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Looking for a gift for that hard-to-buy-for football fan, lesbian mother, or book club member? Here are some of the best of the season's readings.
By Janice Harayda
Looking for a gift book? Here are ideas for everyone on your list from A-to-Z. You can read a full review of most books on the list below by entering their titles in the Search box One-Minute Book Reviews www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com. Most came out in 2006 and are widely available bookstores. Older books are available from online retailers.
What to give to …
AN ATTORNEY Anonymous Lawyer (Holt, $25) is a dark and satirical novel in the form of a blog that sends up the politics of a ruthless high-powered law firm. It grew out of Jeremy Blachman's popular blog www.anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com and has a plot that's thin enough to read during the bathroom breaks of a long deposition. But how much time does that young law firm associate on your list have for reading, anyway? Lawyers who prefer more substantial books, or nonfiction, may enjoy Manhunt (see under History Buff below).
A BOOK CLUB MEMBER Does someone on your list keep complaining about the books selected by her book club? A bookseller can show you guides full of ideas for reading groups. But many reading-group guides do little more than cheerlead for popular titles. Discerning readers may prefer two older books: John Carey's Pure Pleasure: A Guide to the 20th Century's Most Enjoyable Books (Faber and Faber, $14, paperback), a collection of 800-word reviews from the Sunday Times of London, and Noel Perrin's A Reader's Delight (Dartmouth, $20, paperback), which gathers brief reviews of classic fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from the Washington Post.
A COSMETIC SURGERY VETERAN You have to be a bit careful about who gets Alex Kuczynki's Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession With Cosmetic Surgery (Doubleday, $24.95), because you would never want to appear to suggest that the recipient needs plastic surgery. But it's a terrific book for, among others, veterans of the knife and syringe. Have you heard about the Detroit radio station that gave away free plastic surgery during a promotion with the theme "New Year, New Rear"? www.alexkuczynski.com
A DOG LOVER John Grogan wrote one of funniest memoirs of 2005 in Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog (Morrow, $21.95), recently published in a handsome gift edition. The title hardly exaggerates the exploits of a yellow Lab that, though endearing, was so rebellious that it was expelled from obedience school. Anyone who loved Marley and Me is also likely to enjoy the similarly appealing books by Jon Katz, especially A Dog Year: Twelve Months, Four Dogs, and Me (Random House, $12.95, paperback). www.marleyandme.com
AN EX Still speaking to your ex? Show that you have no hard feelings (okay, only a few) by picking up Leanne Shapton's Was She Pretty? (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $20), a quirky coffee-table book of captioned line drawings that describe the offbeat ways men and women remember their former lovers.
A FOOTBALL FAN Hallelujah. After a decade out of print, Jerry Kramer's Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer (Doubleday, $21.95) is back in an edition with a foreword by Jonathan Yardley, the Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic. Give this book right now – before it goes out of print again – to any football fan young to have missed it when it first came out in 1968. Kramer, an All-Pro Green Bay guard, wrote this modern classic with the late Dick Schaap, one of the best sportswriters of the 20th century. www.jerrykramer.com
A GRIEVING WIDOW The holidays are often no holiday when you've recently lost someone you love. Four 9/11 widows tell how they coped in Love You, Mean It: A True Story of Love, Loss, And Friendship (Hyperion, $23.95), by Patricia Carrington, Julia Collins, Claudia Gerbasi, and Ann Haynes with Eve Charles. This book may especially help a widow who is coping with a sudden death that didn't give her time to prepare emotionally for the loss. www.loveyoumeanit.com
A HISTORY BUFF Why did John Wilkes Booth really kill Abraham Lincoln? And why did it take the government more than a week to capture him after he fled from Ford's Theatre after shooing the president? Lawyer and Lincoln scholar James L. Swanson offers answers in Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer (Morrow, $26.95), one of the year's best historical true crime stories. www.jameslswanson.com
AN ISRAELI AT HEART Have a friend who visits Israel often and dreams of living there? The Man Who Fell Into a Puddle: Israel Lives (Vintage, $13, paperback) is a poignant collection of profiles of immigrants that shows a side of the country rarely seen in news reports of war in Middle East. Author Igal Sarna, a tank commander in the Yom Kippur War and one of Israel's leading journalists, writes with a high style somewhat reminiscent of Joan Didion's.
A JANEITE … Devout Jane Austen fans call themselves "Janeites." But you don't have to fall into that group to enjoy Josephine Ross's Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners: Compliments, Charades & Horrible Blunders (Bloomsbury, $14.95), with charming watercolor illustrations by Henrietta Webb. Ross doesn't try to extrapolate a set of 21st-century rules from the behavior of Elizabeth Bennet and others. Instead she offers a literary companion, masquerading as a Regency-era etiquette book, that explains the complex codes of behavior followed by Austen's characters.
