Albom, Mitch.  Tuesdays with Morrie.

After approximately twenty years, the author recaptures a friendship with his college professor Morrie Shwartz.  Morrie was a unique teacher and a unique human being.  He guided Albom through his college years, allowing him to see things more clearly to make his way through life. Now Morrie is dying of a horrible debilitating disease, and Albom is given the chance to speak with him and learn from him once again.  The relationship establishes honesty, tenderness, and love between the two.  Morrie,each day losing his ability to move and do anything for himself, faces his life and death with humor and directness.  While Albom gains insights from Morrie's advice, the reader gains as well.  Love and forgiveness (forgiveness of oneself and others, seem paramount to a fulfilling life. Mitch Albom was a student at Brandeis University in the '70's.  He is a sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press.  He is the author of BO and FAB FIVE and has also had several collections of his columns published.

Alvord, Lori Arviso.  The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing.

The reader follows Dr. Alvord from the Navajo reservation where she lived with her Navajo father and white mother to the halls of Dartmouth for her undergaduate work and to Stanford for her medical degree. What she encounters along the way as a woman and as a Navajo brings the reader to a much greater appreciation of her accomplishments.  Her combination of Western medicine and Navajo healing practices may call to mind a doctor who was technically most adept but lacking any "bedside manner."  Recent changes in medical training have encouraged broadening the curriculum to  include the humanities.  Treating the whole person was Dr. Alvord's goal, but Navajo traditions such as no removal of organs from the body and never asking personal questions had to be surmounted to do it.  Physicians may not fully appreciate the sacred bear spirit of the title, but the reader will find her message about how to improve the patient's peace of mind entirely credible. A sad personal aside -- on p. 31 -- "Before the 1960's fewer than twenty Native students graduated from Dartmouth. Then in the 1970's, the Native American studies program was developed by college president John Kemeny and writer *Michael Dorris* and Dartmouth began to take its mission in earnest." Does this not make his death all the more poignant?

Apple, Max.  I Love Gootie: My Grandmother's Story.

In a moving yet humorous memoir, Apple relates the story of his grandmother Gootie, as seen through the eyes of first a little boy, then a teenager,and finally a young man.  Gootie was a real "yiddishe mama,"an immigrant who came to America from Lithuania after the First World War.She never learned English, never fully adapted to American ways, and was typical of a lot of immigrants from that period.  Apple's tale reflects love, understanding, and respect for Gootie and her peers, and gives insight into the lives these immigrant women lived and their relationships with their American families and neighbors.

Bayley, John.  Elegy for Iris.

On the basis of books like Tolstoy and the Novel  and Shakespeare and Tragedy, the English writer John Bayley has established something of a reputation as a literary critic, but he is probably most known as the husband of Irish Murdoch, the British novelist who was undeniably one of the literary lights of the 20th century.  This is especially true since the publication of Elegy for Iris, the memoir Bayley wrote before Iris died from complications of Alzheimer's Disease.  A slim book, written in readable and melodious prose, this is Bayley's recollectionof life with Iris, from his earliest infatuation with her when they were both part of the academic society at Oxford, she a dazzling 34-year-old philosopher and he a struggling 28-year-old scholar of English literature. In 1956, two years after meeting, and by this time deeply in love, they were married. Bayley includes interesting details from Iris's childhood and good background on some of her many novels that only someone who knew her intimately might be privy to, so readers looking for such detail will find this book a must.  Among Iris Murdoch's most popular titles areA Severed Head, The Nice and the Good, and The Sea,The Sea.  It has been said that much of her work has a certain similarity:  most of the novels are sharp and witty studies of different types of people in all sorts of contemporary relationships, including and often featuring adultery.  There is often a charismatic, somewhat mysterious man used cleverly as a plot device, a little mysticism, and some reference to drowning.  Analyst that he is, Bayley is always trying to get into Iris's mind, usually finding it elusive, but readers of Murdoch's work should find these passages revealing.  Bayley shows a true appreciation for the great and unique qualities of Iris's writing, for which she received both the Whitbread and the Booker Prize and was made a Dame in 1987. Although others referred to it as a marriage of two great minds, Bayley makes it clear that theirs was a physically passionate union, as well. Along with chatty details about Iris's early life and loves, the reader gets a glimpse of two academics loving and living fully, enjoying popular songs, dancing, good food, and friends.  The spectre of Alzheimer's Disease hovers over this memoir almost from the beginning, and it is in dealing with changes in Iris's behavior before the diagnosis in 1994 and the difference Alzheimer's would make in their life together, that the book may have greatest relevance for some readers.  Because it is not a clinical study, but is written from the standpoint of a compassionate caretaker doing what is in his power to do to maintain some quality of life and dignity for a brilliant and beloved wife who seems to be descending into a deepening "fog", the book may comfort and even instructreaders with afflicted relatives.  The first publication of Elegy for Iris was in the New Yorker magazine in July 1998.  In the August2, 1999 issue, Bayley's "Last Jokes" appeared, a personal history segment describing the further decline of Iris, her placement in a facility,and other events leading up to her death in February, 1999.

