Rebecca T. Alpert’s OUT OF LEFT FIELD: JEWS AND BLACK BASEBALL is a gem of a history book: a concise, fascinating account of a significant American cultural element, black baseball, and an exploration of one particular aspect of that element, the interactions and attitudes — both real and perceived — between Jews, blacks, black Jews and their audiences, and what it meant to identify oneself along those lines in the mid-20th-century United States.

At first glance, you might think it’s one of those dreary academic tomes that sprout from moribund Gender Studies departments, complete with confusing jargon and tremendous amounts of moral outrage. But Alpert is better than this. She doesn’t try to be encyclopedic about the numerous black baseball leagues.

Instead, in a somewhat chaotic structure, she focuses on the owners of the teams who were often Jewish, including Abe Saperstein, founder of the Harlem Globetrotters. She discusses the business aspect of the sport, and devotes a riveting 40-plus pages to “comedy baseball,” the clowning acts that were prevalent on certain teams and during barnstorming events. She also talks about the Belleville Grays, a team comprised entirely of Jews who happened to be black.

Alpert deftly weaves in the thread of the integration of baseball, from the long and extensive campaign waged by Jewish Communist sports writers for the Daily Worker, to the eventual and much belated arrival of Jackie Robinson. Where others may have discounted the role of the Communist writers in integration, the author shows they played a significant part in keeping the story of sport segregation in front of the masses, and helping to force baseball to do the right thing.

Meticulously researched with great photos, sources, and an extensive bibliography, but with a subpar index, this book will interest anyone who loves the sport of baseball, Jewish history, black history or the history of Communism in this country. That’s quite a feat; strongly recommended. —Mark Rose

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Southern California-based journalist Nicholas Schou’s ORANGE SUNSHINE, now out in paperback, tells the fantastic but true story of how a group of small-time thugs were transformed by drug-induced spiritual awakenings and set out to essentially turn on the entire world — along the way becoming the most successful and sophisticated drug cartel in the U.S.

At the center of the story is John Griggs, a charismatic young man living in Orange County, with a petty criminal record and a love for getting high. Somewhere along the line, he discovered LSD, which altered the course of his life. He considered his hallucinogenic trip a religious experience, and the drug became his religious sacrament.

Inspired by the writings of Timothy Leary, Griggs soon gathered a group of like-minded friends together and formed weekly gatherings at a building in the woods near Laguna Beach to drop acid while reading passages from Leary’s books.
 
The group grew in size and influence, soon calling itself the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. Not long after, their activities diversified as well. They founded the Mystic Arts World, a combination art gallery/head shop/meditation center in Laguna Beach. But several members also got into drug dealing, which eventually escalated into full-scale smuggling operations bringing high-grade marijuana into California from Mexico, and even extra-strength hashish from as far away as Kandahar, Afghanistan.
 
When regular supplies and the expected effectiveness of LSD dried up, the Brotherhood developed its own ultra-potent strain, dubbed Orange Sunshine. Money from its various smuggling activities funded the manufacture of Orange Sunshine, which became so prevalent that it was literally handed out on the street, at various rock concerts, and even air-dropped over the massive crowd attending a Woodstock-like festival.

Through it all, even in the midst of its complex drug runs, Griggs insisted that the mission of the Brotherhood was to bring spiritual enlightenment to the country. But the Brotherhood soon became notorious as an illicit drug organization, especially to the law enforcement officers in the surrounding John Birch-inspired conservative Orange County, who were determined to bust the entire group.
 
The well-worn phrase that “anyone who says they remember the Sixties probably wasn’t there” is easy to believe, considering the phenomenal amount of drugs ingested during the short amount of time recalled here. But during his four-year search, Schou was fortunate enough to track down many of the surviving Brotherhood members, as well as their law-enforcement nemeses, who were willing to recall those often frantic, hazy days (although some agreed only if they remained anonymous, fearing personal or legal ramifications to this day).
 
The result is a fascinating, at times hilarious and frightening account of what drove the so-called hippie movement and its whole “Peace, Love & Music” ambience in California through the mid-to-late 1960s. A few celebrities figure in the retelling, most prominently the dubious role of Leary, but also Jimi Hendrix and few others who drifted in and out of the Brotherhood’s circle.

Sadly, however, as the group’s founding philosophical basis went up in smoke — assisted by the sinister presence of cocaine — the final chapters of the book become a series of drug busts, resulting in some Brotherhood members turning state’s evidence and ratting out on each other.
 
ORANGE SUNSHINE is highly recommended to those who both grew up during this strange but ultimately influential time, as well as those curious about what went on during that period referred to both nostalgically and ominously as “The Sixties.” Few actually knew just how long and truly strange a trip it had been. —Alan Cranis

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In these twilight days of the mass-market paperback, I was delighted to see a honest-to-goodness flying-saucer paperback with appropriate hyperbole on its cover:

“Shocking accounts of UFOs observed during times of conflict.”

“Includes Incredible Photographs of UFO Sightings!”

If you have any interest in Fortean topics, that has got to warm the cockles of your heart. Having grown up in the 1970s with an eye toward the oddball and the obscure, this was what most of these books did.

Whether it was Trevor James Constable claiming to have solved the enigma of observed unidentified flying objects using Wilhelm Reich’s cloudbusters (they were really amoeba-like plasma creatures inhabiting the upper atmosphere, flickering in and out of human visual range) or T. Lobsang Rampa, the Tibetan Lama who just happened to inhabit the body of a British plumber in order to write his autobiography, THE THIRD EYE, and its increasingly peculiar sequels.

Now having actually read this current book in question, Mack Maloney’s UFOS IN WARTIME, I’m somewhat shocked at how decent a little paperback it actually is.

There is very little original research to it. It’s written by a military fiction novelist. There are no incredible photographs inside.

But at the same time, it’s affordable and easily available. It’s paced well, written in a crisp and clear manner. It collects accounts from numerous sources and draws lines between them to compile a substantial amount of fairly credible information in between its covers. As such, it already knocks out 90 percent of its competition.

That the author refuses to give any answers to the puzzle, but simply presents a parade of stories from antiquity to the first Gulf War, makes it far more believable than any of the researcher preachers who are spouting their alien-infested opinions as gospel.

Maloney’s credibility is further boosted by his willingness to dismiss popular stories like Roswell as unlikely at best. That’s not an opinion to inflate the sales among the believers.

In essence, UFOS IN WARTIME simply points out that there is a long history of recorded observations of peculiar aerial objects by mankind. It promotes the crazy concept that it might be worth looking into, and not just make automatic mockery of it simply because of the multitude of loonies attached to the field. It follows in the footsteps of serious researchers like Jacques Vallee, Keith Chester and Leslie Kean, and adds to the chorus of honest curiosity.

This is not about little green (or gray) men doing proctological exams. It’s not about the reptilian overlords of the universe. It’s not even about any government conspiracy. It’s simply about considering the massive wealth of reliable and not-so-reliable witnesses observing something they can’t explain.

So even if UFOS IN WARTIME isn’t a “great” book even in the small field of Forteana, it’s an eminently readable gateway drug, and quite possibly the last mass-market paperback of its kind. —JT Lindroos

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Jeff Danby’s DAY OF THE PANZER: A STORY OF AMERICAN HEROISM AND SACRIFICE IN SOUTHERN FRANCE should be an absolute treat for detail-oriented fans of World War II battles, wargamers and history buffs. He tracks in meticulous, but never boring detail the actions of L Company, 15th Regiment, U.S. 3rd Infantry Division as it invades Southern France.

That’s right: Southern France. This isn’t about Normandy; it’s the rare book about a different theater of action that isn’t always discussed.

Danby’s grandfather, Lt. Edgar Danby, ended up as a tank commander in the skirmish, and although soldier Danby’s story doesn’t work out quite so well, writer Danby manages to convey all the action, fear, excitement, humanity and inhumanity of the regiment’s progress and battles as it slowly works its way through Occupied France.

It culminates in vicious tank combat in the small town of Allan. The scene is expertly described and you get a thorough feel for the lay of the land, the positions of the tanks and the men, and even how the little vignettes of minor skirmishes off to the side all add up into the whole of the overall battle.

The book is thoroughly researched with an extensive section on rosters, notes, bibliography and an index. Danby interviewed survivors and their families, and uses all of their recollections to fully flesh out the soldiers as human beings. As the subtitle suggests, this really is a tale of heroism and sacrifice.

My only complaint is that Casemate Publishers, who put out a lot of military history, apparently are in desperate need of a copy editor. It won’t destroy your enjoyment of the book, but it does stall you when there’s yet another misplaced preposition in a simple sentence.

THE DAY OF THE PANZER is laser-focused on one theater of operations and one regiment. It may not be for everyone, but if you are fascinated by World War II, this is a touching, ground-level look at some of the men who fought bravely in the conflict. —Mark Rose

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Compiled by “The Listomaniacs,” LISTOMANIA: A WORLD OF FASCINATING FACTS IN GRAPHIC DETAIL is like a collection of the infographics — “charticles,” call them at the pub I work for — from back issues of USA TODAY, but less timely and expanded to single pages or an entire spread. From “8 Unusual Ransoms” to “46 Movies with Ridiculous High Body Counts” to “57 Interesting Potato Chip Flavors,” the book covers 190 topics you didn’t know you wanted to know more about.

Obviously, the visuals are what sells this approach. While the trivia fan may or may not want to read about, say, “14 Beauty Queen Scandals,” the lively, colorful illustrations accompanying the barest of text tells your eyes that, yes, yes you do.

It’d be fun to have on hand at parties. Nerd parties, of course.

Fun fact: Should you accidentally type “listmania” in Amazon’s search bar, it directs you to a sex manual titled SQUIRMS, SCREAMS AND SQUIRTS. Try it! —Rod Lott

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Is there a pantheon of motorcycle books? Honestly, besides Robert Pirsig’s ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE, is there another book you could point at as being a popular classic? Hunter S. Thompson’s HELL’S ANGELS: A STRANGE AND TERRIBLE SAGA comes close, though it’s really just about a tiny subsection of motorcyclists whose image has since tarnished everyone else who rides. And Che Guevara’s THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES wasn’t about motorcycles.

Melissa Holbrook Pierson’s first book, THE PERFECT VEHICLE: WHAT IT IS ABOUT MOTORCYCLES is perhaps as close as we’ve come to a solid book about the full scope of motorcycling as an interest, a hobby, a sport and a way of life, though its mix of cultural and personal history made for a slightly disjointed read.

THE MAN WHO WOULD STOP AT NOTHING: LONG-DISTANCE MOTORCYCLING’S ENDLESS ROAD is more focused, though the title is a bit misleading. Ostensibly the story of John Ryan, one of the more remarkable long-distance motorcycle riders in the world, this book covers much more.

Ryan rides in and out of the pages and is essential to the whole, but it is as much about the author and her own experience with motorcycles as it is about the psychology of what drives these men and women to accomplish sometimes extraordinary and extreme feats for their own personal reasons.

We meet the members and the mindset of the Iron Butt Association, who grade their flock starting with those who ride more than 1,000 miles in a day (The SaddleSore). The elite of the association can participate in the “Iron Butt Rally” which is comprised of 11,000 miles in 11 days, with various obscure and irrationally difficult tasks and rules woven into the endurance test that costs much more in money, health and sanity than winning it might gain you.

There is no money or glory associated with what they do. Only a handful of other equally dedicated riders even know that they are doing this. Even fewer understand the reasons. Why would a 76-year-old grandmother circumnavigate the globe 28 times? Pierson doesn’t know, though she draws sharp parallels and makes some interesting assumptions.

There’s something very Ballardian in the mindset Pierson observes, and her detached writing style only punctuates that feeling. The insights mingle well with the descriptive sections, and the fact that she participates in some of the events give her writings weight.

In the end, THE MAN WHO WOULD STOP AT NOTHING is not a great book, but it’s still as good a book about motorcycling as you’re likely to see for a while. More focused if slightly less compelling than THE PERFECT VEHICLE, it works best as a companion to the earlier title.

It also importantly reminds the reader that there’s much more to motorcycles than one might glean from seeing one of those “unique like everyone else” Harleydiots riding around without a helmet, in a sleeveless leather vest and jeans, on a loud, overpriced and unreliable accessory. —JT Lindroos

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Who doesn’t enjoy a wee tipple now and then? If whiskey isn’t your thing, then Kate Hopkins’ 99 DRAMS OF WHISKEY certainly won’t be worth your time, but if you enjoy the caramel liquor, or are just beginning to discover what you like in the field of Scotch, whiskey, single malts, blendeds or what have you, then her book is an excellent introduction to the subject.

It’s the kind of work that could have been written 50 years ago, in that it is certainly not comprehensive, it doesn’t have a very definitive structure, and there’s no marketing angle or gimmick or trend associated with it. In today’s world, it feels almost incomplete in that regard. It’s really an idiosyncratic survey of the field written by a passionate enthusiast, a type of nonfiction we saw much more of in the past and which sadly seems much rarer nowadays.

Kate and her friend Krysta decide to travel around the world to research distilleries and write about whiskey. They go to Ireland, Scotland, Canada and finish off in the United States. They don’t visit every distillery, nor even attempt such a thing. Instead, they hit the ones that can provide an interesting story and they talk about the interesting people they meet along the way. There’s an occasional sidebar of a whiskey tasting where Kate describes the tastes and smells of a particular brand and vintage.

What manages to make this successful is the author’s breezy, cheery and humorous style, evident in her still-running blog, Accidental Hedonist, which is certainly worth a slot in your browser’s Favorites folder. She chats about this and that, smoothly discussing the distilling process without boring her readers, highlighting the eccentricities of those in the industry, making self-deprecating jokes about her travels, and in general, having a good time while telling the reader about whiskey.

She has no pretensions, doesn’t put on airs, and deflates some of the notorious myths that have grown up around whiskey tasting and which can intimidate newcomers. Tastes are different, and while some may love the sucking-on-peat-moss flavor of Laphroaig, others like myself are more attuned to the apricot nectarish flavors of an Oban or a Glenfarclas. It doesn’t matter. Whiskey is an intriguing spirit, filled with history, inventors, innovators, nutjobs, captains of industry and more. And Hopkins is an able guide through all of this.

