The Most Expensive Game in Town: The Rising Cost of Youth Sports and the Toll on Today’s Families by Mark Hyman

Posted on April 7, 2012 by pagesofjulia

An impassioned argument that the mass commercialization of youth sports is not healthy for kids.


Mark Hyman’s first book, Until It Hurts, dealt with our national obsession with youth sports and its negative consequences for our children. The Most Expensive Game in Town expands on that theme by following the money. His research includes interviews and discussions with parents and grandparents, coaches, corporate sponsors and entrepreneurs–all of them spending and making money from youth sports in the United States. His conclusion: money can have adverse effects on the kids that sports programs are supposed to benefit in the first place, even when many of the parties involved have only the best intentions.

Hyman’s case studies include visits with parents who became unintended entrepreneurs because they saw a way to improve their kids’ experience as well as parents disturbed by the costs of supporting their kids. He looks at the big business of marketing through children–such as youth tournament sponsorships–and the promises made that kids will have a heightened chances of playing college sports or landing an athletic scholarship.

It’s difficult to grasp the size of the ill-defined youth sports industry, but Hyman makes it clear that the amounts involved are shocking. Finally, he examines the plight of kids in inner cities (and others affected by poverty) whose access to the obvious benefits of sport, participation and competition is limited. Hyman’s arguments are well-researched yet very readable, bringing home an issue that is perhaps underexamined but of great importance to parents and concerned citizens.

This review originally ran in the March 27, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 5 soccer balls.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Tutankhamen: The Search for an Egyptian King by Joyce Tyldesley

Posted on March 21, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A new biography of a very old figure still shrouded in mystery.


Joyce Tyldesley (Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt) takes on the life of King Tutankhamen, examining the many questions still surrounding his life and the archeology of his tomb, whose discovery in 1922 caused a wave of what Tyldesley calls “Tut-mania” across the Western world. As a king, Tutankhamen came to rule very young, yet managed to effect great change during his short reign–but was then removed from written records by his successors, an act with great consequence in ancient Egyptian theology. His tomb is unusual: relatively undisturbed, and as Tyldesley retraces, surrounded by mystery and myth.

The first, larger part of Tutankhamen is devoted to the archeological record and what it tells us about Tutankhamen and some of his relatives. Tyldesley discusses and critiques various theories (for example, regarding his biological parents) and acknowledges that little is known for certain. Next, she examines Tutankhamen’s legacy in our world–most notably, the rampant myths and legends about the curse on his tomb, which spread as quickly as the news of its discovery. Finally, for those interested in a clear storyline, she outlines her best approximation of Tutankhamen’s life story (while noting that it is only a well-educated theory).

Tutankhamen succeeds in making this ancient monarch accessible to the average reader. Beware of developing an appetite for Egyptology upon reading!

This review originally ran in the March 13, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 5 mummies.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Mountains of Light by R. Mark Liebenow

Posted on March 17, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A quiet, moving memoir of grief and recovery set in the Yosemite Valley.


When his wife of 18 years died, R. Mark Liebenow was overcome with grief. He sought relief by following in John Muir’s footsteps, consulting naturalists, historians, spiritual guides and artists along the way. Mountains of Light covers a year which he spends (in many short trips) in the Yosemite Valley, contemplating the natural world and the significance of death. He is “looking for the mystery of life,” he writes, “even if it can’t be solved but only hiked further into.”

Mountains of Light is lyrical and decidedly literary. Liebenow’s focus drifts: he describes a mountain vista, waxes mystical about the roles that insects and waterfalls and clouds play in the universe, quotes poetry (and Muir), confers with cutting-edge science and remembers his late wife. He includes morsels of history (particularly of Yosemite, from Native Americans through the Mariposa Battalion to the present) and catalogues plant and animal life. He considers various religious and spiritual understandings of nature and death and the mountains, mulling over his options for accepting his tragedy. The background for all this musing is dynamic, as Liebenow takes challenging hikes, explores, gets lost in the wilderness and watches his fellow campers and mountain climbers take still greater risks. The scenery changes drastically in four seasons, which Liebenow interprets metaphorically.

Part travelogue, part natural study and part memoir of grief, Mountains of Light is meditative, lovely, thought-provoking and, yes, sad–but worth it for the appreciation of this natural gem and the redemption it brings.

This review originally ran in the March 9, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Please note that this book makes a fine readalike for Fire Season or Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire. And look at that lovely cover, too!

Rating: 6 moments of contemplation.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , , | 3 Comments »

First Lady of Fleet Street by Eilat Negev and Yehuda Koren

Posted on March 4, 2012 by pagesofjulia

The biography of a pioneering female newspaper editor in early 20th-century London.


