Dembart to Be Regular Book Reviewer

This month marks the debut of a new Los Angeles Times regular book reviewer: Lee Dembart. To readers of The Times, Dembart’s may already be a familiar name. A longtime science writer for the newspaper, author of a near-prophetic series of articles on the Shuttle program, Dembart has most recently been an Editorial Pages writer on science, mathematics, law and other topics. In addition to those duties, he will now appear once a week in View, usually on Tuesday, reviewing books on science and technology, ecology, medicine and related political and philosophical issues.

This brings to four the number of regular View book critics: Carolyn See, appearing Mondays; Lee Dembart, Tuesdays; Richard Eder, Wednesdays; and Elaine Kendall on Fridays. The Thursday book reviewer will continue to be different each week.

Carolyn See’s readers may be interested to learn that McGraw-Hill is publishing another “Monica Highland” novel this spring. See first shared that pseudonym with Lisa See Kendall and John Espey in 1983 when the three of them produced “Lotus Land,” now a McGraw-Hill paperback. “110 Shanghai Road,” Monica Highland’s latest, is a saga that stretches from China to Los Angeles over several decades of the 20th Century. At the American Booksellers Assn. convention in New Orleans next month, McGraw-Hill will feature yet another See novel, “Golden Days,” an unassisted, unpseudonymous effort to be published next fall.

Meanwhile, reviewer Elaine Kendall is bringing her musical “Stepping Forward” from New York to the New Mayfair Theatre, Santa Monica, opening Thursday. Presenting vignettes of notable women in American history, the musical is based on “To Feed Their Hopes” (Black Sparrow), volume three of a “historical quartet” by John Sanford, a Santa Barbara writer.