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SirReadaLot.org


We Review the Best of the Latest Books

ISSN 1934-6557

November 2006, Issue #92

Guide to This Issue

Art & Photography

Martha Casanave: Explorations along an Imaginary Coastline by David Bayles (Hudson Hills Press)

 “For me, photography is like magic. One of the reasons for my fascination with the nineteenth century is, in fact, the invention of photography. But the pinhole principle, the camera obscura, which far predates the ability to ‘fix’ an image, is even more mysterious and magical. Its allure is its very simplicity: a box with a tiny hole creating an image – no lens, no viewfinder, no shutter.… As this work progressed, I began occasionally to photograph in the distance a solitary, mysterious figure in nineteenth-century attire. I am inevitably asked who the person is. My answer: I don't know ... I'm trying to find out myself.” – Martha Casanave

According to Casanave in her book of stunning seacoast photographs, Martha Casanave, she does not know what inspired her to begin photographing at the shore, as she had nearly always been an indoor photographer. She had lived on the central California coast for a long time, and the landscape photographers who have worked there have always been her friends and colleagues. She had made many portraits of them, but had never before been inspired to make land or seascapes herself. Six years ago, a friend persuaded her to bring her pinhole camera to the edge of the ocean. After that, something in her mutated, and she began visiting the coastline on a regular basis, weighed down, as she says, with too much baggage: pinhole camera, thermos, a big bag of toys, shower curtain for sitting on wet sand, and more.

As seen in Martha Casanave, the scenes are enigmatic – one embraces the chance of not being sure about who the observer is or what is observed. It is odd, really, that an artist should use photography, in its explicit and righteous specificity, to investigate this much ambiguity.

Although Central California has long been her coast, Casanave nevertheless finds her way along it anew; guided by the mix of the known and unknown in her accumulating observations. David Bayles in his essay in Martha Casanave says he suspects that certain pictures led the way forward, probably by chance – or perhaps with hint and innuendo, much as we would expect if we followed the path of the man in the bowler hat, as he pauses to make a note or looks up to compare his careful drawing with the actual horizon line before him.

All art work has philosophical underpinnings – sometimes visible despite the artist’s strongest objections. But the two philosophical threads here – the rectilinear nineteenth-century faith in observation and the twenty-first-century tilt on ambiguity and chance – cannot be unraveled.

Martha Casanave includes a single-page essay by Martha Casanave, a single-page essay by David Bayles and then the full-page black and white photos of Casanave. The thin book is large format, showing off the odd, unnamed, rather mystical photos, with their rounded edges. Many contain strings, or chains of seaweed, or feathers, or the man in the bowler hat.

Arts & Photography / Entertainment

Marilyn in Art edited by Roger Taylor (Pop Art Books by Open Door Limited, Chaucer Press)

Fame has a special burden. I don’t mind being burdened with being glamorous and sexual. We are all born sexual creatures, thank God, but it’s a pity that so many people despise and crust this natural gift. Art, real art, comes from it – everything. – Marilyn Monroe, as quoted in Marilyn in Art

Marilyn Monroe was an original. It has often been said that she was unique, a new form of celebrity, possessed of a remarkable aura and an unforgettable allure. It is this quality of originality that has inspired so many artists to try and replicate it on canvass and has given rise to a dazzling variety of interpretations in every medium.

Once described as ‘the only blonde in the world’, Monroe's impact in the course of her brief film career was so great that her image remains one of the most potent and poignant of our time, combining waiflike innocence with glittering eroticism, worldliness with profound vulnerability. Much photographed during her lifetime, Marilyn has since been a constant source of inspiration to artists, from Andy Warhol and noted fine artists to the graphic studios who mass produced greetings cards bearing her likeness. Some see her as the public saw her – sensual, half open mouth, dreaming eyes, heavy, always just-covered breasts. To others, she is the subject of fantasy – bizarre, erotic, expressionistic – an emblem of pure sex, or the embodiment of the wholesome American Dream.

It is the work of these artists from around the world that are presented in Marilyn in Art, edited by writer, artist and songwriter Roger Taylor, a true testament to her global impact. These portraits exercise artistic license to the full, but there is little that does not connect at some point with the original model in all her fascination, a unique and universal fascination which, forty three years after her death, shows no sign of diminishing. The book is composed of art works, generally two per page, juxtaposed with quotations about Monroe by famous people or by Marilyn herself.

Her beauty and humanity shine through … she is the kind of artist one does not come on every day in the week. After all, she was created something extraordinary. – Arthur Miller

It is Marilyn’s enduring and even growing image that inspired Marilyn in Art and is reflected in a collection of art that celebrates this unique and iconic figure of the 20th century.

Arts & Photography / How-to

Beyond Portraiture: Creative People Photography by Bryan Peterson (Amphoto Books, Watson-Guptill Publications)

Great portraits go beyond a mere record of a face. They reveal one of the millions of intimate human moments that make up a life. In Beyond Portraiture renowned photographer Bryan Peterson shows how to spot those ‘ah-ha!’ moments and capture them forever. A teary child, old people laughing together, a smiling girl with big, big hair – everyone remember pictures like these, usually taken by a mother, a father, a friend holding a camera, forever preserving small yet revealing vignettes of our personal histories.

Packed with the details and techniques and wrapped in images that deserve to be displayed on the coffee table, Peterson explains how to exploit the common human reactions that make us respond to photographs. Most eye-popping moments are captured only with good luck, but Beyond Portraiture gives readers the tools to achieve these results again and again. Peterson's approach explains what makes a photo memorable, how to spot the universal themes that everyone can identify, and how to use lighting, setting, and exposure to reveal the wonder and the joy of everyday moments. With this understanding, he shows readers how they can use this knowledge to maximize the expressiveness and impact of their people photography.

Beyond Portraiture is a straight-forward book explaining the many aspects of creative people photography. The book is broken down into five main sections. ‘Understanding People’ explains a bit of psychology, approaching people, and how to get people to agree to be photographed. ‘Working with People’ discusses the types of people readers should ‘cast’ for their intended images, and how to maintain a comfortable and respectful relationship of varying types of people they may want to photograph. A natural ‘people person,’ Peterson offers guidance on approaching potential subjects, putting them at ease, and then improving the creativity of the results you get with them. ‘Light’ details differing types of light and how they affect the images. ‘Composing Powerful Portraits’ offers basic composition rules, backgrounds, movement, camera settings and lens options. ‘Photo-Editing Techniques’ is a series of lessons in Photoshop to help perfect the images.

Whether readers are intimidated by the idea of photographing human subjects or simply want to improve the quality of their portraits, Beyond Portraiture from well­known author and photographer Peterson is just the ticket. Regardless of the camera readers are using, they can make use of all the techniques provided. Through the author's unique way of seeing, they will learn how to transform their people photography into something beyond the everyday, something beyond just portraiture.

With more than 200 eye-catching, color photographs, Beyond Portraiture demonstrates the techniques of composing powerful portraits. The book helps readers take great pictures of people – photos that capture a moment. It is specific enough for beginners, insightful enough for professionals, a wonderful book for scrapbookers, parents, and teachers.

Audio / Entertainment / Music / Biographies & Memoirs

Heavier than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain [UNABRIDGED] (11 Audio Cassettes, approximately 15 hours) by Charles R. Cross, narrated by Lloyd James (Blackstone Audio, Inc.)

I'm going to be a superstar musician, kill myself, and go out in a flame of glory. – Kurt Cobain

When Kurt Cobain shot himself in April 1994 at the age of 27, it was an act of will that typified his short, angry, inspired life. Veteran music journalist, former editor of The Rocket, Charles R. Cross in his New York Times best-seller Heavier than Heaven fuses his intimate knowledge of the Seattle music scene with his deep compassion for his subject.

Based on more than four hundred interviews, four years of research, and exclusive access to Cobain’s unpublished diaries, lyrics, and family photos, and a wealth of documentation, Heavier than Heaven traces Cobain’s life from his early days in a double-wide trailer outside of Aberdeen, Washington, to his rise to fame, success, and the adulation of a generation. The book reveals many secrets, even quoting Cobain's diaries and suicide notes, and reveals an unreleased Nirvana masterpiece. As a teen, Cobain said he had ‘suicide genes,’ and his clan was peculiarly defiant: one of his suicidal relatives stabbed his own belly in front of his family, and then ripped apart the wound in the hospital. Cobain was contradictory: a sweet, popular teen athlete and sinister berserker, a kid who rescued injured pigeons and laughingly killed a cat, a talented yet astoundingly morbid visual artist. Cobain, as leader of the band Nirvana, almost single-handedly wrestled alternative rock into the mainstream via the group's massive 1991 album, Nevermind. This is the story of Cobain’s artistic brilliance and the pain that extinguished it.

The audio version takes fifteen hours to listen to, read by theater actor Lloyd James.

…He gives the fullest account yet of what it was like to be, or love, Kurt Cobain. Heavier than Heaven outshines the also indispensable Come As You Are. It's the deepest book about pop's darkest falling star. – Tim Appelo, Amazon.com's Best of 2001
… Probably too reverent for Nirvana nonfans, this is still a standout among rock bios and deserves its place in pop-culture collections. – Mike Tribby, Booklist
Heavier than Heaven sets a high, new standard. – Rolling Stone
One of the most moving and revealing books ever written about a rock star. – Los Angeles Times  
The results of Cross' assiduous reporting show through in every chapter. A remarkable portrait: A-. – Tom Sinclair, Entertainment Weekly
. . . this is the first to take an authoritative, journalistic, and scrupulous look at the history of Cobain and his band. – Eric Nuzum, Public Arts
Shakes up the prevailing conceptions of Cobain . . . A compelling biography. – Justin Waite, Biography magazine

No other Cobain book matches Heavier than Heaven for research, accuracy, and insider scoops. – Mark Lindquist, The Seattle Times

Cross transcends Christopher Sandford's 1995 Cobain biography, Kurt Cobain by conducting interviews and gaining access not only to the singer's widow, Courtney Love, but also to the musician's private journals, which provide insights into Cobain's troubled mind. While thick with the Sturm und Drang of saying what an extraordinary story is being told, in actuality, Heavier than Heaven paints Cobain as rather ordinary, from boilerplate adolescent bitterness, from his parents' divorce and punk rock-adorned angst to the tawdry details of his drug addiction.

