Authors/Books/Links
The Robert E. Shepard Agency is proud of its
authors and their accomplishments. Here's a list of many of the Agency's published
and forthcoming projects, plus some news about authors' current works in
progress. You may order any of the published books from your favorite
independent bookseller. (Don't know where to find one? Just click here!)
NEW AND
CLASSIC
Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded
A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008
by
John Scalzi
with
a foreword by Wil Wheaton
2009 Hugo
Award winner for Best Related Book
Since 1998, novelist John Scalzi's
blog Whatever has been one of the
Internet's most popular daily commentaries on contemporary life, politics,
science fiction—even cats. John's always brilliantly drawn essays range from
the witty "Unasked-for Advice to New Writers About Money" (essential
reading for all aspiring authors) to the nuanced and heartbreaking "The
Speckless Sky," written on September 12, 2001. Now, the first decade in
the life of this always-wise, surprising, and popular (45,000 daily visitors)
blog is at last available in one handy place, even if it is in the slightly older form of
paper and binding! Your
Hate Mail Will Be Graded won the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Related Workand has just been
released in paperback by Tor Books. It includes a foreword by actor and popular
blogger Wil Wheaton. John
Scalzi is one of the bestselling
science-fiction novelists in the United States--perhaps the universe--and
editions of his books have been published around the world. They include the
celebrated Old Man's War series, three of whose four titles were also Hugo Award nominees. A
John W. Campbell Award winner, his most recent novel is Zoe's Tale. The Agency is proud to represent
his non-fiction works, which include The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies and The Rough Guide to the Universe.
Crisis of Character
Building Corporate
Reputation in the Age of Skepticism
by Peter Firestein
Executives no longer operate with
complete independence, instead running companies that must listen to many
voices, from investors to NGOs to financial media, bloggers, their own
employees, and a public hungry for clarity. This is today's expanded group of
stakeholders--the influencers whose opinions can determine the destiny of any
corporation. Wise executives and boards of directors will seize opportunities
to make them partners and allies rather than critics and enemies. In Crisis of Character, Peter Firestein argues for listening to and
learning from these influencers. His Seven Strategies of Reputation Leadership
show executives, top managers, boards of directors, and consultants how to
implement practices and shape beliefs that will earn their companies valid,
valuable, and well-deserved reputations. A good reputation can't be built
overnight or invented by marketing campaigns; it must be built over time and earned. This guide, published by Union
Square Press, will help every company become more responsive to opportunities
in its environment-- and, most important, to the best ideas within its ranks. Peter Firestein is CEO of New York-based Global
Strategic Communications, Inc. and has been advising senior managers of
corporations and government bodies, both in the U.S. and abroad, for two
decades. Prior to founding his company in 2002, he led corporate consulting
groups for a dozen years. A professional writer and editor as well as a
business adviser, he also holds a degree in creative writing from Stanford
University. He and his family live in New York City.
The Foie Gras Wars
How a 5,000-Year-Old
Delicacy Inspired
The World's Fiercest Food
Fight
by Mark Caro
A Gourmand Award and Great
Lakes Book Award winner
"An admirably fair-minded
yet always engaging account from the front lines of the Culture War. . . a
must-have." --Anthony Bourdain,
chef and author of Kitchen Confidential
"Essential reading for
anyone who is interested in the ethics of using animals for food."--Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation and Animals Make us Human
When celebrity chef Charlie Trotter
stopped serving foie gras at his legendary Chicago restaurant, he inadvertently
triggered a controversy that engulfed chefs nationwide. The Foie Gras Wars
pitted animal rights activists against foie gras producers and politicians
against food writers, triggering a war of words, sabotage, and even death
threats (Trotter jokingly suggested eating the liver of one of his rivals). And
all because of a front page Chicago Tribune story by Mark Caro, which won a James Beard Foundation citation and
led to Chicago's landmark, on-again/off-again foie gras ban. Then the
controversy spread; similar legislation was introduced in New York, New Jersey,
Maryland, and California, where foie gras will be history by 2012, and
Philadelphia became another battleground, with activists picketing restaurants.
In The Foie Gras Wars, published by Simon &
Schuster, Caro expands on the darkly comic story of the battle to explore the
larger issues it raises. What's the significance of banning a dish that
relatively few people eat? Were foie gras ducks and geese being tortured, or
weren't they? And what did the French artisans who still produce foie gras the
traditional way have to say about the controversy playing out on our side of
the Atlantic? The Foie
Gras Wars picks up
where Fast Food Nation left off, an entertaining story that shows us not only how we decide
what to eat but why we so often look the other way when faced with inconvenient
truths about our food. Mark
Caro is an
award-winning reporter for the Chicago Tribune and was one of its two film
critics from 1995 to 2004. He lives near Chicago with his wife and their two
daughters.
The Audacity of Help
Obama's Economic Plan and
the Remaking of America
by John F. Wasik
From taxes to healthcare and
energy to education, President Obama's administration has begun one of the most
profound revisions of American economic policy since Franklin Roosevelt's New
Deal. In this first detailed examination and analysis of these dramatic
changes, published by Bloomberg Press late last year, veteran financial
columnist and investigative reporter John F. Wasik shows how the new programs are likely to affect the current economic
downturn, act to restore competitiveness and
stability, and alter the political landscape. His unique insights include a
discussion of how Obama's special brand of "social capitalism" may
prove adept at addressing short-term problems—but have more difficulty solving
such long-term issues as funding Social Security and Medicare and reforming
healthcare. John F. Wasik is a Chicago-based author and
journalist whose reporting has earned him 18 major awards. He is the author of
10 books, including many on the Agency's list, and his column for Bloomberg
News was read in more than 400 publications worldwide each week, including the Financial
Times.
