Online review from www.travel-travel-travel.com 9/25/2007


THE BOOK TRAVELER– BAD KARMA Confessions of a Reckless Traveller in Southeast Asia
By Tamara Sheward Academy Chicago Publishers US$17.95

BAD KARMA is for the young and young-at-heart who will enjoy the author’s brash take on lesser known spots in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.
As Australian Tamara Sheward and sidekick, Eli, indulge their adventurous appetites with sometimes reckless abandon, their escapades highlight many pitfalls that await travelers out on their own, the ones who want to experience the “real” Southeast Asia.
The 300-plus page paperback is an eye-opener that the things we take for granted in our home countries are rarely accessible in far away lands (such as fast food establishments like the famous McD, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, etc)
Wickedly funny, even if the Aussie slang requires some translation, Sheward reveals the less than ordinary side of these once little-known places to tourists.
If anything, visitors should always carry extra local currency, especially farangs (foreigners) who are easy targets for inflated prices e.g. bus tickets, visas, etc.
The colorful travelogues on the people, visitors and locals alike, give travel writing that “edge” on normally flat narratives.
Reminds me of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Tahir Shah, minus the expletives!
- Bridget Azeez

Publishers Weekly reviews

** Starred Review **
Hamas: A History from Within Azzam Tamimi. Interlink/Olive Branch, $20 paper (384p)
ISBN 978-1-56656-689-6

In this trenchant history spanning from the first days of the 1987 intifada to the sweeping democratic victory of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Palestinian elections of January 2006, London-based scholar Tamimi argues that seeing Hamas as merely another face of Al Qaeda obscures more than it elucidates. A successor to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas comes out of a transnational Islamic reform movement that grew among Palestinians in the 1970s, largely in reaction to Arab nationalism's failure to champion the Palestinian cause. Increasingly, against a string of failed peace processes and the corruption and concessions of the PLO-led secular leadership, Hamas's popular support has rested heavily on its stance as a militant resistance movement wedded to the Palestinian dream of regaining pre-1948 Palestine, and as provider of essential social services. Tamimi draws extensively on the words of insiders in carefully charting and contextualizing the development of Hamas's highly resilient organization, shifting outlook and embrace of various tactics, including the offer of a truce with Israel and, most controversially, suicide bombing. Although mostly dispassionate and at times critical, this is a generally sympathetic analysis. It will be a key resource in English for any serious assessment of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Publishers Weekly reviews

The Blackstone Commentaries by Rob Riggan. John F. Blair, $16.95 paper (280p) ISBN 978-0895873453

A former crime reporter and policeman, Riggan makes the New South circa 1972 seem positively noirish. Charlie Dugan, the larger-than-life sheriff of Blackstone County, North Carolina is running for re-election, with a powerful benefactor in local surgeon and county commissioner Dr. Martin “Doc” Pemberton. After local man Danny Carver identifies Doc as the driver of a car that forced him off a rain-slicked road, Charlie is in a quandary. He has worked to “create a more equitable justice” for the working poor like Danny Carver, but Doc’s recklessness, sense of entitlement and belief in his immunity from justice force Charlie to question his values. As Dugan struggles with his conscience and the case, he interacts with a compelling Faulknerian cast that includes his stalwart, former wild child wife Drusilla; Elmore Willis, a neophyte lawyer at war with the memory of his sainted father; and Winthrop Reedy, a mobile-home salesman trying desperately to carve out a middle-class dream. Intriguing characters, timeless themes, and powerful prose make Riggan’s second novel—following Free Fire Zone after more than 20 years—memorable. (Oct.)

BAD KARMA: CONFESSIONS OF A RECKLESS TRAVELLER IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
By Tamara Sheward
Forthcoming from Academy Chicago Publishers in November 2007
316 pages, ISBN 978-0-89733-565-2, paperback, $17.95

“Bad Karma” review by Gillian Dooley for Writers’ Radio, Radio Adelaide

Tamara Sheward does her best in her book Bad Karma to convince us that she’s
crazy, inept, unattractive and insensitive, but in the end I couldn’t help liking
her and, in a bemused way, admiring her as a writer. Tamara and her friend Elissa are backpackers who can’t stand backpackers. Bad Karma relates their three-week journey through mainland Southeast Asia. They storm their way through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and
Cambodia, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke and obscenities. They reserve their worst invective for the other western tourists they meet: this is the scene at a backpackers’ hostel in northern Thailand:

A German woman with hairy armpits and a turban was extolling the
virtues of nude pottery to a group of serious-looking twenty-something
girls in belly-dance pants and sarongs, while two bearded guys …
hunched over their guitars, belting out a Garcia-esque version of ‘Hello
Mary Lou.’ A tall black guy in orange African robes and matching pill-
box cap read poetry from a notebook to a tiny Japanese girl, who
covertly dragged on a joint and nodded sagely .. etcetera.

Tamara and El are in the same age group as these would-be enlightened ones, but have no patience with new-age pieties, dreadlocks and tai chi, though they’re not averse to a bit of chemically-induced euphoria. Their favourite occupation is drinking too much, followed by eating like pigs (known as schnarfing), and lying around doing nothing. They’re definitely not into travel for the sightseeing. Tamara’s philosophy of travel is ‘if I could see it in a book, then I didn’t have to see it in real life. … I simply wasn’t interested in things like ancient citadels and royal tombs. Nup. I was more interested in scruffing around local markets, retching at what passed as food in these far-flung places and pestering the natives in out-of-the-way bars.’

Sheward writes with Rabelaisian gusto. She and El tower over the inhabitants of Southeast Asia, just like Gargantua and Pantagruel. They encounter the most disgusting food, the filthiest toilets, the most bug-infested hostels, the most unroadworthy buses and the most excruciatingly embarrassing situations imaginable. But, although literal filth abounds, the girls remain
determinedly chaste throughout their adventures.

They never laugh at anyone more than they laugh at themselves. They ridicule the irritatingly-bearded, guitar-toting types mercilessly, but they give generously to beggars, and while protesting vigorously at being ripped off by bureaucratic minor officials, would never dream of cheating or doing down any of the people they do genuine business with. Tamara is a warm-hearted soul. She and Elissa are often severely tried by cruelty to animals, and by poverty and
suffering, and it shows through all the hyperbole and flippancy of her truly amazing prose style. No holds are barred – no simile is too outrageous, no digression too wayward, no joke too tasteless, no slang too crude.

But then, when it comes to describing the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum – the former Security Prison under Pol Pot in Cambodia – all the baroque extravagance of the language drops away and she writes movingly and powerfully. This is where it struck me most forcibly that this book is more than the ravings of an eccentric with an exaggerated relish for colourful expressions.
It is a clever, wry, expressive and engaging work which, almost despite itself, shows a perceptive and sympathetic grasp of all kinds of people and places, plus an attractive and healthy measure of self-mockery and self-knowledge.

From The Ethiopian American

Held at a Distance: My Rediscovery of Ethiopia
By Rebecca G Haile
Category: Memoir / TravelPaperback, 200pp, ISBN: 0-89733-556-2 / 978-0-89733-556-0Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2007
Price: $17.95 http://www.academychicago.com/heldatadistance.html

A Review
By Ayele Bekerie, PhD

Rebecca Haile’s Held at a Distance: My Rediscovery of Ethiopia is a well-crafted and captivating autobiographical, historical, and diasporic narrative. It is also a memoir of dislocation, migration, and rediscovery, primarily inspired by and based on her four weeks trip to Ethiopia after twenty-five years of absence. Rebecca meticulously narrates how she and her family succeeded in overcoming traumatic experience and rebuilt their immensely productive lives. Her narrative is indeed therapeutic and, hopefully, it will encourage thousands of silenced Ethiopians to voice their sufferings from the state sponsored violence of the Derg period (a repressive military regime that ruled Ethiopia from 1976 to 1991). Rebecca’s initiative in this regard is commendable.

