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The Icon and the Idealist

The Icon and the Idealist is a compelling, warts-and-all dual biography of the warring leaders of the early 20th-century birth control movement: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett.
The Icon and the Idealist is a compelling, warts-and-all dual biography of the warring leaders of the early 20th-century birth control movement: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett.
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NonfictionHumor

Don’t judge a book (or an author) by its cover

Behind the Book by P.S. Wall

"The cover we envision for If I Were a Man, I'd Marry Me will be funny yet poignant, sanguine yet sassy," my publisher says. "Bailey White meets Bridget Jones with a dash of Sex in the City."

"There's no way I'm jumping out of a wedding cake," I say.

"But the focus group loved it," she says.

I am not your "funny photo on the front of the book" kinda girl, but by the end of the conversation, my publisher has me convinced that if Cannery Row were published today, there would be a picture of John Steinbeck on the cover lying in a sardine can. He'd hand out Goldfish crackers as a promotional.

I finally agree to let my publisher do a computer mockup, superimposing my face on the body of a model wearing a wedding dress. I get a call from the publisher's computer wizard, Dell, wanting to know my weight, height and vital statistics. When he starts breathing heavy, I draw the line.

"So, like, what are you wearing?" he giggles nervously.

"Listen, you little perve . . . . "

"Your book is, like, funny."

"You read my book?"

"That story, 'The Mattress Authority,' really rocks."

"I'm wearing a pink teddy with matching garter," I lie. "What did you think of chapter two?"

Two days later we get the photo proofs via Federal Express. The photo shows my gigantic head perched on top of a teeny tiny body. Think Michelle Pfeiffer in an off the shoulder Vera Wang with Winston Churchill's head.

"You look like a Pez dispenser," Sweetie says, staring down at the photo. "Exactly how much did you tell them you weigh?"

"So, what happened to the rest of the model?" the FedEx guy keeps repeating, as he taps the bottom of the envelope.

I immediately set out to correct the situation.

"Dell," I whisper, hand cupped over the phone, "shrink my head." The final version is so realistic, my publisher assures me, "No one will ever notice" that the "ghost body" isn't really mine.

The next thing I know, I'm sitting in a radio station for my first book tour interview.

"Very funny book," the DJ says.

"You read my book?"

"The cover is really. . . ." The dead air space sucks a vacuum as the DJ's head swivels back and forth from my body to the cover of the book.

"That's not your body on the cover," he announces to the entire radio free world. "Your . . . feet are much smaller." This from a man who has Barry White's voice and Pee-Wee Herman's body.

P.S. Wall is the author of the syndicated humor column, Off the Wall. If I Were a Man, I'd Marry Me is now available in paperback.

"The cover we envision for If I Were a Man, I'd Marry Me will be funny yet poignant, sanguine yet sassy," my publisher says. "Bailey White meets Bridget Jones with a dash of Sex in the City."

"There's no way I'm jumping out of…

Sports

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Martial artists in movies often overcome overwhelming odds to meet their goals, from taking on hordes of black-garbed stuntmen to fighting a deadly showdown with a megalomaniac master. In The Way of Aikido, George Leonard overcomes an obstacle no less daunting: sidestepping the media-fueled perceptions of martial arts to describe the way its practitioners use their training every day without fighting. In this slim volume, Leonard lays out the spiritual benefits gained by practicing the Japanese art of Aikido, which he describes as protecting both the defender and the attacker. And he presents these benefits in a way that anyone can incorporate into their lives to achieve spiritual equilibrium.

The do in aikido means way, indicating that study of a martial art is a lifelong path. Leonard pulls no punches in describing the intensive physical training required to achieve competence in what is considered one of the most difficult martial arts. But the real lesson is the sense of inner peace and confidence that comes with following the way. In this philosophy, seeing oneself as the center of the universe is not an ego trip, but the ultimate act of humility, as one then becomes in harmony with the universe and conflict is not possible.

