Ideas are always at war with one another when they address issues such as freedom, liberty, democracy and the opposition they encounter from those who want to impose authoritarian control over people. That is why, when an author addresses a really important idea, it’s worth paying attention. This is very much the case of Natan Sharansky’s new book, Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role In Protecting Democracy ($26.95, Public Affairs). Sharansky gained fame initially as a Russian Jew, a “refuznik” who demanded the right to emigrate to Israel, was jailed for eight years, and finally released. He went on to become a member of the Israeli government. His earlier book, The Case for Democracy, should be on everyone’s reading list. In this new book, he argues forcefully that the free world’s shield is its own identity, i.e., its cultural heritage and history, and its commitment to the democracy. He points out how, in the American experiment, people from around the world embraced the values embodied in the Constitution while still taking pride in their religion, their cultural heritage, and other ways with which they defined themselves. Drawing on his experience in the former Soviet Union and afterward he warns that the enemies of democracy have a strong will because their identity is strong. He fears that both America and Europe are losing allegiance to the beliefs that underlie Western civilization, while its enemies grow stronger in their beliefs. This book will change the way you think about democracy in societies that assert that all cultures are equal and valid, and that require other forms of political correctness.

Since this is the political season, if politics is your passion, you will surely enjoy Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles in Backroom Power by John Harwood and Gerald F. Sieb ($26.00, Random House). Written by two prize-winning journalists, they explain how Washington really works through the stories of the current crop of power brokers, the party strategists, the moneymen, the policy-makers, fixers, socialites, dealmakers and more. As often as not, their names do not share the headlines with the politicians, but they play important roles in the governance of the nation. What the book demonstrates is how sharply divided modern Washington has become from an earlier, more collegial time. This is an important book for anyone seeking real insight to the way government has become hostage to the blogosphere, talk radio, 24/7 cable news, and a public that has real problems understanding the complexity of the new world of globalization. I have a friend who lives and works in D.C. and he calls it “the center of the world.” So was Rome at one time. Two rising powers in the world are China and India. David Smith, a British economist, has written an excellent book about the structure of the world’s economy in this new century in Growling Tiger, Roaring Dragon: India, China and the New World Order ($27.95, Douglas & McIntyre). He has gathered his facts about these nations, each with populations of more than a billion, and provides the reader with an understanding of their current growing pains and achievements while peering into his crystal ball to suggest where they and the rest of the world is going. Despite the usual tensions and competitiveness, fears and ambitions that all nations share to some extent, the future looks pretty good. It will be a more productive one as goods and services move around the globe, generally enhancing and improving the lives of most regions, both developed and developing. I would not hesitate to recommend one read this book to gain some valuable insights to the future.

It seems obvious that the forthcoming elections will be as contentious as previous campaigns. A recent movie, “Recount”, seeks to rewrite the history of the 2000 presidential election and many Democrats continue to believe it was “stolen” with the help of the Supreme Court! Whatever you believe, however, one thing is certain. The Founding Fathers fashioned a Constitution that has served the nation well and attempts to tinker with it are a bad idea. In Securing Democracy: Why We Have an Electoral College, its editor Gary L. Gregg II, ($15.00, ISI Books, softcover) brings together a number of scholars and others who write quite brilliantly on the creation and function of the Electoral College, including excerpts from the Federalist Papers on the subject. I know this may seem like dry stuff, but it is actually very interesting and is guaranteed to make you the smartest person in the room after you’ve read it!  If you are of a liberal frame of mind regarding George W. Bush, you will most certainly enjoy Walter M. Brasch’s latest opus, Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush ($24.95, Book Surge/softcover edition, Marquette/hardcover edition). I say “latest” because Brasch has authored 17 books. He is a professor of journalism and a syndicated newspaper columnist. As he points out in the preface of this fat compendium of opprobrium of the President, his will be one of what will surely to be hundreds, if not thousands, of books that will examine the man and his two terms in office. Suffice it to say Brasch finds little good to say, beginning with the Supreme Court decision to award Bush the office following the muddled 2000 election results in Florida, through Hurricane Katrina, and on to the Iraq war. He does so most eloquently. I am as conservative as Brasch is liberal, but even those of my political leanings have found much to criticize. You can learn more by visiting www.walterbrasch.com.

