Forthcoming Book:

The Best American Sports Writing 2013
by J.R. Moehringer & Glenn Stout (Editors)
Mariner Books / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Trade Paperback

Street Date 10/08/13

J. R. Moehringer, a Pulitzer Prize–winning feature writer and the author of The Tender Bar, has selected the best in sports writing from the past year. Chosen from more than 350 national, regional, and specialty publications and, increasingly, the top sports blogs, this collection showcases those journalists who are at the top of their game.

*J.R. Moehringer is a BookSpin favorite.  If you like memoirs, you must read his The Tender Bar.  I loved it. 

New in Paperback:

1775: A Good Year for Revolution
by Kevin Phillips
Penguin Books
Trade Paperback

A groundbreaking account of the American Revolution—from the bestselling author of American Dynasty.

In this major new work, iconoclastic historian and political chronicler Kevin Phillips upends the conventional reading of the American Revolution by debunking the myth that 1776 was the struggle’s watershed year. Focusing on the great battles and events of 1775, Phillips surveys the political climate, economic structures, and military preparations of the crucial year that was the harbinger of revolution, tackling the eighteenth century with the same skill and perception he has shown in analyzing contemporary politics and economics. The result is a dramatic account brimming with original insights about the country we eventually became.

An excerpt from 1775 can be found here.

Excerpt:

The Devil Inside the Beltway: The Shocking Expose of the U.S. Government's Surveillance and Overreach into Cybersecurity, Medicine and Small Business

by Michael J. Daugherty

Broadland Press

Trade Paperback

(Excerpt is below the book information, in bold.)

Michael J. Daugherty, author and CEO of LabMD in Atlanta, Georgia, uncovers and details an extraordinary government surveillance story that compromised national security and invaded the privacy of tens of millions of online users worldwide. Unbelievable from beginning to end, you'll be shocked at what is really going on behind every closed door in Washington. A riveting true political thriller, the pace is breathless, the arguments compelling, and the iron will of Daugherty transforms him from government prey to government whistleblower. The Devil Inside the Beltway is a compelling true story that begins when an aggressive security surveillance company, with retired General Wesley Clark on its advisory board, magically acquires the private health information of thousands of LabMD's patients. This company, Tiversa, campaigns for a "fee" from LabMD to "remedy" the problem. When Michael J. Daugherty refuses to pay, Tiversa follows up by handing the file over to the FTC. Daugherty reveals that the company was already working with Dartmouth, having received a significant portion of a $24,000,000 grant from Homeland Security, to surveil for files. The reason for the investigation was this: Peer to peer software companies have back doors built into their technology that allows for illicit and unapproved file sharing. When individual work stations are accessed, as in the case of LabMD, proprietary information can be taken. Tiversa, as part of their assignment, acquired over 14 million files, financial, medical and military data during their search. Daugherty's book documents a frighteningly systematic and dishonest investigation by one of the US Government's most important agencies. The consequences of their actions will have a chilling effect on Americans and their businesses for years.

Excerpt: 

The search told us that the only probable way someone could have come into the computer without authorization was through LimeWire. The breach occurred through a program that one employee had installed without our authorization or knowledge. A program that didn’t appear on the desktop. A program that stayed hidden from our view during inspections. How were we to know or anticipate such breaches? The questions were endless. 

Rebecca insisted she had no idea she could expose sensitive material through her computer. In fact, she said she had no idea anyone could access her computer externally; she believed she was only using the software to listen to music while she worked. Although she signed an employee handbook acknowledging that downloading software was against company policy, I did not believe she would have risked committing career suicide by being careless with patient data. 

We would one day learn that more than 450 million other computers in the world were also vulnerable. We now assumed that Rebecca’s computer was the gateway Boback used to get the file; it seemed obvious but we had no concrete proof. 

So what the hell just happened? We needed answers and we needed them now, so we turned back to Robert Boback to see how many more cards he would show in his quest to “help us out.” 

Rep. Yarmouth: Do you think that users that download P2P software applications are being tricked into sharing files that they would not ordinarily share?

Sydnor: Yes. They are inadvertently sharing files they do not intend to share. In the report we attempt to explain why, although the user does not intend that result, that result may have been intended by others. That is not a question we purport to be able to answer based on the publicly available data that we were able to review. But the short answer is yes, people are making catastrophic mistakes with these programs . . . That is also a very important part of the problem, and people who do not want to be distributors of pirated goods on these networks should be able to make that choice and have it be very easy, and right now it is simply not.¹ 

Thomas D. Sydnor, II, Testifying before the US House of Representatives, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to Representative John Yarmouth, R-KY.

