On My Radar (Thursday Edition)

Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Tunes Into TV
Portable Press
Trade Paperback

From the book publicity:

What does Homer Simpson call "friend...mother...secret lover?" Television, you meathead. Here comes your wacky neighbor Uncle John to present TV the only way he can. From test patterns to "Top Chef," from "My Three Sons" to "Mad Men," TV news, advertising, scandals, sitcoms, dramas, reality shows, yadda yadda yadda, "Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Tunes into TV" is "dy-no-mite!" Read about...Lucille Ball's only flop; Talk Show Wars: the long list of talk-show hosts who took on Johnny Carson...and failed; TV firsts--the first commercial (Bulova Watch), the first exposed belly button ("Gidget"), and the first toilet in primetime ("Leave it to Beaver"); "House of Michael Jacksons" (a bunch of Jackson impersonators living in a house together) and other unsold reality shows; and much more!

 Publisher website

On My Radar (Harper Collins Edition)

Jock Itch: The Misadventures of a Retired Jersey Chaser
by Rosa Blasi
It Books/Harper Collins
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

When it comes to dating, everyone makes mistakes. Rosa Blasi made hers with professional athletes . . . over and over again.
There was the hockey player (whose body part she mistook for a rolling pin), the basketball center (her karmic "grim reaper”), the baseball outfielder (a catch "on paper”...until she read too much about him in the papers), and finally the NFL running back who led her to athlete sobriety. Over the course of ten years, actress Rosa Blasi had serious relationships with stars from several professional sports. And now she shares the intimate details of her wild journey with self-deprecating candor—offering juicy behind-the-scenes details of her romantic misadventures with jocks.
From sneaking into the Playboy Mansion to her debut spread in Maxim magazine, Rosa details with acerbic wit and raw honesty the surprising ups and sometimes frightening downs of dating sports "heroes." Jock Itch is an eye-opening and often hilarious cautionary tale guaranteed to make anyone contemplating a relationship with a pro athlete turn and run as fast as possible to the opposite end zone.

 bookgasm.com review


Rosa Blasi on twitter

On My Radar (Hachette Edition)

Uppity: My Untold Story About the Games People Play
by Bill White with Gordon Dillow
Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

There are very few major personalities in the world of sports who have so much to say about our National Pastime. And even fewer who are as well respected as Bill White.

Bill White, who's now in his mid 70s, was an All-Star first baseman for many years with the New York Giants, St.Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies before launching a stellar broadcasting career with the New York Yankees for 18 years. He left the broadcast booth to become the President of the National League for five years.

A true pioneer as an African-American athlete, sportscaster, and top baseball executive, White has written his long-awaited autobiography in which he will be candid, open, and as always, most forthcoming about his life in baseball. Along the way, White shares never-before-told stories about his long working relationship with Phil Rizzutto, insights on George Steinbrenner, Barry Bonds, Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson, Bob Gibson, Bart Giamatti, Fay Vincent, and scores of other top baseball names and Hall of Famers.

Best of all, White built his career on being outspoken, and the years fortunately have not mellowed him. UPPITY is a baseball memoir that baseball fans everywhere will be buzzing about.

  Baseball season starts on Thursday. My fantasy team is all drafted and sorted.  I have the day off from work.  The world is as it should be.

 

Friday Review: BEDWETTER by Sarah Silverman

Full disclosure: I love Sarah Silverman.  For this reason I was predisposed to like her book Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee, now out in trade paperback.

What’s not to love?

She is beautiful, talented, outrageous and a comedy genius.  All this and she is more likely to make a fart joke than your 9-year-old son.

If you’ve ever wondered how Sarah became the comedian she is, this book will answer that for you.  Like many people who practice the art of humor, she came from a family that provided her with not only material, but an excuse as well. 

The title of the book is pure Sarah Silverman.  She deals with the subject like she seemingly does everything else in her life: full-on, bottom line honesty.  A virtual breeding ground of dark humor incubated Sarah’s early life.  In addition to the bedwetting we have death of a sibling, suicidal depression, summer camp, adolescent over-medication by a physician, the suicide of someone who was supposed to be counseling her, and it goes on and on.

