Books

Books

“I'm walking and I hear what sounds like high heels clattering, almost like ladies outside of a nightclub,” Hua says. “And I turn, and it's the clatter of deer hooves. I see a coyote running at me full speed, chased by two deer.” Astonished at how the wildlife trio eventually ran right past her, Hua began thinking about predator, prey and territory.

Which explains how Oakland-native Ted Lange as an actor came to portray both Isaac Washington, the upbeat, mustachioed bartender on television's The Love Boat (1977-1986) and, years later, one of Shakespeare's most tragic characters, Othello. Adding intrigue to Lange's biography is a network of unexpected facts: among them, gaming with British actress Lynn Redgrave led him to attend London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts; and while directing and writing for television and film, Lange has also penned over 27 original plays and become deeply immersed in Shakespearian history.

As a boy, he'd "read American history, not for school, not because I had to, but because I had, by accident, stepped through the thin, crackly crust of the present, and felt the first pull of the quicksand about my ankles." Tripping into that quicksand is how Burden would one day end up doing Stark's dreadful bidding: using his formidable research skills to discover the darkest deeds in the deepest past of Stark's political enemies. But, as Warren insisted, "the story of Willie Stark and the story of Jack Burden are, in one sense, one story." They're in that quicksand together, up to their gizzards.

“I never thought I would write a horror,” she told BuzzFeed, “but when I was writing it, I was like, 'I don't think I can write about the modern Hawaiian experience without showing it as a horror.'”

By day, Poppy Stringer is a fashion influencer who crafts flawless lewks for her followers. By night, she steals corpses for the highest bidder. When flamboyant "King of Queer Rock" Eddie Michaels drops dead, Poppy is tasked with sneaking his body out of the Palm Springs medical examiner's office. When the routine snatch-and-grab goes spectacularly wrong, she finds herself trapped in a neon-soaked, blood-drenched nightmare, fighting for her life through a campy carnival of carnage across the California desert.

Inspired by writing classes she took during the pandemic, Venegas began by drafting personal essays before losing interest and going back to her day job. "I just wanted to do another record," she admitted. "I wasn't really interested in my own memoir." She soon realized that her new songs were beginning to parrot the themes and stories of those essays. The result is not only her first book, but also her 10th full-length LP, "Norteñ a," which comes out on Friday.

Martin Amis liked to observe that the unusual position he and Kingsley Amis held father-and-son novelists was a historical anomaly, a literary curiosity. But it was not unique: Alexandre Dumas pere and fils, Fanny and Anthony Trollope, and Arthur and Evelyn Waugh had all come before them. And if Amis's assertion wasn't true then, it's even less true now. In recent years, increasing numbers of children of novelists have become writers themselves, and this year sees a particularly rich batch.

" Freddy the Detective," written by Walter R. Brooks, who was also, very briefly, a writer at this magazine, concerned a missing toy train. " 'The first thing to do,' said Freddy, 'is to Visit the Scene of the Crime.' " Brooks published twenty-six books about Freddy, who not only knew how to read but also kept a very impressive little library in a corner of his pigpen that he called his study.

“I realized then that a person could, with their friends, go to a remote place, and do real science while having a breathless adventure,” Gregg later wrote, adding, “The boat and its history mean more to me every day.”

Based out of Croatia, Argent Comics “re-engineers DC’s iconic narratives into fine art artefacts.” Their first outing with this pitch is Batman: The Killing Joke Avant-Garde Edition. Packaged in a replica of the camera the Joker used on Barbara Gordon's violated body, this version of the comic is giclée-printed, bound between aluminum boards and lined with goatskin leather. There will only be 47 copies made, representing the atomic number of the silver-like Hahnemühle metallic paper (but not “Silver Age” comics, where the Joker was still busy escaping in hot-air balloons).

If you're looking desperately for something to read, wander over to the Catskill Mountain region of New York to the village of Hobart, which apparently has more bookstores per capita than any village in the country. And if you go in early June, when the Hobart Festival of Women Writers is in full swing, you can even have some books read aloud to you by the writers themselves. Founded fourteen years ago by poet Cheryl Clarke, historian and bookstore owner Barbara Balliet, and novelist Breena Clarke, the festival includes writing workshops, panels, and lunches by the Delaware River.

The fallout from the book included customs officers seizing banned copies, high court jinks, and innumerable skits and cartoons, creating laughter in various forms.

"We're watching it on the bus, the Tube, the plane. We're watching it in libraries. We're watching it during the day at work, or at home when we're supposed to be working."

Vulnerability is freedom, and not only is it freedom for yourself to be vulnerable, but it's freedom for other people because they feel less alone.

Tropic Death is a truly trailblazing counter-pastoral portrait of the Caribbean locales of his youth, inverting the racist fantasy of the 'tropics' as a fertile paradise populated by lazy primitives.

Emma Alpern and Jasmine Vojdani recommend new fiction and nonfiction books every month, ensuring readers have a diverse selection to choose from.

Craig Silvey, 43, was first charged in January after detectives from Western Australia police's child abuse squad raided his Fremantle home, allegedly catching him communicating online with child exploitation offenders and seizing his electronic devices.

Underlake presents a surreal narrative about two fictional towns, Paintsville and Steels, exploring themes of loss and the impact of government actions on communities through the lens of a diver's search.

The bildungsroman is the coming-of-age novel; it is also the coming-to-terms novel. The protagonist, usually a young man, undergoes a series of adventures that eventually spit him out wiser, stronger, set up for life's journey.

"It is the book that changed me," Thorne told NPR, calling it a "specific portrayal of damage that really fascinates me."

J.-G. describes 'tourniquet tight' bonds of friendship, but he also observes that 'our tribe was fuelled by constant disagreements.' This duality highlights the complexity of their relationships.

The Shafran family held an emotionally moving book signing event in Lower Manhattan that honored a loving husband and father, and words he wrote from the heart before his passing.

Orman insisted on ending the bidding war for her book at $800,000, stating, 'If somebody pays me that much money to write a book, I'm gonna get sick to my stomach.'