You need it, we got it. Every week our editors comb the site for the best of the best and round it up for you. Read on.

MUSIC

Mat Brewster's Bootleg Country: Nanci Griffith - 11/29/98 is a wonderful look at the artist and her music blended with a nice little story about how he came to discover her music.

In When White Bands Covered Motown Hits, Holly Hughes reflects on the recent Grammy awards and the history of Motown, as well as those who covered some of their biggest hits. It's a really nice stroll down music's memory lane.

DJRadiohead's Music Review: Norah Jones - Not Too Late digs deeper than the surface of this latest release and looks at pop trends and the industry as a whole. It's a personal perspective well worth the read.

BOOKS

From Books Editor Natalie Bennett:

Not having a language in common with an author might, you might think, be an impossible barrier to conducting an interview. You'd be wrong, as Richard Marcus proves with this interview with the Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra. Richard gets prizes for tenacity, effort, but most of all for producing a fascinating interview that gives a personal but highly illuminating account of life in a turbulent and little-known country.

"Imagine you're on Barbara Walter's television show and you foolishly tell her that you can reproduce a drawing never seen by you that lies concealed in an envelope on her desk..." Want to know what to do? Then read Ed Rust's review of the Skeptical Inquirer, which not only explains the magazine, but also recent events in what used to be the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.

From Asst. Books Editor Gordon Hauptfleisch:

"I’m shamelessly fascinated with books on the life of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes," Ms. Strega says, "for reasons I can't always pinpoint." For the purposes of her compellingly written review of Lover of Unreason, it doesn't matter — Ms. Strega's enthusiasm and passion has her infusing her analysis with an extra degree of expressiveness and resonance.

C. Michael Bailey says that the author of Beethoven: The Universal Composer captures the "bigness" of the larger-than-life composer "without hyperbole." In backing up and illuminating his points, C. Michael in turn provides an accessibly cohesive summation of Beethoven's life, art, and place in the history of music.

TV/FILM

From TV Editor TV and Film Guy:

People just aren't watching as much anymore, but despite all that blowback it's still awfully popular and awfully wonderful. Need to catch up? Need a sneak peak into the future? Well, if Desmond's not around to give it to you, Chris McVetta can help you get up to date on Lost.

From Film Editor Lisa McKay:

It's that time of year. The upcoming Academy Awards are the subject of lots of speculation and conversation in the BC Film section. Kati Irons has a lot of opinions about who might win and why we should care.