On My Radar (Thursday Edition)

Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America
by Elizabeth Fraterrigo
Oxford University Press
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

Playboy was more than a magazine filled with pictures of nude women and advice on how to mix the perfect martini. Indeed, the magazine's vision of sexual liberation, high living, and "the good life" came to define mainstream images of postwar life. In exploring the history of America's most widely read and influential men's magazine, Elizabeth Fraterrigo hones in on the values, style, and gender formulations put forth in its pages and how they gained widespread currency in American culture. She shows that for Hugh Hefner, the "good life" meant the freedom to choose a lifestyle, and the one he promoted was the "playboy life," in which expensive goods and sexually available women were plentiful, obligations were few, and if one worked hard enough, one could enjoy abundant leisure and consumption. In support of this view, Playboy attacked early marriage, traditional gender arrangements, and sanctions against premarital sex, challenging the conservatism of family-centered postwar society. And despite the magazine's ups and downs, significant features of this "playboy life" have become engrained in American society.

Reviews 

"With insightful observations and extensive research, Fraterrigo deconstructs the historical and sociological context of the magazine and its creator...This fascinating, scholarly portrait of the life and times of Hefner and his magazine holds appeal for readers interested in American culture, media studies, contemporary biographies, and the 'Mad Men' era." --Library Journal

"Don't expect backstairs gossip...[Fraterrigo] devotes herself to the chicken-and-egg question of how much Playboy shaped mid-century American mores and consumer taste and how much it reflected the profound changes that convulsed the country as it emerged from nearly 30 years of Depression and war...it's entertaining." --Wall Street Journal

"A confession: I've never paged through an issue of Playboy, whether by dint of my sex or age. So it's to Elizabeth Fraterrigo's credit that she managed...to interest me for 216 pages in 'a titty magazine that has been culturally irrelevant since the late 1970s.'" --DoubleX 

"With keen insight into Playboy's tensions with feminists as well as moralists, Elizabeth Fraterrigo explores how Playboy promoted a bachelor lifestyle marked by consumerism and easy sex in rebellion against post-World War II domesticity, and how that lifestyle came to embody mainstream ideas of individualism and the 'good life.' A lively and engaging book."--Elaine Tyler May, author of Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era

"This insightful book demonstrates that in its heyday Playboy magazine, rather than offering its readers a grand escape from the exigencies of adult life, proffered a vision of manhood that was both problematically and quintessentially American. Fraterrigo is particularly good at showing how the playboy, who mirrored Hefner's own dissatisfactions in fascinating ways, ultimately translated a male desire to run into a framework for sexual and intellectual engagement, gendered social status, and perhaps most importantly, unbridled consumer participation."--Jennifer Scanlon, author of Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown

"In this nuanced and compelling book, Elizabeth Fraterrigo reveals the worlds Playboy created and reflected in post-World War II United States. She uses Playboy as a window to explore battles over gender, family, and individualism, as well as the reconfiguration of social spaces in America and the development of a morality connected to the pleasures of sex and consumer culture."--Daniel Horowitz, author of The Anxieties of Affluence: Critiques of American Consumer Culture, 1939-1979

"A fascinating history of a male fantasy." --Journalism History

"A history that situates a cultural icon at the very center of post-war America." --H-Net Reviews

Fraterrigo is the first historian to devote a book to the Playboy phenomenon, with fresh information and interpretations that add substantially to our understanding of twentieth-century mainstream masculinity. John Ibson, Journal of American History

"Fraterrigo asks us to accept a somewhat unlikely premise, [but] one closes her book largely convinced that she is right...Her research is phenomenally thorough and her conclusions are bold." --The New Republic 

"Enlightening...the author takes Hefner seriously as a transformative cultural figure, a man who not only understood the times in which he lived but fought successfully to change their direction [and] demonstrates how successful Hefner was at packaging an attitude, a mindset, a philosophy--and one that ran counter to the superficial tenets of the era...Fraterrigo's book chronicles with thoroughness and exactitude." --Chicago Tribune

New Release: WORM: The First Digital World War

WORM: The First Digital World War
by Mark Bowden
Grove/Atlantic
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

“Bowden provides lucid explanations of computer-related concepts while narrating an edge-of-the-seat account . . . A nerve-wracking but first-rate inside peek into the world of cybercrime and its vigilant adversaries.” —Booklist
Mark Bowden’s Worm: The Story of the First Digital World War is about the next frontier in terrorism. Bowden, the best-selling author of Black Hawk Down, has delivered a dramatic cybercrime story that explores the Conficker computer worm, a potentially devastating computer virus that has baffled experts and infected as many as twelve million computers to date.

When the Conficker computer worm was unleashed on the world in November 2008, cybersecurity experts did not know what to make of it. The worm, exploiting the security flaws in Microsoft Windows, grew at an astonishingly rapid rate, infecting millions of computers around the world within weeks. Once the worm infiltrated one system it was able to link that system with others to form a single network under illicit outside control—a situation known as a “botnet.” This botnet was soon capable of overpowering any of the vital computer networks that today control banking, telephone service, energy flow, air traffic, health-care information—even the Internet itself. Was it a platform for criminal profit, or a weapon? Security experts do not know for sure what Conficker’s purpose is, or even where it came from.

Bowden’s book reports this new frontier on terror in a way that has never been done. He skillfully explores the dazzling battle of wits between expert programmers over the future of the Internet—a battle that has pitted those determined to exploit the Internet against those committed to protect it, and awakened the U.S. government for the first time to the urgent nature of the threat. In Worm: The Story of the First Digital World War, Mark Bowden delivers an accessible and fascinating look at the ongoing and largely unreported war taking place literally beneath our fingertips.

Review: MOSCOW DECEMBER 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union

  Having worked in bookstores for many years, I know that one of the most common requests for help that I received was gift suggestions for, um, older males.  The well-meaning consumers often wanted to buy a book for someone they had never witnessed actually reading.  On these occasions, I always defaulted to history or politics (after carefully trying to determine the particular side of the aisle preferred by the object of our attention).  So it is when I discover a book that fits that niche for the upcoming and rapidly approaching holiday season, I try to point it out here on my little corner of the web.

This year that book is MOSCOW DECEMBER 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union by Conor O'Clery.

O'Clery built his in-depth narrative around the fateful day of December 25, 1991, when Soviet President Gorbachev resigned.  However, the rich detail includes enough Soviet Union history to form a complete picture of the breakup of the geographically large U.S.S.R., as well as the aftermath.

I savored every moment with this book.  I am a history fiend and when a book is clearly researched with passion and fervor, I damn near cuddle with each page.   I only wish my maternal grandfather were still alive to have seen the collapse of the Soviet Union and also to have had the opportunity to read this in-depth history of the behind-the-scenes intrigue.

