Nonfiction Stars of 1999

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

• The Ice Finder; How a Poet, a Professor, and a Politician Discovered the Ice Age
  by Bolles, Edmund Blair
  Publisher: Counterpoint ISBN: 1-58243-030-6 $ 24
  LJ
  The surprising story of three ambitious men and how their clash of egos, ignorance, and imaginations led to the discovery of the Ice Age.
• Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind
  by Cesarini, David
  Publisher: Free ISBN: 0684867206 $ 30
  Booklist Kirkus
  In a major reassessment of one of this century's leading writers and intellectuals, Arthur Koestler's shocking private life and powerful writing are set in the context of the tumultuous century he chronicled.
• Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad
  by Evanzz, Karl
  Publisher: Pantheon ISBN: 067944260x $ 28.50
  Booklist PW Kirkus
  The definitive biography of one of the most controversial Americans of the 20th century - Elijah Muhammad, the founder and "Prophet" of the Nation of Islam.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• My Century
  by Grass, Gunter
  Publisher: Harcourt ISBN: 015100496x $ 25
  PW
  Gunter Grass tells us a story for every year of our century. He writes of great events and seemingly trivial occurrences, of technical developments and scientific discoveries, of achievements in culture and sports, of megalomania, of persecution and murder, of war and disasters, and of new beginnings. Although each story has a different narrator, collectively the stories form a complete and linear narrative in which the individual is the focus. As the sequence unfolds, a lively and rich picture emerges, an historical portrait of this millennium in all its grandeur and in all its horror.
  One hundred stories come full circle to create a novel of our century. - Publisher Marketing.
• Ingenious Pursuits: Creativity and the Scientific Revolution
  by Jardine, Lisa
  Publisher: Doubleday Books ISBN: 0-385-49325-8 $ 35
  PW Kirkus
  From the author of the highly acclaimed Worldly Goods, a brilliant rethinking of the most exciting period in science - the Renaissance - connecting the era's famous leaps of imagination in the humanities with the creative inspiration behind its scientific discoveries.
• Inside the Animal Mind
  by Page, George
  Publisher: Doubleday ISBN: 038549291x $ 24.95
  Booklist
  Exploring new knowledge about the many facets of animal intelligence, this book is the official companion to a three-part PBS program airing in January 2000 on the Emmy-winning series "Nature, In Search of the Animal Mind."
  Suggested Reading: Nature
• Edith's Story
  by Velmans-Van Hessen, Edith
  Publisher: Soho Press ISBN: 1-56947-178-9 $ 25.00
  booklist
  During World War II, Edith Velmans was forced into hiding in a Protestant household in Holland the same month as Anne Frank. To deflect suspicion, Edith had to look after a German officer. Forty years later, using her own diaries and letters, she reconstructs the story of her family's near annihilation by the Nazis. Photos, map.
• Osbert Sitwell
  by Ziegler, Philip
  Publisher: Knopf ISBN: 0679446508 $ 30
  Booklist PW
  The author of the bestselling Mountbatten and King Edward VIII now offers a wonderfully witty, major new biography of the renowned poet, novelist, essayist, and legendary 20th-century eccentric, Osbert Sitwell.

November

• Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss
  by Barthleme, Frederick & Steven
  Publisher: Houghton ISBN: 0395954290 $ 24
  PW LJ
  Two brothers recount their harrowing journey from a stable home life to loss of family and an all-encompassing obsession with gambling.
  Suggested Reading: Take a Gamble
• African Ceremonies
  by Beckwith, Carol Some, Malidoma Patrice, Fisher, Angela
  Publisher: Abrams ISBN: 0-8109-4205-4 $ 150
  PW
  Overflowing with nearly 850 magnificent photos, this two-volume work explores traditional African rites and rituals, from baby namings, initiations, and weddings to harvest blessings, healing exorcisms, and funerals. 45 maps.
• Truth: A History and a Guide for the Perplexed
  by Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe
  Publisher: St Martins ISBN: 0312242530 $ 23.95
  Kirkus
  In clear, lucid prose, the author of Millennium exposes the basic human assumptions about truth in this global history of the topic.
• Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It
  by Kolata, Gina Bari
  Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux ISBN: 0-374-15706-5 $ 25
  PW
  An acclaimed reporter for The New York Times unravels the mystery of the 1918 Great Flu Epidemic with the high drama of an exciting adventure story.
  Suggested Reading: Flu
• To the Last Man: Spring 1918
  by MacDonald, Lyn
  Publisher: Carroll and Graf Publishers ISBN: 0-7867-0663-5 $ 27.50
  PW Kirkus
  An engrossing oral history of the last German offensive in World War I, the Second Battle of Somme, in all its glory, horror, and pathos.
• 24/7: Living It Up and Doubling Down in the New Las Vegas
  by Martinez, Andres
  Publisher: Villard Books ISBN: 0-375-50181-9 $ 25.00
  Kirkus
  A book that does for the shiny new Las Vegas what Fear and Loathing did forits seedy ancestor, written by a journalist living out everyone's high rollerdreams.
  Suggested Reading: Take a Gamble
• Arsenic Under the Elms: Murder in Victorian New Haven
  by McConnell, Virginia A.
  Publisher: Praeger Publishers ISBN:0-275-96297-0 $ 26.95 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  Attorney and crime researcher Virginia McConnell delves into two unrelated, unsolved murders in late-1800s New Haven to provide a fascinating view of Victorian Connecticut. The colorful characters involved in tile commission, investigation, and prosecution of these crimes emerge as real, vibrant individuals, and their stories, compelling in themselves, reveal much about Victorian sex and marriage, drugs from arsenic to aphrodisiacs, early forensic medicine, and 19th-century courtroom antics. - Publisher marketing.
  Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars | Pick Your Poison
• Walter Benjamin a the Dairy Queen: Reflections at Sixty and Beyond
  by McMurtry, Larry
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster ISBN: 0684854961 $ 21 Date: 1999
  PW LJ
  The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove provides a brilliant portrayal of Texas past and present - and the startling tale of his own path from rancher's son to Lone Star State novelist laureate, at once a literary and autobiographical tour de force.
  Suggested Reading: Books About Books
• Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House
  by Mendelson, Cheryl
  Publisher: Scribner Book Company ISBN:0-684-81465-X $ 35
  LJ
  Mendelson addresses the meanings as well as the methods of housekeeping with a keen sense of the history and values involved. The result is a warm, good-humored, engagingly written book with a message and a point of view, one that is overflowing with useful reflections and information.
  
