In My TBR Stack:

Empathy Deficit Disorder: Healing from Our Mix-Ups about Work, Home, and Sex
by Jacqueline Acho, PhD, and Eva Basilion, MS
Acho & Basilion
Trade Paperback

From the book publicity:

Our country is divided. The news cycle is discouraging. Emotional and physical toxicity is affecting our health and well-being. There are words for what is happening. We are suffering from an empathy deficit disorder.

The good news is there is a way out. Healing starts with reexamining our modern myths about how we work, what "quality time" at home really means, and why the age-old battle of the sexes persists. Is there a way to come together in this era of bitterness, distrust, #MeToo, and #HimToo? Empathy Deficity Disorder sets the table for that new way.

In My TBR Stack:

When Eagles Soar: From Diagnosis to Death to Open Dialogue

by Candia L. Sanders

CreateSpace

Trade Paperback

From the book publicity:

When Eagles Soar” is a powerful story of resilience with optimistic chapters exploring expansive spiritual concepts. The short sections couple personal narrative and cosmic perceptions with clear examples for dealing with stress reader’s can utilize in their own lives. It is a conversation about being a caregiver, the journey of letting go of the physical, and life after death. “Eagles” also explores why animals don’t live as long as people, how to experience happiness under duress, absolute trust, anger as a motivator, inflammatory foods, perception is everything, what if there is better way to communicate with the divine beyond prayers, heaven and beyond, are a few examples of the many topics discussed. The author inspires a deeper investigation into self reflection and exploration of higher truths and expanded concepts of spirituality through everyday living. Candia had communication with the Other Side - Heaven, regularly through signs, symbols and direct conversations with her husband and dad after their passing, confirming that eternal relationships can live on forever, and healing through grief is only part of the equation. It is a chronicle through her underlying optimism that, no matter how a situation is perceived, there are still sparks of happiness, moments of joy and laughter, and twenty-four hours can represent a lifetime. This story captures events, experiences and hours while sharing encouragement and positivism that are the heart of “When Eagles Soar.”

In My TBR Stack:

Rouge: A Novel of Beauty and Rivalry
by Richard Kirshenbaum
St. Martin's Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

This fast-paced novel examines the lives, loves, and sacrifices of the visionaries who invented the modern cosmetics industry: Josiah Herzenstein, born in a Polish Jewish Shtlel, the entrepreneur who transforms herself into a global style icon and the richest woman in the world, Josephine Herz; Constance Gardiner, her rival, the ultimate society woman who invents the door-to-door business and its female workforce but whose deepest secret threatens everything; CeeCee Lopez, the bi-racial beauty and founder of the first African American woman’s hair relaxer business, who overcomes prejudice and heartbreak to become her community’s first female millionaire. The cast of characters is rounded out by Mickey Heron, a dashing, sexy ladies' man whose cosmetics business is founded in a Hollywood brothel. All are bound in a struggle to be number one, doing anything to get there…including murder.

In My TBR Stack:

The Patient Assassin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge, and India's Quest for Independence
by Anita Anand
Scribner 
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

When Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, ordered Brigadier General Reginald Dyer to Amritsar, he wanted Dyer to bring the troublesome city to heel. Sir Michael had become increasingly alarmed at the effect Gandhi was having on his province, as well as recent demonstrations, strikes, and shows of Hindu-Muslim unity. All these things, to Sir Michael, were a precursor to a second Indian revolt. What happened next shocked the world. An unauthorized gathering in the Jallianwallah Bagh in Amritsar in April 1919 became the focal point for Sir Michael’s law enforcers. Dyer marched his soldiers into the walled garden, blocking the only exit. Then, without issuing any order to disperse, he instructed his men to open fire, turning their guns on the thickest parts of the crowd, filled with over a thousand unarmed men, women, and children. For ten minutes, the soldiers continued firing, stopping only when they ran out of ammunition.

According to legend, eighteen-year-old Sikh orphan Udham Singh was injured in the attack, and remained surrounded by the dead and dying until he was able to move the next morning. Then, he supposedly picked up a handful of blood-soaked earth, smeared it across his forehead, and vowed to kill the men responsible.

The truth, as the author has discovered, is more complex—but no less dramatic. Award-winning journalist Anita Anand traced Singh’s journey through Africa, the United States, and across Europe until, in March 1940, he finally arrived in front of O’Dwyer himself in a London hall ready to shoot him down. The Patient Assassinshines a devastating light on one of history’s most horrific events, but it reads like a taut thriller and reveals the incredible but true story behind a legend that still endures today.