Rebecca initiates narrowing the distance that kept her away from the country of her birth as a result of the repressive years of the Derg era. She also celebrates her successful and empowered life, a life that has risen way up beyond the punitive, vindictive and destructive power of the military regime. Rebecca’s innocent and ideal childhood was rudely and violently violated by a reckless and murderous regime – a regime that massacred thousands of Ethiopians, young and old, in the name of an ideology that it barely understands or able to describe it beyond stupefying and yet deadly slogans. Those who disagreed with the slogans or refuse to shout them at every meeting paid with their lives. Rebecca, by taking advantage of what she calls the healing passage of time, thinks and writes about the horrific outcome of state-sponsored violence as well as about the healing, perseverance and triumph of the human spirit.

Rebecca’s book has three parts. Part one focuses on the story of her family. Part two retraces the historic north or as she puts it, “The Remains of an Empire”. Part three is labeled intersections of a globalized life. These three parts are accompanied by prologue and epilogue that allow the reader to see the interconnectedness of the parts as well as the perspective of the writer. Rebecca is an independent thinker and she does not mince words in expressing her opinion on many and diverse issues, including political issues.

Rebecca supplements her insightful narrative with great black and white photographs of her family and the historic north. The cover of her book carries a smiling and confident self-portrait. The picture of her aunt, Iteye Ityobia, moves me. I am not sure if she succeeded in obtaining a visa to travel to the U.S. to see her brother, Professor Getachew Haile.

Rebecca, who is the daughter of the distinguished scholar, the winner of the McArthur Foundation Genius Grant for his research on ancient Ethiopian manuscripts, the speaker of several languages, the author of several books on the literary, religious, linguistic traditions of Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church’s representative to the World Council of Churches, the Cataloguer of the Ethiopian Manuscripts, the champion of the Liberal Social Democracy principles and practice, not only pays a moving tribute to her father, parents and extended family, she is also coming of age in her own right to claim her motherland.

Rebecca, a graduate of Harvard Law School with honor (she was on the Law Review with Senator Barack Obama for two years!), a former clerk of a Federal Judge and a lawyer who work in major law firms in Washington D.C. and New York, is eager and willing to return to Ethiopia in a meaningful way, to become part of a new Ethiopia where the rights of all citizens are guaranteed by law and respected, where the rights of women, including the right to participate in the political decision making, the right to live free of sexism, sexual abuse and exploitation, abuse in the work place , both locally and globally, particularly in countries, such as Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Gulf States, to promote the rights of free speech and solving political difference by peaceful means. She wants to bridge the gap that held her at a distance for more than two decades, the gap that forced her to seek new life in America.

Rebecca is now a proud mother of two children, happily married to Jean Manas, a Greek Armenian (the Ethiopian orthodox church maintains one of the longest relationships with the churches of Greece and Armenia). Jean accompanied Rebecca in her historic journey to Ethiopia, a journey that took her back to her family and to the northern part of Ethiopia. Rebecca’s memoir is also remarkable in combining her family’s story with the story of the motherland. It is clear that she has become a woman of substance, integrity. She is articulate, assertive and open-minded.

Rebecca limited her reflections on Ethiopian history and historical sites to the northern part. I hope in due course she will be able to visit the southern part and be able to expand her rediscovery.

Rebecca’s narrative on her uncle is moving. His determination to continue to live and build bridges in Ethiopia, even under the most trying moments of the Derg, is quite exemplary.

Rebecca’s interaction with her grandmother and aunt also provide ample examples of the strength of family values and its capacity to sustain and nourish the family members.

Rebecca made several observations during her visits of Ethiopia: narrow policy in Aksum, misguided racial myth of the Ethiopians, the crude policy of the American Embassy in Ethiopia.

Held at a Distance is a great accomplishment. It certainly presents a balanced life of the author, a balance in which she displayed an American face to the world while she nurtured a private identification with Ethiopia that she kept mostly to herself.

Ayele Bekerie (PhD) is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Cornell University. He has written and published in scholarly journals, such as , ANKH: Journal of Egyptology and African Civilizations, Journal of Black Studies, The International Journal of Africana Studies, and Imhotep.

From Progressive Historians
History and Politics Of, By, and For the People

Broken by the Badlands: A Review
by: delicatemonster
Mon Jul 02, 2007 at 22:50:45 PM EDT
FEVER & THIRST A missionary doctor amid the Christian tribes of Kurdistan
By Gordon Taylor Academy of Chicago Publishers, 354 pp., 2005, ISBN: 0-89733-537-6

The most impressive feature of Fever & Thirst, Gordon Taylor's meticulously researched study of the misadventures of a 19th Century doctor and missionary in the remnants of the Ottoman empire, is the grudging sympathy we come to feel for Asahel Grant, the erstwhile hero of this tale. By current standards of tastes, he is not an entirely endearing character: stoic, overly pious, headstrong and something of a quack. There is little to recommend him. Indeed, the opening chapter seems contrived to lower our expectations. This upright Victorian appears to be something of a masochist or a fool. Rousing from a hard night out of doors in Chumba, very close to what is now the border between Turkey and Iraq, our man finds his face swollen "into a bubble of pain." The night before he had slept on an azraleh: a platform rising some ten to fifteen feet above the ground to avoid mosquitoes. The particular azraleh that Grant slept on rose only a few feet above a roaring cataract whose cold waters he presumes have caused the swelling. Near the end of the first chapter, entitled "Remedy" we are introduced to what Grant-an M.D. by the standards of the 19th century-determines is the appropriate cure: a lancet, thrust fiercely into his jaw again and again to drain off the swelling.
"Grant found relief," Taylor writes, "`only by a desperate plunge of his lancet into the very roots of his teeth'. The blade, Grant admits, had struck so deeply into his gums that the labial nerve was severed, leaving his upper lip numb for nearly two weeks."
Gordon Taylor delivers this striking moment with such casualness that I found myself wondering if we weren't verging into satire, or spoof. But no: "This was not the act of a madman or quack" Taylor is careful to note; "Grant was a competent and conscientious physician, a man who never acted with anything but the best of intentions. No one can read about his desperate thrust of the lancet without the queasy realization that little had changed since alchemists stalked the earth. In some parts of the United States, doctors continued to draw blood up to the beginning of the 20th century, and the potions they dispensed lingered even longer in their black bags and in apothecaries' chest. Such was the staying power of an illusion; such was the world of Asahel Grant."
Indeed, Gordon Taylor devotes page after page to the leech gatherers of that time and the paradoxically effective powers of violent emetics. In retrospect what is most curious about this passage is how pronounced that word `illusion' stands out. Calling to mind Freud's Future of an Illusion and the indictment of superstitious belief patterns in general. And yet, it's a credit to Taylor's art, perhaps, or at minimum, his sympathy, that Asahel Grant's world stands on its own: horrific, primeval and heroic, even for modern day readers far removed from both Grant's cures and his beliefs.
In addition, I found myself reading this book in awe of its encyclopedic knowledge of the medical and religious practices of that geographic area and era. The main thrust of the story, however, is simple disaster. At twenty five years old, Grant's wife, Judith Campell Grant, dies in the relative wilderness of Urmia among the Nestorians, a group of primitive and semi-heretical Christians that Grant has come to cure and convert. She had "toiled like some super human being. She bore a son in the summer of 1836 and twin daughters in 1838. She taught school, she learned Persian, Turkish, and ancient and modern Syriac, she nursed the sick." Of course, soon she fell ill herself. Taylor notes that it was probably Malaria. He ends by eventually abandoning his children to conduct his missionary / medical work. The work itself Asahel Grant has no doubt about, but a modern reader lingers over certain questions of efficacy and judgment. Why abandon your own children? Are cures of leech bleedings and vomit inducing emetics the best possible thing to bring to these mountain primitives? And, as if that weren't enough, must you introduce your own prejudices to them: railing against the Papists ("sons of perdition") and Anglicans alike, while trying to dodge the advances of the latest band of Kurdish thieves?
Taylor manages to illuminate and discuss these questions while still maintaining a large and sympathetic heart for our doomed doctor. Along the way we learn about the value of Gall nuts-how gall-wasps actually make the necessary `tanning solution' by swelling the Oak trees of Aleppo with their own larva, the tediousness of sitting minutes on end for a daguerreotype, the reptilian politics of the Nestorian and Kurdish mountain tribes-and perhaps -- not so surprising-that Mosul, Iraq has always been a fetid, dangerous place. Both violent time and weathered country come to life in layer after layer of carefully researched detail. We know from the beginning, of course, how it will end. There can be little doubt: Grant is doomed from the moment the lancet pierces his gum. And yet, Taylor invests this last, almost ridiculous scene with grandeur and sympathy: he is ordered by his own mission board to `go home' and take care of his children. "from the weary doctor there now issued a great sigh of relief. It was the best thing that could have happened. `On reading this,' Grant wrote, `my heart was full, and I passed almost a sleepless night.'"
His heart is full, Taylor is careful to explain, because he can now return to tending for his children, relieved of his missionary duties. There is only one problem. He is in Mosul; and there is a typhus epidemic. "With too many refugees and too little room to house them, Grant's makeshift hospital had bred the germs that would destroy him."
The end comes quickly, ironically, within days of the notice that he must return home.
"Sometimes in his delirium he spoke Turkish, other times Syriac. He conversed with his mother and his children. He spoke with his Savior."
He dies, imagining he is on a ship, traveling to his home.
On April 24, 1844, by the banks of the Tigris, in the city of Mosul, which is even now the scene of horrific battles, Asahel Grant was buried. Even the Turkish governor at the time attended. The other Christian missionaries-his comrades-- lingered on for a time, as was their pattern, but soon even they departed, driven like Asahel Grant, and like our own violent effort today, by their own loss of illusions.