If you like whiskey — and from my profile below, I think you can tell I fall in this category (though more of an Evan Williams fan now) — you’ll love 99 DRAMS for the humor and the far-flung distillery visits you may not be able to do. If you’re new to the spirit, then this book is even better because it will introduce you to worlds you never knew existed and without judging you ahead of time. Recommended. —Mark Rose

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When American brewing icon Anheuser-Busch was taken over by European/Brazilian beverage giant InBev in the late 2000s, during the height of the financial crisis, there was, of course, a predictable outcry about foreign companies buying American businesses.

But the truth was, as pointed out by Julie MacIntosh in her fascinating nonfiction work, DETHRONING THE KING, that Anheuser-Busch was failing, not growing — weak in its global efforts when globalization was the only way to go for a publicly owned company.

This is not a history of Budweiser; it’s a narrowly focused account of the Busch family, both Augustus Busch III and his son, Augustus Busch IV (more commonly referred to as The Fourth), and how they ran the company in the late half of the 20th century. There is much here about the company’s legendary advertising campaigns (remember the frogs? The “wassup” campaign?) and much more about the dysfunctionality of the Busch family.

When InBev came snooping around, thinking about a takeover, Anheuser-Busch was remarkably unprepared, and all of that was due to their insular corporate culture, fostered by Busch the Third. Unfortunately, the blame fell mostly on The Fourth.

If you’re just in this for beer facts, the book has some promise. There’s a lot of things I certainly didn’t know about Anheuser-Busch or InBev’s stable of brands. But if you have any interest at all in business or finance or how corporations survive when they’re publicly owned, then you’ll really enjoy this one. With the whole Occupy Wall Street bullcrap going on now, it’s important to learn how corporations actually function and what their purpose is, especially when their stock is owned publicly.

MacIntosh humanizes the situation and is brilliant at explaining motives, behaviors and expected results. Valuable lessons are to be learned, but my guess is the Busch family hasn’t taken note. Maybe you should. Recommended. —Mark Rose

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Doug Glanville is a fairly decent former Major League Baseball player who plied his craft in the outfield for nine MLB seasons with the Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies and Texas Rangers. He’s an interesting man, an engineering graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, a strong and clear writer, and he seems like a rock-solid guy.

I’m just not sure what his intention was in writing THE GAME FROM WHERE I STAND. This really isn’t an autobiography (though we get a few details of his life), and it’s certainly not a controversial tell-all (he has negative words for only one minor-league manager; he addresses steroids only briefly; and his strongest stance seems to be that the players that MLB have identified as steroid users in the infamous 2003 drug testing never be publicly named).

What it does serve as, and it does this well, is as an advice guide for young baseball players who are perhaps in junior high or high school.

Don’t take that line negatively. If you know someone who is an avid baseball fan and is playing organized baseball, or indeed if you know of any athlete playing organized sport, this is the perfect book for him or her. In straightforward, no-nonsense and very readable prose, Glanville talks about the negative things that can affect a player’s career (paranoia, bad work ethic, injuries, etc.) and he does it without being patronizing. He also talks about the innumerable benefits, and counsels to keep a wise head when confronted with the plus side.

But he does this so well and so conversationally, using anecdotes from his own career, that it never strikes you as one of those tedious, do-this/don’t-do-that preachy books. It’s weirdly charming, and makes you think you’d like to have Glanville over to dinner to learn more about what makes him tick.

It also humanizes the players. A lot of sports fans are guilty of taking the game far too seriously, and the author shows pressures and problems that face and bedevil top-level athletes even if they are making big money.

All in all, THE GAME FROM WHERE I STAND is a perfectly respectable sports book. I found out a few things of the inner workings of baseball teams, discovered a few new things about certain players, but really came away feeling that in the proper hands, this book would be a goldmine of advice and “what you need to know” for the burgeoning baseball player. —Mark Rose

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As the old-school strippers tell a young Rose Louise Hovick in GYPSY, “You gotta have a gimmick.” A catchy name helps, too. Salvatore Lucania? Nope. Charles Luciano? Nuh-uh. Lucky Luciano? “Lucky” because he once took a three-layered ass-kicking from the cops and didn’t die. Alliterative and provocative. That’ll work.

In BOARDWALK GANGSTER: THE REAL LUCKY LUCIANO, you do get a sense from author Tim Newark that Luciano’s posthumous reputation needed some kind of boost. For the first half of his criminal life, he was a smart guy, rising through the mob ranks as a hitman and body guard for Joe Masseria. But by the end of the 1920s and the retirement of Johnny Torrio in Chicago, who handed the Outfit over to Al Capone, Luciano had been wooed from the old way of doing things.

His idea was to keep the profile as low as possible and work with anyone who could help you, whereas Masseria refused even to meet with Jewish gangsters like Mayer Lansky, Arnold Rothstein and Bugsy Siegel. So Luciano had Masseria subtracted from the equation and then took over his family.

The government couldn’t find a way to nail Luciano on murder, so they adapted the Capone-trap and went after him for lesser crimes, and in 1936, the judge in Luciano’s trial on prostitution charges cold-cocked him with a sentence of 30 to 50 years.

And this is where Newark’s book gets really interesting. When the U.S. entered World War II, Naval Intelligence became very concerned that Axis saboteurs would cause trouble along the Eastern seaboard. The mob, which controlled the dock workers, offered to keep an eye on things in return for certain small favors, one of which was to allow Luciano to return to Sicily.

A deal was struck and Lucky headed for the land of his birth. He said that that he could serve as middleman between the Allies and the locals to make the invasion of Italy less explosive. His apparent success has been the major factor in his story ever since.

But Newark claims that Luciano had little, if anything, to do with the Allies in Sicily and Italy. In fact, after he slipped off to Cuba after the war, and then got run out in 1947, he lived for the next 17 years in Sicily on the charity of his pals. He was never the kingpin of the international narcotics trade, as he has been credited with being. Authorities just claimed he was because they needed a straw man to dangle in front of the public.

After all, it was better to blame a known criminal mastermind than it was to blow the whistle on half the government officials between Italy and here. This same straw-man scam had worked during the Depression with many of the hoods of that era — Machine Gun Kelly, Ma Barker and others — and it worked again with Luciano

Newark shows us a different take on the Mafia and especially on one of its star attractions. It’s a relatively short book, built more for speed than intensity. After reading it, you may never think of big-time organized crime lords quite the same way again. —Doug Bentin

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Assuming you’re the, ahem, type who scoffs at default fonts and found yourself enthralled at every minute of the documentary HELVETICA, then Simon Garfield’s JUST MY TYPE: A BOOK ABOUT FONTS is for you. Consider it a biography of sorts for several fonts, from the loved (Calibir) to the loathed (Comic Sans).

Heavily illustrated — and not just with photos, but the discussed (and disgust) fonts aplenty (some 219) — JUST MY TYPE is a breezy, lively, humorous and heavily readable nonfiction work for graphic-design nerds, whether by trade or simply vicariously. You’ll get the skinny on several fonts (both skinny and fat, serif and sans serif), a rundown of the worst fonts in existence and an überenjoyable picto-introduction by Chip Kidd that alone is almost worth the cover price.

Type as art fuels the monograph JESSE WARS HERE, on 96 pages of newsprint from Koyama Press. In it, Canadian visual artist Jesse Harris provides rallying cries for peace, love and creativity — and against wars and commercialism — or at least that’s how I interpreted it. With no artist statement, I can’t be certain.

Harris does this via manipulation of old photographs, over which he lays new slogans of his own making. These are masterful puns: “No Futura for You,” “Oils Well That Ends Sell,” “We All Write, Your Wall Wrong,” “Wit Paint” and so on. Trust me, you just have to see it. The presentation will stay with you … some quite literally, as the newsprint blackened my page-turning fingers. Does that make this work of art interactive? —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon and Koyama Press.

The title THE HILLIKER CURSE immediately conjured visions that the author, James Ellroy, known primarily for his period crime fiction, had tried his hand at Gothic suspense. I sat back and prepared myself for an interesting read … or at least an interesting failure. Then I saw the subtitle, MY PURSUIT OF WOMEN. It’s “a memoir.” Oy vey.

Needless to say (although I’ll say it anyway), my anticipation quickly took a nosedive. It’s like the time when I was a teenager and my mom told me she bought me a Harley. The imagery of me roaring down the highway with the wind whipping past was obliterated when she handed me a toy motorcycle. Nice joke, Mom, but it was still a severe disappointment. As was this paperback drivel.

You would think that with a title like THE HILLIKER CURSE: MY PURSUIT OF WOMEN, you would get a tome filled with sexual exploits that would make Hugh Hefner blush. There should be chapters detailing various sexual conquests and tantalizing descriptions of seduction. Alas, no.

Instead, we are first subjected to brief glimpses into the author’s childhood, covered extensively (and better) in MY DARK PLACES, his first memoir and nonfiction account of his mother’s unsolved murder. Once this old ground is covered again, Ellroy lists his various female acquaintenances, girlfriends, wives, women he’s chatted up at parties or on the subway, etc., and relates ad nauseum about how his screwed-up relationship with his parents has, well, screwed him up when it comes to relationships with the opposite sex.

Look, let me save you the time of reading this waste of trees. Here are the things you learn from reading THE HILLIKER CURSE:

1. Ellroy was probably the horniest 9-year-old in history, so consumed with seeing women naked that he would shoplift novelty X-ray specs and hope that they would really work. When that got him nowhere, he followed girls home and peeped in their windows.

2. He had an unnatural attraction to his mother, yet wanted to live with his father. After one particularly nasty fight, Ellroy wished his mother dead. She was murdered three months later and he’s been consumed with guilt ever since.

3. Ellroy developed a fixation on the Black Dahlia murder case because it reminded him of his mother’s murder.

4. In Ellroy’s younger years when he was afflicted with a bad case of acne, one girlfriend enjoyed picking his back zits.

5. He would spend his money on hookers, but not necessarily to have sex with them. Sometimes they just talked.

6. As he became more successful with his writing, Ellroy became more successful with women.

7. He’s had liaisons with married women.

8. After every relationship ends, he is obsessed with finding the next woman that will — fingers crossed — save him from himself.

9. But the most important thing I learned from reading HILLIKER was this: Any woman who can last more than five minutes in a relationship with a self-loathing solipsist like Ellroy should be nominated for sainthood.

A note about his writing style: I discovered Ellroy back in the ’80s after catching an obscure James Woods movie titled COP. The main character was quirky and flawed, and I found I wanted to read more from the author whose book on which the movie was based. I tracked down Ellroy’s novels and found them to be not as inspired as the movie, but still an enjoyable read. He hit his stride with THE BLACK DAHLIA, however, and his style and storytelling techniques improved. I was hooked and I thoroughly enjoyed the two follow-ups: THE BIG NOWHERE and L.A. CONFIDENTIAL.

With WHITE JAZZ, things changed. Ellroy stated in an interview that he was directed by his editor to cut a certain number of words from the manuscript. Rather than deleting passages or trimming down chapters, Ellroy cut words from each sentence. What was left was short staccato sentences that may have worked for that novel, but now that it’s turned into Ellroy’s signature style, it’s become annoying.

He also peppers his prose with outdated slang and hipster vernacular, as if he’s going for a cross between Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Webb. But for me, it sounds more like Philip Baker Hall playing the library cop on SEINFELD.  Here’s a sample picked at random (literally, I’m going to flip the book open and record the first passage I see):

“I was disingenuous, verging on mendacious. My relationship with Helen was tortuous and open-ended. My life was a daily process of atonement. I could not conceive of a life without Helen Knode. I started double-dealing Joan at the outset. I wanted Helen for companionship and the long shot of sex resurrected. I wanted Joan for her flaming expression of selfhood. We talked. I got Joan a second scotch. She barely touched it. Not a juicehead – good.”

And since I’m criticizing the author’s writing style, I would also like to call a moratorium on his constant use of dragging words out and putting them in italics, like “sizzzzzzled” or “looooved.” Once or twice in a book would be fine, but two or three times on a page causes severe eye-rolling.

Oh, and Mr. Ellroy? Please don’t use the word “grok” anymore. Only Robert Heinlein should be allowed to use it. And mayyyyybe Harlan Ellison. —Slade Grayson

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You’re forgiven if you mistake Penn Jillette’s GOD, NO!: SIGNS YOU MAY ALREADY BE AN ATHEIST AND OTHER MAGICAL TALES as a book-length slam against Christianity, because its cover sure sells it that way. But it’s not.

What it is is more of a random biography told out of chronological order, wrapped within here-and-there lessons of Jillette’s views on God, love, hate, sex, Santa Claus and accidentally dropping his penis into a scorching-hot blow dryer. It’s his world, and welcome to it. If you’re a Penn & Teller fan, you’re going to love it; if you’re a close-minded jerk, you’re not.

About the religion thing: Yes, Jillette makes his stance atheism well-known; he does not believe in a higher power. But he’s not arrogant about it; he doesn’t claim to know more than Christians. In fact, he says outright he knows nothing, just like Christians don’t have the answers, either. Neither side can prove the existence. That’s why it’s called “faith.” And he doesn’t believe in that warm fuzzy, either.

No need to freak out about him not sharing your belief. Glenn Beck sure as hell doesn’t, but he still calls Jillette “my friend.” It’s right there on the back cover.

But that’s only part of the book, a theme that weaves its way in and out of recollections of floating naked in zero gravity, a trip to a gay bathhouse, P&T’s strange relationships with Siegfried & Roy, loving remembrances of his parents, the bath he was taking when he learned of the Twin Towers being hit, doing GQ photo shoots, Ron Jeremy’s chances of being on the Supreme Court — seemingly anything and everything.

Jillette has a tendency to ramble, but as a longtime fan — dating back to their pre-Vegas days when David Letterman had a home at NBC — he’s one hell of a fun guy to listen to. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

I almost skipped reading Gregg Olsen’s STARVATION HEIGHTS, his recounting of the career of one Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard who ran a sanitarium in the ultra-rural Pacific Northwest town of Olalla, Wash. One can tell from the first few pages that Olsen is more a journalist than a historian. He’s comfortable at inventing dialogue and providing details for color that he could have only surmised, but not known.

But I stayed on through the first 20 pages, and was absolutely riveted until the end at page 419. What a story, and even though Olsen’s style has some eccentricities, it is well-told — a true tale of medical quackery, legal maneuverings and a woman who was convinced she was right and wrongly persecuted.