• Margaret Bourke-White: Her Pictures Were Her Life
  by Rubin, Susan Goldman
  Publisher: Abrams ISBN: 0810943816 $ 19.95
  Booklist PW
  
• Rembrandt's Eyes
  by Schama, Simon
  Publisher: A. A. Knopf ISBN: 0-679-40256-X $50
  Booklist Kirkus LJ
  A magnificent rendering of the genius of Rembrandt--both a biography and an exploration of the art itself - that makes it clear why, even after 350 years, he remains among the greatest of painters. 359 illustrations, many in color.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• Stravinsky: A Creative Spring Russia and France, 1882-1934
  by Walsh, Stephen
  Publisher: Knopf ISBN: 0679414843 $ 35
  PW LJ
  The first part of a two-volume biography of Igor Stravinsky puts special emphasis on the composer's Russian roots, the formative years of his genius, and his struggle to make his way in Switzerland and France. .

October

• Gerald Durrell
  by Botting, Douglas
  Publisher: Carroll and Graf Publishers ISBN: 0-7867-0655-4 $ 29.95
  PW
  Botting traces the life of Gerald Durrell, the world-famous naturalist and popular author of over 37 bestsellers, who always saw his writings as the means to finance his great passion - the breeding of endangered species for their return to the wild.
  Suggested Reading: Nature
• My Kitchen Wars
  by Fussell, Betty Harper
  Publisher: North Point Press ISBN: 0-86547-577-6 $ 23
  PW
  Using as her weapon a lifelong need to make dinner, love, and war, Betty Fussell pries open the past and gives voice to a generation of women whose stories were shaped but also silenced by an era of global conflict, from World War II to Vietnam.
• River Horse: A Voyage Across America
  by Heat-Moon, William Least
  Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company ISBN: 0-395-63626-4 $ 26
  Booklist PW Kirkus
  The acclaimed, bestselling author of Blue Highways and PrairyErth chronicles his unique journey through America's waterways, from Atlantic to Pacific. Brimming with history, drama, hilarity, and wisdom, River Horse is a Blue Highways on water and ranks among the greatest American travelogues.
  Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | All Stars
• Sleeping With Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety
  by Kaminer, Wendy
  Publisher: Pantheon ISBN: 067944243x $ 24
  LJ
  With clarity and wit, Kaminer argues that we are society intoxicated by the irrational: religion, spirituality, and popular therapies threaten to replace rational thought with supernaturalism and a belief in personal testimony, no matter how unsubstantiated.
  
• Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire
  by MacLean, John N.
  Publisher: William Morrow & Company Inc ISBN: 0-688-14477-2 $ 24
  PW
  MacLean takes a long, hard look at the July 3, 1994, fire at Storm King Mountain in Colorado, where 14 firefighters, including four women, were killed. Fire on the Mountain offers deeply moving insights into the lives of the smoke jumpers, hot shots, and helitacks who fight forest fires and put their own well being on the line as part of their jobs.
  Suggested Reading: On Fire
• Dr. Seuss Goes to War; The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel
  by Minear, Richard H.
  Publisher: The New Press ISBN: 1-56584-565-X $ 25
  LJ
  Dr. Seuss Goes to War features handsome, large-format reproductions of nearly 200 of the best of Theodor Geisel's political cartoons from this time.
• The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner
  by Nicol, John
  Publisher: The Atlantic Monthly Press ISBN: 0-87113-755-0 $ 21
  Kirkus
  The spirited, eminently readable autobiography of an 18th century sailor and adventurer - recently rediscovered text that vividly renders the unforgettable story of a man whom history has nearly forgotten.
  Suggested Reading: Sea Stories
• Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home
  by Sheldrake, Rupert
  Publisher: Crown Publishers Inc ISBN: 0-609-60092-3 $ 25
  PW
  In the bestselling tradition of When Elephant Weep and The Hidden Life of Dogs, Sheldrake shares the astonishing results of his five-year study - including the anecdotal evidence shared by thousands of pet owners- -of the uncanny paranormal abilities of animals.
• Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War
  by Welsom, Eileen
  Publisher: Dellacorte ISBN: 0385314027 $ 26.95
  Booklist PW Kirkus
  This critically acclaimed, groundbreaking book tells of the secret radiation experiments performed over five decades by United States government doctors on unsuspecting patients. "YWelsome? brings to life, and recreates the settings, dialogue and events that ruined the health of countless trusting Americans".--"The San Diego Union Tribune".
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  
• A Necessary Evil
  by Willis, Garry
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books ISBN: 0-684-84489-3 $ 25
  Booklist PW Kirkus LJ
  In his first major historical work since his Pulitzer prize-winning Lincoln in Gettysburg, Wills examines anti-government attitudes--from the revolt of the colonies against King and parliament to the present justifications for gun owning, term limits, even private militias--and debunks some of our fondest myths regarding American history.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars

September

• Yes We Have No: Adventures in the Other England
  by Cohn, Nik
  Publisher: A. A. Knopf ISBN: 0-394-56870-2 $ 22
  Kirkus
  The kaleidoscopic England that Cohn travels is made up of techno-freaks and soccer obsessives, faith healers and fetishists, graffiti artists, Rastas, and Elvis impersonators.
  Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
• Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda
  by Halsey, Ann Howard, with Carr, Rosamond Halsey
  Publisher: Viking Books ISBN: 0-670-88780-3 $ 23.95
  Booklist
  "Whether chugging up the Congo on a paddle-wheel steamboat, rubbing elbows with pygmy chiefs (or wealthy colonial neighbors), being pursued through the dark by a stalking leopard, or visiting friend Dian Fossey and her mountain gorillas at Karioske, Carr found herself living a life of cinematic proportions. In the process, she witnessed a half century of the politics of a deeply troubled country and saw firsthand the decline and fall of colonialism, the wars for independence, and the relentless clashes between the Hutus and Tutsis. And finally, having been caught in the crossfire of 1994's horrific genocide, Carr provides an unparalleled personal account that underscores her continued devotion to the country by her decision to turn her plantation into a shelter for Rwanda's lost and orphaned children."--Book jacket.
  Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Rwanda
• The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness
  by Damasio, Antonio R.
  Publisher: Harcourt Trade Publishers ISBN: 0-15-100369-6 $ 28
  PW LJ
  The bestselling author of Descartes' Error now shows how consciousness - the feeling of what happens and our mind noticing the body's reaction to the world and responding - is created.
• Isaac's Storm: A Man, A Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
  Author: Larsen, Erik
  Publisher: Crown $ 25 ISBN: 0609602330 Date: 1999
  LJPW
  SLJ Best Books
  The large audience that drove The Perfect Storm high on national bestseller lists is sure to welcome this superb narrative of the extreme hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas, in 1900, leaving at least 8,000 dead in its wake. An unforgettable story of the conflict between human hubris and the last great uncontrollable force, Isaac's Storm offers a cautionary tale for the millennium.
  Suggested Reading: Stormy Weather
  Updated 2.14.06
• Crying: A Natural and Cultural History of Tears
  by Lutz, Thomas
  Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0-393-04756-3 $ 25.95
  PW Kirkus
  Learn the multi-faceted cultural and historical meanings of tears in a book that offers "a fresh panoramic perspective to the complex give-and-take between illness and the artistic imagination" (New York Times Book Review) Illustrations.
• Selected Non-Fictions
  by Borges, Jorge Luis
  Publisher: Viking Books ISBN:0-670-84947-2 $ 40
  PW
  The third and final installment in Viking's program to bring Borges's Collected Works into English brings together more than 150 pieces in one volume.
• All Souls: A Family Story from Southie
  by MacDonald, Michael Patric
  Publisher: Beacon Press ISBN: 0-8070-7212-5 $ 24 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  In this searing, coming-of-age memoir, told through the eyes of the troubled yet keenly gifted observer he was even as a child, MacDonald describes growing up in Irish South Boston.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
• The Women Who Wrote the War
  by Sorel, Nancy C.
  Publisher: Arcade Publishing, Incorporated ISBN: 1-55970-493-4 $ 27.95
  Booklist
  Like Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation, Sorel's moving account of the women war correspondents of this century at last brings to light the exploits of more than 100 of this country's unsung heroes. of photos.
• Of Time and Memory: A Mother's Story
  by Snyder, Don J.
  Publisher: A. A. Knopf ISBN: 0-375-40408-2 $ 25
  LJ
  The author of The Cliff Walk takes a journey back in time in search of the mother he never knew - a young woman who died at the age of 19 when he was a newborn.
• Watching Birds: Reflections on the Wing
  by Taylor, Ann
  Publisher: McGraw-Hill Book Company ISBN: 0-07-134866-2 $ 19.95
  Booklist
  Taylor chronicles her fascinating life as a curious and devoted amateur bird-watcher and nature-lover who has traveled the world in pursuit of her passion.
  Suggested Reading: Nature | For the Birds
• Kinship: A Family's Journey in Africa and America
  by Wamba, Philippe E.
  Publisher: Dutton Books ISBN:0-525-94387-0 $ 24.95
  Booklist Kirkus
  Wamba weaves 300 years of history, popular culture, music, religion, literature, and political activism into the compelling story of his African parents raising their children in Boston and Tanzania.
• A Celtic Childhood
  by Watkins, Bill
  Publisher: Hungry Mind Press ISBN: 1-886913-31-5 $ 24 Daate: 1999
  PW
  In this memoir of an Irish childhood split between England and Ireland, Watkins vividly creates a child's eye view of the world.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars

August

• Too Good to Be True; The Colossal Book of Urban Legends
  by Brunvand, Jan Harold
  Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0-393-04734-2 $ 29.95
  LJ
  A fabulously entertaining book from the ultimate authority on "urban legends" -alligators in the sewers; the world's most expensive chocolate chip cookie recipe, etc .- those unbelievable tales that always happen to a "friend of a friend."
• Celebration, U.S.A.:Living in Disney's Brave New Town
  by Frantz, Douglas
  Publisher: Henry Holt and Company ISBN: 0-8050-5560-6 $ 25
  PW
  A prize-winning New York Times reporter who moved his wife and two kids into Disney's town of the future in Florida reports from the trenches on what it's like to be in on the start of a new self-supporting community that uses the best in new technology.
• Chasing Monarchs: Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage
  by Pyle, Robert Michael
  Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company ISBN: 0-395-82820-1 $ 24
  LJ
  Pyle offers an account of the summer he set out to follow these winged wanderers south from their northernmost breeding grounds in British Columbia to the California Coast.
  Suggested Reading: Nature
• The BUST Guide to the New Girl Order
  by Stoller, Debbie
  Publisher: Penguin Books ISBN: 0-14-027774-9 $ 15.95 (trade paper)
  LJ
  BUST, the original grrrl zine, offers brand new, funny, sharp, trenchant essays with some of its best writings, including Courtney Love on Bad Girls; the already immmortal "Don'ts For Boys"; and an interview with girl-hero Judy Blume.

July

• A Short History of Rudeness; Manners, Morals, and Misbehavior in Modern America
  by Caldwell, Mark
  Publisher: Picador Press ISBN: 0-312-20432-9 $ 23
  PW LJ
  Touching on aspects of both our public and private lives, including work, family, and sex, Caldwell examines how the rules of our behavior have changed and explains why, no matter how hard we try, we can never return to a golden era of manners and mors.
• Swampwalker's Journal: A Wetlands Year
  by Carroll, David
  Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company ISBN: 0-395-64725-8 $ 27
  Booklist Kirkus LJ
  "A genius, a madman, a national treasure" (Annie Dillard) takes readers on a miraculous year-long journey through the wetlands, revealing why they are so important to his life, to ours, to all life on Earth.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Nature
• Magnificent Corpses: Searching Through Europe for St. Peter's Head, St. Chiara's Heart, St. Stephen's Hand, and Other Saints
  by Rufus, Anneli
  Publisher:Marlowe and Company ISBN: 1-56924-687-4 $ 13.95 (trade paper)
  PW
  This eerie yet irresistible spiritual travelogue takes a look at 18 holy relics that continue to fascinate, including the Shroud of Turin, St. Stephen's hand, and St. Claire's heart.

June

• The Man Who Tried to Save the World: The Dangerous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Fred Cuny
  by Anderson, Scott
  Publisher: Doubleday Books ISBN: 0-385-48665-0 $ 24.95
  PW Kirkus
  Like a Graham Greene novel come to life, this biography tells the mesmerizing story of Fred Cuny, the "Master of Disaster" - a complicated man who disappeared in the scariest place on earth.
• The Knowledge Web: From Electronic Agents to Stonehenge and Back-And Other Journeys Through Knowledge
  by Burke, James
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books ISBN: 0-684-85934-3 $ 25
  Kirkus
  A bestselling author leads an enthralling tour through the web of knowledge -displaying the flights of imagination that prompted The Washington Post to name him "one of the most intriguing minds of the Western world."
• Fledgling Days: Memoir of a Falconer
  by Ford, Emma
  Publisher: Overlook Press ISBN: 0-87951-947-9 $ 25.95
  Booklist
  Falconry has been historically the sport of royalty and traditionally a pursuit of men. Emma Ford is neither royal nor a man, yet she is one of the most acclaimed falconers in the world today. Fledgling Days, her powerful memoir of life in the Kent countryside, where she learned from girlhood the art of falconry, is both a tale of personal discovery and a heart-warming and funny account of a country childhood.
  Suggested Reading: Nature | For the Birds
• The Disappearance
  by Jurgensen, Genevieve
  Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0-393-04776-8 $ 22
  PW LJ
  A book of letters to a friend, in which Jurgenson discusses different aspects of her bereavement after her two young daughters are killed in a car accident, The Disappearance combines raw honesty with the solidly balanced craft of the French epistolary novel.
• Caravaggio: A Life
  by Langdon, Helen
  Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux ISBN: 0-374-11894-9 $ 30 Daate: 1999
  PW LJ
  A powerful and illuminating biography--the first in English in two generations--of one of the most popular painters of all time: the 16th-century Italian master, Caravaggio. Illustrations throughout.
  Suggested Reading: Caravaggio Stars
• Between Silk and Cyanide; A Codemaker's War 1941-1945
  by Marks, Leo
  Publisher: Free Press ISBN: 0-684-86422-3 $ 27.50
  Kirkus
  As thrilling as a novel by John le Carre, this World War II memoir by ingenious cryptographer Leo Marks brings alive the codemakers and the agents they trained and communicated with in occupied Europe.
• Encore Provence; New Adventures in the South of France
  by Mayle, Peter
  Publisher: A. A. Knopf ISBN: 0-679-44124-7 $23
  PW
  The author of A Year in Provence and Toujours Provence celebrates a beloved homecoming to the area with a joyous mix of Gallic characters, adventure, and culinary treats.

