Leisure reading

'Pinocchio Parenting'

By Chuck Borsellino

Howard, $17.99.

This book, subtitled "21 Outrageous Lies We Tell Our Kids," is by a Dallas psychologist and ordained minister. Written in simple terms, it is thought-provoking. The author is determined to warn parents against the old cliches:

— "You can be anything you want to be." (Except, as Borsellino says, maybe a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.)

— "It doesn't matter what you do in life, as long as you're happy." (It's hard to be happy if you don't do much in life.)

— "Looks don't matter — it's what's on the inside that counts." (Good-looking people actually do better in life.)

— "It doesn't matter whether you win or lose — it's how you play the game." (Many people will tell you life is ALL about WINNING.) —Dennis Lythgoe

'London'

By A.N. Wilson

Modern Library, $12.95 (softcover).

Anyone who has been to London will probably say it is one of the most interesting cities in the world. So it's no wonder A.N. Wilson, an acclaimed British novelist, biographer and historian, would want to write its history.

The result is a 200-page book that most people could read on a long flight. Still, covering 2,000 years in one sitting is a little scary.

Wilson uses vignettes and miniature portraits to accomplish the purpose, then provides a telescopic view of the various eras for which the city is noted: Roman and Norse times; the London of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Pepys; the Industrial Revolution, the waves of building and immigration during the reign of Queen Victoria, the devastation of two World Wars, the social and economic turmoil of the postwar era, and finally, the glamorous and sometimes ridiculous image of today's London.

As Wilson writes, "Every district of London . . . is haunted by memories. The past and the present are always blended here. . . . In the ever fluctuating population, we sense that the life of the city is a collective experience, partly secret and partly shared. It is shared not just by the living, but also with the dead."

Amen. —Dennis Lythgoe

'Reconstructing Natalie'

By Laura Jensen Walker