Also recently published by John F. Wasik
John's
previous book, also published by Bloomberg in 2009, was The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome: Turning
Around the Unsustainable American Dream. In this heavily-quoted instant classic,
John takes on the mantra that said "buy bigger, consume more, move
farther out of town, and you'll live out the American Dream." This mythology, he
argues, resulted in the development of sprawling suburbs he calls
"spurbs"--sprawling regions of McMansions that became pockets of
unsustainable, economically and ecologically untenable development. They lay at
the heart of the recent mortgage meltdown, consuming precious resources and
even endangering our health. In this pithy work, John shows how the spurb came
about--and how a return to sensibly scaled living can bring us the true American Dream.
When the Rivers Ran Red
An Amazing Story of
Courage and Triumph in America's Wine Country
by Vivienne Sosnowski
"Intensely moving,
horrifying, and inspiring in turns . . . A beautifully written, deeply
researched story of liberty and tyranny, the love of life and the sickness of
its enemies --Hugh Johnson,
bestselling author of The World Atlas
of Wine and The Story of Wine
A San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller
and Gourmand Award winner
Newspaper editor Vivienne
Sosnowski
was pursuing her
avocation as a photographer when some of the most distinguished winemakers of
California's Sonoma County, many of them in their 90s, began describing their
families' struggles during Prohibition. The time had come, they'd decided, to
breach a decades-old code of silence and describe what really happened to
disturb the deceptive beauty and quiet of the Wine Country during those 14
difficult years. These families had carried a tradition of winemaking with them
from Italy in the late 19th century and were completely unprepared when
Prohibition came to California, then still a political backwater far from the
centers of power in the East. Faced with a devil's bargain--abandon wine but
face poverty, or make wine and risk jail--most families eventually chose the
latter course. Now Sosnowski brings their remarkable stories to light for the
first time in When the
Rivers Ran Red,
published in hardcover by Palgrave Macmillan with a new paperback edition to
come in September 2010. The winemakers were helped by unlikely allies,
including the Archbishop of San Francisco and Sonoma County's own sympathetic
law enforcement authorities. But while the Federal Prohibition forces were outnumbered
from the start, they still did tremendous damage to the wine business. The
winemakers told Sosnowski of helping to smuggle their parents' wine out of
Sonoma and Napa by night as teenagers, and of bribing jailers with bottles of
contraband brandy. In the tradition of Wine & War, this book not only reclaims an
exciting, untold episode in American history but delivers a cautionary tale
about a blundering political experiment gone awry. Vivienne Sosnowski, a longtime journalist in the U.S.
and Canada, is also a gifted photographer whose photo essay on winemakers hangs
permanently in the town hall of Healdsburg, in Sonoma County's Dry Creek
Valley. She lives in Vancouver, BC and Northern California.
Big Boy Rules
America's Mercenaries
Fighting in Iraq
by Steve Fainaru
Pulitzer Prize winner for
international reporting
"Steve Fainaru tells a
story that is at the heart of the war in Iraq: the U.S. military's
unprecedented reliance on mercenaries. It is a dark tale that until now has
remained largely untold, and is related brilliantly here. To understand this
war, you must read this book." --Thomas
E. Ricks, author of Fiasco
Steve Fainaru's 2008 Pulitzer Prize was a
landmark in an already-illustrious career as a journalist. So is Big Boy Rules (Da Capo Press), now available in
paperback and one of the definitive books to emerge from America's adventure in
Iraq. Fainaru describes the dangerous, poignant, often insane and always
fascinating lives of men who have become known as "security
contractors," Americans who have traded the safety of home for the
unpredictability of life in Iraq. No one knows exactly how many of these
mercenaries are at work, but they have become an alternative army, and they
approach their work with different motivations: some for money, some to leave
behind lives of failure and confusion, and some because they actually like
shooting people. Steve joined a group of contractors on the highways of Iraq as
they went about their business--which frequently included standing in for our
regular military in places the generals have judged too dangerous for ordinary,
sane soldiers. Along the way, though, he found the humanity--and even the dark
humor--of these least-described men on America's frontline in Iraq. Like Fight
Club mixed with Band
of Brothers, Big Boy Rules is a powerful, shocking
vivid, strange, and sometimes strangely funny narrative about American men on
the fringes of war--and just plain on the fringes. Steve
Fainaru is a reporter for The Washington Post. In addition to the 2008 Pulitzer
Prize for Investigative Reporting, he is the winner of the Hal Boyle Award from
the Overseas Press Club. He wrote previously for The Boston Globe, and was the co-author of The
Duke of Havana
(Villard, 2001) about baseball in Cuba.
