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Portrait of the Artist
The Sky Below Stacey D'Erasmo . Houghton Mifflin , $24 (320p) ISBN 978-0-618-43925-6 A luminous novel crafted in meticulous detail with shimmering language, D'Erasmo's third book tells the story of Gabriel Callahan's life, beginning with his father's abandonment when Gabriel was a child and tracing his ambivalent search for wholeness through adolescence and into adulthood.
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Short-Order Author
Curmudgeonly chef Kenny Shopsin talked about his book, Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin, between shifts at his New York restaurant, Shopsin's General Store. You talk about “the art of staying small” and say you have no desire to oversee a Shopsin's restaurant empire or endorse a line of cookware.
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Fiction Reviews
Me and Kaminski Daniel Kehlmann , trans. from the German by Carol Brown Janeway. Pantheon , $21.95 (208p) ISBN 978-0-307-37744-9 German literary wunderkind Kehlmann follows up Measuring the World (2006) with this curious and lesser novel. Self-conscious and yet completely un—self-aware, journalist Sebastian Zollner attempts to outdo his art critic rival by writing the biography of recl...
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Web Exclusive Reviews: 8/18/2008
On the Web: unremarkable remnants of young suburban angst, the sadly familiar gripes of one dispirited government spy, a hacked-together introduction to one of the world's holiest leaders, and a YA disappointment of major bloody proprotions. On the other hand: a fascinating look at the power-hungry 17th Century woman who controlled Pope Innocent X, and a gorgeous debut memoir reveals a woman's struggle to raise a son with severe cerebral palsy.
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Nonfiction Reviews
The Norman Maclean Reader Norman Maclean , edited with an intro. by O. Alan Weltzien. Univ. of Chicago , $27.50 (352p) ISBN 978-0-226-50026-3 Maclean (1902—1990), an English professor at the University of Chicago, did not establish himself as a writer until late in his life, but quickly gained national acclaim in 1989 for A River Runs Through It and Other Stories.
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Children's Book Reviews
Picture Books Queen of Style Caralyn Buehner , illus. by Mark Buehner. Dial , $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-803-72878-3 A bored royal turned overzealous cosmetician provides the spark for the husband-and-wife Buehners' (Snowmen at Night) quirky fable about empathy and gratitude. Fed up with nothing to do, Queen Sophie heeds her exasperated jester's advice to learn something.
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The Future Is Almost Now
Although comic books have always been a creature of print and paper and ink, the idea of converting them to computer screens is nothing new. Examples of digital comics date back to as early as 1985, and pirated comics have long been available to savvy Web users on underground BitTorrent sites. But publishers, ffor the most part, have ignored the whole issue of digital comics for years.
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Comics Briefly
CBLDF Benefit ; Viz releases Stan Lee Manga; PW The Beat:Time Warner; Fans of 1974; David Glanzer Speaks; Doug Wright Awards; NYAF Cosplay Day at Kinokuniya; FLCL Ultimate Ed. Defect; Stephen King’s The Stand; and Mark Miller, Tony Harris at Midtown Comics
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Fans Flock to Baltimore's Otakon
24,000 Fans flocked to the Baltimore Convention Center for this year’s Otakon, an anime and manga convention held August 8-10.
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Many Tokyopop Series ‘Postponed,’ Not Canceled
Despite rumors that Tokyopop canceled many titles in the wake of its reorganization, the company says that many of the titles purported to be on the chopping block will be published on a modified schedule.
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DK Lands on Comic Fans’ Coffee Tables
Dorling Kindersley is coming out this fall with not one but two new oversized hardcover books about the history of two large forces in the comics world: Marvel Comics and DC’s Vertigo imprint.
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Books About Comics: The Man Behind the Spider
After Mark Evanier’s Kirby: King of Comics came out earlier this year, one would expect that a biography of Steve Ditko would come next. As cocreator of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, Ditko ranks second only to Kirby among Stan Lee’s collaborators in devising the Marvel Universe. Blake Bell’s Stranger and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko (Fantagraphics, $39.99 hardcover) has followed quickly indeed, arriving in early summer.
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Fantasy Island
The Company K.J. Parker . Orbit , $24.99 (432p) ISBN 978-0-316-03853-9 This exquisitely written novel by a pseudonymous popular author blends gritty military fantasy with the 18th-century “island story” tradition. Seven years after the end of a war between unnamed countries, four friends who fought together have settled back into civilian life.
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Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 8/11/2008
This week on the Web: more writing advice from the Eggers crowd, more wildfires from the Southwest, more bad news from the War on Terror, and more co-authored novels from James Patterson. Plus: an engrossing overview of human evolution, two guides to caring for your pre-teen, and the much-anticipated Cheech & Chong story.
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Nonfiction Reviews
The Jazz Ear: Conversations over Music Ben Ratliff . Times , $25 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8050-8146-6 Ratliff, the jazz critic for the New York Times, spent just over two years interviewing jazz greats for a recurring feature at the paper: rather than ask musicians like Pat Metheny or Dianne Reeves to name their favorite records, Ratliff sat with them as they listened to songs and picked out the qu...
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Children's Book Reviews
Picture Books Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa Jeanette Winter . Harcourt , $17 (32p) ISBN 978-0-15-206545-4 Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner whose Green Belt Movement has planted 30 million trees in Kenya, is the subject of Winter’s (The Librarian of Basra) eloquent picture biography.
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Fiction Reviews
Friendly Fire A.B. Yehoshua , trans. from the Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman. Harcourt , $26 (400p) ISBN 978-0-15-101419-4 Celebrated Israeli novelist Yehoshua (A Woman in Jerusalem) explores the power of grief and bitterness in a blunt drama studded with political, historical and religious significance.
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August Comics Bestsellers
Rodrick Rules stays at #1; DC has The Killing Joke (#4) and Y The Last Man (#10) ; Marvel has The Walking Dead (#5) and X-men: Unstoppable (#9).
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Everyday Hiro: Fairy Tail’s Mashima at Comic-Con
Hiro Mashima first burst onto the scene in Japan with the popular comedy/supernatural series, Rave (known as Rave Master in the US), in 1999. His mix of fantasy, over-the-top slapstick, and down to earth irreverence led him to create Fairy Tail next, a comedy/fantasy adventure series licensed by Del Rey Manga in the U.S.
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Kubo Comes to Comic-Con
Tite Kubo is the creator behind the manga series, Bleach, now up to volume 23 in the U.S., and volume 33 in Japan, where it has sold more than 100 million copies. It's also been developed into an anime series, two feature-length animated movies—one of which had a limited theatrical release in the U.S. this summer—and a number of video games.
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