‘Original Sin’ is tense, disturbing thriller

Original SinBy D.P. Lyle (Reputation Books)The dying old man on cardiac surgeon Lucy Wagner’s operating table was bleeding out from an aortic aneurism. As she desperately massaged his failing heart, a chill flowed into her fingers, up her arm and into her chest. And then she fell, collapsing onto the hospital floor. The patient, as it turns out, was John Scully, the pastor of a secretive, snake-handling cult that held services outside Lucy’s small hometown of Remington, Tennessee. As far as Lucy

Sept. 11, 2014

‘Why Football Matters’ versus ‘Against Football’

Unlike Steve Almond and Mark Edmundson, the authors of two terrific new books on football, I did not grow up with a father who loved the sport.My father thinks football is commercialized barbarism ― 22 oversized idiots plowing into one another, following a byzantine set of rules no one truly understands. For me, football is a beloved fall ritual. It’s a season of Homeric contests playing out on my television screen.As the titles of their books suggest, Almond and Edmundson come down on similarly

Sept. 4, 2014

Mike Sacks’ ‘Poking a Dead Frog’ cracks comedy code

Comedy is having a moment. You can’t really talk about the vaunted New Golden Platinum Age of Television without reference to Louis C.K., Amy Schumer or Amy Poehler. Political discourse takes cues from Jon Stewart and John Oliver. The Internet, which drives the world, is three-quarters comedy (figure approximate). Tina Fey and Mindy Kaling write memoirs that also serve as manifestos, and the Children of Apatow sew their seeds through the culture, on multiple platforms.We are also in a time when

Sept. 4, 2014

David Mitchell’s ‘Bone Clocks’ revisits story lines of ‘Cloud Atlas’

The Bone ClocksBy David Mitchell (Random House)Count on David Mitchell ― whose novels regularly suggest a Borgesian library ― to invoke one of the most famous literary labyrinths of all in “The Bone Clocks,” his extraordinary new novel:“Half way along our journey to life’s end I found myself astray in a dark wood,” admits one of Mitchell’s protagonists ― invoking the opening of Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” to describe his midlife crisis, which prominently features the decline of his once-promisin

Sept. 4, 2014

‘Half of What I Say is Meaningless’ a strikingly felt essay collection

Half of What I Say is MeaninglessBy Joseph Bathanti (Mercer University Press)It’s 1976, and Joseph Bathanti, former North Carolina poet laureate, is leaving his native Pittsburgh in a 1969 VW Beetle that lacks a reverse gear. He is 23 and heading to the mythic South to work as a VISTA volunteer.In this land of extemporaneous prayer and exotic inflections (“On was own.” “Can’t was caint.”), life instantly begins to revise itself for the young transplant. “I was,” he writes in a new collection of

Sept. 4, 2014

Small things add up to epic tale in ‘We Are Not Ourselves’

Matthew Thomas’ first novel, “We Are Not Ourselves,” is an epic of small events. By that I don’t mean its story is insignificant but quotidian: the particular struggles of the day-to-day. A family saga, spanning three generations, the book is centered around Eileen Tumulty, a daughter of the Irish working-class in Queens, N.Y. Eileen’s existence is summed up in the first two syllables of that last name ― tumult ― or more accurately, in the drive to push past her limitations, which have been impo

Aug. 28, 2014

‘Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!’ an eccentric, witty look at pop music history

The title suggests the folly of the endeavor: “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyonce.” Really? The whole story? Yeah, that’s what Bob Stanley is going for here. Doo-wop, the Beatles, folk rock, Philadelphia soul, punk and post-punk, Prince and Madonna, grunge, hip-hop, Britpop and so many points in between. All woven together in a semilinear narrative.You can laugh if you want. Then you can try putting it down. Opinionated, digressive, quick to play favorites ― Stan

Aug. 28, 2014

Making wagonloads of money in pre-Civil War Independence

Merchants of Independence: International Trade on the Santa Fe Trail, 1827-1860By William Patrick O’Brien (Truman State University Press) Out in Independence, Missouri, the ornamental wagon wheel can still be seen in a few front yards.Whatever its currency as kitsch, its authenticity as a symbol of the community’s transportation-based past can’t be disputed.It was the overland transit of pioneer families (along the Oregon trail), prospectors (the California branch-off) as well as commercial frei

Aug. 28, 2014

‘I Can See in the Dark’ a well-paced tale narrated by a sociopath

I Can See in the DarkBy Karin Fossum (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)Over the years, I’ve read lots of Scandinavian crime fiction, but nothing from Norwegian novelist Karin Fossum. In retrospect, that was a huge oversight.Her books have sold millions of copies worldwide, and a few years ago she was named one of the 50 greatest crime writers of all time by The Times of London.After reading “I Can See in the Dark,” I understand why.This is a taut, well-paced book written totally from the point of view

