In My TBR Stack:

Real Artists Have Day Jobs: (And Other Awesome Things They Don't Teach You in School)
by Sara Benincasa
William Morrow
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

For readers of Lena Dunham, Mindy Kaling, and #Girlboss, a hilarious—yet heartfelt—guide to growing up and taking your place in the world by the popular comedian and author of the highly praised Agorafabulous!

While the practical aspects of new adulthood can be nerve-wracking—dating, job-hunting, money-managing—the most important task of all is figuring out who you are and where you fit in the world. Author and comedian Sara Benincasa, now in her mid-thirties, had an absolutely harrowing early twenties and now, on the other side, she has a LOT of hard-earned wisdom and common sense to share.

Real Artists Have Day Jobs includes 52 witty, provocative essays on how to live like a real adult—especially for those who have chosen a slightly more offbeat path to get there. Chock full of information and advice, Sara’s warm, smart, empathetic, and quirky voice is relatable to everyone from twenty-somethings and recent college grads to anyone a bit older who’s still trying to figure things out. While Sara doesn’t have all of life’s answers, this indispensable book has more than its share!

Essays include:

• How to Read a Book
• Real Artists Have Day Jobs
• The Power of Being a Dork
• Put Your Clutter in Purgatory
• Ask for Exactly What You Want
• Elect Your Own Executive Board

Equal parts entertaining and educational, Real Artists Have Day Jobs is a life-changing book for strivers and misunderstood creatives everywhere.

In My TBR Stack:

Sex with Shakespeare: Here's Much to Do with Pain, but More with Love
by Jilliam Keenan
William Morrow
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

When it came to understanding love, a teenage Jillian Keenan had nothing to guide her—until a production of The Tempest sent Shakespeare’s language flowing through her blood for the first time. In Sex with Shakespeare, she tells the story of how the Bard’s plays helped her embrace her unusual sexual identity and find a love story of her own.

Four hundred years after Shakespeare’s death, Keenan’s smart and passionate memoir brings new life to his work. With fourteen of his plays as a springboard, she explores the many facets of love and sexuality—from desire and communication to fetish and fantasy. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Keenan unmasks Helena as a sexual masochist—like Jillian herself. In Macbeth, she examines criminalized sexual identities and the dark side of “privacy.” The Taming of the Shrew goes inside the secret world of bondage, domination, and sadomasochism, while King Lear exposes the ill-fated king as a possible sexual predator. Moving through the canon, Keenan makes it abundantly clear that literature is a conversation. In Sex with Shakespeare, words are love.

As Keenan wanders the world in search of connection, from desert dictatorships to urban islands to disputed territories, Shakespeare goes with her —and provokes complex, surprising, and wildly important conversations about sexuality, consent, and the secrets that simmer beneath our surfaces.

On My Radar:

Old Age: A Beginner's Guide
by Michael Kinsley
Tim Duggan Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Vanity Fair columnist Michael Kinsley escorts his fellow Boomers through the door marked “Exit.”

The notorious baby boomers—the largest age cohort in history—are approaching the end and starting to plan their final moves in the game of life. Now they are asking: What was that all about? Was it about acquiring things or changing the world? Was it about keeping all your marbles? Or is the only thing that counts after you’re gone the reputation you leave behind?

In this series of essays, Michael Kinsley uses his own battle with Parkinson’s disease to unearth answers to questions we are all at some time forced to confront. “Sometimes,” he writes, “I feel like a scout from my generation, sent out ahead to experience in my fifties what even the healthiest Boomers are going to experience in their sixties, seventies, or eighties.”

This surprisingly cheerful book is at once a fresh assessment of a generation and a frequently funny account of one man’s journey toward the finish line. “The least misfortune can do to make up for itself is to be interesting,” he writes. “Parkinson’s disease has fulfilled that obligation.”

On My Radar:

Fearless: A Cartoonist's Guide to Life
by Robb Armstrong
Reader's Digest
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:


Robb Armstrong is one of the lucky ones. One of a handful of African-American artists to have a comic strip nationally syndicated in more than 300 publications, he gets to draw for a living. He works at home, so he can spend more time with his wife and two kids. He travels around the country, teaching drawing and sharing stories about his life with young people. He’s even met his share of famous people, including his idol, Charles Schulz.

