oct11b.indd C&RL News October 2011 548 And Hell Followed with It: Life and Death in a Kansas Tornado, by Bonar Menninger (327 pages, October 2010), reexamines the storm that swept through down- town Topeka, Kansas, on June 8, 1966, the most destructive F5 tornado in U.S. history up to that time. Residents had long thought that a high hill on the southwest side of the city would deflect any tornado, but this time the twister came right over Burnett’s Mound and destroyed 800 homes, killing 16 and injuring some 500 people. It ripped through Washburn Uni- versity, destroying many old stone buildings and causing damage that some compared to Berlin after World War II. Menninger tells the stories of the storm’s survivors vividly and engagingly, accompanied by stunning photos by Topeka Capital-Journal photog- rapher Perry Riddle. He also briefly exam- ines the science of tornados and the his- tory of weather forecasting. $24.95. Emerald Book Company. 978-1-9345722-49-8. Better Than Great: A Plenitudinous Com- pendium of Wallopingly Fresh Superla- tives, by former American Libraries editor Arthur Plotnik (244 pages, June 2011), of- fers an energetic escape from the literary languor that enwreathes writers and speak- ers addicted to stale adjectives that attempt to define the exceptional—notably great, awesome, fantastic, and amazing. In the great, er, laudable lexigraphic style of word collector Paul Dickson (Words, 1982, and George M. Eberhart is senior editor of American Libraries, e-mail: geberhart@ala.org N e w P u b l i c a t i o n sGeorge M. Eberhart Names, 1986), Plotnik serves up a platter of alternative word choices for superlatives in 15 different categories (such as Great, Beau- tiful, Intense, Trendy, Delicious, and Cool) with a side dish of advice on how to cre- ate your own and a lagniappe of literary samples from John Milton to T. C. Boyle. Together with two of his earlier works on writing style—Spunk & Bite (2007) and The Elements of Expression (2006)—Better Than Great completes an unmatched triplicity of linguistic perfection. $15.95. Viva Editions. 978-1-57344-660-0. Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mis- sissippi Freedom Riders, by Eric Ether- idge (240 pages, May 2008), assembles the names, personal details, and the original ar- rest mug shots of 310 Freedom Riders who made their way by bus or other means to Jackson, Mississippi, in May–Septem- ber 1961 to challenge state s e g r e g a t i o n laws in the South. Ether- idge located some 80 of the Riders and provides a contemporary pho- to for each with a short synopsis of what they have been doing since (including John Lewis, who has been a U.S. Representative from Georgia since 1987). The then-and- now comparison of photos, the narratives of what happened to them at the time of their arrests and in the state prison at Parch- man, and the background information on the protest arranged by the Congress of Racial Equality make this a moving and in- spirational historical record. $30.00. Atlas & Co.; distributed by W. W. Norton. 978-0- 9777433-9-1. October 2011 549 C&RL News Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong, by Brandon L. Garrett (367 pages, April 2011), conducts a thorough analysis of the trial transcripts and police reports in the case records of the first 250 people exonerated by postcon- viction DNA evidence to uncover specific flaws in the criminal justice system that can lead to wrongful imprisonment or capital punishment. Apparently many things can go wrong, including false confessions ob- tained by suggestion or coercion, unreliable eyewitness identifications, invalid or exag- gerated testimony by forensics experts, un- trustworthy claims by jailhouse informants, inadequate defense representation at trial, incomplete access to evidence, lack of atten- tion to flawed evidence by appeals courts, and roadblocks put in front of prisoners who seek DNA tests to prove their inno- cence. Garrett shows that these failures are systemic and not isolated, and he outlines a number of criminal procedure reforms that could reduce wrongful convictions. $39.95. Harvard University. 978-0-674-05870-5. Fifty Plants That Changed the Course of History, by Bill Laws (223 pages, February 2011), offers capsule summaries of the cu- linary, medicinal, commercial, or practical significance of 50 familiar plants. Some will be obvious (wheat, wine grapes), but Laws manages to throw in some interesting and little-known history about each. For exam- ple, the 17th-century French Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon, who helped develop still wines in the region of Champagne, is sometimes credited with first sealing a wine bottle with a stopper made from cork oak; and pharmacist Wilbur Scoville devised a test for rating the heat of a chili pepper in 1912. $29.95. Firefly. 978-1-55407-798-4. The Founders of American Cuisine, by Har- ry Haff (286 pages, February 2011), looks at seven Americans who wrote influential cookbooks that nurtured and developed food preparation in the United States. Haff offers a biography of each in Part One and reprints recipes from their books in Part Two (accompanied by a modern rendering and professional cooking tips). Among the cookbooks sampled are Mary Randolph’s The Virginia Housewife (1824), the first re- gional cookbook; Eliza Leslie’s Directions for Cookery (1837), which made the jour- ney west with many homesteaders; Lafca- dio Hearn’s La Cuisine Creole (1885), the first book on New Orleans cooking; Chef Charles Ranhofer’s The Epicurean (1894), which revealed the food preparation se- crets of New York’s famed Delmonico’s restaurant; and Victor Hertzler’s The Hotel St. Francis Cook Book (1919), which estab- lished California cuisine and specifically credited food products originating in the United States (California oysters, Saratoga chips, Potage Honolulu). $38.00. McFar- land. 978-0-7864-5869-1. New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Sur- vival of New Orleans, by John Swenson (284 pages, June 2011), pays tribute to the extraordinary efforts of New Orleans musi- cians to rebuild and repopulate the city af- ter Hurricane Katrina. Music writer Swenson knows many of them, and he incorporates interviews and conversations with Dr. John, Trombone Shorty, Bo Dollis, Cyril Neville, Michael White, Paul Sanchez, and others. A perfect companion to the HBO Treme series, which parallels the same events. $27.95. Ox- ford University. 978-0-19-975452-6. Symbols of Power in Art, by Paola Rapelli (381 pages, April 2011), analyzes the sym- bols used in western art to represent power and authority (crown, scepter, throne, er- mine, lion, sword) and the artistic tech- niques and imagery used to depict the maj- esty of various rulers from the Middle Ages to Napoleon. The latest in Getty’s “Guide to Imagery” series, this compact volume pres- ents concise information on each of its top- ics, accentuated with notes that point out details in the paintings, sculptures, tapes- tries, and coins shown. $24.95. Getty Publi- cations. 978-1-60606-066-7.