The 6-5 Buffalo Bills take on the 9-2 Oakland Raiders. Vegas has made the Raiders a 3-point favorite which confounds most Bills fans who see this game as a blow-out. If the Bills are going to stay in this game, they need big games from their star running back LeSean McCoy and their frequently injured wide receiver, Sammy Watkins. A loss to the Raiders would pretty much end the Bills’s slim Playoff chances. How will your favorite NFL team do today?

The Big Attraction of Disney’s latest animated feature, Moana, is the music of Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame. All the songs on the soundtrack are either written or co-written by Miranda. This story of a young girl named Moana (voiced by Auli’i Cravalho) who goes on a quest to save her people and their island is vintage Disney plotting. Moana finds demi-god, Maui (voiced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and he reluctantly agrees to help her. If you’re a fan of Disney animated features, you’ll enjoy Moana. GRADE: B+
Soundtrack Listing:
Tulou Tagaloa
An Innocent Warrior
Where You Are
How Far I’ll Go
We Know The Way
How Far I’ll Go (Reprise)
You’re Welcome
Shiny
Logo Te Pate
I Am Moana (Song of the Ancestors)
Know Who You Are
We Know The Way (Finale)
How Far I’ll Go
You’re Welcome
Prologue
He Was You
Village Crazy Lady
Cavern
The Ocean Chose You
The Hook
Tala’s Deathbed
Battle of Wills
Kakamora
Wayfinding
Climbing
Tamatoa’s Lair
Great Escape
If I Were the Ocean
Te Ka Attacks
Maui Leaves
Heartache
Tala Returns
Sails to Te Fiti
Shiny Heart
Te Fiti Restored
Hand of a God
Voyager Tagaloa
Toe Feiloa’i
Navigating Home
The Return to Voyaging

For my 400th Friday Forgotten Books post I thought I would recommend a couple of books with some of the best Agatha Christie novels included in them. HarperCollins published two omnibus volumes of the mysteries where Hercule Poirot’s trusty side-kick, Captain Arthur Hastings, is a key character in the solving of the crimes.
Volume 1 presents:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
The Murder on the Links (1923)
The Big Four (1927)
Peril at End House (1928)
Volume 2 presents:
Lord Edgware Dies (1933)
The ABC Murders (1936)
Dumb Witness (1937)
Curtain (1975)
I enjoy Hastings’s First Person narration. Although Christie wrote 33 mystery novels featuring Hercule Poirot, only eight of them include Captain Hastings. What is your favorite Agatha Christie novel?

For the Twilight Zone fan on your Holiday Gift list, this box set of all 156 episodes is perfect. This package lists for $49.99 but you can find it much reduced online. I watched The Twilight Zone as a kid until my sister, Eileen, watched the Pig People episode (while hiding behind the couch) and freaked out. Eileen couldn’t sleep for weeks! My angry parents banned The Twilight Zone from that point. Fortunately, I caught up on the episodes I missed on Late Night TV. What is your favorite episode of The Twilight Zone?

Dreams From the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecratean Horror with wonderful color Illustrations by Daniele Serra is a attractive package. I enjoyed most of the stories, but my favorite was “The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward” by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette. This story is another of their SF and Lovecraft mashups. “The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward” is the third story Bear & Monette have written with Lovecraft elements. I’m hoping they collect them all in one volume. If you’re in the mood for a variety of Lovecraftean stories, I recommend this fine collection. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction by Lynne Jamneck
“Shadows of the Evening” by Joyce Carol Oates
“The Genesis Mausoleum” by Colleen Douglas
“The Woman in the Hill” by Tamsyn Muir
“The Face of Jarry” by Cat Hellisen
“Our Lady of Arsia Mons” by Caitlín R. Kiernan
“The Body Electric” by Lucy Brady
“The Child and the Night Gaunts” by Marly Youmans
“All Our Salt-Bottled Hearts” by Sonya Taaffe
“Every Hole in the Earth We Will Claim As Our Own” by Gemma Files
“But Only Because I Love You” by Molly Tanzer
“Cthulhu’s Mother” by Kelda Crich
“All Gods Great and Small” by Karen Heuler
“Dearest Daddy” by Lois H. Gresh
“Eye of the Beholder” by Nancy Kilpatrick
“Down at the Bottom of Everything” by E. R. Knightsbridge
“Spore” by Amanda Downum
“Pippa’s Crayons” by Christine Morgan
“The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward” by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
“From the Cold Dark Sea” by Storm Constantine
“Mnemeros” by R. A. Kaelin