Honestly, it’s a wonder SS is sane much less successful.  People magazine praised her when it wrote: “Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor crossed lines...We remember their genuis. And so we will with Sarah Silverman.”  However, Sarah doesn’t cross lines, she obliterates them.  She physically moves the lines.  In July of 2001, she used an ethnic slur in the context of a joke on the Conan O’Brien Show.  A member of the ethnic group was insulted, the dustup was further publicized by being mentioned on The View and ultimately resulted in Sarah and the offended man, who just happened to be a spokesman for a special interest group for Asian Americans, appearing on Politically Incorrect.  Yes, the media loves its outrage (unless the offending behavior appears on their network).


Therein lies the non-physical part of Sarah’s beauty. She spends the entire book calling herself “monkey” or “dirty Jew” -- it is a well-established fact that she will say nearly anything at nearly anytime.  The fact is that you can see a smirk on her face when she says these outrageous things, and, in my opinion, that is why she  belongs on the comedy Mount Rushmore because she is unapologetic about the way she does her job.

Recently, Gilbert Gottfried was fired as the voice of the duck in the Aflac commercials because he made some jokes about Japan during the aftermath of the terrible earthquake/tsunami . Mr. Gottfried apparently didn’t wait an appropriate amount of time before cracking wise, according to his detractors.  But as it has been pointed out, comedians help us through the bad times by pointing out the silliness that still exists despite what may seem to be a never-ending sadness.

Sarah Silverman is a master of the inappropriate joke.

If you like Sarah Silverman, get this book. If you want to piss off some stiff, humorless acquaintance, get them this book.

Steve Martin also famously said, “comedy is not pretty.”  He hadn’t met Sarah Silverman when he said that.

* * * * *

The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee is now available from It Books/Harper Collins in trade paperback.  More info here.

On My Radar (Random House Edition)

Hellhound On His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr and the International Hunt for His Assassin
by Hampton Sides
Knopf Doubleday/Random House
Trade Paperback (with a new Afterword)

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Edgar Award Nominee
One of the Best Books of the Year: O, The Oprah Magazine, Time, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, San Francisco Chronicle


I reviewed this book in hardcover here, and later heard the author speak at the Southern Festival of Books here in Nashville.  I cannot recommend this book highly enough; the pacing is terrific and, despite knowing the outcome, the "trail" is full of surprises and insight.

From the publisher website:

On April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray shot Martin Luther King at the Lorraine Motel. The nation was shocked, enraged, and saddened. As chaos erupted across the country and mourners gathered at King's funeral, investigators launched a sixty-five day search for King’s assassin that would lead them across two continents. With a blistering, cross-cutting narrative that draws on a wealth of dramatic unpublished documents, Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers, delivers a non-fiction thriller in the tradition of William Manchester's The Death of a President and Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. With Hellhound On His Trail, Sides shines a light on the largest manhunt in American history and brings it to life for all to see.

SFGate.com Review



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The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing,  & Bench-Clearing Brawls - The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime
by Jason Turbow with Michael Duca
Pantheon/Random House
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

Everyone knows that baseball is a game of intricate regulations, but it turns out to be even more complicated than we realize. What truly governs the Major League game is a set of unwritten rules, some of which are openly discussed (don’t steal a base with a big lead late in the game), and some of which only a minority of players are even aware of (don’t cross between the catcher and the pitcher on the way to the batter’s box). In The Baseball Codes, old-timers and all-time greats share their insights into the game’s most hallowed—and least known—traditions. For the learned and the casual baseball fan alike, the result is illuminating and thoroughly entertaining.

At the heart of this book are incredible and often hilarious stories involving national heroes (like Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays) and notorious headhunters (like Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale) in a century-long series of confrontations over respect, honor, and the soul of the game. With The Baseball Codes, we see for the first time the game as it’s actually played, through the eyes of the players on the field.

