Looking for a little romance for your next day at the beach? Check out the 2010 RITA Award winners. Best Young Adult Romance Perfect Chemistry ~ Simone Elkeles When Brittany Ellis walks into chemistry class on the first day of senior year, she has no clue that her carefully created “perfect” life is about to…
When Scottish exile, Stewart Jamison, finds himself in pre-Revolutionary War Boston, he is full of talent but strapped for cash. A smooth talking portrait painter, Jamison manages to set himself up in business but he needs an apprentice. Enter Francis Weston, or as the reader knows him/her, Fanny Easton. Weston/Easton is a daughter of a…
Julianne Moore, best known for her work on the big screen, also has children’s book writer on her resume. And pretty soon her book series, Freckleface Strawberry, will be heading to the off-Broadway stage. [via Playbill.com] Elizabeth Gilbert briefly mentions her ex-husband in her best-selling book Eat, Pray, Love, but that’s all you’re going to…
I was lucky to attend the recent American Library Association Conference in Washington, DC where the wonderful folks from HarperCollins treated us to a “Book Buzz” presentation of books that will be coming out in the fall. Here are just a few so you can add them to your own TBR list! I certainly added…
There are so many great summer reading lists out there right now, and we will be featuring several of them here. But we thought we’d start out with some of the books that our staff are hoping to read this summer. Insignificant Others – Stephen McCauley Three Weissmans of Westport – Cathleen Schine The Bullpen…
When Loyal Ledford, returns to the Mann Glass Factory after being wounded at Guadalcanal, he has trouble readjusting to his old life. He drinks to drown the horrors he saw there and finds the most comfort talking to an African-American veteran, Mack Wells. Though trained as an engineer during the war, Mack resumes his post…
Winner of the Man Booker Prize, Mantel has called Wolf Hall a response to Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons. The ruthless character in that play is tempered in Mantel’s fictionalized account of the life of Thomas Cromwell. Her Cromwell is still opportunistic and willing to overlook some of his personal beliefs in order…
The New Yorker Magazine has announced their list of the best 20 authors under 40 It’s a season to celebrate books! Not to be outdone by BookExpo America The Guardian hosts The Hay Festival this week. Click here for highlights. The 2010 Moby Awards for Best/Worst Booktrailers were announced last week. The publicity team for…
Told from the point of view of Cleopatra Selene, the only daughter of Cleopatra and Marc Antony, Moran’s latest historical novel gives an interesting glimpse into the life of a young Egyptian woman as she learns to make her way in Rome. Octavian (Caesar Augustus) kills the majority of her family, yet he brings Selene…
The Fountainhead has become an enduring piece of literature, more popular now than when published in 1943. On the surface, it is a story of one man, Howard Roark, and his struggles as an architect in the face of a successful rival, Peter Keating, and a newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey. But the book addresses a…
If you’re looking for a good mystery, The Edgars and the Agathas were recently announced. The Edgars Best Novel Best First Novel Best Young Adult The Agathas Best Novel Best First Novel
A patron recommended this book as an antidote to all the violence on television. She loved the humor in the book and if you are looking for a good laugh you might too! The first novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club is a rollicking tale of small-town…
Thanks to all of you who attended the first ever Novelty: Danvers Literary Festival. The authors were funny, engaging and very generous with their time. Moderator, Leane Ellis did a great job introducing the panelists and asked insightful questions. Many of the authors talked about the writing process. Characterization was a hot topic with the…
Did you know we have e-newsletters and online book clubs? Did you know that you could get an email with the New York Times Bestseller lists sent directly to your email each week? You can easily link to the library’s catalog and request books or place holds on popular titles. We also have over 20…
The 2010 Rita Award Finalists were recently announced. We are pleased that two of those finalists will be appearing at the Novelty: Danvers Literary Festival on May 8th: Kristan Higgins Deanna Raybourn
Here are some fun stories from an article that appeared on the Poet’s & Writers website. George Washington (yep, that George Washington) owes three hundred thousand dollars in late fees to the New York Society Library for two overdue books he borrowed on October 5, 1789. (Guardian) Fashion Designer Marc Jacobs is opening his first…
In the summer of 1921, English society is fascinated by the spiritual world – perhaps no one more than the great mystery writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, one of thirteen eager guests at a weekend party and seance in a stately Devon manor house steeped in history and tradition. But, as Sir Arthur puts it,…
A very special congratulations to Paul Harding for winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Mr. Harding gave a reading at the library shortly after Tinkers was published. He was a great speaker and was very generous with his time. Non-fiction Poetry History Biography