Audio / History / U.S.

In the Name of the Father: Washington's Legacy, Slavery and the Making of a Nation (8 Audio CDs, 10 hours, unabridged) by Francois Furstenberg, narrated by Michael Prichard (Tantor Audio)

In the Name of the Father: Washington's Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a Nation (The Penguin Press)

How did people in our country – North and South, East and West – come to share a remarkably durable and consistent common vision of what it meant to be an American in the first fifty years after the Revolution? How did the nation respond to the problem of slavery in a republic?

Written by François Furstenberg, assistant professor of history at the Université de Montréal, In the Name of the Father immerses readers in the rich, riotous world of what Furstenberg calls civic texts, the patriotic words and images circulating through every corner of the country in newspapers and almanacs, books and primers, paintings and even the most homely of domestic ornaments. We see how the leaders of the founding generation became ‘the founding fathers,’ how their words, especially George Washington's, became America's sacred scripture. And we see how the civic education they promoted is impossible to understand outside the context of America's increasing religiosity. For example, in reading Washington's farewell address aloud to the family when it was reprinted, year after year, in the local newspaper, or in hanging his portrait on the dining room wall, Americans were expressing their consent to be governed by the government Washington presided over.

In the Name of the Father is filled with stories of American print culture, including a wonderful consideration of the first great American hack biographer cum bookseller, Parson Weems, author of the first blockbuster Washington biography. Furstenberg's achievement is not limited to showing what all these civic texts were and how they infused Americans with a national spirit: how they created what Abraham Lincoln so famously called ‘the mystic chords of memory.’ He goes further in In the Name of the Father to show how the process of defining the good citizen in America was complicated and compromised by the problem of slavery. Ultimately, we see how reconciling slavery and republican nationalism would have fateful consequences.

This is a synthesis in the strict sense of the word and is likely to be transformative of our understandings. – Michael O’Brien, author of In Bitterness and in Tears

Furstenberg has written a scholarly work on the development of the American national spirit… – Library Journal

How were the ideals that were articulated in America's founding documents – freedom, democracy and government based on the consent of the governed – disseminated to the nation? That question animates this extraordinary new study by Furstenberg, an assistant professor of history at the Université de Montréal, which shows how popular print – broadsides, newspaper columns, schoolbooks, sermons – taught citizens ‘liberal and republican values,’ and ultimately ‘create[d] a nation.’… In the deluge of founding father books, Furstenberg's blend of high-brow intellectual history and popular culture studies stands out; rather than lionize Washington, it advances an important argument about his role in shaping American political identity. – Publishers Weekly (starred review)
When George Washington decided to return to private life after his second term as president, he presided over a theoretical rather than an actual nation. …Furstenberg illustrates how Americans forged a sense of national identity out of … disparate elements. Utilizing civic texts (including the Declaration of Independence and Washington's farewell address), newspaper articles, and even paintings, he describes the slow but inexorable march toward a vision of what constituted an American identity. His treatment of slavery is particularly informative, as he asserts that the mental gymnastics required to reconcile slavery and republican principles would have devastating consequences. – Jay Freeman, Booklist

In the Name of the Father is a revelatory study of how Americans were bound together as a young nation by the words, the image, and the myth of George Washington. Vivid and remarkable, the book stands out for its contribution to our understanding of how slavery shaped American nationalism in ways that define and haunt us to this day. The audio version is read by Michael Prichard, one of the Top Ten Golden Voices of SmartMoney magazine, narrator of the complete Nero Wolf mysteries which this editor so dearly loves.

Audio / Religion & Spirituality / Women’s Issues

The Confident Woman: Start Today Living Boldly and Without Fear (Abridged, 5 Audio CDs, approximately 6 hours) by Joyce Meyer, narrated by Pat Lentz (Hachette Audio)

In The Confident Woman, Joyce Meyer draws on her decades of experience interacting with and ministering to women. Meyer has been in full-time ministry since 1980 and is the bestselling author of more than seventy inspirational books, including Approval Addiction, In Pursuit of Peace, How to Hear from God, and Battlefield of the Mind.

Through Meyer's classic practicality, readers/listeners of The Confident Woman learn how to overcome all obstacles to live bold, victorious lives. Meyer explains that true confidence is faith in Christ and comes from being open to learning. She reminds readers that "women are a precious gift from God to the world. They are creative, sensitive, compassionate, and talented."

Meyer gives women the keys to identifying barriers to confidence, explores the empowerment that comes from preparation, and outlines the steps to independence through dependence on God. She explores the seven characteristics of a woman with confidence, which include knowing they are loved, refusing to live in fear, and not living by comparisons, ‘if onlys,’ or ‘what ifs.’ She lists women who have overcome barriers to become leaders and details ten steps to female independence. A large part of the book focuses on how women can eliminate fear.

Mega-selling author Meyer turns her pointed pen to building confidence in women. She defines confidence as "all about being positive about what you can do – and not worrying over what you can't do." … It's a vital message to be sure, but discerning readers might prefer fewer platitudes and examples, less repetition and a bit more depth. – Publishers Weekly

Meyers, extensive traveler and conference speaker, says that The Confident Woman is the result of her own personal journey from insecurity and self-hatred to a confidence through which she is realizing her full potential. Certainly many women can use the messages contained in this audio book.

Business & Investing / Economics

The Entrepreneurial Imperative: How America's Economic Miracle Will Reshape the World (and Change Your Life) by Carl J. Schramm (Collins)

In 2004, Carl Schramm, president of the Kauffman Foundation, the world's leading foundation for entrepreneurship, published a groundbreaking essay with a radical premise: that Americans literally have no conception of the secret that underlies our economic success, and that for the United States to survive and continue to lead the world's economy, it is imperative Americans learn to understand and employ that secret.

As Schramm discusses in The Entrepreneurial Imperative, entrepreneurship alone – not anything else – can give America the necessary leverage to remain an economic superpower. Not technology, since everyone now has the same technology, or access to it. Not education – we are years behind other nations in this area. Not basic manufacturing, long since moved overseas from the United States. And not capital markets, now truly global entities.

Drawing on detailed research conducted by the Kauffman Foundation and on his decades of experience as an entrepreneur himself and as a leader and mentor to other entrepreneurs, Schramm demonstrates in detail what this entrepreneurial imperative means for the way we run universities and foundations, lead companies, make personal job decisions, and even conduct our foreign affairs. He outlines why and how significant changes in government, education, and major corporations will be needed in order to promote an entrepreneurial ecosystem that keeps America on top.

The Entrepreneurial Imperative:

  • Explains why America is so good at entrepreneurship and details how we can increase the number of start-ups and move the economy further away from depending on the failed trifecta of big government, big business, big union.
  • Shows how exporting entrepreneurship overseas is vital to America's continued economic growth, opening markets abroad while increasing a healthy competition at home. He shows why spreading entrepreneurship must be a pillar of our foreign policy – above military and political solutions.
  • Details how we're in danger of stifling our entrepreneurial economy and shows what the government should do to nurture it.
  • Identifies the crucial role start-ups play in Corporate America, detailing a symbiotic push-and-take relationship between the younger, brighter, eager rookies and the conservative, bureaucracy-riddled industry leaders.
  • Complains about business schools and universities failing miserably. Schramm says universities should teach courses on entrepreneurship for non-business majors. Schools should also be more entrepreneurial themselves, owning and operating businesses, especially high-tech businesses, much like medical schools own hospitals.

According to Schramm, this calls for a reshaping of society's values and norms so that each person steadily and subtly feels the entrepreneurial imperative. Everyone will need to take more control and own more of their working and personal lives as a result. But Schramm never bets against the American system, and he encourages everyone to never count on anyone but themselves to create their destiny.

Though Schramm recognizes the economy can't afford for everyone to be an entrepreneur, and not is everyone is capable of starting and running a successful business, he believes many more people should be encouraged and shown how to build a new venture.

Entrepreneurial capitalism, as described by Carl Schramm, is the essence of America's economic renaissance. This book is an excellent explanation of how our economy has changed in the last 25 years and how to prepare for what's ahead.... An imperative book for every policy maker, teacher, and parent. – Steve Forbes, CEO and Editor-in-Chief, Forbes

Schramm has outlined the new economy where an entrepreneurial society is critical to competing in the world. This book is essential reading to understand and prepare for our personalities and the future. – Paul Orfalea, founder, Kinko’s

This is your guidebook to our century, America's Entrepreneurial Century. Carl Schramm shows the paths to personal independence and democratization around the world stem from the same source, the entrepreneurial power to see new opportunity. Schramm unlocks the key to growth for your company, your career, and your contri­bution to the planet, and roots it in the American spirit inside us all. – Scott Cook, founder, Intuit

The Entrepreneurial Imperative will affect not only the way our government, corporations, and nonprofits operate, but also our day-to-day lives as working Americans.

