Mitt Romney has masterfully positioned himself as the front-runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Even though he’s become a household name, the former Massachusetts governor remains an enigma to many in America, his character and core convictions elusive, his record little known. Who is the man behind that sweep of dark hair, distinguished white sideburns, and high-wattage smile? He often seems to be two people at once: a savvy politician, and someone who will simply say anything to win. A business visionary, and a calculating dealmaker. A man comfortable in his faith and with family, and one who can have trouble connecting with average voters.

In this definitive, unflinching biography by Boston Globe investigative reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, readers will finally discover the real Romney. The book explores Romney’s personal life, his bond with his wife and how they handled her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis, and his difficult years as a Mormon missionary in France, where a fatal car crash had a profound effect on his path. It also illuminates Romney’s privileged upbringing in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; his rejection of the 1960s protest culture; and his close but complicated relationship with his father.

Based on more than five years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, The Real Romney includes a probing analysis of Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, one of the world’s leading private investment firms, where staggering profits were won through leveraged buyouts that helped create jobs but also destroyed them. This penetrating portrait offers important new details, too, on Romney’s failed Senate race against Ted Kennedy, his role leading the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics, and his championing of universal health care in Massachusetts. Drawing on previously undisclosed campaign memos, e-mails, and interviews with key players, Kranish and Helman reveal the infighting and disagreement that sunk Romney’s 2008 White House bid—and his conscious decision to switch tactics for his 2012 run.

In The Real Romney, Kranish and Helman delve searchingly into the psyche of a complex man now at his most critical juncture—the private Romney whom few people see. They show the remarkable lengths to which Romney has gone in order to succeed in politics and business, shrewdly shifting identities as needed, bringing tough-minded strategy to every decision, and always carefully safeguarding his public image. For the first time, readers will gain a full understanding of the kind of man Romney is—the kind of man who may be running their country.

About Michael Kranish

Michael Kranish, deputy chief of the Washington Bureau of The Boston Globe, has been a congressional reporter, a White House correspondent, and a national political reporter. Kranish coauthored, with other Globe reporters, John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography. He is also the author of Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War.

A Life Hidden Behind Adjectives

The New York Times Book Review – January 16, 2012 (Excerpt)

The cloud of adjectives that has come to hover over the Republican candidate Mitt Romney in news reports is familiar by now: smooth, smart, slick; detached, disciplined, dogged; pragmatic, protean, phony; careful, cautious, calculating.

Journalists have described him as robotic (not unlike Al Gore), father-haunted (not unlike George W. Bush), disdainful of hands-on politicking (not unlike Barack Obama) and capable of complete flip-flops on hot-button issues (not unlike Newt Gingrich). He has been hailed for his analytic business skills as a turnaround specialist, and assailed as a job-killing vulture capitalist; lauded for his skill in getting health-care legislation passed in Massachusetts, and criticized by both the left and right for subsequently trying to distance himself from that achievement.

A new biography, “The Real Romney,” by two reporters from The Boston Globe, Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, won’t substantially alter such perceptions of the candidate. The book retraces ground familiar to anyone who has been following coverage of the Republican nomination race, but it pulls together lots of details into a narrative that’s absorbing and fair-minded.

Drawing on the collective expertise of The Globe’s staff in covering Mr. Romney’s tenure as Massachusetts governor and his lucrative career at the private-equity firm Bain Capital, the book judiciously assesses his evolving views (or, in some cases, outright reversals) on an array of social issues, while trying to evaluate assertions he’s made on the campaign trail and in two books. [Read the full article...]

A New Book Examines ‘The Real Romney’

NPR Book Review – January 19, 2012 (Excerpt)

In a new biography, two longtime Boston Globe reporters write about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as a complicated man who also “loves dichotomies … strong versus weak, stagnation versus prosperity, leadership versus drift.”

On their hunt for The Real Romney, Scott Helman and Michael Kranish traced Romney’s life from his childhood in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., to his career at private equity firm Bain Capital, and then to his work in politics — first as the governor of Massachusetts and then as a presidential candidate in 2008 and 2012.

On Thursday’s Fresh Air, Helman and Kranish join Terry Gross for a wide-ranging conversation about Romney, whom they portray as a deeply analytical man guided strongly by his Mormon faith.

Romney can seem detached in political settings, they write, and often struggles to connect outside of his closest confidants. Though his political career strongly mirrors that of his father, George, the former governor of Michigan, it also differs in significant ways: “If George Romney shot from the hip, his son, before he shoots at all, carefully studies the target, lines up the barrel just right, and might even fire a few practice rounds,” write Helman and Kranish. [Read the full article...]

Book review: ‘The Real Romney’ adds fuller picture of candidate

The Los Angeles Times Book Review – January 17, 2012 (Excerpt)

Let’s face it, Mitt Romney seems more than a little opaque. On the one hand he’s über-rich, incredibly smart and nakedly ambitious; on the other he seems somehow robotic, shut-down and so happy to embrace the pragmatic option that the core of his character remains elusive. There’s a sense of a man who will eagerly deny even his own best achievements if doing so will help him seize the brass ring. Is he inauthentic or merely trying to find that area known as the common ground?

“The Real Romney” by Michael Kranish and Scott Helman of the Boston Globe lays out Romney’s story in full and clear detail, including fascinating in-depth stuff about his family’s history, a tale that, going back in time, involves the bloody foundations of Mormonism, as well as plural marriage and a flight to Mexico to avoid prosecution for bigamy.

“Mitt Romney, in his autobiography ‘Turnaround,’ cited the story of his great-grandfather’s dramatic journey but left out most of the details, with no mention of Miles’s multiple wives or his perilous assignment to create a sanctuary for polygamy across the border,” the authors write. Romney’s devotion as a family man and his repugnance of polygamy is duly noted; so is his absolute and continuing commitment to the Mormon faith and his tendency not just to airbrush history away, but to conceal the center of his own self. [Read the full article...]

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A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
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The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

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Eleven women confront dramas both everyday and outlandish in Caitlin Horrocks’ This Is Not Your City. In stories as darkly comic as they are unflinching, people isolated by geography, emotion, or circumstance cut imperfect paths to peace—they have no other choice. A Russian mail-order bride in Finland is rendered silent by her dislocation and loss of language, the mother of a severely disabled boy writes him postcards he’ll never read on a cruise ship held hostage by pirates, and an Iowa actuary wanders among the reincarnations of those she’s known in her 127 lives. Horrocks’ women find no simple escapes, and their acts of faith and acts of imagination in making do are as shrewd as they are surprising.

Editorial Reviews

“This debut collection moves from the Midwest to Russia, Greece, Estonia, and a cruise ship off the coast of Africa. Most of the main characters are women, mostly young and naive, who find themselves in situations they can’t comprehend. Many, like the woman in the title story and another on vacation at a Greek seaside resort (“The Lion Gate”), have entered into a foreign culture or an unfamiliar situation, leading to misunderstanding, alienation, and a deepening sense of psychological confusion. The woman in the story “Embodied” has an absolute belief in her sense of reincarnation and in identifying past lives of others, which leads to a tragic occurrence. In “Zolaria,” a woman recalls her childhood and a close friendship with a neighbor who contracted cancer and died. VERDICT The author has a fine eye for detail in description and scene setting and moves the story lines along jaggedly so the reader is caught off guard and disoriented like the characters. Many of the stories are bleak, painfully and realistically detailing lives gone awry, to sometimes disturbing effect. Recommended for savvy fiction readers.”
—Jim Coan, Library Journal

“Plimpton Prize–winner Horrocks effortlessly navigates the comedy and bewilderment of being middle class without an ounce of condescension, martyrdom, or sensationalism. In “Going to Estonia,” a daughter of Lapland reindeer farmers escapes her fruitless future by attending university in southern Finland, while the American couple on a restorative vacation away from their handicapped son in “In the Gulf of Aden, Past the Cape of Guardafui” is held hostage by a crew of Somali pirates and forced to face their true feelings about the future. In “At the Zoo,” as a mother ponders her tenuous relationship to her father and his to her young son while on an afternoon outing to the zoo, Horrocks inhabits the child, mother, and grandfather with an even hand, rounding out each character’s fears and desires. Describing the blue-collar grandfather, she writes, “He is proud to not be vain, although he knows that is its own kind of vanity,” and the boy has a terrible realization: “He’d begged for the zoo, and the zoo is a terrible place.” It’s a standout story in a stellar collection, the perfect example of Horrocks’s ability to create an authentic and thoughtful narrative of honesty and hurt and hope.”
—Publishers Weekly

“In the 11 stories of her debut collection, Caitlin Horrocks shows inventiveness and linguistic dexterity. There are refreshing takes on old themes: childhood meanness, the effects of devastating illness, the desire for a better life, misunderstandings between parents and their children, looking for love in all the wrong places.”
—Kathryn Lang, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Review

Typically, when I read in a review that the situations or plots an author has created are outlandish or outrageous, I turn the page. Not interested! Next!

But something in the The New York Times Book Review made me want to give these stories a chance. Was it mention of the story from the point of view of a woman who has been reincarnated 127 times? Or the couple who is being held hostage on their cruise ship by Somalian pirates? Maybe it was the middle-aged American woman who shacks up in Greece with an addled teen by the name of Tick? Or the Montessori teacher who forces an annoying student to touch a tumor on the belly of the classroom rat? These are the types of situations that normally have me running the other way. But… I happen to love short stories.

And, to my surprise, I found that these stories by Caitlin Horrocks are peopled by very un-outrageous people. Very normal people whose thoughts — though perhaps not their actions — are very normal. That’s why I could hang my hat here. (Or, if not normal, so dryly amusing that you can’t help but laugh: “Dear Joan,” writes the wife of the couple held by pirates, “The trip has been amazing. We’re currently being held hostage by pirates, but if you receive this, it means the situation’s sorted itself out just fine.”)

The women in these 11 stories are all living with cruelty, illness, harsh reality or simply diminished expectations. In addition, many of the narrators are of the classically unreliable type. Is that innocent midwestern actuary really in her 127th life? Or is she just crazy?

Ms. Horrocks is a fantastic writer whose stories linger in your mind long after you’ve closed the book. In this information-saturated world in which thoughts thread through our heads every millisecond or so, that’s a powerful achievement. – N. B. Kennedy, Amazon.Com Customer Review

Holding up a mirror to a rudderless culture

Boston.Com Book Review – August 21, 2011 (Excerpt)

Superficially there seems little to link the stories in Caitlin Horrocks’s debut collection, “This Is Not Your City.’’ A woman recalls her cruelty to a dying childhood friend; a man offers a loving home to dogs whose owners can no longer keep them, only to sell them for laboratory experiments; an unqualified young teacher devises weird punishments to keep her class in order; a couple on a cruise boasts to fellow passengers about the brilliance of a severely handicapped child institutionalized back home.

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A Peeping Tom Goes Nuts Over A Blind Girl

Paul Kirk is a librarian and one of his town’s quirkier residents.  In a childhood home lacking parents (his mother dying of MS and his father an alcoholic) Paul had imagined himself a member of the neighboring family. Now in his late twenties, Paul vicariously participates in the households of his community. His peeping-Tom proclivities express his awkward need for social bonding.

Then Paul meets Bronwyn, a counselor who is lovely, independent and blind. She has inherited her Aunt Phyllis’ house and is newly arrived in town. When Paul first sees Bronwyn at church, he knows he wants to be part of her life. As the mystery of Aunt Phyllis unfolds, Bronwyn and Paul become more deeply involved as they learn about Phyllis’ secrets and how they relate to Bronwyn and her past, but Paul’s peeping ways may ruin it all. [Read more...]

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Robert Crais Reviews “White Shotgun”

Source: Amazon.Com

In the language of the mafias, a murder where the body is never found is called lupara bianca, or white shotgun. To disappear with no one knowing how they killed you is a terrible warning, as it haunts the souls of those left behind. April Smith’s White Shotgun will haunt you.

Let’s cut to the chase: I love Smith’s work. She is one of the finest, smartest, most gifted writers working in crime fiction today, and White Shotgun is her best novel since the justifiably celebrated North of Montana, the novel that introduced FBI Special Agent Ana Grey. White Shotgun is an edgy, realistic, personal trip down the rabbit hole of an FBI undercover operation into one of the ‘mafias.’ Note the plural. This ain’t your daddy’s mafia. The new mafia is called the mafias. Forget Sonny Corleone, what you think you know from The Godfather, and rehashed Sopranos tropes straight outta Jersey–what you will read here in Smith’s thoroughly researched and realistically portrayed thriller is the way its done, now, today, straight outta Italy.

This is the real deal.

These days, the ‘Ndrangheta clan of the mafias occupy “the sh-t-caked bottom of Italy’s boot, a multibillion-dollar crime syndicate made up a hundred tribal families with blood ties, six thousand strong, holed up in remote mountain villages,” exactly like the Taliban operates in Afghanistan. Cracking the scores of families that operate out of inaccessible fortress towns, from where they run heroin from the poppy fields of Afghanistan (feeding cash to Taliban warriors) to the port of Naples, and eventually to my home town, and yours, here in the U.S. of A., is of prime concern to the FBI–and Special Agent Ana Grey.

Grey has little choice. It turns out Nicoli Nicosa, a new breed mafia associate who operates as a coffee magnate, is a primary person of interest for the FBI. When it becomes known that Nicosa’s wife, Cecilia, is a half-sister Ana never knew existed, and has reached out to Ana for an unknown reason, the FBI brass force Grey into a deep-cover op to gather intelligence. But when Cecilia is kidnapped, Ana finds that a rekindled sense of family inspires her to step outside the FBI and risk her career by working “off the books” with her sister’s mobster husband to bring Cecilia home. Enlisting the help of her ex-Delta-Force boyfriend, Sterling McCord, and a tactical force of recruited mercenaries, Ana hangs her life and career over the edge to recover her sister, dead or alive.

Smith renders the southern Italian setting with such honesty and care you will feel the touch of ancient stone and smell espresso as you read. Similarly, Ana Grey is evoked with such authenticity and realism you can feel her body heat.

This is Smith, the writer, showing us how it’s done.

This is Smith’s talent and skill at work (and the work is difficult, believe me), creating not only a balls-to-the-wall crime thriller, but a full-blown novel of depth and richness (and, for the action prone among you, both the best sniper scene and best rendition of a hostage-recovery assault I’ve read, period, bar none.)

But, ultimately, after the smoke clears and the bodies are counted, April Smith has given us more.

