In My TBR Stack:

5% More: Making Small Changes to Achieve Extraordinary Results
by Michael Alden
Wiley
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

5% More presents a painless route to change, with results that can last a lifetime. Whether you want to boost your health, wealth, or wisdom, this book reveals a key technique that makes it stick. You may already know that breaking big goals into small chunks makes them easier to achieve, but the trick is in making those chunks large enough to be productive, yet small enough to be sustainable. This book shows you how to bring your goals within reach with only five percent more effort. Five percent is almost unnoticeable in terms of effort—but it accrues quickly, with each step boosting the baseline. Increase sales, decrease your marathon time, boost your savings, or master a new skill. Just five percent more can get you where you want to be.

Small changes, small commitments, and small adjustments can lead to very big results. You can accomplish more than you ever thought possible in your business or in your life. This book walks you through the 5% More strategy to help you map your path to the future.

• Accomplish big changes with very small steps
• Make bigger leaps in progress each step of the way
• Break big goals into manageable milestones
• Find a change that you can stick to for the long-term

Mountain climbers don't conquer Everest on their first time out—attempting to do so would be a tragic failure. No matter what your goal, no matter what your baseline, small, incremental steps set you up for success. 5% More gives you a concrete strategy for realizing your goals and making changes that last.

On My Radar:

The Trip: Andy Warhol's Plastic Fantastic Cross-Country Adventure
by Deborah Davis
Atria Books
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

From the author of Strapless and Guest of Honor, a “jaunty romp through American pop-art history” (The Washington Post) about a little-known road trip Andy Warhol took in 1963, and how that journey profoundly influenced his life and art.

In 1963, up-and-coming artist Andy Warhol, along with a colorful group of friends, drove across America. What began as a madcap, drug-fueled romp became a journey that took Warhol on a kaleidoscopic adventure from New York City, across the vast American heartland, all the way to Hollywood, and back.

With locations ranging from a Texas panhandle truck stop to a Beverly Hills mansion, from the beaches of Santa Monica to a photo booth in Albuquerque, The Trip captures how Warhol intersected with Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Marcel Duchamp, Elizabeth Taylor, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and other bold-faced names of the time. Along the way, Warhol also met rednecks, beach bums, underground filmmakers, artists, poets, socialites, and newly minted hippies—all of them leaving an indelible mark on his psyche.

In The Trip, Andy Warhol’s speeding Ford Falcon is our time machine, transporting us from the last vestiges of the sleepy Eisenhower epoch to the true beginning of the explosive, exciting sixties. Through in-depth, original research, Deborah Davis sheds new light on one of the most enduring figures in the art world and captures a fascinating moment in 1960s America—with Warhol at its center.

In My TBR Stack:

Sex and Death: Stories
by Sarah Hall & Peter Hobbs
Harper Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

How we come in, and how we go out, sex and death: these are the governing drives, our two greatest themes.

In this provocative, haunting, and sexy collection of short stories, a group of acclaimed writers from across the globe probes the nature of, and connection between, two of the most powerful, exhilarating, and terrifying forces that define and shape the human experience: sex and death.

Here we see the events that mark the lives of the young and old, of men and women, of those meeting only briefly and others reflecting on shared pasts.

In these intense, often traumatic, and sometimes humorous interactions, we are confronted not just with our urges and anxieties, but with the very limits of mortality and morbidity. Honest, compassionate, and psychologically astute, the stories in Sex and Death are daring in their approaches to the form and relentless in their pursuit of what it is to be human.

Kevin Barry • Lynn Coady • Ceridwen Dovey • Robert Drewe • Damon Galgut • Petina Gappah • Sarah Hall • Peter Hobbs • Yiyun Li • Alexander MacLeod • Ben Marcus • Jon McGregor • Guadalupe Nettel • Courttia Newland • Taiye Selasi • Ali Smith • Wells Tower • Alan Warner • Claire Vaye Watkins • Clare Wigfall

On My Radar:

The Jolly Roger Social Club: A True Story of a Killer in Paradise
by Nick Foster
Henry Holt
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The true story of a series of bold killings which took place in a shadowy American ex-pat community in Panama -- a tale of greed, political history, and murder.

