Bogart

It's the season of battling two biographies, each worthwhile for different reasons.

 If you want a leisurely, formidably well-documented account of Humphrey Bogart's legendary screen career and four marriages (including a happy final one to Lauren Bacall), this is it.

 A.M. Sperber conducted some 200 interviews with people who knew the actor before his death in 1994; Eric Lax draws on her seven years of research to create a nuanced, in-depth, elegantly written portrait of the man recently dubbed Hollywood's greatest star by Premiere magazine.