Pulse: 60-Second Critic: Creative Buzz: March 2006

Sidney D. Kirkpatrick’s The Revenge of Thomas Eakins offers a portrait of the artist as a clear-headed pioneer of realism bumping up against prudish Victorian Philly (Yale University Press; $39.95). … Mixed is Scrubs writer Angela Nissel’s funny, poignant memoir of growing up biracial in West Philly (Random House; $17.95). … Garden-and-golf writer James Dodson pays calls to Chanticleer, Winterthur and the Philadelphia Flower Show in Beautiful Madness, his story about flower fanatics (Dutton; $24.95). … The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky is local native Ken Dornstein’s memoir of coming to grips with his brother’s death aboard Pan Am flight 103 (Random House; $23.95). … In The Skin Gods, the second in Richard Montanari’s series featuring Philly detectives, a psycho killer recreates movie murder scenes (Ballantine; $24.95). … H.R. Howland’s cannibal horror thriller The Epicure is mostly set at Hahnemann Hospital (Berkley; $6.99).