Paperbacks: Four Days in November, by Vincent Bugliosi

Abstracted from Reclaiming History, the author's 1,600-page epic on the Kennedy assassination, this deadpan account of events from the killing of the President to the funeral of Lee Harvey Oswald is utterly absorbing.

Marshalling a vast quantity of evidence, Bugliosi makes sense of the chaos in Dallas. The present-tense narrative quietly builds the case for a single, arrogant, gun-obsessed killer. If Oswald was Iago, the recorded utterances of the main characters occasionally have a Shakespearean grandeur. "Oh, no, no, no. Oh my God, they have shot my husband, I love you, Jack."