Leisure reading

'My Many Selves'

By Wayne C. Booth

USU Press, $32.95 (hardback)

$22.95 (softcover)

Wayne C. Booth died in October 2005 soon after completing this memoir.

In life, he established himself not only as an English professor (at the University of Chicago) but also as one of the most important literary critics in the country. He wrote scholarly books about rhetoric, fiction and teaching.

Booth chose to call his memoir "My Many Selves" because he saw his life as one of continuing conflict, and his challenge was to try to harmonize the discordant parts of his life.

He grew up Mormon in rural Utah and called himself a Mormon all his life, although he stopped believing in LDS doctrine. He talks often in the book about the challenges he faced being Mormon, especially as a missionary when he had so many doubts about the theology. It was in the LDS North Central States Mission that Booth grappled with his intellectual problems, and where he was paired with Elder Marion D. Hanks, now an emeritus member of the LDS Quorum of the Seventy. Hanks was equal to the task of being a companion to an intellectual figure with strong oratorical skills.

After his mission Booth was offered a teaching position at Brigham Young University — but he turned it down because he was afraid he would be guilty of hypocrisy in such a heavily Mormon environment.

The memoir is very interesting and written with literary skill — and includes many entries from his journal. — Dennis Lythgoe

'Clemente'

By David Maraniss

Simon & Schuster, $26.

David Maraniss, a prolific Washington Post staffer, has turned to sports with this book, subtitled "The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero."

Maraniss has written the story of Roberto Clemente, a player for the Pittsburgh Pirates who was killed in a plane crash on New Year's Eve 1972 as he tried to deliver food and medical supplies to the people of Nicaragua after a devastating earthquake.