Book Tour 2012

I want to read more books in 2012, and one way to keep myself motivated is to blog about them. So 10 days in to the New Year, I have already knocked off a few:

1. Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You Can, Too. By Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. You may remember Garant and Lennon from the Comedy Central series Reno 911!, but mostly they work as Hollywood screenwriters. Their goal, as they entertainingly relate in the book, is not to write good movies, but to write successful ones. And there's lots of serious, practical advice on how to do just that. Unfortunately, their very first rule -- move to L.A. -- was a dealbreaker for me, but a lot else of what they said was great advice for writers (and game designers) in general. Plus it's a very funny read.

2. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. By Max Brooks (son of comedy legend Mel). When we went to visit my stepson Ben and his wife just before Christmas, at some point the conversation turned to this book. Ben said he hadn't read it, and Louise and I both insisted he should. So we tracked down our copy when we got back home, and I'm sending it off to him. But before I packed it up, I opened it and started reading, just to see if it was as good as I remembered it. Finished it early the next day. It was as good as I remembered it.

3. Pawnee: The Greatest Town In America. By Leslie Knope. Leslie Knope, of course, is the fictional character played by Amy Poehler in the NBC comedy Parks & Recreation, and this is a tie-in book to separate the fans from their money. They even worked the book into the storyline last fall for one of those synergistic cross-promotion things. Which would normally annoy me, but the book is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Fair warning: If you don't know the characters and story of the TV show, many of the jokes will make no sense at all. For fans, though, this is a laugh-out-loud (which I did many times, much to the consternation of my wife) treat.