Oct 22, 2009 |

Some may remember being required to read E.L. Doctorow’s colorful account of New York City during the turn of the century in “Ragtime.” While it’s no required reading, Doctorow’s newest novel, “Homer & Langley,” is a must for contemporary reading audiences who enjoy his work.

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Feb 19, 2009 | “Your Big Fat Boyfriend,” a new book by Ithaca College alumna Jenna Bergen, reads more like a chat between girlfriends than a book on dieting and exercise. Inspired by her horror the day her “totally hot, erase-10-pounds, make-my-ass-look-amazing” jeans began to expose an unsightly “muffin top” of triple chocolate chunk proportions, Bergen weaves together anecdotes about her weight struggles with helpful nutrition pointers.
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Nov 13, 2008 | The young-adult genre has been riddled with uninspiring novels that lack any kind of creativity or originality. Shuffling through the mundane “Gossip Girl” spin-offs and “Twilight” rip-offs has made finding a substantive novel as easy as finding a needle in a haystack. John Green is one of the few young-adult authors who has the ability to really tell a story and captivate the reader. Winner of the Michael L. Printz Award for his highly acclaimed novel “Looking for Alaska,” Green tells a fantastic story of love, obsession and mystery in his latest novel, “Paper Towns.”
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Nov 6, 2008 | From within the metal gates and keypad entrance of a gated community, John Barth’s new book, “The Development” ($18.40), eloquently shatters all images of the golden age of retirement with sarcasm and wit. Presenting the dark reality of life as it heads into decline, Barth displays the less-glorious side of getting older.
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Apr 3, 2008 | With the possible exceptions of Tipper Gore, cops and Scott Stapp, there’s no greater enemy to rock ’n’ roll than corporate suits: faceless, fun-hating squares who refer to bands as products and albums as units. Yet, according to Dan Kennedy in his new book, “Rock On: An Office Power Ballad,” these are the people who run the recording industry. Or, as Kennedy puts it, these are the people who have successfully run the recording industry into the ground.     


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Mar 27, 2008 | A major part of college is partying and having the time of your life. When you hit senior year and realize you’ll soon be entering the dreaded “real world,” the partying usually gets stepped up a notch in a desperate attempt to ignore the inevitable. Author David J. Rosen understands the panic and outlines some interesting jobs in his book “What’s That Job and How the Hell Do I Get It?: The inside scoop on more than 50 cool jobs from the people who actually have them.” Unfortunately, he misses the mark with soon-to-be college grads.


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Nov 15, 2007 | For everyone who thinks Columbia is for cocaine, Belgium is for chocolate, Norway is for Vikings and has never even heard of Kyrgyzstan (let alone can pronounce it), there is finally a book that gloriously reaffirms all your favorite global stereotypes and misconceptions. “Our Dumb World” ($27.99) is a fictional atlas about real countries. Equal parts hilarious and thought provoking, the book makes a serious case to dethrone Stephen Colbert’s “I Am America: And So Can You” as the funniest book of the year.
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Oct 25, 2007 | You know a person is planning to run for president when he releases a book. John F. Kennedy released “Profiles in Courage” in 1956. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and he was commander in chief a few years later. Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has already released two books. Now add Stephen Colbert to this list with his new manifesto, “I Am America (And So Can You!)” ($26.99), which preceeded Colbert’s announcement of his candidacy for president a couple of weeks ago. Though he has yet to receive a Pulitzer for his work, Colbert is the first recipient of the
Stephen T. Colbert Award for Literary Excellence.
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May 3, 2007 | Any discussion of what women “should” do is fraught with sexism, classism, ageism and even “parent-ism.” It is impossible to examine women’s lives without wading through a complex web of judgments and opinion-riddled research. In “The Feminine Mistake,” Leslie Bennetts, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, attempts to educate (and terrify) women about the dangers of economic dependence.
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Mar 22, 2007 | Had Groucho Marx been commissioned to write “The Idiot’s Guide to Hollywood,” his efforts might have turned out something like “Bambi vs. Godzilla,” David Mamet’s informative though absurd take on the movie business.
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