Judy works the night shift in a grocery store and leads a normal boring life — until she finds a yeti eating all the ice cream in the freezer aisle. Animal Control transfers her call to the Cryptobiological Containment and Rescue Services, who send Monster over. He’s blue, but seems otherwise well equipped to do some monster pest control. The next day, Judy forgets. More like immediately, really. Unfortunately for her, she’s a "light incognizant": she can recognize and absorb magical things happening, but she forgets almost as soon as they’re gone. As opposed to an incognizant — their minds can’t absorb magic at all so they just ignore it — or a cognizant, who sees, understands, and remembers. Life is hardest on light incognizants, because they have to puzzle through only half-remembering weird magical things. Too bad for Judy; things are about to get much worse.

After picking up the yeti at Judy’s grocery store, Monster just keeps running into her. Like he doesn’t have enough to deal with — his paper gnome of an assistant keeps telling him that he’s doing things wrong, his girlfriend is literally a demon, he just wants to sleep for a whole eight hours for once, and he changes to a different color every time he wakes up. But when he’s blue he’s invulnerable to violent harm.

Monster by A. Lee Martinez reads like a Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman novel and keeps you giggling while telling you a fun story that you start to think might just be the way things really do work. Especially if you liked Good Omens, by Pratchett and Gaiman, I’d recommend you give Monster a shot. It’s a little bit fantasy, a little bit mystery, but mostly a comedy. This book is perfect for a long flight or car ride as it’s a quick, easy, and entertaining read.

Jessica Seipel – Savage Branch

The Guild is an online series written by Felicia Day that premiered in July 2007. Season 4 episodes are currently being released weekly on MSN Video. Initially developed as a sitcom pilot, the show was instead produced to be shown online, with short episodes combining to tell a complete story. The Guild tells the story of the Knights of Good, an online-gaming guild who collaborate in an unnamed massively-multiplayer online role-playing game. We quickly learn from observing Codex (Day) that the game is the guild members’ alternate, preferred reality. The real world, though, has an annoying habit of intruding, and the first season begins when Zaboo (Sandeep Parikh) appears at Codex’s door under the impression that they’re dating. Things are really turned upside-down when Bladezz (Vincent Caso) behaves badly in-game, and the guild arranges an unprecedented real-world meeting at Cheesybeards to discuss the matter. The drama, tension, and abundant humor in the show develop as we watch the group attempt to function and interact to resolve their problems in the real world.

Originally produced as a web series, and released in six-minute online episodes, seasons one and two of the show are packaged together on DVD, with extras including audio commentaries, script PDFs, and interviews with the cast and crew. The production and marketing of The Guild has broken new ground, with Day and others using technology to forge direct connections with the audience. Felicia Day is active on Twitter (@FeliciaDay), and has produced a number of special videos to bring attention to the show, including Do You Want To Date My Avatar, a prelude to the release of season three. The Guild is one of the media highlights of the past couple of years — a can’t-miss experience! Watch seasons one and two on DVD and catch up with season three and the new season four online.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Years ago I read V. by Thomas Pynchon after I found out that my favorite band, Thrice, (check out Fire & Water and Air & Earth) used it as inspiration for their album Vheissu. V. is dense, mysterious, oblique, and in some rather indescribable ways felt more true to life than life itself. Since then, I’ve toyed with the idea of reading Pynchon’s other massive novels, but haven’t had time to invest the discipline required.

However, his latest release, Inherent Vice, emanated a more linear vibe from the outset. With a cover (and thickness) that would be right at home with any T. Jefferson Parker or James Patterson novel, I was surprised at its relative accessibility. It could be said that V.’s yarn was chopped up into three-inch segments, while in Inherent Vice the yarn is ten miles long, all jumbled up, and equally bizarre.

