The Korea Herald

My Hometown: Springsteen launches book tour in New Jersey

Sept 28, 2016

FREEHOLD, New Jersey (AP) -- The Boss was back in his hometown. 　 Bruce Springsteen’s latest tour opened Tuesday, and the rocker who usually lets his songs do the talking yielded to fans to take a turn and share their stories of what he meant to them.They simply wanted to say thank you.“I want to just tell him he’s been my therapy for 40 years,” said Joan Forman, of New Jersey.Fans from all over the world lined up hours before Springsteen’s appearance at a Barnes & Noble in Freehold to promote h
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 carry on full-blown conversations with adults. And she appeared to be in full control of her emotions, bringing out the puppy dog eyes at just the right moment.Interviewing Wilson on the “Today” show in 1994, Katie Couric declared: “Every time I see you in a movie, I just want to put you in my pocket and
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 world,” but sees salvation in poetry.The 86-year-old lives in exile and is equally scathing about the West's role in the conflict in his homeland which has claimed more than 300,000 lives over five years.“The Americans are not looking for solutions, they are seeking problems,” he told AFP in an interv
Jonathan Safran Foer’s ‘Here I Am’ depicts a marriage falling apart

Sept 21, 2016

“Here I Am”By Jonathan Safran FoerFarrar, 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 and messy novel — comes early.Julia and Jacob have been married for 16 years and have three boys. In the beginning, they’d committed to a policy of complete honesty, convinced they could tell each other everything and be stronger for doing so.But by the time we meet them, Jacob is sexting a work colleague 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. HirschBlue Rider Press (448 pages, $28)Mike Love is acutely aware that he is perceived as a villain.In his new autobiography, “Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy,” Love puts the conventional public framing of his relationship to his cousin and musical collaborator Brian Wilson simply: “For those who believe that Brian walks on water, I will always be the Antichrist.”But every villain is the hero of his own story, and “Good
‘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 hide only briefly a more sinister intent.Freud called it uncanny, this transfiguring of the familiar into something weird and powerful, and writers have long reveled in making this leap. Between reality and fantasy is a delicious brew of dissonance and disorientation, all in the service of greater truth
‘The Oliver Stone Experience’ a deep dive into monumental movie career

Sept 21, 2016

“The Oliver Stone Experience” By Matt Zoller SeitzAbrams (480 pages, $50)Is there another living American director with a greater run of movies than Oliver Stone? The dozen films he directed over a span of 13 years, from 1986-1999, form a body of work unparalleled in contemporary cinema. They came one after the other -- artful provocations, sometimes clouded in disreputable airs, that delved into recent history and modern-day affairs with a defiant ferocity and style: “Salvador,” “Platoon,” “Wa
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 Theater in northeastern Seoul. 　One of the festival’s programs “Free Talks” will pair up writers to engage in conversation about their works and the theme of this year’s festival, “the forgotten and the unforgettable” in literature. The talks will take place at the Daehakro Arts Theater from Sept. 26-30.
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 ($33,000) Science Book Prize on Monday.It charts the life of the influential 18th- and 19th-century scientist who gave his name to mountains, cities, a lunar sea and a type of penguin.Writer Bill Bryson, who chaired the judging panel, said Wulf’s book was “a thrilling adventure story ... about a polymath w
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 the Atlas Obscura website, a fan favorite among curiosity-seeking travelers. Now the site is bringing its geeky and magical world of wonders to the printed page. The new “Atlas Obscura” book offers a sampling of 700 of the website’s 10,000 curious attractions, from a pile of rocks in Butte, Montana, tha
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 WrightKnopf (384 pages, $28.95)“The Terror Years,” Lawrence Wright’s wide-ranging and intensively reported collection of stories on the Middle East in the 9/11 age, begins with a pair of masterful profiles. The first, “The Man Behind Bin Laden,” tracks the upbringing and radicalization of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of al-Qaida. The second, “The Counterterrorist,” explores the career and death of John P. O’Neill, the FBI
Murder lurks deep in the mind

Sept 7, 2016

“Hell Fire” By Karin Fossum, translated from the Norwegian by Karl DixonHoughton Mifflin Harcourt (272 pages, $24)With Scandinavian crime fiction all the rage and enormous attention paid to writers like Jo Nesbo, Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, it’s almost, well, criminal, that Norway’s Karin Fossum isn’t better known.Translated into dozens of languages and winner of the Glass Key Award for best Nordic crime novel, Fossum’s exceptional qualities are on view in her new novel, “Hell Fire,” the
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 never stops to let you off and catch your breath. Sometimes you marvel at your child’s brilliance. Often, though, you are exhausted by her behavior. You may be prone, like Alexandra Hammond in Parkhurst’s “Harmony,” to compare your growing helplessness to the proliferation of bedbugs in your house.“It’
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 Korean videotapes? Which way was the tofu restaurant she and her pastor father walked to countless times after her mother died and there was no one to cook him Korean food?And where was her father’s final apartment where he lived, broken, until he suffered a heart attack mid-sermon at the pulpit?The gle
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 battle with brain cancer, died Saturday at her home in Chester, publisher Penguin Young Readers said. “The entire Penguin Young Readers family is heartbroken,” Jen Loja, president of Penguin Young Readers, said in a statement. “And as we grieve, we also celebrate Anna’s life, in dedicating ourselves to