Booklist articles from November 2008

Booklist archives from November 2008

Cheever.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... * Cheever. By Blake Bailey. Mar. 2009. 736p. illus, index. Knopf, $35 (9781400043941). 813. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] John Cheever is not widely read anymore. In his day during the 1950s and 1960s, his short stories appeared...

The Rules of the Game.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... * The Rules of the Game. By Leonard Downie. Jan. 2009. 336p. Knopf, $25.95 (9780307269614). General Fiction. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Former Washington Post Executive Editor Downie makes his fiction debut with this taut,...

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon. By David Grann. Feb. 2009. 352p. Doubleday, $27.50 (9780385513531). 918.1. Percy Fawcett, a celebrated member of the Royal Geographical Society, explored the Amazon the...

The Reagan I Knew.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Reagan I Knew. By William F. Bnckley. Nov. 2008. 240p. Basic, $25 (9780465009268). 973.927092. Buckley's final book--he died while writing it--is quite deceptive. It appears to be a slight, even inconsequential chronicle of...

Fool.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Fool. By Christopher Moore. Feb. 2009. 336p. Morrow, $24.95 (9780060590314). General Fiction. In Moore's randy alternate Britain, in which Lear is a thirteenth-century monarch rather than the fourth-century BCE figure he most...

The Forgotten Legion.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Forgotten Legion. By Ben Kane. Mar. 2009. 544p. St. Martin's, $25.95 (9780312536718). Historical Fiction. This may be the only historical novel in which a principal character is a proto-Etruscan nationalist. In this lively and...

Running Hot.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Running Hot. By Jayne Ann Krentz. Jan. 2009. 352p. Putnam, $24.95 (9780399155215). Romance. Luther Malone should have known that even an "easy" assignment from Fallen Jones would have a few unexpected twists. Not only did Jones...

True Colors.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... True Colors. By Kristin Hannah. Feb. 2009. 400p. St. Martin's, $25.95 (9780312364106). General Fiction. The Grey sisters miss the love of their mother, who died of cancer, as they are raised by their cold, status-conscious father...

The Tourist.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... * The Tourist. By Olen Steinhauer. Mar. 2009.408p. St. Martin's/Minotaur, $24.95 (9780312369729). Crime Fiction. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Charles Alexander's soul has been destroyed by his work. A CIA black-ops agent (called a...

The Women.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... * The Women. By T. C. Boyle. Feb. 2009.451 p.Viking, $27.95 (9780670020416). General Fiction. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The women who inspired Boyle's latest fictional improvisation on the lives of historic figures are the lovers...

Between the Covers: The Book Babes' Guide to a Woman's Reading Pleasures.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Between the Covers: The Book Babes' Guide to a Woman's Reading Pleasures. By Margo Hammond and Ellen Heltzel. Nov. 2008. 352p. Da Capo, $16.95 (9780738212296). 028. We've all lamented, "So many books, so little time," etc., etc....

The Black Girl Next Door.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Black Girl Next Door. By Jennifer Baszile. Jan. 2009. 320p. illus. Touchstone, $25 (9781416543275). 305.48. The Baszile family's move to an exclusive white suburb in Palos Verde, California, was the culmination of the parents'...

The Case for Big Government.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Case for Big Government. By Jeff Madrick. Nov. 2008. 224p. Princeton, $22.95 (9780691123318). 320.973. Former New York Times economics columnist Madrick announces this book as a refutation of laissez-faire economics...

Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle. By Daniel L. Everett. Nov. 2008. 320p. Pantheon, $26.95 (9780375425028). 305.898. In 1977, Everett, a Christian missionary, took his young family to live...

The Tyranny of Liberalism: Understanding and Overcoming Administered Freedom, Inquisitorial Tolerance, and Equality by Command.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... * The Tyranny of Liberalism: Understanding and Overcoming Administered Freedom, inquisitorial Tolerance, and Equality by Command. By James Kalb. Nov. 2008. 330p. ISI, $28 (9781933859743); paper, $18 (9781933859828). 320.51. ...

