The Rocky's holiday book gift guide: Nonfiction

Rocky Mountain News

Published December 5, 2008 at 3 p.m.

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Rocky critics offer their favorite nonfiction titles of 2008, selected and condensed from reviews that have run throughout the year.

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BIOGRAPHY

A Remarkable Mother, by Jimmy Carter (Simon & Schuster, $22.95). Former President Carter offers a sweet and swift-moving ode to his mother, Lillian, a Southern spitfire known for breaking down barriers and saying what was on her mind.

Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door, by David Kaufman (Virgin Books, $29.95). In contrast to Doris Day's public image of being a girl living a Cinderella dream, Kaufman reveals details about the star's often painful life, including sex scandals and never-before-published anecdotes featuring Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Stewart and others.

Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America, by Walter R. Borneman (Random House, $30). Estes Park author Borneman places Polk among the most effective of U.S. presidents in this well-researched and entertaining narrative.

Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief, by James M. McPherson (Penguin, $35). Combining readable writing with vast knowledge, the Pulitzer Prize- winning author details how a military novice set out to learn by the seat of his pants what he needed to know to manage the Union generals and ultimately win the Civil War.

Wallace Stegner and the American West, by Philip L. Fradkin (Knopf, $27.50). With inclusiveness and grace, Fradkin discusses Stegner's contributions to fiction, teaching and environmentalism, and fully examines the charges of plagiarism critics have lobbed against one of Stegner's most famous works, Angle of Repose.

BUSH ASMINISTRATION

Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice, by Eric Lichtblau (Pantheon, $26.95). A highly-detailed, well-documented account by a New York Times reporter of how the administration secretly eavesdropped on Americans' phone calls without warrants in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

Kafka Comes to America: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror: A Public Defender's Account, by Steven T. Wax (Other Press, $25.95). An Oregon public defender who took the case of an American citizen wrongfully jailed on a charge related to the 2004 Madrid terrorist bombings reveals frightening details of the administration's end run around the Constitution in its pursuit of the war on terror.

ENVIRONMENT

The Last Fish Tale: The Fate of the Atlantic and Survival in Gloucester, America's Oldest Fishing Port and Most Original Town, by Mark Kurlansky (Ballantine, $25). The story of a Massachusetts blue-collar fishing town whose livelihood is threatened by the depletion of what was once thought to be an inexhaustible supply of fish. Told with evident affection for the town, it's about nothing less than the fate of an ocean and the people whose lives and work depend on it.

Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children, by Philip Shabecoff and Alice Shabecoff (Random House, $26). Philip, chief environmental correspondent for The New York Times and Alice, a freelance journalist, present detailed evidence showing how the modern proliferation of pesticides is putting our children at risk.

You Are Here, by Thomas M. Kostigen (HarperOne, $25.95). This highly readable book explains how the world is affected by our waste, taking readers from the massive electronics dumping ground in the slums of India to the swirl of non-biodegradable garbage twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean.

FOOD/RESTAURANT

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food, by Jennifer 8 Lee (Twelve Books, $24.99). In a marvelous work of journalism, history and cultural insight, a New York Times reporter dishes up everything you ever wanted to know about Chinese food - and then some.

Waiter Rant, by "The Waiter" (Anonymous) (Ecco/HarperCollins, $24.95). Inspired by a blog written by an anonymous waiter, this book takes readers into the hearts, minds and souls of those who live on their feet 12 to 20 hours a day and includes juicy details on everything from how waiters exact revenge on annoying customers to the existence of cockroaches in the kitchen.

HISTORY

Death of a Gunfighter: The Quest for Jack Slade, the West's Most Elusive Legend, by Dan Rottenberg (Westholme Publishing, $29.95). Offering a slice of Western history that's often overshadowed by the Civil War, Rottenberg examines the life of an 1800s gunslinger who oversaw 500 of the most dangerous miles of the nation's wagon transport line, using two critical tools: extreme will and a pistol.

The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century, by Edward Dolnick (HarperCollins, $26.95). The jaw-dropping story of how an average artist fooled art experts, museum curators and rapacious art collector and No. 2 Nazi Hermann Goering into believing that previously unknown paintings from Dutch masters had been found four centuries after they were painted.

Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization, by Nicholson Baker (Simon & Schuster, $30). Baker calls into question the idea that WWII was the last "good" war by offering hundreds of bits of historical information, compiled with virtually no editorial comment, that illustrate that the moral issues of the war were far more complex than is generally held.

