AltWeeklies Wire
The Oral History of Toronto’s Punk Rock Scene is Retold in 'Treat Me Like Dirt'new
Liz Worth’s oral history Treat Me Like Dirt proves to be long overdue, finally exposing Toronto’s influential but often forgotten punk rock scene between 1974 and 1981.
Montreal Mirror |
Johnson Cummins |
02-26-2010 |
Nonfiction
Tags: Liz Worth, Treat Me Like Dirt
A Retired UC Davis History Professor Turns Detectivenew
The Codex Cardona is a 16th century account (by native scribes) of what life was like in Mexico before and immediately after the arrival of the Europeans. A retired UC Davis history professor turns detective and attempts to solve the mystery of a missing Mexican treasure.
Sacramento News & Review |
Kel Munger |
02-25-2010 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Financial Collapse Plus War Plus Suicide Plus Closeted Men Equals OK Novelnew
Finished in September 2008, the very week that Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, Union Atlantic offers a lucid perspective on the manner in which the greed and venality of a privileged few can drive the economy toward and beyond the brink of collapse.
San Antonio Current |
Justin Isenhart |
02-24-2010 |
Fiction
The Secret World of Day Laborersnew
Day laborers are among the most exploited and vulnerable workers in the American economic system, yet they perform some of the most necessary — and dirty — jobs. Dick Reavis, a veteran journalist, chronicles his experiences working as a 62-year-old day laborer.
Tags: Dick J. Reavis, Catching Out
Books Explore the Games Behind the Olympic Gamesnew
This penetrating analysis by Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, a Toronto sociologist and activist, remains a classic for how thoroughly it exposes the secrecy, elitism, hypocrisy, corruption, and lack of accountability of what she calls the “Olympic industry”.
The Georgia Straight |
Charlie Smith |
02-16-2010 |
Nonfiction
‘The Poisoner’s Handbook’: Tracking Murder Through Forensic Sciencenew
The storytelling skills of Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, show no diminishment in The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York (Penguin Press).
Shepherd Express |
Roger K. Miller |
02-12-2010 |
Nonfiction
Writer Captures New Dimensions of Old West Legends Pat Garrett and Billy the Kidnew
Growing up in a small Missouri town in "the heart of Jesse James country," Mark Lee Gardner and his friends would chase each other through the schoolyard pantomiming holdups, manhunts and violent showdowns. "We all wanted to be Jesse James," he muses.
Colorado Springs Independent |
Jill Thomas |
02-09-2010 |
Nonfiction
Secret History of Chicago Music: Shel Silversteinnew
Everybody knows Shel Silverstein as a cartoonist and author. But how many remember him as a musician? Born Sheldon Alan Silverstein in Chicago in 1930, as a young man he hawked hot dogs at both Chicago ballparks and began his music career with the 1959 album Hairy Jazz.
Chicago Reader |
Plastic Crimewave |
02-08-2010 |
Books
Columnist’s Book Offers an Overview of the Progress Made by Womennew
Gail Collins of The New York Times has written a book that I consider a must-read: When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to the Present. Run, do not walk, to your local bookstore and get your copy.
Pasadena Weekly |
Ellen Snortland |
02-08-2010 |
Nonfiction
Barry Lopez on a Writer's Responsibility in a Time of Environmental Crisisnew
Every couple of years, Barry Lopez assigns himself a trip that he knows "will knock me over backwards." And it's not the sort of travel you might expect from the naturalist author of such classics as Of Wolves and Men and Arctic Dreams.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Bill O'Driscoll |
02-08-2010 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
T.C. Boyle, Still Goading the Opinionated After All These Yearsnew
A new collection of stories is something to get excited about. My appetite for Wild Child was whetted reading A Death in Kitchawank, in a recent New Yorker. I know that I plan to spend a few hours as a happy subject of literary manipulation, as soon as I lay hands on Boyle's latest.
New Haven Advocate |
Eva Geertz |
02-02-2010 |
Fiction
Could a Controversial Book Cause a Miscarriage of Justice?new
'In the Middle of the Night' revisits the morning of July 23, 2007, when Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes (allegedly) invaded the home of Dr. William Petit, beating him with a baseball bat and raping, torturing and murdering his wife and two daughters.
New Haven Advocate |
Craig Fehrman |
02-02-2010 |
Books
'Global Warring': The Geopolitics of Climate Changenew
The Earth is warming. Fact. Weather patterns are changing. Undeniable. We’re all in a heap of trouble. Uh-huh. And we’re all doing our best to deal with it. Nope. According to Montrealer Cleo Paskal, the world governments are snoozing while the world boils.
NOW Magazine |
Patrick Lejtenyi |
01-29-2010 |
Nonfiction
Snake On a Train: Getting to Know Patricia Highsmithnew
It's no small achievement that playwright-biographer Joan Schenkar is able to find perverse charm and consistent fascination in the messy, globetrotting life of Patricia Highsmith. At almost 700 pages, Schenkar's The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith is a horse pill of a book.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Jimmy Fowler |
01-25-2010 |
Nonfiction
TCU Professor's Memoir: Happy, Poetic, But Slightnew
Titled after his college nickname, Alex Lemon's Happy is another in a slew of memoirs in the vein of Boy Meets Obstacle, Boy Overcomes Obstacle, Boy Finds Redemption. Typically in such books, a self-destructive young man is thrown into exigent circumstances that force him to confront the selfish asshole in the mirror.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Anthony Mariani |
01-25-2010 |
Nonfiction
Tags: Alex Lemon, Happy
