ized YNAB plan, including their
spending before and after “budget
detox,” and divides into four sections:
bills, everyday spending, goals, and true
expenses. One of the keys to success,
Mecham points out, is flexibility. But
the primary attitude adjustment
described here is to stop asking, “Can I
afford this?” and start asking, “Does this
move me closer to my goals?” Mecham
makes it seem simple and his tone is
encouraging; even readers who’ve never
budgeted before will believe Mecham
when he tells them, “You’ve got this.”
(Dec.)
Silencing the Bomb: One Scientist’s
Quest to Halt Nuclear Testing
Lynn R. Sykes. Columbia Univ., $35 (288p)
ISBN 978-0-231-18248-5
The obscure art of detecting underground nuclear explosions animates tussles over nuclear-weapons treaties in this
arcane memoir. Sykes, professor emeritus
of Earth and environmental sciences at
Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty
Earth Observatory, recounts his decades-long work as a U.S. government adviser
on nuclear agreements from the 1974
Threshold Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (
abolishing underground tests with yields over
150 kilotons), which he helped negotiate
in Moscow, to the latter-day campaign to
ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
(CTBT) abolishing all nuclear tests. Most
of the book covers debates over seismology’s ability to detect explosions, distinguish them from earthquakes, and gauge
their yields. The dovish Sykes maintains
that all but the smallest (less than one
kiloton)—and therefore least useful—
tests can be identified, while hawks
claimed that the Soviets and others could
use geology or evasion techniques to disguise much more powerful tests. Sykes
offers occasional glints of passion in his
account (“outrageously deceptive” is his
verdict on one hawkish seismologist), but
it’s mainly a clear, bone-dry rehash of verification science, replete with geological
maps, squiggly seismic graphs, and
details of myriad seismic waves. Larger
questions—would a CTBT have stopped
North Korea?—are treated too sketchily
in Sykes’s narrowly technical take on a
vast and vexing issue. Illus. (Dec.)
From Native Son to King’s Men:
The Literary Landscape of 1940s
America
Robert McParland. Rowman & Littlefield, $38
(256p) ISBN 978-1-5381-0553-5
McParland (Citizen Steinbeck: Giving
Voice to the People) skillfully analyzes a wide
range of American writers and their works
and how they collectively displayed “the
dreams, hopes, anxieties, and cultural
imagination” of the 1940s. Combining
biography and criticism, McParland
shows how American literature written
between the Great Depression and the
Cold War depicted a general age of “
transition, recovery, and expectation” but also
addressed issues such as “war, the problem
with racism, the struggles and dreams of
daily life in a changing world.” The heart
of the book is five chapters covering
authors and novels by theme: accounts of
war by writers including Ernest
Hemingway and John Steinbeck; a look at
“home” in the South by William Faulkner
and Carson McCullers; depictions of
American racial strife by Ralph Ellison,
Chester Himes, and Richard Wright;
novels of WWII by Norman Mailer and
John Hersey; and studies of developing
domestic issues by a new cadre of postwar
writers such as Saul Bellow and John
O’Hara. He also examines such books as
Richard Wright’s Native Son (“We still
have Bigger Thomas among us... [he]
could not easily embrace the American
dream”). McParland delivers an insightful
look at writers who help shape a decade.
(Nov.)
Jenifer Lewis:
The Mother of Black Hollywood
Jenifer Lewis, with Malaika Adero. Amistad,
$25.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-06-241040-5
At the onset of this energetic memoir,
entertainer Lewis boards a cruise ship
seeking some well-deserved relaxation
and considers whether to retire from her
40-year career in show business. She
quickly realizes that to retire at the age
of 57 would be akin to stopping
breathing: “I AM the SHOW in show
business!” she tells herself. From there
she describes growing up in a small, poverty-stricken Missouri town where at age
five she sang at the Baptist church,
already hell-bent on becoming a star.
Readers follow the feisty singer through
cabaret performances, TV and Broadway
shows, tours, many mother roles (thus
the title), and love affairs (like the per-
former, readers will most likely lose
count). She revisits the years when many
young male friends died of AIDS, the
times when she scrambled for parts and
didn’t get them, and endless moments of
triumph. At age 33, Lewis was diagnosed
with bipolar disorder and she began to
understand her sexual addiction, as well
as to face the demons of her past. Her
memoir is frank, funny, and uplifting,
capturing the singer’s authentic voice,
her humor, and her profound and bold
capacity for resilience. (Nov.)
FICTION
The Book of Formation Ross Simonini. Melville
House, ISBN 978-1-61219-668-8, Nov.
Dark Deeds Mike Brooks. Saga, ISBN 978-1-
5344-0544-8, Nov.
Blackwing Ed McDonald. Ace, ISBN 978-0-399-
58779-5, Oct.
Chain of Command Frank Chadwick. Baen,
ISBN 978-1-4814-8297-4, Oct.
Children of the Fleet Orson Scott Card. Tor,
ISBN 978-0-7653-7704-3, Oct.
Familiar Angel Amy Lane. Dreamspinner,
ISBN 978-1-63533-945-1, Oct.
The Imposters of Aventil Marshall Ryan
Maresca. DAW, ISBN 978-0-691-17863-9, Oct.
The Love Song of Sawyer Bell Avon Gale.
Riptide, ISBN 978-1-62649-579-1, Oct.
The Mongrel Mage L.E. Modesitt Jr. Tor,
ISBN 978-0-7653-9468-2, Oct.
An Orchard in the Street Reginald Gibbons.
BOA Editions, ISBN 978-1-942683-49-0, Oct.
Seven Days of Us Francesca Hornak. Berkley,
ISBN 978-0-451-48875-6, Oct.
Under the Pendulum Sun Jeannette Ng. Angry
Robot, ISBN 978-0-85766-727-4, Oct.
The Eternity War Jamie Sawyer. Orbit, ISBN 978-
0-316-43322-8, Sept.
Get Well Soon Marie-Sabine Roger, trans. from
the French by Frank Wynne. Pushkin Press,
ISBN 978-1-78227-216-8, Sept.
White Dialogues Bennett Sims. Two Dollar
Radio, ISBN 978-1-937512-63-7, Sept.
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