What better way to get over a broken heart than moving into a unique, welcoming bookstore, filled not only with fabulous books but a few wise (less than living) writers, too? As long as they can spin a convincing yarn, why quibble with such minor...
A magazine reporter, referred to as "La Monita, Blondie" – because of her "mass of blond hair" thanks to her Belgian grandfather – is sent to cover an angel sighting in the Bogotá...
Checking my inbox yesterday, I received quite a flurry of emails highlighting the latest announcement that Chinese students are outscoring all other students in international standardized testing, with their U.S. counterparts ranked 23 or...
Hurray (itself a word of Mongol origin) for cultural anthropologist and Macalester College professor Jack Weatherford who reclaims Genghis Khan from a much maligned history that defines him as "the quintessential barbarian," leading an...
The unnamed playwright here is one lonely man. He "lodges" in Uncle Ernie's spare room as his own family stopped talking to him in 1978 when his screenplay "based upon his older, retarded brother" aired...
At 14, Moritaka Mashiro figures he's "just going to live a normal life." For a teenager, that translates into "getting into a good high school, a good college and a good company to work...
Having grown up Catholic (I'm still in recovery), nothing works better than leftover Catholic guilt to get me to do something I'm whinge-ing about. The supreme irony about my former Catholicism is...
The title – Indivisible – the editors explain, is "a word taken from the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance." Through the 49 diverse American voices represented here with roots in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and...
Bolanle is the only one of Baba Segi's four wives who is literate, has a college education, and retains her own name. When she becomes the prized final wife of...
Sometimes jet lag has its advantages. Amazingly enough, I caught Audrey Niffenegger soon after her London arrival, when she wasn’t sleeping – “I am very bad at jet lag,” she confesses....
Growing up in Seattle, Washington, young Jimi Hendrix first made music on a one-string ukulele. He drew, he told funny stories, he hung out at the local record store with his friends "who never teased him about his worn-out clothes and wild hair ...
When the local San Francisco public school denied Mamie Tape admission solely based on her Chinese heritage, her parents sued the city's Board of Education in what became the landmark 1885 case, Tape vs. Hurley. Mamie was seven years old, the American-born child of middle-class Chinese...
I admit that when one of my favorite friends told me she voluntarily gave up enjoying the blooming delights on a family trip through Death Valley in order to finish The Help, I picked up the book for a second time, determined to find out...
Words of warning ...
Two things are keeping me up at nights ...
At 40, Shizuo Oguro lives with his cranky father, his helpful teenage daughter, and has had the same job for 15 years. He couldn't exactly say "what was wrong with [his] life." But his sudden need to "find [him]self" means quitting his job, starting up...
Tending toward contrary (ahem!) means I can't seem to read ubiquitous bestsellers when everyone else does. Nope, haven't read a single Stieg Larsson (one the last hold-outs, I'm sure) or Evanovich or Cussler or Patterson. I know, like an ostrich am I. So while Time Traveler's Wife was...
In spite of the "A Work of Fiction" disclaimer on one of the front pages of Tim O'Brien's Vietnam War classic, you'll probably close the book believing every word contained between the covers to be true. That O'Brien the author names his narrator Tim O'Brien...
I rarely ever say this: skip the book, and go see the film version of The Blind Side (which got Sandra Bullock her much-deserved Oscar win). The story of Michael Oher – a massive young man estranged from his addict mother, his dysfunctional siblings, and lost to...
Unlike probably most of her many, many readers, I knew (not personally, but as an author, I mean) Audrey Niffenegger first as a graphic artist than as a novelist; her 'novels-in-pictures,' The Three Incestuous Sisters (2005) and The Adventuress (2006), sit prominently displayed (covers facing out for maximum...
