New Next Week: Curious Cats by Mitsuaki Iwago

Internationally known nature photographer Mitsuaki Iwago casts his lens on the common cat with surprising results. Curious Cats (Chronicle Books) is like a love letter to family pets everywhere from someone whose usual oeuvre is somewhat more exotic.

In a way, it seems as though Iwago has photographed these common household kitties like wild animals. We see them comfortable in their own elements: with their offspring, mothers carrying babies, youngsters playing with abandon and rubbing heads lovingly. Hunting, sleeping, jumping. It’s a tiny book and not particularly thick. But the photos are sweet, charming and well-chosen.

“Because as I always say,” writes Iwago in an introduction, “when cats are happy, people are happy, and the world is happy.”

A lovely little book. Cat lovers will be unable to leaf through Curious Cats without a smile.

New This Week: The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves by Andrew Potter

No matter what you make of Andrew Potter’s path to bring us back to reality, it’s an interesting journey. A philosophical one, in many ways. On a par with the paths of thought taken by the (thus far) better known Alain de Botton, who is, after all, one of our best known contemporary philosophers. Though he holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto, that isn’t what Potter calls himself, but that does not change facts. Read his work and you’ll see: this is an artful, gymnastic mind and he takes on some of our biggest contemporary foibles in a book that manages to be both sweeping and intricate at the same time. From the introduction to The Authenticity Hoax (Harper/McClelland & Stewart):

The quasi-biblical jargon of authenticity, with its language of separation and distance, of lost unity, wholeness, and harmony, is so much a part of our moral shorthand that we don't always notice that we've slipped into what is essentially a religious way of thinking....the search for the authentic is positioned as the most pressing quest of our age.... My central claim in this book is that authenticity is none of these things. Instead, I argue that the whole authenticity project that has occupied us moderns for the past two hundred and fifty years os a hoax. It has never delivered on its promise and it never will.

The author argues that the quest for authenticity in our lives is nothing more than yet another form of status seeking: ecotourism, performance art, the cults of Oprah and Obama and more.

Potter weaves elements of history, philosophy and pop culture together in a book that will leave an impression even if it doesn’t necessarily show us the path. Is Andrew Potter one of the great thinkers of our age? He may well be: this is great stuff.

Art & Culture: Hieroglyph Detective by Nigel Strudwick

Picture this: you wake up deep inside a pyramid with only a single clue as to how you got there: there are hieroglyphs plainly visible on the wall but -- alas! -- you have no way to read them. What an Earth do you do?

Well, if you’re lucky and had a bit of foresight before heading out on your locked-in-pyramid adventure, you will have packed a copy of Egyptologist Nigel Strudwick’s handy field guide Hieroglyph Detective: How to Decode the Sacred Language of the Ancient Egyptians (Chronicle Books). With an extra bit of luck, you’ll have had time to study it on the plane during your journey. Or the barge, as the case may be.

And yes, of course: while most of us are quite unlikely to find ourselves awakening in a tomb, there is still a place in the world for this innovative and expertly creative little book. From the introduction:

The aim of this book is to provide a practical, easy-to-follow guide to Egyptian hieroglyphics, giving readers sufficient grounding in the pictorial script to enable them to decipher for themselves some of the many inscriptions they will encounter while pursuing their interest in this fascinating civilization.

One of the things I found really interesting about Hieroglyph Detective is the way it made me think about written language. At a time when many people are in a panic about the state of the book, it is informative to read about one of the most ancient forms of written communication and realize that, as up-in-the-air as things might seem right now, the literacy our culture enjoys has likely never been higher. That is to say that looking at the long-ago can help put things in perspective:

Literacy was restricted to a learned elite, which would have included the king and his officials, particularly scribes. It is thought that as little as one percent of the ancient Egyptian population was literate.

Hieroglyph Detective is a fascinating and informative book. Those with an interest in Egyptology and language will be entranced.

Biography: Party Animals: A Hollywood Tale of Sex, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll by Robert Hofler

Seventies Hollywood excess is perfectly rendered in Party Animals (Da Capo), Robert Hofler’s latest foray into the seamier side of Tinseltown.

Hofler is a senior editor at Variety and the author of The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson as well as Variety’s The Movie That Changed My Life. As a writer and reporter, Hofler knows his beat well. If there was ever any doubt, there isn’t after reading Party Animals, where he delivers a front row look at the crazy life that surrounded producer Allan Carr (1937-1999).

