For the last 30 years or so, Merle Haggard has been Nashville's best male singer, with a rich, mellow voice and gently swinging delivery. From the sound of this sporadically anguished but absorbing autobiography, though, a lot of people have been walking on his fighting side. Haggard owns up to his delinquent-criminal past, which includes addictions to alcohol, cocaine and gambling and a two-year stretch in San Quentin for breaking and entering. But he comes down hard on his (unnamed) third wife, thieving employees and lying record company execs. And he bashes today's "sanitized" junior country music stars, who have the gall to claim veterans as their mentors. (CliffStreet/HarperCollins, $24)
Bottom Line: Mixed messages from Nashville's top dog
by David Baldacci
Page-turner of the week
Former trial lawyer Baldacci knows how to freshen a suspense novel's usual cast of characters. In Absolute Power a cat burglar plays good guy after witnessing a crime by the President. In Total Control a widow learns that the law-abiding husband she lost in an air crash is not only still alive but responsible for the disaster. This time the author gives us something truly astonishing: a Washington lobbyist with a heart of gold.
Faith Lockhart wants to tell the FBI her story: She and her lobbyist boss have bribed senators and congressmen with their own money in the service of a greater good. After a lifetime of trying to win congressional favors for elite corporations, the pair now want to help the world's poor by fostering laws that offer vaccinations and other aid to needy countries. But an America-first archconservative at the CIA is on to their scheme. After an FBI agent is slain and Faith goes on the run, the plot whirls into an interagency battle that spotlights the worst—and some of the best—about the folks who inhabit the nation's capital. Although he's the king of the Beltway potboiler, Baldacci takes his time turning up the heat of this slow-building caper. But once the plot is warmed, it bubbles away in fine style. (Warner, $26.95)
Bottom Line: Master storyteller keeps the faith
by Karen Plunkett-Powell
Back in 1879, when Frank Winfield Woolworth first opened an expanded general store in Utica, N.Y., he could not have foreseen that it would revolutionize the retail industry and become a quintessential part of 20th-century American life. In Remembering Woolworth's, author Karen Plunkett-Powell (The Nancy Drew Scrapbook) affectionately retells the story of the chain's energetic rise and inexorable fall—its windows were finally shuttered in 1997. Mostly, though, readers are taken on a well-illustrated stroll down the aisles of the "Red-Front" store where Americans of all social classes could "buy their first tube of lipstick or hair tonic, a stack of 45 RPM records or posters of their favorite movie stars."
Whether it was perfume, an apple peeler, a pet turtle or a grilled cheese sandwich with a pickle wedge, you were likely to find it in this linoleum-tiled Casbah, and usually for the change in your pocket. Plunkett-Powell doesn't omit dramatic Wool-worth's episodes—such as the 1960 lunch-counter sit-ins by student civil rights advocates in Greensboro, N.C. (Part of that Formica counter is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.) But the emphasis is on nostalgia, brought to life by delightful Wool-worth's memorabilia and recollections from former customers. (St. Martin's, $27.95)
Bottom Line: Warm tribute to the five-and-dime's golden era
by Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins
Following in the literary footsteps of fellow popster Jewel, "T-Boz" Watkins of chart-topping girl group TLC offers up poems and essays on subjects close to her heart. The idea gelled the night a boyfriend skipped out with friends, leaving her to reruns of Ricki Lake on TV. Watkins felt a bond with a segment featuring overweight women verbally abused by their husbands and wrote a poem on the subject: "my outsides look happy/ but my insides are blue/ feeling so ugly about myself/ and it's all because of you." That poem, "un-pretty," evolved into TLC's No. 1 single of the same name. Much of Watkins' poetry is pedestrian—scattershot reflections on topics from prostitution to Marilyn Manson—but essays about her sickle-cell anemia or her difficult relationship with her dad prove T-Boz to be thoughtful and full of...tender loving care. (HarperEntertainment, $19.95)
Bottom Line: High and low notes
by Edna Buchanan
In her sixth outing with quick-thinking police reporter Britt Montero, author Edna Buchanan (The Corpse Had a Familiar Face) again shows the street smarts that earned her a Pulitzer Prize for police reporting in 1986 at The Miami Herald. And as her Cuban coffee-swilling alter ego works her South Florida beat, Buchanan gives readers the inside scoop on how a major daily newspaper covers a crime story.
This time Britt comes up against the Kiss Me Killer, a young serial murderer so dubbed because she leaves lipstick traces on the bullets she uses and her victims are always men. The murders start in northern Florida, but Britt is convinced the killer is heading her way, and she means to be first with the story.
Never much of a team player, Britt finds herself isolated and forced on a nightmarish excursion with her volatile subject. Although the ending strains credibility, Buchanan keeps the action crackling in this edgy psychological tale. (Avon Twilight, $24)
Bottom Line: Ripe for the pickin'
>SINCERELY, ANDY ROONEY Andy Rooney
Witty and wise as ever, 60 Minutes' resident curmudgeon answers some of his mail, touching on WW II, racism and trial lawyers, among other topics. (PublicAffairs, $23)
DUNE: HOUSE ATREIDES Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson Dune creator Frank Herbert died in 1986. In this gripping prequel cowritten by his son, many of the sci-fi series' most puzzling mysteries are explained. (Bantam, $27.50)
IT AIN'T NO SIN TO BE GLAD YOU'RE ALIVE Eric Alterman A seasoned political journalist and a fervent Bruce Springsteen fan, Alterman crafts a balanced yet passionate bio that plumbs the Boss's artistic origins and achievements. (Little, Brown, $20)
- Contributors:
- Ralph Novak,
- J.D. Reed,
- Rob Stout,
- Nick Charles,
- Jean Reynolds.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
