The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage by Frederick P. Hitz is, essentially, a comparative analysis. Hitz, a longtime actual spook at the CIA compares and contrasts various actual spies (Aldrich Ames, Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, etc.) life and professional histories with the writings and characters of highly regarded and well known fictional stories and spies-( John Le Carre, Tom Clancy).

Overall, the book is a great disappointment. While there is the occasional nugget of info that piques ones interest, on the whole the exercise generates conclusions that dash between the obvious to the trite.

That in itself would be disappointing enough. The real problem here is that Hitz demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the nature of spy fiction. None of the books he analyzes are written to be a primer of the spy profession. These are not procedurals, they bare novels. As such, they are written to be, more than anything else, morality plays. The issues at hand may vary between the morality of grand policies of nations or movement, the morality of spying itself, the interplay between good and evil-whatever. They are written to tell a story and express a viewpoint, not to provide ideal textbook descriptions of the art of spying. That's the role of non-fiction.

Hitz marvels that the "real world" is so much more complex, untidy, clear cut and, indeed, in some ways, far more chaotic than is portrayed in spy novels. He would have done well to remember Tom Clancy's famous quote about the difference between fiction and real life: "Fiction has to make sense."

His lack of understanding of that premise sinks this effort from the beginning.

Michael Mandelbaum is not a sports writer. He's part of the Washington foreign policy establishment and a professor of International studies at Johns Hopkins University. So, while he is an academic he's neither an anthropologist nor a social historian. He is, obviously, an ardent sports fan. Knowing these facts helps to understand both why this book works and why it fails.

The book works superbly as an historical analysis. Even dedicated sports fans of the Big Three (football, baseball and basketball) will learn quite a bit about the development of their favorite sports as well as about the titans of the games that whose accomplishments fueled their growth. He also provides some interesting and unique insights as to turning points in the history of each sport and how the vortex of those turning points was so similar. For example, Ruth in baseball, Rockne in football and Hank Lusetti in basketball all provided an elevation point for their respective sports both by providing dramatic, interesting, charismatic personalities but also through feats that made the ball easy to see in dramatic fashion (Ruth with the towering home run, Rockne by popularizing the forward pass, Lusetti in inventing the jump shot).

The book is far less successful as a vehicle of social analysis. Mandelbaum uses allusion a lot as a means for evoking the social meaning of sport. I'm not aware that allusion is a key too of either social science in general or anthropology in particular. A comparative analysis that juxtaposes baseball with agrarian values, football with industrial and martial values and basketball with spectacularly ill defined "post industrial" values may have some illustrative value but fails as an analytical tool. This discussion is often interesting but it fails to address two basic issues, to wit (1) the meaning of sports in general and (2) the enigma that the most popular US sports are of little significance to the rest of humanity.

On the whole this is a lively and informative book, and I very much enjoyed reading it. However, it doesn't even come close to its stated goal of explaining the meaning of sports, and in the end that is a major disappointment.

Between Two Rivers : A Novel is Nicholas Rinaldi's third novel. I thought his previous novel, The Jukebox Queen of Malta, was one of the better books of the year in 2000.

Rinaldi has followed up that success with another blockbuster novel. Set in a Battery Park condo, Between Two Rivers is an expertly woven quilt of a novel that brilliantly illuminates the subtle bonds that develop between people who, by chance or by choice, happen to live together.

The story revolves around one Farro Fescu, the inimitable Romanian concierge, who watches with keen eyes the comings and goings of the intriguing inhabitants of Echo Terrace, as the building is called. The building's name itself conjures up the themes that permeate this book-memory and shared experience. It is through this wonderfully energetic and nosy concierge that Mr. Rinaldi introduces the other residents, each with a wonderfully engaging and, often, enigmatic story to tell.

The condo's residents mirror the ethnic, intense and farcical nature of New York. Although a novel in format, the construction of the book approached that of a collection of short stories in some respects as Rinaldi explores the inner workings and motivations of each character, but he always segues adroitly back into novel mode as he approaches the interrelationships and dynamics of the Echo Terrace's emotional and interrelational ecology.

This is a book with first rate characters, elegant writing, dynamic construction and, ultimately, a book that provides one with a tremendous sense of satisfaction.

Rinaldi just gets better and better. We can only hope he has many mode books in him.

The Wisdom of Crowds : Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business,Economies, Societies and Nations by James Surowiecki is, essentially, a thoroughly accessible and readable tome on applied behavioral economics and game theory.

