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We've all done it: Skipped the reading assignment and rented the movie instead. (Because the six-hour Pride & Prejudice mini-series has Colin Firth, and the book does not.) In this Ask Me One More final round, the shorthand method will be put to the test. Our resident bookworm John Chaneski will give you the name of a book, and you have to name the film adaptation.

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OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:

Here are our next two contestants. Stan Lee and Charlie Esser are settling in behind their puzzle podiums. Charlie?

CHARLIE ESSER: Uh-huh.

EISENBERG: Have you ever taken any philosophy?

ESSER: No.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: None at all?

ESSER: Not really, no. No, none at all. I read "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

JOHN CHANESKI: There you go.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: And you are joined by Stan Lee, who I just have to point out...

STAN LEE: Hi.

My pal Erik Olsen at The New York Times has just described an extraordinary new way to look at people. You point a camera at someone, record the image and then, using an "amplifier," you can discover things you've never seen before.

Bruce Reynolds, the brains behind the Great Train Robbery of 1963, has died at the age of 81, nearly five decades after he and his partners in crime made off with 2.6 million pounds at Ledburn, Buckinghamshire, England.

Reynolds was part of the gang that executed an elaborate scheme to swipe the cash from the Glasgow-to-Euston mail train. The clockwork nature of the crime, along with the fact that the bulk of the loot was never recovered and some of the robbers never captured, has made it a favorite subject of television and films, as well as popular music.

China isn't a good place to be a horse, if your goal is to avoid ending up as the Russian kabobs known as shashlik.

China exports the most horse meat to the global market, while Russia has the biggest appetite for horseflesh, according to a new infographic on the continuing European scandal over horse meat sold as beef.

The lists are compiled from weekly surveys of close to 500 independent bookstores nationwide.

The lists are compiled from weekly surveys of close to 500 independent bookstores nationwide.

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Every Friday throughout February, World Cafe gave away downloads of live performances from our recent sessions, featuring the likes of Lord Huron, Beach House, Afghan Whigs, Trey Anastasio and many more.

Friday's deadline looms, and as we heard earlier today on Morning Edition: "Oh, it's gonna happen."

The "it" is sequestration — $85 billion worth of across-the-board federal spending cuts that are due to start kicking in at the end of Friday unless Republican and Democratic leaders somehow bridge their differences.

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- U.S. To Give Syrian Opposition $60 Million More In Non-Lethal Aid, Kerry Says.

-- On Benedict's Last Day, A Pledge Of Obedience To His Successor.

The Obama administration will ask Congress for an additional $60 million in aid to help the Syrian opposition council provide basic goods and services in areas under rebel control, Secretary of State John Kerry announced Thursday in Rome.

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

• Queen of kink E.L. James told the New York Post that her next book "won't be nearly so raunchy" as Fifty Shades of Grey, and that she will "probably write it under another name." Her "inner goddess" is probably tired after all of that merengue-ing.

(We last updated the top of this post at 2 p.m. ET.)

Precisely on time, under dark skies but with the lights of cameras from news outlets around the world illuminating the scene, Swiss Guards on Thursday closed the doors of the palazzo at Castel Gandolfo south of Rome — marking the official end of Pope Benedict XVI's time as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

For the first time in about 600 years, a pope has voluntarily stepped down. His final moment as leader of the church came at 8 p.m. local time (2 p.m. ET).

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Here's a signal that the newly elected president of Mexico may be ready to start cleaning house. The longtime boss of Mexico's teachers union is in jail on charges of embezzling more than $160 million in union funds. Prosecutors say the money went to maintain a luxurious lifestyle, as NPR's Carrie Kahn reports.