A Face In The Crowd – Budd Schulberg, 1957 ★★★

Big Dreams on the Little Screen

When director Elia Kazan and writer Budd Schulberg collaborated on their next film project after the legendary On The Waterfront, it was an anticipated event. Would the new film be as good?

The answer, surprisingly, was yes, only not right away. It took audiences and critics many years to warm to A Face In The Crowd, perhaps because in 1957 its satirical take on television and marketing was too ahead of its time. Today, it seems much more relevant, if a bit quaint.

If nothing else, we are better positioned to appreciate the spectacle of Andy Griffith, not yet known as TV’s kindliest sheriff, driving his image into a ditch before he even got it. His Lonesome Rhodes is a foul-minded, manipulative, corrupt spinner of hokey cornpone wisdom who hoodwinks millions into falling in love with him:

Athabasca – Alistair MacLean, 1980 ★½

A Thriller on the Rocks

What can you say about a thriller where everything happens at once and an invisible adversary manages to be everywhere and nowhere?

Athabasca is a novel driven by a need to exceed. Not so much in terms of thrills, but in scale. What starts out as a scenic visit by security experts to discuss a possible threat at the mouth of the Alaska Pipeline quickly escalates into a deadly, fiery crisis that draws in a second mammoth oil-extraction operation thousands of miles away.

For this trio of intrepid if overweight investigators led by the smug, loquacious Jim Brady, big explosions, mutilated bodies, and shadowy terrorists are all secondary to how long their booze supply holds up.

Remote People – Evelyn Waugh, 1931 ★★★

Ramblings of a Homesick Traveler

Early on, Evelyn Waugh’s travel notes did double duty providing material for novels while also sourcing his journalism. For that reason, his travelogues often feel like afterthoughts.

For lauded travel writers like Paul Theroux or William Least Heat-Moon, the book is the focus. However brilliant at dishing and dunking as Waugh was, his road accounts often feel unformed by comparison.

In Remote People, the World of Waugh is an exciting, amusing, often cantankerous place to explore. Still, at the end of the day the only road that matters may as well be the one that takes you back home.

Broadway – Brooks Atkinson, 1970 ★½

A Dreary Look at a Gaudy Street

The Great White Way has played host to countless tragedies and comedies. Only a small minority ever appear on stage. You would think 70 years of that would automatically make for exciting reading. Think again.

Brooks Atkinson was not only a veteran of many decades when he wrote this thick history about the Manhattan midtown mecca for theatrical entertainment. He was himself a Broadway institution, having given his name to a theater on West 47^th Street. That he knew and loved so many of those he wrote about is part of the problem.

Heat – Ed McBain, 1981 ★★★½

When 'I Do' Becomes 'Oh No'

Marriage and summertime are two things we associate with happiness. Yet both can also be sources of intolerable pressure, especially when used as key elements of a police procedural. In Heat, love makes the world go round, but also leads to murder.

While a typically energetic 87th Precinct page-turner, Heat is unique in the series for how quickly it makes the main criminal activity secondary to a riveting subplot involving one of the detectives.

Bert Kling has a problem. He’s married to a beautiful model, only now he suspects something is going on. A comment by a drunk girl at a party makes him wonder if his wife is having an affair.

Willie Mays: The Life The Legend – James S. Hirsch, 2010 ★★★

Celebrating a Quiet Giant

In baseball, statistics are the ultimate measure of achievement, yet they fail to do justice to one of the game’s greatest legends. Willie Mays holds no major career records which jump to mind. In areas like stolen bases or home runs, his totals, while impressive, did not dominate even in his own time, let alone looking back now.

Yet when considering the totality of the game, and all the players who ever played it, Mays stands apart like a colossus.

In Willie Mays: The Life The Legend, James S. Hirsch asks the question: “Was he better than the Babe?” Even if you sense he would like to say yes, he doesn’t. Babe Ruth changed the game with his home runs, and that after establishing himself as a champion left-handed pitcher. But Hirsch makes a strong case for Mays anyway.

The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe – Douglas Adams, 1980 ★★★★½

Intergalactic Dining at its Finest

Transforming a successful novel into an enduring media franchise requires more than just skill or luck. It requires a magnificent first sequel. Every subsequent entry in the series can run the gamut from brilliant to horrible, but that second book must sing.

The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe does just that, beginning with a clever title whose double meaning becomes a fascinating storyline in its own right. But that is just a small part of its rich pageant. Douglas Adams delivers a book even more conceptual, expansive and hilarious than what came before.

This is the book that turned Adams’s brainchild into a cultural touchstone; it’s also a terrific read.