“Law & Order” Creator Dick Wolf at Books & Books Tonight
I’ve never had any qualms about expressing my love for the simultaneously predictable (Ripped from the headlines! There will be a plot twist!), yet unpredictable (What will that twist be?) Law & Order franchise. Actually that’s not totally true: I’m not particularly fond of Criminal Intent (Vincent D’onofrio’s character is one of the most irritating [...]
Susannah Cahalan Talks About Her “Month of Madness” at Books & Books 8 p.m. Tonight
What would you do if you lost your mind? How would you feel if you were stricken with paranoia — not trusting your family or friends? Or if you began having seizures? Imagine struggling to simply speak. Or draw basic shapes. What if the doctors didn’t have any answers, and you had to accept the [...]
Our Top Five Picks from Miami Book Fair International
Most authors aren’t good at reading their own books. This maxim, delivered so astutely and simply (and hilariously) by Adam Gopnik during his delightful appearance Thursday at megafest Miami Book Fair International, really can’t be stressed enough. Gopnik is probably an exception, judging from his storytelling — though I can’t be sure since he didn’t [...]
J.K. Rowling’s “Casual Vacancy” Would Work Better as a Novella
Perhaps the most talked about book release of 2012 (besides Fifty Shades of Grey, of course) may be J.K. Rowlings’s first adult novel, Casual Vacancy. Rowling’s cult of Harry Potter fans waited in anticipation for its release, which came five years after the final book of her best-selling fantasy series. The chatter was endless. Could [...]
Michael Chabon Will Appear at Books & Books Monday to Promote Yet Another Genius Literary Work “Telegraph Avenue”
Michael Chabon writes annoyingly well about anyone, anywhere, anything. Be it a college professor in Pittsburgh, comic book artists in 1940s New York, Jewish policemen in Alaska, or, as in his latest book Telegraph Avenue, two owners of a vinyl record shop in Northern California. As many Chabon fans can attest, it has been a [...]
Book Review: “What’s the Matter With White People?” by Joan Walsh
What’s the Matter with White People? There’s a sentence guaranteed to get people riled up. Of course, Joan Walsh knew this when she chose it for the title of her book. The question captures succinctly the racial tensions that sadly still exist. Inside the book, two ostensibly competing narratives about the downslide of America hash [...]
The Great Poondoggle: Does Naomi Wolf’s “Vagina” Point to Problems in Feminism?
Naomi Wolf’s Vagina was released last week to seemingly more critical flak than fanfare. Concisely, Wolf’s cultural history of cunt, which employs lots of personal anecdotes, argues that a mind-vagina connection exists. For Wolf, scientific developments suggest that our ladyparts directly affect our ladybrains and that treating women and their, er, “yonis” like “goddesses” has [...]
Dwyane Wade Signing New Memoir at Books & Books, Sunday
I have no interest in sports. You may be able to convince me to watch the Super Bowl. Possibly March Madness. But that’s where it ends. However, for all my apathy toward almost all things athletic, there is one aspect I’m a sucker for: inspirational sports stories. Judge all you want, but the feel-good themes [...]
Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan of “Democracy Now!” Talk New Book “The Silenced Majority” at Books & Books Saturday
Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan don’t pull any punches. So don’t expect any glossed-over facts about the American political machine in their new book The Silenced Majority. The sequel to their New York Times bestselling book Breaking the Sound Barrier, based on their Kings Features Syndicate column of the same name, Goodman (host of the grassroots public television and radio program [...]