A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller

A New Dawn was the first novel written to be part of the new Star Wars canon, with input from the Lucasfilm Story Group. Its title serves as a nod to the new beginning that the franchise is embarking on, as well as a twist to the familiar title A New Hope. Primarily it is the story of Kanan Jarrus and Hera Syndulla from the TV series Star Wars: Rebels, taking place six years before that show and showing how they met.

This book takes place on and around the Inner Rim planet of Gorse and its habitable moon, Cynda. As a tidal-locked planet, Gorse has one half continually facing the sun and inhospitably hot, the other side covered in cities that experience perpetual humid night. Kanan, a former Jedi who was born with the name Caleb Dume, is now working as a freight pilot in a mining company called Moonglow. Kanan catches a Clone Wars veteran named Skelly in the act of setting a sabotage explosion, with the goal of sending a message to the Empire about the dangers of the operation. The Empire has been gathering an important mineral called thorillide and tasks the cyborg Count Vidian with increasing the speed of production.

Hera, discontented with the Empire's ruthless actions, has come to the Gorse system to find a friend of hers, a Sullustan named Kaluna who assists the Empire with surveillance. Until saving people from Skelly's sabotage, Kanan had been very careful to conceal his Force-assisted abilities ever since the Emperor issued Order 66. Hera, Kanan, Kaluna, and Skelly cross paths, and once they figure out Vidian's nefarious, self-serving plan for the mining planet and moon, they make every attempt to thwart him. Captain Rae Sloane is also introduced in this story, an Imperial officer given temporary control of the Star Destroyer Ultimatum who doesn't exactly help the rebels, but has the common goal of stopping Vidian.

I enjoyed this book for its strong characters, snappy dialogue, and exciting action. That is to say, everything a Star Wars story ideally should have. I really appreciated how streamlined the book was; Miller doesn't try to shoehorn in extraneous characters or needless subplots. Fans of "Rebels" will get a look at Kanan's backstory, but precious little is revealed about Hera besides what her actions in the book say about her. It is hinted that the two share a mutual attraction, but there's not much time for love when the fate of a whole moon is at stake. What we do see is how well they work together and we come to understand why they mutually decided that Kanan should stay aboard Hera's ship the Ghost. I would like to see another story of how they first encountered Sabine and Zeb before the crew finds themselves on Lothal, but maybe this is being saved for future episodes of the show to explore.

For much more about this book and information about how it was written, directly from the author, check out this page. Caution, spoilers aplenty.

Never Go Back by Lee Child

Back in 2012, a movie called Jack Reacher came to theaters without a lot of hoopla. A few years later, star Tom Cruise teamed up again with its director Christopher McQuarrie for the fifth entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise, and it was based on my enjoyment of Rogue Nation that I went back and watched Reacher. I didn't have high expectations because on the surface it looked like a rote thriller, but I was pleasantly surprised by the main character, the tight plotting, and the action set pieces that had been praised by critics. Jack Reacher was based on Lee Child's book One Shot. This month, the movie's sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is coming out so I decided to read the book that it's based on.

According to Wikipedia, this novel concludes a storyline that Child began with 2010's 61 Hours and continued in Worth Dying For and A Wanted Man, however Never Go Back stands alone and doesn't require knowledge of the preceding books. Former Military detective Jack Reacher has traveled to Northeastern Virginia to the base of the 110th MP, where he used to be the Commanding Officer. His goal is to meet the current CO Susan Turner because he liked the sound of her voice on the phone. Yes, that's his sole motivation at the start of the story, but somehow it makes sense character-wise. He finds that Turner has been imprisoned and replaced, and in two affidavits, Reacher himself is accused of a 16-year-old homicide and of having fathered a 14-year-old girl. In essence, the past is coming back to haunt a man who has always tried to move forward.

Reacher finds a way to break out of the jail cells with Turner, and the two cleverly escape the base and the District of Columbia together. They make their way from Virginia to West Virginia to Pittsburgh, stopping at diners and hotels on the way. Something that struck me as odd about Lee Child's writing is that he specifically describes the roads that his characters travel turn-by-turn, clearly showing he did research about the cities depicted, but we shouldn't need to visualize a map to understand the plot. Also, when Reacher and Turner enter West Virginia, that state's residents are personifications of stereotypes. And the method by which they acquire money and a vehicle for their travels is a convenience that borders on ridiculous. They just happen to come across a burning meth lab with its "cook" already dead and his cash and keys easy to find.

That being said, I found this book a compulsive read. Every chapter ends with a plot twist and both main characters remain likable and intelligent in their handling of difficult decision-making. Turner is never a damsel in distress and displays just as much competence and gusto as Reacher. To get back to the plot, they choose to fly from Pittsburgh Airport to Long Beach, California. (In that chapter, there's a comment speculating that perhaps there are so many flights between the two cities because of films increasingly being shot in Pittsburgh; I think this is a reference to the location shooting for the first Jack Reacher movie.) LA is their goal location because Reacher's alleged daughter is said to be living on the streets there. Along the journey they piece together who has framed them for the respective crimes, and fight off some relentless pursuers  I can't help wondering how effectively the movie sequel will depict the nation-trotting aspect of the story since apparently it was entirely filmed in New Orleans.

This isn't the kind of book that I would usually seek out, but I enjoyed it enough that I look forward
to seeing the movie adaptation and perhaps read a few more in the series. Since Lee Child has written more than 20 Jack Reacher novels as well as several short stories, the film series could potentially go on for decades. And since some of those stories are prequels, the studio could easily cast a younger actor when Tom Cruise is done. Maybe even someone who is tall and burly like Reacher is described in the books, who knows.

To find out more about Lee Child and the Jack Reacher books, check out leechild.com.

Kiss Me Like a Stranger by Gene Wilder

When Gene Wilder died in August at the age of 83, the world lost a great entertainer. He's of course best known for playing Willy Wonka and Dr. Frederick Frankenstein but his legacy covers much more ground than his starring roles. His 2005 autobiography Kiss Me Like a Stranger covers his incredible life, his career, and his many loves.

Through much of his adult life, Wilder had visits with a therapist called Margie, and several chapters of the book are framed as stories that he is telling her in treatment. He wrote mostly in chronological order but sometimes a memory was triggered that had to be covered first. He suffered the death of his mother at a fairly early age, and some sexual and physical abuse at a military school; these are explained in a matter-of-fact way but clearly had lasting repercussions. He had insecurities being intimate with women in his teens and twenties, and later he had multiple marriages fail. As a young man he was troubled by an overwhelming urge to pray for forgiveness several times a day, for a sin he wasn't aware he'd committed. He named this affliction his "Demon," and eventually he worked past his feelings of guilt with Margie's help.

