AltWeeklies Wire
Michael Chabon Discusses Children and Popular Culturenew
Chabon is the jack-of-all-trades of contemporary literature. His literate, humorous, elegiac books include everything from a Pulitzer Prize winner about comic book creators to an alternate-world mystery in a Jewish free state. Now he's got a new collection of essays, Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father and Son.
INDY Week |
Zack Smith |
10-30-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Populist Carolyn Chute Disbands the 2nd Maine Militia, Turns to Revising Her Book Seriesnew
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.
Portland Phoenix |
Rick Wormwood |
10-29-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Why 'High Fidelity' Fans Will Hate Nick Hornby's Latest Booknew
Hornby's sixth fictional offering, Juliet, Naked, features another developmentally arrested male who's trapped in a codependent relationship with his record collection. Chances are Fidelity fiends are not amused. Here's why.
Las Vegas Weekly |
Smith Galtney |
10-29-2009 |
Fiction
Jordanian Journalist Rana Husseini Talks About Honor Killingsnew
Husseini can never forget the way the uncles of a 16-year-old murder victim dispassionately described how their niece deserved to die. "It was as if they were speaking about a sheep," she writes in her new book, Murder in the Name of Honor.
Willamette Week |
Henry Stern |
10-28-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Illustrator Chris Lane Plays Off Our Pathogen Fears in His New Graphic Novelnew
Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection imagines a public health crisis in the year 2012 caused by a sickness that percolates through the air and gets under people's skin. By the end of the year, more than five billion people have succumbed. The idea is horrifying, but in a weirdly seductive way.
East Bay Express |
Rachel Swan |
10-28-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Wal-Mart Lowers the Guillotine on Authors and Independent Bookstoresnew
The devaluation of work is a brutal injustice to the Kingsolvers and the Grishams and the Pattersons (though, for the record, the latter two aren't exactly wading in the same talent pool as Kingsolver). Even -- and I cannot believe I am going to say this -- even Dan Brown and his formulaic prose deserve better than $8.99 on new releases.
San Diego CityBeat |
Aaryn Belfer |
10-28-2009 |
Books
Philosopher Peter Singer Wants You to Give Away Your Moneynew
The premise of The Life You Can Save is simple: With so much conspicuous affluence in the world, especially in the U.S., there's no good reason for so much poverty to exist. Singer's solution? Give away a reasonable percentage of your money.
New Haven Advocate |
John Stoehr |
10-27-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
David Byrne Talks Bicycles, New York and Urbanismnew
Byrne is not the kind of cyclist out there proselytizing. He's just a guy who realizes that biking is faster and more convenient and that it feels good. And Byrne makes clear he is not a fanatic. "When I sit down at dinner with people, it's not like I only talk about bicycles," he says.
NOW Magazine |
Paul Terefenko |
10-26-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Journo Ann Louise Bardach Publishes Exposé on Castro While Feds Seek Her Testimonynew
Without Fidel cements Bardac's stature as America's best-informed and most insightful writer about Castro's 50-year reign and the fervid passions, plots, and politics of Washington and South Florida aimed at destroying it.
Santa Barbara Independent |
Jerry Roberts |
10-26-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Manhattan Goes Meta in Jonathan Lethem's 'Chronic City'new
Unlike Pynchon in The Crying of Lot 49, which this book at first resembles, Lethem keeps his readers (and his narrator) at too critical a distance, and explains far too much, and thus leaves me still waiting for that novel where Lethem finally knocks one all the way into the bleachers.
Willamette Week |
Matthew Korfhage |
10-21-2009 |
Fiction
'A Rebel Life' Remembers Molly Ivinsnew
In First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family, Bill Minutaglio deciphered Dubya's career as a campaign of filial devotion and rebellion. Turning now to Bush's spunkiest critic, Minutaglio interprets Ivins as similarly driven by resentment toward her overbearing, overachieving father.
San Antonio Current |
Steven G. Kellman |
10-21-2009 |
Nonfiction
How Maurice Sendak Unleashed a Multimedia Monster with 10 Little Sentencesnew
While plenty of books from childhood are remembered nostalgically and still others are simply forgotten, Where the Wild Things Are is, for many, beloved not only for what it was then, but for what it means now.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Lauren F. Friedman |
10-20-2009 |
Books
Josh Bazell Turns His ER Experience into the Year's Best Debut Novelnew
Bazell, who wrote Beat the Reaper while working on his residency at a California hospital, crafted an ingenious, fast-paced thriller that also managed to be a work of art.
New Haven Advocate |
Drew Taylor |
10-20-2009 |
Fiction
In 'Shop Class as Soulcraft,' Matthew B. Crawford Says: Get Off Your Assnew
Ex-Bush think-tank dynamo-turned-vintage motorcycle shop owner Crawford calls out the trend in America's displacement of values pertaining to manual trades while questioning the misguided future of would-be knowledge workers (a dirty word as far as Crawford's concerned).
Metro Times |
Travis R. Wright |
10-20-2009 |
Nonfiction
Barbara Ehrenreich's Latest Book Tackles Our Oppressive Optimismnew
Rather than focus on some particular tool of oppression that's misled the masses into believing they're happy, in Bright-Sided Ehrenreich trains her ire on happiness itself.
Chicago Reader |
Noah Berlatsky |
10-19-2009 |
Nonfiction
