Currently Reading:

Churchill and the King: The Wartime Alliance of Winston Churchill and George VI
by Kenneth Weisbrode
Viking
Hardcover

I am on page 161 of this fantastic book....


Kenneth Weisbrode has written an insightful book about the important friendship between two very different people.  Two men thrown together by world events who had to learn to work together with their contrasting personalities.

King George VI, a low-key and his famous stutter against the loud, overbearing prime minister could have been disastrous for England as they stood alone at the beginning of World War II.   They started out at uneasy teammates and end up as unlikely friends.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys world history or character studies.  I have new respect for King George VI, beyond what I've learned in the movies.  I have long been a Churchill fan, and Weisbrode has succeeded in showing me an interesting side to the great man.


An excerpt from Churchill and the King can be found here.

New Nonfiction:

The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World
by Howard Gardner and Katie Davis
Yale University Press
Hardcover

Excerpt:

A Conversation

On a sunny though chilly day in March 2012, the two authors, Howard Gardner and Katie Davis, initiated a lengthy conversation with Katie's sister Molly. Ten years earlier, Katie, then in her early twenties, had begun to study with Howard, then in his late fifties. Since then they have collaborated on numerous research and writing projects, including this book. At the time of the conversation, held in Howard's office at Harvard, Molly, aged sixteen, was a junior at an independent school in New England.

Why did Howard and Katie hold and record this conversation? Since 2006, we and our fellow researchers have been examining the role technology plays in the lives of young people, often dubbed "digital natives" because they have grown up immersed in the hardware and software of the day. As researchers, we have used a variety of empirical methods to ferret out what might be the special -- indeed, defining -- quality of today's young people. But we came to realize that if we were to make statements, or draw conclusions, about what is special about digital youth today, we required key points of comparison.

Being opportunistic as well as empirical, we realized that our very own family configurations provided one comparative lens -- as well as a literary device -- through which to observe and chronicle the changes across the generations. Howard -- on any definition of that slippery term, a "digital immigrant" --­ grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania in the 1950s, at a time when one could still count the number of computers in the world. Born in Canada and raised in Bermuda, Katie grew up in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During her early childhood, her Bermuda home had just one television station (CBS), which eventually expanded to three (CBS, ABC, NBC). In the mid-1990s, her parents finally installed cable at their home. Katie's access to computers was limited to once-weekly classes in the computer lab at school. In sharp contrast, Molly, who has lived in Bermuda and the United States, cannot remember a time without desktops, laptops, mobile phones, or the Internet. Wedded to her smartphone, this prototypical digital native spent her adolescence deeply immersed in Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking communities. And so our conversation across the generations -- and subsequent communications among the three of us -- catalyzed comparisons of three dramatically different relations to the technologies of the time.

Three Generations, Three Topics

Although our conversation ranged widely, three topics emerged as dominant and also permeate this book: our sense of personal identity, our intimate relationships to other persons, and how we exercise our creative and imaginative powers (hereafter, the three Is). To be sure, the nature of our species has not changed fundamentally over time. And yet we maintain that, courtesy of digital technologies, Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination have each been reconfigured significantly in recent decades. Signs of these changes can be discerned in our conversation.

As the dominant (though slightly waning) online community among both Molly's and Katie's peer groups, Facebook was a recurrent topic of discussion. Though they are Facebook friends, the sisters employ the popular social networking site in different ways. Having joined as an adult in her late twenties, Katie uses Facebook intermittently to stay connected to friends and family living across Canada, the United States, and Bermuda. For Molly, Facebook represents a far more integral part of her daily experience. Since she joined at the age of twelve, Facebook has represented a vital social context throughout her formative adolescent years.

In describing her use of and experiences on Facebook, Molly touched on a practice among some of her peers that made an immediate and striking impression on both Howard and Katie. As is the case at just about every high school, one group of students at Molly's school are considered the popular kids. The girls are attractive and the boys play varsity sports like lacrosse and soccer. Most of the varsity boys are seniors, but a few stand-out athletes are freshmen. A while back, Molly noticed that some of the senior girls who were dating senior boys started to show up on her Facebook newsfeed as being "married." Only they were married, not to their actual boyfriends, but to the freshmen boys who played on the same sports team (!).

"The popular senior girls pick out a freshman guy who is cute and popular and probably going to be really attractive when he's older. They'll kind of adopt him, and then take pictures with him, write on his wall, and flirt with him in a joking sort of way. The boys are kind of like their puppets."

Howard was surprised by this practice, noting that we typically think of girls in high school and college as being on the lookout for older men. "When I went to school, the junior and senior girls were all trying to go out with college guys."

Molly patiently explained that it's not about a real desire to date freshmen boys -- after all, the girls are already dating senior boys. It's more of an initiation and reinforcement of social status. The freshmen boys are accepted into the social life of the sports team by way of the girls, who themselves use their "Facebook marriages" as further confirmation of their connection to the senior boys.

