological twist. (Picture book. 3-6)
OUR MOON New Discoveries About Earth’s Closest Companion
Scott, Elaine Clarion (72 pp.) $18.99 | Feb. 16, 2016 978-0-547-48394-8
This examination of Earth’s closest orbital companion presents historical information, scientific fact and theory, an overview of the Apollo missions, and recent discoveries. Scott first introduces readers to thinkers and scientists, from Anaxagoras to Galileo, who observed, mapped, and tested theories about the moon. The invention of the telescope and the ascendancy of scientific methodology propelled a centurieslong kirkus.com
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continuum of discovery. Today, the widely–accepted “giant impact theory” posits that debris resulting from a colossal collision of a planetary object with Earth formed the basis for our moon. Notably, Scott casts a fresh new look at the successful Apollo missions, whose trove of 800 pounds of moon rocks continues to invite research. NASA’s sophisticated unmanned 21st-century missions—which led to the thrilling discovery of the presence of water on the moon—garner respectful scrutiny. Scott shows that the global race to explore (and perhaps even colonize) the moon, which began with Russia’s unmanned 1959 Luna 2 mission, is ongoing—with Japan, China, and India mounting missions. Scott excels at rendering complex ideas intelligible: radioactive dating, the science of craters, the role of a planet’s atmosphere, and much more are clearly presented. Well-captioned illustrations and photographs, diagrams, and pithy text boxes round out this handsome package. (glossary, bibliography, websites, index) (Nonfiction. 9-12)
TITANS
Scott, Victoria Scholastic (320 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-545-80601-5 978-0-545-80602-2 e-book A girl rides a mechanical racehorse to save her family. Seventeen-year-old Astrid has long been fascinated with the Titans, automated steel horses that race on a clandestine track near her Detroit home. Now, as her father searches for work and eviction looms, she gets a chance to ride in the races—on a Titan 1.0, the original, never-raced version. Astrid’s Titan, named Padlock, has an EvoBox that allows him to express emotions the way a real horse would. He even comes equipped with an autopilot mode that allows him to supersede her commands. Astrid, however, can’t bring herself to relinquish control—too much depends upon her success. Why she believes herself a more competent racer than the equine computer is unclear—as are several points in this story, including why the updated Titans don’t have EvoBoxes and what exactly the point of the EvoBox is. Readers who know horses will find the story’s details are off. However, Scott’s pacing and prose are first-rate, and if her characters are sometimes inconsistent, they express themselves forcefully and well. The story, told through Astrid’s eyes, proceeds at breakneck pace to the final, sadly somewhat predictable, dramatic conclusion. It’s hard not to wonder whether the book started as Scorpio Races fanfiction, yet in the end Scott makes it into something better—not brilliant, but better. (Science fiction. 12 & up)
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UNICORN VS. GOBLINS
Simpson, Dana Illus. by the author Andrews McMeel (176 pp.) $9.99 | Feb. 23, 2016 978-1-4494-7628-1 Series: Phoebe and Her Unicorn, 3 In this third installment, Phoebe and her unicorn find themselves encountering yet more whimsical hilarity. With school giving way to summer, precocious Phoebe and her utterly narcissistic unicorn best friend, Marigold Heavenly Nostrils, learn they will be attending music camp. At Camp Wolfgang, Phoebe meets Sue, who may—or may not—be perkily homicidal and who ultimately becomes her new best (human) friend. Phoebe also meets Marigold’s sister, Florence Unfortunate Nostrils, so named for her ability to sneeze spiders. In the titular episode, Phoebe must rescue her frenemy, Dakota, when she’s kidnapped by goblins attracted to her enchanted hair. Throughout all their adventures, Phoebe maintains her wide-eyed innocence as a foil to Marigold’s snarky arrogance. While the volume covers a specific linear time period, from summer to fall, the vignettes feel loose and disjointed, and they are often punctuated by shorter interstitials; the extended antics aren’t enough to provide cohesion. However, the dreamy candy-colored sparkle-filled panels starring a giggle-worthy, pompous unicorn may be too much for some to resist. Fans of the series may appreciate its untiring comedic banter, but the endless sparkles and running jokes start to lose a bit of their luster, making this feel a bit like a onetrick pony—er, unicorn. (Graphic fantasy. 7-12)
OVER-SCHEDULED ANDREW
Spires, Ashley Illus. by the author Tundra (32 pp.) $16.99 | Jan. 12, 2016 978-1-77049-484-8
Andrew’s interests threaten to get the better of him in this tongue-in-cheek take on an all-too-common plight. Returning to the best buddies introduced in Edie’s Ensembles (2014), Spires follows bustling chickadee Andrew as he piles on activities. His natural acting talent leads him to sharpen his public-speaking skills by joining debate club, increase coordination by signing up for ballet and karate lessons—and then he tacks on chess, tennis, bagpipes, French film club, and more. Instead of pushy parents, though, it’s a combination of teachers, importunate schoolmates, and his grandmother that join his own initiative in spurring him on. Unsurprisingly, before long he’s so exhausted he can’t stay awake even for the 15 minutes he determinedly reserves for his patient friend Edie each Friday afternoon. Finally he even misses an entrance cue—which is such a bummer (“He felt just like a character in a French film”) |
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that he quits it all except drama and French cinema, leaving him time to join Edie and other friends in some unbridled, unscheduled hanging out. Reflecting Andrew’s thespian predilections, the technically adroit illustrations feature small but broadly expressive animal figures in colorful dress, all placed in spacious, minimally detailed monochromatic settings that focus attention on the activity or emotional tenor of the moment. For children, a whimsical word of warning. For their parents, a pleasant surprise that this time they’re not made out to be at fault. (Picture book. 7-9)
YOU’RE PULLING MY LEG! 400 Human-Body Sayings from Head to Toe
Street, Pat & Brace, Eric Illus. by Brace, Eric Holiday House (48 pp.) $18.95 | $18.95 e-book | Mar. 15, 2016 978-0-8234-2135-0 978-0-8234-3628-6 e-book
From “lamebrain” to “feet of clay,” a heaping handful of English idioms, similes, metaphors, and other colorful turns of phrase. Using Street’s There’s a Frog in My Throat! 440 Animal Sayings a Little Bird Told Me (2003, illustrated by Loreen Leedy) as a model, Street and Brace group their entries by body part and pair each to a literal-minded alternative or explanation: “She knit her brows. She frowned in concentration”; “I’m hip. I know what you mean.” Brace jumps up the humor with spreads of demonstrative cartoon figures—including animals, animate internal organs, and even zombie bunnies—whose actions and comments are intended to further clarify the meanings. And they usually do, though the vomiting ticker by “heartsick” misses the boat, and having a lad shout “Holy cuss!” next to “potty mouth” is a yellow-bellied decision. If a few miscast homophones like “back to the drawing board” and “head of lettuce” tiptoe in, there are still lips zipped, buttoned, and sealed; fingers crossed, pointed, butter, light, and worked to the bone; hearts whole, half, soft and hard, black, cold, gold, and more to enrich both spoken and written tongues. Not to mention zombie bunnies biting off heads and picking brains. Knee-slappers on every page for tenderfoot readers and writers. (index) (Informational picture book. 6-9)
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DEEP ROOTS How Trees Sustain Our Planet
Tate, Nikki Orca (48 pp.) $19.95 | Feb. 9, 2016 978-1-4598-0582-8 Series: Orca Footprints
A rangy introduction to trees and how they sustain our very existence. Tate jumps right in, letting readers know that trees are sometimes obscured by the forest and taken for granted. But, as she points out, trees provide creatures of every stripe with indispensable shelter, food, oxygen, water filtration, soil enrichment, and a source for heat, with their very beauty in evidence on every page via sharp, chromatic photographs. She tells of trees’ fundamental importance to the earth, air, water, and fire— no other subject comes close to being so important to these elemental states—and also, through various boxed items, provides good, attention-grabbing facts: ironwood sinks; read time and weather in tree rings. Perhaps most significantly, she conveys a sense of how trees serve as barometers to environmental health and trouble. The text is for the most part aptly paced and communicative, with minor episodes of droning: “A carefully planted and managed woodlot is made up of tree species selected for particular qualities like speed of growth or the type of wood produced.” Only rarely is the subject not explained adequately, as in phytoremediation (a word with forgettable value here): “Even though you can’t see them, tree roots play a critical role in keeping forest ecosystems in good shape.” Because...? Still, a solid foundation, a taproot to appreciating the incredible diversity and contribution of trees to our everyday lives. (resources, glossary index) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
NORA & KETTLE
Taylor, Lauren Nicole Clean Teen (352 pp.) $12.95 paper | Feb. 29, 2016 978-1-63422-135-1 Series: Paper Stars, 1 Teens Nora and Kettle endure hardships while leading two different lives in 1950s America. She lives in a brownstone; he, on the streets. But, at their very cores, they share a common need: survival. Nora lives in constant fear and has the bruises to prove it. She’ll do anything to protect her younger sister, Frankie, from their abusive father, ironically a civil rights attorney. When Nora’s mother dies after a fall, Nora’s last fragment of security is shattered. Kettle, an orphan and part Japanese-American, must deal with attitudes fresh from World War II that still believe he’s the enemy. He and his best friend—practically a brother— Kin, both Japanese-American internment-camp detainees, now take care of the Kings, a group of homeless boys (and one girl), who proudly rename themselves with K names. Endearingly kirkus.com
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Cheerful and detailed illustrations enliven the story and add important information. mr. mcginty ’s monarchs
loyal and responsible, Kettle works dangerous dock jobs to pay for groceries, toothbrushes, and Slinkys for his Kings. An act of purging finally brings Nora and Kettle together. Although it takes a while (the book’s middle) before these two lost souls meet, their chemistry becomes palpable and gives the narrative a good jolt. Kettle’s camp flashbacks feel short and in need of deepening to reflect his injustice; in contrast, Nora’s violent encounters with her father, written with care, grip the heart. A complicated, unlikely friendship with an ending that feels simplified. (Historical fiction. 13-16)
MR. MCGINTY’S MONARCHS
Vander Heyden, Linda Illus. by Ewen, Eileen Ryan Sleeping Bear Press (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-1-58536-612-5
Mr. McGinty and his dog, Sophie, perform a heroic monarch rescue. When the monarch caterpillars’ host plants on the roadside are cut down, Mr. McGinty gathers the tiny creatures, houses them properly in aquariums, and shares them with schoolchildren who nurture them until they grow into butterflies and can fly away. This simple storyline serves as an introduction to the monarch life cycle for very young readers and listeners. Beginning with endpapers showing the monarch life cycle, a variety of other butterflies, a few children’s drawings, and an artfully placed ticket to a zoo butterfly pavilion, cheerful and detailed illustrations (probably watercolor and ink) enliven the story and add important information. One page shows the well-equipped aquarium (the word “terrarium” is never used). On another, a series of vignettes demonstrates a monarch’s journey from tiny caterpillar to chrysalis to the still-weak, just-emerged butterfly, providing a climactic moment. This is followed by two celebratory scenes: Mr. McGinty, Sophie, the children, and their teachers go to a park to release their now-strong butterflies and a double-page spread is filled with monarchs flying away. Finally, two pages of backmatter clearly and simply explain the relationship between monarchs and their milkweed host plants and the monarch migration. Even this text is aimed at young readers. An appealing and appropriate addition to the nature shelf in the preschool and early elementary grades. (Informational picture book. 4- 7)
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THE CIRCLE OF LIES
Velasquez, Crystal Aladdin (240 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 16, 2016 978-1-4814-2455-4 Series: Hunters of Chaos, 2 The second installment in the Hunters of Chaos series doesn’t waste time getting started. The shape-shifting, multiethnic Wildcats don’t have much time to celebrate their victory over Anubis and his Brotherhood of Chaos: they’re lured into the school gym under the belief that Ana’s missing aunt and uncle are there, only to be attacked. Shani saves them using hacked information but is caught hacking on camera, falsely accused of vandalizing the gym, and expelled. The story alternates between Ana’s and Shani’s points of view. Shani joins her father in Mumbai, where she’s shocked to learn he’s remarried— and her new stepsister is in league with Anubis. Meanwhile, in what requires an unreasonable suspension of disbelief, Ana, Doli, and Lin convince their principal to let them use the school jet to fly to Cancún unsupervised. Unfortunately, the ludicrousness of this situation throws the validity of the narrative into question. Alerted to the fact that Shani’s in distress, the girls end up in Mumbai, where Shani’s imprisoned by Anubis, who wants to use her to awaken the god Shiva, destroyer of worlds. As with the other gods portrayed (with the notably disappointing exception of Anubis), Velasquez does an admirable job presenting Shiva’s complexity. The book closes with events that will no doubt be the cornerstone of the plot of the next book; here’s hoping that it will be believable. (Fantasy. 10-14)
DEMON DENTIST
Walliams, David Illus. by Ross, Tony Harper/HarperCollins (448 pp.) $16.99 | $9.99 e-book | Mar. 1, 2016 978-0-06-241704-6 978-0-06-241706-0 e-book Walliams drills into a primal fear with this tale of a new dentist with a decidedly evil agenda. In a blatant grab at Roald Dahl fans, the author pulls out a cast of cheeky children, thoroughly rotten villains, and clueless but well-meaning grown-ups for a Brit-flavored romp that combines moments of intense terror and bracing courage with biting satire—oh, and gruesome bits. Ross offers a plethora of loosely sketched inkand-wash vignettes generally indistinguishable from Quentin Blake’s. All over town, children have been putting lost teeth beneath their pillows and, instead of money, getting cat poo, oozing scabs, and like rewards. Worse yet, following shocked comments about the state of 12-year-old Alfie’s “teet,” canny |
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Readers looking for the next LGBT heroine will love Lea’s strong-willed attitude. bleeding earth
Winnie, a flamboyant new West Indian social worker, tricks the lad into visiting the newly arrived (with her cat, Fang) dentist, Miss Root. Alfie regains consciousness with nary a tooth in his mouth—it seems that Miss Root is the Tooth Witch herself. She’s not to be stopped, either, without help from new, dreadlocked friend (not girlfriend) Gabz, a vat of acid with revolting ingredients (carefully listed), and lots of dynamite. Walliams spritzes the narrative with made-up but not particularly inventive words and large-type screaming. Winnie, dark-skinned Gabz (short for Gabriella), and newsagent Raj are the only notable nonwhite characters; Winnie’s accent is an unfortunate running joke. A quick pull on a reliable, if not exactly minty-fresh, formula. (pictorial cast list) (Horror. 9-11)
BLEEDING EARTH
Ward, Kaitlin Adaptive Books (256 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | Feb. 9, 2016 978-0-9864484-8-5 978-0-9964887-1-6 e-book “Bones Found to Be of Human Origin, Blood Beginning to Fester.” In the spirit of M.T. Anderson’s Thirsty (1997), Ward’s apocalyptic novel will have readers checking the ground beneath their feet after each turn of the page. Readers meet Lea, a confident teenage girl who just wants to hang out with her friends and spend quality time with her new girlfriend, Aracely. But when the Earth begins to ooze blood and other body parts, Lea’s hometown becomes a war zone, with citizens fighting over fresh water and food rations, and Lea becomes ever more concerned with her dwindling faith in humanity, her declining mental state, and the blood that won’t stop rising. To her family and close friends, Lea’s sexuality is largely a nonissue, which is refreshing (and sensible, considering the impending apocalypse); furthermore, readers looking for the next LGBT heroine will love Lea’s strong-willed attitude. The frightful moments are craftily deployed, creeping up and startling readers when they’re least expecting it. And the government PSAs regarding the blood that punctuate Lea’s narration are enough to panic even the most fearless of readers, their commonplace mundanity highlighting the freakishness. Grisly and sickening (but in the best way possible), the novel more than delivers on its promise of the macabre for lovers of horror, and curious readers will close the book with countless questions about religion, science, and human nature. (Horror. 13 & up)
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PLATYPUS
Whiting, Sue Illus. by Jackson, Mark Candlewick (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-7636-8098-5 With its rubbery ducklike bill, reptilian walk, and venomous spurs, the puzzling platypus is a mammal like no other. This curious Australian creature lays eggs and then provides milk for its young. Whiting’s introduction emphasizes physiology, habits, diet, and feeding behavior. There’s a two-level text for reading aloud or alone: a chronicle of a male platypus’s nighttime activities, constantly in motion as he forages in a pool surrounded by gum trees, plus a paragraph of extra, relevant facts presented in a smaller font. A page of expository backmatter summarizes the animal’s major characteristics, tells where they can be found, and mentions threats to its survival. An index also provides a list of important platypus words (bill, monotreme, spurs). Jackson’s mixed-media illustrations have the appearance of paint applied over lines done with a red pencil or thin brush. With their dark colors and wavery lines they’re sometimes obscure—as is the actual animal in the wild. First published in Australia, this storylike portrayal would pair well with Sneed B. Collard and Andrew Plant’s A Platypus, Probably (2005), which tells more about the animal’s ancient history and natural history and has considerably more detailed, lifelike illustrations. Smoothly written and gently informative, this is a nice addition to the elementary-level nature shelf. (Informational picture book. 5-9)
THERE WAS AN OLD LADY WHO GOBBLED A SKINK
Wissinger, Tammera Will Illus. by Bermejo, Ana Sky Pony Press (28 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 2, 2016 978-1-63220-428-8
A fishing version of the classic song “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” has readers wondering, “Perhaps she’ll sink.” Beginning with a skink, the plump old white woman with the red cheeks and bluish-gray hair, tiny red hat perched on her round head, proceeds to eat a worm, a bobber, some fishing line, a fishing pole, a pail, a net, an oar, and a boat. This last makes her float in fact, though it doesn’t allow her to avoid the fate hinted at in the repetitive phrasing: one last snack does her in. Aside from the final page and big reveal, the list of items is repeated on each new spread, allowing for audience participation, though the rhythm and rhyme sometimes falter: “There was an old lady who gobbled a bobber. / That bobbled and wobbled and caused her to slobber.” From the visible linework, Bermejo’s cartoon illustrations appear to be colored pencil. Starting with spare pictures on white backgrounds, the artwork kirkus.com
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gradually becomes more detailed as the story moves closer to the dockside ending. While she does get a bit red in the face, looks like she might throw up, and sweats a bit, the old woman never otherwise visibly changes as a result of the items she eats, making this version a bit less gruesome than others. Children familiar with sport fishing will wonder how the skink enters the picture; all the other items she swallows are related to fishing and boating, but the skink appears to have been chosen just because it sounds funny. This fisherman’s adaptation doesn’t add much to the original. (Picture book. 3-6)
HOW DO DINOSAURS STAY FRIENDS?
