BOOKS

Book news and reviews from The Plain Dealer

In the week ahead, it's a safe bet that Mark Harris, speaking on Saturday, March 20, will be memorable; Duane "The Dog" Chapman will be popular in his Sunday appearance and novelist Jaimee Wriston Colbert will be fun next Monday.  Full story »

Shriver, author of the sparkling, what-if 2007 novel "The Post-Birthday World," opens with her protagonist on the brink of realizing his dream. A writer capable of exquisite nuance, here she puts her considerable talents at the service of cold fury. In "So Much for That," Shriver doesn't aim for subtley. Full story »

Rebecca Skloot scrunched her shoulders and crossed her arms, imitating "a sea of white coats" at the Cleveland Clinic Monday, March 15, where the Department of Medicine invited her to speak about her new book.  Full story »

"What is needed, apart from freedom of speech and the right to vote, to hold democratic societies together?" Ian Buruma asks in an echo of Tocqueville. "Is the rule of law enough, or do we need common values, ethics, mores? And what is the role of religion in all this; is it a help or a hindrance to liberal democracy?"  Full story »

I moved to Ireland in 2003, toward the tail end of Ireland's last economic boom. At Brown Thomas, Dublin's premier luxury department store, I sold handbags for 650 euros (about $748) to teenagers making their confirmations and 300 euro ($345) jeans embroidered with Swarovski crystals.  Full story »

Take a shopping trip that Susan J. Douglas went on with her daughter at Abercrombie & Fitch, which the author compares to "being dragged into that electronica-thumping haberdashery from hell." It stocks T-shirts for girls that state: "Who Needs Brains When You Have These?" Lovely.  Full story »

"I'm not sitting here as some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette," Mrs. Clinton asserted, as she sat next to her Cheshire, cheatin' husband, Bill. But of course she was, and still is. The secretary of state should have listened to the lyrics more closely: "After all, he's just a man" adds a sharp, knowing edge to the celebrated single.  Full story »

Jedediah Berry's playful debut, "The Manual of Detection," glimmers with the cerebral humor of Jasper Fforde's novels and the undeniable influence of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil." The National Book Critic Circle's just announced pick for the best nonfiction book of 2009, 'The Age of Wonder' is also new in paperback.  Full story »

Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall," winner last year of the Man Booker Prize in London, was honored Thursday night on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. The novel, set in the age of King Henry VIII, won the National Book Critics Circle Prize for fiction. It's a compassionate narrative of royal adviser Thomas Cromwell, a leading enforcer of the English Reformation and a rival of Sir Thomas More.  Full story »

What a week. I can attest that Julie Zickefoose is wonderful, and Cleveland Public Library has been getting inquiries from Michigan and Pennsylvannia about the appearance of James Howard Kunstler on Sunday. Politico David Gergen is a big deal on Monday, and Rebecca Skloot is the new darling of the nonfiction best-seller lists with "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks."  Full story »

Check out the best in alternative universes with five new titles unencumbered by humdrum reality. They include "Hespira" from Matthew Hughes, "Blackout" by Conne Willis and "The Bell Ringers" by Henry Porter.  Full story »

Delaney unleashes a cavalcade of memorable characters worthy of John Irving: a loyal housekeeper with an itchy bottom, a truth-talking ventriloquist's dummy, a master of ceremonies with a speech impediment, a learned folklore collector. But the book's fascinating Kelly women give the story its true magic.  Full story »

Born in Fukuoka, Japan, in 1956, Henri Cole grew up in Virginia and teaches at Ohio State University. His career has been closely watched -- the pre-eminent critic and scholar Harold Bloom has called Cole a major poet. His new collection is as heartbreaking and purifying as only great poetry can be.  Full story »

Told in the voices of multiple characters -- a device at which Jodi Picoult is a master -- events in 'House Rules' are revealed through the shadings of each individual's perception. The author is particularly adept in the voice of Jacob, an 18-year-old with a genius IQ constrained by the arbitrariness of autism.  Full story »