Seances, Special Ops and Bill James on Baseball: March Books

Seances, Special Ops and Bill James on Baseball: March Books

(The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Bloomberg.)

By Edward Nawotka

March 1 (Bloomberg) -- It's March, when the Emperor penguins in the Antarctic start their long march to mate. Many humans obsess over the Oscars. For those who'd rather be reading, we offer this preview of selected fiction and nonfiction coming in the month.

Nonfiction

``A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveler,'' by Frances Mayes (Broadway): Her bestselling ``Under the Tuscan Sun'' prompted an invasion of her Italian hometown of Cortona by camera-wielding tour groups. So Mayes takes off for some less- obnoxious locales, including Portugal, Turkey, Greece and North Africa.

``America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative Legacy,'' by Francis Fukuyama (Yale University): Fukuyama's hugely influential 1992 book, ``The End of History and the Last Man,'' asserted that liberal capitalist democracies were the ultimate manifestation of civilization, sort of. His new treatise says the neoconservative urge to spread democracy through ``preventative warfare'' has become a ``benevolent hegemony'' and may have gone too far.

``American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century,'' by Kevin Phillips (Viking): According to this former Republican strategist, every world-dominating power down through time has four things in common: militant religion, resource problems, ballooning debt and globe-spanning ambition. Does that sound like the U.S. in the beginning of the 21st century?

``Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq,'' by Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor (Pantheon): Gordon, a correspondent for the New York Times, and Trainor, a retired Marine Corps general, had first-hand access to General Tommy Franks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and others during the planning and execution of the war. They promise an insider's account full of revelations.

``Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney,'' by Paul Johnson (HarperCollins): This is the second volume in a trilogy that started with 1988's ``Intellectuals.'' The popular conservative historian now serves up brief bios of artists, including composers Bach and Wagner, scribes Austen and Dickens, fashionistas Balenciaga and Dior. Expect the third volume, ``Heroes,'' in another two decades.

``Man in the Shadows: Inside the Middle East Crisis With a Man Who Led the Mossad,'' by Efraim Halevy (St. Martin's): The ex-spook offers a unique perspective on Middle East politics from his perch atop Israel's secret service. His book provides a blow-by-blow of backdoor negotiations with the Palestinians, diplomatic clashes with the U.S. and more -- though don't expect him to reveal any state secrets.

``Miracles on the Water: The Attack on the S.S. City of Benares,'' by Tom Nagorski (Hyperion): An ABC news producer recounts the 1940 sinking of the British passenger ship by a German submarine. A total of 406 crew and passengers were aboard, 90 of whom were children. Just 13 of the children survived the gale-force winds and days adrift.

``The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky,'' by Ken Dornstein (Random House): The author's brother David, an aspiring writer, was just 25 when he died in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Using diaries and his own investigative wits, Dornstein reconstructs his brother's brief and ultimately tragic life. In addition to writing the book David never would, Ken has crafted a paean to brotherly love.

``The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences,'' by Louis Uchitelle (Knopf): Sad but true: Sometimes companies have to let workers go for the sake of profitability. This polemic by a New York Times reporter argues, in part, that corporations overuse the pink slip, and no U.S. government since the 1970s has tried to stop them. A jeremiad for Joe Six Pack and Jim Middle Manager.

``The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis,'' by John Wasik (Palgrave Macmillan): Sam Insull amassed a fortune of more than $1 billion in today's money and lost it all in the Great Depression. He died with less than a dollar in his pocket. Wasik, a Bloomberg News columnist, tells the life story of America's first power baron: the man who developed the power grid and was instrumental in the creation of General Electric.

``The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball,'' by Scott Gray (Doubleday): The unlikely story of how a Kansas factory worker changed the way experts thought about baseball. If you don't already know who Bill James is and why his ``Historical Baseball Abstract'' is so influential, then this subtle dissection of James's ideas will matter to you even less than a midseason doubleheader between the Detroit Tigers and the Milwaukee Brewers.

