"Life Itself," a Memoir by Film Critic Roger Ebert
A review by Gerald Bartell
In the 1950s, long before he won a Pulitzer Prize for his film criticism, Roger Ebert spent many a Saturday afternoon sipping root beer and munching jawbreakers, Necco Wafers and licorice at the Princess Theater in his home town of Urbana, Ill. Five cartoons, a newsreel, a Batman, Superman or Rocketman serial and then a double bill -- a Lash LaRue western followed by a Bowery Boys or Abbott and Costello comedy -- flashed before him. Ebert's memoir, Life Itself, resembles one of those movie marathons. Tales from childhood, interviews with film stars and directors, funny and touching stories about colleagues, and evocative essays about trips unspool before the reader in a series of loosely organized, often beautifully written essays crafted by a witty, clear-eyed yet romantic raconteur. Ebert begins with his childhood, a time when he did not, as one might think, escape an unhappy home at the movies. His parents sometimes quarreled over money, but mostly Roger's account of the...
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Previously Reviewed by Washington Post Book World
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Palo Alto: Stories by James Franco
 James Franco's debut story collection, Palo Alto, is a thin, hackneyed affair, not downright disastrous, but too amateurish and undercooked to carry any real force. Franco, of course, is a popular and well-regarded screen actor; the fact of his authorship is nominally irrelevant but nonetheless...
Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America by Steven Waldman
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