In the Court of Public Opinion
Winning Strategies for Litigation
Communications
by
James F. Haggerty
Revised Second Edition
Nearly
a quarter of America’s companies are sued every year. Whether they win or lose depends
increasingly on how they manage public relations, yet most companies fail to
approach legal PR as a business issue. The first book for business owners,
corporate communications specialists, lawyers, and analysts on handling media
and other public attention that accompany high-stakes litigation, In the Court of Public Opinion has now been revised and expanded to
include the latest developments win blogging and social media--critical tools
that may make or break public perceptions of companies and influence the
outcome of litigation. The Second Edition has just been published by the
American Bar Association. James F. Haggerty
is an attorney, writer, and CEO of the New York-based PR Consulting Group, an
internationally recognized leader in public relations around legal issues and
litigation.
A Few Seconds of Panic
A Sportswriter Plays in
the NFL
by Stefan
Fatsis
"A smart, funny, and relentlessly entertaining look at the strange, scary world of professional football" --Will Leitch, author of God Save the Fan and editor of Deadspin
In his last narrative work, Stefan
Fatsis immersed himself in the surprisingly dark world of obsessive Scrabble
players and chronicled his journey in the international bestseller Word
Freak. In A Few Seconds of Panic, he turns to a very different kind
of game--pro football--and puts both mind and body to an incredible test:
rebuilding his body and training with the NFL Denver Broncos to become a
pro-grade kicker. He's unlike his teammates in some ways, but remarkably like
them in many others, risking crippling injury, enduring the hazing that befalls
all rookies, and slogging through twice-daily practices in blistering heat. And
he begins to think like one of them, as well. Along the way, he finds out about
a remarkable community of players who are seldom seen by fans: the kickers who
enter the gridiron to do one thing and must do it perfectly every single time.
Not since George Plimpton's Paper Lion, more than 40 years ago, has an author tunneled so
deeply into the NFL, a league much transformed in the decades since that
classic book. With wry candor and hard-won empathy, A Few Seconds of Panic reveals the mindset of the modern
pro athlete and the workings of a storied sports franchise. Stefan Fatsis is a regular sports commentator on
National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" and on Slate.com's
"Hang Up and Listen" podcast. He has also been a commentator on ESPN,
and formerly wrote for the Wall Street Journal covering the business of sports.
In addition to Word Freak, he is previously the author of Wild and Outside.
Art Deco San Francisco
The Architecture of Timothy Pflueger
by Therese Poletti
An elegant homage to one of the
West Coast's greatest 20th century architects, Art Deco San Francisco: The
Architecture of Timothy Pflueger was published in 2008 by Princeton Architectural Press.
Curiously missing from architectural literature until now, Timothy Pflueger
(1894-1946) was a defining force in building modern San Francisco. His famous buildings
include the palatial Castro Theater (1922) and many other major movie houses,
and his skyscrapers are among the best known on the San Francisco skyline. They
include the Pacific Telephone tower, the 1928 "doctors' tower" at 450
Sutter Street, and the luxurious Pacific Stock Exchange Tower. It is a
testament to Pflueger's versatility and genius that so many of his projects
still exist. One need only drive over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge,
America's busiest toll crossing to this day, to understand Pflueger's
indispensability. Some of his constructions are sadly lost, including the fantasia
of the San Francisco World's Fair of 1939-40 and the St. Francis Hotel's Patent
Leather Bar, but they survive in photographs by Ansel Adams, among others, that
are featured in this lavish book, which is enhanced by Tom Paiva's magnificent
photographs and many rare archival illustrations. Therese Poletti is an award-winning technology columnist for
Marketwatch.com and previously wrote for the San Jose Mercury News. In her spare time, she gives
architectural walking tours of San Francisco. She holds a master's degree from
the Columbia University School of Journalism and lives in San Francisco.
The Rough Guide to
Climate Change
2nd Edition
by Robert
Henson
"Scientifically
up-to-date and clearly written, this courageous book cuts through mystery and
controversy to explain climate change for readers who prefer facts."--Richard
Somerville, Distinguished Professor, Scripps Institute of Oceanography
A worldwide bestseller now in its 2nd
Edition (with a new 3rd Edition to be released this summer), The Rough Guide to Climate Change provides a complete and unbiased guide to one of the most
pressing problems we face. From the current situation and background science to
possible solutions, this book covers the whole subject, including visible
symptoms of climate change, what computer simulations reveal about our past,
present, and future climates, what the skeptics say and their grounds for
disagreeing with the scientific majority, and that most basic subject of all:
how global warming really works. The book not only reviews the last several
decades of media coverage of this complex set of issues, separating fact from
fiction, but also describes what governments and scientists are doing to try
and solve the problem. The guide also includes advice for consumers who want to
make a reduce their own carbon footprint, and comes complete with a glossary of
websites for further information. The original edition of The Rough Guide to Climate Change was shortlisted for the
prestigious Royal Society Prize for Science Books, and achieved further
notoriety in 2007, when more than half the British House of Commons (including
then-Prime Minister Tony Blair and Conservative Party leader David Cameron)
responded to surveys on global warming that had accompanied copies of the book
sent to them by the publisher. Robert
Henson, a meteorologist by training, is also a writer/editor
at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado,
one of the world's premier centers of weather research.
Also by Robert Henson
Robert Henson's other Rough Guides title is The Rough Guide to
Weather, whose second edition was published in
2008. This spring, the American Meteorological Society will publish a
long-awaited revised and expanded edition of his classic history of television
weathercasting, Weather on the Air.
