SirReadaLot.org

August 2008, Issue #112

Contents:

• AIGA Professional Practices in Graphic Design, Second Edition by Tad Crawford
• Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy by Harold Koda & Andrew Bolton, with an introduction by Michael Chabon
• The Making of Theatrical Reputations: Studies from the Modern London Theatre by Yael Zarhy-Levo
• Day by Day: The Chronicles of a Hard of Hearing Reporter by Elizabeth Thompson
• Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Homebased Business Handbook: How to Start, Run and Grow Your Own Profitable Business, Second Edition by James Stephenson, with Rich Mintzer
• A Thousand Never Evers by Shana Burg
• Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature by Leonard Marcus
• Web of Conspiracy: A Guide to Conspiracy Theory Sites on the Internet by James F. Broderick & Darren W. Miller
• Santa Fe School of Cooking: Flavors of the Southwest by Susan D. Curtis
• A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage

• Brain-Based Learning: The New Paradigm of Teaching, Second Edition by Eric P. Jensen

• Michigan State College: John Hannah and the Creation of a World University, 1926-1969 by David A. Thomas

• The Homeschooling Book of Lists by Michael Leppert & Mary Leppert

• Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education by Stephen Joel Trachtenberg

• 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky: Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child by David Henderson

• The Earthwise Herbal: A Complete Guide to Old World Medicinal Plants by Matthew Wood

• Translating Theory to Practice: Thinking and Acting Like an Expert Counselor by Richard D. Parsons

• The Ethics of the Lie by Jean-Michel Rabaté, translated from the French by Suzanne Verderber

• After Miscarriage: Medical Facts and Emotional Support for Pregnancy Loss by Krissi Danielsson

• Bad Seeds in the Big Apple: Bandits, Killers, and Chaos in New York City, 1920-40 by Patrick Downey

• Pearl Harbor Countdown: Admiral James O. Richardson by Skipper Steely

• The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (unabridged, 9 Audio CDs: approximate running time 11 hours) by Anthony Esolen, narrated by Malcolm Hillgartner

• For the Love of Animals: The Rise of the Animal Protection Movement by Kathryn Shevelow

• A Patrick Lose Christmas: Whimsical Projects to Deck the Halls by Patrick Lose

• Country Living Storage Style: Pretty and Practical Ways to Organize Your Home by Lesley Porcelli

• Art in America: A Novel by Ron McLarty

• Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics by Penny Duquenoy, Carlisle George, & Kai Kimppa

• Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators by William Stolzenburg

• The Orvis Guide to Better Fly Casting: A Problem-Solving Approach by Al Kyte

• Dancing with God: The Trinity from a Womanist Perspective by Karen Baker-Fletcher

• Masked Atheism: Catholicism and the Secular Victorian Home, Second Edition by Maria LaMonaca

• The Book Your Church* Doesn't Want You to Read: *(Or Synagogue, Temple, Mosque...) edited by Tim C. Leedom & Maria Murdy, with an introduction by Bill Jenkins

• Revolution or Renaissance: Making the Transition from an Economic Age to a Cultural Age by D. Paul Schafer

• Migrants to the Metropolis: The Rise of Immigrant Gateway Cities edited by Marie Price & Lisa Benton-Short

• The Complete Book of Classic GM Muscle  by Mike Mueller

• Fodor's Brazil, 5th Edition (Fodor's Gold Guides) by Fodor's  

Arts & Photography / Graphic Design / Reference

AIGA Professional Practices in Graphic Design, Second Edition by Tad Crawford (Allworth Press) This book is a comprehensive guide on the professional practices for designers at all stages of their careers.... Only as designers reflect a consistent, responsive, and business-like tenor in relations with their clients will an expected set of norms define an established ethos for the profession. – Richard Grefe, Executive Director, AIGA, from the Preface

AIGA Professional Practices in Graphic Design is the definitive guide to professional business practices in graphic design, revised and updated for the digital age. This guide contains advice on a range of key issues to aid designers, clients, and professional advisers. Up-to-the-minute coverage of web, interactive, and motion graphics; green design; potential repercussions of legislation on Orphan works; protection of fonts and software; managing creative people; using professional help such as lawyers; and more. The newly revised AIGA Standard Form for Design Services is included for the convenience of readers.  

This compendium contains guidelines, resources, and sound real-world advice from more than 25 industry professionals. Covering the latest standards in the graphic design business, AIGA Professional Practices in Graphic Design is structured in three parts covering relationships, management, and rights. Each chapter details such topics as building professional relationships, handling negotiations, fees, contracts, and employee-supplier relations, managing large projects, copyright and trademark issues, electronic uses and has been written by an authority in the field. AIGA Professional Practices in Graphic Design also guides the business-minded graphic designer through the structuring and managing of a design business, managing large projects, and understanding copyright and trademark issues. In addition, a resource section highlights selected publications, websites, and organizations.

Other topics new to this edition include:

• Successful creative briefs
• Employment searches
• Sales tax
• Retainer agreements

AIGA, the professional association for design, has compiled a go-to reference for business standards and practices for graphic designers with Tad Crawford, an attorney and publisher as its editor. Founded in 1914, AIGA remains the oldest and largest professional membership organization for design. AIGA now represents more than 22,000 design professionals, educators and students through national activities and local programs developed by 60 chapters and 240 student groups.

AIGA Professional Practices in Graphic Design provides definitive guidelines on all aspects of the graphic design business. – FYI

Whether working individually, in a studio or agency, or in a corporate design department, AIGA Professional Practices in Graphic Design is a must-have desktop resource for conducting business in this dynamic industry. No designer should do business without this comprehensive, authoritative book, an industry classic, which sold 70,000 copies in its first edition.

Arts & Photography / Graphic Novels/ Fashion / Museum Collections

Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy by Harold Koda & Andrew Bolton, with an introduction by Michael Chabon (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Yale University Press)

Since Superman appeared in 1938, superheroes have exercised a powerful influence over our imagination. Like their biblical and mythological ancestors, superheroes have been conduits for our hopes, dreams, and desires. Emerging from dime novels and pulp magazines and evolving in comic books, superheroes have been dismissed until relatively recently as the trifling fantasies of childhood.

From Wonder Woman’s satin stars and golden bracelets to Batman’s brooding cape and mask, the style of superheroes’ dress has influenced both street wear and high fashion. Superheroes explores how radical couture, avant-garde sportswear, and state-of-the-art military garments – as seen through the lens of the superhero – can be metaphors for sex, power, and politics. Beginning with the origins of the superhero costume, this volume looks at how designers have been influenced by iconographic components. Costumes such as those worn by Batman and Catwoman are examined as reflections of sexual and physical prowess, while others, most notably those of Superman and Captain America, are analyzed as political propaganda.
Superheroes, written by Harold Koda, Curator in Charge and Andrew Bolton, Curator, both at The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, also explores superpowers and their manifestations – literal, symbolic, or metaphorical: Flash’s speed, Iron Man’s invulnerability, Hulk’s strength, and Spiderman’s agility are presented in their fantastical evocations. Featured designers include Pierre Cardin, John Galliano, Azzedine Alaia, Giorgio Armani, Hussein Chalayan, Alexander McQueen, Nicolas Ghesquiere, Jean Paul Gaultier, Comme des Garçons, and Walter van Beirendonck.

The book includes movie costumes as well as radical haute couture and state-of-the-art, high performance sportswear. Superheroes looks at the ways designers have adapted the basic components of the superhero costume – cape, mask, boots, and unitard – to go beyond iconography to explore issues of sex, power, and politics. One has only to turn a few pages to see the red and yellow ‘S’ emblem on Bernhard Willhelm's T-shirts, the large black spider on the bodice of an ensemble by J.J. Hudson, or the side-view mirrors and polychrome handlebars on Thierry Mugler's motorcycle bustier invoking Ghost Rider, to recognize the powerful reach of the superhero on contemporary tastemakers.

As the lavishly illustrated Superheroes explains, their apparent triviality is the very thing that gives superheros the ability to address serious issues of merit and worth, that frees them to comment upon shifting attitudes toward self and society, toward ideology and identity.

This catalogue accompanies an exhibition held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 7-September 1, 2008.

Arts & Photography / Performing Arts

The Making of Theatrical Reputations: Studies from the Modern London Theatre by Yael Zarhy-Levo (Studies in Theatre History and Culture Series: University of Iowa Press)

Public taste is created – never forget that. – John Osborne, 1981

Today’s successful plays and playwrights achieve their prominence not simply because of their intrinsic merit but because of the work of mediators, who influence the whole trajectory of a playwright’s or a theatre company’s career.

Who are the figures – individuals or organizations – that authorize theatre companies or play­wrights and influence their position on the cultural map? What are the strategies employed by these figures to endow the theatrical work with value and to make it more accessible to audiences? What are the channels they employ to introduce, promote, or evaluate the work? What sorts of patterns of interaction are established among these authorizing figures, and how do they affect the perceived value of the work? What role do the playwrights themselves play in the reception and perception of their works? In sum, how do these authorizing figures and these configura­tions of interrelated parties, modes, or mechanisms that help organize the processes of mediation operate in the theatre and how does mediation influence the status of an event or the position of a company or playwright in the cultural or historical memory?

In The Making of Theatrical Reputations Yael Zarhy-Levo demonstrates the processes through which these mediatory practices by key authority figures situate theatrical companies and playwrights within cultural and historical memory. To reveal how these authorizing powers that be operate, Zarhy-Levo, senior lecturer in the Department of Literature at Tel-Aviv University, presents four detailed case studies that reflect various angles of the modern London theatre. In the case of the English Stage Company’s production of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, she centers on a specific event. She then focuses on the trajectory of a single company, the Theatre Workshop, particularly through its first decade at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, London. Next, she explores the career of the dramatist John Arden, especially its first ten years, in part drawing upon an interview with Arden and his wife, actress and playwright Margaretta D’Arcy, before turning to her fourth study: the playwright Harold Pinter’s shifting reputation throughout the different phases of his career.

In The Making of Theatrical Reputations these four case studies pri­marily serve to illustrate the various processes of mediation. Accordingly, in all four cases Zarhy-Levo presents the workings of various individ­uals or organizations that act as mediators. Among those who partake in one way or another in theatrical production, the role of mediation is ascribed in the book to those who enhance the value of a work as a result of one or more of the following: their function as decision makers (e.g., artistic directors, producers), their involvement as theatre practitioners (e.g., directors, actors), their prominent standing, or their active promotion of the theatrical enterprise. Promotional media­tion is also often carried out directly through participation in theatre fes­tivals, advertisement, press releases, and other media interventions.

Zarhy-Levo investigates the methods, aims, assump­tions, and modes of description and analysis, as well as the objectives and policies of those who partake in theatre production, and the promotional means employed by them. Drawing upon previous scholarship, she examines how the theatrical works were received; the ways that theatre reviewers, critics, academics, newspapers, journals, and other media, as well as or­ganizations, contributed both separately and collectively to the percep­tion of the theatrical creators and their work. In The Making of Theatrical Reputations she investigates the role of the theatre creators themselves in shaping the reception and perception of their work and she explores the effect of different configurations of mediating parties on the theatrical standing of the artists (whether an individual playwright or a company) and their work. In the process, in each of the four case studies she focuses on a specific topic, each of which serves her pri­mary subject and aims.

Given the aim of The Making of Theatrical Reputations, Zarhy-Levo’s decisions to discuss specific events, companies, plays, and playwrights rather than giving a historical survey of the modern London theatre was derived in part from the consider­ation that each case she chose is perceived as a major contribution to the development of London (and British) theatre in the 1950s and 1960s (notwithstanding the debates over the extent of each one's individual con­tribution). The cases she chose illustrate, separately and together, distinct mediatory configurations and their impact on the reputations of theatrical works and creators both in their own time and over time. Thus these cases (despite – or because of – being quite specific in their topics) offer four salient instances of the making of theatrical reputations.

I commend the clarity with which Zarhy-Levo summarizes the critical opinions of reviewers and academics alike. Her argument is original and well presented and will throw new light on theatrical developments in postwar Britain. – Michael Anderson, professor emeritus of drama, University of Kent

Theatre critics and drama scholars have long believed that they have an effect on the general public's response to playwrights, particularly those whose plays are difficult, expressed in unconventional ways, or deal with unpopular topics. Yael Zarhy-Levo demonstrates that there is substantial evidence to corroborate this claim. Emphasizing the contributions of newspaper critics, Zarhy-Levo explains how favorable reviews and careful analyses of the dramas ultimately persuaded theatre-goers to understand, accept, and appreciate both the individual plays and the authors who created them. – Steve H. Gale, founding president of the Harold Pinter Society, founding coauthor of The Pinter Review, author of Butter’s Going Up: A Critical Analysis of Harold Pinter’s Work

The Making of Theatrical Reputations is a work which demonstrates, through cases studies, the claim that critics and scholars do have an effect on how theater is received.

Drawing upon a valuable body of publications and scholarship, Zarhy-Levo investigates and integrates the various practices of mediation and, furthermore, brings to the fore a range of participat­ing figures, modes, or mechanisms, presenting the four cases – key devel­opments in modern London theatre – through the prism of mediation. In doing so, she shows how the accumulating processes of mediation have shaped not only the theatrical reputations of specific events, companies, and individual playwrights, but also our historical understanding of their particular role within the overall context of British theatre.

Biographies & Memoirs / Journalists / Deaf Authors

Day by Day: The Chronicles of a Hard of Hearing Reporter by Elizabeth Thompson (Deaf Lives Series, Volume 7: Gallaudet University Press)

The short of it – I became deaf.

The long of it – I learned how to cope. This learning process began when I was a child. Was it easy? No. Interesting? Yes. That is the gist of my book. I want to share what I have learned from within myself, from my experiences, and from others. All of these experiences led to my writing a newspaper column, starting in 1998. I have built Day by Day around these columns, explaining how the writing came to life and any afterthoughts that came to me as I retyped individual columns into my book. The columns, all of which appeared in Suburban News Publications, are scattered throughout the book. Words have a power that can have a long-lasting effect. For this rea­son, I want my words to encourage all of my readers and let them know they are not alone.… – from the Foreword

Elizabeth Thompson’s hearing loss was detected when she was in elementary school, and her hearing continued to deteriorate until she became completely deaf. Like many other hard of hearing and late-deafened individuals, her hearing loss complicated the general challenges of life. She struggled through school, worked as a secretary, married, had a daughter, and then found herself living as a single mother. She remarried, and soon after learned that she had contracted Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Despite these hurdles, Thompson always expressed her determination to enjoy the best life had to offer.

Her astonishing exuberance might have gone unnoticed if she had not accepted a new position as a reporter/columnist in 1998 for Suburban News Publications (SNP). Day by Day presents a blend of her experiences and best SNP columns that illustrate how she crafted her remarkable outlook. In her columns, Thompson presented how she handled her hearing loss as a personal guide for readers. She used every stratagem available to function full-throttle – hearing aids, FM systems, lights for alarms, TTYs, even training her dog Snert. She also gently counseled readers on how to treat deaf and hard of hearing people with practical consideration and respect. Her pursuit of a fully realized life enabled her to do what she loved most, to meet and write about inspiring persons, many of whom are profiled in her memoir. Thompson eventually underwent cochlear implantation that restored 95% of her hearing, an exalting moment for her. Yet, Day by Day celebrates the entire arc of her life, a wonderful testament to her joyous resilience.

Like the journalist she is, Thompson offers insights from all perspectives, This wonderfully written book gives voice to the more than 20 million Americans, including me, who are hard of hearing, and anyone who has felt isolated because they are different. – Sharon Baldacci, author of A Sundog Moment

With Day by Day Thompson welcomes us into her world; her life is an open book. Accurate and interesting, the book fulfills her goal to learn, teach, and reach others struggling like she was, and to build a bridge of understanding between hearing and Deaf people.

This is the seventh volume in the Deaf Lives Series edited by Brenda Brueggermann.

Business & Economics / Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Homebased Business Handbook: How to Start, Run and Grow Your Own Profitable Business, Second Edition by James Stephenson, with Rich Mintzer (Entrepreneur Press)

According to the SBA, more than 750,000 new business ventures are started each year, with the vast majority of homebased business enterprises started by first-time entrepreneurs. That adds up to a lot of people taking a gigantic leap of faith, and it begs the questions:

• Where does one find all the need-­to-know information?
• How to get started?
• Where to find customers?
• How to manage the new home business enterprise?

These questions are answered in Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Homebased Business Handbook by James Stephenson, an experienced homebased consultant with 15 years of business and marketing experience. The book was developed for the thousands of people who start a home business each week and for the thousands more who are considering starting a home business. The book provides first-time and even seasoned entrepreneurs with vital information that they need to start, run and grow their own prof­itable businesses from the comforts of home. It is a toolkit to move the venture from startup to profitable.

No matter what stage the business is in, Ultimate Homebased Business Handbook helps readers:

• Start smart.
• Choose the best business.
• Set up the business legally.
• Learn the basics of management, operations, marketing and sales.
• Organize the home office.
• Create an effective online presence.
• Develop winning business processes.
• Attract and keep customers for life.

Readers will find up-to-date, detailed information on every stage of business creation. This second edition offers more information on the latest tools and trends, including cutting-edge office software, inexpensive online advertising, and business protection plans. Combine that with how-to tips, ideas, tools from in-the-trenches homebased entrepreneurs and hundreds of print and online resources, and readers have a one-stop guide.

Along with being a guide to starting and running a homebased business, Ultimate Homebased Business Handbook is also a workbook. Stephenson recommends using it incre­mentally throughout the phases of getting the new home business rolling, including:

• Identifying personal strengths and weaknesses.
• Setting attainable and realistic goals.
• Identifying the right new home business idea.
• Choosing the right legal structure.
• Developing a workable business plan.
• Finding the money needed to start, operate and grow the business.
• Designing and organizing a productive home workspace.
• Creating a marketing plan to find and keep customers for life.
• Managing the day-to-day operations like a pro.

The book includes a chapter on 125 homebased business ideas and 101 homebased franchises. Throughout the Ultimate Homebased Business Handbook, readers also find checklists, worksheets and forms that they can use as featured, or alternately, use as templates. Using a basic word processing program, they can customize each checklist, worksheet or form to create a new one that is relevant to their business, products, services or marketing objectives. They also find examples, such as a sample press release, a target customer profile sheet, and a media questionnaire. As they read through each chapter, readers find that hundreds of business-related resources have been included in the text and at the end. The resources include both American and Canadian business associa­tions, government agencies, private corporations, individuals, websites, books and other publications, products, and services. The three primary categories are associations, books and websites.

Entrepreneur Magazine's Ultimate Homebased Business Handbook is the most authoritative and comprehensive home business startup book available. It gives readers the answers to the questions that they may have about starting, operating and growing their own home business for long-term success. The information is presented in an easy-to-use, step-by-step format that acts as a road map to guide readers effortlessly through the process of starting a homebased business.

Children / Historical Fiction / Ages 9-12

A Thousand Never Evers by Shana Burg (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)

Get a load of this: all I did was laugh at her hat, a couple giggles plus a snort. And now, truth be told, nothing's funny at all. My big brother's gone, maybe forever, and the white folks have stolen what's ours. Mama and me fill the well with our tears, while Uncle Bump blows grief out his harmonica.

As the days and the emptiness pass, I can't help but take parts of my brother and put them right inside me. I reckon I have to. Because I can't rely on Mama or Uncle Bump to be the part of Elias that says right out loud what needs to be done to keep everything from mixing up crazy.

Reverend Walker always says, "There comes a time when a man's dignity is worth more than his life. I reckon I'm not a man. Heck, I'm nothing but a twelve-year-old girl living in Kuckachoo, Mississippi, in 1963. But this is the story of my time. – from the book

A Thousand Never Evers is a meticulously researched work of literary historical fiction by debut author Shana Burg, a passionate educator, journalist, and public speaker who continues to work toward the promise of social justice.

In Kuckachoo, in 1963, Addie Ann Pickett happily swings in her yard, jumps double Dutch, and teaches her trusty cat, Flapjack, new tricks. She worships her brother, Elias, and is proud of following in his footsteps by attending the Negro junior high school.

But when her careless act leads to her brother’s disappearance and possible murder, Addie Ann, Mama, and Uncle Bump struggle with not knowing if he’s dead or alive. Then a good deed meant to unite Kuckachoo sets off a chain of explosive events. Addie Ann knows Old Man Adams left his land to the white and black people to plant a garden and reap its bounty together, but the mayor denies it.

It isn't long before Uncle Bump is faced with a serious problem – he is accused of destroying the town's new integrated garden and his fate lies in the hands of an all-white jury. Addie Ann is stunned by the events and for the first time understands the importance of speaking out. She is itching to reveal the whole truth, but Mama's rule is never tell white folks what they don't want to hear. As the months pass, Addie Ann's family is sorely tested.

A Thousand Never Evers also includes an informative author's note and afterword.