May

• Deep Play: Harvesting Joy from the Games of Life
  by Ackerman, Diane
  Publisher: Random House ISBN: 0-679-44879-9 $ 23.95
  Kirkus
  The author of A Natural History of the Senses now explores the connections between a range of human activities that draw individuals into that exalted zone in which transcendent experiences are possible--the zone of "deep play."
• The Prisoner's Wife: A Memoir
  by Bandele, Ashaby
  Publisher: Scribner Book Company ISBN: 0-684-85073-7 $ 23
  Booklist Kirkus
  The intensely moving story of a young black poet who marries a prisoner convicted of murder, this lyrical memoir attests to the redemptive power of love, even when it is found behind barbed wire and gun towers.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
• Gothic: Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror, Evil, and Ruin
  by Davenport-Hines, R.
  Publisher: North Point Press ISBN: 0-86547-544-X $ 35
  Booklist
  The birth of Gothic can be said to date to the eruption of Vesuvius in 1631, an event so powerful it created a new landscape. Indeed, it was the desolate and savage landscape paintings of the seventeenth-century artist Salvator Rosa, with their precipices, ruined castles, dark caves, and contorted trees, that provided the original visual and imaginative frame of the genre. In England, under Rosa's influence, William Kent created the first Gothic garden when he planted a dead tree on the grounds of Kensington Palace.

  Castles and country houses built like castles are another manifestation of the Gothic imagination: in real life, in pictures, and in Gothic stones. They are usually places of fear and anxiety; none more so than in Mitchelstown in Cork, where one family lived up to their home: surrounded by stories of murder, sexual degeneracy, eccentricity, madness, decay, and ruin. - Publisher marketing.

• The Other Side of Everest: Climbing the North Face Through the Killer Storm
  by Dickinson, Matt
  Publisher: Times Books Random House ISBN: 0-8129-3159-9 $ 23
  PW
  This harrowing successor to Into Thin Air and The Climb provides new perspectives on the devastating storm of 1996 that claimed the lives of eight climbers and rocked the mountaineering world.
• Walking Since Daybreak: A Story of Eastern Europe, World War II, and the Heart of Our Century
  by Eksteins, Modris
  Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company ISBN: 0-395-93747-7 $ 27.50
  PW Kirkus
  Part history, part autobiography, Walking Since Daybreak tells the tragic story of the people of the Baltic nations--Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia -- before, during, and after World War II.
• Hometown
  by Tracy Kidder
  Publisher: Random ISBN: 0679455884 $ 25.95
  Booklist
  In this "grand vision of a small place" ("People"), bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder creates a richly layered and unforgettable portrait of life in Northampton, Massachusetts, the quintessentially American hometown.
  
• Dear Exile: The True Story of Two Friends Separated (for a Year) by an Ocean
  by Liftin, Hilary
  Publisher: Vintage Books ISBN: 0-375-70367-5 $ 11 (trade paper)
  PW
  A funny and moving story told through the letters of two women nurturing a friendship as they are separated by distance, experience, and time.
• My Father's Gun: One Family, Three Badges, One Hundred Years in the NYPD
  by McDonald, Brian
  Publisher: Dutton Books ISBN: 0-525-94396-X $ 24.95
  PW
  As a boy, Brian McDonald used to play in "Fort Apache", the infamous 41st Precinct, while visiting his precinct captain father. This is Brian's remarkable memoir, tracing the life of a whole family of Irish-American cops in New York City.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
• Nathaniel's Nutmeg
  by Milton, Giles
  Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux ISBN: 0-374-21936-2 $ 24
  Booklist PW Kirkus
  In 1616, Nathaniel Courthope was dispatched to Run, the most lucrative of the Spice Islands to hold off the massive Dutch Navy. But after a four-year siege, Britain ceded the island and its lucrative spice trade to Holland - in exchange for Manhattan.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov): The Story of a Marriage
  by Schiff, Stacy
  Publisher: Random House ISBN:0-679-44790-3 $ 27.95
  PW LJ
  This intimate portrait of Vera Nabokov, the woman who stood at the center of the life and work of the controversial author of Lolita, is based on new material, Vladimir's letters, Vera's diaries, and family correspondence.
• A Dark Place in the Jungle
  by Linda Spalding
  Publisher: Algonquin ISBN: 1565122267 $ 22.95
  PW
  Looking up orangutan researcher Birute Galdikas in Borneo, Spalding uncovered a storm of controversy and corruption in a rain forest paradise, where the animals are the losers.

