Sukey's Favorite

Isn't She Great
By Michael Korda
Simon & Schuster Audio, $18
3 hours
ISBN 0671045768

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The next best thing to having Michael Korda in person as the charmingly urbane centerpiece for your next dinner party is listening to his charmingly urbane voice on tape as he recounts his publishing war stories and his time in the trenches with the glitterati and literati.

Isn't She Great is an audio adaptation from his memoir, Another Life, and the title is just a tad misleading; the movie of the same name is based on Korda's funny, sad, yet appreciative account of his working relationship with Jacqueline Susann and her husband Irving Mansfield, but there are many more tales told here.

As editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster and member in good standing of the glitterati-literati set himself, Korda can dish with the best, and he's not at all reluctant to share his experiences with a host of celebrities and renowned authors, Graham Greene and Joan Crawford among them. Nora Ephron called Susann's novel, The Love Machine, "a long, delicious gossip column," and I think that suits Korda's memoir equally well.

Harry's back and better than ever

REVIEWS BY SUKEY HOWARD

The third entry in J.K. Rowling's phenomenal Harry Potter series is as good as its two predecessors, and read by Jim Dale, who gives another astounding performance. If you aren't hooked on Harry yet -- don't wait, he's too much fun.

The central theme of good and evil is played out here again, in Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban as Harry, now 13, is stalked and threatened by a turncoat follower of the Dark Lord. He and his trusty friends at Hogwarts are caught up in a dizzying adventure, with twists and convoluted turns, revelations of the past and intimations of the future. This parallel world of witches and wizards that Harry and Co. inhabit brings back the joy of childhood, the joy of seeing the good guys fight the good fight, battle the nasty, the envious, and the intolerant, and talk without embarrassment of trust, loyalty, and betrayal. If these tales can't disarm cynics and super-sophisticates, I doubt that much can; and if they don't succumb to Harry's charm, they deserve their wonderless fate.


Thirty-somethings on their own

Great literature, this isn't; super-soap opera and well-told tale, it is. The "it" is Olivia Goldsmith's Young Wives, her latest look at love's big ups and downs. It won't surprise anyone who has read, seen, or listened to Ms. Goldsmith's tales that it's told from a decidedly female perspective. The three married women we get to know here were happy, had much of what they wanted, and were certainly not looking for trouble.

But trouble is what they get, big time, and the probable cause isn't probable at all -- it's the husbands for sure. Each wife has to get a new life and a little revenge, and just a little justice would sweeten the situation. If Ms. Goldsmith, who reads her own words, had subtitled this novel with a slightly mangled mixture of the Bard and Ladies' Home Journal -- "never underestimate the power of a woman scorned" -- she'd have been right on the mark.


Ivins the Terrible

That title is meant as a true compliment. Molly Ivins, sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued, smart, and super-savvy, makes another foray into the political fray with Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush, written with Lou Dubose. Ms. Molly, who reads with her best Texan twang, warns us at the get-go that there will be "no sex, no drugs, no Siggie Freud." Instead she simply, but scrupulously, looks at the record -- a tried, true, time-tested, "and pretty much infallible" method of judging a politician.

"In politics," she reminds us, "past is prologue" -- or, as I prefer to think of it, "the dirt is in the details," and the details, alas, are all here. Starting with young George's oil business experience, she goes on to closely examine his performance as governor of Texas. If elected, Bush has promised to do for the rest of the country what he has done for Texas -- and that's just what Molly is worried about. If you're a fan of "W's," this tape is not for you.


An eye for an eye

John Corey, the quintessential tough NYPD detective, with the quintessential "New York mouth" and the attitude to match, last heard from in Nelson DeMille's Plum Island, is back on the scene in DeMille's latest, fast-paced, action-laced thriller, The Lion's Game. The "lion" is a Libyan terrorist whose cunning, cut throat "game" is murder and whose motive is revenge, big time. The "whys" and "wheres" unfold as Corey and Kate, his good-looking blonde partner (and maybe more) on the Anti-Terrorist Task Force chase the "lion" from coast to coast, trying desperately to snare this bold killer before he hits his final target. Boyd Gaines gives a top-notch performance, reveling in regional accents from Brooklyn to Banghazi.


Anything but the truth

J.F. Freedman writes the kind of mystery fiction that keeps you guessing, and keeps you on your toes as the layers of plot peel back to reveal the final outcome. Above the Law, his latest, is a doozy of deception, false leads, and evil deeds -- fascinating from start to finish and ably read by Dick Hill.

When Luke Garrison gets a call from an old law school friend, now the DA in an out-of-the-way California county, he eagerly accepts the job of Special Prosecutor, investigating a DEA raid that "went south," a dead drug lord, and a possible cover-up from on high. But the case is not at all what it seems, and therein lays the cassette-flipping intrigue.


Sukey Howard reports on spoken word audio each month.

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