Linda M. Castellitto

Animals

Fabulous felines, charming canines

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

If you're looking for a holiday gift for an animal aficionado, look no further than these six new books, which celebrate (and justify!) our fascination with and devotion to our furry friends. From photography-laden treats to amazing true stories to beautiful poetry, these cat-and-dog tales will be well-received, indeed.

GRACEFUL AND GORGEOUS
The Elegance of the Cat: An Illustrated History will incite ooh-ing and ahh-ing among cat-lovers and photographers alike. But this large-format beauty isn't just about pretty kitties—it's also a cat-historian's (catstorian's?) delight. Author Tamsin Pickeral offers a thoughtful examination of the role of the cat through the centuries, plus detailed information on 50 breeds. Pickeral notes that, in the Middle Ages, cats were persecuted due to a rise in Christianity and a mistrust of cats' link to polytheism and magic. This cat-hatred had stunning big-picture consequences: "[T]he mass slaughter of cats across Europe during the Middle Ages neatly coincided with the sweeping devastation of the Black Death," which was spread via flea-infested rats—whose numbers swelled in the absence of their chief predators.

Felines fared better in subsequent eras and are, of course, the object of much affection today, whether in homes worldwide, "Garfield" comic strips, or any number of videos online. Then there are the cat shows, which became popular in the late 1800s. The two world wars were a fallow time for cat-breeding, Pickeral reports, but enthusiasm redoubled after WWII and continues apace. Cat-breeders and readers seeking a purebred cat will find The Elegance of the Cat a valuable tool, thanks to descriptions of 50-plus breeds' appearance, personality and origins—plus Astrid Harrisson's stunning photos of cats in nature, at play, or perhaps practicing their cat-show poses.

A FELINE OMNIBUS
In the cat-book universe, The Big New Yorker Book of Cats surely is high on the Most Wanted list: Its 300-plus pages are a feline-appreciation wonderland of fiction, poetry, essays, cartoons and covers culled from the magazine's nearly nine decades in print—and its contributors' seemingly endless willingness to ponder, and attempt to capture, that which makes cats so . . . cat-like. According to the magazine's film critic, Anthony Lane, it's an ever-entertaining and, often, ultimately fruitless pursuit. Lane writes in the foreword, when musing on why there are no cats in the New Yorker offices, "[Y]ou cannot fact-check a cat. . . . In contrast to the magazine, and to this capacious book, cats are unreadable, and happy to remain so. Unlike writers, and related pests, they cannot be controlled." That's thoroughly celebrated here, in four sections (Fat Cats, Alley Cats, Cat Fanciers, Curious Cats) and a sizable amalgam of words and pictures—all reflecting the kaleidoscope of emotions and beliefs cats can provoke, from fascination to frustration, curiosity to an overwhelming urge to cuddle.

Writers including James Thurber, Jamaica Kincaid, E.B. White and Margaret Atwood, plus numerous cartoon and cover artists (cover-cats had their heyday in the 1970s, it seems), pay homage to cats in their many guises. The Big New Yorker Book of Cats is thought-provoking, fun, and great to look at — plus, it's the perfect size to comfortably host a sprawling cat (or a couple of kittens).

OH, GO AWAY ALREADY
Grumpy Cat probably doesn't like Grumpy Cat: A Grumpy Book. The first-time author has a career many would envy. This year alone, she's been on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, the cover of New York magazine, TV shows like "Good Morning America" and "CBS Evening News," and made an appearance at SXSW. Not bad for a one-and-a-half-year-old, but Grumpy Cat isn't just any toddler. She's a cat who's also an Internet meme, thanks to her perma-frown, which her owners say is due to feline dwarfism. Grumpy Cat has 1.9 million Facebook likes and a lot to say, and her writerly debut lays it out like so: "I dream of a world in which everyone sulks in their own corner, occasionally emerging to judge one another and feel disgust for everything around them." Grumpy Cat explains why she hates dogs, shares her arrest record and creates a gift guide "for the person who doesn't deserve anything," including such choices as an "ergonomic litter box" (unmade bed) and "bouncing ball" (fragile vase). There are also plenty of photos: family pictures, meme-ified shots, and some un-skillfully Photoshopped ones—though it must be said, using a paw to manipulate a computer-mouse is nothing like handling a real mouse, so rough edges are to be expected.

Reading Grumpy Cat in one sitting, while easy to do, might be a bit much for cheerier sorts: The negativity, while often visually adorable, is relentless and may result in a bad mood, which . . . wait a minute. It works! She's a grumpy genius.

AMAZING CANINES
Rebecca Ascher-Walsh's author photo for Devoted: 38 Extraordinary Tales of Love, Loyalty, and Life with Dogs is notable not only because it's adorable, but because the image of her—smiling broadly, eyes squeezed shut as the pit bull she's holding gives her a big, wet kiss—is the embodiment of her book: the pit bull is a dog she helped get adopted. Presumably Ascher-Walsh, an animal activist, didn't adopt the dog herself because she's already got a couple of her own (photo, page 6), but there's seemingly no limit to her affection for animals, especially the ones she's profiled here. Each story is accompanied by photos, and dog-centric facts are sprinkled throughout. For example, "Dogs can distinguish smells 1,000 to 10,000 times better than a human"—fascinating on its own, and even more so when that ability is central to the story of Effie, who sniffed out her owner's cancer. Then there's Shana, who saved her owners during a snowstorm (she dug a tunnel and dragged them to safety), and Rose, who works as a courthouse dog (she comforts children testifying about traumatic events).

Devoted is filled with fascinating true stories of canine heroism, dare-devilry (Hooch and his owner scuba-dive), and always, love.

Dogs let it all hang out in the spectacular stop-action photography of Carli Davidson's Shake.

DOGS, INTERRUPTED
Shake is a full-color compendium of full-on adorableness, featuring all sorts of dogs in mid-shake. Some squint as if caught in a wind tunnel, others maintain eye contact while their twisting jowls release astounding arcs of drool, and still others transform from merely poofy to fantastically fluffy. In 2010, photographer Carli Davidson began taking pictures of rescue dogs mid-shake. She posted the shots on Facebook, they went viral in 2011, and a book was born: 61 dogs, a stark black background, and glorious side-by-side photos. Davidson notes in her introduction that she borrowed the idea of photographing an animal mid-motion from Eadweard Muybridge, who photographed horses in 1878. She adds that the project "has given me insight into the universality of how much we love our pets, and how excited we are to see our heroes in a new way."

