The next day I go to Pisha's house as usual, but his parent meets me at the door and looks at me extra long with her small, pink eyes. "I tell you first-hand that Pisha can't play today," she says. "He's gone in."

Hmm . . . I wonder what the first mission with Captain "No Starfleet Experience Whatsoever" Kirk would be like?

I am a bookshelf voyeur; any time I go into a room with books, I spy and pry. A new room—whether a waiting room, an office, a basement used for storage—always contains excitement for me if it has books, because, until I have thoroughly pored over them, there is the potential for surprise, and the potential is often as electrifying as the reality.

all our lives will resemble what we see in magazines