On My Radar:

The Accidental Life: An Editor's Notes on Writing and Writers
by Terry McDonell
Knopf
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:


You might not know Terry McDonell, but you certainly know his work. Among the magazines he has top-edited: Outside, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Sports Illustrated. In this revealing memoir, McDonell talks about what really happens when editors and writers work with deadlines ticking (or drinks on the bar). His stories about the people and personalities he’s known are both heartbreaking and bitingly funny—playing “acid golf” with Hunter S. Thompson, practicing brinksmanship with David Carr and Steve Jobs, working the European fashion scene with Liz Tilberis, pitching TV pilots with Richard Price.

Here, too, is an expert’s practical advice on how to recruit—and keep—high-profile talent; what makes a compelling lede; how to grow online traffic that translates into dollars; and how, in whatever format, on whatever platform, a good editor really works, and what it takes to write well.

Taking us from the raucous days of New Journalism to today’s digital landscape, McDonell argues that the need for clear storytelling from trustworthy news sources has never been stronger. Says Jeffrey Eugenides: “Every time I run into Terry, I think how great it would be to have dinner with him. Hear about the writers he's known and edited over the years, what the magazine business was like back then, how it's changed and where it's going, inside info about Edward Abbey, Jim Harrison, Annie Proulx, old New York, and the Swimsuit issue. That dinner is this book.”

On My Radar:

Speaking Freely: My Life in Publishing and Human Rights
by Robert L. Bernstein
The New Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

“Bob Bernstein has engaged life; evil does not awe or paralyze him; civic life is enhanced by his presence in it.” —Toni Morrison

What do William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Andrei Sakharov, James Michener, and Dr. Seuss have in common? They were all published by Bob Bernstein during his twenty-five-year run as president of Random House, before he brought the dissidents Liu Binyan, Jacobo Timerman, Natan Sharansky, and Václav Havel to worldwide attention in his role as the father of modern human rights.

In a charming and self-effacing work, Bernstein reflects for the first time on his fairy tale publishing career, hobnobbing with Truman Capote and E.L. Doctorow; conspiring with Kay Thompson on the Eloise series; attending a rally for Random House author George McGovern with film star Claudette Colbert; and working with publishing luminaries including Dick Simon, Alfred Knopf, Robert Gottlieb, André Schiffrin, Peter Osnos, Susan Petersen Kennedy, and Jason Epstein as Bernstein grew Random House from a $40 million company to an $800 million–plus company. In a book sure to be savored by anyone who has worked in the publishing industry, fought for human rights, or wondered how Theodor Geisel became Dr. Seuss, Speaking Freely beautifully captures a bygone era in the book industry and the first crucial years of a worldwide movement to protect free speech and challenge tyranny around the globe.

On My Radar:

A Field Guide to Awkward Silences
by Alexandra Petri
NAL
Trade Paperback


From the publisher's website:

She auditioned for America’s Next Top Model. She lost Jeopardy! by answering “Who is that dude?” One time, she let some cult members baptize her, just to be polite. Alexandra Petri is a connoisseur of the kind of awkwardness most people spend lifetimes avoiding. If John Hodgman and Amy Sedaris had a baby. . .they would never let Petri babysit it.

Here, the Washington Post columnist turns her satirical eye on her own life—with hilarious results. And she’s here to tell you that interesting things start to happen when you stop caring what people think.

In My TBR Stack:

Political Suicide: Missteps, Peccadilloes, Bad Calls, Backroom Hijinx, Sordid Pasts, Rotten Breaks, and Just Plain Dumb Mistakes in the Annals of American Politics
by Erin McHugh
Pegasus Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Just in time for the presidential election of 2016 comes Political Suicide, a history of the best and most interesting missteps, peccadilloes, bad calls, back room hijinks, sordid pasts, rotten breaks, and just plain dumb mistakes in the annals of American politics.  They have tweeted their private parts to women they're trying to impress. They have gotten caught on tape doing and saying things they really shouldn't have. They have denied knowing about the underhanded doings of underlings — only to have a paper trail lead straight back to them. Nowadays, it seems like half of what we hear about politicians isn't about laws or governing, but is instead coverage focused on shenanigans, questionable morals, and scandals too numerous to count. And while we shake our heads in disbelief, we still can't resist poring over the details of these notorious incidents. In Political Suicide, the foibles of our politicians are brought from the tabloid pages to this entertaining — and cautionary — tale of American history.

