Militant populist author Carolyn Chute has disbanded the 2nd Maine Militia, which she has led for many years, to focus on revising the book series that began with School last year. After that five-volume work is complete, though, she hints that she may retire.
Despite being overstuffed with tangential subplots, too-convenient characters, and predictable plot mechanics, The Invention of Everything Else brims with Tesla's prescient ideas about energy.
Part of the lingering stigma attached to abortion is based on anti-choice rhetoric and scare tactics. But just as insidious is the pro-choice movement's reluctance to delve into the emotional nuance that comes with terminating an unplanned pregnancy. Baumgardner's book is one step toward shifting that paradigm.
A Peculiar Feeling Of Restlessness: Four Chapbooks of Short Short Fiction by Four Women does not fit in my pocket (although it is rather small), nor is it a flimsy bit of folded paper, as chapbooks used to be. But it provides everything else that chapbooks did -- bite-sized, accessible, entertaining stories -- as well as what they do today -- focused, challenging, experimental work.
Music writer Carl Wilson tries to define the difference between "us" -- the music writers and hipsters who enjoy challenging music that's interesting to think about -- and "them," those who unironically embrace Celine Dion's naked, overpowering sentimentality.