'Mollie Peer'
By Van ReidViking, $24.95
Van Reid has already written about the warm and gentle world of turn-of-the-century Portland, Maine, populated with quirky and lovable characters, in his debut novel, "Cordelia Underwood," July 1999. Now here is the second novel, "Mollie Peer or the Underground Adventure of the Moosepath League."
The story revolves around the good-natured Tobias Walton and his band of fumbling eccentrics, the members of the Moosepath League. Mollie Peer, a feisty newspaper columnist, and the gigantic Wyckford O'Hearn, a member of the beleaguered Portland baseball team, pull the members into a crazy plot consisting of smugglers, a dirty, sweet-natured boy, an unemployed actor, a spiritualist woman and a frenzied chase.
The eccentricity here is the charm, and the fun comes in seeing how the participants release themselves from the plot and return to a world of clean and cozy amusements in the end. There is an odd mixture of romance, adventure and humor, and the setting, the catacomb-like underground of the Portland waterfront. This is wonderful storytelling and simple kindness expertly combined. -- Dennis Lythgoe
'I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away'
By Bill Bryson, Broadway, $25
Take your basic American guy who grew up in the Midwest. Export him to England for a couple of decades. Then import him back -- to New England, this time -- and ask him to look around and write about what he makes of things. From his newly adopted community of Hanover, N.H., he has humorous and insightful thoughts, on the invention of the garbage disposal, privacy rights, classic East Coast diners and Americans' limitless capacity to shop.
His take on New Hampshire's license plate slogan, "Live Free or Die": "Perhaps I take these things too literally, but I really don't like driving around with an explicit written vow to expire if things don't go right. Frankly, I would prefer something a little more equivocal and less terminal -- 'Live Free or Pout,' perhaps."
Bryson wrote many of these essays for British newspapers, trying to figure out, in his own good-naturedly pugnacious way, what makes American culture tick. His entertaining conclusions -- and the paths to them -- make this laugh-out-loud reading that actually has something to say. -- Ted Anthony, Associated Press
'Total Memory Workout: 8 Easy Steps to Maximum Memory Fitness'
By Cynthia R. Green, Bantam, $23.95
At a time when many of us are frightened that we are losing our memories, this book is an appropriate treatment by an expert, Dr. Cynthia Green, director of the Memory Enhancement Program at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She discusses lifestyle and diet and the importance of knowing what NOT to remember.
Green talks about paying attention and giving meaning to information we want to recall and suggests a lifestyle-memory connection, along with ideas about the best foods to boost brain power, memory tools and techniques that keep the memory sharp; how to remember stories, lists and names; and, finally, ways to preserve memory gains over a lifetime.
This is an encouraging and practical book that gives specific ideas -- albeit so many that you can't possibly remember them all. -- Dennis Lythgoe