Book News and New Book Reviews
Just a sampling of our new materials (right side)!
by Kevin Dutton (Get the Book)
Many of us harbor an inner psychopath-and perhaps those who don't, should, says Dutton (Split-Second Persuasion), a Cambridge University research psychologist. Through a series of studies and anecdotes, he demonstrates how for every psychopathic stigma there is a comparably compelling virtue: psychopaths often have a greater capacity for focusing, creativity, and even empathy and altruism. All of this information challenges the idea that psychopaths dwell exclusively at society's outskirts; indeed, Dutton finds psychopathic tendencies in everyone from saints to Secret Service agents to the fictional hero James Bond. Dutton is admirably capable of rendering complicated research into readable and engaging prose. Yet there are times when his repeated use of studies-most conducted in a university or laboratory setting-detracts from his broader analysis of psychopaths within our society. And Dutton's definition of "psychopath" is a little too malleable, often used to refer to a collection of personality traits as opposed to a devastating disorder. We may all possess the potential for the pathology, but our psychopathic paths to success-however fascinating-are still unclear. --Publishers Weekly
by Jennifer Close (Get the Book)
Isabella, Mary, and Lauren are quickly realizing that the postcollege years aren't a parade of guaranteed, life-altering changes. Invited to a dizzying array of bachelorette parties, weddings, and showers both baby and bridal, the three get the sense that the adult world only applies to their acquaintances. After seeing each other through disastrous blind dates, unfulfilling career choices, and tense family holidays, they comfort themselves with the small victories of singledom. Girls in White Dresses is genuinely empathic, and Close brings a tender sense of humor to each of the episodic chapters. With a voice similar to those of Melissa Banks and Cindy Guidry, Close's novel expresses the perfect blend of midtwenties angst, collegiate nostalgia, and plentiful laughter. With different chapters narrated by each protagonist and some of their close friends, the novel is richly satisfying. Anyone who has attended a bridal shower while incredibly hungover, rolled her eyes at another gift-wrapped Onesie, or heard the phrase It's MY day too often to count will love this touching portrait of female friendship. --Booklist
by Peter A. Galuszja. (Get the Book)
The 2010 tragedy at the Upper Big Branch Mine resonated nationwide and has resulted in a great deal of soul-searching among Americans over the price paid for our dependence on Big Coal. Galuszka, who grew up in coal country and has written extensively on the subject, peers deeply into the corporate culture at Massey Energy and the permissive local and national politics behind their flagrant safety-rule violations. While the in-depth profile of Massey and former CEO Don Blankenship are interesting enough, Galuszka strays far beyond the expected accident narrative and into the economics of those who call Central Appalachia home, noting that, contrary to popular belief, only 2 percent of direct employment there is related to mining. He discusses the targeted destruction of unions by Massey and the coal industry's successful century-long suppression of the area's middle class, which has relegated the region to devastating generational poverty. Beyond the mining catastrophe at its core, this is a book about working America and how one industry has conquered a landscape's body and soul. Bracing, powerful, and pertinent, this is a timely and clarion call for myth-busting change. --Booklist
by Jami Alternberg (Get the Book)
The Middlesteins, a Jewish family of strong temperaments and large dysfunctions, living in the middle of the country in Chicago and its suburbs, revolve around Edie, a woman of gargantuan appetites. Attenberg (The Melting Season, 2010) marshals her gift for mordant yet compassionate comedy to chart Edie's rise and fall in sync with her ever-ballooning weight. Smart, generous, and voracious in every way, Edie is a lawyer who loves food and work more than her pharmacist husband. Her daughter, Robin, a private-school history teacher, is anxious and reclusive. Edie's even-keeled, pot-smoking son, Benny, is married to Edie's opposite, petite and disciplined Rachelle, an ambitious stay-at-home mother of twins. After Edie loses her job and rolls past the 300-pound mark, she becomes a medical crisis waiting to happen. Finally galvanized into action, her in-denial family is both helpful and destructive, each effort and failure revealing yet another dimension of inherited suffering. A flawless omnicient narrator, Attenberg even illuminates the life of the man who owns foodaholic Edie's favorite Chinese restaurant while executing perfect flashbacks and flash-forwards and subtly salting this irresistible family portrait with piquant social commentary. Kinetic with hilarity and anguish, romance and fury, Attenberg's rapidly consumed yet nourishing novel anatomizes our insatiable hunger for love, meaning, and hope. --Booklist