KINDERGARTENER Mother Goose characters write letters to each other in Allan and Janet Ahlberg's The Jolly Postman: Or Other People's Letters (Little, Brown, $19.99, ages 4-8), which has a real letter tucked into in an envelope on every other page. This British import has been delighting children for two decades and recently appeared in a 20th anniversary edition. All books in the "Jolly Postman" series are popular gifts partly because children often can't get them at libraries, which have trouble keeping them on shelves — the letters keep disappearing from their pockets.
A LESBIAN MOTHER Harley Aizley tells how she and her partner had a child using sperm they ordered by mail in her wisecracking memoir, Buying Dad: One Woman's Search for the Perfect Sperm Donor (Alyson, $14.95, paperback). Aizley also wrote Confessions of the Other Mother: Nonbiological Lesbian Moms Tell All (Beacon, 2006), a collection of personal stories by lesbian mothers. www.harlynaizley.com
A MOVIEGOER Two of Hollywood's top casting directors tell how they matched stars like Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise with roles in A Star Is Found: Our Adventures Casting Some of Hollywood's Biggest Movies (Harcourt, $25), written by Janet Hirshenson and Jane Jenkins with Rachel Kranz. www.janeandjanet.com
A NEW YORK WOMAN Long before Bridget Jones stepped on a scale, Sheila Levine embodied a certain kind of New York woman – smart, funny, overweight, and desperate to get married. So it was good news when, a couple of years ago, a publisher reissued Gail Parent's blistering 1972 satire of mating rituals in pre-Sex and the City New York. Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York (Overlook, $13.95, paperback). A good gift for fans of Bridget Jones's Diary, whether they live in Manhattan or Kenosha.
AN ONLINE DATER Judsen Culbreth suggests ways that female baby boomers can find love on the Internet in The Boomers' Guide to Online Dating: Date With Dignity (Rodale, $12.95, paperback). She should know: At the age of 52, she married a man she met through an online matchmaking service. www.judsenculbreth.com
A POET Newspaper editor David Tucker's writes about his work and makes it work in Late for Work (Mariner, $12, paperback), an award winning collection of poetry with a foreword by Philip Levine. Not all the poems deal with newsrooms or deadlines. But like a good newspaper story, all have solid roots in the details of everyday life.
A RECENTLY ENGAGED FRIEND Philip Delamore's The Perfect Wedding Dress (Firefly, $35) wouldn't work for a bride-to-be who's bought her dress. But this coffee-table book could delight someone who hasn't been engaged long enough to hit the bridal salons. It has more than 300 photos of classic styles, including many pictures of wedding dresses worn by celebrities such as Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Liv Tyler, Jennifer Lopez and Diana, Princess of Wales.
QUIZ KID What do you give a star high school or college student? How about Ken Jennings's Brainaic: Adventures in the Curious Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs (Villard, $24.95), or Bob Harris's Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! (Crown, $23.95), two books by former quiz -show champions who have proved that it pays to remember what you learned in school? www.ken-jennings.com
A SHORT STORY LOVER Know someone who always turns first to the short story in The New Yorker? Consider wrapping up the sparkling Noël Coward: Collected Short Stories (Methuen, $17.95, paperback), a 1999 book available from online retailers and others. One of its advantages as a gift is that even the most ardent short-story lovers tend not to own it (or even know that the celebrated English playwright also wrote some of the finest stories of the 20th century). Also highly recommended: Elisa Albert's How This Night Is Different: Stories (Free Press, $18), a collection of stories about young Jews struggling to fine meaning in the traditional customs and activities of their faith. www.elisaalbert.com
A TODDLER In an ideal world, every toddler would own We're Going on a Bear Hunt (McElderry, $17.95, ages 1-6), a picture book full of elements young children love, including animals and nature sounds. First published in 1989, this version of the classic tale was illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, two-time winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal, England's equivalent of the Caldecott. If a toddler on your list already owns a copy, consider Five Little Ducks (Orchard, $12.99, ages 1-6), a new version of the nursery rhyme with sunny illustrations by Ivan Bates.
AN UNEMPLOYED EXECUTIVE Barbra Ehrenreich writes about her effort to find a white-collar job in Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuite of the American Dream (Owl, $13, paperback), a scathing portrait of a "transition industry" full of career coaches, resume consultants and others who may offer little in exchange for their steep fees. Ehrenreich never found the kind of job she wanted but offers a more realistic look at unemployment than many authors who tell job-seekers, often cruelly, that being fired is "the best thing that ever happened to you." www.barbaraehrenreich.com
A VERMONTER (OR VERMONTER-AT-HEART) Noel Perrin admits Vermont has "a rotten climate" and other drawbacks as a place to live. But his love for his state – and for New England in general – shines in Best Person Rural: Essays of a Sometime Farmer (Godine, $24.95), an eloquent collection of essays on such topics as calving, maple sugaring, and the influx of tourists, introduced by Terry Osborne.
