European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 13, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Books r i in is hug Hilret prom the bae roads to the Beltway the education of Bill Clinton by John Brummett hyperion. On the Edge the Clinton presidency by Elizabeth Drew Simon & schuster. On the surface these two books about Clinto have Little in common. Highwart by Brummett a newspaper columnist for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in Little Rock is a chatty anecdotal meditation on Clinton s Rise to Power which provides a Lively subjective portrait of the president and his  the Edge by the Veteran political reporter Drew is a dry and relentlessly chronological account of Clinton s first year in office based on dozens of interviews with White House aides Cabinet Mem Bers and members of Congress. In their own fashion however both books offer disturbing and remarkably similar portraits of Clin ton As an indecisive emotionally needy and Congeni tally disorganized president presiding Over a chaotic and crisis driven White House. Michiko Kakutani new York time the life and Many deaths of Harry Hou Donl by Ruth Brandon random House. As i read Brandon s account of this singular life kept having a sense of almost recognition. What was it that was missing from Houdini s life and work a last it came Tome Art he had All the characteristics of an artist of Genius obsession perfectionism fierce will Power a highly developed self conscious Ness patience a longing for immortality yet his mind and deeds were irredeemably banal. But then banality of spirit is the chief characteristic of the Sha Man. Art is dangerous magic is not. John Banville los Angeles times Cobain a commemorative Book from the editors of rolling Stone Little Brown an dip. -. -. A first came the Host of National Magazine covers in the Wake of his death then the quickie  arrives the first hardback tribute to the late co Bain Lead Singer for nirvana. The handsome volume includes the unpublished portions of a lengthy rolling Stone interview with Singer Courtney love Cobain s widow. Among the writers offering assessments of Cobain and his music Are Greil Marcus Mikal Gilmore and Ann Powers. John Marshall Seattle Post intelligencer Stalin and the bomb the soviet Union and atomic Energy t939-1956 by David hoi. Loway Yale University press hoi Ioway s first rate study of the soviet atomic bomb project could not have appeared at a Bette time. Holloway puts to rest the sensational yet unfounded assertions by former Kab spy Pavel Sudo Platov that soviet physicists were Able to build the atomic bomb largely on information gleaned fro leading Western scientists by soviet agents. In a Well documented thoroughly researched and closely reasoned work Holloway a professor of political Sci ence at Stanford shows How the . Had the native scientific Talent and political will to become a nuclear Power within four years after the unite states had detonated its first atomic bomb. Paul Josephson new Day what i lived for by Joyce Carol Gates Dut ton. /.  ,/-.gates plunges readers headlong into the life of a chaotically contradictory Man and in the plunge she immerses us in the murky fearful and loathsome psyche of the american male Fredric Koeppel commercial Appeal schoolgirl is Young women self esteem and the Confidence Gap Peggy Orenstein Doubleday. In eighth Grade i lost everything my friends my Confidence my sense that i had a right to a bit of space on the planet. I ate lunch hiding under the stairs in the schoolyard so no one would see that i was eating alone. It never crossed my mind that anyone else might have shared this experience. But in Orenstein s engrossing Book i recognized both my younger self and my former friends. Nell Bernstein san Francisco examiner new York times list hardback fiction talk dirty to met an intimate philosophy of sex by Sallie Tisdale Doubleday. An editor at Vogue once said of Tisdale who has been producing interesting Quirky books As Well As articles for the new yorker and Harper s and other magazines for More than a decade that she is one of the most honest women i know Rone of Tisdale s most illuminating chapters in this Book is about prostitution. It is a rare piece of journalism a look at the subject free of the usual distortions of disapproval or thinly veiled lust nothing atall like the sort of thing one is accustomed to seeing in newspapers when journalists usually men de cide to investigate a life they see As distinctly other than their own.  a Joan Smith san Francisco examine mrs. Thatcher s ministers the private do Arles of Alan Clark by Alan Clark Farrar Straus Giroux. Clark having achieved Only Junior ministerial rank under Margaret Thatcher is As famous in Britain As any of the leading members of her Cabinet How so first because he has publicly told unpleasant truths about the Sale of weapon making machinery to Ira shortly before the persian Gulf War and this will soon result in a crisis for John major s  because he was cited a few months ago As the Lover of a judge s wife and her two daughters simultaneously. And above All for the publication of these diaries for the years 1983-91, when he was atthe Center if not at the top of British government. They form the most indiscreet the most readable the wittiest record of How modern politicians actually behave. Nigel Nicolson los Angeles times All i really need to know i Learned from watching Star trek by Dave Marinacci Crown cd ---.--. R of /  Marinaccio begins with the age old plea Why am i Here a. O Aas a human being i had always sought a cent Erin my life an example to follow writes Marinaccio. Unfortunately for Marinaccio that Center is Sta trek. In Reading this Book i m reminded of the 5af urday night live skit in which William Shatner told the trekkers to get a life. Stephanie Allison St. Petersburg time baby would i lie by Donald e. Westlake mysterious press. Murder he wrote with a chuckle. Someone dead but a a Hec Hee the circumstances Are downright farcical. Westlake does give homicide a humorous  this time he sets it against an unexpectedly timely theme a celebrity charged with two Mur Ders in the country music glitter capital of Missouri s Backwoods Branson. Fiction chases fact or vice versa. A John Mcguire St. Louis Post dispatch the secret life of Laszlo count Dracula by Roderick Anscombe hyperion what s unusual about this novel is that no super natural effects Are used. This Dracula is All to human and it s to his psychology we must look to explain Why he attacks Lovely Young women and open their throats and drinks their blood while raping them. This Dracula is a sex offender an extremely disturbed individual who requires not a stake through the heart but psychiatric treatment in a secure custodial setting. This Dracula is not so much wicked As sick. Patrick Mcgrath los Angeles times 37 t insomnia by Stephen King last week 1 weeks on hot 4 s Tanea by am net last we Etc 1. Weeks on a 5 4 iwc���c7�n