New Nonfiction Releases
January 2013

These books are being published and released this month. They have been ordered by the Library and will be available soon.

(Do you need more information on how to place a hold? )

• Biography and Memoir 
• General Nonfiction

Biography & Memoir

Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds
By Ping Fu
Fu traces her rise from a being a survivor of China’s Cultural Revolution to receiving Inc. Magazine’s  “Entrepreneur of the Year” award, being named a member of President Obama’s innovation and entrepreneurship advisory council and becoming a proud U.S. citizen. Along the way, she describes the harrowing circumstances that led to her exile from her homeland and the compassionate, visionary leadership style that enabled her remarkable career.

Congressman Lincoln
By Chris DeRose
A chronicle of the early political years of the 16th President offers insight into his lesser-known professional and personal difficulties, from his abuse-marked marriage and near-duel with an adversary to his quorum-preventing jump from a window and his patent-receiving invention.

Data, A Love Story: How I Gamed Online Dating to Meet My Match
By Amy Webb
A lively personal account of an award-winning journalist and digital-strategy expert’s efforts to date using current online technologies recounts how, after numerous setbacks, she strategically changed her approaches and met dozens of worthwhile candidates, including the man who became her husband.

The Disaster Diaries: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Apocalypse
By Sam Sheridan
A former Marine and Harvard college graduate describes his efforts to prepare for extreme disaster scenarios, from learning emergency medicine and wilderness survival skills to navigating clogged evacuation routes and mastering a variety of defensive weapons.

E Street Shuffle: The Glory Days of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
By Clinton Heylin
In a commemorative account that also covers his business clashes and independent pursuits, this intimate portrait of the legendary rock performer and his famous band charts their rise from blue-collar origins to the heights of stardom while exploring how the band members helped Springsteen develop his distinctive sound.

The Feminist and the Cowboy: An Unlikely Story
By Alisa Valdes
The best-selling author of The Dirty Girls Social Club shares a controversial assessment of how a seductive cowboy challenged her feminist beliefs, describing how, as an embittered, middle-aged divorcee, she began to question her staunch beliefs before being swept off her feet by a very masculine lover.

The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad
By Lesley Hazleton
A vibrant retelling of the life of the iconic prophet of Islam draws on early eyewitness sources and records from myriad disciplines to profile his complexity, vitality and legacy, trading his rise from humble origins to a powerful figure who challenged an established order with a new vision of social justice.

Fresh Off the Boat
By Eddie Huang
A Taiwanese-American rebel restaurateur chronicles his life choices, from his difficult childhood in the American South to his turn as a drug dealer who embraced rap culture.

The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought
By Susan Jacoby
Jacoby restores and reintroduces America’s foremost 19th-century champion of reason and secularism to our still-contested 21st-century public square.

The Heavy: A Mother, a Daughter, a Diet – A Memoir
By Dara-Lynn Weiss
A full-length account of the author’s Vogue magazine “Up Front” column describes her family’s efforts to help her clinically obese, 7-year-old daughter lose weight, recounting how their progress was challenged by fiercely judgmental and conflicting detractors.

The Inventor and the Tycoon: A Gilded Age Murder and the Birth of Moving Pictures
By Edward Ball
The National Book Award-winning author of Slaves in the Family presents a narrative account of the partnership between stop-motion photography inventor Eadweard Muybridge and railroad tycoon and California Governor Leland Stanford, discussing Stanford’s obsession with studying running horses and the sensational murder trial of Muybridge that helped launch the age of visual media.

Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde: A True Story
By Rebecca Dana
The weekly “Social Diaries” columnist for The Daily Beast recounts the wacky story of the launch of her career, a period marked by her graduation from Yale, unanticipated setbacks that culminated in brief homelessness in New York and a Russian rabbi roommate.

A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of The Smiths
By Tony Fletcher
This authoritative, behind-the-scenes book about The Smiths, one of the most respected and storied indie rock bands in music history, vibrantly recreates the story of four working-class kids from a northern English city who changed the music world and the lives of their fans.