I know that doesn't sound too exciting, but this actually is a fascinating book that is something of a page turner if you have even the most vestigial interest in the topic.

The premise isn't new-those who are denizens of Wall Street and know Robert Prechter's oft cited work with Elliott Wave Theory will know something of the underlying premises of the book. However, Surowiecki takes this notion and moves well beyond the confined world if inventing (though he covers that as well) to apply the principles he delineates to life in general-behavior in traffic, tracking and responding to disease, navigating the internet and so on.

The strength of the boom is Surowiecki's ability to render the underpinnings of his theoretical paradigm in easily understandable terms and examples. Additionally, the book features an excellent opening that provides a wonderful foundation as regards applied behavioral economics and game theory in general.

On the other hand, Surowiecki tends to play both sides of the street. He uses his "expert" position on the subject to configure his arguments and analysis to tilt the weight of evidence behind his theory in many cases. In other words, his familiarity with where he wants this to go influences his choices of examples. Moreover, he relies on too few examples in too many cases. For example, the world of wall Street should have provided a wealth of examples as to the validity-and the errors-inherent in his theory. His choices seem to be crafted to provide maximum support while eliminating any element of contraindication whatsoever.

So, in the end, despite the fact that Surowiecki has written a wonderfully readable book, and posited some fascinating theoretical axioms, the book feels a bit to tilted to be thoroughly honest with the subject matter in an applied arena. Surowiecki gives us much food for thought but also leaves us with reasons to doubt somewhat his objectivity and intellectual honesty. That fact detracts frm the value of the book, and that's a shame.

I think Mr. Greene is, to a certain extent, a victim here of his own success. His previous book-The Elegant Universe-- was brilliant. His expertise is super strings and multi-dimensional space and that was the focus of that book. It was a surprise success in the mass market and I suspect he and his publishers were so enamored of that success that a follow-up was required as a matter of course. Unfortunately, Greene had pretty much exhausted the superstring thing so a different concept was needed. Thus, this more expansive, less focused tome was produced.

It's not so much that this book is bad-its not. It's just that it suffers considerably when compared to The Elegant Universe. Here Greene delves into areas he clearly is not as well versed in as string theory, areas that obviously don't hold the same fascination for him.

This leads to problems. The book is characterized by a significant unevenness. There are topics where Greene examines things thoroughly: others receive short shrift. Many of the allusions are clearly inferior in terms of presentation and thoughtfulness as compared to the Elegant Universe.

Having said all that, green does indeed have a knack for creating illustrative vignettes that relate many of the obscure and arcane concepts covered here in a way that is accessible and understandable. Through his narrative he presents a good-though very basic-historical overview of the development of these ideas and those who drove these areas of inquiry.

I think this tome will be better received by those unfamiliar with his first book. For those of us who read and admired that work, this one will be somewhat disappointing. Still, it's well worth reading, even so.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are the iconographic band of the last 25 years. As has been (correctly) in previous posts and reviews, to do a true RHCP hits album would require at least 2, probably more like 3 disks. Essentially, everone looking for that sort of thing would be better off with a boxed set of their work (which, unfortunately, doesn't exist). The problem is that the Pepper's stuff is highly contextual to their albums and segregating things out, at a certain lever, diminishes their effect.

Yet, paradoxically, a lot of their stuff also works as stand alone material. That is amply demonstrated by this disk.

This is not really an historical collection, it's a collection of fairly recent material. And, strictly speaking, it's not really even a hits album--if it were, such hits as Aeroplane would have to be included.

However, the sequencing of the songs works, the songs themselves do truly represent a pretty good cross section of their last several albums, and the bottom line is that the peppers, in vitually any format you want to concoct for their mater, rock big time.

So, until that boxed set appears on the horizon, this'll do.

Timothy Johnson is a physician-he the staff ABC News doctor of the moment-and an ordained minister. In Finding God in the Questions he has, essentially, written two books in tandem-a deeply thorough and thoughtful theological inquiry and his personal history and faith journey. The two books-in-tandem format works very well as Johnson provides us with both intensely framed questions of faith as well as the clues and basis for understanding his own answers to those questions.

What I especially like about this book is that it is in fact an inquiry, not a demagoguery in wolfs clothing as so many "spiritual examination" books are these days. I'm tired of the slew of books purporting to be examinations on faith that are in fact merely thinly disguised polemics that in fact dictate what one "has" to believe to be Christian. Johnson here is truly in examination mode, providing a challenging list of questions and presenting his own assessment of possible answers without ever becoming dictatorial in the process.