In My TBR Stack:

The New Trail of Tears: How Washington is Destroying American Indians
by Naomi Schaefer Riley

Encounter Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

If you want to know why American Indians have the highest rates of poverty of any racial group, why suicide is the leading cause of death among Indian men, why native women are two and a half times more likely to be raped than the national average and why gang violence affects American Indian youth more than any other group, do not look to history. There is no doubt that white settlers devastated Indian communities in the 19th, and early 20th centuries. But it is our policies today–denying Indians ownership of their land, refusing them access to the free market and failing to provide the police and legal protections due to them as American citizens–that have turned reservations into small third-world countries in the middle of the richest and freest nation on earth.

The tragedy of our Indian policies demands reexamination immediately—not only because they make the lives of millions of American citizens harder and more dangerous—but also because they represent a microcosm of everything that has gone wrong with modern liberalism. They are the result of decades of politicians and bureaucrats showering a victimized people with money and cultural sensitivity instead of what they truly need—the education, the legal protections and the autonomy to improve their own situation.

If we are really ready to have a conversation about American Indians, it is time to stop bickering about the names of football teams and institute real reforms that will bring to an end this ongoing national shame.

On My Radar:

Moguls, Monsters and Madmen: An Uncensored Life in Show Business
by Barry Avrich
ECW Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Barry Avrich is a Montreal-born, self-made film producer/director, flamboyant advertising executive, and legendary biographer and connector of moguls and stars. For over three decades he has relentlessly produced films on some of the most notorious show-business titans and also found the time to market and promote feature films, concerts, and the biggest shows on Broadway.

In his memoir, Moguls, Monsters and Madmen, Barry takes readers from his early days, shaping his brand as a creative adman with the infamous Garth Drabinsky and witnessing the genius of legendary Rolling Stones promoter Michael Cohl, to his acclaimed documentaries on Harvey Weinstein, Lew Wasserman, Bob Guccione, and many others. Go behind the scenes on his most provocative films — like The Last Mogul, Unauthorized, and Filthy Gorgeous — and follow Barry as he moves from the power rooms of Hollywood to the launches of incredible brands while hanging around with royalty, rogues, clients, and confidants.

An extraordinary raconteur, Barry spares no one, least of all himself, as he details his extraordinary relationships and encounters with everyone from Frank Sinatra, Quincy Jones, and Vanity Fair columnist Dominick Dunne to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

On My Radar:

The Latter Days: A Memoir
by Judith Freeman
Pantheon Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

An arresting, lyrical memoir about the path the author took—sometimes unwittingly—out of her Mormon upbringing and through a thicket of profound difficulties to become a writer.

At twenty-two, Judith Freeman was working in the Mormon church–owned department store in the Utah town where she’d grown up. In the process of divorcing the man she had married at seventeen, she was living in her parents’ house with her four-year-old son, who had already endured two heart surgeries. She had abandoned Mormonism, the faith into which she had been born, and she was having an affair with her son’s surgeon, a married man with three children of his own. It was at this fraught moment that she decided to become a writer. In this moving memoir, Freeman explores the circumstances and choices that informed her course, and those that allowed her to find a way forward. Writing with remarkable candor and insight, she gives us an illuminating, singular portrait of resilience and forgiveness, of memory and hindsight, and of the ways in which we come to identify our truest selves.

