Booklist articles from December 2003

Booklist archives from December 2003

Crusie, Jennifer. Bet Me.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Feb 2004. 352p. St. Martin's, $22.95 (0-312-30346-7). Minerva Dobbs thought David Fisk might be the one she's been waiting for, until he dumps her three weeks before her sister Diana's wedding. Min soon realizes just how lucky she is to be...

* LeCarre, John. Absolute Friends.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 383p. Little, Brown, $26.95 (0-316-00064-7). There has been a linear evolution in the mind-set of le Carre's spies over the years--from agonizing over the moral ambiguity of the craft set against a firm belief in its necessity...

Darden, Christopher and Lochte, Dick. Lawless.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 368p. NAL, $24.95 (0-451-21109-X). The death of Landers Pope at the hand of his police-officer lover, Eldon Nunez, sends the LAPD into spin-control overdrive. The gay-lover angle is a potential nightmare, but if officer burnout...

* King, Laurie R. The Game.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Mar. 2004. 369p. Bantam, $23.95 (0-553-80194-5). It's New Year's Day 1924, and Mary Russell knows that the summons to her brother-in-law Mycroft's home can bode naught but ill. So the brilliant, young half-American Jewish wife of Sherlock...

Lescroart, John. The Second Chair.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 400p. Dutton, $25.95 (0-525-94775-2). Lescroart regulars Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitsky may have survived a deadly shootout in The First Law (2003), but their psyches are on life support. Hardy drinks too much and cuts deals...

Rankin, Ian. A Question of Blood.(Book review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Feb. 2004. 416p. Little, Brown, $22.95 (0-316-09564-8). Those "dialogues of the left-unsaid" that have been plaguing Edinburgh copper John Rebus for years (but especially in Dead Souls, 1999) are making themselves heard again, this time in...

Rice, Luanne. Dance with Me.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)(Young Adult Review)
December 1, 2003... Feb. 2004. 340p. Bantam, $22.95 (0-553-80227-5). Jane Porter is traveling back to her hometown of Twin Rivers, Rhode Island, with a heavy heart She has stayed away as much as possible for the last 15 years, while her sister, Sylvie, has...

Late arrivals.(Sweet Caroline: Last Child of Camelot)(I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story)(Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite)(Book Review)(Brief Review)
December 1, 2003... Andersen, Christopher. Sweet Caroline: Last Child of Camelot. 2003. Morrow, $25.95 (0-06-621369-X). Andersen, who has written about JFK, Jackie, and John Jr., has found enough "revelations" for one more book, this time about Caroline. ...

* Lee, Chang-Rae. Aloft.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Mar. 2004. 352p. Riverhead, $24.95 (1-57322-263-1). At 59, Jerry Battle takes great corn fort in the orderliness of the aerial view as he flies his small plane above Long Island, where his Italian American family has run a landscape...

Zahn, Timothy. Survivor's Quest.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Feb. 2004. 384p. Del Rey, $25.95 (0-345-45916-4). Here again we have Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade, the married Jedi, whose quest this time is for remnants of the Outward Bound expedition, launched 50 years before by the Old Republic and...

Cameron, Julia. The Sound of Paper: Starting from Scratch.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 336p. Penguin, $19.95 (1-58542-288-6). 153.3. Since The Artist's Way (1992), Cameron has become a one-woman industry of aids to creativity, not unlike Martha Stewart guiding us to gracious living. Both adhere to the "do this each...

Norman, Donald A. Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things.(Book review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 288p. illus. index. Basic, $26 (0-465-05135-9). 155.9. Computer science professor Norman also advises design firms, He brings his background in academics and business to bear on the emotional valence surrounding objects of daily...

Phillips, Christopher. Six Questions of Socrates: a Modern-Day Journey of Discovery through World Philosophy.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)(Young Adult Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 256p. index. Norton, $23.95 (0-393-05157-9). 179. Socrates stayed at home, but his modern disciple Phillips prefers globetrotting. And, as he travels the world, Phillips challenges ordinary people with the central questions of...

