The Montgomery Advertiser from Montgomery, Alabama • 74

8G Sunday, May 21, 2006 Montgomery Advertiser Bookline Read any good books lately? Send us your recommendations so we can share them with our readers. Reader Recommendations P.O. Box 1000 Montgomery, AL 36101-1000 Rick Harmon Features editor BEST-SELLERS Call (334)262-1611 Fax (334) 261-1548 425 Molton St. Montgomery AL 36104 Books Esquivel stays in familiar territory with 'Malinche' forceful with Mallinalli as he was in war one of love is extreme. Still, the relationship between Cortes and Mallinalli, a woman who has often been deemed a traitor in Mexican history, is a good launching pad for a novel.

The problem, however, comes when Esquivel tries to pack too much information into just a few pages. The novel gets clouded with Esquivel's heavy use of magical realism and her need to explain every innermost thought of her characters. This leads to superfluous paragraphs that take characters into back story and memories. The result is a sometimes disjointed But all these things may seem like gravy to Esquivel's loyal fans, because overall she sticks to her pattern of richly imagined detail. Readers who like her style will devour every word.

Those who do not may get lost. Esquivel does do a nice job of showing a sympathetic side to Mallinalli that may reveal that she was an innocent trapped in Cortes' power-hungry world instead of a traitor. Esquivel's development of Mallinalli's character is strong. With "Malinche," Esquivel remains true to her magical realism ways. So, loyalists will be delighted; others should move on.

"Malinche" by Laura Esquivel Atria ($22.95) By Lori Price Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Smart writers learn early in their careers to find a niche, an area of expertise and writing style they can put their signature on and grow into. Then, it's up to readers to decide if they will embrace it, or not like it as much and simply respect the author's ways. Such is the case with Laura Esquivel. She set the tone for a highly respected career in the early 1990s with her first book, "Like Water for Chocolate," a supernatural tale detailing a young girl's expression of passion through cooking. The book ROMANTIC GOSSIP AND GRIPES Cdlaboiraflove e1 "Two Little Girls in Blue" by Mary Higgins Clark is No.

2 on this week's "Publishers Weekly" list of best-selling fiction. Hardcover Fiction 1. "Beach Road" by James Patterson, Peter de Jonge Little, Brown 2. "Two Little Girls in Blue" by Mary Higgins Clark Simon Schuster 3. "I Say a Little Prayer" by E.

Lynn Harris Doubleday 4. "Promise Me" by Harlan Coben Dutton 5. "Digging to America" by Anne Tyler Knopf 6. "Blue Shoes and Happiness" by Alexander McCall Smith Pantheon 7. "Definitely Dead" by Charlaine Harris Ace 8.

"Dark Harbor" by Stuart Woods Putnam 9. "Full of Grace" by Dorothea Benton Frank William Morrow 10. "Gone" by Jonathan Kellerman Ballantine Books 11. "Mother: A Cradle to Hold Me" by Maya Angelou Random House 12. "Bad Twin" by Gary Troup Hyperion 13.

"Everyman" by Philip Roth Houghton Mifflin 14. "Dark Tort: A Novel of Suspense" by Diane Mott Davidson William Morrow 15. "Oakdale Confidential" by Anonymous Pocket Sex, snipers and a hungry gator star in 'Don't Look Down -iEL' 4 MAGIC AND MEXICO has sold more than 4.5 million copies worldwide, was made into a movie and earned an ABBY award from the American Booksellers Association. Above all, "Chocolate" displayed Esquivel's knowledge and familiarity with her native Mexico and established her comfort level with magical realism. Her new book, "Malinche," doesn't stray from either of those expressions.

The cover for "Malinche" describes the historical novel as a tale about the "tragic and passionate love affair" of Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes and his translator. The story is MYSTERY 1 A black helicopter lands. Off steps Wilder, "broad shouldered and slim hipped in Army camouflage just tan and solid in the middle of the noise and wind. He walked out of rotor range and halted to look back at the chopper, his lantern jaw in profile, completely still in the storm, and Lucy lost her breath." Crusie is a best-selling romance writer, so the odd description is a bit puzzling lqg Read all about it in 'Diss TelT DOWN A NOVEL JENNIFER CRUSIE AND BOB MAYER a lyrical interpretation of the timeline that follows the destruction of Montezuma's 16th-century Mexicas empire by Cortes. Mallinal-li, also called Malinche in the book, was sold into slavery as a child and later became Cortes' interpreter.

But the term love affair should be accepted lightly. Yes, Cortes and Mallinalli share an intimate relationship that leads to the birth of a child and lends itself to vibrantly written scenes by Esquivel. Their first encounter, a mere exchange between their eyes with no words, is depicted with vivid passion. But to call their relationship which frequently included Cortes being just as a lantern jaw is overly large and juts forward, a la Herman Munster as is the confusing modifier what's still? But romance is born on page six; Lucy is now breathless. Lucy looks like Wonder Woman.