On My Radar:

I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution
by Emily Nussbaum
Random House
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

From her creation of the “Approval Matrix” in New York magazine in 2004 to her Pulitzer Prize–winning columns for The New Yorker, Emily Nussbaum has argued for a new way of looking at TV. In this collection, including two never-before-published essays, Nussbaum writes about her passion for television, beginning with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show that set her on a fresh intellectual path. She explores the rise of the female screw-up, how fans warp the shows they love, the messy power of sexual violence on TV, and the year that jokes helped elect a reality-television president. There are three big profiles of television showrunners—Kenya Barris, Jenji Kohan, and Ryan Murphy—as well as examinations of the legacies of Norman Lear and Joan Rivers. The book also includes a major new essay written during the year of #MeToo, wrestling with the question of what to do when the artist you love is a monster.

More than a collection of reviews, the book makes a case for toppling the status anxiety that has long haunted the “idiot box,” even as it transformed. Through it all, Nussbaum recounts her fervent search, over fifteen years, for a new kind of criticism, one that resists the false hierarchy that elevates one kind of culture (violent, dramatic, gritty) over another (joyful, funny, stylized). I Like to Watchtraces her own struggle to punch through stifling notions of “prestige television,” searching for a more expansive, more embracing vision of artistic ambition—one that acknowledges many types of beauty and complexity and opens to more varied voices. It’s a book that celebrates television as television, even as each year warps the definition of just what that might mean.

In My TBR Stack:

Public Speaking Super Powers! Unleash Your Inner Speaking Superhero and Communicate Your Message with Confidence
by Carma Spence
Author Academy Elite
Trade Paperback

From the book website:

Although some people have a natural predisposition for developing speaking skills, anyone can learn to be a decent speaker.

Using interviews with more than 85 business and professional speakers, as well as the author’s personal experience and training, and additional research, Public Speaking Super Powers uses the metaphor of the superhero to turn the belief that only a few talented individuals can be good speakers on its ear. The book shows readers that all the factors, skills and techniques needed for success in speaking are learnable, attainable and achievable by anyone who chooses to make the effort to embody and use them.

Public speaking skills can help you grow your business…progress in your career…be more confident in your day-to-day life…even become a career in itself. Regardless of how you want to use presentation skills in your life, Public Speaking Super Powers will help you develop the abilities you need to succeed.

In My TBR Stack:

Positive Discipline: How to Balance Work, Parenting & Self for Lasting Well-Being
by Jane Nelsen, EdD, Kristina Bill & Joy Marchese
Harmony Books
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

With the increasing pressure to excel at parenting, work, and personal relationships, it’s easy to feel stressed and dissatisfied. This targeted Positive Discipline guide gives parents the tools to parent effectively without sacrificing their well-being or giving up on their life goals. Instead of creating unachievable expectations, you will instead learn to play to your strengths at work and at home. You’ll integrate your seemingly disparate areas of life and use Positive Discipline to make the most out of your time, energy and relationships. By helping you get to the bottom of the underlying causes of misbehavior, busy parents will also be able to avoid pampering and keep permissive and punitive parenting at bay. Instead of feeling fragmented and guilty, you’ll have the presence of mind to explore what works best for you and your family.
 
Attitude is key – we’ll help you feel confident in your parenting abilities and your professional choices, making your children more likely to adopt an attitude of self-reliance and cooperation. Armed with communication strategies and tips for self-reflection, moms (and dads!) won’t have to feel guilty about leaving their child with a sitter during the day, or leaving work early to go to a soccer game.

On My Radar:

Songs of America: Patriotism, Protest, and the Music That Made a Nation
by Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw
Random House
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Through all the years of strife and triumph, America has been shaped not just by our elected leaders and our formal politics but also by our music—by the lyrics, performers, and instrumentals that have helped to carry us through the dark days and to celebrate the bright ones.

From “The Star-Spangled Banner” to “Born in the U.S.A.,” Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw take readers on a moving and insightful journey through eras in American history and the songs and performers that inspired us. Meacham chronicles our history, exploring the stories behind the songs, and Tim McGraw reflects on them as an artist and performer. Their perspectives combine to create a unique view of the role music has played in uniting and shaping a nation.

Beginning with the battle hymns of the revolution, and taking us through songs from the defining events of the Civil War, the fight for women’s suffrage, the two world wars, the Great Depression, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and into the twenty-first century, Meacham and McGraw explore the songs that defined generations, and the cultural and political climates that produced them. Readers will discover the power of music in the lives of figures such as Harriet Tubman, Franklin Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and will learn more about some of our most beloved musicians and performers, including Marian Anderson, Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington, Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, and more.

Songs of America explores both famous songs and lesser-known ones, expanding our understanding of the scope of American music and lending deeper meaning to the historical context of such songs as “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” “God Bless America,” “Over There,” “We Shall Overcome,” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.” As Quincy Jones says, Meacham and McGraw have “convened a concert in Songs of America,” one that reminds us of who we are, where we’ve been, and what we, at our best, can be.

