where to start?
I've never read Amy Bloom, but I was considering her this week (not realizing she had a new book out). I'm kind of curious to read a collection of her stories more than one of her novels. Anybody have a suggestion for what would be a good starting point with her?

salon
Laura Miller recommended both this and the new Timothy Ferris novel The Unnamed last week, but her case wasn't entirely convincing. Especially given the mixed reviews of the Ferris I've seen since then. And now a pan of Dee.

God I love this movie
Not sure Bill Pullman has ever been better. Or more Pullmany, for that matter. Even Ben Stiller is a little less Stillery than usual, but maybe it's because it was early on in his movie career, before he'd fully developed that persona.

Phil
So Phil, having been caught by his wife with porn, then having admitted to his son how hot he thought the picture in question was, ends tonight's episode holding two balls. Coincidence?

Totally, totally down for Battle Beyond the Stars.

judge
What, no Extract?

I love that clip.

There's something fishy about that claim.

They ran an 18-wheeler off a cliff and over a plane in midair. That makes me happy.

Thank you both for the encouragement. So few series have lived up to my memories when I've reread them as an adult. Le Guin's Earthsea books would be one rather significant exception. Eddings was never in the same league as those, but I still got a lot of pleasure out of the Belgariad as a kid.

Is it Jason who wrote a while back about loving the Belgariad and returning to it periodically as comfort food? I've though about returning to that series as an adult. Read it two or three times as a kid and loved it.

I've needed to reread The Book of the New Sun for years now. The problem is all the other books out there I've never even read once. The last time he had it all together in my mind was The Book of the Short Sun. Though Pirate Freedom ended up being kind of fun. Personally, I think The Fifth Head of Cerberus…

Yeah, I'm not sure I get the criticism about most of his books being set on Discworld. He's made it such a broad, wildly flexible setting, it can be pretty much anything he wants it to be without violating any rules he's set up previously. Discworld is more a tone than a place.

No, my comment is the original, then it got stolen. It even got reposted under my own comment above. Goddammit. I'm dead serious about The Terror boring me so far. I haven't felt this letdown by a book in a while.

Doc, wow, I don't even remember that, which is probably all for the best.

Terry Pratchett is great. Aside from the fact that they both write humorous fantasy novels, I would never put them in the same category. Anthony writes for kids, and even when he doesn't, it still reads like he is. Pratchett is definitely a far better and more inventive writer.

I'm ashamed of how much I loved the Memoirs of a Space Tyrant sequence when I was in middle school. Hell, I'm ashamed that when I saw a copy of one of those books in the used store the other day, for just a second I considered picking it up. I came to my senses immediately, but even so.

Any love for The Confidence-Man?

Holy crap, he stole my post from the bottom of the page. I feel so . . . violated.

My Anthony phase was all middle school and high school, and I must have read at least a couple dozen books by him, including the Incarnations of Immortality series, Warren. I'd shudder to read him again. Though I seem to recall the stuff he was writing in the late 60s and early 70s when he was still new is probably…