Cass Sunstein wrote this love letter to Star Wars after watching the Star Wars series with his young son. Sunstein reminisces about seeing Star Wars (aka, A New Hope) for the first time. He actually rates the movies in the series:
1. The Empire Strikes Back (A+)
2. Star Wars (aka, A New Hope) (A)
3. Return of the Jedi (A-)
4. Revenge of the Sith (A-)
5. The Force Awakens (A-)
6. Attack of the Clones (B-)
7. The Phantom Menace (C+)

Sunstein’s enthusiasm for all things Star WArs infuses every page of this slim book. If you’re a fan of Luke, and Leia and Han Solo and Yoda you’ll enjoy Sunstein’s insights and cheerleading for these iconic movies. What’s your favorite Star Wars movie? GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Preface
Introduction: Learning from Star Wars

EPISODE I: I AM YOUR FATHER
The Heroic Journey of George Lucas

EPISODE II: THE MOVIE NO ONE LIKED
An Expected flop Becomes the Defining World of Out Time

EPISODE III: SECRETS OF SUCCESS
Was Star Wars Awesome, Well-Timed, Or Just Very Lucky?

EPISODE IV: THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT STAR WARS
Of Christianity, Oedipus, Politics, Economics, and Darth Jar Jar

EPISODE V: FATHERS AND SONS
You Can Be Redeemed, Especially If Your Kid Really Likes You

EPISODE VI: FREEDOM OF CHOICE
It’s Not About Destiny or Prophecy

EPISODE VII: REBELS
Why Empires Fall, Why Resistance Fighters (and Terrorists) Rise

EPISODE VIII: CONSTITUTIONAL EPISODES
Free Speech, Sex Equality, and Same-Sex Marriage as Episodes

EPISODE IX: THE FORCE AND SOME MONOMYTH
Of Magic, God, and Humanity’s Very Favorite Tale

EPISODE X: OUT MYTH, OURSELVES
Why Star Wars Gets to Us

Bibliographical Note
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index

Back in 2003, the Hallmark Channel presented a made-for-TV movie called Mystery Woman. It featured Kellie Martin as Samantha Kinsey, an owner of a bookstore specializing in mystery books, who gets involved in solving real-life mysteries while applying the lessons of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes. The pilot was aired in 2003 and then 10 more episodes followed from 2005 to 2007. As most of you know, the Hallmark Channel does not dabble in cutting-edge films. These Mystery Woman episodes are frothy fun. If you’re looking for light entertainment, I’d recommend the Mystery Woman series. GRADE: B
EPISODE LIST:
1.Mystery Woman (pilot) – directed by Walter Klenhard, first aired August 31, 2003
2.Mystery Woman: Mystery Weekend – directed by Mark Griffiths, first aired January 7, 2005
3.Mystery Woman: Snapshot – directed by Georg Stanford Brown, first aired January 28, 2005
4.Mystery Woman: Sing Me a Murder – directed by Stephen Bridgewater, first aired February 25, 2005
5.Mystery Woman: Vision of a Murder – directed by Kellie Martin, first aired June 5, 2005
6.Mystery Woman: Game Time – directed by David S. Cass Sr., first aired August 21, 2005
7.Mystery Woman: At First Sight – directed by Kellie Martin, first aired January 21, 2006
8.Mystery Woman: Wild West Mystery – directed by David S. Cass Sr., first aired March 18, 2006
9.Mystery Woman: Oh Baby – directed by David S. Cass Sr., first aired August 19, 2006
10.Mystery Woman: Redemption – directed by David S. Cass Sr., first aired November 6, 2006[1]
11.Mystery Woman: In the Shadows – directed by David S. Cass Sr., first aired January 13, 2007

Diane called me attention to this list in the latest issue of Parade Magazine which gets delivered in our Sunday Buffalo News. It’s an eccentric list. I’ve read about 60 percent of the books. Some books, like When Breath Becomes Air and The Lion and the Mouse, I’d never heard of. You can find a downloadable list of these books here.  How many of these books have you read?  What titles did Ann Pratchett omit?

