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The Work of Art

The Work of Art is a visionary compendium of ephemera that makes visible the bridge between idea and artwork.
The Work of Art is a visionary compendium of ephemera that makes visible the bridge between idea and artwork.
NonfictionBiography

Ingenious

Richard Munson’s splendid biography of Benjamin Franklin provides an insightful view of the statesman’s lesser known accomplishments in science.
Richard Munson’s splendid biography of Benjamin Franklin provides an insightful view of the statesman’s lesser known accomplishments in science.
NonfictionLiteratureBiography

Didion and Babitz

Lili Anolik’s Didion and Babitz is a freewheeling and engaging narrative about two iconic literary rivals and their world in 1970s Los Angeles.
Lili Anolik’s Didion and Babitz is a freewheeling and engaging narrative about two iconic literary rivals and their world in 1970s Los Angeles.
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Lifestyles

Wearing it well

Review by bookpagedev

The inside counts, but the outside packaging can make all the difference between a date or a job and a pass over. Hollywood clothing designer and stylist Bradley Bayou, who has dressed Oprah, Halle Berry, Salma Hayek, Queen Latifah and Eva Longoria, believes that every woman can look sexy in the right clothes. The Science of Sexy goes beyond the typical pear, apple, hourglass, rectangle body advice, creating 48 sub-types based on height and weight, as well as silhouette shape. Bayou then sends readers to different color-coded fitting rooms where they find illustrated outfits and detailed information on their blessings (every body has ’em), the new you looks and what not to wear ( Really. I mean it ), covering casual, work and formal occasions. Sexy is balanced, well-fitting clothes that train a spotlight on those blessings, according to Bayou, and his guide helps retrain a woman’s eye to recognize them.

Deanna Larson is a writer in Nashville.

The inside counts, but the outside packaging can make all the difference between a date or a job and a pass over. Hollywood clothing designer and stylist Bradley Bayou, who has dressed Oprah, Halle Berry, Salma Hayek, Queen Latifah and Eva Longoria, believes that every…
Travel

Travelogues take you a world away

Review by bookpagedev

Michael Konik’s Ella in Europe: An American Dog’s International Adventures is in many respects a love story. A white Lab mix, Ella is just about the smartest dog around, hip enough to wear snazzy red bandanas yet gentle and sweet-natured enough to volunteer in nursing homes and hospitals. She’s a true original, and in an effort to show his gratitude for her companionship, Konik arranges to take Ella on a canine-friendly tour of Europe. The Europeans are more than welcoming, and together Konik and Ella experience everything from a rowdy Belgian beer house to the tranquil canals of Venice to the legendary haute cuisine of Paris’ Le Grand VŽfour.

LACEY GALBRAITH

Michael Konik's Ella in Europe: An American Dog's International Adventures is in many respects a love story. A white Lab mix, Ella is just about the smartest dog around, hip enough to wear snazzy red bandanas yet gentle and sweet-natured enough to volunteer in nursing…
Memoir

A hero reflects on life’s lessons

Review by Maude McDaniel

This is exactly the kind of book you would expect the now-legendary Sully Sullenberger to write. In his memoir, the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549, which set down so memorably on the Hudson River in January, is earnest, controlled and exacting. Sullenberger is not prone to flights of fancy—in fact, he is the very pilot you’d choose for the job if you had any say in it. His book reflects the same qualities.

For someone who has spent so much time in the air (he’s been flying for 42 of his 58 years), Sully is remarkably down-to-earth. This memoir covers a wide array of issues, from certain practical aspects of airline price-cutting (it cuts corners on the kind of pilot experience that gives depth of skill) to a rueful assessment of his own healthy sense of self (“regimented, demanding of myself and others—a perfectionist”).

He alternates thoughtful accounts of family dynamics with a career overview, including seven years in military service after graduation from the Air Force Academy and a stint at Purdue in a master’s program that enabled him “to understand the why as well as the how” of the world. Throughout, Sully selects just the right anecdotes to convey both his love for his family and his practical approach to life, all rounded out by his endearing appreciation for the elements of flying that cannot be pinned down.

Eventually Sully gets around to the defining incident of his life that catapulted him into the spotlight and arrives at something millions have suspected ever since those riveting pictures of the downed plane and its passengers first appeared on our TV screens: “Technology is no substitute for experience, skill and judgment.” Readers will know how it all turns out, but the details are engrossing.

The world will never return to its former state, but life has been renewed for Sully as it has for each of the other 154 passengers on Flight 1549. His “search for what really matters” appears to have arrived at family and flying, but subtly includes the encompassing qualities that discerning persons discover in the course of a lifetime. Like the best pilots, Sully just got there a little early.

