Pop Culture Nerd – Page 38 – Pop Culture Nerd

Movie Review: MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

I’ll admit it: If I’d known ahead of time this movie (limited release, Oct. 21) is about a young woman struggling to survive her cult experience, I probably wouldn’t have rushed out to the screening sponsored by the L.A. Times. Elizabeth Olsen (the famous twins’ younger sister) stars as the titular character, who escapes from a cult in the Catskills at the beginning of the movie and goes to live with her sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and brother-in-law, Ted (Hugh Dancy). Martha doesn’t want to talk about the years she fell out of touch with Lucy and insists she’s fine, that she was simply living with a boyfriend who lied to her and now it’s over. But of course it’s not, as we see the damage gradually emerging and threatening her ability to move on.

Olsen has received lots of buzz since the movie premiered at Sundance and she deserves it. She seems effortless and completely guileless in a role that’s difficult to pull off due to Martha’s capriciousness. The movie incorporates flashbacks to show what happened to her (writer/director Sean Durkin, who did Q & A afterward, said they’re not really flashbacks since Martha’s past and present are all jumbled together in her mind) but it’s always clear when each scene took place because there was much more innocence in Martha’s face before she was ruined by Patrick (John Hawkes), the cult leader. The performance is more striking considering that when Olsen came out (more like she bounced/skipped out) to do the Q &A, she was bubbly and smart and confident, not the first person you’d think of to play a mousy girl in search of herself.

Paulson is also impressive as the sister who desperately wants to know Martha’s secrets but is scared of driving her away again. Lucy’s benign smiles can’t cover up the frustration she feels from being unable to communicate with Martha. Hawkes, after Winter’s Bone, risks being Hollywood’s go-to creepy dude, but he’s so good and oddly charismatic that it’s hard to imagine someone else being more effective.

Durkin can be commended for eliciting strong performances from the cast and for using restraint, allowing the audience to fill in the more disturbing aspects. But his pacing is contemplative since most of the conflicts are internal. Sometimes the score is a little too heavy-handed, as if it were shouting, “Creepy scene alert!” through a bullhorn. And the ambiguous ending…well, it’s hardly satisfying but it’ll certainly stimulate discussions afterward.

Nerd verdict: Finely acted film that May anger and/or disturb you

Photo: Jody Lee Lipes/Twentieth Century Fox

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Book Giveaway: THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern

I’m thrilled to announce that the generous folks over at Doubleday have allowed me to give away two copies of Erin Morgenstern‘s The Night Circus. You’ve probably heard about this novel for months since it arrived with a caravan-load of buzz, being compared to the Harry Potter and Twilight books. Helping that comparison along is the fact that Summit Entertainment, the production company behind the Twilight movies, have snapped up rights for a movie adaptation that David Heyman, who produced the Potter movies, might produce.

I’ll post a review later but wanted to give you the chance to win these two copies now. If that gorgeous cover alone doesn’t entice you, here’s the description from the publisher’s website:

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.

Intrigued? Enter by leaving a comment about the coolest magic trick or circus act you’ve ever seen. Giveaway ends next Tuesday, October 25 at 5 p.m. PST. US/Canada only, per publisher’s request. Two winners will be randomly selected and have 48 hours to claim the prize before alternate names are chosen.

Let’s hear your magical stories!

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First Tintin Movie News Are In!

I was thrilled to hear over the weekend that most of the first reviews for The Adventures of Tintin: The Secrets of Unicorn are not only positive, but overwhelmingly so! Many of you know the Tintin books are the first titles I remember reading on my own as a kid and absolutely loving. Despite the fact this movie was directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson, I was concerned it wouldn’t deliver the sense of wonder I felt experiencing Hergé’s work. The trailers didn’t quite win me over, either.

But the reviews coming in from Europe, where the movie will open later this month (December 21 in the U.S.—argghhh!) are comparing it to the Indiana Jones movies, using descriptors like “visually splendid,””gorgeous,” “stunning,” “lavish,” and “breathless.” The Hollywood Reporter says it’s “a good ol’ fashioned adventure flick that harkens back to [Spielberg]’s action-packed, tongue-in-cheek swashbucklers of the 1980s.” It’s almost enough to make me hop on a plane to France so I can see it two months before its stateside release.

