NONFICTION
Released: April 16, 2013
"Apkon goes to great lengths to assay the obvious. Only in passing does he grant that the image does not exist in isolation, that word and image are inextricable. After all, he required this ancient technology--a book--to communicate his ideas."
Debut author Apkon, executive director of the Jacob Burns Film Center, makes a strong case for the moving image as today's primary form of communication. Yet, like many true believers, he pays short shrift to the cultural downside.
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NONFICTION
Released: April 15, 2013
"Valuable as encouragement for caregivers to empathize with the turbulent years, but remains uneven and not far-reaching enough as an amalgam of science and parenting advice."
Health scientist administrator White and Swartzwelder (Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience/Duke Univ.; co-author,
Buzzed: The Straight Facts About the Most Used and Abused Drugs from Alcohol to Ecstasy, 1998) propose that behavioral changes in teenagers are not only hormonal, but due to significant changes in brain wiring and that risk-taking acts during the teen years are essential for achieving independence as well as mastering practical, social and emotional adult skills.
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NONFICTION
Released: April 15, 2013
"A blisteringly honest portrait of a young, fast and greatly misunderstood life."
An outspoken, gender-ambiguous author and activist reflects on her halcyon days as a wild child in San Francisco.
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NONFICTION
Released: April 12, 2013
"A generally persuasive, impassioned book-length essay. While his conclusions (and language) sometimes grow repetitive, they nonetheless serve to underscore at every turn an incisive argument buttressed by millennia of evidence."
Historian and editor Cannadine (History/Princeton Univ.;
Mellon, 2006, etc.) constructs a stirring critique of history that questions conventional approaches to narrating the human chronicle.
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NONFICTION
Released: April 8, 2013
"The prose is sometimes sluggish and the recommendations perhaps quixotic, but the portrait of the university features stark lines and alarming colors."
How a large Midwestern state university (unnamed in this longitudinal study) does little to help young women move upward or outward from their working- and middle-class backgrounds.
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NONFICTION
Released: April 2, 2013
"Gentle words of wisdom from a woman driven by "senseless, relentless hope.""
NONFICTION
Released: April 2, 2013
"A skillful presentation that lifts the veil too often hiding areas that should be brought to light."
NONFICTION
Released: April 2, 2013
"The authors make their case simply but with vigor and dash."
Brand-identity consultant Siegel and colleague Etzkorn make a strong, appealing case for simplicity.
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NONFICTION
Released: April 2, 2013
"A heartwarming tale of adoption and unconditional love."
NONFICTION
Released: April 2, 2013
"Despite some dry prose, Krishna presents a sophisticated, easy-handed elucidation of the practice of marketing to our senses."
Krishna (Marketing/Univ. of Michigan) examines the relatively new idea of sensory marketing, which "engages the consumer's senses and affects their perception, judgment, and behavior."
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NONFICTION
Released: April 1, 2013
"Some intriguing stories better read the way newspaper columns are published--one at a time--than as an extended series in one sitting."
A collection of recent newspaper columns on the homes of New York residents illuminates the ways in which the city has (and hasn't) changed.
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NONFICTION
Released: April 1, 2013
"New, urgent awareness of seeing black women as, in the words of BET co-founder Sheila Johnson, "fully human and fully powerful.""
In this thorough study of popular icons and real women, an update of the 2010 edition, Parks (American Studies/Univ. of Maryland) finds the myth of the strong black woman--variously known as the Sacred Dark Feminine, Black Madonna, Mammy, Angry Black Woman--both slippery and resonant.
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