Credit Jacqueline Semrau / Courtesy of St. Martin's Press
Christopher Golden's novels include The Myth Hunters, WildwoodRoad, The Boys Are Back in Town and The Ferryman. He previously collaborated with Mike Mignola on the illustrated novel Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire.
Mike Mignola's occult adventure comics B.P.R.D. (that's short for Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense) and Hellboy (about a demon who fights for the side of Good) combine furious action set pieces on a literally biblical scale with a wry and nuanced understanding of very human emotions. The novelist Christopher Golden has written many popular works of dark fantasy.
Originally published on Wed November 21, 2012 9:38 am
The chicks arrived five months ago — eight gray, blond, black and tawny puffballs no bigger than the eggs they'd been hatched from a day earlier. They had a slavishly devoted audience within minutes and names within 24 hours. Every couple of weeks they doubled in size, and over the summer they ballooned from 2 ounces to 7 pounds as we furiously worked to complete their permanent coop.
In this handout image provided by Disney, Star Wars creator George Lucas has a playful lightsaber duel with Jedi Mickey Mouse at Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., on Aug. 14, 2010. Disney announced Tuesday that it was buying Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion.
Originally published on Tue October 30, 2012 7:04 pm
It's football season at Oregon State University, and that means tailgating, grilling, and ... cheese?
When we think of Oregon, we don't necessarily think of cheese — maybe a nice Pinot Noir, but not cheese. But this fall, Oregon State University's new cheese plant rolled out its first batch of product: a specialty alpine cheese (like Swiss, Comte or Gruyere) dubbed by the students "Beaver Classic." It's a mild cheese, with nutty flavors like caramelized onions.
J.R. Moehringer is the best-selling author of The Tender Bar. In 2000, he won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for his work at the Los Angeles Times.
After the global financial crisis hit in 2008, Pulitzer Prize winner J.R. Moehringer was so angry at banks, he says, he decided to write about the people who rob them — in the form of fiction, since he's not an economist.
Originally published on Tue October 30, 2012 5:11 pm
In his introduction to Kurt Vonnegut: Letters, Dan Wakefield, the book's editor and a longtime Vonnegut karass member, writes of the late author's aspiration to be a "cultivated eccentric." Over the course of six decades of letters to family, friends, admirers, detractors and fellow writers, Vonnegut shows himself to be so much more, both in terms of ambition and accomplishment.
Author Richard Russo has been writing about the burned-out mill town of Gloversville, N.Y., for years. In one Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, he called it Empire Falls, Maine; in another novel, it was Thomaston, N.Y.
Originally published on Tue November 6, 2012 3:41 pm
As the East Coast hunkers down for the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy, NPR Books dug back into the archives to find stories about keeping safe — and sane — when disaster strikes. Here you'll find memoirs of past storms, novels about future storms and interviews with authors who've written about severe weather and climate change.
The Peanut Butter & Pickle Sandwich dates back to the Great Depression. It's great if you're transported back in time to 1930 and you forget to bring Powerbars, or, say, if you're stuck in your house with limited pantry options as a big hurricane heads your way.
Richie Hawtin performs at Moogfest in Asheville, N.C. on Friday, October 26. Hawtin's CNTRL: Beyond EDM tour with Loco Dice is scheduled to launch this week.
Credit Kyle Gustafson / The Washington Post/Getty Images
Skrillex performs at the Virgin Mobile FreeFest in Columbia, Md. on October 6.
Originally published on Wed October 31, 2012 7:46 pm
It's 4:30 in the morning in Washington, D.C., and dank pools of sweat are collecting on the dance floor beneath a dripping basement ceiling. I can see Sonny Moore's heart beating through his shirt. The 24-year-old DJ, whose producing alias, Skrillex, is a major keyword for the new wave of American dance music, just wrapped up an intimate surprise show at U Street Music Hall (my local gateway to electronic music and a place where I also DJ from time to time).
