SirReadaLot.org

February 2006, Issue #82

Guide to This Issue 

• Elizabeth Catlett: An American Artist in Mexico

• The Steinway Collection: Paintings of Great Composers

• Harold Pinter's Politics: A Silence Beyond Echo

• Beckett Remembering/Remembering Beckett: A Centenary Celebration

• The Gilded Age: Industrial Capitalism and Its Discontents

• The Collected Works of Arthur Seldon Series

• Billionaire Secrets to Success

• Ithaka by Adele Geras

• Effective School Leadership

• Leading the Curriculum in the Primary School

• Learning to Practise: Professional Education in Historical and Contemporary Perspective

• The Art of Ray Harryhausen

• Multiculturalism and the Mouse: Race and Sex in Disney Entertainment

• Bluegrass Guitar: Know the Players, Play the Music

• The Potbelly Syndrome: How Common Germs Cause Obesity, Diabetes, And Heart Disease

• The Fat Resistance Diet: Unlock the Secret of the Hormone Leptin to: Eliminate Cravings, Supercharge Your Metabolism, Fight Inflammation, Lose Weight & Reprogram Your Body to Stay Thin – Forever

• Jailed for Possession: Illegal Drug Use, Regulation, and Power in Canada , 1920-1961

• The Secrets of Happily Married Men: Eight Ways to Win Your Wife's Heart Forever

• My Hero: Extraordinary People on the Heroes Who Inspire Them

• The 33 Strategies of War

• The Road to Democracy in South Africa

• The Declaration of Independence: The Story Behind America's Founding Document and the Men Who Created It

• Lincoln's Wrath: Fierce Mobs, Brilliant Scoundrels and a President’s Mission to Destroy the Press

• German Scholars and Ethnic Cleansing 1920-1945

• Hitler's Commander: Field Marshal Walther Model – Hitler's Favorite General

• The Welcoming Garden: Designing Your Own Front Garden

• The Apple Grower: Guide for the Organic Orchardist

• Good House Parts: Creating a Great Home Piece by Piece

• Choosing Blue: Color You Can Live With

• Mandela: In Celebration of a Great Life

• Queen of the Underworld

• Jetlag: Five Graphic Novellas

• The Time in Between

• Fears and Fascinations: Representing Catholicism in the American South

• Single Imperfection: Milton, Marriage and Friendship

• The Life All around Me by Ellen Foster

• Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century

• Criminal Justice: Mainstream and Crosscurrents

• Home Care Nursing Handbook

• Pronounce it Perfectly in Spanish

• The Language of Archetypes

• Sacred Contracts: The Journey – An Interactive Tool for Guidance

• In Search of New Age Spiritualities

• Understanding the Hebrew Bible: A Reader's Guide

• Ritual as Resource: Energy for Vibrant Living

• The Naming of Names: The Search for Order in the World of Plants

• Statistics in Plain English

• Nano-Hype: The Truth behind the Nanotechnology Buzz

• Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America

• The Anthropology of Religion

• The Book of Touch

• Not White Enough, Not Black Enough: Racial Identity in the South African Coloured Community

• Fodor's Central America

• The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul, and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles

 

Arts & Photography

Elizabeth Catlett: An American Artist in Mexico by Melanie Anne Herzog (Jacob Lawrence Series on American Artists: University of Washington Press)

Widely acknowledged as a major presence in African American art, Elizabeth Catlett was born in Washington , DC , in 1915. Catlett’s work is celebrated as a visually eloquent expression of African American identity and pride in cultural heritage, but this is not the whole story. She has lived in Mexico for 50 years, as a citizen of that country since 1962, and she and her husband, artist Francisco Mora, have raised their children there. For 20 years she was a member of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (Popular Graphic Arts Workshop) and she was the first woman professor of sculpture at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Her career has stretched from her years at Howard University during the 1930s through various political and social movements – including the Chicago Renaissance of the 1940s, the Black Power and Black Arts movements, the Mexican Public Art Movement, and feminism – which have informed her art.

Elizabeth Catlett is the first monograph to document the full range of Catlett’s life and work. In addition to thoroughly researching primary source materials and to critiquing individual art works with sensitivity and erudition, Melanie Ann Herzog has conducted numerous interviews with Catlett and has analyzed with clarity the political context of her work and her diverse sympathies and allegiances. Herzog, associate professor of art history at Edgewood College in Madison , Wisconsin , examines artistic influences and shows how Catlett transformed an extraordinary stylistic vocabulary into a socially charged statement. In tracing Catlett’s long and continuing career as a graphic artist and sculptor, Herzog in Elizabeth Catlett explores the period in Catlett’s life between the 1950s and the 1970s about which almost nothing is known in the United States. She examines the ‘Mexicanness’ in Catlett’s work in its fluent relationship to the underlying and constant sense of African American identity she brought with her to Mexico.

… a graduate of Howard University and the University of Iowa , Catlett was inspired by her grandmother's stories of slavery and empowered by her academic parents. Believing that art can effect social change, Catlett traveled to Mexico in 1946 and discovered a vital arts community relatively free of racism and far more supportive of her progressive politics than McCarthy-era New York. She also fell in love, married the Mexican artist Francisco Mora, had three sons, and became the first woman professor of sculpture at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico . Herzog's chronicle of Catlett's achievements and cross-cultural aesthetics enriches the impact of her proud and compassionate figurative art in which tremendous fluency of form expresses an abiding humanitarianism. – Donna Seaman, Booklist

In Elizabeth Catlett , Herzog shows Catlett speaking across cultural divides, voicing her concern for the past and future of humanity. Herzog’s interpretation offers a new way to understand Catlett’s work and reveals this artist as a pivotal intercultural figure whose powerful art manifests her firm belief that the visual arts can play a role in the construction of a meaningful identity, both transnational and ethnically grounded. This richly illustrated and informative monograph demonstrates how Catlett celebrates her sense of identity as an American artist in all its complexity.

Arts & Photography / Entertainment / Music

The Steinway Collection: Paintings of Great Composers with essays by James Huneker (Amadeus Press)

Chopin, Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart, Verdi, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Handel are among the composers celebrated through paintings by great American artists and prose portraits by noted writer and music critic James Gibbons Huneker in The Steinway Collection:.

Music lovers will delight in the beautiful color paintings and eloquent prose portraits in The Steinway Collection:. The paintings by esteemed American artists and accompanying essays are intended, in Huneker's words, to "evoke musical visions; for music is visionary, notwithstanding its primal appeal to the ear." An introduction by acclaimed broadcaster and writer David Dubal, Juilliard professor of piano literature, gives the book historical perspective.

One of the paintings showing a critical moment in Chopin's close relationship with the novelist George Sand is depicted in award-winning artist A. I. Keller's painting The Raindrop Prelude. In Wagner & Liszt, N. C. Wyeth, father of contemporary realist painter Andrew Wyeth, illustrates the relationship between the composers Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. In the painting's accompanying essay, readers learn how Liszt befriended and aided the career of the political exile and revolutionist Wagner, giving him musical ideas and producing his Tannhauser at the Weimar Opera House. An image of Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony, painted by Harvey Dunn, brings to life an autobiographical work about the composer's obsessive love for a beautiful woman. Award-winning artist Charles E. Chambers portrays The Death of Mozart.

Readers read about the haughty, domineering Handel, painted in his powdered wig and court costume, sword at his side, who wept bitter tears while composing "He was despised and rejected of men" from the Messiah, and who was himself rejected by his chosen love. Readers witness his inspiration for his E minor fugue, later christened the "Fire Fugue," which expresses the composer's passionate love and anger. These are but a few of the gems of biography, aesthetic commentary, and artistic vision in The Steinway Collection:.

The author of more than 20 books, including the classic Chopin: The Man and His Music, Huneker (1857-1921) was a writer and music critic for the New York Times and various other newspapers and periodicals. The influential journalist H. L. Mencken called him "the one critic among us whose vision sweeps the whole field of beauty. It is unquenchable, contagious, inflammatory." The Steinway Collection: is his last published work. This brilliant and historic book, paying tribute to the great composers, was originally printed in 1919 as an in-house publication of Steinway and Sons but has never before been released to the public. Huneker's biographical commentary on the composers puts the paintings in perspective with telling details of how life influenced art.

Arts & Photography / Literature & Fiction

Harold Pinter's Politics: A Silence Beyond Echo by Charles Grimes (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press) examines the expression of Pinter's political beliefs across every aspect and era of his artistic career.

The fierce political stances of Harold Pinter have been embodied in plays, screenplays, and in his career as a theatrical director. Pinter's name is now a byword for antiauthoritarian and anti-American politics, and his artistic embrace of these stances can be seen from the earliest phases of his writing. His uniqueness as a political artist is that he is pessimistic about changing his audience or making it see its complicity in the horrors of the modern world. These horrors are dramatized through images of torture and oppression culminating in moments of silence that index the full extent of the destruction unleashed by power against dissidence.

Harold Pinter's Politics by Charles Grimes, assistant professor of English and Theater at Saint Leo University , examines Pinter’s politics. Chapter 1 describes how Pinter diverges from previous political playwrights such as Shaw and Brecht by refusing to seek moral or intellectual conversion in an audience complicit in established oppression. Chapter 2 shows how Pinter's early plays, set in a dramatic world of uncertainty and mystery, condemn authoritarian organizations that demand conformity at the price of death. The Dumb Waiter is a world organized on observation, discipline, and punishment, central characteristics of social modernity according to Foucault. The Birthday Party evokes historical facts such as the emergence of torture as a tool of religious repression in medieval Europe and the Nazi tortures of Jews. The Hothouse even more explicitly protests against a world in which ruthless power co-opts and destroys opposition to render itself increasingly invulnerable.

