New Non-Fiction - September 2007
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The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think Is Right
Is Wrong
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Jacket Notes:
Historian Hecht looks at contemporary happiness
advice and, with a newfound historical perspective, liberates readers from the
scolding, quasi-scientific messages that insist there is a formula for happiness
and offers real lessons that have stood the test of time.
REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 11/13/2006
History teaches us, contrary to popular belief,
that money can buy happiness, drugs are mostly good, low-fat diets may not
prevent cancer or heart disease. For Hecht, the assumptions about happiness that
guide our actions are distorted by myths, fantasies and "nonsensical" cultural
biases. Taking a tour of historical and contemporary ideas of happiness, Hecht
(Doubt: A History ) demonstrates that women's clothes shopping is a celebratory
act of freedom from the long nights their ancestors spent spinning, and that the
shopping mall gives us back some of the social intimacy of group activity that
consumerism wiped out of our lives. In the 1830s, Sylvester Graham encouraged
Americans to identify whole-grain, home-baked bread with happiness, a notion
still embodied today in myriad message-carrying birthday and anniversary cakes.
Our love of sports and exercise stems from Southern slaveholder's; need to
distance themselves from heavy labor and its connotation of slavery, and from
the Protestant equation of happiness with aggressive self-control and
self-denial. American ambivalence about drugs reflects our fears about
unproductive happiness and palliatives that numb us into complacency. Although
the erudite Hecht (Doubt: A History ) sometimes loses her audience in verbose,
philosophical dissections, her energetic romp through the arbitrariness of
history's ideas about happiness is eclectic and entertaining, providing
ample perspective on the rituals that make us human.(Apr.)
Richistan: A Journey Through the American
Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich
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Jacket Notes:
Full of captivating profiles and expert insights
into the lives and lifestyles of the nouveau riche, "Richistan" looks behind the
glitz to find the real story behind new money and its impact on the richest
nation in the world.
REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 04/23/2007
When Frank, a columnist for theWall Street Journal
, began noticing that the ranks of America's wealthy had more than doubled in
the last decade, and that they were beginning to cluster together in enclaves,
he decided to investigate this new society, where "$1 million barely gets you in
the door." The "Richistanis" like to consider themselves ordinary people who
just happen to have tons of money, but they live in a world where people buy
boats just to carry their cars and helicopters behind their primary yachts, and
ordering an alligator-skin toilet seat won't make even your interior designer
blink. But Frank doesn't just focus on conspicuous consumption. He talks to
philanthropists who apply investment principles to their charitable
contributions and political fund-raisers who have used their millions to
transform the Colorado state legislature. He also meets people for whom sudden
wealth is an emotional burden, whose investment club meetings can feel like
group therapy sessions. It's only in the final pages that Frank contemplates the
widening gap between Richistan and the rest of the world-for the most part, his
grand tour approach never loses its light touch.(June)
Half-Price Living: Secrets to Living Well on
One Income
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Jacket Notes:
Ellie Kay, America’ s Family Financial Expert ® ,
will show you how to cut your stress in half - and that’ s just a side benefit!
With the wit and wisdom of someone who has lived the ½ -price lifestyle, Ellie
empowers you to cut the cord to a second income. This easy-to-read
guide gives practical steps, creative suggestions, and valuable resources to
help you and your family: · Cut
your food bill in half! · Cut your vacation
expense in half! · Cut your clothing costs
in half! · Cut your debt in half - and out!
· Cut your housing expenses in half! ·
AND double your giving!
How Doctors Think
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Jacket Notes:
A "New Yorker" staff writer, bestselling author,
and professor at Harvard Medical School unravels the mystery of how doctors
figure out the best treatments--or fail to do so. This book describes the
warning signs of flawed medical thinking and offers intelligent questions
patients can ask.
REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 01/29/2007
SignatureReviewed by Perri KlassI wish I had read
this book when I was in medical school, and I'm glad I've read it now.