Anyone who really wants to know Why Your Gasoline Prices Are High should buy a copy of the book of the same name by Seldon B. Graham, Jr. ($10.95, iUniverse, softcover). Just over fifty pages in length, the author has a year in the oil industry for every page in the book. He’s been a petroleum engineer, an oil and gas attorney, and an expert witness in hearings. What he has done in this extraordinary book is to make a very complex industry understandable to the reader. He warns against the many ways ignorant journalists misunderstand or distort the facts. He warns against the Hollywood image of oilmen, always portrayed as villains, and he warns against believing that America and the world is running out of oil. In the process, he explains how the whole global system works. You can read this book in a very short time, but I guarantee that, if you do, you will no longer be the victim of self-serving politicians and others who want to leave America vulnerable for lack of access to our own extensive oil reserves.

 I have been a writer for most of my life and, as such, having a good dictionary close at hand has been imperative. I am happy to report that the revised and updated Webster’s II New College Dictionary has arrived ($25.95, Houghton Mifflin). We are adding so many new words and terms to our language these days, a dictionary such as this one is a great gift for anyone going off to school or college in September, but it is also very useful for those who need to write well or just check out the proper spelling and meaning of the thousands of words in our modern vocabulary. This dictionary comes with hundreds of detailed illustrations, concise definitions, and a raft of new words such as Amber Alert, human shield, SARS, and WiFi, to name just a few. There is just so much information, including biographical and geographic sections, plus an ever-useful style guide with rules for capitalization and punctuation, that this dictionary is a winner in every respect.

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Books About People, Past and Present

 Some of the best books I have read have been biographies and autobiographies. We learn about ourselves as we learn about others and we learn, too, about those who shaped history or responded to its events.

The Kennedy’s are back in the news with the announcement that Sen. Teddy Kennedy has a life-threatening brain cancer and because of a gaffe by Hillary Clinton who referenced the assassination of Robert Kennedy during an earlier political campaign. For those interested in the Kennedy legends, there’s the recently published softcover edition of David Talbot’s book, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years ($15.00, Free Press). Talbot has written an eye-opening piece of history that reveals how events unknown at the time shaped the decisions that, as often as not, were arrived at in consultation between Jack and his brother Bobby. Not the usual conspiracy theory stuff, but the nitty-gritty of how decisions were shaped by poor intelligence and other behind the scenes maneuvering. This is an excellent piece of history and biography. Politics and law enforcement is the backdrop to the story of Young J. Edgar: Hoover, the Red Scare, and the Assault on Civil Liberties ($17.50, Da Capo Press, softcover). The first director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation began his rise to power in the 1920s and would run the Bureau for an astonishing 48 years. This book rises the question of how far a government can or should go in protecting the nation from terrorism. Just as a later generation would be shocked and frightened by 9/11, the public in 1919 was shocked in 1919 when bombs exploded in American cities. Hoover was just 24 years old, the youngest assistant of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. He was assigned to track down communists and set off a series of raids that became notorious for their brutality. Thousands were arrested—mostly immigrants—held for weeks or months and denied access to family or attorneys. This biography is a cautionary tale and a demonstration of how history has a way of repeating itself.

History was surely shaped by two men who David R. Contosta calls Rebel Giants: The Revolutionary Lives of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin ($26.95, Prometheus Books). By coincidence, February 12, 2009 will mark the 200^th anniversary of the birth of both men, surely two of the most influential and controversial men of their times and since. Though born into very different circumstances, both had lost their mothers in childhood and later beloved children at young ages. Both spent years search for a direction to their lives and both struggled with religious doubt. Indeed, the remarkable similarities in their lives is the thread that runs through this examination of both lives. It makes for a very interesting biography of both. The greatly beleaguered Prime Minister of England, Gordon Brown, is likely to be remembered for his lackluster tenure in office, but he has authored a worthy book, Courage: Portraits of Bravery in the Service of Great Causes ($24.95, Weinstein Books), a series of essays about people like Edith Cavell, an English nurse and head of a nursing school in Belgium at the start of WWI who helped many Allied prisoners escape, eventually to face a firing squad. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a young Christian pastor in 1930s Germany who opposed anti-Semitism and was hanged day before the end of WWII. These and others such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Bobby Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, along with Aung San Suu Kyi who has opposed the military junta in Burma, have their stories told in an inspiring book. Another kind of Founding Father has his story told by Stephen E. Frantzich ($22.50, Rowman and Littlefield ). It is the story of C-Span’s Brian Lamb and how he changed politics in America by opening up the sessions of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives to television so everyone could watch, listen, and make up their own mind about their lawmakers. One of the unsung, but best interviewers in television, Lamb’s discussions with authors and public figures are a treasure. Anyone who enjoys C-Span will enjoy this story of an enigmatic, self-effacing, modest man who worked in two administrations, Johnson’s and Nixon’s, and then created the network of record for public affairs.

