IN MEMORIAM

IN MEMORIAM
U Herman Harold "Chaim" Potok, 73: Novelist, scholar and rabbi. (Feb. 17, 1929- July 23, 2002)
His book, "The Chosen," stood on the New York Times bestseller lists for more than six months; was a finalist for the U.S. national book award; and, in 1981, was made into a feature film starring Rod Steiger.
U William Luther Pierce, 68: Neo-Nazi ideologue. (Sept. 11, 1933-July 23, 2002)
"The Turner Diaries, a self-published book he wrote in 1978 under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald, was thought to have inspired the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995. A trained physicist, he founded the National Alliance, the most successful, wealthiest and best-organised hate group in the United States, which he ran from a building on his 400 acres of grounds near Hillsboro, West Virginia.
WORTH A LOOK
"Saving Your Brain: The Revolutionary Plan to Boost Brain Power, Improve Memory and Protect Yourself Against Aging and Alzheimer's" by Dr. Jeff Victoroff (Bantam Books, $25.95)
Victoroff's book will teach you how to keep your brain fit. It's filled with the latest research in neuroscience.
"Investigating the Paranormal" by Tony Cornell (Helix Press, $36)
Intrigued by ghosts and hauntings? Wonder what's it's like to study activity on the "other side"? Then this book is for you. Cornell is a British ghost hunter and researcher who has been investigating cases of the paramormal for 55 years. His stories are funny, spooky and downright weird.
"Altered English: A Historic Tour Through the Evolution of Words and Their Meanings" by Jeffrey Kacirk (Pomegranate, $22.95)
Earth's literate population is divided among people for whom words are simple tools, with no life beyond utility, and others for whom words are magic, organic -- living things that twitch and grow and play. Kacirk, whose day job is as a chiropractor, is a marvel of amateur lexicography -- in the esteemed 18th-century sense of amateur: utterly serious, deeply informed, but not so employed.
His third volume -- the others were "Forgotten English" (1997) and "The Word Museum" (2000) -- is resolutely scholarly and genuinely entertaining. The 1,500 entries include some abandoned definitions that are fairly evident, but all offer stimulation for minds that lean toward word play.
Combined dispatches