On My Radar (Wednesday Edition)

Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper
by Geoffrey Gray
Crown Publishing / Random House
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

“I have a bomb here and I would like you to sit by me.”

That was the note handed to a stewardess by a mild-mannered passenger on a Northwest Orient flight in 1971. It was the start of one of the most astonishing whodunits in the history of American true crime: how one man extorted $200,000 from an airline, then parachuted into the wilds of the Pacific Northwest and into oblivion. D. B. Cooper’s case has become the stuff of legend and obsessed and cursed his pursuers with everything from bankruptcy to suicidal despair. Now with Skyjack, journalist Geoffrey Gray delves into this unsolved mystery uncovering new leads in the infamous case.

Starting with a tip from a private investigator into a promising suspect (a Cooper lookalike, Northwest employee, and trained paratrooper), Gray is propelled into the murky depths of a decades-old mystery, conducting new interviews and obtaining a first-ever look at Cooper’s FBI file. Beginning with a heartstopping and unprecedented recreation of the crime itself, from cabin to cockpit to tower, and uncanny portraits of characters who either chased Cooper or might have committed the crime, including Ralph Himmelsbach, the most dogged of FBI agents, who watched with horror as a criminal became a counter-culture folk hero who supposedly shafted the system…Karl Fleming, a respected reporter whose career was destroyed by a Cooper scoop that was a scam…and Barbara (nee Bobby) Dayton, a transgendered pilot who insisted she was Cooper herself.

With explosive new information and exclusive access to FBI files and forensic evidence, Skyjack reopens one of the great cold cases of the 20th century.

Kirkus Reviews

USA Today Review

On My Radar (Monday Edition)

101 Weird Ways to Make Money: Cricket Farming, Repossessing Cars, and Other Jobs with Big Upside and Not Much Competition

by Steve Gillman

Wiley
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

Month after month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports unemployment rates that creep upward or stay dormant, leaving a bleak picture of the job market. With so many people out of jobs and competing against each other for those few positions that are opening in corporate America, it seems many may need to find a new career plan.

For those looking for out-of-the-ordinary career ideas, Steve Gillman, author of 101 Weird Ways to Make Money: Cricket Farming, Repossessing Cars, and Other Jobs With Big Upside and Not Much Competition (Wiley; Paperback and eBook; August 2011; $19.95; ISBN: 978-1-118-01418-9) shares hundreds of quirky, yet profitable, job ideas for those willing to take a leap into a new profession.

Using interviews with unconventional entrepreneurs, the author's own wide-ranging experience with weird jobs, and extensive research, 101 Weird Ways to Make Money reveals fun, sometimes dirty, occasionally dangerous, yet incredibly profitable jobs and businesses. Gillman groups the dozens of unusual jobs, such as cricket and maggot farming, environmentally friendly burials, making and selling solar-roasted coffee, into segregated chapters such as, “Making Money Outdoors,” Green Jobs and Business,” “Working with Animals,” and many more. Additional jobs and businesses explored include:

• Crime-scene cleaning
• Niche street vending
• Septic cleaning
• Salvaging and selling scrap metals
• Fish tank cleaning
• Chasing geese and other birds from golf courses

Whether readers are seeking a new career, an additional revenue stream, are currently unemployed or have dreamed of starting their own business, 101 Weird Ways to Make Money is targeted toward those who are looking for work that suits an independent spirit and freedom from bosses and corporate cube farms. The book delivers 101 alternative ventures along with the keys to making them wildly successful. In addition, most of these jobs don't require extensive training, and are also scalable as businesses, allowing readers to build on their initial success.

Gillman’s book is not just full of stories about interestingly abnormal jobs - it advises readers on how to become an out-of-the-box entrepreneur. Gillman guides readers though the concept, scaling up and hiring employees, then moving on to bigger ventures, such as contracting out to larger companies. A "Where the Money Is" section at the end of each chapter suggests ways to make more than a little extra cash or even more than just a living.

