Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Books

Like many of the most interesting famous people, Catholic monk, poet and social activist Thomas Merton is one of those about whom informed readers might easily think there is nothing new to say.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

At the start of “Warlight,” Michael Ondaatje’s latest novel, two children watch their mother sleep in the predawn hours: “Best of all, when first light slipped into our rooms, we’d enter her bedroom ...More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

Author John Fea recognizes those moments when a statistic contains the power of language. So he dedicated his new book “To the 19 percent.”

Black Swan Books in Richmond, Va., bills itself as a quaint, welcoming place - “where old books meet new friends!” - the type of local establishment where the most exciting thing to happen on any given day might be the acquisition of a rare hardcover.

“Stories of slavery do not interest us much.” Coming as it does on the first page of “Slave Old Man,” Patrick Chamoiseau’s myth-infused narrative of an escaped slave, it’s clear that such a statement is tongue-in-cheek.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

According to Michael Kassan, the CEO of MediaLink, a “smash-up” has occurred in the advertising and marketing industries: “The Mad Men, which was the creative agency, and the Media Men, which was the media agency, and the Math Men, which is the data and technology person, is now one person.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

“It became a badge of honor to tell somebody, ‘Did you hear about ‘The Wire’? You got to watch ‘The Wire.’” — Andre Royo (Bubbles).

I’m on a brownie kick this summer, and I’m not apologizing.

Lest readers recoil at the problems of New Yorkers living on a dead-end block where the houses have appreciated so much “they constituted a lottery prize,” Anna Quindlen includes this reminder from her protagonist’s sister.

Scott W. Stern’s book “The Trials of Nina McCall: Sex, Surveillance, and the Decades-Long Government Plan to Imprison ‘Promiscuous’ Women” is a piece of historical detective work that unearths a horrifying facet of America’s past.