Mustache Gang – Ron Bergman, 1973 ★★★

Heroes and Villains

Baseball was different not that long ago. Consider the 1972 Oakland A’s.

Blue Moon Odom, a solid veteran pitcher for the team, spent his off-season working at a store, where he was shot twice trying to stop a burglary. He recovered and went 15-6 that year.

Meanwhile, another pitcher on that same team, Vida Blue, a winner of 1971’s Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards, patiently listened as A’s owner Charlie Finley told him: “You have as much chance of getting $115,000 from me as I do of jumping out of my office window.” The amazing part: Finley was right.

A Hard Day's Write – Steve Turner, 1999 ★★½

Words of Love

Behind every Beatles song is a story. In his cleverly-titled A Hard Day’s Write, Steve Turner runs through the complete Fab Four songbook in a manner that may not always satisfy but will certainly engage Beatles fans, and may interest more casual readers, too.

During a 14-year period that saw them go from callow teens to jaded pop stars, the Beatles crafted over 200 original songs. Simply listing all of them is no small feat. Explaining how each came to be proves more challenging.

The Two Gentlemen Of Verona – William Shakespeare, c. 1589-93 ★★

The One with the Rape

Shakespeare plays, like so much else in life, thrive or fade on how they get summed up in one line. This helps explain why The Two Gentlemen Of Verona is so forgotten today: It’s the one with the rape.

Not an actual rape, but a threatened one that is stopped and forgiven, which may make it worse. The best that can be said in the play’s favor is that when you summon the emotional investment of a marshmallow, lapses in taste and morality are more easily forgiven. Two Gentlemen Of Verona’s overall lightness is its best defense.

Cop Hater – Ed McBain, 1956 ★★★

City on the Edge of Forever

Police detectives had been crime-fiction heroes for decades, but in 1955 young writer Evan Hunter got an idea: Instead of one guy, build a story around an entire squadroom of detectives. Thus began a 49-year series of books, the 87^th Precinct novels. Cop Hater came first.

Being first can make something harder to judge on its own merits. As a seasoned 87^th reader, I can’t help but register the comfortable click of a familiar formula, a tone, and characters. But how does Cop Hater stand up as a book?

The Presidential Transcripts – The Washington Post, et. al., 1974 ★★½

Watergate in Real Time

The Watergate scandal reshaped American politics, destroyed one of the 20^th century’s most dynamic leaders, and defined an era of cynicism and paranoia. What was it like going down?

Unlike most scandals, people can hear and read this one for themselves, thanks to President Richard Nixon’s hidden tape machines. After a Senate investigating committee subpoenaed the tapes, The Washington Post, which had been covering Watergate since it was just a third-rate burglary, wasted no time printing a 693-page paperback that contained key Nixon meetings when Watergate was under discussion.

The Black Island – Hergé, 1937-38 [Revised 1943 & 1966] ★★★★

The Secret Word is “Kruzitürken”

The first image I recall of Tintin is the cover of this book. In the background, the ruins of an old castle are surrounded by crow-like gulls. In the foreground, a boat speeds away from me, its pilot leaning at the stern and clearly making speed from the wake behind his boat and the billowing of his kilt.

And between them, in the middle of the cover, a small white dog stares directly at me, his face clearly communicating fear, his eyes asking, almost imploring: “What on earth is he getting me into this time?”

A Doll's House – Henrik Ibsen, 1879 ★★★★

Selfishness is Not a Virtue

One is so geared to the view A Doll’s House is proto-feminist art that pushback appears in order. The author himself denied an agenda before a gathering of Norwegian suffragettes in 1898.

Still, the crux of the play deals with limitations society places on a woman; gender sensibility hovers over every one of its three acts.

The Hole Truth – Tommy Bolt with Jimmy Mann, 1971 ★

Who Knew Thunder Could Be Boring?

Tommy Bolt won his first and only major in 1958 at age 42, positioning the golfer as a senior statesman on the PGA Tour just as it exploded in popularity. Bolt seized the spotlight with a predilection for tossing clubs and venting at referees and spectators on the course.

It got him the nickname “Thunder” and a reputation for tantrums in what is still a sedate sport. You may pick up his golf memoir expecting lightning; expect a drizzle instead.

The Big Bounce – Elmore Leonard, 1969 ★★½

Kicking Off a 40-Year Crime Spree

Late in The Big Bounce, our protagonist watches a pitcher on television and thinks to himself: “The son of a bitch was good, but he sure could get into trouble.”

