Welcome to another list of books reviewed by the NYT BOOK REVIEW.
This is the June 18th edition. Hope you find something of interest.
Oxford University Press:
FORCED JUSTICE: SCHOOL DESEGREGATION AND THE LAW by David J. Armor
(Court-ordered school desegregation hasn't worked, the author says,
so let's try something else. Mr. Armor advances a scheme he calls
"equity choice," combining inner-city magnet schools with state
financed vouchers to permit transfers to any private or public
school in the area - trasportation to be paid only if the move
imporves racial balance.)
Random House:
THE ORIGIN OF SATAN by Elaine Pagels
(How people throughout history have coped with evil in the form
of Satan. The author argues that first Jews and later Christians
created the idea of "Satan" to demonize non-believers - pagans,
Romans, and the like - and afterwards to demonize one another.
After all, who is more intolerable than the traitor within the gates?
In many myths, both Jewish and Christian, Satan started as a "fallen
angel," one of us became one of them.)
Times Books/Random House:
EMBLEMS OF MIND: THE INNER LIFE OF MUSIC AND MATHEMATICS
by Edward Rothstein
(The book explores the ancient, intimate kinship of music and
mathematics. Mathematics and music are more than abstract, Mr.
Rothstein says. They both "map" into the real world, correspond to
it in systematic ways. But here they seem to diverage. Math has
application in the everyday world; it is useful. Music's connection
with the everyday world is that it has effects on the listener, the
power to inspire fear and dread and ecstasy.)
MY WAR by Andy Rooney
(Andy Rooney, the resident epistemologist of "60 Minutes," saw
World War II and remembers it well. As a former Army newspaper
reporter, he gives a lively account of a paper (Stars And
Stripes) run by cranks and obsessives.)
Bantam Books:
MY LUCKY STARS: A HOLLYWOOD MEMOIR by Shirley MacLaine
(MacLaine is a veteran of the last years of Hollywood's studio system,
an Academy Award-winning actress with more than 40 films to her
credit, a touring hoofer-singer-headliner in her own lounge act, a
rencarnation advocate who has created a whole new area of
metaphysical study, and , given that "My Lucky Stars" is her 8th
autobiographical work, she is by now the Joyce Carol Oates of
Hollywood memoirists. In this book, she is an engaging
storyteller. Particularly moving is her account of her love affair
with Robert Mitchum.)
Doubleday:
THE LANGUAGE OF LIFE: A FESTIVAL OF POETS by Bill Moyers
("The language of Life" which will be broadcast as a tv
series beginning this week, recalls Moyers visits to the Dodge Poetry
Festival held every two years at Waterloo Villege in Stanhope, N.J.
The book contains 29 interviews with poets and short statements
from five more that were spoken at the 1988 Festival.)
W.W. Norton & Company:
THE KILLING OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY: AN INVESTIGATION OF MOTIVE,
MEANS, AND OPPORTUNITY by Dan E. Moldea
(The book presents a remarkable turnaround for a writer who
had partly staked his reputation on the existence of a
second shooter. His new conclusion -- "Sirhan Bishara Sirhan
consciously and knowingly murdered Robert Kennedy, and he
acted alone" -- is amply supported by prodigious research.)
Beacon Press:
FIST STICK KNIFE GUN: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF VIOLENCE IN AMERICA
by Geoffrey Canada
(The author seeks solutions to the growing problem of teen-age
violence in the inner city.)
Harmony:
PSYCHO: BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE CLASSIC THRILLER by Janet Leigh
(Janet Leigh has collected interviews from others involved in the
classic 1980 movie. "It true that I don't take showers," Ms. Leigh
writes. Her co-star, Anthony Perkins, was even more indelibly marked
by the film, though Ms. Leigh says that he accepted with good grace
being typecast as a twitchy psychopath.)
Harper/San Francisco:
SACRED PLEASURE: SEX, MYTH AND THE POLITICS OF THE BODY
by Riane Eisler
(The author calls for a return to partnership, and to sexual
harmony between equals. Ms. Eisler is careful not to extrapolate
to humans too directly, but her point is that the key to
egalitarian society is sexual harmony between equals: "I believe
that far from being a basic instinct or lower drive, our human
sexuality is part of what we might call a higher drive -- an
indispensable part of what makes our species human.")
Henry Holt & Company:
WORD WATCH: THE STORIES BEHIND THE WORDS OF OUR LIVES
by Anne H. Soukhanov
(A language columnist's guide to the new verbal landscape. According
to the author, if you want to chart the course of social change,
just look to language. Ms. Soukhanov has gathered and glossed
recent linguistic contributions from the ever-evolving realms of
technology, politics, and business.)
Little, Brown, & Company:
MAVERICK: A LIFE IN POLITICS by Lowell P. Weicker Jr.
(In his memoir, Weicker will bash anyone -- even himself.)
Houghton Mifflin Company:
THE BEAUTY OF THE BEASTLY: NEW VIEWS ON THE NATURE OF LIFE
by Natalie Angier
(The book deals with various subjects, such as the biology of
scorpions, rattlesnakes, dung beetles and the most infamous of
slithering beings, the cockroach. For example, we learn that a
single female German cockroach could give rise to about 40 million
offspring in her two-year existence.)
That is all for this week. Tune in again, Frank Chorba, Washburn
University and Editor of the JOURNAL OF RADIO STUDIES.