books
News
Latino Literary ContributionsAs Latino Heritage month comes to an end we focus on that community's literary works. Books by Latino authors are providing a window into a culture that's writing a new chapter in America's history.
Source : npr.org | 15-Oct-2008 18:00
'Legends en Espanol' Depicts Latino Icons
People en Español magazine's new book titled Legends en Espanol is a carefully crafted collection showcasing 100 superstars of the 20th century from film and theater to dance and music. They have influenced both Latino culture and mainstream America. Those recognized include Jennifer Lopez, Celia Cruz, Desi Arnaz, and Shakira.
Source : npr.org | 15-Oct-2008 18:00
The Marcia Brady book
Maureen Mccormick has written a book called: “Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice.”
Source : monstersandcritics.com | 15-Oct-2008 16:59
The Best Foreign Books You've Never Heard Of
Only about three percent of all books published in the United States are works that have been translated. Even for a Nobel Prize winner, it's not easy to keep a book deal with a major American publisher. In an attempt to reverse the trend, David Kipen of the NEA, offers a list of his favorite foreign authors.
Source : npr.org | 15-Oct-2008 14:22
24-hour news shows hurting the industry
A recent AP article claims the above. In this new book titled “No Time to Think: The Menace of Media
Source : monstersandcritics.com | 15-Oct-2008 13:03
The Crime That Created The Man Of Steel
Brad Meltzer's latest thriller, The Book of Lies, melds together two well-known tales of familial tragedy and redemption. Cain and Abel, meet Superman.
Source : npr.org | 15-Oct-2008 03:03
Saving America Through Energy Innovation
Fossil fuels are damaging our economy and national security, in addition to altering the world's climate. A green revolution, says Thomas Friedman, "is not about the whales." It's a competitive necessity.
Source : npr.org | 14-Oct-2008 20:42
Deaf Sentence is being heard
Alright, bad pun. “Deaf Sentence” is actually the title to a novel by Deaf Sentence. This is his latest novel,
Source : monstersandcritics.com | 14-Oct-2008 19:02
The Upside Of 'Factory Girl' Life In China
Author Leslie Chang followed two girls from their rural homes in China to a city called Dongguan, where they became "factory girls." Life in these makeshift cities can be quite lucrative for hard-working ladies, she finds.
Source : npr.org | 14-Oct-2008 19:00
Shining A Light On The NSA's 'Shadow Factory'
Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the National Security Agency stepped up its efforts to collect intelligence domestically by filtering millions of phone conversations and e-mail messages. In his new book, The Shadow Factory, journalist James Bamford reveals that the ultra-secret agency has half a million people on its watch lists.
Source : npr.org | 14-Oct-2008 16:47
Robert Jordan, Hemingway's Bipartisan Hero
Though fierce political opponents, John McCain and Barack Obama agree on a literary matter: Each picks Ernest Hemingway's 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, featuring the stoic freedom-fighter Robert Jordan, as a favorite.
Source : npr.org | 14-Oct-2008 13:32
‘Descartes’ Bones’
“Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason” is the full title by Russell Shorto.
Source : monstersandcritics.com | 14-Oct-2008 13:02
Teller wins German Book Prize
Frankfurt - Author Uwe Teller won on Monday the German Book Prize, an annual, 25,000-euro (34,000-dollar) award for German-speaking novels,
Source : monstersandcritics.com | 14-Oct-2008 01:02
New from Mickey Spillane…?
According to USA Today, the author Mickey Spillane had called his author pal Max Allan Collins, asking him if he
Source : monstersandcritics.com | 13-Oct-2008 19:02
New memoir addresses grief, loss
This new memoir titled “Epilogue” by Anne Roiphe, USA Today describes it as:
Source : monstersandcritics.com | 13-Oct-2008 18:47
Talking Columbus On Columbus Day
Author David Boyle discusses his new book, Toward the Setting Sun: Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci, and the Race for America and explores the relationship between the three men and their joint venture in crossing the Atlantic.
Source : npr.org | 13-Oct-2008 16:00
Columnist Krugman Wins Nobel For Economics
Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman won the Nobel economics prize on Monday for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity.
Source : npr.org | 13-Oct-2008 14:10
'The Ayatollah Begs to Differ — The Paradox of Modern Iran'
That is the latest title by Hooman Majd. According to the AP:
Source : monstersandcritics.com | 13-Oct-2008 13:02
Louis Menand: Is texting here to stay?
Is texting bringing us closer to the end of life as we currently tolerate it? Enough people have suggested that it is to have inspired David Crystal to produce “Txtng: The Gr8 Db8” (Oxford; $19.95). “I don’t think I have ever come across a topic which has attracted more . . .
Source : newyorker.com | 13-Oct-2008 06:00
Jeffrey Frank: Per Petterson's "To Siberia."
On April 7, 1990, the ferryboat Scandinavian Star sailed from Oslo toward Frederikshavn, in the northern part of Denmark, carrying nearly five hundred passengers. The ship caught fire, and more than a hundred and fifty people perished. Four of the dead belonged to the family of the Norwegian novelist Per . . .
Source : newyorker.com | 13-Oct-2008 06:00
Goings on About Town: Readings and Talks
RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART Ellen Burstyn, Brian Cox, Linus Roache, and others give a dramatic reading based on the Dhammapada, a central text of Buddhism. (150 W. 17th St. 212-620-5000, ext. 344. Oct. 15 at 7.) UNION HALL Jay McInerney, Kate Christensen, and Arthur Phillips read short stories they have . . .
Source : newyorker.com | 13-Oct-2008 06:00
Elizabeth Kolbert: Emily Post, at home.