Author Rebecca Haile explores family, identity in her childhood home - Redicovering Ethiopia

Held At A Distance: My Rediscovery of Ethiopia
By Rebecca G. Haile Academy Chicago Publishers (paperback $ 17.95 978-0-89733-556-0)

EXPRESS
A PUBLICATION OF The Washington Post - WASHINGTON'S FREE DAILY NEWSPAPER
Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Free Ride
Books: Rebecca Haile's 'Rediscovery of Ethiopia'
HOW DOES IT FEEL to straddle two cultures? What is the difference between people of the same blood, born in the same place but raised thousands of miles apart? Is home still home if it hasn't housed you in a quarter century?
In 1976, two years after Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam and his army, known as the Derg, overthrew Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, Rebecca Haile and her family were forced to leave the capital city of Addis Ababa. Rebecca Haile was 11 when her father was shot by the Derg and left paralyzed. The family moved to central Minnesota.
Twenty-five years later, Haile returned to the country of her birth "with all [her] Americanisms" in tow. She found a family that was as welcoming as they were three decades before, an enthrallingly rich history and frustrating social stratifications. She chronicles her trip in her new book, "Held at a Distance: My Rediscovery of Ethiopia."
This week, Haile comes to Washington for two readings — Thursday at 7 p.m. at Olsson's Penn Quarter (418 7th Street NW) and Saturday at 2 p.m. at Sankofa Cafe and Bookstore (2714 Georgia Ave. NW). Before she arrived, Express asked Haile to discuss her trip home and how she feels about Ethiopia now.
» EXPRESS: Do you consider this book an autobiography? It provides a lot of the history of your time in Ethiopia.
» HAILE: No, I don't think of it as autobiographical. I laid out the history surrounding our departure as a way of explaining why we left and what I was thinking when I went back and why it had taken me so long to go back. But I didn't intend it to be an exhaustive story of myself and certainly not of my family.
» EXPRESS: Who did you write this book for?
» HAILE: When I returned, I didn't intend to write a book. I started taking notes for myself to make sense of the various issues that struck me — Issues such as identity mediation (What you think about when you have one foot in one culture and one in another?) and the question of memory (What is it that we remember, what stays the same, what do we carry with us, what has nothing to do with modern reality?). So I started out writing for myself.
When I turned it into a book, I was thinking of several things. It's only been in the last 30 years that Ethiopians have left Ethiopia. It occurred to me that what I was thinking about and the issues that I was struggling through would be relevant to a large and growing community of people — people born here or people who came here when they were very young.
Secondly, I'm interested in the humanization of Ethiopia. It's a country that people in the West, if we know it at all, we tend to know it through the headlines of poverty, famine and civil war. Not to deny that those things aren't very important in defining the modern nation — they are absolutely relevant and central issues. But that isn't all there is. There's also a country with its own unique and rich culture and history. It's a country full of actual ordinary people: Farmers, teachers, engineers, grandmothers, taxi drivers and church-goers.
» EXPRESS: D.C. has one of the largest Ethiopian populations in the world. Was that part of the reason you wanted to come to D.C.?
» HAILE: Absolutely. It's a natural place to do a reading. I had my first reading in New York last week. New York is where I live, and it also has a fairly good-sized Ethiopian community. But D.C. is definitely the biggest one, and I am looking forward to it. I've actually lived outside of that community. I've lived in places like Minnesota, gone to college in small towns where there haven't been big Ethiopian communities. So I'm really interested to see how this is received and the sorts of questions I'll get.
» EXPRESS: At the beginning of the book, you say you're uncertain whether you can still call Ethiopia home. How do you feel now?» HAILE: I feel that it is more available to me than I had realized. That the choice is more mine, if that makes sense. Through my family, which was incredibly welcoming both to me and of my husband, I came away feeling that there was room for me with all of my Americanisms.
» EXPRESS: How emotionally difficult was the trip home? Was it harder or easier than expected?
» HAILE: It was more emotional and greater than I expected. I'm not an incredibly emotional person, and because we left under such circumstances, I guess I intentionally or subconsciously kept my expectations low because I was fearful of what was going to happen.
It was just so emotional. Hanging out with my grandmother in her house again and just seeing this 90-some-year-old woman doing these rituals that I remembered from 25 years ago — they're exactly the same. Twenty-five years had passed like that and they were so happy to see us and [were] so loving and so thrilled. Then the opportunity to see a more modern Ethiopia through my uncle's work, which to me was so interesting. Then the chance to travel to the historic cities, which I had read about, but hadn't been to — and just seeing all that history.
» EXPRESS: Do you think the trip would have been different if it had been your father's trip instead of yours?
» HAILE: I would have to assume so. I don't think he feels the difference that I feel. His heart and mind are there always. He spent the same number of years abroad, but he spent his formative years there. His earlier choices were dedicated to his career choices, academic choices and religion. All his identity is there, and his professional work in the States has been about Ethiopia.
So I don't think he would feel any of the identity issues or cultural issues. He would never have this title "Held at a Distance," which for me, captures my relationship with Ethiopia. I tried to step back and I tried to look at it, and I have American eyes now. I don't know that he would have that same distance. I don't know that he would have written this book. I think he would have just felt at home.
» EXPRESS: Do you expect to return to Ethiopia again? And do you think other family members will return?»
HAILE: Yes. In fact, my younger sister has returned. She has gone. I think the government is repressive. It's not better than the one that was there then. So that's there. But I think people are going. I think people in my family — I don't know about my parents, but I think my generation will go.
» Olsson's, 418 7th St. NW; Thu., 7 p.m., free; 202-638-7610. (Gallery Place/ Archives-Navy)
Book Information: Held at a Distance: My Rediscovery of Ethiopia
By Rebecca G Haile (paperback, $17.95 ISBN 978-089733-556-0)

