Nonfiction
Stars
Nonfiction Stars of 2001 - A selected
list of titles.
This reading list is based on personal preferences. It reflects interests
in history, science, nature, travel, biography, memoirs and a few assorted
odd topics. Titles are listed by approximate date of publication, then
alphabetically by author.
Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine - unless otherwise noted.
December ~ November
~ October ~ September
~ August ~ July
~ June ~ May ~ April
~ March ~ February
~ January
December ~ November ~ October
~ September ~ August ~ July
~ June ~ May ~ April
~ March ~ February
~ January
- Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers
by Hammett, Jo
Publisher: Carrol & Graf $ ISBN: 30 0786708921 Date: 2001
PW Booklist
A daughter's intimate memoir of the celebrated Dashiell Hammett is richly
illustrated with never-before-published photos from family albums.
Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
- Diamond: A Journey to the Heart of an Obsession
by Hart, Matthew
Publisher: Walker $ 26 ISBN: 0802713688 Date: 2001
Kirkus Booklist
From the smugglers' paradise of the South African mines to the glittering
store windows of Tiffany's, Hart follows the diamond trail, encountering
characters as memorable as the stones they seek.
Read-a-like suggestion: The Barren Lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds
in the North American Artic by Kevin Krajick.
- How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True
Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything
in It
Author: Herman, Arthur
Publisher: Crown $ 25.95 ISBN:0690606352 Date: 2001
Library Journal
For many, the thought of Scotland conjures up little more than kilts,
bagpipes, and Scotch whiskey. In this lively and engrossing history,
Arthur Herman--distinguished historian, author, and coordinator of the
Smithsonian's Western Heritage Program--makes it clear that Scotland
truly invented modern civilization.
Suggested Reading: Scotland
Updated 11/20/01
- Every Tongue Got to Confess:
Negro Folktales from the Gulf States
Author: Hurston, Zora Neale
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25 ISBN: 0060188936 Date: 2001
Kirkus
The most extensive volume of African-American folklore that Hurston
left behind, this collection of nearly 500 folktales gathered in the
late 1920s represents a major part of her literary legacy.
Suggested Reading: Folk and Fairy Tales
- Red Dust: A Path Through China
by Ma, Jian
Publisher: Pantheon $ 25 ISBN: 0375420592 Date: 2001
Kirkus
A remarkable travelogue by a young Chinese artist whose revelatory view
of life in the most remote and untouched parts of post-Mao rural China
is like nothing else Western readers have ever experienced.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
- The Burning: The Massacre and Destruction of a Place Called
Greenwood
by Madigan, Tim
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312272839 Date: 2001
Kirkus
A comprehensive look at the tragic Greenwood massacre of 1921 when a
white mob obliterated a black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma. With chilling
details, this story recreates Greenwood and the events leading up to
its destruction.
- The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes
by Matthiessen, Peter
Publisher: FSG/North Point $ 27 ISBN: 0374199442 Date: 2001
Publishers Weekly Booklist
Sacred to many cultures and considered a bellwether by environmentalists,
cranes have an important place in this world, here a leading naturalist
and writer travels the globe in search of this prized--and vanishing--bird.
Suggested Reading: Nature | For the Birds
- The Key to My Neighbor's House: Searching for Justice in Bosnia
and Rwanda
by Neuffer, Elizabeth
Publisher: Picador $ 27 ISBN: 0312261268 Date: 2001
Kirkus
From her unique vantage as a reporter directly covering the reality
of genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda, award-winning journalist Neuffer tells
the compelling story of two parallel journeys toward justice in each
country.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Former Yugoslavia
- Sacred Monsters: Capote, Garbo, Braque and Others
by Richardson, John
Publisher: Random $ 27.95 ISBN: 0679424903 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Insightful and opinionated, erudite and amusing, this collection by
the author of A Life of Picasso provides a personal, close-up
look at a marvelously eclectic mix of artists and writers, tastemakers
and tycoons.
- The Prisoners of Cabrera: Napolean's Forgotten Soldiers, 1809-1814
by Smith, Dennis
Publisher: Four Walls $ 24 ISBN: 1568582129 Date: 2001
Kirkus
After their surrender at the Battle of Bailen, 12,000 French prisoners
of war were exiled to the bleak island of Cabrera in the Mediterranean,
with only the clothes on their backs. This is the meticulously researched
account of their story, never before told in English.
- Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Reflections on Death, Rebirth,
and a Hunger for a Faith
by Terkel, Studs
Publisher: New Press $ 25.95 ISBN: 1565846923 Date: 2001
Booklist PW
At the age of 88, Pulitzer Prize winner Studs Terkel has turned to the
ultimate human experience, that of death and the possibility of life
afterward. Death is the one experience we all share but cannot know.
In his powerful new book, Will the Circle Be Unbroken?, a wide
range of people address that final experience and its impact on the
present in which we live.
- Mark Twain
by Ward, Geoffrey
Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375405615 Date: 2001
Kirkus
From the authors of Jazz, Baseball and The Civil War:
the first fully illustrated biography of one of the central figures
of literature--the American titan who gave readers Huckleberry Finn,
Tom Sawyer, and Life on the Mississippi. A companion volume to
the four-hour PBS television series.
Suggested Reading: Twain Stars
- The Devil's Details: A History of the
Footnote
Author: Zerby, Chuck
Publisher: Invisible Cities $ 24 ISBN: 1931229058 Date: 2001
Kirkus
~ December ~ November ~ October
~ September ~ August ~ July
~ June ~ May ~ April
~ March ~ February
~ January
- Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden
by Ackerman, Diane
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25 ISBN: 0060199865 Date: 2001
Kirkus PW
In the mode of her bestselling A Natural History of the Senses,
Ackerman's new book celebrates the sensory pleasures and wonders of
natures she discovers in her garden.
Suggested Reading: Nature
- I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Stories from NPR's
National Story Project
by Auster, Paul (ed)
Publisher: Henry Holt $ 25 ISBN: 0805067140 Date: 2001
Booklist
One of America's foremost writers, novelist Paul Auster (Timbuktu)
and the host of National Public Radio's All Things Considered,
collects the best stories submitted to NPR's popular show--and illuminates
the powerful role of storytelling in all readers lives.
- Patience & Fortitude: A Roving Chronicle of Book People, Book
Places, and Book Culture
by Basbanes, Nicholas A.
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 35 ISBN: 0060196955 Date: 2001 Date: 2001
Booklist Library Journal
The author of A Gentle Madness now considers the evolving form
of the book over the centuries, preservation efforts, and the great
national, public, and institutional libraries around the world.
Suggested Reading: Books About Books
- Postmodern Pooh
by Crews, Frederick
Publisher: FSG $ 22 ISBN: 0865476268 Date: 2001
PW Kirkus
Purporting to be the proceedings of a forum on Pooh convened at the
Modern Language Association's annual convention, Postmodern Pooh
brilliantly parodies the academic fads and figures that hold sway at
the millennium.
