Baby’s in BlackBy Arne Bellstorf (First Second Books)Arne Bellstorf’s sad, magically charming graphic novel about the Beatles in Hamburg ― when the band’s then-bassist Stuart Sutcliffe fell in love with German photographer Astrid Kirchherr ― evokes the innocence and romantic hunger of youth with quiet, heart-tugging grace.The period is 1960-62, when the Beatles were playing nightly in a rathole on the Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s tough red-light district, the crucible in which the band’s world-shatteri

Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious ManBy Mark Kurlasnky (Doubleday)With “Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man,” Mark Kurlansky takes a detour from his food biographies (“Cod,” “Salt,” “The Big Oyster”) to profile Clarence Birdseye, the man credited with launching America’s frozen-food industry. As the subtitle suggests, Birdseye had a wide-ranging curiosity about nature. This led him into many activities, including hunting, taxidermy, research into tick-borne disease, fur farming, whale

James Patterson has written so many books, he’s lost track of the exact number. Ask him how many novels he’s penned for 2012 alone and he shrugs, then guesses: “Twelve or 13?”Often derided as a “factory” for being so prolific, Patterson has written more than 70 novels and sold more than 260 million copies ― far more than any living writer. And at 65, he shows no sign of easing up. If anything, his pace seems to be quickening, especially with children’s books, which he began writing in 2007 after

Forgotten Country: A NovelBy Catherine Chung (Riverhead Books)Following the international success of local writer Shin Kyung-sook’s novel “Please Look after Mom,” another powerful work of fiction about a Korean family is drawing attention. Korean-American author Catherine Chung’s engrossing debut novel, “Forgotten Country,” tells the story of two sisters born in South Korea. They move to Michigan in the U.S. as young girls, following their parents who try to escape Korea’s turbulent political si

Canada, By Richard Ford (Ecco)Some parents screw their kids up incrementally. Bev and Neeva Parsons manage to cram a life’s worth of trauma into a matter of days during the summer of 1960.The couple’s misadventures are told by their son Dell in “Canada,” Richard Ford’s 10th book.The hapless father, Bev (“He never conceded that Beverly was a woman’s name in most people’s minds”), and the bright but empathy-bereft Neeva dominate the first half of a riveting tale of lost innocence.The saga begins w

Calico Joe, By John Grisham (Doubleday)John Grisham is to literature what Cheerios are to a rushed breakfast, something you buy in bulk and consume without too much thought. Honestly, I’m relieved when a new Grisham book doesn’t weigh more than I do.Yet his newest work, “Calico Joe,” is as slender as a Dodgers shortstop. Coming in at under 200 pages, it is a breezy little baseball novel that will probably appeal to many men the way Nicholas Sparks’ stories appeal to that other sex.Strangely, con

(Asia Literary Review) By Michael Breen et alAsia Literary Review, an English-language quarterly journal distributed globally, has dedicated its Spring 2012 issue to Korean literature.“Koreans are rightly proud of their unique culture and their literary heritage; they respect and appreciate their writers and poets,” wrote Ilyas Khan, the journal’s publisher.“And if any place could be described as a country of readers, it would be South Korea. Their writers, however, have yet to be discovered by

Buzz Bissinger has already called someone a moron on Twitter this day, but really, the virtuosic vitriol that has characterized his Twitter feed has been somewhat subdued lately.Instead, Bissinger is sitting on a chair in a family room off the kitchen of his house in Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill neighborhood and talking about stuff so personal, so self-flagellating, that it would make you gasp if it weren’t comically shot through with F-bombs.Next to him is his son, Zach Bissinger, 28, well know

 Having overcome a troubled childhood, ‘Drifting House’ writer is fascinated by survivorsAuthor Krys Lee found out what her “obsessions” are after writing her first collection of stories. They are “survivors of different forms,” or “people who don’t quite belong.” And the Korean-American writer’s obsessions are evident in her powerful debut collection, “Drifting House” (Viking/Penguin Press). The stories take place in Korea, the U.S. and even North Korea, but all of her characters are struggling

A children’s book by a Korean author was published in the Czech Republic last week, just in time for the country’s biggest international book fair.It is the first time a Korean work of children’s literature has been published in the Czech Republic.The book, titled “Dream about Joy of Music,” is written by children’s writer Park Eun-young and illustrated by Koo Bo-ram. The book chronicles the life of the legendary classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791).The Czech Embassy in Seoul s

Reality TV star publishes his memoir in KoreaIt’s hard to imagine Korean-American reality TV star and former lawyer Yul Kwon being timid and quiet as a child.But his latest Korean-language memoir reveals something that most of the public, well-aware of Kwon’s academic and professional triumphs, would find a surprise.The 2006 “Survivor” winner and Yale Law School graduate said he had severe social anxiety disorders as a child, and was very often a target for bullying, in the book titled “I Evolve

“Engines of Change” By Paul Ingrassia (Simon & Schuster)It would be impossible to count the number of automotive makes and models that have come and gone since the car was first invented ― or the number of books that have been written about them. The inescapable ubiquity of the automobile has made them, for better or worse, a sort of cultural fodder that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paul Ingrassia inventively exploits in “Engines of Change.”The question at the center of his treatise: Do car

“A Simple Murder” By Eleanor Kuhns (Minotaur) During the mid-19th century, the Shakers were the largest and most successful utopian group in existence, with tight-knit communities scattered throughout the Northeast and in Kentucky. The religious sect, which began in England during the late 1700s, stressed equality of the sexes, pacifism and hard work. Sexual relations, even among married couples, were forbidden, making it a difficult religion for many to follow.Today, the Shakers are mainly reme

Sandwiched between two respected Texas historians on a hard church pew, the compact Englishman looks nervous, stroking his stubbled chin as he eyes 60 or so people crowded into the Buffalo Gap Chapel waiting for the sound of that voice they couldn’t have escaped hearing over the last 40 years.Never mind that he’s performed before crowds a thousand times bigger, sold a gazillion records, won Grammys and an Academy Award. British singer and drummer Phil Collins is fidgeting because he’s about to g