Elyse Graham’s thrilling history of how scholars and librarians helped the U.S. outsmart the Nazis is a pulpy delight.

Lifestyles, Nonfiction, Social Science

Eerie Legends

Bold, offbeat illustrations by Ricardo Diseño lead the way in the spooky-fun Eerie Legends.

Essays, Nature, Nonfiction

This Is How a Robin Drinks

Naturalist Joanna Brichetto uncovers the beauty of urban landscapes in her wonder-inducing debut, This Is How a Robin Drinks.

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Seeing the world in a different way

by bookpagedev

Nature

Nature

Art meets science

Review by bookpagedev

by Lynn Hamilton

Thomas Marent has been capturing the beauties of the rainforest with his Nikon for 16 years, and now the best of his life’s work has been collected in a new coffee table book, titled simply Rainforest, written with Ben Morgan. Marent’s book steers clear of rainforest politics in favor of gorgeous full-page, full-color photos of its wonders. Perhaps the book’s most remarkable achievement is the minutia: close-up photos of stick insects, leaf hoppers, grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars and other creatures that might escape the attention of other rainforest travelers. Marent’s astonishing photos of the rare walking leaf an insect that has evolved to mimic a fallen autumn leaf nearly to perfection are accompanied by a single paragraph explaining that the photographer had been looking for such an insect for 10 years. Most thinking people already know that the dwindling rainforests of the world are treasure troves of biological diversity, but somehow the photos of six different varieties of strawberry frog make that more real for those who live outside the canopy. The book comes with a CD of rainforest sounds.

The elder statesman

by bookpagedev

Biography

Biography

Such devoted sisters

Review by bookpagedev

by Anne Bartlett

Winston Churchill was indisputably one of the great political figures of the 20th century. But as a young man just starting out, he had more than a little help from his mom. With the assistance of her male friends, Jennie Jerome Churchill got her boy Winston into a good cavalry regiment, despite a less than stellar academic performance at the British equivalent of West Point. She got him accredited as a war correspondent. She got him his first book contract. He took it from there.

Jennie smart, loyal, generous was one of the earliest and most remarkable of a bevy of rich American women who married British aristocrats in the late 19th century, injecting cash and energy into families that often had little of either. Her equally charming sisters, Clara and Leonie, took a similar path. The three of them, their husbands and children are the subject of Elisabeth Kehoe’s first book, The Titled Americans: Three American Sisters and the English Aristocratic World into Which They Married, which meshes biography with social and political history to create a beguiling chronicle of a long-gone world.

The Jerome girls’ own mother was a social climber, but they insisted on marrying for love sometimes to their later regret. The aristocrats they chose Lord Randolph Churchill for Jennie, Moreton Frewen for Clara, Jack Leslie for Leonie were disappointing husbands, to various degrees. But all three women remained emotionally loyal, even as they found extramarital romance with assorted European royals.

Though in decline, the aristocrats still ran the British Empire. Kehoe capably describes the Jerome clan’s roles in the struggle over Irish Home Rule, the Boer War, the First World War and the Russian Revolution. But she is most effective in bringing us into an exotic social world where the rich could do pretty much anything they wanted, as long as they did it behind closed doors and kept their mouths shut. The Jeromes didn’t escape the tragedies that afflict all families. But along the way, they had more fun than most and accomplished much still worth knowing about. Winston may have been named Churchill, but he was a Jerome at heart. Anne Bartlett is a journalist who lives in South Florida.

Comfortably chic

by bookpagedev

Lifestyles

Lifestyles

A wealth of ideas

Review by bookpagedev

by Deanna Larson

If you own white- and black-tie apparel, occupy a home that wouldn’t be cramped with 100 guests, and think relaxed is making wild mushroom risotto cake and poached pears wrapped in pastry for a dinner party, you’ll relate to the elaborate ideas in designer and lifestyle author Carolyne Roehm’s A Passion for Parties. If you’re like rest of us, you’ll still enjoy seeing what a lot of money, time and a staff can accomplish when celebrating holidays and other special occasions. Roehm throws an elegant autumn hunt club barn dance at her place in Connecticut, Christmas in Aspen, an intimate Valentine’s Day dinner in Paris, a children’s Halloween party complete with cobweb mazes and buckets of dry ice, and Fourth of July with fireworks. The parties are illustrated like Vogue fashion spreads, and more ambitious readers can tackle the included recipes to lend their events that classy Roehm touch.

We talk pretty someday

by bookpagedev

History

History

When MLK met LBJ

Review by bookpagedev

by Roger Bishop

When Martin Luther King Jr. met Lyndon Baines Johnson on December 3, 1963, the latter did most of the talking. King told reporters afterward, I have implicit confidence in the man, and unless he betrays his past actions, we will proceed on the basis that we have in the White House a man who is deeply committed to help us. Despite highs and lows in their relationship, the two men achieved two historic legislative landmarks, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

By the spring and summer of 1965, however, King began to publicly raise doubts about the administration’s Vietnam policy. In an April 1967 speech, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient and minister explained his opposition to the war and denounced the country’s role in world affairs. Johnson called the speech an act of disloyalty to the country. Nick Kotz tells the dramatic story of these complex men and their tumultuous times in Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws That Changed America. Kotz draws on tapes of LBJ’s telephone conversations, the so-called Stegall files named after a confidential secretary to LBJ and several thousand documents released in response to Kotz’s Freedom of Information Act requests. The effect is a powerful narrative that makes events come alive.