It’s funny because the pitcher on the TV is Denny McLain, who kept finding trouble after his playing days ended, and because the sentiment also applies to our protagonist, Jack Ryan. Jack’s a small-time burglar who meets his match when he hooks up with beautiful young Nancy Hayes, who likes to smash things. Jack and Nancy have fun, but as the craziness mounts, he begins to wonder what he got himself into.

In All His Glory: The Life And Times Of William S. Paley And The Birth Of Modern Broadcasting – Sally Bedell Smith, 1990 ★★★★★

Ozymandias of the Airwaves

Ephemerality is the very nature of mass media. In that way at least, William S. Paley proved its perfect embodiment.

Paley built a radio and television empire with CBS, “the Tiffany Network,” known for a much-touted, sometimes honored commitment to quality broadcasting. While acquiring new markets and talents was Paley’s defining contribution to CBS’s glory, it was secondary to his baser passions for lucre, women, and fame. Paley got most of what he wanted, but as we watch him on his deathbed, it’s hard not to feel a Calvinistic twinge of regret for his limited vision.

The Turn Of The Screw – Henry James, 1898 ★

Screwing with Your Head

Paranormally corrupted, or just emotionally twisted? Diabolical brats, or misunderstood innocents? Emotionally/sexually unbalanced governess, or trusting victim of cruelty, earthbound or otherwise?

With a build-up like that, you might understand why The Turn Of The Screw has such a solid literary reputation, above and beyond what its illustrious author otherwise enjoys. This is touted as a classic example of creative ambiguity in fiction, even something of an Ur-text for recontextualizing literature beyond the strict confines of author’s intent.

Naturally, I hate it.

Six Days Of The Condor – James Grady, 1974 ★★★

Just Because You're Paranoid...

Published in the darkest days of Watergate, saturated with period malaise and the spirit of “don’t-trust-anyone-over-30,” Six Days Of The Condor is as much a zeitgeist marker as a spy novel, worth a read for anyone old enough to remember the 1970s.

It certainly took me back.

Autobiography Of Benvenuto Cellini – Translated by John Addington Symonds, 1558-63 ★★

Portrait of an Artist as a Raging Bull

Autobiography Of Benvenuto Cellini is a book drenched in war, sex, intrigue, and murder. Its writer was one of the leading artists of his time, a figure steeped in controversy and mystery. He also had a fierce temper and an appetite for killing when his blood was up, which it often was.

Given all that, why do I find his book a chore to read?

All The Words, Vol. One – Monty Python's Flying Circus, 1989 ★★★★

Python... Before the Big Screen

Loving good old Monty Python comes easy, but it’s a sign of age when you hear what it is about Python people love. For many, debate centers around cinema. Arthur? Brian? Perhaps some wafer-thin love for Mr. Creosote?

Rivers West – Louis L'Amour, 1975 ★½

Throwing in the Towel, or Something

Rivers West is what happens when an author loses interest in a novel halfway into writing it. The craziest part is I can’t understand why, as this atypical offering from western-fiction legend Louis L’Amour starts out with much promise.

Ghosts – Henrik Ibsen, 1881 ★★

Something Rotten in Norway

A sensation when it first hit the stage, Ibsen’s Ghosts is hard to enjoy now. You can appreciate how the play pushed boundaries in the 19^th century, giving voice to forbidden ideas; today it feels melodramatic and forced – a four-hankie weeper about a tortured artist and his ever-faithful mother stuck together in the repressive backwaters of western Norway.

The Broken Ear – Hergé, 1935-37 [Revised 1943] ★★★½

Thrills and Giggles in South America

Street fights. Car crashes. Terrorism. Violent government overthrows. Murder by gas. Murder by drowning. Death by bomb. Devils escorting doomed souls into hell.

Is this a children’s comic book, or a Mickey Spillane novel?

The Ninth Juror – Giraud Chester, 1970 ★★★

Secrets of a Jury Room

If you have seen 12 Angry Men, you may remember the line: “No jury can declare a man guilty unless it’s sure.” But how practical an approach is that, really? How sure is sure?

Going by that play/movie, “sure” is well-nigh impossible if you can’t be sure a witness isn’t lying for attention or a defense lawyer is up to snuff. If we all followed that pious Henry Fonda formula, prisons would be full of bankers and not much else. The real world offers better examples of justice in action, like this long-forgotten book by a TV executive.

