bookpagedev

Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

A steam-powered kingdom of wonder

Review by bookpagedev

Molly Templar, an orphan with a taste for pulp adventure stories, finds adventure of her own when a string of mysterious murders forces her to hide in a dangerous underground city. Her story intersects with that of another orphan, Oliver Brooks, who has fallen in with Harry Stave, a roguish agent of a secret police force, the titular Court of the Air.

Stephen Hunt’s young protagonists are smart, resourceful and full of surprises, and their deepening involvement in the intrigues of their time makes for thrilling reading. Their adventures also serve to introduce us to Hunt’s richly imagined Kingdom of Jackals, a character in its own right.

Powered by steam and a pneumatic transportation system, the kingdom dominates with its industry and its navy of zeppelin-like aerostats. The Court of the Air could be characterized as steampunk, imagining a version of Victorian England where the fancies of Jules Verne are a reality. But Hunt also infuses his world with a good deal of magic: a mechanical race of steammen who predict the future by tossing rune-like cogs help Molly and Oliver on their way, while ancient gods seek to reclaim the world for their own twisted purposes.

The orphans soon have their eyes opened to the dark complexity of their world, and as they fight to preserve civilization from the forces of a megalomaniacal revolutionary, Hunt’s novel transforms into a canny political allegory, in which cycles of tyranny and rebellion revolve like the cogs of a clockwork wonder.

At its heart, however, The Court of the Air is an adventure tale in the grand old style, full of mystery, magic and skulduggery, as well as riveting bouts of gun- and swordplay. It is welcome news that a second book set in the Jackelian world, The Kingdom Beyond the Waves, is on its way.

Jedediah Berry is the author of a novel, The Manual of Detection, forthcoming from Penguin Press.

Molly Templar, an orphan with a taste for pulp adventure stories, finds adventure of her own when a string of mysterious murders forces her to hide in a dangerous underground city. Her story intersects with that of another orphan, Oliver Brooks, who has fallen in…
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Launching a multimedia mystery

Review by bookpagedev

Will The 39 Clues be the next Webkinz—creating an online frenzy, this time with a literary tie-in instead of stuffed animals? Scholastic hopes so, especially now that the Harry Potter publishing phenomenon has ended. Time will tell, but the publisher may well be onto something big, with a project that should appeal to readers, gamers and collectors.

The 39 Clues series includes 10 books, each by a different well-known author (such as Gordon Korman and Jude Watson), with a new one coming out every two or three months. The series presents a giant mystery that readers must try to decipher, using trading cards and a website, along with the books. Each book also contains six cards, and readers can buy additional clue – laden packs (350 cards in all). As for the jackpot, Scholastic will provide $100,000 in cash and prizes, some awarded for skill and others as part of a sweepstakes. The bottom line is that the first book is quite good—full of suspense, humor, likable characters and a riveting plot. Rick Riordan, the wildly successful author of the Percy Jackson series, delivers an intricate web of suspense, a sort of Da Vinci Code for kids (without the religious overtones). Amy and Dan Cahill are orphans who live with their not-so-nice aunt. Their world falls apart with the death of their beloved (and wealthy) grandmother, Grace. At the funeral, the lawyer calls together her many heirs in the mansion’s Great Hall and offers them each a choice: take a one-million-dollar inheritance and leave, or, instead of money, be given the first of 39 clues. The clue, the lawyer explains, "might lead you to the most important treasure in the world and make you powerful beyond belief." Of course, Amy and Dan take a clue, and the action begins. Other family members take the clue too, so the race is on. As Dan and Amy try to piece the puzzle pieces together, they travel the world and learn a bit of history too.

The series is such top – secret stuff that my advance reading copy of The 39 Clues, Book One: The Maze of Bones did not contain the complete text or the first clue. Nor could I try out the website—no one gets a head start until the official launch on September 9. It looks to be great fun, however, with online missions, character blogs, maps, surveillance videos and games. Did I mention that DreamWorks Studios has bought movie rights, and that Spielberg may direct? All I can say is Harry Potter, Webkinz—watch your back!

Alice Cary and her twin daughters are pondering their clues in Groton, Massachusetts.

