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10. Cthulu Saves the World (Steam, XBLA)

9. Skyrim (XBOX, PS3, PC)

Best Nonfiction of 2011

Townie, by Andre Dubus III

Because, holy shit, I wasn’t expecting this book to be what it was. Yeah, I knew it was going to be about a street-tough kid knocking heads around an old mill town, but I didn’t expect the introspection, the redemption. Townie is a disciplined, well-crafted memoir. And at it’s core, under many gut-wrenching, heavy layers, Townie is a heart-warming tale about a father and his son.

Read my full review here.

The Convert, by Deborah Baker

This is an unconventional biography about a Jewish woman from New York who decides to convert to Islam and move to Pakistan. Weirdly, I didn’t like it as much right after I read it as I do now, months later. This book got under my skin. The book’s central figure, Maryam Jameelah, is increasingly enigmatic. Her public life and writings have become a rallying point for radical Muslims, yet Maryam herself is a complex and troubled individual who shouldn’t be put on a pedestal. This book also highlights and questions the role of a biographer. Readers will be left with plenty to ponder.

Read my full review here.

Patriot Acts, edited by Alia Malek

This book’s subtitle—Narratives of Post-9/11 Injustice—more than aptly describes its contents. The narratives are puzzling. How did these acts go unnoticed? How is it that we accept them? How does a first responder, a Muslim-American EMT who died in one of the collapsing towers, get labeled a terrorist? Why must his mother suffer through those heinous allegations. Why must we detain a 16-year-old because of her religious head scarf? Now that Congress has decided it’s legal to indefinitely detain US Citizens, Patriot Acts is increasingly important. We were forced to make a choice between our freedom and our security. We chose security, and Patriot Acts shows us what we have ahead of us.

Into the Forbidden Zone, by William T. Vollman

I don’t know much about William T. Vollman, but I know that he has many dedicated (cultish?) fans. After reading this, I think I could perhaps become one of them. Forbidden Zone falls somewhere between a long magazine article and a short book. For lack of a better term, it’s a nonfiction novella published by the good folks over at Byliner. The book is Vollman’s account of his trip to Japan shortly after the Earthquake. It opens with a search for a Geiger counter, a scene which is at first humorous, but throughout the course of the book it becomes eye opening, and then extremely important.

Late add from 2010

Hellhound on His Trail, by Hampton Sides

Hellhound on His Trail is an in-depth account of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and the manhunt for the assassin, James Earl Ray. In the afterword, the book’s author, Hampton Sides, balks at those who have described his book as a thriller. Given the weight and historical significance of the crime detailed in the book’s pages, I can understand his hesitancy. But this book reads like a thriller; it’s a fast paced, well constructed mystery. More importantly, it is a round portrait of King during his final days, and an only slightly less round portrait of King’s assassin (Ray’s motives remain still somewhat fuzzy, but hey, so do Hitler’s—some things will always remain a mystery.) If Sides isn’t ok with “thriller,” perhaps he’s more comfortable with what I feel is a more apt description: Masterpiece.

Pym, by Mat Johnson

Pym is flat-out the funniest book I read this year. Mat Johnson turns Poe’s weirdest novel (actually, Poe’s only novel; but it’s weird as hell) on its head and mocks it to hilarious effect, all the while showing an unabashed love for the book and its writer.

Poe, as we all know, was a big-time racist honky, and nowhere does he prove that more than in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Want me to boil that novel down to four words? Okay. White good, black bad.

It’s hard to reduce Pym to as brief a snippet, but here’s the shortest manageable version: a black literature professor discovers that Poe’s novel might in fact be nonfiction, so he joins an expedition to Antarctica to find Poe’s “Tsalalians,” a black-skinned, black-toothed tribe living in monoracial isolation. Instead, the crew is kidnapped and forced into slavery by 7’-tall albino snow creatures. Meanwhile, civilization on the other six continents is crumbling due to some sort of unidentified Armageddon. And so on.

Pym is captivating, exciting, very, very funny, and almost as bizarre as the novel it plays off of. You can see my full review here.

Snow Whale, by John Minichillo

This was a better-than-average year for novels revolving around questions of race and identity set in extreme polar climates and serving a twist on classic novels. Snow Whale is another very funny book, and shame on me for not reviewing it in full on C4 like I intended.