A spirited book, this ‘manifesto’ adamantly shows how America can lead itself on a secure path for long-term expansion, primarily by supporting its number one, but underutilized, resource: entrepreneurial capitalism. Schramm has a vision of seeing entrepreneurial capitalism reign in the United States and abroad. His passionate, if somewhat overwrought, goal is to see a greater expansion of start-ups domestically and globally, feeling the promotion of entrepreneurial capitalism is the only formula for bringing about peace, prosperity, and stability in the world.

Children’s

Mary Poppins: Three Enchanting Classics: Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins Comes Back, and Mary Poppins Opens the Door (Boxed set of three books) by P. L. Travers (Harcourt)

Who can banish boredom or naughtiness with a swift ‘Spit-spot,’ and turn a make-believe sidewalk drawing into a lovely day in the park? Mary Poppins, of course!

With the smash-hit London musical adaptation of Mary Poppins coming to Broadway in November 2006, this is the time for Mary Poppins to find a place in the hearts of the next generation of fans – and the ideal moment for Mary Poppins, the boxed set, featuring three adventures in paperback: Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins Comes Back, and Mary Poppins Opens the Door.

In the first book of this boxed set, Mary Poppins, from the moment Mary Poppins arrives at Number Seventeen Cherry-Tree Lane, everyday life at the Banks house is forever changed. This classic series tells the story of the world's most beloved nanny, who brings enchantment and excitement with her everywhere she goes.
It all starts when Mary Poppins is blown by the east wind onto the doorstep of the Banks house. She becomes a most unusual nanny to Jane, Michael, and the twins. Who else but Mary Poppins can slide up banisters, pull an entire armchair out of an empty carpetbag, and make a dose of medicine taste like delicious lime-juice cordial? A day with Mary Poppins is a day of magic come to life!

When Mary Poppins is about, her young charges can never tell where the real world merges into make-believe. Neither can the reader, and that is one of the hallmarks of good fantasy. – The New York Times

Delightful nonsense that defies an age boundary of appreciation. –Booklist

In the second book of the set Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins Comes Back, pulled down from the clouds at the end of a kite string – she is here again to take the Banks children in hand, leading them from one head-spinning adventure to another.

In Mary's care, the children meet the King of the Castle and the Dirty Rascal, visit the upside-down world of Mr. Turvy and his bride, Miss Topsy, and spend a breathless afternoon above the park, dangling from a clutch of balloons. Amazing? Perhaps. But even the most ordinary day is amazing when the extraordinary Mary Poppins is around.

Our old friend Mary Poppins is back among us, and if you liked her first appearance, don't delay in following her latest adventures ... There is an extraordinary charm about these books ... They are whim­sical, sentimental [and] also funny, imaginative, poetical and genuinely creative." – The New York Evening Post

In the third book of the set, Mary Poppins Opens the Door, with a boom and a burst of fireworks, Mary Poppins returns, falling from the sky like a shooting star. She arrives not a moment too late: The Banks home is a complete shambles – five wild children without a nanny are five children too many!

But Mary Poppins swiftly takes the Banks children in hand, and along with her squawking parrot-headed umbrella, they set off on a new round of marvelous adventures. A visit to Mr. Twigley's music box-filled attic, an encounter with the Marble Boy, a ride on Miss Calico's enchanted candy canes – all of this and more are just part of a typical day out when the world's most beloved nanny is in charge.

I, who hailed her [earlier] as a 'delightful new character who has come to stay,' think Mary Poppins Opens the Door is even better – so rich is it in nursery lore, so sparkling with magic, so warmly understanding of children. – The Horn Book

P. L. Travers (1910-2000) introduced Mary Poppins to the world in 1934. Ever since, the no-nonsense English nanny has been beloved by children and adults everywhere. Travers was a drama critic, travel essayist, reviewer, and lecturer. She wrote several other books for adults and children, but it is for the character of Mary Poppins that she is best remembered. These new editions are sure to delight readers of all ages.

Children’s (K-3, all ages) / Issues

Is There Really a Human Race? by Jamie Lee Curtis, illustrated by Laura Cornell (Joanna Cotler Books, HarperCollins)

Is there really a human race?

Is it going on now all over the place?

When did it start?

Who said, "Ready, Set, Go"?

Did it start on my birthday?

I really must know.

With these questions, our hero's imagination is off and running. Is the human race an obstacle course? Is it a spirit? Does he get his own lane? Does he get his own coach?

Is There Really a Human Race? is written by actress Jamie Lee Curtis, daughter of two movie stars, a card-carrying member of the human race, 12-step groups, and her children's schools, and illustrated by artist/illustrator Laura Cornell. Curtis wrote the book in response to her own son’s question: “Is there really a human race, Mommy?” Curtis says she told him she’d have to think about it and get back to him.

… After asking why he is doing ‘this zillion-yard dash,’ the lad observes that if we don't help each other, we're all going to ‘crash.’ Switching to the mother's perspective, the narrative emphasizes the importance of taking one's time, trying one's best ("that's more important than beating the rest")…fans of this duo may well be carried along by Cornell's bustling, whimsical art, overflowing with quirky particulars that celebrate the diversity of people everywhere. – Publishers Weekly
Curtis writes so very well, in infectious toe-tapping poetic form, of the inner thoughts and worries that children struggle with all too frequently. … Cornell's ink-and-color wash cartoons are a perfect match to Curtis's lilting text. The detailed spreads will fascinate young readers. For instance, on the page on which the child asks, … Is Dad on my team? The illustrations show his father, granddad, and a multitude of ancestors back to cavemen. When he worries about making the wrong turn, a maze full of children of different ethnicities is depicted. This book should be enjoyed by the whole human race. – Alice DiNizo, Plainfield Public Schools, NJ, School Library Journal (starred review)

One can feel the anxiety in the child’s questioning, but then comes the reassuring mother’s voice. Written with Curtis's humor and heart and illustrated with Cornell's worldly wit, Is There Really a Human Race? is all about relishing the journey and making good choices along the way – because how we live and how we love is how we learn to make the world a better place, one small step at a time.

Children’s / K-6 / Sports / Biographies

David Beckham (Library Binding) by Jill C. Wheeler (Awesome Athletes Set 4: ABDO Publishing Company)

David Beckham is part of the Awesome Athletes set, a series of books, in their library bindings, all of which include

  • Personal and professional statistics and timelines.
  • Full-color photographs of athletes in action.
  • A complete index and bolded glossary terms in the text.

The athletes presented in the Awesome Athletes series are among the most famous and gifted people in the world. They make game-winning plays, break league records, earn praise and honor from their leagues, fans, and opponents – and set the standards that ordinary players can only dream of reaching. Written at the fourth grade reading level, the books in this series include David Beckham, Andy Roddick, Tom Brady, Michael Vick, LeBron James, and Michelle Wie.

The contents of David Beckham:

  • David Beckham
  • Discovering Soccer
  • Getting Noticed
  • Manchester at Last
  • First Goal
  • The Making of an Awesome Athlete
  • World Cup Disaster
  • A Hero Again  
  • Move to Madrid
  • Beckham Today

As told in David Beckham, Beckham is possibly the world's most popular soccer player. He is best known for his kicking skills, and his amazing kicks have helped this midfielder lead his team to many victories. Beckham's curving kicks have gained him fame well beyond soccer fans. In 2002, the movie Bend It Like Beckham was released in the United Kingdom.

For as long as he can remember, all Beckham has ever wanted to do is play soccer; even as a child, he said he wanted to be ‘a famous footballer,’ and Beckham has been playing professionally since he was 17 years old. According to David Beckham, Beckham remains one of the world's best-known soccer players even though his contract with Real Madrid ends in 2007. Some people think Beckham may play for a U.S. team after that. If so, he might make the sport more popular in the United States. Off the field, David and Victoria Beckham have three sons, Brooklyn, Romeo, and Cruz, and he loves to play soccer with them. In 2005, Beckham opened his own soccer school in both England and California – the David Beckham Academy.

From Brett Favre to Sheryl Swoopes, ice skating to golf, this series has something for all readers. The personalities, talents, and hard work of many different kinds of athletes are brought to life in these biographies. In David Beckham, as in all the books of the series, readers may be inspired to find out how these awesome athletes became superstars by working hard, overcoming challenges, and leading their teams to victory.

Children’s (Ages 4-8) / Religion

Sidney & Norman: A Tale of Two Pigs by Phil Vischer (Tommy Nelson)

Sidney & Norman uses the simple context of two pigs living next door to each other to communicate a profound truth about how we judge each other and often judge ourselves. On the surface, Sidney & Norman appears to be a picture book that will entertain kids, but this story has moved adult audiences in informal readings, leading to deep discussions.

VeggieTales’ creator, Phil Vischer, computer animator, spins a moving tale for kids and grownups alike in Sidney & Norman, a multi-layered story about two very different pigs who live right next door to one another, yet do not know each other's names.

In Sidney & Norman, life had always been easy for Norman. He was, after all, a good pig; he kept his house neat, he gave to the ‘needy,’ and he always made it to church on Sunday. Norman was sure God would be please with him. Not like his neighbor, Sidney. For Sidney, rules, systems and schedules had always seemed a bit slippery. Norman couldn't help but look down on Sidney, and Sidney couldn't help but look down on himself. That is, until the day they each received an invitation ... from God.

I would like you to come visit me. … I have something to tell you.

God had an important message for Sidney and Norman, and it wasn't what either of them expected.