He was born as Jerome Silberman and chose the stage name Gene as a tribute to his mother Jeanne, though he didn't consciously realize the similarity until Margie pointed it out. The surname Wilder came from playwright Thornton Wilder. The young Jerry Silberman became interested in acting when he saw his older sister Corinne in a play and was trained by the same teacher; enjoying himself, he continued to study the craft. His first screen role came about when the director had seen him on Broadway, and after a few TV movies, he snagged a small part in Bonnie and Clyde. Mel Brooks talked to Wilder about the role of Leo Bloom in The Producers years before it actually got made. He made his directing debut with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother and of course worked with Brooks again in Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. You may or may not know that the first scene featuring Willy Wonka, in which the chocolate pioneer fakes a fall, was Wilder's idea and he wouldn't have done the movie without it.

During the making of Blazing Saddles, Wilder met Richard Pryor who co-wrote the film and was originally set to star, though was replaced by Cleavon Little in the lead. Wilder and Pryor went on to collaborate on several more outstanding comedies such as Stir Crazy, Silver Streak, and See No Evil, Hear no Evil. Wilder greatly enjoyed the chemistry he had with Pryor on-screen, but admitted to finding him difficult in real life, Pryor's drug use making him erratic.

Outside of his film work, in this book Wilder was very candid about his personal life. He was married to a woman named Mary Mercier for five years before they divorced. Then there was Mary Jo (known as Jo) who had a daughter named Katie from a previous marriage, whom Wilder adopted. Unfortunately Gene and Katie became estranged after he and Jo separated. The most famous of Wilder's spouses was SNL's Gilda Radner, whom he met on a movie called Hanky Panky. Wilder was by her side when she suffered depression and bulimia, and when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and underwent chemo treatments. This section of the book is absolutely heartbreaking. The cancer support group known as Gilda's Club was partly founded by Wilder, who himself went through a bout of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma which subsided.

It was after Radner's death that Wilder married Karen Boyer, whom he met when she coached him on how to act deaf in See no Evil, Hear no Evil. This was at a time in his life when he never thought he'd find love again, and he was still married to Karen at the time of his death from Alzheimer's.

Just like in his films, Wilder found a balance between humor and pathos in this book. His roles were mostly comic but with an undertone of darkness. In his writing he clearly expressed his regrets as well as the pride he took in his work and provides lighthearted anecdotes right alongside the tragic moments. He left a worthwhile legacy and will be missed by moviegoers worldwide.

End of Watch by Stephen King

This is the third and final book in the saga of retired Detective Kermit William Hodges. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go back and check out my reviews of Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers. Yay self-promotion! Or even read the books, they're good.

About seven years have passed since Brady Hartsfield maliciously ran over people waiting for a job fair with a stolen Mercedes. For most of that time he's been in the traumatic brain injury wing of Kiner Memorial Hospital due to getting walloped by Hodges' partner Holly Gibney at the scene of his subsequent attempt at mass murder. Now the presumably brain-dead Brady seems to be inducing a number of suicides, and the same defunct video game system is found near each victim.

Soon after the first suicide is discovered, Bill Hodges, now in his late 60s, gets diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer. Now he's facing a supernatural killer at the same time as being faced with his own mortality. Jerome's sister Barbara almost gets herself run over while using a Zappit. A particular demo screen on the handheld game consoles has a hypnotizing effect on the player, which is a surefire metaphor for how our mobile devices suck us in. Brady has found a way to modify the game's qualities so that someone's mind becomes vulnerable enough for him to invade it, so he's able to control a body that isn't paralyzed like his own.

This series had not used supernatural elements up to now, but the mind control is brought up gradually. The first few times the reader encounters the characters that Brady is controlling such as Dr. Felix Babineau and Al "Library Al" Brooks, they just seem to be oddly loyal to him or brainwashed. But soon they start acting or speaking like the maniac we got to know uncomfortably well in Mr. Mercedes. This is a testament to King's storytelling prowess; any time a situation is joined in media res and doesn't completely make sense, just keep reading and it will be clearly explained later. Sometimes, his dedication to clarity feels overbearing, like when he recaps events from the previous two books thoroughly enough that one wouldn't have had to read them. Or when he takes half a page to have Holly or Jerome explain a bit of modern technology that would be obvious to the younger set, but I'm sure this would be helpful to the readers who are closer to Hodges' age.

I thought this was a very satisfying conclusion to the series. It left me imagining a TV series that could cover the entire storyline of Hodges and his partners. Although the track record of King TV adaptations lately, namely Under the Dome and 11.22.63 have been less than stellar, I think some kind of take on Mr Mercedes and its sequels could work out well. Any Stephen King fan would be happy with the way the books turned out.

One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B. J. Novak

One More Thing is a collection of short stories by that guy who played Ryan on The Office. At least that's how some of you will know him. He also wrote fifteen episodes of the show and this book proves that he's just as funny and insightful a writer on the page as he is for the screen.

All of Novak's stories have a twist that takes them outside the realm of reality. He explores the problem with Heaven being paradise for all its residents, explains the origin of that train-based math problem that everybody knows, and in the final story takes a jab at the publishing industry itself. A recurring element is the sarcastic "Discussion Questions" that appear at the end of a few of the pieces, presenting disturbing queries such as "Do you think Johnny Depp should have driven his motorcycle off the mountain highway to his death? Why or why not?" Sometimes it feels like Novak is mocking  the whole idea of a short story collection, including with the book's subtitle. You would not want to read this book out of order because there are a few recurring elements and characters, which I didn't expect.

Some of these are very short stories, often less than a page or a few lines. With these, he makes his point and moves on.

I highly recommend listening to the audio version of One More Thing, mostly read by Novak, with help from his celebrity friends Rainn Wilson, Mindy Kaling, Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Katy Perry, and more. The various narrators add variety and immersion to the experience. There's one story called "Closure," as voiced by Novak and Kaling, that one could imagine the broken-up couple being Ryan and Kelly from The Office if they had different names. Except that is, when it takes a turn that is too off the wall and dark to be on the NBC sitcom. Another story features a young girl with a desire to go to Niagara Falls "because a couple from a television show she watched got married there" which is a clear reference to Jim and Pam's wedding. But overall, the author doesn't ride the coattails of his well-known series too much.

B. J. Novak has blazed his own path with this collection, which some readers will call "weird" but I call hilarious and original. Sometimes you can determine exactly what question he asked himself that inspired a story, but other times you wonder where he comes up with this stuff. In either case, he takes things in directions I didn't see coming. I look forward to seeing what else he has up his sleeve in the future.

For more about the author and this book, visit bjnovak.com.