I’m fond of these DC animated movies of Batman’s exploits. This 2-DVD set features The Joker and Harvey “Two-Face” Dent. Peter Weller, Ariel Winter, and David Selby are outstanding. Special Features include trailers to the next Batman animated film and Superman: Unbound. If you enjoy Batman’s adventures as much as I do, you’ll really enjoy this double feature! GRADE: B+ (for both)

By page 500 of Steven Price’s mammoth (731 pages) novel, I was tempted to give up. The story of William Pinkerton hunting down a master thief, Edward Shade, through the alleys and sewers of London over a 100 years ago frustrated me with its slow pace and frequent flashbacks. The best character, Charlotte Reckitt, disappears from the novel for hundreds of pages at a time. I grew tired of the chase and the endless digressions. Yes, Price captures the foggy menace of London in 1885, but the demands of his lengthy story makes the trip an exercise in boredom. GRADE: C

The 5-5 Buffalo Bills face the pesky 2-8 Jacksonville Jaguars. Last season, the Jaguars beat the Bills in London, 34-31. I expect the same type of close game today. The weather for this game at the end of November is mild: the temps should be in the 40s with no rain or ice or snow in the forecast. How will your favorite NFL team do today?

Just in time for that bibliophile on your Holiday Gift List comes Keith Houston’s wonderful The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time. Houston’s new book explores the history of the development of the book. I had no idea that Johannes Gutenberg was cheated out of his invention of movable type printing. And I had no idea that an out-of-work actor named Ira Rubel invented the lithographic press. Houston provides dozens of fascinating stories about the development of the modern book. If you love books as much as I do, you’ll love The Book! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Part 1. The page
A clean sheet : the invention of papyrus
Hidebound : the grisly invention of parchment
Pulp fictions : the ambiguous origins of paper in China
From Silk Road to paper trail : paper goes global
Part 2. The text
Stroke of genius : the arrival of writing
The prints and the pauper : Johannes Gutenberg and the invention of movable type
Out of sorts : typesetting meets the industrial revolution
Part 3. Illustrations
Saints and scriveners : the rise of the illuminated manuscript
Ex Oriente lux : woodcut comes to the West
Etching a sketch : copperplate printing and the Renaissance
Better imaging through chemistry : lithography, photography, and modern book printing
Part 4. Form
Books before the book : papyrus scrolls and wax tablets
Joining the folds : the invention of the codex
Ties that bind : binding the paged book
Size matters : the invention of the modern book.
Colophon
Acknowledgments
Further Reading
Notes
Illustration Credits
Index

If you’re a Ross Macdonald fan, IT’S ALL ONE CASE: THE ILLUSTRATED ROSS MACDONALD ARCHIVES is a must-buy. Paul Nelson and Kevin Avery and Jeff Wong assembled a detailed survey of Ross Macdonald’s work with photos, book jackets, interviews, and analysis. This is the complete package! Everything you ever wanted to know about Ross Macdonald and his works is here! Jerome Charyn’s incisive “Foreword” puts Ross Macdonald into perspective. You will not find a better tribute to this great writer. IT’S ALL ONE CASE: THE ILLUSTRATED ROSS MACDONALD ARCHIVES should be in every mystery reader’s library! GRADE: A+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Foreword by Jerome Charyn
Introduction
Ross Macdonald Bibiliography
1. Beginnings
2. First Works
3. Jazz
4. A Bookshelf Full of Influences
5. Detective Fiction
6. A Shadow Portrait
7. Hammett
8. Chandler
9. Fitzgerald
10. First Person
11. Mythologizing
12. Romanticism
13. Disturbances
14. Students and Teachers
15. The Books
16. Characters
17. Short Works
18. Writing
19. Variations on a Theme
20 Truth in Fiction
21 Critics and Criticism
22. The Instant Enemy
23. Hollywood
24. The Doomsters
25. The Blue Hammer
26. Painters and Other Artists
27. Cause and Effect
28. Popular Culture
29. California
30. Beyond Archer
Acknowledgements
Sources and Cited Works
Index
About the Authors