Dobisz, Jane. The Wisdom of Solitude: a Zen Retreat in the Woods.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 160p. HarperSanFrancisco, $21.95 (0-06-008595-9). 294.3. For 100 days of a snowy New England winter, Dobisz lived alone in a tiny cabin in the woods, adhering to a highly regimented schedule of sitting, walking, chanting, bowing,...

Gillman, Neil. The Jewish Approach to God: a Brief Introduction for Christians.(Book review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 192p. Jewish Lights, paper, $16.95 (1-58023-190-X). 296.3. Gillman proves to be a master teacher as he explains the difference between how Jews and Christians view God. In an accessible, organized style he uses metaphor--"To...

The Manley arts: the eloquence of silence.(Will Manley appreciates the humor and the message behind the action toy librarian)(Column)
December 1, 2003... The Seattle Public Library has a librarian on staff who was described in the Seattle Times as a woman of action, "innovator, iconoclast, radio personality, and author of an upcoming book with the word lust in the title." When I saw this article...

Hamm, Thomas D. The Quakers in America.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 304p. illus. index. Columbia, $40 (0-231-12362-0). 289.6. There have seldom been more than 100,000 Quakers in North America, yet the religious movement begun in mid-seventeenth-century England has been amazingly influential....

Winters, Rita. The Green Desert: a Silent Retreat.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 224p. Crossroad/ Carlisle, paper, $18.95 (0-8245-2133-1). 269. To overworked advertising exec Winters, fired just as she was ready to quit, the desert is a godsend refuge, where she can lick her wounds and try to decide what she...

* Denby, David. American Sucker.(Book review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 320p. Little, Brown, $24.95 (0-316-19294-5). 332.6. The stock market was booming in 2000, and Denby film critic for the New Yorker and author of Great Books (1996), found himself channeling his anger and grief over his wife's...

Allen, Mariette Pathy. The Gender Frontier.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 168p. illus. Kehrer; dist. by Consortium, $36 (3-936636-04-4). 305.908. Persons whose gender self-perception differs from their anatomies have probably been around "forever," but burgeoning population, communications,...

Burns, Stewart. To the Mountaintop: Martin Luther King Jr's Sacred Mission to Save America.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 512p. index. HarperSanFrancisco, $27.95 (0-06-054245-4). 323.092. Burns, formerly editor of the King archive at Stanford University, draws on oral histories, interviews, and documents to give immediacy to King's personal and...

Daniels, Roger. Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 352p. illus. index. Hill & Wang, $26 (0-8090-5343-8). 325.73. Farm laborers from Mexico, computer programmers from Taiwan, political refugees from Vietnam--recent immigrants to the U.S. perpetuate a national tradition stretching...

Dew, Rosemary and Pape, Pat. No Backup: a Female Agent's Life in the FBI.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)(Young Adult Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 320p. Carroll & Graf, $25 (0-7867-1278-3). 353.5. Dew served for almost 13 years as a special agent in the FBI, 3 of them as a field supervisor. She describes how she was treated with disdain because she is a woman and how in her...

Edwards, John and others. Four Trials.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 238p. Simon & Schuster, $25 (0-7432-4497-4). 340. Presidential hopeful Senator John Edwards has cast himself as a crusading legal eagle in this unabashedly self-serving recollection of four of his most memorable trials, Rather...

Fasulo, Linda. An Insider's Guide to the UN.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)(Young Adult Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 236p. index. Yale, $27 (0-300-10155-4). 341.23. Exalted or demonized, the actual United Nations is an ectoplasmic entity with scores of organizational divisions that react differently to the demands of the 191 governments that...

* Nazer, Mende and Lewis, Damien. Slave: My True Story.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)(Young Adult Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 288p. Public Affairs, $25 (1-58648-212-2). 305.5. The shock of this title is that it refers to what is happening right now, in Sudan, Africa, and also in the West. Ten years ago, when Mende Nazer was about 12 years old, she was...

