On My Radar:

Better Than Fiction: True Travel Tales from Great Fiction Writers

from Lonely Planet
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

A collection of original travel stories told by some of the world's best novelists,  including Isabel Allende, Peter Matthiessen, Alexander McCall Smith, Joyce Carol Oates, Tea Obreht, and DBC Pierre.

Exhilaratingly varied in place, plot and voice, these tales all share one common characteristic: They manifest a passion for the precious gifts that travel confers, from its unexpected but inevitably enriching lessons about other peoples and places to the truths - sometimes uncomfortable but always enlarging - it reveals about ourselves.

A collection of original travel stories told by some of the world’s best novelists, including Isabel Allende,
Peter Matthiessen, Alexander McCall Smith, Joyce Carol Oates, Téa Obreht and DBC Pierre.
Exhilaratingly varied in place, plot, and voice, these tales all share one common characteristic: They manifest a passion for the precious gifts that travel confers, from its unexpected but inevitably enriching lessons about other peoples and places to the truths – sometimes uncomfortable but always enlarging – it reveals about ourselves.
“... a brilliant collection of travel stories ... threaded with great warmth, as readers are invited to travel in the company of these famous authors and experience their passions and revelations.” BOOKSELLER + PUBLISHER


Read more: http://shop.lonelyplanet.com/pictorials-and-gifts/better-than-fiction/#ixzz2DWzaZWYE

In My TBR Stack:

Eight Pieces of Empire: A 20-Year Journey Through the Soviet Collapse
by Lawrence Scott Sheets
Broadway / Random House
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

Not with a bang, but with a quiet, ten-minute address on Christmas Day, 1991: this is how the Soviet Union met its end. But in the wake of that one deceptively calm moment, conflict and violence soon followed. Some of the emergent new countries began to shed totalitarianism while other sought to revive their own dead empires or were led by ex-Soviet leaders who built equally or even more repressive political machines. Since the late 1980s, Sheets lived and reported from the former USSR and saw firsthand the reverberations of the empire’s collapse. Eight Pieces of Empire draws readers into the people, politics and day-to-day life, painting a vivid portrait of a tumultuous time.

Sheets’ stories about people living through these tectonic shifts of fortune—a trio of female saboteurs in Chechnya, the chaos of newly independent Georgia in the early 1990s, young hustlers eager to strike it rich in the post-Soviet economic vacuum—reveal the underreported and surprising ways in which the ghosts of empire still haunt these lands and the world.

On My Radar:

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Random House

Hardcover

From the publisher website:

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world.

Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. 

In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better.

Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call “efficient” not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear.

Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world.

Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb’s message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it.

Praise for Antifragile

“Taleb takes on everything from the mistakes of modern architecture to the dangers of meddlesome doctors and how overrated formal education is. . . . An ambitious and thought-provoking read . . . highly entertaining.”—The Economist

My Net Galley List:

Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation and GPS Technology
by Caroline Paul with drawings by Wendy MacNaughton
Bloomsbury USA
Hardcover
To be published April 13, 2013

Caroline Paul was recovering from a bad accident and thought things couldn't get worse. But then her beloved cat Tibia disappeared. She and her partner, illustrator Wendy MacNaughton, mourned his loss. Yet weeks later, Tibia waltzed back into their lives. His owners were overjoyed. But they were also...jealous? Betrayed? Where had their sweet anxious cat disappeared to? Had he become a swashbuckling cat adventurer? Did he love someone else more? His owners were determined to find out.

Using GPS technology, cat cameras, psychics, the web, and animal communicators, the authors of Lost Cat embarked on a quest to discover what their cat did when they weren't around. Told through writer Caroline Paul's rich and warmly poignant narrative and illustrator Wendy MacNaughton's stunning and hilarious 4-color illustrations, Lost Cat is a book for animal lovers, pet owners, and anyone who has ever done anything desperate for love.

- - - - - -

The Cat Whisperer: Why Cats Do What They Do - and How to Get Them to Do What You Want

by Mieshelle Nagelschneider
Bantam Dell / Random House
Hardcover
To be published March 5, 2013

Who says you can’t train a cat? Just when you thought you had reached the end of your ball of twine, one of America’s most popular cat behaviorists comes to the rescue of perplexed cat owners everywhere, providing practical and effective strategies for solving every feline behavior problem imaginable—from litter box issues to scratching, spraying, biting, and beyond.