Smart, creative people have already made millions of dollars in these “dirty” or “odd” jobs and 101 Weird Ways to Make Money shares the secrets for turning these strange ventures into moneymakers.

Author website

On My Radar (Thursday Edition)

Bigger Than the Game: Bo, Boz, the Punky QB, and How the '80's Created the Modern Athlete 
by Michael Weinreb
Gotham / Penguin
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

In the 1980s America sent to the White House an actor and ex-jock who fervently believed in the power of personal mythology, and Americans turned to sports to find their heroes. There was Bo Jackson, the man so strong he could break a baseball bat over his knee, the man whose athletic talents ran so deep that he starred in two sports while becoming a marketing pioneer. There was Jim McMahon, the Punky QB leading his Chicago Bears to Super Bowl glory while tending to his shades, his faux-hawk, and his can of beer. There was Brian Bosworth, terrorizing quarterbacks and averring that the NCAA stood for National Communists Against Athletes. And there was Len Bias, the best college basketball player in America and future of America's best pro team, off to celebrate his selection as the number two pick in the NBA Draft and the power and money that would soon be his.

In Bigger Than the Game, award-winning author Michael Weinreb explores the era when athletes evolved from humble and honest to brash and branded. Weinreb explains how these players lived their lives in America's living room, thanks to a new outfit called ESPN and the 24- hour news cycle that came of age in the (apostrophe?) 80s. They starred in music videos and in ad campaigns that promised they could do anything. They spurned their coaches, defied expectations, and were loved for it. In an era of "Just Say No," they said yes to just about everything.

An enthralling portrait of a fascinating period and its larger-than- life personalities, Bigger Than the Game recounts how excess, media, and the lust for fame changed American sports forever.

Author blog 

Book excerpt

Interview with the author (audio)

TBR: Season to Taste by Molly Birnbaum

In my TBR (to be read) stack:

Season to Taste: How I Lost My Sense of Smell and Found My Way
by Molly Birnbaum
Ecco / Harper Collins
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

“A rich, engrossing, and deeply intelligent story….This is a book I won’t soon forget.”
—Molly Wizenberg, bestselling author of A Homemade Life

“Fresh, smart, and consistently surprising. If this beautifully written book were a smell, it would be a crisp green apple.”
—Claire Dederer, bestselling author of Pose

Season to Taste is an aspiring chef’s moving account of finding her way—in the kitchen and beyond—after a tragic accident destroys her sense of smell. Molly Birnbaum’s remarkable story—written with the good cheer and great charm of popular food writers Laurie Colwin and Ruth Reichl—is destined to stand alongside Julie Powell’s Julie and Julia as a classic tale of a cooking life. Season to Taste is sad, funny, joyous, and inspiring.

Book Description

An aspiring chef's moving account of finding her way—in the kitchen and beyond—after a tragic accident destroys her sense of smell

At twenty-two, just out of college, Molly Birnbaum spent her nights reading cookbooks and her days working at a Boston bistro, preparing to start training at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America. She knew exactly where she wanted the life ahead to lead: She wanted to be a chef. But shortly before she was due to matriculate, she was hit by a car while out for a run in Boston. The accident fractured her skull, broke her pelvis, tore her knee to shreds—and destroyed her sense of smell. The flesh and bones would heal...but her sense of smell?And not being able to smell meant not being able to cook. She dropped her cooking school plans, quit her restaurant job, and sank into a depression.

Season to Taste is the story of what came next: how she picked herself up and set off on a grand, entertaining quest in the hopes of learning to smell again. Writing with the good cheer and great charm of Laurie Colwin or Ruth Reichl, she explores the science of olfaction, pheromones, and Proust's madeleine; she meets leading experts, including the writer Oliver Sacks, scientist Stuart Firestein, and perfumer Christophe Laudamiel; and she visits a pioneering New Jersey flavor lab, eats at Grant Achatz's legendary Chicago restaurant Alinea, and enrolls at a renowned perfume school in the South of France, all in an effort to understand and overcome her condition.