Fogel, Robert W. The Slavery Debate, 1952-1990.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 100p. Louisiana State, $22.95 (0-8071-2881-3). 306.3. Fogel, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, provides personal perspective on the heated debates triggered by the publication of his book Time on the Cross (1974). Fogel and...

Fox, Faulkner. Dispatches from a Not-So-Perfect Life; or, How I Learned to Love the House, the Man, the Child.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 272p. Harmony, $23 (1-4000-4939-3). 306.874. Fox recalls a recurring fantasy from young adulthood that featured her living in a house by the sea, with a husband and young child, in a relationship so loving and harmonious that she...

* Tucker, Neely. Love in the Driest Season: a Family Memoir.(Book review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Feb. 2004. 256p. Crown, $23.95 (0-609-60976-9). 362.73. Washington Post writer Tucker has written an affecting, powerful memoir of his struggles to adopt a baby girl in Zimbabwe, where the adoption laws are extremely strict. Tucker, a white...

Hickman, Katie. Courtesans: Money, Sex and Fame in the Nineteenth Century.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 384p. illus. index. Morrow, $24.95 (0-06-620955-2). 306.74. Hickman has penned a collective biography of five of the nineteenth century's most intriguing and influential women. Though their names might not be readily familiar,...

Kuffel, Frances. Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight and Finding My Self.(Book review)(Book Review)(Young Adult Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Kuffel, Frances. Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight and Finding My Self. Jan. 2004. 272p. Broadway, $24 (0-7679-1291-8). 362.1. Wilensky, Amy. The Weight of It: A Story of Two Sisters. Feb. 2004. 224p. Holt, $23 (0-8050-7312-4). 362.1....

Lobel, Jules. Success without Victory: Lost Legal Battles and the Long Road to Justice in America.(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 336p. index. New York Univ., $32.95 (0-8147-5112-1). 349.73. Lobel, an activist lawyer who has worked via the Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Lawyers Guild to litigate against U.S. military and economic...

Race and Ethnicity in America: a Concise History.(Brief Article)(Book Review)(Young Adult Review)
December 1, 2003... Ed. by Ronald H. Bayor. Dec. 2003. 288p. index. Columbia, $59.50 (0-231-12940-8); paper, $22.50 (0-231-12941-6). 305.8. Bayor gathers essays by history professors who address the impact and creation of race and ethnic identity in the...

Rath, Linda K. and Kennedy, Louise. The Between the Lions Book for Parents: Everything You Need to Know about How Children Learn to Read--and What You Can Do to Help.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 272p. illus. index. HarperResource, $23.95 (0-06-051027-7). 372.4. Animated librarians Theo and Cleo Lion and their cubs from the PBS television series Between the Lions form the centerpiece of this resourceful parents' guide to...

Bach, David. The Automatic Millionaire: a Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich.(Book review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 256p. index. Broadway, $19.95 (0-7679-1410-4). 332.024. When Bach writes in his introduction that "in just an hour or two I could share with you a system that would slowly but surely transform you into a millionaire," it sounds...

Johnson, Michelle T. Working while Black: the Black Person's Guide to Success in the White Workplace.(Book Review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)(Young Adult Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 240p. index. Lawrence Hill, paper, $14.95 (1-55652-510-9). 650.1. Johnson, an employment attorney, draws on her personal and professional experiences, as well as those of friends and clients, to offer this guide for black people...

Pilla, Daniel J. The IRS Problem Solver: from Assessments to Audits--How to Solve Your Tax Problems and Keep the IRS off Your Back.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004.304p. Regan, paper, $14.95 (0-06-053345-5). 343.7304. Who among us doesn't dread an envelope bearing the official Internal Revenue Service seal? Well, stop quaking in your mailboxes--Pilla, a tax litigation consultant (How to Get...