Yolen, Jane Illus. by Teague, Mark Blue Sky/Scholastic (40 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 23, 2016 978-0-545-82934-2
The 10th dinosaur outing for Yolen and Teague playfully addresses the minefield of school friendships, as always cleverly subbing in outsized dinosaur antics for the gigantic feelings in every little kid’s body. Beginning with the question, “How does a dinosaur keep his best friend / when a terrible fight just might signal the end?” more than half the book is made up of dinosaurs behaving badly (and comically). They egg doors, throw lunchboxes into lakes, lie to teachers, and even “write on the blackboard a very bad name” (“DILONG IS STUPID”: truly not nice). The scenes of hostility are writ large in two-page spreads, each labeled dinosaur (Leptoceratops, Masiakasaurus, etc.) breathing again in skillfully textured detail and with humorously angry or hurt expressions. Human kids and teachers look on, mortified that dinosaurs could behave so...well, human. The resolution, of course, occurs when the dinosaurs instead put their best claws forward, exchanging notes of apology, sharing toys, and making special cookie deliveries. Even giant beasts who get into fights learn, “There is always a way to make everything right.” If that isn’t enough to convey the message, the endpapers feature dinosaur duos having the best time since prehistoric days as they ride bikes, fly kites, or share pizza, among other activities. If the formula is pat by now, it’s still effective; who can resist when dinosaur buddies share a sincere, well-earned hug? (Picture book. 3-6)
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BAKER’S MAGIC
Zahler, Diane Capstone Young Readers (336 pp.) $12.95 | Feb. 1, 2016 978-1-62370-642-5 A young orphan will need all the magic she can muster if she is to help her friends, defeat an evil mage, and figure out how to save the kingdom from destruction. Desperately hungry, Bee steals a bun from the local bakery. Astonishingly, instead of punishing her, Master Bouts gives her a warm place to sleep, clean clothes, and a job. But when Bee’s moods begin to find their ways into her baked goods, Master Bouts begins to suspect that the young orphan is more than she appears. After the castle requests treats from the bakery, Bee is sent to deliver them. There, she meets Princess Anika and the evil mage, Master Joris. When the two girls discover Joris’ plot to marry the princess off, Bee is determined to rescue her. While this joyful, creative adventure is filled with pirates, magic, missing trees, and a cuddly hedgehog, it is more than just a sweet ride. At its core, this is a story of bravery, resilience, and love. And while the premise of emotions magically empowering food is not new, this recipe has enough added ingredients to satisfy. A sweet, magical, environmentally conscious adventure. (Fantasy. 8-11)
pop-up and novelty books DINING WITH...MONSTERS! A Disgusting Way to Count to 10! Baruzzi, Agnese Illus. by the author Sterling (34 pp.) $14.95 | Sep. 1, 2015 978-88-544-0953-8
Ten monsters open wide to show what’s in their mouths. Picky eaters had best steer clear. Introduced on the opening spread and bearing evocative names like “Slimy-Sloppers,” “Grisly-Bess,” or “Mr. One-Eye Not-So-Nice,” Baruzzi’s leering cartoon creatures flash sharp teeth and anywhere from one staring eye to 20. Each monster’s face then fills a subsequent spread, and viewers intrepid enough to open the gatefold maws will be treated to the sight of short but fetching rhymes plus increasing numbers of enticing tidbits from “1 spider whole” and “2 leaping frogs” to “9 beetles, yes!” and “10 poor grasshoppers.” Happily, Baruzzi |
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ALICE IN WONDERLAND With 3-Dimensional Pop-Up Scenes
doesn’t really go for the gross à la Jo Lodge in Icky Sticky Monster (2012) or Megan McDonald and Jane Manning in Beetle McGrady Eats Bugs (2005). Furthermore, along with opting to enumerate food animals that are only equivocally revolting, she depicts no actual chomping, so counting the critters is an uncomplicated task. Comfortably mild yucks for younger enumerators who aren’t yet up to, for instance, French cuisine. (Novelty. 3-5)
SECRETS OF WINTER A Shine-a-Light Book Brown, Carron Illus. by Tee, Georgina Kane/Miller (36 pp.) $12.99 | Sep. 1, 2015 978-1-78240-277-0
Holding alternate pages up to a light reveals animals hiding, sleeping, or foraging through a winter night. Leading questions—“Whoosh! What has landed in the tree?”—caption painted views of fallen leaves, snow-covered evergreen branches, birch catkins, berries on leafless branches, and unmarked expanses of snow. These conceal either snowflakes or birds, snails, and other creatures that, being rendered on the undersides of each recto as white figures on solid-black backgrounds, become visible when held up to the light. As several of the animals are peeking out on the colored sides too, there isn’t always much guesswork involved. Possibly in service to the gimmick, the colors overall look rather wan, both here and in the co-published On the Construction Site, which features an unexciting bevy of stylized heavy-duty vehicles digging holes or carting such visually stimulating materials as rocks and cement. In both, the explanatory notes are couched in simple, declarative sentences with additional facts supplied in a closing spread. But the information is standard-issue, the hidden elements aren’t drawn to scale (a dormant bumblebee on the first spread of Winter is big enough to frighten unwary tots), and the art seems drab next to such other takes on these ever popular topics as Kate Messner and Christopher Silas’ Over and Under the Snow (2011) and Sally Sutton and Brian Lovelock’s Construction (2014). A one-trick pony unlikely to tempt readers into a second ride. (Informational novelty picture book. 6-8) (On the Construction Site: 978-1-61067-370-9)
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Carroll, Lewis Adapted by Safran, Sheri Illus. by Taylor, Maria Tango Books (24 pp.) $24.99 | Jun. 1, 2015 978-1-85707-814-5
An abbreviated if recognizable version of the classic, with fine-lined illustrations augmented by a set of pull-up minivistas. Safran’s adaptation preserves the original’s general structure and bits of the dialogue and verse, though Alice’s encounters with a hookah-smoking caterpillar, “Father William,” the Lobster Quadrille, the Mock Turtle, and much else are gone. Taylor illustrates it with spot vignettes, plus an inset cover tableau and four pop-up constructs that pull open to raise and reveal multilayered scenes. Into these, Taylor places small renditions of the chubby White Rabbit, a cross-eyed Mad Hatter, and the rest in static poses while outfitting Alice in pink ballet slippers and a flow-y, sleeveless polka-dot shift. The effect is decidedly bland. Children after more flavorful takes on the tale, particularly those spiced with 3-D or other special effects, have a veritable banquet before them—from J. Otto Siebold’s quirky Alice in Pop-Up Wonderland (2003) and Robert Sabuda’s masterwork of paper engineering (2003) to the spectacular e-outings Alicewinks (2013) and Alice for the iPad (2010). Pretty. Pretty forgettable too. (Pop-up picture book. 7-9)
WINTER A Pop-Up Book
Carter, David A. Illus. by the author abramsappleseed (12 pp.) $14.95 | Oct. 6, 2015 978-1-4197-1823-6
A quick, season-centered look-about from a master of paper engineering. Though small of trim size and, at just six openings, not exactly a magnum opus, this survey of a snow-covered country landscape as night falls is well-stocked with visual surprises and late winter sights—some of them mildly oddball. These are placed around a half-dozen elegantly simple pop-up flurries of snowflakes or seasonal flora. There’s fauna too, from a snowshoe hare and an alert bobcat to a pair of white weasels who stare quizzically up at viewers in each scene before finally bedding down beneath a flap. Even to very young children, Carter may seem to go a bit overboard by labeling “cloud,” “sun,” and “moon” along with the at least slightly less recognizable “holly,” a leafless “oak tree,” “animal tracks,” and “Venus.” Oddly, to such predictable elements as a snowman, a pine tree, and sprigs of snowberries (all likewise labeled) poking through the white, he adds camellias in bloom, a spray of flowering heather, and even stalks of parasitic, garish red “snowflower.” kirkus.com
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The batteries are (for better or worse) replaceable through a port on the rear cover. ten monsters in the bed
The labels may prove more distracting than illuminating, but this isn’t quite the usual sort of stop on the wellworn seasonal round. (Pop-up picture book. 3-5)
TEN MONSTERS IN THE BED
Cotton, Katie Illus. by Blecha, Aaron Little Bee (24 pp.) $12.99 | Jul. 7, 2015 978-1-4998-0067-8
Setting new standards for gross sound effects, 10 monsters snore, scream, scratch, hiccup, belch, or worse as they tumble one by one out of an overcrowded bunk bed. Rather than stick with the well-known original lyric, Cotton offers new stanzas to make rhymes for each chip-generated sound: “Just two noisy monsters left / when tummy trouble started. / One clutched his gut and, with a moan, / the room shook as he....” Blecha (aptly named) contributes a row of popeyed, brightly colored, dribbling or otherwise disreputable Monsters Inc.–style creatures—each of which falls or is ejected from the bed atop the previous victim and, with a press on its belly, loudly utters its juicy assigned response. Though the final collective plaint—“WE’RE MORE SQUISHED THAN BEFORE!”—is somewhat anticlimactic, the stacked-up monsters remain on the final spread to reprise their sonic contributions with further pokes. The batteries are (for better or worse) replaceable through a port on the rear cover. A distinct change of pace from the cute clucks and oinks of Noisy Farm (2013) and like sound-makers. (Picture book/novelty. 2-6)
AND THE COW SAID
see as a good thing, but on the final page the contact spots are both unmarked and mostly not located where the animals are. Hearing the farm creatures sound off again will require pressing at random and hoping for a result. On the other hand, the chip’s battery is replaceable, so this is less ephemeral than others of its sort. Interactive fun, on a certain elemental level—but there are apps aplenty with more and better noises as well as animation to go along with the audio. (Novelty picture book. 3-5)
MAISY’S PIRATE SHIP A Pop-Up-and-Play Book Cousins, Lucy Illus. by the author Candlewick (10 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 8, 2015 978-0-7636-7941-5
Avast! On a pop-up pirate ship, punch-out figures of Capt. Maisy and her crew set sail in search of a treasure chest (also punch-out). More toy than tale, this alternative to Maisy’s Pirate Treasure Hunt (2004) offers perfunctory scene setting on three opening spreads before getting to the main event: on a base designed to lie flat, a two-piece ship with unfolding sails beneath a pair of big flaps. Budding buccaneers can peer into the vessel’s nether regions through the split as well as place the four figurines either on board or into a punch-out dinghy. All four figurines, along with several nondetachable crewmates, are attired in properly piratical garb save an elephant who models skull-andcrossbones patterned shorts. An inset pocket provides handy storage for the loose parts when it’s time to close the covers. Not Maisy’s finest exploit but likely to excite an “ARRRR!” or two from scurvy knavelets who can’t get enough of the redoubtable rodent. (Pop-up playscape. 3-5)
Cotton, Katie Illus. by Gausden, Vicki Little Bee (24 pp.) $12.99 | Aug. 4, 2015 978-1-4998-0101-9
ROBERT CROWTHER’S POP-UP DINOSAUR ABC
One uninvited animal guest after another drives a farmer out of his house in this noisy nighttime romp. Poor Farmer Bill is just about to go to bed on a rainy night when there’s a knock at the door. “He opened it up, and a head peeked through. / It was a cow, and the cow said...MOO!” The cow is only the first in a line of livestock that troops in, one at a time, or lurks in wait outside to bleat, squeak, bark, or utter some other characteristic call at the (firm) press of a white spot on each animal’s body. The chip embedded in the rear cover having no fewer than 10 separate sounds programmed in, Farmer Bill finds no rest—not even up on the roof, where a rooster waits to “bellow” its morning greeting as the sun comes up on a climactic animal chorus. The noises are more familiar (and less gross) than in the similarly polyphonic Ten Monsters in the Bed (2015), which some at least may |
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Crowther, Robert Illus. by the author Candlewick (10 pp.) $19.99 | Feb. 24, 2015 978-0-7636-7296-6
Twenty-six dinos rear up, unfold or slide into view in a popup prehistoric procession. Hidden behind flaps or connected to pull tabs, the models—placed individually in rows of, usually, three per page against plain white backgrounds—come off as rather small but are recognizable, brightly colored, and posed in a variety of stances or actions. The paper design is likewise varied, so that figures stand up, come together or move unpredictably as they appear. Each is paired to a short note on the dinosaur’s name, discovery, or some physical feature, a guide to pronunciation, and a vivid comparison with familiar modern animals or items: “Quetzalcoatlus was as tall as a giraffe and had the wingspan of a small airplane”; |
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Each of the five tinny sonic kerfuffles is set off by lifting a flap and runs without interruption (or the ability to turn it off) for several seconds. sophie’s big noisy day book!
“Tyrannosaurus...could eat an animal as big as a lion in one bite.” Though the alphabetically arranged pop-ups are not to scale and represent dinosaurs from different periods, Crowther provides both a chronological index and a size chart at the end. An errant view of a carnivorous Guanlong chowing down on plants is the only obvious stumble in this Mesozoic march. From Allosaurus to Zuniceratops, a mix of familiar standbys and new or rare finds with bite-sized facts for confirmed dinomanes. (Informational pop-up book. 6-8)
SENSEATIONAL ILLUSIONS
DK Publishing Illus. by the author DK Publishing (32 pp.) $19.99 | Oct. 6, 2015 978-1-4654-3829-4
Pop-ups and bright graphics demonstrate that humans have more than five senses to fool. This busy book expands the traditional set of senses to no fewer than 18 at the outset. Though it doesn’t get to all of them, along with color-based effects and other optical illusions, it offers ways of tricking nose and tongue, challenges to pattern recognition, demonstrations of proprioception, and tests of reflex speed. The small but varied bundle of interactive extras includes a sliding panel of colored acetate, a pop-up visual puzzle, a section of scratch-and-sniff dots, and a slotted maze at the end through which to roll ball bearings (included). Subtle embossing defines several animals hidden under flaps and two other mazes that readers are directed to trace with eyes closed, but it’s likely too low for all but braille-trained fingertips. Still, in general the neatly presented visuals and accompanying instructions are easy to follow, produce reliable results, and come with descriptions of the expected effect, its causes, and the body part involved. Despite some features with limited shelf life, a useful start to exploring the body’s full sensorium. (Informational pop-up. 8-10)
SOPHIE’S BIG NOISY DAY BOOK!
DK Publishing Illus. by the author DK Publishing (12 pp.) $14.99 | Sep. 1, 2015 978-1-4654-3803-4
from a chugging train and a chorus of quacky ducks to a snatch of Euro-pop dance music from a portable radio—is set off by lifting a flap and runs without interruption (or the ability to turn it off) for several seconds. In keeping with the thoroughly bland cartoon illustrations, Sophie’s reaction to the noise is not irritation but a smile: “Today wasn’t quiet and peaceful after all,” she concludes. “It was noisy and fun!” Whether or not readers have the same reaction, the flaps’ hinges loosen with use, so that after several readings, just opening each spread causes the sounds to erupt. Moreover, the electronics are housed in a rear cover/box that is thicker than the entire story’s five spreads, and they require no fewer than three batteries to function. Replacing the latter is possible, though will likely never be necessary. Maisy fans are unlikely to give a hoot for this sugary and clumsily designed alternative. (Novelty board book. 1-3)
PUZZLING DOGS
Falken, Linda Abrams (16 pp.) $16.95 | May 12, 2015 978-1-4197-1362-0
A bound album of jigsaw puzzles made from images of dogs found in paintings or other works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each of the eight puzzles, which range from a Renoir and a panel of 18th-century Indian fabric to a watercolor copy of a Mycenaean fresco, is cut with the same pattern into just 16 large pieces and, to make reassembly easy for the intended 3-and-over audience, embedded in a finished view. Most of the pictures are enlarged details, which blurs many of the painted pooches, their settings, and other figures and muddies up the colors. This lowrent look is intensified by an inexplicable design decision to print the solid background colors of each facing leaf with heavy abrasion, so that the whole volume appears worn by use even when new. Each image is introduced with an often inane leading question: “The artist copied part of a painting that was made on a wall more than three thousand years ago. Can you count that high?” Moreover, Falken incorrectly describes block-print production and offers technical notes (references to Renoir’s “loose, broken brushstrokes” and to another artist’s preliminary sketch rather than the finished oil painting that is actually shown) that will leave children, at least, no wiser. Puzzling Cats, a companion volume, isn’t any better produced or written. What’s “puzzling” is how this could be regarded as even marginally worthy of its audience or the institution that published it. (Novelty. 3-6) (Puzzling Cats: 978-1-4197-1363-7)
Sophie la girafe’s day gets off to a quiet start—but it definitely doesn’t stay that way. Showing signs of its French origins in the croissant on Sophie’s breakfast table and views of the Eiffel Tower in the distance, the episode takes the stuffed giraffe and her plush, toy animal friends on a picnic outing that is punctuated by sudden noises. Each of the five tinny sonic kerfuffles—which range 168
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ASTONISHING ANIMALS
Ganeri, Anita Illus. by Dogi, Fiammetta & Cole, Dan Little Bee (18 pp.) $12.99 | Mar. 24, 2015 978-1-4998-0016-6 Series: Record Breakers A cranked-up collection of animal facts bookended by big, startling pop-ups of toothy ocean predators. Going for the gusto from first to last, every inch of this souped-up survey is packed with clamorous claims that caption pop-ups or crawl over and under flaps of diverse shape and size. Arranged around a great white shark’s jagged maw, which lurches toward viewers, melodramatic painted images of over a dozen creatures dubbed “MOST DEADLY!” glare up, each identified with titillating menace: “BRAZILIAN WANDERING SPIDER. This is the most venomous spider in the world! It likes to hide in people’s clothes and shoes.” Other topical spreads gather largest to smallest, fastest to slowest, amazing animal senses, “Egg-streme Eggs,” and a closing miscellany of “Weird and Wonderful!” hangers-on highlighted by an in-yourface look at an anglerfish’s jagged dentifrice. It may be loud, it may be overwhelming, but it’s also strangely compelling, and readers may find themselves going back and forth for more: “A Madagascan Hawk Moth’s tongue is four times as long as your middle finger!” Companion Mechanical Marvels publishes simultaneously and with equal volume. Equally suitable for shared or solitary reading and hard to resist either way. (Pop-up nonfiction. 7-9) (Mechanical Marvels: 978-1-4998-0017-3)
EMERGENCY VEHICLES
Green, Rod Illus. by Biesty, Stephen Templar/Candlewick (16 pp.) $15.99 | Jun. 14, 2015 978-0-7636-7959-0
THE ULTIMATE PIRATE HANDBOOK
Hamilton, Libby Illus. by Leyssenne, Mathieu & Kraft, Jason Templar/Candlewick (20 pp.) $19.99 | Aug. 25, 2015 978-0-7636-7963-7 Basic instructions for young landlubbers with a yen to go buccaneering. The book opens with a spread of onboard jobs from captain to cabin boy (the carpenter, for instance, “can chop off a gangreney leg and carve you a wooden one!”). Following this, painted views of ships, typical gear, and scurvy knaves—all hung about with labels and a scanty assortment of flaps to lift—present overviews of pirate garb, cuisine, weaponry, legends, and even, beneath a display of treasure chests, types of historical loot from gold to sugar. References to work-related injuries and a double-page spread of assorted pirate weaponry are as explicit as the piratical violence gets, and such savvy advice as “If your hardtack is full or worms, try eating it in the dark” will be helpful on shore as well as at sea. But despite the presence of Ching Shih and some other women in the closing pop-up rogues’ gallery, plus a deft early reference to “able-bodied sailors” (instead of “seamen”), repeated references to “wenches” elsewhere send up a less inviting flag. Too bland and thin in both content and special effects to be particularly seaworthy. (Informational pop-up book. 7-10)
Aa-Zz A Pop-Up Alphabet
An international gallery of air, sea, and land firefighting and rescue vehicles, with hinged flaps offering peeks inside each. Drawn with Biesty’s trademark attention to fine detail and printed on stiff cardboard, the eight featured vehicles include an Australian police car festooned with cameras and other high-tech gear, a NATO submarine rescue pod, a big New York City fireboat, and a British Tamar-class motorized lifeboat. Explanatory labels and small views of the vehicle in action or of other makes with similar jobs surround the large central image. Though the artist apparently can’t resist adding an occasional cutaway view, the flaps are designed to be almost invisible at first glance so that viewers can get a sense of what each vehicle actually looks like before they start delving into insides and distinctive gear. The labeling is sometimes perfunctory—the contents of a helicopter ambulance’s baggage compartment are generically dubbed “Emergency equipment,” and a groundbased ambulance features “privacy windows,” whatever that |
means—but overall the text adds informative notes about specialized features, life-saving capabilities, power plants, top speeds, and other performance data. A pleaser for fans of big rigs and disaster scenarios alike. (Informational novelty. 5- 7)
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Hawcock, David Illus. by the author Tango Books (52 pp.) $14.99 | Sep. 1, 2015 978-1-85707-809-1
Twenty-six pop-up letters—both resolutely minimalist and a tour de force of paper design. Gathered into a small, square volume, the pop-up letters are all capitals and take up one spread each with printed capital and lowercase characters in the lower corner. The rectos are all white, the versos a solid color that is often echoed in the architectural counters or eyes in the central figures. Sometimes, though, Hawcock only suggests his letterforms with cut edges and negative spaces; a technique that works nicely for “C” and “E” but leaves “K” just a set of abstract angles and “R” with a solid top and no distinct lower leg. He also makes inventive use of origami folds—earning style points with reverse-folded |
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colored counters for “B” and “O,” for instance, and crafting “X” simply from the unmarked top ridges of a water bomb base. Readers may be drawn to this as a sometimes-challenging exercise in letter recognition, but it also provides food for thought about ways in which artists can get away from drawn lines and use space, straight or curved edges, and color to create a broad range of forms. An ingenious, if unevenly successful, showpiece. (Popup alphabet book. 3 & up)
0-20
Hawcock, David Illus. by the author Tango Books (52 pp.) $14.99 | Nov. 1, 2015 978-1-85707-898-5
WHO’S THERE? BEWARE!