In the remote Bocas del Toro, Panama, William Dathan Holbert, aka "Wild Bill," is awaiting trial for the murder of five fellow American ex-patriots. Holbert;s first victims were the Brown family, who lived on a remote island in the area's Darklands. There, Holbert turned their home into the "Jolly Roger Social Club," using drink-and-drug-fueled parties to get to know other ex-pats. The club's tagline was: "Over 90% of our members survive." Those odds were not in his victim's favor.

The Jolly Roger Social Club is not just a book about what Holbert did and the complex financial and real estate motives behind the killings; it is about why Bocas del Toro turned out to be his perfect hunting ground, and why the community tolerated -- even accepted him -- for a time. Told through the fascinating history of the country of Panama, a paradise with sinister ties to the political and economic interests of the United States, journalist Nick Foster brings this uniquely bizarre place to life, shedding light on a community where many live under assumed names, desperate to leave their old lives behind - and sometimes people just disappear.

A Q&A with Author/Publicist Paula Marguiles:

The Tao of Book Publicity: A Beginner's Guide to Book Promotion
by Paula Marguiles
One People Press


 Q & A

1. You have been a book publicist for more than 25 years. What made you finally decide to write a guidebook on promotion for authors?

In the course of my publicity work, I’ve received calls from hundreds of authors, many of whom ask the same questions: When do I start my publicity campaign? How much should I plan to spend? Do I need a website? How do I build a platform? What price should I give my book? Do I have to use social media and, if so, which sites are best? Should I print a hardcover version, or will a paperback suffice? Do I need to enter contests? How can I get more reviews? 

These are all important questions, and since so many authors seem to have the same concerns about their books, I decided to share what I’ve learned over the years as a publicist in one convenient, inexpensive resource guide. 

2. The Tao of Book Publicity has a Zen look and feel to the cover and title. How does understanding the Tao principles help authors to promote their books? 

I chose the Tao as a way of offering authors a practical philosophy on how they might approach book marketing. There are many authors who find promotion crass and time-consuming; a good majority would rather be writing than spending time trying to develop promotional material and schedules for themselves and their work. But I’ve found that book promotion can be a rewarding and fulfilling activity if done with the right perspective in mind. 

As I describe in the book, most book publicity comes from a place of not-knowing; there are people we approach, for example, for reviews or interviews, but we cannot strong-arm those individuals into giving us what we want. Instead, we take the time to think about what our message is, who we are targeting with that message, and how to propose it in the most succinct, relevant, and motivating way we can. We then present our message (what most in my business call our “pitch”), and then follow-up with persistence to try to get a yes response. Our results are never guaranteed – it is up to the reporters or editors we contact to decide if the message we’re sharing is right for them. But when we come from a place of humility and unattachment, we tend to do a better job of both preparation (in which case, we usually achieve the goals we’re attempting) and managing our expectations. 

3. What other aspects of book publicity to do you cover in the book?

I provide how-to explanations for developing publicity material, including front and back cover text, press releases, Q&As, media and blog tour queries, and newsletter and media lists. I also cover topics such as social media, book pricing and sales, book tours and media interviews, and author websites. In addition to explaining how book publicity works, I also discuss practical topics such as publicity costs, timing, and considerations when hiring a publicist; I’ve found that many authors want to know upfront about fees for services and what steps they should have completed before they contact a publicist like me. 

4. If you have one piece of advice for new authors, what would it be?

That’s easy – write a good book! 

Of course, that’s easier said than done. I’ve found that oftentimes authors, especially those who have chosen to self-publish, are in a rush to get their books out. In their hurry, they forgo important steps like workshopping the book, spending time on revision, hiring a professional editor and cover designer, and developing their platforms. As a result, many of their books, sadly, don’t sell. If authors want their books to be well-received by booksellers, the media, and (most important) readers, they must take the time to carefully edit, polish, and package them well – there is no substitute for these steps in the publishing process.

5. Can you describe how an author might use this book as a guide to his or her own publicity plans?

Authors can read the chapters in any order they like (each chapter is designed to be read as stand-alone unit) and see what sounds as if it might be a good fit for them and their books. If something doesn’t sound right, they don’t have to use it. The information in the chapters is there to provide guidance and insight into what I believe are the common practices of most book publicists, but none of what’s there is meant to be a hard-and-fast prescription for any author’s individual book publicity plans.

