:read:

My Book is Blood Brother: 33 Reasons My Brother Scott Peterson Is Guilty


(This would be the cover if my book still had the dust jacket which it doesn't)

Book Description
What happens if, after being given up for adoption in childhood, you reestablish contact with your biological family -- only to discover that your newfound brother is a killer?
Anne Bird, the sister of Scott Peterson, knows firsthand.

Soon after her birth in 1965, Anne was given up for adoption by her mother, Jackie Latham. Welcomed into the well-adjusted Grady family, she lived a happy life. Then, in the late 1990s, she came back into contact with her mother, now Jackie Peterson, and her family -- including Jackie's son Scott Peterson and his wife, Laci. Anne was welcomed into the family, and over the next several years she grew close to Scott and especially Laci. Together they shared holidays, family reunions, and even a trip to Disneyland. Anne and Laci became pregnant at roughly the same time, and the two became confidantes.

Then, on Christmas Eve 2002, Laci Peterson went missing -- and the happy façade of the Peterson family slowly began to crumble. Anne rushed to the family's aid, helping in the search for Laci, even allowing Scott to stay in her home while police tried to find his wife. Yet Scott's behavior grew increasingly bizarre during the search, and Anne grew suspicious that her brother knew more than he was telling. Finally she began keeping a list of his disturbing behavior. And by the time Laci's body -- and that of her unborn son, Conner -- were found, Anne was becoming convinced: Her brother Scott Peterson had murdered his wife and unborn child in cold blood.

Filled with news-making revelations and intimate glimpses of Scott and Laci, the Peterson family, and the investigation that followed the murder, Blood Brother is a provocative account of how long-dormant family ties dragged one woman into one of the most notorious crimes of our time.

Irenic's reveal:


Does Anything Eat Wasps?: And 101 Other Unsettling, Witty Answers to Questions Y
by New Scientist

* How fat do you have to be to become bulletproof?

* Why do people have eyebrows?

* Why do pineapples have spines?

* How much does a head weigh?

* What affects the color of earwax?

* How quickly could I turn into a fossil?

Have you ever thought up a question so completely off-the-wall, so seemingly ridiculous, that you couldn't even find the courage to ask it? Maybe at the sports bar you were transported by the beauty of your beer to wonder, "How long could I live on beer alone?" Or, cycling through the park, you mused, "Did nature invent any wheels?" Or looking up at the night sky, you had a moment of angst, "What would happen if the moon suddenly disappeared -- if it were vaporized or stolen by aliens?"

Full of fun factlets, Does Anything Eat Wasps? is a runaway bestseller around the world. It celebrates the weird and wacky questions -- some trivial, some baffling, all unique -- and their multiple answers culled from "The Last Word," a long-running column in the internationally popular science magazine, New Scientist. Tackling the imponderables of everyday life, sparkling with humor, and bursting with delightful erudition, Does Anything Eat Wasps? is irresistibly entertaining and utterly engrossing.

So, go on. Put away your lab coat and your pencil -- science is fun again.

VeganMedusa/Veggy's Reveal:




The Big Year by Mark Obmascik

Book Description

In one of the wackiest competitions around, every year hundreds of obsessed bird watchers participate in a contest known as the North American Big Year. Hoping to be the one to spot the most species during the course of the year, each birder spends 365 days racing around the continental U.S. and Canada compiling lists of birds, all for the glory of being recognized by the American Birding Association as the Big Year birding champion of North America. In this entertaining book, Obmascik, a journalist with the Denver Post, tells the stories of the three top contenders in the 1998 American Big Year: a wisecracking industrial roofing contractor from New Jersey who aims to break his previous record and win for a second time; a suave corporate chief executive from Colorado; and a 225-pound nuclear power plant software engineer from Maryland. Obmascik bases his story on post-competition interviews but writes so well that it sounds as if he had been there every step of the way. In a freewheeling style that moves around as fast as his subjects, the author follows each of the three birding fanatics as they travel thousands of miles in search of such hard-to-find species as the crested myna, the pink-footed goose and the fork-tailed flycatcher, spending thousands of dollars and braving rain, sleet, snowstorms, swamps, deserts, mosquitoes and garbage dumps in their attempts to outdo each other. By not revealing the outcome until the end of the book, Obmascik keeps the reader guessing in this fun account of a whirlwind pursuit of birding fame.

