BBC America is running a Doctor Who Marathon this weekend. If you’re a Doctor Who fan or if you’re curious about what all the fuss is about, I’d urge you to set your DVR and get caught up on these recent episodes. I like Matt Smith, the 11th Doctor. I like his companion, the fetching Amy Pond (played by Karen Gillan) even more. Redhead fans, take note! At 9:00 P. M. EDT, BBC America plans to broadcast a new episode of Doctor Who. You know I’ll be watching.

Red Lights opens on a Labor Day weekend. A husband and wife from Long Island are driving to Maine to pick up their son and daughter at Walla Walla Summer Camp. But the trip veers sharply into noir when the husband insists on stopping along the way for a drink in a bar. His wife fumes. When the husband stops for the second time for another drink, the wife leaves a note saying she’s taking a bus to Maine. Simenon ratchets up the suspense with an escaped convict from Sing Sing prison changing this couple’s lives forever. This isn’t Maigret material. It’s much darker. If you’re in the mood for walk on the wild side, Red Lights will take you there.

The Ike & Tina Turner Story is a 3-CD collection that includes all the significant music this duo produced from 1960-1975. Tina Turner went on to enjoy a successful solo career. “Proud Mary,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “I Want to Take You Higher,” “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “Get Back,” “Son of A Preacher Man,” and all of the hits that made Ike & Tina famous will take you back to a Happier Time. AMAZON offers this box set for $14.95 which I consider a bargain for 49 songs.
Disc: 1
1. A Fool In Love
2. I Idolize You
3. I’m Jealous
4. It’s Gonna Work Out Fine
5. Poor Fool
6. Don’t Play Me Cheap
7. Tra La La La La
8. You Shoulda Treated Me Right
9. Good Good Lovin’
10. Stagger Lee and Billy
11. Two Is a Couple
12. I’m Blue (The Gong-Gong Song)
13. I Can’t Believe What You Say
14. A Fool For A Fool
15. Something’s Got A Hold On Me – (live)
16. Tell Her I’m Not Home
17. Finger Poppin’
18. I’m Gonna Do All I Can (To Do Right By My Man)
19. River Deep Mountain High – (live)
Disc: 2
1. The Hunter
2. I’ve Been Loving You Too Long
3. Bold Soul Sister
4. Come Together
5. Honky Tonk Women
6. I Want To Take You Higher
7. Workin’ Together
8. Proud Mary
9. Get Back
10. Ooh Poo Pah Doo
11. I’m Yours (Use Me Any Way You Wanna)
12. Up In Heah
13. Feel Good
14. Early One Morning
15. Nutbush City Limits
16. Sexy Ida (Part 1)
17. Sweet Rhode Island Red
18. Baby Get It On
19. Acid Queen – (with Tina Turner)
Disc: 3
1. Intro / Soul Serenade
2. Everyday People
3. Gimme Some Lovin’ / Sweet Soul Music
4. Son Of A Preacher Man
5. I Heard It Through The Grapevine
6. Respect
7. There Was A Time / African Boo’s
8. Funky Street
9. A Fool In Love
10. All I Could Do Was Cry / Please, Please, Please / Baby, I Love You
11. Goodbye, So Long

Our BORDERS stores are selling everything at 50% off. Plus, BORDERS sent me an email that gave me an addition 15% off my total order. How could I resist these P. G. Wodehouse novels published by Overlook Press! For a pittance, I scooped up all the Wodehouse BORDERS had left. When the discount increases, I’ll go back and do some bottom fishing. The store was so crowded it’s clear plenty of people are tempted by these discounts.

As I kid, I loved the Green Lantern comic books. My favorite superhero was The Flash, but Green Lantern was a close second. If you’re not familiar with DC Comics superheros, Green Lantern is really test pilot Hal Jordan. When Jordan is chosen to become the Green Lantern on Earth, he’s given a ring of power that allows Jordan to do anything he can imagine. However, the ring needs to be recharged every 24 hours and is ineffective against the color yellow. A society of Green Lanterns work together to police the Universe. The recent Green Lantern movie showed the galactic scope of the Green Lanterns. This DVD of Green Lantern’s animated adventures is a fun experience if you’re into nostalgia (like me). GRADE: B+

