On My Radar:

No House to Call My Home: Love, Family, and Other Transgressions
by Ryan Berg
Nation Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In this lyrical debut, Ryan Berg immerses readers in the gritty, dangerous, and shockingly underreported world of homeless LGBTQ teens in New York. As a caseworker in a group home for disowned LGBTQ teenagers, Berg witnessed the struggles, fears, and ambitions of these disconnected youth as they resisted the pull of the street, tottering between destruction and survival.

Focusing on the lives and loves of eight unforgettable youth, No House to Call My Home traces their efforts to break away from dangerous sex work and cycles of drug and alcohol abuse, and, in the process, to heal from years of trauma. From Bella’s fervent desire for stability to Christina’s irrepressible dreams of stardom to Benny’s continuing efforts to find someone to love him, Berg uncovers the real lives behind the harrowing statistics: over 4,000 youth are homeless in New York City—43 percent of them identify as LGBTQ.

Through these stories, Berg compels us to rethink the way we define privilege, identity, love, and family. Beyond the tears, bluster, and bravado, he reveals the force that allows them to carry on—the irrepressible hope of youth.

On My Radar:

High Holiday Porn: A Memoir
by Eytan Bayme
St. Martin's Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Eytan Bayme went to Jewish day school and Jewish camp. He lived across the street from a synagogue in the Bronx, which he attended weekly, and ate strictly kosher food for most of his childhood. Yet even at the age of six, he wanted to know what the deal was with those Pizza Huts and Burger Kings that he wasn't allowed into "God wouldn't put them on earth if He didn't mean for us to try them," he thought. Wasn't that obvious? Also, why can't he stop thinking about his female classmates in bed, late at night, with his little brother not five feet away; and how come the starting line-up for the 1986 Mets keep creeping into those fantasies? Religious life is difficult enough without the urges of a typical adolescent boy, yet Eytan's urges develop well before his teens, and they just keep on developing and developing.

High Holiday Porn is a heartwarming and hilarious story about learning to become an adult. It chronicles how an anxious boy finally stops masturbating in public, gets the girl, grows up, and begrudgingly makes peace with the unfairness of life and love. It's a funny, fantasy-laden, usually embarrassing, sometimes raunchy and always outrageous look at coming of age that will resonate with anyone who ever felt awkward growing up.

Fiction Spotlight:

The Lost Key: A Brit in the FBI Novel
by Catherine Coulter and J.T. Ellison
Jove Books
Mass Market Paperback

From the publisher's website:

After working with Special Agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich, Nicholas Drummond has joined the FBI. Now, he and partner Mike Caine are in an eleventh-hour race to stop a madman from finding a cache of lost World War I gold—and a weapon unlike anything the world has ever seen…

In My TBR Stack:

Plenty Ladylike: A Memoir
by Claire McCaskill with Terry Ganey
Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The female senator from Missouri shares her inspiring story of embracing her ambition, surviving sexist slings, making a family, losing a husband, outsmarting her enemies—and finding joy along the way.

Claire McCaskill grew up in a political family, but not at a time that welcomed women with big plans. She earned a law degree and paid her way through school by working as a waitress. By 1982 Claire had set her sights on the Missouri House of Representatives. Typically, one voter whose door she knocked on said: “You’re too young; your hair is too long; you’re a girl….Go find yourself a husband.” That door was slammed in her face, but Claire always kept pushing—first as a prosecutor of arsonists and rapists and then all the way to the door of a cabal of Missouri politicians who had secret meetings to block her legislation.

In this candid, lively, and forthright memoir, Senator McCaskill describes her uphill battle to become who she is today, from her failed first marriage to a Kansas City car dealer—the father of her three children—to her current marriage to a Missouri businessman whom she describes as “a life partner.” She depicts her ups and downs with the Clintons, her long-shot reelection as senator after secretly helping to nominate a right-wing extremist as her opponent, and the fun of joining the growing bipartisan sisterhood in the Senate.

From the day she was elected homecoming queen in high school, Claire has loved politics and winning. Her memoir is unconventional: unsparing in its honesty, full of sharp humor and practical wisdom, and rousing in its defense of female ambition.

