PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- Fans of H.P. Lovecraft's writings are trying to use the growing fame of the early 20th century fantasy-horror writer to promote Providence’s weird side.　Lovecraft so identified with Rhode Island's capital city that he wrote "I am Providence" in a letter. His headstone bears the phrase. Some of Lovecraft’s best-known works are set in Providence. 　Tuesday marked the 79th anniversary of his death. A light rain fell as about 20 people gathered where Lovecraft's childhood hou

　Best-seller C.J. Box’s series about Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett is known for showing how environmental issues not only affect ecology, but also people, jobs and lifestyles. 　In “Off the Grid,” Box goes a bit off the grid himself by tackling the hot-button issue of terrorists and government interference, delivering an even-handed look that illustrates the perception of a situation isn't always reality. 　　“Off the Grid” isn't so much Joe’s story as it is his friend's Nate Romanowski, a war ve

“All The Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation” 　By Rebecca Traister　Simon and Schuster (339 pages, $27)Employing the tools of social history and narrative journalism, “All The Single Ladies” paints an upbeat portrait of the unmarried life, concluding with a call for policy changes to support “the epoch of single women that's upon us.”　Rebecca Traister traces the trend of happy singlehood back through American history to its pre-Colonial roots in England. In 1563,

Writing in 1927 for an 8-1 Supreme Court majority in Buck vs. Bell, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes upheld a Virginia law authorizing sterilization of the “feebleminded.” 　In “Imbeciles,” Adam Cohen outlines the collision course between Carrie Buck -- a woman who was poor and unfortunate but no imbecile -- and a scion of one of Boston’s oldest families who was wrongly reputed to be liberal.　Cohen's chapters on Holmes make clear that Buck was no anomaly; Holmes was a longtime eugenicist who’d previ

LONDON (AFP) - The only surviving play script including William Shakespeare's handwriting, and containing a passionate speech against xenophobia, is being put online to mark the 400th anniversary of the bard’s death, the British Library announced Tuesday.　The script is a section from a controversial play that revolves around how statesman Sir Thomas More quelled a 1517 anti-foreigner uprising in London by asking the rioters to imagine themselves being banished to live abroad.　The 164-line scene

Novelist Han Kang, 46, has become the first Korean writer to be on the long list for the Man Booker International Prize.　　The prestigious award body announced Thursday on its website 13 contenders for the 2016 prize, including Han’s 2004 novel “The Vegetarian,” translated by Deborah Smith.　　“The Vegetarian” was published in the U.K. in January 2015 and in the U.S. last month to both critical and popular acclaim.  　Novelist Han Kang (Literature Translation Institute of Korea)　Nobel laureate Orhan

“Evicted”　By Matthew Desmond　Crown (432 pages, $28)　For nearly a decade, Matthew Desmond has studied the relationship between eviction and poverty in a single American city: Milwaukee. The MacArthur Foundation awarded him a “genius” grant last year for his research, including the Milwaukee Area Renters Study he designed and supervised, which yielded this sobering conclusion: “Among Milwaukee renters, over 1 in 5 black women report having been evicted in their adult life, compared to 1 in 12 Hisp

“At the Existentialist Cafe”　By Sarah Bakewell　Other Press (439 pages, $25)　Here’s a startling thought. Consider what you are doing right now without realizing you’re doing it. For example, you are reading the English language written in the Roman alphabet, even though thousands of languages and writing systems have existed, and you would just as easily use one of them instead if you had been born in a different time or place. You are probably flipping pages of a newspaper or clicking through a

“Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship”　By Anjan Sundaram　Doubleday Books (208 pages, $25.95)In the early 1990s, the world watched in horror as Hutus and Tutsis slaughtered each other in Rwanda. When it ended, Paul Kagame was heralded as one of the leaders of forces that ended the bloodshed.　As president since 2000, President Kagame has fooled much of the world into thinking his country is a happy democracy and has received tons of international funding because on the surface Rwanda shine

Novels, children’s books, webtoons to be displayed at special hall, authors to speak on Korean literature

NEW YORK (AP) -- Homework? Ban it! Circle time? It’s not for every kindergartner. Forced sharing? How about letting a kid play with a toy until she’s done?　Those are just a few of the ideas that Heather Shumaker advocates as “renegade” in a new book, “It’s OK to Go Up the Slide,” an extension of her first parenting guide, “It’s OK Not to Share.”　Shumaker is the mom of two boys, ages 11 and 8, in Traverse City, Michigan. As a youngster, she was a student where her mother taught for 40 years in Co

“What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours: Stories”　 By Helen Oyeyemi　Riverheard Books (336 pages, $27)　Midway through the third and strongest of the nine stories in Helen Oyeyemi’s breathtakingly bold and original “What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours” -- unlike any short story collection I've read -- one meets a girl reading a book on a plane.　Because the plane is going “through a terrifyingly long tunnel of turbulence,” everyone else is “freaking out.”　Asked if she’d noticed “we might be about to crash,” the