From Here to There
Photographer Terrell S. Lester presents rich images of his adopted home state in Maine: The Seasons. With essays by Ann Beattie, Richard Ford, Richard Russo and Elizabeth Strout, the 120 full-color photos of Maine in all its natural and cultural glory and nuance will make residents proud and potential visitors covetous. Beattie, a half-year resident, writes, "Maine is a serious place masquerading as a summer paradise," articulating something intangible also evoked by these photos of struggling mom-and-pop fishing businesses and untouched landscapes, something that modern visitors and homeowners increasingly crave as it slips from sight: authenticity, as opposed to quaint-making gentrification. (Knopf/Borzoi, $35 176p ISBN 0-375-41118-6; June) Which state can boast not one, but two citizens who have had their names legally changed to Elvis Presley? What state is the UFO Capital of the World? The answer to both questions is Wisconsin, according to Oddball Wisconsin: A Guide to Some Really Strange Places, by Jerome Pohlen (Oddball Illinois), a detailed tour of the state's many truly strange attractions. These include the Houdini Historical Center, Teddy Roosevelt's "Near-Assassination Site" and Jeffrey Dahmer's house. Birthplace of Orson Welles, the hamburger, Liberace, the ice cream sundae, the Republican Party and the typewriter, Wisconsin can truly boast of many... accomplishments. While it's unlikely that the guide will inspire anyone outside the state to make the trip, it's sure to please genuine cheeseheads. 50 b&w photos. (Chicago Review, $12.95 paper 256p ISBN 1-55652-376-9; June)
"Nothing... left such an indelible imprint on our minds as the moment when we discovered that the Ganges was only 40 centimetres deep and that our boat drew 46 centimetres," says Eric Newby (A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush), intrepid world traveler, in Departures & Arrivals. From the Palio in Siena, to China's Forbidden City, to Berwick-on-Tweed, Scotland, by bicycle, to crossing Syria by train, to landscaping his own back yard, Newby reaches back over the last 50-odd years in these recollections that combine old-school travelogue with self-deprecating humor. With wife and travel companion, Wanda, at his side, Newby dispenses insight into the human fascination with foreign adventure. Photos. (Lyons, $22.95 208p ISBN 1-58574-224-4; May)
Henry Mintzberg hates flying. Granted, almost everyone hates air travel these days, but Mintzberg hates it so much that he wrote an entire book called Why I Hate Flying: Tales for the Tormented Traveler. The author of numerous books on business—the Financial Times recently named him one of the top 10 management thinkers, well above Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos—Mintzberg travels all over the world to speak to corporate audiences. His airline horror stories are truly outrageous, from getting stuck in Cincinnati for 26 hours to riding the LA-JFK redeye with a live chicken under the seat two rows up. Mintzberg uses his management expertise to analyze the incompetence of the airline industry and offer suggestions for mending it. This book should resonate with businesspeople and other frequent flyers grumbling about the inconveniences of air travel. (Texere, $16.95 160p ISBN 1-58799-063-6; May 10)
Born in Brooklyn, photographer Frank Monaco (They Dwell in Monasteries) grew up hearing his mother's stories about her native village, Cantulpo, in the Molise, a mountainous, wild and terribly poor region of southern Italy. In 1950, Monaco traveled to the Molise, and took pictures to send his mother. A son's loving gesture soon turned into an extensive project, and Monaco documented the village and its inhabitants with tremendous intimacy and grace. At that time, many of the men of Molise had emigrated, and until they earned enough to send for their families, the women were left behind to work, look after their children, pray—and survive. Monaco's black-and-white pictures, collected in The Women of Molise: An Italian Village, 1950, catch them in moments of solemn ritual, tenderness and sometimes even joy. A sensitive record of an important moment in a region's history. (St. Martin's/Dunne, $19.95 96p ISBN 0-312-27312-6; May) Robert Peary is remembered as the intrepid explorer who