Library Journal

Binelli, Mark. Detroit City Is the Place To Be: The Afterlife of an American Metropolis. Holt. Nov. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780805092295. $28; eISBN 9781429974615. SOCIAL SCIENCE
For most Americans, Detroit epitomizes contemporary urban blight. Here, native son and Rolling Stone contributing editor Binelli shows that while Detroit may be down it’s not out. In fact, current developments—organic farming on empty lots, a realignment plan to shift residents from desolate neighborhoods to a vibrant new center—suggest how not just Detroit but all troubled cities can rise again. Expect good writing on a freighted topic.

Coddington, Grace. Grace. Random. Nov. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780812993356. $30; eISBN 9780679645214. CD/Downloadable: Random House Audio. MEMOIR
Stunning British model. Then creative director of British Vogue. Then head of Calvin Klein’s operations in New York. Then creative director of American Vogue. And true star of the 2009 documentary The September Issue, in which she famously upstaged Anna Wintour. Here’s a memoir about Coddington’s 40 years in fashion, beautifully designed by the author herself. Go, fashionistas!

Fellowes, Jessica & Matthew Sturgis. The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era for Family, Friends, Lovers and Staff. St. Martin’s. Nov. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781250027627. $29.99; eISBN 9781250027634. TELEVISION
Former deputy editor of Country Life and niece of lead Downton Abbey author Julian Fellowes, Fellowes has already written about the public television phenomenon in The World of Downton Abbey. Here she returns with critic/author Sturgis to give an official preview of Season 3, which launches on PBS in January 2013. Downtown Abbey fever does not appear to be abating (though not yet commissioned, Seasons 4 and 5 are in discussion), so this should be popular.

Fornatale, Peter & Bernard M. Corbett. 50 Licks: An Album’s Worth of Stories from the 50-Year History of the Rolling Stones. Bloomsbury USA, dist. by Macmillan. Nov. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9781608199211. pap. $17. MUSIC
Fifty years, 50 cool stories (or “Licks”), each named for a different Rolling Stones song, and often drawn from previously unavailable material. FM rock pioneer Fortanale, who died on April 26, joined with Corbett—the radio voice of Harvard University football and a lifelong Rolling Stones nut—to deliver another celebratory piece on the Band That Played On…and On.

Greene, Robert. Mastery. Viking. Nov. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780670024964. $28.95; Downloadable: Penguin Audio. PSYCHOLOGY
Want to be the master of your universe? Greene shows you how by looking at the folks who have done it before you, from middling-student Charles Darwin to Temple Grandin, Henry Ford, and more. Since Greene’s books (e.g., The 48 Laws of Power) have sold more than a million copies, he must have something to say to folks out there. Be prepared.

Kelley, Kitty. Capturing Camelot: Stanley Tretick’s Iconic Images of the Kennedys. Thomas Dunne Bks: St. Martin’s. Nov. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780312643423. $29.99; eISBN 9781250018830. PHOTOGRAPHY
Assigned by United Press International to cover John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign, Stanley Tretick became friendly enough with the candidate that he was given access to the White House once Kennedy was elected. He took many pictures readers will recognize immediately, often of JFK with his family. But of course never-before-seen shots are here, too. Best-selling author Kelley, a friend of Tretick, provides an upbeat text. Big publicity push.

Lil Wayne. Gone Till November. Grand Central. Nov. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781455515264. $25.99. MEMOIR
Rapper Lil Wayne has won four Grammies and sold millions of albums; he also did time in Rikers Island Penitentiary in 2010 for criminal possession of a weapon. Here are the journals he kept at the time, reportedly smart, detailed, and thoughtful. Since he has five million Twitter followers and 33.7 million Facebook fans (decidedly the biggest numbers I’ve keyed in for those venues), this book will have an audience.

Love, Courtney & Anthony Bozza. Untitled. Morrow. Nov. 2012. 464p. ISBN 9780062127952. $29.99. eISBN 9780062127990. MEMOIR
These rock memoirs just keep coming. Now the contrarian, controversial Love, loved and hated by the media (and the rest of us), widow of Kurt Cobain and a scalding musician in her own right, tells her own story. With a 250,000-copy first printing and author appearances in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle (but not Portland?).

Mount, Jane (illus.). & Thessaly La Force (ed). My Ideal Bookshelf. Little, Brown. Nov. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780316200905. $24.99. LITERATURE
If you’re like me, you judge people by what’s on their bookshelves. Here’s a book that lets you see what folks like Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Chabon, Jennifer Egan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mark Bittman, Patti Smith, and more have stashed on theirs. Each contributor weighs in on his or her favorites (“There’s no cumulative purpose—it’s just an excellent way to waste your life,” says Jonathan Lethem), and Mount provides whimsical drawings of side-by-side spines. Sweet.

Nelson, Willie & Kinky Friedman. The Troublemaker: A Story of Faith, Redemption, and Staying True to Your Deepest Beliefs. Morrow. Nov. 2012. 192p. ISBN 9780062193643. $22.99; eISBN 9780062193650. lrg. prnt. MEMOIR
Nelson is such a famed singer/songwriter/activist that next year Austin will place an eight-foot-tall bronze statue of him on Willie Nelson Boulevard. Meanwhile, here’s a memoir cum inspirational tale—and just right for the holidays. With his career stuttering and his personal life in shreds, Nelson wasn’t facing the greatest Christmas in 1971. Even his house burned down. So he decided to change everything, shrugging off pressures to sound Nashville and heading in a new creative direction that landed him where he is today. With a 125,000-copy first printing; note the large print, not surprisingly since this hardy 78-year-old has some mature fans.

Scottoline, Lisa & Francesca Serritella. Meet Me at Emotional Baggage Claim. St. Martin’s. Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780312640088. $25.99; eISBN 9781250025074. CD: Macmillan Audio. RELATIONSHIPS
Scottoline is doing so well with her juicily acerbic essays collections, particularly those written with daughter Serritella, that one wonders whether they will start taking precedence over her best-selling fiction. Here, mother and daughter deal with separation anxiety of an adult sort, as Serritella moves to the big city, Scottoline looks about her suburban empty nest, and both think about shifting boundaries. Cozy.

Standiford, Les. Desperate Sons: The Secret Band of Radicals Who Led the Colonies to War. Harper: HarperCollins. Nov. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780061899553. $27.99; eISBN 9780062218124. HISTORY
This chronicle of the Sons of Liberty in the American Revolution is billed as a political thriller, so expect excitement. Author of the best-selling Bringing Adam Home, Standiford goes behind the glossy surface of iconic events like the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere’s midnight gallop to explain how dangerous (and admittedly illegal) they really were. His aim: to show that we are more bound together by the chances these “desperate Sons” took than divided by the petty politics of today. Well, we can hope.

