Thursday Wishlist 5/31/12

More Than a Game: The Glorious Present -- and the Uncertain Future -- of the NFL
by Brian Billick
Scribner / Simon & Schuster
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

An inside look at how the battle off the field affects the competition on the field of america’s most popular sport—from one of the Nfl’s most successful and respected head coaches.

Fresh off the sidelines from a nine-year stint as one of the most successful leaders in pro football, Super Bowl–winning head coach Brian Billick has written a book about the sport he knows and loves, giving readers a fresh perspective on America’s Game. Combining his own experiences with a wealth of new interviews gained through his unsurpassed access to pro football’s most influential figures, Billick has written a vibrant, compelling account of the true state of the game today, and the dangers that it faces in the near future.

The National Football League stands as perhaps America’s last great mass entertainment, the rare enterprise that brings together a broad cross-section of our increasingly niche-driven marketplace. But even as the game has grown more popular, so has the financial pressure and stakes for all concerned.

In this taut, lucid breakdown of the game’s inner workings, Billick shows how dynasties are built and teams assembled, and he explains in detail how the economic pressures of the modern NFL can affect coaches and players alike. Billick welcomes fans into the locker rooms and the boardrooms for a revealing portrait of pro football and a penetrating look at the forces that will vie for control of America’s most popular game in the future.

Wednesday Wishlist 5/30/12

TUBES: A Journey to the Center of the Internet
by Andrew Blum
Harper Collins

Hardcover

From the publisher website:

“Andrew Blum plunges into the unseen but real ether of the Internet in a journey both compelling and profound….You will never open an email in quite the same way again.”
—Tom Vanderbilt, New York Times bestselling author of Traffic

In Tubes, Andrew Blum, a correspondent at Wired magazine, takes us on an engaging, utterly fascinating tour behind the scenes of our everyday lives and reveals the dark beating heart of the Internet itself. A remarkable journey through the brave new technological world we live in, Tubes is to the early twenty-first century what Soul of a New Machine—Tracy Kidder’s classic story of the creation of a new computer—was to the late twentieth.

Book Description

 

When your Internet cable leaves your living room, where does it go? Almost everything about our day-to-day lives—and the broader scheme of human culture—can be found on the Internet. But what is it physically? And where is it really? Our mental map of the network is as blank as the map of the ocean that Columbus carried on his first Atlantic voyage. The Internet, its material nuts and bolts, is an unexplored territory. Until now.

In Tubes, journalist Andrew Blum goes inside the Internet's physical infrastructure and flips on the lights, revealing an utterly fresh look at the online world we think we know. It is a shockingly tactile realm of unmarked compounds, populated by a special caste of engineer who pieces together our networks by hand; where glass fibers pulse with light and creaky telegraph buildings, tortuously rewired, become communication hubs once again. From the room in Los Angeles where the Internet first flickered to life to the caverns beneath Manhattan where new fiber-optic cable is buried; from the coast of Portugal, where a ten-thousand-mile undersea cable just two thumbs wide connects Europe and Africa, to the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, where Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have built monumental data centers—Blum chronicles the dramatic story of the Internet's development, explains how it all works, and takes the first-ever in-depth look inside its hidden monuments.

This is a book about real places on the map: their sounds and smells, their storied pasts, their physical details, and the people who live there. For all the talk of the "placelessness" of our digital age, the Internet is as fixed in real, physical spaces as the railroad or telephone. You can map it and touch it, and you can visit it. Is the Internet in fact "a series of tubes" as Ted Stevens, the late senator from Alaska, once famously described it? How can we know the Internet's possibilities if we don't know its parts?

Like Tracy Kidder's classic The Soul of a New Machine or Tom Vanderbilt's recent bestseller Traffic, Tubes combines on-the-ground reporting and lucid explanation into an engaging, mind-bending narrative to help us understand the physical world that underlies our digital lives.

Tuesday Preview

high-tech, high-touch customer service
by Micah Solomon
Amacom
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

In an age of Twitter, smartphones, and self-service kiosks, high-tech but still high-touch customer service is the answer.

