Booklist articles from March 2004

Booklist archives from March 2004

* McCain, John and Salter, Mark. Why Courage Matters: the Way to a Braver Life.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 176p. Random, $16.95 (1-4000-6030-3). 179. Arizona senator--and 2000 GOP presidential candidate--McCain has already scaled the nonfiction best-seller lists with two memoirs, Faith of Our Fathers (1999) and Worth the Fighting For...

* Patchett, Ann. Truth & Beauty: a Friendship.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... May 2004. 272p. HarperCollins, $23.95 (0-06-057214-0). 362.196. Patchett's fourth novel, Bel Canto (2001), was a resounding success, but all was not rosy. Her best friend, fellow writer Lucy Grealy, was suffering some of the worst times yet...

Montville, Leigh. Ted Williams: the Biography of an American Hero.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 528p. illus, index. Doubleday, $24.95 (0-385-50748-8). 796.357. The late, great baseball Hall-of-Famer Ted Williams was always a lightning rod, igniting controversy in his wake, even after his death, as those who have followed...

Moore, Thomas. Dark Nights of the Soul: a Guide to Finding Your Way through Life's Ordeals.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... May 2004. 352p. Dutton/Gotham, $27.50 (1-592-40067-1). 158.1. The emphasis here, as in Moore's last book, The Soul's Religion (2002), is on suffering, and that book's mission of counseling readers on how to deal with suffering is extended...

Osbourne, Ozzy and others. Ordinary People: Our Story.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar 2004. 294p illus. Pocket/MTV, $24.95 (0-7434-6620-9). 782.4. This family autobiography, so slight and lightweight it threatens to levitate off the table, offers a look inside the daily lives of the once great rock icon, his wife,...

Osgood, Charles. Defending Baltimore against Enemy Attack: a Boyhood Year during World War II.(and Big Russ & Me: Father and Son: Lessons of Life)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Osgood, Charles. Defending Baltimore against Enemy Attack: A Boyhood Year during World War II. May 2004. 144p. Hyperion, $19.95 (1-4013-0023-5). 975.2. Russert, Tim. Big Russ & Me: Father and Son: Lessons of Life. May 2004. 352p. Hyperion/...

Rauch, Jonathan. Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr, 2004. 224p. index. Holt/ Times, $22 (0-8050-7633-6). 306.84. With gay marriage looming as the next major revision of the way Americans have always done things, Rauch calmly and considerately explains why it should be welcomed, but not...

* Sullivan, Randall. The Miracle Detective: an Investigation of Holy Visions.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 448p. Grove/Atlantic, $25 (0-87113-916-2). 232.91. In 1994, Sullivan, a contributing editor to Rolling Stone and Men's Journal, learned about a vision of Mary appearing in an Oregon trailer and decided he might like to write...

Roberts, Paul. The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous World (Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... May 2004. 400p. Houghton, $26 (0-618-23977-4). 333.79. Out of Gas [BKL D 1 03], by scientist David Goodstein, has strong appeal for those with a general interest in energy. Roberts' disquisition tilts decisively toward the curiosity level...

Berg, Elizabeth. The Art of Mending.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004, 240p. Random, $24.95 (1-4000-6159-8). The prolific Berg (Say When [BKL Ap 1 03]) is unafraid of tackling gritty domestic issues such as aging and illness; in her latest, she takes on the question of why a mother would be so...

Bunn, Davis. Exlixir.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004, 304p. Thomas Nelson, paper, $14.99 (0-8499-4471-6). Taylor Knox is a midlevel executive at a small pharmaceutical firm, but his job is threatened when the giant company Revell threatens a takeover. In fact, Taylor's ouster may be...

* Coben, Harlan. Just One Look.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... May 2004. 384p. Dutton, $25.95 (0-525-94791-4). If the trick of suspense writing is to get readers to identify so passionately with the beleaguered principal character that they disappear into the story, feeling the knife points of tension...

Child, Lincoln. Death Match.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... May 2004. 400p. Doubleday, $24.95 (0-385-50670-8). When it comes to merging innovative technology with a bizarre murder mystery, few writers do it better than Child. In Utopia (2002), supercomputers ran roller coasters in a high-tech theme...

Coelho, Paulo. Eleven Minutes.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Tr. by Margaret Jull Costa Apr. 2004. 288p. HarperCollins, $24.95 (0-06-058927-2). Coelho, author of the best-selling The Alchemist (1993), opens this compelling tale with the classic phrase, "Once upon a time... " then halts and...

