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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

Brilliant images can't lift Mr. Dangerous's gloom

Graphic grief
You've got to wonder why graphic novels are always so depressing.

By: STUART ALLEN | June 08, 2011

A poet faces the abyss

Les is more
Depression: the mind grapples — the culture grapples — to frame it. Serotonin hiccup? Existential banana-skin? Anger blow-back? Fall from grace?

By: JAMES PARKER | June 08, 2011

Ann Patchett finds her readers

Up the Amazon
Ann Patchett forever endeared herself to Bostonians with her 2007 novel, Run, a lyrical take on the Kennedys and crisp New England winters.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | June 01, 2011

Eli Pariser is interviewed by Ethan Zuckerman about his new book

Eli Pariser talks about The Filter Bubble

News feeding
When he was executive director of the progressive advocacy organization Move On, Eli Pariser had the chance to meet lots of fellow liberals. But he had fewer conservative friends, and he worried he was missing out on their perspectives on political and social issues.

By: ETHAN ZUCKERMAN | May 26, 2011

Rob Bell freaks out evangelicals

Saved by the bell
Saved by the bell

By: S. I. ROSENBAUM | May 23, 2011

Daniel Orozco gets to work

On the jobs
"Temporary Stories," the eighth entry in Daniel Orozco's debut collection, Orientation (Faber and Faber), is a gem and a killer.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | August 08, 2011

Larry Flynt on the end of days, and why politicians can't keep it in their pants

Great hustle
Larry Flynt is no stranger to religious freaks. He's been one himself — converted aboard his private jet, back in 1977, by Jimmy Carter's sister.

By: SCOTT FAYNER | May 19, 2011

Chris Adrian's tragic enchantments

Magic night
Chris Adrian's novels puff you full of delight, then rip your heart out. Adrian's a sadist, maybe. Or maybe he's got the biggest heart of any living writer, so big that it can hold the sweetest thoughts alongside shame and also death — real death, in all its devastation and splendor.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | May 10, 2011

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