AP - The Hold Steady, "Stay Positive" (Vagrant Records)

AP - Black Kids, "Partie Traumatic" (Almost Gold)

AP - Sitting in the back of a darkened arena, a Celtics hat pulled low on his head, a black warm-up suit covering his lanky frame, Dominican bachata and merengue star Juan Luis Guerra cuts an unassuming figure.

AP - John Mellencamp, "Life, Death, Love, and Freedom" (Hear Music)

AP - Randy Travis, "Around The Bend" (Warner Bros.)

AP - Abject misery has never been choreographed with such wit and pizazz as it is in the new production of Christopher Durang's "The Marriage of Bette and Boo."

AP - In Sam Shepard's latest play, "Kicking a Dead Horse," which opened Monday at off-Broadway's Public Theater, the iconic writer treads on familiar ground — the wide-open frontiers of the American West.

AP - It's difficult to separate the movie from its mystique.

AP - "Killer View" (G.P. Putnam's Sons. 340 pages. $24.95), by Ridley Pearson: Only Ridley Pearson could take a timeless children's tale and deftly turn it into a series of engaging thrillers.

AP - "Chasing Darkness" (Simon & Schuster. 273 pages. $25.95), by Robert Crais: Little in life is as satisfying as a new Elvis Cole novel. Each installment of Robert Crais' 20-year-old series is like meeting a good friend for lunch who you haven't seen in a long time.

AP - It's difficult to separate the movie from its mystique.

AP - Back in the Dark Ages (OK, mid-1950s) when the New York Yankees reigned supreme and the Washington Senators were perennial patsies, Broadway found musical-theater fodder in baseball.

AP - "Captain America: The Chosen" (Marvel Comics. 168 Pages. $24.99), by David Morrell and Mitch Breitweiser: David Morrell has done something totally new: The best selling author of action thrillers has written a comic-book series. It all happened because a Marvel Comics editor suggested that Morrell, who created the famous character "Rambo" in his novel, "First Blood," would make a good pairing with another military icon, Captain America.