I like the show Criminal Minds so I think I was attracted to the description of Killing Time when I read that the main character is a criminal psychologist.  This man, Dr. Gideon Wolfe, lives in New York in the near future.  The world is completely saturated by information from all forms of technology and Gideon begins to question the quality and accuracy of the information when he is very suddenly swept into a conspiracy.  This conspiracy contains geniuses and authoritative figures from many different disciplines (physics, psychiatry, etc.) and is very appealing to Gideon until he begins to question the accuracy and morality of what even the "good guys" are trying to accomplish.  Caleb Carr does a great job of carrying the reader through the questions that Gideon is asking himself through his adventures around the world including musings about the cure being worse then the disease.

Maurice Sendak

While driving to work this morning I heard the news that Maurice Sendak passed away.  What a loss to the world of literature.  I want to write "children's literature", but according to him he didn't write for children.  The radio station I was listening to played an excerpt from a recent interview with Maurice Sendak from Stephen Colbert.  In it, Mr. Sendak said that he didn't write for children.  He wrote stories and then people would say, "That's for children!"  When asked what he thought of the current state of children's literature he called it "abysmal".  Apparently he was a funny guy.  I believe it.  Who could have thought up characters like Max from Where The Wild Things Are or Mickey from In The Night Kitchen?  They are two of the most stubborn, brattiest, and inventive boys we've seen in books.  Well, Mr. Sendak certainly made his mark and now I hope he is able to rest in peace.