Tapper, Jake. The Outpost: The Untold Story of American Valor. Little, Brown. Nov. 2012. 608p. ISBN 9780316185394. $28.99. CD/downloadable: Hachette Audio. CURRENT EVENTS
After Combat Outpost Keating was abandoned, the Pentagon determined that the camp, located in the desolate mountains of Afghanistan just 14 miles from the Pakistan border, should never have been established. But first came the October 3, 2009, attack by nearly 400 Taliban fighters, which the 53 U.S. troops held off at considerable cost. A senior White House correspondent for ABC News, Tapper did hard investigate work to understand how this fiasco came about. Lots of buzz about Tapper as a rising media star.

Ball, Edward. The Tycoon and the Inventor: A Gilded Age and the Birth of Moving Pictures. Doubleday. Nov. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780385525756. $29.95; eISBN 9780385535496. Downloadable: Random House Audio. BIOGRAPHY
Originally scheduled for April 2012 and featured as a Pick last October, this is the story of how photographer Eadweard Muybridge invented stop-motion photography—the first step on the road to motion pictures—when asked by railroad tycoon and former California governor Leland Stanford to show that at one point a galloping horse’s four hooves leave the ground simultaneously. The dramatic Muybridge later killed his wife’s lover, though he was acquitted after a lot of media coverage. National Book Award winner Ball (Slaves in the Family) here combines art, science, true crime, and history-in-the-making in rough-and-tumble Gilded Age San Francisco.

Bair, Deirdre. Saul Steinberg: A Biography. Nan A. Talese: Doubleday. Nov. 2012. 752p. ISBN 9780385524483. $40; eISBN 9780385534987. BIOGRAPHY
The creator of fabulously spiky, satirical drawings and cartoons—everyone knows the iconic New Yorker cover that makes the rest of the country look like a really little slice of the pie—Steinberg was born in Romania and educated in Italy, which he fled with the rise of fascism. He became a U.S. citizen, a commissioned navy officer, and a member of the OSS in a single day, then went on to become one of the artistic lights of the postwar era. National Book Award winner Bair (for Samuel Beckett) got to rummage through 177 boxes of never-before-seen materials to write this biography. Nothing else out there on Steinberg, and what a fascinating life.

Coyne, Tom. Bury Me at the Finish Line: One Plodder’s Quest To Understand Where We’re Running To. Gotham: Penguin Group (USA). Nov. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9781592406548. $26. SPORTS
Author of the best-selling A Course Called Ireland, Coyne does golf but otherwise has never been that big on exercise. So he surprised himself by opting to run in the 2010 Marathon de Paris (though, hey, I’d go to Paris for anything). To make sure he followed through, he drafted some friends—a breast cancer survivor, a beer-belly Brit, and a chain-smoking waitress—to train with him, enticing them with an all-expenses-paid trip to the City of Light. Here he examines the fun of the run while reflecting on how the sport has turned into a mega-industry.

de Margerie, Caroline. American Lady: The Life of Susan Mary Alsop. Viking. Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780670025749. $26.95. BIOGRAPHY
A descendant of Founding Father John Jay, born in Rome and raised partly in Argentina, Susan Mary hit Paris in 1945 with first husband William Patten and met everyone, from FDR to Churchill to Garbo. After Patten’s death, she married renowned columnist Joseph Alsop and with him became a legendary powerbroker, dominating Georgetown society for four decades. A fascinating-sounding book about a fascinating-sounding American woman, written by a French author who is now a member of the Conseil d’État, the highest administrative court of France.

Glassie, John. A Man of Misconceptions: The Life of an Eccentric in an Age of Change. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Nov. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9781594488719. $26.95. SCIENCE/HISTORY
A former contributing editor to the New York Times Magazine, Glassie tells the story of Anthanasius Kircher, a 17th-century scientist much admired in his day for discoveries that have since proven to be, politely put, half-cocked. Magnetism is not the force driving the universe, his translations of Egyptian hieroglyphics were all wrong, and what’s this about his proudly displaying a mermaid’s tailbone? An entertaining reminder that skepticism can be good.

Guerrieri, Matthew. The First Four Notes: Beethoven’s Fifth and the Human Imagination. Knopf. Nov. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780307593283. $26.95; eISBN 9780307960924. MUSIC
Da-da-da-dum! Here’s what looks to be the only book available to lay readers offering an in-depth examination of Beethoven’s beloved and magisterial Fifth Symphony. Guerrieri, music critic for the Boston Globe, explores both the sources and the long-term impact of the symphony, which was, by the way, a source of inspiration during World War II to both the Nazis and the Allies. If this book seems specialized,  just remember that Beethoven has nearly a million followers on Facebook—take that, rock stars! And a similar title, Stuart Isacoff’s A Natural History of the Piano, turned out to be a sleeper hit for the publisher last fall.

Homans, John. What’s a Dog For? The Surprising History, Science, Philosophy, and Politics of Man’s Best Friend. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9781594205156. $25.95. PETS
Lots of books out there on the human-canine relationship. But Homans, executive editor of New York magazine, homes in on a particular aspect of our love affair with dogs—our treating them as if they were human beings. (Um, they aren’t?) Inspired by his Lab mix, Stella, who started out as his companion in neighborhood rambles and quickly became the centerpiece of the family, Homans considers scientific studies about evolutionary theory, cognitive behavior, and the consequences of dog ownership (great for our health). What a dog for? To learn from and love.

Keller, Timothy. Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Plan for the World. Dutton. Nov. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780525952701. $25.95. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. RELIGION
Pastor of New York’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Keller is heard by thousands of congregants on Sunday morning—and his best-selling spirituality titles are read by millions. Here he considers how believers can find meaning and maintain their values in the jungle-out-there world of business today. No easy outs here; Keller helps folks practice what gets preached.

Lizard, Sal with Jonathan Lane. Being Santa Claus: What I Learned about the True Meaning of Christmas. Gotham: Penguin Group (USA). Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9781592407569. $20. MEMOIR
After his hair and beard turned snowy white when he was only in his twenties, Lizard did what every guy should do in that predicament: he opted to play Santa, a job he’s been at year ’round for more than 20 years. More than a life account, this book offers inspiration drawn from the experiences he’s had in his custom-made red velvet suits, e.g., little children can make a big difference in this world, and they’re awe-struck about seeing Santa off-season. A national tour, though probably not by sleigh.

