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| Book World: Robert and Dayna Baer's 'true-life spy story,' 'The Company We Keep' |
(Tue, 15 Mar 2011)
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In "The Company We Keep," Robert and Dayna Baer reveal how they romanced each other while spying for the CIA.
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Author: Joseph Kanon |
Category: Book |
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| Book review: 'The Trinity Six' by Charles Cumming |
(Tue, 15 Mar 2011)
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In "The Trinity Six," Charles Cumming takes a brilliant fictional look at the greatest spy scandal of the 20th century.
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Author: Patrick Anderson |
Category: Book |
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| The actor Alan Arkin tells how to live "An Improvised Life" in his memoir of that name. |
(Tue, 15 Mar 2011)
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In his memoir, "An Improvised Life," Alan Arkin explains his techniques for acting and training other actors.
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Author: Alan Arkin Da Capo. 201 pp. $17 by Mindy Aloff |
Category: The |
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| Jill Bialosky's "History of a Suicide" |
(Tue, 15 Mar 2011)
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In "History of a Suicide," Jill Bialosky probes the suicide of her half-sister and searches for catharsis, even absolution.
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Author: Nora Krug |
Category: Jill |
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| Maya Jasanoff's "Liberty's Exiles," on British Loyalists after the revolution |
(Tue, 15 Mar 2011)
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In "Liberty's Exiles," Maya Jasonoff tells the tale of the British Loyalists who opposed the American revolution.
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Author: Pauline Maier |
Category: Maya |
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| Dani Rodrik's "The Globalization Paradox" |
(Tue, 15 Mar 2011)
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In "The Globalization Paradox," Dani Rodrik examines what economists overlook.
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Author: Dani Rodrik Norton. 346 pp. $26.95 by Steven Pearlstein |
Category: Dani |
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| Thomas E. Kennedy's "Falling Sideways" |
(Tue, 15 Mar 2011)
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The second novel in Thomas E. Kennedy's Copenhagen Quartet is a satire of men and women at work.
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Author: Jonathan Yardley |
Category: Thomas |
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| Michael Connelly, author of "The Lincoln Lawyer" |
(Mon, 14 Mar 2011)
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lincoln lawyer; the lincoln lawyer; lincoln lawyer michael connelly; michael connelly lincoln laywer; matthew mcconaughey; mcconaughey lawyer; marisa tomei; william h. macy; ryan phillippe; lakeshore entertainment; tom rosenberg
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Author: Neely Tucker |
Category: Michael |
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| 'Three Stages of Amazement': Life's lessons skillfilly shared |
(Fri, 11 Mar 2011)
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It's been 17 years since Carol Edgarian's best-selling, critically acclaimed first novel, "Rise the Euphrates," announced the arrival of a gifted and ambitious young writer. Yet that long pause feels right when you read "Three Stages of Amazement," her rueful, wholly adult second novel. It's not ...
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Author: Wendy Smith |
Category: 'Three |
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| 'Rawhide Down,' a gripping account of the day Reagan was shot |
(Fri, 11 Mar 2011)
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By Del Quentin Wilber
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Author: David Baldacci |
Category: 'Rawhide |
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| Book World: Lionel Shriver reviews Yan Lianke's 'Dream of Ding Village' |
(Fri, 11 Mar 2011)
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Yan Lianke's 2006 novel "Dream of Ding Village" - about a Chinese AIDS village and banned by the Communist Party - is now available in an English translation.
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Author: Lionel Shriver |
Category: Book |
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| Mat Johnson's 'Pym' re-imagines Poe's social satire |
(Wed, 09 Mar 2011)
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Hats off, please, to Mat Johnson, author of this wonderful, black-humored novel - part social satire, part meditation on race in America, part metafiction and, just as important, a rollicking fantasy adventure. "Pym" is outrageously entertaining, a book that brilliantly re-imagines and extends Ed...
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Author: Michael Dirda |
Category: Mat |
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| Book review: Sarah Pekkanen's 'Skipping a Beat' |
(Tue, 08 Mar 2011)
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The heroine of Sarah Pekkanen's second novel, "Skipping a Beat," is a 30-something party planner who lives in a multimillion-dollar mansion in Northern Virginia. When we first meet Julia Dunhill, she is finalizing the details for a fundraising event. Clad in three-inch Stuart Weitzman heels while...
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Author: Nancy Robertson |
Category: Book |
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| Five finalists for National Book Critics Circle award in poetry |
(Tue, 08 Mar 2011)
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The finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry, which will be given Thursday night, have little in common, except that each employs a distinct tool or perspective that pushes the margins of the genre. The result is like a smorgasbord, with flavors ranging from strong to subtle...
