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Steve Harvey says: Put a ring on it

by Beth E. Williams

All you single ladies who are looking for love and commitment—listen up. Steve Harvey is offering a dose of realism, plenty of wise counsel and a bit of cautious optimism for women hoping to find a good man. Whether you take his advice is up to you.

The top-rated radio host delivers his message in a frank and eye-opening new book, Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man, released just in time for the holidays. It’s a gift that Harvey’s millions of fans would undoubtedly love to find under the tree on Christmas morning.

Harvey’s first book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, was the number two best-selling hardcover nonfiction book in America in 2009, and has now sold more than two million copies. His blend of honesty, humor and hope clearly struck a nerve with women trying to understand the sometimes mystifying behavior displayed by the male of the species.

Speaking from a man’s perspective, Harvey advises women to wise up, wash their hands of the men they’re wasting time with and put themselves in a position to find and keep a guy worth holding onto.

In particular, he warns women to avoid men bearing gifts (but not love) and men who won’t commit. In a chapter titled “Every Sugar Daddy Ain’t Sweet,” Harvey writes, “Trust me when I tell you, there is nothing sugary or sweet about giving so much of yourself to a man who, at the end of the day, is giving you so little in return.” If you’re stuck in a relationship with a Sugar Daddy, Harvey has two words of advice: Walk. Away.

A dilemma that even more women can relate to is a happy dating relationship that lasts for years but never leads to marriage. “Thing is, even as society keeps pushing on little girls, young ladies, and grown women the notion that they have to be married to be complete and secure, nobody is really preaching this to boys and men,” Harvey points out. In a chapter called “The Standoff,” he spells out a step-by-step plan to help women decide whether to stick around and work toward commitment or cash in their chips and move on.

Other sections of Straight Talk, No Chaser deal with presenting yourself well and understanding a man’s approach to dating in each decade of life, from the 20s (“He is being driven solely by his financial clock at the same time your biological clock is most likely driving you.”) to the 50s and beyond.

And finally, there’s the all-important topic of sex, or as Harvey calls it, “the cookie.” Here, the comedian-turned-relationship advisor lays it on the line with “Straight Talk” about what motivates men: “There is nothing on this planet that makes him feel better than sex. Not a hole in one on the golf course.

Not a game-winning three-point basket at the buzzer,” Harvey writes. He elaborates on the “Ninety-Day Rule,” outlined in Act Like A Lady, in which couples forgo sex at the start of a relationship. “Treat sex as if it’s something special and let the man you’re interested in know that it’s special and guess what? He’ll either leave . . . or he’ll see something special in you.”

Memoir, Nonfiction

True tales of love and marriage

Feature by Amy Scribner

by Amy Scribner

If a heart-shaped box of chocolates just won’t cut it this Valentine’s Day, pick up one of these unique takes on finding—and keeping—love. They’re entertaining, thought-provoking and way lower on calories than a chocolate cherry cordial.

MEET ME IN MANHATTAN
What is it about New York City romances? We love those stories about couples who happen upon each other at the top of the Statue of Liberty or wandering through Times Square. Author Ariel Sabar has a theory about why Manhattan is so conducive to coupling: It’s all by design. “If you want strangers to talk, give them something to talk about: an unusual sculpture, a mime, a juggler, a musician, a street character. . . . It takes two strangers with ostensibly nothing in common and, through a shared, immediate experience, links them, even if just for a moment.”

Sabar’s thoroughly engaging Heart of the City profiles nine couples who met at famous New York City public spaces, much like his own parents, a Kurdish Iraqi father and upper-crust American mother who met by chance in Washington Square Park. The stories span generations, from the sailor who met a lost teenage girl in Central Park in 1941, to Claire and Tom, who met in 1969 at the top of the Empire State Building (“with its setbacks, clean lines, and needle-tip mast, the building looked like some precision scientific instrument, a scalpel under operating room lights”). Sabar has teased out each of these couples’ magnificent, ordinary stories and compiled them into a sparkling love letter to the city.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND
Want a more practical take on love? Settle in with Spousonomics, a wry and convincing treatise from two financial journalists on why economics is the key to building a marriage that endures through good times and bad. Paula Szuchman, a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, and Jenny Anderson of the New York Times clearly explain why common marital problems can be solved by applying simple economic principles. Fights over housework are really just an issue of division of labor. Are never-ending arguments the bane of your marriage? You might be loss-averse. And sex, say Szuchman and Anderson, is a simple “function of supply and demand.”

The thing is, Spousonomics actually makes a lot of sense, and you don’t feel like you’re reading a hellish undergrad textbook. When they explain the principle of incentives (a tool to get what you want), you understand that in economics, incentives work because they entice you to buy a pair of shoes just to get a second pair half off. In a marriage, incentives work because they get your husband to finish his honey-do list. Spousonomics “doesn’t demand that you look each other in the eye until you weep tears of remorse. It doesn’t require you to keep an anger log, a courage journal, or a feelings calendar.” It is simply a common-sense, laugh-out-loud guide to a happier marriage.

HEART, SOUL . . . AND KIDNEY
Angela Balcita has already undergone one kidney transplant and needs another when her new college boyfriend Charlie O’Doyle offers his kidney—an unorthodox way to kick off a romance, to be sure. Moonface is about what happens after she says yes to this most unusual proposal.

Balcita writes with humor and dignity about her second transplant at age 28, outlining the incredibly complex, fascinating process of removing and replacing an essential part of the body. But at its core, Moonface is a not-so-simple love story. “I wanted to take all of him, not just his kidney,” Balcita writes. “I wanted us to be like one person, one brain and one body, moving through the world. It was already starting to feel this way.”

Most gratifyingly, unlike so many memoirs of illness and recovery, this one keeps going after Balcita gets better. It won’t spoil the reader’s enjoyment to reveal that she and Charlie stay together and even have a baby. With her sharp ear for dialogue and unflinching honesty, Balcita offers a sweet story of love and healing.

MEET ME IN MANHATTAN
What is it about New…

Fiction, Women's Fiction, World Fiction

Fiction World Fiction Women's Fiction

Sweet reads for Valentine’s Day

Feature by Julie Hale

by Julie Hale

In the spirit of the season, we have gathered a group of new novels that delightfully explore the elusive nature of love. If you’re looking for fresh insights concerning the inscrutable ways of Cupid, then peruse the books below. Here’s to true love!

