‘Some Luck’ takes on an epic scope

Sometimes, the characters in Jane Smiley’s latest novel resemble the Osage-orange hedge that separates the field from the back acreage of Walter Langdon’s Iowa farm: “horse-high, bull-strong, and hog-tight.” Meaning they’re tough. Meaning they take what life throws at them ― drought, freezes, economic catastrophe, death, war, progress ― and carry on. Meaning any sense of optimism is hard won and that good fortune is never taken for granted: “That was a piece of luck, Walter. But what would we do

Nov. 13, 2014

Michael Connelly’s Bosch back with a new partner, old political battles

The Burning RoomBy Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)Politics often seeps into police investigations, especially when a high-profile case has officials from the city to the state level jockeying for a piece of the action.LAPD detective Harry Bosch has seen enough of politics interfering with his investigations through the years. Now, as he supposedly enters the last year of his career, Harry is even more tired of this intrusion that erupts constantly in “The Burning Room,” the excellent 19th novel

Nov. 13, 2014

Bush wants Jeb to run for president

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) ― Former President George W. Bush said Tuesday that he believes his brother Jeb Bush should run for president but ultimately the former Florida governor must make a decision regardless of any pressure from the family. Bush said his father, former President George H.W. Bush, also thinks the ex-Florida governor should run in the 2016 White House race. “I can tell you I can speak for 41,” Bush said, referring to his father, the 41st president of the United States between

Nov. 13, 2014

Brief Chaplin bio captures essence of ‘the Tramp’

In 1914, Keystone Studios released two short films that gave a world marching to war a reason to laugh. Their titles, “Kid Auto Races at Venice” and “Mabel’s Strange Predicament,” are far less memorable than the character they helped to introduce: the Tramp. Wearing oversized shoes and baggy clothes, carrying a cane, and sporting a derby and just a dash of moustache, actor Charlie Chaplin waddled onto the screen. Two years and dozens of shorts later, Chaplin was a global favorite. Over time, the

Nov. 6, 2014

Marlon James writes Jamaican epic

It’s around 3 p.m. on Oct. 1, the biggest day in Marlon James’ career ― if not his life. His third novel, “A Brief History of Seven Killings,” hit bookstores with more buzz than a swarm of bees.James is on his phone with prominent Jamaican blogger Annie Paul, who has just published her interview with him online. The blog post, in which James discusses his novel about the 1976 attempted assassination of Bob Marley in Kingston, has upset editors at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, e

Nov. 6, 2014

Book collects best of Vanity Fair

Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers & Swells: The Best of Early Vanity Fair Edited by Graydon Carter (Penguin Press)Before Buzzfeed, before Spy, before Rolling Stone and the Paris Review, there was Vanity Fair. The smart-set magazine launched a century ago became famous as a sort of barometer of the Jazz Age and for its murderers’ row of heavy-hitting contributors. Dorothy Parker, Carl Sandburg, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein were just a few who wrote for the magazine. “Bohemians” collects

Nov. 6, 2014

‘Spoiled Brats’ is original, hilarious

Spoiled BratsBy Simon Rich(Little, Brown and Co.)Feel the humiliation of the widowed guinea pig, so beaten down he contemplates suicide and questions his Christian faith. See through the eyes of the doting parents, who look past the signs of demonism ― the pentagram birthmark and grasping claws ― to find a flawless little boy. Befriend a tortured Christmas elf who is caught in a boy’s sick, sexual exploits. Simon Rich gives us each of these characters in “Spoiled Brats,” an anthology as endlessl

Nov. 6, 2014

‘Sometimes the Wolf’ tells engrossing story

Sometimes the WolfBy Urban Waite (William Morrow)A father-and-son relationship, perhaps broken beyond repair, fuels Urban Waite’s engrossing novel that skillfully exposes the complicated emotions that can stymie a once close family while also working as a superb action-adventure tale. In “Sometimes the Wolf,” the sins of the father have rained down on Bobby Drake for 12 years. Bobby, a sheriff’s deputy in a small town in the Pacific Northwest, wonders what his life would have been like had his f

Nov. 6, 2014

‘Killer Next Door’ is gripping mystery

The Killer Next DoorBy Alex Marwood (Penguin Books)Desperation brings six people to a decaying Victorian apartment house where the tenants’ desolation pales in comparison with one neighbor’s despicable acts. Alex Marwood’s second stand-alone novel delivers a multilayered plot that succeeds as crime fiction, a gothic tale and a village mystery ― all with an edge. With the apartment building substituting for a village, “The Killer Next Door” balances a shrewd look at people living on the edge of s