Davidson's high-speed photography technique, plus her dog-wrangling ability, make for a fun new way to look at dogs—and an inevitable yearning to hug a hound, starting with the ones in this book. Those faces 

PRAISE AND JOY
Poet Mary Oliver has won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and her 2012 collection, A Thousand Mornings, was a New York Times bestseller. Oliver has another hit on her hands with Dog Songs: Poems, in which we learn that the talented poet is just like the rest of us in at least one way: She loves her dogs—the ones she grew up with, the ones who've departed this earth, the ones she shares time with today. In this book of poems (plus one poetic essay), Oliver honors and reflects on the human-canine connection through her experiences with Percy, Ben, Bear, Henry and Ricky, the winsome Havanese with whom Oliver shares her author photo. Finely done line-drawings of Oliver's dogs add to the warmth of the Dog Songs experience, which is a lovely gift for dog-lovers, or anyone who smiles at lines like these:

Running here running there, excited,
hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins

until the white snow is written upon
in large, exuberant letters,
a long sentence, expressing
the pleasure of the body in this world.

"Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased," Oliver writes, and the reader responds simply, "Of course."

If you're looking for a holiday gift for an animal aficionado, look no further than these six new books, which celebrate (and justify!) our fascination with and devotion to our furry friends. From photography-laden treats to amazing true stories to beautiful poetry, these cat-and-dog tales will be well-received, indeed.
Family & Relationships

Love, and all that jazz

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

As Valentine’s Day draws nigh, our thoughts turn to romance. These three books explore dating and relating from a variety of viewpoints.

Any woman who’s tired of relatives, friends and co-workers who ask, “Why are you still single?” will appreciate Sara Eckel’s It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single. The author, inspired by her 2011 New York Times "Modern Love" column, has penned a smart, I’ve-got-your-back debunking of the most common remarks made to unmarried women, especially those 30ish and older. Eckel, who married at 39, believes that being unmarried is due to one simple thing: not having met the right person. But after being told that she and her single friends were too needy, unrealistic or picky, she wondered why this blame-assigning mindset is so prevalent. One reason, she writes: “We’re a nation that believes strongly in personal efficacy—if there’s something in your life that isn’t working quite the way you’d like, then the problem must begin and end with you.” That myth shows up in all 27 of the wrong reasons Eckel explores, from “You’re Too Intimidating” to “You Should Have Married That Guy.” Eckel encourages readers to push aside the naysaying, enjoy life as it is right now and remember that the question isn’t why you’re single, it’s, “Why are near strangers so often compelled to demand answers?” 

GEEKS OF ENDEARMENT

Eric Smith’s The Geek’s Guide to Dating is a pop-culture compendium of advice for dating, with clever geek lingo and analogies galore. Smith (founder of the website Geekadelphia) offers sound tips for readers who spend so much time behind their computers that they haven’t learned the nuances of courtship. Topics include Selecting Your Character (identifying your interests and strengths), Search Optimization (where to meet geeks) and Building a Bulletproof Wardrobe (no LED belt buckles, please). Smith’s advice is straightforward, whether reminding readers to approach others with respect or suggesting that they “Start a conversation, not a debate.” Fun illustrations, plus charts, lists and what-if scenarios add to the good-hearted guidance. May the force be with you.

FOR MATURE AUDIENCES

There’s girl-talk, and then there’s Sex After . . . Women Share How Intimacy Changes as Life Changes, a no-topic-is-taboo collection gleaned from interviews with 150 women ages 20-something to 80-something (and a few men, too). Iris Krasnow, author of the popular The Secret Lives of Wives, specializes in writing about women’s relationships. In Sex After . . ., she wanted to go beyond stereotypes and explore what real women are experiencing: “And may that truth release you into becoming your authentic and fullest sexual self, after the honeymoon, after cancer, after boredom, after divorce, after wrinkles—until death do you part.” She alternates well-researched passages full of relevant statistics and quotes with frank stories about sex after major life events such as childbirth, illness, infidelity and more. While 20-somethings are enjoying “hooking-up culture,” Krasnow notes that young ladies aren’t the only ones having fun. She also finds “rocking grandmothers who attend Tantric sex workshops and are as lusty as teenagers.” Those skeptical of Krasnow’s assertion that, in the realm of sex, “the 70s are the new 40s” surely will change their minds after reading this lusty litany.

As Valentine’s Day draws nigh, our thoughts turn to romance. These three books explore dating and relating from a variety of viewpoints.

NonfictionCrafts, Hobbies & HomeArt

The strange and the wonderful

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Bibliophiles know books are the perfect gifts, rendering “they’re so hard to buy for” an empty lament. To wit, this trio of titles truly has something for everyone. All hail the curious mind!

TATTED UP
Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them takes a daring approach: There are no photos here. Instead, Wendy MacNaughton illustrates more than 60 tattoos, along with their hand-lettered origin stories curated by Isaac Fitzgerald. MacNaughton’s artfully rendered black-and-white line drawings of her subjects provide a neutral canvas for her full-color interpretations of their vibrant tattoos. Of course, the stories make these body-art vignettes whole: From sad to silly, emotional to eccentric, it’s fascinating to learn what can inspire such an everlasting form of self-expression. Chiming in are artists, professors, a naval officer, pizza aficionados and many more. This is a great gift for the tattooed, the tattoo considerers, art lovers and anyone curious about tattoo whys and wherefores but too shy to ask.

TANTALIZING TRIVIA
The explosive cover art for 1,339 Quite Interesting Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop is a reasonable facsimile of readers’ brains after they’ve experienced this compendium of wildly interesting, weirdly true facts. The authors are the masterminds of popular BBC quiz show “QI”: John Lloyd is creator, John Mitchinson is director of research, and James Harkin is senior researcher. They’re also the authors of 2013’s best-selling 1,227 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off, the creation of which led them right to this follow-up book. “Once you are in the Fact Zone, everywhere you look, astonishing new facts seem to wave and demand inclusion,” they explain. There are loads of facts here, on topics as varied as music, milk, Darwin, straitjackets and earlobes. For example: “There are only two sets of escalators in Wyoming,” and “A slug’s anus is on its head.” Now get out there and win on “Jeopardy!”

BEAUTIFUL CREATURES
Step aside, yarn-bombers and artisanal cheese-makers—the rogue taxidermists are here, and Robert Marbury leads the charge with Taxidermy Art: A Rogue’s Guide to the Work, the Culture, and How to Do It Yourself. The book shares taxidermy’s origins, as well as illustrated how-tos for the aspiring taxidermist. It’s also an illuminating look at those who practice the craft today, via page after page of disturbingly beautiful (or beautifully disturbing) works by artists worldwide. Chicago’s Jessica Joslin combines animal bones and intricate metalwork in pieces that are at once robotic and fluid; Julia deVille embellishes her taxidermy with jewels, thus “dazzling us with death”; and Marbury practices “vegan taxidermy” by using toy stuffed animals instead of formerly living creatures. Taxidermy Art is a truly interesting read, rife with intriguing history, talented artists, memorable images—and skull-bleaching instructions, too.

