January 2011

CBS/Fox Video, four-video boxed set, $69.98 . CODE: BAT-8

On the November 1951 premiere broadcast of “See it Now,” the show’s “editor,” Edward R. Murrow, sat smoking before two newsroom monitors showing the Brooklyn and Golden Gate bridges; viewers could see both coasts at once for the first time on television. In coming years Murrow took the half-hour program to the Korean front, two Southern towns following the Brown decision, anywhere a small story might illuminate a larger one. This four-part set highlights Murrow’s career as a peerless television journalist. In addition to the well-known “See it Now” broadcasts that weakened Joe McCarthy, the set offers “Person to Person” interviews with Americans’ favorite celebrities at home and a still shocking 1960 “CBS Reports” documentary on the life of migrant workers. The “Person to Person” shows reveal Murrow surprisingly at ease with personalities like Sophia Loren and Louis Armstrong. He was Mike Wallace, Ted Koppel, and Larry King all in one.

Columbia/Legacy CK 57589 (one CD), $14.98 . CODE: BAT-7

Cleveland Orchestra TC093-75 (ten CDs), $195.00 ($180.00 plus $15.00 handling surcharge). Not available in stores . CODE: CVL-1

Alfred A. Knopf, 408 pages, $24.00 . CODE: RAN-20

by Robert O’Brien, Chronicle Books, 351 pages, $12.95 soft cover . CODE: CRN-2

Robert O’Brien’s guidebook was a hit when it originally appeared in 1948, and, long out of print, it has been a treasure for city historians ever since. Many have happily cribbed from it, “never dreaming it would be reprinted,” writes the San Francisco columnist Adair Lara in her foreword. O’Brien, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle when he worked on the book, was a transplanted Easterner; the book is a literate, irreverent appreciation, a smoothly guided walk from the Embarcadero (“the street where the city and the hills meet the sea”) across to Montgomery Street, Broadway, Market Street, and South Park. The text is punctuated by Antonio Sotomayor’s charming line drawings of sailors, cable cars, and Barbary Coast mischief.

Cheryl Studer, soprano, Thomas Hampson, baritone, John Browning, piano, Emerson String Quartet, Deutsche Grammophon 435 867-2 (two CDs), $31.28 . CODE: BAT-5

Dawn Upshaw, soprano, Thomas Hampson, baritone, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Hugh Wolff, Teldec 9031-77310-2 (one CD), $16.96 . CODE: BAT-6

by Michael Brian Schiffer, Stnithsonian Institution Press, 240 pages, $24.00 . CODE: SIP-1

Nowadays internal combustion and the automobile seem inextricably linked, but at the turn of the century cars driven by steam and electricity sold just as well. Electric cars had important advantages: they were quieter, cleaner, and easy to start and operate, did not smell, and required no transmission. On the other hand, the batteries were heavy and needed constant maintenance and recharging, and the cars were slow, expensive, and limited to ranges of one hundred miles or less.

18- x 24-inch map prints, $24.00 each: Shiloh, CODE: MFC-1 ; Antietam—Morning, CODE: MFC-2 ; Antietam—Afternoon, CODE: MFC-3 ; Pea Ridge, CODE: MFC-4

Set of two folded maps, $18.00: Antietam—Morning & Afternoon and Gettysburg—First Day, CODE: MFC-5

by Matthew Naythons, Sberwin Nuland, and Stanley Burns, Epicenter/ Random House, 271 pages, $40.00 . CODE: RAN-19

T. H. Watkins, whose profile of the conservationist Aldo Leopold appears in this issue, recommends Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work by Curt Meine (University of Wisconsin Press, 653 pages, $35.00, CODE: UWS-1 ) as the definitive biography of Leopold—not merely because of its narrative strength, which is considerable, but because of its sure grasp of the myriad details of his complex professional life and contributions. A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There by Aldo Leopold (Oxford University Press, 228 pages, Special Commemorative Edition $25.00, CODE: OUP-7 ) is a fine collection of Leopold’s writing for a general audience and includes original line drawings by Charles W. Schwartz.