One of our staff members read and loved Dennis Lehane’s latest novel of historical fiction. It sounds like a must-read for anyone interested in the history of Boston. Set in Boston at the end of the First World War, bestselling author Dennis Lehane’s extraordinary eighth novel unflinchingly captures the political and social unrest of a…
The staff here at the Peabody Institute Library had the pleasure of hearing author and Boston Globe mystery reviewer, Hallie Ephron, hold forth on the mystery genre last week. She talked about the origin of mysteries and major authors in some of the many subgenres. She was a terrific speaker and many of us were…
This is Milan’s debut historical romance featuring Gareth, Lord Blakely. Gareth is used to getting what he wants and his icy demeanor tends to cause people to scurry around to please him. When he finds that his cousin Ned has been spending his money visiting a fortune teller, he is determined to prove her a…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Congratulations to the finalists for the Orange Prize: Rosie Alison ~ The Very Thought of You Eleanor Catton ~ The Rehearsal Clare Clark ~ Savage Lands Amanda Craig ~ Hearts and Minds Roopa Farooki ~ The Way Things Look to Me Rebecca Gowers ~ The Twisted Heart M.J. Hyland ~ This is How Sadie…
Fans of The Art of Racing in the Rain might be excited to know that Garth Stein’s first novel, Raven Stole the Moon has just been released in paperback. It has been two years since Robert and Jenna Rosen lost their son in a drowning accident at a resort in Alaska. The resort was part…
The Pen/Faulkner Finalists were just announced last week. And the nominees are:
The tragedy on September 11, 2001 was an event that will go down in American history books as one that changed our nation. The late Howard Zinn reminds us that history is not just written by presidents and generals but regular people like you and me. What Alissa Torres does in this graphic novel memoir,…
The book starts with the birth of Ruby Lennox, the narrator. Her life story unfolds in chapters out of chronological sequence, through which we learn much of her dysfunctional family and what she perceives as her place in it. Ruby always feels as though she is missing something in her life, and through the backstory…
Matt Younger is a 30-year-old boat delivery captain, who returns to Amelia Island, Florida from the Dominican Republic to make a confession to his dying father. With two companions, a cook named Jesse, and Phillip, a French mechanic, Matt tells his father how he set off from West Palm Beach on board Stardust, a 40′…
Our Lady of Fatima is a close knit and very well decorated town in New Jersey. It’s prince, Bartolomeo di Crespi is the town’s best and only interior decorator. B, as he’s better known, gives up a New York City career in design so that he can be a beloved brother and uncle and member…
Robert B. Parker, whose spare, eloquent sentences turned the tough private investigator Spenser into one of Boston’s most recognizable fictional characters, died in his Cambridge home Monday. He was 77. For more click here.
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family’s apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours. Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th…
David Grann is a reporter for the New Yorker Magazine who likes to write about people who are obsessed with one thing or another, so writing about Percy Fawcett’s obsession with the Amazon rainforest and a lost civilization in that region was a perfect assignment for him. Grann gives the reader a wonderful look at…
On Monday evening, we had the pleasure of hosting New York Times Best-selling author, Matthew Pearl. At the end of a wonderful presentation about his work and the making of his book The Last Dickens, a member of the audience asked what books he was reading. Here are his recommendations: Louis Bayard ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Liss…
Originally from Palestine, Nayir is something of an outsider in Saudi Arabia. As a desert guide, he has become familiar with the bedouin customs, but the bedouins do not welcome him into their social circles and the Saudi’s think he is too much like a bedouin to be a Saudi. Yet he is highly regarded…
In Sarah Dunant’s latest historical novel, we follow the lives of two nuns. Suora Zuana is the dispensary mistress. Caring for her fellow sisters allows her some freedom perhaps not available to others. She can continue her medical studies encouraged by her late father and attend to her herb garden – both pursuits nourish her…
Deo arrives in America from Burundi in search of a new life. Having survived a civil war and genocide, plagued by horrific dreams, he lands at JFK airport with two hundred dollars, no English, and no contacts. He ekes out a precarious existence delivering groceries, living in Central Park, and learning English by reading dictionaries…
Try to imagine what it would be like if you were surrounded by people you loved, but were unable to speak to them. Imagine you could help them if only you had thumbs or could tell them what you know. Welcome to Enzo’s world. Enzo is a dog who wants desperately to be a man.…
The author of the heartbreaking memoir Angela’s Ashes passed away on Sunday. Click here for the obituary from the New York Times.