Living and Dying in Brick City: An E. R. Doctor Returns Home
By Sampson Davis and Lisa Frazier Page
The best-selling author of The Pact presents a narrative exploration of the health-care crisis in inner-city communities as drawn from the author’s experiences as an emergency room resident at Newark Beth Israel Hospital in New Jersey, in an account that illuminates the complicated human realities behind the statistics.

Living with Honor
By Sal Giunta
A Medal of Honor recipient shares the story of his military career, recounting his deployment to Afghanistan’s volatile Korengal Valley and his life-risking efforts to provide medical aid to wounded fellow soldiers during an October 2007 Taliban ambush.

The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making
By David Esterly
The author of Grinling Gibbons and the Art of Carving recounts the story of his own career as a woodcarver and his rise to a forefront practitioner of the Baroque artist’s forgotten technique, tracing the challenging and philosophically passionate year spent replacing a Gibbons masterpiece that was destroyed in a fire at Henry VIII’s Hampton Court Palace.

Never Goin’ Back: Winning the Weight-Loss Battle for Good
By Al Roker with Laura Morton
The Emmy Award-winning television personality and best-selling author chronicles his battle with weight loss, describing his initial success after bypass surgery, his efforts to get back on track after regaining lost weight, and his confrontation with goal-compromising childhood issues.

Saturday Night Widows: The Adventures of Six Friends Remaking Their Lives
By Becky Aikman
Aikman describes her experiences as a young widow and the pivotal relationships she forged with five other widows, recounting the stories of their losses and bravery as experienced through a year of monthly Saturday night meetings – during which she met and fell in love with her current husband.

General Nonfiction

7 Years Younger: The Revolutionary 7-Week Anti-Aging Plan
By Good Housekeeping Institute
A scientific and holistic seven-week program aims to jumpstart weight loss and “de-age” skin while also sharpening the mind and nurturing emotional health.

After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead
By Alan S. Blinder
A narrative assessment of the U.S. financial crisis and its lessons explores its complex contributing factors while revealing some of its more devastating but lesser-known consequences, outlining potentially divisive solutions that the author believes may be necessary for recovery.

All Natural: A Skeptic’s Quest for Health and Happiness in An Age of Ecological Anxiety
By Nathanael Johnson
Johnson scrutinizes the all-natural philosophies through which he was raised by hippie parents to consider the negative aspects of extreme approaches to health care, an investigation marked by his interviews with radical doctors, renegade farmers and a hermit forester that explores potential sources of health-care paradoxes.

Artful
By Ali Smith
In a volume that incorporates tribute elements to iconic writers and artists throughout history, the Whitbread Award-winning author of The Accidental presents a meditative collection of stories on the nature of art and storytelling as they evolved through her 2012 Weidenfeld lectures on European comparative literature at St. Anne’s College, Oxford.

Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father – and How We Can Fix It
By David Goldhill
An investigation into America’s failing health-care industry shares the story of the author’s tragic experience of losing his father to hospital-acquired infections, arguing against the expansion of insurance coverage while recommending a comprehensive, patient-empowering approach that renders health care transparent, affordable and effective.

Clean Cuisine
By Ivy Larson and Andy Larson
Pairing more than 100 delicious and guilt-free recipes with a workout program, a certified Health Fitness Specialist and a doctor offer a regimen that can promote weight loss, increase strength and decrease inflammatory medical conditions in just eight weeks.

Command and Control
By Eric Schlosser
The author of Fast Food Nation presents a minute-by-minute account of an H-bomb accident that nearly caused a nuclear disaster, examining other near misses and what the author perceives as America’s growing susceptibility to a catastrophic event.

Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum’s Heart Book: Every Woman’s Guide to a Heart-Healthy Life
By Suzanne Steinbaum
A renowned cardiologist outlines a new approach to women’s health that integrates emotional and physical well-being, outlining holistic complements to traditional treatments to counsel women on how to shift from stressful behaviors to mind-centered living for improved weight control and lower blood pressure.

The Double V: How Wars, Protest and Harry Truman Desegregated America’s Military
By Rawn James, Jr.
James traces the more than 150-year legal, political and moral campaign for equality that led to Harry Truman’s 1948 desegregation of the U.S. military, documenting the contributions of black troops since the Revolutionary War and their efforts to counter deep-seated racism on the fields and on military bases.

Eat to Lose, Eat to Win: Skinny Done Right – Shop to Drop Pounds with the Nutritionist Who Gets It
By Rachel Beller
The nutritionist for The Biggest Loser offers easy-to-follow advice and instructions for dieters who need to lose weight quickly without sacrificing their health, providing tons of tips, techniques and inspiration and a unique, look-and-shop guide to make grocery shopping fun.

The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath
By Nicco Mele
An internet pioneer and Harvard Kennedy School lecturer explores how seemingly innocuous technologies are unsettling the balance of power by putting it in the hands of the masses, citing a rise in misinformation, losses in government effectiveness and highly competitive web-based businesses that are not subject to regulation.

The End of Diabetes: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Diabetes
By Joel Fuhrman
One of the country’s leading experts on preventive medicine offers a complete health transformation to prevent and reverse diabetes without medication through a high nutrient-per-calorie ratio diet that is individually adaptable for each patient.

Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War
By Paul Kennedy
The renowned historian and author of Preparing for the Twenty-First Century analyzes previously unexplored strategic factors he believes to be responsible for the Allied victory in World War II, sharing behind-the-scenes assessments of ambitious goals successfully pursued by FDR, Churchill and other attendees at the Casablanca Conference.

The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution that Transformed the South
By Bruce Levine
A history of the radical transformation of the American South during the Civil War examines the economic, social and political deconstruction and rebuilding of Southern institutions as experienced by everyday people.

Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease
By Robert Lustig
Lustig documents the science and politics behind the pandemic of chronic disease throughout the past three decades, chronicling how the food industry has replaced fat with sugar and triggered disastrous biochemical changes that the author believes can be overcome through strategic hormone-adjusting measures.

Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons
By Ward Wilson
Expanded from a controversial article, a concise argument against the necessity of nuclear weapons challenges common beliefs that they overcome opposition, provide deterrence and maintain peace, drawing on new facts and historical research to consider how the world could be peaceful without nuclear weaponry.

Formula 50: A 6-Week Workout and Nutrition Plan that Will Transform Your Life
By 50 Cent and Jeff O’Connell
The superstar rap artist and co-author of the best-selling LL Cool J’s Platinum Workout outline a six-week body-building plan based on metabolic resistance training, outlining psychological approaches to fitness while revealing strategic nutritional combinations for accelerating fat loss and building muscles.

Friendfluence: The Surprising Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are
By Carlin Flora
A former editor for Psychology Today  illuminates the critical role of friendship in happiness, combining scientific findings with relatable anecdotes to explore the ways in which positive and negative relationships, long-time friends, and social networking groups shape an individual’s mental, emotional and physical health.

Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction
By Richard Todd and Tracy Kidder
The editor of Atlantic Monthly and the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author of House share stories from their literary friendship and respective careers, offering insights into writing principles and mechanics that they have identified as elementary to quality prose.

Heat: Adventures in the World’s Fiery Places
By Bill Streever
The national best-selling author of Cold tackles the opposite extreme of exploring the higher temperatures by visiting Death Valley, firewalking across coals, describing how matches were invented, and dissecting the chemistry of cooking.

Here, There, Elsewhere: Stories from the Road
By William Least Heat-Moon
This collection of short-form travel writing from the author of the best-selling classics Blue Highways and River Horse features his observations on Japan, England, Italy and even Long Island, New York.

