DK Does it Again

When you deal with a lot of books, you start to get a feeling for publishers: who does what, whether they do it well, and who to keep on your radar screen. One of my favorite publishers is Dorling Kindersley (DK) because they can take any book, regardless of the subject, and make it a feast for the eyes as well as the mind. Their graphics, images and layouts are really well done and always make a book more appealing. We have two new examples of their work - Bird: the definitive visual guide and Reef. The Roger Tory Peterson guides are great (absolutely packed with information), but they always look so darn dull. At a foot tall and weighing in at over 5 pounds, Bird is not a field guide. It is a coffee table book, to be lovingly browsed through and each colorful image admired. You get a little natural history and description, a note on migration patterns, a distribution map and a habitat description. You also get fabulous color photos of over 1,000 species. Even the LBBs (little brown birds) look good in this book.

Reef is no less beautiful, although it is lighter on the hard-core information than the bird book. Billed as a "photographic portrait" (as opposed to a painted portrait, I suppose), Reef has over 350 pages of beautiful underwater images in full color. Corals, fish, seaweed, sponges, sharks, mollusks and mammals are all presented here. It makes you truly appreciate the diversity of the reef environment. The book finishes up with a short, sweet description of the various reefs around the world: coral reefs, mangrove swamps, seagrass beds, kelp forests and temperate reefs. Learn about their distribution, their importance in the overall ecology of the planet, and some key inhabitants. Another beautiful browse.

Get Your Game On

The Super Bowl is coming up a week from tomorrow, and I'm sure everyone's interested to see if the Patriots can pull off a perfect season (as a native of Massachusetts, you can guess which team I'm rooting for). But let's face it, there's a lot of down time in football and the Super Bowl is even worse. Pre-game shows, half-time shows, tons of commercials - coverage begins 4 hours before kickoff! And what do you do to occupy your time while the commentators yap and Chevy tries to sell you a new truck? You eat! And you use our newest cookbook - Fan Fare: a playbook of great recipes for tailgaiting or watching the game at home, by Debbie Moose - to plan a perfect Super Bowl party. Spicy and savory appetizers, luscious drinks, hearty stews and chilis, finger-licking barbecue, and even some nice salad and brunch recipes. (Let's face it, tho, eating on game day is all about grease and calories. I'm not sure how the "Poached Salmon with Ginger-Yogurt Sauce" snuck it's way in to the chapter on marinated ribs, chicken and steak). When you watch the game next Sunday, you're in it for the long haul. Don't just settle for throwing a bag of Doritos onto the coffee table. Cook some real food, for pete's sake.

Yum!

What do you get when you mix the wittiest playwright of the 20th century with some of Britain's finest actors and actresses? You get 20 hours of delicious theater: plays, short stories and radio plays by Noel Coward. The Noel Coward Collection contains seven discs, featuring Academy Award winners Judi Dench, Paul Scofield, Deborah Kerr, and Tom Courtenay. Fans of BBC and Masterpiece Theater will also recognize Nigel Havers, Ian Richardson, Ian Holm, Penelope Keith, Patricia Hodge, Judy Parfitt, and Geraldine McEwan. In many of the plays you can expect witty repartee and plots that border on farcical, but there are also some plays in this collection where there is a underlying layer of pathos. The pieces span a few decades, so the production values vary greatly. Remember also that the BBC is not used to lavishing money on their sets. But hey, this isn't a George Lucas film. We're not here for flashy special effects and noisy explosions. This is all about well-written dialogue and brilliant acting. So pop a disc in your DVD player, pour yourself a G & T, and slip away into high society.