Nasaw, David. The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Nov. 2012. 832p. ISBN 9781594203763. $40. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. BIOGRAPHY
Celebrated for his biographies of Andrew Carnegie and William Randolph Hearst, Nasaw takes on another larger-than-life figure: Joseph P. Kennedy, businessman, Hollywood mogul, founding chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S. ambassador to Britain as World War II commenced, and, of course, father to our 35th president. Nasaw evidently secured unrestricted and exclusive access to all of his subject’s papers and will address the big questions still hanging around, e.g., was Kennedy an isolationist, a Nazi sympathizer, a bootlegger? And did he really buy JFK’s elections?

Perelman, Deb. The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. Knopf. Nov. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780307595652. $35; eISBN 9780307961068. COOKBOOKS
Just ask the Smitten Kitchen’s 63,000 Facebook fans or its four million unique visitors per month: Perelman’s supremely helpful, visually stunning, wittily worded food blog really did deserve to be named one of 2011’s best blogs by Time magazine. (I know because I just checked it out and have already cribbed the recipe for Pasta with Garlicky Broccoli Rabe.) Perelman’s recipes are accessible but not Betty Crocker plain; this is fun, energized eating. Get it! With a six-city tour to Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

Phillips, Kevin. 1775: A Good Year for Revolution. Viking. Nov. 2012. 640p. ISBN 9780670025121. $36. HISTORY
Every American schoolchild will tell you that 1776 was a very good year for the American Revolution. But contrarian Phillips, Pulitzer finalist for The Cousins’ Wars, makes a case for 1775 as the revolution’s make-or-break year. That’s when Congress delivered a bunch of sharp ultimatums to Britain, British troops and royal governors were sent packing, and local Patriots grabbed the reins of government. Britain never recovered. Great for argumentative nonfiction book groups.

Sacks, Oliver. Hallucinations. Knopf. Nov. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780307957245. $26.95. CD/downloadable: Random House Audio. MEDICINE
Hallucinations: they don’t belong wholly to the insane. Illness or injury, intoxication or sensory deprivation, or simply falling asleep can cause any one of us to see (or hear, or smell, or sense) swirly, twirly things that aren’t there. Everyone’s favorite neurologist is back to explain types of hallucinations, what they tell us about the brain’s workings, and how they have influenced art and culture. Who knew medicine could be so much fun.

Schwartz, John. Oddly Normal: One Family’s Struggle To Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality. Gotham: Penguin Group (USA). Nov. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781592407286. $26. MEMOIR
A national correspondent with the New York Times, Schwartz faced a terrible tragedy two years ago when his 13-year-old son attempted suicide after coming out to his classmates. Frustrated by the school’s inability to help a student who didn’t fit the mold, he and his wife sought out organizations that could help Joe realize that he wasn’t alone or freakish. Here’s an account of their experiences, clearly as much a parental guide as a memoir.

Talbot, Margaret. The Entertainer: Movies, Magic, and My Father’s Twentieth Century. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Nov. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9781594487064. $28.95. MEMOIR
A New Yorker staff writer, Talbot takes a personal approach to telling the story of popular culture in early 20th century America. She tells the story of her father, Lyle Talbot, born in Nebraska in 1902, who became a magician’s assistant, actor with a traveling theater troupe, romantic lead in early talkies, character actor in big Warner films, and, finally, Ozzie and Harriet and Leave It to Beaver regular. From small-town life to the big screen; sounds enticing, and lots of in-house excitement. 
 
Updike, John. Always Looking: Essays on Art. Knopf. Nov. 2012. 224p. ISBN 9780307957306. $45. ART CRITICISM
After Just Looking (1989) and Still Looking (2005), here’s a final, posthumous volume of essays from a writer whose art criticism was as good as his fiction. The 15 pieces are taken mostly from the New York Review of Books, though readers will also find—and revel in—“The Clarity of Things,” the 2008 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities and as definitive a statement as we’ll get of Updike’s approach to criticism. With more than 200 color illustrations to go with commentary ranging from Degas to Serra. Bravo!

wa Thiong’o, Ngugi. In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir. Pantheon. Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780307907691. $25.95; eISBN 9780307907707. MEMOIR
A 2009 Man Booker International Literary Prize nominee and an Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience in his native Kenya in the late 1970s after his arrest for writing a controversial play, wa Thiong’o here follows up a first volume of memoirs called Dreams in a Time of War—which, by the way, was a Samuel Johnson Prize nominee. This new work covers wa Thiong’o’s high school years in 1955–59, which places it smack in the middle of the Mau Mau uprising that eventually led to the end of British colonial rule.  Nobel-worthy reading, I’ll bet; wa Thiong’o is often mentioned for the prize.

Barofsky, Neil.  Bailout: How I Watched Washington Rescue Wall Street While Abandoning Main Street. Free Pr: S. & S. Oct. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9781451684933. $26.  CURRENT EVENTS
In 2008, Barofsky was appointed Special United States Treasury Department Inspector General to oversee the Troubled Assets Relief Program. But he resigned his post in 2011, citing family reasons. Not a lot of word on the contents of this book, but the title says it all.

Criss, Peter. Makeup to Breakup. Scribner. Oct. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781451620825. $26. MEMOIR
Wow, the musicians are really talking. Last week I featured memoirs from Billy Ray Cyrus, Kenny Rogers, John Taylor, Pete Townshend, and Neil Young, and note the Cyndi Lauper tell-all below. Here, founding KISS drummer Criss spills all about his painted band and his own version of sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll.

Crothers, Tim. The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl’s Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster. Scribner. Oct. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781451657814. $26. BIOGRAPHY/GAMES
At age 11, Phiona Mutesi had a lot of strikes against her; barely literate, she lived in the worst slums of Kampala, Uganda. Then a slum dweller who had become a missionary taught her to play chess, and three years later she was an international champion. Basing this book on his National Magazine Award–nominated story, Sports Illustrated senior writer Crothers tells a story that isn’t just inspirational but a corrective to our most damning assumptions.

Denby, David. Do the Movies Have a Future? S. & S. Oct. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9781416599470. $27. FILM
These collected essays from the noted New Yorker critic don’t just talk about movies; they talk more broadly about where the movie business is going. As art is squeezed out by the car-crash mentality and digitization takes over, perhaps the whole business—which has long furnished America’s most popular form of entertainment—will end up dead. Here, too, are discussions of Denby’s favorite directors and the great critics James Agee and Pauline Kael. Essential for film fans.