Currently Reading:

I.T. Confidential
by C.D. Rahm
BP Press
Trade Paperback

What happens when heavily medicated, disorganized, and generally weird people are forced to work together? Welcome to the cubicle-infested world of Information Technology.

Author C.D. Rahm sheds light on such burning I.T. issues as:

• Identifying super smart people by looking at their shirts
• Getting promoted by avoiding work
• Why consultants should wear glasses
• Corporate travel death marches and stale bagels
• Job descriptions for goofballs
• The heartbreak of frozen turkeys and other non-monetary performance bonuses

But why should you care about I.T.? Because it’s behind everything from your email and e-banking, to your iPhone and iTunes. And it involves many other letters of the alphabet besides E and I, as well. Next to oxygen, it’s something you rarely see but without it life as we know it would come to an end. So, suck it up, buy this book, and find out what I.T. geeks have to go through just so industry can roll and you can see the latest grainy video of some college kid putting Cheerios up his nose.

How can you live without knowing that?

New Nonfiction Hardcovers This Week

Brave Genius: A Scientist, a Philosopher, and Their Daring Adventures from the French Resistance to the Nobel Prize
by Sean B. Carroll
Crown Publishing / Random House

Hardcover

The never-before-told account of the intersection of some of the most insightful minds of the 20th century, and a fascinating look at how war, resistance, and friendship can catalyze genius.

 In the spring of 1940, the aspiring but unknown writer Albert Camus and budding scientist Jacques Monod were quietly pursuing ordinary, separate lives in Paris. After the German invasion and occupation of France, each joined the Resistance to help liberate the country from the Nazis, ascended to prominent, dangerous roles, and were very lucky to survive. After the war and through twists of circumstance, they became friends, and through their passionate determination and rare talent they emerged as leading voices of modern literature and biology, each receiving the Nobel Prize in their respective fields.  

Drawing upon a wealth of previously unpublished and unknown material gathered over several years of research, Brave Genius tells the story of how each man endured the most terrible episode of the twentieth century and then blossomed into extraordinarily creative and engaged individuals. It is a story of the transformation of ordinary lives into exceptional lives by extraordinary events of courage in the face of overwhelming adversity, the flowering of creative genius, deep friendship, and of profound concern for and insight into the human condition.

New Nonfiction Paperbacks This Week:

Books I'd Like to Read:

The Diary of the D.C. Sniper
by Lee Boyd Malvo and Anthony Meoli
DIP Publishing House

Trade Paperback

The Beginning...In October 2002, a little over a year after the September 11th terrorist attacks, the entire East Coast was gripped in fear by a series of random shootings and murders that occurred in and around our nation's capital. 

The Panic...These were innocent people, doing everyday things, from pumping gas, to reading a book on a park bench, mowing their lawn or just walking down the street.Most were gunned down in broad daylight, seemingly without any rhyme or reason. The shooters left no evidence other than a loud bang and a single bullet casing in their wake. The only connection between all of the victims was that there was no connection at all.
The panic that began with the first murder on the evening of October 2nd had spiraled out of control by October 22nd. 10 people were dead and at least 3 others were critically injured. Buses lined the front of schools to protect children as they entered and exited. Families were held captive in their own homes. Law enforcement had no real leads or answers and could not offer anything to calm the public's growing concerns. Nobody was safe.

The Capture... Then 2 days later, in the early morning hours of October 24th, the D.C. Snipers were apprehended at a rest stop in Myersville, Maryland. They were caught as they slept in their dark blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice. 

The Other Story...Now, a decade later, Lee Boyd Malvo provides intimate personal details through a diary that was written 2 years after the shootings. The diary was brought out of the darkness through a relationship that was established by Anthony Meoli over 7 years of wanting to know the real story behind Lee's motivation for committing these crimes. 
At first this relationship was initiated by letters, it was later fostered through personal phone calls which were taken on a weekly basis. It was during one of these calls that Lee revealed that a diary existed and it would explain the details of his life that have never fully been known. It would be a combination of traumatic life events that would become the catalysts of change, eventually leading him to choose the wrong path from which there would be no return. 
What you will find inside Lee Boyd Malvo's fully authorized diary will shock you. 