Sin and the Second City by Karen Abbott ($15.00, Random House, softcover) is a delightful book about “madams, ministers, playboys, and the battle for America’s soul” as it played out in Chicago in places like the Everleigh Club, perhaps the most famous brothel in American history, run by two sisters, Minna and Ada Everleigh at the dawn of the last century. Progressive era reformers, however, wanted it closed and the ensuing battle is filled with the names of famous politicians, gangsters, and a cast of characters that will have you turning the pages with glee. Victorian values clashed with and shaped the nations sexual culture and even led to the formation of the FBI. A man whose name became synonymous with the mix of religion and politics is the subject of Macel Falwell’s biography of her husband, Jerry Falwell: His Life and Legacy ($23.99, Howard Books, a division of Simon & Schuster). He gave a voice to what Nixon called “the silent majority” and played a major role in the rise of evangelicals in the nation’s political life, but in his own life he was a man known for his optimism, his generosity, and as the founder of Liberty University and the Moral Majority, often the target of attacks by liberal antagonists. With a forward by Sean Hannity, this book is sure to please his many admirers as he rose from a small Baptist church to a major cultural figure. Jane Goodall: A Biography by Meg Greene ($16.95, Prometheus Books, softcover) is a short, but excellent review of this naturalist who gained fame studying chimpanzees in Tanzania. She literally changed the way humans viewed these close cousins, revealing through her research that they are capable of a wide range of emotions, could reason, think and solve problems. She found solace in the Gombe Stream Reserve, married, divorced, survived the death of her second husband, criticisms from fellow scientists, and a deep spiritual crisis. This is a thoroughly enjoyable biography.

A Diary of the Century: Tales from America’s Greatest Diarist ($17.95, Sterling Publishing/Union Square Press, softcover) is devoted to the work of Edward Robb Ellis, whose press credentials gave him access to some of the last century’s most famous figures in the worlds of entertainment and politics. He often had a front-row seat to many major events and he captured them in a vivid, pictorial style. His diary spanning 68 years will be enjoyed by anyone who loves to read about history as seen through the eyes of an individual with rare reportorial skills who rubbed elbows with the rich, powerful, and talented figures of a time that was filled with them.

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A Bounty of Audio Books

When commuting, whether it’s behind the wheel of a car or sitting in a train, a great way to pass the time and increase your knowledge is an audio book. Tantor Audio of Old Saybrook, CT has demonstrated many times its remarkable ability to find books of interest and two of the latest are Sean Wilentz’s The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 ($54.95, 18 CDs. 22 hours unabridged) and Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytech, from Communism to Al-Qaeda ($49.99, 16 CDs, 20 hours unabridged). In the former audio book, Wilentz offers an excellent chronicle of American political history since the fall of the Nixon administration and the past thirty-five years that have been marked by a turn toward conservatism from the previous New Deal revolution. If you love history, this one is worth every penny and, if you love the world of espionage and history, Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton, with Henry Robert Schlesinger have a treat in store for you as they reveal the real-life devices created by the CIA’s Office of Technical Service. It’s better than James Bond and Q. It’s real life-and-death stories about this little known group as they functioned through the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and today’s war on terror.

The folks at Hachette Audio continue to turn out some of best audiobooks around and there is a bounty of good listening to be had this summer. Since July 4^th marks our independence, let’s begin with Ron Paul’s The Revolution: A Manifesto ($24.98). Rep. Paul is a Republican who has run in the primaries as a candidate for President. One thing’s for sure, he is never boring. His political philosophy is closely tied to his regard for the Constitution and the limits it puts on government. His book makes for lively listening. David Sedaris has gain a reputation as a humorist who finds his humor in odd places. When You Are Engulfed in Flames ($34.98) offers nine hours of his amusing take on life in this sixth collection of comic writing.

