Publishers Weekly - August 28, 2017

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ AUGUST 28, 2017 124

Review_NONFICTION

descriptions of memorable performances, as when he longs to “relive the glorious afternoon in 1961 under the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. big top at Richmond Virginia, when Boom Boom Browning led the band with a jazzy tingle.” The chapters that fulfill the promise of the subtitle shine, as when Hammarstrom recalls joining the circus for six grueling weeks one summer, or in his detailed description of slipping behind the iron curtain to conduct research about “the great Moscow Circus.” Unfortunately, the narrative is frequently weighed down by the author’s laments concerning publishing disappointments—which include indifferent agents, industry feuds that he feels tarnished his name, shoddy copywriters, and stinging rejections by editors he often names alongside their perceived crimes against him—and an obsession with sales figures and book reviews. While circus fans will be thrilled to hear about close encounters of the Ringling kind, this cross between a memoir and annotated bibliography juggles many promising themes only to drop some of the balls. (BookLife)

The Lost Son: A Rock ‘n’ Roll
Road to Redemption (and True
American Parable)

Peter McNeela. No Frills Buffalo, $19.95 trade paper (372p) ISBN 978-0-692-75234-0

In this melodramatic memoir, McNeela, a 27-year-old former medical resident with pervasive suicidal thoughts, takes a nearly three-week solo cross-country trek in search of his identity and purpose in life. Beginning with his youth, McNeela documents his attempts to become a physician before quitting for good amid massive debt and despair.

Then, on July 20, 1999, he begins an “odyssey” by car going from Buffalo, N. Y., to New Orleans, then west to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas, Nev., and finally ending up in Utah, staying at campgrounds and hostels along the way.

He punctuates his tale with rock-music references, but his ever-present fears, frustrations, and anxieties are the more memorable takeaways. McNeela is highly intelligent and ponders profound topics such as his faith and the destruction of the environment, but the stilted, overwritten feel of his prose may create a disconnect between him and readers (e.g., describing

FICTION Drinks With Dead Poets Glyn Maxwell.

Pegasus, ISBN 978-1-68177-462-6, Aug.

Map of the Heart Susan Wiggs. Morrow, ISBN 978-0-06-242548-5, Aug.

The Return Suzanne Woods Fisher. Revell, ISBN 978-0-8007-2750-5, Aug.

Whispering Pines Scarlett Dunn. Zebra, ISBN 978-1-4201-4448-2, Aug.

NONFICTION The Best American Essays 2017 Edited by Leslie Jamison. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN 978-0-544-81733-3, Oct.

Movies That Mattered: More Reviews from a Transformative Decade Dave Kehr. Univ. of Chicago, ISBN 978-0-226-49568-2, Oct.

Why I Am Catholic (And You Should Be Too)

Brandon Vogt. Ave Maria, ISBN 978-1-59471-

767-3, Oct.

Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone Satya Nadella, with Greg Shaw and Jill Tracie Nichols. Harper Business, ISBN 978-0-0626-5250-8, Sept.

Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel Bob Batchelor. Rowman and Littlefield, ISBN 978-1-

4422-7781-6, Sept.

The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics Mark Lilla. Harper, ISBN 978-0-06-

269743-1, Aug.

Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God Brian Zahnd. Waterbrook, ISBN 978-1-60142-951-3, Aug.

When Women Give Kim King. IVP, ISBN 978-0-

8308-4511-8, Aug.

Into Words: The Selected Writings of Carroll Dunham Carroll Dunham. Badlands Unlimited (D.A. P., dist.), ISBN 978-1-943263-08-0, Sept.

Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism Mark R. Levin.

Threshold, ISBN 978-1-4767-7308-7, June

Are You Brand Dead?

Kimming Yap, Yulia Saksen, and Judy Tham. Creativeans Pte Ltd, $15.99 trade paper (142p) ISBN 978-981-11-2233-0

Consultants Yap and Saksen, with help from copywriter Tham, present a concise, user-friendly guide to their company’s approach to branding. Branding, in the sense of giving your company (or self) an immediately recognizable identity, is, the authors say, vitally important for competing in crowded marketplaces. Just as individuals will head toward the person they know in a room otherwise full of strangers, so buyers veer, consciously or not, toward products or services they recognize. This book provides a simple step-by-step guide to branding, interspersed with case studies of companies that have successfully grown their markets through branding. Topics include building, positioning, systemizing, and nurturing your business’s identity, along with assessing your competitors’ success in doing the same thing. Each chapter includes questions to help you focus your brand and helpful, easy-to-understand graphics. The advice and questions are the strongest part of the book; the case studies are less so, as they highlight firms, such as Sakae and AirPlus, probably unfamiliar to many readers. This book is aimed at all businesses, but will probably be most helpful to small concerns that can’t afford a team of consultants. For these, the book’s brevity and focus will make it a valuable read. (BookLife)

Big Top Typewriter: My Inside
Adventures Through the World of
Circus

David Lewis Hammarstrom. CreateSpace,

$14.95 trade paper (264p) ISBN 978-1-5429-

7561-2

In his latest book, Hammarstrom (Inside the Changing Circus) claims to be “the only true circus critic in the country—possibly the world.” As he celebrates the industry’s achievements (in pages studded with reproductions of posters and pictures of famous circus acts) and mourns the loss of animal performances and live bands, Hammarstrom’s reverence for the circus shows itself in ecstatic, often nostalgic,

a dry mouth as “my soundly vanquished salivary glands, which had long surrendered their fluid-producing capabilities...”). There are many educational “lessons,” opinionated digressions, and “divine interventions” interspersed throughout his travel diary, and, although he professes to have gained an inner peace and knowledge about his place in the world, readers are left with only a vague understanding of his new direction. (BookLife)