Julia Sweeney keeps it light, even amid family and personal tragedy

I had spent all of six minutes with Julia Sweeney when I brought up adult braces.They’re the worst, I said. I had them for two years, I said. They’re the worst, I said again ― this time with feeling.It’s an odd thing to say to a person you barely know. Especially a person who lived through cervical cancer, recently lost a brother to alcoholism and nursed another brother through non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which eventually killed him.Adult braces are, quite obviously, not the worst.But Sweeney had offe

June 13, 2013

A dark journey into Rosemary’s past

We Are All Completely Beside OurselvesBy Karen Jay Fowler (Marian Wood Book / Putnam)The Cooke family at the heart of Karen Joy Fowler’s amazing new novel isn’t so much dysfunctional as it is broken. Some members are present. Others are missing. All of them are struggling. Why? “(W)here you succeed will never matter so much as where you fail,” says daughter Rosemary. The Cookes’ failures ― as parents, as siblings, as human beings ― have left them strangers to each other, incomplete and unhappy.A

June 13, 2013

Writer inspired by real-life war nurses

The Daughters of MarsBy Thomas Keneally (Atria Books) Thomas Keneally has always been a novelist who writes and lives in the big sweep of epic history.He took on the end of the First World War in “Gossip From the Forest,” the U.S. Civil War in “Confederates,” and the Eritrean War of Independence in “To Asmara.” He won the Booker Prize for “Schindler’s List,” his account of one good German saving lives during the Holocaust. In “The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith,” he told a story of racism and violen

June 13, 2013

Keeping the reading experience alive in the digital era

French scholar Antoine Compagnon used to think the plane was the perfect place to read. But he recently discovered it may no longer be. “There used to be nothing else to do other than read (hard-copy books) on the plane,” the scholar said during a press conference in Seoul on Friday. “But now people watch movies and play games using their tablet devices. And I hear in-flight Wi-Fi is now available for New York-L.A. routes.”While he appreciates e-books and the technology, Compagnon, who specializ

June 11, 2013

‘Pride and Prejudice’ favorite classical novel in Korea

“Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austin was given the honor of being the nation’s favorite piece of classical literature according to a survey by Kyobo Book Center, the country’s biggest bookseller.The result came as South Korea welcomed more silver-screen and musical adaptations of classical literature involving well-known titles such as “The Great Gatsby, “Les Miserables” and “Resurrection.” In the survey, “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger was ranked second and Hermann Hesse’s “Demian” t

June 4, 2013

Book tries to overturn interpretation over famous travelogue

  By Park Sui, Intern reporterA nonfiction companion to a Joseon scholar’s famous travelogue, “Jehol Diary is a Fiction,” attempts to overturn the traditional interpretation of the centuries-old book. It claims that “Jehol Diary” (‘Yeolha Ilgi’ in Korean) is not a fact-based travelogue but a first-person narrative novel.“Previous studies, discussions and education on ‘Yeolha Ilgi’ are totally misguided,” Oh Soon-jeong, the author of the book, told The Korea Herald. The 51-year-old author, a vete

June 3, 2013

Korean culture advocate with big dreams

Publisher Hank Kim says he often feels like Don Quixote, the famous fictional Spaniard with reckless enthusiasm and big dreams. “It’s to dream the impossible dream,” he says.Kim quit his reporting job at Yonhap News Agency to start a bookstore and a publishing house, Seoul Selection, in 2002, and devote himself to promoting Korean culture in the English language.And the 51-year-old is dreaming the seemingly impossible in Korea’s publishing industry, where the number of English-language books pub

May 31, 2013

Seoul Selection picks

Since the early 2000s, Seoul Selection has published about 70 English-language books on Korea and its culture. Here are some of the picks from their books.“The Voices of Heaven” by Maija Rhee DevineOne of the latest publications by Seoul Selection, “The Voices of Heaven” is an engaging account of the Korean War (1950-1953) from a young girl’s perspective. Korean-born American Maija Rhee Devine, wrote the novel based on her real-life experience going through the war, as well as her family secrets

May 31, 2013

’65 riots backdrop for ‘Little Scarlet’

Walter Mosley grew up in Los Angeles and experienced firsthand what he considers one of the most crucial events in 20th Century American history: the 1965 Watts riots.But it wasn’t hearing screaming police sirens or spotting bodies in the streets or men jumping out of windows with arms packed with loot that had the biggest impact on the renowned mystery writer.It came from watching his father, Leroy Mosley, drinking and seeming upset.“I’m not scared,” Leroy Mosley said. “I want to get out there.

