Nancy Balbirer’s hilarious, soulful memoir about acting, Hollywood, art, fame, and misguided relationships, Take Your Shirt Off and Cry: A Memoir Of Near-Fame Experiences is told from the perspective of a woman who was sure that acting would be her ticket—not necessarily to fame, but to happiness. …more

I used to read lots of mysteries, and for some reason I stopped. Then I heard about Sue Ann Jaffarian’s mysteries from Mystery Bookstore on Twitter, and got addicted. Her heroine is plus-size paralegal Odelia Gray, and she’s an amateur detective. I read the latest one, Booby Trap, first, but the first one in the series, Too Big to Miss, is excellent– Odelia’s friend dies by killing herself live onscreen on her porn site, one Odelia didn’t know about. She goes about investigating whether it was really suicide (it wasn’t). There’s also a romantic angle as she dates Greg Stevens, a hot wheelchair-bound graphic designer. …more