But his life wasn’t always so charmed. Born and raised in a rough neighborhood in West Philadelphia, Robb was one of five fatherless kids living in a cramped apartment where the electric bill didn’t always get paid. When he was six, his older brother was killed in a gruesome subway accident. Soon after, his remaining brother was severely beaten by the police for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then, his mother died of cancer, literally orphaning him. How did he get through all of these tragedies to the happy life? By drawing funnies. Life is not so different from the comics—the challenges, tragedies, and triumphs. Comics poke fun at our everyday routines and our universal motivations. They show us a lot about ourselves and the people around us. So as a cartoonist, Robb Armstrong has drawn a few lessons from life that he shares in this moving memoir. Weaving together his personal stories with simple drawing tutorials and original illustrations, Fearless is both a compelling read and an inspirational lesson on how to live well, through the good times and the bad.

On My Radar:

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
by Frans de Waal
W.W. Norton and Company
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

From world-renowned biologist and primatologist Frans de Waal, a groundbreaking work on animal intelligence destined to become a classic.

What separates your mind from an animal’s? Maybe you think it’s your ability to design tools, your sense of self, or your grasp of past and future—all traits that have helped us define ourselves as the planet’s preeminent species. But in recent decades, these claims have eroded, or even been disproven outright, by a revolution in the study of animal cognition. Take the way octopuses use coconut shells as tools; elephants that classify humans by age, gender, and language; or Ayumu, the young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame. Based on research involving crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, whales, and of course chimpanzees and bonobos, Frans de Waal explores both the scope and the depth of animal intelligence. He offers a firsthand account of how science has stood traditional behaviorism on its head by revealing how smart animals really are, and how we’ve underestimated their abilities for too long.

People often assume a cognitive ladder, from lower to higher forms, with our own intelligence at the top. But what if it is more like a bush, with cognition taking different forms that are often incomparable to ours? Would you presume yourself dumber than a squirrel because you’re less adept at recalling the locations of hundreds of buried acorns? Or would you judge your perception of your surroundings as more sophisticated than that of a echolocating bat? De Waal reviews the rise and fall of the mechanistic view of animals and opens our minds to the idea that animal minds are far more intricate and complex than we have assumed. De Waal’s landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal—and human—intelligence.

On My Radar:

The White Donkey: Terminal Lance
by Maximilian Uriarte
Little, Brown and Company
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

A graphic novel of war and its aftermath.
A powerful, compulsively page-turning, vivid, and moving tribute to the experience of war and PTSD, The White Donkey tells the story of Abe, a young Marine recruit who experiences the ugly, pedestrian, and often meaningless side of military service in rural Iraq. He enlists in hopes of finding that missing something in his life but comes to find out that it's not quite what he expected. Abe gets more than he bargained for when his journey takes him to the middle east in war-torn Iraq.

This is a story about a Marine, written and illustrated by a Marine, and is the first graphic novel about the war in Iraq from a veteran. The White Donkey explores the experience of being a Marine, as well as the challenges that veterans face upon their return home, and its raw power will leave you in awe.

Book Tour:

Obama's Odyssey: The 2008 Race for the White House
by Connie Corcoran Wilson
Quad City Press
Trade Paperback


I used to love reading the insider accounts of political campaigns written by Jules Witcover and Jack Germond.  As a politically active man, I knew the stories from the elections written in the newspapers and reported on television news programs, but Witcover and Germond presented details not able to be covered in bite-sized, photo-op driven media.

So it was that I was delighted to be contacted to be part of the book tour for OBAMA'S ODYSSEY: The 2008 Race for the White House, written by Connie Corcoran Wilson.  Wilson, a veteran newspaper reporter, blogged the campaign for Yahoo and has compiled her campaign columns for this book.

If you are looking for broad strokes, go elsewhere to find the story of the 2008 election.  However, if like me, you much more enjoy the piecing together of the larger story with the finer details, then OBAMA'S ODYSSEY is for you.  These are not the stories from a lazy reporter sitting at a desk in a far away city, these are detailed, and often funny, reports from a journalist who traveled along the 2008 journey.

In order to best enjoy this book you have to put aside what you know since 2008 election victory by Obama.  Instead, discover the formation of the story day-by-day as Wilson sleuths out the details of how the political sausage was made.

This book is perfect for political junkies.  There is also a lot to learn about the first Hillary Clinton presidential campaign...take that for what it's worth.

