fiction

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Review: The Rum Diary

Depp as the younger Hunter S. Thompson
It's neat seeing Depp, more than a decade after his balding Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas , as the younger Hunter S. Thompson, softening mannerisms later made brittle with cocaine, even if the performance is all surface.
By ANN LEWINSON | October 25, 2011

The hipster Harry Potter

Colin Meloy’s fake children’s book isn’t for children at all
The inside flap of Wildwood — the new young-adult fantasy novel by Decemberist Colin Meloy — claims that the book is for ages nine and up.
By CHRIS BRAIOTTA | September 21, 2011

Young Adulteration

Kid lit, cultural literacy, and the rise of books that are fun to read
In the late 1980s, when I was nine or 10, my mom bought me my own copy of A First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Our Children Need To Know .
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | September 21, 2011

In his new graphic novel, Craig Thompson wins an argument with God

Illuminated manuscript
This book is a gorgeous object; to make it, Thompson apparently covered himself in honey and rolled around in a thousand years of Arabic calligraphy and Islamic art, and the result is breathtaking — the amount of ink expended on one resplendent panel after another, not to mention the virtuoso draftsmanship, speaks of hundreds of hours of hard work.
By S.I. ROSENBAUM | August 31, 2011

Busy Monsters

Chapter 1, excerpted from the novel by William Giraldi
STUNNED BY LOVE and some would say stupid from too much sex, I decided I had to drive down South to kill a man.
By WILLIAM GIRALDI | July 20, 2011

The Night Circus

Excerpted from the novel by Erin Morgenstern
The man billed as Prospero the Enchanter receives a fair amount of correspondence via the theater office, but this is the first envelope addressed to him that contains a suicide note, and it is also the first to arrive carefully pinned to the coat of a five-year-old girl.
By ERIN MORGENSTERN | September 14, 2011

The Oracle Engine

Excerpted from the short story by M.T. Anderson
The lizard of the wasteland, so dazzling to the eye, so rapid to flee or to strike, may grow to its full maturity only in the most brutal of deserts, where no dew falls to drink and where the sun is unrelenting. So, some say, was Marcus Furius Medullinus Machinator, he who first invented the oracle engines...
By M.T. ANDERSON | July 20, 2011

My Favorite Things

Gayle looked up at Oprah from the cool stone floor. This idea struck her as . . . mostly bad.
By JOE KEOHANE | May 23, 2011

Four questions for a hypertext pioneer

Links
As both an author and illustrator, Shelley Jackson has looked beyond the limitations of singular genres or techniques to create a novel style of work.
By DANIEL MCGOWAN | December 08, 2010

Further adventures in literary obsession and authenticity with Brock Clarke

Idolatry in Watertown
Reviewing Brock Clarke's last novel, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England (Algonquin), three years ago — before the author moved to Portland, started teaching at Bowdoin College, and released his new book, Exley , which he'll read at Longfellow Books next week — I admired its mischievous streak.
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | October 12, 2010

Crystal Castles | Crystal Castles (2010)

Fiction (2010)
The battlefield of ’00s electro-tantrum spazz-ravers is littered with the corpses of those who burned too brightly at the outset and, in the process, burned out any interest in a sustained career of noisemaking.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | May 19, 2010

Hearts of glass

Ali Shaw’s modern fairy tale
In Ali Shaw’s debut novel, death by glass becomes a star-crossed love story in the vein of a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale — a tragedy that strips away its isolated characters’ fears and defenses and reveals their bravery.
By SHARON STEEL | April 06, 2010

Booking it

Fiction, non-fiction, poetry
Spring fiction goes international, starting with a whiff of the Caribbean.
By BARBARA HOFFERT | March 11, 2010

Excerpt: Evening’s Empire by Bill Flanagan

In this chapter, "The Drugs Don't Work," aging rock star Emerson Cutler and his manager, Jack Flynn, are seeking inspiration — and desperately trying to jumpstart his career.
By BILL FLANAGAN | February 05, 2010

God of love

Amy Bloom once more into the breach
Amy Bloom is known for her psychological acuity, especially as it bears on the subject of love. In her new collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out , her characters — often very knowing — are nonetheless surprised by the undertow.
By SUSAN CHAMANDY | January 19, 2010

God of love

Undercover

April Smith's mystery/thrillers delve in darkness
Ana Grey is the fearless heroine of April Smith's dark and thoughtful thriller series. But reading these fast-paced books shows the question to be more complicated. Ana Grey is, after all, not only a brave FBI agent, but also the cowering daughter of a racist bully.
By CLEA SIMON | June 09, 2009

Asta in the Wings

Youth view told in an adult voice
Jan Elizabeth Watson was reluctant, at first, to set her dreamy first novel in Maine, afraid of marginalizing herself as a "Maine writer."
By NINA MACLAUGHLIN | January 28, 2009

Water Dogs

Lewis Robinson's first novel picks up where Officer Friendly left off
A sort-of mystery novel that may or may not involve a crime, Water Dogs is also the story of a family broken by the death of its patriarch, "Coach," whose three children (fail to) cope with his death in highly individualized and complicated ways.
By ALEX IRVINE | January 28, 2009

More sex, more Lincoln

A hefty reading season, from Jayne Anne Phillips and T.C. Boyle to Pablo Neruda
The subject of Lincoln is like catnip to publishers (and readers), but the only things missing from our winter list are actual cat books.
By BARBARA HOFFERT | December 30, 2008

Animal house

Sara Gruen’s fictional menagerie
Each of Sara Gruen’s first three novels have had animal characters who were crucial to the book, but Water for Elephants has made the biggest splash.
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | April 30, 2008

Remembrance of remembrance

Writers reread their histories
For editing life’s tone, style, and coherence, it’s hard to beat a journal’s written remembrance, but remembrance of that remembrance makes the story even better.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | March 22, 2006