A WOMAN OF A CERTAIN AGE Nora Ephron takes on all those books about mellow menopause I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman (Knopf, $19.95), a collection of blunt and witty essays on getting older and related topics.
AN X-RATED TALKER Okay, movies no longer have the "X" rating. But a lot of us still have at least one friend whose off-color jokes all seem to have originated back in a fraternity house. You'll find plenty more of those politically incorrect lines-to-make-you blush in Steve Ochs's National Lampoon Jokes Jokes Jokes: Collegiate Edition (National Lampoon Press, $10.75, paperback). Just don't encourage the recipient to read your gift aloud at your holiday dinner.
YOUR CHILD'S SOCCER COACH The World Cup: The Complete History (Aurum, $24.95) isn't a narrative history but an encyclopedia of every World Cup from the 1930 to 2006. Author Terry Crouch complied this book late enough to include all the 2006 qualifiers but not the winner. So your child's soccer coach may be amused to learn that because of their "solid defense and slick counter attack," the Italian team members look like "good bets to get to the last four this time."
A ZEN CHILD Know a child whose parents do yoga, don't eat meat, and see themselves as Buddhists in spirit? Track down the 2005 picture book Zen Shorts (Scholastic, $16.95, ages 4–8), which tells three classic Zen tales, wrapped around the story of a giant panda who befriends two young boys and their sister. Author John Muth says the panda is "based partly on the Zen artist/teacher Sengai Gibbon (1750–1838), whose drawings were used as gentle teaching tools."
Finally, dare I suggest my own first novel, The Accidental Bride (St. Martin's, 1999), which tells the story of a young reporter who decides to bail out of her over-the-top wedding for 350 guests? Publishers Weekly called the book "a witty and wise comedy of manners that pays homage to Jane Austen" (www.janiceharayda.com/mybooks). And Kirkus Reviews said: "Sparking with wit and humor, this is a story that charms." And if you put more faith in ordinary readers than critics, here's what one fan said in the "Reader Reviews" on Amazon, www.amazon.com. "Not since Bridget Jones's Diary have I laughed like this! I loved this book — I found myself excited to crawl into bed at the end of the day and read. It let me drift off into another place and leave the stress of my day behind — the definition of a succesful book! Especially great if you are a Jane Austen fan."
Watch for other gift book lists later in the season on One-Minute Book Reviews, including the Last-Minute Holiday Gift Book List and the Grandparents' Guide to Gift Books for Children. Please bookmark this site or subscribe to the RSS feed to avoid missing these posts.
© 2006 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.


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For the first time, the non-partisan congressional watchdog added fiscal exposure from climate change to its "High Risk List" of measures the federal government needs to fix.
"Climate change is a complex, crosscutting issue that poses risks to many environmental and economic systems — including agriculture, infrastructure, ecosystems, and human health — and presents a significant financial risk ...


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Panetta says women in combat is a strength
WASHINGTON (AP) — Allowing women to serve in combat roles will strengthen the U.S. military's ability to win wars, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday, shortly before his official announcement of the landmark change.
"Our military is more capable, and our force is more powerful, when we use all of the great diverse strengths of the American people," Panetta said at a Pentagon ceremony in remembrance of Martin Luther King Jr.
"Every person in today's military has made a solemn commitment to fight and, if necessary, to die, for our nation's defense," he said. "We owe it to them to allow them to pursue every avenue of military service for which they are fully prepared and qualified. Their career success and their specific opportunities should be based solely on their ability to successfully carry out an assigned mission. Everyone deserves that chance."
The decision to lift the ban on women serving in combat presents a daunting challenge to top military leaders who now will have to decide which, if any, jobs they believe should be open only to men.
Panetta planned to announce at a Pentagon news conference that more than 230,000 battlefront posts — many in Army and Marine infantry units and in potentially elite commando jobs — are now open to women. It will be up to the military service chiefs to recommend and defend whether women should be excluded from any of those more demanding and deadly positions, such as Navy SEALs or the Army's Delta Force.
The historic change, which was recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, overturns a 1994 rule prohibiting women from being assigned to smaller ground combat units.
The change won't take place overnight: Service chiefs will have to develop plans for allowing women to seek the combat positions, a senior military official said. Some jobs may open as soon as this year, while assessments for others, such as special operations forces, may take longer. The services will have until January 2016 to make a case to that some positions should remain closed to women.
Officials briefed The Associated Press on the changes Wednesday on condition of anonymity so they could speak ahead of the official announcement.
