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  Multiplication Is For White People: Raising Expectations for Other People’s Children

  by Lisa Delpit

  

  The Nutshell:

  After spending decades interviewing and observing African-American students and their teachers, Southern University education scholar Delpit believes that the single best way to close the achievement gap in education is to raise our expectations for black students.

  Literary Lovechild Of:

  Jonathan Kozol’s The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

  You'll Find It On Your Bookshelf If:

  You love education; you don’t love Michelle Rhee.

  Cocktail Party Fodder:

  By some estimates, after Brown v. Board of Ed, 90 percent of black principals lost their jobs in 11 southern states.

  For Optimal Benefit:

  Arm yourself with this book if you’re dealing with a haughty Teach For America corps member—or if you are a haughty Teach For America corps member.

  Snap Judgment:

  Delpit’s stories of students overcoming obstacles (and of their superb teachers and mentors) are moving and human—even if her solutions (better teachers, higher expectations) don’t feel novel.

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  Operation Fly Trap: L.A. Gangs, Drugs, and the Law

  by Susan A. Phillips

  

  The Nutshell:

  In 2003, an FBI sting operation targeted 28 dealers and suppliers in a South L.A. drug network in the name of breaking up two factions of Bloods. Operation Fly Trap was deemed a success, but Pitzer College urban ethnographer Phillips shows how it also harmed the neighborhoods it was supposed to be helping.

  Literary Lovechild Of:

  Jorja Leap’s Jumped In: What Gangs Taught Me About Violence, Drugs, Love, and Redemption and Miles Corwin’s The Killing Season: A Summer Inside An LAPD Homicide Division.

  You'll Find It On Your Bookshelf If:

  You find yourself missing your friendly neighborhood drug dealer.

  Cocktail Party Fodder:

  Illicit drugs now comprise 0.9 percent of the global GDP.

  For Optimal Benefit:

  Read this if you’re suffering from The Wire withdrawal. It’s equally depressing.

  Snap Judgment:

  While it’s easy to get lost in the maze of connections Phillips lays out, her immersion in the networks of family and neighbors affected by Operation Fly Trap is illuminating—and her case is persuasive.

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  Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman—from World War to Cold War

  by Michael Dobbs

  

  The Nutshell:

  In February 1945 at Yalta, FDR, Stalin, and Churchill were playing drinking games at Yalta. Six months later, the Cold War had begun. Dobbs, a former foreign correspondent, explores why.

  Literary Lovechild Of:

  Michael Beschloss’s The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany and Jay Winik’s April 1865: The Month That Saved America.

  You'll Find It On Your Bookshelf If:

  You feel the Bond films really took a post-Cold-War dip in quality.

  Cocktail Party Fodder:

  FDR jokingly offered 6 million U.S. Jews to Saudi Arabia’s King Ibn Saud (who was not amused by the president’s attempt at establishing a friendly rapport).

  For Optimal Benefit:

  Dine on some Yalta restaurant favorites like Chiburekki turnovers, and see if you can outdrink Churchill.

  Snap Judgment:

  Dobbs writes history like a novelist, with amazing attention to details—which in the end add up to a compelling narrative.