Carr was best known for some great films and some awful ones, as well as stellar parties and for producing the Oscars remembered as the worst ever (Carr was banned from future Oscar attendance after this fiasco).

The movies most associated with him include Grease, Tommy, La Cage aux Folles as well as the Village People musical some people attribute with the death of disco: Can’t Stop the Music.

Hofler’s account begins at the end: with filmmaker Brett Ratner (Red Dragon, Rush Hour) purchasing the recently deceased Carr’s infamous Benedict Canyon home for 3.6 million dollars in 1999.

From there we’re spun back into the 1970s, where Carr is beginning to make a huge impression as a host and producer. Hofler takes us through these two huge aspects of Carr’s life with raw abandon: lavish partiesand productions display a life lived beyond the edge. If you enjoy tales from inside Hollywood, you’ll like Party Animals, even if you never knew much about Carr.

Art & Culture: Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy: Curiouser and Curiouser edited by William Irwin and Richard Brian Davis

“...We don’t just want to know how deep the rabbit-hole goes .... We also want to know how to make sense of what we discover when we suddenly land ‘thump! thump!’ in Wonderland and pass through the looking glass.”

These words from the introduction to Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy (John Wiley & Sons) seem to me to sum the central force of the book as neatly as anything ever could. If we are to see the philosophy behind Lewis Carroll’s classic, that’s a terrific place to start.

Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy is the latest in a series edited by King’s College philosophy professor Irwin that uses contemporary pop culture to frame philosophical concepts. He’s done it through the looking glass of Seinfeld, The Simpsons, The Matrix and others. Upcoming titles will do the same with 30 Rock and Mad Men to name just two.

While I love the idea of popularizing philosophy for the masses, as it were, I’m not completely convinced that there really is any deeper underlying meaning in all things Alice to probe or that the answers to life’s ultimate questions lie buried in the unseen meaning behind a hookah-smoking blue caterpillars.

What saves the book from pure exploitive stupidity, however, is an engaging and ingenious approach. The book is essentially an anthology with some of the biggest thinkers in modern philosophy contributing their big thoughts. All sorts of professors and lecturers musing on Alice as feminist icon or Alice’s lack of social contract. It may sometimes be silly, but it’s never boring and it makes you consider. It makes you think. Which, when you ponder it, is what philosophy is meant to do.

Art & Culture: How to Defeat Your Own Clone by Kyle Kurpinski and Terry D. Johnson

One of the things I like best about being January Magazine’s art and culture editor is keeping my ear to the ground for emerging trends. For example, in the late 1990s, we were seeing a lot of books that sounded as though the authors had written them with their hands on their hips (if such a feat were physically possible). A decade on and we are seeing a new but somewhat similar trend: books that sound as though the authors had written them with their tongues firmly wedged in their cheeks.

While the difference between those things might seem subtle, it’s actually not really. Hands on hips books were laughing at themselves and the world at large while the tongue in cheek ones are a flight of fancy told in a way that makes them sound plausible, or even likely. Except that they’re not.

A good example of that is How to Defeat Your Own Clone (Bantam) by Kyle Kurpinski and Terry D. Johnson, a book based on the premise that you will require special skills to survive the biotech revolution. Except it’s funny. Only it’s kind of not.

Written by a couple of actual and for-real bioengineers, How to Defeat Your Own Clone is fascinating reading. Even when they play it for laughs, a message is being brought home. Here is what your future may look like, they seem to be saying at times and though the tone is often playful, they manage to pack a wallop of a message into this very slender paperback volume. As Kurpinski has said, “While many books have already been published on cloning and genetic manipulation, half seem to be textbooks and the other half are science fiction novels. The problem is that the former are generally unwieldy or boring for the average reader, while the latter have little or no scientific value or basis.”

How to Defeat Your Own Clone fills that gap handily, adding just enough silly to make us stop and think.

Art & Culture: How to Speak Zombie by Steve Mockus

If you’ve been wondering when -- or even if -- you’d hear the final word on zombies, you’ll be relieved to get a load of How to Speak Zombie (Chronicle Books), the book that calls itself “A Guide for the Living.” Here’s some of what the book says about itself:

In a world overtaken by zombies, the only hope for survival lies in learning the language of the undead. How to Speak Zombie demonstrates how to blend in and avoid being eaten while carrying on with everyday activities like ordering a latte from a zombarista and shopping at a zombie-infested mall.

