The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 9

Paperbacks By CHARLES SOLOMON Chicago or an older man who suddenly realizes the emptiness of his life when he encounters an appealing child. In "Kaplan's Big Deal," a cagey businessman takes no pleasure in his millions until he meets precocious Philippe at an airport; he then devotes his considerable resources to courting the child's mother just for the chance to play father. A noted essayist, Epstein knows how to formulate a well-constructed sentence, but his characters don't seem particularly believable or interesting. WE'VE GOT A JOB TO DO: Chicago-ans and World War II by Perry Duis and Scott LaFrance (Chicago Historical 146 paperback original). Issued in conjunction with an ongoing exhibit, "A Job to Do" presents a vivid portrait of the city.

The colorful array of posters, cartoons, labels, buttons, etc. supports the text, which focuses on how the war altered the traditional roles of women and minorities. Readers who lived through the war may recall their participation in scrap-metal drives and Civil Defense programs with fond nostalgia; baby -boomers who grew up amid the bitter divisiveness of Vietnam will be moved by the vision of a country united against a common enemy. Bit People," a bemused recollection of an anti-social Airedale; "In Defense of Dogs," an account of a Scotch terrier that embarrassed the author by having an unexpected fifth puppy during a walk on Fifth Avenue, and "Memorial," a gently touching tribute to a dying poodle. With characteristic irony, Thurber notes that the dog "has seen men raise up great cities to heaven and then blow them to hell." EVERY 17 SECONDS: A Global Perspective on the AIDS Crisis by Brian Weil 108 illustrated, paperback original).

The book's title echoes the terrifying statistic that one person becomes infected with HIV every 17 seconds, and Weil's spare text and gritty photographs present a grim mosaic of the pandemic's progress in Asia, Africa and North America. Black South African mine workers who have been forcibly separated from their wives for months are deported if they test HIV-positive. Infants waste away in American hospitals. In Thailand, 10 of the population may be at risk due to prostitution and heroin addiction. Weil's bleak portrait underscores the need for widespread preventative action against this insidious virus.

THE 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History by Michael H. Hart (Citadel 556 illustrated). Lists of the most, best, etc. generally tell the reader more about the author's tastes than about the ostensible subject, and "100" suggests that Hart has an oddly limited view of history. It may not be surprising that an astronomer would include more scientistinventors and politicalmilitary leaders than artisticliterary figures (67 to 5, with Picasso, Mozart, Stravinsky, Dante and Leonardo ranking among the notable omissions).

But this jejune volume stands out as a textbook example of cultural parochialism: Hart's list includes three Africans, two women and one South American. His mini-biographies of his choices feature such arbitrary, unsubstantiated pronouncements as "Although Johann Sebastian Bach is almost equally prestigious, Beethoven's works have been more widely and more frequently listened to than Bach's." THURBER'S DOGS by James Thur-ber $12; 320 Dogs brought out the best in the often misanthropic Thurber, as this collection of fiction, nonfiction and cartoons demonstrates. Many of these tales have been accorded the status of classics: "The Dog That THE TV GUIDE TV BOOK: 40 Years of the All-Time Greatest: Television Facts, Fads, Hits, and History by Ed Weiner and the Editors of TV Guide (HarperPerennial- $9.95: 255 illustrated, paperback original). As watching TV has supplanted baseball and pretty much everything else as the national pastime, this upbeat compendium of trivia is a sure-fire holiday-gift choice, even for people you don't know well. The authors have compiled lists of shows that were announced but never made Musketeers" with Henny Youngman, Phil Foster and Joey Adams, 1957), accounts of who was originally cast for various roles (Fred MacMurray was supposed to play Perry Mason; Robert Sterling, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

and William Hopper were possible alternates) and a collection of hilarious quotes hear it for the Lord's Sullivan, 1965). Vladimir Zworykin, the inventor of the first practical television camera, offers the classic understatement, "It hasn't turned out as I expected." THE BIRD WHO CLEANS THE WORLD AND OTHER MAYAN FABLES by Victor Montejo, translated from the JakaUek-Mayan by Walter Kaufman Curbstone 120 illustrated). A Guatemalan of Mayan descent, Montejo transcribed the tales he heard as a child in an effort to preserve them. "Who Cuts the Trees Cuts His Own Life" reflects the reverence the Maya held for the land that nurtured them; "The Tail of the Dog" suggests the risks of talking too much. The fables involving animals the Spanish introduced to the Americas (horses, oxen, mules) are obviously of more recent origin, but all the stories offer a satisfying blend of humor and wisdom.

This engaging anthology provides adults and children with rare insights into one of the cultures that make up the tapestry of contemporary Southern California. THE MOON BY WHALE LIGHT by Paperback Best Sellers Nonfiction Fiction DOOMSDAY CONSPIRACY by (Warner: $5.99.) AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP MALCOLM As Told (Bailantine: $5.99.) COOKIE BOOK: One Hundred the Kitchen of Mrs. Fields by Debbie Life Books: $12.95. CALVIN AND HOBBES by (Andrews and McMeel: $12.95. True Story by Andrew Morton.

