Bernie Kosar, Pittacus Lore and I am Number Four

I got taken in by the hype. I seems every time I Am Number Four crossed my radar someone was telling me, "You know, there's a movie about this coming out!" Barely out of the blocks, and already a movie? I should have been suspicious. Novels becoming films were at least an indication that lots of folks liked the book -- even if most of them later echoed the lament: "The book was so much better!" Now that I've read this first in a series of (ugh!) six I can only hope the movie isn't that bad!

Pittacus Lore is a pseudonym for what? A publishing company that launches a book series and a movie simultaneously? Are we now faced with the literary version of the boy band? Is this what the Harry Potter-inspired love for serialized adventure has devolved to? Did a bunch of suits get together and say, "Hey, let's make a Twilight for guys? Best throw in the blond cheerleader, the blond cheerleader's mouth-breathing ex, superpowers, a chase (if you count running in and out of a high school a chase), and some of those dementor-things. And Godzilla! Don't forget big lumbering creature face-off (Sorry about that Bernie Kosar)!  Yeah! It'll be great!"

Hellhound on His Trail

You gotta love the title! And the writing matches up in Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for his Assassin by Hampton Sides

Although it's hardly a page-gripper -- Hampton Sides takes the slow, rich approach -- the story of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Earl Ray is fascinating. Sides starts the story several weeks before the tragedy and interlaces the movements and the lives of the two men together until they fatally intersect and then part again.

Like Sides, I was very young when King was killed. I was too old for the story of the civil rights movement to be included in my history class and too young to remember it. For better or worse, I'm more familiar with the mythic proportion that King was elevated to since (possibly, partially as a result of) his death. Sides' reportage, then, for me at least, provides some badly needed historical context.

Clearly, Sides has done his research and does an excellent job of piecing together the myriad fragments to put the whole picture together. He removed more than one blind spot in my perception of the period, including the reminder of how hated King was by not just the racist South but politicians who considered him and what he represented a threat. Bringing King back to his humanly flawed reality brought the man to life for me -- and, ironically, has made me appreciate even more the remarkable gifts he had as a single-minded man in pursuit of a selfless goal.

Ray was a shameless racist -- as were many in his day -- and Sides does little to explain what, beyond that, drove him to murder King. He doesn't attempt to apply more modern psychological assessments or criminally profile Ray and all but dismisses any suggestion of a conspiracy. The research and the writing don't warrant such conjecture. Sides leaves that to others. His stands as excellent and highly readable history.

NPR's Three Books series

I find NPR's book reviews among the most reliable out there, so when I ran across this website, I couldn't have been more thrilled. Leave it to the bibliophiles at NPR to come up with the beautifully simplistic idea of serving up three book recommendations based on a theme! Find "Three Books to Help You Enjoy the Apocalypse," "Three Books for the Contemplative Comic," and "Three Books For Your Motorcycle Road Trip" among several more mini-lists! NPR's Three Books