 

This article was originally published in the December 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Bibliophiles know books are the perfect gifts, rendering “they’re so hard to buy for” an empty lament. To wit, this trio of titles truly has something for everyone. All hail the curious mind!
CookbooksAnimals

Celebrating the joys of a dog’s life

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Warning: These books will make you want to adopt a dog. Or another. Maybe even several. The pooches featured in the five books here do everything from joy riding to going for a swim (or at least a dog paddle).

OUT FOR A SWIM
So, you’ve memorized the images in Seth Casteel’s Underwater Dogs (2012) and long for more? Never fear, Underwater Puppies is here! It’s worth the wait: These delightfully damp puppies are even sweeter than those that came before, not least because most of the pups are so very tiny (or: automatically cute). Casteel is a master at capturing the looks on their faces, and the effect is irresistible, whether the subject is Sugar (a boxer who serenely floats among the bubbles) or Bentley (a French bulldog whose expression says, what is going ON here?). The dogs pictured hail from shelters and rescue groups and serve as a reminder that, as Casteel writes, “adoption is a fantastic option when considering bringing a puppy into your life.” And how.

JUST BREATHE
Do you know someone who needs a chill pill? Here’s one in book form: Lessons in Balance: A Dog’s Reflections on Life by 9-year-old Scout, the pit bull star of the Tumblr blog “Stuff on Scout’s Head.” And that’s exactly what you get in this book—photo after photo of Scout calmly balancing all sorts of items on his head, with sayings like “Acknowledge your feelings” and “Look beyond appearances.” Turning the pages is a surprisingly hypnotic experience. After a while, the objects fade, and the consistency of Scout’s mellow gaze prompts a feeling of tranquility. The images can be a hoot, for sure: The bunch of asparagus on Scout’s head is funny, the soap-bubble is impressive and the hourglass is poignant. But the humorous images don’t belie the message. As object-placer and owner Jennifer Gillen writes, “From [Scout] I’ve learned to be present and mindful, focus on the task at hand, and complete it.”

DINING A DEUX
If you live alone, it can seem easier to favor quick-and-easy meals. But there’s another way! Judith Jones offers time-tested strategies for feeding yourself and your canine companion in Love Me, Feed Me: Sharing with Your Dog the -Everyday Good Food You Cook and Enjoy. An esteemed editor at Knopf for 50-plus years who edited the likes of Julia Child and Jacques Pépin, Jones has also written cookbooks herself. She now raises grass-fed cattle on her farm in Vermont, with her dog, Mabon, by her side. He’s her kitchen compatriot, as well, which is eminently sensible of him, since Jones is a longtime champion of cooking for pets. She began in 1933 at age 9, when cans of wet food and bags of kibble were not available. “I liked sharing some of what we were eating with a creature I treasured. It was my way of caring for her,” she writes. In Love Me, Feed Me, she offers 50-plus recipes for meats, pasta and more, along with plenty of photos and stories. Clever tips abound, like this one: Why struggle to scrape a pot clean when you’ve got an eager dog who’s happy to help with the task?

HIT THE ROAD, FIDO
Ah, hitting the road—the time-honored tradition that celebrates freedom, possibility and the delights of windblown hair. In Dogs in Cars, photographer Lara Jo Regan, best known as the guardian of the beloved Mr. Winkle, captures “the pure joy of a dog in its most heightened state” via a gorgeously photographed collection of dogs with eyes alight, tongues flapping, fur ruffled by the breeze. The pooches look thrilled (and beautiful—Regan knows her lighting), and will inspire an urge to hug any nearby pets. All of the images were taken in California and showcase the state’s natural beauty: palm trees, mountains, beaches, glorious skies. Cars range from a 1979 Cadillac Eldorado to a 2014 Toyota Prius (there’s a golf cart, too), and indexes at the back identify the various cars and dog breeds. Dogs in Cars is a fun gift for dog lovers, road-trippers, car aficionados and anyone who wants to gaze upon joy, page after page.

FURRY FRIENDS
Brittni Vega’s Harlow & Sage (and Indiana): A True Story About Best Friends is a sweet and funny story told from Harlow the Weimaraner’s perspective. (Thankfully, Harlow doesn’t use the mangled English favored by some Internet sensations—she would never spell cheese with a “z”!) The book began as an Instagram account in 2013, with wonderful photos of the adventures of Harlow and her older sister Sage. Alas, Sage died a few months later. In an effort to assuage everyone’s sadness, Vega and her husband brought home Indiana, a Dac-hshund puppy. Following along as the dogs and their humans move from fresh grief to fond memories, from begrudging acceptance to true sisterhood, is a lovely experience. There’s lots of dog-centric hilarity, too, which makes Harlow & Sage a great choice for reading to or with kids.

 

This article was originally published in the December 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Warning: These books will make you want to adopt a dog. Or another. Maybe even several. The pooches featured in the five books here do everything from joy riding to going for a swim (or at least a dog paddle).
NonfictionBusiness & Finance

A makeover for your daily grind

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

With the new year comes glorious possibility, which makes this a perfect time to think about improving your outlook and productivity at the office. This trio of books offers ideas, support and strategies in equal measure, no matter your goal: Want to get more done? Banish distractions? Feel connected to your work? These titles are here to help—and inspire.

When it comes to work, what gets you revved up? Analysis or action, efficiency or innovation? Do repetitive tasks drive you bonkers, or are they soothing? While most of us can easily answer those questions, in Work Simply: Embracing the Power of Your Personal Productivity Style, Carson Tate points out that most of us don’t actually take the answers into account when we plan our workdays. Calendars and to-do lists are great for some people, but for others, they’re highly detrimental.

“The truth is that the problem is not you. It’s how you are trying to overcome your busyness that is the problem,” Tate says. The workplace productivity expert and career coach explains that, based on research into brain activity and work styles—plus her own experiences and those of her clients—there’s no single, right way to achieve productivity. Instead, there are four predominant “productivity styles”: Prioritizer, Planner, Arranger and Visualizer. A 28-question quiz, the Productivity Style Assessment, will guide readers toward identifying their own style, as well as the styles of their bosses and co-workers. Tate’s on-point assessments of what works for those styles (and what’s never going to, so don’t try to force it!) are supremely useful.

Four detailed case studies are interesting and inspiring, and subject-specific chapters like “Lead a Meeting Revolution” and “Tame Your Inbox” offer hope for the harried. Work Simply is an insightful, supportive book for those who want to do more and better (and have some fun along the way) but haven’t quite figured out how.

FINDING FOCUS
Ah, our techno-centric era—the immediacy of texting, the wonders of wireless, the ability to take photos of anything at any time and send them to anyone. Amazing, sure, but also a recipe for feeling scattered, stressed and always behind. Edward M. Hallowell understands: He’s an M.D. specializing in attention deficit disorder (ADD) and the author of 14 books on the topic, including the best-selling Driven to Distraction.