A VERY LITERARY ROMANCE
Fans of old-fashioned amour will cozy up to Love Letters. The novel’s leading lady, Laura Horsley, is a bibliophile to the bone. When her bookstore closes and she finds herself out of a job, she impulsively joins the organizing committee of a literary festival. A misunderstanding leads the committee to believe that she has inside connections to Dermot Flynn, a celebrated writer notorious for his love of privacy. Laura, who has adored Dermot’s work since her university days, is dispatched to Ireland to sign him up for the festival. Can she charm the reclusive author into participating? It’s an incredible mission, and one that seems doomed to fail when Laura finally meets the difficult Dermot. Wrestling with his latest work, he’s moody and gruff, yet Laura finds him irresistible, and as she tries to commit him to the festival, the events that transpire defy her wildest fantasies of fandom. With Laura, British author Katie Fforde has created a spirited heroine the reader can’t help rooting for, and she spins her adventures into an unforgettable story. This hilarious romance will convince the harshest cynic that love conquers all.

DATING IN THE DIGITAL AGE
A shrewd depiction of romance in an era of instant connection, Teresa Medeiros’ Goodnight, Tweetheart demonstrates the ways in which courting via computer can expedite seduction—but also trick the heart and muddle the mind. So it goes for the story’s central character, novelist Abby Donovan. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, Abby’s a writer with serious aspirations. How, then, to account for her addiction to Twitter, the famous social networking site that’s a bit, well, frivolous?

Led to the website by her publicist, Abby intends, at first, to tweet only for promotional purposes, but business gives way to romance when she connects with the bookish “MarkBaynard,” a charmer who can pack poetry into the briefest tweet. As the two forge an online relationship, Abby finds it increasingly difficult to concentrate on her work. Her story unfolds, in part, through tweets and direct messages, as she compulsively corresponds with a guy who seems, onscreen, like Mr. Right. But how much does Abby really know about Mark? The mysteries and questions Medeiros puts into play are timeless, and they give extra depth to this cleverly crafted tale.

L’AMOUR PARISIAN
A poet, food critic and radio personality, Hervé Le Tellier is known in France as a Renaissance man. His 15th book, a piece of chic, contemporary fiction called Enough About Love, chronicles the turbulent romantic lives of a group of well-to-do Parisians. Elegant, accomplished and on the brink of 40, Anna has a solid marriage and a pair of adorable children. Yet when she meets Yves, an offbeat writer, she’s more than a little intrigued. Likewise, Louise—a successful lawyer, wife and mother—experiences sparks with Thomas, who happens to be Anna’s psychiatrist.

Blindsided by emotion, the lives of all four lovers are transformed virtually overnight. This provocative novel unfolds in brief chapters, each of which offers the perspective of a different character, creating a richly textured mosaic of incident and emotion. For Anna and Louise, the comforts of family are threatened by surprising and potent passion. It’s a classic battle—sudden desire versus the long-cultivated bonds of monogamy—and Le Tellier uses the conflict to explore the difficult decisions that so often accompany love. A wise and witty writer, he brings Parisian flair to this tale of romantic entanglement.

LOVE WITHOUT LIMITS
A sensitive rendering of a remarkable friendship, The Intimates, Ralph Sassone’s accomplished debut novel, examines love in its many varied forms and the demands it makes on the human heart. Kindred spirits, Robbie and Maize gravitate toward each other in high school, but romance fails to blossom between them. Instead, they become steadfast friends, attending the same college and supporting each other as they enter the “real world.” Both struggle to make sense of adolescence even as they embark upon adulthood. Maize—at heart a sensitive writer-type—goes into real estate in New York City but finds the experience, to put it mildly, disillusioning. Meanwhile, Robbie, who has vague designs on the publishing industry, explores romantic relationships with men.

Although Robbie and Maize are driven by desires that change with time and experience, their special intimacy—a passionate yet platonic tie—endures. With authenticity and an eye for the subtle machinations that can make or break relationships, Sassone has produced a moving, often funny novel that beautifully reflects the complexities of love.

A VERY LITERARY…

American History, Black History

Black History American History

From the famous to the forgotten

Feature by Ron Wynn

by Ron Wynn

Black History Month shines a light on lesser-known topics from our past and has the potential to open new conversations on historical events often taken for granted. The latest crop of books on black history achieves both goals.

LIVING HISTORY IN HARLEM
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts’ enlightening Harlem Is Nowhere takes a new approach in her look at the venerable community. Rather than crafting a detached, straightforward account, Rhodes-Pitts makes it personal, showing Harlem’s impact on her during the time she lived there. Her trips include stops at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and Lenox Avenue’s famous funeral parlor, where many of the Harlem Renaissance’s key figures were laid to rest. She encounters knowledgeable, flamboyant types like longtime Harlem resident Julius Bobby Nelson, who seems to know everything that’s ever happened there, and neighbors Miss Minnie and Monroe, who quickly become surrogate parents and close confidants. They give her insider details and a scope available only from longtime residents.

Rhodes-Pitts includes tales about photographer James Vander Zee, authors Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison and Zora Neale Hurston, and activist Marcus Garvey, among many others. Still, Harlem Is Nowhere is more an inspirational memoir than a retrospective work, and should motivate others who’ve only heard about Harlem from a distance to inspect it more closely.

FIGHTING ON TWO FRONTS
Elizabeth D. Leonard’s Men of Color to Arms! looks at black soldiers who defended a nation that hadn’t yet fully recognized their humanity. In the period between 1863 and 1865, more than 180,000 African Americans joined the Union Army due to promises of freedom in exchange for service. Instead they often encountered vigorous anger and resentment from whites who saw them as inferior and even responsible for the deaths of their comrades, despite the bravery of soldiers such as Medal of Honor winners Sergeant Major Christian A. Fleetwood, John Lawson, Thomas Hawkins and Robert Pinn, who distinguished themselves in combat.

There was another enlistment surge later in the decade, when blacks joined the wars against the Sioux, Apache and other Native American nations. Once again, black soldiers found themselves fighting dual sets of enemies. They were isolated and often abandoned by their white counterparts after battles and regarded with contempt by the Native Americans, who wondered how blacks could fight alongside people who openly loathed them. Yet Men Of Color to Arms! reveals the triumphs and victories achieved by black soldiers as well as the efforts undertaken on their behalf by whites of good will against vicious and sustained opposition and hatred.