Feinstein, Michael. The Gershwins and Me: A Personal History in Twelve Songs. S. & S. Oct. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781451645309. $45 with CD. BIOGRAPHY/MUSIC
Ambassador of the Great American Songbook, as he’s called, Feinstein lucked out at age 20 when he got a job with Ira Gershwin. Here he shares both reminiscences of their six-year partnership and his unique insights into the glory that is George Gershwin’s music. When it comes to the great Gershwins, I’m not the only person to proclaim “Love Is Here To Stay,” and Feinstein’s structuring of his narrative in terms of 12 key songs is intriguing. Can’t wait to hear the accompanying CD.

Han Han. This Generation: Dispatches from China’s Most Popular Literary Star (and Race Car Driver). S. & S. Oct. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9781451660005. $23. MEMOIR/CURRENT EVENTS
After Han dropped out of high school, he wrote a novel titled Triple Door that has sold more than 20 million copies, then went on to become a singer, a sharp-tongued blogger of the moment, and a star on the rally racing circuit. Now he’s an international celebrity who’s changed our view of China, and his observations here range from racing to patriotism. Seriously, this sounds cool.

Lauper, Cyndi with Jancee Dunn. Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir. Atria: S. & S. Oct. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9781439147856. $28.99. MEMOIR/MUSIC
For girls (and others) who want to have fun: a memoir from Lauper, who’s sold more than 30 million albums globally and has been nominated for a stack of awards, including 14 Grammys. She starts here with her tough early years, when she abandoned home at age 17 and survived by her wits—and doing things like cleaning a Hare Krishna temple for free food. Then come the glories and (inevitable) hardships of fame.

McMurtry, Larry. Custer. S. & S. Oct. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9781451626209. $40. BIOGRAPHY
McMurtry on George Armstrong Custer; now that should be larger than life. With no cavalry survivors and only scattered Indian accounts after Custer and his 7th Cavalry attacked a large Lakota Cheyenne village on the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory, it’s hard to say what really happened on that hot June day in 1876. But McMurtry’s chronicle of the man should be colorful—for one thing, there are 150 four-color illustrations.

Nepo, Mark. Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred. Free Pr: S. & S. Oct. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9781451674668. $25. INSPIRATION
You’ll know cancer survivor Nepo from his No. 1 New York Times best seller, The Book of Awakening—not to mention his appearances on Good Morning America and Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday program (OWN TV). Emphasizing our relationships to wisdom, experience, and one another, he here uses his own hearing loss to explain how we can return daily to what really matters in life.

Pantsov, Alexander V. & Steven I. Levine. Mao: The Real Story. S. & S. Oct. 2012. 736p. ISBN 9781451654479. $35. BIOGRAPHY
Moscow-born Pantsov, now a history professor at Capital University and author of books like The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution 1919-1927, joins with China politics and foreign affairs expert Levine to craft a biography of one of the towering leaders/monsters of the 20th century. Key here is access to Russian documents not available to previous researchers. Interesting to see where this goes, since as China rises and rises, a new Mao biography seems important.

Schwarzenegger, Arnold. Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story. S. & S. Oct. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9781451662436. $32.50. CD: S. & S. Audio. MEMOIR
Body-building champion. Movie star. Governor of California. And immigrant. Schwarzenegger presents his life story as the realization of the American dream. Long on his achievements, then (note the subtitle), but he’s also said to be honest about his regrets—and that would pique reader interest. With a national tour.

Ashcroft, Frances. The Spark of Life: Electricity in the Human Body. Norton. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780393078039. $28.95. SCIENCE
From the first stirrings in the primordial muck to our brain’s elaborate pulsings when we read or watch Shakespeare, electricity is life, and much-honored Oxford physiologist Ashcroft—recently winner of the top honor in the L’ORÉAL-UNESCO for Women in Science Awards—explains how it drives the body. Historical perspective, too (the book harks back to the Greeks); insight from a master.

The Best Science Writing Online 2012. ed. by Jennifer Ouellette. Scientific American/Farrar. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780374533342. pap. $16. SCIENCE
You have to love a science writer whose accomplishments include maintaining the Cocktail Party Physics blog. That’s Ouellette, who here guest edits the sixth edition of an anthology launched by Bora Zivkovic, editor of the blog network at Scientific American. With pieces ranging from fluids to fungi, written by rising stars, here’s online writing about science—how much more cutting edge can you get?

Brown, Lester R. Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity. Norton. Sept. 2012. 160p. ISBN 9780393088915. $27.95. SCIENCE/POLICY
As the subtitle suggests, Brown—president of the Earth Policy Institute, a MacArthur Fellow, and a prolific author to boot (e.g., World on the Edge)—has something potent to say about the human-made aspect of the famines that keep stalking this planet. Dedicated readers will appreciate.

Cantu, Robert, MD & Mark Hyman. Concussions and Our Kids: America’s Leading Expert on How To Protect Young Athletes and Keep Sports Safe. Houghton Harcourt. Sept. 2012. 224p. ISBN 9780547773940. $27. SPORTS/HEALTH
Concussion has become a major issue in sports, plaguing professional athletes and youngsters alike. A clinical professor of neurosurgery and codirector of Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, as well as chair of the Department of Surgery at Emerson Hospital, Cantu has treated of thousands of patients with brain trauma. Here he both explains how to treat concussions and, more important, how to prevent them. There will be national TV coverage, so expect interest.

Chafe, William H. Bill and Hillary: The Politics of the Personal. Farrar. Sept. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780809094653. $28. BIOGRAPHY
That the personal is political is a well-worn adage, but it takes on new meaning when examining not one politician but two—specifically, Bill and Hillary Clinton, whose commitment to each other, as well as to key issues like race and gender equality, have shaped their careers. Duke history professor Chafe, whose numerous titles include The Rise and Fall of the American Century, considers their early years, “copresidency,” tempestuous relationship, and more.

Cotton, Dorothy. If Your Back’s Not Bent: The Role of the Citizenship Education Program in the Civil Rights Movement. Atria: S. & S. Sept. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780743296830. $25; eISBN 9781439187425. AUTOBIOGRAPHY
This autobiography by Cotton, former director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Citizens Education Project and the only woman in Martin Luther King’s inner circle, was featured here as a pick in September 2011. The subtitle change since then (from “How the Civil Rights Movement Gained Victory”) suggests a shift in focus that makes the book more personal.