Leonard breathes new life into concepts as familiar as chop-socky film cliches. In asserting that conflict with others is essentially conflict with oneself, he recounts events in which an aikidoist prevents an attack merely by standing, calm and centered, while the aggressor’s inner turmoil turns to impotence. He returns frequently to the central concept of ki, or spirit (the ki in Aikido), the reservoir of energy that martial artists envision as residing in the body’s center of gravity. And there’s action, too, as aikido masters seem to disappear from in front of slashing sword attacks or a circle of charging black belts, only to be seen standing calmly to the side as the attackers look up from where they’ve fallen. Readers unfamiliar with martial arts may be surprised to read Leonard’s emphasis on avoiding conflict by blending with an adversary. Leonard recounts numerous martial artists who overcome adversaries both on the practice floor and in tense business meetings by seeming to yield, but in actuality allowing aggressive thrusts to dissipate far from them. Leonard urges his readers, martial artists and otherwise, to apply the principles of blending and centeredness to everyday life. Simple experiments demonstrate the power a change in mental focus can provide.

Gregory Harris, a writer and editor living in Indianapolis, is a third degree black belt and instructor in Taekwondo.

Martial artists in movies often overcome overwhelming odds to meet their goals, from taking on hordes of black-garbed stuntmen to fighting a deadly showdown with a megalomaniac master. In The Way of Aikido, George Leonard overcomes an obstacle no less daunting: sidestepping the media-fueled perceptions…

NonfictionEssays

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Last October, on the occasion of John Kenneth Galbraith’s 90th birthday, he was honored with a reception and dinner at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. At that time he was presented with a festschrift of essays by, among others, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Derek Bok, and Robert Heilbroner. That work, under the title Between Friends: Perspectives on John Kenneth Galbraith, has just been published. Through it we gain a better understanding of the person and his economic and political ideas.

To Carlos Fuentes, Galbraith is a Quixote of the Plains, an economist whose subject is no less than concrete human beings, their well-being, their health, their education, their hope . . . Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., notes that for Galbraith theory . . . is not an end in itself. Its function . . . is to explain, illuminate, and, if possible, improve the conditions of life. Politics and government in this perspective are not digressions for economists but are central to their work. John Kenneth Galbraith has been one of the most notable public intellectuals of the last 40 years, or since the publication of his still relevant book The Affluent Society. He is known for his many other books, including The New Industrial State and The Nature of Mass Poverty. In one of my favorite essays, Galbraith’s son Peter discusses how his father sought a role in the major foreign policy questions of the Kennedy administration. Contrary to the wishes of the Secretary of State, Ambassador Galbraith expressed his views directly to the President. The views, in hindsight, were good and prescient, including in particular Galbraith’s early opposition to U.

S. military involvement in Vietnam. Peter closes by noting that the greatest and most common vice of politicians and bureaucrats is cowardice. John Kenneth Galbraith is the most courageous man I have known.

Last October, on the occasion of John Kenneth Galbraith's 90th birthday, he was honored with a reception and dinner at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. At that time he was presented with a festschrift of essays by, among others, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Derek Bok, and…

Pop CultureArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Among the unlikely results of a shipwreck 86 years ago is Leonardo DiCaprio’s current starring role in the daydreams of teenage females from Boise to Baghdad. DiCaprio was lucky to be aboard James Cameron’s film Titanic. By now, as everyone knows, the film can be described only in superlatives. It is the most expensive movie ever made, the highest-grossing motion picture of all time, the first film ever to gross $1 billion worldwide. Its soundtrack is surprise the best-selling ever. And it won more Oscars (11) than any film since, God help us, Ben Hur. The ship itself may have sunk for good, but its story has been resurrected, with a mixture of horror and glee, in books, documentaries, exhibitions, movies, and even a Broadway musical. And still they come. Herewith, marking the September release of Titanic on home video, a harvest of new books and booklike things. We might as well begin with another superlative the two biggest, most impressive, and most expensive books on our list. Even if you barely know the Titanic from the good ship Lollipop, you will enjoy Titanic: An Illustrated History (Hyperion, $39.95, 078686401X), by Don Lynch. Throughout, the lively text is illuminated by photos, drawings, maps, and the beautiful photorealistic paintings of Ken Marschall, who has emerged as the disaster’s visual historian. Marschall gets his own book, with text by Rick Archbold, in a fascinating survey of his three decades of work, Art of Titanic (Hyperion, $40, 0786864559). Sketches, photos, and 80-plus gorgeous paintings illuminate the complicated process of historical illustration. No photograph can match Marschall’s poignant visions of either the gaiety aboard ship or the gloomy depths of the wreckage.

