Excerpt: The Michael Jackson Tapes by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

In 2000–2001, Michael Jackson sat down with his close friend and spiritual guide, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, to record what turned out to be the most intimate and revealing conversations of his life. It was Michael’s wish to bare his soul and unburden himself to a public that he knew was deeply suspicious of him. The resulting thirty hours are the basis of The Michael Jackson Tapes, recently published by Vanguard Press. From the book:

“I am scared of my father to this day. My father walked in the room -- and God knows I am telling the truth -- I have fainted in his presence many times. I have fainted once to be honest. I have thrown up in his presence because when he comes in the room and this aura comes and my stomach starts hurting and I know I am in trouble. He is so different now. Time and age has changed him and he sees his grandchildren and he wants to be a better father. It is almost like the ship has sailed its course and it is so hard for me to accept this other guy that is not the guy I was raised with. I just wished he had learned that earlier.”

The full excerpt is here.

Excerpt: Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton

Horse Soldiers (Scribner) is the dramatic account of a small band of Special Forces soldiers who secretly entered Afghanistan following 9/11 and rode to war on horses against the Taliban:

Trouble came in the night, riding out of the dust and the darkness. Trouble rolled past the refugee camp, past the tattered tents shuddering in the moonlight, the lone cry of a baby driving high into the sky, like a nail. Sunrise was no better; at sunrise, trouble was still there, bristling with AKs and RPGs, engines idling, waiting to roll into the city. Waiting.

These were the baddest of the bad, the real masters of mayhem, the death dealers with God stamped firmly in their minds. The city groaned and shook to life. Soon everyone knew trouble had arrived at the gates of the city.

Read the full excerpt here.

Excerpt: Palos Verdes Blue by John Shannon

Palos Verdes Blue is the 11th novel to feature Jack Liffey, an aerospace technician turned “finder of lost children,” whose investigations send him deep into Los Angeles’ racial and class divides.

In this new story, Liffey is hired by his ex-wife’s best friend to find her missing 17-year-old daughter, Blaine (aka “Blue”). The case puts him in the middle of a turf war on the posh Palos Verdes peninsula, one that pits affluent teenage surfers (“Bayboys”) against the Mexican day-laborers who make their crude homes in ravines between mansions where they’re employed as gardeners and servants. It’s a volatile situation, finally ignited by a stubborn young Hispanic man who’s determined to ride the waves dominated by the Bayboys. As things turn violent, drawing in irate bikers, arsonists, and racist vigilantes, the life of Liffey’s own teenage daughter, Maeve, is put at risk as she tries to help her father.

Author John Shannon grew up in the L.A. harbor town of San Pedro. After publishing four non-Liffey books, he introduced his serial sleuth in The Concrete River (1996). Over the 13 years since, the decent and compassionate Liffey has attracted critical acclaim, though he still has not become a famous figure in the genre. Novelist Dick Lochte opined in the Los Angeles Times that Liffey represents “a remarkable update on the Chandler knight-errant. Shannon matches the master in location, characterization and dialogue.” Booklist calls Liffey “a walking conscience, a bruised crusader who remains an unerring advocate of doing things the hard way on behalf of the little guy” and adds that “Fans of thinking-man’s detective fiction will find much to ponder” in these books.

Shannon’s publisher, Pegasus, has recently begun bringing out the early Liffey novels in trade paperback format, and a 12th installment in the series -- On the Nickel -- is due on shelves in 2010.

Read an excerpt of Palos Verdes Blue here.

Excerpt: The Fearless Fish Out of Water by Robin Fisher Roffer

Everyone has felt out of place at some point -- be they female, minority, a geek, a non-conformist, or just boldly individual.

The Fearless Fish Out of Water: How to Succeed When You’re the Only One Like You (Wiley) shows readers how to stay connected while maintaining a unique identity, how to fit in without blending in and how to transform exclusion and have an impact:

“There is tremendous opportunity for influence when you’re on the edge -- you’re already noticed! Fearless Fish demonstrates how to make the most out of being noticed as you gain the tools for becoming more of who you are, instead of trying to change who you are. It helps readers use the tools they already have to find everything they want in their careers -- without sacrificing their souls.”

The excerpt is here.

Excerpt: Death Was in the Picture by Linda L. Richards

Today in January Magazine, an excerpt from Death Was in the Picture by Linda L. Richards.

In 1931, while most of Los Angeles is struggling to survive the Depression, the business of Hollywood is booming. And everyone wants a piece. The movies have always been cutthroat and, as girl Friday Kitty Pangborn is about to find out, that’s more than a metaphor.

Kitty’s boss, private detective Dexter Theroux, has been asked to help leading man Laird Wyndham prove his innocence. The actor was the last person to be seen with a young actress who died under very suspicious circumstances, and the star has fallen from the big screen to the big house. Wyndham’s a dreamboat, but that isn’t the only thing that has Kitty hot under the collar. Dex has already signed a client--one who’s hired him to prove Wyndham’s hands are not as clean as they look.

Mixing Hollywood glitz with hard-boiled grit, Death Was in the Picture captures the essence of life in Depression-era Los Angeles: a world where times are tough, talk is cheap, and murder is often just one scene away. Publishers Weekly says:

“Richards’s swell follow-up to Death Was the Other Woman … handles the slang and patois of the period neatly. Likewise, she paints a vivid picture of the contrast between those just scraping by during the Depression and those living high on the hog. Kitty has plenty of moxie, and while Dex gets top billing on the office door, she’s no second banana in this class act.”