Find Your Focus Zone
by Lucy Jo
Palladino, Ph.D.
".
. . a roadmap for eliminating the bombardment of daily distractions and
focusing on the things that matter most to you, whether that be running a
marathon, running a business, running a family, or just plain running your
life."--Dean Karnazes, author of Ultramarathon
Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner
Lucy Jo Palladino, Ph.D.'s latest book is for and about the
millions of people--just about all of us--who must fight to pay attention in a
world full of distractions, from digital gadgets and the Internet to the usual
background noise in our homes and offices. In Find Your Focus Zone: An Effective New
Plan to Defeat Distraction and Overload (published by Free Press), Dr.
Palladino distills the latest research and makes the best new psychological
tools accessible to everyone. She provides eight "keychains" that
will help you find your personal focus zone by developing new emotional,
mental, and behavior skills--plus the three keys that will help you unlock your
potential in each of these areas. Imagine feeling confident that when
co-workers interrupt your work, ads pop-up on your computer screen, and
impulses jump into your brain, you'll still stay focused and get your work done
on time. Find Your Focus
Zone will help you
beat procrastination and tackle even boring jobs; overcome obstacles and finish
what you start; prevent overwhelm and burnout; build trust in your close
relationships; boost your self-confidence; and increase your efficiency and
effectiveness--all by paying better attention Envision taking charge of the way
others see you, because you have more awareness of how you look to them! Learn
more at Dr. Palladino's website, www.yourfocuszone.com, for more
helpful advice, updates on Dr. Palladino's speaking engagements, and much more!
The Rough Guide to Jimi
Hendrix
by Richie
Unterberger
This latest title by longtime Agency author and
notable music historian Richie Unterberger
is the definitive guide to rock's greatest guitar virtuoso. From the early
Seattle days to world stardom, this book explores all aspects of a genuine rock
legend, whose posthumous reputation has only continued to grow. It covers
Hendrix's childhood and army service, early session work with the Isley
Brothers, Little Richard, and others, and the glory years. In includes a
complete guide to all of the studio and live albums, side projects,
compilations, and 30 essential Hendrix songs... and much more. Author and
researcher Richie Unterberger is based
in the San Francisco Bay Area and is the author of several books on the
Agency's list.
Also by Richie Unterberger
Richie Unterberger's books about popular music include The
Unreleased Beatles, Turn! Turn! Turn! and Eight Miles High: Folk-Rock's Flight from
Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock. On
the Agency's list, he is also the author of The Rough Guide to Shopping
With a Conscience, Urban Spacemen and Wayfaring Strangers, and The Rough Guide to Music USA, and co-author of The Rough Guide
to Seattle.
Night Draws Near
by Anthony
Shadid
Pulitzer Prize winner
for international reporting
Winner of the Los
Angeles Times Book Prize
"No
one writing about Iraq today understands that tormented country and its people
better than Anthony Shadid. Night Draws Near tells a timeless and powerful story of individuals caught
in war's crossfire."--Rick Atkinson, author of In the Company of Soldiers and the Pulitzer
Prize-winning An Army at Dawn
Anthony Shadid's courageous reports
from Iraq earned him the Pulitzer Prize and a place as one of America's most
distinguished foreign correspondents. In Night Draws Near, he brings life to the stories of ordinary Iraqis forced
to cope with or succumb to dictatorship, war, and an uncertain future. From
Karima, a widowed mother of eight sending her last son off to battle to Amal,
her 14-year-old daughter, whose tattered diary is perhaps as powerful and
poignant as that of Anne Frank, to Nasir, a government "minder"
appointed by Saddam Hussein's government to watch over Anthony who later turns
renegade, these vivid characters humanize a city and a people who have been
known to Americans only in caricature, as well as capturing the heart of a
drama characterized in part by amgibuity. Honest, powerful, at times personal
and always emotionally engaged, Night Draws Near, like Steve Fainaru's Big Boy
Rules (above) is
one of the definitive works to have emerged from the collision between America
and Iraq. Anthony Shadid is a foreign correspondent for The New York Times and formerly reported for The
Washington Post
and The Boston Globe. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and many other
prizes, he is also the author of Legacy of the Prophet: Despots, Democrats, and the New Politics
of Islam (Westview/Basic
Books, 2002). A native of Oklahoma, he continues to report from the Middle
East.
About the author . . . Anthony Shadid
Night Draws Near, published by Henry Holt in hardcover and in a Picador
paperback, won the prestigious Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Issues
and the Ron Ridenhour Book Prize. It was also a nominee for the National Book
Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Piemme
published the Italian edition. Anthony Shadid is now at work on a new book
about his family's ancestral town in Lebanon and the changing state of Arab
identity, to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt next year.
Women of Valor
The Rochambelles on the
WWII Front
by Ellen
Hampton, Ph.D.
