Arts & Humanities

Arts

This large-format book consists of clippings from magazines, newspapers, advertisements, and other documents culled from the cluttered studio of Irish-born artist Francis Bacon, who died at the age of 82 in Madrid, Spain, in 1992. Known for his bold, severe, and often violent imagery, Bacon relied on many of these pictures for inspiration in his paintings. Harrison (In Camera: Francis Bacon) and independent scholar Daniels, both working on a forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Bacon's paintings, contribute introductory essays that offer significant and curious insights into the inner life and work of the artist. The editors carefully arrange many of these "working documents" and annotate them at the end of the book. Beautifully designed and printed, this will be helpful to anyone studying the painter and his work. A welcome addition to all major art collections.—Raymond Bial, First Light Photography, Urbana, IL

This catalog accompanies a 2008–09 traveling exhibition (to Louisville, Seattle, and Birmingham) of 200-plus objects from Yale's extensive collection of American art, representing all media and dating from the 1600s to 1900. Thematically arranged by broad chronology, the three sections each feature an introductory essay by a Yale curator or scholar followed by substantial object entries. Parts of the Yale collections (e.g., the silver and the furniture of the Garvan Collection) have been published in detail previously, but this exhibition takes a broader view and draws heavily on the theories of material culture that some of the authors were instrumental in developing. The catalog takes a serious look at the question of the American-ness of American art through objects of generally high quality and always of substantial intellectual interest. Highly recommended for all collections on American art, but note that the horizontal format is too heavy for the binding, which broke loose on the review copy.—Jack Perry Brown, Art Inst. of Chicago Lib.

This two-volume set by art history professor Machotka, himself a painter, is a beautiful work of scholarship. The first volume offers 399 color prints of outstanding quality. The second includes series of carefully documented essays that stand alone in examining specific aspects of Cézanne's career but, taken as whole, provide an insightful overview of the artist's development. Machotka's explanation of the narrative paintings is especially noteworthy because he explores how Cézanne's touch (i.e., the translation of his imagination into line, composition, and brushstroke) is linked to the artist's vision and intellectual convictions. This unique book also contains an unexpected treat for librarians: one of the most sensitive, creative indexes this reviewer has ever seen. For example, under "touch," the subdivisions listed include "as integrating, balancing the composition" and "curved, flocculent, fleccy." A bravura work; highly recommended.—Katherine Adams, Bowdoin Coll. Lib., Brunswick, ME

This catalog of a 2008–09 exhibition at the Tate Modern, London, and the Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, Japan, focuses on abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko's Seagram Murals, now reunited in this exhibition. It features refreshingly accessible essays by Tate staffers and European scholars on, e.g., new information about Rothko's working methods learned in the conservation work done for the exhibition. Rothko's late work was frequently done in series, with site-specific intentions (his gift to the Tate of part of the Seagram series just before his suicide required displaying the works together, separate from works by other artists), and the murals intended for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York's Seagram Building are the summation of much of his late intention. With 130 excellent full-color illustrations of works by an artist notoriously difficult to appreciate in reproduction, this exemplary book, featuring a vast bibliography, is recommended for all collections.—Jack Perry Brown, Art Inst. of Chicago Libs.

The 18th-century furniture in the collection of Liverpool's Lady Lever Art Gallery, the gift of Sir William Lever (1851–1925), is one of the most extensive in the world. This catalog deals with those pieces designed for human support, such as chairs, stools, and beds. Working with a remarkably complete documentation of background for the items in the collection, Wood (senior curator, furniture, textiles, & fashion, Victoria & Albert Museum) meticulously examines techniques of carving and design, newly emerging in this period, as well as the entire structure and organization of the 18th-century furniture industry. The catalog covers furniture types; timbers, both primary and secondary; upholstery design and material; dimensions; inventory numbers of the collection; marks and/or inscriptions and labels; orientation (from the spectator's viewpoint); a detailed description of the construction of each piece; and the stain and surface finishes. The accompanying essays include some theorizing about changes made over the years in restoration, replication, and repair. Appendixes, concordances, a glossary, and more conclude the second volume of this imposing and highly recommended publication.—Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York