from Publishers Weekly
Minimal Damage: Stories of Veterans H. Lee Barnes. Univ. of Nevada, $24.95 (200p) ISBN 978-0-87417-721-3
War shows its human face in former Green Beret Barnes's mostly successful collection about veterans of Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Mogadishu and Iraq trying to get on with their civilian lives after experiencing the horrors of battle. In "Punishment," a former army medic, counting down his last hours on death row (he killed a policeman), relives the time he saved the life of an enemy soldier during the Panama invasion. In the title story, a black Desert Storm veteran finds his ordinary existence turned upside down when the victims of a serial killer are found buried around his house. And in the novella, "Snake Boy," a heroin-addicted, homeless Vietnam vet is kidnapped by a snake-handling evangelist who cures the vet of his addiction and forces him to join his traveling show. In several of the stories, the veteran angle seems peripheral, but the strongest pieces exemplify the words of one character who tells his daughter that "all we can do is invent myths to smooth the harshness." The lives on display here do just that in stories told with understated compassion and unexpected flashes of humor. (Sept. 07)

Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory (Interlink, 978-1-56656-686-5, 400 pages, $20.00)

From Publishers Weekly Starred Review.
An emeritus professor of theology with no previous interest in conspiracy theories, Griffin has dedicated himself since 2003 to the "9/11 truth" movement, a group committed to "exposing the falsity of the official theory about 9/11," and this book is a thorough, highly detailed attempt to do just that. As Griffin aptly notes, "the assumption that conspiracy theories are inherently irrational" has recently taken root in American culture, making any attack on the official government record instantly dismissible, but Griffin takes to the difficult task with solid reasoning and true zeal. All but the most dogmatic readers will find Griffin's evidence-from the inconsistencies between NORAD tapes and the 9/11 Commission Report to rigorous exploration into the physics of the collapse-detailed and deeply unnerving. For instance, Griffin considers the fact that firefighters were told, five hours before the fact, that building WTC 7 was going to collapse, despite "the fact that WTC 7 was not hit by a plane, that the available photographs show no large fires, and that fire had never caused a steel-frame high-rise to collapse." Another chilling passage looks at the Pennsylvania crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 through the testimony of those first to arrive, who were unanimous in finding "no recognizable plane parts, no body parts." For anyone who doubts the government's truthfulness regarding the WTC terrorist attack, this well-researched volume will give you a trough full of ideas to chew on.

Spinning Clio : Where History and Politics Meet
Political commentary with a historical perspective and vice versa. Friday, May 04, 2007
Review:
English History made Brief, Irreverent, and Pleasurable by Lacey Baldwin Smith (Academy Chicago Publishers, 275 pages, Paperback, $17.95 ISBN 978-0-89733-547-8)

Smith is Professor Emeritus of History at Northwestern University and has written a number of books centering around the history of Great Britain. English History not being my bailiwick, I'd never read anything by him before. After reading his recent work, however, that will change.

Smith opens his book by noting that “history is not what happened in the past, but what today is worth remembering about the past.” Setting aside the historiographical discussion that such a comment can engender, he has written a fine work of history. Smith hits the high--and low--points of English History (note, it's "English" and not "British"-- Smith explains the difference) in a conversational and engaging way. It's as if you're your history professor's office hours were held at a kegger. In short, Smith injects a little humor and verve into his narrative, which is complemented by some very funny illustrations from Punch.

As a medievalist--and if historians are considered "dry," medievalists are downright parched--I found his take on the early medieval period in English history refreshing and funny. For instance, while describing how the Angles and Saxons came and conquered Celto-Roman Britain:

"The invaders proceeded over the years to divide Britain among themselves. The Saxons in the area of London broke up into the east, south and west Saxons--Essex, Sussex and Wessex. The urge to box the compass generated the splendid, but also apocryphal, story of a north Saxon kingdom called Nosex which naturally died out very rapidly, but doubtless inspired one of Britain's longest running plays: No Sex Please, We're British."

Keeping with a theme, Smith also explains the English resurgence after the Plague by explaining that "somewhere around 1485, the English started having more and better sex...rising from two to four million by 1600." He also takes the opportunity to weave in a zinger or two when he can. For instance, this observation about Elizabethan society:

"The family, over which the father was supreme, was seen as the Kingdom writ small. In learning obedience to and respect for their parents, Tudor children learned deference to authority on every level of society. Thus the inferior bowed to all forms of superiority, the freshman stepping aside for the senior, the bachelor of arts for the master of arts, the master of arts for the doctor of divinity or civil law, and all six for the professor, a way of life that high-ranking academics today regret has disappeared."

Indeed! But Smith's work isn't all wit and snark. He gives very concise and readable accounts of historical events and explains how one affected the other (eg; the reign of James I and the Glorious Revolution or the evolution of Parliament). Though there are chronological demarcations in the narrative, a narrative it is, not a patched together pop-encyclopedia of sequential--though disconnected--events. Smith does a fine job of moving the story of English history along in a coherent and entertaining way.

Smith concludes the book with an extended treatment of the British royalty--"The Royal Soap Opera." He covers the breadth of the more personal shenanigans of English royalty, plumbing the depths and climbing the peaks, and shows that royal peccadilloes are a constant. Commenting on the leveling of the contemporary Royal Family, he offers that "what us eating at the soul of Kingship is not moral outrage, but boredom." Like the rest of the entertainment industry, if the progeny of Elizabeth II don't give the press enough scandalous fodder, what is left?

Overall, I found that Smith's English History lived up to the rest of it's title, especially the Pleasurable part. Go out and get it--you'll learn something between chuckles.

Publishers Weekly
4/23/2007

* MIRAGE: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S.
Cynthia Barnett. Univ. of Michigan, $24.95 (240p) ISBN 9780472115631

In recent decades, severe droughts in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, along with shrinking aquifers, dried-up lakes and sluggish rivers in the Southeast have induced bitter East Coast fights over what was once an exclusively Western concern: water scarcity. What happened? Barnett, the long-time environmental reporter for Florida Trend magazine, answers that question in a rigorous look at the relentless pressure of development and burgeoning human populations on natural water supplies, particularly in the wetlands of Florida. Chapter by chapter, Barnett documents the enlarging sinkholes, loss of ancient lakes, pollution of water tables and river systems, aquifer mining and negligent politics that have led to Florida's perpetual water crisis-including a disastrous shift in weather patterns. Considering such crises elsewhere in the U.S., Barnett finds that successful allocation agreements are rare, lessons learned are quickly forgotten and an ever-growing population spells more trouble to come. Though it may lack popular appeal, this comprehensive and well-referenced volume does feature appearances from well-known figures like Walt Disney, Jeb Bush and Hurricane Katrina, and should become vital reading for citizens and policymakers as global concerns over water scarcity grow. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly
May 7, 2007

Gin Before Breakfast: The Dilemma of the Poet in the Newsroom
W. Dale Nelson. Syracuse Univ., $24.95 (208p) ISBN 978-0-8156-0888-2

