Making of a ‘liberal icon’ charted

“Bobby Kennedy” By Larry TyeRandom House (608 pages, $32)Unless you were old enough to remember the mid-1960s it might be hard to grasp the considerable impact the Kennedy family, particularly Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the widowed first lady, Jacqueline, had on both the popular imagination and political discourse in the United States -- and, arguably, the world. Everything they did seemed to be news, even if it was just Jackie sporting a miniskirt in public (Fall 1966 and “cautious housewives o

Aug. 24, 2016

Extraordinary characters brought to life

“The Muse” By Jessie BurtonHarper Collins (352 pages, $27.99)“The Muse” asks a lot of its readers, in the best of ways. It asks us to pay close attention, given the unexpected paths that wander variously through time, race, global politics and art history. Odelle Bastien is a Caribbean immigrant in 1967 London, and a typist at an art gallery for the enigmatic Marjorie Quick, who insists on being called only Quick. Why? It’s one of many mysteries that deepen when “Rufina and the Lion,” perhaps a

Aug. 24, 2016

Imagining surrealist battle against Nazis

“The Last Days of New Paris” By China MievilleDel Rey (205 pages, $25)Page for page, there is no one generating more utterly unfamiliar ideas than author China Mieville (“Perdido Street Station,” “The City and the City”) -- and the glossary of monsters in his latest novel, “The Last Days of New Paris,” could support a full book for every entry. There’s so much absurd beauty among the fauna in this story of surrealist art come to life in Nazi-occupied France, in fact, that the author’s subtler po

Aug. 24, 2016

Bochco’s book: He rewrote TV’s rules and lived to tell it

NEW YORK (AP) -- For viewers who rejoice in TV’s artistic upsurge, one virtuoso perhaps more than anyone can be credited for elevating the medium from its bygone “boob tube” status.Steven Bochco flinches at the mention of his half-century writing and producing TV. Could it really be that long? But his list of credits documents his legacy. Consider: the breakthrough hits “L.A. Law” and “NYPD Blue,” the pioneering half-hour dramedy “Doogie Howser, MD” and the groundbreaking legal drama “Murder One

Aug. 24, 2016

Your life is comfy compared to the hell of the North Korean border

“How I Became a North Korean”By Krys LeeViking (244 pages, $27)Forgetting the complexities of other lives is so easy these days, immersed as we are in our daily grinds, our political battles, our iPhones and our Netflix. With her devastating yet ultimately hopeful first novel, Krys Lee provides the reminder that sometimes we need a wakeup call. “How I Became a North Korean” demands that we look outside ourselves, pay attention and bear witness to the world and how it can break so many of us.In t

Aug. 17, 2016

Essays illuminate fears of disaster

“This Is Only a Test”By B.J. HollarsBreak Away Books (180 pages, $17)In his essay collection “This Is Only a Test,” B.J. Hollars is buffeted on one side by terrifying cataclysms and on the other by typical new-parent anxiety.These forces converge spectacularly in the opener, “Goodbye, Tuscaloosa,” where Hollars describes huddling in a bathtub with his wife and their dog as a violent EF4 tornado begins tearing apart their neighborhood. She has just learned that she is pregnant with their first ch

Aug. 17, 2016

The pleasures and perils of an affair in ‘Blue Bath’

“The Blue Bath”By Mary Waters-SayerSt. Martin’s Press (307 pages, $25.99)At first, “The Blue Bath” seems to be just a particularly well-written take on an old story, one often encountered in more sophisticated “chick lit” -- the pleasures and perils of an extramarital affair. Kat Lind, an American married to a very busy English businessman, is conveniently left alone at their posh London home while her husband goes on a long business trip and their little boy stays with her in-laws so she can mo

Aug. 17, 2016

Amber Tozer pens one of the funniest books on alcoholism you’ll ever read

"Sober Stick Figure: A Memoir”By Amber Tozer(Running Press, $24)Comedian Amber Tozer is 39 years old. She is funny, profane and drop-dead honest. A recovering alcoholic, Tozer walked away from drinking eight years ago, and now she has written a book about it.I picked up “Sober Stick Figure: A Memoir” (Running Press, $24) because alcoholism has run in my family, and because of recent news about the prevalence of binge drinking among young people.“Sober Stick Figure” might be the funniest book abo

Aug. 17, 2016

Schumer keeps it real in ‘Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo’

“The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo” By Amy Schumer(Gallery Books)Amy Schumer is a powerhouse in the entertainment industry, thanks to her Emmy-winning TV series, “Inside Amy Schumer,” and feature film box-office smash “Trainwreck.” A comedian, actress, writer, producer and director, Schumer is on her way to adding “best-selling author” to her list of achievements with her new book, “The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo.”Schumer is a talented storyteller. She’s known for standing in a spotlight

