Fear and paranoia surrounding the atomic bomb is explored in Stephen C. Sutcliffe’s ambitious yet meandering novel, Atom. Thanks mostly to the limitless funds of their affluent parents, Michael Brethren and his friends live a free and... Read More

“Go now, this minute, stand in the crossroads, bow down, and first kiss the earth you’ve defiled, then bow to the whole world, on all four sides, and say aloud to everyone: ‘I have killed!’ Then God will send you life again. Will... Read More

From tales of how, as schoolchildren, she and her siblings lined their tattered shoes with cardboard insoles to protect their feet from the cold ground, to an artless recounting of her gratitude for the lectern that hid her shaking knees... Read More

Abu Jmeel’s daughter, Rida, [was] utterly lacking in beauty. She was very short and disfigured by the marks of smallpox, her eyes were as small as beads, and she had crinkly short hair, while her mouth was large and her teeth quite... Read More

Some would say the business of selling is a necessary evil, a distasteful by-product of a materialistic society. Not true, trumpet the authors of this book: “Every single person on earth who is not in the business of selling is... Read More

A small, rural town in north-central lower Michigan, Idlewild is barely a wide spot on U.S. Highway 10, with very little to separate it from the blur of other near-ghost towns on the upland of the Manistee National Forest: a shuttered... Read More

Twelve-year-old Nunzio Paradiso is sprawled beneath a wrecked 1973 Pontiac Bonneville, hooking it up for towing, when he hears someone speak in Italian. “Dio,” the voice says. A moment later it comes again. “Dio.” The explanation... Read More

This collection of twenty essays, articles, panel discussion transcripts, and interviews provides a fairly comprehensive examination of how the American record business has operated since it came into being, and of the sticky situation... Read More