Will The 39 Clues be the next Webkinz—creating an online frenzy, this time with a literary tie-in instead of stuffed animals? Scholastic hopes so, especially now that the Harry Potter publishing phenomenon has ended. Time will tell, but the publisher may well be onto something…

Children's & YA

My father, the King

Review by bookpagedev

The art of comedy involves taking a normally awkward situation and giving it just enough absurdity to make someone laugh. Take Josh Greenwood’s situation: he’s embarrassed by his father. Every kid alive has been embarrassed by their parents—we look at it as part of the job description, kids—but in Shelley Pearsall’s new book, All Shook Up, Josh’s dad, Jerry Denny, has taken this duty to unimagined heights.

When Josh’s grandma breaks her hip, his mother has to travel to Florida to nurse her back to health, and Josh, who normally experiences his dad’s "garlic and cigarette smoke hugs" during short holiday visits, is faced with an extended stay, not to mention a new school. When he arrives on his Boston to Chicago flight, he quickly realizes that his worst fears have fallen far short of reality. His dad looks different; he’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, and his normally brown hair has been dyed a slick, glossy black. Shortly thereafter he discovers to his horror that his father has lost his job as a shoe salesman, and has chosen a completely unexpected career path—as an Elvis Presley impersonator!

The seventh-grader is faced with trying to adjust, which means doing his best to fit in and trying to find his place on the Charles W. Lister middle school social ladder, all while dealing with the new people in his life. There’s Gladys, the slightly addled elderly woman down the street who makes his dad’s "Elvis scarves"; Viv, his dad’s new girlfriend, who runs a vintage clothing store; and most importantly, Ivory, Viv’s daughter, who goes to his school, and who knows his secret shame.

When his dad is asked to perform at a school function, Josh launches a desperate scheme to prevent his appearance, but things quickly go from bad to worse, and he finds out that maybe his dad isn’t as crazy as he thought. All Shook Up is alternately wry, silly, thoughtful and laugh-out-loud funny. It will appeal to any kids who’ve been mortified by their parents—namely, all of them. And it just might launch a new generation of Elvis fans!

James Neal Webb hopes you enjoyed this review. Thankyouverramuch.

The art of comedy involves taking a normally awkward situation and giving it just enough absurdity to make someone laugh. Take Josh Greenwood's situation: he's embarrassed by his father. Every kid alive has been embarrassed by their parents—we look at it as part of the…

Business & Finance

The business of beauty

Review by bookpagedev

Admit it, ladies: When it comes to cosmetics, one brand of lipstick is much like the next pigment in a waxy carrier, some slight variation on pink or red, priced at a huge mark-up over the modest cost of production.

But it’s a rare woman who is brutally realistic about makeup. After all, the whole point of putting it on is to create a fantasy self. In a psychological sense, changing your face is changing your life.

In her entertaining, intelligent new book Color Stories: Behind the Scenes of America’s Billion-Dollar Beauty Industry, Mary Lisa Gavenas deglamourizes the glamour business without forgetting that what ultimately matters is how the consumer feels about herself. A “color story” is beauty industry jargon for a company’s seasonal collection of lipstick, nail polish and eye shadow, along with the advertising slogans that tie them together: “Go Tropical,” “Winter Beach,” “A Moment in Tuscany.” But Gavenas shows that “stories” are also the very essence of the $29 billion industry, from the way a pioneering entrepreneur like Helena Rubenstein or Mary Kay created her persona to the way mall department stores sell their wares through “makeovers.” Gavenas is herself a beauty industry vet, both as a magazine journalist and as an employee of companies as different as Avon and Yves Rocher. She’s able to provide a comprehensive overview of the business in a relatively short book by leading readers month by month through the development of a spring seasonal collection.

Her lively behind-the-scenes accounts of fashion shows and magazine photo shoots broaden into informative discussions of industry trends. And while Gavenas’ tone is light, she doesn’t avoid the less attractive side of the beauty world, such as the industry’s stubborn and largely successful fight against safety regulations.

