One in three book reviews is a fake
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September 24, 2013

Biu Ling, a data-mining expert at the New York Times, estimates one in three book reviews is a fake. More than a year ago, the New York Times reported on the best book reviews money can buy. Further investigations into how authors buy their way onto bestselling book lists resulted in the Wall Street Journal publishing a news report earlier this year on how the… [Read More]

Kindness for Weakness
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July 6, 2013

Kindness becomes weakness as boys become men in a place where violence is the solution to every problem. In Shawn Goodman’s new novel, 15-year-old James finds himself in an upstate detention center after his brother recruited him into drug trafficking. It’s a coming of age story set in a second chances plot. More Fight Club than Catcher in the Rye, Kindness for Weakness captures the… [Read More]

Prose: Good, Better, Best
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June 4, 2013

Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd have co-authored Good Prose: The Art of Non-Fiction and opened a window into writing and editing, writer and editor. Author of Strength in What Remains, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World, Tracy Kidder won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1981 non-fiction narrative, The Soul of a New Machine. Kidder established… [Read More]

Death in the Baltic: WWII Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff
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April 9, 2013

Horst Woit, a young boy, snatched his uncle’s jack knife from the kitchen table as he and his mother walked out the door of their home.  They trudged through the snow  and freezing weather toward the Baltic harbor where they boarded a ship named the Wilhelm Gustloff to flee from Nazi Germany while Stalin’s soldiers advanced on the Eastern Front in January 1945. When Alexander… [Read More]

Guy Kawasaki Wants You to De-Wimp Your Author Brand
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February 2, 2013

If you are working towards publication and own an eReader, chances are there’s a copy of APE: Author Publisher Entrepreneur sitting on your Nook. It’s a manifesto on the art of self-promotion and marketing books aimed at the self-published author, but it’s making waves for wordsmiths of all publication inclination. Its author, Guy Kawasaki, wrote most of this bestselling eBook from a 5-by-5 closet of… [Read More]

Homegrown Honey Bees: Book to Buzz
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December 15, 2012

So it’s cold outside. Steep a cup of tea and put in a teaspoon of pure, local, raw honey. Then take a sip, close your eyes, and feel that warm golden glow. Give thanks for the angels of agriculture: bees. Homegrown Honey Bees: Beekeeping Your First Year, from Hiving to Honey Harvest by Alethea Morrison is an introduction to beekeeping and a recruitment tool for… [Read More]

Agorafabulous: Dispatches from my Bedroom
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October 6, 2012

“When I was seventeen years old, I met the hottest guy…,”so begins Sara Benincasa‘s memoir about a boy who would never pick her as his girlfriend. “Kevin entered a new high school in a new town and was immediately nominated for Best Looking, Most Likely to Succeed, and Best Personality – stunning trifecta of high school laurels… Then, one night in the spring, he walked… [Read More]

Familiar by J. Robert Lennon
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September 22, 2012

J. Robert Lennon makes the surreal perfectly plausible with his eye for details from observed everyday reality in his new novel, Familiar, to be released on October 2, by Graywolf Press. The clarity of his prose offers the reader a fresh, stark, and swift opening that situates the reader’s sympathies with the main character, Elisa Brown. Driving across Wisconsin, she recalls her sons’ early years… [Read More]

Immortal Bird: A Family Memoir by Doron Weber
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September 4, 2012

In June I had the good fortune to celebrate my father’s 80th birthday with a visit to Minnesota and a reunion of cousins. That my Midwestern family likes to read good books became self-evident during my visit home. Dad’s office is an entire room lined with bookshelves. His well worn copies of Will & Ariel Durant’s The History of Civilization, William Shirer’s The Third Reich,… [Read More]

Leigh Stein’s “Dispatch from the Future”
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August 28, 2012

“Have you ever been in love? Have you ever dreamed of revenge? Have you ever felt like no one knows who or where you are, and so your body may never be discovered? Have you ever wanted for a night to never end? Have you ever wanted to run away? Have you ever gone outside and seen the sky?” In an interview with girlslikegiants.wordpress.com, Leigh… [Read More]