 

Today’s customers are a hard bunch to crack. Time-strapped, screen-addicted, value-savvy, and socially engaged, their expectations are tougher than ever for a business to keep up with. They are empowered like never before and expect businesses to respect that sense of empowerment—lashing out at those that don’t. 

Take heart: Old-fashioned customer service, fully retooled for today’s blistering pace and digitally connected reality, is what you need to build the kind loyal customer base that allows you to survive—and thrive. And High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service spells out surefire strategies for success in a clear, entertaining, and practical way. Discover: 

• Six major customer trends and what they mean for your business

• Eight unbreakable rules for social media customer service

• How to effectively address online complainers and saboteurs on Yelp, Twitter, TripAdvisor, and other forums for user generated content

• The rising power of self-service—and how to design it properly

• How to build a company culture that breeds stellar customer service 

High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service reveals inside secrets of wildly successful customer service initiatives, from Internet startups to venerable brands, and shows how companies of every stripe can turn casual customers into fervent supporters who will spread the word far and wide—online and off.

About the Author

MICAH SOLOMON (Seattle, WA) has been named by the Financial Post as “a new guru of customer service excellence.” He is a top keynote speaker and consultant on customer service issues, the customer experience, and company culture. A successful entrepreneur, he coauthored the bestselling Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit. His expertise has been featured in FastCompany, Inc. Magazine, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Forbes.com, NBC and ABC television programming, and elsewhere.

Wishlist: Memorial Day Edition

Me The People: One Man's Selfless Quest to Rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America
by Kevin Bleyer

Random House
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

 The United States Constitution promised a More Perfect Union. It’s a shame no one bothered to write a more perfect Constitution—one that didn’t trigger more than two centuries of arguments about what the darn thing actually says.

Until now.

Perfection is at hand. A new, improved Constitution is here. And you are holding it.

But first, some historical context: In the eighteenth century, a lawyer named James Madison gathered his friends in Philadelphia and, over four long months, wrote four short pages: the Constitution of the United States of America. Not bad.

In the nineteenth century, a president named Abraham Lincoln freed an entire people from the flaws in that Constitution by signing the Emancipation Proclamation.  Pretty impressive.

And in the twentieth century, a doctor at the Bethesda Naval Hospital delivered a baby—but not just any baby. Because in the twenty-first century, that baby would become a man, that man would become a patriot, and that patriot would rescue a country . . . by single-handedly rewriting that Constitution.

Why? We think of our Constitution as the painstakingly designed blueprint drawn up by, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, an “assembly of demigods” who laid the foundation for the sturdiest republic ever created. The truth is, it was no blueprint at all but an Etch A Sketch, a haphazard series of blunders, shaken clean and redrawn countless times during a summer of petty debates, drunken ramblings, and desperate compromise—as much the product of an “assembly of demigods” as a confederacy of dunces.

No wonder George Washington wished it “had been made more perfect.” No wonder Benjamin Franklin stomached it only “with all its faults.” The Constitution they wrote is a hot mess. For starters, it doesn’t mention slavery, or democracy, or even Facebook; it plays favorites among the states; it has typos, smudges, and misspellings; and its Preamble, its most famous passage, was written by a man with a peg leg. Which, if you think about it, gives our Constitution hardly a leg to stand on.

[Pause for laughter.]

Now stop laughing. Because you hold in your hands no mere book, but the most important document of our time. Its creator, Daily Show writer Kevin Bleyer, paid every price, bore every burden, and saved every receipt in his quest to assure the salvation of our nation’s founding charter. He flew to Greece, the birthplace of democracy. He bused to Philly, the home of independence. He went toe-to-toe (face-to-face) with Scalia. He added nightly confabs with James Madison to his daily consultations with Jon Stewart. He tracked down not one but two John Hancocks—to make his version twice as official. He even read the Constitution of the United States.

So prepare yourselves, fellow patriots, for the most significant literary event of the twenty-first, twentieth, nineteenth, and latter part of the eighteenth centuries. Me the People won’t just form a More Perfect Union. It will save America.