Their
formal name was the Rochambeau Group, but to history they've always been the Rochambelles. The story of these courageous women, ambulance
drivers who risked their lives in World War II, deserves to be famous--and
receives its chance in Women of Valor. The
Rochambelles owed their existence to Florence Conrad, a wealthy American who
had served during the First World War and lived in France during the
all-to-brief decades of peace that followed. When war came again to Europe and
Conrad was forced to return home, she decided to create an all-female ambulance
corps, convincing the U.S. military to train them; she provided their
ambulances and uniforms herself. The Rochambelles served with distinction
through the end of the war, the first women to be part of an armored combat
unit, becoming celebrated heroes in France but remaining virtually unknown in
the U.S. Women of Valor,
published by Palgrave Macmillan,
tells their often death-defying story
and is a vivid chronicle of women, each of them an outstanding character, who
served heroically alongside their male comrades. Be sure to visit Ellen Hampton's
Rochambelles website. Ellen Hampton, Ph.D. was previously a journalist for Cox newspapers and
covered, among other stories, the conflicts in Central America in the 1980s.
She holds a doctorate in history and lives outside Paris with her husband and
family.
Wine & War
The
French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure
by Don
and Petie Kladstrup
"An incredible tale"--Dominique LaPierre, author of Is Paris Burning?
"An engrossing addition to the popular
literature of WWII--and a treat for oenophiles as well."--Kirkus
Reviews
A classic work of popular history, Wine & War was tailor-made for at least three different audiences: those
interested in World War II, in France and in wine. It went straight to national
bestseller lists when it was published 
by Broadway Books/Random House in 2001, and now has
over 140,000 copies in print in the U.S. alone; it has been published in 10
countries. This is the "homefront" story of French winemakers as they
struggled to keep their business, and the heritage it represented, alive during
their country's occupation. As France surrendered in 1940, the nation's
winemakers scrambled to save their vineyards, wineries, and most distinguished
wines, resorting to tactics Janet Flanner once aptly called "hiding,
fibbing, and fobbing off." For this gripping narrative, the Kladstrups
interviewed surviving vignerons
and their children, as well as the children of German officers, learning how
Paris restaurateurs hid priceless wines behind hastily constructed walls
(covered with dust and cobwebs to look old), winemakers hid Jewish neighbors,
refugees, and partisans, and German weinfuehrers appointed to oversee the industry in some cases
colluded with the French to save the business. There were traitors, too,
collaborators with the Nazis who paid with their lives and reputations after
the war. Now in its 14th U.S. printing, Wine
& War has also
been published in the UK, France, Germany, Brazil, Japan, the Netherlands,
South Korea, Spain, and Sweden. Don Kladstrup,
one of America's most distinguished
news correspondents, reported for ABC News and, previously, CBS News, winning
three Emmy Awards, the du Pont Columbia Award, and many others. He and his
wife, the award-winning journalist Petie
Kladstrup, divide their time
between Normandy and Paris
Also by Don and Petie Kladstrup
The Kladstrups are also the authors of Champagne:
How the World's Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times published in hardcover by William Morrow and in paperback
by Harper Perennial. The book was named a New York Times "Editors' Choice." We
associate champagne with celebration and camaraderie, but both the wine and the
region have known tremendous hardship, from revolution to war. the First World
War virtually destroyed the region's wine center, Reims, driving most of the
population underground to live in the very caves where champagne has been aging
for centuries. This celebrated
wine's extraordinary history more than fills the pages of this justly praised
book, which has been published in many countries.
COMING
SOON
Super
Competent
The
Six Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best
by Laura Stack,
the Productivity Pro
Even if the
recession is behind us, the new corporate mantra is "buckle down." In
this back-to-basics climate, quality again trumps quantity and doing a good job
is paramount. That means being not just competent but supercompetent—able to survive and thrive in your work when
all those around you are struggling. And that's the subject of Laura Stack's
next book, due this spring from John Wiley & Sons. The good news is that competence isn't in the genes, but
something we can all learn. The key is mastering six traits: Connection,
Decisiveness, Effort, Consistency, Productivity, and Personal Responsibility.
When we do, we can move from the "zero thinking" of the average
performer to the "hero thinking" of the supercompetent professional.
Who better than Laura Stack to show us how? The Vice President of the National
Speakers Association and bestselling author of five books, including Leave the Office Earlier and, most recently, The
Exhaustion Cure, Laura
addresses major corporate and organizational audiences more than 120 days a
year. She has been a corporate spokesperson for Microsoft, 3M, and DayTimers,
for whom she developed a line of time-management tools. The president of the
Denver-based time-management training company The Productivity Pro, Inc., she
is author or co-author of five books. Her newsletter is read by subcsribers in
38 countries.
Also by Laura Stack:
In her bestselling Leave the
Office Earlier, Laura Stack introduced a vital,
lifetime-learning approach to using time more productively in the workplace.
With Laura's help, you can tailor a program that works best for you, Leave
the Office Earlier
has been published in
Italy, Japan, the U.K., Korea, China and Taiwan. Turning next to the "home
front" in Find More Time, Laura
tackled household timewasters that rob us of the precious hours we need for
ourselves, our families, and even volunteer work. Where to get the energy for
all of this work and fun? The Exhaustion Cure will show you how (see below).
BACKLIST
HIGHLIGHTS
Word
Freak
In
the justly praised national bestseller Word
Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive
Scrabble Players, Stefan Fatsis
recounts his remarkable rise through the ranks of elite Scrabble players while
exploring the game's strange, potent hold over them--and him. The most talented
players of this classic game, a fixture in more than 30 million American homes,
inhabit a sphere far removed from the masses of "living room
players." Theirs is a surprisingly diverse subculture that is often funny
but at other times quite dark and even addictive. In the course of this
brilliant narrative, published in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin and in a
Penguin paperback that is now in its 13th printing, Fatsis is
transformed from a journalist on the outside, looking in, to one of the
denizens of this strange world--someone who memorizes thousands of obscure
words and fills his evenings with solo Scrabble played on his living room floor
so he can begin to compete with the world's best players at tournaments. Stefan
Fatsis is also the author of Wild and
Outside: How a Renegade Minor League Revived the Spirit of Baseball in
America's Heartland (Walker,
1995) and A Few Seconds of Panic (see above).