On My Radar:

The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America
by Jim Acosta
Harper
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

From CNN’s veteran Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta, an explosive, first-hand account of the dangers he faces reporting on the current White House while fighting on the front lines in President Trump’s war on truth. 

In Mr. Trump’s campaign against what he calls “Fake News,” CNN Chief White House Correspondent, Jim Acosta, is public enemy number one. From the moment Mr. Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, he has attacked the media, calling journalists “the enemy of the people.” 

Acosta presents a damning examination of bureaucratic dysfunction, deception, and the unprecedented threat the rhetoric Mr. Trump is directing has on our democracy. When the leader of the free world incites hate and violence, Acosta doesn’t back down, and he urges his fellow citizens to do the same. 

At Mr. Trump’s most hated network, CNN, Acosta offers a never-before-reported account of what it’s like to be the President’s most hated correspondent. Acosta goes head-to-head with the White House, even after Trump supporters have threatened his life with words as well as physical violence. 

From the hazy denials and accusations meant to discredit the Mueller investigation, to the president’s scurrilous tweets, Jim Acosta is in the eye of the storm while reporting live to millions of people across the world. After spending hundreds of hours with the revolving door of White House personnel, Acosta paints portraits of the personalities of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Sean Spicer, Hope Hicks, Jared Kushner and more. Acosta is tenacious and unyielding in his public battle to preserve the First Amendment and #RealNews.

In My TBR Stack:

She's So Cold: Murder, Accusations and the System that Devastated a Family
by Donald E. McInnis
J & E Publications
Trade Paperback

From the author's website:

She's So Cold: Murder, Accusations and the System that Devastated a Family is a true story about three boys whom the police believed killed a twelve-year-old girl.

Donald E. McInnis is a California criminal defense attorney. Early in his career he was a research attorney for the California Superior Courts. Later, he served as a Deputy District Attorney for two northern California counties and a Deputy Public Defender for a southern California county. During his four decades long legal career, Mr. McInnis experienced both the prosecution and defense sides of the law and is thoroughly familiar with all aspects of police and prosecution practices.

When 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe was found stabbed to death on her bedroom floor on Jan. 21, 1998, the Crowe family’s nightmare had only just begun. In the weeks to follow, her brother, Michael, then 14, and two of his friends, Joshua Treadway and Aaron Houser, were charged with her brutal murder.

To be tried as adults, these three juveniles faced charges which carried life long prison sentences. Charged with their defense were criminal defense attorneys Mary Ellen Attridge, Donald E. McInnis and Paul Blake.  These attorneys faced the daunting task of freeing these boys, two of whom had confessed to the murder.

In a last minute series of event, the defense discovers new evidence, and with it, a twisting series of bizarre events unfolds which forever shatters the lives of fifteen people and the childhood of the three young boys. 

This is a true story of Police Coercion and the Fifteen Lives Shattered in the Crowe Murder Case.

On My Radar:

Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson
by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow
Chicago Review Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Robert Johnson's recordings, made in 1936 and 1937, have profoundly influenced generations of singers, guitarists, and songwriters. Yet until now, his short life — he was murdered at the age of 27 — has been poorly documented. Gayle Dean Wardlow has been interviewing people who knew Johnson since the early 1960s, and he was the person who discovered Johnson's death certificate in 1967. Bruce Conforth began his study of Johnson's life and music in 1970 and made it his mission to fill in what was still unknown about him. In this definitive biography, the two authors relied on every interview, resource, and document, much of it material no one has seen before. This is the first book about Johnson that documents his lifelong relationship with family and friends in Memphis, details his trip to New York, uncovers where and when his wife Virginia died and the impact this had on him, fully portrays the other women Johnson was involved with, and tells exactly how and why he died and who gave him the poison that killed him. Up Jumped the Devil will astonish blues fans worldwide by painting a living, breathing portrait of a man who was heretofore little more than a legend.

On My Radar:

Smokin' Joe: The Life of Joe Frazier
by Mark Kram, Jr.
Ecco Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

History will remember the rivalry of Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali as one for the ages, a trilogy of extraordinary fights that transcended the world of sports and crossed into a sociocultural drama that divided the country.

Joe Frazier was a much more complex figure than just his rivalry with Ali would suggest. In this riveting and nuanced portrayal, acclaimed sports writer Mark Kram, Jr. unlinks Frazier from Ali and for the first time gives a full-bodied accounting of Frazier’s life, a journey that began as the youngest of thirteen children packed in small farm house, encountering the bigotry and oppression of the Jim Crow South, and continued with his voyage north at age fifteen to develop as a fighter in Philadelphia. 