Star Trek, The Official Guide to Our Universe : The True Science Behind the Starship Voyages by Andrew Fazekas

In my college years I had the audacity to call Star Trek "boring", which caused a Trekkie to say defensively "What's so boring about an optimistic future?" I had grown up as more of a Star Wars fan, but as an adult I've grown to appreciate the Star Trek franchise for its striking optimism and imagination. Star Trek writers have a boundless outlet to comment on human nature and the universe at large by extrapolating a future that's built on the best aspects of our present. In this book, Andrew Fazekas uses the fictional voyages of the TV series and movies as a jumping-off point to explore real-life astronomy and physics.

To be upfront, this isn't a book that I can "review" as it's pretty much a reference book and isn't intended to be read cover-to-cover (though I did). Published by National Geographic, The Official Guide to Our Universe contains beautiful space photography from NASA (some with necessary false colorization) and information about celestial objects such as stars, black holes, and nebulae. Each section begins with a summary of a Star Trek episode or movie in which the crew encounters the object in question ("____ in Star Trek"), with the following page talking about the real-life equivalent ("____ in Our Universe"), and a few pages later a guide detailing how to spot it in the night sky ("Stargazing"). The stargazing pages includes what area of the world from which the object is best viewed, the best time of year to gaze upward, and a map that shows the nearest constellation. In between chapters, there are pages about Star Trek technologies like starships, weapons, and communicators, but these pages kind of feel like filler that would be better used in a more fan-targeted reference book.

As science fiction, Star Trek certainly tries harder to be accurate to the science than some of its genre brethren, but of course sometimes it just tosses out cool-sounding space words in the name of compelling stories. For instance, in the Original Series, Kirk and company get up close to a quasar, but as explained by Fazekas, in reality that's something that could only be found at the center of a galaxy other than our own. The book is careful to distinguish the fiction from the facts, and it's pretty interesting when the two overlap.

There's one paragraph in each chapter of this book that takes a quick look at how close real science is to reaching the technology that's been depicted on screen, and some of it is closer than one might have considered. Although we won't be traversing the galaxy at warp speed any time soon, we've come close to replicators with 3-D printers, and virtual reality is advancing quickly, just not to the extent of holodecks. We've come a long way in the fifty years since Gene Roddenberry's original series premiered, and continuing innovation at this pace for another couple hundred years, who knows where we'll boldly go. Stargazing has been limited to an Earth-centric point of view, but someday we might see our solar system, or even our galaxy, from the outside. The Official Guide to Our Universe will appeal to any Star Trek fan, and/or anyone with an interest in astronomy, and it may increase your interest in either subject.

Seinfeldia by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

Twenty-seven years ago, NBC aired the premiere of a show called The Seinfeld Chronicles. The premise was intended to be a look at how a comedian gets his material from his everyday life. With the help of the talented writers and performers, it evolved into the Seinfeld we know and love that influenced situation comedies for decades to come, and the book Seinfeldia tells the tale.

The book gets its title from the idea that the show exists somewhere between reality and fiction. It introduced many characters that borrow their names and/or personalities from real-life counterparts. Of course there is the character of Jerry Seinfeld, played by comedian-turned-actor Jerry Seinfeld. But almost as famous is the fictional Jerry's neighbor Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) who was based on Kenny Kramer, a friend of co-creator Larry David. And the character of George Costanza (Jason Alexander) was based on David himself, though Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) was an amalgamation of several women who Seinfeld and David knew, including Carol Leifer who would join the writing staff.

The Seinfeld writers got almost all their story ideas from their real lives or from current events, which kept the show relatively grounded and timely despite the comedic exaggeration. Once Jason Alexander protested that nobody would handle a situation the way his character George was meant to, and Larry David fired back that that's exactly what he did when it happened to him. Near the middle of each season David was always reluctant to keep the series going for another year, because it was so hard to come up with fresh new ideas.

Armstrong is clearly a big fan of the show and delighted in being able to interview some of the creative people involved in it. She can't help but describe several famous episodes' plots when they are relevant to the element being described in the book. For example when profiling a specific writer she'll give synopses of the episodes written by him or her. In a few instances, her eagerness has her repeating an anecdote that was already mentioned a few chapters early, and sometimes she presents events out of chronological order for effect, which I didn't think was always the right way to tell a non-fiction account. However, her enthusiasm and research make for an entertaining and informative read.

This is a very comprehensive book, going from the show's infancy all the way to describing what the cast has done recently (yes, including Michael Richards' unfortunate outburst of anger) to the way people are still being influenced by the show. There are several pages about the @Seinfeld2000 Twitter feed (still going as of last month) that began as a frustrated parody of @SeinfeldToday (defunct as of 2015). Since it's still running in syndication and was recently acquired by Hulu, Seinfeld is sure to be enjoyed for generations. And Seinfeldia is overall a very good look at that show that was anything but "about nothing".

The Autobiography of James T. Kirk: The Story of Starfleet's Greatest Captain

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Star Trek coming up this September 8, I read The Autobiography of James T. Kirk. Exactly what it sounds like, this is a first-person account of the life of the character most famously portrayed by William Shatner, and more recently by Chris Pine. However, from the start it's made clear that this won't take place in J. J. Abrams' alternate timeline, since this Kirk grew up with both of his parents and an older brother. There is but a single nod to the new films in the fact of George Kirk being stationed on the USS Kelvin.

Kirk tells us about his childhood on Earth and then his first venture into space, including a stint on the planet Tarsus IV where he witnesses the massacre perpetrated by Governor Kodos. This comes back into play in the events of the Original Series episode "The Conscience of the King". Then Kirk spends some time talking about his time at Starfleet Academy, giving some explanation of the backstory explored in the episode "Shore Leave", and his quick rise to captain of the Enterprise at a young age.

The book continues to recount a lot of events from the TV series and films from Kirk's point of view, which some reviewers have dismissed as "recaps," but I think it's worthwhile to be inside his head and know what he was thinking at the time, and what decisions he regrets. He turns out to have a good reason for being a womanizer; a series of failed relationships and unexpected tragedies made him wary of getting close to anyone.

We come to realize that he carries a lot of guilt about the countless crew members he has lost during his missions, and about not being a present father for his son. It worked as a dramatic twist in the film The Wrath of Khan to reveal Kirk had an estranged child, but when we realize David would have been conceived during the events of the show but was never mentioned before, it feels like a cheat. So I found it especially interesting that this book delves into the relationship between James Kirk, Carol Marcus, and their son David in greater depth, and attempts to explain why they could not be a family unit.

Another value of this book is the imaginative way it fills in the gaps of established canon, showing what the crew was up to between the end of the series and the first Motion Picture, as well as some events between the films. Though sometimes it takes liberties that will certainly not become canonical themselves, such as the depiction of the reviled Star Trek V: The Final Frontier as merely a movie from a world parallel to ours, instead of events that Kirk actually participated in.