Maude McDaniel writes from Maryland.

This is exactly the kind of book you would expect the now-legendary Sully Sullenberger to write. In his memoir, the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549, which set down so memorably on the Hudson River in January, is earnest, controlled and exacting. Sullenberger is not…

ParentingFamily & Relationships

Healing the wounds of childhood

Review by Jillian Mandelkern

Western society has carefully cultivated the myth that every mother sympathizes uniquely with her children and loves them unconditionally. Even fairy tales have been revised to reflect the idea that a biological mother is incapable of cruelty; centuries ago it was Snow White’s own mother, not a jealous stepmother, who was forced to dance to her death in hot iron shoes for treating her adolescent daughter as a rival. In Mean Mothers: Overcoming the Legacy of Hurt, Peg Streep explores the uncomfortable reality of mothers who lack an inherent ability to love their children—especially daughters.

Streep, herself the daughter of what she terms an “unloving mother,” deftly weaves her recollections and those of other Baby Boomer-generation daughters together with scientific studies of mother-child bonds and psychologists’ observations to illuminate the reasons why some mothers are unable to nurture their daughters.

Born in an era when married women were expected to have children regardless of their capacity for caring, the adult daughters interviewed remember mothers who constantly insulted their appearances, criticized their lifestyles, discounted their achievements and—perhaps causing the deepest wounds—refused to offer the everyday comforts of kind looks, calming voices and gentle touch. Without asking for pity, Streep shows how daughters denied their mothers’ intimate gestures can develop uncertainty in their self-images, leading to compensatory behaviors like overeating, overspending and overachieving.

At age three Streep recognized her mother’s detachment as the inability to love her, knowing “more than anything, that her power was enormous and that the light of her sun was what I needed. But that light could burn, flicker, or disappear for any or no reason.” Despite her painful history, Streep has been able to write a legacy of love with her own daughter. Ultimately, she concludes that while we learn many behaviors from them, we are not our mothers, and we can triumph in disrupting the cycle of hurt.

Jillian Mandelkern is a teacher and writer in Pennsylvania.

Western society has carefully cultivated the myth that every mother sympathizes uniquely with her children and loves them unconditionally. Even fairy tales have been revised to reflect the idea that a biological mother is incapable of cruelty; centuries ago it was Snow White’s own mother,…

LifestylesHealth & Fitness

Eating for health

Review by bookpagedev

Ivy Ingram Larson was just 22 when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Determined not to let the debilitating disease rule her life, she turned to a diet of whole foods and regular exercise. The medical student and childhood friend who helped her put together the plan, Andrew Larson, soon became her husband. Together they’ve built a healthy lifestyle that has kept her MS in check and the whole family healthy.

The Gold Coast Cure’s Fitter Firmer Faster Program virtually pulses with the enthusiasm of its authors, who lay out a sensible program combining eating well and fat-burning exercise. The bulk of the book consists of meticulously explained sample workouts combining strength and cardio, accompanied by how-to photographs, and a hefty section of recipes that seem deliciously out of place in a diet book: Spice-rubbed lamb kebobs with tahini sauce? Baja fish tacos? Sounds like a diet anyone could get behind.

Ivy Ingram Larson was just 22 when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Determined not to let the debilitating disease rule her life, she turned to a diet of whole foods and regular exercise. The medical student and childhood friend who helped her put…
LifestylesHealth & Fitness

Making fitness fun

Review by bookpagedev

If exercising has turned into drudgery (and at this point, who isn’t a little sick of treadmills and free weights?), try injecting some fun into your workout with Elena Rover’s The Chelsea Piers Fitness Solution. An enormous New York City gym/sports complex with rock climbing walls, batting cages, boxing rings and skating rinks in one bustling locale, Chelsea Piers offers it all. Sounds great, you think, but I live in Santa Fe/Duluth/Seattle. What does this huge NYC gym have to do with my fitness regime? Plenty, as it turns out. Rover explains that while not everyone has access to one of the world’s largest gyms, everyone should vary his or her exercise plan to keep from becoming bored and discouraged by a stale routine. The author offers useful background information and tips on a wide variety of physical activities that should put newbies at ease as they try kayaking, snowboarding, golf or gymnastics. By detailing what kind of gear you’ll need for, say, snowshoeing or yoga, what to expect the first time you try it, and suggesting websites and books to learn more about each activity, Rover demystifies exercise and even makes it sound fun again.

If exercising has turned into drudgery (and at this point, who isn't a little sick of treadmills and free weights?), try injecting some fun into your workout with Elena Rover's The Chelsea Piers Fitness Solution. An enormous New York City gym/sports complex with rock…

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