The detail of the struggle of the former "evil empire" is captivating.  The Shakespearean battle between Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin is epic.  And, did I mention the detail?

This book should be on the top of your list for anyone, male or female, who enjoys knowing the stories behind the headlines.

I cannot recommend this book enough.



MOSCOW DECEMBER 25, 1991
by Conor O'Clery
Public Affairs
Hardcover

Political Comment: Goodbye to Some Followers

The book I originally was going to preview here has been delayed.

In light of the bad economic, political and social news we all have been inundated with over the past couple of years, I offer a brief political statement.  I do this despite the fact that I know it will cost me a few twitter followers.  I do not care.  It is more important to live my life and stand up for what I truly believe in than it is to prop up my ego with a few more people to read my scribblings.  I would honestly like a list of people who honestly like my labor to be my followers and if I lose someone whose political bent is perpendicular to mine, so be it.

My comment:

The American middle class in under attack.  Don't take my word for it; pay attention to what is happening around you.  Also,don't listen to what any politician says, pay attention to what they do.  All of the rules are being rearranged to favor the rich and powerful in this country and the voice of the disenfranchised is being methodically strangled.  Some politicians are manipulating the rules to make it more and more difficult for us to hold them accountable and to fight the power they wield -- even as they consolidate it by epic proportions.

Personally, I believe the time has come for term limits (no more career politicians), true election reform, as well as campaign reform.  This means rules set by the people, not the politicians themselves who unfairly (to us) control their own destinies. Wouldn't you love to have the power to effect your own raises and the rules for keeping your job?

Truthfully, elections are for the most part already decided, not through shadow conspiracies, but through rule changes in broad daylight.  Politicians take advantage of the fact that we have to work for a living and cannot pay attention to each little move they make.

We also need to control lobbyists and rein in their control of our political system.  There are few lobbyists for common folk in America wandering the halls of Congress. Meanwhile, corporations have been granted citizenship by the corrupt judicial system and are now wielding far more political power than you and I.  I am not saying that all corporations are corrupt, I am saying that it goes against our founding father's intention for business interest to have more power than individual taxpayers.

Politicians also take advantage of the "not in my back yard" mindset of human nature.  For example, a recent poll indicates that the approval rating of Congress is at a lowly 12%. Does this mean we will have a full-scale overhaul of Congress in the next few election cycles? Hardly.  We think Congress sucks, but not our Congressman, we like him.  And, he is the only one whose election we can decide.

I urge each of you to find the power within yourself to effect change.  The only way the tide will turn, the only way, is if we take the power back through persistent, non-violent change.  This coming election season, send the message that you have been paying attention and that what you are seeing is unacceptable.

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me."

-- Martin Niemoller 

BookSpin Reviewers

  I want to use today's post to thank all of you who have contacted me in response to my "Book Reviewers Wanted" entry several weeks ago.  The response has been larger than I ever thought it would be.

I appreciate all the book lovers out there who want to share their thoughts, I honestly do.  Today I am posting the new BookSpin reviewer policies. 


1. If you are interested in reviewing non-fiction, simply send your review to the email address to the right.  As long as it is not one of the worst things I have ever read, I will post it and give you full credit.


2.  If you need help procuring the books you want to review, I will try to help.  I don't have contacts at all the publishers (I'm trying!), but I will give it a go.


3.  Please read the reviews already posted on BookSpin (be careful -- many of the entries are "previews" not reviews) and try to stay within the loose guidelines you see.  I am very flexible with the rules, so work with me.


4.  Finally, please remember this:  I only post positive reviews.  If I do not like a book, I don't review it.  I have no interest in talking badly about any writer's blood, sweat and tears.


I reserve the right to amend the above rules as any changes occur to me and, as always, if you have any questions let me know.

To those of you waiting on a response to an earlier book request, I will contact you if I hear something from the publisher, otherwise I am waiting just like you. 

Thank you again for your interest in books and for wanting to help BookSpin grow.

You're amazing.

--Tim

On My Radar (Tuesday Edition)

A Voice in the Box: My Life in Radio
by Bob Edwards
University Press of Kentucky
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

The host of The Bob Edwards Show and Bob Edwards Weekend on Sirius XM Radio, Bob Edwards became the first radio personality with a large national audience to take his chances in the new field of satellite radio. The programs’ mix of long-form interviews and news documentaries has won many prestigious awards.

For thirty years, Louisville native Edwards was the voice of National Public Radio’s daily newsmagazine programs, co-hosting All Things Considered before launching Morning Edition in 1979. These programs built NPR’s national audience while also bringing Edwards to national prominence. In 2004, however, NPR announced that it would be finding a replacement for Edwards, inciting protests from tens of thousands of his fans and controversy among his listeners and fellow broadcasters. Today, Edwards continues to inform the American public with a voice known for its sincerity, intelligence, and wit.

In A Voice in the Box: My Life in Radio, Edwards recounts his career as one of the most important figures in modern broadcasting. He describes his road to success on the radio waves, from his early days knocking on station doors during college and working for American Forces Korea Network to his work at NPR and induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2004. Edwards tells the story of his exit from NPR and the launch of his new radio ventures on the XM Satellite Radio network. Throughout the book, his sharp observations about the people he interviewed and covered and the colleagues with whom he worked offer a window on forty years of American news and on the evolution of public journalism.

A Voice in the Box is an insider’s account of the world of American media and a fascinating, personal narrative from one of the most iconic personalities in radio history.
Bob Edwards is the author of Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism and Fridays with Red: A Radio Friendship. Edwards has been awarded the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award for radio journalism, a George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting, and the Edward R. Murrow Award for outstanding contributions to public radio. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.

"Bob Edwards has made me proud to be a colleague in a field that both of us consider a calling and for which he has set the highest of standards for all of us who look up to him."--Bill Moyers

“With good manners, an even disposition and an occasional bit of offbeat good humor in this morning companion, plus the willingness to awake before dawn for 25 years to bring us the world with our coffee--well, you can see why we owe Bob Edwards a lot.”--David S. Broder

"At last, Bob Edwards has told his story. With all the wit, candor, and courage that made his journalism on NPR a favorite of millions across the country and a role model for all of us in public media. This “voice in the box” is good news."--Bill Moyers

"Bob Edwards came of age as radio did. Maybe not the much-romanticized golden era of the medium that preceded television, but the equally important period when radio news and public affairs reporting grew and matured into one of the most relevant American venues for information and serious discussion. His work at NPR and later, with satellite radio, is testament to his love of good journalism, great storytelling and, most of all, people. A Voice In The Box is his story to be sure, but it is also a worthy tale of high-end radio journalism itself--all the more important to us in these days when newspapers and television news have lost so much of their ambition."--David Simon, producer, "The Wire" and "Treme" and author, Homicide and The Corner

"A Voice in the Box is a delight. Bob Edwards has told his story from inside the world of radio that has something for everybody—from the kid’s dream to be on radio to settling some adult’s scores with NPR and being happy now on Sirius XM Radio with many more hours on the radio still to come."—Jim Lehrer

"Edwards shares fascinating details about beginning a career at a tiny station; becoming part of the energetic, excited startup team at NPR; conducting interviews and producing shows; and building a career as a beloved host. He's forthright about his disappointments, too, including a divorce and the shock of being fired. In this solidly entertaining book, Edwards engages readers with tales from his new radio incarnation."