Small of trim size and simple of design, this blocky companion to Aa To Zz: A Pop-Up Alphabet (2015) pairs single- and double-digit pop-up numerals with equivalent arrays of countable items. Each spread, when held open at 90 degrees, makes a tidy display. A white pop-up numeral formed by reverse folds at the center is flanked by the appropriate spelled-out number from “zero” to “twenty” in lowercase sans serif along the right edge. On the left are small, white silhouettes of cats, pinwheels, teddy bears, and like familiar images (with occasional fugitives drifting to the other side) against single-hued color fields. Hawcock shows less ingenuity in his use of space and edges to shape forms here than in his foray into the alphabet, but he plays with both the nature and the arrangements of the images to provide a mild sense of unpredictability. He also carries the numbering past the more-venturesome likes of Kees Moerbeek’s Count 1 to 10 (2011) or Marion Bataille’s 10 (2011), if not so far as David Carter’s 100 (2013). While handsome, as a pop-up counting book, this doesn’t stand out. (Pop-up picture book. 3-6)
BEAR’S TRUCK IS STUCK!
Hegarty, Patricia Illus. by Truong, Tom Tiger Tales (14 pp.) $12.99 | Sep. 1, 2015 978-1-68010-001-3 Series: Amazing Changing Pictures
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Hegarty, Patricia Illus. by Truong, Tom Tiger Tales (14 pp.) $12.99 | Sep. 1, 2015 978-1-68010-000-6 Series: Amazing Changing Pictures A mouse encounters spooky shadows on the dark path to Grandma’s house. “Little Mouse, Little Mouse, it’s getting very late. / You need to get to Grandma’s house—there’s no time to wait!” Big-eared, big-eyed, and fuzzy—but never showing more than minor anxiety—Little Mouse creeps through dark woodsy scenes only faintly illuminated by a rather weak flashlight. Three times along the way threatening shadows create momentary chills, but they dissolve with the lift of side flaps into innocuous—if laboriously contrived—figures: a balletically posed bear picking pears; a long, toothy “jaw” that is actually a row of ants carrying a branch; and finally a wolfish silhouette that the light reveals to be Grandma holding up a tray of cupcakes. Those three, along with an opening portrait of Little Mouse visible through a big hole cut into the cover, are the only special effects, so the showing is as paltry as the scares are manufactured. Thrill-seeking tots will give this a once-over, but that’s about it. (Pop-up picture book. 3-5)
WHAT’S THE TIME CLOCKODILE?
Can anyone help Billy Bear get his truck out of the deep mud? No question about it, Billy’s truck is thoroughly mired— “The big wheels turn and spray and churn / in the thick and gloopy muck.” But the rhyme seems to be driving the plot rather than the other way round. Following a comical but random scramble in which a gaggle of eager sheep drives a tractor into the adjacent pond and Clara Cow tumbles down the hill with the farmer’s rake, all the animals get together to “push 170
and pull,” “lug and tug” (pushing is all that’s going on in the art, though) until “the truck’s unstuck!” Despite lots of spattered mud in Truong’s neatly drawn pictures, somehow none of it sticks to either the truck or any of the animals except (sometimes) the pig. Moreover, four leaves feature framed dissolves that transform the cartoon scene when the cover or a large flap is lifted open, but the moving parts are so poorly integrated with the illustrations that odd fragments are left hanging on most of the tabs. As for the storyline, pull out Marie Hall Ets’ classic Elephant in a Well (1972) or any version of “The Great Big Enormous Turnip” for a better telling. Despite the gimmick, likely to draw no more than flecks of interest from either truck fans or muck fans. (Popup picture book. 3-5)
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Litton, Jonathan Illus. by Galloway, Fhiona Tiger Tales (16 pp.) $12.99 | Mar. 1, 2015 978-1-58925-552-4 Series: My Little World Hey kids! Learn how to read an analog clock just like your (grand)parents! A big, round hole cut into the front cover and every subsequent heavy cardboard page reveals a clock face with hours kirkus.com
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One spread-filling pop-up is devoted to each emotion/color, from clouds with lines of string “rain” to a hammock strung betweenleafy trees. the color monster
marked in Arabic numerals; the minutes are marked likewise but only by increments of five. The two ratcheted plastic hands can be individually set according to prompts delivered by a bear and the titular crocodile, evidently roommates. They rise in the crowded, flat cartoon illustrations at “7 o’clock” (“If the long hand points straight up to 12, the time is a whole hour,” Clockodile informs the bear). Improbably, they get set to retire at “25 after 7” that night. In between, they catch a bus, paint some pictures (at “half past 9”), eat lunch, swim (at “quarter after 2”), and share dinner. Meanwhile, an inconspicuous printed clock in each scene provides the proper configuration of hands, and a small blue robot helpfully supplies the “digital time” equivalents on a band running along the bottom. Explanations of seconds, minutes other than those divisible by five, Roman numerals, and alternative expressions (“nine thirty,” “two fifteen,” etc.) are evidently reserved for another time. A rudimentary introduction to a classic skill. Up next: how to dial a phone, play CDs, use a film camera.... (Novelty. 3-4)
SNIP SNAP POP-UP FUN
Litton, Jonathan Illus. by Nowowiejska, Kasia Tiger Tales (10 pp.) $9.99 | Mar. 1, 2015 978-1-58925-548-7 Series: Little Snappers
Big, colorful animals pop out from beneath big, sturdy flaps in this safari for the Snugli set. There are occasional hints in the rhymes of “nature red in tooth and claw”: “Who’s lying in the yellow grass with peeking, watchful eyes? / It’s Lion who’s about to pounce—to little Snake’s surprise!” Despite this, the art’s sunny colors and smiling animals have a properly buoyant effect. The flaps, which nearly fill each alternating page, lift up, down, or sideways to reveal said Lion, a banana-throwing Monkey, a splashing Elephant, a Giraffe, and, for a climactic thrill, a “snippy-snappy Crocodile” with upthrust, closing jaws. Though at just five spreads this outing is a short one, the heavy card stock on which it is printed and the simple architecture of the pop-ups ensure reasonable durability (for the volume, if not that snake). Cheep Cheep Pop-Up Fun publishes simultaneously and features a rather less-fraught setting: a barnyard. Toddlers and young preschoolers will snap this up. (Popup picture book. 3-4) (Cheep Cheep Pop-Up Fun: 978-1-58925-549-4)
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RED CAR, BLUE CAR
Litton, Jonathan Illus. by Verrall, Lisa Tiger Tales (12 pp.) $8.99 | Sep. 1, 2015 978-1-68010-506-3 Series: My Little World
A sprightly color rhyme urges toddlers to climb aboard seven pop-up vehicles, from yellow bus to orange rocket. Aside from a pink hot air balloon, which only floats, Litton piles on the speed—sending the red car “zipping down the street,” a white plane “zooming through the sky,” the rocket “speeding to the moon!” and so on. In very simple cartoon illustrations Verrall provides a smiling cast of clothed animal passengers (the plane is labeled “American Bearlines”), many of which are visible through windows in the die-cut pop-ups that hover an inch above each leaf. Both the undulating lines of verse and the pictures are printed on sturdy coated stock; better yet, since the various pop-up vehicles are reproduced underneath, even after little hands rip off the raised versions, all of the images and context remain. Except for a pair of chirping chicks on one spread (the faces underneath the pop-up feature disconcertingly gaping mouths), numeracy-promoting companion title One, Two, Baa Moo offers the same design feature. Unexceptional in content but at least unusually durable. (Pop-up board book. 1-3) (One, Two, Baa Moo: 978-1-68010-507-0)
THE COLOR MONSTER A Pop-Up Book of Feelings Llenas, Anna Illus. by the author Sterling (20 pp.) $19.95 | Sep. 1, 2015 978-1-4549-1729-8
A child helps a mixed-up monster sort out its feelings in this inventive pop-up import from Spain. Compartmentalization is the child’s strategy, as she urges the googly-eyed monster to pour its feelings into individual glass jars. Each emotion is linked to a color: happiness is yellow; sadness, “gentle and blue like a rainy day”; anger, a violent splash of red; calm “is as light as a green leaf / floating in the wind.” One spread-filling pop-up is devoted to each emotion/color, from clouds with lines of string “rain” to a hammock strung between leafy trees; all the now-full jars regather toward the end with pull-tabs to reveal their contents. There’s one feeling that is not accounted for, though. “What could it be?” puzzles the girl...but opening the final spread reveals the smiling monster radiating scribbly pink hearts, and viewers will have no trouble figuring it out. In the simple, childlike illustrations, which are made from pieces of cut—and often previously used—paper and scribbled crayons, even the flat figures look 3-D. Bright and buoyant. (Pop-up picture book. 5-8) |
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Macaulay depicts each project with his customary casual exactitude and festoons them with descriptive notes. how machines work
MADAME SONIA DELAUNAY
Lo Monaco, Gérard Illus. by Delaunay, Sonia Tate/Abrams (18 pp.) $19.95 | Mar. 31, 2015 978-1-84976-334-9
This small but fulsome tribute to the underrecognized artist/designer pairs popup versions of many of her semiabstract works with fanciful interpretive notes. Adding a third dimension to the strong shapes and loud colors that characterize Sonia Delaunay’s compositions suits them nicely. Examples range from a gatefolded array of tiny figures sporting costume designs to large assemblages of interlocking circles or other geometric shapes. These float over plain backgrounds on which, often, the cutouts that make up the next spread’s offering have been left exposed. Most of the selections bear indeterminate labels, but Grater (“inspired” by the French edition’s original text) offers comments that provide playful images—as alternatives for the wriggly lines of Untitled, 1948, for instance: “Harsh moustaches and slithering snakes? That is simply frightful! / Sticky worms and ocean waves? That’s much more delightful!” (Her commentary also drifts arbitrarily in and out of forced rhyme.) Possibly more usefully, on two spreads Lo Monaco places smaller pop-ups of later variations as invitations to notice and ruminate on the effects of similarities and differences. Children who want to know more (i.e., anything) about Delaunay’s life or artistic context will have to look elsewhere, but this bonbon should leave a taste for further enquiry. (thumbnail index includes media and locations) (Pop-up art book. 6-10)
THE SMALL WORLD OF PAPER TOYS
Lo Monaco, Gérard Illus. by the author Translated by Hobeika, Noelia Little Gestalten (24 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 25, 2015 978-3-89955-746-6
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Lodge, Jo Illus. by the author Hodder Children’s Books/Trafalgar (14 pp.) $11.99 | May 1, 2015 978-1-4449-1785-7
Toddlers who find Lodge’s Happy Birthday Moo Moo (2001) a touch tame will happily fasten on this toothier follow-up, a British import. Once Mr Croc’s doorbell rings it’s all fun and games, as animal party guests line up to offer presents, boogie to a (judging from the musicians’ sombrero and maracas) Latin beat, and play hide-and-seek. Pull-tabs on each spread open a pop-up card and a gift box, set dancers to wriggling, and roll Mr Croc’s eyes in the brightly colored, very simple cartoon scenes. The question-and-answer narrative culminates in “Mr Croc, is it time for tea?” The turn of a big flap shoots the reveling reptile up from the page to SNAP! SNAP! in young viewers’ faces, along with a hearty “YES! It’s time for cake!” The pages and engineered effects are made from heavy stock—which is a good thing, as diapered devotees are sure to demand repeat servings. Some literal jaw-dropping at the climax gives this party-hearty pop-up a big finish. (Pop-up picture book. 1-3)
HOW MACHINES WORK Zoo Break!
A cavalcade of diminutive, neatly designed pop-ups evokes toys of yesteryear. Each of the 10 moderately antique playthings, which range from a gas station to a doll in a wheeled cradle, takes center stage in a minimally detailed setting printed on stiff paper stock and designed to open to a right angle. Some figures recur, such as a toy sailor who poses next to a sailboat and again on the trailer bed of a big truck, but mostly the tableaux stand alone: there’s an elephant on a wheeled platform, a firetruck, and a tractor hauling a sow dubbed “Stendahl” on a cart. Two loggers pull a saw back and forth a half inch or so in the only construction with a moving element. Along with sound effects, a child narrator seen just once and notable more for her enthusiasm than for natural language offers short scenarios—the sailor above is 172
“an exceptional load!” for instance, and the “mechanical boat” sparks a planned outing: “On Thursday, I will go to the pond with mom and see it navigate.” The perspective pulls back for a capping bedroom scene featuring an open wardrobe and toys scattered on the floor. “What a mess. I took everything out to play! I’ll clean up my room tomorrow. Good night, my toys.” A tidy showcase for Lo Monaco, with at least some potential for return visits. (Pop-up picture book. 4-6)
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Macaulay, David Illus. by the author DK Publishing (32 pp.) $19.99 | Nov. 1, 2015 978-1-4654-4012-9
A pair of would-be escapees discovers the uses and misuses of simple machines in this slapstick STEMwinder. Bored with their confines, Sloth and Sengi (aka “elephant shrew”) concoct a series of unlikely devices designed to get them over or under the walls. With Sloth providing the muscle (when awake), Sengi proves himself a small, furry engineering genius by inventing an inclined plane, a springboard, a wedge, a winch, single and double pulleys, a tunneling auger, and more from miscellaneous found materials. Macaulay depicts each project with his customary casual exactitude and festoons them kirkus.com
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with descriptive notes. These point out significant elements such as “fulcrum” and “spur gears,” joining directional arrows and lucid explanations of how each uses mechanical advantage to redirect effort or force. Some, such as the heavy-duty gear-driven lift under a window on the front cover and a seesaw that requires assembly, are working models. With much use of flaps, pop-ups, and inset booklets, the author also expands on the comical plotline with glimpses of construction machinery, hydraulics, and several types of levers in action. He also includes simple machines in various combinations—in a bicycle, a crane, and, in a big climactic foldout, a truly Rube Goldberg–ian construct that almost works. “So clever!” murmurs the elephant shrew, admiring himself in a mirror. No argument here. (glossary, some unattached pieces) (Pop-up fiction/nonfiction hybrid. 7-9)
“The countdown’s begun. My rocket is ready!” Perched atop dramatic red and orange exhaust constructed from long folded strips and die-cut pop-up ladders, the rocket blasts off from green hills, floats against starry backdrops, and spirals its way toward a yellow moon that turns out to be considerably mushier than the dusty rock plain on which the Apollo astronauts walked. Though preceded by a broad earlier hint, a further surprise awaits on the final spread, as the first full view of the rocket’s pilot and the pilot’s waiting mom reveals that the journey was actually a return home. The flat, posterlike art and the medium-height 3-D effects are printed on sturdy stock and, being big enough to be visible across a large room, equally suitable for sharing with one prospective space traveler or a group. A “cheesy” episode with a double twist at the end. Younger audiences may need at least part of the joke explained. (Pop-up picture book. 2-5)
FISH FOOD
IF YOU’RE A ROBOT AND YOU KNOW IT
Mansfield, Andy Illus. by Löhlein, Henning Little Bee (14 pp.) $9.99 | Apr. 28, 2015 978-1-4998-0044-9 A quick trip up an aquatic food chain, with pop-up predators. Though presented in just six spreads, the demonstration is an effective one thanks to some simple but dramatic paper engineering. Standing out like a beacon in a dimly lit marine setting, a small orange “sea worm” as “happy as can be” is snapped up with a page turn by a striped fish, who is in turn gulped down by a larger, polka-dot “big bad bully fish” that itself becomes a meal as full-spread–sized jaws close with a climactic “CRUNCH!” End of lesson. Löhlein gives the worm and each fish cross-eyed, comically surprised expressions and tucks a passing minisub and other tongue-in-cheek details into the watery background. Added comments—“Look out, worm!” “Time to go, Fred!”— from finny by-floaters provide extra zip. The victims aren’t laughing, but children will as they witness this cartoony take on nature in action. A long way from “nature red in tooth and claw”—at this length, it’s merely a snack—but still, there’s a worthwhile nugget of informational nutrition. (Pop-up picture book. 4-6)
Musical Robot Illus. by Carter, David A. Cartwheel/Scholastic (14 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 29, 2015 978-0-545-81980-0
The ever versatile activity song gets a techno-twist with customized lyrics and pop-up robots lined up to demonstrate each verse. “If you’re a robot and you know it / then your circuit board will show it....” Following the familiar “clap your hands” and “stomp your feet,” the directions take a quick left turn that begins with “jump and beep” and culminates with a spectacular “shoot laser beams out of your eyes” before the closing “Hooray!” Animated by pull-tabs and constructed in the cartoon illustrations from scrap metal and diverse elements including, for one, a tea-kettle head, Carter’s hand-clapping, limb-stretching, (card stock) laser-beam–shooting clanks have an appropriately silly look. A free download of the song, first issued on a 2013 CD, makes a sprightly, if likely to be superfluous, extra. After the hundredth (or thousandth) repetition of the original, this may come as a welcome variation—to the grown-ups, at least. (Pop-up picture book. 4-6)
JOURNEY TO THE MOON Mansfield, Andy Illus. by the author Little Bee (14 pp.) $12.99 | Aug. 4, 2015 978-1-4998-0072-2
In this very simple pop-up book, a rocket ship blasts off from Earth, hums through space, and touches down at last on the moon—with a goopy “BLOOP.” |
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WHAT’S THAT IN THE WATER?
