Three little books that are big on fun

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, January 7, 2006

For several years now, it has been a widely held belief that American-made cars are inferior to foreign brands, especially those from Japanese and German automakers.

The 1970s-era Ford Pinto (with its nasty habit of exploding) and Chevrolet Vega (which was prone to rust prematurely) were among the U.S. models that did their part to create the perception.

No surprise, then, that the Pinto and Vega are among the 50 models Richard Porter selected for his book “Crap Cars.” But what might surprise you is that models bearing such prestigious (and high-priced) foreign badges as Porsche, Ferrari, Volvo and even Rolls-Royce are here, too, parked right alongside the Pintos, Vegas, Chrysler K-cars and AMC Gremlins.

In his book, which is about the size of an owner’s manual, Porter shares his reasons – and doesn’t spare the venom – accompanied by color photos of the vehicles he victimizes.

He counts down from No. 50 to No. 1: from the Porsche 924 (whose VW engine provided “all the get up and go of an octogenarian in lead shoes”) to the 1974 Mustang, the sequel to a “full-fledged living legend” that was based on a horse of another color, the infamous Pinto.

Loyal owners – most notably, perhaps, some of the 20 million-plus who have owned a VW Beetle – will disagree with some choices, while others will wonder why the lemon in their driveway was spared Porter’s wrath.

Give us Liberty

Inside the slender 5-by-7-inch “The Statue of Liberty” lurks a bigger book.

Marie-Sophie Corcy and collaborators tell the story of the design and construction of Lady Liberty in text and 35 illustrations that are cleverly contained in a book of only eight pages.

The trick? Four of those pages fold out or up, expanding to four times their original size.

The 150-foot-high statue was a notable technical achievement in its day. The work of French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, Liberty was commissioned as a gift from France to commemorate the centennial of U.S. independence in 1876.

One of the fold-outs shows the huge hand and torch on display at the Universal Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, while another has a painting depicting the inaugural gala of the statue’s installation in New York Harbor on Oct. 28, 1886.

Most of the illustrations in this unusual and informative book are from the collection of the Musee des Arts et Metiers in Paris, which houses Bartholdi’s papers.

Out to the ballgame

There is a gap of less than four months between the end of the World Series and the date on which pitchers and catchers report for spring training. But for fans who can’t get enough of the national pastime, those four months might as well be four years.

To help antsy fans endure baseball’s hibernation are books such as “Baseball and the Meaning of Life.”

Editor Josh Leventhal has selected pithy baseball quotes by players, managers, umpires and others – Casey Stengel, Satchel Paige, Yogi Berra and Mike Schmidt among them – and teamed them with appropriate illustrations of game action, players and artifacts.

Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Roberto Clemente’s dive for a fly ball is a fitting image for his quote: “I believe we owe something to the people who watch us. When we don’t try one hundred percent, we steal from them.”

A young Johnny Bench amazes viewers by showing how he can grip seven baseballs in his mitt-like bare hand, illustrating a quote by pitcher Jim Bouton: “You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”

And there’s even some baseball advice that applies to everyday life, too, including this one courtesy of Babe Ruth:

“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from swinging.”