CHECK IT OUT

Among the best ways to reflect on the end of the millennium is to learn

about those who shaped it, through memoirs from Newport Beach libraries.

The story of the man named the most influential person of the past 1,000

years by the Biography of the Millennium web site (www.biography.com) is

told in “Fine Print,” a volume for young readers. From this account about

Johann Gutenberg’s struggles to perfect his printing process, children

can glean a vivid picture of life in the Middle Ages and a sense of

history in the making.

For mature readers, the life of the towering intellectual named No. 2 by

the Biography site is the subject of “Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer.”

While acknowledging that Newton was a great scientist, author Michael

White asserts that he was also an “obsessive, driven mystic,” deeply

involved in the pseudoscience of alchemy.

Also for adults, “Martin Luther: The Christian Between God and Death” is

a new account about the inner life of the man dubbed the closing

millennium’s third most influential individual. Offering what he calls a

nonreligious approach to Luther’s revolution, author Richard Marius

explores the depths of belief as it took shape in one of Christianity’s

most fascinating figures.

For young adults, “Charles Darwin, Revolutionary Biologist” documents the

painstaking process the man hailed as the millennium’s fourth most

influential person followed to reach his controversial conclusions.

Personal anecdotes that reveal the human side of the famed naturalist

make for interesting reading about the development of the theory of

evolution.

Numerous new biographies chronicle the lives of more contemporary

champions. Read about a titanic personality at the dawn of the

information age in “Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer,” the

story of a major figure of the early digital era.

Learn about the first African American naval aviator in “The Flight of

Jesse Leroy Brown,” a compelling narrative about a quiet hero, the racial

climate between 1926 and 1950, and the last days of propeller-driven

naval aviation.

For the artistically inclined, “American Venus” recalls the meteoric rise

and tragic downfall of model Audrey Munson, inspiration for dozens of

civic monuments and pieces of art.

“Walker Evans” focuses on the Depression-era photographer whose images of

sharecroppers form one of this century’s most influential bodies of

photography.

Perhaps nothing has changed more than the lives of women in the closing

years of the millennium. Glimpse the complexities that have gone into the

emergence of the modern American woman in “We Remember,” featuring 25

portraits of lives that spanned two world wars, the Great Depression, the

administrations of 19 presidents, the New Deal and the industrial and

information revolutions.

CHECK IT OUT is written by the staff of the Newport Beach Public Library.

This week’s column is by Melissa Adams in collaboration with Soon Jung.