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Charlie Chaplin vs. America, by Scott Eyman*****

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Charlie Chaplin rose to fame over 100 years ago, but his fame hasn’t faded over the years. One of the most visionary movie makers in modern history, he rose from desperate poverty and homelessness during his childhood to become one of the wealthiest and most respected men in his chosen profession. And yet, for some odd reason, the U.S. government relentlessly pursued him as if he were an enemy agent, eventually forcing him to retire abroad. It’s a bizarre episode in U.S. history, and a fascinating one.

When I saw that Scott Eyman, an author whose biographies of actors I have previously enjoyed—John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda—had written about this case, I had to read it. My thanks go to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

Charlie was born in 1889 in London. His mother Hannah was an actress, a loving mother whose health was dreadful. In addition to more conventional illnesses, she was sent repeatedly, and for longer stretches each time, to mental hospitals; it has been speculated that she suffered from syphilis, which eventually had devastating effects on her brain. Charlie’s father was a businessman who left the family and refused to pay a single shilling of child support because one of Charlie’s brothers was conceived with another man. And as an aside, if there is an afterlife, I sincerely hope that Charles Chaplin, Senior is roasting eternally in the flames of hell.

For a while, Hannah’s relatives cared for Charlie and his older brother, Syd, but eventually the boys found themselves in a workhouse, beaten, abused, sickened, and barely fed. It was his brother Syd who first discovered that acting could keep him out of the workhouse and put food on the table, and once he was so employed, Syd took his pale, sickly little brother to the theater and persuaded his boss to use Charlie, too. Thus was a star born.

His tremendous suffering during his childhood gave Charlie a lifelong sympathy with the working class, the impoverished, and the down and out. Early in his career, a director gave Charlie a costume and told him to come up with a character, and this was when he invented The Little Tramp.

I’ve known for most of my life about Charlie’s expulsion from the U.S., but I’ve never been sure whether he was a Communist. I’ve known people brought up in Communist households in America, and for many years, they existed strictly underground, so I wondered, did Chaplin deny his affiliation because he wasn’t a Communist, or because he was? Eyman’s meticulous research demonstrates once and for all that Charlie was not political. He told the truth about himself: “I am not a Communist. I am a peace monger.”

Nevertheless, once he gained prominence in the American movie industry, he had a target on his back. It’s difficult to understand why politicians and bureaucrats in California and in Washington, D.C. hated him so fiercely.

“A month after the revocation of [Chaplin’s] reentry permit, the FBI issued a massive internal report documenting more than thirty years of investigations focused on Chaplin, a copy of which was dispatched to the attorney general. The report revealed that, besides the FBI, Army and Navy Intelligence, the Internal Revenue Service, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of State, and the U.S. Postal Service had all been surveilling Chaplin at one time or another. In short, the entire security apparatus of the United States had descended upon a motion picture comedian.”

Eyman has done a wonderful job here. Because I had fallen behind, I checked out the audio version of this book from Seattle Bibliocommons, and I alternately listened to it and read the digital review copy. Of course, anyone reading this book for the purpose of academic research should get a physical copy, but those reading for pleasure may enjoy the audio, which is well done; this is a through, and a lengthy biography, and the audio makes it go by more quickly.

I confess I haven’t read any other Chaplin biographies, so I cannot say for certain whether this one is the best, but it’s hard to imagine a better one. For those sufficiently interested to take on a full length biography, this book is highly recommended.

Piglet, by Lottie Hazell****

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“Such a special day.”

Piglet is an offbeat novel that marks the debut of author Lottie Hazell. The protagonist is a young woman named Pippa, but everyone calls her Piglet. This author has me before I open the book, because with a nickname like this, I have to see what’s behind it, and where it’s going. My thanks go to NetGalley and Henry Holt for the review copy; this book is available to the public now.

Piglet lives in London, far from the working class area where she was raised, and where the rest of her family still resides. She’s a cookbook editor for a publishing company, is engaged to marry Kit, who is handsome and comes from a well to do family, and they have recently purchased a gorgeous home. Her star is clearly rising.

It’s a tightrope walk, to be certain. People with money have expectations, and so it’s not easy for Piglet to advocate for herself in the presence of his family. But she genuinely likes them, and so she works with them—which generally means that they get their way. Her own family mildly embarrass her when the two families meet, but her folks won’t often cross paths with these people once she and Kit are wed.