As a casual fan of Star Trek, I enjoyed this book and it gave me new motivation to watch more of the Original Series, and perhaps rewatch the films, since it puts so many of those stories into new context. It would probably appeal most to long time fans of the franchise, but I think even someone who has never seen Shatner on screen will get some enjoyment from it, and the footnotes help to explain some of the important concepts such as the Prime Directive. For insight into the more subtle references, I recommend searching Memory Alpha.

Since the book makes an effort to remain "in-universe", it and "editor" David A. Goodman do not have a specific webpage that I can link to, but you can buy the book at startrek.com.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

This book was somewhat on my radar for the last few years when it was a best-seller, and when I saw that Tim Burton was directing an adaptation that will be released this fall, I decided to read the source material. Although Burton's output has not been lately what it used to be, the gothic weirdness of this story seems right up his alley.

Jake is an ordinary high school kid with a part-time retail job until he witnesses his grandfather Abraham die. Jake is convinced the perpetrator was a monster but this claim gets him marked as insane. Abraham had spoken of a Home for Peculiar Children that he had stayed at when he was younger, showing Jake some photos (which within the book are actual vintage photography) and leaving a cryptic message behind when he dies. This prompts Jake to travel to Wales to find the titular house.

He finds his way to September 3, 1940, the time loop that the children and their caretaker Miss Peregrine live in. They've lived through the same day for several decades, and the day resets when bombs are dropped on the town. Then there's the fact that these "peculiar" children have abilities such as levitation, invisibility, pyrokinesis, and um, bees coming out of one's mouth. These elements bear a lot of exposition, and I felt like the plot took a while to get going. For much of the book, Jake is hanging out with his new friends and getting to know their world. He struggles with his attraction to Emma, who his grandfather loved while he was there, and Jake isn't sure if he wants to remain in the time loop or return to live with his parents in the 21st century.

It takes about three quarters of the novel for the strange circumstances of Abraham's death to become significant to the story again, and for a major conflict and antagonist to rear its ugly head. The climax is the rollicking adventure that I'd been hoping for the whole time, and then it ends on a sequel teasing cliffhanger. Since at times it's a dialogue-heavy book and relies on the photographs to give visual credence to the story, it may actually work better as a film than as a novel. But then if the movie doesn't make enough at the box office for Hollow City to be adapted, it will become unsatisfying.

For more about this book and the author, check out ransomriggs.com.

Racism and pop culture

In the wake of this week's tragic events involving police officers, this entry is going to be a little different than usual. Instead of a review, I'm taking a look at how race and racism have been explored in some recent films and TV.

If Quentin Tarantino has been consistently criticized for anything over the course of his career other than gratuitous violence, it would be his gratuitous use of the "n-word". In his on-screen appearance in Pulp Fiction, he speaks lines written by his own hand in which he uses the word repeatedly, and in the more recent films Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight, there are so many instances of the slur used against one main black character, it becomes uncomfortable to most viewers. In those examples, Tarantino would cite historical accuracy as the reason to include it so many times, but the frequency honestly could have been cut down. However, the use of language can never be considered as vicious as the use of physical force.

Just like Django, Samuel L. Jackson's character in The Hateful Eight, Major Marquis Warren is a bounty hunter who takes pleasure in getting money for "killing white folk." Throughout the film, he's called a nigger by other characters who refuse him any respect. One shocking moment in The Hateful Eight involves race, but not just that particular word.  Warren describes in detail how he forced a white soldier to strip naked, walk miles in the cold, then perform a sex act in exchange for a blanket. Warren tells this story solely to stoke anger in the racist father of the soldier so he can have an excuse to shoot the old man. In both Django and Eight we're led to sympathize with the black characters when they have the chance to gun down their oppressors, but this method of retaliation against racism shouldn't be encouraged in anything but fiction.

Like Tarantino, Michael Moore is a liberal white director who sympathizes with downtrodden minorities, but he might not always have the right answers. In his most recent documentary Where to Invade Next, he travels to foreign countries to speak to citizens about policies that he thinks the United States should borrow. For the most part, I agree with the points he brings up. France has gourmet school lunches, several parts of Europe have universal health care, and Italian employers offer eight weeks of vacation time per year; all of these could help make America a more pleasant place to live. Moore also visits a couple prisons in Norway and finds they focus more on preparing inmates for the real world rather than punishment, and he points out that Portugal has all drugs legalized and regulated, with positive effects. This leads him to express one theory that I can't wholeheartedly agree with.

Moore posits that the United States began the war on drugs to oppress black people, primarily men, who had historically been using hard drugs more than whites. He says the ability to throw people in jail for drug offenses allowed the country to use these prisoners for their labor and essentially bring slavery back in vogue without anyone raising an eyebrow. I think this is a conspiracy theory that doesn't hold water and that the outlawing of drugs was a well-intentioned but perhaps misguided attempt at eradicating a threat to public health. It's more likely that more drug arrests are made in urban areas because that's where police focus their efforts.

This leads me to think about the depiction of modern prison life and race relations in Netflix's Orange is the New Black. The show was originally based on the book by Piper Kerman and was focused on the fictionalized Piper Chapman, but expanded to include numerous diverse points of view within the womens' prison. It's shown that the inmates of Litchfield gravitate to groupings of their own race with few exceptions, which tends to happen in real prisons. The following two paragraphs contain major spoilers for the fourth season.

Chapman inadvertently gathers a group of white supremacists when she tries to oppose the competition to her business threatened by a Hispanic group. Piper tattles that Maria is starting a gang, and considering her background with gang activity, extra years are added to Maria's sentence. This was another unintended consequence of Piper trying to assert herself as a leader. With nothing to lose, Maria turns to selling drugs in the prison salon, though it's worth noting that the most frequent buyer is white "Nicky" Nichols.

The newly formed white power group takes umbrage any time that someone of another race seems to be given a privilege, like Taystee getting to work in Warden Caputo's office, but of course the neo-Nazis raise no objections when white celebrity Judy King gets a private cell. Judy herself has been accused of racism, and at first this seems to be a stereotype based on her Southern heritage, but an embarrassingly racist puppet show is brought up from her past. When Taystee and Cindy have the idea to sell a photo of Judy to a tabloid, Judy takes the opportunity to give Cindy a kiss for the photo to prove her lack of prejudice. She then seems to get along with the black women but this may be just for appearances. Soon the racial groups come to blows at the encouragement of one of the guards, and a later attempt at authority results in a preventable death. The parallels to the real world couldn't be clearer.

I hope that anyone reading this doesn't have to be reminded of this, but nobody should be judged based on the color of their skin. Period. It's an unforgivable pattern that African Americans get shot by police much more often than any other race. Some misunderstand the Black Lives Matter movement to be racist against white people or hateful toward cops, but its original intent was to focus on the disproportionate loss of life within that minority. It's supposed to be about awareness, not revenge. Those that take it as an excuse to attack police, like the reprehensible shooter in Dallas, are no better than a racist officer misusing his position of authority.