THE WHITE HOUSE A Pop-up of Our Nation’s Home
Norris, Eryl Illus. by Mansfield, Andy Little Bee (18 pp.) $9.99 | Oct. 6, 2015 978-1-4998-0139-2 Series: Pop-Up Mystery
A pair of googly eyes gives even the shark and the hippo willies in this popup minimystery. “Those frightening eyes! / That hideous stare! / What on earth is that thing over there?” From a curly snake to an octopus with writhing tentacles, both fresh- and saltwater creatures look askance at the wide eyes staring from a page corner on each spread. A gray and teal palette gives both the dark pop-up figures and simple marine settings in Mansfield’s paper-collage illustrations a suitably murky atmosphere. The insistent questions crank up the suspense—until the end’s climactic denouement: “You mean me?” says a little wriggler. “I’m a tadpole who’s / learning to swim— / that’s all!” The co-published Who’s Who in the Woods? follows a similar scheme with nocturnal land and flying creatures anxiously veering away from a low stare that turns out to belong to...a tiny mouse. Both books are wee in both trim size and page count, giving them a nicely nonthreatening feel. A little chiller for Halloween or any time the lights are low. (Pop-up picture book. 3-6) (Who’s Who in the Woods?: 978-1-4998-0140-8)
GOLDILOCKS A Pop-Up Book
O’Leary, John Illus. by the author Tango Books (16 pp.) $19.99 | Aug. 1, 2015 978-1-85707-888-6
The familiar tale is pressed into service as a vehicle for introducing colors. Reflected in solid backgrounds and in select details of the very simple illustrations, a total of eight colors are presented. They highlight YELLOW-haired Goldilocks’ flower-picking, her journey through the GREEN leafy forest to a PURPLE cottage, and finally her hasty flight back to her BLUE house after three BROWN bears return and she wakes to see Father Bear RED with anger. The match between colors and storyline is not only often arbitrary, but orange and pink have to share a spread, and the entire ursine “Someone’s been eating... sitting...sleeping” dialogue is crammed onto a single page. Moreover, the anemic pop-ups include one that is just a flap and a nonfunctional—or at best underperforming—3-D forest scene. Despite some stumbles, Grace Maccarone’s Three Bears ABC, illustrated by Hollie Hibbert (2013), at least manages a retelling lively enough to carry off its conceptual overlay. Not so this effort. A long way from “just right.” (Pop-up folk tale. 2-4) 174
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Sabuda, Robert Illus. by the author Orchard/Scholastic (12 pp.) $29.99 | Dec. 29, 2015 978-0-545-54089-6
White House high spots, presented with 3-D flair by the archon of paper architects. The opening multileveled scene of the building under construction—with working hoists, workers properly both dark and light of skin, and the real story about Dolley Madison’s rescue of the Washington portrait hidden beneath a side flap—sets high expectations that are more than met on subsequent spreads. The East Room sports a huge, bewilderingly complicated chandelier; the austerely furnished Lincoln Study is transformed to a bedroom with a flip; the Rose Garden and, at the end, the South Lawn offer broad expanses of green to set off the elegant white gallery and South Portico that rise up. Thanks to some masterly slides and interlocking folds, the climactic Oval Office actually is an uncreased half oval, with the flag-flanked presidential desk and (unoccupied) chair filling the center space. Along with brief captions and historical notes, Sabuda includes a public domain inaugural poem that he’s foresightedly tweaked by changing “man” to “person,” “his” to “our president,” and like alterations. As usual, the pop-ups are so complex and fragile that careful handling is a must. But for young readers on their way as tourists or otherwise to the nation’s capital, here’s a grand first glimpse. A selective but resplendent tour. (Informational pop-up. 6-9)
DINOSAURS! Pop-Up Paper Designs
Safran, Sheri Illus. by Hawcock, David Tango Books (16 pp.) $14.99 | Sep. 1, 2015 978-1-85707-804-6
Eight dinos pose fetchingly in this hand-sized pop-up gallery. With no regard for either drama or comparative scale, Hawcock fashions his dinosaurs all roughly the same size and poses most nonthreateningly; Triceratops and several others even sport waggly tails. Moreover, aside from using mottled papers in various subdued, low-contrast hues for his full-body models, he plays it safe throughout by choosing subjects that will be familiar even to diaper-clad dinophiles and portraying each with flat, stylized features rather than going for any realism of detail or movement. The paper design is often clumsy too: Archeopteryx remains closed, and Stegosaurus stands at an angle even when their respective spreads are opened flat; Velociraptor, hanging in midleap, looks like it’s about to fall over; kirkus.com
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Paper at play, designed to appeal as much to touch as to the eye. black plus
the tabs that attach the heads of the Velociraptor and the T. Rex. are clearly visible; and Diplodocus’ neck is bent to the side at an anatomically unlikely sharp right angle. Safran strains to add interest with bulleted lists of facts and factoids ranging from “imagine the size and number of its poos” to an incorrect claim that Diplodocus is “thought to be the longest dinosaur.” Lacklusterus nonstarteris. (Informational pop-up. 4-6)
BLACK PLUS A Cut-Paper Book Tamarkin, Annette Illus. by the author Tango Books (12 pp.) $9.99 | Jul. 1, 2015 978-1-909142-00-8
printed on heavily coated stock over instructions to insert figures from the attached sheet of stickers: “Add some woolly sheep to the meadow. / Find a cuddly sheepdog to look after them.” Any drool or goo can be wiped off the pages (the puzzle is also cleanable, though somewhat more absorbent), and with care, the stickers can be pried up and reused. Except for the mice in the puzzle, the very simply drawn, brightly colored animals in Galloway’s farmscapes have a generic look, but all are easy to identify, and many are looking up, inviting eye contact with young viewers. The identically formatted Animals Puzzle and Sticker Book publishes simultaneously. Engaging elementary exercises in recognition and coordination skills; more suitable for private play spaces and libraries than public ones. (Novelty. 2-4) (Animals Puzzle and Sticker Book: 978-1-58925-201-1)
LEGENDARY ROUTES OF THE WORLD
Lifting a flap brings bright color and visual surprises to plain silhouettes in this wordless outing from a Belgian
paper artist. Pasted onto stiff boards, five very simply shaped black animals and a heart at the end each sport a flap, large or small, beneath which smaller circles or other shapes are likewise pasted in to create either a face or an abstract play of shapes and colors. One of the dots on a butterfly’s underwings turns out upon close inspection to be a ladybug, a black dog (or crocodile?) seems to be eating a green one or vice versa, depending on which side of the flap is visible, and one rather ambiguously formed creature is transformed with a flip from an ominous monster to a grinning frog. In the co-published White Plus, Tamarkin explores diverse 3-D effects with cut slots and folds in plain white stock that reveal glimpses of vivid color beneath when the spread opens. Here the shapes are all geometric, ranging from a spread of circles that can be slid back and forth to squash folds and rows of reverse folded rectangles. Paper at play, designed to appeal as much to touch as to the eye. Both toddlers and budding paper artists may be drawn in. (Pop-up picture book. 2-4) (White Plus: 978-1-909142-01-5)
FARM PUZZLE AND STICKER BOOK
Tiger Tales Illus. by Galloway, Fhiona Tiger Tales (14 pp.) $12.99 paper | Mar. 1, 2015 978-1-58925-202-8 Series: My Little World
Verhille, Alexandre & Tavernier, Sarah Illus. by the authors Translated by Wilson, David Henry Little Gestalten (16 pp.) $29.99 | Nov. 25, 2015 978-3-89955-759-6 A pop-up commemoration of five historic journeys for wouldbe travelers to attempt—both on the Earth and beyond it. All are challenging but (at least theoretically) retraceable. Arranged in no particular order, spreads open on map after map. There’s the Toulouse-to-Santiago mail route that Antoine de St. Exupéry and other intrepid early French aviators flew for Aéropostale; the trans-Atlantic “Route du Rhum” for solo sailors; the Silk Road; America’s Route 66; and the Apollo moon voyages. Dramatic pop-ups range from a motorcycle with sidecar roaring out of a Southwestern sunset to a multilevel tableau of horseback merchants and explorers venturing east to west and meeting in the middle with a similar, camelback cavalcade going the other way. Each opening features mileage, a date or era, and brief background notes on the route’s significance and selected highlights. A stylishly mustached figure and an eager dog appear also somewhere in each scene—including the lunar landing—as stand-ins for viewers...or possibly the book’s creators. Unlikely to prod children out of their armchairs to undertake their own voyages of discovery, but the lighthearted suggestion that it’s the journey, not the destination, that matters most won’t go amiss. (Informational pop-up. 8-10)
Packaged in a sturdy carrying case, a jigsaw puzzle and a sticker booklet with wipeable pages provide plenty of bucolic business for little eyes and sticky fingers. Assembling the large, heavy-duty puzzle pieces produces a teeming rural scene with, around the edges, labeled images of livestock, garden produce and 10 individually detailed mice to spot. In the booklet, enlarged details from the puzzle are |
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UTTERLY AMAZING HUMAN BODY
Walker, Richard Illus. by Modén, Kari DK Publishing (32 pp.) $19.99 | Oct. 6, 2015 978-1-4654-2920-9
A flurry of quick facts about human anatomy and development is given interactive enhancements. In this tour of body functions—“How I eat,” “How I think,” “How I grow,” etc.—an admixture of photographed children and magnified tissue samples seldom does much to liven up the scattered, flat, schematic images of anatomical parts on view. Nor do the scanty assortment of variously shaped flaps, the pop-up rib cage, or other moving figures. Even the silhouette “I am roughly the size of a...” baby who spins from “Pea” through “Avocado” to “Watermelon” inside a silhouette woman fails to thrill. Aside from an artery wrongly labeled “dermis” in a crosssection of skin layers, the select facts are accurate enough, but the narrative text features several arguable or poorly phrased statements. For example, a description of sight begins “Light rays from an object, such as a tree, enter the eye,” and there’s a sweeping claim that the brain “is the most complex thing in the living world.” Perfunctory to simplistic in content and anemic in special features, this effort is “roughly the size” of an also-ran in a field crowded with better surveys. (Pop-up nonfiction. 8-10)
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indie VAMPIRE JACQUES, THE LAST TEMPLAR Rebirth of the Knights Templar Trilogy
These titles earned the Kirkus Star: ESCAPE FROM DORKVILLE by Dean Ammerman.......................... 178
2-Shirt, Charlie Self (210 pp.) $12.95 paper | Jul. 9, 2015 978-0-69-237769-7
THE DOUBLE LIFE OF LAURENCE OLIPHANT by Bart Casey...... 181 FAITH, DOUBT, MYSTERY by James J. Tracy.................................. 194
Debut author 2-shirt begins a sprawling, epic trilogy of classically styled vampire novels, spanning centuries and exploring the extremes of good and evil. This story begins rooted in truth: Jacques de Molay, the final Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was a genuine historical figure, sentenced to death in 1314 after he recanted his confession—offered under torture—to acts of depravity and sacrilege. In both the novel and in real life, the Templars’ treasure and King Phillip IV’s debts played a significant role in de Molay’s trial, but the similarities stop there. Rather than ending Jacques’ story with a burning at the stake, the book lends credence to the accusations of his demonic proclivities. Its version of Jacques submits his soul to Mithras, a dark god of great power. Jacques’ immortality takes him across Europe, taking vengeance against the royals and struggling against other mighty supernatural creatures, including his own vampire kin. Weeks and months quickly blur into centuries as Jacques has many other strange, frightening encounters, sometimes with famous figures of the medieval and Renaissance periods. But ultimately, his greatest challenges come from within, as he must weigh his dark gifts and Templar morality against a chance to recover his soul and fight for a real future. The weight of all these ideas and the time span of the story would drag many books down, but this novel is a delightful exception. The prose here is solid and confident, moving smoothly and easily between scenes of blood and violence and startling insights into characters, the complexities of vampire lore, and legends such as that of the Ark of the Covenant. Vampire fans are sure to delight in these rich details, but lovers of historical fiction will also be captivated by the depictions of everything from the French aristocracy to the wilds of Russia’s Ural Mountains to Leonardo Da Vinci’s workshop. The struggle over Jacques’ soul may feel overly familiar to some readers, but the novel’s tight pacing and breadth of focus more than make up for it. A dynamic, entertaining journey that takes vampire fiction back to its roots.
THE DOUBLE LIFE OF LAURENCE OLIPHANT Victorian Pilgrim and Prophet
Casey, Bart Post Hill Press (200 pp.) $26.00 | $9.99 e-book | Dec. 8, 2015 978-1-61-868796-8
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AFTER & BEFORE
ESCAPE FROM DORKVILLE
Alexander, Ted M. Greyfield Media (336 pp.) $14.99 paper | $6.29 e-book | Jul. 1, 2015 978-0-9914237-0-5
Ammerman, Dean Kabloona (202 pp.) $6.99 paper | Aug. 10, 2015 978-0-98-468224-9
In Alexander’s (The Fall of Summer, 2014) psychological thriller, a woman undergoing hypnotherapy has trouble distinguishing reality from visions of what seems to be another life. Jane McBride’s trek into past-life regression therapy seems to be going well. She apparently experiences a “previous lifetime” when under hypnosis, seeing herself as a nun. But therapist Twyla refuses further sessions with Jane, who’s been increasingly unresponsive and harder to pull out of her hypnotic state. Unfortunately, real life for Jane involves philandering, alcoholic husband Jimmy and sexually harassing boss John Briggs at cosmetics company DSRR. She prefers the regression, where she feels love for a man she recurrently sees. Jane tries self-hypnosis, and soon the regressions bleed into her dreams and waking state, leaving her baffled as to what her reality truly is. In spite of the plot, the author doesn’t relay the story as a twisted, illusory narrative. It’s easy to discern when Jane is fully conscious, and her repeated jumps into visions of another place or time are also perfectly clear. It’s really not until the book’s final act that things get much more disorienting for the protagonist—and likely readers as well. Jane’s everydayness is rife with appetizing plot developments: Jimmy blames Jane for his adulterous ways, while the repugnant Briggs proves rather testy when Jane turns down his advances. The hypnotic sequences bolster the story with mystery, especially because Jane is sure, for instance, that she recognizes a farmhouse she keeps seeing. Supporting characters are dynamic, and not all are bad: sympathetic psychiatrist Eric Alford is willing to dabble in hypnosis on Jane’s behalf, and her work assistant/friend Carrie is charmingly cynical. Along the way, Alexander drops hints as to what’s truly going on, though he’s so good at that that a few readers may guess the ending. Nevertheless, the novel-long buildup has a strong, dizzyingly fun payoff. While the story concludes by resolving Jane’s dilemma, the coda opens the book to interpretation (or reinterpretation) and may have some readers flipping back to Page 1. An arresting novel that grounds its story first before spinning readers off into a rewarding, dreamlike finale.
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It falls upon 14-year-old Wilkin Delgado and his partner in crime, tug of war champion Alice Jane Zelinski, to save the universe again in the latest installment of Ammerman’s (Waiting for the Voo, 2014,
etc.) adventures. Fifteen-year-old Alice Jane knows she’s not cut out for the provincial life in “Dorkville,” aka Warrensberg, Minnesota. She misses Kansas City: “Here in Central Nowhere you can’t get real barbecue or honest-to-god hot sauce, all they play is polka music and they put corn in their gasoline.” Worse, since Alice Jane lives with her mom in Wilkin’s house, she also has to put up with the clueless 14-year-old. She has found a way to hang in there, managing her anger by getting in touch with her inner chi. But relief soon appears in the form of old friend Cardamon Webb, who recruits Wilkin and Alice Jane on yet another adventure to save the universe. Soon, Wilkin and Alice Jane are off on a quest, escaping Dorkville. Their task is almost an impossible mission: the universe is drying up, and Cardamon suspects it’s a problem with fresh water at the Source. To get at the crux of the matter, the team must “travel from the Outside through the Inside to the Other Side” and “pay a visit to the All and Everything.” On the odyssey, they have to make pilgrimage stops at Carthrobrite Cave, the City of the Dead, and the Oracle of the Swamp, not to mention battle evil forces such as Maldavis Chum. The story is a little too glib when it glosses over Maldavis Chum’s “cleansing” activities, which involve killing hundreds of thousands of people, but it’s probably beyond the scope of this wild roller coaster ride. The familiar trope of heroes on a quest gets an enjoyable makeover with endearing Wilkin and spunky Alice Jane, who, along with their sidekicks, make for a lovable pair. As they narrate the adventure in alternating chapters, their distinctive personalities make for memorable storytelling. And how can any middle grader resist a story that begins: “I now have a greater appreciation of toilets.” Zany fun in an exciting adventure.
