THE NEW AGE: Notes of a Fringe...

THE NEW AGE: Notes of a Fringe Watcher by Martin Gardiner (Prometheus: $15.95, illustrated). A founding Fellow of the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, Martin Gardiner obviously enjoys his reputation as a debunker. In this collection of columns from “The Skeptical Observer,” he gleefully demolishes a spectrum of beliefs that ranges from creationism and Uri Geller’s spoon-bending act to channeling and the pseudo-Tibetan mysticism of T. Lobsang Rampa (Cyril Henry Hoskin). None of these phenomena can survive scientific scrutiny, and Gardiner’s dismay at seeing Rampa/Hoskin’s books in print decades after they were exposed as fraudulent is understandable. As the nation’s most visible advocate of New Age inanities, Shirley MacLaine receives the lion’s share of the hard knocks: Gardiner describes her as writing “page after page of kindergarten metaphysics that read like reports in one of those shabby little spiritualist journals that flourished around the turn of the century when upper classes amused themselves with table tipping.”

SURVIVAL: Stories by Nancy Lord (Coffee House: $9.95). The Alaskan landscape--vast, brooding and often hostile--dominates these stories. Lord writes most effectively about women who have chosen to make their homes in the North: how they cope with the isolation, the weather, the lack of amenities. Set in a small coastal town, the title story describes the conflict between a newcomer, eager to experience her romantic dream of the wilderness, and a more seasoned woman, who knows the perils that lie beneath the beauty of the mountains and bays. In “Why I Live at the Natural History Museum,” an older, wiser woman moves out of her once-cozy home rather than put up with her good-for-nothing kids. Lord’s male characters are considerably less convincing; nevertheless, she demonstrates considerable promise as a writer in this first collection of her fiction.

GROW YOUR OWN TREES: A Book & Seeds by Tony Secunda & John Dyson (Chronicle Books: $12.95, illustrated). This concise manual provides easy-to-follow directions for planting 10 different varieties of trees, including coast redwood, black locust, Sitka spruce and paper birch. Secunda and Dyson explain how to care for the seedlings and, equally important, what not to do: e.g., amateurs should not attempt to plant trees along urban sidewalks. As the title suggests, the authors include a package of seeds with the book--the reader supplies the containers, soil and patience. However, as Secunda and Dyson emphasize the importance of correct soil PH, they should also have included instructions or a kit for testing it.

AGAINST JOIE DE VIVRE by Phillip Lopate (Poseidon: $9.95). Lopate’s most recent collection of essays fails to maintain sustained excellence of his popular “Bachelorhood.” The best pieces in this anthology focus on the trivia of daily life in the big city: Lopate’s fractious landlady and her rather thick-witted husband emerge from his descriptions as vital, credible characters. His account of the voyeuristic joys of living in a sublet New York apartment displays an effortless grace and humor, but when Lopate abandons his unassuming persona and tries to pose as a Serious Commentator on architecture or the state of the personal essay, his sentences seem to ossify. He hits bottom in a ponderous and self-serving piece about his attempt to stage Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” with a cast of elementary-school children.

A WODEHOUSE BESTIARY by P. G. Wodehouse, edited by D. R. Benson (Ticknor & Fields: $9.95). The animals in this collection of stories and excerpts from novels display more common sense than the agreeably befuddled humans. The Empress of Blanding, the recalcitrant prize hog in “Pig-Hoo-o-o-o-ey,” acts much more level-headedly than does Lord Emsworth, her absent-minded owner. And any animal much above a flatworm on the evolutionary scale seems brighter than that endearingly mutton-headed fop, Bertie Wooster. Wodehouse’s tongue-in-cheek descriptions remain a source of delight. The Empress of Blanding is “as nearly circular as a pig can be without bursting,” while the gorilla in a Hollywood film resembles “a stockbroker motoring to Brighton in a fur coat.” Ideal vacation reading for animal lovers and Wodehouse fans.

THE NATIONAL LAMPOON PRESENTS TRUE FACTS: The Book, compiled by John Bendel (Contemporary Books: $7.95). A few of the odd signs, headline flubs and weird ads in this collection represent deliberate attempts to be clever--the concrete marker proclaiming “On this site in 1897 nothing happened.” But it’s the oblivious sincerity of the authors that make most of the entries so funny: the “Happy Passover” message juxtaposed with the jolly porker logo in a Piggly Wiggly market ad, or the drugstore sign reading “try our cough syrup--you will never get any better.” The headline writer who created the headline for an account of the legal proceedings against accused narcotics trafficker Rafael Colon was clearly working ‘way past deadline when he coined “Colon outburst highlights trial”; the well-intentioned person who thought of using a crocheted bunny as a holder for a baby’s bottle certainly didn’t realize that the result looks like the John C. Holmes of the rabbit world. Sophomoric, silly and very funny, these “True Facts” will reduce the most sophisticated adult to a sniggering adolescent.

THE BIRDS AND THE BEASTS WERE THERE by Margaret Millar (Capra Press: $10.95). In this charming memoir, novelist Margaret Millar describes how she became addicted to the the pleasures of bird-watching in Santa Barbara County. Although initially skeptical about the whole business, she soon found herself running to the market for grapes, doughnuts, seed, etc. to attract her subjects. Millar maintains a healthy skepticism about her misadventures, and cheerfully recounts her errors, such as using a friend’s expensive sweater to mark the location of a rare bird sighting. This light-hearted approach makes her book a more persuasive arguement for conservation than the self-righteous preaching that mars so many nature books.