The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas, 1844 ★★★½

A Potboiler for the Ages

The test of a great storyteller lies not in the story, but the telling. Few storytellers stand the test of time like Alexandre Dumas in his breakout novel The Three Musketeers.

Is it a great story? I don’t think so. The narrative ambles about, plays up many tropes of the historical-adventure genre, takes several protracted detours, and doesn’t quite climax after 600 pages as much as run out of steam. But what a ride!

The Diamond Smugglers – Ian Fleming, 1957 ★½

A Bond Story that Never Was

You know their names, no introductions necessary: Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Goldfinger. Dr. No. Rosa Klebb. Classic villains brought to you by the same man who created their common foil, James Bond 007: Ian Fleming.

But none got the build-up of a villain from another Fleming book: Monsieur Diamant, a. k. a. Mr. Diamond.

The City – Dean Koontz, 2014 ★½

Trying to Like Dean Koontz

Reading The City makes me wonder what makes for pop-fiction success. Is it writing something that truly engages, provokes, inspires? Or is it delivering product to a well-conditioned audience? After a pulsating start, The City settles into a tired-feeling, slow-moving tale that delivers morals and thrills with the loping subtlety of a ball-peen hammer.

DiMaggio: The Last American Knight – Joseph Durso, 1995 ★½

Heavy Sits the Crown

Heroes seemed to come thick and fast for America in the middle of the 20^th century. Few burned as bright, or left as deep a mark, as Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio. Whether in baseball or his personal life, his story inspires wonder to the point of disbelief. How to tell it in a way that is relatable?

Daisy Miller – Henry James, 1879 ★★½

Fatal Abstraction

Is Daisy Miller a little child running wild? Or is she an innocent martyr to outdated social conventions? Could she be both?

And why is this acclaimed novella more interesting to ponder than to read?

Evil Under The Sun – Agatha Christie, 1941 ★★★

Score Another for Monsieur Poirot

Characters who employ multiple secret identities, dialogue scenes that turn out staged for a listener, red herrings, U-turns, left-field clues, secondary characters who portend nothing but offer strategic diversion at critical intervals: These are devices one not only expects but comes to appreciate reading Agatha Christie novels.

Here's Johnny! – Ed McMahon, 2005 ½★

A Sidekick's Lot Is Not an Easy One

Whenever I tuck into a celebrity memoir, great expectations are not an issue. Maybe I’ll learn something. Maybe I’ll be entertained. But it’s unlikely I’ll be blown away, or even remember much about the book a year later. Grant me pleasant diversion, and I’m satisfied.

The Power Broker: Robert Moses And The Fall Of New York – Robert A. Caro, 1974 ★★★

Building a Monster

Like platinum, efficiency in government is highly prized but hard to find. Yet it can be overvalued, too; think of Mussolini making the trains run on time. If you think a fascist analogy is out-of-place in reviewing a biography of a parks commissioner, you probably haven’t read Robert A. Caro’s The Power Broker.

Tintin In The Congo – Hergé, 1930-31 [Revised 1946] ½★

Hergé Lays an Egg

Racism stinks. So does killing animals for sport. Having gotten these points out of the way, I’d like to go on and say my main beef with Tintin In The Congo has nothing to do with either. It’s more a matter of quality.

Cult Movies 3 – Danny Peary, 1988 ★★★

Movies to Shave Your Head For

What is a “cult movie”? Is it merely any film that wins a devoted, substantial fan following? Or does it imply content outside the norm, perhaps transgressive? Does “cult” status preclude mainstream success, or can a box-office smash be a cult movie, too? If I sound confused, it’s because I am, even after multiple readings of this, the third and final installment of a series of books by noted film critic Danny Peary.

Richard III – William Shakespeare, c. 1593 ★★★★½

Best of the Baddies

That Richard III is Shakespeare’s most successful history play is a view not everyone shares; I likely have more company in declaring the title character Shakespeare’s most enjoyable villain. Few in English literature are so good at being bad as Richard Crookback, the Duke of Gloucester.

Henry VI, Part III – William Shakespeare, c. 1591-92 ★★½

It's Not Easy Being King

A crown rests heavy on an unsettled mind, but no easier on one more steely of purpose. While not considered one of Shakespeare’s problem plays, Henry VI, Part III is a play with a problem: ‘Tis better to be just, or strong? It then spends five acts offering no answers.

