Welcome to Crazy Month

April is going to be a crazy month, I can already tell that from where I’m standing. In a month of fantastic new releases, two books epitomize the nuttiness for me: both of them stuffed full of merit -- and crazy -- in their own special way.

Next week, Anchor releases the paperback edition of last year’s wonderful Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku. Here’s what I like about the book: it takes a serious look at some seriously weird stuff and treats it... well... seriously. Phasers, force fields, teleportation... all that good Star Trek stuff. And more. Physics of the Impossible deserves the widest possible audience if for no other reason than it makes us think... in a seriously fun way.

Still fun, still crazy but quite a bit less serious, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Quirk Books) by Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion) and Seth Grahame-Smith (How to Survive a Horror Movie, The Big Book of Porn).

The book is, well, pretty much what you’re imagining based on that much information alone. And this is one book where the publisher’s own description out-distances anything we might come up with. Get this: “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action.” I really just can’t think of anything more to say.