Why take a pill when you can pop open a metaphor?

Should my son, who's on my living trust, be on my checking account?

Rankings for hard-cover books sold in Southern California, as reported by selected book stores:

Rankings for hard-cover books sold in Southern California, as reported by selected book stores:

Mysteries:  Proof of Guilt, by Charles Todd. William Morrow. 343 pages.

“I never want to have sex again.” That’s what Raleigh sex therapist Laurie Watson hears over and over again when she picks up the phone in her office.

Ah romance!

Elizabeth Black makes a notable debut with “The Drowning House,” a multigenerational, thrillingly evocative and witty novel that spans the decades between the devastating 1900 Galveston, Texas, hurricane and the island circa 1990.

Some authors visiting Triangle bookstores this week:

“Bend, Not Break” is the story of Ping Fu, whose life spanned great cultural transformations in her native China and economic transformations in her adopted home of the U.S.

Short Takes:  Cory “the Oracle” Marcinuk has written an amusing book, “How to Beat the Casino,” about gambling – casino, blackjack, horse racing, roulette, craps and other kinds. His style flows easily. “This book is not politically correct,” he writes. “It’s intended to be honest, funny, sarcastic, rational, and entertaining when discussing the perils of gambling.”

By the time Whitney Houston died in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel last February, tracking her deterioration had become a blood sport for the gossip rags.