Kafka

"Lying Awake," by Mark Salzman. Knopf. 192 pages. $21. It is hard to say where the power of this short, excellent and profound book comes from, but I think the explanation is to be found in an essay that Albert Camus wrote about Franz Kafka. Camus maintained that the reason Kafka's characters are so powerful is that they accept their unexpected and often bizarre circumstances as being perfectly ordinary. For instance, when Greogor Samsa wakes up to find that he has been transformed into an enormous cockroach, he doesn't say, "My god, look at me, what a monster, look at these tobacco colored plates on my chest, my hairy legs.

THEATER PARADE OF PLAYS The 25th anniversary Baltimore Playwrights Festival gets off to a weighty start this weekend with Turn Your Head and Kafka by Laura Ridgeway. Produced by Run of the Mill Theater and directed by its new artistic director, Jenny Tibbels, the play intermingles elements from Franz Kafka's novel The Trial with his correspondence with his mistress, journalist Milena Jesenska. Brian Oakes and Julia Brandeberry star. The silver-anniversary season also features five other productions, including three bills of one-acts.

Kafka on the Shore By Haruki Murakami. Alfred A. Knopf. 480 pages. $25.95. Kafka on the Shore is a wildly inventive modern epic by Japan's most popular novelist. In his native country Haruki Murakami has millions of fans who treat him more like a rock star than a novelist and eagerly await each new book. This is his 11th, and - like much of his fiction - it offers settings that are both grimly realistic and surreal, a labyrinthine plot, and lovably bizarre characters who can't get enough of life's strangeness.

Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts Clive James W.W. Norton / 876 pages / $35 In Cultural Amnesia, the prodigious critic Clive James succumbs to a mighty ambition: In 100-plus alphabetically arranged essays, he pays homage to the vast Western humanist enterprise (writing, filmmaking, music, philosophy, theater), defending it from myriad enemies. I don't fault his intelligence or erudition: This Australian omnivore has read, traveled and thought more than perhaps any critic alive.

The Sun's question of the month got me thinking about how to continue the momentum of learning that my granddaughter has developed in her kindergarten class, where she was very fortunate to have two dedicated teachers who challenged and motivated her class to read and learn. We want to continue to enhance her abilities and help her prepare for the first grade. Our plan is to follow the lead of her teachers and do the following. First, obtain a list of words that were required in kindergarten and review them.

''Why was Jesus born in a manger?''''Mary and Joseph had an HMO.''-- American folk wisdom of the 1990s. ALL RIGHT, STEVE FORBES, Jack Kemp and the rest of you. You win. You can have your flat tax, if -- if -- you give people like me something for it. That something is a single-payer health-care system.You say the flat tax will let us concentrate on doing productive work or spending time with our families instead of keeping records and figuring out ways to outwit the system. It sounds fine.

Cookbook author Barbara Kafka has a strong sense of taste, a dry wit and a passion for unpretentious food.She wants Americans to cook. She wants us to loosen up in the kitchen, constantly taste things, invite friends in for a simple meal and relax over a glass of wine.She hopes we'll whisk our shopping carts past the vast array of frozen foods and reach for a fresh plump chicken. To her, "The biggest social tragedy in America today is that families don't eat dinner together."Always quick to voice an opinion, Ms. Kafka is one of today's most knowledgeable food and wine writers.

Creationists: Selected Essays 1993-2006 E.L. Doctorow Random House / 192 pages / $24.95 In the U.K. the word "brilliant" has long been slang for pretty much anything fun, exciting, delicious, good, enjoyable - you name it, it's covered by the term. In America, the word brilliant is repetitively overused as well, although with a more hifalutin' clarity of objective: This writer is "brilliant," this artist is "brilliant." At least the British have it right - the appellation of brilliance has long since become pointless.

On September 3, 2004, ANNA KING BURKINDINE; beloved wife of the late James H. Burkindine; devoted mother of Margaret E. Kafka, Arthur L. Burkindine and the late James H. Burkindine, Jr.; loving sister of Lillian Casson. Also survived by eleven grandchildren, numerous great-grandchildren and great great-grandchildren. A private cremation was held. A Memorial Service will be held at 7:00 P.M., on Wednesday, September 22, 2004, at Ebenezer United Methodist Church, Earls Road & Ebenezer Road, Chase, MD.

Franz Kafka, that great journalist of alienation, did not write Tom DiCillo's "Box of Moonlight," but DiCillo cites Kafka as an inspiration. "Box of Moonlight" captures that Kafkaesque spirit better than any movie since "Barton Fink" (1992), the Coen brothers' epic encounter with writer's block. "Moonlight" is a thrill-ride designed for the intellect.Coincidentally, the star of "Barton Fink," John Turturro, plays the lead in "Box of Moonlight," too. He's more of an ordinary guy here -- an arrogant businessman, instead of "Fink's" playwright -- but mundane weirdness stalks him at every turn.