From Goth to God.(The Manley Arts)(Anne Rice)
November 1, 2008... A few months ago Bill Ott devoted his Back Page column to a discussion of miscast actors: Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl, Gregory Peck as Ahab, and Diana Ross as Dorothy. It happens. As versatile as most great actors are, at times they attempt...

George Kennan: A Writing Life.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... George Kennan: A Writing Life. By Lee Congdon. Nov. 2008. 208p. ISI, $25 (9781933859712). 327.730092. The prodigious writing output of the late diplomat and historian George Kennan (1904-2005) occupies center stage here. Since...

Welcome to the Aquarium: A Year in the Lives of Children.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Welcome to the Aquarium: A Year in the Lives of Children. By Julie Diamond. Dec. 2008. 272p. illus. New Press, $25.95 (9781595581716). 372.1102. At the age of 60, Diamond has spent 25 years teaching mostly in the New York City...

The Wrong Guys: Murder, False Confessions, and the Norfolk Four.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Wrong Guys: Murder, False Confessions, and the Norfolk Four. By Tom Wells and Richard A. Leo. Nov. 2008. 352p. New Press, $25.95 (9781595584014). 364.152. Writer Wells and lawyer Leo team up here to produce a harrowing...

American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon. By Steven Rinella. Dec. 2008. 288p. illus. Spiegel & Grau, $24.95 (9780385521680). 599.64. In 2005, Rinella was issued a buffalo-hunting permit for the Alaskan wilderness. This hunt was...

Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet. By Oliver Morton. Nov. 2008.480p. HarperCollins, $28.95 (9780007163649). 572.46. Morton's curiosity-driven ruminations concern photosynthesis in a work imbued with wonder and worry about...

Extreme Birds: The World's Most Extraordinary and Bizarre Birds.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Extreme Birds: The World's Most Extraordinary and Bizarre Birds. By Dominic Couzens. Nov. 2008. 320p. illus. Firefly, $45 (9781554074235). 598. Couzens, a British birder and author (Collins Birds, 2005), has collected a wonderful...

The Georgian Star: How William and Caroline Herschel Revolutionized Our Understanding of the Cosmos.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Georgian Star: How William and Caroline Herschel Revolutionized Our Understanding of the Cosmos. By Michael Lemonick. Nov. 2008. 224p. illus. Norton, $23.95 (9780393065749). 520.92. Lemonick's biography of William (17381822)...

The Airplane: How Ideas Gave Us Wings.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Airplane: How Ideas Gave Us Wings. By Jay Spenser. Nov. 2008. 320p. illus. Smithsonian, $25.95 (9780061259197). 629.133. Spenser organizes his history of the airplane according to the modern machine's major...

Do Cats Hear with Their Feet?: Where Cats Come From. What We Know about Them, and What They Think about Us (Book)
November 1, 2008... Do Cats Hear with Their Feet? By Jake Page. Dec. 2008. 224p. illus. Smithsonian, $24.95 (9780061456480). 636.8. Page, author (Dogs: A Natural History, 2007) and magazine editor (Natural History, Smithsonian), here turns his natural...

Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life. By Jenna Woginrich. Dec. 2008. 192p. Storey, $20.95 (9781603420860). 640. One day Woginrich, a Web designer, threw her hands in the air and vowed to change her life....

Frontier Medicine: From the Atlantic to the Pacific, 1492-1941.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Frontier Medicine: From the Atlantic to the Pacific, 1492-1941. By David Dary. Nov. 2008.416p. illus. Knopf, $30 (9780307263452). 610.973. Author of the excellent western histories The Santa Fe Trail (2000) and The Oregon Trail...

The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread. By Maria Balinska. Nov. 2008. 240p. illus. Yale, $24 (9780300112290). 641.8. The bagel may have grown out of its New York insularity to become an American icon, but its origins...

The Butch Cook Book.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Butch Cook Book. Ed. by Lee Lynch and others, 2008.216p. TRP Cookbooks, paper, $18.95 (9780979270109). 641.522. Prepare to disabuse yourself of the notion that the butch half of a lesbian couple is not the cook. Divided into...