Set mainly in the all-pervasive drug haze of late 1960’s Los Angeles, Private Investigator Larry "Doc" Sportello is approached by his old flame and hired to locate her new flame, an iconic land developer who has vanished without a trace. With varying degrees of help from his couch-potato lawyer, an ARPAnet hacker, an overly-dramatic LAPD officer, and countless other one-or-two-page characters, Doc embarks on a virtually endless (and mindless) journey. In the process, Doc repeatedly encounters something called the Golden Fang. What is the Golden Fang? Is it a schooner? A person? A global drug-trafficking organization? A group of dentists? Or is it somehow all of the above?

The elusive identity of the Golden Fang brought to mind the unknown briefcase contents in Pulp Fiction, or the bird statue from Dashiell Hammett’s hard-boiled novel The Maltese Falcon. Both V. and Inherent Vice seem to be more about the search itself than the thing searched for. One of the more playful elements of this novel is Pynchon’s use of the music to set the tone, and even shed light on what’s happening in the plot — Amazon.com even offers a partial list of those songs. I was also amused by how the novel drifts in and out of semi-consciousness, and how the reclusive Pynchon presents Doc as anything but hard-boiled. Half-baked is more like it.

Dan Curry – Savage Branch

In The Road Home, novelist Rose Tremain stays faithful to real life in her flesh-and-blood creation of 43-year-old Lev. Lev is an Eastern European dreamer and widower with a young daughter, a hopelessly superstitious mother, and an irrepressible pal named Rudi, whose voracious (but misconstrued) appetite for everything “West” has him selling, in one very funny scene, the coat off his back and seven bottles of vodka for an ancient sky-blue "Tchevi" Phoenix with some serious transmission issues.

Lev, though, is more pragmatic — especially since the saw mill at Baryn closed. When he goes off to London in search of work, he schools himself to expect little and yet, what he finds shocks him. Here are the harried, often insensitive, and (from the viewpoint of someone coming from a land of nothing) grossly self-indulgent men and women of Rudi’s fanciful West – and none, Lev discovers to his dismay, look at all like his frame of reference: the actor Sir Alec Guinness.

Disoriented, bereft, and soon on the brink of collapse, Lev finds himself in a men’s washroom sobbing as the memory of his dead wife comes to him unbidden. “Why master feelings that, in this unreal world he’d just entered, felt real and true?” Tremain asks this question as Lev endures both emotional compromise and the struggle to keep a toe-hold on dignity – the plight of all immigrants.

When he finally lands a job as dishwasher in an upscale restaurant, his luck seems to be turning. Fascinated with the fast and furious kitchen drama surrounding him, Lev begins to realize a way out of his frustrating existence – but not until he is willing to let go of palpable memories. He meets this challenge with the help of his philosophizing Irish landlord, a Moslem kabob seller (who is certain that virgins are waiting for him in Heaven when he extends a kindness to Lev), and Ruby, a senior “living well beyond her shelf life," who recognizes in Lev a man deserving of dreams. Readers will agree, treasuring all of Tremain’s characters. But Lev they will cheer for!

Aimee Zuccarini – East Columbia Branch

Flight of the Conchords (Jermaine Clement and Bret McKenzie) are "New Zealand’s fourth most popular comedy-folk duo." On the back of this questionable level of domestic success halfway across the globe, they’ve decided to reach for the big time, and this mockumentary style HBO show documents their efforts to make it big in the New York City music business. In addition to professional success, Jermaine and Bret are looking for love, and plots often revolve around their efforts to meet women. 

Much of the humor here develops from the duo’s naiveté. They’re confounded by the city, mis-managed by the incompetent Murray (Rhys Darby), exploited by strangers they meet, and (perhaps worst of all) regularly mistaken for Australians. Murray, who juggles his responsibilities to the band with his day job at the New Zealand Consulate, has the band’s best interests at heart but is clearly out of his depth. When he isn’t misleading the Conchords deliberately, Murray gets the guys into trouble by accident. Any career move proposed by Murray is frequently over before it starts.