Then, two weeks before the wedding, Kit confesses a terrible, terrible betrayal, and Piglet has to decide whether she is in or out. As she unravels, I watch in horror. Piglet, you see, is an emotional eater.

In many ways, Piglet is the protagonist I have been wanting to read all my life. So often female main characters respond to stress by not eating. The lesser characters around them cluck over how pale, how thin they’ve become, and I sit back on my ample behind and say, “Yeah, right.”

But Piglet’s stress eating is epic in scope, and I also worry that the resolution will involve therapy, a new diet and a wedding gown in a size smaller than anything she’s ever owned. And since this much comes from my own imaginings rather than the book, I’ll go ahead and tell you, no. That doesn’t happen, and I am so grateful.

For most of this novel, I feel an intimacy with the protagonist that is rare. I can’t wait to find out what happens next, but I also can’t tolerate interruptions, and so I choose my reading sessions carefully. I am fortunate enough to receive both the digital review copy and the audio galley, and at the outset, I do what is my usual routine in such circumstances, listening to it while I am doing something else, but with the DRC nearby so that I can make notes or highlight likely passages for quotes. But by the time I am about thirty percent in, that’s over, and instead I am listening while reading also, because how can I think of anything else?

There are two things that I am dying to know. First, does she stay with Kit? And more importantly, what terrible thing did he do? Piglet keeps this information close to her vest, but the few people she tells are uniformly horrified, and so I know it’s bad. But what is it? Just what the hell did he do?

The ending feels incomplete to me. There are so many things that Hazell could have done and didn’t that I am disappointed by what feels like a slightly bland resolution. This is a good book, but it could have been a great one.

Hazell’s word smithery skills are stellar, and when I was done, I found I’d highlighted over 150 passages. Obviously, I won’t use them all here. Most of the novel’s tone is quite serious, but there are a few moments of dark humor that leave me shaking my head in admiration. In particular, there’s a wedding photographer that makes me howl!

The narrator is outstanding.

One way or another, Lottie Hazell is an author to watch. I look forward to seeing what she produces next.

The Great Divide, by Cristina Henriquez*****

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I found The Great Divide, by Cristina Henriquez, on a short list of most anticipated novels of 2024. I don’t like to get shut out when a book gets this much buzz; then there’s the added draw of an unusual setting. The U.S. doesn’t see a lot of fiction published that’s set primarily in Panama during the early 1900s, and so that sealed it. My thanks go to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the review copies, both audio and digital. This story lives up to the hype, and I recommend it to you.

I am not so sure about it at the outset. There is a robust quantity of characters that are important to the story, and each of them is given a brief chapter all to themselves. I wonder whether they will ever intersect, or if this will turn out to be a collection of short stories, but before much longer, characters are meeting other characters. They don’t all end up together in the end, but we can see the ties that have formed. There are a lot of people to keep track of, and for me, having both the print version and the audio is tremendously helpful. Robin Miles narrates in a way that is natural and fluid, and I don’t notice much of what is around me when I listen to her. But once in awhile a character is mentioned and I draw a blank; here is where the Kindle version is essential, because I highlight the names of each of the characters, and this enables me to instantly flip back to where they were introduced to us without having to stop listening. Eventually, of course, I no longer need to do so, but knowing that I can makes for stress-free reading.

I am engaged with these characters, each of whom feels real to me, and I groan when I see them get into trouble, and sigh with relief once they are in the clear again. The ones that I care about most are a father and son that are estranged from each other, neither wanting to stay that way, yet both of them incorrectly interpreting the silence of the other. As we reach the climax, I can tell there are three ways for this situation to resolve: they can reconcile; one of them can die; or the son can decide to follow another character back to the U.S.A. without reconnecting with his dad.  It only now occurs to me that there was a fourth possibility, which was to leave them still estranged at the end; but by this time, Henriquez had shown herself to be a better writer than that, and while I won’t tell you how they wound up, I will say that she didn’t leave her readers dangling.

