The Pat Hobby Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Penguin Books, 1967. 167 pages.

A surprisingly engaging collection of 17 short stories, F. Scott Fitzgerald's collection proves an engaging homage to the old adage about brevity and wit. Set entirely in the Hollywood of 1940, the collection revolves around Pat Hobby, the eternally down-on-his-luck screenwriter, a has been who's always a dime away from bankruptcy and a good idea away from eternal happiness. Not a story in this collection can be more then 2000 words and yet each manages to build the sort of comic-tragic world that Fitzgerald always adored.

Lucky Man by Michael J. Fox

Audio Book, 5 1/2 hours (approx.) Read by the Author

If there is such a thing as the quintessential memoir, then it's Lucky Man. Putting aside Mr. Fox's great celebrity, Lucky Man is the story of a man's rise to greatness, his risk of destruction from hubris and his salvation through a newfound devotion to family and to the larger community. It is essentially a story of redemption, told by a man I did not think needed to be redeemed. For this reason, Lucky Man came as a pleasent surprise and ranks with the best celebrity memoirs, along with Katharine Hepburn's Me and Moss Hart's Act One.