Arts >>

Books

Hester Kaplan’s The Tell is captivating

Local color
In her first novel in 10 years, The Tell (Harper Perennial), Providence writer and educator Hester Kaplan tackles the familiar territory of marriage and relationships.

By: JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | January 23, 2013

Bipolar Babies: Leonard Cohen and Rod Stewart in misery and delight

GIFT GUIDE 2012
"Every night and every morn," wrote William Blake one afternoon in 1803, "some to misery are born."

By: JAMES PARKER | December 05, 2012

Musical literary stocking stuffers

GIFT GUIDE 2012
The choices for books by and about rock stars are almost endless this season. Here are a few.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | December 05, 2012

Providence becomes a new crossroads for the thriller

Thrilltown
There is a scene in Jon Land's forthcoming thriller novel Strong Rain Falling — set for release next summer — where Caitlin Strong finally arrives in her author's hometown: Providence, Rhode Island.

By: PHILIP EIL | November 07, 2012

Interview: Junot Diaz on manhood, monsters, and Cancer Planet

Q&A
Junot Diaz shows up late for our interview, his Red Sox cap askew and one shoelace untied.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | November 07, 2012

XL

Excerpted from the novel by Michael Atchison
American Gothic was a subterranean shithole bar known for its existentially tortured clientele and extreme indifference to the minimum drinking age.

By: MICHAEL ATCHISON | August 15, 2012

They call me Oil Can

Baseball, drugs, and life on the edge
Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd, a Mississippi native who lives in East Providence with his wife and two children, is one of the most complex, controversial players ever to don a Red Sox uniform.

By: EXCERPTED FROM THE BOOK BY DENNIS "OIL CAN" BOYD AND MIKE SHALIN | May 23, 2012

Interview: Oil Can Boyd on playing the game

Baseball ‘takes away a lot of hurt’
This week, I had an hour long chat with Oil Can Boyd.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 23, 2012

Interview: Rory O’Connor digs social media

News trust
Rory O'Connor has been thinking about trust and the media for a long time.

By: DAN KENNEDY | May 14, 2012

Are Rhode Islanders finally ready to recognize Providence-born H.P. Lovecraft's legacy as a horror writing hero?

Loving embrace?
Brett Rutherford was walking down College Street on an overcast day in the late 1990s when a car with Oregon license plates pulled up next to him.

By: PHILIP EIL | April 25, 2012

Interview: Alice Bag of Stay at Home Bomb

Once a punk rocker, always a punk rocker
Alice Bag (nee Armendariz), who shone bright in the Los Angeles punk scene of the late-1970s, will be in town Saturday to read from her book Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage and to play a few tunes at 7 pm at Rochambeau Library.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | February 10, 2012

Staying hardcore in the land of the stripmall

The way we were
Some of us enter this world prematurely. After peaking on parent-approved science fiction, you find yourself with a pocketful of quarters pedaling your PK Ripper toward the inviting glow of a neon ARCADE sign.

By: MAX G. MORTON | December 01, 2011

Young Adulteration

Kid lit, cultural literacy, and the rise of books that are fun to read
In the late 1980s, when I was nine or 10, my mom bought me my own copy of A First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Our Children Need To Know .

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | September 21, 2011

Will Kindles kill libraries?

In this corner: libraries struggling to bring in patrons. In the other: Kindles looking to expand their market. Will it be a bloodbath, or can they hug it out?
This week, OverDrive itself will host its own conference to help libraries deal with a massive onslaught of patrons clamoring to check out books on their Kindles. Can embattled public institutions handle such a drastic change?

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | July 27, 2011

Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball's Longest Game

Excerpted from the book by Dan Barry
"I hope you're still with us," the broadcaster Bob Drew says to the night, a note of desperation in his voice.

By: DAN BARRY | July 20, 2011

I was a teenage Sandinista

Deb Olin Unferth left college in the '80s to become a Communist Freedom Fighter. It didn't quite work out that way.
As a freshman philosophy major at the University of Colorado, Deb Olin Unferth fell in love with a junior named George. A pious Evangelical, George felt it was his duty to help his Communist brethren in Central America fight against their capitalist oppressors. So he did, and Unferth went with him.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | January 31, 2011

Review: Caroline Leavitt's family Pictures

Photo finish
Love, family, and the moments that change lives forever — these are the potent ingredients that Caroline Leavitt stirs up again and again in her fiction.

By: JULIA HANNA | January 27, 2011

Hip-hop history

Dan Charnas's story is bigger than the music
Dan Charnas is aware that some disgruntled rap purists may eschew his epic tome on planet hip-hop's animated cast of titanic dick swingers.

By: CHRIS FARAONE | January 11, 2011

Review: ''American Gothic'' painter Grant Wood gets to leave the closet

American gay
Who was Grant Wood? Millions of Americans know him as the artist who painted American Gothic — and that's about it. But since his death, from pancreatic cancer, in 1942, he's become the poster boy for the right and the whipping boy of the left.

By: JEFFREY GANTZ | January 07, 2011