This Machine Kills Secrets: Julian Assange, the Cypherpunks, and Their Fight to Empower Whistleblowers
by Andy Greenberg
Plume / Penguin

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Who Are The Cypherpunks?

This is the unauthorized telling of the revolutionary cryptography story behind the motion picture The Fifth Estate in theatres this October, and We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks, a documentary out now.

WikiLeaks brought to light a new form of whistleblowing, using powerful cryptographic code to hide leakers’ identities while they spill the private data of government agencies and corporations. But that technology has been evolving for decades in the hands of hackers and radical activists, from the libertarian enclaves of Northern California to Berlin to the Balkans. And the secret-killing machine continues to evolve beyond WikiLeaks, as a movement of hacktivists aims to obliterate the world’s institutional secrecy.

Forbes journalist Andy Greenberg has traced its shadowy history from the cryptography revolution of the 1970s to Wikileaks founding hacker Julian Assange, Anonymous, and beyond.

This is the story of the code and the characters—idealists, anarchists, extremists—who are transforming the next generation’s notion of what activism can be.

With unrivaled access to such major players as Julian Assange, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and WikiLeaks’ shadowy engineer known as the Architect, never before interviewed, Greenberg unveils the world of politically-motivated hackers—who they are and how they operate.

Forthcoming Book:

A book I'd like to read:

The Investigator: Fifty Years of Uncovering the Truth
by Terry Lenzner
Blue Rider Press / Penguin

Hardcover

Street Date:  10/8/2013

The Los Angeles Times once called investigative lawyer Terry Lenzner one of the most powerful and dreaded private investigators in the world. In his fifty-year career, Lenzner has worked with politicians, celebrities, governments, and corporations worldwide; with a steadfast commitment to the truth, he has uncovered facts that have shaped policy and influenced major legal battles.

In this captivating memoir, Lenzner speaks about his varied career and high-profile cases for the first time. At the Justice Department in 1964, he investigated the murder of three civil rights workers an infamous event that inspired the film Mississippi Burning. He led the national Legal Services Program for the poor, prosecuted organized crime in New York, defended peace activist Philip Berrigan, and represented CIA operative Sid Gottlieb. As a counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee, Lenzner investigated Nixon s dirty tricks and followed the money trail that led to the Watergate burglary and cover-up. He was the first person to deliver a congressional subpoena to a sitting U.S. president. He uncovered cost overruns of the Alaska oil pipeline, helped identify the Unabomber, investigated the circumstances of Princess Diana s death, and cleared Hugo Chavez of false corruption charges. Lenzner also worked with President Clinton s defense team during the impeachment hearings.

The Investigator is a riveting personal account: Lenzner astounds with anecdotes of scandal and intrigue, offers lessons in investigative methods, and provides an eye-opening look behind some of the most talked-about media stories and world events of our time.

Forthcoming Book:

A book I'd love to read:


Skyway: The True Story of Tampa Bay's Signature Bridge and the Man Who Brought It Down
by Bill DeYoung
University Press of Florida

Hardcover

Street Date:  10/8/13

On the morning of May 9, 1980, harbor pilot John Lerro was guiding a 600-foot freighter, the Summit Venture, into Tampa Bay. Directly in the ship’s path was the Sunshine Skyway Bridge?two ribbons of concrete, steel, and asphalt that crossed fifteen miles of open bay.  Suddenly, a violent weather cell reduced visibility to zero at the precise moment when Lerro attempted to direct the 20,000-ton vessel underneath the bridge. Unable to stop or see where he was going, Lerro drove the ship into a support pier; the main span splintered and collapsed 150 feet into the bay. Seven cars and a Greyhound bus fell over the broken edge and into the churning water below. Thirty-five people died.

Skyway tells the entire story of this horrific event, from the circumstances that led up to it through the years-long legal proceedings that followed. Through personal interviews and extensive research, Bill DeYoung pieces together the harrowing moments of the collision, including the first-person accounts of witnesses and survivors.

Among those whose lives were changed forever was Wesley MacIntire, the motorist whose truck ricocheted off the hull of the Summit Venture and sank. Although he was the lone survivor, MacIntire, like Lerro, was emotionally scarred and remained haunted by the tragedy for the rest of his life. Similarly, DeYoung details the downward spiral of Lerro’s life, his vilification in the days and weeks that followed the accident, and his obsession with the tragedy well into his painful last years.

