Great Gifts

Booklist (07/01/2009):
*Starred Review* In 1998, after years of consideration, Dean and Gerda Koontz finally got a dog. Trixie was a golden retriever trained by the Canine Companions for Independence, which Koontz has plugged in the acknowledgments or afterwords in some of his books.
Retired early from companionship by joint surgery, she was three years old, highly intelligent, good-humored, and a seemingly instinctive fit with her fastidious new owners--she absolutely would not defecate on their property. She so quickly lightened everyday life that, four months after she arrived, Koontz told her he knew she was actually an angel. That provoked the first and last time she wanted distance from me, which he doesn't interpret as confirming his suspicion, but which he does place in chapter 1 as a spooky moment around which the entire story revolves.
That story is, to be sure, another memoir of a beloved pooch, but far from just another. Besides quite regularly manifesting her extraordinariness, Trixie made Koontz ponder the nature of intelligence, interspecies communication, sympathy, intuition, love and the loyalty it engenders, and other species degrees of consciousness, including the knowledge of personal death. Koontz leavens his musings on such weighty themes with plenty of both self-deprecating humor and Trixie's comic elan to make this one dog book that everyone other than the most flint-hearted dog-haters will deeply enjoy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)

Publishers Weekly (01/07/2008):
Big ideas are an essential part of the fun in this sparkling tour de force. Back at her elite boarding school after a summer vacation in which she has grown from duckling to swan, sophomore Frankie starts dating cool, gorgeous senior Matthew and instantly becomes a part of his charmed social circle. Hanging with Matthew and his crowd is a thrill, but Frankie begins to chafe as she realizes that the boys are all members of the secret society to which her own father belonged, the Loyal Order of the Basset Hound, and that not only will they never let her join, Matthew will not even tell her about it.

Lockhart ("Dramarama"; "The Boyfriend List") dexterously juggles a number of smart and tantalizing themes--class and privilege, feminism and romance, wordplay and thought, friendship and loyalty--and combines the pacing of a mystery with writing that realizes settings and characters, large and small, with an artist's sure hand.

Inspired by a class called Cities, Art and Protest, Frankie concocts a brilliant plan to infiltrate the Bassets and has them carry out a series of pranks that wittily challenge the politics of the school.

Girls especially will be interested in this unusual portrait of a heroine who falls in love without blurring her sense of self, even if none of her friends understands her, and in Lockharts fresh approach to gender politics. An exuberant, mischievous story, it scores its points memorably and lastingly. Ages 12-up. -- Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly (07/20/2009):
Many a diehard baseball fan could tell you how Game 6 of the 1975 World Series ended--with Boston catcher Carlton Fisk dramatically waving his extra-inning home run toward fair territory, and the pandemonium that soon followed. As for the other details, Frost ("The Match") mentions them all in a wonderful tale about one of the sport's seminal events.

Describing pitch by pitch and inning by inning, Frost breaks down the excitement on the field, but also how each participant came to play in the October thriller. Each player has a story--from Boston's star pitcher Luis Tiant and his humble beginnings, to Cincinnati's rugged, trash-talking third baseman, Pete Rose. From Yastrzemski to Bench, Evans to Morgan, Frost covers them all, along with the managers, owners and even broadcasters, expertly weaving from the past to that famous fall night. T

he last third of the work covers the aftermath of the game, recapping Cincinnati's eventual World Series win in Game 7 (an oft-forgotten fact about that series), and what became of each player in the years following. With each passing baseball season, the number of people who would later claim to have been at Game Six would increase twenty-fold, and thanks to Frost, the reader will likewise feel like he was in attendance at Fenway Park for that World Series classic. -- Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

Quinn Cummings was a child star in the late 1970s--an Oscar nominee for The Goodbye Girl and a series regular on Family--but instead of drugs and incarceration, she later opted for full-time motherhood and a side business (inspired by the aforementioned motherhood) selling baby carriers. Luckily for us, she's lost none of the wry, precocious, keenly observant attitude that first caught the public eye.

In Notes from the Underwire, Cummings offers her sharply funny take on parenting, relationships, and simply trying to do the right thing:

- "I live in Los Angeles, where it is now socially acceptable to carry a Starbucks cup anywhere, including a funeral."

- "If you're at ballet class and your daughter suddenly blurts out, 'In three days we're cutting open a real heart and I can't wait!', the other mothers will stop offering to lend you ponytail-holders."

- "Some might ask if it is worth a dollar to have your daughter crawl under the folding table in the laundry room with the Hand-Vac and get at the dust bunnies. Oh, yes, I say to you. Oh, yes."

With wit, sarcasm, and a healthy dose of self-deprecation, Cummings offers a charming look into the often-chaotic, seldom-perfect world of an everyday mom. Cummings was a child star, nominated for an Oscar for her role in The Goodbye Girl in the late '70s. She is now a full-time mom.

Library Journal (11/15/2009):
Penenberg (journalism, New York Univ.) explores the "viral expansion loop" phenomenon, which simply means that growth is self-perpetuating as "each new user begets more users." He divides the book into three sections covering viral businesses, marketing, and networks.

First, he examines the history of viral organizations ranging from Tupperware and Ponzi schemes to early online adopters Mosaic and Netscape. In the section on viral marketing, he illustrates how entities like Hotmail successfully combine word-of-mouth with "word-of-mouse" strategies. The notion of viral synergy is discussed in the third section as Penenberg describes how companies build or stack upon one another (e.g., eBay and PayPal).

Throughout, Penenberg provides insight into the entrepreneurial minds behind the most successful and most disastrous corporate viral attempts. Financial concerns as well as technical issues of scalability are realistically addressed.

VERDICT Of use to those interested in starting or enhancing a business, this will also appeal to anyone curious about the legendary rise and rebirth of Silicon Valley. --Judy Brink-Drescher, Molloy Coll., Rockville Ctr., NY Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.