Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood is an example of Thomas Rick’s comment: “Our military is better than we deserve.” Donovan Campbell relates the events of his platoon on their tour of Iraq in 2004. Their mission was to defend Ramadi from the insurgents. What happens to Campbell and his men is chilling, heart-breaking, and inspiring. If you want to understand the Iraq war from the viewpoint of the men who fight in this war, Joker One gives you plenty to think about.

Run, don’t walk, to your local movie theater and see Monsters vs. Aliens in 3-D! I had a blast watching this homage to “creature features” of the past. Reese Witherspoon plays Susan, bride-to-be, when she’s hit by a mysterious meteor that turns her into a giant (homage to Attack of the 50-Foot Woman). The U. S. military takes her to a secret base where they keep their other “monsters.” Susan meets Dr. Cockroach (voice by Hugh Laurie) the smartest insect on the planet (homage to The Fly) and the jello-like Bob (The Blob) and The Missing Link (Creature From the Black Lagoon). And, of course, the Earth faces invasion by galactic aliens. Monster time! GRADE: A-

Okay, I’m going to be in the minority here. I did not like Joe Gores Spade & Archer. It’s a prequel to The Maltese Falcon with none of the original’s charm, menace, and characters. The “Sam Spade” of Spade & Archer doesn’t seem like the private eye I remember from Dashiell Hammett’s classic. The writing style isn’t close to Hammett’s distinctive prose. I respect Joe Gores’ work, but this was a mistake. I know Gore’s admires Hammett (he wrote a novel about Hammett), but there must be another way to render a homage to a great writer other than writing a bad novel. GRADE: C.

This is one of the weirder books I’ve read lately. Simon Critchley writes about 200 philosophers. He gives a brief description of their lives, but what he is really interested in is how they died. Take Seneca for an example. Critchley says Seneca was condemned to death by Caligula in AD 39, managed to escape, then was banished by Claudius on the charge of adultery with the emperor’s niece in AD 41. Finally, Seneca was forced to commit suicide by Nero in AD 65. While all this was going on, Seneca was the most important intellectual in the Roman world and one of its most powerful administrators. Critchley provides plenty of irony and wit as well as a wealth of detail on these philosophers. If you’re looking for a unique reading experience, try The Book of the Dead Philosophers. GRADE: A

When I was a kid, I read a few issues of The House of Secrets. Distribution of this title was spotty in my area. So you can imagine my delight to see over 500 pages of The House of Secrets collected in this DC SHOWCASE edition. Issues #81-98 are drawn by Wally Wood, Bernie Wrightson, Alex Toth, and Neal Adams. The House of Secrets was an anthology of spooky, Twilight Zone, type stories. There are hours of delight here!

There can be no doubt that P. G. Wodehouse was one of the greatest short story writers of the 20th Century. His prose style is sharp and funny. And that is the problem: comedy is seldom taken seriously by literary critics. The great philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote that “Honeysuckle Cottage” was the funniest story he’d ever read. The hero of “Honeysuckle Cottage” is James Rodman, a writer of hard-boiled detective stories who inherits the cottage from his aunt, a gushingly prolific romantic novelist called Leila J. Pinckney. Rodman learns that the Cottage has a strange effect on his writing. Suddenly, his hard-boiled style turns to romantic drivel. No matter how hard he tries to write hard-boiled prose, all of Rodman’s writing turns to romantic mush. Of course, there are other complications of the hilarious sort. A mysterious woman plays an important part in the plot. I cannot praise Wodehouse and “Honeysuckle Cottage” enough. And if you find you love Wodehouse as much as I do, Everyman’s Library’s Best of Wodehouse should be by your bedside.

In these troubled economic times there is a voice of reason. It’s Benjamin Graham who wrote his classic The Intelligent Investor in 1949. He revised and updated The Intelligent Investor over the years, but the core of his investment approach has remained the same: buy the stocks of good companies. You don’t have to read all 623 pages of Graham’s classic. You can do what Warren Buffett (who wrote the INTRODUCTION) suggests: read Chapter 8 “The Investor and Market Fluctuations” and Chapter 20 “Margin of Safety as the Central Concept of Investment.” That will give you the essence of Graham’s philosophy. Of course the rest of the book holds valuable insights, too. Hundreds of books are published each year touting “hot stocks” and “fool-proof” investment strategies. They are junk. Read The Intelligent Investor for the real gold standard of sensible investing.

I’m a big fan of H. P. Lovecraft so I was interested in this adaptation of “Herbert West–Reanimator.” As the DVD played, my disappointment grew. This was not the suspenseful Lovecraft style I was expecting, it was basically a campy gore-fest. The acting is amateurish and the directing is lame. Avoid this! GRADE: D (FOR DREADFUL!)