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An Irish tale

A recent novel by Walter Keady, author of Celibates and Other Lovers, is certainly worth investigating. Keady grew up in Ireland, and his story of Irish Mary McGreevy resonates with authentic details of place, people, and language. Readers will add quite a saucy repertoire of 1950's Irish slang to their vocabulary.

When Mary McGreevy abandons her convent to run the family farm, the village is scandalized. Village wags soon have even more to talk about when the former nun purposely becomes pregnant and will not name the father. The ensuing brou-ha-ha is explored with warmth, compassionate humor, and piercing insight.

-Joanna Brichetto


The best, biggest biographies

Usually condensed books are an unnatural act. Only when pruned by the author do they escape disfiguring. Now the distinguished English biographer, Michael Holroyd, has wisely followed Leon Edel's example and abridged his own sprawling multi-volume Bernard Shaw into a single fat, delicious tome. At 800-plus pages, it's still hefty enough to serve as a murder weapon, but that's a fraction less daunting than before. And it's hard to imagine how one could squeeze a century of the indefatigable Mr. Shaw into a smaller space.

It is a lovely thing when a great writer finds a worthy biographer. Holroyd is a diligent, perceptive scholar, apparently tireless, but he is also a writer blessed with perfect pitch. He describes the biographer's art in Hugh Kingsmill's phrase, "the complete sympathy of complete detachment." Holroyd achieves the balance without any feeling of cool distance, because his own good sense and energy never flag. The result is a gem now safe from crazed abridgers.

-Michael Sims


Many successful people downplay their native gifts and emphasize their willpower, and Thomas Alva Edison was no exception. "Genius," he said so quotably, "is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." Whatever the ratio, Edison had genius. Phonographs, electric lightbulbs, motion pictures, telephones -- we trace all of these and many other inventions to this one man.

Now there is a hefty new biography worthy of the extraordinary man, Edison: A Life of Invention by Paul Israel. Editor of the ongoing Edison Papers project at Rutgers, and author of Edison's Electric Light, Israel seems to know everything there is to know about his subject. He calmly clears away the misty fables and shrinks Edison from godlike to no-less-imposing human stature. Along the way, he impressively explains the origins of the modern industrial world. The story of Thomas Edison would demand nothing less.

-Michael Sims


A collector's item

If you have not yet read Jorge Luis Borges, you can find an absolute feast of his writings in the long-awaited Collected Fictions. Even if he is one of your favorite writers, this new book is cause for celebration. It's the first collection of all of the Argentine master's tales, and the first to be translated by the same person, Andrew Hurley. To have them all together and in a consistent voice is a delight.

"What are we to make of him?" John Updike once asked of Borges. His stories are half fable and half essay, rich with gorgeous imagery and erudite (and sometimes fictional) allusion. Characteristic of Borges's narrative maneuvering is the single-page tale in which Borges explains that it is "Borges, the other one, that things happen to," and that the other Borges is turning all of the narrator's life into literature. This sly meditation on the act of creativity ends with a confession: "I am not sure which of us it is that's writing this page."

-Michael Sims


A fly-by-night kind of guy

Frequently American heroes take the form of vigilantes outside the legal system. Batman certainly fits the mold. He is a loner, obsessed with vengeance and justice, and as popular culture has grown darker so has the world of the Batman. Few fictional villains of any kind rank near the Joker on a scale of heartless malevolence.

Watson-Guptill has produced a striking collection of Batman artwork, Batman Masterpieces: Portraits of the Dark Knight and His World by Ruth Morrison. This is not a greatest hits anthology. The book comprises oversize reproductions of the paintings originally reproduced in a DC Comics/Fleer Master series set of collector cards -- gorgeous, melodramatic paintings beyond the scope of comic books. They present a fragmented narrative, the pieces of which had to be collected and assembled by card- buyers.

Batman Masterpieces features original sketches and extensive remarks by the artists on how they envisioned the many incarnations of an American cultural icon.

-Michael Sims


May the force be with you

George Lucas's galaxy-spanning vision, Star Wars, has never flagged in popularity since it premiered in 1977. Star Wars video games, tapes, action figures, and books are considered staples of the Christmas season for young and old alike. This Christmas will be no exception, and with the new Star Wars movie due for release in 1999, there are some exciting new offerings available.

DK Publishing, world famous for their illustrated books on everything from aircraft to zoology, has published two Star Wars "reference books." Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary and Star Wars: Incredible Cross-Sections, both by David West Reynolds, treat the "galaxy far, far away" as a very real place.

Chronicle Books offers Star Wars Masterpiece Edition: Anakin Skywalker: The Story of Darth Vader by Stephen J. Sansweet with Daniel Wallace and Josh Ling. This eye-popping package includes a book and a 13 1/2-inch collector figure of Anakin Skywalker in the robes of a Jedi Knight. The book itself is a detailed look at the creation and evolution of one of cinema's most enigmatic villains.

All three are must-haves for any Star Wars fan.

-James Neal Webb

    Star Wars Masterpiece Edition:
    Anakin Skywalker:
    The Story of Darth Vader
    By Stephen J. Sansweet
    with Daniel Wallace and Josh Ling
    Chronicle Books, $75
    ISBN 0811821587

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All dolled up

From her origin as the near-clone of a German sex toy for men to her position as the reigning queen of dolls, Barbie has long been the world's favorite foot-tall cultural icon. Next year she'll reach the big four-o, and everywhere you turn there's another party. One of the most entertaining is a new book from that trusty art publisher, Abrams -- Barbie: Four Decades of Fashion, Fantasy, and Fun by Marco Tosa.

More than merely a catalog of Barbie, friends, and accessories, Tosa's book is a beautifully illustrated history of a cultural phenomenon. It follows the changes in American social life over the last 40 years, as reflected in the lifestyle and accoutrements of the most popular doll in the world.

-Michael Sims


More Gift Ideas

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