With rollicking stories from the past and new perspectives on baseball’s informal rulebook, The Baseball Codes is a must for every fan.

New York Times review of The Baseball Codes

Excerpt at nytimes.com

Author blog

On My Radar (Hachette Edition)

When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man
by Jerry Weintraub with Rich Cohen
Twelve Books/Hachette
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

Here is the story of Jerry Weintraub: the self-made, Brooklyn-born, Bronx-raised impresario, Hollywood producer, legendary deal maker, and friend of politicians and stars. No matter where nature has placed him--the club rooms of Brooklyn, the Mafia dives of New York's Lower East Side, the wilds of Alaska, or the hills of Hollywood--he has found a way to put on a show and sell tickets at the door. "All life was a theater and I wanted to put it up on a stage," he writes. "I wanted to set the world under a marquee that read: 'Jerry Weintraub Presents.'"

In WHEN I STOP TALKING, YOU'LL KNOW I'M DEAD, we follow Weintraub from his first great success at age twenty-six with Elvis Presley, whom he took on the road; to the immortal days with Sinatra and Rat Pack glory; to his crowning hits as a movie producer, starting with Robert Altman and Nashville, continuing with Oh, God!, The Karate Kid movies, and Diner, among others, and summiting with Steven Soderbergh and Ocean's Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen.

Along the way, we'll watch as Jerry moves from the poker tables of Palm Springs, to the power rooms of Hollywood, to the halls of the White House, to Red Square in Moscow-all the while counseling potentates, poets, and kings, with clients and confidants like George Clooney, Bruce Willis, George H. W. Bush, Armand Hammer, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, John Denver, Bobby Fischer . . .well, the list goes on.

And of course, the story is not yet over . . . As Weintraub says, "When I stop talking, you'll know I'm dead."

vintagerock.com Review

On My Radar (Macmillan Edition)

Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan 
by Del Quinten Wilber
Henry Holt & Co./Macmillan
Hardcover

  From the publisher website:

A minute-by-minute account of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary.

  On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was just seventy days into his first term of office when John Hinckley Jr. opened fire outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, wounding the president, press secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent, and a D.C. police officer. For years, few people knew the truth about how close the president came to dying, and no one has ever written a detailed narrative of that harrowing day. Now, drawing on exclusive new interviews and never-before-seen documents, photos, and videos, Del Quentin Wilber tells the electrifying story of a moment when the nation faced a terrifying crisis that it had experienced less than twenty years before, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Book website

Washington Post review by David Baldacci

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Politics & Pasta: How I Prosecuted Mobsters, Rebuilt a Dying City, Dined with Sinatra, Spent Five Years in a Federally-Funded Gated Community, and Lived to Tell the Tale
by Vincent "Buddy" Cianci, Jr. & David Fisher
Thomas Dunne Books/Macmillan
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

     An election is a war and "to the victor belongs the spoils."  As I learned so well, that's thre real democratic process.  After all, you'll never see a victorious politician tell his supporters, "I want to thank all of you who worked so hard for my election.  However, in the interest of good government, I've decided to give all the jobs to those people who voted against me."

     My name is Buddy Cianci.  I spent almost three decades as mayor of Providencce...before leaving for an enforced vacation in a federally funded gated community.

     When I first took office, Providence was a dying industrial city, and I helped turn it into one of the most desirable places to  live in America.  I did it by playing the game of hardball politics as well as it has ever been played.  My favorite Frank Sinatra lyricc is "I did it my way," because that's the only way a mayor can run a city.  As I used to tell my staff, "When you spend your weekends kissing elderly women with mustaches, you can make the decisions."

     If you want to know the truth about how politics is played, you picked the right book.  This is the behind-the-locked-door story of how politics in America really works.  It's take me a lifetime of successes and failures to write it.  It's all in these pages.  I hve been called many things in my career: I've been "America's Most Innovative Mayor," a "colorful character," and a convicted felon.  But no one has ever called me shy.

