Books

Published
October 10, 2010

Best-Sellers

FICTION HARDCOVER 1. “Fall of Giants,” by Ken Follett (Penguin) 2. “Don’t Blink,” by James Patterson and Howard Roughan (Little Brown) 3. “Freedom,” by Jonathan Franzen (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux) 4. “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” by Stieg Larsson (Knopf Doubleday) 5. “Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk,” by David Sedaris (Little Brown) 6. “Mockingjay,” by […]
Published
October 10, 2010

Books: New on the Shelf

“The Good Daughters.” Joyce Maynard. William Morrow. 288 pages. $24.99. Joyce Maynard’s new novel hangs on a couple of plot twists so cliched that one might be tempted to call them gimmicks. But one reads Maynard for characters, not plots. The author’s deft and delicate touch as she plumbs the depths of her characters’ psyches […]
Published
October 10, 2010

Winging it: Maine humorist John McDonald puts words in puffins’ mouths

'Everybody loves puffins,' Maine humorist John McDonald says, by way of explaining a new book pairing captivating photos with funny captions he's dreamed up.
Published
October 10, 2010

Signings, etc.: Isabelle Knockwood

ISABELLE KNOCKWOOD, a tribal elder of the Mi’kmaq Nation, attended the Indian Residential School in Nova Scotia, Canada, from 1936 to 1947. Her book, “Out of the Depths,” tells her story of her experiences in a school system that tried to wipe out indigenous culture. On Tuesday, she talks about her experiences and the effects […]
Published
October 10, 2010

Book review: No one escapes vagaries of chance

Philip Roth's latest short novel takes aim at the most blameless.

Published
September 26, 2010

Book Review: Fighting illness, author finds solace in snail

Some story lines defy the odds. A book about an ailing woman who befriends a bedside snail, for instance, might seem cloying and schmaltzy on the one hand, or satirical on the other. In the case of Elisabeth Tova Bailey’s observational memoir, “The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating,” both woman and snail handily quash […]
Published
September 26, 2010

New on the Shelf

“The Elephant’s Journey.” Jose Saramago. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 288 pages. $24. Summer, 1551. The King of Portugal gives Maximilian, regent of Spain and archduke of Austria, an elephant as a belated wedding present. There is just one small problem: getting the elephant from Lisbon to Vienna.
Published
September 26, 2010

Book Q&A: Punk scene revisited in ‘American Hardcore’

The author of the bible of the hardcore punk movement is out with a new edition and heading to Maine to talk about the musical genre and its legacy.
Published
September 19, 2010

Book Review: An illuminating look at the history of light

It’s late. I have to finish this review before morning. Stumbling into my office, I switch on the light (and the computer and the printer and the fax machine). They spring to life — no big deal. It wasn’t always thus. To take only the most venerable of the above devices, it is more than […]
Published
September 19, 2010

Books: Best-Sellers

FICTION HARDCOVER 1. “Mockingjay,” by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic) 2. “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” by Stieg Larsson (Knopf Doubleday) 3. “Freedom,” by Jonathan Franzen (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux) 4. “Clockwork Angel,” by Cassandra Clare (Simon & Schuster) 5. “The Help,” by Kathryn Stockett (Penguin) 6. “Catching Fire,” by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic) 7. “Spider […]

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