Buyers' Choice

August 2009

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Perfect scoop: ice creams, sorbets, granitas, and sweet accompaniments by David Lebovitz.
“Lebovitz, a former Chez Panisse pastry chef and author of The Great Chocolate Book, credits his "first and craziest, most insane summer job"— as an ice cream scooper at a soda fountain—with inspiring his lifelong devotion to ice cream. The author's 25 years of experience as a frozen-dessert maker are put to excellent use in this wittily written, detailed volume. Step-by-step photos and advice on selecting an ice cream machine will reassure ice cream amateurs. Experts and novices alike will appreciate tips for selecting the best citrus and creating unusual but complementary pairings (apricots go nicely with Olive Oil Ice Cream). An impressive array of flavors is available for the making, like Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream, Vanilla Frozen Yogurt, Fresh Fig Ice Cream and Pear Pecorino Ice Cream. Sorbet, sherbet and granita also are explored in depth, as are ice cream "vessels," such as brownies and crepes. Great photos and plenty of practical advice combine to make this an appealing and useful resource for the dessert aficionado.” (Publishers Weekly, May)

Desperate romantics: the private lives of the Pre-Raphaelites by Franny Moyle.
"Their Bohemian lifestyle and intertwined love affairs shockingly broke 19th Century class barriers and bent the rules that governed the roles of the sexes. They became defined by love triangles, played out against the austere moral climate of Victorian England; they outraged their contemporaries with their loves, jealousies and betrayals, and they stunned society when their complex moral choices led to madness and suicide, or when their permissive experiments ended in addiction and death. The characters are huge and vivid and remain as compelling today as they were in their own time." (Product description, Amazon UK)

All a Twitter: a personal and professional guide to social networking with Twitter by Morris Tee.
"Twitter! Everyone’s talking about it. Its memberbership grew over 700% in just one year! Now, learn how to make the most of Twitter–in your personal life, your business, everywhere! All a Twitter delivers quick, smart answers to the questions everyone’s asking about Twitter: What’s it about? What’s it good for? Is it worth your time? How do you get started? Where can you find great Twitter feeds to follow? How can you build a worldwide audience for your own Tweets? You name it, Tee Morris answers it–and shows you exactly how to do it, step-by-step, in plain English. No experience? Looking for something new to do with your Tweets? No problem: this is the Twitter book for everyone!" (Product description, Amazon US).

Glamorous rooms by Jan Showers.
“This is the first and only book to collect the highly regarded and influential interior designs of Jan Showers in one volume, Glamorous Rooms showcases Showers' philosophy of living well with a multifaceted, luxurious design sense, giving the reader a touch of glamor to go along with the work's meticulous attention to comfort. Illustrated with dazzling photography, Showers' accessible and useful design tenets will inspire readers to create their own luxurious, yet relaxed homes. Showers' attention to detail seamlessly blends Hollywood high style, mid-century Modernism and classic eighteenth-century French styles with the local flavors of St. Barth's, Paris and Rome. Her modern and timeless interiors, never overdone, have earned her a dedicated fan base of top designers, celebrities and power brokers from Palm Beach to Del Mar. A must-have addition to any design enthusiast's library, Glamorous Rooms is sure to be an instant classic.”(Amazon UK)

The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah wishes you a Happy Birthday by Neil MacFarquhar.
"While a glut of recent books on the Middle East have addressed Western perspectives on the region, this excellent book emphasizes questions Arabs ask themselves. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iranian revolution serve as backdrops, but veteran Mideast correspondent MacFarquhar (The Sand Café) focuses primarily on Arab nations and a grab bag of Saudi teachers, Moroccan dissidents broken by their years in prison, individuals searching for political freedom and Muslims struggling to sustain their faith in the face of violence from within and without. MacFarquhar's approach is well-rounded; he includes less palatable facts (those who argue that the word [jihad] contains no implication of violence are glossing over the fact that for some zealots, jihad means only one thing) and facts often overlooked (when most Arabs talk about reform, they usually mean curbing rampant corruption)." (Publishers Weekly, May)