I believe OBAMA'S ODYSSEY is a valuable contribution to the U.S. political record of the election of the first African-American  president in history.  I would like to give thanks for being offered the opportunity to read and review this book.

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I received an advance reader copy of this book  for my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.  -- BookDude

In My TBR Stack:

Trespassing Across America: One man's Epic Never-Done Before (And Sort of Illegal) Hike Across the Heartland
by Ken Ilgunas
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

It started as a far-fetched idea—to hike the entire length of the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline. But in the months that followed, it grew into something more for Ken Ilgunas. It became an irresistible adventure—an opportunity not only to draw attention to global warming but also to explore his personal limits. So in September 2012, he strapped on his backpack, stuck out his thumb on the interstate just north of Denver, and hitchhiked 1,500 miles to the Alberta tar sands. Once there, he turned around and began his 1,700-mile trek to the XL’s endpoint on the Gulf Coast of Texas, a journey he would complete entirely on foot, walking almost exclusively across private property.

Both a travel memoir and a reflection on climate change, Trespassing Across America is filled with colorful characters, harrowing physical trials, and strange encounters with the weather, terrain, and animals of America’s plains. A tribute to the Great Plains and the people who live there, Ilgunas’s memoir grapples with difficult questions about our place in the world: What is our personal responsibility as stewards of the land? As members of a rapidly warming planet? As mere individuals up against something as powerful as the fossil fuel industry? Ultimately, Trespassing Across America is a call to embrace the belief that a life lived not half wild is a life only half lived.

On My Radar:

Waylon: Tales of My Outlaw Dad
by Terry Jennings with David Thomas
Hachette Books

Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In a signed copy of his autobiography, Texas-born country "Outlaw" icon Waylon Jennings penned a personal note to his son Terry: "I did my best. Now it's your turn." Two decades later, Terry Jennings finally completes the true story of his father's remarkable, unvarnished life with Waylon: Tales of My Outlaw Dad. 

 Born when Waylon was only nineteen, Terry came of age just as Waylon's career hit the stratosphere with hits like "I've Always Been Crazy" and "Good Hearted Woman," one of his famous Willie Nelson duets. Terry dropped out of high school and joined his dad on tour, and the two became more like brothers than father and son. On the road, they toured with legends like Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and Jessi Colter, Waylon's fourth and final wife. Together father and son led a hard-partying lifestyle centered around music, women, and drugs. 

 Waylon's success--critical acclaim, bestselling albums, sold-out tours, and even TV stardom on The Dukes of Hazzard--was at times eclipsed by his demons, three divorces, crippling debt, and a depression that Terry traces to the premature death of Buddy Holly. (Waylon was supposed to be on Holly and Ritchie Valens's doomed flight.) Through it all, Terry worked on the touring crew, helped manage Waylon's career, and became one of his father's closest confidantes. Debunking myths and sharing incredible never-before-told stories, this book is a son's loving and strikingly honest portrait of his father, "the greatest Outlaw country musician to grace this earth" and an unlikely but devoted family man. Waylon: Tales of My Outlaw Dad will resonate for generations of fans.

 

In My TBR Stack:

Raising Ryland: Our Story of Parenting a Transgender Child with No Strings Attached
by Hillary Whittington with Kristine Gasbarre
William Morrow Books
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

This powerful, moving story—which has already touched more than seven million through a viral video created by the Whittington family—is a mother’s first-hand account of her emotional choice to embrace her transgender child.

When Hillary and Jeff Whittington posted a YouTube video chronicling their five-year-old son Ryland’s transition from girl to boy, they didn’t expect it to be greeted with such fervor. Beautiful and moving, the video documenting Hillary’s and Jeff’s love for their child instantly went viral and has been seen by more than seven million viewers since its posting in May 2014.

Now for the first time, they tell their story in full, offering an emotional and moving account of their journey alongside their exceptional child. After they discovered their daughter Ryland was deaf at age one and needed cochlear implants, the Whittingtons spent nearly four years successfully teaching Ryland to speak. But once Ryland gained the power of speech, it was time for them to listen as Ryland insisted, “I am a boy!” And listen they did. After learning that forty-one percent of people who identify as transgender attempt to take their own lives, Hillary and her husband Jeff made it their mission to support their child—no matter what.

