A-Rod reveals new details, including allegations that A-Rod, also dubbed A-Roid (he has several less-flattering nicknames among fellow New York Yankees), starting dabbling with performance-enhancing drugs in high school and continued in New York after he left the Texas Rangers, contradicting his admissions of drug use to date.
In a public statement about his steroid use, Rodriguez said he felt the pressure as baseball’s highest-paid player (not to mention the pressure-packed New York media cauldron) to do anything to be the best player possible.
A flurry of accusations, denials, admissions and so on preceded and followed baseball’s Mitchell Report on steroids, and no doubt more will come.
Names that pop up in the book include Madonna, trainer Angel Presinal, former Major Leaguers Kevin Brown and Jose Canseco (himself author of controversial books) and former coaches – even high school teammates. And, to quote the New York Daily News, ”dalliances with out-of-town floozies.”
Adding insult to injury, Roberts reports he was unpopular at Hooters, where baseball’s richest player tipped the minimum 15 percent.
A-Rod is set for May 12 publication by HarperCollins.
Tor.com, purveyor of sci-fi and fantasy lit, gives away a fair amount of its properties no doubt in hopes of luring dollars from grateful readers.
This can present some risk. What if readers don’t like it? Or worse: What if they just go on reading the freebies, sponging all these books and short stories without ever spending a dime?
Well, it must work on some level, because Tor keeps doing it. A recent endeavor is a whacky short story by Terry Bisson, TVA Baby.
TVA Baby starts out in the skies over the Tennessee Valley, or the Mississippi River, depending on who’s right, and things (literally) take a rapid descent from there. It’s a bumpy ride, narrated with a unique point of view. Some comments by readers that followed found the occasional lapses in logic and continuity annoying, which might miss the point. See for yourself.
Aspiring writers receive lots of advice, often conflicting advice.
“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers,” Dorothy Parker once wrote, “the second-greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of ‘The Elements of Style.’ The first-greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”
Strunk & White have long found themselves on the bookshelves of many writers, nestled next to the dictionary, thesaurus, AP Stylebook and a few other select titles (We would include William Zinsser’s On Writing Well and James Kilpatrick’s The Writer’s Art). Last week, it turned 50, or 90-something, depending on your perspective.
Happy birthday, The Elements of Style.
The Elements of Style rose to prominence in 1959 when E.B. White revised William Strunk’s original text four decades after Strunk first self-published the book while an English professor at Cornell (White was his student in 1919). It got some free press from White in The New Yorker and a boffo review in the New York Times.
Elements has been revised several times since then, although it still can seem a tad quaint at times. And not all writers or “experts” appreciate Strunk & White’s “little book” of rules for writers. Then again, rules were made to be broken, no?
German novelist Hans Fallada wrote his World War II-era novel, Every Man Dies Alone, based on the real-life resistance movement started by a middle-aged couple in circa 1940 Germany. The couple distributed anti-Nazi messages on handwritten postcards all around Berlin.
Fallada, a successful novelist before the war, never saw the book go to print. He suffered from mental illness and died of a morphine overdose in 1947 just months before it was published, reports veryshortlist.com.
But now the story is being published in English.
Otto and Anna Quangel started their campaign after learning that their only son had been killed during Germany’s invasion of France.
“Mother! The Fuhrer has murdered my son,” read the first postcard Otto wrote and left to be seen in public.
Famous Holocaust survivor Primo Levi calls Every Man Dies Alone “the greatest book ever written about the German resistance to the Nazis.”
The newspaper columnist who “discovered” the musician who became the subject of columns, then book, and now movie tells how his encounter with Nathaniel Ayers led to this series of events, culminating – for now – in the movie being released amid a ton of buzz starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.
Steve Lopez talked to NPR a year ago about how this unlikely friendship grew: “Lopez says his friendship with Ayers has ‘always been a two-way street, it’s not just me doing for him.’ The writer explains that the musician re-ignited his passion for journalism and gave him a sense of well-being: ‘You know, there’s this humility, there’s this good feeling I have from giving something,’ Lopez says.”
The story is pretty well-known at this point, of how Ayers had been a promising violinist at the prestigious Juilliard School who dropped out as he struggled with schizophrenia. He moved to L.A. and landed on the streets there.
As Lopez wrote about Ayers in the Los Angeles Times, readers sent instruments to Lopez on behalf of Ayers. One thing led to another, Ayers got off the street and into an apartment and treatment for his mental illness.
