http://www.philly.com/r?19=960&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F Inquirer book news and reviews en-us Sun, 05 Jul 2009 07:01:00 GMT 2009-07-05T07:01:00Z en-us http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=49902842&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090704_Gorgeous_prose_-_and_way_too_much_of_it.html Shades of the Brontes: Three sisters have created an imaginary world of fairies and demons, queens and minions. This place is Arnelle and its language is Arnish. Not surprisingly, many of the phrases have to do with sisterhood, bravery, loyalty, rescue: "Noma brava gig" translates as "my brave sister." And the eldest Story sister, Elv, is indeed the brave one. At the age of 11, she saved her youngest sister, Claire, 8, from a child molester by offering herself instead. Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:01:00 GMT 9cec93440c533bac936138130873bf11 2009-07-04T07:01:00Z http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=49858467&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090705_In_defense_of_his_own_theology.html In a searching memoir sure to revive Catholic disputes, Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland recounts the pivotal decision he faced early in life: whether to become a monk or a musician. He chose the monastery, because, as he explains, "as a concert pianist, I would be an 'also ran' not the best." Sun, 05 Jul 2009 07:01:00 GMT c50a07253594143d4609a99cf91a7cd6 2009-07-05T07:01:00Z http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=49858472&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090705_Confronting_changes_and_choices.html The wonderfully chosen epigraph for Strangers by Anita Brookner sets the scene and gives you a sense of the irony and humor to come: "For all its glory England is a land for rich and healthy people. Also they should not be too old" (Sigmund Freud, London, 1938). Sun, 05 Jul 2009 07:01:00 GMT 7097567face4400bc779960e1dc26501 2009-07-05T07:01:00Z http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=49858387&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090705_The_mystery_of_college_admissions.html 'What are they looking for?" Every year, the lament begins before the first day of summer, rising into the fall as high school seniors labor on their college applications. The selection process that makes sane parents crazy and stellar students insecure has been demystified (if made more frenzied) by the industry of books and workshops and private counselors selling advice on how to get past the gatekeepers. Sun, 05 Jul 2009 07:01:00 GMT 1716c248d6f7d07bfbd97508eaaa09aa 2009-07-05T07:01:00Z http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=49175802&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090628_Sisters__marriage_woes_put_her_wedding_on_hold.html Marriage is a big step, and one that 39-year-old Beverly Jordan is finally ready to take. True, she's been on the marital path twice before and backed out at the last minute, but she's certain the third time is the charm. Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:01:00 GMT 57199e97242dfdf28118d61c599bf095 2009-06-28T07:01:00Z http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=49175842&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090628_A_quick__breezy_look_at_slumps.html When you plow into a book subtitled How the Great Players Survived Their Darkest Moments in Golf and What You Can Learn From Them, you sort of expect to come away having, you know, learned something. Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:01:00 GMT cf7525ae1fe9bd99a213a9039a45710c 2009-06-28T07:01:00Z http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=49175847&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090628_The_plight_of_urban_young_black_men.html They are overrepresented in the ranks of the unemployed and the incarcerated, and underrepresented as college students, as live-in husbands, and as fathers raising children. Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:01:00 GMT 91aa5818ad7b7bc3254641b869f970bc 2009-06-28T07:01:00Z http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=48604632&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090621_A_Mexican_teen_s_funny__heroic_quest.html This wonderfully entertaining novel is starkly different from the heroic magical realism of Urrea's last novel, The Hummingbird's Daughter, set 100 years ago. Into the Beautiful North is a picaresque contemporary jape. Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:01:00 GMT 7852dac83fb0ba9817bfb4da0e9283b8 2009-06-21T07:01:00Z http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=48604577&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090621_A_walking_tour_of_misery_in_an_Indian_town.html Aravind Adiga, who won the 2008 Man Booker Prize for his debut novel, The White Tiger, did not face the sophomore challenge of what to write next. He had already completed Between the Assassinations, a collection of stories about the residents of the fictional town of Kittur on the southwestern coast of India. Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:01:00 GMT 46e4bc840b4382c844aee1207e0a43c9 2009-06-21T07:01:00Z http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=48604582&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090621_How_media_have_molded_modern_Jewish_religion.html Videotaping bar and bat mitzvahs, many observant Jews maintain, violates Talmudic prohibitions against work on the Sabbath, distracts the worshiper from worship, and transforms tranquil and dignified ceremonies into spectacles. Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:01:00 GMT 9e7c9e77f866bd3faf366f6a3e4705fc 2009-06-21T07:01:00Z http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=48604627&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090621_When_the_dream_turned_ugly.html Once upon a time, there were potato farms on Long Island, and the nation was at war. As that war drew to a close, the Levitt boys - brothers Alfred and Bill and their father, Abe - looked at those potato fields and saw instead houses for returning GIs and their families. Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:01:00 GMT 3d9086d40f0bcde7e778650d0fc62d68 2009-06-21T07:01:00Z http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=48233482&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090617_Noir_falls_in_Weimar_Berlin.html Noir to the right of us, noir to the left of us, down the alleys of night go the crime writers. Of late, for instance, we have experienced a surge of "Nordic noir" in the novels of Henning Mankell and a dozen or more other Scandinavian writers. Could we now be witnessing the emergence of "Teutonic Noir/Historical Division"? Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:01:00 GMT 21715348350f576af1e8b79fffeee1ee 2009-06-17T07:01:00Z http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=47919592&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090614_Notebooks_lift_veil_on_Cold_War_spying.html Ian Fleming, a British naval intelligence officer during World War II and the author of the James Bond spy thrillers, once noted that on occasion a news story would "lift a corner of the veil" and reveal the real world of espionage. Sun, 14 Jun 2009 07:01:00 GMT d1c991f2365176e3bf7ce7771597b413 2009-06-14T07:01:00Z http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=47919587&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090614_Assessing_a_baseball_legend.html In 1946, Jackie Robinson famously took the field for the Montreal Royals, thus reintegrating "organized baseball" roughly 60 years after it had become segregated. Sun, 14 Jun 2009 07:01:00 GMT c962bc0a05836f09f2569e63faf1e20a 2009-06-14T07:01:00Z http://www.philly.com/r?19=961&43=166696&44=47919542&32=3796&7=195632&40=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Finquirer%2Fentertainment%2Fbooks%2F20090614_Part_memoir__part_tale_of_a_biodiversity_crisis.html Who doesn't want to wake up one day in a tropical paradise? Lucinda Fleeson had the luck and pluck to do just that - and to live to write about it. Sun, 14 Jun 2009 07:01:00 GMT 694f254d3f86ab4a4e2905480166da90 2009-06-14T07:01:00Z