White Shotgun is a novel about redemption and growth, and the healing power of love and acceptance, and the acceptance of love. Hard won lessons to learn, but worth learning.

Editorial Reviews

In Italy to uncover dirt on a relative on the FBI’s watch list, Ana Grey finds calamities piling up, but the adrenaline is nicely balanced by the heroine’s grappling with loyalties to both blood and Bureau. - PEOPLE Magazine

Ana Grey is a credible, fascinating heroine, both worldly and rueful about her unsettled life. Tight suspense and fascinating background. – BOOKLIST

Review

On leave from the FBI, Special Agent Ana Grey and her lover private security expert Sterling McCord are in London when her handler Mike Donnato calls from Los Angeles asking her to visit the Embassy. The FBI Legat in London Sheila Kuser asks her go to Siena, Italy to meet her half-sister Cecilia Maria Nicosa nee Sanchez of El Salvatore, who Ana had not known existed until the Fed call. The FBI wants Ana to meet Cecilia in order to investigate her wealthy coffee importer spouse Nicoli whose mistress vanished allegedly due to a White Shotgun murder.

Meanwhile Siena prepares for the Palio gala culminating with the legendary horse race between the city’s wards. Someone stabs Nicosa’s son Giovanni and Cecilia vanishes. Ana and Sterling trust no one local as they prepare to locate and rescue Cecilia before she becomes a White Shotgun victim.

The latest Agent Grey FBI thriller (see Good Morning Killer and Judas Horse) is an exciting European caper starting with a mass shooting in London and continuing on the continent. The complex story line is fast-paced and filled with suspense as the paternal siblings meet while family war breaks out in Italy. Though connecting the dots seem a bit convoluted, readers will appreciate Ana’s European vacation. - Harriet Klausner, Amazon.Com Customer Review

Book review: ‘White Shotgun’ by April Smith

The Los Angeles Times – August 1, 2011 (Excerpt)

The first thing to know when reading “White Shotgun,” the fourth installment of April Smith’s wonderful Ana Grey series, is that the “mob” is an outdated term. Nor is it correct to refer to “the mafia” in the singular. It’s “mafias” now, since, as an FBI colleague explains to Ana, in Italy “there’s no single organization but — aren’t we lucky? — lots of family-operated crime groups.”

The second is the meaning of the novel’s title: “lupara bianca” (white shotgun) is, in the lingo of the mafias, a murder in which the body is never found. It’s a terrifying warning to an enemy, a hint of more ominous events to come.

The opening scene of this smart, briskly moving novel involves a white shotgun: An Italian woman named Lucia Vincenzo disappears one night and meets with a gruesome end. The significance of her death soon becomes apparent.

Meanwhile, on leave from the FBI, her future uncertain, agent Ana Grey witnesses a terrifying drive-by shooting at an Italian restaurant in London. She’s there with the love of her life, Sterling McCord, whose similarly itinerant lifestyle (he works for a private security firm) makes their relationship a series of joyous reunions and inevitable departures. “It’s easy to avoid talking about the future when you tacitly agree there might not be one,” Smith writes. [Read the full article...]

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The narrator of this debut, an Indian national, is a 22-year-old cricket reporter who has left Bombay to explore Guyana’s exotic landscape and people (“Guyana was elemental, water and earth, mud and fruit, race and crime, innocent and full of scoundrels”), many of whom he befriends. In vigorous yet lyrical prose employing a pungent vernacular, Bhattacharya describes Guyana’s horrid heat and thunderous rain in sensuous detail: the pretentious, decaying buildings of its capital, the unbearable humidity that settles on the men who go “porknocking,” or searching for diamonds in the muddy soil. Violence breaks out easily during nights of drinking, yet people care about strangers.

The narrator falls for a seductive young woman, but their first trip together—to Venezuela—veers from romance to threat when he re-enters Guyana without papers. In fact, a dark undercurrent of dread haunts the novel, and what begins as a desultory adventure story delivers the shock of multiple betrayals. Bhattacharya’s distinctive voice, which incorporates both Guyanese and Indian dialects, results in an authentic and sybaritic tale. – Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

“[The Sly Company of People Who Care]‘s heart lies in the exuberant and often arresting observations of a man plunging himself a world full of beauty, violence and cultural strife. It’s impossible, reading Bhattacharya, not to be reminded of V.S. Naipaul.” —Dinaw Mengestu, The New York Times Book Review

“Bhattacharya’s understanding of displacement and drifting comes from a completely original place, and he has all of the humour and the sharpness of the young Naipaul, with none of the spleen. This book, and this writer, are here to last.” —India Today

“In vigorous yet lyrical prose employing a pungent vernacular, Bhattacharya describes Guyana’s horrid heat and thunderous rain in sensuous detail. . . Bhattacharya’s distinctive voice, which incorporates both Guyanese and Indian dialects, results in an authentic and sybaritic tale.” — Publishers Weekly (starred)

“Words as musical notes, a book as symphony. . . An exotic locale and lyrical language make for a duzzling debut.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred)

[The Sly Company of People Who Care] is a lovingly delicate study of Guyanese culture, in which Bhattacharya captures the restlessness of youth, the yearning for new experiences, and the driving need of travelers to go beyond their own internal borders.” —Booklist

“An exceptional first novel, which leaves the reader to decide where facts lie and fiction rings true. . . A madcap cast of original characters abound. . . .Their explicit, rum-infused patois, more potent than V.S. Naipaul’s Caribbean-speak, is addictive. . . It is certainly the best first novel by an Indian I have read in a long time.” — Outlook India

“What a voice, what a startling, funny, charming, provocative voice! Rahul Bhattacharya’s narrator is a true wanderer and a gifted poet of description. The journey he takes us on, through Guyana, through histories and selves, is a wonder.”—Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask

Review

(3.5 stars) A reporter of cricket matches when he first came to Guyana, Rahul Bhattacharya returns again later to spend an entire year meeting new people and visiting places most outsiders never come to know. The result is a unique travel book of great originality, chock full of outlandish characters, trips to places the reader will not even have imagined, and risky adventures to the interior. Not a “novel” by any definition that I have ever read, the resulting book offers new glimpses into a lesser known part of the world, vibrantly described by a narrator who is obviously a stand-in for the author.

Though he has “fictionalized” characters’ names and some events, the places, social and political history, and reports about some documented recent events in Georgetown are obviously real. The book feels like a wonderfully described diary, with events unfolding more or less at random, instead of a carefully planned and organized novel. The only character here with any real depth is the narrator, and he is constantly on the move in search of new adventures. Virtually all the other characters here live “on the edge” and speak a variety of pidgin, with the dialogue often containing vocabulary that the reader must figure out by context.

The book is divided into three parts. Part I follows the unnamed narrator as he makes the acquaintance of “Baby,” who has just been released from jail after killing his partner, and who is anxious to return to his occupation as a “porknocker,” someone who travels to the watery interior to pan for gold or diamonds. Before long, the narrator is traveling with him to the interior. The author fills this journey with local color–the houses on stilts, car shells “growing out of the mud, shot through with razorgrass,” “run-over dogs ground into the asphalt,” sandpits big enough to swallow whole villages. Part II begins as a geography lesson, then moves into political and social history, emphasizing the conflicts between those of African and East Indian descent, now the major part of the population, both groups having been brought to Guyana originally as slaves. He also spends considerable time delving into the dozens of drug war killings in and around Georgetown in 2005 – 2006, involving drug gangs under the control of Shaheed (Roger) Khan whose power was threatened by the “African Taliban.” Part III gives a significant role to a woman for the first time in the book, as the narrator becomes the bewitched companion of Jankey, a seductive young woman with whom he travels, without visas, to Venezuela, a journey which leads to some new understandings about himself, her, and the political and legal realities.

The author does not include (and is, of course, under no obligation to include) information about the hard-working middle-class in Guyana, nor does he meet people who speak English as grammatically as he himself does–though there are educated Guyanese who speak grammatically, too. Many of these citizens remain in the country, working to improve it and the schooling for their children. This book is a lively account of those who live on the fringes, taking big risks and surviving any way they can. Those who are looking for a truly balanced picture of Guyana, a country of extraordinary beauty and much charm, however, will want to look elsewhere. – Mary Whipple

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Although the accident was what insurers call a “no fault fatality,” the moment Strauss’ car struck and killed his classmate Celine, a girl he hardly knew, his life was understandably changed forever. Prompted to tell his story (he first told portions on This American Life) by new fatherhood and the realization that the earth-crumbling event had occurred half his lifetime ago, Strauss takes advantage of the perhaps unfortunate ability the accident gave him to introspect and proceeds to do so for 200 pages of conversational free-form essay. Remaining well on this side of overly sentimental, Strauss deconstructs the past 18 years and views them from every vantage point; he sees his embarrassingly self-centered thoughts immediately afterward and the premature graying of his hair and stress-related stomach problems of his late twenties. “Name an experience. It’s a good bet I’ve thought of Celine while experiencing it.” Strauss already has a few well-received novels under his belt (Chang and Eng, 2000; The Real McCoy, 2002), and his turn to nonfiction of a highly personal nature, a slow-release mediation on grief, is no less symphonic. –Annie Bostrom, Booklist

Strauss’s spare memoir begins with a confession: “Half my life ago, I killed a girl.” Strauss (The Real McCoy) readily acknowledges the problems of writing about this event, the result of a moment’s distraction-trying to avoid aestheticizing reality, questioning his own self-involvement, admitting to playing a role of contrition, even remarking that “…tragedy turns a life into an endless publicity tour, a string of appearances where you actually think in words like ‘tragedy’”-yet a discomfiting tone pervades, and some of the author’s concerns, such as those related to public perception, may alienate readers. As Strauss breezes through key events that span over a decade, he reminds us that life seldom involves the drama of deep atonement, epiphanies, unadulterated grief, or nightmarish flashbacks. A much more complicated mixture of selfish relief, sadness, and survivor’s guilt informs the aftermath of unthinkable events, and what proves most frightening is the gradual awareness that one has begun to forget; forgetting contains not just the drive to move ahead, but also the fear of erasure. Strauss delivers an unexpected take on remorse with the maturity that only comes from earnest reflection. – Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

“At the center of this elegant, painful, stunningly honest memoir thrums a question fundamental to what it means to be human: What do we do with what we’ve been given?… What is truly exceptional here is watching a writer of fine fiction probe, directly, carefully and with great humility, the source from which his fiction springs.”
—Dani Shapiro, New York Times Book Review

“A remarkable, beyond-brave memoir that offers an intensely personal look at the most agonizing events in the author’s post-accident life… With astounding frequency, Strauss pinpoints truths that most of us would find indescribable.”
—Stephan Lee, O, The Oprah Magazine

“I recently went on a trip with a couple of friends, one of whom brought along Half a Life. The book’s slender enough that the three of us devoured it in three days—and beautifully written enough that we spent the rest of the trip discussing it.… A critically acclaimed novelist (Chang and Eng), Strauss waited over 20 years to tell this story. And his distance from it is one of the things I liked best. Too many memoirs suffer from lack of perspective. But Strauss explores memory, guilt, and coming-of-age from a mature vantage point that leads to enormous insight.… You may have heard Strauss tell this tale on NPR’s This American Life. Here’s the written version, by a terrific storyteller who doesn’t waste a word. Grade: A”
—Pam Abrams, Entertainment Weekly

“With honesty and sensitivity, Strauss looks not only at how that fateful incident decades ago ended Celine’s young life, but also at how it greatly affected his. Out of undoubtedly complicated circumstances, he crafts a simple yet remarkable story about pain and guilt, maturity and responsibility, hope and understanding.”
—Christina Eng, San Francisco Chronicle

“Half a Life is an unusually honest, thoughtful and unsettling memoir, which readers and critics are destined to call ‘brave’—for it is brave. But the book is more than simply brave, it is a searingly self-disciplined work of literature, and of self-examination. Darin Strauss does not permit himself even one sentence, even one moment, of lazy thinking, or mitigating excuses. He examines with rigorous honesty every moment of the most awful and tragic event of his life. After all that admirable work and all that attentive detail, when he does finally reach a place of cautious hope, the impact is staggering and unforgettable.”
—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

“Darin Strauss’ Half a Life is the best anything I’ve read—novel, memoir, story—in a very long time. Incredibly, it’s also the most moving. (And inspiring, and challenging; it’s a book that asks you to live up to it.) This book has the greatest weight-to-power ratio I’ve ever seen. Read it, be swallowed, come out changed. If you’ve faced a death, of course you should read it. But everyone faces a life, and so the rest of us should read it too.”
—David Lipsky, author of Absolutely American and Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself

“A story of hope and what it means to be human.”
—Carrie Fisher, author of Wishful Drinking

“This book will break your heart. It’s about the big and important things that happen before you are ready for them, and how they shape your life. It’s a tragedy and a coming of age story. Mostly, it’s a great and moving book about a boy becoming a man, and it belongs on the shelf with just a precious few others—The Catcher in the Rye, The Moviegoer, Joe Gould’s Secret. It should be read and re-read. It’s a treasure.”
—Rich Cohen, author of Tough Jews, Sweet & Low, and When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead

“I’ve read so many memoirs. Darin Strauss’ is more honest and useful than all of them rolled together, including my own. This might be the bravest book you will ever read.”
—Kelly Corrigan, author of The Middle Place and Lift

Review

WOW — STRONGLY RECOMMEND!!!! I was lucky enough to get my hands on an advance copy of this memoir by Darin Strauss, and it is incredible. Almost TOO incredible — while I was reading the first chapter, which describes the author’s car accident, my heart started beating really quickly! I’ve never had that reaction to a book before — and it seemed to give me a tiny glimpse into how overwhelming the whole experience that the book describes must have been for the author. Fortunately, I calmed down and finished the book in one sitting and it was riveting.

The book starts with the accident: The author, in high school, is driving his father’s car when a classmate swerves in front of him on her bike. He knows there is nothing he could have done and the police confirm that. But it is hard for people in his hometown to cope with the idea that this was just a senseless, meaningless accident — no one likes to think that our lives are out of our control; we are more comfortable with assigning fault or at least ascribing some kind of significance.

So the girl’s mother tells Darin that he is living for two now, and that he has to do everything twice as well now. She seems to mean well — to offer a way for Darin to be able to somehow make up for, or at least respond to, the accident — but instead she places a heavy burden on him. Maybe she tried to forgive him and couldn’t — for later (no spoiler here, since the book cover discloses it) she and her husband sue Darin. But perhaps the lawsuit doesn’t take the heaviest toll on him — maybe the heaviest toll is taken by Darin’s inability to get close to anyone he meets after the accident: “My accident was the deepest part of my life and the second deepest was hiding it…. By now the camouflage had become my skin.” Confessing doesn’t help either: “Even the truth had a lie’s sourness.”