Berg, A. Scott.  Lindbergh.

The product of extensive research by an accomplished biographer, this book presents a well-written, balanced portrait of Charles Lindbergh. Famous for his legendary solo flight across the Atlantic to Paris in May of 1927,and for his many contributions to the development of commercial aviation, Lindbergh became a very controversial figure due to his fascination with Hitler's Germany, and due to his active involvement  with the isolationist America First movement.  The tragedy of his child's abduction and death, and the story of his long, complicated marriage to Anne Morrow, are treated in great detail, painting a fascinating portrait of a complex and private man.

Gold, Lois.  Mommy Dressing.

Not so much a definitive biography as an exploration of the relationship between a famous, non-nurturing mother and the child she deprived. Lois Gold's biography of her mother, Jo Copeland, gives the reader brief glimpses of the fashion industry which made her famous and the celebrity clientele she dressed.  But it focuses mainly on Copeland's defects as a mother -- a mother who put both emotional and physical barriers between herself and her daughter.  To be read by those desiring to share the cathartic effect of such an exploration, as well as those interested in the demons which sometimes drive the creative mind. In her attempts to understand her mother, Gold takes us on an odyssey through her childhood. She tells of a child reared by a string of martinet governesses in a house, not a home, where no child could be comfortable. To step on the white marble tiles in the hallway was to bring on a swift and severe punishment. she seems a child always on the fringes of her mother's life. From her bedroom she can hear the faint sounds of her mother's parties where the celebrities of the day are entertained lavishly, but she must stay where she is, clean, inoffensive, and feigning sleep. In ruminating on her mother's past, the author finally obtains some closure on her own .  Jo Copeland had no mother to model herself after.  Hers had died giving birth to her and the only way her father and stepmother could maintain a second marriage was to make a mutual agreement never to refer to former spouses. Hence the memory of Jo's mother was wiped from the face of the family. She only knew that her mother died giving birth to her, and she came to associate all sex, birth, and by extension motherhood, with victimization. Covering the body would produce a barrier against that victimization. Thus her innate talent was coupled with her unresolved inner conflicts to produce a woman who was phenomenally successful in her field but who paid the price in her personal life.

  Edith Head's Hollywood. 

This book focuses more on the fashion industry -- one aspect of it thatis.  Edith Head lived into her early eighties and worked until the last day of her life as a costume designer for the movies.  A particular kind of design is called for in this aspect of the profession.  The object is not to enhance the star but to delineate the role the star plays. In the film The Country Girl,  Grace Kelly -- a former model-- is made to appear as the dowdy wife of an alcoholic has-been and who has given up on life.  As the film progresses and the husband starts to make a comeback in his career, Kelly's wardrobe improves.  Head to have a thorough knowledge of the actress, the script, and the place of the character in it in order to survive in her profession.  And survive she did, with over 1,300 films to her credit, thirty-five nominations and eight Oscars.  Head herself said that she could never be a retail designer who has to worry each year whether her collection sells. The variables she would have to deal with in terms of body types, lifestyles, and sections of the country would be too much for her.  Brief vignettes of the stars she dressed.  Some analysis of her character -- aggressive, capable of bluff, accused of stealing ideas from other designers.

Haedrich, Marcel. Coco Chanel, Her Life, Her Secrets.

When I finished the 268 pages of Haedrich's book I almost felt I needed to read another bio on Coco Chanel to "get the story straight." To begin with, it is a translation from the French and I found the sentences hard to follow.  Further, it seems to be an attempt on the part ofthe writer to recount faithfully "the facts" as recounted by the subject.  The problem is that the subject is a woman in her later years who feels the necessity of maintaining her legend but seems to forget what version of the legend she is revealing on any particular day. So the reader is dealing with a translation of material which was probably never too clear in the first place.  I was particularly intrigued by the rumors that during the Occupation she lived with one of the high-ranking members of the Nazi forces, and was curious to know why (if this was so)she did not share the fate of so many other collaborators.  This chapter of her life was presented in a very vague way, and I found myself asking for a clarification which I was never given.  And so it was throughout the book!