Because this is an intricately woven tale with a lot of equally important characters, I’m not including any quotes, but I will say that Henriquez is a talented writer, and anyone that loves good historical fiction should get this book and read it. This applies even more so to those interested in Latin American history and the building of the canal. I hadn’t read her work before, but she’s on my radar now, and I look forward to seeing what she writes next.

Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice, by Elle Cosimano*****

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“I’m telling you, Finlay, this book is good. This whole SERIES is good. The plots may be a little far-fetched, but these characters are so real! It’s like they just jump off the page!“

Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice is the fourth in the raucously entertaining series by Elle Cosimano. My thanks go to the Minotaur and St. Martin’s Press Influencer Program and NetGalley for the review copy. It will be available to the public Tuesday, March 5, 2024.

At the end of the previous book, Javi, Finn’s nanny Vero’s boyfriend, was abducted by mobsters that wanted to collect a gambling debt incurred by Vero. In this one, the two women plan to travel to Atlantic City to rescue him, with the cover story of needing time to unwind. However, things snowball, and before you know it, almost all the people they hold dear—and a few people that they don’t—are headed there, too. What follows is a riotous adventure with a lot of moving pieces. I love it.

More than any other, this installment has been controversial among reviewers. In the series debut, Finlay is an innocent, entirely law abiding single mother strapped with bills, work, and child care issues. She’s in the midst of a contentious divorce and her soon-to-be ex is an attorney, which makes Finlay’s efforts an uphill battle. She’s easy to relate to, and when, through no fault of her own, she finds herself with a corpse in her car, it seems entirely believable.

With the second and third books in the series, Finn, accompanied by the more street smart Vero, find themselves in deeper trouble. Just as they mop up one mess, another arises, until there’s a sort of house-that-Jack-built tower of problems that see both women in increasingly tenuous circumstances. They break the law once as a life or death matter, but then cannot safely come clean, so they do their best to put it behind them, but someone or something comes along to threaten the modest safety and security they’ve begun to enjoy. Bodies and crimes pile up, and now, with the fourth installment, the author can’t reasonably convince the reader that whatever happens next is purely an oopsie. Instead, she has to draw on other possibilities. Personally, I like it.

Finn and Vero are chasing down the underworld figures that they believe have abducted Javi, and there’s considerable risk involved. A couple of times I literally draw in my breath at the risks they take. Add to this the need to fabricate excuses to tell the myriad members of the retinue that have descended on Atlantic City with them, and it’s an ambitious undertaking.

In this circumstance, I no longer require realism. The whole thing takes on the flavor of a comic caper, what with the clown car full of women, including Finn’s mother; Finn’s ex-husband, who is in charge of the children; and various others (I am being deliberately vague here) that descend on them once they arrive. To put it another way, if Stephanie Plum and John Dortmunder—or if you prefer, Bernie Rhodenbarr—had a baby, she might be Finlay Donovan.  

If you need a good laugh, this book is for you; however, with this series, you really should begin with the first in the series, Finlay Donovan is Killing It. With just four in the series (and the audio is outstanding, too,) this will be a quick and hilarious adventure. What are you waiting for? Jump on in.

Starter Villain, by John Scalzi****

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I’m not going to write a full review for this one; my spouse got it for me for Christmas, so I don’t owe anyone anything. I will tell you, though, that it’s just what I needed, funny, warm, and of course, not even close to realistic. After all, it’s fantasy. The level of unreality is well crafted and consistent within the narrative, and it’s hugely inventive. This is my first John Scalzi novel, and I will read him again in a heartbeat.

After Annie, by Anna Quindlen*****

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After Annie tells the story of a family that is changed by the sudden death of the mother, a woman still in her thirties. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review. This book will be available to the public Tuesday, February 27, 2024.

I’ve read a number of books by this author, and I have come to notice a pattern. I read the synopsis, like the sentence I used to begin this review. I see what it’s about and shrug. Doesn’t sound like it would be all that special, but hey, it’s Quindlen, and I have liked her work before, so let’s give it a shot. After all, in past novels, the topics also didn’t seem engaging at the outset. One novel is about a family being forced to relocate due to eminent domain; another has to do with parking spaces in New York City. There’s a memoir about grandparenting, and another about—I kid you not—her dog. Nothing here seems all that appealing.