by Peter Popham (Get the Book)
The history of Burma since World War II has been nothing but chaotic, with uprisings, endemic social unrest, economic disasters, rebellions among tribal groups, and iron-fisted military rule. The military junta, moreover, carefully controls access to information for both the domestic and the foreign press, and travel in and out of Burma is very limited. Repression is severe and civil rights for dissidents minimal. Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Aung San, the first of Burma's democratic leaders after the war, has for three decades been trying to change all that. Her story is one of heroic and purposeful resistance, strength of character, prudence in her statements, and care about the welfare of her followers and Burma's people. Popham (foreign correspondent, Independent; Tokyo: The City at the End of the World) has written a dense and highly detailed book, as much a history of modern Burma as it is a biography of Suu Kyi. VERDICT Although there is almost too much information to absorb and almost too many disparate political and social "players" to keep track of, readers interested in modern Asian history and current events will find this book well worth reading. --Library Journal
by Robon Sloan (Get the Book)
When Clay Jannon, a jobless website designer, applies to work the night shift at Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, he must promise not to open any of the volumes shelved in the dimly lit, way-back stacks that stretch to the ceiling. These titles are only for members of a book club, who arrive periodically in the wee, small hours to trade one obscure manuscript for another. But it doesn't take long before boredom and curiosity gets the better of Clay. Between occasional customers, he designs a 3-D virtual replica of the store on his laptop and discovers a pattern to the borrowing and more questions than answers when he finally cracks one of the dusty tomes. Sloan has crafted a delightful modern-day fantasy adventure, replacing warriors, wizards, and rogues with a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, a Googler, and a book clerk. Even nongeeks will appreciate the technological wizardry used by Clay and his sidekicks as they jet from San Francisco to New York in an attempt to unlock the secret message encrypted in a mysterious pattern of codes. --Booklist
by Mike Rose (Get the Book)
At a time when more and more are flocking back to the hallowed halls of the university in search of re-training and more substantial resumes, famed educator and professor Rose (Possible Lives) rethinks the role of college in American social and political life, proffering moving arguments for higher education reform. As enrollment rosters grow longer, government funding becomes harder to come by, and in keeping with the effects of the ongoing recession, it's the have-nots that are being hit the hardest. Rose himself was a rebellious student who was given, years ago, a second chance by a dedicated teacher, and he packs his newest with similarly triumphant case studies of pupils who made good-as he writes in the preface, "This is a book about people in tough circumstances who find their way." While telling these individuals' stories, Rose explores highly practical areas for improvement in higher ed., such as orientation programs, occupational schools, physical campus layouts, and pedagogical training for new teachers. Those working in secondary education would be remiss to ignore these crucial lessons. --Publishers Weekly
by Tarun J. Tejpal (Get the Book)
Tejpal's masterful newest (after The Valley of Masks) is an epic tale of modern-day India and its labyrinthine social and political machinations. Superficially, it's the story of an unnamed muckraking journalist, embroiled in an affair, who learns of an assassination attempt on his life. As he investigates his would-be murderers' motives, the stories of the five young men hired to kill him come to light; meanwhile, the author exposes the internecine workings of the Indian judicial system and deftly makes heroes of the disparate bunch of hit men, despite the trouble left in their respective wakes. While the narrator is an engaging focal character, the book works on many levels: it is a sweeping indictment of government bureaucracy, a revelation of the layered consequences of revenge, an expose of the stunning violence visited upon victims of circumstance, and a brazen censure of how technology has quashed imagination-it is also a philosophical treatise on how to live one's life to the fullest, ending with an ironic shift that will find the journalist owing his life to what he once scorned. --Library Journal
