THE PLAGUE (Albert Camus) - January 22/06

Good lord. Badly written and completely pointless, it's hard to believe this is considered a classic. I'm hoping it was just a terrible translation, 'cause otherwise Camus is a really, really incompetent writer. No rating (stopped around page 40).

REBELS ON THE BACKLOT (Sharon Waxman) - January 21/06

Extremely entertaining and packed with tidbits, Waxman's book occasionally suffers from a sense of "who cares?" - particularly in terms of her tendency to offer up long descriptions of her subjects' childhood. But it's a very fast read and quite informative, though I could've done with less Being John Malkovich and Traffic stories. ***1/2 out of ****

TYRANNOSAUR CANYON (Douglas Preston) - January 12/06

Exciting, extremely fast-paced book revolving around the search for a buried T-Rex. Preston is a superb writer and deftly balances almost a dozen characters, although some of these people can't help but come off as superfluous (what, exactly, was the point of the cop who keeps chasing all the wrong leads?) Still, it's crackerjack. ***1/2 out of ****

AT FIRST SIGHT (Nicolas Sparks) - Late December/05

A terrible, badly written book about a romance between a New Yorker and a lady from down South. I've read a couple of Sparks' books in the past, but this is the worst. It's just bad, and Sparks proves to be a fairly incompetent writer. * out of ****