The book is beautifully-written, impossible to put down, and significant for all of us hoping to figure out the meaning of our lives and to decide what — and whom — we are responsible for. – thekittens, Amazon.Com Customer Review

Living for two

Boston.com – October 16, 2010 (Excerpt)

In May 1988, 18-year-old Darin Strauss was driving with friends near his home on Long Island when a bicyclist veered into his car’s path. The collision killed a schoolmate of his named Celine Zilke, leaving Strauss haunted by an accident for which he was legally absolved.

Q. This must be different from other book tours you’ve done.

A. Much different. With a novel, people tell you they either like it or don’t. At every reading I do now, at least one person offers me a personal story about grief or loss. It’s been incredibly rewarding — and overwhelming.

Q. How did impending fatherhood affect your decision to write about this?

A. My wife got pregnant — with twins — when I turned 36, or twice my age when the accident occurred. I just felt it was time to really examine what happened. When I was 18, I’d have loved reading a book like this. So I thought, I’ll write this for the 18-year-old version of myself.

[Read the full article...]

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Following in the footsteps of John Allen Paulos (Innumeracy, 1989) and Michael Shermer (Why People Believe Weird Things, 1997), Seife conducts a thorough investigation into why so many of us find it so easy to believe things that are patently ridiculous. Why, for example, does anyone take seriously the idea that some vaccines can cause autism, or that athletes who wear red have a competitive advantage? It’s all comes down to numbers, the author argues, and the ways they can be used to make people believe things that are not true. He introduces us to the concepts of Potemkin numbers (deliberately deceptive statistics), “disestimation” (turning a number into a falsehood by taking it too literally), fruit-packing (a variety of deceptive techniques including cherry-picking data and comparing apples to oranges), and “randumbness” (finding causality in random events).

He explores the many ways we misunderstand simple mathematical terms—confusing average, for example, with typical—and our natural tendency to treat numbers as truth and to see patterns where none exist. Despite its serious and frequently complex subject, the book is written in a light, often humorous tone (the title is a riff on Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness,” although proofiness has been in circulation for a while, with a variety of meanings). A delightful and remarkably revealing book that should be required reading for . . . well, for everyone. –David Pitt

Reviews

“… passionate … This is more than a math book; it’s an eye-opening civics lesson.”
-The New York Times Book Review

“Seife’s book is an admirable salvo against quantitative bamboozlement by the media and the government.”
-Boston Globe

“Seife’s coinages, humor, and curious tidbits keep readers engaged as the book gradually moves from a description of techniques to their practical application.”
-Philadelphia Inquirer

“If Stephen Colbert had had time to write a math book, he surely would have written Proofiness.”
-Dallas Morning News

“Sprightly written, despite its sobering message.”
-Kirkus Reviews

“A delightful and remarkably revealing book that should be required reading for . . . well, for everyone.”
-Booklist (Starred review)

More Reviews

In Proofiness, science journalist and NYU journalism professor Charles Seife decries the tactic of using numbers to lie. Not just using numbers to bolster one’s argument. But, in his words, to use fake numbers to prove falsehoods. To use bogus mathematical arguments to prove something that we know in our heart is true – even when it’s not.

Seife does not just condemn proofiness as a mistake in logic. He thinks that numbers have a mystical power. That phony numbers have the appearance of absolute truth, of pure objective fact. So we can, and do, wrongly use them to prejudice people.

Proofiness, Seife believes, is the raw material that arms partisans to fight off the assault of knowledge. To clothe irrationality in the garb of the rational and the scientific. So, he says, proofiness is a dark art of deception.

That makes, Seife believes, proofiness one of the biggest problems we face. He says our society is awash in proofiness. Using a few powerful techniques, thousands of people are crafting mathematical falsehoods to get us to swallow untruths. In fact, proofiness is destroying our democracy by deception.

Seife makes some good arguments. And Proofiness is well-written and provokes thought. But does he show that proofiness is a danger to democracy? That proofiness is at the root of many of the problems we face today? In my opinion, not hardly. On this point, Proofiness needs a little more proof.

Take the example that Seife uses to lead off the book. In February 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy said in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia that: “I have here in my hand a list of 205 . . . a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”

Seife claims that McCarthy’s use of the number 205 was a jolt of electricity that shocked Washington into action against communist infiltrators. He says that the very fact that McCarthy attached a number to his accusations imbued them with an aura of truth. The numbers gave McCarthy’s accusations heft; they were too substantial, too specific, to ignore.

Really? So if McCarthy had left out the number 205 (which it appears from the quote that he almost did), and just said he had in his hand a list of names, then McCarthy’s claims would not have had the attention they got?

I don’t think so. Number or not, McCarthy’s rhetorical device was powerful – “I have here in my hand a list of names.” And that speech was just one part of the complex historical picture of McCarthyism. McCarthy did not need to use the dark art of proofiness to do what he did.

While Seife’s focus on dark arts and deception seems overblown, Proofiness did make me think about how to weigh purported proof of complex issues. He gives some examples of how people use numbers to deceive:

– Falsifying numbers (This is what Seife claims Joseph McCarthy did. McCarthy said he had 205 names. Then later it was 57 names. Then 81. Seife claims that McCarthy had no names. Not a single one.)

– Comparing apples with oranges

– Cherry-picking data

– Apple polishing (Giving technically correct, but deliberately misleading, numbers.)

– Potemkin numbers (These are phony statistics based on wrong or nonexistent calculations.)

– Disestimation (Giving too much meaning to a measurement, and not qualifying it enough.)

Seife’s analysis is clever, and his examples well chosen. Still, I’m not sure that he breaks much new ground here. After all, many have long warned us to watch out when someone cites numbers to prove a point. Even Homer Simpson knows that “people can come up with statistics to prove anything.” And the proverb “lies, damn lies, and statistics” has been around for at least a century.

So while I enjoyed Proofiness, I would have liked Seife to plow more new ground on some issues that he only touches on. For example:

– What do you do when things by their nature cannot really be proven? Do humans cause the earth’s climate to change? Did the $787 billion stimulus help? How can you prove that you are correct on these critical issues, no matter which answer you choose? If you cannot prove you are correct, what do you do? Nothing? Or should you rely on what Stephen Colbert derided as “truthiness” (the inspiration for Seife’s title Proofiness): “the truth that comes from the gut, not books.”

– Seife focuses on how others deceive us with numbers. But human beings are notoriously susceptible to self-deception. How can we avoid the trap Paul Simon warns us about in song: “All lies and jest. Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”?

– We humans find it hard to connect cause with effect. We see relationships that are not there. There’s nothing deceptive about this. It’s just human nature. Even the smartest among us fall prey to this, as seen by two-time Nobel prizewinner Linus Pauling and his strong but apparently mistaken beliefs about vitamin C. To avoid this problem, should we abandon faith, ignore our guts and only believe things that have been proven?

In short, Proofiness is a book worth reading. Agree with him or disagree, Seife will make you think, and that makes the book an important one. But Proofiness could have been better. – Edward Durney, Amazon Customer Review

Charles Seife’s ‘Proofiness,’ reviewed by John Allen Paulos

The Washington Post – October 10, 2010 (Excerpt)

The title of Charles Seife’s new book, ”Proofiness,” is a takeoff on Stephen Colbert’s notion of truthiness, the property of statements that have the ring of truth to them but upon a little reflection are seen to be bogus. Likewise, proofiness refers to numbers and statistical arguments that seem convincing but are really somewhere between unwarranted and ludicrous. Seife begins by pointing out that numbers in the news do not inhabit some ideal Platonic realm but result from very fallible measurements that are often based on vague definitions or faulty assumptions.

He tells the story of the museum guard who claimed the dinosaur on exhibit was 65,000,038 years old. When pressed about the precision of the number, the guard says that a scientist told him the dinosaur was 65 million years old when he was hired 38 years before. Seife calls this error “disestimation,” the mathematical sin of underestimating the uncertainties associated with most numbers. [Read the full article...]

Drawing on interviews with mariners, insurers, scientists, and surfers, Casey writes up a fascinating compendium of information about the scientists’ specialties and the global shipping industry’s concern with high-amplitude waves, which apparently sink dozens of vessels annually. But her exciting passages concern the surfers—tow surfers, specifically. These are the thrill-seeking maniacs who ride breakers 60 feet and higher, emerging gloriously from the curl or vanishing in bone-breaking wipeouts.

From tow-surfing stars such as Laird Hamilton, credited with inventing the sport, Casey relays both the characteristics of titanic waves and, more to the ineffable point, why surfers attempt to ride them. Journeying to surfer hangouts like Maui, Tahiti, and California, Casey intensely captures surfers’ euphoric triumphs alongside giant waves’ punishment, sometimes capital, of any mistake. Stoking the ever-popular topic of extremities of nature, Casey imparts awe in her rogue-wave connection of commerce, science, and sport. –Gilbert Taylor

Review

The relationship between the waves, the weather, the planet’s rising temperatures, and the overarching ocean cycles is wildly complex. And, they result in more frequent and higher extreme ocean waves which are a result of Global Warming” Susan Casey tells us this, and so much more. I loved this book, the waves transfixed me, the information transformed me, and the oceans and seas filled me with the fear of God.

The stories Susan Casey carries with her and places on the written page about waves, oceans, seas, surfs, research, surfing and the people who follow and do these crazy stunts have filled me with a sense that we, the humans that populate this earth, have done it wrong. The oceans absorb 80% of the heat, and as the water heats, the wind increases, storms become more volatile. The ice melts, and the sea levels rise and millions of us who live near the ocean are at risk. The more we know about the waves and our weather and how it affects us, the better off we will be. The next generation is in for a rough ride.

Susan Casey is a superb writer, she strings the stories of waves and the researchers in language I can understand. The people who ride the surf, the Laird Hamilton’s and the Lickles, seem heroic and foolish all at the same time. The risks they take, but it seems they must. They were born to ride the waves, and they must find the highest and the fastest. They become the best surfers. They know the waves, the science and how to read the oceans and the waves. The waves become their friends and their foe. They move from ocean to ocean and place to place to meet these waves and conquer them. Sometimes they succeed.

What I find especially fascinating are the researchers of the waves. The people who make their life’s work studying the waves and how they change in size and their relationship to the universe. The people who rescue the ships that are lost at sea, the products they carry, and the people they lose. One or two ships are lost every week at sea, and it was not until 2000 that a group of like minded men came together to study why these ships were lost. It used to be said that extreme weather was the cause, well, sort of. There is so much to learn, and the list of lost ships and their stories are listed in a ledger by Lloyds of London. The reasons are waves, earthquakes, tsunamis, wind, temperature and a little bit of this and that. The Caribbean particularly Puerto Rico and the North west are overdue for tsunami inducing quakes. Scares me, does it scare you?

Climate change has been on all of our tongues for many years, and now, we must face it up close and personal. Hurricane Katrina was but one example that should serve as a warning. Look around you and listen, everyday there is an example of warming, floods, ships lost at sea, increase hurricanes, heat, and rain and snow of unheard proportions. Susan Casey has given us a book that enlightens us all. – Amazon Customer Review

Susan Casey’s “The Wave,” on monstrous ocean waves, reviewed by John Lancaster

The Washington Post – October 10, 2010 (Excerpt)

Susan Casey has a thing about the ocean. Her first book, “The Devil’s Teeth,” chronicled her sojourn among great white sharks and the scientists who study them off the Farallon Islands near San Francisco. Now she has immersed herself in another chronicle of men (well, mostly men) and the sea, this one focused on a force of nature even bigger and more powerful than the implacable beasts of her previous work. ”The Wave” is exactly what its cover advertises: a book about huge waves and the equally outsize personalities who spend and occasionally risk their lives trying to measure, understand, predict and sometimes even ride them on surfboards.

This might seem a bit of a gimmick, blending as it does the worlds of meteorologists and physicists, among others, with portraits of gnarly surfer dudes such as Laird Hamilton, whose obsessive — some would say suicidal — quest to hurl himself off the lips of waves the size of seven-story buildings provides the book with its main narrative thread (to say nothing of some very impressive wipeouts). But somehow it all hangs together. This is due in part to its scary environmental theme — about which more in a moment — and especially to Casey’s singular fascination with waves, the bigger the better, which emerge not just as hydrological phenomena but as distinctive, often malevolent personalities that in some ways are the most interesting characters in her book. [Read the full article...]

Passionate Lives by David Bodanis is essential reading for those who care about science, literature and the realities of humanity. This is a tale of one of the greatest women in scientific and mathematical history, coupled with the eternally interesting Voltaire. It’s moving, hilarious, fascinating, and staggering in terms of historical content. History always needs “contents insurance” in the form of correcting historical injustices, and this book provides it.

Those who know Voltaire may be surprised to learn that his soul mate came from the class of people least required to have an intellect or even a vocabulary of any kind- The French female aristocracy. Marquise Emilie du Chatelet was everything a French noblewoman wasn’t supposed to be. She was individualistic, highly intelligent, ferociously passionate and arguably at least 400 years ahead of her time, a sort of 18^th century Dorothy Parker and Marie Curie, combined.

The actual relationship was based on an extraordinary meeting of minds, as well as passions. Anyone who’s seen Voltaire’s ability to turn a single paragraph into a blizzard of razor blades will be stunned to find that du Chatelet was intellectually on an equal footing with France’s definitive writer. The relationship varied from stormy to sublime, and all points between. Voltaire’s contribution to du Chatelet was to provide the support of a man of letters to a very strong natural intellect and talents. Du Chatelet’s contribution to Voltaire was to affect him like no other person in his life. Europe’s deadliest wit was truly captivated.

(The tale of the relationship is practically an extra book in itself, and a good example of how to add substance to a quite demanding narrative. These were two quite exceptional and busy people, and even the continuity requires a deft touch in keeping the reader oriented. Bodanis keeps things well organized throughout.)

Du Chatelet and Newton

Du Chatelet had one thing in common with Voltaire. She was a true thinker, never satisfied with a mere statement. This is a complex story in scientific terms, and shows her to be as good as Voltaire in vivisecting concepts and finding flawed logic. One of her greatest talents was higher mathematics and she regularly corresponded with Maupertuis.  Du Chatelet devoured Newton’s work, and like the rest of Europe, went to work on it.