Thankfully, the Conchords know a couple of other people in the city. They are supported/obsessively stalked by their one fan, Mel (Kristen Schaal), who goes to all their concerts and spends a suspicious amount of time on the sidewalk outside their apartment. They can also turn to local pawnshop owner Dave (Arj Barker) for the unvarnished truth about their situation and circumstances.

The show plays with the format of episodic television, as each of the duo’s adventures dissolves into a musical number that furthers the plot. These pitch-perfect parodies are the hook that keeps the viewer coming back, as the Conchords spoof David Bowie, 60s euro-pop, or The Beatles to tell us more of their story. Particular stand-outs are the chemical-fueled Pretty Prince of Parties, Foux da fa-fa that takes us through the duo’s double-date with the ladies from the croissant shop, and Leggie Blonde, a performance piece documenting Murray’s unrequited love for Jessica, the embassy’s contractor from IT support. Howard County Library owns both season one and season two of Flight of the Conchords, as well as I Told You I Was Freaky, the band’s music CD from season two. Catch up with Jermaine and Bret today!

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

First published in 1889, Mark Twain’s delightful novel A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court feels descriptive of our own time. I had never read Twain before (I think I was supposed to in high school, but somehow managed not to, like many other reading assignments) and now I want to read everything he’s ever written. The humor here is so brilliant and satirical. One might think that things were different over a hundred years ago, but by the last page of this gem I was rather convinced that nothing much has changed.

Here is the story of Hank. Hank is your run-of-the-mill 19th-century New Englander, who, after getting conked on the head, awakens centuries earlier in the realm of Camelot. When he realizes that escape from this world takes more than being doused with water in the waking world, he decides that the next best thing he can do is embrace it — and reform it. Armed with 1300 years worth of future knowledge, Hank quickly rises to prominence in this barbaric society. Before long, he’s got the whole kingdom lined with telephone wires, printing presses, factories, and other modern amenities.

If you have ever seen Mike Judge’s hopefully-never-to-be-fulfilled prophetic-comedy film Idiocracy, you’ll notice many parallels with Twain’s novel. Twain explores the apparent human inability to break free from self-destructive societal constructs and beliefs — how we happily submit ourselves to popular ideas without knowing how to properly critique them. But because it’s so darn funny, I was able to take the indictment in stride, and learn something in the process. I would encourage everyone, especially high school and college students, to read this classic novel.

Dan Curry – Savage Branch

I have owned and given away at least three copies of Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie. The copies I loan rarely come back to me because this is one of the best feel-good romantic comedies ever. It’s an opposites-attract romance, with a great supporting cast that includes his friends and family, her friends and family, a neurotic cat, Elvis, an Italian restaurant,, and a collection of snow globes. Min Dobbs is an actuary who wears great shoes and goes by the nickname "Stats," and Cal Morrisey owns a training consultant business with two of his best friends and loves to bet on everything. The book hangs on a bet (and whether it was actually made) about Cal getting Min to go on a date — and maybe into bed. My favorite scene involves chocolate donuts and a Little League baseball game.

While Bet Me is my favorite (the audiobook is good, too), other Crusie titles don’t disappoint. Manhunting romps through a golf resort when Kate Svenson decides she has The Plan to find the perfect husband. It’s funny how plans can fall apart at a moment’s notice. In Welcome to Temptation, a big city girl Sophie Dempsey meets small town small-mindedness. Of course, mayor Phin Tucker is just the one for her. This book contains some of the funniest scenes ever put in print.

Crusie’s newest novel, The Cinderella Deal, offers a sweet romance between two lost souls. Daisy Flattery is an artist who collects cast offs (furniture, clothes, pets) because she still sees the value and beauty in them. Her mantra is "color and contrast." Linc Blaise is a college professor who has a line on the perfect job, only the dean prefers married staff. He and Daisy strike a Cinderella Deal where she pretends to be his straight laced fiancee until "midnight." Of course, it turns out to be a fairy tale match.