An Office Space-style corporate drone takes a DNA test and discovers that he has some Inuit blood, which turns upside-down everything he thought he knew about himself. So of course he quits his job and travels to the very northern tip of Alaska, a place called Point Halcyon, to hunt whale on the frozen Chukchi Sea with a tribe that doesn’t really want him there (except for the mostly-blind pot-smoking former chief). Meanwhile, his wife stays home and contemplates engaging in a bit o’ melodramatic suburban adultery. Watch out for some very funny scenes set in an REI.

And if I’d read Moby Dick like a good boy, I could tell you how this book is a modern-day spin-off of Melville’s classic, as advertised.

Luminarium, by Alex Shakar

This is about the tenth time I’ve talked up Alex Shakar on C4, but I don’t care—I love his work. Luminarium is a darkly funny novel set in the weeks leading up to 9/11’s fifth anniversary. Fred Brounian has just lost his company and job, has moved in with his parents, and, while visiting his (maybe-) comatose brother in the hospital he signs up for one of those “scientific studies” you see advertised in train stations and college dorms. The study promises a non-religious spiritual awakening, a “Faith without ignorance.” By the end, it’ll be more than just Fred’s faith that is tested. (Cue foreshadowing music.)

Read my full review, and profile of Shakar.

Stone Arabia, by Dana Spiotta

I’d have a hard time arguing against anyone who says Dana Spiotta’s latest is anything but the best work of fiction of 2011. I received two copies of the book, loaned one out, read the other, and then asked for the loaner back. That’s how much I like this book; I want two copies of it in my house at all times.

Failed musician Nik Worth is writing his Chronicles, a compendium of newspaper clippings, interviews, and album reviews—all of them fake. Nik never hit it big as a musician, and neither did he ever take on the responsibilities of a mature adult (good for him); leaving his sister Denise to take care of him and their ill mother. Much of Stone Arabia is comprised of Denise’s Counterchronicles, her handwritten attempt to set the record straight. This is probably the best brother/sister novel I’ve ever read—though it’s about so much more than just sibling relationships.

Full review. (Apologies for the “stirring,” “poignant,” and “luminous.”)

Short Bus, by Brian Allen Carr

Disclosure: Earlier this year Carr won the Texas Observer’s short story contest, for which I chose the five finalists. I didn’t know Carr then, but we’ve since become friendly, due mostly to a shared appreciation for beer. He sent me a copy of Short Bus for review.

And I read it, and it’s really good. Stories that bounce back and forth across the Texas/Mexico border, protagonists who are down on their luck and attempting to keep their severe demons at bay. There’s a Special Ed teacher who straps his mentally-disabled students into flak jackets to rob a bank; a father who considers tipping his deformed and obese son into a lake while fishing together; a group of dudes who slip into Mexico to buy cheap anti-psychotics, and to bury a severed foot under a banana tree. These stories are dark, funny, and relentless.

Against the Workshop, by Anis Shivani

This book is a collection of Shivani’s reviews of and essays on contemporary literature and workshop writing, and it should be on every single MFA syllabus. Shivani is the guy who occasionally gets everyone all up in arms with his HuffPo posts like “The 15 Most Overrated Contemporary American Writers,” but he’s not one of those easily-dismissible Internet attention seekers; Shivani clearly has strong, and genuine, emotions about literature. Even if you don’t agree with everything he says—and there’s no way you can—these pieces are insightful, passionate, and often razor-sharp and laugh-aloud funny.

Quickies:

The Visible Man, by Chuck Klosterman

Interesting, amusing, quintessential Klosterman. It won’t stay with you long, but it’s an engaging novel, and you can breeze through it quickly. Full review here (paywall).

The Devil all the Time, by Donald Ray Pollock

Like Klosterman’s, this one is entertaining but forgettable. Full review here.

Remember Ben Clayton, by Stephen Harrigan

Not my bag, but if you’re a fan of historical fiction, you’ll probably enjoy Harrigan’s portrayal of a sculptor battling inner demons while on commission to build a statue for a grieving father of a WWI casualty.

