If you’re a fan of Wonder Woman, Angel, Lightning Lass, Saturn Girl, Storm, Super-Girl, Batwoman, and dozens of other superheroines, this book is for you. Author Mike Madrid goes decade by decade exploring the changing roles of women with special powers. As a cultural history, The Supergirls explores the evolving characters of women within the comic book genre. This encyclopedic volume is the only one I know of that focuses on female superheroes exclusively. My only quibble about The Supergirls centers on the lack of color graphics Madrid could have used to illustrate his data. But, perhaps that would have made the book unreasonably expensive (I paid about $10 for this trade paperback edition). Madrid packs plenty of information and humor in this breezy history. GRADE: A-

John Keegan writes brilliant military history books: The Face of Battle, The Mask of Command, Soldiers, and a dozen more. The books are clearly written and accessible to the average reader. Keegan’s latest book, The American Civil War brings his British objectivity to bear on our most disturbing and horrific war. Some readers will chafe while Keegan puts the economic, political, and social factors behind the Civil War into perspective for the first hundred pages. But then the analysis of the key battles begin and the surprises mount. Who knew so many Southerners fought without shoes? Who knew the South led the world in submarine technology? Keegan even brings in Karl Marx who predicted the South would lose because of the North’s economic power. In about 360 pages, Keegan manages to capture the essence of the Civil War in ways that made me reexamine familiar history and make it new again. I hope someone like James Reasoner, who has written extensively on the Civil War, comments on this volume. I thought it was magnificent! GRADE: A

Twenty-five years ago, I picked up the first Windham Hill A Winter’s Solstice CD, there are now eight CDs in the series. I get annoyed with most traditional Christmas music. We have two radio stations here who start broadcasting 24-hour Christmas music right after Halloween! A Winter’s Solstice presents “seasonal” music that acts as an antidote to all those tired Christmas carols. And AMAZON has it on sale for $6.99! If you’re looking for instrumental music that doesn’t get repetitious and dull with repeated playing, give A Winter’s Solstice a try.
Here’s the track list:
1. Greensleeves – Steve Erquiaga
2. When Earth’s Last Picture Is Painted – Richard Schönerz
3. Gathering – Tracy Silverman, Thea Suits-Silverman
4. Silver Swans – Paul McCandless
5. Shades of White – Jim Brickman
6. Col Partir la Bella Clori – Steve Erquiaga, Joan Jeanrenaud
7. Moon Lake – W.G. Snuffy Walden
8. Come, All Ye Shepherds – Barbara Higbie
9. Beneath the Trees – Philip Aaberg, Will Ackerman
10. Down in Yon Forest – Brian Dunning, Jeff Johnson & Brian Dunning
11. Maiden Chant – Liz Story
12. When Comes December – Tim Story
13. Queen’s Prayer – Ozzie Kotani

Rebecca Stead’s tricky When You Reach Me is a homage to Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Twelve-year-old Miranda lives with her single mom in New York City. Through a series of events, Miranda learns she’s part of a time-travel scenario. When I heard librarian Nancy Pearl praise this book on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition last week, I knew I had to read it. I love time travel stories and this Young Adult novel captures the paradoxes and tangled logic perfectly for its audience. Don’t miss this one! GRADE: B+

Everybody is NOT fine in Everybody’s Fine. Robert De Niro plays a retired plastics worker whose wife has just died. He tries to get his four adult children to come home for a weekend together, but all four find reasons not to return home. De Niro decides to surprise them with a visit. So for seemingly endless hours we watch De Niro take trains and buses to visit his children in New York City, Chicago, Denver, and Vegas. There’s a crisis and suddenly a mawkish ending appears. How Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, and Sam Rockwell ended up wasting their time in this fluff film is perplexing. With a cast like this, a much much better movie should have been the result. Instead, the cast was completely wasted by Kirk Jones’ lame script and lamer direction. What a stinker! Beware! GRADE: F

Morris Dickstein loves impossible quests. Years ago Dickstein tried to capture the Zeitgeist of the 1960’s in Gates of Eden: American Culture in the Sixties. Dancing in the Dark follows that same model: Dickstein riffs on the music, movies, and books of the decade. Clearly, even 600 pages isn’t enough to capture the cultural history of such an important time in America. But Dickstein does his best analyzing what he considers the key book of the decade, Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep. Raymond Chandler gets a brief mention. Then it’s off to the music of the Depression centering around the Gershwins. I found Dickstein’s treatment of the movies of the Thirties the weakest part of the book. But there are other books like John Howard Reid’s Award-Winning Films of the 1930s to supplement that gap. All in all, Dickstein’s book gives an intelligent overview of the decade and its art. GRADE: B

Mickey Mouse and His Space Ship was published in 1951 by Golden Books. I was two years old and my Mom would read this early science fiction adventure to me every night. Clearly, this began my love of Disney characters, especially Uncle Scrooge, and imaginative space adventures. I don’t remember many of my other kids books, but I sure remember this one after having it read to me about a thousand times. Jane Werner, Milton Banta, and John Ushler are listed as authors.

Sixties music is really the star of this frothy entertainment. Back in 1966, the BBC only played two hours of rock music per week. Pirate radio stations broadcasting from ships in the North Sea brought the music of the Who, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and hundreds of rock artists 24 hours a day. The thin plot of this movie centers around the Government’s attempts to shut down the pirate radio stations. There’s plenty of drinking and sex aboard the pirate ship. The crew, featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Bill Nighy, with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson spicing up the action, becomes endearing as the Government’s actions get more dire. Through it all, the vintage music scintillates. Plenty of fun here. GRADE: B+

Patti Abbott was right about the TOP CHEF judges banishing Jennifer last week. So tonight we’re down to Kevin (my favorite), Bryan, and Michael. Expect the usual TOP CHEF trickery as the judges throw some curves at these finalists in an attempt to get them off their game. I would be fine with Bryan winning if Kevin somehow messes up, but the thought of arrogant Michael winning gives me the shivers. This Sixth Season of TOP CHEF was one of the best. Plenty of great cooking and competitive challenges. I can’t wait for Season Seven! My prediction is that we’ll hear Padma say, “Kevin, you are TOP CHEF!”

“A writing course in a box.” That’s the way I would market this fabulous box set of interviews on the craft of writing. Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Kurt Vonnegut, Elizabeth Bishop, Richard Price, Joan Didion, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Philip Larkin, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Stephen King, Robert Lowell, Ralph Ellison, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Maya Angelou, Haruki Murakami, Paul Auster, Marilynne Robinson, and many more writers discuss how and why they write. It doesn’t get much better than this. Who wouldn’t want this wonderful set as a holiday gift? GRADE: A