On My Radar: Thursday Edition

This book was released May 8, 2012

Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love
by David Talbot

Free Press / Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

In a kaleidoscopic narrative, bestselling author David Talbot recounts the gripping story of San Francisco in the turbulent years between 1967 and 1982—and of the extraordinary men and women who led to the city’s ultimate rebirth and triumph.
 
Season of the Witch is the first book to fully capture the dark magic of San Francisco in this breathtaking period, when the city radically changed itself—and then revolutionized the world. The cool gray city of love was the epicenter of the 1960s cultural revolution. But by the early 1970s, San Francisco’s ecstatic experiment came crashing down from its starry heights. The city was rocked by savage murder sprees, mysterious terror campaigns, political assassinations, street riots, and finally a terrifying sexual epidemic. No other city endured so many calamities in such a short time span.

David Talbot takes us deep into the riveting story of his city’s ascent, decline, and heroic recovery. He draws intimate portraits of San Francisco’s legendary demons and saviors: Charles Manson, Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, Bill Graham, Herb Caen, the Cockettes, Harvey Milk, Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, Joe Montana and the Super Bowl 49ers. He reveals how the city emerged from the trials of this period with a new brand of “San Francisco values,” including gay marriage, medical marijuana, immigration sanctuary, universal health care, recycling, renewable energy, consumer safety, and a living wage mandate. Considered radical when they were first introduced, these ideas have become the bedrock of decent society in many parts of the country, and exemplify the ways that the city now inspires us toward a live-and-let-live tolerance, a shared sense of humanity, and an openness to change.

As a new generation of activists and dreamers seeks its own path to a more enlightened future, Season of the Witch—with its epic tale of the wild and bloody birth of San Francisco values—offers both inspiration and cautionary wisdom.

On My Radar: Wednesday Edition

 I am currently reading this book and hope to post a review as soon as I learn how to function without sleep.  (I'll try to do better....)

We Can All Do Better
by Bill Bradley
Vanguard Press

Hardcover

From the publisher website:

Insider and outsider, national sports celebrity and behind-the-scenes confidante, leader and teammate. His varied experiences help to inform his unique and much-sought-after point of view on Washington and the country at large.

In We Can All Do Better, for the first time since the financial meltdown and since the worst of the intensifying political gridlock, Bradley offers his own concise, powerful, and highly personal review of the state of the nation. Bradley argues that government is not the problem. He criticizes the role of money and politics, explains how continuing on our existing foreign policy, electoral, and economic paths will mean a diminished future, and lays out exactly what needs to be done to reverse course.

Breaking from the intransigent long-held viewpoints of both political parties, and with careful attention to our nation's history, Bradley passionately lays out his narrative. He offers a no-holds-barred prescription on subjects including job creation, deficit reduction, education, and immigration. While equally critical of the approaches of the Tea Party and Occupy Movements, he champions the power of individual Americans to organize, speak out, bridge divisions, and he calls on the media to assume a more responsible role in our national life.

As this moving call to arms reminds us, we can all—elected officials, private citizens, presidents—do a better job of moving our country forward. Bradley is perhaps the best guide imaginable, with his firsthand knowledge of governments' inner-workings, the country’s diversity, and the untapped potential of the American people.

On My Radar: Tuesday Edition

Exit Interview
by David Westin
Sarah Crichton Books / Farrar, Straus & Giroux / Macmillan

Hardcover

From the publisher website:

When David Westin became president of ABC News in March 1997, the division was treading water. “It looked like all the really important news was behind us,” he writes. Hardly. For the next thirteen years, Westin would preside over ABC News during some of the most important and perplexing events in its history:

• President Clinton’s impeachment
• The tied 2000 presidential election
• The 9/11 attacks
• Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan
• The swift boat smear campaign against Senator John Kerry

Exit Interview is a behind-the-scenes look at Westin’s tenure and the major news that marked it. He takes us inside the chaos of the newsroom—alongside major players such as Peter Jennings, Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer, and Bob Woodruff—where what looks clear and certain from the outside is often mired in conflict and urgency. Neither an apologia nor a critique, the book charts the ups and downs of fourteen formative years in network news, addressing basic questions about how our news is reported, from the point of view of someone who was there. With milestones from the recent past, Westin explores the uncertainty inherent in his job, and its central question: Is it possible for journalists to be both good at their jobs and people of good moral character?