Below, you’ll a find a few more reasons to celebrate some of the

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The Third Annual Aaron Block Awards, Celebrating Excellence in the Comics I Read This Year, presented by Aaron Block

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“Best Story Mostly Published In 2011” Award – Detective Comics #871-881, written by Scott Snyder, drawn by Jock and Francesco Francavilla

When Scott Snyder began his eleven issue run on Detective Comics towards the end of 2010 Grant Morrison was already waist deep in a multi-year Batman story in which he’d introduced Bruce Wayne’s maniac son, reinvented the Joker, and finally killed Wayne and introduced Dick Grayson, the first Robin, as his replacement. Even Morrison’s detractors had to admit he was steering DC’s Bat-books, and any title that wasn’t directly involved in his story felt like an also-ran. But from the first issue Snyder made a compelling case for Batman stories firmly set in, but stylistically and thematically distinct from, Morrison’s status-quo. Snyder grounded the character, replacing fantastic, supernatural villains with a more disturbingly ordinary evil – interwoven in Batman’s investigations is the story of Commissioner Gordon’s estranged son, James. Jr., who may or may not have committed some horrible acts as a child and has returned to Gotham with uncertain motives.

Tension and anxiety drive the story as much, if not more, than superhero action, and it all builds to a devastating climax. That same tension is due in no small part to the efforts of Snyder’s artists, Jock and Francesco Francavilla, each of whom develops one of the two storylines – Jock on the Batman thread, Francavilla on the Gordon thread – rather than alternating issues. Their styles are radically different, but both capture the dread and uncertainty that creeps into every scene.

Snyder rode the success of his work on Detective to become one of DC’s top writers, playing a key role in the recent relaunch. In fact, Snyder’s story has, for the moment, supplanted Morrison’s as the new direction for the Bat-titles in the relaunched DCU – no small feat.

“Most Re-read Issue” Award – Secret Avengers #16, written by Warren Ellis, drawn by Jamie Mckelvie

So far every issue of Ellis’s abbreviated run on Secret Avengers has been a model of brisk, economic storytelling, but nothing since this first issue has quite matched its energy and sense of spectacle. That’s at least partly due to expectations – I had no idea what Ellis was up to with this run, an advantage subsequent issues can’t claim – but it takes capable creators to capitalize on that lack of expectation and deliver a compelling story.

Ellis is in minimalist mode here, delivering a skeletal plot that finds Captain America leading his covert/espionage team into an underground city to foil a terrorist plot that would wipe Cincinnati off the map. It’s not hard to follow, but it moves at a fast clip and the characters are quiet (except for the Beast, the teams’ resident science geek), so it feels unlike anything else on the shelves, mainstream superhero or otherwise. I read it three times in succession – first for the story and plot, second just to orient myself in the stripped down narrative approach, and third to luxuriate in the world Ellis and Mckelvie created. Mckelvie in particular deserves perhaps the most praise in this regard, as it’s his light, clean line work that renders the gray, familiar yet alien underground city with such clarity, while still choreographic dynamic action sequences. The two-page spread of Moon Knight gliding over the seemingly empty city captures both of these storytelling needs at the same time, suggesting the grace and fluidity of the character’s flight, and juxtaposing it with the terrifying sameness of the buildings and streets below.

Our heroes save the day, naturally, but because this is a Warren Ellis comic they are at least aware of the compromises they made for safety, and at least one character seems to need some convincing that his actions can be reconciled with his morality. But Ellis gets all of that across in the span of two word balloons – there’s no time for navel gazing in a book this compact.

“Best Mini-Series Featuring an Icon of my Childhood” – The Rocketeer Adventures #1-4, written and drawn by various creators

The quality of the talent who contributed to this anthology title – including Mark Waid, Darwyn Cooke, Tommy Lee Edwards, Michael Kaluta, Kurt Busiek, and many others – made it a must-read, even if it wasn’t about one of my favorite characters. But more than just an excuse to see top-flight creators at work, this series is a love letter to the late Dave Stevens, who created the Rocketeer – the affection is evident in the flexibility and nuance of the art, and the clever storytelling that keeps four issues of short, pulpy adventure stories featuring the same characters from becoming repetitive. Several creators – Busiek and Cooke in particular – centered their stories not on Cliff’s exploits, but on his girlfriend Betty, rewriting the perennial “pretty hostage” trope of the Disney film to reveal the clever, capable character Stevens intended.