Richardson, Bradley G. Career Comeback: 8 Steps to Getting Back on Your Feet When You're Fired, Laid Off, or Your Business Venture Has Failed--and Finding More Job Satisfaction Than Ever.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 336p. index. Broadway, paper, $14.95 (0-7679-1557-7). 650.14. Richardson, who wrote a sharp job-hunting guide for college grads called JobSmarts for TwentySomethings (1995), went on to form a career-counseling business and...

Oudolf, Piet and Gerritsen, Henk. Planting the Natural Garden: the New Generation of Garden Plants.(Book review)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 144p. illus. index. Timber, $34.95 (0-88192-606-X). 635.9. A guiding light in the international community of garden designers, Oudolf teams up with Gerritsen, a leading garden writer in the Netherlands, to present their...

Sawford, Eric. Gardening with Shrubs.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... 2003. 168p. illus. index. Guild of Master Craftsman; dist. by Sterling, paper, $17.95 (1-86108-306-8). 635.9. Sawford compiles a fine introduction to indispensable shrubs, those major players in gardens great and small. Useful lists...

Cogswell, Michael. Louis Armstrong: the Offstage Story of Satchmo.(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... 2003. 192p. illus. index. Collectors, $39.95 (1-888054-81-6). 781.65. This is the "official book" of the Louis Armstrong House and Archives, marking its October 15, 2003, grand opening as a national historic museum. That is to say, it is a...

* Grant, John and Humphrey, Elizabeth. The Chesley Awards for Science Fiction & Fantasy Art.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 192p. illus. index. AAAPL; dist. by Sterling, $45 (1-904332-10-2). 700.415. Like many other professional fellowships, the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists (ASFA) gives out best-of-the-year awards in several...

Vance, Jeffrey. Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema.(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 400p. illus. index. Abrams, $50 (0-8109-4532-0). 791.43. Vance's Baster Keaton Remembered (2001) and Harold Lloyd [BKL My 15 02] are the finest photographic books ever published on their subjects, so it is not altogether...

Yang, Jeff. Once upon a Time in China: a Guide to Hong Kong, Taiwanese, and Mainland Chinese Cinema.(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 320p. illus. index. Atria, paper, $16.95 (0-7434-4817-0). 791.43. Savvy film buffs know that Chinese directors are responsible for a disproportionate number of the most highly praised and entertaining recent movies. Others...

Heisler, Mark. Giants: the 25 Greatest Centers of All Time.(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... 2003. 136p. illus. Triumph, $29.95 (1-57243-577-1). 796.323. A best-of-basketball book with no "Air" Jordan? No "Pistol" Pete Marovich? No, sir. Here we're talking Giants, the big men in the middle who have defined professional basketball...

McGrath, Jeremy and Palmer, Chris. Wide Open: a Life in Supercross.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 304p. illus. HarperEntertainment, $23.95 (0-06-053727-2). 796.72. Supercross, a supercharged version of motocross motorcycle racing, is a high-speed, flamboyant, and potentially very dangerous sport. It takes a special...

Richards, Todd and Blehm, Eric. [P.sup.3]: Parks, Pipes and Powder.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 304p. illus. Regan, $24.95 (0-06-056040-1). 796.939. Richards is a world-class snowboarder, one of the sport's superstars, an Olympic contender, inspiration for a video game, and subject of numerous magazine articles. This is his...

Housden, Roger. Ten Poems to Set You Free.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 144p. Harmony, paper, $15 (1-4000-5112-6). 808.81. The third of Housden's books based on 10 poems explores the philosophical and spiritual questions involved in living life fully. In his customary style, Housden delves into a...

Kashner, Sam. When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 336p. illus. HarperCollins, $25.95 (0-06-000566-1). 811. Novelist and poet-at-heart Kashner has produced a kind of Almost Famous coming-of-age story both about the beginning of his life as a writer and about the end of the Beat...

Scofield, Sandra. Occasions of Sin.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 288p. Norton, $24.95 (0-393-05735-6). 813.54. The author of Opal on Dry Ground (1994), a finalist for the National Book Award, Scofield here turns her hand to a memoir recalling her Catholic girlhood and the long months of her...

