Apovian, Director of the Nutrition and Weight Management Center at Boston University Medical Center, describes herself as "an obesity medicine physician." As one of the world's leading research-ers on obesity and weight loss she is privy to "the most up-to-the-minute scientific findings on what makes people fat." According to Apovian, many diets fail because they lead to muscle wasting (aka sarcopenia, or Shrinking Muscle Syndrome) which lowers metabolism. Her "hybrid" plan of two diet strategies promotes lean muscle for efficiently burning calories. Apovian calls her first strategy the "1-Day Power Up": no solid foods one day per week; instead, dieters feast on smoothies packed with pro-tein, fiber, and nutrients. Taking a break from consuming solid foods, she explains, is a time-tested method to jumpstarts fat burning and weight loss in preparation for her plan's second phase, the "Six-Day Fuel Up." Simple yet enticing recipes for healthy, protein-rich meals are included, along with a brisk workout routine of 21 minutes four times a week. While the diet is sensible (whole grains, veg-gies, fruits, etc.) readers may be particularly drawn to Apovian's impressive medical track record and the allure of a weight loss method free of calorie-counting and deprivation. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

In this eloquent exegesis on taking control of the end of one’s life, Butler defines a “good death” as one that is free from unnecessary medical intervention and faced with acceptance and dignity. The book is an expansion of her groundbreaking New York Times Magazine article, published in June 2010. A journalist living in Northern California, Butler helped her aging parents, who lived in Middletown, Conn., through several serious health issues (both parents have since died). She writes affectingly of her parents’ wishes to make moral decisions about their deaths—in spite of the medical establishment’s single-minded efforts to prolong their lives, regardless of the quality of those lives. Butler’s father had a pacemaker installed in 2003 after an earlier stroke, allowing his heart to continue functioning indefinitely even as his overall health deteriorated. The brunt of his care fell on Butler’s prickly, authoritarian mother—to the anguish of Butler, who eventually became her father’s caregiver, despite living 3,000 miles away and having two able-bodied younger brothers. Butler usefully weighs the benefits of life-prolonging medical care, and argues persuasively for helping elders face death with foresight and bravery. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

Intrepid and inspired, Seattle-based author Cook (Fat of the Land) follows his passion for porcini, chanterelles, and black trumpets into remote forests, from the Pacific Northwest to Colorado, where mild fungi fruit in abundance and are hunted in secret and traded like contraband. The mushroom hunters he joins are like the gold prospectors of the Wild West: secretive men with sharp survival skills, who intimately know the terrain and can endure brutal days bushwhacking for an itinerant hand-to-mouth existence. The hunters pick different species, depending on the season—from hedgehogs (which might go for $7 per pound) to king bolete and matsutake—amassing pounds of mushrooms to sell. The author trails veteran harvester Doug Glen Carnell through the coastal Olympic Peninsula. A favorite buyer is Jeremy Faber, owner of Foraged and Found Edibles, who has connections with the fancy restaurants in Seattle and New York; he inspects the day’s hauls and tallies the prices. The hunters venture into coastal California in winter, picking yellow feet, among others; they even come upon a cornucopia of “burn morels,” which emerge after forest fires. Cook amply, knowledgeably incorporates debates about sustainability and legality, and offers recipes. Agent: Lisa Grubka, Fletcher & Co. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

The celebrated management consulting company exerts an influence that varies from benign to malign, according to this revealing, if conflicted, history. Financial journalist McDonald (Last Man Standing) traces McKinsey’s rise to the pinnacle of corporate advice peddling and its unique pretensions and privileges: its elitism, decades-long engagements and lucrative open-ended contracts; its symbiosis with the Harvard Business School, whose newly minted grads dole out wisdom to experienced executives under its auspices; its aura of intellectualism, which sometimes amounts to vague buzz phrases and invocations of “change”; its reliance on alumni who helm other companies and steer business its way. McDonald, a contributing editor at Fortune, can’t quite decide whether this is all good or bad, or whether he’s indifferent. He credits McKinsey with rationalizing business practices and forestalling corporate mistakes, but charges it with standing behind blunders and bankruptcies from Enron to GM; he wonders if the firm is less about helping companies make better products more efficiently than giving doctrinal cover to CEOs’ impulses to slash payrolls. McDonald combines a lucid chronicle of McKinsey’s growth and boardroom melodramas with a serviceable, if sometimes cursory analysis of evolving—or at least retreaded—management theories. But the larger import remains, like that of the corporate world it symbolizes, a contradictory muddle. Agent: David Kuhn, Kuhn Projects. (Sept. 10)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

As the titles of this and his previous books (among them, The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency) suggest, Harvard law professor Kennedy knows where the nerve endings are in discussing the complexities of race in America. While clearly convinced that “the net benefits generated by affirmative action justify its continued existence,” his probe of those ganglia is dexterous. “The stark patterns of racial disparity... attend every index of well-being and development in American society,” Kennedy writes, “including educational attainment” (his focus in this book is on higher education). After reviewing the history of affirmative action, concluding that “ambivalence triumphant” best describes its current status, Kennedy assesses the arguments, pro (reparations, integration) and con (the associated stigma). Following a consideration of the “apparent attractions of color blindness” and its weaknesses, Kennedy turns to the Supreme Court’s record—one he finds “marked by ambivalence, confusion, evasiveness, obfuscation, and inconsistency” in cases involving the state universities of California, Michigan, and Texas. Kennedy’s admirably balanced argument in favor of affirmative action (though the author has some reservations) is provocative and his style is accessible. When the Supreme Court decision on Fisher v. University of Texas is handed down, Kennedy’s latest will be required reading. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

