Reviews of books by David Hasselhoff and Alice Cooper will make it into the May 15 issue of LJ, but Criss Angel seems doomed to blog territory (see “Performing arts celebs spring out this season“). It happens sometimes, to our frustration, that a book doesn’t get reviewed because we don’t have the person for it. As far as Angel’s Mindfreak goes, I just don’t have enough tween boy reviewers.

Based on his popular TV show of the same name, his book is half biography and half how-to for magic tricks. I didn’t get through the introduction: a description of hanging from helicopters by hooks through his flesh isn’t my idea of good Monday morning reading. He writes, “While music [two of my favorite Korn songs, “Right Now” and “Alone I Break,”] pumped from my iPod, I felt so insignificant…The body suspension was as close to an out-of-body experience as I have ever had.” 

This made me think of a galley I recently saw—Save Me from Myself: How I Found God, Quit Korn, Kicked Drugs, and Lived To Tell My Story by Brian Welch, out from HarperSanFrancisco in July—a book whose audience I don’t predict is similar to that of Mindfreak and may be less easy to pin down. I must confess I was happy to pass this one on to Graham Christian for consideration in our new Spiritual Living column. In an effort for consistency (see the inaugural “Books of a Feather?“) let’s call the link between these two plausible, to use the ratings system of our friends the MythBusters. After all, Angel likes Korn, young boys like both, and both celebs have forthcoming soul-searching memoirs.