In 1943, Cleveland writer and journalist Dan Levin joined the Marine Corps to become a Combat Correspondent. From the Battlefield -- published by the Naval Institute Press fifty years after the Battle of Iwo Jima -- is his extraordinary personal account of World War II campaigns in the Pacific. He landed on Saipan on D+9, on Tarawa on D+2, and on Iwo Jima on D-Day.

The book is the memoir of a combat journalist, from boot camp at Parris Island, to Lejeune and Pendleton, through training in Hawaii, and on to the islands of battle and death. Levin weaves his own story with those of the young Marines he accompanied into battle -- all told in a spare, direct, manly style. The writing is matched by the Naval Institute Press's inspired layout of the book, using a typewriter font to convey both journalism and the period of the war.

From the Battlefield more than a memoir, however. It is also an anthology of some of Sergeant Levin's best war writing. His dispatches -- written on a portable typewriter under fire, carried by runner back to the ships offshore, sent by radio to the U.S. for distribution to newspapers and radio stations -- are as gripping today as they were in 1944 and 1945.

Levin's dispatches deserve re-reading, fifty years later, for the spirit of democracy they convey. Most of the Marines he fought with were young, products of the hard times of the Depression, who had known few advantages in life. He drew out their democratic inner nobility. He salutes in particular two men -- Frank Krywicki, who led the assault platoon (demolition satchels and flame-throwers) that Levin accompanied onto the beach, and Joe Berger, whose "different kind of heroism," work with captured and wounded Japanese, enlarged Levin's sense of humanity. He stopped using "Japs" in his dispatches as a result. He honors too the uplifting eulogy delivered after the Iwo Jima battle by Navy Chaplain Roland Gittelsohn, a rabbi.

He shares his journalistic techniques -- keeping a journal, writing "Joe Blow" stori! es, using literary references in his articles, and painting a mental picture of the battlefield for the distant American reader. At Gettysburg there were the "Devil's Den" and the "Peach Orchard." In Levin's corner of Iwo Jima there were "the Amphitheatre," "the Wilderness," and the "Brimstone Pit."

In addition to the articles and dispatches, From the Battlefield includes some of Levin's letters home and entries from his notebook, unpublished during the war because they could not pass the censors or were too grave. His battle muse also drove him to write poetry. "We Clasp Our Fallen" -- an agonized tribute to the Marines that fell in the thirty-one day battle of Iwo Jima -- combines GI experiences and emotions with a feeling for America and for the dignity of sacrifice matched in few other American memorial poems.

In one of the book's most poignant moments, Levin relates how his dispatch from the beach at Iwo Jima was heard on America's radios the next day. His wife, at work in a Washington war office, burst into tears -- knowing that he had lived at least a few hours on the battlefield, knowing at the same time that her husband was square in the middle of one of America's most awful days of blood.

From the Battlefield has the lingo and emotions of the '40s and the '90s in one volume. Fifty years after the battles, Levin's life as a journalist, businessman, and professor have aged and matured his memories. The integrated presentation of contemporary journalism and retrospective memoir gives this book rare power, and rarer wisdom.

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Before the movie, before the television series, before all the spin offs, there was just the play. The story is a classic spin on the buddy plot. Oscar Madison is a successful sports writer who happens to be best friends with Felix Unger, a newswriter for CBS. Each week Oscar has five of his buddies over for a Friday night game of poker. However, on one fateful night Felix fails to appear in time for the game. It turns out Felix has just been thrown out by his wife and has no place to go. Feeling sorry for his old friend, Oscar invites Felix to stay with him and be his roommate. What ensues is a classic Neil Simon look at friendship that will endure for ages.

When you pair David Paymer and Nathan Lane as Felix and Oscar in the Odd Couple, you are in for a comic tour de force that over stretches its material. With a supporting cast which includes Dan Castellaneta and Yeardley Smith (both from The Simpsons) and Linda Purl, the cast is almost perfect. This production is a little too visual in a few of its jokes. However, on the whole, it unscrupulously grabs the audio listener by his ears and shakes him with laughter.

Nathan Lane is delightful as Oscar Madison. I also enjoyed hearing Dan Castellanata ("Homer Simpson") as Murray, and Yeardley Smith ("Lisa Simpson") as Cecily Pigeon.