Previews, Reviews, and Collection Development
Chang, Jung. Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China. Knopf. Nov. 2013. 352p. ISBN 9780307271600. $30. BIOGRAPHY First a Red Guard, then the recipient of a doctoral degree in linguistics from England’s Bristol University, then the hugely best-selling author of Wild Swans and Mao, Jung Chang has a remarkable life story. And the [...]
Bacevich, Andrew. Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country. Metropolitan: Holt. Sept. 2013. 224p. ISBN 9780805082968. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780805096033. POLITICAL SCIENCE A Brown professor of history and international relations who served as an officer in the U.S. Army for 23 years, Bacevich argues that there is a tremendous divide between [...]
Armstrong, Kelley. Omens: A Cainsville Novel. Dutton. Aug. 2013. 416p. ISBN 9780525953043. $26.95. FANTASY In this launch of a new series from the author of the hugely popular “Otherworld” books, wealthy, 24-year-old Ivy Leaguer Olivia Taylor Jones is happily engaged when she discovers that she is adopted—and that her biological parents are serial killers imprisoned [...]
Andersen, Christopher. These Few Precious Days: The Final Year of Jack and Jackie. Gallery: S. & S. Aug. 2013. 320p. ISBN 9781476732329. $27; ebk. ISBN 9781476732343. BIOGRAPHY Once senior editor of People magazine, Andersen has a real track record when it comes to celebrity bios; he’s written 15 New York Times best sellers, with subjects [...]
Beam, Cris. To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care. Houghton Harcourt. Aug. 2013. 352p. ISBN 9780151014125. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780547999531. FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS Beam should be able to clarify how badly our current foster care system fails the half million children in its charge; she’s not just a Lambda Literary [...]
Butler, Sarah. Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Jul. 2013. 320p. ISBN 9781594205330. $26.95. LITERARY Unconventional Alice, the youngest of three sisters and a frequent traveler to far-off climes, returns home just in time to say good-bye to her dying father, with whom she’s never been close. Daniel, who’s been [...]
al-Shaykh, Hanan. One Thousand and One Nights: A Sparkling Retelling of the Beloved Classic. Pantheon. Jun. 2013. 320p. ISBN 9780307958860. $26; eISBN 9780307958877. LITERATURE A crucial and sometimes controversial figure in Middle Eastern literature, Lebanese author al-Shaykh here translates 19 of the stories young queen Shahrazad told her husband each night so that he would [...]
Brown, Eli. Cinnamon and Gunpowder. Farrar. Jun. 2013. 272p. ISBN 9780374123666. $26. HISTORICAL Evocative title, and the plot sounds like a hoot. In 1819, the pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot kills the lord of a booming tea concern but will spare his chef, the famous Owen Wedgwood, as long as he manages to serve her an [...]
Glass, Charles. The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Jun. 2013. 400p. ISBN 9781594204289. $27.95. As author of the much-praised Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation, former ABC News correspondent Glass proved that he could writes rigorous but accessible history. Here he considers deserters during [...]
Angel, Katherine. Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Difficult To Tell. Farrar. Jun. 2103. 304p. ISBN 9780374280406. $26. SOCIAL SCIENCE/WOMEN’S STUDIES In her discussion of female sexual desire, Angel draws on personal experience, but this is hardly memoir. A postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for the History of Medicine at Warwick University in England, Angel [...]
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