There long has been opposition to putting women in combat, based on questions of whether they have the necessary strength and stamina for certain jobs, or whether their presence might hurt unit cohesion.
But as news of Panetta's expected order got out, many members of Congress, including the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., announced their support.
"It reflects the reality of 21st century military operations," Levin said.
Objections were few. Jerry Boykin, executive vice president of the Family Research Council, called the move "another social experiment" that will place unnecessary burdens on military commanders.
"While their focus must remain on winning the battles and protecting their troops, they will now have the distraction of having to provide some separation of the genders during fast-moving and deadly situations," said Boykin, a retired Army lieutenant general. He noted that small units often are in sustained combat for extended periods of time under primal living conditions with no privacy.
Panetta's move comes in his final weeks as Pentagon chief and just days after President Barack Obama's inaugural speech in which he spoke passionately about equal rights for all. The new order expands the department's action of nearly a year ago to open about 14,500 combat positions to women, nearly all of them in the Army.
In addition to questions of strength and performance, there also have been suggestions that the American public would not tolerate large numbers of women being killed in war.
Under the 1994 Pentagon policy, women were prohibited from being assigned to ground combat units below the brigade level. A brigade is roughly 3,500 troops split into several battalions of about 800 soldiers each. Historically, brigades were based farther from the front lines, and they often included top command and support staff.
The necessities of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, propelled women into jobs as medics, military police and intelligence officers that were sometimes attached — but not formally assigned — to battalions. So while a woman couldn't be assigned as an infantryman in a battalion going out on patrol, she could fly the helicopter supporting the unit, or move in to provide medical aid if troops were injured.
And these conflicts, where battlefield lines are blurred and insurgents can lurk around every corner, have made it almost impossible to keep women clear of combat.
Still, as recent surveys and experiences have shown, it will not be an easy transition. When the Marine Corps sought women to go through its tough infantry course last year, two volunteered and both failed to complete the course. And there may not be a wide clamoring from women for the more intense, dangerous and difficult jobs, including some infantry and commando positions.
Two lawsuits were filed last year challenging the Pentagon's ban on women serving in combat, adding pressure on officials to overturn the policy. And the military services have been studying the issue and surveying their forces to determine how it may affect performance and morale.
The Joint Chiefs have been meeting regularly on the matter and they unanimously agreed to send the recommendation to Panetta earlier this month.
A senior military official familiar with the discussions said the chiefs laid out three main principles to guide them as they move through the process. Those were to maintain America's effective fighting force, preserve military readiness and develop a process that would give all service members the best chance to succeed.
Women comprise about 14 percent of the 1.4 million active military personnel. More than 280,000 women have been sent to Iraq, Afghanistan or to jobs in neighboring nations in support of the wars. Of the more than 6,600 U.S. service members who have been killed, 152 have been women.
The senior military official said the military chiefs must report back to Panetta with their initial implementation plans by May 15.


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text: In Software Requirements Elicitation for Secure Software Development, we're going to discuss the overall software requirements process as it applies in waterfall, spiral, and agile models. You'll learn about each of these processes and your goals as a software requirements analyst. This is not an easy task! Who do you talk to, when, and what kind of knowledge are you trying to obtain, in any software life cycle? How do you handle obstacles as you go? These are the questions we will focus on answering in this specialization.


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YO PEEPS! Yup, I'm actually online, which feels like something of a miracle at this point. I do want to update you all about *EVERYTHING* but alas I am still away from home and finding it hard to squeeze in blogging time. While I did have big plans for last month, a lot of stuff ended up getting in the way and I don't know if I realistically be about in September much either… In happier blogging news though, I will be back in sunny England from October, so mark it in your calendars folks!
Anyhoo, my mini reviews for this month are a little late and I've not read that much again, BUT I'm hoping that by next month it'll be a different story (***fingers and toes crossed***)
Mysteries of Udolpho– I get why Austen made fun of this. It felt silly, melodramatic and yet still managed to bore me (I blame all the long-winded, convoluted descriptions with daft word choices). I can't pretend like I would have been reading much without this book sitting on my kindle, gnawing away at any desire I had to pick it up, but it certainly didn't help! I seriously struggled to finish this one and DNF'd it after a month. And this gets no bananas for that reason.
Cinder and Ella– finally something to squeal about!!! If you've been around a while, you might already know that I have a thing for Cinderella retellings (ie I LOVE them). And this one was particularly well done. Not only was this funny and sweet, but it also explored different family dynamics in a way that didn't demonise the step family. I especially liked the way the relationships evolved over the course of the book and characters were given more complex motivations than the typical fairy tale allows. And cos it was so good, I didn't end up writing very complex notes, so you'll have to read it to find out more!
Rating: 4½/5 bananas
So have you read either of these? What did you think of them? Let me know in the comments!