6. Are you working on another book? If so, what can you tell us about it?

In addition to this latest book, I’m also the author of the short story collection, Face Value: Collected Stories, and two novels: Coyote Heart, which is a modern-day romance about a married woman who falls in love with a Pala Indian man, and Favorite Daughter, Part One, a first-person retelling of the life story of the famous Native American legend, Pocahontas. I’d like to get back to writing fiction and plan to spend the next year completing Part Two of Favorite Daughter. 

Guest Post:

Real Men Wear Beige “One man’s jailhouse journey through the chaotic realm of concrete and steel”

By Donato Alfredano

As an author, my inspiration comes from life altering events.  As you might imagine, the more intense and profound the event is, the more compelled I am to write about it.  My first book, titled “Be Strong, Be Tough, Be Smart” tells the story of raising my son who was diagnosed with autism at the age of four but then went on to become a PhD, working with NASA and other space science institutions.  His story of triumph and inspiration is a shining example of the term “life altering.”

But not all life altering events are happy ones. You know what they say… ”Life’s a bitch.”  For me, maybe more like a roller coaster.  Yes, it only took a few bad choices and a tempestuous lifestyle to
land me behind bars.  In my new book, “Real Men Wear Beige,” I strive to shine a light on the realities of incarceration and provide my readers with an insider’s perspective on prison life, with a strong focus on humanity and veracity.

We are all impacted differently by the books we read and we are all affected by different components of the same story.  Aside from being absorbed or intrigued by the book as a whole, there are three impressions I hope readers of Real Men Wear Beige will be left with:
So, you paid your price to society.  It’s all behind you now… right?

Try to imagine it.  You’re being plucked out of the polarizing world of stagnation and insanity, known as prison, and dropped into the free world, the real world, full of relative stability, free choice and diversity. 

The good news is that you’re home, you’re free, and you’ve paid you’re price to society.  The bad news is that nobody else sees it that way.  To them you’re still a felon, an ex-con and an underdog.  In Real Men Wear Beige, I strive to explain my rude awakening as I trudged through the obstacles that my new title of convicted felon afforded me long after my release from prison.  In today’s world of the explicit and unforgiving internet, finding employment, renting a home, and many other everyday affairs become a battle and a block wall for a newly released inmate, especially in terms of acclimating and becoming a productive member of society.  You supposedly paid your price to society and should be able to start with a clean slate, right?  Wrong, in actuality you will wear the proverbial anchor of injustice around your neck for… well… ever. 

But they’re just jailbirds, felons and thugs. Right?

OK, but there is a human side.  Prison is all about people.  In Real Men Wear Beige, I’ve proclaimed “prison is a microcosm of the best and the worst that society has to offer - from the dregs to the divine.”  I’ve strived to exemplify the diverse personalities of many of the interesting and often peculiar individuals I encountered throughout my jailhouse journey. In other words, I attempted to understand them and examine their attitudes and convictions.

But why… what’s the point?  The answer is simple:  There is a “disconnect”, an animosity, and a blind spot in our society that makes reasonableness and reformation practically impossible to achieve in our broken prison system.  We are essentially incapable of recognizing inmates as real individuals who made some bad choices for which they have been held accountable.  No, not every inmate is innately fiendish and immoral.  Undeniably, prison houses the child molesters and murderers, but the absolute majority of inmates are real people who are just trying to slog their way toward the light at the end of the tunnel.  Here’s a thought… how about treating people for who they are, not what they did?

But you get a “fair and reasonable” sentence. Right?

Not always. Americans are finally beginning to realize that our “not-so-perfect” sentencing process may warrant a second look.  Mass incarceration and the overwhelming impact it has on families, economic livelihoods, and the quality of life for children growing up without mothers and fathers, is beginning to cause many to re-think their preconceived notions of what constitutes a “fair and reasonable” prison sentence. Prison reform?  Call it what you like, but re-thinking mandatory sentencing laws and the criteria used by our court system to determine what is actually fair and reasonable are a good starting point. In Real Men Wear Beige, I’ve pointed to an implicit lack of discretion and diversity in the sentencing process, resulting in the one-size-fits-all approach to prison sentencing in the USA. It’s about time we make an effort to fix it.  After all, “The vilest deeds, like prison weeds, grow well in prison air.  It’s only what is good in man that wastes and withers there.”  Oscar Wilde