This could easily have gone in the Best of 2007 swap - I loved it that much. But I decided I'd rather use it here.
NB. Cover is different.

zzz reveals
My Forbidden Face by Latifa



Readers who want to know what life was really like when the Taliban ruled Kabul should turn off CNN and read this book. Latifa (who writes under a pseudonym) was a 16-year-old aspiring journalist when her brother rushed home one day in late 1996 with word that the white flag of the Taliban flew over their school and mosque. She writes, "We knew the Taliban were not far away... but no one truly believed they would manage to enter Kabul." The bizarre edicts of the women-suppressing regime slowly become a reality: women weren't allowed outside the home unless they were shrouded in a "chadri" (which covers the face and arms, unlike a burka, which covers the entire body and according to Latifa is worn only in distant provinces) and accompanied by a male relative. "A girl is not allowed to converse with a young man. Infraction of this law will lead to the immediate marriage of the offenders." No wearing of bright colors or lipstick; no medical care from a male doctor. And women doctors were not allowed to work, essentially cutting off medical care for women. Latifa's story puts a face on these now-familiar rules, and conveys the sheer boredom of the lively teenager-turned-hermit and the desperation of not knowing if she'll ever complete her education in such an upside-down world.
This memoir is one instance where a thousand words are worth more than any picture.
(TBR)

Ri's reveal:


Around the World in the Middle Seat
by Joyce Brooks



From leech-infested rainforests to the most luxurious cruise ships afloat, Joyce Brooks has done it all. In he past twenty-five years, she has visited 110 countries and a good bit of the United States on over 200 trips. She did it without enormous wealth and she didn't start until she was over forty. She did it by becoming one of the country's most successful leaders of group tours. Shepherding busloads of senior citizens to the world's most romantic and exotic places is a tough, dirty business, but someone has to do it and no one does it with quite the flair and good humor of Joyce Brooks.

Marlene's Reveal

Fatal Storm: The Inside Story of the Tragic Sydney-Hobart Race By Rob Mundle



In the world of competitive off-shore sailing, Christmas Day is thought of as Boxing Day Eve--that is, the eve of the annual Sydney-to-Hobart Race. One of the world's three major offshore races (along with the Fastnet out of England and America's Newport Race to Bermuda), the 630-mile course from Sydney, Australia, to Hobart, Tasmania, is a test of skills, guts, and endurance in notoriously unpredictable, fickle waters--and in any weather.
On Boxing Day, 1998, the 115 boats jockeying at the starting line off Sydney's Nielsen Park Beach had been warned that low-pressure weather systems were conspiring to guarantee a wild and chancy race. Yet few sailors anticipated the ferocity of the storm that descended around two o'clock the next morning, whipping up gale-force winds and waves tall enough to send 25-ton yachts "spearing into midair," then "plunging down into the trough ... like repeatedly launching a truck off a 30-foot ramp and awaiting the crash." The race quickly devolved into the worst sailing disaster in recent memory. Seven crews abandoned their boats. Over 50 sailors were rescued under near-impossible circumstances. Seven died, and five boats sank. Journalist Rob Mundle follows the dramatic struggles in Fatal Storm, skillfully re-creating from firsthand accounts the stories of bravery, luck, and folly that left a handful of sailors convinced they'd never go near the Hobart again. Yet as one veteran yachtsman lived to point out, "It's something you just have to do.... You can't be under the illusion at any time that it is safe."


out of 19 reviews on amazon.