Nelson (Who Speaks for the President: The White House Press Secretary from Cleveland to Clinton), who spent 40 years as an Associated Press reporter, contemplates the chasm separating poetry and journalism, observing, "Newspaper stories tell us about names and titles, distances and populations, fatality totals and investigations. Poems tell us about ourselves." Exploring influences of one form on the other in this insightful study, he profiles famous and obscure British and American poets who labored as journalists. Poets had been told to avoid journalism as they would "gin before breakfast," said Archibald MacLeish, who landed his job with Fortune because "Luce... believed it was easier to turn a poet into a business journalist than to make a writer out of a bookkeeper." Analyzing the lives and language of Coleridge, Poe, Kipling, Sandburg and others, Nelson finds a few, notably Hart Crane and Dylan Thomas, were ill-suited for journalism, but many benefited. With Whittier's antislavery poems, poetry and journalism merged: "Whittier the editorialist and Whittier the poet had come together triumphantly," Nelson concludes. "The concreteness that is important to journalism can help avoid the vagueness that sometimes afflicts poetry, and fresh metaphors can serve the newspaper writer as well as the poet." Illus. (July)

-- Publishers Weekly, 4/23/2007
NONFICTION

BIG MEDICINE FROM SIX NATIONS
Ted Williams. Syracuse Univ., $29.95 (256p) ISBN 9780815608639

Native American healer Williams (1930-2005) shares incredible stories of vision quests, songs of power and the healing abilities of Indian Medicine in the follow-up to his much-lauded 1976 title, The Reservation. A member of the Tuscarora Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy, Williams gives the unitiated a fascinating glimpse through the Longhouse door into Iroquois history and spiritualism. The reader learns of the Peacemaker, who founded the Iroquois Confederacy; of Hiawatha, who cured all psychological illness; of the Great Law of the Great Peace; and of the Thanksgiving Address that starts and ends each ceremonial event. Williams explains how Indian Medicine is a cross-discipline ability—at once physical, spiritual and psychical—to tap into and use the energy of the universe. Many of these short tales involve the supernatural world: witches, ghosts, scrying, shape shifting, energy spots and healing by hands; for instance, Williams relates the time he healed his own back—broken in an encounter with a falling tree—with energy from his hands. Williams provides many such compelling, campfire-story glimpses into everyday events of Iroquois society that modern Americans would consider something close to miraculous. This enjoyable read will prove both challenging and heartening for those with an open mind. (Apr.)

DON'T COUNT THE BOOKSTORES OUT
by Bruce J. Miller


The news that the owner of Publishers Group West was bankrupt hit the bookselling and publishing community like a ton of bricks and mortar, with many small publishers worrying that the capricious pestle of fate would grind them to powder in another kind of mortar. For weeks that was the story everyone was talking about.

While word of Borders Group Inc.'s plans for changes in its business model (see Wall Street Journal, "Borders' Business Plan Gets a Rewrite" By JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG) didn't create as much conversation in independent bookselling circles it pointed up once again the corrosive effect of online sales on bookstores. Borders announced it would attempt to sell books themselves rather than through Amazon.com.

As Liz Murphy of the Learned Owl Bookshop in Hudson, Ohio recently pointed out to me, the independents had "learned how to deal with competition from the chains," but the acceleration of online sales is a more difficult problem. The Learned Owl and others like it continue to have strong sales, but in the present environment no "over the counter" booksellers, chain or independent, are jumping for joy.

The Miller Brothers remember when the discounter Crown Books first opened, and the best argument to Indies for ordering from university and literary presses was "the chains won't have it." It was a strong argument that often won the day.

Then came Amazon, a sexy listing service that included virtually everything from heavily promoted Big-Press trade books to the most obscure scholarly titles. The fact that Amazon's profit on book sales was virtual mattered not to those who chose to click on an icon rather than walk across the street to order from their local store or check their "stacks," to borrow a phrase from the old-fashioned library.

So, many of us felt resigned to the idea that one could not kill the Beast--not with excellent service, not with inventory, and certainly not with discounts--who can compete with a triumphant technology?

The Trachtenberg article tells us that online book sales rose from 2% to 13% of the market from 1998--2006. I cannot argue with his contention that "traditional book retailers are shrinking" while "online and nonbookstore retailers are gaining." But I'm quite certain that the average book reader would be shocked to learn that, even now, all online sales from all sources constitute a relatively small percentage of total book sales. Not only that, but the American Booksellers Association figures show a resurgence of new independent stores opening, a small but significant counter-trend.

And that brings me to my main point: there are many people out there who love bookstores, and the more interesting and unusual the mix of titles, the farther that love will go. The juxtaposition of books from Random House and trade books from, say, Duke University Press, can only delight those who love to pick from the stacks. A bookstore that carries a mix of scholarly and small press titles will impress the browsing public and ultimately make up in sales and customer loyalty what the store may have lost in discount points.

Last week I called on Read Between the Lynes (the owner is Arlene Lynes) in Woodstock, IL. I emerged from the store just as three women, two in their late 40's, one in her 20's, were walking towards the coffee shop next door: "oh look!" said one of the women, "a bookstore!" The three of them were genuinely surprised and delighted, and they went in to take a look.

PUBLISHERS' WEEKLY 4-2-07


Boombox
Gabriel Cohen. Academy Chicago, $15.95 paper (230p) ISBN 978-0-89733-558-4

Cohen's impressive second novel abandons the gritty waterfront of his Edgar-nominated debut, Red Hook, in favor of a rapidly gentrifying nook a few stops up the F train line.

Shortly after 9/11 in Brooklyn's Boerum Hill, Jamel Wilson, a 16-year-old father and high school dropout who finds a sense of pride in his fast food gig, wants to listen to music in his courtyard, but his recreation is a profound irritation to his demographically diverse neighbors, each with domestic dramas of their own.

Carol Fasone lives with her racist mother and Bosnian husband, Milosz, whom she's putting through engineering school.

Mitchell Brett, a bored accountant, and his attractive but troubled wife, Kristin, are trying to have a child.

Grace Howard, a West Indian lady, is a workaholic at a downtown insurance company hoping for a big promotion and some romance.

Jamel's mother, Melba, sells real estate and struggles to keep Jamel off the streets.

But when tempers flare over the loud music, the cops are of little help and the situation turns volatile. Despite an unsurprising climax, Cohen's tight plot, complex characters and vibrant cityscape create a convincing slice of urban life. (July)

Library Journal, 4/1/07

Haile, Rebecca G. Held at a Distance: My Rediscovery of Ethiopia. Academy Chicago. May 2007. c.200p. ISBN 0-89733-556-2 [ISBN 978-0-89733-556-0]. pap. $17.95. AUTOBIOG
Haile's memoir traces her family's emigration from Ethiopia to the United States in the mid-1970s, a journey that led to her return 25 years later. The author's father was an academic who served in the Ethiopian parliament after the coup that toppled Emperor Haile Selassie. However, he was persecuted under the new regime, which forced him and his family (Haile was 11 years old at the time) to flee to the United States and eventually to central Minnesota. The book is chiefly about Haile's return to Ethiopia, as she attempts to reconcile and process the harsh realities and issues that still plague the country and her relatives who continue to live there. This engaging read provides a compelling face to the story of Ethiopia today, a country of 75 million people and with an immigrant representation across the United States. The book is also a good companion piece to Barak Obama's Dreams of My Father, which also explores African family history. Haile, a graduate of HarvardLawSchool living in New York City, includes a helpful glossary of Ethiopian words and phrases and notable historic figures. Recommended for public or academic libraries with strong African history or biography collections.-Joslyn Jones, Oak Park P.L., IL

African American Environmental Thought
Foundations
Kimberly K. Smith
March 2007
264 pages, 6 x 9
American Political Thought
Cloth ISBN 978-0-7006-1516-2, $29.95

African American intellectual thought has long provided a touchstone for national politics and civil rights, but, as Kimberly Smith reveals, it also has much to say about our relationship to nature. In this first single-authored book to link African American and environmental studies, Smith uncovers a rich tradition stretching from the abolition movement through the Harlem Renaissance, demonstrating that black Americans have been far from indifferent to environmental concerns.