Donato Alfredano, 
Author, Songwriter, Educator

Be Strong, Be Tough, Be Smart

also by Donato Alfredano

with Giada Star

On My Radar:

A Little Thing Called Life: On Loving Elvis Presley, Bruce Jenner, and Songs in Between
by Linda Thompson
Dey Street Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

For the last forty years, award-winning songwriter Linda Thompson has quietly led one of the most remarkable lives in show business. The longtime live-in love of Elvis Presley, Linda first emerged into the limelight during the 1970s when the former beauty pageant queen caught the eye of the King. Their chance late-night encounter at a movie theater was the stuff of legend, and it marked the beginning of a whirlwind that would stretch across decades, leading to a marriage with Bruce Jenner, motherhood, and more drama than she ever could have imagined.

Now for the first time, Linda opens up about it all, telling the full story of her life, loves, and everything in between. From her humble beginnings in Memphis to her nearly five year relationship with Elvis, she offers an intimate window into their life together, describing how their Southern roots fueled and sustained Graceland's greatest romance. Going inside their wild stories and tender moments, she paints a portrait of life with the King, as raucous as it is refreshing. But despite the joy they shared, life with Elvis also had darkness, and her account also presents an unsparing look at Elvis's twin demons—drug abuse and infidelity—forces he battled throughout their time together that would eventually end their relationship just eight months before his untimely death.

It was in the difficult aftermath of Elvis's death that Linda found what she believed was her true home: the arms of Olympic gold medal-winner Bruce Jenner. Detailing her marriage to Bruce, Linda reveals the apparently perfect life that they built with their two young sons—Brandon and Brody—before Bruce changed everything with a secret he'd been carrying his entire life, a secret that Linda herself kept for nearly thirty years, a secret that Bruce's transition to Caitlyn Jenner has finally laid bare for the world. Providing a candid look inside one of the most challenging moments of her life, Linda uncovers the struggles she went through as a woman and a mother, coming to terms with the reality of Bruce's identity and resolving to embrace him completely no matter what, even as it meant they could no longer be together,

And yet, despite her marriage unraveling, her search for love was not over, eventually leading her to the legendary music producer and musician David Foster, a relationship that lasted for 19 tumultuous years, resulting in a bond that spurred her songwriting career to new heights but also tested her like never before. Filled with compelling and poignant stories and 16 pages of photographs, A Little Thing Called Life lovingly recounts Linda's incredible journey through the years, bringing unparalleled insight into three legendary figures.

On My Radar:

The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story of a Terrorist, a Train, and Three American Heroes
by Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone and Jeffrey E. Stern
Public Affairs Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

 On August 21, 2015, Ayoub al-Khazzani boarded the 15:17 train in Brussels, bound for Paris. Khazzani's mission was clear: he had an AK-47, a pistol, a box cutter, and enough ammunition to obliterate every passenger on the crowded train. Slipping into the bathroom in secret, he armed his weapons and prepared to launch his attack.

But when he emerged, he encountered something he hadn't anticipated: three Americans who refused to give in to fear.

Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, and Spencer Stone were childhood friends, taking a vacation together. They had some relevant training: Stone is a martial arts enthusiast and Airman First Class in the US Air Force; Skarlatos is an active duty member of the Oregon National Guard; and not one of the three was afraid of a fight. But their decision—to charge the gunman, then overpower him even as he turned first his gun, then his knife, on Stone—would never have happened if they hadn't had a lifetime of trust, support, and loyalty between them.

This book is the gripping, true story of a terrorist attack that would have killed more than 500 people if not for their actions, but it is also the story of three American boys and their friendship.

Using each hero's point of view in sequence, The 15:17 to Paris skillfully builds the drama of the attack, while weaving in the stories of the protagonists' lives, the friendship and loyalty that would come to define them, and the events that led them, inexorably, to that fateful day.
The 15:17 to Paris is an amazing true story of unparalleled, unexpected courage, and people coming together against fear rather than splitting apart. It is a story of near tragedy averted by three young men who found the heroic unity and strength inside themselves that we all aspire to.

