Sometimes the most intriguing books are those not easily categorized. While Boston-area writer Dawn Paul’s new book is fiction, it straddles a cognitive divide between memoir and invention, between what we feel is real and what we believe is imagination.

This week’s suggestions: Watch the X Paralympic Winter Games, check out one of the new movies, get ready for the time change, prepare for Selection Sunday and start celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.

Leon Chiappini hooks a tire-sized cymbal around his finger and spins it like a basketball. He hits it and listens for the ding, the gravel and the growl: elements of crash that the average ear can’t hear. If it’s not perfect, Chiappini tosses it in the reject pile. “After 49 years, I’d better know if it’s good,” he said with a laugh.

 
The world gets a little smaller this Wednesday when 90 young adults from 20 different countries present “A Song to the World” at the Montevideo Fine Arts Center.
Passion, inspiration and positivity are a promise of the performance collective that goes by: Up with People.
Even if the name doesn’t ring a bell, there’s a good chance that you’ve come across the Denver-based non-profit, which has performed all over the world, including in four Super Bowls and in front of the Pope.

The Sixth Annual Project Turnabout "Appetite for Life" Gala was held Friday, February 12, at the Metropolitan Ballroom & Clubroom in Minneapolis. This interactive, all-star cooking class, silent auction and culinary event raises funds for the Another Chance for Life Fund, which provides scholarships to individuals and families seeking treatment, recovery and a better quality of life from their gambling addiction. 100 percent of the event proceeds solely benefit patient and family aid.

The Upper Sioux Community will receive financing for the proposed expansion for the Prairie’s Edge Casino Resort from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community of Prior Lake, according to a press release issued by the Shakopee Mdewakanton tribe.
The $9 million loan and $1 million grant is expected go towards the addition of approximately 80 additional hotel rooms, 15,000 square feet of adjunct meeting and gaming space, plus renovations to existing areas such as the buffet and bar.

Patriot Ledger film critic Al Alexander makes his annual picks for the top winners at the Academy Awards, which are being handed out Sunday.

Corrupt cops may be “in” right now in Hollywood (see this weekend’s new release, “Brooklyn’s Finest,” from “Training Day” director Antoine Fuqua), but my favorite kind of movie cop is a buddy cop.

Roughly 15 years ago, two freshmen at Ithaca College were eager to do anything except study, so they began melding one’s poetry with the other’s guitar work. All these years later, would-be poet/songwriter Andy Campolieto and guitarist Ben Lee are the main figures in the Americana band Jo Henley, whose second full-length album “Inside Out” was released Feb. 16.

Michael Corleone, meet Malik El Djebena. I think you’ll find you have a lot in common, especially seeing how you both were so adamant about avoiding the thug life before fate and circumstance dictated otherwise.

If it weren’t for the cars and the telephones and the contemporary small-town setting, “Terribly Happy” could easily be mistaken for an old-fashioned Western. It’s a sort of classic story about a new sheriff coming to town, but not being exactly welcomed with open arms.

Alexis Bledel was a breath of fresh air when she boomeranged from TV’s “Gilmore Girls” to the big screen in “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.” But like a lot of young actresses, things quickly went south.

Spooks, from both the metaphysical and espionage worlds, cast an ominous presence over Roman Polanski's “The Ghost Writer,” but it’s the underlying parallels to its author’s real life that prove most haunting.

For the duration of its grim two-hour ride, “Brooklyn’s Finest” is on to something in the vein of “Training Day,” “The Departed” and dash of “Crash.” It is a frenetic and tough police drama that puts the lives of three nearly burnt-out cops on a bloody collision course.

Tim Burton’s bold reinterpretation of “Alice in Wonderland” is the closest approximation to an acid trip you’ll encounter without indulging. Brimming with hallucinogenic imagery and characters you’d swear were sipping LSD-laced tea, Burton’s 3-D opus is sure to take “Fantasia’s” place as a favorite among hard-core stoners.