A moving personal story packed with surprising facts about our senses, Season to Taste is filled with unforgettable descriptions of the smells Birnbaum rediscovers—from cinnamon, cedarwood, and fresh bagels to rosemary chicken, lavender, and apple pie—as she falls in love, learns to smell from scratch, and starts, once again, to cook.

Author website 

Interview with the author (audio)

Profile of the author in the New York Times

The Beekeeper's Lament by Hannah Nordhaus

I am currently reading this book.  I can't believe how informative and well-written a book about beekeeping is in the hands of a talented writer.

The Beekeeper's Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America
by Hannah Nordhaus
Harper Perennial
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

“You’ll never think of bees, their keepers, or the fruits (and nuts) of their labors the same way again.” —Trevor Corson, author of The Secret Life of Lobsters

Award-winning journalist Hannah Nordhaus tells the remarkable story of John Miller, one of America’s foremost migratory beekeepers, and the myriad and mysterious epidemics threatening American honeybee populations. In luminous, razor-sharp prose, Nordhaus explores the vital role that honeybees play in American agribusiness, the maintenance of our food chain, and the very future of the nation. With an intimate focus and incisive reporting, in a book perfect for fans of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire, and John McPhee’s Oranges, Nordhaus’s stunning exposé illuminates one the most critical issues facing the world today, offering insight, information, and, ultimately, hope.

Book Description 

The honey bee is a willing conscript, a working wonder, an unseen and crucial link in America's agricultural industry. But never before has its survival been so unclear—and the future of our food supply so acutely challenged.

Enter beekeeper John Miller, who trucks his hives around the country, bringing millions of bees to farmers otherwise bereft of natural pollinators. Even as the mysterious and deadly epidemic known as Colony Collapse Disorder devastates bee populations across the globe, Miller forges ahead with the determination and wry humor of a true homespun hero. The Beekeeper's Lament tells his story and that of his bees, making for a complex, moving, and unforgettable portrait of man in the new natural world.

Author website

Kirkus Reviews

On My Radar (Monday Edition)

Missing: A Memoir
by Lindsay Harrison
Scribner / Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

A twenty-five-year-old recent graduate of Columbia University's MFA program, Lindsay Harrison began writing Missing as a way to cope with a terrible loss. During her sophomore year at Brown University, Lindsay received a phone call from her brother that her mother was missing. Forty days later they discover the unthinkable: Their mother's body had been found in the ocean.

Missing is at first a page-turning account of those first forty days, as it chronicles dealings with detectives, false sightings, wild hope, and deep despair. The balance of the story is a candid, emotional exploration of a daughter's search for solace after tragedy as she tries to understand who her mother truly was, makes peace with her grief, and becomes closer to her father and brothers as her mother's death forces her to learn more about her mother than she ever knew before.

Kirkus Reviews

Author website

Author's twitter feed

Friday Review: My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me

Today's review is by BookSpin contributor Evangeline Han. You can read her blog at http://www.sugarpeach.wordpress.com . Her twitter name is @EvangelineHan .


My Boyfriend Wrote A Book About Me: And Other Stories I Shouldn’t Share With Acquaintances, Coworkers, Taxi Drivers, Assistants, Job Interviewers, Bikini Waxers, And Ex/Current/Future Boyfriends But Have
by Hilary Winston
Sterling Publishing Co., Inc
Hardcover
May 2011 $17.95
240 pages

My Boyfriend Wrote A Book About Me is a collection of personal relationship stories by Hilary Winston. Winston writes about all the ups and downs of quirky relationships she has been in. The main focus of the book is Winston’s nearly five-year relationship with Kyle. After their break-up, she visits a bookstore and finds that he has written a book based on their relationship. To set the record straight about their relationship, Winston penned My Boyfriend Wrote A Book About Me.

This book should have a too much info warning in its beginning. Winston did not spare blushes in this candidly written book about her boyfriends. If I were any of her boyfriends, I would be squirming in my seat.