Four issues is a satisfying length, but I’d happily read new Rocketeer stories every month. Hopefully IDW will continue working with the Stevens estate to produce more material that meets the high standards set by this collection.

“Most Surprising About-Face” – Catwoman #1-3, written by Judd Winnick and drawn by Guillem March

To be honest, I laughed when I finished the first issue of this series. The now infamous scene of Catwoman and Batman consummating their relationship in-panel was so absurd that I could only marvel at writer Judd Winick’s gall – to take all the innuendo and pent-up energy of 70-plus years of Batman and Catwoman stories and up the ante read as a desperate miscalculation, sure to end poorly for creators and publisher alike. Sure enough, the controversy machine instantly hummed to life, and soon it felt like every comic fan, even those who hadn’t read the issue in question, were choosing sides in a debate about sexism and gender iniquity. Far from a prude, I still found myself in favor of restraint – a little lurid fun is one thing, but the hypersexuality of this issue seemed to emphasize all the most embarrassing failings of mainstream superhero comics.

And yet, I bought the second issue. Partly out of morbid curiosity about exactly how Winnick would follow-up his first act, but largely because I was drawn into the story, super-sex aside, and because the book is gorgeous. Guillem March’s art tends a bit towards the “Good Girl” cheesecake style of artists like Adam Hughes and Art Adams, but with dynamic layouts and action in place of posing, and a strong sense of texture that locates the art in a specific material reality. And Winnick, no stranger to twisted crime stories, knows how to build and release narrative tension – Catwoman’s predilection for violence is just as often used to make the reader uncomfortable as it is to satisfy the “villain brought to justice” narrative arc.

As of issue three, this is one of the titles I most anticipate every month. The indelible specter of Bat-coitus isn’t enough to mar what’s turning out to be a compelling, exquisitely rendered comic.

“Tour de Force” Award – Daredevil #1-6, written by Mark Waid, drawn by Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin

Though this is a new series featuring a character that’s been around for nearly 50 years, it isn’t a relaunch or a reinvention or a re-anything – it’s simply a veteran writer bringing exciting, dynamic concepts to a troubled, but beloved, property and knowing when to step back and let his artists discover new possibilities in the medium. Without ignoring the past, Waid has managed to free Daredevil from needlessly complicated and dour storylines, trading the excess pathos in for a bit of fun. It helps that his artists are stylists who reach back to Steve Ditko and Gene Colan for inspiration – both Rivera and Martin employ clean, thin lines and just enough detailing that the figures and backgrounds feel real without cluttering the page. And they’re equally fond of complex layouts that push the story forward, first, but double as feats of uncanny technical prowess. Daredevil is maybe the best argument that mature comics don’t have to be angsty and hyperviolent.

Honorable Mentions:

Xombi #1-6, written by John Rozum, drawn by Frazer Irving

Batman, Incorporated #1-8, written by Grant Morrison, drawn by various

The Red Wing #1-4, written by Jonathan Hickman, drawn by Nick Pitarra

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1-10, written by Nick Spencer, drawn by CAFU with guest spots by about a dozen legendary artists

The Homeland Directive, written by Robert Vendetti, drawn by Mike Huddleston

Fiction

The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick deWitt

The brothers of the title are Charlie and Eli Sisters, a pair of ruthless hired killers tracking down a fugitive inventor in the old West. The brothers are not anti-heroes or vigilantes or freedom fighters. They do not conform to an unconventional moral code, they conform to no moral code at all. But they are not sociopaths and deWitt’s nuanced characterization of such men makes this novel great. It’s also fantastically well-written, and funny to boot. This “revisionist Western” was well-received and shortlisted for the Booker Prize; it’s perfect for any Western or adventure fan with a tolerance for violence. (Full review)

Machine Man, by Max Barry

A thought-provoking absurdist adventure-comedy about a socially stunted engineer named Charlie Neumann who accidentally cuts his leg off in a lab accident. He becomes frustrated with his limited prosthetic, so he builds himself a new one, a very good one, a prosthetic so good that he cuts his other leg off so he can have two. Things only get weirder from there, but Charlie’s pitch-perfect voice keeps the novel grounded in humanity. An outstanding read for anybody. (Full review)

