Novel

Since we're talking about the meaning of fairness in taxation, how about a fixed, flat rate? This would be akin to the biblical tithe, where God asks a fixed, flat 10 percent a year, year in and year out, no exemptions, no exceptions, no deductions. If the flock has a good year, then God has a good year, and vice versa. Whether one is 8 or 80 years old, everyone can understand it, and no one needs an accountant to figure it out. If it's good enough for God, it ought to be good enough for Caesar.

You'll be excused if you get the Oscar nominations for Best Picture mixed up with a best-seller list. Most of the nominees drew their inspiration from the printed page, and I hope one of them wins the prize, to reinforce the value of literature. Here's a look at the nominees, and the books they drew on: -- "Hugo," a charmer adapted from "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick. -- "Moneyball," adapted from Michael Lewis' book about the impact of statistical analysis on major league baseball.

It's down to the top four all-stars, and things are getting serious. Each girl is awesome in her own right, and all have been top contenders throughout the season. This week, the girls had to write a blog for vogue.it and were directed in a motion editorial by Tyra herself for her model fantasy novel "Modelland," dressed as some sort of gladiator rooster in couture. Not sure what that has to do with modeling, but sure, I can dig feathered armor. It's all going to culminate next week during the season finale.

The children's novel "The Adventures of M.T. Pitt" is helping Howard County promote healthy lifestyles for youths. The book shines a light on an imaginative young boy whose expanding girth makes him a target for the school bully. The Howard County Health Department has published 5,000 copies of the paperback, at a cost of about $9,000, and is offering complimentary copies at its six area libraries. Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, county health officer, wrote in the book's foreword that "childhood obesity stands as the central health challenge of our time.

M.T. Smith, of Randallstown, recently released a book, "A Familiar Murder," on Amazon.com. The murder mystery takes the reader through Baltimore neighborhoods while solving a crime being perpetrated on the elderly. Smith is a former creative director for Guild Communications Inc, a community relations firm in Greenbelt. McDonogh School Director of Aquatics Scott Ward, of Owings Mills, has been named the recipient of the Thomas R. Harper Endowed Teaching Chair. This award was established in 2001 by alumnus Bob Chilstrom to honor his 1963 classmate, Tom Harper, who retired in 2004 after teaching English at McDonogh School for 36 years.The Harper Chair recognizes outstanding service to the school by a faculty or staff member.

The first time was the charm. Last season's smash at Center Stage , "The Second City Does Baltimore," enjoyed the element of surprise as it skewered a lot of those quaint little quirks that make us so, well, skewer-able. If the sequel doesn't feel quite as novel, "The Second City: Charmed and Dangerous," which has settled into the theater for another long run, still holds up well. It doesn't feel like a package of leftovers. The writers — Ed Furman and Tim Sniffen (he performed in "The Second City Does Baltimore")

The pungent, haunting narrative of Laura Lippman's new novel, "The Most Dangerous Thing," kicks in with a group of kids arguing for dibs on a grassy kickball field near a cotton mill on "Wetheredsville Road. " The whole scene sounds like a cozy nostalgia trip. But that patch of grass really does exist - in Charm City, no less - in isolated, rustic Dickeyville. Lippman grew up there, and "The Most Dangerous Thing" is full of vivid backgrounds and behavior - some factual, some imagined - pulled from or inspired by the youth she spent in this improbable neighborhood on the western edge of Baltimore.

Here is a pretty amazing story out of Pennsylvania in which vets are using an apparently landmark treatment to help saved a burned dog. In Berks County, Pa., a brown and white pit bull named Bernie suffered severe burns after being left on a rooftop on a broiling hot day for as many as 10 hours. The dog's paw pads were completely burned, and he also sustained serious burns on his spine and nipples from when he tried to lay down and move to relieve the pain on his paws. The Reading Eagle reports that after Bernie was brought to the Animal Rescue League of Berks County, a local vet volunteered to treat him. The vet came up with the idea of using stem cells to help Bernie regrow his devastated paw pads.

When Karen Rose enrolled at the University of Maryland, the one thing she knew was that she "didn't want to dissect. " It's a funny confession for an author who has written a 494-page novel about a killer who tortures victims with a filleting knife. Rose sees the humor in it. Whenever her two daughters would tell her about some tiny creature they'd trained a scalpel on at school, she'd try to change the subject. They'd say, "Mom — you're the one who asked how many bodies you could stick in a freezer.

The novel "Crime and Punishment" is a gripping, modern psychodrama, a masterpiece of tension and suspense. A police detective seeks to solve a brutal double homicide without a shred of evidence — and sets himself the task of touching the conscience and saving the soul of the tormented young killer. It's a riveting story that probes the nature of good and evil and the sometimes blurry distinctions between enemies and allies. Why, then, in the stage adaptation currently running at Center Stage , does there seem to be so little at stake?