The Korea Herald

Mara Wilson is not Matilda anymore

Sept 28, 2016

When Mara Wilson was a little girl, Hollywood couldn’t get enough of her. She was one of those child actors who seemed preternaturally mature. Her vocabulary was surprisingly expansive. She could ca...
Syrian poet Adonis says poetry 'can save Arab world'

Sept 26, 2016

GOTHENBURG, Sweden (AFP) -- Noted Syrian poet Adonis, whose name surfaces regularly as a top contender for the Nobel literature prize, says religious fanaticism is “destroying the heart of the Arab w...
Jonathan Safran Foer’s ‘Here I Am’ depicts a marriage falling apart

Sept 21, 2016

“Here I Am” By Jonathan Safran Foer Farrar, Straus and Giroux (592 pages, $28) True to the crumbling marriage at its center, what’s best in “Here I Am” — Jonathan Safran Foer’s moving, maddening a...
Harmonies, strife in Love’s Beach Boys tale

Sept 21, 2016

“Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy” By Mike Love with James S. Hirsch Blue Rider Press (448 pages, $28) Mike Love is acutely aware that he is perceived as a villain. In his new autobiograph...
‘Little Nothing’ a fierce fairy tale

Sept 21, 2016

Fairy tales waste no time getting under the skin. They pretend to be innocent, once upon a time and all that, but they never are. The darkened wood, the hooded stranger, the soup served at dinner hid...
‘The Oliver Stone Experience’ a deep dive into monumental movie career

Sept 21, 2016

“The Oliver Stone Experience” by Matt Zoller Seitz (TNS) “The Oliver Stone Experience” By Matt Zoller Seitz Abrams (480 pages, $50) Is there another living American director with a greater run of...
Global writers to engage in conversation at Seoul International Writers’ Festival

Sept 21, 2016

Writers from around the world will exchange ideas and share literary works at the Seoul International Writers’ Festival taking place from Sept. 25-Oct. 1 at the Arko Art Center and Daehakro Arts Thea...
Andrea Wulf’s Humboldt biography wins Science Book Prize

Sept 21, 2016

LONDON (AP) -- A biography of German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt has been named science book of the year. Andrea Wulf’s “The Invention of Nature” was awarded the 25,000-pound ($33...
New book brings Atlas Obscura site’s wonders to printed page

Sept 21, 2016

NEW YORK (AP) -- An elf school in Iceland. A hospital for falcons in the Middle East. A museum in Independence, Missouri, for artwork made from hair. These are the types of attractions featured on t...
Lawrence Wright shows the human side of Middle East turmoil in ‘The Terror Years’

Sept 7, 2016

“The Terror Years: From al-Qaeda to the Islamic State” By Lawrence Wright Knopf (384 pages, $28.95) “The Terror Years,” Lawrence Wright’s wide-ranging and intensively reported collection of storie...
Murder lurks deep in the mind

Sept 7, 2016

“Hell Fire” By Karin Fossum, translated from the Norwegian by Karl Dixon Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (272 pages, $24) With Scandinavian crime fiction all the rage and enormous attention paid to writ...
How far will you go for your autistic child?

Sept 7, 2016

Being a parent is always full of ups and downs, of course, but being the parent of an autistic child, Carolyn Parkhurst writes in her splendid new novel, is a lot like riding a roller coaster that ne...
Raised in California and living in Seoul, novelist Krys Lee wrestles with Korean identities

Sept 7, 2016

Standing in the heart of Koreatown, novelist Krys Lee turned around. Was this direction to the Korean market where her family made a pilgrimage every weekend and her mother would rent her cache of K...
Children’s author, illustrator of Llama Llama stories dies

Sept 7, 2016

MONTPELIER, Vermont (AP) -- Best-selling children’s book author and illustrator Anna Dewdney, who gained fame with her series of Llama Llama stories, has died at age 50. Dewdney, who had a 15-month ...
'My GoldStar phone' wins Soorim literary award

Sept 5, 2016

A novel about a young aspiring writer has won a literary prize co-awarded by Yonhap News Agency and the Soorim Cultural Foundation, the news agency said Monday. “My GoldStar phone” by Kim Hena tells...