Return to Labyrinth by Jake T. Forbes

This week marks the 30th anniversary of the theatrical release of Jim Henson's Labyrinth, so what better time to experience the manga sequel Return to Labyrinth. It was published by Tokyopop as four volumes between 2006 and 2010, written by Jake T. Forbes, and illustrated by Chris Lie.

In the movie, Sarah Williams had to rescue her infant brother Toby from the Goblin King, Jareth. Over a decade later, Toby becomes the main character, and neither he nor Sarah seem to remember that they've been to the Labyrinth before. Jareth lures Toby into coming back to the otherworldly maze by having a goblin steal his homework, and reveals that he wants Toby to succeed him as King and save the Labyrinth from falling apart. At first, Toby and Jareth are the only returning characters from the film, but they're eventually joined by some familiar faces, as well as new characters.

The main antagonist is a sorceress and queen of a nearby land named Mizumi, who has been wanting to take control of Jareth and his labyrinth ever since he spurned her advances. She creates for him an "ablation" named Moppet, who is servant to Mayor Spittledrum and whose true nature is revealed later on. Mizumi is assisted by her daughters Moulin and Drumlin as well as demons comprised of water, and she fulfills the task of teaching magic to Toby before his coronation as King.

Toby's new friends include a wingless fairy called Hana, her companion Stank, and a goblin named Skub who reminded me of Dobby the house elf who helps Harry Potter. The characters that fans of the movie will recognize include Sir Didymus and Hoggle, as well as (spoiler alert) the return of Toby's heroic but forgetful sister Sarah.

This story was originally planned to be told in three volumes but halfway through the writing process it was expanded to four to give things more room to breathe. I was impressed when I learned this was the debut fiction writing that Forbes had done; up to that point he was an editor and adapter of other writers' manga. This is a worthy followup to a cult classic film, and Forbes couldn't resist dropping in references to other Jim Henson works. He also has Henson's sense of fantasy adventure storytelling mixed with humor; these goblins are big fans of puns. The story can still be understood if you've never seen the movie as there are a number of flashbacks showing what happened.

Usually at this point I'd direct you to the author's website, but he doesn't seem to have one. These books were also difficult to find in nearby libraries. If you're interested in purchasing the series, Amazon is probably the best bet.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

I've done a lot of reading about Walt Disney World while planning to go there for our honeymoon, and came across a few pieces of fiction that take place there. Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom takes place in a far off future where technology has made immortality possible and some people have chosen to live their extended lives inside the famous theme park.

The main character Julius has died four times, and has been restored to life by means of a backup consciousness being loaded into an accelerated-growth clone. It seems similar to the idea of starting a video game from your last save point. This is also a world in which all money is obsolete because resources are plentiful, so the only form of currency is a type of quantified social media popularity called Whuffie. Julius works as part of an ad-hoc group who are busy refining the attractions in the Magic Kingdom's Liberty Square area, and his specific interest lies with the Haunted Mansion.

This struck a chord with me, as I've been fascinated with the inner workings of the Haunted Mansion ever since I saw a special about Imagineering on the Disney Channel as a kid. Unfortunately, the one time I went to Disney World with my family about ten years ago, the Mansion was closed for refurbishment! Imagine (no pun intended) my disappointment. At least I take comfort in knowing I'll be returning for a visit next year. But I digress.

Julius's fourth death has been a murder taking place in Adventureland, and he suspects the hit was ordered by Debra, who is in charge of the changes being made at the Hall of Presidents. Her revolutionary idea involves broadcasting the personalities and experiences of the Presidents directly into the brains of the guests, as everyone is constantly connected to the future version of the web. Julius himself has been sporadically losing his connection to the mental implants, and finds himself obsessively plotting revenge against Debra and her ad hoc.

In a relatively short book, Doctorow establishes his fictional technology in an understandable way and extrapolates on the new frontiers of theme park wizardry in fascinating ways. However, the through-line of the plot isn't very deep, and Julius is rather petty with his relationships and motivation. He also stays friends with his colleague Dan through way more betrayals than I can see anyone putting up with. This books futuristic concepts will stay with me, but the story could perhaps have used some expanding.

Check out more about Doctorow's books at his website Craphound.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Post-apocalyptic fiction seems to fascinate us as a society, from The Walking Dead to the Fallout games, to the sitcom "The Last Man on Earth". In Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel gives us a future world that is realistic enough that she objects to it being called science fiction, since it doesn't depict any advanced technology.

There has been a pandemic called the Georgia Flu that has wiped out most of the world's population. The novel jumps around in time, showing moments both before and after the fall of civilization, and follows a number of different characters in Toronto, Chicago, and beyond. Despite the changing perspectives, it's always made very clear at what time a chapter is taking place. We first meet Kirsten Raymonde when she's in a production of King Lear, and at eight years old she witnesses the on-stage death of her castmate Arthur Leander. This signals the beginning of the pandemic, and twenty years later she still remembers Arthur and the graphic novel written by Arthur's first wife titled "Station Eleven."

Scattered throughout the book are excerpts from an interview of Kirsten conducted by a librarian in the town of New Petoskey, fifteen years after the flu hit. These give more insight into what she has been up to in the intervening time since the collapse, including her joining the traveling group of musicians known as the Symphony. She barely remembers the conveniences of technology that the world is now without, such as air conditioning and airplanes, and children younger than her never experienced them at all. Kirsten and her friend August end up seeking the Museum of Civilization in the Severn City airport that they've heard rumors about.

On Day One of the pandemic, when Arthur died playing King Lear, entertainment journalist Jeevan Chaudary was there to write a story about the play, and attempted futile CPR on the actor. Jeevan had covered Arthur's film career and personal life for years, and serves as a secondary protagonist in this novel. It's through Jeevan's eyes that we experience what things were like within the first few months of the Georgia Flu.

Station Eleven was an engrossing read. All the transitions between past, present, and future were integrated into the story so they weren't jarring, and the characters experiencing the worldwide disaster felt realistic in their relationships and concerns.

To buy the book or get more information, visit the author's website.

Misery by Stephen King

As I mentioned in my review of Finders Keepers, I knew Stephen King had written about an obsessed literature fan before, but I had only seen the movie version of Misery, and had not read the book. It was also referred to in William Goldman's introduction to The Princess Bride, because while Goldman wrote the screenplay, he got to know King as a colleague. Not to mention there's now a Broadway version of the story. So it felt like a good time to finally read this nearly-three-decade-old novel.