We are made aware of the constant pressures on each man, both from their opponents and supporters. Kotz shows Johnson’s legendary skill at guiding legislation through Congress in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways. We see how King, though told by both presidents Kennedy and Johnson to stop demonstrations because it made passing legislation more difficult, continued because those who marched believed that traditional methods alone would never win them equality. Kotz shows us that LBJ, not known as a great public speaker, could be eloquent on the subject of civil rights. This well-written study helps us to better understand two men without whom Kotz says the civil rights revolution might have ended with fewer accomplishments and even greater trauma. Roger Bishop is a Nashville bookseller and frequent contributor to BookPage.

Time to celebrate

by bookpagedev

Arts & Culture, Pop Culture

Pop Culture Arts & Culture

Gladwell’s secrets of success

Review by John T. Slania

by John T. Slania

After exploring the dynamics of social change in The Tipping Point, and decision-making in Blink, Malcolm Gladwell turns to the subject of success in his new book, Outliers. Written in Gladwell's typical breezy, conversational style, Outliers seeks to discover what makes people smart, wealthy or famous. Gladwell argues that in studying successful people, we spend too much time on what they are like and not enough time on where they are from. In other words, he believes that it is "their culture, their family, their generation and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringings" which determines their success.

One of the joys of Gladwell's writing is the way he explains complex theories using everyday examples. In Outliers, he makes the case that success is sometimes shaped by the smallest factors. Take a person's birthday. The most successful Canadian hockey players are born in January, February and March, Gladwell writes, simply because the cut-off date for age class hockey in Canada is January 1. Thus, those born after that date are held back a year, giving them an age and size advantage.

Environment also plays a big role in success. Gladwell compares the lives of two geniuses: physicist Robert Oppenheimer and a little-known Missouri man named Christopher Langan. Both were tested and found to have high IQs. But Gladwell argues that Oppenheimer had a huge advantage being raised in a wealthy, educated family, while Langan was born into a poor, broken family. Oppenheimer went to Harvard and Cambridge and helped develop the nuclear bomb. Langan had poor grades in school, never finished college and makes money competing on TV game shows.

Then there is the factor of opportunity in shaping success. Why was Bill Gates successful? Well, he was smart, but he also grew up when the personal computer was coming of age, offering him opportunities to tinker and create new software. Gladwell's unique perspective challenges readers to think about intelligence, success and fame in a new way. Outliers is a clever, entertaining book that stimulates readers' minds and broadens their perspectives. It is, in its own way, genius.

After exploring the dynamics of social change in The Tipping Point, and decision-making in Blink, Malcolm Gladwell turns to the subject of success in his new book, Outliers. Written in Gladwell's typical breezy, conversational style, Outliers seeks to discover what makes people smart, wealthy or famous. Gladwell argues that in studying successful people, we spend […]

Let your spirit show

by bookpagedev

Animals

Animals

A beloved bird on the brain

Review by Alison Hood

by Alison Hood

In Dr. Irene Pepperberg's avian memoir, Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence – and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process, the common – usually derogatory – epithet of "birdbrain" takes on an entirely new meaning. Readers who meet the "one pound ball of feathers" that is Alex, an African Grey parrot, and follow his educational adventures may marvel at the playful intelligence of this celebrated bird with "a brain the size of a shelled walnut."

Pepperberg, an animal cognition specialist, begins with sad recollections of Alex's unexpected death, recounting with proud astonishment how the media and legions of fans mourned his passing and lauded his extraordinary accomplishments: after decades of her persistent coaching, Alex knew more than 100 English words (sounding out words he did not know), identified shapes and colors, and was capable of rudimentary conceptual thought, intention and affection. The night before he died, his last words to the author were "You be good. I love you… . You'll be in tomorrow?"

While Pepperberg's earlier work, The Alex Studies, clinically documents scientific findings of her 30 years of cognitive experiments with Alex, this memoir – which from necessity includes much of the same information – is a straightforward, innocently moving, personal narrative. This book accents their emotional bonding, Pepperberg's struggles to keep her research activities afloat and accepted by the scientific establishment, the poignancy of her failing marriage, and – best of all – chronicles many touching and amusing moments of daily life with Alex. "Sometimes … . Alex chose to show his opinion of the boring task at hand by playing with our heads… . We would ask him, 'What color key?' and he would give every color in his repertoire, skipping only the correct color."

Alex & Me is neither a work of sparkling prose nor an in-depth scientific study, but its ingenuous narrative humanizes the scientific process and reminds us of our interconnection with nature. Pepperberg roundly challenges notions about man's superior intelligence and consciousness and celebrates the cognitive capabilities of the animals that share our hearts, homes and planet.

In Dr. Irene Pepperberg's avian memoir, Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence – and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process, the common – usually derogatory – epithet of "birdbrain" takes on an entirely new meaning. Readers who meet the "one pound ball of feathers" […]

The dizzying pace of life at the start of a new century

by Anne Bartlett

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