Great Reads - Morris Philipson's Somebody Else's Life

I'm not quite sure what to say about this book except. read this book! It's not often that I come across a piece of fiction that has me sitting on the edge of my seat and leaves me wanting more. Somebody Else's Life did just that. It's the story of two people finding each other and... the end. Philipson doesn't wrap the story up in a nice neat little bow. He leaves it hanging off the edge of a cliff. The first thing I did upon finishing it? I called a college friend of mine (who also happened to be the author's daughter) and asked her when the sequel was coming out. The story just couldn't end where it did. What happened to them?

I own two copies. A hardback (boy was that hard to find, and it's even signed) that never leaves my sight and a paperback for reading so I don't wear the nice copy out! It's safe to consider this my favorite book.

Great Reads - John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

I was late getting on the band wagon with this one, but am very glad that I finally did. I tend to shy away from books (and movies) that get this much press so early. Berendt tells the real story of a murder in Savannah very much like a story. This is not the dry, recitation, that seems to appear so often in a work of nonfiction. Savannah, a beautiful city off the beaten path, provides the backdrop for a tapestry of well-rounded, eccentric characters that call it home. It's obvious that the natives took Berendt into their confidence and made him one of their own.

If you like character driven stories, you'll love Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. If you don't think you like character driven stories, but want a taste, you'll love Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Worth the Price of Admission - Sliding Doors

Another British flick, are you sensing a theme here, I ventured to the theater out of curiosity more than anything else. The premise just seemed so ridiculous. How good could a movie be chopped up in pieces shift back and forth between parallel stories involving the same characters and still make sense? The answer turned out to be fantastic. The filmmakers used simple techniques to weave the parallel stories together seamlessly shifting from one to the other back again. I didn't get lost once. And as an added bonus, John Hannah (you may remember him from Four Weddings and a Funeral). Sliding Doors is another example of a good story, well-told and well worth the price of admission.