Agent Palmer

I saw my first Tucker at the America On Wheels Museum in Allentown, Pa., a few years ago. With just that taste, I found a thirst for more knowledge of this mesmerizing car, and I’m not what you would call a car guy.

This lead me to a the movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Jeff Bridges as Preston Tucker in Tucker: The Man and His Dream. But the movie wasn’t enough, and I later ended up receiving Preston Tucker A Biography: The Indomitable Tin Goose by Charles T. Pearson as a gift from my family.

He’s written fiction, non-fiction, and essays about music, death, history and pop culture, but now Chuck Klosterman has turned his attention to villains with I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains (Real and Imagined), a book published on July 9th, 2013 and reprinted in paperback on July 1st, 2014.

Before we get into the book, let’s first look at the definition of the word villain, a noun. According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, Villain is “a character in a story, movie, etc., who does bad things,” “a person who does bad things,” and “someone or something that is blamed for a particular problem or difficulty.”

Sterling Malory Archer has written a book about how to be him. That’s right, Archer, code named “Duchess”, the narcissistic, misogynistic, suave, hyper-sexed, alcoholic, spy of all spies has written a book about not just being a spy, but about being the best spy – himself.

From the beginning Archer sets up the tone of this humorously entertaining educational how-to book.

“A how-to book?! A book can’t teach someone how to be equal parts deadly and sexy! That’s like asking a cobra to write a book about how to be a cobra!”

Beginning with the heart-wrenching bus accident that claimed the life of Cliff Burton and then chronicling the band and its many players through the release of Death Magnetic, Enter Night: A Biography of Metallica by Mick Wall is brilliant.

Who better than Mick Wall, as classic a name in Rock journalism as there is, to chronicle the life and times of one of the biggest bands in the world.