April

• Woman: An Intimate Geography
  by Angier, Natalie
  Publisher: Houghton Mifflin ISBN: 0395691303 $ 25
  Booklist PW Kirkus
  With the clarity, insight, and sheer exuberance of language that make her one of the "New York Times's" premier stylists, Pulitzer Prize-winner Natalie Angier takes on everything from organs to orgasm in this scientific fantasia of womanhood. "Lush, lyrical, important . . . a 747 landing in the desert of post-feminism."--"Mirabella."
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  
• Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein
  by Andrew and Patrick Cockburn
  Publisher: HarperCollins ISBN: 0060192666 $ 26
  PW
  Intriguing, controversial, and terrifying, Out of the Ashes exposes for the first time ever the internal feuds between covert CIA operators that doomed the secret operations to bring down Saddam Hussein in what was the biggest intelligence debacle since the Bay of Pigs.
  Suggested Reading: Iraq Stars
• The Promise of Sleep: A Pioneer in Sleep Medicine Explores the Vital Connection Between Health, Happiness, and a Good Night
  by Dement, William C.
  Publisher: Delacorte Press ISBN: 0-385-32008-6 $ 24.95
  PW
  Healthy sleep has been empirically proven to be the single most important determinant in predicting longevity, more influential than diet, exercise, or heredity, but our modern culture has become a virtual study in sleep deprivation. A world without darkness wreaks havoc on our body clocks. Sleep is sacrificed to meet the demands of our endless days. Doctors regard sleep deprivation as a fact of life and do little to promote sleep health or awareness. Meanwhile, the physical, emotional, and psychological costs of unhealthy sleep continue to mount.

  In The Promise of Sleep, world-renowned sleep authority William C. Dement offers a definitive guide providing the information necessary to reap the benefits of a good night's sleep. Drawing on decades of experience, Dr. Dement explains what happens when we sleep, taking us on a fascinating tour of the sleeping body and mind. Exploring sleep's surpassingly powerful effect on overall health, from the immune system to psychological well-being, readers will learn the many ways that sleep loss and deprivation can put them in harm's way, inhibiting motivation, creativity, and vitality.

  Imparting wisdom gained through years of sleep lab experience, Dr. Dement reveals the seven principles of healthy sleep, and gives hands-on advice on such popular topics as sleep disorders and their cures, the role of prescription and over-the-counter sleeping aids, recovery from jet lag, the power of naps, and more. With The Promise of Sleep, readers will learn not only how to discover how much sleep they truly need, but how to get it -- and why their lives will improve once they do.

• Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire
  by Jason Goodwin
  Publisher: Holt ISBN: 0805040811 $ 32.50
  PW Kirkus
  In this dazzling evocation of the Ottoman Empire's power, Goodwin explores how the Ottomans rose and how, against all odds, they lingered on for 600 years. In doing so, he also offers a long look back to the origins of problems that plague present-day Kosovars and Serbs. Photos throughout.
  
• Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds
  by Heinrich, Bernd
  Publisher: Cliff Street Books ISBN: 0-06-017447-1 $ 25
  PW LJ
  A scientific investigation into the mind of the raven which lyrically addresses the existence of intelligence in a bird that has had an extraordinary relationship with humans throughout history
  Suggested Reading: Nature | For the Birds
• Tigers & Ice: Reflections on Nature and Life
  by Edward Hoagland
  Publisher: Lyons ISBN: 1558217428 $ 22
  Kirkus
  The renowned essayist, who was legally blind for three years until surgery changed his life, celebrates his renewed vision in this powerful essay collection. In penetrating and enchanting prose, Hoagland relates his fascinating life, from his vagabond days as a tiger-cage boy in the circus to his travels in Antarctica, and comments on the natural world.
  Suggested Reading: Nature
  
• Waiting for Aphrodite
  by Sue Hubbell
  Publisher: Hougton Mifflin ISBN: 0395837030 $ 25
  Kirkus
  In this fascinating book, Hubbell journeys into the remarkable lives of the little-known creatures that really run the world--the animals without backbones, including one of the most elusive and enigmatic of all, "Aphrodite" the sea mouse.
  
• A Cursing Brain?: The Histories of Tourette Syndrome
  by Kushner, Howard I.
  Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0-674-18022-4 $ 29.95
  LJ
  Over a century and a half ago, a French physician reported the bizarre behavior of a young aristocratic woman who would suddenly, without warning, erupt in a startling fit of obscene shouts and curses. The image of the afflicted Marquise de Dampierre echoes through the decades as the emblematic example of an illness that today represents one of the fastest-growing diagnoses in North America. Tourette syndrome is a set of behaviors, including recurrent ticcing and involuntary shouting (sometimes cursing) as well as obsessive-compulsive actions. The fascinating history of this syndrome reveals how cultural and medical assumptions have determined and radically altered its characterization and treatment from the early nineteenth century to the present.