Kirkus Reviews on Politics & Pasta

Seattle Post-Intellligencer on Politics & Pasta

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The Jersey Sting: A True Story of Crooked Pols, Money-laundering Rabbis, Black Market Kidneys,  and the Informant who Brought It All Down
by Ted Sherman & Josh Margolin
St. Martins Press/Macmillan
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

In the summer of 2009 the blog Gawker stated “Everybody in New Jersey Was Arrested Yesterday.” Now for the first time, the real story behind the biggest corruption bust in New Jersey’s notoriously corrupt history.
Among the forty-four people arrested in July 2009 were three mayors, five Orthodox rabbis, two state legislators, and the flamboyant deputy mayor of Jersey City, Leona Beldini, once a stripper using the stage name “Hope Diamond.” At the center of it all was a dubious character named Solomon Dwek, who perpetrated a $50 million Ponzi scheme before copping a plea and wearing a wire as a secret FBI undercover informant, setting up friends, partners, rabbis, and dozens of politicians. Mr. Dwek played his role like an extra in a mob movie. On surveillance tape, he repeatedly referred to his fraudulent “schnookie deals,” which is Yiddish for, well, schnook. Full of impossible-to-make-up detail and fresh revelations from the continuing trials and investigations, this book—the inside, untold account of a federal sting operation that moves from the streets of Brooklyn to the diners of Jersey City, and all the way to Israel—is a wonderful tour de force of investigative journalism by the reporting team that broke this amazing story.

 Book website

Kirkus Reviews on The Jersey Sting

On My Radar (Thursday Edition)

Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards
by Josh Wilker
Algonquin Books
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

Cardboard Gods is the memoir of Josh Wilker, a brilliant writer who has marked the stages of his life through the baseball cards he collected as a child. It also captures the experience of growing up obsessed with baseball cards and explores what it means to be a fan of the game. Along the way, as we get to know Josh, his family, and his friends, we also get Josh’s classic observations about the central artifacts from his life: the baseball cards themselves. Josh writes about an imagined correspondence with his favorite player, Carl Yastrzemski; he uses the magical bubble-blowing powers of journeyman Kurt Bevacqua to shed light on the weakening of the powerful childhood bond with his older brother; he considers the doomed utopian back-to-the-land dreams of his hippie parents against the backdrop of inimitable 1970s baseball figures such as “Designated Pinch Runner” Herb Washington and Mark “The Bird” Fidrych. Cardboard Gods is more than just the story of a man who can’t let go of his past, it’s proof that — to paraphrase Jim Bouton — as children we grow up holding baseball cards but in the end we realize that it’s really the other way around.

 Author blog


Review on pitchersandpoets.com

Review on fangraphs.com


Interview with the author on gaslampball.com

On My Radar (Penguin Edition)

Better By Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong
by Alina Tugend
Riverhead Books/Penguin
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

A New York Times columnist delivers an eye-opening big idea: Embracing mistakes can make us smarter, healthier, and happier in every facet of our lives.

In this persuasive book, journalist Alina Tugend examines the delicate tension between what we're told-we must make mistakes in order to learn-and the reality-we often get punished for making mistakes, and therefore try to avoid them or cover them up. In Better by Mistake, Tugend shows that mistakes are everywhere, and suggests that when we acknowledge and identify them correctly, we can improve not only ourselves, but our families, our work, and the world around us.

Through fascinating research, Tugend reveals how trying to avoid mistakes can affect us from the earliest stages in our lives and shape us into adults who steer clear of risks and challenges. She takes us behind the scenes into cutting-edge behavioral studies; invites us into the high-stakes world of health care and aviation, where mistakes can cost lives, and delves into the art and science behind learning how to craft a sincere apology and accepting responsibility for mistakes.

Bold and dynamic, insightful and provocative, Better by Mistake turns our cultural wisdom on its head to illustrate the downside of striving for perfection, and the rewards of acknowledging mistakes and embracing the imperfection in all of us.