Simon and Schuster is publishing Titanic: Fortune and Fate ($30, 0684857103), the companion volume to the Mariner’s Museum exhibition of the same name. Artifacts include personal mementos, letters, and other moving records of the lives lost that night in 1912, with a text emphasizing less the well-known play-by-play and more the personalities involved. There are all sorts of stories of the shipwreck, but naturally eyewitness accounts are the most impressive. One such survivor, an observant young woman named Violet Jessup, wrote her memoirs in 1934. They are published for the first time in Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessup, Who Survived Both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters (Sheridan House, $23.95, 1574090356). She was a steward aboard the Titanic and a wartime nurse aboard the Britannic, and her story is as compelling as any in the disaster’s lore. Surprisingly, it’s also funny.

If you worry you missed the boat and want to catch up, you might try The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Titanic (Alpha Books, $18.95, 0028627121), by Jay Stevenson and Sharon Rutman. Like others in this series (which add up to a veritable idiot’s encyclopedia), this book manages to cram an astonishing amount of information into an irresistible browser format. Robert D. Ballard, co-leader of the 1985 expedition that found the sunken ship, first published his story in 1987. Now there is a newly updated trade paperback edition, The Discovery of the Titanic: Exploring the Greatest of All Lost Ships (Warner, $13.99, 0446671746), by Robert D. Ballard. Its many illustrations include paintings and touching sea-bottom photos.

If you really want to get behind the scenes, you should turn to a paperback entitled The Titanic Disaster Hearings: The Official Transcripts of the 1912 Senate Investigation (Pocket, $7.99, 0671025538), edited by Tom Kuntz. Following its 500 or so pages of compelling (okay, somewhat compelling) transcripts you’ll find an index of witnesses and a digest of their testimony. The most original new contributions to Titaniana are not even books at all. The Titanic Collection: Mementos of the Maiden Voyage is a handsomely packaged collection of facsimile documents. They come in a booklike box designed to resemble a steamer trunk, complete with hinges. A tray sets inside the trunk, and both spaces are filled with extraordinary facsimiles. Items include copies of a first class passenger ticket, the menu for the fateful night, the music repertoire, telegraph flimsies, luggage labels (yes, they’re adhesive), smudged and scribbled postcards, and many other documents. The packaging on Titanic: The Official Story (Random House, $25, 0375501150) is not quite so impressive, but the facsimiles are great fun. These documents are larger, and include stateroom charts, a newspaper page, the ship’s register form, telegrams. Far more evocative than mere photos of artifacts.

As you leave the bookstore with this armload, on your way to buy the video of Cameron’s *Titanic*, rest easy in the knowledge that at least a sequel seems unlikely. Michael Sims is a frequent contributor to BookPage and the author of Darwin’s Orchestra (Henry Holt).

Among the unlikely results of a shipwreck 86 years ago is Leonardo DiCaprio's current starring role in the daydreams of teenage females from Boise to Baghdad. DiCaprio was lucky to be aboard James Cameron's film Titanic. By now, as everyone knows, the film can be…

Pop CultureArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Among the unlikely results of a shipwreck 86 years ago is Leonardo DiCaprio’s current starring role in the daydreams of teenage females from Boise to Baghdad. DiCaprio was lucky to be aboard James Cameron’s film Titanic. By now, as everyone knows, the film can be described only in superlatives. It is the most expensive movie ever made, the highest-grossing motion picture of all time, the first film ever to gross $1 billion worldwide. Its soundtrack is surprise the best-selling ever. And it won more Oscars (11) than any film since, God help us, Ben Hur. The ship itself may have sunk for good, but its story has been resurrected, with a mixture of horror and glee, in books, documentaries, exhibitions, movies, and even a Broadway musical. And still they come. Herewith, marking the September release of Titanic on home video, a harvest of new books and booklike things. We might as well begin with another superlative the two biggest, most impressive, and most expensive books on our list. Even if you barely know the Titanic from the good ship Lollipop, you will enjoy Titanic: An Illustrated History (Hyperion, $39.95, 078686401X), by Don Lynch. Throughout, the lively text is illuminated by photos, drawings, maps, and the beautiful photorealistic paintings of Ken Marschall, who has emerged as the disaster’s visual historian. Marschall gets his own book, with text by Rick Archbold, in a fascinating survey of his three decades of work, Art of Titanic (Hyperion, $40, 0786864559). Sketches, photos, and 80-plus gorgeous paintings illuminate the complicated process of historical illustration. No photograph can match Marschall’s poignant visions of either the gaiety aboard ship or the gloomy depths of the wreckage.