DeYoung also offers a history of the ill-fated bridge, from its construction in 1954, through the addition of a second parallel span in 1971, to its eventual replacement. He discusses the sinking of a Coast Guard cutter a mere three months before Skyway collapsed and the Department of Transportation’s dire warnings about the bridge’s condition. The result is a vividly detailed portrait of the rise and fall of a Florida landmark.

Forthcoming Book:

A book I'd like to read:

Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop
by Bob Stanley
Faber and Faber
Trade Paperback

Street date:  10/3/13

For fifty years, pop music was created and consumed like this: you heard a record on the radio, or read about it in a music paper; you bought it on Saturday; you lent it to, or taped it for, a friend; and they reciprocated with another record. It was a secret network. It was how you made friends, how you met girls, and how you soundtracked your world.

  

Bob Stanley's Yeah Yeah Yeah tells the chronological story of the modern pop era, from its beginnings in the fifties with the dawn of the charts, vinyl, and the music press, to pop's digital switchover in the year 2000, from 'Rock Around the Clock' to 'Crazy In Love'. There was constant change, constant development, a constant craving for newness. It was more than just music - it could be your whole life.

Yeah Yeah Yeah covers the birth of rock, soul, punk, disco, hip hop, indie, house and techno. It also includes the rise and fall of the home stereo, Top Of The Pops, Smash Hits, and "this week's highest new entry". Yeah Yeah Yeah is the first book to look back at the entire era: what we gained, what we lost, and the foundations we laid for future generations.

There have been many books on pop but none have attempted to bring the whole story to life, from Billy Fury and Roxy Music to TLC and Britney via Led Zeppelin and Donna Summer. Audacious and addictive, Yeah Yeah Yeah is essential reading for all music lovers. It will remind you why you fell in love with pop music in the first place.

New Nonfiction Hardcovers This Week

Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir
by Linda Ronstadt
Simon & Schuster

Hardcover

Tracing the timeline of her remarkable life, Linda Ronstadt, whose forty-five year career has encompassed a wide array of musical styles, weaves together a captivating story of her origins in Tucson, Arizona, and her rise to stardom in the Southern California music scene of the 1960s and ’70s.

Linda Ronstadt was born into a musical family, and her childhood was filled with everything from Gilbert and Sullivan to Mexican folk music to jazz and opera. Her artistic curiosity blossomed early, and she and her siblings began performing their own music for anyone who would listen. Now, in this beautifully crafted memoir, Ronstadt tells the story of her wide-ranging and utterly unique musical journey. 

Ronstadt arrived in Los Angeles just as the folkrock movement was beginning to bloom, setting the stage for the development of country-rock. As part of the coterie of like-minded artists who played at the famed Troubadour club in West Hollywood, she helped define the musical style that dominated American music in the 1970s. One of her early backup bands went on to become the Eagles, and Linda went on to become the most successful female artist of the decade. 

In Simple Dreams, Ronstadt reveals the eclectic and fascinating journey that led to her long-lasting success, including stories behind many of her beloved songs. And she describes it all in a voice as beautiful as the one that sang “Heart Like a Wheel”—longing, graceful, and authentic. 

The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski
by Samantha Geimer
Atria Books / Simon & Schuster

Hardcover

In this searing and surprising memoir, Samantha Geimer, “the girl” at the center of the infamous Roman Polanski sexual assault case, breaks a virtual thirty-five-year silence to tell her story and reflect on the events of that day and their lifelong repercussions.

March 1977, Southern California. Roman Polanski drives a rented Mercedes along Mulholland Drive to Jack Nicholson’s house. Sitting next to him is an aspiring actress, Samantha Geimer, recently arrived from York, Pennsylvania. She is thirteen years old. 

The undisputed facts of what happened in the following hours appear in the court record: Polanski spent hours taking pictures of Samantha—on a deck overlooking the Hollywood Hills, on a kitchen counter, topless in a Jacuzzi. Wine and Quaaludes were consumed, balance and innocence were lost, and a young girl’s life was altered forever—eternally cast as a background player in her own story.

For months on end, the Polanski case dominated the media in the United States and abroad. But even with the extensive coverage, much about that day—and the girl at the center of it all—remains a mystery. Just about everyone had an opinion about the renowned director and the girl he was accused of drugging and raping. Who was the predator? Who was the prey? Was the girl an innocent victim or a cunning Lolita artfully directed by her ambitious stage mother? How could the criminal justice system have failed all the parties concerned in such a spectacular fashion? Once Polanski fled the country, what became of Samantha, the young girl forever associated with one of Hollywood’s most notorious episodes? Samantha, as much as Polanski, has been a fugitive since the events of that night more than thirty years ago.