At the same time as being a thrilling story, Misery is just as much a look inside the mind of a writer as King's non-fiction guide On Writing. Protagonist Paul Sheldon is the author of the popular Victorian-set books about a woman named Misery, and in the most recent one she has died during childbirth. This does not sit well with Annie Wilkes, who has coincidentally found Paul near her house after a car accident and put him up in her home. As a former nurse, she has all the painkillers he could need, and forces him to start a new book that brings Misery back to life, appropriately titled Misery's Return.

All of Misery is told from Paul's point of view, and we can nearly feel the pain of his crushed legs and his rage and fear towards his captor. Near the middle of the book, we get to see the progress that Paul has made on Misery's Return, complete with the n's tediously filled in by hand to compensate for the broken key on the typewriter Annie provides. I think this device adds to the verisimilitude of the story, since you can see how Paul's typed words deteriorate along with the typewriter (it soon loses its "t" and "e" keys) and his situation at the mercy of Annie. Cut off from the outside world and with seemingly no chance of getting out of the guest bedroom, his writing is the only way he can "escape".

I can tell why this story has endured, and been adapted as multiple forms of media over the years. It's filled with suspense as Annie reveals further layers of her insanity and Paul gets more desperate to find his way out of the house. And although Stephen King has written many stories starring authors, his examination of what drives one to create and sustain fictional worlds (even when not under duress) remains a fascinating and enduring subject.

Kindle.Amazon.com

One of the things I like to do while reading a book is mark it up. And I think this is much more satisfying in the digital age. In 12th grade we were directed to "annotate" our books to search for motifs, themes, and anything you could insert into a discussion to make you sound clever. In an actual book, there are drawbacks: flipping through the pages to get back to the annotation can be tiresome, what if your pen or highlighter craps out in the middle of it, or what if, when you're done, you want to lend your book to someone who hasn't read it?

This is one of the main reasons I really like ebooks. I can highlight and/or make notes in passages and then read all of them on a single page. I can change my mind and delete or change them as I get further into the book. I can easily reference what I've highlighted so I can remind myself of foreshadowing or world information. And this ties into why I prefer Kindle books: go to Kindle.Amazon.com and you'll see all of the highlights and notes you've made in your Kindle books and, from there, you can publish them. So while there are others, like Moon+ Reader, Kindle is the only one I know of that allows you to publish your annotations.

As a user, you can choose to make a book that you've read, are reading, or are considering reading public or private. You can also decide to make notes and highlights in any of those books public or private. Currently, all books are marked private by default so you have to mark them as public if you want other users to see your activity. Personally I think it should be the other way around or the user should define the default. For me, I mainly use it to access what I've highlighted or noted to write my reviews.

The social aspect of this site is that you can view the notes and highlights of other users. The Shared Notes & Highlights section shows what has been marked "public" by the user. As I mentioned, by default highlights and notes are private, so sometimes there aren't that many. Highlights from books you've read or books you want to read will show up in the Daily Review (which I think is misnamed since it is a Daily Highlight).

If you read a lot of Kindle books, you should definitely check this out!

Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid

I became a fan of comic book writer Mark Waid after reading his recent run on Daredevil and the 1996 graphic novel Kingdom Come. In the latter, Waid creates a future version of the Justice League and with Superman: Birthright he was given the opportunity to rewrite the origin story of the last son of Krypton to make it more relevant to the 21st Century.

Waid doesn't reinvent the wheel, but he does attempt to explain and streamline elements of Superman's personality and costume in ways that hadn't been explored before. The story in Birthright moves quickly; after the baby-containing spaceship is sent from the dying planet, we skip over Clark Kent's childhood and catch up to him as a 25-year-old trying to figure out his place on his adopted world.

There are a few elements of this story that were borrowed for Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, ranging from the aforementioned time-jump, to the distrust that Superman encounters about his motivation, to the idea that the S-shield emblem Supes wears is a Kryptonian symbol for hope. However, Waid is much better at expressing that sense of hope and responsibility than Snyder's careless version of the character. Waid's Superman is compassionate toward the human race and constantly gets to prove that he is not their enemy.

Birthright shares the idea with the "Smallville" TV series that Lex Luthor grew up in the rural Kansas town alongside Clark Kent, which had never been part of Luthor's character in past comics. However, when Superman notices Luthor thriving as a scientist in Metropolis, Luthor denies having any knowledge of Smallville or the Kent family who he spent time with in his youth. Lex has become an astrobiologist and yearns to attain more technological secrets from extraterrestrial worlds. When he discovers a wormhole that shows glimpses of Krypton before its destruction, he carries out a plan to discredit the strange visitor in the red cape while gaining the alien tech for himself.

I enjoyed this book a lot, and although it has been written out of DC comics canon a few times over, I think it stands out as a distinguished, accessible version of Superman's origin story. It certainly does better justice to the character than anything depicted in Man of Steel or Batman v. Superman.

Check out the writer's website at markwaid.com, and if you're in the Washington, DC area June 3-5, he'll be appearing at Awesome Con.

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

I picked up this book because I was in the mood for a time travel story, and that's basically all I knew about it going in. The concept of a time-hopping serial killer sounded pretty promising, but unfortunately The Shining Girls doesn't do enough with it, and the various characters and time periods become jumbled.

The book is written in third person but each chapter is from a different point of view; from protagonist Kirby Mazrachi to her friend Dan the detective, to the killer named Harper Curtis, and a few inconsequential side characters, we get their name and what date the chapter takes place on. Sometimes alternating with multiple voices can be beneficial to a story, but in this case it all seemed scattered. I can say that Beukes did admirable research into the details of Chicago's different time periods, but that doesn't make the story great.

All we learn about the Depression-era drifter Harper is that he loves to slice up people with his knife. He has a list of women living in different years who he feels are destined to meet their end, but he also indiscriminately kills anyone who gets in his way, and then jumps to another time before anyone knows how the massacre occured.

Kirby is the one victim who survives Harper's attack because her dog gets in the way of his knife. So she is trying to track Harper down with Dan's help, all while a reporter from the Chicago Sun-Tribune is doing a profile about Kirby and the life-changing assault. Kirby is not a fully dimensional character either, only motivated by wanting justice to be served to the would-be murderer who left ugly scars on her belly.

I'm going to admit my mind wandered while reading this book, because the constantly shifting perspectives and decades became confusing. (This is probably why I'll never be a professional reviewer.) It didn't seem to be clearly explained how Harper was able to time travel other than using a portal somewhere, or why he has the list of victims he calls the "shining girls". (According to Wikipedia, he "must murder the 'shining girls' in order to continue his travels." I didn't pick up on that and I still don't see why continuing to time travel is a good enough reason to become a serial killer.)

So I didn't find much to recommend about The Shining Girls. It felt like it was clumsily building to some greater purpose that never came about, all elaborate table-setting with no feast.