``The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth,'' by Tim Flannery (Atlantic Monthly): Prompted by the perceived threat of global warming, the Australian scientist delivers a terrifying and convincing account of man's abuse of the planet, as well as the consequences it may have for our grandchildren and beyond. If you think the weather is wild now, just wait.

``The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good,'' by William Easterly (Penguin): After trillions of dollars in aid sent from the mature economies to developing nations during the past 50 years, why is so much of the world still so poor? The New York University economist and World Bank veteran bluntly explains why he thinks we're going about it the wrong way. His advice: Think global, act local -- really local.

``To Dare and to Conquer: Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations, From Achilles to Al Qaeda,'' by Derek Leebaert (Little, Brown): An exhaustive alternative history of warfare as viewed from the perspective of clandestine warriors, who often enabled small armies to defeat much larger ones. Leebaert starts with the Trojan Horse and ends with Delta Force and the CIA. Break out your night-vision goggles: This one will hold your attention long after dark.

Fiction

``Brookland,'' by Emily Barton (Farrar, Straus & Giroux): The most prize-worthy novel of the month is the tale of three sisters in 18th-century Brooklyn, one of whom dreams of a fantastic bridge across the East River to Manhattan. An early feminist, she bides her time working at the family's gin distillery, until she can take it over and have access to the resources to make her dream come true.

``Intuition,'' by Allegra Goodman (Dial): An intriguing tale of infighting at a cash-poor Boston cancer lab, where a new treatment appears to have reduced the size of tumors in mice and could bring a funding windfall. As the various scientists struggle to handle the fallout of their apparent success, a battle erupts between science and PR. This may be the first literary soap opera for the pocket-protector brigade.

``The Ethical Assassin,'' by David Liss (Ballantine): The author's previous thrillers, ``A Conspiracy of Paper'' and ``A Spectacle of Corruption,'' expertly depicted the origins of the stock market and 18th-century financial matters. Now Liss looks at the economics of -- door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen in Florida circa 1985? Yes. It's quite entertaining, not least for the fey hit man with an animal-rights agenda.

``Apex Hides the Hurt,'' by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday): The third novel by Whitehead, a much-lauded black novelist, features a branding consultant caught up in a Midwestern town's debate over its name. The pedantic debate swirls around race, history and the import of language itself. The book's title refers to a multicultural bandage that will match your skin tone -- or your money back!

``A Death in Vienna,'' by Frank Tallis (Grove): Psychoanalyst Max Liebermann, a fictional disciple of Sigmund Freud's, assists his friend Detective Oskar Rheinhardt in investigating the murder of a medium mid-seance. Initially, the signs suggest a supernatural killer. Using the techniques of psychiatry to interrogate suspects, Liebermann slowly unravels the mystery against the picturesque background of Viennese cafe society in the early 20th century.

``A Dirty Job,'' by Christopher Moore (Morrow): In Moore's latest offbeat yarn, San Franciscan Charlie Asher watches as his child dies during birth and is scooped up by the Death Merchants, who then recruit Charlie to help save the world. Huh? It all leads up to a duel with Death beneath San Francisco's financial district. Moore is heir apparent to humorist Tom Robbins, meaning he's freaky and fun but also an acquired taste.

``The Righteous Men,'' by Sam Bourne (HarperCollins): When his wife is kidnapped, rookie crime reporter Will Monroe is forced to conclude that several killings around the world are connected. This pseudonymous fiction debut by Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland involves a race against time, strewn with bestselling ingredients like Bible codes and ancient prophecies.

``Keeping the World Away,'' by Margaret Forster (Chatto): A still life by the painter Gwen John is the central character in a novel charting its fictional adventures. Over the course of more than a hundred years, the canvas travels from Paris to the Tate Gallery via the lost-property office of a railway station, touching the lives of six women.