The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom, by Simon Winchester (HarperCollins, $24). The story of Joseph Needham, a British researcher whose groundbreaking, 24-volume work on China revealed that hundreds of inventions long considered products of the West were actually used in China years before ever surfacing in Europe.

This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, by Drew Gilpin Faust (Knopf, $27.95). In a riveting and rare fresh take on the Civil War, Faust details all angles of the war's dead -how the bodies were handled, agencies that arose to help families find lost soldiers, etc. - and how the war's massive carnage refined our view of and national policies about the dead.

Slavery by Another Name, by Douglas A. Blackmon (Doubleday, $26). Impeccable research and hellish detail mark this recounting of how the South found legal ways to re-enslave African Americans after the Civil War.

Titanic's Last Secrets: The Further Adventures of Shadow Divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, by Brad Matsen (Twelve, $27.99). Who would have thought a debate over naval design could be so compelling? Matsen examines the critical design flaw recently discovered by two divers that allowed the Titanic to sink so quickly.

HOLLYWOOD

The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts, by Tom Farley Jr. and Tanner Colby (Viking, $26.95). Family and famous friends, such as Chris Rock, Tim Meadows and David Spade, talk frankly about the Saturday Night Live star's dark torments in this oral history compiled by Farley's brother and the former head writer of the National Lampoon Radio Hour.

The Full Burn, by Kevin Conley (Bloomsbury, $24.99). An edge-of-your- seat look at the slam- bang world of Hollywood stunt professionals, offering descriptions of the stunts and behind-the-scenes anecdotes of those who appeared in classic films as well as tales about the modern breed of daredevils.

IRAQ

Final Salute, by Jim Sheeler (Penguin, $25.95). Readers beware: You won't get through this book dry-eyed. With deep respect and emotion, Rocky reporter Sheeler expands on his Pulitzer Prize winning article to tell the story of military families coping with the death of loved ones in Iraq and the Marine major whose job is to inform them of those deaths.

The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins (Knopf, $25). A foreign correspondent for The New York Times who has covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001 retraces his steps, allowing readers to experience the look, heat, smells and many jarring scenes of the war through fine prose delivered without the overlay of opinion.

Unintended Consequences: How the War in Iraq Strengthened America's Enemies, by Peter W. Galbraith (Simon & Schuster, $23). A close observer of American foreign policy lifts the fog of war to offer a stark conclusion: The Iraq conflict has achieved outcomes directly opposed to its intended goals.

War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq, by Richard Engel (Simon & Schuster, $28). There may be no finer account on the war in Iraq than this often painful, sometimes graphic narrative from the NBC News correspondent who lost his marriage and nearly his life as he focused on conducting balanced interviews with soldiers, and Iraqis - and even descended into the hole where Saddam Hussein hid.

MEMOIR

A Wolf at the Table, by Augusten Burroughs (St. Martin's, $24.95). Powerful, quick-paced and packed with an overload of emotion, this prequel of sorts to the author's best-selling Running With Scissors, covers Burroughs' tumultuous childhood and relationship with his father before he was sent to live with his mother's therapist, as well as ensuing years.

Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction, by David Sheff (Houghton Mifflin, $24). A brutally honest, intimate recounting of the author's teenage son's methamphetamine addiction and its impact on the family.

Dumbfounded: Big Money, Big Hair, Big Problems. Or Why Having It All Isn't for Sissies, by Matt Rothschild (Crown, $27.95). Abandoned by his self-serving mother and raised by his loving, eccentric and wealthy grandparents, the author details his childhood antics as a real-life Dennis the Menace who shoplifted from FAO Schwartz, terrorized nannies and stashed failed homework assignments under the seat of his limousine.

Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block, by Judith Matloff (Random House, $25). Having survived life in Sudan, Rwanda and Chechnya, foreign correspondent Matloff thinks buying and renovating a dilapidated townhouse in West Harlem will be a breeze. In this delightful book littered with colorful characters, she illustrates how wrong she was.

Hurry Down Sunshine, by Michael Greenberg (Other Press, $24.95). In this deft memoir that carries a wallop, Greenberg describes the summer 12 years go that his daughter went from poetry-writing, Shakespeare-reading teenager to psych- ward inpatient and back again.

The Longest Trip Home, by John Grogan (William Morrow, $25.95). The author of the best-selling Marley & Me, recounts his idyllic childhood growing up in a staunchly Catholic home. Filled with hilarious coming-of-age stores - as well as some reckoning with his eventual rejection of many of his parents' beliefs - this story is milk-and-cookies simple: pure and terrific.