Yet in some ways, it is the very ordinariness of her subjects that draws us in. So many of us have had to move when we didn’t want to, and so we fought it; or we became so angry with a neighbor’s thoughtlessness that we fantasized about terrible revenge; or we dealt with a death that came out of the blue, striking down someone that was perfectly healthy, or that seemed to be. If we haven’t done any of these things, chances are excellent that someone else we care about has. By tapping into every day experiences and crises of various sizes, Quindlen finds commonalities.

But perhaps the most important feature of her books, particularly her novels, is the way that she crafts characters that are so visceral we would know them if we saw them on the street. Young Ali, the daughter who’s just beginning middle school, yet suddenly finds herself burdened by all of the things her mother did for the family, from child care to meals to housework, is so real to me that I nearly climb inside of her skin, and when Annie’s best buddy tries to tell Bill, Annie’s husband, Ali’s dad, that this isn’t okay and he blows her off, I want to cry out. We can see that he’s behaving selfishly, whether he knows it or not, because he is so poleaxed with grief. It’s hard to prepare a meal when you can’t stop crying. Hell, Bill can hardly go into the kitchen, because that’s where she died.

Grief was like spring, maybe. You thought you were getting out from under it, and then it came roaring back. And getting out from under it felt like forgetting, and forgetting felt like treason.

I began reading this story because I like the author, but it also serves as a grief book. I found this out when my sister died about halfway through. Unlike Annie, my sister was not in the prime of her life, nor was her death unexpected. She’d been horribly ill and in great pain for years on end. Her death was a relief, ending her pain, and ending the anguish of others that had been constantly seeing her that way, helpless to improve her life in any way. So I am not poleaxed like poor Bill. She didn’t leave behind a houseful of small children and a middle schooler trying to pick up all of the pieces. She didn’t have a six year old who would explain to everyone that his mommy wouldn’t be dead anymore once she came home from the hospital. But what I am saying is that I find this book more soothing than I would have guessed. If you or someone near to you is dealing with loss, After Annie may help you too.

Highly recommended.

A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan*****

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Timothy Egan, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is one of my favorite historians to read. His most recent book, A Fever in the Heartland occupied the bestseller lists for months, and rightly so. I took my time with it because it is a very uncomfortable read most of the way through, with the first half being much rougher than the last. I learned a lot from it, and this is clearly a case of truth being stranger than fiction.

The Klan was originally formed by former Confederate officers after the Union’s victory in the American Civil War. However, it was stamped out during Reconstruction, and was gone for fifty years. It was revived on Stone Mountain, Georgia, and the horrifically racist film by D.W. Griffin, The Birth of a Nation, which depicts African-American men as crazed rapists that drink to excess and lose their minds when a Caucasian woman is anywhere nearby, not only aided its reincarnation, but contributed one of its most feared symbols. No crosses were burned until it showed up on movie screens around the United States; the pointy hoods were shaped that way to make the men underneath them appear taller. Later, the women’s organization had robes with cardboard forms in their own pointy hats, because a night of terrorism is no excuse for a woman to let her hair get out of control.

At one point, one Caucasian man in three belonged to the Klan. There was even a children’s organization, with activities similar to boy and girl scouts.

The woman that is at the center of this story, Madge Oberholzer, was the secretary in the office of D.C. Stephenson, the Grand Dragon of the newly revived Klan. Despite the hugely moral speeches he gave around the country extolling traditional values (for the time) including the avoidance of alcohol; women that remain virgins until marriage and then live their lives in service to their husbands and young children; Protestantism, with regular church attendance; Caucasian separation from other races and ethnicities; and unquestioning patriotism, Stephenson himself was a drunk, as well as a serial rapist and sexual sadist, fond of using his teeth to mutilate the women that he savaged. Madge was the one victim that would not crawl into the shadows, and she literally used her last dying breaths to expose him.

I was given a hardcover copy of this book when it was at its height of popularity, but it took me a long time to get through it, because I could only stand to read a few pages at a time. The end was enormously satisfying, however, and even in the worst parts, there are occasional moments that made me want to stand up and cheer. For example: the Klan plot to go the University of Notre Dame—a Catholic university– and burn the golden dome there was foiled by its football team, and the melee that ensued when they physically attacked the Klan is the origin of their nickname, The Fighting Irish. (The dome survived.)

