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Photos: LeVar Burton at Tufts University

LeVar Burton accepts the Eliot-Pearson Award for Excellence in Children's Media at Tufts University on February 3, 2012.
February 3, 2012
By JOSH BERLINGER | February 10, 2012

Twenty-nine-year-old Buddhist teacher Lodro Rinzler is the cool kid's Buddhist.

In his new book, Rinzler spells out mindful compassion for the millennial set, making room for one-night stands and cocktails on the weekend.
The sound of one hand clapping
By CASSANDRA LANDRY | February 10, 2012

Interview: Alice Bag of Stay at Home Bomb

Alice Bag (nee Armendariz), who shone bright in the Los Angeles punk scene of the late-1970s, will be in town Saturday to read from her book Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage and to play a few tunes at 7 pm at Rochambeau Library.
Once a punk rocker, always a punk rocker
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | February 10, 2012

Sara Benincasa leaves her room

Sara Benincasa's "Agorafabulous! Dispatches from My Bedroom" is a memoir about her struggle with agoraphobia, and there's no pretty way around it.
Pee shy
By THOMAS PAGE MCBEE | February 03, 2012

Gender bias at NPR — and what it reveals about the world of literary fiction

In August 2010, the literary corner of the Internet seized in crisis.
All (Male) Things Considered
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | January 27, 2012

Staring down Whitey Bulger

Jon Land's latest thriller begins in a South Boston basement where a man named John McIntyre has been handcuffed to a chair, slammed in the head with a chair leg, and strangled with a length of sailing rope.
Mobsters
By PHILIP EIL | January 13, 2012

Trying to find now

William Gibson — the writer who famously coined the term "cyberpunk" and whose classic tech-punk novels like Neuromancer and The Difference Engine helped spawn a couple generations' worth of bleak, busted fantasies — is now on tour promoting his first c
William Gibson's randomized experience
By MATT PARISH | January 06, 2012

Roger Williams gets his due

Roger Williams — the iconoclast who founded Rhode Island nearly 400 years ago with a radical call for religious tolerance — is held in high regard in these parts. But he is a little-known figure nationwide.
Founders
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | January 06, 2012

Authors tote their wares to area bookstores

A new story collection from Dan Chaon and new novels from Heidi Julavits and Adam Johnson are just some of the delights in store for Boston lit nerds.
Road shows
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | December 30, 2011

A Roger Williams professor tackles William F. Buckley Jr.

Conservative thinker William F. Buckley Jr. was, perhaps, America's most important 20th-century public intellectual.
Thinkers
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | December 23, 2011

The short, happy life of Occupy Boston's A-Z Library

On the final night in the brief and wondrous life of the Audre Lorde to Howard Zinn Library, it poured.
Reading the revolution
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | December 16, 2011

Photos: Selections from Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed

Used with permission from Science Ink by Carl Zimmer, Sterling Publishing © 2011.
Science Ink
By PHOENIX STAFF | December 16, 2011

Picking the season’s best books — for everyone from plutocrats to paupers

In recent months, Americans have become acutely aware of class divisions — thus it’s possible to choose books for your friends and family based on their income bracket.
Reading class
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | December 09, 2011

In-Grained: Interview with Maria Speck, author of "Ancient Grains for Modern Meals" (with bonus recipe)

I don't think it's ever been a big secret that Europe (in this case, Greece and Germany) has a tendency to blow us out of...
By Cassandra Landry | December 05, 2011

Susan Orlean gets the dirt on Rin Tin Tin

New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean has been busy talking up her latest book, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend (Simon & Schuster), a biography of the most popular animal actor in history, and his impact on American culture.
Woof!
By JOHN J. KELLY | December 02, 2011

Staying hardcore in the land of the stripmall

Some of us enter this world prematurely. After peaking on parent-approved science fiction, you find yourself with a pocketful of quarters pedaling your PK Ripper toward the inviting glow of a neon ARCADE sign.
The way we were
By MAX G. MORTON | December 02, 2011

The way we were

How to explain Live . . . Suburbia?
Staying hardcore in the land of the stripmall
By ANTHONY PAPPALARDO | December 02, 2011

Under new ownership, changes are coming to the New England Mobile Book Fair

A few weeks ago, I dropped by the New England Mobile Book Fair to buy an Orhan Pamuk paperback, The Museum of Innocence , for my book club.
Turn the Page
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | December 02, 2011

Geoffrey Wolff and the ‘pee-wee metropolis’

Jeffrey Eugenides entered a select club last month when he published his novel, The Marriage Plot . His ticket for admission was a sentence on page 9 that began, "Providence was a corrupt town, crime ridden and mob-controlled . . . ."
English Dept.
By PHILIP EIL | December 02, 2011

Photos: Images from Live . . . Suburbia

The Live . . . Suburbia art show at Orchard Skate Shop's Extension Gallery opens December 10, 2011.
Images from Live…Suburbia! by Anthony Pappalardo and Max G. Morton
By PHOENIX STAFF | December 02, 2011

2nd Story’s inspiring Little Women

Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is so beloved a morsel of American literary optimism that it would be hard to do badly with an adaptation of the 1868 novel. And there have been numerous ones, from films to an opera and a musical.
Timeless acts of kindness
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 25, 2011

They, and Gideon Bok, are nothing but subjective

Commonly artists prefer to work away from public scrutiny, shielded from revealing the awkward phases of creation, to emerge with a finished work of art that will last, if not for eternity, at least for quite a while.
Time and perspective
By BRITTA KONAU | November 25, 2011

29 Cent Book Bin

These books are cheap for a reason.
Big Fat Whale
By BRIAN MCFADDEN | November 18, 2011

A first-time novelist at 87, UMass professor Joseph Zaitchik talks shop with his grandson, writer Alex Zaitchik

Once a year, Joseph Zaitchik tells his favorite joke.
Writing in the family
By ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK | November 18, 2011

A new book says 'smaller' cities could be the way of the future

This month sees the publication by MIT Press of Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of America's Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World by Catherine Tumber.
Thinking small
By JON GARELICK | November 18, 2011

Photos: Boston Anarchist Book Fair 2011

Simmons College hosts the Boston Anarchist Book Fair on November 11-13, 2011.
Simmons College | November 11-13, 2011
By ALI CARTER | November 18, 2011

Interview: John Hodgman is pleased to serve

Brookline native, Apple pitchman, podcast host, and Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman has made a career out of hilarious pedantry.
You're welcome
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | November 11, 2011

Masters of reality

The literature on Black Sabbath — already extensive — will continue to grow, as we try, try, try again to wrap our poor noggins around the irreducibly cosmic fact of this band.
It's a Sabbath-palooza in print and on film
By JAMES PARKER | November 11, 2011

Papercut Zine Library & the Lucy Parsons Center re-open

Zinesters perused hand-stitched books and photocopied pamphlets on topics ranging from punk politics and parenting to feminism and freeganism, while local musicians played folksy tunes on acoustic guitars, mandolins, and cello between floor-to-ceiling
Radical reading
By LIZ PELLY | November 11, 2011

The Ploughshares years

After reading an item on the Boston Globe book page noting that DeWitt Henry had published a memoir, I bought a copy of the book.
A different perspective on the venerable Boston lit mag's early years
By GEORGE KIMBALL | November 11, 2011

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