Why open with this anecdote? Because, in addition to repre­senting an intriguing example of youth culture in a digital era, it touches on all three of the central themes in this book. With respect to personal identity, the Facebook marriage between freshman boy and senior girl is an act of public performance that forms part of a teen's carefully crafted online persona. Given its orientation toward an online audience, this exter­nal persona may have little connection to the teen's internal sense of self, with its associated values, beliefs, feelings, and aspirations. Yet paradoxically, if inadvertently, this electronic betrothal may contribute to an emerging sense of identity.

Issues of intimacy arise when we consider the new forms of social connection and interaction that have emerged with the rise of digital media. (It's hard to come up with an analog version of the Facebook marriage.) Though we identified positive aspects to these online connections in our research, the depth and authenticity of the relationships they support are sometimes questionable. Molly observed: "You never see [the senior girls and freshmen boys] hanging out as if they're good friends, like I can't see them going to each other with a problem or anything like that. But they're really good at putting on this kind of persona on Facebook of 'Everything is great and we're all friends and nothing is wrong here.'" Consider, too, that Molly, who rarely comes in contact with these teens in person, is nevertheless connected to them on Facebook.

Our final theme is imagination, and there's no doubt that the Facebook marriage represents an imaginative expression, if not leap. In our conversation Howard observed: "It's a bit like in mythology, the older queen picking the younger lad who has to perform for her." Of particular note is the fact that this specific act of expression is dependent on -- indeed, probably inspired by -- the relationship status options available on Facebook ("married," "single," "in a relationship," "it's complicated"). In this way, the Facebook marriage illustrates how digital media give rise to new forms of imaginative expression, just as the format of this application shapes and restricts these expressions in distinct and distinctive ways.

The above is an excerpt from the book The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World by Howard Gardner and Katie Davis. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

© 2013 Howard Gardner and Katie Davis, Authors of The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World

Author Bio
Howard Gardner, co-author of The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World, is Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and senior director of Harvard Project Zero, an educational research group. He is renowned as father of the theory of multiple intelligences. He lives in Cambridge, MA. For more information on Howard please visit htttp://howardgardner.com.

Katie Davis, co-author of The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World, is assistant professor, University of Washington Information School, where she studies the role of digital media technologies in adolescents' lives. She is a former member of the Project Zero team. She lives in Seattle, WA. For more information on Katie please visit http://katiedavisresearch.com, and follow her on Twitter.

For more information about the book, please visit http://www.theappgenerationbook.com

New This Week:

Johnny Cash: The Life
by Robert Hilburn
Little, Brown and Company

Hardcover

In Johnny Cash: The Life, Robert Hilburn conveys the unvarnished truth about a musical icon whose colorful career stretched from his days at Sun Records with Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis to the remarkable creative last hurrah, at age sixty-nine, that resulted in the brave, moving "Hurt" video. As music critic for the Los Angeles Times, Hilburn knew Cash well throughout his life: he was the only music journalist at the legendary Folsom Prison concert in 1968, and he interviewed Cash and his wife June Carter for the final time just months before their deaths in 2003. Hilburn's rich reporting shows the remarkable highs and deep lows that followed and haunted Cash in equal measure. A man of great faith and humbling addiction, Cash aimed for more than another hit on the jukebox, he wanted to use his music to life people's spirits and help promote what he felt was the best of the American spirit. 

Drawing upon his personal experience with Cash and a trove of never-before-seen material from the singer's inner circle, Hilburn creates an utterly compelling, deeply human portrait of one of the most iconic figures in modern popular culture - not only a towering figure in country music, but also a seminal influence in rock, whose personal life was far more troubled, and whose musical and lyrical artistry much more profound, than even his most devoted fans ever realized.

My Life with Deth: Discovering Meaning in a Life of Rock & Roll
by David Ellefson with Joel McIver
Howard Books / Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

In My Life with Deth, cofounder and bassist of Megadeth David Ellefson reveals the behind-the-scene details of life in one of the world's most popular heavy metal bands. If you're looking for revelations, they're here, including the drug habits that brought the band members to their knees. You'll learn of David's unsuccessful attempts at rehab and the period when he was strung out on methadone, cocaine, and heroin -- all at the same time.

But My Life with Deth is far more than just another memoir of debauchery. Ellefson also shares the story of his faith journey, which began when he decided his only choice for survival was to get free from his addiction. In his recovery, he returned to his childhood roots in the Lutheran church and embraced his Christianity that continues to inform his life and work today.

In the pages of this book, you'll find insightful comments from some of the biggest names in heavy metal, along with life lessons for every reader. Whether religious or not, you'll be enthralled, informed, and inspired by this tell-all book on discovering meaning in a life of rock and roll.