Return of the Condor
The
California condor lives 50 years or more, can fly 150 miles in a day, often
mates for life, and was believed by Native Americans to have supernatural
powers. But its strength and endurance were not enough to save it from
near-extinction. The race to save North America's largest bird is at the heart
of Return of the Condor, author and naturalist John Moir's riveting narrative about the effort to save this
magnificent species. Human greed and ignorance caused the condor's decline;
human ingenuity and insight became its only hope. Down to only 22 individuals
by the 1980s, the condor owes its survival and recovery to a team of scientists
who flouted conventional wisdom and pursued the most controversial means to
save it. Moir puts a human face on the dramatic rescue effort but also makes
some of the individual condors central characters. For anyone who has been able
to see a condor in the air, there can be no doubt that the sacrifices of the
humans and birds responsible for so much progress were worth recounting in this
classic, published by Lyons Press. John Moir
is an award-winning author, journalist, and science educator who recently won
the Writer's Digest magazine grand prize for his article "Condors in a
Coalmine?" He and his family live in Northern California.
Audubon himself would be delighted to
read John Moir's exciting and authoritative account of the difficult,
politically fraught, but ultimately rewarding effort to save the largest of all
the living birds, a great shadow in the sky above the Western range. I
certainly was. --Pulitzer
Prize winner Richard Rhodes, author of John James Audubon: The Making of an American
The Exhaustion Cure
If you're like millions
of people, you get home from a long day with barely enough energy to lift the remote
control. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that fatigue and
lack of energy affect more than 14 million otherwise-healthy people in the
prime of life. Just think of all the wonderful business and personal goals
people could accomplish if they only had the energy to get up and go! The Exhaustion Cure (Broadway Books/Random House) was
written for people who have too much to do and not enough energy to do it. It
shows us how to eliminate the "energy bandits" that trip us up in all
aspects of our lives, from our diets and work schedules to our relationships
and leisure time. Then, we can at last find the energy we need to attain a full
and productive lifestyle-- in 21 days! Anyone who must be productive, in any
arena, will benefit from this upbeat book, from professionals to stay-at-home
parents to retirees and college students. Laura Stack, The
Productivity Pro is
addresses scores of corporate and organizational audiences a year on energy,
time management, and efficiency issues. See also Supercompetent, above, and learn more at Laura's
website, www.theproductivitypro.com.
American
Band
Every year, three million teenagers take part in a
unique American tradition, playing and marching in high school bands. The best,
as Kristen Laine shows in American
Band, published in
hardcover and paperback by Gotham Books, are serious in a way few of us
appreciate. They spend all year preparing to compete against each other before
expert judges, for state titles and national championships, striving for an
almost unreachable ideal. And nowhere is "band" more serious than at
Concord High School in Elkhart, Indiana, where the entire community is involved
in the success of the defending state champions, and the band director
demands--and gets--perfection. In the state where high school bands may have
originated, in the city that was the "band instrument capital of the
world," band is almost a religion, and not the only religion in Kristen
Laine's powerful, emotional narrative. American
Band, which won the PEN/New England Winship Award, is about
the profound and changing role faith plays in a typical heartland community,
and about how "ordinary" teenagers and adults can be anything but ordinary. Kristen Laine is a writer, editor, and Indiana native who returned to her home state
after 25 years to research this book. A graduate of Radcliffe College and the
University of Wisconsin, she is a regular contributor to Vermont Public Radio,
and lives with her husband and children in western New Hampshire. Read more
about American Band, including photos and music, at www.americanbandbook.com.
"American Band has everything
going for it, from tempo to heart to the grand bittersweet finale. What a gift
for readers: a pitch-perfect tribute to kids and song and community."--Madeleine
Blais, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle
Your
Symptoms are Real
Benjamin
H. Natelson, M.D. is the nation's leading expert on a group of
"unexplained illnesses" that plague 5 million American patients a
year--patients who are frustrated when they receive a diagnosis of
"there's nothing wrong with you" from specialist after specialist.
Most of these patients are women, and the epidemic of discomfort caused by
chronic fatigue, pain, difficulty concentrating, poor sleep, and other symptoms
now accounts for nearly a quarter of all visits to doctors. In Your Symptoms are Real: What to Do When Your Doctor
Says Nothing Is Wrong, Dr. Natelson shares the techniques he has used to help more than 1500
of his own patients feel better. He shows readers how to communicate with
doctors in the most effective way, explains what doctors really know about
symptoms that don't fit the textbook definitions for CFS, Fibromyalgia, and
other often-misdiagnosed illnesses, and shows how the symptoms for these and
other conditions frequently overlap, leading doctors astray. He shares a
comprehensive program of exercise, coaching, stress reduction, and sleep
improvement. In one of the book's most significant departures, he takes his
colleagues to task for failing to respond adequately to patients' needs.