Spunky Addie Ann Pickett is a character you will not soon forget. A fascinating read. – Ruth White, author of the Newbery Honor Book Belle Prater's Bay

References to significant historical events add authenticity and depth, while Addie's frank, expertly modulated voice delivers an emotional wallop. – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A Thousand Never Evers is a powerful narrative that examines an explosive time. This heartrending story of Addie Ann's mission to uncover the truth will hold readers in the grip of suspense from beginning to end. Set against the tumultuous backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement, A Thousand Never Evers sets a new standard in literary historical fiction. It may well take its place next to great American historical novels such as Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor and The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

Children / Literature & Fiction / History & Criticism / Guides

Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature by Leonard Marcus (Houghton Mifflin)
What should children read? As the preeminent children's literature authority, Leonard S. Marcus, shows, that is the three-hundred-year-old question that sparked the creation of a rambunctious children's book publishing scene in Colonial times. And it's the urgent issue that went on to fuel the transformation of twentieth-century children's book publishing from a genteel backwater to big business.

Minders of Make-Believe is a first-time history of the visionaries – editors, authors, librarians, booksellers, and others – whose passion for books has transformed American childhood and American culture. Marcus, the industry's most respected historian and critic, provides a look at the fierce turf wars fought among pioneering editors, progressive educators, and librarians – most of them women – throughout the twentieth century.

His story of the emergence and growth of the major publishing houses – and of the distinctive literature for the young they shaped – through research and in-depth interviews with dozens of key publishing figures whose careers go back to the 1930s, including Maurice Sendak, Ursula Nordstrom, Margaret K. McElderry, Charlotte Zolotow, Margret Rey, and the late Clement Hurd. From The New England Primer to The Cat in the Hat to Cormier's The Chocolate War, Marcus offers an appraisal of the pivotal books that transformed children's book publishing, and the revealing synergy between books like these and the national mood of their times.
In Minders of Make-Believe, Marcus reveals how often the world of children's books has reflected our national mood and aspirations. Among the topics Marcus covers are:

• The relationship of the children's publishing world to the public library system.
• The impact of the progressive education movement on children's books, as well as the impact of technological change on illustration.
• The often unexpected forces that have played a role in promoting – or censoring – children's reading matter.
• Pivotal books that challenged or redefined children's book publishing, from Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are to Steptoe's Stevie.

In the busy barnyard of children's literature, Leonard Marcus is Charlotte – a calm, wise soul who weaves every strand into something meaningful and useful. (He does not, as far as I know, have eight legs.) – Daniel Handler, author of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

A historian's wonderfully knowing account of the world of children's literature becomes something more: a brilliant rendering of a nation's values over the generations. Bravo! Such a valuable, instructive book! – Robert Coles, author of The Moral Life of Children and The Spiritual Life of Children

A generous, well-researched, clearly written, unbiased, scrupulously critical history of children's book publishing in the United States. Leonard S. Marcus's landmark book is essential reading for anyone interested in publishing and in children. – Jason Epstein, author of Book Business

A well-documented, thorough history. – Kirkus Reviews

A tour de force of research, insightful reportage, and critical evaluation of both large trends and significant individual titles . . . Marcus's approach and tone are always – and irresistibly – well informed, sensible, and intelligent . . . Indispensable. – Booklist, starred review

This broad survey distills the history of American children's publishing and librarianship, from colonial times to British interloper Harry Potter, including children's periodicals, major publishers and changes in printing technology. … he is most in his element chronicling the 20th century ….

Devotees of prewar classics may be disappointed that Marcus devotes just two pages to Baum and Denslow; that he says W.E.B. Du Bois's groundbreaking The Brownies' Book failed to reach its audience; and that he skips whole generations almost entirely (e.g., 1905-1918). Marcus succeeds best at discussing the subjects of his past research, including Children's Book Week and the Golden Books series; to his credit, he also builds on Nancy Larrick's work on how white middle-class prejudices determined children's books' lack of racial and ethnic diversity. Drawing upon Horn Book Magazine articles and behind-the-scenes accounts of feuds and trends, Marcus's history is ideal for industry insiders. – Publishers Weekly

Marcus with Minders of Make-Believe offers a richly informed, witty appraisal of the pivotal books that transformed children's book publishing, and brings alive the revealing synergy between books like these and the national mood of their times. This is a provocative, incisive, and path-breaking book of great depth. A panoramic, multi-generational tale set at the crossroads of commerce and culture, Minders of Make-Believe is a must-read for librarians, booksellers, teachers, parents, and anyone who cares about children's literature and the history and future of national literacy.

Computers & Internet / Culture / Reference

Web of Conspiracy: A Guide to Conspiracy Theory Sites on the Internet by James F. Broderick & Darren W. Miller (CyberAge Books / Information Today, Inc.)

A good conspiracy is unprovable. I mean, if you can prove it, it means they screwed up somewhere along the line. – Mel Gibson as Jerry Fletcher in the 1997 film Conspiracy Theory

The list is as intriguing as it is well known: Area 51, the Grassy Knoll, the New World Order, the 9/11 Truth Activists. These phrases sum­mon up some of history's most infamous events and the people and organizations behind them.

While googling a favorite conspiracy theory can produce thousands of results, until now web searchers have been hard-pressed to separate useful sites from the just plain flaky. In Web of Conspiracy, award-winning journalists James F. Broderick and Darren W. Miller look at various conspiracy theories and guide readers to the best sites for digging deeper.

The technological tidal flood of argument and information has allowed armchair conspiracy theorists to learn as much about their pet theories as the experts who used to have a monopoly on the information. Now, anyone with an Internet connection can review pictures from the 1969 Apollo Moon landing (why are there no stars visible?), William Shakespeare's surviving signatures (sloppily written and misspelled by the supposed ‘bard’ himself), and Marilyn Monroe's autopsy report (if she took a fatal overdose of pills, why weren't any drugs found in her stomach?).

While perhaps not a brave new world, it is at least a brazen one, with many skeptics posting their own Web sites and promoting their ‘evidence’ in favor of some long-suspected conspiracy. There are also sites set up by amateur sleuths, aficionados of some celebrity or historical event, professional researchers, students, and the merely curious. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion about the likelihood of conspiracy.

And as historians and researchers continue to probe the causes and sequences of events from Pearl Harbor to the attacks on 9/11, every new discovery leads to new questions – and the growing suspicion in some people's minds that what we think we know might be suspect. Formerly fixed ideas are replaced by gnawing uncertainty. As one academic noted in a recent article about this phenomenon in the San Francisco Chronicle, "some people turn to conspiracy theories in a genuine attempt to understand an inexplicable tragedy, to assemble order from chaos."

In Web of Conspiracy Broderick, journalism teacher at New Jersey City University in Jersey City and Miller, newspaper reporter and editor, ask: Why so much interest in these theories – many of which run the gamut from mildly intriguing to bizarre and even ludicrous-sounding? Are people becoming more suspicious? More gullible? More cynical?

Psychologists and social scientists have proposed lots of different reasons for the interest in conspiracy theories, but a factor that is often dismissed is the actual, verifiable existence of certain conspiracies in the recent past, from the Gulf of Tonkin incident to Watergate to the Iran-Contra affair. When the world learned that the recent invasion of Iraq was based on the now-disproved charge of ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ that only fueled the fire of suspicion about what else the government has done to mislead the public.

From 9/11 to Roswell, from Princess Di to the Grassy Knoll and beyond, Broderick and Miller, explore more than 20 of the world’s most intriguing conspiracy theories. They examine the facts surrounding each theory, present prevailing and lesser-known arguments, and point to Web sites that advocate, speculate, and debunk.

Chapters in Web of Conspiracy include: Roswell/Area 51, The Death of Princess Diana, TWA Flight 800, AIDS, The Shakespeare Authorship Question, The Order of Skull and Bones, The Jesus Controversy, The Moon Landing, The Death of Marilyn Monroe, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Pearl Harbor, The Trilateral Commission, The Hindenburg, The Philadelphia Experiment, Freemasonry, The JFK Assassination, September 11, 2001, and Bodies of Evidence: The Lindbergh, Lincoln, Hoffa, and Morrison Mysteries in Brief.

Web of Conspiracy focuses on numerous conspiracy theo­ries – from those everyone has probably heard of to some that are lesser known but equally compelling. Each chapter examines an individual conspiracy theory, beginning with a comprehensive essay about the theory, tracing its origins and history to its prevalence in popular culture. After readers are thoroughly acquainted with the alleged ‘alternate history’ or the supposed ‘secret society,’ attention turns to those places on the World Wide Web that deal with the con­spiracy theory in some way – whether promoting evidence in support of the theory, highlighting the signs of a ‘cover-up,’ or attempting to debunk the claims cherished by conspiracists. Each chapter reviews those Web sites that are essential for understanding the theory in all its permutations.

Though largely neutral, Web of Conspiracy does alert readers to some theo­ries that have yet to gain credibility and might be, as some would term it, on the margins of credibility. Other times, the weight of evidence often seems to suggest that the ‘official’ story might arguably be called into question. Each chapter, however, merely attempts to pres­ent the evidence. Conclusions are the function of open-minded readers, not the authors.

A clear-sighted and even-handed guide to the online world of conspiracy thinking ... useful for the casual surfer and the seasoned investigator alike. – Peter Knight, Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia

An essential index of conspiracy theories and their most important medium, the Internet. Broderick and Miller have in measured tone created a teaching tool that sorts out the who, what, when, why, and where of conspiracism. – Robert Alan Goldberg, Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America

This is a sneaky book, and I mean that in a good way. It's a terrific reference guide to intriguing (and often wacky) conspiracy-minded Web sites, but the authors also do a great job in the book of recounting these conspiracies. Beware, if you read this book, you might never read Shakespeare in the same way again. – Jack Naudi, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Web of Conspiracy is the ultimate guide for Internet-connected conspiracy theorists, buffs, and researchers and an eye-opening book for anyone who thinks he’s heard it all. Part reference book, part Internet guide, Web of Conspiracy serves as an invaluable resource – both inform­ative and entertaining – for anyone captivated by the conspiratorial world and how it manifests itself on the World Wide Web.

Cooking, Food & Wine

Santa Fe School of Cooking: Flavors of the Southwest by Susan D. Curtis (Gibbs Smith, Publisher)

The heart of the Southwest has been cultivating a robust and spirited culinary style for over 400 years, nurtured by the varied cultures and traditions of the people living there. The rich, deep, delicious sapores of New Mexican red and green chiles, chipotles, posole, chicos, and blue corn, have made their way into other regional cuisines, turning the world of haute cuisine into a hot-bed of Southwest Flavors.

For 19 years, the world-renowned chefs at the Santa Fe School of Cooking have been teaching the techniques and traditions to the 70,000 people who have passed through their doors. The school's philosophy is that of buying fresh ingredients from farmers markets and local food artisans, using nature's bounty to create traditional recipes as well as menus for healthier eating.

In Santa Fe School of Cooking, a long-awaited follow-up to the original Santa Fe School of Cooking, authors Susan Curtis and Nicole Curtis Ammerman share dozens of their new recipes from their internationally acclaimed cooking school. Curtis founded the Santa Fe School of Cooking in 1989. Nineteen years later, the school is thriving; not only does it spread the gospel of posole, green chiles and other regional foods, it also has garnered national acclaim in national publications. Daughter and co-author Ammerman grew up in Santa Fe and is a graduate of the University of Arizona. She returned to Santa Fe in 1993 to assume day-to-day operations of the cooking school.

Santa Fe School of Cooking offers more than 100 recipes made easy for the home cook. It contains dozens of recipes, techniques, traditions and flavors that helped define a region. Every recipe is original, exemplifying traditional New Mexican, Spanish, and contemporary Southwest cuisine. Sidebars and features include chiles, equipment, wines of New Mexico, farmers markets, techniques for nopales and tamale.
Over the years, the mission of the Santa Fe School of Cooking has always been to celebrate and promote the rich his­toric traditions and food of Santa Fe and its surroundings. The first classes offered at the school focused on traditional New Mexican cuisine with dishes such as enchiladas, beans, posole and green chile stew. As the school grew, a broader mix of classes was offered, reflecting the ragout of cultures in this area. Spanish tapas, Mexican cuisine, Native American foods, and contemporary Southwestern classes offered dishes such as Shrimp Escabeche with Black Olives and Mint, Roast Pork Loin with Red Chile Mole, and Goat Cheese Enchiladas with Tomatillo Sauce. Still within the focus of their mission, classes using southwestern ingredients were developed for healthier and lighter menus and, recently, low-carbohydrate diets.

In Santa Fe School of Cooking Curtis and Ammerman cook up some of their most creative, delicious recipes yet. Home cooks experience the rich culture and flavors of Santa Fe and the real Southwest. They learn subtle differences – between, for example, an aji Amarillo chile and a cascabel pod. Readers learn to bring together their own mix of Southwest flavors by following easy directions to create dishes with a taste that's unmistakably Santa Fe.
Cooking, Food & Wine / Culture

A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (Walker & Company)

Readers can likely find them all in their own kitchen – beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, cola. Line them up on the counter, and there you have it: thousands of years of human history in six drinks.

As Tom Standage in A History of the World in 6 Glasses relates, six drinks have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period. For Standage, each drink is a kind of technology, a catalyst for advancing culture by which he demonstrates the intricate interplay of different civilizations.
A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Beer was first made in the Fertile Crescent and by 3000 B.C.E. was so important to Mesopotamia and Egypt that it was used to pay wages. In ancient Greece wine became the main export of her vast seaborne trade, helping spread Greek culture abroad. Spirits such as brandy and rum fueled the Age of Exploration, fortifying seamen on long voyages and oiling the pernicious slave trade. Although coffee originated in the Arab world, it stoked revolutionary thought in Europe during the Age of Reason, when coffeehouses became centers of intellectual exchange. And hundreds of years after the Chinese began drinking tea, it became popular in Britain, with far-reaching effects on British foreign policy. Finally, though invented in 18th-century Europe carbonated drinks became a 20th-century phenomenon, and Coca-Cola in particular is the leading symbol of globalization.
Standage, technology editor at The Economist magazine, opens a window onto the past in this tour of six beverages that remain essentials today. En route he makes forays into the byways of western culture: Why were ancient Egyptians buried with beer? Why was wine considered a ‘classier’ drink than beer by the Romans? How did rum grog help the British navy defeat Napoleon? What is the relationship between coffee and revolution? And how did Coca-Cola become the number one poster-product for globalization decades before the term was even coined?

Standage starts with a bold hypothesis – that each epoch, from the Stone Age to the present, has had its signature beverage – and takes readers on an extraordinary trip through world history. The Economist's technology editor has the ability to connect the smallest detail to the big picture and a knack for summarizing vast concepts in a few sentences. … In and around these grand ideas, Standage tucks some wonderful … ending with a delightful appendix suggesting ways readers can sample ancient beverages. – Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 A History of the World in 6 Glasses is loaded with the kind of data that get talked about at the figurative water cooler... Incisive, illuminating and swift. – Janet Maslin, The New York Times

From beer to Coca-Cola, A History of the World in 6 Glasses explores the six drinks that have helped shape human history. Standage, with authority and charm, opens a window onto the past in this tour of beverages that remain essentials today. Readers may never look at their favorite drink the same way again.

Education / Educational Psychology

Brain-Based Learning: The New Paradigm of Teaching, Second Edition by Eric P. Jensen (Corwin Press)
Eric P. Jensen urges teachers to adopt a teaching approach aligned with the brain's natural way of learning. Borrowing research from the disciplines of neuroscience, biology, and psychology, brain expert Eric Jensen in Brain-Based Learning offers an explanation of the relationship between learning and the brain, helping educators increase student motivation and achievement. He shares empirical data and provides in-depth information about the impact of physiological effects, sensory stimuli, and emotions on learning. Updated and streamlined, this second edition of Brain-Based Learning offers:

• A set of brain-based principles for informed decision making.
• Low-cost teaching strategies.
• Chapter outlines and text boxes to emphasize key points.

Sections include Fundamentals of Brain-Based Learning, Physiological Effects on Learning, Sensory Contributions to Learning, Neuroscientific Perspective on Teaching and Learning, and Brain-Compatible Classrooms.

Jensen, a former teacher and current member of the Society for Neuroscience and New York Academy of Sciences is a leader in the brain-based movement, founder of the Learning Brain EXPO, has trained educators and trainers for 25 years worldwide. He is deeply committed to making a positive, significant, lasting difference in the way we learn.

Jensen says that keeping pace with the explosion of brain research over the past two decades has proved challenging, but educators are applying the findings with growing success. The result is a learning approach that is more aligned with how the brain naturally learns best. This new paradigm, known as brain-compatible or brain-based education, has emerged with strong implications for teachers and learners. Based on research from the disciplines of neuroscience, biology, and psy­chology, our understanding of the relationship between learning and the brain now encompasses the role of emotions, patterns, meaningfulness, environments, body rhythms, attitudes, stress, trauma, assessment, music, movement, gender, and enrichment. By integrating what we now know about the brain with standard education practices, Brain-Based Learning suggests ways that schools can be transformed into complete learning organizations.

Brain-Based Learning calls for the initiation of a fundamental shift in thinking. Shortsighted priorities, outdated teacher-education programs, visionless leaders, ‘program-of-the-week’ mentalities, clumsy systems, budgetary bottlenecks, hierarchical infighting, and professional jealousy all contribute to the problem; and they've got to stop. Furthermore, teachers need to quit playing the victim and arm themselves with change strategies that work. They can effect the changes called for if they collectively make it important enough to do so. Each brain-based strategy outlined in this book can be achieved by any one of us at little or no expense.

Why is now the time for a shift in thinking? The research on what works is compelling and comprehensive. We are all great natural learners. Failing children and failing schools are indications of a faulty system – not a faulty brain – and our schools have taken enough of a beating! When students are pro­vided with a learning environment that is optimal for learning, graduation rates increase, learning difficulties and discipline problems decrease, a love of learning flourishes, administrators focus on the real issues, and learning organizations thrive. In short, creating an organization around the way the brain naturally learns best may be the simplest and most critical educational reform ever initiated.

How reputable is brain-based education? Harvard University now offers both master's and doctoral degrees in it through the Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) program. Every year, the program produces about forty graduates with master's degrees and two to four doctors of education who go on to interdisciplinary positions in research and practice. Its mission is to build a movement in which cognitive science and neuroscience are integrated with education so that we train people to make that integration both in research and in practice. The director, Professor Kurt Fischer, helps oversee this new intersection of biology, cognitive science, and pedagogy.

For many, like Howard Gardner, brain-based education has become a new focus in education. Interest in Harvard's brain-based degree programs is enthusi­astic in Canada, Japan, Australia, South Korea, England, South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, and other countries. There's also a peer-reviewed scientific journal on brain-based education.

This book is filled with classroom implications and instructional suggestions based on research. Classroom teachers, school administrators, professional development trainers, college/university faculty, and parents will all benefit from this information. – Andrea Rosenblatt, Associate Professor, Barry University
I have used the information from this book in many of my training sessions. The What This Means to You sections translate technical information into everyday language for the reader. This is truly a book that has made – and will continue to make – a contribution to the field. – Steve Hutton, Area Coordinator, Kentucky Center for Instructional Discipline

Brain-Based Learning is aimed at those who want to know not only what works but why it works and how to incorporate the methods – teachers, teacher leaders, and administrators. This comprehensive text demonstrates how brain-compatible learning environments can work to optimize learning in the classroom, reduce discipline problems, overcome learning difficulties, and increase graduation rates. The book offers an easy-to-understand explanation of the relationship between learning and the brain, helping educators increase student motivation and achievement. Reader-friendly language makes the book accessible for both novice and veteran educators.

Education / History / Americas / Biographies & Memoirs

Michigan State College: John Hannah and the Creation of a World University, 1926-1969 by David A. Thomas (MSU Sesquicentennial Series, Volume 2: Michigan State University Press)

From a small scientific agricultural college among the fields on the outskirts of Lansing a new idea in higher education and uniquely American experiment to the world-class, globally engaged powerhouse that we are today, it’s really been an amazing journey. – Lou Anna K. Simon, President, Michigan State University

It was the early 1960s, and my father, Gordon Thomas, was mayor of East Lansing and John Hannah was president of Michi­gan State University. Because my father was also a communica­tions professor, Dr. Hannah was technically his boss. Conse­quently, they decided that the campus would not be an appropriate location for their meetings. The MSU president would definitely have the advantage over one of his employees. So our farmhouse on Hagadorn Road, built in 1849, several years before the creation of Michigan Agricultural College, hosted their occasional meetings. Late one Friday afternoon, President Hannah showed up at the house to talk about open housing in East Lansing. I followed my father and Dr. Hannah into the living room, hoping to overhear some entertaining conversation. After just two minutes of discussion, Dr. Hannah turned to me and said, "David, don't you have some homework to do?" I nodded and left the room. Looking back many years later, I wish I had said, "Dr. Hannah, someday I will be your biographer. Now is an opportunity to say something brilliant." – David Thomas, from the Preface

Michigan State College: John Hannah and the Creation of a World University, 1926-1969, written by David A. Thomas, is the second volume in the three volume Sesquicentennial history of Michigan State University. Preceded by Michigan Agricultural College: The Evolution of a Land-Grant Philosophy, 1855-1925, this second volume explores the Hannah years.
Today, Michigan State University cannot be separated from the enormous influence of one man, John Hannah, who steered its growth, academic programs, influence, and international prestige. During his tenure as Michigan State College and Michigan State University president, the land-grant institution grew from an enrollment of just over 6,000 to just under 40,000. This dramatic increase necessitated an extensive building program. The curriculum was also upgraded and modified. In 1944, the Basic College, a national prototype, was established to provide instruction to incoming students. Other innovations included Adult Education (1951), the International Program (1950s), MSU Oakland University (1959), and the creation of a medical program (1960s). As the twelfth president of Michigan State University, John Alfred Hannah served from 1941 to 1969. His tenure was characterized by the unparalleled growth of the university, in the size of the campus, enrollments, political controversy, and achievements.
According to Dewhurst in the Foreword, Thomas came to this undertaking well prepared to write a book that provides insights into this phase of the development of the university. A lifelong student of university and community history, Thomas literally grew up living on both sides of Grand River Avenue. The son of Gordon Thomas, a university faculty member as well as a mayor of East Lansing, David had the good fortune to become acquainted with President Hannah as a young man and to have an insider's perspective in the years to follow, during which time David became acquainted with many of the university's faculty and administrators, as well as civic leaders in the East Lansing and Lansing community. Beyond his family experience, Thomas brought his training as a professional journalist to the task of preparing the lively history of these years. A former writer at the Lansing State Journal, Thomas drew heavily on newspaper accounts in tracing the early portion of this period.