THE FUTURE OF HISTORY
Although Thomas C. Holt’s comprehensive new historical work, Children of Fire, revisits familiar territory, he does an excellent job of including newer subjects and areas of interest too. He traces the evolution of black Americans from the earliest arrivals to 21st-century figures, highlighting obscure figures alongside established giants like Frederick Douglass and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. For example, Anthony Johnson, a slave in Virginia during the late 1600s, not only bought his freedom but became one of Virginia’s most prosperous landowners. In describing how Johnson was eventually cheated out of his entire empire through a series of overtly bigoted (and now illegal) court rulings, Holt reveals how racism increasingly became part of the South’s judicial and agricultural systems.

Though Holt acknowledges the debt his book owes to other major scholars, Children of Fire includes plenty of his own assessments on topics from Reconstruction to the rise in interaction between black Americans and immigrants from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Holt’s work is both a significant addition to other vital histories of the African-American past and a suggestion of new directions for the future.

CROSSING THE LINE
Daniel J. Sharfstein’s The Invisible Line doesn’t offer apologies for the conduct of the three black families it highlights, all of whom passed for white, but seeks to put their actions into context. The Gibsons knew all the land they’d amassed in 18th-century South Carolina would be taken over in a flash if the populace knew that blacks were the real owners. The Spencers of the mid-19th century became part of a poor community in the eastern Kentucky hills where racial backgrounds were obscured by the common struggle to survive. And the Walls ultimately revealed their true identity and paid the price, forfeiting a sizable amount of fame and wealth in Washington, D.C., in the early 1900s.

By 21st-century standards, the ability of the Gibsons to fool people and the reluctance of the Spencers to even discuss the subject of their origin with their neighbors seems woefully naive, even timid and disgraceful. But as Sharfstein’s research shows, the restricted path for blacks in those eras was such that neither family was willing to give up what they saw as their rightful status. Both became skilled at mimicking the language, customs and actions of whites. When contrasted with the severe price the Walls paid for coming forward, their choices might seem easier to understand. The Invisible Line is a detailed and instructive look at America’s tortured history and still-evolving attitudes toward race.

A STRUGGLE REMEMBERED
Finally, journalist Wayne Greenhaw’s Fighting the Devil in Dixie is the first complete chronicle of the struggle against segregation in Alabama, a state second only to Mississippi in terms of hatred and viciousness against its black citizens. The 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four little girls got international coverage, but killings, lynchings and other attacks had been happening in Alabama long before. Greenhaw, who covered every major event in Alabama’s civil rights era, begins with the 1957 beating and drowning of Willie Edwards Jr., a truck driver attacked by a mob for allegedly assaulting a white woman. Edwards was married with a family and had just received a promotion.

Combining personal memories with a wealth of sources gleaned from that period, Greenhaw tracks many major developments, among them the “Bloody Selma” march, the Freedom Rides and the election of George Wallace and his rise to national fame as the face of segregation. He also documents the role of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which became one of the few organizations that publicly stood against the tide and helped ultimately defeat those who wanted to keep the Jim Crow era alive in Alabama. Fighting the Devil In Dixie shows the power of perseverance and chronicles one of the great victories in America’s ongoing struggle for social justice.

LIVING HISTORY IN HARLEM
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts’ enlightening Harlem…

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

The road to freedom

Feature by Robin Smith

by Robin Smith

Every year as Black History Month approaches, dozens of excellent children’s books on the subject arrive in my mailbox. It’s always a joy to discover new selections for my library and classroom. Here are three of my favorites from this year’s offerings.

Shane W. Evans’ Underground is a good choice for the youngest readers. As soon as parents and teachers introduce books about Harriet Tubman, children want to read the story for themselves. Evans has created a book just for this audience. The font is plain, the words are few and the illustrations pack an emotional wallop. The first half of the book contains only this spare text: “The darkness. The escape. We are quiet. The fear. We crawl. We rest. We make new friends.” Each phrase is accompanied by a blue-and-black illustration of the night escape. When the family is welcomed by new friends, the yellow of their lantern becomes a potent symbol of hope. As the runaways move North, the sky lightens, culminating in a brilliant yellow on the book’s last spread. This stunning simplicity respects the young audience and makes us want to join in with the book’s closing words, “Freedom. I am free. He is free. She is free. We are free.”

Slightly older readers will enjoy the poems that tell the story of The Great Migration: Journey to the North. Longtime collaborators Eloise Greenfield and Jan Spivey Gilchrist come together in what I think is their best book yet. One of the universal human stories is the story of migration, but many young people still do not know about the movement of more than a million African Americans in the early 20th century, fleeing the threats of the Ku Klux Klan and the economic conditions of the South, to northern cities. What’s remarkable about this book is how much these poems are reminiscent of the diaries of the Oregon Trail and the stories of European immigrants to America. Here is the pain of leaving the beloved farm, the excitement of new possibilities and the worry that the past will be forgotten. The story is elevated by the stunning collages—ephemera and manipulated photographs set into a lush painted background. Almost every face looks directly out, inviting the reader into the world of the frightened and excited traveler, and out at the new places to explore. The Great Migration is a treasure for parents, teachers and students who want to learn more about this important time.

Arnold Adoff’s poetry continues to challenge and amaze his fans. Roots and Blues: A Celebration, which includes stunning Expressionistic paintings by award-winning illustrator R. Gregory Christie, inspires me each time I return to it. Adoff’s unique poetic style, with unusual spacing and lining, reminds readers of the music he is celebrating. From the days of the Middle Passage, the seeds of the blues were being planted into the musical soul of African Americans. The endpapers of the book, with handwritten names of hundreds of blues musicians from John Lee Hooker to Ethel Waters and everyone in between, remind the reader of the scope of the genre, while the poems themselves reflect the influences on it. When young readers (and adults, too!) take the time to explore Adoff’s riffs, they will never look at poetry the same way again.

Shane W. Evans’ Underground…

Memoir

Memoir

Behind the scenes with the Pioneer Woman

Feature by Eliza Borné

by Eliza Borné

Want a behind-the-scenes look at the Pioneer Woman’s lifestyle? Assistant Web Editor Eliza Borné went to the ranch to interview Ree Drummond for our February issue—and came back with some video. Click through to watch!