If interested, you can read full reviews from The Sun (UK), The Hollywood Reporter, and HitFix.

Anyone else as excited as I am?

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Book Review: KILLED AT THE WHIM OF A HAT by Colin Cotterill

Originally reviewed for Shelf Awareness, published here with permission.

Colin Cotterill, author of the Dr. Siri series set in 1970s Laos, introduces a new sleuth in Killed at the Whim of a Hat. Though Jimm Juree lives in present day, she may feel like she’s in backwater country. Jimm is a Thai crime reporter and rising star for the Chiang Mai Mail until she’s forced to move with her family to a rural village. Life mainly consists of gutting fish and kitchen duties until an old Volkswagen van is discovered buried under a farmer’s land with a pair of skeletons inside, one wearing a hat. Soon after, an abbot is found brutally murdered at a nearby temple, with an incongruous, orange hat perched on his head. Seeing a chance to recapture her former journalistic glory, Jimm jumps on the stories and gets help from unexpected sources on her way to solving the mysteries.

The main selling points are the characters and Cotterill’s humor. Jimm observes that a red herring is “a good source of Vitamin D,” and encounters dogs so ugly that they’re like “Fellini dog extras.” The title is based on, and each chapter is headed by, an actual George W. Bush maloprism, and the running joke is tangentially relevant to the story.

Jimm and her family are a wacky bunch, with entertaining interactions and dinner conversations. They have reasons for being eccentric and their collective heart gently reveals itself at unexpected moments. The resolution to the abbot’s murder is a bit odd, but one can argue that this unconventional novel and its inhabitants deserve nothing less.

Nerd verdict: Whimsy with substance

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy from an indie bookstore

What are you reading this weekend?

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Mini Reviews: SHOCK WAVE, CALL ME PRINCESS, and THE LAST LETTER FROM YOUR LOVER

I took advantage of the long Columbus Day weekend to park myself on the couch and catch up on some reading, which was divine. Well, except for the part when I sat too long and my left arm felt numb and I feared I was having a stroke. Anyway, below are mini reviews.

Shock Wave by John Sandford

Someone in a Minnesota town doesn’t want a new PyeMart superstore built so he/she blows up a conference room at the store’s headquarters and then its construction site. Virgil Flowers, an agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, gets sent in to investigate two possible groups—local business owners who’d be ruined by the store, and fishermen who fear PyeMart would pollute the river. The heat intensifies when more bombs go off, including one that’s too close to Virgil.

This is my first time reading a Flowers book and I found him engaging. He’s a surfer dude who’s not only offbeat in his personal style, he uses unusual methods to solve the case. He does market research to find suspects, sending out a survey to a cross section of townies asking them who they think the bomber is. The dialogue is often funny, which is especially welcome since the crimes are brutal and cause multiple fatalities. The revelation of the bomber’s identity didn’t cause any shock waves, but the book is a quick, entertaining read. Nerd verdict: Catch the Wave.

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy from IndieBound

Call Me Princess by Sara Blaedel

Copenhagen detective Louise Rick is called in when a woman is savagely raped after a date with a man she met online. Louise soon discovers he’s a serial rapist, preying on lonely women on matchmaking websites while remaining maddeningly elusive. He leaves behind no physical evidence and the victims can’t provide a good description for the police to issue a public warning. The case becomes even more complicated when one of the rapist’s victims dies and Louise’s best friend Camilla starts dating a man she found online.

Louise seems capable enough for the most part—this also applies to Blaedel—and the procedural moves along at a decent clip until the anticlimactic denouement falls apart from too many holes. Louise doesn’t take certain actions that a good police officer, or any reasonable civilian, would. It seems that some things occur because they’re necessary to move the plot forward but aren’t supported by logic. Some of the best thrillers I’ve read this year are Scandinavian—I highly recommend Jussi Adler-Olsen’s The Keeper of Lost Causes and Lars Kepler’s The Hypnotist—but this one, an international bestseller that’s second in the Louise Rick series and first to hit our shores, doesn’t hold up. Nerd verdict: Dropped Call.

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy from IndieBound

The Last Letter from Your Lover by Jojo Moyes

What? I know this isn’t crime fic, but I’m a multifaceted person with many interests, one of which is the art of writing letters. I’m old-school that way and enjoy sending handwritten notes whenever I can. I go into stationery stores to fondle Crane paper and drool over fountain pens. But enough about that.

