Rebecca ChaceLeaving Rock Harbor (Scribner)Set in a Massachusetts mill town, Chace’s story takes us from World War I through the Jazz Age into the Depression. The jacket copy calls it a coming-of-age...
Natalie StandifordConfessions of the Sullivan Sisters (Scholastic)My tween-age daughter and I agree that Standiford’s debut book, How to Say Goodbye in Robot, was one of the most satisfying young...
Millard Kaufman, Paul Chan, and Dr. Clara Small & Rev. David Briddell
Millard KaufmanMisadventure (McSweeney’s)Kaufman was 90 years old when his first book, Bowl of Cherries, appeared in 2007. The Baltimore native, who also created Mr. Magoo and got an Oscar nomination...
Jen Michalski, Dan Fesperman, and Mark Osteen & Frank Graziano
Jen Michalski (editor)City Sages: Baltimore (CityLit)Michalski includes most of the usual suspects in this anthology of local lit. The likes of Edgar Allan Poe and H.L. Mencken are here,...
John WatersRole Models (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)This sharp and witty memoir's most "shocking" statement occurs at the outset, when Waters declares: "I wish I were Johnny Mathis." Waters explains...
Nadine CohodasPrincess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone (Pantheon)Musician Weldon Irvine once told me about auditioning for Nina Simone's band. Apparently, he showed up an hour late, sat...
Jack Zipes/John Barth, William L. Gresham, and Theodore Kornweibel, Jr.
Jack Zipes (adaptation)/John Barth (introduction)The Arabian Nights Volume II: More Marvels and Wonders of the Thousand and One Nights (Signet Classics)John Barth's introduction to this edition of...
Gail Stavitsky/Katherine Rothkopf and Laura Amy Schlitz
Gail Stavitsky/Katherine RothkopfCézanne and American Modernism (Montclair/BMA)The catalogue accompanying the BMA's Cézanne show, which opened last month, elegantly expands upon the premise that...
The TinklersThe Elements (Shattered Wig Press)For three decades, The Tinklers (Charles Brohawn and Chris Mason) have been sharing their wide-eyed wisdom through paintings, music, books, and...
Frank Warren, Natalie Standiford, and Stephen Hunter
Frank WarrenPostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God (William Morrow)Five years ago, Germantown resident Frank Warren started PostSecret, a community art project in which he asked...