Shermer, Michael. The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Feb. 2004. 416p. illus. index. Holt/Times, $25 (0-8050-7520-8). 813.54. The source of morality is the topic under discussion in Shermer's latest book to champion rationalism. Religion received a critique in How We Believe: The Search for...

Brosman, Catharine Savage. The Muscled Truce.(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 72p. Louisiana State, $22.95 (0-8071-2889-9); paper, $15.95 (0-8071-2890-2). 811. Brosman's new co[lection of exceptionally well crafted formal verse contains dramatic monologues, genre portraits, and personal reflections. The...

Bukowski, Charles. The Flash of Lightning behind the Mountain: New Poems.(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 320p. Ecco, $27.50 (0-06-057701-0). 811. The second volume of poems Bukowski left unpublished when he died does not contain many fights, arguments with women, or eruptions at parties. Most of it seems to have been written very...

Davis, William C. Lone Star Rising: the Revolutionary Birth of the Texas Republic.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 368p. index. Free Press, $27 (0-684-86510-6). 976.4. Travis draws his line in the dirt, Bowie and Crockett die valiant deaths slashing at the hordes surrounding them, and Santa Anna meekly concedes Texas' freedom to a triumphant...

Desjardin, Thomas A. These Honored Dead: How the Story of Gettysburg Shaped American Memory.(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 288p. index. Da Capo, $26 (0-306-81267-3). 973.7. In George Bernard Shaw's Devil's Disciple, British general Burgoyne faces certain defeat at Saratoga. A subordinate asks him how history will view the event. History, Burgoyne...

Hamby, Alonzo L. For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s.(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 512p. index. Free Press, $30 (0-684-84340-4). 909.82. The West tends to view the spread and triumph of representative democracy as almost inevitable. So it is valuable to be reminded how tenuous the survival of democratic...

Huffman, Alan. Mississippi in Africa: the Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 336p. Putnam/Gotham, $27 (1-592-40044-2). 976.2 This book was reviewed from galley proofs in our August 2002 issue under the title Prospect Hill, but it was never published Now Putnam/Gotham has scheduled it for a January 2004...

Ravina, Mark. The Last Samurai: the Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 288p. index. Wiley, $24.95 (0-471-08970-2). 952.03. Within the complicated chronology of the Tokugawa shogunate's fall and succession by a modernizing monarchy, the so-called Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 is clearly the definitive...

Schom, Alan. The Eagle and the Rising Sun: the Japanese-American War 1941-1943: Pearl Harbor through Guadalcanal.(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 416p. illus. index. Norton, $27.95 (0-393-04924-8). 940-54. This stout, imposing history of the first year and a half of World War 11 in the Pacific resembles Barbara Tuchman's World War I classic, The Guns of August, even if...

Tinniswood, Adrian. By Permission of Heaven: the True Story of the Great Fire of London.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 352p. illus. index. Riverhead, $24.95 (1-57322-244-5). 942.1. In 1666, a fire started in a London bakery, and the mayor deemed it to be so minor that even a woman could put it out with minimal exertion. The fire raged for almost...

Amato, Ivan. Super Vision: a New View of Nature.(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... 2003. 232p. illus. index. Abrams, $40 (0-8109-4545-2). 502.2. Many scientists are inspired by the beauty of the natural world and have a strong desire to bring all of life into crisp focus, hence the creation of such devices and...

Angel, Solly. The Tale of the Scale: an Odyssey of Invention.(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Feb. 2004. 384p. illus. index. Oxford, $28 (0-19-515868-7). 681. Daydreaming about inventing a better mousetrap is common enough, but the dreamer who converts fantasy to reality is rare Rarer still is the inventor with the reflective acumen...

* Benson, Michael. Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... 320p. illus. Abrams, $55 (0-8109-4531-2). 778.3. Space-age prophet Arthur C. Clarke, one of three eloquent, forward-looking contributors to this pioneering and magnificent collection of pictures generated by the robotic space probes...