Suggested Reading: Books About Books
- Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell's 1969 Journey of
Discovery and Tragdy Through the Grand Canyon
by Dolnick, Edward
Publisher: HarperCollins $27.50 ISBN: 006019619x Date: 2001
Kirkus
Drawing on rarely examined diaries and journals, this "you are there"
narrative follows one of the greatest explorative adventures in U.S.
history: John Wesley Powell's 1869 journey through the Grand Canyon.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
- This Cold Heaven
Author: Ehrlich, Gretel
Publisher: Pantheon $ 27.50 ISBN: 0679442006 Date: 2001
Booklist
The celebrated author of A Match to the Heart and The Solace
of Open Spaces now takes readers on an extraordinary journey into
the heart of the land of ice. Drawings throughout.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
- Paradise Screwed: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen
by Hiaasen, Carl
Publisher: Putnam $ 25.95 ISBN: 0399147918 Date: 2001
Booklist
This collection of "Miami Herald" columns--written with a satiric wit and biting humor--offers a glimpse of the facts that inspire, and prove far stranger than, Hiaasen's frenetic fiction.
Suggested Reading: If You Like Carl Hiaasen
- Sky of Stone: A Memoir
by Hickham, Homer H.
Publisher: Delacorte $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385335229 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Once again, the bestselling author of October Sky takes readers
on a literary ride back to the West Virginia hometown of his youth.
In 1961, a scandal at the mine threatens to ruin his father, so Sonny
returns home for the summer and discovers truths not just about his
parents, but about himself and the true nature of his dreams.
Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
- Best of Times: America in the Age of Clinton
by Johnson, Haynes
Publisher: Harcourt $ 27 ISBN: 0151004455 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Johnson presents a fascinating recreation of the best and worst episodes
of the decade, with interviews, behind-the-scenes stories and the impact
of politics and Wall Street on it all.
- Fire
by Junger, Sebastian
Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393010465 Date: 2001
Kirkus Publishers Weekly
For readers of The Perfect Storm, opening this long-awaited
new
work by Junger will be like stepping off the deck of the Andrea
Gail
and into the inferno of a fire burning out of control in the steep
canyons of Idaho. From the murderous mechanics of the diamond trade
in Sierra Leone to the logic of guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan and
the forensics of genocide in Kosovo, this new collection of Junger's
nonfiction will take readers places they wouldn't dream of going to
on their own.
Suggested Reading: On Fire
- The Riddle and the Knight: In Search
of Sir John Mandeville, the World's Greatest Traveler
Author: Milton, Giles
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux $ 23 ISBN: 0374249970 Date: 2001
Booklist
Milton's first book, The Riddle and the Knight, is part travelogue,
part historical mystery, and a fascinating account of the legend of
Sir John Mandeville, a long-forgotten knight who was once the most famous
writer in medieval Europe.
- Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere
by Morris, Jan
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 23 ISBN: 0743201280 Date: 2001
Booklist
Historian and travel writer Morris demonstrates, in this homage to one
of her favorite cities, that Trieste has many charms. Its history is
foremost among them, thanks to the city's former role as the sole port
of the otherwise landlocked Austro-Hungarian empire.
Suggested Reading: Travel
Tales
- Lift Up Thy Voice
by Perry, Mark
Publisher: Viking $ 29.95 ISBN: 0670030112 Date: 2001
Kirkus
- Uncle Tungsten: Memoirs of a Chemical Childhood
by Sacks, Oliver
Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 0375404481 Date: 2001
Kirkus PWLibrary Jourrnal
In an unforgettable portrait of an extraordinary mind, the distinguished
neurologist offers an account of his youth, as unexpected and fascinating
as his celebrated case histories.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Memoirs
- Treachery at Sharpnose Point:
the Final Voyage of the Caledonia
Author: Seal, Jeremy
Publisher: Harcourt $ 24 ISBN: 0151005249 Date: 2001
Library Journal
Acclaimed travel writer Seal adroitly weaves Victorian mystery and pirate
lore into this present-day detective story as he unravels the wrecking
of a ship in 1842 off the coast of Cornwall.
Suggested Reading: Sea Stories
- Stuffed: The Story of a Restaurant Family
by Volk, Patricia
Publisher: Knopf $ 23 ISBN: 0375411062 Date: 2001
KirkusLibrary Jourrnal
Volk's family, chronicled here from the turn of the century to now,
leaves readers speechless--and laughing. Being with the family is a
trip to the spa, a balm to the soul, a double martini--and a hilarious
yet unsparing look at how families work.
Suggested Reading: Cooked Books | Memoirs
~ December ~ November ~ October
~ September ~ August ~ July
~ June ~ May ~ April
~ March ~ February
~ January
- Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo's Ginevra De Benci and
Renaissance Portraits of Women
Author: Brown, David Alan
Publisher: Princeton $ 55 ISBN: 0691090572 Date: 2001
Library Journal
Published in conjunction with the exhibit at the National Gallery
Suggested Reading: Art
Updated 11/20/01
- American Exorcism
by Cuneo, Michael W.
Publisher: Doubleday $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385501765 Date: 2001
LJ PW
The foremost authority on exorcism in America gives a guided tour of
this burgeoning business and of the darker side of religion.
- War in a Time of Peace
by Halberstam, David
Publisher: Scriber $ 28 ISBN: 0743202120 Date: 2001
Kirkus
More than 25 years ago, Halberstam told the riveting story of the men
who conceived and executed the Vietnam War. Today the Pulitzer Prize-winning
author has written another unforgettable chronicle of Washington politics,
this time exploring the complex dynamics of foreign policy in post-Cold
War America.
- The Northern Lights
by Jago, Lucy
Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375409807 Date: 2001
Library Journal Booklist
A galvanizing, enlightening saga, The Northern Lights chronicles
the life of the visionary 20th-century Norwegian scientist Kristian
Birkeland, whose quest for an explanation of the aurora borealis took
him across some of the most forbidding landscapes on Earth.
Suggested Reading: Nature
- Capri and No Longer Capri
by La Capria, Raffaelle
Publisher: Nation $ 22.95 ISBN: 1560253487 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Long a cult travel guide and memoir in Italy, this portrait of the island
of Capri is now translated in English. The mythology of Capri is explored,
from its history that begins during the time of Ulysses and Homer moving
into the present.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
- Savage Beauty: A Biography of Edna St Vincent Millay
by Milford, Nancy
Publisher: Random $ 29.95 ISBN: 039457589X Date: 2001
Kirkus PW Booklist Library Journal
Thirty years after the smashing success of Zelda, Milford returns
with a stunning second act. Savage Beauty is the portrait of
Edna St. Vincent Millay, a passionate, fearless woman who obsessed America
even as she tormented herself.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
| Authors
- A Family Place: A Hudson Valley Farm, Three Generations, Five
Wars, One Family
by Philip, Leila
Publisher: Viking $ 23.95 ISBN: 0670030139 Date: 2001
Kirkus
A Family Place is an evocative, first-person account of Leila Philip's search to uncover and then to come to terms with her family's rich and complicated past. This is a past populated by manor lords and tenant farmers, romantic-era gentlemen farmers and Civil War heroes, wealthy ne'er-do-wells, renega
- President Nixon: Alone in the White House
by Reeves, Richard
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 35 ISBN: 0684802317 Date: 2001
Booklist
Just when it seems that there is absolutely nothing more to be said
about Nixon, syndicated columnist Reeves comes upon some newly discovered
or declassified documents to present an account of the brilliant and
isolated man who destroyed his own presidency.