On My Radar: Monday Edition

Tasteful Nudes...and Other Misguided Attempts at Personal Growth and Validation
by Dave Hill
St. Martins Press

Hardcover


From the Book Jacket:

Dear ridiculously attractive person who just so happens to be holding Tasteful Nudes in his or her soft and supple yet commanding hands,

Hi. My name is Dave, and this is my very first collection of essays. As you can probably imagine, it pretty much has everything. In fact, if you like stories about stolen meat, animal attacks, young love, death, naked people, clergymen, rock 'n' roll, irritable Canadians, and prison, you have just hit a street called Easy because my book talks about all that stuff and a bunch of other stuff, too.

Getting back to that prison thing for a second—I can think of almost no better place to read my book than from within the confines of a correctional facility. For starters, you will definitely have the time. Also, cozying up with a good book in front of your fellow inmates is a great way to show them a softer side that for some reason no one ever wants to hear about in the yard.

Fear not, though, non-convicts, my book makes for a solid read outside of prison, too. At the beach, on the subway, while whitewater rafting, during couples counseling, under local anesthesia—I have personally seen to it that my book is totally readable in all these scenarios, as well as in most other scenarios out there today. It will make you laugh, cry, and maybe even think so much that you will forget all your problems while simultaneously creating a few new ones. In limited instances it has been known to cause severe dehydration and the occasional groin pull, but honestly I don’t know what that’s about. That said, it’s probably not a bad idea to keep a glass of water handy and really stretch things out before strapping yourself in for a literary thrill ride you will want to experience again and again until you are either dead or your eyesight fails completely, whichever comes first. In fact, if I end up being wrong about any of this stuff, you can kick me right in the privates. Also, I will send you a nice ham (serves twenty). In short, you really can’t lose on this one.

Your man,

Dave Hill

On My Radar: Friday Edition

It Seemed Like a Good Idea: A Cautionary Guide to Avoiding 101 of Life's Potentially Most-Regrettable Decisions
by Meghan Rowland & Chris Turner-Neal
Adams Media

Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

It Is a Good Idea to Purchase This Book

If you think a neti pot for that stuffy nose is just what the doctor ordered, think again (choking on salt water and mucus is a horrible way to go).

If you indulge your midlife crisis by going whole-hog Harley, you may look darn good in those leathers (but imagine your disgrace when that hard-core biker gang that lures you into their criminal shenanigans turns out to be poseur frat boys from Yale).

If you settle down on a rainy night for a friendly game of Risk with your pals, you may think it's all in the name of good fun (but when your ubercompetitive streak kicks in and you end up winning the game but losing your house, your job, and your wife in the process, you may regret it. At least take a shower now.).

In this one-of-a-kind cautionary guide, prognosticators Meghan Rowland and Chris Turner-Neal have looked into their crystal ball to predict all the unexpected dire consequences of your actions--one unmitigated disaster at a time.

So go ahead, dare to dream big--but before you leap into the abyss, check out this book and save your future ass.

Meghan Rowland and Chris Turner-Neal are the authors of The Misanthrope's Guide to Life and Brainwashing for Beginners. They avoid having to face the consequences of their actions by behaving erratically and changing their travel plans without warning. Together, they write the award-winning comedy blog, www.2birds1blog.com, which has been recognized by NPR, the Washington Post, and the Blogger's Choice Awards.

Fiction Spotlight: THE CAR THIEF

If you would like to review this book for BookSpin, please send an email to the address at the upper right of this page. A winner will be drawn from all entries.  I will mail my copy of the book to you; all I ask is a review within 2 weeks of receipt.  Gotta love rules!

The Car Thief
by Theodore Weesner
Astor + Blue Editions

Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

Described as “one of the best coming of age novels of the Twentieth Century,” Theodore Weesner’s modern American classic is now re-launched for a new generation of readers to discover.

