Just finished my buddy Pat King's book Exit Nothing recently, and it was one of the best books I've read in quite a while. Pat used to host a reading series here in Baltimore, first alongside Nik Korpon and then alongside A. Jarrell Hayes, and he's as friendly and affable a guy as you're likely to meet. Despite being from Alabama, he's got that scruffy, underdressed Baltimore charm in spades.

That said, Exit Nothing took me by surprise. As well as I know Pat, I'm not all that familiar with his...