Aug. 17, 2016

Daesan announces winners of translation grants

The Daesan Foundation, dedicated to supporting and promoting Korean literature, has announced the recipients of this year’s Grants for the Translation, Research and Publication of Korean Literary Works, providing funds for 13 works of Korean literature to be translated into 10 languages.The works selected include those by emerging authors such as Hwang Jung-eun’s novel “Let Me Continue” (unofficial translation), the winner of last year’s Daesan Literary Award. Hwang’s novel about the relationshi

Aug. 10, 2016

‘Not Pretty Enough’ review: Entertaining bio of Helen Gurley Brown

“Not Pretty Enough: The Unlikely Triumph of Helen Gurley Brown”By Gerri HirsheySarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (500 pages, $27)If there’s nothing more American than a rags-to-riches story, then Helen Gurley Brown was truly an All-American Girl. The author of “Sex and the Single Girl” and later editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, writes biographer Gerri Hirshey, began life as “a very poor and traumatized child of the Depression,” the fatherless daughter of a miserable mother, a skinny

Aug. 10, 2016

In ‘American Heiress,’ Patty Hearst case evokes the dark side of ’70s

“American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst”By Jeffrey ToobinDoubleday (384 pages, $28.95)In modern media culture, news stories blow up, consume us and then, in a matter of months, devolve into trivia, pop-culture reference material and, in the end, a footnote.Take the 1974 kidnapping of heiress Patricia Hearst. The case dominated America’s consciousness for most of two years, especially after she announced she had joined her captors, a homegrown terroris

Aug. 10, 2016

Ruth Ware returns with nightmare cruise thriller

“The Woman in Cabin 10”By Ruth WareScout Press (340 pages, $26)Laura Blacklock is a writer for a British travel magazine. When a dream assignment lands in her lap — covering the weeklong inaugural cruise of a five-star “boutique” ship with just 10 swanky cabins for passengers pursuing the Northern Lights in the Norwegian fjords — she leaps at the chance.But the poor girl is off to a rough start. Her flat is broken into just before she leaves for the trip, and her encounter with the masked burgla

Aug. 10, 2016

Screenwriting guru Robert McKee writes his story's next chapter

In the early 1990s, Robert McKee had a revelation that would change the course of his career and influence the lives of tens of thousands of other writers. At the time, he’d written “Abraham,” a four-hour biblical miniseries, for TNT and had sold several unproduced screenplays.“I looked at ‘Abraham’ and thought, ‘I’m a good writer, but I will never be Ingmar Bergman,’” McKee said. “The creative explosion is not happening. It’s professional, it’s actable, it’s entertaining. But I want to be the b

Aug. 10, 2016

Teen girl’s trauma reveals truths about ugly, beautiful sides of life

"The Inseparables"By Stuart Nadler Little, Brown and Co. (352 pages, $27)The best fiction illuminates life’s realities, and Stuart Nadler spotlights the fact that we all skate on a very thin edge between joy and sorrow, respectability and shame, life and death.Or, as Henrietta tells her granddaughter, Lydia, in “The Inseparables,” you can be sitting next to a window in a restaurant having a perfectly nice lunch and, “A bird could come through the window right at this instant and impale you.”One

Aug. 10, 2016

Winfrey picks Whitehead novel for book club

NEW YORK (AP) - Oprah Winfrey has a new book club pick, Colson Whitehead's “The Underground Railroad,” a historical novel that imagines the network of safe houses and passages that helped slaves escape to free territory is an actual train.Winfrey told the Associated Press during a recent telephone interview that she knew from the first sentence that she would want to share her passion with her audience, an impulse she has relied on with uncommon success for 20 years.“I was blown away by it,” Win

Aug. 3, 2016

Deep into the mind of a psychopath

“The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror” By Joyce Carol OatesMysterious Press (336 pages, $24)When not writing fat, complicated novels that are some of the finest of our time, the ever-prolific Joyce Carol Oates churns out mysteries, often in the form of short stories or novellas. Sometimes those lesser works read like careless afterthoughts; other times, they’re quite good. “The Doll-Master” falls into the latter category. Its six stories are especially bone-chilling because they contain no

Aug. 3, 2016

Exploring 1950s New York in ‘Three-Martini Lunch’

“Three-Martini Lunch” By Suzanne RindellPutnam (512 pages, $27)“Nobody ever became a writer by just wanting to be one.” This terse advice by F. Scott Fitzgerald sets the scene for a compelling exploration of New York City’s Greenwich Village scene in the late 1950s, when beatniks, berets and big ideas gravitated to jazz clubs, and women and minorities could begin to voice ambition without feeling outright derision. (There was derision, but more politic.)Three ambitious young people intersect: Ed

Aug. 3, 2016