Wilder is a man of action, not words. Some plot: There's a bad guy in the swamp, watching through a sniper rifle's sight. There's a 9-foot-long hungry alligator, too. There are more bad guys on the movie set. There's a cute niece, Pepper, who will get Lucy to wear a Wonder Woman camisole and panties.

There's a doped-up, depressed mom, Daisy, who shares foster-home ties with Lucy. There's smuggling or is it international terrorism? And the CIA is involved. And Pepper will end up in dire straits, and the baddest of the bad guys will have encounters with that alligator. Our hero can handle everything but the romance: "Mission first, women later." Mayer, who lives in Hilton Head, S.C., writes covert-operations thrillers but seems to have decided on a career modification since most fiction readers are women. He and Crusie are at work on their second romp, starring a food writer and a hit man.

What makes their first effort work is their goofy sense of irony or their ironic goofiness. Let's hope Hollywood respects that. Faith i' Ttit yiuvujtu xmi tit George Washington balked at many of the finer points of Christianity (like, say, all that stuff about Christ). To the Deists, God's greatest gift to man was not his son, but a mind that permitted free thought. "Reason for them was paramount for determining religious truth," writes David L.

Holmes in "The Faiths of the Founding Fathers," a book that treads some of the same ground as Meacham's, albeit less engagingly. Both books make it clear that Jerry Falwell must have snoozed through civics class to write, as he did in 1980, that "our great na "Celebrity Diss Tell: Stars Talk About Each Other" by Boze Hadleigh Andrews McMeel Publishing $10.95, 275 pages By Rick Harmon Montgomery Advertiser rharmongannett.com There must be hundreds of books released each year with this format, but "Celebrity Diss Tell: Stars Talk About Each Other" ranks among the best. The all-too-common format used here is a book that instead of being written is compiled, created from hundreds or even thousands of snippets having to do with a general topic. Obviously what determines the quality of such a book is the quality of the snippets that the author collects, and Boze Hadleigh has collected some doozies. As the title implies, much of the book consists of stars, relatives, columnists and others dissing stars.

What makes it so hard to put down is that while many of these comments are simple put-downs or criticisms, many are either surprisingly witty or shockingly For instance, here is Katharine Hepburn on John Barrymore. "He played my father in my first picture. His attentions were very unfatherly. When it was over I went up to him and said 'Thank goodness I don't have to act with you He simply said 'I didn't know you ever had, Or here's studio mogul Samuel L. Goldwyn's comment about fellow mogul Louis B.

Mayer. Responding to a statement that Mayer was his own worst enemy, Goldwyn said that this wasn't true, at least, as long as Goldwyn was alive. Other comments provide surprising information about celebrities. There are an amazing number of celebrities who are outed in this book, many by former lovers, and while some of these aren't surprises, some will probably shock you. If you disdain "gossip, then don't read this book because you will certainly disdain "Celebrity Diss Tell: Stars Talk About Each Other." But if you like a little gossip (and love a lot of it), this is the book for you.

Deism.) Still, these men were not atheists, and they didn't expect Americans to act as atheists. "For the Founders," Meacham writes, "religious freedom was not equivalent to a public life free of religion." And so today we have "God Bless America," So help me, God, God on our pennies. Thank God, says Meacham. A devoted Episcopalian, he believes that America's public religion, this religiosity without specificity, has been a national strength and that we weaken ourselves culturally and politically when we let the fringes on either side define God in their image. "Everybody's blood pressure, on both the left and the right, could be reduced at least a few notches if we accept that historically there is this religious language in the public sphere, but it is not coercive," he says.

In the end, he writes, the truth can be found where it usually resides in the middle. "The great good news about America the American gospel, if you will is that religion shapes the life of the nation without strangling it." i "Don't Look Down" by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer St Martin's Press ($24.95) By Claudia Smith Brinson Knight Ridder Newspapers "Don't Look Down" will make a fun "Romancing the Stone" kind of movie. Actually, it already is a movie, only in print between book covers. The co-authors even met movie-style cute: A taciturn former Green Beret, Bob Mayer, and a bubbly romance writer, Jennifer Crusie, fly off to a writers' conference on Maui. They rub each other wrong: "He looked like he'd kill me if I annoyed him," claims Crusie in their promotional materials.

This, of course, instantly morphs into a writing love fest: Mayer asks, "What do you write?" and Crusie answers, "In my books, people have sex and get married," to which Mayer says, "In my books, people have sex and die." And so they collaborate, meaning he lowers the body count. The result: "Don't Look Down," a movie-as-book-about-a-movie. It's light; it's witty; it's a page turner. It's romantic, in a he-man she-modern-woman manner. A long Crusie-Mayer partnership is a sure thing.