Thomas in Michigan State College clearly makes a major effort to collect the stories of everyday life of those who lived through this period. The accounts bring alive both moments of shared achievement and mo­ments of contested visions for the university. By carefully listening to the stories recorded in the book, readers can more deeply assess the university's development as the contributions of thousands of men and women shaped it.

Michigan State College not only presents singular voices of lives lived during this period but also presents and explores the folk histories associated with the everyday life of an ever-changing university. By drawing on these interviews, Thomas draws readers into the human experience of those who worked with and around President John Hannah – and who collectively were more powerful than Han­nah himself.

As Thomas notes, Hannah has taken on a larger-than-­life quality over the past decades. Even today, nearly forty years after his retirement, it is not uncommon to hear stories of his years as president. Whether these tales relate how he stopped students for conversation while walking the campus, comment on his physical size and stature or his powerful theatrical voice, or note his presence in all phases of daily campus life, these accounts have all contributed to the rich folk history of this period.

Michigan State College presents the ambitious quest for excel­lence that remained ever present during these years of remarkable growth. The enterprising stories of the faculty, students, and leaders tell readers much about where they have been and where they are headed. The Hannah years were arguably the most significant in MSU history. When John Hannah took charge in 1941, Michigan State Col­lege was basically an agricultural school with an enrollment of around six thousand. When he left in 1969, it was a world-class university with a student population of more than thirty-nine thousand. In between, MSU joined the Big Ten Conference, won NCAA football championships, built some of the largest dormitories and classrooms in the world, and hired faculty members who earned international reputations for their expertise in a wide range of academic subjects and received frequent mention in magazines, newspapers, radio programs, and television shows.

The book is illustrated with 200 vintage photographs.
Despite John Hannah's prominence in the title, Michigan State College ably describes the remarkable growth of America's pioneer land-grant college into a university that connected to all corners of the world. What is most remarkable about the book is the flow of voices that converge to tell this impressive story of the development of a world university. Thomas recaptures the many stories within the larger narrative of the dramatic development of Michigan State University over an incred­ible thirty-year period. And he effectively captures the multiple perspectives – those of the university leaders as well as those at many levels of the university and community.

Education / Homeschooling / Reference

The Homeschooling Book of Lists by Michael Leppert & Mary Leppert (Jossey-Bass Teacher Series: Jossey-Bass)

Homeschooling – yikes! Scary!

The Homeschooling Book of Lists is a resource for homeschoolers or anyone considering teaching their children at home, for whatever reasons parents may have – religious, social, academic, parents' unusual work patterns, travel. Written by Michael and Mary Leppert, two experts in the field of homeschooling, this easy-to-use book is filled with information, tips, and resources that will help readers give their children an outstanding education.

The Homeschooling Book of Lists provides a wealth of useful information for new or veteran homeschoolers. The book covers a wide variety of topics – including what to consider before homeschooling, state-by-state guidelines for homeschoolers, curriculum resources by subject area, and getting your homeschooled student into college.

Readers will find lists of products, resources, and curricula that will help them teach their children and enjoy the process along the way. The Lepperts discuss the pitfalls, peaks, and valleys that all homeschoolers’ experience – including skeptical family and friends, socialization, different learning styles and meth­ods, and college admissions – and give readers strategies to deal with them.

The Lepperts have been immersed in homeschooling for nearly two decades. They say they lived in a number of different states in their son’s early years, and as they took him to homeschooling park days and other social activities in religious and nonreli­gious support groups, they realized that there are many great products, cultural practices, and writers completely suitable to both religious and nonreligious homeschoolers. However, most families were not aware of them because at that time the groups remained insulated from each other.

In 1995, they began The Link in an attempt to link together the religious and nonreligious worlds of homeschooling. The Link was immediately distributed nationwide, to friends and support groups they had known in these early years of their son’s life, and it has grown tremendously since then.

The Homeschooling Book of Lists points readers to products, services, and resources to assist them in homeschooling their children. Part One will provide readers with helpful background information to con­sider before they begin homeschooling. Of particular note in this section are the Frequently Asked Questions about Homeschooling and the Glossary of Common Terms. The FAQs answer virtually any general question about homeschooling, and the Glossary will broaden readers’ knowledge of the homeschooling world.

There are a variety of ways to teach children at home, ranging from a classical education to more modern techniques like the delayed academic approach. Part Two, Homeschooling Models and Methods, provides an overview of these many approaches to homeschooling, so that readers can choose those that best suit their family.

Part Three, Subjects and Lesson Plans, points out resources and cur­ricula available to homeschoolers on every academic subject imaginable – from language arts, math, astronomy, and civics to art history. In Part Four, Homeschooling Resources, readers find more specialized sources of informa­tion for homeschooling. This section covers everything from religious home-schooling resources (including Christian, Jewish, and Islamic) to independent study programs as well as educating a child with special needs.

A big question for many homeschoolers is, ‘What about college?’ According to The Homeschooling Book of Lists, many homeschooled students go on to attend institutions from Harvard and Yale to community colleges – there are even a large number of colleges and univer­sities who actively seek out students who have been educated at home. Part Five, Getting Your Homeschooled Student into College, provides everything readers need to know about this phase of their children's education, from college admissions and transcripts to distance learning options for higher education.

The appendices provide a wealth of useful resources for homeschooling. Appendix A, Homeschooling State by State, gives information on homeschooling in each state. Depending on the state, readers should choose the statewide parents' group that appeals to them, go to their website, and find a contact person in their area. That person typically can provide insight into what it is really like to homeschool in their state.

Appendix B, Where to Go for More Information, lists useful magazines and books for homeschool families. Appendix C, Who's Who in Homeschooling, will help readers become familiar with prominent names in the homeschooling world as well as in the broader field of education. Appendix D, Sample Transcript for College Admission, provides assist­ance with the college admissions process. Appendix E, Coupons, contains discounts and other cost-saving opportunities for homeschoolers.

According to the Lepperts, homeschooling is fun and fulfilling – as well as a serious parenting endeavor and a large commitment that will test them every so often. But with The Homeschooling Book of Lists and their own initiative and native intelligence, they can do it.

In the dynamic resurrection of the ancient art of home education over the past three decades, Mary and Michael Leppert stand out among the most effective forces making it happen. Now they have distilled for us the essence of homeschooling's possibilities. This is the best kind of useful field guide to a rewarding alternative to school-as-usual. What a stupendous piece of work! – John Taylor Gatto, author of The Underground History of American Education and Weapons of Mass Instruction

One of the most convenient and useful references I've seen – this book will be a blessing to countless parents, saving them time and helping them find just what they need, whatever their goals may be. – Andrew Pudewa, director, Institute for Excellence in Writing and homeschooling father

This book contains a wealth of information for both new and veteran homeschoolers, and would be a valuable addition to any homeschooler's library. – Dr. Mary Hood, author of The Relaxed Homeschooler and homeschooling mother

With The Homeschooling Book of Lists, readers can see through the mists of myth surrounding this fast-growing alternative to public school and see if homeschooling is a good fit for their family. The book will provide them with all the information they need to do it with satisfaction. Comprehensive, authoritative, and user-friendly, the reference volume is an important resource for parents.

Education / Policy

Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education by Stephen Joel Trachtenberg (Touchstone Books)

Whether it's their alma mater or home to their favorite basketball team, a family tradition, or located in their hometown, Americans hold universities in high regard. However, with an ever changing social climate and at a time when gun violence, drug and alcohol abuse, faculty scandals, and tuition increases are the norm, more and more parents, educators, and students are questioning the current and future state of higher education.

At a time when daily news headlines scream of competitive college enrollments, tuition is skyrocketing and other campus scandals are escalating, the former president of The George Washington University, Big Man on Campus tells it like it really is. Educated at Columbia, Yale, and Harvard universities, with a membership in Phi Beta Kappa, more than fifteen honorary doctorates, four books, and numerous published articles, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is one of the leading voices in American higher education. In Big Man on Campus he brings his thirty years of experience, wisdom, and wit to reveal what goes on behind the scenes in the difficult and rewarding challenge of running a university. The book is a major work about the importance of sustaining our nation's natural brain trust.

Trachtenberg, President Emeritus of The George Washington University, offers an eye-opening and sometimes controversial, insider's look into institutions of higher learning. He takes readers behind the scenes and in his trademark wit, reveals the challenges (both difficult and rewarding) of running a university, and why it should matter to all of us. From admissions to financial woes, campus safety to staffing, Trachtenberg explains how the system can be improved. Utilizing personal anecdotes from his own history, he explains the insight he has gained from the halls of learning.

A loving portrait of a challenging career and an inside look at the complexities of a modern American university. – Booklist

Big Man on Campus is an engaging, wise, and candid memoir – the story of a successful leader whose love for his job infused his career at every point. It is hard to imagine a better picture of the daily life of a university president or a more telling examination of the challenges facing higher education. – Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of No Ordinary Time and Team of Rivals
There are few university presidents like Stephen Joel Trachtenberg – at once knowledgeable, creative, commonsensical, likable, and aggressive (indeed, relentless, even outrageous) in the pursuit of institutional uplift and excellence. There is nothing here remotely akin to the platitudinous outpourings of the usual suspects described as 'statesmen of higher education.' Big Man on Campus is a refreshingly candid, humorous, and readable portrait of American higher education and its discontents. – Jose A. Cabranes, U.S. Circuit Judge (New York) and trustee of Columbia University; former trustee of Yale University and Colgate University
The least sheepish man ever to hand out a sheepskin serves up a prescriptive memoir that is everything most higher education books never manage to be: brash, confessional, thought provoking, and fun. – Thomas Mallon, author of Henry and Clara and Fellow Traveler
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is not only among the wisest of university presidents, he is clearly among the most amusing and readable of writers about academia. There is nothing stuffy about this big man on campus. Trachtenberg educates, criticizes, prods, complains, and tickles the funny bone all at the same time. If you have a kid in college or contribute to one, you must read this book. Even if you don't, just read it for fun. – Professor Alan M. Dershowitz, author of Reversal of Fortune and Finding Jefferson

Big Man on Campus is an eye-opening insider's look at the current state of higher education in America, from one of the nation's most distinguished and down-to-earth university presidents. Using wonderful anecdotes from his own life, Trachtenberg explains with compassion and his trademark humor the insight he has gained.

Entertainment / Music / Biographies & Memoirs

'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky: Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child by David Henderson (Atria Books)

…the story of life is quicker than the wink of an eye

the story of love is hello and good-bye until we meet again.

– Jimi Hendrix, September 17, 1970

David Henderson's biography of Jimi Hendrix, Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child of the Aquarian Age – first published in hardcover in 1978 – was described by Greil Marcus of Rolling Stone as "the strongest and most ambitious biography yet written about any rock and roll performer." The paperback edition was retitled 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky: The Life of Jimi Hendrix, and in this smaller format, extensive interviews from the original edition were omitted. Nonetheless, all previous editions sold more than 300,000 copies and created a new standard for writing about popular artists, especially musicians.

Henderson's biography helped to rescue Hendrix from an unfair, erroneous association with drug decadence and recognized him as a true musical genius.

The Hendrix legacy still thrives, and Henderson has more to reveal and further insight to offer about the man who remains regarded as the greatest rock and roll guitarist of all time. 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky is the newly revised, updated, and expanded edition of this definitive biography of the man behind the legend. It melds the original text, which featured Hendrix's voice in complete interviews, with new material – to the extent that Hendrix could easily be described as the coauthor of this work.

Henderson in 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky offers information that was initially difficult to obtain in the years immediately following Hendrix's death. With the passage of time, originally reluctant informants have come forward, and many of the cover-ups and legal battles have been resolved. All of this has shed new light on Hendrix's life, as well as on the circumstances surrounding his mysterious death. This edition includes more of Hendrix's personal writings, and goes more in depth about his romantic life and the music – its creation, problems, and triumphs – as scholarship and recognition of his importance have deepened over time. Henderson wrote this biography as the result of a promise he'd made to Jimi at Ungano's nightclub in Manhattan in 1969 to write something solely about him. The rock legend had read and liked Henderson's piece in Crawdaddy – one of Hendrix's favorite magazines – on his concert with Sly Stone at the Fillmore East. Little did either man know that they would forever be connected by this timeless biography.

The New Journalism began on the Lower East Side in the mid-sixties when poets and fiction writers became reporters for The East Village Other, mother of the Underground Press. David Henderson was one of the pioneers of the style. He combines his gifts as a poet and a reporter in 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky, and the result is a rewarding and unique reading experience. It is part thriller and part lament for some tragic lives who enlivened an exciting decade. – Ishmael Reed
A harrowing and exhilarating story... Making sense of Hendrix's life, career, and art with such moment-to-moment intensity, one comes away convinced that we caught no more than a glimpse of Hendrix while he was here to see in the flesh... – Rolling Stone
Henderson hasn't just given us Hendrix complete. He has also written a fascinating study of the development of rock. – The Phoenix (Boston)
The most thorough and consistently excellent biography of any rock music figure. – San Francisco Examiner/Chronicle
No one who wants to assemble a coherent version of Jimi's story can afford to be without this book – It is not only the best version, it is the only complete one. – Dave Marsh, author of Born to Run

While revealing essential information about Hendrix’s untimely death, 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky reads like a grand adventure novel but also includes salient cultural, political, and historical background. This is an excellent editing job, and an important biography.

Health, Mind & Body / Alternative Medicine

The Earthwise Herbal: A Complete Guide to Old World Medicinal Plants by Matthew Wood (North Atlantic Books)
According to the World Health Organization, 25% of modern medicines are made from plants. Noted herbalist Matthew Wood brings twenty-five years of clinical experience to this comprehensive book on medicinal plants. The first in a two-volume set, The Earthwise Herbal profiles Old World plants. Volume two will treat American plants. The book encompasses the major – and many of the secondary – herbs of traditional and modern Western herbalism. Organized as a materia medica with the names and descriptions of herbs and plants listed alphabetically, the book describes characteristic symptoms and conditions in which the plant has proved useful in the clinic and illustrates each remedy with case histories.

The book focuses on Old World Western herbalism and takes a holistic approach to health as it attempts to understand Nature, each organism, and the parts within each organism as fully functional units. The author explains the use of the whole plant – not just ‘active ingredients’ – in the treatment of the patient. The Earthwise Herbal features over 250 plants and herbs including Calendula, Flaxseed, Queen Anne's lace, Ginger, Propolis, and Lavender, to name a few. In addition, Wood takes a historical view based on his extensive study of ancient and traditional herbal literature.

This book is Wood's lifetime portfolio; as a practicing herbalist for the past 25 years, he has treated tens of thousands of patients. Based on personal experience in the actual use of medicinal herbs, it is aligned with traditional practice. It offers detailed botanical illustrations and combines each plant's historical uses in folk medicine, folk practitioners, the experience of actual herbalists, intuitive concepts of energy, plant properties, and medicine, daydreams, and dreams. It also offers insight into the ‘logic’ of the plant: how it works, in which areas of the body it works, how it has been used in the past, what its pharmacological constituents indicate about its use, and how all these different factors hang together to produce a portrait of the plant as a whole entity.

In The Earthwise Herbal, Matthew Wood has revived the richness, depth, and dignity of the herbal medicine of the old masters, while at the same time endowing it with a new cosmopolitan, cross-cultural flavor that lifts it to a genuinely planetary level. – Rudolph Ballentine, MD, author of Radical Healing
Matthew Wood propounds with great clarity, wisdom, and his own experience the gifts the earth in its wisdom has given us in the form of amazing medicines for almost all our ills, whether of body, mind, emotion, personality, or constitution. How refreshing it is to find a new herbal that explores the depths of each plant’s contribution and does not attribute its powers solely or even mainly to its chemical constituents. – Anne McIntyre, English Herbalist

Written in an easy, engaging, non-technical style, organized logically, The Earthwise Herbal provides practical and reliable guidelines for the selection of appropriate medicinal plants as remedies in alternative healing. Ideal for beginners, serious students, or advanced practitioners, this comprehensive volume is also useful for homeopaths and flower essence practitioners as it bridges these fields in its treatment of herbal medicines.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling / Job Hunting & Careers

Translating Theory to Practice: Thinking and Acting Like an Expert Counselor by Richard D. Parsons (Merrill)

Translating Theory to Practice is a text written in response to the void in coun­selor training – that is, training new counselors to first think like an expert and then act accordingly. The book assists those in counselor training and those new to the profession to move them from being passive recipients of client information, to active agents of change, purposively utilizing the information received in the process of helping their clients.

Written by Richard D. Parsons, Professor of Counselor Education at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, Translating Theory to Practice leads counseling students through the step-by-step process of receiving client information, synthesizing the data, and understanding how to respond and act effectively. With a central focus on this procedural knowledge, the guide also concentrates on developing the skills needed to build client relationships in order to elicit helpful client disclosure, and, ultimately, become an ‘expert’ counselor who can extract the important information from a situation and move from the ‘if’ of the client data to the ‘then’ of an intervention or solution.

The text assists students to employ four distinct organizing schemas (i.e., solution-focused, behavioral, cognitive, and trans-theoreti­cal) in their process of data reception, pattern recognition, and utilization.

Special features of Translating Theory to Practice include:

• A focus on procedural knowledge as opposed to pure theory that teaches students not only the differing philosophies of counseling techniques but also how to apply these practices to real counselor-client situations.
• Clinical illustrations of the concepts and constructions discussed in the corresponding text that appear in each chapter, showing students how the theories and ideas discussed translate into real-life situations and cases.
• In-depth case verbatim with superimposed ‘counselor thinking’ that portrays the thought processes involved in listening to a client, extracting the pertinent information, and deciding on an appropriate course of action.
• Guided practice exercises that provide students with the opportunity to apply what they have read and think critically about the practices and procedures they have learned.
• A list of additional resources at the end of each chapter that assist students in independent projects or research – both at the library and on the web.

• Each chapter provides a blending of theory, practice, and guided personal­ized application.
• A list of web-based and literature-based resources of additional material.

While the text highlights four essential theories regarding successful counseling – solution-focused, behavioral, cognitive, and trans-theoretical – what makes Translating Theory to Practice unique is its central focus on applying these theories to guide analysis, decision making, and action in the field – effectively moving counselors-in-training smoothly from comprehension to application to evaluation.

Health, Mind & Body / Relationships / Philosophy / Ethics & Morality

The Ethics of the Lie by Jean-Michel Rabaté, translated from the French by Suzanne Verderber (Other Press LLC)

Pinocchio knows: the unconscious knowledge of the conscious lie.

From little white lies to the deepest, darkest ones, it is an accepted fact that we – like the boy who cried wolf – lie very often, at least three times a day.

Lying is a common social manifestation that is fraught with contradictions: we lie quite frequently, but we hate liars, and we detest above all being lied to. We know that most politicians lie, hoping that they lie reasonably, as it were, but when they are caught in the act, their careers are ruined. The common root to these phenomena goes back to the paradigmatic figure of the paradox:

I am lying but I tell the truth when I say that I am lying.

