Edna Bonhomme’s frank, timely A History of the World in Six Plagues reveals how infectious diseases have been leveraged by colonialism and capitalism.

Design, Nonfiction

Defining Style

Emphasizing personal style, Joan Barzilay Freund’s Defining Style is a freeing, inspiring and extremely innovative look at interior design.

History, Nonfiction, Women's History

Nonfiction Women's History History

Expect Great Things!

The inspiring, companionable Expect Great Things! celebrates the legacy of the Katharine Gibbs School for women and its tenacious scholars.

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Family & Relationships

Family & Relationships

An impressive lonely hearts club

Review by Jillian Quint

by Jillian Quint

Love is a Four-Letter Word: True Stories of Breakups, Bad Relationships, and Broken Hearts, a new collection edited by Michael Taeckens, offers flashes of insight from well-known writers about love gone wrong. Gary Shteyngart writes of the leggy blonde who followed him all over Europe, sobbing. Junot Diaz remembers an ill-fated trip with a lover to the Dominican Republic. George Singleton somehow brings dignity to the act of peeing in his girlfriend’s kitty litter box.

But the best stories come from the newer or lesser-known writers. Both “Runaway Train” by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh and “Conversations You Have at Twenty” by blogger Maud Newton depict torturous, sprawling and ultimately unhealthy relationships with the wincing comedy and clarity that can only come from having been in the trenches. Meanwhile, “Why Won’t You Just Love Me?” by Emily Flake—one of several comic strips in the batch—shows the painful trajectory of a one-night stand that resulted in the author having to send an apology note.

There are a few misses here—most notably, the lifeless introduction by Neal Pollack—but on the whole, the pieces sparkle with wit, pain and honesty. If one can deduce an overarching conclusion, it’s that love is not as blind as the clichés would lead us to believe. Nearly all the writers in this collection sensed their breakup well before it happened, but let the relationship continue past (sometimes well past) this point of realization. The anthology never seeks to explore this disconnect, but one has to wonder: is it because we’re spineless? Naïve? Complacent? Or is it simply—as the contributors here continually show—that the best stories are often the least clear-cut?

Jillian Quint is an Assistant Editor at the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.

Searching for the meaning of it all

by Alison Hood

Nonfiction, Politics

Nonfiction Politics

When Khrushchev’s comic escapades warmed up the Cold War

Review by Roger Bishop

by Roger Bishop

Nikita S. Khrushchev was a walking bundle of contradictions. He rose to power in the Soviet system in the service of the dictator Josef Stalin. Following Stalin’s orders, Khrushchev was complicit in the deaths of many innocent people. Yet after Stalin’s death, Khrushchev, in a four-hour public address, courageously revealed the truth about Stalin’s many crimes against humanity. Khrushchev could, within a few seconds, be charming, funny, rude and frightening. All of those aspects of his personality were on display for the American public when he toured the United States for two weeks in 1959. It was a rare interlude in the Cold War, at a time when the possibility of war between the world’s two superpowers was on many minds throughout the world.

Peter Carlson, a former Washington Post feature writer and columnist, brings this unique trip vividly to life in K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude Starring Nikita Khrushchev, America’s Most Unlikely Tourist. American reaction to Khrushchev reveals much about the mood of our country at the time and makes for fascinating reading.

Khrushchev’s own reactions are equally engrossing. At banquets with speakers extolling the virtues of capitalism, the Soviet Leader defended Communism and threw tantrums, refusing to concede the U.S. any point of superiority. In Hollywood he met movie stars like Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe, and was invited to watch the filming of the movie Can-Can where, although he appeared to enjoy himself, he later objected to the dancing. He threw a major tantrum when told he could not go to Disneyland because police could not assure his safety. On a corn farm in Iowa Khrushchev was amused when his host, upset at the media circus on his property, started throwing corn stalks at the press. The foreign visitor also brought havoc to a supermarket in San Francisco. And these are only a few of the stories.

Carlson carefully explains the trip within the context of U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations. Just weeks before Khrushchev’s visit, he had his famous “kitchen debate” with Vice President Richard Nixon in Moscow. Seven months after Khrushchev left the U.S., two weeks before a Paris summit of major powers, and six weeks before President Eisenhower’s planned reciprocal trip to Moscow, the Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane and captured the pilot. When Khrushchev returned to the U.S. for the 1960 U.N. General Assembly session, he did not get a warm welcome and is best remembered for banging his shoe in outrage over remarks by a Filipino delegate.

