"A mystery is solved with a story. The story starts with a clue, but the trouble is that you usually have no idea what the clue is, even if you think you know." 

— Lemony Snicket, All the Wrong Questions
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In Lemony Snicket's sophomore (and much shorter) series, All the Wrong Questions, we follow him as a young detective in the derelict town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea. It's here that a priceless statue has been stolen. In its streets and suburbs reside a colorful cast of suspects. Some of my favorites include: 

• Moxie Mallahan: an about-thirteen-year-old girl aspiring to one day be a big-shot journalist. Abandoned by her mother. 
  
  
• Ellington Feint: About thirteen also. She's seeking the statue for her own motives. Green Eyes. Dark Hair. Question-mark-shaped eyebrows. 
  
  
• Stew Mitchum: Slightly-older teenager. No-good bully. Picks on Lemony. Never seems to get caught especially by his parents, who are actually both cops and supposedly fantastic sleuths. 
  
  
• Harvey and Mimi Mitchum: Stain'd-by-the-Sea police officers. Notorious for constantly arguing. Stew's doting parents.
  
  
• Pip and Squeak Bellerophon: a taxi-driving duo who're too short to reach the peddles. Because they're just kids. 

Much like in A Series of Unfortunate Events, Snicket's subversive humor blends easily with pointed observations about the trials and joys of growing up, of relating to adults and other children, and of trying to navigate a new, mysterious, and sometimes even tragic,  world. Untangling the mixture of motives of these lovable characters in a new, delightfully-awkward city was quite a unique concoction. I can't wait to dive into the rest of the series and report back. 

Respectfully, 
[JG]

Lemony Snicket, to quote the book jacket, "had an unusual education, and a perplexing youth and now endures a despondent adulthood." His previous published works include the 13-volume A Series of Unfortunate Events, my favorite kids book series ever. Yes, even more than Harry Potter. 
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Lemony Snicket
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"...From this vantage point atop the mainmast, she was able to see the color of the water many miles ahead, an intricate pattern of blues and greens of different intensities. In her mind, these registered as depths; she could read them as if they were a chart marked with surroundings." 

— Michael Crichton, Pirate Latitudes
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Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park and The Lost World, screenwriter of Twister and Westworld, director of The Great Train Robbery and Looker, sets his sights on the golden age of piracy in Pirate Latitudes. In it, we sail the Caribbean from England's Port Royal to Spain's military fort on Matanceros with a cutthroat team of privateers, each with a unique skillset and each hell-bent on using it for revenge to take a certain treasure galleon as a prize. 

This is like the super-adult, gritty, historically-accurate version of Pirates of the Caribbean that I've been desperately looking for. The setting and energy of the times are established immediately, and the world-building details enhance the simple heist storyline. If you want to get lost for an afternoon and sail the high seas, battle a kraken, murder some corrupt government officials, run from cannibals, have a lagoon-side tryst, and try to steal a boatload of gold, then grab Pirate Latitudes. ​[JG]

​"There are certain things which enter the minds of even people without one."

– Jean, Rhinoceros

On a normal Sunday morning, a peaceful, nameless town is deeply shaken when, inexplicably, a rhinoceros stampedes through the town square. There's no such beast for miles it's believed, not even in the far-off city zoo. However, a second one appears that same morning, killing someone's cat; a third arrives and then more, until the "movement" is universal. Worse, average citizens begin transforming into the beasts, as they learn to "move with the times." 

Rhinoceros reads like a horror-comedy with its strange mix of a surreal situation and dystopian metaphors. Illogical syllogisms from the town's Logician seem to hasten the multiplying. Pointless arguments about how to identify specific species of rhinoceros eat up public discourse. And the mayor and press would rather declare the rhinoceros as unreal, the townspeople as suffering from "collective psychosis," than face the truth. Few do; fewer resist the transformation and cling to their humanity.

​This play was recommended to me by Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny, a fantastic pocket-sized book with "twenty lessons from the twentieth century," which explores the creeping tell-cards of authoritarianism. Ionesco's exploration in just under 100 pages are as relevant and accessible as when he wrote them in post-WWII France. I thoroughly enjoyed—and grimaced—throughout this obscure and unique play. [JG]
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Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994) was a Romanian-French writer who crafted more than twenty plays, as well as stories, memoirs, and essays, including some sharp criticisms of Victor Hugo. Like in Rhinoceros, much of his work explores the dangers of trusting authority figures, human solitude experienced within society, and his absurdist views of existence.
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"This thing in front of you. This issue. This obstacle--this frustrating, unfortunate, unexpected problem...What if it wasn't so bad?"

- Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way

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Ryan Holiday is a bestselling author of books on marketing, Stoic philosophy, American culture, and the human condition. His work has been translated into twenty languages and appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review, Fast Company, The New York Observer, and others. 

Website

I first encountered Ryan by way of the Chase Jarvis Live show in 2012, and thanks to him discovered some other incredible creatives, including bestselling author Robert Greene, CEO of Breather Julian Smith, human guinea pig Tim Ferriss.
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"It's time you understood that the wold is telling you something with each and every failure and action. It's feedback--giving you precise instructions on how to improve, it's trying to wake you up from your cluelessness. It's trying to teach you something...Failure shows us the way--by showing us what isn't the way." 

- Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way

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"I'm writing this down in case something should happen to me. My name is Allen Brewster. I'm nine years old...There's a brown car parked outside in the street with two men in it. They're watching..."

- Allen Brewster, Top Secret

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Summer is officially here (!), so I thought I'd stack my reading list for the next few months with some favorites of mine from summers past. I first picked up Top Secret off the shelf of Starkweather Elementary's library in the second grade, and made a habit of rereading it every few months or so, even going so far as to hide it in *ahem* a top secret *ahem* part of the library. Sorry, Mrs. Burston...

Moving on, the story follows Allen Brewster, an ambitious fourth grader who wants to win the annual science fair, proving his teacher Miss Green wrong. His project? To create human photosynthesis, turning sunlight into food for humans. His test subject? Himself.

No one though seems to believe he can do it, even after he turns green and sprouts roots, convinced that it's a trick. That is, except for the President of the United States. Suddenly Allen and his discovery become Top Secret. [JG]
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John Reynolds Gardiner ( 1944 - 2006) was an engineer living and working in Los Angeles, and the author of three children's books including Top Secret, General Butterfingers, and Stone Fox, which sold over four million copies. 

​Mark Simont (1915 - 2013) was born in Paris and the son of a Spanish painter. Throughout his career, Simont created political cartoons and illustrated many children's books, including Top Secret, 13 Clocks, and A Tree is Nice, for which he won the 1957 Caldecott Medal for U.S. children's book illustration.
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"I looked at myself in the mirror again. I looked perfectly normal really, except for one small change. My skin had turned bright green, the color of a leaf on a tree." 

- Allen Brewster, Top Secret

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Ali Almossawi
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Rene Ahdieh
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