The Complete Robuchon: French Home Cooking for the Way We Live Now.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Complete Robuchon: French Home Cooking for the Way We Live Now. By Joel Robuchon. Tr. by Robin H. R. Bellinger. Nov. 2008. 832p. Knopf, $35 (9780307267191). 641.5941. Superchef Robuchon has fashioned a massive record of his...

It Seemed like a Good Idea at the Time: My Adventures in Life and Food.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... It Seemed like a Good Idea at the Time: My Adventures in Life and Food. By Moira Hodgson. Jan. 2009. 336p. Doubleday/Nan A. Talese, $24.95 (9780767912709). 641.5092. New York food and restaurant columnist Hodgson recalls the...

Provencal Cooking: Savoring the Simple Life in France.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Provencal Cooking: Savoring the Simple Life in France. By Mary Ann Caws. Nov. 2008. 256p. illus. Pegasus, $24 (9781605980201 ). 641.5. Caws takes her family to the mountainous heart of Provence, where they buy a small house so that...

A Revolution in Taste: The Rise of French Cuisine, 1650-1800.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... A Revolution in Taste: The Rise of French Cuisine, 1650-1800. By Susan Pinkard. Nov. 2008. 336p. Cambridge, $32 (9780521821995). 641.59. Gourmets who venerate French cooking often have little objective idea of the cuisine's origins...

Stitched in Time: Memory-Keeping Projects to Sew and Share from the Creator of Posie Gets Cozy.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Stitched in Time: Memory-Keeping Projects to Sew and Share from the Creator of Posie Gets Cozy. By Alicia Paulson. Nov. 2008. 160p. illus. Crown/Potter Craft, paper, $22.95 (9780307406262). 746.4. Ah, the joys of technology, which...

Eat, Memory: Great Writers at the Table; A Collection of Essays from the New York Times.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Eat, Memory: Great Writers at the Table; A Collection of Essays from the New York Times. Ed. by Amanda Hesser. Nov. 2008. 192p. Norton, $24.95 (9780393067637). 808.84. Food evokes memories, as Proust famously observed, and this...

Graham Greene: A Life in Letters.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Graham Greene: A Life in Letters. By Graham Greene. Ed. by Richard Greene. Dec. 2008.480p. illus. Norton, $35 (9780393066425). 808.86. English fiction writer Greene is solidly established in the English-language canon. A prolific...

New York Stories: Landmark Writing from Four Decades of New York Magazine.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... New York Stories: Landmark Writing from Four Decades of New York Magazine. 2008. 624p. Random, paper, $17 (9780812979923). 810.8. From its birth as a Sunday newspaper supplement, New York magazine has incubated many of the nation's...

Verses and Versions: Three Centuries of Russian Poetry.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Verses and Versions: Three Centuries of Russian Poetry. Ed. by Vladimir Nabokov and others. Tr. by Vladimir Nabokov. Nov. 2008.480p. Harcourt, $40 (9780151012640). 891.71008. Nabokov, touted as the only major modern author to write...

The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... * The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia. By Laura Miller. Dec. 2008. 320p. Little, Brown, $25.99 (9780316017633). 823. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When she was nine, Laura Miller, who grew up to become a literary...

Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918. By Jeffrey B. Perry. Dee. 2008. 576p. illus. Columbia Univ., $37.50 (9780231139106). 973. This first full-length biography of Harrison offers a portrait of a man ahead of...

My Private War: Liberated Body, Captive Mind; A World War II POW's Journey.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... My Private War: Liberated Body, Captive Mind; A World War II POW's Journey. By Norman Bussel. Nov. 2008. 320p. Pegasus, $24.95 (9781605980157). 940.54. Bussel, a B-17 crewman just turned 19, was shot down over Germany in the...