In The Ethics of the Lie, Jean-Michel Rabaté examines this ancient problem in a new light, starting with a contemporary American context. He enters into the web of lies spun by the media, turns the microscope on the U.S. presidency, explores the dynamics of family lies, and even analyzes Hollywood's role in reenacting these dilemmas. Do we live in an age when disinformation has reached such a fevered pitch that we can dismiss everything presented as ‘fact’ or ‘news’? In questioning this widespread skepticism, the book critically revisits our various arts of dissimulation and exhibition, from ancient Greece to modern times. Rabaté, Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University, in The Ethics of the Lie deconstructs the pathology of lies and their logical mechanisms, leading readers back to the continuing debates of the great philosophers and their philosophical foundations – Plato, Nietzsche, and Aristotle – and in doing so, swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Jean-Michel Rabaté here proves himself to be a masterful docent of deception. In this marvelous new book, he leads us through a labyrinthine exhibition hall of lies – from the official and stately to the private and ignoble – while disclosing through deft philosophical and psychoanalytic analyses the illicit intercourse between truth telling and lying that structures both our political reality and our intimate relations. – Joan Copjec, author of Imagine There's No Woman: Ethics and Sublimation
Anyone who cares about the truth in general, and intending toward the truth in particular, will find this study of public lying and individual self-deception both harrowing and fascinating. – Susan Stewart, Annan Professor of English at Princeton University
With this groundbreaking book, Rabaté brilliantly explains how although we live in a world so full of lies, and each of us finds daily solace in being economical about truth, we still need to preserve the fantasy of truth-telling in order to keep democracy alive. – Renata Saleci, Centennial Professor, London School of Economics
The Ethics of the Lie is magnificent: both witty and learned to real purpose. It mixes yellow press journalism with the most erudite philosophical analyses in an admirable effort to understand that paradoxical truth: we are all liars. – Colin MacCabe, Distinguished Professor of English and Film, University of Pittsburgh; editor of Critical Quarterly

The translator of this erudite and entertaining volume, originally written in French, was Suzanne Verderber, Associate Professor of English and Humanities at Pratt Institute. Witty and enthralling, moving easily between both sides of the Atlantic. The Ethics of the Lie deftly digs beneath the surface to uncover the unconscious thoughts and feelings beneath the fact that we are all liars.

Health, Mind & Body / Women’s Health

After Miscarriage: Medical Facts and Emotional Support for Pregnancy Loss by Krissi Danielsson (Harvard Common Press)

I recommend After Miscarriage for couples who have experienced recurrent pregnancy loss and need answers. The book will empower such couples to seek information and testing to uncover the possible cause of their losses and help them gain the strength to try again. – William H. Kutteh, from the Foreword

As women and their partners grieve over a lost pregnancy, they often search for answers to questions such as: Why did this happen? How can I keep it from happening again? How can I deal with so much sadness? Can I stand to face another pregnancy? Author Krissi Danielsson found herself asking these same questions when she experienced three consecutive miscarriages, and now she has written After Miscarriage, a supportive book of expertly reviewed advice from medical professionals, stories from women who have miscarried, inspiring messages from couples, and a chapter just for dads. It addresses the medical and emotional issues that may accompany miscarriage, including when to seek testing, how to choose the right doctor, when to try for another pregnancy, and how to deal with anxiety.

According to freelance writer and editor Danielsson, medical practitioners and psychologists write most of the health‑oriented books on the market. So one of the first things that may strike readers when they pick up After Miscarriage is that she is not a physician. She is not a psychologist, either, although she does have an undergraduate degree in the field. Her perspective on miscarriage is that of a mother. She had three miscar­riages in a period of 14 months when her husband and she started trying to build their family. These were her first experiences with a medical system that she had previously believed was infallible and held the answers to all health ills.

After her losses she embarked on a research mission, the first of many for her. After Miscarriage is what she wished had been available when she first started on the journey – a collection of the known facts about miscarriage causes and treatments, followed by a discussion of coping strategies readers can use as they proceed with their life. The book provides information about possible causes and tests that readers can ask about, as well as potential treatments and current research that may result in new treatments for recurrent miscarriage. Rather than being prescriptive, the book is meant to inform and empower readers – to give them ideas to explore with their practitioner and to help them proceed more confidently with their attempts to build their family.

The medical research for After Miscarriage was conducted through interviews with medical practitioners and by using online databases of medical journal articles.

Danielsson helps readers determine when they need a specialist and when to seek additional testing, and she deals with the difficult issue of insurance coverage for some of the expensive tests that may be recom­mended. (A complete evaluation will include investigations into genetic, hormonal, anatomic, immunologic, infectious, thrombophilic, and envi­ronmental causes.) Couples faced with pregnancy loss may also encounter significant emotional distress, and in some cases supportive care may be necessary;

After Miscarriage's eight chapters begin with acknowledgment of a woman's feelings when her baby is gone and move into discussions of the known causes of recurrent pregnancy loss. Danielsson includes information on medical testing and treatments as well as alternative therapies that help with stress reduction. Next she takes readers through the experience of coping with pregnancy loss and building up the strength to try again. Her husband, Matt, adds his thoughts as well as those of other men who are dealing with the loss of the pregnancy and the grief in their relationship. Finally, there is a glossary of medical terms commonly encountered in discussions of miscarriage and a list of helpful online resources.

This book is informative, comprehensive, and sensitive. Ms. Danielsson describes complex medical and psychological issues in a straightforward, easy to understand manner. With compassion and support, she provides essential information for those who have suffered the heartbreaking loss of a miscarriage. I look forward to providing this resource to my patients as it will help them cope during a difficult time in their lives. – Madeline Licker Feingold, Director of Psychological Services, Alta Bates In Vitro Fertilization Program
This book is unique in addressing the personal experience as well as the science of miscarriage. I recommend it to all women who seek information, support and hope after miscarriage. – Patricia A. Robertson, Professor, Division of Perinatal Medicine and Genetics, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, University of California at San Francisco

I would strongly recommend that all grieving parents read this book. A three-time survivor of pregnancy loss, Danielsson offers valuable information ranging from miscarriage testing and treatments to trying to conceive after a loss. Krissi Danielsson has given us a resource that is long overdue and very much needed. – Hannah Stone, author of Forever Our Angels and Remembering Our Angels: Personal Stories of Healing from a Pregnancy Loss

Whatever their individual circumstances, After Miscarriage can bring readers comfort and help throughout their journey. Danielsson has carefully recorded and analyzed her experiences, and added comments from other women who have dealt with the unexpected heartache of pregnancy loss. She has also performed considerable research, both with patients and healthcare providers; her up-to-date summary of medical facts provides excellent information to couples. The book is an invaluable resource that will help women and their partners answer difficult questions with accuracy, clarity, and sensitivity.

History / Americas / True Crime

Bad Seeds in the Big Apple: Bandits, Killers, and Chaos in New York City, 1920-40 by Patrick Downey (Cumberland House)

"I didn't have anything better to do. That's why I went around bumping off cops." So said Francis ‘Two-Gun’ Crowley after shooting it out with dozens of policemen in the most spectacular siege in New York City history. For ninety minutes authorities poured hundreds of bullets and chucked tear-gas bombs into the gunman's fifth-story apartment as thousands of people swarmed below, watching the drama unfold. Finally, bleeding from several wounds and choking on the gas, the nineteen-year-old desperado surrendered, bringing an end to a three-month-long crime spree that included two murders. Crowley was just one of a vast number of outlaws – male and female – who terrorized New York City in the years between World Wars I and II. The lawlessness during that era was unprecedented in American history.

Bad Seeds in the Big Apple is the first book to profile New York City's notorious bandits, gunmen, and desperados of the Prohibition and Depression eras. While numerous books have been written on the city's organized-crime scene, this book completes the picture by introducing readers to infamous New Yorkers such as Richard Reese Whittemore, leader of a gang of jewel thieves; extortion queen Vivian Gordon; bandit and Sing Sing escapee James Nannery; Al Stern and his gang of kidnappers, the men behind the ill-fated 1926 Tombs Prison break; the marauders behind the 1934 Rubel Ice Plant armored car robbery; and dozens of other law breakers who have never before been covered in book form. Writer Patrick Downey in Bad Seeds in the Big Apple also includes a fresh look at a few characters of the era who have received individual book-length treatments.

Patrick Downey does it again! Bringing true-crime fans back to the underbelly of New York City, thus revealing its various criminal elements and their stories. True crime at its best! – Mario Gomes, Al Capone historian, founder of MyAlCaponeMuseum.corn

Patrick Downey has thoroughly cased the Big Apple and unearthed an impressive and varied rogues' gallery of urban bandits from the Golden Age of Gotham Gangdom. Riveting, entertaining, and fac­tual, Bad Seeds in the Big Apple furnishes unique and alternative insights to New York City crime between the world wars. – Rick Mattix, co-author of The Complete Public Enemy Almanac and publisher of On the Spot Journal

With Americans fascinated by bootleggers in the twenties, the national `War on Crime' in the thirties, and wire services still in their infancy, New York's nogoodniks were mainly local news, until now. Resurrected by Patrick Downey, the Whittemores, the Gerald Chapmans, and the ‘Two-Gun’ Crowleys remind us that while crime does not pay, it still can be a shortcut to immortality. – William J. Helmer, co-author of The St. Valentine's Day Massacre

An entertaining tale for true crime aficionados, who are legion, Bad Seeds in the Big Apple should be a big winner.

History / Military / World War II

Pearl Harbor Countdown: Admiral James O. Richardson by Skipper Steely (Pelican Publishing Company)

I do believe that the United States fleet would not have been in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, had I been the chief of naval operations at that time. – Admiral James O. Richardson

Pearl Harbor Countdown is a biography of the first naval officer to lose his command over Pearl Harbor strategy prior to World War II and, some would say, the greatest I-Told-You-So in U.S. history.

Since the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, countless historians, military experts, and World War II aficionados have debated the strategic decisions regarding the placement of the United States Naval Fleet in the Pacific. Now, for the first time, author Skipper Steely presents in Pearl Harbor Countdown a detailed biography of the man who fought to prevent the massacre – Adm. James Otto Richardson (1878-1974). Through his treatment of the life and times of Admiral Richardson, longtime history researcher Steely explores four decades of American foreign policy, traditional military practice, U.S. intelligence, and the administrative side of the military, exposing the largely untold story of the events leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Born into a family of educators and Civil War veterans, Richardson was schooled from an early age in strategy, tactics, and policy. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Richardson spent his formative years as a naval officer in Asian waters, experiences which would prepare him for the ultimate challenge of serving as the commander in chief of the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor in 1940. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the order that the U.S. fleet remain at Pearl Harbor indefinitely in 1940, without first consulting with the highest ranking naval officers on the matter, Richardson included, Admiral Richardson reacted.

Drawing from over thirty years of experience, Richardson recognized how vulnerable the fleet was in such an exposed and remote position, a logistical nightmare only made worse by the fleet's slim resources and lack of preparation and organization. Despite his adamant urgings to his civilian superiors, Richardson and his fleet remained in Hawaii.

Living out his life-long commit­ment to the U.S. fleet, Richardson sacri­ficed his career to make certain that the navy provided the United States her first line of defense. Going up against the chief of naval operations, Harold Stark; the secretary of the navy, Frank Knox; and not to mention the president of the United States, Richardson repeatedly tried to convey to them the navy's unprepared­ness and vulnerability in the Pacific. Richardson's training, expertise, and experience led him to believe that a Japanese attack on the U.S. fleet was not only possible, it was inevitable.

Richardson's warnings and protests prompted President Roosevelt to strip him of his command, opening the United States to the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941.
When the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941, it became painfully obvious that Admiral Richardson's fears were not only well founded, but that he had been right all along.

Steely says he was attracted to the prospect of writing Pearl Harbor Countdown not only because of Admiral Richardson's historical importance, but also because Richardson was a native of Paris, Texas, Steely's hometown. This enabled him access to much of Richardson's biographical information and gave him substantial material on which to begin his research into the admiral's career in the navy.

Skipper Steely has done a masterful job of sifting through the debris of the Pearl Harbor disaster and answering lingering questions that have hung like a shroud over this cataclysmic American tragedy. – Alan Armstrong, author of Preemptive Strike: The Secret Plan That Would Have Prevented the Attack on Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor Countdown allows the reader to better understand and appreciate one of America's most exceptional admi­rals, J. O. Richardson, who until now, has been largely ignored by history. After reading Pearl Harbor Countdown one is left wondering, 'What if ...' – Robert R. Payne, former naval OP-20-G officer and editor of Cryptolog

This book adds greatly to the knowledge of the Pearl Harbor story. It is a must for all Pearl Harbor and military historians and World War II military buffs. – Donald M. Goldstein, Ph.D., professor and military historian, co-author of At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor

In this biography of Admiral Richardson, Steely takes readers on a shocking, insightful journey through the annals of United States military history, exposing the events leading up to the Pearl Harbor disaster and providing an un­precedented account of the life of the admiral who sacrificed his military career in an effort to protect his country. Steely masterfully crafts an insightful and convincing biography of this overlooked naval hero. Offering a fresh perspective on what led to the catastrophic and infa­mous 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, along with a detailed treat­ment of the historical investigations regarding the attack throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Pearl Harbor Countdown proves indispensable reading for anyone interested in World War II in the Pacific.

History / World / Ancient

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (unabridged, 9 Audio CDs: approximate running time 11 hours) by Anthony Esolen, narrated by Malcolm Hillgartner (Politically Incorrect Guides: Blackstone Audio, Inc.)

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization by Anthony Esolen (Politically Incorrect Guides: Regnery Publishing)

Christianity. Judaism.

Dead white males.

Old-fashioned morality.

The traditional family. Tradition itself.

Everything liberals hate can be summed up in two words: Western civilization. Western civilization is the envy of the globe. It has given to the world universally accepted understandings of human rights, rooted in Judeo-Christian principles, created standards for art, music, and literature that have never been equaled; and originated political and social systems that have spread all across the planet.

Unfortunately, the fog of political correctness now obscures these and other truths about Western civilization. Leftists and Islamic jihadists find common cause in assailing Western ‘colonialism,’ ‘imperialism,’ and ‘racism’ as its defining characteristics. Guilt-ridden Western leaders and public figures speak of their cultural patrimony in disparaging terms they would never dare to use about a non-Western culture. And in the academy, ‘multicultural’-minded professors flatter students into believing they have nothing to learn from Sophocles or Shakespeare.

Now, Professor Anthony Esolen – one of the team-teachers of Providence College's esteemed Development of Western Civilization Core Curriculum – has risen to the West's defense. Here is the ultimate Politically Incorrect Guide (P.I.G.): a summary of the original source of all things politically incorrect from Moses, Caesar, and Christ, to Dante, Thomas More, and the Founding Fathers. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization takes on the prevailing liberal assumptions that make Western civilization the universal whipping boy for today's global problems, and introduces readers to the significant events, individuals, nations, ideas, and artistic achievements that make Western civilization the greatest the world has ever known.

As told in the book, PC professors don't want readers to know that:

• Patriarchy and civilization go hand in hand – just ask the ancient Romans.
• Modern science came from the Middle Ages – and a Biblical view of the universe.
• The Renaissance was the flowering of a specifically Christian and classical culture.
• The ‘progressive ideas’ of the nineteenth century led to the fascism, communism, and two world wars of the twentieth century.

According to Esolen, today – with the West imperiled as never before by the global jihad and threats from China and elsewhere – defending the West has become an urgent imperative: if we don't value what we have and what we have inherited, we will surely lose it. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization is a sourcebook for that defense. This ‘P.I.G.’ turns the multi-culturalist propaganda on its head and shows how the West laid the cornerstones of all modern civilization, including historical, artistic, and intellectual achievements. Using historical evidence and compelling arguments, Esolen shows why we not only owe it to history, but also to ourselves to set the record straight and respectfully acknowledge Western civilization's vital role in shaping our values and our world. The book is not just a road map of Western civilization but also a guide to us: who we were, who we are, and where we are going.

The audio version is ably read by Malcolm Hillgartner, theatrical musical writer.

‘The glory that was Greece... the grandeur that was Rome’ – not so long ago, these were the birthright of every educated American. But no more. If you had to name one thing that the vandals who've seized control on our college campuses don't want their students to learn, it would be Western civilization. More and more, we live with blinders on, ignorant of everything but current fads. In this sparkling book – the ultimate Politically Incorrect Guide – Anthony Esolen provides a fabulous introduction to the history and culture of the West. Esolen opens up a new world of people and ideas for those of us who live in the twenty-first century but don't want to be prisoners of the passing moment. – Elizabeth Kantor, Ph.D., author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature

An acclaimed translator of Dante, and a brilliant teacher of Western civilization, Professor Esolen is the perfect Virgil, guiding the student through the fugue-like influence of Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome. – Russell Hittinger, William K. Warren Professor of Catholic Studies, University of Tulsa

With a mind and heart well-formed by the very best that has made Western civilization both civil and great, Esolen vividly portrays our four-millennia drama in thought, politics, the family, art, poetry, architecture, war, peace, and the blessed intricacies of everyday life – his eye ever trained on the true, the good, and the beautiful, and rightly indignant of all that now threatens to reduce Western civilization to ashes and a new barbarism. – Benjamin Wiker, Ph.D., author of 10 Books That Screwed Up the World

Take away the P.I.G. hype and the indignant attitude and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization is an excellent summing up of what readers should know about Western heritage. Compelling arguments help readers fill in the gaps in their knowledge in this sprightly and informative retelling of the history of culture.

Home & Garden / Animals & Pets

For the Love of Animals: The Rise of the Animal Protection Movement by Kathryn Shevelow (Henry Holt and Co.)

For the Love of Animals is the extraordinary story of how we first gave legal protection to animals.

According to the book, in eighteenth-century England – where cockfighting and bull baiting drew large crowds, and the abuse of animals was routine – the idea of animal protection was dismissed as laughably radical. But as more people crowded into cities and increasing numbers shared their lives with pets, attitudes toward animals began changing, assisted by an unlikely assortment of exceptional people. An unconventional duchess defended their intellect in her writings. A gentleman scientist lamented the suffering of animals used for experimentation, while a few brave clergymen scandalized their congregations by preaching that even beasts have souls. Some members of Parliament, including an eccentric former lord chancellor and an evangelical abolitionist, began the long, arduous struggle to give ani­mals legal protection. And when the cause was finally taken up by Richard Martin – a flamboyant but compassionate Irishman who would become known throughout Britain as ‘Humanity Dick’ – the lives of beasts and, correspondingly, men and women would change forever.

Kathryn Shevelow, specialist in eighteenth-century British literature and culture, professor at the University of California in San Diego, in For the Love of Animals relates the dramatic story of the bold reformers who braved attacks because they sympathized with the plight of creatures everywhere; she also tells of the changes in attitudes that would make their reforms possible. Historical luminaries from all walks of life had much to say on the sub­ject of animals: Samuel Pepys described the ‘rude and nasty pleasure’ of bull baiting in his famous diaries, Alexander Pope pleaded for compassion in a well-known essay, and William Hogarth engraved one of the most powerful anti-cruelty polemics ever created. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the celebrated playwright, spoke passionately on their behalf in the House of Commons, and William Wilberforce, who led the struggle to end the slave trade, also helped to found the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. But more than just a historical account, For the Love of Animals is an eye-opening exploration of how our feel­ings toward animals reveal our ideas about ourselves, mercy, God, and nature.

Thoroughly researched and impressively detailed…This is a fasci­nating, often disturbing and frequently funny book, a must read for anyone concerned with the treatment of animals and a call to action for the next generation of animal rights activists. – Publishers Weekly

For the Love of Animals is an absorbing, rich book – I learned much and it made me think more deeply about the relationship between humans and animals. A fresh new voice has been added to the growing literature about the complexity of the rights of animals. – Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of When Elephants Weep

This shocking book tells the story of the brave, eccentric individuals who worked to stop heartless animal abuses in 17th and 18th century England.  For the Love of Animals is essential reading for people interested in both the history of legislation to protect animals, and animal ethics issues. – Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation

Richard Martin, named ‘Humanity Dick’ by King George IV, remains a hero to all who believe that kindness is indeed a virtue. He not only founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (now the RSPCA) together with William Wilberforce, but fought hard for legislation to help the poor and illiterate.  It is a joy to read Kathryn Shevelow’s careful examination of this extraordinary man and the other courageous men and women who worked together to radically change society with their ideas about social justice.  You are left pondering the implications of their words and deeds on those around them, indeed on us all, even today. – Ingrid Newkirk, President, PETA

In eighteenth-century England, an unlikely group of extraordinary people laid the foundation for the legal protection of animals – this is their engaging story. Accessible and lively, For the Love of Animals is a groundbreaking and captivating cultural narrative that takes us into the lives of animals – and into the minds of humans – at this transforming moment in history.

Home & Garden / Crafts & Hobbies / Interior Design / Seasonal

A Patrick Lose Christmas: Whimsical Projects to Deck the Halls by Patrick Lose (C&T Publishing)

Charles Dickens wrote, "I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year." That's a great sentiment that I try to live by myself. …

Ever since I was a kid, I've enjoyed making Christmas-themed projects. I think the reason that the ideas come so easily to me now is that I enjoyed Christmas so much growing up. I have a vast collection of cherished memories from which to draw. Like Dickens, my parents knew how to honor and keep Christmas, and they set a great example for their children and grandchildren….

I love traditional themes at Christmas, but with this book, I wanted to convey the lighter side and offer some whimsical and jolly projects. I hope you enjoy making them as much as I enjoyed designing them. – Patrick Lose, from the book

In A Patrick Lose Christmas Patrick Lose, author of many quilting and crafting books and patterns, and a well-known fabric designer, urges quilters to make their home merry and bright with jolly holiday quilts and accessories with 12 festive projects – table runners, door toppers, pillows, bed quilts, and more. Designs include projects with easy fused appliqué readers can put together in a weekend.

