Agent Palmer

Despite the fact that Console Wars by Blake J. Harris is about Sega rising to the top to dethrone Nintendo before slowly, painfully, and publicly falling out of consoles all together, this book is mainly about marketing, big ideas, and Tom Kalinske.

Now, I don’t mean that as a slight. Kalinske is a fascinating individual; the man came up with He-Man when he was at Mattel, after all. But the book does generally paint Nintendo as the bad guy despite the fact that Nintendo ultimately wins or at least won the 1990s.

Sir Michael Caine has had an illustrious career in Hollywood. He’s won two Academy Awards, been an actor in over 160 films and television shows, and he’s the bestselling author of What’s it All About?, his first autobiography. And now he’s written a second autobiography, The Elephant to Hollywood.

Having read both of Caine’s autobiographies, I can say with certainty that there is something both regal and down to earth about the way he describes the stories of his life.

I read and loved Attempting Normal, so much so, that I now own two copies. The paperback that I read and a hardcover copy signed by Marc Maron himself. But once I read that book, I realized that I wanted to read more from Marc, apparently listening twice weekly to WTF with Marc Maron just isn’t enough, so I picked up a copy of The Jerusalem Syndrome: My Life As a Reluctant Messiah and it did not disappoint.

Written back in 2001, the jokes, diatribes, and issues that Marc dealt with during the period of time predating this book’s publishing all appear to still hold validity to this day.

“Len Deighton, the mastercraftsman of spy thrillers, here applies his eye for stunning detail and his story-telling skill to the novel of action. With documentary precision, he has created a powerful panoramic account of a bombing raid over the Ruhr during World War II. And in the process, he has written a devastating indictment of war and of the mechanical processes – in man and society – that perpetuate it.”

That’s the first paragraph on the inside dust cover of Bomber by Len Deighton and it is a perfect description of the book.