January has the excerpt here.

Excerpt: The Muslim Next Door by Sumbul Ali-Karamali

In a review earlier this month, I said that I felt that The Muslim Next Door: The Qur’an, the Media, and that Veil Thing by Sumbul Ali-Karamali was an important book. From that review:

The Muslim Next Door should be required reading in the West at this time. Ali-Karamali clearly knows her subject both on a personal and professional level. Raised a Muslim in a country that didn’t at that time have a lot of Muslims in it, the author has a graduate degree in Islamic law from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and has served as a teaching assistant and research associate in Islamic law.

Now January offers up an excerpt from The Muslim Next Door, so that readers can experience Ali-Karamali’s lucid style first-hand:

My father tells a story of tea etiquette. In India, he says, if your host offers you tea, you must decline, because to immediately accept a cup of tea would show greed. If your host offers you tea again -- as he must, if he is at all hospitable -- you must decline a second time, showing your host consideration and a disinclination to be troublesome. But the third time your host offers you tea, as he will, because no host would willingly allow a guest to depart his house bereft of refreshment, then you may gratefully accept.

The full excerpt is here.

Excerpt: A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz takes us through America’s first contact:

Plymouth, it turned out, wasn’t even the first English colony in New England. That distinction belonged to Fort St. George, in Popham, Maine -- a place I’d never heard of. Nor were Pilgrims the first to settle Massachusetts. In 1602, a band of English built a fort on the island of Cuttyhunk. They came, not for religious freedom, but to get rich from digging sassafras, a commodity prized in Europe as a cure for the clap.

History isn’t sport, where coming first means everything. The outposts at Popham and Cuttyhunk were quickly abandoned, as were most of the early French and Spanish settlements. Plymouth endured, the English prevailed in the contest for the continent, and Anglo-American Protestants -- New Englanders, in particular -- molded the new nation's memory. And so a creation myth arose, of Pilgrim Fathers seeding a new land with their piety and work ethic. The winners wrote the history.

The full excerpt is here.

Excerpt: Lust in Translation by Pamela Druckerman

Today in January Magazine, an excerpt of Lust in Translation: Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee by former journalist Pamela Druckerman:

The morning after François Mitterrand's funeral, a photo showed the late president's mistress and illegitimate daughter standing by his grave alongside his wife and sons. That tableau has become famous internationally as proof that the French are uniquely tolerant of extramarital affairs.

In fact, although French presidents seem to have an infidelity record approaching 100 per cent, ordinary Frenchmen claim to be quite faithful. In a 2004 national survey, just 3.8 per cent of married men and 2 per cent of women said they had had more than one sex partner in the past year (the best approximation of infidelity) -- fewer than in similar surveys in the U.S. and the U.K.

If France isn't the world capital of adultery, which country is? I set off around the world to find out.

See the full excerpt of Pamela Druckerman’s Lust in Translation here.

Excerpt: Death Was the Other Woman by Linda L. Richards

Today in January Magazine, an excerpt of Death Was the Other Woman by Linda L. Richards. As the lawlessness of Prohibition pushes against the desperation of the Depression, there are two ways to make a living in Los Angeles: join the criminals or collar them. Kitty Pangborn has chosen the crime-fighters, becoming secretary to Dexter J. Theroux, one of the hard-drinking, tough-talking P.I.s who pepper the city's stew. But after Dex takes an assignment from Rita Heppelwaite, the mistress of Harrison Dempsey, one of L.A.'s shadiest -- and richest -- businessmen, Kitty isn't so sure what side of the law she's on. Booklist says:

“Using a female narrator for a Depression-era noir tale seems a calculated strategy, but Richards makes it work naturally. Kitty, whose life of privilege disappeared when her father killed himself after the 1929 stock market crash, brings a peculiarly ironic point of view, filtering the tough guys, broads, gats, and gunsels through a patrician context that makes all the hard-boiled posturing seem as silly as high-society tomfoolery. Honoring the noir tradition while turning it on its head, Richards’ richly detailed period portrays a world in which lifestyles, whether high or low, become an elaborate defense against a harsh environment in which there is only one final act and the trick is to determine the time the curtain falls. Expect to hear more from Kitty Pangborn.”

January has the excerpt here.

Excerpt: Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself by Alan Alda

Today on January Magazine, an excerpt of Alan Alda’s Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, a follow-up to his 2005 memoir, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I’ve Learned.

This time out, Alda ponders the imponderables of life with the startling intelligence and careful thought of the accomplished philosopher and the humor, style and charm of the entertainer we know and love. At one point, Alda muses on the fleeting nature of time:

So, there I was, setting the timer on the microwave every morning, and three minutes of my life would go by while molecules of moisture jumped around inside the oatmeal. Then, one morning, when the bell dinged and I opened the door to the oven, I was hit with a new wave of my unfortunate disease of self-improvement. It came in the form of a question: Where did those three minutes just go?

The excerpt of Alda’s book is here.

Excerpt: The Last Summer (of You & Me) by Ann Brashares

Beach read alert: Ann Brashares, the author of all those books featuring traveling pants, pens her first novel intended for adults. From the press bumph:

Ann Brashares has won millions of fans with her blockbuster series The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, in which she so powerfully captured the emotional complexities of female friendship and young love. With The Last Summer (of You and Me), she moves on to introduce a new set of characters and adult relationships just as true, endearing and unforgettable.

January has the excerpt.