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.
View ArticleWisconsin 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...
View ArticleA 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...
View ArticleJane 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.
View ArticleKevin 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...
View ArticleA 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...
View ArticleA 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...
View ArticleA 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...
View ArticleA 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...
View ArticleMadison 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...
View ArticleA 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...
View ArticleEric 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...
View ArticleA 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?...
View ArticleRainbow 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...
View ArticleA 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...
View ArticleA 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?
View Article"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...
View ArticleIsthmus 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...
View ArticleA 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...
View ArticleA 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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