The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah”
By Alan Light
A Rolling Stone and Spin editor presents a history of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” that cites its play in a diverse range of movies and television shows as well as its selection as a tribute song, noting its coverage by hundreds of artists while offering insight into its rise from early obscurity.

The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War
By Daniel Stashower
The Edgar Award-winning author of The Beautiful Cigar Girl presents the dramatic true story of the “Baltimore Plot” conspiracy to assassinate the 16th President on the eve of the Civil War, tracing the efforts of detective Allan Pinkerton and widowed private eye Kate Warne to identify and stop the would-be killers.

I Do and I Don’t: A History of Marriage in the Movies
By Jeanine Basinger
Complemented by scores of movie stills and ad reproductions, a whimsical, extensively researched examination of marriage-themed movies draws on the author’s Hollywood expertise to discuss their popularity, the myriad ways marriage movies have been created and famous on-screen pairings.

Inventing Democracy: An Idea, a History, a Movement
By David Graeber
The influential activist and author of the best-selling Debt presents a concise, provocative exploration of the idea of democracy, its current state of crisis and its potential as a tool for change, sharing historical perspectives to inform readers on the effectiveness of democratic uprisings in various times and cultures.

A Jew Among Romans: The Life and Legacy of Flavius Josephus
By Frederic Raphael
Raphael presents a bold chronicle of the life of the Jewish general-turned-Roman historian while appraising the roles of Jewish immigrants in the Diaspora centuries, providing scholarly coverage of such topics as Josephus’ regard by posterity, his role as a religious and intellectual prototype and his relationship with the Roman emperor Vespasian.

Jungleland: A Mysterious Lost City, WWII Spy, and a True Story of Deadly Adventure
By Christopher S. Stewart
In this riveting, real-life thriller, a journalist sets out on a white-knuckle adventure deep inside “the little Amazon,” the jungles of Honduras’s Mosquito Coast, to expose the secrets of the fabled city of Ciudad Bianca, the White City, a place that has lured explorers for centuries.

Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes
By Maria Konnikova
The “Literally Psyched” columnist for Scientific American draws on neuroscience and psychology studies while analyzing the deductive strategies used by the character of Sherlock Holmes to counsel readers on how to promote mental strength, clearer observation and effective problem solving.

The Miracle Carb Diet: Make Calories and Fat Disappear – with Fiber!
By Tanya Zuckerbrot
As obesity rates grow and the latest research shows that fiber-rich diets increase longevity, the creator of the F-Factor Diet discusses the benefits of fiber, teaches readers new eating habits that will help them look and feel their best, and provides simple meal plans and diet tips for all types of people and lifestyles.

The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn’t, What Shouldn’t Make You Happy, but Does
By Sonja Lyubomirsky
The award-winning psychologist author of The How of Happiness outlines research-based lessons on how to find opportunity during times of challenge, arguing that today’s culturally driven goals often do not result in personal satisfaction while explaining how to make corrective mindset changes that can render people more resilient to difficult circumstances.

Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data
By Charles Wheelan
The author of the internationally best-selling Naked Economics takes on the stuffy study of statistics to describe and demystify another essential discipline by explaining how Netflix knows which movies you’ll like and how to catch schools that cheat on standardized tests.

Never Look a Polar Bear in the Eye: A Family Field Trip to the Arctic’s Edge in Search of Adventure, Truth, and Mini-Marshmallows
By Zac Unger
A portrait of the tiny Manitoba community to which numerous scientists, conservationists and tourists flock to observe regional polar bears explores how the species has become a lightning rod for environmental debate, the uneasy local relationship between the bears and residents and the agendas of visitors.

Ninja Innovation: The Killer Strategies of the World’s Most Successful Businesses
By Gary Shapiro
In this brilliant “how to” for envisioning, executing and maintaining an innovation-based strategy like those used in the technology world, the head of the Consumer Electronics Association reveals how everyone can use the ninja way to create a “killer strategy” that will help them achieve their own goals.