Although, in a way, this doesn’t even come close to describing this strange little book. Just 12 pages long -- think about a child’s boardbook -- each of the chunky pages is cut around the shape of the electronic sound module that sticks up through the book, ready to demonstrate “proper zombie pronunciation.”

You’ll find instruction for what to say at the mall, at the gym, at sporting events and other places where zombies might congregate in the post-zombie apocalypse imagined in the book.

While the book is somewhat clever and the graphic novel-style illustrations -- by Travis Millard -- are great, it’s difficult to imagine just who this book is intended for. Beyond the book’s potential as a gift for the zombie-lover in your life, I can’t imagine anyone having a burning need to run out and grab a copy. But then, what the hell do I know? I’m still trying to figure why The Da Vinci Code blew so many minds and, anyway, I suppose it is possible zombies will take over the world at some point. Better to be safe than sorry.

Non-Fiction: I See Rude People by Amy Alkon

Hannibal Lecter would have loved Amy Alkon. Actually, upon consideration, they might have adored each other. Where Thomas Harris’ notorious fictional Hannibal the Cannibal only ate the rude, Alkon stands up to them with the sort of glorious panache that sometimes makes you want to stand and cheer.

I See Rude People (McGraw Hill) is a kind of post-modern Miss Manners or rather, as the subtitle tells us, “One woman’s battle to beat some manners into impolite society.”

This is a seriously great book. Alkon is smart and savvy and funny as hell. And though, given the opportunity (and it’s her book, so she’s given lots) she plays for the laughs, there are times when she comes perilously close to describing the ways in which our society is breaking down.

If it isn’t fear of bodily injury that keeps people from speaking up, it’s probably fear of verbal confrontation, or maybe they’re just not that practiced at it. I’m a syndicated advice columnist with somewhat controversial views, so I regularly get mail from readers that opens with something like “Dear Bitch.”

There’s a clean, forthright and completely unexpected charm in I See Rude People. Everyone should read it for their mental health. And though it’s well written and excruciatingly funny, I suspect not everyone will laugh.

New This Month: The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology edited by Christopher Golden

Despite current evidence to the contrary, our love affair with zombies goes way back. Even though, as Christopher Golden (The Myth Hunters, The Boys Are Back in Town) points out in the foreword to The New Dead (St. Martin's Press), zombies have never been exactly hot. The erotic nature of vampires? That can be pretty sexy, says Golden. “But zombies? Not so much. Eating brains, my friends, is not sexy.”

Though zombie popularity has ebbed and flowed, Golden, who also edits the anthology, points out that the zombie zenith is probably now:

We live in odd times. Strange days, indeed. Times of torture and deceit and celebrity and constant exposure to the worst the world has to offer, thanks to a media that never tires of feeding our hunger for the horrible.

The anthology of zombie short stories Golden edits here is very good, the list of contributors reading like a dream team for this project: John Connolly, David Liss, Kelley Armstrong, Max Brooks, Aimee Bender, Joe R. Lansdale and Joe Hill, to name just a few.

While zombies are enjoying some popularity at present, The New Undead is good enough to stand out even in times of zombie famine. This is a strong collection, representing a lot of terrific writing. You may never look at the undead in the same way again.

Art & Culture: Public Art in Vancouver: Angels Among Lions by John Steil and Aileen Stalker

Every city needs a book like Public Art in Vancouver (TouchWood Editions) a kind of walking tour through the public art -- all the public art -- in the city of Vancouver, Canada.

“The character of a city is revealed by its public art,” the authors point out in their introduction, “what it collectively places on its streets and walls and in its public spaces.”

Most of the book, however, is given over to that art in well-organized sections that begin with a map that indicates each artwork under discussion in that section. Each piece of art is given one third to one quarter of a page that includes a small but clear photograph, the name of the piece, the year it was installed and a little about how it came to be where it is. And so you have, for instance, the iconic Girl in A Wetsuit from Stanley Park. We’re told it was installed in 1972 and that there was initially talk “of recreating the Little Mermaid from Copenhagen’s Harbour, but luckily, a West Coast image was used instead. Many people refer to her as a mermaid, but she is a scuba diver with flippers.”

