Review_NONFICTION
68 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ APRIL 6, 2020
Review_NONFICTION
money as a
“tool,” not a
“master,”
Peterson pro-
vides steps to
challenge one’s
assumptions
about money
(“How you feel
about money is
often a reflec-
tion of how you
feel about yourself,” she notes), to over-
come a scarcity mentality, and to develop
a “prosperity contract” with oneself.
Though the language can be a bit woo-
woo—there’s talk of “sacred pathways”
and the sacral chakra—the program is
comfortingly therapeutic, and refreshingly,
not a quick fix; it involves 30 minutes a
day of largely mental and emotional
work over the course of a few months.
Not just applicable to millionaires, or
even to the modestly prosperous, this
practical guide will be a boon to anyone
who fears looking at a bank statement
because they’re “bad with money.” (June)Optimal Money Flow: A New
Vision of How a Dynamic-Growth
Economy Can Work for Everyone
Lawrence C. Marsh. Avila Univ., $24.95
(258p) ISBN 978-1-7342252-0-4
Marsh (Brain on Fire), economics pro-
fessor emeritus, delivers a lay-reader
friendly examination of the ways economics
and politics intersect in this timely take on
solutions for steering economies back from
recession. Marsh highlights the positive
role government can play in nurturing a
sound economy, both on the national and
international stages. Readers will appre-
ciate his well-reasoned discussions of the
advantages of immigration and trade, in
terms of mutually beneficial partnerships
between nations, though they may be
skeptical of Marsh’s ambitious “My
America” plan of providing Americans
with Federal Reserve bank accounts, into
which the Fed could deposit funds when
recession threatens. Marsh argues that
this would provide the Fed with a more
direct method of stimulating the
economy than the current approach of
slashing interest rates. An unexpected but
most welcome side benefit of Marsh’s
book is his ready sense of humor, seen inLying in State: Why Presidents
Lie—and Why Trump Is Worse
Eric Alterman. Basic, $30 (416p) ISBN 978-1-
5416-1682-0
Nation columnist Alterman (coauthor,
The Cause) delivers an administration-by-
administration analysis of presidential
deception from FDR to Donald Trump in
this vigorously argued account. During the
Cold War, Alterman contends, America’s
rising role in global affairs contributed to
the willingness of White House officials
to deceive the media and the public in
the name of national security. Political
journalists contributed to the problem in
the post-Watergate era by casting them-
selves as tough-minded Beltway insiders
unbothered by the sausage-making of
public policy. By general consensus,
Alterman claims, the press viewed Jimmy
Carter as an earnest lightweight, while
the administrations of Ronald Reagan and
George H.W. Bush were given license to
mislead the public in pursuit of their
foreign policy aims. Alterman accuses
Trump of lying not only to achieve his
legislative agenda, but to create an alter-
nate, mass media–driven reality for his
supporters, and documents explicit
deceptions on immigration policies and
Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Though Alterman makes a strong case for
the links between presidential dishonesty
and the expansion of executive powers since
WWII, and for the media’s culpability in
failing to hold presidents to account, the
book’s final chapters devolve into an
anti-Trump screed. This aggrieved con-
demnation of political chicanery preaches
to the choir. (June)The Mindful Millionaire:
Overcome Scarcity, Experience
True Prosperity, and Create the
Life You Really Want
Leisa Peterson. St. Martin’s Essentials, $17.99
trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-250-26191-5
Money is an emotional subject—and
all too often, that emotion is fear, writes
certified financial planner Peterson in her
thoughtful debut. After seeing how often
clients were financially stymied not by
circumstances or earning potential, but by
feelings based in unpleasant experiences
with money, she began focusing on getting
people to face these “unwelcome feelings.”
Talking readers through a reframing ofminister to oppose the Iran nuclear deal.
Though Democrats aren’t “always right,”
according to Benen, they at least take a
“consistently substantive” approach to
policy making. Without constructive
input from the other side, he contends,
the American political system doesn’t
work properly. Benen writes fluidly and
incisively, and backs his claims with sup-
port from liberal and center-right policy
wonks, but fails to fully address the roots
of the GOP’s electoral successes, and his
call for the party’s reform is half-hearted
at best. This exasperated polemic packs a
mild punch. (June)Lot Six: A Memoir
David Adjami. HarperCollins, $27.99 (400p)
ISBN 978-0-06-199094-6
A gay playwright struggles with his
claustrophobic Jewish community as he
attempts to define himself in this raucous
if flawed memoir. Adjami recalls his
upbringing among Syrian Jewish immi-
grants in Brooklyn, whom he paints as a
close-knit tribe focused on religion and
business and hostile to homosexuality. As
a dreamy, uncertain youth, he wrangles
with domineering figures including his
volatile, narcissistic parents and a con-
temptuous Juilliard playwriting professor
while groping for an identity by trying on
new personas like outfits, including
faux-French–accented fashionista, black-
clad Nietzschean—“I had to become the
Superman”—and, finally, a gay man
comfortable in his own skin despite his
clan’s unease with him. If not fictionalized,
Adjami’s memoir is certainly theatricalized:
he alters timelines, invents dialogue, and
inserts composite characters, and thus
delivers pitch-perfect Brooklynese dia-
logue, colorful personalities, and enter-
taining scenes (“By the time we were done
eating, Howie had convinced himself
that the only part-time job he could ever
get was spraying perfume samples at
Bloomingdale’s dressed as a woman”).
Unfortunately, his take on his adventures
often feels melodramatic (“Like the
desert-trawling Jews in the Bible, my
exile was transmuted into freedom,” he
declaims of his transfer to a new high
school) and calculated for literary effect.
The result feels more like a script than
real life. (June)