Du Chatelet’s ability to penetrate mathematical thinking was the key to one of the great breakthroughs in physics. She eventually tracked down the hole in Newton’s concept of gravity, the predecessor of E=mc². She formulated the results of intensive research into gravity into the “squared” formula for measuring  kinetic energy, mv2. That’s where the “squared” in E=mc² originates. Du Chatelet’s final published paper, Principes Mathematiques de la Philosophie Naturelle, came out after her split with Voltaire and a truly grim series of personal events. She died after childbirth some days later. Voltaire was devastated.

History wasn’t very fair to du Chatelet for a long time, partly because of the bizarre anti-female culture in “enlightened” Europe. Kant, to his eternal discredit, sloppily dismissed her work as insignificant. The results of her painstaking efforts, however, survived, and Einstein vindicated her. The classic karmic fact in Passionate Lives is that Bodanis, who also wrote a history called E=mc², rediscovered her achievements. A wrong has been righted. Read Passionate Lives, and you’ll have an Enlightenment of your own.

“This story takes place in the most familiar places – a doctor’s office, a family’s kitchen, a suburban high school, and the woods out back. It’s a modern-day myth that happened to be true. It’s a story in which wonderful things occurred because people believed in themselves and in each other. It’s a story about the power of love to change our world.”
—Caroline Kennedy

“A story of how healing the love of a pet can be and of faith that good things can still happen when people pull together – a true, feel-good read”
—Patricia Cornwell, author of the Scarpetta series and dog lover

“Huck is the Dewey of the canine world. The dog is a delight– even my cat Norton would have been charmed (after a hiss or two) — and the book itself is lovely and inspiring. I rate it 5 barks.”
—Peter Gethers, author of The Cat Who Went to Paris and The Cat Who’ll Live Forever

“Janet Elder’s wonderful story of Huck reminds us that the best stories about dogs are really about people or, in this case, community. Few things in America these days can bring people together more than a shared love of dogs. Dogs enter our lives for all kinds of reasons, and Huck entered Janet Elder’s life for one of the most important. This is a wonderful story, gripping and heartwarming. And I can’t say I’ve ever read a dog story with a more meaningful or uplifting ending. You are likely to cry some happy tears.”
—Jon Katz, author of Soul of a Dog: Reflections on the Spirits of the Animals of Bedlam Farm

“This dog story made me feel good about people, families, and New Jersey.”
—Roy Blount Jr.

“Puppies have always been better than people. Now comes a book where a puppy makes people better people. Pet it, feed it, even read it. You’ll love it—and become a better person.”
—Dan Jenkins, sportswriter/novelist

“As soon as I read the description of this book, I knew I had to order it. I am a bona fide dog lover and have loved other books about dogs, like Marley and Me. This is one of those books that you hate to end. It makes you laugh and it tugs at your heart all at the same time.

I also love the way that Janet and her husband never gave up looking for Huck, even when it seemed like he would never come home and would run away from them. There were so many times when they would come so close to getting him back, but then something would happen.

It was also amazing to read about how the townspeople bent over backwards to help Huck be reunited with his family.Anyone who has a dog knows that they become a member of the family. In fact, losing a dog is like losing one of your children. You can’t rest until you get some kind of closure. Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. But that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves dogs and is looking for an easy read.” – LMS “Book Worm,” Amazon Customer Review

Lost and Found

New York Times, October 1, 2010

When Janet Elder was under going a biopsy, she kept her emotions in check and her mind sharp. “I wasn’t scared,” she reports in her memoir, “Huck,” which improbably entwines the story of her breast cancer with an account of a missing family pet. Elder, a senior editor at The New York Times, handles a frightening subject — the impact of a potentially lethal illness on a family — gently enough that some parents might deem the book appropriate reading material for older children.

During the biopsy, “I didn’t feel like crying. I didn’t mind the pain,” she recalls. True, she was critical of the “demeaning” pink décor in the medical office where, with a journalist’s dispassion, she was still “reporting the story” of her own crisis, asking questions, calculating odds. “Cancer is not pink,” she writes. “Cancer is serious business.” [Read the full article...]

“Exciting, cutting-edge scientific research in the field of epigenetics has changed the way the medical profession looks at pregnancy, and we are fortunate to have Annie Murphy Paul as our guide through this fascinating new terrain. With stellar insight and expansive research, Origins is a thrilling survey of how fetal origins is changing the way we think about the nine months before birth.” – Dr. Mehmet Oz, author of YOU: Having a Baby, YOU: Raising Your Child, and YOU: On a Diet

“Annie Murphy Paul, a gifted science writer, combines impeccable science, extraordinary tenderness and lyrical prose to produce a truly revolutionary chronicle of pregnancy. In Origins, she shows that pregnancy is not a condition to be endured but the first nine months of being a mother, a time full of far-reaching choices. Origins is sweet, smart and very fresh. You’ll never think about pregnancy the same way again.”—Sylvia Nasar, author, A Beautiful Mind

“One of the most influential environments on Earth lies within women’s bodies, the still mysterious world of the womb where all of us spend the beginning months of our lives. In her fascinating book, Annie Murphy Paul explores this strange and wonderful first home, both as a science journalist investigating the critical first steps in human development and as an expectant mother thinking about how a child grows ready for the world outside. The combination, and the lessons contained in both journeys, make Origins an irresistible – and important – way to better understand ourselves.”—Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

“Origins is, quite simply, a must-read for parents-in-waiting—and for anyone interested in what makes us who we are. Paul has written a superb introduction to the emerging science of fetal origins. There are still a lot more questions than answers, but this book shows how science is — at long last — engaging deeply with the reality that a pregnant woman’s lifestyle can dramatically impact the future life of her child.” — David Shenk, author of The Genius in All of Us and The Forgetting

“Can what we experience in the womb affect us for the rest of our lives? In a word: yes. As Annie Murphy Paul shows in this fascinating exploration of a new line of research, the fetus not only grows and develops in utero–it actively prepares for life in the world outside, reading signals the mother’s body is sending about whether there will be plenty or want, hardship or happiness, and fashioning itself accordingly. The implications—for policy, for prenatal care, for parenting—are endlessly important.” –Liza Mundy, author of Michelle and Everything Conceivable

“What goes on during pregnancy is a scientific puzzle as mysterious and fascinating as what goes on inside an atom. In Origins, Annie Murphy Paul probes the murky realm in which our futures as human beings are forged. She combines in-depth reporting on cutting-edge research with a personal memoir of her own pregnancy and the anxieties and insights it produced. The result is an important, elegant piece of science writing.” –Carl Zimmer, author of Soul Made Flesh The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution

“Annie Murphy Paul elegantly assembles the evidence to prove what mothers have felt all along—that what happens in those mysterious months before birth shapes the child that emerges in fundamental ways. Insightful, enjoyable and profound.”—Lisa Sanders, M.D., author of The New York Times Magazine‘s “Diagnosis” column and of “Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis”

“That the behavior—even the emotions—of a pregnant woman can profoundly change her developing child is a remarkable idea. In this brilliant book, Annie Murphy Paul shows us that groundbreaking research on fetal origins is not a cause for fear or anxiety, but for wonder and even hope.”—Ethan Watters, author of Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche

“In Origins, Annie Murphy Paul provides an engaging exploration of the important and provocative domain of prenatal influences. This is an essential book for pregnant women and those who care about them, but also for anyone interested in how human beings develop. It is beautifully written and utterly captivating, replete with rich insights about nature and culture.”—Paul Bloom, author of Descartes’ Baby

“This is a terrific book on a fascinating and largely unexplored subject—the mysteries of prenatal development. It is lucid, scientifically accurate and clear and gracefully written. Combining good science and a personal perspective is rare, especially in writing about children and motherhood, but Annie Paul has accomplished it beautifully.”—Alison Gopnik, author of The Scientist in the Crib and The Philosophical Baby

Birth Pangs

New York Times, September 30, 2010

After the birth of each of our three children, my wife and I breathed a deep sigh of relief. We had been meticulous in following our obstetrician’s advice: we had been screened for the Tay-Sachs trait, and had an amniocentesis to check for chromosomal changes associated with Down syndrome, and ultrasound to assess the fetus’s growth. Everything looked normal. But with the acute awareness of two physicians, we knew that these tests did not reveal all the problems that can occur during gestation. So when we heard the piercing cry of our newborn and were told the baby had a high Apgar score, we believed we had successfully skirted the perils of pregnancy.

But in the decades since our children’s birth, results from research studies have suggested that we do not put fetal life so readily behind us. Rather, as Annie Murphy Paul writes in her informative and wise new book, “fetal origins research suggests that the lifestyle that influences the development of disease is often not only the one we follow as adults, but the one our mothers practiced when they were pregnant with us as well.” This hypothesis was initially put forth by David Barker, a British physician who in 1989 published data indicating that poor maternal nutrition put offspring at risk for heart disease decades later. [Read the full article...]

It’s easy to sum up this work as previous reviewers have; harder to delve into the details in “soundbite” format for this forum. I’ll try to give a more comprehensive overview of each chapter to provide needed detail for readers to make up their minds about this book’s relevance to their own moral challenges as encountered by parents, children, teachers, and coaches. Being a decent, respectful, compassionate person today seems harder than ever in a “big-box” culture demanding it all now.

Weissbourd surveyed students, and had students conduct surveys of their peers, and gathered what he finds is an alternative argument to those who demand tougher moral accountability without dismantling the self-esteem and self-important folderol that in the wake of the 1960s-70s pop psychology movement has invaded classrooms, Little League, parent-teacher conferences, and the insanely inflated competition for elite college admissions. Weissbourd advises a less strained, more balanced attitude that allows kids to fail more, to grow up without demanding parents, and to learn morality from how parents and other authority figures model it themselves– no easy task.

Chapter 1 deals with “Helping Children Manage Destructive Emotions.” Shame and self-hatred often emerge from over-coddling children to the extent they cannot form their own values. Chapter 2 “Promoting Happiness and Morality” urges parents that both can be attained, and that true satisfaction need not come from an Ivy League matriculation. Again, parents gain blame here for pushing kids to succeed despite the cost to their psyches at the degrees, possessions, and egotism that earlier generations never could have had, or failed to achieve.

“The Real Danger in the Achievement Craze,” chapter 3 warns, is that depression, especially in adolescent girls, can result. Chapter 4 is self-explanatory, full of cases that demonstrate “When Being Close to Children Backfires.” I found Chapter 5 my favorite, “Moral Adults, Moral Children,” even if the attention paid to how middle-aged adults can find their morality eroding or increasing as time goes on was far too brief for such a valuable topic that could have merited a book in itself.

Chapter 6 examines how schools can assist children better in their moral cognition and demonstration of empathy; chapter 7 studies this in how parents can learn when to step up and when to hang back when it comes to sports, coaches, and their children’s fellow teammates and opponents. Weissbourd’s own experiences here enliven this chapter considerably, and I sense this may be an under-explored area for psychologists as well as parents and coaches themselves worthy of much more attention given the ratcheting-up of competition in much of America.

The last chapters cover “Cultivating Mature Idealism in Young People” that also recognizes the dangers of trying to change the world too much too soon for young people pushed into community service programs, and “Key Moral Strengths of Children Across Race and Culture” looks at immigrant children mainly from Asian and Latino backgrounds as well as a thoughtful look at African American expectations and child-raising techniques that differ, often in positive and affirming ways little appreciated, from the majority culture. While the decline with Americanization and assimilation in values, respect for authority, and scholastic achievement earn coverage in the chapter, again this topic deserved more concentration, given the impact of immigrants upon nearly every school district in urban and suburban areas today, as well as many rural areas formerly little exposed to such changes.

In conclusion, Weissbourd suggests three types of “moral communities”: to bring in the often absent fathers, to help parents support each other, and to allow parenting to become more shared among peers to promote feedback and widen the availability of optional strategies for dealing with discipline, vulnerabilities, and to encourage openness while respecting the need for children as they grow to find their own way that may diverge from the parental expectations.

My wife found a “New Yorker” mention of Weissbourd’s work and read it; she encouraged me to do the same. I review a lot of books for Amazon, but this is the first parenting one; this is outside my usual range or interests. Therefore, I found the contents intriguing, but often the points I wanted more depth on were raised, considered for a page or a paragraph, and then the author went on to other subjects. For instance, an observation on how many parents in a secular age lack therefore religious backup or accessible models in making or enforcing morality for themselves and their families deserved elaboration.

Weissbourd’s efficiently summarizing his previous research and that of his colleagues, as the well-documented endnotes demonstrate. But, there may have been a reliance on assembling material already published into book form that may account for the uneven concentration given what were for me essential topics deserving more coverage than the two-hundred pages of readable if brisk text can offer.

He tallies up the problems of cheating, selfishness, and abdication by many parents and children of moral responsibilities in a misguided push to succeed at all costs. Growing wealth allows many to indulge themselves more. “The pursuit of happiness” expectation promised in the Declaration of Independence mixes toxically with our self-interest directed in the wrong direction as far as others’ welfare is concerned. Too many of us obsess over our satisfactions and avoid any involvement in what dissatisfies us or what cannot live up to our unrealistic, bull-headed, and selfish expectations. Weissbourd provides a way out of a culture of excess and envy; perhaps few parents will read this, but it’s a valuable, if often underelaborated, handbook of observations that offer constructive criticism of how parenting, acquisition, and trophies have all spoiled this generation of incessant wannabee overachievers young and not-so-young. – John L. Murphy, Amazon Customer Review

New in paperback: Parenting then and now, reviewed by Nora Krug

Washington Post, September 29, 2010

No one wants to be accused of overparenting. It’s much cooler, after all, to let your kids run free range or simply flaunt your bad-mother credentials. Richard Weissbourd, a child and family psychologist who teaches at Harvard, jumps on the bandwagon in The Parents We Mean to Be (Mariner, $14.95). The book offers a nuanced, comprehensive analysis of the role of parents as moral mentors — and how an unhealthy closeness between parents and children can undermine it. Drawing on extensive field research, Weissbourd makes the case that parents who are too close to their children may be jeopardizing their children’s moral growth. Doting parents who “get in the habit of doing small things to make [their] children’s lives easier,” such as cleaning up after them, getting deeply involved in their schoolwork and placing children’s “trivial preferences” before their own, he explains, risk making their children “more fragile, entitled, and self-occupied.” [Read the full article...]

