Reading
Book Jacket
Have a seat at Ondaatje’s masterful Cat’s Table
October 27th, 2011
Michael Ondaatje’s new book, The Cat’s Table (Knopf Publishing Group, $26), is poetic, elegiac and thoughtful—all qualities I admire in an autobiography. Except The Cat’s Table is no mere memoir. It’s fiction, Ondaatje assures us, despite the many similarities to his own childhood. Read more »
The Latest Thought
Bound for Glory
Why the humble book has a future, after all
October 20th, 2011
Books put their arms around us and help carry us over the inevitable. They provide the gentle, slow companionship of those who have been there already. Books are permanent group therapy writ large across the face of centuries. Their characters confide moments of weakness, the rush of power and crush of defeat. They provide us a crowd of people who have fought, despaired and desired, who have wondered and wandered, lost something and found it again. Read more »
Librarian Loves
All Your Base Are Belong to Us
Selected by Jeanne Goodrich, executive director for the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District.
October 20th, 2011
Author Harold Goldberg provides a rollicking account of the history and development of this addictive cultural phenomenon. Read more »
Book Jacket
Ernest Cline’s video game odyssey earns the high score By M. Scott Krause
October 20th, 2011
Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One (Crown Publishers, $24) is a cheeky, geeky gamer’s delight, a simultaneous celebration of escapist video games and 1980s popular culture. It’s an epic quest for a billion-dollar treasure, played out in virtual reality, led by a chunky high-schooler named Wade Watts, complete with evil villains, a requisite love interest, and a soundtrack by Rush, Oingo Boingo and the Smiths. Read more »
Reading
Sites to See
October 13th, 2011
Homeboy Got 50 Pair (NiceKicks.com) Travelin’ Matt (NomadicMatt.com) Free Hands (FreewareGenius.com) Read more »
Reading
Out of the Shadows
New revelations about Caravaggio, rogue, murderer and brilliant painter
September 29th, 2011
Michelangelo da Caravaggio was not, technically, a Renaissance man—that era was over by the time he was born, in 1571—but he was, by all accounts, a versatile pain in the ass. The painter was a punk. He bragged. He went for broke. He beat people up, and people beat him up. To the same degree that he lacked a neighborly disposition, Caravaggio also lacked a business sense, a noble decency, a funnybone and an inclination to pick up the tab. Read more »
Reading
Comic Curators
How one small business is taking art beyond the Arts District
September 22nd, 2011
A new art gallery has opened its doors in Las Vegas, complete with a celebration featuring spoken word by Harry Fagel and live music from Rushmore Beekeepers. Read more »
Reading
You Are the Model?
A chapter excerpt from the new book by Penn & Teller’s stupidly larger half: God, No! Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales
September 15th, 2011
Penn & Teller are the guys who wear gray suits. The articles always say we wear matching gray business suits, but we’ve never worn matching gray business suits. Read more »
Librarian Loves
A Duty to the Dead is the first in a relatively new mystery series set during World War I
September 8th, 2011
Selected by Jeanne Goodrich, executive director for the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District. Read more »
Bookini
Devour Glen Duncan’s delectable tale of a world-weary werewolf
September 8th, 2011
A book person I know, whose opinion I trust and respect, sidled up to me a few months ago and told me to keep my eyes out for Glen Duncan’s The Last Werewolf (Alfred A. Knopf, $26). Read more »
