The symptoms are many and the diagnoses few, but having been sick for the past few days (many spent almost exclusively in bed), I’ve had the time to finish reading Diablo Cody’s Candy Girl, watch an episode of her new Showtime TV show, United States of Tara, and get started on the new John Hodgman book, More Information Than You Require.

Having only begun the book (getting through the cover, alone, is at least one good sitting), I am already delighted by the wry, deadpan nature with which Hodgman addresses his fake almanac, a follow-up to his earlier work, The Areas of My Expertese. For those of you not in the know, John Hodgman plays the part of the PC in those ubiquitous and clever “Get a Mac” advertisements. Most recently, he also played the father in the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.

My road to Hodgman is a bit different, though rest assured, all roads do, in fact, lead to Hodgman. See, as a bit of a musician, myself, I did a few shows and became friendly with fellow singer/songwriter, Jonathan Coulton. Coulton and Hodgman were college roommates at Yale and remain best friends to this day, with Coulton touring alongside Hodgman on the Areas of My Expertise book tour (inexplicable furry hat and all), playing music written specifically for the book (later included in the audiobook version) and Hodgman accusing Coulton of killing his cat on the back cover of More Information Than You Require.

By any means, I’m just at the beginning of the book and I’m thoroughly enjoying it, while also looking forward 700 Mole-Man names, including their occupations, after having so wholly enjoyed the earlier 700 Hobo names, including their occupations (later put into art form by means of fellow podcaster and all-around artistic wizard, Len Peralta’s 700 Hoboes Project).

Do you have any 6-degrees-of-separation-to-an-author stories? If so, share them in the comments section below.

I am now pummeling my way through Diablo Cody’s Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper. To be honest, I’m actually just in the fourth chapter, but it’s going well so far.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last few months reading short-story books almost exclusively, whereas this is one fluid story from beginning to end. But still, I do prefer the non-fiction genre when it comes to reading entire books and this one, as it is a memoir, fits the bill.

So Diablo Cody, also the writer of last year’s almost formulaicly quirky hit film, Juno, actually spent a year taking her clothes off for the thrill of it. To be honest, I finally got around to watching Juno and, while I didn’t necessarily enjoy some of the premises of the story, I did enjoy the pacing and the witty banter (helped in no small part by the terrific cast).

So the next day, I went to my BookSwim account, curious to know if she’d written a book and – what luck – she had.

Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever just searched for someone on a hunch they may have written a book because, if they had, you knew you’d want to read it?

Also, 25 bonus points goes to the first reader to accurately identify the reference in this week’s column title.

As I mentioned last week, I’m currently reading Sloane Crosley’s book, I Was Told There’d Be Cake. In the vain of I-Should-Probably-Read-More, I probably should have finished this books days ago, since it’s such a quick and easy – not to mention enjoyable – read.

Has a book ever made you laugh out loud so heartily that you disrupted those around you without a care?