Scarlett Thomas is a nimble writer, joyfully unseating and upholding cozy fiction conventions in Our Tragic Universe as she builds a story around Meg Carpenter, a writer who–as a genre fiction ghostwriter, book reviewer, and writing coach–has immersed herself in every nook and cranny of her craft to keep herself afloat… and to stay at arm’s length from the “real” novel she just can’t get her head around. The thoughts that consume her in the meantime range widely, touching down on storytelling, magic, coincidence, love, and what it might be like to live forever. (Her wryly observed theory is that it “would be like marrying yourself, with no possibility of a divorce.”)

In the hands of a less talented writer (and thinker), such a litany could easily devolve into a meandering mess. Not so here: Meg’s searching soul is remarkably controlled, making her a protagonist you trust and want to follow, even when–in fact, especially when–you’re not entirely sure where she’s going. It’s always clear that Meg’s journey isn’t aimless, and you’ll be delighted to find–as she does–that the best stories “make someone surprised to see the picture, and even more surprised when they realize they had all the pieces all along.” –Anne Bartholomew

Review

With a tongue-in-cheek title such as “Our Tragic Universe,” you know you’re in for something off the beaten path. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, which is a first-person episodic, mainstream novel. Or is it? Perhaps there’s more going on here than meets the eye. For instance, think about this: the protagonist of the story, Meg, sounds an AWFUL lot like the book’s author, Scarlett Thomas. They’re both writers, teachers, British, mid-thirties, have academic chums…and the book is written in first person. So you keep thinking, hmm, is she talking about herself here? Is this autobiographical? And then there’s the conversations throughout about philosophies of writing, about books, about writing a “storyless story” (which makes you think, Hey! This book itself seems to qualify for that. What’s going on here?) Normally, I don’t enjoy metafictions. But what makes this different from, say, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (Everyman’s Library (Cloth)), is that you don’t feel the author is playing headgames at your expense. She seems to be inviting you to play along with her (perhaps a hint is that early on, Meg tells how she loves solving crossword puzzles–the British kind, of course). Suddenly you realize that you are reading–and enjoying–a non-standard, “storyless” novel. Well, it’s episodic. So is Deep in the Shade of Paradise: A Novel, which I highly recommend, but wouldn’t categorize as breaking the rules, really. It’s just a story about a period in these people’s lives, told by one of the people, named Meg. If you don’t like Meg or her friends, the lack of plot is going to be a problem for you. And if you aren’t well-versed in narrative theory, the whole pseudo-metafictional thing may just be a bore for you. But for me, as it happens, I’m reading up on how to write a novel, so I found these conversations very enjoyable. I’ve read Frank Tippler, and Rupert Sheldrake. I know about the Omega Point (it’s the end of the universe), and morphic resonance (it’s your dog knowing when you’re about to walk in the door, though I have to say my dog doesn’t do that.)

I was puzzled by Meg’s relationship with Christopher. She’s living for seven years with this loser who treats her with no respect. Abuse, is more like it. And we have no clue until near the end of the book as to why Meg ever took up with this schlmiel (he’s angular and sexy, whatever that means). But why does she stay with him? She’s a very “together” person, she’s making a living as a writer, she’s quite an admirable person in some ways. She certainly has a good relationship with her dog. So why does it take her SO LONG to deal with it? Another thing that puzzled me was why everyone in the book was having an affair. Is everyone in Britain morally bankrupt? Or is this just some chicklit convention I’m not aware of? Of relationships and such, Meg is mostly mum. We don’t really know, often, what her reaction is to an event, such as her boyfriend saying something abusive. She’ll just carry on by taking the dog for a walk, and never mentioning the conversation again, or until later. She withholds her thoughts and feelings at odd times, and tells us the backstories of the other characters in a seemingly haphazard way. But she’s such a good writer that I’m sure all of this was done on purpose, and I’m not smart enough to get it. I would’ve enjoyed the book more had it explored the pseudo-science bits more. It seems to be more than psuedo in the book, and yet in the end, we have a “Zeb Ross” ending, where all is explained rationally away (you’ll know what I mean when you read the book) at the end by the scientists.

Thomas makes us think about fiction, and how we wish there were meaning in our lives. That things happen for a reason, and that if you work hard and heroically, you will get the girl and vanquish the dragon. We like to think that the Universe is not just some tragic joke. That all can be fixed and have a happy ending in 22 minutes plus commercials. That there are secret powers we know nothing about, and we’re all immortal. That we aren’t living the lives we see on television, so we jump from bed to bed looking for the right sitcom to live in. Thomas makes you question the assumptions your life is built upon. There’s a lot to think about and enjoy here. I’m glad I got a chance to read this, thanks to the Vine program. Thanks, Amazon! – Bob Nolin, Amazon Customer Review

Scarlett Thomas’s ‘Our Tragic Universe,’ reviewed by Jeff VanderMeer

Washington Post, September 29, 2010

Mysterious beasts collide with middle-age angst in Scarlett Thomas’s ambitious yet frustrating novel “Our Tragic Universe.”

Devonshire, England, serves as the backdrop for a slew of vaguely unhappy characters. The narrator, Meg, is a writer and book reviewer trapped in a dysfunctional relationship with down-and-out loser Christopher. Meg’s best friend, Libby, is having an affair, and Meg yearns for older, unhappily married Rowan. Professionally, Meg suffers from regret as she publishes science fiction novels under the pen name “Zeb Ross” while continually revising a mainstream manuscript she’s convinced will be her masterwork if she can only finish it. [Read the full article...]

Click on image to buy from Amazon.Com

Ken Follett’s World Without End was a global phenomenon, a work of grand historical sweep, beloved by millions of readers and acclaimed by critics. Fall of Giants is his magnificent new historical epic. The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows the fates of five interrelated families-American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh-as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage.

Thirteen-year-old Billy Williams enters a man’s world in the Welsh mining pits…Gus Dewar, an American law student rejected in love, finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson’s White House…two orphaned Russian brothers, Grigori and Lev Peshkov, embark on radically different paths half a world apart when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution…Billy’s sister, Ethel, a housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts, takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German embassy in London…

These characters and many others find their lives inextricably entangled as, in a saga of unfolding drama and intriguing complexity, Fall of Giants moves seamlessly from Washington to St. Petersburg, from the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty. As always with Ken Follett, the historical background is brilliantly researched and rendered, the action fast-moving, the characters rich in nuance and emotion. It is destined to be a new classic.

In future volumes of The Century Trilogy, subsequent generations of the same families will travel through the great events of the rest of the twentieth century, changing themselves-and the century itself. With passion and the hand of a master, Follett brings us into a world we thought we knew, but now will never seem the same again.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

Ken Follett has dominated epic storytelling for three decades. With spy novels like Eye of the Needle and historical fiction like Pillars of the Earth, his worldwide sales have topped the 100-million-copy mark. Now, he’s back withFall of Giants, the 985-page first installment of a trilogy covering the 20th century. It spotlights five families from Wales, the United States, Russia and Germany as their countries hurtle toward World War I. Its themes range from class warfare between labor and aristocrats, to the suffrage movement, to the horrific ways in which WWI was fought. Follett is married to a former member of Parliament, Barbara Follett. Explaining his ability to write about high-level politics, he says: “For the last 13 years, Britain has been run by my friends … the people we have dinner with, the people we go to the theater with, the people we go on holiday with … [It] has been, frankly, a terrific help to me in writing.” – NPR Book Review

Interview: Author Ken Follett Takes On The 20th Century

Review

Welcome to the 20th century as you’ve never seen it. At over 1,000 pages, Fall of Giants delivers all the elements that fans of Ken Follett have come to treasure: historical accuracy, richly developed characters, and a sweeping yet intimate portrait of a past world that you’ll fully inhabit before the first chapter is through. The story follows five families across the globe as their fates intertwine with the extraordinary events of World War I, the political struggles within their own countries, and the rise of the feminist movement. Intriguing stories of love and loyalty abound, from a forbidden romance between a German spy and a British aristocrat to a Russian soldier and his scandal-ridden brother in love with the same woman. Action-packed with blood on the battlefield and conspiracies behind closed doors, Fall of Giants brings the nuances of each character to life and shifts easily from dirty coal mines to sparkling palaces. There is so much to love here, and the good news is the end is just the beginning: Fall of Giants is the first in a planned trilogy. –Miriam Landis

I thoroughly enjoyed Ken Follett’s epics, “Pillars of the Earth” and “World Without End”. Though they are hefty tomes, the pages flew. Thus I jumped at the chance to read and review Follett’s latest epic, “Fall of Giants” which promises to be the first in The Century Trilogy. When it arrived from Amazon at ~1000 pages and 4 inches thick, I found myself contemplating one of the advantages of having a slim Kindel (I don’t). When the thing comes out in hardback in September it could be used a murder weapon!

But we all know that size doesn’t matter when you’ve got an expert storyteller weaving an enthralling tale. I became so engrossed that I’d look up and 100 pages would have flown by. What is it that makes Follett so consistently “readable”? In “Fall of Giants” it’s because the book is so well researched about the period (early 20th century especially WWI) with information on coal mining, trade unions, women’s suffrage, protocols and manners of the minor royalty, politics, government, revolution and war. The story flows from this rich period but the riveting characters are at the forefront. Even the largely unsympathetic characters, such as the Earl, are made at least understandable because Follett thoughtfully portrays their motivations. There are few totally good or evil characters here, as it should be. (Though Follett seems none too fond of Russians and priests – be they Catholic, Anglican or Orthodox!)

In past reviews I have criticized authors that I believe would benefit from more editing (e.g., Steven King, John Irving) so why don’t I find Follett’s book to be too long? Because there are no slow spots, no political point pushing, and no self-indulgent purple prose.

I learned a great deal about WWI reading this novel, what led up to it and how it set the stage for WWII, which I hope is the subject of the next volume. It was fascinating to read about how the media and the governments of all the countries involved, lied to their people about how bad it was.

One other thing that I believe readers should know going in: as mentioned, this is Part One of a promised trilogy but, like “Pillars” and “World” it is a stand-alone novel. The reader is not left gripping a cliff at the end. I recently very much enjoyed Connie Willis’ “Blackout” which DOES end with a cliff hanger and I am glad I knew that going in; some readers didn’t and felt cheated. You will not feel at all cheated at the end of “Fall of Giants”. Enjoy! – Mary Lins, Amazon Customer Review

War, Revolution and a King Who Says ‘By Jove’

New York Times, September 23, 2010

A lot happens on the first page of Ken Follett’s “Fall of Giants.” King George V is crowned at Westminster Abbey. A Welsh boy named Billy Williams turns 13 and begins his wretched life as a coal miner. And Mr. Follett, who was once a Welsh boy himself but grew up to become his generation’s most vaunted writer of colorless historical epics, kicks off a whopping new trilogy. His apparent ambition: to span the whole 20th century in blandly adequate novels so fat that they’re hard to hoist.

“Fall of Giants” begins on June 22, 1911, a time, as Follett fans may longingly note, nearly 100 years before the invention of the e-book reader. But the march of lightweight book technology is hardly its main concern. Mr. Follett has devoted this tome to the implosions of the British, Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires around the time of World War I. It was also the era when the Ottoman Empire had its last sultan, but Mr. Follett overlooks that; after all, he has only 985 pages’ worth of storytelling space. Given the pacing that he prefers, that leaves “Fall of Giants” no room to spare. [Read the full article...]

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AMERICAN MALE PROSTITUTE

How I (Almost) Got A Book Deal Through Sex, Lies, And Deceit

Stuart Martin Berry has only three months left to find a publisher for his first novel. In a desperate attempt to reach his goal he leaves his home to live in New York. His wife has given him free rein to do whatever it takes to get a book deal. Her only request was not to give her any details on how he got there. If he fails he will be forced to give up his dream of being a famous writer and take a regular forty hour a week job. For Stuart this is sufficient motivation to start a three month adventure full of sex, lies, and deceit, without losing focus of the ultimate goal. When he finally reaches the finish line, he has evolved and become a top expert in the publishing world.

The question remains, what does it take these days to get a book deal with a traditional publisher? What do you do when, hypothetically, you are running out of time and mere talent is not the be-all and end-all?

Stuart Martin Berry has found the answer: If you can’t impress them with your talent, baffle them with your bull-shit. [Read more, including an excerpt]

American Male Prostitute is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

From National Book Award winner Ron Chernow, a landmark biography of George Washington.

In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life of Washington, this crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America’s first president.

Despite the reverence his name inspires, Washington remains a lifeless waxwork for many Americans, worthy but dull. A laconic man of granite self-control, he often arouses more respect than affection. In this groundbreaking work, based on massive research, Chernow dashes forever the stereotype of a stolid, unemotional man. A strapping six feet, Washington was a celebrated horseman, elegant dancer, and tireless hunter, with a fiercely guarded emotional life. Chernow brings to vivid life a dashing, passionate man of fiery opinions and many moods. Probing his private life, he explores his fraught relationship with his crusty mother, his youthful infatuation with the married Sally Fairfax, and his often conflicted feelings toward his adopted children and grandchildren. He also provides a lavishly detailed portrait of his marriage to Martha and his complex behavior as a slave master.

At the same time, Washington is an astute and surprising portrait of a canny political genius who knew how to inspire people. Not only did Washington gather around himself the foremost figures of the age, including James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, but he also brilliantly orchestrated their actions to shape the new federal government, define the separation of powers, and establish the office of the presidency.

In this unique biography, Ron Chernow takes us on a page-turning journey through all the formative events of America’s founding. With a dramatic sweep worthy of its giant subject, Washington is a magisterial work from one of our most elegant storytellers.

Review

“A vastly enlightening, overwhelmingly engaging treatment of a great man …another book on Washington? is a question rendered pointless by this one, which happens to be the author’s masterpiece. Definitive Washington is the point and effect of this biography.” -Booklist

Dusting Off an Elusive President’s Dull Image

New York Times, September 27, 2010

When George Washington was sworn in as the first president of the United States, he had only one original tooth left. It was “a lonely lower left bicuspid,” according to Ron Chernow’s vast and tenaciously researched new biography. But Mr. Chernow was not content merely to write about the tooth and its larger implications, which range from questions about Washington’s apparent reticence in later life (did his dental troubles keep him from speaking?) to his harshly pragmatic attitude toward slavery (he purchased slaves’ teeth, perhaps for use in dentures). Mr. Chernow also paid a personal visit to the tooth at the medical library where it is stored.

