Books Reviews - Page 9

During the 1930s and ’40s, the government-sponsored Works Progress Administration (WPA) paid hundreds of out-of-work artists to create millions of posters promoting American ideals, optimism, events, programs and advice for everyday living. This coffee-table collection of almost 500 illustrations presents a stirring, mostly forgotten and wonderfully diverse portrait of a nation pulling itself back together in every way after the onset of the Great Depression, then facing the fight of its life as World War II sent shockwaves around the globe.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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From its humble origins (a wooden slingshot!) to its heyday astraddle an empire of baby boomer playthings, the Wham-O “fun factory” is practically synonymous with inexpensive, far-out, kids-just-gotta-have-it toys. This colorful salute to the company behind the Frisbee, the Hula Hoop, Silly String and Hacky Sacks also points the playful way to hundreds of other, lesser-known Wham-O delights, like Instant Fish, the 27-Color Pencil and SuperElasticBubblePlastic. Super-Book paints a rainbow of retro-toy memories.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Until his death in 2004, renowned photographer Richard Avedon captured with his camera the many moods and personalities of movie actors, comedians, singers, Broadway stars and other famous folks who lived in—and for—the spotlight. This collection of more than 200 large-format images, culled from Avedon’s archives and stretching across the last half century, open an elegant window on a shiny, days-gone-by show-biz world as seen through one of world’s most celebrated celebrity-trained lenses.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Take a Halloween hop to the dark side with this wide-ranging collection of freaky facts, way-out stories and scary, stranger-than-fiction tales. Nature’s oddities, history’s mysteries, weird laws, famous hoaxes, murderers, madmen, phobias, UFO encounters, ghost sightings, haunted houses and hundreds of other delightfully unsettling, wildly entertaining tidbits will keep you riveted until long after the leftover trick-or-treat candy is gone.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Down…Set…Hike! Get in the game with this rundown of the 50 greatest professional football players of the modern (post-1950) era, plus past-and-present profiles of the NFL’s 32 teams, a history of the Super Bowl and a section on “Legends in the Making.” Packed with 120 color photos of Peyton Manning, O.J. Simpson, Jerry Rice, Jim Brown, Joe Namath, Terry Bradshaw, Deion Sanders and many, many other touchdown titans, it’s sure to be a hit with any gridiron fan.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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The veteran CBS newsman shares his thoughts on a sweeping variety of topics in this collection of 171 short, colorful essays, most of them commentaries he delivered as the weekly wrap-up of Face the Nation over the last 14 years. From war and peace and politics to cell-phone etiquette, baseball and Paris Hilton, the topics take you on an engrossing journey inside the wide-ranging mind of one of America’s most celebrated TV journalists.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Done in conjunction with a Turner Classic Movies film festival of the same name airing Nov. 18 and 25, this compendium of unforgettable movie pairings from the era of big-studio productions is packed with rare photos, juicy factoids, delightful trivia and authoritative insight into the on- and off-screen sparks generated by Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, Elvis Presley and Ann-Margaret, Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, and more than 30 other classic silver-screen couples. A must for movie buffs who’d like to bask in the sweet, sometimes sweltering passions of Hollywood’s golden age.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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In 1985, marine biologist Ballard surprised the world by discovering the wreckage of the Titanic. Since then, dozens of expeditions have poked around the great cruise ship’s ruins, which continue to decay with each passing year. Vowing to capture high-quality images of the sunken landmark before it’s claimed by the sea forever, Ballard returned years later with hi-tech deep-sea cameras to bring back the large-format color photos in this collection, providing an eye-opening field trip 12,500 feet beneath the surface of the North Atlantic.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Blast off on a flight of imagination with these 150 full-color NASA-commissioned illustrations created over the past five decades by various artists, including Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol, James Wyeth, William Wegman and Annie Leibovitz. With fanciful depictions of spacemen, rockets, liftoffs, lunar landings and other aspects of America’s space program, it’s a treat for armchair astronauts of any age.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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A coffee-table companion to the new three-part PBS American Masters documentary narrated by Clint Eastwood, this treasure trove of photos shines a year-by-year spotlight on one of Hollywood’s greatest moviemaking dynasties. Find out all about the legendary film-family tree that has nurtured Bogie, Brando, James Dean, Doris Day, Rin-Tin-Tin, Superman, Batman, Bonnie and Clyde, Harry Potter, Dirty Harry and thousands of other stars, characters and cinematic milestones over the last 85 years.
—Neil Pond, merican Profile

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