There have been hundred of biographies, analyses, and critiques of President Abraham Lincoln, but Doris Goodwin’s Team of Rivals : The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln manages to shed refreshing and insightful new light on an old discourse. Goodwin argues that this poor, self-taught, one-term congressman and prairie lawyer was one of the shrewdest political operators and Washington insiders of the time, managing to not only co-opt three better-born, better-experienced men (William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates) for the 1860 Republican nomination, but also bringing these rival men into his Cabinet and obtain their loyalty, respect, and wisdom at a time when the nation was tearing itself apart.

God Created the Integers is the latest outpouring by author and physicist Stephen Hawking, chronicling some 25 mathematical masterpieces that span 2,500 years and 15 acclaimed mathematicians from Augustin Cauchy to Alan Turing. This extensive anthology gives readers a chance to peer into the mind of these geniuses, providing them with excerpts of mathematical proof and results, as well as helping them to understand the process of mathematical thought, which has transformed the course of human history and now lies at the very heart of today’s technological foundations. The important signifances of these geniuses are explained in a thorough and clear manner by Hawking’s — an oft-proclaimed genius in his own right — well-written presentation.

Visit Stephen Hawking’s Official Website for more about his work.

The Pulitzer-prize winning author of 1996’s Angela’s Ashes and 1999’s follow-up, ‘Tis, brings you the final installment in the memoir trilogy of Frank McCourt’s heartbreaking but ultimately triumphant life. This time, McCourt focuses on his 30-odd years of teaching in New York City’s public high schools, detailing the often infuriating way education administrators, bureaucrats, and officials dealt with students, teachers, and curriculum when all McCourted wanted to do was simply teach. “I was uncomfortable with the bureaucrats, the higher-ups, who had escaped classrooms only to turn and bother the occupants of those classrooms, teachers and students. I never wanted to fill out their forms, follow their guidelines, administer their examinations, tolerate their snooping, adjust myself to their programs and courses of study,” McCourt writes, and eventually, he found ingenius ways to circumvent the system to enrich his students lives and get them to think creatively, while also learning from them as well. McCourt gives a remarkable insight into the nature of teaching that should be required reading for every teacher in America, and more than a few public officials as well.

Much of American cuisine is curiously influenced by Italian cooking, so what can be better than an all-inclusive cookbook that gathers together Italy’s oldest and richest recipes and updates them to suit modern sensibilities and tastes? Thats just what the editors of Phaidon Press did when they compiled traditional Italian cooking techniques for their latest cookbook, The Silver Spoon, and to date, it’s one of Italy’s most popular cookbooks. It all began when a group of cooking experts was commissioned ny Domus magazin to collect hundreds of traditional and modern recipes from the different Italian regions and make them available to a wider audience. In the process, they aslo updated ingredients, quantities, and methods while at the same time preserving the memory of ancient recipes. Readers will enjoy this flavorful book and perhaps will be motivated to stir up a few dishes of their own.

Sidney Sheldon has had an amazing life, from becoming a top screenwriter, director, playwright, producer, and novelist who wrote the Academy Award-winning screenplay The Bachelor and Bobby-Soxer, the Tony Award-winning play Redhead, and created four of television’s greatest classic shows including I Dream of Jeannie, and several novels. However, balanced with these career highlights were some devastating lows, including bouts of depression, a suicide attempt, and the death of his child. Sheldon serves up an engaging autobiography of an exciting, successful career that will be sure to entertain his fans as well as give them intimate insight into the man behind the scripts.

Visit Sidney Sheldon’s Official Website.

After the incredible success of her off-kilter best-selling debut book Stiff, Spook has author Mary Roach return with a book that deals with a subject just as seemingly bizarre: what happens to the supposed human soul after death? Roach approaches the topic with her usual combination of wry humor, skepticism, but a genuine desire to know and understand the various efforts and methods scientists, believers, and scientists who believe have employed in order to discover, study, and obtain scientific evidence of the afterlife. She interviews both scientists and mediums, goes to school for mediums and subjects her brain to electromagnetic waves in order to see ghosts, and embarks on a journey to record the sounds made by the Donner party. Like her previous book, Spook is littered with footnotes that begin to take a life of their own, usually tangential but always utterly fascinating.

Read an interview with Mary Roach in The Book Standard.

Husband and wife author-team Jung Chang and Jon Halliday tackle the controversial topic of China’s legendary leader Mao Tse-tung in their latest scathing biography, Mao: The Unknown Story. Seeking to critically analyze Mao’s policies through several key events in China’s history, from the harsh Long March to the vicious Cultural Revolution, Chang and Halliday call attention to the millions of Chinese who became silent, unnamed victims as the result of these tumultuous events and Mao’s ambition to completely control 20th-Century China. Chang and Halliday write a compelling, and at times appalling, narrative backed up by thoroughly and exhaustively researched facts garnered from archives all over the world.

Mao, the Unknown Story, by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, seems to be a book that should be required reading for anyone interested in East Asia.

- Japundit.Com

Read another indepth revew here.

Chris Mooney presents a very hard case to crack: methodically researched, thoroughly presented, and persuasively argued, The Republican War on Science details just how the Bush Administration — and the Republican Party over the course of the century — has repeatedly spread misinformation about stem cell research and technology advancements, repealed laws safeguarding environmental protection, restricted access to birth control, and curbed efforts of teaching evolution in schools. While Mooney’s presentation is precise and backed up my meticulous evidence, he doesn’t attempt false balance when he sees it isn’t warranted. This book is unashamedly partisan and will no doubt make conservatives indignant. However, it is an insightful and indepth read.

What should have been Carole Radziwill’s storybook romance and happy life quickly turns into a series of tragedies in her new memoir, What Remains : A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love. Carole comes from a middle-class background working as an ABC reporter when she meets her future husband, Anthony Radziwill, who just so happens to be Jackie Kennedy Onassis’ nephew and first cousins with John F. Kennedy Jr. Carole and Anthony date, fall in love, and marry, and also become close friends with Anthony’s cousin and his new wife, Carolyn Bessett. Suddenly, Anthony gets diagnosed with cancer and dies, but not before JFK Jr., his wife, and her sister all perish in a senseless crash. Radziwill’s strength is in depicting small, but heartbreaking, scenes such as those of JFK Jr. holding his cousin’s hand and softly singing a song from their childhood or Director Mike Nichols coming to the hospital and handing out sandwiches to the nurses. Radziwill doesn’t market this book as a Kennedy book, but a story about close bonds of family, friendship, and love that surpass even death.

TLC’s spunky hosts Clinton Kelly and Stacy London of the hit cable series What Not To Wear have taken their fashion savvy from the small screen to the coffeetable with their first fashion guide book Dress Your Best : The Complete Guide to Finding the Style That’s Right for Your Body. Clinton and Stacy are positive and direct in their straightforward advice: dress for your body type. They feature 15 real women and 8 real men, all of differing heights and body types and give useful advice for how to look your best — without mentioning brand names or gimmicks. The goal is to understand your body, not try and conform to some unrealistic ideal. Shopping has now been made fun again; buy clothes that make you look and feel great.

Visit TLC’s What Not To Wear website.