Published by John Wiley & Sons. Benjamin Natelson,
M.D. is professor of neurology
at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and director of the Pain
& Fatigue Study Center at Beth Israel Medical Center. A graduate of the
University of Pennsylvania and its medical school, he is the author of two
previous books.
The
Merchant of Power
Samuel Insull is one of the most fascinating
characters in American business history, an English waif who talked his way
across the Atlantic and into a job with his boyhood idol, Thomas Edison. In The Merchant of Power, award-winning author and journalist John F. Wasik
tells the extraordinary rags-to-riches-to-rags story of this brilliant, largely
misunderstood business leader. Insull became Edison's trusted secretary and
rescued the inventor's notoriously ill-managed businesses from bankruptcy. It
was Insull who consolidated Edison's companies into the giant General Electric
Company. From his Chicago base, he later came to control a third of the
nation's electric power. More than a tycoon, Insull believed in electricity's
power to liberate the masses and set himself to revolutionizing the American
city. But the Great Depression proved Insull's undoing, and he died penniless
in a Paris exile after trying to make good on his debts. His remarkable rise
and fall is the subject of this wonderful biography, published by Palgrave
Macmillan. John F. Wasik is the author of 10 books, including The Audacity of Help and The Cul-de-Sac
Syndrome (see above). A
journalist who has won 18 major prizes for his work, he has written for
Bloomberg News and edited Consumers Digest magazine.
The
Government Manual for New Pirates
Avast,
ye landlubbers! Matthew David Brozik and Jacob
Sager Weinstein have done it
again, publishing the third title in their much-loved series of Government
Manuals. The
Government Manual for New Pirates (like the Government Manuals for new superheroes and wizards, before it) supplies
you with all the information you'd want if the government actually
furnished free consumer information on these subjects. Lest you be set upon by
buccaneers even more dauntless than you are, this whimsical manual takes you on
an ocean-by-ocean tour of all the pirate hotspots in the world. Along the way,
you'll learn everything you need to know about pirate fashion, choosing and
naming your ship, dealing with denizens of the deep (from sharks to Godzilla),
and even favorite (and not so favorite) pirate chanteys. All three titles are
published by Andrews McMeel. Matthew David Brozik is
an attorney and writer whose fiction has appeared in such publications as McSweeney's,
Sycamore Review, Spout Magazine, Sidewalks, and Barbaric Yawp. A
former standup comedian who edges ever closer to being a terrific novelist, he
lives on Long Island. Jacob Sager Weinstein
was an award-winning writer for HBO's
"Dennis Miller Live" and a contributing editor to the Washingtonian
magazine. A full-time writer and screenwriter, he lives in
London with his wife and daughter.
When
Illness Goes Public
Steve McQueen's high profile cancer battle and sad end changed the way the public perceived a dreaded disease and its treatment, and is just one of the stories of celebrity illness that Barron H. Lerner, M.D. examines in When Illness Goes Public, published in hardcover and paperback by Johns Hopkins University Press and his first book since the celebrated The Breast Cancer Wars. Lerner describes the evolution of celebrities' illnesses from private matters to stories of great public interest, tracing the rise of patient activism in line with an evolution in the way the media have covered sickness and treatment over the past 70 years. Marrying great storytelling with an exploration of the intersection of science, journalism, fame, and legend, this book is a groundbreaking contribution to our understanding of health and illness. Barron H. Lerner is a physician and the Angelica Berrie-Gold Foundation Associate Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Columbia University. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Science Times section.
The
Root of Wild Madder
The intricate weaves of Persian carpets tell us a
great deal about the people who made them. Persian rugs, Brian Murphy tells us, carry with them centuries of stories, the dreams and
aspirations of families, and even, according to some, the souls of those who
once owned them. They signify the human search for a perfection we can never
quite achieve. In The Root of Wild Madder, published by Simon & Schuster in hardcover and
paperback, Brian introduces us to the weavers (often girls, who create some of
the carpets for their dowries), the "mules" who move them from place
to place, the tradesmen who sell them in the bazaars of Tehran and Isfahan, and
the poets who write about them. He shows
us how to look at carpets in a new way, understanding not only how we value
them, but how their creators valued them. Brian
Murphy, international religion
reporter of the Associated Press and formerly AP bureau chief in Athens, is one
of the only American journalists who reports regularly from Iran and other
central Asian countries. He reported previously from Rwanda and from Rome.
Also by Brian Murphy:
In The New Men, (Putnam/Riverhead, 1998), Brian Murphy describes a year
in the life of a prestigious but little known college in the shadow of the
Vatican, where 40 young men from the United States prepare to become the
leaders of their Church. What they learn about themselves, their chosen
profession, and the collision between American values and their faith is at the
heart of this remarkable book.
Coal:
A Human History
Barbara Freese was an
assistant attorney general of the State of Minnesota when she became interested
in humanity's long history of interaction with coal. The result is Coal: A Human History, a bestselling work of science, history, and literature
that was hailed as "engrossing and sometimes stunning" by The New
York Times Book Review. For all its
humble origins, coal remains the main energy source for our televisions,
computers, and other conveniences of modern life, and the age-old problems
associated with it have only grown more serious. For 700 years, coal has
redefined the way people live. From 16th century England (where
Queen Elizabeth complained about the smell and soot produced by coalburning) to
the Industrial Revolution in America to China in our own time, coal has been a
major player in world events, but different societies have dealt with its
effects--both positive and negative--in very different ways. Published by
Perseus in hardcover and Penguin in paperback, Coal:
A Human History makes a
complex topic fascinating for all of us. It has also been published in the UK,
Taiwan, and China.