Coonts, Stephen. Liars & Thieves.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... May 2004. 400p. St. Martin's, $25.95 (0-312-28362-8). Readers first met Tommy Carmellini, an ex-burglar and CIA agent, in the Jake Grafton novel Cuba (1999). He usually works overseas, breaking and entering for Uncle Sam, planting bugs,...

Green, Jane. To Have and to Hold.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... May 2004. 432p. Broadway, $21.95 (0-7679-1226-8). Alice Chambers has a life most women fantasize about. Married to Joe, a rich businessman who showers her with presents and takes her to exclusive London parties, Alice appears to have...

Hackman, Gene and Lenihan, Daniel. Justice for None.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... June 2004. 320p. St. Martin's, $24.95 (0-312-32425-1). In their first novel, Wake of the Perdido Star (1999), actor Hackman and coauthor Lenihan combined historical and adventure fiction. In their second collaboration, they mix historical...

Harrison, Jim. True North.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... May 2004. 400p. Grove, $24 (0-8021-1773-2). Harrison is a novelist of the North Woods. Frozen lakes, remote cabins, and beer-drinking buddies are the decor of his fiction. He writes with prose that is at once well muscled and delicate. His...

* Kerley, Jack. The Hundredth Man.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... June 2004. 320p. Dutton, $23.95 (0-525-94821-X). Carson Ryder is a Mobile, Alabama, police detective whose key role in solving a serial-killer case landed him a place on a special unit devoted to psycho crimes, Like almost all the...

Naylor, Clare and Hare, Mimi. The Second Assistant: a Tale from the Bottom of the Hollywood Ladder.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... May 2004. 322p. Viking, $21.95 (0-670-03307-3). Jumping on the gravy train that was started by such books as The Nanny Diaries (2002) and The Devil Wears Prada [BKL Ap 1 03], this novel by two Hollywood insiders tells the story of a smart...

Peters, Elizabeth. Guardian of the Horizon.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 416p. Morrow, $24.95 (0-06-621471-8). In an appealing change of pace, "the Grand Dame of the Historical Mystery" steps further back in the life of parasol-wielding Amelia Peabody and her family--a time long before Ramses and...

Westlake, Donald E. The Road to Ruin.(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Westlake, Donald E. The Road to Ruin. Apr. 2004 342p. Mysterious, $25 (0-89296-801-X). * Westlake, Donald E. Thieves' Dozen Apr 2004. 208p. Mysterious, paper, $12.95 (0-446-69302-2). All the usual suspects are back in another fine...

Rosenberg, Nancy Taylor. Sullivan's Law.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... May 2004. 320p. Kensington, $24 (0-7582-0618-6). Lots of defense lawyers write legal fiction, hoping that their experience will bring the courtroom scenes to life and give authenticity to the depiction of attorney-client relationships....

Zafon, Carlos Ruiz. The Shadow of the Wind.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Tr. by Lucia Graves. Apr. 2004. 547p. Penguin, $24.95 (1-59420-010-6). Call it the "book book" genre: this international sensation (it has sold in more than 20 countries and been number one on the Spanish best-seller list), newly...

Berry, Jason and Renner, Gerald. Vows of Silence: the Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 368p. index. Free Press, $26 (0-7432-4441-9). 282. Investigative journalists Berry and Renner's accessible resource on the sexual-abuse controversy in the Catholic Church is, on the one hand, the heroic story of priest and canon...

Greeley, Andrew. The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old Wineskins, and the Second Vatican Council.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar, 2004, 236p index. Univ. of California, $24.95 (0-520-23817-6). 282. Greeley here intends to "reprise and refocus" his four decades of research on American Catholics. He cautions against overusing revolution as a metaphor for change...

Hauerwas, Stanley. Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004.256p. index. Baker/ Brazos, paper, $19.99 (1-58743-076-2). 261.7. If the cover and subtitle lead readers to expect a sustained engagement with Bonhoeffer, they will be disappointed. For better or worse, Hauerwas is an occasional...

* Kirsch, Jonathan. God against the Gods: the History of the War between Monotheism and Polytheism.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004 321p. index, Viking/Compass, $25.95 (0-670-03286-7). 291.1. This book may generate heat as well as light, for it maintains that sectarian conflicts and religious wars are inevitable results of monotheism If there is one god and...