In My TBR Stack:

Slice Harvester: A Memoir in Pizza
by Colin Atrophy Hagendorf
Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Over the course of two years, a twenty-something punk rocker eats a cheese slice from every pizzeria in New York City, gets sober, falls in love, and starts a blog that captures headlines around the world—he is the Slice Harvester, and this is his story.

Since its arrival on US shores in 1905, pizza has risen from an obscure ethnic food to an iconic symbol of American culture. It has visited us in our dorm rooms and apartments, sometimes before we’d even unpacked or painted. It has nourished us during our jobs, consoled us during break-ups, and celebrated our triumphs right alongside us.

In August 2009, Colin Hagendorf set out to review every regular slice of pizza in Manhattan, and his blog, Slice Harvester, was born. Two years and nearly 400 slices later, he’d been featured in TheWall Street Journal, the Daily News (New York), and on radio shows all over the country. Suddenly, this self-proclaimed punk who was barely making a living doing burrito delivery and selling handmade zines had a following. But at the same time Colin was stepping up his game for the masses (grabbing slices with Phoebe Cates and her teenage daughter, reviewing kosher pizza so you don’t have to), his personal life was falling apart.

A problem drinker and chronic bad boyfriend, he started out using the blog as a way to escape—the hangovers, the midnight arguments, the hangovers again—until finally realizing that by taking steps to reach a goal day by day, he’d actually put himself in a place to finally take control of his life for good.

In My TBR Stack:

Saban: The Making of a Coach
by Monte Burke
Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

A defining biography of Nick Saban, the influential and polarizing University of Alabama football coach who not only transformed the college game but might also be the best ever at winning.

As the head coach of the University of Alabama’s football team, Nick Saban is perhaps the most enigmatic man in the sport. Unpredictable in his professional loyalties, uncompromising in his vision, and unyielding in his pursuit of perfection, the highest-paid coach in college football has changed the face of the game. His program-building skills have delivered packed stadiums, rabid fans, hundreds of millions of dollars, legions of detractors, countless NFL draft picks, and a total of four national championships, including three in the last six years. Monte Burke’s Saban—the first major biography of the man who has come to epitomize the game—presents this towering figure with a never-before-seen human depth.

Though a great deal is known about Saban the coach, not much is known about Saban the man. Little has been written about his early climb through the coaching ranks as an assistant in college and in the NFL, or his head-coaching stints at Michigan State and Louisiana State and his struggles as a pro coach with the Miami Dolphins.

Through unprecedented interviews with more than 250 friends, coworkers, rivals, former players, and others, Burke reveals the defining moments of the coach’s life. Saban paints a portrait of a complex and compelling man, fundamentally shaped by both his past and the game he loves, in a way that no previous book has.

In My TBR Stack:

Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome: A Memoir of Humor and Healing
Reba Riley
Howard Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

An important inspirational debut, Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome is much more than a memoir about reclaiming faith and overcoming chronic illness. Written with humor and personality, it tackles the universal struggle to heal what life has broken. This is a book for questioners, doubters, misfits, and seekers of all faiths; for the spiritual, the religious, and the curious.

Reba Riley’s twenty-ninth year was a terrible time to undertake a spiritual quest. But when untreatable chronic illness forced her to her metaphorical (and physical) derriere on her birthday, Reba realized that even if she couldn’t fix her body, she might be able to heal her injured spirit. And so began a yearlong journey to recover from her whopping case of Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome by visiting thirty religions before her thirtieth birthday. During her spiritual sojourn, Reba:

-Was interrogated by Amish grandmothers about her sex life

-Danced the disco in a Buddhist temple

-Went to church in virtual reality, a movie theater, a drive-in bar, and a basement

-Fasted for thirty days without food—or wine

-Washed her lady parts in a mosque bathroom

-Was audited by Scientologists

-Learned to meditate with an urban monk, sucked mud in a sweat lodge with a suburban shaman, and snuck into Yom Kippur with a fake grandpa in tow

-Discovered she didn’t have to choose religion to choose God—or good

For anyone who has ever longed for transformation of body, mind, or soul, but didn’t know where to start, Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome reminds us that sometimes we have to get lost to get found.

