Xpress Reviews—First Look at New Books

-- Library Journal, 2/5/2008 3:32:00 PM

Week of February 5, 2008

Fiction | Nonfiction

Fiction

Wilson, Budge. Before Green Gables: The Prequel to Anne of Green Gables. Putnam. Feb. 2008. 416p. ISBN 978-0-399-15468-3. $22.95. F
Verdict: Wilson cleverly and adroitly portrays the essence of Montgomery’s famous red-headed orphan and gives readers a spectacular glimpse of her young years. Highly recommended for YA and adult fiction collections in public and school libraries.
Background: To commemorate the centennial of L.M. Montgomery’s classic children’s novel, Anne of Green Gables, Putnam and Montgomery’s heirs commissioned award-winning Canadian YA author Wilson (The Leaving) to fill in Anne Shirley’s early childhood before her arrival on Prince Edward Island. Orphaned when she was three months old, Anne begins her journey as the child whom desperate families exploit as a housekeeper and substitute mother. Longing for affection and receiving little from her foster families, Anne draws on her survival instincts to find contentment in her imaginary friends and nature walks despite the adult alcoholic rages, poverty, and heavy labor she endures. Anne is partially rescued from her wretched existence when she is able to go to school and learn to read. Books afford her respite as she is shunted from one wretched situation to the next.—Mary Ellen Elsbernd, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights

Nonfiction

Albright, Madeleine with Bill Woodward. Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America’s Reputation and Leadership. Harper: HarperCollins. 2008. c.320p. index. ISBN 978-0-06-135180-8. $24.95. POL SCI
Verdict: Albright provides a general assessment of the current international landscape and enumerates the difficulties awaiting the next administration. Academics and researchers will not find anything new here, but Albright’s credentials and experience should make for a hot book at all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/07.]
Background: Former U.S. Secretary of State Albright (The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs) draws on her experience as adviser to two presidents to provide guidance to the 2008 president-elect. She does not attempt to predict who that will be (although she has campaigned with Hillary Clinton) but instead speaks to what that person should expect upon entering office and what steps s/he can take to repair the United States’ reputation abroad. Albright mainly focuses on U.S. leadership and our country’s current standing in global contexts, particularly the Middle East. She writes diplomatically, with insight and deference, though she makes her leanings clear: her support for former President Clinton’s administration and lack of support for George W. Bush’s are consistent throughout, and her deep respect for JFK sets up her leadership framework. Other political leaders about whom she writes include North Korea’s Kim Jong-il, whom she surprisingly characterizes as rational, intelligent, and well informed.—Melissa Johnson, Fenwick Lib., Fairfax, VA

Barcott, Bruce. The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman’s Fight To Save the World’s Most Beautiful Bird. Random. Feb. 2008. c.336p. ISBN 978-1-4000-6293-5. $25.95. NAT HIST
Verdict: In a world where the survival of one in eight bird species is questionable, Barcott’s chronicle of environmental degradation—and protection—is germane, informative, and engaging. Offering a literate lesson in the interconnectedness of the Third World, the environment, and developed nations, it is highly recommended for environmental collections.
Background: Set in the jungles of the small Central American country of Belize, this well-crafted tale profiles Sharon Matola, a circus performer–turned–zoo owner who takes on the Belizean government and corporate world in a campaign to save her country’s few remaining scarlet macaws. Although not threatened globally, these spectacular large, red, yellow, and blue parrots are on the way out in Mesoamerica. Outside contributor Barcott (The Measure of a Mountain) writes knowledgeably of the mavericks and eccentric characters attracted to Belize, its history, its idiosyncratic, often corrupt infrastructure, and its social and ecological makeup. Matola—outspoken, abrasive, fearless, and obdurate—opposes a proposed dam that would flood a priceless river valley thronging with macaws, tapirs, and jaguars.—Henry T. Armistead, formerly with the Free Lib. of Philadelphia

Cheung, Theresa. The IBS Healing Plan: Natural Ways To Beat Your Symptoms. Hunter House. Feb. 2008. c.160p. index. ISBN 978-0-89793-507-4. pap. $14.95. HEALTH
Verdict: Those who suffer from IBS are certain to find useful lifestyle and therapeutic information in this plainspoken volume on how to cope with better and perhaps alleviate some of the discomfort associated with IBS. An appendix includes IBS support resources. Consumer health collection would do well to purchase.
Background: One in five people suffers from some form of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), making it the complaint most frequently seen by gastroenterologists. Cheung (The PCOS Protection Plan) emphasizes a naturotherapeutic, alternative medicine approach to IBS stressing symptoms, diagnosis, causes, diet, vitamin and herbal supplements, complementary therapies such as acupuncture and reflexology, stress management and exercise, and finding and working with a doctor to overcome the many and various complications of this sometimes embarrassing, often painful, and hard-to-live-with syndrome.—James Swanton, Harlem Hosp. Lib., New York

Clift, Eleanor. Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Politics. Basic Bks: Perseus. Mar. 2008. c.336p. index. ISBN 978-0-465-00251-1. $26. POL SCI
Verdict: Clift’s writing is honest and heartfelt, and her reporting on Schiavo’s last days raises important questions regarding the role of government and religious fundamentalists in right-to-die issues. Warmer than Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, this book will appeal to readers interested in better understanding death and grief and will benefit professionals working with the terminally ill and their loved ones.
Background: Newsweek contributing editor and political analyst Clift describes the last two weeks in the life of her husband and coauthor (War Without Bloodshed; Madam President), Tom Brazaitis. In 2005, as hospice workers were helping Clift care for the then terminally ill Brazaitis, she was being asked to comment on the national controversy surrounding the fate of Terri Schiavo, whose own husband was petitioning to have her feeding tube removed (Brazaitis and Shiavo died one day apart in March 2005). This book is what emerged from Clift’s parallel experiences. Written in diary form, it covers her efforts to comfort her dying husband and her attempts as a journalist to make sense of the many ethical and moral issues raised by the Schiavo case.—Dale Farris, Groves, TX

