Steve Goddard's History Wire

Out in Paperback / Explorers of the New Century

Explorers of the New Century -- A Novel by Magnus Mills, Harcourt, $14, 184 pages, ISBN #0-15-603078-0.

Readers can't seem to get enough of adventure sagas, whether it be climbing Mount Everest, a la Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, or desperately questing towards the North or South Poles, as did explorers Shackleton and Perry. These, of course, are true stories. Now, Booker and Whitbread shortlister Magnus Mills has fictionalized such an adventure -- the crusade to reach the AFP (Agreed Furthest Point), a hair-raising competition between two obsessed teams. Library Journal compares Mills's storytelling to that of Franz Kafka and P.G. Wodehouse.

Book Alert / The Perfect Team

The Perfect Team -- The Best Players, Coach and GM -- Let the Debate Begin by the NBA, $23.95, 332 pages, ISBN # 0-385-50146-3. No index, bibliography or source notes, but stats galore as well as b&w photos of team choices sprinkled through text.

Soon the pro basketball season will end, followed by a long drought of watching only DVD replays 'til the fall. This book will be the fan's perfect companion during the long summer, as it reaches into the past to aggregate the perfect team ever. In each case, the process selects a singular trait that makes the player the superstar he is.

Accordingly, the 12-man roster includes such entries: "Point Guard: Oscar Robertson (Versatility)," "Shooting Guard: Allen Iverson (Courage)," "Small Forward: John Havlicek (Perpetual Motion and Hustle)," and "Center: Bill Russell (Pride)." The perfect coaches have been selected as well, but hey, we're not going to give everything away.

The player interviews are conducted by such fabled sportswriters as Bob Ryan and Frank DeFord. Here's Paul Ladewski on Michael Jordan and the "Will to Win:" "If Jordan could spindle, fold, or intimidate somebody -- anybody -- to improve his chances to succeed between the lines, then said person was fair game."

Out in Paperback / Sexualities in Context

Sexualities in Context  -- A Social Perspective by Rebecca F. Plante, Westview, 328 pages, ISBN# 0-8133-4293-7. Index, source notes, no bibliography, unillustrated.

Sex is not all about you, as hard as that may be to believe. It's a social phenomenon as well, Professor Plante tells her students, as she surveys The Basics of Sexuality (birds and bees, perhaps?), Becoming Sexual, and Sex in a Social Context. She talks about such esoterica as "vaginal rejuvenation," hymen reconstruction and labiaplasty and how some men get cadaver skin wrapped around their penises to achieve more girth." All you ever wanted to know? Or more than you ever wanted to know?

Sharon Stone: Flashing's Out But Kinks Remain

"Paul Verhoeven's 1992 "Basic Instinct" may have had plot problems, but it didn't skimp on style, and its star, Sharon Stone, carried the whole picture deftly, as if it were a book perched delicately on the top of her head," recalls Salon. The picture's most famous moment occurs in the police interrogation scene, in which Stone's bisexual crime novelist and murder suspect Catherine Tramell flashes a bit of what she's got between her legs. But what I recall most from that astonishing performance is the sexuality of Stone's deportment. Her posture is finishing-school perfect: While everyone at the time commented on the Hitchcockian quality of Catherine's blond French twist, the ghost of Kim Novak's Madeline is more truly alive in her spine, the supple but sturdy conduit that connects her brain to -- well, everything else. Catherine knows her body is perfect; she accepts it as a given. But the way she moves speaks of a more deeply entrenched, and more intimidating, confidence: Yeah, yeah, the rack is great -- but get a load of the carriage.

"Fourteen years later, Stone's carriage is as superb as ever (and the rack still looks damn good, too). But that's about all "Basic Instinct 2" has going for it. If you're trying to reinvigorate the art of the stylish thriller, the movie you come up with needs to be stylish and it needs to be thrilling. "Basic Instinct 2," written by Leora Barish and Henry Bean and directed by Michael Caton-Jones, is neither. Catherine has left crazy-daisy San Francisco for stuffy old London, and when we first see her this time, she's driving a snappy little sporstcar -- fast -- while masturbating. There's a cute guy in the seat next to her -- we later learn he's a football star -- and it's all fun and games until someone loses control and drives through a plate-glass wall and off a bridge, plunging into the waters below. (Steering wheels and stick shifts are slippery when wet.) Catherine saves herself but not the footballer. And even though she isn't charged with his death, an investigation spearheaded by rumpled detective Roy Washburn (David Thewlis) and freshly starched criminal psychologist Dr. Michael Glass (David Morrissey) ensues."

When The Eames Chair Was All the Rage

"It was the mid-1950s, a time of big ideas and soaring spirits," writes The Boston Globe. Disneyland opened. The Soviets launched Sputnik l. The Hula Hoop was invented. And on March 14, 1956, a chair debuted on NBC's "Home" show, offi cially ushering in a revolutionary era of modern furniture design.

"It was a leather lounge chair and ottoman designed for the Herman Miller company by the husband and wife team of Charles and Ray Eames, introduced with unparalleled fanfare (for a chair): The crescendo of violins, the parting of curtains, the glare of TV lights. Most viewers had never seen anything like it. The shape was abstract, like sculpture. The lines were clean and simple, and there was curved molded wood on the sides. The leather was as supple as a baseball mitt."

