Books

Books
Arts

'Empire Of Things' Surveys How, What And Why We Consume

7:00am March 31, 2016

by Jason Heller

Frank Trentmann's sprawling new history looks at several centuries worth of consumerism. It's a huge, and hugely readable survey of all the ways we accumulate — and exhaust — material goods.

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Arts

A Spanish Comic Book Exposes Franco's Orphanages

7:20am March 30, 2016

by Etelka Lehoczky

Carlos Giménez's graphic novel Paracuellos is an unflinching memoir of his time in the orphanages of Franco's Spain; it makes the experiences of a few boys in the 1950s inescapably universal.

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Arts

Lurid And Ludicrous, 'Shock SuspenStories' Will Make Your Eyes Pop

7:00am March 30, 2016

by Etelka Lehoczky

A new collection reprints the first six issues of EC Comics' classic 1950s pulp horror series. Packed with gore and goofiness, these may, in fact, be the comics your mother warned you about.

Books

Asking Questions Year By Year With 'Poems For The Twentieth Century'

4:38pm March 29, 2016

by Tess Taylor

What does it mean to exist in time or make art for the moment? In XX: Poems for the Twentieth Century, Campbell McGrath explores this question with a poem for every year between 1900 and 2000.

Close up low section of two girls sitting side by side

'Girls & Sex' And The Importance Of Talking To Young Women About Pleasure

2:59pm March 29, 2016

Author Peggy Orenstein says that when it comes to sexuality, girls hear that "they're supposed to be sexy, they're supposed to perform sexually for boys, but ... their sexual pleasure is unspoken."

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Arts

Murder And Crows In 'Taxidermist's Daughter'

7:00am March 29, 2016

by Jean Zimmerman

Kate Mosse's new gothic thriller uses the concept of taxidermy as a clever skeleton on which to hang its scares. It's a dark and tangled tale that's definitely not for the squeamish.

Adam Hochschild is a cofounder of Mother Jones. His previous books include To End All Wars and King Leopold's Ghost.

Books
Arts

In Many Ways, Author Says, Spanish Civil War Was 'The First Battle Of WWII'

4:06pm March 28, 2016

According to Adam Hochschild, about 2,800 Americans fought in the Spanish Civil War, and some were bombed by Nazis years before the U.S. entered World War II. His new book is Spain in Our Hearts.

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Writer Jim Harrison set his stories in the American wilderness. "I like outside better than inside," he said.

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Jim Harrison, 'Legends Of The Fall' Author, Dies At 78

8:37am March 28, 2016

by Tom Vitale

The author — who wrote more than three dozen books, including the novels Dalva and True North and many collections of poetry — found freedom in the outdoors. He died Saturday in Patagonia, Ariz.

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'Dark Territory' Examines The Long History Of Cyber War

5:35pm March 27, 2016

So many things in our lives are plugged into networks vulnerable to hacking. Fred Kaplan's new book Dark Territory looks at how this came to be and what it means for the future.

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Reading Between Worlds With Griffin And Sabine

7:00am March 27, 2016

by Amal El-Mohtar

Nick Bantock returns to his epistolary lovers in a new volume, The Pharos Gate. In an age of instantaneous digital communication, Griffin and Sabine celebrate the pleasures of paper and ink.