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Bailey goes to great lengths to explain the economic and psychological influences that cause dog owners to make regrettable decisions. embracing the wild in your dog
EMBRACING THE WILD IN YOUR DOG An Understanding of the Authors of Our Dog’s Behavior - Nature and the Wolf
THE ENIGMA ALWAYS
Breakfield, Charles V. & Burkey, Roxanne E. CreateSpace (376 pp.) $13.45 paper | Aug. 11, 2015 978-1-51-686142-2 In the latest volume in Breakfield and Burkey’s (The Enigma Stolen, 2015, etc.) techno-thriller series, a disreputable doctor’s life-extension project calls for abductions and human experiments with unwilling participants. Su Lin nearly died from an accident that caused her to lose her memory. Formerly known as Master Po, she’d been an expert in cybertechnologies. When someone tries to kidnap Su Lin, a digital-security team called the R-Group suspects that the baddies are after Su Lin’s laptop. But the woman can’t remember what’s stored on her computer or how to bypass its complex encryption. She may have a connection to Dr. Xavier Pekoni, whose Fountain of Youth project—complete with unsanctioned human testing—had devastating side effects for its test subjects. A U.S. agency hires the R-Group to find Pekoni, convinced he’s attempting to finalize his research to increase human life spans. The authors excel at breezing through exposition, quickly setting up their newest tale: this time around, returning R-Group lovebirds Jacob and Petra are separated, the latter having isolated herself due to her physical and mental scars. Familiar bad guys abound as well: Jacob’s freelance work inadvertently entangles him with Zara of the villainous Russian Dteam. Zara, meanwhile, is on the run from Chairman Chang, from whom she stole €5 million in diamonds. There’s mystery throughout, as readers don’t immediately learn why Pekoni is trying to snatch Su Lin or if her teenlike behavior (she’s 50-something) can be remedied. By now there are enough recurring characters that many have paired up romantically, but Breakfield and Burkey still manage to churn out fresh interactions between the couples, as with Jacob and Petra, who, during a conference call with the R-Group, privately message one another to discuss their fractured relationship. The authors have likewise mastered scenes that are simultaneously cool and comical: Jacob’s tracking program is “his secret sauce,” and Zara gets help fencing the jewelry from her boss, Dmitry, who, by sheer happenstance, offers to sell the goods to rightful owner Chang. As always, loaded with smart technological prose and an open ending that suggests more to come.
Bailey, Bryan FastPencil, Incorporated (174 pp.) $16.95 paper | $9.99 e-book Sep. 24, 2015 978-1-61-933471-7
A convincing guide for dog owners as well as a memoir of instructive adventures set in nature. As the title of this debut work suggests, the central figure here is the wolf. Bailey insists that the tendency to anthropomorphize pets doesn’t serve them well: “The dog is a modified wolf, not a human.” The author bases his arguments on decades of experience as a licensed dog trainer, police canine officer, and dog sled racer. Several passages, taken out of context, may strike some readers as harsh. In actuality, Bailey goes to great lengths to explain the economic and psychological influences that cause dog owners to make regrettable decisions, whether due to the machinations of the massively profitable pet industry or the very real human need for affection and companionship. Nevertheless, this book represents much more than a simple training guide. There is an undeniable power and beauty to the author’s musings as he weaves into the text vital lessons learned from his mentor during intense survival training in the Alaskan wilderness. His rugged prose effectively conveys the physically and emotionally grueling nature of these exercises from his youth, to say the least. At one point, he literally stares into the eyes of the alpha male of the wolf pack. He also embraces spiritual elements, carefully constructing each chapter to begin with an appropriate epigraph, often quoting indigenous leaders or peoples. (He throws Jack London, John M. Campbell, and Henry David Thoreau into the mix, too.) As Bailey summarizes, “We are not adequately educated in regard to wolves and their behavior, and what little we do know, we are afraid of.” He successfully rectifies this situation in a bold and refreshing manner. For instance, such knowledge can help consumers choose which portable kennels are most appropriate for puppies based on animal behavior in the wild. Throughout the text, he repeats a mantra derived from the social relations displayed in wolf packs: “ ‘Obey today, eat today, live today’ is the reality. Obedience is required.” A firm response to currently accepted dog-training methods.
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UNIVERSAL MEANING In Search of the Reason for Our Existence
MY JOURNEY THROUGH WAR AND PEACE Explorations of a Young Filmmaker, Feminist and Spiritual Seeker
Brown, Floyd CreateSpace
Burch, Melissa Mosaic Press (180 pp.) $15.99 paper | Mar. 1, 2016 978-1-77-161177-0
A scientifically grounded search for meaning in a universe that continually reveals itself as ever more complex and capacious. The more we learn about our dizzyingly expansive universe, first-time author Brown contends, the more humankind is confronted by existential crisis. The “astonishing mosaic of matter and energy that we are just beginning to understand” can create a sense of personal diminishment—how does puny human existence fit within such a cosmology? Brown argues that the universe can be understood, maybe somewhat anthropomorphically, as an exploration for new means of survival, as a preservation instinct writ large. To substantiate this claim, he furnishes a sweeping consideration of the structures that make up the universe, from its constituent parts to our solar system to Earth. If nothing else, this breezily written volume is worth reading for its accessible introduction to cosmology. Brown lucidly discusses competing interpretations of the universe’s origins and subsequent development. People can find purpose and meaning by participating in the maintenance and improvement of the universe’s sustainability, a collective project that not only brings us closer to understanding the totality of life and the cosmos, but to each other: “The path of developing harmony as a necessary prelude to creating meaning for our existence requires us to act uniformly as a species to eliminate the vast inequities in power, wealth and opportunity that are now so prevalent among us.” This is an extraordinarily ambitious investigation that includes consideration of a vast array of subjects, including overpopulation, the nature of violence, and Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing on the National Security Agency. Sometimes the author strays too far afield, seemingly afraid to leave a potentially pertinent topic unmentioned. Brown avoids any dogmatic attachment, however, often insisting that certainty about such difficult matters isn’t possible. This is a worthy attempt to combine the best of what science can offer with an unremitting insistence on the human significance of science’s findings. It’s also a very practical one since, Brown believes, the meaning of our existence seems to demand a heightened level of ecological responsibility. A fascinating, and delightfully unpretentious, attempt to tackle the biggest question.
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In this memoir, a documentary filmmaker describes her dramatic journeys, both outward and inward. In 1982, Burch (Vital Sensation Manual Unit 4: Miasms in Homeopathy, 2013, etc.) had just turned 21. Eager for adventure, she arranged a freelance assignment in Afghanistan to film the mujahedeen rebellion against Soviet invaders. There, she discovered a paradoxical peace amid war. As shells destroyed the building where, minutes before, she’d been filming, “I felt calm,” she writes. “I was pulled into a sense of timelessness, weightlessness, absoluteness.” Adventure helped numb Burch’s anxiety, much of it rooted in childhood chaos: a disastrous fire, parental conflict and divorce, and a brilliant, depressed, alcoholic mother prone to pronouncements like “If you don’t clean this couch now, I will kill myself.” (Sylvia Plath, “an icon in our home,” was her mother’s friend and college roommate.) Burch describes her bold ventures, including her return to Afghanistan, the creative vigor of living in a SoHo loft with fellow artists, and her exploration of her sexuality. She forged a better relationship with her mother and filmed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But Burch’s efforts were often attended by disillusion: broadcast news outlets wanted only footage that would bolster preconceived stories, and egos got in the way: “I was so caught up in the drama, I lost all perspective,” she says at one point. Realizing that achieving her external goals required an inward shift, Burch began working with a Gurdjieff spiritual guide, which brought her peace that didn’t require braving a war zone. Writing with sensitivity and vivid clarity about her evolving self, Burch is unafraid to expose times when she was naïve, self-centered, or judgmental. She’s also frank about her sexuality, describing a passionate encounter with Baba Fawad, a mujahedeen commander, as well as insecurities about weight. It’s fascinating, too, to read her insider details on documentary filmmaking in dangerous places, especially as a woman—for example, getting her period on horseback, without tampons or pads, while traveling with an all-male group of tribesmen. An absorbing, well-written memoir by a brave adventurer who discovered her own life.
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An energetic page-turner, a shrewd character study, and a rich social history. the double life of laurence oliphant
SILK ROAD The Journey
Casey recounts the impossibly full life of Oliphant, a Scottish aristocrat born in 1829 during an era when his privileged caste ran the world. The son of the chief justice of Britain’s Ceylon colony, Oliphant gained fame with bestselling travelogues of Nepal, Russia, and Canada and worked as a foreign correspondent and British diplomat (sometimes both) in global hot spots: he stormed Chinese cities during the Opium Wars, parried sword attacks by anti-Western samurai in Tokyo, toured the corpse-strewn battlefields of the Franco-Prussian War, and witnessed the bloody destruction of the Paris Commune. Eventually, jaded by his life as a member of Parliament, satirical novelist, and London rake, he sought redemption with American spiritualist Thomas Lake Harris and his Brethren of the New Life group, which ran utopian communes in New York and California. Much of Casey’s book offers an entertaining account of Harris’ strange doctrines. Converts did manual labor cleaning stables and scrubbing laundry; the faithful “de-magnetized” each other of “lust currents” by counterintuitively having communal nude scrub-downs. They also practiced deep-breathing exercises that induced mystical visions; during these, disciples would join in orgasmic union with their opposite-sex “other half ” in the celestial realm. (Earthly sex, however, was frowned upon: Harris separated families and forbade Oliphant and his wife, Alice, to have sex, explaining that they were not each other’s true celestial soulmates.) Breaking with Harris, but not all his teachings, after Harris announced the second coming and proclaimed himself king of the world, Oliphant went on to help establish Zionist colonies in Palestine. Casey relates this colorful saga with well-paced narrative aplomb, setting it against the cultural ferment of the 19th century. His version of Oliphant is as an appealing character, part dashing man of the world and part idealistic seeker, possessed of both ardent religiosity and droll humor. He and his associates emerge as embodiments of a time of boundless horizons and breathtaking ambitions, of spiritual yearning that chafed against expectations of mundane happiness and fulfillment, and of a hunger for charismatic figures who lent a cosmic glamour to technological and political upheavals of the era. The result is an energetic page-turner, a shrewd character study, and a rich social history. An engrossing portrait of an emblematic Victorian.
Canatsey, Kenneth Xlibris $19.99 paper 978-1-5144-0536-9 In a bohemian odyssey set in the 1960s, a young man just out of college backpacks around the world, sampling hash, sex, acid, and illumination as the Vietnam War rages. In 1966, fresh out of UC Santa Barbara, Ken and roommate Jeb set out to hitchhike to New York City. In New Mexico, Jeb lucks out and catches a solo ride, while Ken climbs in with Lester, a spooky ex-con. Lester gleefully tells of a 13-year-old girl who “cummed in her panties” at a Beatles concert, and he warns Ken to look out for Texas Rangers. Ken lands in the East Village and is soon living with Brenda, a secretary at Columbia University. They marry and set off to backpack the world. Debarking in Ibiza, Ken memorably sees his landlords’ pet monkey carbonize himself as he grabs an electric line. After some hash in Tangiers, the couple reach Italy, where Brenda is groped—a recurring problem—this time in Naples. The travelogue moves on: Byron’s name chiseled by the poet into a marble column in Greece; Masada in the early morning; a Sikh worship service in Tehran; into Afghanistan and hash in Herat. As the narrative turns to New Delhi, its primary strength and challenge become clear: this is an exceedingly rich buffet. But patience is rewarded, as Canatsey (Confessions of a Friendly Anarchist, 2012, etc.) excels at the mesmerizing detail: the monkey’s “palms melted into the wires as electricity coursed through his body, and his body gradually diminished in size as the volts steadily burned away his flesh, muscles, sinews, organs and fat—the greater part of his entire physical mass.” At 400-plus pages, the novel could sometimes benefit from the spicy ironies of a Paul Theroux or the careening freedom of a Kerouac. But overall, Canatsey’s grasp is equal to his reach, and many passages will leave armchair Marco Polos hungering for more. A rich, exotic journey that will leave you reaching for your passport.
MEADOWLARK ECONOMICS Exploring Values for a Sustainable Future
THE DOUBLE LIFE OF LAURENCE OLIPHANT Victorian Pilgrim and Prophet
Eggert, James Booklocker.com, Inc. (150 pp.) $13.95 paper | $5.99 e-book | Jul. 1, 2015 978-1-63-490554-1
Casey, Bart Post Hill Press (200 pp.) $26.00 | $9.99 e-book | Dec. 8, 2015 978-1-61-868796-8
This collection of thoughtful essays weaves together economic and ecological issues. While Eggert (Greenspan’s Anguish: Thoreau as Economic Prophet and Other Selected Essays, 2015, etc.) is an economist by trade, he is struck by the relationship between economics and ecology. “I believe these two households are
A rollicking biography of a classic 19th-century figure, featuring imperial adventure, high diplomacy, literary fame, and an eccentric cult focused on bizarrely sublimated sexuality. |
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becoming more interdependent,” he writes, “and their futures more and more intimately linked.” Indeed, each of the 20 elegantly written essays in this revised collection, originally published in 2009, has a strong eco-conscious component. The unusual title is derived from the author’s concern over the Midwest’s loss of meadowlarks; somewhat esoterically, he translates this occurrence into “meadowlark values,” suggesting that a “meadowlark economist” must “seriously try and incorporate an ecological consciousness and ecological values along with market thinking and market values.” Eggert’s essays are as soaring and aspirational as they are instructional and practical. For example, in “What’s Wrong with Capitalism?” he notes there is “a destructive quality in capitalism that often violates the ecological laws that can and should ensure life’s beauty, balance, health and long-term continuity.” In “The Coming Repair Age,” Eggert cautions about energy: “Common sense tells us there simply must be an end to our wastefulness, and that we cannot continue our gross consuming habits for the long run.” In perhaps his most novel essay, “Wal-Mart Pond,” Eggert cleverly combines ecology and economy by imagining a conversation with Henry Thoreau. The fictional dialogue moves from the famed naturalist’s concerns about modern society—“Believe me sir, you don’t need shopping malls”—to Eggert’s financial counsel about tax deductions: “You might argue that anything a poet, a philosopher, anything a writer like yourself purchases is part of what one might say: ‘operating their business.’ ” His final essay, “Quartet,” is most worthy of contemplation: “what is our part in the ‘music’ of the cosmos, what is our role in the harmony of nature’s variations on a theme?” Erudite, well-wrought, and finely expressed in short bursts of creativity; at times poetic and philosophical, even as the author remains firmly planted on terra firma.
each attribute’s applicability to writer Shakespeare, positing that few, if any, can be conclusively applied to the actor. The author is clearly knowledgeable about her subject, and she details her sources in an appendix of chapter notes, though as with The Apocryphal William Shakespeare, the format of the references makes it difficult to connect citations to the body of the narrative. While the idea that Thomas Sackville wrote Shakespeare’s plays may require too many assumptions and inferences to persuade the reader, Feldman is unquestionably convincing as a proponent of the pleasures of exploring the works from a new angle, “discovering how many lesser known and seldom performed Shakespearean works take on an entirely new interest and meaning from a Sackvillian perspective.” The arguments in favor of Thomas Sackville are unlikely to put an end to the ongoing debate over Shakespeare’s true identity, but Feldman has presented an engaging new perspective that gives Stratford-ian skeptics a strong new contender for the man behind the works. An enthusiastic and unique assessment of the Shakespeare authorship question that, while still leaving the debate unresolved, may convince even open-minded Stratford-ians of the plausibility of its analysis.
BLACK INKED PEARL A Girl’s Quest
Finnegan, Ruth Garn Press (322 pp.) $27.95 | $17.95 paper | $9.99 e-book Aug. 6, 2015 978-1-94-214616-2 978-1-94-214617-9 paper The captivating tale of a young woman’s journey to reclaim her lost love. Early in Finnegan’s debut novel, there’s a gush of confused emotion and panic: “She was too young she was not ready she was afraid she was terrified only fifteen not ready yet she must go now immediate like a brother nice-impossible too young sea too loud storm tangle-hair she was too young now run run run.” Fifteen-year-old Kate is just an ordinary Irish girl, terrible at math, fearful of the nuns in her school. But as Kate points out, she’s part of an epic love story that is continuously unfolding, waiting for her to step in and bring the story to its conclusion. Alongside the roaring Atlantic Ocean, she meets a mysterious young man and falls under his spell. But, frightened by the intensity of their connection, she rejects his ardor and runs from him. Seven years later, however, she feels compelled to find him and reignite their passion. Kate turns to God and finds that she must complete seven tasks to find her beloved, including traveling through Eden and hell. She relives the biblical tale of love and indiscretion in the Garden of Eden as she and her soulmate converse with the infamous snake and contemplate the apple. Before long, though, Kate appears to be on her way back to her Irish village, with traces of her saga standing as testimony that dreams can penetrate reality. Blurring the lines between
THOMAS SACKVILLE AND THE SHAKESPEAREAN GLASS SLIPPER
Feldman, Sabrina CreateSpace (384 pp.) $9.99 paper | Sep. 6, 2015 978-1-50-299647-3
An argument in favor of Thomas Sackville as the author of Shakespeare’s plays and poetry. In this follow-up to The Apocryphal William Shakespeare (2011), Feldman expands on her contention that Elizabethan courtier Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, is the actual author of the plays and sonnets generally associated with William Shakespeare, while the actor William Shakespeare was actually responsible for a group of lesser plays mostly ignored by historians and critics. The book establishes 60 “attributes” that define the author (“Knowledge of the 1575 Kenilworth Festivities,” “Attracted to Both Magnificence and Simplicity”) then proceeds to find textual evidence for each attribute in Shakespeare’s writings, along with evidence that these clearly apply to Sackville. One chapter addresses 182
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Giles employs an easy style and modest creative license backed by obsessive research. the forgotten flapper
THE FORGOTTEN FLAPPER A Novel of Olive Thomas
poetry and prose, dreams and reality, Kate’s tale recalls the archetypal search for love, as the pursuit permeates every thought of Kate’s. Engaging readers with humor and insight, this unique tale is told through lyrical verse: “I said it was friendship / but you wanted love / I said that I’d thought of you / when you wanted—above.” Kate’s romantic quest calls to mind Paradise Lost and Greek mythology as it weaves together biblical allusions, fantasy, and details of the modern day. A mythical story of two lovers whose connection transcends space and time.
