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Lionel Takes Riotous Ride Through Life

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By KEVIN WALKER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 17, 2008

Back in the Golden Age - when reading a newspaper was cool - Michael Lebron worked as a newspaperman in Tampa. He worked for the now defunct Tampa Times. Kurt Vonnegut is right. Defunct is a funny word.

At any rate, like so many before him, he left town and went on to fame and fortune as a syndicated talk radio host under the name Lionel. He now lives in New York City, where he recently finished "Everyone's Crazy Except You and Me ... And I'm Not So Sure About You" (Hyperion, $22.95).

Like his show, Lionel falls left of center, but the emphasis is on humor. In the book, he covers topics ranging from the trivial ("never congratulate an obviously pregnant woman on and for her life to be") to the more weighty ("The God Brain" chapter in which he discusses what he calls "a God reflex," or something in the human brain that "lays the foundation for a God belief system").

By the way, it's still cool to read the newspaper. Especially these days.

Also new is a book from a Clearwater physician - but it's not about being a doctor - and a former St. Petersburg resident now living in east Tennessee. J.B. Azneer and D.R. Spice have cooked up "Opposition Research: Stealing the White House" (iUniverse, $15.95), a political thriller about a detective hired by a presidential candidate to do opposition research on other candidates - only to find that all of them are trying to throw the election. It also involves someone with the ability to hack voting machines, a thought that will not be unfamiliar to Floridians.

Also in fiction is "The Cure for Grief," by Nellie Hermann (Scribner, $24), a debut novel about a sensitive young girl growing up with a father who survived the Holocaust and a series of disasters that befall the family. And "Ash Wednesday," by Ralph McInerny (St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95) - the 27th book in the Father Dowling mystery series (for those who don't know, Dowling is the parish priest and amateur detective at St. Hilary's near the Fox River in Wisconsin).

In nonfiction, author Moustafa Bayoumi details what it is like to be a Muslim man in America in "How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?" (Penguin Press, $24.95). Bayoumi focuses on seven young Arab-Americans living in Brooklyn and the harsh treatment they face from fellow Americans.

In his third novel, David Ebershoff offers two parallel threads. "The 19th Wife" (Random House, $26) follows a historical story based on real-life events involving Brigham Young expelling his 19th wife, Ann Eliza Young, from the Mormon Church.

The second story is a murder mystery set in a polygamous compound in Utah.

Kevin Walker can be reached at (813) 259-7975 or kwalker@tampatrib.com.

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