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Author: Elizabeth Lund |
Category: Five |
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| Book review: 'The Tiger's Wife' by Tea Obreht |
(Tue, 08 Mar 2011)
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Tea Obreht's swirling first novel, "The Tiger's Wife," draws us beneath the clotted tragedies in the Balkans to deliver the kind of truth that histories can't touch. Born in Belgrade in 1985 - no, that's not a typo - she captures the thirst for consecration that a century of war has left in that ...
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Author: Ron Charles |
Category: Book |
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| Book World: Keith Donohue reviews Kevin Brockmeier's novel 'The Illumination' |
(Tue, 08 Mar 2011)
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In a certain kind of story, life is altered by one degree: A man awakens one morning to find he has become an insect; everyone in a city suffers a plague of blindness; the perfect knight turns out to be an empty suit of armor. The fabulist changes one detail from our everyday existence as a way o...
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Author: Keith Donohue |
Category: Book |
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| Patrick Anderson reviews Keith Thomson's 'Twice a Spy' |
(Sun, 06 Mar 2011)
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As I read "Twice a Spy," Keith Thomson's stab at a humorous spy novel, I kept thinking of the old actor's last words: "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."
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Author: Patrick Anderson |
Category: Patrick |
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| Amid revolution, Arab cartoonists are drawing attention |
(Sun, 06 Mar 2011)
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It was August of 2006 when Dalia Ziada, a young Egyptian writer, discovered her favorite comic-book action hero. He trumpeted justice. He preached of nonviolent pressure. And he had dreams of a promised land that protest might bring.
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Author: Michael Cavna |
Category: Amid |
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(Fri, 04 Mar 2011)
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7 MONDAY | Noon. Regina A. Root, an associate professor of Hispanic studies at the College of William and Mary, discusses and signs her new book, "Couture and Consensus: Fashion and Politics in Postcolonial Argentina," at the Library of Congress, James Madison Bldg., Pickford Theater, 101...
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Author: Post |
Category: Amid |
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| The American Scholar's Wendy Smith reviews 'Ghost Light' by Joseph O'Connor |
(Fri, 04 Mar 2011)
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Molly Allgood, the heroine of Joseph O'Connor's moving new novel, was the lover of playwright John Synge; they were engaged to be married when he died from Hodgkin's disease at age 37. Under the stage name Maire O'Neill, she created the role of Pegeen in the original Abbey Theatre production of S...
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Author: Wendy Smith |
Category: The |
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| Joshua Foer's 'Moonwalking With Einstein,' on the nature of memory |
(Fri, 04 Mar 2011)
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Book review by It's hard to imagine a world in which all you can do with a thought is recall it: a world in which written words do not exist and the only way to hoard knowledge is to remember. That may sound like an extravagantly imagined story by Philip K. Dick, but once upon a time, long ago, b...
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Author: Marie Arana |
Category: Joshua |
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| Book reviews: Ben Katchor's 'The Cardboard Valise' and Joyce Farmer's 'Special Exits: A Gr aphic Memoir' |
(Fri, 04 Mar 2011)
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At a dingy shop in downtown Fluxion City, you can buy, for only $29.95, the suitcase of a desperate man. It's no Samsonite: 56 inches but made of cardboard, staples and glue, guaranteed for a mere six weeks, it's a valise for people who need to get out of town in a hurry and need a case big enoug...
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Author: Dan Kois |
Category: Book |
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| 3 books on New York City neighborhoods |
(Fri, 04 Mar 2011)
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"I Love New York" is not only a popular ad campaign to promote tourism in the Empire State. It also sums up the affection felt by millions who call the Big Apple home. Three new titles explore the city's diverse neighborhoods, history and charm.
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Author: Christopher Schoppa |
Category: 3 |
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| Bing West's "The Wrong War," on Afghanistan strategy |
(Fri, 04 Mar 2011)
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THE WRONG WAR Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan By Bing West Random House. 307 pp. $28 In a new book about the war in Afghanistan, distinguished military affairs writer Bing West argues that hazy objectives, bad political assumptions and a long strategic muddle have burned away wh...
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Author: Chris Bray |
Category: Bing |
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| Deb Olin Unferth's 'Revolution' |
(Fri, 04 Mar 2011)
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REVOLUTION The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War By Deb Olin Unferth Henry Holt. 208 pp. $24 Deb Olin Unferth met George at an anti-CIA protest. She quickly fell in love. When George, a passionately devout Christian and communist sympathizer, asked if she wanted to go to Nicaragua and ...
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Author: Stephen Lowman |
Category: Deb |
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| Dominic Sandbrook's "Mad as Hell," on rise of populist right |
(Fri, 04 Mar 2011)
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MAD AS HELL The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right By Dominic Sandbrook Knopf. 506 pp. $35 Dominic Sandbrook is a young British historian whose first book, the well-received "Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism" (2004), established the theme th...