Napoleon's Wars: An International History, 1803-1815.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Napoleon's Wars: An International History, 1803-1815. By Charles Esdaile. 2008. 625p. Viking, $35 (9780670020300). 940.27. Historians of Napoleon Bonaparte must assess his role in causing the wars named after him. Esdaile assigns...

Operation Thunderhead: The True Story of Vietnam's Final POW Rescue Mission--and the Last Navy SEAL Killed in Country.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Operation Thunderhead: The True Story of Vietnam's Final POW Rescue Mission-and the Last Navy SEAL Killed in Country. By Kevin Dockery. Nov. 2008. 304p. illus. Berkley/Caliber, $25.95 (9780425223734). 959.700. A gifted writer on...

Read My Heart: A Love Story in England's Age of Revolution.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Read My Heart: A Love Story in England's Age of Revolution. By Jane Dunn. 2008.432p. illus. Knopf, $30 (9781400002838). 942.06092. The era of Britain's Civil War teems with articulate, literate personalities whose diaries yield a...

Stonehenge.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Stonehenge. By Rosemary Hill. Nov. 2008. 224p. illus. Harvard, $19.95 (9780674031326). 936.2. Many books seek to tell "the truth about Stonehenge," ranging from exact measurements of its various stones to theories about its...

The Urban Hermit.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Urban Hermit. By Sam MacDonald. Dec. 2008. 304p. St. Martin's, $24.95 (9780312376994). 975.2. His diet plan wouldn't make it on Oprah, his lifestyle change wouldn't be touted by Dr. Phil, and Alan Greenspan wouldn't touch his...

Art and China's Revolution.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Art and China's Revolution. Ed. by Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian. Nov. 2008. 280p. illus. Yale, $65 (9780300140644). 709.51. Based on an exhibition mounted by the Asia Society, this album of visual arts produced during the rule...

Arthur Penn: Interviews.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Arthur Penn: Interviews. Ed. by Michael Chaiken and Paul Cronin. Nov. 2008. 240p. Univ. Press of Mississippi, paper, $22 (9781604731057). 791.43. Bonnie and Clyde looms as large in these interviews with its director as it does in...

The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II. By Oscar Hammerstein II. Ed. by Amy Asch. Dec. 2008. 448p. illus. Knopf, $65 (9780375413582). 782.14. Here the editorial torch for the Complete Lyrics series passes from Robert Kimball,...

Daughters of India: Art and Identity.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Daughters of India: Art and Identity. By Stephen P. Huyler. 2008. 264p. illus. Abbeville, $65 (9780789210029). 305.48. Cultural anthropologist, art historian, and photographer Huyler has been on a three-decade mission to document...

Digging for Dirt: The Life and Death of ODB.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Digging for Dirt: The Life and Death of ODB. By Jaime Lowe. Dec. 2008. 288p. Faber and Faber, $23 (9780865479692). 782.42. As one of Wu Tang Clan, Russell Jones became known for his off-kilter raps and odd stage mannerisms. Like...

The Call of Trains: Railroad Photographs by Jim Shaughnessy.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... * The Call of Trains: Railroad Photographs by Jim Shaughnessy. By Jim Shaughnessy and Jeff Brouws. Nov. 2008. 224p. illus. Norton, $65 (9780393065923). 779. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The end of railroad trains as major means of...

The 10 arts books.(Recommended readings)
November 1, 2008... From one of the world's most famous painters to extraordinary yet forgotten artists now reclaimed, from country music to No Wave, Hollywood to Cuba, this year's best art books combine aesthetics and history, biography and memoir, to celebrate...

Dusty.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Dusty! By Annie J. Randall. Nov. 2008. 240p. illus. Oxford, $24.95 (9780195329445). 782.4164092. Born Mary O'Brien to a middle-class British family, Dusty Springfield would go on to a career that spanned England and the U.S. as a...

Frezno.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Frezno. By Tony Stamolis. Nov. 2008. 136p. illus. Process, $24.95 (0-9760822-3-3). 770.9. Denizens of Fresno, California, call it by variants of its official name, says Terry Allen in the introduction to Stamolis' unsentimental...