(Pocket STAND by Ross Perot. (Hyperion: RECKLESS by Amanda Quick. (Bantam: $5.99. A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT by Norman MacLean. (Pocket: $4.99.) HIDEAWAY by Dean Koontz.

Berkeley: $5.99. NIGHTSHADE: Star Trek Nod Generation '24 by Laurell Hamilton. (Pocket Books. $5.50.) Rankings are based on The Times' weekly poll of local bookstores and information on Times paperback best sellers, call (213) Diane Ackerman (Vintage: $11; 249 Nature writer Diane Acker-man summarizes her approach to the genre in the simple statement "There is a way of beholding nature that is itself a form of prayer." She eloquently argues that every species has a right to exist and that humanity's willingness to violate that right has grave implications for the future of the planet. Ackerman's strength as a writer enables her to communicate the experience of encountering animals in their natural environments.

She explains that bats eat vast quantities of insects and pollinate a wide variety of commercially important plants, but her sympathetic account of petting a bat does more to counter the false image of a nasty, rabid rat-with-wings. With equal skill, she describes swimming near the awesome bulk of a right whale, the gentle touch of a penguin chick begging for food and the pain of being smacked in the shins by an alligator's bony muzzle. THE GOLDIN BOYS by Joseph Epstein (Norton: 221 Most of the stories in this collection depict either the tribulations of growing up Jewish in middle-class in more than 90 of cases childbirth is a natural procedure in which medical intervention is not only unnecessary, but often harmful." Both, through long and concentrated experience, may be equally skilled in providing prenatal, delivery, and follow-up services. Moreover, not only are their rates of medical intervention impressively low, but they charge far smaller fees than obstetricians do. This last point, Mitford believes, may explain the relentless hostility of the Medical Board of California toward home-birth midwives: "A highly regarded Berkeley obstetrician told me in 1990 that for a normal vaginal delivery his seven-member medical group charges for a Cesarean, the fee goes up to $3,220, to which must be added, of course, the ever-escalating hospital bills.

In the San Francisco Bay Area a midwife's fee for prenatal care, attendance at birth, 'The American Way of Birth' Sidney Sheldon. 1 2 3 4 5 reflect paperback 237-4336 after 1 style. But nowadays one can also arrange for a basic send-off for $395. I know; I've done so. Mit-ford's point in calling for reform was not to eradicate funeral directors but to enable informed choice.

Obstetricians may similarly despise "The American Way of Birth." But babies will go on being born, and some of them, alas, will be in trouble. In such instances, obstetrical care will always be essential, and every woman, Mitford argues in her epilogue, must be provided access to it. But for the majority of women, who enjoy healthy pregnancies and uncomplicated deliveries not requiring medical supervision, safe and economical alternatives exist, and women must be provided access to these as well. Owing to "the lucrative partnership of fee-for-service medicine and private insurance," the universal access that national THE lo Alex Haley. MRS.

FIELD'S Recipes from Fields. (Time THE INDISPENSABLE Bill Watterson. DIANA; Her Books: $5.99.) UNITED WE $4.95.) sales during the last month. For weekly 1 a.m. on Wednesdays.

health insurance on the Canadian model would guarantee has been systematically forestalled, and Mitford seems less than sanguine that relief for the "37 million" or more uninsured Americans will arrive any time soon. Mitford's presentation, though less than thorough, is invariably entertaining. She has a gift for telling details and amusing anecdotes: "My mother," she recounts, "asked what it felt like to have a baby, was hardly reassuring: 'Like an orange being stuffed up your she said." Mitford's treatment of reproductive issues tends to be spotty and superficial, omitting altogether questions regarding spontaneous or induced abortion, infertility, surrogacy, and neona-. tology, for example. Nevertheless, it serves as a sprightly introduction to matters that ought to lie, like babies themselves, very near our hearts, BOOK REVIEWLOS ANGELES TIMES Continued From Page 2 try or lay midwives who offer women with low -risk pregnancies an alternative to the interventionist and "profit-hungry medical industry." The former, more extensively trained in general nursing skills, usually practice in obstetrical facilities, whereas the latter attend home births, believing "that God's -It's about time1.

Forgotten Daughter A Modem Mldruh: What If Jesus Had Been A Woman? by Katherine Christine Schneider-Aker LuraMedia PB $10.95, plus shipping CALL l-800-FOR-LURA and subsequent house calls runs about $900 to $1,200. As the majority of home -birth clients are middle-class women with ample insurance for whom cost is not a major consideration, the midwives be- Babies will go on being born, and some of them, alas, will be in trouble. lieve that the medical community's vendetta against them is to a large extent motivated by fear of losing paying clients." Thirty years ago, Mitford published "The American Way of Death," and funeral directors howled in outrage. People haven't stopped dying, though, and the bereaved can, and often do, still spend a tidy fortune making sure Aunt Tilly gets dispatched in high PAOE 10SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1932.