Want a behind-the-scenes look at the Pioneer Woman's lifestyle? Assistant Web Editor Eliza Borné went to the ranch to interview Ree Drummond for our February issue—and came back with some video. Click through to watch!

Women's History

Women's History

Strong women who paved the way

Feature by Deanna Larson

by Deanna Larson

The theme of Women’s History Month 2011 is “Our History is Our Strength.” These new books present biographies full of intellect, tenacity, courage and creativity.

WOMEN BEHAVING BADLY
Actress and blogger Elizabeth Kerri Mahon puts readers smack in the middle of some incredible female lives with her blog, Scandalous Women. Her mini-biographies are now compiled in Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History’s Most Notorious Women. Mahon, a self-proclaimed “history geek,” reclaims history “one woman at a time” in short, lighthearted accounts of the lives of rich and famous—and ordinary—women who caused wars, created drama, “defied the rules and brought men to their knees.” Each chapter features five women who created whole genres of scandal, from Warrior Queens (Cleopatra, Eleanor of Aquitaine), Wayward Wives (Jane Digby, Zelda Fitzgerald), Scintillating Seductresses (Emma Hamilton, Mata Hari), Crusading Ladies (Ida B. Wells, Anne Hutchinson), Wild Women of the West (Calamity Jane, Unsinkable Molly Brown), Amorous Artists (Camille Claudel, Billie Holiday) and Amazing Adventuresses (Anna Leonowens, Amelia Earhart). While many of the facts surrounding these lives are familiar, Mahon weaves page-turner narratives from her passion and affection for these spectacular but often misrepresented women.

AN ENDURING LEGACY
The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, was a controversial and groundbreaking book that turned the myth of the “content and fulfilled” housewife and mother on its head. The best-selling and radical book by Betty Friedan—often read undercover—inspired a generation of women to buck societal pressures and the prevailing belief that “women’s independence was bad for husbands, children, and the community at large” and seek change in their lives. In A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s, award-winning social historian Stephanie Coontz conducts interviews with nearly 200 women (and men) who were affected by Friedan’s book and traces its societal impact, including its influence on issues of gender equality today. Coontz examines the eras of relative freedom for women that predated the book, from getting the vote and the bobs and short dresses of the 1920s to hard-working Rosie the Riveters of the 1940s, and the erosion of those freedoms in postwar America. Friedan, “just another unhappy housewife” and writer for women’s magazines, conceived her book in the Mad Men era, when men had total legal control over the lives of their families and women couldn’t get credit in their own names. While other books of the time tackled similar problems, Friedan—a former activist—made readers feel passionate and validated in their frustration with their gilded cages. Packed with fascinating statistics and research on 20th-century American social history, including the effect of “liberation” on middle-class, working-class and African-American women, Coontz shines new light on a landmark work.

WOMEN WHO RULES BEFORE ELIZABETH
Elizabeth I ruled England with history-making style. But Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Margaret of Anjou and Matilda, granddaughter of William the Conqueror, were equally powerful, ambitious women who thrived in a cutthroat world well before her reign. Award-winning British historian Helen Castor (Blood and Roses) tells their extraordinary stories in She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth. “Man was the head of woman, and the king was the head of all,” Castor writes. “How, then, could royal power lie in female hands?” Castor answers that suspenseful question in dense, historically rich accounts that set out every detail of the complex social mores, political machinations, familial manipulations and feuds that formed their paths to power and influence. Women who claimed their earned power—even their birthright—outright during the 12th-15th centuries were seen as fanged, bloodthirsty “she-wolves.” “Freedom to act,” Castor writes, “did not mean freedom from censure and condemnation.” Their stories—like young French bride Isabella’s fight for her royal rights in England at the age of 12—featured subtle negotiations, covert confrontations, manipulations and sharp analysis worthy of any male ruler during such tumultuous, war-ravaged times, and She-Wolves makes for exceptional, even inspirational reading.

The theme of Women’s History Month 2011 is “Our History is Our Strength.” These new books present biographies full of intellect, tenacity, courage and creativity.

WOMEN BEHAVING BADLY
Actress and blogger Elizabeth Kerri Mahon puts readers smack in the middle…

Food & Drink

Food & Drink

Find renewal abroad

Feature by Eliza Borné

by Eliza Borné

Whether you’re planning a trip, imagining a radical move across the globe or simply hoping to explore from the couch, travelogues provide entertainment and inspiration.

BON APPÉTIT
The premise of Lonely Planet’s latest anthology is one upon which we can all agree: “Wherever we go, we need to eat.” In A Moveable Feast, edited by veteran travel writer Don George, eating is something to relish on trips—sometimes it’s even the point of the trip. Thirty-eight essays will take you from a hospitable yurt in Mongolia, where Stanley Stewart happily samples sheep intestines and fermented mare’s milk, to barbeque capital Kansas City, where Doug Mack and his father have some long-anticipated bonding time over a plate of heavenly ribs. The essays are short and easily digestible—A Moveable Feast would be perfect for stop-and-go reading while you’re in transit to your next destination (or for anytime you want to fantasize about being somewhere more exotic). In one of my favorite essays of the collection, Alexander Lobrano writes of getting “almost teary” as he muses on a “magical meal” in Portugal—pork and clams in tomato sauce, juicy chicken, fried potatoes and rice. You may find yourself salivating as you read about these fabulous food experiences and charming international characters, and the stories will inspire you to remember your own magical meals while traveling.

GOT THE BEIJING BLUES
There’s a lot to love about Alan Paul’s Big in China, a story about plunging into life in a foreign culture—and rocking out with a Chinese blues band. Paul and his wife moved their three young kids to Beijing after she got a posting as China bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal. A journalist with a flexible schedule, Paul became one of the few male “trailing spouses” in their neighborhood in Beijing, an identity he embraced as it allowed him to pursue creative opportunities he never could have imagined prior to moving around the world. He wrote an award-winning column for WSJ.com titled “The Expat Life” and fronted a blues and jam band called Woodie Alan with three Chinese men and another American. The group rose to prominence in Beijing, and Paul writes poignantly about performing in a multicultural band that became like a second family. Besides telling a good story, Paul honestly addresses the complexity of uprooting kids, making career sacrifices for a spouse and living in a foreign land. He writes, “One of the lessons I had taken from expat life was that no one was destined to live by any single reality.” In Big in China, Paul learns that “home” is where the people you love happen to be.