Often when I read nonfiction history, I can’t help imagining how much more interesting it would be if it were written as historical fiction. That was never the case here. Firstly, if this were a fictional account, reviewers everywhere would have been brutal, because nobody would ever believe a story like this one. But the fact is, it’s entirely true, and Egan is second to none when it comes to research. Also, his conversational narrative style is as interesting as the best historical fiction; the pace here is slowed in places, not by any lack of authorial fluency, but by the horrifying nature of this true story.

For those that have the capacity to read something like this without becoming morbidly depressed or coming unstuck, this book is highly recommended. For everyone else, I recommend finding something lighter and more uplifting to alternate with it, and to never read this at bedtime. You won’t want it in your dreams.

The Land of Lost Things, by John Connolly*****

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“We must be careful of our fancies and wary of our dreams, lest the worst of them should be heard or witnessed, and something should choose to act upon them.”

Are you up for a partly sweet, partly sinister bedtime story? If so, John Connolly is your man, and this is your book. My thanks go to Net Galley and Atria Books for the review copy. This book was published in September, 2023, and I am disgracefully late, but this is largely due to my realization that I could not read the second in a two book set and review it effectively without first ferreting out the first book, The Book of Lost Things. Now that I’ve read them both, I can recommend both to you unreservedly. At the same time, I will caution you that—what with the titles of this and its predecessor—this is emphatically not a children’s book! When I saw the title, I wondered if, like so many authors of late, Connolly had decided he should write a book for tiny tots. This is not that! Don’t hand this book to your child, or anyone else’s, unless they are already both old and mature enough to enjoy the works of Stephen King—or for that matter, other books by Mr. Connolly.

In the first book, a boy named David, who is mourning the death of his beloved mother and increasingly alienated from his father, stepmother, and tiny baby (half) brother, begins to notice strange things about the books in his bedroom, which came with the house. Events lead him to a place near his house, where he is sucked into an alternate world in an alternate wood, and it is there that nearly all of the narrative takes place.

Now, in this story, we have one of David’s descendants, a young mother named Ceres, whose little daughter, Phoebe, lies comatose in a hospital. Because of the place’s location, she decides to stay in a family home that is not being used currently, what with being rundown, but which is convenient to the place where Phoebe is. And yes of course, it’s that house, and those woods are still there.

Nearly twenty years separate the publication of the first book and the second, and I can see the difference immediately. Whereas The Book of Lost Things is well written and quite memorable, The Land of Lost Things is even better. The pages turn themselves, and the words pop off the pages. The fairy tales that Connolly implants into the first half of the book are cleverly altered, and I laugh out loud more than once as I read them. And then, as things darken and become tenser, the dangers more palpable, it’s hard for me to look away. I learned years ago not to read Connolly’s work too close to bedtime, and that habit stands me in good stead here.

Part of the charm inherent in everything Connolly writes is his impatience with pretentious attitudes and behaviors, and his deep respect for women. Add to this his tight, resonant dialogue and his dark, crackling wit, and the result is a large, loyal fan base, of which I am obviously one.

For those that love satire and are drawn to things that go bump in the dark, this magical book—and its predecessor—are highly recommended.

The Last Outlaws, by Tom Clavin***

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Tom Clavin is the author of Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier, which is one of the best nonfiction galleys I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading, and so when I saw his new book, The Last Outlaws: The Desperate Final Days of the Dalton Gang, I jumped at the chance. My thanks go to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Sadly, I didn’t find the same level of fascination this time around. Outlaws! The Dalton Gang! How could this not be absorbing? And yet.

It is possible that had I read it rather than listened to it, I might have thought better of it. The narrator speaks in a clipped voice that at times approaches a monotone. I recall having an older male relative fast-reading some sort of legal agreement out loud. He obviously didn’t want to read it but had been told he must read every word before signing, and so he rushed through it, out loud, without pausing between the sentences, just to get through it. This seemed a little like that, as if the voice actor was bored to tears and wanted to be done. There is a place about a quarter of the way in where both he and the narrative perked up some, and I thought, Ah, here we go.

But we didn’t.