The invitation to visit the U.S. almost didn’t happen. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent a short and purposely vague letter to the Soviet leader about a possible visit. The note was to be supplemented by an oral explanation from an undersecretary of state. Both sources were to make clear the visit to Camp David was contingent upon a successful resolution of deadlocked diplomatic negotiations in Geneva relating to Khrushchev’s 1958 ultimatum for the Western allies to leave Berlin. However, the state department official misunderstood his role and Khrushchev was not aware of the caveat.

Carlson’s account is extremely well researched and includes interviews with a number of participants, most notably Khrushchev’s son, Sergei. Many of the accounts and memos he quotes are from State Department historical documents. His book is enlivened by many direct quotes from Khrushchev and others. Anyone interested in cultural exchange, international diplomacy and fine writing should enjoy this unique book.

Roger Bishop is a retired Nashville bookseller and frequent contributor to BookPage.

African upheaval, white guilt

by bookpagedev

Nonfiction

Nonfiction

Harmonic life lessons

Review by Deanna Larson

by Deanna Larson

Oh Susannah, anybody can play an instrument! That’s the simple revelation made charmingly real in How to Play the Harmonica (and Other Life Lessons) by Sam Barry, a former Presbyterian minister now working for a major book publisher (and co-writing the Author Enablers column for BookPage). Barry is also a musician and music teacher who plays in and around San Francisco in the band Los Train Wreck and tours with the all-author rock band the Rock Bottom Remainders. Clearly, this isn’t his first camp “Kumbaya.”

In this little gem of a book, Barry’s pastorly reassurances loosen ties, bring out inner chickens and enable nascent musicians to let rip like Dylan and the Boss, eventually moving toward pomposity-slaying licks and writing an original blues song (because you know you have one in you). “The greatest crime of all is that we’ve stopped telling our own stories and making our own music,” Barry writes. “It’s just plain wrong.” Chapter by chapter, Barry shares memories from the embarrassments he’s had in life, along with a simple harp lesson charted out in a sidebar. It’s a whole lot more than Mel Bay. “Right now, take your harmonica and pretend you are in the Deep South late in the nineteenth century . . . Tell us a story. Make us remember how sad the world is yet how joyous life is. Take us on a journey.”

In Barry’s hands, this humble portable instrument teaches ideas like patience, letting go, tolerating failure, practice as meditation, listening to others and seeing the beauty in imperfection. “We can have new adventures at any time of life,” Barry writes. “Unfortunately, as we take on the responsibilities of adulthood, our fear of appearing silly or inept or less accomplished in the eyes of others increases and we shy away from trying anything new. We allow these concerns to dictate our behavior and miss a great deal. You don’t need anyone’s permission, so play.”

Tracing the origins of faiths

by bookpagedev

Memoir

Memoir

Echoes of the South’s troubled past

Review by bookpagedev

by MiChelle Jones

Echoes of the South’s troubled past The central story of Blood Done Sign My Name sounds distressingly familiar the murder of a young man by a reputed Klansman and his sons in a small Southern town. It would be a mistake, however, to dismiss Timothy Tyson’s book as the same old, same old. For one thing, the murder did not take place in the early days of the civil rights era; it occurred at the start of a decade more often associated with gas shortages, Watergate and Vietnam protests than with sit-ins. As Tyson explains, however, there were many civil rights issues left to be resolved in 1970.

"Many people nowadays think that after the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964," he writes, "cafÅ½ owners and city officials read the news in the morning paper and took down all those WHITE ONLY and COLORED signs by lunchtime. But this landmark legislation did not make a dent in Oxford." Lingering racial tensions in the North Carolina town are only part of the story told in Blood Done Sign My Name. This is also a history of Tyson’s family and an exploration of how the killing of Henry "Dicky" Marrow affected Tyson, who first learned of it from a fellow nine-year-old the son of the accused. Tyson goes off on many tangents while meting out details of the murder and subsequent trial, but the crime is always lurking in the background.

