Discoveries made while reading Entertainment Weekly during lunch:

A Widow for One Year is being released as the movie The Door in the Floor, with Jeff Bridges, Kim Basinger, Mimi Rogers, Jon Foster, Bijou Philips and Dakota Fanning's little sister. John Irving liked what they did with the screenplay and sold them the rights for $1.00.

Kevin Kline is starring in a Cole Porter movie called De-Lovely.

Nicholas Spark's The Notebook is coming out in June. Eh. Still, Gena Rowlands, Joan Allen, James Garner.

This coming Sunday, The Book of Ruth is coming out on CBS. Now, I never read this, after a gathering in which every woman who'd read the book swore she needed therapy after reading it. What do folks here think of the book? On the plus side, Christine Lahti is in it. After Running on Empty (which you must see if you haven't already), I'd watch her in about anything.

I have read that book. It was a long time ago, but I seem to remember it being a sort of Bastard Out of Carolina kind of traumatizing.

Not a Pike fan, per se, but I've often wanted to re-read the books. All I remember is one weird one with a brother and sister who were too close for comfort and I think someone in a wheelchair throws himself into a void at the end.

I seem to remember reading Incognito Mosquito at the same time, in 6th grade. Was it in some kind of school text?

What are you talking about? Was there a mirror planet on the other side of the sun from ours? If so, I think I saw a movie of that when I was a small child.

Maybe, sumi. Sounds kinda familiar but I can't really say for sure. A movie was made of a Pike book, though? That I didn't know.

I liked Book of Ruth a lot, but "Bastard Out of Carolina kind of traumatizing" about covers it.

I've never been able to get through any of Hamilton's other books.

And fourth on Cat's Eye.

Is anyone else a huge Pike fan?

In high school I was big into Chrisopher Pike and all the authors that contributed to the Point Horror series: R.L. Stine and a bunch of others I can't remember off hand. You know, those books that had names like The Waitress, The Boyfriend, The Girlfriend etc.

I remember lots of Christopher Pike, mainly because he was really, really dark where a lot of the others were pretty candyass in terms of horror. I remember a series with anonymous letters. Um, I remember one called Monster that completely freaked me out. One with a witch who could see the future. I don't remember The Cold One, what's it about? And is Remember Me the one where a girl dies at a party and comes back as a ghost? Or is that the series that had something to do with scuba diving and a prom on a boat or something? Argh, stupid half-formed memories. Oh, and I remember one where this chick set her friend up for murder by throwing herself off a cliff.

Mmmm, early genre writing experiences. Good. Times.

"Incognito Mosquito - Private Insective!"

That, unfortunately, is all I remember. The catchy phrase.

For kid-level mystery books, I was always a fan of Cam Jansen (she had a photographic memory that took pictures when she said "click") and, of course, Encyclopedia Brown.

Encyclopedia Brown

Yes, yes, a thousand times YES.

Dude! I'd forgotten all about Cam Jansen.

I read one Pike at a friend's house and was really, well, horrified. Not much of a one for horror, me, even now.