May 30, 2013

A roller-coaster of romance and reality

All I NeedBy Susane Colasanti (Viking)Skye wants what every teen girl does: A real love connection. She aches to be swept off her feet by her soul mate ― that guy, that perfect guy, the one she’s so in sync with he can almost read her mind. And she’s been waiting. For years. Every summer at the beach brings the same crew, boys with killer abs but little karma.Then she sees Seth, and she knows he’s something special. The two have a magical 24 hours together, including a butterflies-in-your-belly

May 30, 2013

Brown’s latest keeps readers guessing

InfernoBy Dan Brown (Doubleday)Last Monday afternoon, Amazon posted a tease on its Kindle Facebook page reminding fans that the “year’s most anticipated thriller” was set for release the next day.There was skepticism amid the responses, as some wondered if Dan Brown’s latest, “Inferno,” could live up to the hype. The answer is yes!The latest chapter in the life of Harvard professor Robert Langdon is a compelling and suspenseful tale filled with twists and turns. (Advance copies of the book were

May 30, 2013

Telling stories through fantasy

German fantasy writer Ralf Isau grew up listening to his father’s stories and harmonica. “I think that’s how I developed my love for the fantasy genre,” the writer said in a press conference in Seoul on Monday. “When I was a child, my art teacher wrote on my report card that my paintings have ‘a lot of fantasy elements.’”The 57-year-old writer, famous for his friendship with the late German author Michael Ende (1929-1995), visited Seoul this week to promote the recently released Korean edition o

May 30, 2013

Publishers try to capitalize on ‘revival of humanities’

South Korea is witnessing renewed public attention to books on humanities, with some observers suggesting it is a “revival of humanities.” However, many in the publishing industry cast doubts on whether the term “revival” would be fit to describe the current trend.“It is not a revival since humanities has never been dead,” said Go Won-hyo, head of the humanities department in Munhakdongne Publishing Group in an interview. “Rather than calling it a revival, ‘restoration of interest in humanities’

May 24, 2013

War, childhood and family secrets

Korean-born American writer Maija Rhee Devine was just getting ready to study abroad after graduating from the English literature program at Sogang University in Seoul, when a family secret that had been buried all of her 20-something years suddenly burst into open: Her parents were not her biological parents. “I just immediately went into a denial, a total denial,” the 70-year-old said during a press meeting in Seoul on Wednesday. “I just had had enough of this (Korean) culture ― I was given aw

May 23, 2013

Baumann balances acting career with a literary one

To some people ― those who might attend a guerrilla reading in San Francisco, for example ― Ken Baumann is a writer and small-press publisher who is part of the contemporary literary vanguard. And yet, to a generation of adolescent girls, he’s instantly recognizable as a star of the beloved ABC Family series “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” now in its last season.“As long as I can do both, why wouldn’t I want to?” Baumann asks at an L.A. cafe. He’s lanky and pale-skinned, making it ea

May 23, 2013

Curses, ghosts and miracles enliven

The Kings and Queens of RoamBy Daniel Wallace (Touchstone)“Once upon a time” is probably the most seductive phrase in the language of books. Add a forest, a witch, a giant and a princess, and children are enchanted beyond any reasonable doubt: No need to know the story’s setting (it’s a kingdom!) or the king’s reasons for beheading his daughter’s suitors one by one (they gave the wrong answer!).Even adult readers still warm to the tall tale, the fable and the fairy tale. Maybe that’s the reason

May 23, 2013