Jimi Hendrix - Starting at Zero: His Own Story
by Jimi Hendrix
Bloomsbury USA
Hardcover

It didn’t take long after Jimi Hendrix’s death for the artist to become a myth of American music. He has been surrounded by a shroud of intrigue since he first came into the public eye, and the mystery has only grown with time. Much has been written and said about him by experts and fans and critics, some of it true and some of it not; Starting at Zero will set the record straight in Hendrix's own words.

The lyricism and rhythm of Jimi Hendrix’s writing will be of no surprise to his fans. Hendrix wrote prolifically throughout his life and he left behind a trove of scribbled-on hotel stationary, napkins, and cigarette cartons. Starting at Zero weaves the scraps and bits together fluidly with interviews and lyrics. Here for the first time we see a continuous narrative of the artist’s life, from birth through to the final four years of his life, and the result is a beautifully poetic memoir as smooth as Hendrix’s finest songs.

The pieces of Starting at Zero came together in large part because of the inspiration of Alan Douglas. Douglas first met Jimi Hendrix backstage at Woodstock, and soon after became Hendrix’s producer and close friend. In creating the book he joined forces with Peter Neal, who edited Hendrix’s writing with the reverence and light touch it deserved. 

The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son
by Pat Conroy
Nan A. Talese / Knopf Doubleday / Random House
Hardcover

Pat Conroy's father, Donald Patrick Conroy, was a towering figure in his son's life. The Marine Corps fighter pilot was often brutal, cruel and violent; as Pat says, "I hated my father long before I knew there was an English word for "hate." As the oldest of seven children who were dragged from military base to military base across the South, Pat bore witness to the toll his father's behavior took on his siblings, and especially his mother, Peg. She was Pat's lifeline to a better world - that of books and culture. But eventually, despite repeated confrontations with his father, Pat managed to claw his way toward a life he could only have imagined as a child.

Pat's great success as a writer has always been intimately linked with the exploration of his family history. While the publication of The Great Santini brought Pat much acclaim, the rift it caused with his father brought even more attention. Their long-simmering conflict burst into the open, fracturing an already battered family. But as Pat tenderly chronicles here, even the oldest of wounds can heal. In the final years of Don Conroy's life, he and his son reached a reapproachment of sorts. Quite unexpectedly, the Santini who had freely doled out physical abuse to his wife and children refocused his ire on those who had turned on Pat over the years. He defended his son's honor.

The Death of Santini is at once a heart-wrenching account of personal and family struggle and a poignant lesson in how the ties of blood can both strangle and offer succor. It is an act of reckoning, an exorcism of demons, but one whose ultimate conclusion is that love can soften even the meanest of men, lending significance to one of the most-often quoted lines from Pat's bestsellng novel The Prince of Tides: "In families there are no crimes beyond forgiveness."

New This Week:

Coreyography: A Memoir
by Corey Feldman
St. Martin's Press
Hardcover

Lovable child star by age ten, international teen idol by fifteen, and to this day a perennial pop-culture staple, Corey Feldman has not only spent the entirety of his life in the spotlight, he's become just as famous for his off-screen exploits as for his roles in such classic films as Gremlins, The Goonies, and Stand by Me. He's been linked to a slew of Hollywood starlets (including Drew Barrymore, Vanessa Marcil, and adult entertainer Ginger Lynn), shared a highly publicized friendship with Michael Jackson, and with his frequent costar Corey Haim enjoyed immeasurable success as one half of the wildly popular duo "The Two Coreys," spawning seven films, a 1-900 number, and "Coreymania" in the process. What child of the eighties didn't have a Corey Feldman poster hanging in her bedroom, or a pile of Tiger Beats stashed in his closet? 

Now, in this brave and moving memoir, Corey is revealing the truth about what his life was like behind the scenes: His is a past that included physical, drug, and sexual abuse, a dysfunctional family from which he was emancipated at age fifteen, three high-profile arrests for drug possession, a nine-month stint in rehab, and a long, slow crawl back to the top of the box office.

While Corey has managed to overcome the traps that ensnared so many other entertainers of his generation—he's still acting, is a touring musician, and is a proud father to his son, Zen—many of those closest to him haven't been so lucky. In the span of one year, he mourned the passing of seven friends and family members, including Corey Haim and Michael Jackson. In the wake of those tragedies, he's spoken publicly about the dark side of fame, lobbied for legislation affording greater protections for children in the entertainment industry, and lifted the lid off of what he calls Hollywood's biggest secret.

Coreyography is his surprising account of survival and redemption.

What's So Funny?  My Hilarious Life
by Tim Conway with Jane Scovell
Howard Books / Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

In television history, few entertainers have captured as many hearts and made as many people laugh as Tim Conway. There’s nothing in the world that Tim Conway would rather do than entertain—and in his first-ever memoir, What’s So Funny?, that’s exactly what he does. From his pranks in small Ohio classrooms to his perfor­mances on national television and movies, Tim has been cracking people up for more than seventy years. Long regarded as one of the funniest come­dians around, Tim also boasts an inspiring rags-to-riches story. 

