Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice: A Magical Mystery Tour

After the vast tundra of his last book, Against the Day, which was a thousand-plus pages, with more than a hundred or so scurrying characters and a shape-shifting plot that went everywhere and nowhere, Thomas Pynchon has decided to give his fan base a break. His seventh novel is practically beach reading. Inherent Vice is a comic-noir detective tale set in Los Angeles around 1970, not long after the Manson murders added their special note to the already twitchy local vibe

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Entertainment Weekly’s Picks of the week

More than a dozen TV series sign off for the summer this week — or, in the case of "Prison Break," forever — but none has as much riding on it as the final two hours of this mojo-recapturing season of "Lost." Among the burning questions we hope — nah, demand! — are answered by the two-hour season finale (Wednesday, May 13, ABC, 9-11 p.m. ET): Will Jack (Matthew Fox) negate all of “Lost” history by exploding a hydrogen bomb on Quantum Leap Island Will Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and Sun (Yunjin Kim) reunite, even though they’re in different decades And will Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Juliet’s (Elizabeth Mitchell) happily-ever-after romance come to a bloody end We’ll also learn about a fabled event called “The Incident,” and, according to rumors, may be formally introduced to the mysterious Jacob

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