From 50 years and 3,000 miles away, Larry King can laugh about how South Florida nearly ended his broadcasting career before it really began, but it didn't seem that funny at the time. He was working the overnight shift at a little Miami Beach radio station when the phone rang.
Love it or loathe it, our paparazzi/camera phone culture has made it all but impossible for modern-day celebrities to keep scandalous secrets. Not so the Victorians. Charles Dickens' 13-year relationship with young Nelly Ternan remained hidden from view not merely throughout his later life but for some seven decades after his death, only emerging in 1939 with the publication...
An exile tries to stay human in a cruel boarding home.
Mayhem and madness crisscross Florida in a journalist's first novel.
So you think you're a natural-born filmmaker who was put on this earth to direct movies? Join the club, pal. With the advent of cheap cameras, the Internet and online video-sharing sites like YouTube and BitTorrent, practically everybody is an aspiring Spielberg or Fellini these days.
Maybe, in the afterlife, we will relive every experience we've ever had, only with all similar moments grouped together (the seven months you spend having sex will inevitably be more fun than the six weeks you wait for a green light). Or maybe we finally learn that our free-market capitalist society has allowed us to buy a hereafter that sells what we most hunger for: better abs, perhaps, or jet packs and free-flowing booze. Or maybe we discover there are many gods, with one controlling bubble gum...
Ian Vasquez examines the common themes of sibling rivalry and family secrets to deliver a thoughtful look at unbridled ambition and failed dreams. While Vasquez's debut In the Heat used the tenets of the private detective novel, Lonesome Point firmly proves his affinity for a gripping noir tale. Heat was a good debut, but Lonesome Point succeeds on an even higher level.
Entertaining novel poses the question: If everything is pointless, what matters to us most?
A man with a four-month migraine examines pain.
``My Judy Garland Life by Susie Boyt. It's an extraordinary account of the author's lifelong obsession with Judy Garland, which is very revealing about what coping strategies people use to get through life. It's wonderfully well written.''
THURSDAY Garth Stein and The Art of Racing in the Rain. 7 p.m. Books & Books, 9700 Collins Ave., Bal Harbour Shops. Jill Ciment and Heroic Measures. 8 p.m. Books & Books, Gables.
Like a lot of readers, Kimberly Field likes and laments her new Kindle. On one hand, the in-demand electronic device solves a problem common to fans of novels and nonfiction: too many books, not enough bookshelves.
FAMILY CONNECTIONS RUN DEEP IN THIS EXPLORATION OF HISTORY, WAR AND JUDGMENT
This innovative novel has a black sense of humor.
The characters are finely drawn in this novel about power and love.
During its original release in a series of standard-format comics, this elegiac visual tone poem engendered a decidedly mixed response from its audience. Though some eagerly deconstructed it with expansive and incisive panel-by-panel analyses and annotations, Morrison's dense but playful meta-text baffled and angered others who demanded a more linear story. But Bruce (Batman) Wayne became a thing...
An SI writer turns his talents to the famous Wimbledon final of 2008.
The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington. Jennet Conant. Read by Simon Prebble. HighBridge. 11 hours. $34.95. Audible.com download, $24.47.
This thriller alternates between events of 1991 and 1692.
``The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly. . . . His richly textured, well researched novels are exciting and entertaining, and they provide illumination and insight into a corner of our culture, making Mr. Connelly the perfect blend of reporter and novelist. The scariest aspects of The Scarecrow don't involve serial killers, but the demise of newspapers and print journalism.''
TUESDAY Charles Martin and Where the River Ends. 8 p.m. Books & Book, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables. WEDNESDAY Bethenny Frankel and Naturally Thin: Unleash Your Skinnygirl. 8 p.m. Books & Books, Gables.
On a spring day in 2006, as the sun set on the Duke University campus, novelist Kaye Gibbons strode across the lawn. She had just finished speaking at the Festival of the Book, and two of her three daughters trailed behind her.
The dark gothic world of Carlos Ruiz Zafon resurfaces in this story of obsession with literature
Norman Ollestad recounts a free-wheeling, surf-and-ski life and a father who taught him the skills he would later need to survive.
Famous poet's life reads like a Gothic scandal sheet
Deon Davis didn't set out to write a book about her gay teenage son. It began as a diary she kept during her struggle to accept him.
Even though she has lived in the Sunshine State for nine years, Lisa Unger's characters often end up in places far from it: for instance, Europe.
The myth about 'real America' crumbles with this study of drug addiction.
Though John Burnside's The Glister is the rare novel that carries a sense of dread on every page, the plot is eerily elusive. It seems to be about a small coastal town known as the Innertown in, possibly, Burnside's native Scotland, where every year or so, a boy disappears.
Who can afford to get out of town this summer? A more budget-friendly option is to bring a book (or three) to the beach and spend your time traveling in your imagination. Here are some options to fill the season's days.
``I am in the middle of rereading an old favorite, A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh's devastatingly funny, ultimately shocking satire of civilization andsociety. It's incredibly breezy reading with a dark underbelly, a page-turnerwith claws and fangs, and even on this, my fourth time through it, I amstill blown away by the book's breathtaking, sharp brilliance.''
TUESDAY Joe Scarborough and The Last Best Hope. 7:30 p.m. Temple Judea, 5500 Granada Blvd., Coral Gables. For Books & Books. WEDNESDAY
''Think fantastic,'' urges the charismatic Chuck Ramkissoon, the shady but genial Trinidadian entrepreneur in Joseph O'Neill's prize-winning novel Netherland. ``My motto is, Think fantastic.''
Vampires typically roam the fogged streets of London or the humid nights of New Orleans, opulent worlds filled with beautiful monsters and formal balls.
ORDINARY PEOPLE FIND THEIR SAFE HAVENS ONE WAY OR ANOTHER IN THESE 12 GEMS FROM JEAN THOMPSON
Tragedy changes the lives of two carefree models in Shanghai.
Too much hyperbole muddles a potentially good story.
Fans of the Southern Vampire Series will find themselves in familiar territory.
Coming-of-age tales generally center on the teenage years, but Gruley's first novel charts the sudden awakening of 34-year-old Gus Carpenter to the world around him.
Gwen Merchant believes she has the perfect marriage. Until her college sweetheart walks up behind her in an ice-cream shop and orders two scoops of her. Suddenly, Gwen is wondering what her life would have been like if she hadn't refused to answer Elliot Hull's calls after a fight over something she can't even remember.
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