by Jon Katz (Get the Book)
Border collies, Boston terriers, pit bulls, and mutts Katz has them all and more in his first collection of stories. Told from an owner's viewpoint or occasionally that of a beloved pet, each is a unique look at life with the animals we love. A woman trains her corgis to dance, a man turns to his pup after the loss of his wife, and a commuter rescues a dog from an abusive home. Dog lovers especially will identify with the realistic characters living in broad varieties of lifestyles and situations, including the store clerk who takes her dog to work with her, the rich doctor who must find a solution to her dog's misbehavior, and the single young woman whose dog must first approve of any potential suitors. What these narratives lack in suspense and depth they make up for tenfold in charm. Katz's stories, sometimes warm and sometimes funny, are smooth, light reads that are easy to pick up and enjoy and will appeal to dog lovers everywhere. --Booklist
by Nelson DeMille (Get the Book)
Former NYPD Anti-Terrorist Task Force agent John Corey (The Lion) is back, with all his wit and cynicism intact. With one major terrorist capture under his belt, he is now under pressure to apprehend the Panther, the al-Qaeda mastermind behind the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. Corey and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, travel to Yemen on one of the most dangerous assignments of their careers. What awaits them is a country in turmoil, where every road holds the threat of a suicide bomber or terrorist attack. To make matters worse, no person is above suspicion, including the agents already in place to assist them. The excitement and suspense grow as Corey and his wife get closer to the al-Qaeda camp where the Panther may be hiding. Verdict Despite the hefty 600-plus-page length, which might intimidate some readers, DeMille's latest novel takes us on a nail-biting thrill ride to rival the other titles in this series. The dead-pan humor does grow a little tiresome when every conversation seems to be another opportunity for Corey to insert a sarcastic comment, but for fans, Corey's wit is one of his most beloved characteristics. Die-hard fans and new readers will discover hours of entertainment here. --Library Journal
by Janine Driver (Get the Book)
A lie detection expert for the FBI, CIA, and ATF shares the tricks of the trade in this helpful, easy-to-digest guide to spotting deception in our daily lives. Driver (You Say More Then You Think), who maintains that "the truth can be found in the details," shares a five-step plan to get to the truth behind the lie: "We're not looking for the lie; we're looking for the truth." She explains the importance of establishing a baseline for a potential fibber's normal behavior and manner of speaking and build rapport with him or her before examining verbal indicators, facial expression, and body language that may point to deceit. Driver's lessons are clearly illustrated with examples that range from public scenarios (such as Brad and Angelina's body language while at a film screening when he was still with Jennifer Aniston or Tiger Woods's press conference after he was caught cheating on his wife) to people we meet in daily life, such as car salesmen and pickup artists, and personal anecdotes from Driver's students (who claim the program has changed their lives). Visual and verbal "homework" and self-tests aim to sharpen readers' deception-detection skills. Though involving a lot of work, Driver's formula is well explained and promises powerful results. --Publishers Weekly
by T. Coraghessan Boyle (Get the Book)
This novel is based on the true stories of three women from two families who raised sheep on windswept San Miguel, one of California's Channel Islands. (Boyle's When the Killing's Done, 2011, was set on nearby Anacapa and Santa Cruz.) Tuberculosis sufferer Marantha Waters arrives in 1888, hoping for a cure but finding that her domineering husband, a Civil War veteran, is more concerned with profit; daughter Edith tries repeatedly to escape to San Francisco. The Lester family fares better. Elsie and Herbie take over the operation in the 1930s and find bliss; the story of the Swiss Family Lester captivates the nation. Still, Herbie's depression he's a veteran of WWI shadows their happiness. As ever, Boyle's prose is vivid and precise, and he imbues his subjects with wonderful complexity. The perils and pleasures of island living, the limits to natural resources, and the echoes of war all provide ample grist for his mill. Wired-in readers will find food for thought as the Lesters' solitude is broadcast to and invaded by a hungry nation. An episodic structure slows the momentum slightly, but it's a richly rewarding read nonetheless. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A critical favorite with loyal fans, Boyle found wider success with The Women (2009); expect major media coverage and crowds at his tour stops. --Booklist