Tracing Frazier’s life through his momentous bouts with the likes of Ali and George Foreman and the developing perception of him as the anti-Ali in the eyes of blue-collar America, Kram follows the boxer through his retirement in 1981, exploring his relationship with his son, the would-be heavyweight Marvis, and his fragmented home life as well as the uneasy place that Ali continued to occupy in his thoughts. 

A propulsive and richly textured narrative that is also a powerful story about race and class in America, Smokin' Joe is unparalleled in its scope, depth, and access and promises to be the definitive biography of a towering American figure whose life was galvanized by conflict and whose mark has proven lasting.

Read and Loved:

Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World
by Joseph Menn
Public Affairs Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Cult of the Dead Cow is the tale of the oldest, most respected, and most famous American hacking group of all time. Though until now it has remained mostly anonymous, its members invented the concept of hacktivism, released the top tool for testing password security, and created what was for years the best technique for controlling computers from afar, forcing giant companies to work harder to protect customers. They contributed to the development of Tor, the most important privacy tool on the net, and helped build cyberweapons that advanced US security without injuring anyone. With its origins in the earliest days of the Internet, the cDc is full of oddball characters — activists, artists, even future politicians. Many of these hackers have become top executives and advisors walking the corridors of power in Washington and Silicon Valley. The most famous is former Texas Congressman and current presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, whose time in the cDc set him up to found a tech business, launch an alternative publication in El Paso, and make long-shot bets on unconventional campaigns.

Today, the group and its followers are battling electoral misinformation, making personal data safer, and battling to keep technology a force for good instead of for surveillance and oppression. Cult of the Dead Cow shows how governments, corporations, and criminals came to hold immense power over individuals and how we can fight back against them.

In My TBR Stack:

Fire in the Sky: Cosmic Collisions, Killer Asteroids, and the Race to Defend Earth
by Gordon L. Dillow
Scribner
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

One of these days, warns Gordon Dillow, the Earth will be hit by a comet or asteroid of potentially catastrophic size. The only question is when. In the meantime, we need to get much better at finding objects hurtling our way, and if they’re large enough to penetrate the atmosphere without burning up, figure out what to do about them.

We owe many of science’s most important discoveries to the famed Meteor Crater, a mile-wide dimple on the Colorado Plateau created by an asteroid hit 50,000 years ago. In his masterfully researched Fire in the Sky, Dillow unpacks what the Crater has to tell us. Prior to the early 1900s, the world believed that all craters—on the Earth and Moon—were formed by volcanic activity. Not so. The revelation that Meteor Crater and others like it were formed by impacts with space objects has led to a now accepted theory about what killed off the dinosaurs, and it has opened up a new field of asteroid observation, which has recently brimmed with urgency. Dillow looks at great asteroid hits of the past and spends time with modern-day asteroid hunters and defense planning experts, including America’s first Planetary Defense Officer.

Satellite sensors confirm that a Hiroshima-scale blast occurs in the atmosphere every year, and a smaller, one-kiloton blast every month. While Dillow makes clear that the objects above can be deadly, he consistently inspires awe with his descriptions of their size, makeup, and origins. At once a riveting work of popular science and a warning to not take for granted the space objects hurtling overhead, Fire in the Sky is, above all, a testament to our universe’s celestial wonders.

On My Radar:

Play Hungry: The Making of a Baseball Player
by Pete Rose
Penguin Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Pete Rose was a legend on the field. As baseball’s Hit King, he shattered records that were thought to be unbreakable. And during the 1970s, he was the leader of the Big Red Machine, the Cincinnati Reds team that dominated the game. But he’s also the greatest player who may never enter the Hall of Fame because of his lifetime ban from the sport. Perhaps no other ballplayer’s story is so representative of the triumphs and tragedies of our national pastime. 

In Play Hungry, Rose tells us the story of how, through hard work and sheer will, he became one of the unlikeliest stars of the game. Guided by the dad he idolized, a local sports hero, Pete learned to play hard and always focus on winning. But even with his dad’s guidance, Pete was cut from his team as a teenager—he wasn’t a natural. Rose was determined, though, and never would be satisfied with anything less than success. His relentless hustle and headfirst style would help him overcome his limitations, leading him to one of the most exciting and brash careers in the history of the sport.

Play Hungry is Pete Rose’s love letter to the game, and an unvarnished story of life on the diamond. One of the icons of a golden age in baseball, he describes just what it was like to hit (or try to hit) a Bob Gibson fastball or a Gaylord Perry spitball, what happened in that infamous collision at home plate during the 1970 All-Star Game, and what it felt like to topple Ty Cobb’s hit record. And he speaks to how he let down his fans, his teammates, and the memory of his dad when he gambled on baseball, breaking the rules of a sport that he loved more than anything else. Told with candor and wry humor—including tales he’s never told before—Rose’s memoir is his final word on the glories and controversies of his life, and, ultimately, a master class in how to succeed when the odds are stacked against you.