On My Radar:

The Sibling Connection: How Siblings Shape Our Lives
by Jane Mersky Leder
Amazon Digital Services, LLC
e-Book

From the author:

A book for adults about siblings, The Sibling Connection: How Siblings Shape Our Lives, explores the often mysterious, complex, and constantly changing sibling connection.  Contrary to popular belief, life’s longest relationship is not dictated by rivalry, even when siblings compete during childhood.  Siblings are major players in our lives and impact everything from our choice of profession to our choice of a husband, wife, or partner. Siblings are reflections of ourselves and help us better understand who we are, why we are, and the way we are. 

On My Radar:

Code Name: Papa ~ My Extraordinary Life While Hiding in Plain Sight
by John Murray as told to Sharon Murray with Abby Jones
Archway Publishing
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Who'd have thought a bright, but fairly ordinary young man from middle class America who got just above average grades, dated the same girl throughout high school and went to church most Sundays, would grow up to eventually head a very secretive band of brave individuals--both men and women--who regularly put their lives on the line because they wanted to protect the rest of you. Yet that's what we did, often sacrificing our personal lives (four marriages for me, all in the book) and our health (countless broken bones, major surgeries, even death) to do it.

Meanwhile you're just going to have to call me "Papa" like everyone else around the globe has through most of those wildly unpredictable and dangerous years.

On My Radar:

The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo
by Amy Schumer
Gallery Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The Emmy Award-winning comedian, actress, writer, and star of Inside Amy Schumer and the acclaimed film Trainwreck has taken the entertainment world by storm with her winning blend of smart, satirical humor. Now, Amy Schumer has written a refreshingly candid and uproariously funny collection of (extremely) personal and observational essays.

In The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy mines her past for stories about her teenage years, her family, relationships, and sex and shares the experiences that have shaped who she is—a woman with the courage to bare her soul to stand up for what she believes in, all while making us laugh.

Ranging from the raucous to the romantic, the heartfelt to the harrowing, this highly entertaining and universally appealing collection is the literary equivalent of a night out with your best friend—an unforgettable and fun adventure that you wish could last forever. Whether she’s experiencing lust-at-first-sight while in the airport security line, sharing her own views on love and marriage, admitting to being an introvert, or discovering her cross-fit instructor’s secret bad habit, Amy Schumer proves to be a bighearted, brave, and thoughtful storyteller that will leave you nodding your head in recognition, laughing out loud, and sobbing uncontrollably—but only because it’s over.

In My TBR Stack:

A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression
by Jane Ziegelman & Andrew Coe
Harper Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

From the author of the acclaimed 97 Orchard and her husband, a culinary historian, an in-depth exploration of the greatest food crisis the nation has ever faced—the Great Depression—and how it transformed America’s culinary culture.

The decade-long Great Depression, a period of shifts in the country’s political and social landscape, forever changed the way America eats. Before 1929, America’s relationship with food was defined by abundance. But the collapse of the economy, in both urban and rural America, left a quarter of all Americans out of work and undernourished—shattering long-held assumptions about the limitlessness of the national larder.

In 1933, as women struggled to feed their families, President Roosevelt reversed long-standing biases toward government-sponsored “food charity.” For the first time in American history, the federal government assumed, for a while, responsibility for feeding its citizens. The effects were widespread. Championed by Eleanor Roosevelt, “home economists” who had long fought to bring science into the kitchen rose to national stature.

Tapping into America’s long-standing ambivalence toward culinary enjoyment, they imposed their vision of a sturdy, utilitarian cuisine on the American dinner table. Through the Bureau of Home Economics, these women led a sweeping campaign to instill dietary recommendations, the forerunners of today’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

At the same time, rising food conglomerates introduced packaged and processed foods that gave rise to a new American cuisine based on speed and convenience. This movement toward a homogenized national cuisine sparked a revival of American regional cooking. In the ensuing decades, the tension between local traditions and culinary science has defined our national cuisine—a battle that continues today.

A Square Meal examines the impact of economic contraction and environmental disaster on how Americans ate then—and the lessons and insights those experiences may hold for us today.

In My TBR Stack:

Riverine: A Memoir From Anywhere But Here
by Angela Palm
Graywolf Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Angela Palm grew up in a place not marked on the map, in a house set on the banks of a river that had been straightened to make way for farmland. Every year, the Kankakee River in rural Indiana flooded and returned to its old course while the residents sandbagged their homes against the rising water. From her bedroom window, Palm watched the neighbor boy and loved him in secret, imagining a life with him even as she longed for a future that held more than a job at the neighborhood bar. For Palm, caught in this landscape of flood and drought, escape was a continually receding hope.            