In Driven to Distraction at Work: How to Focus and Be More Productive, he sets his sights on the six most prevalent time-wasters, from compulsive email-checking to ineffective multitasking to being unable to say no. These distractions are all part of what he calls Attention Deficit Trait (ADT), or “a severe case of modern life.”

While conditions such as ADD and ADHD are genetic, ADT is situational—people may suffer from it at work, but are just fine at home. Wherever it happens, it doesn’t feel good; restlessness, frustration and an inability to focus are the unfortunate result. But there’s hope in these pages.

Based on his treatment of thousands of patients, Hallowell offers ways for readers to identify the distractions in their lives and learn how to deal with them. For example, those who are “toxic worriers” should “Get the facts. Toxic worry is rooted in lack of information, wrong information, or both.”

If achieving “flexible focus” (which he defines as a balance of logical and creative thinking) is proving a challenge, “Draw a picture. Visuals clarify thinking. Draw a diagram, construct a table, cover a page with zigzags. . . . You may soon see the bigger picture you’d been looking for coming into focus.”

Hallowell’s voice is knowledgeable, accessible and, above all, encouraging. We can do it!

GETTING YOUR GROOVE BACK
Christine Carter gets things done: She’s a sociologist at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center; is the best-selling author of Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents; has been cited in The New York Times; interviewed on TV by the likes of Oprah and Dr. Oz; and is raising two daughters. But, as she explains in The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work, not long ago, even she found herself completely overwhelmed and exhausted. Something had to change.

“I needed to get my groove back, to live in my sweet spot . . . that point of optimum impact that athletes strike on a bat or racquet or club, that place where an athlete has both the greatest power and the greatest ease,” she writes. And couldn’t we all benefit from a life that’s easier—less harried, less stressful and more balanced? Carter acknowledges that it might be difficult to achieve a state of flow when there’s so much going on, but her “Sweet Spot Equation” promises to help readers achieve a happier, more relaxed life via tips, strategies and examples in five major areas: Take Recess, Switch Autopilot On, Unshackle Yourself, Cultivate Relationships and Tolerate Some Discomfort. Her data is fascinating, her strategies empowering and, while avid readers of balance-your-life books will have encountered these concepts before, Carter’s take offers fresh approaches; the “Work on your eulogy, not your resume” and “Distinguishing mastery from perfectionism” sections are excellent examples. It’s heady stuff, but if it means getting closer to that sweet spot, it’s definitely worth the effort.

 

This article was originally published in the January 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

With the new year comes glorious possibility, which makes this a perfect time to think about improving your outlook and productivity at the office. This trio of books offers ideas, support and strategies in equal measure, no matter your goal: Want to get more done? Banish distractions? Feel connected to your work? These titles are here to help—and inspire.
Pop CultureAnimals

Thinking out of the (gift) box

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

It’s always fun to give a gift that’s truly memorable (in a good way, of course), and this trio of books won’t steer you wrong. Ordinary is overrated!

RODENT ROMANCE
Jane Austen’s books have been adapted, reimagined and mashed up in seemingly every possible way—until A Guinea Pig Pride & Prejudice, in which writer Alex Goodwin and set designer Tess Gammell join forces to offer an entirely new, adorably hilarious take on the classic story. As in the original, there’s all manner of matchmaking and dissembling afoot—but the feet here are tiny, and they belong to nine guinea pigs who make this photographic retelling most compelling indeed. Gaze into Elizabeth’s shiny black eyes and ponder their effect on Mr. Darcy; feel the tension as Darcy and Mr. Bingley have a rounded-nose-to-rounded-nose stare-down; sigh at Lady Catherine’s displeased moue and towering lavender hat! This affectionate, quietly dramatic homage is the perfect gift for Austen-philes, Austen-newbies, guinea-pig aficionados and anyone who appreciates a tale well told.

ALL ABOUT YOU
Most of us know about IQ tests, BMI charts, Myers-Briggs types and Rorschach blots, but those who want to more thoroughly plumb their own depths will be thrilled with The Test Book. It’s got 64 self-assessments in five sections: personality, health, career, lifestyle and beliefs. After all, as authors Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler write, “When it comes down to it, people care about two things: understanding themselves and being understood by others.” These tests will help you reach those lofty goals, whether you’re the sort to read front to back (including the interesting introduction about the history of personality tests) or just jump in at random with tests like “Am I crazy?”or “How strong am I?” or “Who should I employ?” or “Is it love?” This book is the perfect gift for people who are inquisitive, competitive, contemplative or perhaps just want to entertain with something besides Pictionary at their next party. 

OFF-KILTER COMICS
Like many cartoonists, Reza Farazmand got his start in college, via UC San Diego’s student newspaper. These days, he has a popular web comic, which is at the heart of Poorly Drawn Lines: Good Ideas and Amazing Stories. It contains strips old and new, plus a few short stories and essays; those not immune to existential crises will enjoy think pieces like “Maybe There’s More to Life Than Standing Behind Babies at IKEA.” The comic’s outlandish characters run the gamut: There are chatty mountains, profane ants, a silently judgmental bird who prefers not to whistle and a dude who over-identifies with his beard. Comic fans will dig it, as will those who enjoy funny art but can’t commit to graphic novels and anyone who’s ever wondered if owls feel pressured by stereotypes (and feel compelled to memorize Wikipedia entries on the sly).

 

This article was originally published in the December 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It’s always fun to give a gift that’s truly memorable (in a good way, of course), and this trio of books won’t steer you wrong. Ordinary is overrated!
NonfictionMemoirAnimals

Amazing animals

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Whether you need a gift for a staunch dog- or cat-person, or someone who treasures all creatures, here are three perfect picks! Discover a cult poet's fondness for felines, rediscover the work of a famed dog portraitist or learn more about sharing space and interacting with animals. 

FELINE FAMILY
It's likely that Charles Bukowski’s On Cats will prove surprising as well as captivating. After all, the late writer's fans admired his macho-hooligan persona as much as his poems and novels. But with this book of newly published work, the word is out: The man really loved cats. In poems and essays, he shares his admiration, frustration, inspiration and adoration of his cats; he and his wife lived with between four and nine, depending on how many strays they took in. He declares, "A cat is only ITSELF. . . .This is a representative of the strong forces of LIFE that won't let go." And, regarding his art: "Writing is also my cat. Writing lets me face it." Photos throughout show the author's delight in his pets—which just might inspire cat-lovers to become Bukowski fans, and vice versa. On Cats would be a meaningful gift for either, or both.

