Malcolm Gladwell’s new big idea: Underdog status can be advantage

Over the last 14 years, Malcolm Gladwell has produced one bestseller after another. His books are so buzzworthy their titles become catchphrases, like “Tipping Point” and “Outliers.”Gladwell leads readers spellbound through stories that develop into counterintuitive insights into modern life.His newest book is “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants” (Little, Brown; $29). The book was inspired by a 2009 story Gladwell wrote in The New Yorker about a girls’ basketbal

Feb. 27, 2014

Getting under California’s skin

Is it too much to compare Kem Nunn to Raymond Chandler? Both have used the loose frame of genre to write enduringly and resonantly about the dark side of the California dream. For Nunn, this has meant an exploration of boundaries, both actual and metaphorical; his last novel, “Tijuana Straits” (which won a 2005 Los Angeles Times Book Prize), traces the shifting landscape of the physical borderland.At the same time, there is also a willingness to take risks, to play against expectation, which mar

Feb. 27, 2014

Jackie Collins is still ‘Wild,’ steamy

LOS ANGELES ― Author Jackie Collins still has the steam engine chugging. Her newest novel, “Confessions of a Wild Child,” released last week, is a prequel to the Lucky Santangelo books and centers on the treasured heroine during her formative teen years ― the book has already landed a film deal with Amber Entertainment. The 76-year-old scribe talks about finally getting into character and staying clued-up.Q. “Confessions of a Wild Child” is the seventh book to feature the character Lucky Santang

Feb. 20, 2014

A quiet mystery from Laura Lippman

After I’m GoneBy Laura Lippman (Morrow)Few of us ever completely recover from the loss of a loved one. Life, of course, goes on and can be rich and fulfilling. But that loss never entirely disappears.Laura Lippman explores how a disappearance affects a family for decades in the enthralling “After I’m Gone.” In her eighth stand-alone ― and 19th ― novel, Lippman tracks the history of five women united by the betrayal of one man. “After I’m Gone” is a quiet mystery ― no car chases, barely a gun in

Feb. 20, 2014

Young lives haunt Oates’ latest novel

CarthageBy Joyce Carol Oates(Ecco)When a book begins by telling readers that a young woman, 19, has vanished into the deep woods, the expected outcome is rarely happy.But in Joyce Carol Oates’ newest book, “Carthage,” perhaps the outcome is not quite so bleak. For the first half of the book, readers make their own assumptions about what has happened to Cressida Mayfield, the younger of Zeno Mayfield’s two daughters, and whether she indeed met a gruesome fate at the hands of her sister’s former f

Feb. 20, 2014

‘Lincoln’s Boys’ examines president’s secretaries

Sometimes political careers are born of chance.John Nicolay and John Hay were two young men working in Springfield, Ill., when they became involved with the political life of Abraham Lincoln before his 1860 U.S. presidential campaign. Tireless and smart, the friends, still in their 20s, proved themselves indispensable to Lincoln, who brought them along with him to the White House as his personal secretaries ― in effect, the president’s gatekeepers.In his new book, “Lincoln’s Boys: John Hay, John

Feb. 20, 2014

100 years after birth, Burroughs’ work still has power to shock

Even sober, William S. Burroughs had visions.As a young child, he saw a green reindeer the size of a cat. Another time, he woke to see tiny men scrambling among his building blocks, he said.“He was one of those children who never really got over the magical kingdom. Part of him stayed there,” says biographer Barry Miles. Burroughs’ kingdom, literally speaking, began in a comfortable house in the Central West End of St. Louis, at 4664 Pershing Avenue (known as “Berlin Avenue” before World War I).

Feb. 13, 2014

For Joyce Maynard, writing ‘Labor Day’ was a labor of love

It took Joyce Maynard only 10 days to write “Labor Day,” the New York Times best-selling novel that serves as the basis for the movie of the same name that opened Friday.That kind of speedy production isn’t typical.“I don’t want people out there, who are trying to write a book, to get the wrong idea. I have been writing for 42 years and they didn’t all come out this way. My new book took two years to write,” Maynard says.Had you asked Maynard the day before she started writing “Labor Day” ― the

Feb. 13, 2014

‘Glitter and Glue’: A valentine to Mom

“Glitter and Glue” By Kelly Corrigan (Ballantine Books)“I know that my mother loves sauerkraut and anchovies and pearl onions,” writes Kelly Corrigan in her third memoir, “Glitter and Glue.” “I know she prefers mashed potatoes from a box, and when she wants to, she can peel an orange in one go. I know she likes her first drink to be vodka ― one full jigger, over ice, with a lemon rind ― and then she downgrades to chardonnay, which she pours into the same glass over the same ice with the same pie

Feb. 13, 2014

With sophomore effort, novelist creates a tale both radiant and sinister

Bury This  By Andrea Portes (Soft Skull Press)If one could hear novelist Andrea Portes at work typing, I think the keystrokes might sound something like machine-gun fire: rapid, furious bursts of word bullets, aimed directly at the reader’s heart and wasting no extra ammunition in getting there.Portes’ work first gained attention with her debut, 2007’s gripping coming-of-age tale and thriller “Hick.” The author is from Nebraska originally, but spent some time living in Texas, so we’re calling he

Feb. 13, 2014

‘Empire of the Sun’ internment camp forgotten in China

SHANGHAI (AFP) ― No public memorial marks the former Shanghai internment camp made famous by J.G. Ballard’s novel “Empire of the Sun,” where more than 1,800 foreigners were held by the Japanese during World War II.Ballard’s fictionalized version of his experiences in the Lunghwa camp was published 30 years ago, followed in 1987 by the Steven Spielberg film starring a young Christian Bale as Jim Graham, a boy who comes of age on his own in the facility.The site is now an elite government-run scho

Feb. 6, 2014

New novel examines romance of Robert Louis Stevenson, wife

It’s hard to believe it’s been six years since the publication of Nancy Horan’s best-selling debut, “Loving Frank,” a riveting tale centered on Frank Lloyd Wright’s lover and muse, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, that remains vividly fresh in my memory.In her new novel, “Under the Wide and Starry Sky,” she once again takes a deep, discerning dive into a famous man’s life by focusing on a significant love interest. Once again, I was enthralled.Horan has been credited with inventing this popular subgenre

Feb. 6, 2014

Personal tragedy, powerful story

Un-Remarried WidowBy Artis Henderson (Simon & Schuster)There are stories of war we are used to seeing: The soldier as action hero or the wounded warrior returning home. Then there are the war stories that are not so familiar, of the families left behind.Artis Henderson’s “Un-Remarried Widow” is one such story, an exquisitely sensitive portrait of a new bride whose marriage is cut short when her husband is killed in the Iraq War.The book’s title refers to the characteristically dry, bureaucratic

Feb. 6, 2014

Isabel Allende’s ‘Ripper’ disappoints

RipperBy Isabel Allende(Harper)Chilean author Isabel Allende’s magical realism approach has earned her lyrical novels such as “The House of the Spirits” and “Of Love and Shadows” critical acclaim and solid spots on best-sellers lists.But Allende’s style fails her in her first crime novel. “Ripper” succumbs to an overwrought plot, weak characters and uninteresting details that derail the story.Ripper is an online community of amateur sleuths around the world united to solve a series of bizarre ki

Feb. 6, 2014

Joyce Carol Oates conjures a troubled teen in ‘Carthage’

You may wish, from time to time, that you could feel like a teenager again. “Teenage knees?” you think. “Sign me up!” But then you run into someone like Cressida Mayfield. The delicate heart of Joyce Carol Oates’ moody, marvelous new novel, “Carthage,” 19-year-old Cressida reminds you that those teenage knees come at a price: You’d have to suffer through all those teenage emotions again to get them.Cressida can be cruel. She’ll snip threads on her older sister Juliet’s cashmere sweater, “shiveri

Feb. 6, 2014

Chaplin’s only novel to be released

ROME (AFP) ― A virtually unknown novel by Charlie Chaplin ― the only book the silent film comic ever wrote ― is being made public for the first time.“Footlights,” which will be unveiled in London later Tuesday, was written by Chaplin in 1948 and later transformed into his film “Limelight,” in which a washed-out clown saves a dancer from suicide.The book is being published in English by the Cineteca di Bologna, an Italian film restoration institute which has been working with Chaplin biographer D

Feb. 5, 2014

‘I am Homeland’ showcases Korean-American poets

A collection of poems written by first-generation Korean-Americans has been published in the U.S. It consists of 120 poems delving into their migration experiences, sense of displacement and their daily lives as immigrants in the country they chose as their second home. Titled “I am Homeland,” the collection is edited by Choi Yearn-hong, a scholar who also serves as the founding president of the Korean-American Poets Group. In his introduction, Choi explains why the collection is unique compared

Feb. 3, 2014

10 Korean authors heading to London Book Fair

A total of 10 Korean authors will be participating in the upcoming London Book Fair Korea Market Focus, the Literature Translation Institute of Korea said.The writers are Hwang Sok-young, Shin Kyung-sook, Kim Young-ha, Yi Mun-yol, Kim In-sook, Han Kang, Lee Seung-woo, Kim Hye-soon, Hwang Sun-mi and Yoon Tae-ho. Kim Hye-soon is a poet, while Hwang Sun-mi is a children’s writer and Yoon is a webtoon writer. The cultural program was jointly organized by the London Book Fair, the Literature Translat

Jan. 28, 2014

From page to screen and back again

The memoir “12 Years a Slave” was published in 1853, a year after Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”Now Solomon Northup’s personal narrative is a bestseller ― 161 years after it first came out ― through a tie-in to the celebrated movie version of his memoir. And it is likely to get a big boost from the many Oscar nominations the film has received.The antebellum drama is one of several films this year that have given their namesake books a second life.For years the slim volume

Jan. 23, 2014

‘The Trip to Echo Spring’ a tipsy journey

In this reflection on six great alcoholic American writers ― John Cheever, Raymond Carver, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, John Berryman and Tennessee Williams ― Olivia Laing emerges as a kind of British Susan Orlean, combining nonfiction narrative, travel writing, literary criticism and a touch of memoir in a personable style. While it’s rare to quote blurbs in a book review (with good reason), Hilary Mantel, of “Wolf Hall” fame, says something on the book’s back cover that is worth repe

Jan. 23, 2014