From the earliest stages of deciphering Ryland through clothing choices to examining the difficult conversations that have marked every stage of Ryland’s transition, Hillary Whittington shares her experiences as a mother through it all, demonstrating both the resistance and support that their family has encountered as they try to erase the stigma surrounding the word “transgender.” In telling her family’s story, she hopes she can assist the world in accepting that even children as young as five, can have profound and impactful things to say and share. What emerges is a powerful story of unconditional love, accepting others for who they are, and doing what’s right, regardless of whether those around you understand it.  

In My TBR Stack:

Worth Dying For: A Navy Seal's Call to a Nation
by Rorke Denver and Ellis Henican
Howard Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In a fast-paced and action-packed narrative, Navy SEAL commander Rorke Denver tackles the questions that have emerged about America’s past decade at war—from what makes a hero to why we fight and what it does to us.

Heroes are not always the guys who jump on grenades. Sometimes, they are the snipers who decide to hold their fire, the wounded operators who find fresh ways to contribute, or the wives who keep the families together back home. Even a SEAL commander—especially a SEAL commander—knows that. But what’s a hero, really? What do we have a right to expect from our heroes? How should we hold them accountable? Amid all the loose talk of heroes, these questions are seldom asked.
As a SEAL commander, Rorke Denver is uniquely qualified to answer questions about what makes a hero or a leader, why men kill, how best to serve your country, how battlefield experiences can elevate us, and most importantly, why we fight and what it does for and to us. In Worth Dying For, Denver tackles many of these issues by sharing his personal experiences from the forefront of war today.

Denver applies some of his SEAL-sense to nine big-picture, news-driven questions of war and peace, in a way that appeals to all sides of the public conversation. By broadening the issues, sharing his insights, and achieving what civilian political leaders have been utterly unable to, Denver eloquently shares answers to America’s most burning questions about war, heroism, and what it all means for America’s future.

In My TBR Stack:

The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of Espionage, Adventure, and Betrayal
by Howard Blum
Harper Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Dark Invasion, channels Erik Larson and Ben Macintyre in this riveting biography of Betty Pack, the dazzling American debutante who became an Allied spy during WWII and was hailed by OSS chief General “Wild Bill" Donovan as “the greatest unsung heroine of the war.”

Betty Pack was charming, beautiful, and intelligent—and she knew it. As an agent for Britain’s MI-6 and then America’s OSS during World War II, these qualities proved crucial to her success. This is the remarkable story of this “Mata Hari from Minnesota” (Time) and the passions that ruled her tempestuous life—a life filled with dangerous liaisons and death-defying missions vital to the Allied victory.

For decades, much of Betty’s career working for MI-6 and the OSS remained classified. Through access to recently unclassified files, Howard Blum discovers the truth about the attractive blond, codenamed “Cynthia,” who seduced diplomats and military attachés across the globe in exchange for ciphers and secrets; cracked embassy safes to steal codes; and obtained the Polish notebooks that proved key to Alan Turing’s success with Operation Ultra.

Beneath Betty’s cool, professional determination, Blum reveals a troubled woman conflicted by the very traits that made her successful: her lack of deep emotional connections and her readiness to risk everything. The Last Goodnight is a mesmerizing, provocative, and moving portrait of an exceptional heroine whose undaunted courage helped to save the world.

Now in Paperback:

I Was A Child: A Memoir
by Bruce Eric Kaplan
Blue Rider Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Bruce Eric Kaplan, also known as BEK, is one of the most celebrated and admired cartoonists in America. I Was a Child is the story of his childhood in suburban New Jersey, detailing the small moments we all experience: going to school, playing with friends, family dinners, watching TV on a hot summer night, and so on. It would seem like a conventional childhood, although Kaplan’s anecdotes are accompanied by his signature drawings of family outings and life at home-road trips, milk crates, hamsters, ashtrays, a toupee, a platypus, and much more. Kaplan’s cartoons, although simple, are never straightforward; they encompass an easy irony and dark humor that often cuts straight to the truth of experience. Brilliantly relatable and genuinely moving, I Was a Child is about our attempts to understand the mysteries that are our parents, our families, and ourselves.

In My TBR Stack:

Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-Five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It
by Bob Boilen
William Morrow
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

From the beloved host and creator of NPR’s All Songs Considered and Tiny Desk Concerts comes an essential oral history of modern music, told in the voices of iconic and up-and-coming musicians, including Dave Grohl, Jimmy Page, Michael Stipe, Carrie Brownstein, Smokey Robinson, and Jeff Tweedy, among others—published in association with NPR Music.