successfully reached the North Pole in 1909. Far less celebrated is his companion, Matthew Henson, a black man from Maryland. A Negro Explorer at the North Pole: The Autobiography of Matthew Henson, first published in 1912 and now re-issued, tells this unsung hero's story in his own words. Henson, who was paid only minimum wages throughout two decades of his association with Peary, was indispensable to the famous explorer's journey; he learned the language of the Eskimos, was an expert dog-sled driver and even built the sleds. But after they reached the North Pole, Peary stole the black man's photographs, barely spoke to him and refused to recognize his importance to the expedition. This edition contains rare photos of the journey and an introduction by S. Allen Counter, author of North Pole Legacy: Black, White, and Eskimo (Invisible Cities [IPG, dist.], $24 224p ISBN 1-931229-00-7; $14.95 paper -01-5; May)
Major Minor
After messy breakups with two major rock bands (Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jane's Addiction), Warner Bros. (the label with whom he was going to release a solo album) and his girlfriend, guitarist Dave Navarro began shooting coke and heroin again. He also bought a photo booth and with New York Times music writer Neil Strauss (coauthor of Marilyn Manson's The Long Hard Road Out of Hell) began to chronicle the next 12 months of his life. Their collaboration, Don't Try This at Home—using photo booth strips, essays and interviews—documents over-the-top scenes: Navarro jotting down his phone number on a syringe wrapper for a mortified record company executive and Navarro, with Marilyn Manson, trying to blow up a photo of Courtney Love's vagina (for an album cover). Keanu Reeves, Leif Garrett and Leonardo DiCaprio are just a few other celebrities whose often-embarrassing antics are recorded here. (Regan, $29.95 256p ISBN 0-06-039368-8; June 1)
In the beginning there was the Motley House, crawling with cockroaches and rats, beer cans piled on the porch so high they threatened to spill into the house every time you opened the door. "That place gave birth to Motley Crüe," the band recalls in The Dirt: The Autobiography of Motley Crüe. After the record contract, they write, "like a pack of mad dogs we abandoned the bitch, leaving with enough reckless, aggravated testosterone to spawn a million bastard embryo metal bands." Crüe members Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, Vince Neil and Nikki Sixx also team up with New York Times music writer Neil Strauss to tell the story of their band's rise to phenomenal success: their tours, friendships, alcohol and drug problems, music, influence and, above all, girls. No heavy metal fan will want to be without this crude, honest chronicle. (Regan, $27.95 304p ISBN 0-06-039288-6; on-sale date May 22) Many people don't realize that novelist Ralph Ellison, best-known as the author of Invisible Man, was first an accomplished trumpeter and a student of musical composition, especially jazz. In Living with Music: Ralph Ellison's Jazz Writings, literature and jazz scholar Robert O'Meally, founder and director of the Center for Jazz Studies, hascollected the best of this oeuvre in a volume that includes profiles of jazz greats like Charlie Parker, meditations on jazz classics, music-related selections from Ellison's fiction and a foreword by Wynton Marsalis. No Ellison fan or jazz aficionado should ignore this book, in which the novelist eloquently conveys the profound role that music has played in the lives of black Americans. As he wrote in the title essay, "it was either live with music or die with noise, and we chose rather desperately to live." (Modern Library, $19.95 288p ISBN 0-679-64034-7; on-sale date May 15)
Art with an Agenda
