Da Capo Press

Genius of place; the life of Frederick Law Olmsted; abolitionist, conservationist, and designer of Central Park.

New York based biographer Justin Martin takes on the extraordinarily multifaceted life and career of the man known for his design of Central Park but whose legacy reaches far deeper and wider. The text is supported by a generous section of b&w photos of Olmsted and his family, and some sites, including the McLean asylum where he had designed the landscape and where he eventually died. In the appendix, the author offers a list of sites he visited during research for this book, describing each one and where to get the best view and imagining what Olmsted might have seen. These include Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California, Stanford University Main Quad, Yosemite, and Arnold Arboretum in Boston, among others. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Pacific air; how fearless flyboys, peerless aircraft, and fast flattops conquered a vast ocean's wartime skies.

Sears, who has personal experience of sea duty aboard a destroyer and has written several books on naval history, offers this account of the adventures of naval aviators during World War II. This engaging historical narrative of air efforts against the Japanese discusses details of both US and Japanese naval airplanes. Twenty two pages of historic WWII black and white photographs are presented along with a glossary, a bibliography that includes oral histories and interviews, and an appendix listing US Navy pilots and crews, their squadron, confirmed kills and status if killed or missing in action. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Sex, mom, and God; how the Bible's strange take on sex led to crazy politics — and how I learned to love women (and Jesus) anyway.

Frank Schaeffer, author of Keeping Faith, grew up in an influential Evangelical family. His memoir illustrates how in spite of the commonly understood Evangelical stance on sexuality, his mother, a "sexually extroverted" woman, was a force of healthy sexual influence on her son and many others. This book traces Schaeffer's adolescence and coming of age, with commentary on Evangelical social views, providing a new, less prudish view of radical Christianity. This book appeals to Evangelicals, especially parents fielding questions about sex from their children. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)