Books

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William T. Vollmann's Ghost Stories Are Frighteningly Self-Indulgent

8:40pm July 17, 2014

by Julia Keller

William T. Vollmann's 2005 novel Europe Central was a masterpiece. His latest work, a collection of ghost stories entitled "Last Stories and Other Stories" is flabby and cliched.

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Jennifer Finney Boylan, who wrote the introduction, is the author of several books, including Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders.

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'Trans Bodies, Trans Selves': A Modern Manual By And For Trans People

3:18pm July 17, 2014

Modeled after the groundbreaking feminist health manual Our Bodies, Ourselves, the book details the social, political and medical issues faced by transgender people.

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Angela Ricketts, whose husband deployed eight times over 22 years, says she had to get over resentment around parenting their three kids alone while he was gone.

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An Army Wife Charts Her Struggles In 'No Man's War'

3:52pm July 15, 2014

In her new book, Angela Ricketts writes about raising three kids while her husband deployed eight times over 22 years. Each separation "kind of blackens your soul," she says.

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'Mockingbird Next Door': A Genteel Peek Into Harper Lee's Quiet Life

9:53pm July 14, 2014

by Maureen Corrigan

After Harper Lee wrote To Kill A Mockingbird, she became a recluse and lived with her sister, Alice, in Alabama. Reporter Marja Mills uses rich detail to provides glimpses into their twilight years.

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In addition to her 15 novels, Nadine Gordimer authored several volumes of short stories and nonfiction.

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Writer Nadine Gordimer Captured Apartheid's Contradictions

8:32pm July 14, 2014

by Lynn Neary

The South African Nobel laureate was an associate of Nelson Mandela's, and while she was never imprisoned, several of her books were banned by the government. She died Sunday at the age of 90.

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Author Beth Macy worked for years as a reporter for the Roanoke Times. "When I became a journalist, I gravitated to those kinds of stories of what I call 'outsiders and underdogs,' " she says.

How A Factory Man Fought To Save His Furniture Company

3:34pm July 14, 2014

Virginia furniture owner John Bassett III was determined to beat out foreign competitors. Author Beth Macy documents him, and the collapse of the U.S. furniture industry, in her new book, Factory Man.

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In Aftermath Of Brazil's World Cup Defeat, A Poem To Numb The Pain

8:21pm July 11, 2014

by Kevin Roose

Germany thrashed Brazil 7-1 this week. Author Kevin Roose says Ernest Thayer's classic poem on failure, "Casey at the Bat," might cheer the Brazilian soccer team up.

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10 Years Later, Mystery Heroine 'Maisie Dobbs' Gains New Life

5:02pm July 10, 2014

by Maureen Corrigan

Jacqueline Winspear's debut mystery, Maisie Dobbs, set in England around World War I, came out in paperback a decade ago. A new edition testifies to the enduring allure of the traditional mystery.

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Was "I think I can" the great-grandmother of "lean in?" Some readers see the plucky locomotive as a parable about working women, but some versions of the story feature a male protagonist instead.

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In 'Little Engine That Could,' Some See An Early Feminist Hero

8:23pm July 08, 2014

by Elizabeth Blair

Was "I think I can" the grandmother of "lean in?" Some readers see the plucky locomotive as a parable about working women, but in some versions of the story the protagonist was male.

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Post-Apocalyptic World Falls Flat In 'California'

11:49am July 08, 2014

by Ellah Allfrey

California tells the story of a couple who, when they learn they are having a baby, leave their solitary refuge in a forest for a Utopian community in post-apocalyptic America.

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