This novel is divided in two parts. The first takes place in the 1960s, with Jennifer, a young married woman, waking up in a hospital with injuries and amnesia. When she goes home, she finds passionate love letters, signed simply “B,” hidden in her belongings. Though her husband seems like a nice man, she knows instinctively he didn’t write the letters and she sets out to find the person who did. She unearths some answers, but they’re not happy ones. Cut to 2003, when a young journalist named Ellie finds a file full of the same letters in the archives of the newspaper where she works. With her job and love life on uncertain ground, she decides she must solve the mystery of what happened to the lovers.

Usually, if I get a whiff of a cheesy romance, I’m outta there, burning skidmarks in the parking lot. But if a story is skillfully told and a relationship depicted well, I’m all in. Moyes writes the love letters with just the right touch of ardor without going over the top into eye-rolling territory. B’s letters read like a man wrote them, with words conveying more emotion than any emoticon ever could. Moyes makes this clear when Ellie gets texts from her married lover and spends hours obsessing over what “Later x” really means.

The author somehow manages to make me not condemn the adulterous Jennifer—no small feat—without conveniently portraying her husband as a creep. Ellie’s a bit frustrating, though, with her neediness toward a married lover who is a jerk. But she redeems herself, and the ending carries enough emotional weight that all is forgiven. Nerd verdict: Emotional Letter.

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy from IndieBound

What are you reading?

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Book Review: THE AFFAIR by Lee Child

If you’re looking for something good to read this weekend, check out the new Jack Reacher. My review originally ran in Shelf Awareness and is reprinted here with remission. Happy Friday!

Ever since Jack Reacher hitchhiked his way into crime fiction in the 1997 novel Killing Floor, many fans have wondered why he became a drifter in his mid-30s after spending his entire life—born and raised—in the U.S. Army. The Affair finally details the case that prompted Reacher to leave the military police behind, if not his crime-fighting career.

It’s 1997 and Reacher is sent undercover to Carter Crossing, Miss., to shadow the official army investigator in the case of a civilian woman murdered near a base. Reacher’s role is to observe and make sure the situation is handled properly because of tension between the soldiers and the townies. Reacher realizes he’s on a doomed mission when he discovers there have been three similar murders in the area and the army is ordering him to destroy evidence. He gets help from the lead investigator, Duncan Munro, and the beautiful sheriff, Elizabeth Deveraux, but can he trust either one?

The Affair is written in first person so readers really get a glimpse of how Reacher’s mind works (some of the novels are written in third, which has its advantages, but this reviewer prefers the more personal treatment). The younger MP Reacher is not much different from the drifter we already know and love; i.e., he kicks butt and has sex. Readers are only reminded of the story’s setting when VHS tapes and film cameras are mentioned. It’s amusing to see the origin of Reacher’s later traveling style when he goes undercover as a bum and learns he doesn’t need anything more than a foldable toothbrush. Child also includes references to Reacher’s brother, Joe, that will lead up to the beginning of Killing Floor. Newbies can start their affair with Reacher with this latest installment, but those who have read the series may find poignancy in these foreshadowing allusions.

Nerd verdict: Reach for The Affair

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy from an indie bookstore

What are you reading?

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Movie Review: THE IDES OF MARCH

If you’re not into politics, don’t let it deter you from seeing The Ides of March (out October 7), based on Beau Willimon’s play Farragut North. Despite its setting, it’s not really about politics. It’s more about a young idealistic man whose beliefs are tested in a cutthroat world, in effect asking the viewer, What would you do and how long would you last?

Ryan Gosling plays Stephen Myers, a hotshot campaign secretary for presidential candidate Gov. Mike Morris (George Clooney, who also directed and co-wrote with Grant Heslov and Willimon). Myers is very good at what he does, making the governor seem like America’s last hope for salvation. But it’s not just spin. He can only sell it if he believes it, and he believes in Morris wholeheartedly. The political game being what it is, however, Myers soon encounters complications with an intern (Even Rachel Wood), the campaign manager of a rival candidate (Paul Giamatti), his own campaign manager (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an aggressive reporter (Marisa Tomei), and eventually Morris. We see Myers’s struggle to hang on to his morals and the question isn’t whether he has what it takes to rise in the ranks, it’s whether or not we want him to.