The Manley Arts: quest or nest.(Bilbo Baggins)(Critical Essay)
March 1, 2004... Of all the literary homes I have visited, my favorite is the hobbit hole of one Bilbo Baggins. I've always liked it because it's the kind of place where I'd want to live if I were four feet tall and had hair on the soles of my feet. It was not...

Snow, Robert L. Deadly Cults: The Crimes of True Believers.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 262p, Praeger, $49.95 (0-275-98052-9). 209. In this insightful look at cults and their charismatic leaders, Snow (an Indianapolis police officer) relies far more on previously published material than on first-hand reporting....

Abbott, Geoffrey. The Executioner Always Chops Twice: Ghastly Blunders on the Scaffold.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 240p. illus. St. Martin's, $17.95 (0-312-32563-0). 364.66. Abbott's wide-ranging compendium of untoward happenings during executions throughout history is worthwhile just for the engrossing vignettes it relates, and its generous...

Albrecht, Kat. The Lost Pet Chronicles: Adventures of a K-9 Cop Turned Pet Detective.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 224p. Bloomsbury, $23.95 (1-58234-379-9). 363.28. Yes, Virginia, there really is a pet detective. But erase from your mind those images of gangly Jim Carrey slapsticking his way through a case. This pet detective, a former police...

Barone, Michael. Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation's Future.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... May 2004, 192p. Crown, $22 (1-4000-5306-4). 361.6. Barone, senior writer with U.S. News and World Report, claims there are two Americas: one hard-edged and extremely competitive, the other soft and overprotective. Essentially, American...

Christofferson, Bill. The Man from Clear Lake: Earth Day Founder Gaylord Nelson.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 400p. index. Univ. of Wisconsin, $30 (0-299-19640-2). 328.73. Why have a special day to emphasize protection of our natural environment? Gaylord Nelson, the senator from Clear Lake, Wisconsin, and product of a politically...

Delano, Sterling F. Brook Farm: the Dark Side of Utopia.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 384p. illus, index. Harvard/Belknap, $29.95 (0-674-01160-0). 307.77. Brook Farm is one of America's most famous utopian experiments. Located on a 200-acre dairy farm in Roxbury, Massachusetts, it was founded in 1841, a time of...

Ferguson, Niall. Colossus: the Price of America's Empire.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 368p. illus. Penguin, $25.95 (1-59420-013-0). 327.73. Amid the torrent of books on terrorism, liberalism, American empire, and the apocalypse, Ferguson's stands out not in its premise--suggesting that America is an empire is...

Fishman, Sylvia Barack. Double or Nothing: Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 224p. index. Univ. Press of New England, $24.95 (1-58465-206-3). 306.84. Fishman, drawing on 254 interviews with mixed-married couples; group discussions with teenage children; materials produced by communal, secular, and...

Gilley, Bruce. China's Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 328p. index. Columbia Univ., $29.50 (0-231-13084-8). 320.951. Presently a doctoral candidate in politics at Princeton University, Gilley has also reported on China for the Far Eastern Economic Review and coauthored China's New...

Godman, Peter. Hitler and the Vatican: Inside the Secret Archives That Reveal the Complete Story of the Nazis and the Church.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 288p. index. Free Press, $27 (0-7432-4597-0). 327.430. Drawing on archival sources, many of which have only recently become available, Godman presents a thorough, evenhanded picture that challenges simple descriptions of Pius XII...

Honore, Carl. In Praise of Slowness: How a Worldwide Movement Is Challenging the Cult of Speed.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... May 2004. 256p. HarperSanFrancisco, $24.95 (0-06-054578-X). 306.4. Tempted by a book of "one-minute bedtime stories" to read to his son and thereby save time while fulfilling, albeit barely, the paternal role, Honore had a moment of truth,...

Jackson, Michael. In Sierra Leone.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... May 2004. 232p. Duke Univ, paper, $19.95 (0-8223-3313-9). 301. In 2002, Sierra Leone, the small West African country, was about to announce the end of its civil war (which had raged since 1991). The author, a professor of anthropology (and...

Lang, James M. Learning Sickness: a Year with Crohn's Disease.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 224p. Capital, $22.95 (1-931868-60-3). 362.1. When English professor Lang was first diagnosed with the inflammatory bowel ailment Crohn's disease, he was at an age--26--when most people feel immortal. He had had a history of good...

Nussbaum, Martha C. Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 432p. Princeton, $29.95 (0-691-09526-4) 340. A citizen filled with grief or anger may advance the cause of liberal equity, but a citizen filled with disgust never will. So argues an acclaimed legal theorist in this sophisticated...