THE HAPPIEST COUNTRY
Lisa Napoli’s Radio Shangri-La will undoubtedly be compared to Eat, Pray, Love—in both, women in the midst of midlife crises find peace on adventures far away from the U.S. But Napoli’s destination of Bhutan is no Bali. Americans rarely visit this small nation in South Asia because of a steep tourist tax and limited plane access, and the country is remarkably sheltered from outside influences: Bhutan’s capital, Thimphu, is the only one in the world without a traffic light, and the king legalized television in the country just 12 years ago. Napoli was working for NPR’s Marketplace when a chance encounter led to an invitation to advise Kuzoo FM, Bhutan’s youth radio station. Sick of producing 90-second segments, Napoli “felt hungry for knowledge, deeper meaning, time to synthesize the world.” So she went to Bhutan in a time of great transition for the country: new king, new constitution, impending democracy. And though she initially envisioned a “media-free universe,” she quickly realized that new technologies in Bhutan meant that things were changing fast. Radio Shangri-La is as much about the charming characters at Kuzoo FM and the culture of Bhutan as it is about Napoli’s personal transformation. Readers will enjoy learning about a part of the world far different from our own, a place where success is measured not by GDP, but by Gross National Happiness.

NEW GUIDES FOR THE WORLD TRAVELER
Several travel publishers are introducing new series and destinations in 2011—here are some of the most notable additions.

•DK Eyewitness Guides: This popular series is getting an overhaul in 2011, with pull-out maps and a cleaner look. New destinations added this year include Back Roads Germany, Chile & Easter Island and Cambodia & Laos.

•Fodor’s Guides: Celebrating their 75th anniversary this year, America’s oldest travel guide company is adding Honduras & the Bay Islands, Prague & the Czech Republic, Venice & the Best of Northern Italy and Essential India to their roster of more than 600 destinations.

•Lonely Planet Discover Guides: Brand new in 2011, this series of focused, full-color, portable guides covers hotspots like London and Paris as well as less traveled destinations like Peru, China and Barcelona.

•Pocket Rough Guides: Billed as “slim, stylish and pocketable” these smaller versions of the best-selling Rough Guides are full-color and city focused—the 10 destinations include Barcelona, Prague and Rome.

Whether you’re planning a trip, imagining a radical move across the globe or simply hoping to explore from the couch, travelogues provide entertainment and inspiration.

BON APPÉTIT
The premise of Lonely Planet’s latest anthology is one upon which we can all…

YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA

New directions for fantasy novels

Feature by Deborah Hopkinson

by Deborah Hopkinson

Can teens today get enough of fantasy? Luckily for readers who grew up on series such as Harry Potter and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, this ever-expanding genre is continuing to attract new and distinctive voices, producing imaginative offerings for discerning teen readers. Here are three titles representing some of the best new work in fantasy.

FINDING HER PLACE

Nnedi Okorafor, who teaches creative writing at Chicago State University, has written for both teens and adults, winning critical acclaim and honors such as the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature. Okorafor, who was born in the U.S. to two Nigerian parents, sets her latest book, Akata Witch, in Nigeria. But like the author herself, Sunny, the heroine, is American by birth.

Sunny isn’t having an easy time of it in school. She is an albino, which means not only must she carry a black umbrella everywhere to protect her skin from the sun, but she is also teased and ridiculed by her peers. Her first friend is her classmate Orlu, who introduces her to a girl named Chichi. But these are not ordinary teen friendships: Before long Sunny finds that, like her companions, she is one of the Leopard People, someone imbued with magical powers. Soon the three friends, plus an American boy named Sasha, are being trained by Anatov, their teacher, in the mastery of their magical powers—which they will have to draw on to confront a serial killer of children who is terrorizing the community.

This is a wonderful coming-of-age story with an intriguing setting and an original magical world that will draw in readers. As Sunny comes to terms with her growing powers, she also discovers a connection to her late grandmother, and manages to find a way to navigate the two separate worlds of her existence. Teens beginning their own life journeys apart from parents and home will find much that resonates in Sunny’s story.

A JOURNEY OF THE HEART

Cindy Pon’s new novel is the conclusion to her debut title, Silver Phoenix, named one of the Top Ten Fantasy Novels of 2009 by Booklist. In Silver Phoenix, readers were introduced to Ai Ling, a 17-year-old girl in the kingdom of Xia, who has magical abilities, including the capacity to throw her spirit outside of herself in order to listen to others or even touch their spirits. In the first book, Ai Ling met Chen Yong, a young man of mixed races who was searching for the truth of his birth. As Fury of the Phoenix begins, Ai Ling stows away on the same ship as Chen Yong, concerned for his safety as he undertakes a long and dangerous sea journey to continue his search for his birth father.

When Ai Ling is discovered on board the Gliding Dragon, she pretends to be Chen Yong’s sister who has stowed away to be near her brother. The ship’s captain, Peng, is a fair and wise leader, who suspects that the relationship between Ai Ling and Chen Yong is not what it appears. As the journey progresses, the story alternates between Ai Ling’s onboard adventures and the story of a young man named Zhong Ye, the highest-ranking adviser to the Emperor. Ai Ling and Zhong Ye are inextricably linked through a mysterious past: “She could almost see his pale gray eyes, felt as if it were yesterday that their spirits entangled when she killed him. No matter how often she tried to push Zhong Ye from her mind, he lingered, festering like some dark wound.”

Cindy Pon weaves an intricate tale of adventure and romance in Fury of the Phoenix, creating a magical yet believable world infused with the incense of its ancient Chinese setting.

RESTORING THE BALANCE

Like Cindy Pon’s work, Malinda Lo’s novels also draw their inspiration from China culture, with shades of Irish folklore as well. Her first novel, Ash, has been described as “Cinderella . . . with a twist.” In Lo’s novel Ash is not swept away by a prince, but falls in love with Kaisa, the King’s huntress.

Huntress is set in the same world as Ash, but the story takes place many centuries earlier, during a time when nature is out of balance. The sky is continually overcast, and the sun has not shone in a long time; people are faced with starvation because of failing crops. Not only that, strange creatures are beginning to appear, some masquerading as human children.