This companion book to the documentary film Bully was edited by filmmaker Hirsch and writer/producer Lowen, with contributing chapters by a number of celebrities, authors, experts, government officials, and educators. Part homage to the film, part resource, the book interweaves the stories of children who have been bullied with practical information and advice for parents and other readers. Like the film, which presents an "uncensored, real-life portrayal of what it's like to be a bullied child," the text deals honestly and realistically with the bullying that is pervasive in American schools (13 million children will be bullied this year, the authors claim). While some chapters are more focused on the film itself, others zero in on such topics as bullying and children with autism spectrum disorders or learning disabilities. Particularly useful for parents are the chapters written by educational psychologist/author Michele Borba and clinical psychologist Peter Sheras, which provide a "crash course" on how to know if a child is being bullied and what to do about it. The text is also an excellent resource for educators; Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, pens a particularly insightful chapter. Readers who have seen the film will no doubt be interested to discover where its bullied children are now, but the text can also be read as an informative stand-alone resource. --Publishers Weekly (Get the Book)
by Sherman Alexie (Get the Book)
A poet and fiction writer for adults of all ages, National Book Award winner Alexie is a virtuoso of the short story. His first two blazing collections, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993) and The Toughest Indian in the World (2000), established him as an essential American voice. Now, many books later, best-selling Alexie has created a substantial, big-hearted, and potent collection that combines an equal number of new and selected stories to profound effect. In these comfort-zone-destroying tales, including the masterpiece, War Dances, his characters grapple with racism, damaging stereotypes, poverty, alcoholism, diabetes, and the tragic loss of languages and customs. Questions of authenticity and identity abound. In The Search Engine, a Spokane college student tries to understand a poet raised by a white couple who no longer writes because he fears that he isn't Indian enough. In the wrenching Cry, Cry, Cry, two cousins take very different paths toward being tribal, while in Emigration, a man who left the reservation trusts that his daughters will keep their tribe's spirit alive. Alexie writes with arresting perception in praise of marriage, in mockery of hypocrisy, and with concern for endangered truths and imperiled nature. He is mischievously and mordantly funny, scathingly forthright, deeply and universally compassionate, and wholly magnetizing. This is a must-have collection. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: As Alexie's creative adventurousness grows, so, too, does his popular acclaim. Expect his latest to raise the bar still further. --Booklist
by John A. Long (Get the Book)
Combining thoughtful science with sheer fun, this book is impossible to put down. The central, fascinating question asked by Long, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (The Rise of Fishies), is, when did sexual reproduction first occur? Long, who played a role in discovering the oldest example of an embryo in the fossil record (380 million years old), is well positioned to answer the question. He looks at evidence from the fossil record, examines mating patterns and sexual preferences of living animals, and discusses the attributes of various sexual organs (including the size and speed of ejaculations for males of many species). The book is far from prurient, even though it's intriguing to hypothesize how 70-ton dinosaurs might have copulated. Long provides great insight into the process of science and makes the compelling case that understanding the history of sexual congress offers incontrovertible documentation of the evolutionary process. The only downside is that he raises two important questions, then gives them short shrift: why sexual reproduction evolved at all and the evolutionary explanation for homosexuality. Nonetheless, this book deserves wide attention. Publishers Weekly