Raphael, Jody. Listening to Olivia: Violence, Poverty, and Prostitution.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... May 2004. 312p. Northeastern Univ., $50 (1-55553-597-6); paper, $20 (1-55553-596-8). 306.74. Olivia left an alcoholic, violent home at age 16 in the hopes of becoming a dancer in one of Chicago's clubs on Rush Street known in the 1970s for...

Smith, Martin J. and Kiger, Patrick J. Poplorica: A Popular History of the Fads, Mavericks, Inventions and Lore That Shaped Modern America.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004, 304p. index. HarperResource, $22.95 (0-06-053531-8). 306. Smith and Kiger's collection of historical oddments traces the people and fads that have constituted American popular culture over the years. It's the chronicle of the...

Urrea, Luis Alberto. The Devil's Highway: a True Story.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004.256p. Little, Brown, $24.95 (0-316-74671-1). 304.8. So many illegal immigrants die in the desert Southwest of the U.S. that only notorious catastrophes make headlines, Urrea reconstructs one such incident in the Sonoran Desert,...

Wallace, Carol McD. All Dressed in White: the Irresistible Rise of the American Wedding.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 322p. illus. Penguin, paper, $15 (0-14-200216-X). 393.2. Wallace takes a fascinating backward glance at the transformation of the American wedding. Evolving from a simple family ceremony into an unbelievably expensive and often...

What Makes a Man: 22 Writers Imagine the Future.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Ed. by Rebecca Walker. Mar. 2004. 255p. Riverhead, $24.95 (1-57322-269-0). 305.31. Walker, author of the memoir Black, White, and Jewish (2000), has put together a timely and profound anthology. One wonders what changes could occur in our...

White, G. Edward. Alger Hiss's Looking-Glass Wars: the Covert Life of a Soviet Spy.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 286p. illus. Oxford, $30 (0-19-515345-6). 364.1. The 1990s were rough on defenders of Alger Hiss. Historians such as John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr (Venona, 1999) found damning evidence against Hiss in American and Soviet...

Egger, Robert and Yoon, Howard. Begging for Change: the Dollars and Sense of Making Nonprofits Responsive, Efficient, and Rewarding for All.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004, 240p. index. HarperBusiness, $24.95 (0-06-054171-7). 361.7. In this impassioned plea for change that, at the same time, needs a bit more structure and logic to make a larger impact, Washington, D.C., nonprofit executive Egger...

Frankel, Alex, Wordcraft: The Art of Turning Little Words into Big Business.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004, 256p. Crown, $24 (1-4000-5104-5). 658.8. Frankel has managed to crack open the world of professional namers, a highly guarded group of specialists who focus exclusively on coining brand names. A winning name is crucial to the...

Newton, Roger G. Galileo's Pendulum: From the Rhythm of Time to the Making of Matter.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 160p. illus, index. Harvard, $22,95 (0-674-01331-X). 529. Physicist Newton, editor of the Journal of Mathematical Physics, here addresses nonexperts on the subject of time--specifically, the measurement of its passage. The range...

Sinha, Vivek R. The Vanishing Tiger.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 256p. illus. Trafalgar Square, $29.95 (1-84065-441-4). 599.7560954. For the serious wildlife viewer, a trip on elephant-back to locate and photograph India's tigers is probably second only to a visit to the plains of East...

Speichert, Greg and Speichert, Sue. Encyclopedia of Water Garden Plants.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 320p. illus, index. Timber, $49.95 (0-88192-625-6). 581.7. Most books on water gardening devote too little space to plants, and yet, the plants one chooses will be critical to the success or failure of any given situation. The...

Kettlewell, Caroline. Electric Dreams.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 304p. Carroll & Graf, $24 (0-7867-1271-6). 629.2271. This is a feel-good story about a competition that, for once, was not based on athletics. Instead it supported math, science, and technology education for high-school students...

Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine: Steam and the Age of Invention.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar, 2004. 224p. illus. Columbia Univ., $19.50 (0-231-13172-0). 621.1. Asking how James Watt got from "the shipyards of Greenock to the tips of our tongues," Marsden declaims on the steam engine's putative inventor in a half-bemused,...

Welch, H. Gilbert. Should I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe Not and Here's Why.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004, 235p. index. Univ. of California, $19.95 (0-520-23976-8). 616.99. The cost of medical malpractice soars as patient lawsuits proliferate, and healthcare providers react with rounds of "defensive testing" that boost insurance...