Is there a unforgettable song that changed your life?

NPR’s renowned music authority Bob Boilen posed this question to some of today’s best-loved musical legends and rising stars. In Your Song Changed My Life, Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), St. Vincent, Jónsi (Sigur Rós), Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Cat Power, David Byrne (Talking Heads), Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters), Jeff Tweedy (Wilco), Jenny Lewis, Carrie Brownstein (Portlandia, Sleater-Kinney), Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), Colin Meloy (The Decemberists), Trey Anastasio (Phish), Jackson Browne, Valerie June, Philip Glass, James Blake, and other artists reflect on pivotal moments that inspired their work.

For Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, it was discovering his sister’s 45 of The Byrds’ “Turn, Turn, Turn.” A young St. Vincent’s life changed the day a box of CDs literally fell off a delivery truck in front of her house. Cat Stevens was transformed when he heard John Lennon cover “Twist and Shout.” These are the momentous yet unmarked events that have shaped these and many other musical talents, and ultimately the sound of modern music.

A diverse collection of personal experiences, both ordinary and extraordinary, Your Song Changed My Life illustrates the ways in which music is revived, restored, and revolutionized. It is also a testament to the power of music in our lives, and an inspiration for future artists and music lovers.

Amazing contributors include: Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney, Portlandia, Wild Flag), Smokey Robinson, David Byrne (Talking Heads), St. Vincent, Jeff Tweedy (Wilco), James Blake, Colin Meloy (The Decemberists), Trey Anastasio (Phish), Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley), Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters), Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), Sturgill Simpson, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Cat Power, Jackson Browne, Michael Stipe (R.E.M.), Philip Glass, Jónsi (Sigur Rós), Hozier, Regina Carter, Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes, and others), Courtney Barnett, Chris Thile (Nickel Creek, Punch Brothers), Leon Bridges, Sharon Van Etten, and many more.

Out This Week:

Digging Up Mother: A Love Story
by Doug Stanhope
Da Capo Press
Hardcover

I just finished this book last night, and it is one of the most thorough, warts-and-all celebrity memoirs I've ever seen.  A enjoyable, if sometimes uncomfortable, read.  If you are a fan of Doug Stanhope, or even if you're not, you should read his memoir.  I have a feeling it'll stay with me for a while. -- BookDude

From the publisher's website:

Doug Stanhope is one of the most critically acclaimed and stridently unrepentant comedians of his generation. What will surprise some is that he owes so much of his dark and sometimes uncomfortably honest sense of humor to his mother, Bonnie. It was the cartoons in HER Hustler magazine issues that molded the beginnings of his comedic journey, long before he was old enough to know what to do with the actual pornography. It was Bonnie who recited Monty Python sketches with him, who introduced him to Richard Pryor at nine years old, and who rescued him from a psychologist when he brought that brand of humor to school. And it was Bonnie who took him along to all of her AA meetings where Doug undoubtedly found inspiration for his own story-telling.

Bonnie’s own journey from bar-tending to truck driving, massage therapy, elder abuse, and stand-up comedy and acting never stopped her from being Doug’s genuine number one fan. So when Bonnie’s alcoholic, hoarding life finally came to an end, so many weird adventures later in rural Arizona, it was inevitable that Doug and Bonnie would be together for one last journey.

Digging Up Mother follows Doug's absurd, chaotic, and often obscene life as it intersects with that of his best friend, biggest fan, and love of his life—his mother Bonnie. And it all starts with her death—one of the most memorable and amazing farewells you will ever read.

BookSpin Review:

Consequence: A Memoir
by Eric Fair
Henry Holt
Hardcover



It is truly terrifying what a man can do when he becomes desensitized to the humanity of others.






TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION




Eric Fair was many things:


Seminary student


U.S. Army Arabic linguist


Police Officer


National Security Agency employee


Employee of CACI, civilian military contractor




He was also in a young, struggling marriage and  ill enough to be a candidate for a heart transplant.




CONSEQUENCE, his new memoir, is a story with more plot turns than a Hollywood blockbuster.  It seems to me that Fair has a love-hate relationship with most things in life.  His journey through his religious beliefs and seminary studies is rife with what came across to me as tinges of doubt or hesitation.  He also had a long-standing dream to be a police officer, which he achieved after his Army stint but before having to give it up due to his medical condition.


