'Paper Trail: Common Sense in Uncommon Times'
By Ellen Goodman
Simon & Schuster, $25
Ellen Goodman is a Pulitzer-winning syndicated columnist whose work appears in more than 400 newspapers, although she lives in Boston and got her start at The Boston Globe. She has written seven other books, most of them collections of her columns. In this, her first collection in 10 years, Goodman wrestles with some current difficult issues, such as abortion, working mothers, gay marriage, civil liberties, assisted suicide and biotech babies.
She also includes columns on the Clinton scandals, the dot-com boom and bust, the horrors of 9/11, and she celebrates some lost icons, such as Jackie Onassis, Princess Diana and Doctor Spock. Without exception, her writing is sharp, probing and witty.
In one of her better columns, entitled, "Getting to Know Death," Goodman complains that "the obituary page doesn't say how the old people died. It merely lists the causes like a coroner's report or perhaps a police blotter" and none of them include "old age."
Goodman wants to know how these people died — "In pain or at peace? Surrounded by loved ones or alone? With a team of hi-technicians trying to drag them back to life or with a process we would call natural?" The author would rather that we consider death as part of "the human condition. It's not medicine's failure to cure the disease of a 102-year-old." — Dennis Lythgoe
'The Pecking Order: Which Siblings Succeed and Why'
By Dalton Conley
Pantheon, $24
Dalton Conley, a prominent social scientist and professor at New York University, examines "The Pecking Order," the process by which siblings are compared with each other. It is his conclusion that 75 percent of all differences between individuals are economic. In other words, "inequality starts at home."
Conley carefully examines the status hierarchy that is not necessarily connected to the natural ability of each person. That status may be assigned by parents, gender, race, genetics, birth order, family size, economics, divorce, adoption, second marriages, as well as luck or accidents of fate.
The author has worked on this project for five years, and he includes cases and a landmark study completed by the University of Michigan. He believes we have emphasized single factors, such as birth order, too much: "While data do show that only children excel on average, we do not know whether that is because of being the only kid in the family, or because of the types of parents that tend to stop after just one kid. What we can say for sure, however, is that only children do not have to experience the same sort of tensions, perceived inequities, sibling struggles, and intra-family stratification that those with brothers or sisters do. . . . But for most of us, kids are irresistible like potato chips — we can't stop at one." — Dennis Lythgoe
'The Classmates: A Mystery Novel'
By Marilyn Arnold
Cedar Fort, $15.95 (softcover)
Marilyn Arnold, who has written four other novels and three works of non-fiction, has a new one, "The Classmates." Refreshingly, the retired Brigham Young University English professor did not select an LDS theme, although the cultural setting is LDS. Her story is about five women in their mid-70s who come to live together in their hometown of Yucca Flats, Nev. Living together, they erroneously suppose, may protect them from a serial killer who is on the loose.
Arnold, known for quirky characters, does not disappoint here. But it may be a bit of a challenge for some readers to accept the quirky names — Theona Worley, Ephraim Potch, Justa Tinley, Valdean Purdy, Lenice Munroe and Madge Rinker. The only ordinary name is Florence Adair.
Although the mystery here is serious, it's often hard to take it that way, given the "Ma and Pa Kettle" manner of speech. But setting that aside, this is an apt character study of rural Mormonism, as well as a good solid story related by a natural storyteller. — Dennis Lythgoe