American Prince: A Memoir
by Tony Curtis
Published 2008 by Harmony

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780307408495

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Jacket Notes:

Sparing no detail, no name, and no ego, Curtis pens the true record of his life with humor and grace. Some like it hot, and they will not be disappointed.

Bitter Is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry a Prada Bag to the
by Jen Lancaster
Published 2006 by New American Library

Paperback, English. ISBN: 9780451217608

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Jacket Notes:

From a popular blogger comes a hilarious memoir that takes readers from sorority house to penthouse to poorhouse.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 12/12/2005

It doesn't take Lancaster long to live up to her lengthy subtitle ("Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smart-Ass, or Why You Should Never Carry a Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office"): in just one chapter, she gloats over cheating a homeless man, is rude to a waitress and passes judgment on all of her co-workers (including her "whore" best friend). She's almost gleeful about lacking "the internal firewall that keeps us from saying almost everything we think," but she doesn't come off as straightforward, just malicious. (Of course, it's possible she's making up much of her dialogue, which is a little too clever to be believable.) Lancaster expects sympathy for her downward slide after getting fired from her high-paying finance job in the post-9/11 recession, and chick lit fans may be entertained watching life imitate fiction, but just when you start to feel sorry for her, the snotty attitude returns. In later chapters, Lancaster increasingly relies on entries from her blog (www.jennsylvania. com) and caustic replies to criticisms, and though things start looking up - her husband finds a job, she lands a book deal - it's not clear that she's been as chastised by her experiences as she claims. (Mar. 7)

Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams
by Jennifer Sey
Published 2008 by William Morrow & Company

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780061351464

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Jacket Notes:

Published in time for the 2008 Beijing Summer Games, this book by a champion gymnast tells her riveting true story of pain, abuse, neglect, and endurance on the road to the Olympics. 16-page b&w photo insert.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 03/17/2008

Sey writes of her career in internationally competitive gymnastics, which culminated when she won the 1986 U.S. national championship at age 17. From the start Sey was an underdog, ever the second-best athlete on the team hoping to prove herself with tenacity and toughness. She endured numerous injuries-including a broken femur, which could have ended her career-as well as an eating disorder, depression, isolation and tremendous strain on her family. With each new sacrifice that her parents and brother made to support her, the stakes crept higher, inuring them all to gymnastics' inherent physical and psychological trauma. After claiming the U.S. title, Sey was "shell-shocked and exhausted," suddenly robbed of her lifelong motivation. "I'd always been a fighter, a come-from-behind girl. Now that I was on top, the battle would be unwinnable." The memoir's poignant glimpses at Sey's adult struggle to reckon with her past are regrettably sparse, and her prose occasionally lapses into wordiness, but overall, she has written a courageous story befitting a comeback kid-a timely release for the 2008 Olympics. (May)

Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam
by Pope Brock
Published 2008 by Crown Publishing Group (NY)

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780307339881

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Jacket Notes:

Charlatan" is a remarkably rich historical narrative that tells the forgotten story of Americas most ingenious con man and one mans decades-long battle to bring him to justice. 8-page b&w photo insert.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 11/19/2007

John Brinkley, who grew up poor in rural North Carolina but attended Rush Medical College in Chicago, got his start touring as a medicine man hawking "miracle" tonics and became famous for transplanting goat testicles into impotent men. Brinkley built his own radio station in 1923, hustling his pseudoscience over the airwaves and giving an outlet to astrologers and country music. His nemesis was Dr. Morris Fishbein, the buoyant, compulsively curious editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association whose luminary friends included Sinclair Lewis, Clarence Darrow and H.L. Mencken. Fishbein took aim at Brinkley in JAMA, lay publications and pamphlets distributed by the thousands. Even after the Kansas State Medical Board yanked his medical license in 1930, Brinkley ran twice for governor of Kansas and almost won. Finally, Brinkley sued Fishbein for libel and lost in a spectacular showdown. Brock (Indiana Gothic) did tremendous research on this rollicking story, but the result is at times unfocused, overwritten and digressive, borrowing just a little too much from the overblown rhetoric of its subject. 8 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. (Feb. 5)

The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army
by Paul Douglas Lockhart
Published 2008 by Collins

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780061451638

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Jacket Notes:

