Chuck Klosterman: A sometimes sports writer, I found Klosterman through his interaction with Bill Simmons on ESPN.com and decided to read his Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs on my trip to Chicago this spring. I liked it so much that I quickly picked up Killing Yourself to Live and, most recently, Chuck Klosterman IV. His acerbic wit and seemingly endless well of pop culture analogies make reading his essays – the subjects of which range from an AC/DC cover band to Britney Spears to Saved by the Bell – a delightful and addicting experience.

David Sedaris: I was given his Me Talk Pretty One Day by a friend more than a year ago, but didn’t pick it up until I was entering the six-hour rehearsal period of Beauty and the Beast in April. Dry and self-deprecating, Sedaris relays semi-true stories from his life with a remarkable humanity. I have yet to explore his other work, but will likely do so very soon.

Mark Haddon: A coworker placed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime on my desk and said “Read it. You’ll like it. It’s weird.” I thought it was an interesting commentary on my taste in books (which I’m sure the coworker didn’t even know, since I never talk about books), but I did like it, largely because it was weird. Haddon, the only fiction writer I’ve picked up in the past year besides Rowling and Hornby, deftly narrates through the eye of an autistic boy. It can be frustrating at times to read the mix of run-on thoughts and overly simple sentences, but the last 60 pages of the book are very engaging. It took me a week to get to that point, but an hour to finish the book from then on.

Anyone who knows Nick Hornby’s style and wants to recommend something to me is encouraged to do so in the comments.

The most important development in the book is the willingness of Harry – The Boy Who Lived, the young wizard who has worn a target on his forehead since his parents were killed by Lord Voldemort – to accept his role in defeating the dark wizard. Too often in his first six years at Hogwarts, Harry has allowed his professors and other high-ranking wizards protect him, and at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, he decided to drop out of school and prepare himself to face Voldemort in a final showdown.

Deathly Hallows, then, starts differently than any book in the series: instead of quietly suffering a summer with the Dursleys while waiting to return to school, Harry says a somber goodbye to his family and sets off with the Order of the Phoenix to a safe house. Rowling wastes no time in ratcheting up the tension, as the Order is attacked by Death Eaters and Harry comes face to face with Voldemort, whose magic is no match for Harry’s determination. While Harry spends the majority of the book seeking out and destroying Horcruxes – small segments of Voldemort’s soul – the dark lord searches for a powerful wand that can defeat Harry. Our hero, joined in his journey by friends Ron and Hermione, must travel in secrecy to avoid magical officials, because Voldemort’s underlings have taken over the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts.

Evil forces are everywhere, and no matter how discreetly Harry travels, he faces immediate danger no fewer than a half dozen times, each time escaping by the skin of his teeth. Herein lies the weakness in Rowling’s storytelling. Her action scenes are brilliantly executed, particularly in the instances where Harry’s mental connection with Voldemort causes the narrative to stay focused on Harry but to describe Voldemort’s actions, but too often, an amazing coincidence falls into Harry’s lap to get him out of trouble. Too often, the plot is gently pulled along through minor problem solving, but the major plot advancements are left to coincidence. In a book where the majority of the middle section is essentially a travelogue (the three heroes set up camp, figure something out, move along, repeat), this makes for very uneven storytelling. At times, Rowling is able to create tension that has you greedily turning the pages; these moments are to be savored, for they make the series great. At others, her style has you reading back over to make sure you didn’t miss something important.

All that is very quickly put aside in the book’s final 150 pages, when Harry returns to Hogwarts to find the final Horcrux and Voldermort corners him, starting a massive battle between Hogwartsians and Death Eaters. The action is so frantic, the stakes so large, that two significant characters die offstage, only discovered when Harry passes through the battle. The body count is high, and emotions can get the better of a reader even before the Battle of Hogwarts begins, and the overwhelming excitement of the final quarter of the book make the meandering middle forgivable.

The book ends not with a shocking revelation or a quiet ride into the sunset, but with a epilogue that takes place 19 years after the final battle, taking a look at those who survived and what happened to them. The tag reads like fan fiction, pulling obvious allusions and simple platitudes together to make for an overly-sweet dessert on a meal that ended rather nicely.

This, and the other problems inherent in Rowling’s craft, does not make Deathly Hallows a failure; indeed, the conclusion of the series is a wonderfully satisfying read, filled with tense, incredible moments, and any opportunity to visit Rowling’s remarkable world is one that should be appreciated. But the shortcomings of the book give it a limited aftertaste, and you may find yourself questioning the same book that you put down with a smile and a tear not a day or two earlier.

Rating: * * * 1/2 of 5

In its original form, the clone saga dragged on through dozens of issues; I supposed I can count myself lucky that, in the Ultimate timeline, it seems to have been contained over a half of a year. The premise is this: Peter Parker discovers a slew of clones of himself made from DNA sampled from him three story arcs earlier. The clones pose a danger to the world and specifically to Mary Jane, and Peter has to balance trying to take the clones out with trying to avoid S.H.I.E.L.D, a government agency looking to contain Peter as the source of the danger.

Even for a comic book storyline, the clone saga feels contrived and unfulfilling. Why Brian Michael Bendis and his cohorts decided to relive it for a whole new generation of fans is beyond me. The point of the Ultimate series, to me, is to expose new fans to classic Marvel characters without subjecting them to decades of back issues. This presents the opportunity to skim over, or even totally ignore, the lesser story arcs. The failure to do this with the clone saga, and the absolute bungling of the “reinvention” of the story, has finally made my decision to cancel the subscription that much easier.

I’ll not bore you with details of plot, because I’m fairly certain I’ve already reviewed the book. But the gift in re-reading a novel is that you already know what happens and you can more fully become immersed in the writing style. Hornby packs High Fidelity with humorous, touching, relatable prose that makes you want to never stop reading. And once it’s in you’re head, it becomes like the addictive pop single that you can’t stop repeating. You want to stick it in your CD player and put it on repeat, just so you can find new layers of it to love. I’m happy to report that High Fidelity only gets better the second time around.

Rating: * * * * *