Simon and Schuster is publishing Titanic: Fortune and Fate ($30, 0684857103), the companion volume to the Mariner’s Museum exhibition of the same name. Artifacts include personal mementos, letters, and other moving records of the lives lost that night in 1912, with a text emphasizing less the well-known play-by-play and more the personalities involved. There are all sorts of stories of the shipwreck, but naturally eyewitness accounts are the most impressive. One such survivor, an observant young woman named Violet Jessup, wrote her memoirs in 1934. They are published for the first time in Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessup, Who Survived Both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters (Sheridan House, $23.95, 1574090356). She was a steward aboard the Titanic and a wartime nurse aboard the Britannic, and her story is as compelling as any in the disaster’s lore. Surprisingly, it’s also funny.

If you worry you missed the boat and want to catch up, you might try The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Titanic (Alpha Books, $18.95, 0028627121), by Jay Stevenson and Sharon Rutman. Like others in this series (which add up to a veritable idiot’s encyclopedia), this book manages to cram an astonishing amount of information into an irresistible browser format. Robert D. Ballard, co-leader of the 1985 expedition that found the sunken ship, first published his story in 1987. Now there is a newly updated trade paperback edition, The Discovery of the Titanic: Exploring the Greatest of All Lost Ships, by Robert D. Ballard. Its many illustrations include paintings and touching sea-bottom photos.

If you really want to get behind the scenes, you should turn to a paperback entitled The Titanic Disaster Hearings: The Official Transcripts of the 1912 Senate Investigation (Pocket, $7.99, 0671025538), edited by Tom Kuntz. Following its 500 or so pages of compelling (okay, somewhat compelling) transcripts you’ll find an index of witnesses and a digest of their testimony. The most original new contributions to Titaniana are not even books at all. The Titanic Collection: Mementos of the Maiden Voyage (Chronicle, $24.95, 0811820521) is a handsomely packaged collection of facsimile documents. They come in a booklike box designed to resemble a steamer trunk, complete with hinges. A tray sets inside the trunk, and both spaces are filled with extraordinary facsimiles. Items include copies of a first class passenger ticket, the menu for the fateful night, the music repertoire, telegraph flimsies, luggage labels (yes, they’re adhesive), smudged and scribbled postcards, and many other documents. The packaging on Titanic: The Official Story (Random House, $25, 0375501150) is not quite so impressive, but the facsimiles are great fun. These documents are larger, and include stateroom charts, a newspaper page, the ship’s register form, telegrams. Far more evocative than mere photos of artifacts.

As you leave the bookstore with this armload, on your way to buy the video of Cameron’s *Titanic*, rest easy in the knowledge that at least a sequel seems unlikely. Michael Sims is a frequent contributor to BookPage and the author of Darwin’s Orchestra (Henry Holt).

Among the unlikely results of a shipwreck 86 years ago is Leonardo DiCaprio's current starring role in the daydreams of teenage females from Boise to Baghdad. DiCaprio was lucky to be aboard James Cameron's film Titanic. By now, as everyone knows, the film can be…

Pop CultureArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Among the unlikely results of a shipwreck 86 years ago is Leonardo DiCaprio’s current starring role in the daydreams of teenage females from Boise to Baghdad. DiCaprio was lucky to be aboard James Cameron’s film Titanic. By now, as everyone knows, the film can be described only in superlatives. It is the most expensive movie ever made, the highest-grossing motion picture of all time, the first film ever to gross $1 billion worldwide. Its soundtrack is surprise the best-selling ever. And it won more Oscars (11) than any film since, God help us, Ben Hur. The ship itself may have sunk for good, but its story has been resurrected, with a mixture of horror and glee, in books, documentaries, exhibitions, movies, and even a Broadway musical. And still they come. Herewith, marking the September release of Titanic on home video, a harvest of new books and booklike things. We might as well begin with another superlative the two biggest, most impressive, and most expensive books on our list. Even if you barely know the Titanic from the good ship Lollipop, you will enjoy Titanic: An Illustrated History (Hyperion, $39.95, 078686401X), by Don Lynch. Throughout, the lively text is illuminated by photos, drawings, maps, and the beautiful photorealistic paintings of Ken Marschall, who has emerged as the disaster’s visual historian. Marschall gets his own book, with text by Rick Archbold, in a fascinating survey of his three decades of work, Art of Titanic (Hyperion, $40, 0786864559). Sketches, photos, and 80-plus gorgeous paintings illuminate the complicated process of historical illustration. No photograph can match Marschall’s poignant visions of either the gaiety aboard ship or the gloomy depths of the wreckage.