“At villa Donnafugata, long ago is never very far away,” writes bestselling author Marlena de Blasi of the magnificent if somewhat ruined castle in the mountains of Sicily that she stumbles upon one summer while traveling with her husband. There de Blasi is befriended by Tosca, the patroness of the villa, who shares her own…
Preternaturally tall and painfully innocent, Brandon Vanderkool is more bird than border patrol agent, prone to mimicking birdsong and building nests. But he’s also a remarkably acute defender of a North American border that Jim Lynch describes as “multiple-choice…with incoming settlers finding an American, a Canadian, and a compromise in-between” in Border Songs. Brandon is…
Take an acrophobic flight attendant, a mysterious traveler who changes his name based on his destination and a clandestine group of vigilantes and put them together and you have the making of a fun new graphic novel series. Blythe meets Zayn on various flights and begins to think that he’s a terrorist. But Zayn charms…
The late French photographer, Didier Lefevre, covered a Doctors Without Borders mission through war-torn Afghanistan in 1986. His good friend, Emmanuel Guibert turned his fascinating story into a stellar graphic novel. The team of doctors, nurses and mujahaddin traveled from Peshawar, Pakistan to their makeshift hospital in the Badakhshan region of Afghanistan. The journey itself…
Take a look at the 100 best books about New England or written by local authors. It’s a great list to find some summer reading ideas.
David Small is an award-winning illustrator of children’s books. In Stitches, his first graphic novel, Mr. Small tells the story of his childhood. A childhood that is described on the back cover as one that “might have been imagined by Kafka.” Set in Detroit, young David is surrounded by unhappy people. His mother is constantly…
Harvard PhD student, Connie Goodwin, plans to spend her summer researching her doctoral thesis, but when a telephone call from her free-spirited mother sends her to Marblehead, MA to get her grandmother’s house ready to sell, her plans get a little side-tracked. Not only is the project more time consuming than she thought, Connie also…
We are very excited to have Nymeth from Things Mean a Lot for our latest Guest Blogger Review. She’s known for her thoughtful, insightful reviews which cover several genres. She’s also responsible for a number of bad blogger points that awarded to reviewers who make you run out and get a copy of the book…
It is a well known story that Eve convinced Adam to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and was therefore expelled from Eden. In a chorus of voices, including Eve and her three daughters, we learn the details of how Eve was tempted to eat the fruit, why she…
The true story of thirteen women who took a risk on an expensive diamond necklace and, in the process, changed not only themselves but a community. Four years ago, in Ventura, California, Jonell McLain saw a diamond necklace in a local jewelry store display window. The necklace aroused desire first, then a provocative question: Why…
Former children’s book author Betta Nolan has by all accounts a wonderful life. When her husband dies of cancer, she realizes that their amazing relationship with John had consumed most of her time. Betta has lost touch with most of her girlfriends and must re-create a network of support. Following a plan that she had…
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is an archetypal American story of escape from home and family which traces a young man’s rite of passage through a series of terrible brushes with death during a fateful sea voyage. But it also goes much deeper, as Pym encounters various interpretative dilemmas, at last leaving the reader…
Okay, It has been a while since we’ve posted the last edition of Marie’s Monthly Minutes. A little chat with Marie yesterday got the gears in motion. Here are a few of her latest recommendations that will keep you busy for a good long while and can help you complete the Chunkster Challenge if you’re…
Inkonvellum got me hooked on the Mary Russell series. If you aren’t familiar with these and you are a fan of historical mysteries, you are in for a real treat. This series follows the exploits of Mary Russell a young ex-patriot living on the Sussex Downs with her aunt. Russell literally stumbles on a semi-retired…
At Harper Perennial, where I work, we traffic in stories of all kinds. And we have a special fondness for the short story—self-contained, crystalline, newborn, perfect. This year we’re celebrating the thriving art of the story by sharing a new one every week: most of them new, a few of them classics, from authors you…
WE DON’T WANT TO TELL YOU TOO MUCH ABOUT THIS BOOK. It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this: It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific. The story starts there, but the book doesn’t.…