Iverson, Kristen.  Molly Brown: Unraveling the Myth.

Dr. Kristen Iverson spent eight years researching the story of Margaret Brown, the most famous survivor of the sinking of the Titanic.  She uncovered archival material that had been overlooked or ignored, and was allowed access to scrapbooks, photographs, and family keepsakes by Margaret's descendents.  There were many myths about Margaret, who was never called Molly (Hollywood changed her name because it was easier to sing.) She was reported to have been a vulgar, uneducated, uncouth woman born to a drunken Irish father and a mother who died soon after her birth. None of this was true. Dr. Iverson's well-researched and well-documented book shows that Margaret Brown was actually a well-educated, multilingual woman who was comfortable in society in the U.S. and in Europe.  She was a philanthropist, a feminist, a politician, and an author.  With all of the renewed interest in the Titanic, it was time that the record be set straight about "Molly" Brown.

McBride, James.  The Color of Water:  a Black Man's Tributeto his White Mother.

The Color of Water is written in alternating chapters, one as told by Ruth and the next as told by James.  It is the story of a Jewish woman, daughter of a rabbi living in the south, who fled her home and faith to escape the harshness and lack of love at home.  In New York City she found peace and trust with the very people she was told to avoid.  Black folks never judged her.  She married two black men, lived in housing projects, and had twelve children, all of whom graduated college and most beyond.  Ruth's story is one of determination, faith,love, and survival amidst hardships and despair.  In telling his mother's story, James reveals his inner confusion and identity issues and learns who he is.

Moody, Joseph P., M. D.  Medicine Man to the Inuit:  A Young Doctor's Adventures Among the Eskimos.

Dr. Moody chronicles the 3 1/2 years he spent in East Arctic Canada as a Health Officer for the Canadian Department of National Health and Welfare and as a prospector.  Travelling by dogsled and small aircraft, he visited his patients who were spread over 600,000 miles of dangerous Arctic wilderness, battling the elements as well as disease.  He gives us a rare glimpse of the beauty of this vast ice world and its mysterious inhabitants. Joseph Moody was born in Canada.  He lost his parents when he was very young and managed to work his way through college. In 1946 he graduated from the University of Western Ontario and applied for government medical service in the Arctic.  He wanted to continue to study surgery, but his financial situation made it impossible. When he saw in ad in the newspaper about this position, the salary was too attractive to overlook.  He moved his wife and daughter to his headquarters at Chesterfield Inlet on the west coast of Hudson Bay. With very little knowledge of the area, he embarked on his duties and a new learning experience.  Often travelling for months by dog sled to help his patients, he discovered the beauty and perils of this region. He became a consultant for the military, a prospector, and an advocate to preserve the Arctic and its inhabitants.  This book should appeal to readers of Arctic/Antarctic exploration, mountaineering expeditions,and to young adult who have to read a true adventure.

O'Faolain, Nuala.  Are You Somebody?  The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman.

This is the "coming-of-age" story of a middle-aged Irish woman.It is interesting because it is written in a style that includes the reader in the self- discovery of the writer's life.  As the book opens, she finds herself alone and unhappy at the middle of her life, and is metaphorically scratching her head, wondering how she arrived at this place.  Through her musings, she discovers that she has spent the majority of her time reacting to her surroundings rather than directing her life.  It is interesting because it describes Ireland and England during the post-World War II era and through the 1970's.  The author is a university lecturer and a producer for the BBC.  She is presently the columnist for TheIrish Times,  a position her father had held when she was a child. This story has the requisite drinking and sadness that has come to mark Irish memoirs like Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt and Four Letters of Love by Niall Williams.

Orlean, Susan.  The Orchid Thief.

Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief is a true story of obsession and passion.  The orchid thief is eccentric John LaRoche.  Orlean describes him as "sharply handsome, in spite of  the fact tha the is missing all of his front teeth."  When LaRoche is arrested for stealing rare ghost orchids from the Fakahatchee Strand of South Florida, Orlean, a staff writer for The New Yorker, gets wind of his story and is drawn into the bizarre world of orchid collectors.  While LaRoche is hardly able to carry a biography on his own, Orlean weaves exotic plants,obsessed collectors, Seminole Indians, south Florida land development, and alligator- ridden wetlands into an interesting story.

