When I was a senior in high school, I, and the thuds I hung out with, had to take an aptitude test that was supposed to help us decide what part of the job market we should zero in on. When it was my turn to get the results from the guidance […]

If you asked me to name the best living American novelist, I’d probably come up with 50 names. I might be able to winnow the list down to a dozen, then I’d have a nervous breakdown. But ask me to name the best living novelist who’s fierce, brave, funny, scatological, beautiful, convoluted, and paranoid – […]

In 2008, not too long after writing a column about the Kindle reading device for EW, my agent, Ralph Vicinanza, suggested I write something for Amazon. They were going to introduce a new version of the Kindle, he said, and asked if I might like to write an original story to be published exclusively in […]

When you ask Google why the Academy Awards are called the Oscars, you get the Internet’s rarest answer: Who knows? Some people say Bette Davis is responsible; according to the story, she named her 1936 award (for playing an alcoholic actress in Dangerous) after her first husband, bandleader Harmon Oscar Nelson. […]

Truth be told, I’m glad The Jay Leno Show crashed and burned. Does that sound mean? It’s not intended that way. I have nothing against Mr. Leno personally; I met him when he was captain of the Tonight Show ship – a post he will soon resume […]

Back in 1907 – right around the time your Uncle Stevie was learning to shave – American humorist Gelett Burgess (best known for his poem ”The Purple Cow,” which ends with the immortal line ”I’d rather see than be one”) published Are You a Bromide? For a special booksellers-convention edition of 500 copies […]

I’d give 2009 at the movies a B overall, and that ain’t bad – it is, in fact, about as good as it gets. It’s true that I found only nine straight-A’s when I looked back through my movie notebook (No. 10 on this list was an A-), but there wasn’t a single F, and […]

10. ROUGH COUNTRY, by John Sandford Sandford’s mystery-suspense novels are rich explorations of what it is to be a plain old American guy. This tale is rich, satisfying, and frequently hilarious. 9. RAVENS, by George Dawes Green Bad boys Shaw McBride and Romeo Zderko decide to cut themselves in on a big lottery win by […]

What follows are the 10 best things I saw on TV this year. I’m behind the curve in a couple of cases (only up to season 2 of House, for example), but that’s because TV is just part of my entertainment life. There are nights when I never power up the monster with the glass […]

Sorry, but I’m not going to do a year-end Best Music column this year; I’ve decided to replace it with Best TV instead. Not because there hasn’t been any big audio dynamite in 2009, but because I haven’t heard enough to fill up a column. That’s the bad news. The good news is that in […]