The book is particularly interesting as it tells of the smart, hard-working women who became millionaires with their paints and powders. The Big Three were the long-gone Rubenstein, Elizabeth Arden and Estee Lauder, but it’s a career still open to female talent, as the success of Bobbi Brown demonstrates. However, Gavenas also points out that men head all but one of the biggest mass market companies. Appropriately enough, Color Stories begins and ends at a Bellevue, Washington, mall, where the purchases made by ordinary women illustrate the truth that makes this industry near recession-proof. They may not be able to afford designer dresses or trips to Tahiti, but women can always find optimism at the cosmetics counter. Anne Bartlett is a journalist in South Florida.

Admit it, ladies: When it comes to cosmetics, one brand of lipstick is much like the next pigment in a waxy carrier, some slight variation on pink or red, priced at a huge mark-up over the modest cost of production.

But it's…
PhotographyArts & Culture

Hats and gloves required

Review by bookpagedev

Many of filmmaker and fashion photographer Jerry Schatzberg’s images in Paris 1962: Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior, the Early Collections are purposely blurred or grainy, suggesting the breakneck pace of the Parisian shows. Taken on assignment for Esquire magazine, Schatzberg’s mostly black-and-white photographs capture staff setting up chairs, editors scribbling notes, and shows, photo shoots and after-parties in progress. Women in the audience wear pearls and dark glasses; models backstage drape themselves in robes or trench coats, sometimes with cigarette and champagne in hand.

An informative essay by Vanity Fair contributing editor Patricia Bosworth comes late in the book, putting the photos into context (readers learn, for example, that models wore their own shoes and did their own hair and makeup). This is an era, as documented in Schatzberg’s studies, of gloves and large hats, extra-long false eyelashes and proper little suits for daywear – Twiggy, Mary Quant and Carnaby Street had yet to steal the scene. In Paris 1962, youth and fashion, both fleeting by nature, are frozen, perfectly preserved for fashionistas and photography buffs alike.

Many of filmmaker and fashion photographer Jerry Schatzberg's images in Paris 1962: Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior, the Early Collections are purposely blurred or grainy, suggesting the breakneck pace of the Parisian shows. Taken on assignment for Esquire magazine, Schatzberg's mostly black-and-white photographs capture…
History

Blithe spirits in wartime Washington

Review by bookpagedev

Jennet Conant’s 109 East Palace told the story of how the atomic bomb was constructed in the "secret city" of Los Alamos, New Mexico. Now in The Irregulars, she uncovers another World War II episode: the invasion of Washington, D.C., by a corps of dashing, well-spoken British spies whose job was to turn the country from isolationism to full-throated support of England’s fight against fascism.

Among this gifted phalanx were the playwright and actor Noël Coward, future James Bond creator Ian Fleming, future advertising genius David Ogilvy, classical scholar Gilbert Highet, the ridiculously rich and handsome Ivar Bryce (of whom it was said, "It’s terrible the advantages he’s had to overcome") and, towering above them all, budding writer and Royal Air Force veteran Roald Dahl. Dahl is the focus of Conant’s breezy (but well-documented) narrative.

Organized under the British Security Coordination by Canadian-born spymaster William Stephenson, these agents planted news stories, sowed suspicion toward England’s perceived enemies, whispered into influential ears at cocktail parties and summer outings, and flattered and romanced America’s most powerful women, from liberal first lady Eleanor Roosevelt to conservative U.S. Rep. Clare Boothe Luce (wife of Time and Life publisher Henry Luce). Through the patronage and close friendship of American newspaper and oil tycoon Charles Marsh, Dahl quickly became a fixture in the Washington social scene. He became a trusted companion of Vice President Henry Wallace, played poker with Missouri Sen. Harry Truman and swapped stories with rising political star Lyndon Johnson. Dahl’s was hardly a furtive cloak-and-dagger operation.

Even after America committed itself wholeheartedly to the war, the "Irregulars" stayed on, monitoring and nudging internal politics and gathering information about the country’s plans for its postwar global dominance. Dahl would go on, of course, to become internationally famous as the writer of adult and children’s fiction (most notably Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and husband of the actress Patricia Neal.

Edward Morris writes from Nashville.

