THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 18, 1994 TAG: 9412140410
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
A time capsule of a coffee-table book is Our Glorious Century (Reader's Digest, $40). Any flip of the pages offers images and text concerned with the past 94 years, on subjects as diverse as F.D.R. and J.R. Ewing; Caruso and Satchmo; Carry Nation and the Woodstock Nation. With more than 1,600 color and black and white photos, a handy chronology, minialmanac and index, this entertaining reference book has something for everyone - all mixed in with equal doses of information and nostalgia.
Nick Bantock is back with a gifty package called Averse to Beasts: 23 Reasonless Rhymes (Chronicle Books, $16.95). Bantock, of the mystically romantic ``Griffin & Sabine'' trilogy, has gone downright silly in this cute combination of illustrated book and audiotape. While it's directed toward children, Bantock typically delivers a sly wink to adults. He performs the ``live'' reading to an appreciative audience of beasty sounds, emoting nutty poems like the one about a cat named Thick Soup or a giant bunny who takes revenge on a pair of road-killing drivers.
- PEGGY DEANS EARLE
Two popular reference annuals have just arrived in bookstores:
Roger Ebert's Video Companion 1995 Edition (Andrews and McMeel, 958 pp., $15.95 paper) adds 150 full-length movie reviews to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Sun-Times critic's continuing book series. Besides reviews of nearly 2,000 movies on video, Ebert offers entertaining essays and interviews and his popular offbeat feature, ``Questions for the Movie Answer Man.'' An accompanying Pocket Video Guide lists Ebert's star ratings for every movie in his Video Companion.
The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1995 (World Almanac Books, 976 pp., $8.95) records a year in which Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as president of South Africa, a football superstar fell from grace and a Republican sweep gave the GOP control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. This year's almanac adds a section on crime and law enforcement.
Other good bets:
The Best American Sports Writing (Tom Boswell, editor), The Best American Short Stories (Tobias Wolff, editor) and The Best American Essays (Tracy Kidder, editor) of 1994, Houghton Mifflin, paperback, $11.95 each;
Carter's Grove: The Story of a Virginia Plantation from The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
- ANN G. SJOERDSMA by CNB