On PT's Bookshelf

DIRTY: A Search for Answers emphasis>Inside America's Teenage
Drug Epidemic emphasis>By Meredith Maran
(HarperSanFrancisco)emphasis>Eye-opening and compassionately
delivered, Dirty is an intimate travelogue of three teens' journey from
desperate addiction toward sobriety. Maran's storytelling is colorful and
compelling, a sympathetic evocation of ecstasy, heartbreak, horror and
hope. Provocatively revealing, informative and not without humor, Dirty
is itself an addictive read.

AN ACCIDENTAL COWBOY emphasis>By Jameson Parker (St.
Martin's)emphasis>Actor becomes 1980s TV icon. Actor gets shot by
murderous felon. Actor, spiraling into posttraumatic stress, flees
Hollywood for a life on the range. By the blonde guy from Simon &
Simon, a sensitive, wise, sweetly written memoir about horses,
California's last cowboys and giving up the fast life. And more
horses.

GIRL WARS: 12 Strategies That Will End Female Bullying
emphasis>By Cheryl Dellasega and Charisse Nixon (Simon &
Schuster)emphasis>The true stories of bullying are heart-wrenching and
call for intervention. Dellasega and Nixon provide a comprehensive
approach to dealing with the behavior, arming women and girls with the
confidence they need to prevent themselves from becoming victims.

THE MOURNER'S DANCE: What We Do When People Die emphasis>By
Katherine Ashenburg (North Point)emphasis>Ashenburg does such an
admirable job of compiling variations on mourning that readers will be
struck by both the exotic and the mundane in this very human activity.
The most compelling passages, however, detail the author's own grief as
she, her family and her friends dealt with the death of her daughter's
fiancé.

HIDDEN DEPTHS: The Story of Hypnosisemphasis>By Robin Waterfield
(Routledge)emphasis>Comprehensive cultural history of this dark art
begins with Genesis (no kidding), careens through the French fad for
magnetism, detours into 19th-century American spiritism, and winds up
with Hitler, Castro and the evidence for multiple personality disorder
and recovered memory. A joyful, witty exploration of the unexplored
powers of the human mind.

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO MENTAL HEALTH FOR WOMEN emphasis>Edited by
Lauren Slater, Jessica Henderson Daniel and Amy Banks
(Beacon)emphasis>An Our Bodies, Ourselves for the mind: intelligent
yet personable, friendly and informative. Chapters range from heavy
biology to essayistic prose. Some veer toward corny; others are a
downright hoot, like the chapter on sex that tells the tale of a dying
grandmother proudly proclaiming she'd never had an orgasm.

WHITE MEN ON RACE: Power, Privilege and the Shaping of Cultural
Consciousnessemphasis>By Joe Feagin and Eileen O'Brien
(Beacon)emphasis>Books on racism in America do not often focus on men
in positions of power. That's lamentable, note the authors, as they have
the resources to make real social change. This sociology of "the white
bubble," including anonymous interviews with powerful white men, offers a
sobering perspective on racial bias.

THE SUBSTANCE OF STYLE: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value is Remaking
Commerce, Culture and Consciousness emphasis>By Virginia Postrel
(HarperCollins)emphasis>From iMacs to designer toilet brushes, style
has trumped function in our new "age of look and feel." In this
wonderfully sharp mix of expert analysis and everyday observation,
Postrel takes a close look at our growing preoccupation with aesthetics,
concluding that it's finally OK to care about looks.

URBAN TRIBES: A Generation Redefines Friendship, Family and
Commitment emphasis>By Ethan Watters (Bloomsbury)emphasis>Urban
tribes are laid-back bands of twenty- and thirty-somethings who meet
serving latte at Starbucks or while subletting apartments. Soon enough,
they discover that their raison d'être is chilling out with one
another, not building a career, landing a life partner or buying a
starter home. Romance leads slowly, if ever, to marriage, sending Watters
into a tizzy of anxiety about himself and his slacker crew. Are they just
refusing to grow up? Why do they postpone the inevitable?

Urban tribes is a great buzz-phrase, and Watters's idea is
interesting-that tight-knit bands of friends loom large in the urban
hipster psyche. But lackadaisical prose and lazy reportage leave us
feeling that instead of capturing the zeitgeist, Watters has merely hit
upon a marketable sobriquet-and a way to justify his own inertia.