In a Nutshell: Millhauser brings short fiction back from the dead.

The retro, sci-fi cover of Dangerous Laughter should put readers on notice that these stories are in a zone of their own. The aliens are recognizably the folks next door, you and I, but without the robots and Martians. Millhauser orbits around the modern mind, and often lands in troubled areas There is nervous laughter and strangeness in these tales, told in a down to earth voice, nostalgic and odd. The author painting small town portraits that travel just beyond their frames.

The collection opens like a Saturday matinee with "Cat 'n' Mouse," a cartoon a la Tom and Jerry described in meticulous deadpan detail: "...The cat crashes into the wall and folds up like an accordion. Slowly he unfolds, emitting accordion music. He lies on the floor with his chin on his upraised paw, one eyebrow lifted high in disgust, the claws of his other forepaw tapping the floorboards. A small piece of plaster drops on his head. He raises an outraged eye. A framed painting falls heavily on his head, which plunges out of sight between his shoulders. The painting shows a green tree with bright red apples. The cat's head struggles to rise, then pops up with the sound of a yanked cork, lifting the picture. Apples fall from the tree and land with a thump on the grass. The cat shudders, winces. A final apple falls. Slowly it rolls toward the frame. , drops over the edge, and lands on the cat's head. In the cat's eyes, cash registers ring up NO SALE."

Interspersed with the descriptions are the existential thoughts of cat and mouse. The text is just a taste of more dangerous laughter to come.

This is experimental fiction at its best. Millhauser doesn't try to Joyce his way into the record books, but explores new ground in subtle and surprising ways.

In a Nutshell: The sordid story of the GOP's unraveling , told with precision and acidic scorn.

This collection of Blumenthal's columns from Salon.com and The Guardian of London, serves as a history of the tanking of the GOP. In The Emerging Republican Majority (1969), Kevin P Phillips predicted (and laid out a strategy for) the country's Republican takeover. Well, it's 2008, and you can toss that book on the ash-heap of history and replace it with The Strange Death of Republican America. Democrats, of course, knew the Bush years would be bad, but no one dreamed the disaster that has hit the homeland. Blumenthal has analyzed the the debacle and puts it into perspective. His book opens with Stephen Colbert's blistering satirical performance at The White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in 2006. There has never been a more powerful (or hilarious) critique of the Bush presidency than the text of Colbert's address and it's a fitting opening. Blumenthal's texts illuminate the mishandling of the war and the political maneuvering that has driven us deeper into the quagmire. In the author's 2006 essay, "Coup at the CIA, he proves himself prophetic:

"The militarization of intelligence under Bush is likely to guarantee military solutions above other options. Uniformed officers trained to identify military threats and trends will take over economic and political intelligence for which they are untrained and often incapable, and their priorities will skew analysis. But the bias toward the military option will be one that the military in the end will dislike. It will find itself increasingly bearing the brunt of foreign policy and stretched beyond endurance. The vicious cycle leads to a downward spiral. And Hayden's story [General Michael Hayden nominated as CIA Director] will be like a dull shadow of Powell's—a tale of a 'good soldier' who salutes, gets promoted, is used and abused, and is finally discarded."

Covering the war, the failed strategies of Karl Rove, and the issues that have weakened the GOP's grip on power, The Strange Death of Republican America is a gripping obituary. Despite the fact that many of us weren't invited to the party, we were forced to attend the last eight years and must now suffer the hangover.

Forget the aspirin—read the book.