Hear excerpts from the movie and from Lopez on radio before the movie was released: “It was the violin that turned my head,” he told NPR, then he noticed the player was in rags and the violin had only two strings.
The book is The Soloist: A Lost Dream, and Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music.
It’s early in the new century; societal upheaval seems everywhere; new industries are being born as older ones die; and news seems to travel instantaneously.
Welcome to 1911.
Vanished Smile by R.A. Scotti takes a look at an event that occurred nearly 100 years ago and triggered one of the biggest sensations of its day: Crime of the century! Media frenzy! Scandal! Celebrity suspects! International Public outcry and huge, public displays of grief.
She truly is a woman of international mystery.
Mona Lisa has long been the subject of song and mystery, and continues to intrigue us still.
In this fictionalized mystery based on very real events, Scotti’s story unfolds like this: “The prime suspects were as shocking as the crime: Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, young provocateurs of a new art. As French detectives using the latest methods of criminology, including fingerprinting, tried to trace the thieves, a burgeoning international media hyped news of the heist.”
In reality, the painting was stolen by a former Louvre worker, Vincenzo Peruggia, who reportedly hid inside the museum on Aug. 20, 1911, and made off with the famous painting. He kept it in his Paris apartment for two years before returning to Italy with it. Apparently Peruggia expected to be rewarded for returning the Mona Lisa to Leonardo Da Vinci’s homeland, Italy.
He was rewarded with a trip to jail.
The painting was returned to Le Louvre in 1914.
Peruggia (his name is usually spelled Perugia, reports Wikipedia) was released from jail after a short time and served in the Italian army during World War I.
In an interview, author Scotti talks about the mystique of the Mona Lisa that attracted her to the story and how she was not even aware that the Mona Lisa had once been stolen (that makes at least two of us). But once she started investigating the theft, many conspiracy theories came to light.
“There is no question that Peruggia—aka ‘Leonardo’—performed the actual theft. He left his calling card. The left thumbprint on the frame was his, and examinations by French and Italian experts proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the Mona Lisa he returned was the same painting that he stole. But the idea that Peruggia was the lone thief is implausible. Although I don’t believe he acted alone, I could not crack the case. Who was behind the theft and, even more puzzling, why, remains a baffling mystery that will probably never be solved.
Speaking of Da Vinci mysteries, one of this century’s most popular books still grabs attention: The Da Vinci Code.
After reports came in of Stephen Hawking being gravely ill, family members said the author of A Brief History of Time was expected to make a full recovery.
Hawking, who has been in a wheelchair for years and communicates via a voice synthesizer, was touring the United States when he contracted a chest infection. His condition worsened back at Cambridge and he was rushed to a hospital Monday for tests and treatment.
Wednesday, he was reportedly doing better.
He developed symptoms of motor neurone disease at the age of 21 and was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease), the most common form of motor neurone disease. He has defied the odds by living more than 40 years with the disease, which typically kills patients in five years or less.
The Cambridge University professor is widely regarded as the best-known living scientist. In 1988, he published A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes.
In 2004 he announced he had solved the Black Hole paradox, admitting that black holes may allow some information to escape them. He had argued in a friendly bet with other scientists that black holes destroy everything that falls into them.
Amazon.com’s Kindle e-book reader continues to give rise to speculation on how we will digest books in the future. In a guest viewpoint in this week’s Wall Street Journal, for example, author Steven Johnson looked at how the “digital-books revolution” might change the very way we read and write.
Johnson talked about having an “aha” moment relating to the “great promise and opportunity” in the transformation to digital formats.
As someone with two daughters in college, I’ve just had my own “aha” moment: Why aren’t we seeing more digital textbooks?
Once, my older daughter asked me to stand in a line at her school, where students go to “sell back” their books. I walked in with about $500 worth of textbooks and walked out with about with $16 cash. The alternatives: Haul the books home knowing they would never be opened again, or simply throw them away.
Sometimes I wonder where all these used books go. While information does constantly change, does the 7th edition of some textbooks really differ that much from the 8th edition?
It doesn’t matter whether you choose to use a Kindle or some other e- reading device. What it should come down to is this: What is the best deal for students?
The university press, in particular, can make a difference. College textbooks are the products of both commercial publishing houses and university press operations.
Recently, in announcing a move to almost all digital publishing, the University of Michigan Press pointed out that digital books of the future would emphasize interactive components including hot links, graphics, 3D animation and video. U-M Press held out the promise for students to get more, as authors communicate subtleties through various multimedia options.