If his reportage is reminiscent of Truman Capote and his storytelling evocative of Harper Lee, Tyson’s use of colorful phrases and wry observations bring to mind Homer Hickam’s depictions of Coalwood, West Virginia. Tyson describes the setting of the murder, for example, as a place where "the Great Depression came early and stayed late." His father, he writes: "drew on a deep well of spiritual strength, and was a Tyson from eastern North Carolina and therefore half crazy besides." While an entertaining read, Blood Done Sign My Name is, of course, a disturbing reminder of the country’s not-too-distant segregated past. It is also an insightful commentary on the latent issues still at work in today’s society.

Echoes of the South's troubled past The central story of Blood Done Sign My Name sounds distressingly familiar the murder of a young man by a reputed Klansman and his sons in a small Southern town. It would be a mistake, however, to dismiss Timothy…

The people who paved the way for a momentous invasion

by bookpagedev

Lifestyles

Lifestyles

Inspiration for simply elegant projects

Review by bookpagedev

by Norah Piehl

Believe it or not, the low-tech craft of knitting has a high-tech presence on the Internet. Online knitting magazines, knitting podcasts and countless knitting blogs are great ways for those of us who practice this solitary craft to find ideas, inspiration and connection with other like-minded folks. No one knows this better than Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne, whose wildly successful blog masondixonknitting.com not only brings together two knitters one from New York, one from Nashville but also brings in knitters from around the world. In their new book, Mason-Dixon Knitting, Kay and Ann infuse every page with the friendly humor, personal stories and down-to-earth style that have made their blog so popular. This book is great for those of us who tend to take our knitting too seriously (one sidebar is titled "Mistakes You Will Definitely Make"), or who think knitting has to be difficult or complicated. The projects included here are mostly simple ones dishcloths, hand towels, felted baskets but, more importantly, they are projects that people will actually use, not just fold up in tissue paper and cherish from a distance. It’s also important to point out that simple does not equal boring. As Kay says, knitters can use their patterns like good cooks use recipes as inspirations to make the projects uniquely their own, as complicated or as straightforward as they like.

For me, the most motivational section of the book deals with the variations on the log cabin blanket pattern. For years, I’ve suffered from Fear of the Afghan even a baby blanket seems like an unbearably tedious process that results in one big square. The log cabin blankets that Ann and Kay include here, though, are exquisite in their simplicity but infinitely varied in their design. With Kay and Ann’s encouragement, humor and common sense, even new knitters can overcome their fears and feel capable of creating something entirely their own.

Wild things: a naturalist’s love story

by bookpagedev

History

History

Communism was a red herring

Review by bookpagedev

by James Summerville

Do we need another book about Joseph R. McCarthy, the Republican senator (1947-1957) whose name marks a fearsome era in American history? Tom Wicker, a former editor at the New York Times, thinks so. McCarthy is best understood in the context of the Cold War, which began about the time he arrived in Washington. The Soviet Union, partner in the allied victory, had claimed sovereignty over eastern Europe. Mao Tse-Tung overran Chiang Kai-Shek’s nationalists and China had gone communist. It seemed that the red star was on the rise.

Gifted with energy, intelligence and pugnacity, McCarthy now saw a wondrous opportunity: anti-communism. His baseless charge of 205 communists in the State Department, made in February 1950, catapulted him to fame. For the next four years, he investigated communists wherever he imagined them the executive branch, the Democratic Party and, finally, the military. His goal was simply personal aggrandizement. In Shooting Star: The Brief Arc of Joe McCarthy, Wicker writes, He never uncovered much less sent to jail a single communist, in or out of government. Still, colleagues, presidents and press lords quailed before his popularity in the polls.

Wicker relates the familiar story of how McCarthy’s attack on the Army brought him down. It began with the efforts by his chief aide, Roy Cohn, to gain favor for Cohn’s homosexual lover, Pvt. G. David Schine. And it ended with the magnificent words of chief counsel to the Army, Joseph Welch, whose law partner McCarthy had smeared: Have you at long last, sir, no decency? The hearings were televised. As long as print covered the senator, he remained a popular idol; when people saw his sneer and heard his vicious words, he plummeted in esteem. Wicker’s book adds few facts to what’s known about McCarthy, but it provides a valuable analysis of how his popularity presented dilemmas for both parties in the early 1950s. And he acknowledges McCarthy’s genuine gifts, which, tragically, were used only to seek renown. James Summerville lives and writes in Dickson, Tennessee.

Making sense of the senseless

by bookpagedev

Trending Nonfiction

Nonfiction Politics Memoir

How to Stand Up to a Dictator

Maria Ressa

By Sarojini Seupersad

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.