Berman, Bob. Strange Universe: the Weird and Wild Science of Everyday Life--on Earth and Beyond.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004 224p index. Holt/Times, $25 (0-8050-7328-0). 520. In this collection of (mostly) new essays, the author of Astronomy magazine's "Strange Universe" column looks at familiar things in a new way. A drive to work, for instance,...

Bittner, Mark. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: a Love Story ... with Wings.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Feb. 2004 288p illus. Harmony, $22 (0-609-61055-4). 636.6. Bittner moved to San Francisco in search of himself. Like many in the early '70s, he tried many pathways--Taoism, the Beats--and lived hand to mouth working odd jobs A period of...

Boaz, Noel T. and Ciochon, Russell L. Dragon Bone Hill: an Ice-Age Saga of Homo Erectus.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Feb. 2004. 288p. illus. index. Oxford, $30 (0-19-515291-3). 569.9. Homo erectus, among the earliest discoveries of paleoanthropology, has been researched for a century. The entire corpus of knowledge about this human ancestor comes together...

* Berlinski, David. The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky: Astrology and the Art of Prediction.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 320p. illus. index. Harcourt, $27 (0-15-100527-3). 133.5. Few Americans realized during the 1980s how much the resident of the White House resembled emperors of ancient Babylon and Rome: like them, President Reagan consulted...

Campbell, James W. P. Brick: a World History.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Photographs by Will Pryce. Dec. 2003. 320p. illus. index. Thames & Hudson, $70 (0-500-34195-8). 666.737. An ur-building material, brick is astonishingly versatile and often stunning Art historian Campbell and architect and photographer...

* Living with the Genie: Essays on Technology and the Quest for Human Mastery.(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Ed. by Alan Lightman and others. Dec. 2003. 352p. index. Island, $27 (1-55963-419-7). 303.48. The premise for this stellar essay collection is the observation that although technology is clearly a double-edged sword, an exponentially...

A Century of Nature: Twenty-one Discoveries that Changed Science and the World.(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Ed. by Laura Garwin and Tim Lincoln. Jan. 2004. 364p. illus. index. Univ. of Chicago, paper, $25 (0-226-28415-8). 500. The British journal Nature is an exception to hyperspecialized scientific publications; its prestige, rivaled only by its...

Davidson, Janet F. and Sweeney, Michael S. On the Move: Transportation and the American Story.(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 322p. illus. index. National Geographic, $35 (0-7922-5140-7). 388. Davidson and Sweeney treat their topic, transportation in America, in terms of both its technical aspects and its cultural impact. The authors rely on three...

Denis-Huot, Christine and Denis-Huot, Michel. The Art of Being an Elephant.(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 220p. illus. Barnes & Noble; dist. by Sterling, $19.95 (0-7607-4300-2). 599.67. A photographer/writer team has produced a beautiful new book on the African elephant. These immensely photogenic animals are well illustrated in...

* Mathews, Eleanor. Ambassador to the Penguins: a Naturalist's Year Aboard a Yankee Whaleship.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 368p. illus. Godine, $29.95 (1-56792-246-5). 508.98. Robert Cushman Murphy--ornithologist, oceanographer, photographer, and prescient conservationist--recognized his calling early and found encouragement at the American Museum of...

Earth: the Definitive Visual Guide to Our Planet.(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Ed. by James F. Luhr. 2003. 520p. illus. index. DK, $50 (0-7894-9643-7). 550. How to catalog the earth? Luhr and fellow staff members at the Smithsonian Institution have put together an encyclopedic, picture-rich, beautifully designed...

Freshwater: a core list.(Spotlight On Sci-Tech)(Barlow, Maude and Clarke, Tony. Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water)(De Villiers, Marq. Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource)(Outwater, Alice. Water: A Natural History)(Pielou, E. C. Fresh Water)(Reisner, Marc. Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water)(Rothfeder, Jeffrey. Every Drop for Sale: Our Desperate Battle over Water)(Simon, Paul. Tapped Out: The Coming Crisis in Water and What We Can Do about It )(Ward, Diane Raines. Water Wars: Drought, Flood, Folly, and the Politics of Thirst)(Book Review)(Brief Review)
December 1, 2003... Ready access to fresh, clean water would seem to be a basic human right, given that water is essential to life, but desert dwellers know how scarce this precious substance can be and how vicious conflicts over potable water can become, And the...