Chapters 3 and 4 in Harold Pinter's Politics investigate Pinter's recent openly political plays, including the two latest, Celebration and Press Confe­rence. In these plays, power, intimately connected with language use, contempt for social others, and misogyny, ruthlessly asserts itself by destroying dissidence, triumphing in the enforced silence of so-called enemies of the status quo. Stylistically in these minimalist plays, comedy and depth of character are consciously rejected, and Pinter's trademark ‘menace’ is stripped of psychological peculiarity, becoming social generality. Pinter's repres­sive regimes tie social exclusion to political violence, utilizing a dynamic, not unknown in our current political climate, of delegitimizing oppositional ideas. In addition to a literary study of these texts, Grimes illumines their creative qualities by describing performances of the plays and by analyzing Pinter's working drafts and notes from the British Library.

Pinter's politics emerge in aspects of his career other than his playwriting. His adaptations of Ian McEwan's The Comfort of Strangers and Joseph Conrad's Victory connect oppression to moral and intellectual certitude as they dramatize the sacrificial costs of political opposition. Chapter 6 of Harold Pinter's Politics examines Pinter's career as a theater director, as it expresses his concern with the historical consequences of fascism, and his principled anti-Americanism in regard to U.S. military actions in Kosovo and the Middle East .

Pinter's political theater finds its culmination in Ashes to Ashes, a meditation on the vanishing possibility of a moral and empathetic politics in our post-Holocaust world. The play embodies the struggle between dissident conscience, which adopts the strategy of narrative projection into iconic stories of twentieth-century atrocity, and a complacent status quo, ending in silence evoking the specter not only of a world past any political redemption but of a rigid separation between history, memory, and conscience.

Harold Pinter's Politics is the finest study I've seen of Pinter's passionate but complicated place within the tradition of contemporary political theater. Grimes's book is insightful in its readings, balanced in its assessments, and rich in its command of historical, literary, and theatrical backgrounds. Working closely with authorial drafts and other archival material, the author explores the shifting emphases of Pinter's political plays throughout his career and while composing individual plays. At the same time, it provides a persuasive account of the recurrent occupations that link such early plays as The Birthday Party and The Dumbwaiter with One for the Road, Ashes to Ashes, and Pinter's explicitly political plays of the 1980s and 1990s. A particular virtue of this book is Grimes's attention to Pinter's work as a screenwriter, director, and actor. By including Pinter's life and career as a whole, he is able to discuss Pinter's often controversial public statements in the context of his work as an artist. Harold Pinter's Politics will help shape the debate on Pinter's political dramaturgy for years to come. – Stanton B. Garner, Jr., Lindsay Young Professor of English, University of Tennessee

Harold Pinter's Politicswill appeal to students of the performing arts, as well as those at the arts’ intersection with political activism and its history.

Biographies & Memoirs / Arts & Literature

Beckett Remembering/Remembering Beckett: A Centenary Celebration edited by James Knowlson & Elizabeth Knowlson (Arcade Publishing)

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) was born in Ireland and spent most of his life in France , where, during the Nazi occupation, he was a member of the Resistance. His plays Waiting for Godot and Endgame revolutionized modern theater, and his trilogy, Molloy, Mallone Dies, and The Unnamable, ranks among the major works of twentieth-century fiction. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

In life, Beckett was one of the most private of men, preferring to let his writing speak for itself. In the first half of Beckett Remembering/Remembering Beckett he reveals many of his inner thoughts and honest opinions about his life, work, friends, and colleagues in candid interviews published for the first time. The second half of the book includes dozens of pieces written about him by those who knew him best, worked with him most closely, or admired him for his enduring influence.

In the first part of Beckett Remembering/Remembering Beckett, Beckett talks candidly with his official biographer, James Knowlson, about his family, his youth, his school years in Dublin, his early life in Paris as lecteur at the famed Ecole Normale Superieure, his friendship with James Joyce, his work in the French resistance movement during the Nazi occupation, his precipitous flight from Paris when his involvement was discovered by the Gestapo, his clandestine years in the Vaucluse region of southern France, his postwar volunteer work with the Irish Red Cross Hospital in Saint-Lo, and his return to Paris in the late 1940s to resume his literary life.

In the second part, friends and colleagues share their memories of Beckett as a schoolboy, a teacher, a struggling young writer, and a sudden success in 1953 with the appearance of Waiting for Godot, which propelled him from virtual unknown to famous. Actors with whom he worked, including Hume Cronyn, Jean Martin, Jessica Tandy, and Billie Whitelaw, relate their experiences; fellow playwrights and authors Edward Albee, Paul Auster, E. M. Cioran, J. M. Coetzee, Eugène Ionesco, Edna O'Brien, and Tom Stoppard speak of his work and its influence on theirs. One entire chapter is devoted to Beckett as director, for as time went on Beckett, first modestly, then authoritatively, oversaw the direction of many of his plays in France, Germany, and England.

Most tribute volumes necessarily focus on the later years of their subject's life, especially when that life has been a long one and when the number of those who are still alive to remember the early years is very small. With Beckett Remembering/Remembering Beckett, published to commemorate the centenary of Samuel Beckett's birth in 1906, the Knowlsons have, however, been able to portray Beckett at many different periods of his life: as a child, a youth, a student, a reluctant teacher and lecturer, a struggling young writer, a member of a British Special Operations Executive cell in Paris during the Second World War, then working with a French Resistance group in the south of France.

The Knowlsons note that quite different views of the man and the writer can be set alongside each other in an oral record in a way that is much more difficult to achieve in a biography. The widely divergent views of Beckett as a lecturer by his former students at Trinity College , Dublin are a case in point. Some regarded him as brilliant; others found him bored and boring. In other chapters, those interviewed stress the human traits of a man whom in many cases they knew long before he ever achieved any measure of success.

Alongside these earlier interviews, the editors also invited a number of Beckett's friends and those who had worked with him over the years to set down their memories of him. It seemed important for instance to reflect his hypersensitivity to pain and suffering and to point to the significance of this in his writing.

In the specially commissioned pieces, contributors were given the freedom to write whatever they wanted but, in order to focus the mind, were asked to limit themselves to about 2,000 words. The only one to whom this rule did not apply was Beckett himself, for the writer gave so few interviews during his lifetime that to possess a whole set of verbatim talks with him, especially ones in which he is speaking about his personal life, is unusual, perhaps even unique.

A few years ago, Knowlson was contacted by Mrs. Grace West (nee McKinley), one of Beckett's former students at Trinity College, Dublin in 1930, who had kept all her notes on his university lectures on the plays of Jean Racine, and the volume closes with the thoughts of the 24-year-old lecturer Beckett on a dramatist who mattered a lot to him at the time and whose own later theatrical development was to be influenced by his meditations on the theatre of that dramatist.

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) wrote that we are all ‘born astride the grave.’ Now on the centenary of the absurd dramatist and writer's birth, noted Beckett scholar and biographer Knowlson and his wife offer a valuable literary memorial. As the title suggests, the book is a collection of the notoriously private Beckett's reminiscences about his life and remembrances of Beckett from scholars and those who knew, worked or were impacted by him. The abundant glimpses Beckett provides are remarkable for their openness as much as their scarcity: these pieces, drawn from Knowlson's interview transcripts, haven't appeared elsewhere and cover topics like his friendship with painter Jack Yeats ("I think he thought he was the only painter.") and his doomed teaching career ("I didn't intend to be a writer. That only came later when I found out that I was no good at all at teaching."). …Organized chronologically, the anthology includes a chapter on Beckett as a theater director and an appendix containing notes on Beckett's lectures on Racine during his stint at Trinity College . Formatted like George Plimpton's biographies of Edie Sedgwick and Truman Capote or Legs McNeil's oral histories of punk and porn, Knowlson's Beckett tribute straddles the absurdist's immortality. – Publishers Weekly

Published to coincide with the centenary of Samuel Beckett's birth, this intimate, revealing collection offers fresh insights into one of the twentieth century's greatest, most enigmatic writers. Although many of the interviewees are now dead, their memories have not been lost with them and can now be included alongside the tributes of the living in the present book, a companion volume to Beckett’s biography. Beckett Remembering/ Remembering Beckett gives more substance and significance than is usual in a tribute volume. For those familiar with Beckett's work, Beckett Remembering/Remembering Beckett will enhance their knowledge and understanding. For those who are not, it will serve as a useful and revealing introduction to the Nobel Prize-winning author's life and work.

Business & Investing

The Gilded Age: Industrial Capitalism and Its Discontents by Robert R. Dykstra & Jo Ann Manfra (The Anvil Series: Krieger Publishing Company)

The years between the effective end of Reconstruction (1870) and the advent of Theodore Roosevelt's presidency (1901) constituted a uniquely transforming era. From an essentially rural, commercial, mono-culturally British, and diplomatically insular nation, the United States remade itself as an urban-industrial, multicultural, and militarily vigorous global power. The nation's breathtaking and economic modernization, its citizens' invention of such essentials as the telephone, plastics, barbed wire, and laundry washers and dryers, plus Americans' development of the key instruments of modern warfare (the submarine, the machine gun, the airplane, the tank-tread), and even the emergence of such staples of worldwide popular culture as movies, the mythic cowboy, and jazz music basically occurred during the Gilded Age.