When an invitation from the Fairy Queen arrives, two 17-year-old girls are tapped to make the journey to try to help restore balance in the human world. Taisin is the most celebrated student seer of her generation, but Kaede can’t figure out why she is being asked; while she has been studying at the Academy of Seers for years, it is clear she doesn’t have a magical bone in her body. Yet she has other skills, including the ability to throw a knife. And, as Kaede soon discovers, there is another reason for her selection: Taisin has had a vision of her. In fact, Taisin’s vision reveals her deep love for Kaede—a love that is forbidden because Taisin wants to be a seer, and seers must be celibate.

Filled with dangerous adventure, an evocative setting and a compelling romance between its two leads, Huntress is an appealing and exciting offering from this talented author.

Memoir

Memoir

On the front lines of motherhood

Feature by Amy Scribner

by Amy Scribner

We mothers know it isn’t an easy job. You struggle to find work-life balance. Your house is a wreck. You haven’t had a full night of sleep since Clinton was president. But these inspiring, honest and heartfelt books will remind you that raising children is both a blessing and a challenge—and that you deserve to celebrate Mother’s Day each year.

A FRESH NEW VOICE
In this wry, warts-and-all memoir, Good Housekeeping contributing writer Kyran Pittman offers up snapshots from her life, and she is nothing if not very, very human. We’re barely into the first chapter of Planting Dandelions when she reveals that she cheated on her first husband. Later in the book, she writes about very nearly cheating on her second husband, and she is equally candid on plenty of other topics, including nearly losing their house to foreclosure.

Yet this confessional tone is balanced with her clear affection for family life in all its messiness. Now a mommy of three, Pittman is just as passionate when writing about life in suburbia as when musing on postpartum sex.

“The slope of my nutritive backslide can be plotted by each of my kids’ first birthday cakes,” she writes. “When the oldest turned one, I made him a whole wheat carrot cake with pineapple-sweetened cream cheese on top. Two years later, it was a homemade chocolate layer cake, frosted with buttercream, for my middle child. Three years after that, I ran by the warehouse club and picked up a slab of corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oil, spray-painted blue, for the baby.”

Being a mom isn’t always (or even usually) glamorous, but Pittman recognizes the beauty of family life in this interesting, funny and fresh entry in the mommy memoir genre.

ADVICE YOU CAN TRUST
I’ll be honest: This book reminded me why I will never, ever have another baby. I was exhausted just reading the section called “A baby’s life: sleeping, eating, peeing and pooping,” with its accompanying chart on 24 hours in the life of a newborn. On the plus side, I was glad to learn my stomach wouldn’t be in any better shape had I used cocoa butter during pregnancy.

The Mommy Docs’ Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy and Birth is full of such useful tidbits, penned by three Los Angeles OB/GYNs whose TV show “Deliver Me” airs on Oprah’s new network. With common-sense information and advice on everything from breastfeeding to baby blues, these are the doctors every new mommy wants at her side.

The comparisons to the seminal What to Expect When You’re Expecting are inevitable, but the Mommy Docs write in a more conversational, matter-of-fact tone. With anecdotes sprinkled throughout the book, authors Yvonne Bohn, Allison Hill and Alane Park share their own experiences as mothers and doctors. They do occasionally lapse into medical jargon, but mostly this is a thorough and useful guide from conception to pregnancy and delivery.

THE GIFT OF LOVE
This book touts itself as “dispatches from the ridiculous front lines of parenthood,” but it’s actually more like “dispatches from two incredibly selfless and loving humans.” Astonishing and deeply humbling, No Biking in the House Without a Helmet is two-time National Book Award finalist Melissa Fay Greene’s account of raising four biological children and five more adopted from Bulgaria and Ethiopia.

After their eldest biological child left for college, Greene and husband Don worried they’d be empty nesters before they knew it. Some might solve this by planning a home remodel or a retirement vacation. Instead, the couple brought home five more children over the next decade.

“Donny and I feel most alive, most thickly in the cumbersome richness of life, with children underfoot. The things we like to do, we would just as soon do with children,” Greene writes. “Is travel really worth undertaking if it involves fewer than two taxis to the airport, three airport luggage carts with children riding and waving on top of them, a rental van, and a hall’s length of motel rooms?”

But Greene is no Mother Theresa (thank goodness). In one of the most affecting chapters, she writes candidly about her struggles after bringing home their new son, Jesse. He doesn’t speak English and is developmentally delayed from years in a Bulgarian orphanage. Greene anguishes over her decision, at one point thinking, “If I leave right now, drive all night, and check into a motel in southern Indiana, no one could find me.”
Needless to say, Jesse eventually fits into the family as one of many puzzle pieces. In the end, No Biking in the House Without a Helmet is a lovely patchwork of moments from a house filled with love, life and acceptance.

LIFE GOES ON
“Four months ago I saw my husband lying in a coffin. Tomorrow I get to hold my baby boy in my arms for the first time.”

In Signs of Life, a clear-eyed account of the months following her husband’s accidental death at age 27, author Natalie Taylor recounts what it was like to be a five-months-pregnant widow, navigating a strange new world with humor and honesty.

A high school English teacher, Taylor turns to classic literature to help tell her tale. It’s a neat trick that works surprisingly well. She compares her sense of powerlessness to that of migrant farm worker George from Of Mice and Men, and her grief and frustration to the scene from The Catcher in the Rye when Holden Caulfield breaks his parents’ windows after the death of his brother. Pop culture also figures in Taylor’s imagination, as when she fantasizes about a version of the popular TV series “The Bachelor,” which she would call “The Widowette”: “I’d insist that the entire show be filmed here in Michigan, in the middle of February when the days are gray and bleak and snowy and no one has a tan,” she writes. “The first guy to wake up early and scrape the ice off of my car and shovel the driveway gets a rose.”

Taylor’s story really kicks into high gear after she gives birth to son Kai. Through sleepless nights and maternity leave, she struggles to find her new normal. This is a story remarkably free of self-pity, instead focusing on the power of relying on others and drawing on the strength you didn’t know you had.

Romp and circumstance

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

by Linda M. Castellitto

It’s always a challenge to select the perfect graduation gift. (Do kids these days even use pen sets?) Books to the rescue! With their mix of advice, humor and encouragement, any entry in this quartet would make a thoughtful gift for those about to leap into the real world.

