Jesmyn Ward writes on Hurricane Katrina

Another hot, drippy August envelopes the Batiste family and their tumbledown property in coastal Mississippi, but there’s an excited air surrounding what’s about to happen in the shed.Their crystal-white pit bull, China, tenderly cared for by 16-year-old Skeetah, is ready to give birth to her first litter. In the novel “Salvage the Bones,” author Jesmyn Ward explores that day and the next 11 in the lives of this Southern black family of five. All are struggling to find and fill their roles in th

March 23, 2012

Leading economist to publish new book on welfare state

Universal welfare, as well as more regulations on the free market and chaebol reform are crucial in contemporary Korean economy, according to Chang Ha-joon, one of the leading heterodox economists in Korea. He spoke at a news conference held Monday to promote his upcoming book.The new book, “What to Choose: Cutting the Gordian Knot -- An Analysis of the Korean Economy,” co-authored by Chang, Lee Jong-tae and Jeong Seung-il, is an extension of the trio’s 2005 book “Cutting the Gordian Knot -- An

March 19, 2012

Satisfying update on “Jane Eyre”

The Flight of Gemma HardyBy Margot Livesey(Harper)Scottish-born author Margot Livesey brings the country of her birth to blazing life in the thoroughly winning “The Flight of Gemma Hardy.”A delicious updating of “Jane Eyre” to the mid-20th century, the book shares many elements with Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 classic: an intelligent, plain-featured heroine who’s emotionally and physically abused by her aunts and cousins after being orphaned; privation and hardship as a “working student” at a boardi

March 16, 2012

Restless civilian-turned-dedicated killer

American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military HistoryBy Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice(William Morrow)This is the season of celebrity for the Navy SEALs.The takedown of Osama bin Laden at his hideout in Pakistan thrust the institutionally secretive SEALs into the modern-media spotlight. Soon the SEALs seemed to become America’s favorite warriors: silent, deadly, mysterious.There have been innumerable news stories about SEAL Team Six, which killed bi

March 16, 2012

Glimpse into natural materials of Korean architecture

Stone, Walls and PathsBy Yim Seock-jaeTranslated by Lee Jean-young(Ewha Womans University Press)Anyone who has been to a hanok, or traditional Korean house, will have noticed its exquisite use of stone and wood, and how it naturally blends into its surroundings. Wood and stone are the most representative natural materials used in Korea’s traditional architecture, serving both practical and aesthetic purposes.Scholar Yim Seock-jae’s English-translated book, “Stone, Walls and Paths,” is an insight

March 16, 2012

Hollywood actors join audiobook projects

LOS ANGELES ― When it came to reading a book out loud, Dustin Hoffman was a bit rusty. The last time he had done something similar was in New York City in the late 1960s, right after filming “The Graduate.” A local radio station had recruited 30 or so people, including Hoffman, to read “War and Peace” on air, around the clock, until it was done.“That was the only other time I had done something like that, and it was wonderful,” recalls Hoffman, explaining why he recently agreed to perform the no

March 16, 2012

Couple haunted by mistakes of youth

The Lost DaughterBy Lucy Ferriss (Penguin)If all the bad choices people made as teenagers returned to haunt them as adults, the world would be filled with fearful and guilt-ridden people.Most people get away with those bad choices with few repercussions, but in Lucy Ferriss’ novel “The Lost Daughter,” they come back big for Brooke O’Connor.Brooke lives in Connecticut with her husband, Sean, who is from a big Irish-Catholic family. But Brooke and Sean have only one child, a daughter named Meghan,

March 9, 2012

Mirage of American dream

Gods Without MenBy Hari Kunzru(Knopf)Early in “Gods Without Men,” Hari Kunzru’s ambitious and wonderful new novel, a strung-out British rock star stares into the big night sky hanging over the Mojave Desert.“The stars were like pinholes in a cloth,” he marvels. “You could believe you were seeing through to some incredibly bright world on the other side of the darkness.”It’s a great image, in a book filled with terrific writing.But it’s also a pithy description of the dangerous American dream tha

March 9, 2012

Introduction to colorful Joseon women’s pendants

Norigae: Splendor of the Korean CostumeBy Lee Kyung-jaTranslated by Lee Jean-youngEwha Womans University PressFor anyone who is familiar with Korea’s traditional costume, hanbok, the term “norigae” will ring a bell. A decorative pendant hung from the inner or outer tie of jeogori, the upper piece of a hanbok, norigae carries both aesthetic and emotional traces of women from the Joseon era (1392-1897).Scholar Lee Kyung-ja’s English-translated book, “Norigae: Splendor of the Korean Costume” offers

March 9, 2012

Questions for … author Ellen Ullman

Ellen Ullman is the author of “By Blood” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, February 2012), a tale set in San Francisco in the ’70s, which involves an eavesdropper whose fascination leads to research into Heinrich Himmler’s Nazi Lebensborn program. Discoveries from her research for that book have touched her deeply.“The Bug,” recently reprinted by Picador, was a New York Times Notable Book and runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the cult classic memoir, “Close to the Machine” (also reprinted by

March 9, 2012

‘Lost’ novel by dead Nobel laureate published

MADRID (AFP) ― A “lost” novel by Portuguese Nobel literature laureate Jose Saramago which he wrote in the 1950s before he achieved international acclaim has been published nearly two years after his death.Saramago sent the manuscript for “Claraboya,” which tells the tale of residents of a Lisbon apartment building, through a friend to a Portuguese publishing house in 1953 but never heard back from them.But in 1989, after the author had become one of Portugal’s best-selling contemporary writers,

March 4, 2012