Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • 49

E6 Austin American-Statesman Sunday, October 6, 1991 Books Now York Times bestsellers stories, poems snare loving voice qnn 12 TT MJ Si, ygg-fr FICTION 1. The Sum of AH Fears, Tom Clancy; Putnam, $24.95. (7) Middle Eastern terrorists edge the world to the brink of nuclear war, and a floundering president may not be able to cope. 2. The Doomsday Conspiracy, Sidney Sheldon; Morrow, $22.

(4) An American naval officer, assigned to investigate a balloon accident in the Alps, has to contend with a mysterious force. 3. Saint Maybe, Ann Tyler; Knopf, $22. (5) The struggles of a young man to atone for the wrong he feels he has done his older brother. 4.

The Firm, John Grisham; Double-day, $19.95. (30) A young lawyer learns that the firm he recently joined is engaged in secret, possibly illegal, activities. 5. Flowers in the Rain, Rosamund Pitcher; Dunne-St. Martin's, $20.

(5) Short stories, many of them set in Scotland and dealing with family relationships. 6. The Deceiver, Frederick Forsyth; Bantam, $22.50. (2) To escape forced early retirement, Sam McCready recalls his years in the British secret service. 7.

Night Over Water, Km Follett; Morrow, $23. (1) High drama on the Pan American Clipper's last trans-Atlantic flight after the outbreak of World War II. 8. Russka, Edward Rutnerfurd; Crown, $25. (4) Eighteen centuries in the lives of four families of different cultures residing in a Russian village.

9. The Kitchen God's Wife, Amy Tan; Putnam, $22.95. (15) A Chinese-American matriarch tells the harrowing story of her life. 10. The Duchess, Jude Devaraux; Pocket, $21.

(2) An American woman, in Scotland to marry a duke, finds a mysterious stranger more attractive. 11. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan; Tor, $22.95. (1) The fate of a man doomed to save and then destroy the world: part of the "Wheel of Time" fantasy series. 12.

Outer Banks, Ann Rivers Siddons; HarperCollins, $19.95. (11) An interior decorator comes to terms with herself at a college reunion. 13. Oh, The Places You'll Got, Dr. Swiss; Random House, $12.95.

(80) The problems of finding your way through life, as depicted in verse and pictures. 14. Imajica, Clive Barker, HarperCollins, $23. (2) A fantasy in which three residents of Earth seek to improve its lot by reuniting it with four other Dominions. 15.

Loves Music, Loves to Dance, Mary Higgins Clark; Simon Schuster, $21.95. (22) Two Manhattan women, doing research into personal ads, get caught in the snare of a serial killer. NON-FICTION 1. Me: Stories of My Life, Katharine Hepburn; Knopf, $25. (3) The actress's memoirs 2.

La Toys, La Toya Jackson with Patricia Romanowski; Dutton, $19.95. (3) Growing up in a leading show business family, as experienced by Michael Jackson's sister. 3. Uh-Oh, Robert Fukjhum; Villard, $19.95. (6) Reflections on life's commonplaces, from meat loaf to pet dogs.

4. Hard Courts, John Feinstein; Villard, $22.50. (4) A journalist's behind-the-scenes look at a year of professional tennis. 5. Parliament of Whores, PJ.

O'Rourk; EntrekinAtlantic Monthly, $19.95. (16) A humorist's attempt to explain the federal government. 6. Fire in the Belly, Sam Keen; Bantam, $19.95. (21) A philosopher explores the changing role of the male in today's society.

7. Iron John, Robert Bty; Addison-Wesley, $18.95. (46) The passage of the male from boyhood to manhood, as practiced and cherished in various cultures and centuries. 8. J.

Edgar Hoover, Curt Gentry; Norton, $29.95. (2) The career of the longtime director director of the FBI. 9. Chutzpah, Alan M. Dershowitz; Little, Brown, $22.95.

(16) A prominent law professor's reflections on the lot of Jews in America, past, present and future. 10. Toujours Provence, Peter Ma vie; Knopf, $20. (14) The charms of rustic Provence, as savored by a London advertising man who moved there. 11.

When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time to Go Home, Erma Bombeck; HarperCollins, $19.95. (11) The tribulations of travel suffered in all parts of the world. 12. Exposing Myself, Geraldo Rivera with Daniel Paisner; Bantam, $21.95. (2) The autobiography of the television personality.

13. Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middle-brook; Davison-Houghton Mifflin, $24.95. (5) The life of a poorly educated, mentally ill woman who was a gifted poet. 14. Three Blind Mice, Ken Auletta; Random House, $25.

(1) How ABC, CBS and NBC lost their dominance of the television world during the 1980s. 15. Dave Barry Talks Back, Dave Barry, Crown, $18. (14) A collection of columns by the syndicated humorist. Listings based on sales figures from 2,000 bookstores, statistically adjusted to represent all bookstores.

(Weeks on list are In parentheses.) Book's sales are barely distinguishable from previous entry. Collection helps caregivers fill silent moments By Anns Morris Special to the American-Statesman Carolyn Banks and Janis Rizzo both know how hard it can be to make regular visits to someone you Jove in a nursing home. They created a collection of 52 read-aloud stories and poems to help caregivers fill the silences in a meaningful way. "I had a grandmother who was in a nursing home for years," said Rizzo in a solemn voice. "She was terribly arthritic and she couldn't get out of her bed.

We would go visit her, and we'd say, 'Well, this is what I did last week blah, blah, And after about five minutes Jof that well, she had nothing to eay. She couldn't even get out of her room and associate with other people." Banks had a similar experience, Visiting her mother-in-law in a nursing home. "She was perfectly lucid, but her eyes weren't so great that she could read for herself. "She would listen to the TV a lot not even watch it. We felt very iguilty talking about things we had done in the outside world.