On My Radar (Monday Edition)

Einstein on the Road
by Josef Eisinger

Prometheus Books 
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

“Just when one thinks that one has read every possible book about Einstein there comes along the new and delightful Einstein on the Road by the physicist Josef Eisinger. Once Einstein became famous he was invited to make several visits to places like Japan and Uruguay. He kept a diary that makes it clear that these trips were no picnic. Apart from the lectures, he was expected to appear at all sorts of social functions and wear the dreaded tuxedo. He was also ‘graded’ by the local German consuls who gave him high marks for exporting German culture. This was at the time when he was being vilified in Germany. The book is full of surprises and is a pleasure to read.”

—Jeremy Bernstein
Author of Quantum Leaps

“‘The road is life,’ said Jack Kerouac, and here, as Einstein hits the road, life as he had not seen it before unfolds in front of him. As the newly famous physicist embarks on travels that take him from Europe to Palestine, Princeton, and Pasadena; from Ceylon to Singapore; and to Argentina, Japan, China, and other exotic places, we see Einstein amused, awed, and sometimes appalled as he absorbs what he sees around him and faithfully reveals his thoughts to his closest travel companion, his travel diary. In this book, Josef Eisinger brings us a delightful addition to the ever-expanding genre of Einstein studies.”

—Alice Calaprice
Author of The Ultimate Quotable Einstein and
Dear Professor Einstein: Letters to and from Children

At the height of his fame, Albert Einstein traveled throughout the world, from Japan to South America and many places in between. During these voyages, between 1922 and 1933, he was in the habit of keeping travel diaries, in which he recorded his impressions of people and events, and his musings on everything from music and politics to quantum mechanics and psychoanalysis. These fascinating records, which have never been published in their entirety, are the basis for this engaging personal portrait of Einstein the man.
Author Josef Eisinger has created a vivid and entertaining narrative that brings Einstein’s voice to the fore. During Einstein’s travels far and wide, he meets with royalty, presidents, movie stars, and artists—Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin, Fritz Kreisler, and Sinclair Lewis, as well as the most eminent scientists of the time, including Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Erwin Schrődinger, and Edwin Hubble.
In his travel entries, we read his candid impressions of the Far East during a long sea voyage to Japan (1922), where Einstein is welcomed with enormous enthusiasm, and steals the show at an Imperial reception. He and Elsa visit and explore many Japanese cities, as well as Singapore, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Barcelona, Madrid, and Jerusalem, where Einstein cogitates on Zionism and sees it in action.
In 1931, the couple spends eight weeks in Pasadena, where Einstein enjoys fruitful interactions with scientists at Caltech and the Mount Wilson observatory. This portion of the diaries contains observations about America, science, and the Hollywood celebrities he encounters. He returns to Caltech two more times, and enjoys two extended sojourns in another academic sanctuary, Oxford University.
Back at home in Berlin, his diary shows his deep involvement with the academic, social, and cultural life of the German capital, and with the politics of the Weimar Republic. He discusses books, dinner parties, plays, concerts, and sailing, but his greatest passion, apart from physics, is music; he is never happier than when playing chamber music, preferably, Mozart—and does so at every opportunity.
A lifelong pacifist, he watches the Nazis’ rise with anxiety, and when Hitler gains control in 1933, he renounces pacifism and searches for a place of refuge. He finds it in Princeton, New Jersey, where he joins the newly created Institute for Advanced Study and becomes an American, never more to roam.
Filled with memorable vignettes, this singular book provides a window into the thoughts and opinions of the twentieth century’s most celebrated scientist and allows us to share some of his fascinating experiences.

FURTHER PRAISE FOR EINSTEIN ON THE ROAD:

“Einstein was a keen, sometimes caustic, observer of the world around him, and his travel diaries are a fascinating portal into a neglected part of his life. In vivid language and without being intrusive, Professor Eisinger has captured the elusive charm of Einstein’s prose.”

—Robert Schulmann
Longtime director of the Einstein Papers Project at Boston University

“Josef Eisinger has uncovered an intriguing fragment of history here—the triumphal, wandering years of 1921–1933 during which Einstein and his wife were feted on four continents and in more than a dozen countries. He uses to the hilt witty and insightful commentaries from Einstein’s voluminous diaries. His wanderlust was compounded of the need to escape from the dangers and disturbances of that period in Germany, his love of long sea voyages seen as relaxing work opportunities, his insatiable curiosity about the world, and his desire to further humanitarian causes. But, finally, Einstein found in Princeton, when matters in Germany came to a head, the quiet backwater that he needed, and he stayed there for good after 1933. This may be the most delightful way ever to learn all that one really needs to know about Einstein.”

—Philip Anderson
Recipient of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physics

Author Bio:

Josef Eisinger, PhD (New York, NY), a native of Vienna, is a physicist whose research has ranged from nuclear physics to molecular biology and from the history of medicine to music history. He is professor emeritus in the Department of Structural and Chemical Biology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, the author of some two hundred articles in professional journals and books, and the recipient of two Guggenheim fellowships.

On My Radar (Friday Edition)

"On My Radar" is a preview of new release non-fiction; it is not a review. In most cases I do not own the book but would love to review it.

American Pickers Guide to Picking
by Libby Callaway, Mike Wolfe, Frank Fritz and Danielle Colby

Hyperion
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

A true adventure story and the go-to guide for “picking” American treasures from anyone’s backyard, straight from the stars of History’s American Pickers

In these pages, professional treasure hunters Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz chronicle their road trips across the American countryside in search of “rusty gold” to buy and sell among the picking world’s one-of-a-kind characters. Whether you are a fan of the show or just like finding hidden riches, you will love seeing what Wolfe and Fritz dig up and enjoy meeting the devoted collectors, extreme stockpilers, and elite dealers who they encounter along the way.