It’s hard to say where the future of the novel is going. Some of us still like to curl up on a chair with printed pages we can touch and turn.
Textbooks aren’t like that. Most universities now have digital processes and products in place.
So what are we waiting for?
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A note on author J.G. Ballard, who died Sunday at age 78 after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer:
Ballard was best known for “Empire of the Sun” and “The Kindness of Women,” both fictionalized autobiographies. “Empire of the Sun,” an international best seller, related to his childhood in a Japanese internment camp outside Shanghai. Director Steven Spielberg later made it into a film.
Great Britain’s Telegraph described Ballard as having an “uncanny feel for the dark undercurrents of modern life,” and on a personal level, being as kind and generous as his fiction was eerie and hostile.
HarperCollins canceled plans to publish Ballard’s most recent project, “Conversations,” when it became clear the author was too ill to continue. The book was to reflect Ballard’s conversations with British oncologist Jonathan Waxman.
Diane Evans is founder and president of DelMio.com.
JG Ballard, author of Crash and Empire of the Sun among others, died Sunday after a long illness.
The BBC said Ballard had suffered from cancer for some time.
He grew up in Shanghai, China. During World War II he was interned for three years in a camp run by the Japanese along with his parents and younger sister. That experience informed Empire of the Sun, a fictionalized account of life in a prison camp.
Ballard’s first published book was The Drowned World, published in 1962.
Ballard was mostly known as a writer of science fiction, although he referred to his books as “picturing the psychology of the future.” Empire of the Sun was made into a Steven Spielberg movie and, more recently, Crash caused quite a buzz when it went onto the silver screen.
HarperCollins canceled plans to publish Ballard’s most recent project, Conversations, when it became clear that Ballard was too ill to continue. The book project was following Ballard’s conversations with oncologist Jonathan Waxman.
Maybe we should call it Fahrenheit 72 – as in room temperature, as opposed to the much warmer fate the author of The Original of Laura once meant for it.
Vladimir Nabokov’s unfinished manuscript for The Original of Laura will be published in November, more than 30 years after the great author died.
The author’s son Dimitri decided to publish the book in spite of his father’s wishes that the manuscript be destroyed.
Thebookseller.com notes that Nabokov also once intended to burn his best-known work, Lolita (“the book by Nabokov” noted in Don’t Stand so Close to Me by The Police and the inspiration for countless movies and a particularly high-profile attempted murder case in Long Island).
Penguin plans to reproduce the index cards Nabokov wrote the manuscript on (as he did with all his novels). Nabokov fans will also notice an ongoing theme of nostalgia (obsession?) for young love in The Original of Laura.
Penguin Classics will publish it in U.K. and Knopf will publish it in the United States. Editor Alexis Kirschbaum of Penguin Classics also bought rights to other Nabokov works, some unpublished, including love letters to his wife, Vera. They will roll out over the next couple of years.
A year ago, Dimitri Nabokov said his father came to him in a vision to give his blessings to publish. And now the vision is taking shape.
What’s old is new, and just in time for summer is a Depression-era book about American cuisine that sprang out of the Federal Writers’ Project. Before the original project could be finished, World War II came along, and the manuscripts generated by the likes of Eudora Welty languished in the Library of Congress until writer Karl Kurlansky unearthed them.
The Very Short List, recent nominees for a Webby Award, describes the book: “The result, The Food of a Younger Land, is less a history than an especially well annotated cookbook. You’ll find Eudora Welty’s recipes for barbecue sauce and gumbo, Nelson Algren’s notes on the eating habits of Sioux and Chippewa Indians, and odes to Florida hush puppies, Maine clambakes, and ‘a Los Angeles sandwich called a taco.’ Most of the entries have aged well, and some look like they may be due for a comeback: Skip to page 316 to see the recipe for a butterless, eggless creation known as Depression Cake.”
If things don’t get better soon, maybe the current administration will take a cue from FDR and revive the writer’s project as part of the new stimulus. (Mr. President, DelMio is ready to serve!)
A young co-worker has been trying hard to turn me into a reader of the graphic novel.
Now with the film release of Watchmen, it’s time at least to get up to speed. Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, is the only graphic novel to appear on Time Magazine’s “100 Best Novels from 1923 to the Present.”
Other indicators, too, point to the emergence of graphic novels as a legitimate literary form. Visit any number of public libraries and see the prominent displays of graphic novels. Librarians I know not only respect this genre, but also see it as a means to engage younger audiences in reading.
I began reading a graphic novel for the first time recently – titled Kabuki: Circle of Blood, by David Mack. I’m not hooked on the graphic novel style, but I do recognize the artistic value.
So here are some of the things I’m learning from my co-worker, who is in the die-hard fan category: We as readers (read: over age 40) need to grow up and move past the misconception that comic books and graphic novels are nothing more than pseudo-literary fodder for children and “nerds.” Within the past 20 years, the comic book industry has seen individual publishers move into self-censorship, doing away with the more restrictive rules of the Comics Code Authority. As a result, graphic novels have grown up, their pages filled with more psychologically complicated characters and mature themes.
The form isn’t limited to stereotyped spandex-clad heroes fighting super-powered battles on fictional planets anymore. Characters now deal with serious moral, ethical and social issues.
In the first volume of Mack’s Kabuki, you’ll find a physically powerful and beautiful Japanese woman so deeply affected by a painful past that she can only relate to her present world through the safety of a kabuki mask. Her quest throughout the book forces her to come to terms with her family, history, culture and mother’s death while coming into direct conflict with the powers she serves.
Here are some of my co-workers recommendations, in addition to Watchmen and Kabuki: Circle of Blood:
Danger Girl: The Ultimate Collection, by J. Scott Campbell and Andy Hartnell – This fast-paced novel reads and feels exactly like an action movie, with artwork just as gripping as the storyline. Danger Girl follows adventuress Abbey Chase as her life dramatically changes once intertwined with a black-ops team. Imagine Indiana Jones meeting James Bond.
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, by Art Speigelman – One of the premier nonfiction graphic novels, Maus recounts the struggle of Spiegelman’s father to survive the Holocaust as a Polish Jew and draws largely on those personal experiences. The book also follows Spiegelman’s troubled relationship with his father and the effects of war as it reverberated through generations of a family.
Amazon’s explanation that the removal of certain sexually explicit materials from its sales ranking over the weekend were a clumsy accident didn’t do much to placate angry advocates of said materials.
Media portrayals (Oh, wait – we’re media too) of the wounded parties as primarily gay-rights activists seemed to only annoy critics even more.
The Seattle Times reports that Amazon is chagrined: ” ‘This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection,’ said Drew Herdener, Amazon’s communications director.
” ‘It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles — in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing books from Amazon’s main product search.’
“Amazon previously blamed a ‘glitch,’ which seemed to intensify anger among some gay and lesbian activists who suspected homophobic censorship.”
Could this become yet another Seattle-based company that has become so large and ubiquitous that it has become the Seattle behemoth we all love to hate?
Well, Amazon is the nation’s largest online retailer by far (with nearly three times the Internet sales revenue of runner-up Staples, according to Wikipedia). A quick Google of “I hate Amazon” yields “about” 4,500 matches, and Yahoo finds a robust 13,800 “I hate Amazon” matches. Lotta hatin’ goin’ on.
Microsoft and Starbucks are two other Seattle bigs that have legions of haters. Perhaps Amazon’s success has made this status of “most-hated” inevitable. Perhaps Amazon will view it as a badge of honor. You hate us – you really hate us! Oh, joy!
There have been no reports of mass Kindle burnings or “Seattle Tea Parties” or other pointless gestures of futility at this juncture..
(Editorial aside – the editor here really dislikes the use of impact as a verb, as in “it impacted 57,310 books” as quoted above – we thought you should know this.)
Dave Wilson’s Our Daily Red is seldom daily and rarely red, but it is full-bodied, piquant and tannic. It does not necessarily represent the views of DelMio.com, its sponsors or its editor’s mother – and, in fact, his mom probably has not given a whit of thought to Amazon.com’s handling of sales rankings.
TV mogul Aaron Spelling may be gone, but his legacy lives on in the form of books by his widow and his daughter.
Tori Spelling, the poor little rich girl who co-starred in 90210, is now a mother of two and author of two books, the second one out this week: Mommywood. In it she writes about life with husband Dean McDermott and two kids in the ‘burbs.
Simon and Schuster promises thusly: “With the same down-to-earth wit that made her entertaining memoir sTORI telling a #1 New York Times bestseller, Tori tells the hilarious and humbling stories of life as a mom in the limelight. From learning to be the kind of parent her own mother never was to revealing what it’s like to raise a family while everyone is watching, Mommywood is an irresistible snapshot of celebrity parenthood that you won’t get from the paparazzi.” You can also visit the site for an audio excerpt from sTORI telling.
She insists she is not in a feud with her mom, also a recent author. They just don’t get along.