Suggested Reading:Nixon
- de aunts, and secret children, all of them inextricably linked to a white-columned mansion named Talavera, located two hours from New York City in the Hudson Valley.
- Fateful Harvest: The True Story of a Small Town, a Global Industry,
and a Toxic Secret
by Wilson, Duff
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26 ISBN: 0060193697 Date: 2001
Booklist Kirkus
This riveting expose is developed from a series of articles Wilson wrote
for the Seattle Times which revealed the shocking details of
manufacturing industries that pass off dumped toxic waste as fertilizer.
~ December ~ November ~ October
~ September ~ August ~ July
~ June ~ May ~ April
~ March ~ February
~ January
- Ava's Man
by Bragg, Rick
Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 0375410627 Date: 2001
KirkusBooklistPW
No one writes about the South like Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg
(All Over But the Shoutin). Once again, he lends his voice to
the working people of the Deep South, and tells the story of a memorable
figure in a singular time--a man on a lost stretch of dirt road along
the Alabama/Georgia border.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Memoir Stars
- The Liar's Tale: A History of Falsehood
by Campbell, Jeremy
Publisher: Norton $ 26.95 ISBN: 0393025594 Date: 2001
Kirkus
A bold new exploration of ethics and philosophy, The Liar's Tale
extols the benefits of falsehood. With insight into rhetoric, language,
and the sciences, Campbell launches his discussion with Darwin and evolutionary
biology and from there builds a foundation of philosophical evidence
that is unsettling and highly original.
- The Aztec Treasure House
by Connell, Evan S.
Publisher: Counterpoint $ 28 ISBN: 1582431620 Date: 2001
PW
Connell offers stories of the Anazasi, the "old ones" of the Southwestern
desert, of the grand explorers Marco Polo, Coumbus, Magellan, and Ibn
Batuta, and of heretics, fanatics, scientists, cranks and geniuses.
- Great Waters
by Cramer, Deborah
Publisher: Norton $ 27.95 ISBN: 0393020193 Date: 2001
Booklist
In the course of an ocean voyage, Cramer offers a remarkable meditation
on and spiritual exploration of one of our least appreciated natural
resources: the Atlantic Ocean.
- Eye of the Whale
by Russell, Dick
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 35 ISBN: 0684866080 Date: 2001
LJ Kirkus
In the 1980s, naturalist Dick Russell led the crusade to save the Atlantic
striped bass. Now he focuses his energies on the gray whale in this
brilliant mosaic of man's complex relationship with the natural world.
Suggested Reading: Nature
- Venus in Exile
by Steiner, Wendy
Publisher: Free $ 26 ISBN: 0684857812 Date: 2001
Kirkus
The author of The Scandal of Pleasure: Art in an Age of Fundamentalism now takes an ambitious and provocative new look at the evolving definition of "beauty" in our culture, from Manet to Mapplethorpe, Mary Shelley to Martha Stewart.
- Rock Til You Drop: Squawkn about My Generation
by Strausbaugh, John
Publisher: Verso $ 25 ISBN: 1859846297 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Strausbaugh reflects acidly on a generation that started out as self-anointed
world changers and ended up as short-changers of the ideals that were
the genesis of their art.
- Milking the Moon
by Walter, Eugene
Publisher: Crown $ 25 ISBN: 0609605941 Date: 2001
Kirkus
This sumptuous oral biography of the late Eugene Walker, the most well-known
man you've never heard of: part actor, editor, author, gourmet chef,
and all Southerner--not to mention the personal acquaintance of many
of the 20th century's cultural giants.
- The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth
of Modern Geology
by Winchester, Simon
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25 ISBN: 0060193611 Date: 2001
Kirkus PWLJ
From the author of the bestselling The Professor and the Madman
comes the fascinating story of William Smith, a 19th-century engineer
who is obsessed with creating the world's first geological map and ultimately
becomes the father of modern geology.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
- The Assassination of Lumumba
by Witte, Ludo de
Publisher: Verso $ 29 ISBN: 1859846181 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Employing an array of official sources as well as personal testimony, De Witte unravels the appalling mass of lies that have surrounded the murder of the prime minister of the Republic of Congo. A network of complicity is revealed, ranging from the Belgian government across the United Nations to the CIA.
Suggested Reading: Congo
~ December ~ November ~ October
~ September ~ August ~ July
~ June ~ May ~ April
~ March ~ February
~ January
- Casino Moscow: A Tale of Greed and Adventure on Capilalism's
Wildest Frontier
by Brzezinski, Matthew
Publisher: Free $ 25 ISBN: 0684869764 Date: 2001
PW Kirkus
A wickedly funny odyssey through newly capitalist Russia--a tale of
greed, gangsterism, and good intentions gone awry--is offered by a journalist
with a ringside seat who was there for the ride.
- Tiger's Eye
by Clendinnen, Inga
Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0743206002 Date: 2001
PW
From the author of Reading the Holocaust comes a celebrated memoir
that reveals how the imagination can be liberated even when the body
is disabled.
Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
- Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments
by Dunne, Dominick
Publisher: Crown $ 24 ISBN: 0609608738 Date: 2001
PW Kirkus
In this fascinating collection, the world's most accomplished chronicler
of the crimes of the wealthy writes on some of the most notorious trials
of our times, including the explosive Martha Moxley murder case, the
trials of O.J. Simpson and Claus von Bulow, and Dunne's heartrending
report of the trial of his daughter's killer.
Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars | Legal Nonfiction
- The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meterologist Forged
the Language of the Skies
by Hamblyn, Richard
Publisher: Farrar Straus & Grioux $ 24 ISBN: 0374177155 Date: 2001
Kirkus
A captivating mixture of biography, history, and science. - Publisher
marketing.
Suggested Reading: Nature
| Weather
- The Secret Life of Dust: From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter,
the Big Consequences of Little Things
by Holmes, Hannah
Publisher: Wiley $ 22.95 ISBN: 0471377430 Date: 2001
Kirkus
A mesmerizing expedition around the dusty world--from exploding stars,
to dinosaur beds, the Gobi Desert, Antarctic glaciers, and finally the
living-room coffee table. Along the way is a delightful cast of characters--the
scientists who study dust.