This is a fantastic graphic novel that follows three unlikely pairs on an advenuture that takes them through the underworld of present day Cairo. Ashraf, a drug-runner, sets this tale in motion when he sells a stolen hookah to a naive tourist. When the hookah turns out to be more valuable than he realized, Ashraf…
Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after size zero and size double-zero? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia feels she is being haunted by her friend’s restless spirit. In her most emotionally wrenching,…
From the New York Times bestselling author of On Mystic Lake comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . . In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the…
We’ve noticed that the challenges on our sidebar are woefully out of date, but the number of challenges springing up in the blogosphere just keep growing. Here are a few more we’d like to share with you. And don’t forget our version of the Genre Challenge. Click on the title of any of the challenges…
Local writer, John Updike died today of lung cancer. Here’s an excerpt from the Boston Globe: A master of many authorial trades, Mr. Updike was novelist, short story writer, critic, poet — and in each role as prolific as he was gifted. He aimed to produce a book a year. Easily meeting that goal, Mr.…
Reading Toni Morrison is like taking a master class in how to write characters. Morrison delves deep into the psyche of her characters and finds that raw, vulnerable place in each one. Morrison gathers together an uncommon group who have been cast off from society. Even though he abhors slavery, Jacob Vaark, a northern trader…
A late-spring storm capped the last daffodils and the first tulips with dollops of snow, which melted when the sun came back out. The snow seemed to have a bracing effect on the flowers; their roots drank the cold melt, their stalks straightened from the chilly drink; their petals, supple and hale, were spared the…
A patron recommends the following Urdu epic. It took a long time for him to read, but Amir Hamza manages to get into one amazing advenuture after another. Slap on your scimitar and join the adventure! The Indo-Islamic Dastan-e Amir Hamza is a rip-roaring, bawdy, magical journey into the fantastic life and exploits of Amir…
They are the troops that nobody wants to see, carrying a message that no military family ever wants to hear. It begins with a knock at the door. “The curtains pull away. They come to the door. And they know. They always know,” said Major Steve Beck. Since the start of the war in Iraq,…
If you like best book lists, you’ll want to check out the New York Times list of Ten Best Books of 2008 while you’re at it, you might want to look at their list of 100 Notable Books or the Notable Children’s Books. We’re excited that Hannah Tinti, who recently visited us, made the list.
In medieval Cambridge, England, four children have been murdered. The crimes are immediately blamed on the town’s Jewish community, taken as evidence that Jews sacrifice Christian children in blasphemous ceremonies. To save them from the rioting mob, the king places the Cambridge Jews under his protection and hides them in a castle fortress. King Henry…
Tony Hillerman died yesterday at the age of 83. Hillerman’s evocative novels, which describe people struggling to maintain ancient traditions in the modern world, touched millions of readers, who made them best sellers. But although the themes of his books were not overtly political, he wrote with a purpose, he often said, and that purpose…
Here is THE book recounting the life and times of one of the most respected men in the world, Warren Buffett. The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions,…
In this groundbreaking, bestselling graphic memoir, Alison Bechdel charts her fraught relationship with her late father. In her hands, personal history becomes a work of amazing subtlety and power, written with controlled force and enlivened with humor, rich literary allusion, and heartbreaking detail. Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of…
If you are in the area Hannah Tinti will be reading and signing The Good Thief on Sunday, October 26 at 2pm. The accolades for this book are so glowing and so many. Hannah Tinti has created a world at once familier and strange. Other reviewers have justifiably compared her to Charles Dickens and Robert…
The Little Book is the extraordinary tale of Wheeler Burden, California-exiled heir of the famous Boston banking Burdens, philosopher, student of history, legend’s son, rock idol, writer, lover of women, recluse, half-Jew, and Harvard baseball hero. In 1988 he is forty-seven, living in San Francisco. Suddenly he is—still his modern self—wandering in a city and…
