AltWeeklies Wire
Melanie Saxer Johnston's New Book Preserves Her Father's Memories of Liberating Buchenwaldnew
Although he spoke little to others about the worst of what he saw, Johnston is grateful that he shared those details with her. It allowed her to empathize with victims of all kinds.
East Bay Express |
Anneli Rufus |
09-04-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Thieves, Bigamists and Killers Walk the Walk in Mary Monroe's Novelsnew
The real shocker in Mary Monroe's new novel She Had It Coming isn't that a high-school girl murders a man on prom night. Rather, the shocker -- and the moral quandary it spurs -- is that sixteen years later, the killer's best friend is secretly married to two different men at the same time ... and wants to stay that way.
East Bay Express |
Anneli Rufus |
08-20-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Mary Monroe, She Had It Coming
Shawn Taylor Explains the Philosophy Behind 'Big Black Penis'new
The title came first. But you knew that already, didn't you? But pretty soon, Big Black Penis was more than just a provocative title; it was a move to bring authenticity into the discourse around black male sexuality.
East Bay Express |
Rachel Swan |
08-07-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Barbara Quick Brings 18th-Century Venice to Life in 'Vivaldi's Virgins'new
What drew the Berkeley author to its intoxicating setting was mainly her love of the stage: In 18th-century Venice, Quick says, "daily life itself was theater. There were masks, costumes, and intrigue for much of the year."
East Bay Express |
Anneli Rufus |
08-07-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Barbara Quick, Vivaldi's Virgins
In James Rollins' New Novel, Prophets are Made, Not Bornnew
A Sacramento veterinarian before he became a novelist, Rollins has pondered the depth and breadth of scientific possibility and its ethical consequences.
East Bay Express |
Anneli Rufus |
07-24-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Tags: James Rollins, The Last Oracle
Money Can't Buy Happiness in Janelle Brown's Silicon Valley Satirenew
A pharmaceutical company goes public, making its CEO's family worth $300 million. The day that happens is the day he tells his wife he wants a divorce. And that's the day on All We Ever Wanted Was Everything begins.
East Bay Express |
Anneli Rufus |
06-18-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
'Girls in Trucks' Tracks a Former Debutante's Adjustment to Adult Life in New Yorknew
Katie Crouch's debut novel has all the believable bad decisions, the unflinching sex, the spunk, and polish of an authentic Gen-X memoir, but it's fiction.
East Bay Express |
John Minervini |
05-01-2008 |
Fiction
'The Ten Year Nap' Explores the 'Opt-Out Revolution'new
This is a novel of manners as much as a literary take on a sociological dilemma, and as a portrait of the modern heterosexual urban bourgeoisie, much of it is wickedly bang-on.
East Bay Express |
Jolisa Gracewood |
05-01-2008 |
Fiction
Rabih Alameddine Shuns Boundaries in His Latest Novelnew
In The Hakawati, Osama al-Kharrat returns to his native Beirut reunites with family and swaps tales. Thus this hefty offering is not just a story within a story but hundreds of stories within a story, a 513-page macramé with myriad threads.
East Bay Express |
Anneli Rufus |
04-23-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Adam Mansbach Contemplates Cultural Evolutionnew
Again and again, in The End of the Jews, African-American culture and Jewish culture (and bodies) intersect.
East Bay Express |
Anneli Rufus |
04-17-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Adam Mansbach, The End of the Jews
Forget My ADHD, Here's My Manuscriptnew
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can be a burden for a kid -- but is it also a gift?
East Bay Express |
Rachel Swan |
03-20-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Memoirist David Roche Faces His Disfigurementnew
David Roche, a noted public speaker who counts Anne Lamott among his avid fans, writes with disarming frankness of his relationships, his political activism, his surgeries, his work as a massage therapist for the terminally ill, and his rides through San Francisco on public transit. During all of these, the focus is always, inescapably, on his face.
East Bay Express |
Anneli Rufus |
02-06-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Black Hole is a Fascinating Exploration of Growing Upnew
Set mainly in the Pacific Northwest, circa mid-1970s, Black Hole is the story, part science fiction, part horror, part coming-of-age, of a strange sexually transmitted disease that physically deforms those who catch it.
East Bay Express |
Jason A. Zwiker |
01-30-2008 |
Fiction
Work Can Be Considered Honest Enterprisenew
Two Lives uses the literary equivalent of investigative journalism to illuminate segments of the relationship that peek out from between reams of scholarship -- all while tackling the serious business of biography and literary criticism
East Bay Express |
Zak M. Salih |
01-30-2008 |
Fiction
Girls Will be Girls?new
Expectations are the boxes into which we lock each other. Several books -- Dropped From Heaven, Girls Gone Mild, Bad Girls, Cool It -- explore expectations society has for females.
East Bay Express |
Anneli Rufus |
09-13-2007 |
Books