Dedicated to "academics, whores and academic whores everywhere," Hardcore from the Heart: The Pleasures, Profits and Politics of Sex in Performance is a collaboration between sex worker and performance artist Annie Sprinkle (Annie Sprinkle, Post-Porn Modernist: My Twenty-Five Years as a Multimedia Whore) and Vassar College drama professor Gabrielle Cody (Impossible Performance: Duras As Dramatist). Sprinkle is probably the best-known of the first generation of women performance artists whose work focuses on sex and sexuality. Together, the authors reflect on Sprinkle's work and explore tensions within feminism over pornography and the complex power relations inherent in any art that makes use of the female body. The book combines Cody's academic analysis and Sprinkle's own writings with conversations between Sprinkle and her friends (porn star Veronica Vera) and critics (anti-porn feminist Mae Tyme). While too academic for many readers, the book is entertaining and provocative, and should delight any serious student of feminist performance art. Photos not seen by PW. (Continuum, $24.95 paper 160p ISBN 0-8264-4893-3; June) John Belushi, Mike Meyers, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Mike Nichols and John Candy are just a few of the numerous comedy greats associated with famed Chicago comedy review Second City. In Days and Nights at the Second City: A Memoir, with Notes on Staging Review Theatre, Second City founder and longtime producer and director Bernard Sahlins (editor, Plays for Performance series) tells the story of this influential cultural institution, from its beginnings in 1959. Sahlins's comic sensibility isn't obvious in this mostly rather earnest book, which contains statements like "Man is the only animal that laughs, and comedy's major role is to evoke the laughter that celebrates our unity as mortal creatures." Still, for anyone curious about the history of contemporary American comedy, this book contains plenty of important background. 18 b&w photos. (Ivan R. Dee, $24.95 224p ISBN 1-56663-375-3; May 25)
Precious Moments
Back to please her long-standing fans—and even gain some new ones—Lois Wyse presents Family Ties: The Legacy of Love, a mixture of tales about love within the folds of family, both her own and others'. The author of more than 60 books (of fiction, poetry and nonfiction as well as the New York Times bestseller Funny, You Don't Look Like a Grandmother), she spotlights famous families such as the musical Simon sisters (pop singer Carly; composer Lucy; and opera singer Joanna). From delightful snippets of poetry to prose vignettes, Wyse explores the small, wondrous moments and connections that bind us to our families in ways that may be more meaningful than even words can express. Agent, Owen Laster. (Simon & Schuster, $20 192p ISBN 0-7432-0364-X; May) A career banker who left the trade to fill his life with more meaningful pursuits, T. Alexander Anderson combines quotations, reflective statements and provocative questions to help readers develop a new appreciation for The Gift of Time: Making the Most of Your Time and Your Life. Though he also discusses such issues as letting go of the past's weight while retaining its most cherished memories and turning dreams into reality, his primary focus is on living fully in the present. Agent, Jim Knapp. (TMPress [Landauer, dist.], $15.95 128p ISBN 0-9706856-0-2; May) "Most Americans are sloth-impaired," observes Dale Burg in her humorous and charmingly illustrated Sloth: Ode to Disarray & Delay, the fourth installment in the Sin Series from Red Rock Press. Burg, who has taught comedy writing at NYU and is the author of 16 books, declares the Official Sloth Breakfast to be eggs over easy (cooked by someone else), advises against any strenuous activity except for slow dancing and waxes philosophical about the benefits of doing tomorrow what one could do today. With a historical overview of sloth, proverbs and famous quotations, Burg convincingly shows why the best is always worth the wait. 70 color illus. (Red Rock [459 Columbus Ave., Suite 114, New York, N.Y. 10024; 212-362-8304; www.redrockpress.com], $21.95 128p ISBN 0-9669573-2-6; May 15) In the tradition of Sisters, the bestselling coffee-table book that featured photographs of and essays by sisters both famous and not, comes Hollywood Moms, showcasing the photography of Joyce Ostin with an introduction by Carrie Fisher. Among the mothers and daughters included are Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson (on the cover); Rosanna and Patricia Arquette holding a photo of their deceased mom, Mardiningish Arquette; Dyan Cannon and Jennifer Grant; and Jennifer Lopez with her mom, Guadalupe. Among the best are apparently unposed, private moments, such as Rosie O'Donnell concentrating intently on her daughter, Chelsea. With a projected first printing