Media you can Trust
The merchants make the picks
BOOKS

Mitchell’s Book Corner 54 Main Street 228-1080

“Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured

Class” by David Kidder and Noah

Oppenheim

Learn something new every day of 2007 with “Intellectual Devotional” ($22.50), packaged by Kidder and Oppenheim. For each day of the year, there is a page-long description of a great work of art, literature or music, such as Dante, Chagall or Beethoven; or there are explanations of concepts, people and periods, such as cloning, John Brown or colonialism. Sure, we’re scratching the surface here, but the information is accurate and succinct and will help you be more interesting at cocktail parties. Happy New Year.

— Mimi Beman, owner, Mitchell’s Book Corner

Nantucket Bookworks 25 Broad Street 228-4000

“The Inhabited World”

by David Long

The story unfolds as the main character, a young man who committed suicide, “awakens” as a ghost in the house where he lived and died. He remembers his death but not the reasons for it. As he struggles to understand his current situation, he helps the young woman currently living in his former house deal with her own despair. “The Inhabited World” ($23) is a powerfully written book — an exploration of the heart and the mind and of our constant striving to find the reason for our existence on this earth and what comes next.

— Cristina Blank,

Nantucket Bookworks

VIDEO

Camera Shop & Nantucket Video 32 Main Street 228-0101

“Little Miss Sunshine”

(Rated R for language, some sex

and drug content.)

One of the sleeper hits of the year. A family whose members are beset by dysfunction and failure — including a failed marriage, a failed gay affair, a failed suicide attempt and a failed sobriety — conspire (comically) to help their youngest relative, 7-year-old Olive, win the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. So long as they can make it there after a cross-country trek in an old VW bus.

Orange Street Video 117 Orange Street 228-5806

“Scanner Darkly”

(Rated R for drug and sexual content,

language and a brief violent image.)

In the near future, many people are addicted to “Substance-D” — a popular narcotic that twists the mind and creates serious paranoia. “A Scanner Darkly” investigates the world of a group of friends addicted to “Substance-D.” One of the group (Keanu Reeves) suffers from a split personality. As Bob Arcter, he deals the drug to his friends (played by Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson and Wynona Rider) but as undercover Officer Fred, he is trying to bring down the drug trade. This visually amazing film exposes the gritty, manic and sometimes hilarious world of these drug addicts as they try to figure out who is friend and who is foe.

— Kate O’Brien, manager,

Orange Street Video

MUSIC

Musicall 4 East Chestnut Street 228-9306

Nas “Hip Hop is Dead”

One of the most remarkable rap talents of the last decade, Nas (born Nasir Jones) collaborates with some of the only men who are currently his peers (Jay-Z, Kanye West) in a steel-solid, intense album to eulogize hip-hop even as it’s proof that hip-hop is still alive.