Henry VI, Part II – William Shakespeare, c. 1591 ★★★½

Predators and Pray

The middle installment of Shakespeare’s first historical trilogy bursts out of the gate on all cylinders and never looks back, serving up a royal soap opera of scheming and backstabbing a la “Game Of Thrones.”

Despite being an early entry in the Bard’s canon, Henry VI, Part II has the polish of a pro job and ample wit to spare.

Henry VI, Part I – William Shakespeare, c. 1591-92 ★½

Days of Whine and Roses

If we can’t call this Shakespeare’s bitchiest play, that’s only because we don’t quite know how much of Henry VI, Part I is his. Otherwise, this is a bitchfest in two ways: A vast array of interchangeable characters bicker with one another from first scene to last; and you have one of Shakespeare’s most reprehensible female villains, Joan of Arc.

The Little War Of Private Post – Charles Johnson Post, 1960 ★★★

Remembering the Maine and More

When it comes to America’s forgotten battles, Vietnam and Korea have nothing on the Spanish-American War. Despite an unprecedented territorial yield, our country’s first multi-ocean conflict receded from memory long before its last acknowledged American veteran died in 1992. Fighting two world wars over the next 50 years can do that.

Brighton Rock – Graham Greene, 1938 ★★★½

Catholicism Made Deadly

Tip for parents: Don’t have sex in front of your kids. You may think they’re too young to register anything, but they aren’t. Consider the protagonist of Brighton Rock, teen crime lord Pinkie Brown.

High Treason – Robert J. Groden & Harrison Edward Livingstone, 1989 ★

Who Shot John

Many books posit the idea of a high-level conspiracy in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, books with titles like Six Seconds In Dallas, Best Evidence, and Crossfire. High Treason is different in a way signaled by its title.

Goodbye Mickey Mouse – Len Deighton, 1982 ★★½

Chasing Cupid and Messerschmitts

The difficulty of writing historical fiction often lies in getting facts straight. For Len Deighton, a former RAF pilot as well as an avid chronicler of World War II in both fiction and non-fiction form, authenticity was not a challenge for this tale of American Army Air Force fighter pilots in England. Goodbye Mickey Mouse is solid there.

But you need more than authenticity to make a novel click. You need an engaging plot and lively characters. It’s there the novel sagged for me.

MAD Strikes Back! – Harvey Kurtzman, 1955 ★★½

Taking a MAD Look Back

Last month came further evidence of the Apocalypse: MAD magazine rebooted itself. After a run of 550 issues begun in 1952, the humor staple officially rehauled itself with a new Issue #1. Readers of the latest ish were greeted by new staff, new logo, and new overall design.

Bullet Park – John Cheever, 1969 ★★

Leading Lives of Unquiet Desperation

Was John Cheever an elegant miniaturist out of his depth when writing longer fiction? Or do I need to expand my reading horizons and allow for some suburban surrealism divorced from narrative constraint as long as it is ennobled by fine prose? I go back and forth after this, my latest venture into the tangled hollows of Bullet Park.

FIASCO: The Inside Story Of A Wall Street Trader – Frank Partnoy, 1997 ★★★

PERLS Before Swine

Partly a first-hand account of the culture of derivatives trading and Wall Street in the early 1990s, partly a cry for greater regulation in the face of increasingly out-of-control investment practices, FIASCO is an entertaining read hampered by a scattershot focus and offputting tone.

No Comebacks – Frederick Forsyth, 1982 ★★★★

Forsyth in a Different Vein

Why didn’t Frederick Forsyth become the biggest name in thriller writing? This short-story collection, published toward the end of a great run of commercial and critical success, posits the idea that while forging an approach to his genre others like Ludlum and Clancy would pursue more diligently (if with less talent) what Fred really wanted was to be O. Henry.

Secrecy And Power: The Life Of J. Edgar Hoover – Richard Gid Powers, 1987 ★★★★

The Making of a Swamp Thing

Sometimes without trying, I pick up a book with present-day relevance. What better way to delve into that mysterious monstrosity of the moment, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, than with this old biography of its legendary founder?

Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens, 1837-39 ★★★½

Waif Takes on the Big Bad City

A cruel disposition can be a positive quality when writing a novel. Case in point: Oliver Twist.

