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What's Inside 'The Hearts Of Men'? A New Novel Forages For Answers

6:38pm March 10, 2017

by Lynn Neary

Nickolas Butler's second novel unfolds over three generations at a Wisconsin Boy Scout camp. The story echoes Butler's own experience both at camp and learning about his father's affair.

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Peter Reynolds, owner of Blue Bunny Books in Dedham, Mass., says he hopes the unique atmosphere will keep customers coming to independent bookstores like his.

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As Amazon Moves In, A Local Bookseller Hopes To Thrive With A Personal Touch

8:01am March 04, 2017

by Zeninjor Enwemeka

Amazon has opened its latest brick-and-mortar bookstore — the first on the East Coast. But an independent bookseller in the Boston suburb says: "I think that we're going to be OK."

Books
Arts

Unemployed, Living In A Caravan — And Now, Winner Of A $165,000 Literary Prize

3:10pm March 01, 2017

by Colin Dwyer

Ali Cobby Eckermann, an Australian indigenous poet forcibly taken from her family as a child, discovered without warning last week she had just won one of the richest literary prizes in the world.

Some of the proceeds from the Obamas' two upcoming books will be donated to charity, both by the publisher and the authors.

Penguin Random House Announces Book Deal With The Obamas

8:06pm February 28, 2017

by Maggie Penman

In a statement Tuesday the publisher said it was "very much looking forward" to working with the former president and former first lady, who will each be writing a book.

Some writers are turning to sensitivity readers to be sure they haven't inadvertently offended someone from a different culture.

Experts Or Censors? The Debate Over Authors' Use Of Sensitivity Readers

3:00pm February 28, 2017

by Lynn Neary

One author sees them as an extension of the research she does for all her books; another worries they're being used as a risk management tool.

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Books
Arts

'The Poky Little Puppy' And His Fellow Little Golden Books Are Turning 75

6:48am February 25, 2017

by Lynn Neary

Sold in supermarkets for just 25 cents, these inexpensive picture books — with cheerful illustrations and golden spines — were designed to democratize the children's book market.

An illustration from 1875 depicts the survivors of the frigate Cospatrick, which caught fire off South Africa's Cape of Good Hope in November 1874. Of more than 470 people on board, just three ultimately survived, and they were reduced to cannibalism.

Cannibalism: It's 'Perfectly Natural,' A New Scientific History Argues

10:00am February 22, 2017

by Angus Chen

It's gruesome, but from a scientific standpoint, there's a predictable calculus for when humans and animals go cannibal, a new book says. And who knew European aristocrats ate body parts as medicine?

In 1852 — three years before Leaves of Grass — Walt Whitman anonymously published a short novel, in six parts, in New York's Sunday Dispatch.

Grad Student Discovers A Lost Novel Written By Walt Whitman

5:27pm February 21, 2017

by Glen Weldon

An ad in a March 1852 edition of The New York Times led Zachary Turpin on an electronic search that uncovered a rags-to-riches novella that Whitman published anonymously.

Art Exhibit Doubles As Used Book Store For Spanish Speakers

9:47am February 21, 2017

by Simon Rios

A traveling Spanish bookstore has opened in Boston, its eighth and last stop. The creator says the art installation responds to the disappearance of bookstores, and the "invisibility" of Spanish.

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Dick Bruna at the opening of his 2005 exhibit of Miffy creations in the Hague. Bruna's iconic white rabbit proved to be popular worldwide.

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Arts

Dick Bruna, Artist And Author Of The Intricately Simple Miffy, Dies At 89

5:07pm February 17, 2017

by Colin Dwyer

The Dutch illustrator and children's book author wrote over 120 books and sold some 85 million copies worldwide. But no character earned him greater acclaim than a simple white rabbit.