Gosling continues his hot streak after Crazy Stupid Love and Drive with another riveting performance. You can see his gradual transformation from the bright-eyed Myers at the beginning of the movie to the one at the end, whose eyes are noticeably harder. Gosling is one of the few young actors who can go toe to toe with Clooney in a pivotal scene and make the audience wonder who would come out on top. And while movie stars can sometimes bring too much baggage to a role, Clooney’s charm adds to the governor’s allure and keeps us guessing about whether he’s as perfect as he seems.

The supporting cast members turn in solid performances but that’s no surprise from Giamatti, Tomei, Hoffman, and Jeffrey Wright. It helps that they have a sharp script to work with. Wood is too affected to measure up to everyone else, but even that doesn’t detract much from Clooney’s smart, tense drama.

Nerd verdict: Ides should prepare for March to the Oscars

Photos: Saeed Adyani

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Movie Review: FOOTLOOSE

Wormald and Hough

When I posted on Facebook that I had gone to a Paramount screening of the Footloose remake (out October 14), one of my friends jokingly threatened to disown me because I was apparently being disloyal to the original. Well, the 1984 movie was enjoyable but it wasn’t great (let’s face it—the soundtrack elevated it) so I was willing to keep an open mind.

My conclusion was that it didn’t need to be remade because this version doesn’t improve or change the story in any significant way. All the major plot points are intact, and it’s still a corndog movie minus the advantage of being first.

If you’re, oh, under twenty years old and have never been exposed to Footloose, the very slim plotline involves Ren McCormack (Kenny Wormald) coming down from Boston after his mother dies to live with his Uncle Wes (Ray McKinnon) in a small town called Bomont. Much to his chagrin, he finds that the law there doesn’t allow public dancing since five teens were killed three years earlier after a night of dancing and drinking. Ren locks horns with Reverend Shaw Moore (Dennis Quaid), a staunch supporter of the law since his son was one of the kids who died. But the reverend’s daughter, Ariel (Julianne Hough), has much more amorous feelings toward Ren and together they set out to challenge the law so they can have their dance.

Andie McDowell (as the reverend's wife), Wormald, and Quaid

Though I never looked at Kevin Bacon in the original and thought, “Wow, this is a great actor who’s still going to be relevant in thirty years,” he infused Ren with an innate sense of confidence and mischief while Wormald seems to be only playing at cockiness. It’s obvious he was hired more for his dancing than acting skills, and he does okay, but that’s not enough when he’s the lead. He acquits himself better than Hough, though, who looks gorgeous but doesn’t yet have the depth of talent to convey Ariel’s little-girl-lost quality. She comes across reckless and petulant instead of as someone in pain who’s overcompensating. Then again, the script (by Dean Pitchford and Craig Brewer, who also directed) doesn’t allow her to be very sympathetic. And Quaid, famous for his roguish screen presence, is all wrong as the uptight reverend.

Teller and Wormald

If there’s a reason to see this movie, it’s Miles Teller, who steals every scene as Ren’s friend Willard, the boy who can’t dance who was first played by the late Chris Penn (Teller even resembles him a little). Teller is funny and full of crackling energy, which is especially amazing if you saw him in Rabbit Hole, where he imbued an intensely dramatic role with grace and stillness.

And the music—when I heard the opening beats and guitar riffs of the title track, with Blake Shelton stepping in for Kenny Loggins, my feet did cut loose a little under my seat. But this version sounds almost exactly the same as the other, which again begs the question of why it was remade. One of the songs, “Holding Out for a Hero,” was reinvented but not in a good way. While Bonnie Tyler sang it as an anthemic number, Ella Mae Bowen turns it into a treacly ballad that’s almost unrecognizable. By the time “Let’s Hear it for the Boy” comes on, with Jana Kramer covering Deniece Williams’s hit, the soundtrack had swung back to sounding familiar, but it also makes you want to just go back and listen to the original.