This is a fantastic, well conceived and executed book. I hope TouchWood is planning on adding other cities and making it a series.

Biography: Stitches: A Memoir by David Small

David Small’s Stitches: A Memoir (McLelland & Stewart/W.W. Norton) is fantastic. As good or better than the most celebrated graphic novels that it will inevitably be compared to. Stitches is all the more compelling because it is not a novel at all. Rather, it is a graphic telling of author and illustrator David Small’s early life.

This is David through the Looking Glass as seen by David Lynch or perhaps Tim Burton, a dark and often disturbing graphic glimpse at a childhood that many of us might have thought was best left alone. Small takes us through the dark corridors of his childhood in Detroit in the 1950s, the son of a radiologist father whose constant x-raying ultimately gives the boy cancer. And things go downhill from there.

Stitches is a huge distance from the work Small is best known for. He has illustrated over 40 children’s books and won the most prestigious awards available to him in the process. It’s not hard to see why: Small is hugely talented and his understanding of visual storytelling is complete. Stitches is undoubtedly one of the best books of 2009.

Non-Fiction: Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada by Stephen Schneider

On the world stage, Canada has a certain reputation. In general, Canadians are known to be quiet, self-effacing and the country itself is often seen as a vast, pastoral wasteland, but for the six months in winter when the country is covered in snow.

The reality, of course, is different. But just how different is it? Maybe we’ve never come closer to knowing than we can with Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada (Wiley).

Well-researched and skillfully put together, Iced is an even better book than one might at first think. Author Stephen Schneider is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Because of these deep and real creds, I anticipated that Iced would be dry and textbookish, an idea helped by the fact that publisher John Wiley & Sons does have a textbook division. But while I imagine Iced may well function in that capacity at some point, lay people with an interest in this topic will find much here to enjoy. It’s easy to feel confident that Schneider has done his homework, but he never leaves his reader feeling as though they’d just like their six hours back. This is no doubt due Schneider’s skill, but the material here is just terrific.

Though some aspects are well worn and widely known -- the role Canada played during the United States’ Prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s, for instance -- much, much more of this material will be unfamiliar to most Canadians. From pirates operating off Canada’s east coast in the 17th century, to the contemporary gang violence that over the last two decades has accelerated to its highest point in history.

All the way through there are interestingly told anecdotes and careful documentation and, especially in the case of contemporary incidents, well considered ideas on what should be done and what isn’t being done and what needs to be done if only certain politicians would rise off their hineys.

Iced is a very good book. Readers with an interest in these topics will find a great deal to enjoy here.

Non-Fiction: The Pursuit of Perfect by Tal Ben-Shahar

If, in the course of reading a towering stack of books intended to make you perform better, faster and stronger you discover you have pushed yourself too close to perfection, then The Pursuit of Perfect (McGraw Hill) may well be the book for you.

After a decade of teaching Happiness classes at Harvard (one gets the idea of a class of grad students sitting around blowing bubbles, but I don’t think that’s it) author, philosopher and psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar came to understand that most people aspire to more than mere happiness. Whether or not they realized it, people wanted perfection in their lives.

The result should be obvious (but does not seem to be until it is pointed out). If you crave and search for perfection, you will inevitably be disappointed -- both in yourself and the world around you. If you need perfection in your life, you’ve failed before you get out of the gate. The Pursuit of Perfect is the answer to that discovery, with Ben-Shahar guiding you through the idea of looking for attainable self-fulfillment rather than setting unrealistic goals that can’t fail to do anything but disappoint.

In addition to teaching the topic at Harvard, Ben Shahar is the author of the bestselling Happiness, so he knows this topic from many angles. He writes engagingly and is an accomplished thinker who says much that is worthy of attention. The Pursuit of Perfect is a must-read for the overachiever in your life.

New This Week: Either You’re In or You’re In the Way by Logan and Noah Miller

Filmmaking twin brothers Logan and Noah Miller have a single car, mobile phone and computer between them. It’s not that they wouldn’t each like their own but, as they tell us in the opening paragraphs of Either You’re In or You’re In the Way (Collins) “right now money is tight. So, for now, we share. And are blessed to have someone to share it with.”

