AltWeeklies Wire
Sex and scatology, cadavers and ghosts: the indecorous enthusiasms of author Mary Roachnew
An interview with Mary Roach.
Tags: Mary Roach
The worlds of the suddenly hot George Saundersnew
George Saunders reads in the FHI Garage in Bay 4 of Smith Warehouse
Cory Doctorow on the teen imagination, paranoia and the late Aaron Swartznew
"It's very hard to adequately understand, in advance, the cost of privacy disclosures and of privacy breaches. Because privacy and its consequences are separated by a lot of time and space."
David Menconi recounts Ryan Adams' Raleigh yearsnew
Often funny, sad and poignant at the same time, Losering distills all the tales you might've heard about the booze- and drug-addled nervous wonder of Whiskeytown into 100 or so brisk pages.
INDY Week |
Grayson Currin |
09-19-2012 |
Nonfiction
Frank Deford's memoir of the sportswriting high lifenew
Frank Deford is one of America's greatest sportswriters, and although his new memoir, Over Time, probably isn't the place to discover why, it's an engaging, raffish ramble through his 50 years in the peculiar business of writing about sports.
Tags: Frank Deford
David Klein delves into the deep catalog of number songs in If 6 Was 9new
Reviewer's Fact #1: I downloaded 13 new songs as a result of reading this book. And, yes, I considered finding a reason to download another just to avoid the unlucky number.
INDY Week |
Chris Vitiello |
03-31-2012 |
Nonfiction
Laurent Dubois discusses Haiti: The Aftershocks of Historynew
"A lot of what we see today is the result of recent history, the last 30, 40 years. It's not a kind of inexorable story that is how it had to happen from 1804. In the 19th century, Haiti was quite economically successful."
INDY Week |
Jay O'Berski |
01-11-2012 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Haiti, Laurent Dubois
Wojciechowski's The Last Great Game: Duke vs. Kentuckynew
Although the full title occasions three objections all by itself, Gene Wojciechowski's book is nevertheless essential reading for anyone interested in college basketball—and especially, in these environs, for local sports lovers.
INDY Week |
Adam Sobsey |
01-11-2012 |
Nonfiction
Tags: Gene Wojciechowski
Thomas Frank Returns With New Book About the Billionairesnew
"Democrats really failed to speak to the new angry sensibility in the country. And Obama's personality is almost precisely wrong for the populist moment—he really has trouble turning on that emotion."
INDY Week |
Bob Geary |
01-04-2012 |
Nonfiction
Duke and UNC Team Up to Make Poetic Connectionsnew
"This conference is happening here--and that's not an accident. They haven't had one like this in New York yet, or in San Francisco yet. This is a thing that could only happen here."
Wilmington's John Jeremiah Sullivan Roughs it in Pulpheadnew
The wide-ranging subjects in Pulphead are unified into a coherent book by Sullivan's fine prose and lively voice, which can be scholarly, snarky, lyrical or harsh as suits the occasion.
In his new novel, Nightwoods, Charles Frazier returns to the Appalachians for inspirationnew
Frazier has a natural dramatic instinct, and Nightwoods is a shrewd piece of writing—shrewder still for its I-see-what-you-did-there literary and cultural references.
Jeff Sharlet's Moving Study of Religious Experiencenew
This elegantly written collection of stories features characters such as philosopher Cornel West, fundamentalist Christians, anarchists, a New Age healer and a Jewish author and Holocaust survivor. In his portrayals of imperfect, even broken people, Jeff Sharlet toes the fault lines of religious or quasi-religious experience.
Tags: Jeff Sharlet
Lewis Shiner's Dark Tangos, a Novel of Argentina's Dirty Warnew
Dark Tangos is a frank and direct look at the horrific underpinnings of the Argentinian people's complaint against their former government, and Shiner's precise and unmannered description, much like his description of the tango, is more illuminating than more stylized prose.
Tags: Dark Tangos
Duke Professor Cathy Davidson's Powerful Now You See Itnew
By looking at the historical and philosophical underpinnings of the modern school and workplace, Davidson makes a persuasive case for her book's subtitle: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn.
INDY Week |
Marc Maximov |
08-25-2011 |
Nonfiction
Tags: Cathy Davidson
