(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

As I mentioned last week, I've finally gotten my Sony eBook Reader to start playing nice with the website of the Chicago Public Library, which now allows me to partake of the futuristic activity of checking out digital library books (a clever system run by Adobe in which loaned books literally erase themselves off your device after three weeks); and since the CPL's current collection of around three thousand electronic titles is so bizarre and random right now, I've decided to use it to catch up on bizarre and random picks myself, for example like Vintage's bound 1999 collection of two David Mamet screenplays, 1997's The Spanish Prisoner and 1998's The Winslow Boy. Both screenplays are great, although couldn't be more different from each other, and in fact I suspect were only collected together in the first place as a simple promotional project, in that the films themselves were released only a year apart: The Spanish Prisoner is a modern thriller concerning an ultra-complicated con game, memorably starring Steve Martin in a non-comedic role as the actual con man; The Winslow Boy, on the other hand, is a slow-moving Edwardian drama about the ways that honor and reputation used to be so important even from a practical aspect in British aristocratic society. Both are fine reads, although if you're not checking them out of the library randomly yourself, you'd probably be better off simply renting the actual films.

Out of 10: 8.4 ( )

Both screenplays are enjoyable, though The Spanish Prisoner is more enjoyable. The stories are a bit predictable, yet still interesting. ( )