More from Hachette, but in the category of guilty pleasures is Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City ($16.98), now a movie and read by Cynthia Nixon, one of its stars. The book that started the phenomenon chronicles the sometimes shocking and always hilarious mating habits of its four main characters. It’s just perfect for a lazy afternoon at the beach. Another novel that girls will enjoy is Elin Hilderbrand’s Barefoot ($19.98), an account of three women, one of whom has received news of a serious illness, her sister Brenda who has left her job after having been caught in an affair with a student, and their friend Melanie who is finally pregnant, but has learned her husband is having an affair. They have come to Nantucket to escape for a while. A handsome young man makes it a party of four. A novel by Billie Letts, Made in the U.S.A. ($34.98) is the story of two kids whose mother is dead and father is off in Nevada seeking his fortune. When the father’s 300-pound girlfriend suddenly dies, they decide to get out of town in her car and go in search of their dad. It’s both a heartbreaking and life-affirming story. Other novels include Sail by James Patterson and Howard Roughan ($29.98), a suspenseful story of a family trip that turns into a nightmare, read by Dylan Baker and Jennifer Van Dyck. Anyone who enjoys sailing will get a real kick from this one. Jimmy Buffett is a musician and a story teller who gain famed with his songs and from Tales from Margaritaville. He’s back with Swine Not? It’s the story of a Southern family that is determined to hide their pet pig in a fancy four-star New York hotel! This is just plain funny stuff ($24.98) as read by L.J. Ganser, an award-winning narrator.

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Getting Down to Business (Books)

 Summer is a good time to find the right book to help you manage better, grow your business, review your financial affairs, and do those other things to get ready for Labor Day, the traditional date to finish out the year strongly.

One of the big issues in the political campaign is health insurance and we keep being told that 47 million Americans don’t have it and that the government has to step in to help get everyone insured. Vulture Culture: The Insurance Industry by Eric D. Gerst ($24.00, Amacom) takes a very different view, particularly as regards the 257 million Americans who do have health insurance and expect it to protect them. The book is subtitled “dirty deals, unpaid claims, and the coming collapse of the insurance industry”, so if you’re paying your premiums, maybe you need to read this book. Gerst, an attorney, has spent decades representing clients in the insurance business, but began to have doubts about it when a trusted carrier inexplicably turned down a legitimate claim. Much in the way the nation discovered that the banking and investment community was playing fast and loose with mortgage loans, Gerst reveals bid-rigging, secret payoffs, deceptive accounting, fraudulent sales and marketing tactics, and a host of unscrupulous practices by well known, top of the line brokers and insurers. Put this book on the top of your list to read. Switching subjects now, it is clear that being able to spot trends can prove very profitable and that is the topic of Richard Laermer’s new book, 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade ($25.95, McGraw-Hill). Widely regarded as a marketing guru has a good track record for spotting trends and in this book he explores the major trends that will affect businesspeople in the year 2011and beyond. Here’s the nitty-gritty of market research, monitoring the media, and influencing your customers in the process. This book is filled with lots of very good advice, not just for the younger person trying to get a handle on how spotting trends will enhance his own career, but the older, higher level executive who must also keep on top of change.

The one thing that business success is all about is being competitive. A clever book by Robyn Spizman and Rick Frishman, Where’s Your Wow: 16 Ways to Make Your Competitors Wish They Were You, ($19.95, McGraw-Hill) looks at why it is essential to have a quality product or service to begin with and how to then create the “personal electricity” or buzz that generates the kind of attention that turns into money, profits, and career advancement. Frishman is a publicist by trade and Spizman is an entrepreneur and media personality. They make a perfect team for this book that will prove useful for those whose personalities are suited to shameless self-promotion, the kind that gets results! Another clever approach to survival is The Milkshake Moment by Steven S. Little ($19.95, Wiley), a highly readable look at the stifling behaviors that seem built into every organization and how to overcome them. It begins with the author’s frustrating and funny story of his inability to order a simple milkshake and goes from there to explaining how well-intended systems meant to increase customer satisfaction often produce the opposite result. For Little, the milkshake moment is when employees realize they are allowed to do the right thing and serve the customer. 

Jack Mitchell made a splash with his book, “Hug Your Customer”, and he’s back with Hug Your People ($19.95, Hyperion) that is subtitled “The proven way to hire, inspire, and recognize your employees, and achieve remarkable results.” That’s got to be expecting a lot from a book and especially one that deals in the most time-honored platitudes such as “Be nice”, “Trust them”, “Instill pride” et cetera. In other words, (1) there are other books on this topic, (2) there’s not much new here, and (3) if you need a book to tell you stuff like this, you need to get a life. If I were you, I would invest instead in The PITA Principle: How to Work with and Avoid Becoming a Pain in the Ass by Robert Omdorff, DEd and Dulin Clark, PhD ($22.95, JIST Works) due out next month, but I would suggest, if you’re just entering the workplace or have encountered a lot of inter-personal problems in the workplace, you better get in line to buy this excellent book. The book describes a variety of common PITAs you will encounter in just about any workplace, plus advice on how to deal with them. It will also allow you to evaluate your own behavior and personality to lose or avoid being or becoming a typical PITA. In these times, holding onto the job you have takes on a higher priority, so a book like this can mean the difference between a paycheck and crazed job-seeking.