Finders Keepers by Stephen King

As I mentioned in my review of Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes, that was the first of a trilogy. Finders Keepers is the second part of the series but the recurring characters don't appear immediately, and it doesn't feel entirely organic when they do.

The story starts off in 1978 in the home of acclaimed author John Rothstein. He is known for a trilogy of books (hey that sounds familiar) about a man named Jimmy Gold. Morris Bellamy, who mostly loved the Gold novels, is quite upset with the way the third book ended, and ends up killing Rothstein. With a few accomplices, Bellamy gets away with money-filled envelopes and several Moleskine journals from Rothstein's safe. He later kills the two accomplices and realizes the journals are filled with unpublished writing that includes two more Jimmy Gold novels, which is more valuable to Bellamy than the cash. He ends up hiding both the journals and money in a trunk buried near his house, and goes to jail for a crime he doesn't even remember committing, rather than the robbery and homicides.


That may seem like an exhaustive plot but we're just getting started. About thirty years later, a boy name Pete Saubers lives in Bellamy's former home and finds the buried trunk. Since his family is having financial trouble, he decided to anonymously send the cash to his own address, a couple hundred dollars at a time. Meanwhile, Morris Bellamy has been in jail but happens to be up for parole. Once Bellamy realizes the journals are not where he left them he's on the warpath. When Pete's cash runs out, he tries to find a way to make money off the Rothstein writings but it's not as easy as he hoped, and his sister gets in touch with Ret. Det. Bill Hodges because Hodges helped a friend of hers.


So Hodges and his acquaintances Holly Gibney and Jerome Robinson from Mr. Mercedes finally get involved in the story at this point, and it just isn't handled as smoothly as in the first book, in which they were way more personally invested in the crime. I feel like King had the story of the murderous literary fan in mind and he shoehorned in the established characters. Morris Bellamy will remind readers of Annie Wilkes from King's Misery since she was quite upset with the author of her favorite books, except Annie wasn't as blatantly bloodthirsty as Bellamy. He's also not as interesting of an antagonist as the mother-obsessed Brady Hartsfield from Mr. Mercedes. In this volume Hartsfield is hinted to have gained telekinesis, a seemingly common King trope, but that does keep me interested to see where things will go in the finale of this trilogy. Finders Keepers was compelling enough while I was reading it, but by the end it didn't leave a lasting impression and was ultimately filler.

As You Wish by Cary Elwes

Attention all you fans of The Princess Bride, the beloved cult classic is now available to stream on Netflix! And another reason to rejoice: recently,  Cary Elwes, Westley himself, wrote a book about the production of the movie. As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride is an oral history written with the collaboration of almost everyone with whom Elwes worked.

Written in roughly chronological order, Elwes first mentions that he had always loved the book, and director Rob Reiner expresses similar feelings, which led to Reiner telling the studio it was the next movie he wanted to make. The executives were hesitant, but fortunately author/screenwriter William Goldman had a good reputation in Hollywood for having written Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Goldman was a fan of Reiner's directorial efforts This is Spinal Tap and Stand by Me.

Cary Elwes was very nervous about his audition but was exactly what Reiner was looking for. He was excited to be working with industry giants Billy Crystal and Mandy Patinkin, and literal giant Andre. This leads me to my strongest criticism of As You Wish; it often feels like a fluffy DVD commentary in which the cast and crew gush about each other and how amazingly fun it was to make the film. That being said, I kind of like DVD commentaries so the book wasn't devoid of merit.

There are interesting anecdotes within, like the amount of effort Elwes and Patinkin put in to their swordfight, which Goldman's screenplay insisted be "the greatest sword fight ever filmed." Any time they were not filming, they'd practice the combat for eight hours a day. Elwes also recounts a story of Andre the Giant's flatulence ruining a take, and all the cast mentions how gracious the late wrestler was on set in general.

Those who haven't seen the movie won't get much out of this book, but it's a must-read for the film's loyal fans. After nearly three decades, The Princess Bride is still a go-to classic and Elwes' book is a worthy tribute.

Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari

When young people seek companionship in the twenty-first century, it's different from how their parents and grandparents had it. Today's technology and increased population make the options for romance occasionally overwhelming. In his first book, comedian and actor Aziz Ansari takes a good look at what modern romance really consists of.

This is not the typical book that you might find written by a celebrity. It's not a memoir or a quick cash-grab, it's a well researched look at love that Ansari wrote alongside sociologist Eric Klinenberg. At the same time it does contain numerous bits of the comedian's sarcasm and a few examples of his own struggles with finding a mate. Some of the topics that he examines come from conversations with audience members at his standup shows, such as when he asks them to show him their text message conversations.

Ansari and Klinenberg take a look at the paradox of choice that daters face. With the advent of online dating, there are so many options available that someone might worry that they're not with the "best" person possible. Ansari contrasts this to how his father had an arranged marriage, which he also addresses on his Netflix show Master of None. The authors took trips to Tokyo, Buenos Aires, and Paris to see how those countries handle dating, in comparison with how Americans do. Ansari found that in Tokyo men were usually too shy to approach women, while in Buenos Aires the males were perhaps too aggressive with their advances.

Aziz Ansari has a signature way of pointing out the absurdities of his generation's behavior while admitting he falls into the same habits. It seems that researching and writing this book gave him insight into not only other people's behavior in relationships, but also his own.

I recommend Modern Romance to anyone in their 20s or 30s who's curious about the subject and doesn't mind Ansari's sense of humor, as there are points when he'll exaggerate or go on a tangent for the sake of a laugh. A side note, the audiobook version has some added content at the beginning and end. At the start of the first CD in specific, Aziz berates the listener for being "too lazy" to read the text and lamenting that he has to "read it to you". That was a surprise that gave me a good chuckle.

To buy the book or learn more, go to book.azizansari.com. However, the site hasn't been updated since it still talks about preordering the book despite it coming out last June.

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

In which Liz reviews a book

I read this book is because I really like Hayao Miyazaki's movie and I wanted to read it for myself. I think that the movie is a good interpretation of the book even with the differences; for example, in the movie, Sophie only has one sister while in the novel she has two; in the movie, Howl tries avoiding getting caught up in the war while in the book he tries avoiding the King's order to find Suliman and Justin and kill the Witch of the Waste.

I enjoyed Howl's Moving Castle so much, I kept going in the series and listened to the sequels, Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways. I'd rate them in this order: Howl's was the best followed closely by House and bringing up the rear was Castle. I think that was mainly due to that Castle was narrated by a male character and, for me, it was more challenging to relate to his situation. I liked and identified more with Sophie (Howl's) and with Charmain (House).

Visit Diana Wynne Jones' site for more information about the author and how to purchase her book(s).

Hail, Caesar!