* Connor, James A. Kepler's Witch: An Astronomer's Discovery of Cosmic Order amid Religious War, Political Intrigue, and the Heresy Trial of His Mother.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 416p. illus. index. HarperSanFrancisco, $24.95 (0-06-052255-0). 520. On his deathbed, one of history's greatest astronomers voiced no satisfaction over his achievements in advancing planetary physics but a great deal of...

Halda, Josef J. and Waddick, James W. The Genus Paeonia.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 228p. illus. index. Timber, $49.95 (0-88192-612-4). 635.9. Beautified by finely rendered botanical illustrations--color plates as well as line drawings--this excellent guide contains information on the entire array of peony...

Schenk, George. Gardening on Pavement, Tables, and Hard Surfaces.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 192p. illus, index. Timber, $29.95 (0-88192-593-4). 635.9. Schenk, the author of Moss Gardening (1997) and The Complete Shade Gardener (2002), tells how to grow plants on pavement, rocks, railings, tables, stumps and logs, and...

Smith, Charles W. G. The Weather-Resilient Garden: A Defensive Approach to Planning and Landscaping.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar, 2004. 320p. illus, index. Storey, paper, $19.95 (1-58017-516-3). 635.9. Smith gives instructions for creating a weather-resilient garden, protecting it from drought and heat, cold, ice, snow, hail, lightning, salt, wind, fire, floods,...

Titchmarsh, Alan. Royal Gardeners: The History of Britain's Royal Gardens.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 192p. index, BBC; dist. by Trafalgar, $40 (0-563-48897-2). 712. Prolific writer Titchmarsh's lavishly illustrated history of the royal gardens includes vivid profiles of monarchs and landscapers as he begins with the period from...

Decharne, Max. Hardboiled Hollywood.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 249p. illus, index. No Exit; dist, by Trafalgar, $27.50 (1-84243-070-X). 791.4. "When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand" was Raymond Chandler's advice to pulp-fiction writers. Chandler's witticism...

Frank Capra: Interviews.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Ed. by Leland Poague. Mar. 2004. 232p. index. Univ. Press of Mississippi, $48 (1-57806-616-6); paper, $20 (1-57806-617-4). 791.43. Director Capra's 1930s and 1940s films extolling the virtues of the American everyman have made him perhaps...

Gill, Andy and Odegard, Kevin. A Simple Twist of Fate: Bob Dylan and the Making of Blood on the Tracks.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 256p, Da Capo, $39 (0-306-81231-2). 782.42164. In 1974, Bob Dylan broke a streak of wan and uninspired recordings with Blood on the Tracks, composed in the wake of the breakup of the singer-songwriter's 12-year marriage. The...

Hepburn, Alison. Beginner's Guide to Mosaics.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... 2004. 128p. illus. Sterling, $24.95 (1-4027-0349-X), 738.56. After a page or two on mosaics' history and famous practitioners (e.g., Chagall, Gaudi, and Picasso), this English artist sets the stage for beginners by fully investigating the...

Nelson, Sherry C. Painting Garden Animals.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 144p. illus, index, North Light, paper, $24.99 (1-58180-428-8), 751.45. Decorative painter Nelson follows Painting Garden Birds (1998) and Painting Flowers A to Z (2000) with a guide to painting familiar feathered and furry...

Kiner, Ralph and Peary, Danny. Baseball Forever: Reflections on 60 Years in the Game.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 256p. illus, index. Triumph, $24.95 (1-57243-597-6). 796.357. Ralph Kiner is the only player to ever lead the National League in home runs over seven consecutive seasons. He's also been a Mets broadcaster since 1962. Add it all...

Osborne, Ben. The Brooklyn Cyclones: Hardball Dreams and the New Coney Island.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 208p. illus. New York Univ., $24.95 (0-8147-6205-0). 796.357. The Dodgers abandoned Brooklyn in 1957, and Flatbush has never been the same. In recent years, the Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor-league affiliate of the Mets, have...

Cooper, Marc. The Last Honest Place in America: In Search of Paradise and Perdition in the New Las Vegas.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 256p. Nation Books, $24.95 (1-56025-490-4). 917.93. Cooper, the veteran journalist (and radio-show host), begins with the destruction of the last vestige of the old Las Vegas: the Desert Inn, where the Rat Pack frolicked,...

