"Come to Think of It," is an interesting collection of Schorr's essays through the years. His insightful and balanced comments offer perspectives often over looked or hidden by hot button issues and inflammatory rhetoric. Wise, sage, timeless......More

Another in Proulx's series of Wyoming tales, this collection of short stories alternates between raw and hardscrabble, between the Devil's viewpoint and veterans returning from Iraq. The is no end to the spiral downward that Proulx can offer.

Funny, funny stuff.

Better known for his works of fiction, Edward Abbey has nonetheless written a tough, poetic account of his time as a park ranger in the Arches National Park, Moab, Utah. Laced with humor, challenge and reflections on mortality, Abbey writes with...More

This novel is so clever, it makes you weep that you're not Michael Chabon. Give yourself a few chapters to get acculturated to the novel's alternative history, and you'll find that you've become inextricably invested in Chabon's hard-boiled...More

Junot Diaz wrote a book of short stories, like, 10 years ago, and I've been checking monthly since then for his next publication. Diaz is one of those perfect authors that can make you think and feel, appreciate his word choice and become completely...More

This isn't necessarily a great movie...but it is a loud one.

Actually, it starts out quite well, but succumbs to hyper-stimulation in the second half. There are few directors who really do action better than Michael Bay, but sometimes he...More

FPL's Monday evening book club, Book Talk @ Night, did this book in July 2008. The novel's intersex narrator began life as a girl only to discover in his teens the trick played upon him by genetics. And while the tale of young Calliope's (later just...More

One part blues, one part White Stripes, three parts awesome. When I popped this cd into my car, I did not take it out for a week. It rocked my socks off.

While he may not be the most overrated hip-hop artist today (I believe that title officially belongs to 50 Cent), Kanye West is nonetheless overrated, and his third album "Graduation" confirms this. It's not a bad album. In fact, it's...More

For anyone who already owns Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Vol. I, II, and III, now you can listen to pretty much the same songs repackaged on two discs as "The Essential Billy Joel." Needless to say, if you like Billy Joel, you'll like this...More

Two journalists and friends of Thomas write about his life and the forces that shaped and continue to shape him. The book features interviews and comments from long time friends, advocates, and others as well as snips from his work.

While largely quite good, at 19 tracks it is inevitable that some songs will be better than others, and my only complaint, really, is that the weakest, "Go Go Gadget Flow", is more or less positioned as a lead-in. Said track is primarily an exercise...More

This is a bizarre album in a way: it is a COMPLETE departure from Panic!'s first and previous album. A Fever You Can't Sweat Out was, to be sure, a very clever emo record--probably the cream of the crop as far as these things go--and though they...More

The Go! Team make noisy, frenetic party music that, while very good, also happens to be difficult to recommend. It will either be to your taste or it won't. The irony of that is that I have been officially on the fence with this album ever since I...More

I never thought that I would have the opportunity to recommend a new B-52s album; this being, apparently, their first release in the past 16 years, I sort of assumed--like most--that they were done. Happily, we were wrong.

Was it worth the wait?...More

Kanye West's "Graduation" album is sort of like rap music for people who think they don't like rap music. Though it is very straight-forward hip-hop in a lot of ways, it is generally more musical and diverse than its genre peers. I think Kanye has...More

Check out the sound clips on Amazon or some comparable website. If you're going to be susceptible to this album's groove-driven charms, you'll be able to figure it out in thirty seconds or less.

I'm not sure why Enon's Grass Geysers... sticks in...More

Listen to Ratatat on a road trip sometime and see if it doesn't make the tedium of the long miles melt away. Everything just looks a little chiller when these guys are laying down an electric guitar instrumental against your everyday landscape....More