On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks
By Simon Garfield
In an account that also shares engaging cartography stories, the award-winning author of Just My Type examines the pivotal relationship between mapping and civilization, demonstrating the unique ways that maps relate and realign history.

Permanent Present Tense: The Unforgettable Life of the Amnesic Patient, H.M.
By Suzanne Corkin
Corkin documents the remarkable story of a famous brain-damaged patient whose case enabled considerable advances in the study of memory, and describes his unique life after a 1953 “psychosurgical” treatment for epilepsy disabled his ability to store new experiences.

Physics in Mind: A Quantum View of the Brain
By Werner Loewenstein
An eminent biophysicist explains what quantum mechanics can reveal about the human mind, using information theory to illuminate recent advances in the neurosciences while discussing the physics behind the brain’s capacity for instantaneously processing large amounts of information.

The Physics of Wall Street: A Brief History of Predicting the Unpredictable
By James Owen Weatherall
A Harvard scholar goes up against popular beliefs to argue that mathematical models can provide solutions to current economic challenges, citing the pivotal historical contributions of physicists to Wall Street while explaining that the economic meltdown of 2008 was based upon a misunderstanding of scientific models rather than on the models themselves.

The Plan: Eliminate the Surprising “Healthy” Foods That Are Making You Fat – and Lose Weight Fast
By Lyn-Genet Recitas
A practitioner of holistic medicine offers a 20-day program to help overweight people determine their unique body chemistry and identify the supposedly healthy “trigger” foods, like turkey, eggs, beans and oatmeal, that cause a toxic reaction and, in turn, numerous health problems.

Radiation: What It Is, What You Need to Know
By Robert Peter Gale and Eric Lax
A forefront radiation expert who consulted during the Chernobyl and Fukushima crises and the author of The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat identify the radioactive fundamentals of the planet while correcting myths to reveal the role of radiation in everyday life and what should and should not raise concern.

Radical: Fighting to Put Students First
By Michelle Rhee
A teacher in inner-city Baltimore, chancellor of the Washington, D.C., schools, and the founder of the advocacy organization StudentsFirst shares her 18-year mission to prioritize the interests of children through education reform, offering inspiration and a sense of possibility for a brighter future.

Real Influence:  Persuade Without Pushing and Gain Without Giving In
By Mark Goulston and John Ullmen
The authors argue against the aggressive selling of ideas and instead emphasize listening, genuine engagement and commitment to a lasting business relationship in order to get someone to come around to one’s way of thinking.

Searching for Zion: The Perpetual Quest for Home in the Wake of the African Diaspora
By Emily Raboteau
Raboteau documents her decade-long search for identity and a place of belonging as inspired by African-American and Jewish history as well as the exoduses of black communities that left ancestral homes in search of “promised lands,” in an account that describes the author’s visits to regions where Black Zionists imparted the stories of their own cultural migrations.

Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World
By Shereen El Feki
An award-winning Economist journalist conducts a groundbreaking examination of the changing sexual attitudes and behaviors in the Middle East, identifying the sexual factors behind key political, economic, social and religious trends impacting the region.

Shred: The Revolutionary Diet: Six Weeks, Four Inches, Two Sizes
By Ian K. Smith
A noted author offers a diet plan that incorporates a low GI diet, meal spacing and meal replacements to help dieters lose 20 pounds in a month and a half.

The Sugar Blockers Diet: The Doctor-Designed 3-Step Plan to Lose Weight, Lower Blood Sugar and Beat Diabetes While Eating the Carbs You Love
By Rob Thompson and the Editors of Prevention Magazine Health Books
A board-certified cardiologist and the experts at Prevention identify common foods that can be strategically consumed to reduce blood sugar spikes associated with starches, explaining how to cut calories and lose weight while improving a variety of health challenges and avoiding deprivation.