Passionate response.(Story behind the Story: Ada Louise Huxtable's On Architecture)(Interview)
November 1, 2008... I don't know if critics are allowed to be ambivalent. We're supposed to have the answers." So wrote Ada Louise Huxtable in 1971. When Booklist reached her by phone at her home in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and asked if critical ambivalence was...

On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... * On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change. By Ada Louise Huxtable. Nov. 2008. 496p. illus. Walker, $35 (9780802717078). 720.1. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] America's premier architectural critic values the...

He Is ... I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... He Is... I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond. By David Wild. Nov. 2008. 224p. Da Capo, $25 (9780306817847). 782.42164. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who like Nell Diamond and those who...

Horribly Awkward: The New Funny Bone.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Horribly Awkward: The New Funny Bone. By Edwin Page. Nov. 2008. 272p. Marion Boyars, paper, $17.95 (9780714531526). 791.45. Page affords a fascinating first look at a generation of jaded, media-savvy, young(ish), postmodern...

Independent Spirit: Early Canadian Women Artists.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Independent Spirit: Early Canadian Women Artists. By A. K. Prakash. Nov. 2008. 408p. illus. Firefly, $75 (9781554074174). 700.82. The only Canadian artists most non-Canadian art lovers can name are those in the all-male Group of...

Lives of the Artists.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Lives of the Artists. By Calvin Tomkins. Nov. 2008. 272p. Holt/John Macrae, $26 (9780805088724). 700.92. Tomkins, author of an outstanding biography of Duchamp, assembles a guide to the age of anything-is-art out of 10 of his...

Lyrics, 1964-2008.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Lyrics, 1964-2008. By Paul Simon. Nov. 2008. 352p. illus. Simon & Schuster, $35 (9781416586920). 782.42. One of his albums' titles calls him rhymin' Simon, and by God, it's true. He rhymes more truly and more naturally than the...

George Tooker.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... * George Tooker. By Robert Cozzolino and others. 2008. 192p. illus. Merrell, $60 (9781858944562). 759.1. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Once you've seen a George Tooker painting, you won't soon forget it, but Tooker's life and work...

The History of Gardens in Painting.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... * The History of Gardens in Painting. By Nils Buttner. Tr. by Russell Stockman. 2008. 240p. illus. Abbeville, $95 (9780789209931). 758. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Works of art in their own right, gardens have always inspired...

Making Movies with Orson Welles.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Making Movies with Orson Welles. By Gary Graver and Andrew J. Rausch. Nov. 2008. 192p. illus. Scarecrow, $35 (9780810861404). 778.5. The final years of cinematic icon Welles have received greater attention recently, first in Joseph...

Miles on Miles: Interviews and Encounters with Miles Davis.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Miles on Miles: Interviews and Encounters with Miles Davis. Ed. by Paul Maher and Michael K. Dorr. Nov. 2008. 368p. Chicago Review, $24.95 (9781556527067). 788.9. Miles Davis turned his back to the audience and made music that...

Rebels Wit Attitude: Subversive Rock Humorists.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Rebels Wit Attitude: Subversive Rock Humorists. By Iain Ellis. Dec. 2008. 307p. Soft Skull, paper, $15.95 (9781593762063). 781.660973. Ellis, academic and avowed arrested adolescent, traces the history of humorous rebellion in...

Le Corbusier.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Le Corbusier. By Nicholas Fox Weber. Nov. 2008. 944p. Knopf, $45 (9780375410437). 720.92. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Universally recognized for his radical theories and daring buildings, the architect, urban designer, utopist, and...

Reading Dance: A Gathering of Memoirs, Reportage, Criticism, Profiles, Interviews, and some Uncategorizable Extras.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... * Reading Dance: A Gathering of Memoirs, Reportage, Criticism, Profiles, Interviews, and some Uncategorizable Extras. By Robert Gottlieb. Nov. 2008. 1, 392p. Pantheon, $47.50 (9780375421228). 792.8. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Stories Done: Writings on the 1960s and Its Discontents.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Stories Done: Writings on the 1960s and Its Discontents. By Mikal Gilmore. Nov. 2008. 352p. Free Press, $27 (9780743287456). 780.92. Rolling Stone writer Gilmore looks back on the powerful cultural influences of the 1960s, not from...