Nerd verdict: Footloose doesn’t cut it

Photos: Paramount

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Nerdfest Finale—Quiz Answers, Nerdy Slide Show, and Giveaway Winners

For the past four days, I’ve been running nerdy anecdotes from crime authors who were generous enough to share their stories and, in some cases, pictures as well. They did it to help me celebrate my third blogoversary today. I profusely thank them and you for reading, promoting, playing along, and coming back for the final blowout. Hope you’ve had as much fun as I have, and that you found some new authors to check out after you read about their amazing feats of nerdiness.

I had a few emails asking if I’d be sharing any tales of my own. I hadn’t planned to, but then I thought perhaps it would only be fair since I asked others to do it. So here goes.

I once had a crush on this guy, and when I was at his house one day, I saw a chess set sitting on the coffee table. I challenged him to a game, thinking I’d impress him because a) I was good, and b) I didn’t know any other girls who played chess so that would make me cool, right? I checkmated him in about five moves but oddly enough, he never asked me out. Lest you think this happened when I was little and didn’t know better, I did this when I was in college.

I’ll give you a moment to digest that. Drink if you need to. Better? OK, let’s get to the answers!

Day One

A. Brett Battles (directed The Hobbitt musical)

B. Elizabeth Duncan (tried to vote for her amateur sleuth forty times)

C. Colin Cotterill (skinhead jock/closet Boy Scout in short pants)

D. Karin Slaughter (Dutch femurs)

E. Brad Parks (Corky St. James theater nerd)

Day Two

A. Meg Gardiner (Jeopardy! winner)

B. Megan Abbott (Annotated Lolita)

C. Sophie Littlefield (HoJo’s waitress doing square roots)

D. Todd Ritter (Disney geek)

E. Gregg Hurwitz (obsessed with clackety keyboards)

Day Three

A. Laura Benedict (broken book bag at bus stop)

B. Eric Beetner (X-Treme model)

C. Sue Grafton (thought barbecue sauce was soup)

D. T. Jefferson Parker (blowing up spiders in jar)

Day Four

A. Duane Swierczynski (wrote his own blurbs)

B. Tess Gerritsen (taught herself hieroglyphs)

C. Jonathan Hayes (DEVO T-shirt and wrestling headgear)

D. Lisa Lutz (wrote letters to Brando)

E. Hilary Davidson (experimented with clothes)

How did you do? Are you surprised at some of the answers? Before I get to the slide show, I have to reveal the two winners of the giveaway. I plugged all the names into random.org and it selected:

Naomi
Lauren

Congratulations! Naomi, your name was picked first so you get first choice from the list. I hope now you’ll stop feeling stabby and won’t file that complaint.

I believe that’s all the business. As a party favor, here’s the “Before They Were Authors” slide show. Enjoy, and I hope you’ll keep the fun going by leaving your own nerdy stories in the comments. To paraphrase Kenny Loggins, everybody cut nerdloose!

[cincopa AEDAPuahm-ZF]

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Nerdfest: Day Four

We’ve arrived at day four of Nerdycon, with more crime authors sharing spectacularly nerdy moments. Think you know them from their work? Well, you may never have seen them like this.

Today’s panelists:

*Tess Gerritsen—Tess is the internationally bestselling author known for her medical thrillers and the Rizzoli & Isles series that inspired the hit TV show. She’s won a Nero and a Rita Award, her favorite word is “cocktails,” and she was once almost arrested by hospital security while doing research.

*Jonathan Hayes—Jonathan’s series, starting with Precious Blood, is about burnt-out New York City medical examiner Edward Jenner. Jonathan is also an M.E. and forensic pathologist in NYC but finds his work rewarding and has lectured all over the world, including for the FBI in Quantico. He collects Victorian taxidermy, has been cursed with black magic, and believes the greatest gift of all is “irredeemably filthy friends.”

*Hilary Davidson—Hilary won an Anthony and a Crimespree Award earlier this month for her debut novel, The Damage Done. Her short stories have appeared in numerous publications, including Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Beat to a Pulp. She might have a thing for feet because her stories often include foot fetishes and high heels doing kinky things.

*Duane Swierczynski—Duane recently won both an Anthony and a Crimespree Award for his novel Expiration Date. He’s also the author of the Charlie Hardie trilogy—the second installment, Hell & Gone, comes out October 31—which is so addictive, there was a secret operation to steal his laptop during Bouchercon. This was terminated when he threatened to turn one of the operatives into an explosive device.