by Dennis Lehane (Get the Book)
Lehane's latest historical thriller, following The Given Day (2008), continues the author's propulsive narrative train ride across twentieth-century American history. This time the train stops during Prohibition, and the individual focus is on Joe Coughlin, a Boston cop's son by birth but a gangster by choice, rejecting his father's platitudes about crime not paying and choosing, instead, to live by night, in a world without nets none to catch you and none to envelop you. Joe begins in Boston, and after a stint in prison, it's off to Tampa, where he quickly becomes the crime boss of Ybor City, rum-running capital of Florida. Joe, like Vito Corleone, is a thoughtful gangster, a family man who would prefer to do business without violence but who draws violence to him like a magnet. Despite evoking comparisons both to The Godfather and to the TV series Boardwalk Empire, Lehane's novel carves its own unique place in the Prohibition landscape, partially because crime runs at a more languid if no less lethal pace in Ybor City than it does in the North. And, somehow, when the staccato rhythm of gunfire overwhelms the tranquil tempo of a slowly turning ceiling fan, the jolt to our system is stronger, as is the realization that Joe's worlds of night and day are held together by the thinnest of fibers. This is an utterly magnetic novel on every level, a reimagining of the great themes of popular fiction crime, family, passion, betrayal set against an exquisitely rendered historical backdrop. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Note to that big IT department in the sky: add bandwidth, launch satellites, do whatever you need to do to prepare for the digital promotion campaign that will accompany the launch of Dennis Lehane's new novel. --Booklist
by Nick Hornby (Get the Book)
A lesser writer would be inscribing his own death sentence by proclaiming to "vent my spleen by embarking on a series of books that, I hope, will be of no interest to the readership of this magazine." But Hornby, referring to readers of the Believer magazine, in which he writes a column detailing his monthly literary consumption, is as engaging as he is droll and witty. This collection of Hornby's "Stuff I've Been Reading" columns from May 2010 to December 2011 encompasses a broad range of topics, both literary and not. It's amazing how Hornby's enthusiasm for an obscure book (such as Andrew Brown's Fishing in Utopia) on an even more obscure topic (fishing in Sweden doesn't have obvious broad spectrum appeal) can segue so smoothly into musings on the artistic experience and the genius of Patti Smith's Just Kids ("many of us-most of us-could have been right outside the front door of Max's Kansas City and never taken the trouble [or plucked up the courage] to open it"). His side venture into the children's books he read with his sons (the hilarious Mr. Gum series) is as in-depth as his reflections on Sarah Vowell, that "dark nerd-maiden from across the water." In addition to providing readers with a wonderfully eclectic to-read list, Hornby reminds everyone how important it is to revel in the written word. --Publishers Weekly
by Sarah Addison Allen (Get the Book)
In the mountain resort town of Walls of Water, North Carolina, the Osgood and Jackson families' lives have always been tangled up in the history of the Blue Ridge Madam, a derelict Victorian home on the outskirts of town. Now, as president of the Women's Society Club, Paxton Osgood hopes to unveil the extensive renovations her family has underwritten at a gala celebrating the club's 75th anniversary. It would be nice if Willa Jackson, granddaughter of one of the club's founders, could be there, too. But Willa is too proud to accept the invitation, having struggled to overcome her teenage reputation as a devil-may-care prankster. Yet when a human skeleton is unearthed at the Madam just days before the party, Paxton and Willa join forces to identify the remains, a project that forges a surprising friendship and launches more than one love affair. In this delectable, read-in-one-sitting treasure, Allen once again demonstrates her astonishing ability to believably blur the lines between the magical and the mundane. --Booklist
by Neil Young (Get the Book)