Lockhart writes the dramatic story of a forgotten founding father--Baron de Steuben--who whipped the Continental Army into shape to make victory against the British possible. 8-page b&w photo insert and maps.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 06/09/2008

Lockhart, professor of history at Wright State University, has written the first modern scholarly biography of one of the American Revolution's iconic figures. Friedrich von Steuben is regularly described as the man whose drilling and discipline made an army out of the demoralized men camped at Valley Forge in the winter of 1776. Lockhart makes solid use of primary and secondary sources to present a more complete picture of the Continental Army's inspector-general. Steuben exaggerated his rank and status in order to secure employment, but was fully justified in asserting mastery of the techniques of war as practiced in Europe. Steuben learned his craft during 17 years of service in the army of Frederick the Great. There was no better school. Lockhart demonstrates the importance of European-style tactics to a war that could not be won by ambush and skirmishing alone. He shows how clearly Steuben understood the differences between American citizen-soldiers and the outcasts and conscripts that filled Europe's ranks. And he describes Steuben's contributions after Valley Forge to creating an army that won battles from Monmouth to Yorktown. Illus., maps. (Sept.)

I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story
by Michael Hastings
Published 2008 by Scribner Book Company

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781416560975

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"I Lost My Love in Baghdad" is an extraordinarily gripping and informative account of the chaos inside the Green Zone by "Newsweek's" youngest war correspondent, whose fiance was killed during an attempted kidnapping.

The Longest Trip Home: A Memoir
by John Grogan
Published 2008 by William Morrow & Company

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780061713248

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Jacket Notes:

With his trademark blend of humor and pathos that made "Marley & Me" beloved by millions, John Grogan tells the powerful story of a son in the making--a universal journey of love, faith, and family that explores what it means to break away and find the way home once again.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 09/01/2008

Grogan follows up Marley & Me with a hilarious and touching memoir of his childhood in suburban Detroit. "To say my parents were devout Catholics is like saying the sun runs a little hot," he writes. "It defined who they were." Grogan and his three siblings grew up in a house full of saints' effigies, attended a school run by ruler-wielding nuns and even spent family vacations at religious shrines, chapels and monasteries. Grogan defied his upbringing through each coming-of-age milestone: his first impure thoughts, which he couldn't bare to divulge at his First Confession (the priest was a family friend); his first buzz from the communion wine he chugged with his fellow altar boys; and his coming to know women in the biblical sense. As Grogan matured, his unease with Church doctrine grew, and he realized he'd never share his parents' religious zeal. Telling them he's joined the ranks of the nonpracticing Catholics, however, is much easier said than done, even in adulthood. At 30, he fell in love with a Protestant, moved in with her and then married her-a sequence of events that crushed his parents. In this tenderly told story, Grogan considers the rift between the family he's made and the family that made him-and how to bridge the two. (Oct.)

Nathan Hale: The Life and Death of America's First Spy
by M. William Phelps
Published 2008 by Thomas Dunne Books

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780312376413

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Jacket Notes:

Phelps charts the life of the famed Revolutionary War patriot in this first Hale biography in nearly a century. The author separates historical fact from longstanding myth to reveal the true life of an original American hero.

Never Give in: Battling Cancer in the Senate
by Arlen Specter
Published 2008 by Thomas Dunne Books

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780312383060

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A month and a half into his Senate term, Specter learned he had the most severe grade of Hodgkin's Disease. In this memoir, he describes the treatment he received, the side effects, and his decisions about how to handle life with a potentially fatal disease. 8-page b&w photo insert.

The Prince of Frogtown
by Rick Bragg
Published 2008 by Knopf Publishing Group

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781400040407

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Jacket Notes:

The final volume in the beloved family saga that began with "All Over butthe Shoutin'" and continued with "Ava's Man, The Prince of Frogtown" is a revelatory book about fatherhood, a perfect gift for Dad.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 03/03/2008