Projects in A Patrick Lose Christmas include:

• Christmastime Bed Quilt
• Christmas Cabin Table Runner
• Happy Holidays Quilt
• Ho! Ho! Ho! Quilt
• Santa's Pet Quilt
• Nuts about Christmas Quilt
• Joyride Quilt
• A Frosty Friend Quilt
• A Holiday Greeting Quilt
• Christmas Collage including Reindeer Pillow, Gift Pillow, and Christmas Tree Pillow

Lose has spent his professional years in a variety of creative fields. He began his career as an actor and singer, which eventually led him to designing costumes for stage and screen. An artist and illustrator since childhood, Lose has worked in many mediums, but is probably best known for his successful and long-running collections of fabric from Timeless Treasures and Moda that include his trademark marbleized solids, which are trendsetters in the industry.

Lose says one of his favorite Christmas sentiments is from Thomas Tusser: "At Christmas play and make good cheer, for Christmas comes but once a year." A Patrick Lose Christmas helps quilters to do the same. Full-size patterns and complete instructions in the book make assembly easy.

Home & Garden / Interior Design

Country Living Storage Style: Pretty and Practical Ways to Organize Your Home by Lesley Porcelli (Hearst Books)

I love the "Reinvent It" boxes scattered throughout the book. These ideas show how to transform flea market finds into useful storage. Now a day spent antiquing can actually give you more space to store and display your prized possessions. That's advice I can follow! – from the Foreword by Nancy Mernit Soriano, Editor in Chief

If there’s one thing we could all use more of, it is storage space. And if readers are collectors, it can be especially challenging to find room for all the treasures. Filling oversized storage bins with collectibles, kitchenware, or winter clothes is one way to keep closets and cupboards under control, but it is certainly not the most aesthetically pleasing way.

Away with plain plastic boxes and utilitarian metal filing cabinets! With a little inspiration in the form of unusual containers and furnishings, storage also can have style. Country Living Storage Style, written by Lesley Porcelli at Country Living, presents tips and tricks for organizing that infuse rooms with personality, wit, and flair.

For example, a vintage dollhouse attached to a kitchen wall becomes a charming, unexpected spice rack. A lift-top pine trunk topped with a cushion masquerades as a window seat – and serves as a hiding place for board games, toys, and other bric-a-brac. Or try classic country baskets, and armoires. These space-saving, clutter-camouflaging design schemes are ‘pretty’ with understated practicality. An ottoman that doubles as a chest for the children's toys, a low bench that serves as an improvised bookshelf, a basket to hold small items tucked under a side table, an old ladder that's recycled as an overhead pot rack, a dresser transformed into a bathroom sink vanity, stacked vintage trunks packed with bed linens that serve as nightstands: each idea is both functional and attractive – and can even set the tone for a whole room.

With Country Living Storage Style, readers learn how to give new life to flea market bargains to solve their organizational problems, examine space they have taken for granted in the past, and make a place for everything, whether it's concealed (as in trunks) or on display (as in shelving). There are ideas for every room in the house, from elegant living rooms and serene bedrooms to efficient home offices and humble mudrooms. Included are practical pointers, tips, and inspiring solutions to help readers organize as much or as little as they wish.

The book suggests coming to organization through a back door; that is, viewing storage solutions in a way that makes them pleasurable, not tedious. What one might put off for its sheer drudgery – say, organizing the spice rack or creating order among a china collection – these homeowners had attacked with a wit and flair that ultimately made each home unique, stylish, and unforgettable.

In addition, a new view of storage as attractive and suitable to their life and style, Porcelli suggests holding one concept in mind while reading Country Living Storage Style: Note how storage is either concealed, as in trunks, cabinets, and closets, or on display, as in shelving, counters and tabletops, wall hangings, and so forth. Why the distinction? If clutter is the type that's not particularly aesthetic – such as DVDs, bath and cleaning products bought in bulk, and out-of­-season clothing – readers can pay particular attention to their strategies for concealment.

On the other hand, if readers have an overabundance of attractive things – an expansive collection of pitchers, too many precious photos to stash away in a box somewhere, more books than they would like to admit – then storage that crosses over into the display category often proves a satisfying solution. In Country Living Storage Style readers will see a mix of both open and hidden storage, as well as ideas for mixing storage and display. These ideas transcend style, so they will work whether readers’ taste is for country chic, rustic, retro, or even urban flea market. Since the best storage doesn't look like storage, they will notice how antique shop bargains and household castoffs can find a whole new useful life solving their organizing problems. Moreover, they will learn to examine all the space in their home – even that which they have taken for granted in the past – and how to play with it, how roominess affords the opportunity for display, and how furniture that does double duty, like a small dresser that becomes a nightstand or a coffee table with drawers in it, will elegantly come to the rescue.

With the advice in Country Living Storage Style, banishing clutter takes a lot less determination and becomes a lot more fun. The profusely illustrated book brings a fresh and inventive eye to storage dilemmas, showing how the best ideas are stylish as well as practical. Readers begin to see organization as an integral decorating element and find many ideas that are so exciting, they will be moved into action. Whether cleverly concealing clutter or arranging collectibles in an orderly fashion, readers will learn the simplest way to approach storage, and the most logical. Easy-to-follow advice on such topics as hiring a professional organizer and storing fine tableware will help readers rid their home of clutter and care for what they have.

Literature & Fiction

Art in America: A Novel by Ron McLarty (Viking)
Like Ron McLarty’s protagonists in his other two novels Smithy Ide and Jono Riley, the hero of Art in America, Steven Kearney, is another rough-around-the-edges, middle-aged man who undertakes a journey of discovery and redemption. McLarty says that the germ of the book, which takes place primarily in Colorado, had been marinating in his head for quite awhile. McLarty, who himself had been writing and encountering rejection for decades, kicked off his own acting career in community theatre, and has experienced first-hand both the ‘western mind,’ and the life of the struggling New York artist.

In Art in America Kearney is a bumbling, overweight writer who has produced thousands of pages of novels, plays, and poems – not one of which has ever been published. After being left by his wife, thrown out of his Manhattan apartment and practically run over by a New York City cab, he takes shelter with his longtime pal Roarke, a lesbian actress and director, settles into Roarke's makeshift theatre/apartment, gets a job doing construction and tries to start over. Then he is offered a position as playwright-in-residence for three months at the Creedemore Historical Society in Colorado, where they want him to write and direct a historical play about the town.

Despite the gorgeous scenery that Colorado brings, when he arrives, all hell breaks loose. A dispute between an elderly landowner, Ticky Lettgo, and a young man named Red Fields who runs a river rafting company, escalates into a battle that pits local ranchers against a fringe anti-property group of aging hippies called the ‘Liberty Society of Colorado.’ Town sheriff Petey Meyers, still haunted by the death of his police partner, tries to keep the peace.

At first, Kearney has no idea how he will organize his play, but with the inspiration of several dynamic characters, including Molly Dowie, a painter and breast-cancer survivor who is painting the backdrop for the play, Kearney creates a drama that vividly captures the heart and history of the town. As the play goes into rehearsals, the most radical member of the Liberty Society hatches a diabolical plan that threatens the very safety of the town.

McLarty in Art in America successfully weaves these storylines together by novel's end; Sheriff Meyers is able to thwart the plotter; Ticky and Red work out their differences; the opening night of the play goes off with only a few hitches; and Kearney, a man with perpetual low self-esteem, realizes he's too old for a down-and-out sensibility and pats himself on the back as he falls head-over-heels in love.

Ambitious and consistently charming, this overstuffed third novel by the author of The Memory of Running is brimming with gems of richly observed small-town life. …  Sparkling, at times hilarious dialogue keeps many – perhaps too many – subplots moving. The depth of characters like Steven and Petey is contrasted by some of the minor characters, who can come off as stereotypes. Still, readers will root for the residents of Creedemore as they alternately divide over a trial and come together to stage the new play. – Publishers Weekly
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest meets A Confederacy of Dunces. McLarty’s storytelling skills shine in this ribald, riotously funny but also poignant novel. You’ll never look at the theater or the state of Colorado in quite the same way after reading it. – David Baldacci

McLarty works the whole spectrum here, from the hilarious banter of old cowpokes to the halting romance between the playwright and a mural artist to the incredibly moving moments when the town sheriff, still grieving the death of his old partner, invokes the late cop's street wisdom. A bighearted, wildly entertaining novel from a writer who just gets better with every outing... This is the third novel by veteran character actor McLarty, and the third time's the charm. – Booklist  (starred review)

An immensely engaging and winning performance...a hefty slice of Americana-inflected entertainment... [McLarty], an actor adept at entertaining and holding an audience shows himself a novelist gifted with the same skills. – Kirkus

With its lively characters and spellbinding pace, McLarty’s new novel is sure to please – Art in America is funny and heartwarming. McLarty's storytelling skills shine in this ribald, riotously funny, but also poignant novel. Readers may never look at the theater or the state of Colorado in quite the same way after reading it.
Medicine / Administration & Policy / Computers & Internet

Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics by Penny Duquenoy, Carlisle George, & Kai Kimppa (Medical Information Science Reference)

On the Internet, no one knows that you're a dog. – New Yorker cartoon of 15 years ago

The utilization of information and communication technologies in almost all spheres of modern society has changed the social picture in significant ways while simultaneously leading to tensions with regard to traditional ethical and legal practices. Where these technologies intersect the practice and implementation of healthcare, it is vital to recognize the extent and nature of the ethical and social impact both at the level of professional practice and the patient.

Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics presents a fundamental compendium of research on the ethical, social, and legal issues facing the healthcare industry as it adopts information technologies to provide fast, efficient, and cost effective healthcare. The book brings together the perspectives of authors from a variety of disciplines: computer science, information science, medicine, law, philosophy, and the social sciences, to offer an international overview of these issues inherent in the application of information communication technologies in the healthcare sector.

United Kingdom and Finnish-based academics, Penny Duquenoy, Carlisle George, and Kai Kimppa, have brought together a set of contributors from largely Scandi­navian, United Kingdom, and eastern and southern European countries to explore a number of key non-technical issues surrounding eHealth. All are deeply concerned with the ethical, legal, and social issues surrounding eHealth, whatever the relative range of complexity of the technologies involved: some of these applications are very simple, others complex and futuristic. Duquenoy is a Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University, London; George is a lawyer and computer scientist; and Kimppa is a Lecturer at University of Turku, Finland.

The authors' themes are principally three: the Internet; today's ethical, legal, and social issues; and the challenges of future developments in eHealth. Topics covered in Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics include: advanced decision support systems, applied ethics and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) systems in healthcare, cyber medicine, electronic healthcare information, electronic social record, ethics in medical informatics, implications of telemedicine, internet doctors, medical informatics, online medical consultations, privacy/security in healthcare, responsibility in electronic healthcare, telemedicine trust and clinical information systems.

Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics is divided into six sections offering different perspectives, or themes. If we take a technology perspective, the book begins with a look at the impact of the Internet on healthcare and doctor-patient relationships and takes us through a technological domain that includes information systems in use in health institu­tions, new technologies in research, and emerging technologies that connect to the patient. Taking a ‘human focused’ perspective the chapters follow a structure that highlights issues of ethics, trust, quality of care, responsibility, patient confiden­tiality and regulation, both from an individual perspective and a wider social and legal perspective.

The book begins with two chapters that investigate the phenomenon of the Internet in respect of new forms of patient autonomy that is the increased access to health information and medicines. In the first chapter the focus is on the sale of prescription drugs by online pharmacies and the ethical and social impact of this practice, what it means to traditional models of healthcare practice when patients become ‘shoppers’ and how the regulatory controls manage to control not only the remote delivery of pre­scription drugs (i.e., without the local physical presence of a dispenser), but also how the law copes with this transnational environment (George & Duquenoy). In the second chapter, Collste takes an ethical perspective and puts the remote and interna­tionalization aspects of Internet healthcare within the context an ethical framework in order to see more clearly how this type of healthcare delivery conforms to the ethical principles that have always been at the core of medical practice.

Section II of Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics moves into the domain of medical practice and takes the core aspects of trust and values for investigation. Both chapters in this section use empirical research to further explore these aspects, and understand the perceptions on those immediately involved in using technology in practice. Bisset et al. are interested in how clinical decision support systems (i.e., systems that rely on an existing knowledge base to provide information) are regarded in terms of trust, and whether these perceptions are supported by the chains of responsibility in the system provision. Their study incorporates views from the suppliers of the knowledge base, the software develop­ers, and end users in the context of a New Zealand primary care environment.

The second chapter in this section is also set in the context of primary care, this time in Sweden, where Hedstrom aims to assess the changes in practice that may arise from the use of electronic journals. In this study, which takes the aspect of elderly care and the social journal – a device that is used to share information about an individual with those involved in their care. Taking the view that information technology systems are naturally embedded with the values of the development process, Hedstrom uses a value framework (that incorporates the values relevant to this aspect of the health work) as a tool to compare and assess impact on practice arising from the change in recording medium (i.e., paper based to digital).

Questions of responsibility are the focus of Section III. Taking the issue of decision support systems a step further, Grondahl (Chapter V) asks where the responsibility for action rests. When computer systems are used to inform and support decision-making and those systems become ever more complex, is it reasonable that practitioners using them should be assigned responsibility for the results of their decisions? Using a series of arguments as leverage for discus­sion, Grondahl explores the issue of moral agency in respect of systems using what is known as artificial intelligence techniques, as well as the associated question of legal responsibility. As such systems are infiltrating medical practice more and more answers to these questions become imperative. A similar theme is followed by Lahtiranta and Kimppa where the concept of ‘agentization’ (whereby the tech­nology becomes the agent) is employed to illustrate how easily we are moved to attribute responsibility to mechanical artifacts. They particularly look at how the patient-doctor relationship may be affected when machines are integrated within the healthcare process, to the extent that they may become naturally accepted inclusions in the relationship, and how issues such as informed consent are dealt with in this mediated environment. One recommendation is to make it quite clear to those involved the distinction between human agent and artifact.

The two chapters that make up Section IV in Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics emphasize the technical systems in their role as supporting technologies to healthcare practice. In the opening chapter of this section Solomonides introduces a relatively new concept, the grid, which utilizes shared and distributed computer processing power in order to provide the capacity needed for large scale data management (such as medical images). The storing and exchange of medical images is crucial to providing a knowledge base for practitioners, and clearly it is also crucial that the images from which judgments are made are reliable. Quality of information is vital. The grid also raises some challenging ethical, legal, and social issues due to the characteristics of its opera­tion – the same characteristics that inspired its creation.

As such large-scale utilization of ICT becomes more prevalent, and IT projects become more ambitious, the quality of the system becomes more difficult to control and keep track of. This is particularly the case where national programs are rolled out, as with the NHS (National Health Service) Connecting for Health program in the United Kingdom. This program is one of many government projects that have received enormous criticism and bad press in the UK. Suppliers of systems are increasingly under pressure to address issues of quality and reliability, for their own professional sakes as well as in the interests of patient safety. Stanberry (Chapter VIII) gives a comprehensive account of the trials and tribulations of informatics deployment in the health sector so far, the legal and professional imperatives for improving performance, and the emerging standards and best practices that are being developed in response to these problems.

Section V of Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics addresses one of the key issues at the forefront of current debates on medical information. Patient confidentiality has always been at the heart of medical practice, and this is severely challenged by information transfer to digital media, and the global operation of the Internet that allows the exchange of medical information not just nationally, but globally.

Fung and Paynter (Chapter IX) discuss the issue of privacy in relation to patients' medical information and the risks to privacy that the more open electronic exchange facilitated by Internet technology has promulgated. They show that despite legislation and assertions as to the value of privacy (of medical data) there are major vulner­abilities in following this through to strong privacy policies and the upholding of privacy standards using technological means. In their analysis of the health information situations in New Zealand and the United States, they categorize the different sources of risk and solutions used to tackle the problems. Their conclusion is that strategies must be developed that include a comprehensive approach and utilization of available technologies in order to maintain the benefits that ICTs offer.

Similar concerns regarding personal medical data are raised by Berčič and George in Chapter X. They focus on Europe (EU) and the collection of medi­cal records in national databases, which are compiled from local databases and file systems. Given the special level of legal protection pertaining to medical data in the EU issues of access, legitimacy of data held and subject access rights, among others, need to be considered and addressed.

Having critically assessed, analyzed, and discussed the various applications of medical informatics in current use, Duquenoy, George and Kimppa end their investigative journey with two chapters that discuss emerging technologies and their prospective uses. In Section VI, the final section in Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics, the focus is on the convergence of technology with the human body. The first chapter (Chapter XI) brings together the issues of personal information and privacy together in a discussion on identity and the technical means of identity verification – biometrics. The use of this technology responds to the growing problem of medical identity theft that provides fraudulent access to health care. Biometric technology is based on using unique personal attributes such as fingerprints, retina patterns, and others to verify identity. Although more effective than many other methods of authentication, biometric information is also medical information and as such provides more than just a positive affirmation of a valid identity. Mordini takes us through the technical characteristics of biometrics, issues of privacy, and the benefits and risks of adopting this technology.

Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics concludes with a chapter that describes the integration of computer technology with, and into, the body. Although the title "Prospects for thought communication: Brain to machine and Brain to Brain" has a futuristic implication, the chapter describes past research with neural interfaces, which has provided the groundwork for the claims in the title. The focus of the discussion is between the use of this technology for therapy or enhancement – and whether there is a differ­ence as far as ethical use is concerned. As the authors, Warwick and Cerqui, hold different positions on this research – Warwick as the motivator and subject of much of the research and Cerqui as interested anthropologist – the benefits together with the moral issues make for an interesting dynamic.

The focus on Internet and Web-based technologies is self-evident throughout Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics. This comprehensive book offers a multidisciplinary perspective, drawing from the expertise of a wide variety of global industries including law, ethics, medicine, philosophy, and computer science. In addition to providing the basis for reflection in its case stud­ies, arguments, and analyses, it provokes thought, stimulates debate, and provides a foundation for further work in the field – in education, research, and practice. The book has special relevance for the concerns of citizens, patients, health consumers, and healthcare professionals, given recent announcements made by some of the most internationally well-known software and health service-related companies, institu­tions and not-for-profit associations on keeping health data safe and sound. The book is also an essential resource for every reference library.

Outdoors & Nature / Environment / Science / Ecology

Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators by William Stolzenburg (Bloomsbury USA)

A bewildering number of natural phenomena are occurring; killer whales eating otters in the sea around the Aleutian Islands, songbird populations declining as forest undergrowth is decimated by an exploding deer population. All of these odd developments, and more, can be traced back to the disappearance of the big animals at the top of the food chains – the great predators.

Where the Wild Things Were offers a look at how the disappearance of the world’s predators has upset the delicate balance of the environment, and what their disappearance portends for the future.
North America used to be a wild place. Its old-growth forests and wide plains were populated by bears, mountain lions, and wolves that roamed far and wide. As the population of the continent grew, the big predators disappeared, either hunted to the point of extinction or pushed out by habitat loss. As told in the book, the consequences of these missing carnivores have taken a long time to comprehend, and, even now, scientists are discovering new connections between ecological damage and predator eradication.

So what of it? In Where the Wild Things Were wildlife journalist William Stolzenburg follows in the wake of nature’s topmost carnivores, and finds chaos in their absence. From the brazen mobs of deer and marauding raccoons of backyard America to streamsides of Yellowstone National Park crushed by massive herds of elk; from urchin-scoured reefs in the North Pacific to ant-devoured islands in Venezuela, Stolzenburg leads a tour through bizarre, impoverished landscapes of pest and plague.

Stolzenburg introduces readers to rebellious biologists and radical ecological thinkers who put radio collars on housecats and propose importing Asian elephants and camels into the New Mexican desert. The idea of reintroducing mountain lions to the tamed forests on the Eastern seaboard is threatening, but Stolzenburg makes a case that these mighty carnivores are a cornerstone of our ecological systems and that their loss portends greater biological catastrophes than those that have already occurred.

As the great meat-eating beasts go miss­ing, an emerging cadre of concerned scientists is finding that their absence portends trouble for the biosphere at large. From northern seas to tropical woodlands to suburban greenways, Where the Wild Things Were tells the unset­tling story of their discoveries. It visits as well their few tenuous recoveries, lighting some of conservation's brightest beacons of hope.

In this impassioned debut, wildlife journalist Stolzenburg examines predation's crucial role in the preservation of ecological diversity, painting nightmarish pictures of what happens when top carnivores are exterminated from ecosystems. … In dazzling descriptions, Stolzenburg demonstrates how the delicate balance between predator and prey is so essential, and his book, rich in dramatic accounts of life and death in the wild, is powerful and compelling. – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

With a lucid and sparkling voice, William Stolzenburg offers a revealing and well-documented account that explains clearly why we need the wolf, tiger, and other predators, large and small, to maintain a healthy environment. – George B. Schaller, Vice President of Science and Exploration, Wildlife Conservation Society; author of the National Book Award-winning The Serengeti Lion; and winner of the National Geographic Lifetime Achievement Award and the World Wildlife Fund Gold Medal

Where the Wild Things Were is science writing at its best. The subject is important for biology and sustainable development, the prose is excellent, turning lyrical at just the right times, and the story of the research is woven with clarity into natural history. Big, fierce animals have a noble champion in William Stolzenburg. – Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University

As illuminating as it is shocking, Where the Wild Things Were offers a provocative look at the world's top preda­tors, and the cascades of unforeseen consequences triggered by their disappearance. In the end this is a story of life ironically enriched by the jaws of death. Moving and urgent, the book is an impassioned argument for understanding, protecting, and, where possible, restoring the delicate balance between predator and prey in the natural world. For anyone who has seldom given thought to the great meat-eating predators rapidly fading from the web of life, here is a world of reason to think again.