Goodstein, David. Out of Gas: the End of the Age of Oil.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Feb. 2004. 128p. illus. index. Norton, $21 (0-393-05857-3). 622. In this pithy primer on what might replace oil as civilization's fuel, a Caltech professor explains the fundamentals of energy, engines, and entropy for a mass audience....

Heintzelman, Donald S. Hawks and Owls of Eastern North America.(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Feb. 2004. 224p. Illus. index. Rutgers, $29.95 (0-8135-3350-3). 598.9. The charismatic birds of prey are the subject of this new introductory work by a well-known raptor specialist and writer (A Guide to Hawk Watching in North America,...

Kerrod, Robin. Hubble: the Mirror on the Universe.(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... 2003. 192p. illus. index. Firefly, $35 (1-55297-781-1). 522. Astronomer Kerrod is not exaggerating when he writes that the Hubble Space Telescope is "one of the most amazing scientific instruments ever made," and no science collection is...

Klerkx, Greg. Lost in Space: the Fall of NASA and the Dream of a New Space Age.(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 416p. index. Pantheon, $27.95 (0-375-42150-5). 629.4. Wedded to the space shuttle and the International Space Station, NASA long ago lost its Apollo-era elan. Klerkx is familiar with the organization because of his work with the...

Libbrecht, Kenneth and Rasmussen, Patricia.(The Snowflake: Winter's Secret Beauty)(Book Review)(Young Adult Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... The Snowflake: Winter's Secret Beauty. 2003. 112p. illus. index. Voyageur, $20 (0-89658-630-8). 551.57. Physicist Libbrecht and photographer Rasmussen both grew up in snowy climes, but it took a scientific and aesthetic focus to deepen...

Top 10 sci-tech books.(Spotlight On Sci-Tech)(Sea Legs: Tales of a Woman Oceanographer)(Tycho & Kepler: The Unlikely Partnership That Forever Changed Our Understanding of the Heavens)(Einstein's Clocks and Poincare's Maps: Empire of Time)(The Big Splat; or, How Our Moon Came to Be)(End of the Earth: Voyages to Antarctica)(Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind)(Pandora's Keepers: Nine Men and the Atomic Bomb)(DNA: The Secret of Life)(Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883)(Microchip: An Idea, Its Genesis, and the Revolution It Created)(Book Review)(Brief Review)
December 1, 2003... From Einstein's theory of relativity to the splitting of the atom, from the divination of the structure of DNA to the ingenious breakthroughs that brought forth the microchip, this year's top 10 science and technology books cover a tremendous...

Morris, Rod and Ballance, Alison. South Sea Islands: a Natural History.(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Dec. 2003. 160p. illus. index. Firefly, $35 (1-55297-609-2). 508.95. The South Sea islands are the stuff of romantic fantasies as well as the site of Darwin's paradigm-altering discoveries and some of today's most challenging environmental...

* Zimmer, Carl. Soul Made Flesh: the Discovery of the Brain--and How It Changed the World.(Book Review)(Brief Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 384p. index. Free Press, $26 (0-7432-3038-8). 612.8. Every Renaissance history tells how seventeenth-century pioneer William Harvey finally solved the riddle of the heart Yet even among anatomists, few know how one of Harvey's...

Nahin, Paul J. When Least is Best: How Mathematicians Discovered Many Clever Ways to Make Things as Small (or as Large) as Possible.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... Jan. 2004. 328p. illus. Princeton, $29.95 (0-691-07078-4). 511. How can a factory manager minimize breakdowns? How can a disoriented hiker reach her car in the least possible time? In answering questions such as these, engineer Nahin...