Giles, Laini Sepia Stories Publishing (420 pp.) $15.99 paper | $2.99 e-book | Jul. 18, 2015 978-0-9947349-0-7
In Giles’ (Love Lies Bleeding, 2015) novel, the ghost of actress Olive Thomas recounts her previous life as a model, chorus girl, and silent-film star. The spirit of the actress haunts Manhattan’s New Amsterdam Theatre, once the home of the Ziegfeld Follies, in which Olive performed. The apparition recollects her modest beginnings in a Pennsylvania coal mining town, getting married too young, and working as a shopgirl in New York where she’s “discovered” and becomes a model for artists such as Howard Chandler Christy and Harrison Fisher. After using her connections to become a Ziegfeld Girl, she performs in both the Follies and the more risqué rooftop Frolic; she also begins an affair with her married boss, Florenz Ziegfeld. After he refuses to leave his family for her, Olive takes a heartbroken trip to California, where she meets Jack Pickford, the notorious playboy and brother of Mary Pickford, and they have an exciting yet volatile marriage. Her beauty and enthusiasm open many doors into the world of silent film; however, she struggles with Jack’s alcoholism and indiscriminate infidelities. These dalliances inadvertently bring about her early end; she accidentally drinks a mercury solution, her husband’s syphilis treatment. Though a tragic figure, Olive unapologetically indulges in the excess of the early 20th century by being sassy, savvy but never cynical, and sexually vibrant. Giles employs an easy style and modest creative license backed by obsessive research. The book’s only noteworthy shortcoming is its failure to explore one of Olive’s more noteworthy claims to fame: her early death was one of the first heavily publicized scandals, and as a ghost, the starlet would have been uniquely positioned to comment on it. That said, nearly every page features at least a passing reference, if not an appearance, by a Hollywood legend, from the Pickfords to the Selznicks to F. Scott Fitzgerald. These are joined by lesser-remembered figures such as actors Blanche Ring and George Chesebro and the cross-dressing performer Julian Eltinge. The author includes an impressive reading list to explore these personalities further. A film buff’s dream wrapped in the decadence and glamour of a bygone era.
THE FIRST DAYS OF AUGUST Ad Hominem: Never Judge a Man by His Cover
Froning, Alan Archway Publishing (372 pp.) Feb. 18, 2015 978-1-4808-1335-9
In Froning’s debut medical thriller, a neurosurgical resident joins a drug research team that stumbles on a murderous conspiracy. Dr. Steve August is excited by the prospect of working for the Angion Corporation, a private biotech company developing a purported cure for brain cancer called Angiotox. Angion has had positive early results, but Steve’s experiments with mice lead him to speculate that the drug may be ineffective. Scientist George MacGregor, who’s Angion’s principal owner, and mobster/financier Antonio Calibri really need Angiotox to work, as a meeting with Swiss investors looms. Calibri’s thuggish henchman, Michael Riker, starts monitoring Steve and his attorney girlfriend, Morgan Najar—just in case Angion needs to ensure the neurosurgeon’s silence. This thriller is a medical mystery with the juicy bits of an espionage story. The Angiotox question soon takes a back seat to all sorts of shady goings-on. The story includes an apparent bum who seems to be shadowing Steve; a blackmailer; and James Bond–esque gadgetry, such as a “Wall-Walker” that can listen to people’s conversations and track their movements. After the Science Service, an odd gathering of scientists led by MacGregor, and government agent Winston Schmidt wiggle their ways into the story, it becomes more about Steve’s survival than exposing the truth about Angiotox. Froning offers quite a few additional subplots, and they’re often unpredictable; even the bad guys are surprised when someone sends Morgan shocking photos, for example. Steve is a solid protagonist who, at one point, endures a covert psychological assault involving sleep deprivation; his shrewd counterattack makes for a rousing turn. The villains are likewise indelible: MacGregor is frighteningly methodical, Riker is sadistic and merciless, and Calibri’s tendency to draw out his S’s (“Yesss”) is reminiscent of a hissing snake. The climax is nearly overloaded with characters, but Froning still manages to resolve things with a fantastic coda. A confident story that keeps its plot and protagonist moving—and its readers reading. |
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ANIMALS DON’T BLUSH
THE CODE OF SEVEN Book 1: A New World Order
Gross, David R. Book Publishers Network (268 pp.) $16.95 paper | $4.99 e-book Sep. 29, 2015 978-1-940598-81-9
HM, Sherina Lulu (188 pp.) $32.75 | $15.99 paper | $8.99 e-book May 18, 2015 978-1-4834-1032-6 978-1-4834-1420-1 paper
An entertaining memoir recalls the beginning of a veterinarian’s career in the early 1960s in Montana. In June 1960, immediately after graduation, newly minted veterinarian Gross (Travels with Charlize, 2015) left his native Arizona with his wife of two months, Rosalie, and headed north to the sprawling hinterlands of Sidney, Montana. Eager to gain practical experience, the young associate county veterinarian jumped enthusiastically into 10- and 12-hour days, plus alternate weekends, dividing his time between the Sidney Animal Hospital and “house” calls to horse and cattle ranches within a 40- or 50-mile radius. Charm, wit, and an obvious affection for his patients permeate the pages of this volume, originally released in 2011. A healthy dose of humor, self-deprecating and otherwise, adds welcome levity to some graphic, detailed descriptions of the medical procedures Gross performed. Today, many of us associate veterinarians with doctors who tend to our furry or feathered companions, but the bulk of Gross’ stint in Montana was spent treating large animals: horses, cattle, and pigs. This required physical strength as well as medical competence. Veterinary medicine has progressed in the 50-plus years since Gross ventured out of Phoenix, but in 1960, vets performed much of the care for large animals without anesthesia. Imagine the job of drawing blood from a not-too-willing, wide-awake bull or castrating 16 recently captured wild horses. Gross recounts his particular fondness for the small animals he treated, especially dogs—Skipper the border collie, who got caught by a lawn mower, and Frick and Frack, two bluetick hounds with faces full of porcupine quills. Bringing everything into sharper focus are the vivid depictions of the countryside and the ranchers of Richland County, Montana, and the Badlands of North Dakota. The author peppers his account with a bit too much technical jargon, but he is an articulate observer, and he knows how to tell a compelling story. Delightful vignettes about caring for animals large and small in the West make this book an enjoyable and satisfying read.
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In this YA fantasy debut, seven strangers from various galaxies must join forces against the spread of evil to all
inhabited worlds. Fourteen-year-old Eva lives in a mountain village but longs to venture to distant lands. She excels at creating the elaborate headdresses worn by the village women, and her father is the village’s Head of Council. After he returns, injured, from a Council meeting, he tells of an increase in robberies by strangers in the region—and that he himself is a recent victim. He says that the village’s technocrats, who live abroad and help the People of the Mountain interact with the larger world, have traced the violence to a single person seeking to buy land. Meanwhile, in the wealthy city of Hailey Blu, 14-year-old Nathaniel learns that his father, an investment manager for a bank, has been researching dangerous seismic activity relating to the building of geothermal power plants. When a colleague and his family go missing, Nathaniel’s father fears for his own family’s safety. Connecting the events in Eva’s and Nathaniel’s lives is the mysterious Theosus, a guardian from the School of Nature, which oversees intelligent life in six galaxies. He’s on Earth to locate two members of the Code of Seven—a group of powerful people capable of thwarting the evil of the new world order. Debut author HM launches a new YA fantasy series with a complex array of cultures and relationships. The first half of the novel is a compact stream of marvelous ideas, central among them being the School of Nature, a heavenly place run by the guardian headmistress Elixxium. HM’s younger audience will need to be well-read, for the narrative strides quickly, covering mature topics such as the connection between co-existence and the health of planet Earth. Only later does the tale draw upon traditional fantasy elements, including portals, gemstones, and a fiery serpent. The author’s numerous, engaging ideas feel crowded in this short first installment, yet the epic relationship between Eva and Nathaniel keeps the story flowing. An optimistic start to a new series that’s bursting with invention.
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A PHILOSOPHY ON LIFE, FAMILY, AND GROWING UP
favorite blueberry market—there are several in their hometown of Jaloonsville—they’re greeted by Viney, another friend, who reminds Sheldon to bring a favorite homemade blueberry treat to school. All seems well until store owner Mr. G. shares a terrible secret: his market may have to close because the new delivery truck driver is bringing him only junk food. What will Jaloonsville do without its blueberry deliveries? Rather than follow the obvious course of action—uncovering why the junk food is being delivered—Sheldon devises a grander plan: he and his parents will buy several acres of land to start their own blueberry farm. His parents agree, and they strike a deal with the neighboring town of Buron Park. But the plot soon thickens: the driver of the delivery truck, Lazy Lars, is also from Buron Park, and he’s determined to keep Sheldon’s healthy treats out of his hometown, where junk food reigns supreme. Readers will never doubt Sheldon’s eventual success. The characters’ constant love of blueberries, along with the book’s whimsical cartoon illustrations, give the story a lighthearted flavor. The health food aspect is less pronounced than in similarly themed books but it’s still strongly present; readers will know that the only supervillains Sheldon will face will be candy bars and other sweets. Although both Sheldon and the delivery driver are Caucasian, the illustrations show Jaloonsville to be delightfully diverse, proving that everyone can share a love for blueberries. A silly superhero tale showcasing a tasty, healthy berry.
Hunter, Troy Lulu (120 pp.) $17.94 paper | Sep. 17, 2013 978-1-4834-0301-4
A wide-ranging debut exploration of how to live the most fulfilling human life, from birth to death. Hunter, a former U.S. Navy seaman, tackles many of life’s major questions in this thin yet comprehensive volume. Most of the work discusses the author’s greatest interest: the raising of youth. He looks at the many ways in which parenting and education, as well as other societal influences, can either stunt or encourage children’s mental, emotional, and physical growth. With thoughts that are reminiscent of such diverse philosophers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Dewey, Hunter provides a unique, common-sense take on the rearing of future generations. He encourages an active but gentle form of parenting, with limitations on any punishments that might be emotionally scarring. In addition, he advocates for a supportive educational system. Indeed, his promotion of government and other institutions is strong and largely unquestioning: “The institutions we have set up to care for our needs as a society should lead us confidently into this new world of untold possibilities.” He also pushes for strong national and international intervention in problems such as poverty: “It is hard to address our world’s problems without doing more to raise the living standards of the world’s poorest countries.” Overall, Hunter’s worldviews are mainly positive in tone, secular in approach, and holistic in scope. His prose is also mature and approachable, if not always polished. In an overarching sense, this book calls upon readers to seek more fulfilling lives, not for their own ends but for the betterment of society. It’s an egalitarian and, in some senses, socialist philosophy of the community, based upon, and extrapolated from, the love of the nuclear family. A heartfelt discussion of child-rearing and society.
WANDERING BOY
Kern, Ronni CreateSpace (316 pp.) $7.75 paper | May 20, 2013 978-1-48-402768-4 Kern tells the story of country music through the eyes of an unlikely producer in this debut novel. In 1927, 15-year-old Mickey Derow is just looking for an escape when he jumps into an idling Cadillac in New York City. He’s just stolen a salesman’s case of ribbons and is running from the cops, but the men in the Cadillac mistake him for a young recording expert they’re expecting and take him along on their journey to Tennessee. As Mickey puts it, “What I’d got involved in, turned out, was a hunt for singing hillbillies.” In Bristol, Tennessee, the hapless Mickey helps (and hinders) his new employers’ efforts to record amateur musicians for the Victor record company. The talent includes future luminaries like Jimmie Rodgers and Maybelle Carter. The singer who really steals Mickey’s heart, however, is 12-year-old Ida Valentine, whose song isn’t even good enough to get preserved in wax. When the Victor men go back to New York, Mickey volunteers to stay behind and help discover new talent for the emerging record industry—and, of course, find Ida. What follows is a Candide-esque adventure through eight decades of country music as Mickey rises to become a producer of note, pining all the while for love of sweet Ida Valentine. Kern is a writer of enormous talents: in Mickey Derow, she’s created an all-American protagonist in the
SHELDON, THE ANTIOXIDANT SUPER HERO OF JALOONSVILLE The Blueberry Boy Series
Jones, Melissa Illus. by Motz, Mike Melissa’s Book Publishing LLC (40 pp.) $6.99 paper | $2.99 e-book Aug. 15, 2012 978-0-615-68425-3 Sheldon Bilberry, also known as Blueberry Boy, is a nutritional superhero in this outside-the-box children’s series starter by debut author Jones. The titular hero wears a cape dyed with blueberry juice because, as he tells his best friend, Lou, it “represents antioxidant protection.” As the duo make their way to their |
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tradition of Studs Lonigan, Billy Bathgate, and Forrest Gump. His voice is an infectious blend of pluck and naiveté, grit and vulnerability. Through his use of language he seeks to beat the world (and himself) into submission: “I’d seen the waves punching and clawing and climbing over each other, just to be the first to smash their brains out on the sand; and then sliding away beat but never defeated, coming right back for another try.... They reminded me of me.” While Mickey’s story is littered with many of the unlikely coincidences that propel this brand of winking historical fiction, Kern imbues the peculiarities of country music with a verve that will make even nonfans appreciate the culture as they read. A funny, endearing tale anchored by an impeccably drawn narrator.
treatise on the choice to renounce religion, while religious readers with questions about the validity of their faiths will also find a great deal of thought-provoking material. A bracing, comprehensive deconstruction.
PARIS Culture, Romance, Style, Cuisine
Kharbichi, Amal Metis Press (222 pp.) $17.90 paper | Aug. 27, 2015 978-2-95-520450-4 A guide to traveling in Paris by a debut author and self-proclaimed “citizen of the world.” After dining with two friends who had vastly different experiences on long-anticipated trips to Paris—largely due to differing degrees of planning and preparation—Kharbichi decided to use her knowledge of her adopted hometown to create her own travel guide. Writing as “your Parisian friend,” she offers personalized experiences in the City of Light, focused around vacationers’ particular preferences. After a general overview of Paris, she dedicates chapters to culture, romance, style, and cuisine. The book concludes with crucial travel information for getting to and around the city. One of the introductory chapters offers an extremely helpful guide to the primary attractions and accommodations in each arrondissement, in numerical order, originating at the center of the city. Typical travel guide information, such as addresses, telephone numbers, hours, and fees, is interspersed with chatty prose. Topics range from libraries to cheese to libertine clubs appropriate only for consenting adults. As a result, Kharbichi offers advice on subjects generally not covered by most run-of-the-mill travel books as well as informational sections on currently popular French style and wine appreciation. Her easy, conversational prose makes this book feel like one is sitting down with a friend, discussing Paris over a glass of wine or cup of coffee. The book’s companion website includes beautiful color photographs that the book lacks, although the site’s full content is only available to registered users who have purchased the book. While this work is enjoyable enough to read from cover to cover, readers can peruse any one section without any loss of understanding, though an index would have been useful. Insider travel information from an erudite author.
HOW AND WHY GOD EVOLVED An Alternative Perspective
Khan, Babar Shah iUniverse (212 pp.) $27.95 | $17.95 paper | $3.99 e-book Aug. 13, 2015 978-1-4917-6883-9 978-1-4917-6881-5 paper
A clinical assessment of the human origins of organized religion. Khan’s nonfiction debut tackles the fundamentally mundane origins of the broad concept of invisible deities. He looks at sacred texts of the major modern monotheisms—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—and sets them in the broader historical context of the polytheism from which they sprang, leading to various structural and thematic similarities. The goal is to bring these and all faiths in the supernatural down to Earth, linking them with the power-related needs of human rulers and societies. “Mighty empires,” he writes, “propagated the myth of religion and mediator god-kings to keep a heavy-handed grip on innocent people.” In interpretive and rhetorical moves that will be familiar to readers of so-called New Atheist texts— e.g., Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Sam Harris’ The End of Faith—Khan systematically picks apart the absurdities of major religions. “If God insists on proving His existence through angels,” he asks, “why not send angels that can be seen and heard on the witness stand?” Or: “What if an atheist hits the jackpot without any supplication to God?...Do we call it God’s mercy? No, we call it luck.” He looks at a wide spectrum of later, interpretive stories from the likes of Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, and various commentaries on the Quran. Khan’s tone throughout is calm and approachable, but his larger purpose is serious: while illuminating the arbitrary and man-made nature of organized religion, he simultaneously underscores the tremendous and often harmful power those organized religions still wield in the world, altering national policy and sometimes severely affecting daily lives (he points out, for example, that the constitutions of seven U.S. states forbid government office to atheists). Atheists will appreciate this unified, readable 186
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The blend of humorous, anecdotal prose with frequent visual breaks fosters a pop-science feel that is engaging and informed but never stuffy. your healthy brain
YOUR HEALTHY BRAIN A Personal & Family Guide to Staying Healthy & Living Longer
BEYOND THE GREAT WATER The Story of John Jacob Astor’s Determination to Defeat British Fur Trade Interests in the Untamed Wilderness of the Pacific Coast
Kiraly, Stephen J. Lulu (296 pp.) $24.99 paper | $8.99 e-book Sep. 26, 2014 978-1-48-341480-5
Kuri, Frederick Dragon Tree Books (328 pp.) $26.99 | $17.99 paper | $3.99 e-book Dec. 17, 2014 978-0-98-626412-2 978-0-98-626410-8 paper
A comprehensive guide to the workings, care, and history of the brain. While he’s not the first to do so, debut author Kiraly eloquently and occasionally humorously makes the case that the brain should be conceptualized in the same manner that we conceptualize our hearts or lungs—as an integral physical component of our beings that requires excellent diet and exercise—both of the mental and physical varieties. After all, a sick brain produces a sick body. The text makes the case that a long life span isn’t necessarily a happy one, especially if one’s health gives out midway, a concept that is represented by the YUC factor, or years under medical care. To this end, the book is divided into two principal sections. The first provides a layman’s guide to the brain’s basic functions and history; the second details which nutrients, activities, and behaviors are helpful or harmful. When describing the effects of stress, Kiraly notes, “Cortisol is the hormone of death!” These energetic proclamations make the book an easy and even fun read. This is purposeful: Kiraly explains in his preface that he is addressing a general audience (the book “will suffice unless you plan to go to medical school”), but he still includes technical charts and graphs to support his case. As a result, the blend of humorous, anecdotal prose with frequent visual breaks fosters a pop-science feel that is engaging and informed but never stuffy. Drawing on a wealth of recent data and debunking years of misconceptions and ignorance, Kiraly has written a work that is as full of fascinating cocktail-party tidbits as it is deeply researched concepts about how the medical professional and individual should care for the brain. A smart, entertaining read on caring for our gray matter.
Kuri’s debut historical novel tells of a venture to control the fur trade in the Pacific Northwest. Gabriel Franchère, 24, is a French Canadian from the St. Lawrence Valley, unique among the young men of his village for his ability to read and write. In 1810, he and some of his friends set out with a wilderness-hardened Scotsman and his team of voyageurs on a journey into unknown territories. First they travel to New York City, where their benefactor, immigrant visionary John Jacob Astor, dreams “to unite all the untouched lands of this continent under a single fur trading company of his own.” From New York, they set off on a grueling monthslong journey aboard the Tonquin, around Cape Horn and up to the mouth of the Columbia River, where the great untapped forests of Oregon offer riches for any man bold enough to brave them. An assemblage of adventurers, sailors, and businessmen—some famous, some infamous—surround Franchère as he navigates the streets of Manhattan, the high seas, and the wilds of the Northwest. Their enterprise is that of empire itself, and while it may be an undertaking conceived in the halls of power, it will be realized in blood and smoke at the edges of the known world. Kuri writes in steady, detail-oriented prose reminiscent of the labor that characterizes the world of his fiction: “The stout, elderly Huron, beside a rack of drying strips of meat, prepares a skin using a knife to remove pieces of fat from a wet and soft hide she has previously soaked in brine and staked out with the skin up, that it might dry smooth.” The present tense lends a documentary quality to the story, which banishes romanticism while still keeping readers enthralled in its rhythms. A great depth of research is apparent, and though readers may find that the minutiae stand in the way of a more traditional adventure tale, others will appreciate how deftly Kuri immerses us in a world of tremendous toil, danger, and beauty. An engaging, sometimes-wondrous work of historical fiction.