In his lively, rollicking, high-spirited, and reflective memoir, Young, the hugely influential Canadian singer-songwriter invites readers to sit down on his porch for comfortable conversations about his guitars, his bands, his cars, his inventions, his trains (he owns a small share in Lionel), and his family. Musically, he ruminates, he may or may not have peaked because "other things continue to grow and develop long afterward, enriching and growing the spirit and the soul." Young openly shares intimate moments of life with his sons, Zeke and Ben, who suffer from cerebral palsy, and his artist daughter, Amber, devoting entire chapters to the ways they have changed his life, as well as to his beloved wife, Pegi, and their life together. Like one of his long, inventive jams, Young weaves crystalline lyrics and notes about friends Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, and Bruce Springsteen, former band mates Stephen Stills, and the late great pedal steel player Ben Keith of the Stray Gators, with reflections on the enduring beauty of nature, and the lasting power and influence of music. --Publishers Weekly
by Susan Isaacs (Get the Book)
As mortality grips Gloria Goldberg Garrison in its greedy little claws, the octogenarian self-made entrepreneur behind Glory Inc. must decide who among her grandchildren will inherit the reins of her multimillion-dollar beauty-makeover empire. Imperially summoning the three twentysomethings away from their rich lives and rewarding careers in Manhattan to her palatial home and corporate headquarters in Santa Fe, Gloria plans a grueling get-to-know-you weekend, at the end of which one candidate will emerge victorious. And although this may be the plot of every reality-TV show on the air, Gloria is the one who ends up being surprised: neither Matt, his sister, Daisy, nor their cousin Raquel has any interest in anything to do with the shrewish, selfish grandmother, who rejected them and their parents years earlier. Isaacs' whip-smart, shrewdly scathing, and spirited portrait of a malevolent matriarch worthy of the Brothers Grimm and her Disneyesque coterie of too-good-to-be-true grandchildren is both a saucy satire and a redemptive study of the indelible bonds of families. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: All the publicity machinery is in motion to support best-selling Isaacs' latest twist on family malfunction. --Booklist
by Sarah Susanka (Get the Book)
Sometimes small changes can have a big impact. But many homeowners looking for more living space still insist on building expensive additions or completely rebuilding their home. In the latest groundbreaking step in the "Not So Big" revolution, previously in hardcover, Sarah Susanka and Marc Vassallo demonstrate how carefully chosen tweaks and simple additions can make a home seem much larger and more inviting. They avoid high-end architectural solutions, focusing instead on how "Not So Big" ideas can dramatically improve even the most modest home. The authors show readers how to think like an architect, so they can accurately assess their home's shortcomings, apply "Not So Big" principles to their remodeling plan, and phase in their project incrementally over time. With the brilliant new book her fans have been clamoring for, Sarah Susanka once again proves that a little remodeling can go a long way. (Summary)
by Mark Helprin (Get the Book)
In this prodigious, enfolding saga of exalted romance in corrupt, postwar New York, resplendent storyteller Helprin (Freddy and Fredericka, 2005) creates a supremely gifted and principled hero. Harry is a Jewish special-ops WWII paratrooper (we learn all the throttling details in sustained flashbacks) who has just returned home from the front to find his family's top-of-the-line leather goods company failing in the wake of his father's death. Harry is determined to rescue it and to learn the identity of the beautiful woman he spies on the Staten Island Ferry. Catherine turns out to be a level-headed, musical, blue-blooded heiress. As their against-tough-odds love grows in sync with Harry's unexpectedly perilous business woes, Harry is caught between his rigorous ethics and pride and the tempting wealth and ease that marriage to Catherine could bring. Helprin's suspenseful, many-stranded plot is unfailingly enthralling. The sumptuous settings are intoxicating. The novel's seething indictment of mobster rule in the 1940s is bracing, and the lovers' high-stakes predicaments are heartbreaking. Helprin's personal articles of faith shape every scene as he expresses deep respect for soldiers, sensitivity to anti-Semitism and racism, and stalwart belief in valor and individual exceptionalism. So declarative is this philosophical tale that it can be read as Helprin's spiritual and lyrical answer to the big, bossy, and enduring novels of Ayn Rand. --Booklist
by Barbara Royal (Get the Book)
