Fredric Brown wrote wonderful mysteries and wonderful science fiction. Not many writers are that skilled and that adroit. The Mind Thing blends science fiction with mystery. An alien criminal is exiled on Earth, in rural Wisconsin. If he can find a way back to his home planet, the alien will be pardoned. The alien looks like a small turtle, but he has the power to take over the minds of sleeping creatures. He can only be released from his hosts by killing them. Much of the book involves the alien’s attempt to take possession of Doc Staunton, a vacationing MIT professor, who would provide the perfect access to technology that would allow the alien to return to his home planet. But Staunton suspects something is wrong from the rash of animal deaths and human suicides. Fredric Brown creates a cat-and-mouse game that ends with a bang. Don’t miss this one!

Okay, I confess: I bought Wild For You because of the cover. Karrin Allyson looks like a deliciously sultry redhead ready to go wild. Wild For You is basically Allyson covering a collection of classics: “Don’t Let me Be Lonely Tonight,” “Wild World,” “Help Me,” “Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word,” “It’s Too Late,” “The Right Thing to Do,” and “Feel Like Makin’ Love.” But, if you’re going to cover classics, you need to bring something new to the table. Allyson does this with her best song on the album: “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.” But Allyson can’t compete with Roberta Flack when she sings “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” So, Wild For You is a mixed bag. GRADE: B

Michael Weinstein’s brilliant Paperback Covers explores about 1600 paperback covers (while reproducing hundreds of examples of cover art both in B&W and color). I don’t know any other book that is this comprehensive. Weinstein’s approach is to use the five arts involved in the production of paperback covers–painting, photography, blurbwriting, typography, and design–as the focus of his analysis. If some of the examples seem overly weighted towards Robert McGinnis artwork and 1940’s paperback covers, it should come as no surprise these two areas are Weinstein’s preoccupations. If you’re as interested in paperback covers as I am, you need to order this book RIGHT NOW! You’ll discover hours of delight within its pages and a myriad of detail about cover artwork that you never knew. GRADE:A

No, I won’t be buying this box set of 90 CDs. The price is $789.98. And, although it comes with a 312-page hardcover book detailing Yo-Yo Ma’s career and there’s a dandy photograph of Yo-Yo Ma by Annie Leibovitz, I’m not shelling out that kind of dough for a career retrospective. SONY must think that people are going to buy this set, but in the teeth of a recession, this project seems misguided. It’s hard to imagine who the target market for such a pricey item might be. Perhaps, a few years from now when this set is selling for a heavily discounted price, I might consider it.

Books like The New Literary History of America attract me with an irresistible force. Who wouldn’t be fascinated by a 1,128 pages about Elvis, Walt Disney, noir, architecture, automotive history, and dozens of other aspects of Popular Culture. The title of this volume is a misnomer. Yes, Hawthorne and Melville make cameo appearances, but the main focus is squarely on rock & roll and movies with detours into books, magazines, and television. This should be expected with Greil Marcus, noted Rock Critic, running the show. The book bursts with photos and artwork (which explains the $49. 99 price tag). With this book around, you’ll be compulsively dipping into its vast collection of informative articles. If you can’t spring for it now, ask Santa for it for Christmas. GRADE: A

Health care reform is the key problem we need to solve or we’ll be losing ground to other countries as globalization continues. That’s the crux of T. R. Reid’s argument in The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. Reid suggests several approaches to managing health care based on models from France, the UK, Germany, Japan, and Canada. If you’re interested in health care reform, The Healing of America is required reading. You may think you know a lot about health care, but Reid’s book brings new facts to the table. I’ve read T. R. Reid’s previous book, The United States of Europe, and found that book just as compelling as The Healing of America. Reid is a Washington Post correspondent who specializes in breaking down complex topics and making them intelligible. He succeeds brilliantly in this latest book. GRADE: A

If you thought you’d seen everything, check out this video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=518XP8prwZo. This incredible “sand animation” is performed by Kseniya Simonova, the 2009 winner of the Ukraine “Got Talent” television series,. Simonova’s performance tells the story of life during WWII, explaining the emotional reactions of some of the audience. Ukraine was the area most devastated by the war, even more than Germany. It was a conflict that saw nearly one in four Ukrainians killed. Ukraine sustained almost 20% of all the causalities suffered during WWII. The scene ends in 1945, with the death of Hitler and the end of a long war.The text at the end where they’re staring at the sailor’s ghost says: “You are always nearby”. The 24-yr-old artist’s prize was 1,000,000 Ukrainian hryvnia, approximately $125,000. I’ve never seen a sand art performance like this and found it very moving.

Last Friday I chose Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction by Patricia Highsmith where I praised Highsmith’s case study of writing one of her most compelling works, The Glass Cell. Then Rick Robinson made the excellent suggestion that I review The Glass Cell which I immediately thought was a great idea. The Glass Cell is the story of Philip Carter, an engineer, who is falsely blamed for fraud in the construction of a school. Carter is convicted and sent to prison. Shortly after he’s incarcerated, Carter is viciously tortured by sadistic prison guards. This leads to a pain management problem that Carter can only solve with injections of morphine. Carter serves six brutal years of a ten-year sentence. Meanwhile, Carter’s beautiful wife Hazel, is having an affair with David Sullivan, a lawyer who Hazel believes is trying to get Carter a pardon. Highsmith ratchets up the suspense as Carter gets released from prison and has to confront life as an ex-con and his wife’s adultery. The case study in Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction shows how Highsmith rewrote The Glass Cell after Harper & Row rejected it. Highsmith says the book began to take form when she realized that even though Carter was out of prison, the effects of his horrific prison experience never really left him. I highly recommend both The Glass Cell and Highsmith’s slim, savvy writing guide.

AMC is currently developing an “update” to the classic THE PRISONER series starring Patrick McGoohan. When I first watched THE PRISONER 40 years ago, I really didn’t know what to make of it. McGoohan plays a “retired” spy who wakes up in an isolated place called “The Village” protected by a strange bubble device. Escape is seemingly impossible, but McGoohan (assigned the ID: No. 6) tries just about every week to flee The Village. The audience, and McGoohan, don’t know if The Village–filled with ex-spies and government officials who possess secrets–is run by the British Government or the Soviets or someone else. Of course, after 40 years, I don’t remember all that much about the series except that the final episode was surreal. AMC is making the original 16 full episodes available for view FOR FREE at their web site at: http://www.amctv.com/originals/the-prisoner-1960s-series/ so you know what I’ll be doing for the next week or two. If you want to own THE PRISONER: THE COMPLETE SERIES AMAZON has it for $52.99.

Disney’s purchase of Marvel for $4 billion means we’ll be seeing more marketing of Marvel’s huge backlist. Last week, X-Men: Volume 3 and Volume 4 were released. Best Buy had them on sale for $14.99 ($5 off if you bought both volumes). These animated programs follow the comics closely. If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll want these before Disney “puts them in the vault” as they are annoyingly prone to do, taking them out of circulation for five or more years. The women superheroes–Storm, Jean Grey, Rogue, Jubilee, etc.–are prominent and powerful.