While on the surface a simple children's book, many readers will find a message that is both heartfelt and profound. This children's picture book delivers a truth wrapped in a simple story – Sidney & Norman is a multi-layered tale of two very different pigs that readers will find themselves snickering at, and yet find thought provoking. The story is complimented by Justin Gerard's warm and nostalgic illustrations. Readers may also find worth in the letters from Vischer included at the end of the book which offer insight into his motivation and purpose for writing Sidney & Norman.

Cooking, Food & Wine

The Good Home Cookbook: More Than 1000 Classic American Recipes edited by Richard J. Perry (Collectors Press)

These days, learning to cook from scratch – the true old-fashioned way – is becoming a lost art. But a recipe is a treasured piece of history – as unique as the kitchen it was created in and as beloved as the people it was made for. The Good Home Cookbook is a quintessential collection of cherished recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation – a monument for years to come.
The Good Home Cookbook edited by chef and editor Richard J. Perry, is a collection of more than 1,000 classic recipes that commemorate and preserve our distinctly American cuisine. From breakfast to dinner and soup to dessert, the book features recipes from the past that most of us are familiar with and easy directions for getting them on the table. The collection celebrates the hearty back-to-basics dishes that became staples in postwar modern American kitchens – long before calorie counting and low-calorie cooking were born.

Employing a twist not traditionally used by cookbook publishers – with a goal of providing absolute authenticity to the book – editor Perry recruited more than 700 American families to take part in the first-ever public recipe tested cookbook. From a massive collection of vintage cookbooks, including heirloom family recipe books, Perry selected dishes that represent the staples of American cuisine. Then, to see how the recipes changed over the years, they were cross-referenced with later cookbooks. Ingredients and techniques were ‘averaged’ across regions and decades and finally sent to home cooks in all 50 states. The recipes were tested, retested – without fancy stoves or exotic equipment – and meticulously evaluated until each was perfect: a wholesome, delicious American classic in keeping with today’s tastes, but never straying from its honest, blue-plate beginnings. 

The book includes:

  • Dozens of ways to start the morning right, from Baked French Toast with Apples and Crêpes to Granola and Creamy Grits, including a guide to cooking breakfast meats.
  • Appetizers like Marinated Mushrooms, Crunchy Clam Puffs, and homemade Cocktail Sauce.
  • Year-round salads. including authentic Caesar Salad, Wilted Spinach Salad, and a variety of homemade dressings – with a tutorial on the art of gelatin salads.
  • Soups and chowders, from Cream of Mushroom Soup and Chicken Gumbo to Shrimp Bisque and French Onion Soup.
  • Sandwiches – Philly Cheese Steak, Reuben, Muffuletta, Monte Cristo, and more.
  • Seafood dishes from Greek Baked Shrimp and Clam Fritters to Poached Salmon with Cucumber Sauce.
  • Poultry favorites, including Southern Fried Chicken, Roast Duck, Turkey, and a variety of savory stuffings.
  • A large assortment of muffins, biscuits, scones, and buns along with a selection of breads, jams, and butters.
  • More than 100 easy-to-follow dessert recipes – pies, cakes, and cookies.
  • From Berry Cobbler and Chocolate Soufflé to homemade ice cream, fudge, and brittle.
  • A drinks chapter, complete with recipes for classic cocktails, a guide to brewing coffee, and punch.
  • Holiday menus to help readers pick recipes for Memorial Day, Easter, Cinco de Mayo, and other special occasions.
  • Handy appendices to take the guesswork out of equipment, herbs, spices, canning, garnishing, and presentation.

Perry's repertoire is so extensive that readers will find both inspiration and comfort in his carefully compiled collection. – Kirkus Reviews

A simple, user-friendly format makes The Good Home Cookbook a snap to use, with easy-to-follow instructions, conversion charts, menu planning, and garnish ideas. Original vintage-style illustrations make the retro-chic volume a collector's item for culinary enthusiasts of all ages and skill levels.

In this ambitious effort, Perry led his editorial team to identify recipes that formed the foundation of American cuisine to compile the first-ever public recipe tested cookbook. Conceived and published to ensure that the recipes of our past don't get lost in time, forgotten or overshadowed by microwave ovens and easy, pre-prepared meals, The Good Home Cookbook will not only act as a monument to foundational American recipes but also serve as the basis for readers to create their own family classics. The result is a timeless collection of familiar favorites and beloved classics – a collection that no home should be without.

Education

Teaching in K-12 Schools: A Reflective Action Approach, 4th Edition by Judy Eby, Adrienne Herrell & Michael Jordan (Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall Education)

What is reflective action, and what can it offer teachers and their students in an educational environment that seems more rigid than reflective?

Reflective action is a way of learning from experience, learning from experimenting, and learning by listening to our hearts and to our students. Reflective action grows out of with­it-ness, the capacity to be aware of and responsive to the needs of students and to make decisions and take actions that will inspire students to want to learn and to enjoy coming to school.

Well known in the earlier editions for its emphasis on reflection, Teaching in K-12 Schools is an accessible general school methods text that has updated its model for reflective planning in teaching to better illustrate the connection between planning and professional standards. In addition to reflective teaching, this fourth edition explores classroom management, diversity, standards, curriculum and lesson planning, active and authentic learning, technology in education, assessment, and working in the school community. Written by Judy Eby, Reflective Action Research Center, San Diego; and Adrienne Herrell and Michael Jordan, Educational Partnerships, Panama City, Florida, the book targets general K-12 in-service teachers.

Authors Eby, Herrell and Jordan believe that even a standards-based educational program can be presented with enthusiasm, imagination and independence. At this time in history, they recognize that creativity and independence do not appear to be as highly valued as being able to follow guidelines and meet standards. They struggled with how to balance the reality of today's rather uniform educational expectations with their message that true satisfaction in teaching comes from being a caring and creative artist in the classroom. They began to collect the stories of teachers who are not only coping in a standards-based environment, but excelling at it, and in this fourth edition of Teaching in K-12 Schools they offer a balanced description of the realities of a standards-based curriculum with the exhilarating stories of teachers who see these standards not as a goal but as a baseline.

Their aspiration is to inspire teachers to view federal, state, and local standards as meaningful and important, but not the end goal of teaching. This edition provides readers with the knowledge base to become highly professional and creative teachers who meet and exceed standards with confidence.

Teaching in K-12 Schools, fourth edition contains new teachers' stories that model how they use reflective action to create school curricula and programs, select teaching strategies, and plan appropriate assessments for their students that achieve the standards of their school districts. These real-life examples can serve as models for beginning teachers to think and act with creativity and originality. They can be found in Chapters 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11.

In addition, Teaching in K-12 Schools anticipates that many teachers may want to begin preparing for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) credential. Each chapter of the book ends with a section entitled "Reflective Action Experiences for Your Professional Portfolio." These sections provide beginning teachers with simulated experiences and reflective essays that are drawn from the NBPTS requirements. After completing these simulated activities, many teachers will have the confidence and experience they need to attain this important credential. For those professors who are searching for materials to meet the Praxis II "Principles of Learning and Teaching" exam, readers will find that the authors have highlighted the materials related to Praxis topics. Because this fourth edition of Teaching in K-12 Schools also pays special attention to INTASC and curriculum standards, readers will gain confidence as they prepare for a career in teaching.

Education

You Can't Make Me!: From Chaos to Cooperation in the Elementary Classroom by Sylvia Rockwell (Corwin Press)

Sylvia Rockwell, Assistant Professor of Education at Saint Leo University in Florida, has more than 25 years of experience in the field of education. Over the years, she has taught in a variety of public school settings that include segregated day schools for students with severe emotional and behavioral disorders, self-contained classrooms in general education settings, resources rooms, and inclusion classrooms. Rockwell, who has also worked for three years in a residential wilderness therapeutic educational program for youth with emotional and behavioral disorders, asks readers of You Can't Make Me!:

How do you handle defiant, disruptive students?

A teacher’s most challenging problem is the student who is frequently defiant and disruptive. These students create problems for themselves and for the classroom as a whole. In You Can't Make Me! Rockwell uses her considerable experience to show readers how to select and implement the most effective behavioral interventions to address the needs of these problem students while maintaining a cooperative classroom environment. This book integrates real-life teaching anecdotes with descriptions of research-based strategies to help students learn appropriate behavior, both those with emotional/behavior disorders (EBD) or other disabilities, as well as those with other behavioral difficulties.

Educators will find discussions on how to:

  • Identify typical and atypical development.
  • Understand group development, including stages, roles, and strategies.
  • Manage class-wide behavior, addressing conditions, consequences, and curriculum.
  • Understand the behavior-achievement connection, with specifics on unit and lesson planning.
  • Manage aggression and conflict.
  • Develop resilience in students, teachers, and parents.

You Can't Make Me! also provides classroom-ready materials and other reproducibles, including a unique parent supplement to help parents understand their teacher’s classroom strategies, work on behavior problems at home, and communicate effectively with school personnel.

This teacher-friendly guide can be a valuable resource helping teachers solve the classroom problems caused by disruptive behavior. Special and general education teachers as well as administrators at the elementary level will find the book a powerful tool to help intervene effectively when behavior problems occur.

Education

Your First Year of Teaching and Beyond, Fourth Edition by Ellen L. Kronowitz (Pearson Allyn & Bacon)

Research on beginning teachers and their concerns often concludes that teacher ed­ucation programs need to focus more on the first year of teaching and especially on the critical period preceding and following the first day of school. The high teacher dropout rate within the first five years makes clear that pre-service and novice teachers must have help making the transition to the realities and practicalities of classroom life in their first years of teaching and beyond.

