Skyfoos.

337 pages of  oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap. I held my breath every time I turned a page of SIRENS. It's a debut novel - this British dude, Joseph Knox's first book. He kills it. He kills it, plates it, and serves it to a dinner party of lovably despicable characters. It's not perfect. I'll be honest, it's a little racy for me. Sex is portrayed super weird, no one's happy, there's blood and bodies and truly evil baddies. But that is a footnote. It's lovely, too. Full of deep feeling, creativity, and an insight into human motivations. The main detective drunkard, Aiden Waits ("for no man") is a heartbreaker. He knows all, sees all; knows nothing, gets fleeced. It's noir for sure, just like the dust-jacket repeats. I read the Maltese Falcon and it wasn't my thing. SIRENS had me from "They'd never trust me in the daylight again." I couldn't stop reading. You know when you're reading a book and ...

Anytime a popular literary property becomes a summer blockbuster, all the big box stores are suddenly filled with themed merchandise. It seems like manufacturers take a “fans of the book/movie will want their favorite character on our insert product here ” approach. So, we end up with branded clothes, notebooks, folders, lunch boxes, toys, and posters. And, if you were a child in the late 80s through the 90s, I’m sure that you remember all the terrible licensed video games. But I think that the worst of this is all the themed board games that come out. Take a popular and mass-produced game (Monopoly, Risk, Trivial Pursuit, etc.…) and throw the newest movie-based-on-a-book theme on it (Hunger Games Monopoly, LOTR Risk, Maze Runner Trivial Pursuit, etc.), these games never differ much from the original and how many copies of Monopoly does one person really need. But I am here to tell you that there are lots of good games based on literary properties, ones that use the source materia...

I would like to sum up this book in the most nerdy way possible: "To Trudge: The slow, weary, depressing yet determined walk of a man who has nothing left in his life except the impulse to simply...soldier on." - A Knight's Tale I was SO PUMPED to get this book on Christmas. Thanks to all the holiday craziness I didn't get to finish up until January 2 - and then thanks to life I didn't get to write my review until now.  The long and short of it is brilliance. Martin is obviously funny, but the way he tells his story is so serious. He makes jokes out of it all, but you can tell he's thinking about everything with philosopher's brain wrinkles. No matter how much sex he had or drugs he used in the 60's and 70's, he's a thinker.  His act was crazy - balloons and eggs and bananas and those glasses with a funny nose and mustache on 'em, and more. He was crazy but not Carrot Top. Steve Martin has a tonal quality that feels like he...

So, a few years ago a friend of mine asked me to make a crossword for his wife's birthday, who's probably even more nerdy than I am about Lord of the Rings. In case some of you would find that as fun as we did, I went back and edited the puzzle to make it a little more understandable. Basically, if you're a big nerd, print it and prove it. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KBqDEHV6J9AXmDfeLhshFyZOVvn5huno/view?usp=sharing If you like it, feel free to share it around. Maybe tag me if you do :) -Luke

It's 2012. I just got married, and we moved to the cheapest apartment we could find within a reasonable distance. We're still pretty close to my parents, which means we can mooch a lot from them. I have a laptop, but no wifi. Cell phones are not yet ubiquitously data-enabled, and those that are have super expensive plans. A good friend gave me a first generation Kindle Fire. It's hilarious how six years ago can sound so different already, but I found myself in a situation where TV was not an option. I was super busy - working two jobs - and my wife worked a lot too. We didn't make much because we were babies (and sorta still are) with low income jobs. So we didn't shell out for cable or for wifi; I had my parents' house just five or ten minutes away and we could go over there if we really wanted to catch something on TV.  My jobs were waiting tables and leading a youth group at our church. They both took lots of emotional energy and lots of connecti...