That’s pretty much the sentiment that floats us through the book. It’s a charming, witty and in some ways fascinating story that’s part memoir and partly the story of how -- against all odds -- the brothers wrote, produced, acted in and directed a feature film -- starring no less than Ed Harris -- in less than a year with little between them besides 17 credit cards.

That would be sufficient story for the book, but then the resulting film, Touching Home, was nominated for 26 Academy Awards and took home 11 of them.

Either You’re In or You’re In the Way is, in some ways, a Cinderella story in perfect Hollywood style with all the bittersweet details and plot twists such a story demand. And, all things considered, it’s no surprise that they can write, too. Those who love movies and/or a touching family story will enjoy this book. It’s a very worthwhile read on so many levels.

New This Month: Shut Up, You’re Fine: Poems for Very, Very Bad Children by Andrew Hudgins

Hush now -- don’t cry, my wayward son.
You couldn’t see you were becoming
someone who’d study “Manual Arts” --
rough carpentry, not even plumbing.

Mother smelled, and Father too,
the cigarettes you’ve been bumming.
We searched beneath your bed and found
the dirty books you’ve been thumbing.

The first two stanzas of “Had it Coming,” the first poem in Shut Up, You’re Fine (Overlook Press) do a pretty good job of illustrating the very specific taste required to enjoy this compelling and hilariously offensive little book.

Illustrated by the distinguished artist Barry Moser, Shut Up, You’re Fine is mostly comprised of degenerate nursery rhymes crafted by the talented hands of a writer who has been nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

This is not a book that everyone will enjoy and it would not surprise me if some readers were deeply offended. Put it this way: if you think South Park is the height of humor, you’ll like Shut Up, You’re Fine... and you’ll think again.

New This Week: Variety’s “The Movie That Changed My Life” by Robert Hofler

It seems to me that Robert Hofler’s Variety’s “The Movie That Changed My Life” (Da Capo) is a fairly impossible book not to like in that it offers up something for everyone. Well, everyone who likes movies. And celebrities. It’s a good idea that has been well executed. I couldn’t put it down.

The idea is astonishingly simple: Hofler, who is also the author of The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson, asked 120 celebrities to (from the sub-title) “Pick the Films that Made a difference (for Better or Worse).”

Hofler doesn’t just plunk down their answers, but rather puts together brief profiles that places their choices for life-altering movies in context. Novelist Michael Connelly “calls Chinatown his absolute favorite detective film,” and goes on to say that his own novel, Echo Park, “gives a nod to Chinatown.”

Though he loved both versions of The Manchurian Candidate, Senator John McCain says that “Viva Zapata! influenced him more than any other film” because seeing the movie introduced him to the historical figure and sent the young McCain on a journey of learning.

Jack Nicholson saw On the Waterfront “twelve or fifteen times. [Brando] was the guy of my high school generation.”

Kirsten Dunst, Rosario Dawson, Ben Affleck, Tim Burton, Dr. Phil, Deepak Chopra (who loved Ben Kingsley in Gandhi. Surprise!) and Donald Trump (another surprise: he loved Citizen Kane): Hofler’s book offers up a concise and vivid image of what goes on in the heart of contemporary celebrity. It’s a tremendously enjoyable book.

Art & Culture: Falling in Love Again edited by Stacey Abbott and Deborah Jermyn

For those who insist their Valentine surprises have deeper meaning and perhaps a bit more meat, Falling in Love Again: Romantic Comedy in Contemporary Cinema (I.B. Tauris) is surprisingly fresh, on-target and deeply interesting.

Falling in Love Again points out that while romantic comedy has long been a staple at the movies, they’ve not often been taken seriously. In this anthology, an international list of contributors take that serious look at all aspects of contemporary comedy in film. And yet, that look is not too serious: we’re left with an expert view at an often artically underappreciated medium.

Both editors are senior lecturer in film and television at Roehampton University in the United Kingdom and both have contributed to or edited other film-related books for I.B. Tauris. Stacey Abbott is the author of 2007’s Celluloid Vampires while Deborah Jermyn is the author of Crime Watching: Investigating Real Crime TV, also from 2007.

Falling in Love Again was published in the UK late in 2008 and will be published by Macmillan in the US next month.

New in Paperback: The Book of Dead Philosophers by Simon Critchley

The Book of Dead Philosophers (Vintage) is shockingly lucid, surprisingly good, unexpectedly funny. It’s a book that meets its initial mandate, then passes it by a country mile. Clearly, I liked it a lot. I find it difficult to imagine anyone with even a passing interest in philosophy who would not enjoy it.