Suggested Reading: Nature
- Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV
by Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy
Publisher: Univ of Chicago $35 ISBN: 0226473201 Date: 2001
PW
The Duke of Saint-Simon (1675-1755) was a self-obsessed courtier and
chronicler of court life under Louis XIV. Drawing heavily on his memoirs,
historian Ladurie offers a wonderful portrait of life with Louis, focusing
on issues of hierarchy and rank in this tightly controlled universe.
- Lost White Tribes: The End of Privilege and the Last Colonials
in Sri Lanka, Jamaica, Brazil, Haiti, Namibia, and Guadeloupe
by Orizio, Riccardo
Publisher: Free $ 25 ISBN: 0743211979 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Following the trail of the last colonials, Orizio lifts the veil on
a hidden world, bringing readers on a journey to the lost corners of
the post-colonial world to meet the people voyaging Europeans left behind.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
- Dr. Johnson's London: Coffee-House and Climbing Boys, Medicine,
Toothpaste and Gin, Poverty and Press-Gangs, Freakshows and Female Education
by Picard, Liza
Publisher: St Martins $ 27.50 ISBN: 0312276656 Date: 2001
Kirkus
A fascinating portrait of life in 18th-century London, the city of Hogarth,
Fielding, and Dr. Johnson, is presented by the author of Restoration
London. "At last, a riveting history book with no wars, few dates,
and minimal references to the King".--Sunday Express(London).
- Jefferson's Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of
Black Patriotism
by Wilkins, Roger
Publisher: Beacon $ 23 ISBN: 0807009563 Date: 2001
PW
A civil rights advocate and historian reconsiders life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness as he looks at the lives of George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, and others who forged a nation in which "all men are
created equal" but whose property included African women, children,
and men.
Suggested Reading: 1776 Stars
~ December ~ November ~ October
~ September ~ August ~ July
~ June ~ May ~ April
~ March ~ February
~ January
- Chance in the House of Fate: A Natural History of Heredity
by Ackerman, Jennifer G.
Publisher: Houghton $ 25 ISBN: 0618082875 Date: 2001
LJ
In a fascinating history of humanity seen through the microscopic lens,
an award-winning science writer explores how human heredity links us
to the rest of the natural world.
Suggested Reading: Nature
- Body Toxic: An Environmental Memoir
by Antonetta, Susanne
Publisher: Counterpoint $ 26 ISBN: 1582431167 Date: 2001
Booklist
The author's family tried to realize the American dream with a summer
escape where the rural and industrial collide. But the land was contaminated
and made them all ill. Body Toxic merges the personal and familial
with the historical, political, and environmental.
Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
- Ancient Encounters: Kennewick Man and the First Americans
by Chatters, James C.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 26 ISBN: 068485936x Date: 2001
Booklist
A firsthand account, by the scientist who made the discovery, of how
a nearly complete 9,500-year-old skeleton found near Kennewick is shedding
new light on who came to the Americas before the Native Americans.
- How Milton Works
by Fish, Stanley Eugene
Publisher: Harvard $ 35 ISBN: 0674004655 Date: 2001
Kirkus LJ
Surprised by Sin, first published in 1967, established Fish as one of the world's preeminent Milton scholars. The lifelong engagement begun in that work culminates in this book, the magnum opus of a formidable critic and the definitive statement on Milton for our time. - Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Authors
- Playing the Moldovans at Tennis
Author: Hawks, Tony
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312280106 Date: 2001
Booklist
A bestseller in England, this work by the author of Round Ireland
with a Fridge finds Hawks on an extraordinary travel adventure in
an attempt to beat all 11 members of the Moldovan soccer team at tennis.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
- Woman Who Watches over the World: A Native Memoir
by Hogan, Linda
Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393050181 Date: 2001
Booklist
Hogan, an award-winning Chickasaw poet and novelist, renders a powerful
history of her family and the way in which tribal history informs her
own past. Ultimately, the author sees herself and her people whole again
and presents an illuminating story of personal spiritual triumph.
Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
- Saving Milly: Love, Politics and Parkinson's Disease
by Kondracke, Morton
Publisher: Public Affairs $ 25 ISBN: 1586480375 Date: 2001
Booklist
A deeply moving, unflinchingly honest memoir by the renowned political
journalist tells of his extraordinary relationship with his wife, Milly,
and how her battle with Parkinson's Disease has transformed their lives.
Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
- The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting
Dead
by Pringle, Heather
Publisher: Hyperion $ 23.95 ISBN: 078685512 Date: 2001
PWBooklist
An acclaimed journalist unravels the mysteries of mummies by following
the scientists who devote their lives to studying them. The World Congress
on Mummy Studies brings together mummy experts from all over the world
and airs their latest findings.
Suggested Reading: Six Feet Under
- The Tale of the Rose: The Passion That Inspired the Little Prince
by Saint-Exupery, Consuelo De
Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 0375505644 Date: 2001
Kirkus
The newly discovered memoir of the passionate romance that inspired
The Little Prince has been a huge bestseller and international
sensation translated into 17 languages. The Tale of the Rose
is Consuelo de Saint-Exupery's love letter she could never send to her
husband, written on Long Island in 1945 when the pain of his death was
still fresh in her heart.
- Sorcerer's Apprentice
by Shah, Tahir
Publisher: Arcade $ 25.95 ISBN: 1559705809 Date: 2001
KirkusBooklist
As a child, Tahir Shah learned the secrets of illusion from an Indian
magician. This is the story of his apprenticeship to one of India's
master conjurors and his initiation into the brotherhood of godmen.
Learning to unmask and practice illusion, he seeks out the subcontinents
sadhus, sages, sorcerers, hypnotists, and humbugs. His quest exposes
a side of India that most writers never imagine exists.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
- Tomorrow to Be Brave: A Memoir of the Only Woman Ever to Serve
in the French Foreign Legion
by Travers, Susan
Publisher: Free Press $ 25 ISBN: 0743200012 Date: 2001
Kirkus LJ
A memoir of the only woman to ever serve in the French Foreign Legion,
the unique story of Susan Travers is told against the backdrop of war-torn
France.
Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
- In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster
in Mobutu's Congo
by Wrong, Michela
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26 ISBN: 0060188804 Date: 2001
PW
In the Congo, a country rich with diamonds, gold, copper, uranium, oil,
and timber, the average worker was reduced to a living income of $120
a year under the rule of Mobutu. This is a brilliant journalistic account
set amid the heart of the apocalypse--a nation plunged back to the Iron
Age, whose citizens miraculously continue to survive.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Congo
~ December ~ November ~ October
~ September ~ August ~ July
~ June ~ May ~ April
~ March ~ February
~ January
- American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood
by Arana, Marie
Publisher: Dial $ 23.95 ISBN: 0385319622 Date: 2001
Kirkus PW LJ Booklist
In the tradition of Richard Rodriguez's A Hunger of Memory comes
a rich, emotionally resonant portrait of a child who must come to terms
with being neither North nor South American, but a mixture of both.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
- Killing Pablo: The Hunt for Pablo the World's Greatest Outlaw
by Bowden, Mark
Publisher: Atlantic $ 25 ISBN: 0871137836 Date: 2001
Kirkus PW
In a gripping, up-close account, acclaimed journalist Mark Bowden exposes
the details of how U.S. military and intelligence operatives covertly
led the mission to find and kill the world's most dangerous outlaw:
Colombian cocaine cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar. This riveting nonfiction
technothriller is from the author of the bestselling Black Hawk Down.
Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars | Drug Traffic Stars
- Banvard's Folly: Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity,
and Rotten Luck
by Collins, Paul
Publisher: Picador $ 25 ISBN: 0312268866 Date: 2001
Kirkus
This impeccably documented book offers portraits of famously forgotten
men and women, who leap from the ash heap of thankless obscurity and
directly onto the page. Includes profiles of the eccentric panorama
painter John Banvard, the delusional physicist Rene Blandlot, and the
Shakespeare forger William Henry Ireland.
- Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior,
and Evolution
by Coppinger, Raymond
Publisher: Scribner $ 26 ISBN: 0684855305 Date: 2001
PW LJ
The Coppingers explore how dog breeds have evolved into their unique
shapes and behaviors. Concentrating on five types of dogs--modern household
dogs, village dogs, livestock guarding dogs, sled dogs, and herding
dogs--they examine canine companions from a unique biological viewpoint.
Suggested Reading: Nature | Dog Stars
- Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in Boom-Time America
by Ehrenreich, Barbara
Publisher: Metropolitan $ 23 ISBN: 0805063889 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages. Social critic Barbara
Ehrenreich joined them, moving into a trailer and working as a waitress,
hotel maid, and Wal-Mart sales clerk. Nickel and Dimed reveals
low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and duality.
Suggested Reading: Reading
Group Stars | Adult Books for Teens
- Great Feuds in History: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever
by Evans, Colin
Publisher: Wiley $ 24.95 ISBN: 0471380385 Date: 2001
Kirkus
- The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America
and Its Peoples
by Flannery, Tim
Publisher: Atlantic $ 27.50 ISBN: 0871137895 Date: 2001
Kirkus LJ PW Booklist
Offering a wealth of scientific details, one of the world's foremost
paleontologists has undertaken a sweeping, multiple disciplinary history
of the geological and ecological development of North America.
Suggested Reading: Nature |
All Stars
- Time Travel in Einstein's Universe
by Gott, Richard
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 25 ISBN: 0395955637 Date: 2001
Booklist PW
Time travel in Newton's universe was inconceivable, but in Einstein's
universe it has become a possibility. J. Richard Gott III, a Princeton
astrophysicist, gives readers a guided tour of the potential of traveling
through time. Although scientists such as Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne
have previously considered the topic, Gott goes light-years beyond them
in his exploration of this exciting idea.
- Oh, Waiter! One Order of Crow!: Inside the Strangest Presidential
Election Finish in American History
by Greenfield, Jeff
Publisher: Putnam $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399147764 Date: 2001
Booklist PW
CNN's award-winning media analyst leads readers through an Alice-in-Wonderland
world of butterfly ballots and pregnant chads, shifting deadlines and
spin doctors as he explores Election Night 2000 and its tumultuous aftermath.
- The Letters of Dashiell Hammett
by Hammett, Dashiell, Layman, Richard, Rivett, Julie Date: 2001
Publisher: Counterpoint $ 40 ISBN: 1582430810
Booklist PW
This literary event features the letters, both private and professional,
of Dashiell Hammett, creator of Sam Spade and the father of the hardboiled
crime novel. With wit, intelligence, and style, these letters confirm
Hammett's extraordinary talent as writer and observer
Suggested Reading: Authors
- House-Dreams: the Story of an Amateur Builder and Two Novice
Apprentices and How They Turned an Overgrown Blackberry Patch, Ten Truckloads
of Lumber, a Keg of Cut . . .
by Howard, Hugh
Publisher: Algonquin $ 23.95 ISBN: 1565122933 Date: 2001
Booklist
HOUSE-DREAMS is for readers who spend weekends improving their houses, hardware store die-hards, and the millions who regularly tune in to the Home Garden Network and PBS's This Old House. - Publisher Marketing.
- Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota
by Klosterman, Chuck
Publisher: Scribner $ 23 ISBN: 0743202279 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Powered by a sharp and wholly original voice, Klosterman delivers a
real-life High Fidelity in this savvy, deliriously funny memoir
of growing up a shameless heavy-metal devotee in 1980s North Dakota.
Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars | Music
- John Adams
by McCullough, David
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 35 ISBN: 0684813637 Date: 2001
Kirkus Booklist PW
In his first book since Truman, one of America's most distinguished
and popular biographers breathes life into history with this compelling
look at the second president of the United States, John Adams. More
than just a biography, this book looks at the birth of a young republic
and explores the extraordinary factors that transformed 13 colonies
into a united nation.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
| 1776 Stars
- Wild Nights, Nature Returns to the City
by Matthews, Anne
Publisher: North Point $ 22 ISBN: 0865475601 Date: 2001
Booklist
Matthews conducts a walk on New York City's truly wild side and gives
a glimpse of the landscape of the future as she explores the resurgence
of nature within the city. With deer in Manhattan, coyotes in the Bronx,
and wild turkeys flying down Broadway, she shows how nature stubbornly
reasserts itself even in the most violently resculptured terrain.
Suggested Reading: Nature
- Touching My Father's Soul: A Sherpa's Journey to the Top of
Everest
by Norgay, Jamling Tenzing
Publisher: Harper $ 26 ISBN: 0062516876 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Son of the first Sherpa to summit Everest, Jamling Tenzing Norgay traces
his father's historic ascent and reveals the untold story of this famous
mountain. The author is the climbing leader of the IMAX movie Everest.
Suggested Reading: Tibet
- The Botany of Desire
by Pollan, Michael
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375501290 Date: 2001
PW Booklist
In this original narrative about man and nature, a bestselling author
masterfully links four fundamental human desires--sweetness, beauty,
intoxication, and control--with the fascinating stories of four plants
that embody them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato.
Suggested Reading: Nature
- Staying Tuned: A Life in Journalism
by Schorr, Daniel
Publisher:Pocket $ 26.95 ISBN: 0671020870 Date: 2001
Kirkus PW
A living legend of American journalism, three-time Emmy winner Schorr
affords readers a sharply written and rousing account of his matchless
career as a groundbreaking print and broadcast newsman.
- The Seventies: How the 1970's Transformed America
by Schulman, Bruce J.
Publisher: Free Press $ 26 ISBN: 0681828146 Date: 2001
PW
In an engaging blend of anecdote and analysis, The Seventies
provides a real assessment of the crucial years from 1968 to 1984 and
the ways in which they changed America forever.
- Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most
Dramatic Mission
by Sides, Hampton
Publisher: Doubleday $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385495641 Date: 2001
PW
Sides renders a tense, powerful, grand account of one of the most daring
exploits of World War II: the rescue of American and British POWs behind
enemy lines in the Philippines. Ghost Soldiers is far more than
a thrilling battle saga as the author explores the mystery of human
behavior under extreme duress.
- Henry VII: The King and His Court
by Weir, Alison
Publisher: Ballantine $ 28 ISBN: 0345436598 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Bestselling author Weir renders with exquisite detail and drama the
life of the charismatic King and his elaborate court. On a grand stage
rich in pageantry, intrigue, passion, and luxury, Weir records the many
human dramas that swirled around Henry while deftly weaving an account
of the intimate rituals of his existence.
Suggested Reading: Henry VIII
~ December ~ November ~ October
~ September ~ August ~ July
~ June ~ May ~ April
~ March ~ February
~ January
- Vermeer: A View of Delft
by Bailey, Anthony
Publisher: Holt $ 27.50 ISBN: 0805067183 Date: 2001
LJ
Bailey presents a compelling portrait of Vermeer's life and character
as he recreates the atmosphere of the times, introduces Vermeer's contemporaries,
and portrays his domestic life in vibrant detail. Bailey sheds light
on the science and artistry behind the glorious, almost mystical, paintings.
Suggested Reading: Vermeer
- The Parrot Who Owns Me: The Story of a Relationship
by Burger, Joanna
Publisher: Villard $ 23.95 ISBN: 0679463305 Date: 2001
LJ PW
An internationally renowned ornithologist tells the extraordinary story
of the parrot who took over her life, revealing fascinating parallels
between humans and birds.
Suggested Reading: Nature | For the Birds
- The Piano Shop on the Left Bank
by Carhart, Thad
Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 0375503048 Date: 2001
Kirkus
This intimate and idiosyncratic history of the piano and a view into
the secret heart of Paris life is written by an American expatriate,
who details his attempts to gain entry into a piano shop where locals
gathered to discuss music, love, and life.
Suggested Reading: Paris
Stars
- Napalm and Silly Putty
by Carlin, George
Publisher: Hyperion $ 22.95 ISBN: 0786864133 Date: 2001
PW
Carlin waxes wickedly philosophical in this hilarious new collection
of razor-sharp observations. The bestselling author of Brain Droppings
proves once again that he's one comic who can successfully make the
transition from stage to page with his ironic take on life's annoying
universal truths.
- Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World
by Garfield, Simon
Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393020053 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Born of a laboratory accident, mauve--this odd shade of purple--revolutionized
fashion, industry, and the practice of science. Mauve became the most
desirable shade in the fashion houses of Paris and London in the late
1800s and sparked new interest in the industrial applications of chemistry
research.
- The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction
by Hiney, Tom (ed)
Publisher: Atlantic $ 25 ISBN: 0871137860 Date: 2001
Library Journal Booklist
A new collection of Chandler's correspondence, much of which has never
before been made public, reveals all aspects of the artist's powerful
personality and intellectual curiosity. Includes previously unpublished
early writings and an abandoned profile of mobster Lucky Luciano.
Suggested Reading: Authors
- The Shadow of the Sun
by Kapuscinski, Ryszard
Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 0679454918 Date: 2001
Kirkus PW
Kapuscinski presents this account of his experiences in Africa after
colonial rule ended in 1957 and chronicles the disintegration of nations,
political changes, all the way up to the arrival of AIDS and the departure
of the white man.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
- Severed Trust: Why American Medicine Hasn't Been Fixed
by Lundberg, George
Publisher: Basic $ 26 ISBN:0465042910 Date: 2001
Kirkus
In this no-holds-barred book, Lundberg, editor-in-chief of medical journal
Medscape, speaks out on the crisis in contemporary medicine. He charges
that organized medicine has become an overbuilt political-industrial
complex with disastrous results. His analysis of greedy doctors, profit-hungry
drug companies, and a corrupted AMA is certain to provoke controversy
and stimulate debate.
Suggested Reading: Medical Nonfiction
- Going Inside: A Tour Round a Single Moment of Conciousness
by McCrone, John
Publisher: Fromm $ 30 ISBN: 0880642629 Date: 2001
Kirkus
The mysteries of human consciousness -- the most unyielding of the enigmas of the human brain -- are at last beginning to reveal their secrets. What happens in that split second before we become aware and the brain prompts us to speak or act? In Going Inside, John McCrone takes us inside a single instant of consciousness -- that moment before a tennis player hits the ball without seeing it. What are the dynamics occurring inside the brain on a subconscious level before each moment of awareness? With great clarity and detail, McCrone tells us about the new ideas and research tools -- such as brain scanning, which snaps pictures of thoughts or images in a person's head. He explains why the model of the mind as a giant computer is being abandoned. In its place has emerged a view of a dynamic, evolving, chaotic system -- seeing the brain as an organ that literally "grows" awareness. These new ideas have wrought a revolution in cognitive neuroscience, now enjoying the kind of glory days that particle physics saw in the 1960s and genetics in the 1980s.
- Publisher Marketing.
- Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth Century Russia
by Merridale, Catherine
Publisher: Viking $ 29.95 ISBN: 0670894745 Date: 2001
Kirkus
In this provocative book, the author asks Russians difficult questions
about how their country's volatile past has affected their everyday
lives, their aspirations, their dreams, and their nightmares.
- Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
by Oufkir, Malika
Publisher: Talk Miramax $ 24 ISBN: 0786867329 Date: 2001
Booklist
The adopted daughter of the king of Morocco, whose father was arrested
and executed for a 1972 attempt to assassinate the king, tells the story
of how she, her mother, and her five siblings endured years of imprisonment
in a desert penal colony.
- Comfort Me With Apples: More Adventures at the Table
by Reichl, Ruth
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375501959 Date: 2001
PW
Picking up where Tender at the Bone leaves off, Comfort Me
with Apples recounts Reichl's transformation from chef to food writer,
a process that led her through restaurants from Bangkok to Paris to
Los Angeles and brought lessons in life, love, and food.
Suggested Reading: Cooked Books | Memoirs
- Facing the Wind: A True Story of Tragedy and Reconciliation
by Salamon, Julie
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375500227 Date: 2001
PW Kirkus
Faced with depression and then delusion, Robert Rowe killed his three
children and his wife with a baseball bat. The author not only tells
the Rowes' tragic story, but explores the lives of others drawn into
it, addressing the questions of how human beings cope with the burdens
that chance inflicts upon them, and what constitutes moral and legal
guilt and innocence.
Sggested Reading List: True Crime Stars
- In Our Own Best Interest: How Defending Human Rights Benefits
All Americans
by Schulz, William F.
Publisher: Beacon $ 25 ISBN: 0807002267 Date: 2001
PW
From the director of Amnesty International comes a provocative new argument
for defending human rights. When people begin to question why events
half a world away affect them, Schulz responds with stories of the connection
between American's prosperity and rights violations on the other side
of the globe.
