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Literary Arts
Linn Ullmann's Stella Descending
Stella fell nine stories from a rooftop in Oslo. Did she kill herself? Did her husband push her? This is the beginning of Stella Descending, Norwegian writer Linn Ullmann's latest book. The mystery unfolds as well as Stella's passions, regrets and the story of what brought her to the rooftop on the night of her death. More
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Literary Arts
Jonathan Franzen's How to Be Alone
Don't believe the hype. That's my motto when choosing authors to read. If a book made Oprah's book club, don't read it. If it's featured on the Today Show, don't read it. I don't care about authors being backed by a big-money marketing campaign. Is this a good policy? Most of the time. Am I missing out on some brilliant writers? Maybe. Usually it's a let-down to read writers who are over-hyped in the literary world. It's like dating someone who's too good to be true, and then finding out they're a child molester or they sacrifice kittens to Satan. More
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Literary Arts
The Trainspotting Lads Are Back
"Straight actors are bigger whores than porn stars, just letting somebody use your body, or the images of it you create, that's fuck all. It's when you let them use your emotions; that's real hooring. You can never, ever prostitute those," says Sick Boy in Porno, Irvine Welsh's follow up to Trainspotting. More
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Literary Arts
A Magical Break From The Real
Traversing the journey from child- to adulthood remains, arguably, the most common theme among past and present fiction, and has contributed to the canon of American literature such greats as 'Catcher in the Rye'. While timeless in nature, and explored to depths by generations of authors, you might never read a version that addresses the matter quite like Haruki Murakami's latest book, 'Kafka on the Shore'. More
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Literary Arts
A Serious, Solitary Introspection
I have yet to read the work of a modern writer that can capture the essence of outsider living quite like A.L. Kennedy. As an unofficial spokesperson for loners, she has exhibited literary genius once again with her new novel, Paradise. Here she delves into the life of alcoholism, exposing the troubles, grief and dependence that fuel the drive to imbibe. More
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Literary Arts
A Celebration of Reflective Narrative
Autobiographical essays have long served as the fodder for comedy, and have made strides in their bounded-form comeback with the support of such cult deities as David Sedaris. Observing the lives of others is just much more interesting than living the one at hand, hence the dawn of reality television. The advent of such success has, unfortunately, contributed to marketable obsessions with developing formulae for everything, including the presentation of life. Fortunately for readers, the writers published in "Zyzzyva: the journal of West Coast writers and artists", have not yet been marred by commercial success. More
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Literary Arts
Delectable Stories
Finding the work of a living, master storyteller can prove to be quite a task. I tend to picture our era sliding along the downward slope of a great literature curve. The human condition is universal, and as writers have been exposing it for hundreds of years, it's been expressed from every angle imaginable. Many of our contemporaries have made careers out of packaging yesterday's literature in attractive covers and passing it off as modern. More
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Literary Arts
Sorrow Strikes Again
The author that brought the egocentric Generation X to its feet, if only for the short time it took to read the 128 loaded pages of Night, has graced the American landscape with another of his thought-provoking tales of misery. Elie Wiesel's new novel, The Time of the Uprooted tells of despair rooted in solitude and, unlike some of his past works, Wiesel strays from the loaded narrative. More
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Literary Arts
An Empirical Look at the Spirit World
Less than two years after releasing bestseller Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers, Mary Roach presents readers with a thorough investigation of a more eerie topic surrounding death: the afterlife. In Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife Roach chronicles her search for a definitive description -- supported with empirical data, no less -- of the soul's journey after death. More
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Literary Arts
A Historical Account of the One That Got Away
Steady interest in the life of historical heartthrob Giacomo Casanova has sparked a series of films as well as a collection of novels based on the life presented in his famous memoirs. Common to all of these accounts is an attempt to delve into the icon's psyche in order to reveal the motivation for his distinct amorous ways. As told through the eyes of Lucy Jamieson, In Lucia's Eyes is a historical novel about Cassanova's first love, the one believed to have set his heart ablaze. More
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