*Lisa Lutz—Lisa writes the Spellman mysteries, about private investigator Izzy Spellman and her adventures working for her eccentric family’s PI firm. Lisa also co-wrote with David Hayward a standalone, Heads You Lose, released earlier this year. She actually has worked for a private detective agency, and hopes to play a subway thug before she dies.

The anecdotes:

A. Back in high school, whenever I wrote a horror story, I’d spend a lot of time coming up with fake blurbs to include at the beginning. Usually self-deprecating things like:

“Neatly typed.”—Kirkus

“… [good]…”—New York Times

“If you’ve ever wondered how to regrout your sink by yourself, this is the book for you. Concise, helpful, and full of lively illustrations…this may become a permanent addition to your workshop bookshelf.”—Bob Villa’s This Old House magazine

“Not to get ad hominem about it, but [this author] sucks.”—Creative Sex Drive magazine

That way, when friends would read the story and then tell me, “Man, this sucked,” I could point to the blurbs and reply: “Well, I warned you!”

B. Taught myself to read basic Egyptian hieroglyphs.

C. I wasn’t always this effortlessly cool. For a while there, in fact, I really struggled. Probably the low point came when I went to see DEVO on their Duty Now for the Future tour. I got my mother to draw an Atomic Future Man logo on my T-shirt, wore a white lab coat and weird maroon wrestling-type headgear outfitted with a brassy metal mesh visor. I can’t for the life of me remember why I thought this would be a good thing, but I wore it with pride all night. This was after my dog collar-and-“EAT FLAMING DEATH!!!” T-shirt days, and well after my All White Clothing phase.

D. Growing up I was completely obsessed with Marlon Brando. Wrote numerous unsent letters to him. I had to get the tone just right and always failed. I was certain that we were going to become close friends. When he died I got several condolence calls.

E. Looking back at my elementary school years, I’d like to think I was quirky. Seeing photos of myself from that time makes me understand why other kids thought I was weird. What eleven-year-old adds a long, floral-print chiffon scarf to her T-shirt-and-shorts combo? Me, apparently. When I was fourteen, I discovered the joys of secondhand clothes and vintage shopping. By then, I was going to school with kids who were as nerdy as me. We thought it cool to recite lines from Monty Python. Our idea of a decadent night out was to go to the revue cinema that played The Rocky Horror Picture Show every weekend. In other words, I was in my element. I felt free to experiment, and I did.

My parents, much to their credit, never once said, “You’re wearing that?” when I went out. They had rules—I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup until I was fifteen—but they accepted my experiments with lace tights and sweatshirt dresses and shiny belts and bowler hats as par for the course. They knew I was a nerd, but I was a happy nerd. As I write this, I realize that I’ve never told them how much I appreciated that. Thanks, Mom & Dad!

Put on your guessing caps! This is the final batch of authors’ nerdy stories (click to read them from days one, two, and three). Check out authors’ sites if you’re flummoxed, then leave answers in the comments. You need to get only one right to be entered in the giveaway. Come back tomorrow for all the answers, and a “Before They Were Authors” slide show featuring pictures of some of the participants!

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Nerdfest: Day Three

Welcome to day three of the nerdathon! (Click for days one, two, and four.) Hope you have snacks and Gatorade to help keep up your energy. Wait a minute, aren’t we all nerds here? Keep eating those Cheetos and enjoy being hunched over your computer!

Today’s players:

* Sue Grafton—Does Sue need an introduction? She’s the creator of the popular alphabet series featuring Kinsey Millhone, and winner of multiple awards throughout her illustrious career, the most recent being the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Her next novel, V is for Vengeance, drops November 14. She’s been known to tell fans they can claim to be her cousin or pregnant at signings so they can get through the line to see her faster.

* T. Jefferson Parker—Jeff is the author of the Charlie Hood series, and has won the Edgar three times. The Southern California Independent Booksellers Association (SCIBA) even named an award after him that goes to the best mystery/thriller every year. He’s so modest, he doesn’t mention this on his website. He will admit that because he writes all his characters with respect, he’s beloved by henchmen for Mexican cartels.