Chicago-area veterinarian Royal, whose clients include Oprah Winfrey, combines guide book and memoir in one volume, illustrating her advice to loving pet owners with anecdotes from her own past, both happy and tragic. Royal, whose combination of Western and Eastern practices is decidedly unconventional, preaches respect for the animals we've made companions. Shaped by their shared histories with humans and by their predomestication evolutionary pasts, pets require appropriate treatment that isn't driven by human fantasies about animals; carnivores cannot live on vegetables and simians cannot live on bread alone. This 10-section guide covers a wide range of subjects, from diet and litter management to humanely and ethically managing pets' inevitable mortality. While trained in conventional techniques, Royal also values Eastern medical traditions and provides owners with discussion of what works for her and why. Written in an entertaining manner and supplemented with a suggested reading list, Royal's book is a useful guide for anxious pet owners. --Publishers weekly
by Patricia Harman (Get the Book)
At age 36, Patience Murphy is a widow and union sympathizer whose radical past has sent her into hiding. When the Great Depression arrives, Patience is living in West Virginia, working as a novice midwife until the death of her mentor forces her to attend births alone. With the help of a nearby veterinarian and an African American girl, Bitsy, Patience keeps the wolves from her door. Called out at any hour of the day to the homes of both the poor and the not-so-poor, she slowly earns respect for her midwifery skills, if not much in the way of cash. Penning journal entries of each birth, as well as colorful back stories of the time she spent with anarchists and the two men she loved, Patience strives to make sense of her life. VERDICT Memoirist Harman (Arms Open Wide; The Blue Cotton Gown), herself a certified nurse-midwife, takes readers back to hardscrabble times and adds plenty of medical drama and a dash of romance, to offer an uncommonly good piece of American historical fiction. --Library Journal
by Paul Tough. (Get the Book)
This American Life contributor Tough (Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America) tackles new theories on childhood education with a compelling style that weaves in personal details about his own child and childhood. Personal narratives of administrators, teachers, students, single mothers, and scientists lend support to the extensive scientific studies Tough uses to discuss a new, character-based learning approach. While traditional education relies heavily on memorization, new research conducted by James Heckman suggests that the conventional wisdom represented by those third-grade multiplication tables has failed some of our most vulnerable students. Tough takes the reader through experiments that studied childhood nurture, or attachment theory, to report cards that featured character strength assessments (measuring "grit," gratitude, optimism, curiosity, self-control, zest, and social intelligence). Focused on schools in Chicago and New York, Tough explores the effects of racial and socioeconomic divides through the narratives of survivors of an outdated system. The ultimate lesson of Tough's quest to explain a new wave of educational theories is that character strengths make up perhaps the single most compelling element of a child's education, and these traits are rooted deep within the chemistry of the brain. Tough believes that it is society's responsibility to provide those transformative experiences that will create its most productive future members. --Publishers Weekly
by Ken Follett (Get the Book)
Follett follows the bestselling Fall of Giants (2010) with the eagerly anticipated second volume of his ambitious Century Trilogy. Picking up the disparate plot strands approximately 10 years later, he introduces the next generation of the five original families American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh, respectively as it stands poised on the brink of another international catastrophe. As fascism extends its grip on Europe, the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, London is blitzed, the Soviet Union is invaded, and the lives of all the interrelated major characters are dramatically and permanently altered. Serving as participants in and witnesses to all the major events of the mid-twentieth century, their dovetailing stories provide a remarkably comprehensive overview of a rapidly evolving chain of events that will challenge and change the course of world history. In the hands of a less gifted writer, these 900-plus pages and the breadth of the subject matter might be daunting, but Follett never lets the action lag as he adeptly ties together all the sweeping economic, cultural, political, and social transformations of the entire era. High Demand Backstory: The first volume in Follett's epic Century Trilogy was a runaway bestseller. Expect immediate high demand as fans of Fall of Giants will be impatient to find out how the main characters and their extended families fare as another world war looms on the horizon. --Booklist
