Shell Shaker — By LeAnne Howe (Aunt Lute Books; $11.95). Ms. Howe, a University of Cincinnati literature professor, crafts a richly imagined tale that cuts across centuries and continents. Her focus is a matriarchal clan of Choctaw Indians, but to tell their story she employs a tapestry of characters.

        Told through first and an over-the-shoulder third person, the text has a more sequential quality than straight rolling narrative that some may find too kaleidoscopic, whereas others will marvel at the deftness with which she ties together so many disparate strands.

        In His Own Voice: The Dramatic and Other Uncollected Works of Paul Laurence Dunbar

        Edited by Herbert Woodward Martin and Ronald Primeau (Ohio University Press; $49.95). Mr. Martin, from the University of Dayton, co-edits this collection, which includes several previously unpublished short stories, plays and works of poetry.

        Mr. Dunbar's massive canon contained some of the more memorable observations on the complexities of race, leading Frederick Douglass to dub him “the most promising young colored man in America.” Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., who provides the book's forward, concurs.

        Fun, Cheap and Easy: My Life in Ohio Politics, 1949-1964

        By Frances McGovern (University of Akron Press; $29.95) The title to this disappointing memoir refers to the years immediately before the political process became mean-spirited, expensive and complicated. That is about the only insight we receive from the author, a former state representative from Akron. In place of her reflections on a life in public service, we are offered an endless line of Democratic dignitaries who visited the state and the little morsels of gossip she was privy to while serving on various reception committees.

        The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry

By Wendell Berry (Counterpoint; $26). In a continued attempt to carve out an apolitical position in the American social debate, Mr. Berry seems more marginalized with each passing year. That would be a good point of criticism if these 21 essays didn't ring with an undeniable wisdom and common sense.

        As with his other collections, there is a sweep of ideas here, each one as provocative today as when it was first articulated.

        Too Much Temptation

        By Lori Foster (Kensington; $14). Someone always seems to be undergoing a “sexual awakening” in Ms. Foster's kitschy, yet wildly popular, erotic romances. This time, it's Grace Jenkins, a Hooter's-class secretary who falls under the spell of just-jilted Noah Harper.

        Disregarding such dead weight as plot and cohesion, she turns instead to the old standby: lots of gratuitous sex. Unfortunately, the effect is similar to that of the 2a.m. soft porn fare on pay-per-view, only with less imagination.
       Contact Rob Stout by mail: c/o Tempo-Books, Cincinnati Enquirer, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati OH 45202.

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