Cat Whisperer Mieshelle Nagelschneider has been helping people deal with these dilemmas for two decades, achieving a near-perfect success rate. Central to her approach is a keen understanding of the unique way cats see the world—their need for safety and security, their acute territoriality, and their insatiable desire to catch and kill prey. Her proven C.A.T. cat behavior modification plan is a commonsense course of action that can be specifically tailored to your cat in the context of its behavior problems and its particular household environment. Easy-to-implement solutions help transform even the most anxiety-riddled companions into confident, gregarious, and relaxed cats who live longer, happier, and healthier lives. Inside you’ll discover

• how to harness the power of “friendly pheromones” to improve your cat’s appetite, exploration, grooming, and play
• where, when, and how to create a litter box environment that will  provide ease of access and reduce anxiety for you and your cat
• how to end aggression in multiple-cat households and help your cats coexist peacefully

Is it impossible to train a cat? Not anymore! Your days of yelling and tearing your hair out in the wake of the latest household “cat-astrophe” are over. In this fascinating and indispensable book, the Cat Whisperer takes you inside the mind of a feline to explain why members of one of the world’s most inscrutable species act the way they do—and how you can convince them to change their behaviors for the sake of your peace of mind . . . and theirs.

On My Radar:

The Guerrilla Factory: The Making of Special Forces Officers, the Green Berets
by Tony Schwalm
Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

THE NAVY HAS THE SEALS, and the Army has the Green Berets. They are masters of asymmetrical warfare, trained to immerse themselves in hostile territory, sleeping near their enemies and building relationships with people who may want to kill them. Retired lieutenant colonel Tony Schwalm knows this group well, because he is one of them and he trained them. In The Guerrilla Factory, he provides an unbelievably gripping inside look into the grueling training that every Army officer must endure to become one of America’s elite Green Berets.

The Special Forces Qualification Course, also known as the Q Course, is infamous in U.S. Army lore. It transforms conventional soldiers, through blood, sweat, and tears, into unconventional guerrillas. As a young soldier, Schwalm earned his own Green Beret there. Later, he was the commander of Special Forces officer training at Fort Bragg, evaluating and redesigning the crucible in which leaders face brutal tests of physical strength, stamina, and wits. The Guerrilla Factory is the engaging and compelling story of Schwalm’s experience there as a student (from selection to graduation) and his time as the commander of training at Fort Bragg. It is a story of young soldiers striving to become the elite of the elite—of their trials, physical and emotional, and of their triumphs and losses.

In this dramatic account of the challenges faced by these young soldiers, Schwalm describes how men are forced to demonstrate ingenuity under intensely adverse conditions as they are pushed to the point of hallucination, walk until their feet are bloody, and fight off packs of angry dogs with nothing but a rubber rifle. Soldiers today face an entirely different kind of warfare and must be schooled to deal with unusual circumstances. They must have intricate knowledge of how to gather information in a dangerous, unstable atmosphere, and they need to be able to adapt quickly to differences in their surroundings. Schwalm’s book takes readers deep into this world, showing exactly how soldiers acquire the necessary skills.

Revealing details never before shared outside military circles, Schwalm provides a rare and rousing look inside the courageous hearts and souls of soldiers who put their lives on the line for duty, honor, and our country.

In My TBR Stack:

Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality
by Jacob Tomsky
Doubleday
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

In the tradition of Kitchen Confidential and Waiter Rant, a rollicking, eye-opening, fantastically indiscreet memoir of a life spent (and misspent) in the hotel industry.

Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and a singular lack of career direction, he became a valet parker for a large luxury hotel in New Orleans. Yet, rising fast through the ranks, he ended up working in “hospitality” for more than a decade, doing everything from supervising the housekeeping department to manning the front desk at an upscale Manhattan hotel. He’s checked you in, checked you out, separated your white panties from the white bed sheets, parked your car, tasted your room-service meals, cleaned your toilet, denied you a late checkout, given you a wake-up call, eaten M&Ms out of your minibar, laughed at your jokes, and taken your money. In Heads in Beds he pulls back the curtain to expose the crazy and compelling reality of a multi-billion-dollar industry we think we know.