Simon and Schuster is publishing Titanic: Fortune and Fate ($30, 0684857103), the companion volume to the Mariner’s Museum exhibition of the same name. Artifacts include personal mementos, letters, and other moving records of the lives lost that night in 1912, with a text emphasizing less the well-known play-by-play and more the personalities involved. There are all sorts of stories of the shipwreck, but naturally eyewitness accounts are the most impressive. One such survivor, an observant young woman named Violet Jessup, wrote her memoirs in 1934. They are published for the first time in Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessup, Who Survived Both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters (Sheridan House, $23.95, 1574090356). She was a steward aboard the Titanic and a wartime nurse aboard the Britannic, and her story is as compelling as any in the disaster’s lore. Surprisingly, it’s also funny.

If you worry you missed the boat and want to catch up, you might try The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Titanic (Alpha Books, $18.95, 0028627121), by Jay Stevenson and Sharon Rutman. Like others in this series (which add up to a veritable idiot’s encyclopedia), this book manages to cram an astonishing amount of information into an irresistible browser format. Robert D. Ballard, co-leader of the 1985 expedition that found the sunken ship, first published his story in 1987. Now there is a newly updated trade paperback edition, The Discovery of the Titanic: Exploring the Greatest of All Lost Ships (Warner, $13.99, 0446671746), by Robert D. Ballard. Its many illustrations include paintings and touching sea-bottom photos.

If you really want to get behind the scenes, you should turn to a paperback entitled The Titanic Disaster Hearings: The Official Transcripts of the 1912 Senate Investigation (Pocket, $7.99, 0671025538), edited by Tom Kuntz. Following its 500 or so pages of compelling (okay, somewhat compelling) transcripts you’ll find an index of witnesses and a digest of their testimony. The most original new contributions to Titaniana are not even books at all. The Titanic Collection: Mementos of the Maiden Voyage (Chronicle, $24.95, 0811820521) is a handsomely packaged collection of facsimile documents. They come in a booklike box designed to resemble a steamer trunk, complete with hinges. A tray sets inside the trunk, and both spaces are filled with extraordinary facsimiles. Items include copies of a first class passenger ticket, the menu for the fateful night, the music repertoire, telegraph flimsies, luggage labels (yes, they’re adhesive), smudged and scribbled postcards, and many other documents. The packaging on Titanic: The Official Story (Random House, $25, 0375501150) is not quite so impressive, but the facsimiles are great fun. These documents are larger, and include stateroom charts, a newspaper page, the ship’s register form, telegrams. Far more evocative than mere photos of artifacts.

As you leave the bookstore with this armload, on your way to buy the video of Cameron’s *Titanic*, rest easy in the knowledge that at least a sequel seems unlikely. Michael Sims is a frequent contributor to BookPage and the author of Darwin’s Orchestra (Henry Holt).

Among the unlikely results of a shipwreck 86 years ago is Leonardo DiCaprio's current starring role in the daydreams of teenage females from Boise to Baghdad. DiCaprio was lucky to be aboard James Cameron's film Titanic. By now, as everyone knows, the film can be…

Memories of a magical cat at home in a small-town library

Why was Dewey written? Because I was asked to write it. Not just by one person, but by hundreds, for years. Locals, visitors, book agents, professional writers (they wanted to help), people who had read about him in magazines or seen him in a documentary. There was something magical about this lovable orange cat named Dewey Readmore Books and the small-town library where he lived. So, after years of saying no, I finally said yes. Dewey had recently died, and part of me must have known writing a book would keep him in my life.

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