1940s:

# 1 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn-Betty Smith
# 2 Brideshead Revisited-Evelyn Waugh
# 3 The Hero with a Thousand Faces-Joseph Campbell
# 4 All the King’s Men-Robert Penn Warren

1950s:
# 5 The End of the Affair-Graham Greene
# 6 Foundation-Isaac Asimov
# 7 Charlotte’s Web-E. B. White
# 8 Invisible Man-Ralph Ellison
# 9 The Old Man and the Sea-Ernest Hemingway
# 10 Fahrenheit 451-Ray Bradbury
# 11 The Long Goodbye-Raymond Chandler
# 12 A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
# 13 Lolita-Vladimir Nabokov
# 14 Giovanni’s Room-James Baldwin
# 15 The Civil War by Shelby Foote
# 16 The Once and Future King-T. H. White
# 17 Nine Stories-J. D. Salinger

1960s:
# 18 Night-Elie Wiesel
# 19 The Rabbit Quartet-John Updike
# 20 Mastering the Art of French Cooking-Julia Child
# 21 To Kill a Mockingbird-Harper Lee
# 22 The Moviegoer-Walker Percy
# 23 The Bell Jar-Sylvia Plath
# 24 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest-Ken Kesey
# 25 Silent Spring-Rachel Carson
# 26 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions-Thomas S. Kuhn
# 27 A Wrinkle in Time-Madeleine L’Engle
# 28 The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
# 29 Where The Wild Things Are-Maurice Sendak
# 30 The Autobiography of Malcolm X-Alex Haley
# 31 In Cold Blood-Truman Capote
# 32 The Double Helix-James D. Watson
# 33 Slaughterhouse-Five-Kurt Vonnegut

1970s:
# 34 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee-Dee Brown
# 35 Burr-Gore Vidal
# 36 Song of Solomon-Toni Morrison
# 37 Suttree-Cormac McCarthy
# 38 The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy-Douglas Adams

1980s:
# 39 Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
# 40 Housekeeping-Marilynne Robinson
# 41 Maus-Art Spiegelman
# 42 A People’s History of the United States-Hward Zinn
# 43 So Long, See You Tomorrow-William Maxwell
# 44 A Perfect Spy-John le Carre

1990s:
# 45 The Things They Carried-Tim O’Brien
# 46 All Over But the Shoutin’-Rick Bragg
# 47 The Secret History-Donna Tartt
# 48 The Stone Diaries-Carol Shields
# 49 The Collected Stories of Grace Paley
# 50 Last Train to Memphis-Peter Guralnick
# 51 The Color of Water-James McBride
# 52 Harry Potter Series-J.K. Rowling
# 53 American Pastoral-Philip Roth
# 54 Interpreter of Maladies-Jhumpa Lahiri
# 55 On Writing-Stephen King
# 56 Speak-Laurie Halse Anderson

2000s
# 57 The Blind Assassin-Margaret Atwood
# 58 Old Filth-Jane Gardam
# 59 Collected Poems-Jane Kenyon
# 60 Consider the Lobster-David Foster Wallace
# 61 Never Let Me Go-Kazun Ishiguro
# 62 Team of rivals-Doris Kearns Goodwin
# 63 We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live-Joan Didion
# 64 What Is the What-Dave Eggers
# 65 Brother, I’m Dying-Edwidge Danticat
# 66 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian-Sherman Alexie
# 67 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao-Junot Diaz
# 68 The Lion and the Mouse-Jerry Pinkney
# 69 Wolf Hall-Hilary Mantel

2010s
# 70 New Selected Stories-Alice Munro
# 71 Collected Poems-Jack Gilbert
# 72 The Patrick Melrose Novels-Edward St. Aubyn
# 73 My Name is Lucy Barton-Elizabeth Strout
# 74 When Breath Becomes Air-Paul Kalanithi
# 75 Brown Girl Dreaming-Jacqueline Woodson