Wolfe and Fritz do not deal in fine antiques. Their secondhand treasures are of the down-and-dirty and sometimes even bizarre variety, from old bicycles and vintage tools, to sun-bleached cars and handmade furniture, retired carnival games and unusual taxidermy. Assisted by Danielle Colby, who helps out at Antique Archaeology, Wolfe and Fritz buy on the cheap and then sell to dealers, art directors, interior designers, or anyone looking for a little bit of authentic Americana. The three now share their secrets to finding hidden gems, offering helpful hints that will show what average Americans can do to find the treasures that await them.

From American Pickers Guide to Picking:

Junk is Beautiful
When we knock on a door, 90 percent of the time the things we find are junk. But we don’t care about the odds; a picker never turns down an opportunity, no matter where it is. We’ve picked pickup trucks. We’ve picked flat beds. We’ve picked dumpsters. We even picked a Mercury Sable. We’re looking for the unusual, the impossible, the funky, the different, the bizarre—things we have never seen before. And we’ll go anywhere we have to go to find it.

No location is off-limits to a hard-core picker. And there’s plenty of things to be found at antique stores, thrift and consignment shops, flea markets, estate sales, and swap meets, and a lot of the tips in this book apply to finding treasures at these joints. But that’s not really the kind of picking we do anymore. We look outside the box to find our junk—a word we use almost like a term of endearment: to us: junk is beautiful.

- - - - -


The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama
by Will Bunch
Harper Paperbacks
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

In The Backlash, Liberal columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning political reporter Will Bunch goes behind the scenes of America’s new extreme right-wing minority to explore how their campaign of misinformation, their distortion of President Obama, and their collective fear of the future combine to pose a very real threat to our democratic system. From health care reform to immigration policies, The Backlash is a gripping investigation into the emerging voice of the dangerous American right wing.

Book Description 

They think Obama Isn’t an American citizen.
They think Obama wants to put Americans in Concentration Camps.
They think Obama is the Anti-Christ.
This isn’t just the Tea Party—Welcome to the Backlash.

The election of Barack Obama provoked unparalleled anger on the far right that eventually twisted important national discussions and pushed ideas from the conservative fringe into the mainstream media. In this gripping exposé, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Will Bunch reveals the secrets behind the crusade against the president, exploring how forces like radical militia groups, the Tea Party, pro-gun zealots, and Glenn Beck have combined old-fashioned populist outrage with digital-age phobias to produce a wave of resentment that many have ridden straight to the bank. Pulling back the curtain on the paranoid politics of a new generation, Bunch exposes the opportunists who have embraced apocalyptic fearmongering, and shows how events such as the election of America’s first African-American president, the economic recession, and the rise of social networking have created a dangerous political moment that poses legitimate risks to democracy in America.

- - - - -

Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans
by Wendell Potter
Bloomsbury Press

From the publisher website:

"My name is Wendell Potter, and for twenty years I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies. I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick-all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors."-Senate testimony, June 24, 2009 

In June 2009, Wendell Potter made national headlines with his scorching testimony before the Senate panel on health care reform. This former senior VP of CIG NA explained how health insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, how they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and how they skew political debate with multibillion-dollar PR campaigns to mislead the press and public. Potter had walked away from a six-figure salary and two decades as an insurance executive because he could no longer abide the routine practices of an industry where the needs of sick and suffering Americans take a backseat to the bottom line-leading Michael Moore to call him "the Daniel Ellsberg of corporate America."

In Deadly Spin, Potter takes readers behind the scenes to show how a huge chunk of our absurd health care spending actually bankrolls a propaganda campaign and lobbying effort focused on protecting one thing: profits. Potter shows how relentless PR assaults play an insidious role in our political process anywhere that corporate profits are at stake-from climate change to defense policy. Deadly Spin tells us why- and how-we must fight back.

Praise for Deadly Spin:

"The health insurance industry's worst nightmare."-Portfolio.com

"A gripping indictment."-Kate Pickert, Time

"Wendell Potter is a straight shooter-and he hits the bulls-eye here with an exposé of corporate power that reveals why real health care reform didn't happen, can't happen, and won't happen until that power is contained."-Bill Moyers

On My Radar (Thursday Edition)

"On My Radar" is a preview of new release non-fiction; it is not a review. In most cases I do not own the book, but would love to review it.

American Anthrax: Fear, Crime and the Investigation of the Nation's Deadliest Bioterror Attack
by Jeanne Guillemin

Times Books / Macmillan
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

From Jeanne Guillemin, one of the world's leading experts on anthrax and bioterrorism, the definitive account of the anthrax investigation.

It was the most complex case in FBI history. In what became a seven-year investigation that began shortly after 9/11—with America reeling from the terror attacks of al Qaeda—virulent anthrax spores sent through the mail killed Bob Stevens, a Florida tabloid photo editor. His death and, days later, the discovery in New York and Washington, D.C. of letters filled with anthrax sent shock waves through the nation. Federal agencies were blindsided by the attacks, which eventually killed five people. Taken off guard, the FBI struggled to combine on-the-ground criminal investigation with progress in advanced bioforensic analyses of the letters' contents.

While the criminal eluded justice, disinformation swirled around the letters, erroneously linking them to Iraq's WMD threat and foreign bioterrorism. Without oversight, billions were lavished on biomedical defenses against anthrax and other exotic diseases. Worst of all, faith in federal justice faltered.

American Anthrax is a gripping tale of terror, intrigue, madness, and cover-up.

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Tension City: Inside the Presidential Debates, from Kennedy-Nixon to Obama-McCain
by Jim Lehrer
Random House
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

“In his quiet but intense way, Jim Lehrer earns the trust of the major political players of our time,” notes Barbara Walters. “He explains and exposes their hopes and dreams, their strengths and failures as they try to put their best foot forward.”

From the man widely hailed as “the Dean of Moderators” comes a lively and revealing book that pulls back the curtain on more than forty years of televised political debate in America. A veteran newsman who has presided over eleven presidential and vice-presidential debates, Jim Lehrer gives readers a ringside seat for some of the epic political battles of our time, shedding light on all of the critical turning points and rhetorical faux pas that helped determine the outcome of America’s presidential elections—and with them the course of history. Drawing on his own experiences as “the man in the middle seat,” in-depth interviews with the candidates and his fellow moderators, and transcripts of key exchanges, Lehrer isolates and illuminates what he calls the “Major Moments” and “killer questions” that defined the debates, from Kennedy-Nixon to Obama-McCain.