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The clipped prose hums along, generating a blunt, edgy mood. stand your ground
CALLING TOWER
BLUE INK Tales of Strangeness
Leone, Josh CreateSpace (322 pp.) $11.95 paper | $2.99 e-book | Jun. 15, 2015 978-1-51-436348-5
Liang, David CreateSpace (132 pp.) $10.64 paper | $5.99 e-book Aug. 15, 2016 978-1-51-531572-8
In a far-future empire known as the Primacy, elites and spacefaring rogues are ensnared in a conspiracy by a top-tier mystic to elevate himself to godhood. Author Leone’s debut kicks off a planned multivolume saga built on the conceit of the “Calling Tower,” one of those tropes that sci-fi commentators have taken to calling the “Big Dumb Object,” a crucial artifact that inspires awe. Here, it’s a deposit of a rare crystal of unthinkable purity that’s been uncovered under the Earth’s crust, sending a multifaceted spire (hence the “Tower”) aboveground. In an era wracked by near–extinction-level planetary war and strife, this miracle mineral permits the downloading and retrieval of human consciousnesses, enabling society’s elites to enjoy repeated resurrections as “Honored Returned” in continually upgraded, powerful, nanotechenhanced bodies. Use of the Calling Tower remakes human civilization into the Primacy, a theocracy that worships the Earth as a mother goddess (for how can anything so beneficial have evolved by random chance?); it’s also a rapacious space empire, feared by countless aliens, that’s driven by the Towerinspired credo that humanity alone has been favored by the Divine. Some 1,800 years after the discovery of the Calling Tower, Vashek, a high administrator/priest who’s been reborn so often that he’s an angelic figure, schemes to push the Calling Tower’s properties even further and incarnate himself as a noncorporeal being of pure consciousness—in other words, an amoral, lethal god. Doing this without detection requires Vashek to initiate a shadowy interstellar criminal conspiracy that readers may find a bit overcomplicated. However, the novel also tracks an entertaining ensemble of characters. One of them in particular, an ex-soldier–turned–rogue hero named Seth, has an especially Han Solo–esque vibe. The book also features world-sized spaceships and exotic extraterrestrials. If readers are left slightly wanting for further shadings of the Primacy culture, they may take comfort in the fact that there’s a sequel already in progress. A promising start to a serious-minded space-opera epic.
A fantastic collection of sci-fi/fantasy flash fiction. Liang’s debut offers a fascinating, often chilling look into an alternate universe. In “Run,” Gov. John Mayyor oversees a prison known as Section 7A in Illuva Forest. Known as the last stop for criminals, Section 7A is where murderers are separated from civil society and left to their own devices. The convicts must fend for themselves, using force if needed but knowing that everyone else can do the same. “Lazarus,” on the other hand, is less a story and more a disturbing description of a seductive, august city that is in fact “a test tube, an open laboratory for the military to work the kinks out of a new system of government—a system no one saw coming.” Lazarus captures a dystopian world of Benefactors, rulers who strive to create a utopia by expunging the imperfect from the universe. In “The Forest,” a more narrative-heavy tale, a group of artificially designed wolves forage for food and try to protect themselves while a man at a computer tries to control them. The lines between computer, animal, and human get blurred in this haunting example of how machines can rule and destroy our lives. “A Bad Wish”—which begins: “I say there are three kinds of people in this world. There’s the givers, the takers, and the ‘meh’ers”—traces the life of John Doe and his encounter with Xanthix, a genie who claims he can grant Joe three wishes. But when Xanthix gets to choose the wishes, the story takes an ugly turn. Brimming with imagination, the stories present unique, frequently insightful looks at the future of human experience. Not only are these mostly brief sci-fi/fantasy pieces smartly written and entertaining, they usually present a moral message, too. Young readers in particular will appreciate these fresh, easy-to-read stories while reveling in the challenges offered in their weighty content. A promising compilation from a new talent.
STAND YOUR GROUND
Lomax, Raeder CreateSpace
Two convicts recently released from prison may be looking at a big score, one that everyone seems interested in getting their hands on, in Lomax’s crime novel. Lawton Gibbs and Roy LaHood had once been such proficient burglars they were known as the Four-Minute Gang. But after they’ve both served time, for different transgressions, it’s Roy’s estranged wife, Roberta, 188
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who’s got a gig lined up. She wants them to rob her boss, Ronnie Harrison. His safes, at home and in his gentlemen’s club, are reputedly filled with millions. Lawton and Roy aren’t keen on working with Roberta, but that doesn’t stop others from hearing about the purported scheme. Sure enough, someone gets a hold of Ronnie’s goods, and the inevitable accusations of thievery ultimately lead to more than one murder. The novel brims with criminals and seedy types, which Lomax offsets with his two sympathetic convict main characters. Lawton, for one, upon his release, meets up with elderly widow Kathy Johnson, whom he had essentially wooed years earlier—in the midst of burglarizing her home. The courts, meanwhile, reversed Roy’s murder conviction based on the stand-your-ground law; he shot and killed a man beating Roberta. Most characters, however, revel in callousness, from club bartender and drug dealer on the side Marty Bannister to Lawton’s perpetually contentious daughter Julia. There’s a lot of stealing going on, but it’s all gleefully diverting and never convoluted since it’s generally clear, at any given time, who’s got the loot. There aren’t many surprises; double crossings, for example, can’t happen when no one genuinely trusts (or likes) anyone else. But Lomax knows to keep the plot moving, despite a dialogue-heavy narrative. The clipped prose hums along, generating a blunt, edgy mood. A highlight is when Clarice, a dancer and Ronnie’s live-in girlfriend, storms off from the unsavory club owner: “The bedroom door slammed. The front door slammed. Her car door slammed.” A heist goes bad in entertaining fashion.
world of Colonial Santa Fe, and its people feel very believably of their time. In the supernatural segments, there’s never much doubt that Don Carlos will prevail (“When I’m in good form, I make for a challenging opponent,” he says at one point), but the scenes remain gripping. McFarland is quite skilled at providing seamless background information so that each of the books in the series could, in a pinch, stand alone. However, readers are nonetheless advised to read the first two installments before beginning this third, as a great deal of nuance, especially regarding Don Carlos’ knowledge of and belief in himself, would otherwise be lost. A very satisfying blend of the historical novels of James Michener and the spiritual accounts of Carlos Castaneda.
XODUS
McPike, K.J. Terracotta Rose Publishing (388 pp.) $13.99 paper | Sep. 19, 2015 978-1-62-802501-9 This YA debut stars a teen performing astral projection on the hunt for her missing mother. Xitlali “Lali” Yavari of Browshire, Virginia, is about to turn 16. Traditionally, her mom bursts into her room at midnight on her birthday to throw confetti. This year, however, Lali’s mother has been gone for two months after leaving her husband and five children a note saying, “I love you all. I’m so sorry.” Making this night worse, Lali starts experiencing strange phenomena, like the sudden appearance and disappearance of a huge man with a scar on his face just outside her bedroom door. Next, she’s gripped by a kind of seizure. Upon recovering, Lali witnesses the large man threaten the life of a red-haired woman. And yet, they can’t see Lali. She assumes the events are a dream. At school, Lali meets a handsome new student named Kai Awana, whom she later sees talking with the scarred man. During another seizurelike episode—which allows her to go unseen by others—she hears Kai say, “She could be exactly what we need.” Lali starts wondering whether the bedtime stories her mother used to tell—about a girl called Astralis who could travel with her mind—weren’t just stories. Beginning a new YA series, debut author McPike crosses large family dynamics with tightly conceived superpowers to maximum effect. Lali’s siblings—Oxanna, Dixon, Ulyxses, and Salaxia—display distinct personalities that prove vital to the expanding narrative. McPike offers lively depictions of powers and their results, as when Lali has “projected”: “Everything was spinning and spotty, stained with a glowing red after-image.” Though Lali frequently notes that Kai is attractive, this tale is too hard-edged to be a romance. As the whereabouts of her mother take on increasing urgency, Lali and Kai bicker relentlessly. From these scenes comes the realization that “Caring about someone meant telling the truth; it meant letting that person in.” As a result, McPike succeeds in telling an emotionally jagged tale while setting up the rest of the series.
THE LAST OF OUR KIND
McFarland, Gerald W. Sunstone Press (374 pp.) $26.95 paper | $4.99 e-book Sep. 29, 2015 978-1-63293-085-9
The final installment of the adventures of an 18th-century sorcerer in New Mexico. McFarland (What the Owl Saw, 2014, etc.) continues his series of mystical historical novels featuring the heroic young brujo Don Carlos Buenaventura, who, in 1706, lives in the Spanish Empire’s town of Santa Fe (now in modern-day New Mexico). He hides his sorcerous identity from other members of his community by taking the alternate identity of Don Alfonso Cabeza de Vaca, an ordinary young man from an aristocratic Catholic family. For some of his career, Don Carlos has also been hiding from a fellow sorcerer, Don Malvolio, who hounded him through many lifetimes and even killed him in his last existence. As this concluding volume opens, Don Carlos continues to juggle the natural and supernatural sides of his life: he’s pursuing a new career as mogul in the West Coast’s booming real estate market and a romantic relationship with the beautiful widow Inéz de Recalde. More recently, though, others have been pursuing him: Inquisition officials have heard rumors of a powerful brujo in Santa Fe and have sent a commission to ferret him out. McFarland’s genial, involving narrative vividly realizes the |
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YUM Plant-based Recipes for a Gluten-Free Diet
An intriguing story driven equally by plot, characters, and angst.
Nicassio, Theresa D&D Publishing and Distribution (368 pp.) $35.00 | Sep. 19, 2015 978-0-99-391560-4
FIRE WAR
Michael, T.T. CreateSpace (340 pp.) $14.95 paper | $2.99 e-book | Oct. 1, 2015 978-1-51-718074-4
Nicassio’s collection of more than 180 recipes that are plant-based and gluten-free offers help to those who suffer from dietary restrictions. After suffering from negative reactions from some foods, Nicassio, a registered psychologist, sought out alternative methods of healing and ways to use food as medicine. She “became a Certified Integrative Energy Healing Practitioner, a Certified Gourmet Raw Food Chef and Instructor and a Certified Advanced Raw Food Nutrition Educator.” Her YUM philosophy is inclusive—even die-hard junk-food addicts or meat lovers can enjoy her recipes alongside those who need or choose to avoid certain foods. Nicassio emphasizes easing into the world of healthier eating, gradually incorporating more nutritious ingredients into the pantry and trying just a few recipes at a time. She lists “Funky Foods,” many of which are key ingredients in her recipes. Golden berries, lovage, buckwheat groats, kelp noodles, camelina oil, coconut aminos, and chicory root inulin powder may not be familiar to those without access to a well-stocked health food store. But Nicassio clearly and simply explains the nutritional importance of these ingredients. She also lists helpful kitchen tools, but since some items, like highspeed blenders, can be expensive, she suggests experimenting with a regular blender first. The recipes include nearly all food types—beverages, appetizers, salads, snacks, main dishes, etc. Some recipes aren’t as simple as billed: more than 70 require another recipe or two from the book (her Stuffed Bell Peppers recipe requires four), so interested readers will benefit by fully stocking their kitchens before proceeding. Environmentally conscious cooks will appreciate Nicassio’s section on creative, easy ways to reduce waste in the kitchen. Although probably best suited to those already familiar with plant-based, glutenfree eating, the author’s charm might convince many others to give it a go. A thorough, informative cookbook for healthy meals; ideal for those with food restrictions.
In Michael’s sci-fi debut, a sniper must deal with his feelings and his family as a North American superstate takes over. In 2051, in Chicago, a father and son are taking in a ballgame when a bomb destroys the whole ballpark. Then, in 2076, in Mexico City, Gunnery Sgt. Anthony Jackson takes time off from training snipers to protect the presidents of Mexico and the North American Union. The NAU is the new country that was formed by the United States and Canada in the wake of the 2051 terrorist bombings. Michael devotes several pages to Jackson’s thinking about this history, including the revitalization of Detroit and its reduction in unemployment. Readers will notice that, although this takes place 60 years in the future, the concerns and references are contemporary, including the mid-2010s collapse of Greece’s economy, the danger of Mexican cartels, the fight against Islamist fundamentalist terrorists, and others. Jackson also comes off at first like a larger-than-life figure: one of the best snipers in the world, with “muscles rippling under every surface of skin.” However, he becomes more sympathetic as he worries over doing the right things by his men, his wife and daughters, and his country. Unfortunately for him, the NAU—and a new state formed by the inclusion of Mexico— no longer holds to the U.S. Constitution or to citizens’ rights; dissidents disappear without trial; and newspaper editorials discuss the need to appoint rather than elect a president. What’s interesting here is that Jackson isn’t conspiracy-minded or even curious, and it’s only a bit of heavy-handed eavesdropping at the end that clues him in to the government’s obvious wrongdoing. In other words, despite his sniper skills and muscles, he’s just a guy trying to do his job and take care of his family. Most of the suspense that the author generates in this book comes from Jackson’s struggles to do everyday things rather than from larger political issues. Readers will find an engaging family drama underneath this futuristic political thriller.
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The ending is surprisingly modest...a simple conversation that’s both poignant and memorable. reading the streets
A WOMAN’S GUIDE TO THE SAILING LIFESTYLE The Essentials and Fun of Sailing Off the New England Coast
READING THE STREETS
Riley, Michael CreateSpace (270 pp.) $10.23 paper | $7.00 e-book | Jul. 2, 2015 978-1-5143-9100-6
Picchi, Debra & Desrosiers, Thomas AuthorHouse (202 pp.) $27.99 | $16.95 paper | $3.99 e-book Sep. 18, 2015 978-1-50-493372-8 978-1-50-492844-1 paper
In Riley’s debut thriller, a West London detective inspector working a murder case gradually uncovers possible corruption among the authorities. At Pine Street Police Station, it’s DI Arthur Botley who answers the call about a body. It doesn’t take long for Botley to identify the dead man, who may have inadvertently provoked a gang when burglarizing a house with someone else. Things get dicey when DS Donna Strachen from the Drug Squad shows up, looking for missing colleague DS Phillip Wood. Wood may be dead, or he could be the one Donna saw driving around with drug traffickers. But this is only the beginning of a series of nefarious happenings Botley encounters, from bogus coppers to blackmail, frame-ups, and more murder. Riley’s novel boasts a cast of characters that all seem guilty of something; even Botley collects money for thuggish Frank Petchey, a man he knew in the army but who still scares him. The story focuses less on who’s committing the murders than on the motives—especially true once the crimes seem to develop a political angle, starting with the murder of an Arab student with ties to a member of Parliament. Suspense comes in the form of Botley’s increasing distrust of seemingly everyone. His wariness is perfectly understandable as he links a number of people, gangsters and police alike, to murder or drugs, whether said person is directly responsible or a victim of a frame job. Even Botley’s personal story may have a connection to the main plot: grandson Jimmy, son of his estranged daughter, Christine, has not spoken a word in some time, shaken by what could be an event related to the murders. Riley drops some British slang that might throw off a few Yankees—e.g., firms (criminal organizations), tea leaf (thief), and Botley’s previous position in the Flying Squad (a Metropolitan Police unit that investigates armed robberies)—and though he avoids outrightly defining the terms, he provides plenty of context to minimize the headscratching moments for readers. The ending is surprisingly modest, but it’s a simple conversation that’s both poignant and memorable. A tense mystery that’s concerned more with why than how.
In this debut memoir, Picchi and Desrosiers weave personal memories with technical sailing knowledge to illustrate their growth from passengers to sailors. This story winds through several of the authors’ adventures, describing with conversational ease and descriptive detail the work and precision of navigating a sailboat. As such, it’s filled with personal anecdotes of emergencies, mistakes, revelations, and discoveries. Picchi vividly recounts, for example, an incident involving a dead engine, in which she hastily worked with Desrosiers to save the boat from jagged rocks. Not only does Picchi’s finesse as a sailor develop over the course of the book, but her relationship with Desrosiers grows more resilient and profound. The two found themselves working together to adapt and solve problems through stormy waters, busy harbors, and equipment malfunctions. In one passage, Picchi reflects on her own anxieties and Desrosiers’ ability to keep a cool head: “As we made our way through the harbor, I felt increasingly anxious....I turned to Tom and said frantically that I thought we should turn the boat around....He considered the idea calmly for a moment and then said, no, he didn’t think that was necessary.” Picchi not only learned how to navigate a sailboat, but also learned the value of her partner and the relative strengths and weaknesses that made them invincible as a team. Together, they learned how to navigate unpredictable waters as well as relationship conflicts, such as panicked moments, tight quarters, and general agitation. Each chapter moves the story forward and also presents sidebars on a wealth of sailing-related topics, such as docking, stargazing, radar, safety, and the attitude one needs to handle adverse conditions. Overall, the book will serve as both a sailing guide and as an intriguing narrative. An engaging book full of helpful boating information.
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RETURN TO ROSWELL
Leah Anne, back to Roswell to keep tabs on this photographer whose connections and tenacity may reveal a conspiracy that’s more than 60 years old. Author Rosen’s debut features crash courses on the Roswell incident, the efforts of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and the Hubble Space Telescope. He leverages the real science—and fun, fictional alien biology, such the visitors’ red insectlike eyes—against caricatures of presidents Barack Obama, both Bushes, Carter, and Clinton (who in one meeting is portrayed as “daydreaming of donuts and cigars”). Sometimes the author’s characterization of Casey as a stud goes overboard, as when Leah Anne tells him, “You kept me up all night. Animal” or he enters a room wearing “nothing but a smile.” Despite the presence of government agents and a knife-throwing Native American, science and politics drive the story. By the end, Rosen brings readers just short of a narrative payoff, which will likely happen in the sequel. A sometimes–tongue-in-cheek exploration of how humanity might respond to alien contact.