What’s So Funny? captures Tim’s journey from life as an only child raised by loving but outra­geous parents in small-town Ohio during the Great Depression, to his tour of duty in the Army—which would become training for his later role in McHale’s Navy—to his ascent as a national star and household name. By tracing his early path, this book reveals the origins of many of Tim’s unforgettable characters—from Mr. Tudball and the Oldest Man to Mickey Hart to everyone’s favorite, Dorf. 

What’s So Funny? shares the hilarious accounts of the glory days of The Carol Burnett Show and his famous partnerships with entertainment greats like Harvey Korman, Don Knotts, Dick Van Dyke, Betty White, Vicki Lawrence, Bob Newhart, and of course, Carol Burnett. As a bonus, readers will enjoy never-before-shared stories of hilarious behind-the-scenes antics on McHale’s Navy and The Carol Burnett Show.

In Stores Now:

The Hidden White House: Harry Truman and the Reconstruction of America's Most Famous Residence
by Robert Klara
Thomas Dunne Books
Hardcover

In 1948, President Harry Truman, enjoying a bath on the White House’s second floor, almost plunged through the ceiling of the Blue Room into a tea party for the Daughters of the American Revolution. A handpicked team of the country’s top architects conducted a secret inspection of the troubled mansion and, after discovering it was in imminent danger of collapse, insisted that the First Family be evicted immediately. What followed would be the most historically significant and politically complex home-improvement job in American history. While the Trumans camped across the street at Blair House, Congress debated whether to bulldoze the White House completely, and the Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb, starting the Cold War.

Indefatigable researcher Robert Klara reveals what has, until now, been little understood about this episode: America’s most famous historic home was basically demolished, giving birth to today’s White House. Leaving only the mansion’s facade untouched, workmen gutted everything within, replacing it with a steel frame and a complex labyrinth deep below ground that soon came to include a top-secret nuclear fallout shelter,
The story of Truman’s rebuilding of the White House is a snapshot of postwar America and its first Cold War leader, undertaking a job that changed the centerpiece of the country’s national heritage. The job was by no means perfect, but it was remarkable—and, until now, all but forgotten.

New Nonfiction Hardcovers This Week

Eminent Hipsters
by Donald Fagen
Viking Adult / Penguin
Hardcover

Musician and songwriter Donald Fagen presents a group of vivid set pieces in his entertaining debut as an author, from portraits of the cultural figures and currents that shaped him as a youth to an account of his college days and of life on the road.

Fagen begins by introducing the “eminent hipsters” that spoke to him as he was growing up in a bland New Jersey suburb in the early 1960s, among them Jean Shepherd, whose manic nightly broadcasts out of WOR-Radio “enthralled a generation of alienated young people”; Henry Mancini, whose swank, noirish soundtracks left their mark on him; and Mort Fega, the laid-back, knowledgeable all-night jazz man at WEVD who was like “the cool uncle you always wished you had.” He writes of how, coming of age during the paranoid Cold War era, one of his primary doors of escape became reading science fiction, and of his invigorating trips into New York City to hear jazz. “Class of ’69” recounts Fagen’s colorful, mind-expanding years at Bard College, the progressive school north of New York City, where he first met his future musical partner Walter Becker. “With the Dukes of September” offers a cranky, hilarious account of the ups and downs of a recent cross-country tour Fagen made with Boz Scaggs and Michael McDonald, performing a program of old R&B and soul tunes as well as some of their own hits.

Acclaimed for the elaborate arrangements and jazz harmonies of his songs, Fagen proves himself a sophisticated writer with a very distinctive voice in this engaging book.

History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time
by Brad Meltzer
Workman Publishing
Hardcover

It’s an irresistible combination: Brad Meltzer, a born storyteller, counting down the world’s most intriguing unsolved mysteries. And to make this richly illustrated book even richer, each chapter invites the reader along for an interactive experience through the addition of removable facsimile documents—the evidence! It’s a treasure trove for conspiracy buffs, a Griffin and Sabinefor history lovers.

Adapted from Decoded, Meltzer’s hit show on the HISTORY network, History Decoded explores fascinating, unexplained questions. Is Fort Knox empty? Why was Hitler so intent on capturing the Roman “Spear of Destiny”? What’s the government hiding in Area 51? Where did the Confederacy’s $19 million in gold and silver go at the end of the Civil War? And did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone? Meltzer sifts through the evidence; weighs competing theories;  separates what we know to be true with what’s still—and perhaps forever—unproved or unprovable; and in the end, decodes the mystery, arriving at the most likely solution. Along the way we meet Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Nazi propagandists, and the real DB Cooper.