* Laura Benedict—Laura writes dark, creepy thrillers and short stories, and edits the Surreal South anthologies, the third of which comes out next month. She’s the only female author featured in the Noir at the Bar anthology. She loves dark chocolate and sushi, and spends hours at Target feeling up Lego figurines.

* Eric Beetner—Eric’s the co-author of two novels with JB Kohl, and his short stories have been published in numerous anthologies, including D*cked and Pulp Ink. His novella Dig Two Graves will be released later this year. He’s sometimes confused about “blurbs” being euphemisms for sexual favors, and occasionally accosts other authors in the men’s room.

The stories:

A. When I was in fourth grade, I had a massive crush on John G., a fifth grader who was the monitor at our bus stop. Painfully shy, I had no idea what to say to him. Books were my best friends. So what better way to impress him than taking a mesh tote bag to school, filling it with every book, pencil, and crayon in my desk, and bringing it home on the bus! Unfortunately, after I added my truly magnificent, large-format, illustrated collection of Sherlock Holmes stories to the bag the next morning, the bag fell apart, spilling books everywhere. At the bus stop.

B. A very good friend of mine is an illustrator named Marc Sasso. In addition to being friends, we used to be neighbors. He stayed up late painting and I stayed up late writing, so I used to wander from my apartment to his around one a.m. and chat. Quite often he would need someone to pose for him, and I was the closest warm body. That’s how I ended up as, among other things, an X-Man. Marc was painting a series of trading cards for Marvel at the time. I posed for X-Treme.

Who the hell is X-Treme, you say? I have no idea. This may have been his only outing. Is it my fault? Possibly. But there I was (Marvel’s description): “The mysterious alien youth known as Adam X knows little about his own origins; only that he’s inexplicably drawn to Earth, where his ability to make blood burn makes him a formidable opponent for X-Force!” I posed with my old Red Sox hat and a cardboard shipping tube as my sword. The biceps were 100% mine, baby!*

* All muscles were completely fabricated. Did I mention I’m a writer?

C. The nerdiest thing I ever did (that I can talk about without being arrested or blackmailed) happened on the first airplane flight I ever took. The meal served was chicken with a barbecue sauce on the side. I thought it was tomato soup so I spooned it right up. I noticed the nearby passengers were giving me “the look” but I had no idea what the problem was.

D. When I was about ten years old, my brother and best friend and I collected thirty big, fat, black widow spiders from up under the eaves of the intermediate school down the street. We carried the spiders home in one of the big glass mayonnaise jars that we used to steal out of Dumpsters and clean out, punch holes in the lids of, and use to keep critters in. We got home and took the jar of spiders out to the back yard and sat down and looked through the glass at them. They were nice ones, all females, none of the multicolored, smaller males. And they were nervous and aggressive, as black widows always are.

We just couldn’t figure out what they might be good for, so we decided we may as well blow them up. I went to my room and got some firecrackers that were hidden under my bed, and a pack of matches from the kitchen. One of us unscrewed the lid and another one lit a firecracker and dropped it in. We crowded up nice and close to see the explosion, faces right up to the glass. But the firecracker fuse went out and nothing happened. We groaned and unscrewed the lid and lit another firecracker and dropped it in. Another dud! When the smoke cleared, we tried for a third time. This time we held the firecracker extra long, so it wouldn’t run out of oxygen once dropped. The spiders were seething by now, a crazy, 240-legged hydra very eager to get out and bite us. We screwed the lid on and got up close. Just then Dad came striding into the yard, sized up the situation and ran over, kicked the jar away and lifted my brother and me by our shirt collars. He ordered us inside so he could “tan our hides.” Just before the licking commenced, Dad looked at me and said, as he had often said before, “Son, sometimes I don’t think you have the brains you were born with.” I don’t miss being ten.

Think you can identify each author’s nerdy secret? Remember, you need to get only one right to be entered in the giveaway. Visit the authors’ sites for more info, then rest up for tomorrow’s final blowout before answers are revealed on Saturday!

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Nerdfest: Day Two

Welcome to day two of my nerdypalooza (here are days one, three, and four).

Today’s headliners are:

* Megan Abbott—Megan is an Edgar-winning author of six novels, including the recently released The End of Everything, which has been garnering raves everywhere. She has a PhD from New York University in English and American Literature, and would happily sign your leg with a Sharpie if you ask her.

