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Robert Siegel and Melissa Block talk with our regular political commentators, E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and Brookings Institution, and David Brooks of The New York Times. We get their take on President Obama's victory, as well as what it means for the direction of the GOP.

On Thursday, there were talks in Qatar aimed at restructuring and reinforcing Syria's opposition movement.

Mark Danielewski is the author of The Fifty Year Sword.

When I was 12, the movie was forbidden. What my parents matter-of-factly declared too scary, friends confirmed with added notes of hysteria: "Nothing more terrifying!" "The most horrifying film ever made!" "People pass out!"

In Provo, Utah, where I grew up, Mormon children — and in my world that meant all of my friends — reported how just a glimpse resulted in actual, irreversible possession.

No one, though, had explicitly forbidden the book. And one day I found it — on one of those unvisited shelves that at some point cross over from being a place about reading to a plank consigned to storage — beside a copy of The Joy of Sex and something called Slaughterhouse-Five.

Still, I was careful not to let my parents know that I was now in possession of this Bantam edition with its glossy purple cover framing a curiously enigmatic image. It had hues of apricot, and was gauzy in a way that was vaguely feminine, even erotic. It was nothing like the movie poster — with that silhouette of Father Merrin, the Jesuit priest, about to enter the house of the possessed girl, brim hat on, valise in hand, caught in a hazy beam of light. In another context the illumination might have suggested something promising and welcoming rather than the dim dread that poster still evokes in me.

The book, however, felt warm and forgiving. And despite what the words within conveyed, those soft edges felt much different: safe, like a smoked glass through which to view dark suns.

Emman Montalvan

Mark Danielewski is also the author of House of Leaves.

Marbles, cartoonist Ellen Forney's excellent graphic memoir about being bipolar, opens with her in the middle of a 5 1/2-hour session in a tattoo parlor. Every time the needle traces a line, Forney writes, she can "see the sensation — a bright white light, an electrical charge." Those opening words are a perfect description of her book. From the very first page, Forney allows us to see sensation — to inhabit, as closely as possible, her bipolar world, from its manic, exhilarating highs to its oceanic, debilitating lows. Bipolar disorder defies easy treatment; each individual patient must become their own guinea pig to discover the balance of medication and lifestyle therapies that will allow him or her to achieve long-term stability. For Forney, this was an intense four-year process that she chronicles with her deceptively simple drawing style, an emotive line that matches her expressive prose.

Is it weird to call a memoir about bipolar disorder entertaining? Well, this one is, thanks to the ease with which Forney translates her vivacious, fearless personality to the page. This is easiest when she's getting that tattoo, planning a massive book party or orchestrating a steamy photo shoot in one of her manic phases, but her unfailing sense of humor, honesty and engagement with the world sustains us through the low phases as well. After receiving her diagnosis, Forney plans future projects to occupy herself when she becomes depressed, but as the cycle inevitably shifts, she writes, "I sensed that I had landed, a familiar feeling I'd forgotten. ... I had a tickle in my throat and there was pressure in my nasal passages. I'd forgotten this part, too. During a manic episode, depression seems entirely impossible. At the end of a high, though, I'd get sick. I had a sinking feeling ... I'd been so sure that I could manage without meds, that I could take care of myself. That conviction disappeared all at once."

Enlarge Jacob Peter Fennell/Gotham

Ellen Forney created the Eisner-nominated comic books I Love Led Zeppelin and Monkey Food.