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Author: Jonathan Yardley |
Category: Dominic |
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| "Townie," a memoir by Andre Dubus III |
(Fri, 04 Mar 2011)
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Townie A Memoir By Andre Dubus III Norton. 387 pp. $25.95 If you've ever been harassed or hurt by a bully, if you've ever dreamed of revenge, if you've ever crossed the line from dreaming to hitting back and felt a rush of relief and joy as you punished your enemy, then you're going to find a lot...
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Author: David Laskin |
Category: "Townie," |
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| "An Extravagant Hunger," about M.F.K. Fisher |
(Fri, 04 Mar 2011)
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AN EXTRAVAGANT HUNGER The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher By Anne Zimmerman Counterpoint. 261 pp. $26 M.F.K. Fisher's life was tumultuous. She never stayed in one place very long, had no shortage of marital strife and family tensions, and battled an oft-recurring sadness. But throughout, there ...
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Author: Sarah Halzack |
Category: "An |
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| Gordon Brown's "Beyond the Crash" |
(Fri, 04 Mar 2011)
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BEYOND THE CRASH Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalization By Gordon Brown Free Press. 314 pp. $26 For a brief, shining moment, the world stood together, and Gordon Brown was its voice. On an April afternoon in 2009, as global markets stared down the abyss and the specter of a second Great ...
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Author: Anthony Faiola |
Category: Gordon |
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| Jim Steinmeyer's "The Last Greatest Magician in the World" |
(Fri, 04 Mar 2011)
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THE LAST GREATEST MAGICIAN IN THE WOR LD Howard Thurston versus Houdini & the Battles of the American Wizards By Jim Steinmeyer Tarcher/Penguin. 377 pp. $26.95 Roll over, Houdini, and tell Orson Welles the news: Howard Thurston was the best magician of them all. Or so suggests Jim Steinme...
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Author: Dennis Drabelle |
Category: Jim |
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| Stephanie Staal's 'Reading Women': Looking to feminist texts to find herself |
(Thu, 03 Mar 2011)
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Author: Carolyn See |
Category: Stephanie |
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| Book review: 'Blood, Bones & Butter' delectable when chef Hamilton's in charge |
(Thu, 03 Mar 2011)
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Chef Gabrielle Hamilton's lyrical memoir, "Blood, Bones & Butter," lives up to the hype.
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Author: Joe Yonan |
Category: Book |
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| Book World: 'Mr. Chartwell' reviewed by Ron Charles |
(Tue, 01 Mar 2011)
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Surprisingly uplifting novel by Rebecca Hunt about Winston Churchill and the depression he suffered from most of his life, which he referred to as "the black dog."
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Author: Ron Charles |
Category: Book |
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| "Underground," a picture book by Shane W. Evans |
(Tue, 01 Mar 2011)
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Shane W. Evans's picture book "Underground" evokes the Underground Railroad for very young readers.
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Author: Post |
Category: "Underground," |
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| "Wheels of Change," a kids' history of women and bicycles |
(Tue, 01 Mar 2011)
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Sue Macy's children's book "Wheels of Change" explores the vast ways that bicycles affected women's lives in the 19th century.
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Author: Post |
Category: "Wheels |
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| "Strings Attached," a young adult mystery from Judy Blundell |
(Tue, 01 Mar 2011)
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National Book Award winner Judy Blundell returns with an intense young adult mystery.
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Author: Post |
Category: "Strings |
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| Book review: 'Playing Catch-Up' by A.B. Guthrie Jr. |
(Tue, 01 Mar 2011)
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In the 1940s and '50s, Montana writer A.B. Guthrie Jr. (1901-1991), was more than just a regional figure. His 1947 novel, "The Big Sky," earned him popular and critical acclaim; his next, "The Way West," won a Pulitzer Prize; and he wrote the screenplay for "Shane," one of the first "adult Wester...
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Author: Dennis Drabelle |
Category: Book |
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| Anna Mundow reviews 'Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer,' by Wesley Stace |
(Sun, 27 Feb 2011)
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Wesley Stace's new novel, "Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer," is at first glance a straightforward period thriller. On a summer night in 1923, three people are found dead in a London flat. Charles Jessold, a celebrated young composer, has apparently poisoned his wife and her lover and th...
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Author: Anna Mundow |
Category: Anna |
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| Deborah Lutz's "Pleasure Bound," on Victorian sex rebels |
(Sat, 26 Feb 2011)
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In "Pleasure Bound," Deborah Lutz takes readers on a tour of the eroticism of Victorian England.
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Author: Post |
Category: Deborah |
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| Philip K. Dick, the sci-fi writer who fires Hollywood's imagination in film after film |
(Sat, 26 Feb 2011)
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Philip K. Dick isn't really Hollywood's favorite dead author. It only seems that way.
