A couple weeks ago, Diane and I (along with our friends Cindy and Tom) took a road trip to Cape Cod. When the rest of the group hit the shops, I’d hit the bookstores. I didn’t have much luck in Hyannis or Provincetown. However, I struck the mother lode at the Wellfleet Bookstore & Restaurant just a few miles away from our house in Truro. It’s an old time bookstore with plenty of magazines and hardcover books, not just paperbacks. I immediately found two Jack Woodford hardcovers. In the Children’s section, I found a Ken Holt novel. I grabbed a couple fistfuls of SF and mystery paperbacks. I even found an issue of MANHUNT! Unfortunately, the group was waiting for me so we could have dinner in the excellent restaurant or I might have bought many more books. If you’re in the Wellfleet area, you need to stop at the Bookstore & Restaurant (http:\\wellfleetoyster.com) and find some treasures of your own.

MAD MEN (and women) starts its third season tonight. The year is 1963. MAD MEN still blends advertising and soap opera in unique ways. Patti Abbott mentioned MAD MEN might have the best ensemble cast on TV. I can’t agree more. Jon Hamm as Don Draper lives a life based on identity theft. His troubled marriage fuels several other plot lines. Christina Hendricks, who plays the sexy redhead office manager Joan Holloway, is in an abusive relationship. Elizabeth Moss as the secretive Peggy Olson, is my favorite character. She’s a woman working in a male-dominated profession and she beats the guys at their own game. My only wish is that the episodes would spend more time on the actual production of advertising as the series did in the First Season. But that’s a minor quibble. If you haven’t been watching this series, you’re missing the best program on TV.

District 9 features a massive starship hovering over Johannesburg. When humans enter the mothership, they find a crew of aliens (nicknamed “prawns”) malnourished and helpless. The government sets up a settlement (i.e., slum) named DISTRICT 9 for the prawns. Twenty years later, the mothership is still hovering over the city, but the prawns have become outcasts and are abused by humans. The government decides to transfer the prawns to a new settlement away from Johannesburg. And that’s when the human bureaucrat in charge of the resettlement accidentally exposes himself to an alien substance. To his horror, the bureaucrat discovers he’s slowly transforming into a prawn. And, with that mix of human and prawn DNA, the bureaucrat is now able to operate the advanced alien weapons. Governments and greedy corporations want the secrets of the alien technology and are willing to “experiment” with our poor bureaucrat (and the prawns) to gain those secrets. There’s plenty of gunplay and suspense and a few surprises. Great special effects! I really enjoyed this movie! GRADE: A-

Clark Ashton Smith wrote incredible tales, mostly for Weird Tales, in the 1930s. Most of these stories have been out-of-print for years. Night Shade Books has done a wonderful job restoring these classics. The Maze of the Enchanter is the fourth volume of Clark Ashton Smith short stories to appear in as many years. Edited by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger, many of these stories are appearing in their original form for the first time (they were heavily edited when first published). “Genius Loci,” “The Dark Eidolon,” and “The Weaver in the Vaults” and 17 other stories are included in this volume. The restorations show the full brilliance of Clark Ashton Smith’s unique style in these tales. Gahan Wilson provides an insightful INTRODUCTION. If you love great writing and tales with a sense of wonder, The Maze of the Enchanter delivers.

You can read Basic Black as a personal history of publishing or you can read it as a management text. Either way, there are plenty of insights to be gained here. Cathie Black heads Hearst Magazines, including COSMOPOLITAN, ESQUIRE, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, HARPER’S BAZAAR and O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE. Cathie was the first woman publisher of a weekly consumer magazine when took over in 1979. She has also president of USA TODAY. So on one level, you read about the evolution (or deevolution) over the publishing industry. On another level, Cathie Black tells you how she achieved management success when women were basically serfs. I enjoyed this engaging book. GRADE: B+

Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series has always been a favorite of mine. It features a rogue British officer who moves up the ranks of Wellington’s army through guile and courage. In the BBC version, Sharpe is well played by Sean Bean. His Sharpe confronts the rigors of warfare in the battles of the Napoleonic Wars leading up to Waterloo. The complete box set of the Sharpe series (15 DVDs) is going for $313.99 on AMAZON. If you have a BJ’s Warehouse near you, you can find the Sharpe series (3 DVDs each) selling for $24.99 per set! That’s the compete set for $125. Don’t miss this bargain. It won’t last for long.

The Polity is a future civilization run by artificial intelligences. But when the Polity meets an aggressive alien race of massive, crablike carnivores known as the Prador, war ensues. This is Space Opera with plenty of action and a high body count. If you haven’t sampled Neal Asher’s Polity series, this is your best entry point. Then, if you’re like me, you’ll want to read them all:
1. Prador Moon
2. The Shadow of the Scorpion
3. Gridlinked
4. The Line of Polity
5. Brass Man
6. Polity Agent
7. Line War
8. The Skinner
9. The Voyage of the Sable Keech
10. Orbus
11. Hilldiggers

If you’ve ever wondered why so many products are cheaply made and don’t last, Ellen Ruppel Shell has the answer. She explores the Wal-Mart effect of discounting everything and the unintended consequences in terms of destruction of small businesses and impoverishing workers. Shell shows that globalization extracts a high price for all those cheap products. What we’ve been taught about materialism as a “bargain” has some dangerous side-effects. The whole “race-to-the-bottom” issue gets a good airing. I found Cheap a fascinating analysis of our economy and culture. GRADE: A

Christina Courtin is another local artist. She grew up in Amherst, NY just a few miles away from my house. Christina has a clear, bright voice. Her songs vary from the quirky to the upbeat. If you enjoy the music of Neko Case and Regina Spektor, you’ll like Christina Courtin’s tunes. GRADE: B+

“At first we gave it away. Then the addicts will do anything to get more.” That’s how the crank business works. Nick Reding spent four long years researching this book about methamphetamine labs in small rural towns. Reding picks Oelwein, Iowa for his case study. The Mayor, the Police Chief, the meth addicts all tell Reding their stories. As family farms fail, as rural life reached new economic lows, making money from brewing home-made methamphetamine gains a certain logic. Reding tracks the growth of druggie entrepreneurship despite the DEA and fumbling Federal legislation. Any who thinks this addiction issue is just going to go way is kidding themselves. This is an eye-opening book on the growing meth problem. The book’s only fault is the lack of an index. GRADE: B+