Dr. Hazzard was the only licensed fasting physician in the state of Washington in the 1910s. Her method was to put a sick person on a fast ranging anywhere from 25 to 50-plus days, providing only vegetable broth in minute quantities. Fasting was one of those odd medical cults that acquired devotees, and Hazzard was certainly not the only quack who prescribed such madness.

For a quack she certainly was. She never received a medical degree, but attended two osteopathic schools, that had long since closed. Her methods were so intense and so foolish, yet she had hundreds of satisfied customers who survived the fast and claimed they never felt better.

Then the Williamson sisters arrived.

Claire and Dora Williamson were rich, young women in their 30s who had so little to do in their lives that their hobby almost seemed to be to search out new medical cults to see if they could feel better than ever. They ran across Dr. Hazzard’s unusual book on fasting, which intrigued them. They asked to be in her care and moved to Seattle where the doctor began them on a fast. They very quickly declined. Eventually, Hazzard moved the women to the sanitarium she had built in the tiny and practically undeveloped wilderness town of Olalla.

Here, the women became much worse. They were isolated from their friends and relatives, and were powerless, practically under Hazzard’s complete control. In the guise of helping them, she got them to sign over powers of attorney. And soon, Dr. Hazzard was keeping them barely alive on small glasses of broth, while she raided their bank accounts and stole their clothing and jewelry.

That, of course, is the prosecution’s side. It seems that Dr. Hazzard truly believed she was in the right, and certainly never felt any guilt at the fate of the Williamson sisters. It was Claire who somehow managed to get a cable out to a former nurse/servant of the family who lived in Australia. The cable was oddly worded, but it worried Margaret Conway. When she arrived in Olalla, she found that Claire had died in the meantime, and saw the horrible skeleton that Dora had become.

From here, the story develops as the formidable Conway matches up with the equally formidable Hazzard, as Conway attempts to save Dora while Hazzard says she is doing the same, even though Dora is obviously near death. Eventually, Dora is pried away from the sanctuary and falls under the interest of Lucian Agassiz, a British vice-consul working in Tacoma. He takes up the case and insists Dr. Hazzard must be prosecuted.

The first half of the book concerns itself with Claire and Dora’s horrific treatments, and they are not for the faint of heart. The second half consists of a tense courtroom drama as the strangely reluctant state of Washington attempts to convict “Dr.” Hazzard of murder by starvation.

It’s an extraordinary true crime story, extremely well-researched, and a fascinating glimpse at our lax medical standards in the early part of the century. Great book. —Mark Rose

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There have been plenty of truly talented women racing drivers at all levels and in all variants of the sport. When you see today’s Danica Patrick or Ashley Force, you have to think of the pioneers, those who came before them and faced even more hardships and discrimination in the blinkered days of the past. You have to think of the brilliance of someone like Pat Moss, the grit of Shirley Muldowney, the versatility of Janet Guthrie, and the competitiveness of Lyn St. James.

Guthrie’s 2005 autobiography, JANET GUTHRIE: A LIFE AT FULL THROTTLE, is one of the thrilling masterpieces of auto-racing books. It’s well-written and inspirational, and every race fan will love it. St. James’ autobio, LYN ST. JAMES: AN INCREDIBLE JOURNEY, doesn’t quite measure up to that book, but it’s still a remarkable read.

St. James alternates chapters between telling her own story coming through the ranks of sports-car racing to eventually being a seven-time driver in the Indianapolis 500, and the particular story of her attempt to make the Indy 500 field in the year 2000. At first a bit jarring, this alternation turns out to be a clever way to inject some suspense, as her run in 2000 was riddled with mishaps, last-minute adjustments and an ill-handling car. The chapters on her own background are interesting and explain her advancement. But the chapters on the 2000 run really give you an idea of what it’s like to be on a racing team.

St. James isn’t big on statistics (we don’t get a complete career recap) and she doesn’t dish out any negative gossip (although there are a few pointed barbs thrown the way of Jack Roush, current NASCAR team owner). But what she is good at is talking about racing. She’s brilliant at talking about the way it actually feels to drive more than 200 mph for a considerable length of time, she analyzes what goes through one’s head when you’re in a crash, and she shares all the lessons she has learned about life through auto racing.

It’s a quick read and a good one. If you love open-wheel racing, you’ll want to take a look. —Mark Rose

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For those whose entire knowledge of ancient Roman history — of Augustus, Livia and Claudius — comes from Robert Graves’ novel I, CLAUDIUS, or more likely, the BBC adaptation of the same name, Matthew Dennison’s biography of LIVIA, EMPRESS OF ROME will be a valuable corrective.

Graves and the BBC were at pains to paint Livia, the mother of Tiberius and grandmother of Claudius, as a masterfully scheming villain who stopped at nothing and killed practically everyone in order to have her son ascend to the throne of Roman power. This is almost certainly not true.

If anything, Livia was a model of piety and chasteness, married to Augustus for more than 50 years, even though she did not provide him a son; Tiberius was a son from an earlier marriage, and not being able to produce an heir was ample grounds for divorce in the Roman world. By most contemporary accounts — and, to be fair, they are few and far between — Livia seems to have been a paragon of virtue.

So where did all this Livia-bashing come from? It must be admitted that a statistically significant number of male heirs to Augustus’ throne did die off at an alarming rate. But life spans of ancient Romans were never very long. And a number of the deaths occurred during battles or on far-off campaigns, which would tend to make Livia’s involvement even more difficult. Much of the bile seems to come from the historian Tacitus who had a rather vivid dislike of Livia, even though he was born almost 30 years after her death.

It is the writings of Tacitus and other post-Livian commentators who embellished the few facts — and elevated snide insinuations into absolute truths — that have twisted the tale. Dennison attempts to correct all this by presenting all the known facts about Livia and her family, and comparing them to the historiographical record. The problem is, what we really, truly know about Livia is very little.

The Romans were not big on including women in the public sphere, and what we can infer from the written and archaeological sources does not often provide us with motivations, emotions, and how Livia felt and reacted to the political situation. In short, Dennison does not absolve Livia of anything, but presents enough evidence to make us believe that she is not the murderous harridan of Tactius, Graves, and the BBC’s devising.

Experienced classicists will not need this book, as Dennison presents no new facts, by his own admission. It is simply a collection of known facts and references to Livia, properly and thoroughly sourced. But if you have an interest in Roman history (and the Romans were some freaky-deaky people when all is said and done), then this is a very readable account of the woman behind Augustus, the first emperor of the Roman Empire. —Mark Rose

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I’m the weird guy who liked math in high school, particularly geometry and algebra. My eldest child doesn’t share my sentiments in his middle school. Next month, he’ll be going into algebra, and is already dreading it. I’m going to give him THE MATH DUDE’S QUICK AND DIRTY GUIDE TO ALGEBRA to ease his pain.

I wish Jason Marshall had written this 20 years ago, because it explains easily what our textbooks sometimes did not. Remember having homework and being flummoxed by a problem on the right-hand side that the left-hand side failed to address adequately? We had to call up a friend and beg for help. This book would have alleviated all of that trouble.

In a simple, no-nonsense manner, it covers all the basics, smartly organized and broken down step by step. As the title suggests, it’s written toward the way kids nowadays speak (“Do you see what they did?” and “Bummer, I know”) without being so slang-heavy it requires decoding. In other words, it’s conversational. Never does it feel like a lecture.

Don’t be put off by its heft; it’s thorough, but split up so that you can find — via the index, naturally — what you only need to consult. For the polynomial-adverse, it’s a welcome slice of pi. —Rod Lott

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It’s rare to come across a book that dives headfirst into that foul bog of the paranormal without the intent of either bashing in the brain pans of skeptical debunkers or of true believers. How are you going to sell books unless you have all the answers? 

Steve Volk, a Philly beat reporter, has dealt with enough crime and corruption stories to know that the only way to approach an acrimonious subject is to kneecap the idiots on both sides of the fence, tell them to shut the hell up and move on to the people at the heart of the story.

In FRINGE-OLOGY, Volk talks with and listens to scientists and hippies, shrinks and astronauts, skeptics and true believers, and everybody in-between on an expansive selection of topics that usually tend to get snorts and guffaws from most of the reading public. Illiterates, too, come to think of it.

Ghosts? Give me a break. UFOs and psychics? Lose all your marbles? Near-death experiences? Too much Valium, buddy.

Fact is, credible people experience things not easily quantifiable by scientific methods in use today. You know somebody who has had an experience that defies comprehension — everyone does — and most people don’t ever tell their stories because they’d be swiftly labeled loonies. So how many millions of people have had strange experiences, even discounting those easily explained away, throughout all of history? That’s one big-ass pile of people.

What Volk argues for is a rational approach to what is labeled paranormal. How come everybody accepts string theory or the possibility of multiple dimensions as legitimate subjects of inquiry, yet one is ostracized and lampooned for suggesting it might be worthwhile studying the already statistically proven matter of “remote viewing”? Or for believing that some dogs know when their masters are coming home even at irregular hours. The results show something fickle and elusive and very unreliable, but the statistical blip remains significant.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Harry.

For example, the author visits the town of Stephenville, Texas, where hundreds of people saw something mighty peculiar flying above their heads a couple of years ago and interviews the residents who remain baffled, furious and frustrated at their lack of answers.

He talks to Allan Botkin, who helps war veterans induce after-death communication with loved ones. He tackles lucid dreaming with Stephen LaBerge, and tells the curious story of how Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was bamboozled by an opportunistic spiritualist scumball.

FRINGE-OLOGY is a superbly readable overview of current research into the unexplained and is suitable for anyone interested in the fields it covers. What really makes this book worth your attention is that Volk offers no definitive answers on anything. His mantra is “I don’t know.” He argues intelligently and eloquently for common sense. Drop your dogmas and think for yourself. Isn’t curiosity at the heart of discovery? —JT Lindroos

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James Carl Nelson’s THE REMAINS OF COMPANY D: A STORY OF THE GREAT WAR is a history of the members of Company D, 28th Infantry Regiment of the First Division United States Army, and its actions in three significant battles in World War I. Nelson was moved to write the book because of his grandfather, who was a member of that regiment and had been wounded in the conflict.

With great sensitivity, Nelson harkens back to those times and paints the picture of what it must have been like for those doughboys, almost all of them terribly young, many of them immigrants fighting for their adopted country, in a war so brutal that more than 16 million men died over the four years.

Using the soldier’s own words as found in their letters home — a technique reminiscent of Ken Burns’ documentary THE CIVIL WAR — Nelson recounts the home life and the eventual fate of many of the members of the regiment.

In the beginning, it starts almost as a genealogical detective tale, as he runs down the living descendants of the soldiers and finds out what the families know of their long-dead relatives. But the book changes in tone after 70 pages or so, and becomes a straightforward recounting of the battles of Cantigny and the St. Mihiel offensive.

This is unfortunate because the interesting part is the relationship between the dead and the living, and how much or how little family members knew of their forefathers’ actions in the war. Nelson tells a particularly touching account of one Rollin Livick, who was never accounted for by the Army. He was last seen heading behind the lines to get medical aid and never seen or heard from again, a disappearance which greatly disturbed his family.

As pure history, it’s a reasonable account of this particular segment of WWI, but Nelson has a tendency to repeat phrases (such as the “pup-pup-pup” sound a machine gun makes), and these touches sometimes come over a little too sentimental. The book seems a little unfocused, sometimes boring in on the familial details, sometimes brushing past a number of men in the company to give details on which hills were fought for and when.

Still, if you’re interested in the period (and so many of our mystery writers seem to be, from Charles Todd to Elizabeth Speller and more), this is a competent and detailed-enough story that focuses intently on the human thoughts and emotions of men, and their families caught in an awful, brutal war. —Mark Rose

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The last American, top-level, professionally organized sport to integrate was NASCAR. The NFL started in 1920, disintegrated in 1933, then reintegrated in 1946 with Woody Strode, Kenny Washington, Marion Motley and Bill Willis. MLB did so in 1947 with Jackie Robinson. The NBA followed in 1950 with Earl Lloyd, Chuck Cooper and Nat Clifton.

And the fledgling NASCAR finally had a black driver compete at its highest level in either 1953 or 1954, with Wendell Scott. The date variation stems from the fact that Scott received his NASCAR driving license in 1953 and probably competed in at least one race that year, but the records are vague. He definitely competed in the sportsman class of the early Daytona race of 1954.

Most of us have read of the racist abuse Jackie Robinson endured, but after reading Brian Donovan’s HARD DRIVING: THE WENDELL SCOTT STORY, you will be stunned and appalled at just how awful people could be to each other just 50 years ago.

Scott started his career as many of the other NASCAR legends: running moonshine. A whiz at auto repair, he started taking his car to local dirt tracks, where he and his skeleton crew of two friends would often be the only black people at the track. In the Deep South before civil rights legislation, this meant he had a target on his back. Perhaps sometimes literally.

Donovan, an author who won a Pulitzer for his investigative reporting into police pension abuse, tells the hardscrabble story of the Scott family ably, relying on numerous interviews with drivers and executives. It’s interesting to read how Scott or his family detail some aspect of discrimination they experienced, and then to hear the very culprit explain away and rationalize the incident.

A yearly recounting of this type of behavior tends to make the book a little wearying, however. (And certain names come off very poorly; I’m looking at you, Neil Castles and Banjo Matthews. Thankfully, some of the NASCAR legends, such as Richard Petty and Ned Jarrett, come out of this pretty well.)

Scott was a good race driver, and not just by his own account. Many of the NASCAR drivers he raced against and who are quoted in the book, discuss his obvious talents. He was a master at the dirt track and would easily win sportsman division championships. But the money was not really there for him to achieve at the top level. He could never land a major sponsorship or the backing of a major automobile company.

Ford, Chevy and Chrysler may have been leery of supporting a driver who they felt polarized the spectators. What would the series ever do if Wendell Scott ever won a race? They couldn’t let him kiss the trophy queen, could they? (Yes, that was one of their concerns.)

Donovan recounts all the slights offered to Scott, from failing technical inspections for no apparent reason, to not even being allowed to take the checkered flag in his sole top-level win. They awarded the trophy to second-place finisher Buck Baker, waited for everyone at the speedway to leave, then corrected the record and gave the finishing money to Scott.