Engel is the longest serving broadcaster in Iraq and the only American television reporter to cover the country continuously before, during, and after the 2003 U.S. invasion. Fluent in Arabic, he has had unrivaled access to U.S. military commanders, Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias, Iraqi families, and even President George W. Bush, who called him to…
Quinn (Marie Curie) does a superb job of recounting the rise and fall of the Federal Theatre Project, a wing of FDR’s WPA meant to employ playwrights and actors while providing diversion and inspiration for Depression-ravaged Americans. Quinn shows how, under the management of the irrepressible Hallie Flanagan, the left-leaning FTP facilitated such controversial masterpieces…
I am so sad – stunned. It reminds us all of how fragile we are and how close at hand the darkness is,” – A.M. Holmes David Foster Wallace, whose prodigiously observant, exuberantly plotted, grammatically and etymologically challenging, philosophically probing and culturally hyper-contemporary novels, stories and essays made him an heir to modern virtuosos like…
Andrew Davidson’s book is a series of balancing acts. His characters represent extremes and his stories come very close to being over-the-top, but somehow he manages to maintain the balance just when you are ready to give up on him. Once beautiful, the narrator is now burned beyond recognition due to a car crash. One…
For those of you who thought we had given up on our Guest Blogger Reviews, Iliana (aka Bookgirl) has kindly agreed to get us back on track. Iliana is clearly someone who has an eye for beautiful things, whether it’s her blog banner or her handmade books, she has a flare for color and design.…
If you’re looking for a good book for the final weeks of summer, here are some recommendations. When asked what book they would bring to the beach with them this summer, our intrepid staff offered up the following: Sisters ~ Danielle Steel The Great Gatsby ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken…
After Dark follows the intersecting paths of a handful of characters over the course of one night in Tokyo. Supermodel, Eri Asai, is alone in a room sleeping. Her sister Mari, a young college student, has decided to spend the night in the city, where she happens to meet Takahashi a young jazz musician. As…
We were fortunate enough to have author Andre Dubus at the library last Thursday. In addition to reading from his latest novel, The Garden of Last Days, he talked about the writing process. He mentioned that he loves to read poetry and we thought you might be interested in some of his favorite poets: Billy…
Thanks to Booklogged at A Reader’s Journal for the following link: Colleen Gleason When Twilight Burns Book Release Webcast August 5, 2008 – 8:30 P.M. Eastern Time Enter Here Join Colleen Gleason, author of the acclaimed Gardella Vampire Chronicles, as she celebrates the release of her fourth book. She’ll read an excerpt from When Twiilght…
As Shakespeare knew, love burns high when thwarted by obstacles. In Twilight, an exquisite fantasy by Stephenie Meyer, readers discover a pair of lovers who are supremely star-crossed. Bella adores beautiful Edward, and he returns her love. But Edward is having a hard time controlling the blood lust she arouses in him, because–he’s a vampire.…
It has been over twenty years since Toni Morrison wrote her groundbreaking novel Beloved. With a long awaited novel The Mercy, coming out in November and billed as a “companion piece to Beloved,” Morrison has a lot to celebrate. But, a simple commemoration on Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina may be an equal cause for…
Mystery writer Howard Engel woke up one morning terrified to find that he couldn’t read the words in the newspaper. In his new memoir, Engel describes living with a rare condition called word blindness, which leaves him able to write, but unable to read. Could this be one of the worst nightmares for Read This!…
Sometimes it’s the little things – the touch of a hand, a sudden change in plans – that set off a chain of life-changing events. In the days before 9/11, a stripper named April brings her daughter to work at the Puma Club for men because her babysitter is in the hospital. Franny stays in…
Now, my friends, is the time to nurture your creative side. If you need an excuse let’s call it a “job responsibility” that comes with parenting, okay? Nurturing your own creative spirit will not only bring more peace, satisfaction and joy into your life and the lives of those around you, but it will also…
“Rosie and Abigail are like family,” Ina Merriweather used to say. That is, until the day Ina abruptly cast out her housekeeper, Rosie, and her fifteen-year-old daughter Abigail. Abigail felt deeply betrayed, especially by Ina’s daughter Lila, who was her closest friend. Only Lila’s twin brother Vaughn, with whom Abigail had been exploring the joys…
