The Queue
So, I devoured The Bloody Red Baron in a television-free six days, and found it to be the same as Anno Dracula, to which it is a sequel: astonishingly imaginative, deeply engrossing, staggeringly witty, and ultimately disappointing. The first four-fifths of both books are just tremendous, but Newman doesn't quite have the knack for finales. There are unsatisfying twists at the end of both books: Anno Dracula's is logical, after a fashion, but emotionally unsatisfying after the grand build-up; The Bloody Red Baron abruptly changes course, pitches over, and nosedives into No Man's Land. I almost said aloud, "Wait, that's the end?" So, while the astonishing imagination, engrossing depth, and staggering wit will almost certainly lure me to read the third book in the Anno Dracula series, Dracula Cha Cha Cha—published in this country as the repulsively melodramatic Judgment of Tears, a title so schlocky it should have been reserved for the likes of Anne Rice—I am going to wait a spell and allow some distance from The Bloody Red Baron.

Recently
Kim Newman, Anno Dracula
John Polidori, "The Vampyre"
Ronald Searle & Kaye Webb, Paris Stetchbook
Saki, "The Interlopers"
Ronald Searle, St. Trinian's: The Entire Appalling Business
David J. Brown, Bridges: Three Thousand Years of Defying Nature
Kim Newman, The Bloody Red Baron

Currently
Adriana Czupryn, Małgorzata Omilanowska, & Ulrich Schwendimann, Eyewitness Travel Guides: Switzerland
Jacques-Yves Cousteau, "Exploring a New World Undersea," Great Adventures with National Geographic

Presently
Rick Steves, Rick Steves' Switzerland 2007
Lauren Baratz-Logsted, How Nancy Drew Saved My Life
David M. Friedman, The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever
Ernest Shackleton, South
John Toland, The Great Dirigibles: Their Triumphs and Disasters (catch as catch can)
Sloane Crosley, I Was Told There'd be Cake
John Hodgman, The Areas of My Expertise
Kim Newman, Dracula Cha Cha Cha

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
No Doubt, "Paulina" from No Doubt (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Not to be confused with The Hippos' "Paulina." Myself, I've always assumed "Paulina" is about Paulina Porizkova.

"Paulina,
Well, I stare at her pictures all day long,
Paulina,
And as I do I sing this song,
Paulina,
My father says to act my age,
Paulina,
As I single-handedly turn the page."