Bragg (All Over but the Shoutin') continues to mine his East Alabama family history for stories, this time focusing on the life of his alcoholic father. Unlike his previous two memoirs, Bragg merges his father's history of severe hardships and simple joys with a tale from the present: his own relationship with his 10-year-old stepson. Bragg crafts flowing sentences that vividly describe the southern Appalachian landscape and ways of life both old and new. The title comes from his father, who grew up in the mill village in Jacksonville, Ala., a dirt-poor neighborhood known as Frogtown, a place where they didn't bother to name the streets, but simply assigned letters. His father's story walks the line between humorous and heartbreaking, mixing tales of tipping over outhouses as a child and stealing an alligator from a roadside show in Florida with the stark tragedies of drunkenness, brawling, dog fighting, chain gangs, meanness and his early death from tuberculosis. Juxtaposed with vignettes about Bragg's stepson, this memoir has great perspective as the reader sees Bragg, the son of a dysfunctional father who grew up very poor, grapple with becoming the father of a modern-day mama's boy. This book, much like his previous two memoirs, is lush with narratives about manhood, fathers and sons, families and the changing face of the rural South. (May)

07/01/2008 REVIEW: School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Bragg revisits his Alabama hometown for the third time, following All Over but the Shoutin' (1998) and Ava's Man (2002, both Vintage). He attempts to retell the story of his father, vilified as an abusive drunk in the earlier works, and gives him a more in-depth treatment in an effort to determine what made him the way he was. While by no means sympathetic, the portrayal shows readers a man who had limited choices in education, employment, relationships, and, ultimately, behavior. Before he became an absent father, Charles Bragg was a good son; a handsome man with a sexy car; a fighter and carouser, and eventually a mean, spiteful drunk. Described through recollections of friends and relatives who knew him when, the figure who emerges coped the only way he knew how, with exaggerated machismo, in a small town that he never left for any length of time. The author's realization that he might have been harsh in his previous memoirs comes through as he views his new 10-year-old stepson as soft. Even with all the benefits of education and a Pulitzer Prize, that seed of the immature Bragg tough guy remains. The story unfolds in alternating chapters, shorter ones about the stepson interspersed with longer ones about Charles Bragg. The stepson stories have a '40s-something navel-gazing quality about them that could put off some teens, but most of the book, masterfully told, is the kind of dysfunctional family memoir that teens tend to love.-Jamie Watson, Harford County Public Library, MD

The Principled Politician: The Ralph Carr Story
by Adam Schrager
Published 2008 by Fulcrum Publishing

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781555916541

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Jacket Notes:

This important biography tells the true story of the only political leader in the country to welcome Japanese-Americans to his state during World War II. Colorado Governor Ralph Carr was an unwilling candidate who catapulted to the top of the national Republican Party and was even pegged as a possible future presidential candidate by the New York papers. But when he took a courageous, yet unpopular, stance on the internment of Japanese-Americans, Carr fell rapidly from favor. He resisted demands from his political opponents to call up the National Guard to keep the Japanese out of the state, declaring, "If you harm them, you must harm me first." Speaking out on the issue, Carr fielded thousands of insults and fought off threats of impeachment. A riveting biography, The Principled Politician is the story of a courageous man sadly forgotten by Colorado and never known by his country.

The Secret World of Johnny Depp: The Intimate Biography of Hollywood's Best-Loved Rebel
by Nigel Goodall
Published 2006 by Blake Publishing

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781857825978

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Jacket Notes:

The star of some of the best and most unconventional American films in recent history, Johnny Depp has also been a source of media fascination since the 90s. His film roles have always been idiosyncratic, earning him international respect and adoration--from "Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, "and "Donnie Brasco" to his Oscar-nominated turns as Captain Jack Sparrow in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films and as J.M. Barrie in" Finding Neverland." His good looks, oddball charm, and tempestuous love affairs have helped push him into the limelight and kept him there. Now, in this updated biography (originally titled "What's Eating Johnny Depp?"), Nigel Goodall looks at his bad-boy image, his rise to fame, and his high-profile romances.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 12/11/2006

While droves show up to see reclusive star Johnny Depp in the theaters, little is known about the unpredictable leading man's personal life; unfortunately, Goodall's attempt to go beyond the tabloid stories and Depp's bad boy image doesn't shed much light on the man or the talent responsible for some of modern Hollywood's most memorable characters. Goodall begins with Depp's troubled childhood and spends a considerable number of chapters discussing his films, but veers towards the sensational (and well-trod) in his discussion of Depp's engagement to Winona Rider and his relationship with model Kate Moss. A mix between a shallow biography and a detailed filmography with nothing new to add to the record, this volume is unlikely to satisfy.