* Gregg Hurwitz—Gregg has written eleven thrillers, the first of which he sold straight out of college. He has a BA from Harvard and a master’s in Shakespearean Tragedy from Trinity College at the University of Oxford. He also writes for Marvel Comics, likes to Google “unicorn pocket watch” in his spare time, and admires women’s athletic shoes.

* Sophie Littlefield—Sophie writes the Stella Hardesty mystery series, the first of which won her an Anthony Award for Best First Novel. She’s also the author of the Aftertime dystopian series featuring Cass Dollar, and the YA series about Hailey Tarbell that has a second installment, titled Unforsaken, coming out October 11. Sophie will kick you with high heels on if you badmouth Jason Statham, and do not get between her and her kettle-cooked chips, either.

* Todd Ritter—In addition to writing crime novels, Todd has been a journalist for over fifteen years, currently at New Jersey’s The Star-Ledger. His second Kat Campbell mystery, Bad Moon, will be out October 11 and has already received starred reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal. Todd wishes someone would make a reality TV show about sister wives who are hoarders, and he will not hesitate to cut people to get more legroom on planes.

* Meg Gardiner—Meg is the Edgar-winning author of the Evan Delaney and Jo Beckett series. She holds both an undergraduate and law school degree from Stanford. Stephen King is a fan of her work so you know she’s badass. She’s been suspected of bank robbery and fought seagulls for hamburgers, and she would hurl herself out of moving vehicles for the love of Foo Fighters.

The stories:

A. First, there are so many [nerdy moments] to choose from. There’s the time I fought my way through a rowdy crowd at the London Planetarium to get a seat for a lecture by two theoretical physicists. (First row for Michio Kaku and John Barrow. Woo!) And there’s my visit to a Star Trek exhibition, where I wore a Captain Kirk shirt. (I was outnerded by a friend who wore Ferengi ears.) But the nerdiest thing I ever did was to read a 500-page reference book in 90 minutes. In a car, on the way to Hollywood. I got a crazy headache from cramming my brain with trivia at 65 mph. But a couple of hours later I also got the correct response when Alex Trebek said, “Australia was originally called ‘Terra Incognita Australis,’ meaning this.” I hit the buzzer and said, “What is ‘Unknown Southern Land?'” I won three times.

B. I have read every single annotation in The Annotated Lolita. Twice. And just recalling it makes me think it’s time to do it again!

C. When I was in high school, I waitressed at a Howard Johnson’s. Some shifts were slower than others, and occasionally I got stuck with one of the dead shifts—weeknights after the dinner hour. We were not allowed to read on the job, and sometimes entire hours would pass with no new customers. To relieve the staggering boredom, I’d take a paper place mat and calculate square roots on the back. The trick was to start with a big number that looked like it might be a prime or at least have few divisors. Something like—say—723,591,117. I’d just pick a number that seemed it might be in the ballpark and give it a try, doing the math with my waitress pencil, then try again and again, narrowing in on the answer until I’d calculated it out to as many decimal points as the remainder of my shift allowed.

D. I am an incurable Disney geek who decided to go to Bouchercon in San Francisco only because I knew The Walt Disney Family Museum was there. I went and it was incredible. The museum, I mean. Although Bouchercon was fun, too.

E. I have a keyboard that I love. It’s REALLY clackety so it’s a lot like writing on a typewriter. In fact, when I’m pounding away, I feel like I’m building something. After six novels, it finally gave out. When I went to order another, I discovered that it had been discontinued and its parent company shut down. After driving to about ten stores, I realized that all the new keyboards are very quiet. I can’t write on a quiet keyboard. I thought my career might be over. I fretted. I stayed up nights. I paced. Then I got determined. After a series of investigative calls, I found myself connected to the night security guard in charge of the warehouse of the former company (which now stored the electronic goods of a new Silicon Valley company). When I offered to Western Union him a goodly amount for weekend beer, he said he’d go on the hunt for me in the dark recesses of the warehouse. Lo and behold, in the back, hidden beneath a tarp, he found a mound of my beloved keyboards. So I bought forty of them. I have them stacked all around my office, like backup security blankets.

Who said what? Leave guesses in the comments and you could win some of these books. Or just play for fun! If you need more info, visit the authors’ websites.

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