In My TBR Stack:

The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
by David E. Hoffman
Doubleday
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

 While driving out of the American embassy in Moscow on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA’s Moscow station heard a knock on his car window. A man on the curb handed him an envelope whose contents stunned U.S. intelligence: details of top-secret Soviet research and developments in military technology that were totally unknown to the United States. In the years that followed, the man, Adolf Tolkachev, an engineer in a Soviet military design bureau, used his high-level access to hand over tens of thousands of pages of technical secrets. His revelations allowed America to reshape its weapons systems to defeat Soviet radar on the ground and in the air, giving the United States near total superiority in the skies over Europe.

   One of the most valuable spies to work for the United States in the four decades of global confrontation with the Soviet Union, Tolkachev took enormous personal risks—but so did the Americans. The CIA had long struggled to recruit and run agents in Moscow, and Tolkachev was a singular breakthrough. Using spy cameras and secret codes as well as face-to-face meetings in parks and on street corners, Tolkachev and his handlers succeeded for years in eluding the feared KGB in its own backyard, until the day came when a shocking betrayal put them all at risk. 

   Drawing on previously secret documents obtained from the CIA and on interviews with participants, David Hoffman has created an unprecedented and poignant portrait of Tolkachev, a man motivated by the depredations of the Soviet state to master the craft of spying against his own country. Stirring, unpredictable, and at times unbearably tense, The Billion Dollar Spy is a brilliant feat of reporting that unfolds like an espionage thriller.

On My Radar:

Barefoot to Avalon: A Brother's Story
by David Payne
Atlantic Monthly Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In 2000, while moving his household from Vermont to North Carolina, author David Payne watched from his rearview mirror as his younger brother, George A., driving behind him in a two-man convoy of rental trucks, lost control of his vehicle, fishtailed, flipped over in the road, and died instantly. Soon thereafter, David’s life entered a downward spiral that lasted several years. His career came to a standstill, his marriage disintegrated, and his drinking went from a cocktail hour indulgence to a full-blown addiction. He found himself haunted not only by George A.’s death, but also by his brother’s manic depression, a hereditary illness that overlaid a dark and violent family history whose roots now gripped David, threatening both his and his children’s futures. The only way out, he found, was to write about his brother.

Barefoot to Avalon is Payne’s earnest and unflinching account of George A. and their boyhood footrace that lasted long into their adulthood, defining their relationship and their lives. As universal as it is intimate, this is an exceptional memoir of brotherhood, of sibling rivalry and sibling love, and of the torments a family can hold silent and carry across generations. Barefoot to Avalon is a brave and beautifully wrought gift, a true story not only of survival in the face of adversity but of hard-won wisdom.

On My Radar:

Mission High: One School, How Experts Tried to Fail It, and the Students and Teachers Who Made It Triumph
by Kristina Rizga
Nation Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Darrell is a reflective, brilliant young man, who never thought of himself as a good student. He always struggled with his reading and writing skills. Darrell’s father, a single parent, couldn't afford private tutors. By the end of middle school, Darrell’s grades and his confidence were at an all time low. Then everything changed. 

When education journalist Kristina Rizga first met Darrell at Mission High School, he was taking AP calculus class, writing a ten-page research paper, and had received several college acceptance letters. And Darrell was not an exception. More than 80 percent of Mission High seniors go to college every year, even though the school teaches large numbers of English learners and students from poor families. 

So, why has the federal government been threatening to close Mission High—and schools like it across the country? 

The United States has been on a century long road toward increased standardization in our public schools, which resulted in a system that reduces the quality of education to primarily one metric: standardized test scores. According to this number, Mission High is a “low-performing” school even though its college enrollment, graduation, attendance rates and student surveys are some of the best in the country. 

The qualities that matter the most in learning—skills like critical thinking, intellectual engagement, resilience, empathy, self-management, and cultural flexibility—can’t be measured by multiple-choice questions designed by distant testing companies, Rizga argues, but they can be detected by skilled teachers in effective, personalized and humane classrooms that work for all students, not just the most motivated ones. 

Based on four years of reporting with unprecedented access, the unforgettable, intimate stories in these pages throw open the doors to America’s most talked about—and arguably least understood—public school classrooms where the largely invisible voices of our smart, resilient students and their committed educators can offer a clear and hopeful blueprint for what it takes to help all students succeed.