JASON ANDERSON -- SHOWBIZ

Recalling JFK and Camelot's semi-official court jester, Vaughn Meader, Canadian rocker and journalist Jason Anderson has created a parallel America in this, his debut novel. It's 1963. J. D. Cannon is the most charismatic president of the United States since Lincoln, and Jimmy Wynn has made himself the king of American comedy by satirizing Cannon and his family on record albums that go platinum, in sold-out night club engagements and on TV variety shows. Then Cannon is assassinated on a New Orleans street. The comedian's career dies with the president, and he disappears as conspiracy/cover-up theories about the assassination erupt. After 25 years, Canadian expat writer Nathan Grant pries Wynn out of the ashcan of obscurity to which Cannon's assassination consigned him. Anderson makes a neat and speedy read out of Grant's pursuit of Wynn among New York literati, Las Vegas glitter merchants and Mojave Desert crazies. Grant interviews showbiz acquaintances of Wynn's, some real (an ailing Lenny Bruce), some surgically keen send-ups of once famous entertainers -- and finally unearths a juicy new conspiracy theory in which Wynn might have played a role. Anderson's success resides in never letting the novel's parallel design control its flow. It's there -- but only in background support of his invention of fetching characters and comic twistings. (Tom McElfresh) Grade: B+

MARK SIMPSON -- SAINT MORRISSEY: A PORTRAIT OF THIS CHARMING MAN BY AN ALARMING FAN

MARK SIMPSON -- SAINT MORRISSEY: A PORTRAIT OF THIS CHARMING MAN BY AN ALARMING FAN (TOUCHSTONE)

Writers of the world, adjectives, adverbs and alliterations have been squandered. Superlatives and parentheticals are no more. All available literary devices have been used up. Song lyrics are cleverly, not smartly, woven into this biography -- or as subtitled, "portrait," though I never could discern about whom the portrait was being drawn. I wanted to read about Morrissey's life rather than Simpson's musings on lyric subtexts. The drama and depression of the author's deprived Manchester upbringing are less than endearing. While a point might be made through the hyperbolic use of literary conventions, I found Simpson's own story disingenuous and intrusive. Aficionados of the English wit and flair might be amused by the facetiousness, but probably will be more entertained by the multitude of quotes throughout the book attributed to the enigmatic Morrissey. And the pictures! Don't forget the pictures. At least they're black and white. I don't think Morrissey would accept it another way. Implying that one is more oneself as a result of Morrissey's (or anyone else's) poetry is akin to implying that listening to Judas Priest coerces one into committing suicide. Morrissey, the onetime Manchester boy now Los Angeles adult, seems to have gotten further from his gritty roots than his "alarming fan." (Tad Yoke) Grade: C-

BILL SCHEFT -- TIME WON'T LET ME

BILL SCHEFT -- TIME WON'T LET ME (HARPERCOLLINS)

If you're wondering why David Letterman isn't as funny as he used to be, don't worry; you're not getting old. Former Letterman writer Bill Scheft continues to bring his sharp wit to the page rather than the television with Time Won't Let Me. Scheft's second novel delivers plenty of laughs and well-turned phrases. Time Won't Let Me is the story of five East Coast prep-school misfits and their Kinks-style Garage band, the Truants. Now, 30 years after graduation, their only album turns out to be a collector's dream worth $10,000. The story unfolds as the Truants attempt to reunite for one last gig at their 30th high school reunion. Scheft moves the reader effortlessly between band members as they each struggle to pull their lives together. Each plot twist is cleverly constructed to keep one guessing until the last page. Scheft uses words the way an artist uses color to paint a vivid world of hilarity and musical joie de vivre. Raucous double entendres are perfectly placed to make the reader snort out loud. Scheft's opening dedication to his wife is especially scintillating: "To Adrianne, always and all ways." The spirit of the 1960s Garage band is alive and well in this novel. I'd like to tell you more, but time won't let me. (Tana Weingartner) Grade: A

DEYAN SUDJIC -- THE EDIFICE COMPLEX: HOW THE RICH AND POWERFUL SHAPE THE WORLD

DEYAN SUDJIC -- THE EDIFICE COMPLEX: HOW THE RICH AND POWERFUL SHAPE THE WORLD (THE PENGUIN PRESS)

The philosophical theories about what constitutes high-quality buildings and great spaces for the people who live, work or visit them, are just a few of the timbers that make Deyan Sudjic's The Edifice Complex a lively read. Sudjic, longtime architecture critic for England's The Observer and past director of the Venice Architecture Biennale, has a clear and palpable passion for great architecture and public places, whether The Bilbao Guggenheim or The Jewish Museum in Berlin. There is beauty in the steel and glass towers and concrete monuments he describes and his writing brings these buildings alive. But Sudjic wisely emphasizes the human faces and powerful egos behind the numerous why-we-build stories. Like all books that tell an ensemble of tales, some chapters are better than others. The deathbed projects of France's François Mitterrand are more poignant and meaningful than Sudjic's commentary on Nelson Rockefeller. Yet he makes each story matter, connecting every dot to show the emotional truth behind what gets built and why. Sudjic, as much an architecture insider as anyone, has crafted the arts book equivalent of high-society gossip, putting a bouncy spin on the jet-set egos who seek out celebrity architects like Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry and Peter Eisenman to construct their elaborate company headquarters, private homes and institutions they favor. (Steve Ramos) Grade: B

KATHARINE KUH -- MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH MODERN ART

KATHARINE KUH -- MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH MODERN ART (ARCADE PUBLISHING)

To call it a love affair is a severe understatement -- modern art was Katharine Kuh's life. It consumed the legendary curator, which explains why there's nothing terribly personal about her memoir other than revelations on her professional experiences and insights into friendships with the artists she so admired (Mies van der Rohe, Mark Rothko, Fernard Léger, to name a few). Compiled and edited by friend and art historian Avis Berman, Kuh's final look at what first caught her eye delves into the world of the curator -- specifically, the female art dealer and curator in 1930s-'40s Chicago (she was the Art Institute's first curator of modern art and painting), at the time a city with a "know nothingness" mentality when it came to modern, let alone visual, art. Kuh not only lived when America was beginning to turn its eye to contemporary art, she also got to know the artists, some of them as they rose to fame. Imagine mailing a photo to Picasso asking him to verify that a work is his. What Kuh doesn't reveal, Berman explains, are personal details like her lifelong battle with polio -- she died in 1994 from post-polio syndrome -- or possible romantic relationships with certain artist friends. Such omissions are justified, however; for Kuh, it was all about the art and artists themselves. (Jessica Canterbury) Grade: B