The Gilded Age is a survey, written by Robert R. Dykstra and Jo Ann Manfra, both of whom hold doctorates in history from the University of Iowa ; dividing the Gilded Age chronologically into its three decades; identifying the dominant economic, political, social, and intellectual characters; and treating each decade as a more or less discrete period.

The Gilded Age is meant to introduce students to various effects of the Industrial Revolution on American society in the late nineteenth century. The readings include documents that have not been, or at least have been infrequently, reproduced for instructional purposes. The selected bibliography of books published since 1980 provides stu­dents with suggestions 14 further reading and possible project topics.

Targeting their work at students, Dykstra and Manfra hope that the narratives and associated documents in The Gilded Age will stimulate class discussion of this fundamental dimension of the Gilded Age, while freeing instructors to introduce material on social and cultural themes less easily treated at linear narrative form – gender, race, immigration, westward expansion – imperialism, literature, and the arts.

This uniquely organized survey is part of the Anvil Series whose series editor is Hans L. Trefousse.

Business & Investing / Economics / Free Enterprise / Public Policy / Political Philosophy

The Collected Works of Arthur Seldon Series, 7 volumes by Arthur Seldon, edited & with an introduction by Colin Robinson (Liberty Fund, Inc.)

Volume 1: The Virtues of Capitalism

Volume 2: The State Is Rolling Back: Essays in Persuasion

Volume 3: Everyman's Dictionary of Economics

Volume 4: Introducing Market Forces into "Public" Services

Volume 5: Government Failure and Over-Government

Volume 6: The Welfare State: Pensions, Health, and Education

Volume 7: The IEA, the LSE, and the Influence of Ideas

Arthur Seldon has been writing on classical liberal economics since the 1930s, when he was a student at the London School of Economics during Friedrich Hayek's time there. He was a Founder President of the Institute of Economic Affairs . The classical liberal ideas he re-animated over 30 years in hundreds of its publications on the market process and the economics of political democracy, and in his own writings, have had a revolutionary impact on the political and intellectual life of our day. From the late 1950s, he was Editorial Director of the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs , where his publishing program was one of the principal influences on governments around the world, persuading them to liberalize their economies. He is a First Class Honours graduate of the London School of Economics, and has been a university tutor in economics, and economist in industry, adviser to the Government of Australia, and Vice-Present of the Mont Pelerin Society of world liberal scholars.

The series is edited by Colin Robinson, a business economist, was appointed to the Chair of Economics at the University of Surrey , Guildford , where he founded the Department of Economics and is now Emeritus Professor. He is the author of 23 books and editor of many more. For many years he has been associated with the Institute of Economic Affairs and from 1992 to 2002 he was the IEA's Editorial Director.

Volume 1: The Virtues of Capitalism lays the foundation of Arthur Seldon's views and theories of capitalism and its alternatives. The volume is a tenacious and elegant ‘celebration’ of capitalism despite its faults. The first part, "Corrigible Capitalism; Incorrigible Socialism," explains why, Seldon believes, capitalism is susceptible to correction and improvement in the light of experience and why socialism resists such attempts to change theory to fit reality. Traditionally, socialist critics have contrasted capitalism as it is in the world we have known with socialism as it is envisaged in a world they have yet to demonstrate is possible. It creates a false debate that socialism must win and capitalism cannot win whatsoever its achievements. Using the methodology of the critics of capitalism in the opposite direction, the book places socialism as it is against capitalism as it could be. Arthur Seldon argues that neither system is without faults and failures, but that an informed choice is properly made by assessing the degree to which it can be corrected. The Virtues of Capitalism argues that, unlike socialism, the weaknesses of capitalism are not inevitable nor fundamental to the system it creates and concludes that it is with capitalism that the choice must lie. The second part, "Capitalism," a much longer work, is a celebration of capitalism and a detailed account of its virtues.

Volume 2: The State Is Rolling Back is a collection of fifty-four of Arthur Seldon's shorter articles on the shortcomings of state welfare, on government failure, and on the advantages of allowing markets to work. It analyzes a wide range of economic and social problems, demonstrating the damaging consequences of intervention by government with short time horizons.

Volume 3: Everyman's Dictionary of Economics provides over nineteen hundred concise, desk-encyclopedia-style articles on economic terms and concepts, as well as on significant people working in the field, in plain, nontechnical English. The articles challenge readers' acceptance of the conventional wisdom on such subjects as government intervention in economic matters.

Volume 4: Introducing Market Forces into "Public" Services includes six of Seldon's most pivotal writings ("Which Way to Welfare?" "Taxation and Welfare," "Remove the Financing Flaw in ‘Public’ Services," "Charge," "Micro-economic Controls – Disciplining the State by Pricing," and "The Riddle of the Voucher") that discuss ways of paying for ‘public’ services other than through general taxation, with focus on tax reductions and restoring purchasing power to consumers.

Volume 5: Government Failure and Over-Government presents Seldon's pivotal book The Dilemma of Democracy and five related works. In them, Seldon persua­sively argues in favor of limiting government to areas of true public interest, such as national defense, and allowing market forces to control such areas as education, health care, and housing. Seldon condemns over-government, in which government encroaches on the private sector, forcing individual pref­erences to bow to the desires of large interest groups.

Volume 6: In The Welfare State, Arthur Seldon critiques the universalist approach of most government welfare programs, in which the neediest are provided too little and the rest get more than they need. The collection of eight articles and one book explains how state-run welfare, such as national pensions and health care, suppresses innovation, diminishes personal choice, undermines personal responsibility, and ends by providing only mediocre services.

Volume 7: The IEA, the LSE, and the Influence of Ideas includes six works in which Arthur Seldon discusses the way ideas influence policy. He explains how he worked to bring about a revival of classical liberal ideas, in particular through the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs , which had remarkable success and on which many other think tanks around the world have been modeled.

Arthur Seldon’s Collected Works in these seven volumes are a major contribution to classical liberal thought.

Business & Investing / Management & Leadership / Personal Finance

Billionaire Secrets to Success by Bill Bartmann (Brown Books Publishing Group)

Plenty has been written on the topic of Success & Failure. Like many others, this book claims to be different from all the rest, but Billionaire Secrets to Success is the first success and failure book written by a person who has personally experienced being a millionaire three times, being bankrupt twice, and being a billionaire once. Bill Bartmann is the leading authority on entrepreneurship in America . He has created seven successful businesses in seven different industries, including a $3.5 billion, 3900 employee international company that he started from his kitchen table with a $13,000 loan. He has been named National Entrepreneur of the Year by NASDAQ , USA Today, Merrill Lynch and the Kauffman Foundation. Bartmann's successes have been the subject of more than 470 news articles in publications ranging from Forbes, Fortune, BusinessWeek, Inc., People, and The Wall Street Journal. His journey from poverty to the twenty-fifth wealthiest person in America , with several ups and downs along the way, has given him a unique perspective from which to share his experiences and the lessons he learned. He shares with readers his nine principles for attaining success.

These nine principles are not the product of academia. Bartmann has personally tested these nine principles, not once, but four times over the past twenty five years and they have worked every time. According to Billionaire Secrets to Success these nine principles will work for anyone, no matter education, social status, financial situation, or how many times they failed in the past. According to Bartmann, once readers understand how these processes work, they can begin to change their lives. His attitude shows when he tells readers, it is not too late – no matter where they are or what they have done or failed to do – each person can become the person they deserve to be.

The people I know who are successful, the people who contribute to our society, are people who have failed many times, who have been frustrated many many times, who have been broke, like Mr. Bartmann, many times. But somehow, they never quit. Soak in from Mr. Bartmann these positive energies, this advice, this counsel, this plan. Take it back with you, implement it. – Clarence Thomas , U.S. Supreme Court Justice

I like, trust, admire, and recommend that you drink in his great wisdom. – Mark Victor Hansen; co-creator, New York Times Best Selling series Chicken Soup for the Soul and coauthor, Cracking the Millionaire Code and The One Minute Millionaire

Follow Bartmann’s advice and become a success in life...he shows you how to use the tools you already have. – Sam Donaldson, ABC News correspondent
Bartmann has experienced more success and failure as an entrepreneur than anyone I know. Learn from his experience. – Jim Stovall, Emmy Award winner, President of Narrative Television Network and author of The Ultimate Gift

Bartmann's book is unique in that it explains in plain language the mechanics of the mental processes that guarantee success or failure. Billionaire Secrets to Success is a powerful book, full of wisdom and experience that will make readers rich – if they follow it.

Children / Young Adults / Historical Fiction

Ithaka by Adele Geras (Harcourt, Inc.), at the 10-12th grade reading level, is written by Adele Geras, celebrated author of many stories and novels, including Troy and the Egerton Hall trilogy: The Tower Room, Watching the Roses, and Pictures of the Night.