Rachel Sassoon was the heiress daughter of a wealthy Jewish businessman who was rooted in Baghdad but proud of the family’s new status after he moved them to London in 1860, while Rachel was still a baby. Only nine years old when her father died, Rachel’s options were increased by his fortune and broadened by his absence until, long past the standard marriageable age, and with considerable life experience behind her, she made what her family viewed as an unforgivable decision: she married Frederick Beer, who was also of Jewish ancestry but had converted to Christianity. (For this, Rachel was ostracized from the family until Frederick’s death, when a brother had her certified as “of unsound mind.”)

She found love with Frederick, but more importantly for posterity, she found a newspaper: Beer’s Observer drew her interest, but it took her own newspaper, the Sunday Times, to unleash Rachel’s creative and industrial spirit. She took on issues of women’s rights and suffrage, workers’ rights, the arts, criminal justice, and international political and social issues; the Sunday Times was for a decade Rachel Beer’s personal soapbox.

Eilat Negev and Yehuda Koren’s matter-of-fact portrayal of Rachel’s life sheds light on the experiences of women and people with Jewish backgrounds in her time, while the stories of the Beer and Sassoon families depict larger issues regarding the era’s immigration and business patterns. The First Lady of Fleet Street is an engaging snapshot of several aspects of early 20th-century life as seen through the lens of one remarkable woman.

This review originally ran in the March 2, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 5 understudied women.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

Bleed for Me by Michael Robotham

Posted on March 3, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A darkly entertaining thriller with a surprisingly lovable hero.


Joe O’Loughlin is a semi-retired psychologist struggling to hold his marriage and family together while coping with Parkinson’s disease. After moving from London to a quiet small town to find some peace, Joe is trying to teach part-time at the local university, make up with his wife and be a good father to his teenage daughter, Charlie. But then Charlie’s best friend Sienna shows up one night covered in blood. She can’t remember what happened, but her father, a decorated ex-cop, has been murdered and it’s his blood on her hands. Joe is reluctantly talked into helping out with the investigation.

The mystery begins with the murder of Sienna’s father, but it quickly gets more complicated, until Joe is investigating decades-old crimes, a neo-Nazi gang and a schoolteacher’s past–all while trying to understand Sienna’s wounded psyche. Of course, he’s also still trying to patch things up with his wife and Charlie.

Bleed for Me, Michael Robotham’s fourth novel featuring Joe O’Loughlin, is fast-paced, disturbing, gritty and complex, with a highly charismatic narrator and hero. As the well-meaning and earnest Joe turns rogue investigator, puts his own life at risk and battles Parkinson’s all at the same time, he easily earns the reader’s compassion. His unlikely friends (including a bitter but loving ex-cop) make for surprising moments of humor, and the suspense keeps the reader ducking surprise blows.

This review originally ran in the February 28, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 4 pagesofjulia.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Available Dark by Elizabeth Hand

Posted on February 25, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A dark, cold, bloody thriller set in Iceland’s winter, seen through a photographer’s lens.


Cassandra Neary lives hard. Between the drugs, the booze and her trauma-ridden past, she just barely stays afloat; a recent foray (in 2007’s Generation Loss) back into her former field of photography didn’t earn her much, other than a suspicion of murder that she’s eager to outrun. So when a mystery man contacts her from overseas, offering a chance to put her 30-year-dead photography skills back into action for a tidy sum, she leaves her New York City slum life without too much consideration. Correspondence from her high school boyfriend Quinn–long thought dead–pushes her along, too.

But Cass is greeted in Helsinki not only by gruesome photographs–more or less her specialty–but by gruesome murders as well, and she has to keep moving. So it’s on to Reykjavik in the heart of winter, where Cass makes her way through a world of icy cold, hard drugs, black metal, mental illness and multiple murders. A reunion with Quinn lends adrenaline and excitement, but no greater light.

Not for the weak-stomached or the easily frightened, Available Dark is a masterpiece of lovely writing and ghastly details. Elizabeth Hand, who has a personal background in the early New York punk scene, treats the finer points of Scandinavian black metal with respect. Her writing is sharp-edged and gritty, and fully realized, filled with frightening, contradictory characters and shocking edge-of-the-seat twists. Cass’s artistic perspective, as she photographs ritual killings and crime scenes, adds another layer to what might have been a straightforward thriller. Great fun, if you can hang on for the ride!

This review originally ran in the Feb. 21, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 5 gory photographs.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Hanging Hill by Mo Hayder

Posted on February 20, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A suspenseful, fast-paced thriller that reunites estranged sisters amidst a series of grisly events.

When a popular, beautiful local girl is found brutally murdered on a towpath in idyllic Bath, the investigation team pursues the recommendation of the forensic psychologist: search for a teenage boy, one of her peers. Naturally, Harley-riding bad-girl police detective Zoe Benedict has something else in mind. She follows a more sinister lead toward amateur porn, strip clubs and unsavory characters–and is astonished to encounter her estranged sister, Sally, the good girl, reduced by divorce to cleaning rich people’s houses to support her daughter, at the center of the case. One of Sally’s clients is a successful (and appropriately sleazy) pornographer; her daughter shares a history with the murdered girl; and her boyfriend has some inside knowledge that makes him especially afraid for Sally’s safety. A dirty secret from Zoe’s own past threatens to reveal itself, while Sally, struggling to defend her loved ones from harm, discovers new strength no one thought she possessed. And the sisters’ relationship gets a second chance.