There is no end to management books and, frankly, that’s not a bad thing since the requirements change as new technologies are utilized and the marketplace puts new demands on managers. Uniting the Virtual Workforce is a perfect example of this. Authored by Karen Sobel Lojeski and Richard R. Reilly ($20.95, Wiley) it is subtitled “Transforming leadership and innovations in the globally integrated enterprise.” It takes a look at the emerging challenges managers are facing in the workplace as the dependence on technology increases. They have coined the term “virtual distance” to describe the kind of psychological distance that results when people interact mainly through media. Packed with case studies, in this new era of new devices and applications, this book is well worth reading. For the person new to management, The Breakthrough Imperative: How the Best Managers Get Outstanding Results by Mark Gottsfredson and Steve Schaubert ($26.95, Collins, an imprint of Harper and Collins) addresses the pressure that today’s managers are under to produce results. The penalty is often being out of a job in a year or two. So what can one do to live and survive in that hothouse atmosphere? The answer is to read this book by two men who share their extensive experience in light of their own successful careers. Moreover, they interviewed more than forty CEOs from business and the non-profit area to get their views on what successful managers do right. That kind of information is invaluable and that makes the price of this book a bargain! Drive Business Performance by Bruno Aziza and Joey Fitts ($39.95, Wiley) is about aligning people and information as the key to delivering outstanding results. This book is about improving performance management within an organization by enhancing business intelligence whereby organizational objectives, the analysis of trends, the ability to forecast, and to plan winning strategies works toward the common goal of success. This is not light reading, but it does reveal various methodologies at work in the Fortune 500 companies that have adopted them.

If you are considering doing business in China, wouldn’t you want to read a book  written by someone who has lived there since 1989 and learned, via a series of business ventures, how to make the right moves to achieve success in the Middle Kingdom? Wouldn’t you feel even better if the book was published in Hong Kong? If your answer to both is yes, then read Jack Leblanc’s Business Republic of China: Tales from the Front Line of China’s New Revolution ($14.95, Blacksmith Books, softcover available via Amazon.com). This kind of book is truly invaluable to any Westerner unfamiliar with the way the Chinese conduct business and establish a good relationship. It’s why one has to be attuned to the Chinese sense of personal honor and why time does not play the same role as it is in the U.S. Relating his experiences in an entertaining fashion, Leblanc’s book is a first class guide to the Chinese psyche.

If you prefer to listen to books, Hachette Audio has just issued Globality: Competing With Everyone from Everywhere for Everything ($26.98) by three consultants who explains the forces at work that affect doing business in a worldwide economy. It is relentless, fast growing, and, if you want to compete, you probably had better listen to what they have to say. From Ken McElroy comes The Advanced Guide to Real Estate Investing: How to Identify the Hottest Markets and Secure the Best Deals ($24.98) and, with a title like that, how can anyone resist?

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Books for Kids and Young Adults

Summertime is a great time to get kids to read more. Whenever they say, “I’m bored”, mom or dad should have a book handy and say, “Read this and tell me what you think of it?”

I think it is very important to provide the young adult, teen and pre-teen reader with something appropriate to their age and, happily, there are a number of authors doing just that. Famous among them is Avi, a Newbery award-winner, has come up with a spooky ghost story for readers 8-12, Seer of Shadows ($16.99, HarperCollins Children’s Books) about a pre-Civil War photographer’s apprentice who gets unwillingly involved with spiritualism and tells a story of the early days of photography. I am all for encouraging young people to write and Avi has also written about the art of writing in A Beginning, A Middle, and an End: The Right Way to Write Writing ($14.95, Harcourt) in which two friends, a snail and an ant, provide some fun and good advice to an aspiring storyteller.

