David Schenck and Larry R. Churchill, Healers: Extraordinary Clinicians at Work. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. $35.00. 270pp.

David Schenck and Larry Churchill, both affiliated with the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, conducted fifty interviews with doctors identified as “healers” in an effort to understand the nature and practice of their highly regarded excellence. They find in these clinicians important skills that define a more holistic approach to health and well-being lived in their own lives and conveyed effectively to patients.

Thomas Vander Ven, Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party So Hard. New York: New York University Press, 2011. $19.95. 215pp.

College-age drinking to excess has a long history and is deeply engrained in American popular culture. Sociologist Thomas Vander Ven of Ohio University explores the communal and ritual nature of student drunkenness. Based on interviews at three universities, his book is an important contribution to understanding this social problem.

Sasha Issenberg, Rick Perry and His Eggheads: Inside the Brainiest Political Operation in America, A Sneak Preview from The Victory Lab. New York: Random House Digital, Crown Publishers, 2011. Kindle Edition, $0.99.

In this excerpt from his forthcoming book on the role that Yale political scientists played in establishing campaign strategy for the governor of Texas, Issenberg examines the rising importance of randomization as a method to determine best uses of campaign resources, revealing numerous counter-intuitive recommendations along the way.

Charles W. Dunn, ed., The Presidency in the 21st Century. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2011. $35.00. 216pp.

Dunn, professor of government at Regent University, has assembled a wide-ranging account of the contemporary presidency as it adapts to the changing nature of the world’s political, economic, and social orders.

Mark Chaves, American Religion: Contemporary Trends. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011. $22.95. 139pp.

Chaves, professor of sociology, religion, and divinity at Duke University provides the first sourcebook in two generations that describes basic information about religious trends in the United States, including diversity, belief, involvement, congregational life, leadership, and polarization. Based on data from major social surveys, he challenges several conventional ideas about the nature of religious life in America.