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

Biography, Literature, Nonfiction

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.

Crafts, Hobbies & Home, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Garden Wonderland

With its seamless integration of gardening principles with advanced design ideas, Garden Wonderland is the perfect gift for new gardeners—or anyone in need of a little inspiration.

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New details about the women in Roosevelt’s life

by Anne Bartlett

Biography

Biography

Bio explores the Fats Domino effect

Review by bookpagedev

by Ron Wynn

Music journalist Rick Coleman’s insightful, often controversial new biography Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock ‘n’ Roll is both a loving tribute and a bold alternative cultural perspective. Coleman argues not only for a fresh look at Domino’s importance as a pianist, vocalist and songwriter, but also that the black contribution to rock ‘n’ roll has been minimized by numerous accounts painting Elvis Presley as the music’s creator. He is especially miffed that Domino’s status as a hit-maker and performer has taken a back seat to his personal flamboyance. While many of Coleman’s claims will be familiar to those with more than superficial knowledge of people like Big Joe Turner, LaVern Baker, Little Richard and Chuck Berry, he restates their impact with zeal and passion.

Coleman traces Domino’s rise in a New Orleans where issues of race and class hampered the city’s darker-skinned residents. He also shows how several major music labels and personalities among them such figures as Dick Clark, Alan Freed and Lew Chudd played favorites and political games, undercutting Domino and many other gifted black performers while insuring maximum publicity and performance opportunities for less talented white teen idols. But thankfully, the book isn’t totally gloom and doom. Coleman provides expert analysis of Domino’s playing style, showing his mastery of triplets and the integration of elements from African and Latin idioms alongside New Orleans blues and R&andamp;B. Domino was also an accomplished vocalist, particularly on upbeat, rhythmically tricky numbers. Most importantly, Coleman points out that Domino’s recordings have sold more than 100 million copies, making him one of the most successful composers in rock history. Such Domino originals as Blueberry Hill and Ain’t That a Shame are now staples, and Domino’s scope encompassed country, blues and jazz as well. While it’s doubtful that Blue Monday can reverse the effect of decades of inaccurate music journalism on its own, it sets the record straight regarding both Fats Domino and the creative impact of African Americans on ’50s popular music. Ron Wynn writes for the Nashville City Paper and other publications.

Music journalist Rick Coleman's insightful, often controversial new biography Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock 'n' Roll is both a loving tribute and a bold alternative cultural perspective. Coleman argues not only for a fresh look at Domino's importance as a…

Niagara over a barrel

by Alison Hood

Aging, Family & Relationships

Family & Relationships Aging

Navigating the ‘new old age’

Review by Linda Stankard

by Linda Stankard

In his new book, A Place Called Canterbury: Tales of the New Old Age in America, Dudley Clendinen, a former national reporter and editorial writer for the New York Times, chronicles the compelling life stories of the residents at a Life Care center in Tampa Bay. Here his mother, some of her closest friends from the Tampa area and other "sundry folk" have come to live out their final years. Clendinen describes their journey as "an exquisitely poignant and gritty and dear kind of odyssey," and he tells their tales with compassion, honesty and humor.

"No generation before has lived so long, accumulated so much, grown so independent in old age," he writes. Nor has a generation like their children, the baby boomers, "ever been as dazzled and daunted and consumed by the apparently endless old age of parents." As Clendinen navigates the unfamiliar territory of Medicaid, medications and medical staff, he learns a great deal about this "New Old Age." For several years, his mother, (a woman, in her prime, of "seductive charm, a charitable heart, steely determination, and canny intent") enjoys a full schedule, living in her upscale apartment at Canterbury, going out to dinner at the Tampa Yacht and Country Club. But after she suffers a stroke, she is moved to the nursing wing for the care she needs. As the years pass and she slips further away from him, Clendinen struggles to stay connected with her, to communicate with her and to do right by her.

He forms close ties with many of the residents, and over time, their remarkable stories emerge. Through these "Canterbury tales," we come to know "survivors of the Great Depression, D-day, the Holocaust, and of the American civil rights struggle." We come to understand their joys and sorrows as their tales take us back to their childhoods, their first loves, marriages and careers, and we are reminded of their incredible sacrifices and strengths. Now their children, the boomers, must be strong as they face caring for aging parents – while not getting any younger themselves.

Linda Stankard is a former activities director at a nursing home.