Pernoud, Regine, and Marie-Veronique Clin.  Joan of Arc: Her Story.

Appearing for the first time in an edition for an American audience, here is a well-crafted and innovative  history of the 15th century French insurrectionist.   Regine Pernoud, who passed away in April, has supplemented her previous biography of Joan of Arc.  Pernoud and Clin introduce readers to Joan as she appeared in documents. Both independent scholars in France, they offer valuable insights into the nature of Joan's history.  True details  of Joan's military leadership at age 17, her imprisonment and trial, and her execution by being burned at the stake at age 19, are all surprisingly well attested by letters, trial transcripts, contemporary histories, and letters Joan penned herself.   A well- crafted book, where readers can eyeball the documents and draw our own conclusions.  Excellent detective work by scholars, and a must read for anyone interested in this enigmatic individual. An affecting and absolutely thrilling life of a woman who influences us even to this day. Regine Pernoud is French and was born June 17, 1909,the only daughter of Louis and Nelly Pernoud.  She received her BA from Notre Dame at Marseilles in 1926, and in 1928 studied to become an archivist.  In 1928 she won the Femina Prize and in 1946 received the Office of the Legion of Honor.  In 1979 she received an Honorary doctorate from the College Anna-Maria of Worcaster.  In her career she has been Head of Conferences (1945-6), curator of the Museum de Reim(1947-9), curator of the Museum of History in Paris (1950-74), and founder and director of the Jeanne d'Arc Centre in Orlean, France (1974-99). In her numerous books about people and customs of the Middle Ages, Pernoud has shown a special interest in the women of that era; in addition to Joan of Arc, she has written on Heloise, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Blanche of Castile.  "Women have played an important part in the developmentof medieval civilization," she said.  Pernoud was a scholar on her own terms.

Reichel, Ruth.  Tender at the Bone.

Ruth Reichel, editor of Gourmet magazine and former food critic for the New York Times warns at the outset of her memoir of people and meals she has known that while everything she tells us about is true, it may not be entirely factual.  Though this may be the case, she tells an absorbing and interesting story. Reichel's mother was manic-depressive and Ruth's early interest in food was for self-preservation.  Her mother was the "Queen of Mold" and often served aging foods from questionable sources.  Reichel learned to cook in order to protect her family and their guests from food poisoning.  This early interest in food was strengthened and encouraged by her Aunt Birdy's African-American cook, whose idea of comfort food was apple dumplings. As Reichel's story progresses, we meet classmates, roommates, travelling companions, fellow workers, and her husband; but all share the focus with the food that she eats along the way (recipes included).  She works as a waitress, a chef, a caterer, and a member of a restaurant cooperative.  Reichel goes on a wine-buying trip with an expert to learn the intricacies of wine-tasting and choosing.  All of this prepares her for her ultimate role of food critic.  Tender at the Bone is an interesting and satisfying memoir that should not be read on an empty stomach.

Stahl, Lesley.  Reporting Live.

An entertaining, informative account of Ms Stahl's career as a CBS television reporter.  If you're looking for details of her personal life, you won't find much here.  But what she does reveal about her daily interaction with the White House and with Presidents Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and Bush results in an excellent tale of history and the nail-biting tension of a reporter's life.  Ms Stahl's daily agenda included extracting information from her sources, lining up guests for her weekly stint as hostess of "Face the Nation," trips all over the world, and social functions with world leaders.  Parallel to her professional life she gives us a commentary on her family and how she maintained a perfect hairstyle with mega-doses of hairspray.

Vella, Christina.  Intimate Enemies: The Two Worlds of the Baroness De Pontalba.

The Baroness was born in New Orleans to a wealthy Spanish bureacrat;her father died when she was five years old.  Young Micaela was contracted to marry Celestin de Pontalba when she was fifteen and moved to Francewith her new family.  The de Pontalba family were titled, but in desperate need of money to run their extended real estate holdings.  The Baronde Pontalba, Micaela's father-in-law, tried for twenty years to get control of Micaela's money directly.  He did all he could to drive her to leave his son, and when that didn't work, he tried to have her declared insane.  Failing at that, he finally shot her four times in the chest,and when she didn't die, he shot himself. While she recuperated from her wounds she returned to New Orleans.  Under her influence was created the French Quarter that is the tourist attraction in New Orleans. She undertook extensive building and rebuilding of her father's properties in the city.  After several years she returned to France to care for her husband who was now suffering from dementia.  The story of this extraordinary woman is interesting because of the manner in which she was able to maintain control of her life and her money within the confines of the male-dominated society in which she lived.  The text is written in a scholarly manner and is probably the product of a dissertation. Most of the story is garnered from correspondence and the lengthy trial transcripts that are on record both in New Orleans and in France.

