At the end of each semester, I receive Thank You notes from students. Here are a couple that just arrived. You can see why it’s hard for me to think about retirement when I’m teaching students like these.

Professor Kelley

With great thanks,
(name withheld)

And then there’s this one from a student who emigrated from Yemen:

Dr. Kelley,

(name withheld)

Melissa McCarthy plays a mousy clerical worker at the CIA who volunteers for a secret mission. During the silliness of Spy we see Melissa McCarthy develop into an action hero. Jude Law plays a suave spy and Jason Statham portrays a tough-as-nails spy (a spoof of the character Statham usually plays in action movies). Directed and written by Paul Feig (who directed Bridesmaids and The Heat), Spy will entertain you and make you laugh. If you liked Bridesmaids and The Heat you’ll like Spy. GRADE: B

Michael Shea wrote convincing pastiches of Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth. This collection of Nifft the Lean stories blends Jack Vance and Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser to produce heroic fantasies mixed with magic and action. Nifft and his partner, Barnar Hammer-Hand, use guile and sorcery to pull off their grand enterprises. With plenty of exotic locales, fabulous creatures, weird magic, and chatty demons these stories will captivate you. This edition is an omnibus edition of Nifft the Lean (1982) and The Mines of Behemoth (1997) which were published separately. Whether you read the individual volumes or this combined package, you’ll find wonders waiting for you.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Nifft the Lean
Come Then, Mortal, We Will Seek Her Soul… 13
The Pearls of the Vampire Queen… 77
The Fishing of the Demon Sea… 125
The Goddess in Glass… 273
The Mines of Behemoth… 345

Because of a wardrobe malfunction, the Barden Bellas–national champion Collegiate A Cappella group–is suspended.
the only way they can defend their title is to enter the World Championship in Copenhagen…and win it. The problem: no American A Cappella group has ever won the world title (as one commentator says, “The world hates us.”). Many of the women from Perfect Pitch return to sing their hearts out. Of course, problems abound: romantic problems, relationship problems, work problems, future problems, etc. The audience for the Perfect Pitch movies is twenty-something women. Perfect Pitch 2 is already the third highest grossing comedy ($150 million and still growing) ever (the first is The Hangover at $467 million and the second is Austin Powers in Goldmember at $297 million). I’m sure the success of Pitch Perfect 2 will produce a Pitch Perfect 3 in a couple years. GRADE: B

My favorite essays in Sometimes An Art are “History and the Creative Imagination” and “The Search for Perfection.” In “History and the Creative Imagination” Bernard Bailyn writes about his favorite contemporary historians: Perry Miller, Charles McLean Andrews, Lewis Namier, and Ronald Syme. After reading this essay, I wanted to drop everything and read the books that Bailyn discusses. “The Search for Perfection” starts with a discussion of one of my favorite writers: Isaiah Berlin. Berlin shows how the imposition of “Utopias” leads to disaster: “the repressive power of the Soviet state, the annihilatory power of the Nazi regime, the mind-blinding power of Maoist gangs, the suffocating power of Islamic fundamentalism”. If you’re in the mood for some brilliant history written by multiple Pulitzer Prize winner Bernard Bailyn, Sometimes An Art will delight you. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Preface

PART ONE
On History and the Struggle to Get It Right

1. Considering the Slave Trade: History and Memory
2. Context in History
3. Three Trends in Modern History
4. History and the Creative Imagination
5. The Losers

PART TWO
Peripheries of the Early British Empire

6. Thomas Hutchinson in Context: The Ordeal Revisited
7. England’s Cultural Provinces: Scotland and America
(co-authored with John Clive)
8. Peopling the Peripheries
9. The Search for Perfection: Atlantic Dimensions

Appendix
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

I’ve enjoyed the various Batman animated series. This new movie features The Penguin and another diabolical plot involving robotic animals. Batman gets help from The Flash, Green Arrow, Nightwing, and Red Robin to solve this case. Unlike the previous Son of Batman, Animal Instincts is aimed at a younger audience. It didn’t bother me, but it might bother you. Special features include Penguin: High Society Criminal, a collection of DC Nations Shorts, and two bonus DC cartoons from the DC Vault. Check out the trailer below. GRADE: B

