Books
-
An 80s song for an 80s story. There are two very enigmatic men in Lyddie’s life: Phelps, her botanist husband, who has been missing for several months, and Axel, a self-absorbed East German artist she met several years ago when she studied architecture in Germany. Four years ago Lyddie left Berlin choosing Phelps over Axel.…
-
Where ABC and Fox make you wait a week to see the latest episode (unless you have a cable subscription), The CW understands that it’s commercial TV (not subscription) and that its viewers can’t stop their worlds (no matter how much they want to) to sit and watch their favorite show or, as in my…
-
Kids React to Typewriters In the movie Kung Fu Panda, Po, a well-intentioned but bumbling dreamer, suddenly finds himself recruited into the team of heroes he adores. Through the action and the humor, he struggles to gain the team’s acceptance as well as understand his role in the broader scope of things. The movie pairs…
-
WARNING! SPOILERS! Child of television. When I was told AJ Scudiere’s Under Dark Skies was a “supernatural crime thriller” and then read that it involved “the FBI’s secretive division, NightShade” I immediately thought X-Files. When it is revealed that some of the main characters in the book had supernatural abilities, Angel Investigations popped into my…
-
A friend once told me that Hesse’s Steppenwolf was a different book when read at 40 from when it was read at 20. This is the distinction of a great book. Last summer Ruth Graham caused a stir among readers of books dubbed Young Adult (YA) when she declared, “Read whatever you want. But you…
-
“Jaya Nepal” needs a “Careless Whisper” level indiscretion to make the inclusion of Adriana worthwhile. For the untravelled (like me), Martin David Hughes’ Jaya Nepal is a unique opportunity for an enticing glimpse at Nepali life beyond the tourist camera. Benjamin Creed, a newly enlisted Peace Corps volunteer and our narrator, provides us with special…
-
The 2013 New York Comic Con was my “lost Comic Con,” I was there in body but my exhausted spirit was elsewhere. I unintentionally spent a lot of time in the exhibit hall, normally the highlight of the Comic Con. But just like having too much candy on Halloween, one too many hours in the…
Vincent Young 