Whitmer, Peter.  The Inner Elvis: A Psychological Biography of Elvis Aron Presley.

In his psychological portrait of Elvis, Whitmer delves into the personality, psyche, and private life of one of the most famous performers of all time.The reader is taken simultaneously on an intimate biographical journey of Elvis' life and a historical tour through the origins of rock-and-roll. Whitmer poses several psychological theories regarding Elvis' development as a performer and his maturation from child to adult, which are thoroughly interesting, although may not be entirely plausible to every reader. Attributes of biography: *  well-written, with a scholarly bent in its psychological explanations *  thoroughly researched;  includes an extensive index and over 30 pages of footnotes. * includes a lot of historical information, which places Elvis' biography in a larger context. Discusses the development of rock and roll, other significant musicians and events that influenced the time period. * the psychological theories presented are fascinating and quite involved.  However, some are discussed in a repetitious manner and it seems the author is trying hard to convince the reader.  Not every reader will agree with the author's theories.* there are many biographies of Elvis written from a first-person viewpoint, by one of his family members, friends, or employees.  Others, from a third-person viewpoint, are often critical or scandalous.  This biography is essentially neither;  it analyzes Elvis from a third-person viewpoint and generally does so in a pragmatic manner. * a highly interesting, entertaining read for Elvis fans, music history buffs, and psychology students.

Winchester, Simon.  The Professor and the Madman: a Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The monumental Oxford English Dictionary, seven decades in the making,is a feat of intellectual heroism.   The leading light in its creation was Professor James Murray, who spent more than 40 years editing a project he would never live to see completed.  But Murray had helpers-- tens of thousands of them -- who volunteered to scour the whole of English literature for the millions of quotations that make the OED so valuable. And one of the most important of those volunteers was Dr. William Chester Minor, an American expatriate and Civil War veteran, who provided literally thousands of entries to the dictionary editing team.  But one thing made Dr. Minor unique:  he was a certified lunatic, a brutal murderer,who researched and mailed his entries from the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Winchester weaves together the stories of his three heroes: Murray,the self-educated Scot from humble beginnings, who rose  to this position of eminence by brilliance and determination;  Minor, the troubled scion of a patrician Connecticut family, whose brutal war experiences triggered his maddened obsessions with violence, sex, and guilt, relieved only by lexicography; and the OED itself, the "big dictionary", whose creation represented one of the finest academic achievements of the last two centuries.   It is a story about madness and brilliance,and the fine line between them; about friendship and hard work, and the redemptive powers of both; and above all about the English language, the love of words, and the enormous labor that goes into the effort to capture,define, and describe them.  Appropriately, if sometimes too self-consciously,each chapter is prefaced by an except from the OED, featuring an appropriate word:  "murder", "polymath", "lunatic"and the like. The Professor and the Madman (or, The Surgeon ofCrowthorne, its original, less-melodramatic title in the U.K.) doesnot pretend to be the definitive treatise on the OED, or on any of its creators.  Readers who come looking for either a scholarly tome or a lurid true-crime novel will be disappointed.  It is quick(less than 250 pages) and enthralling, reading more like a novel than like non-fiction.  The structure, with its rapid change of scene and topic,both heightens interest but can become annoying; Winchester offers only tantalizing tastes as he flits from digression to diversion. As befits a journalist, his style is droll and accessible; as befits his topic, his vocabulary is elegant, if occasionally grandiloquent.  He has an unerring grasp for the riveting image, the sensational anecdote, the amusing detail; and he displays a masterful facility in re-creating character and atmosphere in a few quick strokes.  While his research is admirable, and his sources fully credited, he is not above speculation, sometimes simplistic or judgmental.  Reviewers, both professional and amateur (on the online sites) are fairly equally divided between rapturous enthusiasm over what is there, and disappointed disdain that there is not more. Simon Winchester is a newspaper and magazine writer with a thirty-year career specializing in Asian travel writing.  His earlier works include The river atthe center of the world;  The sun never sets; Korea: a walk through the Land of Miracles;  and Pacific Rising. In an interview with Barnes&Noble.com, he has indicated that he plans his next work to be on the ill-fated Antarctic expedition of the 1880s. The Professor and the Madman has been optioned for a movie, and Mel Gibson has expressed interest in the role of Professor Murray.