Cinderella & Company, Backstage at the Opera with Cecilia Bartoli, by Manuela Hoelterhoff, published in hardcover in 1998, is now available in paperback.

Home Town by Tracy Kidder seems very much like a novel, but is purportedly a work of non-fiction. The author has interviewed many of the characters, if one may use that word when speaking of non-fiction, and states that any thoughts that he has attributed to characters were "plausibly described" to him.

The home town of the title is Northampton, Massachusetts. A county seat with a population of approximately 30,000, Northampton is the site of Smith College, one of the most prestigious colleges for women. Kidder's book is about the town and its people, and about the lives of some individuals in particular over a period of several years.

The chief character is Tommy O'Connor, an Irish-American Catholic member of the city's police force. Kidder describes O'Connor's childhood, marriage, and his work for the police. In connection with the latter, we met other residents of Northampton. Among them are a policeman accused of sexual contact with his young daughter, a drug addict from the Dominican Republic who acts as a police informant, and a well-to-do lawyer whose mental illness isolates him from society for a number of years. Another character, whose life is not connected with O'Connor, is a young single mother enrolled in a program at Smith to help older women obtain a college education.

Kidder also provides good descriptions of Northampton and some insight into its history. One possible criticism is that none of the characters are Lesbian, although, as Kidder tells us, Northampton has become well known in the press as a city with a proportionately large population of Lesbians. The focus of the book is primarily on the city's locally born Catholics. That having been said, the book is very well written, seems to e a quite accurate portrayal of Northampton, and is a pleasure to read.

Frank McCourt, who wrote of hs childhood in the best-selling Angela's Ashes, continues his life story in 'Tis: A Memoir. The new book covers the years from McCourt's return to America in 1949 up to 1985, the year in which his father dies and in which his mother's ashes were bought to Ireland.

In Anglea's Ashes, McCourt had written of his very early childhood as the son of Irish immigrants in Brooklyn, and of his family's return to Ireland, where they lived a life of extreme poverty because of the neglect caused by his father's heavy drinking.

In 'Tis, McCourt tells of his return to New York, where he got a job cleaning the lobby at the Biltmore Hotel. He was drafted into the United States Army and spent time in Germany, where his primary task was typing reports. Back in America, he worked on a loading dock and in various other jobs, while he attended the School of Education at New York University on the "G.I. bill." He then taught at a vocational high school on Staten Island, at some other schools, and finally at Stuyvesant, New York's most prestigious high school.

As to his personal life and family life, McCort married an Episcopalian woman from Rhode Island and had a daughter. His three brothers and eventually his mother returned to New York as well.

Novelist Emma Tennant has written about her family in this book described as a "literary memoir." Her grandfather Edward, the first Baron Glenconner, had an inherited family fortune derived from industry. His sister Margot was the wife of prime minister H. H. Asquith. Edward's wife Pamela was a great beauty who doted onher eldest son who died at an early age in the first World War. She subsequently became interested in spiritualism. After her husband's death, she married a man with whom whe had been romantically involved for a number of years. One of Edward and Pamela's sons was Stephen Tennant, a somewhat famous eccentric homosexual "aesthete."

Emma's father Christopher became Edward's heir after the eldest son's death. Christopher's first marriage to a woman also named Pamela was arranged by his mother and eventually ended in divorce after the birth of two sons. Emma, born in 1937, was one of the three children of her father's second marriage. One of Emma's half-brothers was at one time regarded as a suitor of the Princess Margaret.

In this enjoyable but brief book, Emma Tennant has written ten chapters, describing events in the family history. Four of the chapters describe events that occurred before she had been born. Mrs. Tennant writes like a novelist, providing good physical description, conversation, and thoughts of the various individuals. Her prose style is exceptionally good. The book was a great pleasure to read. I wish that the author had chosen to write at greather length about her family.

Marianne Williamson, lecturer on metaphysics and spirituality, turns her attention to romantic love in Enchanted Love: The Mystical Power or Intimate Relationships. The book is in thirteen chapters with titles such as "The Enchanted Sea" and "Of Space Captains and Angels." It also contains poems and prayers by the author.

One of Ms. Wiliamson's earlier books, A Return to Love, explained some of the principles of A Course in Miracles as they relate to issues in daily life. A Return to Love was a very clear, well written book, that I have enjoyed reading at least five times over the past few years. Unfortunately I found Enchanted Love something of a disappointment. It lacks the organization around clear topics that one finds in A Return to Love. Enchanted Love contains some very good paragraphs, but the book often seems like a not very interesting assortment of preachy pronouncements. Although some of the author's statements are explained with examples, others are simply uttered, and one may well woner "Is that really true?" or even "What does that mean?"

We are told, for example: "I once heard Pat Allen say that men produce into women's appetites. Men are by nature producers, and one of the things they produce into is female desire. From our sexual lives to our emotional lives, that is an archetypal pattern of great beauty and significance." I do not have the vaguest idea who Pat Allen is. I have never before heard the verb "produce" followed by the preposition "into." I cannot imagine what "produce into" means, but "producing into" certainly does not sound like a pattern of beauty to me. Perhap there are circles of people who know of Pat Allen and who speak of "producing into appetites." Who knows? I don't. One wonders what sort of editorial process the book went through.

Ms. Williamson writes, "Marrieds and singles are constantly sending telepathic communications to each other. There is a constant conversation everyone knows is there, but which few dare to verbalize." I was unaware of such constant telepathic communication. Is it really taking place?

Although some of the author's poems and prayers may serve as worthwhile meditations, some are quite banal. One poem, for example, contains the line "Your issues are more interesting now." Is that poetry, or merely the sort of psychobabble one may routinely hear at twelve-step meetings?

Fans of Ms. Williamson may find that the book contains some interesting material and food for thought. For those unacquainted with Ms. Williamson, I would recommend A Return to Love, but not Enchanted Love.