Designed specifically for pre-service and first year teachers, Your First Year of Teaching and Beyond provides non-theoretical advice on how to tackle teaching challenges and demands. Written by Ellen L. Kronowitz, California State University, San Bernardino, and based on extensive actual research, this fourth edition offers an expanded and improved balance of theory and practice in preparation for student teaching or practicum. Material throughout Your First Year of Teaching and Beyond is specifically geared to the interests of elementary, middle, and high school teachers.

Your First Year of Teaching and Beyond, Fourth Edition, is an expanded version of the third edition of the same title. To offer an improved balance of theory and practice, the content of this fourth edition has been expanded with additional ref­erences to standards-based planning and instruction, assessment, and time and stress management.

In this edition, middle school and high school teachers will find material specifically geared to their interests integrated into every chapter. The same field-based research and interviews that were done for elementary teachers have been repeated for secondary teachers, with an emphasis on what works – practical ideas for their context. Additional ‘Notes from the Teacher’ were written by middle and high school teachers, although they apply to elementary teachers as well. All references and further reading suggestions also have been updated. Reflection boxes and interactive worksheets are still an integral part of Your First Year of Teaching and Beyond.

This fourth edition has a solid needs assessment base. In a study conducted at California State University, San Bernardino, pre-service candidates, student teachers, and interns in the Elementary and Bilingual Education programs were asked to generate an exhaustive list of questions about conducting the first day and weeks of school and thriving in the first year of teaching. These questions were consolidated and compiled into a questionnaire that subsequently was sent to experienced teachers. It is their responses, an expanded commentary, and incorporated research findings that constitute the substance of Your First Year of Teaching and Beyond. The study was recently updated to include responses from teachers at the Hillside-University Demonstration School a public professional development school in partnership with California State University; San Bernardino, and middle school and high school teachers.

Each chapter in Your First Year of Teaching and Beyond addresses a documented concern of first-year teachers, such as curriculum planning, gathering materials, organization, discipline, authentic assessment, diversity, working with parents, working with school personnel and the actual first day of classroom teaching. The introductory chapter establishes the research-based rationale for the book and a reflective orientation, and the concluding chapter offers some final advice on maintaining a reflective and profes­sional mind in a healthy and stress-free body.

Worksheets and checklists are included at the back of Your First Year of Teaching and Beyond on perforated pages. The worksheets enable readers to interact with the material presented and to move toward reflective practice. This interactive approach encourages readers to adapt the information to their own projected teaching situations and, thus, to make the information more meaningful and useful. Instructors may want to have the students work in cooperative groups to discuss the material and complete the worksheets; the book also lends itself to a workshop format should instructors prefer that instructional mode. The book also has updated references and further reading suggestions.

The audience is broader than in the past and now includes student teachers for elementary, middle, and high schools as well as interns, first-year, and novice teachers. Supervisors, administrators, curriculum coordinators, in-service providers, mentor teachers, university methods teachers, and student teaching supervisors also have found that the text facilitates their work with teachers. The text is also useful to many experienced teachers who are looking for new ideas or those who want to take a step back and reflect on their current practice.

Your First Year of Teaching and Beyond is a practical guidebook providing hands-on advice on how to tackle teaching challenges and demands. Based on research obtained from teachers working in urban, suburban, and rural communities, the text covers a large scope of material, making it applicable for student teachers in all regions as well as all grade levels. Added emphasis on individual differences, diversity, bilingual language issues, special education and multicultural populations better prepares student teachers for diversity in the classroom. Updated and expanded information on technology provides student teachers with basic guidelines for incorporating technology into the classroom.

Entertainment / Music

Cult Rock Posters: Ten Years of Classic Posters from the Glam, Punk, New Wave Era by Roger Crimlis & Alwyn W. Turner (Billboard Books)

From 1972 to 1982, rock posters – like rock itself – exploded with power and invention. Containing hundreds of posters – from Bowie, The Clash, Iggy Pop, the Sex Pistols, and more, Cult Rock Posters traces rock posters through the ‘70s and into the ‘80s, from glam to punk to new wave.
The book also includes interviews with rock stars, artists, and creative geniuses.

Part visual history, part visceral history, Cult Rock Posters traces the evolution of pop music, from glam to punk to new wave, during a turbulent decade. These are the posters that inspired a generation – and interviews with rock stars, artists, photographers, and promoters, who fill in behind-the-scenes details. Written by pop-culture aficionado Roger Crimlis, one of Britain’s most renowned collectors of rock posters, who shares his own favorites, all in raw, torn-from-the-wall format. Crimlis teams up with Alwyn W. Turner pop-culture writer and founder of the Trash Fiction website. Adam Ant, David Bowie, Blondie, Marc Bolan, Bow Wow Wow, The Clash, Alice Cooper, Ian Dury, Brian Eno, Brian Ferry, Malcolm McLaren, Iggy Pop, Roxy Music, the Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, the Sex Pistols, X-ray Spex – if they were out there, they are in Cult Rock Posters.

Many of the over 150 rare rock posters in Cult Rock Posters are now iconic images: the lightning-struck face of David Bowie on Aladdin Sane; the power and anger of the Clash's smashed guitar on the cover of London Calling; and Johnny Rotten's psychotic stare in every image of the Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd. And David Bowie's satin and lipstick were the essence of Glam, the Sex Pistols' rips in the Union Jack embodied the very spirit of Punk, while the style and fashion on Deborah Harry in Blondie exemplified the heart and spirit of New Wave. With the aid of personal interviews with stars, artists, photographers and others, Crimlis and Turner reveal the unknown stories behind the posters that inspired a generation and explain how design captured the essence of the era's music.

Cult Rock Posters celebrates a decade’s music and design. Presented in their raw format with all rips, fold, tears, and blue tack shown, the book allows each design to tell its own dramatic and revealing story. The book speaks directly to viewers, communicating the style and content of both the music and the decade. Gritty, rough, rude, the posters in this one-of-a-kind collection scream the story of their times.

Government / Politics / Public Policy

Democracy and the Constitution: Essays by Walter Berns by Walter Berns (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research)

For more than half a century, Walter Berns has been a leading authority on the Constitution. In Democracy and the Constitution, the scholar and historian continues his defense of the American Constitution, addressing issues such as natural law, civil rights, states' rights, multiculturalism, patriotism, the First Amendment, and the roles of academic and religious institutions.

Berns's essays explore enduring questions of American political thought: Was the American Revolution really a revolution? What is the origin of our unalienable rights? Did God have something to do with the founding of America? Can we do without God now? In Democracy and the Constitution, Berns, a resident scholar at AEI and professor emeritus at Georgetown University, expounds these questions while defending the institutions of liberal democracy.

The first essay in Democracy and the Constitution provides an account of the theoretical origins of modern constitutionalism and, in the American case, of a written constitution. According to Berns, the Constitution imposes limits on the powers of government, and it is written so that these limits are not mistaken or forgotten. It follows almost as a matter of course that lawyers would play an important role in American government. As Tocqueville put it, "there is almost no political question in the United States that is not resolved sooner or later into a judicial question." Thus, much of the ordinary business of government in this country – taxing, spending, judging, fighting, punishing – ends up in the courts, and ultimately the Supreme Court. In addition to these judicial matters, there are questions about the Constitution itself:

  • What is the proper relation between the states and the Union?
  • How is a president elected and what rules govern his conduct in office?
  • What do we mean by rights? Specifically, what do we mean by establishment of religion, separation of church and state, and freedom of speech?
  • What are the powers of government in perilous times?
  • What are the powers of government regarding the moral education of citizens?
  • What is required of – or forbidden to – government to guarantee the equal protection of laws?

Berns addresses these questions at length in Democracy and the Constitution and concludes with personal notes from his long and illustrious life. Two essays, one funny and one poignant, reflect upon his friendships with Frieda Lawrence – wife of D. H. Lawrence – and with the late political scientist Herbert Storing.

Contents include:

Part I. Constitutionalism

  • Ancients and Moderns: The Emergence of Modern Constitutionalism
  • The Illegitimacy of Appeals to Natural Law in Constitutional Interpretation
  • Preserving a Living Constitution
  • The Demise of the Constitution
  • Solving the Problem of Democracy
  • Constitutionalism and Multiculturalism
  • Part II. Constitutional and Political Matters
  • States' Rights and the Union
  • Talkers
  • Why a Vice President
  • Two-and-a-Half Cheers for the Electoral College
  • Civil Not Natural Rights
  • Flag-Burning and Other Modes of Expression
  • Blue Movies
  • Hail, New Columbia
  • Teaching Patriotism
  • Religion and the Death Penalty
  • Under God
  • What Does the Constitution Expect of Jews?
  • Part III. Academic Matters
  • The Assault on the Universities: Then and Now
  • Trashing Bourgeois America
  • Part IV. Addendum: Personal Matters
  • Remembering Frieda Lawrence
  • Remembering Herbert Storing

Democracy and the Constitution collects many of Berns’ most important essays on timeless constitutional and political questions. Foremost among the institutions of liberal democracy that this eminent scholar has spent his academic career defending is the United States Constitution. In this collection of essays, he continues his renowned defense, addressing issues such as natural civil rights and states' rights, multiculturalism, patriotism, the First Amendment, and the roles of academic and religious institutions.

Health, Mind & Body / Alternative Medicine / Reference

How to Talk with Your Doctor: The Guide for Patients and Their Physicians Who Want to Reconcile and Use the Best of Conventional and Alternative Medicine by Ronald L. Hoffman, with Sidney Stevens (Basic Health Publications, Inc.)