Rosen, Martin A. Silver Alien Press $24.99 | $14.99 paper 978-0-9882807-1-7 978-0-9882807-0-0 paper
A debut sci-fi novel about the Roswell UFO crash, the ship’s alien occupants, and the photographers determined to expose the truth. Twenty-eight-year-old Casey Foster is a photographer for the Washington Post. Still a relatively new recruit at the newspaper, he’s typically given fluff assignments, yet he craves challenging work that carries more weight. His grandmother calls from Roswell, New Mexico, to tell him that his grandfather, Newton, has died. After flying west for the funeral, Casey receives a shoebox from his grandmother—Newton’s parting gift. Inside is a series of 15 black-and-white photos, taken by Newton as a young man in July 1947. Casey uses the Post’s photo lab to sharpen and colorize the quickly shot pictures, which depict metal debris, the Roswell Army/Air Force Base medical center, and a body on a table. He quickly connects the pics with the famous Roswell flying saucer crash, which the government is believed to have covered up with a weather balloon story. He calls the Pentagon with a fake name to learn more, but the military proves tight-lipped and begins to track him. A man named Tommy Lee follows Casey and his girlfriend,
DISCOVERING INDIAN INDEPENDENT CINEMA: THE FILMS OF GIRISH KASARAVALLI
Sengupta, Sakti CreateSpace (298 pp.) $14.00 paper | Apr. 10, 2015 978-1-5116-7519-2
Debut author Sengupta unpacks eight films by the acclaimed Indian director Girish Kasaravalli in this book of criticism. Since breaking onto the film scene with his now classic 1977 film Ghatashraddha, Kasaravalli has been one of the country’s major filmic voices for decades. Working in the Kannada-language cinema of his native Karnataka state, Kasaravalli was able to transcend the label of “regional language films” applied to anything outside of the Mumbai-produced Bollywood films to win accolades in India and abroad. Even so, Kasaravalli remains a relatively obscure figure in world cinema, making experimental, politically charged works that have often been overshadowed by the flashier fare of his contemporaries. Here, Sengupta provides a beginner’s guide to the artist, offering insight into the eight films that “best demonstrate Kasaravalli’s vision and temperament as a filmmaker.” He opens with some brief biographical material, explaining how the director emerged (and, in Sengupta’s view, largely broke) from the various literary and cinematic movements that dominated Indian art in the decades after independence in 1947. Most of the book deals directly with the movies themselves: the aforementioned Ghatashraddha, Tabarana Kathe (1986), Mane (1989), Thaayi Sahiba (1997), Nayi Neralu (2006), Gulabi Talkies (2008), Kanasembo Kudureyaneri (2010), and Kurmavatara (2012). Sengupta makes no secret of his admiration for Kasaravalli, and the book is less a critical study than it is a primer for diving into the director’s work. Each essay provides some background on the film and its source materials, followed by a lengthy, scene-by-scene account of the plot. However, there’s strikingly little analysis. It’s as though Sengupta
This Issue’s Contributors # ADULT Colleen Abel • Maude Adjarian • Stephanie Anderson • Kerri Arsenault • Mark Athitakis • Joseph Barbato • Gerald Bartell • Amy Boaz • Jeffrey Burke • Tobias Carroll • Jennifer Coburn • Dave DeChristopher • Kathleen Devereaux • Ruth Douillette • Bobbi Dumas • Daniel Dyer • Kristy Eldredge • Lisa Elliott • Mark Flanagan • Jordan Foster • Julie Foster • Mia Franz • Bob Garber • Devon Glenn • Peter Heck • Natalia Holtzman • Robert Isenberg • Jessica Jernigan • Robert M. Knight • Tom Lavoie • Louise Leetch • Elsbeth Lindner • Karen Long • Erica Marcus • Laura Mathews • Janet Matthews • Don McLeese • Gregory McNamee • Brett Milano • Clayton Moore • Christopher Navratil • Mike Newirth • Mike Oppenheim • Jim Piechota • William E. Pike • Gary Presley • Amy Reiter • Evelyn Renold • Lloyd Sachs • Leslie Safford • Bob Sanchez • Lucas Schaefer • Polly Shulman • William P. Shumaker • Rosanne Simeone • Linda Simon • Arthur Smith • Wendy Smith • Margot E. Spangenberg • Rachel Sugar • Charles Taylor • Bill Thompson • Claire Trazenfeld • Hope Wabuke • Carol White • Marion Winik CHILDREN’S & TEEN Lucia Acosta • Elizabeth Bird • Marcie Bovetz • Kimberly Brubaker Bradley • Nastassian Brandon • Timothy Capehart • Patty Carleton • Ann Childs • Maya Davis • GraceAnne A. DeCandido • Dave DeChristopher • Elise DeGuiseppi • Omar Gallaga • Laurel Gardner • Melinda Greenblatt • F. Lee Hall • Heather L. Hepler • Julie Hubble • Kathleen T. Isaacs • Betsy Judkins • Deborah Kaplan • K. Lesley Knieriem • Leonicka • Peter Lewis • Michelle H. Martin PhD • Kathie Meizner • Mary Margaret Mercado • Daniel Meyer • Lisa Moore • Sara Ortiz • John Edward Peters • Susan Pine • Kristy Raffensberger • Nancy Thalia Reynolds • Christopher R. Rogers • Leslie L. Rounds • Ally Russell • Ann Marie Sammataro • Dean Schneider • Stephanie Seales • John W. Shannon • Karyn N. Silverman • Rita Soltan • Jennifer Sweeney • Deborah D. Taylor • Kimberly Whitmer INDIE Alana Abbott • Anna Perleberg Andersen • Poornima Apte • Kent Armstrong • Benjamin Blattberg • Charles Cassady • Stephanie Cerra • Michael Deagler • Steve Donoghue • Shannon Gallagher • Michael Haaren • Justin Hickey • Susan J.E. Illis • Julia Ingalls • Ivan Kenneally • Barbara London • Randall Nichols • Margueya Novick • William E. Pike • Sam Power • Sarah Rettger • Megan Roth • Mark A. Salfi • Barry Silverstein
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A PERFECT LIFE
believes that Kasaravalli’s works (or, rather, his descriptions of Kasaravalli’s works) speak for themselves. Oddly, they do: Sengupta is a fine writer, and his accounts of the films are so attuned to the emotion and symbolism of Kasaravelli’s visuals that they function almost as self-contained short stories. That said, the purpose of this book remains somewhat unclear; a person who hasn’t seen the films will be unlikely to read this book, but one who has seen them will gain little from reading it. A well-written introduction to the works of an Indian auteur.
Spring, Joel Phoenix Books (220 pp.) $9.95 paper | Aug. 15, 2015 978-0-692-48578-1 A boy is raised to have a perfect life—as defined by a team of corporate scientists—in this strident satire of a near-future dystopia. In the year 2020, the World Government—its president chosen by the World Economic Forum, its Congress composed of representatives from the 300 highest earning global corporations—adopts newborn Jimmy Clark as the prototype for its program of offering all citizens a perfect life. He is made handsome by infant cosmetic surgery, raised by a preternaturally nurturing robot, provided with a constant feed of drugs to keep his mood elevated and stable, and sent to Manhattan’s finest private schools to acquire not knowledge but the “skills” indispensable for success: grit, teamwork, data-crunching, and back-stabbing. Jimmy joins an investment firm run by his benefactor, a fundamentalist Christian plutocrat who thinks God and Mammon get along fine, and soon amasses his own business empire, including a company wrapping the planet in an electronically linked supersystem called “the Internet of Things Web.” The only complication in Jimmy’s life is Chelsea, a school sweetheart and dissident in an underground hacktivist group. Despite her rebellious proclivities, the World Government insists she marry Jimmy: “Your role is to support Jimmy’s success and make him happy. If you don’t, you’ll both be vaporized.” The novel’s rickety, absurdist plot and stick-figure characters—Jimmy is a Candide-like naif, Chelsea a doctrinaire romantic—exist mainly as pegs on which to hang Spring’s (Globalization of Education: An Introduction, 2014, etc.) vision of softly totalitarian capitalism that is a lurid extension of current trends. The colorful world features driverless cabs, unctuous artificial intelligence, custom-flavored synthetic food, and inescapable video surveillance, even during sex. Plastic forests feature animatronic fauna, and a global water vendor pollutes rivers and lakes so locals will have to buy its products. Substituting for happiness are drugs and an ethos of “shoppiness”: artificially induced dream fantasies bring crowds stampeding into malls. Among the bogus claims of convenience and personal empowerment, Spring’s spoof of consumer culture is often funny, and there’s an Orwellian verve to his prose: “If it wasn’t for your mother, we would reeducate you at the We Love You Farm.” But his dystopia feels less like a prophetic cautionary tale than a compendium of Occupier paranoias, with victims who are too robotic themselves to really care about. A vigorous, sometimes-entertaining, but unconvincing tale of future imperfect.
GALAXIA
Skanavis, Alex Andor Trafford (96 pp.) $9.44 paper | $3.99 e-book Aug. 12, 2015 978-1-4907-6215-9 Skanavis (Gaia: A Mystical Epic, 2012) offers a psychedelic space opera in verse. Citing influences including Emily Dickinson, Isaac Asimov, and Terence McKenna, Skanavis tells, in metered, rhyming verse, the story of a man named Kreon. In a dystopian future Earth that’s nearly destroyed by war, he seeks to replant the world with vegetation to feed his tribe. He’s aided in his quest by the lowly mushroom, which revitalizes the soil and offers a doorway to the wider universe. What begins as a simple job of mycoremediation becomes a journey unlike any that mankind’s ever undergone. The story is told over 32 chapters, most comprised of three sonnets: rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter. The result may be unlike anything the reader has ever seen—imagine Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Man” on mushrooms. The number of ingredients in this literary stew is staggering: Skanavis namechecks James Joyce, Henry David Thoreau, filmmaker Richard Linklater, and author Daniel Pinchbeck, among many others; one epigraph comes from the arcade game “Galaxian”; and one poem is dedicated to the late heavy-metal vocalist Ronnie James Dio. Nothing about this book should work, and yet Skanavis manages to pull it all off with ingenuity and surprising restraint. Without irony or even a sense of pastiche, he synthesizes his influences into a cohesive vision, communicated by impressive, disciplined, and inventive poetry: “Eco-harmonious we must begin to be— / Mimetic—to each function of these bees— / & herbal allies’ pistillate release— / Of profound psychosomatic properties—.” Making ubiquitous use of Dickinson-ian dashes and Blake-an ampersands, Skanavis even plays with the visual properties of his lines on the page, slyly building to a point when a double helix of dashes rises like an optical illusion out of the poem itself. Is it idiosyncratic? Completely. Will it be every reader’s cup of tea? Certainly not. Yet it’s rare to find a book of poetry or prose that aspires to, and achieves, such a singular vision as this one. Anyone willing to follow Skanavis into this wormhole will find brilliance on the other side. An accomplished, ambitious, and highly original long poem. |
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A quietly powerful revelation of personal— and, despite everything, spiritual—reinvention. faith, doubt, mystery
FAITH, DOUBT, MYSTERY A Catholic Journey
discovered that “modern contemplatives could consume moderate amounts of McNaughton’s blended whiskey while doing God’s work”). In an account of remarkably unsentimental honesty, Tracy charts his falling away from the Jesuits and his eventual adoption of another life altogether. His memoir has no villains, no convenient turning points, and no cheap theatrics; instead, he limns the entirely more believable and sympathetic changing of a person’s heart over time. The result is a quietly powerful revelation of personal—and, despite everything, spiritual—reinvention. A sympathetic but unflinchingly honest testament of indoctrination and embattled faith.
Tracy, James J. CreateSpace (264 pp.) $14.95 paper | $7.99 e-book | Sep. 3, 2015 978-1-51-485753-3
An affecting account of one man’s experiences with the Catholic faith. Near the beginning of Tracy’s heartfelt debut work of nonfiction, he describes a scene when he was a theologian in a Jesuit seminary and not yet an ordained priest. He was approached on the street by a young man seeking a blessing. It was an awkward moment, and there was a language barrier. Tracy mimicked the gesture of a blessing, telling himself it did the man no harm. “It was the best honest blessing I could give a young man who has no doubts about his faith,” Tracy reflects. “I’m an imposter.” The warning note in his head even so early on sets the tone for the remainder of his narrative, which follows him as a young man working his way through the long, elaborate stages of Jesuit life, from novitiate to juniorate to theologate and so on, always inquisitive and constantly challenging himself intellectually. He met an extraordinary gallery of Jesuit instructors and fellow hopefuls and realized on one level that his primary task was “building a spiritual life.” But under the surface, he also realized he was running on automatic pilot, less and less sure about the spiritual and intellectual certainties that are the hallmarks of the Jesuit order. When at one point an older instructor told him, “We never know when we will be taken off guard, because we can’t predict events in our lives,” he spoke with accidental prophecy: throughout the turbulent years of the 1960s, as Tracy taught and progressed in the order, he grew more disillusioned with the life he chose for himself (although the journey isn’t without humor, as when he attended a lakeside getaway with a few colleagues and
CLOUD OF EXPECTATION
Westphal, Mike Self (205 pp.) $9.99 paper 978-1-5141-3752-9
Westphal, in his debut, reanimates the small Arkansas town of his youth in this new volume of poetry and prose. In this rumination on a bygone place and time, the working-class GermanAmerican community of the poet’s childhood—and his father’s and his grandfather’s—is rendered through the naïve, hungry eyes of childhood: the baseball fields and factories, the parties and civic events, the majesty of Mass, and the warmth of community. It’s a perspective aware of the prevailing economic hardship and bluecollar angst as well as the minority communities that linger silently on the periphery. Adults in this world don’t often complain and certainly not in the presence of the younger generations; patience and grateful fatigue are the main characteristics. African-Americans in the community, for instance, “seemed to draw their breath / from a deep reservoir of ease, as a man might draw from a cigarette, / and to share in some silent low communion, / their voices like bassoons and flutes / in muted conversation.” And yet, at the edges, and with the hindsight of maturity, Westphal can see the places where these self-made myths began to fray. The collection is divided into sections composed of both poetry and prose flowing in and out of each other, rarely demarcated by titles, creating a sense of cohesion that pulls the reader through the work. Westphal’s voice drifts assuredly between the plainspoken and the lyrical in a buoyant, unpretentious style still able to achieve moments of brilliance. Occasionally he missteps—take, for example, a “prelapsarian Eden of innocence”—but for the most part he keeps his syllables short and guttural, finding the natural alliterations of common speech: “As the daylight ebbed, / the clouds left and right would light up inwardly / with electrical discharges, / signaling each other across the summer distances.” If the book drips a bit heavily with nostalgia, Westphal is hardly the first poet to fall into that trap. What is impressive is how he’s able to render a highly modest society in poetry that simultaneously elevates its struggles while staying true to its aesthetic sensibilities. An accomplished, lyrical vision of a locality over several generations.
K I R K US M E DI A L L C # Chairman H E R B E RT S I M O N President & Publisher M A RC W I N K E L M A N Chief Executive Officer M E G L A B O R D E KU E H N # Copyright 2015 by Kirkus Media LLC. KIRKUS REVIEWS (ISSN 1948- 7428) is published semimonthly by Kirkus Media LLC, 6411 Burleson Road, Austin, TX 78744. Subscription prices are: Digital & Print Subscription (U.S.) - 12 Months ($199.00) Digital & Print Subscription (International) - 12 Months ($229.00) Digital Only Subscription - 12 Months ($169.00) Single copy: $25.00. All other rates on request. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Kirkus Reviews, PO Box 3601, Northbrook, IL 60065-3601. Periodicals Postage Paid at Austin, TX 78710 and at additional mailing offices.
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THE CHILD REVEALED
NO SUCH THING AS FREE GOLDFISH
Winterstaar, A.R. Evendaar Publishing LLP (342 pp.) $12.99 paper | $0.99 e-book Oct. 30, 2014 978-0-99-147942-9
Wittler, Joan Manuscript Dec. 1, 2015
A 12-year-old girl learns that having a pet isn’t just fun—it can be hard work! In the fourth volume in Wittler’s (The Magic Pigeon Trap, 2013, etc.) middlegrade series, fifth-grader Grace is an animal person without a pet to call her own. Her little brother, Will, a kindergartner who pretends to be a puppy, doesn’t count. Grace is envious of her friend Karen, who has a cat, while her friend Stephie deals with accidental puppies that put her in the doghouse. But every time Grace asks her mom when her family can get a pet, the answer is “Not yet.” It doesn’t help that her mother is allergic to cats. So when Will and Jack, their middle brother, win free goldfish at the school festival, Grace sees an opportunity to work on her mom from a different direction. Fish aren’t real pets, but once the kids have their foot in the door, a puppy could be next! Then the fish start dying, and when Grace does manage to convince her mother to welcome a furry friend into the house, she discovers that training isn’t as fun as she expected. Can Grace ever get the pet experience she wants? Grace is a likable narrator, and her assumptions about pet care—that it’s all benefit, no work—are thoughts many kids her age might have before getting their first pets. Children who already have experience will easily identify with Stephie, who takes on the role of Grace’s mentor and shows her, by the end of the book, just how satisfying life with a pet can be if the humans put in the effort needed. All three siblings act in authentic ways, and their relationships are built on both rivalry and love. When Will’s toy is the first casualty of puppy training gone wrong, Grace’s actions show admirable maturity and kindness. Wittler captures young voices well in the narration and dialogue, and she doesn’t allow her characters to find easy answers to complex problems. Readers new to this series will be eager to pick up Grace’s previous titles while looking forward to future adventures.
In Winterstaar’s debut fantasy romance, a recently divorced woman and her three young children are pulled into a different world—one where she’s expected to be a prophecy-fulfilling queen. As her marriage unravels, Adele retreats to her dreams: nightly rendezvous with a man she’s never met who nevertheless seems to be everything she’s longed for in a lover. Though they can’t touch or speak in her dreams, their passion is strong enough to haunt her waking life. Adele’s dreams connect her to a magical world called Evendaar: a realm haunted by a prophecy about the end of the world and “A child born into the Golden Age [who] shall be stolen from the Light and hidden from the eyes of the world.” High Wizard Ohren knows that Adele is this child, sent to the mundane world by his own magic long ago; she is, in fact, the rightful heir to the Throne of St. Lucidis and destined to protect the kingdom of Unisia. Not that Adele has any idea how to do so. Summoned by Ohren’s magic, she and her three kids enjoy a life of luxury while she tries to figure out her purpose. Then her dream man walks into a royal reception: he’s the outcast Prince Rainere of the Marchant family, an Immortal rumored to dabble in Dark Magic. Still, Adele starts a secret affair with Rainere, little knowing that he, like Ohren, sees her birthright as a potential weapon to be wielded. Even as he urges her to marry him, he’s in league with dark forces with their own sinister agendas. Although Adele is initially passive in her dealings with Ohren, Rainere, and the court intrigues she’s thrust into, debut author Winterstaar effectively shows how she gains confidence and strength, determined to be the best queen she can be, however absurd that notion is. The author’s prose is unusually straightforward for the genre, which makes for a page-turner. In particular, she’s adept at revealing detail slowly and naturally, without falling into the common fantasy-writer trap of seemingly endless expository monologues. This results in a tale that’s readable, layered, and engaging throughout. A promising start to a new fantasy series.
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