Hilary Winston

Winston pokes fun at all the heartbreaking and hilarious relationships she has been in. She describes her ex-boyfriends in telling details. More often than not, they are placed in a negative light and it seemed as if she thought that there could be no perfection in her any of her exes. It was a relief to read her self-examination at the end of her book. She keeps herself grounded by admitting that she has character weaknesses too.

The more pages I turned in the book, the more I wondered if Winston had used hyperboles. Characters in the book frequently had dramatic reactions to incidents. Either they were very colorful people or their reactions were exaggerated.

This book is a collection of very personal of stories. Right from page 1, Winston practiced the no holds barred attitude. I was amazed at the way she doesn’t shy from being brutally honest when narrating her stories. It takes plenty of guts to publish such an intimate, telling book.

The ending of the book leaves something to be desired. Winston still hasn’t fully gotten over her relationship with Kyle. Perhaps, there is a sequel in works? If there is a sequel, I will definitely want to read it. The thing I enjoyed most is Winston's writing style. She writes in a casual and humorous style. She is frank and expresses her emotions well in the book.

My Boyfriend Wrote A Book About Me was a hilarious collection of stories about the ups and downs of Winston’s relationship life. Its openness left me a little uncomfortable sometimes, but hey, this book is about real incidents in a real person’s life.

As for who “Kyle” is, read this book and then do a spot of Googling!

About the author: Hillary Winston is currently working as a writer and producer of the critically acclaimed comedy Community and was one of the writers for the Emmy®-award-winning show My Name Is Earl. She began her writing career by getting people coffee at various places like National Public Radio and Hollywood Squares. She can now proudly say someone else gets her coffee. Unfortunately, she doesn’t like coffee. Winston lives in Los Angeles with her cat Lolly. 

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Evangeline Han is a student from Malaysia. She is a voracious reader with a penchant for books with humor and intrigue. Besides reading, she also enjoys listening to music, surfing the Internet,  checking out the movies and browsing through the latest news.

Thursday Review: The Woman Who Fell From the Sky

Today's review is by BookSpin contributor Rita Hernandez.  You can read her blog at http://ritaliccious.wordpress.com .  Her twitter name is @Rita_liccious .

The Woman Who Fell From The Sky 

by Jennifer Steil

Broadway / Crown / Random House

Hardcover

This is the story of an American journalist who finds herself running a newspaper in Yemen. It really is so much more.  The depth to this story is what isn’t said. This book was interesting on many different levels.  The only thing I knew about Yemen, prior to reading this book, was what I saw on television and from what I knew when a high school friend served for a year in the Peace Corps teaching English over there. My friend video taped the entire experience. She lived in a hut and many third-world details such as that were absent from this book. But perhaps, that is one of the things that I like most about the book.  The author didn’t need to expand on the lack of plumbing to express her frustrations that many first-world Americans would feel. She did include enough details and had an amazing grasp of imagery that allowed me to visualize the small Yemenis village and I have never left this side of the Atlantic.

Reading this book made me realize that many of the things that I complain about really are third-world problems. The author, Jennifer Steil, managed to adapt to a very misogynistic society by having respect for a culture so very different from ours. Her depictions of all of her reporters and all of the characters in the book made them very real, and while you may not have agreed with the viewpoint of several of them (especially the men) you couldn’t help but empathize for their plight. And yet, while their culture was so very different from ours, the similarities were also clearly shown.

There are also many light-hearted passages where you couldn’t help but almost want to visit Yemen just to see the images that she was able to create with her pen. The sad part about that, is that, according to this novel, many of the population in Yemen are illiterate and many of the countries problems are attributed to this.  In fact, my favorite quote from the book clearly outlined this problem, but could be attributed to our society as well. “The more complicated the story, the more important it is that you make it clear to your readers.”