The View From the Cheap Seats collects many of Neil Gaiman’s reviews, speeches, introductions to books, and various non-fiction writings. This book weighs in at 544 pages so there’s plenty here to browse through. I enjoyed Gaiman’s thoughts on Harlan Ellison, Diana Wynne Jones, Terry Pratchett, and Gene Wolfe. And Gaiman has plenty to say about comic books and graphic novels, too. The writings on movies are the weakest part of this collection. But Neil Gaiman is an engaging writer with knowledge of the publishing industry. If you check out the Table of Contents below, I’m sure you’ll find some topics that will intrigue you. GRADE: A-
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction
I Some Things I Believe
Why Our Future Depends on Libraries, Reading and Daydreaming: The Reading Agency Lecture, 2013
Telling Lies for a Living … and Why We Do It: The Newbery Medal Speech, 2009 Four Bookshops
Three Authors: On Lewis, Tolkien and Chesterton; The MythCon
Guest of Honor Speech
The Pornography of Genre, or the Genre of Pornography
Ghosts in the Machines: Some Hallowe’en Thoughts
Some Reflections on Myth (with Several Digressions onto Gardening, Comics and Fairy Tales)
How Dare You: On America, and Writing About It
All Books Have Genders
The PEN Awards and Charlie Hebdo
What the [Very Bad Swearword] Is a Children’s Book, Anyway? The Zena Sutherland Lecture
II Some People I Have Known
These Are Not Our Faces
Reflections: On Diana Wynne Jones
Terry Pratchett: An Appreciation
On Dave McKean
How to Read Gene Wolfe
Remembering Douglas Adams
Harlan Ellison: The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World
Banging the Drum for Harlan Ellison
On Stephen King, for the Sunday Times
Geoff Notkin: Meteorite Man
About Kim Newman, with Notes on the Creation and Eventual Dissolution of the Peace and Love Corporation
Gumshoe: A Book Review
SIMCITY
Six to Six
III Introductions And Musings: Science Fiction
Fritz Leiber: The Short Stories
Hothouse
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 and What Science Fiction Is and Does
Of Time, and Gully Foyle: Alfred Bester and The Stars My Destination
Samuel R. Delany and The Einstein Intersection
On the Fortieth Anniversary of the Nebula Awards: A Speech, 2005
IV Films And Movies And Me
The Bride of Frankenstein
MirrorMask: An Introduction
MirrorMask: A Sundance Diary
The Nature of the Infection: Some Thoughts on Doctor Who
On Comics and Films: 2006
V On Comics And Some Of The People Who Make Them
Good Comics and Tulips: A Speech
A Speech to Professionals Contemplating Alternative Employment, Given at PROCON, April 1997
“But What Has That to Do with Bacchus?” Eddie Campbell and Deadface
Confessions: On Astro City and Kurt Busiek
Batman: Cover to Cover
Bone: An Introduction, and Some Subsequent Thoughts
Jack Kirby: King of Comics
The Simon and Kirby Superheroes
The Spirit of Seventy-Five
The Best of the Spirit
Will Eisner: New York Stories
The Keynote Speech for the 2003 Eisner Awards
2004 Harvey Awards Speech
The Best American Comics, 2010
VI Introductions And Contradictions
Some Strangeness in the Proportion: The Exquisite Beauties of Edgar Allan Poe
On The New Annotated Dracula
Rudyard Kipling’s Tales of Horror and Fantasy
From the Days of Future Past: The Country of the Blind and Other Stories, by H.G. Wells
Business as Usual, During Alterations: Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free, by Cory Doctorow
The Mystery of G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown
Concerning Dreams and Nightmares: The Dream Stories of H.P. Lovecraft
On The 13 Clocks by James Thurber
Votan and Other Novels by John James
On Viriconium: Some Notes Toward an Introduction
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish: An Introduction
Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones
Voice of the Fire by Alan Moore
Art and Artifice by Jim Steinmeyer
The Moth: An Introduction
VII Music And The People Who Make It
Hi, by the Way: Tori Amos
Curious Wine: Tori Amos II
Flood: Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition, They Might Be Giants
Lou Reed, in Memoriam: “The Soundtrack to My Life”
Waiting for the Man: Lou Reed
Afterword Afterword: Evelyn Evelyn
Who Killed Amanda Palmer
VIII ON Stardust And Fairy Tales
Once Upon a Time
Several Things About Charles Vess
The King of Elfland’s Daughter, Lord Dunsany
Lud-in-the-Mist
The Thing of It Is: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
On Richard Dadd’s The Fairy-Feller’s Master-Stroke
IX Make Good Art
Make Good Art
X The View From The Cheap Seats: Real Things
The View from the Cheap Seats
A Wilderness of Mirrors
The Dresden Dolls: Hallowe’en 2010
Eight Views of Mount Fuji: Beloved Demons and Anthony Martignetti
So Many Ways to Die in Syria Now: May 2014
A Slip of the Keyboard: Terry Pratchett
Credits
Index

Yes, the plot of Independence Day: Resurgence is pretty much the same plot as the original movie from 20 years ago. Aliens attack the Earth. This time, the aliens bring a space ship 3,500 miles long! When it lands, it takes up most of the Atlantic Ocean! Mass disasters, floods, explosions, and devastation result. Some of the cast from the original Independence Day reprise their roles: Bill Pullman as the former president, Jeff Goldblum as the nerdy scientist, Judd Hirsch as Goldblum’s father, and Brent Spinner as a wacky inventor. Sela Ward plays the President. Humanity has prepared for the return of the aliens, but it’s too little too late. A desperate mission is hatched to save the planet. Of course, everything goes wrong. But plenty of fireworks and gallantry fuel the climatic battle scenes. If you’re looking for an action-packed Summer Pop-corn movie, Independence Day: Resurgence fits the bill. GRADE: B+

Do you have a book you’ve searched for over the years? I visited hundreds of used book stories over the decades, but I never found a copy of Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth in the Hillman edition (1950). I have the very nice Lancer edition of The Dying Earth and maybe four or five other versions. But the original eluded me for 50 years.

A week ago, my sister Eileen in Arizona called me. “I found some old paperback books at a used bookstore. Do you want me to ship them to you?” Eileen asked. “Sure,” I said. When the two boxes arrived, I unloaded some vintage SF paperbacks. Near the bottom of the box, I pulled out a book wrapped in plastic: the Hillman edition of The Dying Earth! In pristine condition! I almost swooned! What an unexpected delight!

I had almost given up finding a copy of the original paperback of The Dying Earth. I’ve seen (and held!) copies at Science Fiction conventions. But they were very pricey. Now I have my own mint copy and Life is Good! What are you searching for?
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
“Turjan of Miir”
“Mazirian the Magician”
“T’sais”
“Liane the Wayfarer” (also known as “The Loom of Darkness”)
“Ulan Dhor Ends a Dream” (also known as “Ulan Dhor”)
“Guyal of Sfere” (It mentions a “Lost Book of Kells”, but a later publishing changed the name as there IS a book of Kells.

I’ve been a fan of Mayer Hawthorne’s music since his first music CD, A Strange Arrangement (2010). You can read that review here. Mayer Hawthorne comes from Ann Arbor, Michigan and grew up listening to Motown music. Hawthorne offers some great “Blue-Eyed Soul” songs on his new CD, Man About Town. Hall & Oates are playing a concert in Syracuse (about 3 hours away) on June 25. And Mayer Hawthorne is their opening act! I’m going to try to get some tickets so we might be travelling to mid-New York State to hear our favorite “Blue-Eyed Soul” performers. If you enjoy this kind of music, you’ll love Man About Town. You’ll hear some of Hawthorne’s music in the On Point interview I’ve included here. Worth a listen! GRADE: A-
TRACK LIST:
1 Man About Town 0:42
2 Cosmic Love 3:14
3 Book of Broken Hearts 3:34
4 Breakfast in Bed 4:07
5 Lingerie & Candlewax 3:38
6 Fancy Clothes 4:11
7 The Valley 3:37
8 Love Like That 4:07
9 Get You Back 3:36
10 Out of Pocket 3:41

Critics wondered what spy novelists like John le Carre would do once the Cold War ended. They underestimated the amount of Evil in the world, and the need for espionage and covert action. In The Night Manager le Carre painted a vivid picture of international gun-running. You can read my reviews of The Night Manager book here, and the TV mini-series here.

Our Kind of Traitor (2010), like The Night Manager, features an innocent–teacher Perry Makepiece–who finds himself involved with a Russian mobster, Dima, on the island of Antigua. Little by little, Perry is drawn into a world-wide money-laundering operation. The Russian mafia, the British Secret Service, and Dima play an intricate game with billions of dollars. Next week, the movie version of Our Kind of Traitor opens in the U.S. I’ll be reviewing the movie version, too. GRADE: C+

I think this movie should be titled Finding Dory’s Family since that’s what the plot centers around. Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) is a cute blue fish with short-term memory problems. Dory realizes she has a mother and a father and wants to find them. Dory’s two friends, Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Nemo (Hayden Rolence), accompany Dory on her search. But, of course, Dory gets separated from Marlin and Nemo. She meets a grumpy octopus, Hank (Ed O’Neill), who steals every scene he’s in. For fans of Finding Nemo, Finding Dory will be a solid sequel. It made $136 million in its opening weekend. Obviously audiences aren’t having any trouble finding Dory. GRADE: A-

Summer is a time when I usually read a kit of spy novels. Over the decades, I’ve read almost all of Alan Furst’s novels. Furst has staked out World War II as his preferred setting. A few years ago I reviewed A Mission to Paris. You can read that review here. Much of the action in A Hero of France takes place in and around Paris. And, compared to Furst’s other books, A Hero of France contains a bit more sex. It’s 1941 and Paris is enduring the Nazi Occupation. But, there is a Resistance. A man known as Mathieu builds a network to return downed RAF pilots back to England. But the Nazis infiltrate the Resistance and close in on Mathieu and his team. Like all of Furst’s WWII novels, the setting is carefully rendered. I enjoyed the suspense, but the story is a familiar one with few surprises. A Hero of France is a quick Summer read, nothing more. GRADE: C+