Arts

Heirloom Tomato Farmer Finds Beauty In The Ugly

5:16pm August 08, 2008

Tim Stark was a management consultant when he stumbled into heirloom tomato farming, as he describes in Heirloom: Notes from an Accidental Farmer. (Tip: The ugliest tend to be tastiest.) Now his tomatoes are served in the finest New York restaurants.

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Arts

Where Do Jokes Come From? Funny You Should Ask

10:44am August 06, 2008

Stop Me If You've Heard This Before, Jim Holt's funny, scholarly history of humor, ranges high and (very) low to answer the question, "What are you laughing at?"

Arts

Vignettes And Characters Shift In 'Chameleons'

5:00pm August 04, 2008

In The Book of Chameleons, a gecko narrator weaves fragmentary tales of invented pasts into a story of charming airiness. The prize-winning Portuguese novel is set in post-civil war Angola.

Arts

Excerpt: 'The Lace Reader'

5:01pm July 31, 2008

Excerpt: 'The Lace Reader'

Arts

Sex, Drugs And Sonnets: In 'Will,' All's Well

12:01am July 31, 2008

Even the bard wasn't as bawdy or silly as drug-addled scholar "Willie" Shakespeare Greenberg, the fumbling protagonist of Jess Winfield's lovingly naughty academic picaresque, My Name Is Will.

Arts

Excerpt: 'My Name Is Will'

12:01am July 31, 2008

Arts

Excerpt: 'Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean'

3:19pm July 03, 2008

Douglas Wolk takes graphic novels seriously and dissects today's comic-book landscape.

Arts

Excerpt: 'The Great Comic Book Heroes'

3:12pm July 03, 2008

Jules Feiffer offers a critical history of comic books. He labels comics "junk" — only to vigorously defend our need for them.

Arts

Surveying Sex, A To Z, In 'Dirty Words'

12:00am July 03, 2008

Like most things that happen in the bedroom, the collection of essays found in Dirty Words is fun, naughty and totally inappropriate for the eyes of children.

Arts

Excerpt: 'Dirty Words'

12:00am July 03, 2008

Adultery, commitment, sex, obsession — this encyclopedia covers all of these subjects and more.