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Author: Lewis Beale |
Category: Philip |
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| Judi Dench's wry, shy take on a glorious stage career |
(Sat, 26 Feb 2011)
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AND FURTHERMORE By Judi Dench as told to John Miller St. Martin's. 268 pp. $26.99 Suddenly, every time I point my TV remote, out jumps Dame Judi Dench. She twinkles as elderly ingenue Jean Hardcastle in the sitcom "As Time Goes By." She bosses crisply as "M," scolding James Bond as "a sexist mi...
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Author: Diana McLellan |
Category: Judi |
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(Fri, 25 Feb 2011)
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28 MONDAY | 7 P.M. Palestinian physician Izzeldin Abeulaish reads from and discusses his new memoir, "I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity," at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, 600 "Eye" St. NW in an event co-sponsored by Politics and Prose Bookstore....
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Author: Post |
Category: Judi |
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| Allison Pearson's 'I Think I Love You': A celebrity crush turns star-crossed |
(Fri, 25 Feb 2011)
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It is 1974, and 13-year-old Petra Williams of South Wales is worshipfully in love with far-off pop idol David Cassidy. Along with her kindest friend, Sharon, beneath posters of their androgynous heartthrob, they devour every adjective, every investigative nugget (favourite colour: brown; favourit...
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Author: Elinor Lipman |
Category: Allison |
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| A review of 'Crazy U,' by Andrew Ferguson, about his family's college admissions experience |
(Fri, 25 Feb 2011)
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In "Crazy U," Andrew Ferguson tries to reconcile the conflicting advice he and his son get on navigating the college admissions process.
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Author: Steven Levingston |
Category: A |
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| "The Natural Navigator" by Tristan Gooley |
(Fri, 25 Feb 2011)
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THE NATURAL NAVIGATOR A Watchful Explorer's Guide to a Nearly Forgotten Skill
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Author: Post |
Category: "The |
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| Douglas Waller's "Wild Bill Donovan," on the OSS spymaster |
(Fri, 25 Feb 2011)
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WILD BILL DONOVAN The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage By Douglas Waller Free Press 466 pp. $30 On the eve of the Normandy invasion in 1944, Gen. George C. Marshall, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Navy secretary James Forrestal all ordered Wi...
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Author: David Wise |
Category: Douglas |
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| Biography of Bogart examines his ongoing cultural impact |
(Fri, 25 Feb 2011)
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TOUGH WITHOUT A GUN The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart By Stefan Kanfer Knopf. 288 pp. $26.95 In 1997, the American Film Institute named Humphrey Bogart the "Greatest Male Star" in cinema history. The same year, Entertainment Weekly christened him the "Number One Movie Leg...
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Author: Carl Rollyson |
Category: Biography |
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| "Inherently Unequal" -- the sad history of the Supreme Court and civil rights |
(Fri, 25 Feb 2011)
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INHERENTLY UNEQUAL The Betrayal of Equal Rights by the Supreme Court, 1865-1903 By Lawrence Goldstone Walker. 242 pp. $26 "Constitutional law," Lawrence Goldstone says toward the end of "Inherently Unequal," "is . . . simply politics made incomprehensible to the common man." It's meant to be a...
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Author: Kevin Boyle |
Category: "Inherently |
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| Nicholas Delbanco's "Lastingness: the Art of Old Age" |
(Fri, 25 Feb 2011)
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LASTINGNESS The Art of Old Age By Nicholas Delbanco Grand Central 261 pp. $24.99 Nicholas Delbanco's new book examines creative achievement in old age, though the author acknowledges that our culture concerns itself primarily with the young. We seem, nonetheless, ambivalent about age, expecti...
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Author: Reeve Lindbergh |
Category: Nicholas |
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| Susan Conley's 'Good Fortune': Riveting memoir about being American in China |
(Thu, 24 Feb 2011)
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Beware of people who say they "love to travel," especially when they invite you on some glamorous excursion. My first husband, when we studied for a year in France, couldn't pronounce pamplemousse, and yet he craved grapefruit for breakfast. Every morning, I'd brave the contemptuous sneers of gre...
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Author: Carolyn See |
Category: Susan |
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| 'Gryphon: New and Selected Stories,' by Charles Baxter: Short but potent |
(Wed, 23 Feb 2011)
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Charles Baxter's short stories easily satisfy the genre's one nonnegotiable requirement: The central characters, through an encounter or an epiphany, must undergo some kind of transformation. What's most pleasurable, however, about the work-in-miniature by this celebrated American novelist ("The ...
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Author: Jeff Turrentine |
Category: 'Gryphon: |
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| Book review: 'The Death Instinct' by Jed Rubenfeld |
(Tue, 22 Feb 2011)
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On Sept. 16, 1920, a bomb hidden inside a horse-drawn carriage exploded in the heart of Manhattan's financial district, killing dozens of people. That long-forgotten bombing was the deadliest terrorist attack in New York's history until Sept. 11, 2001, when it became a renewed subject of curiosity.