Reports NBC: “Candy (Spelling), who released a her own book last week, Stories From Candyland,” said she may be used to the ongoing rift with her daughter – but admits it still pains her.” She also appeared on Entertainment Tonight, among other outlets.
Dara Torres succeeded at the highest level of swimming competition last year in the Olympics, taking three silver medals in Beijing – at the tender age of 41.
Fortysomethings, women in particular, will find inspiration her new book, Age is Just a Number: Achieve Your Dreams At Any Stage In Your Life, published this week. Torres, a new mother and twice the age of most competitive swimmers, came out of retirement and amazed millions as she swam in the 2008 Olympics. Not only did she compete in five Olympics (1984, ‘88, ‘92, 2000 and ‘08) and excel in those competitions (medaled in all five), she did it while skipping the 1996 and 2004 games.
Co-written with Elizabeth Weil, Torres’ book tells about her return to competitive swimming, with the long hours of arduous training, after giving birth to her daughter and while dealing with her father’s illness with cancer. And there’s that age thing.
Says publisher Broadway (Random House): “With humor and candor, she talks frankly about diving back in; about being an older athlete in a younger athlete’s game; about competition, doubt, and working through pain; and finally about seizing the moment and never giving up.”
The author: Russ Vernon, a famous Akron, Ohio, grocer who started working at his father’s upscale food market at age 8, still going in regularly even in retirement.
The book: “West Point Market Cookbook,” published by the University of Akron Press as a series on Ohio history and culture.
The quality of the book is as high as Vernon’s standards for his store. That explains why local shops around town have it on display, and why more than 5,000 copies have sold. It also points to the value of the often-overlooked university press as a source of occasional gems.
Around the country, university press operations are under pressure, not just as a result of a bad economy, but also because of the challenges facing traditional print media as digital publishing increases in popularity.
The Utah State University Press, for example, is in danger losing university support. Recently, the University of Michigan Press announced it would eliminate most of its print operations and move primary to digital publishing.
The print vs. digital debate aside, what’s important is to preserve the place of the university press. In addition to scholarly work, these university publishing houses are valuable for preserving regional history and culture.
“With larger publishers deciding not to invest as much in books of local culture, the university press becomes a means for serving that market,” said Tom Bacher, director of the University of Akron Press. “This is a way the university press can help with community engagement.”
The West Point cookbook is a case in point. The store is part of local history.
In a forward to the book, Akron writer David Giffels described the best kind of provincialism as “life in a place that enjoys certain flavors exclusively.” It’s not just the flavor of food, either.
At West Point, the elitism of the gourmet surroundings is tempered by a reaching out to the whole city. If the Easter Bunny is going to be there, people from all over town show up. Plus, Vernon likes to shower attention on customers, often sharing the kind of insights you’ll find in the book.
A few excerpts:
On picking produce: “As a boy, I watched and learned from my father. … When farmers shouted out, ‘Just picked _ red, ripe strawberries! Fifty-nine cents a quart!’ he knew to inspect the bottom of the strawberry basket. … You have to be patient and careful when it comes to selecting the finest quality produce, whether it’s for your business or the family dinner table.”
On salad dressing: “I prefer to make my own salad dressing. In the past, I experimented with different recipes, and the result was always too acidic, too messy or just too much waste. A simple oil and vinegar mix is easy.”
On making an omelet: “Don’t worry about using one of those cute two-sided pans or omelet forks. I’ve been using the same ten-inch sloped-sided pan and a regular fork for 15 years and the omelet always slips easily on the plate. As with any art, it takes practice.”
In these uncertain times, the key to happiness is … uncertainty. At least that’s what Todd Kashdan, PhD., tells us in Curious?
Kashdan, an associate professor of psychology at George Mason University, is well-published in peer journals and books. His book turns the old saying, “Curiosity killed the cat,” on its head. His advice is simple – get out there and explore.
The HarperCollins Web site sums it up: “In Curious? Dr. Todd Kashdan offers a profound new message missing from so many books on happiness: the greatest opportunities for joy, purpose, and personal growth don’t, in fact, happen when we’re searching for happiness. They happen when we are mindful, when we explore what’s novel, and when we live in the moment and embrace uncertainty. Positive events last longer and we can extract more pleasure and meaning from them when we are open to new experiences and relish the unknown. ”
Curious? is available April 21 from HarperCollins.
HarperCollins has announced plans to publish the last complete work of Michael Crichton, 66, who died Nov. 4 of cancer.