More patients are taking control of their own health care, leaving many conventional physicians unsure about their role as dispensers of medical knowledge. And growing numbers of us are taking a more holistic approach to health care, using proven drug and surgical interventions, along with proven natural approaches such as acupuncture and herbal therapy. The latter are outside most traditional medical training, and so might be discounted by doctors. As the public becomes more informed about alternative therapies, they want to discuss the possibilities with their physicians. This can exasperate physicians and patients alike. "Why won't my doctor listen to me?" patients wonder. "Why can't patients respect my expertise?" doctors ask.

The unfortunate result in each case is the same: miscommunication and missed opportunities. Patients fail to receive the best care available to them, and doctor-patient relationships fall far short of the caring and mutually satisfying exchanges they should be.

One of America's foremost complementary medical practitioners, founder and medical director of the Hoffman Center in New York City, and host of the nationally syndicated radio program Health Talk, Ronald Hoffman hears the frustration expressed by patients and doctors alike. In his new book, Hoffman offers a guide for patients and doctors. How to Talk with Your Doctor provides patients with the tools and knowledge they need to communicate better with their physicians about using the best high-tech and alternative treatments, while helping doctors balance their skepticism of complementary and alternative approaches with open-mindedness.

Hoffman begins by explaining to patients how doctors are trained, why they resist non-conventional approaches, and how the growing interest in alternative treatments is changing the practice of medicine. He then offers a blueprint for patients and for doctors to maintain optimum health and deal with chronic illness. Among the broad range of topics he discusses in How to Talk with Your Doctor are:

  • Why the traditional annual physical exam is not effective.
  • Important medical tests that are frequently ignored by mainstream medicine.
  • Complementary and conventional options for preventing and treating specific conditions, including heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and cognitive diseases like Alzheimer's disease.
  • Natural interventions – with little risk and small expense, instead of rushing to drugs and surgery – for ailments like chronic fatigue syndrome, andropause, menopause, sexual dysfunction, fibromyalgia, reflux disease, and irritable bowel syndrome.
  • Natural support therapies that are effective before and after surgery to optimize the surgery's results.

Hoffman's goal in How to Talk with Your Doctor is to foster more open dialogue between patients and their physicians, with more integration of conventional and complementary treatment options. A resource section lists products, websites, and organizations that help promote that dialogue and medical collaboration.

In this engaging and articulate book, Ron Hoffman, M.D., a pioneer in alternative medicine (with impeccable mainstream credentials, too), shows readers how to take charge of their health care and offers practical solutions for common health concerns. He also lays the groundwork for a new integrated model of medicine that just might be the answer for our ailing healthcare system. – Julian Whitaker, M.D., author of Dr. Whitaker's Guide to Natural Healing and Health & Healing

As one of the pioneers and leaders in complementary and integrative care, Dr. Hoffman provides us with an insightful guide for getting the best care in today's increasingly complicated and confusing medical system. – Jason Theodosakis, M.D., Assistant Professor, University of Arizona College of Medicine, and author of The Arthritis Cure

How to Talk with Your Doctor helps readers and physicians communicate more effectively, examining complementary and alternative options for staying healthy and preventing and treating specific medical conditions. He also provides myriad evidence-based resources to help doctors and patients collaborate and benefit from the best of both medical worlds. The book helps patients and doctors navigate the seemingly incompatible medical worlds to find the most effective, healing approaches medicine has to offer, and fosters more mutually satisfying partnerships between them. Whether readers are doctors or patients, this is a useful guide.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling

Radical Recovery: A Manifesto of Eating Disorder Pride by Christian L. Kraatz (University Press of America, Inc.)

Eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder are some of the most deadly ‘mental illnesses’; however, research into the nature of these conditions and possible treatments remains virtually unfunded. As a result, there is no standard model of treatment and no definitive information on the number of people in the United States who suffer from one or more of these conditions.

Radical Recovery openly addresses the national epidemic of eating disorders. Issues addressed include success rates for eating disorders treatment, current research, mortality and eating disorders, the presence of eating disorders in both sexes and all ages, overcoming social stigma, and eating disorders activism.

Author Christian L. Kraatz, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, says:

“Radical Recovery is not a personal ‘my road to recovery’ narrative. It will, of necessity, contain some personal information and draw upon some personal experiences, but the purpose here is to cast a wider net and get a bigger picture. Part of the motive for making this effort stems from my own experience, but this is not a book about ‘me’ so much as it is a book about ‘us.’ …”

In seeking some good information about the prevalence of eating disorders, Kraatz says he found that no person or organization is willing to put forward any specific numbers. Prevalence estimates for other medical conditions are readily available and are fairly specific; it takes perhaps five minutes of online investigation to find out with reasonable precision how many people suffer from diabetes, cancer, AIDS, or bipolar disorder. But the estimates concerning how many people have eating disorders are made with such a wide range of numbers as to be utterly uninformative and useless.

It seemed to Kraatz when he began Radical Recovery several years ago that there had to be some kind of connection between the inner experiences of isolation and aloneness, and the fact that no one in the medical field really knows how many sufferers there are. It occurred to him also that if no one knew how many even existed, any real progress in understanding how they might recover would be nearly impossible. So he began doing some digging on the subjects of prevalence statistics and research, while at the same time jotting down his own ideas about what life with disordered eating is like. After a year or two, his ‘manifesto of radical recovery and pride’ started to come together.

The outline for Radical Recovery proceeds as follows. In the first chapter, the book counts heads to find out just how many people with eating disorders there are in this country. This is no easy task, as it necessarily involves consulting a wide variety of sources in order to piece together a reasonably accurate prevalence estimate. This chapter also addresses the question of severity, noting specifically the mortality rates associated with disordered eating. The findings presented in this chapter are overwhelming, and Kraatz expects that authorities in the field of eating disorders orthodoxy will reject this chapter out of hand. It may be a surprise to some people to learn that there are more people with disordered eating than any other known medical condition. Kraatz offers proof, however, that there is no sufficient justification for rejecting this claim – this first chapter presents information that is based directly on widely recognized and current research.

In the second chapter Radical Recovery addresses the question of what is being done about the epidemic of disordered eating in the United States. The focus here is on the principal research institutions responsible for gathering and disseminating information in the field of eating disorders, and currently available forms of treatment and their rates of success. Although disordered eating affects more Americans than any other illness and claims a staggering number of lives each year, current research in this field remains virtually unfunded. This chapter examines current trends in research and outlines their notable effects on treatment options and the training of healthcare providers.

The third chapter explains why it is that people with disordered eating need to speak out, the call for manifesto. Upon finding the prevalence and mortality to be astoundingly high and yet the current state of research and treatment to be appallingly poor, Kraatz enjoins readers to take matters into their own hands and enter into discourse with each other, with others who are normal eaters, and with their healthcare providers. Since silence only serves to maintain the unacceptable status quo, speaking out about what it's like to be eating disordered will provide the means for change and, ultimately, the recovering of good health for all.

The fourth chapter is an example of such speaking out. It is a phenomenology of eating disordered experience as such. Narratives tend to focus on the content of the experience, but the basic form or structure of eating disordered experience needs to be understood. According to Radical Recovery, if those who are eating disordered could discern a common conceptual framework from which disordered eating behaviors emerge, they would be in a better position to make suggestions about how recovery might be facilitated. The basic thrust of this chapter is to place the focus on the ways that eating disordered people interact with and relate to the world around them – something about that interaction is fundamentally unique to the eating disordered perspective.

In the fifth chapter, Kraatz argues that although the behaviors by which eating-disordered people are diagnosed are unhealthy, the perspective from which they view the world is in fact useful and good; ‘disordered eating’ may be an illness, but being ‘eating disordered’ can be a very positive quality of character. In order fully to express this pride and raise the public awareness of their situations, some strategies for direct action – protests – are offered in this chapter as well.

Radical Recovery openly addresses the national epidemic of eating disorders and offers practical suggestions for how to promote awareness and change in a more responsible and compassionate way. The concluding section offers concrete ideas about what should be done differently at all levels of eating disorders research and treatment. In the spirit of other manifestos, these ideas are presented as demands; changes that are necessary for eating disordered people to insure their survival. Underlying this strategy is the idea that people have to work together to achieve these ends. According to Kraatz, to the extent that readers come together, they will be able to gain some long overdue access to adequate healthcare. Moreover, to the extent that they demand appropriate respect for themselves, they restore a measure of dignity to those who didn't survive their disordered eating.

Health, Mind & Body / Self-help

Perfectly Yourself: 9 Lessons for Enduring Happiness by Matthew Kelly (Ballantine Books)

Just be yourself!

People say it all the time, but how does anyone actually live it?

For more than a decade Matthew Kelly has been helping people discover the best-version-of-themselves. Now, in Perfectly Yourself, he addresses the opportunities and obstacles that readers encounter once they decide to ask life's big questions:

Who am I? What am I here for?

In Perfectly Yourself, bestselling author and popular international speaker Kelly offers a paradigm for self-improvement. Where most self-help books encourage readers to focus on themselves as individuals, Kelly invites readers to become the best versions of themselves by looking outward and recognizing the impact of their actions on the world.

People easily become discouraged and abandon their quest when they cannot reach a goal quickly enough. The bigger problem comes when the process is repeated, leading to a habit of failure that creates a sense of self-loathing. But Kelly, president of Beresford Consulting, a Chicago-based company, shows readers how to initiate personal and social progress right now rather than reaching for perfection in the future.