Ten Years Later: Six People Who Faced Adversity and Transformed Their Lives
By Hoda Kotb
The Today show  co-anchor shares the inspirational stories of six individuals who persevered and thrived in the face of devastating life challenges, from a woman who became a health advocate after losing 340 pounds to a civilian hero who saved a burn victim on September 11 only to discover that two family members died in the tragedy.

Thinner This Year: A Younger Next Year Book
By Chris Crowley and Jennifer Sacheck
The author of Younger Next Year teams up with an esteemed nutritionist and exercise physiologist in an energetic guide to weight loss that challenges today’s “quick fix” methods and draws on up-to-date science to outline strategic methods that explain specifically how to eat and exercise for permanent results.

The Thyroid Solution Diet: Boost Your Sluggish Metabolism for Optimal Weight Loss and Lifelong Health
By Ridha Arem
The endocrinologist author of the best-selling The Thyroid Solution outlines a program for bolstering one’s metabolism to lose weight and improve overall health, drawing on the practices of Mediterranean diets to make specific recommendations for food combinations and avoidances.

The Tinkerers: The Amateurs, DIYers, and Inventors Who Make America Great
By Alec Foege
The author of Right on the Dial presents a tribute to America’s innovators that traces the nation’s history through its feats of engineering, citing the achievements of individuals from all walks of life while challenging views about the reductions of innovations throughout the post-World War II decades.

To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
By Daniel H. Pink
The best-selling author of Drive explores the power of selling while arguing that everyone, including non-professional sales people, engages in persuasive or “moving” behaviors, in a guide that counsels readers on how to navigate powerful economic changes while building modern negotiating skills.

The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People
By Neil Shubin
Shubintraces the unique qualities of the human species back to astronomical events that occurred millions of years ago, revealing how the molecular development of human life can be linked to the evolution of the cosmos.

The U.S. Senate: Fundamentals of American Government
By Tom Daschle and Charles Robbins
A follow-up to Selecting a President, co-written by the former U.S. Senator and Senate Majority Leader, shares clear and concise explanations of how the United States Senate works, providing coverage of topics ranging from the electoral process and voting procedures to the Senate’s historic beginnings and modern-day issues.

Weight Loss for People Who Feel Too Much
By Colette Baron-Reid
An internationally known intuitive counselor, life coach and author draws upon her 22 years of experience to present an easy-to-follow weight loss program for sensitive people, showing them how to manage empathy and deal with challenging situations that trigger disordered eating.

What Matters in Jane Austen?
By John Mullan
An acclaimed literary scholar poses twenty questions that reveal deep truths about the iconic writer and her lasting influence, demonstrating how Austen’s genius can be better appreciated with an understanding of her books’ character dynamics, unspoken sexuality and period conventions.

The Wisdom of Compassion: Stories of Remarkable Encounters and Timeless Insights
By The Dalai Lama
A private-world discussion of how the Dalai Lama draws on his personal compassion to connect with others shares insight into his human frustrations and joyful approach to the world and describes his peace-promoting encounters with people ranging from a sick child to world leaders.

Witness to Fitness: Pumped Up! Powered Up! All Things are Possible!
By Donna Richardson Joyner
The renowned expert behind the best-selling “Body Gospel” fitness DVDs combines faith, food and fitness in a 28-day plan which, harnessing the strength, support and joy to be found in spirituality, will inspire readers to follow a journey towards good health and positive change.

The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?
By Jared Diamond
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Collapse draws on decades of field work in the Pacific islands and other world regions to illuminate the degree to which modern society reflects traditional cultures from earlier and ancient time periods, offering insight into how historical approaches to universal problems can inform today’s people.

World War Two: A Short History
By Norman Stone
A concise and authoritative history of the Second World War by an award-winning historian and author profiles a stability-desperate, post-World War I Europe, traces the rapid rise of Hitler, and analyzes the ideologies and weaponry that shaped conflicts.

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12/2012