AltWeeklies Wire
'Dr. Vino' Talks 'Wine Politics'new
Wine Politics compares the byzantine, quasi-self-governing appellation system of Bordeaux's wine growers with that of the more government-regulated Napa Valley producers and shows how those individual systems, along with other factors, determine which wines end up in stores, how much they cost, and what they taste like.
Chicago Reader |
Mike Sula |
09-22-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Erik Darling: A Life in Folk Musicnew
A virtuoso banjo and guitar player, Darling also founded and performed with two other leading folk groups, the Tarriers (with Alan Arkin, then just a little-known singer) and the Rooftop Singers.
Shepherd Express |
Martin Jack Rosenblum |
09-19-2008 |
Nonfiction
Philip Roth's Latest Gives Us a World Caught Between Warsnew
Since 2000, Roth has compressed the thematic dynamism of his masterpieces into tales that can be read in the time it takes you to watch a baseball game. Indignation, his latest bravura performance in the form, is a haunting, bleakly comic time-capsule of a book
Las Vegas Weekly |
John Freeman |
09-19-2008 |
Fiction
Tags: Philip Roth, Indignation
Infinite Loss: David Foster Wallace and the Troublesome, Inescapable 'I'new
"Was he a good writer?" asked the young sales clerk at Borders.
L.A. Weekly |
Gendy Alimurung |
09-19-2008 |
Books
Tags: David Foster Wallace, obituaries
Philip Roth Looks Back on a Legendary Career, and Forward to His Final Actnew
The backward-looking, documentary storytelling impulse in Indignation is a continuation of a growing vein of Roth's work in the past decade, books obsessed and possessed by American history.
Las Vegas Weekly |
John Freeman |
09-19-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Ronald Wright Condemns the Short History of Yankee Progress in 'What Is America?'new
It must be tough being Ronald Wright. As a blisteringly insightful historian with eyes as much on the future as the past, it’s easy to imagine how painful it must be to live here in the early 21st century and watch as the United States leaves a trail of blood across the globe.
Monday Magazine |
John Threlfall |
09-18-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Overhead Bagage: David Foster Wallace, 1962-2008new
DFW possessed a brain that was crowded with doubt -- about his own ability, sure, and in the larger sense, the ability of any of us to adequately express anything.
Boston Phoenix |
Nina MacLaughlin |
09-18-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Tags: David Foster Wallace, obituaries
A New Southern Strategy in Bob Moser's 'Blue Dixie'new
In Blue Dixie, Moser argues that the Democrats' efforts to win without seriously contesting the South is flawed in tactical terms, profoundly misguided in strategic terms, and indefensible in moral terms.
INDY Week |
Thad Williamson |
09-18-2008 |
Nonfiction
Historical Fiction 'The Black Tower' Delivers the Goodsnew
Palace intrigue, mysterious deaths and a naïve young doctor overwhelmed by France's most prominent police detective. What's not to like?
Creative Loafing (Charlotte) |
Erik Spanberg |
09-17-2008 |
Fiction
Speechless: 'Many More Splendid Sundays!'new
Many More Splendid Sundays! is the follow-up to a book that only dreamers could have believed wouldn’t be a financial failure: a gargantuan, $125 tome of hundred-year-old Little Nemo strips.
San Antonio Current |
John DeFore |
09-17-2008 |
Original Work
'What Men Call Treasure': Postmodern Goldnew
The book, nonfiction, relies heavily on fictional techniques for its success.
San Antonio Current |
Lyle Rosdahl |
09-17-2008 |
Nonfiction
Paul Auster Builds an Elaborate Fantasy to Reflect on Real-life Lossnew
The first sentence of Brooklyn novelist Auster's new book reads like Proust channeled through Kafka: "I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle with another bout of insomnia, another white night in the American wilderness."
Willamette Week |
Matt Buckingham |
09-17-2008 |
Fiction
Tags: Man in the Dark, Paul Auster
Chuck Klosterman Attempts Fiction in 'Downtown Owl'new
The standard complaint about Klosterman as a pop-culture essayist is that he is a literary slacker, stubbornly quotidian: He can write about the familiar with fresh insight, but he refuses to write about anything other than the familiar.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
09-17-2008 |
Fiction
Tags: Chuck Klosterman, Downtown Owl
Want to Sell a Book? Make a Movie.new
Oregon's own Powell's is teaching New York a new trick. It's called Out Of the Book, and it's a series of bite-sized films about ... what else? Books and the quirky people who write them.
Willamette Week |
John Minervini |
09-17-2008 |
Books
Religions Battle it Out in 'Wag the Dog' Author Larry Beinhart's New Thrillernew
From the outset, Salvation Boulevard was meant to be much more than a garden-variety murder mystery. "I woke up one morning in the 21st century and thought I was having a bad acid flashback of the 12th," Beinhart muses now.
East Bay Express |
Anneli Rufus |
09-17-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
