With Ossie & Ruby: In This Life Together

In 1998, renowned actors Davis and Dee celebrated 50 years of marriage by penning an engaging memoir of their life together, musing on the theater, the struggle for civil rights and what they considered their most important roles: being parents. Between the book's publication and Davis's death in 2005, the couple recorded this stellar audio version. It's a marvelous blend of readers' theater and classy, old-married style, with Davis and Dee trading off portions of their narrative and sometimes gently correcting each other's version of events. ("It takes two of us to get this story told," Davis chuckles after his wife amends his account of a particularly funny 1950s incident when the two were being pursued backstage by Joseph McCarthy's men, intent on serving the alleged Communist sympathizers with subpoenas.) The book has humor and pathos, pain and nostalgia, all told with Davis's deep, resonant baritone and Dee's fast-as-lightning wit. Most of all, it's a personal walk through the 20th-century African-American experience, with both reflecting on the many luminaries they have known, including Father Divine, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Paul Robeson and Sidney Poitier. Available as a Harper paperback (Feb.)