Media Trust books cds movies you can
The merchants make the picks
MUSIC

Musicall 4 East Chestnut Street 228-9306

Pearl Jam Pearl Jam (Released May 2, $17.99) Few bands have seen such a dramatic shift in their fanbase since their early days. The audience at a Pearl Jam show in the early '90s was comprised almost entirely of disenfranchised kids in flannel shirts and is now peppered with khaki pants, frat hats and athletic jerseys.

So it's interesting that the band would self-title an album so far out of the gate - its first studio album in four years. Pearl Jam should remind everyone of what made Pearl Jam noticeable in the first place, getting to the core of its sound (as suggested by the halved avocado on the cover) - a soulful intensity laid on top of singing and snarling guitars and (in the case of its ballads) a musical eloquence enjoyed only by the most competent rock bands.

Apolitical answer to 9/11 from the man who wrote "Pro-Choice" on his arm in permanent marker during a live taping of "MTV: Unplugged."

Also at Musicall this week: Gomez "How We Operate," Jewel "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland," Tool "10,000 Days," Mobb Deep "Blood Money"

BOOKS

Mitchell's Book Corner 54 Main Street 228-1080 www.mitchellsbookcorner.com

"Seven Types of Ambiguity"

Elliot Perlman (Paperback, $16)

This psychological thriller about

obsessive love is "compulsively readable and interesting in its change

Mimi Beman, owner of Mitchell's

Book Corner. Pearlman's story is told in seven parallel narratives, rippling out from the novel's Big Bang,

a man's abduction of his ex-girlfriend's

young son. A psychiatrist

treating several of the characters serves as a half-omniscient overseer.

Beman called the book "complex

without being complicated."

Nantucket Bookworks 25 Broad Street 228-4000 www.nantucketbookworks.com

Tom Never's Ghost

Jack Warner

(Released locally

April 26, $27.95)

Cristina Blank of Nantucket Bookworks gives a nod to Island author Jack Warner this week. Five years in the researching, his new book is "Tom Never's Ghost: An eyewitness account of the past 350 years on Nantucket Island and in its little known Southeast Quarter." In it, Warner seeks to answer the island's historical secrets, including the true mission of the Top Secret Navy Base at Tom Nevers, the behind-the-scenes goings on of the attempted Federal takeover of the island in 1972, and the three unrelated events that triggered Nantucket's "current real estate feeding frenzy."

Brant Point Books 17 North Beach Street 228-5856

"Mayflower" Nathaniel Philbrick

(Due out May 8) "Nat Philbrick has done it again - and we who have been anxiously awaiting 'Mayflower' like starving, agricultural-challenged colonists are about to be treated to a smorgasbord of a story!" said Brant Point Books owner Lucretia Voigt "With 'Mayflower,' Philbrick expounds on the story we all thought we knew just as he did with 'In the Heart of the Sea.' The end result is a book that grabs you from page one and puts you in the action with Massasoit, Benjamin Church and Miles Standish. Having something for every reader and sure to be another award winner, 'Mayflower' should be on everyone's required reading list this spring and summer."

MOVIE RENTALS

Orange Street Video 117 Orange Street 228-5806

"Hoodwinked" This week, Orange Street manager Kate O'Brien recommends "Hoodwinked" (PG) an animated, modern take on the story of Little Red Riding Hood. The police answer a domestic disturbance call at Grandma's house and investigate an incident involving a wolf, a girl and an ax, leveling charges that include breaking and entering, disturbing the peace, intent to eat, and wielding an ax without a license. "Each of the characters has their dark secrets," O'Brian said. "Roshomon" fans (or people who are just impressed with knowing what "Roshomon" is) will appreciate the multiple point-of-view narrative. Very clever script and great cast, including Anna Hathaway, James Belushi, Glenn Close and Andy Dick.

Camera Shop & Nantucket Video 32 Main Street 228-0101

"The Family Stone" Sarah Jessica Parker plays the "anti-Carrie Bradshaw" in "The Family Stone" (PG-13), a movie that depends on its "great ensemble cast," according to Lori Donovan of Camera Shop & Nantucket Video. "It's fun to see her as an ultra-conservative, uptight career girl meeting her finace's laidback, quirky, but tight knit family." During a Christmas visit, Parker's character clashes with the family - played by Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson, Rachel McAdams, Luke Wilson, Tyrone Giordano and Dermot Mulroney (Parker's fianc) - only to be redeemed, and in some cases upstaged, by her sister, Claire Danes. A dramatic comedy based on familial obligations of taking the new with the old and the bad with the good.