Reviews: 'The Moth Presents: Occasional Magic,' edited by Catherine Burns, and 'An Innocent Bystander,' by Julie Salamon

Edited by Catherine Burns. (Crown Archetype, 248 pages, $25.)

I wasn't familiar with the Moth podcast's brand of live storytelling when I opened this collection, but now I'm a convert. Even without the audience and the stage, the 47 brief stories pulse with energy and vulnerability. There are some well-known names along with new voices, sharing stories of bravery from all over the world. I told myself to savor the pages, but instead I raced through them, like a child at bedtime. Just one more story. Just one more.

A dental-school resident tells of being held hostage by rebels at a hospital in Colombia, forced to treat a dangerously infected boy — with no anesthesia, little experience and at the point of a rifle. A lonely Jehovah's Witness describes venturing outside the church's rules (and onto Tinder) to find a partner. South Sudanese refugees recount settling in Maine. They misunderstood the instructions about the fire alarm and fled their apartment at the sound of the doorbell. A Macalester English professor describes keeping a secret, dangerous cache of books as a child during China's Cultural Revolution and learning the power of storytelling when they were destroyed.

That magical power is more than occasional in this collection, and the book would make a great gift, perhaps even whetting the appetites of reluctant readers for one more story of bravery. Just one more.

HOLLY COLLIER WILLMARTH

Sandwiched between the terrorist attacks that killed 11 Israeli Olympic team members at the 1972 Munich Games and the Sept. 11 attacks that killed 3,000, there was a terrorist incident that resulted in a single death, but which claimed international attention and even spawned an opera.

Leon Klinghoffer was shot to death during an ill-planned Palestinian terrorist attack on a cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, in the Mediterranean in 1985. What made Klinghoffer's death so horrific is that the 69-year-old New Yorker, a stroke victim, was shot in his wheelchair. Then his body and wheelchair were tossed overboard.

"An Innocent Bystander: The Killing of Leon Klinghoffer" examines the case and its prolonged aftermath — personal, legal and artistic — in journalistic fashion. Author Julie Salamon gained the trust not only of Klinghoffer's daughters, but also of the wife and ex-wife of the Palestinian terrorist leader, Abu al-Abbas, who was responsible for plotting the cruise ship attack. Salamon tells all their stories with an even hand.

Three days after Klinghoffer was killed, a peaceful Arab-American anti-discrimination activist was killed in a bombing at his California office, a terrorist attack that drew far less notice. Salamon weaves in details about that slaying. In chronicling the impact of both these killings on all three families — those of the two victims and the terrorist mastermind — Salamon provides a 360-degree view of the tragic, endless cycle of the killing of innocents.

DENNIS J. MCGRATH