WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — "Inside the Vatican" (National Geographic) originally was published in 1991, so it has a certain time-warp quality.Pope John Paul II was still hale and hearty, and the text and photography have that stately, glazed quality that was one of the primary characteristics of National Geographic magazine until recently.
But what the book loses in immediacy, it gains in access, from the tomb of St. Peter in the catacombs beneath the Vatican, to the papal tombs, to the Sistine Chapel — in total one of the western world's most massively meaningful monuments to faith.
The new trade paperback edition has added an addendum featuring Benedict XVI to bring the book up to date. It was a solid job in 1991, and it's a solid job today.
On another subject entirely, "The Movie That Changed My Life" (Da Capo) gathers several years worth of Variety's interviews with a plethora of people, most of whom, unfortunately, are celebrities. George Clooney on "All the President's Men," Steve Carell on "Young Frankenstein," Hugh Hefner on "Casablanca" — enthusiasms you could pretty much intuit.
But there are some surprises, too. Jesse Jackson talks about "Imitation of Life," the glorious Douglas Sirk film from 1959, while Donald Trump picks "Citizen Kane" — a movie about, among other things, the emptiness of wealth. Paul Steiger, of the Wall Street Journal, doesn't pick just one, but several, among them "One-Eyed Jacks," Marlon Brando's only directorial effort, a choice that certainly increases my respect for Steiger.
Mike Browning's Word of the Week...
creance: faith; creed
Scott Eyman writes for The Palm Beach Post. E-mail: scott(underscore)eyman(at)pbpost.com.