Bernard Fall's "Street Without Joy" is a military account of the French Indochina War published and revised in the early 1960s. I've got a book collecting urge to buy it. Not a paperback added to a cart on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Borders, rather a signed, rare edition from an antiquarian bookseller. Here's why, and what's going on in my gently mad bibliophilic thinking.
Life would be perfect if …
Meghan Daum accumulates house and apartment addresses like another 33-year-old would accumulate boyfriends or shoes. It's an obsession she explores in her new memoir, "Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House." This Los Angeles Times columnist writes with a breezy, amusing style that's thoroughly enjoyable.
Once lost, now the 1970 winner is found
The winner of the Lost Man Booker Prize, awarded to a novel published in 1970, was announced last week. It's the first book of J. G. Farrell's Empire Trilogy.
Be confident, be creative
I read about this new book on creativity and drawing while trolling the Web. I bought it immediately. Impulse purchase? Maybe, but I'm looking forward to reading it. You can check out the first 33 pages on the publisher's Web site.
Vampire booze
Here's my excuse for why I haven't finished Grahame-Smith's best-selling vampire novel about Abraham Lincoln.
Jerry Gabriel’s “Drowned Boy”
How this collection of linked short stories found its way to my reading table.
My ADD book collecting habit
On the eve of moderating a panel about book collecting, a personal reality check in that area. Plus, my Faulkner first edition (in spanish).
Is Rusty Sabich innocent again?
"Presumed Innocent" by Scott Turow published in 1987 was a #1 New York Times bestseller, remaining on the list for 45 weeks. Turow has written the sequel "Innocent," with Rusty Sabich again at the center of a murder trial. It's smart, absorbing courtroom drama.
And that means what for their readers?
There are 13 fiction writers among the 180 Guggenheim Foundation grants recently announced for 2010. I recognized some of the authors but not all and then wondered what it means for readers considering a book by an author who's a Guggenheim Fellow.
Yoko Ogawa’s “Hotel Iris”
This is Yoko Ogawa's third book translated into English and published for American readers. Its subject of sadomasochism won't be for every reader. Ogawa is a master when it comes to illuminating human behavior, even the darkest kind. This is a powerful and transfixing story.
“The People Who Watched Her Pass By”
Scott Bradfield's new novel published by Two Dollar Radio is more commentary on modern American life than plot-driven story. Here's what it's all about.
Mary Oliver at the public podium
I heard Mary Oliver read in Cleveland Tuesday night at the Ohio Theater Playhouse Square. I never in my life thought I'd get to see her read, let alone get her signature on my books, because I'd always read Mary Oliver remained a step back from the public eye. And then here I was at her public reading.
New books to anticipate
Seven new books to be published in May and June include espionage fiction and a biography of William Somerset Maugham. Also, highly anticipated by 'moi' is Sloane Crosley's new essays, because she makes me laugh. Here's the list.
Poets as literary heroes
"A Scattering" by Christopher Reid is 62 pages of moving poetry -- a tribute to Reid's wife who died in 2005. It's a worthy and very satisfying collection to read during April, National Poetry Month.
Kerouac’s “On the Road” blooms
Put a novel in the hands of a data artist and the prose becomes a visual feast. That's what I discovered when I landed on Stefanie Posavec's website. Her Writing Without Words project includes "On the Road," interpreted into colorful data maps.
The Longest Chapter 