David Sedaris plays in the snow with his sisters. He goes on vacation with his family. He gets a job selling drinks. He attends his brother's wedding. He mops his sister's floor. He gives directions to a lost traveler. He eats a hamburger. He has his blood sugar tested. It all sounds so normal, doesn ... more »

Romance naturally emanates from Venice, a city of passion and eroticism. This was the case for Mara, a Nebraskan writer who emigrated from the United States fourteen years ago. One of her newly published novels brings passion to her, when the son of an ex-lover comes looking for resolution. Having read ... more »

Since the 1950s, our country's greatest libraries have, as a matter of common practice, dismantled their collections of original bound newspapers and so-called brittle books, replacing them with microfilmed copies. The marketing of the brittle-paper crisis and the real motives behind it are the subject ... more »