Reading
Reading
Goon Squad Leader
Meet Jennifer Egan, Book Fest headliner, Pulitzer Prize-winner and Virgo-style perfectionist
November 1st, 2012
Jennifer Egan considers herself a late bloomer, partly because she was working as a typist to pay bills while other future authors were getting advanced degrees in creative writing. At 50, the Brooklynite with a “real Catholic schoolgirl personality” feels behind in terms of prolific output, having only written four novels, a short story collection, journalism for The New York Times Magazine and short fiction for magazines such as The New Yorker, Harper’s and McSweeney’s. Read more »
Reading
Vegas Valley Book Festival Guide
November 1st, 2012
After a fall season rich in pre-festival panels, writing contests and author readings, the Vegas Valley Book Festival is finally here. This year’s literary extravaganza offers more than 150 “authors and events,” although we’re not sure how that author-to-event ratio works out. Read more »
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Betcha Can’t Read it Just Once
Vegas Valley Book Fest’s star kids’ author on the search for the ‘again’
November 1st, 2012
If you have kids, you’re probably familiar with children’s author David Shannon—you might even be able recite his books from memory, having read them aloud, again and again. Shannon is the internationally acclaimed author and illustrator of more than 30 picture books, including the award-winning No, David! (Blue Sky Press, 1998). Read more »
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Balanced Contradictions
Navajo artist and Book Fest poster creator Landis Bahe brings two worlds into visual harmony
November 1st, 2012
In the Navajo language there is no word for art. The nearest translation is “hózhó.” “It means being harmonious with everything,” explains Landis Bahe, the soft-spoken, 34-year-old, “full-blooded Navajo” who was chosen from 47 local artists to create this year’s Vegas Valley Book Festival posters. Read more »
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Can’t-Miss Book Fest Events
November 1st, 2012
First Friday Poetry Stage: Live From The Las Vegas Arts District. Poet/lawyer Dayvid Figler collected Vegas- and downtown-inspired haikus for a celebrity guest to recite. (6-9 p.m. Nov. 2, Boulder Plaza Park, 1047 S. Main St.) Read more »
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When Comics Came to Vegas
Our intrepid writer delves into a weekend of competing comic cons—costumes not included
October 4th, 2012
The crowd is packed into Body English at the Hard Rock on the opening night of MorrisonCon, whipped up through a combination of booze, British jams from the ’80s and ’90s and almost an hour and a half of waiting for comic-book writer Grant Morrison to appear alongside My Chemical Romance front man Gerard Way. Read more »
Book Jacket
An exploration of Parenting Dazzles
October 4th, 2012
There’s an interesting backstory to Michael Chabon’s new book, Telegraph Avenue (Harper, $28). Chabon conceived the story as a television series, an hourlong dramedy about two connected families set against the social and cultural history of politically charged Berkeley and Oakland, Calif., the birthplace of the Black Panthers. Read more »
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Librarian Loves
Selected by Jeanne Goodrich, executive director for the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District.
October 4th, 2012
In this hot and heavy political season, The New York Times columnist Gail Collins’ latest book, As Texas Goes… How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda (Liveright, $26), is a must read. Read more »
Reading
Geek Massive
Two big comic shows draw Las Vegas into the national spotlight
September 27th, 2012
This weekend, Las Vegas may finally land on the national comic-book scene with not one, but two new comic conventions. The serendipitous double booking of Las Vegas Comic Expo and MorrisonCon could make up for the fact that Sin City hasn’t yet snagged Comic-Con International from America’s Finest City. Read more »
Reading
My Dinner With the Gang Bang Queen
Porn legend Houston makes a comeback, writes a book and satisfies her appetites at a Mexican restaurant
September 20th, 2012
Surely I’ve wandered into a Fellini film. That would explain why I’m meeting a porn star at a restaurant on Norman Rockwell Lane. Or how, in a booth across from the porn star—who once cheerily accommodated 620 men in one day—I gaze down at an entrée of spread-open tacos. Read more »