YOUR FUTURE LIES AHEAD
Anyone who’s delivered a graduation speech, or listened to one, or hopes to make one someday—so, pretty much everyone—will enjoy Everything is Going to Be Okay. This quirky illustrated book sprang from the clever mind and skillful pen of Bruce Eric Kaplan (BEK), perhaps best known for his witty single-panel cartoons for The New Yorker. He’s also served as a writer for “Six Feet Under” and “Seinfeld” and written seven other books. Two of his earlier tales feature Edmund and Rosemary, a loving and lovably neurotic Brooklyn couple. In Everything is Going to Be Okay, the duo has a new challenge: Edmund’s been asked to make a college graduation speech, but he worries he won’t be able to come up with anything interesting or meaningful. It’s not helping that the cat is silently judging him, someone’s already talked about the places people will go, and he has an irresistible urge to extra-thoroughly clean their apartment. Rosemary eventually gets Edmund to just write the speech, and off they go to the college. Despite intense nervousness, Edmund launches into his talk, which goes swimmingly—and then takes an unexpected turn . . . actually, a lot of longer-than-expected turns. The book is funny throughout, but it’s here that Kaplan makes evident his gift for finding (and creating) humor and sweetness at the intersection of quotidian and profound. Just as Edmund and Rosemary send off the graduates with a sense of possibility and well-being, so, too, will readers turn the last page of Everything is Going to Be Okay.

READY, SET, GO!
Jenny Blake knows about post-college life because she’s experienced it twice: first, when she took a leave of absence from UCLA in her junior year, and again when she returned to UCLA two years later to finish her degree and graduate with the class of 2005. She’s been a career development program manager and internal coach at Google since 2006, and she launched LifeAfterCollege.org in 2007. Now, she offers the lessons she has learned in Life After College: The Complete Guide to Getting What You Want. Blake confides that, while she’s always been a go-getter (she finished college in three years with a double major and honors, while working full-time beginning at age 20), she found herself exhausted at age 25 and unsure what she wanted to do next. She writes, “I finally . . . took steps to figure out what I wanted, and who I really was under the shiny veneer of achievement.” The author urges readers to view the book not as a narrative meant to be read beginning to end, but as a sourcebook that can be used to find specific information (on, say, taxes or etiquette or health) or thought-provoking exercises to help establish long-term goals. Advice from college graduates, tidbits from Twitter and quotes from famous figures make for interesting, quick reads, and “Jenny’s Tips” address seemingly every question that might cross a graduate’s mind, regarding work, money, home, family, dating, health and plenty more. This guide will prove at once useful, inspiring and reassuring for graduates who are ready to embark on an exciting new phase of life but aren’t quite sure where or how to begin.

THE SAVVY SECRETARY
Lynn Peril has long been thinking and writing about women in history and pop culture; she’s the author of Pink Think: Becoming a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons and College Girls: Bluestockings, Sex Kittens and Coeds, Then and Now. This time around, she takes on the workplace in Swimming in the Steno Pool: A Retro Guide to Making It in the Office. There are some four million secretaries in the United States, Peril writes, and she’s been one for 20 years, even as she published a zine, got a graduate degree and wrote books. But despite the accomplishments of office-workers everywhere—who include writers, artists, filmmakers, parents, entrepreneurs and future executives—there remain certain stereotypes regarding the secretary role: “husband-hunting, pencil-pushing, coffee-getting, dumb-bunny, sex-bomb.” Peril chronicles and questions those assumptions and offers up myriad snippets of secretary-centric history, including newspaper articles, advertisements and anecdotes. Fans of vintage fashion and ephemera (not to mention the TV show “Mad Men”) will delight in the plentiful visuals, many of which are hilariously sexist by today’s standards. Sidebars include “Wife versus Secretary (1936)” and “Pants in the Office.” Peril notes that secretarial schools, shorthand and formal dress codes have gone by the wayside, even as new avenues are opening up via the virtual-assistant role. Graduates curious about the evolution of women in the workplace will find plenty to think about here, as will those who decide that they, too, are administratively inclined.

FIGURING IT ALL OUT
Graduation is one of many occasions sure to inspire the big question: “What does it all mean?” In Driving with Plato: The Meaning of Life’s Milestones, author Robert Rowland Smith examines the big moments we humans have in common—from Taking Exams and Casting Your First Vote to Moving House and Retiring. Smith expands on the formula that made his Breakfast with Socrates: An Extraordinary (Philosophical) Journey Through Your Ordinary Day popular by viewing grand milestones (as opposed to everyday ones) through the lens of philosophy. This appealing, readable and thought-provoking mashup of musings touches on everything from virginity (Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” the movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Christ and Leonardo da Vinci are cited) to the midlife crisis (Nietzsche, menopause, Greek myths, gray hair). Through it all, Driving with Plato offers an excellent framework for sizing up what’s vital. Those who worry that staying up until 3:00 a.m. discussing the meaning of life might be an activity limited to their college years will find this book handy for inciting just those sorts of free-wheeling conversations any time (and anywhere). As Smith writes, “Yes, to philosophize is to learn how to die, as Montaigne said, but it’s also to learn how to live.”

Graphic Memoirs, Graphic Novels & Comics

Graphic Novels & Comics Graphic Memoirs

Strangers in strange lands

Feature by Becky Ohlsen

by Becky Ohlsen

These three graphic novels might not seem to have anything in common, but in a sense they do: All three are written from the perspective of a lone explorer making his or her way through an unfamiliar landscape. One involves a woman tracing her heritage in an Israel that bears little resemblance to the country she’d imagined; in another, the child of Vietnamese immigrants digs into his parents’ past; and in the third a miserably single American man navigates the terrifying world of dating.

SEEKING TRUTH IN THE HOLY LAND
In her graphic memoir How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, Sarah Glidden runs the emotional gamut, from stubborn to weepy to giddy to furious and all the way back around. The book records a “Birthright Israel” trip she took several years ago; the Birthright fund pays for trips that give non-Israeli Jews their first introduction to Israel. Sarah went intending to “discover the truth behind this whole mess once and for all,” meaning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Packing her suitcase, she tells her boyfriend, “It’ll all be crystal clear by the time I come back.” But of course everything turns out to be more complicated than she expected. Between touring cultural sites and hearing wise counsel from various perspectives, Sarah finds that her convictions are shaken but her understanding deepened through her engagement with Israel. Given the complex material and the fairly text-heavy panels, Glidden’s clear and simply drawn illustrations, painted in watercolor, add just the right amount of emotional impact to the story.

