I didn't laugh a whole lot at this book, but it has my newest favorite two sentences in literature: "Here is Muldoon ready to conquer the world. Here is a giant clown head ready to stop him."

Or the style could have come about just because Stephen Dobyns wanted to have some fun while he wrote this book.

Tone
I'm happy with this month's book. The test for me is: if I reread the book, do I get more out of it? So far, "Wrapped Up In Books" has been batting a great average.

Well, what do you know. Elvis died in 1977. I haven't changed a bit.

1967. I'm only alive because my parents decided not to take me to the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Wow, thank you, Farmer John. It's too bad I'm reading your thoughtful posts without knowing the details of the subject.

Just dropped in to say Argh
The local library got "Master and Commander" back on the shelf too late for me to get much of the way through it. In the meantime, I got sucked into another Russell Crowe vehicle, "L.A. Confidential".

Ebertfest
If you like Ebert, consider coming to his film festival in April. This article made it clear that there might not be many Ebertfests left.

Wow! Maybe she didn't realize that war is the most timeless art of all.

Maybe I'll give "College" another try. I didn't want to like it because Keaton was pushed to do something more commercially viable after "The General" tanked, and "College" was the result.

Love! Hate! etcetera.
I'm no stranger to being annoyed by things I used to love. "Donnie Darko" may slide into that category, but I hope not.

I think it's a misreading of The Hurt Locker to interpret it as "character hangs around bombs, doesn't change." It's not that he doesn't change — it's that he can't. By the time we see William James, Defuser Extraordinaire, he's already been changed and he can't go back, though he tries. In the process of being his…

I wonder if every group of people has a limited number of niches for its members to fill, and people get shoehorned into those niches — whether they really belong or not.

This is only kind of on-topic, but a few months ago "This American Life" ran an episode on frienemies. I hate the word, but I understand the idea. Frienemies are people you don't necessarily want in your life, who you reject, but who you can't let go of. In some way they are deeply connected to you. Talk about…

Sorry, Farmer John. Just went back and reread your initial post about why there's so little mention of Karen at the end. I think you're right, that her greatest influence was in an unstable environment. When everyone reunites at the bar, they seem more or less in good shape — and maybe they have moved on enough that…

It's hard to like any character who's compared to Hitler ("without the anti-semitism"). Even if the next sentence compares her to Martin Luther King.

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Is the melodrama anything like a real office?
One way "Then We Came to the End" fascinates me is how unlike its office is from my office, yet how natural the book's environment seems.

I thought the cancer fizzing out was a good parallel to the end of the book — when after all that drama and heartache, everyone has ended up pretty much fine. Well, not Lynn. She got sucker-punched with ovarian cancer. Just like Tom Mota's mother.

What Tom Mota did worked for me. His coworkers (and I) had no idea what he was capable of, although Tom broadcast it so loudly. Looking back after the fact, it was clear that he never felt taken seriously and wanted to make sure people knew that was a mistake. Totally in character.