nonfiction

“An astute testimony of a
regime grown intractably dastardly.”
from expelled
Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of Thrift Supervision,
sometimes-warring U.S. government agencies, as their top
executives argued whether WaMu could be saved. During that
debate, Jamie Dimon, chief executive at JPMorgan Chase, agreed
to purchase the diminishing nontoxic assets of WaMu.
A detailed, instructive account of a bank failure far
away from the power centers of New York City.
BETTER, STRONGER, FASTER
The Myth of American
Decline..and the Rise
of a New Economy
Gross, Daniel
Free Press (256 pp.)
$26.00 | May 8, 2012
978-1-4516-2128-0
Yahoo! Finance columnist and editor
Gross (Dumb Money: How Our Greatest
Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation, 2009,
etc.) confidently asserts that America is not in a terminal decline.
The author insists, against the naysayers, that the financial
rescue of 2009 actually worked. The private sector is restructuring,
the government has acted promptly and effectively, foreign investments
are still a factor and the country’s exports are in demand
around the world. To back his seemingly irrepressible optimism, he
provides plenty of evidence, often from his own travels and interviews.
Whether discussing “BigBelly,” an innovative solar-powered
trash compactor, or Wallquest, an international exporter of luxury
wallpapers, or GE’s thriving, export-driven, South Carolina–based
turbine production, the author is on the case. Gross writes that
proponents of decline believe that “all the structural forces transforming
the global economy are arrayed against us. But that’s not
true.” Unlike those who see China as a threat, the author examines
the transformation of America’s relationship with China, as U.S.
companies manufacture for consumption there. GM now produces
more vehicles there than it does here, and KFC boasts that
it is the “largest and fastest growing restaurant chain in mainland
China today.” Within the U.S., Gross highlights the development
of the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and looks at the international
role of higher education in America, along with the internationalization
of U.S. book publishing. The author recognizes that
his claims are not set in stone and can turn out differently, but he
does so without abandoning his underlying optimism. He is confident
outsourced jobs will soon begin to flow back into the U.S., and
he promotes investment in domestic infrastructure.
An upbeat account full of useful information.
MUD, SWEAT, AND TEARS
The Autobiography
Grylls, Bear
Morrow/HarperCollins (416 pp.)
$26.99 | May 1, 2012
978-0-06-212419-7
978-0-06-212414-2 e-book
The fearless host of Man vs. Wild
illustrates a highly spirited life.
Born in Britain in 1974, Edward Michael
Grylls (his sister nicknamed him “Bear,”
and it stuck) became heavily influenced by the strength and
resilience of his great-grandfather, a British officer during
World War I. His childhood memories include nervously anticipating
school grades and thriving amid the tireless support (but
limited attention) of two hardworking parents who urged him
to “follow your dreams and to look after your friends and family
along the way.” With unflagging confidence, Grylls (To My Sons:
Lessons for the Wild Adventure Called Life, 2012, etc.) satisfied his
adventurous side as a youth with frequent harrowing adventures
with his father, a Royal Marine, and developed physical stamina
in karate class, which tempered bouts of mischief. Grylls’ narrative
is bolstered by its heavily anecdotal form. The author’s
finely detailed account of a grueling, physically challenging stint
in the Special Air Services becomes surprisingly overshadowed
by the book’s centerpiece: the author’s arduous, three-month
group expedition at 23 to the crest of Mount Everest. Utilizing
skills polished in the British Army, he became one of the youngest
mountaineers to reach that summit, which begat lectures,
a deodorant commercial, appointment as the youngest ever
Chief Scout to the Scouting Association and eventual celebrity
status as an influential personality on the Discovery Channel
(Man vs. Wild receives only a few cursory, concluding chapters).
Grylls’ breezy account flows with the verve and uncomplicated
language of an engaging novel and forms a satisfying life story
brimming with excitement and adventuresome risk-taking.
An inside look at the makings of an intrepid, insatiable
explorer. (Three 8-page color photo inserts. Author tour to Denver,
Los Angeles, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle)
THE FATE OF THE SPECIES
Why the Human Race
May Cause Its Own Extinction
and How We Can Stop It
Guterl, Fred
Bloomsbury (224 pp.)
$25.00 | Jun. 1, 2012
978-1-60819-258-8
A fine scientific explanation of our
abuse of the natural world that, despite the
subtitle, does not explain how to stop it.
Scientific American executive editor Guterl begins by discussing
mass extinction, a process that has occurred half-a-dozen
times over life’s 2.5-billion-year history, eliminating up to 90
percent of species. The survivors thrived, and the current mass
extinction (already in progress) may not eliminate the human
species, but the consequences will be dismal. With frequent
detours into discussions of terrorism, the author describes the
science behind a dozen potential disasters provoked by a combination
of sheer human numbers and technological advances.
