David Mura: Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire

Love and loss in Chicago—and ancient Japan.

Books Ben Ohara, narrator of David Mura’s debut novel, Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire (Coffeehouse Books, 469 pages, $12.95), grows up as a boy who, hearth and heart, is stuck halfway between ...   More

 

Wednesday, October 15, 2008 MATTHEW KORFHAGE

Sarah Vowell. The Wordy Shipmates.

Of buckles and corn and hacked-off body parts.

Books It turns out the founding of America wasn’t all turkey and acorn squash. It turns out our “Puritan” nation didn’t have such pure beginnings. It turns out “the Bible is fu ...   More

 

Wednesday, October 8, 2008 WHITNEY HAWKE

Stephen Baker. The Numerati

Smile, you’re on PC.

Books Every day, you leave behind a stream of consumer data like a trail of bread crumbs: juicy tidbits like your credit card purchases, your Facebook pictures, your text messages and a thousand other infor ...   More

 

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 JOHN MINERVINI

McCain’s Promise. David Foster Wallace

Saying farewell to ideals.

Books So, yes, more press attention for David Foster Wallace, sprawling novelist, sterling essayist, suicide. The appalling news two weekends ago that Wallace had hanged himself quickly ballooned into a par ...   More

 

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 AARON MESH

Paul Auster. Man in the Dark

Paul Auster builds an elaborate fantasy to reflect on real-life loss.

Books The first sentence of Brooklyn novelist Paul Auster’s new book reads like Proust channeled through Kafka: “I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle with an ...   More

 

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 MATT BUCKINGHAM

Chuck Klosterman. Downtown Owl

Gonna die in this small town/ And that’s probably where they’ll bury me.

Books “You know, people always say that nothing changes in a small town, but—whenever they say that—they usually mean that nothing changes figuratively,” a high-school principal in O ...   More

 

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 AARON MESH

Nena Baker. The Body Toxic

A thin new book builds a thin, old case against the chemical industry.

Books The dust jacket of Nena Baker’s new book, The Body Toxic (North Point Press, 277 pages, $24), depicts two images: On the front, an egg fries in a scratched Teflon pan; on the back, a single drop ...   More

 

Wednesday, September 3, 2008 MATT BUCKINGHAM

You Don’t Know Me

Pharmakon

Books If you feel too sad, there’s a pill for you. If you feel too good, there’s a pill for that, too. This is the notion. But Pharmakon(Viking Press, 406 pages, $25.95), as any college-aged Der ...   More

 

Wednesday, August 13, 2008 MATTHEW KORFHAGE

Zak Sally, At The Pony Club

When Mickey started drinking, that’s when things got interesting.

Books Zak Sally is somewhat of a renaissance man. In music circles, Sally is known as ex-bassist for the cultishly appreciated Duluth, Minn., slowcore band Low. And while Sally continues to play music (he&r ...   More

 

Wednesday, July 30, 2008 CASEY JARMAN