Beginning with environmental critiques of slave agriculture in the early nineteenth century and evolving through critical engagements with scientific racism, artistic primitivism, pragmatism, and twentieth-century urban reform, Smith highlights the continuity of twentieth-century black politics with earlier efforts by slaves and freedmen to possess the land. She examines the works of such canonical figures as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Alain Locke, all of whom wrote forcefully about how slavery and racial oppression affected black Americans’ relationship to the environment.

Smith’s analysis focuses on the importance of freedom in humans’ relationship with nature. According to black theorists, the denial of freedom can distort one’s relationship to the natural world, impairing stewardship and alienating one from the land. Her pathbreaking study offers the first linkage of the early conservation movement to black history, the first detailed description of black agrarianism, and the first analysis of scientific racism as an environmental theory. It also offers a new way to conceptualize black politics by bringing into view its environmental dimension, as well as a normative environmental theory grounded in pragmatism and aimed at identifying the social conditions for environmental virtue.

Smith’s work offers a new approach to established writers and thinkers and shows that they justly deserve a place in the canon of American environmental thought. African American Environmental Thought enriches our understanding of black politics and environmental history, and of environmental theory in general. Because slavery and racism have shaped the meaning of the American landscape, this body of thought offers us fresh conceptual resources by which we can make better sense of our world.

“Thoroughly researched and well-informed, this extraordinarily rich and well-written study reveals hitherto neglected aspects of Black American life and thought.”—Wilson J. Moses, author of Alexander Crummell: A Study of Civilization and Discontent

“A terrific book that fills an important gap in political theory and offers fresh interpretations of such figures as Douglass, Du Bois, and Locke.”—Lawrie Balfour, author of Evidence of Things Not Said: James Baldwin and the Promise of American Democracy

“An arresting, insightful, and compelling look at environmental thought through the eyes of African Americans.”—Carolyn Merchant, author of The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History

KIMBERLY K. SMITH is associate professor of political science at Carleton College and author of Wendell Berry and the Agrarian Tradition: A Common Grace (see page 53) and The Dominion of Voice: Riot, Reason and Romance in Antebellum Politics, winner of the Merle Curti Award.

PICK OF THE LISTS: BRUCE MILLER, MILLER TRADE BOOK MARKETING SPRING, 2007—PRESENTED MARCH, 2007 at the Midwest Booksellers Association meeting, Brookfield, WI.

1. THE LORDS OF FOLLY A Novel by Gene Logsdon ISBN: 0-89733-557-0 / 978-0-89733-557-7 $16.95 PAPER, Academy Chicago Publishers APRIL
This hilarious first novel by the prolific non-fiction writer Gene Logsdon is set in rural Minnesota in 1953. The Oblates of St. Joseph are more interested in farming, the healing powers of peat moss, and helping a local bootlegger than in the vows they are working toward at Ascension Seminary near Shakopee. But underneath the mayhem and merriment cultivated by “the most troublesome class in seminary history” lies a darker world of bewilderment about sex and sanity. What should they be doing with their lives, they ask each other. It is the resolution of the question—who the hell is sane in this crazy world?—that brings their adventures to a surprising and triumphant conclusion.

2. DREAM NOT OF OTHER WORLDS Teaching in a Segregated Elementary School, 1970 by Huston Diehl ISBN: 0-87745-996-7 / 978-0-87745-996-5 CLOTH $24.95, University of Iowa Press 260 pages APRIL
A fascinating account of a young woman’s experience teaching 4th grade black students in rural Louisa County, Virginia in 1970. The school’s superintendent, like the author, was white, but their attitudes couldn’t have been more different. The super assured her he didn’t expect her to teach “those children” anything. But she persisted, not only teaching to the best of her ability despite discouraging words, but learning about her own prejudices and potential through her students.
“This poignant book is a needed reminder that the days of Jim Crow and the malignant lie of ‘separate but equal’ are not that long ago and that the tragic legacy of that era is unfortunately still with us today.”—Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of Harlem Children's Zone and author of Fist Stick Knife Gun and Reaching Up for Manhood: Transforming the Lives of Boys in America

3. AMERICAN POETRY NOW, Pitt Poetry Series Anthology Edited by Ed OchesterISBN 0-8229-5964-X PAPER $27.95, University of Pittsburgh Press, 416 pages MARCH
The University of Pittsburgh Press began publishing its poetry series in 1967. For 30 of those 40 years Ed Ochester has been the series editor. The stylistic range and accomplishment of this diverse group of poets reflects the vitality of poetic form in contemporary America. Among the 47 poets whose work is represented here: Jan Beatty, Robin Becker, Billy Collins, Wanda Coleman, Jim Daniels, Toi Derricotte, Denise Duhamel, Edward Field, Daisy Fried, Ted Kooser, Etheridge Knight, Peter Meinke, Sharon Olds, Alicia Ostriker, Reginald Shepherd, David Wojahn, Dean Young, and Muriel Rukeyser.

4. SUBCOMMANDER MARCOS, The Man and the Mask by Nick HenckISBN 978-0-8223-3995-3 PAPER, $24.95, Duke University Press, 488 pages AUGUST
Subcommander Marcos made his debut on the world stage on January 1, 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect. At dawn, from a town-hall balcony he announced that the Zapatista Army of National Liberation had seized several towns in the Mexican state of Chiapas in rebellion against the government; by sunset Marcos was on his way to becoming the most famous guerrilla leader since Che Guevara. Subsequently, through a succession of interviews, communiqués, and public spectacles, the Subcommander emerged as a charismatic spokesperson for the indigenous Zapatista uprising and a rallying figure in the international anti-globalization movement.

In this, the first English-language biography of Subcommander Marcos, Nick Henck describes the thought, leadership, and personality of this charismatic rebel spokesperson. He traces Marcos’s development from his provincial middle-class upbringing, through his academic career and immersion into the clandestine world of guerrillas, to his emergence as the iconic Subcommander. Henck reflects on what motivated an urbane university professor to reject a life of comfort in Mexico City in favor of one of hardship as a guerrilla in the mountainous jungles of Chiapas, and he examines how Marcos became a conduit through which impoverished indigenous Mexicans could communicate with the world.

5. BUILDING A CENTURY OF PROGRESS, The Architecture of Chicago’s 1933-34 World’s Fair by Lisa D. Schrenk ISBN 0-8166-4836-0 / 978-0-8166-4836-8 CLOTH, $35.00, University of Minnesota Press, 7 ½ x 10 ½ 368 pages, 170 halftones, 26 color JUNE
This is the first in-depth look at the architecture of the second Chicago World’s Fair.From the summer of 1933 to the fall of 1934, more than 38 million fairgoers visited a 3-mile stretch along Lake Michigan, home to Chicago’s second World’s Fair. Millions more experienced the Century of Progress International Exposition through newspaper and magazine articles, newsreels, and souvenirs. Together, all marveled at the industrial, scientific, consumer, and cultural displays, many of which were housed in fifty massive and colorful exhibition halls, the largest architectural project realized in the United States during the Great Depression.

Richly illustrated, BUILDING A CENTURY OF PROGRESS explores the pivotal role of the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair in modern American architecture. The fair’s pavilions incorporated recently introduced building materials such as masonite and gypsum board; structural innovations (for example, the first thin-shell concrete roof and the first suspended roof structures built in the United States); and new construction processes, most notably the use of prefabrication. They also featured curiosities like the giant, constantly operating mayonnaise maker and the glass-walled House of Tomorrow, which had no operable windows.