Bigsby (director, Arthur Miller Ctr., Univ. of East Anglia), who has introduced and edited many editions of Miller's plays, was a student and longtime friend of Miller and acquired—by gift from Miller himself—boxes of the author's personal papers shortly before Miller's death in 2005. Access to these papers, along with the long personal relationship, made possible this multiperspective masterpiece, which surpasses all other Miller biographies, including his autobiography, Timebends. Bigsby gives the reader an intense and personal look at Miller's life, from his birth in 1915 to moderately affluent Jewish American parents and his college years working at a newspaper to his intense attraction and eventual marriage to Marilyn Monroe and his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Everything is here, from the mundane to the revelatory. This detailed look at his life reveals his shared experiences as the basis for his sympathies for the common man. Recommended for all university and public libraries.—Mark Alan Williams, Library of Congress

Brustein, the founding director of the Yale and American Repertory theater, admits to riding the wave of recently published books that attempt to analyze the inner workings of the Bard's mind. He argues that though Shakespeare's writing transcended its time in many ways, its timelessness is nonetheless undermined by "hidden imposthumes," or secret obsessions, common during his lifetime. With commendable thoroughness, Brustein traces the progression of these six imposthumes (misogyny, effeminacy, machismo, elitism, racism, and religion) chronologically through all of Shakespeare's work. In a direct rebuff to many critics and scholars who have long maintained that Shakespeare shared many modern values and ideals, Brustein argues that this conceit is possible only by pulling him out of historical context. His text is liberally laced with quotations by Shakespeare's contemporaries to this effect, making it possible to judge how he reflected his time and yet remained the singular writer he actually was. Ultimately (and convincingly), he implies that these insights should increase rather than diminish our appreciation for the man and his oeuvre. Highly recommended for all academic libraries.—Megan Hodge, Randolph-Macon Coll. Lib., Ashland, VA

Spillman (editor, Tin House magazine) writes that he realized a few years ago that he was witnessing an African literary renaissance. Here, he includes well-known authors (such as Chinua Achebe) and lesser-known authors alike and organizes selections geographically by region. Each section begins with a nonfiction piece followed by several fictional works. Spillman opens with a brief introduction and finishes with short biographical notes. There are important and beautiful pieces here; however, many of the pieces are excerpted from longer works, and Spillman does not offer context beyond a short bit in his introduction to the book. The initial publication dates are not mentioned, and one essay dates back to 1965. For those unfamiliar with African political history and literatures, this collection is less than accessible. Still, it's a good jumping-off point that gets across Spillman's message—there's a whole lot of great stuff currently coming out of Africa that deserves exposure. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.—Audrey Snowden, Cleveland P.L.

When Nobel prize-winning author Albert Camus died in a car crash outside Paris at the age of 46, the tragic news shook many intellectuals and especially affected young admirers of the French-Algerian author. A young student at the time, Hawes (New York, New York: How the Apartment House Transformed the Life of the City, 1869–1930) became more passionately interested in Camus and ended up writing her college thesis about him. That passion has turned into a "forty-year quest" or "romance" that, while not always constant or conscious, is reflected in this meticulously researched biography/memoir. Following Camus's footsteps through France, North Africa, and America, Hawes meets Camus's friends and family and draws on personal correspondence, public records, and published works to paint a detailed and vivid picture of the time, places, and people that shaped the author's life. The result is an engaging, vibrant, notably passionate and unique biography of the author. Highly recommended for all academic libraries, this should also be strongly considered by public libraries.—Ali Houissa, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, NY

Writing a tribute to his parents, who founded Kenny's Bookshop in Galway in 1940, Kenny here recommends works that, in his opinion, contain stories to be told by writers who can tell them and that give a picture of Ireland's literary and cultural heritage. His selections are subjective; major writers are missing, such as James Joyce, Brendan Behan, and George Bernard Shaw. This volume is not intended to be scholarly—each entry, just two pages long, includes an overview of the writer's life as well as the work selected. There are chatty anecdotes about authors who visited the shop in which Kenny has worked for many years. Several of the entries are written in Irish with no translation. This work is reminiscent of Morgan Llywelyn's The Essential Library for Irish Americans, which contains more classics as well as works on the Irish in America. Kenny highlights titles worth reading from his perspective as a longtime successful bookseller. Recommended for larger public libraries.—Denise J. Stankovics, Rockville P.L., Vernon, CT

