60 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ SEPTEMBER 9, 2019
Review_NONFICTION Review_NONFICTIONThe More or Less Definitive Guide
to Self-Care
Anna Borges, illus. by Bob Scott. The Experiment,
$16.95 (256p) ISBN 978-1-61519-610-4
Borges, senior editor at Self magazine,
delivers a comprehensive guide to self-care
in her strong debut, a playful encyclopedia
filled with sound advice. Arranged in
alphabetical order, Borges’s catalogue
covers the spectrum of therapeutic prac-
tices, including recent trends such as
adult coloring books and more traditional
solutions for self-care such as support
groups. She also takes time to explain the
recent history of
the term self-
care, its limits as
a cure, and the
potential for
self-care to be
used as an
excuse for fur-
thering consum-
erism. The ency-
clopedic format
of the book means that entries are covered
cursorily, and so the guide is most useful as
a compendium of ideas that one can peruse
and explore further elsewhere. Personal
self-care routines are set off throughout,
and joyful illustrations by Scott accentuate
Borges’s friendly tone. Borges concludes
with a flowchart to decide what kind of
self-care one might need and a guide for
those new to therapy. Borges’s welcoming
tone and plethora of ideas will be helpful for
readers whether they’re looking for ideas for
being just a little bit happier or struggling
with serious mental health concerns. (Nov.)★ The Movie Musical!
Jeanine Basinger. Knopf, $40 (656p) ISBN 978-
1-101-87406-6
Film historian Basinger (I Do and I
Don’t) returns with this exhaustive and
exhilarating survey of the American
musical. Basinger starts by discussing the
filmed vaudeville shorts that played in
theaters even before Hollywood switched
over to exclusively producing sound fea-
tures in 1929, and goes all the way up to
2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Along the way,
she examines each major development in
musical film, such as how, in the early
1930s, the innovative use of sound and
camera movement by directors Ernst
Lubitsch and Rouben Mamoulian made“what formerly had been a stage-bound
tradition” into a viable Hollywood genre.
Basinger is informative and insightful on
everything from celebrated classics such
as Meet Me in St. Louis and Singin’ in the
Rain, to forgotten—yet once surprisingly
popular—“singing cowboy” films such as
Melody Ranch and Boots and Saddles. Because
of the rigorous scholarship, readers will
feel they are in good hands when Basinger
digresses from strict facts into opinion—
for instance, her scorching dislike for the
2016 Oscar-winner La La Land, which,
unlike classic-era musicals, is “not ener-
getic, optimistic, or determined to pin
down joy for its characters”—in short, “it’s
not American.” The depth of her dislike
feels telling: this is a passion project for
her. That passion should be infectious for
all readers of Basinger’s monumental but
fleet-footed epic. (Nov.)Our Wild Calling: How Connecting
with Animals Can Transform Our
Lives—and Save Theirs
Richard Louv. Algonquin, $27.95 (320p)
ISBN 978-1-61620-560-7
In this intriguing and poetic treatise,
journalist Louv (Vitamin N) argues for a
“great reset” in how humans relate to the
rest of the animal kingdom. Humans
may feel themselves separate from other
creatures, he observes, but human history
and existence have always been intertwined
with them, to the extent that wild animals
are now adapting to urban environments.
He shares stories about unexpected cross-
species interactions—there’s a wonderful
anecdote about an initially tense encounter
between a diver and an octopus, who
forge a “nonaggression pact”—and details
about the varied ways animals (and even
plants) have of communicating with each
other—horses, he notes, have 17 facial
expressions. After that, Louv turns to
subjects that include therapeutic relations
between humans and animals, the
inability of technology to substitute for
these interactions, and how to educate the
next generation about having a healthier
relationship to nature. Thoughtful and
hopeful, Louv’s work is a stirring look at
“the blurred lines that have always existed
between wild and domestic, human and
other than human.” Agent: Jim Levine,
Levine, Greenberg, Rostan Literary. (Nov.)Pills, Powder, and Smoke:
Inside the Bloody War on Drugs
Antony Loewenstein. Scribe, $19 trade paper
(352p) ISBN 978-1-947534-94-0
In this vivid, partisan piece of reportage,
Australian journalist Loewenstein (Disaster
Capitalism) depicts the catastrophic human
consequences of the U.S.-led war on drugs
and advocates for the legalization of all
illicit substances. Loewenstein argues that
America’s prohibitionist policy serves not
to counter abuse or impede trafficking, but
rather to create corrupt “narco states” that
are complicit with the federal government’s
foreign policy goals. The book’s strongest
sections feature human rights advocates
from Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, and the
Philippines who have been targeted,
Loewenstein writes, by cartels as well as the
CIA, DEA, and their own governments.
Meanwhile, the appetite for narcotics in
Western countries only grows stronger,
and punitive policies toward drug users,
mass incarceration, and inequitable
criminal justice systems further oppress
marginalized members of society,
Loewenstein contends. He interviews
people struggling with addiction and
associated traumas, but undercuts these
moving testimonies with blithe statements
such as “for the vast bulk of people, drug
taking is a normal part of life with no
negative consequences.” As a result, his
policy recommendations feel less than
authoritative. Readers inclined to take a
skeptical view of the drug war, however,
will welcome Loewenstein’s advocacy.
(Nov.)The Queering of Corporate
America: How Big Business Went
from LGBTQ Adversary to Ally
Carlos A. Ball. Beacon, $28.95 (256p)
ISBN 978-0-8070-2634-2
In this meticulous history, Ball (The
First Amendment and LGBT Equality), a
law professor at Rutgers University, writes
eruditely on how the LGBTQ movement
masterfully targeted, then conscripted,
corporate America into a powerful ally in
the fight for equality. The 1970s saw
boycotts and antidiscrimination suits;
Pacific Bell, then the largest employer in
California, had an explicit policy not to
hire “open homosexuals” because doing so
would “disregard commonly accepted
standards of conduct, morality, or life-