Zosime's Reveal:
Through the Narrow Gate: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery by Karen Armstrong

Through the Narrow Gate is Karen Armstrong's intimate memoir of life inside a Catholic convent. With refreshing honesty and clarity, the book takes readers on a revelatory adventure that begins with Armstrong's decision, at age seventeen, to devote herself to God. What she discovers in the course of her spiritual training offers a fascinating view into a shrouded religious life, and a vivid, moving account of the spiritual coming age of one of our most loved and respected interpreters of religious faith.
The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness by Karen Armstrong


Karen Armstrong begins this spellbinding story of her spiritual journey with her departure in 1969 from the Roman Catholic convent she had entered seven years before -- hoping, but ultimately failing, to find God. She knew almost nothing of the changed world to which she was returning, and she was tormented by panic attacks and inexplicable seizures.

Armstrong's struggle against despair was further fueled by a string of discouragements -- failed spirituality, doctorate, and jobs; fruitless dealings with psychiatrists. Finally, in 1976, she was diagnosed with epilepsy, given proper treatment, and released from her "private hell." She then began the writing career that would become her true calling, and as she focused on the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, her own inner story began to emerge. Without realizing it, she had embarked on a spiritual quest, and through it she would eventually experience moments of transcendence -- the profound fulfillment that she had not found in long hours of prayer as a young nun.

Powerfully engaging, often heartbreaking, but lit with bursts of humor, The Spiral Staircase is an extraordinary history of self.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission To Promote Peace...One School at a Time by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin

Some failures lead to phenomenal successes, and this American nurse's unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, the world's second tallest mountain, is one of them. Dangerously ill when he finished his climb in 1993, Mortenson was sheltered for seven weeks by the small Pakistani village of Korphe; in return, he promised to build the impoverished town's first school, a project that grew into the Central Asia Institute, which has since constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Coauthor Relin recounts Mortenson's efforts in fascinating detail, presenting compelling portraits of the village elders, con artists, philanthropists, mujahideen, Taliban officials, ambitious school girls and upright Muslims Mortenson met along the way. As the book moves into the post-9/11 world, Mortenson and Relin argue that the United States must fight Islamic extremism in the region through collaborative efforts to alleviate poverty and improve access to education, especially for girls. Captivating and suspenseful, with engrossing accounts of both hostilities and unlikely friendships, this book will win many readers' hearts.

catsalive's reveal:


Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine

From Publishers Weekly
If you've ever contemplated cutting down on your consumerism but couldn't bring yourself to do it, Levine's volume allows you to witness and learn from this drastic experiment without going through the withdrawal yourself. Since giving up shopping entirely is impossible in North America (buying food requires money), the most interesting aspect of Levine's adventure is the process of defining necessity. High-speed Internet access, Q-tips and any soap fancier than Ivory, for example, are all ruled out as luxuries. With chapters divided by month, the book witnesses Levine's journey from enthusiastic experimenter in January to a still game but weary participant by the fall, as favorite luxuries run out and clothes become shabbier. As Levine trades in movies and restaurants for the public library system and dinner parties at home, she is forced to reflect on not only the personal indulgences she's become used to but also their place in defining her social space. Since this book is about exploring consumerism rather than economizing (although she does manage to save $8,000 by the end of the year), Levine investigates several anticonsumer movements—she joins her local Voluntary Simplicity group, participates in Buy Nothing Day and consults experts on issues of consumerism and conservation. Yet the most insightful aspect is Levine's account of her own struggle to keep down her day-to-day consumption of goods and to define the fine line between need and want.

Turtle's Reveal:




Evil That Men Do by Stephen G. Michaud

Twenty-two years in the FBI, sixteen of them as a member of the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit. Thousands of homicides, rapes, suicides, and other gruesome crimes. Roy Hazelwood, like many investigators, has seen it all. But unlike most, he's gone further--into the dark and twisted psyches of serial killers and sadistic sexual offenders--and has emerged as one of the world's foremost experts on the sexual criminal.

