AltWeeklies Wire
A Duke Historian Unearths a Motherlode of Forgotten Jazz Recordingsnew
Sam Stephenson has been studying W. Eugene Smith for 12 years. His second book, The Jazz Loft, is a massive oral history of Smith's former home in New York City.
INDY Week |
Jesse Jarnow |
03-26-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Will Your Favorite Indie Book Store Survive or Be Swallowed Whole?new
More than a decade deep into Amazon, Borders and Barnes & Noble's ravenous gangbang of all things mom-and-pop, local bookstores are now staring down the barrel of Depression 2.0.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Jakob Dorof |
03-24-2009 |
Books
He Survived the Pickup-Artist Scene, Now He Wants to Survive the Apocalypsenew
Neil Strauss' own press materials call him "the world's most legendary pickup artist," but his new game is all about learning to survive not dating disasters but actual life-threatening, end-days disasters, an obsession that brings plenty of its own worries.
L.A. Weekly |
Gendy Alimurung |
03-20-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Quincy Jones Can't Help But Look Back on His Life and Legacynew
Jones' mesmerizing coffee-table history is cobbled together from the scraps of a life collected by his sister-in-law Gloria and bookended by a Maya Angelou preface, a Clint Eastwood foreword, a Bono introduction and a Sidney Poitier afterword.
Dallas Observer |
Robert Wilonsky |
03-16-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
One Day in Dallasnew
Adam Braver’s book deserves to be known; it ranks first among novels focused on the death of JFK.
The Texas Observer |
Don Graham |
03-12-2009 |
Fiction
Samantha Hunt Weaves Historical Fiction From Nikola Tesla's Biographynew
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.
Portland Phoenix |
Christopher Gray |
03-12-2009 |
Fiction
Zoe Heller's 'Believers' Captivates Despite a Weak Plotnew
Heller’s treatment of fraught and contradictory emotions, together with her unabashed exploration of intellectual musings, endows the story’s eponymous believers with an all-too-rare profundity.
New York Press |
Rayyan Al-Shawaf |
03-05-2009 |
Fiction
The Romance of Decay in Photosnew
Cheer up and don't let this dust-to-dust business slow you down. That's something to keep in mind when confronting the work of Jerry Berndt and Eugene Richards, two photographers with Boston ties adept at making art from what a lot of people consider ugly, untouchable things.
Boston Phoenix |
Clif Garboden |
03-05-2009 |
Nonfiction
California's Indie Booksellers Take On Amazon.comnew
Berkeley Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner wants the giant online retailers to stop cheating both California and independent booksellers.
East Bay Express |
Robert Gammon |
03-04-2009 |
Books
Exhaustive Book Tells Us How a Group of TV Innovators Got to 'Sesame Street'new
Michael Davis' Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street is broad in scope yet exercises a meticulous attention to detail. This meticulousness turns out to be essential because of the number of story threads that are un-teased to paint Davis’ picture.
San Antonio Current |
Molly O'Donnell |
03-04-2009 |
Nonfiction
So Close to the Alamo, So Far from Godnew
Them vaunted Tennessee volunteers of our high-school Alamobotomies are Rachel Jennings' kin. And as kinfolk go, she knows that each time they "hem and haw" about their heroism, they're just covering up shit.
San Antonio Current |
B.V. Olguin |
03-04-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Zero Defex Bassist Says Zen Can Stop You From Being a Dicknew
Unlike Brad Warner's previous two published books (he’s also written three unpublished science-fiction novels, one of which he thinks is pretty good), Zen Wrapped in Karma is more a memoir than a spiritual manual. If you’re not into punk rock, meditation or Ultraman, it’s definitely the most accessible.
San Antonio Current |
D.X. Ferris |
02-25-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
An Author With a Major New Novel Rises Quietly From the Workaday Motor Citynew
Michael Zadoorian is a writer who has a true love of his hometown (as you'll read) and the kind of 24-7, "why not?" work ethic that has defined Detroit artists from Berry Gordy to Elmore Leonard, Glenn Barr to Eminem.
Metro Times |
Chris Handyside |
02-24-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Ted Gioia's 'Delta Blues' Catalogs the Bluesnew
Delta Blues rambles from Mississippi to Memphis, from Chicago to New York and across Europe, just like the musicians it documents.
Jackson Free Press |
Walter Biggins |
02-19-2009 |
Nonfiction
Ron Rash's Darkly Riveting 'Serena'new
Asheville author Ron Rash’s sweeping, big screen-worthy tale is far more than a gruesome account of the human and environmental costs of large-scale logging.
Mountain Xpress |
Alli Marshall |
02-18-2009 |
Fiction