Take a secret society, a hawk-tracking boy, a hummingbird in winter and plunk them down in a watermelon patch and you have the makings of a wonderful coming of age story. March Anne Tanner lives in Jubilee, GA with her brother, father and grandmother. At the change of each season, March Anne and her friends…
Hobart Elementary School is located in the heart of downtown L.A., and as I look back at my elementary school years, I think about the horrible environment I grew up in. A rape or abuse case occurred at least once a week at school, and policemen were frequently seen on campus. Yet during fifth grade,…
Everyone thinks the phoenix rises from the ashes, gleaming and unscathed. Until they know better. Andrea Anderson goes about her days something like a hamster on a treadmill. She keeps her head down and tries to go unnoticed with great success until the end of her sophomore year. Her eccentric neighbor, Mrs. Menapace, gets sick…
Have you read about the controversy regarding the Harry Potter Lexicon? Here are some opinions on the issue: From Orson Scott Card From Slate.com From Neil Gaiman What’s your take? Leave a comment. Let us know.
Closed to foreigners under Romanov and Soviet rule, Kazakhstan has remained largely hidden from the world – a remarkable feat for a country the size of Western Europe. Few would guess that Kazakhstan – a blank in Westerner’s collective geography – turns out to be diverse, tolerant, and surprisingly modern, the country that gave the…
At night the garden drops below daylight language and murmurs in an older tongue, in voices of wormwood and rue, black cohosh and henbane, reminding me that the plants of the garden attend to me as well as allowing me to attend to them. In the berry patches, orchards and vegetable, herb, and flower beds…
Best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was also a passionate historian, and The White Company was his favorite among his own works. This spirited account of the exploits of a crew of Saxon archers during the Hundred Years War features cameo appearances by historical figures such as Edward III…
One of our avid senior readers had this to say about the stories of two master criminals: Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale, Jr. Don’t let the fact that you’ve seen the movie stop you from reading this fast-moving and fascinating story. It’s a much more comprehensive and exciting account of Frank Abagnale’s…
The nominations for the Hugo Awards for best Science Fiction have been announced. The nominees for Best Novel include: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon Brasyl by Ian McDonald Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer The Last Colony by John Scalzi Halting State by Charles Stross
Brought it to boil, often. – Mario Batali I was born some assembly required. – Eric Jordan Macular degeneration. Didn’t see that coming. – Ian Gould Compiled by the editors of Smith Magazine, this book of six-word memoirs is impossible to put down. I found myself saying, “I’ll just read two more pages and then…
Smith combines a strong line and a knack for historical narrative to deliver a compelling collection of poetry. His poetic journey takes him deep into the South where he looks back at history and tries to answer the question – why? Some of the poems are downright haunting and they have a tendency to dwell…
Don’t you love it when clever people come up with good ideas that you can use and look clever yourself? Why reinvent the wheel, right? Marie, of Marie’s Monthly Minutes, told us about a great book club idea for The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Larson’s book is set against the backdrop…
Maris Matherly-Reed is more than an editor. She’s also the beloved daughter of the publishing house’s highly respected and successful leader, and the wife of Matherly Press’s second-in-command, the smooth, suave, double-dealing Noah Reed. Reed, it develops, is the real target of the literary scam set up by the reclusive writer of the novel whose…
The winners for the NBCC Awards were announced over the weekend: Criticism: The Rest is Noise, by Alex Ross Poetry: Elegy, by Mary Jo Bang Biography: Stanley, the Impossible Life of Africa’s Greatest Explorer, by Tim Jeal General Nonfiction: Medical Apartheid, by Harriet Washington Autobiography: Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I’m Dying Fiction: The Brief Wondrous Life…
The Richistanis like to consider themselves ordinary people who just happen to have tons of money, but they live in a world where people buy boats just to carry their cars and helicopters behind their primary yachts, and ordering an alligator-skin toilet seat won’t make even your interior designer blink. But Frank doesn’t just focus…