On the morning of her 12th birthday, Dawnie Rae Johnson – named for the new day rising when she was born – wakes to find a surprise under her pillow: a diary made by her 8-year-old brother Goober. The year will turn out to be crucial, not...
Okay, so parents might not be so thrilled about dealing with classroom distractions, but when this much imagination is involved, sometimes tossing rules and regulations aside can be very conducive to learning – in less traditional ways. Not that I'm encouraging this sort of behavior, ahem! Meet Seki....
'Civilization and its Discontents' highlights the intertwined Pakistani, British, and American roots of Mohsin Hamid Thanks to Haruki Murakami, we won't have to wait as long for Mohsin Hamid’s future novels. Hamid's acclaimed first two, Moth Smoke and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, took seven years each. His...
I was bad. I couldn’t keep up with my chaotic new year and kept missing deadlines. Thrity Umrigar got so fed up, she basically said, “This happens now, or not at all.” So you better believe I got my act together long enough for one...
How surprised was I to hear earlier this month that Oprah's latest Book Club 2.0 pick just happened to be on my iPod! I suppose the fact that I always have no fewer than a couple dozen books on my phone at all times makes...
Thrity Umrigar: “It’s a good time to be a writer” Perhaps I shouldn’t admit so blatantly to literary-personality preferences, but I must confess here: Thrity Umrigar is my very favorite person to run into at (dreaded) literary conferences. I know from experience how irreverently entertaining she can...
For Patsy, literacy began "as a joke." On the Davis Plantation in South Carolina in the 1860s, Mistress Davis’ niece Annie told her aunt, "'We are only playing at school ...
It's on top of all the bestseller lists on both sides of the Pond and far beyond, as well. You've seen it in every bookshop window. It's incessantly compared to Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. Dreamworks already claimed it for the big screen last year even before it hit...
His user name is "paperboy_1878." He rents booths at various Pit Boy internet café branches. He wears a newspaper mask that covers his whole head and a t-shirt with a smart phone screen. He posts video warnings. And then he carries out his own vigilante...
"For many years the house next to Sameer's had stood empty ...
If you're already a manga/anime aficionado, feel free to skip ahead to the next paragraph. If this is the first time you're hearing the titular word, henshin, then stay with me for a few lines. In Japanese – 変身 – the characters literally mean "change" and "body," respectively, and...
February marks African American Heritage Month. Do you know where your books are? I've been picking up older, missed titles the last couple of weeks, and discovering some unique treasures, especially those that highlight unusual or lesser-known historical experiences. Stay tuned for more ...
In order to give myself permission to read the latest bestseller by Rhodes Scholar/surgeon/professor/MacArthur “Genius”/New Yorker/TED-anointed Dr. Atul Gawande (and yes, all his books are lauded, importantly nominated, finalist-ed, awarded bestsellers), I decided I had to first finish his previous titles in order. What might sound a bit like unnecessary pressure just to...
For someone who uses a thesaurus incessantly, I was shocked to realize how little I knew of Peter Mark Roget. The Right Word is just the right discovery! At age 8, Roget began writing his first book, simply titled Peter, Mark, Roget. His Book: "instead of writing stories,...
Trust me, you're just going to have to go with the impossible premise right up front. If you need a little help, you can choose to go audible, because expert narrator Sneha Mathan will surely help you believe. Go ahead, check your doubts: you'll be amply rewarded by career diplomat...
Valentine's Day is already next week: let this sweet reminder of young love inspire your own heartfelt plans. Takeo and Sunakawa have been best friends and neighbors forever. As close as they are, they couldn't be more different: Takeo is a boisterous, gentle giant with as large a...
Go ahead and admit it: you were immediately, gleefully smiling when you saw that adorable face on the cover! [That sweet visage, actually, is not so unlike her talented creator ...
*STARRED REVIEW Yan Lianke (Dream of Ding Village) has built his substantial career on exposing the surreal absurdity of China's 20th-century tragedies. His latest-in-translation features the 99th district of a reeducation camp, where intellectuals controlled by a maniacally cruel yet innocently naïve child endure merciless conditions...
So I confess I haven't seen a single episode, but the hubby seems addicted to the TV series, Masterchef Junior. Time magazine recently declared it "the Best Cooking Show on TV," especially noting that "here are some other things you don’t have on MasterChef Jr....
Happy Are the Happy spins a lively cluster of stories around a Parisian couple and their social network At a spare 160 pages, Yasmina Reza’s latest novel can easily be read in a single sitting. Presented as 21 interlinked short stories whose titles bear the names...