 

Jennet Conant's 109 East Palace told the story of how the atomic bomb was constructed in the "secret city" of Los Alamos, New Mexico. Now in The Irregulars, she uncovers another World War II episode: the invasion of Washington, D.C., by a corps of dashing,…

Memoir

At warp speed

Review by bookpagedev

Whether you recognize him as Captain Kirk of “Star Trek,” Denny Crane from “Boston Legal” or that Priceline guy, chances are you’ve encountered William Shatner at some point during his 60-year career. In Up Till Now, a memoir that moves at the same frenetic pace as Shatner himself, the actor zooms through his childhood in Montreal, his training as a Shakespearean actor and his early days on television. Shatner has written about “Star Trek” before and doesn’t dwell on it here, though there should be enough tidbits to interest Trekkies. With this wacky, self-deprecating and decidedly unique account of his life, Shatner goes where no author has gone before.

Whether you recognize him as Captain Kirk of "Star Trek," Denny Crane from "Boston Legal" or that Priceline guy, chances are you've encountered William Shatner at some point during his 60-year career. In Up Till Now, a memoir that moves at the same frenetic…
Lifestyles

This will give you the creeps

Review by bookpagedev

The little figures on the cover of Christen Haden’s Creepy Cute Crochet: Zombies, Ninjas, Robots, and More! look so darling, even the Grim Reaper – but beware, scarier creatures lurk inside. Haden manages to maintain an appropriate amount of dark humor throughout, from explaining why she wrote the book (“every evil genius knows that her creations are best when unleashed on the more general public.”) to chapter headings and allusions in the text. Haden begins wih a brief primer – how to read crochet patterns, choosing yarn and utensils – for beginners, as well as tips for fashioning spears, scythes and swords. The creatures include traditional baddies (devil, vampire), scary couples (Day of the Dead pair, skeleton bride and groom), fighters (Trojan, Spartan, knight) and others (corporate zombie). And there are a few ultra-cuties – a fuzzy alien and a monkey (in adorable fez and vest) for the little ones.

The little figures on the cover of Christen Haden's Creepy Cute Crochet: Zombies, Ninjas, Robots, and More! look so darling, even the Grim Reaper - but beware, scarier creatures lurk inside. Haden manages to maintain an appropriate amount of dark humor throughout, from explaining…
Business & Finance

From deadlines to the bottom line

Review by bookpagedev

After 10 years as a newspaper journalist, Philip Delves Broughton was tired of his colleagues’ cynicism and anxious about what seemed to be his industry’s inexorable decline. He left his job with the London Daily Telegraph to go to Harvard Business School, seeking more control over his own destiny. It still seems to be an open question whether Delves Broughton will find fulfillment in the world of commerce. But luckily for readers, he has used his writing skills to produce an accessible memoir of his two years at HBS that also serves as a good primer on business.

Delves Broughton, an Englishman with an outsider’s perspective, demystifies the school that has produced such varied graduates as George W. Bush, Michael Bloomberg and infamous Enron felon Jeff Skilling. Perhaps surprisingly, the student body has a high proportion of the "three M’s": Mormons, military and McKinsey – people who either have worked or want to work at the McKinsey consulting firm on their way to even more lucrative jobs. But the HBS population is also increasingly multinational, and Delves Broughton points out interesting differences between American and non-American attitudes.

There are no true horror stories in Ahead of the Curve. As at any other school, some professors are worse than others, and some students are less than collegial. But overall, HBS comes across as an institution that takes seriously its responsibility to produce ethical, well-balanced leaders. Its "case study" system of teaching – dissecting business situations based on real-life models – provides students an effective way of thinking through problems.

But Delves Broughton raises troubling questions. Most graduates gravitate to well-paid finance and consulting jobs, not to entrepreneurial risks or manufacturing. Many think more about numbers than the people affected by their decisions. Their personal lives suffer as they spend obscene amounts of time at the office. And no one in the class of 2006 seems to anticipate the coming credit crisis – though one 1965 alumnus notes that the exceptionally high percentage of current graduates choosing financial services careers was likely a sign that the markets were about to crash.