Veering
Right
President George W. Bush methodically manipulated the law to
deliver for right-wing political and social causes, frequently under a veil of
secrecy. In this searing indictment of Bush Administration policy (from
national security and defense to taxes, trade, and privacy), originally
published in hardcover in 2004 and in paperback two years later (both by the
University of California Press), law professor Charles Tiefer argued that
Bush’s two terms would permanently alter policy on behalf of groups that most Americans
considered too extreme. Charles Tiefer is Professor of Law at the University of
Baltimore. He was Solicitor of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1984 to
1995 and, previously, General Counsel of the United States Senate. The author
of three previous books, he lives near Washington,
"An impressive work of
argumentation."
--Kirkus.
The Biotech Investor
Award-winning
San Francisco Chronicle reporter
Tom Abate is one of the nation's most influential observers of the biotechnology
industry. In The Biotech Investor (Henry
Holt & Co.) he provides the most comprehensive overview ever undertaken of
this cutting-edge industry, giving investors the analytical foundation to
understand the science, finances, time horizons, and technical and commercial
potential of biotechnologies. From learning how to anticipate the impact of
drug trials to understanding the role of the FDA approval process and how to
analyze the patent protection strength of new ventures, investors will find the
information they need to make smart decisions. They'll also learn all about the
structures and directions of one of the world's most fascinating
industries--one that trumps other technology sectors by producing products
people absolutely need.
Mumford
on Modern Art in the 1930s
Robert Wojtowicz is one
of the nation's leading experts on the life and work of Lewis Mumford
(1895-1990), the great urbanist, critic, social commentator, and National Book
Award winning author. One of Mumford's early and little-known literary
achievements, however, was a set of reviews he wrote for The New Yorker magazine between 1932 and 1937, under the heading
"The Art Galleries." In Mumford on
Modern Art in the 1930s, published
by the University of California Press in hardcover and paperback, Robert
Wojtowicz gathers the best of these more than 40 reviews, which chronicled the
arrival of art by some of the era's most distinguished contemporary artists.
Mainly centered on the art galleries of New York, but also covering Mumford's
travels in Europe, these engaging reviews capture a time when Matisse was still
considered modern and Georgia O'Keeffe was just rising to prominence. Robert Wojtowicz, Ph.D. is Associate Dean and Professor of Art History at Old
Dominion University in Virginia, and literary executor of the Mumford estate.
Also edited by Robert Wojtowicz
Mumford on Modern Art in the 1930s is the second of two Mumford collections deriving from
the urbanist's long association with The New Yorker. Prof. Wojtowicz also edited Sidewalk
Critic: Lewis Mumford's Writings on New York (published in hardcover and paperback by Princeton
Architectural Press), which The New York Times named on of the top 10 architecture
books of 1998. This time spanning the 1930s and 40s, the book includes
Mumford's reviews of iconic New York buildings of the period. Also see Frank
Lloyd Wright and Lewis Mumford, below.
Frank
Lloyd Wright and Lewis Mumford
Bruce
Brooks Pfeiffer and Robert Wojtowicz have co-edited this superb volume, a major addition to
the literature on two of the 20th century's leading figures in
architecture and criticism. Over the course of three decades, these two
fascinating men exchanged sometimes warm, sometimes vituperative
letters--collected here for the first time--that are sure to be enlightening
and enjoyable not only to scholars but also to general readers interested in
the lives and work of both men. Bruce Brooks
Pfeiffer is vice president of
the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, headquartered at Taliesin West in
Scottsdale, Arizona, and head of its archives, as well as the author of
numerous books and articles about Wright. Robert
Wojtowicz (see also above) is
the literary executor of the Lewis Mumford estate, and teaches at Old Dominion
University.
The
Rough Guide to the Universe and
The
Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies
John M. Scalzi has the distinction of being equally at home as a writer in both the
electronic and print realms--and of having a remarkable command of subjects as
diverse as science fiction, astronomy, and the craft of writing (see Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded, above). So it's especially appropriate that he wrote a
book with the intriguingly all-encompassing title of The Rough Guide to the Universe,
a comprehensive guide to
astronomy that is now available in a revised, second edition. This book will
delight novice and accomplished space enthusiast, alike. Loaded with star charts
and dazzling illustrations, it traces the history of people's fascination with
the night sky--and the history of the universe, itself. It describes the sun,
moon, Earth and other planets, and such heavenly bodies and phenomena as
comets, meteors, asteroids, nebulas, and supernovas, and provides resources on
telescopes and other tools. There's even a complete guide to planetariums,
observatories, and places where the sky is especially dark at night. Nor is it
a major leap from there to John's The Rough Guide
to Sci-Fi Movies. With
background and capsule reviews of hundreds of sci-fi movies from around the
world, this comprehensive guide is a must for any fan of the genre that will
far surpass guides that merely summarize plotlines. It includes a complete
history of sci-fi on film, talks about what's real and not-so-real in the
science, and even devotes an entire chapter to aliens.