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A Book A Week: "Finding Nouf" by Zoe Ferraris

I keep coming across these mysteries that take place in exotic locales. This was another one, set in Saudi Arabia. A teenage girl called Nouf goes missing and eventually turns up dead.

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Wisconsin Book Festival 2009: Marty McConnell speaks

Marty McConnell is not for the faint of heart: The spoken-word artist's performance poetry blows through the border checkpoints of faith, freedom, gender, humanity, integrity and sex in ways that are...

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A Book A Week: "Mother on Fire" by Sandra Tsing Loh

Sandra Tsing Loh is a writer, performance artist and public radio commentator. I don't hear her much on radio but I do read her pieces in the "Atlantic". I've also never seen any of her one-woman shows...

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Jane Hamilton and David Rhodes read to a capacity audience at the Wisconsin...

Upstairs at Overture, a book festival volunteer herding people asked me, "Are you here for Jane Hamilton?" Well, if the truth were told, I was out in the windy cold on Saturday night to hear David Rhodes.

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Kevin Henkes, Nancy Ekholm Burkert and other acclaimed illustrators discuss...

To judge by the crush of people at the James Watrous Gallery Sunday, you'd think a famous rock band was giving a press conference. But no, it was just a half-dozen articulate artists discussing the...

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A Book A Week: "The 19th Wife" by David Ebershoff

Some books just take longer than a week to read. David Ebershoff's "The 19th Wife" took more than two weeks, partly because it's long, and partly because some of it is a slog. Nevertheless it's an...

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A Book A Week: "Caravaggio's Angel" by Ruth Brandon

I am very picky about writing styles. Have you noticed? I don't like (and won't read) badly written books. I will, however, sometimes read a decently written book with a lousy plot. Ruth Brandon's...

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A Book A Week: "A Long Finish" by Michael Didbin

When I heard in 2007 that Michael Dibdin had died, I remember thinking, "Oh darn, I never got around to reading any of his books." What a weird thought, as if the Head Librarian would now be taking all...

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A Book A Week: "Best Friends Forever" by Jennifer Weiner

Popular fiction is a genre that is distinct from literary fiction, though the boundaries are fluid. I like to think of these categories as either ends of a ruler, with most books falling somewhere...

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Madison breaks down in Michelle Wildgen's acclaimed novel "But Not for Long"

Michelle Wildgen admits that in books and movies, she's not generally a fan of dystopian scenarios. "I almost never respond to that," she says. "Most of what you see is post-apocalyptic, but I was...

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A Book a Week: "Arctic Chill" by Arnaldur Indriason

Arnaldur Indriason's Icelandic mysteries continue to be my favorites. As usual, Indridason delivers a simple mystery with a straightforward solution, but it's the accompanying journey through Iceland's...

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Eric Dregni learns to "Never Trust a Thin Cook" in Italy

Despite its title, "Never Trust a Thin Cook and Other Lessons from Italy's Culinary Capital", by Eric Dregni is not just about food. It's not even just about Italian food. It's a series of short...

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A Book A Week: "Daphne" by Justine Picardie

Finally, another book to add to my "2009 Favorites" list, though I can't say Justine Picardie's "Daphne" will appeal to everyone. Did you read "Rebecca", by Daphne du Maurier, when you were younger?...

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Rainbow Bookstore celebrates 20 years in Madison

You can understand the impulse to celebrate Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative's 20th anniversary. If it is not the most venerable book shop in a city dotted with small independent booksellers, it is, in...

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A Book A Week: "Olive Kitteridge" by Elizabeth Strout

When I heard that "Olive Kitteridge", by Elizabeth Strout, had won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction this year I thought, "Oh, finally, they are giving that award to someone I like." I hadn't read the...

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A Book A Week: "An American Wife" by Curtis Sittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld's "An American Wife" is another fact/fiction mash-up. Is that all anybody is writing these days?

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"Touchless Automatic Wonder" dwells on commonplace texts

In his introduction to "Touchless Automatic Wonder: Found Text from the Real World", Lewis Koch writes that he often thinks of photographs as his paper memory. A repository, he elaborates during a...

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Isthmus Reads: "Steam & Cinders: The Advent of Railroads in Wisconsin",...

If "Steam & Cinders" were a train, it would be one mighty locomotive -- a beautiful piece of intricate machinery chugging slowly but steadily through Wisconsin to drag its boxcars bulging with...

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A Book A Week: "Consequences" by Penelope Lively

Penelope Lively is interested in the consequences of our behavior and of our choices. In fact, she has examined this theme at least three times in three different books: in "Making It Up", in "The...

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A Book A Week: "In Other Rooms, Other Wonders" by Daniyal Mueenuddin

I heard Daniyal Mueenuddin interviewed on NPR recently and that made me check out "In Other Rooms, Other Wonders". I see now that it's getting a lot of press, which it deserves.

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