Oftentimes these moments involve the candidates themselves and are seared into our collective political memory. Michael Dukakis stumbles badly over a question about the death penalty. Dan Quayle compares himself to John F. Kennedy once too often. Barack Obama and John McCain barely make eye contact over the course of a ninety-minute discussion. At other times, the debate moderators themselves become part of the story—and Lehrer is there to give us a backstage look at the drama. Peter Jennings suggests surprising the candidates by suspending the carefully negotiated rules minutes before the 1988 presidential debate—to the consternation of his fellow panelists. Lehrer himself weathers a firestorm of criticism over his performance as moderator of the 2000 Bush-Gore debate. And then there are the excruciating moments when audio lines go dead and TelePrompTers stay dark just seconds before going on the air live in front of a worldwide television audience of millions.

Asked to sum up his experience as a participant in high-level televised debates, President George H. W. Bush memorably likened them to an evening in “tension city.” In Jim Lehrer’s absorbing insider account, we find out that truer words were never spoken.

On My Radar (Wednesday Edition)

"On My Radar" is a preview of new release non-fiction; it is not a review. In most cases I do not own the book, but would love to review it.

Driving Home: An American Journey
by Jonathan Raban
Pantheon / Knopf Doubleday / Random House
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

For more than thirty years, Jonathan Raban has written with infectious fascination about people and places in transition or on the margins, about journeys undertaken and destinations never quite reached, and, as an Englishman transplanted in Seattle, about what it means to feel rooted in America. Spanning two decades, Driving Home charts a course through the Pacific Northwest, American history, and current events as witnessed by “a super-sensitive, all-seeing eye. Raban spots things we might otherwise miss; he calls up the apt metaphors that transform things into phenomena. He is one of our most gifted observers” (Newsday).

Stops en route include a Missoula bar, a Tea Party convention in Nashville hosted by Sarah Palin, the Mississippi in full flood, a trip to Hawaii with his daughter, a steelhead river in the Cascades, and the hidden corners of his adopted hometown, Seattle. He deftly explores public and personal spaces, poetry and politics, geography and catastrophe, art and economy, and the shifts in various arenas that define our society. Whether the topic is Robert Lowell or Barack Obama, or how various painters, explorers, and homesteaders have engaged with our mythical and actual landscape, he has an outsider’s eye for the absurd, and his tone is intimate, never nostalgic, and always fresh.

Frank, witty, and provocative, Driving Home is part essay collection, part diary—and irresistibly insightful about America’s character, contradictions, and idiosyncrasies.

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Crash of the Titans: Greed, Hubris, the Fall of Merrill Lynch, and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America
by Greg Farrell
Crown Business / Crown Publishing / Random House
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

The intimate, fly-on-the wall tale of the decline and fall of an America icon

With one notable exception, the firms that make up what we know as Wall Street have always been part of an inbred, insular culture that most people only vaguely understand. The exception was Merrill Lynch, a firm that revolutionized the stock market by bringing Wall Street to Main Street, setting up offices in far-flung cities and towns long ignored by the giants of finance. With its “thundering herd” of financial advisers, perhaps no other business, whether in financial services or elsewhere, so epitomized the American spirit. Merrill Lynch was not only “bullish on America,” it was a big reason why so many average Americans were able to grow wealthy by investing in the stock market.

Merrill Lynch was an icon. Its sudden decline, collapse, and sale to Bank of America was a shock. How did it happen? Why did it happen? And what does this story of greed, hubris, and incompetence tell us about the culture of Wall Street that continues to this day even though it came close to destroying the American economy? A culture in which the CEO of a firm losing $28 billion pushes hard to be paid a $25 million bonus. A culture in which two Merrill Lynch executives are guaranteed bonuses of $30 million and $40 million for four months’ work, even while the firm is struggling to reduce its losses by firing thousands of employees.

Based on unparalleled sources at both Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, Greg Farrell’s Crash of the Titans is a Shakespearean saga of three flawed masters of the universe. E. Stanley O’Neal, whose inspiring rise from the segregated South to the corner office of Merrill Lynch—where he engineered a successful turnaround—was undone by his belief that a smooth-talking salesman could handle one of the most difficult jobs on Wall Street. Because he enjoyed O’Neal’s support, this executive was allowed to build up an astonishing $30 billion position in CDOs on the firm’s balance sheet, at a time when all other Wall Street firms were desperately trying to exit the business. After O’Neal comes John Thain, the cerebral, MIT-educated technocrat whose rescue of the New York Stock Exchange earned him the nickname “Super Thain.” He was hired to save Merrill Lynch in late 2007, but his belief that the markets would rebound led him to underestimate the depth of Merrill’s problems. Finally, we meet Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, a street fighter raised barely above the poverty line in rural Georgia, whose “my way or the highway” management style suffers fools more easily than potential rivals, and who made a $50 billion commitment over a September weekend to buy a business he really didn’t understand, thus jeopardizing his own institution.

The merger itself turns out to be a bizarre combination of cultures that blend like oil and water, where slick Wall Street bankers suddenly find themselves reporting to a cast of characters straight out of the Beverly Hillbillies. BofA’s inbred culture, which perceived New York banks its enemies, was based on loyalty and a good-ol’-boy network in which competence played second fiddle to blind obedience.

Crash of the Titans is a financial thriller that puts you in the theater as the historic events of the financial crisis unfold and people responsible for billion of dollars of other people’s money gamble recklessly to enhance their power and their paychecks or to save their own skins. Its wealth of never-before-revealed information and focus on two icons of corporate America make it the book that puts together all the pieces of the Wall Street disaster.

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The Fall of the House of Zeus: The Rise and Ruin of America's Most Powerful Trial Lawyer
by Curtis Wilkie
Broadway Books / Crown Publishing
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

“Over the past four decades no reporter has critiqued the American South with such evocative sensitivity and bedrock honesty as Curtis Wilkie.”
—Douglas Brinkley

The Fall of the House of Zeus tells the story of Dickie Scruggs, arguably the most successful plaintiff's lawyer in America. A brother-in-law of Trent Lott, the former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Scruggs made a fortune taking on mass tort lawsuits against “Big Tobacco” and the asbestos industries. He was hailed by Newsweek as a latter day Robin Hood, and portrayed in the movie, The Insider, as a dapper aviator-lawyer. Scruggs’ legal triumphs rewarded him lavishly, and his success emboldened both his career maneuvering and his influence in Southern politics--but at a terrible cost, culminating in his spectacular fall, when he was convicted for conspiring to bribe a Mississippi state judge. 

Here Mississippi is emblematic of the modern South, with its influx of new money and its rising professional class, including lawyers such as Scruggs, whose interests became inextricably entwined with state and national politics.