In Ithaka ten years have passed since the end of the Trojan War, and Penelope, faithful and devoted, is still waiting for her husband, Odysseus, to return home. The peace of the city of Ithaka has been shattered by the arrival of ill-mannered strangers from the surrounding islands who are vying for Penelope's hand in marriage. But Penelope is certain that her husband has survived the destruction of Troy and will, with the protection of Pallas Athene, return.

Also caught up in the games orchestrated by the gods is Klymene, a young handmaiden who is like a daughter to Penelope – and who longs for more than friendship from Penelope's son, Prince Telemachus. Told through Klymene's eyes, Ithaka captures the quiet strength and patience of a woman's enduring love for her husband and the ensuing chaos that threatens all as Penelope is pressured to remarry.

Then, when a naked, half-drowned man washes up on the beach, everything changes. . . .

In Troy (2001), Geras retold The Iliad through the coming-of-age experiences of two orphaned sisters. Here she reimagines The Odyssey. As in the previous book, Geras revisits a classic epic through young protagonists – predominantly Klymene, a kindly servant girl who attends Penelope in her island castle while the Queen waits faithfully (for the most part) for King Odysseus' return from the Trojan War. Instead of focusing on Odysseus' fantastical journey toward hearth and home, this story remains with those the hero left behind, including his volatile son, Telemachus, and his loyal hunting dog, Argos . Hordes of unsuitable and highly unscrupulous suitors arrive to entrench themselves within the castle, hoping to claim Penelope's hand and lands when she finally accepts that her king will never return. The unwilling Penelope plays a tense game with the increasingly aggressive suitors, which impacts the lives of virtually all of Ithaka's denizens. Filled with intrigue and subterfuge and replete with visits from the gods, this visceral, lusty, tragic retelling will draw older teen readers. – Holly Koelling, Booklist

Ithaka captures the quiet strength and patience of a woman's enduring love for her husband. Told with grace and passion, Geras paints the story of the women left behind when their men go off to war.

Education / Administration

Effective School Leadership: Strategies for Successful School Administrators by James Johnston (Crown House Publishing Company)

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that is your own self. – Aldous Huxley

Effective leadership generates a school culture that fosters effective learning. But how do readers acquire the personal qualities and interpersonal skills so vital for a successful administrator? The good news is that they can be learned. Effective School Leadership, written by James Johnston, former teacher of 15 years, former vice-principal and head of a history department, is for readers if they want to

• Improve their self-management skills such as time management and dealing with interruptions.
• Manage difficult situations such as a conflict situation with a student, colleague, or parent.
• Maintain a sense of purpose and direction under pressure.
• Create a positive attitude in their team so all members are valued and productive.
• Communicate effectively, whether conversing with a colleague, a student, or a parent.

There has been a great deal of change in education in the past fifteen years. The No Child Left Behind Act, the advent of graduation tests, the increasing pressures for school accountability, and the requirement to hire only certified teachers have all placed new demands on teachers and administrators in schools. The traditional roles and responsibilities of principals, vice principals, and administrators at all levels in both primary and secondary schools have expanded to incorporate a plethora of new responsibilities and pressures. A great deal of time and money has been invested in training school leaders in a range of management tools and techniques. Many of these have focused on improving the effectiveness of the organization and on getting the job done with the greatest efficiency.

Much has been written on school administration. Schools have become immersed in management initiatives and jargon. Despite the preoccupation with ‘management,’ many teachers have seen their workloads increase, their morale drop, and innovation fatigue set in at all levels of the school.

According to Johnson, it is time to reassess management approaches in education. Education is about leadership as well as management. For those who have spent a career in teaching, it is plain to see that ‘management by the stick’ approaches, which invest little trust in the professional judgment of teachers and ultimately dis-empower them, have little to offer schools. In the long run stick management stultifies creativity and innovation, breeds fear and mistrust, saps motivation and succeeds only in encouraging people to avoid taking risks and making mistakes. In the context of our schools, the ‘effectiveness’ experiment has simply encouraged teachers and administrators to become ever more creative at finding ways to avoid the stick.

Effective School Leadership aims to restore the human dimension to the debate about what makes schools effective and what makes them improve. It is less about management than managing less about managing than leading.

Effective School Leadership is intended to help existing and aspiring school leaders and administrators – principals, vice principals, deans of students, department heads, team leaders, and others – develop greater self-knowledge, understanding, and skill in leadership. The result, according to Johnston , is interactions with colleagues that are positive and constructive and achieve shared goals. Part 1 focuses on the development of personal skills and resources to manage and lead oneself effectively. Before readers can manage and lead others effectively, it is important to manage and lead themselves. Chapter 1 focuses on the importance of outcome thinking and creative goal setting for success. Chapter 2 introduces a range of practical strategies for effectively managing time and priorities. Chapter 3 focuses on the importance of state of mind and the beliefs that underpin behavior and how readers can use them to increase their personal effectiveness as an administrator. It introduces techniques to effectively manage resource states and to explore relationships between a person's beliefs and performance.

Part 2 introduces a range of techniques that improve the quality of interpersonal encounters. Chapter 4 addresses the importance of rapport and congruence in dealing with people. Chapter 5 introduces a model for recognizing and responding to other people's language patterns. Finally, chapter 6 introduces a range of processes for resolving conflicts between people in a sensitive and constructive manner.

Overall, Effective School Leadership contributes to the debate about what schools are for and how school administrators can operate more effectively. The ability to communicate effectively with oneself and others is vital to successful learning in schools.

In attempting to motivate others, an effective leader begins by articu­lating the vision for a school. This vision needs to reflect the shared goals and values of the entire staff if it is to help move others forward. Leaders motivate people by taking the time and making the effort to find out what is important to them. Only by investing in people and applying the kinds of skills described in this book can school administrators embody the necessary personal, interpersonal, and organizational values.

The premise of Effective School Leadership is that to lead others readers must first be capable of leading themselves. The ability to build rapport with and between others, and to create a school or departmental culture in which colleagues value and support each other, results from self-belief and explicit modeling. Unless readers believe in what they are doing and act in accordance with those beliefs, few will join them and the task of meeting their avowed objectives will be all the more complex and difficult.

If some of the procedures described in the book seem unusual, it is because they are adapted from training activities. The live and shared experiences of a recognized personal development training program provide the most effective vehicle for learning and practicing the skills that will improve personal and interpersonal effectiveness. Whatever their leadership position – principal, vice-principal, department head, or curriculum specialist – the strategies and techniques in Effective School Leadership will help readers succeed.

Education / Professional & Technical

Leading the Curriculum in the Primary School by Neil Burton & Mark Brundrett (Paul Chapman Educational Publishing)

The focus of teacher training is shifting away from specialized subject knowledge. There has been an acknowledgement of the need for teachers to develop management and leadership skills to achieve a state where they possess transferable skills, which can be employed in coordinating any area of the primary curriculum.

Leading the Curriculum in the Primary School examines the management and leadership techniques that trainees and practicing teachers need, providing trainees, as well as beginning and experienced teachers with the techniques that they need in order to develop, with appropriate experience and opportunities, into subject leaders or effective members of a senior management team. From establishing a direction through working with resources to leading and motivating colleagues, Leading the Curriculum in the Primary School deals with the theoretical, practical and technological issues facing teachers as they create and manage curricula.

The book was written by Neil Burton and Mark Brundrett. Burton is currently the MA Education Programme leader at De Montfort University, Bedford , where he also teaches on undergraduate and postgraduate initial teacher training courses. He has worked in senior positions in primary and secondary schools, advised on primary science and technology in a large Local Education Authority, and taught on MBA and EdD programmes at various universities. Brundrett is a Senior Research Consultant at the Centre for Educational Leadership at the University of Manchester, who previously taught in secondary, middle and primary schools and was a head-teacher for five years. He has also taught at several higher education institutions and was Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Hull .

The structure of Leading the Curriculum in the Primary School is conceived in four sections that take readers through the following areas: an overview of the issues associated with middle leadership; a detailed discussion of leadership and the emergent notion of the role of the middle leader in managing and accounting for change in schools; the resource issues that a middle leader may justifiably be expected to address; and, finally, the ways in which staff can be led by middle leaders. The final section concludes with a chapter on school-based research and evaluation for evidence-based practice.

Section A provides an overview of the components of middle leadership in primary schools. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to the text and its title – ‘In search of subject leadership’ – reveals the fact that we still seek to define the role of middle leaders in key Stages 1 and 2. Chapter 2 reflects on the effective classroom practitioner and Chapter 3 attempts to show how the skills built up in the classroom can be extrapolated and developed as teachers take on such middle leadership roles and move from subject to curriculum leadership.

Section B guides the middle leader in establishing the direction of his or her subject area or department and commences with Chapter 4, which offers a more expansive and detailed analysis of what is actually meant by the terms leadership and management and then goes on to explore the role of the middle leader within the distributed leadership structure of a primary school. Chapter 5 provides a theoretical overview on middle leaders managing change and some detailed guidance relating to contemporary notions of strategic planning and target-setting. Chapter 6 offers guidance on monitoring and evaluating progress, and Chapter 7 discusses issues of accountability and the middle leader, especially as they relate to the Ofsted model of external inspection.

Section C is devoted to resource issues, within which Chapter 8 concentrates on identifying and organizing learning resources and Chapter 9 adumbrates the problems and possibilities associated with a topic that is often new and challenging to middle leaders – that of budgeting for the most of learning resources.