DARLING DOGS, REVISITED
A flip through Dogs As I See Them is all it will take to convince readers of Lucy Dawson's immense talent . . . and the introduction will inspire dismay when it reveals that Dawson is no longer with us. But as Ann Patchett admiringly notes in the foreword, this book marks the re-publication of a book of drawings "as timely and relevant today as they were when Dawson drew them in England in the 1930s." Dawson was known for her dog-portraits, sold in books; as playing and post cards; and as commissions (including a Christmas card for the Royal Family). It's easy to see why her work captivated then, and why it remains so vibrant today: She wholly captured her subjects in all of their sleepy, hyper, floppy, panting, bone-gnawing glory. The artist's brief stories about the dogs add context and fun. Indeed, there's "upsidedownish" Nanki Poo, "conscientious" George and regal Wanda, who "dislikes [music] of a jazzy nature." Dog-lovers and art aficionados will be thrilled at the chance to discover (or rediscover) Dawson's singular talent. 

ANIMAL PLANET
It's an animal-lover's fantasy: Author Tracey Stewart lives with four dogs, two pigs, three rabbits, a hamster, a parrot, two guinea pigs and two fish, plus her two kids and her husband Jon (yes, that Jon Stewart, former host of “The Daily Show”). Tracey, a former veterinary tech and newly minted proprietor of a rescued-farm-animal sanctuary, shares her wisdom and experience with our furry, scaly and feathered friends in Do Unto Animals. Her passionate belief in the value and power of caring for animals resonates through this super-smart, heartfelt book, beautifully illustrated by Lisel Ashlock, which combines memoir, education and advocacy. For example, "Dog-ese," "Cat-ese," and "The Real Pig Latin" help us speak their (body) language, and Stewart's take on backyard animals is healthy and helpful (she calls them "The Landscaping Team"). Her knowledge of farm animals is likewise helpful and impressive. Animal lovers of all stripes will find this an engaging, useful guide, and a source of boundless inspiration.

Whether you need a gift for a staunch dog- or cat-person, or someone who treasures all creatures, here are three perfect picks! Discover a cult poet's fondness for felines, rediscover the work of a famed dog portraitist or learn more about sharing space and interacting with animals.
NonfictionBusiness & Finance

Keeping your career on course

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

A new year is dawning, full of hope and possibility . . . and, probably, lots of things to catch up on now that the holiday break is behind you. But don't despair! This way lies inspiration and innovation, thanks to a trio of new books that offer fresh approaches to work. Whether you want to rethink your goals, improve your focus or forge a new path, these titles offer strategies, perspective and encouragement.

WORK OUTSIDE THE BOX
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the path to career success is dotted with promotions. Rick Whitted wants us to consider: Why is this a universal truth? Does this approach actually work? The author, a small-business-banking veteran, posits that our emphasis on getting promoted leads to tunnel-vision, and we're missing opportunities along the way. In Outgrow Your Space at Work, he notes that we're so focused on moving forward that "we become restless, less confident, and discontent—even if the status quo is actually good." Instead of pushing for promotions and jumping ship if we don't get them, he argues, we should really think about what interests and excites us about work. 

Often, there's opportunity in an existing role: for mastery, deepening of skills and outgrowing your space by viewing a promotion as "a result, not a strategy." The Four Ps of Promotion section explores common motivations: Position, Pay, Personal Security and Personal Satisfaction (his careerwhitt.com site offers a deeper dive). Then, it's time to tackle Nine Steps to Outgrowing Your Space at Work. For example, in Master the Basics, the author advises using the company playbook, "a process, model, or manual they use to operate the business," to make sure your work is in line with what's valued and rewarded (vs. diligently focusing on the wrong things). This thought-provoking, hope-inspiring book is perfect for workers who want more than to eternally chase the next new gig. After all: "growth, not a promotion, is the key to having a successful career that will endure the span of your work life." 

FOCUS ON FOCUS
We're all distracted, aren't we? Thanks to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and the endless loop of constant connection, there are lots of ways to easily distract ourselves from pretty much anything we set out to do. But it doesn't have to be that way! In Part I of Deep Work Cal Newport, five-time author and Georgetown University assistant professor, deftly and thoroughly extols the virtues of "Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit." Science backs it up: We must plan for focused time and "batch" smaller tasks, because brain processes vital to learning can only be achieved via intense focus. (If we switch between tasks, "a residue of your attention remains stuck thinking about the original task.")

Still, Newport writes, technology isn’t all bad: "If you can create something useful, its reachable audience . . . is essentially limitless—which greatly magnifies your reward." How to create that useful stuff? Some take a week or month to focus on a single project, while others use hour-long segments. Newport makes an excellent case for doing the hard work now to reap the benefits for years to come, and his profiles of people who've embraced deep work are illuminating and encouraging. That includes the author himself: His first year of deep work, he started his job as a professor and published four papers. In his third year, he wrote a book, co-parented an active toddler and published nine papers. What should readers' first step be? That's easy: Do the deep work of immersing yourself in Deep Work. 

UNPREDICTABLE PATHS
Despite the variations on "It's not your father's career!" flying around lately, today's increasingly peripatetic career paths are a lot like Farai  Chideya's own mother's work experience: She was first a journalist, then a medical technologist, a teacher and is now a certified master gardener. As the author notes in her fifth book, The Episodic Career, "We live in a globalized economy where not just jobs but also entire career tracks are created and destroyed in front of our eyes." We've got to be open to the idea that we may not end up using our skills and experience in ways that are continuous or predictable. It's daunting and exciting, but it also means we need to pay close attention to how “today's decisions will affect . . . tomorrow's earnings and savings."

How are people handling several careers in sequence, or perhaps a couple at the same time? Numerous interesting stories about people in a wide range of careers (tech writer, park ranger, fundraiser, welder, sex therapist, CEO) are woven through this well-written book, which has at its center a Myers-Briggs-esque Work/Life Matrix that Chideya says will help you "Know yourself, set your goals, play by your own rules." Readers can answer four key questions (about risk, social impact, innovation vs. execution and decision-making); examine 16 archetypes and relevant job profiles; and use what they discover to "steer away from long-term dissatisfaction with work, and plot new paths." Chideya's research on the changes in America's work culture and economy provides context, and there are plenty of role models via the book's wealth of stories about people who took risks, bounced back and found unexpected satisfaction in the unanticipated.

A new year is dawning, full of hope and possibility . . . and, probably, lots of things to catch up on now that the holiday break is behind you. But don't despair! This way lies inspiration and innovation, thanks to a trio of new books that offer fresh approaches to work. Whether you want to rethink your goals, improve your focus or forge a new path, these titles offer strategies, perspective and encouragement.
NonfictionMemoirArts & Culture

Humorous reflections on fame and fortune

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Curious about what it’s like to be a child actor, a standup comedian, a podcast star or some combination of the above (and beyond)? You’re in luck: These memoirs offer a fascinating peek behind the curtain of fame. 