His thoroughness in “Washington: A Life” is prompted by the Papers of George Washington, a research project that has been under way at the University of Virginia since 1968, has passed the 60-volume mark and is nowhere near complete. Mr. Chernow argues that this project has unearthed enough new material to warrant “a large-scale, one-volume, cradle-to-grave narrative” about Washington, despite the excellent work of biographers including Joseph J. Ellis and James T. Flexner and the reading public’s impression that the story of Washington’s life is already well known. [Read the full article...]

It is March 1972, and the Nixon White House wants Jack Anderson dead.

The syndicated columnist Jack Anderson, the most famous and feared investigative reporter in the nation, has exposed yet another of the President’s dirty secrets. Nixon’s operatives are ordered to “stop Anderson at all costs”—permanently. Across the street from the White House, they huddle in a hotel basement to conspire. Should they try “Aspirin Roulette” and break into Anderson’s home to plant a poisoned pill in one of his medicine bottles? Could they smear LSD on the journalist’s steering wheel, so that he would absorb it through his skin, lose control of his car, and crash? Or stage a routine-looking mugging, making Anderson appear to be one more fatal victim of Washington’s notorious street crime?

Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington’s Scandal Culture recounts not only the disturbing story of an unprecedented White House conspiracy to assassinate a journalist, but also the larger tale of the bitter quarter-century battle between the postwar era’s most embattled politician and its most reviled newsman. The struggle between Nixon and Anderson included bribery, blackmail, forgery, spying, and burglary as well as the White House murder plot. Their vendetta symbolized and accelerated the growing conflict between the government and the press, a clash that would long outlive both men.

Mark Feldstein traces the arc of this confrontation between a vindictive president and a flamboyant, crusading muckraker who rifled through garbage and swiped classified papers in pursuit of his prey—stoking the paranoia in Nixon that would ultimately lead to his ruin. The White House plot to poison Anderson, Feldstein argues, is a metaphor for the poisoned political atmosphere that would follow, and the toxic sensationalism that contaminates contemporary media discourse.

Melding history and biography, Poisoning the Press unearths significant new information from more than two hundred interviews and thousands of declassified documents and tapes. This is a chronicle of political intrigue and the true price of power for politicians and journalists alike. The result—Washington’s modern scandal culture—was Richard Nixon’s ultimate revenge.

Reviews

“The rise and fall of Jack Anderson is a newspaper story that needed to be told, as Mark Feldstein has done brilliantly. But there is an even more compelling saga tucked inside this book—Anderson versus President Richard Nixon. Feldstein has given us the disgraced Nixon at his best and worst, and in his own words—scatological, criminal, paranoid, and willing to do anything to rid himself of Anderson’s sensational reporting.” —Seymour Hersh, author ofChain of Command

“Mark Feldstein’s compelling reconstruction of the Richard Nixon-Jack Anderson conflict is a groundbreaking history of modern political skulduggery and media scandalmongering. There are no heroes in Feldstein’s book—only the ugly truth about two men who had a lasting impact on American politics and journalism. Poisoning the Press is required reading for anyone interested in the current world of Washington politics and media.” —Robert Dallek, author ofLyndon B. Johnson and An Unfinished Life

“Poisoning the Press is an important book. It couldn’t be more timely and deserves widespread readership . . . [There’s] masterful research and reporting rivetingly written . . . Besides that, it reads like a thriller. Pick it up and you’re not likely to be able to put it down.” —Dan Rather, host of Dan Rather Reports

“I lived through a lot of this while working for Jack Anderson and found it a fascinating and evenhanded account.” —Brit Hume, senior political analyst, FOX News

“When gutter politics are practiced, gutter journalism may be democracy’s last line of defense. In Poisoning the Press, Mark Feldstein eviscerates the two giants of those black arts, Richard Nixon and Jack Anderson . . . A superbly told, hilarious tale, which will also scare the hell out of you.”  —Morley Safer,60 Minutes correspondent

“Poisoning the Press is a stunning tale of political and journalistic dirty tricks. Mark Feldstein reveals how the news is often manufactured in the nation’s capital, and how Washington’s most feared investigative reporter exposed serious abuses of power even while he smeared his targets with sexual innuendo. More significant still, this enthralling account explains the larger story of how our modern era of political scandal was born.” —Michael Isikoff, national investigative correspondent, NBC News

“Mark Feldstein’s Poisoning the Press is a crucially important, brilliantly illuminating work of intense scholarship. As presented in these pages, the legendary feud between Richard Nixon and Jack Anderson reads like a potboiler. It’s essential reading for anybody interested in postwar America. A monumental achievement!” —Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History, Rice University, and author of The Wilderness Warrior

“Poisoning the Press is a fast-paced tour de force. Riveting and often eye-popping, Mark Feldstein’s revelations take us right into the Oval Office, where President Nixon plotted the destruction of his relentless nemesis, columnist Jack Anderson. Feldstein’s voluminous research doesn’t flinch from Anderson’s seamier side, but at his best, the muckraker held the powerful accountable through the kind of investigative journalism often missing in an era of disappearing newspapers and dwindling news budgets.” —Cokie Roberts, news analyst, ABC and NPR, and author of Ladies of Liberty.

The Supersnooper Pursuing the Paranoid Politician

New York Times, September 28, 2010

Heaping scorn on Jack Anderson (1922-2005), the muckraking syndicated newspaper columnist, became an art form among the politicians of the 1960s and ’70s.

Ronald Reagan, as governor of California, said that Anderson and the columnist Drew Pearson, his employer at the time, “shouldn’t be using a typewriter” but “a pencil on outbuilding walls.” (Pearson and Anderson had reported that some of Reagan’s staff members were gay.) J. Edgar Hoover called Anderson “a flea-ridden dog” who was “lower than the regurgitated filth of vultures.”

Nearly everything Richard Nixon said about Anderson — the pair were bitter 25-year antagonists — is unprintable here. But Anderson’s exposés about Nixon’s wrongdoing reduced the president’s special counsel, Charles Colson, to sputtering, as if someone had stuck a fork into his forehead, “Oh! Ach! Oh!” [Read the full article...]

A movie-tie-in edition of Ntozake Shange’s 1975 classic to coincide with the release of Tyler Perry’s new movie starring Oprah Winfrey.

“Passionate and lyrical…In poetry and prose Shange describes what it means to be a black woman in a world of mean streets, deceitful men, and aching loss.” —New York Newsday

“For colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf,” by Ntozake Shange, debuted on Broadway in 1976. In her introduction to the book version, the author describes the work as “a choreopoem” made up of individual poems that form “a single statement.” This work of literature is a powerful exploration of the lives of Black women.

“For colored girls…” does not have a conventional “plot” or characters. The parts of the choreopoem are performed by characters described as “lady in brown,” “lady in white,” etc. Together, these women talk about spirituality, violence, female sexuality, music, and the discovery of one’s heritage. One particularly moving part of the choreopoem is a tribute to Haitian leader Toussaint L’Ouverture.

“For colored girls…” is a stunning hybrid of poetry, drama, and feminist theology. It is both tragic and sensuous, with the healing power of ritual. The final scenes contain some of the most powerful words ever written for the theater. If you are interested in African-American literature, women’s studies, or 20th century drama, I recommend you read this work. – Michael J. Mazza, Amazon Customer Review

Ntozake Shane and Ifa Bayeza on ‘Some Sing, Some Cry’ and ‘For Colored Girls’

Washington Post, September 23, 2010

“Well, the book ain’t over,” says Ntozake Shange, who was 28 in 1976 when she became a literary and feminist icon for her work demanding that society pay attention to the struggles of black women.

And for those who thought Shange’s career as an artist had ended after a stroke six years ago left her unable to speak, walk or write — well, Shange now has an answer to that question, too.

Last week, Shange, 61, released a new novel that she has written with her sister, Ifa Bayeza, an award-winning playwright. ”Some Sing, Some Cry”chronicles the lives of seven generations of musically gifted black women — from slavery into the 21st century. On Nov. 5, a movie version of “For Colored Girls” is set to be released by director Tyler Perry.

The two sisters read from their book on a recent evening at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The audience was packed with many African American women who remembered “For Colored Girls” on Broadway and had been struck by the way in which the play explained so beautifully for a mainstream audience what they had long felt: that because they were neither male nor white, they had not been given the luxury of the benefit of the doubt.

“When I saw it for the first time in the 1970s, I felt empowered,” said Miriam Kearse, 47, of Silver Spring, who came to hear Shange. “I learned it was okay to vocalize not being okay. It was okay to feel bad to the point you are going to snap. It allowed me to be freer at expressing my emotions. I saw my mother’s generation putting up with stuff. I knew I did not have to.”

“Some Sing, Some Cry” blends stories, music and poetry in much the same way “For Colored Girls” did.

[Read the full article...]

“The most vivid characters in Danielle Evans’s story collection are in- betweeners: between girlhood and womanhood; between the black middle class and Ivy League privilege; between iffy boyfriends and those even less reliable; between an extended family and living on your own. To say they’re caught between worlds isn’t quite accurate, though; they tend to be hard-headed, sadder but wiser and, most of all, funny.”
-The New York Times

“This striking debut collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self offers rich slices of African-American life… [Evans's] stories are bolstered by memorable images… Evans’s book, meanwhile, carries a strong scent of freshness and promise.”
-Entertainment Weekly

“Lit’s new It Girl. Critics raved about Danielle Evans’s talent solely based on ‘Virgins’ her bold coming-of-age story…Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, her eagerly awaited first collection, proves them right. [Evans] will win you over with eight thoroughly modern, funny and tender stories.”
-Essence

“With polished short stories plumbing the intersection of adolescence, race, hormones, and emotional instability, the twentysomething Iowa-workshop graduate threatens to become the season’s hot young MFA discovery.”
-New York Magazine

“Danielle Evans’s considerable talents are in evidence on every page of this impressive debut. She finds her often surprising dramatic material in the unexpected asides of modern life, with results that are intense, intelligent, humane, and funny. I look forward to reading more.”
-Daniel Alarcon, author of Lost City Radio

“Evans’s knife-sharp wit and tender but unflinching eye create a range of characters who are entirely sympathetic, even as they tumble headlong into their own mistakes.”
-V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of Love Marriage

“Danielle Evans is funny as hell. Which only makes all the heartbreak in these stories more surprising and satisfying. The young women in this collection are always on the edge of real trouble but don’t be fooled, they’re the dangerous ones. Written with wonderful clarity and a novelist’s sense of scope, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self is a fabulous literary debut.”
-Victor LaValle, author of Big Machine

“Danielle Evans’s stories are fresh, arresting, real. The young women and men in them could be sitting across from you on the subway or strolling past you on a college campus. And the young woman who brings them to us is a writer to watch.”
-Martha Southgate, author of The Fall of Rome

“Quietly magnetic, Evans’s voice draws us into richly-charged worlds where innocence isn’t lost but escaped, and where pieces of the past reassemble in the present with the inevitable geometry of kaleidoscope glass. Delivered with a light touch that belies their maturity, these morally complex stories mark the arrival of a gifted new author.”
-Sana Krasikov, author of One More Year

“Armed with no easy answers but plenty of bad choices, the talented, too-smart- for-their-own-good protagonists are painfully aware of the consequences of their actions, even when they think they have no better choice. . . . The moral ambiguity of Evans’s achingly believable world finds its best expression in the devastating final story, ‘Robert E. Lee is Dead,’ in which the brainy black cheerleader, CeeCee, jeopardizes her own high-school graduation with a pointless act of vandalism. Although she is instigated by her closest friend Geena, whose future is less bright, CeeCee’s decision is her own. She shares this characteristic with the other survivors in this arresting book, along with the regret. A welcome new talent-with a funny and dark take on being black in America.”

‘Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self,’ stories by Danielle Evans

Washington Post, September 22, 2010

I hope Danielle Evans is a very nice person because that might be her only defense against other writers’ seething envy. At 26, this D.C.-area author has already graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, earned praise from Salman Rushdie and Richard Russo, and appeared in two (two!) volumes of “Best American Short Stories.” Now comes the publication of her first collection, “Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self,” eight quietly devastating stories that validate the hype. No, she’s not the America’s Next Top Model of the same name — that would just be too much — but she’s captivating in a far more profound way.

Lorrie Moore, one of the country’s finest short story writers, recently said that she considered the form inherently melancholy, and that’s an apt appraisal of Evans’s work, though her stories are flecked with humor, too. As an African American who grew up in Baileys Crossroads, she writes about black teenagers and college students — sometimes older, occasionally male — who live in a country still largely determined by race but tired of talking about it. The tensions of interracial dating are private now, and blacks work confidently as lawyers and professors, even as they search out black landlords who won’t hassle them. The civil rights protests of their grandparents’ era have settled into wry jokes and sarcastic realism.

That attitude energizes a rueful story called “Harvest” about a group of Columbia University students. These young black women see ads in the campus newspaper offering up to $15,000 for human eggs, but they know well-heeled couples don’t want their genetic material, no matter how high their SATs or how healthy their bodies. “Columbia credentials be damned,” says the narrator. “If they had wanted brown babies who so obviously didn’t belong to them, they would have just adopted.” Even as the story appears to glide along with no more direction than the flow of dorm-room gossip, it quickly develops into an unsettling reflection on the calculus of race, sex and commerce before arriving at a moment of compromise that’s as intimate as it is disturbing.

[Read the full article...]

Product Description

The curious story of the unlikely relationship between a champion boxer and a celebrated man of letters.

Gene Tunney, the world heavyweight-boxing champion from 1926 to 1928, seemed an unusual companion for George Bernard Shaw, but Shaw, a world-famous playwright, found the Irish-American athlete to be “among the very few for whom I have established a warm affection.” The Prizefighter and the Playwright chronicles the legendary — but rarely documented — relationship that formed between this celebrated odd couple.

From the beginning, it seemed a strange relationship, as Tunney was 40 years younger and the men could not have occupied more different worlds. Yet it is clear that these two famous men, comfortable on the world stage, longed for friendship when they were out of the celebrity spotlight. Full of surprises and revelations about Shaw and Tunney, this handsome book is also a fascinating look at their times.

Author Jay R. Tunney is the son of the famous fighter, and his book is a beautifully woven and often surprising biography of the two men. The book evolved from the acclaimed BBC radio program The Master and the Boy.

Fans of George Bernard Shaw will enjoy the little-known stories in this intensely personal account that includes never-before-published images from Tunney’s own family collection.

About the Author

Jay R. Tunney is vice president of the International Shaw Society and a member of the Governor’s International Advisory Council for the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. His articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine and other national publications.

