CONCRETE JUNGLE: New York City and Our Last Best Hope for a Sustainable Future (Environmental studies; University of California Press) – New York Museum of Natural History scientists Niles Eldredge and Sidney Horenstein believe that, if they are to survive, cities need healthy chunks of the world’s ecosystems to persist; yet cities, like parasites, grow and prosper by local destruction of these very ecosystems. In this absorbing and wide-ranging book, New York City becomes a microcosm for exploring both the positive and the negative sides of the relationship between cities, the environment, and the future of global biodiversity. The authors illuminate the mass of contradictions that cities present in embodying the best and the worst of human existence. They demonstrate that, though cities have voracious appetites for resources such as food and water, they also represent the last hope for conserving healthy remnants of the world’s ecosystems and species. With their concentration of human beings, cities bring together centers of learning, research, government, finance, and media—institutions that increasingly play active roles in solving environmental problems.

THE ONLY GRANT WRITING BOOK YOU’LL EVER NEED (How to; Basic Books, 3^rd edn., forthcoming) – Authors Ellen Karsh and Arlen Sue Fox are both highly successful grant winners with broad experience in the field of government and private foundation grants. Here is the comment of one of dozens of satisfied consumers of their book: “Having pursued many grants over the years, I anguish at the number of hours I could have saved with only a bit of the wisdom offered in Karsh and Fox’s book. Herein we learn not only canny methodology, but correct protocols and language to keep our proposals off the junk heap.”

COLLEGE (UN)BOUND: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students (Guidebook; Amazon Books) – Two comments should suffice to underscore the value of Jeff Selingo’s book: “You can wade through the shelf full of books on the changes coming to American colleges and universities–or you can read this one.” —Mitch Daniels, President of Purdue University and former Governor of Indiana. “Among the many books examining current changes in and challenges to higher education, College (Un)bound is both the most comprehensive and the most provocative.” —Rebecca Chopp, President of Swarthmore College. The author is a leading authority on higher education and Editor at Large for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

VENICE: A New History (European history; Viking) —  “Madden proves the perfect guide to the magical city of Venice. His history is not only authoritative and encyclopedic, encompassing everything from the plundering of Attila the Hun to Katharine Hepburn’s tribulations while filming Summertime, it is also unfailingly readable and amusing—a must-read for Europhiles, armchair travelers, and history buffs.” —Ross King, author of Brunelleschi’s Dome and Leonardo and the Last Supper. Thomas Madden is Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at St. Louis University.

 

GIAP: The General Who Defeated America in Vietnam (History / biography; Palgrave) — General Vo Nguyen Giap was the commander in chief of the communist armed forces during two of his country’s most difficult conflicts—the first against Vietnam’s colonial masters, the French, and the second against the most powerful nation on earth, the United States. After long and bloody conflicts, he defeated both Western powers and their Vietnamese allies, forever changing modern warfare. In Giap, military historian James A. Warren dives deep into the conflict to bring to life a revolutionary general and reveal the groundbreaking strategies that defeated world powers against incredible odds.

STATIONS OF THE HEART (Memoir; Knopf) – The story of a father’s last months with his adult son diagnosed with terminal cancers. Lischer, an ordained Lutheran pastor as well as a faculty member of the Duke Divinity School, relates the agonizing, bittersweet time remaining to his son, beloved of his family. As his strength fades, his wife nears the moment for giving birth to their first child. Beautifully written.

 

 

THE SPECIES SEEKERS: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth (Natural history; W. W. Norton) – Richard Conniff is one of our best and most read authors of science and natural history. Here he recounts how from the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth, a colorful band of amateur naturalists explored the most perilous corners of the planet to discover new life-forms. ”This beautifully written book has the verve of an adventure story.” —Wall Street Journal Conniff is an author of many other books and a prolific, prize-winning journalist.