The final element of Leading the Curriculum in the Primary School, Section D, focuses on what the writers consider to be a key issue in enhancing schools, that of leading and motivating colleagues and pupils. Chapter 10 outlines the way in which colleagues need to be lead and managed to improve performance. Chapter 11 focuses on the various models of curriculum leadership and suggests that a co-constructed model of teaching and learning should be adopted which can both motivate pupils to learn and mirror the overall methods of relating to adults within the school. Chapter 12, the final chapter of both the section and the text as a whole, addresses classroom and school-based research for evidence-based decision-making.

Leading the Curriculum in the Primary School is an invaluable resource for trainees and teachers at every level as they confront the rapidly shifting demands of their profession.

Education / Professional & Technical

Learning to Practise: Professional Education in Historical and Contemporary Perspective edited by Ruby Heap, Wyn Millar, Elizabeth Smyth ( University of Ottawa Press )

How does one become a professional?

The interdisciplinary collection in Learning to Practise offers insights into that fundamental question. Employing a wide variety of approaches and methodologies, the original and thematically linked essays discuss such problematic issues as the most appropriate site for professional education, the proper focus and content of the initial and on-going preparation of professionals, and the nature of both continuity and change in professional education. In the process, they raise challenging questions about the development of professional education in Canada and elsewhere from the early 19th century to the present day, in fields as diverse as the health sciences, law, engineering, social work, theology, and university teaching. Learning to Practise is edited by Ruby Heap, professor of history at the University of Ottawa, whose teaching and research focuses on the history of women in the professions and the history of education in Canada; Wyn Millar, an independent scholar living in London, Ontario and co-founder of the journal Historical Studies in Education, for which she is both co-editor and managing editor; and Elizabeth Smyth, associate professor in the Department of Curriculum Teaching and Learning at the OISE and a founding member of the Women and Professional Education Network.

The essays in Learning to Practise arise out of a previous three-year collaborative effort, the outcome of which was Challenging Professions: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Women's Professional Work. That volume clearly demonstrated the strengths of interdisciplinary approaches to research on the professions. In addition, some of authors represented in this volume found the process of regular meetings over several years, and the concomitant critique of work and discussion of the larger issues, so productive, that they decided to begin a second cycle. This time, however, they had a somewhat different focus: the education of professional women and men.

Under the rubric of ‘learning to practice,’ these essays investigate the nature of professional education as it developed in particular social, political, and economic milieus, and at particular times and places.

As might be expected, since the second cycle of work grew so directly out of the first, the essays in Learning to Practise focus more on the experience of women than of men. Nevertheless, the collaborative enterprise spans a fairly wide range of interests and approaches. It examines the impact of critical periods of economic, political, and social change, such as, in the twentieth century, the two world wars, the rise of the social welfare state, and the women's movement, as well as the changing technological and scientific knowledge base of a number of professions.

Three main themes characterize the essays in Learning to Practise. The first is the problematic issue of the most efficacious place to carry out professional education, and how the site affects educational pedagogies and content, students and teachers, control and governance. The second focuses on the initial and ongoing preparation of professionals: what they learn, how they learn to put it into practice, and what the connection is between the two. And the third considers the presence of both continuity and change in the education of professionals, over time and across occupations.

In the first essay, "Madame How and Lady Why," R. D. Gidney sets the stage for an examination of the site of professional education, exploring how and why it became linked to the modern university, and the pros and cons of alternative methods. In the second, William Westfall tackles the subject of clerical formation by tracing the development of the theological and practical preparation, in a number of different locations, of those Anglican clergy who were to practice in nineteenth-century Ontario . Ruth Compton Brouwer in the third examines another important aspect of professional education: how and where it is delivered beyond the initial preparation of the practitioner.

The preparation of professionals is closely tied to the efforts of both established and aspiring professions to set limits to recruitment. Linda Quiney's essay analyzes how the Voluntary Aid Detachment workers of World War I were perceived by trained nurses as a threat to the status of their nascent profession. Tracey Adams turns the progress-to-university model on its head. Her case study of Ontario dental hygienists illustrates how, during the 1970s, the rapid growth of the health-care sector and the provincial government's intervention led to transfer of their professional education from Toronto 's Faculty of Dentistry to the community colleges.

The second theme concerns the content of professional education: learning to practice, or how professional skills and knowledge are taught and learned, in both overt and hidden ways. Its two main components, as Gidney's essay puts it, are learning how and learning why. There are other ways in which this dichotomy can be expressed, such as theory versus practice or skills versus knowledge, but there is no hard line between the two, and, as Westfall's chapter shows, the content, the delivery, and the very site of the academic component might constitute, under certain conditions, the teaching of practice.

The essays in Learning to Practise illustrate the shifting and uncertain terrain of the enterprise: the pertinent body of knowledge for any given profession was and remains both contested and elusive. For example, the preparation of Quiney's VADs throws into sharp relief the often arbitrary distinction between what was learned in the classroom and on the job; Adams ' dental hygienist leaders also illustrate the mismatch between their training for fairly precise and narrowly defined work, and the academic degrees they acquired.

In her essay, Cathy James examines in close detail the complexities of how theory and practice informed each other. Using fieldwork reports, she shows how social workers in early-twentieth-century Toronto learned their craft by performing on the job what they had studied in the classroom. Thus they were initiated into "the culture, the persona, the language, and the patterns of thought and behavior" that distinguished the trained professional.

A further dimension of this theme is revealed in several essays that examine in various ways how learning to practice is a gendered process. Westfall's clerical students were considered to be ‘gentlemen in the making.’ Jean McKenzie Leiper's study of contemporary women law students explores the range of their experiences with the gendered nature of a legal education and documents the ways in which women might accept or resist the dominant model of learning. That tension is also evident in the essay by Ruby Heap and Ellen Scheinberg, which focuses on the small but significant minority of women who studied engineering at the University of Toronto during the Second World War and the post-war period. The authors illustrate the diverse ways in which women students penetrated this male-dominated institution and responded to its masculinist curriculum and learning environment.

Three of the essays explicitly compare the preparation of different professions. While the authors are now beginning to amass a number of accounts, including the essays in Learning to Practise, of professional education in particular occupations, it has been more difficult, given the state of research and literature on the subject, to make such comparisons. Gidney's essay is intended to provide a broad overview and draws examples from several different occupations in order to shed light on the various components, and varying development, of professional education. Alison Prentice compares and contrasts the ways in which early- to late-twentieth-century women prepared for careers as university professors teaching history or physics. Using a cross-generational approach, she documents a wide range of experiences and illuminates the differences between the two disciplines in the covert messages that neophytes received during training, and the varying degrees of success they enjoyed in putting their learning into effect. And in their essay comparing the demographic and academic records of students in medicine, engineering, and dentistry at the University of Toronto in the first half of the twentieth century, Wyn Millar, Ruby Heap, and Bob Gidney comment on the meaning of the diversities, as well as commonalities, they find.

The third theme that runs through these essays is that of continuity and change. On the one hand, there are important shifts in the site of professional education, in the gender relations between and among students and teachers, and in the processes and development of pedagogies and knowledge. On the other, there remain significant continuities of institutional and professional control, societal norms and expectations, social class and the gendered nature of institutions.

Westfall concludes that both continuity and change can be discerned in the formation of clergy in the nineteenth century; though essential components of their preparation remained constant, there was a shift in "the proportion and placement of these elements within the general larger schemes of clerical formation." The work of Heap and Scheinberg, McKenzie Leiper, Prentice, and Brouwer demonstrates that in spite of the growing number of women in the fields of engineering, law, and medicine, and the disciplines of history and physics, the male models of professional identity remain dominant. The presence of women may subtly alter the norms but does not substantially change them. Indeed, one of Heap and Scheinberg's subjects considered herself ‘just one of the gang.’ The law students in McKenzie Leiper's essay, as well as Prentice's academics-in-­training, had conflicting and conflicted experiences and attitudes toward the kind of professional preparation they received.

Many essays allude to the difficulties of determining the decisive factors in the making of a professional. In the essays by Quiney and Adams, the extrinsic factors of war, job markets, government intervention, and competing interest groups remain crucial in shaping change in professional preparation. McKenzie Leiper's essay reminds readers of the multiple ways in which social class, ethnicity, age, and gender affect the process of learning to practice. Prentice reflects convincingly on the vagaries and convolutions involved in each individual's choice and pursuit of a career.

Change may also occur in unexpected ways. The essays by Prentice and by Heap and Scheinberg point to the more diversified ethnic and cultural backgrounds of female entrants to physics and engineering in the post-war period – a direct result of post-war immigration – and note the significant support that these women received in such academic pursuits from their families. Millar, Heap, and Gidney suggest there was some diversification occurring in all three professional schools during the post-World War II period. They demonstrate how the growth of socioeconomic and religious diversity occurred at a different pace in each school, however, and caution that it was perhaps less than lasting.

Hemp, Millar and Smyth are the first to acknowledge that the essays in Learning to Practise encompass only a few of the elements that could be explored in analyzing the history and practice of professional education. Many of these chapters have touched on other topics that invite further investigation. These include, for example, the impact of social class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and the historical moment upon the ways in which professional education is taught and learned. The role of sexual orientation, however, remains unexplored. Many of the essays examine the reciprocal influence of the professional schools and their students, but there is more to be said. They have hinted at, but need to tease apart, the complex relationship between the professional schools and the university in which they are embedded. In what ways does ‘the authority of experts’ confer upon the professional schools the mantle of superiority within the hierarchy of disciplines? And in what ways is that contested by the traditional view of the university as purveying a liberal education?"