You Want To Go Where?: How to Get Someone to Pay for the Trip of Your Dreams by Jeff Blumenfeld.
"Christopher Columbus needed a sponsor for a dangerous expedition but the King of Portugal wasn't interested. He repackaged his proposal for the Queen of Spain. She put Columbus on retainer and the rest is history. Columbus may not have been the first to discover America, but he had a great publicist.
That's where Jeff Blumenfeld comes in. For many years, using a PR specialty called adventure marketing, Jeff has connected explorers and their projects with corporate sponsors looking to demonstrate product performance in extreme conditions. His book takes the reader from Erik Weihenmayer's expedition to be the first blind man to summit Mt. Everest, to the first con-firmed dogsled expedition of the North Pole, to Audrey Mestre's deadly free dive expedition off Bayahibe Beach in the Dominican Republic. You Want To Go Where? is the only book that not only takes you behind-the-scenes of some of the most dangerous adventure expeditions in recent years, but shows how you can fund and arrange your own trip, including details on everything from grants to sponsorships.
For anyone who's ever had a dream to scale the tallest mountain or cross the largest ocean, You Want To Go Where? is ideal for armchair explorers and budding adventurers alike." (Amazon US)

Eternal life : A new vision by John Shelby Spong.
"Spong, the controversial retired Episcopal Bishop of Newark, NJ, may rightly be considered the bellwether of the most advanced opinions in theology that still cling to a nominal Christian identity. With subtlety and complexity, Spong promotes an idea of an ongoing existence beyond our physicality, one that entirely supercedes "religious" notions of Heaven or Hell and even conventional notions of God. For conservative Christians, Spong's views are heretical; for many other readers, Christian and non-Christian, Spong's writing here as elsewhere is intelligent, engaged, comforting, and uplifting." (Library Journal)

Rich Dad's conspiracy of the rich : the 8 new rules of money by Robert T. Kiyosaki.
“In late January, 2009, Robert Kiyosaki launched Conspiracy of the Rich - a free online book which was written in serial basis to help people understand how the current recession came about, and what they need to learn on how to survive through the coming rough years. An unprecedented publishing event for Kiyosaki and The Rich Dad Company, Conspiracy of the Rich is an interactive, "Wiki-style" project in which Kiyosaki has invited feedback, commentary, and questions from readers across the globe. The response so far has been totally fantastic. Millions and millions of readers have flocked to the website (www.conspiracyoftherich.com) to read what Robert has to say about the recession, and the readers have posted thousands of comments. Some of those reader comments will even be included in the final tradepaper version.” (Product Description, Amazon US)

The last days of old Beijing by Michael Meyer.
“bulldozed and their residents displaced to make way for Wal-Marts, shopping centers and high-rise apartments. Part memoir, part history, part travelogue and part call to action, journalist Meyer's elegant first book yearns for old Beijing and mourns the loss of an older way of life. Having lived for two years in one of Beijing's oldest hutongs—mazes of lanes and courtyards bordered by single-story houses—Meyer chronicles the threat urban planning poses not only to the ancient history buried within these neighborhoods but also to the people of the hutong. The hutong, he says, builds community in a way that glistening glass and steel buildings cannot. His 81-year-old neighbor, whom he calls the Widow, had always been safe because neighbors watched out for her, as she watched out for others: the book opens with a delightful scene in which the Widow, a salty character who calls Meyer Little Plumblossom, brings him unsolicited dumplings for his breakfast. The ironies of the reconstruction of Beijing are clear in the building of Safe and Sound Boulevard, which, Meyer tells us, is neither safe nor sound.” (Publishers Weekly, June)

The case for God by Karen Armstrong.
“Armstrong offers a tour de force study of religiosity that expands on themes in her previous titles A History of God and The Great Transformation. Armstrong contrasts the "unknown God" of 30,000 B.C.E-1500 C.E. with the modern God (1500 C.E.-present) and burgeoning European atheism. Today, religion is supposed to provide answers, but in earlier times, faith functioned like art and was a source of joy and serenity in the face of mystery and challenges. Highly recommended for readers willing to grapple with difficult but clearly articulated concepts and challenges to the "received" ways of perceiving religion.” (Library Journal)

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