Bound in at the beginning of each story is a custom-designed envelope—a faux 19th-century leather satchel, a U.S. government classified file—containing facsimiles of relevant evidence: John Wilkes Booth’s alleged unsigned will, a map of the Vatican, Kennedy’s death certificate. The whole is a riveting, interactive adventure through the compelling world of mysteries and conspiracies. 

New Nonfiction Hardcovers This Week:

Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste
by Luke Barr

Clarkson Potter / Crown Publishing / Random House

Hardcover

Provence, 1970 is about a singular historic moment. In the winter of that year, more or less coincidentally, the iconic culinary figures James Beard, M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, Richard Olney, Simone Beck, and Judith Jones found themselves together in the South of France. They cooked and ate, talked and argued, about the future of food in America, the meaning of taste, and the limits of snobbery. Without quite realizing it, they were shaping today’s tastes and culture, the way we eat now. The conversations among this group were chronicled by M.F.K. Fisher in journals and letters—some of which were later discovered by Luke Barr, her great-nephew. In Provence, 1970, he captures this seminal season, set against a stunning backdrop in cinematic scope—complete with gossip, drama, and contemporary relevance.

Robert Plant: A Life
by Paul Rees
it Books / Harper Collins

Hardcover

Robert Plant by Paul Rees is the definitive biography of Led Zeppelin's legendary frontman. As lead singer for one of the biggest and most influential rock bands of all time—whose song "Stairway to Heaven" has been played more times on American radio than any other track—Robert Plant defined what it means to be a rock god. 

Over the course of his twenty-year career, British music journalist and editor Paul Rees has interviewed such greats as Sir Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Bono, and AC/DC. Rees now offers a full portrait of Robert Plant for the first time, exploring the forces that shaped him, the ravaging highs and lows of the Zeppelin years—including his relationship with Jimmy Page and John Bonham—and his life as a solo artist today.

Illustrated with more than two dozen photographs, Robert Plant: A LIfe is the never-before-told story of a gifted, complicated music icon who changed the face of rock 'n' roll.  

Robert Plant is a living legend. The front man of Led Zeppelin, one of the biggest and most influential rock bands of all time, Plant defined the very notion of what it means to be a rock god. 

The sheer scale of Led Zeppelin's success is extraordinary. In the United States alone they have sold seventy million records—a figure surpassed only by the Beatles—while "Stairway to Heaven," the band's most famous song, has been played more times on American radio than any other track and is frequently referred to as one of the greatest rock 'n' roll songs ever. 

But Robert Plant's legacy stretches far beyond Led Zeppelin. Robert Plant: A Life is the story of the forces that shaped Plant: from his boyhood in England's Black Country to the ravaging highs and lows of the Zeppelin years; from his relationship with Jimmy Page and John Bonham to the solo career that today, at the age of sixty-two, has him producing some of the most acclaimed work of his career. Author Paul Rees, former editor of Q and Kerrang!, who has in the past interviewed Plant at length, paints a rich, complicated portrait of a man who was only nineteen when he changed the face of rock 'n' roll.

Told with tenacity, emotion, and the spark of brilliance that befits such an enigmatic front man, Robert Plant: A Life is the definitive story of a musical icon.

New Hardcover Nonfiction This Week:

Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind
by Gavin Edwards
It Books

Hardcover

In Last Night at the Viper Room, acclaimed author and journalist Gavin Edwards vividly recounts the life and tragic death of acclaimed actor River Phoenix—a teen idol on the fast track to Hollywood royalty who died of a drug overdose in front of West Hollywood’s storied club, the Viper Room, at the age of 23. 

Last Night at the Viper Room explores the young star’s life, including his childhood in Venezuela growing up under the aegis of the cultish Children of God. Putting him at the center of a new generation of leading men emerging in the early 1990s— including Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves, Brad Pitt, Nicolas Cage, and Leonardo DiCaprio—Gavin Edwards traces the Academy Award nominee’s meteoric rise, couches him in an examination of the 1990s, and illuminates his lasting legacy on Hollywood and popular culture itself. 

Hollywood was built on beautiful and complicated matinee idols: James Dean and Marlon Brando are classic examples, but in the 1990s, the actor who embodied that archetype was River Phoenix. As the brightly colored 1980s wound down, a new crew of leading men began to appear on movie screens. Hailed for their acting prowess and admired for choosing meaty roles, actors such as Johnny Depp, Nicolas Cage, Keanu Reeves, and Brad Pitt were soon rocketing toward stardom while an unknown Leonardo DiCaprio prepared to make his acting debut. River Phoenix, however, stood in front of the pack. Blessed with natural talent and fueled by integrity, Phoenix was admired by his peers and adored by his fans. More than just a pinup on teenage girls' walls, Phoenix was also a fervent defender of the environment and a vocal proponent of a vegan lifestyle—well on his way to becoming a symbol of his generation. At age eighteen, he received his first Oscar nomination. But behind his beautiful public face, there was a young man who had been raised in a cult by nonconformist parents, who was burdened with supporting his family from a young age, and who eventually succumbed to addiction, escaping into a maelstrom of drink and drugs. 