In Scrappy Little Nobody, Anna Kendrick chronicles her journey from auditioning for roles at age 5 to being a Tony-nominated singer (High Society) and Oscar-nominated actress (Up in the Air). “[P]erforming is all I’ve cared about since the first time I can remember caring about anything,” she writes. While Kendrick shares self-deprecating and I’m-just-like-you sentiments in her memoir, she also expresses pride in her uncommon career, noting that theater work “gave me a basic work ethic that I may not have gotten if I started in film and television. I worked six days a week, eight shows a week. . . . I was held accountable for my work.” A heavy load for sure, but Kendrick persevered, getting more and more high-profile roles (The Twilight Saga, Into the Woods, Pitch Perfect) along the way. Plenty of revelations about the non-magical side of moviemaking and an irreverent Reading Group Guide round out this entertaining, appealing first book.

COMEDY OF THE MIND
On a recent talk show appearance, Norm Macdonald said his book, Based on a True Story, is 50 percent true and 70 percent made-up. That feels about right; this elliptical memoir loops its way through Macdonald’s life so far, bringing the reader along on a hallucinatory road trip filled with strange characters who may or may not be real people. When he’s being more straightforward, Macdonald shares stories both funny and poignant from his formative years in rural Canada and details his experiences competing on “Star Search” and being the new kid on “Saturday Night Live.” At book’s beginning, he says standup comics are “never in one place long enough to experience anything but the shabbiest of love.” But at book’s end, he writes, “I’ve been lucky. If I had to sum up my whole life, I guess those are the words I would choose, all right.” Both feel like moments of honesty shoring up a performance-art-esque tale. 

SIMPLE REQUESTS
After reading You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain, readers will want to be Phoebe Robinson’s friend. But they better not try to make her TBF (The Black Friend), “a singular dash of pepper in a bowl of grits.” Witty, truth-telling commentary abounds here, and it’s delightful. Robinson wasn’t always this confident; she uses her childhood relationship with her hair as a metaphor for her growing awareness of the assumptions projected onto black people—women in particular—based on their hairstyles: “‘[H]ire-ability,’ acceptance, and attractiveness are all on the line when someone wears his or her hair naturally? That’s a lot of weight to assign to a physical attribute.” Indeed. She now has a thriving career in standup, as well as acting, and writing for the New York Times, Glamour and “Broad City”—and she wears her hair however she wants. Chapters like “Dear Future Female President: My List of Demands” and “People, Places, and Things That Need to Do Better” are funny and on-target, while personal stories in “Uppity” and “The Angry Black Woman Myth” illustrate how systemic racism has affected the way she communicates every single day. It’s exhausting, yes, but Robinson is hopeful: “We all have some growing to do. So let’s try and get better together. Cool?”

READING AMY
Amy Schumer is a household name, thanks to her hilarious, award-winning TV series, “Inside Amy Schumer”; her worldwide comedy tours; and the movie Trainwreck, which she wrote and starred in. In The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Schumer says, “I wanted to share these stories from my life as a daughter, sister, friend, comedian, actor, girlfriend, one-night stand, employee, employer, lover, fighter, hater, pasta eater, and wine drinker.” And that she does, in a book that’s a mix of funny, smart, straightforward, raunchy and sweet. A more serious side of Schumer emerges here, as well. When she explores the ways her parents’ tumultuous marriage and an abusive dating relationship have affected her, she plumbs her pain to share what she’s learned and demonstrates that she’s a survivor in more ways than one. The tattoo story is in there, too, as well as a strong stance for gun control, a stand against body-shaming and ultimately a case for being OK with imperfection: “My vulnerability is my ultimate strength,” she proclaims. With this book, she proves that writing is a close second.

TALL AND HANDSOME
Joel McHale hit his head a lot as a kid. Did this lead to his becoming a comedian and actor (“Community,” “The Great Indoors,” Ted), host of E! Network’s “The Soup” and a relentless commercial pitch-man? In Thanks for the Money: How to Use My Life Story to Become the Best Joel McHale You Can Be, McHale hints at a link between his multiple head injuries and his fearless quest for attention, performance and money. McHale’s fondness for dark, somewhat disturbing humor will be familiar to fans and makes for an entertaining through-line in the book, which begins at childhood—well, before childhood, really (see the detailed and discomfiting “Mama-and-Papa-Sutra”). He was born in Rome, Italy, grew up in Seattle and takes us up to now, with a variety of weird and wacky pit stops along the way—a Mr. McHale’s wild ride, if you will. Said pit stops include “Midbook Reading-Retention Puzzles,” an infographic called “How to Survive a Chevy Chase Attack” and a response to rumors about hair implants (yep, he got ’em—twice). Insider info ranges from celebrity quirks to career strategies to details on the free stuff you get once you’re wealthy and don’t really need it. This is an edgy, entertaining memoir/self-help combo from a sharp, successful showbiz guy.

 

This article was originally published in the November 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Curious about what it’s like to be a child actor, a standup comedian, a podcast star or some combination of the above (and beyond)? You’re in luck: These memoirs offer a fascinating peek behind the curtain of fame.
Graphic Novels & ComicsGraphic Memoirs

Draw me a story

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

We reach for graphic novels and memoirs because we treasure the experience of art plus story, of exploring a world of finely crafted illustrations that convey multitudes. Each of these four new comic books is a treat for the eye and balm for the brain, thanks to a heady mix of perspectives and representations of life in all its scary, funny, illuminating, weird, joyful glory.

Fans of Nicole J. Georges’ Lambda Award-winning graphic memoir, Calling Dr. Laura, will be thrilled she’s returned to form with Fetch: How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home. The book opens with a pooch’s 15th birthday party, where the dog lunges at two children. Initially, it seems “bad dog” is an accurate moniker, but as Georges winds back through time, it’s clear there’s more to the story.

Teenage Georges adopted Beija as a gift for her then-boyfriend. When he left, the dog stayed, and Beija remains the author’s companion into adulthood. Their relationship is not without its (many) challenges: Beija is fearful and reactionary, and she gets in fights at the dog park. But then again, Georges chooses homes filled with noisy strangers and lets Beija off-leash at said park. Via flashbacks, Georges introduces her loving but neglectful mother and macho stepfather, and as loneliness and anger become the author’s constant cohorts, the impetus for dubious choices becomes clearer. Happily, as a young adult, Georges finds her queer feminist vegan identity, learns to practice self-expression through art and thus becomes a better pack leader for Beija.

Fetch does have the occasional crowded page and inelegant transition, which can make for a bumpy read. But overall, the art is wonderful, and the story is engaging and heartwarming. It’s a moving chronicle of triumph over difficult beginnings and the struggle to find people, a place and pets that feel like home.

From Fetch. © Nicole J. Georges. Reproduced by permission of HMH.

SURREALISM IN THE SKY
Julian Hanshaw’s Cloud Hotel is a beautifully rendered and engrossingly weird work of autobiographical fiction inspired by the UFO that Hanshaw and his family encountered when he was a boy in Hertfordshire, England. Hanshaw’s titular hotel, a colossal, light-beaming rectangle with lots of rooms inside, is a place for kids who have gone missing in the woods.