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Author: Seth Stern |
Category: Book |
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| T. Coraghessan Boyle's 'When the Killing's Done,' an environmental novel |
(Tue, 22 Feb 2011)
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In his superbly marketed blockbuster "Freedom," Jonathan Franzen lectured at us for a long time about the dire plight of the environment. Readers who had been busy in another room during the past 50 years learned from his earnest hero that the population is exploding, pollution is poisoning rive...
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Author: Ron Charles |
Category: T. |
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| New in paperback: 'A Mountain of Crumbs' and more |
(Tue, 22 Feb 2011)
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Elena Gorokhova had many compelling reasons for fleeing the Soviet Union in 1980, but the one that finally pushed her over the edge was rather mundane: "It has to do with my mother," she explains in her memoir, A Mountain of Crumbs (Simon & Schuster, $15). Mundane perhaps, but also loaded...
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Author: Nora Krug |
Category: New |
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| Book review: Carsten Jensen's 'We, the Drowned' |
(Mon, 21 Feb 2011)
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WE, THE DROWNED By Carsten Jensen Translated from the Danish by Charlotte Barslund with Emma Ryder Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 678 pp. $28 When was the last time you relished sitting down with a 678-page Danish novel? "We, the Drowned" might just be too much book to tote to the beach next summer, ...
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Author: Peter Behrens |
Category: Book |
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| 'Tiger Mother' author faces a tough crowd at Politics and Prose |
(Sun, 20 Feb 2011)
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The monstrous, horrible Tiger Mother has reportedly entered the building, and the audience is getting restless.
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Author: Monica Hesse |
Category: 'Tiger |
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| 'The Collaborator': Taking on a modern-day Italian crime family |
(Sun, 20 Feb 2011)
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Immacolata Borelli, the quasi-heroine of Gerald Seymour's powerful new novel, is 25, tough, gorgeous and exceedingly spoiled. She's spoiled because she's the beloved daughter of the leaders of one of Naples's most powerful and ruthless crime families.
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Author: Patrick Anderson |
Category: 'The |
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| 'The History of History': An imaginative look at Berlin |
(Fri, 18 Feb 2011)
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Berlin, the least storied of the great European capitals, not much more than an oversize village as late as the 18th century, is today one of the most vibrant cities on the continent, though it has a ferocious 20th-century past: Nazi headquarters, Allied aerial bombardment, destruction by the Rus...
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Author: Ruth Kluger |
Category: 'The |
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(Fri, 18 Feb 2011)
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21 MONDAY | 7 P.M. Ariel Sabar, author of "My Father's Paradise" (a National Book Critics Circle Award winner), discusses and signs his new book, "Heart of the City: Nine Stories of Love and Serendipity on the Streets of New York," at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW, 202-364-1919.
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Author: Post |
Category: 'The |
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| Two books on blacks and the White House |
(Fri, 18 Feb 2011)
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The interaction of African Americans with American presidents and the first family is explored in two books, "The Black History of the White House" by Clarence Lusane and "Family of Freedom" by Kenneth T. Walsh.
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Author: Patricia Sullivan |
Category: Two |
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| Scott Brown's memoir, 'Against All Odds,' reveals troubled childhood for senator |
(Thu, 17 Feb 2011)
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"Against All Odds," the new memoir from Scott Brown, the Massachusetts senator who took Ted Kennedy's seat, reveals a troubled childhood filled with abuse.
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Author: Steven Levingston |
Category: Scott |
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| Kenneth Slawenski's biography of J.D. Salinger |
(Thu, 17 Feb 2011)
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J. D. SALINGER A Life By Kenneth Slawenski Random House. 450 pp. $27 Kenneth Slawenski broadens our understanding of the personal and literary life of a remarkable American writer in his biography "J.D. Salinger." Although sometimes careless with language and facts, Slawenski unearths new deta...
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Author: Roger Lathbury |
Category: Kenneth |
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| Yardley reviews Jonathan Gill's "Harlem" |
(Thu, 17 Feb 2011)
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HARLEM The Four Hundred Year History from Dutch Village to Capital of Black America By Jonathan Gill Grove. 520 pp. $29.95 In September 1609 the English explorer Henry Hudson, en route - or so he hoped - to China in a ship belonging to the Dutch East India Company and called the Half Moon, ste...
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Author: Jonathan Yardley |
Category: Yardley |
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| Mary Cappello's "Swallow" |
(Thu, 17 Feb 2011)
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SWALLOW Foreign Bodies, Their Ingestion, Inspiration, and the Curious Doctor Who Extracted Them By Mary Cappello New Press. 292 pp. $27.95 A 7-year-old girl has been unable to drink liquids for a week after she burned her throat by swallowing lye. Gently working his forceps, Dr. Chevalier Jackson...