Now, acclaimed true-crime writer Stephen G. Michaud takes you into the heart of Hazelwood's work through dozens of startling cases, including those of the Lonely Heart Killer, the "Ken and Barbie" killings, the Atlanta Child Murders, and many more. Here Michaud and Hazelwood go beyond the lurid details, to a deeper understanding of the depraved minds behind the grisly crimes, in a stark, startling, and fascinating work you will not soon forget.

xallroysx's reveal is



Tom Cruise:An Unauthorized Biography
by Andrew Morton
Andrew Morton uncovers the true story of the biggest celebrity of our age.Everyone knows Tom Cruise---or at least certain things about him. We know that he overcame a difficult childhood to star in astonishing array of blockbusters: Top Gun, Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July, A Few Good Men, Interview with the Vampire, Jerry Maguire, three Mission: Impossible movies, War of the Worlds, and more. We know he has taken artistic chances, too, and as a result has earned three Academy Award nominations and three Golden Globes, along with the respect of acting legends like Paul Newman and Dustin Hoffman.After that, the picture becomes a little less clear. We know that Tom is a Scientologist, but not necessarily what that means in his life. We know that, despite persistent rumors about his sexuality, he has been married to Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman, and Katie Holmes. But it was not until the spring of 2005, when he jumped on Oprah's couch to proclaim his love for Katie and denounced Brooke Shields for turning to the 'Nazi science' of psychiatry, that we began to realize how much we didn't know about the charming, hardworking star.For two years, award-winning biographer Andrew Morton has been tirelessly seeking out everyone from former teachers and girlfriends to Scientology insiders to friends who have watched a once-bullied, 'nothing special' outsider transform himself into an icon Forbes has called the most powerful celebrity in the worldHere, with never-seen photos and never-heard revelations, is a riveting, sometimes shocking portrait of the real Tom Cruise---his work, his love life, his marriages, his religion---from a master at uncovering the true story behind the public face of celebrity.

My reveal:


Ice Bound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole
by Jerri Nielsen

Serving as doctor to the Americans "wintering over" at the South Pole in 1999, Jerri Nielsen made headlines when she discovered a lump in her breast that a self-administered biopsy revealed to be an aggressive, fast-growing cancer. No flights in or out of Antarctica are possible during the continent's long winter, and Nielsen's account of giving herself chemotherapy while she and her fellow "Polies" waited for the weather to break is even more gripping than the news reports at the time. She's candid about her pain and fear; the media battle waged by her embittered ex-husband makes her ordeal even more challenging. Interestingly enough, however, this high drama does not overshadow Nielsen's deeper narrative of a woman who came "to the Ice" seeking new meaning in a life shattered by divorce and estrangement from her children. In the back-to-basics world of Antarctic medicine, with outdated equipment, few supplies, and no assistants, she rediscovered her vocation as a doctor, free from the imperatives of corporate-directed medicine. More importantly, Nielsen found spiritual solace in the world's most extreme environment, where she was "introduced slowly to the notion of giving more than you have and using less than you need ... of knowing that all you really own are your own thoughts." She makes the glories of the Pole so palpable that, by the end, readers will not even be surprised when she signs an e-mail to her family, "from the wonderful Ice."

Unplanned Parenthood:: The Confessions of a Seventy-Something Surrogate Mother by Liz Carpenter; intro by Erma Bombeck

(Sorry, but I can't find a pic.)

Well into her seventies, the indomitable Liz Carpenter took on the task of bringing up three teenagers - and bring them up she did. Her warm, witty, wonderful, and rambunctious story will make all readers proud to be part of the human race. Unplanned Parenthood relates how she and the kids not only survived it all, but reaped the rewards only one generation can bestow upon another.