We felt like we were making her life there imore miserable by telling her what she was missing. Reading to her was kind of neutral and calming. didn't just run in and run out." A Loving Voice: Read Aloud Stories for the Golden Years has been a project of Banks and Rizzo for the past year and a half. Banks came up with the idea six years ago while working at an adult daycare center. She brought Rizzo in as a collaborator after the two met riding horses in the Central Texas Dressage Society.

Their book will be published this fall. It combines all different kinds of and few carefully chosen Ipoems. "We hope the stories will touch on memories," Rizzo said, up something the listeners might have once experienced. For there's a story called 'Training Wheels' about a mother Staff photo by Ralph Barrera Janis Rizzo, left, and Carolyn Banks worked together to en Years, a collection of 52 stories and poems to help create A Loving Voice: Read Aloud Stories for the Gold- caregivers who make regular visits to nursing homes. dying," Banks said.

"I mean, that's kind of appalling. This book is an attempt to change all that." Barbara Lau of Austin, who has four poems in this collection and is also published in the enormously popularly anthology When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple, says she thinks this read-aloud book has the potential to become as successful as that one. "My own father died four months ago, and one of the things we would do was read to him. Even holding up a book took more energy than he had toward the end. I found reading to him a very peaceful form of communication." Copies of A Loving Voice can be ordered from The Charles Press, P.O.

Box 15715, Philadelphia, 19103. The pre-publication price is $14.95. Include $3 for shipping and handling. fWe hope the stories will touch on some memories. Janis Rizzo, author teaching her teen-aged daughter how to drive." "There's also a story about a child who throws up," Banks said, laughing.

"It's when the minister comes to dinner. The child just can't stand okra slithering down his throat Designed first as a practical self-help book for caregivers, A Loving Voice makes no pretense to being great literature. The priority was to find stories that evoked feelings of visual pictures. If they were also lAttack journalism orientation turns gossip into 'red meat' great stories, so much the better. Banks and Rizzo advertised their project nationally.

They received hundreds of submissions, then solicited additional stories and poems. The final collection includes works by Louise Erdrich (author of Love Medicine and The Beet Queen), Shelby Hearon (author of Owning Jolene and Group Therapy), Carolyn Osborn (author of Warriors and Maidens who has a story in the 1990 0. Henry Awards collection), Paul Estaver, winner of the Virginia Prize for Fiction, Claudio Segre (a University of Texas professor of modern European history and author of Italo Balbo: A Fascist Life), and Banks (author of four suspense novels including Patchwork). "Everyone thinks people in nursing homes want to read about As these feeding frenzies continue to invade deeper into private lives and areas once considered nobody's business, the press, Sabato argues, risks losing its public support and making itself vulnerable to attacks on the First Amendment. "I'm uncomfortable with the new emphasis on private lives, and wish we could draw back a bit from it, though I don't think there's any possibility of that," said Dan Balz of the Washington Post.

That sounds a little too much like a drunk saying he'd stop drinking if someone would take the bottle away. Most of the journalists quoted in this book are the ones holding the bottle. All they have to do is put it down. Brian E. Crowley writes for the Palm Beach Post.

2t 3 MESA AND VIEWS THAT LAST FOREVER. FOR LEASE lllllli! Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics Larry J. Sabato Free Press, 306 $22.95 Why is this happening? Sabato argues that the media have been taken over by reporters and editors who seek prestige and fame and have become "obsessed with gossip rather than governance." "The competitive philosophy governing this new generation of go-getters can be summed up by their fevered adherence to journalism's two ultimate imperatives: 'Don't get beaten to a story by another media outlet' and 'If we don't break this someone else Both axioms, and especially the second one, serve to encourage bad judgment and premature decisions to publish or air stories." 'tJamaM PARK NOW AVAILABLE INCOMPARABLE DESIGN. UNIQUE INTERIORS. til I Media's competitive 6y Brian E.

Crowley "As you look into press coverage of various things, you discover there's no rational explanation to it. There just isn't." One of the reasons commentator Paul Duke may have arrived at that conclusion is that journalists, according to Larry Sabato, have turned into a pack of snarling, increasingly out-of-control, "junkyard dogs." What's worse is that in Feeding Frenzy, Sabato, despite the hyperbole, has more than proven his case. Something is wrong with journalism today. Sabato's evidence comes from 36 case studies, 24 of them occurring within the past eight years, and 208 in-depth interviews, mostly with prominent )urnalists. professor of government at the University of Virginia, Sabato became intimately familiar with journalists as an often-quoted political expert during the 1988 presidential campaign.

Several of his case studies come from that campaign, including rumors about Dan Quayle's infidelity, George Bush's Infidelity, Jesse Jackson's infidelity and Gary Hart's infidelity. In each case, Sabato discovers, the press reacted differently. Hart was hounded out of the race with threats by the Washington Post to fun a story about a second woman. The accusations against Jackson were largely ignored because reporters feared being called racists. The claims against George Bush were proven to be untrue, so for he most part they were not reported.

The claims against Dan Quayle were also proven untrue, but there was a difference. The media was already in the middle of a "feeding frenzy" concerning Quayle's military experience and college records. Out of control, the media couldn't let the false sex Claims drop. "The Quayle coverage was ex-tessive and a feeding frenzy in the truest sense of the phrase," said CNN's Frank Sesno. "Whenever (he tiniest bit of red meat appeared, everybody dove for it." ask Fashions That Fjt The Wau You Live.

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