I was reading an article in my Sunday paper about Las Vegas's dwindling water supply (apparently, water could fall below the existing pipe to Lake Mead by 2012, thereby cutting off 40 percent of the city's water), and reflecting that this is further proof of one of my most dearly held beliefs: everybody who lives west of the Mississippi should read Marc Reisner's The Cadillac Desert at least once.

Best nonfiction book ever, guys.

Labels: Atypical Wordcandy, Nonfiction

The new book-and-DVD set The New York Times: The Complete Front Pages might cost a whopping $60, but it looks totally awesome:


More than 300 of the Times front pages have been reproduced in this book, and the rest (over 50,000 pages) are available on the 3 accompanying DVDs. Ten foldouts display twenty key front pages at full size, and summaries highlight the most significant events of each era, while placing the front pages in a greater historical context.

Note: NPR's All Things Considered interviewed Bill Keller, the Times' executive editor, about the book on Friday.

Labels: Atypical Wordcandy, Nonfiction

Effectively combining history, commentary, and audio recordings of actual news broadcasts, Joe Garner’s recently re-released We Interrupt This Broadcast is a far cry above the typical coffee-table history book.

This is the third edition of Garner’s book, and it features several new entries, including September 11th, the Virginia Tech Massacre, and Hurricane Katrina. Each segment consists of a few pages of useful background information (covered on the audio CDs by veteran journalist Bill Kurtis), and a collection of black-and-white photographs. The book covers a variety of major 20th and 21st century events, ranging from the death of Elvis to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the Challenger explosion.

While most of the selected events are historically significant, it’s equally interesting to consider what We Interrupt This Broadcast leaves out. The book focuses on the breaking-news broadcasts that dropped the jaws of mainstream America, not necessarily the events with the longest lasting cultural impact. The firing of General MacArthur, the Columbine shootings, the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. and the O.J. Simpson trial are covered—but Woodstock, the McCarthy trials, and the 1963 Birmingham church bombing are not. How were these events (particularly those surrounding the civil rights movement) covered on television and radio? What was on TV on the morning the Little Rock Nine entered Little Rock Central High for the first time, for example, or the day Malcolm X was shot? Garner could—and totally should!—write a fascinating companion book about the events broadcast news failed to consider breaking-news worthy.

Labels: Atypical Wordcandy, Book Reviews, Nonfiction

In 2006, inspired by an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, five young women decided to form a “money group”—a Weight Watchers-style support group to help them pay off their debt, start saving, and generally get their financial lives on track. Despite working in fields ranging from TV production to social work, all five women found the money group experience tremendously beneficial, and eventually decided to share their newfound knowledge with others, co-writing (with Jennifer Barrett) The Smart Cookies’ Guide to Making More Dough: How Five Young Women Got Smart, Formed a Money Group, and Took Control of Their Finances.

This is certainly a good week to be releasing a financially conservative, savings-oriented how-to book, and The Smart Cookies’ Guide’s combination of practical advice, clear explanations, and personal anecdotes will resonate with many readers. Disappointingly, the authors don't explore the larger cultural aspects of their subject in any depth (they only devote a few paragraphs to analyzing why many girls are “taught” to do nothing more than spend money), but this book is clearly meant to be a practical guide, not a sociology text. Pick up a copy for yourself if you’re in need of a clear, comprehensive, prudent guide to personal finance—or give one to any freshly-unemployed Wall Street bigwigs on your holiday shopping list.

Labels: Atypical Wordcandy, Book Reviews, Nonfiction

While women have been ordained by the Episcopal Church for decades, female clergy still struggle to achieve equality with their male counterparts. Armed with a master of divinity degree from Harvard University, author Sarah Sentilles has collected the experiences of several female ministers in A Church of Her Own: What Happens When a Woman Takes the Pulpit. Alternately inspiring and depressing, Sentilles’s book explores the obstacles and rewards facing today’s female ministers.

A Church of Her Own is passionate, moving… and frustratingly flawed. Rather than taking a journalistic approach, Sentilles’s book consists of personal accounts of the sexism encountered by female ministers. There is no indication that Sentilles bothered to actually verify these women’s stories. The book is full of lines like the following:

“Eve later learned that the church had targeted associate pastors for years, especially when the associates were women.”

Really? Where did Eve learn that her church targeted associate pastors? From whom did she learn it? Is there anyone willing to confirm it? Can she offer proof, or at least supporting testimony? Presenting these unsubstantiated statements as fact only serves to undermine the book’s impact.

I am 100% in favor of female clergy, and I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the stories in this book—but then, I’m not the person Sentilles needs to convince. If a reader opposed to female clergy picked up a copy of A Church of Their Own, there’s little chance it would change their opinion. The stories included in Sentilles’s book might be powerful, but they’re too poorly supported to do anything but preach to the converted.

Labels: Atypical Wordcandy, Nonfiction

My local NPR station had a great interview up this morning with Charles Burr, the New York Times perfume critic and author of The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris and New York. I couldn't bear listen to all of it—frankly, the high-flown adjectives used in perfume descriptions remind me of nothing more than the faux-Lawrencian paragraphs in Cold Comfort Farm—but the sizable chunks I did listen to were entertaining and informative, and I'm thinking of requesting a review copy of the book. Check the interview out for yourself here.

Labels: Atypical Wordcandy, Nonfiction

I've been tempted by a number of grim-looking books recently. They all seem to be creative and well-written, but there's no denying that they have a strong smell of "reading this book can only lead to misery and regret" to 'em:

Black Hole

Charles Burns' multiple-award-winning graphic novel Black Hole is set in mid-1970s Seattle, in a world where a sexually-transmitted plague has descended upon the area’s teenagers. The disease manifests itself in a variety of physical mutations--everything from minor changes to molting skin or a full-blown tail.

I don't care for Burns's artwork, but his story sounds fascinating. Still, am I up for a story that Publishers Weekly describes as a "nightmare [vision] of a world where intimacy means a life worse than death"?

Charity Girl

According to its publisher, Michael Lowenthal's historical novel Charity Girl "examines one of the darkest periods in our history, when patriotic fervor and fear led to devastating consequences. During World War I, the U.S. government went on a moral and medical campaign, quarantining and incarcerating young women who were thought to have venereal diseases. Most were called "charity girls," or working-class girls who happened to have had relationships with infected men."

Sounds like fun, doesn't it? But I keep hearing it's brilliant...

Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam

Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl is the author of the 2002 book Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, an exploration of the ways successful armies adapt during conflicts for which they are initially unprepared. (The book is based on his doctoral dissertation from Oxford.) Nagl's book "compares the development of counterinsurgency doctrine and practice in the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960 with what developed in the Vietnam War from 1950 to 1975".

Nagl helped develop the field manual the U.S. Army is currently using to combat insurgency in Iraq, and is credited with several of the reforms that have actually worked during the recent "Surge" (moving off large bases to live amongst the population, making the protection of civilians the military's top priority, etc.). By all accounts, he seems to be an incredibly intelligent and talented officer*, and I'm curious to read the book that's causing such a stir.

*Unfortunately, it was reported yesterday that he's leaving the army.

Labels: Atypical Wordcandy, Nonfiction