Jul

30

Book ‘Em: The Truth Is In Here.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

July 30, 2007 | 1 Comment

Bat Boy Lives! by David Perel and the Editors of The Weekly World News
 
It may be departing from grocery store magazine racks, but The Weekly World News will live on in a major collection of the very best articles from over the years: Bat Boy Lives! collects the articles that first reported events […]

Jul

27

Bye Bye, Bat Boy!

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

July 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment

The Weekly World News, which is one of the few magazines I find myself actually tempted to buy while standing in the supermarket checkout line, is ceasing publication. They’ll maintain their online version, but the old familiar paper edition, with its headlines about the Angel of Death visiting Earth, Mother Nature endorsing Al Gore’s presidency, […]

Jul

25

I See London, I See France.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

July 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Those masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind, but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder’s gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul […]

Jul

23

Book ‘Em: Whatever A Spider Can.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

July 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment

The Book Of The Spider: From Arachnophobia To The Love Of Spiders by Paul Hillyard (Random House, 1996) 
 When I was seven I had a bug catcher. It was a plastic, hourglass-shaped thing with a bottom dotted with tiny holes. The bottom and top could be removed so I could put in leaves, sticks, and, of […]

Jul

20

Wild About Harry.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

July 20, 2007 | 1 Comment

It’s almost impossible to believe that a series of seven books and, so far, five films, is close to its end. Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows will be released shortly and fans all over the world will have all or at least most of their questions finally answered. It’s more than a […]

Jul

18

The Cone Of Silence.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

July 18, 2007 | Leave a Comment

From the department of Life Imitates Get Smart, Interface Electronics has released a new product for libraries: the Cone of Silence. Okay, so it’s not quite what Maxwell Smart had in mind when, say, he wanted to tell the Chief he had a secret dream of being a concert pianist, but it will allow you […]

Jul

16

Book ‘Em: And Baby Makes Two.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

July 16, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott
The irony of the title is that this is not a how-to book on raising children but a funny, brutally honest memoir. At around the same time that Dan Quayle was demonstrating his strength as a leader by taking on Murphy Brown Anne Lamott decided to become a single mother, a […]

Jul

13

Shakespeare Who?

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

July 13, 2007 | 3 Comments

I admit it: I’m an unashamed Doctor Who fan, a Whovian, and have been since I was sixteen. So I’m more than a little excited that Doctor Who is coming together with one of my other great passions, literature. Tonight on the SciFi Channel the Doctor will meet none other than William Shakespeare in […]

Jul

11

Hooked On Books.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

July 11, 2007 | 3 Comments

The organization First Book, a non-profit whose mission is to give low-income children a chance to read and own their first books, is asking, What Book Got You Hooked? Go to the web site and tell them your first and favorite book–the book that got you hooked on reading. Check out the testimonials from such […]

Jul

9

Book ‘Em: An Average Summer Night

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

July 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment

“And like a director, I would call for lights to come on in every house in town, and for every person who had ever lived there to step outside and take a long breath on this average summer night.”
So ends Billy Goats, the first story in Jill McCorkle’s collection Creatures of Habit (Algonquin Books, […]

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