New York’s moneyed class has always loved to read about itself. In the early years of the twentieth century, it particularly loved to do so in a magazine called Town Topics: The Journal of Society. Far and away the weekly’s most popular feature, titled “Saunterings,” offered material of a sort . . .
Source : newyorker.com | 13-Oct-2008 06:00
Books: "The House at Sugar Beach"
Cooper is a descendant of the Congo People--the élite who once governed Liberia--and can trace her ancestry to the freed American slaves who colonized the country in the eighteen-hundreds. In 1980, she and her family fled Monrovia following a coup; her mother was raped and, on her . . .
Source : newyorker.com | 13-Oct-2008 06:00
Books: "The English Major"
The protagonist of this wistfully comic novel is a sixty-year-old English teacher turned farmer, whose wife has left him for another man, and who takes to the road in the quixotic pursuit of renaming all the birds and all the states. Along the way, he picks up a . . .
Source : newyorker.com | 13-Oct-2008 06:00
Books: "The Elegance of the Hedgehog"
In this supple novel of ideas, a best-seller in France, the unschooled middle-aged concierge of an upper-class Paris apartment building acts like a stereotypical concierge, leaving the television on all day and sharing her quarters with an old, fat cat, but she secretly consumes vast quantities of . . .
Source : newyorker.com | 13-Oct-2008 06:00
Books: "Antoine’s Alphabet: Watteau and His World"
In 1944, Cyril Connolly, having just passed his fortieth birthday and in a melancholy mood, published “The Unquiet Grave,” a gloriously strange book of fragments, quotations, epigrams, impressions, and wartime journal entries--a kind of aesthetic autobiography--under the pseudonym Palinurus. Perl, the art critic for the New Republic, has . . .
Source : newyorker.com | 13-Oct-2008 06:00
Feature: The Alfred Hitchcock Story (and analysis)
The Alfred Hitchcock Story, recently reissued by Titan books, was originally published in 1999. The book features write-ups by Ken
Source : monstersandcritics.com | 13-Oct-2008 00:03
Le Clezio, Portrait Of A Gentle Writer
Though born in France, Nobel laureate Jean-Marie Gustav Le Clezio is a nomadic writer, whose work has been defined by his life of travel around the world. For him, storytelling means melting into the background.
Source : npr.org | 12-Oct-2008 22:19
Turkey - literature full of controversy shines at Book Fair
Frankfurt - The Frankfurt Book Fair, an annual five-day session of book-publishing negotiations, opens in Germany this Wednesday with Turkey
Source : monstersandcritics.com | 12-Oct-2008 19:02
Turkish publishing trade suffers as literary star rises
Ankara - Turkey's role as special guest at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair is a great shot in the arm
Source : monstersandcritics.com | 12-Oct-2008 18:47
USA Today’s list of best selling books
The AP has released USA Today’s list of best selling books. The top 10 titles include:
Source : monstersandcritics.com | 12-Oct-2008 18:32
Massachusetts has chosen book for the state
According to the AP, The House of Representatives passed a bill choosing Melville’s famed epic “Moby-Dick” as the epic novel
Source : monstersandcritics.com | 12-Oct-2008 12:28
Building the Village
WHATEVER IT TAKES Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America By Paul Tough
Source : washingtonpost.com | 12-Oct-2008 06:00
Big Brother's Big Failure
THE SHADOW FACTORY The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America By James Bamford
Source : washingtonpost.com | 12-Oct-2008 06:00
Rebel Wife
MY LIFE WITH CHE The Making of a Revolutionary By Hilda Gadea
Source : washingtonpost.com | 12-Oct-2008 06:00
Axis of Incompetence
HITLER'S EMPIRE How the Nazis Ruled Europe By Mark Mazower
Source : washingtonpost.com | 12-Oct-2008 06:00
Today's Long Gray Line
IN A TIME OF WAR The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point's Class of 2002 By Bill Murphy Jr.
Source : washingtonpost.com | 12-Oct-2008 06:00
They're All Alike
HAPPY FAMILIES By Carlos Fuentes
Source : washingtonpost.com | 12-Oct-2008 06:00
Family Matters
THE CURE FOR GRIEF By Nellie Hermann
Source : washingtonpost.com | 12-Oct-2008 06:00
The Murderess of Smoky Mountain
A gothic tale about lumber and a woman who pushes her husband too far.
Source : washingtonpost.com | 12-Oct-2008 06:00
In Their Own Words
For an administration that initially was very tight-lipped and on-message, the Bush presidency has yielded an abundance of memoirs by insiders ranging from former White House aides to generals and diplomats.
Source : washingtonpost.com | 12-Oct-2008 06:00
Jonathan Yardley on 'The Brass Verdict'
Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller team up to catch a Hollywood killer.
Source : washingtonpost.com | 12-Oct-2008 06:00
Washington Area Bestsellers
Rankings reflect sales for the week ended Oct. 5, 2008.
Source : washingtonpost.com | 12-Oct-2008 06:00
Short Stack
From our new daily blog, Short Stack. We know that our economy, which used to be our ace, is in the tank. But, to make matters worse, the highest member of the Nobel Prize jury has now proclaimed us cultural Philistines. We're just too insular and ignorant to produce great literature, says Horace...
Source : washingtonpost.com | 12-Oct-2008 06:00
Literary Calendar
10:30 A.M. Children's author Mem Fox and author and illustrator Helen Oxenbury read from and discuss their new picture book, Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes , at Politics and Prose Bookstore, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW, 202-364-1919.
Source : washingtonpost.com | 12-Oct-2008 06:00
Poet's Choice
Back in high school, I fell in love with Bill Knott's visionary poems, some only a few lines long. As American bombs in Vietnam were accidentally killing children, he penned this tiny gem: "The only response/to a child's grave is/to lie down before it and play dead."
Source : washingtonpost.com | 12-Oct-2008 06:00