He worked at the NSA only a brief time. He was itching to get back to Iraq, to paraphrase, 'finish the job'.  He heard about a company that was serving as a military contractor in Iraq conducting interrogations on detainees.  The civilian company didn't require a physical, they only cared about his training in Arabic linguistics and his Army experience in Iraq.


Much of the story of CONSEQUENCE is the moral struggle that Fair goes through. It is obvious to me that he has was always looking for something he couldn't quite name and this explains his religious search.  He knew he wanted to help people, and always thought being a police officer would satisfy this desire. However, the stories he tells about his time with a badge clearly show his growing disenchantment with that profession as well.


The book really becomes whole when he goes back to Iraq with CACI.  He participates in what can only be defined as torture against the detainees.  He witnesses many other tactics and is complicit in his silence.


The lesson from CONSEQUENCE is what we learn from observing Eric Fair's journey to the end of the book.   This is not a Hollywood happy ending, where everything is tied up nicely at the end -- there is no stated "moral at the end of the story". Instead, the reader is left to contemplate the facts he has learned and to come to grips with them, much like Fair himself.  This is a brave author who has written this book.


Reading this book as a veteran, I say Fair's voice is spot on.  He describes the motivations and even the thought processes of a person caught in the morass of war. 



The writing of this book was cathartic for Fair, I'm certain.  The reader is asked to take on the moral questions the writer has been dealing with all along. As I said, this book doesn't answer the questions, it restates them for a new audience. For this and many other reasons, CONSEQUENCE is an unsettling book -- one that should be read by hawks and protestors alike.  This is not the story you've heard anywhere else.  And, if it weren't true, you'd have a hard time believing it.


- - - - -


I received an advance reader copy of this book from Henry Holt, for my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.  -- BookDude

 

BookSpin Review:

Delta Lady: A Memoir
by Rita Coolidge with Michael Walker
Harper Books
Hardcover

 The first time I remember hearing of Rita Coolidge was when I heard her song, " (Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher " on the radio.  It wasn't long before I owned the 45 and discovered the flip-side single was "Who's to Bless and Who's to Blame," written by Kris Kristofferson, who I had heard of before.

The next piece of information that came to light was that Kristofferson and Coolidge were married.  I was learning musical trivia at a dizzying pace. 

The 45 in question was one of what became a collection of over a hundred vinyl singles I owned. 

I had no idea of Ms. Coolidge's already productive history in the music business and pretty much lost track of her after this song.  This wasn't unusual for a boy my age busily gathering his favorite pop songs in the affordable 45 rpm format.

Fast forward a few decades and I recently finished DELTA WOMAN, Rita Coolidge's new memoir, written with Michael Walker.   Never a one-trick pony, Rita Coolidge's beauty was the inspiration for at least three popular songs and co-wrote many others.  She was a backup singer for such superstars as Stephen Stills, Eric Clapton and Joe Cocker ( part of the infamous 1970 Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour ), and the aforementioned solo career.

I refuse to spoil the fun, but she also reveals the previously unknown provenance of one of the most famous codas in rock and roll history.

Married to Kristofferson for six years, their union was a rock and roll fairy tale until it wasn't.   Filled  with many insider tidbits, this book is a quick read and should be grabbed by music fans of the 70s, both rock and country.  I enjoyed Delta Lady very much.

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I received an advance reader copy of this book from Harper Books, for my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.  -- BookDude

On My Radar:

The Golden Condom: And Other Essays on Love Lost and Found
by Jeanne Safer, Ph.D.
Picador Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Dr. Jeanne Safer has dedicated much of her decades' long career in psychotherapy to exploring taboo subjects that we all think about in private but seldom discuss in public. From conflicted sibling relationships to the choice not to have children, Safer's work has always been unflinching in its aim to dive deep into topics that make most of us blush, but which are present in all of our lives. In The Golden Condom, Safer turns her sharp and fearless eye to a subject perhaps more universal than any other-love in all its permutations. 

In The Golden Condom Safer interweaves her own experiences with those of a variety of memorable people, including her patients, telling a series of tales that investigate relationships--both healthy and toxic--that most of us don't escape life without experiencing at least once, including traumatic friendships, love after loss, unrequited or obsessional love and more. Never prescriptive and always entertaining, these stories will demolish any suspicion you might have that you're alone in navigating a turbulent romantic life, and will inspire you with the range of possibilities that exist to find love, however unconventional, and at any age.