 

After 10 years as a newspaper journalist, Philip Delves Broughton was tired of his colleagues' cynicism and anxious about what seemed to be his industry's inexorable decline. He left his job with the London Daily Telegraph to go to Harvard Business School, seeking more…

Arts & CultureArt

Putting together the pictures

Review by bookpagedev

Summer travels to great American cities frequently involve trips to those cities’ famous art museums, whether to enjoy the renowned art collections or simply to beat the heat. But as you soak up the art (and the air-conditioning), have you ever stopped to wonder how such European treasures as Italian Renaissance masterpieces, classic Impressionist works and iconic British portraits wound up in an art museum in, say, Boston, Philadelphia or New York City?
Old Masters, New World explores these questions in fascinating detail, delving into the early 20th-century’s Gilded Age and the wealthy industrialists who turned their American ingenuity (and their considerable fortunes) to acquiring some of the world’s most iconic works of art. Along the way, as they sought to rectify the lack of art and culture that had so disenchanted the critic Henry James, among others, with American life, these tycoons helped to establish collections – New York’s Frick Collection, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and, of course, the Metropolitan Museum of Art – that have remained cultural landmarks today.

Despite the beauty of these valuable masterpieces, often the methods of their attainment were anything but pretty – involving cut-throat competition, unscrupulous agents and dealers, and the kind of ruthless acquisitiveness that had already made American businessmen and industrialists the most powerful in the world. By focusing on individual collectors, collections and even on the often-fascinating stories of individual paintings, Saltzman brings this fast-paced, high-stakes world vividly to life.

Saltzman, who has degrees in both art history and business, is perhaps uniquely qualified to tell these stories, interspersing detailed descriptions of particular paintings with accounts of their purchase and acquisition. Appealing to history buffs, art lovers and biography fans Old Masters, New World will certainly give visitors to our country’s premier art museums something new to ponder.

Norah Piehl is a writer and editor who lives near Boston.

Summer travels to great American cities frequently involve trips to those cities' famous art museums, whether to enjoy the renowned art collections or simply to beat the heat. But as you soak up the art (and the air-conditioning), have you ever stopped to wonder how…
Cookbooks

Bottom of the wine barrel

Review by bookpagedev

In 1985, Malcolm Forbes’ son Kip, acting for his father, paid $156,000 for a bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite, part of a cache said to have been ordered by Thomas Jefferson but never delivered and found by workmen renovating an old house in Paris. The sale, and the huge publicity surrounding it, launched an era of what can only be called wretched excess (judging from some of the “tasting” menus) and of a hugely profitable market in fraudulent antique wine “discoveries” – a burgeoning hoax that would eventually tar several of the world’s leading wine experts, notably longtime Christie’s chief wine auctioneer Michael Broadbent (and to a lesser extent Robert Parker, creator of the controversial 100-point rating scale for wine).

It also cost any number of multimillionaire collectors an astounding amount of money, although Benjamin Wallace, author of The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine, makes it clear that some deserved it: Wallace’s stories of 12-hour tastings of rare wines, of eccentric tycoon-turned-America’s Cup winner Bill Koch’s extravagant wine cellar, and of the growing number of warning signs (holes in Jefferson’s meticulous record-keeping, dealers offering multiple cases of wine that had been made in limited numbers) ignored or downplayed by the industry are a reminder that collecting is itself a sort of mania.

It’s also competitive, and Koch, who eventually spent another fortune to prove the fraud, is more concerned with revenge than restitution. The villain of the piece is Hardy Rodenstock (an alias, as it turns out), who persuades some of the most prestigious wine tasters in the world that he is the Indiana Jones of antique vintages, particularly 18th-century Yquem, first growth Bordeaux and, of course, the “Th.J.” bottles. The “hero,” if there is one, is an unlikely team of investigators and scientists that is in itself fairly astounding.

Wallace’s painstaking research, his often pungent descriptions and an ability to temper his cliffhangers as he ducks and weaves with the narratives, make this a terrific read.

Eve Zibart is a former restaurant critic for the Washington Post and author of The Ethnic Food Lover’s Companion.

