IT STILL MOVES

By Amanda Petrusich (Faber & Faber, 290 pages, $25)

Petrusich, a pop music critic for the New York Times, takes readers along on this "search for the next American music." The title is a whole-hearted yes to the question of whether American music still matters, still moves people. But she takes the back roads to get there, discovering how and where music is made, from the "slapback" technique Sam Phillips used at his Sun Records studio, to the fact that Robert Johnson's fabled highways 61 and 49 merge rather than cross at Clarksdale, Miss. And while some of the roads she travels are pretty dusty with time, Petrusich is also on the trail of current musicmakers. She bemoans the "slathering with gloss" that renders music from Nashville bland and indistinguishable. And she hails New York's East Village and other less likely sites for hosting bands such as Freakwater and Th' Legendary Shack-Shakers that may or may not admit to being "alt-country." As a tour guide, Petrusich is hip and self-aware without being self-righteous, and is obviously passionate about music and the people who make it. This road trip would be oh so much more fun, though, if there were a fold-out map and a companion CD.

KATHE CONNAIR, FEATURES COPY EDITOR

I'LL NEVER BE FRENCH (NO MATTER WHAT I DO)

By Mark Greenside (Free Press, 244 pages, $24)

You know all those books about moving to France, buying a house and fixing it up? Well, here's another one. This one, though, is funny. Mark Greenside (who spoke no French) and his girlfriend (who did) went to Brittany for three months. They broke up, she left, he stayed and practically the next thing he knew, he was rattling around the countryside with his maternal French landlady, who was speaking rapidly to him in a language he could only vaguely understand. And voila! Almost against his will, he was soon the proud owner of a rather gorgeous but falling-down house. Greenside's observations are funny and generous, his encounters with his beleaguered French insurance agent are hysterical, his house sounds to die for and the only truly irritating thing about this book is his annoying habit of including snippets of dialogue in French and then not translating it for the reader. C'mon, Mark. You know what it feels like. Cut it out.

LAURIE HERTZEL, BOOKS EDITOR