Outdoors & Nature / Hunting & Fishing

The Orvis Guide to Better Fly Casting: A Problem-Solving Approach by Al Kyte (The Lyons Press)

Fly casting might look easy – anglers just move the rod back and forth, right?

Well, that is true, but between ‘back’ and ‘forth’ a lot can go wrong. The perfect marriage of human skill and dexterity to the cork and graphite of today’s fly rods takes a good bit of work, and The Orvis Guide to Better Fly Casting is the how-to book that gets readers around common mistakes and bad moves so they can develop the muscle memory that makes for easy, accurate, and highly successful fly casting.

Author Al Kyte’s instruction and full-color photographs break down the parts of the cast to help anglers better understand what is happening and how to put all of the parts of their cast together to make noticeable improvements. Geared for fly casters of all skill levels, particularly intermediate casters, Kyte’s systematic method of changing and controlling the various ways a rod moves can help them approach those hard-to-reach fish and fool them into taking that favorite fly pattern in a strike.

The Orvis Guide to Better Fly Casting takes a problem-solving approach to making poor flycasters good, and good flycasters great. Orvis Pro Staffer Al Kyte explains the most fundamental aspects of the mechanics of fly-rod casting, the five so-called ‘rod variables’ – tilt, stroke length, bend, angle of rotation, and speed – and then describes how subtle changes in these variables affect the way a fly rod moves. Using these fundamentals, anglers can learn how to control the rod, line, leader, and fly to achieve perfect presentations and improve their success on the water.

Kyte, fly casting and fly fishing teacher for thirty years, asks: Why write another book about fly casting? There are plenty of books on ‘how to cast.’ A new casting book should offer something more, but what? It would be more helpful to have just one problem-solving approach for whatever casting problem comes up as they fish. What would that problem-solving approach look like? It would need to start with an understanding of the problem anglers face – how to present their line, leader, and fly properly in that situation. Of the three, the fly line is the most important because the leader and fly follow its path. Since the fly line goes where the rod tip directs it, readers also need to know how to vary their fly rod's movements to achieve that presentation. Kyte believes this is the key to correcting any problems, because the fly rod is the adjustable link between the readers’ hand's movements and their fly line's movements. So, the focus is on a systematic way of changing and controlling the various ways a fly rod moves. Giving readers the means to apply this to their fishing is the intent of The Orvis Guide to Better Fly Casting.

This is not pri­marily a book for beginning fly fishers. The people who stand to gain the most from this book already know what a casting loop is and have caught enough fish on a fly to regard themselves as fly fishers. The Orvis Guide to Better Fly Casting should also be helpful if readers have been looking for a way to teach the sport they love to someone else. On the other hand, Kyte says he probably should not discourage beginners too much, because he has known some beginners who could apply many of these ideas and techniques to their own learning.

How can Kyte prepare readers to solve their own casting problems? Certainly they need some knowledge to help guide the casting adjustments they need to make. The most useful knowledge has to do with how they vary the fly rod's movements to change the tip's path. He offers this primarily through four rod movements or ‘vari­ables’: speed, stroke length, angular rotation, and up/ down tilt. Eventu­ally, they should need only to adjust the rod in certain practiced ways – and then watch how the line, leader, and fly respond.

The development of this approach starts in Part I of The Orvis Guide to Better Fly Casting with his presentation of a short overhead cast. This is more than just a review; he wants readers to examine their own short cast to eliminate as much wasted motion as possible. They might just learn to do more with less. If they do not have an efficient casting stroke to start with, it may be difficult to make the adjustments it will take to prog­ress.

In Part II, their purpose shifts from short line con­trol to casting for distance. The changes anglers make when doing this should begin to give them a sense of the impor­tance of these four rod movements and why Kyte refer to them as variables. As they work on ways to improve their long casts, they also become familiar with how to change each of these movements to keep their rod tip and fly line moving along a straight path.

The emphasis in Part III shifts to practicing the four rod movements as well as a few others. With each of these movements, readers practice by going from one extreme to the other – sometimes from one type of error to another. For example, if they are working on how much speed to apply to the rod, they gradually move from applying too little speed, through the correct range, to applying too much speed, and then work back to the opposite extreme. As they learn to control these various rod movements – one at a time – they are also learning how to gain control over the move­ments of their line and leader.

Then anglers start combining these rod variables in anglers’ practice and learn which ones work together to move their fly line in predictable ways. They are adding to the adjustments they need to solve casting problems in their fishing.

Finally, readers are ready to start using these rod adjust­ments to test their problem-solving ability. They are given a number of common casting problems they might experience when fishing. After reading each problem, they are invited to pick up their fly rod, go out to their cast­ing area, and set up as realistic a situation as they can to test that problem. Then they experiment with the most promising rod movements to find the combination that best solves that casting problem.

Kyte in The Orvis Guide to Better Fly Casting helps readers to adjust and control these rod variables of speed, stroke length, angular rotation and tilt, as well as a few others, thus giving them important tools they can use to find solutions to any on-­the-water casting problems they may encounter.

Religion & Spirituality / Christianity

Dancing with God: The Trinity from a Womanist Perspective by Karen Baker-Fletcher (Chalice Press)

Succinctly put, Dancing with God is an exploration of the divine gifts of courage and grace in the face of evil. Karen Baker-Fletcher, associate professor of systematic theology at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, engages the contributions of a variety of theologians, including Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Gordon Kaufman, John Cobb Jr., Marjorie Suchocki, Charles Hartshorne, Andrew Sung Park, and Katie Cannon in her discussion of the dance of the Trinity in creation and the problems of sin, evil, and suffering.

According to Baker-Fletcher, it is important for readers to know that the approach to theology she employs in Dancing with God is integrative in several respects. Womanist theology does not separate theology from real-lived, concrete, existential concerns. Womanist approaches to theology, generally speaking, are interdisciplinary. Therefore, readers should not look for this volume to take an approach similar to types of Trinitarian theology that separate the study of God from ongoing, concrete, historical, and current social concerns. In a womanist approach, God is social; and therefore, theology – the study of God – is inherently social. A Christian womanist, she is deeply influenced by the Trinitarian understanding of nineteenth-century Wesleyan African American women evangelists such as Jarena Lee, Zilpha Elaw, Julia Foote, and Amanda Berry Smith.

Womanist theologians and scholars of religion are women of African descent, and in Alice Walker's definition, global women of color, who endeavor by holistic approaches to further the healing and wholeness of entire communities, male and female. Womanists take seriously the experiential knowledge of God among women of African descent. Given the fact that womanists draw on real-lived experience within these communities, those without such experience cannot be said to be womanist. There are, however, many advocates of womanist thought who engage in similar work. Also, relational theologies of various types are influenced by and include womanist thought, finding that it enriches and enlivens the work of theology as a whole. Baker-Fletcher says she and other womanists write to influence all types of relational peoples and theologies around the globe, interculturally, across genders, and beyond all that threatens to divide them.

In Dancing with God, she engages in intercultural theological construction and analysis as a Christian, relational womanist. She enters into dialogue with diverse types of relational theologians, from diverse cultures and faith backgrounds.

While some womanists are also liberation theologians, this is not true for all of them. Baker-Fletcher, like Delores Williams, finds that God liberates, but God does not always liberate. The emphasis of her womanist work is that even when God does not liberate us in the time or way that we want, God encourages us to continue struggling for healing and wholeness from hatred and violence. Even when God does not deliver victims from sinners who act violently and with fatal results, God is present as a healing and ‘whole-making’ reality in the lives of survivors – family, friends, community, society, the globe. Moreover, God, who is omnipresent, dynamically invites and persuades us into healing relationship with God and the rest of creation to participate in God's creating, restoring, and healing activity.

Where is God in the lives of those who lose loved ones or barely escape losing themselves and loved ones to racialized hate crime, lynching, rape as a form of hate crime, acts of terrorism, war, and other types of violent sin? To consider God's response, in Dancing with God she briefly examines the ‘immanent Trinity’ – who God is in relation to God's dynamic self in three distinct persons as ‘agents,’ or better, ‘relations.’ She considers the divine dance – God's dance within the divine community. Then she attends to the problem of fallenness to another kind of dance – the dance of sin, woundedness, and suffering. Third, she returns to the Trinity, specifically the economic Trinity – the relation of divine community to the broken yet intrinsically interrelated creation-community we humans call ‘the world.’ She specifically attends to the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the healing dance of the Trinity. She endeavors to offer a Trinitarian analysis of the problem of evil and the divine promise for healing, as she bases her analysis in an understanding of divine community – God as the Trinity. Finally, womanist theology is theology as theology was understood until very recently. As modernity ends to enter a new creation, with all the gifts and problems that are emerging with it, we are aware that earlier theologians were more correct about taking a multidisciplinary approach to the study of God than the modern world knew. Theology is about the source of all life, is concerned with that source and all life it creates, and therefore theology is necessarily interdisciplinary.

Chapter 1 of Dancing with God presents the theological task and methods of this work, with attention to epistemology, relational and womanist emphases on experience as knowledge, liberationist attention to praxis, theological language as symbolic with metaphor as a type of symbol, and the roles of scripture, tradition, experience, and reason in theological construction. It introduces the metaphor and activity of dance for describing dynamic, integrative, relational divine activity and divine response to the world in a Trinitarian theology.

Chapter 2 emphasizes that the context for theology is God, who is omnipresent in the many particular existential contexts that are also part of creaturely life. This chapter considers the dance of divine, creative, loving, and just response to the world with the world's existential dance between the goodness of creativity found in divine love and the evil of destructive devolutions into unnecessary violence. This chapter also defines what is meant by ‘unnecessary violence.’

Chapter 3 of Dancing with God explores the dance of the Trinity in relation to creation. It considers God-language and introduces God as Provider/Nurturer. It moves to the economic Trinity and God's response to creation. Moreover, it considers the divine nature in relation to God's aim for creaturely entities, particularly human beings, to reflect God's communal nature, love, justice, and creativity.

Chapter 4 asks, "Why evil and suffering?" and draws on Marjorie Suchocki's understanding of ‘the fall to violence’ in relation to the unneces­sary violence found in the First Testament story of Cain and Abel. It attends to the problem of sin as violation of another creature and of God who feels with the earth, which cries out.

Chapter 5 of Dancing with God begins to explore the praxis of sin in relation to the problem of what Korean theologians call han and what African Americans have called the blues, which is the experience of the sinned against. It considers several different types of unnecessary violence and focuses on hate crime. It focuses on the han or blues resolution journey of the James Byrd Jr. family, who instead of responding in aggressive han toward King and his abettors, committed their lives to racial healing with many others from the Jasper community and nationally.

Chapter 6 is about the nature and ministry of Jesus, Mary as the mother of God, Jesus' crucifixion, a critique of the notion of ‘redemptive suffering,’ and the power of overcoming evil revealed in Christ's resurrection. In this chapter, she also considers what Christ contributes to our understanding of theodicy, particularly with reference to African American writers past and present who question whether or not Christianity is a viable religion. We consider what it means to live in the courage of Christ in a world of persecution, crucifixion, hatred, and evil. What does it mean to overcome evil when we are still living in a world of ‘crucifixion’?

Chapter 7 explores the resurrecting, encouraging Spirit of God and turns to the Holy Spirit as the divine and encouraging agent of the Trinity that empowers or strengthens the heart, making renewed life possible. It brings the understanding of divine love, creativity, and justice in this theology to some conclusions in relation to the metaphor of dance. In particular, she discusses Vanessa Baker’s choreopoem ‘Sacrificial Fruit’ which is about Emmett Till and his mother's defiant ‘No!’ to modern crucifixion. It compares lynching to crucifixion, as did Mamie Till-Mobley and a number of poets in American religious history. This chapter begins a discussion of whether or nor suffering is redemptive or whether it is something to overcome.

Dancing with God is timely and extends an invitation to take courage in a world gripped by violence and terror. We are invited not to flee, but to dance with God, the Divine dancer whose unfolding activity is within the community and amidst the sufferings of all people....  Karen Baker-Fletcher brings an integrative, interdisciplinary, and nuanced approach to process thought and social history. She offers her own understanding of the Relational God who indwells experience and calls us forth in courage to join the Divine dance and make a difference in a world that knows crucifixion. She gives us a way to know, to think, and live faithfully. – Archie Smith, Jr., Pacific School of Religion, and Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California

Karen Baker-Fletcher offers an intriguing interdisciplinary testimony of lived faith and relational, integrative Trinitarian theological discourse…. With passion and keen, creative thought she shakes the dust off of classical dogma and reenergizes it as a dance of divine, creative, just response. Baker-Fletcher's writing is powerful and challenges one to ask hard questions and then listen for the dance of Spirit for the answers ... a must read for a liberating understanding of three in one and one in three: a dance to hope, forgiveness, and right relations. – Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Shaw University Divinity School, Raleigh, NC

Baker-Fletcher in Dancing with God gives readers a rigorous understanding of systematic womanist theology, explaining the relational nature of God. She shows readers how to understand God’s creative response to hatred and violence using dance as a metaphor for divine activity. And she shows how God inspires courage in the face of overwhelming pain.

Religion & Spirituality / Christianity / Literature & Criticism

Masked Atheism: Catholicism and the Secular Victorian Home, Second Edition by Maria LaMonaca (The Ohio State University Press)

Why did the Victorians hate and fear Roman Catholics so much? This question has long preoccupied literary and cultural scholars alike. Masked Atheism by Maria LaMonaca begins with the assumption that anti-Catholicism reveals far more about the Victorians than simple theological disagreements or religious prejudice. An analysis of anti-Catholicism exposes a host of anxieties, contradictions, and controversies dividing Great Britain, the world’s most powerful nation by the mid-nineteenth century.

Noting that Catholicism was frequently caricatured by the Victorians as ‘masked atheism’ – that is, heathenism and paganism masquerading as legitimate Christianity – LaMonaca’s study suggests that much anti-Catholic rhetoric in Victorian England was fueled by fears of encroaching secularism and anxieties about the disappearance of God in the modern world. For both male and female writers, Catholicism became a synonym for larger, ‘ungodly’ forces threatening traditional ways of life: industrialization, rising standards of living, and religious skepticism.

LaMonaca, associate professor of English at Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina, situates texts by Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Michael Field, and others against a rich background of discourses about the growing visibility of Anglo and Roman Catholicism in Victorian England. In so doing, she demonstrates the influence of both pro- and anti-Catholic sentiment on constructs of Victorian domesticity, and explores how writers appropriated elements of Catholicism to voice anxieties about the growing secularization of the domestic sphere: a bold challenge to sentimental notions of the home as a ‘sacred’ space.

Masked Atheism incorporates both canonical and minor women writers, in part because LaMonaca wishes to recreate a sense of the literary world as Victorian readers experienced it. She invites reflection upon how a work's religious content can shape – or doom – its literary posterity. While novels by Lady Georgiana Fullerton and Elizabeth Missing Sewell may, in some ways, lack the sophistication of those by Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot, their almost complete erasure from literary history in the twentieth Century – given the popularity and impact of their works in the nineteenth century – is a glaring oversight.

Early feminist scholarship on Jane Eyre either overlooked the novel's profoundly religious dimension entirely, or presented Jane as a rebel against Christian patriarchy. When works by Brontë, now the best-known Victorian anti-Catholic female novelist (however inaccurate the designation), is placed alongside those of the era's most popular Catholic novelist, the comparison facilitates new understandings of each author. No one, for example, would think to pigeonhole Jane Eyre as a ‘religious novel,’ yet like Fullerton's Lady-Bird (1853) it is centrally preoccupied with issues of spiritual integrity, moral and ethical agency, and divine salvation. And Lady-Bird, despite its religious emphases, engages with very earthbound issues of gender and power, its plot culminating in a stinging critique of popular ideals of romance and marriage. So powerful is this juxtaposition that LaMonaca, rather than write a separate chapter for each author, discusses them in tandem in the first two chapters.

The first chapter of Masked Atheism examines concerns that marriage itself – as defined by Evangelical Protestantism – could be a stumbling block for devout Victorian women. If a woman viewed her husband as an intermediary for God, these novels suggest, how easily might she come to view her hus­band as God? This, of course, was the sin of idolatry. Since this transgression was most frequently associated with Catholics and their adoration of spurious saints and the Virgin Mary, it hardly seems surprising that both Brontë and Fullerton drew upon Catholicism to expose the idolatrous potential of Victorian matrimony. Here, however, the differences cease: whereas Brontë condemns Jane's tendency toward creature worship by associating it with Catholic symbols and practices, Fullerton draws upon the Catholic tradition of celibacy to free her heroine from an idolatrous marriage at her novel's conclusion. Both authors, writing from different ends of a doctrinal spectrum, employ Catholic imagery to articulate very similar concerns about Victorian matrimony. This testifies not only to the power and pervasiveness of Catholic discourses at midcentury, but also the extent to which women's anxieties about marriage transcended religious denominations.

A similar phenomenon can be observed in chapter 2, which juxtaposes Brontë's representation of confession in Villette with Fullerton's defense of it in her 1844 novel, Ellen Middleton. Both novels, despite contrasting doctrinal positions, suggest that women require a space set apart from the rigid constraints of the domestic sphere to acknowledge, despite their outwardly feminine roles, the existence of less ‘angelic’ qualities, such as sexual desire and rage. Protestant fears of the priest's authority in confession centered around women and the family; opponents of confession argued that the rite, by compelling women to confess their sins to clerical outsiders, would effectively drive a wedge between husbands and wives, violate the sanctity of the home, and perhaps even end in sexual seduction and ruin of female penitents.

Chapter 3 of Masked Atheism demonstrates the ways in which Catholic discourse helped structure women's literary representations of alternatives to traditional domesticity: the celibate paths of spinsterhood and religious sisterhood. In the first section, an analysis of Elizabeth Missing Sewell's The Experience of Life (1852) explores how Sewell's Anglo-Catholic spinster bildungsroman appropriates elements of Roman Catholic hagiography to present the lay single life as a domestic vocation that simultaneously calls into question the entire concept of domesticity. The second half of this chapter, focusing on Mary Martha Sherwood's The Nun (1833) and other anticonvent literature, reveals how anti-Catholic attacks on female religious orders also, ironically, betray subliminal anxieties about marriage, motherhood, and domesticity in Vic­torian culture.

Whereas the first three chapters examine women's representations of the domestic sphere as potentially antithetical to the sacred, chapter 4 addresses how women poets employ Catholic Eucharistic imagery in an attempt to reconcile women's lofty spiritual vocations with their more earthbound callings as wives and mothers. In Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh (1856) and Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market (1862), Catholicism's emphasis upon the physical body – in particular, its doctrine of the Eucharist – becomes a framework through which women poets can construct the notion of a female body that is at once sexualized and sacred. Although Rossetti and Barrett Brown­ing achieve a more satisfactory reconciliation between women's competing identities than other authors in Masked Atheism, figures of fallen women linger uneasily in the background of each text, testifying to the endurance of the culture's strict binary between angelic and embodied women.

Chapter 5 addresses some of the culture's more overt anxieties about secularism and atheism as they emerged in controversies over Roman Catholic veneration for the Virgin Mary and specifically in the British responses to a purported apparition of the Virgin Mary in La Salette, France, in 1846. To many Protestants, Catholic veneration for the Virgin, along with their credulity in such ‘sham’ miracles as the apparition at La Salette, threatened to eclipse or deny God altogether. George Eliot's Romola (1862-1863), a novel obsessed with the demise of religious authority, appropriates elements of Marian apparition stories at first to critique Catholic veneration for the saints and the Virgin Mary. Eliot's heroine, at the end of Romola, becomes a morally powerful agent (and a secular Madonna) only through the loss of all paternal sources of guidance and authority.

Some of the most interesting work to date on Catholicism and nine­teenth-century literature focuses on the fin de siecle; the book's final chapter, therefore, attempts to draw connections between women writing at midcentury and those a few decades later, when popular antagonism toward Catholicism was presumably on the wane. At first glance, lesbian poets and lovers Michael Field may seem a complete departure from the other writers in Masked Atheism. On closer examination, however, Bradley and Cooper, self-proclaimed ‘pagans’ who converted to Roman Catholicism after a domestic calamity, form an ending point for this study. Focusing exclusively on the 1906 volume of the Fields' vast diary, Works and Days, LaMonaca explores the Fields' con­struction of a unique domestic piety – one that accommodated Bradley and Cooper's unconventional religious and sexual identities before their conversion, weathered Whym Chow's sudden death in 1906, and adapted to the paradigm shift of their successive conversions in 1907. For the Fields, Catholicism was not so much a radical departure from their secular, ‘pagan’ past, but a means of bridging the ‘pagan,’ Dionysian aspects or their identities with their newfound desire to create meaning out of suf­fering and loss.

