Late-Talking Children, Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, BasicBooks, 1997; $23 (child development).
An economist best known as a conservative author of books and newspaper columns, Sowell turns here to a new topic: a study of unusually bright children who begin talking years later than "normal." Sowell's interest was sparked when his own son, John, didn't start talking until he was nearly 4. In 1993, after John had graduated from college, Sowell wrote a column on the subject--and received letters from around the country from parents of similar children. Curious, the author researched 44 families with 46 such children. He found striking similarities: Late-talking children tend to be highly analytical, musically inclined and possessed of uncommonly good memories. And more than four-fifths are boys. The book offers short profiles of some of the subjects, a chapter of "layman's thoughts" and concludes with Sowell urging specialists to do further research.
Please Don't Wish Me a Merry Christmas: A Critical History of the Separation of Church and State, Stephen M. Feldman, JSM '86, New York University Press, 1997; $29.95 (U.S. government/politics).
Readers who thought religious tolerance was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution are in for a jolt. The author, a University of Tulsa law professor, argues that the impetus behind the separation of church and state has always been to protect Christianity, not to foster religious freedom for all faiths. Moreover, Feldman contends that Christianity is by definition anti-Semitic and that because America is overwhelmingly Christian, a kind of cultural imperialism holds sway that is particularly offensive to Jews. Most Christians, he says, assume that "certain inherently Christian symbols and interpretations of social reality represent the normal, the neutral, and the natural." The author builds his case both with documentation drawn from 2,000 years of history and his own observations as a Jew.
Postmodern War: The New Politics of Conflict, Chris Hables Gray, '75, Guilford Press, 1997; $23.95 (military history).
In the good old days, wars were caused by some combination of greed, ambition and stupidity. But in this analysis of late 20th-century warfare, Gray posits that technoscience now plays an equal role in triggering armed conflict. Drawing on events from the Gulf War, Bosnia, Iran, Libya and other hot spots, Gray--an associate professor at the University of Great Falls, Montana--argues that unimaginable horrors now seem palatable. War, he contends, is presented as a bloodless display of virtual reality that is as tidy as a Nintendo game. The book ends with a call to step back from the brink of annihilation: "It is a matter of survival. The Sarajevos of 1914, 1944 and 1995 should never be repeated. War is very strong. We must be stronger."
Every Day, Elizabeth Richards, '82, Pocket Books, 1997; $22 (fiction).
Leigh Adelman lives in a suburb of New York City with her decent but unexciting husband and her three children. We meet her navigating the diapers and laundry, the babysitters and cooking--but her life is about to change. With deft use of the first person, Richards, in this debut novel, seduces us with the blandness of Leigh's life, then hooks us with omens of disruption to come. "The message that just beyond where we're looking, something wild is preparing to enter and shake us up . . . still moves me," Leigh says. And soon after that, she rekindles an affair with Fowler, who was her first love and who is now dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. The affair threatens her marriage and causes chaos in her family. This is the stuff of soap operas, but Richards balances it by capturing the minutiae of love in its many forms. That balance apparently captured Hollywood, too. The rights have been sold for a cool million.