It’s sad, frustrating and will make any true race fan angry. Drivers of lesser talent routinely received better equipment from the big sponsoring automotive companies; what could Scott have done with that level of commitment? We’ll never know.

What we do know is that he is a legend, a pathbreaker, a pioneer. Currently, there is no African-American driver running at the highest level of NASCAR, but there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of minorities running races at your local NASCAR-sanctioned race tracks, and it’s from this group that someone will eventually make it to run on a regular basis in the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Whether that is someone like a Darrell Wallace Jr. or a Michael Cherry who are well on their way, or someone we haven’t yet heard of, they — and we — should give a round of applause and thanks to a man whose name should never be forgotten when we discuss American stock car racing: Wendell Scott. —Mark Rose

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Unconventional. That’s a good word to describe MONSTRUM!: A WIZARD’S TALE, its author and the subject matter. I don’t mean it simply in the sense that a book about lake monsters might be considered unconventional, since they are a dime-a-dozen. Among even that section of the shelf where you have your books on cryptozoology, phenomenology, ufology, demonology and other assorted ogies, this slim volume remains unconventional.

Tony “Doc” Shiels wrote this slight book. Its slightness, however, remains an illusion, a sleight of hand. It illuminates the topic of lake monsters — i.e., Nessie, Morgwar — from an angled perspective. It’s fishing for those inhabitants of the deep with wordplay, surrealism, alchemy and Guin-ness.

Conjurer, playwright or wrong, painter, trickster and beer enthusiast, among other assorted alignments, Shiels is a very specific kind of all-around djinneus.

In different terms, Shiels is to monster hunting what Captain Beefheart was to pop music.

Attempting to conjure up a sea monster may get you to raise your eyebrows. It’s a natural reaction from most anybody who doesn’t use botox. But there are precedents to this kind of madness, ranging from those attempting to make money off blurry photographs to those who go on to found the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Are they tapping into the Jungian pools, reflecting themselves on the canvas of the skies, and harnessing the subtle energies of the noosphere by the concentrated force of multiple minds strumming the shimmering strings that make up our multiverse?

So casting spells seems a mighty peculiar approach to a subject one may naturally think as either ridiculous or, at best, consider a zoological puzzle. There’s nothing wrong with a scientific approach to a mystery, but given the range of human experience and the limits of our scientific knowledge, perhaps we can assume there to be elements of the universe beyond our current understanding? And who’s to say that the approach of an artist is any less valid than that of a scientist — except a dogmatic scientist — especially when exploring the unknown.

There’s much more to the book than just sea monsters. It comes with a superlative introduction from Colin Wilson. It discusses the mystery of the Owlman of Cornwall and other unidentified flying objects, touches upon witches and the pooka, lexilinks James Joyce and shuffles in quotes from John Updike, Lewis Carroll and Luis Buñuel.

MONSTRUM! is an oddly interesting book, unique in its vision, occasionally hampered by its need to cover the “facts” and elaborate on the history of its subjects. It’s a highly entertaining read with writing that ranges from outrageously clever and insightful to curiously clunky and uninteresting.

But that’s part of the charm: dreamlike, littered with random patterns that occasionally align in that peculiarly perfect harmony, creating new pathways in your brain, connecting the two hemispheres through left-field leaps of logic, jogging loose the thin membrane that connects consciousness to the throb of your ticker, yet perplexing those not tuned to the exact frequency. It’s a direct cranial extract from the mind of a uniquely gifted artist/magician.

Rating this book in any normal fashion would be pointless, and while I’m at a loss to whom on or off earth I could recommend it, I’m delighted that it exists. I suspect there are other lunatics who will feel the same. —JT Lindroos

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Did you realize there is a subculture of dinosaur hunters in the U.S.? A whole network of people looking for T. Rex and other fossils across the states, gathering for meets and sales and expos, planning and executing expeditions, digs and parties. These people range from scientists, hustlers and ranchers to gravediggers, writers and male models — all across the board.

Richard Polsky made his name writing about the art world in I BOUGHT ANDY WARHOL. The money and machinations behind the aesthetic beauty, the commerce of art. How fortunes are made and lost, the gossip and backroom brawls, petty grudges and the general snobbish greed that goes with the territory.

In BONEHEADS: MY HUNT FOR T. REX, Polsky decides to go after his childhood dream of finding a T. Rex in the wild. What he finds are all the same squabbles and fortunes, grudges, forgeries and greed that plaqued the art world. They may be wearing different clothes in these circles, but human nature rears its ugly head wherever there is money to be made.

Finding a T. Rex in good condition can be a very valuable discovery ($8.3 million is the record sale), but taking into account the cost of digging one up, dealing with laws and landowners, not to mention the volatile market fluctuations in dinosaur prices, you’re quickly back at Sotheby’s looking for the filthy rich to fulfill your dreams of joining their ranks.

Halfway through the book, I was raring to go foraging myself, though I’d settle for a nice big T. Rex tooth that I could then forget on top of the stereo, next to the shells I brought back from Marco Island.

Polsky is an engaging writer, his characters are quirky, and he has a knack of describing them in simple but lively strokes. His adventures in the fossil trade are consistently interesting. The author himself comes across somewhat annoying, but he knows this and plays it amusingly against the rougher types he encounters.

On its own slightly eccentric terms, the work illuminates the world of rockhounds and boneheads, without aspiring to anything loftier. If you have any interest in the subject, this is a quick, fun read. —JT Lindroos

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A pig’s penis resembles a corkscrew. Paris Hilton wears a size 11 shoe. Fish can drown. Some perfumes contain whale vomit.

These and 361 more fun facts are featured in LEARN SOMETHING EVERYDAY, by Young. That’s a “design duo,” not a person. Each fact gets its own monochromatic page in this chunky square of a novelty book, and each accompanied by a rough illustration that recalls the work of John Callahan and P.S. Mueller.

Books like this are tough to review. Either you like ingesting this kind of watercooler trivia or you don’t. And if you do, you might wish this were a calendar instead. —Rod Lott

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GRAPHIC USA: AN ALTERNATIVE GUIDE TO 25 US CITIES may as well be called THE HIPSTER’S TRAVEL BOOK. I mean that in a nice way, because this unique vacation text is, well, hip.

The idea is a great one: Pick 25 cities in America worth visiting; highlight all the places to eat, drink, shop, stay at and visit; and have a graphic artist in that city design that section. That way, each chapter is organic and homegrown, reflective of the town’s respective vibe.

Thus, Daniel Blackman’s intro to Chicago may be icon-based, Camillia Benbassat’s look on NYC culls elements of graffiti, and Tal Rosner’s take on Los Angeles utilizes photographs and collages of said photographs. Based on the art alone, I don’t think there’s a single place here I wouldn’t want to visit, because they all look so appealing. (But, Anchorage, I know in reality that you’re too chilly for my tastes.)

Published by Cicada Books out of the UK, the book is extremely well-done, like a logical step up from the intent of many an alt-weekly newspaper. Like those, however, I can’t help but wonder how dated the edition may already be. Restaurants and bars often fold like laundry. —Rod Lott

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I usually prefer nonfiction to fiction. The actions and events of something I know to have taken place, rather than the half-realized actions and events sprouting from someone’s feverish imagination, mean more to me. Real-life events serve as the inspiration for the creation of novelists, and while sometimes it’s enjoyable to experience the art of a good novelist and storyteller, it’s also important to visit the source material. And when you have a crafty nonfiction writer who can make the concrete facts truly come to life, then you have also found a true artist.

That’s the honor I’m giving to Robin Waterfield whose work DIVIDING THE SPOILS: THE WAR FOR ALEXANDER’S GREAT EMPIRE, leads off the “Ancient Warfare and Civilizations series” from Oxford University Press. The series, edited by Waterfield and Richard Alston, is extremely promising, based on this first installment.

All of us have heard of Alexander the Great, but what happened after he passed away? What did his generals, the Successors — who included Antigonus the One-Eyed, Antipater, Perdiccas, Ptolemy, Seleucus and many more — do after the great conqueror’s death? Well, it’s no surprise that they attempted to continue their warfaring and conquering ways, but what is surprising is how interesting Waterfield makes the complicated political maneuverings, the tactics of the innumerable battles, the lifestyles of the broad variety of civilizations that were affected by this warfare, and more. The author also attempts to explain the cultural and technological advances made during this time.

Academic prose is frequently leaden, but this series intends to reach out to the largest audience possible, and does so successfully. Complete with a handy timeline, and an almost necessary cast of characters and genealogical charts, Waterfield’s writing is crystal-clear at all times. He is adept at separating the various Alexanders and Antigonuses and whatever, and shows you how each of their actions affected all the other major players in this rather major theater of war.

This is a streamlined history meant for the masses and not necessarily for the scholar who has studied this area all of their life. But if you have any interest in the beginnings of the Hellenistic Age and what has come to be known as the Wars of the Successors, then this is the introductory book for you. —Mark Rose

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Sure, this nonfiction work from horror and science-fiction author/editor Nick Mamatas is a writing guide. But the STARVE BETTER title alone tells you he is taking a radically different approach than most of the other innumerable guides to the writing life.

Culled from blog posts and various articles published online and in print, Mamatas offers no surefire formulas, no proven templates and nothing close to a guarantee of success. Instead, he offers insights and instructions for earning something of a living through writing fiction and nonfiction, while establishing your writing cred with editors and publishers.

The first section, “The Book of Lies,” is devoted to writing mostly short fiction. And if there is one ringing truth that manages to shine through all of these articles, and indeed through what Mamatas calls the “culture of advice,” it is the frustrating but ultimately indisputable fact that there is no truly right way to create fiction. Oh, there are plenty of rules and advice to learn, but every one of them has their exceptions.

Or, as he expresses it in the opening entry, “All Advice Is Terrible Advice, Plus Other Useful Advice”: “Write what you want, when you want, and how you want to write it. If you keep finding yourself staring up at the lights while the ref counts to three, try another strategy. There are plenty to choose from.”
 
The second section, “The Book of Life,” is devoted to being a freelance writer of nonfiction articles for magazines and alternate newspapers. Here, as is the case with fiction, it is essential to know not only your topic but also your market and publisher as well. While producing such work may not seem as glamorous as stories and novels, there is money to be earned and potentially important contacts to be made in this field.
 
And don’t pass up those articles in the appendix. They contain some of Mamatas’ most insightful and funniest tips. Like “How to Get the Most Out of Your MFA Program,” which contains suggestions of importance even if you don’t invest in academic training. Or his take on the seemingly promising but transparent rewards of self-publishing.
 
Some might throw their hands up after reading a few articles and decide that it’s just not worth all the frustration and — lest we forget — rejection. Mamatas won’t argue with you. In fact, he’d probably commend you.
 
But if you are among those who can’t envision themselves doing anything else with their life except writing, STARVE BETTER might help break the fall after taking that leap of faith. —Alan Cranis

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The life of an undercover police officer is a hard one. Don’t just take it from me; read MURDER FOR HIRE, Jack Ballentine’s account of life as an undercover cop. He tells his story in brief vignettes throughout; there is no overarching tale of one huge bust. Each chapter relates a case he was involved with and its associated people.

At times, MURDER gets a bit preachy, but that’s to be expected from a police officer. He’s not one whitewash the facts or hide that a cop’s life can cause real problems. He goes into great detail about some of his fellow officers who could no longer deal with the job’s pressures. But it’s Ballentine’s own stories that will keep readers stuck to the book.

He sets himself up as a big, burly biker who would gladly take any job that involved killing. He relates encounters with a pedophile who wanted to watch Jack kill a young boy, to a bizarre trailer-park family who need their son killed before they are evicted. These are just drops in the bucket of his cases.

We are also invited into his private life, where he tries to establish a family while leading this double life. There’s a fine line between the family man who helps out with youth sport to the biker persona who hangs out in strip joints using whomever he can as an informant. Ballentine has a problem of repeating himself, bringing up stories touched upon earlier.

But that can all be forgiven, since at the heart of this title is a man whose life was a severely trying one, under all the circumstances. —Bruce Grossman

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Like J.D. Salinger, Lewis Carroll was an author who shunned publicity and sought privacy. While it may have made his life easier to live, all the secrecy can be damaging to one’s reputation, especially if you’re no longer around to defend yourself.

Carroll has had it harder than most, notably demonized as a pedophile. Long a fan since devouring his stories in her childhood, London journalist Jenny Woolf set out to find the truth — or as much that could be determined — in her biography of the legendary writer, THE MYSTERY OF LEWIS CARROLL: DISCOVERING THE WHIMSICAL, THOUGHTFUL, AND SOMETIMES LONELY MAN WHO CREATED ALICE IN WONDERLAND, now in paperback.

With 10 brothers and sisters, Carroll had no shortage of support throughout his years, right up to his death in 1898. But it’s his non-familial relationships that, understandably, remain under society’s microscope. Woolf finds that while many women were taken with Carroll’s charm, it’s likely that he died a virgin, as rumored, or at least found his limited sexual experiences so shameful, that he chose celibacy at great length.

Perhaps that’s why his interest in young girls — we’re talking not yet “age of consent” here — has set so many tongues a-wagging. Woolf spends a great deal of time discussing his interest in photography, particularly shooting friends’ children scantily clad or even nude. While Woolf notes that this was normal for the times, the creepiness is tough to shake.

His most famous object of affection, of course, is Alice Liddell, for whom he may or may have written ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, and even that relationship became fractured, as Woolf investigates. What’s more interesting are the Freudian analyses of ALICE she presents from others, such as the interpretation that a shrinking and growing Alice represented Carroll’s erection, or that “going down the rabbit hole” was his thinly veiled desire to penetrate Liddell.

Even if not all of the mystique is solved, THE MYSTERY OF LEWIS CARROLL at least clears up some misconceptions, putting a mild spit-polish on the author’s rep (as there’s no evidence he diddled kids). I’d place Woolf’s work on par with Rebecca Loncraine’s recent L. Frank Baum bio, THE REAL WIZARD OF OZ: neither definitive nor mandatory, but certainly smart and stimulating enough. —Rod Lott

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If you don’t think the 8-foot Sasquatch roaming in the Pacific Northwest is big enough a beast for you, then this here title should set you straight: TRUE GIANTS: IS GIGANTOPITHECUS STILL ALIVE? A true giant, as defined by the esteemed authors, Loren Coleman and Mark A. Hall, is both bigger and badder than its bigfooted Northwest sibling.