Deadly plagues are inevitable as microbes jump back and forth
between animals and humans; if these natural mutations don’t
produce a superbug, genetic engineering (perhaps by a clever
terrorist) might do the same. Guterl portrays global warming,
now under way, with vivid specifics on rising sea levels, melting
ice caps, vanishing fresh water and increasingly unstable
weather. Widespread famine predicted by doomsayers isn’t yet
happening, but food prices are rising. The obligatory hopeful
finale mentions eliminating carbon-based fuels, doing without
energy-consuming conveniences and living in harmony with
nature—though the author admits these measures are unlikely
to be undertaken. Dramatic advances in genetically engineered
plants and animals, atmospheric coolants, small-scale local,
energy-efficient agriculture and massive carbon-sequestration
will work when they arrive—but none have arrived yet.
Aside from too many lurid terrorist scenarios, this is
an intelligent account of the mess we are making of the
planet; the unsettling conclusion: that humans may survive
because we are resilient, not because we can fix matters.
EXPELLED
A Journalist’s
Descent into the
Russian Mafia State
Harding, Luke
Palgrave Macmillan (320 pp.)
$27.00 | May 22, 2012
978-0-230-34174-6
The Guardian’s former Moscow
bureau chief provides a firsthand account
of the kleptocratic spy state that is Vladimir
Putin’s Russia.
Prior to his posting in Moscow in 2007, British journalist
Harding was stationed in Berlin; in a final, chilling chapter of
this delineation of the pernicious post-Soviet security system,
he compares what he experienced with the spying and terror
routinely practiced by the former East Germany Stasi. Soon
after the author arrived in Moscow, the flat where he lived with
his wife and children was broken into, the window left open
and objects subtlety moved. This sneaky psychological exercise
would be repeated over the four years Harding managed to stick
it out, especially after he and his newspaper had revealed embarrassing
information about the corruption and repression practiced
by the Putin regime. The author knew the identities of the
“ghosts” who broke into his flat, bugged his phone and routinely
followed him, because he was summoned to Lefortovo prison
for interrogation by Russia’s Federal Security Service, the successor
to the KGB where Putin cut his teeth. Deemed an enemy
of the state, Harding was also in a unique position to observe up
close the machinations of Putin’s paranoid, anti-Western Russia,
run by siloviki, or “power guys” intent on protecting their
interests at all costs and repressing any opposition. The author
was on the frontlines of coverage of the Georgian insurrection
in 2008, the Chechen terrorist attacks in the Moscow metro of
2010 and the rise of anti-ethnic thuggery. He proves a keen, sensitive
chronicler of the growing chasm between Russia’s haves
and have-nots.
An astute testimony of a regime grown intractably dastardly.
LIFE EVERLASTING
The Animal Way of Death
Heinrich, Bernd
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (256 pp.)
$25.00 | Jun. 19, 2012
978-0-547-75266-2
Heinrich (Biology Emeritus/Univ. of
Vermont; The Nesting Season: Cuckoos, Cuckolds
and the Invention of Monogamy, 2010,
etc.) explores the taboos and relevance of
scavengers, the “life-giving links that keep
nature’s systems humming along smoothly.”
After a friend asked if he could be buried on the author’s
woodland property in Maine, he reexamined his curiosity with
the natural world: watching burying beetles for hours, sawing
through a log to track the progress of beetle larvae, tracking
and feeding local ravens. Heinrich presents five major sections
outlining how bodies and plants are recycled and broken down:
small to large (beetles to raptors and ravens to humans, the ultimate
recyclers), north to south (ravens to vultures and condors),
plant undertakers (tree borers to dung beetles), watery deaths
(salmon, whales and other marine species) and changes (metamorphosis
and death rituals). Above all, temperature affects
how and what breaks down carrion as the flies and insects of
summer are replaced by various birds in the winter. The author
also tracks how trees decompose, a process that often begins
before they die. Heinrich’s main strength is his narration of the
small stories—e.g., whale falls, dung beetles and ravens feeding.
As a warning, he notes that extinctions have hit animal undertakers
especially hard since vast herds of ungulates (deer, elk,
bison) are no longer available. Heinrich maintains a conversational
tone, but some of the chapters seem disparate, written
at different times with different audiences in mind. Helpful
author illustrations pepper the book.
If you can’t spend an afternoon watching beetles and
hearing Heinrich’s stories on how nature recycles its dead,
this book is the next best thing.
818 | 15 april 2012 | nonfiction | kirkusreviews.com |
| kirkusreviews.com | nonfiction | 15 april 2012 | 819