Remco is one of the lucky ones: Upon his return from his first journey to the sky, his beloved grandfather finds him in the woods. As pages turn and the hotel shifts and changes, Remco discovers he’s the only child who can move between the hotel and his regular life. Readers will wonder whether that’s a good thing as Hanshaw masterfully builds suspense and foreboding, prompting questions like: Where and when is the hotel? Who are the children? Is any of this real?

Curious readers who like a trippy, absorbing story with touching family moments and a wondrous depiction of another reality will enjoy Cloud Hotel. And fans of Hanshaw’s previous work—like Tim Ginger, which was short-listed for the British Comics Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize—will be ready to check right in.

DARK OBSESSION
History and mystery, horror and grief, ghosts and memories all collide in Idle Days, a darkly dramatic, occasionally explosive tale written by Thomas Desaulniers-Brousseau and illustrated by Simon Leclerc.

In Canada during World War II, Jerome is a military deserter hiding at his grandfather Maurice’s remote forest cabin. Jerome is angry about the war, restless in his isolation—and soon he becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to the people who lived in the cabin before his grandfather. Rumors of murder and suicide capture his attention as battlefield bloodshed haunts his dreams. He’s also mourning the recent death of his father and striving to elude capture, but “Wanted” posters and radio broadcasts ensure the war cannot be ignored.

Leclerc’s liberal use of black, red and orange evokes fiery warmth, while his skillfully drawn, violent tableaux convey the horror and fear in Jerome’s memory and imagination. Idle Days’ title plays on the aphorism, “Idle hands are the devil’s playthings,” and to be sure, such days build to Jerome’s reckoning with the past, acceptance of the present and a hint of what might lie in the future. It’s an absorbing amalgam of imagery and story that’s far from wordy, as illustration-only pages leave many aspects of the story open to readers’ imaginations. It’s scary stuff.

MOVING MADCAPPERY
About Betty’s Boob by Vero Cazot and Julie Rocheleau is a nearly wordless sequential narrative, but Betty’s voice surges off the page. When we first meet Betty, she howls with post-op fear and rage as she demands to be given back her just-removed left breast. She attempts to return to life as usual, gift-boxed synthetic breast in hand, but is frustrated at every turn—by a boss who insists all employees have two breasts (it’s in the contract!), a boyfriend who rejects her and a woman who tries to bite the apple that serves as a poignant yet functional prosthetic. This surreal story has cleverness and wit sprinkled throughout, like the store that sells “luxury breasts since 1973,” some of which cost “8008” euros. Ultimately, Betty strikes out on her own, and through a sequence of delightfully wild events featuring dancing, costumes, wigs and a dazzling array of pasties, she finds acceptance and a new identity within a boisterous burlesque troupe.

The artwork is vibrant and kinetic, and its depiction of goings-on both fantastical and reality-bound is detailed and eminently appealing. About Betty’s Boob is an inspiring, entertaining story of pain and grief transformed into joyful self-acceptance—societal expectations be damned.

 

This article was originally published in the August 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

We reach for graphic novels and memoirs because we treasure the experience of art plus story, of exploring a world of finely crafted illustrations that convey multitudes. Each of these four new comic books is a treat for the eye and balm for the brain, thanks to a heady mix of perspectives and representations of life in all its scary, funny, illuminating, weird, joyful glory.

NonfictionMemoir

Let them entertain you

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Our society may adore celebrities, but we can’t know what really goes on in their hearts and minds unless they choose to tell us. These standout new entries in the crowded celebrity-memoir field are fascinating chronicles of lives spent answering Hollywood’s siren call.

Ellie Kemper’s biographical essay collection My Squirrel Days traces her path from suburban St. Louis, Missouri, to the titular lead in the acclaimed TV show “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” Kemper loved performing from an early age, whether she was writing dramatic pieces for a beloved second-grade teacher or creating elaborate, often grueling, holiday shows with her siblings. “These shows took years off my life,” she writes. Kemper jokes about her neuroses and obsessions, but she doesn’t apologize—after all, her relentless perfectionism served her well when she used that drive to create a one-woman show that caught the eye of “Saturday Night Live.” She didn’t get the gig, but she did get a call from the creator of “The Office,” and her career blossomed from there. Kemper is open about her missteps, too, whether embarking on an unfortunate attempt at method acting (“Squirrel”) or falling on historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. My Squirrel Days takes readers up to the present, in which Kemper is a wife, new mom, show-lead and SoulCycle devotee. It’s a great read for comedy fans, thanks to a deft balance of life lessons and madcap goings-on, and it’s proof that hard work and optimism really can pay off.

AN EXAMINED LIFE
With roles like Gidget, Sybil, the Flying Nun and myriad others under her belt, Sally Field has been a household name since the 1960s, yet for the most part, she has lived a private life. But in her affecting and compelling memoir, In Pieces, Field shares with fans the truths, many of them painful, of her life. The book is framed by her relationship with her late mother, Margaret. “I wait for my mother to haunt me as she promised she would,” she writes. “This isn’t new, this longing I have for her.” In fact, she felt distant from her mother her whole life, the consequence of a painful secret Field held onto for decades. Field writes movingly about the loneliness she felt even while surrounded by family and colleagues. In Pieces also includes plenty of period details about how studios were run, auditions conducted and money paid (not to mention the perils of typecasting and endemic sexism). Readers will feel nervous—and then triumphant—right along with her. By book’s end, Field answers important questions for herself, gaining clarity from how the pieces fit together.

FEMINIST, FUNNY, FABULOUS
In her second essay collection, Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay, fans will be happy to see that Phoebe Robinson is, to borrow an Oprah catchphrase, living her best life. She’s been in a movie (Netflix’s Ibiza), launched another podcast (WNYC’s “Sooo Many White Guys”), turned her “2 Dope Queens” podcast with Jessica Williams into HBO specials and hung out with the likes of Julia Roberts and Bono. That last one’s especially notable, because Robinson’s been carrying a torch for him (as devotedly noted in her first book, You Can’t Touch My Hair) for some time. Once they met, he was charmed, and now they’re doing charity projects together. Speaking of social activism, Robinson offers incisive and insightful cultural criticism in essays like, “Feminism, I Was Rooting for You,” which explains her frustration with today’s feminism (which, she notes, is mainly about “protecting the institution of white feminism”) and makes an unassailable case for allyship and inclusion. Whether sharing tales of misadventure or dating tips, Robinson is a top-notch storyteller who takes readers on a funny, memorable ride.