From the biblical stories, through Native American legends to modern-age sightings, tales of giants have been pervasive and persuasive. They’ve been used to sell newspapers, terrify naughty children, name fledgling sports teams and mined as fodder for all types of fantastic fiction.

Yet curiously, the reports are persistently uniform, from massive hairy size to the conical shape of the head to the enormous, four-toed footprints. These wild animals have been said to have rudimentary grasp of speech, the ability to utilize tools, and the strength to crush men’s heads like overripe tomatoes. Interestingly, Slavomir Rawicz described uncannily similar creatures in the bestselling THE LONG WALK: THE TRUE STORY OF A TREK TO FREEDOM, although his encounter with these abominable snowmen suggested them to be “only” 8 feet tall.

However you may feel about the reality of the subject, TRUE GIANTS presents a succinct, enlightening and tremendously entertaining case for such a creature, be it genus gigantopithecus, one of its cousins, or some other unrecognized ape-like beast. The book doesn’t make unsubstantiated claims, but lines up a delightful parade of records and reports from all across the globe, from antiquity to current date, and drops it on your doorstep so you can take from it what you will.

You can enjoy the book as an entertaining history lesson, as a serious first peek behind the reality of an elusive creature perhaps still lurking in the vast wildernesses of our strange planet, or as a collection of folk tales and myths from the frozen tundra of Siberia to the Islands of the South Seas.

If there is a criticism to be given for the book, it lies in the appendices. Two of the seven are reprints of stories by Ivan T. Sanderson from the late 1960s. Sanderson is such an engaging storyteller that Coleman and Hall are momentarily outgunned in their own book! Of course, none of this matters to the reader, since that’s just gravy on a gourmet dinner. —JT Lindroos

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Any author who opens his book by slamming Stephen Hawking’s scientific reasoning has either got more than a few nuts loose or some major-league cojones. A Boing Boing blogger and venture capitalist who was the model for a lead character in a Steven Spielberg film as performed by Francois Truffaut, Jacques Vallee can stake claim to the latter.

Written with British folklorist and researcher Chris Aubeck, WONDERS IN THE SKY explores unexplained aerial phenomena. Even a clueless old coot with no inkling of Barack Obama or Lady Gaga will have a firm opinion concerning this subject that remains taboo in most circles. The authors deflect some automatic criticism by avoiding the more familiar term, which has become synonymous now with alien spacecraft and tinfoil hats (especially in its acrimonious acronym form, consisting of the letters U, F and O).

Robert Anton Wilson noted, “Under the Illuminati program, children in grade school are taught to be unable to consciously see the word ‘fnord.’ For the rest of their lives, every appearance of the word subconsciously generates a feeling of uneasiness and confusion, and prevents rational consideration of the subject.”

Got it? Have an opinion? Unless yours contains a “maybe,” I’m not interested. It’s probable you do not know the answers, and even if you did, how do you think I could deduce that singular signal from all the throbbing cacophony of migraine-inducing noise this field attracts? There are ignorant fools on each side of this debate. Dogma be damned.

In WONDERS IN THE SKY, Vallee and Aubeck offer an astounding catalog of pre-Industrial Revolution reports on unexplained aerial sightings of all shapes and sizes, often analogous to what has been seen and reported since 1947 as “Unexplained Flying Objects.” Pay attention to the word “unexplained.” The earliest recorded instances originate some 3,500 years ago, and the authors cut the parade off in 1879. These ancient events were interpreted as angels and fairies, gods and demons, signs and portents, or airships predating the Wright brothers, yet all are cut from a similar cloth across the ages.

Vallee also wrote about this peculiar lineage of sightings from olden days in his PASSPORT TO MAGONIA: ON UFOS, FOLKLORE, AND PARALLEL WORLDS, to which this book is something of a sequel, drawing parallels to reports of fairies and mystery airships seen in similar context long before the ETs jumped on board.

Vallee implies that what we’re seeing in the skies is not necessarily mechanical craft piloted by little green men, but rather unexplored and unexplained phenomena that might have much more to do with human consciousness and perception and more how we interact with the universe than with physical nuts and bolts.

I tend to agree as far as bolts go; nuts, I suspect, will manage to have their say. Now as far-flung as this seems, it does fit rather snugly with current studies in consciousness, cosmology and the nature of our surroundings. Read up on “observer effect” or “quantum entanglement” in Wikipedia to kickstart your neurons.

The speculations and commentary presented are insightful and consistently engaging. The authors remain airborne above the controversies by force of conviction derived from a load of historical evidence. Where the book overreaches is in the sheer volume of reports included. They do provide an avalanche of data that is in itself significant in supporting much of the their claims, but unless you are deeply interested in the subject matter, reading 500 entries — however short some of them may be — can be daunting.

In the end, I would have much rather had the most convincing 200 entries between the covers, with the rest available for perusal in a free online database. But it’s hard to fault this from a scientific standpoint. WONDERS IN THE SKY is an important volume for stirring discussion and broadening the horizons of scientific inquiry. And that’s a hell of a lot more than 99.9 percent of books published today can claim. —JT Lindroos

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As if you didn’t have enough to worry about, British writer and graphic designer Richard Horne gives us A IS FOR ARMAGEDDON: A CATALOGUE OF DISASTERS THAT MAY CULMINATE IN THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT … just in time for Christmas!

From the unlikely (death by cow farts) to the more likely (nuclear annihilation), the book gives the skinny on the odds of the act happening, how it would go down, what you should do and when you need to worry. And he may even, oh, suggest a jaunty soundtrack for the occasion. It’s very neatly illustrated and designed, but that doesn’t mean much when you’re going to die, now, does it? This is perhaps the best-looking book that will give you clinical depression. —Rod Lott

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At the risk of sounding like a nerd — too late! — I’ve long harbored a love for maps. Something about them is utterly visually pleasing. When they’re actually informative, too — well, that’s a bonus. The OXFORD ATLAS OF THE WORLD: SEVENTEENTH EDITION certainly qualifies.

This Oxford University Press hardcover isn’t small, and sure isn’t cheap. Like Sofia Vergara, it’s big and beautiful. At nearly 500 pages, most full-color, it begins with a section of satellite images of Earth — photographic maps, really. After a “Gazetteer of Nations,” the book gets into the real nitty gritty: maps, maps and more maps.

From continents to countries to cities, this atlas literally has the world covered. You get your bird’s-eye topographic view, as well as the über-detailed road maps of the globe’s top cities. If you’re a numbers geek or one those GPS treasure hunters, the index provides geographical coordinates for everything listed on the hundreds upon hundreds of maps before it. —Rod Lott

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The story behind Nick Redfern’s new book, FINAL EVENTS AND THE SECRET GOVERNMENT GROUP OF DEMONIC UFOS AND THE AFTERLIFE, is preposterous: Since the 1940s, there has been a secretive think tank comprised of right-wing fundamentalist Christians within the government who believe those pesky unidentified flying objects are, in fact, demonic manifestations.

Furthermore, the think tank (dubbed “The Collins Elite”) believes that in order to save the human race from this demonic force, flickering in and out of our dimension to harvest human souls, another 9/11 event is required to trigger martial law so that strict Christian rules can be propagated throughout the land, allowing the power of Christ to drive out these demons. Which were, by the way, invoked by Aleister Crowley and Jack Parsons with their occult rituals back in the early 20th century.

Now that is what I call a story. What makes this interesting is that Redfern presents “just the facts” as laid to him by several individuals, all named, who were part of this group before deciding that even thinking about blowing up dirty bombs to trigger martial law was a bad idea. He makes no judgment, although he does repeatedly state that these are not his beliefs.

Whether the group had the influence it claimed to have, specifically during the Reagan and Bush administrations, can certainly be debated. Whether they were, in fact, serious about performing terrorist acts on U.S. soil can be debated. But the very outrageousness of the story makes it seem eerily plausible. Besides Charles Burns, who could even come up with a story like this?

Redfern is a smart and open-minded person. He can express his thoughts on any fringe subject with superb clarity and precision. At his best, like with the Hunter S. Thompson-influenced monster-hunt memoir, THREE MEN SEEKING MONSTERS, he is as good as current Fortean writers get.

Why, then, is this book such a mess? It reads like a first draft, clumsy as if written late at night with no sleep and no confidence. The information and story it tells is gold. The lineage he draws for the history is insightful. But when you read it, page after page, word for word, it bogs down to a standstill. I realize there’s very little money to be made in this field, and most of the writers consider it a passion rather than a source of income, but that’s no reason for such sloppy writing.

Despite the strength of the material, I’m very hesitant to recommend it for your reading pleasure. Luckily, Amazon offers a lengthy section of the book to peruse so you can decide for yourself before either skipping or purchasing your copy. —JT Lindroos

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I was in the middle of another book when THE BOOK OF BAD: STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW UNLESS YOU’RE A PUSSY by Christopher Lee Barish came across my desk. Well, folks, I’m not a pussy, so I instantly tossed my current reading assignment aside and picked this up.

It’s fortunate that THE BOOK OF BAD has a subtitle, as it could have been misleading. THE BOOK OF BAD could pertain to a listing of “bad” people, “bad” historical events or even a listing of all of the “bad” books this particular reviewer has had to slog through. No, instead, THE BOOK OF BAD is essentially a how-to guide on committing various misdemeanors, felonies and/or other unethical and immoral acts … and getting away with it.

It’s much like the various books I used to see for sale in the back of SOLDIER OF FORTUNE magazine or published by Paladin Press. You know the type: GET EVEN, a guide to getting revenge on your enemies (either real or imagined); THE ANARCHIST COOKBOOK, a long-banned cookbook of homemade drugs and munitions; and HIT MAN: A TECHNICAL MANUAL FOR INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS, an instructional guide on committing murder, written by the pseudo-anonymous Rex Feral.

Unlike those titles, the author here has his tongue firmly planted in his cheek. Or at least I hope he does (more on that in a minute).

The rather slim 160-pager is broken into two sections: the “Derelict’s Section,” which is for the minor wannabe criminal element, and the “Felon’s Section,” which is self-explanatory. Chapters include:
• “Pass a Polygraph Test”;
• ”Hack a Vending Machine”;
• “Get Out of Jury Duty”; and
• “Count Cards in Blackjack.”

And gradually work into, in the Felon’s Section:
• “Join the Mafia”;
• “Make Counterfeit Money”; and
• “Rob a Bank.”

Of course, the book ends with the chapter “Escape Prison,” because obviously, if you embark on the journey that the preceding chapters outline, surely your destination will entail a drab uniform, bad food and iron bars over your window.

Some of the advice falls into the “Well, duh …” category, such as the “Escape Prison” chapter. One of the author’s tips involves getting transferred to a minimum-security prison, although if you’re serving several consecutive life sentences or waiting on death row, then such a transfer might be beyond your scope of possibilities. In fact, there are several instances where the author gives what appears to be blatantly obvious advice …

Which reminds me of Steve Martin’s stand-up routine (back when he was funny, before he started making crappy movies) where he would give the audience advice on how to make a million dollars and not pay taxes: “First, get a million dollars. Then …”

There are some good tips in here, such as the beat-the-polygraph-test chapter or the “Get Out of the Armed Forces” chapter, and good advice on getting out of a speeding ticket (Chapter 11), although honestly, I have no idea if most of this stuff would work. I never would have thought to use a tampon in my construction of a Molotov cocktail, and I have no intention of trying it. But the chapters on becoming a porn producer or counting cards? Well, maybe …

Some chapters, besides supplying various tips and strategies, will resort to directing the reader to YouTube for instructional videos. Truthfully, much of what is printed in this book is probably available online already, but then you wouldn’t have the pleasure of the author’s snarky prose. Examples:

In Chapter 1 (“Pass a Polygraph Test”): “Whether you’ve been asked to take a lie detector test or need to clear your name, passing a polygraph test is easy — even if you’re a sketchy, lying piece of shit.”

Chapter 2 (“Score Prescription Drugs”) advises using “your teenage child as a psychiatric pawn.” “Maybe it is time that they see the school psychologist or a private psychologist to discuss their difficulty paying attention in school — you might need to start a campaign of mental abuse to actually make them sick enough to get the meds they want.”

Chapter 31 (“Commit Bigamy”): “For some men it is probably hard to fathom why one would actively seek to double or triple the aggravations and irritations that come with having a family. To cope with the stress, if you become a religious fundamentalist, with ten or twelve wives, you can batter a different wife and child a day for a month or so. This will keep your relationships exciting.”

Yes, much of this book is obnoxious and crude, and even misogynistic, but therein lies the fun. It’s not meant to be taken seriously (I think), and if you do take it seriously, then you have major issues of your own.

For the rest of you, pick it up now because it’s only a matter of time before someone blames the “Rob a Bank” chapter for their crime spree, and the inevitable lawsuits and book banning will begin. —Slade Grayson

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Just a quick glance at the cover of Mike Dash’s THE FIRST FAMILY: TERROR, EXTORTION, REVENGE, MURDER, AND THE BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN MAFIA should be enough to tell anyone that this is no glorification of the mob. The guy in the picture thought he was about to enjoy a tasty meal. Just look at the poor bastard. He’s seated at a restaurant dining table, still wearing his top coat, slumped forward, with his face in the pasta. Blood splatters the tablecloth, or maybe it’s spaghetti sauce. To tell you the truth, at this point, he couldn’t care less.

A little deeper in the book is a photo that’s as sad and dreary as the event it chronicles. In the background, dozens of civilians are standing behind a police line. In the foreground is a barrel, lying on its side and with the open end facing us. All of the barrel’s contents we can make out clearly are a pair of shoes with legs still in them. Actually, the whole body’s there, too.

It’s a hood named Gaspare Candella, having lost a barrel race to fate in 1918. “Barrel murders” had been part of the New York crime scene for over 15 years, a favorite disposal method for Mafia traitors. There’s nothing glamorous here. Just blood and the stench of death.

Yeah, I’m being a little heavy-handed here, prose-wise, to illustrate the kind of pseudo tough guy styling often used by writers on the mob who aren’t well-trained in historical research and presentation. This is the kind of writing you don’t get from Dash, whose last book was SATAN’S CIRCUS, named after the district in early-1900s New York where worked one Charles Becker, the only cop to die in the electric chair for a murder committed while he was an officer. That was in 1915.