- Dig Infinity!: the Life and Art of Lord Buckley
by Trager, Oliver
Publisher: Welcome Rain $ 30 (with cd) ISBN:1566491576 Date: 2001
Kirkus
A shameless con man, old-time vaudevillian, stand-up comedian and jazz
shaman, Lord Buckley was arguably the first so-called performance artist.
Accompanying his life story is a CD compilation of recordings from some
of Buckley's most legendary live performances and pieces in the 1950s.
- Son of a Grifter: The Twisted Tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes,
the Most Notorious Con Artists in America
by Walker, Kent & Marke Schone
Publisher: Morrow $ 25 ISBN: 0060188650 Date: 2001
Booklist
The chilling life story of Kent Walker, whose mother, Sante Kimes, and younger brother, Kenny, made national headlines when they were arrested for the 1998 murder of a wealthy New York City widow. Walker reveals how he survived four decades of growing up as the oldest son of a bloodthirsty killer/con artist, and presents a twisted tale of theft, greed, and murder.
Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars
- The Yellow Cross: The Story of the Cathars
by Weis, Rene
Publisher: Knopf $ 35 ISBN: 0375404902 Date: 2001
Kirkus Booklist
This exploration of the medieval community that defied the Catholic
Church and the Inquisition presents the Cathars of France, who became
the focus of systematic repression by the Church and were forced to
wear the yellow cross, the heretic's symbol of shame.
- April 1865: The Month That Saved America
by Winik, Jay
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 30 ISBN:0060187239 Date: 2001
PW
From a leading historian comes a powerful, iconoclastic narrative history
of the final month of the Civil War, when Richmond fell, Lee surrendered
at Appomattox, and Lincoln was assassinated. Outsized characters stalk
through sweeping events in Winik's brilliant narrative.
Suggested Reading: Lincoln
- Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America
by Wright, Bradford
Publisher: John Hopkins $ 34.95 ISBN: 080186514x Date: 2001
Library Journal
This provocative history of the comic book within the context of the
20th century is presented, with the author looking at every genre from
the 1930s to the 1980s, and focusing on the role comic book.
Suggested Reading: Cartoon Stars
- Hans Christian Anderson: The Life of a Storyteller
by Wullschlager, Jackie
Publisher: Knopf $ 30 ISBN: 0679455086 Date: 2001
LJ
This first major biography of Hans Christian Andersen draws upon a wealth
of original sources in Danish and German, and traces the course of his
life, his work, his desperation for love, and his ambition and achievement.
Suggested Reading: Authors
~ December ~ November ~ October
~ September ~ August ~ July
~ June ~ May ~ April
~ March ~ February
~ January
- Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist
Monk in a Search for Enlightment
by Bernstein, Richard
Publisher: Random $ 26 ISBN: 0375400095 Date: 2001
Kirkus
In the year 629, a Buddhist monk named Hsuan Tsang, one of the most
storied figures of Chinese history, set out across Asia in search of
the Buddhist Truth. Nearly a millennium and a half later, Richard Bernstein
retraces the monk's steps and reflects on the mysteries and paradoxes
of Buddhist philosophy and on the nature of the Ultimate Truth that
was Hsuan Tsang's goal.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
- Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear
by Bondeson, Jan
Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 039304906x Date: 2001
Kirkus
During the 1800s, stories filled medical journals as well as fiction
(Poe's "The Premature Burial") of people being buried before they actually
died. Canvassing medical records of the time, the author presents an
engrossing and witty history of the fear and facts of being buried alive.
- Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World
by Courtwright, David T.
Publisher: Harvard $ 24.95 ISBN: 0674004582 Date: 2001
Kirkus LJ
Far-reaching, fair-minded, and elegant, this book is a thorough history
of the traffic of psychoactive substances, a unique contribution to
both world history and drug history. It brings wide research, reasoned
judgment, and dry humor to a subject prone to ill-informed and overheated
discussions.
- Seabiscuit: An American Legend
by Hillenbrand, Laura
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375502912 Date: 2001
PW Booklist
One of the greatest legends of the 20th century, Seabiscuit was a discarded,
bottom-level runner who became a champion with the help of three men:
a trainer, an owner, and a jockey. This is the spellbinding tale of
how they did it.
Seabiscuit Online
Suggested Reading: Reading Group Stars | Horse Tales
- A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiania
by Kimmel, Haven
Publisher: Bantam $ 21.95ISBN: 0385499825 Date: 2001
PW
When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy
little hamlet. Nicknamed "Zippy", she possessed big eyes and even bigger
ears. In this loving memoir, Kimmel takes readers back in time to when
small-town America was still in the innocent postwar period and treats
readers to an appealing, and knowing, heroine.
Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars | Reading Group Stars
- A Primate's Memoir
by Sapolsky, Robert M.
Publisher: Scribner $ 25 ISBN: 0743202473 Date: 2001
PW Booklist
Award-winning scientist Robert Sapolsky reinvents the traditional account
of field research with this exhilarating and daring memoir of his 20-plus
years studying a troop of Kenyan baboons.
Suggested Reading: Nature | Memoir Stars
- Five Fingered Discount: A Crooked Family History
by Stapinski, Helene
Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 0679463062 Date: 2001
LJ Booklist
The Mafia, the Catholic Church, toxic waste, the DMV, and corrupt local
officials are all part of this sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking
family history, a story as polluted as the Jersey City air. Stapinski
tells an extraordinary tale of her crooked family that, unlike the swag
of her childhood, is her very own.
Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
- The Disastrous Mrs. Weldon: The Life, Loves and Lawsuits of
a Legendary Victorian
by Thompson, Brian
Publisher: Doubleday $ 26 ISBN:0385500904 Date: 2001
Booklist
Like the best Victorian novels, this biography marries the adventures
of an intrepid protagonist with delightfully revealing behind-the-scenes
glimpses of Victorian society. A tale of sex scandal, bravado, and bravery,
Mrs. Weldon's life story is wild, wicked, and totally irresistible.
- Ill Nature: Meditations of Humanity and Other Animals
by Williams, Joy
Publisher: Lyons $ 22.95 ISBN: 1585741876 Date: 2001
Kirkus
From the culling of elephants to human overpopulation to her inflammatory
anti-hunting work, The Killing Game, Williams presents 13 stunning
essays on the abuse of nature. Razor sharp, controversial, and scathingly
opinionated, Williams refuses to compromise as she lashes out at the
greed of Americans and decries our own turpitude.
Suggested Reading: Nature
~ December ~ November ~ October
~ September ~ August ~ July
~ June ~ May ~ April
~ March ~ February
~ January
- Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan
by Elliot, Jason
Publisher: St Martins $ 30 ISBN: 0312274599 Date: 2001
PW
Part travelogue, part historical evocation, part personal quest, and
part reflection on the joys and perils of passage, An Unexpected
Light captures perfectly the emotional lure of a seldom-glimpsed
world. It is a poignant look at Afghanistan and a heartfelt reflection
on the experience of travel itself.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
| Afghanistan
- How I Came into My Inheritance: And Other True Stories
by Gallagher, Dorothy
Publisher: Random $ 22.95 ISBN: 0375503463 Date: 2001
PW
Gallagher presents the true story of her own family of Russian-immigrant
Jews who tried to ignore the realities of the new world in which their
daughter had to make her way. This episodic family saga is told in a
vivid, ironic, and completely original style, offering a complete world,
as singularly American in its way as those of cowboys and Indians, Puritan
preachers, and robber barons.