Annotation
As a journalist and press secretary and staff director to Ladybird Johnson, Liz Carpenter witnessed firsthand many momentous events of history. Well into her seventies, Carpenter took on the task of bringing up three teenagers. Here is the story of how she and the kids survived it all and reaped the rewards that one generation can bestow on another.

msjoanna's reveal:

The Turnaround Kid: What I Learned Rescuing America's Most Troubled Companies (ARC) by Steve Miller



Here's what Harper Collins says about the book:
Steve Miller has a knack for taking over companies just before they are about to smash into a wall," the Wall Street Journal observed. "In fact, it is his specialty." For 30 years, beginning with the legendary Chrysler bail–out, which he negotiated as a key member of Lee Iacocca's team to the revival of the U.S. steel industry, Miller has done the messy, unpleasant work of salvaging America's lost companies.

Though he has brought many companies back to life, Miller is deeply aware of the high price individual workers and many communities must pay to restore the health of American industry. That's why the Wall Street Journal said, "He has become Mr. Fix–It for American industry, stepping in to help large, once–dominant businesses confront and manage ugly realities."

The ugly reality is that there is battle going in heart of industrial America, or what is left of it. Centered in the auto industry but radiating out to every manufacturing corporation, management and labour are at loggerheads over wages and the cost of employee benefits. At the bankrupt Delphi Corporation, Miller is cutting costs and closing plants, but he's doing the job for $1. If anyone knows what it will take for American manufacturing to return to profitability, it's Miller.

In this frank memoir, Miller reveals a rarely seen side of American management. Known for his wry sense of humour, Miller talks about what it takes to be an executive. He shares the credit for his success with his "mentor and occasional tormentor," Margaret Kyger Miller, who was his wife and ally for forty years. Her death opens the book and reminds the reader that this will be a blunt and unsparing look at Miller's own education as an American executive.

------------------------------------

I got this as part of the FirstLook program from HarperCollins. Thus, my copy is an Advanced Reader's Copy and doesn't have a fancy dust jacket or cover -- just a plain paper cover. It also has no index and the editors might have made changes in the final version of the book. (Though, on my copy, you do get to see the former, less compelling, title for the book.)

Overall, I thought this was an interesting book that was well-written and gave a lot of insight into the complexities of negotiating bankruptcy or buyouts or reorganizations. I enjoyed it. You can read my full review in the JE (linked above).

Back in America after twenty years in Britain, Bill Bryson decided to reacquaint himself with his native country by walking the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine. The AT offers an astonishing landscape of silent forests and sparkling lakes--and to a writer with the comic genius of Bill Bryson, it also provides endless opportunities to witness the majestic silliness of his fellow human beings.

For a start there's the gloriously out-of-shape Stephen Katz, a buddy from Iowa along for the walk. Despite Katz's overwhelming desire to find cozy restaurants, he and Bryson eventually settle into their stride, and while on the trail they meet a bizarre assortment of hilarious characters. But A Walk in the Woods is more than just a laugh-out-loud hike. Bryson's acute eye is a wise witness to this beautiful but fragile trail, and as he tells its fascinating history, he makes a moving plea for the conservation of America's last great wilderness. An adventure, a comedy, and a celebration, A Walk in the Woods is destined to become a modern classic of travel literature.

Sejent's Reveal



Stealing Buddha's Dinner: A Memoir by Bich Minh Nguyen (TBR)

"As a Vietnamese girl coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Bich Nguyen is filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity. In the pre-PC-era Midwest, where the devoutly Christian blond-haired, blue-eyed Jennifers and Tiffanys reign supreme, the barely conscious desire to belong transmutes into a passion for American food. More exotic-seeming than her Buddhist grandmother's traditional specialties--spring rolls; delicate pancakes stuffed with meats, herbs, and bean sprouts; fried shrimp cakes--the campy, preservative-filled 'delicacies' of mainstream America capture her imagination. And in this remarkable book, the glossy branded allure of such American foods as Pringles, Kit Kats, and Toll House cookies becomes an ingenious metaphor for her struggle to fit in, to become a 'real' American, a distinction that brings with it the dream of the perfect school lunch, burgers and Jell-O for dinner, and a visit from the Kool-Aid man.