And then he was gone. After a dozen films, including Stand by Me and My Own Private Idaho, and with a seemingly limitless future, River Phoenix died of a drug overdose. He was twenty-three years old. 

In Last Night at the Viper Room, bestselling author and journalist Gavin Edwards toggles between the tragic events at the Viper Room in West Hollywood on Halloween 1993 and the story of an extraordinary life. Last Night at the Viper Roomis part biography, part cultural history of the 1990s, and part celebration of River Phoenix, a Hollywood icon gone too soon. Full of interviews from his fellow actors, directors, friends, and family, Last Night at the Viper Room shows the role he played in creating the place of the actor in our modern culture and the impact his work still makes today.

Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked
by Chris Matthews
Simon and Schuster

Hardcover

TIP AND THE GIPPER is a magnificent personal history of a time when two great political opponents served together for the benefit of the country. Chris Matthews was an eyewitness to this story as a top aide to Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, who waged a principled war of political ideals with President Reagan from 1980 to 1986. Together, the two men forged compromises that shaped America’s future and became one of history’s most celebrated political pairings—the epitome of how ideological opposites can get things done.  

When Ronald Reagan was elected to the presidency in a landslide victory over Jimmy Carter (for whom Matthews had worked as a speechwriter), Speaker O’Neill realized Americans had voted for a change. For the first time in his career, O’Neill also found himself thrust into the national spotlight as the highest-ranking leader of the Democratic Party—the most visible and respected challenger to President Reagan’s agenda of shrinking the government and lowering taxes.  

At first, O’Neill doubted his ability to compete on the public stage with the charming Hollywood actor, whose polished speeches played well on TV, a medium O’Neill had never mastered. Over time, the burly Irishman learned how to fight the popular president on his key issues, relying on legislative craftiness, strong rhetoric, and even guerrilla theater. “An old dog can learn new tricks,” Tip told his staff. Of O’Neill, one of his colleagues said, “If Martians came into the House chamber, they’d know instantly who the leader was.” 

Meanwhile, President Reagan proved to be a much more effective and savvy leader than his rivals had ever expected, achieving major legislative victories on taxes and the federal budget. Reagan and his allies knew how to work the levers of power in Washington. After showing remarkable personal fortitude in the wake of the assassination attempt against him, Reagan never let his political differences with Democrats become personal. He was fond of the veteran Speaker’s motto that political battles ended at 6 p.m. So when he would phone O’Neill, he would say, “Hello, Tip, is it after six o’clock?”

Together, the two leaders fought over the major issues of the day—welfare, taxes, covert military operations, and Social Security—but found their way to agreements that reformed taxes, saved Social Security, and achieved their common cause of bringing peace to Northern Ireland. O’Neill’s quiet behind-the-scenes support helped Reagan forge his historic Cold War–ending bond with Mikhail Gor­bachev. They each won some and lost some, and through it all they maintained respect for each other’s positions and worked to advance the country rather than obstruct progress. 

As Matthews notes, “There is more than one sort of heroic behavior, and they don’t all look the same.” Tip and the Gipper is the story of the kind of heroism we need today.

New This Week in Paperback:

One Game at a Time: Why Sports Matter
by Matt Hern
AK Press
Trade Paperback

Sports are serious stuff. Football, basketball, tennis, mixed martial arts, and beyond: these are arenas of immense power, with mass appeal, yet far too many of us have abandoned the sporting world as a legitimate site of contestation and innovation. Why? What do we gain by handing over the power of sports to the world of hyper-consumption, militarism, violence, sexism, and homophobia—the worst elements of our culture? As Matt Hern suggests, not a whole lot.

On the basis of his forty-plus years of sports fanaticism, Hern makes an impassioned and entertaining plea for a more active engagement with sports, both physically and intellectually. His eye is critical, and his analysis is sharp, but this book is more than a critique—it’s a celebration of what sports have taught us, and a map of how much more we still have to learn. Matt Hern is a former sportswriter and a radical urbanist whose writing has been published on six continents.

Fun, engaging, and fast-paced, One Game at a Time is for anyone willing to get their head into the game.

