Blogs

The woman who brought us the amazing "Vagina Monologues" is back with an equally important, yet sobering, memoir. Ensler draws irrefutable parallels between her cancer and the raping of Congolese women: each is undeserved, a violent upset to the balance of the body/world, irreversibly damaging, leaving tangible marks upon its victims through disconnect and guilt. Simply astounding. ~ Reviewed by Jess Krawczyk

Quentin Tarantino's loud and bloody comic book western about a former slave who is determined to rescue his wife from the degradation of servitude in a plantation called Candyland. Too in-joke, far too long and conspicuously minus a coherent plot line, Django is still an engaging showcase for Tarantino's high-octane style and it boasts a magnificent performance by Christoph Waltz. The other lead actors are all expert at scenery-chewing. ~ Reviewed by Alden Graves

Whether going to his "happy place" during a colonoscopy, contemplating a severed forearm at his neighborhood taxidermist's, sharing drugs with a stranger in the men's room of the bar car, or obsessively collecting rubbish along the roadsides of rural England, Sedaris continues to delight with his witty commentary on life's absurdities. Who of us hasn't waited for that coveted latte, chafing with suppressed rage and indignation as the preceding customer drones on and on and ON? ~ Reviewed by Amy Palmer

A successful family man loses his job during the recession and starts robbing banks to pay the bills. The reader roots for him – at first – then, when things turn ugly, for the cops. Laukkanen grabs the reader by the collar and doesn’t let go! ~ Reviewed by Louise Jones

As booksellers and book lovers, we all understand how disappointing it is to read a beautiful novel only to be appalled by its packaging. Thankfully, most great books are accompanied by great design: however, this is not always the case. It is easy to imagine the cacophony occasioned by writing your thesis in, say, Comic Sans MS; not all, however, would cringe at a resume written in Palatino Linotype or other deceivingly "formal" or "professional" glyphs. The Anatomy of Type helps the pedestrian design fiend and font-novice alike navigate one hundred of the most well-known typefaces to avoid the aforementioned blunders. From supplying esoteric asides to lexical basics (e.g. the significance of "bracket," "bowl," "aperture," or "x-height"), Coles does a superb job of organizing a lot of data into a comprehensible, attractive package. Anatomy sorts its fonts by classification, giving readers a good feel for specialized terms which might otherwise go misunderstood or ignored: similarly, each nugget of typeface jargon is clearly explained as needed (no footnotes, no appendix.) Although totally cliche, Coles really has created a design reference--a great piece of teaching--that embodies great design. Advertisers, writers, artists, and all who have a penchant for meticulously organized information will love this book. ~ Reviewed by Aubrey Restifo