Beginning with Nguyen's family's harrowing migration out of Saigon in 1975, Stealing Buddha's Dinner is also a portrayal of a diverse family: Nguyen's hardworking, hard-partying father, pretty sister, and wise and nurturing grandmother--and Rosa, her Latina stepmother, the loving no-nonsense foil to her gastronomical and materialistic fixations. And there is the mystery of Nguyen's birth mother, unveiled movingly over the course of the book.

Nostalgic and candid, deeply satisfying and minutely observed, Stealing Buddha's Dinner is a unique vision of the immigrant experience and lyrical ode to how identity is often shaped by the things we long for."

Bree's reveal:

Plane Insanity by Elliott Hester (TBR)



From amazon.ca:
It's hard to believe that the stories in Plane Insanity, the hilarious book by Elliott Hester, are true. But they are. Before you read even a single page, you know you're in for a wild ride just from the subtitle, A Flight Attendant's Tales of Sex, Rage and Queasiness at 30,000 Feet. Hester has encountered just about everything in his 15 years of flying the skies or "riding tin," and he recounts these laugh-out-loud encounters with a plenty of attitude and self-deprecating humour. Not to spoil the fun but a few juicy titbits include Hester as the hapless victim of a child's projectile vomit, chasing a sparrow around the cabin, mistakenly putting a woman on the wrong flight, and recalling the unfathomable account of an inebriated man defecating atop a drinks trolley to the horror of passengers and crew. Just when you think the stories can't get anymore outlandish he outdoes himself with the titillating antics of amorous couples who vie for membership in the infamous Mile High Club. And did our Mr Hester ever become a member of this elite club? You'll have to read the book to find that out. Believe me, you'll be glad you did--this is the one of the year's funniest reads.

candy's reveal:



Shite's Unoriginal Miscellany by Antal Parody

From Amazon:
'A parody of Schott's Original Miscellany. Extensively researched, eccentrically compiled and irresponsibly written, this essential handbook is the latest addition to the Michael O’Mara Books humour list. But if you think that this is just another compilation of useless information, then think again. Breathtakingly combining the humorous with the genuinely useful, SHITE’S UNORIGINAL MISCELLANY weaves an eccentric course between fact-for-fact’s-sake and that ‘display of superior knowledge which is more vulgar than the display of superior wealth’.

Among a mass of arcane, vital or merely fascinating information – ‘semaphore signals’, ‘flowerpot sizes’, ‘gestation periods for small mammals’, ‘Oxbridge colleges’ and ‘Indian tribes at the Little Big Horn’ spring immediately to mind – it offers priceless snippets of information a reader may one day need to know, such as ‘things to say to your mother on her birthday’, ‘sightings of dead celebrities’, ‘organ enlargement’ and, of course, ‘things to do with mashed potato’. Here too is information that will come in handy when you least expect it, from ‘chat-up lines’ to ‘ways to end a romance’, ‘popular irritants’ to ‘song titles’, and ‘disease’ to ‘divorce’.

Bizarrely ordered, insanely edited, and lovingly machine-printed on a substance closely resembling paper, SHITE’S UNORIGINAL MISCELLANY blends humour and knowledge together in a superior recipe for instant laughter. '

And Babes Must Fall by Patsy Mannion



The year is 1963 and Patsy’s young pharmacist husband has just been killed in a car accident. Patsy has no money, no college education, no driver’s license, no job. Twenty-four years old, Patsy is pregnant with her fourth child.....
Patsy Mannion writes very honestly about the year her world fell apart and what happened thereafter. With little means to make money, she struggles to provide for her children—one of whom suffers from recurring seizures—while trying to cope with her grief. An indispensable force in Patsy’s life is an illiterate but wise Polish grandmother who always knows when to give advice and when to offer comfort.
Patsy is laughed at, lied to, sued, and brutally assaulted; yet despite all of her hardships, she continues to count her blessings. "And Babes Must Fall" is the touching and often humorous true story of a woman who overcomes her fears and emerges as a stronger person.