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Author: T. Rees Shapiro |
Category: Mary |
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| Peter Bergen's "The Longest War" |
(Thu, 17 Feb 2011)
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THE LONGEST WAR The Enduring Conflict Between America and al-Qaeda By Peter L. Bergen Free Press 473 pp. $28 Is al-Qaeda still a threat to America? In his important history of the war on terrorism, "The Longest War," Peter Bergen aims to reassure his readers that al-Qaeda is significantly wea...
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Author: Jessica Stern |
Category: Peter |
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| 3 books about iconic artists |
(Thu, 17 Feb 2011)
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Brimming with both vagueness and import, the label "iconic" has been slapped on everything from fashion to corporate logos, public buildings to television characters. When applied to art, which actually brings us back to the word's Greek and Latin roots, the term takes on an added luster. In the ...
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Author: Post |
Category: 3 |
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| Book review: 'George Gershwin,' a new biography by Larry Starr |
(Thu, 17 Feb 2011)
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GEORGE GERSHWIN By Larry Starr Yale Univ. 194 pp. $45 It is a truth universally acknowledged that George Gershwin (1898-1937) wrote some irresistible melodies. After that, the debate begins. Was Gershwin an inspired tunesmith, pure and simple, who nevertheless remained a rank amateur when he at...
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Author: Tim Page |
Category: Book |
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| The Peace Corps at 50 |
(Thu, 17 Feb 2011)
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WHEN THE WORLD CALLS The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and Its First Fifty Years By Stanley Meisler Beacon. 272 pp. $26.95 In 2008 Christiane Amanpour illustrated America's declining role in the world by telling a foreign policy conference, "There was a Peace Corps." After the session a form...
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Author: Steven V. Roberts |
Category: The |
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| 'The Word Exchange' book review: Old English poetry isn't lost in translation |
(Wed, 16 Feb 2011)
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J.R.R. Tolkien once described "Beowulf" - and by extension much of Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, poetry - as "a drink dark and bitter: a solemn funeral-ale with the taste of death." He further emphasized - in his scholarly essay "The Monsters and the Critics" - what he called the "unrecapturable m...
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Author: Michael Dirda Special to the Washington Post |
Category: 'The |
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| Books: Eleanor Brown's 'The Weird Sisters,' reviewed by Ron Charles |
(Tue, 15 Feb 2011)
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This smart, hopeful novel by Washington-born author Eleanor Brown will be the winter's tale for any book lover who likes her entertainment laced with a touch of Shakespeare. A family drama, gracefully costumed in academic garb and lit with warm comedy, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. F...
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Author: Ron Charles |
Category: Books: |
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| 5 books about words |
(Tue, 15 Feb 2011)
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Want to create an impromptu singalong? Just stand in a room of Gen X adults and let loose with "Conjunction Junction." I had a mom I'd never spoken with belting out, "What's your function? Hooking up words and phrases and clauses," baffling my son's young teacher. "Schoolhouse Rock" aside, though...
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Author: Yvonne Zipp |
Category: 5 |
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| "A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear," |
(Tue, 15 Feb 2011)
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The first time I went to Afghanistan, a woman I met told me about her grandfather, who had been dragged from her side and arrested in Kabul during the time of communist rule. He reappeared two years later, his nails ripped from his fingers, a hole burned through his tongue. Broken but brave, he m...
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Author: Masha Hamilton |
Category: "A |
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| Book review: 'While Mortals Sleep' by Kurt Vonnegut |
(Mon, 14 Feb 2011)
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The late Kurt Vonnegut was one of the great humanist voices of the 20th century. A former prisoner of war and a witness to the firebombing of Dresden in 1945, he was also a profoundly pessimistic man with a bleak worldview fueled by what he described as "disgust with civilization." Paradoxically,...
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Author: William Sheehan |
Category: Book |
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| Performing opera version of 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' |
(Mon, 14 Feb 2011)
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Like books on tape? What about books in song? Azar Nafisi's bestselling memoir " Reading Lolita in Tehran " has been made into an opera by University of Maryland doctoral student and composer Elisabeth Mehl Greene. Nafisi's book and the opera chronicle a reading group the author started for female...
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Author: Post |
Category: Performing |
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| Book review: Hackneyed rules of suspense disappear in Hayder's 'Gone' |
(Sun, 13 Feb 2011)
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The cover of Mo Hayder's latest novel, "Gone," shows the back of a little girl on a tricycle, pedaling off into the void. Not promising. Putting together the other available clues (the none-too-subtle title of the book, the plot summary on the book jacket), I deduced that this was yet another sus...