In this biography of author Jean Rhys (best known for her 1966 novel, Wide Sargasso Sea), Pizzichini (Dead Men's Wages) seeks to present the facts of Rhys's life so that the reader can understand what it was like. Pizzichini crafts a fascinating psychological study as she vividly illustrates Rhys's desperation and fragility, portraying how she sought to write out her experiences—including extreme poverty, a husband in prison, mental instability, alcoholism, and the deaths of her two children—in her novels. The reader might question Pizzichini's dependency on Rhys's fiction to explain her life, but Pizzichini makes a case that Rhys wrote her life in her many novels and that the fictional cannot be separated from the actual. Pizzichini sees a justifiably angry woman, and her approach to Rhys's work is influenced by her sympathy. Read in conjunction with Carole Angier's well-documented and detailed Jean Rhys: Life and Work, this is an excellent addition to the studies of one of the 20th century's important modernist authors. Recommended for academic libraries. (Index and photos not seen.) [See Prepub Alert, LJ 12/08.]—Susan L. Peters, Univ. of Texas Lib., Galveston

Rackstraw (emerita, Univ. of Northern Iowa) appreciably enhances Vonnegut's renown with her own interpretation of the events of Vonnegut's life and with excerpts of his letters spanning four decades. They first met in 1966 at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was a graduate student, and he a novice instructor of fiction writing with no literary fame. After a brief romantic encounter, the pair became lifelong friends. Rackstraw reveals many insights into Vonnegut—his marriages, friendships, sense of the comic and the ridiculous, and melancholy, which later developed into severe depression. Most of these characteristics found their way into his books, as he used satire, irony, and paradox, ultimately pinpointing how life is often absurd. Vonnegut loved music and conversation but was easily bored with the mundane. He was capable of outrage at injustice, arrogance, and stupidity, as demonstrated in his books and his popular lectures. Rackstraw's compelling portrait is recommended for public and academic libraries.—Robert Kelly, Fort Wayne Community Schs., IN

Sensibar (English, emerita, Arizona State Univ.; The Origins of Faulkner's Art) seeks a fresh perspective on Faulkner's work with this close study of three important women in his life: family servant Caroline, mother Maud, and wife Estelle. Sensibar writes that Faulkner's significant female companions have been both "distorted and marginalized" by traditional biographers and critics, who focus more on the influence of white Southern men on Faulkner. There are many other worthy biographies of Faulkner, including those by Judith Bryant Wittenberg, David L. Minter, Jay Parini, and Sensibar herself, and other books effectively examine women in Southern literature (e.g., Diane Roberts's Faulkner and Southern Womanhood, Gwendolyne Chabrier's Faulkner's Families: A Southern Saga); however, drawing on new biographical data and personal documents, Sensibar has produced an in-depth and focused work of interest to Faulkner scholars. Worth considering for academic libraries with significant literature collections.—Felicity D. Walsh, Emory Univ., Decatur, GA

As Brunetta (history & criticism of cinema, Univ. of Padua; The Cinema of Italy) guides readers through the halls of Italian cinema—overlooked by busts of Bernardo Bertolucci, Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, and Federico Fellini and through displays of neorealism, Morricone-twanged spaghetti Westerns, giallo ("thriller") splatter scenes, Nuovo cinema Paradiso, and Roberto Benigni antics—one might be upended by where the tour leads. In contrast to the epic grandeur of its tradition, the current state seems directionless and frail, but this is less a national crisis than an international reality. While some find concern with a lack of collective focus or see an undefined or unfamiliar cinematic landscape, Brunetta retains faith in film as a communicative method. This thoroughly detailed and seemingly experiential guide through the annals of Italian cinema conveys a lot of information but never seems less than easily gaited and conversational. Rare for a title of its scope, this is an absorbing, passionately told narrative. Recommended for all libraries for its reference value.—Ben Malczewski, Ypsilanti Dist. Lib., MI