Review

As a boxing historian, I have spent the past thirty years eagerly devouring every new boxing book I could get my hands. Over the past decade the emergence of the web has made access to information much easier. At the same time my own palate has become far more sophisticated. Standard biographies rarely interest me. Autobiographies or sociological portraits of men in their time and the impact on society have become far more interesting to me … Mr. Tunney’s book succeeds on both parts.

Gene Tunney was a complex and unique figure in the history of sport. He remains one of the most underrated and misunderstood of all champions. Jay Tunney manages to bring Gene to life as never before. After thirty years of reading about this man I feel I am finally learning who he was. His relationship with the brilliant Shaw opens us up to a whole world within an era ….

The work is a gem and highly recommended. – HE Grant, Amazon Customer Review

Brains, Brawn and an Unlikely Bond

New York Times, September 20, 2010

George Bernard Shaw was a man of many parts: playwright, socialist, eugenicist, vegetarian, fight fan.

He was so enamored of boxing that he wrote a novel about it, “Cashel Byron’s Profession,” and even took up the sport himself. In 1883 he entered the Queensberry amateur boxing championships in London as both a heavyweight and a middleweight, though there is no record that he actually fought any bouts. Pictures of Shaw, scrawny and pigeon-chested, suggest he might have been better off in the bantam division.

Shaw also formed an enduring friendship with, of all people, Gene Tunney, the world heavyweight champ, some 40 years younger. The two men regularly corresponded and exchanged visits and, together with their wives, even spent a monthlong holiday together in 1929, when Tunney, newly married to Polly Lauder, a Connecticut heiress, was hiding from the press in Brioni, the Adriatic resort.

This friendship, the subject of a new book, “The Prizefighter and the Playwright: Gene Tunney and Bernard Shaw,” by Tunney’s 74-year-old son, Jay, is not a secret, exactly. Shaw and Tunney were proud of their connection and took no pains to hide it. Contemporary sportswriters, who disapproved of Tunney’s bookishness, sometimes made fun of him for associating with such a pointy-head.

[Read the full article...]

Product Description

A revolution is underway in the art of cooking. Just as French Impressionists upended centuries of tradition, Modernist cuisine has in recent years blown through the boundaries of the culinary arts. Borrowing techniques from the laboratory, pioneering chefs at world-renowned restaurants such as elBulli, The Fat Duck, Alinea, and wd~50 have incorporated a deeper understanding of science and advances in cooking technology into their culinary art.

In Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet–scientists, inventors, and accomplished cooks in their own right–have created a six-volume, 2,400-page set that reveals science-inspired techniques for preparing food that ranges from the otherworldly to the sublime. The authors and their 20-person team at The Cooking Lab have achieved astounding new flavors and textures by using tools such as water baths, homogenizers, centrifuges, and ingredients such as hydrocolloids, emulsifiers, and enzymes. It is a work destined to reinvent cooking.

How do you make an omelet light and tender on the outside, but rich and creamy inside? Or French fries with a light and fluffy interior and a delicate, crisp crust that doesn’t go soggy? Imagine being able to encase a mussel in a gelled sphere of its own sweet and briny juice. Or to create a silky-smooth pistachio cream made from nothing more than the nuts themselves. Modernist Cuisine offers step-by-step, illustrated instructions, as well as clear explanations of how these techniques work. Through thousands of original photographs and diagrams, the lavishly illustrated books make the science and technology of the culinary arts clear and engaging. Stunning new photographic techniques take the reader inside the food to see cooking in action all the way from microscopic meat fibers to an entire Weber grill in cross-section. You will view cooking and eating in a whole new light. A sampling of what you’ll discover:

• Why plunging food in ice water doesn’t stop the cooking process
• When boiling cooks faster than steaming
• Why raising the grill doesn’t lower the heat
• How low-cost pots and pans can perform better than expensive ones
• Why baking is mostly a drying process
• Why deep-fried food tastes best and browns better when the oil is older
• How modern cooking techniques can achieve ideal results without the perfect timing or good luck that traditional methods demand

Many invaluable features include:

• Insights into the surprising science behind traditional food preparation methods such as grilling, smoking, and stir-frying
• The most comprehensive guide yet published on cooking sous vide, including the best options for water baths, packaging materials, and sealing equipment; cooking strategies; and troubleshooting tips
• More than 256 pages on meat and seafood and 130 pages on fruits, vegetables, and grains, including hundreds of parametric recipes and step-by-step techniques
• Extensive chapters explaining how to achieve amazing results by using modern thickeners, gels, emulsions, and foams, including example recipes and many formulas
• More than 300 pages of new recipes for plated dishes suitable for service at top-tier restaurants, plus recipes adapted from master chefs including Grant Achatz, Ferran Adrià , Heston Blumenthal, David Chang, Wylie Dufresne, David Kinch, and many others

From the professional chef to the home cook, Modernist Cuisine is an indispensable guide for anyone who is passionate about the art and science of cooking.

Review

“Modernist Cuisine is a landmark contribution to the craft of cooking and our understanding of its underlying principles. Its scale, detail, and eye-opening graphics are unmatched by any other book on the subject. It will be an invaluable resource for anyone with a serious interest in cooking techniques, whether the professional innovations of the last few decades or the long traditions on which they build.” –Harold McGee

“A breathtaking new benchmark in understanding cooking, Modernist Cuisine is destined to be as important a work for the 21st century as Escoffier’s Ma Cuisine was for the 20th century.” –David Kinch

“This book will change the way we understand the kitchen.” –Ferran Adrià

“The most important book in the culinary arts since Escoffier.” –Tim Zagat

“The cookbook to end all cookbooks.” –David Chang

“A fascinating overview of the techniques of modern gastronomy.” –Heston Blumenthal

“Amazing! Unparalleled in its breadth and depth.” –Wylie Dufresne

Gastronomes Await ‘Modernist Cuisine’

New York Times, September 21, 2010

The wait for the 30-hour cheeseburger just got a little longer. The dish, which takes more than a day to prepare, calls for a short-rib patty to be slow-cooked in a vacuum pack, then dunked in liquid nitrogen before it is deep fried. It is among more than a thousand recipes in “Modernist Cuisine,” a cookbook whose publishing delay, announced on Sept. 15, set off a collective sigh among gastronomes.

roofreading and packaging concerns pushed back the release of Nathan Myhrvold’s six-volume, 2,400-page, $625 book from December to March. But that merely sweetened the anticipation among chefs and the type of home cooks unafraid to make almond cream with a homogenizer.

Dr. Myhrvold is a former chief technology officer for Microsoft who had his first Ph.D. at age 22 and later studied quantum theories of gravity with the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. “Modernist Cuisine” grew out of Dr. Myhrvold’s passion for science and food; he trained as a chef at LaVarenne in Burgundy, France.

He has spent three years in a laboratory in Bellevue, Wash., testing and adapting the increasingly complex cooking techniques emerging at restaurants like El Bulli, the Fat Duck and WD-50. Where other cookbook writers use whisks and graters, Dr. Myhrvold, who amassed hundreds of millions of dollars at Microsoft, wields vacuum sealers, colloid mills and rotary evaporators, and ingredients like agar and methylcellulose.

[Read the full article...]

Product Description

The eagerly awaited new book from the Emmy-winning, Oscar-hosting, Daily Show-anchoring Jon Stewart–the man behind the megaseller America (The Book).

Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? These questions have puzzled us since the dawn of time, but when it became apparent to Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show that the world was about to end, they embarked on a massive mission to write a book that summed up the human race: What we looked like; what we accomplished; our achievements in society, government, religion, science and culture — all in a tome of approximately 256 pages with lots of color photos, graphs and charts.

After two weeks of hard work, they had their book. EARTH (The Book) is the definitive guide to our species. With their trademark wit, irreverence, and intelligence, Stewart and his team will posthumously answer all of life’s most hard-hitting questions, completely unburdened by objectivity, journalistic integrity, or even accuracy.

About the Author

Jon Stewart was born in New York and lives with his wife and children in New York City.

No. 1 Planet for Alien Tourists

New York Times, September 15, 2010

“Earth (The Book)” is a mock textbook by writers for “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” — or “the authors of the popular television program ‘The John Daly Show’ ,” as they put it in a fake Wikipedia blurb on the book’s back cover. It is conceived as a handy guide for extraterrestrials who arrive on this planet after humanity has become extinct, in case those extraterrestrials want to know what they’re missing. It explains everyday details about how we live(d), from our use of the fork (“a way to hurt food one last time before eating it”) to our wearing of pants. “We put these on one leg at a time,” it says. “You may require a different approach.”

“Earth” adopts a faux-scientific tone to explain the planet, its life forms and their quantifiable characteristics. Like the “Daily Show” this parody delivers wittily framed absurdities in a sweetly deadpan way. So there are statistics. (“Length of day (in days) …… 1.”) There are charts. (Time We Were Willing to Wait for a Baked Potato: from 8 hours in 1900 to 1 second in 2010. Lifetime Food Consumption of First Slices of Wedding Cake: 2.1.)

There is a handsomely illustrated Periodic Table of the Synthetic that includes such elements as Wo (Wite-out), G (Gummi), Jq (Je ne sais quoi), DD (Silicone) and Li (Listerine). And there is a set of F.A.Q.’s (“Future Alien Questions”) for each topic covered here. [Read the full article...]

So you got a book event, great! Now you want to maximize it, right? You’ve heard your writing buddies talk (or perhaps read online) about the lack of attendance at signings, so figuring out how to maximize the event, regardless of the numbers might be tricky. While I spend a lot of time addressing online marketing, the offline component is one you shouldn’t overlook. If book events are where you want to focus, then bringing in some ideas to help you sell more books is something you should consider.

Some years back when I was promoting The Cliffhanger I ended up at a book signing in the driving rain, I mean it was pouring and the store was all but empty. It was amazing I sold even one book, let alone seven. While not a big number, the copies were all sold to people who were seeking refuge in the store from the rain and not there for my event. This signing taught me a lot about events and connecting with consumers in stores. If you have an event coming up, consider these ideas before you head out:

1. Marketing: First and foremost is the marketing of your event. But I’m not talking about the marketing you do in the media (though that is great too) I’m speaking of in-store marketing; this is what most folks seem to overlook. This is where you supply things to the store to help them market your event. Because the first phase of a successful event is driving people to it. Here are a few thoughts.

a. Do bag stuffers. You can easily do this in your favorite computer program, do two up on a page, meaning that you use one 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper to do two fliers. You’ll want to ask the store first if they mind that you provide this, most stores or event venues don’t.

b. Bookmarks: while most in the industry see these as passé, people still love them. You can do bookmarks and bag stuffers (or staple them to the flier) or you can do custom bookmarks with the date and time of your event. Nowadays it’s pretty easy to get these done cheaply. Keep in mind that if you are having the event in a mall or other type of shopping area, you might be able to drop the bookmarks (or bag stuffers) off at the nearby stores to see if they’ll help promote the event.

2. Book signings are boring: Regardless of where you do the event, plan to do a talk instead of a signing. People are drawn into a discussion and are often turned off by an author just sitting at a table. Marketing is about message and movement so stand up and speak. If speaking in public is intimidating to you, go to Toastmasters or some other local networking/speaking group and see what you can learn.

3. Unique places: If you want to get more attention for your event, consider doing events in unique places. We’ve done them in video stores, electronics stores, gyms, even restaurants (on slow nights); doing outside-the-bookstore events is a great way to gain more interest for your talk. Why? Because you aren’t competing with everyone else at the bookstore for your crowd. When you do an event at a locale that doesn’t normally do events, you’ll attract more people just because it’s considered “unique.”

4. Show up early and talk it up: OK, so let’s say you’re in the store and there are a ton of people in there shopping (a book event dream, yes?), I suggest that you take your extra bag stuffers or custom bookmarks and just hand them to the people in the store. Let them know you are doing an event at such and such time and you’d love it if they can sit in. You’ll be surprised how many new people you might pull in this way.

5. Customize: Regardless of what your talk is about, poll the audience first to see a) what brought them there, or b) what they hope to learn if your talk is educational. I suggest this because the more you can customize your discussion, the more likely you are to sell a book. If you can solve problems (and this is often done during the Q&A) all the better. You’ll look like the answer machine you are and readers love that. If you have the answers, they’ll want to buy from you. I promise.

6. Make friends: Get to know the bookstore people, but not just on the day of the event. Go in prior and make friends, tell them who you are and maybe even hand them your flier or bookmark (or a stack if you can). Often stores have Information Centers, see if you can leave some fliers there instead of just at the register. Getting to know the people who are selling the book is a great way to help gather more people into your event. If your event isn’t in a bookstore but attached to a shopping area or mall, go around to the stores (and perhaps you did this when you passed out the fliers) and let them know you have an event and ask what you can do to help them promote it. If you can rally the troops to help you market your talk, you could triple the numbers of people at your event. No kidding.

7. Take names: I always, always recommend that you get names and (email) addresses from the folks who attended. Signing them up for your mailing list is a great way to keep in touch with them and stay on your reader’s radar screen. If you have a giveaway or drawing, great! This will help you to collect names. If you don’t, offer them a freebie or e-book after the event. Often if I’m doing a PowerPoint presentation I will put together a set of them (delivered in PDF) after the event. Attendees need to sign up to get them and then once they do, I include them in our newsletter list, which helps me to stay on their radar screen.

8. Pricing: Make sure your book is easy to buy. If you are doing this outside of a bookstore this is easy to do and will help your sales. I find that a rounded number like $10 or $20 makes for a quick and easy sale. If you can round up or down without adding or losing too much to the price, by all means do it.

9. Book pairing: One way you might be able to round up is by pairing your book with a freebie. When I paired Red Hot Internet Publicity with a second, but smaller, marketing book I took the awkward pricing of $18.95, bumped it up to $20 (so 2 books for $20) and quadrupled my sales after an event. Now the pairing doesn’t have to be a book, it can be a special report or even an e-book that you send to them after the event.

10. Product and placement: As you’re doing your talk (especially if it’s in a non-bookstore venue) make sure that you have a copy of the book propped up in front of you so event visitors see it the entire time you are speaking. Hold up the book when appropriate and use it as an example when you can. This will help to direct the consumer’s eye to the book – and making eye contact with the product is a good way to make sure it stays on their radar screen throughout your talk. When I do a speaking gig at an event that allows me to sell books in the room, I will sell four times more than I would if the attendees have to go somewhere else to buy it, so make the buy easy. If you can, make sure your books are for sale in the room.