Heads in Beds is a funny, authentic, and irreverent chronicle of the highs and lows of hotel life, told by a keenly observant insider who’s seen it all. Prepare to be amused, shocked, and amazed as he spills the unwritten code of the bellhops, the antics that go on in the valet parking garage, the housekeeping department’s dirty little secrets—not to mention the shameless activities of the guests, who are rarely on their best behavior. Prepare to be moved, too, by his candor about what it’s like to toil in a highly demanding service industry at the luxury level, where people expect to get what they pay for (and often a whole lot more). Employees are poorly paid and frequently abused by coworkers and guests alike, and maintaining a semblance of sanity is a daily challenge.

Along his journey Tomsky also reveals the secrets of the industry, offering easy ways to get what you need from your hotel without any hassle. This book (and a timely proffered twenty-dollar bill) will help you score late checkouts and upgrades, get free stuff galore, and make that pay-per-view charge magically disappear. Thanks to him you’ll know how to get the very best service from any business that makes its money from putting heads in beds. Or, at the very least, you will keep the bellmen from taking your luggage into the camera-free back office and bashing it against the wall repeatedly.

On My Radar:

Mad Science: Einstein's Fridge, Dewar's Flask, Mach's Speed, and 362 Other Inventions and Discoveries that Made Our World
by Randy Alfred (Editor)
Little, Brown & Company
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

On January 30, Rubik applied for a patent on his cube (1975). On the next day, 17 years earlier, the first U.S. Satellite passed through the Van Allen radiation belt. On March 17, the airplane "black box" made its maiden voyage (1953). And what about today? Every day of the year has a rich scientific and technological heritage just waiting to be uncovered, and Wired's top-flight science-trivia book MAD SCIENCE collects them chronologically, from New Year's Day to year's end, showing just how entertaining, wonderful, bizarre, and relevant science can be.

In 2010, Wired's popular "This Day in Tech" blog peaked with more than 700,000 page views each month, and one story in 2008 drew more than a million unique viewers. This book will collect the most intriguing anecdotes from the blog's run-one for each day of the year-and publish them in a package that will instantly appeal to hardcore techies and curious laypeople alike.

On My Radar:

Coaching Confidential: Inside the Fraternity of NFL Coaches
by Gary Myers
Crown Archetype / Random House
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

Coaching Confidential chronicles a year in the life of an NFL head coach. But not just one head coach. A composite portrait is drawn through interviews with at least 20 current and former head coaches (including Super Bowl winners such as Bill Parcells, Tom Coughlin, Jimmy Johnson, Tony Dungy, Sean Payton, Mike Shanahan, Dick Vermeil, Mike Holmgren, Brian Billick, and Joe Gibbs), taking us through the professional and personal challenges of the job. This book covers the draft, free agency, big trades, training camp, family crisis, player troubles, coaching relationships with members of the staff, coach-owner dynamics, rivalries, Xs and Os, the playoffs--all the way to the Super Bowl.

     Just getting to Sunday is almost a relief for NFL head coaches. It's during that three-hour window 16 days a year when they can simply concentrate on what they do best, which is trying to win football games. But the job is, of course, much more than that.

On My Radar:

Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time

by Jeff Speck
Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability.
     The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that’s easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at.
     Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exactly what needs to be done is the trick. In this essential new book, Speck reveals the invisible workings of the city, how simple decisions have cascading effects, and how we can all make the right choices for our communities.
     Bursting with sharp observations and real-world examples, giving key insight into what urban planners actually do and how places can and do change, Walkable City lays out a practical, necessary, and eminently achievable vision of how to make our normal American cities great again.