Links:

Author website

Alina Tugend on huffingtonpost.com

On My Radar (Simon & Schuster Edition)

The Sins of Brother Curtis: A Story of Betrayal, Conviction, and the Mormon Church
By Lisa Davis
Scribner/Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

This brilliantly reported, unforgettable true story reveals how one of the most monstrous sexual criminals in the history of the Mormon church preyed on his victims even as he was protected by the church elders who knew of his behavior.
When Seattle attorney Tim Kosnoff agreed to listen to an eighteen-year-old man who claimed to have been molested by his Mormon Sunday school teacher, he had no idea he was embarking on a quest for justice on behalf of multiple victims or that the battle would consume years of his life and pit him against the vast, powerful, and unrepentant Mormon church itself.
As Kosnoff began to investigate the case, he discovered that the Sunday school teacher, a mysterious figure named Frank Curtis, possessed a long and violent prison record before he was welcomed into the church, where he became a respected elder entrusted with the care of prepubescent Mormon boys.
Through Lisa Davis's deft storytelling, two astonishing narratives unfold. The first shows how Brother Curtis ingratiated himself into the lives of young boys from working-class Mormon families where money was tight, and was accepted by mothers and fathers who saw in him a kindly uncle or grandfather figure who enjoyed the blessing of the church. Having gained the families' trust, Curtis became fiendishly helpful, offering to supervise trips or overnights out of the sight of parents, when he could manipulate his victims or ply them with alcohol.
The other narrative is a real-life legal thriller. As Davis shows, Kosnoff and his partners tirelessly assembled the case against the church, sifting through records, tracking down victims, and convincing them to testify about Brother Curtis's acts. What began as a case of one plaintiff turned into a complex web stretching across multiple states. Joined by what would become a team of attorneys and investigators, Kosnoff found himself up against one of the most insular institutions in the United States: the secretive and powerful Mormon church.
The amazing legal case at the heart of The Sins of Brother Curtis shows how the church's elite, well-funded team of attorneys claimed the church was protected under the Constitution from revealing that Curtis had molested a number of Mormon boys. Yet Kosnoff and his devoted legal team (which included a female investigator adept at getting parents of victims to talk to her) succeeded in forcing the church to reveal that it knew about Curtis and ultimately achieved a successful settlement.
Emotionally powerful page by page, The Sins of Brother Curtis delivers a redemptive reading experience in which the truth, no matter how painful and hidden, is told at last and justice is hard won. This is a remarkable story, all true.

Publishers Weekly Review

Kirkus Reviews

Excerpt on publisher website

On My Radar (Harper Collins Edition)

Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock 
by Sammy Hagar
It Books/Harper Collins
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

Loud rock, fast cars, and Cabo.
This is the life of Sammy Hagar.

For almost forty years, Sammy Hagar has been a fixture in rock music. From breaking into the industry with the band Montrose to his multiplatinum solo career to his ride as the front man of Van Halen, Sammy's powerful and unforgettable voice has set the tone for some of the greatest rock anthems ever written—songs like "I Can't Drive 55," "Right Now," and "Why Can't This Be Love."
In Red, Sammy tells the outrageous story of his tear through rock 'n' roll, detailing the backstage antics and nonstop touring that have made his voice instantly recognizable. Beginning with his musical coming-of-age in the blue-collar towns of California, Sammy traces his rough and determined rise to fame, working harder than anyone else out there and writing songs about the things he loved—fast cars, loud parties, and lots of good times.
But solo success was just the start, a prelude to his raucous and notorious decade as the front man for Van Halen, one of the biggest-selling rock groups in history. Filled with behind-the-scenes stories from his time with the band, Red offers the Van Halen story as Sammy saw it, holding nothing back about the worldwide stadium tours, the tensions with Eddie, the messy parties, the divided friendships, and, of course, his controversial and widely disputed exit from the band.
After Van Halen, Sammy changed directions again, throwing himself headfirst into the tequila business and creating Cabo Wabo, one of the most successful tequila brands in the world. And all the while he continued to rock, touring the country with his bands the Waboritas and Chickenfoot, and eventually reuniting with Van Halen for a tour that became both a box-office smash and a personal catastrophe.
From the decadence of being one of the world's biggest rock stars to the unfiltered story of being forced out of Van Halen, Sammy's account spares no one, least of all himself. His is a tale of a true rock 'n' roller—someone who's spent decades bringing the party with him wherever he goes but always headin' back to Cabo for mas tequila.