Schrenk shows how the halls’ designs reflected cultural and political developments of the period, including the expanding relationships between science, industry, and government; the rise of a corporate consumer culture; and the impact of the Great Depression.

6. 100 EDIBLE MUSHROOMS, With tested recipies and full color by Michael KuoISBN 978-0-472-03126-0 PAPER, $24.95, University of Michigan Press, 7 x 10, 296 pages, 269 photos JUNE
With a dash of humor and a dollop of science, Michael Kuo selects the top 100 mushrooms best suited for cooking. Like Kuo's very popular book Morels, 100 Edible Mushrooms is written in the author's inimitable, engaging, and appealing style, taking the reader on the hunt through forest and kitchen in search of mycological pleasures and culinary delights.

Kuo describes in detail how to identify each species, where and when to find them, and how to cook them in creative and delicious recipes. The mushrooms presented in the book are the most often eaten varieties, and a description of the button mushrooms found in the grocery store is included. All of the mushrooms have at least one full-color illustration and some several more to aid in identifying and distinguishing look-alike and nonedible species. An indispensable book for mushroom hunters, naturalists, and cooks.

7. PATROLLING BAGHDAD, A Military Police Company and the War in Iraq by Mark R. DePue ISBN 978-0-7006-1498-1 CLOTH, $34.95, University Press of Kansas 320 pages APRIL
The first MP company assigned to patrol the heart of Baghdad, the 233rd (from Springfield, Illinois) was a key part of the American occupation forces from April 2003 to April 2004. Charged with helping rebuild the city’s police force—not just reopening stations but training a new force to replace its corrupt and hated predecessors—these men and women waged a “military police war” while witnessing all of the larger conflict’s central themes, from the shortcoming of prewar planning to ongoing security problems, from media coverage to humanitarian efforts.

DePue recounts the 233rd’s actions in the streets and alleyways of Baghdad and the inevitable clash of cultures, along with lootings, shootings, roadside and police station bombings, and the inevitable bureaucratic bumbling. Here are the horrors of firefights and summary executions and the drama of the UN bombing. Here too is the untold side of the war, as these volunteers on their own initiative reopened Baghdad schools and took under their wing a Catholic orphanage for handicapped children located in the heart of the city.

Based on extensive interviews with the unit’s members and others associated with their mission, DePue’s eye-opening account also covers what it was like for the 26 women of the unit, how a romance blossomed between two MPs, and how support groups back home—with the help of the Internet—helped families cope with worry over loved ones.

8. DREAMING BASEBALL, A Novel by James T. Farrell, ISBN 978-0-87338-897-9 CLOTH, $28.00, Kent State University Press 328 pages MARCH
Much like author James T. Farrell, Mickey Donovan—the main character in Dreaming Baseball—grew up on the South Side of Chicago dreaming of becoming a star for the White Sox. Donovan’s childhood dream came true in 1919 when he made the team. Despite the fact that he spent most of his rookie season on the bench, it was truly a magical year—until the Black Sox scandal turned it into a nightmare.

James T. Farrell dreamed of one day playing second base for his hometown Chicago White Sox, but, failing that, he became one of America’s great novelists. Farrell loved the game of baseball with the same passion he brought to the celebrated Studs Lonigan trilogy. In the 1950s Farrell signed an agreement with A. S. Barnes to write two baseball books. The first book published from this deal was My Baseball Diary, in 1957, still considered one of the very best fan books on baseball. The second baseball book was to be a novel about the infamous 1919 Black Sox scandal. Though several draft s of the novel were written, it remained unpublished—until now.

Editors Ron Briley, Margaret Davidson, and James Barbour worked with the various manuscript drafts to see Farrell’s vision to print as Dreaming Baseball.

9. BEWARE OF CAT, And Other Encounters of a Letter Carrier by Vincent Wyckoff ISBN 0-87351-582-X / 978-0-87351-582-5, CLOTH, $22.95, Minnesota Historical Society Press, MARCH, 204 pages
One sunny day on his postal route, Vincent Wyckoff crosses the path of an elderly gentleman whistling for his lost parakeet. The old man is upset, and Wyckoff moves down the block slowly, looking high and low, hoping to spot the little bird. He reaches the man’s house and offers sympathy to his wife, who smiles sadly and says, “We haven’t had that bird for twenty-five years.” Letter carriers like Wyckoff walk through the same neighborhood each day, observing the lives and routines of its residents. They learn its stories, make connections between people, and, in many ways, become the common thread that connects neighbors to one another. Along Wyckoff’s mail route, Native American children teach him about totems. He finds assistance for a reclusive chain-smoking book collector who can’t maintain his property. He delivers a much-delayed registered letter mailed from Saigon in 1976.

Over the years, Wyckoff sees the neighborhood of blue-collar retirees change as a diverse group of younger people move in and raise their families.Celebrating the triumphs in everyday life and demonstrating the danger of trusting first impressions, Beware of Cat reveals the inner workings of an ordinary place of extraordinary interest.

10. FROM CRIB TO KINDERGARTEN, The Essential child Safety Guide by Dorothy A. Drago, M.P.H. ISBN 0-8018-8570-1 / 978-0-8018-8570-9 PAPER, $15.00, Johns Hopkins University Press, MAY, 208 pages
In childhood, the occasional bump or scrape comes with the territory. But serious injury is another matter, creating anxiety for even the most experienced parent. Fortunately, unintentional injury can be prevented. In this essential guide, an eminent child safety specialist explains how to reduce the risk of childhood injury at home—and beyond. Her tips help protect children from birth to age five—those who are most vulnerable to serious injury.

She describes how to provide a safe environment during the daily activities of sleeping, eating, bathing, dressing, playing, and traveling. The major hazards and potential injuries associated with each activity are identified along with the age when the child is at greatest risk. Illustrations, checklists, and summary charts complement the text and put valuable lessons and critical information at parents’ fingertips. From Crib to Kindergarten is an indispensable “how to” for parents, grandparents, teachers, babysitters, and daycare providers.

11. ROGUES, WRITERS, AND WHORES, Dining with the Rich & Infamous, or A Stock of Scrumptious Stories from the Centuries (with scores and scores of recipes) by Daniel Rogov ISBN 1 59264 172 5 / 978 1 59264 172 7 CLOTH, $24.95, The Toby Press, MAY, 250 pages
Food has been a favorite literary topic since the time of Epicurus. If Homer is to be believed, Odysseus spent as much time in feasting as he did in warfare; the characters in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales devoted as much time to dining as they did to fornicating; and Rabelais' Gargantua would have been little more than an oversized oaf had it not been for his magnificent dining habits. Throughout history, numerous famous and infamous men and women have contributed in their sometimes perverted but almost always intriguing ways to the world of gastronomy. The stories of those people, their culinary habits and the dishes either created by them, named after them or cherished by them, are the subject of this book. Kings and queens, dukes and duchesses, chefs and restaurateurs, novelists and composers, generals and courtesans--all have had dishes named after them. Follow the fortunes and discover the recipes of over sixty rogues, writers and whores, from Apicius to Zola. Written by Daniel Rogov, one of the most charming and knowledgeable food and wine writers today, the book is lavishly illustrated by Yael Hershberg.

