By Xu Xi Haven Books, $15.00, 302 pages Fifty-Fifty: New Hong Kong Writing edited by author-lecturer Xu Xi, is an anthology of sixty-three pieces of fiction, non-fiction and poetry by forty-two writers of a mix of cultures. Each writer included in this book is connected, somehow, to Hong Kong. SARS and The Handover, yes, are [...]
By James Villas Wiley, $34.95, 424 pages You won’t find calorie counts at the end of these recipes, but if you’re looking for sumptuous southern-style pork dishes where flavor is what counts, Pig, King of the Southern Table, a cookbook by James Villas, is a good choice. “In Southern barbecue lingo, the metal contraption with [...]
By Peter Mandel Simon & Schuster Children’s, $12.99, 34 pages The promotional piece says the text of this Simon and Schuster Book for Young Readers is “simple,” but I would call it inane. I’d almost say the book would be better without words, a picture book a la You’re A Good Dog, Carl by Alexandra [...]
By Joseph Bruchac Dial Books for Young Readers, $16.99, 32 pages Thirteen diverse father-son pairs are beautifully rendered in crayon and colored-pencil drawings in My Father is Taller Than a Treeby Joseph Bruchac, illustrated by Wendy Anderson Halperin. Halperin has created scenes of country, city, small town living and all four seasons on these pages [...]
By Ray Bradbury Everyman’s Library, $32.00, 1,176 pages “It is perhaps Ray’s influence on other writers–to say nothing of his readers–that sets him apart. It is profound.” - Christopher Buckley in the introduction A master of his craft, Ray Bradbury was awarded the National Book Foundation’s 2000 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and the [...]
By Ralph Cosentino Viking Juvenile, $16.99, 33 pages This is an introduction, for the very young, to the canonical comic book hero, Superman (born Kal El), especially as portrayed by Christopher Reeves. In this version, Clark Kent narrates in the first person. From his escape from the doomed planet Krypton in a space-capsule, to his [...]
By Andrea Davis Pinkney Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, $16.99, 40 pages “A double dose of peace, with nonviolence on top. Hold the hate. Leave off the injustice.” Acclaimed author Andrea Davis Pinkney and her partner/illustrator Brian Pinkney have collaborated on Sit In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down, a book for [...]
By James N. Frey St. Martin’s Press, $24.99, 268 pages How to Write a Damn Good Thriller is the next guide to writing from author James N. Frey, who also authored … Damn Good Novel, … Damn Good Mystery, and The Key: Damn Good Fiction Using the Power of Myth, to which he refers often [...]
By Jonathan Maberry St. Martin’s Griffin, $14.99, 486 pages The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry is an action/horror/sci fi mash-up that grabs you by the scruff of the neck, gives you a good shake, and doesn’t let go until the last page. It is not in the least bit realistic and doesn’t take itself too seriously, which [...]
By Sean Manning Da Capo Press, $15.95, 215 pages Top of the Order differentiates itself from the standard yearly crop of baseball biographies and statistical treatises by being a collection of essays. The wide range of contributing authors includes long-time Brooklyn Dodger chronicler Roger Kahn and more literary types such as Laura Lippmann, who profiles [...]
Edited by George R.R. Martin; Gardner Dozois Tor, $27.99, 736 pages “People have been telling stories about warriors for as long as they have been telling stories.” Twenty tales of hostility and heroics, Warriors is a collection of stories about all manner of battle-faring brute. Whether the warrior is a conquering Viking out for the [...]
By Mike Croft Trafalgar Square, $14.95, 376 pages With a theme reminiscent of an old Star Trek movie, Down Deep features a whale called Blackfin, a cognizant, sagacious old whale who orchestrates a mass movement of thousands of cetaceans. A mass beaching on the English coast leads a controversial British marine biologist into the spotlight, [...]
By Stewart Copeland HarperStudio, $19.99, 330 pages Readers looking to find the dirt on internal Police battles from the band’s heyday won’t find much of it in drummer Stewart Copeland’s memoir Strange Things Happen. The well-written and funny memoir is an entertaining journey through the strange rhythms, adventures, ritual, and mojo after the breakup of [...]
By Victoria Zackheim Prometheus Books, $25.00, 278 pages Is who you are now the person you expected you would be? Is there a dichotomy between your reality and the fantasy of your childhood yearnings? Editor Victoria Zackheim asked these questions to compile The Face in the Mirror: Writers Reflect on Their Dreams of Youth and [...]
By Mitchell Zuckoff Alfred A. Knopf, $35.00, 560 pages Despite the fact that director-producer-writer Robert Altman has directed 37 films, produced 27 and written 16 of them, and received numerous nominations, he has never received an Oscar. Hollywood has snubbed him for a long, long time. But on January 11, 2006, the Board of Governors [...]
By John Irving Random House, $28.00, 564 pages Last Night in Twisted River delivers John Irving’s unmistakable voice through characters that can love and be loved, pitied, feared for, and laughed at. Readers won’t be disappointed by the descriptions, odd coincidences, hilarity, tangents and tragicomic elements in this, his twelfth novel. Yes, there is a [...]