Perfectly Yourself offers simple steps that readers can take on a daily basis to improve themselves and by extension the world around them, moment by moment. With personal stories and real-world examples, Kelly shows readers how to:

  • Discover their mission – the unique contribution that they can make.
  • Learn to ‘fast’ from certain behaviors – anger, criticism, procrastination, accumulation.
  • Become comfortable with silence, stillness and solitude – time for reflection before action.
  • Listen to the authentic self – the voice that guides readers to the right decision, every time.
  • Nurture friendships that elevate, encourage, and challenge them – that help them live what they believe.
  • Identify their strengths, limitations, the habits they can change – what makes them perfectly themselves.
  • Develop virtue by pursuing one at a time – honesty, patience, kindness, humility, integrity, love.
  • Seek and celebrate the good – in others and in situations.
  • Find a way to serve in their communities – giving to get back.

"People don't fail because they want to fail," Kelly explains in Perfectly Yourself. "People don't go on a diet because they want to get fat. People don't get married to get divorced. Whether we are dealing with health and wellness, relationships, finances, spirituality, or career, people want to advance. Personal development animates us, brings us to life. In many cases one diet is as good as the next. One financial plan is as good as another. People are smart enough to work out which are the best, but still so many fail. We have to ask ourselves: Why?

"Fundamental to all transformation is understanding the dynamics of change so that we can be aware of the obstacles and opportunities that await us when we attempt to transform an area of our lives."

Kelly teaches readers how to find the balance between accepting themselves for who they are and challenging themselves to become all they are capable of being. He encourages readers to unify the many aspects of their lives, and shows how to move beyond other people's expectations of who and what they should be.

Perfectly Yourself is for anyone who has ever failed at a diet, survived the collapse of a relationship, or won­dered if he or she will ever find a fulfilling career. It's a book for all readers who long to be at peace with who they are, where they are, and what they are doing, not in some distant tomorrow but here and now – today. Focusing on nine powerful and practical lessons, Perfectly Yourself explains to readers how to find happiness in a changing world.

History / Americas / U.S. / African Americans / Civil Rights History

Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965, 15th Anniversary Edition by Juan Williams, with an introduction by Julian Bond (Penguin Non-Classics)

Arguably the most tumultuous time in recent American history, the Civil Rights years inspired the most rational and irrational of human behaviors and set the stage for sweeping reform in the nation's race relations.

From the Montgomery bus boycott to the Little Rock Nine to the Selma-Montgomery march, thousands of ordinary people made up the American civil right movement; their stories are told in Eyes on the Prize. From leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., to lesser-known participants like Barbara Rose Johns and Jim Zwerg, each man and woman made the decision that discrimination was wrong and that something had to be done to stop it.

As Julian Bond describes in his introduction to the book, the civil rights movement in America began a long time ago. As early as the seventeenth century, blacks and whites, slaves in Virginia and Quakers in Pennsylvania, protested the barbarity of slavery. Nat Turner, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman are but a few of those who led the resistance to slavery before the Civil War. After the Civil War, another protracted battle began against slavery's legacy – racism and segregation. But for most Americans, the civil rights movement began on May 17, 1954, when the Supreme Court handed down the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision outlawing segregation in public schools. The Court unlocked the door, but the pressure applied by thousands of men and women in the movement pushed that door open wide enough to allow blacks to walk through it.

Eyes on the Prize, written by Juan Williams, host of National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation, and the television project that it accompanies, brings America's civil rights years to life with stories about the people and places of that time. Here are the heroes and heroines, the brilliant strategies, the national politics and politicking, the violence, the people who defended segregation as a southern ‘tradition,’ and the faces of the unheralded people, black and white, who were the soul of the movement.

“To read these stories was to me both painful and inspiring. I lived through these times. … In 1955 I was 15 years old, one year older than Emmett Till when he was killed while visiting relatives in Mississippi. When he supposedly flirted with a white woman, he broke a taboo that was as real in rural Pennsylvania, where I grew up, as it was in the Deep South. What happened to Emmett Till could have happened to me. … It wasn't until my days at Morehouse College in Atlanta, however, that I realized what the movement was all about and what it was up against.

“On February 1, 1960, four students in Greensboro, North Carolina, kids about my age, decided that they'd had enough of racial barriers. They sat at a whites-only lunch counter at the local Woolworth's store, requested service, and refused to move unless they got it. The sit-in movement had begun. A friend of mine, Lonnie King, handed me a newspaper with the story of the student sit-in prominently displayed. He convinced me that we had to get something going in Atlanta, Georgia. A small group of us got together and organized the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights, and we held our first sit-in on March 15, 1960. On that day, I joined hands with millions of other Americans in different cities, in different states, who took risks during those years to create the civil rights movement.

“The movement changed my life. ...” – Julian Bond, from the Introduction

Eyes on the Prize chronicles how millions of black and white lives that were profoundly affected by the great movement that spanned the years 1954 to 1965. It takes readers beyond the belief that a few larger-than-life figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy were the movement's most important players. That is not to diminish these men, but they were not solely responsible for this era or its successes. That insight is important, because it reaffirms the truth that in America a movement of the people – and not the actions of one or two leaders – can effect change. And it is particularly important because, nowadays, few people believe it. Eyes on the Prize demonstrates its truth. In fact, such a movement could happen again, given the right conditions.

Not only does this book remind us that ordinary Americans made the movement, it also reminds us of the role played by the Constitution of the United States. That document provided the framework within which people could act to change the nation for the better. The story of the civil rights movement is a great testament to the Constitution's strength. Although that code of law had for some time been bent and twisted to deny black Americans their rights, it also provided the basic tool used by the movement to win justice.

A fascinating, fast-moving overview…Even those who participated will find in this book reminders of the civil rights movement’s incredible human and political complexity, of the stops and starts that belie the neat continuum that hindsight can sometimes create. – The New York Times Book Review

This is not just a coffee-table adjunct to the TV series. It is a worthy addition to the library of the concerned reader-viewer. – The Nation

Skillfully combines written and oral sources with the historical narrative…Will be invaluable to students as well as the general reader. – The Boston Globe

… Williams … gives a vivid portrait of the courage of individual blacks and the violence they had to endure in their struggle for desegregation and the right to vote in the South. The events themselves provide the drama. Recommended for academic and public libraries. – Louis Vyhnanek, Washington State Univ. Lib., Pullman, School Journal

The nobility of America’s civil-rights struggle comes through with the directness and strength of a spiritual. – The New York Times

Williams's moving chronicle, Eyes on the Prize, stands as the definitive history of the era. These accounts and pictures of the first decade of the civil rights movement are a tribute to – and a reminder of – the people, black and white, who took part in the fight for justice. And Eyes on the Prize is critically important to this nation today because it reminds readers that black Americans have shown great tenacity and courage in continuing to strive for their rights as Americans, despite the heavy legacy of discrimination. It is also a vital book for everyone who wants to understand what it means to live in this democracy. It is about Americans who were willing to risk their jobs, their homes, and even their lives to create an extraordinary movement. And remember that the social movements of the sixties – the antiwar move­ment, the women's movement, and others – all followed in the wake of the civil rights movement.

History / Americas / U.S. / Biographies & Memoirs

Against the Grain: Reflections of a Rebel Republican by Mark O. Hatfield as told to Diane N. Solomon (White Cloud Press)

Against the Grain is a political and spiritual memoir of senior statesman, former chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Mark O. Hatfield, the most progressive politician in the Republican Party since Abraham Lincoln. It covers his opposition to the Vietnam War, successful drafting of the Soviet-American nuclear freeze legislation with Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy, and his strong stands of conscience on health reform, the death penalty and the balanced budget amendment, which typically ran counter to the Republican mainstream.

For five consecutive Senate terms, Hatfield made his mark, sometimes softly, sometimes stridently, fighting to serve the people of his country with honesty and devotion. Constantly opposing the military-industrial complex and the violence of the arms race, he fought for housing, employment, education and basic human dignity. Hatfield's political life is punctuated by strong stands of conscience. As governor of Oregon, he led a personal and gripping struggle against capital punishment until the death penalty was successfully overturned. He stood as lone governor in the nation vocally opposing the Johnson administration's Vietnam policy.

Throughout Against the Grain, and in the final section on spirituality, he offers insight and solutions to the greatest violences facing our age: militarism, discrimination, materialism and poverty. He envisions a world where the ‘political-industrial complex’ no longer holds sway and candidates are judged on merit, rather than marketed like toothpaste. His solutions move away from big government toward enlisting people's hearts and minds. Against the Grain was written with the able assistance of Dianne N. Solomon, freelance writer and editor and practicing nurse-midwife.

… it is nevertheless refreshing and instructive, in this jaded political era, to read the memoirs of an elder statesman who put principle above party, and the well-being of the community above that of his career. – Publishers Weekly
No matter whether you agree with him or not, everyone who has had the pleasure of serving with him knows that Mark Hatfield is a man of integrity and that his word is his bond. – former Senator Bob Dole

He has lived his convictions as well as anyone I have ever known in public life. Because he has always tried to love his enemies, he has no enemies. This town is the poorer for his leaving but the richer for his legacy. – former President Bill Clinton

Senator Mark Hatfield comes alive as exceptional – but very human – through this highly readable book. We see what in him changes through the years of growing up and holding political office – and what remains fundamental and rock solid. As educator, as family man, as politician, as friend, as statesman, he has been a great blessing to Oregon and the nation. – John Dellenback, former Oregon Congressman

Senator Hatfield has consistently offered integrity and vision in a culture groping for meaning. In Against the Grain, he reveals compelling insights on his half century of public service and offers hope, purpose, and perspective for the years ahead.  

