So, here we go again. The first time was in the 1930s, when the special effects for the film “King Kong” blew away audiences. Then came the 1976 version, in which audiences wanted to blow away the filmmakers. (Brief confession: I actually sort of have a soft spot for that 1970s version, because I was just a pre-teen and sort of fell in love with Jessica Lang as Dwan. I’m not proud, but there it is).

Now we have director Peter Jackson, who could have done pretty much anything he wanted after the success of his Lord of the Rings films, giving us another version of King Kong. And the books are hitting the shelves as well. There’s the official novelization of the movie by Christopher Golden, and a re-release of the novel made for the original film back in the 1930s by Delos W. Lovelace (read that one as a kid, not bad). For the movie buffs, there’s
The Making of King Kong: The Official Guide To The Motion Picture, which might be a nice stocking stuffer for the King Kongiac in your life (I bet he’s somewhere between the ages of 6 and 12).

Ballantine has released yet another book on Star Wars, this time picking up the story where the last movie left off. Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader describes the reign of terror started by Mr. Vader after he got that big helmet on his head.

On the non-fiction front, there are two recently released books on happiness. As in, finding it. In Happiness: A History, author Darrin M. McMahon searches for the source in history that led to “our current obsession with happiness.” In The Happiness Hypothesis, author Jonathan Haidt explores “10 great ideas” taken from ancient philosophy that can make you happy in the modern world.