According to Heap, Millar and Smyth, there are a number of subjects that would merit additional consideration. The moral curriculum of the professional school, including explicit codes of ethics and implicit socialization, should be examined. The relationship of the school to professional practitioners and their governing bodies would form a natural extension of the work here. An examination of the role of outside agencies, including public and private funding bodies, would be both topical and controversial. An analysis of the transition from professional school student to professional practitioner would yield insights for both the field and the academy.

How then does one become a professional? Learning to Practise supplies an array of complex answers. Above all, it highlights the extent to which professional education is and continues to be a field of scholarly investigation that holds great promise for the shaping of both theory and practice. An essential resource for those studying the professions, Learning to Practise will also appeal to practitioners, professional associations, administrators, and faculty in professional schools, and to all those interested in the past, present, and future state of their professions.

Entertainment / Movies

The Art of Ray Harryhausen by Ray Harryhausen & Tony Dalton, with a foreword by Peter Jackson (Billboard Books) is about the grandmaster of special effects in the pre-digital era.

The Lord of the Rings is my ‘Ray Harryhausen movie’. Without that life-long love of his wondrous images and storytelling it would never have been made – not by me at least. – from the foreword by Peter Jackson

The huge ape of Mighty Joe Young. The fighting skeletons of Jason and the Argonauts. And, of course, the angry T. Rex of Leland of the Guangi. This and so much more is the work of Ray Harryhausen, the father of special effects, the man revered among film historians, animators, special effect designers, and everyone who's ever seen his inspired stop-motion creations.

In An Animated Life, Harryhausen told the story of his career. As one of the most highly acclaimed stop-motion animators in movie history, he was responsible for the dinosaurs, aliens, and mythological creatures in such classic films as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Earth vs the Flying Saucers, 20 Million Miles to Earth, One Million Years B.C., and Mysterious Island , as well as his Puppetoons and Mother Goose Stories. The Art of Ray Harryhausen is a companion volume; in it the focus is not on the movies themselves but on the vast hoard of artwork that Harryhausen has preserved in his London home, much of which is published here for the first time. Reproduced to the highest standards, this artwork includes preliminary sketches and elaborate drawings of key scenes and carefully plotted storyboards, all produced as he prepared to undertake the laborious task of animating the creatures that stole scene after scene from the human actors. Also depicted here are the tiny, elaborately articulated models that Harryhausen created to play these roles and the bronzes which he cast to preserve their forms in perpetuity. Concise essays and lavish illustrations look at each of Harryhausen's specialties, including aliens, prehistoric creatures, and mythological monsters.

Lavishly illustrated and infused throughout with Harryhausen ‘talking’ about his craft, The Art of Ray Harryhausen is a visual celebration of his art and artistry. The volume is coauthored by Tony Dalton, formerly a film publicist and historian, who now runs his own research company, and who has known Harryhausen for over thirty years and collaborated with him on An Animated Life.

Ray has been a great inspiration to us all in the special visual industry. The art of his earlier films, which most of us grew up on, inspired us so much. – George Lucas, producer/director

We're joined the hip and we're joined at the brow and joined in our imagination. – Ray Bradbury, writer & visionary

One of the world's great manipulators. – Kermit Frog

In my mind he will always be the king of stop-motion animation. – Nick Park, producer, writer & animator at Aardman

The stunning array of images in The Art of Ray Harryhausen is a tribute to the vast scope of Harryhausen's imagination and artistic skills. This is a book that fans will treasure since they can see the progression of the master's work over time. It is a collection that no one interested in special effects or cinema history can afford to be without.

Entertainment / Movies

Multiculturalism and the Mouse: Race and Sex in Disney Entertainment by Douglas Brode ( University of Texas Press ) is a spirited defense of Disney entertainment which argues that Disney paved the way for today’s multicultural values through its positive portrayal of women, ethnic minorities, gays, and non-Christian spirituality.

In Multiculturalism and the Mouse, Douglas Brode – the only academic author/scholar who dares to defend Disney entertainment – argues that ‘Uncle Walt's’ output of films, television shows, theme parks, and spin-off items promoted diversity decades before such a concept gained popular currency in the 1990s. Fully understood, It's a Small World – one of the most popular attractions at the Disney theme parks – encapsulates Disney's prophetic vision of an appealingly varied world, each race respecting the uniqueness of all the others while simultaneously celebrating a common human core.

In this volume, Brode makes a case that Disney's consistently positive presentation of ‘difference’ – whether it be race, gender, sexual orientation, ideology, or spirituality – provided the key paradigm for an eventual emergence of multiculturalism in our society. Using examples from dozens of films and TV programs, Brode, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and journalist who teaches cinema studies and popular culture at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, in Multiculturalism and the Mouse demonstrates that Disney entertainment has consistently portrayed Native Americans, African Americans, women, gays, individual acceptance of one's sexual orientation, and alternatives to Judeo-Christian religious values in a positive light. Assuming a contrarian stance, Brode refutes the overwhelming body of ‘serious’ criticism that dismisses Disney entertainment as racist and sexist. Instead, he reveals through close textual analysis how Disney introduced audiences to such politically correct principles as mainstream feminism.

Brode emerges [as] a worthy proponent of Disney's democratic vision, wielding a powerful argument for Disney as a forerunner of multicultural values in America . The significance of his work cannot be overstated. – Deborah C. Mitchell, Westminster College , author of Diane Keaton: Artist and Icon

In Multiculturalism and the Mouse, Brode challenges the popular perception of Disney fare as a bland diet of programming. Providing a long overdue and thoroughly detailed alternative, Brode makes a convincing argument that with an unwavering commitment to racial diversity and sexual difference, coupled with a vast global popularity, Disney entertainment enabled those successive generations of impressionable youth who experienced it to create today's aura of multiculturalism and our politically correct value system.

Entertainment / Music

Bluegrass Guitar: Know the Players, Play the Music (Spiral-bound) by Sid Griffin & Eric Thomson (Fretmaster Series: Backbeat Books)

Bluegrass , the most exciting and infectious sound in American roots music, has found a whole new audience in recent years. Stars like Alison Krauss & Union Station – and the success of the Coen Brothers' bluegrass movie 0 Brother, Where Art Thou? – have brought the music into the mainstream, while the booming festival circuit has attracted countless young players and listeners.

Barely older than rock'n'roll, bluegrass represents the culmination of a folk tradition going back centuries. At its heart is the acoustic guitar.

Bluegrass Guitar, the newest title in Backbeat’s Fretmaster series, is a playing guide and history that includes biographies of key artists, music transcriptions, original recordings, and style demonstrations.

In Bluegrass Guitar, two bluegrass guitarists join forces to help readers get to grips with the music. Sid Griffin introduces readers to the great players, from pioneers like Maybelle Carter and Clarence White through to daring experimentalists like Tony Rice and Bryan Sutton. Meanwhile, Eric Thompson – who grew up playing with Jerry Garcia and David Grisman – gives readers a comprehensive course in bluegrass playing, from rhythm strumming to complex runs, fills, bass melodies, and flat-picking patterns.

The package includes:

• A 51-track CD of licks, exercises, and songs.

• Advice on instruments and technique.

• Recommendations for listening and reading.

Bluegrass Guitar serves as a solid introduction to bluegrass, but it is also useful to intermediate to advanced players. The accompanying CD offers exclusive backing tracks that give readers a helpful way to play along and hone their technique.

Health, Mind & Body

The Potbelly Syndrome: How Common Germs Cause Obesity, Diabetes, And Heart Disease by Russell Farris & Per Mårin (Basic Health Publications, Inc.)

Potbelly syndrome (PBS) is a metabolic disorder that affects about one-third of the adults in industrialized countries. Its most important symptoms are abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes.

People with potbelly syndrome are usually told to eat less and exercise more, but dieting almost never works, say Russell Farris and Per Mårin; weight is controlled by hormones, not willpower. Some foods are better than others, but no change in the kind or amount of food eaten will ever eradicate the germs that cause heart disease. Furthermore, exercise, while good for everyone, cannot eliminate the stress caused by chronic infections. In The Potbelly Syndrome, Farris, retired artificial intelligence researcher and Mårin, M.D., Ph.D., distinguished scientist, physician and clinical teacher from Sweden , explain that heart disease and potbellies are caused by stress and chronic infections. Common germs that reside in the bodies cause heart disease; germs increase stress levels; stress causes subtle hypercortisolism (potbelly syndrome); and chronic subtle hypercortisolism causes insulin resistance, potbellies, high blood pressure, and type-2 diabetes. To have healthy hearts and flat stomachs, according to The Potbelly Syndrome, readers need to:

• Reduce exposure to stress.
• Increase resistance to stress.
• Eradicate chronic infections.

The signs and symptoms of potbelly syndrome develop slowly, but they are predictable and consistent, the authors say. Armed with the knowledge of what these signs are, readers can improve their chances of having ‘spontaneous’ remissions. The Potbelly Syndrome walks readers through steps that can make a preventive or healing difference.

Readers can lower their stress levels through various means, Farris and Marin point out, but they will need the help of doctors to deal with this new approach to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, and for the tests and the means to eradicate the chronic infections that cause them.