Joel and Ethan Coen have done a Hollywood satire before in Barton Fink, and they've made George Clooney act like a buffoon before (Clooney has called O Brother Where Art Thou, Intolerable Cruelty, and Burn After Reading his "idiot trilogy"). But there is no movie quite like the tribute to the Golden Age of Hollywood that is Hail, Caesar!

Clooney's character, actor Baird Whitlock, isn't actually the main character in this, that honor belongs to Josh Brolin's Eddie Mannix. Mannix is a "fixer" at 1950s Hollywood studio Capitol Pictures, whose job it is to keep all his directors and actors happy and out of gossip-worthy trouble. When Baird Whitlock gets kidnapped off the set of the latest religious epic, Mannix chooses to quietly pay off the ransom. I won't mention who the kidnapping group turn out to be, as that reveal leads to some of the best material in this movie.

As many stars as there are on the Coens' poster, most of them don't show up for more than a scene or two, and relative unknown Alden Ehrenreich gets almost as much screen time as Clooney. Ehrenreich plays an actor who talents are well suited to stunt-filled westerns, but struggles when cast in Laurence Laurentz's (Ralph Fiennes) costume drama. Scarlett Johannsen is an Esther Williams type whose pregnancy throws Mannix into reputation-protection mode. Channing Tatum is a performer in a navy musical whose dance scene is truly stunning. Also among them: Tilda Swinton as twin reporters (one for a legit paper and one for a gossip rag), Frances McDormand as a film editor, and Jonah Hill in a cameo I feel I shouldn't say a word about. While Mannix is putting out fires all over Capitol Pictures, he's also being tempted to leave the studio and join the Lockheed Corportation.

I'm pretty confident that I haven't revealed anything that would take away from one's enjoyment of Hail, Caesar! because most of the humor comes from how these situations unfold and intersect. You might have to had seen movies from that bygone era to appreciate some of the jokes, but I think there's something for everyone. This isn't the best comedy the Coen brothers have made but that's a high bar; I do think it will stand as one of the funniest of 2016.

Choose Your Own Autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris

You notice the cover right away because you admire the actor Neil Patrick Harris. Ah, the esteemed star of the Harold and Kumar movies and How I Met Your Mother, as well as, you're told, some doctor show in the early 90s, has written a book about himself. The cover has a design that looks familiar. Oh Choose Your Own Autobiography, based on the concept of "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, you loved those! Now with your interest piqued, you open the cover and start reading.

What an unique concept for structuring an autobiography! You are told you will assume the role of Neil Patrick Harris, and choose a path through his life with a series of options at the end of each short chapter. You soon discover that while most of the chapters are true stories, some of them quickly turn into deathly situations similar to those in the childrens' books.

You have to admit that reading about someone else's life in the second person present tense takes some getting used to, especially when the book tells you that you're a proud gay man with a husband and two children. You are decidedly not a gay man, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Occasionally the book's choices direct you to magic tricks to follow along with, or drink recipes to imbibe. There is always the worry in the back of your mind that you might miss an important detail about Harris's life or one of the hilarious asides, so you always keep one finger or bookmark at the last page you left so you can read the path you didn't take the first time. Huh, that's probably exactly the effect that the author intended.

You greatly enjoy this book and you make sure to type out a post on your blog to tell everyone that it's well worth their time.

You can find the website for the book at nphbook.com, or follow Harris on Twitter @actuallyNPH.

Fool and The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore

 I first encountered Christopher Moore with the book Lamb, which Liz reviewed earlier this year. In that book, the protagonist Biff gives us an irreverent and sex-obsessed view of Biblical times. In Fool and The Serpent of Venice, the jester Pocket provides a similar look at a more Shakespearean era.

Fool is basically a retelling of King Lear from the jester's point of view. Pocket is in love with Lear's youngest daughter Cordelia, and when she does not get a share of the kingdom that is left to her sisters, Pocket schemes to exact revenge on the king and win Cordelia's heart. If you're not familiar with Shakespeare's original play, well I'm not going to go into the whole plot here. Suffice it to say, in Fool it turns out that Pocket (with help from his dimwitted apprentice, Drool) was behind most of the tragic occurrences and jealousy among the three sisters, as he shags the lot of 'em. He obtains three doses of a love potion from the witches of Macbeth fame, and uses these to manipulate the women to desire whoever is most convenient.

The more recent novel The Serpent of Venice combines elements of Othello and The Merchant of Venice with the Edgar Allen Poe story "The Cask of Amontillado." Pocket remains our main narrator, though some passages are told in third person, and an omniscient Chorus pops in to introduce certain scenes and otherwise annoy the other characters in a fourth-wall-breaking manner. Not long after finding out his beloved Cordelia has died, Pocket's misfortune continues when he's thrown in a dungeon.

These books will appeal to Shakespeare fans who don't mind the idea of the Bard's plays being ripped apart and thrown together by a prankster. As I have implied, both are occasionally sexually explicit when Shakespeare was subtle about such matters. It's a sense of humor that will appeal to the naughty teenager in you. I don't think Christopher Moore is for everyone, but for those who like a combination of highbrow and lowbrow, there is nobody like him.

For more about the author and his books, check out Christopher Moore's website.

Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham

Franny Banks is living in New York City circa 1995 trying to be an actress. She set herself a deadline: by the time her boyfriend in Chicago graduated from law school, she should know if acting is her way of life or just something she can say she tried. We join her 6 months till her deadline and she seems no closer than when she started. We meet her roommates, Jane and Dan: Jane is a production assistant and Franny's cheerleader and Dan is the engaged guy trying to write a science fiction screenplay.

It was not until the end of chapter 29 (of 32) that I saw what Graham was trying to say with this book. Prior to this point in the novel, we've been following a jaded Franny in her in her every day life: acting classes, auditions, dating, agents.. Franny has lost hope and Dan tries to cheer her up by describing the character in a J.D. Salinger story that Franny is named her after: J.D. Salinger's Franny carries around a book, The Way of the Pilgrim, which says that repetition brings enlightenment. I prefer how Dan interprets it: "the idea that quantity becomes quality." Throughout the whole book Graham's Franny has been filling her Filofax and Dan tries to get her to understand that if she "keeps filling up the pages" that "something is bound to happen." And so I found myself understanding the beauty of Franny's life as told by Lauren Graham.

I started reading it but I ended up listening to the audiobook which is read by Lauren Graham. And I thought that was really great: an actress reading her own book so you could really hear what she meant with her words. I have no doubt that listening to that audiobook gave me a better understanding of the exact tone was trying to convey from her novel. I liked it. Oh and I have to mention that the #1 reason I decided to read the book in the first place is because I really liked Lauren Graham as Lorelai Gilmore in Gilmore Girls.

Visit Lauren Graham's site for more information about the author and how to purchase her book(s).