Not all will agree with Dr. Johnson's conclusions. He is obviously deeply skeptical of much of what passes as "acceptable" Christian dogma in these intolerant times. In fact, his skepticism reaches the point where he concludes he cannot even really call himself a Christian given the prevailing ethos but rather refers to himself as a "follower of Jesus". Obviously, those that hold the utterly dogmatic and intolerant viewpoints that so sadden Dr. Johnson will reject his conclusions out of hand-tragic given that they are the ones most in need of a truly thoughtful self examination such as the one Dr. Johnson undertakes here.

In the end one is left with a moving and though provoking book that inspires one to think seriously about many of the questions Dr. Johnson raises. That, obviously, was clearly his intent. That leaves us with a book that is a success from everyone's viewpoint.

This is a truly great book.

Although not intuitively obvious from the title, Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings is an album of love songs. Ranging from the cynical We are the Lonely, derived from the "personals" craze of the 90's ("SWF with breasts so large, takes Visa, AMEX and Mastercharge") to the soulful Leave the Lights On, from the whimsical Humidity Built the Snowman to the gut wrenching This Love is Real, Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings is classic Prine. These songs are characterized by highly melodic undertones, crisp, intelligent lyrics and highly professional musicianship and production values.

To be honest, I've never understood why Prine never mad it big. He produces songs that work, as exemplified by the huge number of covers of his work. He has an infectious personality and it a tremendous stage performer. He produces albums where you actually want to listen to every single song, as opposed to most albums where you spend as much time skipping through the junk as you do listening to the one or two halfway decent songs on the album.

John Prine is a songwriter and storyteller of the first order, and this is one of his all time best albums. Take a pass on all the garbage out there and make John Prine one of your regulars-you'll never regret that you did.

I'm a long time Far Side fan. My wife got this collection for me for Christmas and I have been savoring it slowly since. There is only one word to describe these books-awesome.

Not only are there over 4000 great far side cartoons, there is also an excellent forward that details the origins and evolution of the series. Each year's section is preseded by an introduction by Larson wherein he discusses various aspects of his personal history and how it impacted the Far Side cartoon series. Seeded throughout the books are letters to and from Larson dealing with concerns, objections, interesting "true life" consequences or just plain reader bewilderment relating to the cartoons.

Probably somewhere around 60% of the cartoons are in color. The books are-to say te least-sturdily constructed. These are printed on high quality glossy paper with formidable covers. Larson has referred to these books as "hernia machines". That's not far off. You aren't going to be reading these puppies while lounging sedately in bed, that's for sure!

But it the end all the bells and whistles-as contributory as they are-fade to insignificance in the face of the cartoons themselves. Larson has a wonderfully skewed world view and a real knack of adopting common objects and anthropomorphizing common critters into human wannabe's.

Obviously, given a price that hovers around three figures and given the heft and size of the tow volumes involved, this is really aimed at the serious Far Side fan. If that's you, you're going to love this collection.

There was a time when I was a steady mystery reader. Those days are long gone-I sort of burned out on the genre-but I still take in the occasional mystery. Mostly Spenser novels, but I'll throw in another author every now and then.

However, back when I was a mystery junkie, Amos Walker was one of my favorite reads. Loren D. Estleman is a first rate writer in the noir tradition. He's equally adept at both plot development as well as characterization. Although Estleman has a few different characters he deals with, Amos Walker is his masterpiece. Walker is a gritty, hardboiled former Viet Nam vet now working the detective trade in Detroit.

Estleman paints the fringes of Detroit with a master painters brush and Walker is right at home in that gritty urban landscape.

In retro Walker is present at the bedside of an old acquaintance, a madam and self described "former mob moll", who asks Amos, as a dying wish, to see to it that her cremains get back to her long lost son. Walker agrees and has no problem tracking down the son-he's a former draft deserter still living in Canada. He presents him with his mother's cremains and departs, only to learn shortly thereafter that the son has been shot dead and Walker is considered a suspect. Walker determines he has to straighten things out, if only to clear himself, and thus he enters the web of deception and murder.

As with all Walker books, there is lots of action. The characters are well written and very memorable. Walker's hard charging, straight ahead, no nonsense approach is in full display. The plot is fascinating, as usual. This is another grand page turner in a long line of grand page turner's.

In fact, I so enjoyed this one that I'm going to have to go back and revisit Walker for a while. I'm sure there have been several entries in the series since my burn out a while back. I may have burned out-I'm glad Estleman didn't!