  A Cursing Brain? traces the problematic classification of Tourette syndrome through three distinct but overlapping stories: that of the claims of medical knowledge, that of patients' experiences, and that of cultural expectations and assumptions. Earlier researchers asserted that the bizarre ticcing and impromptu vocalizations were psychological -- resulting from sustained bad habits or lack of self-control. Today, patients exhibiting these behaviors are seen as suffering from a neurological disease and generally are treated with drug therapy. Although current clinical research indicates that Tourette's is an organic disorder, this pioneering history of the syndrome reminds us to be skeptical of medical orthodoxies so that we may stay open to fresh understandings and more effective interventions.

• The Cowboy Way: Seasons of a Montana Ranch
  by McCumber, David
  Publisher: Bard ISBN: 0-380-97341-3 $ 24
  PW
  The editor of Big Sky magazine offers an enthralling and intensely personal account of a year-long sojourn at a Montana ranch - and the reality of cowboy life.
• Eating the Flowers of Paradise: One Man's Journey Through Ethiopia and Yemen
  by Rushby, Kevin
  Publisher: St. Martin's Press ISBN: 0-312-21794-3 $ 24.95
  Kirkus
  Rushby takes the reader to the exotic lands of Africa and Arabia on a magic carpet woven from the hallucinogenic plant called Qat.
  Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
• Into the Porcupine Cave and Other Odysseys: Adventures of an Occaisional Naturalist
  by William W. Warner
  Publisher: National Geographic ISBN: 0792274555 $ 25
  Kirkus
  A stunning collection of ten vivid reflections by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author that trace the life of a man in love with and fascinated by the natural world.
  Suggested Reading: Nature
  
  
• The Condor's Shadow: The Loss and Recovery of Wildlife in America
  by David S. Wilcove
  Publisher: Freeman ISBN: 0716731150 $ 24.95
  PW LJ
  A comprehensive overview of where we stand today ecologically and how we got there, Condor's Shadow describes how nature has responded to the forces human beings have unleashed upon it.
  Suggested Reading: Nature | For the Birds

March

• Black Hawk Down: A Story of a Modern War
  by Bowden, Mark
  Publisher: Atlantic ISBN: 0871137380 $ 24
  PW Kirkus
  The riveting, close-up account of a 1993 firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia, Black Hawk Down is one of the most vivid and thorough reports of modern combat ever written.
  
• For the Time Being
  by Dillard, Annie
  Publisher: Knopf ISBN: 0375403809 $ 22
  Booklist LJ PW
  On the 25th anniversary of her acclaimed Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Dillard presents a compassionate, informative, enthralling, and always surprising personal narrative that surveys the panorama of our world, past and present.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  
• The Pity of War
  by Ferguson, Niall
  Publisher: Basic ISBN: 046505711x $ 30
  Kirkus LJ
  An explosive new book that challenges our most basic assumptions about the causes and consequences of the first world war--claiming that the Great War was entirely England's fault.
• Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery
  by Francisco, Patricia Weaver
  Publisher: Cliff Street ISBN: 0060192917 $ 23
  PW Kirkus
  She invites the reader into her life and into the questions raised by a crime with no obvious solutions or easy answers. We see the dimensions of a human struggle often kept hidden from view. While there are an estimated twelve million rape survivors in the United States, rape is still unspeakable, left out of our personal and cultural conversation. In Telling, Francisco has found a language for the secret grief carried by men and women who have survived rape. - Publisher Marketing
  
• After Long Silence: A Memoir
  by Fremont, Helen
  Publisher: Delacorte ISBN: 0385333692 $ 23.95
  PW Kirkus
  Delving into the extraordinary secrets that held her family together in a bond of silence for more than 40 years, the author recounts with heartbreaking clarity a remarkable tale of survival.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
• An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England
  by Murray, Venetia
  Publisher: Viking ISBN: 067088328x $ 29.95
  Booklist
  The gilded vulgarity of Britain's most decadent era is profiled in a definitive and dazzling history--with characters as extraordinary as the allegedly incestuous Lord Byron and the famous courtesan, Harriet Wilson. Illustrations.
• Ross MacDonald: A Biography
  by Nolan, Tom
  Publisher: Scribner ISBN: 0684812177 $ 32
  PW
  Nolan draws on 40 years' worth of Ross MacDonald's correspondence and hundreds of interviews to develop an insightful portrait of one of the most influential and popular writers in postwar America.
• Pushkin's Button
  by Vitale, Serena
  Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux ISBN: 037423955 $ 30
  Kirkus LJ
  Pushkin's Button recreates the four months of Pushkin's life leading up to the fatal duel in the snow on January 27, 1837. Many theories have been advanced about the death of one of Russia's greatest artists, none of them wholly satisfactory. Serena Vitale has opened the archives and studies the case more closely, and more imaginatively, than anyone before her. Her brilliant detective work unearths fascinating, revealing details, including a button missing from Pushkin's Kamerjunker uniform. - Publisher Marketing.
  