On the plus side, Tom Clavin gets his information straight before he writes anything, ever, so whereas those looking for entertainment should look elsewhere, those that genuinely want the information should get this book, either digitally or as a bound copy, and read it. Those doing research for a history essay or the like could do a lot worse than this.

So there you have it. Clavin is a capable author, and I am not done with him, but this narrator and I are finished.

On the Line, by Daisy Pitkin*****

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On the Line, a labor memoir by Daisy Pitkin, tells the true story of a grassroots struggle to organize a nonunion laundry in Arizona as part of an industry-wide unionizing campaign. My thanks go to NetGalley and Algonquin for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

Daisy is an organizer for UNITE, a labor union that organizes textiles, laundries, transportation, service workers, and some others, created by the merger of ILGWU (International Ladies Garment Workers Union) and ACTWU, the American Clothing and Textile Workers Union (of which this reviewer was once a member and union activist.)  She is working at the ground level, approaching workers in the parking lot, partnering with a woman named Alma that worked there and could talk to other workers inside the factory.

The memoir is written in the second person to Alma, and at first this seems odd, but as I read, I realize this is an effective and intelligent choice. By addressing Alma and the things that Alma has said and done during this fight, as well as the things the author did, along with what they did together, and the occasional differences of opinion they had and how they resolved them, she avoids making herself sound like a martyr to the cause. It would not read nearly so well in the first person, with the reader as audience.

The tasks of the workers all revolve around the commercial laundering process. Immense bags of dirty linens weighing up to 300 pounds are pushed off of the delivery trucks in rolling carts.

“The linen moves down the belt, you said, and then you flicked your arms back and forth to demonstrate how you and the other sorters toss sheets into one bin, towels to another, gowns to a third, and so on. You said, Sometimes they speed up the conveyor, and we don’t have time to be careful. There is a lot of blood and puke and feces. You said, We don’t get shoe covers, so some of us take off our shoes and drive home in our socks. You said, Our gloves are too big—they slip off our hands. Sometimes when they tear open, we have to handle the soiled linen with exposed skin…you were demanding a seemingly simple thing: to work your eight-or-ten-hour shift and come home unharmed. You wanted gloves that hospital needles cannot puncture. You wanted face masks to keep the blood and fluids from other bodies from entering your bodies. You wanted safety guards put back on machines where they had been removed. You wanted linen dust cleaned from the rafters to prevent fires.”

Safety rules are routinely flouted. Dirty linens land on the belt, and the belt feeds them into the mouth of a tunnel washer. When the washer jams, workers sometimes have to crawl through hot, bleachy, contaminated water to clear it and get it working. The supervisors are supposed to cut power when someone is in there, but they don’t. Ultimately it’s a choice for the owners to risk a possible, but unlikely fine from the government, or frequent decreases in production, which cut into profits. The workers are expendable; they can always find more. The wash and dry departments of industrial laundries are the most fatal of all industries, according to U.S. government statistics.

Daisy and Alma are working on a shoestring. When they have to be away from home overnight in order to meet workers as they go in or come out, they sleep in the car. Their signs are made by hand with posterboard and Sharpies. Initially, all of the workers sign cards, but then management begins a campaign of threats and intimidation. Not all of the workers are in the States legally, and most of them don’t know their legal rights. Most of them rescind their votes, and then it’s an uphill climb to get them to sign again.

This is a topic that is of great interest to me, and I was supposed to have read and reviewed this book in April of 2023, but my stomach twisted as I read of the horrific obstacles encountered by workers and by Daisy, and halfway through I had to put it down. Only recently did I slap myself upside the head and resume reading.

In any labor union, there are two sets of obstacles. The first, the one that is obvious, is the company, the bosses. Unions cut into profits, so the owners or boards of directors nearly always fight unionization. The second, and lesser known, is the union officialdom at the top. These people spend more time around the bosses and other highly paid union officers than they do around the workers, and they become jaded, sometimes contemptuous of those that they are supposed to represent, whose dues pay their salaries. When Daisy is eventually promoted, she discovers it’s harder to do anything that is in the interests of the clientele.

The book also includes a fair amount of union history, and it’s clearly explained, well woven throughout the narrative.

For those that are interested in unions and labor history, this is an excellent resource. But don’t read it at bedtime; it will do things to your dreams.