Some characters: Lucy Armstrong comes to Savannah, to finish filming a jinxed action movie. The female star is buxom Althea Bergdorf, busy calculating History of "American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation" by Jon Meacham Random House ($23.95) "The Faiths of the Founding Fathers" by David Holmes Oxford University Press ($20) By Bruce Tomaso The Dallas Morning News At the first session of the Continental Congress, on Sept. 6, 1774, the Founding Fathers fought over religion. A delegate from Boston wanted to open with a prayer. Others objected.

After debate, the delegates voted to pray. "But they had a fight about it," says author Jon Meacham. "That sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?" The fighting hasn't stopped since. Nothing, it seems, more dependably divides Americans than the proper role of faith in the public arena. Prayer in school.

Prayer at football games. Prayer at the Air Force Academy. Christmas creches. "Holiday trees." Under God in the pledge. The Ten Commandments in the courthouse.

Terri Schiavo. Stem-cell research. Creationism. Abortion. Good L8rd, it's enough to GOSSIP AND GRIPES government subject of two in-depth books W0J "You: The Owner's Manual" by Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz is No.

1 on this week's "Publishers Weekly" nonfiction list. NonfictionGeneral 1. "You: The Owner's Manual" by Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz HarperCollins 2. "Marley and Me" by John Grogan Morrow 3. "The World Is Flat (Updated and Expanded)" by Thomas L.

Friedman Farrar, Straus and Giroux 4. "Cesar's Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems" by Cesar Millan, Melissa Jo Peltier Harmony 5. "Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings" by Tyler Perry River-head 6. "Burnt Toast: And Other Philosophies of Life" by Teri Hatcher Hyperion 7. "Giada's Family Dinners" by Giada De Laurentiis Clarkson Potter 8.

"Freakonomics" by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner William Morrow 9. "The Gospel of Judas" edited by Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, Gregor Wurst; commentaries by Bart D. Ehrman National Geographic 10.

"Possible Side Effects" by Augusten Burroughs St. Martin's Press 11. "Clemente" by David Maraniss Simon Schuster 12. "A Death in Belmont" by Sebastian Junger Norton 13. "The Mighty and the Almighty" by Madeleine Albright HarperCollins 14.

"American Theocracy" by Kevin Phillips Viking 15. "Mama Made the Difference" by T.D. Jakes Putnam Publishers Weekly who will be her next true love. The stunt double for Bryce McKay, a former comedy star, is Capt. J.T.

Wilder, a former Green Beret who soon will find himself assisting the CIA. The stunt coordinator is handsome and amoral Connor Nash, Lucy's ex-husband. Some description: On Lucy's first of what will be several disastrous days filming, she meets Wilder. faith and make your head spin. In "American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation," Meacham argues persuasively that the crusaders on both sides have it wrong: The religious right twists history by claiming that America was founded as a "Christian nation." And the secular left fabricates history by claiming that the Founders would have had their breeches in a knot at the mention of God in the classroom or the town square.

"Religion has always been woven into American politics," writes Meacham, the managing editor of Newsweek. However, he emphasizes, the God invoked by Madison and Monroe and by Lincoln as the Civil War dragged on, and by FDR on D-Day was intentionally not a denominational God. It was not the God of Abraham, not the God who had a son whose resurrection Christians celebrated on Easter. "The Founders had every opportunity to invoke that God," Meacham says in an interview. "And they explicitly chose not to." Instead, they chose what Benjamin Franklin called our "public religion," a sort of benign homage tt a sort tion was founded by godly men upon godly principles to be a Christian nation." Baloney.

Jefferson, for example, believed that Jesus was an inspiring moral teacher, but not divine. Dr. Holmes, a professor of religious studies at the College of William and Mary, writes that Jefferson ridiculed the doctrine of the Trinity as "incomprehensible jargon" and "metaphysical insanity." Franklin wasn't sure if Jesus was God or not, and said in his old age that he didn't plan to spend time worrying about it, "when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble." Thomas Paine called Christianity "a fable, which, for absurdity and extravagance is not exceeded by any thing that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients." (By the way, those revolted by such blasphemies can partly blame liberal, Ivy League universities. Dr. Holmes notes that nearly all Colonial colleges, including Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, and the schools that would become Brown, Columbia and Princeton, were founded by religious groups but, by the post-Revolutionary years, they had turned into hotbetls of fashionable 0 of generic God, one whose outline, and agenda, were deliberately left vague.

It's a nonsectarian God, a God not weighted down by dogma. He made us. He watches over us. But he isn't kicking butt and taking names. Unlike the Old Testament God, or the God of the Crusaders, or the God the Wahhabi, he doesn't exhort his followers to lop off the heads of those who worship in the wrong temple.

This transcendent, benevolent, undemanding God-Dude was a product of his believers' time. Most of the Founding Fathers were "Deists," men of the Enlightenment who believed in a Supreme Creator but i JM V. If.