Older kids will enjoy Steel Trapp by Ridley Pearson ($17.99, Hyperion Books for Children) a mystery starring a 14-year-old with the same name as the title. He’s a science prodigy and has a remarkable photographic memory. He’s also caught up in a series of unexplainable and increasingly menacing events as the National Science Challenge in Washington, D.C., nears. Steel is excited to be one of the finalists, but he is sidetracked when he finds a briefcase on the train as he travels from Chicago. It soon becomes clear that some very dangerous people will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. I don’t want to give away too much, but suffice it to say that Pearson has written nearly 30 novels and never disappoints. An interesting graphic novel can be found in Tonoharu by Lars Martinson ($19.95, Pliant Press), the first in a four-part series that follows the life of a young American college graduate and his experiences working as an assistant English teacher in rural Japan.

D.L. Garfinkle will amuse readers 6-10 with Fowl Language ($4.99, Mirrorstone, softcover) in the debut of a new series about Nate and Lisa Zupinski who inherit a rubber chicken—one that cracks jokes, makes rude remarks, and grants wishes! For her first wish, Lisa asks the supernatural rubber chicken to turn her shy friend Ashley into a charming speaker. When a bully gets his hands on the chicken, super charm turns into super trouble! Also from Mirrorstone, part of its “Time Spies” series, is Candice Ransom’s Gold in the Hills: A tale of the Klondike Gold Rush ($4.99, softcover). Check out this publisher at www.wizards.com for its other great books. Another favorite publisher of mine is Charlesbridge and they have a dandy new book for kids 9-12. It’s Sea Queens: Women Pirates Around the World ($18.95) by Jane Yolen and illustrated by Christine Joy Pratt. I was surprised to discovered there were women pirates, but this book tells the stories of a Persian Admiral, Queen Artemisia, the pirate Grania O’Malley who impressed Queen Elizabeth I, and Madame Ching who command 2,000 ships and 70,000 men, among quite a few other such women who have been generally overlooked in the history books and this proves once again how much fun real history can be.

Without doubt, one of the best publishers of books for younger readers is National Geographic. Let’s start with the National Geographic United States Atlas for Young Explorers ($24.95), now in its glorious third edition. State by State it takes the reader on a beautifully illustrated journey from coast to coast whose maps are enhanced by an excellent text. In addition, the book offers interactive links to videos, animals, games, and much more. A young person who does not know the basic information about America is someone deprived of a heritage and the insight that comes from learning about how different and yet alike they are. This book is an eyeful that will inspire and impress a young reader from about 10 and up. A slender book, Planets: A New View of the Solar System by David A. Aguilar ($16.95) is for readers of 7-10 and is filled will wonderful photos and art that show what the planets, meteorites, the moons of planets and other celestial bodies look like and share our solar system. It’s a dandy. National Geographic publishes a number of series such is biography series. It has just added Leonardo Da Vinci by John Phillips and Marie Curie by Philip Steele ($6.95 each) and either one will provide inspiration to a reader age 7-10. The same can be said of its “How to Be” series whose new additions include how to be An Egyptian Princes, An Ancient Greek Athlete, A Roman Soldier, and An Aztec Warrior ($5.95 each). You can watch a child’s imagination light up with easy-to-read, exciting-to-the-eye books like these. Another series, “Face to Face” features animals and the latest two are Wolves and Whales ($16.95 each), written by people who know them intimately. For the child who loves animals, National Geographic is a treasure of books on the subject. Among its new titles is Animal Tracks & Signs by Jinny Johnson ($24.95) that identifies more than 400 animals from the big cats to backyard birds. Page after page is filled with photos and art about each of the creatures, along with an excellent text. There’s hours of wonderful reading and knowledge to be found in this book. Every parent should make a point of visiting www.nationalgeographic.com to learn about its great books and while you’re there, I guarantee you will find one or two you will want for yourself as well.

There are a number of new books from Kids Can Press that will delight any young reader from age 5 through 8. I loved Stanley at Sea by Linda Bailey, filled with wonderful illustrations by Bill Slavin ($16.95) about a dog who tries begging for food while his masters eat and, failing that, sets off with three pals, who are also hungry. When a garbage truck snaps up a dumpster full of food, they then find a small, red boat and leap into it when one finds a sandwich. Then the boat begins to float away and they are all swept away to sea to “the end of outside.” Happily they are rescued, generously fed, and returned home, and they share the story with other dogs. Rosie and Buttercup by Chieri Uegaki with wonderful watercolor illustrations by Stephane Jorisch ($17.95) is about sharing and kinship. Rosie “was a girl who had everything” including two pet crickets and, in time, a little sister named Buttercup who, in time, she decided she didn’t want! When she gives her away to her sitter, Oxford, she discovers how much she misses her and reclaims her. This is of course about sibling rivalry but told in a very clever way. Three other books are for older children up to around ten or so who are taking notice of the world around them. There’s Dirt on Dirt by Paulette Bourgeois and illustrated by Martha Newbigging ($15.95), a really interesting book that will turn some readers into budding geologists with its information about what the earth’s crust and the role it has played as man built houses from it, planted crops in it, made statues from it, and so much more. Looking Closely Along The Shore and Looking Closely Through the Forest, both by Frank Serafini ($15.95) use close-up photos of common things found in both places to peak the imagination of the reader to learn more about what they really are. This is a clever idea and a way to introduce a child to the mysteries of nature.