A believable musical

Some people truly love musicals, while others just cannot get past the fact that rarely in real life do large groups of strangers break out in perfectly coordinated song-and-dance routines in the middle of the street (think A Music Man and Hello, Dolly). In order to get around this mental block, a director would need to come up with a plausible story line where singing in public doesn't look stupid. Apparently, director John Carney has done this with Once, a sweet romance between an Irish street musician and a Czech flower seller. Street musicians are supposed to sing in the street, and since the flower seller is a musician also, it makes perfect sense for them to make music together. And since the lead actor and actress are honest-to-God musicians who wrote and performed almost all the music on the soundtrack, the resulting album has a very true feel. The songs all have a light, folk-pop feel to them that makes the CD a worthwhile album in its own right. You may have heard the duo on World Cafe talking to David Dye about their music and the movie (August 22, 2007). It's a lovely album, and we have the movie as well. The song "Falling Slowly" has just been nominated for an Oscar for Best Song.

Senior News Analyst

If you spend any time at all listening to the news on NPR, then your brain probably automatically finishes the phrase 'Senior News Analyst' with the name Dan Schorr. Now 91, Mr. Schorr broadcast his first radio piece 60 years ago. He has had conversations with Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, as well as Lyndon Johnson, and appeared on Richard Nixon's enemies list. Basically, if you want someone with a steamer trunk full of experience to give you their insight on world events, you want to listen to Dan Schorr. In his latest book, Come to Think of It: notes on the turn of the millennium, Mr. Schorr has collected 17 years worth of NPR essays and commentaries. He covers pretty much all the hot-button topics for news junkies: election campaigns, cronyism, espionage, wars, assassination, terrorism, wiretaps, Vietnam and NAFTA. Going through the transcripts (which are presented in chronological order), is like taking a hyperspeed trip through the past 3 presidencies, with one "oh yeah, I remember that" moment after another. Scanning the index is the ultimate in trivia contests. Can you give a one-sentence biography of Dick Morris? Archibald Cox? Gertrude Ederle? (That last one should really throw you if you are thinking in terms of world politics). This is an enjoyable read from someone who knows more than we do.

The Last Viceroy

One of my favorite Masterpiece Theater productions is The Jewel in the Crown, a beautiful adaptation of Paul Scott's Raj Quartet. It tells the story of India's independence from Britain and the bloody upheaval of partition through the eyes of British colonials living there. Lord Mountbatten: the last viceroy looks at the same events from the perspective of the people shaping them: Viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. While The Jewel in the Crown was a soap opera with an historical backdrop, Lord Mountbatten is an historical drama with an underlying love triangle. The acting is great, and the scenery - India, how could you go wrong? - is stunning. Nicol Williamson does a wonderful job portraying a Lord Mountbatten as dedicated to duty, concerned about the welfare of the Indian people, and a brilliant negotiator (this is, after all, a British production. Whether Mountbatten really was such a wonderful person I will leave to individual viewer discretion). Sir Ian Richardson (House of Cards) is so charismatic and handsome as Nehru that I can easily understand Lady Mountbatten's fascination with him. Overall, this is a solid, well-done miniseries that retells a very interesting piece of history. Perfect for all BBC devotees, history buffs, and Ian Richardson fans.

New films

We have a wide-ranging selection of new movies on the shelf this week, including independant films, documentaries, and classics.

Sicko is Michael Moore's latest offering, and he takes on America's health system. Regardless of how people feel about Moore, and regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum, most would agree that there are some serious issues with health care in this country. Moore is sure to make you think.

Man Push Cart garnered wide praise at film festivals in Venice, London, Seattle and the Sundance Institute. A great story about what it means to be an immigrant in a vast, impersonal city.

Sallah was filmed over 40 years ago, and it remains one of the classics of Israeli film. Its star - Topol - went on to fame as the lead character in Fiddler on the Roof. A film about a large Middle Eastern Jewish family arriving in Israel, determined to carve out a life for themselves, this film is just as pertinent now as it was in 1964.

Alibi has the same dark cinematography and expressionistic vision as some of the great European films of the late 1920's (think Fritz Lang). No one comes out good in this story as a violent police force attempts to pin the murder of one of their own on a recently paroled gangster.

Talk To Me is another example of the charisma and versatility of actor Don Cheadle. An entertaining biography of ex-con and radio personality 'Petey' Greene, this movie chronicles how Greene revitalized a sagging Washington, D.C. radio station and kept the city riveted during the turbulent late 60's.