Books Reviews - Page 18

A perfect gift idea for all parents and grandparents with a budding little laugh-getter in their lives, this collection of hundreds of kid-appropriate knock-knock jokes, puns, one-liners and bits of serious how-to advice from the host of The Tonight Show will help anyone get a leg up on the comedic competition.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Weighing nearly 10 pounds and bulging with 750 color photos, this tour of 170 golf courses in Scotland and Ireland offers a breathtaking armchair visit to golf’s “holy land” where the game was born. In addition to gazing into the luscious vistas punctuated by mountains, seacoast, sunsets and rainbows, you’ll also discover the histories of each course, meet the architects who designed them, learn about some of the famous players who’ve made their marks there and find out the best places to eat and stay if you’re ever lucky enough to visit. A treat for any golfer, certainly, it’s also a visual delight for anyone who’s ever been curious about the game’s legendarily spectacular, often forbidding home turf, in all of its grand geographic diversity.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Elvis Presley had a dream he never completely fulfilled—to become a gospel singer. That’s the contention of the author, Presley’s longtime friend and member of his backup singing group, The Imperials, who paints a captivating, convincing portrait of the late superstar “trapped by his success” as a rock ’n’ roller and longing to pursue the spiritual music that was always playing in his heart.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Author Littlefield takes you on a visual tour of garage sales, rummage sales, estate sales, yard sales and various other side-of-the-road bargain bonanzas he discovered on a cross-country trek to explore the American passion for other people’s cast-offs. The color photos of a wide, wonderful array of garage-sale gems are a treat, and a month-by-month guide gives readers the scoop on dozens of annual, not-to-miss regional events where “one man’s trash” just might be, indeed, another one’s treasure.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Culled from the extensive collection of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, this eye-catching assemblage of aviation posters depict almost 200 years of aerial travel and the promise of adventure in hot-air balloons, zeppelins, gliders, jetliners and other once-exotic “flying machines.” Even if you never leave your armchair, flipping through the wonderful images and fact-filled explanations of their time, place and marketing significance will give your imagination a real lift.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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During the 1950s and ‘60s, classroom “audio-visual” usually meant filmstrips, those frame-by-frame tutorials in everything kids needed to know—about hygiene, diet, the world around them, good manners and all sort of other information essential to the formation of strong Cold War minds and bodies. This collection of images, words and lessons from the filmstrip’s “golden age” is a wonderful, often witty salute to the way millions of Americans learned some of the basics about life.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Country superstar Alan Jackson’s wife, Denise, writes this first-person account of the couple’s love story, a rags-to-riches romantic tale rocked with an infidelity that nearly destroyed the life they’d built together. And the “Him” in the title isn’t Denise’s hit-making husband; it’s the heavenly Father, with whom she credits re-focusing her life and renewing her marriage.
Neil Pond, American Profile

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Cat fanciers, armchair historians and animal lovers of all kinds will purr with delight at this collection of fun, informative spotlights on some of the world’s most famous or otherwise formidable felines and their often-overlooked contributions to art, literature, science, medicine, government, religion and everyday life.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Abraham the Alligator
By Paula Allene Stark
Hardcover, 26 pages ($14.95)

A history lesson given with a spoonful of sugar, this little illustrated storybook teaches younger kids a fanciful tale about equality with a liberating alligator (who’s a lot like Abraham Lincoln) and frogs who “aren’t free to come and go as they please.”

—Neil Pond, American Profile

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A Good Day’s Work
By Dwight W. Hoover
Hardcover, 213 pages ($26)

Hoover’s season-by-season memoir of growing up on an Iowa farm during the Great Depression is rich with detail and the memories of a difficult, sometimes grim but uniquely rewarding lifestyle. Poignant, personal and riveting in its warts-and-all recollections of chores, school and the everyday infrastructure of rural life, A Good Days Work will take you back to a time and place that fade a little more into America’s forgotten past with each passing generation. 

—Neil Pond, American Profile

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