Dash’s prose is clean and to the point, more intent on getting the story across than in poetic meanderings. What that means is that the story has no place to hide. It has to grab your attention and hold it.

THE FIRST FAMILY takes us back to New York, but even earlier than the Becker affair. We also go back to Sicily, birthplace of the Mafia, and Dash is masterful at letting us know what that island was like in the late 19th century, how it got that way, and why ambitious punks were willing to let their amorality work for them to get out.

This is the story of the first Mafia “boss of bosses,” in power long before the usual suspects we already know so much about. His name was Giuseppe Morello, known as “The Clutch Hand” because of a deformity that made his right hand look like a lobster claw with only one pincher. Those more famous Mafia guys I mentioned, even they hated Morello. He scared the crap out of Joe Bonanno, who said of him, “There was nothing of the buffoon about Morello. He had a parched, gaunt voice, a stone face, and a claw.” He came to New York in 1894.

His first major nemesis in America was Joseph Petrosino, who had been born in Naples but came to America in the 1870s, joined the police force in 1883, and was promoted to detective by Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt in 1895. By 1906, he was in charge of the Italian Squad, a police division the sole goal of which was controlling the Morello crime family. He went to Sicily in 1909 to dig into the background of the Mafia.

Later, Morello had to face up to William Flynn, a native New Yorker and son of Irish immigrants. I mention that in case you couldn’t tell from his name. This guy needs a book of his own. He was a plumber and then a jailer. After becoming head of the Secret Service’s New Bureau, he dogged Morello for more than a decade and convicted 45 members of his gang. He was the only law to get a good look at the Mafia’s inner circle before the 1970s, became a counterintelligence chief curing World War I, and preceded J. Edgar Hoover as head of the FBI.

Dash is a terrific guide through the mazes of early organized crime, at a time when it wasn’t all that organized. Reading his stuff is like watching a good crime documentary on television: The narration is clear, moving ahead at just the right pace, but it doesn’t mind pausing for a minute or two for an interesting sidebar.

Take the tour, but don’t stray off the path. There’s stuff going in that restaurant at the end of the alley you don’t want to see. —Doug Bentin

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With comics increasingly being used as educational tools, it was only a matter of time between someone discovered how to bridge them with the world of textbooks. That person is David Talbot, whose PULP HISTORY series kicks off with DEVIL DOG: THE AMAZING TRUE STORY OF THE MAN WHO SAVED AMERICA, illustrated by Spain Rodriguez.

Also available in the new series is SHADOW KNIGHTS: THE SECRET WAR AGAINST HITLER, by Gary Kamiya and Jeffrey Smith. Neither title is actually a comic book, but a nonfiction text that heavily leans on graphic illustrations that look like they could come out of a four-color mag.

In other words, they’re certainly more appealing than page after page of mere gray, and the PULP HISTORY approach doesn’t let a single spread go turned without a drawing or photograph (or several) plopped on the page, making the books eye-friendly. The covers really play up the pulp factor, even if they’re not quite matched with such in-your-face action on the inside.

Ultimately, this series should do what Talbot intended, so long as kids are introduced to them in the first place. Adults are going to enjoy them, too, as the text isn’t dumbed-down to a beginning-reader level or anything. In fact, those of us whose academic careers in long in the rearview mirror may opt for these over a full-blown nonfiction book, if we having a passing interest in the subject, but not the commitment for a work the size of a brick. —Rod Lott

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For the young wizard in your house prone to extended bouts of cabin fever as the winter months creep in, give them A.R. Rotruck’s HOW TO TRAP A ZOMBIE, TRACK A VAMPIRE, AND OTHER HANDS-ON ACTIVITIES FOR MONSTER HUNTERS. It’s like a nice, guilt-free way of telling them to get the hell out of your hair.

Designed like a weathered textbook passed down through the ages, the hardback is full of do-it-yourself projects with a supernatural spin. With household items like scissors, pencils and cardboard boxes, any reader can turn into a Van Helsing in training.

Among the activities within are a recipe for dirt cake, map-making, catching a werewolf (it involves a sandwich), constructing a lantern and many, many more. Some require little more imagination; most can be done without the help of a parent. —Rod Lott

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The title THE HILLIKER CURSE immediately conjured visions that the author, James Ellroy, known primarily for his period crime fiction, had tried his hand at Gothic suspense. I sat back and prepared myself for an interesting read … or at least an interesting failure. Then I saw the subtitle, MY PURSUIT OF WOMEN. It’s “a memoir.” Oy vey.

Needless to say (although I’ll say it anyway), my anticipation quickly took a nosedive. It’s like the time when I was a teenager and my mom told me she bought me a Harley. The imagery of me roaring down the highway with the wind whipping past was obliterated when she handed me a toy motorcycle. Nice joke, Mom, but it was still a severe disappointment. As was this drivel.

You would think that with a title like THE HILLIKER CURSE: MY PURSUIT OF WOMEN, you would get a tome filled with sexual exploits that would make Hugh Hefner blush. There should be chapters detailing various sexual conquests and tantalizing descriptions of seduction. Alas, no.

Instead, we are first subjected to brief glimpses into the author’s childhood, covered extensively (and better) in MY DARK PLACES, his first memoir and nonfiction account of his mother’s unsolved murder. Once this old ground is covered again, Ellroy lists his various female acquaintenances, girlfriends, wives, women he’s chatted up at parties or on the subway, etc., and relates ad nauseum about how his screwed-up relationship with his parents has, well, screwed him up when it comes to relationships with the opposite sex.

Look, let me save you the time of reading this waste of trees. Here are the things you learn from reading THE HILLIKER CURSE:

1. Ellroy was probably the horniest 9-year-old in history, so consumed with seeing women naked that he would shoplift novelty X-ray specs and hope that they would really work. When that got him nowhere, he followed girls home and peeped in their windows.

2. He had an unnatural attraction to his mother, yet wanted to live with his father. After one particularly nasty fight, Ellroy wished his mother dead. She was murdered three months later and he’s been consumed with guilt ever since.

3. Ellroy developed a fixation on the Black Dahlia murder case because it reminded him of his mother’s murder.

4. In Ellroy’s younger years when he was afflicted with a bad case of acne, one girlfriend enjoyed picking his back zits.

5. He would spend his money on hookers, but not necessarily to have sex with them. Sometimes they just talked.

6. As he became more successful with his writing, Ellroy became more successful with women.

7. He’s had liaisons with married women.

8. After every relationship ends, he is obsessed with finding the next woman that will — fingers crossed — save him from himself.

9. But the most important thing I learned from reading HILLIKER was this: Any woman who can last more than five minutes in a relationship with a self-loathing solipsist like Ellroy should be nominated for sainthood.

A note about his writing style: I discovered Ellroy back in the ’80s after catching an obscure James Woods movie titled COP. The main character was quirky and flawed, and I found I wanted to read more from the author whose book on which the movie was based. I tracked down Ellroy’s novels and found them to be not as inspired as the movie, but still an enjoyable read. He hit his stride with THE BLACK DAHLIA, however, and his style and storytelling techniques improved. I was hooked and I thoroughly enjoyed the two follow-ups: THE BIG NOWHERE and L.A. CONFIDENTIAL.

With WHITE JAZZ, things changed. Ellroy stated in an interview that he was directed by his editor to cut a certain number of words from the manuscript. Rather than deleting passages or trimming down chapters, Ellroy cut words from each sentence. What was left was short staccato sentences that may have worked for that novel, but now that it’s turned into Ellroy’s signature style, it’s become annoying.

He also peppers his prose with outdated slang and hipster vernacular, as if he’s going for a cross between Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Webb. But for me, it sounds more like Philip Baker Hall playing the library cop on SEINFELD.  Here’s a sample picked at random (literally, I’m going to flip the book open and record the first passage I see):

“I was disingenuous, verging on mendacious. My relationship with Helen was tortuous and open-ended. My life was a daily process of atonement. I could not conceive of a life without Helen Knode. I started double-dealing Joan at the outset. I wanted Helen for companionship and the long shot of sex resurrected. I wanted Joan for her flaming expression of selfhood. We talked. I got Joan a second scotch. She barely touched it. Not a juicehead – good.”

And since I’m criticizing the author’s writing style, I would also like to call a moratorium on his constant use of dragging words out and putting them in italics, like “sizzzzzzled” or “looooved.” Once or twice in a book would be fine, but two or three times on a page causes severe eye-rolling.

Oh, and Mr. Ellroy? Please don’t use the word “grok” anymore. Only Robert Heinlein should be allowed to use it. And mayyyyybe Harlan Ellison. —Slade Grayson

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As the old-school strippers tell a young Rose Louise Hovick in GYPSY, “You gotta have a gimmick.” A catchy name helps, too. Salvatore Lucania? Nope. Charles Luciano? Nuh-uh. Lucky Luciano? “Lucky” because he once took a three-layered ass-kicking from the cops and didn’t die. Alliterative and provocative. That’ll work.

In LUCKY LUCIANO: THE REAL AND THE FAKE GANGSTER, you do get a sense from author Tim Newark that Luciano’s posthumous reputation needed some kind of boost. For the first half of his criminal life, he was a smart guy, rising through the mob ranks as a hitman and body guard for Joe Masseria. But by the end of the 1920s and the retirement of Johnny Torrio in Chicago, who handed the Outfit over to Al Capone, Luciano had been wooed from the old way of doing things.

His idea was to keep the profile as low as possible and work with anyone who could help you, whereas Masseria refused even to meet with Jewish gangsters like Mayer Lansky, Arnold Rothstein and Bugsy Siegel. So Luciano had Masseria subtracted from the equation and then took over his family.

The government couldn’t find a way to nail Luciano on murder, so they adapted the Capone-trap and went after him for lesser crimes, and in 1936, the judge in Luciano’s trial on prostitution charges cold-cocked him with a sentence of 30 to 50 years.

And this is where Newark’s book gets really interesting. When the U.S. entered World War II, Naval Intelligence became very concerned that Axis saboteurs would cause trouble along the Eastern seaboard. The mob, which controlled the dock workers, offered to keep an eye on things in return for certain small favors, one of which was to allow Luciano to return to Sicily.

A deal was struck and Lucky headed for the land of his birth. He said that that he could serve as middleman between the Allies and the locals to make the invasion of Italy less explosive. His apparent success has been the major factor in his story ever since.

But Newark claims that Luciano had little, if anything, to do with the Allies in Sicily and Italy. In fact, after he slipped off to Cuba after the war, and then got run out in 1947, he lived for the next 17 years in Sicily on the charity of his pals. He was never the kingpin of the international narcotics trade, as he has been credited with being. Authorities just claimed he was because they needed a straw man to dangle in front of the public.

After all, it was better to blame a known criminal mastermind than it was to blow the whistle on half the government officials between Italy and here. This same straw-man scam had worked during the Depression with many of the hoods of that era — Machine Gun Kelly, Ma Barker and others — and it worked again with Luciano

Newark shows us a different take on the Mafia and especially on one of its star attractions. It’s a relatively short book, built more for speed than intensity. After reading it, you may never think of big-time organized crime lords quite the same way again. —Doug Bentin

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A marvelous thing, that periodic table. Its near-symmetry was a beautiful thing in science classes throughout my academic career, even if I was more entranced by the look of the grid than what it all meant.

Sam Kean understands. He, too, acknowledges its visual appeal, but also explains that the layout is no accident. Think of it like stacked blocks: If any one was removed, the whole thing would come a-crumbling down. Why? The answer is element-ary in THE DISAPPEARING SPOON AND OTHER TRUE TALES OF MADNESS, LOVE, AND THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD FROM THE PERIODIC TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS.

In straightforward yet compelling narratives, SCIENCE magazine journalist Kean breaks down the table column by column, row by row, to describe what it all means. To do that, you have to know your Ag from your Ga, your Xe from your Zr.

With chapters divided into purposeful groups, he gives the story behind each element, which boils down to how it was was discovered. Many times, it was accidental or intended for an entirely different use than we’ve come to know today. Most involve an unheralded genius or madman — in some cases, both — who never quite his (or her) due while alive.

THE DISAPPEARING SPOON — the title comes from a harmless prank scientists played with one element — reads like an NPR special in transcript form, packed full of driveway moments. In making the inaccessible totally accessible, you have what may be the finest science book of the year. —Rod Lott

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It’s hard to imagine a generation of science-fiction readers growing up without the looming presence of Robert A. Heinlein. From his earliest published story in 1939 to his death in 1988 (and, in many ways beyond), he reshaped sci-fi from its easily dismissed pulp roots to a popular and formidable — if not always respected — genre of fiction that could be instructive and expansive, as well as entertaining and, yes, predictive. Robert Silverberg expressed it best in the opening line of his tribute to Heinlein (collected in Yoji Kondo’s REQUIEM) when he stated, “The word that comes to mind of him is essential.”

Now we have William H. Patterson Jr.’s long-awaited biography of Heinlein — or at least part of it. The huge ROBERT A. HEINLEIN: IN DIALOGUE WITH HIS CENTURY: VOLUME I (1907-1948): LEARNING CURVE is only the first of the promised two volumes of Heinlein’s life. As Patterson notes in his Introduction, this first installment covers his subject’s birth and early life through his formative years as a writer.

Writing an authorized biography, Patterson was granted unlimited access to the Heinlein’s archive of scrapbooks, correspondence, articles, notes, interviews and everything else recording his life and work — all dutifully reported in the near-100 pages of notes. But those who fear that “authorized” means “whitewash” can take heart in Patterson’s effort to present the man with all his shortcomings, as well as his triumphs.
 
Born into a large and often financially strapped family in 1907 in Butler, Mo., young Robert displayed an early intelligence and, not surprisingly, became an early lover of books. His childhood favorites included Horatio Alger, Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling. Later, he would discover Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs and, most importantly, H.G. Wells. He also was drawn to the earliest forms of what would become science fiction in the many pulp magazines published by Hugo Gernsback.
 
Knowing his family could not afford a college education, Robert followed the example of a few of his older brothers and enlisted in the military, in his case, the Navy. Although difficult at first, he eventually found life at the Annapolis Naval Academy much to his liking and stayed on in the service after graduation. But what might have been a career was ended when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and given a medical discharge.
 