In 1985, Malcolm Forbes' son Kip, acting for his father, paid $156,000 for a bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite, part of a cache said to have been ordered by Thomas Jefferson but never delivered and found by workmen renovating an old house in Paris. The…
Medicine

Popping the image of a popular pill

Review by bookpagedev

One sad lesson to be learned from Side Effects: when you’re considering whether to take a new medication, don’t assume anything. Don’t assume the medical researchers didn’t manipulate their findings. Or that the pharmaceutical company released all its data. Or that the Food and Drug Administration made sure the medicine is safe. Alison Bass, a former Boston Globe reporter who specializes in medical issues, delivers that tough truth through the tale of Paxil, a popular antidepressant widely prescribed for children and adolescents – before it became clear that Paxil and similar drugs increase suicidal thoughts among some pediatric patients. The FDA now requires warning labels on those medications, but that step came only after a struggle between “Big Pharma” and patient advocates.

Bass focuses on a precedent-setting legal case brought by the New York State Attorney General’s Office against GlaxoSmithKline, accusing the company of hiding negative findings about Paxil. She humanizes the somewhat complex story through the experiences of a handful of dogged whistleblowers: a legally blind prosecutor who noticed the data in a key Paxil study didn’t match its positive conclusion; a health care administrator who stumbled over what Bass says were research misdeeds at Brown University; and a psychiatrist who first reported in 1990 that some patients became suicidal after they were prescribed Prozac.

The whistleblowers’ persistence has paid off to some extent. The FDA has become somewhat more vigilant, and medical journals are more careful about the research they publish. But Bass shows that ethically dubious financial ties between pharmaceutical companies and the medical research community continue unabated. Her prime example is a senior psychiatrist at Brown implicated in questionable practices in the Paxil case and others. He refused to speak to Bass, and remains in good standing at Brown.

Anne Bartlett is a journalist in Washington, D.C.

One sad lesson to be learned from Side Effects: when you're considering whether to take a new medication, don't assume anything. Don't assume the medical researchers didn't manipulate their findings. Or that the pharmaceutical company released all its data. Or that the Food and Drug…
Biography

A life reclaimed through music

Review by bookpagedev

Steve Lopez is a newspaper columnist somewhat in the mold of Mike Royko or Jimmy Breslin. He’s worked in Philadelphia and Los Angeles – also with Time magazine – and has turned out a few novels. Several years back, Lopez came upon an L.A. Skid Row denizen named Nathaniel Ayers, who impressed him with his violin playing, despite the fact that his instrument had only two strings. Sniffing a story, Lopez set out to learn more about his new acquaintance and discovered that Ayers had been enrolled at Juilliard more than 30 years earlier. Lopez’s initial column on Ayers drew wide attention, and eventually spawned many more, as Lopez gradually became intimately involved in his subject’s past and future. The Soloist directly recounts this unusual, ultimately heartwarming tale, but not before the author takes readers on a harrowing journey through the tougher elements of both mental-health treatment and the lower depths of downtown L.A.

It turns out that Ayers, after indeed spending two years at Juilliard as a promising string bass player, succumbed to a form of schizophrenia, thus disrupting his functionality, destroying his ability to continue in music school and eventually spiraling his life downward into the underclass. Encouraged by some of his concerned Los Angeles Times readers and also by cautious but supportive psychiatric professionals and social workers, Lopez forges a friendship with Ayers and for two years helps him get off the streets, pursue his music with renewed vigor, and take the huge emotional strides necessary to begin a modest re-entry into more conventional everyday living.

Lopez’s writing is as propulsive as good fiction, and his central character is nothing if not a singularly fascinating gent – prone to disjointed stream-of-consciousness outbursts as well as brief informative lectures on classical music. Yet for all its positive-striding spirit, Lopez’s book is rife with suspense, mainly because Ayers’ complex personality problems emerge as all too real and – especially since he adamantly refuses meds – require unending patience on the part of those aiding his progress. The Soloist is inspirational but also very gritty stuff; a film adaptation starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. is in the works.

Martin Brady writes from Nashville.

Steve Lopez is a newspaper columnist somewhat in the mold of Mike Royko or Jimmy Breslin. He's worked in Philadelphia and Los Angeles - also with Time magazine - and has turned out a few novels. Several years back, Lopez came upon an L.A. Skid…

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