of 50,000 copies, this book has the makings of a hot-selling Mother's Day gift. (Abrams, $29.95 112p ISBN 0-8109-4157-0; May) In a final tribute to the comedic genius of silent film icon Buster Keaton (1895—1966), his third wife, Eleanor, began Buster Keaton Remembered. Completed by film historian Jeffrey Vance (coauthor of Wife of the Life of the Party), it features an afterword by Kevin Brownlow (Mary Pickford Rediscovered). Illustrated with 235 black-and-white photographs, this gracious, unsentimental work reveals the public and private lives of a man who began his career in vaudeville, catapulted to silent-screen fame with elaborately choreographed stunts and ended his illustrious career as a star for the emerging MGM movie studio. (Abrams, $45 240p ISBN 0-8109-4227-5; May)
Kiss Off and Come Hither
For women who are tired of getting burned, Erica Dankoff and Muara Johnston say: don't get mad—get even! Kiss-Off Letters to Men: Over 50 Zingers You Can Use to Send Him Packing, Mess with His Head, or Just Plain Dump Him is packed with laughs for girls only. Written in the form of Dear John letters, these sassy entries take insulting men ("What a roach-infested soul you have") and, at times, scaring the pants off them ("The stick came out blue and the rabbit is dead") to a whole new level. (Three Rivers, $9.95 paper 112p ISBN 0-609-80792-7; on-sale date May 15) Women who are sure they've found the right man better not count their blessings until they've consulted one man in particular, the happily married Corey Donaldson. Having consulted 1,500 other people, he now feels confident in stating Don't You Dare Get Married Until You Read This!: The Book of Questions for Couples. Many of these lists of probing questions are about sexuality ("How would it affect you if you never had sex again"), which, the author found, is often a bigger problem in marriage than most people are comfortable admitting. (Three Rivers, $12 paper 224p ISBN 0-609-80783-8; on-sale date May 8)
Boosts for Baby Boomers
Single women over 50 who are confident that the best is yet to come will be pleased to find a dating book just for them. Written in a upbeat, practical style that is both reassuring and motivating, Young at Heart: The Mature Woman's Guide to Finding and Keeping Romance addresses a full spectrum of issues including sexuality and intimacy at an older age. Psychologist Rachelle Zukerman, an expert on aging and author of a column that appears in several Southern California newspapers, guides women in dealing with the emotions, children and financial arrangements left from previous relationships, firmly convinced that finding lasting love helps people live longer. Agent, Sheree Bykofsky. (Contemporary, $14.95 paper 256p ISBN 0-8092-9766-3; May) Women's female friends are as important to them at midlife as they were in adolescence, declares Patricia Gottlieb Shapiro (My Turn: Women's Search for Self After the Children Leave). Except now, she continues, those friendships are not based on need so much as on sustenance grounded in maturity and confidence. Citing experts, her own friends and other women whom she interviewed, Shapiro presents Heart to Heart: Deepening Women's Friendships at Midlife, an intimate and incisive look at the rewards and challenges (envy, broken confidences, illness, death) that meaningful friendships offer and how to steer those friendships skillfully through waters both rough and calm. Agent, Carol Mann. (Berkley, $13 paper 240p ISBN 0-425-17657-6; May 8) One reason many women turn to their friends at midlife is for mutual support in dealing with empty-nest syndrome. When Bernard and Rhoda Faller's children flew the coop, he saw it as an opportunity to leave the congested metropolitan New York area and start fresh; but she wasn't so sure. Ultimately, the Fallers moved to Louisville, Ky., and are enjoying a whole new life. In Moving the Nest: A Mid-Life Guide to Relocating, they offer their perspectives on how they decided to move and to what location, and how they made a new start. Interestingly, they decided to buy a new home right away instead of renting, making a solid financial commitment that bolstered their emotional one. (E.M. Press [P.O. Box 336, Warrenton, Va. 20188; 800-727-4630; www.empressinc.com], $17.95 paper 160p ISBN 1-880664-31-3; May 1)