 

REACHING DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE: A Renowned Neurologist Explains the Mystery and Drama of Brain Disease (Annals of medicine; St. Martin’s) – Dr. Allan Ropper, professor of neurology, has spent three decades practicing his trade, so-called the queen of medical specialties, at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. It is fascinating to read of his encounters with patients, written with author Brian Burrell, as he displays near Sherlockian feats diagnosing the widest range of brain disorders.

MAVERICK GENIUS: The Pioneering Odyssey of Freeman Dyson (Biography; St. Martin’s) — For decades, Freeman Dyson has been regarded as one of the world’s most important thinkers. The Atlantic wrote, “In the range of his genius, Freeman Dyson is heir to Einstein – a visionary who has reshaped thinking in fields from math to astrophysics to medicine, and who has conceived nuclear-propelled spaceships designed to transport human colonists to distance planets.” In this first complete biography of Dyson, author Phillip F. Schewe examines the life of a man whose accomplishments have importantly shaped our world.

HIDDEN GARDENS OF PARIS: A Guide to the Parks, Squares, and Woodlands of the City of Light (Guidebook / belles lettres; St. Martin’s Griffin) — “No matter how many times you have been to Paris, never go again without Susan Cahill  . . . . In our many visits there since 1957 my wife Judith and I thought we had covered all the known and not-so-known delights of the city. Only in reading The Hidden Gardens of Paris did we realize we had missed much of what had been hiding in plain sight. In her earlier book The Smiles of Rome she had worked the same magic, enabling us to return to the Imperial City in the company of notable writers whose experience in their time enraptures the visitor today. We have already started packing for Paris.” —Bill Moyers

LIVING IN THE LAND OF LIMBO: Fiction and Poetry About Family Caregiving (Anthology; Vanderbilt University Press) – MacArthur Fellow Carol Levine has edited the first anthology of short stories and poems about family caregivers. These men and women find themselves in “limbo,” as they struggle to take care of a family member or friend in the uncertain world of chronic illness. The authors explore caregivers’ experiences as they deal with family conflicts, the complexities of the health care system, and the impact of their choices on their lives and the lives of others. The book includes selections devoted to caregivers of aging parents; husbands and wives; ill children; and relatives, lovers, and friends. A final section is devoted to paid caregivers and their clients. Among the conditions that form the background of the selections are dementia, HIV/AIDS, mental illness, multiple sclerosis, and pediatric cancer.

DIVE DEEPER: Journeys with Moby-Dick (literary/cultural history; Oxford University Press) — Herman Melville’s epic tale of obsession has all the ingredients of a first rate drama-fascinating characters in solitude and society, battles between good and evil, a thrilling chase to the death-and yet its allusions, digressions, and sheer scope can prove daunting to even the most intrepid reader. George Cotkin’s Dive Deeper provides both a guide to the novel and a record of its dazzling cultural train. “Delving beneath the huge cultural shadows cast by Melville’s work, Cotkin reveals how many great writers, including Faulkner, Auden, and Masefield, have found inspiration in Melville’s novel. Cotkin also scrutinizes cinematic and television adaptions of Melville’s book, from the John Barrymore film, The Sea Beast, in 1926 to the Star Trek fantasy, The Wrath of Khan, in 1982. Even the playful treatment given Moby-Dick themes inPeanuts cartoons receives scrutiny! The 135 chapters may drift about as chaotically as the flotsam left when the Great Whale smashes the Pequod, but this flotsam has been pried from the depths, and it will thrill Melvilleans.” –Booklist

Mary Street Alinder: Group f.64: Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak, Henry Swift, Willard Van Dyke, Edward Weston (Bloomsbury, fall 2014);  Ansel Adams: A Biography, revised edition (Bloomsbury, November 2014)

 

 

 

Kazuaki Tanahashi:  The Heart of the Brush: Exploring East Asian Calligraphy (Shambhala, Fall 2013);
Selected Zen Chants (Shambhala, forthcoming);
The Heart Sutra Exploring Wisdom Beyond Wisdom (Shambhala)

Peter Dale Scott:  The American Deep State Wall Street, Big Oil, and the Attack on U.S. Democracy (Roman and Littlefield Publishers, forthcoming November 2014)