Currently Reading:

The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts: Murder and Memory in an American City
by Laura Tillman
Scribner
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In Cold Blood meets Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family: A harrowing, profoundly personal investigation of the causes, effects, and communal toll of a deeply troubling crime—the brutal murder of three young children by their parents in the border city of Brownsville, Texas.

On March 11, 2003, in Brownsville, Texas—one of America’s poorest cities—John Allen Rubio and Angela Camacho murdered their three young children. The apartment building in which the brutal crimes took place was already rundown, and in their aftermath a consensus developed in the community that it should be destroyed. It was a place, neighbors felt, that was plagued by spiritual cancer.
In 2008, journalist Laura Tillman covered the story for The Brownsville Herald. The questions it raised haunted her, particularly one asked by the sole member of the city’s Heritage Council to oppose demolition: is there any such thing as an evil building? Her investigation took her far beyond that question, revealing the nature of the toll that the crime exacted on a city already wracked with poverty. It sprawled into a six-year inquiry into the larger significance of such acts, ones so difficult to imagine or explain that their perpetrators are often dismissed as monsters alien to humanity.
With meticulous attention and stunning compassion, Tillman surveyed those surrounding the crimes, speaking with the lawyers who tried the case, the family’s neighbors and relatives and teachers, even one of the murderers: John Allen Rubio himself, whom she corresponded with for years and ultimately met in person. The result is a brilliant exploration of some of our age’s most important social issues, from poverty to mental illness to the death penalty, and a beautiful, profound meditation on the truly human forces that drive them. It is disturbing, insightful, and mesmerizing in equal measure.

On My Radar:

I Will Find You: A Reporter Investigates the Life of the Man Who Raped Her
by Joanna Connors
Atlantic Monthly Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:


“This is it. My rape. I knew it was coming. Every woman knows. And now here it is. My turn.”
When Joanna Connors was thirty years old on assignment for the Cleveland Plain Dealer to review a play at a college theater, she was held at knifepoint and raped by a stranger who had grown up five miles away from her. Once her assailant was caught and sentenced, Joanna never spoke of the trauma again, until twenty-one years later when her daughter was about to go to college. She resolved then to tell her children about her own rape so that they could learn and protect themselves, and she began to realize that the man who assaulted her was one of the most formative people in her life.

Setting out to uncover the story of her attacker, Connors embarked on a journey to find out who he was, where he came from, who his friends were, and what his life was like. What she discovers stretches beyond one violent man’s story and back into her own, interweaving a narrative about strength and survival with one about rape culture and violence in America.

I Will Find You is a brave, timely consideration of race, class, education, and the families that shape who we become, by a reporter and a survivor.

“Is it possible to call the story of a violent rape and its haunting aftermath a thing of beauty? In the hands of Joanna Connors, this lucid, powerful memoir becomes its own form of redemption, as a seasoned reporter turns her gaze on her own life and that of her rapist's. I found this to be a profoundly moving, important, and, yes, beautiful book.”—Dani Shapiro, author of Still Writing    

In My TBR Stack:

Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the 15th Century to the 21st
by Frank Trentmann
Harper Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

What we consume has become a central—perhaps the central—feature of modern life. Our economies live or die by spending, we increasingly define ourselves by our possessions, and this ever-richer lifestyle has had an extraordinary impact on our planet. How have we come to live with so much stuff, and how has this changed the course of history?

In Empire of Things, Frank Trentmann unfolds the extraordinary story of our modern material world, from Renaissance Italy and late Ming China to today’s global economy. While consumption is often portrayed as a recent American export, this monumental and richly detailed account shows that it is in fact a truly international phenomenon with a much longer and more diverse history. Trentmann traces the influence of trade and empire on tastes, as formerly exotic goods like coffee, tobacco, Indian cotton and Chinese porcelain conquered the world, and explores the growing demand for home furnishings, fashionable clothes and convenience that transformed private and public life. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought department stores, credit cards and advertising, but also the rise of the ethical shopper, new generational identities and, eventually, the resurgence of the Asian consumer.

With an eye to the present and future, Frank Trentmann provides a long view on the global challenges of our relentless pursuit of more—from waste and debt to stress and inequality. A masterpiece of research and storytelling many years in the making, Empire of Things recounts the epic history of the goods that have seduced, enriched and unsettled our lives over the past six hundred years.