Farris and Mårin begin by describing some of the germs that can cause cortisol-related illnesses that include high blood pressure, obesity, Cushing's syndrome, and type-2 diabetes, which is the last and worst state of potbelly syndrome. They discuss:

• Arguments against lowering cholesterol, as well those for lowering it.
• The pluses, as well as the negatives, of hypertension.
• The interplay of infections and insulin resistance.
• How low stress affects appetite.

For those readers who feel they did everything they were supposed to do and still gained weight, became diabetic, or had a heart attack, or for medical professionals who suspect that there are serious gaps in the current understanding of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, The Potbelly Syndrome will provide a new set of possibilities.

Health, Mind & Body / Diet & Weight Loss

The Fat Resistance Diet: Unlock the Secret of the Hormone Leptin to: Eliminate Cravings, Supercharge Your Metabolism, Fight Inflammation, Lose Weight & Reprogram Your Body to Stay Thin – Forever by Leo Galland (Broadway)

Cutting-edge scientific research shows that losing weight is not about carbs, calories, or even willpower – it’s about a hormone called leptin and how it functions in the dieter’s body.

An expert in the field of nutritional medicine, Dr. Leo Galland, who has studied the link between hormones and obesity for years, says in The Fat Resistance Diet that if readers have struggled to lose weight on diet after diet but still can’t shake those excess pounds, chances are they are ‘leptin resistant’ – a state in which body no longer responds to leptin, making it impossible to slim down, no matter what size portions or how few carbs they eat. But, by adding the right foods to the diet, they can reverse leptin resistance and reprogram their bodies to start melting away the pounds.

"When our bodies are working properly, we eat what we want, and if we inadvertently gain a few pounds, the leptin in our system works to suppress our appetite, rev up our metabolism, and reestablish our original weight . . . The problem comes when this natural ability is disrupted, most often by a condition known as inflammation . . . Inflammation is an important part of conditions like arthritis, asthma, allergies, heart disease, and diabetes

... But there's another condition that some scientists now realize is caused by inflammation – obesity. This is because inflammation triggers leptin resistance, which in turn contributes to sluggish metabolism, unchecked cravings, and eventually, unwanted pounds," says Galland.

As the first weight-loss plan specifically designed to combat the hormonal imbalance called ‘leptin resistance,’ The Fat Resistance Diet lays out a three-stage program that reverses the imbalance and delivers a loss of six to ten pounds in the first two weeks and at least five pounds a month thereafter. The Fat Resistance Diet incorporates a variety of superfoods (foods that help fast-track weight-loss by healing inflammation and restoring the body's sensitivity to leptin) into an assortment of recipes and weekly menus. Some of the superfoods include: salmon, spinach, broccoli, carrots, apples, unsalted almonds, egg whites, pomegranate juice, and so on. The program presented in the book has three stages.

Stage 1 jump-starts the weight-loss process by healing inflammation through the consumption of superfoods. This sudden intake of high-level nutrients improves body chemistry and lowers insulin levels, allowing the body to regain its sensitivity to leptin and begin shedding weight. The recipes in Stage 1 include: a Tuscan Frittata, a Parsley and Tomato Omelet, a Tuna Avocado Lettuce Wrap, Grilled Sirloin with Garlic and Herbs, and Grilled Vegetables with Tofu.

Once the chemical balance has been reinstated and leptin resistance has begun to improve, Stage 2 offers a wider variety of foods to filter into the diet. This expansion of dietary options makes The Fat Resistance Diet work for long-term weight-loss and enables people to lose two pounds per week. The recipes in Stage 2 include: a Banana Strawberry Smoothie, Insalata Caprese, Chicken Caesar Salad, Ginger Lime Grilled Tuna, and Stir-Fried Vegetables with Beef or Tofu.

Stage 3 is designed to help dieters maintain their diet weight while keeping inflammation down. Whole-grain breads and pastas are now integrated into the mix and offer dieters more variety and choice without derailing the progress they have already made. The recipes in Stage 3 include: Carrot Raisin Muffins, Orzo Salad, Pasta with Tuscan White Beans, and Chicken Quesadillas with Tomato Salsa.

With a wide array of recipes and choices, the three stages of The Fat Resistance Diet offer an eating plan that can be followed for an extended period of time. In addition, all three stages are so effective on their own that Galland encourages dieters to stick to just one of the stages if they are achieving the results they desire.

The book also contains chapters on relaxation, detoxification and exercise as well as shopping lists and resources.

The Fat Resistance Diet teaches us how to alter our biological hardwiring to lose weight and keep it off. Dr. Galland spotlights Leptin Resistance – a condition that drives millions to gain weight, despite futile dieting efforts. – Mehmet Oz, M.D., author of You: The Owner's Manual
In a world of fad diets, Dr. Leo Galland’s The Fat Resistance Diet brings leading-edge science to bear on the problem of obesity. This program revolutionizes our understanding of weight loss and health enhancement. – David Perlmutter, M.D., F.A.C.N., author of The Better Brain Book
Dr. Galland cuts through the diet myths to reveal the critical relationship between hunger, inflammation, and body weight, and provides delicious ways to reduce all three. – Lawrence J. Cheskin, M.D., Director of the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center
A welcome change from the most recent diet fashions, Galland’s book deserves a wide readership. – Library Journal

A potential breakthrough for dieters, The Fat Resistance Diet claims to works with dieters’ hormones to curtail appetite, boost metabolism, and help them lose weight – making readers essentially ‘fat resistant’ – so they will never put the weight on again. A wonderful assertion, and one this editor would love to hear the effectiveness of.

Health, Mind & Body / History / Americas

Jailed for Possession: Illegal Drug Use, Regulation, and Power in Canada , 1920-1961 by Catherine Carstairs (Studies in Gender and History Series: University of Toronto Press)

As rates of illegal drug use increase, the debates over drug policy heat up. While some believe penalties should be harsher, others advocate complete decriminalization. Certainly, debate over the ‘war on drugs’ is not new. In Jailed for Possession, Catherine Carstairs examines the impact of these drug laws on users' health, work lives, and relationships.

Prior to the passage of Canada 's first drug laws in 1908 and 1911, Canadians could purchase opium, cocaine, and morphine at their local pharmacy and at Chinese shops. But in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the non-medical use of opium, morphine, heroin, and cocaine became increasingly disreputable. When legislation controlling the sale and possession of opium, cocaine, and morphine came before the House of Commons in 1908 and 1911, it was seen as a necessary public health measure, needed to prevent addiction, poisoning, and recreational use, and it met with strong support.

The penalties for violating the Opium and Drug Act of 1911 were fairly minor. This changed when a huge anti-drug panic, closely tied to the drive for Chinese exclusion, emerged in the early 1920s. In chapter 1 of Jailed for Possession, Carstairs, assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Guelph , explores the anti-drug panic and its legal consequences. In the economically troubled years that followed the First World War, the Asiatic Exclusion League and BC politicians renewed their campaign to end all Asian immigration, and drugs became an important aspect of their campaign. Newspapers, moral reformers, and parliamentarians accused evil Chinese traffickers of bringing innocent young girls and boys to ruin through drugs, providing yet another reason for keeping them out of Canada . As a result, Canada ’s drug laws were significantly strengthened, leading to six-month minimum sentences for possession – penalties that were removed only in 1961.

The state also put far more resources into enforcement, starting in the 1920s. The Opium and Drug Branch (renamed the Narcotic Division in 1923 and the Division of Narcotic Control in 1949) was established in 1920, as part of the new Department of Health, and it took charge of coordinating enforcement efforts and managing the licensing system. The newly created Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), formed in 1920 from a merger of the Royal North West Mounted Police and the Dominion Police, was asked to enforce the act, along with other federal statutes. Thus, in just a few short years, the state acquired the ability to fully enforce the act, and the penalties for violation had skyrocketed.

As Carstairs explores in chapters 2 and 3 of Jailed for Possession, these changes had a dramatic impact on the lives of users. At first, police targeted Chinese opium dens, where it was easy to make large numbers of arrests. Faced with constant raids and severe penalties, many Chinese stopped using, or switched from smoking opium, with its strong fumes and bulky equipment, to taking morphine and heroin. White working-class users like Edgar A. were not policed as intensively as the Chinese users, but they received strict sentences when they were caught. Some middle- and working-class drug users continued to obtain morphine from doctors on prescription, although it was becoming increasingly difficult to do so. During the 1920s and '30s, the high penalties for drug use and the greater difficulty in obtaining drugs seem to have led to a slow decline in use. This was not an entirely positive development, as the laws created much more dangerous conditions of drug use, including the replacement of the milder opium with morphine and heroin, and the substitution of the hypodermic needle for the opium pipe.

By the 1930s and especially during the Second World War, when smuggling all but ceased, it was very difficult to obtain drugs. Many drug users roamed the country seeking sympathetic doctors willing to prescribe. In Vancouver, where there was a more regular supply, users started injecting impure opium that was prepared for opium smoking, leading to serious abscesses and other health problems. Other users switched to codeine (a weaker opiate that was not subject to the strict provisions of the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act), Benzedrine (an amphetamine), barbiturates, or alcohol. Others grew their own poppies and make poppy tea. Despite the relative scarcity of drugs, a new generation of rebellious young people started using during the war years, attracted to drugs' pleasures and the dangers of using them.