Author Website



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Everyone Loves You When You're Dead: Journeys into Fame and Madness
by Neil Strauss
It books/Harper Collins
Trade Paperback

From the book publicity:

You can tell a lot about somebody in a minute. If you choose the right minute. Here are 228 of them.
Join Neil Strauss, "The Mike Tyson of interviewers," (Dave Pirner, Soul Asylum), as he

• Makes Lady Gaga cry, tries to keep Mötley Crüe out of jail & gets kidnapped by Courtney Love
• Shoots guns with Ludacris, takes a ride with Neil Young & goes to church with Tom Cruise and his mother
• Spends the night with Trent Reznor, reads the mind of Britney Spears & finds religion with Stephen Colbert
• Gets picked on by Led Zeppelin, threatened by the mafia & serenaded by Leonard Cohen
• Picks up psychic clues with the CIA, diapers with Snoop Dog & prison survival tips from Rick James
• Goes drinking with Bruce Springsteen, dining with Gwen Stefani & hot tubbing with Marilyn Manson
• Talks glam with David Bowie, drugs with Madonna, death with Johnny Cash & sex with Chuck Berry
• Gets molested by the Strokes, in trouble with Prince & in bed with… you’ll find out who inside

And many, many more awkward moments and accidental adventures with the world’s number one stars in Everyone Love You When You’re Dead.

Publisher Website

Book Website

Review on alibi.com

I previously reviewed Neil Strauss' book Emergency: This Book Will Save your Life, here.

On My Radar (Fiction Edition)

As regular readers (if there are any) of this blog know, I typically promote only non-fiction books.  Today I am making an exception for personal reasons.  A few years back I was the book manager for a beloved local bookstore and had the responsibility of buying books by local authors to include in our inventory.  One such book was Rupture (now available in paperback),  by A. Scott Pearson, a surgeon here in Nashville. Dr. Pearson was very personable and easy to work with and it was a pleasure to be able to be part of his first book experience. One of my friends, author J.T. Ellison praised Rupture, saying that it was John Grisham for medical mysteries.  So, breaking with tradition, here is the information for Dr. Pearson's newest novel:


Public Anatomy
by A. Scott Pearson
Oceanview Publishing
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

The second novel by surgeon A. Scott Pearson, Public Anatomy, is an intense, Memphis-based medical thriller featuring protagonist Eli Branch.  While recovering from a career-threatening injury, Branch is pulled into the turbulent world of Dr. Liza French, a colleague he hasn’t seen in ten years.  Liza uses their past to lure Eli into a highly-publicized debacle in a Memphis hospital that has put her own career in jeopardy.   

But when the murder of medical personnel at Gates Memorial appears related to Liza’s surgical complication, Eli finds that more lives are at imminent risk. 

Eli discovers clues from the victims that match anatomical art found at the crime scenes, a connection that leads him to the manuscript of a sixteenth century anatomist whose methods of dissection are over four centuries old—but are being reenacted in the present. 

Aided by the expertise of forensic pathologist, Dr. Meg Daily, Eli uncovers a pattern to the escalating deaths and the search begins for a killer the media and the city come to know as The Organist. 

A. Scott Pearson is a surgeon in Nashville, Tennessee.  For the past decade, he has been a member of the surgical faculty at Vanderbilt University, where he combines research with the clinical practice of surgery and teaches on the importance of the patient’s narrative in medicine.  Pearson’s debut novel, Rupture,  won top honors in the new fiction category of the National Indie Excellence 2010 Awards.