The underlying story here, is one of friendship. A friendship that transcends culture, space and time. Jennifer and Zuhra, one of the reporters, begins slowly and develops throughout the book that you almost feel as if there are elements of “chick-lit” to this book. That’s one of the things that I enjoyed the most. The narrative was so well-written that as the story unfolded you couldn’t help but turn the page wondering what was coming next.

I really enjoyed reading this book as I am not very familiar with the lands in the Middle East and while there were some very uncomfortable moments for the author, I have to say that it was quite an enjoyable read.

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher to review.

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Rita Hernandez is on the List of Extinct and Endangered Species as she is is a native South Floridian who still lives in South Florida. Proud mom to three beautiful children. She is a bibliophile, an anglophile, a political junkie and a General Hospital addict. Don't let that fool you though as she will read and write about any topic. A modern day Renaissance Woman.

On My Radar (Wednesday Edition)

NOW IN PAPERBACK!

Composed: A Memoir
by Rosanne Cash
Penguin
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

"One of the best accounts of an American life you'll likely ever read." -Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune

As moving, disarming, and elusive as one of her classic songs, Composed is Rosanne Cash's testament to the power of art, tradition, and love to transform a life. For more than three decades she has been one of the most compelling figures in popular music, having moved gracefully from Nashville stardom to critical recognition as a singer-songwriter and author of essays and short stories. Her remarkable body of work has often been noted for its emotional acuity, its rich and resonant imagery, and its unsparing honesty. Those qualities have enabled her to establish a unique intimacy with her audiences, and it is those qualities that inform her long-awaited memoir.

Author website

Book Review (Washington Times)

Interview with the author (NPR)

On My Radar (Tuesday Edition)

Falling to Earth: An Apollo 15 Astronaut's Journey to the Moon
by Al Worden with Francis French
Smithsonian Books
Hardcover

From the distributor website:

As command module pilot for the Apollo 15 mission to the moon in 1971, Al Worden flew on what is widely regarded as the greatest exploration mission that humans have ever attempted. He spent six days orbiting the moon, including three days completely alone, the most isolated human in existence. During the return from the moon to earth he also conducted the first spacewalk in deep space, becoming the first human ever to see both the entire earth and moon simply by turning his head. The Apollo 15 flight capped an already-impressive career as an astronaut, including important work on the pioneering Apollo 9 and Apollo 12 missions, as well as the perilous flight of Apollo 13.

Nine months after his return from the moon, Worden received a phone call telling him he was fired and ordering him out of his office by the end of the week. He refused to leave.

What happened in those nine months, from being honored with parades and meetings with world leaders to being unceremoniously fired, has been a source of much speculation for four decades. Worden has never before told the full story around the dramatic events that shook NASA and ended his spaceflight career. Readers will learn them here for the first time, along with the exhilarating account of what it is like to journey to the moon and back. It's an unprecedentedly candid account of what it was like to be an Apollo astronaut, with all its glory but also its pitfalls.

Author website


Kirkus Reviews

Co-Author website

Monday Review: THE HOBO HANDBOOK by Josh Mack

If I were rich I would travel.  If I were poor I'd be a hobo.  But I repeat myself.


The Hobo Handbook: A Field Guide to Living by Your Own Rules
by Josh Mack
Trade Paperback
Adams Media

Being lazy is hard work.  When most of us think of hobos our minds turn to dirty and stinky unshaven men with in filthy rag-clothing who hang out in rail yards.  Thanks, Hollywood.

But Josh Mack tells us it isn't so easy being "lazy."  While recognizing the quirky and humorous slant of the book, the author is clearly serious about his subject. He traveled across the U.S. nine times.  This is a man who knows of which he speaks.

First up, we are given a "Hobo Aptitude Test."  This test is used to weed out the contenders from the pretenders.  Readers are asked to give answers to statements such as:

"A lot of the people you'll be meeting are a bit more "out there" than the people you met at the poetry slam who you thought were "out there." Most folks are good, but like anywhere - now even more so - people can be..."challenging."

