Ack! Taxes are due today! Already! For those filing extensions, this one's for you (and me, ahem!) ...
How silly of me for waiting so long to read this, the venerable Anita Desai's latest, when I've had the galley for almost a year (it pubbed last December). Instead, I've slogged through too many disappointing, tedious, nightmare-inducing titles when I could have been celebrating...
In spite of its heft (500+ pages, or 20.5 hours if you let the perfectly-paced John Lee read to you), not much really happens in The Museum of Innocence. I'm adding here the requisite spoiler alert, but I'm fairly certain that most readers will guess the outcome...
Manga addict though I am, I DO try to keep manga posts spaced out, so I don't look TOO panel-dependent (even though I am!). But right now, I can't contain my effusive excitement over the latest volume of 20th Century Boys – which hit shelves yesterday! –...
With all that swashbuckling fun, Princess Knight – recently available in full, in English translation, in two volumes – is seemingly one of the godfather of manga's more goofy stories. Up in heaven, God's in the process of deciding gender for each about-to-be-born baby, assigning a girl heart...
April is National Poetry Month. Every once in a long while, even a poetry-dullard like me has a poetic WOW!-moment. Certainly I'm not alone ...
Here's a rather unique literary coincidence: Julia Alvarez's Finding Miracles ends with an uncle missing the grandmother's wedding because of hemorrhoid surgery. Return to Sender begins with the mention of another uncle (in a totally unrelated story) suffering through a hemorrhoid operation. Try and find two...
While most of us all know our birthdays, not all of us know when we might pass from this life. "The only one who knows, / the one who decides the day / is me, the Reaper." Out in the forest, the Reaper points out a...
First things first: Let's try to clear up some of the oxymoronic labels. Although this title is classified as a novel written by Dave Eggers (he of bad boy-genius fame for his debut, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and, of course, the mini-empire that is McSweeney's),...
As we leave the wild mountains and head back to (so-called) civilization this morning, I'm convinced that Ashley Spires' Larf captures that disorienting journey just right, with lots of easy laughter offered on every page. Re-entry always requires maintaining a sense of humor! Larf thinks he...
Escape from Camp 14 is the most devastating book I have ever read. Perhaps the resilience of youth got me through the aftermath of learning about slavery, the Holocaust, even Iris Chang’s now-classic The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust, the title I previously held...
Sandwiched between sister Kate and brother Nate, Milly Kaufman is the only adopted child of their Jewish father and Mormon mother. She began life with the name Milagros (as in 'miracles'), until she was claimed as an infant by parents working with the Peace Corps...
I've been working through numerous 'should-have-read-earlier'-titles lately, and Salman Rushdie's books always loom large as objects of fascination. After four attempts to read his The Enchantress of Florence (twice on the page, twice stuck in the ears narrated by Firdous Bamji whose recordings can make me choose a book...
Given this is a presidential election year, I know you've been searching for the perfect (non-partisan!) political primer. Look no further ...
After two books on the horrors of North Korea, two memoirs about the Palestinian occupation, another about a Lost Boy of Sudan, still another highlighting Hindu/Muslim massacres in Kashmir – all one after the other (what was I thinking??!!) – I picked up Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief,...
Manga-maker wannabes: check out this illuminating insider look (but do start with volumes 1 and 2), then make sure to study every detail if you're hoping to break into one of the toughest industries around. But before we talk story, here's a quick refresher on names:...
Lila, her family, their animals are all too hot. Their Kenyan village has not had rain for far too long. The well has dried up, and the crops are failing. "'Without water there can be no life,'" Lila overhears her mother's worry. Then her grandfather...
Culling together every spare moment I had over a single day (amazing how much more enlightening mindless chores, endless driving, and running can be with a book stuck in your ears!), I managed to listen to all 9.5 hours of Lorraine Toussaint's honeyed narration of...
"When I was a child, our beautiful land was made ugly by racism," writes longtime author Beverley Naidoo in an introductory note. "Black, brown and white people were forced apart by apartheid (separateness) laws, and children of different colours weren't allowed to go to the same schools...
This is a book I bought twice: first to stick in my ears on long runs (chillingly read by a Korean American triumvirate of Tim Kang, Josiah D. Lee, and James Kyson Lee), and when I couldn't soak in the story quickly enough, I ordered...
