Want a yardstick for how far into the post-ironic era we have drifted? This summer, TV newsman Don Lemon published a memoir, “Transparent,” in which he came out as gay and talked about being sexually abused as a boy. Yet he got far more attention for a snarky three-minute segment that Jon Stewart devoted to him last month on “The Daily Show,” titled, “CNN Anchor Don Lemon appears not to care fo...

When details were released of the recent raid to hunt down and kill Osama Bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound, a daring narrative complete with Navy SEALs and Blackhawk helicopters, many readers of international thrillers probably had the same thought: Sounds like a scene from a Brad Thor novel. That’s because Thor, like other stars in the thriller-writing genre such as Christopher Reich, Vince...

BAGHDAD (AFP) ― Everyone here knows that the July 14 bridge, a convenient route to the U.S. Embassy and government offices in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, marks a 1958 coup when Iraq’s last king was murdered. But not many know that King Faisal II lives on in the classic “Tintin” comic books. This includes his own cousin, the man who would be king in the unlikely event that the Iraqi monarchy ...

Korean-language edition of Ben Ryder Howe’s memoir ‘My Korean Deli’ released For Ben Ryder Howe, a self-identified WASP working as a literary man on the Upper East Side, owning a deli in Brooklyn was certainly an adventure. It was in 2002 that Howe, married to Korean-born corporate lawyer Gab, decided to buy a deli in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. It was a family business with his mother-in-law, Kay, ...

“A Short Autobiography” By F. Scott Fitzgerald and James L. W. West III (Scribner) An often light but still poignant side of F. Scott Fitzgerald is evident in this compilation of 19 of his previously published items and articles, written mostly for popular magazines during 1920-1940. Edited by Fitzgerald scholar James L.W. West III, the collection is billed as an autobiography because the fam...

Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden By Brook Wilensky-Lanford (Grove Press) It’s a challenge: Choose the location for the original Garden of Eden from the 17 suggested by this book’s new map. In the first two chapters of the book of Genesis, God is quoted as pinpointing the fruitful area where Adam and Eve would live. He names four rivers flowing out of it. Two of the rivers, the...

It hadn’t occurred to me that my husband and I might skip the college family weekend this fall, when our older son becomes a freshman. But the authors of “Don’t Tell Me What to Do, Just Send Money” have given me pause. Parents and their college-age sons and daughters are tied by an electronic umbilical cord. That’s the good news ― and the bad news. It takes some effort on everyone’s part if a fa...

It took 10 years of nonstop classes, workshops and study for Melinda Moustakis to earn her Ph.D in writing. In the process, she had work published in serious literary journals around the country and picked up one of the most coveted prizes in American literature, the 2011 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her first book, “Bear Down, Bear North: Alaska Stories,” will be published in Sep...

A translated version of a best-selling South Korean children’s novel about the adventures of a hen who escapes her coop in search of freedom will soon be sold in Germany, the book’s local publisher here said Tuesday. “The book will be published in Germany and other German-speaking countries sooner or later following its export to China last month,” Sakyejul (Four Seasons) Publishing Co. said in ...

NEW YORK (AP) --There's a big difference between ``mother'' and ``mom.'' ``Mother'' is someone to be respected, perhaps held at arm's length. But ``mom'' is an intimate name. It's the woman on the floor playing with her child, wisps of hair falling around her face, instead of the woman in the starched dress sitting in the parlor. The distinction made all the difference for novelist Kyung-Sook S...

Fox News commentator and former NPR news analyst Juan Williams calls himself the worst kind of bigot on the very first page of his new book, “Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate.” “I am a bigot,” he writes. “I hate Muslims. I am a fomenter of hate and intolerance. I am a black guy who makes fun of Muslims for the entertainment of white racists.” Williams is, of course, being sarcastic. But, ...

Wanted Dead or Alive: Manhunts from Geronimo to bin Laden By Benjamin Runkle (Palgrave Macmillan) When U.S. Navy SEALs last spring ended a seemingly endless manhunt by killing Osama bin Laden in his hide-out in an affluent suburb north of Pakistan’s capital, the world learned that the code name given to the al-Qaida leader during that operation was Geronimo. Although the designation upset som...

Steve Roden combines found old pictures, recordings and text for his latest project The genesis of “... i listen to the wind that obliterates my traces,” a new book of vintage photographs with musical accompaniment, came simply, during one of artist Steve Roden’s regular visits to the flea market. “This is how it always happens ― I found a photo,” Roden says with a tone of amused resignation, r...

While We Were Out By Lee Ho-baek (Kane/Miller Book Pub) A cute little rabbit sneaks into an empty house through an unlocked balcony door, while the family is away visiting grandma. The bunny is thrilled to explore the place and the new things she’s never done before. For any kid who has wondered what their pets would do if left alone in the house, illustrator Lee Ho-baek’s adorable picture bo...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Peter Parker is dead and gone, but Spider-Man’s still slinging webs and fighting crime. And it’s not just a new teenager climbing Manhattan buildings, it’s an entirely new crime-fighter, from the color of his suit to the complexion of his skin. Meet Miles Morales, a half-black, half-Hispanic American teenager who, inspired to do good after the death of Parker at the hands o...