Wizard hands.

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is a perfect example of how to do horror without the jump scares and showing of everything (unless I'm just blocking out that stuff). There's this sense of uncomfortable expectation throughout the movie and then revulsion by the end.

Yup, that's on my to-read list and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm a huge fan of Law & Order, and when I found out a former NYC ME had written a book, I had to jump onboard.

Devil in the White City was one of the few nonfiction books I've read where I could scarcely put it down. Larson's followup In the Garden of Beasts was also very good though not quite so riveting, in my opinion.

Yeah, I'm a little wary about trying this series because of the "learning curve." I see it on all these best-of lists, but a friend of mine with very similar reading tastes tried the first and found it utterly confusing.

It's why I don't comment more. Unless you comment, like, in the hour or so after an article is published, you can pretty much forget about getting out of pending or being read by other commenters. It's really, really frustrating. Edited to add that it's why I make a point of reading the pending comments. Some…

I got about halfway through the second one and then set it aside to read some other books. I find that I'm not that interested in picking it up again, although I know the series has gotten great reviews. There's something about it that just feels plodding, without suspense. Like the mood is very much like what it was…

Loved City of Stairs, too, as Spaceknight pointed out. If you haven't read it already, I'd recommend The Goblin Emperor. It showed up on some notable lists last year, which is how I found out about it. I hadn't heard much about it among readers.

I think Six Feet Under did portray an abortion without any hysteria, if I remember correctly. But that was on HBO. I don't know if a major network show would be willing to air such a storyline anytime soon (at least not without somehow "punishing" the woman for deciding to have an abortion).

Awesome, I think I will give that series a try. I also love urban fantasy, though the ones I've read recently skew younger. It'll be interesting to read one where the protagonist isn't a teenager (nor female).

I felt bad that I didn't like Furies of Calderon more, after the series was recommended to me by a friend. I love young adult fantasy, but this book in particular seemed kind of naive. It's made me kind of resistant to trying Butcher's Dresden Files, even though I've heard great things about that series.

Yeah, this and Richard Matheson's <i>Hell House</i> are two "classic" horror novels on my to-read list. Unfortunately there aren't too many copies of either in my public library system: I sometimes find myself biased against a book if I'm reading a really old tattered paperback copy.

I thought Cryptonomicon was very easy to read, like the language isn't difficult at all. But it's so … twisty. I finished it eventually after putting it down for a few months.

Geez, way to blame a kid for something beyond his/her control. If it bothered the teacher so much maybe he or she should have said something to the principal or your mother.

I think I must be one of the few people of my generation who didn't catch chicken pox. I got the vaccine about a year after it came out, but I was later told (I think from lab results?) that my immunity to it was insufficient. I'll have to bring it up with my doctor when I get my annual checkup. It'd suck to get…

That is so awesome. I'm heartened that the local branch of my public library is increasing its collection of comics and graphic novels, but I think most people still think of the format as being for children.

Atlanta is a city I'd like to visit eventually, though I knew it more for the CDC, the Olympics, and what was the world's largest aquarium when it opened. Interesting facts about the trees there—I think I always default to Northeast U.S. (where I live) foliage when I imagine what it's like in other places, unless it's…

I wish the media would report on what measles and these other diseases look like now. The only articles I've seen report on the (increasing) number of cases. But if more people were educated on what it was like to suffer from measles now, even given the medical advances we've made since you had it … well, I hope…

True. Even taking the article's example of The Office, it's amazing how average most of the British actors looked (e.g., Martin Freeman and Lucy Davis). I think the American version did a good job in that regard, in terms of casting pretty normal-looking people. But whenever I hear that Hollywood is remaking…

Huh, interesting. I've heard that there's much less of a separation between film and television in Britain so that someone like Judi Dench appearing on a TV show isn't a big deal over there. I think that barrier has become more porous in the U.S. with the increased production value of TV shows, particularly ones on…