Book Events for Feb. 12, 2012 

The 6th annual Celebration of Writers and Readers, sponsored by the Friends of the West Feliciana Library, will be 8:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, at Hemingbough Conference Center, 10101 La. 965 in St. Francisville.Authors will … Continue reading →

‘Catch Me’ is riveting thriller

If you knew the exact date and time of your death, what would you do? “Everyone has to die sometime. Be brave.”In Lisa Gardner’s latest D.D. Warren thriller, “Catch Me,” Charlene Grant is terrified that her death is just days away. Two years earlier, on Jan. 21, one of her two best friends was murdered. Her other best friend was killed the following year on the same date. Four days from now it will be the 21st, and she knows she’s next.

Book Events for Feb. 5, 2012

In celebration of Black History Month, the Louisiana Center for the Book in the State Library is hosting an event featuring author, researcher, scholar and educator Freddi Williams Evans.Evans will present her book … Continue reading →

DC eyes Watchmen, plans prequels to series

PHILADELPHA (AP) — More than a quarter of a century after “Watchmen” intrigued readers with tales of less-than-heroic and all-too-human — save for Dr. Manhattan — crime-fighting vigilantes, DC Entertainment is revisiting them in a series of original prequels this summer. The publisher of DC Comics said Wednesday that it will launch seven interlocking and inter-connected miniseries — each focusing on a specific character — as it revisits the 1986-1987 12-issue series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons.

Book Events for Jan. 29, 2012

Mary Frances Berry, former chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought at the University of Pennsylvania, will speak on the topic, “Making A Difference Where You Are: … Continue reading →

Unexpected comics career wins critical acclaim

How does an aspiring novelist who majored in art history, Spanish and classic books go on to become one of the most talked-about new writers of the comic book world? “I was starting to write novels. That’s what I thought eventually I would be doing,” Nathan Edmondson said. “The comics thing happened accidentally. I had an idea for a comic that was picked up, so I started doing that. But at no point was I thinking comics were part of the timeline. My interest was in doing a lot of different things.”

The Obamas just not good journalism

Reading this much-hyped book is like drinking a highly touted wine only to discover that it tastes like Kool-Aid. No surprises, nothing memorable and a bad taste left in your mouth.In a recent television interview, the author called herself “an outside, fair observer,” which is giving herself credit (and gravitas) she in no way deserves. But she has to say something to try to justify her reportedly $1 million advance.

Clark’s new mystery offers high suspense

Author Mary Jane Clark is a master at whipping up delicious nightmares for mystery fans, so a bride who hires Piper Donovan to make a wedding cake had better watch out, because a series of deadly events is bound to follow.The bride in “The Look of Love,” the author’s second book featuring cake maker Piper, is Jillian Abernathy, who works as the director of the Elysium, a luxury spa and cosmetic surgery center in the Hollywood Hills.

Eco flirts with ideas in Prague Cemetery

Far more than most novels ever, Umberto Eco’s The Prague Cemetery raises a plethora of questions, the primary one being, What moved Eco to construct this particular meshing of imagination and history? A bestseller in Europe, the novel has earned a mixed response in the U. S. — praise and repugnance. Author of the world-famous medieval mystery thriller The Name of the Rose, Eco is known for his obsession, in popular fiction and in academic exercises, with language, puzzles, and conundrums that cause him to be labeled “playful.”

Physicist writes how universe evolved

In fall 2009, the theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Krauss gave a talk about recent discoveries in cosmology that he engagingly titled, “A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing.”The popularity of the video, viewed nearly a million times on YouTube, prompted Krauss to develop the ideas in the talk into this short, elegant account of the origins of our universe and its likely demise trillions of years from now.

Historian finds the woman behind Cleopatra

Cleopatra isn’t just Liz Taylor. Nor is she a simply sultry vixen with no other talents beyond her, ahem, womanly attributes. Joanne Fletcher reveals that the Egyptian pharoah, descended from a Greek and feared by Rome, was a complex woman possessed of a keen intellect and such a thorough understanding of all three cultures that she could masterfully manipulate people, generals and Caesar to her will.

Readers reminded of forgotten countries

ou may never have heard of the “Kingdom of the Rock,” though for half a millennium it dominated a sizable piece of Scotland. It centered on two fortified hills that overlook the River Clyde at Dumbarton (“Camp of the Britons”), near today’s Glasgow. In his new book, “Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations,” British historian Norman Davies names “Kingdom of the Rock” among 15 Eurasian countries he cites by unfamiliar titles such as “Litva” and “Rusyn.”

‘The Hunter’ is suspenseful thrill ride

San Francisco private investigator Wyatt Hunt returns in “The Hunter,” another fantastic thrill ride from author John Lescroart. Hunt, who was adopted, has never searched for his birthparents. Then one night, he receives a text message from an unknown number: “How did your mother die?”

Agent Munroe returns in ‘The Innocent’

Taylor Stevens’ 2010 debut, “The Informationist,” was a smartly written action thriller featuring a freelance espionage agent whose survival skills and intellect were wrought out of a violent past, and whose ability to extract herself from harrowing situations in which she is heavily outnumbered is arguably matched only by James Bond (and possibly Batman).

Perry offers her take on prodigal son tale

As far as fans of bestselling author Anne Perry’s popular little Christmas books are concerned, any time is a good time to read one of her mystery novels set during the holiday season in Victorian England. And, like the seven earlier books in the series, A Christmas Odyssey provides a strong sense of place and plenty of suspense while also offering a message of hope.