By Joan Ruddiman Special Writer
Saving the best for last! Nonfiction holds such joy for readers. Good nonfiction reads like a story with beautiful narrative flow and is full of information. Even non-readers can be delighted with a book chosen on a subject that is dear to them.
The following is just a sample of titles that are worthy of mention to get you thinking about how to please the most hard-to-please giftee.
For boys of all ages, and techie girls, look for the flashy Cool Stuff 2.0 and How It Works by Chris Wood Ford and John Woodcock (Dorling Kindersley, 2007). Each page presents in full color the stuff of our world — Bluetooth, e-books, e- voting, jet skis, escalators, airport security, biometric ID, lighthouses. It’s an eclectic mix of old and new gadgetry grouped under headings, such as things that connect, move, protect. The last chapter, titled “What’s next?,” is a look at nanotechnology — will bacteria make hydrogen fuel from waste sledge, will biotechnology bring extinct species back to life, to list a few. I especially appreciated the glossary for those not totally up- to-speed on 21st century “stuff.”
This is a book for the “skimmers” who love flipping pages full of schematics, graphs and photos with precise but very limited text to explain how all kinds of things work.
In the same realm is Origin of Everyday Things by Johnny Acton, Tania Adams and Matt Packer (Sterling Press, 2006). More than 400 “amazing anecdotes behind everyday items from Aztec chewing gum to the American zipper” are arranged alphabetically with short articles and illustrations that encourage perusal.
Trivia fans will love this one. Here are two examples for fun. Lego, the trade name for the bright plastic blocks created in Denmark in 1934, comes from Leg Godt, or “play well.” However, in Latin the word translates “I study” and “I put together” — also apt to describe this popular toy.
And for a New Jersey connection, be informed that the first drive-in movie theater was in Camden. Richard Hollingshead “nailed a screen to some trees in his backyard … placed a radio behind it and fixed a 1928 Kodak projector to the hood of his car.” His rather corpulent mother who had found “cinema seats uncomfortable” was pleased. He patented his idea in 1933.
Sports books can be tricky to give, particularly here in Central Jersey where we are sports schizophrenics. For football, those with South Jersey roots hang in with the Eagles. North Jersey is divided between the Giants and the Jets. But if you know a truly committed — as in dedicated — Giants fan, look for Tom Callahan’s The GM: The Inside Story of a Dream Job and the Nightmares that Go with It (Crown, 2007).
For his last season, Ernie Accorsi invited Tom Callahan inside the Giants organization. These two football warhorses — one talking, the other telling — share the backstories of the front office and beyond. Mr. Callahan, the author of the popular Johnny U (Crown, 2006), gets at more than just one season as general manager Accorsi talks about a lifetime in the NFL.
A really nice gift for an owner or wannabe owner of a historic home is New Solutions for House Museums by Donna Ann Harris (AltaMira Press, 2007). In hardback, it’s $75; a paperback version is now available, however.
The premise — “Ensuring the Long-Term Preservation of America’s Historic Houses” — was the subject of an Aug. 30 New York Times article, “Nothing Down, $0 a Month, Hammer Required.” Realistically, how many old homes can be maintained as private museums? Historical societies in Maryland and Massachusetts, for example, are buying historic properties, then turning them over to “house curators” who are just regular folks who have a talent and tenacity for renovation. The family lives rent- and tax-free, but pays for all renovations and maintenance. Moreover, their heirs have the right to continue as curators.
Ms. Harris examines curatorships and other options and provides a decision-making methodology for boards and volunteers who want to preserve the past. She tells a dozen stories of house museums that have survived the transition to new owners.
Some recipients appreciate “food for the soul.” Some of these titles have a limited, but important audience. Roberta Mary Pughe and Paula Anema Sohl offer solace to women like themselves who have had negative experiences with Christian fundamentalism, and those who perceive that “patriarchal religious traditions (are) shaping their lives.”
Resurrecting Eve: Women of Faith Challenge the Fundamentalist Agenda (White Cloud Press, 2007) calls readers to “a feminine re-visioning of (how) Jesus’ life message and model of resurrection allows women to welcome and value their true feminine selves” and “find new balance with the masculine.”
The chapters are thoughtfully framed on the model of the seven chakras, which elaborate the points with Biblical references and anecdotal stories. The authors’ intent is on healing, and to that end they offer dance, music, exercise and other suggestions towards gaining health. The depth of analysis and synthesis of multiple frameworks is as impressive as their points are passionately presented.
In July, Edward Fiszer, Ed.D., mailed me a copy of his Daily Positives: Inspiring Greatness in the Next Generation (2nd Edition, GoalMinds, Inc., 2006). He sent a note saying how much he enjoyed the Book Notes review of “A Whole New Mind” (wonders of the Internet, where he must have read it), with his hope to have “Daily Positives” in the hands of “all children in North and South America” in English or Spanish.
Mr. Fiszer, a school principal in California, has collected the messages of “hope, inspiration and ‘how to’” that he has shared daily with his students. Each page presents a thought — “everyone has potential,” “make opportunities,” “expect challenge” — through the story of a famous “role model.” Kids will appreciate the array of familiar and unexpected names and stories, such as Michael Jordan, Helen Keller, Aristotle, Mary Kay Ash and Soichiro Honda, to name a few.
This would make a nice gift for a teacher or parents, or anyone who needs a daily dose of positives in their life.
For your reading friends who like to be on top of things, a recent New Yorker article spotlighted an interesting young guy who works with the stuffy State Department. Jared Cohen’s latest book is just out from Penguin: Children of Jihad: A Young American’s Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East (2007).
“When we talk about the people of the Islamic world, the irony is that the majority of those people — sixty per cent — are under the age of thirty,” Mr. Cohen notes. A Stanford grad and Rhodes scholar with a master’s in international relations at Oxford, this 26-year-old is the youngest member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff. His forte is mixing and mingling with people his age, particularly in Iran where he found “Iranian young people are the most pro-American populations in the Middle East.”
He also learned first hand that teens and 20s even in the most repressive societies are party animals who find a myriad of ways to elude the restrictions of parents and the government.
Bob Drogin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, tackles the issue of our day in Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man who Caused a War (Random House, 2007). Mr. Drogin attempts to answer what many have asked, “What went wrong?” He digs into the story of an Iraqi engineer and defector — code-named Curveball — who convinced Germany, the United States and others that Iraq had bioweapons, the infamous WMD.
Just out is Song Without Words by Leah Bendavid-Val (National Geographic, 2007) that makes public for the first time a huge collection of photographs taken by Sophia Tolstoy of her famous husband and their large family. The countess’s diaries provide accompanying text in this special collection.
Sure to please many who read history is Joseph Ellis’s American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic (Knopf, 2007), which is getting good reviews. The big question, “How did we get here?,” is intensely relevant in our contentious society. Hooray for Mr. Ellis and others who continue to examine the “founding” in order to find answers for our troubled country today.
There are so many more, but you’ll find what fits. Books are a joy to give and receive. Enjoy the shopping!
Joan Ruddiman, Ed.D., is the coordinator/ facilitator of the gifted and talented PRISM program at the Thomas R. Grover Middle School in the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District.