Damone is a talented singer who had both the luck and the misfortune to come of age a few years after Frank Sinatra had become a star. He was lucky because Sinatra literally and stylistically paved the way for Damone's career, unfortunate because he would always remain a notch or two below Sinatra's level of success. His life is a classic American rags-to-riches story of talent and determination winning out, and this enjoyable and highly readable memoir feels as if it is being told straight from the man himself—unlike many memoirs written with a supporting writer, which often lose the author's unique voice. This isn't a tell-all but a collection of anecdotes sure to be enjoyed by anyone interested in the last 50 years of American entertainment; Damone relates stories of his career in radio and films, Las Vegas, seemingly obligatory involvement with the Mafia, love, loss, religious reawakening, and even, surprisingly, composer John Williams. A casual, conversational life story; recommended for all public libraries.—Peter Thornell, Hingham P.L., MA

The journal entries that make up this disarmingly poetic memoir were penned over the course of the two and a half years it took Herzog to make his film Fitzcarraldo, for which he won the best director award at Cannes in 1982. Herzog's earthy and atmospheric descriptions of the Amazon jungle and the Natives who live there among wild and domesticated animals in heavy, humid weather conjure a civilization indifferent to the rhythms of modernity. The impossible odds that conspired to stop production of the film and the sheer obstinacy it took to attempt it in the rain forest instead of a studio parallel the plot of the film itself: with the help of local Natives, Fitzcarraldo pulls a steamship over a steep hill to access rubber so he can earn enough money to build an opera house in the jungle. Herzog has made over 50 films during his prolific career. Compelling reading, this is recommended for film collections in public and academic libraries.—Donna L. Davey, NYU Lib.

Shandley (film studies & German, Texas A&M Univ.; Rubble Films: German Cinema in the Shadow of the Third Reich) makes the case for what he calls runaway or travelog romances as a legitimate film genre. Shot and (for budgetary reasons) finished in Europe and elsewhere outside the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s, these films take place primarily in post-World War II Europe. Many of the films from this time period that come to mind, like Roman Holiday, Three Coins in the Fountain, Funny Face, and To Catch a Thief, are discussed here. As Shandley observes, "While not the first runaway film with a contemporary setting, Roman Holiday provided a production and narrative model off which many other films would build." In this well-researched book, he devotes chapters to the "occupation romance" and the use of widescreen and also includes an extensive bibliography. Shandley even cites items from the Paramount Production Records Collection at the Margaret Herrick Library. A useful—if a bit brief and pricey—analysis; recommended for academic libraries.—Barb Kundanis, Longmont P.L., CO

Blaxploitation films were an outgrowth of the racial and political upheavals of the 1960s and offered black actors exposure they had not previously enjoyed. The first successful film in the cycle is generally considered to have been Melvin Van Peebles's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971). Walker (ed., BadAzz MoFo magazine), Andrew J. Rausch (Making Movies with Orson Welles), and director Chris Watson collect variably enlightening interviews with 22 participants in the blaxploitation era, a few now deceased. Both trained actors (e.g., William Marshall, Glynn Turman) and charismatic sports figures like Jim Brown and Fred Williamson starred in these often-superviolent movies, while white directors like Ralph Bakshi and Larry Cohen were frequently at the helm. Only a single woman, Gloria Hendry, is included. (See Stephane Dunn's "Baad Bitches" and Sassy Supermamas for more on female characters in blaxploitation films.) Given the relative paucity of writings on these films, any additional source is worthwhile. Although there's not complete agreement on what should be considered part of this briefly popular subgenre, the lengthy filmography here should prove useful. Recommended for cinema collections.—Roy Liebman, formerly with California State Univ. Lib., Los Angeles

These two biographies celebrate the season of Seeger as he turns 90 on May 3, 2009. Because his life has been lived mostly in the public eye and there are relatively few archival materials, the authors repeat many of the same stories in almost exactly the same words. Both books chronicle Seeger's life from his childhood artistic ambitions to his growing love of music, early years as a folk musician with the Weavers, and passionate commitments to the Civil Rights, anti-Vietnam War, and environmental movements.

An accomplished storyteller, New Yorker writer Wilkinson (The Happiest Man in the World) draws on interviews with Seeger and others to present a seamless chronicle of his life and music, vivifying his passion for humanity, love of the environment, and deep curiosity about music. Although Wilkinson passes lightly over the origins of some of Seeger's songs, he shows how Seeger discovers that music can stem the tide of hatred, ignorance, and prejudice and be a force for reconciliation. Wilkinson includes two appendixes featuring reflections by Seeger's father on the purpose of music and a transcript of Seeger's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955.

Winkler (Distinguished Professor of History, Miami Univ. in Ohio; Home Front U.S.A.: America During World War II) covers the same ground in a more workmanlike and pedantic fashion. Using the titles of Seeger's songs as framing devices, he peers into each chapter of Seeger's life at modest length, providing some details about how or why a song came to be written. In an afterword, Winkler reveals his adoration of Seeger by telling stories of sitting down with Seeger to play his songs. All libraries will want a copy of Wilkinson's lively portrait; only large public and academic libraries should consider Winkler's treatment.—Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Evanston, IL

Abramson (government & law, Univ. of Texas at Austin; We, the Jury) bestows upon readers the benefit of his decades of teaching political philosophy. Useful as an accompaniment to, or a replacement for, an introductory course in political theory, this book consists of straightforward and lucid explorations of the canonical thinkers and their works. From Plato and Aristotle through Hobbes and Locke to Marx and Rawls, Abramson peppers his readings with historical examples, anecdotes from his experience as a student and professor, and insights gained from his students. Although all the thinkers address the question of justice, Abramson does not take the opportunity to go beyond mere explication to give us some of his own answers, but this is a minor drawback. While this ground has been covered before, Abramson is right to turn our attention to these eternal questions, and his goal of luring students to the Socratic questioning of the good and the just is a noble one. This approachable introduction to political theory is highly recommended for academic libraries.—Steven Chabot, Ontario Ministry of Labour, Toronto

In the hands of wittily sardonic award-winning chemist Djerassi (professor emeritus, Stanford Univ.), also a novelist and playwright, these four titular mid-20th century Jewish intellectuals from Germany and Austria come back to life with vigor. Djerassi playfully—but with solid scholarship—places them in Plato-like dialog atop mythological Parnassus, home to the relevant Muses of poetry, music, and erudition. And these four fellows aren't just chin-wagging among themselves about prewar concepts: in one of the five scenes, their wives—most of whom figured either directly or indirectly in their husbands' adulterous affairs—are included. Paul Klee's viewpoints on Hitler are bandied about in another, and—in the only scene Djerassi creates from informed conjecture rather than documents—Walter Benjamin is implicated as a former-day hippie. Liberally peppered throughout, Seethaler's artwork illustrating the thinkers' supposed conversational gambits and philosophical points show how useful Photoshop could have been to any of them when he was writing during his lifetime. Some broad humor is laugh-out-loud (as when they can obtain new editions of each other's recently published letters from the Internet), but the imaginative text is faithful to their pursuits of intellectual truth and cultural relevance. For all academic and most public library collections.—Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax PL, N.S.

This expanded, single-volume edition of a two-volume collection first published in 1988 offers a deep and wide range of critical essays that eloquently demonstrate how ideology serves as a sturdy bridge between such poles as "fantasy and cognition…economics and aesthetics…[and] the private and the public." Jameson (Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature, Duke Univ.) includes pieces of varying length (from ten to nearly 50 pages) that he's composed between 1971 and 2008, which together show the maturation and sturdiness of intellectual rigor that was born in the politically charged 1960s. While his commentaries on Roland Barthes and Jean-François Lyotard are as expected as his use and critique of Marxism, his serious concern with Ursula Le Guin and shopping malls is surprising but no less compelling. Students of postmodern history and literature will derive much from this work, while educated baby boomers will be delighted to find it on a larger public library's new books shelf. The compilation is rigorously rich, intellectually and aesthetically rewarding, and accessible.—Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax P.L., N.S.