Finally, there are all kinds of books out to bolster self-esteem, even among the very young. My experience is that most kids think the world revolves around them and probably don’t need them, but that’s the theme of Thumbbuddy You by Mark Arens ($8.95, ThumbPeople Books, Burnsville, MN 55306). Not officially due out until September, it is the first of a series of seven. It is a board book which is to say it can take a lot of rough handling by anyone from infancy through age 4 for whom they were written and illustrated. These books, to be read by a parent to the child all affirm that they are special, huggable, et cetera. Some kids, especially the shy ones, probably can benefit from such early assurance. You can check them out at www.thumbpeople.com.

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Novels, Novels, Novels!

 So many novels, so little time. Well, let’s take a look at just some that have arrived to entertain us this summer.

In no particular order, we start with By Reason of Insanity by Randy Singer ($22.99, Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, IL), a novel that is, not surprisingly, written by a lawyer.  Catherine O’Rourke, a reporter has covered many trials, but while covering one for a serial killer, she begins to experience a series of alarming visions that contain intimate details about the creams. When she shares them with a trusted detective, she is arrested for the murder of one of the victims because they believe she knows too much. Even during her trial, the visions continue and you will, too, once you begin to read this intriguing novel. Murder is also the theme of A Vengeful Longing by R.N. Morris ($24.95, The Penguin Press), but the time is summer in the late 1860s and the location is St. Petersburg when a doctor brings home a fancy box of chocolates for his wife and son and, within an hour, both are dead. The obvious suspect, he is immediately arrested, but investigator Porfiry Petrovich is aware of apparently unconnected murders on the other side of time and a pattern begins to emerge. The combination of the horror, the place, and the era are skillfully employed to provide a novel that anyone who enjoys mysteries will find very appealing. From Russia to Italy the scene changes but the theme continues in A Deadly Paradise by Grace Brophy ($24.00, Soho Press), the creator of Commissario Cenni who does his investigations in Umbria. He was introduced in her debut novel, The Last Enemy, now in softcover. In this story, an elderly German woman is found, murdered and mutilated in the otherwise peaceful village of Paradiso. As he digs into the killing, he discovered that neither the victim, nor the village are as innocent as they first seemed. The retired cultural attaché was a difficult tenant, as well as a bisexual swinger and apparent blackmailer. This is a tightly written, compact story that moves along at a good pace; an easy afternoon’s reading. Vita Nuova by Magalen Nabb ($24.00, Soho Press) is set in a beautiful home just outside of Florence, Italy where we meet the Paoletti family where the oldest daughter, Daniella,, a quite single mother is found dead, shot six times in the new villa of a newly rich family. Marshall Guarnaccia is called in to investigate. There seems to be no motive, but the family is one with lots of personal problems and dark secrets. This is the 14^th and final book in a series that stars the Italian investigator.

Reading novels is a great way to move around the world to faraway places and times. Sebastian Barry has been called a master storyteller and a spellbinder in the great Irish tradition. His new novel, The Secret Scripture, ($24.95, Viking) is the story of Roseanne McNulty, a one hundred-year-old resident of Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital who has lived in the institution most of all her adult life. In a journal that she keeps hidden beneath the floorboards of her room, she writes an account of her youth in Sligo, Ireland in the 1930s and what happened that brought her to the asylum. The story is also told from the perspective of her psychiatrist, himself driven half-mad with grief after the death of his wife. Two versions of the past emerge. There are long buried secrets to be told. Nominated for the Irish Novel of the Year,  Redemption Falls by Joseph O’Connor ($14.00, Free Press, softcover) it is a riveting historical novel, a classic epic story set in America’s Western frontier in the aftermath of the Civil War. It has a large cast of characters, among whom one is a fallen Irish war hero consumed with anger and disillusion. There is an orphaned child who loses his innocence on the battlefield and a young girl who undertakes a dangerous pilgrimage to find her brother. This is equal parts a war story and a love story, crackling with the American spirit as reflected by the lives of Irish immigrants who took up arms to fight for their new nation. Far away on the other side of the world, Taiwan is the backdrop for The Foreigner by Francie Lin ($14.00, Picador, softcover) who makes her debut with a vivid portrait of Taiwan’s underworld in a spectacular crime story driven by the high stakes of dirty money, violence, and human trafficking. Emerson Chang is a mild-mannered bachelor on the cusp of forty, a financial analyst, and the child of Taiwanese immigrants who does not speak a word of Chinese. When his mother dies, he sets out for Taipei to scatter her ashes and contact his younger brother, Little P. who is deeply enmeshed in the Taiwanese underworld. Their worlds collide and it makes for a very exciting novel.