A VIVID FAMILY HISTORY
GB Tran takes a much more impressionistic approach to memoir in his Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey. The book, appealing enough in its black-and-white version but stunning in full color, describes Tran’s parents’ decision to leave Vietnam for America in 1975. In flashbacks and retold stories, Tran learns about what life was like for his mother and father when they were young children, what their parents were like, and how much they left behind when circumstances forced them to abandon the lives they had made and start from scratch. Tran is 30 when he returns with his parents to Vietnam for a visit shortly after the death of his last two grandparents. The combination of the young American’s disorientation and the many disjointed recollections he hears from various family members can be confusing if you try to follow the story in strict linear fashion; the key is to relax and let the gorgeous images wash over you. The wild, vivid pages here work the way oft-told and half-remembered family stories from long ago normally do; they’re more about conveying emotion than information.

HOPE AMONG THE RUINS
Daniel Clowes is great at many things, not least of which is leaving readers with a sense of alienation and vague disgust for humanity. But in Mister Wonderful he does something unusual: He transcends his customary gloom and despair to find hope. The story follows a guy named Marshall on a blind date. Marshall is divorced, unemployed and severely lacking in confidence. His scathing internal monologue as he sits at a coffee shop waiting for his date is painful to behold. Told in Clowes’ characteristically tidy style, with its neat rows of panels and straightforwardly drawn characters in plain, blocky urban settings, the story veers often into miniature fantasies, illustrated by miniature versions of the characters. When Marshall’s date, Natalie, appears and is charming, he can’t decide whether to be thrilled or to embrace the miserable certainty that she’s out of his league. But it turns out Natalie is equally fragile. Their delicate emotional parrying, complete with awkward misunderstandings, large and small faux pas and even a mugging, makes for a suspenseful and affecting read. The fact that the story comes down on the side of cautious optimism only increases its impact.

American History, Military History

Military History American History

The Civil War, 150 years later

Feature by David Madden

by David Madden

The war that interests Americans most profoundly, the war with which they identify most intimately, even personally, is the Civil War. Thousands of books have responded to that abiding interest. Armed with these four new releases, readers can march confidently into the sesquicentennial, the four-year-long 150th anniversary of the war.

A MORAL AWAKENING
Since many books on the Civil War are so similar, books that provide fresh perspectives are always welcome, especially during the anniversary now under way. The freshest of the four books in hand is America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation by David Goldfield. The list of his previous books is impressive—seven major books and eight edited works on race and religion in the rural and urban South, past and present. Now he poses a crucial question for the Civil War sesquicentennial: “Can anyone say anything new about the Civil War?”

Goldfield’s unique argument, brilliantly executed in a distinctive style, is that one effect of the Second Great Awakening was to create a religious fervor that enflamed secular debate over slavery and economic forces from the 1830s to the end of Reconstruction. Contrasting concepts of good and evil across the nation led to the failure of the American experiment, and religious and political bombast lit the fuse at Fort Sumter. Out of the human carnage and destruction of the war that ended slavery evolved the great Northern industrial success and the still-lingering religion of the Lost Cause that kept the South in relative ignorance and poverty until the late 1960s.

A TURNING POINT
Readers will find another fresh take in 1861: The Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart. Plenty of historians have focused, with various emphases, upon the fateful year of 1861, but Goodheart wants us to know about some little-known actors in the dramatic effort to remake the country. He shows us a nation that had strayed from the vision of the Revolution into a country where democratic morality and liberty would prevail, with a cast of characters that includes an acrobatic militia colonel, an explorer’s wife, a regiment of New York City firemen, a close-knit band of German immigrants and a young college professor, James J. Garfield, destined to become our second assassinated president.

Goodheart's initial inspiration was the discovery in 2008 of a huge trove of family papers in the attic of a ruined plantation house in Maryland—13 generations, 300 years of American history. While his narrative will appeal to the broadest audience, scholars would do well to delve into this excellent, well-researched and convincingly argued study of those months in which forces tending toward either war or peace clashed in a final battle in which war prevailed. But ultimately, the winner was the conviction of many kinds of people that a second American revolution demanded the freeing of the slaves.

AT WAR WITH LINCOLN
Coming out of the bicentennial of his birth in 2009, it is altogether fitting that books on Lincoln, who remains the major Civil War figure, remain at the forefront of our consciousness. Although many books have collected Lincoln’s speeches and writings, Harold Holzer’s claim for Lincoln on War is that it is the first book to collect the president’s writings on the Civil War. In fact, he creates a very useful context for the Civil War pieces by including writings from Lincoln’s earlier life as well. The speeches, letters, memoranda, orders, telegrams and casual remarks are in chronological order, and Holzer, major-domo of the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, comments upon and interprets each entry. The collection “embraces the soaring, practical, comic, distraught, and hectoring,” with topics including tactics, military strategy, the responsibilities of overseeing an army and even Lincoln’s interest in military technology.

In his introduction, Holzer notes that “Abraham Lincoln’s official White House portrait still dominates the State Dining Room.” And so, one hopes, his words still ring in the ears of the presidents and statesmen and women who dine there, such as this famous line: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

PICTURING THE CIVIL WAR
Not so well remembered is the statement by Robert E. Lee emblazoned on the back of The Civil War: A Visual History: “I wish that I owned every slave in the South. I would free them all to avoid this war.”

The Smithsonian has dared to add yet another lavishly illustrated picture book to the hundreds already on coffee tables and shelves—and it is one of the finest in every respect, especially the vivid page designs. Many of the best photographs, newspaper cartoons, maps, drawings and paintings are seldom seen in other books, so that for the general reader the images taken together will provide a fresh impression of every aspect of the war and Reconstruction, including the role of black soldiers, spies, politics and the home front. New photographs show galleries of uniforms, flags, pistols, artillery and other artifacts of the time, such as medical instruments. Two-page spreads provide timelines for each year, and the text that weaves in and out among the well-designed pages gives an excellent gallery of people and a summary of the war.

The first three books mentioned here may inspire readers to meditate on the war and its legacy, while the Smithsonian’s visual history may stimulate the commemoration impulse. Living in a time of civil wars that affect us all, we do well to experience our own in books such as these, especially during this major anniversary. As Shelby Foote said, the Civil War is “the crossroads of our being.”

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