Mo Hayder’s (Skin; Gone) tightly plotted Hanging Hill keeps the suspense taut, and the characters are realistic and multifaceted as well as (in most cases) sympathetic. Hayder delights in exposing the dark side–of domestic life, of family, of childhood and growing up–and her gritty, gruesome bits are not for the faint of heart. But there are love affairs, too, sweetly relieving the grimness. Hanging Hill is finely put together and entirely satisfying–at least until the terrifying ending, which uproots the safe feeling of resolution into which the reader was lulled.

This review originally ran in the Feb. 14, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

Boca Daze by Steven M. Forman

Posted on February 12, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A witty sexagenarian PI who’s unafraid to take on a wacky variety of villains all at once.

Steven M. Forman’s third novel (following Boca Knights and Boca Mournings) checks back in with retired Boston cop Eddie Perlmutter, better known as the Boca Knight. Now firmly established as a private investigator in South Florida, Eddie is hit by several cases simultaneously. First, a homeless man claiming to be the Depression-era sad clown Weary Willie is attacked, and a local reporter asks Eddie to look into the circumstances. Then a new friend, World War II vet Herb Brown, suggests an investigation into a too-good-to-be-true investment scheme. For good measure, an old mobster acquaintance (and former foe from his days with the Boston PD) asks Eddie to take on the Florida “pill mills.” Eventually the Boca Knight finds himself staking out a Catholic church, traveling to Tallahassee to lobby the state legislature and palling around with a homeless woman with a tragic past. All this, while experimenting with Viagra to try to keep up with his much-younger girlfriend.

Eddie is wry and self-deprecating; the overall tone is humorous, his battles with “Mr. Johnson” especially so. Don’t sell Eddie short, though: despite the laughs, he can still take on gangsters a fraction of his age. Forman briefly but seriously addresses the Florida health crisis caused by a barely regulated prescription drug market, and then Boca Daze wraps up all its tragedies neatly and hopefully, with a wedding and a boxing match. Fans of lighthearted mysteries, South Florida or elderly heroes will be more than pleased with the Boca Knight’s latest quests.

This review originally ran as a *starred review* in the February 7, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings

Posted on February 6, 2012 by pagesofjulia


Max Hastings is a highly regarded war historian (primarily WWII) and author of a great many books examining his subject from various angles (most recently Winston’s War). His latest, Inferno, covers WWII through the lens of “regular people” as primary sources. In his introduction, he explains that his book does not seek to be a comprehensive study of WWII in all its events, bringing a reader from zero knowledge up to expert level; rather, it assumes some familiarity with the war and concentrates on people: “This is a book chiefly about human experience.”

Hastings did what he set out to do: he exposed the human experience of WWII, in all its horror and almost incomprehensible suffering and death, in its follies and incompetencies and cruelties and in its rare moments of black humor. The brief quotations from regular folks from dozens of countries are moving, illustrative, and diverse, both in viewpoint and in origin. They offer a valuable telling of the war, and serve as a great history lesson/review too.

This is a high-quality book; it has a lot to offer. At almost 700 pages, the reader’s motivation will have to be fairly high to invest the time and effort required to reap the full benefits. But for the interested reader, a treasure trove of honest contemporary accounts of this remarkable tragedy of history awaits.

This review was written for Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

The Chalk Girl by Carol O’Connell

Posted on February 2, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Carol O’Connell’s Mallory returns to take on a case with nonstop twisting intrigues.


The little girl in Central Park has red hair, starry blue eyes and a dazzling smile; she reminds people of an elf or a fairy, and tells stories of blood raining out of the sky and an uncle who turned into a tree, and demands hugs from everyone she meets. The fairy tale halts abruptly, however, with the discovery of a body in a tree, hogtied and seemingly dead. And it’s not the only one. Coco, as she calls herself, presents a perplexing mystery. Where did she come from? Who does she belong to? Where did she get the strange explanations for the blood on her shirt and, most important, what kind of a witness will she make, if the NYPD ever manages to solve the homicides?

Detective Mallory, the protagonist of nine previous novels, is just back from three months of unauthorized down time and is none too stable herself; she and Coco may have more in common than meets the eye. But the case quickly grows bigger than a wandering child and a series of well-planned murders. Conspiracies and deceits connect Coco with the upper echelons of political power in the city, from high society to the DA’s office, even the police department–and Mallory’s investigation will reveal a chilly tale of torment stretching back 15 years. Unlike the spritely Coco, though, Mallory is a terrifying force to be reckoned with. Her methods are cold, merciless and conniving; her colleagues doubt she even has a heart. If nothing else, Coco’s tormenters can expect justice at Mallory’s hands.

This review originally ran in the January 20, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »