As the election nears next month, November 2^nd, Americans are trying to make up their minds about the candidates based, in part, on the situation in Iraq. The problem, however, is that a real threat to the success of our war on Islamic terrorism lies not just in the resistance we are encountering from the enemies of democracy, but from the way Congress uses the defense budget as a way to feather their own nests, often stripping money from it to fund parking garages and career development centers, among the myriad items tacked on to the annual funding of the Department of Defense. If there was a single book I would urge Americans to read, it would be Winslow T. Wheeler’s The Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security  ($28.95, Naval Institute Press), a damning expose by a veteran congressional defense expert who bluntly says that the US Congress has sunk to new depths and endangered the nation’s security. He reveals how Senators and Representatives collude to insure that projects in their home States get the millions that should have been allocated for the essential Department of Defense “operations and maintenance” requirements necessary for the training and equipping our military. “Congress is not just dithering with national security,” says Wheeler, “it is trashing it.” In doing so, it not only endangers the lives of those whom we send in harm’s way, it undermines the nation’s ability to successfully prosecute the war and its aftermath in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, possibly, other conflicts to come. The author brings more than three decades of expertise on defense issues and how Congress actually functions to this book. If I could give him an award for patriotism and courage, I would.

The Naval Institute Press also published Harlen K. Ullman’s Finishing Business: Ten Steps to Defeat Global Terror ($29.95, Navel Institute Press) just out this month. Known as the man who coined the phrase “shock and awe” and equipped with a very impressive set of credentials, I hoped his book would provide answers. All it does is provide questions. Ullman does what analysts do. He analyses the past, present, and possible future of US military and diplomatic policies, but in general only offers some very obvious facts already widely known. It is a Chinese menu of scenarios as the author offers a variety of ways things can go as we try to deal with the threat of Islamo-Facism.  In brief, this book proved to be a disappointment. For real insight, the best book to read remains Thomas P.M. Barnett’s The Pentagon’s New Map, ($24.95, Putnam) previously recommended.

For a change of pace, let’s talk about three amusing books that recently arrived. One is What is Goth? The author, “Voltaire”, tells of his personal voyage from a West Orange, NJ teenager seeking some kind of escape from the horror of this splendid little suburban community and choosing the Goth culture. Fortunately, he also came equipped with a vicious sense of humor about it ($15.95, Weiser Books, Boston). Thus, we have this entertaining little guide that explains its appeal for people who immerse themselves in its music and lifestyle. It’s ideal for any parent who hasn’t a clue why their kid is dressing entirely in black and never smiles anymore! For those like myself who find the daily reporting of some new scientific study mostly idiotic, there’s The Ig Nobel Prizes: Rewarding the World’s Unlikeliest Research by Marc Abrahams ($10.00, Plume) who shines the light of common sense on some of the most idiotic research studies from the fields of science, economics, and human relations. Read about the professor who proved that toast really does fall buttered-side down most of the time or the Southern Baptist Church of Alabama that devised a formula to determine how many Alabamans will go to Hell. Abrahams is the editor and cofounder of the science humor magazine, Annals of improbable Research, and this book, too, will provide lots of laughs. And in this genre, there’s The Darwin Awards: Survival of the Fittest by Wendy Northcutt ($11.00, Plume) that continues to chronicle the appallingly stupid ways people find to kill themselves. These are all real and, in a macabre way, just too funny for words. You can visit her website a www.DarwinAwards.com.

It is so rare one comes across a modern poet whose talent leaps off of every page and who has had the good grace to respect poetry by using rhyme, paying attention to cadence, and, at the same time, so involving you in each poem, you forget these necessary structures. So it is with Felix Dennis and his most excellent collection of poems, A Glass Half Full ($12.95, Miramax Books). The poet is that rare bird who has enjoyed great success in the real world as the publisher of Maxim and as the author of bestselling biographies. His nationality shows in his wit and style, a particularly British way of looking at the world, bringing both an indigenous and international quality to his work. He is also instanteously accessible and, best of all, the book comes with a CD of the poet reading his work. Not since the Welsh poet-magician, Dylan Thomas, has a British poet seemed so well poised to gain a wide audience here to match the one he has at home.

Every so often a work of literature comes along that breaks all the rules and The Nambuli Papers ($49.95, Leaping Dog Press, San Francisco, CA) most certainly does that with panache and enormous creativity. Its author, Greg Boyd, has created a fictional universe that includes a surrealist board game, biography, poetry collection, and a documentary film. Trying to describe this extraordinary piece of work is impossible, so I will direct you instead to www.nambulipapers.com where you can familiarize yourself with this multimedia novel that was written, illustrated, and designed by a very talented fellow.

Another entertaining approach to literature and a special treat for fans of Sherlock Holmes is a new 2-set CD from One Voice Recordings performed by David Ian Davies. Four from the Canon features the adventures of the “Final Problem”, “Resident Patient”, Beryl Coronet” and the “Dying Detective.” To learn more visit www.onevoicerecordings.com/index001.htm. In an amazing tour de force, Davies does all the voices, conveying the compelling drama of the written word, putting the listener into the center of the action. A new audiobook, Florence of Arabia, by Christopher Buckley ($29.95, Random House Audio, five CDs) is read by actress Patricia Kalember and provides five hours of a timely, comic thriller that takes place in the fictional neighboring countries of Matar and Wasabia. When a philandering emir of Matar tries to mollify his restless wife, he invites Florence, a maverick American State Department officer, to aid her in starting a TV network. The result is a revolution among Islamic women who discover they don’t have to accept abuse and isolation. What follows is a hilarious satire on US ineptitude and Arabic intolerance. Nothing turns out as anyone anticipates and, in the meantime, you will have enjoyed some laughter to leaven the bad news coming out of this part of the world.

Talking about laughs, pick up a copy of Burt Prelutsky’s funfest called Conservatives are from Mars (Liberals are from San Francisco) a collection of the observations of a Hollywood television writer with impressive credentials ($19.95, Scorched Earth Press). Over the years Burt has written for such shows as Dragnet, McMillan & Wife, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, and many more. He’s been a humor columnist for the Los Angeles times and a movie critic for Los Angeles magazine. Suffice it to say, Burt is very funny and when he takes a look at things like how-to books, cell phones, Hollywood celebrities, the French or people like Michael Moore, Al Sharpton and Tom Daschle, you’re in for a treat. These days he lives in the San Fernando Valley and continues to write some of the funniest commentaries you will find on the Web. You can find them on http://BurtPrelutsky.com. And you can order the book direct from the website. The author of “The Exorcist”, William Peter Blatty, says, “Although I sometimes get the idea Prelutsky is possessed and that an exorcism is definitely called for, the man writes like an angel. A very funny angel, at that.” Though a self-confessed “Hollywood right-winger”, Burt says he’s a very nice person once you get to know him and I can vouch for that.

Those who would eviscerate the Second Amendment that guarantees the right of citizens to “bear arms” should read Outgunned! by Robert A. Waters and John T. Waters Jr. ($14.95, Cumberland House Publishing, 431 Harding Industrial Drive, Nashville, TN 37211. There are 80 million Americans who legally and safely own firearms. The history of citizens who took up arms to protect themselves against outlaws and gangsters, settling the West, and creating a new life for themselves is told in this interesting book. The James Gang ran into a bunch of these folks when they tried to rob a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, and the same thing happened to the Dalton Gang in Coffeyville, Kansas. These stories and others are told in a way that makes it clear they were not just bad boys, but cutthroat thugs. The martial arts developed in China is now frequently seen in films that celebrate and exploit it. The most famous Chinese school was that for Shaolin monks. The Shaolin Grandmasters’ Text: History, Philosophy, and Gung Fu of Shaolin Ch’an ($39.99, Order of Shaolin Ch’an, PO Box 566, Beaverton, OR 97075) has just been published. Its intended audience are martial artists and those interested in Buddhism. It provides the key tenets of Shaolin Ch’an, with its interpretation of Buddha’s eightfold path and the teachings of Tamo. The history of the temple, how to perform basic gung fu training exercises, and much more. Written by two anonymous Shaolin monks, one of whom is the Abbot of the Shaolin Order, this book provides very specific information and insights, via its text and illustrations, for those interested in becoming a student of this rigorous physical, mental, and spiritual way of life. You can learn more by visiting www.shaolintemple.org.

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Raising Children in Trouble Times

Choosing a new child’s name has always seemed to be one of the most important things a parent can do. To make that process easier and wiser, Jeanine Cox has authored The Perfect Name: A Step-by-Step Guide to Naming Your Baby ($12.95, Barnes & Noble Books). It has more than 20,000 names from all over the world and what they mean. The book makes for some interesting reading as so many names have a long history. Coming next month, Great Expectations: Your All-in-One Resource for Pregnancy & Childbirth by Sandy and Marcia Jones. It is 646 pages that are literally an all-in-one resource to answer all the questions that occur with pregnancy and the arrival of a newborn. There are many fine books on this topic and this excellent reference is bound to join those most often recommended.

Baby showers are always great occasions as relatives and friends gather to celebrate the impending birth of a new child. Blessingways: A Guide to Mother-Centered Baby Showers by Shari Maser ($14.95, Moondance Press, Ann Arbor, MI) will debut in January, but you heard about it here first! It is filled with interesting, creative ideas on how to turn this special event into an even more special event! You can learn more by visit www.blessingway.net.

Happily Married with Kids: It’s Not just a Fairy Tale by Dr. Carol Ummel Lindquist, Ph.D. ($14.00, Berkley softcover) addresses a lot of problems common to the birth of a child such as new baby stress, learning to have fun with one’s spouse again, even when a baby-sitter isn’t available, and how to make the transition from partnership to parenthood while preserving intimacy. It is filled with tips on how to avoid the exhaustion and disruption that comes with a new child, manage conflicts, balance work and home, revive one’s sex life, and to make time for yourself and your marriage. If you know a couple having problems in this area, this is the book to give them.

While the image of raising kids in the suburbs is the accepted “norm” in our society, the fact is that many children are raised in cities and always have been. The City Parent Handbook ($17.95, Rodale) by Kathy Bishop and Julia Whitehead is a fat compendium of useful information that deals with parenthood in an apartment setting, what health hazards to anticipate and thus avoid, safety tips for raising city kids, how to secure good help in the form of a day care center or a nanny. The ins and outs of playgrounds, plus the many advantages life in the city can offer a child are also explored. In short, this is they book to get if you or someone you know is raising children in a city.

A useful book is The Secret Lives of Toddlers by Jana Murphy ($14.95, Perigee Books, softcover) that guides a new parent through those early ages of one through three. The midpoint is often referred to as the “terrible twos”, but the author tells what to expect and how to deal with it. Based on new research, Ms. Murphy helps one understand the world from the child’s perspective, how to spot bad behaviors that need intervention, as well as those that can be ignored. She also discusses how to cultivate good or positive behaviors, and mostly how to play, speak, and interact with the toddler in ways that make your life and theirs a voyage of discovery together. A mother of three, the author has been a contributor to Parents and Parenting magazines.

Parents have always worried about teaching their children how to deal with sexual temptation and we surely live in a society that encourages sexual exploration at a very early age, offering “entertainment” that exploits sexuality in the music young people listen to and the fashions they are encouraged to wear. Raising Pure Kids in an Impure World by Richard and Renee Durfield ($12.99, Bethany House, Minneapolis, MN) offers a practical, proven strategy that addresses the key talking points a parent must share with a child to insure they develop good moral values, deal with dating issues, and the hazards of sexual promiscuity.

Einstein Never Used Flash Cards by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D. and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., with Diane Eyer, Ph.D. ($13.95, Rodale) begins with the assertion that children need to play more and memorize less. It explores how children really learn and sounds the warning that today’s parents introduce too much stress into children’s lives by the conscious or unconscious expectation that kids all master various skills as soon as possible. The reference to Einstein is significant because he was widely believed to be “slow” because he did not talk very much in his early years. For anyone who enjoys reading books about psychology, this one will prove very interesting and a relief for any parent who just lets their child learn at their own pace, by playing, developing their imaginations, and, well, just being a kid. Parenting just got a lot easier!

One of the most awful books I have read in a long time is Should Parents Be Licensed? ($21.00, Prometheus Books). It is a collection of articles edited by Peg Tittle. Awful because it proposes the ultimate totalitarian state where “a national parenting policy, including mandatory parenthood training and screening of prospective parents…” Its first section focuses on proposals for licensing based on “the problem of assessing nurturing skills.” Its second talks about “the moral acceptability of passing on genetic disease and the moral implications of genetic engineering” and its third section asks whether “everyone has the right to have children?”  If you want to know what life was like in the former Soviet Union or currently in Red China, you can find out from reading this ghastly collection of numbskulls who feel that the state should get into bed with everyone and decide if they have the right to propagate. I can recall when Nazi Germany actually urged its citizens to have more children so they could grow up to become the Master Race in charge of the whole world. Oddly, the same publisher also offers Fathering at Risk ($21.00, Prometheus Books) by James R. Dudley and Glenn Stone. The authors believe that the decline of fatherhood is one of the most serious problems currently facing our society and they emphasize the importance of a father’s presence in a child’s life. They offer policy initiatives and program strategies that have been successful in helping unmarried fathers, teenage fathers, and divorced non-custodial fathers deal with the issues and problems they must overcome to be a part of their children’s lives.

For the woman of a certain age seeking a husband and father for her children, there’s Find A Husband After 35 by Rachel Greenwald ($14.95, Ballantine Books softcover). She applies what she learned in the Harvard Business School to this necessary element of parenthood. When first published last year, this book garnered a lot of media attention. Time to get off the couch, put on some makeup, and get pro-active using her 15-step program. This is a serious book for the woman who is serious about finding a life partner. By the way, she is happily married and lives with husband and children in Denver.

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The Lives of People

A massive two-volume biography, The Life of Graham Greene, by Norman Sherry ($20.00 each, Volumes One and Two, Penguin Books, softcover edition) is now available and fans of this highly regarded author of books such as The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, The Third Man, and The Quiet American will surely welcome this definitive examination of a complex man who guarded his privacy. Broken into two periods, 1904 to 1939 and 1939 to 1955, the reader literally relives Greene’s life as the biographer follows it through his letters, diaries, and hundreds of interviews. This biography was widely hailed when it was first published and is now affordably accessible, providing hours of fascinating reading because Greene lived a most remarkable life.

Fans of the late Katherine Hepburn will enjoy Kate Remembered by A. Scott Berg ($15.00, Berkley Books) now available in softcover. Published within days of her death at the age of 96, interest in Hepburn will be renewed when actress Cate Blanchett plays this legend in Martin Scorses’ biopic about Howard Hughes, The Aviator. The author came to know her when, at the age of 75, she opened the door and began a special friendship with the then 33-year-old that last to the end of her life. Drawing on twenty years of conversations he had with her, Berg set down many of the stories of her life as she saw them, full of sentiments she felt should not be made public until her death. Here is a life lived on her own terms, her relationship with Spencer Tracy, the great love of her life, and with the other men she encountered and loved. The book is filled with the names of the famous with whom she worked over a career that spanned almost seven decades. This is wonderful reading and the way a Hollywood biography should be written.

Sylvia Plath, the poetess who committed suicide in 1963 and became an icon of that tumultuous decade is the topic of Her Husband: Ted Hughes & Sylvia Plath ($15.00, Penguin Books). Diane Middlebrook, who previously limned the life of poetess Anne Sexton, also a suicide, garnered high praise for this biography of a marriage of poets that began when Plath med Hughes at a party in 1956 when she was a 23-year-old Fulbright scholar studying literature in England. They fell in love and were married within months. The now-famous partnership lasted six years until Hughes’ affair with a married woman plunged Plath into depression. By the time Hughes died in 1998, he and Plath had reached mythic proportions and this book brings a nice quality of reality to their lives.

The Turkish Lover by Esmeralda Santiago ($25.00, Da Capo Press) is the third memoir, preceded by When I was Puerto Rican and Almost a Woman, the story of a remarkable life by a preeminent Latina author. This memoir takes the reader from her home in Brooklyn when she was 21 to her graduation seven years later, to her eventual return to San Juan. Throughout, she details her affair with Ulvi, an older, more worldly Turkish man for whom she left her family. Married to a filmmaker and the mother of two adult children, she now lives in Westchester County, New York, having chronicled her struggle to understand herself, her place in American and Puerto Rican society, and the rules that govern relationships regardless of ethnic, racial, or religious backgrounds.

One of the past century’s greatest violinists has his story told in Efrem Zimbalist: A Life. Famed concertmaster and solo violinist, Roy Malan, recounts the remarkable life and career of his close friend and teacher ($24.95, Amadeus Press). Zimbalist (1890-1985) was to become the world’s first globe trotting virtuoso who would go on to train some of this nation’s finest violinists as the director of The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. From his earliest years in the Ukraine to his retirement, this book is a masterful biography and will please anyone who loves music and music makers. It is an irony that his son, Efrem Jr., would become even better known as an actor who appeared in popular movies and a television series. Though fiction, Sebastian: The Life of J.S. Bach by RuthAnn Ridley ($16.95, Quiddity Press, POB 332, Pine Valley, CA 91962) qualifies to be included as a fascinating and utterly believable story of the great composer’s life. Having thoroughly researched her subject, she makes him come alive in the setting of his family, his friends, and even his enemies. The author is a magna cum laude graduate of Baylor University with a degree in music. A classical pianist, she is working on a second novel and I, for one, am looking forward to it. Until then, you can get into the life of Bach by reading her first one.

War Stories: Remembering World War II is an oral and social history of those years as gathered together by Elizabeth Mullener($14.00, Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Books, softcover), a journalist who spent twelve years finding eyewitnesses to virtually every major event of World War II and they were all found in one city, New Orleans! She has chronicled the stories of men who were not famed heroes or prime movers, but who were then young boys in their foxholes, young women who stitched up wounded soldiers, and the children who lived in a world threatened by evil. With a forward by historian Stephen E. Ambrose, this book received much acclaimed when first published and now serves a way for everyone born since to gain invaluable understanding and insight to those terrible and frightening times. By doing do, you will understand better the times in which we all now live.

Mary Louise Suddath is fortunate to have had John Suddath as her brother and he was fortunate to have her as his sister. She’s one of those wonderful people who pass through this world, bringing love and caring to those around her, leaving behind a legacy of good works. John tells her story in Goodbye God, We’re Going to Texas ($17.95, Trafford Publishing Co. c/o orders@trafford.com). Mary Louise died from Alzheimer’s disease, but this is described only in the last chapter of a book about a child of the Great Depression, a dedicated Christian, and a successful career woman who choose not to marry, but who was surrounded by family and friends who became her family. She became a physical therapist at a time when this was a man’s profession and her story is told in terms of the major diseases of her era, tuberculosis, polio, heart disease, and, at the end, AD. The author brings forty years as professional writer, journalist, and editor to this book and when you finish it, you will wish you had known Mary Louise when she lived, but you will realize that you know her now and are the better for it.

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Eat, Drink & Be Merry

There is no end to cookbooks, but some do stand out from the others. For example, there’s The Essential Eating Well Cookbook edited by Patsy Jamieson ($29.95, The Countryman Press). It is a compilation of more than 350 recipes deemed “favorites” from the magazine, Eating Well, The Magazine of Food & Health. There is lots of variety among the recipes offered ranging from vegetable salads to salmon, unique burger and pizza dishes, and even “the best brisket.” With the exception of a few pages of color photos to make you drool, the emphasis here is the recipes and, for the health conscious person, this cookbook will prove a delight.

Far East. Down East by Bruce deMustchine combines Maine’s freshest foods combined with Asia’s finest flavors ($28.00, Down East Books, Camden, ME). The photographs by Glenn Scott of the various dishes, in full color, will have you turning the pages to figure out which recipe you want to try next. This is a book of succulent temptations with an emphasis, not surprisingly, on seafood items like a ginger and saffron seafood broth, lobster curry, plus some mouth-watering chicken, duck and pork recipes. For dessert, the coconut and banana puffs or the custard dishes will drive you made with desire. From Dancing Bear Books, an imprint of Down East, there’s a salute to the era of diners in the new revised edition of What’s Cooking at Moody’s Diner, edited by Nancy Moody Genthner ($12.95) offering 75 years of recipes and reminiscences. The place became legendary for its food and ambiance. What makes the book unique is, not surprisingly for a diner, most of the recipes are quick and easy to prepare. Don’t want to keep the customers waiting! For anyone who just likes good, basic eating, this book will prove a treat.

Now that the Olympics are over and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” is in reruns on television, it’s time to pick up a copy of Nosthimia! The Greek American Family Cookbook by Georgia Sarianides ($17.95, Capital Books, Dulles, VA). With more than 185 recipes, the author, born in Greece, but now an American citizen, brings an extensive knowledge of her subject and combines it with American ingredients and lifestyles. A graduate of The Culinary School of Athens, the author has owned several successful restaurants for some 28 years and has had a cable television show, “Cooking with Georgia”, for the past five years. I know nothing of Greek cuisine, but just perusing the book was enough to make me hungry for Moussaka with chicken, baked fish Spetsiota, and Calzone with spinach and Feta filling.

Americans have gone crazy for wines over the past half-century since the end of WWII. The Saucy Sisters Guide to Wine by Barbara Nowak and Beverly Wichman ($13.95, New American Library softcover) recognizes that women are the primary buyers of wine these days and any visit to a typical wine store can be very confusing or intimidating if you don’t know a Sauterne from Chianti. This guide, published in March, provides all the information to turn you into a knowledgeable wine consumer without becoming a wine snob. It will teach you how to start your own wine cellar for about $140 and the nice aspects of wine etiquette. My Mother was an international famed expert on wines and I grew up enjoying it with my family. On the other hand, I just bought a nice bottle of wine whose vintage was “last Tuesday”!

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Novels, Novels, Novels!

Help! I am drowning in stacks of new novels. Autumn is the time, along with spring, that publishers roll out the bulk of their new books and this includes a raft of novels. To the telling of stories there is no end.

I am partial to mysteries so naturally two novels from Mysterious Press, an imprint of Warner Books. Lindsey Davis is back with Scandal Takes a Holiday ($24.95) featuring her cunning Marcus Didius Falco, a detective in ancient Rome. This is his 16^th adventure and it involves a plot involving kidnapping, ransom, a government conspiracy and, of course, murder. If the story could just as easily be transposed to modern Rome, that should come as no surprise, but this writer is always entertaining no matter what the century may be. Then there’s Ruth Francisco’s Good Morning, Darkness ($23.95) tells a gripping story of Laura, loved from afar by men such as the Mexican fisherman who sees her in her kitchen in the predawn darkness, her boyfriend who asks her to marry him, the detective who teaches her martial arts, and her lascivious boss. Then one day she disappears. When the fisherman finds the severed arm of a woman, all of these men are drawn into the mystery of what has happened to her. You will be too.

Songbird by Walter Zacharius ($24.00, Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster) took sixteen years to write. The author is now 80 years old and the owner of Kensington Publishing Corporation whose paperbacks I often critique. That in itself is a story worth telling, but Zacharius chose fiction to tell a true story of Mia, a young Jewish woman from Poland who dreams of becoming a concert pianist. However, at age 17, Hitler’s army invades her homeland and drastically changes her life. She escapes from a train taking her and her family to Treblinka concentration camp and, through luck and courage, makes her way to Brooklyn, New York where her aunt and uncle live. Rather than stay safe in America, when the U.S. enters the war she goes to Paris and works with the French Resistance. And she falls in love with a young, American clarinetist who is among the Allied troops that is coming to liberate Paris. The author evokes what it was like in those perilous times as only someone could who lived through them.

Another war is the background for what must surely be one of the most unusual stories to be written about the Civil War. Jack Maples is a student of that awful time in American history and a re-enactor who takes part in events that restage various battles. His novel, Reconstructed Yankee ($19.95/$16.95, The Writers Collective, hard/softcover) relates the story of Caleb Parker. The year is 1862 and Parker is one of the 257,000 “Free Persons of Color” living in the Confederacy. So which side will he fight for? His best friend is Tom Parker whose father once owned and then freed Caleb’s father. To avoid conscription into the Confederate Army, they join the Union militia, but after witnessing Yankee atrocities, make the radical decision to join the Confederate Army. So, yes, there were Blacks who fought for the South. Sadly, after the war, the man whose life the story is based upon found racism even in the North. This is one of those stories that make one re-think perceptions through the lens of the lives of people who lived in that period.

A small, Minnesota publisher is responsible for giving Nathan Jorgenson’s first novel, Waiting for White Horses, an opportunity tonot only be read, but to win the prestigious Ben Franklin Award ($16.95, Flat Rock Publishing, Fairmont, MN). It is a story about friendship that begins in the tall pines of Minnesota’s spectacular lake country and makes its way even to the White House. This is a novel that is truly written from the heart and it is one that both men and women can enjoy on different levels. Another regional publisher, Pelican Publishing Company of Gretna, Louisiana, shares the talents of James Everett Kibler with his novel, Walking Toward Home ($22.00). In it we are introduced to small-town Southerners, aware of missed opportunities and mistakes, but holding onto hope as they go about their lives. The South has long produced authors of unusual skill and this novel is no exception as it draws you into the lives of those living in Tyger River, South Carolina.

A novel to please the girls is Theresa Alan’s Spur of the Moment ($12.95, Kensington Books) that tells the stories of three women, Ana, Marin and Chelsey, each of whom is coping with problems that range from being overweight, being rich, and one searching for true love. This description does not do justice to the fun this novel serves up as it observes lowly temp jobs, dates-gone-wrong, bosses from hell, and all the other dues paid for living in the big city and wanting more from life. Another amusing novel is John Blumenthal’s Millard Fillmore, Mon Amour ($12.95, St. Martin’s Press). Famed for his widely acclaimed What’s Wrong With Dorfman?, the author tells the story of Plato G. Fussell, once a gangly teenager, but now a handsome, wealthy fellow who, inside, is still a mass of neuroses and anxieties. This is especially true when it comes to the opposite sex. Fussell is working on a ten-volume biography of President Millard Fillmore! And dodging his ex-wife, trying to please his mother, and encountering a lot of other funny stuff along the way. I promise you will laugh. A lot.

A novel by Anthony Burgess, best known for A Clockwork Orange, has been re-issued in softcover (most of the books noted here are softcover). Tremor of Intent ($13.95, W.W. Norton & Company) is a spy novel that is also a hilarious morality tale of a secret service gone mad. When an old friends of the main character defects to the then-Soviet Union, Dennis Hiller must bring him back to England or risk losing his retirement bonus. Burgess authored more than thirty novels in his life (1917-1993) and this one is well worth enjoying in case you have never been introduced to his great talent. Another prolific author, William Manchee, discovered his talent as a novelist by way of coping with his stressful life as a lawyer. His latest novel, Deadly Distraction ($13.00, Lean Press) is a thriller in which Stan Turner, an attorney and the main character in a series of novels, is defending a client accused of killing an IRS agent. Moreover, Stan’s best friend has going missing and when Stan goes to Ecuador to find him, he goes missing too! You will be on the edge of your seat, reading as fast as you can, to find out how the various strands of this story resolve themselves.

I have received seven—count’m---softcover novels from Penguin Books! Two are by well known authors such as Garrison Keillor, Love Me, and Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer, Loot and Other Stories, and both deliver; the former on laughter thanks to Keillor’s sly satire and deadpan zingers, and the latter is a collection of new stories in which her characters are confronted by unforeseen challenges. Life on the bleak plains of rural South Dakota is a novel of place, Land that Moves, Land that Stands Still, by Kent Nelson. Published originally in 2003, it tells the story of three women on an alfalfa ranch, whose lives reflect the demands of the landscape in which they are lived. The modern American West comes alive in this excellent novel. Every Inch of Her by Peter Sheridan is a funny and tender portrait of a larger-than-life, 240-pound woman who touches every person she meets. Set in Dublin, Ireland, she is in flight from her five children and abusive husband. Food is her obsession and it will take a lot of prayer for the sisters of the Good Shepherd convent to survive her. Prayer and miracles form the basis for A Gathering of Angels by Katherine Valentine, a heartwarming novel filled with surprises. A small Texas town in 1966 is the setting for River Season by Jim Black who evokes a summer of baseball, tomfoolery and of fishing as a young boy forms an attachment for an older Black man from “the other side of town.” It is a novel of camaraderie and growing pains that provides some wonderful reading. Lastly, there’s Dearest Dorothy, Help! I’ve Lost Myself! Charlene Ann Baumbich has penned the third installment to her Partonville series, set in the Midwest whose main character is a spunky, irresistible 87-year-old Dorothy Jean Wetstra. The town is celebrating its centennial-plus-thirty and no one can agree how to commemorate the anniversary. This is small down life at its most hilarious and touching. It is about the simple pleasures of life.

That’s it for October! Come back next month to learn about some great gift books to give for Christmas and the other new fiction and non-fiction that distinguish the fall season of publishing. And don’t forget to check out our Featured Book section for some of the most unique books that you will not likely read out anywhere else.

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