The PopMatters Books Blog 2012-02-14T19:06:20Z Copyright (c) 2012, PopMatters.com ExpressionEngine tag:popmatters.com-reprint,2012:02:14 tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/reprint/33.154153 2012-02-14T16:30:03Z 2012-02-14T16:30:03Z Gabrielle Malcolm Time was when you couldn’t move in a library in England for romance fiction: Dames Barbara and Catherine (Cartland and Cookson) dominated the shelves. Hundreds upon hundreds of copies of their titles (in large-print format very often) were loaned out by the armful. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/reprint/33.153523 2012-01-26T17:00:21Z 2012-01-26T17:00:21Z Jennifer Vega Clare Tomalin's timely biography focuses on how the man who wrote both heroes and villains so well found elements of both in himself. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/reprint/33.153712 2012-01-25T20:30:08Z 2012-01-25T20:30:08Z Gabrielle Malcolm Charles Dickens is a national, if not international, cultural figure. Is it such a problem that the London museum dedicated to him will be closed for the bicentenary? ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/reprint/33.152816 2012-01-05T15:00:38Z 2012-01-05T15:00:38Z Carl Schonbeck The Beatles boy wonder sound engineer Geoff Emerick reel-to-reels in the years and makes tenderloin out of some sacred cows in the process. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2012:pm/blogs/reprint/33.152781 2012-01-03T15:00:15Z 2012-01-03T15:00:15Z Carolyn Kellogg - Los Angeles Times (MCT) The challenges to social reading may present too much of a hurdle for some. Then again, wouldn’t it be nice to find someone to talk about what you just read on Page 57 of Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs”? ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.152486 2011-12-16T23:00:16Z 2011-12-16T23:00:16Z Sean Murphy The best way to compliment a writer, as a writer, is to recognize, with neither regret nor resignation, that on your best day you will always stand in awe of what they achieved. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.151749 2011-12-01T15:41:53Z 2011-12-01T15:41:53Z Michael Barrett I go, you go, we all go Pogo. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.151844 2011-11-30T19:00:34Z 2011-11-30T19:00:34Z Mary McNamara - Los Angeles Times (MCT) Agatha Christie believed in storytelling and did not confuse it with decanting the contents of her interior life and stretching it out along a contrived plot tarted up with simile, symbolism and encyclopedic information about secret societies. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.151110 2011-11-15T18:00:44Z 2011-11-15T18:00:44Z Michael Barrett Ducks Find Gold ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.148368 2011-09-12T14:00:28Z 2011-09-12T14:00:28Z David L. Ulin - Los Angeles Times (MCT) If The 9/11 Commission Report has anything to tell us, it’s that here, too, narrative remains if not always consoling then essential -- a victory of humanity over fear. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.148369 2011-09-09T17:00:21Z 2011-09-09T17:00:21Z Susan Carpenter - Los Angeles Times (MCT) “The Decemberists will be pretty quiet for a bit,” said Colin Meloy, adding that it will be a few years before fans see another record. In the meantime, Meloy plans to give this series of at least three books, which begins with Wildwood, his full attention. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.146786 2011-08-30T15:15:32Z 2011-08-30T15:15:32Z Dominic Umile The years spent as a reporter painting the scene in Parisian cafes and on tuna fishing boats in Spain sharpened Ernest Hemingway's ability to carefully, confidently build a story. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.146666 2011-08-25T13:24:42Z 2011-08-25T13:24:42Z Cary Darling - McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) In the second decade of the 21st century, some of the most compelling contemporary crime-fiction novels are either set in or coming from Africa. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.145943 2011-08-15T14:00:24Z 2011-08-15T14:00:24Z Catherine Ramsdell Books -- real, print, physical books -- say something about their owners and so, as the book Ex Libris makes clear, do bookplates. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.146079 2011-08-12T16:35:29Z 2011-08-12T16:35:29Z Glenn Garvin - McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) Rather than the first steps of a funeral cortege, the death of Borders is really just the first little dip on a wildly careening roller coaster ride for the people who write, publish, buy and sell books. It's going to shake us up, down and sideways, industry figures say, and some people may get thrown from their cars. But one group is sure to be happy at the end: readers. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.144713 2011-07-22T15:55:22Z 2011-07-22T15:55:22Z Kerrie Mills Generation X's obsession with their own entertainment hits the printed page, and it's totally radical!... if only the authors' ambitions weren't still lost in cyberspace. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.144676 2011-07-15T16:00:58Z 2011-07-15T16:00:58Z Michael Barrett This book is more than a historically interesting sociological artifact; it's a delight. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.143794 2011-06-23T17:00:04Z 2011-06-23T17:00:04Z Chris Barsanti Mark Kurlansky’s curious, sliver-like investigation asks, What’s more important, the question or the answer? ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.143834 2011-06-21T18:30:44Z 2011-06-21T18:30:44Z Sally Fink The Mall is not so much a horror story as it is a reflection of the darker side of humanity. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.141908 2011-06-14T18:30:00Z 2011-06-14T18:30:00Z Kerrie Mills Two brief, random glimpses -- cautionary or otherwise -- into what happens when celebrity gets too close to the ragged edge of reality. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.141905 2011-06-09T17:00:01Z 2011-06-09T17:00:01Z Kerrie Mills Classic children's heroines Anne of Green Gables and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm share nearly the same story, but from two different points of view -- and it's those differences that turn out to be most interesting. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.140462 2011-05-05T14:00:33Z 2011-05-05T14:00:33Z Paula Cerni On 'proofiness', 'randumbness' statistical boo-boos and other high-level mathematical theories. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2011:pm/blogs/reprint/33.140328 2011-05-04T15:30:06Z 2011-05-04T15:30:06Z Michael Barrett Floyd Gottfredson's strip was a fluid, rubber-limbed, sassy, slangy, breathless, seamless mix of absurdity and adventure. ]]>