When so many adult fiction offerings read like variations on a theme of emotional impotence, is it any wonder readers are turning to young-adult novels for spellbinding stories and authentic connection?
“The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945” is the third volume of Rick Atkinson’s Liberation Trilogy, which details the triumph of the Allied powers in Europe and North Africa. He began researching the project in 1999. But, arguably, he began working that story 18 years before that, during a three-hour drive through southeastern Kansas.
In the third volume of Rick Atkinson’s Liberation Trilogy, he reconstructs the period from D-Day to V-E Day by weaving a multitude of tiny details into a tapestry of achingly sublime prose.
A reader-friendly version of more than 200 years of U.S. Army history would seem a contradiction in terms. But that’s what Kansas City area military scholar D.M. Giangreco achieves with “The United States Army: The Definitive Illustrated History.”
“When you are handed your screaming newborn for the first time,” Jim Gaffigan writes, “you are simultaneously handed a license for gallows humor.” The comic will discuss his new book Tuesday at Unity Temple on the Plaza.
“Epic” is a word used too often to describe lesser work, but Marie Arana’s marvelously readable “Bolivar: American Liberator” is a biography that earns its adjectives.
“Country Girl” invokes O’Brien’s first novel, “The Country Girls,” the book published in 1960 that simultaneously launched her literary career and scandalous reputation. The memoir reveals more through its syntax than through its story.
Larry Gragg’s new book, “Bright Light City: Las Vegas in Popular Culture” traces the evolving perception of the town as it has been depicted in film, TV, fiction and journalism.
Readers were eager to talk about a young adult novel, set in the Civil War era, that had much appeal for adults. And they were treated to a surprise guest: the book’s author, Richard Peck.
Host of ‘My Cat From Hell’ is on a mission to stem the number of unwanted animals flooding shelters and being euthanized. He knows the pain of that loss — he killed shelter animals himself.
Starting Wednesday, authors (450-500 of them), aspiring authors, fans of authors, booksellers and bloggers will schmooze, attend workshops, snatch up freebies, collect autographs and let their hair down during the five-day convention.
Science, Mars and the human heart come into play in ‘Equilateral,’ a historical novel set among those who believed in the potential of the fourth planet.
Mary MacLane portrayed herself as a woman of deep and dangerous desires in ‘I Await The Devil’s Coming,’ a 1902 sensation now back in print.
Timothy Messer-Kruse, author of “The Trial of the Haymarket Anarchists: Terrorism and Justice in the Gilded Age,” examines the litigation during which several “anarchists” were convicted and later hanged for their roles in a bombing that killed seven police officers in Chicago.
Peter Hessler, who grew up in Columbia, reports from far-flung places and writes compelling magazine pieces. “Strange Stones” collects 18 previously published magazine features by Hessler, some of them extensively rewritten for this book.
“Rapture Practice” is not exactly a tribute to Aaron Hartzler’s fundamentalist Christian parents. It’s more along the lines of one of those “I survived my wacky family” tell-alls, although Hartzler takes care not to lampoon his folks. Amazon is featuring the book this month as a “best teen book.”
Our intrepid reviewer pens a missive to Mr. Twain himself in which to respond to this new collection of fan mail.
How long do you allow your life to spiral lower and lower before you shake and shudder and decide you must make a move? Any move. For writer Cheryl Strayed it was four years, from the death of her 45-year-old mother to her decision to backpack solo across the remote, mountainous terrain of the Pacific Crest Trail in 1995.
“The Slippage” opens on the evening of a party in a generic, cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood, laid out like a model train display in a department store window. William and Louisa Day, a financial writer and museum worker, respectively, live on a cul-de-sac where “the houses were all one-story,” a neighbor jokes, “because that’s what they told.”
Broadcast journalist will sit down at 6:30 p.m. Monday with Kansas City Public Library director R. Crosby Kemper III and debates scholar Lee Banville at the library’s Plaza Branch
In ‘Marijuanamerica,’ Alfred Ryan Nerz takes a weed-wonder journey across the country to understand our relationship to the legendary plant and its psychosocial effects.
William Wharton, a World War II veteran and a late-blooming writer, delivers a humble and striking account of witnessing war.
In his impeccably researched book “The Searchers” Glenn Frankel uses John Ford’s 1956 film of the same name as a basis for comparison between the real-life abduction of a young pioneer girl and the mythic story movie makers turned it into decades later.
“The conflicts over money — economics, lending and credit — have been with us forever,” author William Hogeland said. “So it can be a bit of a relief, and make things seem a little less dire, if we can look more realistically at them.”
Authors Chris Lamb and Bill White discuss baseball race relations