Diane is a big fan of A Prairie Home Companion and Garrison Keillor so when we found out “The Summer Love Tour” of A Prairie Home Companion was performing at Artpark in Lewiston, NY (home of Hibbard’s frozen custard), I bought tickets. If you’re a fan of Garrison Keillor, you probably know that after his heart attack, he’s announced his retirement. I’m guessing this will be the final performance of Keillor in A Prairie Home Companion that will ever be seen in Western New York. And, a fine performance it was! Garrison Keillor, The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band, sound-effects man Mr. Fred Newman, and singer Heather Masse entertained a sold-out theater for almost three hours. My favorite moments were when Keillor and Masse sang “Unchained Melody,” “All You Have to Do Is Dream,” and Dylan’s “If Not For You.” If The Summer Love Tour is appearing in your neighborhood, I highly recommend it.

The Buffalo Bills and the Denver Broncos are two “rebuilding” teams. Both teams will struggle in the 2011-2012 season. The NFL Lockout stole minicamps and OTAs (Organized Team Activities) from the teams like Buffalo and Denver who needed it the most. Veteran teams (like New England and the Jets) with stable coaching staffs will do well this season. Young teams with new coaching staffs will find the early part of the season a grind against more experienced opponents. But the beauty of the NFL is that the talent levels are, by design, fairly equal across the 32 teams. The Draft and the Salary Cap insures balance. The big variables are coaching and management. Within a few weeks we’ll find out if the Bills and the Broncos are improving or still mired in mediocrity. (This just in: the Bills lost to the Broncos, 24-10.)

Ann Hathaway is terrific in One Day. She plays a British woman named Emma with incredibly bad taste in men. The love of her life, Dex (Jim Sturgess), is an odious creep who manages to become successful on late night TV. So Emma turns to the next closest guy, Ian (Rafe Spall), an unfunny comedian (who can belch the “Theme to the A-Team”). Patricia Clarkson plays Dex’s mother. The movie makes a big deal of Dex and Emma getting together each year on July 15 (Same Time Next Year this isn’t). But when they do get together, Dex is usually drunk and Emma leaves angry. The reason I’m giving this film a failing grade is (SPOILER ALERT!) both Patricia Clarkson and Ann Hathaway are killed (Hathaway dies brutally) (END SPOILER ALERT). This was an aggravating movie to sit through. With a cast this talented, and a better story, a very good movie could have been made. But One Day isn’t it. GRADE: F

If you’re in the mood for time travel stories with a Arabian Nights flavor, you’ll love The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate. Ted Chiang creates a series of intertwined tales about a merchant in Baghdad who has The Gate of Years. If you enter the Gate in one way, you travel 20 years in the future. If you enter the Gate the other way, you go back in time 20 years. Chiang’s clever tales explore the essence of time. Subterranean Press published The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate back in 2007. It swiftly sold out and became a pricey book. I’ve seen copies going for $200 on ABE. But Subterranean Press has recently made The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate available as an ebook so download a copy of pure delight.

This list comes from one of my favorite book reviewers, Robert Burnbaum, who blogs at ourmaninboston. I’ve only read one book on this list: Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers and I can recommend it. I’ll be exploring some of the other books on this list in the following weeks, but if you’re looking for some Summer Reading, this is a good place to start.

The Sisters Brothers:A Novel by Patrick deWitt (Ecco)

Once Upon a River:A Novel by Bonnie Jo Campbell (W. W. Norton & Company)

To Be Sung Underwater:A Novel by Tom McNeal (Little Brown)

Rules of Civility:A Novel by Amor Towles (Viking)

Galore by Michael Crummey Other Press)

Doc:A Novel by Mary Doria Russell Random House

The Informant by Thomas Perry (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Mink River by Brian Doyle (Oregon State University Press)

Rodin’s Debutante by Ward S. Just (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The Pale King by David Foster Wallace (Little Brown)

Tyrant Memory by Horacio Castellanos Moya and (New Directions)

You Think That’s Bad: Stories by Jim Shepard (Knopf)

The Cut by George P. Pelecanos (Reagan Arthur Books)

Remember by Stephen Harrigan (Knopf)

Broken Irish by Edward Delaney(Turtle Point Press)

The Secret History of Costaguana by Juan Gabriel Vasquez and Anne McLean (Riverhead)