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Author: Maureen Corrigan |
Category: Book |
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| Andrew Taylor's 'Anatomy of Ghosts': Strange sightings in 18th-century England |
(Fri, 11 Feb 2011)
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Andrew Taylor's brooding thriller opens with two tantalizing vignettes. First, a distraught, unnamed woman flees through the dark streets of Cambridge, England, fumbling for the key to a garden refuge. Then the scene shifts to a blasphemous "Last Supper" on the evening of Feb. 16, 1786, at which ...
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Author: Wendy Smith |
Category: Andrew |
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| Conservatives queue up for peek at 'Atlas Shrugged' at CPAC |
(Fri, 11 Feb 2011)
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Here at the Marriott Wardman Park, site of CPAC, the largest annual gathering of conservatives in the nation, there are many intriguing sessions. Should you pop in on "Engaging America Through Conservative Pop Culture" led by Stephen Baldwin (a.k.a. the chunky one)? Should you have a chat with th...
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Author: Monica Hesse |
Category: Conservatives |
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(Fri, 11 Feb 2011)
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14 MONDAY | 12:30 P.M. Jane Hampton Cook , a former webmaster at the White House and a co-author of "Battlefields & Blessings: Stories of Faith and Courage From the War in Iraq & Afghanistan," reads from and discusses her new children's picture book, "What Does the President Look Like?"...
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Author: Post |
Category: Conservatives |
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| Book World: Michael Oher's 'I Beat the Odds' is story of redemption |
(Fri, 11 Feb 2011)
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I BEAT THE ODDS From Homelessness to the Blind Side and Beyond By Michael Oher with Don Yaeger Gotham. 250 pp. $26 By the time Michael Oher got around to telling it, The Michael Oher Story was already well-known and seemingly devoid of new angles. Oher, an African American who plays offensive ...
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Author: Dave Sheinin |
Category: Book |
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| Two books on the Arctic |
(Fri, 11 Feb 2011)
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THE MAGNETIC NORTH Notes from the Arctic Circle By Sara Wheeler Farrar Straus Giroux. 315 pp. $26 THE GREAT WHITE BEAR A Natural and Unnatural History of the Polar Bear By Kieran Mulvaney Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 251 pp. $26 The Arctic, which is the subject of Sara Wheeler's smashing new...
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Author: Dennis Drabelle |
Category: Two |
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| Joyce Carol Oates's "A Widow's Story" |
(Fri, 11 Feb 2011)
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A WIDOW'S STORY A Memoir By Joyce Carol Oates Ecco. 415 pp. $27.99 Is it perverse to suggest that Joyce Carol Oates's memoir of widowhood is as enthralling as it is painful? Oates has always focused her writing so intensely that virtually all her prose is compelling, but this brave account of ...
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Author: Valerie Sayers |
Category: Joyce |
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| "The Sublime Engine," about the human heart |
(Fri, 11 Feb 2011)
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THE SUBLIME ENGINE A Biography of the Human Heart By Stephen Amidon and Thomas Amidon Rodale. 242 pp. $24.99 More than any other body part, the human heart has both baffled and awed generations of doctors, priests, poets and ordinary people. Not even the brain evokes such complex reactions, Step...
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Author: Becky Krystal |
Category: "The |
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| "The Letters of Bruce Chatwin" |
(Fri, 11 Feb 2011)
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UNDER THE SUN The Letters of Bruce Chatwin Selected and edited by Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare Viking. 554 pp. $35 With the publication in 1977 of his first book, "In Patagonia," the virtually unknown British writer Bruce Chatwin became an instant literary celebrity, and remained...
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Author: Jonathan Yardley |
Category: "The |
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| "The Hemlock Cup," a history of Socrates |
(Fri, 11 Feb 2011)
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THE HEMLOCK CUP Socrates, Athens, and the Search for the Good Life By Bettany Hughes Knopf. 484 pp. $35 When Bettany Hughes published her study of Helen of Troy in 2005, skeptics had good cause for doubt that anything worthwhile could be made out of such a hackneyed and intangible subject - an...
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Author: Steve Donoghue |
Category: "The |
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| "Spousonomics," by Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson, applies economics to marriage. |
(Fri, 11 Feb 2011)
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SPOUSONOMICS Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes By Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson Random House. 332 pp. $26 Comparing marriage to a business doesn't sound very romantic. But in "Spousonomics" journalists Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson make a convincing - and creative...
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Author: Lisa Bonos |
Category: "Spousonomics," |
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| Arnold Weinstein's "Morning, Noon, and Night," on literature's lifelong effects |
(Fri, 11 Feb 2011)
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MORNING, NOON, AND NIGHT Finding the Meaning of Life's Stages Through Books By Arnold Weinstein Random House. 442 pp. $27 If there is a riddle attached to the riddle of the Sphinx, it is why no one but Oedipus was smart enough to solve it. Luckily for readers, Arnold Weinstein has made more of...
