The Next Best ThingBy Jennifer Weiner (Atria)Ruth Saunders’ dreams are about to come true, and she’s due for good luck: “I was a woman who’d lost her parents, who’d survived a dozen surgeries and emerged with metal implants in my jaw, the right side of my face sunken and scarred, and an eye that drooped.”Ruth’s dream involves a sitcom based loosely on the story of herself and the grandmother who raised her from age 3, and in Jennifer Weiner’s capable hands, the novel is a knockout. Perfect comic

The Fate of the Species: Why the Human Race May Cause Its Own Extinction and How We Can Stop It, By Fred Guterl (Bloomsbury)Consider if you dare the case of bioengineers who’ve implanted a microchip into the brains of certain research beetles, a chip which connects to the beetle’s nervous system and sends tiny pulses of energy that make the beetle “behave,” to turn left or right, zig and zag, do loop-de-loops and otherwise respond to various commands. What’s the point? Imagine a million of these

It can take years to bring a single film to screen. It took over eight years to bring the massively popular Batman trilogy into theaters.“The Art and Making of The Dark Knight Trilogy,” takes you through those eight ― and more ― years as you learn about the whole process, from concept to conclusion.A beautifully artistic photo book, it’s a worthy addition to any film student or Batman reader’s collection of “making of” books. Coming from a background in smaller films, director Christopher Nolan

The 2008 presidential campaign had many unexpected consequences: It spawned the tea party movement, the Palin family reality show dynasty and the career of Meghan McCain, daughter of the Republican nominee.During Arizona Sen. John McCain’s ill-fated White House run, Meghan spent a lot of time on the road on his famous “Straight Talk Express.” A newly minted Columbia University graduate, she was among the first political offspring to exploit the possibilities of a campaign blog.Pictures of her ju

Singer Kim Jang-hoon, known for his activism to reinforce Korean sovereignty over Dokdo, announced on Thursday he plans to found a foundation for his future Dokdo-related projects. The projects consist of building a Dokdo-themed cultural space “Dokdo Land” and providing support for Dokdo research for academic scholars, he said. “I’ve been working on the Dokdo project for a while,” said Kim during a press conference in Seoul on Thursday.  “And I thought it was necessary to form a foundation to ke

Why do Koreans ask me whether I have eaten when saying hello? What happened to my personal space on the subway? Why do people take their shoes off when entering a home? How Confucian is Korea? Why the dull car colors? When Kim Hyung-geun started the advice column “Ask a Korean Dude” in SEOUL Magazine he never anticipated the scope and size of questions that streamed in from expatriates around the country. Many foreigners were confused by the quirks and customs of Korean culture and were hungry f

A 15-volume series of modern Korean literature has been published in a Korean-English bilingual edition, its publisher Asia Publishers said.It took five years for the publishing company to release the series, which includes Oh Jung-hee’s “Chinatown,” Choe Yun’s “The Last of Hanako” and Jo Jung-rae’s “The Land of the Vanished.” Titled “Bi-lingual Edition Modern Korean Literature,” the series is divided into three different sections: “Division,” “Industrialization” and “Women.” While the series’ “

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) ― Beloved New Zealand children’s author Margaret Mahy, who wrote more than 120 books and earned acclaim at home and abroad, has died at the age of 76.She died Monday after being diagnosed with cancer, her cousin Ron Mahy said.Mahy’s best-known books include “A Lion in the Meadow,’’ “The Man Whose Mother Was a Pirate’’ and “Bubble Trouble.’’She won the Carnegie Medal for outstanding children’s writing twice and in 2006 won the Hans Christian Andersen Award for her lif

TumbleweedsBy Leila Meacham (Grand Central Publishing) I love it when a book starts like this: “The call he’d been expecting for twenty-two years came at midnight when he was working late at his desk. … The name of the caller appeared in the identification screen, and his heart did a flip-flop.”Middle-of-the-night phone calls from people you haven’t heard from in nearly a quarter of a century almost always bode well, at least if you’re in the hands of a talented author.In this case, you certainl

Heading Out to WonderfulBy Robert Goolrick (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill)“Brownsburg, Virginia, 1948, the kind of town that existed in the years right after the war, where the terrible American wanting hadn’t touched yet, where most people lived a simple life without yearning for things they couldn’t have…” Into this small town one day arrives Charlie Beale, a stranger from parts unknown. He has a suitcase full of his things ― which include a set of high-quality butcher knives ― and a suitcase

When Chris Colfer was just 20, he‘d already been named one of GQ magazine’s men of the year, having sung and acted his way into the hearts of America as Kurt, the high-pitched, openly gay brunet who is unabashedly himself on the hit TV show “Glee.” Colfer‘s star had risen so fast in the year he’d starred on the Fox comedy that a literary agent asked him to pen his autobiography -- an endeavor Colfer had the good sense to decline because it was so premature.Instead, Colfer offered “The Land of St

There’s a photograph of President John F. Kennedy sailing on his beloved Victura on the wall of U.S. Rep. John Lewis’ 19th-floor office that bares this quote: “One man can make a difference and every man should try.” It is one of many pearls of wisdom scattered about the elder statesman’s Atlanta office, but it is this single sentiment that beats throughout “Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change” (Hyperion, $22.99), Lewis’ latest book on his life and the civil rights movement

GoldBy Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster)TV producers who create those biographical segments on Olympic athletes could only wish that Chris Cleave wrote their scripts.In “Gold,” Cleave fashions a life-and-death story of two female cyclists, long entwined athletically and personally, competing for a single spot on Great Britain’s Olympic team.Cleave’s earlier novels include the bestseller “Little Bee.”“Gold” feels like a marriage of “Wide World of Sports” with Lifetime television; that’s meant as a

Shadow of NightBy Deborah Harkness (Viking Books)The ingredients for an enthralling historical fantasy can be deceptively simple: All you need are Elizabethan England, magic and witches. Add to this heady draught a liberal infusion of vampires and daemons, spice with a bit of romance and a dash of time travel ― just to kick up the action a notch ― and one’s imagination reels with the possibilities. Or at least it should, because Deborah Harkness’ “Shadow of Night” can show you just how potent su