Based on extensive interviews, transcripts, and FBI recordings never made public, The Fall of the House of Zeus exposes the dark side of Southern and Washington legal games and power politics: the swirl of fixed cases, blocked investigations, judicial tampering, and a zealous prosecution that would eventually ensnare not only Scruggs but his own son, Zach, in the midst of their struggle with insurance companies over Hurricane Katrina damages. In gripping detail, Curtis Wilkie crafts an authentic legal thriller propelled by a “welter of betrayals and personal hatreds,” providing large supporting parts for Trent Lott and Jim Biden, brother of then-Senator Joe, and cameos by John McCain, Al Gore, and other DC insiders and influence peddlers.

Above all, we get to see how and why the mighty fail and fall, a story as gripping and timeless as a Greek tragedy.

On My Radar (Tuesday Edition)

 On My Radar is a preview of new releases; it is not a review. In most cases I do not yet own the book but would love to review it.

Street Freak: Money and Madness at Lehman Brothers
by Jared Dillian
Touchstone / Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

When Jared Dillian joined Lehman Brothers in 2001, he fulfilled a life-long dream to make it on Wall Street—but he had no idea how close to the edge the job would take him.

Like Michael Lewis's classic Liar's Poker, Jared Dillian's Street Freak takes readers behind the scenes of the legendary Lehman Brothers, exposing its outrageous and often hilarious corporate culture. 

In this ultracompetitive Ivy League world where men would flip over each other's ties to check out the labels (also known as the "Lehman Handshake"), Dillian was an outsider as an ex-military, working-class guy in a Men's Wearhouse suit. But he was scrappy and determined; in interviews he told potential managers that, "Nobody can work harder than me. Nobody is willing to put in the hours I will put in. I am insane." As it turned out, on Wall Street insanity is not an undesirable quality. 

Dillian rose from green associate, checking IDs at the entrance to the trading floor in the paranoid days following 9/11, to become an integral part of Lehman's culture in its final years as the firm's head Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) trader. More than $1 trillion in wealth passed through his hands, but at the cost of an untold number of smashed telephones and tape dispensers. Over time, the exhilarating and explosively stressful job took its toll on him. The extreme highs and lows of the trading floor masked and exacerbated the symptoms of Dillian's undiagnosed bipolar and obsessive compulsive disorders, leading to a downward spiral that eventually landed him in a psychiatric ward. 

Dillian put his life back together, returning to work healthier than ever before, but Lehman itself had seemingly gone mad, having made outrageous bets on commercial real estate, and was quickly headed for self-destruction. 

A raucous account of the final years of Lehman Brothers, from 9/11 at its World Financial Center offices through the firm's bankruptcy, including vivid portraits of trading-floor culture, the financial meltdown, and the company's ultimate collapse, Street Freak is a raw, visceral, and wholly original memoir of life inside the belly of the beast during the most tumultuous time in financial history. In his electrifying and fresh voice, Dillian takes readers on a wild ride through madness and back, both inside Lehman Brothers and himself.

Jared Dillian twitter

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Cabin: Two Brothers, a Dream, and Five Acres in Maine
by Lou Ureneck
Viking Adult / Penguin
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

Inspired by his From the Ground Up New York Times blog, a beautifully written memoir about building and brotherhood.

Confronted with the disappointments and knockdowns that can come in middle age-job loss, the death of his mother, a health scare, a divorce-Lou Ureneck needed a project that would engage the better part of him and put him back in life's good graces. City-bound for a decade, Lou decided he needed to build a simple post-and-beam cabin in the woods. He bought five acres in the hills of western Maine and asked his younger brother, Paul, to help him.

Twenty years earlier the brothers had built a house together. Now Lou saw working with Paul as a way to reconnect with their shared history and to rediscover his truest self. As the brothers-with the help of Paul's sons-undertake the challenging construction, nothing seems to go according to plan. But as they raise the cabin, Ureneck eloquently reveals his own evolving insights into the richness and complexity of family relationships, the healing power of nature, and the need to root oneself in a place one can call home. With its exploration of the satisfaction of building and of physical labor, Cabin will also appeal to readers of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Matthew Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft, and Tracy Kidder's House.

Lou Ureneck twitter

On My Radar ( @HachetteBooks Edition )

Here Comes Trouble: Stories From My Life
by Michael Moore
Hardcover

Grand Central / Hachette Book Group

From the publisher website:

"I had an unusually large-sized head, though this was not uncommon for a baby in the Midwest. The craniums in our part of the country were designed to leave a little extra room for the brain to grow in case one day we found ourselves exposed to something we didn't understand, like a foreign language, or a salad."

Michael Moore-Oscar-winning filmmaker, bestselling author, the nation's unofficial provocateur laureate-is back, this time taking on an entirely new role, that of his own meta-Forest Gump.

Breaking the autobiographical mode, he presents twenty-four far-ranging, irreverent, and stranger-than-fiction vignettes from his own early life. One moment he's an eleven-year-old boy lost in the Senate and found by Bobby Kennedy; and in the next, he's inside the Bitburg cemetery with a dazed and confused Ronald Reagan. Fast-forwarding to 2003, he stuns the world by uttering the words "We live in fictitious times . . . with a fictitious president" in place of the expected "I'd like to thank the Academy."

And none of that even comes close to the night the friendly priest at the seminary decides to show him how to perform his own exorcism.

Capturing the zeitgeist of the past fifty years, yet deeply personal and unflinchingly honest, HERE COMES TROUBLE takes readers on an unforgettable, take-no-prisoners ride through the life and times of Michael Moore. No one will come away from this book without a sense of surprise about the Michael Moore most of us didn't know. Alternately funny, eye-opening, and moving, it's a book he has been writing-and living-his entire life.

Author website 

Michael Moore twitter

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Life Itself: A Memoir
by Roger Ebert

Grand Central / Hachette Book Group
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

Roger Ebert is the best-known film critic of our time. He has been reviewing films for the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and was the first film critic ever to win a Pulitzer Prize. He has appeared on television for four decades, including twenty-three years as cohost of Siskel & Ebert at the Movies.

In 2006, complications from thyroid cancer treatment resulted in the loss of his ability to eat, drink, or speak. But with the loss of his voice, Ebert has only become a more prolific and influential writer. And now, for the first time, he tells the full, dramatic story of his life and career.

Roger Ebert's journalism carried him on a path far from his nearly idyllic childhood in Urbana, Illinois. It is a journey that began as a reporter for his local daily, and took him to Chicago, where he was unexpectedly given the job of film critic for the Sun-Times, launching a lifetime's adventures.