Though by far the most influential political philosopher in the 20th century, Rawls has never been considered a philosopher of religion. However, his senior thesis at Princeton, published here, manifests profound theological interests, developing a Christian view of morality that bears strong traces of the then-influential neoorthodoxy of Emil Brunner. Rawls contrasts a morality based on personal relations with naturalistic theories and discusses the notion of conversion. His experiences in World War II and his learning about the Holocaust led him to abandon Christianity, as he discusses in "On My Religion," apparently written during the 1990s. Nagel (law & philosophy, New York Univ.) and Joshua Cohen (political science, philosophy, & law, Stanford Univ.) contribute a helpful introduction, and a long and learned analysis by Robert Adams (Clark Professor of Philosophy, emeritus, Yale Univ.) provides an illuminating account of the theological background of the thesis. This book is important not only for what it tells us about Rawls but also as a significant contribution to ethics and philosophy of religion. Highly recommended for philosophy collections.—David Gordon, Bowling Green State Univ., OH

What you see is what you get in Armantrout's ninth book of free-verse poetry. A professor at the University of California, San Diego, Armantrout (Next Life) was part of the West Coast poetry community of the 1970s, which gave rise to language poetry. At best, her latest work contains brief, impressionistic poems—a few words surrounded by white space—held together by a subtle tension in the connections between words and phrases. Armantrout's poems possess a fleeting light as opposed to an epiphany and a half-heard sound as opposed to rhyme and rhythm. Take, for example, the repetition in the second and final stanza of "Someone": "I'm looking for a/ heart to heart,/ a rhyme/ between the blankness of my/ "my/ and the blue emptiness." It's difficult to know whether Armantrout's sound is, say, a mouse inside the wall or a tree branch brushing the roof of the house. When these poems achieve beauty, it lies not so much in the craft as in the eyes—and ears—of the beholder. Recommended for academic libraries.—Diane Scharper, Towson Univ., MD

"Let us,/ among the/ constancy/ of living/ and its/ images/ begin." These words, embedded within the funnel/tornado/cyclone shapes of the brilliant poem "Alice in the Wasteland" (a spin-off from Carroll and Eliot) are at the heart of MacArthur Fellow Lauterbach's book. The poems here are, like Lauterbach's Alice, searching for clues in the rubble of a postmodern lexicon: "Everything is suspended but changing, she thought." There is darkness—"soiled, possibly bloody," and filled with "cries/ of the suddenly dying." Yet while elegy plays its part, this book is also filled with witty variation and wordplay. The long title poem is inventive in form but ultimately unsuccessful; mostly the poems act like maps of fractals on the page, and one danger is that they can sometimes seem like solipsistic singing in the shower—accomplished, well intentioned, acoustically gifted, but a self-to-self chorale all the same. Still, as Emerson said, nothing is perfect but the hope of it, and anyone interested in how language both enables (ennobles) and prevents us from engaging our world will have much to mull here. Recommended for contemporary collections.—Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Sacramento, CA

This unusual collection of performance pieces for multiple voices is "genre-expanding," says Welish, who selected it for the 2008 National Poetry Series. It constitutes poetry in the sense that it is more about language than about the interaction of characters on a stage or in the movement of those characters across a continuum of time. But what one sees on the page is probably less engaging than what one might hear in a dramatic performance, whether in a theater or on the street. The individual pieces, with titles like "Truax Inimical" (Parts 1, 2, and 3), "Balm to Bilk," and "Pig Angels of the Americlypse" are overtly political and transformative, revealing a comic energy reminiscent of the guerrilla theatrics of the 1960s paired with contemporary technospeak and postmodern vocabulary. The result is a lengthy collection that is difficult to read on the page, but the adventurous reader will be rewarded by Toscano's ingenuity and large frame of reference. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.—Sue Russell, Bryn Mawr, PA