Author Simon Critchley looks chronologically at those who dedicated their lives to thinking about intellectual matters of life and death and how they themselves exited the material world. “Very simply stated,” writes the author, “this is a book about how philosophers have died and what we can learn from philosophy about death and dying.”

But it’s more than that, too. Critchley points out that we, as a society, are almost ridiculously frightened of death. And what can we do about that? Critchley has the answer: philosophy.

It was a commonplace in antiquity that philosophy provides the wisdom necessary to confront death. That is, the philosopher looks death in the face and has the strength to say that it is nothing.

That’s in theory. In practice... well, Critchley gives us short profiles of close to 200 philosophers, a little about how they lived and -- more importantly in the context of this book -- how they died. On that journey, we encounter all that life has to offer: wit and wisdom, tragedy and comedy. There are bizarre ends and others that are pathetically unexceptional. In short, he gives us the tools we need to begin to “learn to have death in your mouth, in the words you speak, the food you eat and the drink that you imbibe.”

It’s a remarkable book.

Art & Culture: Dreambook by Mark di Suvero

“Each human saves himself or herself, and no other being can do anything but give insight, show a way, or block. Will, acting across parameters of necessity that are in delicate equilibrium, can change things. History shows this. Those who have changed the course of human history have always believed themselves capable of it. Sadly though, most of the time most humans act from necessity.”

What makes Dreambook (University of California Press) special is that it’s so much more than it might have been. So much, in a way, more than it appears.

Dreambook is said to be “the definitive volume on American sculptor Mark di Suvero” and in some ways it is. Over 200 images track the deep course of his work; the changes it has made; the sharp turns of direction it has taken over the years. But there is very little about di Suvero included which -- taken within the context of the book -- is absolutely right. This is di Suvero’s book. His book of dreams. And so we see his work but, in his own words, we hear his heart. Admired works by other writers are included as well: Walt Whitman, Marianne Moore, Rainer Maria Rilke, many others.

di Suvero was born in China to Italian parents and raised in the United States. Without question, he is one of the most important living sculptors. His work can be found in museums and collections the world over. And though there is a very good biographical section on di Suvero by Francois Barré late in the book, it is only a very small portion of Dreambook.

This is probably not the most definitive book on di Suvero that will ever be. It is, however, purely Mark di Suvero’s book. We get to experience his art, albeit from the distance of photography. Perhaps more importantly, though, through his personal essays and his editorial choices about what other writing should be included in this, his book of dreams, we get to experience his heart.

Art & Culture: Ary Stillman: from Impressionism to Abstract Expressionism

If you spend any time at all studying his work, you wonder at how completely absent his name is from the lists of important artists of his era. Certainly in his own time, Russian/American artist Ary Stillman was considered influential. These days, if his name comes up at all -- which it seldom does -- he is most often compared to Jackson Pollock, something I’ve never understood. Compare him to Mark Rothko. Compare him -- if comparisons must be made -- to Picasso, who worked in a similar era and whose work over time shows similar seismic upheavals of change, but Pollock? No, not that.

Whatever your impressions of Ary Stillman (1891-1967) a new book from Merrell offers an appropriate overview of the life and work of this remarkable artist. Merrell’s books are always well thought out and beautifully executed and Ary Stillman: from Impressionism to Abstract Expressionism is no exception. Essays by seven important experts on Stillman’s work offer a written view that, accompanied as they are by reproductions of the artist’s work, offer a full color glimpse into the life of an artist whose work you probably don’t know enough about.

Review: Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book by Aye Jay

Today, in January Magazine’s art & culture section, contributing editor and January art director, David Middleton, reviews Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book by Aye Jay. Says Middleton:

You don’t tend to think of heavy metal music as a genre that is filled with an overabundance of jocularity or frivolity, but as I flip through Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book I must reconsider my position. Metal can be fun, silly and -- yes -- perhaps even thoughtful and educational. So on page eight, after you have played connect the moles on the face of a prominent member of Motorhead, go to page nine and do a brain teasing heavy metal sudoku -- with all the sixes filled in, of course. Color Glenn Danzig, do the Monsters of Rock Crossword then guide Ozzy Ozborne through a maze in order to get him to Ozzfest.

The full review is here.