Taking us far beyond the headlines, The Girl reveals a thirteen-year-old who was simultaneously wise beyond her years and yet terribly vulnerable. By telling her story in full for the first time, Samantha reclaims her identity, and indelibly proves that it is possible to move forward from victim to survivor, from confusion to certainty, from shame to strength.

Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival From the Bottom of the Pile
by Nate Jackson
Harper Books
Hardcover

Nate Jackson’s Slow Getting Up is an unvarnished and uncensored memoir of everyday life in the most popular sports league in America—and the most damaging to its players—the National Football League. 

After playing college ball at a tiny Division III school, Jackson, a receiver, signed as a free agent with the San Francisco 49ers, before moving to the Denver Broncos. For six seasons in the NFL as a Bronco, he alternated between the practice squad and the active roster, eventually winning a starting spot—a short, tenuous career emblematic of the average pro player. 

Drawing from his own experience, Jackson tells the little known story of the hundreds of everyday, "expendable" players whose lives are far different from their superstar colleagues. 

From scouting combines to training camps, off-season parties to game-day routines, debilitating physical injuries—including degenerative brain conditions—to poor pensions and financial distress, he offers a funny, and shocking look at life in the NFL, and the young men who risk their health and even their lives to play the game. 

This is not a celebrity tell-all of professional sports. Slow Getting Up is a survivor's real-time account of playing six seasons (twice as long as the average NFL career) for the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos. 

As an unsigned free agent who rose through the practice squad to the starting lineup, Nate Jackson is the talented embodiment of the everyday freak athlete in professional football, one of thousands whose names go unmentioned in the daily press. Through his story recounted here—from scouting combines to preseason cuts to byzantine film studies to glorious touchdown catches—even knowledgeable football fans will glean a new, starkly humanized understanding of the daily rigors and unceasing violence of quotidian life in the NFL. 

Fast-paced, lyrical, and hilariously unvarnished, Slow Getting Up is an unforgettable look at the real lives of America's best twenty-year-old athletes putting their bodies and minds through hell.

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing
by Anya Von Bremzen
Crown Publishing / Random House

Hardcover

With startling beauty and sardonic wit, Anya von Bremzen tells an intimate yet epic story of life in that vanished empire known as the USSR—a place where every edible morsel was packed with emotional and political meaning.  

     Born in 1963, in an era of bread shortages, Anya grew up in a communal Moscow apartment where eighteen families shared one kitchen. She sang odes to Lenin, black-marketeered Juicy Fruit gum at school, watched her father brew moonshine, and, like most Soviet citizens, longed for a taste of the mythical West. It was a life by turns absurd, drab, naively joyous, melancholy—and ultimately intolerable to her anti-Soviet mother, Larisa. When Anya was ten, she and Larisa fled the political repression of Brezhnev-era Russia, arriving in Philadelphia with no winter coats and no right of return.  

     Now Anya occupies two parallel food universes: one where she writes about four-star restaurants, the other where a taste of humble kolbasa transports her back to her scarlet-blazed socialist past. To bring that past to life, in its full flavor, both bitter and sweet, Anya and Larisa, embark on a journey unlike any other: they decide to eat and cook their way through every decade of the Soviet experience—turning Larisa’s kitchen into a "time machine and an incubator of memories.” Together, mother and daughter re-create meals both modest and sumptuous, featuring a decadent fish pie from the pages of Chekhov, chanakhi(Stalin’s favorite Georgian stew), blini, and more.  

     Through these meals, Anya tells the gripping story of three Soviet generations— masterfully capturing the strange mix of idealism, cynicism, longing, and terror that defined Soviet life. We meet her grandfather Naum, a glamorous intelligence chief under Stalin, and her grandmother Liza, who made a perilous odyssey to icy, blockaded Leningrad to find Naum during World War II. We meet Anya’s hard-drinking, sarcastic father, Sergei, who cruelly abandons his family shortly after Anya is born; and we are captivated by Larisa, the romantic dreamer who grew up dreading the black public loudspeakers trumpeting the glories of the Five-Year Plan. Their stories unfold against the vast panorama of Soviet history: Lenin’s bloody grain requisitioning, World War II hunger and survival, Stalin’s table manners, Khrushchev’s kitchen debates, Gorbachev’s disastrous anti-alcohol policies. And, ultimately, the collapse of the USSR. And all of it is bound together by Anya’s passionate nostalgia, sly humor, and piercing observations. 

     Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking is that rare book that stirs our souls and our senses. 

New Nonfiction Paperbacks This Week

Thank the Liberals* For Saving America (and why you should)
by Alan Colmes
Hay House, Inc.

Trade Paperback

In Thank the Liberals, political commentator and Fox News radio host Alan Colmes explains how people who fight for liberal ideals help our country move forward. With his trademark humor and wit, Colmes walks readers through the founding of our nation and shows how America was based on a liberal idea. Our very founders were progressives, and it's progressives who have led America to be the country it is today. Through legislation, constitutional amendments, Supreme Court decisions, and the actions of grassroots Americans, we see that it is liberal efforts that are responsible for programs intrinsic to our American DNA-programs like Social Security, Medicare, assistance for the needy, and the government safety nets that have saved us during the recent economic downturn. 

Colmes's goal is to show not only where we are today, but also where we as a nation are going and how it is liberals who will get us there. The divide between conservative and progressive aims has gotten ever more stark, and it seems that many conservatives are trying to take us backward, revoking or rolling back hard-won rights and impeding progress, which at best keeps us stranded in the status quo. This continual push to the right is something liberals must fight, and fight they do. On everything from preserving the separation of church and state, to climate change, regulating immigration, caring for the poor, and making peace, not war, Colmes shows how liberals are leading the way. 

Thank the Liberals will open readers' eyes to some of the battles that will help define our nation as we move forward. Colmes boldly shows that as America progresses, it will become more liberal-just as it has done throughout history-and that this will enable us to continue to stand out as a beacon of freedom and democracy for the rest of the world.

Forthcoming Books

On My Radar:

Fringe Florida: Travels Among Mud Boggers, Furries, Ufologists, Nudists, and Other Lovers of Unconventional Lifestyles
by Lynn Waddell
University Press of Florida

Hardcover

Street date:  9/17/2013

Most people visit the Sunshine State for its theme parks and beaches, but there is another side to Florida, an underbelly few tourists ever see, a periphery most residents know about but--out of decorum or discomfort--prefer not to discuss. 

In "Fringe Florida," Lynn Waddell explores the frequently exotic, often sensational, and sometimes illicit worlds of the oddest state in the nation. Waddell takes the reader on a colorful journey to meet the most unconventional of Floridians in unbelievable and spectacular places. 

At Fetish Con, she befriends furries and pony girls. She travels to Cassadaga, the oldest active Spiritualist community in the South, where trained mediums converse with the dead, and to the Holy Land Experience theme park in Orlando, where one can eat a hot dog while watching a reenactment of the Crucifixion. She interviews the founder of the Leather & Lace Motorcycle Club, a Daytona Beach-area grandmother who hosts the club's annual gathering at her subdivision home where scores of lady bikers camp out on her lawn. At an Animal Amnesty Day outside Busch Gardens, Waddell meets exotic reptile owners who give up their beloved-but no-longer-manageable pets and others who vie to take home the cast-offs.If you've ever wanted to parade around on a pimped-out swamp buggy amidst a couple thousand beer-swigging mud boggers or fall asleep with a python hissing in your ear, been tempted to bring a Capuchin monkey in a stroller to a Little League game, or contemplated sitting on the beach waiting to be picked up by a UFO but couldn t quite bring yourself to such extremes, "Fringe Florida" is for you.

Having lived in Florida for a couple of years, I would love to read this book.  I'd probably reconnect with some old friends.

New Nonfiction Hardcover Titles This Week

Books I'd Like to Read

A Colossal Wreck: A Road Trip Through Political Scandal, Corruption, and American Culture
by Alexander Cockburn

Verso Books
Hardcover

Alexander Cockburn was without question one of the most influential journalists of his generation, whose writing stems from the best tradition of Mark Twain, H.L. Menchken and Tom Paine. Colossal Wreck, his final work, finished shortly before his death in July 2012, exemplifies the prodigious literary brio that made Cockburn's name.  