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Author: Roger Rosenblatt |
Category: Arnold |
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| 'Moneymakers' review: Truly fun tales of 19th-century counterfeiters |
(Thu, 10 Feb 2011)
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Books, as we know, make perfect presents, but sometimes our friends and family aren't as perfect as the books are. Relatives tend to be unnervingly idiosyncratic, and they often like our carefully chosen titles about as much as they like broccoli.
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Author: Carolyn See |
Category: 'Moneymakers' |
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| Book World: A chess master who defeated himself |
(Wed, 09 Feb 2011)
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Geniuses are thick on the ground - just ask the MacArthur Foundation , which chooses a couple of dozen new ones each year. Any field, after all, has its divas, maestros, "chers maitres" and award-winners. Every so often, though, truly original, almost mutant talents appear, of such power and...
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Author: Michael Dirda |
Category: Book |
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| Redwall author Brian Jacques dead at 71 |
(Wed, 09 Feb 2011)
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Sometimes the news makes us sad. That's certainly the case today because a great children's author, Brian Jacques, died last week. He was 71.
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Author: Post |
Category: Redwall |
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| Review of Benjamin Hale's 'Evolution of Bruno Littlemore': Aping human love |
(Tue, 08 Feb 2011)
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These are hairy times for fans of simian fiction. The autobiography of Tarzan's sidekick , " Me Cheeta ," was mildly amusing, but Sara Gruen's silly " Ape House " left me dragging my knuckles on the floor, and Laurence Gonzales's " Lucy " read like something thrown out between the bars. Now, though,...
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Author: Ron Charles |
Category: Review |
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| Five books for Valentine's Day |
(Tue, 08 Feb 2011)
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It's almost upon us: the most romantic day of the year - or the biggest con job since P.T. Barnum, depending on your view of Feb. 14. (Still, some of us will accept any excuse to eat chocolate.) It's also the season for love stories, poems and cards dripping glitter and sentiment. While these fiv...
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Author: Yvonne Zipp |
Category: Five |
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| Anna Mundow reviews 'The Winter Ghosts' by 'Labyrinth' author Kate Mosse |
(Tue, 08 Feb 2011)
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In her 2005 blockbuster, "Labyrinth," Kate Mosse plunged her protagonist into a cave in the French Pyrenees that turned out to be a portal to the medieval past. The plot abounded in skeletons and secret symbols that eventually revealed the fate of the region's Cathar people and - somewhat predict...
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Author: Anna Mundow |
Category: Anna |
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| Donald Rumsfeld quiz: Do you know 'Known and Unknown'? |
(Tue, 08 Feb 2011)
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Author: washingtonpost.com |
Category: Donald |
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| Gwen Ifill reviews Donald Rumsfeld's memoir, "Known and Unknown" |
(Tue, 08 Feb 2011)
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By definition, memoirists get to tell their stories the way they remember them. The retellings can be gentle or scorching, illuminating or concealing.
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Author: Gwen Ifill |
Category: Gwen |
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| Dan Fesperman reviews 'Donald,' by Eric Martin and Stephen Elliott |
(Tue, 08 Feb 2011)
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It is tempting at first to dismiss "Donald" as a mere literary guerrilla action, a publication-day ambush by two clever writers whose narrative voice, to their credit, may sound more authentically like Donald Rumsfeld than the former defense secretary's memoir.
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Author: Dan Fesperman |
Category: Dan |
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| Author Allison Pearson sings the song of the modern mom |
(Sun, 06 Feb 2011)
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Allison Pearson, author of the blockbuster "I Don't Know How She Does It," has a new work, "I Think I Love You," in which she explores the early crushes that shape what woman become.
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Author: Monica Hesse |
Category: Author |
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| Book World: Patrick Anderson reviews 'The Devotion of Suspect X' |
(Sun, 06 Feb 2011)
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Early crime fiction often invited the reader to match wits with the writer. Edgar Allan Poe invented the detective genre with his 1841 story " The Murders in the Rue Morgue ," in which his hero deduces how two women were brutally slain in a fourth-floor room in which the windows and doors were...
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Author: Patrick Anderson |
Category: Book |
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| Going Out Guide: Free & easy |
(Sun, 06 Feb 2011)
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MONDAY Nora Titone book signing The author of "My Thoughts Be Bloody," a biography of John Wilkes Booth, reads and signs copies of her book at the same theater where Booth assassinated President Lincoln. 7 p.m. Ford's Theatre, 511 10th St. NW. 202-397-7328. www.fordstheatre.org . TUESDAY 'Whisk...
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Author: Post |
Category: Going |
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| Allen Shawn's memoir "Twin" |
(Sun, 06 Feb 2011)
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In his memoir "Twin," Allen Shawn ponders the life of his twin autistic sister, Mary.
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Author: Post |
Category: Allen |
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