           

Though she did escape, as an adult Palm finds herself drawn back, like the river, to her origins. But this means more than just recalling vibrant, complicated memories of the place that shaped her, or trying to understand the family that raised her. It means visiting the prison where the boy she loved is serving a life sentence for a brutal murder. It means trying to chart, through the mesmerizing, interconnected essays of Riverine, what happens when a single event forces the path of her life off course. 

On My Radar:

Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud
by Elizabeth Greenwood
Simon and Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Is it still possible to fake your own death in the twenty-first century? With six figures of student loan debt, Elizabeth Greenwood was tempted to find out.

So she sets off on a foray into the world of death fraud, where for $30,000 a consultant can make you disappear—but your suspicious insurance company might hire a private detective to dig up your coffin…only to find it filled with rocks.

Greenwood tracks down a man who staged a kayaking accident and then returned to live in his own house while all his neighbors thought he was dead. She takes a call from Michael Jackson (yes, he’s alive—or so some would have her believe), talks to people contemplating pseudocide, and gathers intel on black market morgues in the Philippines, where she may or may not succeed in obtaining some fraudulent goodies of her own. Along the way, she learns that love is a much less common motive than money, and that making your death look like a drowning virtually guarantees you’ll be caught. (Disappearing while hiking, however, is a great way to go.)


Playing Dead is an utterly fascinating and charmingly bizarre investigation into our all-too-human desire to escape from the lives we lead, and the men and women desperate enough to lose their identities—and their families—to begin again.

On My Radar:

Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency
by James Andrew Miller
Custom House
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

An astonishing—and astonishingly entertaining—behind-the-curtain history of Hollywood's transformation over the past five decades as seen through the agency at the heart of it all, from the #1 bestselling author of Live from New York and Those Guys Have All the Fun.

In 1975, five young employees of a sclerotic William Morris agency left to start their own, strikingly innovative talent agency. In the years to come, Creative Artists Agency would vault from its origins in a tiny office on the last block of Beverly Hills to become the largest, most imperial, groundbreaking, and star-studded agency Hollywood has ever seen—a company whose tentacles now spread throughout the world of movies, music, television, technology, advertising, sports, and investment banking far more than previously imagined.

Powerhouse is the fascinating, no-holds-barred saga of that hot-blooded ascent. Drawing on unprecedented and exclusive access to the men and women who built and battled CAA, as well as financial information never before made public, acclaimed author James Andrew Miller spins a tale of boundless ambition, ruthless egomania, ceaseless empire building, drugs, sex, greed, and personal betrayal. Powerhouse is also a story of prophetic brilliance, magnificent artistry, singular genius, entrepreneurial courage, strategic daring, foxhole brotherhood, and how one firm utterly transformed the entertainment business. Here are the real Star Wars—complete with a Death Star—told through the voices of those who were actually there. Packed with scores of stars from movies, television, music, and sports, as well as a tremendously compelling cast of agents, studio executives, network chiefs, league commissioners, hedge fund managers, tech CEOs, and media tycoons, Powerhouse is itself a Hollywood blockbuster of the most spectacular sort.

In My TBR Stack:

Raising Human Beings: Creating A Collaborative Partnership with Your Child
by Ross W. Greene, PhD
Scribner
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In Raising Human Beings, the renowned child psychologist and New York Times bestselling author of Lost at School and The Explosive Child explains how to cultivate a better parent-child relationship while also nurturing empathy, honesty, resilience, and independence.

Parents have an important task: figure out who their child is—his or her skills, preferences, beliefs, values, personality traits, goals, and direction—get comfortable with it, and then help him or her pursue and live a life that is congruent with it. But parents also want to have influence. They want their kid to be independent, but not if he or she is going to make bad choices. They don’t want to be harsh and rigid, but nor do they want a noncompliant, disrespectful kid. They want to avoid being too pushy and overbearing, but not if an unmotivated, apathetic kid is what they have to show for it. They want to have a good relationship with their kids, but not if that means being a pushover. They don’t want to scream, but they do want to be heard. Good parenting is about striking the balance between a child’s characteristics and a parent’s desire to have influence.

