Books Reviews - Page 23

Randall, who deflated the Hollywood-ized South of Gone With the Wind with her best-selling 2001 novel The Wind Done Gone, handily sorts 90 years of country songs into themes such as women, men, love, war, prison, motels, God and waitresses. Intended as a guide for organizing Internet music downloads into topical playlists, it’s also an easy-to-navigate road map across the culture of country music even if you don’t know an mp3 from an M&M.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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This collection of nearly 200 exquisite images from around the globe, combined with writer Protzman’s compelling narrative, sheds a beam of illumination on the multitude of ways humans earn a living. Gold mining and modeling, alligator skinning and oyster shucking, servitude and soldiering, bullfighting and begging—they’re “all in a day’s work” for someone, somewhere. No matter what you think about your job, Work is a real eye-opener, a testimony to the human spirit and the almost endless diversity of tasks that put food on the table (some more substantially than others) in this great big world of ours.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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“Guilty pleasures” are the things in life that aren’t particularly good—or good for us—but, doggone it, we love ‘em anyway. Baby boomers in particular will enjoy this hip, flip, examination of Elvis impersonators, Peyton Place, “Louie, Louie,” Burt Reynolds and hundreds of other alphabetically arranged entries—from the sugary sweet rock group ABBA to the much-ballyhooed malt beverage Zima—that exist in a pop-cultural junk-food universe where popularity doesn’t always equate with quality.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Packaged with a bonus DVD of adrenaline-pumping racing highlights narrated by four-time champ Jeff Gordon, this photo-packed, revved-up recap of NASCAR’s 100 most unforgettable moments brings you so close to the action you can almost smell the rubber burning, hear the roar from the track and feel the waves of heat rising off the asphalt. The perfect page-turner for anyone with a need for speed, it’s a heckuva lot safer than banking out of a left turn at 190 mph!

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The World Series is history, the dust of the diamond has settled and the outfield grass is sleeping through the winter. This collection of spectacular images of players, jaw-dropping plays and a century’s worth of other memorable moments—captured by the world’s leading sports photographers—will help fans of all ages keep the baseball flame burning until next season’s opening game.
-Neil Pond, American Profile

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LIFE: 70 Years of Photography
By the editors of Life
Hardcover, 304 pages ($29.95)

For most of the 20th century, Life set the gold standard for photojournalism with powerful, unforgettable images of history and humanity. This handsome coffee-table collection of celebrities, children, wars and the rhythms of life in America will bring smiles, tears and a new sense of appreciation for the world in which we live.
-Neil Pond, American Profile

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Mixing fact, fiction, exquisitely detailed illustrations and more than 20 different interactive doodads (a compass, dive log, charts, flaps and other surprises), this hardy treasure chest of a book submerges readers of all ages on a quest to solve a delightfully engaging mystery of the ocean deep leading to a cache of gold hidden inside Davy Jones’ locker.
-Neil Pond, American Profile

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Covering 35 rollercoaster years of “the Boss” and his band, who gave the world classic songs such as “Born in the U.S.A.” and “Glory Days,” this photo-packed scrapbook also contains two posters, handwritten set lists and an early Springsteen business card that make this a deluxe package of rock ’n’ roll nostalgia.
-Neil Pond, American Profile

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Writer Wolman’s quirky quest to better understand the mysteries and mechanisms of left-handedness took him to California neuroscientists, London psychologists, Canadian palm readers, a primate research center, a group of southpaw golfers in Japan, an amputee whose left hand was attached to his right arm, a left-handed baseball pitching legend and even a town called Left Hand, W. Va. Funny, inspired and illuminating, this Turn takes you on a journey even right-handers will find fascinating.
-Neil Pond, American Profile

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If you can’t make a Christmas-time trip to New York to see the spectacular sights, this delightful collection of 3-D “pop-ups” is the next best thing. In these six detailed, interactive spreads, the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes kick up their heels, skaters gracefully cross the ice at Rockefeller Plaza, shoppers and horse-drawn carriages converge on Fifth Avenue and Times Square explodes with New Year’s excitement. Full of facts, trivia and other colorful pull-up or flap-out surprises, it’s a festive, unique and heartwarming Christmas keepsake that depicts one of the world’s most famous cities dressed out in its holiday finest.
-Neil Pond, American Profile

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