Projects to create busy hands and peaceful hearts

by bookpagedev

Lifestyles

Lifestyles

Projects to create busy hands and peaceful hearts

Review by bookpagedev

by Linda Stankard

There’s something to the old saying, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” Crafty people know the pleasure, pride and peaceful satisfaction derived from creating something by hand. Those interested in converting others to their way of thinking might pass along one of these books to anyone whose heart could be helped by busying her hands. You’ll not only spread that sense of peace and accomplishment, but thwart the devil a little as well. Making memorable keepsakes As Nancy Ouchida-Howells writes in Calligraphy: Easel Does It (HarperDesign, $16.95, 96 pages, ISBN 0060588349), the ancient art of beautiful writing demands “full attention and concentration, a balance between control and freedom that creates a meditative, peaceful state as you immerse yourself in the act of creating.” Her book is designed to stand up like an easel for easy reference while following its photographed step-by-step instructions. Ouchida-Howells begins with the basics: materials needed, how to maneuver the pens and basic lettering, then guides you through eight projects “easily adjusted to suit your needs,” such as greeting cards, wrapping paper and invitations. Several calligraphic styles are demonstrated, including Gothic, Renaissance, Celtic, Romanesque and Modern Revival. There’s even a scrapbook cover project that segues nicely into the next book, Scrapbook Tips and Techniques (Leisure Arts, $16.95, 288 pages, ISBN 157486422X). In fact, since scrapbooks often include lots of lettering, your homemade keepsake album is likely to benefit from your newfound penmanship skills throughout its pages not just on the cover.

If you’re like me, with boxes and boxes of photos, souvenirs and mementos and some vague notion of creatively organizing them “someday,” Scrapbook Tips and Techniques can propel you into action. Chapter titles include “From Chaos to Order: 10 Easy Steps to Photo Organization” (sign me up!), “Collage Craze” and “Border Ideas.” While giving detailed instructions and containing numerous lovely and inspiring example pages, this book is far from being simplistic. For the serious scrapbooker or the seriously artistic, many advanced techniques and mediums are covered, such as creating stained-glass embellishments using watercolors, embossing, or fiber and eyelets for different effects.

Crafts for home and garden A versatile and portable craft, crochet is a quiet, contained activity you can do almost anywhere, and Crochet Basics: All You Need to Know to Get Hooked on Crochet, by Jan Eaton, is the book to get you hooking away. Designed for the absolute beginner, Eaton’s book points out that you don’t need to invest in expensive supplies to get started: all you need is a ball of yarn and a crochet hook or two. With large, clearly defined photos of each step, she walks you through 12 separate projects starting with a simple scarf and progressing to more complicated designs such as a child’s sweater, purses, a lace evening wrap and a colorful Harlequin afghan. “Once you have the hang of holding hook and yarn comfortably,” she notes, “the basic techniques of crochet are surprisingly easy to master, and all crochet forms, no matter how intricate they look at first, are based on a small number of stitches that are very easy to learn.” Finally, if turning trash to treasure floats your creative craft, and you’re not afraid of basic tools like a hammer, sandpaper and paintbrushes, then Flea Market Makeovers for the Outdoors: Projects ∧ Ideas Using Flea Market Finds ∧ Recycled Bargain Buys (Bulfinch, $29.95, 160 pages, ISBN 0821228617), by B.J. Berti, is the book for you. In these pages a weathered trellis, too fragile for garden use, becomes an appealing plant holder, discarded woolen sweaters become a cozy patchwork throw, and rusty thrift-store trays become trendy purveyors of cooling beverages. Berti offers plenty of projects complete with material lists, numbered instructions and photos. My favorite is the romantic painted candelabra for the outdoors, created by removing the light sockets and the wiring from an electric chandelier, painting it and then substituting candles for the milk glass lightbulb covers. Just keep the fire limited to your imagination!

There's something to the old saying, "Idle hands are the devil's workshop." Crafty people know the pleasure, pride and peaceful satisfaction derived from creating something by hand. Those interested in converting others to their way of thinking might pass along one of these books…

When memories become burdens

by Howard Shirley

Family & Relationships, Self-Help

Self-Help Family & Relationships

A professor’s stirring ‘last lecture’

Review by Deanna Larson

by Deanna Larson

When Randy Pausch learned he was dying of pancreatic cancer, he found himself in quite a dilemma: at the top of his professional game, with a beautiful wife and three young children, how should he check out of life? A computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Pausch is the co-founder of the university's prestigious Entertainment Technology Center and has worked with such companies as Google, Electronic Arts and Walt Disney Imagineering. "I love thinking I might find a way to beat this late-stage cancer," he writes in The Last Lecture. "Because even if I don't, it's a better mindset to help me get through each day."

Using the forum of his university's "Last Lecture" series, the terminally ill Pausch decided to distill his life lessons into a talk for students, friends and colleagues about how to achieve your childhood dreams. When Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal wrote a column about the lecture, and a video of the speech was posted on the Internet, the reaction was overwhelming. To adapt the lecture into a book, Pausch dictated his thoughts to Zaslow while on his daily bike rides – determined to maintain his fitness and minimize his time away from his family during the final months of his life. (Paush has already outlived his doctors' prediction that he had only six healthy months to live.)

The Last Lecture touches on Pausch's upbringing by parents who encouraged creativity and curiosity, as well as the support he received from important professors and mentors. The book gathers momentum with short sections about teamwork and cooperation, dreaming big, not obsessing over what people think, the power of apology and the little touches that mean so much (Pausch handed out Thin Mints with every request to review research papers).