Forthcoming Book:

Writers Between the Covers: The Scandalous Romantic Lives of Legendary Literary Casanovas, Coquettes, and Cads
by Joni Rendon and Shannon McKenna Schmidt

Plume Books / Penguin
Trade Paperback

Street Date 10/29/13

What happened off the page was often a lot spicier than what was written on it...  Why did Norman Mailer stab his second wife at a party?  Who was Edith Wharton’s secret transatlantic lover? What motivated Anaïs Nin to become a bigamist? Writers Between the Covers rips the sheets off these and other real-life love stories of the literati—some with fairy tale endings and others that resulted in break-ups, breakdowns, and brawls. Among the writers laid bare are Agatha Christie, who sparked the largest-ever manhunt in England as her marriage fell apart; Arthur Miller, whose jaw-dropping pairing with Marilyn Monroe proved that opposites attract, at least initially; and T.S. Eliot, who slept in a deckchair on his disastrous honeymoon. From the best break-up letters to the stormiest love triangles to the boldest cougars and cradle-robbers, this fun and accessible volume—packed with lists, quizzes and in-depth exposés—reveals literary history’s most titillating loves, lusts, and longings. 

BookSpin Giveaway!

We have one copy of UNDER THE WIRE to give away due to the kindness of FSB Associates.  To enter to win, please retweet about the book giveaway (and mention @book_dude). You can also email me at the email address to the right or post about the book on Facebook (please provide a link via email). United States entries only, please.

Under the Wire: Marie Colvin's Final Assignment

by Paul Conroy 

Weinstein Books / Perseus Books

Hardcover

Zero Dark Thirty meets 127 Hours—a riveting war journal from photographer Paul Conroy,who accompanied Marie Colvin (called by her peers “the greatest war correspondent of her generation”) during her ill-fated final assignment in Syria. 

Marie Colvin, described as "the greatest war correspondent of her generation," was killed in a rocket attack in February 2012 while reporting on the desperate suffering of civilians inside Syria's besieged Homs. Paul Conroy, who had forged a close bond with Colvin as they put their lives on the line time and time again to report from some of the world's most dangerous conflict zones, was with her. Under the Wire is Paul's gripping, visceral and moving account of their friendship, and in particular, the final year he spent alongside Marie. When Marie and Paul were smuggled into Syria by rebel forces, they found themselves trapped in one of the most hellish neighborhoods on earth. Fierce barrages of heavy artillery fire rained down on the buildings surrounding them, killing and maiming hundreds of civilians. Marie was killed by a rocket which also blew hole in Paul's thigh, big enough to put his hand through. Bleeding profusely, short of food and water and in excruciating pain, Paul then endured five days of intense bombardment before being evacuated in a daring escape involving a motorbike ride through a tunnel, crawling through enemy terrain, and finally climbing a 12-foot-high wall. Astonishingly vivid, heart-stoppingly dramatic and shot through with the darkest of humor, in Under the Wire Paul Conroy shows what it means to a be a war reporter in the 21st century. His is a story of two brave people drawn together by a shared compulsion to bear witness.

New Nonfiction Hardcovers This Week

The Mountain: My Time on Everest - The Irresistible Lure of the World's Highest Peak
by Ed Viesturs with David Roberts

Touchstone / Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

VETERAN WORLD-CLASS CLIMBER and bestselling author Ed Viesturs—the only Amer­ican to have climbed all fourteen of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks and the sixth person to do so without supplemental oxygen—trains his sights on Mount Everest, the highest peak on earth, in richly detailed accounts of expeditions that are by turns personal, harrowing, deadly, and inspiring. 

The world’s most famous mountain, Everest remains for serious high-altitude climbers the ultimate goal. Viesturs has gone on eleven expeditions to Everest, reaching the summit seven times. He’s spent more than two years of his life on the mountain. No climber today is better poised to survey Everest’s various ascents—both personal and historic. In The Mountain, Viesturs delivers just that: riveting you-are-there accounts of his own climbs as well as vivid narratives of some of the more famous and infamous climbs throughout the last century, when the honor of nations often hung in the balance, depending on which climbers summited first. In addition to his own experiences, Viesturs sheds light on the fate of Mallory and Irvine, whose 1924 disappearance just 800 feet from the top remains one of mountaineering’s greatest mysteries, and on the multiply tragic last days of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer in 1996, the stuff of which Into Thin Air was made. 

Informed by the experience of one who has truly been there, The Mountain affords a rare glimpse into that place on earth where Heraclitus’s maxim—char­acter is destiny—is proved time and again. Complete with gorgeous photos of Everest, many of which were taken by Viesturs himself, and shots taken on some of the legendary historic climbs, The Mountain is an immensely appealing book for active and armchair climbers alike.

Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us
by Jesse Bering
Scientific American / Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Hardcover

“You are a sexual deviant. A pervert, through and through.” We may not want to admit it, but as the award-winning columnist and psychologist Jesse Bering reveals in Perv, there is a spectrum of perversion along which we all sit. Whether it’s voyeurism, exhibitionism, or your run-of-the-mill foot fetish, we all possess a suite of sexual tastes as unique as our fingerprints—and as secret as the rest of the skeletons we’ve hidden in our closets.