Dauch, Richard. American Drive: The Road to More Jobs, a Stronger Economy, and Renewed Industrial Dominance in America. St. Martin’s. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9781250010827. $27.99; eISBN 9781250010834. ECONOMICS
In 1994, after 30 years in the automotive industry, Dauch decided to get behind the wheel and bought an ailing axle and supply company, which included five crumbling plants in the center of Detroit. After rebuilding the plants, renegotiating with unions, and instituting job training, he opened up for business—and made a $60 million profit in the first month. His account is being positioned as a blueprint for fixing our economic woes.

Eco, Umberto. Inventing the Enemy: Essays. Houghton Harcourt. Sept. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780547640976. $25. ESSAYS
Eco’s recent The Prague Cemetery proposed that countries needs enemies and invent them if none are to be found—an intriguingly relevant thought in today’s world and the basis of one of the essays in his new collection. Other topics: censorship, Wikileaks, James Joyce’s Ulysses, lost islands, and—not surprisingly from the author of the immortal The Name of the Rose—the medieval world. Bonbons for the literati and maybe others.

Elie, Paul. Soundabout: Reinventing Bach. Farrar. Sept. 2012. 496p. ISBN 9780374281076. $30. MUSIC
A senior fellow with Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs whose first book, The Life You Save May Be Your Own, received the PEN/Martha Albrand Prize, Elie explains how Bach shaped music—not simply through his ineffable compositions but by perfecting the tuning scheme we use today, for instance—and how subsequently Bach has been shaped by musicians from Albert Schweitzer to Pablo Casals, Glenn Gould, and Yo-Yo Ma. Today, technology from smartphones to multimedia presentations is allowing us to hear Bach’s multiple voices in different ways. Such a cool idea if it works.

Gottman, John & Nan Silver. What Makes Love Last?: How To Build Trust and Avoid Betrayal. S. & S. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9781451608472. $26; eISBN 9781451608496. SELF-HELP
Gottman runs the Love Lab at the University of Washington, Seattle, which sounds hippy-dippy until you realize that his 35 years of research into marriage have earned him honors from the National Institute of Mental Health and the American Psychological Association, among other organizations. Here he talks about maintaining trust, rebuilding after betrayal, and watching out for what he calls sliding door moments—pivotal points when a couple can connect more deeply or start to spin apart. Bigger than your standard self-help stuff.

Makary, Marty. MD. Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won’t Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care. Bloomsbury, dist. by Macmillan. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781608198368. $28. HEALTH
The Johns Hopkins surgeon who developed the checklist that inspired Atul Gawande’s best-selling The Checklist Manifesto, Makary here challenges the lack of transparency in health care, which leaves patients ignorant and error rates uncomfortably high despite efforts to curb them. Here he argues for accountability, aiming to reward the good doctors and ditch the bad ones. Let’s hear it from the inside! With a five-city tour to Baltimore, Boston, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and New York.

Marshall, Penny. My Mother Was Nuts. New Harvest: Houghton Harcourt. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780547892627. $26. MEMOIR
Marshall started out as Laverne in the beloved sitcom Laverne and Shirley but made her mark as the first woman to direct films that made more than $100 million, namely, Big and A League of Their Own. Your chance to spend some more time in Hollywood.

Min, Janice. How To Look Hot in a Minivan: A Real Woman’s Guide to Losing Weight, Looking Great, and Dressing Chic in the Age of the Celebrity Mom. St. Martin’s. Sept. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780312658977. $26.99; eISBN 9781429960588. FITNESS/GROOMING
The former editor of US Weekly and current editorial director of The Hollywood Reporter, Min knows how Hollywood types make motherhood look glam. Now she’s sharing these secrets with ordinary mortals. Too late for me, but the rest of you might be interested; check out the author tour and heavyweight promotion, which will include fashion, parenting, and mommy blogs.

Pinsky, Drew. Recovering Intimacy. Atria: S. & S. Sept. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781451605716. $26; eISBN 9781451605730. SELF-HELP
Despite our in-your-face interconnectedness via social media, achieving true intimacy is hard—some would say harder than ever. Doctor, best-selling author, and TV personality, Pinsky explains how to sense when a relationship is faltering and to build and maintain deep personal bonds, whether with friends, family, or partners. Pinsky has fans.

Roth, Marco. The Scientists: A Family Romance. Farrar. Sept. 2012. 192p. ISBN 9780374210281. $23. MEMOIR
Dinnertime conversations about scientific advances and house concerts open to guests—that’s what it was like for Roth, who grew up in New York, the only child of a doctor and a concert pianist. Then his father started exhibiting the first signs of AIDS, which he had contracted in the 1980s, radically rearranging Roth’s world and leaving behind a legacy of silence. A cofounder of n + 1 and recipient of the 2011 Roger Shattuck Prize for Criticism, Roth can be expected to offer an elegant examination of what we learn from our parents and what we have to learn for ourselves.

Self, Robert O. All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s. Hill & Wang: Farrar. Sept. 2012. 512p. ISBN 9780809095025. $30. HISTORY
Here’s what family values have meant to the Left since the 1960s: first Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and War on Poverty, then the fight for racial and gender equality, then the fight for gay rights, health care reform, and welfare reform. Those multiplying interests have fractured Leftist ranks, allowing the Right to sweep in with its version of family values: a single-minded traditional take. So argues Brown history professor Self, a James A. Rawley Prize winner for American Babylon, who’s clarifying an idea many of us have sensed for some time. Intriguing to think of this as backdrop for the elections.

Silber, William L. Volcker: Central Banker. Bloomsbury, dist. by Macmillan. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9781608190706. $30. BIOGRAPHY
We owe a lot to Paul A. Volcker. As Federal Reserve chair, he helped curb booming inflation in the 1970s, while as chair of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board he grappled with 2008’s financial implosion; Obama dubbed the centerpiece of his Wall Street regulation the Volcker Rule. Silber is not just director of the Glucksman Institute for Research in Securities Markets at NYU’s Stern School of Business but an author as well—from trade titles to the standard textbook Money, Banking and Financial Markets—so should be able to explain Volcker’s accomplishments to the financially challenged.