I just applied for Social Security “spousal benefits” from Social Security Administration. Diane is going to start collecting Social Security checks in July when she turns 66. I’m going to wait until I’m 70 to collect my Social Security. But, as Get What’s Yours explains, there’s a loop-hole in the Social Security code that allows spouses to collect HALF of their spouse’s Social Security from age 66 to age 70. So Diane will collect her full amount and I will collect half of her Social Security benefit until I turn 70 and collect my full amount. That’s $48,000 (a $1,000 extra dollars each month for four years). There are plenty of other clever ways to maximize your Social Security benefits…legally. Get What’s Yours walks you through all 400 different ways you can collect Social Security. This is a handy little book! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. Getting Nearly $50,000 in Extra Benefits over Tennis
2. Life’s Biggest Danger Isn’t Dying, It’s Living
2. Social Security–from A to Zzzzzzzz
4. Three General Rules to Maximize Your Lifetime Benefits
5. Strategies to Follow the Three Rules
6. Be Careful Taking Social Security’s Advice
7. The Benefits of Not Retiring
8. Playing Social Security’s Marital Status Game
9. Married with Benefits
10. Gay Couples Get to Claim What’s Theirs
11. Divorced? Dark Clouds and Silver Linings
12. Widowed? Why Social Security Is A Major Women’s Issue
13. Never Married or Divorced Too Soon
14. Hidden Benefits for the Disabled
15. Government Pensions and Windfall Penalties
16. 50 Good-News Secrets to Higher Lifetime Benefits
17. 25 Bad-News Gotchas That Can Reduce Your Benefits Forever
18. Whither Social Security?
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Appendix: Actually Filing to Get What’s Yours
Notes
Index

You would think that with a cast of Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Bill Murray, and Alec Baldwin you’d be able to make a pretty good movie. But, if you’re Cameron Crowe directing Aloha things are not going to turn out well. The romantic comedy isn’t comedic or romantic. The story about a billionaire launching a suspicious satellite is lame. Only the delightful Rachel McAdams and Emma Stone lighting up the movie screen saves this movie. GRADE: C

Matthew B. Crawford thinks our culture has become distracted (and in some cases, brain-dead). Smartphones aren’t making us smarter, Crawford argues. They’re reducing out attention span and preventing us from thinking clearly. I found Crawford’s analysis persuasive. My students are constantly texting. When Diane and I go out to a restaurant, almost all the diners have their smartphones on their tables (and check them frequently). A recent survey found students check their smartphones 700 times per day. All of this has consequences in the Real World and Crawford shows where this is leading. World Beyond Your Head is a disturbing book. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Preface p. ix
Introduction: Attention as a Cultural Problem p. 3
Part I Encountering Things
1 The Jig, the Nudge, and Local Ecology p. 31
2 Embodied Perception p. 45
3 Virtual Reality as Moral Ideal p. 69
4 Attention and Design p. 79
5 Autism as a Design Principle: Gambling p. 89
Interlude: A Brief History of Freedom p. 113
Part II Other People
6 On Being Led Out p. 127
7 Encountering Things with Other People p. 141
8 Achieving Individuality p. 151
9 The Culture of Performance p. 161
10 The Erotics of Attention p. 169
11 The Flattening p. 181
12 The Statistical Self p. 195
Part III Inheritance
13 The Organ Makers’ Shop p. 209
Epilogue: Reclaiming the Real p. 247
Notes p. 259
Acknowledgments p. 285
Index p. 289

Back in the glory days of ACE Doubles, I always preferred the ACE Doubles that featured a single author. Many of these single-author ACE Doubles would have a novel on one side and a collection of short stories on the other. That was my favorite format. The Man With Nine Lives/A Touch of Infinity by Harlan Ellison (#D-413, 1960, $0.35) may have been the best (and most famous) of this type of ACE Double. In 1971, Ron Goulart’s ACE Double Clockwork’s Pirates and Ghost Breaker caught my attention. I’d read several of Goulart’s quirky SF novels and was delighted by this package, especially the nine short stories in Ghost Breaker. They have mystery elements that I enjoyed. I was reminded of Ron Goulart’s ACE Double by a fine review on Black Gate and was inspired to find my copy and reread it. Just click here to check it out.

GHOST BREAKER
TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• “Please Stand By” (January 1962, Fantasy & Science Fiction)
• “Uncle Arly” (July 1962, Fantasy & Science Fiction)
• “McNamara’s Fish” (July 1963, Fantasy & Science Fiction)
• “Kearny’s Last Case” (September 1965, Fantasy & Science Fiction)
• “Breakaway House” (May 1966, Fantasy & Science Fiction)
• “Fill in the Blank” (May 1967, Fantasy & Science Fiction)
• “The Ghost Patrol” (October 1968, Fantasy & Science Fiction)
• “The Strawhouse Pavillion” (January 1970, Coven 13)
• “Help Stamp Out Chesney” (1971, Ghost Breaker)

• OTHER MAX KEARNY STORIES:
• “The Return of Max Kearny” (December 1981, Fantasy & Science Fiction)
• “Hello from Hollywood” (December 1983, Fantasy & Science Fiction)