In this candid, personal history, Ebert chronicles it all: his loves, losses, and obsessions; his struggle and recovery from alcoholism; his marriage; his politics; and his spiritual beliefs. He writes about his years at the Sun-Times, his colorful newspaper friends, and his life-changing collaboration with Gene Siskel. He remembers his friendships with Studs Terkel, Mike Royko, Oprah Winfrey, and Russ Meyer (for whom he wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and an ill-fated Sex Pistols movie). He shares his insights into movie stars and directors like John Wayne, Werner Herzog, and Martin Scorsese.

This is a story that only Roger Ebert could tell. Filled with the same deep insight, dry wit, and sharp observations that his readers have long cherished, this is more than a memoir-it is a singular, warm-hearted, inspiring look at life itself.

"I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out."
-from LIFE ITSELF

Author website

Roger Ebert twitter

BookSpin Week in Review

This week in BookSpin we promoted five separate non-fiction titles:

First up, we discussed THE LOST DOGS: Michael Vick's Dogs and their Tale of Rescue and Redemption by Jim Gorant.  Now in paperback from Gotham Books / Penguin, the books is promoted as "The bestselling story of survival and our powerful bond with man's best friend, in the aftermath of the nation's most notorious animal cruelty case. Featuring a new afterword and updates on the Vick dogs."

Next was THE RICE ROOM: Growing Up Chinese-American from Number Two Son to Rock 'n' Roll by famed music writer Ben Fong-Torres.  Published this week in paperback by the University of California Press, Rice Room was an "instant best-seller when originally published in 1994, this expanded and updated edition tells of growing up with a double identity—Chinese and American. Ben Fong-Torres was torn between an alluring American lifestyle—including Elvis and rock ‘n’ roll—and the traditional cultural heritage his proud immigrant parents struggled to instill in their five children."

On Wednesday, we talked about THE MAN WHO COULDN'T EAT: A Memoir by Jon Reiner. A new hardcover from Gallery Books / Simon & Schuster, "The Man Who Couldn't Eat is an unvarnished account of a marriage in crisis, children faced with grown-up fears, a man at a life-and-death crossroads sifting through his past and his present."

Next, Kevin McCloud gave us his GRAND TOUR OF EUROPE, published in trade paperback by Phoenix / Sterling Publishing.  "Based on a four-part television series, Kevin McCloud's Grand Tour of Europe is a behind-the-stairs tour of Europe's high spots . . . with some spicy detours into continental lowlife."

Finally, on Friday we discussed GRIFTOPIA: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History, published by Spiegel & Grau / Random House.  Griftopia is "A brilliantly illuminating and darkly comic tale of the ongoing financial and political crisis in America."

Stay tuned for more non-fiction books starting again on Monday.  Thanks for reading! 

On My Radar (Friday Edition)

Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History
by Matt Taibbi

Spiegel & Grau / Random House
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

A brilliantly illuminating and darkly comic tale of the ongoing financial and political crisis in America.

The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn’t past but prologue. The grifter class—made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding—has been growing in power, and the crisis was only one terrifying manifestation of how they’ve hijacked America’s political and economic life.

Matt Taibbi has combined deep sources, trailblazing reportage, and provocative analysis to create the most lucid, emotionally galvanizing account yet written of this ongoing American crisis. He offers fresh reporting on the backroom deals of the bailout; tells the story of Goldman Sachs, the “vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity”; and uncovers the hidden commodities bubble that transferred billions of dollars to Wall Street while creating food shortages around the world.

This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the labyrinthine inner workings of this country, and the profound consequences for us all.

“A stinging new history of the financial crisis that heralds a return of Menckenesque, dirt-under-the-fingernails American journalism.”—GQ 

“A relentlessly disturbing, penetrating exploration of the root causes of the trauma that upended economic security in millions of American homes . . . a full-scale indictment of Wall Street and Washington.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Matt Taibbi is [Hunter S.] Thompson’s heir. . . . [Griftopia] is the most lucid, justifiably angry description of what happened and what continues to happen to our nation’s economy.”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“Taibbi chronicles the corruption of the political process with indignation and dark humor. The takeaway? Be angry, but blame the right culprits.”—Time

Excerpt of Griftopia in Rolling Stone magazine 

On My Radar (Thursday Edition)

On My Radar is a preview of a new release; it is not a review. In most cases I do not own the book but would love to read and review it.

Kevin McCloud's Grand Tour of Europe
by Kevin McCloud

Phoenix / Sterling Publishing
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

Based on a four-part television series, Kevin McCloud's Grand Tour of Europe is a behind-the-stairs tour of Europe's high spots . . . with some spicy detours into continental lowlife. The author proves himself a masterly companion as he follows in the footsteps of notorious travelers to peek behind famous facades and venture to the wrong side of town on this myth-busting romp through France, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Turkey. It's an irreverent travel guide like no other.  Includes lavish new photography and sketches by the author.

Kevin McCloud studied Art and Architecture at Cambridge, trained as a theatre designer, then set up his own design, lighting, and manufacturing business. He is best known for his television series Grand Designs and Grand Designs Abroad, which have spawned a monthly magazine of the same name. He is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, an ambassador for WWF, and has a number of honorary degrees. He has also appeared as Top Gear's Star in a Reasonably Priced Car.

Kevin McCloud's wikipedia page

Video from the television series:

On My Radar (Wednesday Edition)

On My Radar is a preview of a new release; it is not a review. In most cases I do not own the book but would love to read and review it.

The Man Who Couldn't Eat: A Memoir
by Jon Reiner

Gallery Books / Simon & Schuster
Hardcover


From the publisher website:

"I'm a glutton in a greyhound's body, a walking contradiction, in the grip of the one thing I can't have—food."

Food is not just sustenance. It is memories, a lobster roll on the beach in Maine; heritage, hot pastrami club with a half-sour pickle; guilty pleasures, a chocolate rum-soaked Bundt cake; identity, vegetarian or carnivore. Food is the sensuality of a ripe strawberry or a pork chop sizzling on the grill. But what if the very thing that keeps you alive, that bonds us together and marks occasions in our lives, became a toxic substance, an inflammatory invader? In this beautifully written memoir, both gut-wrenching and inspiring, award-winning writer Jon Reiner explores our complex and often contradictory relationship with food as he tells the story of his agonizing battle with Crohn's disease—and the extraordinary places his hunger and obsession with food took him.

The Man Who Couldn't Eat is an unvarnished account of a marriage in crisis, children faced with grown-up fears, a man at a life-and-death crossroads sifting through his past and his present. And it shows us a tough, courageous climb out of despair and hopelessness. Aided by the loving kindness of family, friends, and strangers and by a new approach to food, Reiner began a process of healing in body and mind. Most of all, he chose life—and a renewed appetite, any way he could manage it, for the things that truly matter most.

On My Radar (Tuesday Edition)

On My Radar is a preview of a new release; it is not a review. In most cases I do not own the book but would love to read and review it.


