THE THINGS THEY ADVISED
The Snake Eaters: An Unlikely Band of Brothers and the Battle for the Soul of Iraq, OWEN WEST, MBA '98; Free Press, $26.
A third-generation Marine (and a second-generation warrior/writer), West has been in recent years a Goldman Sachs energy trader and a reservist of the sort vital to America's "small wars"—insurgencies combatted with military advisers. Snake Eaters recounts the experiences of a handful of barely informed Americans who must train an Iraqi army battalion meant to restore the isolated city of Khalidya. Theirs turned into a success story—West believes that good military advisers are "combat multipliers" who leverage national defense at efficient cost—but it is a story nonetheless with staggering losses for all stakeholders.
Old Ladies, NANCY HUDDLESTON PACKER; John Daniel and Company, $15.
The title for this 11-story collection might suggest a fusty stereotype, but these heroines—many of them self-sufficient and gimlet-eyed—resist categorization. Packer, a professor emerita of English, is a master of closely observed details (the tasks when a vacation house is put on the market) and ambiguous motives. (In "Dust Catchers," a spiraling-down widow opens her door to a rambunctious visitor who is a concerned neighbor or a dedicated con artist.) The enduring nature of high-school-like stratification is one theme. Even in retirement communities there are jocks, brainiacs, socs—and pressure to conform.
White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf, AARON BOBROW-STRAIN, MA '93; Beacon Press, $27.95.
An associate professor of politics at Whitman College, Bobrow-Strain examines what is so iconic about sliced bread. The story, a century in the making, involves an astonishing array of reformers, industrialists, marketers, diet gurus and everyday eaters. "Time and time again," he concludes after diligent and wide-ranging research, "well-meaning efforts to change the country through its bread ended up reinforcing forms of race, class, and gender exclusion—even when they also achieved much-needed improvements in America's food systems."
Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation, ELAINE PAGELS, '64, MA '65; Viking, $27.95.
What's that famously apocalyptic conclusion to the Bible doing in the New Testament? Princeton professor Pagels thinks the work, written by second-generation follower John of Patmos, has more in common with Jewish prophetic tradition and specific wartime events in the Roman empire than it does with the Christianity that was being created by Paul and his converts. In concise prose, she also discusses why the anti-heretical message of Revelation has resonated through the centuries since.
inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity, TINA SEELIG, PhD '85; HarperOne, $25.99.
Intrinsic components of creativity—attitude, knowledge and imagination—and the external factors that influence them—culture, resources and habitat—are examined and diagrammed into an "innovation engine" by Seelig, the executive director for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. Like calories in an éclair, the book is packed with anecdotes about imaginative solutions big and small. One example: To arrange, without talking, a crowd in order by birthdates, get everyone to pull out driver's licenses.
Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity, JOEL STEIN, '93, MA '94; Grand Central Publishing, $26.99.
Time writer and new father Stein looked in the mirror—and yearned to see a reflection more macho than metrosexual. For Man Made, the humorist combines his inner Walter Mitty and his outer George Plimpton to seek testosterone-rich adventures—Boy Scout camping, firefighting, mixed martial arts, Marine basic training and more. Among his observations: "Though masculinity drives progress, progress is the enemy of masculinity."
'Here's the thing: I'm a man of extremes.'
—vegan endurance athlete and recovering alcoholic Rich Roll, '89, in Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself, Crown Archetype, $25.