Sullivan, Robert. My American Revolution. Farrar. Sept. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780374217457. $26. HISTORY
Maybe the shot heard ’round the world was fired in Lexington, MA, but most of the fighting during the Revolutionary War took place in the Middle Colonies. This I know, having grown up in a family deeply invested in supporting Trenton’s Old Barracks and in visiting Pennsylvania’s Valley Forge. Sullivan wanted to experience the war where it actually happened, so he witnessed reenactments of the crossing of the Delaware, tramped through New Jersey backyards, built a Colonial-style signal beacon, and even evacuated illegally from Brooklyn to Manhattan in a handmade boat. History as lived, not just read—which sounds great.

Tough, Paul. How Children Succeed: Rethinking Character and Intelligence. Houghton Harcourt. Sept. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780547564654. $27. EDUCATION
Listen up, pushy parents; intelligence is not necessarily the attribute children need to develop most. Psychologists, neuroscientists, and even economists are now refocusing on qualities like perseverance, optimism, and curiosity as the true catalysts of success. So may we now throw out the SATs? This book served as the basis of a New York Times magazine cover story, and there’s a 12-city tour to Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Denver, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Montreal, so expect demand.

Tyler, Patrick. Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite Who Run the Country—And Why They Can’t Make Peace. Farrar. Sept. 2012. 560p. ISBN 9780374281045. $30. POLITICAL SCIENCE
A longtime reporter at the Washington Post and then the New York Times whose The Great Wall won the 2000 Lionel Gelber Prize, Tyler here argues that Israel is not the democracy it proclaims itself to be but a military society built with the Holocaust in mind and now committed to maintaining war. Look for the controversy over this one.

Annan, Kofi. Interventions: A Life in War and Peace. Sept. 2012. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). NAp. ISBN 9781594204203. $36. MEMOIR/CURRENT EVENTS
Few memoirs coming out this year will be as interesting and as important as this one by Annan, seventh Secretary-General of the UN from January 1997 to December 2006 and a corecipient (with the UN itself) of the Nobel Peace Prize for having founded the Global AIDS and Health Fund. Check in on how the world turned during his time in office.

Bar-Zohar, Michael & Nissim Mishal. Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062123404. $26.99; eISBN 9780062123442. HISTORY
Official biographer of David Ben-Gurion and Shimon Peres, Bar-Zohar joins with leading Israeli TV personality Mishal to document the history of Israel’s crack intelligence service, focusing on high-profile cases ranging from Eichmann’s apprehension to the killing of important Iranian nuclear scientists—which makes the book particularly relevant. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

Bawer, Bruce. Children of the Revolution: How Identity Studies Have Destroyed American Higher Education. Broadside: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780061807374. $25.99; eISBN 9780062097064. HISTORY/EDUCATION
Since Bawer’s While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within was a New York Times best seller and a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and his Stealing Jesus a PW Best Book of the Year, it’s worth paying attention to his latest, a critique of how identity politics have shaped the academy in the last four decades. Not everyone will agree with Bawer that Chicano, African American, and Women’s Studies courses are exercises strictly in power struggle and victimhood that have gotten in the way of objective reasoning, but then listening to all sides of the argument is exactly what thoughtful readers should do. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Gitlin, Todd. Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street. It: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 176p. ISBN 9780062200921. pap. $10. CURRENT EVENTS
Wall Street may not be occupied right now, but the Occupy Wall Street movement has changed our way of thinking; we all know what that “99 percent” means. Arguing that the movement has been misrepresented by both the Left and the Right, Gitlin—author, Columbia journalism/sociology professor, and former president of Students for a Democratic Society—considers the causes and consequences of the movement and where it might go next. Not a huge printing, but right for the right readers; note the 99 percent–friendly paperback price.

Greenberg, Andy. This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim To Free the World’s Information. Dutton. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780525953203. $26.95. TECHNOLOGY/CURRENT EVENTS
In the Sixties we marched in the streets. Now many young men and women fed up with the government, the military, and the corporations slip into silent whistleblower mode, anonymously uploading institutional secrets that they feel should be exposed. Think WikiLeaks, Anonymous, and OpenLeaks, and think about the long-term impact, as Forbes reporter Greenberg has us do here.

Johnson, Joyce. The Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac. Viking. Sept. 2012. 512p. ISBN 9780670025107. $32.95. BIOGRAPHY
Nine months before On the Road was published, aspiring novelist Johnson met Jack Kerouac on a blind date set up by Allen Ginsberg. Minor Characters, her National Book Critics Circle Award winner, detailed their relationship. Here Johnson looks at Kerouac the young artist, showing that his French Canadian background, which left him suspended between two languages and two cultures, deeply influenced his work. For literati everywhere.

Lofgren, Mike. The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted. Viking. Sept. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9780670026265. $24.95. CURRENT EVENTS
Lofgren, a Republican who worked as a Congressional staffer for 28 years—the last 16 as a senior analyst on the House and Senate Budget committees—made news in September 2011 when he angrily quit over the debt ceiling crisis. Critical though he is of the tired Democrats, he saves his real bashing for the Republicans, whom he called lunatics in a piece he subsequently wrote for Truthout. That piece got so many hits so fast that the site crashed; reading the book might be just as tumultuous an experience.

McCord, Catherine. Weelicious: Fast, Easy, and Fresh Recipes Your Kids Want To Eat! Morrow Cookbooks. Sept. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780062078445. $27.50. COOKING
With a new baby and a culinary degree, McCord was well positioned to launch Weelicious.com, which began as a compendium of baby food purees and now fosters family eating that is healthful and tasty and suggests how to teach kids to make smart choices about food. The site gets more than 500,000 hits a day and was among the New York Observer’s Top Ten “Must Read” Websites for Parents, so this should be in demand. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Max, D.T. Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace. Viking. Sept. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780670025923. $26.95. BIOGRAPHY
Appearing in The New Yorker a year after David Foster Wallace’s suicide at age 46, Max’s “The Unfinished: David Foster Wallace’s Struggle To Surpass Infinite Jest” really fired up readers. Now Max offers what is less a portrait of the man than of the artist, detailing Wallace’s struggles to become a novelist while circumventing depression and addiction. He also explores Wallace’s powerful impact on American letters—particularly as a symbol of integrity in an increasingly slick world.

Mazower, Mark. Governing the World: The Rise and Fall of an Idea, 1815 to the Present. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9781594203497. $25.95. HISTORY
Having ranged from Duff Cooper Prize winner Salonica City of Ghosts to Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner Hitler’s Empire, among many other titles, Oxford-trained historian Mazower—now director of the Center for International History at Columbia University—seems good and ready to discuss world government from the post-Napoleonic era forward. Go for it, history fans.

Mendez, Antonio & Matt Baglio. Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History. Viking. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780670026227. $26.95. Downloadable: Random Audio. HISTORY
In 1979, after Iranian militants stormed the American Embassy in Tehran, creating a hostage situation that lasted 444 days, six Americans escaped. Then a CIA agent, Mendez arranged for their rescue by bringing a bunch of Hollywood directors, producers, and actors to Iran, ostensibly to scout locations for a film they dubbed Argo but in fact to contact the escapees and smuggle them out. A crazy plan, but it worked, and Mendez is sharing the details only now. Yes, a film about the rescue is forthcoming, starring Ben Affleck and releasing in September.

Miller, Carol. Up All Night: My Life and Times in Rock Radio. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9780061845246. $24.99. MEMOIR/MUSIC
You bet that there are readers anticipating this memoir by the country’s top female disc jockey, who was raised in a staunchly intellectual Jewish household in Queens, got into progressive rock radio while at the University of Pennsylvania, worked with legends like Cousin Brucie, went all chatty with Paul McCartney and dated Steve Tyler, and eventually made it to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, having hugely shaped the business with her distinctive on-air approach. Here she tells her story, revealing her battle with cancer and fears about an unnamed illness that has taken many family members early in life, which gave her a real incentive to accomplish.

Perry, Michael. Visiting Tom: A Man, a Highway, and the Road to Roughneck Grace. Harper: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780061894442. $25.99; eISBN 9780062097798. BIOGRAPHY
Perry recently returned home to a 37-acre farm in New Auburn, WI (see his Population: 485), where he serves on the local rescue service when not commenting for NPR or acting as a contributing editor to Men’s Health. He’s also neighbors with octogenarian Tom Hartwig, who builds his own cannons, runs a shop seemingly “stocked by Rube Goldberg, curated by Hunter Thompson, and rearranged by a small earthquake,” and defies the four-lane interstate that was shoved through his front yard a few decades back. Perry is a good author—2009’s Coop was an Indie best seller and won a bunch of regional awards—and this portrait of an individual is also a welcome portrait of an underrepresented place and lifestyle. So check it out, especially if Perry come to your neighborhood; his driving tour takes him to Iowa City, Des Moines, Chicago, Wichita, Grand Rapids, Kansas City, St. Louis, Omaha, Lincoln, and Nashville, as well as Northfield, Stillwater, and Minneapolis, MN, and Madison, Rice, Red Wing, and Milwaukee, WI.

Ricks, Thomas E. The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today. Sept. 2012. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. ISBN 9781594204043. $36. CURRENT EVENTS
Once a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, currently with the Center for a New American Security and a Foreign Policy blogger, Pulitzer Prize winner Ricks has already given us two best-selling books on our recent venture in Iraq, The Gamble and Fiasco. Here he steps back to provide a broader picture of military leadership—and particularly the decline in sound military leadership—since World War II. No doubt sobering.

Silver, Nate. The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9781594204111. $27.95. SOCIAL SCIENCE
In 2008, Silver created the polling website and blog FiveThirtyEight.com (named for the number of electors in the electoral college), then relaunched the blog with the New York Times two years later. Here he challenges the very idea of making predictions in everything from weather to politics (interesting position for a pollster), so I won’t venture to say how this book will do. But it has a built-in audience.

Simmons, Sylvie. I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780061994982. $27.99. BIOGRAPHY/MUSIC
A music journalist who’s profiled folks like Neil Young and Johnny Cash and recently won an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for her liner notes for Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight 1970, Simmons conducted more than 100 interviews with friends and musicians (ranging from Judy Collins to, interestingly, Phillip Glass) to craft this portrait of the man who gave us such immortal songs as “Suzanne” and “Bird on a Wire.” Music lovers of a certain age will want, and since Cohen has just wrapped up a sold-out three-year world tour after a 15-year hiatus, he’ll be on their minds.

Weiss, Luisa. My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes). Viking. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780670025381. $26.95. MEMOIR/COOKING
When cookbook editor Weiss launched Thewednesdaychef.com, now an award-winning blog that boasts 100,000 unique visitors per month, it was just the beginning of a dramatic story. As she wrote about cooking her way through a stack of recipes, she was inspired to dump her fiancé, then her job, then her home, leaving New York for Berlin, where she had been partly raised by her Italian mother. Yummy tales, like foraging for plums in an abandoned orchard; even the curmudgeonly might want to head for the kitchen. With an eight-city tour.

White, Kate. Sweet Success: How To Get It, Run with It, Savor It. Harper Business: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062122124. $24.99. BUSINESS
Here’s what White is doing when she’s not at her desk as editor in chief of Cosmopolitan or writing best sellers like the Bailey Weggins mystery series: she’s writing a career guide for women aiming to make it today’s tumultuous business world. To achieve success, says White, you’ve got to “Get It”—that is, take a risk that will land you ahead of the curve, as White did when she put Lady Gaga on Cosmo’s cover—then keep building on what you’ve done and learn to enjoy it (or why bother?). With a 40,000-copy first printing and lots of publicity through social media.

Bowker, Gordon. James Joyce: A New Biography. Farrar. Jun. 2012. 624p. ISBN 9780374178727. $35. BIOGRAPHY
The biographer of Malcolm Lowry, George Orwell, and Lawrence Durrell, Bowker now takes on the literary Everest that is James Joyce. Working with newly discovered materials, he aims to reveal more of the author’s interior landscape, exploring his commitment to writing despite poverty, censorship, and relentless criticism. Richard Ellmann’s monumental biography still tops the charts; let see how this one does.

Coates, John. The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk Taking, Gut Feelings, and the Biology of Boom and Bust. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Jun. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9781594203381. $27.95. BUSINESS/SCIENCE
The French refer to twilight as entre le chien et le loup—between the dog and the wolf, the time when one has trouble telling the two apart.Wall Streeters use the term to highlight that shifty moment when a trader can take a risk or retreat to cut possible losses. Coates, a research fellow in neuroscience and finance at Cambridge, once worked in derivatives and came to believe that trading behavior was deeply related to hormones. His experiments showed that testosterone, bolstered by success, reduces the fear of risk in men, particularly young men (but not women), while failure causes an increase in cortisol, which inhibits risk taking. This biology of risk helps us understand how mind and body work together for success, separating the dogs from the wolves in a wide range of endeavors. For smart readers; makes sense, right?