On My Radar:

Briefly Knocked Unconscious by a Low-Flying Duck: Stories from 2nd Story
by Megan Stielstra & Andrew Reilly (Editors)
Elephant Rock Books
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

Since early man carved bison and spears on cave walls, humankind has been telling stories. Today, short personal essays are a mainstay on the airways, the web, and in theaters and bars across the country. This anthology brings the vibrant oral tradition to the page through the work of 2^nd Story, a Chicago-based collective of story-makers and story-lovers working to build community through storytelling. We culled through ten years of archived performances to select the twenty-three essays presented in this collection. Each was adapted from the stage to the page.

Critics Are Diggin' It!

“This collection gathers some of the 2nd Story’s best-told, completely true tales. In print, these stories resemble personal essays, yet they have a far looser, more conversational flow, thanks to their oral roots. Most [essays] illuminate a critical juncture in the storyteller’s life, including “Counting Days,” in which Bobby Biedrzycki shares his path to sobriety. And then there are the accounts like “Push Kick Coast,” Ric Walker’s narrative of a night at the skating rink gone tragically wrong, which serves as a haunting reminder that many of our stories end far too soon.”— Patty Wetli, Booklist

This title has been recommended for young adult readers: "This collection will provide teens with an accessible entry point into creative nonfiction." —Patty Wetli, Booklist
"This collection is a gift, and it will linger, so please do take a look, because it just might change your life." —Ben Tanzer, Blogspot

Early Praise

“A whole world retold. Life-saving. Hopeful . . . They really know how to tell a story.”—Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina

"This collection is a gift, and it will linger, so please do take a look, because it just might change your life." —Ben Tanzer

“Funny, compelling, intimate, raw, and always surprising, Briefly Knocked Unconscious By A Low-Flying Duck is storytelling at its absolute best. From porn queens to tooth fairies, blood clots to sobriety, prepare to be awestruck, dumbstruck, thunderstruck, and perhaps struck by low-flying fowl. These are stories you will want to read out loud to your friends.” —Dinty W. Moore, author of The Mindful Writer

“The best part about the stories in this collection isn’t that they’re captivating (though they are). And it isn’t that they’ll bring a tear just as much as they’ll bring a smile (though they will). And it’s not that they’ll introduce you to some of Chicago’s most incredible new writing talent (though that’ll happen too). No, the best part about the stories in this collection is that they are true.” —Dan Sinker, author of The F***ing Epic Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel

“These fresh voice-driven narratives will make you laugh and ache. A wonderful collection with the heart of true storytellers.” —Heidi W. Durrow, author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

“When students see and hear the incredibly gifted storytellers of 2^nd Story do their thing and see the impact they have on an audience, they then understand the unassailable beauty of oral history and tradition and see themselves as part of that lineage. To capture the authority of the stories 2^nd Story tells is to chronicle our lives, to leave a legacy of our triumphs and struggles, our hopes and heartbreaks.” — Willa Taylor, Director of Education and Community Programs, Goodman Theatre

In My TBR Stack:

Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds
by Jim Sterba

Crown Publishing
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

This may be hard to believe but it is very likely that more people live in closer proximity to more wild animals, birds and trees in the eastern United States today than anywhere on the planet at any time in history.  For nature lovers, this should be wonderful news -- unless, perhaps, you are one of more than 4,000 drivers who will hit a deer today, your child’s soccer field is carpeted with goose droppings, coyotes are killing your pets, the neighbor’s cat has turned your bird feeder into a fast-food outlet, wild turkeys have eaten your newly-planted seed corn, beavers have flooded your driveway, or bears are looting your garbage cans.

For 400 years, explorers, traders, and settlers plundered North American wildlife and forests in an escalating rampage that culminated in the late 19th century’s “era of extermination.”  By 1900, populations of many wild animals and birds had been reduced to isolated remnants or threatened with extinction, and worry mounted that we were running out of trees. Then, in the 20th century, an incredible turnaround took place. Conservationists outlawed commercial hunting, created wildlife sanctuaries, transplanted isolated species to restored habitats and imposed regulations on hunters and trappers. Over decades, they slowly nursed many wild populations back to health.
           
