Book of the Week: Bob Harris, Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy!
You don't have to be a Jeopardy! fan to adore this book; Harris is a supremely engaging writer, and bounces adeptly from category to category - Life, Love, Memory Skills, Freakish Trivia, Stand-up Comedy in Small Midwestern College Towns, and Tiny Log-Climbing Ungulates - without ever losing the thread of true story-telling. I laughed out loud and misted up within the space of about two pages, and now I'm jonesing for there to be a second decade of Trebekistan, and the story thereof.

Track of the Week: Swag, Fat Chance
I've never really bought into the notion that New Year's should be all "out with the old, in with the new". Instead, it seems to me an excellent occasion to celebrate the old while welcoming the new - hence the fishing of No Such Thing out of the archives to start off the New Year's Eve party. And this track opens the album as a deft and sparkling reminder that these guys, indeed, remain fine purveyors of thumpety-funk house.