Arts >>

Books

Return to sender

Challah Back Dept.
Sure, we've all gotten an unwelcome fruitcake or fluorescent sweater in the mail, usually from a well-meaning and slightly out-of-touch relative. But few New England Jews could have been prepared for the surprise "gift" that recently arrived on their doorsteps courtesy of Georgia-based messianic former businessman Sid Roth.

By: KARA BASKIN | March 22, 2010

Tired sleuth

Can Walter Mosley kick the crime-novel habit?
Has Walter Mosley gone off crime fiction? With the creation of Easy Rawlins in 1990, Mosley perfected the African-American side of the genre — along with a poetic and insightful take on post-war LA up through the 1960s — in 11 consistently solid books, the most recent coming out in 2007.

By: CLEA SIMON | March 16, 2010

Nasty fun

Sam Lipsyte asks and tells
In his books Venus Drive , The Subject Steve , and Home Land , novelist and short-story writer Sam Lipsyte revels in rage.

By: ALEX BLUM | March 11, 2010

Walkin' and talkin'

Unguided Zen-like tours through NYC
It counts as some small death, the blinders-on result of routine, when instead of noticing how the light hits the river or the man in front of the noodle shop crouches as if he'd got no bones, your thoughts pinball from your sandwich to an e-mail you want to write to a ticking of your to-do list.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | March 09, 2010

Booking it

Fiction, non-fiction, poetry
Spring fiction goes international, starting with a whiff of the Caribbean.

By: BARBARA HOFFERT | March 11, 2010

Excerpt: Patti Smith's Just Kids

Rock icon Patti Smith recalls burroughs and Mapplethorpe, the early days of CBGB, and saddling up for Horses in this memoir excerpt
The stars were lining up to enter the Ziegfeld Theatre for the glittering premiere of the film Ladies & Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones. I was excited to be there.

By: PATTI SMITH | March 03, 2010

OMG, blame him

Holy Finger-Pointing
With religion being responsible for so many of the conflicts currently plaguing the world, it's good to see that some people are finally pointing the blame finger skyward.

By: MARIANNA FAYNSHTEYN | March 03, 2010

Good company

Inspector Montalbano might be the friend you haven't met
One of the attractions of our getting hooked on a series of novels with a recurring protagonist is the reassurance that once every year or so we'll have a friend to catch up with. What we don't like to think about is how it'll feel when that friend is in bad shape.

By: CHARLES TAYLOR | March 02, 2010

Point of no return

The end justifies the meaning in Don DeLillo's Omega
Don DeLillo's novels have been shrinking, like a star collapsing into itself, perhaps, or vapor fading on a glass.

By: PETER KEOUGH | March 02, 2010

Infinite pleasure

John Banville's playful universe
Admit it, fellow scribblers. You'd sell your soul to come up with an opening sentence like "Of the things we fashioned for them that they may be comforted, dawn is the one that works."

By: ED SIEGEL | February 16, 2010

Wolf man

Henning Mankell stalks globalization
A lone wolf lopes across a border, searching for food.

By: CLEA SIMON | February 09, 2010

J.D. Salinger: 1919 - 2010

In Memoriam
J.D. Salinger was 91 when he died in his New Hampshire home on January 27, 45 years after he published his last known story, "Hapworth 16, 1924," in the New Yorker .

By: STEVE VINEBERG | February 05, 2010

Small wonders

Quirks of Literature Dept.
The books — a quartet of them, each five-by-five, smaller than a CD case — feel like treasures, handsome little volumes, a different gem of a story in each.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | February 03, 2010

Review: Patti Smith's Just Kids

The small prophecies of Patti Smith
How do you get to be the Godmother of Punk? Pure dumb luck, for starters.

By: CARRIE BATTAN | February 08, 2010

A painful case

Patricia Highsmith's ultimate mystery
Is it living in a wishy-washy culture of sheepish PBS humanism and numbing political correctness that makes the nasty, psychopathic amorality — no, immorality! — of Patricia Highsmith's novels so savory and appealing?

By: GERALD PEARY | February 02, 2010

Power of place

Exploring a New England ghost town in person, and on the page
I'd arranged the trip (Dogtown is about an hour and a half south of Portland) because I was planning to write about Elyssa East's new book, Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | January 29, 2010

God of love

Amy Bloom once more into the breach
Amy Bloom is known for her psychological acuity, especially as it bears on the subject of love. In her new collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out , her characters — often very knowing — are nonetheless surprised by the undertow.

By: SUSAN CHAMANDY | January 19, 2010

Searching for Stephen King

A new biography presents facts but not a full story
In 1983, Doubleday published yet another book from the increasingly renowned Stephen King, whose Carrie and The Shining (to name just two) were already popular books and movies.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | January 13, 2010

The art of horror

A coffee table book that might scare you awake
While Lisa Rogak's Stephen King biography might be labeled "for fans only," it's unclear whether Knowing Darkness: Artists Inspired by Stephen King should carry the same marker.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | January 13, 2010

Scientology defector tells all

Many's Rivers to Cross Dept.
If every last allegation that Church of Scientology (CoS) defector Nancy Many charges in My Billion Year Contract is true, then her book should inspire several FBI raids and a Lifetime mini-series to rival any Charles Manson documentary.

By: CHRIS FARAONE | January 13, 2010

Photos: Stephen King-inspired artwork

Images from Knowing Darkness: Artists Inspired by Stephen King
Artwork from Stephen King's novel covers and more

By: CENTIPEDE PRESS | January 14, 2010

<< first ...< prev 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | next >... last >>

13 of 26 (results 511)