It’s 1959. Sixteen year-old Alex Housman has just stolen his fourteenth car and frankly doesn’t know why. His divorced, working class father grinds out the night shift at the local Chevy Plant in Detroit, looking forward to the flask in his glove compartment, and the open bottles of booze in his Flint, Michigan home. Abandoned and alone, father and son struggle to express a deep love for each other, even as Alex fills his day juggling cheap thrills and a crushing depression. And then there’s Irene Shaeffer, the pretty girl in school whose admiration Alex needs like a drug in order to get by.

Broke and fighting to survive, Alex and his father face the realities of estrangement, incarceration, and even violence as their lives unfold toward the climactic episode that a New York Times reviewer called “one of the most profoundly powerful in American fiction.

In this rich, beautifully crafted story, Weesner accomplishes a rare feat: He’s written a transcendent piece of literature in deceptively simple language, painting a powerful portrait of a father and a son, otherwise invisible among the mundane, everyday details of life in blue collar America. A true and enduring American classic.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM


“One of the great coming of age novels of the twentieth century… Ted Weesner’s seminal novel demands a second look for its marvelously rendered young protagonist, the unforgettable Alex Housman; for its courage and wisdom and great good heart.”
—Jennifer Haigh  – NY Times Bestselling Author of Broken Towers, Faith, Mrs. Kimple and The Condition

“Theodore Weesner has written a story so modestly precise and so movingly inevitable that before I knew what was happening to me I felt in the grip of some kind of thriller.”
—Joseph McElroy, NY Times

“The Car Thief is a poignant and beautifully-written novel, so true and so excruciatingly painful that one can’t read it without feeling the knife’s cruel blade in the heart.”
—Margaret Manning, The Boston Globe

“A remarkable, gripping novel.”
–Joyce Carol Oates, Professor of Humanities and Creative Writing, Princeton University, Pulitzer Prize Nominee, National Book Award Winner, Author of Black Water, What I Lived For, and Blonde
“A simply marvelous novel.  Alex (the protagonist) emerges from it as a kind of blue-collar Holden Caulfield.”
—Kansas City Star

“Weesner lays out a subtle and complex case study of juvenile delinquency that wrenches the heart.”
—S. K. Oberbeck, Newsweek

“The measure of Weesner’s very great achievement is that he has endowed [his characters’] lives with such compelling interest and, even more, a certain beauty.”
—The Boston Globe

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Theodore Weesner, born in Flint, Michigan, is aptly described as a “Writers’ Writer” by the larger literary community.  His short works have been published in the New Yorker, Esquire, Saturday Evening Post, Atlantic Monthly and Best American Short Stories.  His novels, including The True Detective, Winning the City and Harbor Light, have been published to great critical acclaim in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Harper’s, The Boston Globe, USA Today, The Chicago Tribune, Boston Magazine and The Los Angeles Times to name a few.

Weesner is currently writing his memoir, two new novels, and an adaptation of his widely praised novel—retitled Winning the City Redux—also to be published by Astor + Blue Editions.  He lives and works in Portsmouth, NH.

On My Radar: Wednesday Edition

Head, Shoulders, Pee and Moles
by Paul Kleinman
Adams Media

Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

The only see-it-and-believe-it guide to whole-body self-diagnosis!

Worried about that not-so-distinct mole? Has an online search led you to believe that you're suffering from neurodermatitis, nasal polyps, or elephantitis? Do you slather on a bottle of sanitizer daily or avoid others like they have the plague? Don't quarantine yourself just yet--trust your own eyes! Thanks to the help and humor of Paul Kleinman, you can learn and laugh about what you've got and what you're coming down with, all by looking at your body. Prognoses include:

• Dry, brittle hair is a symptom of hypothyroidism. Looks like you're running low on hormones or moisturizing shampoo. . . .
• White patches on your feet could mean you have pitted keratolysis. Great, so a colony of bacteria decided to move in or you forgot to use your antiperspirant again. . .
• A rash from cheek to cheek could be a sign of lupus. Don't fret--your insides might be at war with an inflammatory disease or you may just need a higher SPF . . .