Whether ruthlessly exposing Beltway hypocrisy, pricking the pomposity of those in power, or tirelessly defending the rights of the oppressed, Cockburn never pulled his punches and always landed a blow where it mattered. In this panoramic work, covering nearly two decades of American culture and politics, he explores subjects as varied as the sex life of Bill Clinton and the best way to cook wild turkey. He stands up for the rights of prisoners on death row and exposes the chicanery of the media and the duplicity of the political elite. As he pursues a serpentine path through the nation, he charts the fortunes of friends, famous relatives, and sworn enemies alike to hilarious effect.  

This is a thrilling trip through the reefs and shoals of politics and everyday life. Combining a passion for the places, the food and the people he encountered on dozens of cross-country journeys, Cockburn reports back over seventeen years of tumultuous change among what he affectionately called the “thousand landscapes” of the United States.

Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.
Ballantine Books / Random House

Hardcover

When Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the nineteenth century with a twenty-first-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades. Though she owned palatial homes in California, New York, and Connecticut, why had she lived for twenty years in a simple hospital room, despite being in excellent health? Why were her valuables being sold off? Was she in control of her fortune, or controlled by those managing her money? Dedman has collaborated with Huguette Clark’s cousin, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., one of the few relatives to have frequent conversations with her. Dedman and Newell tell a fairy tale in reverse: the bright, talented daughter, born into a family of extreme wealth and privilege, who secrets herself away from the outside world. Huguette was the daughter of self-made copper industrialist W. A. Clark, nearly as rich as Rockefeller in his day, a controversial senator, railroad builder, and founder of Las Vegas. She grew up in the largest house in New York City, a remarkable dwelling with 121 rooms for a family of four. She owned paintings by Degas and Renoir, a world-renowned Stradivarius violin, a vast collection of antique dolls. But wanting more than treasures, she devoted her wealth to buying gifts for friends and strangers alike, to quietly pursuing her own work as an artist, and to guarding the privacy she valued above all else. The Clark family story spans nearly all of American history in three generations, from a log cabin in Pennsylvania to mining camps in the Montana gold rush, from backdoor politics in Washington to a distress call from an elegant Fifth Avenue apartment. The same Huguette who was touched by the terror attacks of 9/11 held a ticket nine decades earlier for a first-class stateroom on the second voyage of theTitanic. Empty Mansions reveals a complex portrait of the mysterious Huguette and her intimate circle. We meet her extravagant father, her publicity-shy mother, her star-crossed sister, her French boyfriend, her nurse who received more than $30 million in gifts, and the relatives fighting to inherit Huguette’s copper fortune. Richly illustrated with more than seventy photographs, Empty Mansions is an enthralling story of an eccentric of the highest order, a last jewel of the Gilded Age who lived life on her own terms.

Word of Mouse: 101+ Trends in How We Buy, Sell, Live, Learn, Work, and Play
by Marc Ostrofsky

Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

Gain a competitive edge— get the most from today’s technology! 

Technology changes so fast that it’s easy to be intimidated by it. Our personal choices and business decisions are increasingly driven by digital “word of mouse”— and it’s essential to our success and satisfaction to take control of the gadgets, apps, and trends that are shaping our world.

Bestselling author and trend watcher Marc Ostrofsky is here to help. In this groundbreaking new book, Ostrofsky reveals the ways that new technologies implant themselves in our daily lives and how we can easily take advantage of them to live, learn, buy, sell, work, play, communicate, and socialize better.

Covering diverse topics from how the Internet affects our health to how we can become bargain-hunting pros, Ostrofsky’s book could come at no better time. The Internet’s presence is only growing, and new technologies are sprouting up every day. We must learn how to cultivate these new tools so that we can remain competitive and live happier, healthier lives.

Word of Mouse gives you the tools you need to conquer information overload—and puts you in the driver’s seat of the world’s most potent technologies. 

New Nonfiction Paperbacks This Week

Books I'd Like to Read


A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

by John Allen Paulos

Basic Books
Trade Paperback

In this lively volume, mathematician John Allen Paulos employs his singular wit to guide us through an unlikely mathematical jungle—the pages of the daily newspaper. From the Senate and sex to celebrities and cults, Paulos takes stories that may not seem to involve math at all and demonstrates how mathematical naïveté can put readers at a distinct disadvantage. Whether he’s using chaos theory to puncture economic and environmental predictions, applying logic to clarify the hazards of spin doctoring and news compression, or employing arithmetic and common sense to give us a novel perspective on greed and relationships, Paulos never fails to entertain and enlighten.

