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Min’s life explored in new memoir May 14, 2013 12:00 AM
Chinese author Anchee Min, whose first memoir, "Red Azalea," told the story of her youth in China growing up under the leadership of Chairman Mao and introduced many to the true horrors of that regime, picks up here where she left off in "A Cooked Seed." It's 1984, she's 27 and on a plane bound for Chicago with a $500 loan in her pocket, no understanding of English and only a vague plan to study art.
'Ophelia Cut' is tense, intricate May 12, 2013 12:00 AM
A young woman makes a bad decision and her father ends up a murder suspect in "The Ophelia Cut," John Lescroart's latest courtroom drama featuring defense attorney Dismas Hardy. Friends become enemies and moral dilemmas abound in this tense and intricate tale. The story starts off a bit slow, but Lescroart is a master of legal suspense.
F. Scott Fitzgerald dead, but not forgotten May 12, 2013 12:00 AM
Has-beens in Hollywood usually stay that way. Yet one writer who died there nearly forgotten 73 years ago had one of the most remarkable posthumous revivals in literary history. F. Scott Fitzgerald is back on the big-screen with Leonardo DiCaprio and director Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby," a story adapted for film and television more than half a dozen times since the silent-movie era, when it was published to scant sales in 1925.
Book notes: Meet local mystery writer Saturday May 10, 2013 12:00 AM
Local author Annie Hansen reads from and signs copies of "Give Me Chocolate," her new mystery book that is set primarily in the Tri-Cities, at 1 p.m. Saturday, May 11, at the Geneva History Center.
Glen Ellyn Dist. 41 parents debate pulling ‘Wallflower’ from school shelves May 9, 2013 12:00 AM
Some parents of Hadley Junior High School students in Glen Ellyn say "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" is a relatable coming-of-age tale, while others argue the book isn't appropriate for eighth-graders. The Glen Ellyn Elementary District 41 school board supported the latter view.
A backstage look at ‘Mary Tyler Moore Show’ May 8, 2013 12:00 AM
Jennifer Keishin Armstrong examines the creation of television's "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," which defined a generation, in "Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted." Using a "fly on the wall" approach into the minds of the people behind the scenes and the cast of the show, Armstrong has written the quintessential book on one of the best sitcoms to grace the airwaves.
'VJ' tells of sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll at MTV May 7, 2013 12:00 AM
Long before Snooki, there was music. It seems quaint to remember a time before music videos and reality stars, but the original MTV VJs describe the beginning of one of the most influential media experiments of all time in "VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV's First Wave." VJs Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter and Martha Quinn provide an oral history of the launch of the network that pioneered unscripted entertainment.
Half Price Books now open for business in Algonquin May 6, 2013 12:00 AM
A new bookstore now is open in the former Borders Books location along the Randall Road corridor in the Algonquin Commons Shopping Center. Half Price Books opened last month inside half of the vacant Borders Books location, the first store of its kind in the Fox Valley area.
Maya Angelou honors mom, grandmother in new book May 5, 2013 12:00 AM
Writer, actor, dancer. Activist, teacher, composer. In the melange of Maya Angelou's 85 years is also daughter, of two women who deserved one with a good memory. So Angelou writes in her latest literary memoir, "Mom & Me & Mom," a sweet ode to "Lady," her mother Vivian Baxter, and "Momma," her paternal grandmother Annie Henderson, who took her in at age 3 in tiny, segregated Stamps, Ark., and returned her at age 13, when the time was right.
Dark but funny turns in new derelict mom books May 4, 2013 12:00 AM
These moms curse a lot, drink to excess and reveal scary truths. And this Mother's Day, they're bringing their derelict parenting to you. The authors behind a fresh round of parenting books love their munchkins, to be sure, but there's something about the scorched earth narrative that sells memoirish parenting books these days.Is the goal adevice? "No, there isn't any. I don't have anything. No advice. Nobody has any advice," laughed Amber Dusick, a Los Angeles mother of two who brings us "Parenting: Illustrated With Crappy Pictures."