11. Ease of purchase: Aside from pricing, if you’re doing your own checkout make sure that you have many ways consumers can buy your book. I take credit cards at the event, checks and cash. Don’t limit yourself as to what you can take or you will limit your sales.

12. Post event wrap-up: So the event is over, what now? Well, if you got attendees to sign up for your newsletter (you did do that, right?) now it’s time to send a thank you note for attending and remind them (if they missed the chance at the event) to buy a copy of your book at the “special event price.”

Speaking and book events are great ways to build your platform, but if you aren’t selling books there’s little point in doing them. For many of us, our book is our business card and thus, if we can sell our “business card” we can keep consumers in our funnel. If your book isn’t your business card you still want readers, right? The marketing before, during and after an event is crucial to building your readership. While it’s easy to say that events sell books, they often don’t. I find that if you don’t “work it” you often will find your time wasted. Seek the opportunities when they are made available to you – and then maximize them when they are, you’ll be glad you did!

Featured Article: From Blog to Book

In the past few months, I’ve come in contact with numerous bloggers who are ready to take their work from blog to book. Maybe it’s the influence of movies like Julie and Julia, it’s hard to tell, but suffice it to say the idea of selling your blog to a publisher is very appealing to a good many bloggers. But what does it really take to get your blog noticed? Here are some tips if you’re trying to raise the bar on your blog and get it noticed by a publisher:

Ironically, many of the rules of good blogging apply to this article and the first is: Blog often. If you’re a serious blogger you are likely posting daily, if you’re not, then you probably don’t have much to say. If you want to get your blog noticed, you need to be blogging daily. Why? Because it’ll not only help you look massively articulate, but it’ll really help with your traffic and search ranking, and let’s face it: If no one is finding you, how do you expect a publisher to discover your work?

Write great blog posts: OK, I know this is probably another “duh” tip, but here’s the deal: if you’re blogging every day you need to keep your writing strong. Not all your blog posts will be worthy of front page news, but your writing must remain consistently good and your blog posts should be unique, helpful, enlightening, or whatever your goal for the blog is.

Be consistent in your message: in other words, don’t change horses mid-race. If you start a blog on, let’s say, dogs, don’t start talking about guinea pigs three posts into it. You’ll have a boatload of dog people going “huh?” Keep it topical and on message always.

Educate yourself in publishing: if you’re going to compete in this market (meaning publishing) you’re going to want to get to know the industry. Go to (writers) conferences, read some of the trade publications (like Publishers Weekly) and dig into this market. If you find that what you’re blogging on is super-hot, you might want to ramp up the promotion of your blog.

See who’s buying what: there’s a site I highly recommend called publishersmarketplace.com. You can register there for either their free or paid Publishers Lunch newsletter, and with that you’ll also get Lunch Weekly, which shows you who is signing and what they’re buying. If you get a membership on the site you can also dig in and find Editors and Agents that might be interested in your topic.

Tell people you have a blog: do you have a signature file on your email? If you don’t you should, this is the first and one of the best places to promote a blog. Second, get business cards and make sure your blog address is listed there.

Get a unique URL: if you’re going to be a serious blogger get a serious domain name. Yes, you can get sallyauthor.blogspot.com but that’s not your own property. Meaning that Google still owns this. If you’re going to be a real blogger, do you really want someone else owning your blog? I don’t think so. Buy a domain name and make sure your blog is hosted there.

Brand yourself: when you’re ready and you have the budget, find someone who can turn your blog into a custom site. They’re great and super easy to do (read: not that expensive) and make a fantastic first impression.

Do some social networking on blogs: get to know your space, meaning get to know who else is doing what you’re doing and make friends. Unless you’re sitting on the most original idea on the planet, I don’t believe in competition. Get to know who else is out there and start commenting on their blog posts so they know you. There’s a great way to discover the top people in your market. Go to a blog search site like Google blog search, type in your keyword and start following the top five bloggers in your market. See what they do, learn from the pros and then thank them for their knowledge by posting helpful comments on their blog (bloggers love comments, by the way). I have a whole article on social networking on blogs that you can read here: http://amarketingexpert.com/ameblog/marketing/social-networking-on-blogs/. Many of the tips will be helpful to you as you continue to cyber-schmooze online.

Market your blog: now that you have a unique URL and branding, you’re going to want to start marketing it. You can do this by getting a Twitter page and feeding your blog through your account (you can use Twitterfeed.com to do this). You should also consider getting a Facebook Fanpage (again branded to your blog) and feed your blog through that as well. Why do you want to do this? Well, it’s important to get as many access points as possible, right? Social networking sites are feeder sites. Use the content on these sites to help you dig deeper into your markets and gather new readers for your blog.

Make your blog shareable: Make sure that folks can share your blog posts to sites like Twitter, Facebook, and all the social bookmarking sites. It’s an easy widget to add and most blogs come with this pre-installed.

Social bookmarking: it’s good to social bookmark all your posts. Yes, and I do mean all of them. You should bookmark on the major sites like Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, and Social Poster. You can add more to this list but those are the majors.

Keep good track of your stats: this is another reason why you want to have your own site: so you can keep track of your traffic, which you can’t do if someone else owns your domain. You’ll want to keep a close eye on your blog traffic and learn how to read the site analytics (which is a lot easier than it sounds).

Reprinted from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com

Looking at the title of this post, it is okay to ask, “What?” Well, the title is based on tip #55 of Brian Jud’s disturbingly useless book, Get Your Word’s Worth: 555 Tips for Improving Your Book Promotion. Tip #55 states, “Enhance the perception of greater frequency by creating a common look and theme for all communications devices.” While I believe I do understand what the author is trying to convey, I am shocked by the fact that someone in their right mind actually takes the time to come up with further 554 comments of the same moronic nature and the same descriptive value of your daily horoscope.

Let me just take a short mental detour and explain how I got to own a copy of this absurd work. And for the record, please excuse my “colorful” language. After re-reading this post I noticed my negative attitude. Nevertheless, I stand to what I publish here on my blog. I am just a regular guy whose blood broils when I smell a foul deal.

555 Tips For Improving Your Book Promotion

Every now and then I indulge myself with a trip into the bizarre world of writing and publishing by browsing the Internet and looking for websites related to the topic. A great number of these websites dedicated to the publishing industry try to create some income by posting Google ads, and, naturally, the ads offered point to other publishing services – just have a look at this very post.

The vast majority of these ads, however, are sponsored by the sharks in the publishing business, preying on the unsuspecting, aspiring writer, who is desperately looking for a chance to get published. One of these sharks is BookSurge.com, a company owned by Amazon.com. While I do applaud Amazon.com for their business sense, I do not approve of the ruthless methods they use to trick potential new clients into submitting their e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

So, I did click on the Google ad sponsored by BookSurge, and thus creating some small income for one of my favorite websites, DailyWritingTips.com. I was just curious what BookSurge had to offer. The hyperlink directed my browser to a dedicated web page that offered a free copy of Brian Jud’s eBook. I am not afraid to submit my e-mail address (it’s spam protected) or my phone number (it’s the phone in my small office at home, and I’m hardly there during day hours). I am sure they will call eventually and leave a message. They also ask for details of your current literature project, and I wrote I was in the process of writing a novel about a young woman who interacts with vampires and werewolves (my wife insisted on watching the New Moon DVD with me).

My expectations weren’t very high when I opened the eBook and, still, I was shocked by the moronic blabbering in the book. This is yet another prime example of a compelling, but grossly misleading title. It also indicates to me that Brian Jud is a very clever, but ruthless business man. Brian Jud is selling an expertise that is solely based on plain and simple bull-shitting. At the end of the book (tip #555) he points to his website at bookmarketing.com. Yes, I did check the site out, and it screams BS! You recognize a scammer’s web site by a few characteristics, the unattractive style, the large blue and red fonts on a white background, and the unusual long pages. Add to this some – nothing short of orgasmic – testimonies by people whose name are presented like you should know them. “I read Brian Jud’s book, and I sold 200,000 books this last month.” (Sorry, I made this up; it’s fairly easy.)

I am sure Brian Jud makes a comfortable income selling his useless books. As I always point out, there is nothing wrong about making a good profit, but it should be done with dignity and integrity. Brian Jud lives by the principle of what is right is not as important than what is profitable.

Product Description

Get massive exposure for your book, no special computer skills needed — trade published or self published, fiction or nonfiction

Discover why authors fail with paid advertising, pay-per-click, fee-based reviews, and “bestseller” campaigns

Blog to connect with readers, driving them to Amazon and bookstores

Boost your visibility with Google, use MySpace for viral marketing

Ignite word of mouth with Web social networks

Capitalize on peer content and “amateur” book reviews

Here’s what the experts say about this book:

“A wealth of ideas for making your book stand out, including many techniques for Internet buzz you won’t find elsewhere.”

– Jane Corn, Amazon.com Top Reviewer

“I spent two years building up skills to market my books Earthcore and Ancestor online, and I can tell you right now that Plug Your Book would have saved me MONTHS of time. I bought this book just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, but it blew me away.”

– Scott Sigler, # 1 bestselling author

“An amazingly rich collection of cutting-edge promotional tactics and strategies. Makes most other books about online publicity look sickly.”

– Aaron Shepard, author: Aiming at Amazon

“…The one book every author needs to read. I don’t care if you’re writing a computer book, a science fiction novel or the next great self-help guide, you need to get copy of Steve Weber’s Plug Your Book!”

- Joe Wikert, executive publisher, John Wiley & Sons “Practical, pragmatic, low-cost ideas for promoting the heck out of your own book, whether it’s fiction, nonfiction, technical, business or anything else.”

– Dave Taylor, author: ‘Growing Your Business with Google’

“I’ve worked with most of America’s largest book publishers, helping many of them build online marketing departments. I’ve worked for authors too. Plug Your Book is the new training manual.”

– Steve O’Keefe, author: ‘Publicity on the Internet’

“…Plug Your Book reveals the most effective and least expensive tools to promote your titles and to increase your exposure. It’s the best book on online marketing I have ever read, and I read quite a few in the course of my consulting practice with small presses.”

– Marion Gropen, president, Gropen Associates

Here’s what’s inside the book:

… Taking control of your book sales; Electric word of mouth; Amazon’s `long tail;’ Personalized bookstores; Book recommendation effectiveness

… Amazon Bestseller Campaigns; How Bestseller Campaigns work; Haywired recommendations

… Amateur book reviews; Credibility through peers; Amazon Top Reviewers; Negative reviews; Posting trade reviews on Amazon; Fee-based book reviews

… Building your author Web site; A survey of author Web sites; Your online press kit; Multimedia for books; Podcasting for publicity; When to launch your site

… Blogging for authors; Connecting with readers; Blog comments: pros and cons; Blogging categories; Over the long haul; Blog-to-e-mail service

… Social networking; MySpace: Not just for kids; Facebook; Create your own group; Other places on MySpace; More social-networking sites

… Tag – You’re it!; Personal book tagging; Amazon tags; Amazon Media Library; LibraryThing; Tag-based marketing

… Advanced Amazon tools; Buy X, Get Y; Free paired placement; Single New Product e-mails; Amazon Connect; Listmania; So You’d Like to . . . guides; Search Inside the Book; Statistically Improbable Phrases; Writing book reviews; Amapedia; Customer discussions; BookSurge; Your Amazon profile

My Take

Well, when you read all of the above raving comments… let me say, you are not being misled. What I like about Steve Weber’s approach is the honesty and lack of nonsense. His evaluation of the topic in combination with really helpful tips and recommendations are nothing short of refreshing. This book is a must for any author  and self-publisher. I personally have spent a great deal of time researching marketing strategies for my books, but I still learned a lot from Steve Weber’s book.

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Imperator

The Life of Gaius Julius Caesar

A Novel by Philip Katz

“Imperator – The Life of Gaius Julius Caesar” by Philip Katz is a fictional recreation of the life of the greatest of all Romans, Gaius Julius Caesar. It is a personal memoir, the inside story of his world as viewed through his eyes, written in the first person, suppressed by Caesar’s successors, only to be rediscovered in modern times. [More...]

Available in all good bookstores and Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and more.

Product Description

A research fellow in history at De Montfort University Leicester (U.K.), Cronin offers synopsis with little insight in this overview of Irish history. Starting with ancient Gaelic Ireland, he quickly moves on to the introduction of Christianity, the Viking and Norman-Anglo invasions, and the effects on the Protestant Reformation. With Cromwell’s invasion in the mid-17th century came the redistribution of land from the Catholics to the Protestants. This is the strong point of the book, as Cronin compacts convoluted Irish history into a comprehensive, readable form. He then briefly covers the 1798 Rebellion, Catholic emancipation under Daniel O’Connell and the great famine of the 1840s, all of which set the stage for the Fenian rebellion of 1867. The Fenians, though unsuccessful, would leave their imprint on Parnell and his Land League. Cronin paints a concise, albeit limited, picture of the events of 1914 through 1923. His portrait of John Redmond, the head of the Irish delegation at Westminster, is telling of the man and his political philosophy. Redmond, who warmly embraced Britain’s entrance into WWI, found himself isolated from his own constituents in the aftermath of the 1916 Rebellion. But the author’s sketchy and incomplete analysis of post-Civil War Ireland and some of his questionable judgments of important figures will leave some readers baffled. He praises the government of William T. Cosgrave (1922-1932) for his post-revolution adaptation of the in-place British systems in many respects returning Ireland to the status quo ante. He also praises Eamon DeValera, whose ascension to power is often viewed as hypocritical, because he renounced everything for which he had fought the Civil War. Cronin’s assessment of the Good Friday Agreement is inadequate: only once does he mention President Clinton, who played the seminal role in brokering the accord. Unfortunately, Cronin sacrifices depth for the sake of brevity; his superficial rendering would best serve as a primer for those who are new to Irish history.

Review

I have to say, I do not agree with the above product description (Amazon.com). The author did a great job of condensing the events of the tumultuous Irish history into less than 300 pages. Any complaint that one particular detail had not been explained to the full extend is simply ridiculous. This book is for everyone looking for a concise, yet very readable description of Irish history. During my intense research for my novel The Bleeding Hills I have been reading extensively, and one of the very few books I can whole-hertedly recommend is A History Of Ireland by Mike Cronin. Reading this book is highly recommended! I like that it is, compared to many other works on Ireland, actually readable and entertaining. If you need a relatively quick overview on the history of Ireland (the tile of the book doesn’t lie!) this is the one I recommend.

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Queen of Misfortune

A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll

Now Available As Paperback And Kindle Edition!

Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same ‘stranger’ who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16^th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]

Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.