The Prince of Frogtown, by Rick Bragg (Knopf, $25). Bragg offers the final volume in his family's trilogy. This time, he delves into the history of his father - a self- styled prince of a blue collar community who cut a brash figure before devolving into alcoholism - juxtaposing that story with his own struggles to be a good parent to his stepson.

The Sum of Our Days, by Isabel Allende (HarperCollins, $26.95). Allende's remarkable story continues to captivate as she offers this sequel to her best-selling memoir Paula. The author picks up the story 13 years later, chronicling the marriages, infidelities, joys and tragedies of her close-knit family and friends.

Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Life, Death and Politics, by Eleanor Clift (Perseus, $26). Raising questions about the choices we make surrounding death, the author recounts the passing of her husband, who had kidney cancer, and the demise of Terri Schiavo, who died one day later.

Unpacking the Boxes, by Donald Hall (Houghton Mifflin, $24). Poet Laureate Hall pauses, at 80, to look back on his New England childhood and writing career, offering anecdotes and insight that will charm anyone who enjoys the value of a thing worth saying, well said.

MUSIC

Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam, by Mark LeVine (Three Rivers Press, $13.95). LeVine, professor of Middle Eastern history and accomplished rock guitarist, takes readers into the thriving heavy metal, hip-hop and punk rock subcultures in places like Egypt and Iran, detailing the struggles of those who risk legal prosecution for pursuing their music.

POLITICS

The Great Derangement, by Matt Taibbi (Speigel & Grau, $24). An entertaining, often hilarious, skewer-all screed on the state of American politics, in which the author immerses himself in both the right and left extremes of the political spectrum.

Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership, by Madeleine Albright (Harper, $26.95). Lambasting President Bush for everything from the deployment of U.S. troops to the squandering of budget surpluses left him by President Clinton, the former secretary of state offers advice on how the next president can restore America's leadership in a world that has grown less willing to follow.

Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship, by Ken Silverstein (Random House, $24). In a fine example of muckraking journalism, Silverstein targets K Street lobbyists and PR flacks who promote any and all clients' interests. Faking business cards and a Web site for a fictitious group looking to hire a PR firm to clean up Turkmenistan's horrendous human-rights image, Silverstein shows how these groups' work filters into media seen around the world.

The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington, by David Sirota (Crown, $25.95). With great insider access to major players, Sirota reports on his year jetting around the country, talking to both the right and left wings of populist uprisings against the government.

The Wrecking Crew, by Thomas Frank (Metropolitan Books, $25). The author of What's the Matter With Kansas? masterfully details how a decade of conservative primacy has remade American government, and not for the better.

RELIGION/SPIRITUAL

Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life, by Kathleen Norris (Riverhead, $25.95). Best-selling author Norris combines a touching narrative about the heartaches she's confronted in her own life, including her husband's death, with a theological and psychological examination of the spiritual torpor known as acedia.

I Don't Believe in Atheists, by Chris Hedges (Free Press, $25). With inspired writing, the author blasts back at recent books attacking religion, claiming that their atheist authors are utopian dreamers who think humanity can achieve perfection - just like the religious fundamentalists they assail.

Nothing to be Frightened Of, by Julian Barnes (Knopf, $24). With a dazzling blend of wry humor, keen philosophy and perceptive observations, Barnes ruminates on life, death, family and faith, arguing the case for a god-less world.

When Men Become Gods: Mormon Polygamist Warren Jeffs, His Cult of Fear, and the Women Who Fought Back, by Stephen Singular (St. Martin's Press, $24.95). A look inside Warren Jeff's polygamist community, the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, and the many hypocrisies displayed by the tyrannical leader.

SOCIAL ISSUES

Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, by Paul A. Offit (Columbia University Press, $24.95). An expert in infectious diseases and vaccinations aims to reassure readers that vaccinations are not only safe but crucial to public health, contrary to the many reports he claims have been fabricated by unscrupulous doctors and lawyers linking vaccines to autism.

The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, by Steven Greenhouse (Knopf, $25.95). Investigative journalism at its finest, Greenhouse's book reports the bad news for workers on all fronts, including corporate crime, foundering unions and a job structure besieged by cheap foreign imports.

The Numerati, by Stephen Baker (Houghton Mifflin, $26). Baker offers an eye-opening account of how mathematicians and consultants are using the Internet's overwhelming wellspring of data to quantify every aspect of our lives.

The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal, by Mark Krikorian (Sentinel/Penguin, $25.95). The author makes a case for permanently reducing immigration, both legal and illegal, displaying rock-solid investigation and an honest evaluation of both sides of the argument.

Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, $27.99). The best-selling author of Blink and The Tipping Point sets out to explain why some people achieve success and others don't, concluding that sometimes personal circumstances or just plain luck make all the difference.

The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women, and the Real Gender Gap, by Susan Pinker (Scribner, $25). Pinker shows how and why gender differences influence career choices and ambition.

SPORTS

The Assist: Hoops, Hope and the Game of Their Lives, by Neil Swidey (PublicAffairs, $26). No formula story where everything leads up to "The Big Game" won in overtime, this book about a white coach of an all-back high school basketball team is an absorbing examination of at-risk youths who succeed against all odds.

Fool's Paradise, by John Gierach (Simon & Shuster, $24). The world's most popular fly-fishing guru takes readers along on his adventures, resulting in an amusing fishing travelogue punctuated with humor, insight, tips and witty musings .

Rome 1960: The Olympics that Changed the World, by David Maraniss (Simon & Schuster, $26). Maraniss recounts dramatic behind-the-scenes stories of an Olympics in which the U.S. and Soviet Union, immersed in the Cold War, went head to head in brutal competition for bragging rights about which produces the fastest, the strongest, the best.

TRAVEL

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux (Houghton Mifflin, $28). By rattletrap train, broken-down taxi and exhaust-coughing bus, Theroux re-creates the 28,000 mile trans-Asian journey he chronicled in 1975's The Great Railway Bazaar, taking readers not to mere places, but to regions in the mind they likely haven't known before.

God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre, by Richard Grant (Free Press, $15). Grant travels alone through Mexico's Sierra Madre mountain range - a place overrun with drug lords and violence - to bring readers a gonzo travelogue populated with every eccentric under the hot Mexican sun.

Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband and a Bus With a Will of Its Own, by Doreen Orion (Broadway Books, $13.95). The Boulder writer and self-professed "princess from the island of Long" humorously recounts her year traveling the country with her husband in a 345 square foot converted bus.

TRUE CRIME

Simon Says: A True Story of Boys, Guns, and Murder, by Kathryn Eastburn (Da Capo Press, $25). The gripping tale of a 2001 Colorado Springs' triple slaying orchestrated by high schooler Simon Sue and three of his classmates.

WORLD

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World, by Eric Weiner (Twelve, $25.99). A foreign correspondent with National Public Radio, disillusioned by his years covering war-torn regions, travels the world in search of its happiest places. The result is a collection of hilarious and poignant essays, in which he evaluates 10 different countries and infuses his work with studies on the psychology of happiness.

Out of Mao's Shadow, by Philip P. Pan (Simon & Schuster, $28). Former Washington Post Beijing bureau chief chronicles several brave, outspoken, everyday people who have pushed the limits for political change in China at great personal peril, offering a privileged inside look at the country as it emerges from Chairman Mao's totalitarian state.

MISCELLANEOUS

After the Fire: A True Story of Love and Survival, by Robin Gaby Fisher (Little, Brown, $24.95). With superb storytelling and reporting skills, Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger reporter Fisher tells the moving tale of two students who were burned eight years ago in a fire that raced through their freshmen dormitory at Seton Hall University, only to forge a remarkable friendship in the aftermath.

Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone, by Beth Lisick (HarperCollins, $24.95). Lisick, a woman whose life is often in disarray, spends a year following the guidance of high-profile self-help books and gurus, resulting in a funny, touching look at her experiences - including one laugh-out-loud moment involving fitness expert Richard Simmons.

The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, by Alexandra Fuller (Penguin, $23.95). A fond, intimate ode to the West, told in the story of a Wyoming man who barely finished high school and worked rodeos before scoring a high-paying job on an oil rig - where he fell to his death at age 25.

Letter to My Daughter, by Maya Angelou (Random House, $25). The esteemed author, poet and playwright shares lessons from her long and illustrious life in a collection of spellbinding essays on everything from the loveless sex that resulted in her greatest gift - the birth of her son - to posthumous tributes to civil rights activist Coretta Scott King and others.

Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), by Tom Vanderbilt (Knopf, $24.95). An exploration of what happens when we drive, and how traffic engineers, psychologists, statisticians and others try to understand what we do in order to make it safer.

X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything From Sucking, by Jeff Gordinier (Viking, $21.95). A fine, funny work that argues for the greatness of the generation that brought us Google and South Park.

Zen and Now: On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Mark Richardson (Knopf, $25). With his 42nd birthday approaching, Richardson hopped on his motorcycle and retraced the route author Robert Pirsig took 40 years ago. His book updates Pirsig's famous story, creating a page-turner in its own right.

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