Though they are clearly demarcated by Crayola, colors can be surprisingly complicated. In design expert Stewart’s first book, she explores a bevy of attributes—contemporary and historical, cultural and scientific—of various colors. After a brief history of color theory, Stewart discusses the pigments one by one, sharing the origin of the red paint used in American barns and explaining why men in China avoid green hats. The facts are conversationally presented, often as humorous anecdotes that match the vibrant design of the pages, which include color-coordinated illustrations, diagrams, and peculiarly presented quotations on color, with marginalia framing the pages that directs the reader to jump ahead to other information. Some of the connections are elaborate, as in the discussion of how white became associated with weddings and the extended examination of whether blue actually exists. An ending section moves outside the traditional spectrum to synesthesia and studies of the color of dinosaurs. Stewart’s well-designed book is visually stimulating and surprising, reminding readers that colors are still as fascinating and fun as they were in grade school. Four-color illus. throughout. Agent: Jen Carlson, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

Shoatz—a leader in Philadelphia’s Black Liberation Movement and a former Black Panther—describes his activism and philosophy in this wide-ranging collection of essays and interviews dating from the mid-1990s through the present. He is currently serving multiple life sentences in Waynesburg, Penn., for killing a police officer (though he claims to be a political prisoner). Shoatz chronicles his transformation from Philadelphia gang member to Harlem activist, and how his escapes from prison earned him the nickname “Maroon” (Maroons were fugitive slaves who settled in Jamaica, Haiti, Brazil, and others parts of the Americas, as described elsewhere in the book). Whether read for activist inspiration or as an academic artifact, Shoatz’s writings are an engrossing portrayal of a life contemplated from the recesses of 20 years in solitary confinement. He turns out to be a feminist who advocates matriarchy, and a critic of capitalism. Having experienced “harsh, demeaning, and brutal institutions,” the author also argues for prison reform. Shoatz’s essays are bookended with a foreword by Chuck D and an afterword by Matt Meyer and Nozizwe Madlala Routledge. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

The suburbs are in many ways a uniquely American phenomenon—no other nation has them in such abundance. But their future is in doubt. Gallagher, assistant managing editor at Fortune, marshals ample evidence that the suburbs are in decline, as the financial crisis, long-term demographic trends, and increased environmental awareness conspire to drive Americans away from residential subdivisions. “Simply speaking, more and more Americans don’t want to live there anymore,” she writes. Through conversations with home builders, designers, and consumers, and a review of relevant data concerning suburban real estate, Gallagher heralds a future of “smaller-scale” communities and urban spaces characterized by walk-ability, socioeconomic diversity, and mixed-use development. The promise of more human-centered design will appeal to many readers. Gallagher’s ideal community seems to be a combination of Brooklyn’s Park Slope and Media, Penn., her own childhood suburb. Many of Gallagher’s ideas are more concerned with rejecting past excesses than with offering truly new perspectives. The same statistics and experts are quoted throughout this short tome, giving one the feeling of driving past a series of identical cul-de-sacs. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

The “two years” in the title of this eloquent work of noblesse oblige is misleading, since the Indian-English author, musician, and professor of literature (The Immortals) was born in Calcutta in the early 1960s and spent much time there in the decades since. Chaudhuri draws on mostly tender, impressionistic memories of his hometown—descriptions familiar to readers of his fiction trilogy Freedom Song (collected in one volume). He felt compelled to write about Calcutta because of the city’s down-on-its-heels modernity, edgy diversity, and Marxist politics; he was taken by Calcutta’s crumbling colonial glory and architecture, its Bengali bourgeois class that aped the English ways, its literary and artistic inheritance (Tagore, Shankar), and its enormous number of destitute immigrant workers. The twice-partitioned Bengali capital became a kind of exotic mistress that the author, educated at Oxford and Cambridge, could not quit, and while his impressions are astute, his considerations of the lower classes, including the servants in his house, can seem patronizing. Agent: Peter Straus, RCW Literary. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

In this captivating memoir, poet and essayist Hardy recounts her efforts to reconcile the tenets of her Mormon upbringing with her evolving personal identity. She decides to leave the church at age 35, having long questioned the rules it prescribes for women. Taking stock of her life in her mid-20s, Hardy writes, “All six of my best college friends are married. My brother is married. Every Mormon girl in my high school class, and probably two or three below me, is married.” As she wrestles with her sexuality, religious choices, and the search for a husband, she also travels, takes up salsa dancing, moves to Grand Cayman island, and falls in love with scuba diving. Hardy is ambivalent toward having children—an ambivalence that is nearly unheard of in the church. “I’ve never met an LDS woman who has chosen to be childless, the same way I’ve never met an LDS woman who has chosen not to marry.” Hardy also pursues her love of writing by obtaining an M.F.A. from Bennington. Her memoir is a candid, insightful account of her struggle to find peace with herself. Agent: Susan Golumb, Susan Golumb Literary Agency. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink