Life of NYC’s most tribal borough The Devil She KnowsBy Bill Loehfelm(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)Maureen Coughlin, a 29-year-old cocktail waitress at a seedy Staten Island bar, has dropped out of college and is lying to her mother about it. She tells herself she’s saving money so she can go back to school, but she knows that is also a lie.She pictures herself flirting for tips from drunks until she

In the picture, I am probably 10 years old. I’m wearing blue jeans and a bright red sweater, and I’m perched on the stump of a redwood tree, surrounded by a forest of the same. On my lap, I hold an open book. My head is bowed, long blond hair studiously tucked behind my ears. I wish I could remember the book I was reading, but I can’t.What I do remember is that I knew my mother was taking the pict

For some, a book club means Chardonnay, gossip and some bookish conversation. For Oprah Winfrey, it’s meant making bestsellers and, as she said last week, “the biggest controversy in our 25 years.”As her broadcast television show comes to a close, Winfrey welcomed the reason for that controversy ― the not-truthful memoirist James Frey ― onto two full shows of her final 10, putting her once-vital B

Chinese-born Nobel Prize winner says modern literature must break away from 20th-century ideologies Gao Xingjian, the Chinese-born recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature, said all forms of literature must be free from outside control, including ideologies, politics, and the free market.He was speaking at a press conference Tuesday at Kyobo Bookstore in downtown Seoul, on the first day of

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, one of the most acclaimed living French authors and the 2008 Nobel Prize winner, said literature is what connects people in today’s globalized world. He was speaking at a press conference Monday at Kyobo Bookstore in downtown Seoul, a day ahead of the opening of the third Seoul International Forum for Literature in Seoul.Le Clezio participated in the second forum in S

LONDON (AP) ― The genre that brought us “The Matrix” has roots reaching back nearly two millennia. The literary tradition often associated with “Star Trek”-loving fanboys has a militant feminist streak. Oh, and science fiction also invented cyberspace.The British Library’s new exhibit, “Out of this World,” wants visitors to know that there’s more to sci-fi than “The War of the Worlds” or “20,000 L

Bangalore the new IndiaMiss New IndiaBy Bharati Mukherjee(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)Anjali Bose has a dazzling smile, near-fluency in American-accented English, and a gnawing hunger for life outside her rural Indian town of Gauripur, where the dilapidated Pinky Mahal bears witness to stalled progress and her stolidly middle-class parents are forcing her into an arranged marriage.Anjali, who prefer

Healing and transcendence in warThe Rainy SpellBy Yun Heung-gil(Jimoondang, 5,000 won)First published in 1978, Yun Heung-gil’s “The Rainy Spell” is still regarded as one of the finest short stories dealing with the Korean War (1950-1953) experience. The novel tells a story of a Korean family that has two of its members placed in the opposing camps during the war. It is told from the perspective of

Jennifer Egan was not built for the spotlight. “When I was a teenager, one of my sources of angst was that I felt like I was not an actor, I was always a spectator,” she said by phone from New York. “Later, I realized that that’s just who I am. That’s actually my job.”Lately, Egan has been much more than a spectator in her own life. Her novel “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” a fractured narrative ab

Describing Steve Earle’s “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive” as a story about a skid row junkie abortionist haunted by the ghost of Hank Williams may work as a dust jacket blurb. But it doesn’t begin to reveal the depth of the singer-songwriter’s debut novel.Earle, 56, is a political activist, actor and Grammy-winning musician who helped revitalize country music in the mid-’80s and is a leade

What a lovely expression of Pinot Noir from New Zealand’s Mountford estate. Elegant and smooth, this New World Pinot carries the taste of Santa Rosa plums and sweet Asian spices. The scent jumps right out of the glass ― sandalwood, and something leafy and delicate. The 2007 Mountford “Liaison” Pinot Noir offers a smooth taste of Santa Rosa plums and sweet Asian spices. (Gary Friedman/Los Angeles T

SYDNEY (AP) ― Philip Roth’s latest prize was not a unanimous choice.The author of “Portnoy’s Complaint,” “American Pastoral” and many other novels on Wednesday was named as the winner of the Man Booker International Prize for fiction, a $100,000 honor given every two years. But one of the judges, publisher Carmen Callil, resigned in protest from the commission, telling the Guardian in London that

Cutrone speaks to young womenNormal Gets You Nowhere By Kelly Cutrone, with Meredith Bryan, (HarperOne, $23.99)Kelly Cutrone stands out in the fashion world. She always dresses in black, does not wear makeup or do her hair.Yet she founded People’s Revolution, a successful fashion PR company, and has appeared on Bravo’s “Kell on Earth” and MTV’s “The Hills” and “The City.”In her words, this is beca

Globalized Korea and Localized GlobeBy Park Sang-seek, (Jimoondang, 23,000 won)This collection of essays covers a wide range of events and contentious issues ― at local, regional and global levels ― that have occurred in the past 10 years. The book, which is a selection of Professor Park Sang-seek’s contributions to The Korea Herald, with the exception of one essay, deals primarily with issues con