O'Malley, Penelope Grenoble. Malibu Diary: Notes from an Urban Refugee.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 200p. Univ. of Nevada, $24.95 (0-87417-566-6). 917.94. In the mid-1980s, journalist O'Malley (along with plenty of other Los Angelinos) got tired of the big city and struck out for someplace a little less cluttered. She settled...

* Coffey, Michael. 27 Men Out: Baseball's Perfect Games.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 320p. Atria, $25 (0-7434-4606-2). 796.357. Baseball is unique among team sports in that it includes a statistical basis with which the concept of perfection can be defined: 27 batters up, 27 batters out, a "perfect" game. In...

* Preston, Diana and Preston, Michael. A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: The Life of William Dampier: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 384p. index, Walker, $27 (0-8027-1425-0). 910. William Dampier's name crops ups constantly in tales of adventure, exploration, and piracy (e.g., Diana Souhami's Selkirk's Island, 2001). His ubiquity creates high expectations for...

Redfern, Nick. Three Men Seeking Monsters: Six Weeks in Pursuit of Werewolves, Lake Monsters, Giant Cats, Ghostly Devil Dogs, and Ape-Men.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 260p. index. Pocket/Paraview, paper, $14 (0-7434-8254-9). 914.1. Picture three British "blokes"--a baldheaded punker (the author), a Goth herpetologist who dresses like a pirate, and a six-foot-six-inch, 400-pound behemoth who...

Aburish, Said K. Nasser: the Last Arab.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 342p. illus, index. Thomas Dunne, $27.95 (0-312-28683-X). 962.05. As a result of Gamal Abdel Nasser's popularity within Arab societies, more than a dozen biographies of him have been published. Aburish contributes to them with...

The Appalachians: America's First and Last Frontier.(Brief Article)(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Ed. by Mari-Lynn Evans and others. Apr. 2004, 288p. illus, index. Random, $29.95 (1-4000-5186-5), 974. This book leans heavily on illustrations to tell its story, but as the companion volume to a PBS documentary, that's no surprise, The...

Burger, Richard L. and Salazar, Lucy C. Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004.217p. illus, index. Yale, $45 (0-300-09763-8). 985. Yale anthropology professor Burger and Salazar, curator of the Machu Picchu collection at Yale's Peabody Museum, present not only an outstanding catalog, but also a welcome,...

Claire, Rodger W. Raid on the Sun: Inside Israel's Secret Campaign That Denied Saddam the Bomb.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 256p index. Broadway, $24.95 (0-7679-1400-7). 956.704. From interviews the Israeli government allowed the author to conduct with the pilots who destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, journalist Claire dramatically reconstructs the...

Feldman, David E. Pilgrimage from Darkness.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004, 256p. Univ. Press of Mississippi, $29 (1-57806-619-0). 940.53. Oskar (now Asher) Eder, a Christian German boy born near Nuremberg in 1925, became involved in the Hitler Youth and later in the Luftwaffe, where he trained as a...

Freeman, Philip. St. Patrick of Ireland.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 256p. illus. index. Simon & Schuster, $24 (0-7432-5632-8). 936.1. How do you write a biography of someone about whom what little is known may be myth rather than fact? Freeman's interdisciplinary strategy of analyzing both the...

Joy, Dean P. Sixty Days in Combat: an Infantryman's Memoir of World War II in Europe.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 336p. Presidio, paper, $16.95 (0-89141-839-3). 940.54. Joy's memoir, with sketches by the author, is an original contribution to the literature of World War II remembrance. He soldiered in the U.S. Army's 71st Infantry Division,...

Lerner, Bernice. The Triumph of Wounded Souls: Seven Holocaust Survivors' Lives.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Apr. 2004. 320p. illus. index. Univ. of Notre Dame, $65 (0-268-04227-6): paper, $28 (0-268-03365-X). 940.53. Lerner, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, interviewed seven Holocaust survivors over a period of three years. Each narrative in...

Levi, Anthony. Louis XIV.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 384p. illus. Carroll & Graf, $26 (0-7867-1309-7). 944.033. Resuming chronologically from the subject of his previous biography (Cardinal Richelieu and the Making of France, 2000), Levi probes the Sun King's psychology--though...

McAllester, Matthew. Blinded by the Sunlight: Emerging from the Prison of Saddam's Iraq.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Mar. 2004. 304p. HarperCollins, $25.95 (0-06-058819-5). 956.7044. Using his brief incarceration in an Iraqi prison as a focal point, a journalist narrates a harrowing first-person account of life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Held for eight...