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When Dave Eggers is finally critically keel-hauled and goes under the waves for the last time, David Foster Wallace will no doubt be safely on shore, pounding out another in his series of post-modern works of actual genius (or at least magnificent failure). Oblivion is Wallace’s first fiction in five years, though he’s still best … Read more

No matter how successful the Bridget Jones novels have been, we can hardly blame Helen Fielding for wanting a change of pace. And so, for now at least, she’s left behind her droll sendup of chick-lit and Pride and Prejudice for a droll sendup of James Bond. Her new heroine is a reluctant fashion reporter … Read more

It’s painful to admit, but we avoided reading anything by David Sedaris for years. Mere text would feel inadequate, we felt, without the downbeat timing, wry tone, and steady marksmanship that put him and This American Life on the map. We’re way over that now, but we still take live Sedaris when we can get … Read more

In the continuum of outdoors adventure and nature writing, the truth lies somewhere between Jon Krakauer’s Into The Wild and a Dick Cheney “pheasant hunt.” Seth Kanter’s Ordinary Wolves is a striking debut novel that does a nice job of reproducing the hardscrabble realities of native life in Alaska without getting stupid or softening the … Read more

Jim Harrison eclipsed Thomas McGuane as the tough-guy Western writer of our time because of the heart one could sense in his prose, buried just beneath all the boozing, fighting, and betrayals. He comes through again in his latest, True North, facing the old-as-the-Bible question of what a son should pay for his father’s sins. … Read more

Since Judith Guest’s inspired debut with Ordinary People in 1976, she has reigned as the Amelia Earhart of local best-selling authors. Where the hell was she? Living the high life on the grosses from the Oscar-winning film made from her book? Very little buzz accompanied Guest’s subsequent work—until now. Her new suspense novel, The Tarnished … Read more

If you’re lacking a song in your heart or a spring in your step, this series of twenty-one musicals in twenty-one days ought to give you plenty of both. This all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza includes longtime favorites like West Side Story, Singin’ in the Rain, and the classic Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers vehicles Top Hat … Read more

Argentinian writer/director Alejandro Agresti mined his own childhood for this sure-fire arthouse hit, a lovable cross between My Life As a Dog, The Station Agent, and Amelie. The movie’s heart is Rodrigo Noya as Valentin, a sweet-natured, old-souled little boy who comes to terms with the world, and his deep-set family problems, by resolving issues … Read more

Lately Quentin Tarantino’s been agitating to be named the director of the next James Bond movie, which strikes us as a not-half-bad idea. As Tarantino doubtless knows, the Japanese already pulled off their version of such a feat with this movie, in which super-stylish director Takeshi Kitano revisits and updates the beloved 1960s action series … Read more

If you think Godzilla movies are mostly silly and puerile, well, you’re probably right. But the 1954 original is a very different monster—instead of cheeseball pro-wrestling with rubber-suited sci-fi beasts, it offered a dark meditation on the awe-inspiring power of the atomic bomb. It’s still a monster movie, to be sure, just one that actually … Read more