Your choices:
1. That's just what I'm looking for.
2. I can handle whatever comes my way.
3. Hmmm...I was kinda hoping not to meet anybody.
4. Forget it, just the thought creeps me out and makes me want to watch a Disney movie instead.

If, after completing the aptitude test, you decide you still want to be a hobo, plenty of helpful advice follows.

Readers are given the "hobo code." It may surprise you that many hobos don't look like the stereotype to the right.  Many of them are "...just as likely to find a job on Craigslist while sipping a soy latte the put on a debit card as they are to brew a pot of cowboy coffee over a small campfire by the tracks as they wait for word to arrive on where the jobs are."

The author provides helpful advice on how to get started as a hobo, how to travel light, modes of transportation, finding places to sleep and eat, where to find work (and how to secure the job - even as a hobo.)  Advice is also given on how to make your money last, how to keep clean and even how to read "hobo symbols" left by others who have blazed your trail.  Read the book and you'll get tips on how to stay out of trouble and how to spend your "down-time," (for example, you could attend the National Hobo Convention (no joke.))  You'll learn how to post bail, how to tell north from south with a paperclip and water and how to treat various injuries and ailments.  Helpful advice is also given on how to make hobo delicacies such as dandelion salad.

Sound like fun?  Hurry, your train is leaving.

(But please first read the section on how to hop a train.)

On My Radar (Wednesday Edition)

The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole Who Infiltrated the CIA
by Joby Warrick
Doubleday / Random House
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

A stunning narrative account of the mysterious Jordanian who penetrated both the inner circle of al-Qaeda and the highest reaches of the CIA, with a devastating impact on the war on terror.

In December 2009, a group of the CIA’s top terrorist hunters gathered at a secret base in Khost, Afghanistan, to greet a rising superspy: Humam Khalil al-Balawi, a Jordanian double-agent who infiltrated the upper ranks of al-Qaeda. For months, he had sent shocking revelations from inside the terrorist network and now promised to help the CIA assassinate Osama bin Laden’s top deputy. Instead, as he stepped from his car, he detonated a thirty-pound bomb strapped to his chest, instantly killing seven CIA operatives, the agency’s worst loss of life in decades.

In The Triple Agent, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Joby Warrick takes us deep inside the CIA’s secret war against al-Qaeda, a war that pits robotic planes and laser-guided missiles against a cunning enemy intent on unleashing carnage in American cities. Flitting precariously between the two sides was Balawi, a young man with extraordinary gifts who managed to win the confidence of hardened terrorists as well as veteran spymasters. With his breathtaking accounts from inside al-Qaeda’s lair, Balawi appeared poised to become America’s greatest double-agent in half a century—but he was not at all what he seemed. Combining the powerful momentum of Black Hawk Down with the institutional insight of Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side, Warrick takes the readers on a harrowing journey from the slums of Amman to the inner chambers of the White House in an untold true story of miscalculation, deception, and revenge. 

Book excerpt

Book review (L.A. Times)

NPR

On My Radar (Friday Edition)

I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59
by Douglas Edwards
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

Comparing Google to an ordinary business is like comparing a rocket to an Edsel. No academic analysis or bystander’s account can capture it. Now Doug Edwards, Employee Number 59, offers the first inside view of Google, giving readers a chance to fully experience the bizarre mix of camaraderie and competition at this phenomenal company. Edwards, Google’s first director of marketing and brand management, describes it as it happened. We see the first, pioneering steps of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the company’s young, idiosyncratic partners; the evolution of the company’s famously nonhierarchical structure (where every employee finds a problem to tackle or a feature to create and works independently); the development of brand identity; the races to develop and implement each new feature; and the many ideas that never came to pass. Above all, Edwards—a former journalist who knows how to write—captures the “Google Experience,” the rollercoaster ride of being part of a company creating itself in a whole new universe.

I’m Feeling Lucky captures for the first time the unique, self-invented, yet profoundly important culture of the world’s most transformative corporation.

Author interview

Review