But after the Second World War something happened that conservationists hadn’t foreseen: sprawl. People moved first into suburbs on urban edges, and then kept moving out across a landscape once occupied by family farms. By 2000, a majority of Americans lived in neither cities nor country but in that vast in-between. Much of sprawl has plenty of trees and its human residents offer up more and better amenities than many wild creatures can find in the wild: plenty of food, water, hiding places, and protection from predators with guns. The result is a mix of people and wildlife that should be an animal-lover’s dream-come-true but often turns into a sprawl-dweller’s nightmare.

Nature Wars offers an eye-opening look at how  Americans lost touch with the natural landscape, spending 90 percent of their time indoors where nature arrives via television, films and digital screens in which wild creatures often behave like people or cuddly pets.  All the while our well-meaning efforts to protect animals allowed wild populations to burgeon out of control, causing damage costing billions, degrading ecosystems, and touching off disputes that polarized communities, setting neighbor against neighbor. Deeply researched, eloquently written, counterintuitive and often humorous Nature Wars will be the definitive book on how we created this unintended mess.

In My TBR Stack:

Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings from the Road
by Willie Nelson
William Morrow / Harper Collins
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

In Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die, Willie Nelson muses about his greatest influences and the things that are most important to him, and celebrates the family, friends, and colleagues who have blessed his remarkable journey. Willie riffs on everything, from music to poker, Texas to Nashville, and more. He shares the outlaw wisdom he has acquired over the course of eight decades, along with favorite jokes and insights from family, bandmates, and close friends. Rare family pictures, beautiful artwork created by his son, Micah Nelson, and lyrics to classic songs punctuate these charming and poignant memories.

A road journal written in Willie Nelson's inimitable, homespun voice and a fitting tribute to America’s greatest traveling bard, Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die—introduced by another favorite son of Texas, Kinky Friedman—is a deeply personal look into the heart and soul of a unique man and one of the greatest artists of our time, a songwriter and performer whose legacy will endure for generations to come.

Book Description

 

You won't see no sad and teary eyes
When I get my wings, and it's my time to fly
Just call my friends and tell them
There's a party, come on by
So just roll me up and smoke me when I die

In Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die, Willie Nelson muses about his greatest influences and the things that are most important to him, and celebrates the family, friends, and colleagues who have blessed his remarkable journey. Willie riffs on everything: music, wives, Texas, politics, horses, religion, marijuana, children, the environment, poker, hogs, Nashville, karma, and more. He shares the outlaw wisdom he has acquired over eight decades, along with favorite jokes and insights from friends and others close to him. Rare family pictures, beautiful artwork created by his son Micah Nelson, and lyrics to classic songs punctuate these charming and poignant memories.  Willie Nelson has touched millions, and none more deeply than his family, friends, and bandmates, several of whom share, for the first time, intimate stories about the Red Headed Stranger.

From teaching a granddaughter to play the guitar to touring with the Highwaymen, from picking cotton while growing up in Texas to being home with the tribe on Maui, Willie takes you on the tour bus and, through candid observations and vivid recollections, gives you a front-row seat to his remarkable world. But beware: "You know you shouldn't be reading this BS, it could ruin you for all time to come," he says. "You could end up a social outcast like me, an outlaw!"

At once a road journal written in his inimitable, homespun voice and a fitting tribute to America's greatest traveling bard, Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die—introduced by Kinky Friedman, another favorite son of Texas—is a deeply personal look into the heart and soul of a unique man and one of the greatest artists of our time, a songwriter and performer whose legacy will endure for generations to come.

What I'm Reading Now (Net Galley Edition)

One for the Books
by Joe Queenan
Viking Press / Penguin Group

Hardcover

From the book description:

ONE FOR THE BOOKS by Joe Queenan trumps all books about books. For Queenan, no force was more powerful in enabling his escape from a bleak and dysfunctional childhood than reading. Books, for Queenan, were as he writes, "siege weapons," and that reference for their power has never left him (even if he does subject some of them to his merciless wit in his widely read back-page essays in The New York Times Book Review and elsewhere).

In ONE FOR THE BOOKS, Queenan brings his inimitable sensibility to the subject of books in an era in which they have become the equivalent of an endangered species. His focus is not just on books as physical objects, however, but on the entire culture of reading, and what books really mean in people's lives today. What does it indicate about a person who reads on the toilet? For someone who has no books displayed in their living room but only photographs of the 1967 Buffalo Bills championship, what does this mean? What can be inferred about the owners of a country house from the collection of books they have gathered there? Is the classic notion of a "lifelong reading plan" still in play today? Can an obsession with reading prove detrimental to one's well-being, or just the opposite? How useful are covers in selling books? Does trash literature, which Queenan openly admits to reading, have any real value?

Queenan's quest for the meaning of reading includes a consideration of some of his own marathon projects (spending a year reading only short books, spending a year reading books he has always suspected he would hate, devoting a year to books by authors who burned out early) and reclamation efforts, as when, after discovering that a local library is planning to throw away a number of books that have not been borrowed for years, he systematically begins checking them out to spare their lives.

ONE FOR THE BOOKS considers phenomena as writers who are struck by lighting (one-hit phenomena), early promise unfulfilled (what happened to Ralph Ellison?), how readers' opinions of writers change over the course of their lives, books that are simply like no other books (Sebald), and the disappearance of the writer as a public figure. "The confraternity of book lovers are united by a conviction that literature is an endless series of expeditions," writes Queenan, and ONE FOR THE BOOKS will take anyone who loves books and reading on an unforgettably funny and moving journey.

About the author: Joe Queenan has been a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, GQ, and Spy. He has written for Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Golf Digest, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and The New Republic, and contributes to The New York Times and The Guardian. He has appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman¸ Good Morning America, Today, and The Daily Show. His books include The New York Times bestseller and Notable book Closing Time: A Memoir.

In My TBR Stack:

Bitter Brew: The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch and America's Kings of Beer
by William Knoedelseder
Harper Business
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

“Bitter Brew deftly chronicles the contentious succession of kings in a uniquely American dynasty. You’ll never crack open a six again without thinking of this book.”
—John Sayles, Director of Eight Men Out and author of A Moment in the Sun

The creators of Budweiser and Michelob beers, the Anheuser-Busch company is one of the wealthiest, most colorful and enduring family dynasties in the history of American commerce. In Bitter Brew, critically acclaimed journalist William Knoedelseder tells the riveting, often scandalous saga of the rise and fall of the dysfunctional Busch family—an epic tale of prosperity, profligacy, hubris, and the dark consequences of success that spans three centuries, from the open salvos of the Civil War to the present day.

Book Description

 

The engrossing, often scandalous saga of one of the wealthiest, longest-lasting, and most colorful family dynasties in the history of American commerce—a cautionary tale about prosperity, profligacy, hubris, and the blessings and dark consequences of success.

From countless bar signs, stadium scoreboards, magazine ads, TV commercials, and roadside billboards, the name Budweiser has been burned into the American consciousness as the "King of Beers." Over a span of more than a century, the company behind it, Anheuser-Busch, has attained legendary status. A jewel of the American Industrial Revolution, in the hands of its founders—the sometimes reckless and always boisterous Busch family of St. Louis, Missouri—it grew into one of the most fearsome marketing machines in modern times. In Bitter Brew, critically acclaimed journalist Knoedelseder paints a fascinating portrait of immense wealth and power accompanied by a barrelful of scandal, heartbreak, tragedy, and untimely death.

This engrossing, vivid narrative captures the Busch saga through five generations. At the same time, it weaves a broader story of American progress and decline over the past 150 years. It's a cautionary tale of prosperity, hubris, and loss.

In My TBR Stack:

Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Family Man
by Brian McGrory
Crown Publishing / Random House

Hardcover

From the publisher website:

Award-winning journalist Brian McGrory goes head to beak in a battle royale with another male for a top-spot in his home, vying for dominance with the family’s pet rooster. 