Fujiwara, Chris. The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger. Faber & Faber. Mar. 2008. c.544p. illus. filmog. index. ISBN 978-0-571-21117-3. $35. FILM
Verdict: Hard on the heels of Foster Hirsch’s Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King, this is a useful introduction to Preminger’s work but not the last word on the director’s place in film history. Recommended with reservations for large public and academic film collections.
Background: Preminger is remembered for his tantrums on the set, his films that helped open up American movies to previously taboo subjects after World War II, and his defiance of the blacklist. His body of work is maddeningly uneven, including classics like Laura and Anatomy of a Murder and flops like Hurry Sundown and Skidoo. Fujiwara (Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall)covers Preminger’s films and his shrewd sense of showmanship—he often used offbeat casting to hype interest, famously and unsuccessfully trying to lure Martin Luther King Jr. into appearing in Advise & Consent. The book covers Preminger’s affair with Gypsy Rose Lee and his sometimes emotionally abuse relationship with Dorothy Dandridge. Fujiwara’s research is meticulous, but his critical judgments on individual films and performances are less reliable, particularly those of the late 1960s and 1970s, when Preminger seemed to have lost contact with changing moviegoer tastes.—Stephen Rees, Levittown Lib., PA

Read, Anthony. The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism. Norton. Mar. 2008. c.320p. illus. bibliog. index. ISBN 978-0-393-06124-6. $27.95. HIST
Verdict: Read’s historical account of world reactions to Bolshevism 90 years ago has contemporary relevance that should only increase its value in public and academic libraries.
Background: “We are running a race with Bolshevism, and the world is on fire,” said a fearful President Wilson in 1919. As the Bolsheviks raged in Russia from 1917 to 1919, Lenin and Trotsky’s brand of revolution seemed exportable to other countries. Indeed, Lenin gave money and logistical support to many revolutionary groups in capitalist Western Europe and the United States. Read (The Devil’s Disciples: Hitler’s Inner Circle), who has also written screenplays and children’s books in addition to much recent nonfiction work, does a wonderful job chronicling the mini revolutions—mostly in the form of labor unions and labor strikes—that then sprang up on both sides of the Atlantic, including in several South American countries. This first red scare in the United States became the foundation for the career of J. Edgar Hoover and gave rise to virulent racism and a general panic that caused the deaths of strikers and sympathizers and curtailed personal freedoms.—Harry Willems, Park City P.L., KS

Steinberg, Jonny. Sizwe’s Test: A Young Man’s Journey Through Africa’s AIDS Epidemic. S. & S. Feb. 2008. c.368p. photogs. index. ISBN 978-1-4165-5269-7. $26. MED
Verdict: Several books have examined AIDS in undeveloped countries through the eyes of the natives (e.g., Nicole Itano’s No Place Left To Bury the Dead and Joao Biehl’s Will To Live), and this is a significant addition to that genre. Highly recommended.
Background: Prize-winning South African author and journalist Steinberg (Midlands) questioned why, with universal access to antiretroviral treatments, so many of his countrymen remained untested and untreated for HIV. To learn more, he spent 18 months in the rural area of Lusikisiki, where Medecins Sans Frontiers had started an HIV testing and treatment program. This book focuses on one man, Sizwe, a young African businessman who is about to become a husband and father. He is afraid he may be HIV-positive but cannot bring himself to be tested. As Sizewe accompanies Steinberg on his interviews and their trust builds, Sizwe shares his personal conflicts between his cultural beliefs and the the realities of the AIDS cases he sees around him every day.—Tina Neville, Univ. of South Florida St. Petersburg Lib.

Yun, Lisa. The Coolie Speaks: Chinese Indentured Laborers and African Slaves in Cuba. Temple Univ. Feb. 2008. c.320p. illus. ISBN 978-1-59213-581-3. pap. $37.50. HIST
Verdict: The individual testimonies, once readers reach them, are stunning in their particularity and personality. Some use Chinese historic and poetic allusions in sophisticated ways, some are quite simple, and all are anguishing. Much remains to be studied (Yun herself includes an additional chapter on a fascinating 1927 history of the Chinese in Cuba), but the author is to be commended for this vital first step. Highly recommended for all research collections in larger public and college libraries.
Background: The heart of this significant work is made up of depositions and petitions presented in 1874 to an official commission from China sent to investigate the 3000 “coolies” in Spanish colonial Cuba. These Chinese workers provided their individual stories, and damning ones they are, showing the coolie life as comparable in horror to the African slave trade. Both systems treated human beings as commodities to be sold, traded, disciplined, used up, and discarded. Although in theory coolies came by choice and were protected by contracts, they were, in fact, deceived or coerced into service, their contracts meaningless, and their death rates in many cases even higher than African slaves. Yun (English & Asian American studies, SUNY, Binghampton) has translated these documents from the Chinese with clarity and annotated them with skill. Regrettably, many readers will find the analytical and theoretical sections hard going; the multiple apparatuses of cultural studies are overkill, and the historical argument needs to be tied to historical, not just literary, discourses. —Charles W. Hayford, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL