There are two satisfying surprises that come out of reading John Grisham's latest, Bleachers. First, that the prolific thrillermeister is capable of writing novels that take place outside the courtroom, and second, that even football stories can have a softer side to make them palatable to non-sports fans.

This novella spans the 30-year coaching career of Eddie Rake in Messina, small-town USA. We only get to meet Coach Rake through the musings of ex-Spartan football players who've come back home to await the death of their mentor.

What holds this book together are not the usual caricatures, like that of ex-quarterback, Neely Crenshaw, whose football career was curtailed by an off-side tackle at Tech University and who's come back to Messina for the first time in 15 years. Nor the sympathetic characterization of his abandoned ex-girlfriend, Screamer, now an overweight cocktail waitress in Las Vegas. Rather, it's the players' recounting of what the dying coach meant to them that keeps you reading.

Coach Rake is exactly as you would expect him to be: tough and merciless, weeding out the whiners in an August marathon initiation camp. The Spartans offer up tales of survival, like the one from Vietnam where the words "never quit, you win because you are tougher mentally" end up saving the town's present day sheriff. The coach is a stoic figure � he never resorts to hitting a player, but neither does he give out any high fives. He lives on the moralistic high ground where everyone gives his outmost or is out. Yet, it emerges that once he did hit a player....

Although this is a short novel, every character has something to say and often it's profound. Football fans of all ages should not hesitate to read this book � as should all those high school sweethearts left behind.
� Dr Markus Martin

HOWARDS END
EM Forster
Signet, 1992
(first published 1910)

Looking to be transported back to the cusp of our modern moment? Nothing could be better than this side trip to that railway platform between Victorian society and the values we live by now known as the Edwardian period.

Howards End is probably best remembered from the lavish Merchant and Ivory adaptation starring Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anthony Hopkins back in 1992, but it's so much more than a costume drama. It's a political tract, a social commentary, and most of all, a love story � for England.

The novel tells the tale of the bohemian, wealthy Schlegels and the bourgeois Wilcoxes, whose paths cross with that of poverty-stricken Leonard Bast. Unhappily married, Bast toils under the yoke of the Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company, all the while desperately gasping for the knowledge and learning he's been cruelly cheated. A chance encounter and a stolen umbrella bind their lives inextricably.

EM Forster weaves an intricate story with symbols that wind through the book like the creeping greenery of the eponymous country, Howards End, of the Wilcox clan. England's mores ebb and flow like its tides, and London, with its Imperialist companies and suffragette soirees, casts a long shadow over the country's rapidly advancing future.

Like London, the Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen, are huge presences in this book. Witty and warm, they take Leonard under their wing, while the Wilcox patriarch Henry tries to take them under his. These conflicting paternalistic gestures shape the dramatic and quietly tragic outcome of the book. For England to live well and prosper, the weak must be crushed under heartless, sometimes clumsy, progress.

This future is represented in the book partly by the streaking spectre of the motor car. Margaret worries about its effect on the weaker members of society � during a trip to the country in the car she expresses concern for chickens and children who might get caught under the wheels. " 'They're all right,' said Mr Wilcox. 'They'll learn � like the swallows and the telegraph-wires.' "

Leonard doesn't have the luxury of learning, but his sacrifice plants the seeds of the future for the enlightened classes Forster hopes will inherit his green and pleasant earth.
� Toss Taylor

FILM

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
Dir: Mike Nichols
Warner 1966
DVD release, 1998

Edward Albee, the famously temperamental playwright who penned the original play, was so disgruntled by Nichol's film version that he stormed out of the screening and forever disassociated himself from the movie. Why? Apparently because he'd deliberately written the thing to be oppressively claustrophobic � ie the play takes place entirely in the main characters' living room � and the fact that the cast gallivants from room to room, car to bar, he felt, ruined everything.

In fact, Ernest Lehman's adaptation of the play is dark, brooding, indeed bloodcurdling � and ultimately very true to the original play. He spares no details in depicting the brutal deconstruction of a marriage from hell, one which, despite all odds and dysfunctionality, actually works quite well.

Virginia Woolf is the only film in Oscar history to be nominated in every eligible category (13), including best picture, actor, actress, supporting actress, director, adapted screenplay, art direction, cinematography, sound, costume design, music score and film editing. (In the end, only Ms Taylor, Ms Dennis and the cinematographer Haskell Wexler walked away with the statue � Mr Burton, who many believed should have won, lost out to Paul Schofield in A Man for All Seasons.)

The film is an unusual animal in that it managed to garner both critical praise and immediate popularity with audiences. The often underrated Elizabeth Taylor, who gained 13kg for the role, turned in the performance of a lifetime as Martha, the frustrated drunken frau of an over-the-hill professor, George, scorchingly rendered by Mr Burton. Observers on the set were often shocked by the vehemence of the performance, which both actors took very seriously; many believe that their marriage, which was already rocky, was dealt a final blow by this searing exploration of love games gone very wrong.
� Madeleine Partous

MUSIC

CURTIS
Curtis Mayfield
Curtom Records, 1970

The black triumvirate of Sly Stone, James Brown, and Curtis Mayfield released three of the finest soul LPs ever in a short span from 1970 to 1971� Sly's There's a Riot Goin' On the Godfather's Sex Machine and Curtis's eponymous solo debut. Prior to recording this record, Mayfield cut his square cohorts loose � and the move pays off big with Curtis. His sound is grittier, hipper and more immediate than it ever was when he was with crooning quartet, The Impressions.

The opening track and top 10 hit "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Down Below We're All Going to Go" paints an excoriating picture of urban race relations in the US. It begins with Mayfield shouting "Sisters! Niggers! Whities! Jews! Crackers! If there's a Hell below, we're all gonna go!"

Not content just telling it like it is, Mayfield lets us know how things ought to be with the albums other standout single, the immortal "Move on Up." The usually mild mannered troubadour wasn't getting ready to compromise on civil rights, singing

Take nothing less
Not even second best
And do not obey,
You must have your say
You can pass the test. Move on up!

The rest of the album is equally on the money. Mayfield's understated guitar virtuosity (few know that Jimi Hendrix was heavily influenced by Curtis's fretwork) is in fine form throughout. Curtis has been undeservedly overshadowed by Marvin Gaye's similarly themed but less potent What's Going On from the following year. Mayfield's record is by far the sharper of the two, expertly written, performed and produced, still sounding fresh after more than 30 years.
� Abe Konigsberg