More Than It Hurts You by Darin Strauss ($24.95, Dutton) tells the story of Josh Goldin, a man living an ideal life in a beautiful home on Long Island, in love with his wife Dori, a successful career in television advertising, and now father to a new son, Zack. Then comes a call that Zack is in intensive care and Dori is hysterical. A physician, Dr. Darlene Stokes, enters the emergency room and has her suspicions immediately aroused. Something about the infant’s injuries is suspicious. The novel is about Munchausen’s syndrome when a parent purposely harms a child to get attention. If you shy from such things, this is not for you, but it is a powerful story by a novelist who is drawn to them. This is his third novel. While we associate university presses with academic topics, some like Southern Methodist University Press also publish some excellent fiction. In this case, it’s a novel, The Baker’s Boy by Barry Kitterman ($22.50) and a collection of stories, North of the Port, by Anthony Bukoski ($22.50). The novel is set in Central America and in middle Tennessee, giving us two intertwined stories; one of a man who has left his pregnant wife and taken a job as a baker, working nights. In the second, he relives his painful experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in Belize where he taught at a boy’s reform school nearly a quarter century earlier. He is searching for the courage to accept his role as a husband and prospective father. It is an excellent piece of fiction. The latter book explores the most intimate religious and sensual longings, using a sly humor to explore multi-generational immigrant struggles through the characters he creates. He is a consummate writer of short stories and has four other collections to his credit, all published by SMU Press.

If you like old-fashioned political and military thrillers, you will enjoy Madame President and the Admiral by Carl Nelson ($16.95, New Century Press, softcover) that weaves a story borrowed from the headlines. It begins as China has just shot down a U.S. Navy aircraft during a routine surveillance flight over the Spratly Islands, located in the South China Seas and recently discovered to have an abundance of oil and natural gas reserves. This has attracted the attention of surrounding nations. China is moving fast to take possession of the land and there is the potential for a war with Russia which has seized the Chinese Pan-Asian pipeline. Enter Madame President, Abigail Cass Steele who must decide whether the U.S. should go to war over the incident. There’s lots of entertainment to be had as events unfold and the world holds his breath to find out what will happen. You will to! For a completely different change of pace, there’s Laurie Viera Rigler’s Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict ($14.00, Plume, softcover) that comes along when there is a new popularity for Jane Austen’s books with Masterpiece Theater movies on television and others on the big screen. This is a comedic exploration of identity and destiny that will appeal to women in particular in the story of a modern Los Angeles woman, Courtney Stone, who’s trying to heal a broken heart by reading Jane Austen novels and sipping Absolut vodka. One morning she wakes to find herself in early 19^th-century England in another woman’s body. Despite her familiarity with the novels, nothing prepares her for the realities of that period or the characters she encounters. Can she get her real life back? Does she even want to? Modern day England is portrayed in the debut novel of Richard Milward, a new 23-year-old talent. Apples exposes the grittier truths of adolescent life in North-East England’s housing projects. It catapulted its author to sudden fame in the United Kingdom with its story of adolescent Eve who discovers the world of one night stands, cheap booze, and drug fuelled clubs where she catches the eye of Adam. This is about growing up in less than perfect circumstances. It is unflinchingly honest, emotionally charged, and full of heart. You can get your fill of Britain with The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries as edited by Maxim Jakubowski ($13.95, Running Press, softcover) that offers hours of intrigue, suspense and chills. The British are very good at this kind of thing and this book is a treasure of excellent stories.

That’s it for July! Come back in August for more of the best in fiction and non-fiction. Tell your friends about Bookviews.com and make it your website to visit for news and views about books that don’t always receive the attention they should. Don’t forget to visit our Featured Book section for a selection of excellent books that are waiting to entertain and inform you.

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