12. THE SPACE OF FREEDOM, Apartment Exhibitions in Leningrad, 1964—1986 Richard Waller, ed. ISBN 978-0-9765047-3-1 PAPER, $29.95 58 illus., 46 color, one map 8.5 x 10 FEBRUARY 108 pages
For the Russian nonconformist artists of the 1960s through the 1980s, a room or an apartment - whether one's own or someone else's - was a departure point into the world of art, a world free of limitations. An apartment, while limited in space, opened up a world of infinite space - the entire cosmos. The transformation of those apartments was accomplished by covering their walls from floor to ceiling with the art of unofficial artists who were forbidden to show their works in exhibiton halls and museums of the Soviet Union.This volume illustrates works from the Museum of Nonconformist Art, St Petersburg, Russia, to focus on both the artwork shown in communal apartments and on the exhibition space of the apartments themselves as a significant part of the history of Russian art. It includes pieces by the most important figures in the history of these exhibitions and in the history of nonconformist painting

Bruce Miller
Miller Trade Book Marketing
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March 16, 2007
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10 Questions: First Gentleman? Posted by Katie Couric

(AP)We've never had a First Gentleman in the White House before -- but with Hillary Clinton running for President, it just might happen. We thought it would be interesting to hear from somebody who’s got some experience in the field: Dan Mulhern, husband of Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. Mulhern is a Harvard-educated lawyer, motivational speaker, and the author of a recent book, Everyday Leadership. He lives in Lansing with his wife and three children, and Dan Mulhern is the subject of this week’s 10 Questions.

1.As the husband of Governor Jennifer Granholm, you are Michigan’s first First Gentleman. Do you see your role as different from a First Lady’s?

My role is different less because I am a man than because I am the particular person I am. Each first spouse gets to mold the role, and that’s one of the best things about this role. There is perhaps one difference due to gender. As the first first gentleman, I can celebrate the election of my wife as Michigan’s first female governor, and help claim that victory of equality and opportunity for all of us – women and men included. And I can show that men can do this with pride, intelligence, and love.

2. You’ve done a lot with your job—from encouraging volunteerism, to starting leadership seminars for state employees, to serving as chair of the Spouses’ Council of the National Governors Association. But do you also do the traditionally “female” tasks of decorating the governor’s mansion and putting together the menus for official dinners?

I do the traditionally female tasks of being the hands-on lead partner in raising our three kids, and my wife has been a tremendous partner in that. When the first spouses’ conversations turn to decorations and menus, my first instinct is to pull out my transporter and yell, “Beam me outta here, Scotty.” I am largely inept on house details, so I delegate the decisions and try to help with the implementation.

3. In between college at Yale, and law school at Harvard, you were a community organizer and high school teacher—and more recently, you were a leadership consultant in Detroit. You also have three kids. Are you still working full-time as First Gentleman—and how do you balance all of your corporate, government, and family responsibilities?

I have recently begun a nightly guest-talk radio show on leadership and do some paid public speaking outside Michigan, but I largely quit my business and kept just one paid client in Michigan. (I don’t want to give ammunition to Jennifer’s opponents or distract from her important work with charges of conflict of interest, so I have chosen not to do work for pay in Michigan.) I am an active --some would say hyperactive -- volunteer. But I put the family first. Jennifer and I schedule regular date nights. I coach the kids. And hard as it is I just say no to an awful lot of invitations that I’d love to say yes to. 4. The governor just won a very tough re-election campaign last year. To what extent have you advised her on political strategy? My main focus on the campaign was to help Jennifer in the way I helped executive clients as a business coach: I would listen, reflect back ideas, and work to make sure my wife’s policies and strategies were aligned with who she is and what her values are. And I was one voice on an exceptional team of advisors.

5. Is there skepticism among voters that the First Gentleman is pulling the strings in the background?

Anyone who has viewed Jennifer Granholm knows very clearly that she is, with due respect to Springsteen, The Boss. The rest of us do our best to help her and keep up!

6. Are you disappointed that your wife can’t run for president because she was born in Canada? Do you think “natural born citizen” should be redefined to allow immigrants to run?

Jennifer Granholm would be a tremendous president, and Michigan is fortunate in challenging times to have her completely and totally dedicated to her job. The constitutional prohibition works in her favor because it keeps down distraction and second-guessing about her motives. She is focused on what’s best for Michigan -- period. As far as the policy matter, I think that immigrants, like converts to the faith, often have greater conviction than those of us born to our country or faith. I say let them run and let voters decide.

7. Has anything changed in Michigan as the result of having a woman as governor? Do you think women are more accepted in leadership positions?

I love watching the eyes of young girls when they meet Jennifer. It seems to me they are not just seeing her, but they see themselves reflected in her. They could be governor, and that is awesome! What a great country that keeps opening doors to people. We have a ways to go when it comes to women in high level executive positions, but I think Jennifer has helped widen and smooth that path.

8. Did you ever consider running for office yourself? Might you do so in the future?

I used to think about it a lot when I was younger. Now, I am thrilled to be able to serve as I do. I enjoy doing my daily radio show on leadership and writing a weekly column called “Reading for Leading” (You can listen to the show or get a free subscription to the newsletter right here.) And I have enjoyed writing my book Everyday Leadership. In my career I have always tried to ask two questions: What is God asking of me? And: What is my world asking of me? How can I best serve? And I’ll keep asking that and try to live fully in every stretch of the road I’m allowed to walk.

9. What do you and the governor plan to do after her term is up in 2011?

Take a real vacation. After our honeymoon twenty-one years ago we’ve never gone away for more than a week. We will enjoy’s Jack’s high school years. And, we’ll use the talents God has given us to give back to others. Maybe the Peace Corps. Maybe working together to revive my consulting business. But trying to keep making a difference in whatever we do.

10. There's obviously been speculation about what role former President Bill Clinton might play if Senator Clinton were elected president next year. Any words of wisdom?

Me? Give advice to Bill Clinton?!?! Come on! He has had extraordinary, unbelievable opportunities to impact on the world, and I hope and assume he will continue to play on a worldwide stage. Yet I hope and wish for him that amidst all of that vital activity, he might also focus on and exult in the incredible opportunity to serve his wife. Being “first gentleman” is an invitation to a certain old-fashioned nobility. I know that this role has made me a better dad, husband, and person. I would wish the same for President (Bill) Clinton. 9:49 AM : March 16, 2007Read more posts in 10 Questions E-mail this post Printable version

EVERYDAY LEADERSHIP

Everyday Leadership offers strategies to improve leadership skills, improve results, and gain greater satisfaction in these hectic times. It speaks to the everyday leader, whether that person is a CEO, a principal, a pastor, or a mom or dad.

Daniel Mulhern, advisor to Fortune 500 companies,
acclaimed speaker, and the husband of Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, immediately sets a warm and personal tone as he recalls his wife’s acceptance speech for the nomination of Michigan attorney general.

Instead of getting to hear the nominee’s address, Mulhern finds himself changing their one-year-old son’s diaper in a bathroom of the conference center. In this revealing moment Mulhern finds an instructive mix of humor, frustration, and enlightenment.

It was, he says, a chance to learn about the “unusual three-way intersection where leading, serving, and being human all meet. This book is about that intersection in the lives of human leaders.”

Everyday Leadership brings the art of management down to earth, presenting stories that illuminate some of the best ideas about real human leadership. It offers practical steps to achieve the goal of leading well in our lives through creating a vision, communicating that vision, and living it.

Daniel Granholm Mulhern is the “First Gentleman” of the State of Michigan. In addition to the personal support and counsel he offers his wife, Governor Jennifer Mulhern Granholm, Dan contributes his services, spearheading leadership development and being a model for the nation in offering a governmental work place that is a “great place to do great work!” He also serves as Chairman of the Michigan Community Service
Commission, which promotes and coordinates volunteer efforts across the state.

February
6 x 9, ca. 248 pages
Cloth 978-0-472-09772-6 $50.00S £31.95 CNDL 56.00
Paper 978-0-472-06972-9 $22.95T £14.95 CNDL 26.00
(CL 0-472-09972-8; PB 0-472-06972-1)
The University of Michigan Press