I promise this is the last Star Trek-related post I’m ever going to do on Blogtown, but Erik has been dropping hints (read: alternately throwing tantrums and trying to bribe me with Kit Kat bars) for weeks now that he wants to review William Shatner’s new autobiography. This great, great post on Papercuts kind of makes me regret yelling “Leave me alone, nerd!” then chucking the new Salman Rushdie at his head the last time he asked:

“The Shatman,” as he ill-advisedly nicknames himself, is clearly a tortured soul. “Being Kirk was an island of tranquillity in an ocean of anxiety,” he writes, and when he got to direct the fifth “Star Trek” movie, he was determined to be ambitious: “I wanted Kirk and Spock and Bones to go to hell. Filmically. I wanted to explore the whole philosophical question of God and the Devil and man’s relationship to their worship, a subject that had fascinated me for a long time.”

And while we’ve got the Books tab open, check out the LA Times’ recent list of recommended summer titles. If you’re still even marginally interested in the truth-in-nonfiction conversation, there’s a new David Sedaris collection on the list: Hit the Times for a recap of the New Republic’s priggish takedown of Sedaris’ factual flexibility last spring (and Michiko weighs in on the book itself here).