Books

A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman

Books
Arts

'A Horse Walks Into A Bar,' And A Bad Comedy Set Proves Revelatory

10:00am February 23, 2017

by Michael Schaub

David Grossman's unsettling new novel takes place over the course of a two-hour comedy set, as what seems like just a bad performance evolves into something truly strange, painful and urgent.

Books
Arts

This Trip Through 'The Alps' Is A Little Bit Bumpy

7:00am February 23, 2017

by Heller McAlpin

Stephen O'Shea's quirky travelogue is packed with facts and history, but it's marred by a few odd choices — for example, why visit the famed skiing town of Val d'Isère at the height of summer?

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters explores the theme of "monstrousness" from various angles.

Books
Arts

'My Favorite Thing Is Monsters' Is A Dazzling, Graphic Novel Tour-De-Force

2:02pm February 22, 2017

by John Powers

Set amid the political swirl of late '60s Chicago, Emil Ferris' graphic novel debut reflects on race, class, gender and the holocaust. Critic John Powers says readers won't want to put it down.

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An illustration from 1875 depicts the survivors of the frigate Cospatrick, which caught fire off South Africa's Cape of Good Hope in November 1874. Of more than 470 people on board, just three ultimately survived, and they were reduced to cannibalism.

Cannibalism: It's 'Perfectly Natural,' A New Scientific History Argues

10:00am February 22, 2017

by Angus Chen

It's gruesome, but from a scientific standpoint, there's a predictable calculus for when humans and animals go cannibal, a new book says. And who knew European aristocrats ate body parts as medicine?

Books
Arts

Adolescence Isn't The Only Horror In 'The Mercy Of The Tide'

7:00am February 22, 2017

by Jason Heller

Zinemaker and designer Keith Rosson's debut novel is set in a small Oregon town in the 1980s, where the rain pours down, jellyfish rot on the beach — and a strange supernatural force is on the move.

In 1852 — three years before Leaves of Grass — Walt Whitman anonymously published a short novel, in six parts, in New York's Sunday Dispatch.

Grad Student Discovers A Lost Novel Written By Walt Whitman

5:27pm February 21, 2017

by Glen Weldon

An ad in a March 1852 edition of The New York Times led Zachary Turpin on an electronic search that uncovered a rags-to-riches novella that Whitman published anonymously.

Are Cyborgs In Our Future? 'Homo Deus' Author Thinks So

5:00pm February 21, 2017

by NPR Staff

Yuval Noah Harari expects we'll soon engineer our bodies in the same way we design products. "I think in general medicine ... will switch from healing the sick to upgrading the healthy," he says.

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Books
Arts

The Circus Is A Glittering Wartime Refuge In 'The Orphan's Tale'

4:01pm February 21, 2017

by Jean Zimmerman

Pam Jenoff's new novel follows two women who sign on with a German traveling circus — and the Jewish baby they're both determined to protect as the darkness of World War II falls across Europe.

Gary Cooper plays the sheriff in the 1952 film High Noon. Author Glenn Frankel says the film can be viewed as a parable for the Hollywood blacklist era.

Books
Arts

What A Classic '50s Western Can Teach Us About The Hollywood Blacklist

2:58pm February 21, 2017

Author Glenn Frankel says the 1952 film High Noon was inspired by the toxic political climate of the time. "People ... felt they want to get their country back," Frankel says.

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Art Exhibit Doubles As Used Book Store For Spanish Speakers

9:47am February 21, 2017

by Simon Rios

A traveling Spanish bookstore has opened in Boston, its eighth and last stop. The creator says the art installation responds to the disappearance of bookstores, and the "invisibility" of Spanish.

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