Thursday, May 8, 2014

New Adult Nonfiction - May 8, 2014

Rage: The Legend of "Baseball Bill" Denehy by Bill Denehy and Peter Golenbock

Bill Denehy was at the top of his game... until he threw a pitch that changed the course of his life. A home-run bio about a gifted pitcher whose National League career held promise until a hard slider to Willie Mays injured his shoulder, Rage chronicles Denehy's injury-plagued career in major league baseball and the loss of his vision due to injections used to keep him in the game. Denehy holds nothing back as he shares the rage he felt his whole life, his lost dreams, his descent in addiction, and eventually finding peace when he entered recovery. His experience will resonate with athletes, baseball fans, those who struggle with addiction, and those who know someone who does.



Changing the Way We Die: Compassionate End-of-Life Care and the Hospice Movement by Fran Smith and Sheila Himmel

There’s a quiet revolution happening in the way we die. More than 1.5 million Americans a year die in hospice care—nearly 44 percent of all deaths—and a vast industry has sprung up to meet the growing demand. Once viewed as a New Age indulgence, hospice is now a $14 billion business and one of the most successful segments in health care. Changing the Way We Die, by award-winning journalists Fran Smith and Sheila Himmel, is the first book to take a broad, penetrating look at the hospice landscape, through gripping stories of real patients, families, and doctors, as well as the corporate giants that increasingly own the market.
 
Changing the Way We Die is a vital resource for anyone who wants to be prepared to face life’s most challenging and universal event. You will learn:
  •  Hospice use is soaring, yet most people come too late to get the full benefits.
  •  With the age tsunami, it becomes even more critical for families and patients to choose end-of-life care wisely.
  •  Hospice at its best is much more than a way to relieve the suffering of dying. It is a way to live.



Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the City's Courageous Recovery, and the Epic Hunt for Justice  by Scott Helman and Jenna Russell

In the tradition of 102 Minutes and Columbine, Long Mile Home is the definitive book on the Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers, written by reporters from The Boston Globe and published to coincide with the first anniversary of the tragedy.

Long Mile Home tells the gripping story of the tragic, surreal, and ultimately inspiring week of April 15, 2013: the preparations of the bombers; the glory of the race; the extraordinary emergency response to the explosions; the massive deployment of city, state, and federal law enforcement personnel; and the nation's and the world's emotional and humanitarian response before, during, and after the apprehension of the suspects.

The authors, both journalists at The Boston Globe, are backed by that paper's deep, relentless, and widely praised coverage of the event. Through the eyes of seven principal characters including the bombers, the wounded, a victim, a cop, and a doctor, Helman and Russell trace the distinct paths that brought them together. With an unprecedented level of detail and insight, the book offers revelations, insights, and powerful stories of heroism and humanity.

Long Mile Home also highlights the bravery, resourcefulness, and resiliency of the Boston community. It portrays the city on its worst day but also at its best.



Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books by Wendy Lesser

“Wendy Lesser’s extraordinary alertness, intelligence, and curiosity have made her one of America’s most significant cultural critics,” writes Stephen Greenblatt. In Why I Read, Lesser draws on a lifetime of pleasure reading and decades of editing one of the most distinguished literary magazines in the country, The Threepenny Review, to describe her love of literature. As Lesser writes in her prologue, “Reading can result in boredom or transcendence, rage or enthusiasm, depression or hilarity, empathy or contempt, depending on who you are and what the book is and how your life is shaping up at the moment you encounter it.”

Here the reader will discover a definition of literature that is as broad as it is broad-minded. In addition to novels and stories, Lesser explores plays, poems, and essays along with mysteries, science fiction, and memoirs. “Reading literature is a way of reaching back to something bigger and older and different,” she writes. “It can give you the feeling that you belong to the past as well as the present, and it can help you realize that your present will someday be someone else’s past. This may be disheartening, but it can also be strangely consoling at times.”

A book in the spirit of E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel and Elizabeth Hardwick’s A View of My Own, Why I Read is iconoclastic, conversational, and full of insight. It will delight those who are already avid readers as well as neophytes in search of sheer literary fun.



The Dream of the Great American Novel by Lawrence Buell

The idea of "the great American novel" continues to thrive almost as vigorously as in its nineteenth-century heyday, defying 150 years of attempts to dismiss it as amateurish or obsolete. In this landmark book, the first in many years to take in the whole sweep of national fiction, Lawrence Buell reanimates this supposedly antiquated idea, demonstrating that its history is a key to the dynamics of national literature and national identity itself.

The dream of the G.A.N., as Henry James nicknamed it, crystallized soon after the Civil War. In fresh, in-depth readings of selected contenders from the 1850s onward in conversation with hundreds of other novels, Buell delineates four "scripts" for G.A.N. candidates. One, illustrated by The Scarlet Letter, is the adaptation of the novel's story-line by later writers, often in ways that are contrary to the original author's own design. Other aspirants, including The Great Gatsby and Invisible Man, engage the American Dream of remarkable transformation from humble origins. A third script, seen in Uncle Tom's Cabin and Beloved, is the family saga that grapples with racial and other social divisions. Finally,mega-novels from Moby-Dick to Gravity's Rainbow feature assemblages of characters who dramatize in microcosm the promise and pitfalls of democracy.

The canvas of the great American novel is in constant motion, reflecting revolutions in fictional fashion, the changing face of authorship, and the inseparability of high culture from popular. As Buell reveals, the elusive G.A.N. showcases the myth of the United States as a nation perpetually under construction.

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