Most readers assume it was at this point that Heinlein became a writer. But as Patterson reveals, that had to wait until after a lengthy involvement in California politics. Having settled in the west with his (we now learn) second wife, Heinlein worked at promoting the radical, liberal Democratic candidacy of Upton Sinclair for governor. The campaign failed, but Heinlein remained a vocal observer of politics for the rest of his life.
 
But there were groceries to buy and bills to pay. So while contemplating other means of potential income, Heinlein tried his hand at fiction writing in the manner of his mentor, Wells, and the pulp magazines popular in the day. (And it was not in response to a writing contest, as Heinlein had us believe, but rather to an open solicitation for work from unpublished authors.)

He first completed a novel (FOR US, THE LIVING, not published until 15 years after his death and now placed in historical perspective with the rest of his works), then, while trying to land a publisher, short stories that he sent out to the pulps. The stories sold, and his final career was set in motion.

Like the proverbial kid in a candy store, Patterson must have found it hard to resist leaving out any details and anecdotes his research unveiled. As a result, this first volume is at times as exhaustive to read, as are its various sources. This is especially true in the chapters detailing Heinlein’s years in the Naval Academy and on the California campaign trail. Still, we keep reading for fear of missing any moment that might prove insightful into his later life and work.
 
Then, when he finally becomes a professional writer, the narrative gains a blissful energy and is damn near impossible to put down. Here, we learn about the influential, long-distance relationship Heinlein established with editor John W. Campbell, who not only provided the freshman author with story ideas, but constantly pushed him to make his fiction better and more appealing to the paying audience.

It is in these years that Heinlein learned to fuse his personal philosophy and beliefs into his fiction, while never losing sight of his targeted audience. Along the way are the personal and professional relationships he made with many of the authors who would be remembers as part of the “Golden Age” of science fiction, including Henry Kuttner, Frederick Pohl,  L. Sprague de Camp, Isaac Asimov and a rambunctious, energetic youngster named Ray Bradbury.
 
This volume ends with the publication of Heinlein’s first “juvenile novel,” ROCKET SHIP GALILEO; his graduation from the pulps to the more respectable “slick” magazines, like THE SATURDAY EVENING POST and COLLIER’S; and his painful second divorce and his marriage to Virginia “Ginny” Gerstenfeld. We have to wait until the second volume to learn the intimate details behind those works that truly established Heinlein as the undisputed “Grand Master of Science Fiction”: STARSHIP TROOPERS, THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS and, of course, STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.
 
Let’s hope Patterson and Tor don’t make us wait too long. —Alan Cranis

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In those superstitious times of the early 20th century, the most reliable information you could get came by the game of “Telephone” — tall tales distorted by dedicated story spinners, bored housewives and layabouts out for a quick buck. It was often difficult to decipher the true nature of reality. Over a hundred years later, with all the information in the world at our fingertips, we still struggle.

When in 1906 one enterprising huckster imported a kangaroo from way down under, the common man, woman or ant had never even heard of such a peculiar creature, let alone seen one. When the ne’er-do-well attached bronze wings to the poor confused beast and painted its body with green stripes for effect, you could bet your kitten this was something mighty peculiar to see.

And if it’s one thing to see such a fiendish critter behind bars in a sideshow, it’s another to see an escaped specimen out in the wilderness, bouncing across the road, scaring your horse as it shadow boxes in the moonlight to rid itself of those cumbersome wings off its back.

There are numerous bizarre beasts that occupy the nether regions of the state of New Jersey. The Hoboken Monkey-Man, the Big Red Eye and the elusive Wooo-Wooo all follow far behind the grandaddy of the Garden State: the Jersey Devil. Whether you’ve been to a local pub named after it, listened to “The Boss” sing about it, or watched a bruising game of late-night hockey, you know the name.

MONSTERS OF NEW JERSEY: MYSTERIOUS CREATURES IN THE GARDEN STATE categorically gallops through the whole garden variety of “classic monsters” of New Jersey. This does not include the corrupt politicians, the cast of JERSEY SHORE or the guy who invented seedless watermelon, but sticks to the cryptid population that skulks mostly around the million-acre Pine Barrens. It does, however, point out the real estate scam that was at least a part of the Jersey Devil story in its infancy.

The book, authored by the legend that is Loren Coleman and his trusty sidekick, Bruce Hallenbeck, is lightweight and a bit sloppy in execution, but the stories it contains are priceless, told with an appropriate balance of dry humor and scientific detail. As an entertaining overview of a state littered with tall tales, myths and anomalous sightings, MONSTERS OF NEW JERSEY provides an excellent primer for the budding cryptozoo enthusiast.

Now, whether there is any truth to the stories is left for you to decide. But you should always remember when visiting those lonely roads, uninhabited pastures and vast inaccessible forests of Southern New Jersey, that there is much compelling data of a small population of large red-eyed primates hulking about. Our strange little planet was, is and forever will be far more mysterious than we give it credit for. —JT Lindroos

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(Editor’s note: The author of this review is not only a self-avowed liberal, but also a self-avowed Canadian liberal, which is a whole other thing entirely. If you are of a more conservative bent than he is — and in comparison, you’d pretty much have to be — please bear this in mind as you consider his highly warped and perplexingly foreign views.)

As much as I may disagree with her on some issues, I bear little antipathy towards Meghan McCain, despite the fact that I tend to automatically loathe attractive blonde conservative women with obvious daddy fixations. The difference is that McCain’s vibe is more unusually informed Mall Chick than self-entitled Mean Girl, unlike the more traditional Republican flaxen-haired vixens (i.e. Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, Gretchen Carlson and the rest of her ilk at Fox News), most of whom you can tell would have laughed and clapped as their quarterback boyfriends repeatedly dunked your head in a toilet for the crime of being a “freaky weirdo.”

So, figuring her prose was unlikely to send me into paroxysms of purple-faced liberal rage and might even feature some sniping at the expense of Sarah Palin (who may not be blond, but is still the truest living embodiment of the conservative Mean Girl archetype seen thus far) I decided to give McCain’s campaign-of-’08 memoir, DIRTY SEXY POLITICS, a try.

Turns out I was right and I was wrong. The book inspired little emotion in me either way, but it was far kinder to Sarah Barracuda than I would have imagined (or liked).

This fact belies the problem with the book as a whole: It completely fails to make good on the promises inherent in its title. Featuring precious little dirt, absolutely no sex (McCain claims to have been celibate during the entire campaign, but does look really cute in the cover photo) and not even much in the way of serious politics, the entire book reads like what it is: an emotional and impressionistic account of a young woman whose father’s job application thrust her into a spotlight she wasn’t quite ready for (but is now exploiting as doggedly as any modern ambitious American should).

And truthfully, I would have been happy with that if McCain wrote about her story with just a little bit more depth and insight. Unfortunately, most of the time, her prose comes across as so much whining, whether it’s about how no one on the campaign took her seriously; how the press treated her; how she always had to ride on the smelly bus; how everyone loved Obama, despite the fact that he wasn’t the great golden god her father was; how she IS SO TOO a Republican (SO THERE!); etc.; etc.; and so on.

I suspect this is a case of a book being written too soon after the events it describes. McCain is still in her 20s and isn’t able to transcend the limitations of her youth, especially the self-obsessed narcissism we all must suffer through before the uglification of middle age forces us to focus on more than ourselves. If you were to subtract all the passages devoted to her clothes and appearance, the already slim work likely would be halved. And while image is an important theme of the work, it is approached here in the most shallow ways possible.

It’s also clear that she needs more time to develop the perspective required to appreciate the mistakes that helped cause her father to lose the presidency. She tries to dismiss the idea that his choice in running mate cost him the election by asking, “Did anyone vote for Barack Obama because of Joe Biden?,” apparently oblivious to the fact that just because the answer to that question is “Probably not,” doesn’t mean that the answer to the question “Did anyone vote against John McCain because of Sarah Palin?” isn’t a resounding “Hell, yes!”

While she is probably correct in suggesting the Obama juggernaut was ultimately unbeatable, she fails to acknowledge that what turned many people against her father was his eager willingness to piss on the reputation and credibility he had earned over his years as a highly respected nonpartisan senator.

Whether it was publicly embracing the man who had most benefited from the despicable South Carolina push-polling that cost him the 2000 Republican primary; cozying up to exactly the kind of religious fundamentalists he had previously criticized (to the point of making one of them his running mate); or “flip-flopping” by rejecting ideas he himself had once proposed, but were unpopular with the GOP conservative base, McCain went out of his way to present himself as a highly partisan Republican during an election where that was a very unpopular and dangerous thing to be. Because of this, it seems somewhat disingenuous of his daughter to protest that the media portrayed him as nothing more than “just another white guy,” when he, in fact, did everything he could to make sure he couldn’t be portrayed as anything else.

That said, DIRTY SEXY POLITICS is a sincere, honest book written by a young, self-identified conservative that didn’t make me roll my eyes with disbelief or shout out loud with vexed frustration. Considering I can’t get through a single sentence written by any of its author’s peers without saying the same makes this book something of a praiseworthy and honorable achievement.

Plus, she really does look quite cute on the cover. —Allan Mott

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If you’re a child of the late ’70s or early ’80s and had a passion for the pencil-and-paper role-playing game DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, then Mark Barrowcliffe’s THE ELFISH GENE: DUNGEONS, DRAGONS, AND GROWING UP STRANGE is the perfect book for you.

If you’ve never played D&D, well, it’s a funny book, but this title is probably reserved for the initiated. It’s received a number of confused reviews, most of them bemoaning the fanaticism that sometimes surrounds the game, and all of them seemingly disturbed by the author’s boyhood commitment to it.

But as a fellow traveler, I understand. Barrowcliffe is only a year younger than I, and he definitely played a lot more D&D than I have, but his experiences somewhat mimic my own. One of my fondest memories is back in high school, when every week for an entire year, I ran (or DMed) a huge, sprawling, involved campaign for six of my friends. We played at least once, sometimes twice a week, and always for eight or nine hours straight.

Why? What was it about that strange, oddly complicated (the ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS set of rule books is well over 700 pages), yet also ambivalent (games played under the same rules can be extremely different from one Dungeonmaster to the next) that enthralled millions of boys (mostly) and girls (more rare) from 1974, when the rules were originally published, to this very day?

Barrowcliffe attempts to provide some answers in a thoroughly entertaining way. I think he’s got it right when he discusses how empowering the game was — and is — for people who are imaginative and love stories. He describes how playing a good game of D&D is experiencing a thrilling tale, while at the same time, creating it and sharing it with others — a deeply felt creative experience that is partly yours, but also created with friends. But the game can also serve as a cruel instrument reinforcing popular/unpopular social dynamics and bully/bullied emotional constructs.

Thankfully, while Barrowcliffe does explore this territory based on his own personal accounts, he doesn’t wallow too much in dreary psychobabble. Like a good D&Der, he’s too interested in telling a good story. And this he does. With a wonderfully self-deprecating sense of humor, he runs through his entire career as a hardcore dungeon delver, and he makes you laugh out loud on almost every other page.

Like I said, it’s not for everyone. But if you ever sat down at a table with a bunch of other players, and rolled that crazy, yellow, four-sided die, or argued over whether your monk character could possibly ever possess a pseudo-dragon as a domestic pet, or struggled for hours over the right possible character-attribute rolls and an associated background, then you’ll like THE ELFISH GENE.

It really makes me want to break out my own characters from the past: the hard-drinking Rammicawle the cleric and Master Oh, the monk from the East. And did I ever tell you about one of our party members’ characters, a certain Mattawunga, who had a bad encounter with a she-goddess living in the town of Verbobonc, and was cursed forever after to have a large Venus flytrap plant head growing next to his own normal head?

At least the flytrap head did 1d6 damage. —Mark Rose

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At the beginning of MEDIUM RAW: A BLOODY VALENTINE TO THE WORLD OF FOOD AND THE PEOPLE WHO COOK, Anthony Bourdain describes a clandestine dinner party held in the private room of a world famous New York restaurant. There, he and a collection of the city’s most renowned chefs enjoyed an illicitly decadent meal whose featured entrée consisted of individual servings of a small French fowl so rare, it could only be obtained illegally through the black market.

Bourdain describes the meal in rapturously pornographic detail and is obviously truly grateful to have been included, but what he can’t understand is why.

Just a few years earlier, none of his fellow diners would have deigned to even allow him to cook in their kitchens, much less consider him a peer. What had changed? What had made him suddenly and inexplicably worthy? He doesn’t answer the question, but he doesn’t have to. We all know the two words that granted him the keys to the kingdom: KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL.

On its surface, MEDIUM RAW is a book about food and the current state of restaurant culture a full decade after the publication of his first breakthrough bestseller, but deeper within, what you’ll actually find is a moving memoir of what happens when someone who has essentially given up on life finds that he has been given a new one that’s far better than he ever imagined he deserved.

Near the end of MEDIUM RAW, Bourdain discusses the circumstances that led him to write KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL. A 44-year-old recovering heroin addict, he had spent the last 28 years working as a cook. His previous attempts at writing had resulted in two published novels, but neither had found an audience. Broke, massively in debt and reaching the age where most chefs get out of the kitchen, he decided to write something he only imagined his friends and co-workers would enjoy: a tribute to and an exposé of a world we who merely eat in restaurants never get to experience.

Fast-forward just a few years later and he is not only a world-famous author, but also a popular television personality. For a time, David Fincher and Brad Pitt discussed turning his memoir into a movie, and when they moved on, it was (loosely) adapted into a short-lived sitcom starring the guy from THE HANGOVER. As part of his own television programs, Bourdain has gotten to travel all around the world and eat food he had only previously dreamt about. He actually admits that at this point, he’s grown a little bored with meals most people would consider once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

Then he meets a woman (he doesn’t tells us when or how) and, lying in bed with her one night, he imagines them having a child together. It’s the first time he’s ever seriously allowed the thought of becoming a father linger in his mind, and he asks her if she’d be willing to indulge his fantasy. She says “yes” and they have a daughter, and the sad, desperate man who wrote that book that made him famous no longer exists in any way, shape or form.