Conservative Writer Recalls Weinberger

"I remember the first time I met Cap," recalls National Review writer Peter Schweizer. "It was 1992 and I was researching a book on the Reagan Cold War strategy — and I was anxious. Cap was publisher and chairman of Forbes at the time. Previously, he had served in Cabinet positions under three U.S. presidents, most recently as secretary of Defense for seven years under Reagan. He was known as 'Cap the Knife' under Nixon, and was the man who built up the Reagan Military Machine. Just a little intimidating, don't you think? I was ushered into his office by Kay Leisz, his long-time aide. 'Call me Cap,' he said.

"The man I met and grew to know over the next 14 years was simply one of the kindest men I have ever known. Whether you were the prime minister of Japan or the chauffeur behind the wheel of his car, Cap Weinberger would treat you with respect and grace. Sometimes a graduate student conducting research on the Reagan years would contact me with some questions. If he were a serious scholar, I would call Cap and ask if he would be willing to with the student. 'Of course,' he would always say."

John Hinckley: 25 Years in Stir

"It was 25 years ago Friday that John Hinckley got more than just the attention of a young actress," reports TheBostonChannel.com. "He fired the shots that struck President Ronald Reagan and three others outside a Washington, D.C., hotel. The shooting, which nearly killed Reagan, permanently disabled press secretary James Brady just 70 days into Reagan's presidency. The shooting was said to be an attempt by Hinckley to impress actress Jodie Foster.

"Brady was shot in the head. His injuries, which put him in a wheelchair and slurred his speech, ended his White House career. Brady and his wife became strong opponents of handguns and were a driving force behind Brady bill requiring background checks for buyers and a waiting period. Hinckley is still in a Washington mental hospital, continuing his efforts to win expanded rights to take trips outside the hospital."

Book Alert / Baseball Between the Numbers -- Why Everything You Know About the Game is Wrong

Baseball Between the Numbers -- Why Everything You Know About the Game is Wrong by The Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts, Basic Books, $24.95, 454 pages, ISBN #0-465-00596-9. Index, no bibliography or source notes, extensive glossary, no photos but lots of charts and graphs.

For five months, baseball fandom has been restricted to whispering to your Fenway or Yankee Stadium seatmates, "Pitchers and catchers, three weeks." No more; Monday begins the Show, and may your team win. As a tune-up, a team of experts has prepared a compendium of mind-boggling statistics and rationales that teach you that "hitters don't 'own' certain pitchers," that "a four-man pitching rotation is better than five," that "batting order doesn't matter (much)," and that "a team should use its closer in the sixth inning," among many other burst bubbles.

Gee, remember when we'd all nod sagely when Don Mattingly was in a prolonged slump and say to each other, "he's due," in certitude that we were about to see an extra-base hit, whether we did or not. But that was before Billy Ball, sabermetrics and rotisserie baseball.

This volume's chapter headings give you a sense of the content: "Is David Ortiz a Clutch Hitter?" (the heading suggests the answer), "Did Derek Jeter Deserve the Gold Glove?", "What if Rickey Henderson Had Pete Incaviglia's Legs?," "Is There Such a Thing as a Quadruple-A Player?," and "Why Doesn't Billy Beane's Shit Work in the Playoffs?" Read it and reap.

Book Alert / The World to Come

The World to Come -- A Novel by Dara Horn, Norton, $24.95, 314 pages, ISBN #0-393-05107-2.

Imagine you're spending an afternoon at the Met and, quite unexpectedly, you come upon a sketch that is a dead-ringer for an image by Marc Chagall that hung in your parents' living room for years during your childhood. Can't be. Can't be! But then you remember all the art thefts you've read about in recent years. When backs are turned, you impulsively snatch the painting from the wall and spirit it out of the museum.

We don't need to suggest that now, a whole new set of dilemmas emerges: where do you keep the work? How do you go about proving it really belongs to your family? Not to spoil the story for the reader, suffice it to say that Dara Horn, in her second novel, has crafted several highly-unusual characters, whose interaction speeds the action along. Booklist, which gave the book a starred review calls it "spellbinding...A compelling collage of history, mystery, theology and scripture, The World to Come is a narrative tour de force crackling with conundrums and dark truths."

Book Alert / Slavery in New York

Slavery in New York, edited by Ira Berlin and Leslie M. Harris, The New Press/New-York Historical Society, $25, 416 pages in paperback, ISBN #1-56584-997--3. Index, Bios of Contributors, Source notes. Two lush groupings of full-color glossy photos and unusually generous sprinkling of b&w photos throughout text.

Revisionist history about the North's "complicity," as one recent book calls it, in the slave trade during America's founding decades is building a growing and troublesome library of a venal subject that many Americans had thought until recently could be blamed largely on Southern plantation owners. But this book asserts that at one time, 40 per cent of New York City's households owned slaves.

This latest addition to slave literature points out that "For much of the eighteenth century, New York City was second only to Charleston, South Carolina in its proportion of slaves in an urban population." The editors of this new volume have gathered chapters from contributors, whose titles give a sense of the content: "Digging in New York's Slave Past Beyond the African Burial Ground," "Slavery and Freedom in Dutch Amsterdam," "The Long Death of Slavery," and "The Challenges of Black Life in Civil War New York."

The book is published in paperback but is a feast for the eyes as well as the mind. As its editors assert, "Peeling back the layers of New York's slave past....is both a disheartening and an exhilarating task. If it reminds New bYorkers and all Americans of the suffering of thousands of Africans and African Americans, it also provides the opportunity to celebrate their lives and appreciate their contributions to the rise of New York City as the state's, the nation's, and the world's metropolis."