Non-Fiction

Must-haves for the non-fiction fan

Black Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance

You might know Dean Wareham for his distinctive New Zealand twang and fuzzy, reverb-y guitar-playing. You know, he's the former frontman of dream-pop bands Galaxie 500 and Luna? OK, maybe you don't know him. But his life so far (dude's only 44) makes for a compelling read nonetheless. Black Postcards works precisely because in addition to sharing his many personal struggles, Wareham tells an entertaining history of the indie music scene from the perspective of a longtime insider. Pulling from diaries he kept during tours and recording sessions, Wareham writes über-detailed anecdotes about playing with bands like Stereolab, the Beat Happening and the Velvet Underground (Luna opened for them on their 1993 European reunion tour) as well as amusing descriptions of life on the road — the long rides in cramped vans with smelly guys, the crappy motels, the weird obsessive fans. While he can't seem to help himself from criticizing old record labels, producers and bands (i.e. Galaxie 500, whose notoriously nasty breakup he never got over), he balances this complain-y stuff with crazy adventures involving sex and drugs (both done with various ladies who are not his wife) and devotes quite a bit of space to his juicy affair with bass player Britta Phillips, whom he eventually married. It's all a bit ooh-look-at-me, for sure; but G500 and Luna devotees — and anyone curious to see the world through the eyes of an almost-famous rocker — will surely appreciate his honesty and knack for storytelling.

—Tami Fertig

So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, Pundits — and President — Failed on Iraq

Editor & Publisher editor Greg Mitchell collects five years of columns about Iraq war journalism in So Wrong for So Long, a thorough and thoroughly depressing assessment on how the media failed to properly analyze the reasons America invaded Iraq.

In one November 2004 column, Mitchell describes how embedded journalist Darrin Mortenson, after defending coverage of American atrocities in Fallujah, received vicious e-mail from readers ("Go back to Iraq, with a target on your back"; "There is probably not a Marine or soldier who will even attempt to save you if they don't accidentally shoot you first"). Mortenson tells Mitchell, "When the news is good, everyone hails those hardworking reporters who live in the dirt and danger to accompany the troops, as long as their reports make us feel good. But when the images make us uncomfortable or force us to ask questions, we blame the media."

The collection's only prominent flaw is its beginning only weeks before the Iraq war. Mitchell really needed to establish how 9/11 as well as its immediate aftermath — the now-forgotten anthrax mailings to major news outlets, the kidnapping and beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl — traumatized the entire journalism profession, rendering it all too willing to parrot Bush administration lies.

Mitchell wants nothing less than a reassessment of the function of reporters. "A young reporter in Denver said to me that he thought war reporting was 'the highest calling' for a journalist," he recalls before adding, "I realized he was dead wrong. The highest calling in journalism is not war reporting. It's finding the story that would help prevent a war. Along the road to Baghdad, we seem to have lost that idea."

—Andrew Milner

The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes

By the editors of McSweeney's, introduced by John Hodgman

Vintage, 224 pp., $12.95

A story about former Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Chris Therien belongs in the sports pages. But make it about the Neanderthal blue-liner traveling back in time to babysit a young Mary Shelley and, yes, friend, that one belongs in the The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes. The conceit is a bit precious: These aren't so much jokes as short vignettes with subtle or overt literary references. You've got "Selections from the Annotated Treasury of Waiting for Godot Parodies," "IKEA Product or Lord of the Rings Character," "Lady Macbeth on Ambien" and a whole lot of ripping on James Joyce. The basic formula: The more familiar you are with the work being ragged on, the bigger the payoff. Which isn't to say that you've got to be some kind of nerdy-nerd book jerk to enjoy TMJBoBJ. You needn't have read Lolita to appreciate "Dateline to Catch a Predator: Humbert Humbert." And you don't even need to read at all to get "Klingon Fairy Tales" ("Hansel and Gretel Offend Vlad the Impaler") and "Celebrity Biographies Written by a Guy Who Cannot Distinguish Fiction from Reality" (wherein Harrison Ford leaves Ripon College for a career in intergalactic smuggling before becoming an archaeology professor with his father, James Bond, and then marrying Ally McBeal). On the other hand, in a world where there are so very few tangible rewards for having read your Shakespeare, Austen and Sartre (or for having shelved Grafton), you, dear English major, may snicker smugly to yourself at the coffee shop. This book is your just desserts.

—Brian Howard

Why We're Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America

Honestly? I read the first half of Eric Alterman's new book, Why We're Liberals, in earnest, and then began "reading" a little bit more "efficiently." It wasn't that the book was bad, per se — it's fine — it was just that I felt like I'd read it before. See, I'm a pretty regular reader of political blogs. And Why We're Liberals seemed like a compilation of material from Atrios and Matthew Yglesias, organized and footnoted.

To be clear, no one's accusing Alterman of plagiarism. I'm just saying that a catalog of how the conservative movement is pernicious, how the media accepts conservative meta-narratives, how the word "liberal" has become a bad word and how many health and educational outcomes are better under Europe's social democracies than they are in the United States does not contain many surprises for the already politically attuned.

Now, you could definitely make a case that a book like this deserves to exist. Not everyone reads liberal blogs, after all, and you have to read them for a while before you begin to get the feeling of being inundated by stats and anecdotes that you get from this book. What's more, I think for many people, footnotes are a comforting, convincing thing (though I tend to think that links, if executed in good faith, often serve the same purpose).

The weird thing is that this book will almost certainly be marketed to the same political junkies who already read Al Franken and watch The Daily Show — exactly the people who won't learn anything from it. If you're into politics, you can skip this one. If you're not, and you somehow, some way, have read this far, consider picking it up. There's some good stuff in there.

—Doron Taussig

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food

By Jennifer 8. Lee

Twelve, 320 pp., $24.99

"This book began as a quest to understand Chinese food," New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee writes in The Fortune Cookie Chronicles. "But three years, six continents, 23 countries, and 42 states later, I realize it was actually a personal journey to understand myself." Born and raised in New York, Lee tells a story of immigrants through the cuisine they spread throughout their adopted countries.

The chapters read like a loosely connected series of magazine articles, with fortune cookies providing the framework. Lee begins her book by trying to track down 110 Powerball winners who'd found their fortunes through one set of lucky numbers. From there, she hunts for the origins of the Pacman-shaped cookie itself. (Japan, as it turns out.)

But she cracks other mysteries, too, like where those takeout containers come from, why American-made soy sauce doesn't contain soy and "Why Chow Mein Is the Chosen Food of the Chosen People." In her quest to discover the world's greatest Chinese restaurant, Lee makes cases for — among others — a celeb-studded Parisian joint, a Chinese-American chain in Seoul and a pricey dive in San Francisco before settling on a discount fusion foodery hidden in a Vancouver strip mall.

The book's not perfect. Lee has a habit of repeating herself, and a chapter on one troubled restaurant family drags on without resolution. There's fat to be trimmed, for sure. But after you've digested all of that cultural insight and fascinating trivia, you'll still want more.

—M.J. Fine

The Great Derangement

By Matt Taibbi

Spiegel & Grau, 288 pp., $24

Remember when journalists were dogged truth-finders determined to hose the layers of bullshit off the inner workings of politics rather than cowering eunuchs unable to discern interpretation from editorializing? Me neither, but Rolling Stone scribe Matt Taibbi may convince you that such an animal once existed and could rise again. In The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire, Taibbi goes undercover in America, determined to figure out, as another slogan-filled presidential race slogs around the country, why Americans regularly conned by the day-to-day workings of their dysfunctional government feel compelled to invent grandiose delusions of even larger cons to work themselves into an angry lather.

What he finds is that the fringes aren't the fringes anymore, that the mainstream on either side of the Great Cultural Divide is increasingly willing to believe its own most delirious fantasies about how the other (evil) half lives. What's most remarkable about his discoveries is that, despite all the talk about red state-blue state polarization, each side is looking increasingly like the other. So the religious fanatics vomiting demons into paper bags got to that climax after days of EST-style self-help-speak, or the liberal conspiracy theorists willing to see Dick Cheney's drooling sneer pushing the button that brought down the Twin Towers rely on a generous helping of faith to overcome the utter lack of evidence for their sacrosanct beliefs.

Taibbi intersperses these stories with actual horror stories from the American Congress, chilling enough to destroy the need for such bogeymen. He does so with a serrated wit, mostly avoiding the urge to condescension when depicting the characters, instead drawing them with a blend of personal affection and ideological repulsion.

—Shaun Brady

Armageddon in Retrospect

By Kurt Vonnegut

Putnam, 240 pp., $24.95

When Kurt Vonnegut died on April 11 of last year we lost a cantankerous, cynical teacher who secretly loved everyone and was right almost all the time. Armageddon in Retrospect is the first posthumous printed publication of Vonnegut's work, and while it isn't as strong as his previous works, it is certain to resonate with his many fans.

The stories are often sardonically funny, as in "Great Day," when a soldier in a peaceful future is so in love with the idea of fighting, he travels back to the hellscape of WWI. Others illustrate the things war takes from people, like the POWs who obsess over a good meal in "Guns Before Butter."

Most of the stories feature some autobiographical details, especially focusing on Vonnegut's famous experience as a witness to the firebombing of Dresden, and all fit into his dark view of human nature and his anti-war feelings. The best piece of writing, and most rewarding to his fans, is a copy of the first letter the young Vonnegut sent home after his release as a prisoner in Germany. In a deadpan style that hints at his characteristic humor and flair, he reports to his family what happened since he went missing and, in a couple of pages, cleverly indicts the death and destruction he witnessed. For his millions of admirers, that glimpse into the past makes the book worth it and reminds the reader why they loved him in the first place.

—Will Dean

Sephora: The Ultimate Guide to Makeup, Skin and Hair from the Beauty Authority

By Melissa Schweiger

Harper Collins, 224 pp., $27.95

It's been five months since Sephora invaded Chestnut Street with her mesmerizing arsenal of body butters and mascara wands. It took a while, but we got to the point where we could walk past her bright lights, respectfully nod to the Urban Decay display and be on our way. Unfortunately, after spending an afternoon with Sephora: The Ultimate Guide to Makeup, Skin and Hair from the Beauty Authority, your paycheck will become something shiny and lavender-scented.

Like the store, Sephora is not particularly original or noteworthy — every mag on the rack promises 847 makeup tips you need to know today. But like the wall of lip gloss, this book draws you in. If you make it past the intro of quotes from industry divas ("Passion makes people beautiful," says Karen Behnke of Juice Beauty), there are some genuinely helpful tips. The step-by-step guide to fake eyelashes is priceless for anyone who has tried to negotiate with a tube of that godforsaken adhesive. And even loyal What Not to Wear watchers will be surprised by these cheekbone-enhancing tips. (Come on, Carmindy girl, where were you on this?) Do we really need to know how to self-tan our butts? Probably not, but never say never.

Now what to do with all these new tricks? Chapter 11 provides a shopping list of 100 must-haves. Mini heated eyelash curler? Check. Almond cookie shea soufflé? You bet. Sun Bunny bronzing compact? Take me now.

—Monica Weymouth