  

February

• The Arcanum: The Extraordinary True Story
  by Gleeson, Janet
  Publisher: Warner ISBN: 0446524999 $ 23
  Kirkus
  The arcanum--the recipe to make gold--was mankind's legendary quest since the Age of Reason. By the early 18th century, however, porcelain began to rival gold in value. Gleeson recounts the true story of Johann Friedrich Bottger, an alchemist, who, at the cost of his own life, discovered how to make porcelain and changed the course of history.
  
• The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
  by Greene, Brian
  Publisher: Norton ISBN: 0393046885 $ 27.95
  LJ
  In a rare blend of scientific insight and writing as elegant as the theories it explains, Greene, one of the world's leading string theorists, peels away the layers of mystery to reveal a universe of 11 dimensions where the fabric of space tears and repairs itself.
  
• Apocalypse Pretty Soon
  by Alex Heard
  Publisher: Norton ISBN: 0393046893 $ 24.95
  LJ
  Over a ten-year period, intrepid cultural traveler Alex Heard has been sojourning among America's most intensely religious and political believers. Now, as the final countdown to the year 2000 begins, he offers a funny and frightening look at millennial, utopian, and futuristic subcultures.
• Mean Justice: A Town's Terror, a Prosecutor's Power, a Betrayal of Innocence
  by Humes, Edward
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster ISBN: 0684841740 $ 26
  Booklist Kirkus
  The incredible true story of a California town where the innocent are presumed guilty and dozens of ordinary citizens have been convicted of crimes they did not commit.
  Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars
• The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the Millennium: An Englishman's World
  by Lacey, Robert & Danny Danzinger
  Publisher: Little & Brown ISBN: 0316558400 $ 23
  PW
  How did people make sense of the end of one era and the start of another? The Year 1000 plunges readers into the past in colorful detail and provides them with a historically accurate portrait of life on the cusp of the first millennium.
• Waiting to Fly: My Escapades with the Penguins of Antarctica
  by Naveen, Ron
  Publisher: Morrow ISBN: 0688158943 $ 26
  Booklist
  In Waiting to Fly, Naveen, who fell in love with penguins 16 years ago, describes these creatures at work and at play, in love and in death, interweaving stories of his own experiences as a field scientist in Antarctica.
  Suggested Reading: For the Birds
• Robert Frost: A Life
  by Parini, Jay
  Publisher: Holt ISBN:0805031812 $ 35
  PW
  Elegantly yet simply, biographer Jay Parini traces the various stages of Robert Frost's life, always taking the reader back to the poetry itself.
  
• The Immaculate Invasion
  by Shacochis, Bob
  Publisher: Viking ISBN: 0670863041 $ 27.95
  Booklist Kirkus LJ
  From the Pentagon's war room to the bitter infighting in the dangerously divided U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince and its on- again/off-again relationship with terrorists, Shacochis chronicles what the military calls OTW (other than war) Operations.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White
  by Wieneck, Henry
  Publisher: St Martins ISBN: 0312192770 $ 24.95
  Booklist
  One family--black and white--its history is the story of slavery and its legacy in America. Yet this is not a tale of horror, but rather of love and heroism powerful enough to shake the foundation myth of the Old South.

January

• Elegy for Iris
  by Bayley, John
  Publisher: St Martins ISBN: 0312198647 $22.95
  Booklist PW
  A melodious, hugely affecting tribute to Dame Iris Murdoch, one of the greatest writers of her time--who was stricken with Alzheimer's disease--written by her devoted husband of 42 years.
• America Day by Day
  by De Beauvoir, Simone
  Publisher: University of California Press ISBN: 0520209796 $ 27.50
  Kirkus LJ
  This is a great piece of road literature written by one of the preeminent intellectuals of the twentieth century.
  Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
  
• Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley
  Author: Guralnick, Peter
  Publisher: Little Brown $ 27.95 ISBN: 0316332224 Date: 1999
  Booklist Kirkus LJ PW
  At last, the full, true, and mesmerizing story of Elvis Presley's last two decades--the long-awaited second volume of Peter Guralnick's "masterpiece of biographical art" ("New York Times Book Review").
  
• The Orchid Thief
  by Orlean, Susan
  Publisher: David McKay ISBN: 0679447393 $ 25
  LJ
  Fascinating, witty, and bizarre, this true story of beauty and obsession in Florida weaves a seductive tale of plant smugglers, swamp explorers, and the strange effects orchids have on the eccentric collectors who must possess them.
• Joan of Arc: Her Story
  by Pernoud, Regine
  Publisher: St Martins ISBN: 0312214421 $ 27.95
  Booklist
  In this biography of the young, French peasant girl who led an army against the English to put Charles VII on the throne, the authors clear away the myths so modern readers can see Joan as she was.
• No Go the Bogeyman: Scaring, Lulling, and Making Mock
  by Warner, Marina
  Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux ISBN: 0374223017 $ 35
  Booklist Kirkus
  The author of From the Beast to the Blond considers the enduring presence and popularity of figures of male terror, establishing their origins in mythology and their current relation to ideas about sexuality and power, youth and age.