The Rice Room: Growing up Chinese-American from Number Two Son to Rock 'n' Roll
by Ben Fong-Torres
University of California Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

An instant best-seller when originally published in 1994, this expanded and updated edition of The Rice Room tells of growing up with a double identity—Chinese and American. Ben Fong-Torres was torn between an alluring American lifestyle—including Elvis and rock ‘n’ roll—and the traditional cultural heritage his proud immigrant parents struggled to instill in their five children. Now illustrated with personal family photographs as well as photos of the author with various celebrities, Fong-Torres rounds out his life story with a new final chapter.

Ben Fong-Torres is the author of many books, including Becoming Almost Famous: My Back Pages in Music, Writing and Life, Not Fade Away: A Backstage Pass to 20 Years of Rock &’ Roll and The Hits Just Keep on Coming: The History of Top 40 Radio.

Praise for the first edition:

“Ben Fong-Torres ran and wrote the music section of Rolling Stone and at the same time kept his other foot in the dark, secret world of San Francisco’s Chinatown. It’s an amazing story.”—Jann Wenner

“A poignant examination of Ben’s life. I couldn’t put it down. In fact, I’m still holding it. ”—Steve Martin

“I am a fifty-three-year-old Caucasian woman, and I feel as if a forty-seven-year-old Chinese man has just told my story—and that of a generation of Americans. Thank you, Ben.”—Grace Slick of The Jefferson Airplane

“Ben Fong-Torres’s voice rocked over the radio waves and a whole generation listened to one of the pioneer voices to break out of Chinatown. Now Fong-Torres fills his memoir, The Rice Room, with worlds of feeling, both tender and tragic, to reveal the fire behind that voice.”—Fae Myenne Ng, author of Bone

“Ben Fong-Torres’s book is one man’s journey into the heart of contemporary America. From childhood to manhood we see his struggles and triumphs as he negotiates growing up in the 60s with Elvis, hippie rock and roll, personal tragedy, and a Chinese-American soul. A witty, moving, heartfelt read.”—Philip Kan Gotanda, writer and director of The Kiss and author of Yankee Dawg You Die

On My Radar (Monday Edition)

On My Radar is a preview of a new release; it is not a review. In most cases I do not own the book but would love to read and review it.


The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick's Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption
by Jim Gorant
Gotham Books / Penguin
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

The bestselling story of survival and our powerful bond with man's best friend, in the aftermath of the nation's most notorious animal cruelty case. Featuring a new Afterword with updates on the Vick dogs. 

Animal lovers and sports fans were shocked when the story broke about NFL player Michael Vick's brutal dog-fighting operation. But what became of the fifty-one dogs who survived? As acclaimed writer Jim Gorant reveals, their story is the truly newsworthy aspect of this case. The Lost Dogs traces the effort to bring Vick to justice and turns the spotlight on these infamous pit bulls, which were saved from euthanasia by an outpouring of public appeals coupled with a court order that Vick pay nearly a million dollars in "restitution" to the dogs.

As an ASPCA-led team evaluated each one, they found a few hardened fighters, but most were lovable, friendly creatures desperate for compassion. In The Lost Dogs, we meet these amazing animals, many of whom now live in loving homes and work in therapy programs. The Lost Dogs exposes the terrible practice of dog fighting and shows us that even after being subjected to heartbreaking abuse, above all, a dog still wants to be man's best friend.

On My Radar (Friday Edition)

On My Radar is a preview of a new release; it is not a review of the book. In most cases I do not own the book yet but would love to read and review it.

Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream
by Arianna Huffington
Crown Publishing / Random House
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

It’s not an exaggeration to say that middle-class Americans are an endangered species and that the American Dream of a secure, comfortable standard of living has become as outdated as an Edsel with an eight-track player.  That the United States of America is in danger of becoming a third world nation.

The evidence is all around us:

Our industrial base is vanishing, taking with it the kind of jobs that have formed the backbone of our economy for more than a century; our education system is in shambles, making it harder for tomorrow’s workforce to acquire the information and training it needs to land good twenty-first century jobs; our infrastructure—our roads, our bridges, our sewage and water, our transportation and electrical systems—is crumbling; our economic system has been reduced to recurring episodes of Corporations Gone Wild; our political system is broken, in thrall to a small financial elite using the power of the checkbook to control both parties.

And America’s middle class, the driver of so much of our economic success and political stability, is rapidly disappearing, forcing us to confront the fear that we are slipping as a nation – that our children and grandchildren will enjoy fewer opportunities and face a lower standard of living than we did.

It’s the dark flipside of the American Dream – an American Nightmare of our own making.

Arianna Huffington, who, with the must-read Huffington Post, has her finger on the pulse of America, unflinchingly tracks the gradual demise of America as an industrial, political, and economic leader.  In the vein of her fiery bestseller Pigs at the Trough, Third World America points fingers, names names, and details who’s killing the American Dream.

Finally, calling on the can-do attitude that is part of America’s DNA, Huffington shows precisely what we need to do to stop our freefall and keep America from turning into a third world nation.

Third World America is a must-read for anyone disturbed by our country’s steady descent from 20th century superpower to backwater banana republic.

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To be entered to win a copy of Ga$ Smart$ by Ronald M. Weiers, PhD all you have to do is tweet the following:

"Retweet this to be entered to win Ga$ Smart$ from @adamsmedia and @book_dude"

TBR Stack: The Bullsh*t Artist by Paul Kleinman

The Bullshit Artist: Learn to Bluff, Dupe, Charm, and BS with the Best of "Em
by Paul Kleinman
Adams Media
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

It's not what you know. It's what they think you know. And they will think you know it all once you learn how to bullsh*t successfully. Because there's a difference between talking out of your ass and bullsh*tting like a pro--and if you want to sound in the know without getting called out, you better know how to do it right.

What you want is to be able to control any conversation and keep cool under pressure with a combination of confidence and cunning. To help out, there's a section of useful facts to stick up your sleeve.

Forget being a know-it-all. You'll tap into real appeal and have a lot more fun once you become a skilled bullsh*t artist. Guaranteed.

Paul Kleinman holds advanced degrees from both the Wharton Business School and the Harvard Divinity School. (Bullsh*t.) In between running the Market and his non-profit (which helps underprivileged youths get into college), he's training for his fourth Iron Man. (Bullsh*t.) He lives in Boston. (True.)

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Don't forget about the BookSpin book giveway. Tweet to your followers to be entered to win Ga$ Smart$ by Ronald M. Weiers, PhD from @adamsmedia.

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Conor O'Clery, author of Moscow December 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union, will be on the Diane Rehm NPR show tomorrow.