In My TBR Stack:

Meet the Regulars: People of Brooklyn and the Places They Love
by Joshua D. Fischer
Skyhorse Publishing
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Based on the column The Regulars on the New York magazine partner Bedford + Bowery, the celebrities and everyday people who love the local joints of the world’s coolest borough.
Meet the Regulars captures a previously unseen and entertaining portrait of the people of Brooklyn and the places they love. In talking with the regulars at bars, restaurants, and shops in the world-famous borough, author Joshua Fischer delivers deep and delightful stories presented alongside stunning snapshots from accomplished photographers including Nina Westervelt (Vogue.com, New York Times), Phil Provencio (Variety, Saturday Night Live, and CBS), and Nicole Disser (Bedford + Bowery and Brooklyn Magazine online). Meet the Regulars reveals the great power in the connections we make with the people and places where we live.

Originally an interview series on the New York magazine partner Bedford + Bowery, Meet the Regulars introduces us to a diverse and changing Brooklyn through its regulars: the first-generation American Latino café owner who drinks Coors out of a can and loves a good debate with the lawyer and plumber at his corner bar, the blogger who fixes her hair and heart at her cherished salon, the lady so loyal to her local bar she has its logo tattooed on her arm, the Asian hipster couple who drink and dance for "exercise" at their new-school Brooklyn hangout, and the burgeoning filmmaker who walks twenty blocks for sage advice from a legendary bartender inside a bowling alley.

Familiar faces include party rocker Andrew W. K. spicing things up at the Thai joint from his early days, Saturday Night Live performer Sasheer Zamata reliving a break-up at her go-to brunch spot, Radiolab host Jad Abumrad sippin' whiskey to Black Sabbath, beloved NY1 news anchor Pat Kiernan chowing down on meatballs, actor Jessica Pimentel (Orange Is the New Black) championing her local metal bar, actor Kevin Corrigan (Goodfellas, Pineapple Express) contemplating a Guinness at his favorite Irish pub, and more.

In My TBR Stack:

Achieving Longevity: How Great Firms Prosper Through Entrepreneurial Thinking
by Jim Dewald
University of Toronto Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Starting a business is hard, but keeping an established company going can be equally challenging. In the long run, every business will need to adapt to changing market conditions, technologies, and competitive environments. Achieving Longevity explains how to manage those changes through entrepreneurial thinking.

As Jim Dewald shows, the most successful companies thrive by establishing decision-making processes that constantly engage new opportunities, enabling the firm to quickly adapt to disruptive technologies and business models. They allow for tinkering and experimentation and strive to both exploit their competitive advantage today and explore new ideas that will give them an edge tomorrow.

Achieving Longevity provides a framework for introducing the tools and culture necessary to foster entrepreneurial thinking, as well as advice on how to overcome common obstacles to corporate entrepreneurship. Drawing on Dr. Dewald’s own experience as an entrepreneur, a successful corporate executive, and a professor of strategy, the book offers numerous examples of how to combine the strengths of an established firm with the innovative, outside the box thinking of a start-up venture.

On My Radar:

For the Love of Money: A Memoir
by Sam Polk
Scribner Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In 2014, a former hedge fund trader’s New York Times Sunday Review front page article about wealth addicition instantly went viral. This is his unflinching memoir about coming of age on Wall Street, fighting to overcome the ghosts of his past—and the radical new way he now defines success.

At just thirty years old, Sam Polk was a senior trader for one of the biggest hedge funds on Wall Street, on the verge of making it to the very top. When he was offered an annual bonus of $3.75 million, he grew angry because it was not enough. In that moment he knew he had lost himself in his obsessive pursuit of money. And he had come to loathe the culture—the shallowness, the sexism, the crude machismo—and Wall Street’s use of wealth as the sole measure of a person’s worth. He decided to walk away from it all.

For Polk, becoming a Wall Street trader was the fulfillment of his dreams. But in reality it was just the culmination of a life of addictive and self-destructive behaviors, from overeating, to bulimia, to alcohol and drug abuse. His obsessive pursuit of money papered over years of insecurity and emotional abuse. Making money was just the latest attempt to fill the void left by his narcisstic and emotionally unavailable father.

As in Liar’s Poker, Polk brings readers into the rarefied world of Wall Street trading floors, capturing the modern frustrations of young graduates drawn to Wall Street. Raw, vivid, and immensely readable, For the Love of Money explores the birth of a young hedge fund trader, his disillusionment, and the radical new way he has come to define success.