The author of such famous-works-turned-famous-movies as The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun and creator of the television series ER and more, Crichton was working on a thriller but also had a finished manuscript for Pirate Latitudes, which was discovered among computer files by Crichton’s assistant, reports the New York Times.
The unfinished thriller was part of a two-book deal that included Next, Crichton’s last published novel.
Pirate Latitudes, set in 17th century Jamaica, features a pirate named Hunter, a Spanish treasure galleon and the governor of Jamaica.
Can a movie with soundtrack by Jimmy Buffett be far off?
Around the time of John Updike’s death, writer Charles McGrath of the New York Times was asked to read poems from Updike’s last book of poems, Endpoint, which he composed and arranged on his deathbed.
McGrath obliged, but professed to being a tad intimidated at being asked to vocalize the words written by a writer who was himself a well-known “superb” public reader.
Wrote McGrath: “My only qualifications, if you can call them that, are that I knew Updike and that I used to read a lot to my kids. From years of fidgeting and nodding off during poetry readings, though, I know just how hard it is to read verse well. Moreover, Updike wrote many of the poems in Endpoint while literally on his deathbed. They’re heartbreakingly sad, and I wasn’t sure I could get through them without blubbing.”
But oblige he did, and The Times posted the results for the world to hear.
Your humble editor considers Updike one of the great writers of his time. Some critics accused him of being sexist or this or that – I say he was a product of his time who learned and grew enlightened, but remained informed by those formative years, much like his characters.
Rabbit comes first to mind.
But that character kept re-emerging, slightly different, but still (perhaps in my mind) harboring Rabbit’s voice, whether the checkout clerk in the grocery store enchanted by the slightly chubby girl in the swimsuit, or the Tyrannosaurus or Iguanadon at the cocktail party During the Jurassic.
Our Daily Red is rarely daily and seldom red, but it is written by DelMio editor Dave Wilson.
Here are a few upcoming books likely to gain attention:
• Columbine, by journalist Dave Cullen
This 432-page narrative will be released April 6, just two weeks before the 10th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado.
Cullen spent nearly 10 years researching the lives and events surrounding the tragedy that saw two students kill 12 classmates and a teacher, wound 23 others and kill themselves.
• Ted Kennedy: The Dream That Never Died, by Edward Klein
Klein, the controversial writer of five earlier New York Timers bestsellers on the Kennedy family, adds yet another title to the growing list on ailing Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy.
The new book, due out in May, includes a look at Sen. Kennedy’s relations with the Kopechne family and niece Caroline Kennedy’s decision to withdraw from consideration for a New York senatorial seat.
In the 2003 release The Kennedy Curse, Klein drew criticism from Kennedy friends for his portrayal of John F. Kennedy Jr.’s marriage to Carolyn Bessette. Klein claimed the marriage had devolved into disaster, with incidents of infidelity, drugs and even violence.
• It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita, by Heather B. Armstrong.
A new memoir quickly gaining attention, this book is an offshoot of Armstrong’s popular blog (www.dooce.com), which she has used since 2001 to write about depression, childbirth and parenting. USA TODAY reports the site averages 1.5 million visitors a month.
In an interview with the paper, Armstrong commented, “People come to me because I will say what they’re afraid to say. It’s really raw and unfiltered, a little rough around the edges. Sometimes it seems like I’m going off like a fire hose.”
Last year for the first time, a blog that give way to a book made USA TODAY’s list of top 50 bestsellers. The book, I Can Has Cheezburger?: A LOLcat Colleckshun, came from the Web site www.icanhascheezburger.com, featuring pictures of cats with captions.
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Speaking of blogs, I recently discovered http://inkwellbookstore.blogspot.com, which offers book news, reviews and recommendations from the staff of The Inkwell Bookstore in Falmouth, Mass. It is an independent bookstore owned and operated by two women. The site has universal appeal with a Boston flavor.
Here is an excerpt from a blog entry on The Tomb of Zeus, by Barbara Cleverly: “The twists of the plot and the wonderful characterizations add to the storytelling, however it is the well-researched, fascinating tidbits about the history of Crete and the ancient Minoan civilization that delight the reader. … It also reads like a good travel essay by sparking an urge to explore Crete.”
A-Rod reveals new details, including allegations that A-Rod, also dubbed A-Roid (he has several less-flattering nicknames among fellow New York Yankees), starting dabbling with performance-enhancing drugs in high school and continued in New York after he left the Texas Rangers, contradicting his admissions of drug use to date.