‘Woman Upstairs’ about obsessive love, lies and video May 4, 2013 12:00 AM
Nora Eldridge is "the woman upstairs" in the title of Claire Messud's new novel — "the quiet woman at the end of the third-floor hallway," with tidy trash, a bright smile and dashed dreams. She's a distant relation of Bronte's madwoman in the attic. When the novel opens, Nora is consumed with uncharacteristic rage, practically ready to kill the glamorous, globe-trotting artist/academic couple who cruelly betrayed her several years before.
Sizemore book details actor’s battle with drugs May 3, 2013 12:00 AM
The cover photo of Tom Sizemore's autobiography, "By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There," is a perfect introduction for what's to come. The 51-year-old actor stands looking up at the camera, instantly recognizable. His face, though, looks worn, and his eyes are those of a man who's been to hell and back. And that's exactly what his book details — Sizemore's ascent to the height of cinema and his drug-fueled descent.
Book notes: Jim Gaffigan signs ‘Dad is Fat’ in Naperville May 3, 2013 12:00 AM
Comedian, actor and author Jim Gaffigan discusses and signs copies of his new book, "Dad is Fat," at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 9, at Pfeiffer Hall at North Central College in Naperville. The event is sponsored by Anderson's Bookshop of Naperville.
Doors drummer protects Jim Morrison legacy in book May 1, 2013 12:00 AM
Former Doors drummer John Densmore keeps the spirit of Jim Morrison alive in his new book, "The Doors Unhinged: Jim Morrison's Legacy Goes on Trial." The 68-year drummer is no stranger to chronicling his former band. He wrote The New York Times best-seller, "Riders on the Storm" in 1991. The new book defends Morrison's stand against commercializing the band's music catalog.
‘The Hit’ is a winner from David Baldacci Apr 30, 2013 12:00 AM
Will Robie, a government assassin seen in last year's "The Innocent," returns in a bigger and bolder adventure in David Baldacci's new novel, "The Hit." Robie's superiors know he'll obey orders without question, so when one of his colleagues goes rogue, he's given the task of termination. Jessica Reel was ordered to assassinate a dictator, but she executed someone else. Robie must bring her out of hiding and take her out.
'Sleight of Hand' will shock, mislead Apr 27, 2013 12:00 AM
Private investigator Dana Cutler returns in "Sleight of Hand," Phillip Margolin's best book in years. Deception is prominent, and the villain is truly vile.
Book notes: Meet Gabby Douglas at Skokie’s B&N Apr 24, 2013 12:00 AM
Olympic gold-medal winning U.S. gymnast Gabrielle Douglas signs copies of her new memoir, "Raising the Bar," from 6:30 to 8:15 p.m. Thursday, May 2, at Barnes and Noble in Skokie. Free numbered signing tickets will be distributed beginning at 9 a.m. Thursday, May 2, to customers presenting a copy of "Raising the Bar" with proof of purchase from Barnes and Noble at Old Orchard.
T. Jefferson Parker concludes Charlie Hood series Apr 24, 2013 12:00 AM
"The Famous and the Dead" is billed as the final installment in T. Jefferson Parker's six-volume saga about Charlie Hood, an earnest young Los Angeles lawman hellbent on reducing the illegal trade in firearms along the California-Mexico border. As the story opens, Hood is still haunted by a shipment of Love-22s that he let slip into the hands of a Mexican drug lord in an earlier book.
‘Fangs Out’ is suspenseful tale Apr 23, 2013 12:00 AM
After 10 years on California's death row, Dorian Munz is finally about to be executed for murdering the daughter of a Vietnam War hero named Hub Walker in David Freed's "Fangs Out." Does Munz have any last words? "Funny you should ask," he says, and then swears the young woman was actually killed by her employer, a military contractor named Greg Castle, and on goes the mystery.
Mary Higgins Clark active as ever at age 85 Apr 20, 2013 12:00 AM
The desk of Mary Higgins Clark looks remarkably ordered for one of the world's most popular novelists. But the upkeep can be explained by spring cleaning and by a pause between projects as Clark promotes a new novel, and plans her next. "It's a total mess when I'm working, because I have research books here," she says. "And last year, it was getting all dusty from all the books, so we had to take them out. I get allergies easily and it was getting too dusty."