After the war, shipping resumed, and drugs became easier to obtain and use, but users faced a vastly different situation. There were few Chinese drug users left. Instead, in the 1940s and '50s, there was a far more homogeneous group of white, working-class drug users, many of whom were quite young. These users had usually been in trouble with the law from an early age and had spent time in juvenile institutions. Surveillance of drug use by the police and the Division of Narcotic Control vastly intensified. The division carefully monitored doctors' prescriptions and quickly wrote to any physician who was prescribing more than what the division thought was normal. The RCMP and municipal police forces in Toronto and Vancouver, where most of the known drug users lived, carried out a vigorous campaign against drug users, and as the stories of Kitty and Edgar show, it was nearly impossible to be a drug user in post-war Canada and not spend a great deal of time in penal institutions. Only drug-using doctors escaped the constant cycle of arrest and imprisonment.

In chapters 4, 5, and 6, Carstairs examines the impact of JHS social workers, doctors, and police officers on drug users, but she also explores how each of these groups of moral agents were themselves regulated by the state and by their own training and beliefs.

There is a large body of work on moral regulation that shows how regulated ‘others’ fought back and exerted agency, but there has been less emphasis on how the regulators themselves were governed by state and non-state institutions, by budgets, by professional associations, and by their own sense of ethics and justice. In Jailed for Possession, Carstairs show that power was exercised (in unequal ways) by police officers, parliamentarians, social workers, doctors, government bureaucrats, journalists, and drug users themselves. She shows that the doctors, police officers, and social workers from the JHS faced numerous constraints. JHS social workers faced funding and institutional limitations. The nature of police work was dictated by evidentiary requirements imposed by the law and the courts, and by commands from the Division of Narcotic Control. None of these groups had unrestricted power and there were, in fact, some ironies in how power was exercised.

On the basis of their class status, we tend to think of doctors as being the most powerful of these three groups, but it was police officers, not doctors, that had the ear of the Division of Narcotic Control, and who exercised the most control over policy-making. It was police officers, not doctors, who were most preoccupied with the bodies of drug users, as they inspected their bodies for signs of drug use and tried to physically prevent their consumption of drugs. And it was social workers, not doctors, who were most interested in ‘curing’ the drug user. It was the police who had the most to gain in terms of claiming drug addiction as a particular area of expertise. They had the most personnel in the field, and narcotic policing was an interesting step up from the daily grind of police work – it was a way of gaining prestige and respect. Like doctors, few social workers took an interest in drug addic­tion in this time period, from 1920 to 1961, but those that did, such as the John Howard Society of British Columbia , did so out of a larger interest in advocating for the disadvantaged, and they had little to gain professionally from the field.

The chapter on policing (chapter 4) explores the growing sophistication and effectiveness of narcotic policing in Canada from 1920 through 1961. Policing caused drug users considerable stress and anxiety; it led drug users to distrust even their closest friends and their families, and to create secret (and dangerous) rituals of drug use to avoid detection. The chapter on doctors (chapter 5) shows the pressure placed on physicians by drug users who begged them to prescribe, and by the Division of Narcotic Control, which carefully monitored their prescribing practices and reprimanded them for violations. Conventional wisdom in medical history argues that the professionalization process was complete by the early part of the twentieth century, but chapter 5 shows that doctors' professional authority was questioned in the 1920s and that it was only in the 1950s and '60s that doctors gained greater autonomy in treating drug users. The chapter also demonstrates how the public looked to doctors, and especially to psychiatrists, to put forward solutions for the treatment of drug users in the 1950s, even though relatively few doctors had much interest in the field. Chapter 6, the third chapter on moral regulation, examines the work of the John Howard Society of British Columbia . It shows how these left-wing social workers were restricted in their efforts to achieve social change by their need to cooperate with the criminal justice system, and by their limited funds. Instead, social workers encouraged drug users to engage in a careful and prolonged process of self-examination and to find within themselves the reasons for their use of drugs.

Jailed for Possession concludes with a final chapter on policy. In the 1950s, psychological explanations of drug use and sympathy for the drug users, who were now mostly white and young, led to growing demands for treatment. In 1952 the Vancouver Community Chest and Council, which was the forerunner of the United Way , wrote a report suggesting that daily doses of heroin be provided to addicts. RCMP officers countered with the suggestion that addicts be imprisoned for life. In 1961 a new Narcotic Control Act removed the minimum penalties for possession. Instead, in Part II of the act, users could be sentenced to indeterminate periods of custody in a penitentiary for treatment. Part II was never signed into effect, because the necessary treatment institutions were never built, but because the new act made possession an indictable offence, judges still had to give prison terms, and six-month sentences remained quite common. In the mid-1960s, the use of marijuana and other drugs exploded. Suddenly, many middle-class young people ap­peared before the courts – a very different population from the heroin users that had dominated since the Second World War. Sentence length fell dramatically, more people were given suspended sentences or probation, and finally, in 1969, the act was amended to make it possible to proceed by summary conviction, ending mandatory prison terms. Drugs remained illegal, but the extremely harsh penalties of the ‘classic period’ had come to a decisive end.

Jailed for Possession is a fascinating and well-written piece of original research. Catherine Carstairs demonstrates how discourses of race, gender, and class have influenced drug regulation in Canada, and, even more intriguing, emphasizes the significant impact that regulation had on drug users. This book makes a significant contribution to the field. – Robert Campbell, Department of History, Capilano College

With Jailed for Possession, Catherine Carstairs provides a unique perspective on the development of policies on drug use in Canada – an essential historical view of how our current attitudes and laws have evolved. This extremely well-written book is important and very timely, as we are in the midst of changing social, legal, medical, and moral attitudes toward those who use marijuana, who have addictions to narcotics, and who profit from the drug trade, and we need this dispassionate reflection on how we arrived where we are. – Jock Murray , Medical Humanities Program, Dalhousie University

Jailed for Possession, the first social history of drug use in Canada , provides a careful examination of drug users and their regulators, including doctors, social workers, and police officers. Most of the drug users examined in Jailed for Possession were poor, troubled, and the subject of considerable attention from regulatory agents. This history of drug users therefore provides an interesting case study of the state, and of professional power, in Canadian society at a time when the state's capacity for regulation was vastly increasing. It also raises important questions about the dangerous consequences of strict drug control. Jailed for Possession shows that a harsh enforcement approach failed to bring an end to drug use, destabilized users' lives, harmed their health, and made drug use attractive to a small community of rebellious users. A more lenient approach to drug use will undoubtedly come with its own set of harms and dangers, but the strict approach that characterized the classic years was even worse.

Health, Mind & Body / Relationships

The Secrets of Happily Married Men: Eight Ways to Win Your Wife's Heart Forever by Scott Haltzman, with Theresa Foy DiGeronimo (Jossey-Bass)

Marriage and relationships are in crisis. The breakup and divorce rate remain high, despite all the couples therapy, afternoon talk shows, and other books in the marketplace, many of which describe men as abusive commitment phobic creeps who'd  better change fast or else. But The Secrets of Happily Married Men presents a different way of looking at how to build a successful long-lasting relationship from a man's point of view, from men who are happy in their partnerships, who have figured out what works for them in accomplishing the goal of a loving, intimate, lifetime commitment. Scott Haltzman, Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University , has devised a method for improving relationships. Men are different, Haltzman says. They don't approach relationships with the same skills and techniques that women do – and viva la difference. Haltzman presents eight techniques that he developed from his research and through the confidential correspondence to his highly successful Web site, including

1. Make Your Marriage Your Job
2. Know Your Wife
3. Be Home Now
4. Expect Conflict and Deal with It
5. Learn to Listen
6. Aim to Please
7. Understand the Truth about Sex
8. Celebrate Your Love

The Secrets of Happily Married Men is filled with stories, anecdotes and confessions from real men. It provides specific analysis, guidelines, and techniques that are based on male biology, neuroscience, brain differences, and unique developmental stages from youth to seniority.

At last, a book by real men for real men focused on the prize (a happy and contented wife) and filled with the secrets to getting more and better sex, health, wealth, and happiness. It’s a road map for men, women, or anyone who works with them – straight to the promised land. No man who is married, or plans to get married, should be without this book. – Diane Sollee, founder and director, SmartMarriages.com

Scott Haltzman writes clearly of the gender-specific issues of men and their response to marital conflict.  His commonsense language invites readers, regardless of gender, to want more. – Andrew Slaby, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., clinical professor of psychiatry, New York University

Scott Haltzman writes the perfect playbook for marriage. The Secrets of Happily Married Men teaches you all the right moves. It is a powerful book. – Stephen Baker, “The Touchdown Maker,” New York Giants Super Bowl Champion

This book is brilliant! It’s that rare ‘relationship book’ that men will actually like. Frankly, if all married couples read this book and followed its guidance, the divorce rate would plummet like a rock and the level of satisfaction in marriage would skyrocket. –Peggy Vaughan, DearPeggy.com; author of The Monogamy Myth

Once in a generation a book is published that changes the discourse about men and marriage. The Secrets of Happily Married Men is that book.  Dr. Haltzman weaves a compelling yet humorous argument for a man’s ability to master the skills necessary for understanding his wife and developing a marriage he can be proud of. Haltzman obviously relishes controversy and has several provocative discussions about traditional femin