Combining cutting-edge studies and critiques of landmark research and conclusions drawn by Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, and the DSM-5, Bering pulls the curtain back on paraphilias, arguing that sexual deviance is commonplace. He explores the countless fetishists of the world, including people who wear a respectable suit during the day and handcuff a willing sexual partner at night. But he also takes us into the lives of “erotic outliers,” such as a woman who falls madly in love with the Eiffel Tower; a pair of deeply affectionate identical twins; those with a particular penchant for statues; and others who are enamored of crevicesnot found on the human body. 

Moving from science to politics, psychology, history, and his own reflections on growing up gay in America, Bering confronts hypocrisy, prejudice, and harm as they relate to sexuality on a global scale. Humanizing so-called deviants while at the same time asking serious questions about the differences between thought and action, he presents us with a challenge: to understand that our best hope of solving some of the most troubling problems of our age hinges entirely on theamoral study of sex.

As kinky as it is compassionate, illuminating, and engrossing, Perv is an irresistible and deeply personal book. “I can’t promise you an orgasm at the end of our adventure,” Bering writes, “but I can promise you a better understanding of why you get the ones you do.” 

Law of the Desert Born: A Graphic Novel
by Louis L'Amour, Beau L'Amour, Kathy Nolan, Charles Santino and Thomas Yeates
Bantam / Random House

Hardcover

The first graphic novel adaptation of the work of master storyteller Louis L’Amour is a dynamic tale of the Old West that explores the borderlands of loyalty and betrayal with the emotional grittiness of a noir thriller. New Mexico, 1887, a land in the midst of the worst drought anyone can remember. Family histories and loyalties run deep, but when rancher Tom Forrester has his access to the Pecos River cut off by the son of his old partner, he convinces his foreman, Shad Marone, to pay Jud Bowman back for the discourtesy. Yet what starts as a simple act of petty revenge quickly spirals into a cycle of violence that no one can control. Now Marone is on the run, pursued by a sheriff’s posse across a rugged desert landscape. Leading the chase is Jesus Lopez, a half-Mexican, half-Apache with a personal stake in bringing Shad to justice. Newly released from jail, trusted by no one, Lopez swears he’s the only man who can track Marone down. That may be true. But who will live and who will die and what price will be paid in suffering are open questions. Fate and the Jornada del Muerto desert possess a harsh justice that is all their own. With a propulsive script from Beau L’Amour and Kathy Nolan, adapted by Charles Santino and illustrated in bold black-and-white by Thomas Yeates, Law of the Desert Born captures the dust and blood of Louis L’Amour’s West—a world where the difference between a hero and a villain can be as wide as the gap between an act of kindness or brutality or as narrow as a misspoken word.

Public Enemy: Confessions of an American Dissident
by Bill Ayers
Beacon Press
Hardcover

In this sequel to Fugitive Days, Ayers charts his life after the Weather Underground, when he becomes the GOP’s flaunted “domestic terrorist,” a “public enemy.” 

In the heat of the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama's opponents were spinning a chilling narrative that cast him as an enigmatic figure with a group of shadowy associates, including a Black Nationalist preacher, a Palestinian professor, and an "unrepentant domestic terrorist." That imagined terrorist was Bill Ayers, a one-time leader of the Weather Underground. The McCain campaign spent millions of dollars demonizing Ayers specifically and castigating Senator Obama for, in Sarah Palin's deathless phrase, "pallin' around with terrorists." 

That wasn't the first time Ayers found his face plastered all over the media under the label "terrorist." After his memoir Fugitive Days, the story of his life in Students for a Democratic Society and later the Weather Underground, was published on September 10, 2001, he came under furious fire from right-wing media, which bizarrely tied him to the World Trade Center tragedy. Over the years, at the hands of the radical Right, Bill Ayers has become a household name and a public enemy. In reality, Ayers is a dedicated teacher, father, and social justice advocate, and his "shady past" is actually the story of an ardent antiwar activist. 

Ayers was hosting his graduate students at his Hyde Park home during the 2008 presidential debate in which his neighbor Barack Obama was confronted about their association. Public Enemy begins there and then flashes back to tell Ayers's story from the moment he and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, emerged from years on the run and rebuilt their lives as public figures, often celebrated for their community work but much hated by the radical Right.

In the face of defamation by conservative media, and despite frequent death threats, Bill and Bernardine stay true to their core beliefs in the power of protest, dissent, and deep commitment to the welfare of others. Ayers recounts his adventures with the Tea Party, including memorable scenes of "confessing" under entertaining duress that he was indeed the author of Obama's Dreams from My Father, of hosting a dinner party for Fox News stars, of being banned from college campuses and, in one case, from an entire country. He also takes us along to the red carpet at the Oscars, to prison vigils and the Greek islands, and ultimately back to his Hyde Park home, where his activism and commitment to a life that refuses to make a mockery of his values allow him to make the most of his post as America's leading public enemy. 

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

Hardcover

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.