Former child actor Barry Livingston, who played the cute-but-nerdy Ernie Douglas on the vintage Fred MacMurray sitcom “My Three Sons,” turned out quite well, thank you.There were a few stumbles along the way. When his career wasn’t even treading water while he was in his 20s, he did turn to cocaine. But his “lost period” lasted only about a year. He’s been happily married for nearly 30 years and has a 22-year-old son and a 19-year-old daughter. The 57-year-old Livingston likes to joke that when

John O’Brien shares thoughts on marketing foreign literatureIt’s been almost a week since John O’Brien, the founder of American publisher Dalkey Archive Press, announced he will publish a series of English-language translations of Korean literary works, the first time such a project is taking place outside Korea.A joint project with Korea Literature Translation Institute, the series will consist of 25 works by Korean authors and poets. O’Brien, who founded the publisher in Chicago in 1984, is kn

Jeju Island: Reaching to the Core of Beauty(Seoul Selection)Located off the southernmost coast of Korea, Jeju Island houses both beauty and rich culture. For international readers who’d like to learn more about the island, “Jeju Island: Reaching to the Core of Beauty,” jointly published by Seoul Selection and Korea Foundation, would be a great source of information and joy.The book is far from a tour guide. It begins with a brief introduction by Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, one of the most accl

When an obituary is more than just an obitDead Last By James W. Hall (Minotaur)The newspaper obituary isn‘t just the announcement of a person’s death and service schedule. Obits often are homages to a life well lived, an insightful look at a person and the impact he or she had on their world.But in the intriguing “Dead Last,” the obit becomes a sinister weapon that takes aim at Thorn, James W. Hall‘s perennial Key Largo beach bum.Thorn has never been the most sociable of characters -- content to

Stephen King opens his novel “11/22/63” ― billed as an alternate universe reimagining of the John F. Kennedy assassination ― with an epigraph from Norman Mailer’s “Oswald’s Tale.” “It is virtually not assimilable to our reason that a small lonely man felled a giant in the midst of his limousines, his legions, his throng, and his security,” Mailer writes. “If such a non-entity destroyed the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, then a world of disproportion engulfs us, and we live in a uni

 PARIS, Nov 24, 2011 (AFP) - Doctors should read up on Shakespeare, according to an unusual medical study that says the Bard was exceptionally skilled at spotting psychosomatic symptoms.Kenneth Heaton, a doctor at the University of Bristol in western England, trawled through all 42 of Shakespea

Three years and three films into “The Twilight Saga,” Robert Pattinson can see the finish line for the role that made him famous.With the release of “Breaking Dawn ― Part 1,” he knows that the whirlwind surrounding him and his cast mates is about to peak, then subside. He says he’s relishing the end, and he’s taking it all in: the attention, the career boost and the way his peers have coped with the sudden fame of a film series whose fans are nothing if not fanatical.“I am constantly amazed that

Grafton has another choice letterV Is for VengeanceBy Sue Grafton(Marian Wood Book/G.P. Putnam’s Sons)“V Is for Vengeance,” and it’s also for very, very good.With just a few letters remaining in Sue Grafton’s alphabet series of mysteries, the author has hit a high mark with her latest offering, a complex tale of love, betrayal, ambition and, of course, murder.“V Is for Vengeance” begins with Kinsey Millhone nursing a broken nose (and two black eyes) that she got from poking it into other people’

Harmonia Koreana ― A short History of 20th-ceuntry Korean music By Kim Choon-mee(Hollym)For anyone interested in the history behind present-day K-pop and Hallyu, Kim Choon-mee’s English-language book “Harmonia Koreana” offers an interesting overview of how different forms of music took form in Korea throughout the 20th century. Kim begins the book by examining how Western classical music, largely introduced by Christian missionaries, influenced Korea’s leading musicians from the late 19th to the

Growing up in New Orleans, writer Michael Lewis learned three lessons that stuck with him for life:―Success and happiness are very different things.―Never become a lawyer.―You don’t need to come from a bookish environment to know how to spin a helluva story.Maybe the storytelling part, Lewis speculates, stems from another thing New Orleans taught him. With its Creole-Cajun culture and hedonistic ethos, the Crescent City schooled him to view his native country like a skeptical foreigner trying to

The Korean Culture and Information Service published “K-Pop: A New Force in Pop Music” this week amid growing K-pop fever overseas. The 93-page pocket book, the second volume in the K-Culture series, explains in detail the history of K-pop, how K-pop began to make a splash overseas, where the phenomenon might be headed and also introduces some of the most popular K-pop artists. Korean pop was strongly influenced by Western pop music, diversifying through many stages of copying, translation and i

‘Slumdog Millionaire’ author and Indian diplomat shares thoughts on writing, his country“Slumdog Millionaire,” the 2008 mega-hit adaptation of Vikas Swarup’s debut novel, is the ultimate feel-good movie. The film depicts how an orphan from an Indian slum with a painful past wins a fortune on a TV game show. High-flying Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup, whose 2005 debut novel “Q & A” later became the basis of the multiple Oscar-winning movie, admitted that the story may only be a fantasy. But althoug