DEEP IS THEIR LOVE
Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman have been an adored celebrity couple for many years. With humor and delightful vulgarity, the two let readers eavesdrop on their conversations in The Greatest Love Story Ever Told: An Oral History. Although the book is composed mostly of transcripts, essays by Offerman and Mullally add variety, and there are photos, too, including cute baby pictures and stylish shots of the duo in various costumes. They dish on how they met and reflect on 18 years together through the lens of family, religion, music, art and the vagaries of fame, offering an earnest, insightful window into their relationship, past and present (though readers who don’t like transcripts may prefer an audio version). As a way to turn off work and reconnect, Mullally and Offerman recommend doing jigsaws together, and the book ends with a collection of triumphant photos of completed puzzles. From the looks of it, their beloved dogs get a kick out of it, too.

FAR FROM IDLE
In Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography, writer/comedian/musician Eric Idle offers fans an excellent way to gear up for Monty Python’s 50th anniversary in 2019 via immersion in his own life story, along with his take on the members and memories of the comedy troupe. Idle starts at the beginning: “By coincidence, I was born on my birthday.” Specifically, in 1943 England. When he was a child, Idle’s widowed mother put him in an austere charitable boarding school for boys, where he lived until age 19. Despite the grimness of the place, Idle found comedy in dark moments. “Humor is a good defense against bullying,” after all, and “unhappiness is never forever.” That attitude—and his unflagging drive to create—has stayed with him (he’s 75 now) and informed his work in all its guises, and he’s certainly found lots to be happy about. He shares stories about fellow famous folk like George Harrison, Robin Williams, the Rolling Stones and the cast of Star Wars (all sometimes at the same parties). There are lots of concrete lessons for aspiring creators, too. It’s a fascinating, warmly told, often zany memoir of a life fully lived so far—with more fun sure to come.

 

This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Our society may adore celebrities, but we can’t know what really goes on in their hearts and minds unless they choose to tell us. These standout new entries in the crowded celebrity-memoir field are fascinating chronicles of lives spent answering Hollywood’s siren call.

NonfictionPhotographyBlack History

Images of the past

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Photographs do more than commemorate a moment in time: They evoke emotion, capture our memories and offer new vantage points.

WE SHALL OVERCOME
Edited by Frist Art Museum curator Kathryn E. Delmez, We Shall Overcome: Press Photographs of Nashville During the Civil Rights Era captures an important period in civil rights history in Nashville. Some 100 images depict the first days of school integration, peaceful protests via sit-ins and renewed determination and sorrow after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Images of violent physical struggles stand in compelling contrast to snapshots of black children and their parents on the first day at a new school, their faces scared, resolute and perhaps hopeful. Congressman John Lewis, who appears in these photos as a young protester, writes in the foreword, “Our protests were love in action. We wanted to redeem not only our attackers, but the very soul of America.”

LETHAL BEAUTY
French photojournalist Yan Morvan has published images of serial killers, Hells Angels and war zones. With Battlefields, rather than documenting violent clashes, he’s turned his lens to what comes after. The seeming ordinariness of former battle sites makes this imposing yet illuminating book a thought-provoking read: A field dotted with shrubs, a crumbling stone wall and a mountain rising in the distance all invite consideration of what happened before, as seen from the perspective of a soldier on the front lines. The 430 photos of 250 war zones range from the Battle of Jericho (1315-1210 B.C.) to 2011’s Libyan Civil War. Readers may choose a specific historical era or embark on a then-to-now visual journey of contemplation.

COLOR AND CLARITY
In History as They Saw It: Iconic Moments from the Past in Color, Wolfgang Wild and Jordan Lloyd present 120 restored and colorized historical photos, from a well-known Dorothea Lange portrait to images of the building of the Golden Gate Bridge and Civil War veterans playing cards. Wild writes, “The past and the present were the same, are the same, and what has changed is not the nature of the present moment, but rather the technical recording capabilities of our cameras.” History as They Saw It succeeds in making its images (and the people and events they’ve captured) feel less remote. The age of the photos (which date from 1839 to 1949) recedes as the reader gazes upon portraits of Ellis Island immigrants, Jesse James and even the iceberg that sunk the Titanic. Well-researched and eminently interesting captions add context, and colorizer Lloyd describes his processes in a back-of-book section. Altogether, the collection offers an entertaining exploration of history, culture, art and photography.

 

This article was originally published in the December 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Photographs do more than commemorate a moment in time: They evoke emotion, capture our memories and offer new vantage points.

NonfictionPop CultureFilm

Spotlight on shining lights

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

These three books offer peeks behind the scenes of our favorite on-screen entertainment, making them the perfect gifts for the TV aficionados and cinephiles among us.

Much like RuPaul himself, GuRu defies easy categorization. There are 80 beautiful photos of the author in his many drag guises, plus life advice on everything from conquering childhood pain to style. These highlights of RuPaul’s journey from hardworking unknown to influential and successful multihyphenate are at once fascinating, funny and inspiring. RuPaul urges readers to “stop trying to fit in when you were born to stand out” and offers insight into how drag has allowed him to express himself and feel truly seen. With multiple records, books, Emmys for his show “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and more under his flatteringly waist-cinching belt, he’s no stranger to sharing his message. This scrapbook of his life so far is another example of the power of authenticity, no matter what it looks like.

WE WERE ON A BREAK
Readers who had “the Rachel” haircut, can sing all the words to “Smelly Cat” and have celebrated “Friendsgiving” are the natural audience for journalist Kelsey Miller’s I’ll Be There for You: The One About Friends. However, even those who didn’t immerse themselves in the 1990s television phenomenon “Friends” will appreciate her perspective on how it influenced pop culture. Miller was 10 when “Friends” debuted, and “its enormous impact was baked into my DNA like radiation.” When she recently found herself timing her workouts to “Friends” reruns on her gym’s TV, Miller decided to explore why the show still resonates so strongly (16 million Americans watch reruns every week, she notes). The book is a delightfully mixed bag: Miller shares the players’ origin stories and gives insight into how TV shows are made. She also considers the show’s impact on everything from advertising to fashion to coffee culture and thoughtfully examines the show’s fatphobia, lack of diversity and depictions of gay characters. It’s an entertaining read for fans of all ages.

COMPLETELY COEN
Adam Nayman’s The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together is a colorful, comprehensive tribute to the movie-making duo. The author, a Toronto- based film critic, is intrigued by the interconnectedness of the Coens’ work, which spans some four decades. He asserts that, while their films may seem to be wildly different, “nothing in the brothers’ vise-tight, magisterially engineered movies could be happening by accident.” And so, from 1987’s Raising Arizona to 1996’s Fargo to 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis, et al., Nayman sets out to identify “some Grand Unified Theory of Coen-ness.” Readers can follow along on this quest, or they can flip around and dive into specific movies, read interviews with Coen collaborators or page through the photos and illustrations. Even if there’s no singular answer to what makes a Coen film a Coen film, this detailed compendium is a cinephile’s delight.

 

This article was originally published in the December 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

These three books offer peeks behind the scenes of our favorite on-screen entertainment, making them the perfect gifts for the TV aficionados and cinephiles among us.

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