Charles Dickens’ torture test for his titular boy hero saves his book from mawkish excess and, along with its brilliant depiction of a harsh urban landscape, imparts readability and drive, not to mention a steady undertow of savage black humor. The result, marred at times by bathos and coincidence, is a bracing change-up from the author whose prior, first novel was the whimsical, often-pastoral The Pickwick Papers.

The Ninth Configuration – William Peter Blatty, 1999 ★★★½

Nuttier Than a Wagon Load of Pralines

In the last 30 years of rewatching The Ninth Configuration, something about the shock of my first viewing has never worn off.

Like Jake and Elwood Blues, screenwriter-director William Peter Blatty was on a mission from God. If he left a few overturned cars or crushed motorcyclists in his wake, it was a feature, not a bug. Wonder what was going on in his head? Too late to ask now; he died last year. But we do have this book featuring the original shooting script.

Escape To Adventure – Fitzroy Maclean, 1950 ★½

All This and World War II

Woody Allen once said 80 percent of life is just showing up. Fitzroy Maclean validated that maxim if reading his memoir of life as a diplomat, soldier, and other in the 1930s and 1940s is any clue. Whether sitting ringside at a Soviet show trial or joining a commando raid in Benghazi, there’s a bit of Zelig in the old boy.

Long Time No See – Ed McBain, 1977 ★★½

Shaking Up the Old Eight-Seven

Breaking out of an old formula sounds fine in theory, but can result in career death for a successful fiction writer. Ed McBain found himself in the mid-1970s with a need to shake things up, though, and so he gave his 87^th Precinct police procedural series a major retooling.

The Year They Called Off The World Series – Benton Stark, 1991 ★

Everybody Loses

The New York Yankees have amassed more World Series rings than any two other baseball franchises combined, but weren’t always the sport’s overlords. The year 1904 found them in the unique role of outsiders and underdogs chasing after their first championship.

They weren’t even the Yankees then, but the Highlanders. How might a Highlander World Championship team be enshrined at Monument Park? We will never know, because they didn’t win the 1904 Series. Nor did anyone else that crazy season, the titular subject of this book.

Selected Poems And Two Plays – William Butler Yeats, 1962 ★★★★

Perning in the Gyres with W. B.

I have always loved reading. I have never cared for poetry. It is like spinach or broccoli on my reading plate, except I actually love spinach and broccoli. May I add I’m not keen on metaphors, either?

With poetry, it comes down to being a born skimmer. I find myself reading at angles, grasping at words like Tarzan swinging from vines, never working line-by-line and seldom methodically. Scansion might as well be a Swedish engineering firm for all I care. For reader as well as composer, poetry demands fine concentration. Ruined perhaps by decades of television, I find such concentration unpleasant.

The Firm – John Grisham, 1991 ★★½

Reconsidering John Grisham's Big Debut

The archetypical thriller of its day, The Firm offers a fascinating glimpse at an era defined in our rear view by caviar dreams and corded telephony. Though less gripping as a thriller, it still presents a terrific premise and a first hundred pages reminiscent of Frederick Forsyth.

Is there such a thing as being too clever for one’s own good? Meet Mitchell Y. McDeere. A top student at Harvard Law School, Mitch is recruited hard by a Memphis law firm, Bendini, Lambert & Locke.

A Comedy Of Errors – William Shakespeare, c. 1594 ★★★★

It's Raining Twins

Though I doubt many Shakespeare buffs put A Comedy Of Errors on their Bard Top Ten list, I have to ask: Does any comedy of his deliver the same measure of pure silly delight as this early farce? It’s not going to win anyone a Tony, no, but can you imagine an audience of youngsters having more fun watching another Shakespeare play?

Heck, I like it. More than that, I admire it. I said it, and now I’ll try to explain why I think you should, too.

Asterix The Gaul – Rene Goscinny & Albert Uderzo, 1961 ★★★

A Star is Born

How does a comedy legend take flight? Well, if you are a certain wing-headed warrior of ancient Gaul, you do it by establishing a simple formula, developing a steady flow of bad puns and easy laughs, and saving the big guy for the sequel.

That’s the approach writer René Goscinny and illustrator Albert Uderzo took in 1959 when they launched their international cartoon superstar Asterix, first in the pages of French comic magazine Pilote and then in a series of books two years on, beginning with this.