On My Radar:

The 10 Laws of Trust: Building the Bonds That Make a Business Great
by Joel Peterson with David A. Kaplan
AMACOM
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Because you can’t afford to lose it… 
  

Trust is the glue that holds an organization together. It turns deflection into transparency, suspicion into empowerment, and conflict into creativity. With it, a tiny company like John Deere grew into a worldwide leader. Without it, a giant corporation like Enron toppled.

   

In The 10 Laws of Trust, JetBlue chairman Joel Peterson explores how a culture of trust gives companies an edge. Consider this: What does it feel like to work for a firm where leaders and colleagues trust one another? Freed from micromanagement and rivalry, every employee contributes his or her best. Risk taking and innovation become the norm. And, as Peterson notes, “When a company has a reputation for fair dealing, its costs drop: Trust cuts the time spent second-guessing and lawyering.”

   

In clear, engaging prose, highlighted by compelling examples, Peterson details how to establish and maintain a culture of trust. Steps include:

   

Start with integrity • Invest in respect • Empower everyone • Require accountability • Create a winning vision • Keep everyone informed • Budget in line with expectations • Embrace conflict • Forget “you” to become an effective leader • And more

   

With this book in hand, you’ll be able to plant the seeds of trust—and reap the rewards of reputation, profits, and success.

In My TBR Stack:

Trying to Float: Coming of Age in the Chelsea Hotel
by Nicolaia Rips
Scribner Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

“Hysterically droll, touching, elegant, and wise—a coming-of-age story from someone who possibly came of age before her parents” (Patricia Marx, New Yorker writer and bestselling author), Trying to Float is a seventeen-year-old’s darkly funny, big-hearted memoir about growing up in New York City’s legendary Chelsea Hotel.

New York’s Chelsea Hotel may no longer be home to its most famous denizens—Andy Warhol, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, to name a few—but the eccentric spirit of the Chelsea is alive and well. Meet the family Rips: father Michael, a lawyer turned writer with a penchant for fine tailoring; mother Sheila, a former model and renowned artist who matches her welding outfits with couture; and daughter Nicolaia, a precocious high school junior at work on a record of her peculiar seventeen years.

Nicolaia is a perpetual outsider who has struggled to find her place in public schools populated by cliquish girls and loudmouthed boys. But at the Chelsea, Nicolaia need not look far to find her tribe. There’s her neighbor Stormé, a tall woman who keeps a pink handgun strapped to her ankle; her babysitter, Jade, who may or may not have a second career as an escort; her friend Artie, former proprietor of New York’s most famous nightclubs. The kids at school might never understand her, but as Nicolaia endeavors to fit in she begins to understand that the Chelsea’s motley crew could hold the key to surviving the perils of a Manhattan childhood.

Not since Holden Caulfield has there been such a fabulously compelling teen guide to New York City: Nicolaia Rips’s debut is a disarming, humble, heartfelt, and wise tale of coming-of-age amid the contradictions, complexities, and shifting identities of life in New York City. A bohemian Eloise for our times, Trying to Float is a triumphant parable for the power of embracing difference in all its forms.

On My Radar:

Atheism: The Case Against God
by George H. Smith
Prometheus Books
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

In this classic treatise on atheism, George H. Smith sets out to demolish what he considers the most widespread and destructive of all the myths devised by human beings – the concept of a supreme being. With painstaking scholarship and rigorous arguments, Mr. Smith examines, dissects, and refutes the myriad “proofs” offered by theists – sophisticated, professional theologians – as well as the average religious layperson. He explores the historical and psychological havoc wrought by religion in general and concludes that religious belief cannot have any place in the life of modern, rational man.

“It is not my purpose to convert people to atheism . . . (but to) demonstrate that the belief in God is irrational to the point of absurdity. If a person wishes to continue believing in a god, that is his prerogative, but he can no longer excuse his belief in the name of reason and moral necessity.”