- River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze
by Hessler, Peter
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26 ISBN: 0060195444 Date: 2001
PW Kirkus LJ
In the tradition of Iron & Silk comes a powerful memoir about
a young American teacher in the Peace Corps living in the small Chinese
city of Fuling as it navigates increasing waves of cultural and social
upheaval.
Suggested Reading: Travel
Tales
| All Stars
- Compass Points: How I Lived
by Hoagland, Edward
Publisher: Pantheon $ 25 ISBN: 0375402462 Date: 2001
Kirkus
In the mid-1980s writer Hoagland began to lose his sight--and his connection
to a world he had vividly recorded for 35 years. But technology caught
up with his condition nine years ago, and his sight was restored. Out
of that jubilation has come this memoir: the story of a life that has
embraced the contradictions and complexities of the panoramic experience.
Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
- Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs and Human Imagination
by Hurd, Barbara
Publisher: Houghton $ 23 ISBN: 0807085448 Date: 2001
LJ
Stirring the Mud steeps the reader in the strange and seductive
beauty of swamps and bogs-a landscape where "the bulbous and mottled
hoods" of skunk cabbage poke everywhere through the mud: "Hundreds
of
hunched, tiny Yodas whispering, Feel the force, Luke. Feel the force."
- Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Nature
- Trial by Ice; The True Story of Murder and Survival on the 1871 Polaris Expedition
by Parry, Richard
Publisher: 0345439252 $ 23.95 ISBN: 0345439252 Date: 2001
Kirkus
This true story of Arctic exploration details the unsolved shipboard
murder committed in 1871 that led to accusations of foul play and a
dramatic inquiry. The author draws on new evidence and recounts the
amazing story of a killer who boarded the Arctic explorer "Polaris"--and
got away with murder.
Suggested Reading: Sea Stories | Arctic
- Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics and
Culture
by Pollitt, Katha
Publisher: Modern Library $ 13.95 ISBN: 0679783431 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Booklist
Katha Pollitt has been delighting, outraging, and inspiring readers of her column in The Nation for close to two decades. There is nobody who can call bad behavior and sloppy thought to order with the same concision and daring as she. This selection displays the full range of her indefatigable wit and brilliance. Each of the more than eighty essays forms a part of a consistent and passionately argued larger vision. - Publisher Marketing.
- Past in Hiding: Memory and Survival in Nazi Germany
by Roseman, Mark
Publisher: Holt $ 27.50 ISBN: 0805063269 Date: 2001
PW
When the Gestapo came for her family, Marianne Strauss went underground,
and was on the run across Nazi Germany for two years--without papers,
and aided by remarkable resistance organizations previously unknown
and unsung.
Suggested Reading: Nazis
~ December ~ November ~ October
~ September ~ August ~ July
~ June ~ May ~ April
~ March ~ February
~ January
- God Save the Sweet Potato Queens
by Browne, Jill Conner
Publisher: Three Rivers $ 12.95 (trade paper) ISBN: 060980619x Date: 2001
PW
Jill Connor Browne's southern-fried wisdom continues in this sequel
to the bestselling The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love. She
gives priceless advice on everything from love to love handles, plus
even more death-defying recipes.
- Adversary: A True Story of Monstrous Deception
by Carrerre, Emmanuel
Publisher: Holt $ 22 ISBN: 0805065830 Date: 2001
Kirkus LJ
Carrere presents the shocking, true story of a respectable doctor, 18
years of lies, five murders, and the extremes to which ordinary people
can go. The Adversary--another name for the Devil in the Bible--is
also a meditation on the mystery of identity, evil, and the desperate
logic by which it is easier to kill than confess.
Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars
- Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews
by Carroll, James
Publisher: 0395779278 $ ISBN: 0395779278 Date: 2001
LJ
In a bold and moving book that is sure to spark heated debate, the novelist
and cultural critic James Carroll maps the profoundly troubling 2,000-year
course of the Church's battle against Judaism and faces the crisis of
faith it has provoked in his own life as a Catholic. More than a chronicle
of religion, this dark history is the central tragedy of Western civilization,
its fault lines reaching deep into our culture.
- Hole in the Universe: How Scientists Peered over the Edge of
Emptiness and Found Everything
by Cole, K. C.
Publisher: Harcourt $ 24 ISBN: 015100398x Date: 2001
Kirkus
The more we know about Nothing, the more enticing and bizarre the universe
becomes, especially in the hands of bestselling author K.C. Cole. Welcome
to the world of cutting-edge math, physics, and neuroscience, where
the search for the ultimate vacuum has rendered the universe deep, rich,
and juicy.
- Book Business: Publishing: Past, Present and Future
by Epstein, Jason
Publisher: Norton $ 21.95 ISBN: 0393049841 Date: 2001
PW Kirkus
In this book based on his W.W. Norton Lectures given at the New York
Public Library in October, 1999, Epstein discusses the severe crisis
facing the book business today--a crisis that affects writers and readers
as well as publishers--and looks ahead to the radically transformed
industry that will revolutionize the idea of the book.
Suggested Reading: Books About Books
- Fast Food Nation
by Schlosser, Eric
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 25 ISBN: 0618130977 Date: 2001
PW Kirkus LJ
To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is
the story of postwar America. Schlosser, a National Magazine Award-winning
journalist, charts the fast food industry's enormous impact on our health,
landscape, economy, politics and culture as he transforms the way America
thinks about what it eats.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Cooked Books
- The Man Who Found the Missing Link: Eugene Dubois and His Lifelong
Quest to Prove Darwin Right
by Shipman, Pat
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 28 ISBN: 068485581x Date: 2001
PW
The award-winning author of Taking Wing now tells the sweeping
scientific adventure story of Eugene Dubois, the darkly brilliant man
who risked his life to make the most important and controversial discovery
of the 19th century--fossil evidence that could prove Darwin right.
Featured in a Discovery Channel documentary.
- Return Passages: Great American Travel Writing 1780-1910: American
Travel Writing from Exploration to Art
by Ziff, Larzer
Publisher: Yale $ 29.95 ISBN: 0300082363 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Larzer Ziff traces the history of distinctively American travel writing
through the stories of five great representatives. John Ledyard (1752-1789)
, John Lloyd Stephens (1805-1852), Bayard Taylor (1825-1878), Mark Twain,
and Henry James.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Twain Stars
~ December ~ November ~ October
~ September ~ August ~ July
~ June ~ May ~ April
~ March ~ February
~ January
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