History / Americas / U.S. / Outdoors & Nature

Americans and Their Land: The House Built on Abundance by Anne Mackin (University of Michigan Press)

Thomas Malthus once said, “The happiness of the Americans depended much less upon their peculiar degree of civilization than . . . upon their having a great plenty of fertile uncultivated land.”
Nothing has shaped the American character like the abundance of land that met the colonist, the pioneer, and the early suburbanite. With today’s political and economic institutions shaped by the largesse of yesteryear, how will Americans fare in the new landscape of water wars, expensive housing, rising fuel prices, environmental and property rights battles, and powerful industrial lobbies?
Americans and Their Land tells the story of Americans' relation to land, how it has changed in the face of diminishing resources, and what the future may hold.

Anne Mackin, former planner for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management, and a writer on topics related to planning and history, takes readers story by story from frontier history to the present and shows how land shaped the American political landscape. She shows how our evolving traditions of apportioning resources have allowed diminished supplies to create our present, increasingly unequal society, and she asks how 300 million Americans living in the new American landscape of growing competition can better share those resources.

A history of the past as much as a glimpse into the future, Americans and Their Land considers questions at the boundary of development – the West – where water and its availability or lack thereof constitute one of the biggest threats to the American dream of endless expansion and growth. To succeed, the author asserts, we must reorient our lives, political system, and economy in resource-friendly ways in order to salvage the natural systems that support us and to counter the natural tendency toward inequality that a mature economy exerts.

A compelling, even moving, portrait of the national landscape – its past, its meaning, its urgent need of rescue. – James Carroll, author of House of War and An American Requiem, winner of the National Book Award
Anne Mackin has taken a fresh and provocative look at that most fascinating of relationships: the one between the American people and the American land. – Michael Pollan, Knight Professor of Journalism and Director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at University of California Berkeley,
Anne Mackin has given us a valuable and less-used lens to view the development of our neighborhoods, towns and cities: the land itself. Our relationship to the earth beneath our feet – how we dig it, buy it, sell it, zone it, pave it, spoil it or pamper it – helps explain what is produced on top of the land in our nation, from farms to homes to skyscrapers. All in all, Mackin takes us on a novel and erudite journey, from one coast to the other, and from Colonial times to the present. This valuable book marks a significant and lasting contribution to the way we see and understand our landscape and ourselves. – Alex Marshall, author of How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads Not Taken
To really understand the origins of the range war now raging between smart growth and property rights advocates over the future of the American land, you need to read this exceptional book. – Robert D. Yaro, President Regional Plan Association and Professor in Practice, University of Pennsylvania

No less than a compelling and sobering picture of the great American struggle between the public and private, between the interests of the individual and the community, Americans and Their Land goes to the very heart of the capitalist system and the changes it has wrought, often for the worst, not only on the environment but on the human condition.

History / Americas / U.S. / State & Local

Boise, Idaho 1882-1910: Prosperity in Isolation by Carol Lynn MacGregor (Mountain Press Publishing Company)

In 2005, Boise, Idaho, is the second fastest-growing city in America. People are moving there because of the beautiful landscape, amenable climate, friendly people, and community values that have brought to this relatively isolated city a level and number of cultural programs unusual for its size. The essence of these values began over a hundred years ago when the community found its own identity as a commercial center after its role supporting gold fields east of town diminished. Emigrants of various ethnic backgrounds seeking economic gain had decided to stay in the Valley to raise their families, and to commit to financing the growth and development of the place they chose to call home.

While most western U.S. cities developed along main railroad lines, the remote community of Boise, Idaho, was bypassed. How did Boise survive?

Carol MacGregor answers that question with Boise, Idaho 1882-1910, a comprehensive examination of Boise's beginnings, starting with the removal of the Northern Shoshoni and following the progress of government, infrastructure, business, and social institutions. She also describes architecture and the arts in Boise, as well as changes in ethnic and religious makeup. Investigating everything from racism and prostitution to hospitals, hotels, and high society, MacGregor, adjunct professor of history at Boise State, takes readers on an in-depth tour of how this distinctive western city developed.

Boise's community development always has responded to a complex set of local and regional conditions, so any successful review of Boise's extensive history has to incorporate local aspects into a broad context of Idaho and regional experience. National, fraternal, racial, and religious elements of Boise's tradition get due notice in Boise, Idaho 1882-1910, as do social and other cultural activities. Basque, Chinese, Japanese, African, German, Irish, and other people join Anglo settlers in this extensive presentation.

Because of a total absence of commercially significant coal and petro­leum resources, Idaho's industrial development has suffered substantially from railway freight rate problems. Except for some mining and logging enterprises – mostly rather distant from Boise – Idaho industrial production could not compete with similar activity in other states. Since freight costs based on weight prohibited significant shipments from Boise, only lightweight items could be competitive, in contrast to states with oil and coal resources that enjoyed more favorable freight rates. Late twentieth-century enterprises, such as laser printers (a Boise invention developed in a local Hewlett Packard plant) finally transformed that economic situation. But Boise's earlier population expansion had to depend upon nonindustrial features.

Military and commercial aviation programs, however, compensated in many ways for twentieth-century retardation that lasted until major changes materialized around 1930. Boise's airport development brought dramatic economic gains immediately after 1940, when a federal opportunity to obtain much longer runways (8,800 feet) than that available to cities like New York and Chicago was accepted eagerly. That transportation transition, associated with Boise's earlier search for industrial experience, finally brought a new era of city improvement, one that compensated dramatically for earlier restrictions. After 1990, Boise's city population rose from 126,685 to 157,452 by 1998, while its total United States census standard metropolitan statistical area increased from 298,140 in 1990 to 395,453 by 1998. A larger standard metropolitan area size accounted for about 120,000 of that substantial increase.

In many ways, most of Boise's later growth depended upon its critical success in municipal expansion between 1882 and 1910. On that account, MacGregor's investigation of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historical features contributes information essential for an explanation of subsequent city traditions. Aside from consequential political and economic factors, Boise, Idaho 1882-1910 includes systematic coverage of medical, educational, literary, recreational, sports, and other cultural facilities.

This study investigates why Boise prospered even though it failed to attract the mainline in 1882 or build an extensive irrigation system as forecast. It shows the role of Gilded Age boosterism in the new, isolated state of Idaho, and the empowerment of self-appointed leadership in realizing urban goals.

Carol MacGregor has done a service to her hometown, Idaho history, and anyone interested in how Boise came to be. Boise's splendid isolation continues to inform and shape the city. MacGregor's book focuses on a seminal period in the capital's evolution and defines how this city in the high desert became a community. – Alan Minskoff, Director, Department of Journalism, Albertson College of Idaho

MacGregor provides insight into the characters who were Boise's early leaders and, through their history, insight into the unique character of Boise City today. – Alice Dieter, Boise journalist

Boise, Idaho 1882-1910 serves as a significant reference for Boise's history. Local aspects are incorporated into the broader context of Idaho and regional experience in appropriate detail in this thorough and interesting volume.

History / Americas / U.S. / Professional & Technical / Architecture / Reference

New York's Historic Armories: An Illustrated History by Nancy L. Todd (State University of New York Press)

In terms of age and architectural sophistication, the armories built in New York State between 1799 and 1941 comprise the oldest, largest and best collection of pre-World War II era armories in the country. The majority of New York's armories are monumental, medieval-inspired, castellated fortresses that were built between the Civil War and World War I. The history of the state's militia paralleled the evolution of citizen soldiery in America, and New York's arsenal and armory building programs reflected, even led, arsenal and armory building programs across the country. Thus, New York's arsenals and armories epitomize the building type and are among the country's most imposing and tangible monuments to the role of the militia in the nation's military history.

In writing this pictorial overview, New York's Historic Armories, Nancy L. Todd, architectural historian, Program Analyst at the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, draws on archival research as well as historic and contemporary photographs and drawings to trace the evolution of the armory as a specific building type in American architectural and military history. The result of a ten-year collaboration between the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs, this illustrated history presents information on all known armories in the state as well as the units associated with them.

Built to house local units of the state’s volunteer militia, armories served as arms storage facilities, clubhouses for the militiamen, and civic monuments symbolizing New York’s determination to preserve domestic law and order through military might. Approximately 120 armories were built in New York State from the late eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth, and most date from the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when the National Guard was America’s primary domestic peacekeeper during the post-Civil War era of labor-capital unrest. Together, New York’s armories chronicle the history of the volunteer militia, from its emergence during the early Republican Era, through its heyday during the Gilded Age as the backbone of the American military system, to its early twentieth-century role as the nation’s primary armed reserve force.

Chapter 1 of New York's Historic Armories provides a brief history of the Army National Guard in New York State during the four major phases of its evolution. Chapters 2, 3, and 5 through 9 begin with summaries of the various arsenal and armory building programs in New York between 1799 and World War II. Chapter 4 is devoted to the Seventh Regiment and its 1879 armory on Park Avenue. Each overview is followed by detailed discussions of each arsenal/armory within its respective theme. The level of information included in these individual catalog entries varies dramatically. Some entries include only the name of the facility, its approximate date of construction and a single drawing or photograph. Others contain lengthy discussions about the armory itself, the history of the unit for which it was built, the architect who designed the building and the contractor who built the building and are augmented by extensive illustrations in the form of drawings, paintings and/or photographs. Where applicable, notations of previous and/or subsequent armories built either in the same city or for the specific unit under discussion are provided under the heading ‘Others.’

This attractive and engaging book highlights New York’s large and distinguished group of historic armories – national treasures associated with a revered history of security and peacekeeping … I am confident that this book will further our understanding and appreciation of the state’s historic armories and their contribution to safeguarding our communities and citizens. – Governor George E. Pataki

Begun in the late eighteenth century, New York’s extensive armory