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affable narrator with a penchant for pop
culture, funny quips, and charming
humility. Agent: Anna Sproul-Latimer, Ross
Yoon Agency. (Feb.)
Taking Sexy Back: How to Own
Your Sexuality and Create the
Relationships You Want
Alexandra H. Solomon. New Harbinger, $16.95
trade paper (240p) ISBN 978-1-68403-346-1
Psychologist Solomon (Loving Bravely)
empowers and enlightens in this manual
that encourages women to accept and con-
trol their sexuality. Dividing her lessons
into three sections—“Preparing for the
Journey,” “The Journey to Sexual Self-
Awareness,” and “Your Sexy Is Here to
Stay” —Solomon packs valuable advice,
touching on
such topics as
giving consent,
hookups, and
self-compassion.
Quoting Maya
Angelou—“Do
the best you can
until you know
better. Then
when you know
better, do
better”—she counsels women to reexamine
their long-held beliefs about sex and
relationships, inviting them to understand
that some of those beliefs—religious
hang-ups and self-judgment among
them—are damaging. Like a wise older
sister or a trusted friend, Solomon illus-
trates how to move from fear to love with
meditations, creative writing (“write an
erotic short story”), and mental exercises
(ask, “at which point in the day do you
feel most connected to Your Sexy”). She
also tackles the topic of sexual traumas
and the poison they inject into relation-
ships, and encourages experimentation
and sexual fantasies as tools to learn one’s
own sexuality. “Joyful sex rests on risk,
self-compassion, and trust,” she writes.
Solomon proves to be a savvy, empathetic
voice in this educational and inspiring
guide. (Feb.)
★ The Toni Morrison Book Club
Juda Bennett et al. Univ. of Wisconsin, $17.95
trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-299-32494-0
In this insightful group memoir, a
reading group of four English professors
from the College of New Jersey tackles
four Toni Morrison novels: Beloved, The
Bluest Eye, A Mercy, and Song of Solomon.
Each contributing a pair of essays, they
consider African-American history, per-
sonal experiences, and Morrison’s lessons
for the present moment. Cassandra
Jackson interprets The Bluest Eye as a
critique of the “strong black woman”
cultural trope, while Winnifred Brown-
Glaude finds in Song of Solomon “models
of resistance from which we can learn...
today.” Bennett muses on his outsider
position as the volume’s one white con-
tributor through Beloved’s “brief repre-
sentation of a comic white girl,” and
Piper Kendrix Williams reflects on A
Mercy’s exploration of the costs of “being
seen” through her own memory of “being
the only black kid in a sea of” white high
school students. She then fittingly con-
cludes the collection with a piece that
merges the personal, literary, historical,
and contemporary, as she visits the
National Museum of African American
History and Culture and feels, while
viewing Harriet Tubman’s shawl, the
“epiphanal blackness” also present in
Morrison’s work. For book lovers and
history buffs, as well as the politically
engaged, this collection, though small in
size, will yield vast intellectual riches. (Feb.)The 7 Secrets of Responsive
Leadership: Drive Change,
Manage Transitions, and Help
Any Organization Turn Around
Jackie Jenkins-Scott. Career, $16.95 trade
paper (240p) ISBN 978-1-63265-159-4
This familiar guide to leading with
heart comes from Jenkins-Scott, a business
leadership adviser and the former president
of Wheelock College. According to her,
most leaders focus on “systematic leader-
ship,” based on following strict method-
ologies and rules, rather than her preferred
model of “responsive leadership,” which
is flexible and focused on the people the
organization employs or serves. The
seven “secrets” she offers for becoming an
effective responsive leader are hardly
that, including common advice like
“take advantage of opportunity” and
“stay on point.” These tips are liberally
illustrated with case studies of the
famous and not-so-famous, from Howard
Schulz’s quick response, as founder andthen executive chairman of Starbucks, to
a racial profiling incident in one of the
chain’s shops, to longtime Yankee
Candle CEO Harlan Kent’s “seemingly
impossible” feat of cutting expenses
while investing in growth. In addition to
some practical points, like getting one’s
message heard and addressing opposition,
Jenkins-Scott also issues some advice that
comes across as more cornball than
encouraging: “resilience requires self-
love,” she reminds her audience. Earnest
to a fault, Jenkins-Scott’s choppy primer
has little new to offer leaders, responsive
or otherwise. (Jan.)Arguing with Zombies:
Economics, Politics, and
the Fight for a Better America
Paul Krugman. Norton, $29.95 (416p)
ISBN 978-1-324-00501-8
Nobel Prize–winning economist and
liberal pundit Krugman (End This
Depression Now!) attacks conservatives’
policies—and morals—in these smart,
tough essays. Selecting from his New
York Times column and other writings,
Krugman covers 15 years of “zombie
ideas” that “keep shambling along, eating
people’s brains” because they serve the
interests of the rich. These include
George W. Bush’s “snake-oil” scheme to
privatize Social Security, Republican
claims that Obamacare isn’t working, and
conservative dogma that cutting taxes on
the wealthy helps the economy. Krugman
occasionally resorts to charts and wonkery
to refute such pretenses, but mainly
exercises his great talent for translating
economics into plain English: “My
spending is your income and your spending
is my income,” he writes in a critique of
recessionary budget cuts. “If we both
slash spending, both of our incomes fall.”
Krugman’s biting prose impugns char-
acter as well as doctrine—the persistence
of climate change denial, he asserts,
means “Republicans don’t just have bad
ideas; at this point, they are, necessarily,
bad people”—and sometimes lapses into
derangement syndrome, as when he
characterizes the GOP as “an authori-
tarian regime in waiting.” Progressive
partisans will cheer Krugman’s plain-
spoken, bare-knuckled, and persuasive
ripostes to conservative orthodoxy. (Jan.)