Reamde, by Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson, over the years, has transitioned away from tight, stylish novels like Snow Crash, and toward sprawling, expansive everythingscapes, like Anathem, and, most recently, Reamde. This latest features virtual worlds, Chinese gold farmers, ransomware, gangsters, terrorists, and much more. While its writing is not Stephenson’s best, he’s good enough to make even this slightly flabby thriller a great novel, if also an exhausting one.(Full review)

Love and Shame and Love, by Peter Orner

This novel in fragments covers the lives of three generations of the Popper family as they try (and fail) to hold on to love. It’s beautifully written, and while many of the brief chapters are tiny jewels, the artful gaps between them sometimes rob the larger narrative of its impact. If you like your reading material to ask a lot of you, this is your book. If you want lighter fare, this isn’t it. Orner, though, is one to watch. (Full review)

Nonfiction

You Are So Smart, by David McRaney

Freelance journalist David McRaney’s first book is part psychology survey, part self-help guide, and part humor column. Each of its 48 chapters details a different way in which our fallacious instincts deceive us. The result is a winning formula perfect for just about anybody who doesn’t have a psych degree. (Full review)

Late addition from 2010

The Dream of Perpetual Motion, by Dexter Palmer

In an alternate-history twentieth century, mechanical men perform nearly all the jobs in a futuristic city. Their creator, genius (and possibly insane) inventor Prospero Taligent, has also created a real-life unicorn and a zeppelin which runs on a tiny perpetual motion engine that might not exist. Against this backdrop, debut novelist Dexter Palmer tells a witty, mesmerizing postmodern sci-fi story, rich with invention and depth. A must-read for any fan of sci-fi or postmodernism. (Full review)

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Best Books of 2011 (and one of late 2010)

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Us, Michael Kimball

Us is a gutsy little book. Kimball’s 184 page novel begins as a step by step account of a husband’s life as it is remade by his spouse’s seizure. A quarter of the way through, Kimball presents a chapter in new voice, a plea from the comatose wife. Soon another voice is added, that of the couple’s grandson who is meticulously imagining his grandparents’ last days in order to understand the strength of their love. Although these storylines might have been hard to sustain alone, together they even each other out. Kimball performs an incredible balancing act by switching between these concurrent narratives, a difficult feat to pull of in any novel and especially impressive in one so short. [Read Mike's review.]

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The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick DeWitt

This hip western owes more to Quentin Tarantino than John Wayne. Brothers Eli and Charlie Sisters are two hired guns in the Gold Rush Era of American history contracted to snuff out a man in Oregon. Much of this books reads as a road novel, following the two unpredictable brothers as they blunder westward, where they meet the fantastic turn DeWitt has in store for them. By turns bleak and surreal, always darkly funny, this novel moves so quickly it practically reads itself. [Read Nico's review.]

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Jamrach’s Menagerie, by Carol Birch

Where The Sisters Brothers is a western road novel, Jamrach’s Menagerie is at turns a coming of age tale and a swashbuckling adventure. Birch’s novel follows Jaffy Brown, an orphan in Dickensian London who, in true Dickensian fashion, is rescued from his life of poverty (and the jaws of an escaped tiger) by a rich, benevolent stranger. Jaffy’s rescuer is the owner of a menagerie and exotic animal emporium, Mr. Charles Jamrach, a historical figure in nineteenth-century London. Sent on a long ocean voyage whose expressed purpose is both whaling and the capture of a dragon, the novel swerves from coming-of-age to high-adventure to tragedy. Strung together by the wide-eyed narrator and Birch’s deft writing, this novel would be a shame to miss. [Read Mike's review.]

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Honorable Mention from 2010

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C, by Tom McCarthy

McCarthy’s C begins at the turn of the twentieth century and ends in the inter-war period of WWI and WWII. The novel follows Serge Carrefax, tracing the full scope of his short life. McCarthy uses Freud’s Wolf Man as a model for Carrefax, who becomes his everyman, and the fun of this largely plotless novel is watching McCarthy deftly move Serge through the era’s touchstones. In a way, this novel is like a collage: McCarthy borrows freely from other texts, using work by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Maurice Blanchot and Jean Cocteau, among others, as direct inspiration for several key scenes, all organized around the principle of transmission: of messages, of ideas, and of life.