The author has a talent for writing about smart, modern women who still believe in happily ever after. The dialogue in all her books sparkle, and often produce out-loud chuckles. The pacing is fast, and the romances are hot. Or maybe, the romance is fast, and the pacing is hot. Either way, a Jennifer Crusie novel is always good for a laugh, a blush, and a sigh.

Kristen Blount – Administration Office

Are big-budget blockbusters burning you out? Take a journey back in time with me to 1954 — the year of the musical film Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. This was such a departure from my usual fare that I ended up laughing at myself for having such a good time watching such an old film. Here is the simple story of Adam Pontipee, a mannerless mountain man who one day strolls into town with one thing on his mind: gettin’ married. And, in fine Pontipee fashion, he manages to do so in the time it takes to sing a song ("Bless Your Beautiful Hide") and eat a meal. Mission accomplished, he and his wife Milly return to Adam’s cabin in the mountains.

Before long, Milly discovers that she is in for more than she bargained for. Not only does Adam completely lack any sense of civility, but neither do his six younger brothers — all of whom live in that same cabin in the mountains. The rest of the movie revolves around these six brothers and their awkward attempts to follow in Adam’s footsteps. The real joy of this movie is in the song and dance, which once you’ve experienced in the context of the film, will delight you by itself. Besides "Bless Your Beautiful Hide," there are the equally entertaining "Going Courtin’" and "Sobbin’ Women," the latter of which is a brilliant pun. Seven Brides For Seven Brothers is the perfect choice for either a family movie night or a date night.

Dan Curry – Savage Branch

Rushmore presents a comedic slice of the life of protagonist Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) as he learns to leave the world of private school behind and stand on his own two feet. At Rushmore, Fischer is the king of the extracurricular activity. Among his many commitments, he is Debate Team Captain, Lacrosse Team Manager, Calligraphy Club President and Astronomy Society Founder. Because Rushmore benefits from his organizational skills, Max is tolerated, but no one at school particularly likes him. More significantly, with all his time spent on clubs and societies, Fischer is not what you could call an academic success.

In spite of these difficulties, Fischer forges a friendship with local businessman Herman Blume (Bill Murray), who sees some potential in Max’s drive. Blume becomes Max’s friend, mentor, and ultimately competitor for the affections of elementary school teacher Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). Cross is a likely candidate for Max’s first serious crush. She’s beautiful, sophisticated, educated, and compassionate. Of course, he falls in love. Complications arise when Max introduces Miss Cross to Blume, and finds that he may have sabotaged his own (non-existent) prospects for a relationship. To cope and keep hold of what is important to him, he must come to grips with reality outside the ivy-covered walls of Rushmore.

Director Wes Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson blend the real and the surreal seamlessly, creating a movie that is both ridiculously exaggerated and completely universal. You’ll laugh as soon as you see Fischer’s yearbook, and the war between Blume and Fischer over Miss Cross is a comedy highlight. Settle in for a good laugh, and watch Rushmore today!

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

If, like me, you’re convinced that cats know more than they’re letting on, and that maybe, just maybe, they’re the ones who are behind the scenes pulling the strings, this is the book for you. I Can Has Cheezburger by Eric Nakagawa is an outgrowth of the Web site of the same name. This book provides a forum for photographers who have been fortunate enough to catch their cats deep in conspiratorial thought. The collection of images proves beyond a doubt (cough), that cats are running the show.

Each picture includes an appropriately comical caption in first-person cat-speak. Cats, it appears, have their own grammatical conventions, lexicon, and particular style of writing known as lolspeak. They also have a unique set of concerns revolving around food, self-image, and the appropriate application of their abundant power. Sometimes the cats focus on important members of their community, such as monorail kitteh and ceiling cat, and often they’re preoccupied with food, especially the titular cheezburger. The revelation that cats like burgers, though, is just the tip of the cat culture iceberg.

Take a look at I Can Has Cheezburger to discover the true extent of this feline conspiracy. You’ll be shocked! 

John Jewitt – Savage Branch