Publisher Website


Author Website 

Excerpt from Public Anatomy on Scribd

Public Anatomy on Chapter16.org

On My Radar (Thursday Edition)

50 Jobs in 50 States: One Man's Journey of Discovery Across America
by Daniel Seddiqui
Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Trade Paperback

From the Publisher Website:

Like lots of college grads, Daniel Seddiqui was having a hard time finding a job. Despite more than forty rejections, he knew that opportunities had to exist throughout the country. Determinted to explore the industries, opportunities, and cultures America has to offer, he set out on an extraordinary tour of fifty jobs in all fifty states in fifty weeks. And not just any jobs. Because his goal was so much to explore America as to explore different careers, Daniel chose jobs that reflected the culture and economy of each state.
Working as everything from a cheesemaker in Wisconsin and a border patrol agent in Arizona to a meatpacker in Kansas and a surfing instructor in Hawaii, Daniel chronicles how he adapted to the unique demands of every job as well as to the wildly differing people, cultures, and environments. From one week to the next he had no idea where he was going to sleep, what he was going to eat, how he would settle into each job, or how he would be received. Tackling challenge after challenge--overcoming his anxiety about working four miles underground in a coal mine in West Virginia, learning to walk on six-foot stilts (in a full Egyptian king costume) at a Florida amusement park, racing the clock as a pit-crew member at an Indiana racetrack--he completed his journey a changed man. Daniel shares the lessons he learned and explains the five principles--perseverance, risk-taking, adaptability, networking, and endurance--that kept him going.
By the end of his journey, Daniel had more than just an impressive resume--he had also acquired scores of new friends, a new perspective on American culture, and the tools to overcome just about any obstacle. His story is an inspiration to anyone, whether you are entering the job market for the first time, trying to gain your footing as a young adult, or dreaming of breaking out of a rut and trying something new.

Publisher Website

Author Website

Q & A from failuremagazine.com

On My Radar (Wednesday Edition)

The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends Who Transformed Science and Changed the World
by Laura J. Snyder
Broadway Books/Crown Publishing/Random House
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

The Philosophical Breakfast Club recounts the life and work of four men who met as students at Cambridge University: Charles Babbage, John Herschel, William Whewell, and Richard Jones.  Recognizing that they shared a love of science (as well as good food and drink) they began to meet on Sunday mornings to talk about the state of science in Britain and the world at large.  Inspired by the great 17th century scientific reformer and political figure Francis Bacon—another former student of Cambridge—the Philosophical Breakfast Club plotted to bring about a new scientific revolution.   And to a remarkable extent, they succeeded, even in ways they never intended.

 Historian of science and philosopher Laura J. Snyder exposes the political passions, religious impulses, friendships, rivalries, and love of knowledge—and power—that drove these extraordinary men.  Whewell (who not only invented the word “scientist,” but also founded the fields of crystallography, mathematical economics, and the science of tides), Babbage (a mathematical genius who invented the modern computer), Herschel (who mapped the skies of the Southern Hemisphere and contributed to the invention of photography), and Jones (a curate who shaped the science of economics) were at the vanguard of the modernization of science.

This absorbing narrative of people, science and ideas  chronicles the intellectual revolution inaugurated by these men, one that continues to mold our understanding of the world around us and of our place within it.  Drawing upon the voluminous correspondence between the four men over the fifty years of their work, Laura J. Snyder shows how friendship worked to spur the men on to greater accomplishments, and how it enabled them to transform science and help create the modern world.

