What would it be like to dance on the moon? There, things weigh six times less than they do on Earth. Imagine how far you could go with every jump and leap ― and how light your body would feel. The latest volume of Azalea, an American, English-language journal featuring Korean literature and culture published by Harvard University’s Korea Institute, features contemporary Korean author Bae Myung-hoon’s (“Tower” “Concealing”) science fiction “Art and the Acceleration of Gravity” ― a story of a Seo

Seoulites were offered free children’s books and brochures a day before Tuesday’s World Book Day.In celebration of World Book Day on April 23, the state-run Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea gave out free roses, a total of 100 children’s books, and 50,000 brochures on book recommendations in central Seoul near Gwanghwamun. The day, organized by UNESCO to promote reading, publishing, and copyright, was chosen as it is the anniversary of the death of many renowned writers, including W

Korean author Han Kang’s 2007 novel “Vegetarian” has been translated into Spanish and published in Argentina, the Literature Translation Institute of Korea said.The sensual novel tells the story of a video artist who finds himself obsessed with his sister-in-law after she suddenly stops eating meat. He asks her to be a model for his art project, which requires painting her naked body with flowers. The book deals with human desire and violence, as well as conflicted dynamics between social norms

Like a stoned Forrest Gump, Dennis Hopper always managed to be where the action was in American pop culture history.When James Dean was inventing the Angry Young Man in “Rebel Without a Cause,” Hopper was on the set (and in the movie).When Andy Warhol was turning the art world on its ear, Hopper was buying one of his early soup cans (and went on to scoop up Rauschenbergs and Ruschas). When the old movie studio system was dying, Hopper used the success of “Easy Rider” to help drive a nail in the

SULPHUR SPRINGS, Texas (AP) ― After a feverish month of inspiration, Colleen Hoover had finally fulfilled her dream of writing a book.With family and friends asking to read the emotional tale of first love, the married mother of three young boys living in rural East Texas and working 11-hour days as a social worker decided to digitally self-publish on Amazon, where they could download it for free for a week.“I had no intentions of ever getting the book published. I was just writing it for fun,’’

A Cold and Lonely PlaceBy Sara J. Henry (Crown)Most of us thrive on human contact ― spouses, friends, family. But for others who have been wounded by the people they love most, isolation in a cold and lonely place may seem like paradise.That sense of severing all previous ties and never truly getting close to people permeate Sara J. Henry’s second insightful second novel. As she did in her 2012 Agatha-winning debut, “Learning to Swim,” Henry explores the complicated nature of relationships while

The Art of Controversy: Political Cartoons and Their Enduring PowerBy Victor S. Navasky (Knopf)Few people afflict the comfortable more savagely and effectively than political cartoonists. In “The Art of Controversy: Political Cartoons and Their Enduring Power,” veteran magazine editor Victor S. Navasky investigates how they work and celebrates some of the greats, from pioneering artist William Hogarth to contemporary caricaturist David Levine.His book features 76 black-and-white illustrations pl

NEW YORK (AP) ― Adam Johnson’s “The Orphan Master’s Son,’’ a labyrinthine story of a man’s travails in North Korea, has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, restoring a high literary honor a year after no fiction award was given.Pulitzer judges on Monday praised Johnson’s book as “an exquisitely crafted novel that carries the reader on an adventuresome journey into the depths of totalitarian North Korea and into the most intimate spaces of the human heart.’’ It was the third book by the 45-year-o

Scratchgravel RoadBy Tricia Fields (Minotaur)“ScratchgravelRoad”has a gritty heroine, a rugged border landscape and extreme Texas weather ― pretty much everything you’d expect in a mystery from an author based in ... Indiana?This is the second novel featuring Josie Gray, police chief in the economically strapped West Texas town of Artemis. She battled Mexican drug cartels in Tricia Fields’ debut mystery “The Territory,” which won the Tony Hillerman Prize.In “Scratchgravel Road,” Chief Gray must

All That IsBy James Salter(Knopf)Before becoming a full-time writer, 87-year-old James Salter was a fighter pilot, and he has written often and well about flying.“All That Is,” Salter’s first full-length novel in more than 30 years, isn’t ostensibly about flying at all, even if its protagonist does a brief stint in a plane toward the end of World War II. But the experience of reading this book is akin to one’s panoramic view, when aloft and moving fast. You can see a lot, albeit briefly and ofte

Poetry doesn’t get enough credit as a social activity, Caroline Kennedy says.“More and more kids are memorizing poems together or participating in poetry slam teams,” she says. “For kids, if you do something with your friends, it makes it a lot more fun.”Her own experience has run the gamut from reciting four-liners as a child living in the White House to receiving classic lines translated from “Metamorphoses” as a Christmas present from her Latin-loving daughter.So does Kennedy even have specia

Legendary Russian theater director brings Chekhov’s ‘Three Sisters’ to Seoul