Most readers will knowJerome Groopman from his essays in theNew Yorker , which
take on a wide variety of complex medical conditions, evocatively communicating
the tensions and emotions of both doctors and patients.But this book is
something different: a sustained, incisive and sometimes agonized inquiry into
the processes by which medical minds-brilliant, experienced, highly erudite
medical minds-synthesize information and understand illness.How Doctors Think is
mostly about how these doctors get it right, and about why they sometimes get it
wrong: "[m]ost errors are mistakes in thinking. And part of what causes these
cognitive errors is our inner feelings, feelings we do not readily admit to and
often don't realize."Attribution errors happen when a doctor's
diagnostic cogitations are shaped by a particular stereotype. It can be
negative: when five doctors fail to diagnose an endocrinologic tumor causing
peculiar symptoms in "a persistently complaining, melodramatic menopausal woman
who quite accurately describes herself as kooky." But positive feelings also get
in the way; an emergency room doctor misses unstable angina in a forest ranger
because "the ranger's physique and chiseled features reminded him of a
young Clint Eastwood-all strong associations with health and vigor." Other
errors occur when a patient is irreversibly classified with a particular
syndrome: "diagnosis momentum, like a boulder rolling down a mountain, gains
enough force to crush anything in its way."The patient stories are told with
Groopman's customary attention to character and emotion. And there is great
care and concern for the epistemology of medical knowledge, and a sense of
life-and-death urgency in analyzing the well-intentioned thought processes of
the highly trained. I have never read elsewhere this kind of discussion of the
ambiguities besetting the superspecialized-the doctors on whom the rest of us
depend: "Specialization in medicine confers a false sense of certainty."How
Doctors Think helped me understand my own thought processes and my
colleagues'-even as it left me chastened and dazzled by turns. Every
reflective doctor will learn from this book-and every prospective patient will
find thoughtful advice for communicating successfully in the medical setting and
getting better care.Many of the physicians Dr. Groopman writes about are
visionaries and heroes; their diagnostic and therapeutic triumphs are
astounding. And these are the doctors who are, like the author, willing to
anatomize their own serious errors. This passionate honesty gives the book an
immediacy and an eloquence that will resonate with anyone interested in
medicine, science or the cruel beauties of those human endeavors which engage
mortal stakes.(Mar. 19)Klass is professor of journalism and pediatrics at NYU.
Her most recent book is Every Mother Is a Daughter, with Sheila Solomon Klass.
Witch Hunts: From Salem to Guantanamo Bay
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Jacket Notes:
Witch hunts are the products of intense fear and
paranoia and the results are often terrible. The accused in three famous
witchcraft cases - in Bamberg and Wurzburg, Germany, in Loudun, France, and in
Salem, Massachusetts - were assumed to be guilty without proof. Secret
accusations were accepted, evidence was falsified, and extreme pressures,
including torture, were used. Arguing that fear was, and still is, a
prerequisite to any witch hunt, Robert Rapley shows that the current hunt for
terrorists mirrors the witch crazes of the past. Rapley analyses witch hunts in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and finds many of the same elements
repeated in more recent miscarriages of justice - from the Dreyfus case for
treason in late nineteenth-century France, to the persecution of the Scottsboro
Boys in Alabama for the gang rape of two white girls in the 1930s, to the
Guildford and Maguire terrorist prosecutions in Britain in the 1970s. All three
cases took place during times of extreme fear and paranoia and in all cases the
accused were innocent.Today, argues Rapley, the "witch" lives on in the
"terrorist." He cites as evidence Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the first prisons
created for "witches" since Salem. In Witch Hunts he makes a compelling case
that, in the wake of 9/11, witch hunts threaten today's America.
The 100 Best Vacations to Enrich Your Life
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Jacket Notes:
This timely book showcases a broad range of some
of the most life-enriching getaways in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, with
something for every taste and interest from arts-and-crafts holidays to kayaking
lessons to helping rebuild devastated communities of the Gulf Coast.
From Lance to Landis: Inside the American
Doping Controversy at the Tour de France
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Jacket Notes:
For eight years, the Tour de France, arguably the
world’s most demanding athletic competition, was ruled by two men: Lance
Armstrong and Floyd Landis. On the surface, they were feature players in one of
the great sporting stories of the age–American riders overcoming
tremendous odds to dominate a sport that held little previous interest for their
countrymen. But is this a true story, or is there a darker version of the truth,
one that sadly reflects the realities of sports in the twenty-first century?
Landis’s title is now in jeopardy because drug tests revealing that his
testosterone levels were eleven times those of a normal athlete strongly suggest
that he used banned substances, and for years similar allegations have swirled
around Armstrong. <br><br>Now internationally acclaimed award-winning journalist
David Walsh gives an explosive account of the shadow side of professional
sports. In this electrifying, controversial, and scrupulously documented
exposé, Walsh explores the many facets of the cyclist doping scandals in
the United States and abroad. He examines how performance-enhancing drugs can
infiltrate a premier sports event–and why athletes succumb to the pressure
to use them. In researching this book, Walsh conducted hundreds of hours of
interviews with key figures in international cycling, doctors, and other
insiders, including Emma O’Reilly, Armstrong’s longtime massage
therapist; former U.S. Postal Service cycling team doctor Prentice Steffen;
cycling legend Greg LeMond; and former teammates of both Landis and
Armstrong.<br><br>Central to the story is Lance Armstrong’srelentless,
all-consuming drive to be the best. Also essential to this narrative is Floyd
Landis, the unassuming, sympathetic hero who was the first winner of the Tour de
France after Lance–and the first ever to face the threat of having his
title revoked. More than anything else, this book will ignite anew the debate
about whether there is room in the current sports culture for athletes who
compete honestly, whether sports can be saved from a scandal as widespread as
this, and what changes will have to be made.<br><br>With a compelling narrative
and revelations that will stun, enlighten, and haunt readers, David Walsh
addresses numerous questions that arise in that crucial space where sports meet
the larger American culture.