Now Dr. Ross Greene offers a detailed and practical guide for raising kids in a way that enhances relationships, improves communication, and helps kids learn how to resolve disagreements without conflict. Through his well-known model of solving problems collaboratively, parents can forgo time-out and sticker charts, stop badgering, berating, threatening, and punishing, allow their kids to feel heard and validated, and have influence. From homework to hygiene, curfews, to screen time, Raising Human Beings arms parents with the tools they need to raise kids in ways that are non-punitive and non-adversarial and that brings out the best in both parent and child.

In My TBR Stack:

Carrying Albert Home: The Somewhat True Story of a Man, His Wife, and Her Alligator
by Homer Hickam
William Morrow
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Big Fish meets The Notebook in this emotionally evocative story about a man, a woman, and an alligator that is a moving tribute to love, from the New York Times bestselling author of the award-winning memoir Rocket Boys—the basis of the movie October Sky.

Elsie Lavender and Homer Hickam (the father of the author) were high school classmates in the West Virginia coalfields, graduating just as the Great Depression began. When Homer asked for her hand, Elsie instead headed to Orlando where she sparked with a dancing actor named Buddy Ebsen (yes, that Buddy Ebsen). But when Buddy headed for New York, Elsie’s dreams of a life with him were crushed and eventually she found herself back in the coalfields, married to Homer.

Unfulfilled as a miner’s wife, Elsie was reminded of her carefree days with Buddy every day because of his unusual wedding gift: an alligator named Albert she raised in the only bathroom in the house. When Albert scared Homer by grabbing his pants, he gave Elsie an ultimatum: “Me or that alligator!” After giving it some thought, Elsie concluded there was only one thing to do: Carry Albert home.

Carrying Albert Home is the funny, sweet, and sometimes tragic tale of a young couple and a special alligator on a crazy 1,000-mile adventure. Told with the warmth and down-home charm that made Rocket Boys a beloved bestseller, Homer Hickam’s rollicking tale is ultimately a testament to that strange and marvelous emotion we inadequately call love.

On My Radar:

The Naked Muse
by Kelley Swain
Valley Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Throughout her twenties, Kelley Swain worked as an artists’ model. The Naked Muse is her elegant, fascinating memoir of this time, meditating on art, travel, and how we accept, inhabit, and understand our own bodies. She describes her first experience disrobing for a class, modelling for international artists over six years, an intensive month being painted in Bruges, and posing as saints for a Sicilian chapel frieze.

Swain reveals how it really feels physically, intellectually, and emotionally – in the moment when “it’s my matter that matters, not ... what I consider to be ‘me’.” Both a flirtation with submissiveness and a wielding of power, Swain examines the model’s role in art’s alchemy, and tells the forgotten stories of women whose faces still bewitch us from gallery walls.

On My Radar:

The Man in the Monster: An Intimate Portrait of a Serial Killer
by Martha Elliott
Penguin Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:


Michael Ross was a serial killer who raped and murdered eight young women between 1981 and 1984. In 2005, the state of Connecticut put him to death by lethal injection. His crimes were horrific, and he paid the ultimate price for them.

When journalist Martha Elliott first heard of Ross, she learned what the world knew of him—that he had been a master at hiding in plain sight. Elliott, a staunch critic of the death penalty, was drawn to the case when the Connecticut Supreme Court overturned Ross’s six death sentences. Rather than fight for his life, Ross requested that he be executed because he didn’t want the families of his victims to suffer through a new trial. Elliott was intrigued and sought an interview. The two began a weekly conversation—and developed an odd form of friendship—that lasted over a decade, until Ross’s last moments of life.

Over the course of his twenty years in prison, Ross had come to embrace faith for the first time in his life. He had also undergone extensive medical treatment. The Michael Ross whom Elliott knew seemed to be a different man from the monster who was capable of such heinous crimes. This Michael Ross made it his mission to share his story with Elliott in the hopes that it would save lives. He was her partner in unlocking the mystery of his own evil.

In The Man in the Monster, Martha Elliott gives us a groundbreaking look into the life and motivation of a serial killer. Drawing on a decade of conversations and letters between Ross and the author, readers are given an in-depth view of a killer’s innermost thoughts and secrets, revealing the human face of a monster—without ignoring the horrors of his crimes. Elliott takes us deep into a world of court hearings, tomblike prisons, lawyers hell-bent to kill or to save—and families ravaged by love and hate. This is the personal story of a journalist who came to know herself in ways she could never have imagined when she opened the notebook for that first interview.