Waldrep (Disclamor) here reveals the transparency of poetic language and its affinities with nonlyric genres such as politics and history and its links to routine activities. The poems are ultimately answers to questions posted by their titles, recalling the Archicembalo, a musical instrument of the 1500s designed to experiment with tonality and allowing for call-and-response. The poet makes rich use of a wide range of symbols, from "General Electric, Mutual Omaha" to a sacred city in Iraq: "The Country around Karbala is desert, meaning a dry wind and sand and/ pilgrims in like season." While lucid, these poems are written in a fabulist style with a complete absence of narrative linearity and must be read attentively. They create a sense of absence that yearns to be present, of a present on the verge of disappearing, and a new language to be rolled around the tongue and set sailing. Recalling works by Russell Edson and Max Jacob, this collection redefines poetry writing. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.—Sadiq Alkoriji, South Regional Lib., Broward Cty., FL

"Wow! i ain't never seed a house/ so big and so preety/ and i git ta stay heah/ fer a little while./ i sho wish momma hada come." Words dance through White's poems; her voice is vibrant and sharp, loud when it needs to be, soft when it wants to be; ultimately, it is the delightful music of the language itself that drives these poems. Whether she's offering a troubling take on the Columbine and Virginia Tech shooters or smart but sometimes smarting considerations of love and relationships, White gives us a fresh song with a new rhythm. "About That Day" recalls the shock and helplessness we felt on 9/11: "It disappeared into the glass/ like a diver slicing through a pool of water/ except the splashes were smoke. The scene/ could have been beautiful, but the image was/ too terribly surreal to create anything but pain./ Anger, hate, and resentment would come later." And who can argue with "Human Nature": "I was mad/ at first/ for all that you did/ then I realized that/ you are who you are /and who am I to change that.// I don't try to stop dogs from barking…." Rich and original, these poems will entertain many readers and would fit well into any contemporary poetry collection.—Louis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia

McLennan (dean for religious life, Stanford Univ.; Finding Your Religion), ordained in the Unitarian Universalist faith, examines liberal Christianity, its definitions of relevant terms like God and faith, and its stand on issues as diverse as abortion, same-sex marriage, poverty, and war. He takes time to distinguish liberal Christianity from conservative Christianity on the one hand and atheism on the other, but this is not a combative book. Rather, McLennan focuses on the Christian call to a love of all humankind and the necessity of tolerance that this entails. McLennan's writing is that of a thoughtful scholar, not inaccessible but rigorously considered. He draws from the Bible and from a plethora of recent and classic authors. This book will reward any reader with an open mind and a curiosity about the breadth of the Christian faith.—Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Lib., Wisconsin Rapids, WI

It is interesting that in our time of technological and scientific sophistication, religion is thriving globally. Many Enlightenment figures, and others after them, predicted that religion would become irrelevant and fade away as societies advanced. Micklethwait and Wooldridge, editor in chief and Washington bureau chief, respectively, of the Economist, see in this reality, particularly as experienced in America, hope for the world. They argue that in America the trend toward modernization has always been accompanied by the significance of religion. This is largely owing to how successfully American churches have employed entrepreneurial techniques and creative outreach. The authors believe that some of the very elements that have been successful in America could be utilized in other parts of the world to promote religion and discourage violence. This is a well-researched and well-written book, raising fresh and interesting ideas. It should be noted, however, that the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey Report, which indicates that religion is in decline in America, paints a different picture than these authors do.—John Jaeger, Dallas Baptist Univ. Lib., TX

This is a good, basic source for information on 30 religious denominations in America today. The first section, "The Religions," gives short histories, along with core beliefs, practices, organizational and demographic information, and sources for further reading. Next, "Issues in American Religion" contains 14 essays by various scholars, intending to provoke discussion of particular issues, e.g., "Transforming Tolerance: American Religion and Sexual Diversity" and "Is America a Hospitable Land for Islam?" The third part, "Faith, Facts and Figures," provides massive amounts of recent statistical and polling data along with charts, maps, and graphs on topics relevant to the subject. The short "Sources and Methodology" section includes biographies of contributors to the volume. While this work is not a replacement for Leo Rosten's aging classic (Religions of America), the information here on religions outside of the Judeo-Christian traditions, the updated statistics, and the contemporary style and format all make this a solid resource to add to any library collection.—C. Robert Nixon, M.L.S., Lafayette, IN