Educating Alice: Adventures of a Curious Woman

by Alice Steinbach
New York: Random House, 2004
PN 4874 S682 A3 2004

"Eight years ago, Alice Steinbach, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Baltimore Sun , decided to take a break from her life. She took a leave from job, friends, and family for a European journey of self-discovery, and her first book, Without Reservations, was the exquisite result. But once Steinbach had opened the door to a new way of living, she found herself unwilling to return to the old routine...This funny and tender book is the result of her decision to roam around the world as an informal student, taking lessons and courses in such things as French cooking in Paris, Border collie training in Scotland, traditional Japanese arts in Kyoto, architecture and art in Havana."

These Foolish Things

by Deborah Moggach
London: Chatto & Windus, 2004
PR 6063 O44 T494 2004

"When Ravi Kapoor, an over-worked London doctor, is driven beyond endurance by his disgusting and difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: 'Can't we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.' His prayer seems to have been answered when his entrepreneurial cousin, Sonny, comes up with the inspired idea of setting up a retirement home, recreating a lost corner of England in Dunroamin, a converted guesthouse in Brigade Road, Bangalore.... In Dunroamin, Deborah Moggach creates a little world where hilarity is matched with the poignancy of getting old, and humour with the darker issues of care in the community."

The Billion Dollar BET: Robert Johnson and the Inside Story of Black Entertainment Television

"The American dream is still alive, and if you don't believe it just take a close look at Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET) and a man who has traveled the classic American journey from humble origins to unimaginable wealth. Born to a poor family in Mississippi, Johnson, the son of factory workers and the only one among his ten siblings to attend college, parlayed a $15,000 loan in 1979 into Black Entertainment Television, one of the cable industry's richest franchises."

Pocketbook Power: How to Reach the Hearts and Minds of Today's Most Coveted Consumers—Women

by Bernice Kanner
New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004
HF 5415.32 K36 2004

"...Noted marketing expert Bernice Kanner takes an eye-opening look at the way female spending power has forever changed the advertising/marketing landscape. Pocketbook Power reveals how industry professionals are responding to the female-dominated marketplace, marrying compelling demographic and statistical information with tales of canny approaches to product development and positioning, and of marketing prowess. As the roles and attitudes of women evolve, they're creating extraordinary opportunities for savvy marketers who can come up with new ways to reach them."

Queen of the Turtle Derby: And Other Southern Phenomena

"Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena collects a bevy of wise, witty, often hilarious essays by the inimitably charming, staunchly Southern Julia Reed. In classic Dixie storytelling fashion, Reed wends her way through the South—from politics, religion, and women to weather, pestilence, guns, and what she calls 'drinking and other Southern pursuits'—with a rare blend of literary elegance and plainspoken humor."

Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times

"Drawing on the lessons of his storied career, as well as on those of history itself, he sounds the tocsin with a warning that the soul of democracy is dying in America, replaced increasingly by government of, by, and for a corporate ruling class. Whether reflecting on mega-media mergers that contribute to the replacement of truth-seeking with infotainment, corporate scandals that highlight the vast and growing distance between rich and poor, or political policies that have substituted casual belligerence for careful tending top justice, Moyers on America seeks to return the conversation of democracy back to its most fundamental questions."

Burning Down My Masters' House: My Life at The New York Times

by Jayson Blair
Beverly Hills, CA: New Millennium Press, 2004
PN 4874 B544 A3 2004

"Blair accepts all the words that have been used to describe him: liar, thief, fabricator and plagiarist. He does not push responsibility for his actions onto anyone else, but seeks to explain how someone with talent and opportunity could fall from such great heights, primarily by his own hand. For the first time, in his own words, Blair seeks to answer the question that consumed media watchers, writers and readers everywhere: How could such a thing have happened at The New York Times."

Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood

"With the intensity of the California gold rush, corporations are racing to stake their claim on the consumer group formerly known as children. What was once the purview of a handful of companies has escalated into a gargantuan enterprise estimated at over $15 billion annually. While parents busily try to set limits at home, marketing executives work day and night to undermine their efforts with irresistible messages. In Consuming Kids, psychologist Susan Linn takes a comprehensive and unsparing look at the demographic advertisers call 'the kid market,' taking readers on a compelling and disconcerting journey through modern childhood as envisioned by commercial interests."

Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation

"While much has been written about the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, battled the British, and framed the Constitution, the wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters they left behind have been little noticed by history. Roberts brings us the women who fought the Revolution as valiantly as the men, often defending their very doorsteps. While the men went off to war or to Congress, the women managed their businesses, raised their children, provided them with political advice, and made it possible for the men to do what they did. The behind-the-scenes influence of these women—and their sometimes very public activities—was intelligent and pervasive. "