I suppose there are some readers who might be disappointed by this transformation — unhappy to learn that the irascible scoundrel behind KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL is now a contented family man — but for the rest of us, MEDIUM RAW reads as a story of salvation. And the fact that this salvation is made possible through an exciting ability to express in prose the true wonders of food — and the greatness of the men and women who cook it — makes it only that much more wondrous to behold.

There’s no doubt that’s why Bourdain was invited to that dinner party: The host knew he was the one person who could both understand what it took to make it happen and be able to properly describe it afterward. Bourdain has taken on the mantel of the most eloquent legend keeper of his craft, which makes his actual skill in the kitchen completely irrelevant.

That’s not to say that Bourdain has grown so mellow he isn’t afraid to call a douchebag a douchebag. Nowhere is this more evident than in the chapter “Alan Richman Is a Douchebag,” in which he tears the GQ food writer a new one for choosing to wait until after New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina to question the importance, authenticity and relevance of Cajun cuisine — an extremely boneheaded act of timing equivalent to waiting until your grandmother’s house burns down to tell her that Grandpa had a secret second family two states over (and you always hated the way she cooked her Sunday pot roast).

Bourdain is also willing to go after more than a few sacred cows, including Alice Waters, whose campaign to get consumers to buy locally produced meat and produce strikes him as being unrealistic for people who: a) already barely can afford to buy cheap, shitty food, much less its more expensive alternatives, and b) live outside of California and don’t have immediate access to a wide variety of organically farmed vegetables.

He also devotes a chapter to questioning the worth of expensive-tasting menus that leave you uncomfortably full, but not necessarily emotionally satisfied. While admitting the greatest meal of his life was a tasting meal served to him by Thomas Keller at The French Laundry, he laments that similar experiences at Keller’s Per Se and Grant Achatz’s Alinea left him cold. Typical of Bourdain, however, this concern is merely used as a preamble to discuss the intriguing mysteries of David Chang, whose Momofuko restaurants in New York work to contradict every criticism Bourdain expresses.

But, by far, the best and most rewarding chapter of MEDIUM RAW is the one that actually feels like it could have been lifted whole from KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL. A detailed description of the daily activities of Le Bernadin’s Justo Thomas, a Dominican kitchen worker who has the distinction of filleting the fish at the most esteemed seafood restaurant in New York, if not the entire country, “My Aim Is True” is the greatest justification for Bourdain’s celebrity you’re ever likely to find.

Treating his subject with the same respect and veneration others might bestow on a busy heart surgeon, Bourdain reminds us that in this day and age, there is something almost mystical about a person unwilling to accept anything less than total perfection from himself or herself, regardless of the potential reward. Taking the chapter from the merely inspirational to the truly moving, he gets permission to break restaurant tradition and invites Thomas to join him for lunch and enjoy the product of his labors for the very first time. The resulting meal is one I’ll never forget, even though I wasn’t even there to take part.

MEDIUM RAW is probably the best book I’ll read this year, but I expected that going into it. What surprised me were the reasons I enjoyed it as much as it did, which are not the same reasons KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL remains one of my favorite books of all time. Less cynical, more hopeful, this is a book to give to anyone who has lost touch with the promise of tomorrow in the face of the disappointing realities of today. —Allan Mott

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Ah, there’s nothing quite like being young and attractive and absolutely positive that you can get away with murder. And I don’t mean that poetically and metaphorically — I mean it Smithly and Wessonly.

Everyone, including the potential shooters, knew that no Cook County jury was going to convict a sensitive, white, even marginally attractive young woman of murder. A person who met that description could get into trouble for a lot of things in the Chicago of the early 1920s, but pumping lead into an unwanted husband or lover wasn’t one of them. In 1923, the string of acquittals for “girl-gunners” who had bumped off the unnecessary men in their lives was 29 in a row before a poor immigrant named Sabella Nitti was convicted. An earlier run of acquittals made it to 35.

By 1924, older men with young spouses anywhere in America must have gotten the shakes when wifey asked if the couple could go to Chicago on vacation. Murderess’ Row in the Cook Co. jail was well-stocked with gals awaiting fair trials, followed by their inevitable acquittals. The two stars of the Row were Katherine Malm (dubbed the “Tiger Girl” by the press) and Wanda Stopa.

“The Wanda Sensation” was front-page news in Chicago. Stopa was the first female lawyer to work for the Illinois state’s attorney’s office. She fell in love with a man named Smith (no, that really was his name) and attempted to shoot Mrs. Smith to get her out of the way:

“Are you going to divorce your husband so I can have him?”

“Of course not.”

Bang. Bang. Wanda shot twice, missing both times, and Mrs. Smith cotton-tailed it out the window. Her husband wouldn’t be so lucky.

“She was a neurotic with a gun — the best kind for the newspapers.”

Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to the book in question here, Douglas Perry’s THE GIRLS OF MURDER CITY: FAME, LUST, AND THE BEAUTIFUL KILLERS WHO INSPIRED CHICAGO. And by that we mean the play and musical CHICAGO, not the city itself.

No, Wanda Stopa wasn’t one of the two murderesses who became transformed into Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart. Wanda Stopa and Kitty Malm were two of the sensational killers who held the city’s attention before they were replaced on the front page by former cabaret queen Belva Gaertner, and knockout hausfrau Beulah Annan. Perry feels sorry for Wanda and Kitty, two gals who were more to be pitied than censored.

But not so much for Belva and Beulah, who both admitted to murder, but were nevertheless convinced that they’d beat the charge and used their looks and personalities to prove it.

The book’s third major character is newspaper reporter Maurine Watkins. Watkins was young, very pretty, small — just the wrong kind of woman to be covering the police beat for THE TRIBUNE. But she was ambitious and knew how to use her appearance, too, to land interviews and acquire official information the male reporters couldn’t get. She also had the desire to become a playwright and took the newspaper job so she could learn what real life was all about. She stuck with THE TRIB for seven months, then enrolled in the Yale play writing program. When she was 30, her play CHICAGO; OR PLAY BALL opened on Broadway.

The book is more than just a fascinating true-crime story. Perry reveals the details of the crimes, for sure, but he’s also studied the trials of Belva and Beulah, and he’s very good at examining the male-dominated society that allowed a pretty girl to flash a glimpse of garter and thereby avoid the electric chair. There is much to learn, too, about the free-for-all that constituted reporting in the 1920s. CHICAGO wasn’t the only newspaper play of that era. There were also THE FRONT PAGE, INK, FIVE STAR FINAL, MAN BITES DOG and others.

There are a variety of reasons to read THE GIRLS OF MURDER CITY, but let’s hope the fair sex doesn’t use it as a how-to guide. After all, I’m a married man myself. —Doug Bentin

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Whether or not you follow auto racing, it was hard to miss the courtroom drama in 2009 when federal tax authorities went after Helio Castroneves, super-popular Indy 500 winner and winner of TV’s DANCING WITH THE STARS. His goofy, happy-go-lucky persona, on display with the beautiful Julianne Hough on the competition, was severely put to the test by a fairly silly and sloppy prosecution surrounding everyone’s bête noir, tax evasion.

Did the then-33-year-old Brazilian race driver conspire with his sister and business manager, Kati, to defraud the U.S. government of what it felt was its rightful share? Well, no, and Castroneves explains why in VICTORY ROAD: THE RIDE OF MY LIFE, an entertaining, but flawed autobiography of one of open-wheel racing’s most endearing drivers, and one who still has a lot to show us on the track.

The book begins with his racing youth, and they start ‘em’ young in Brazil, moving up the go-kart ranks from series to series, competing with better and better drivers. Racing is phenomenally expensive, and Castroneves’ father put his entire wealth, his company and his properties on the line to finance his son’s remarkable skill. As Helio progressed, Kati put her own dreams on hold to help out as well. In short, the family’s business became Helio and his driving career.

Success did not come overnight, and when it did, it arrived with some pretty serious drawbacks. But Helio kept plugging along, happy to drive, happy to race, oblivious to the pain and strain he put on his family. You understand that came to this realization toward the end of the book, but he does seem remarkably naive for someone in the cutthroat world of auto racing. This naiveté is a little thick and is what flaws the book.

One can only take so many platitudes about perseverance, striving hard and winning before getting to the real reasons we’re reading: Did you have an affair with Hough? What was the U.S. case really all about? What’s it like being one of only nine men to have won the Indy 500 three times, and to be the only active driver with a chance to be a four-time winner and join the exalted ranks of A.J. Foyt, Rick Mears and Al Unser?

Thankfully, and this is where the book shines, Castroneves answers these questions and more. This is an honest book, and he pulls no punches when discussing his dustups with Emerson Fittipaldi and U.S. prosecutors. Still, this isn’t the best racing biography by any means. (That award should go to the phenomenal JANET GUTHRIE: A LIFE AT FULL THROTTLE, a book racing fans must have, and one every parent should give to their daughters as a role model exemplar.) But it is a charming story that explains why people love auto racing, and it answers the questions we fans have, and you can’t ask too much more than that. —Mark Rose

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When is a list not just a list? When a creative genius is the one making it. Princeton Architectural Press presents 69 glorious examples in Liza Kirwin’s LISTS: TO-DOS, ILLUSTRATED INVENTORIES, COLLECTED THOUGHTS, AND OTHER ARTISTS’ ENUMERATIONS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN’S ARCHIVES OF AMERICAN ART. No offense, but it makes your grocery list look like … well, a grocery list.

For example, painter Arthur Wesley Dow diagrams the art of teaching; artist Paul Bransom catalogues animals from A to Z, in an exceedingly precise handwriting; and painter James Penney sketches construction images onto his to-do list. There’s a brief story behind each one, all laid out in PAP’s usual manner of visual excellence. —Rod Lott

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The more you read good histories of the Old West, the more you realize that the guys whose names we recognize — Wyatt, Wild Bill, Custer, Jesse, Buffalo Bill, Tilghman, Doc, Bat, et al. — were no better than they had to be, and frequently a hell of a lot worse. If you’re looking for real live Robin Hoods, look elsewhere. And good luck.

Mark Lee Gardner’s TO HELL ON A FAST HORSE: BILLY THE KID, PAT GARRETT, AND THE EPIC CHASE TO JUSTICE IN THE OLD WEST is a dual biography of Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett, known to friends and history as Pat Garrett, and Billy the Kid, aka William Bonney, Kid Antrim, Henry McCarty, that little bastard or whatever his name was. We don’t know for sure and probably never will. It is assumed at this time that his mother was Catherine McCarty, but The Kid found it useful to confuse the issue of his birth certificate name, if he even had a birth certificate.

One of the pleasures of a book like this for lovers of Western novels and movies is comparing The Kid’s legend as it’s come down to us via popular media with history as we know it, taking into account that what we think is true may also be a package of baloney. Sometimes the comparisons can be a hoot. I watched an Audie Murphy flick yesterday called THE KID FROM TEXAS and got a laugh out of the title, as Billy the Kid was actually (we think) from New York City.

Give or take a horse theft here and a stabbing there, The Kid’s life wasn’t all that interesting until he got involved in the Lincoln County War. Lincoln Co., N.M., was the largest county in any U.S. state or territory in 1880, and was therefore hellacious to govern. The territorial capitol was in Santa Fe and most government contracts were under the control of a group of crooks known at the Santa Fe Ring, or just The Ring. When an Englishman named John Henry Tunstall partnered with a lawyer named Alexander McSween to operate a new store in the town of Lincoln, to compete with the one already run by Ringman Jimmy Dolan, the fat hit the fire.

Please don’t think that the Lincoln Co. War was about breaking The Ring’s control so the Mexican peasants could get a fair deal when they went shopping. I’ve seen it presented that way. No, the war was about money and political control. The Kid worked for Tunstall, liked the man, and dove into the deep end when Tunstall was murdered from ambush.

Now, all this Lincoln Co. War stuff is interesting and Gardner covers it well, but The Kid’s involvement with Pat Garrett didn’t begin until the war ended with the death of McSween. Perhaps the conflict’s great lesson is that You Can’t Buck City Hall without getting your ass kicked.

Anyway, The Kid and a few pals continued on the owl hoot trail, finding a few lost cattle here and there, and liberating some that weren’t lost yet. That’s when ex-buffalo hunter and mediocre rancher Garrett was called in.

There’s no need for me to go into details about the capture, escape, pursuit and end of Billy the Kid here. Either you know about it already or you’ve gotten interested and will take a look at Gardner’s book. It’s well-researched and most interesting when Gardner recounts some of the iconic incidents. Writers in the past lay out competing theories as to how things happened and let the reader decide which sounds most likely. Gardner makes that decision for you and tells the story as it plays out best for him.

Note that if you want to see the varying versions, check out Frederick Nolan’s 1998 book THE WEST OF BILLY THE KID.

This volume’s cast of characters is as colorful as any found in the Old West, from Garrett and The Kid themselves, to Gov. Lew Wallace, a second rate Civil War general and author of BEN-HUR, to the Lincoln Co. War participants and the gang that ran with The Kid when the war was finished. Like me, you might feel a little sorry for Charlie Bowdre, one of Billy’s best pals. Trapped with other members of the gang in a cabin at a place called Stinking Springs, Bowdre got shot all to hell. Garrett yelled into the cabin that Charlie could cross over for help, and The Kid sent him out with the advice to kill as many of the lawmen as possible:

“Bowdre stumbled out of the doorway, with his hands in the air. He took several steps toward the posse, looking across each man until he recognized Garrett. As he approached the lawman, Bowdre pointed back to the house. He tried to speak, but it was a struggle because blood was gurgling up with every breath: ‘I wish—I wish—I wish . . .’ he said.”

When he got to Garrett he collapsed and whispered, “I’m dying.” Pretty pathetic last words.

TO HELL ON A FAST HORSE is a good one. Never has a tour of hell been so much fun. —Doug Bentin

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My first impression upon seeing the cover of DID SOMEBODY STEP ON A DUCK?: A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FART was this: “There’s a history to it?”

Apparently so. “Fart historian” Jim Dawson lets loose with nearly 50 mini-essays on gaseous expulsions throughout our times, both related to historical events and pop-culture trends — everything from Tiger Woods and REN & STIMPY to global warming and the vuvuzela — that left their mark on our world, for good or ill, for silent but deadly.

Dawson’s definitely done his research. I just thank God it has no photos or scratch-and-sniff pages. Need you even be told its bite-sized chapters are best read on the toilet? —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.