Aug. 28, 2014

Korean poet Ko Un wins Golden Wreath Award

Renowned South Korean poet Ko Un has won this year‘s Golden Wreath, one of the world’s most authoritative awards for poets, the Korean National Commission for UNESCO said Monday.Ko received the award at the end of an annual poetry festival in the southern Macedonian town of Struga on Sunday for his overall ody of work, the commission said. Poet Ko Un holds up the Golden Wreath Award at the 53rd Struga Poetry Evenings in Macedonia on Sunday. (Yonhap)The 53rd edition of the Struga Poetry Evenings,

Aug. 25, 2014

‘Your Face in Mine’ a bold take on race, identity by Jess Row

Late in his novel “Your Face in Mine,” Jess Row cites a parable attributed to Zhuangzi, a Chinese philosopher from the fourth century BC. “Zhuangzi awoke from dreaming that he was a butterfly,” he writes, “And didn’t know whether he was a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi.” It’s the kind of brain-twister beloved by the ancient masters, but it also has a lot to do with what Row is after in this book.“Your Face in Mine” is his first novel after two well-regarded collections of stories, and it dea

Aug. 21, 2014

‘Deep’ goes below the surface of the ocean

I grew up within sight of the ocean, close enough to hear the boom of the surf as it exploded across the sandbars. My grandfather pulled his living from the ocean, and a great uncle died in it. I spent thousands of hours in the Atlantic and thousands more along its edges. I knew it, I thought.Then I read James Nestor’s fascinating new book, “Deep,” an exploration, layer by layer, of the oceans’ depths. My knowledge barely dipped beneath the surface.Nestor’s journey begins in Greece, on assignmen

Aug. 21, 2014

‘All Our Names’ tells tale of exile, loss

All Our NamesBy Dinaw Mengestu (Knopf)At first glance, “All Our Names” seems to be a straightforward immigrant story. A young man, carrying the name of Isaac on his passport, has come from Uganda to Laurel, a small Midwestern town, on a one-year student visa. His case is assigned to Helen, with Lutheran Relief Services. Chapters segue between those in Uganda narrated by Isaac, and those in America, narrated by Helen.The novel partially takes place in Uganda in the early 1970s, after it has won i

Aug. 21, 2014

‘Remember Me Like This’ evokes powerful sense of place, family

Remember Me Like ThisBy Bret Anthony Johnston (Random House) A page-turner of a plot alone usually is not enough to keep me reading long into the night, abandoning my dreams for a writer’s creative imaginings. Bret Anthony Johnston delivers the special something that makes a book worth losing sleep over: a masterfully designed architecture of psychological truths and observations that build ironclad believability.Just a couple of chapters into “Remember Me Like This,” I cared enough about the fa

Aug. 21, 2014

Amy Bloom’s ‘Lucky Us’ leaves little to care about

“There is no such thing as a good writer and a bad liar,” Amy Bloom wrote in her 1999 short story “The Story,” which remains my favorite of all her work. It’s a vivid bit of double vision, Bloom commenting on the process of storytelling even as she engages in it, and it suggests an edge, a brittle humor that I associate with her. In “The Story,” Bloom describes a widow, coming to terms with new neighbors she calls the Golddust Twins ― until, halfway through, she changes direction, bringing her n

Aug. 14, 2014

Book artist probes act, art of reading

Peter Mendelsund’s “What We See When We Read” may be the liveliest, most entertaining and best illustrated work of phenomenology you’ll pick up this year.An acclaimed book-jacket designer and art director, Mendelsund investigates, through words and pictures, what we see when we read text and where those images come from.His breakdown of the reading and visualizing processes yields many insights.For example, readers of Tolstoy may feel intimately acquainted with Anna Karenina, but that doesn’t me

Aug. 14, 2014

Ted Hope tells of indie filmmaking

Hope for Film: From the Frontlines of the Independent Cinema RevolutionsBy Ted Hope with Anthony Kaufman (Soft Skull)Ted Hope’s new book “Hope for Film” is part memoir, part manual, part manifesto as it traces his long career in independent filmmaking, mostly and most notably as a producer but more recently with a brief excursion into the nonprofit world and then onto the evolving interface of technology, creation and distribution.Eagle-eyed readers will spot the plurals in the subtitle, “From t

Aug. 14, 2014

Murakami recounts pilgrim’s progress

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of PilgrimageBy Haruki Murakami (Alfred A. Knopf)When the bottom falls out of your life, you can’t always figure out what the hell happened. You just have to get through it.But getting through it and getting past it can be the difference between surviving and living.“Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage,” Haruki Murakami’s accessible and often moving new novel, underscores that difference, and the personal journey necessary to bridge that ga

Aug. 14, 2014

Jo Jung-rae wins first Simhun Literary Award

Jo Jung-rae, the author of popular history saga “Taebaek Mountain Range,” has been chosen as the recipient of the first Simhun Literary Award, the organizers of the award said Tuesday. The 70-years-old writer edged out six final contenders, including four Koreans, a Japanese and a Vietnamese, to take the 20 million won ($19,500) in prize money.  Korean novelist Jo Jung-rae. (Kim Myung-sub/The Korea Herald)The organizers, the Simhun Sangnok Cultural Festival Committee, praised Jo for his “continu

Aug. 12, 2014