Masked Atheism is one of the finest examples of literary critical engagement with the subject of religion that I have read in a long time. Given the fact that it’s so beautifully written, I can’t say enough good things about this manuscript. Maria LaMonaca opens many doors for new work to be done. – Frederick S. Roden, associate professor at the University of Connecticut, Stamford

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Masked Atheism and learned much from it. The book will be of interest to all who work on Victorian women writers, nineteenth-century religious culture, and nineteenth-century literary history more generally. – Maria H. Frawley, associate professor of English, The George Washington University

Masked Atheism contributes a fresh perspective to an ongoing conversation about the significance of Catholicism in Victorian literature and culture. All the writers in this study highlight Catholicism's usefulness in the nineteenth century as an inspiration for artists, an instrument for cultural critique, and a pal­liative for the growing pains of a rapidly changing society.

Religion & Spirituality / Comparative Religion / Reference

The Book Your Church* Doesn't Want You to Read: *(Or Synagogue, Temple, Mosque...) edited by Tim C. Leedom & Maria Murdy, with an introduction by Bill Jenkins (Cambridge House Press)

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. – John 8:32

Most people would rather feel comfortable that know the truth. Well, I’m going to make you uncomfortable by telling you the truth. – Robert F. Kennedy

The Book Your Church* Doesn't Want You to Read is an anthology by world-renowned theologians, historians and researchers that exposes and challenges misrepresentations and age-old beliefs. The book is edited by Tim Leedom and Maria Murdy and contains an introduction by ABC Radio Talk Show Host Bill Jenkins. This volume presents an honest look at one of the most controversial issues of all time: religion. Packed with essays from world-renowned theologians, historians, and researchers, the anthology seeks to reveal the whole truth to anyone who has ever been told what to believe. It discloses the origins and frail histories of the world's major religions and answers questions readers never even knew they had.

The Book Your Church* Doesn't Want You to Read is the second edition of a popular book which now has been upgraded and expanded. The book first came out in 1993 at book signings in Newport Beach, CA that featured many of its authors, including Steve Allen, Dr. Robert Eisenman, Dr. Gerald Larue, Bill Edelen, Dr. Alan Snow and Jordan Maxwell. It debuted amid much controversy and publicity. It was covered by Southern California tele­vision stations and of course attacked as heresy by many churches who never took the time to read it. Over half a dozen print­ings later it has been used as a textbook by universities and seminaries from Northern Alabama College to Berkeley, and was featured at the American Booksellers Association Convention.

The Book Your Church* Doesn't Want You to Read shows how the major religions cling to non-original stories, unverifiable evidence and legends which continually prove disastrous for the human race. The editors have expanded the book to include all major world religions, their commonalities and the reasons for their insane conflicts with each other. The examination of stellar worship, the sacred feminine, paganism and the development of Hinduism puts many current issues into perspective.

Readers will find that the story of Jesus and the ‘crucifixion’ has been played out sixteen times over the last ten thousand years. Readers will explore myths, origins, fundamentalism, television ministries, the identical stories of Stellar/Pagan/Christian beliefs, unfounded doctrines, child abuse, the Year 200, and women's rights.

The Book Your Church* Doesn't Want You to Read contains little-unknown facts such as there being no mention of Jesus Christ is the Dead Sea Scrolls; the oldest story in the world (predating Christianity by millennia) being that of a virgin mother bearing a newborn baby; God finding out about the Trinity from the Catholic Church in 325 A. D.; and Christmas being a pagan holiday with December 25th shared as a birth date by many other crucified saviors.

The second edition includes contemporary scholars, researchers and writers such as national correspondents Bill Moyers and Chris Hedges, Bishop John Shelby Spong, Joseph Campbell, Judy Chicago, Village Voice writer Rick Perlstein, Thomas Doyle, and David Stannard. Like the first edition, the second still encourages people to think for themselves and look for proof. The foundation of the book is the spirit of free inquiry, from the ancient Greeks – Protagoras, Socrates and others – through the Renaissance humanism of Erasmus and Spino­za, followed by the Enlightenment – Voltaire, John Locke, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson – to the present secular culture of great scientific achieve­ments.

Discovering the truth of the evidence of other saviors and of stories iden­tical to many in the Old and New Testaments, which appeared one thousand years before Jesus, may be unsettling to readers, as will the exposure of modern-day abuses and policies in the name of God, but this is not an anti-religious book; the book is a reference volume meant to be challenging and informative.

Consider The Book Your Church* Doesn't Want You to Read as a kind of consumer protection guide to religion, a big step forward toward religious literacy. … It's entertaining and readable, with a sense of humor reflecting the absurdities of fundamental religion – while being inoffensive. The approach is one of not hitting readers over the head with ‘you're wrong’, but rather ‘consider this’. …– Reverend Richard Hill, Minister, Church of Daily Living

Absolutely too important to be ignored, censored or dismissed The Book shall rightfully hold its place as a bestseller. – Bill Jenkins, Former ABC Radio Talk Show Host

For reference, shock, or lively debate, The Book has it all. Buy it, study then draw your own conclusions! Fast becoming known as the textbook of free thought. – Bonnie Lange, Truth Seeker Company

Once in a long while a book comes along that challenges tradition and shakes our
belief in the very institutions we trust most. The Book Your Church* Doesn't Want You to Read is such a book, an enlightening and groundbreaking anthology.

This work addresses itself most admirably to the vital effort of educating those open minded enough to hear the truth and it is what it says it is meant to be – challenging and informative.

Social Sciences / Anthropology

Revolution or Renaissance: Making the Transition from an Economic Age to a Cultural Age by D. Paul Schafer (Governance Series: University of Ottawa Press)

Ours is possibly one of the most critical periods in human experience. Poised in the transition between one kind of world and another, we are literally on the hinge of a great transformation in the whole human condition. – John McHale (1969)

In Revolution or Renaissance, D. Paul Schafer subjects two of the most powerful forces in the world – economics and culture – to a detailed and historically sensitive analysis. He argues that the economic age has produced a great deal of wealth and unleashed tremendous productive power; however, it is not capable of coming to grips with the problems threatening human and non-human life on this planet. After tracing the evolution of the economic age from the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in 1776 to the present, he turns his attention to culture, examining it both as a concept and as a reality. What emerges is a portrait of the world system of the future where culture is the central focus of development. According to Schafer, director of the World Culture Project, making the transition from an economic age to a cultural age is imperative if global harmony, environmental sustainability, economic viability, and human well-being are to be achieved.

According to Revolution or Renaissance, there is mounting evidence to confirm that humanity has arrived at a crucial turning point in history. One piece of evidence is the environmental crisis and, with it, climate change and growing shortages of strategic resources such as wood, water, coal, electricity, oil, fish, rice, corn, and, especially, arable land. Another piece of evidence is the persistent gap between rich and poor countries, and between rich and poor people. Still other pieces of evidence are alarming levels of pollution, poverty, famine, and unemployment; the spread of infectious diseases; increased violence and terrorism; the threat of biological, chemical, and nuclear warfare; and the failure to achieve ‘development with a human face.’ It does not take a great leap of the imagination to visualize the kind of world that could result if solutions to these problems are not found.

Standing behind these problems is an even more dangerous and potentially life-threatening problem. With the world's population at six billion and growing rapidly, and with the carrying capacity of the Earth severely limited, the entire global ecosystem could collapse if ways are not discovered to prevent it. It is for reasons such as these that more and more people throughout the world are coming to the conclusion that a major transformation is needed in the human condition to set things right. In the past, transformations in the human condition have come about in both peaceful and violent ways. There have been times when transformations in the human condition have been achieved by peaceful means, largely through general evolution or a renaissance.

According to Schafer in the prologue to Revolution or Renaissance, once again we have arrived at a crucial turning point in history. What is bringing this situation to a head is the conflict that is raging throughout the world at present over glaring inequalities in income and wealth, globalization, free trade, capitalism, the profit motive, the division of the world into two unequal parts, and fundamental differences between religions, cultures, and civilizations. On the one hand, there are those who believe that the transformation that is needed in the human condition can come about through peaceful means, largely through acquiescing to the present world system, and allowing the forces of globalization, free trade, capitalism, democracy, corporatism, and technological development to run their course. On the other hand, there are those who believe that the transformation that is needed in the human condition can be achieved only through conflict, confrontation, and revolution. The evidence seems to be mounting on the side of the latter group.

According to Schafer, it is impossible to understand the reasons for the present situation without examining the economic age that underlies the current world system and has given rise to it. Violence, terrorism, globalization, free trade, capitalism, corporatism, profit maximization, inequalities in income and wealth, and the division of the world into two unequal parts are deeply embedded in the economic age in which we live. It is an age that has made economics and economies in general, and products, profits, technology, specialization, consumption, competition, economic growth, the marketplace, capitalism, and materialism in particular, the centerpiece of society, and the principal preoccupation of municipal, regional, national and international development.

Many may question the contention that the present age is an economic age, preferring to call it an information age, a technological age, a scientific age, a communications age, a capitalistic age, or a materialistic age. However, while information, technology, science, communications, capitalism and materialism have played powerful roles in shaping the age we are living in, it is economics, more than any other factor or set of factors, that plays the dominant role in the world, as it has for more than two hundred years. While the origins, evolution, and functioning of the economic age make for fascinating reading in their own right, that is not the real reason for delving deeply into the domain of economics. The real reason has to do with determining whether the economic age is capable of producing the changes that are needed in the human condition and world system to address the difficult, demanding and debilitating problems that have loomed up on the global horizon in recent years.

In order to ascertain this, Schafer says in Revolution or Renaissance that it is necessary to subject the economic age to vigorous evaluation. On the one hand, this means examining the numerous strengths of the economic age, strengths that many people and countries in the world enjoy today. On the other hand, it means analyzing the many shortcomings of the economic age, shortcomings that many people and countries are compelled to endure every day. If, as John McHale contended, people survive, uniquely, by their capacity to "act in the present on the basis of past experience considered in terms of future consequences," then it makes sense to assess the economic age in order to determine whether it is capable of delivering the changes that are needed in the human condition and the world system to set things right.

When this process is completed and the balance sheet is composed on the economic age, the overriding conclusion that emerges is that the economic age is not capable of delivering the changes that are needed. In fact, the longer the economic age is perpetuated, the more dangerous the consequences will be, particularly in terms of further degeneration of the natural environment, consumption of the world's scarce renewable and non-renewable resources at an alarming rate, multiplication of consumer demands and expectations that are impossible to fulfill, substantial inequalities in income and wealth between rich and poor countries, and between rich and poor people, failure to achieve ‘development with a human face,’ and the potential collapse of the entire global ecosystem. This makes it imperative to ask what type of age would be capable of addressing these problems and producing the changes that are needed to deal with them.

Needless to say, there are many different views and opinions on what type of age this should be. For some, it should be a totally different kind of economic age, based on knowledge, information, ideas, services, and ‘the global economy’ rather than machines, industry, products, and municipal, regional and national economies. For others, it should be an environmental age, capable of conserving resources, controlling pollution, reducing global warming, protecting the biosphere, and radically changing people's attitudes towards nature, the natural environment, and other species. For still others, it should be a technological or communications age, capable of capitalizing on the computer revolution, the shift from verbal to visual literacy, global networking, the internet, electronic highways, cyberspace, and mind-boggling changes in communications. For still others again, it should be a political, social, scientific, artistic or spiritual age, based on preventing terrorism, providing safety and security, promoting democracy, reducing the production of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, conquering outer space, capitalizing on major advances in science, biotechnology and genetics, creating new social and legal structures, fashioning new moral and ethical codes, and evolving new aesthetic and religious values.

While all these views and opinions have a legitimate claim to the type of age that is most needed in the future, many signs point in the direction of a ‘cultural age.’ According to Revolution or Renaissance, most prominent among these signs are the holistic transformation that is taking place in the world today, the environmental movement, the encounter with human needs, the struggle for equality, the necessity of identity, the quest for quality of life, the focus on creativity, and the rise of culture as a crucial force in the world. What makes a cultural age so compelling is the fact that it possesses the potential to bring about a transformation in the human condition and the world system in peaceful rather than violent ways, through a renaissance rather than a revolution. Its potential to achieve this is based on taking a comprehensive and egalitarian approach to the world system, rather than a partial and partisan approach, instituting the safeguards and precautions that are essential to ensure that culture, cultures, and civilizations are dealt with in positive rather than negative ways, and focusing on ‘ends’ as well as ‘means.’ This makes it possible to place the priority on the whole (rather than a part of the whole, as is the case with the economic age), as well as to achieve balanced, harmonious and equitable relationships between the parts and the whole, economics and all other activities in society. Not only would this help to reduce the demands human beings are making in the natural environment, but also it would place humanity in a stronger position to make sensible and sustainable decisions about future directions in planetary civilization.

Whereas Part I of Revolution or Renaissance is largely descriptive, factual and explanatory in nature, primarily because we are living in an economic age at present, Part II is more exploratory, analytical, and prospective. It sketches out a general portrait of a cultural age and put enough flesh on it so that it can stand alongside other portraits of the future age, and act as a guide to human development and decision-making in the years and decades ahead. In order to sketch out this portrait, it is necessary to delve deeply into the realm of culture. On the one hand, this includes examining the theories, ideas, insights, and works of many cultural scholars and practitioners, since it is on these that the foundations for a cultural age would be established. On the other hand, it means building up an understanding of the way a cultural age would function in fact, especially as it relates to the mechanics, priorities, and flourishing of such an age.

In Revolution or Renaissance, D. Paul Schafer deftly illustrates 'culture' as the framework within which the spirit of the times emerges, and 'economy' as the blood supply which has nourished its function across the arcs of civilization. Schafer … provides us with the indicators that are needed to understand the new paradigm that is rapidly taking shape in the world. – Sacha Stone, Secretary General, Humanitad

Schafer has produced a triumph! – Walter Pitman, O.C., O. Ont., LL’D

Through his fine analysis of the economic age, of its theories, policies and practices, and his lucid vision of what the cultural age should be, D. Paul Schafer alerts us to the fact that we have arrived at a crucial turning point in history... This book is an invaluable answer to the question: what kind of development, what kind of culture for the future? – Biserka Cvjeticanin, Director of the Culturelink Network

… D. Paul Schafer presents hopeful indicators in Revolution or Renaissance of movement towards an alternative, cultural age. – Dr. James Dator, Professor of Political Science and Director, Hawaii Research Centre for Future Studies, University of Hawaii

If several hundred years from now human beings look back at the present era, they will discern among the many well-meaning enthusiasts and fanatics out to change the derailed direction of our species' evolution, a few voices of true maturity.... – Dr. Erika Erdmann, Founder and Editor of Humankind Advancing

D. Paul Schafer's book Revolution or Renaissance is especially important at this time in history... The author's long standing experience in cultural matters is especially valuable in the area of cultural education, which is becoming more and more imperative in a world where different cultures with different values, choices and behaviours need to coexist. – Dr. Eleonora Barbieri Masini, Professor of Futures Studies, Gregorian University, Rome, Italy, and Former Secretary General, World Futures Studies Federation

With our civilization facing collapse, somebody needed to do it – Schafer fleshes out a positive, possible future so that it can stand alongside other models as a guide to human development in the years ahead. What stands out most clearly at the end of Revolution or Renaissance is how different a cultural age might be from an economic age. Not only would it be based on different theoretical, practical, historical and philosophical foundations, but also it would flow from different principles, priorities, policies, and practices. This is essential if humanity is to come to grips with the life-threatening problems of the present and cross over the threshold to a more exhilarating future. A sensitive analysis and an invaluable answer to the question: Which way to proceed?

Social Sciences / Sociology

Migrants to the Metropolis: The Rise of Immigrant Gateway Cities edited by Marie Price & Lisa Benton-Short (Cultural and Ethnic Studies Series: Syracuse University Press)

Immigration today touches the lives and economies of more people and places than ever before. Yet the places that are disproportionately affected by immigrant flows are not countries but cities. Migrants to the Metropolis examines contemporary global immigration trends and their profound effect on specific host cities. The book focuses not only on cities with long-established diverse populations, such as New York, Toronto, and Sydney, but also on lesser known established gateway cities such as Birmingham (UK) and Amsterdam, and the emerging gateways of Johannesburg, Washington, D.C., Singapore, and Dublin.

The essays gathered in Migrants to the Metropolis provide a global portrait of accelerating, worldwide immigration driven by income differentials, social networks, and various state policies that recruit skilled and unskilled laborers. Editors Marie Price, associate professor of geography and international affairs at the George Washington University, and Lisa Benton-Short, associate professor of geography at the George Washington University, redirect the global narrative surrounding migration away from states and borders and toward cities, where the vast majority of economic migrants settle.

According to the introduction to Migrants to the Metropolis, gateway cities warrant closer attention in immigration debates because they are the crucibles for an immigrant-driven expression of globalization that has profound economic, cultural, and political dimensions. Immigrants can contribute to the hyper diversity and cosmopolitanism that make gateway cities distinct. Yet the visible difference of immigrants, coupled with the desire by state and local actors to control them, also produces urban spaces that are highly segregated and socially stratified along a continuum of native-born citizen to illegal migrant. To understand how twenty-first-century immigrant gateways function, it is important to rec­ognize a range of outcomes in which immigrants can be integrated into the social, political, and economic life of a city or excluded in such a way that their presence is relatively muted.

Migrants to the Metropolis compares the experience of established immigrant cities such as Toronto, Sydney, and New York with cities often ignored in either global-cities or immigration research, such as Tel Aviv, Sao Paulo, Riyadh, Seoul, and Singapore. Established gateways, Part One of Migrants to the Metropolis, are those cities with large numbers of foreign-born and a percentage of foreign-born well above the national average for that country. These are well-known and studied immigrant destinations that have experienced significant levels of immigration for more than a cen­tury. The five established gateways in this section of the book are New York, Sydney, Toronto, Birmingham, and Amsterdam.

Nancy Foner's essay on New York discusses how established gateways result in an urban population with deep immigrant connections. Many New Yorkers trace their immigrant roots back one, two, three, or more genera­tions. For this reason, she argues, New York is a particularly welcoming place for new immigrants. What is distinct about New York are the diver­sity and sheer numbers of immigrants (some 3 million in the city proper and more than 5 million in the metropolitan statistical area), making it the largest immigrant destination in the world. An established gateway with a continuous flow of immigrants, this city has layer upon layer of diversity in the landscape. The urban immigrant landscape is dynamic, which increases the level of acceptance of change in many neighborhoods.

Graeme Hugo's essay draws on the enormous wealth of data on immi­gration to and emigration from Sydney. In addition to current trends, Hugo includes historical data that show the shifting composition of immigrants since the 1940s. Sydney is the preeminent gateway for international migrants to Australia, home to some 30 percent of the overseas-born population and 37 percent of those who have arrived in Australia since 2000. Intense and ongoing immigration has changed the spatial distribution of immigrants in Sydney into a more suburban ethnic mix rather than segregated ethnic enclaves in the urban core. Recent flows from Asia have dramatically changed the ethnic mix and increased the number of non-English-speaking Sydneysiders. Hugo also draws attention to the impact of nonpermanent migration, which has seen an exponential increase since the 1990s.

Lucia Lo's essay on Toronto highlights a city in which more than 44 percent of the inhabitants are foreign-born. During the past four decades, Toronto has become Canada's premier immigrant gateway, with more than 2 million foreign-born residents. Toronto is often touted as a model of multicul­turalism and tolerance. Lo cautions, however, that the social and economic integration of immigrants in Toronto, particularly the large black population from the Caribbean and Africa, is poor. Lo's examination of the foreign-born and labor markets shows that many of Toronto's immigrants work in only a handful of industries, namely, construction, garment manufacturing, child care, accom­modations, and food and beverage services. Many highly skilled immigrants, selected through Canada's point system, often are unable to find employment in their respective professions and work in low-skilled jobs instead.

Cheryl McEwan, Jane Pollard, and Nick Henry's essay on Birmingham presents an example of an established gateway that is often overlooked in world-cities research. They show that although Birmingham has experi­enced recent immigration, it was also an important immigrant gateway in the British imperial machine, attracting a variety of immigrants as early as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The 1940s brought new patterns of migration from the Indian subcontinent. Today, Birming­ham's ethnic diversity has been central to its economic redevelopment as a postindustrial city.

Amsterdam is another European city with a long history as an immi­grant destination for a diverse range of immigrants. The essay by Annemarie Bodaar highlights the politics of scale when considering immigrant recep­tion in a host society. For several decades the Dutch have fervently embraced multiculturalism and ethnic tolerance. But in the past few years, multi­culturalism has been replaced by a more stringent integrationist approach aimed, particularly, at Muslim immigrants. The national discourse ignores practices and policies in ethnic neighborhoods such as Bijlmermeer, Amsterdam. There, ethnic differences are negotiated and new forms of living with diversity are being established.

The next section of Migrants to the Metropolis, Part Two, highlights emerging gateway cities. Emerging gateways are those cities with relatively recent immigrant flows, such as Singapore, Washington, D.C., Dublin, and Johannesburg. A common theme among these cities is that because mass immigration is relatively recent, these cities have wrestled with new ethnic communities, changes in the urban fabric, and questions of identity at both the urban and the national scale.