Nov. 6, 2014

Revisiting Korea’s modern literature

The era of modern literature in Korea began in 1894 when the government launched sweeping reforms which called for establishing public schools, writing in Hangul, the Korean alphabet, instead of Chinese characters and opening the door to foreign literary works.A special exhibition is underway in Seoul to offer an overview of modern Korean literature, which brewed in a tumultuous period characterized by the fall of the monarchy at the end of the Joseon era (1392-1910), the rise of Japanese imperi

Nov. 4, 2014

Bernhard Schlink: Two Koreas should be the victors

The biggest mistake Germany made during reunification is that one side was the victor, while the other was the defeated, according to a prominent German writer and thinker. German novelist Bernhard Schlink, the writer of the award-winning 1995 novel “The Reader” and many other works that shed light on the theme of the past, guilt and postwar generation of Germany, says if he could give advice on Korean reunification, it would be to respect each other. “You two (North and South Korea) will be the

Oct. 23, 2014

Lena Dunham connects with her many ‘awesome’ fans in Seattle

When she is standing before you, in the still eye of the pop-culture hurricane she has inhabited for several years now, you realize Lena Dunham is just like any young woman who fusses with her hair, loves her sister and can’t resist cheese.But then you hear the steady hum of a sold-out crowd just beyond the door; notice the table stacked with signed copies of Dunham’s new book, “Not That Kind of Girl,” for which she was reportedly paid $3 million; and hear her mention a visit to the Facebook cam

Oct. 23, 2014

‘Without You, There Is No Us’ a vivid account of six months in Pyongyang

For a country as closed and intimidating as North Korea is, the number of memoirs by people who briefly lived there is surprisingly large ― at least one a year since 2000, according to a list by the Seoul-based website NK News.The books fall into two categories. In the first are those by authors who clearly wish to be allowed back. They pay little mind to the absence of basic freedoms for North Koreans and dismiss the restrictions they experience themselves. They are not alone: A sizable number

Oct. 23, 2014

‘Gray Mountain’ will please Grisham fans

Gray MountainBy John Grisham (Doubleday)John Grisham has been writing legal thrillers and dramas that resonate with readers for almost 25 years, and his latest continues the theme of ordinary people who work in the law profession experiencing a crisis of conscience. Sometimes following the letter of the law might not feel morally just, and that conflict within the person having to confront the issue head-on has propelled Grisham to the top of the best-seller lists and made him a household name.

Oct. 23, 2014

‘Superstorm’ finds narrative in Sandy’s wrath

SuperstormBy Kathryn Miles (Dutton)It’s been a weak hurricane season in the Atlantic so far, with little to worry U.S. coastal residents, but any forecaster will tell you: It only takes one storm to make a bad year. In 2012, that one storm was Superstorm Sandy, a hurricane that grew larger even as it lost its tropical characteristics and combined with an early winter storm and blast of arctic air. The “Frankenstorm” slammed the mid-Atlantic coast with a devastating storm surge, causing an estima

Oct. 23, 2014

‘Tinseltown’ revels in salacious detail

Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine and Madness at the Dawn of HollywoodBy William J. Mann (HarperCollins)There’s nothing like a whodunit. It’s even better if it’s a true life one with a believable solution. The result is pure catnip to mystery readers.In the hands of William J. Mann, the murder of film director William Desmond Taylor in 1922 comes alive again in “Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood.”Taylor was a perfect gentleman and a director loved by many in the film i

Oct. 23, 2014

Hiaasen woos young adult readers

Skink ― No SurrenderBy Carl Hiaasen (Knopf)Incisive social commentary akin to Jonathan Swift’s, wrapped in a sly wit and capitalizing on the “only in Florida” goings-on have won Carl Hiaasen legions of fans. And his ability to write the kind of books that appeal to children won him a Newberry Award.Now Hiaasen smoothly transitions his writing to appeal to readers ages 12 and up with “Skink ― No Surrender,” his first young adult novel.“Skink” rightly doesn’t have some of the very adult situations

Oct. 23, 2014

Compelling study of Dylan’s later life

The second installment of Ian Bell’s two-part biography of Bob Dylan, “Time Out of Mind,” is a compelling, focused examination of the latter half of the elusive singer-songwriter’s life and career, starting off with his acclaimed “Blood on the Tracks” album in 1975 and bringing readers close to the present day. For Dylan’s many obsessive fans, who have been offered a wealth of analyses of this singular artist over the years, Bell delivers the goods. Chapters are heavy with engrossing and sometim

Oct. 16, 2014

Chicago and ‘The Birth of the Pill’

Chicago journalist Jonathan Eig got the idea for his new book, “The Birth of the Pill,” from a sermon his rabbi gave many years ago.“He was claiming the (birth control) pill was a bigger deal than the airplane, than the A-bomb,” Eig said of Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, then of the Anshe Emet Synagogue on Chicago’s North Side. “At first, I thought he was crazy. Then I came to think maybe he was right.”Eig wondered how the history of something so important could be so quickly forgotten, especially in Ch

Oct. 16, 2014