Cohen, Rich. The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King. Farrar. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780374299279. $27. BIOGRAPHY
Arriving in America in 1891, Samuel Zemurray started out as a fruit peddler and ended up as head of the United Fruit Company—and one of the richest men in the world. As told by Cohen, his is both a rags-to-riches success story and a cautionary tale about the damage done by corporate greed and the exploitation of other countries. A Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair contributing editor with a bunch of best sellers to his name, Cohen should pull this off nicely.

Dolan, Marc. Bruce Springsteen and the Promise of Rock ’n’ Roll. Norton. Jun. 2012. 592p. ISBN 9780393081350. $29.95. BIOGRAPHY/MUSIC
Associate professor of English, American studies, and film studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, and at the City University of New York Graduate Center, Dolan would seem to have the background to write something more than a flashy account of Springsteen’s rise to fame. And that’s what he intends, probing the cultural and political forces that shaped Springsteen while drawing on numerous sources, including unreleased studio recordings and bootlegs of live performances. For serious fans.

Gallagher, Michael & Jonathan Fetter-Vorm. Trinity: Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb. Hill & Wang. Jun. 2012. 160p. ISBN 9780809094684. $22. GRAPHIC NOVEL/HISTORY
Fetter-Vorm has illustrated a number of literary sources, including Beowulf and Moby-Dick, but here he takes on an important aspect of history, chronicling the development of the atomic bomb. The book moves from early research and a vividly rendered depiction of a nuclear chain reaction to the launching of the Manhattan Project and the ethical quandaries of those involved. Strongly consider wherever graphic nonfiction moves.

Jarnow, Jesse. Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock. Gotham: Penguin Group (USA). 288p. ISBN 9781592407156. $18. MUSIC
Yo La Tengo has been around for three decades, defining indie rock and refusing to go glam by joining a big record label. Music journalist and radio show host Jarnow (The Frow Show, WFMU) tells their story. Note the paperback original format, absolutely fitting to the content and the audience. Get wherever music books beyond those celeb bios circulate.

Johnson, Boris. Johnson’s Life of London: The People Who Made the City That Made the World. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Jun. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9781594487477. $27.95. HISTORY
London is a fascinating city, and who better to tell its story that the mayor himself, familiarly known as Boris. This he does by focusing not on events but individuals, from Hadrian to Shakespeare to the Rolling Stones. Before serving in the House of Commons and then becoming mayor, Johnson was a journalist (he was eventually editor of the Spectator), so he should be able to write. Just in time for the 2012 Olympics, this should be an entertainingly irreverent take on a powerhouse city.  

Kemper, Steve. A Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles Through Islamic Africa. Norton. Jun. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780393079661. $27.95. HISTORY
Never heard of Heinrich Barth? Acting for the British government, this German national became part of an expedition through North and Central Africa in 1849, enduring a five-and-a-half year trek over 10,000 miles and the deaths of most of his comrades before finally reaching that shining, legendary city, Timbuktu. But because of Europe’s changing political landscape and Barth’s concern with learning about the African peoples rather than figuring out how to exploit them, he didn’t get the attention at the time that he deserved. His story is known primarily by scholars, to whom his discoveries remain invaluable, which makes this an important corrective to our understanding of Africa’s exploration. And it sounds fascinating.  

Koslow, Sally, Slouching Toward Adulthood: Observations from the Not-So-Empty Nest. Viking. Jun. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780670023622. $25.95. CURRENT EVENTS
A novelist (With Friends Like These) and journalist (O: The Oprah Magazine, Huffington Post), Koslow draws on her own experience, as well as research and interviews, to talk about a crucial issue these days: the number of adult children who have returned home to live with their parents. She calls these children adultescents, and her book seems less a discussion of why this is happening and what (if anything) to do about it than a portrait of the adjustments families are now making.

 Mann, James. The Obamians: How a Band of Newcomers Redefined American Power. Viking. Jun. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780670023769. $26.95. CURRENT EVENTS
In his best-selling Rise of the Vulcans, Mann profiled the advisers who helped shape George W. Bush’s foreign policy. Here he looks at the idealistic young advisers Obama brought with him to the White House who found themselves up against both the messy realities of world politics and an older, more seasoned group of advisers (e.g., Joseph Biden, Hilary Clinton) who had a different view of things. Food for the political nuts among us, and there are lots.

Rees, Martin. From Here to Infinity: A Vision for the Future of Science. Norton. Jun. 2012. 160p. ISBN 9780393063073. $23.95. SCIENCE
A lot of folks are intimated by science, and Cambridge astrophysicist Rees wants them to get over it. After all, many of the crucial issues we face today, from health care to energy policy to climate change, demand an understanding of science. Rees here makes a case for increased communication between scientists and nonscientists so that we can all be better informed. It’s an important idea that I hope finds readers.

Sullivan, Randall. Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson. Grove. Jun. 2012. 388p. ISBN 9780802119629. $26.95; eISBN 9780802195654. BIOGRAPHY/MUSIC
As the subtitle suggests, this book by a former Rolling Stone contributing editor and writer recounts not only Jackson’s in-the-spotlight upbringing and the controversies of his adult life—the business errors, pedophilia accusations, savaged reputation, and comeback album and 50 megaconcerts he was planning at his death—but the death itself, including the public’s reaction, the estate battles, and the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray. Seems there’s an effort here at balance; likely lots of demand.

Wahls, Zach. My Two Moms: Everything I Needed To Know About Gay Marriage I Learned in Boy Scouts. Gotham Bks: Penguin Group (USA). Jun. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9781592407132. $26. MEMOIR
There are plenty of charming, Eagle Scout engineering students about, but only one testified before the Iowa House of Representatives in January 2011 that the sexual orientation of his two moms had had, as he said, “zero effect on the content of his character.” That was Wahls, just 19, and his speech subsequently appeared on YouTube, soon racking up more than two million views. Here he expands on his life story, speaking first to youngers like himself, raised by a same-sex couple, and then to all those who feel like outsiders, telling them that they are not alone. A needed book, and Wahls is now a known quantity.

Zuckerman, Peter & Amanda Padoan. Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2’s Deadliest Day. Norton. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780393079883. $26.95. MOUNTAINEERING
As long as Westerners have been scaling the Himalayas, Sherpas—inhabitants of Nepal’s most mountainous regions—have climbed with them, not merely as porters but as expert mountaineers. Yet they have never been given their due. Here is the story of Chhiring Dorje Sherpa and Pasang Lama, who participated in the 2008 assault on K2 that left 11 climbers dead, though they themselves survived. The book takes pains to explore their culture and the burden felt by such impoverished young men who take on dangerous work that pays well yet remains an offense to the mountains they revere. Sobering.