The Transparent City.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Transparent City. By Michael Wolf. Nov. 2008. 112p. illus. Aperture, $60 (9781597110761). 779.477. The ground is nowhere in sight in Wolf's dramatically geometric, nearly abstract photographs of Chicago's Loop towers. Shot...

The Triumph of Music: The Rise of Composers, Musicians and Their Art.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Triumph of Music: The Rise of Composers, Musicians and Their Art. By Tim Blanning. Nov. 2008. 378p. illus. Harvard/Belknap, $29.95 (9780674031043). 780. Music endures while other aspects of culture change with the economic...

Seven Days in the Art World.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... * Seven Days in the Art World. By Sarah Thornton. Nov. 2008. 256p. illus. Norton, $24.95 (9780393067224). 709.05. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] At and business, personal quests and personality cults, big bucks and the triumph of...

Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies. By Donald Spoto. Nov. 2008. 352p. illus. Harmony, $25.95 (9780307351302). 791.43. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Spoto's third book about Hitchcock includes material he...

The Art of Social War.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Art of Social War. By Jadi Wing. Nov. 2008. 320p. HarperCollins, paper, $13.95 (9780061568244). Wing's debut novel follows a pair of newlyweds from New York to Los Angeles. Stacey Knight, a thriving PR representative, is...

Baby Jesus Pawn Shop.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Baby Jesus Pawn Shop. By Lucia Orth. Nov. 2008. 381 p. Permanent Press, $29 (9781579621704). In the last days of the Marcos regime, Doming Aquinaldo is employed as a driver for an American diplomat in Manila. Doming can never...

The Best of Everything.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... The Best of Everything. By Kimberla Lawson Roby. Jan. 2009. 288p. Morrow, $23.95 (9780061443060). Alicia has chosen to follow in the scandalous footsteps of her father, the womanizing spendthrift Reverend Curtis Black. Newly...

Blood Royal.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Blood Royal. By Elisabeth McNeill. Dec. 2008. 256p. Severn, $28.95 (9780727866943). McNeill puts her ability to zoom in on a time past and make it vitally alive to good use in her latest effort, a tale about Mary Queen of Scots....

Conscience Point.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Conscience Point. By Erica Abeel. Nov. 2008. 272p. Unbridled, $24.95 (9781932961539). Madeleine "Maddy" Shaye is content with her station in life: her adopted daughter excels academically, just like she did; her husband, Nick, a...

Courage.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Courage. By Alan Littell. Dec. 2008. 128p. St. Martin's/Thomas Dunne, paper, $16.95 (9780312384364). Originally published in the UK in 1962, this stirring story of heroism at sea might finally get the wide audience it deserves. In...

The Love We Share without Knowing.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... * The Love We Share without Knowing. By Christopher Barzak. Nov. 2008. 288p. Bantam, paper, $12 (9780553385649). The interlinked Stories that make up Barzak's exquisite and mysterious second novel follow a variety of characters in...

Readers' advisory and the arts.(At Leisure)
November 1, 2008... Facing this column's deadline, I was well into panic mode. What to write? Remembering that this issue spotlights the arts, something clicked--there's perhaps no better place in the library to connect all aspects of our collections. Once I...

Party Animals.(HE READS ... Politics)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Guys love arguing politics, though most of the straight political reading we do just confirms our own settled beliefs. Unlike the latest candidate s memoirs or pundit's analyses, great political novels such as Robert Penn Warrens All the King's...

A Day and a Night and a Day.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... A Day and a Night and a Day. By Glen Duncan. Jan. 2009. 256p. Ecco, $24.95 (9780061239991). A fiercely intelligent writer with an appetite for the large moral questions, Duncan centers his latest novel on unlikely terrorist...