Crossing Over

I always find it interesting when someone who has achieved success in one field jumps to another and does it well. You know, when someone like Steve Martin or Kirk Douglas writes a novel and they actually do it really well. This seems to be coming up more and more often. I see that Nicole Richie has a novel out (I have no idea if it was good). I also remember checking out William Shatner's music CD (I did not care for it, but your mileage may vary).

Two new music CDs caught my attention this way. Hugh Laurie of House M. D. has a music CD. It is a New Orleans style blues album. He has also written several books.

And Jeff Bridges has a new country music CD this month.

I guess I expected these stars to have used their fame and name recognition to get published in other fields. But in most cases I have been pleasantly surprised by their skill.

The book I am reading currently is Gideon's War by Howard Gordon. One of our regulars at the library mentioned this book knowing that I like Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp spy thrillers. And this is a good page-turner. Howard Gordon was the producer of the hit TV show "24" and was also a writer for the X-Files. Gideon's War reads like "24", being fast-paced and following a short timeline formula (though in this case it is 48 hours, I guess 24 would have made too short of a book).

What do you think of famous people crossing over to other mediums?