Review from nj.com

Excerpt on Scribd

Author Website

On My Radar (Simon & Schuster Edition)

The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade
by Sally Wade
Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

A unique illustrated memoir by Sally Wade, the love of George Carlin’s life for ten years, THE GEORGE CARLIN LETTERS: THE PERMANENT COURTSHIP OF SALLY WADE is a collection of never-before-seen writings and artwork by the late great comedian (representing at least 1/3 of the text in the book), woven into Wade’s beautifully told chronicle of the last ten years of their life together. The book provides a rare glimpse into the man behind the legend. George Carlin wrote to Sally daily—notes, postcard, letters…he even started fights on paper; the title is taken from his very last note, which Sally found propped up on her computer upon returning from the hospital the day he died. One of the greatest love stories ever told…hilariously, until the release of this book, no one but Sally has ever seen this side of George Carlin. And everyone is guaranteed to fall in love with both of them.

Publisher Website


The George Carlin Letters on Scribd

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The Source of All Things: A Memoir
by Tracy Ross
Free Press Books/Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

Tracy Ross never knew her biological father, who died after a brain aneurysm when she was still an infant. So when her mother married Donnie, a gregarious man with an all-wheel-drive jeep and a love of hiking, four-year-old Tracy was ecstatic to have a father figure in her life. A loving and devoted step-father, Donnie introduced Tracy's family to the joys of fishing, deer hunting, camping, and hiking among the most pristine mountains of rural Idaho. Donnie was everything Tracy dreamed a dad would be—protective, brave, and kind. But when his dependence on his eight-year-old daughter's companionship went too far, everything changed.
Once Donnie's nighttime visits began, Tracy's childhood became a confusing blend of normal little girl moments and the sickening, secret invasion of her safety. Tormented by this profound betrayal, Tracy struggled to reconcile deeply conflicting feelings about her stepfather: on the one hand, fear and loathing, on the other hand, the love any daughter would have for her father. It was not until she ran away from home as a teenager that her family was forced to confront the abuse—and it tore them apart. At sixteen, realizing that she must take control of her own future, Tracy sent herself to boarding school and began the long slow process of recovery. There, in the woods of Northern Michigan, Tracy felt called back to the natural world she had loved as a child. Over the next twenty years, the mountains and rivers of North America provided Tracy with strength, confidence, comfort, and inspiration. From trekking through the glaciers of Alaska to guiding teenagers through the deserts of Utah, Tracy pushed herself to the physical limit on her way to becoming whole again. Yet, as she came into her own, found love, and even started a fas.mily, Tracy realized that in order to truly heal she had to confront her stepfather about the demons from the past haunting them both. The Source of All Things is a stunning, unforgettable story about a wounded daughter, her stepfather, and a mistake that has taken thirty years and thousands of miles of raw wilderness to reconcile. Only Tracy can know if Donnie is forgivable. But one thing is for certain: In no other story of abuse does a survivor have as much strength, compassion, bravery, and spirit as Tracy displays in The Source of All Thing

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 Q & A with the Author from Women's Adventure Magazine

On My Radar (Random House Edition)

The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story
by Robert Baer & Dayna Baer
Crown Publishing/Random House
Hardcover


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The Company We Keep on NPR

Robert Baer was the basis for the character "Bob Barnes," portrayed by George Clooney in the film "Syriana."  I have read two of Baer's books, "See No Evil" and "Sleeping With the Devil" (both of which were source material for Syriana.)

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot
Crown Publishing/Random House
Trade Paperback

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New York Times Review

Washington Post Review

On My Radar (Friday Edition)

Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir
by Wendy Burden
Gotham Books/Penguin
Trade Paperback

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Bookslut Review

Interview with Wendy Burden

On My Radar (Thursday Edition)

A Cynic's Guide to a Rich and Full Life
by Mario DiGiorgio
Last Gasp
Hardcover

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Mario DiGiorgio on Twitter

On My Radar (Wednesday Edition)

In the Time of Bobby Cox: The Atlanta Braves, Their Manager, My Couch,  Two Decades, and Me
by Lang Whitaker
Scribner/Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

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Atlanta Journal-Constitution Review

Blogcritics.com Review

Lang Whitaker on Twitter

On My Radar (Tuesday Edition)

The Book of Awesome
by Neil Pasricha
Amy Einhorn/Putnam
Trade Paperback

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Author's Blog

Interview with Neil Pasricha

Book Review