David Boring’s life has changed in the big city – he’s gotten lucky with girls, he’s far away from friends that know every embarrassing detail of his past and his roommate, Dot, also appreciates his scrapbook of large-bottomed girls. This all works well until Whitey shows up and is murdered.

Much less a murder mystery and more of a dry dark comedy, the story follows David’s obsession that leads to the perfect woman, getting shot in the face and even conspiracies to poison the world. Buried within in this is the story-within-a-story of The Yellow Streak, a puzzle that may lead to understanding David’s father (two panels at a time).

Clowe’s story is filled with compelling characters and an equally compelling storyline

Kenneth Walton’s memoir brings more than the story of a simple crime – it’s the story of the early days of the internet, the story of the small decisions that separate right from wrong and the story of the infamous slippery slope that anyone can fall onto with the right shove.

In Walton’s case, this shove comes from an old army buddy, Ken Fetterman. Fetterman is reminiscent of Susan Orlean’s John Laroche from The Orchid Thief. Both men are frenetic, impatient, distrustful and have an intelligence for making money from unique markets. Fetterman introduces Walton to a new website – eBay – and teaches him how to sell artwork to bidders all over the country.

In working with Fetterman and a few others, Walton touches on the merely unethical (vague auction listings that deliberately imply famous authorship where none is warranted), to the unethical (shill bidding with multiple accounts), to the absolutely illegal (knowingly selling forged artwork). What could have been a dull dissertation on auction postings, e-mails and phone calls is instead a memoir that is crisply written that reads as well as any beach-read thriller.

There are points where the book philosophizes a bit much, and at times it is hard to swallow the, “of course, I only forged one signature ever” claim, but this is typical of most true crime memoirs written by the perpetrators.

No. 29 on the Menu: Hot Corned Beef, Hot Pastrami, Swiss Cheese, Hot Mustard on Rye

Reading Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road in 2009, one would expect a quaint novel of times long since past. Instead, one gets a penetrating shot of life masquerading as adults in the suburbs that plays as true today as it did in 1961. Sure, a few things seem anachronistic in expected housewifery, three-martini lunches and the obsession with classical music but if these were traded in for telecommuting, organic sandwich shops and hipster music…well, we wouldn’t be too far off, now would we?

The reason this story works so well is because Frank and April Wheeler work so well. They’re each a little damaged, each has an idea of what being grown-up is, each has little lies and myths that have become the truths that make them real. But, mostly, both of them have come to believe that they’ve accidentally ended up in a place that they’ve never intended to be despite having clearly made choices to get there all along.

Frank and April Wheeler believe they’re alone in this thinking.

And this is what makes Yates novel so brilliant. I can imagine the many people reading this in the 60s going, “yes, this is what we do!” or “do you remember when we said we’d go to Europe!” or worriedly saying, “you don’t think it would ever be this bad between us, do you?” and secretly thinking, “I hope it hasn’t been this bad already.”

In the pressure cooker of suburbia, with the added pressure of appearances that can never be kept up with – Frank and April’s story is not a happy one. This is not so much a condemnation of suburbia, but on the danger of running away from owning the life you’re living in favor of constantly dreaming up the next, bigger, better life that will fix everything that’s wrong between you.

I understand why this appeals to teen girls the way it does – I have to admit that it took me back to that semi-obsessive-very-self-involved state we all lived in starting around 14.

So while parts of the book definitely have their moments, the rest is spent largely as the fantasy of self-involved teen girls everywhere. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for teen girls, but 100-year-old vampires that had long ago given up on love but never succumbed to any form of lustful curiosity simply are more than just a bit off the charts.

But, hey, isn’t that what we all wanted when we were in Junior High – the perfect Adonis wanted by all with mythical powers who could take our very breath away with one kiss who had never so much as been interested in a single solitary soul before he saw us?

I knew Simon Pegg like most Americans first through Shaun of the Dead and then through Hot Fuzz. I can see where both genesised in Spaced! And why the scenes with Yvonne should have been so much funnier to me in Shaun of the Dead.

This was incredibly funny and I loved that Colin got as much air time as he did! Here’s fingers crossed that no one ever gets the bright idea to make an American version.

Capicola, soppresatta, provolone, lettuce, roasted red pepper, herbed oil served on a warm baguette

No. 71 on Katzinger’s Menu – Cave aged Gruyere, sweet onion, tomato, dijon mustard grilled on hand-sliced Farm Bread

Grilled chicken breast marinated in balsamic vinegar and Honeycup mustard, Vermont white cheddar, lettuce, Spicy peppers in oil, grilled on hand-sliced rye with a side of sour cream.

Marinated and grilled Amish chicken breast, Vermont white cheddar, lettuce, tomato, Hellman’s mayonnaise on hand-sliced Farm Bread