About the Author
Patsy Mannion, a Minnesota author, wrote "And Babes Must Fall" as a legacy for her children. Although retired, Mannion works part-time as a gardener for the City of Maple Grove. She is also an appointed member of her community’s Arbor Committee.

Autographed Copy !!

Wanderlust: a Social History of Travel by Laura Byrne Paquet

Where did passports come from? Why did 1930s stewardesses carry wrenches? And how did teetotalers shape the modern vacation? Wanderlust answers these questions and more, as author Laura Byrne Paquet delves into the social history of travel. Now a multi-billion dollar industry, travel is also one of the world’s oldest. Paquet follows hypochondriac Greeks to the Oracle of Delphi, checks out the bedbugs in medieval coaching inns, enjoys a Finnish sauna with a group of well-bred Victorian ladies, and relaxes on a transatlantic liner with some of England’s Bright Young Things from the 1920s. In breezy style she explains the difference between a traveller and a tourist and explores the future of travel, from grand plans for commercial space travel to underwater hotels. As the book reveals, we’ve always loved to travel — the only thing that keeps changing is how we get from here to there.

Tales of humankind’s unquenchable need to travel…

therubycanary's reveal:

The Good Women of China
Xinran



(Mine has a different, more simple cover, but it is a brand new paperback.)

Xinran spent eight years as the foremost reporter on women's issues in China. She traveled all over the country interviewing women about individual stories, and collects some of the most beautiful and heartbreaking in this book. Her show Words on Night Breeze became one of the most popular in China, but she also talks about the difficulties of being able to air such sensitive material with a government that was watching her every move. Some of the stories included in the book are ones that never made in on air because they were labeled as being too provocative for national radio.

Rebecca's Reveal

Thick As Thieves: A Brother, a Sister--a True Story of Two Turbulent Lives by Steve Geng ARC


(Not sure if this is the right cover but I like to add pics (Marlene)
TBR

Book Description
Steve Gengthief, addict, committed member of Manhattans criminal semi-elitewas a rhapsody in blue, all on his own. Women had a tendency to crack his head open. His sister? Also unusual: Veronica Geng wrote brilliantly eccentric pieces for The New Yorker, hung with rock stars and Pulitzer Prize winners, threw the occasional typewriter, fled intimacy. They were parallel universes, but when they converged, it was . . . memorable. Spanning decades of unresolved personal drama and rebellion, Steve Gengs memoir, Thick as Thieves, is the story of their lives, the bond between them, and all the things they shared. Raw, real, and funny, Geng follows his unique family history from Philadelphia to Paris, Greenwich Village to Rikers Island. We meet lovable, often treacherous characters (B.J. the Queen of Crime, Tina Brown). We hear the rants of the Gengs father, the Colonel; the malicious invective of publishing; the patter of hardened criminals. This is a memoir that will lift your spirit, kick you in the shins, and help you remember the person who understood you the most. Geng has made a lot of mistakes in his life. Thick as Thieves may just make up for them.

My reveal is:

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan



From Amazon:
While her sometimes abusive husband drank away a third of his weekly take-home pay, Evelyn Ryan kept her ever-growing family afloat by entering every contest she came across, beginning with Burma Shave roadside-sign jingles. In post-World War II America, money, appliances, food, excursions-anything you could think of-were routinely offered to the person who sent in the best jingle, essay, or poem, accompanied, of course, by the company's box-top or other product identification. Although she more often won prizes of products, such as a case of Almond Joy candy bars, Mrs. Ryan once won enough for a down payment on a house just as her family was being turned out of their two-bedroom rental house. That contest also won her a bicycle for her son. She entered so many contests, often several times under different forms of her name, that hardly a week went by without some prize being delivered by the postman. Charmingly written by one of her 10 children, this story is not only a chronicle of contesting, but also of her mother's irrepressible spirit. With a sense of humor that wouldn't quit, she found fun in whatever life sent her way, and passed that on to all her children who, despite the poverty they grew up in, lived and still live happy, useful lives.