Drawn from real tenets of traditional medicine, modern research, and alternative practices, this tongue-in-cheek health guide will scratch your cyberchondriac's itch for information.

Paul Kleinman is a freelance writer; author of two books; and a self-described neurotic, self-diagnosing hypochondriac.

On My Radar: Tuesday Edition

iDisorder: Understanding our Obsesssion with Technology and Overcoming its Hold on Us
by Larry Rosen, Ph.D.

Palgrave Macmillan
Hardcover

From time to time, I get contacted by publicists or agencies to consider reviewing certain books that they are promoting.  A lot of the time, the books are not remotely interesting to me, or they are fiction (!), and I respectfully decline.  But sometimes the books cover subjects that fit within my narrow reading scope.
When contacted about iDisorder, I knew immediately I wanted to see it.  The subject is one I have often entertained on my own, and it is nice to find a book to help me make up my mind.  I am currently reading this book and will publish a review as soon as I can.  --BookDude

From the publicity:

iDisorder: changes to your brain's ability to process information and your ability to relate to the world due to your daily use of media and technology resulting in signs and symptoms of psychological disorders - such as stress, sleeplessness, and a compulsive need to check in with all of your technology.

Based on decades of research and expertise in the "psychology of technology," Dr. Larry Rosen offers clear, down-to-earth explanations for why many of us are suffering from an "iDisorder." Rosen offers solid, proven strategies to help us overcome the iDisorder we all feel in our lives while still making use of all that technology offers. Our world is not going to change, and technologywill continue to penetrate society even deeper leaving us little chance to react to the seemingly daily additions to our lives. Rosen teaches us how to stay human in an increasingly technological world.

- - - - - 

Each chapter of iDisorder is devoted to a different psychological disorder such as narcissistic personality disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, addiction and social phobias. Dr. Rosen identifies the symptoms of each disorder, how technology use can bring them out in us, and how they can be curbed. Readers will learn:  

• What your activity on Facebook can tell you about how narcissistic you are 
• How to tell when your cell phone obsession actually borders on OCD 
• How accurate your online dating persona is, and why it might not truly reflect who you are 
• Ways to increase ?virtual empathy? and avoid the common pitfall of ignoring the feelings of others
• How to tell when social networking and reality TV are making you too much of a voyeur for your own good 

On My Radar: Monday Edition

The Art of Intellilgence: Lessons From a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service
by Henry A. Crumpton
Penguin

Hardcover

From the publisher website:

A legendary CIA spy and counterterrorism expert tells the spellbinding story of his high-risk, action-packed career while illustrating the growing importance of America's intelligence officers and their secret missions

For a crucial period, Henry Crumpton led the CIA's global covert operations against America's terrorist enemies, including al Qaeda. In the days after 9/11, the CIA tasked Crumpton to organize and lead the Afghanistan campaign. With Crumpton's strategic initiative and bold leadership, from the battlefield to the Oval Office, U.S. and Afghan allies routed al Qaeda and the Taliban in less than ninety days after the Twin Towers fell. At the height of combat against the Taliban in late 2001, there were fewer than five hundred Americans on the ground in Afghanistan, a dynamic blend of CIA and Special Forces. The campaign changed the way America wages war. This book will change the way America views the CIA.

The Art of Intelligence draws from the full arc of Crumpton's espionage and covert action exploits to explain what America's spies do and why their service is more valuable than ever. From his early years in Africa, where he recruited and ran sources, from loathsome criminals to heroic warriors; to his liaison assignment at the FBI, the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, the development of the UAV Predator program, and the Afghanistan war; to his later work running all CIA clandestine operations inside the United States, he employs enthralling storytelling to teach important lessons about national security, but also about duty, honor, and love of country.

No book like The Art of Intelligence has ever been written-not with Crumpton's unique perspective, in a time when America faced such grave and uncertain risk. It is an epic, sure to be a classic in the annals of espionage and war.