A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming: Mastering the Art of Oneironautics

by Dylan Tuccillo, Jared Zeizel, and Thomas Peisel

Workman Publishing

Trade Paperback

Imagine being able to fly. Walk through walls. Shape-shift. Breathe underwater. Conjure loved ones—or total strangers—out of thin air. Imagine experiencing your nighttime dreams with the same awareness you possess right now—fully functioning memory, imagination, and self-awareness. Imagine being able to use this power to be more creative, solve problems, and discover a deep sense of well-being.

This is lucid dreaming—the ability to know you are dreaming while you are in a dream, and then consciously explore and change the elements of the dream. A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming, with its evocative retro illustrations, shows exactly how to do it. Written by three avid, experienced lucid dreamers, this manual for the dream world takes the reader from step one—learning how to reconnect with his or her dreams— through the myriad possibilities of what can happen once the dreamer is lucid and an accomplished oneironaut (a word that comes from the Greek oneira, meaning dreams, and nautis, meaning sailor).

Readers will learn about the powerful REM sleep stage—a window into lucid dreams. Improve dream recall by keeping a journal. The importance of reality checks, such as “The Finger”—during the day, try to pass your finger through your palm; then, when you actually do it successfully, you’ll know that you’re dreaming. And once you become lucid, how to make the most of it. Every time you dream, you are washing up on the shores of your own inner landscape. Learn to explore a strange and thrilling world with A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming.

Steve Jobs

by Walter Isaacson

Simon & Schuster

Trade Paperback

The phenomenal bestseller from the author of the acclaimed biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. 

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson set down the riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. Isaacson’s portrait touched hundreds of thousands of readers. 

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs still stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. 

Although Jobs cooperated with the author, he asked for no control over what was written. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. He himself spoke candidly about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues offer an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped Jobs’s approach to business, the innovative products that resulted, and his legacy.

Hollywood Said No!  Orphaned Film Scripts, Bastard Scenes, and Abandoned Darlings from the Creators of Mr. Show

by Bob Odenkirk and David Cross

Grand Central Publishing

Trade Paperback

Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, creators of HBO's classic sketch comedy show Mr. Show, present to you this collection of never-before-seen scripts and ideas that Hollywood couldn't find the gumption to green-light. Simply put...

HOLLYWOOD SAID NO!

Since Mr. Show closed up shop, Bob and David have kept busy with many projects--acting in fun, successful, movies and TV shows, directing things, and complaining about stuff that didn't turn out well to anyone who would listen, and even alone, in silence, inside their own heads.

HOLLYWOOD SAID NO! reveals the full-length, never-before-seen scripts for Bob and David Make a Movie (fleshed out with brand-new storyboards by acclaimed artist Mike Mitchell) and Hooray For America!: a satirical power-house indictment of all that you hold dear. This tome also includes a bonus section of orphaned sketch ideas from the Mr. Show days and beyond, suitable for performance by church groups that aren't all koo-koo about religion. What you are looking at online, and are about to buy, is chock-full of comic twists, turns, and maybe a few hard truths. We said "maybe," but what we mean was "probably not."

Now, for the first time, take a peek at the scripts that didn't get the go-ahead and ponder a world we can only dream about...and beyond! 

10 Things You Might Not Know About Nearly Everything

by Mark Jacob and Stephan Benzkofer

Agate Publishing / Agate Midway / Publishers Group West

Trade Paperback

For years, the Chicago Tribune's popular weekly feature column "10 Things You Might Not Know” has been informing and entertaining readers on a diverse range of fascinating subjects. 10 Things You Might Not Know About Nearly Everything is a comprehensive collection of these columns, presented in a fun and easy-to-read format. This book gives readers well-researched, obscure facts on universal topics—including arts and culture, food and leisure, history, politics, science and technology, sports, religion, lifestyle, language, and more. 

10 Things You Might Not Know About Nearly Everything contains a plethora of surprising trivia and pertinent tidbits on so many different areas that will appeal to everyone from history buffs to sports fans to foodies, with an especially riveting look into Chicago-area history and facts. For example, did you know that the adult human body contains about half a pound of salt? Or that the U.S. had no national debt under President Andrew Jackson for a brief period of time around January 1835? 

From amusing, lighthearted topics like beards and holidays to more serious subjects like taxes and juries, this collection of well-researched and universal trivia will make readers laugh and their jaws drop. 10 Things You Might Not Know About Nearly Everything will leave readers brighter, wittier, and curious to learn more about myriad worlds they never encountered before and will never forget.