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Geoff Dyer's WWI memorial

Counting casualties
No matter what bromides are trotted out in the aftermath of tragedy or disaster about the ability of people to pull together, when it comes time to memorialize the event, fissures always show.

By: CHARLES TAYLOR | September 06, 2011

Grace Bonney’s epoch-defining design blog becomes a book

Home pages
Design*Sponge at Home , the first book by the founder of the blog Design*Sponge, Grace Bonney, is a breathtaking, byzantine 390-page encyclopedia of eclectic home décor.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | August 31, 2011

In his new graphic novel, Craig Thompson wins an argument with God

Illuminated manuscript
This book is a gorgeous object; to make it, Thompson apparently covered himself in honey and rolled around in a thousand years of Arabic calligraphy and Islamic art, and the result is breathtaking — the amount of ink expended on one resplendent panel after another, not to mention the virtuoso draftsmanship, speaks of hundreds of hours of hard work.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | August 31, 2011

George Pelecanos's Spero falls short

War zero
Better than almost any current writer, Pelecanos has shown what city dwellers have known for years: that it is urban neighborhoods, and not suburbs, where what we think of as the small-town values of community and knowing your neighbors have taken root.

By: CHARLES TAYLOR | August 24, 2011

Rediscovering Metallica with a new bio

Write the lightning
That the biggest metal band in metal history should be called METALLICA — it's just so frigging metal .

By: JAMES PARKER | August 24, 2011

Annamarie Pluhar's guide to housemating

Fair housing
Sharing housing is a sustainable choice, especially considering recent reports that average North American households produce 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a day, nearly five times the global average; like other aspects of our super-size culture, America's average homes have grown in size by 45 percent since 1980.

By: LIZ PELLY | August 16, 2011

Will Kindles kill libraries?

In this corner: libraries struggling to bring in patrons. In the other: Kindles looking to expand their market. Will it be a bloodbath, or can they hug it out?
This week, OverDrive itself will host its own conference to help libraries deal with a massive onslaught of patrons clamoring to check out books on their Kindles. Can embattled public institutions handle such a drastic change?

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | July 27, 2011

Summer fiction

Hot type
Summer is a good time to suspend some disbelief.

By: PHOENIX STAFF | July 21, 2011

Busy Monsters

Chapter 1, excerpted from the novel by William Giraldi
STUNNED BY LOVE and some would say stupid from too much sex, I decided I had to drive down South to kill a man.

By: WILLIAM GIRALDI | July 20, 2011

The Night Circus

Excerpted from the novel by Erin Morgenstern
The man billed as Prospero the Enchanter receives a fair amount of correspondence via the theater office, but this is the first envelope addressed to him that contains a suicide note, and it is also the first to arrive carefully pinned to the coat of a five-year-old girl.

By: ERIN MORGENSTERN | September 14, 2011

The Oracle Engine

Excerpted from the short story by M.T. Anderson
The lizard of the wasteland, so dazzling to the eye, so rapid to flee or to strike, may grow to its full maturity only in the most brutal of deserts, where no dew falls to drink and where the sun is unrelenting. So, some say, was Marcus Furius Medullinus Machinator, he who first invented the oracle engines...

By: M.T. ANDERSON | July 20, 2011

The Game of Thrones author visits his realm

The madness for King George
The immense appeal of George R. R. Martin's storytelling relies, in part, on the innate thrill of the mechanics of power.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | July 22, 2011

Beach reads that don't suck

Summer reading that stands the test of time
Lists of beach reads — though as reliable as summer itself — are, generally speaking, a sham.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | July 18, 2011

Phyllis Karas finds Whitey

Good timing
Good timing

By: CHRIS FARAONE | July 05, 2011

Donald Ray Pollock's over-the-top gothic

Biblical fury
Donald Ray Pollock's first novel is called The Devil All the Time , and that's exactly what's wrong with it.

By: CHARLES TAYLOR | July 06, 2011

Carla Speed McNeil's magic city

Finder keeper
You arrive in Anvard as an immigrant. The city is vast and perplexing, full of its own signs and codes, but little by little you learn its language.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | July 01, 2011

The return of Tomi Ungerer

Moon man
Last week, the children's book artist Tomi Ungerer returned to America for the first time in over a decade.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | June 27, 2011

Remembering Hüsker Dü with two new books

Everything fell apart
"Readers of this book will be disappointed," declares Andrew Earles, rather sternly, in the introduction to his Hüsker Dü: The Story of the Noise-Pop Pioneers Who Launched Modern Rock (Voyageur Press), "if they hope to be rewarded with the gritty details of any band member's drug use."

By: JAMES PARKER | June 09, 2011