Brenda S. A. Yeoh and Natalie Yap's essay showcases Singapore's contemporary immigrant flows alongside its older colonial immigration heri­tage. They document how old migration streams were directly related to colonial politics and continue to be important sources of migrants today, notably coming from China and Malaysia. The Singaporean government has been keen to fashion the city-state as a selective immigrant gateway, primarily privileging transitional elites, while putting in place measures that prevent unskilled migrants from permanent settlement. Since the 1990s economic growth has generated a need for more unskilled labor, mostly from the Philippines and India, coming on temporary work permits.

Elizabeth Chacko explores migration trends in Washington, D.C. Immigration to metropolitan Washington has primarily occurred since the 1980s, transforming Washington from a ‘black and white’ city to a mul­tiethnic one. Immigrant trends in Washington, D.C., contradict the estab­lished Chicago model that assumes that immigrants first settle in inner-city ethnic enclaves, then with greater economic attainment move to the sub­urbs. Chacko notes that many immigrants in Washington first settle in the suburbs, with little ethnic clustering. There is, however, a marked geo­graphic concentration of immigrant-owned businesses and services (but not residences), which she terms ‘sociocommerscapes.’ Such spaces challenge the historical identity and ethnicity of what were once dominantly white suburbs.

Mary Gilmartin considers recent immigration in Dublin. Ironically, Ireland is consistently rated as among the most ‘globalized’ countries in Foreign Policy's annual globalization index. Although it is true that the intersection of capital and labor migration has redefined both Ireland and Dublin in particular, there remain few foreign-born in Dublin. Gilmartin notes that since the 1990s, Dublin has been shifting from a city of net emigration to one of net immigration. The data show that there has been an increase in the number of migrants to Dublin, though many of these migrants are of Irish descent (that is, Americans who claim Irish ancestry) or British nationals. Yet there are signs that cultural diversity is increasing: there are now foreign-born from China, Nigeria, France, Poland, Romania, South Africa, and the Philippines, and their presence is visible in immigrant-run markets and pubs as well as food, beauty, and money-transfer services.

The city of Johannesburg, once insular and isolated, has been rede­fined in the post apartheid global era. Jonathan Crush notes that although many predicted the end of apartheid would bring a flood of people into South Africa, this influx has not yet transpired, in part because the first post apartheid decade has been dominated by xenophobic and intolerant immigration policies. He notes that many of the prototypical features of a gateway city are emerging in Johannesburg; migration is on the rise. However, a distinguishing feature is the transience of the city's immigrant popu­lation. In Johannesburg many foreign-born residents are more ‘sojourners’ than settlers, and they see the city as a turnstile to somewhere else. Regardless, migration is helping to reshape the geography of the city. Skilled migrants go to the suburbs, unskilled migrants go to the townships, and refugees from Fran­cophone and West Africa go to the inner city.

The last section of Migrants to the Metropolis, Part Three, introduces cities that Price and Benton-Short call exceptional gateways because of their highly restrictive immigration policies or because they have been largely bypassed by the world's immigrants. They consider Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Seoul, and Sao Paulo in this section. One of the common themes shared by the first three case studies is the power of a strong central government to regulate and restrict immigration through ‘temporary’ labor systems that often work in opposition to long-term migration.

Rachel Silvey explores the connections between Indonesian female immigrants and the domestic labor they provide in Riyadh. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the world's top immigrant destinations, home to more foreign-born people than Canada or the United Kingdom. Yet the policies of immigrant exclusion reduce the social and cultural impact of immigrants on the city's residents. As a result, Riyadh is an ethnically segregated city, and Saudi citizens are both socially and spatially distant from immigrants. Silvey notes that women, particularly Indonesians and Filipi­nas, constitute a significant part of the domestic labor force. These women reside in the homes of their employers and must conform to restrictive Saudi norms regarding female behavior, dress, and mobility. Consequently, they develop little knowledge of the city and remain politically excluded from and socially subordinated to the Saudis. In addition, the kingdom's immi­gration policy has been to encourage ethnically distinct temporary guest workers while simultaneously refusing immigrants the ability to apply for citizenship.

David Bartram examines the position of Tel Aviv as an ambiguous gateway. Bartram begins by asking, what is foreign-born? In Israel, the Jewish homeland, Jews are not ‘foreign,’ they are only ‘returning’ to their homeland. Jew­ish immigrants are granted instant citizenship, because in the mainstream Israeli per­spective, being Jewish is a fundamental component of Israeli identity and cit­izenship. Bartram also notes that there are foreign-born in Tel Aviv and that recent immigration of large numbers of non-Jews has complicated debates about Israeli identity. Two groups – Russians and foreign workers – are challenging the nature of Israeli identify and citizenship while making Tel Aviv less of an exceptional gateway and more like an established one.

Yeong-Hyun Kim's essay explores the relative absence of labor migration and immigration in the global city of Seoul. Although Seoul has been recognized as a global city in terms of its economic power, it remains an exception to the common characteristics of global cities as hubs of cultural networks and diversity. Like the Singapore essay, this essay also shows the power of the state to effectively ‘shut the gate’ to immigration. Kim notes that the Korean government has maintained highly restrictive policies on labor migration while simultaneously promoting Seoul as a ‘global city.’ In Seoul the foreign-born make up less than 1 percent of the population. On the surface it would appear that Seoul has been bypassed by immigrants. However, Kim documents that since the early 1990s Seoul has been receiv­ing a small but growing number of migrant workers from developing coun­tries in Asia, primarily China, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Mongolia. Although Seoul is a long way off from being a multicultural, multiethnic society, the gate has been wedged open and change is occurring.

Emily Skop and Sarah Zell document the rise and fall of Sao Paulo from an immigrant destination to an emigrant outpost. In the last great age of migration (from the 1880s to the 1920s) Sao Paulo attracted more than 4 million immigrants, including Portuguese, Germans, Ital­ians, Spanish, and Japanese. Skop and Zell note that since the 1960s, Sao Paulo has changed from a net importer to a net exporter of international migrants. Although there are some 400,000 foreign-born in Sao Paulo, this city functions primarily as a turnstile to the rest of the world, notably Japan, Europe, and the United States. Skop and Zell document the early-twentieth-century recruitment of Japanese to Brazil; and the more recent phenomenon of Brazilians of Japanese descent who return to work as unskilled labor in Japan as well as the largely undocumented flow of Brazilians to the United States.

Connects the literatures on global cities and immigration, bringing a much needed comparative perspective on population movement and settlement to globalization studies through the careful examination of cities as diverse as Tel Aviv and Toronto. The book is an important addition to and essential reading for social science scholarship on immigration in a globalizing world. – Wei Li, Arizona State University

A timely and insightful book by a group of immigration experts who examine the growing role of worldwide population flows and their impacts on a range of cities from Singapore to Riyadh. – William Clark, University of California, Los Angeles

Adds much new insight to the burgeoning interdisciplinary literature about gateway cities. . . . A singular scholarly achievement. – Mark Miller, University of Delaware

Migrants to the Metropolis is a fascinating work which brings together international scholarship to invite the examination and comparison of a diverse range of immigrant gateway cities. The book is a first step in deepening the theoretical and empirical connections between a range of cities and the foreign-born that reside in them. The cities profiled in this book will enliven the conceptualization of urban immigrant gateways as vital cultural, political and economic hubs in a global age. By focusing on human migration at the metropolitan scale, one begins to see globalization as a bottom-up process, instigated, in part, by the agency of immigrants and the socioeconomic changes they summon.

Transportation

The Complete Book of Classic GM Muscle  by Mike Mueller (The Complete Book Series: Motorbooks)

General Motors has produced some of the greatest muscle cars of all time, from the Pontiac GTO to the Chevrolet Camaro. This work documents every muscle car to emerge from Detroit wearing a Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, or Oldsmobile badge. The Complete Book of Classic GM Muscle covers over 40 years of high performance with an in-depth look at prototypes and experimental models, anniversary and pace cars, and specialty packages for street and competition driving.

Author Mike Mueller, freelance automotive photojournalist since 1991, has held staff positions with Automobile Quarterly, Corvette Fever, Muscle Car Review, and Mustang Monthly, among others, and has written and contributed to over 50 automotive books.

Created in cooperation with General Motors and heavily illustrated with images from GM's extensive historical archive, The Complete Book of Classic GM Muscle showcases in photos, text, and technical specifications all the models from 1961 to 1974.

In the fall of 1963, General Motors launched the muscle car revolution. With a name shamelessly ‘borrowed’ from Ferrari, the 1964 Pontiac GTO resonated with hip, young buyers looking for big performance on a small budget. Not content to rest on their success, Pontiac quickly improved the GTO for 1965 while Chevrolet, Buick, and Oldsmobile scrambled to follow the formula and create their own performance cars.

For nearly a decade, GM and its cross-town rivals were locked in a battle for street supremacy. The war escalated each model year with the introduction of faster and more powerful offerings from each camp. Each GM division had its own definition of the ideal muscle car, and each gave its rendition a personality all its own. What resulted was the most fearsome lineup of muscle cars and the most vicious collection of engines ever to roll out of the Motor City.

By the dawn of 1970, all four of GM's muscle car divisions offered vehicles with optional engines that displaced in excess of 450 cubic inches and power ratings that had seemed unattainable just ten years earlier. But the end already loomed in the form of escalating insurance rates, power-choking emissions regulations, and rising gas prices. By 1974 the muscle car was all but dead.

The Complete Book of Classic GM Muscle documents every muscle car to come from Buick, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, or Pontiac from 1961 to 1974 – if the General built it, it's here.. Lavishly illustrated, with extensive details, specs, and exclusive archival photographs, the book is the ultimate resource on America’s muscle cars.

Travel / Guidebooks

Fodor's Brazil, 5th Edition (Fodor's Gold Guides) by Fodor's (Fodor’s)

Fodor's Brazil, 5th Edition (Fodor's Gold Guides) urges readers to discover the spirit of Brazil.

Travelers can embrace the local culture as they samba, for example, in the streets of Salvador, explore the rain forests around the Amazon, or play futebol (soccer) on any of Rio's spectacular beaches – this travel guide provides boundless activities. There are choices for every traveler, from river cruises and wildlife-watching to cafe-hopping and late-night clubbing.

Fodor's worldwide team of 700 writers reveal their favorite haunts to enrich readers travel experience. And for the very latest information, travelers can seek out candid advice from fellow travelers at Fodors.com, and read their ‘Word of Mouth’ tips throughout Fodor's Brazil, 5th Edition (Fodor's Gold Guides).

Ratings in the volume help readers select the right combination of experiences. As travelers we all have had the experience of discovering a place so wonderful that its worthiness is obvious, but the place is so experien­tial that superlatives don't do it justice: one has to have been there to know. These sights, properties, and experiences get Fodor’s highest rating, Fodor's Choice, indicated by orange stars throughout the book. The book also has black stars indicating Highly Recommended, and by default: any place they include is by definition worth readers’ time. The book also includes hotel and restaurant price categories.

Highlights of Brazil from Fodor's Brazil, 5th Edition (Fodor's Gold Guides):

Rio de Janeiro. On the map, the city of Rio de Janeiro dangles from the south-central edge of the state by the same name. The city cascades down and between dramatic mountains and out to beaches that ribbon the metropolitan area. A national park since 1961 and the first one within an urban area, the Tijuca Forest, near Barra da Tijuca Beach, has more than 900 species of plants. The open-armed Christ the Redeemer statue atop Corcovado, often seen in postcards, lies within this park. On the west side of the city is White Rock (Pedra Branca) State Park, four times bigger than Tijuca park, with 30,888 acres of the original Mata Atlantica rain forest. The book includes side trips from Rio: famous beaches like Copacabana and Ipanema, historical towns such as Petropolis in refreshingly cool and lush mountainous settings; and along the coasts, quieter beach and water sports destina­tions like Angra dos Reis, Ilha Grande, and Buzios; and the colonial town of Paraty.

Sao Paulo. The capital of Sao Paulo State, this huge city is on a plateau 46 miles from the coast. Strolling along Avenida Paulista, once a country road, now lined with skyscrapers, you can almost hear the urgent buzz of business. Indeed, if travelers are looking for peace and tranquility, the city of Sao Paulo is not the place. The city breathes business, rush, pollution, and traffic. And many of its inhabitants enjoy the fast pace. To compensate for the stress, Sao Paulo has seemingly countless distractions in the form of restaurants, cinema, theater, galleries, museums, and more. The book includes side trips from Sao Paulo: beautiful beaches; the large ocean port of Santos; ecological sanctuaries; mountainous regions covered with charming historical and resort towns like Aguas de Sao Pedro, with its hot springs; handicraft center Embu; and 16th-century Santana de Parnaiba; and Ilhabela, Sao Paulo's destination of choice for beach bums and water sports fanatics.

The South. The three southernmost states – Parana, just below Sao Paulo, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul – run along the coast and stretch inland to the borders of Uruguay, Argen­tina, and Paraguay. Together they compose the narrowest section of Brazil's territory, covering 220,000 square miles, an area about the size of France. Curitiba, the capital of Parana, is on a plateau 50 miles from the sea. Santa Catarina's capi­tal, Florianopolis, literally straddles the Atlantic, its coastal mainland portion connected by a bridge to its offshore island portion. Rio Grande do Sul's capital, Porto Alegre, is halfway between Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. Far to the west is the mighty Foz de Iguacu (Iguacu Falls).

Minas Gerais. Roughly the size of Spain, the inland state of Minas Gerais is northwest of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Near the cen­ter of the state is the capital, Belo Horizonte. Just southeast of Belo is the Serra do Espinhaco, where most of the state's gold towns lie a short drive from one another. Diamantina, land of diamonds, is north of Belo Horizonte, and Mariana, founded in 1696, is to the southwest. The state's southern region is dominated by spas, such as those in Pocos de Caldas and Caxambu. Ouro Preto, known for its baroque architec­ture, is embedded 3,500 feet high in mountains that rise well above 6,200 feet in the Serra do Espinhaco. Tiradentes, with its waterfalls and breathtaking views of the Sao Jose Sierra, is 130 miles southwest of Belo Horizonte.

Brasilia & the West. Built in five years and inaugurated in 1960, Brasilia became a global model of urbanism and modern architecture. The nation's capital lies in the geographical center of the country in a vast, flat region dominated by the cerrado, or Brazilian savanna. The cerrado extends west through the sparsely popu­ated ‘frontier’ states of Goias, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, and Mato Grosso do Sul. The massive Pantanal – an untamable mosaic of swamp and forest teeming with wildlife, including vultures in all hues of the rainbow – is the dominant feature of the far west both in geography and in tourist appeal.

Salvador & Bahia. On a huge bay, the city of Salvador, the capital of Bahia State, is divided between valley and hill. The enormous Lacerda Elevator connects the two parts, the Cidade Baixa (Lower City) and the Cidade Alta (Upper City). In the nearby waters of All Saints' Bay, with island settlements dating from colonial times (Frades and Itaparica), all is full of life and history. Salvador has plenty to do and see, from beaches to craftsmanship. The city's cuisine is quite unique within Brazil, thanks to its African influence. Eating at a restaurant with local specialties is an experience that should not be missed. To the west of Salvador in the state's heartland is Lencois, a village lying in the splendor of the Chapada Diamantina, a plateau covered with rare flowers and orchids. In the state's southern region are some of Brazil's most beautiful beaches, near Porto Seguro.

Recife, Natal & Fortaleza. On Brazil's most curvaceous bit of coast, nearly 600 miles north of Salvador, are two colonial cities, Olinda and Recife, with beaches lapped by warm waters and caressed by cooling breezes. The capital of Pernambuco State, Recife is affection­ately called the Venice of Brazil because it is bathed by the sea and crisscrossed by rivers and bridges dating from the 1640s. Recife can be seen from the hills of Olinda 3½ miles away. About 130 miles to the north is Natal, the capital city of Rio Grande do Norte, where the sun shines an average of 300 days a year. Appropriately dubbed the ‘Cidade do Sol’ (City of the Sun), Natal is geographically the closest Brazilian city to Europe and Africa. The state's coastline of dunes, beaches, and fishing villages unfolds 50 miles to the south and 180 miles to the north. In the southern part of the state are some of Brazil's most spectacular beaches: Ponta Negra, Pirangi, and Buzios. In Fortaleza, capital of Ceara, 340 miles north of Natal, travelers can revel in miles of urban beaches with warm ocean waters and cool breezes. Thirty miles east of Fortaleza is Iguape, where dunes are so high and smooth you can ski down their slopes. These cities are very touristy, even among Brazilians. Many people from Sao Paulo vacation here.

The Amazon. Through the centuries many have tried in vain to conquer Brazil's vast northwest, a mythical land of a thousand riv­ers dominated by one giant, the Amazon River. Flowing for more than 4,000 miles, this gargantuan waterway is so wide in places you can't see the shore from a riverboat's deck. It is banked by a rain forest that houses the greatest variety of life on earth. Manaus, the capital city of Amazonas State, is a free-trade zone with electronic gadgets buzzing around magnificent 19th-century buildings, and lies almost exactly at the longitudinal center of the continent. Santarem is a bit less than 500 miles downriver and halfway between Manaus and the Atlantic. Before reaching the ocean, the river splits in two, leading northeast to Macapa and east to Belem. In the 200 miles between the river's opposite banks lies the Ilha do Marajo, the world's largest river island, roughly the size of the U.S. state of Indiana.

Fodor's has emerged ... as our fave guidebook series for insider tips about things you actually want to know.... – Miami Herald

Hipped up . . . plus advice on a broader range of attractions, from classic to quirky. – Outside Magazine

Fodor's Brazil, 5th Edition (Fodor's Gold Guides) gives travelers ratings they can trust, for exceptional restaurants, hotels, and sights selected to help them make the best choices. It provides choices for every traveler, from river cruises and wildlife-watching to cafe-hopping and late-night clubbing. The team of local experts reveals their favorite haunts to enrich readers’ travel experience. And the information is up to date with local writers seeking out hot spots while verifying that listings meet high standards.

Content this page:

AIGA Professional Practices in Graphic Design, Second Edition by Tad Crawford

Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy by Harold Koda & Andrew Bolton, with an introduction by Michael Chabon

The Making of Theatrical Reputations: Studies from the Modern London Theatre by Yael Zarhy-Levo

Day by Day: The Chronicles of a Hard of Hearing Reporter by Elizabeth Thompson

Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Homebased Business Handbook: How to Start, Run and Grow Your Own Profitable Business, Second Edition by James Stephenson, with Rich Mintzer

A Thousand Never Evers by Shana Burg

Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature by Leonard Marcus

Web of Conspiracy: A Guide to Conspiracy Theory Sites on the Internet by James F. Broderick & Darren W. Miller

Santa Fe School of Cooking: Flavors of the Southwest by Susan D. Curtis

A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage

Brain-Based Learning: The New Paradigm of Teaching, Second Edition by Eric P. Jensen

Michigan State College: John Hannah and the Creation of a World University, 1926-1969 by David A. Thomas

The Homeschooling Book of Lists by Michael Leppert & Mary Leppert

Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education by Stephen Joel Trachtenberg

'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky: Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child by David Henderson

The Earthwise Herbal: A Complete Guide to Old World Medicinal Plants by Matthew Wood

Translating Theory to Practice: Thinking and Acting Like an Expert Counselor by Richard D. Parsons

The Ethics of the Lie by Jean-Michel Rabaté, translated from the French by Suzanne Verderber

After Miscarriage: Medical Facts and Emotional Support for Pregnancy Loss by Krissi Danielsson

Bad Seeds in the Big Apple: Bandits, Killers, and Chaos in New York City, 1920-40 by Patrick Downey

Pearl Harbor Countdown: Admiral James O. Richardson by Skipper Steely

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (unabridged, 9 Audio CDs: approximate running time 11 hours) by Anthony Esolen, narrated by Malcolm Hillgartner

For the Love of Animals: The Rise of the Animal Protection Movement by Kathryn Shevelow

A Patrick Lose Christmas: Whimsical Projects to Deck the Halls by Patrick Lose

Country Living Storage Style: Pretty and Practical Ways to Organize Your Home by Lesley Porcelli

Art in America: A Novel by Ron McLarty

Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics by Penny Duquenoy, Carlisle George, & Kai Kimppa

Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators by William Stolzenburg

The Orvis Guide to Better Fly Casting: A Problem-Solving Approach by Al Kyte

Dancing with God: The Trinity from a Womanist Perspective by Karen Baker-Fletcher

Masked Atheism: Catholicism and the Secular Victorian Home, Second Edition by Maria LaMonaca

The Book Your Church* Doesn't Want You to Read: *(Or Synagogue, Temple, Mosque...) edited by Tim C. Leedom & Maria Murdy, with an introduction by Bill Jenkins

Revolution or Renaissance: Making the Transition from an Economic Age to a Cultural Age by D. Paul Schafer

Migrants to the Metropolis: The Rise of Immigrant Gateway Cities edited by Marie Price & Lisa Benton-Short

The Complete Book of Classic GM Muscle  by Mike Mueller

Fodor's Brazil, 5th Edition (Fodor's Gold Guides) by Fodor's  

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