Books Reviews - Page 24

Conveniently sized to fit inside a glove compartment, this handy guide (subtitled “Road Trip Journal and Maintenance Log”) mixes witty, under-the-hood banter from the hosts of the popular NPR series with real nuts-’n’-bolts auto advice, checklists and other travel-related tidbits, including a guide to flat tires, how to jump-start a car and “neat stuff to have in your trunk.”

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Spies & Espionage
Hardcover, 448 pages ($24.95)

History’s most famous (and infamous) sleuths—including World War I femme fatale Mati Hari, Revolutionary War patriot Nathan Hale, Soviet mole Anthony Walker Jr. and nearly 100 others—are revealed in this fascinating A-to-Z encyclopedia of real-life, risk-taking patriots, traitors, double agents, soldiers of fortune and espionage professionals who lived (and sometimes died) in the shadows.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Kennedy Space Center
By David West Reynolds
hardcover, 240 pages ($40)

With more than 150 stunning photos and detailed, dramatic narrative, author Reynolds describes the epic story of the men and machines who put America into space—and the amazing, 140,000-acre site in Florida that became our nation’s crucial stepping stone to an era of unparalleled, out-of-this-world exploration. A story of derring-do, scientific how-to and dreams, it makes for one spectacular rocket ride of a book.

—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Hey! It's That Guy!
softcover, 256 pages ($14.95)
(Quirk Books)

We’ve all seen them: the actors and actresses who show up in movie after movie, but whose names rarely make the marquee…or stick in our heads. This cheeky, concise guide to more than 200 recognizable character actors playfully connects them to their most memorable movies and their recurring roles—the stern detectives, corrupt policemen, hapless high school principals, smart-aleck sidekicks, moody mobsters, needling bosses, dutiful soldiers, towering toughs and other solid second fiddles whose names escape us—but their faces sure look familiar!
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Monkey Portraits
By Jill Greenberg
hardcover, 112 pages ($24.99)

Scientists tell us we share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees, our closest biological cousins. Looking at these 76 wacky, warm and wonderful photographs—depicting a colorful cast of simians displaying a variety of human-like expressions akin to joy, frustration, disbelief, serenity and surprise—will make that 2% margin of separation seem ridiculously slim.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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One Christmas in Old Tascosa
By Casandra Firman
hardcover, 91 pages ($21.95)

In this heartwarming true story of hope during a time when much of America was in short supply, an elderly widow braves a blizzard to give a schoolhouse of Depression-era children a Christmas present they will never forget. One Christmas celebrates the season with a tale of a time, a place and an event that would resonate through the future generations of a tiny Texas town.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Nightwatch
By Terence Dickinson
hardcover, 184 pages ($35)

Subtitled “A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe,” this fourth edition of the essential guide for amateur stargazers is newly updated, lavishly illustrated with charts, maps and photos, and packed with facts on galaxies, constellations, planets, our sun and moon, night-sky mythology, eclipses, comets, meteors, telescopes and a cosmic closet-full of other astronomical delights. For anyone who ever looked up and wondered what’s out there, Nightwatch puts the heavens at your fingertips.
—Neil Pond, American Profile/i>

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The Christmas List
Photography by David Graham
hardcover, 96 pages ($12.95)

Graham’s kitschy-cool photos may get top billing, but the star of this whimsical stroll down Santa Claus lane is the roll-out of numbers that tell the stats of the season—the odds of a white Christmas in Burlington, Vt. (63%), percentage of Americans who wait until after Jan. 1 to turn off their decorative lights (54%), the number of times per minute that Visa cards are swiped in the United States between Thanksgiving and Christmas (5,340) and dozens of other amusing, informative or just plain odd numeric facts associated with the holly-jolly holiday.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Graceland: An Interactive Pop-Up Tour
Hardcover, 18 Pages ($46)

Between the ornate, gold-colored covers of this bulging, treasure chest of a book are nine remarkable, three-dimensional “pop-up” spreads, which unfold up and out when each page opens to re-create rooms inside musicdom’s most famous mansion. A special forward by Priscilla Presley begins your colorful tour of Graceland’s private spaces, where you’ll encounter an explosion of facts and interactive surprises—like a cardboard pair of pull-out sunglasses, a display case of firearms and (in the music room, of course) a flip-through collection of some of Elvis’ favorite LPs. This Tour will make you feel like a gleefully nosy guest inside the Tennessee castle that the King of Rock ’n’ Roll called home.

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Christmasland
Hardcover, 122 pages ($15.95)

This warm, witty sleigh ride down memory lane presents a wide-ranging photographic collection of nostalgic Christmas items from the 1950s and ’60s—miniature churches, adorable angels, whimsical Santas, skating snowmen and other colorful reminders of an era when homes were dutifully decked each holiday season with the holly-jolly pixie dust of inexpensive tabletop knickknacks and dime-store bric-a-brac.

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