   Brian McGrory's life changed drastically after the death of his beloved dog, Harry: he fell in love with Pam, Harry's veterinarian. Though Brian’s only responsibility used to be his adored Harry, Pam came with accessories that could not have been more exotic to the city-loving bachelor: a home in suburbia, two young daughters, two dogs, two cats, two rabbits, and a portly, snow white, red-crowned-and-wattled step-rooster named Buddy. While Buddy loves the women of the house, he takes Brian's presence as an affront, doing everything he can to drive out his rival. Initially resistant to elements of his new life and to the loud, aggressive rooster (who stares menacingly, pecks threateningly, and is constantly poised to attack), Brian eventually sees that Buddy shares the kind of extraordinary relationship with Pam and her two girls that he wants for himself. The rooster is what Brian needs to be – strong and content, devoted to what he has rather than what might be missing. As he learns how to live by living with animals, Buddy, Brian’s nemesis, becomes Buddy, Brian’s inspiration, in this inherently human story of love, acceptance, and change.

   In the tradition of bestsellers like Marley and Me, Dewey, and The Tender Bar comes a heartwarming and wise tale of finding love in life’s second chapter - and how it means all the more when you have to fight for it.

On My Radar:

Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries
by Jon Ronson
Riverhead Books / Penguin
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

The New York Times–bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, Jon Ronson writes about the dark, uncanny sides of humanity with clarity and humor. Lost at Sea reveals how deep our collective craziness lies, even in the most mundane circumstances.

Ronson investigates the strange things we’re willing to believe in, from lifelike robots programmed with our loved ones’ personalities to indigo children to hypersuccessful spiritual healers to the Insane Clown Posse’s juggalo fans. He looks at ordinary lives that take on extraordinary perspectives, for instance a pop singer whose life’s greatest passion is the coming alien invasion, and the scientist designated to greet those aliens when they arrive. Ronson throws himself into the stories—in a tour de force piece, he splits himself into multiple Ronsons (Happy, Paul, and Titch, among others) to get to the bottom of credit card companies’ predatory tactics and the murky, fabulously wealthy companies behind those tactics. Amateur nuclear physicists, assisted-suicide practitioners, the town of North Pole, Alaska’s Christmas-induced high school mass-murder plot: Ronson explores all these tales with a sense of higher purpose and universality, and suddenly, mid-read, they are stories not about the fringe of society or about people far removed from our own experience, but about all of us.

Incisive and hilarious, poignant and maddening, revealing and disturbing—Ronson writes about our modern world, the foibles of contemporary culture, and the chaos that lies at the edge of our daily lives.

On My Radar:

The Untold History of the United States
by Oliver Stone & Peter Kuznick

Gallery Books / Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

The companion to the Showtime documentary series, director Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick challenge the prevailing orthodoxies of traditional history books in this thoroughly researched and rigorously analyzed look at the dark side of American history.

“At last the world knows America as the savior of the world!”—Woodrow Wilson

The notion of American exceptionalism, dating back to John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon aboard the Arbella, still warps Americans’ understanding of their nation’s role in the world. Most are loathe to admit that the United States has any imperial pretensions. But history tells a different story as filmmaker Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick reveal in this riveting account of the rise and decline of the American empire.

Aided by the latest archival findings and recently declassified documents and building on the research of the world’s best scholars, Stone and Kuznick construct an often shocking but meticulously documented “People’s History of the American Empire” that offers startling context to the Bush-Cheney policies that put us at war in two Muslim countries and show us why the Obama administration has had such a difficult time cleaving a new path.

Stone and Kuznick will introduce readers to a pantheon of heroes and villains as they show not only how far the United States has drifted from its democratic traditions, but the powerful forces that have struggled to get us back on track.

The authors reveal that:
· The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were militarily unnecessary and morally indefensible.
· The United States, not the Soviet Union, bore the lion’s share of responsibility for perpetuating the Cold War.
· The U.S. love affair with right-wing dictators has gone as far as overthrowing elected leaders, arming and training murderous military officers, and forcing millions of people into poverty.
· U.S.-funded Islamist fundamentalists, who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, have blown back to threaten the interests of the U.S. and its allies.
· U.S. presidents, especially in wartime, have frequently trampled on the constitution and international law.
· The United States has brandished nuclear threats repeatedly and come terrifyingly close to nuclear war.

American leaders often believe they are unbound by history, yet Stone and Kuznick argue that we must face our troubling history honestly and forthrightly in order to set a new course for the twenty-first century. Their conclusions will challenge even experts, but there is one question only readers can answer: Is it too late for America to change?