Ultimately, this insightful nerd-optimist-dreamer abandons the idea of a "bucket list," reflecting instead his father's lifelong dedication to sharing intellectual and emotional wealth with others. "Time is all you have," Pausch writes, "And you may find one day that you have less than you think."

Projects to create busy hands and peaceful hearts

by bookpagedev

History

History

A little-known contribution to the war effort

Review by bookpagedev

by Roger Bishop

In 1944, U.S. researchers conducted what is still considered to be the definitive study on human starvation. The goal was not to replicate the then-famine conditions of World War II Europe, but to scientifically isolate and examine the effects of hunger from various perspectives. The hope was that the information obtained would be used to alleviate suffering and death. Todd Tucker’s compelling and provocative narrative of that experience, The Great Starvation Experiment: The Heroic Men Who Starved So That Millions Could Live, shows how three disparate groups scientists, the U.S. military and the conscientious objectors who volunteered to be human guinea pigs collaborated for a combination of national security, humanitarian, and scientific reasons.

The idea for the project came from Dr. Ancel Keys, perhaps best known for the K Ration issued to U.S. troops during the war. Dr. Keys had used pacifist draftees, who were officially part of the Civilian Public Service, in other experiments. In the one Tucker writes about here, each man was to attain the normal weight for his height during the first three months of the experiment. In the second period, there would be six months of starvation with each man’s diet cut in half, causing him to endure a 25 percent weight loss. Keys’ goal was nothing less than a complete cataloging of every quantifiable change that occurs in a famished human being, writes Tucker. The final three months, the rehabilitation period what Tucker refers to as the heart of the study was concerned with recovery diets and recording the effects. Tucker follows the volunteers through each phase, and we get to know several as individuals as they endure the grueling ordeal with varying degrees of physical and psychological deterioration. (One, Max Kampelman, impressively, completed his law school course and became an attorney while engaged in the experiment.) Of the original group of 36, 32 made it to the rehabilitation phase. Interviewed in later years, many said participating in the experiment was the most important experience of their lives. For Keys, the most significant finding of the study was, Tucker writes, that the human body was supremely well equipped to deal with starvation. . . . The human body was very, very tough. The author enlightens us about the evolving history of conscientious objection in the U.S. Many CO’s served as combat medics in World War II, including Desmond T. Doss, a devout Seventh-day Adventist, who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroic actions on Okinawa. Tucker also contrasts Keys’ experiment, which used idealistic volunteers, with the horrible medical experiments conducted on unwilling victims in Nazi Germany and Japan and traces the attempts by the international medical community to deal with the abuse of human beings in such studies. This well-searched and lucidly written account captures an important experiment little known to the general public. It is consistently compelling and provocative. Roger Bishop is a Nashville bookseller and a frequent contributor to BookPage.

Projects to create busy hands and peaceful hearts

by bookpagedev

Memoir

Memoir

Recovering from the loss of a child

Review by Robin Smith

by Robin Smith

In her latest book, Ann Hood, author of last year's semi-autobiographical novel The Knitting Circle, puts the reader on the harrowing frontlines of every parent's worst nightmare: a crisis involving a child. Comfort: A Journey Through Grief is Hood's account of the death of her daughter, Grace, and the aftermath of her loss. This is an intensely personal, painfully moving collection of essays that take readers to a place no one wants to visit.

Grace was a healthy, vibrant five-year-old when she contracted an especially virulent form of strep that ravaged her internal organs and, in less than 48 hours, took her life. Suddenly Grace was gone, leaving a heartbroken mother, father and eight-year-old brother, Sam. Hood could find no solace. The platitudes issued by well-meaning friends and relatives (recounted in the book's searing first chapter) only made things worse. It was when she learned to knit and joined a knitting group at a local yarn store that she was able to move toward some sort of healing. And, when Hood and her family adopt a new baby, joy finally returns to her life.

Hood's honest recounting of the terrible day and all the terrible days that followed does not spare the reader, instead giving an idea of just what havoc the death of a child causes. Reading what helped her (the dinners, the cards, the listeners, the knitting) might help the rest of us who wonder what to do and what to say when our friends and relatives face loss. Reading Comfort is a wrenching experience, but, when I shared this book with a dear friend who had lost a child, he agreed that Hood talks about loss in the most honest, useful way he has ever read. He was comforted by her words, even as they brought him back to the day when his own daughter died.

There are so many empty phrases that people say to those who have suffered loss, but the real truth is clear to Hood: "Time does not heal. It just passes."

Robin Smith reads, teaches and knits in Nashville.

Good health

by bookpagedev

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Maria Ressa’s book is a political history of the Philippines and an intimate memoir, but it’s also a warning to democracies everywhere: Authoritarianism is a threat to us all.