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