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My Picks for the Best Books of 2011

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The Prague Cemetery, by Umberto Eco

I was pretty late to the Eco party; this is just my second of his novels. It is excellent. He is one of the smartest and most talented novelists alive right now, and this book really demonstrates that. He combs recent (anti-Semitic) European history for real-life characters and then uses them to help build his imperfect everyman, ultimately telling a more humanitarian story than you realize until the final pages. Read my review here.

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The Outlaw Album, by Daniel Woodrell

None of Woodrell’s stories are particularly great, but the consistent, harrowing tone he manages to conjure and maintain in this collection of semi-linked stories is quite a feat. Definitely an author worth a look for short story fans. Read my review here.

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Guadalajara, by Quim Monzó

This short collection of quirky post-modernist stories really took me by surprise. This Catalan has got some serious writing chops–reminded me quite a bit of Barthelme–and these stories can hang with the best of them. Read my review here.

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The Map of Time, by Felix J. Palma

A time traveling steampunk romp with H.G. Wells front and center? This book just sounds awesome. In the end, it’s nothing like you think it’s going to be–and that’s in part why it’s such a great novel. Read my review here.

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Open-eyed Sneeze, by Jess Martin

Martin’s candor and wit mix together brilliantly in this satisfying little memoir. I’m not kidding when I say this is one of the, if not the, best self-published books I’ve ever read. Read my review here.

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Honorable Mentions

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Skippy Dies, by Paul Murray

This 2010 novel is my favorite book of the last few years. It’s the perfect mix of smart and entertaining, and it turns out to have a lot to say. Think A Separate Peace meets The Goonies. It’s not a particularly difficult read, so most all readers will find something to like. Read my review here.

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1Q84, by Haruki Murakami

I’m not actually done with this book yet. So far it’s pretty good. Weird, but not in the way Murakami usually is. Still got six or seven hundred pages left, so I’ll save the verdict for now.

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Field Grey, by Philip Kerr.

The seventh volume in the noir series about Bernie Gunther, former Berlin police detective during the rise of Nazism, this novel finds Gunther returning to Germanyafter several post-war years in exile in South America and Cuba covered in the last two novels). In Field Grey Gunther is caught up in the morally ambiguous Cold War retribution between the Communists and the Fascists.

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The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka.

This short, lyrical novel paints a picture of the Japanese “Picture Brides” of the early 20th century, girls who emigrated from Japan to the United States to marry other Japanese. The story goes up through the start of World War II and the internment camps to which the U.S. government sent Japanese-Americans.

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At Dock’s End: Poems of Lake Nebagamon, Volume Two, by L.D. Brodsky.

The second of three volumes of poems in which Brodsky, the modern day Thoreau, returns to his beloved lake inWisconsin to observe nature throughout its spring and summer changes.

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The Cookbook Collector, by Allegra Goodman.

An intriguing novel about two sisters at theend of the twentieth century during the high tech boom and culminating in the September 11,2001 attack. The story takes place in California and Boston. Along the way, Goodman involves themes of Jewish mysticism, antiquarian book collecting, food and love.

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The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides.

Set in the early 1980’s, this novel focuses on three characters just graduating from Brown University: Madeleine, an English major; Mitchell, aReligion major; and Leonard, a Biologist. Manic depression and spiritual searching are other key themes, along with love and relationships.

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Bullfighting, by Roddy Doyle.

Thirteen poignant short stories about middle age set mainly in Ireland. Doyle’s ear for dialogue and his witty observations make these tales about men reacting to dying, to diminished vigor and the prospect of the “empty nest” both wise and entertaining.

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It’s a pretty cool program that is open to all unpublished writers. Sure there’s a bunch of not great entries, but there’s a whole bunch of really great writing too. I’ve had at least one over the years that I was genuinely sad not to see win the whole shooting match. I obviously can’t talk specifics about the books I have now, but you can see full lists of the 2011 entries by genre, and read a little of each, at the above link.

It’s defintely a fun thing to get involved in. I encourage anyone who has the time to read some excerpts and post comments on the ABNA site Amazon set up. It’s a nice way for young writers who have the cajones to submit an untested manuscript to get some honest feedback from (anonymous) readers.

The finalists will be announced in late April, and panels helmed by Lev Grossman and Gayle Forman (links: I’ve reviewed both their books on the site) will take things from there.