In My TBR Stack:

The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel
by Uri Bar-Joseph
Harper Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

A gripping feat of reportage that exposes—for the first time in English—the sensational life and mysterious death of Ashraf Marwan, an Egyptian senior official who spied for Israel, offering new insight into the turbulent modern history of the Middle East.

As the son-in-law of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and a close advisor to his successor, Anwar Sadat, Ashraf Marwan had access to the deepest secrets of the country’s government. But Marwan himself had a secret: He was a spy for the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. Under the codename “The Angel,” Marwan turned Egypt into an open book for the Israeli intelligence services—and, by alerting the Mossad in advance of the joint Egyptian-Syrian attack on Yom Kippur, saved Israel from a devastating defeat.

Drawing on meticulous research and interviews with many key participants, Uri Bar Joseph pieces together Marwan’s story. In the process, he sheds new light on this volatile time in modern Egyptian and Middle Eastern history, culminating in 2011’s Arab Spring. The Angel also chronicles the discord within the Israeli government that brought down Prime Minister Golda Meir.

However, this nail-biting narrative doesn’t end with Israel’s victory in the Yom Kippur War. Marwan eluded Egypt’s ruthless secret services for many years, but then somebody talked. Five years later, in 2007, his body was found in the garden of his London apartment building. Police suspected he had been thrown from his fifth-floor balcony, and thanks to explosive new evidence, Bar-Joseph can finally reveal who, how, and why.

On My Radar:

American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes, and Trial of Patty Hearst
by Jeffrey Toobin
Doubleday
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, a sophomore in college and heiress to the Hearst family fortune, was kidnapped by a ragtag group of self-styled revolutionaries calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. The already sensational story took the first of many incredible twists on April 3, when the group released a tape of Patty saying she had joined the SLA and had adopted the nom de guerre “Tania.”

     The weird turns of the tale are truly astonishing—the Hearst family trying to secure Patty’s release by feeding all the people of Oakland and San Francisco for free; the bank security cameras capturing “Tania” wielding a machine gun during a robbery; a cast of characters including everyone from Bill Walton to the Black Panthers to Ronald Reagan to F. Lee Bailey; the largest police shoot-out in American history; the first breaking news event to be broadcast live on television stations across the country; Patty’s year on the lam, running from authorities; and her circuslike trial, filled with theatrical courtroom confrontations and a dramatic last-minute reversal, after which the term “Stockholm syndrome” entered the lexicon.

     The saga of Patty Hearst highlighted a decade in which America seemed to be suffering a collective nervous breakdown. Based on more than a hundred interviews and thousands of previously secret documents, American Heiress thrillingly recounts the craziness of the times (there were an average of 1,500 terrorist bombings a year in the early 1970s). Toobin portrays the lunacy of the half-baked radicals of the SLA and the toxic mix of sex, politics, and violence that swept up Patty Hearst and re-creates her melodramatic trial. American Heiress examines the life of a young woman who suffered an unimaginable trauma and then made the stunning decision to join her captors’ crusade. 

     Or did she?

In My TBR Stack:

Presto!  How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales
by Penn Jillette
Simon and Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

An unconventional weight loss tale from an unconventional personality—Penn Jillette tells how he lost 100 pounds with his trademark outrageous sense of humor and biting social commentary that makes this success story anything but ordinary.

Legendary magician Penn Jillette was approaching his sixtieth birthday. Topping 330 pounds and saddled with a systolic blood pressure reading over 200, he knew he was at a dangerous crossroads: if he wanted to see his small children grow up, he needed to change. And then came Crazy Ray. A former NASA scientist and an unconventional, passionate innovator, Ray Cronise saved Penn Jillette’s life with his wild “potato diet.”

In Presto, Jillette takes us along on his journey from skepticism to the inspiring, life-changing momentum that transformed the magician’s body and mind. He describes the process in hilarious detail, as he performs his Las Vegas show, takes meetings with Hollywood executives, hangs out with his celebrity friends and fellow eccentric performers, all while remaining a dedicated husband and father. Throughout, he weaves in his views on sex, religion, and pop culture, making his story a refreshing, genre-busting account. Outspoken, frank, and bitingly clever, Presto is an incisive, rollicking read.